"500 Light Years From Home" Part 4

[candygramme]

Chad had taken the headphones from the Diskman Jensen was carrying in his pocket, and was jury-rigging a connection into the comm unit, even as Sandy explained the commands and codes and Jensen made notes. The time seemed to fly by as they made their preparations, and Jared was twitching by the time Chad had nodded his approval and switched on the relay, signaling to Sandy that it was working.

It took only a few more minutes to set Sandy up in the Piñata Novia, and for Jensen and her to set up the link between the ships. Five minutes after that they were lifting off from Rigel 4, making for a safe distance from the planet's gravity well so they could make the jump.

Jensen seemed to be handling the communications system reasonably competently, and Jared found himself gazing at the young man again, admiring the little frown that marred the pale brow, and relishing the way the expressive eyes focused on the task in hand. He yearned for all of this to be over and for time to really get to know this young, brave, beautiful man away from all the drama and the pressure they were going through. He hoped that there would be a future for them once this mad dash was done, but he knew that, with the little time that was left for them to stop the destruction of humanity, he was going to have to come up with some extremely unorthodox piloting. Sighing, he checked his star charts again, crossed his fingers and turned back to the console.

The jump from Rigel 4 brought them back to Proxima, where they were scheduled to pause for five minutes while Jared locked in the course for their final twist back to the solar system and their first hurdle, Callisto. They didn't bother to land, because they would be jumping as soon as they were in sync. Jensen had been attempting to lock onto the Piñata's calling signal, but it was nowhere to be found, and he was close to tears, appearing to be increasinglyfrantic in the belief that it was his own lack of skill that was preventing him from achieving contact.

With shaking hands, he went through the routine Sandy had shown him, repeating it over and over again, but still there was no response.

For a desperate hour, which was all the time they could afford, it looked as if they'd lost the Piñata, and Jared was convinced that the Grays had spotted the little vessel and shot it out of jumpspace in mid twist. Chad, normally laconic, had started to panic, when at last Jensen heard something. He held up his hand as his headphones finally crackled into life, and he found himself listening to Sandy's faint and distorted voice. "It's okay; it's okay! They're lagging. Sandy says they hit debris as they materialized and had to take evasive action before stopping to patch a couple of holes." All three of them were just rediscovering how to breathe, when, seconds later, Chris's little ship materialized alongside.

Jared winced. The delay, short though it was, had cost them valuable time, and now he was going to have to take extreme measures to get them where they needed to be in time to make a difference. He was pulling up his navigation aids when the view screen blinked, and showed Chris’s frowning face. "I thought we were goners then," he growled. "Let's hurry up and get down to Deimos, while we're still in possession of all our faculties."

"Listen, Chris." Jared was still calculating the course he needed to take. "We don't have time to do this the conventional way and take out Callisto first. You've got the chart that shows where the booby trap is. Can you go in and destroy that from this side? I think that my next jump is going to have to put the Ladybug inside the asteroid belt," said Jared, a big smile showing off his dimples in an attempt to act nonchalant about the course he was going to try and follow.

"Jesus, Jay!" Chad was frowning in earnest as he suddenly realized what Jared was intending to do. "You know there's a good reason why nobody jumps that far into the solar system, don't you?"

"Can't be helped. We've got very little time left to stop that ray from taking out every human on Earth, Mars, Venus and the moon." Jared cast a glance over to where Jensen was watching the Chad with concern in his eyes. "Jen, you're going to be my ears. On my command, take action as fast as you can. You've got the guns, and if I yell, it means there's something in the way. Just shoot the fuck out of it." Jensen turned back to face Jared and nodded, intent on the console in front of him as Jared turned to his engineer.

"Chad, my man, you'll give me as much speed as you can right up 'til I yell stop. Then throw her into reverse so we can stop as short as possible. I'm gonna bring her right in beside Hygeia, since that gives us the closest shot at Deimos. We're going to have to land as close to the booby trap as we can and take the thing out manually, because we don't have the ammo to blast Deimos out of the skies, worst luck, so we're doing this the hard way, okay?"

Chad had said nothing during Jared's speech, his face grave as he considered their predicament. For a few seconds he said nothing, but then he shrugged and gave Jared a thumbs up, his face spreading into a grin. "I came along on this trip, because I didn't want to live forever anyway, so what the hell! Let's go be heroes," was all he said, before turning back to his console to monitor his controls.

There had been silence from the other ship as Jared had briefed his crew, but now Kane cleared his throat. "Jay, I don't know..."

"Listen, Chris, you don't need to come through the asteroid belt with us, in fact it might be better if you didn't. If we fail to get there because we hit some lump of rock we didn't smash on time, you'll be backup to make sure the job gets done. Sandy might be able to get through the defenses and disarm the damned thing, so that's what I want you to do, okay?"

Nodding, his face expressionless, Chris turned to relay Jared's words to Sandy and Steve. It wasn't long before he'd returned to the screen. "Okay, Jay, we'll do it your way, but I'm kinda thinking that we've got about one chance in a million." He gave a little shake of his head. "You always was a maniac, bubba. Take care of yourself and go prove me wrong, please."

"Okay, man. You need to come in between Jupiter and the belt and take the easy way around to Callisto. I'll catch you on the flip-side, okay?" He checked the chronometer on his console. "No point in putting things off any longer. We twist in thirty seconds. Catch you later, Kane! It's been a slice!"

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

At first, the jump seemed like any other - the same sense of disorientation, the same sickening pull at their bodies, as if the act was a prelude to dispersing their atoms all over the universe. Jared had done the calculations over and over, well aware that even the slight pull of gravity that the many asteroids exerted could distort their path and pull them into disaster. He hoped that they would be safe, but the facts were that it was totally impossible to make sure they wouldn't wind up materializing in the same space as one of the rocks that whirled perpetually in their orbit around the sun.

It was as they began to translate into regular space that the fun began. Jensen, eyes wide and straining, had only seconds to deal with the huge lump of rock that was hurtling towards them as they emerged from hyperspace. Jared was sweating as he held their course steady and tried to prevent them from veering into the gravity well created by the multitudes of rocks that formed the asteroid belt. Jensen hit the button that would fire the disintegrators more out of reflex as he fought off the urge to duck and reflected that the time he'd spent playing Space Invaders and Super Mario was well spent, no matter what his mom used to tell him.

As the menace burst and faded from existence, Chad called out encouragement to him. Another, smaller piece was destroyed as Jensen began to enjoy himself. "Hey, this is like playing 'Counterstrike.' I can do this," he crowed, dispatching yet a third jagged fragment as Jared managed to hold steady, steering the Ladybug into clear space.

"Jesus," murmured Chad, rising from his seat to go and look at the view through the monitor. Arching above them was the asteroid belt, with countless thousands of fragments of ice and rock all performing their own elegant dance through the cosmos. "Will you look at that? I never thought you'd make it, Jay. You're improving. Maybe you'll make a pilot some day; what do you think?"

"I think you'd better get back to your position before I lock you up for insubordination," growled Jared, who, now that they were within reach of Deimos, was finding himself trembling from the reaction caused by the stress of his foolhardy jump. Jensen snorted with laughter as Chad froze, for once at a loss for words.

"We'll be on Deimos in time, I think," said Jared, opening the chart that Steve had found in Misha's quarters.. "I'm going to take us in close before I land and try to get some idea of how the location is defended. I'm guessing that it'll have booby traps all around it."

"You never know." Chad had once more taken his seat, but he swiveled around to give Jared a reassuring grin. "He was relying on a surprise attack, wasn't he? He might not have bothered. It isn't like people actually visit Deimos that often - all it is, is a jagged little chunk of rock. It's not like it's a holiday resort or anything."

It was a further 25 minutes before Jared pulled the Ladybug into a tight orbit around the irregularly shaped rock that was Deimos. Jensen scrambled to find the controls that would operate the ship's exterior cameras, and Chad, glued to the scanners and detection devices, called out directions that the young man tried desperately to follow.

"Fucker's got psych rays trained on the gate, and some kind of tangler field to slow down whoever is trying to get through. Whoever goes in to shut off the trigger is going to end up dead as a dodo." Chad sounded really cranky as he catalogued the defenses that Misha had apparently put into place.

"I wasn't affected by that ray," murmured Jensen, wondering if what he'd survived was in fact the same thing. When both Chad and Jared swiveled their heads to look at him, he smiled nervously. "Well, I wasn't," he said, apologetically. "Collins called me a monkey-boy."

It took three circuits before they had the information they needed, and as Jared brought the little ship in to land a few hundred feet from the site of Misha's death ray, the other two began to pore over the photographs, unable to wait until Jared was free to feed them into the NavDeck and create a chart. They'd already decided that it would be Jensen who would disarm the device, because hopefully he'd proven to be immune to the psych rays with which Misha had overcome the rest of them so easily.

By the time Jared set the Ladybug down on the little moon, Chad and Jensen had pretty much determined the lie of the land. As he cut the thrusters and settled to the ground with a little jolt, he was already pulling himself free of his implant and rushing over to grab the photos and feed them into the NavDeck.

"He's got psych ray projectors mounted around the site. I'm betting they're motion activated." Chad indicated the areas. "And there's a pig of a locking mechanism on the structure he's built around the ray gun itself; it looks like it's on a timer. The shield wall will only go down when the timer gives the direction." He sighed. "Nothing's ever convenient, is it? Someone is going to have to go interface with it and work out a way to drop the shields so the device can be deactivated."

"Jensen isn't going to be able to do that. He doesn't have the implant we need, and there's no way to get him fitted with one in time." Jared put his head in his hands. "I can go, I guess."

"You don't have the engineering experience," said Chad. "And you're going to be needed to get the 'Bug home to give them the Disruptor we invented. I'll do it."

"Why can't we just blow the whole moon to bits like we did the asteroids?" Jensen sounded hopeful, and Chad flashed him a grin.

"If only we could," he muttered. "The guns we have are good for the small stuff, but it would take hours of chipping away at this rock to blast it to pieces. Not only that, but he's got the damned thing reflector shielded. Anything we aim at it will bounce back at us." Chad rolled his eyes. "That would be bad."

"No kidding," said Jared, tracing the image of the site with one long finger. "You up for this, Jen?" he asked the young man beside him. "Can't guarantee that the beams won't have an effect on you. It's just that you're our best chance to get this shut down. Neither Chad or I will be able to go within range of those psych rays."

"Yeah, I'm good." Jensen gave him a lopsided smile that sent a flood of heat down to his belly. "Just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it if I can." He laid his hand on Jared's arm, and Jared couldn't hold back any more. If this was the last time he would get to hold Jensen in his arms, then he couldn't pass it up. He pulled the young man close and pressed their lips together. Jensen went willingly, lips parting to enable the kiss, allowing Jared's tongue entry and sighing softly.

"Tick tock," murmured Chad, after a moment or two. "Not to stand in the way of your big gay love, but we've got a very limited window of opportunity. We need to get suited up and out there on this fucking rock to defeat the evil overlord and save the world."

There was a muffled snicker from Jensen as the two of them separated, and then Jared was pulling out his pressure suit and breathing apparatus, since Sandy's would most definitely not fit the young man who needed it. It didn't take long for Chad and Jensen to get suited up. Chad was jaunty, laughing and joking as they pulled on the pressure suits, and Jared, who knew him well, could tell that his engineer was nervous. He'd plugged a small device into his interface, one that Jared recognized as a thing he'd been working on earlier. It had a readout panel that he put inside the helmet he would wear before putting the thing on, and he didn't say anything about it as he inserted it into his suit. It was evident that he was sweating, but as Jensen announced that he was ready, he gave the young man a high five.

They'd taken a moment or two to sort through the armory to decide how best to deal with the tangler field. Jensen's plan was to make his way over to the projectors and demolish them using what he called 'brute force and ignorance,' and after a few moments' thought, Chad agreed that this seemed to be the best plan. If Jensen actually did prove to be immune to the psych rays, then he'd be able to get to the tanglers and kill the beams for Chad. Then he would turn his attention to the psych ray projectors and try to destroy them to make it safe for Chad to get to the gate and open it.

Setting foot onto the little moonlet's rocky surface was the kind of experience that Jensen had only felt in dreams. The gravity was so low that he'd been warned by Jared not to run, in case he might achieve escape velocity and end up orbiting Mars on his own behalf. So warned, he was very cautious as he crept across the rocky terrain towards the tangler machines. It was slow going. Sudden movements didn't work well, and after succeeding in spinning himself around a couple of times he finally managed to find a way of creeping forward on hands and knees that worked well enough for him to make progress.

His initial approach was reasonably fast, but then he managed to step inside the tangler field, and it seemed as if every move he made sent him in random directions and that none of those directions were the way he wanted to go.

"There's only one way to deal with a tangler field, Jen." Jared's voice sounded tinny inside the pressure suit helmet. "You need to creep really slowly, and stay low to the ground."

Dropping to his belly, Jensen dug his gloved fingers into the rock and crawled, holding onto any irregularities he could find on his way to his first stopping point. As he finally arrived at the first projector, he rose to his feet, holding tightly onto the leg of the projector. He had been going to shoot out the lens, but on examination, he found that he didn't need to do anything more than wrench the business end off and then use his strong right arm to hurl it off the moonlet and into space while hanging on to the legs of the thing to prevent himself from being launched after it. With the first tangler out of the way, it became slightly easier to make his way over to where the second one was hammered into the rock, held to it by large metal nails. It received the same treatment as the first, and Jensen raised his hands in acknowledgement as he heard both Chad and Jared call out their approval.

"Now for the psych rays, Jen. The first one is on the roof of the structure, see it?" Jared sounded excited. Maybe they would be able to do this after all.

"I see it." It didn't take long for Jensen to reach the offending machine, and disable it. He examined the gate behind which lay the device that was set to destroy his race. He could see one projector, and leveling the laser he'd been given, he trained it on the device until it collapsed into debris. "Is that all?" he asked, peering into the gloomy depths of the shielding. "I can't see any others."

"Good work." Chad's voice was soft. "I'm coming out now. We've got less than twenty minutes before the stupid thing goes off, and we've still got to get through the gate."

Jensen turned to look back at the Ladybug and watched as Chad climbed down and began to make his way over to him. He waved his hand, and was about to turn back toward their target, when he paused, gasped, and then gaped. The Ladybug was resting jauntily on a small raised portion of rock, and, behind the little ship was the horizon, impossibly close. Below it was Mars, red and grey, spread like a blanket, and to one side, just appearing over the edge of the great disk, was Phobos. For a moment he was transfixed, and jumped as Chad drew close enough to give him a shrewd poke in the ribs.

"Save the sightseeing for after we've turned this fucking thing off," said Chad as he reached the gate and dropped to his knees to examine the locking mechanism. "Yeah, this thing is booby-trapped seven ways from Sunday," he growled. "It'll take a minute or two..." Jensen watched as Chad took a cable from a pocket in the side of his helmet and plugged it into the interface on the gate.

The seconds ticked by, slow and sweaty. Back in the ship, Jared could only watch as Chad probed delicately at the gate, pausing to listen from time to time to whatever the mechanism was telling him. He wanted to scream out to Chad to hurry up, make the damned gate open and put an end to the threat of Gray invasion once and for all. Instead, he watched in silence.

At last, Chad gave a grunt of satisfaction, and slowly reached to unlock the gate. "Looks like we're home free," he crowed. "Who's your daddy! The Chadster, that's..."

As Chad rose to his feet to enter the chamber he'd revealed, there was a glow from inside, and a purple beam hit him. He stiffened, and then very slowly crumpled to the ground.

Watching, helpless, Jared could only call out to Jensen as the young man dropped to his knees to try and help Chad. "Leave him until you've disabled that trigger, Jen. There's no time left."

For a moment it seemed that Jensen hadn't understood, but then he grunted assent and turned to enter the chamber himself, disappearing into the darkness of the cavity despite the purple ray that lit up his white pressure suit in garish color.

It was bright inside the gate - the purple ray spread its light to throw everything inside into relief, sharp shadows black and menacing at his feet. The mechanism he was there to disable had been sunk into the rock, bolted to the surface of the moonlet with huge pieces of metal. Jensen studied them for a moment, and then drew the laser gun he had brought with him from the holster on the leg of his pressure suit. Swiftly using it to cut through the bolts that held the machine in place, he began to move it back to the gateway, hauling it with him despite its bulk. His efforts were rewarded as the thing scraped over the rock, rattling the metal of the shield that had protected it.

The gravity, low as it was, made it difficult for Jensen to slide the projector. As he strained he found himself rising from the rock, and was grateful that the shield above him prevented him from forcing himself off the moonlet's surface and into space.

Arriving at the gate with it, he had to move Chad out of the way before continuing to drag the mechanism, which was now looking rather battered and worse for wear, out of the enclosure, to empty ground where he began to tilt it over .

As the seconds ticked away to the launching of the signal, Jared typed furiously, trying to calculate whether or not the beam would have been moved off course sufficiently to miss its mark. Outside the ship, Jensen had succeeded in tipping the machinery over so that it was lying on its side, and as he drew out his laser to take out the lens, a tight, white beam lashed out from the toppled projector. Jared breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Phobos, which had rounded Mars and was now racing across the surface of Mars on its endless journey, intercept it.

Jensen had turned away as the beam launched itself, and had headed back to bring Chad in. Jared watched, afraid of what he would find once Chad was back inside the ship. It didn't take long, and as the airlock cycled through to admit Jensen and his burden, Jared found himself pacing back and forth through the little control room.

As he tugged Chad's body out of the airlock, Jensen was sweating, unsure if he'd brought back a live man or a corpse. As soon as the airlock was closed, the two of them tore at Chad's helmet, and it was with horror and misery that they found their engineer was not breathing.

"Stasis," snapped Jared as Jensen began CPR. "Keep it up for a few minutes, Jen. There's at least one stasis machine in the hold." He took off at high speed, leaving Jensen to continue his efforts and soon returned bearing the little box that would freeze Chad, until he could be taken to a medical facility,

They had barely managed to get Chad into his bunk and into a stasis pod with the machine turned on to preserve him, when the comm deck burst into crackling life, and Sandy's chirpy voice filled the room.

"Ladybug, we have you in our sights, and Callisto has been neutralized. Did you manage to destroy Misha's evil plan?"

Rushing over to his station, Jensen explained what had happened, and that they were going to head for Earth’s moon. "We need to get Chad into treatment as soon as possible."

There was a brief pause, and then Sandy gasped. "Chad? What happened to Chad?" she asked, softly.

"We don't have time for gossip." Jared cut across their conversation as Jensen was about to reply. "We need to get to Imbrium as fast as we can, and we're missing an engineer. Let's go."

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

In any event, the Piñata Novia made it to the moon before the Ladybug, and by the time Jared had jockeyed his ship into the dock, medics were standing by, along with Christian, Steve and Sandy. As Chad, still in his stasis pod, was carried away, Jared sagged. The efforts he'd expended to try and get them to Deimos in time to avert tragedy, not to mention the subsequent events, had finally proven too much, and he felt as if he'd never be able to make another decision in his life.

Jensen had stayed at his side through all the questions the medics had asked, and now he slid in close, putting an arm around his shoulders. "You need rest," he said. "Tell me where. Do we go back to the ship, or is there somewhere else?"

"I'll show you." Christian had been watching, and now he came forward. "Jay, where's your interface?" he asked, and Jared fumbled in his coverall pocket to find a fine cable with the now familiar plugs on either end. "Okay, Jen, take that corridor there, and any door that's showing a green light, plug him in. He's a veteran. He's entitled to a bunk here whenever he needs one."

Nodding, Jensen led his emotionally exhausted captain away.

There was a room almost at the start of the corridor, and as he was helping Jared to open the door, Chris and Steve appeared, taking the room next door to them although nobody actually said a word just then.

Inside the small room, Jensen looked lost. It was perfectly cube shaped, and there appeared to be no furniture, only a monitor on the wall, currently showing some weird, three dimensional cartoon that looked to be a commercial for something called J-Juice, that promised to give the drinker super-powers.

"Jay, you have to help me. Come on now, dude. I don't know how this shit works."

Jared had seemed to be functioning on automatic, but at Jensen's plea he raised his head and gave a little smile, a mere shadow of the wide, dimpled grin Jensen was used to. "It's okay, Jen. All you have to do is ask," he said. He looked around himself and nodded. "Queen bed, extra long," he called out, and Jensen's eyes were as round as saucers as a bed rose up out of the surrounding walls to meet the description.

"Wow," he muttered. "Okay. Shower cubicle big enough for two, with... with soap and towels and..." as the wall began to bulge out, Jared chuckled. "Just ask for the refresher unit. That'll come with everything we need."

Still round eyed, Jensen amended his request, and the refresher unit materialized to order. Turning to Jared, he shook his head. "This is totally not something that used to happen back in my day, but I can see the benefits." He reached to start unzipping Jared's uniform. "And I think that a shower and a good sleep is what you need right now."

Jared smiled at him, dimples flashing once again, and Jensen lifted his hand to press his finger into one of them. "There they are. I thought they'd gone away." He slid his hand around the back of Jared's neck and pulled him down until their foreheads touched. "Come on, dude. Let's get you clean and into bed. You can't help Chad right now, but if you get some rest you'll be around for him when he's been fixed up."

Sliding his arms around Jensen, Jared stooped to brush his mouth over the youngster's full lips and then laid his head on Jensen's shoulder. "He's been my crew ever since I got a command. I don't want to see him die just because of some bastard alien spy megalomaniac."

"You got him home. They can help him here," murmured Jensen. "And you should sleep, or you'll be unconscious when they come to tell us he's awake."

Nodding, Jared allowed himself to be bundled into the refresher and showered, shaved and toweled dry, and then helped into bed. Jensen seemed to be hesitating about joining him, but Jared tugged him forward, pulling him down and into his arms before wrapping himself around Jensen's sturdy body and falling instantly asleep.

Sleep didn't come so easily for Jensen. He was well aware that his home and everything he'd ever known was gone, and that he really had no place in this strange new world where furniture could be produced from a smooth surface just by calling for it, and where men interfaced directly with machines and thought nothing of it.

He lay awake, sifting through his memories, remembering the lazy, inebriated contentment he'd been feeling on that last walk home, and the party they'd thrown for him earlier, with kisses, a birthday spanking and music that now was hundreds of years old. He remembered his sister that morning, shyly giving him the friendship bracelet she'd knotted for him, with their names tied into the string, and his mom's cheery 'happy birthday, baby'." He didn't cry for their loss this time. He didn't think he would be able to cry ever again, but grief was a hard knot in his chest that stayed with him as he finally dozed.

He awoke to the feeling of lips grazing over his chest and down to his belly, and shivered as firm fingers took hold of him and began to caress.

"Jared?" He struggled to climb out of his muzzy, drowsy state as roving fingers circled the head of his dick and stroked, while a warm, wet mouth found and began to toy with one of his nipples.

Jared didn't speak, merely bit down on the little nub he'd appropriated and chuckled deep in his throat, sending tingles through Jensen.

All of Jensen's introspection and melancholy faded as Jared began to slide his mouth over the planes of his chest and then down over his stomach.

"Want you, Jen." The hissed whisper sent a sudden pool of heat slithering down Jensen's spine to lie low in his belly. He started to speak, and found that all that would come out of his mouth was a little keening sound as Jared's mouth closed around the head of his cock, and his large hands settled on his hipbones to hold him steady.

His body tightened, his hips straining up against Jared's controlling hands as he tried his damnedest to get deeper, feel more of the moist wet heat. Clearing his throat, he managed to force out a voice that sounded more manly than his previous effort. "Oh, God, do that!"

More dirty sounding laughter vibrated against his cock, and along with it, Jared's tongue began to do filthy, delicious things to it, sending him back into incoherent moaning, although not as distressingly highly pitched as the earlier sounds he'd managed.

Spreading his thighs, he strained against the pressure Jared was exerting, low-voiced curses growling out without his conscious thought. Jared took him deep, sucking on him and sending stabs of pleasure from his cock to join with the sly tendrils building at the base of his spine. Gasping, he reached down to wrap his fingers around Jared's head and try to push in deeper, harder, faster.

He cried out when Jared pulled away, wanting, needing more, and Jared slid up against his body to cover him, mouth seeking to capture his, tongue delving roughly as they ground together.

"Want you," Jared murmured again. "Can I...?"

"Fuck, yes." Jensen was amazed that he could manage anything coherent, but he reached for Jared's cock, exploring it, discovering it to be long, and firm and uncut, the tip moist, dripping with the sticky signs of his arousal. He lifted his knees, wrapping his legs around Jared and surprising a groan out of the big pilot. "Gonna need a bit of prep to get that monster inside of me," he husked, and that laugh erupted from Jared once more.
Jared called for lube, and it was delivered from a drawer in the nightstand that had made its appearance sometime during the previous evening at Jared's command. He began to coat his fingers with it, and Jensen, momentarily breaking out of his haze of arousal, frowned up at him.

"What about a condom?" he asked, hopefully.

"What's a condom?" Jensen wasn't sure what answer he'd been expecting, but that certainly wasn't it.

"Uh... it's to prevent any STDs from being transmitted. You put it on your cock, and..."

Jared started to snicker. "Oh, sweetie, don't worry. These days we have substances in the lube we use that will take care of that. There aren't too many sexually transmitted diseases left now. Chad went with one of the waitresses in the main bar at Marsport, and got a bad case of scroggs, but he's not your typical..."

"What the fuck is a scrogg?" Jensen wasn't sure whether to laugh or run away. He was almost sure that modern technology would be able to control germs that had been prevalent in his time, but the sound of Chad's affliction was making him uneasy.

"It's a Martian sand beetle larva," said Jared, snickering. "They itch worse than crabs, and you have to do some pretty humiliating things to get rid of them."

"So you don't have those?" Jensen found himself itching in sympathy with Chad, despite the fact that Chad wasn't present.

"Hell, no. I take care of myself, and I wouldn't dream of getting it on with someone from Mars - too much untamed nature there." He cupped Jensen's face and lay gazing down at him. "When I first saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Now you're here with me, and I can't believe how lucky I am."

"Lucky?" Jensen frowned again. "Just shut up and fuck me, will you?"

And Jared gave his filthy chuckle again as he dipped his head and took command of Jensen's soft, plush lips.

Jensen's erection had wilted during their discussion of Martian insects, but as Jared's clever fingers found and prepared him, it rose to attention again, and before long he found Jared easing his way inside him, stretching him to the limit as he slowly but surely pushed his cock inside.

Jared couldn't take his eyes off him; that was evident. Jensen watched as his new lover's slanted eyes darkened, pupils widening until there was no color left, and his mouth turned slack with the pleasure he was experiencing. He lifted his thighs high, so that Jared could scoop them up and place them over his shoulders, and sobbed as Jared's cock began to slide to and fro over his sweet spot.

Maybe they were both lucky, he thought. If he hadn't been taken by aliens, he never would have met Jared, never would have had this. Jared was holding him, kissing him, loving him, and he could lose himself in Jared's eyes as the sensations began to grow inside him again. Careful fingers circled his cock and tugged, once, twice and Jensen whimpered.

"I love you," whispered Jared, and Jensen couldn't hold on any more. He came with Jared's words caressing his ears, Jared's arms tight around him, and Jared's cock stuttering to its own climax inside him as Jensen's muscles tensed and rippled through the sweet seizure of orgasm.

Sweaty and sated, they lay together afterwards, not speaking, just trading caresses without particular urgency, lips growing swollen and numb as they explored each other's body. It was almost morning when they dozed off again, and it seemed like only a few minutes before they heard Christian banging on the door of their room, yelling at them to quit fucking and get up now, right now!

Dragging himself to his feet, Jensen stumbled over to the door and peered around it, eyes screwed up against the brightness of the light in the corridor.

"What?" he mumbled.

"Come on. Get up. Sandy called from the sick bay. We gotta go see what's happening as soon as we can." Chris smirked as he took in Jensen's nudity, but he said nothing.

"Is it about Chad?" Jensen frowned.

"Dunno. She didn't say, but she sounded pretty excitable." Steve, standing behind Chris's right shoulder, gave Jensen a saturnine smile, and Jensen's eyes widened, then he retreated into the room and went to shake Jared until he woke up.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

The infirmary was half empty when the four men finally arrived to try and find out what was happening with Chad. A ward orderly led them back through the facility to the fallen engineer's room and the little group entered, half afraid of what they would find.

Sandy sat in the corner, her tiny body curled into the depths of an armchair, fast asleep, the blue smudges under her eyes indicating just how exhausted she was. Jared gazed down at her fondly and then returned to the corridor for one of the extra blankets that were stacked neatly on a trolley outside. Tucking it around her tenderly, he transferred his attention to his engineer.

Chad was most definitely alive. His color was good, and as the four of them watched, he stretched, smacked his lips and opened his eyes.

"Chad, my man! How are you doing?" Jared felt a surge of hope inside his chest as Chad gave him an appraising look.

"Dunno yet," was Chad's response. "Can't remember a whole lot. I've seen you before, I know that. I just can't remember where. Hey, wait! Aren't you the asshole that let me get out of a secure environment on a hostile moon to go saving the earth and all its population?"

"That would be me," said Jared, his dimples appearing. "So it seems as though your brain hasn't been wiped clean after all."

"It'd take industrial grade chemicals to achieve a state of cleanliness in there, man," smirked Chris, and he snickered as he backed out of reach of Chad's flailing arms.

"Do you remember how to drain the accelerant from the core of a positron engine?" That was Steve asking the question, and Chad's brow wrinkled in thought.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. First you open the perimeter valves and..." There was astonishment in Chad's voice as he launched into the technicalities of the question. "Hey! Quit messing with me, man; I can remember just fine!"

"He's gonna be okay," grinned Steve, cutting across Chad's answer. "He's still a jerk, but if he can remember his trade he'll be good to go."

"Course I'll be okay!" Chad grinned. "Me and my girl are gonna get married and set up a business developing new technology. I've got the spec for a gadget that will block these damned psych rays, and San is going to help me with marketing it. She's the one that gave me the idea for the test device I used when Jen and I went out onto Deimos. She's a bright lady, and way too valuable to let get away."

"Thank you for those few kind words." Sandy had awoken, and now she was uncurling herself from the chair and moving quietly over to climb on the bed with Chad and snuggle up close. "The prototype was almost perfect. The only problem with it is the fact that when it blocked the psych ray it sent a surge of static into Chad that interfered with his nerve impulses and shut down his vital organs. I'm glad you managed to get him back here where they could fix him."

"Me too." Jared bent to give Sandy a hug. "Seriously? You and the Chadster here...?"

"Yeah. He needs to be housebroken, and I think I'm strong enough to get it done. Besides, he's got a really good patent in his head for a defense against psych rays. When I inherit his millions after someone kills him for being a complete perv, I'll be wealthy in my own right."

"Aw, come on, San. Don't be like that." Chad gave Sandy a plaintive expression and she melted against him.

"You love me anyway; you know you do," she murmured, and kissed him.

Chris coughed and shuffled his feet. "Well, I think that's our cue to love you and leave you," he growled, backing towards the door with Steve at his heels.

"Yeah. Us too." Jared grabbed Jensen's hand and turned to leave, as Jensen snorted with ill-concealed laughter. "Come on. We have to go and register a new citizen of Earth. Baby, you're gonna be in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest man."

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Much later, Jared sat with Jensen in a quiet booth in one of the restaurants that Imbrium boasted in its entertainment dome. They'd eaten well and were now sipping their coffee. Jared leaned forward to put his hand over Jensen's as the young man gave a sigh. "We can look into finding ways to get you back home, if you want, sweetheart. I don't want you to have lost everything you ever valued."

Jensen frowned for a minute, and then turned his hand palm up so he could lace his fingers with Jared's. "I don't know if that's what I really want," he said softly. "Sure, it hurts that my family are gone. But if I went back, I wouldn't have you, and that would hurt too." He gave Jared a heated glance. "And besides, I'm looking forward to introducing the 23rd Century to Deep Purple and Metallica."

As Jared tightened his hand around Jensen's, Jensen grinned. "So all in all, I think I'll stay," he said.



~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Master Post

Comments

[masja-17.livejournal.com]

Cracky and sweet! Thank you!

<3

[candygramme.livejournal.com]

I think you should know that crack is actually my middle name. I'm really glad you liked it enough to comment on it though, Thank you, bb.