Disclaimers: If they belonged to us, there would eventually be
macrame involved. Somehow.

Spoilers: None that we're aware of, though you should probably read the previous stories first. Archived here:
http://strangeplaces.net/te/hutch.html

Summary: Nate's got a little energy to burn.

Ratings Note: NC-17

Authors' Note: Look, it just *happened*.

Acknowledgments: To everyone who sends us feedback. We love.

Feedback increases orgasm intensity by 15%:
janestclair15@hotmail.com, teland793@sbcglobal.net

*

New York.  He's extremely drawn to it for some reason.  Somewhere rainy and messy and crowded with late-night Chinese restaurants and hookers, and young and pretty as he is people keep asking him for dates,

Keep *wanting* at him, broad and uncaring lust that batters at him from every street. New York City in summer is a heat-sink, the people just soaking it all up and sweating it out. Fights and drugs and sex. Hookers tight and tacky, predator eyes just like how every mutant team seems to get *one* like that.

Even the friggin' Canadians have one, though at least he's polite about looking at you like a meal.

Like meat. Nate isn't meant for summer. Not gonna give up his duster for it, no way in *hell* he's walking in shirtsleeves like this. Grime and humidity like a hot sponge every time he walks out of his motel. At least it's air conditioned, and a non-smoking room. He smokes there anyway, but the ghosts of stale smoke always make rooms fell claustrophobic to him.

And there's the night, this sky this fucked up shade of lavender, flying through it like somebody else's acid trip. Jets and radio signals and ozone. Mutants and mutant wannabes and skinheads, fresh from the suburbs.

Nate has seen the aftermath of a curbing, and wonders why that particular bit of fun wasn't around in his time. It's so... there's something rawly beautiful about its effectiveness. Kill or silence. Maybe because it's more personal.

And right now, *everything* is personal. He can still smell Sam, feel him, God, so strong. Lifting him up and mauling him like an animal and yes, those moments, that time, held away from himself as something beautiful and desperately wanted. And it was just another lie.

He isn't far enough away from Westchester.

He thought seriously about making a run for another continent.  New York is the largest psychic mass in the Americas, but he could have gone for Calcutta or Hong Kong or Tokyo or Cairo.  He could have gone to Sydney and trusted to the space of the Pacific to insulate him.  But he still ached all over and he didn't think he could.  Not safely.  And New York, at least, is familiar.  And he feels something like at home in the predatory sense of it. Because any city in the world will fuck you over, but New York doesn't lie to you about it first.

And even in this mess of urbanness, there's the lingering psychic ache. From Westchester, which still nags at the edges of his consciousness, and from someplace a couple of miles away.  Nathan's apartment in the city.  He isn't there now, and that's enough to make Nate comfortable walking.  He might go up later and trash it.  Make his point.

Right now, though, he's walking.  Ignoring the hookers who watch him with more interest than hookers should look at anybody, ignoring the last four men who pulled their cars in beside him to ask for a date.  All the fucking mystery of the body you can't see, he guesses.  And he'd lock them out, move invisible, only he's letting this whole inconceivable mess of human emotion
grate over his brain like he really believes it'll scrape the hurt out.

Fuck Nathan, anyway.  Fuck him for being older, and fuck him for being crippled and therefore more likely to survive, fuck him for being here first.  For being clever and hard and thick-skinned and for belonging.

Fuck Sam for wanting him.

He steps into the next open doorway.  Store with bars on the windows and a guy behind the counter who's not as well armed as he looks like he wants to be.  Nate finds bottled water, chocolate, purple slush that slides into its paper Coca-Cola cup with a satisfyingly disgusting little noise.  Sugar's still this wonderful high for him, something he missed out on, and his body's apparently still too young to jump up to it with a mildly addicted whoop.  He throws hand lotion on the pile after a second, because in spite of the humidity his skin's crawling dry, and he's put up with that enough for one life.  Remembers crouching in the slave pens, not looking at anyone around him, only down at the backs of his hands where they'd cracked open from the damp-dry-damp cycles of that concrete world and the pervading cold.

Pays the man out of the cash he stole from Scott's wallet.  Nate sat through Scott's last hesitant, fumbling attempt to play the father, and he's decided that if Scott wants to be Daddy, he can feed a few of his offspring's addictions for a bit.  And some other time he'll explain to Scott about *his* Scott, fucked-up mother that he was, and see what kind of reaction he gets.

Outside again into the heat-wall, with everything stashed in his coat to leave his hands free and the sickly-sweet grape slushie in his left hand.

Keeps walking with his head down, thinking slightly murderous thoughts about Sam and more focused but less explicably lustful thoughts about Goth boys. Just boredom, really, and the freaks are thick on the ground tonight. Skinheads and a lot of piercings and the air full of alcohol.  Eyeliner like thick fingers on the faces that state at him.  Nobody here, fuckers, just some full-of-himself kid in a trenchcoat with a sugar-jones, not interesting...

And catches his eyes and mind together on the body at the other end of the block.  Graceful, skinny lines of it, starkly male and curled in on himself. Psionic flare of him across Nate's brain.  Telepathic fire.  And Nate moves faster, cutting through the sidewalk people with a psychic after-wipe to make them forget him, almost running towards that body before it disappears. Not sure why at all except suddenly lonely and wanting and this, *this* is one of his own -- angry, hurting astral being lurking like a suburban punk in New York's summer mess.

Young. Like a smell all over him, bleeding onto the street and maybe yeah, he can understand the feral ones.

Still two blocks away when the kid bolts for an alley, fast and easy on his feet. No stumbles. Fed and sheltered by *someone*, then, because it isn't *enough* desperation for a simple junkie. Maybe better, maybe worse, it doesn't matter because Nate's running full out now, and fuck anyone that doesn't like it.

Into the alley, flying jump over the fence. Looks to either side and there isn't anything to see... but he can feel him. Left. Running again, because flying doesn't feel right. Not yet.

Needs this somehow, the thumps of his feet on the pavement, pulling the thick air into his lungs along with the scent/taste of trash. Left again and the sudden fire knocks him back against a Dumpster hard enough to stun him.

Little *fucker*. And he's grinning. Scenting for him now and running down the straight away, maddening tiny weight of blood hanging from his eyelash, flicked away with a shake and he approaches the next corner carefully. Senses.

Goes down low and fires a blast of his own that just barely misses a passed out wino. Little thrill there, little hate, but no time to care.

The alley is a dead-end and the boy is... there.

Absurdity of the slushie still in his hand something to snicker over, and his laugh sounds... old to his ears. Memory laugh. Over captured meat, over another dead slave he wouldn't have to share with. Takes a long, measured sip. Another, and tosses it aside.

Now would be a good time to announce his harmlessness. "You might as well come out..."

Almost a disappointment when he does, and Nate narrows his eyes against the darkness, doesn't pry at the boy's psychic barriers. He doesn't want to know.

The boy is somewhat haphazardly bandaged from nose to belly, light slipping between the gaps.

*what the?*

He has just enough time to watch the bandages burn away before leaping to the right, psionic fire grazing his hip with enough force to spin him mid-leap before he hits the ground. Instinctively grabs for the dark shape jumping over him and catches the belt of the trenchcoat.

The boy lets it slip out of the loops and takes off. Nate blows the trash and soggy cardboard boxes off his legs with his power, and doesn't look back for the wino. The kid's sticking to the crowded areas this time, either trusting Nate not to hurt all the so-called innocents or just looking for someplace to disappear.

He knows which idea feels best to *him*.

*oh you're just like me*

Sends it as harshly as he can, knowing he'll put the fear of madness into every psi within a ten block radius, but he doesn't care. Just wants to break through those fucking *walls*.

A cry from three blocks west and he takes to the air without hesitation.

*gotcha*

Not as loud this time, and a lot more focused, but it earns a scream. A knot of people thrown back and more than a little singed as the boy writhes on the ground, desperately holding his power in as best he can -- which isn't all that effective.

Amateur.

The boy sees him now, Nate watches the eyes narrow for an eyeblink before veering left and up and gets showered with glass and brick, just enough to force him into a hurried landing. Man. There really wasn't anything at all like mass property damage.

The boy on his feet again, a little shaky, but stalking him. Visibly powering up and Nate does the same. Watches the boys eyes for the reaction and doesn't dwell on the vague sense of wrongness he gets from the boy's face.

Yeah, yeah, pretty boy. You got enough for *this*?

One last blast, easily parried and he tries to run again, but there are no people left to disappear into, even if he could.

Nate catches him to his chest and lifts off, higher and higher, looking for the spot and yeah. Right there. Smashed store window, littered with dismembered and charred mannequins. Broken glass.

Throws him at it with perfect aim, just high enough off the ground for the boy to bounce a little.

And lay still.

Nate lands, stands between the boy's sprawled legs and waits for him to open his eyes.

Instead, though, the boy twists onto his side.  Eyes shut tightly, knees pulled up to his bandaged chest, head down.  His jacket's pushed up at the back, and the skin underneath is.  Scored.  Not bleeding.  Ugly gouges in it from the glass.

It's more damage than Nate intended to do, but he can't bring himself to be anything but fascinated.  Bends down and brushes his fingers along the damage.

And oh, *interesting*.  He isn't bleeding.  Or he is, but not enough.  The blood's very dark, almost black, and it moves with a kind of metallic sluggishness.  Just a smattering of it on his fingertips.

It's an impulse, a primitive one, but he follows through and pops the fingers into his mouth.  Licks the not-quite-blood off.  Sparking bright against his shields.  So.  Not blood, but something psionic.  Like warm, liquid telepathy, seeping out.

Nate bends down, drops his head, and presses his tongue flat against the exposed skin.  Licks, slow and wet, up as high as he can reach, collecting the dripping darkness along the way.  He gets an answering shudder, some murky mix of sex and fear.  Steadies the boy with a hand on his belly while he licks.  Picking up trace memories and flashes of insight from the evening.  The animal pursuit, being chased by an astrally flaming being, dangerous and too focused on him.

Falling.  The gouges of the glass.  Nate's hair-raising presence, pushing against his shields, so loud that it almost drowns out the startlement of the people gathered like an audience around them.

And this... this would certainly count as one of those things it might be interesting to do before he burns himself out. Shop window performance art with the boy he'd beaten down into the wreckage.

Licks again, a broad, flat swipe over all the little tears, and earns a whisper through their bloody little link.

*Don't. Please don't...*

And the voice has all the cadences of youth, the slight uptones and the shudder of fear throughout. The boy -- the *boy* -- is powerful enough, perhaps, to manufacture such a perfect facsimile, and yet.

It's real. He knows it in the way he knows *everything* now, wide open to the shock and fear, the little old woman towards the back of the crowd, working up the courage to shove through and intervene. The two giggling ravers who *do* think it's a show. The grey old businessman trembling on the edges of his own desire, the shape of Nate's ass foremost in his mind, drowning out all the screams of dirty, filthy mutant scum.

The way he could shape and twist this boy, who can't possibly be even as old as *he* is into just the right mood and position for a rough fuck and they buzz the crowd as Nate takes off, arms firmly around the boy --

*Jono, you *freak*, I'm Jono*

 -- and headed for Cable's little flat.

Unlocks the window and slips inside, floating just a few inches above the carpet and telekinetically arranging the boy -- Jono -- in front of him. Arms up, legs spread, held easily by Nate's power.

*what the bloody hell are you *doing*? I have no quarrel with you*

*And I have no quarrel with you, save wondering why such a fascinating thing like you was out where I could find you?*

The words make him want to sweat, squirm, something, but he's pretty sure he had something to prove, some point to make, and he knows that if he just keeps going he'll find it again.

*You gonna rape me? Is that it?*

Bravado now, mental voice consciously deeper, rougher. More angry. As if that would do anything but remind him of the *men* Nate sincerely wants to reduce to their component atoms.

But not *this* boy, not Jono. Jono never really did anything to him but run away when Nate had only wanted to...

What? What had he wanted? Offer him something sugar-icy to ease the heat. Listen to him rail at whatever injustices he thought he suffered? It's all bullshit, all of it. Nate had come out into the New York night wired and humming with power and need and hunger. Come out hunting, and dutifully caught and trussed his wounded prey.

Was he a hunter? Was that what he was here for? Was he really going to do this? Maybe the perfect way to cut all ties, once and for all. Have it so no one ever tried to save his soul again, because this isn't just some anonymous little street boy, is it? Not with power like that...

One of Xavier's, in *some* way, no doubt, and in this world at least, you never preyed on your own pack.

And none of that did a damned thing to ease the hunger.

*It doesn't have to be rape*

*You bloody *pillock*! You expect me to just roll over for you? Ease your bloody fucking conscience?*

*I'll roll over for you. I'll do anything you want me to. Just. Stay a little while...*

A shock to still be standing after that, after whatever the fuck had pulled those words out of his mouth. It had been so *good* in Sam's arms, held and supported and fucked ruthlessly, skin on skin. Claimed, even without penetration. And maybe, yeah, he thought he could burn it out by claiming someone else, anyone else who could surrender long enough to let Nate have
his way, this once, but...

It isn't what he needs at all.

Eases Jono down, and waits for him to turn. Face him. Absently reaching for the ragged bandages to pull them off and is slapped away for his trouble. Nothing shows through the gaps but blackness, and the occasional blue flare...

*What... will you?*

A second's flare, when the fire changes from blue to white, then red, fragments of it leaking out and brushing psychic-hot at his skin, and then Jono slams him down.  Fast and stronger than he looks, so that Nate's shoulders are flat against the bed before he's had time to think about it.  Curling fear in his stomach that he has to sit on hard.

*Not so fun when it's you under, is it mate?*

Bone-shelled knees hold his wrists down, and somehow his telekinesis is less help to him than he thought it would be.  Just lays back, wide-eyed, and waits to see what Jono will do.

Except that Jono just watches him.  And after a while it's less threatening, and he can focus again.  Wrap his mind up into a telekinetic hand and stroke Jono with it.  Thighs first. Waist.  Fragiles edges of ribs between flesh and fire.  Only after that down to his groin, massaging gently until he hardens.

Jono's very close to him.  Straddling his chest, knees on his wrists, and when he starts to push out against the black denim, it's towards Nate's face that he pushes.  So close he could almost.  Touch.

He reaches with the telekinetic hand and tugs a little at the front.  Buttons, but they give with enough pressure.  Shadowed cotton parts, and Jono's hard and pushing towards him.  Reddened and oddly not wet, but maybe his body doesn't allow that.  Graceful and pale, male-body-smell hanging in the air between them, and Nate can just pull his head up enough, just part his lips enough, to take the tip and suck it gently.

Lick and soft lip-grasp, and then Jono bucks and pulls loose.  Scrambles back a little, freeing Nate's hands.  Jono crouches on the bed at knee-level, still exposed but crouched low over himself, staring.

Nate sits up slowly.  Stays curled tightly together, keeps his head low.  Lays himself out on his belly to search the drawers of the bedside table.  Doesn't seem quite possible that he's still dressed.  As hot as it is, he should be stripped as naked as he can get.  Looking for.  He knows he felt them.  But they aren't there.  And no, of course Cable wouldn't keep them by the bed.  The idea would probably turn his stomach, but Cable's got his own traumas to deal with.  Nate reaches out telekinetically, shuffles through closed drawers and cupboards until he finds them.  Police steel, part of a small armoury.

He manages to catch them when they come flying.  Fast, too fast for Jono to focus on, probably, but he didn't want to scramble.  And then he can offer them.  Belly down, head down.  Legs a bit spread from the effort of scooting around on the blankets, but it's a good effect.  He pauses just briefly to shrug his t-shirt off and throw it away, then ducks his head again.

Holds the handcuffs out.

*Christ. You know you could've asked.*

*Faster just to get 'em myself --*

*That's not what I meant.*

A pause, a shift above him as Jono gets more comfortable, or maybe just wonders if he could escape, hide himself deep enough for Nate not to ever find him again. He hasn't taken the cuffs yet, and the silence stretches uncomfortably.

Long enough for Nate to start thinking again, try to find some other way to get what he needs. Christ, what a laugh. Kidnap somebody then *force* them to rape you. Rape them into a rape...

*Look, mate... well, first, what's your name?*

*Nate.*

*Right, OK, Nate. You could just be a sick bastard, but... do you want to talk?*

And that's just... it's just too *much*, and Nate's laughing into the pillow, banging his head on it over and over and *losing* it.

*I'll just take that as a no.*

Rough, grating laughter flowing across the link, strange enough sound that it slides through Nate's own hysteria, makes him pay attention to everything there. A flutter of thought, something about absurdist comedy, some girl named 'Ange,' some wild, rushing beast of terror, ripping through the flickering hints and images and --

*Why am I turned *on*? Can you tell me that? Can you, *Nate*, just take a break from your own personal magic bloody carpet ride to answer a simple *question*?*

*Well...*

*Yes?*

*It helps to be a teenaged boy.*

*And you're not?*

*The usual rules don't apply to me.*

Long look. *You might want to think about how that sounds.*

He does. Just for a second, but he wonders if Jono maybe doesn't have a point. Something so essentially vicious in him that it sends everyone else running. Even Scott, whose calm understanding is mythic in this world. Even Jean, earthmother to mutantkind.

Even Sam.

He stays hugging the pillow. Stares into its foam tangle and the overwashed grey of the case. In spite of his theft of the space, it's so utterly *Cable's*. Functional and ascetic. Like self-denial could lead to something, eventually. Something other than misery and loneliness.

Pulls it down against his stomach, eventually. Wraps himself around it and stares at Jono.

*It's true, though. I'm like MacDuff -- not of woman born. Just tanked and grown.*

*You're a clone?*

*No. Or not exactly. In my version of the universe, there was only me.* Pause. *In this universe...*

*You're Cable.*

Too much. Telekinetic strength whiplashes out from him, knocks Jono back. Flattens him onto the covers. Little line of blood at his hairline, hardly visible in the mess of other damage.

*I am *not* Cable!*

Angry and pathetic, ringed in fire and hugging the pillow between his legs. But it's too much, to keep hearing that.

*Fuck* Cable. He had parents.

He's not prepared for the whiskey laughter. Ragged like skin tearing and all in his head. Jono-voice.

*You have . no . idea how strange ... strange it is for me to . be ... the sane one!*

Helpless and *killing* himself. Eyes huge and crinkled, surreally limpid brown. Jono finally reaches out, still shaking with laughter, and grasps Nate's leg. Just holds onto his ankle and rocks. Bizarrely manic.

But human. Like, somehow, it's not *important* that people mistake him. Just really fucking funny.

*S'not ... s'not funny. S'just ... you're sitting in my chair. Being all broody. And if you're going to be Jono, then I have to be Ange, and Ange'll have to be Paige, and I don't think I could deal with that.*

*Paige... you're part of Gen-X?*

*Chamber, at your service, you nutjob.*

*You're having way too much fun with this.*

*Whatever you say, lunatic.*

Brown eyes sparkling, and Nate's tempted to give the boy a good, sharp kick with the foot currently being petted, but he's more tempted to just... join in.

*Fuck it. Fine, I'm a whack-job. Now will you fuck me?*

*Well, that's how Ange handles *me*, so sure.*

*Ange is your girlfriend?*

*Only when he does some *truly* fucked up things with his skin.*

He senses Jono feeling his confusion, and takes in the small collection of images. Formed like snapshots, or extremely short films. Ange -- Angelo -- laughing, shifting, kissing Jono against the bandages, and it's all sweet enough to kill him. Suddenly impossibly difficult to believe that there's someone, anyone out there for him.

Or even just out there, period.

*Great, I managed to kidnap the psi with the lover.*

Wash of something, tangled feeling. Discomfort for Jono, comfort for him.

*We aren't, you know, married or anything.*

Nate nods in response, and reaches out to push the rest of the bandages away before Jono can protest, fits something like a containment field over the ruin of face and chest before the bedding can do more than smoke a little.

*It's OK... you can relax. It won't get past.*

*Is it... will it stay?*

*Only for a few hours... you're pretty powerful, Jono.*

And suddenly Jono arches back and *flares*, bright enough to blind Nate for a few moments. Squinting through his lashes to watch the flicker and motion of it, something similar to the brief burn of fire in a vacuum, rolling and liquid and amazing.

Fierce grin pushing at the forefront of their link and then Jono has him pinned again, handcuffs snapping awkwardly over his wrists, looped around the iron twists of the headboard.

Jono above him, then on him, skin to the cool, chest-shaped slickness of the field. Tickle-rush of his own power all over him, a reminder of some of the more elaborate ways Nate used to masturbate.

Smooth against his face, lips. He hadn't wanted to assume a face for the boy, but he's doing it himself, pushing hard at the field to form something fundamentally chin and mouth-like and pressing Nate into a kiss.

*help me shape it*

And Nate does, surrounding himself with power and pushing against the mouth, nuzzling the lips a little rounder, then stretching the field to part them. Eyes wide to drink in Jono's shock and wonder, a twist of the mind to build a strange, slick tongue around Jono's fire --

*no teeth*

And then Nate's being devoured, an endless kiss that has him straining against the cuffs, straining against his urge to break them, change his mind, *have* Jono, but it's better like this, better to have at least the illusion of weakness.
No chance, no choice, just Jono's honest lust, ratcheting higher and higher in a flood of images and words, most boiling down to

*a mouth oh God oh thank you I have a mouth*

and all the things he intends to do with it.

Kissing him like he could crawl down Nate's throat. He could. If the barrier gave and that fire got loose, they could be merged before either of them had time to draw breath. Bright enough to power Manhattan by themselves.

Breaks it off. Licks down Nate's face to his chin. Licks his neck. Mouths his chest, gently. Not really enough suction to leave marks, and not fair, because Nate *wants* marks. He gives just a half-second's warning before weakening the field and letting the fire touch him. Tiny burns as red as hickeys, and he can't bring himself to regret it, even with Jono's angry/hurt look.

*don't do that again. please*

Very still until he nods. Then drops his shaggy head down over Nate's body and lays the new tongue flat against him. Licking Nate the way Nate licked him earlier, worshiping too-prominent ribs and the thin absence of muscle.

Chews him a little where his belly curves slightly out. Like the upturned arch of a plate. He read that somewhere, or someone whose mind he touched read it. He can't bring himself to regret the lack of absolute flatness. Too many years starving to regret the fragments of weight he's managing to carry. And some of the things he did to earn meals were.

Jono's tongue slides into his navel, just above the waist of his jeans.

*hey, now. you going to pay attention?*

*what? oh, yessss*

Messes around there for quite a while. Little curves of it that he can't resist. And it feels so elemental, in spite of the cosmetic nature of it. Motherless bastard. Even Jean Grey's only the flesh inside the tank for him. But this is. Wonderful. Sensitive little nerves that reach out from his belly up into his chest, out into his limbs, down to his groin.

Psionic fire-warmth against the front of his jeans. Pulling them open. Fingers stroke him through his underwear -- Jean's insistence on that so entirely motherly, unwilling to let him go out without it, and willing to use her powers to check, which was entirely unnerving. Just carefully, getting a feel for the shape of him. Kiss at the waist of his underwear, and a chin-nudge that pushes the elastic down a bit so that Jono can kiss him where the tangle of his pubic hair starts to spread upward.

Then off. Naked legs and cotton holding his erection in and Jono kissing the inside of his thigh while he works the denim off. Kisses the back of his knee. The top of his foot. Then crawls back up and peels the white cotton off him.

Holds him for a while. Careful, callus-tipped fingers stroking along his length, rubbing hard at the root.

One wet mouth-stroke on his hip, and then Jono's hands grasp Nate's hips. Focussed expression that reflects in the living fire of his face. And he wanted this. Wanted to give up, wanted to be fucked. And he still has to grit his teeth to turn over.  Awkward rub of the cuffs against his wrist, that little bone-grate that sets his teeth on edge, and it hurts more than a bit.  Tenses and he knows Jono can feel it. Rough fingers on his lower back, tracing a couple of nearly-invisible scars. It gets a shiver, though, and after that Jono lets the damage alone.

Bends and traces his real-flesh nose along the path of Nate's spine. Follows it to the crack of his ass and kisses him at the base of his spine. One hand's slid under Nate's hips to take his cock in hand and just hold it, tight and pressing from the base in against his body. Hard and visceral there.

The other tangle of long fingers settles on his ass and spreads him open.

Holds Nate like that, tempting him to put a shield up against the chill air, against the eyes on him. No illusion that he's the one the boy wants, no real ability to deceive himself --

*Look, unless you're gonna start calling me 'mano' and lighting your cigarettes off my fire, you really ought to realize that it's *you* I'm thinking about, Nate.*

*Lighting his --*

*Shhh...*

Tongue inside Nate before he can flinch. *His* creation, used enthusiastically, pushing in. The wet-not-wet of hit, boiling and slick like oil, like electricity, and no one.

No one's ever done this for him before.

A rough thumb, a cock, but never a tongue. Fleeting thought that it's the boy's way of thanking him for the face, but the hand's no longer on his cock. Hips gripped tightly, cold fingers digging into the bowl of his hips as Jono *pulls* Nate back against his face.

Tonguing deep within him, licking and twisting and stroking, small sounds across the link, grunts and reflexive gasps as Jono *feeds* on him and

*nnn nnn wanna taste you feel you*

Laughing through his own groans *Jono, I don't really *know* what my ass tastes like...*

Shifting rock laughter and wash of heat inside him, Jono pushing his fire against the edges of the tongue, *fucking* him with it, like being raped by an elemental, the urge towards something like prayer tangling with the heat and grinding pleasure. Unable to decide whether he wants to escape Jono's grip and thrust against the sheets or just push back harder, faster, God, *more* of this.

And Jono is squeezing Nate's hips rhythmically, showing no signs of stopping or even *pausing* --

*heh. don't have to breathe*

-- slipping back to slow, teasing strokes around Nate's hole and the odd flick within him until Nate realizes he's begging. Too much not enough *fuck* of it, feeling wild and dangerously helpless and it's exactly what he needs.

Even better when Jono finally pulls back, unchains him, pulls them both up straight on their knees and slips his cock between Nate's thighs, rock hard tip weirdly dry against his balls, along the underside of his cock.

*move for me, Nate. get me wet...*

Nothing to do but comply, thrusting and twisting, slipping and sliding cock to cock in exactly the wrong position for it to be even close to enough. Jono's hand on his face, pressing and shaping it to his touch before finally just resting the palm in front of Nate's mouth.

Has to close his eyes against it for a moment -- so dirty, so fucking *hot* -- before he can spit, nip at the heel.

Rasping laughter grates across the back of his skull, and the arm around his waist tightens. Then wet, slick, and utterly *his*, wetting them both, Jono's cock and his cock everywhere they touch. Makes him howl when the slicked-hot-dry head of Jono's cock catches him just under the rim of his own. Open-mouthed and head back and before he can straighten the hand's there again, over his mouth and in it, covered in body-musk and tasting. Hot. Sweet-salty, which must be his own, and something undefinably Jono underneath. Fingers in his mouth, hooking against his cheek, and he can't resist running his tongue over them, trying to get one loose from that curl to suck on.

Jono's hot against his chest. Psychic fire, scary as fuck if it got loose, not only heat but *mind* behind it. Selfness of Jono and something astral. But steady against the wall he made, and it feels good against him. Moves subtly against his skin.

He gets a finger loose, finally. Closes his mouth and sucks it. Makes it curl and release on his tongue, tugs on the skin with all the suction he can create. Goes *down* on it. The other still hooked over and caressing the inside of his cheek.

Jono tugs a bit and he opens his mouth. Spits again into the palm and feels Jono stroke himself but. Extended finger than trails wet across Nate's belly. And then the hand comes around behind him, dripping wet and fierce and slides between his ass cheeks.

Already loose there, but not wet. New kind of slickness as the finger goes in. Just one, pushing up him and crooking and striking the hard little place in him that's never. Not like this. Never so directly attended to, and it shouldn't feel nearly as good as it does, to just be wet from his own mouth. To be stroked like this.

Wants them both as wet as he can make them, suddenly. Sweat on his body that moves between them every time he thrusts, but now he opens his mouth and lays it against Jono's shoulder. Wet and messy. On his *skin*, barely touching the fire.

*Hey. If you're gonna do that, give it here.*

Released at his waist, and the other hand comes up to his mouth. Something he can soak, his tongue licking between the fingers while one finger of the mirroring hand *rubs* in him. So deliberate that he can't believe it's Jono, not this boy staring at him with huge eyes and desperate hips. Not even when the finger pulls out and Jono wraps the other arm around his waist again and when the touch comes back, it's doubled and slicker than it was before.

Two fingers in him, rubbing him. Pleasure from it spreading forward, down into his cock and up through his belly like the path of a spark. Jono pulls Nate closer against him, twists and rubs and rubs the face Nate's given him against the thin skin where Nate's throat and jaw meet. Hand one more time to his face, that slicks and sucks and notices the slightly smoky smell of before it vanishes.

Jono's arms tighten around him, just that second's warning before one more finger pushes in beside the other two and *stretches* him. And Nate realizes that he's talking. Cursing and begging and. Laughing. No idea why he's laughing except that this feels so *good*, and he *knows* Jono's teasing him. And because Jono's hanging onto him telepathically as well as physically, and he doesn't think anything's every felt quite as good as that does.

*

Like armour around him, or a second, thicker skin.  And in spite of the marks the handcuffs have left on his wrists, safe.  Nobody will ever find him and he can just stay here and make happy, incoherent noises and gnaw on Jono's neck.

Jono bends him back, pushes him down.  Weight on top of him, not as heavy as someone else his size would be, but enough to hold Nate down.  Shimmer of a grin in the fire.  Jono rubs his hands over Nate's chest, strokes him down to his hips, then spreads his legs.  Deliberate *push* with the thumbs making it clear that he'd better keep them apart.  Open like this.  Entirely vulnerable, hard and exposed and holding his hips up like some kind of sacrafice, trying not to think about that psionic fire and how easily he'd become a burnt offering if the flames get loose.

And a moment of vertigo where he wants to pull in on himself.  Roll up in a ball and wait for the world to stop spinning and jerk off later when it's quiet and he's alone.  The overload of his power burning up his nerves.

*Easy, Nate.  I got you.*

Cold.  Blue fire and brown eyes holding him steady.  Jono's hands on either side of his hips, holding him up, and a pressure against his opening that doesn't exactly drive him open, but neither does it stop, even for a second.  Steady and insistent until it gets in, and then a steady, stretching *push*.  Eases only when his hips are in Jono's lap and he's trying to get enough air just to moan.

Jono arches over him.  Luminous being of fire and power, fingers stroking his cock gently while he pulls himself together.  Whispers reassurance directly into his mind.  More trustworthy that the words people throw at him.  Harder to lie when you're touching this closely.  Not impossible but.  Harder.

*Fuck me.*

*Nope.*

"Fuck!  What?"  It's enough to make him push up on his elbows and try to stare Jono in the face.  Ripped flaming grin pushing against the forcefield he made.

Nate realizes that he's in trouble, if he could just figure out what kind.

*C'mere.  Give me your hands.*

White fingers offered to him.  He wraps them around his own, tangles their grips and just hangs on for a minute, then shifts to a true grip.  And Jono pulls him upright.  Long, sweet shift of the cock inside him, rearranging him and pushing up deeper, using all his weight against him.  And this is.  He can just manage to wrap his arms and legs around Jono's body and cling.

Standing, they can look each other in the eye.  Like this, he's got his mouth buried in Jono's hair.  Messy and reddish, and there's this kind of woodsmoke smell to it.  Jono rubs his back.

*Feel good yet?*

*No.  Gimme a sec.*  Just breathing as deeply as he can, trying to get past the stretch to something better.  *Yeah.  Oh god...*

Crackling laughter.  Jono uses his arms around Nate's waist to rock them both.  Not quite a thrust, but it still moves the cock inside him, and Nate's sucking air, trying not to scream.  Not sure what kind of alarms it might set off in here, and he *really* doesn't want the interruption.  Flash of Cable storming in and catching them like this that makes him choke, and he must broadcast it, because Jono twists back to look at him for a minute, eyes huge, and then slaps him hard on the ass.

*Bastard!  What kind of a thing was that?*

*Pray it doesn't happen.*

He has to bend, but he can kiss the mouth he's given this boy.  The change in position moves inside him as well as outside, and while they're kissing he has time and courage to try some fairly interesting shifts of his hips.  Nothing frantic about it yet, and maybe not for a while, but it feels good.

Nate pulls back, then extends his tongue and brushes it across Jono's fiery lips.  Teasing kind of kiss, but after a second there's a tongue tangling around his, not in either of their mouths but in the space between them.  Far enough apart to see each other's eyes laughing.

This is the longest, slowest, most playful fuck he can remember having.  He can feel Jono loving the body contact.  Skin against skin something he never gets, almost better than his cock in Nate's body.  He's sensitive between his shoudlerblades and along his hairline, and he shivers whenever Nate rubs up against him.  And long-fingered hands hang onto him.  Rub up along his thighs and underneath him.  Soft shiver-touch.

The thing Nate remembers later is getting pushed up slightly, and Jono's hands sliding down to where they're joined.  Tracing the stretched rim of him, breath-soft at first, then hard enough to make him shake.

*S'good?*

*Oh fuck yeah*

And finally pushing Jono down to lie on his back, getting his own knees under him, and riding.  Hands on Jono's shoudlers for leverage at first, working himself, then getting up enough strength to hold himself alone.  Upright and sucking the fingers of Jono's right hand while the left jerks him off.  Way too many actions at once, impossible to follow except that it feels so good.

And Jono there in his head, holding him down.  And shunting off the hardest edges of the burn.  Too much power, but someone's been teaching Jono tricks that Nate probably really needs to know.  All the air around them charged with it, all the hair standing up on his arms and the back of his neck.  Building hot pressure in his cock that breaks out suddenly and sends him up screaming.

He can feel his whole body convulse.  Long seconds before it settles into a steady throb that he can ride out, yowling and utterly without dignity but brilliant and happy and he knows that Jono can feel it.  Still up when the hips under him slam up into him, hard as they can.  Hard enough to make him shriek.  Gnaws on Jono's fingers in his mouth and tries to hold together while Jono's own orgasm runs up both of their spines.  Psychic and vocal howling.

And Nate collapses, finally, onto Jono.  Gets an arm around the back of his neck and kisses long, slow, and wet.  Intimate, and this kind of sleepy-sadness in Jono that this is something so rare.  Kissing him back with more enthusiasm than practice.  Love in him for this simple contact, a kind of body-to-body touch that he doesn't ever get, not even with his lover.  And an awareness of the loathing for himself that he hoards in those moments of frustration.  It's only barely held away now.  That and fear.

Nate pushes up on his forearms and looks at the man under him.  Then slides off and nudges Jono to turn over.

Jono's back's still shredded.  Not bleeding anymore, but the gouges are still there, and there are a few black-dark stains on the sheets from where he must have bled while Nate was riding him.  And his power doesn't extend to this.  Not quite.  Not yet.  He gets flashes at moments like this that if he just *pushed*, maybe he could.  Heal.  Make things grow.  But then his nerves ache and he backs down, slides back into being Nate and lets it slide.  He does now.  Just kisses the damage and tongues it, feels Jono shiver and metally brush at him.

This isn't something he can keep.  Not the comfort or the security or the boy gradually relaxing under his tongue.  And he knows that.  Ache at the back of his mind.  The apartment belongs to Cable, and the boy belongs to someone named Angelo that Nate's never met.  The joy a gift from Jono that he can hang onto for a while before he has to fold it away.

And eventually he gets up.  Brushes the hollow of Jono's back, bends and kisses it, then goes looking for his clothes.  He's not sure whether it's his own instict or psychic bleed from Cable that makes him aware of tactical vulnerabilities.  Easier to run if he has pants on, at least.

He's sitting in the corner watching when Jono gets up.  He's naked and ragged, and the flame shield's obviously weakening.  Fire licks out sometimes and races along the edges of his skin.

While Nate watches, Jono systematically bandages himself.  Body-wrapped to the point of near-invisibility, faceless and frightening.  Only the huge eyes and the translucent caps of his knees visible from the crouch he's fallen into.  Bandaged and dressed in his boxers, looking around for his jeans and watching Jono out of the corners of his eyes.

The mental sigh hits him a second before Jono's hand descends onto his knee.  Steady, childish look, hugely candid in a way that Nate doesn't feel quite prepared to answer.

*You'd be welcome, you know.*

Nate just looks at him.

*If you wanted to come to the Academy.  You'd be welcome.  Sean and Emma'd have you.*

He's tempted, for a second.  He knows where the school is; he can imagine the psychic silence of the mountains protecting it.  Imagines trying to be a child inside its walls.

"Nope, sorry, can't do that."  Silent *thank you* on the end of it that he can't quite bring himself to say.  Pulls his knees up against his chest instead.  He's already spreading his mind out, feeling the city so he won't feel Jono's absence.

*I'm not leaving you like this.*

Nate looks up.  "What?"

"Won't leave you like this.  You're just going to sit all alone in the dark and brood if I do."

Jono drops down beside him.  Wraps an arm around Nate's legs and lays his head across Nate's knees, helps him stare at the window.  Nate wonders how Cable justifies having a window in his bedroom -- isn't it a tactical weakness?  Something that leaves you open?

Nate says, "Show me?"

It's not something he can voice, fully, but he knows he's radiating the longing forcefully enough that Jono can't escape it.

He gets fragments of visions in answer.  The Berkshire mountains reddening in the late parts of the year.  Two wings of the school, and classrooms, and little mutants frolicking in a treehouse.  Living tree around it.  Emma's hard edges and Sean's steadiness.  Jono's basement, and the warm darkness in which he lives the greatest part of his life.  Television as a kind of steady background noise.  Music the rest of the time, and sometimes music and the television both, drowning out the psychic noise.  Nate's surprised that Jono can stand to be in New York at all.

Beautiful, protected world from which Jono's not ready to break free yet, and that Nate couldn't stand.

Jono squeezes Nate's legs and turns to look at him.  Nate kisses him on the forehead.

*You're really not okay, are you?*

Pause.  "No.  I guess not."

*Me either.*

And bandages brush his mouth.  Parody of a kiss, but he accepts it anyway.  Accepts the head on his knees and lays a hand across the back of that neck, high enough that he can stroke Jono's scalp through the oceanic tangle of his hair.

Angelo's lovely boy.  He can feel Jono's thoughts drifting.  He's close to exhauted, staying awake on sheer will, but without attention.  And it's really only fair.  Nate doesn't try to call him back.  Just strokes his neck and scalp and lets him drift.  Eventually feels him sleep.

Then gathers the boy up telekinetically and moves them both back to the bed.  Mostly dressed and barefoot, sprawled on top of the covers in the New York heat, reaching towards the breeze from the window Nate's cracked open.  It's a vulnerable point, but he has it shielded, and they needed the air desperately.

Jono curls toward the moving air in his sleep.  Turns his face into the draft.  And Nate slides in behind him.  Lays an arm around Jono's waist and a cheek on his shoulder.  And pretends for a bit, comforted by the unconscious affection that Jono still wraps around him.  And pretends that they're going to stay like this for a long, long time.

He needs this.  He's noticing more and more lately that he doesn't seem to belong to anybody.
 

End

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