By your command

[maculategiraffe]

Or at least by your request. I've sort of been meaning to write this for awhile, so I decided to snatch it up before anybody else went to the trouble. Besides, I've missed writing Jer. I hope y'all enjoy.

And I'm sorry I'm still a bit behind on replying to comments to Intake Counselor. I'll catch up soon.







Jer hurt all over. His face hurt, his head hurt, his broken ribs hurt, his legs and ass and back hurt.

It felt great.

Jer wasn't fond of beatings in general, from anybody, and he'd had enough over the course of his life to consider that an educated opinion. Scrapping with Holden was fun, but that was because it was a real scrap, and he frequently ended up kicking Holden's ass, which he had to admit was profoundly satisfying on a number of levels. But had never occurred to him that the aftermath of passively taking a savage beating could feel so fantastic.

Of course, the immediate aftermath hadn't been so great, what with being chained to a hospital bed with Holden looking like the walking dead and Alix acting all cagey and Lee...

Lee.

He'd forgotten. It had been great.

And now that he was home, in his own bed, it was even greater.

Jer had never featured himself as a hero; he'd kept his head down and licked ass, literally and figuratively, to get by, and he'd planned to get by until he was too old and then get it over with quickly. Never in a million years would he have seen himself barrelling out the door, just behind quicksilver Lee, just ahead of stunned-stupid Holden, but the moment Dunaev's knockout punch had exploded with pain in Jer's head, instead of hitting Lee, had been the purest satisfaction Jer had ever known, and Lee's long-limbed, fragile, feebly-wiggling body under his on the ground had been the stuff of daydream even as nobleman-boots, out of control, kicked at him, tearing his muscles and breaking his bones. Jer had never been on the receiving end of fury like that before, but he knew all about it anyway; it was what he'd spent his life learning to avoid, to deflect, to defuse. And here it was, full-fledged, to smash him to pieces; and Lee underneath him, and safe.

The door was slitted open, and Jer caught it opening further out of the corner of his eye, and Lee-- oh, Lee-- slipped inside, his dark eyes fixed on Jer, his pale skin flawless, unbruised, uncut, and pushed the door shut behind him.

Jer's smile was so wide that the normally unused muscles protested. Unless that was the fractured cheekbone.

"Hey," he said.

Lee smiled back with heartbreaking shyness, ducking his head as Jer added, "Come on in. Sit by me."

Lee obeyed him, perching on the edge of the chair Yves had dragged up next to the bed. Jer just looked at him, still grinning like an idiot, unable to help it.

"Do you need anything?" Lee finally asked, and Jer said, "Not right now. Unless-- you come up with a way to thank me?"

He'd said it teasingly, but Lee's quick glance up was deadly earnest, and so was his voice when he answered, "I'll do anything you want... sir."

"Start by not calling me that," said Jer.

Lee smiled, a little, and said, "Jer."

"Good," said Jer, and it was good, hearing Lee say his name. "What else will you do?"

Lee blushed, bright blood pumping through the fair skin of his face, and said again, "Anything."

"Like?"

Lee's blush looked life-threatening.

"I'm--" he stammered, looking down again. "I'm not very good-- at anything--"

"That's not what I hear from Bran," said Jer. Actually Bran had never said anything to Jer one way or the other about that, though it wasn't hard to guess, from their morning-afters. But it was the right thing to say; Lee looked up and laughed, a quick startled laugh, and said, "Really?"

"Plus," said Jer, still smiling, "there's a rumor going around that you're a good kisser."

Lee actually put his hands up to his cheeks to cover his blush. Jer was pretty sure he'd never seen anything half as adorable; at the same time, it was sort of terrifying, how sensitive Lee was. If Jer could work him up like this just by teasing him a little, a harsh or thoughtless word at the wrong moment would reduce him to tears or worse. Jer was going to have to be careful, and he hated being careful; as he'd discovered just yesterday, he much preferred being a rash, heroic idiot. Saving kids from violent death was way easier than trying to talk to them afterwards.

Either way, though, Lee was worth it.

"Hey," he said. "Lee. Back in the hospital, you asked me why. You know. Why I jumped in. It all happened so fast I didn't have time to think about it-- I mean, I didn't decide, I just did it. Because I didn't want you to get hurt. That's all."

Lee nodded, his hands slipping from his cheeks, his eyes fixed on Jer as if on some sort of holy vision.

"So that's it," said Jer. "I mean, that's-- what you need to know-- about me. I'm not all that good at talking, but-- when there's no time for anything else-- I'd rather pretty much anything, than see you get hurt. Okay?"

After a moment, Lee picked up Jer's hand, where it lay on the bedsheet beside him, lifted it, and pressed it first to his forehead, then to his lips, kissing the knuckles, and then to his cheek, curving the palm around his sharp-cornered face.

"Okay," said Jer, keeping his hand where it was when Lee's hand slipped away from it, stroking Lee's face gently. "Good. Now. You don't owe me."

"Yes I do," said Lee, somewhat to Jer's surprise; he would have thought that Lee was about as capable of directly contradicting him as of picking him up and throwing him across the room.

"No you don't," he said firmly. "You can be grateful-- I like you grateful-- and you can think I'm a hell of a good guy, I like that too. But you don't owe me. I did what I wanted to do, you know? I didn't have to, nobody made me-- for sure you didn't make me. And I don't want you thinking you have to do anything, either. Nothing you don't want to do, got it?"

Lee smiled, and squirmed, and looked down, and looked up, and finally said, "But I do want to."

Jer grinned back. "Want to what?"

"Stop it," said Lee, almost laughing. "You know-- you know what I mean."

"No I don't," said Jer. "But if you say you want to, you must have some idea-- outside of just whatever I want."

"I want to kiss you," said Lee, and immediately blushed again, furiously, but smiled back when Jer smiled.

"Well," he said. "What are you waiting for?"

Lee got up immediately, and leaned down over Jer, touching one of his shoulders lightly for balance, the other hand braced against the side of the bed.

Jer had never considered kissing that much of an art form-- you stuck your mouths together and sort of pushed them around, and if you wanted to seem eager you sucked on the other person's bottom lip, and if they wanted to stick a tongue down your throat you tried not to gag, and eventually they got bored and you got down to business. Bran and Holden and Yves were always kissing each other, and sometimes they wanted to kiss Jer too, especially Yves; and it was nice with them, sometimes, but Jer had always seen it more as a symbolic I like you than as the actual fun part, which came afterwards.

Lee, though-- Lee's lips were soft, tender, and hesitant, and he pressed them against Jer's, puckering them to press tiny kisses on each of Jer's lips, and when Jer parted his lips and ran his tongue softly along Lee's mouth, Lee's lips parted too, just barely at first, then a little more, sealing their two pairs of lips together around Jer's tongue as it ran along the soft little groove between Lee's bottom lip and his teeth, and Jer's cock was about ready to pound nails with, and that was before Lee's tongue darted out and licked Jer's lips.

When Lee's fingers grazed over his groin, stroking his erection through the cloth of his tunic, Jer very nearly swallowed his own tongue.

Lee was still kissing him, and his fingers gripped Jer through the cloth, and Jer moaned into his mouth, and then whimpered involuntarily in protest when Lee broke the kiss. Lee whispered, "Let me-- may I-- suck--?"

"I don't think--" Jer gasped, and caught his breath, as best he could with Lee's hand still on him, and said a little more voicefully, "I've got two broken ribs, baby-- I don't think I can--"

"You don't have to do anything," said Lee, and twitched Jer's tunic up and out of the way with a swift, decisive gesture. "Don't move, I'll--"

Before Jer could say anything to stop him-- not that he was actually dying to do so or anything-- Lee had climbed onto the foot of the bed, beside Jer's outstretched legs, and bent his head over Jer's cock.

His lips closed around the head, and Jer's vision darkened momentarily as the blood that normally helped with things like seeing and breathing and, hell, heartbeat suddenly concentrated itself in the exact area where Lee's hot, sweet mouth was holding him, where his tongue was coming out again to lap at Jer, and Jer had had his cock sucked by experts-- Yves, Bran, Holden-- but it was about fifteen seconds before he went completely blind and jerked all over, the pain of his shifting muscles and cracked bones barely registering as he yelled out and shot violently into Lee's perfect mouth.

Lee sucked him dry, and Jer bit into his lips to stop himself from screaming out again and again, before Lee finally pulled away, looking-- as Jer blinked, trying to see again-- beyond beautiful, beyond sexy, a newly hatched god of blowjobs, flushed and joyful, and Jer reached for him, he couldn't help it, and Lee dropped-- carefully, lightly, without a jar-- onto the bed just inside the curve of Jer's arm, just barely touching his side, with its bandaged ribs under the tunic.

He didn't say anything for a while, and Jer was glad, because he wasn't sure he could have answered. Finally, when Jer had more or less caught his breath, Lee said, "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," said Jer, although it was agony to breathe this hard. But there were some questions that only had one right answer.

"You came really fast," said Lee, sounding slightly awed and extremely pleased.

"Shit," said Jer, and pulled in a slightly ragged breath, "I damn near got off just from the fucking kiss--"

Lee giggled. "Really?"

"Really," said Jer. "Listen, baby-- do you mind if I-- go to sleep?"

"No," said Lee quickly, and started to sit up, but Jer got his shoulder on the way up; it was a pretty feeble grip, but Lee sank back down at once. "Do you-- you want me to-- stay here?"

"Yeah," said Jer. "Do you mind?"

"No," said Lee, and pressed his lips to Jer's shoulder, and Jer closed his eyes and saw fireworks on a black background, or maybe really bright flowers, and forced his eyes open again.

"Lee," he said. "Thanks."

"I was thanking you," said Lee, with a smile in his voice. "And I'm not done yet."

"You're not?"

"No," said Lee. "I mean, yes, for right now, because you need to go to sleep."

"Oh," said Jer, and closed his eyes again; they were definitely flowers, exploding into light in the darkness, and then he fell asleep.