Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
AT HOME WITH BJORN AND LEIF
Bjorn fiddled with the rim of his mostly empty coffee cup while he waited for Leif to unlock their apartment door.
“A pretty idiot?” he grumbled, for about the millionth time. “Really? He said that?”
“To be fair, he was only talking to himself.”
“Still. You heard him.”
Leif shrugged and pushed the door open, preceding Bjorn inside. “I mean, he thinks you’re pretty.”
“He thinks I’m an idiot.”
Leif stopped Bjorn halfway into the entrance with a hand on his chest. He went up on his toes and kissed him, quick and light, before whispering, “He’s not wrong.”
“Shut up.”
Leif grinned. “Make me?”
Bjorn growled and shoved him all the way inside so the door could close them off from the rest of the world. He backed Leif across the small, tiled area to the couch, then gently pushed him over the back.
Leif collapsed on his back, giggling, while Bjorn set aside the cold coffee dregs to yank his shoes off and toss them away.
The electric hum under his skin vibrated with the need for release, standing the hairs along his arms on end.
Leif ghosted fingers over the raised hairs. “Zap me,” he whispered.
Bjorn’s heart skipped. He always asked that, and Bjorn always wanted to say no. But the glow of Leif’s eyes and the half grin on his face always convinced him it would be fine. He skipped his fingertips over the side of Leif’s neck.
“Mmm. That is so weird.” He grinned wider. “Now kiss me.”
“I don’t take orders from you, you know.” But he did lower himself over the arm of the couch to get close enough for a kiss.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“Shut up.” He trailed his lips over the scar Leif hated, flicking his tongue out and letting the electric sizzle kiss along the more sensitive tissue.
“Don’t do that.” Turning his head, Leif found his lips again and for a moment, soaked up all of Bjorn’s attention.
When his brain cleared again, it was because Leif had clasped one of his wrists and was guiding his hand down between them. Leif had shoved his own loose jeans down off his hips and now he clasped Bjorn’s hand around his freed cock.
“I’m not going to zap your dick,” Bjorn told him.
“So you say.” Leif grinned into their kiss. “But then you always say that.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You never do.” He bucked his hips, sliding his cock inside Bjorn’s fist. “Give me electric come, and I promise, I’ll blow you after.”
“Electric come?”
Leif giggled again. “Do it. You know you want to.”
He sort of did. Even though he worried one of these times he wouldn’t be able to control it, he still loved the effect his little discharges had on Leif’s body.
Focusing his attention on the feel of silky skin against his palm, he imagined the tiny arch of lightning skimming along their skin.
Leif gasped and thrust into his hand. “Again.” He threw his head back, giving Bjorn free access to his bared throat. He clasped his lips over it and sucked between his teeth a bit of skin right next to his scar, worrying it as he let a tiny bit more of his power lick along Leif’s cock.
Leif groaned and bucked against him, begging in gasping pants, faster and faster the more Bjorn sucked at his neck and discharged his electricity, until Leif stiffened against him, breath caught and a long, low groan leaving his throat while come spilled over Bjorn’s fingers.
Finally, he went limp under Bjorn and nuzzled his face into the crook of Bjorn’s neck. “Fuck, that always feels amazing.” He kissed Bjorn’s neck, practically purring against him.
Bjorn cradled his head, relishing the brief, tender moment before Leif pushed him off.
“Yeah.” He rolled against the back of the couch. “Gonna crush you. Can’t hold myself up forever.”
“Good.” Leif shook himself. “Get up.” He pushed and tugged at Bjorn until Bjorn was standing in front of him. “Pants,” Leif ordered.
Before Bjorn even moved to comply, Leif was undoing his belt and unzipping his jeans. He barely had time to help get his dick free before it was in Leif’s mouth.
“Leif.” He cupped a hand at the back of his friend’s head, skimming fingers through his silky-soft hair. The feel of the strands against his completely electricity-free palm was heaven. This was the only time he ever felt things without the insulating hum of power between him and the world. Even when he accidentally discharged what felt like all of his energy—say, shorting out an elevator—he never felt completely normal.
But getting Leif off with mostly those tiny electric shocks always depleted him and let him feel the world—and his lover—like a normal person, and he revelled in it. Unlike for Leif, all that electricity trapped inside his own body was not conducive to getting off. Only once Leif had absorbed it all into his own orgasm was Bjorn relaxed enough to feel that perfect tension building in his body.
“Babe,” he panted, trying hard not to spasm his fingers and tangle them into Leif’s hair. “Suck,” he whispered. “Please.”
“Hmm.” Leif pressed his tongue to the underside of Bjorn’s cock and swallowed hard, bringing his dick to the very back of his throat.
“Oh. Jesus. Yeah.” He pushed deeper, feeling the tight constriction of Leif’s throat around his tip. “God. I’m gonna…” Every muscle tightened, much like it did just before a major energy release, but this time, the release coalesced in his groin and his balls drew up tight. His throat closed over his ability to speak, and he grunted as come pulsed out of him.
Leif guided Bjorn down to the couch next to him, off his wobbling legs. He pushed him back against the arm, then stuffed a pillow behind his back so he could sprawl. He’d never say it out loud, but Leif knew Bjorn loved this part best, right after they’d orgasmed and he was boneless and relaxed like he never otherwise was.
Once he was situated, Leif stood and fastened his jeans. “Hungry?”
Bjorn grunted. “I could eat, I guess.” When he looked like he was going to get up, Leif pushed him back.
“Relax. Enjoy the static-free life for a minute.”
“I can help.”
“It’s fine. I got it.”
“Whatever,” he said on a sigh.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” Leif smiled at him but didn’t get the expected lazy grin back.
“You don’t really think I’m an idiot.” He didn’t say it like he was asking, which was good. But he did say it, which made Leif wish he’d never brought it up. He would have a few more words with Kassian about it, though.
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he assured Bjorn.
“Because I know I’m not the smartest guy around.”
“So?”
“That Kassian guy.”
“Don’t do that.” Leif sat on the arm of the couch near Bjorn’s feet. He didn’t want to crowd his post-sex bubble.
“Do what?”
“Don’t compare yourself to him. I mean, you’re built, but for fuck sakes. The guy looks like he was engineered.”
“And he’s probably extra smart.”
“Brains aren’t everything.”
“But he’s got me beat in both.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw your jaw drop when you saw him.”
Leif gave his friend a sideways grin. “Yeah, but dude, I mean…” He waved a hand. “You noticed, too.”
“I know.” He sighed and heaved himself up. “He probably stops traffic.” Tossing Leif’s shirt over his head, he stood and yanked up his jeans, though he didn’t button or belt them, which Leif sort of loved.
They might be best friends and not a couple, but he was never going to say he didn’t enjoy Bjorn walking around their apartment in no shirt and with his jeans open.
“Anyway, you’re the one he thinks is cute,” Leif pointed out, because he was not going to get between Bjorn and his forever guy—whoever that turned out to be. Bjorn deserved someone who didn’t keep secrets from him. Someone way more honest than Leif.
He only noticed he’d been rubbing his scar when Bjorn pulled his hand away from his face with a light grip on his wrist. “Make me toast,” he demanded in the soft voice he used when he required Leif’s full attention.
He got it, because his eyes did a soft, shining thing when he used that voice that always made Leif feel like he should do whatever it was Bjorn was telling him to do. Leif could usually convince himself the light was the electricity. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that was just how Bjorn felt, and he didn’t let it show anyplace but when they were here, alone.
“Make your own toast,” he griped, even as he pulled on his shirt.
Bjorn pursed his lips and lifted his eyebrows, as Leif expected, because no way was Bjorn touching the toaster.
No way would Leif have let him, despite being mostly convinced it would be okay, especially right now, with the insulation he’d installed, and Bjorn having so recently got off. Other people lived in their building and didn’t need their homes burned down around them because Leif wanted to pout about not being pretty anymore.
Bjorn didn’t care about what he looked like. It didn’t matter what Kassian thought he looked like, because he didn’t have time for a boyfriend when he had Bjorn to wrangle.
He certainly wouldn’t have someone so dismissive of his best friend. That wasn’t on.
“What do you want on it?” he asked as he crossed to the kitchen area.
“What do you think?”
“It’ll be the last avocado. We’ll have to go shopping.”
“Sure. After I eat, though. Ow!” He yanked his hand back from the counter where he’d been about to lean.
“Come here.” Leif took his hand and kissed his fingertips, then laid Bjorn’s hand on the flat of his stomach. “Zap me.”
“No.”
“Just do it.”
Before Bjorn could protest again, an arc of electric current left his fingers and snapped through the air to trickle along Leif’s abs. It hurt, but he managed a grin to hide his wince.
Bjorn hadn’t been in control of it like he had been on the couch, which meant something was bothering him enough to keep sexy-times off the table, and annoyance on it.
“What’s wrong?” Leif turned to his task, getting bread into the toaster and cutting open the fruit as he waited.
“You didn’t tell me what was in the fine print.”
“You wouldn’t have signed the contract if I had.”
“Because I’m not a superhero, doofus.”
Leif smiled. “Sure you are.”
“Only to you, and that doesn’t count.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t count? Of course it does. And anyway, when you figure out how to control it, people will be begging you to use it for good.”
“The only good it gets either of us is a good orgasm.”
Leaf snickered.
“I’m serious. I could get someone hurt. I could hurt the good guys. Or fail to hurt the bad guys, and then they could hurt the good guys.”
“It isn’t always about fights, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I have no idea what being a superhero is like. What I’m supposed to do.”
“That’s why I signed, too, dork. You just do what I tell you to, and we’re golden.”
“Are you finished my toast yet?”
Leif handed him the plate. “Your green goo, your majesty.”
This time when Bjorn ran his fingertips down the side of Leif’s face and over his shoulder, there was no doubt he was one hundred per cent in control of the output. It zipped along Leif’s skin, light and fast, made his stomach muscles tighten, and his balls tingle.
“Jerk,” he muttered as he adjusted his jeans.
Bjorn winked and bit into his toast. “But I’m your pretty idiot-jerk, right?”
“Obviously.”
Bjorn could have cut and crushed his own avocado, buttered his own bread. All he really needed Leif for was the actual touching the toaster bit. But Leif did it all, and that’s how they worked.
Bjorn swept and dusted and tidied and cleaned the toilet because he couldn’t ruin anything with those tasks, and Leif kept them fed. There had been a few mishaps early on with the dishes, before they figured out that a metal sink full of soapy water was no place for the hands of a man who couldn’t control the flow of electricity through his body.
So Leif washed and Bjorn dried and put away. After a decade, they’d figured out what worked, domestically. Bjorn thought it might take the rest of his life to figure what he would do if Leif ever found a guy he wanted to be with, and left Bjorn to look after himself.
If the worst thing about them was that Leif didn’t cuddle after sex, or call himself Bjorn’s boyfriend, then really, he didn’t have much to complain about.
“Hello.” Leif snapped his fingers, bringing Bjorn back to the present. “I’m moving my physio appointments to the evenings so we can ride in together from now on. I walked over from their office today, and it was hella long. I don’t want you to have to do that all the time.”
Leif’s physiotherapist was on the street-level of their apartment building, but since his appointments were first thing in the morning, it had left Bjorn to walk to their new job on his own. He didn’t dare take the bus alone in case he shorted something out trying to pay or ring the bell for a stop.
Driving, of course, was out of the question for Bjorn, and not just because they couldn’t afford a car.
“I didn’t mind,” Bjorn said, because really, he didn’t mind. Walking wasn’t that big a deal.
“Not now, sure, but you will when it’s thirty below.”
He had a point.
“This way, we take the bus together in the morning, and home at night, and I just stop downstairs, do my thing, then come up to make food. You can shower while I’m being tortured.”
The physiotherapy he endured three times a week kept his back mobile after the accident in college that had nearly killed them both. It had triggered Bjorn’s so-called gift, and almost paralyzed Leif. Why his friend stuck around after that, he had no idea, but he wasn’t brave enough to question it. Just in case.
He certainly was not about to ask Leif to be his chauffeur on top of the rest, so bussing and walking had been what worked.
When they’d cleaned the apartment, Leif made more toast, some with fresh avocado Bjorn had run to the market for, and some with Cheese Whiz for himself. Like they did most nights, they ate it on the couch with the television on.
This time, Leif fell asleep on him, and Bjorn amused himself by shooting sparks across the room, trying to see if he could hit the far wall. He didn’t want to wake Leif up to turn off the TV or dislodge him to go to bed himself.
Accidental cuddling was better than no cuddling.
When he did manage to toss the sparks far enough to bounce off the wall, the lights and television flickered.
Leif reached up, redirected his out-flung arm to point at the wall between the bedroom and the living room, and yawned. “That wall. No wires.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Bjorn delicately shifted to put more weight on his left ass cheek. “Did I wake you?”
“No. Wasn’t asleep, exactly.”
So maybe not-so-accidental cuddling? Bjorn didn’t say anything lest he draw too much attention to the fact that although he’d pushed himself upright, Leif had stayed close enough to lean.
After a few more minutes, Leif sighed. “I was thinking.”
“About?”
“What if they send you on a mission, but they don’t send me with you?”
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m not going anywhere without you, boyo. And anyway, how would they? Not like they can put me on a plane or something. I’m not even sure why I’m there. There’s only one time I can really control it, and I sure as shit am not using it that way on anyone but—” He clamped his mouth shut.
Leif chuckled a filthy chuckle.
“But I’m serious,” Bjorn said after a minute. “I’m dangerous otherwise. Only reason I’m not going around accidentally zapping everything and everyone is because of you.”
“Not true.” Leif turned himself so he was sitting cross-legged and facing Bjorn. “You’re fine even without me.”
“No.”
“Bjorn—”
Bjorn got up. “I’m going to bed.” If this whole superhero thing was Leif thinking about getting rid of him, he didn’t want to know.
“Bjorn!”
“Night.”
He went into the bedroom and closed the door. Most nights Leif slept on the couch anyway. This was the first time Bjorn deliberately shut him out.