Chapter 17: Juan & Clint

JUAN

At last, they were taking action! The box was eerily quiet, the sounds of the hospital muted. Yet, it didn’t alter the fact that everyone was observing him; he had absolutely ~no~ privacy.

“Do you all have to watch?!” he yelled as he climbed into the bed.

Miktar addressed his medical team. “Auxiliary staff, leave!” he commanded in a muffled shout.

About half a dozen left, but an equal number remained. Juan locked eyes with Miktar, but the doctor simply shook his head.

With a sigh, Juan pulled up a sheet and lifted it up to their chests. Clint’s face was glowing with the Wriling membrane, his eyes closed.

The Wriling didn’t frighten Juan. It didn’t scare him nearly as much as Clint’s suffering. It was just a creature doing what it was designed to do—innocent, instinctive, and unintelligent.

Juan took Clint’s hand and intertwined their fingers. He took a deep breath.

“You need to wake up, Clint. I’m waiting for you.”

He tightened his grip on Clint’s hand, then lifted it to his mouth. He kissed the back of it. Then he snuggled in close, his face pressed into Clint’s neck.

Juan laid his hand on Clint’s bare chest. He could feel his heartbeat—slow and powerful.

He glanced at the crowd of onlookers, then turned back. He needed to ~act~.

Miktar had warned him that there was a chance that once Clint was out of the stasis of the capsule, the Wriling might begin consumption. They were in uncharted territory. Nothing was certain.

Turning Clint’s face toward him, Juan kissed him on the mouth. The Wriling membrane tasted of nothing. It didn’t move, just as they’d all hoped. Just as it hadn’t for Myeong.

~It will be the same. I’ll wake him up.~ There was no response from Clint, his tongue lifeless in his mouth. Clint needed more contact. He needed a deepening of their bond to truly feel their connection.

Once again, Juan looked over at the crowd. He wished they would just leave.

Grabbing the sheet, he pulled it over their heads.

“I love you,” Juan whispered in his ear.

He took Clint’s hand and pressed it to his chest.

“Feel it. I need you to wake up.”

He kissed him on the nape of the neck, then kissed him down the chest. He was naked—and sweaty. The medical capsule had been hot. His body was flushed.

Juan kissed his nipples, then continued down, pausing when he reached his pelvis. Would it even work? What if it didn’t? The thought made Juan’s stomach drop.

He would ~make~ it work.

He kissed both his hips, then the top of his cock. Even unconscious, Clint was well-endowed. He kissed it all the way down its length, then pressed his face into his balls with a sigh.

Even if it wasn’t working for Clint, it was starting to work for Juan. Despite his fears, he couldn’t help it. His own cock pressed hard against his pants. If worse came to worst, Juan could try to penetrate him.

It was uncomfortable with the sheet on top, but Juan did his best to ignore it, gripping Clint’s limp shaft and taking it in his mouth. While he did that, he stroked Clint’s inner thigh, just the way he liked it.

For a long time, nothing happened. No matter how hard Juan tried, he couldn’t seem to get a response.

His heart pounded. A knot tightened in his stomach. It wasn’t going to work. It ~wasn’t going to work.~ What if Clint stayed like this forever?

He pulled away, the air wheezing in his chest as tears filled his throat. Everything was a blur. He tried to look into Clint’s face but couldn’t see because of the sheet. He ripped it away with a snarl.

He glanced over at the aliens waiting outside. They looked tense, their yellow eyes bright.

“Goddamnit, Clint! Wake up!”

Straddling his waist, Juan gripped his shoulders and started shaking him.

“Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!”

Rage like he’d never felt before surged through his body. He could feel the heat rise up his neck.

Juan slapped Clint in the face.

“I hate you for doing this to me. I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!”

Clint’s body shuddered.

“Clint?”

There was no response. Juan adjusted his position over Clint’s hips. It was the anger, he suddenly realized. The ~emotion~. He needed to get angry or sad or desperate!

He shoved at Clint again. He slapped him much harder this time—and it hurt. It hurt to hurt him. Juan felt it like a fist squeezing his heart.

Clint’s eyelids fluttered. The goo on his face shimmered against the lights of the infirmary. No, not shimmered. It was moving!

“Fight it, Clint! Fight it!”

He slapped him again and again and again until Juan could hardly breathe because of the ache in his chest. The tears were rushing down his cheeks. Clint’s body jerked. His eyelids kept fluttering.

There was commotion going on outside their little box, but Juan ignored it. He was so close!

Clint jerked again as Juan reached down between Clint’s legs. He was soft—but he wouldn’t be for long.

“Come on, Clint!” he growled. “Be a man!”

Wriggling down his body, Juan straddled his legs. He leaned over and took him in his mouth again. Within moments, his shaft hardened and swelled, just as hope and excitement made Juan’s heart swell.

Grabbing his hip, Juan sucked him hard. What did it matter who was watching? What did it matter how it looked? Everyone knew what they did behind closed doors.

Juan’s heart was filling just as Clint’s shaft was filling. His heart was thudding in his chest as much as Clint’s erection was throbbing in his hand. The ache to have him inside him properly burned through his pelvis, down his thighs, and into his balls. It was too much. He needed him awake, to respond. It was too painful.

Clint’s body shuddered again. Juan looked up with a start, feeling something grip onto his hair, for a moment thinking of the Wriling.

Juan stared as Clint stared back, his mismatched eyes gleaming. He dropped his arm weakly.

Juan cried out. Distantly, he heard cheering and shouting. Throwing himself over Clint’s prone body, he grabbed his head and kissed him hard on the mouth.

The Wriling was gone. Clint was safe. And he tasted so ~fucking~ good. He didn’t realize he was crying until Clint wiped at his cheeks.

Clint was frowning.

“Why are you crying?”

Juan grinned.

“I’m happy.”

Clint closed his eyes. He smiled. Juan felt a pull in his chest.

“Yes,” Clint said. “But there’s so much more than that.” He sat up so fast he almost dislodged Juan.

“Careful!” Juan said.

Clint stared around him, his eyes wide. They grew wider and wider as he slowly took everything in: the weird plastic box, the hospital wing, the crowd looking in.

“The Wriling had you,” Juan explained quickly. “You’re alive.”

Clint looked at him. Juan felt a swell of horror through their bond as Clint came to understand. He was looking pale now. Juan had never seen his angular eyes so wide before.

Clint touched his face, looked at his hand. He swept his eyes around the room. Then he looked over the side of the bed.

“Shit!” Clint grabbed Juan’s arm in a ferocious grip.

Clint was so fast all Juan had time to do was squawk in surprise. One moment they were on the bed, the next they were standing in the corner of the little box, Juan’s back squashed up against the weird plastic as Clint stood in front of him like a shield.

“Do something!” Clint yelled at the watching crowd.

Juan grabbed his arm. “It’s all right. It can’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that!”

Juan looked around him and saw it. His heart dropped. It really was the most terrifying thing. It looked like a jellyfish flopping around on the floor but with squid-like appendages. They flung outward as fast as rubber bands as it gripped onto the wall and climbed up.

“Jesus!” Juan cried.

Reaching behind him, Clint seized Juan’s hips and guided him toward the “door,” which was little more than a flap near the floor. Outside the box, people were moving. Weapons were raised. He could hear muffled shouting. It was too damn quiet and eerie inside the box. Juan felt a wave of claustrophobia that sent his stomach churning.

“Calm yourself,” Clint hissed. He gripped Juan’s shoulder and pointed toward the exit. A Zibon was standing by it, ready to open it. “Out!”

“You first!”

Clint gritted his teeth fiercely at him, but Juan could feel his weakness. He was barely holding himself up.

“Go!” Juan shouted, shoving him toward the exit.

The Zibon opened it, and he fled through. Juan glanced behind him, but the Wriling kept to its corner, suspended up by the ceiling like a freakish spider. Somehow, he knew it looked sick.

“Hurry!” the Zibon called.

Juan fled through the flap, and the Zibon locked it shut.

CLINT

Clint staggered and fell to the floor. Several people descended upon him amidst shouting.

“We should kill it!”

“No!”

“Are you all right?” a specialist with dark hair asked, crouching beside him. “How are you feeling?”

Other specialists were hooking him up to electrodes, wrapping cuffs around his arms and legs. There was a sharp prick on his shoulder as someone took a scraping.

Clint stared at the specialist. “Drake?”

Drake nodded. “Much has happened since your infiltration.”

Clint swallowed. “My ~infiltration~.” He stared down at his hands in disbelief. Drake scanned him with a cell reader. “But I feel fine.”

“You ~are~ fine,” Drake said with a smile. “~Perfectly~ fine.”

Drake held out his hand. Clint took it, and the specialist helped him to his feet. Despite feeling well, he felt wobbly and dazed amidst all the excitement, as if he’d just woken up from a long sleep.

Clint spun around, searching through the crowd of jostling people. Where had they all come from? “Where’s Juan? Juan!”

“I’m here!”

The Rictorian sidled through the crowd, smiling.

Clint grinned back. Then, Juan was in Clint’s arms—where he belonged. Clint took a deep breath. Now things felt good. Now things were right again. He kissed him on the cheek, then on the jaw, and turned Juan’s face so he could kiss him on the mouth.

He looked into Juan’s eyes. “What have you been up to?”

“You have no idea,” Juan laughed. He grinned and held out a pair of pants. “Here. You might need these.”

Clint snorted as he took them and put them on. He looked around. People were surrounding him: Drake, Quinton, and Miktar. Then he saw the capsules. He turned and saw ~his~ empty capsule. Suddenly, it all came rushing back: the battle, the Wriling wrapping around his face. He grabbed his throat. He’d been suffocating.

“The battle.”

“It’s okay.” Juan grabbed his wrist and squeezed it. Then he reached up to take his chin so he was looking into Clint’s eyes. “It’s okay. It’s over. Well…almost over.”

Clint suddenly felt sick. He staggered over to the nearest medical bench and sat down, his head over his knees. The blood was throbbing in his temples, behind his neck, in his eyes. Juan stood beside him, his hand upon his shoulder.

Clint touched his cheek with a wince. “Why is my face so sore?”

Juan cleared his throat but didn’t answer.

Miktar stood over him. “You need to tell us what happened, what you felt. We need every detail.”

Clint looked up. “Now?”

“Before you forget anything,” Miktar said. He looked over at the other capsules.

Clint did the same. ~So many~. He turned back, swallowing down the vomit rising in his throat.

It didn’t take long. Clint didn’t have much to say. He hardly remembered anything, only flashes of color and incomprehensible images. It was like trying to grasp onto a dream. He ~did~ remember Juan, though. He remembered Juan talking with him as though he’d been whispering in his ear.

Juan gripped his hand and gave it a squeeze.

Drake and Miktar would not allow him to go back to his room. Clint would have fought them had it not been for the thirteen Zibons still stuck in stasis. They wanted to monitor his recuperation in the hopes that the thirteen others could also be saved.

Anything to help.

At least he wasn’t alone. He had Juan—and he had Roco. Clint couldn’t believe it when he saw his friend. He couldn’t believe he was alive.

“Barely,” Roco told him.

“Guess I had it easy,” Clint said, standing next to his bed.

Roco’s dark-haired female was beside him, her little hand firmly encased in his.

“Drake told me what you did,” Clint told her. He looked at Juan and smiled. “What you both did. To save us.”

“We don’t deserve you,” Roco croaked in agreement. He closed his eyes as he struggled against his fatigue. His female companion kissed him on the cheek, then snuggled into him.

Juan squeezed Clint’s hand. “You should rest.”

Clint smiled and reached out to touch Juan’s cheek. He then pressed his forehead to Juan’s. His heart swelled and his hips were pinging with sensation.

“The last thing I want to do is rest.”

Juan smiled. “But you should. I can feel how tired you are. It makes me feel tired.”

Clint sighed. “I’d better do as you say.”