John woke up regretting the soda he’d had before bed, bolting for the bathroom to relieve himself as fast as he could. He heard the shower and groaned, knocking loudly.
“Yeah?” Derek called back.
Jeeze. The guy’s always in the shower! John thought, irritated. Derek sometimes took two showers in a single day. “I gotta go, Derek!”
“So?”
“So I gotta go now!”
The shower stopped and a few seconds later Derek opened the door, still wet from the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. His tattoos and scars stood out in stark relief to the heat-flushed skin and for a second, John was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the man. He blinked up at Derek, unable to remember why he’d interrupted in the first place.
“You’re the only kid I know who cares about having the bathroom to himself,” Derek muttered, shaking his head and brushing passed him.
John darted into the bathroom, closing the door and barely making it to the toilet in time, shoving down his sweats. Breathing a deep sigh of relief as his bladder emptied, he stood there and thought of nothing until his body was done. After cleaning up, his mind arbitrarily flashed to naked Derek walking by him; the strong scent of the soap John had stolen for him, the beads of water slowly dripping down his broad chest, short hair sticking up.
John froze when he realized the replay had caused his dick to harden a little. Swallowing nervously, he muttered, “No freakin’ way,” and splashed cold water on his face before leaving the too-warm bathroom. He was just stressed and horny and still waking up, that was all. Returning to his bedroom, John flopped onto his bed and put the pillow over his head to block out the growing sunlight.
He’d just managed to fall asleep again when a knock on his door and his mother’s, “Get up, John!” jolted through him. Groaning, he tossed the pillow aside and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling a few minutes. He gave into the inevitable and climbed out of the bed, grabbing jeans, boxers and t-shirt before heading to the shower.
Breakfast was uneventful and he fell into step with Cameron, still thinking about the weirdness of the morning.
“Are you all right?” Cameron asked as they waited for the bus.
John nodded absently. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing.”
“The human mind never thinks about nothing,” Cameron observed. “I believe you are simply trying to dissuade me from getting you to talk about your problem.”
John glared at her and said, “I don’t have a problem!”
The bus showed up before she could question him further, thankfully. He deliberately sat as far from her as possible and then went into the school on his own, glad she didn’t wait. He wondered briefly what she did all day, since she wasn’t actually learning anything. School was busy enough that John actually forgot about the incident, pushed aside to deal with real tests and a bully who didn’t know when to back down.
Somehow, John had managed to get a rep for helping out kids who were in danger of getting their asses kicked. And it wasn’t just the gay boys, either. Word had spread that he was an equal-opportunity defender and he found himself regularly finding ways to ‘persuade’ the aggressive types not to give in to their need to pummel the weaker kids.
He’d taken Derek’s words to heart and used his mind a lot more than his fists. The first couple of times, he’d had to take down his targets, but after that, threats did most of his work for him. That and the promise of random tech failure. It turned out that being a nerd had real benefits, because everyone knew that he could totally waste their harddrives, iPods, and blackberries without leaving any trace.
John was still waiting for
Cameron to call him on the whole thing, or rat him out to Mom as ‘risking the
mission,’ but so far nothing. He knew that she knew,
there was no way she couldn’t since Morris had brought it up a couple times at
lunch. Actually… John stopped short as he thought, Maybe Morris started this whole thing as a kind
of referral system. I saved him in shop and then he saw me in action at the
mall…
“I am so going to kill him,” John muttered, shouldering his backpack and starting to walk again.
Cameron stepped up to him and asked, “Kill who? Should I assist?”
Rolling his eyes, John said, “Your boyfriend Morris, and no. It was a figure of speech.”
“Morris is not my boyfriend,” Cameron replied.
John snorted and told her, “He follows you everywhere and buys you things you don’t want. Plus? How much you want to bet he asks you to the prom? He’s your boyfriend.”
She frowned, but didn’t seem to object to the notion.
They reached the bus then and got inside. John pulled out his trig book for the ride home while Cameron sat beside him quietly. Once he got there, he tossed his backpack on his bed and then found Derek out by the car. “Hey, Derek.”
Wiping his hands on his jeans, Derek straightened and smiled at him. “Hey John.”
“Think you could work out with me?” John asked.
Derek frowned and asked, “What brought this on? Trouble at school?”
John shook his head, even though he really wasn’t sure what had brought it on. Deciding on something that was true enough not to raise questions, he explained, “We haven’t done much training lately and I know Mom’s busy, so I don’t want to bug her about it.”
“What about Cameron?” Derek questioned.
Rolling his eyes, John told him, “The last time we worked out together, I nearly dislocated a shoulder because she thought I wasn’t trying hard enough.”
Derek muttered something under his breath and then said, “Sure. Get changed while I wash up.”
Again with the shower, John thought, half-smiling to himself.
Derek caught the look, though, because he asked, “Problem?”
“No, just, you take a lot of showers,” John commented.
Face darkening, Derek looked away before he said, “That’s because I was dirty for almost twenty years straight.”
John instantly felt like a jerk. It was too easy to forget that Derek had lived through hell for years. He was way too well adjusted for someone who’d gone through what he had. Mom had mentioned waiting for the PTSD to hit and John wasn’t all that sure she was wrong to worry about it. He finally just said, “Sorry.”
Derek clapped him on the shoulder and assured him, “No problem. I’ll meet you out back in fifteen.”
“Sure,” John agreed.
It wasn’t a big surprise that Cameron joined them not two minutes after they’d started. But she stayed off to the side and didn’t interrupt, so John didn’t have the heart to banish her. Derek hadn’t been quite as twitchy about allowing her near them lately, so he was hoping that meant the older man was getting used to her presence. Of course, it could just be that he was hiding his true feelings and keeping a supply of thermite handy under his bed, too.
They stretched first and then moved onto forms, running through yoga and Aikido until John felt loose and limber. Curious, he asked, “Where’d you learn this stuff?”
It wasn’t like there would’ve been classes of it in the future, after all.
“Well, I already knew yoga when Judgment Day came,” Derek admitted with a small grin. “Great way to pick up girls. As for the Aikido, well, you taught me.”
Surprised, John blinked a couple of times and said, “Okay. That’s just weird.”
Derek laughed. “I know. C’mon, let’s see what you’ve got, kid.”
They faced one another and bowed before sparring. It went back and forth for a good five minutes as they sussed out each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Derek easily had the longer reach and greater strength, but John was faster and seemed to think quicker on his feet, trying things in strange combinations. He didn’t know how long they spent, feinting, spinning, flipping, and kicking, but John’s body protested the hard use before they were done.
Derek seemed tireless. Sweat dripped down his face and soaked his t-shirt, but there was no visible difference between his first moves and the ones at the end. It wasn’t until John made a stupid mistake in overreaching that he discovered how powerful Derek truly was. One second he was mentally screaming, “Stupid! Wrong!” and the next his uncle had flipped him ass over teakettle, but somehow cushioned his fall, too. He didn’t wind up gasping for air and blacking out from the impact, which was what that particular move did.
Or, what he was designing it to do. He hadn’t actually tried it out on anyone yet.
Blinking up at the small smile on Derek’s face, John caught his breath and asked, “I teach you that?”
“Yep,” Derek confirmed, grinning. “Surprised you fell for it.”
“Well, I haven’t worked it all out yet, but seeing it in action sure as hell helped,” John explained. He was suddenly and intensely aware of Derek’s large hand cradling the space between his shoulder blades and the other’s nearness.
Maybe sensing the shift, Derek knelt back and then helped him up. “You know what your problem is?”
“That you’ve got five inches and forty pounds of muscle on me?” John joked.
Derek laughed as they walked inside and answered, “No stamina. Your wind sucks. We should go running together every morning before school and you should think about signing up for track.”
Thoughtful, John nodded. “You’re like a rock, man. Nothing fazes you. You’re barely even breathing hard.”
Peeling off his soaked t-shirt, Derek replied, “Because I have wind. Build yours up. You’ll see a major change in your tactics and responses when you don’t have to worry about losing air.”
John’s eyes skated over Derek’s chest and his breathing picked up again at the sight, his body coiling in an uncomfortably familiar way. Swallowing against a suddenly tight throat, he jogged out of the kitchen and called over his shoulder, “Shower’s mine first!”
Derek’s laughter followed him out of the room.
John turned the water on cool to wash away the stickiness and then warmed it so his muscles stayed loose. It wasn’t long before he deliberately tried an experiment. He’d always faced things head on and if he had some bizarro kink for incest, even if he’d only just met Derek a couple of months ago, he needed to know.
Sighing deeply, letting himself relax further, John conjured up images of his uncle in the various stages of undress in which he’d seen the man. Pure strength, that was Derek Reese, and it showed in every muscle and scar and tattoo. But he was vulnerable, too, his emotions locked down way too tight, and yet still really close to the surface. John thought about how easily Derek had fought him to a standstill, the loose hold in which they’d ended, surrounded by the other man who’d been close enough to breathe in.
Shuddering as lust spiked through him, John stroked his cock harder, imagining further than memory would bring him. He thought about Derek just silently joining him in the shower. The two of them jerking each other off. Maybe Derek would let him push him up against the wall and just explore his body. Maybe Derek would drop to his knees and his mouth would…
“Shit, oh shit! Fuck!” John moaned, coming right at the thought of his uncle giving him a blowjob.
Panting and shaking as he splattered come over the tiled walls, John raised his face to the stream and whispered, “I am so screwed.”
* * * *
When John got to his bedroom, though, he knew that he couldn’t leave things that way. He felt somewhat sick as he thought about the fact that he was imagining having sex with his uncle. And okay, he hadn’t grown up with Derek and they did, technically, have sex in the future, so maybe it wasn’t really bad for him to be thinking about it anyhow.
Shaking his head, he muttered, “You’re messed up,” and grabbed clean clothes to pull on. A few minutes later, he pulled the laptop onto the bed and wished there was a lock on his door before pulling up a gay porn website.
About a half-hour later, a soft tap at the door scared John half to death, sending his heart skipping several beats. He hurriedly closed the window on his laptop before calling, “Yeah?”
“Dinner in fifteen,” his mother said through the door.
Taking a few seconds to calm down after the near-miss, John had to admit to himself that he had a definite answer. He was hot not just for Derek, but guys in general. The good news, thank God, was that women also made him seriously hot and bothered. He’d scoured several skanky free sites and hacked into a couple of really good restricted ones to come to this realization. He counted it time well spent, even if it he did have to clean his laptop later to get rid of all the adware and spyware that had latched on.
Now that he knew it wasn’t a thing about Derek specifically, or not just Derek specifically, he could deal. He didn’t have to feel like a complete perv, but could blame hormones instead. He hopped off his bed, relieved, and peeked outside the hall before running to the bathroom. As close to the edge as John was from watching so much sex in so little time, it didn’t take long to jerk off. He finished in record time, aiming for the toilet and then flushing away the evidence.
After washing up, he headed for the kitchen and found everyone already there with food on the table. John quirked a grin at his mom and asked, “You cooked?”
“I did not,” she retorted. “Derek cooked.”
Eyebrows rising, John teased, “Should I be worried?”
“Just shut up and eat,” Derek replied, grinning.
Conversation was relaxed and easy for a change. They were in a dry spell of sorts where things were wonderfully normal. John didn’t expect it to last, but fully intended to make the most of it. He helped clean up after, doing dishes with Cameron, and then retreated to his bedroom to do actual homework.
And then it was time for bed, but he could only stare at the ceiling, his mind going over the entire sparring session with Derek, again, and then the shower, again. That, naturally, got him hard in very short order. Sliding his hand into his sweats, John muttered, “Fuck it,” and just let his mind drift. He thought about Derek, but also about the hot cheerleaders at school who wouldn’t have anything to do with him, and a couple of guys from the gay porn site. His mind was just one big happy place as he bit back groans and jerked off.
After he cleaned himself off with tissues, John sighed deeply and fell asleep.
* * * *
John woke when someone shook his shoulder, flailing blindly in automatic fight response. Strong hands caught his arms, trapping them against his own body, and Derek ordered softly, “Easy there, buddy, it’s just me.”
Squinting at his uncle, John asked, “What time is it? What’s going on?”
Derek released him and gave an
obscenely cheerful grin as he answered, “It’s
“What?” John demanded, rubbing his eyes. “Are you serious?”
Derek nodded, still smirking. “Yeah. I talked to your mom last night and she thinks it’s a good idea.”
John summoned enough energy to glare at him and retort, “Of course she does. She’s a sadist, just like you are.”
Chuckling, Derek ruffled his hair and left the room with the reminder, “Ten minutes, Connor, or I’m coming back with ice to drop down your shorts.”
“That’s child abuse!” John called after him.
Groaning, John flopped back on the bed for a couple of minutes and then dragged himself upright. He felt marginally better after splashing water on his face and managed to get dressed and outside in fifteen minutes.
“Took you long enough,” Derek observed, already stretching.
John made a face at him and started stretching. They started out a few minutes later and even though he started at a good clip, John realized that he’d left Derek behind and slowed down. Once they were side by side, he asked, “Why are you going so slow?”
Derek shrugged. “Why are you going so fast? Even in a timed marathon, you have to pace yourself. Unless you’re being chased, distance matters over speed. And actually, especially when you’re being chased. Terminators never tire or stop, so you have to condition your body to the same level of strength. You are nowhere near that, so we go slow and let you adjust. Right now we’ve got a seven mile course, so I think you’ll want to conserve your wind.”
John gaped at him and demanded, “Seven miles?”
“Your mother suggested ten,” Derek countered, grinning.
John groaned and focused on keeping an even pace. Or he tried to, but Derek kept talking to him and expecting answers, which made him short of breath pretty fast. They reached the park in short order and Derek swung onto one of the jogging paths. John had to stop at the two mile mark, a pinch in his side and the start of a Charlie-horse in his calf making him gasp in pain. Derek made him walk around slowly, his hands on John’s shoulders guiding him in small circles.
“You guys okay?” someone called.
John waved at the girl, barely noticing she was pretty, and begged, “Can we stop?”
Derek chuckled and handed him a bottle of water, ordering, “Sip it and keep walking.”
Thankfully, Derek walked in the direction of home, so John figured the run had been cut short. At least until they reached a fork that he hadn’t spotted on the run in.
“Feeling better?” Derek prompted.
John heaved a sigh, but had to nod and handed the bottle of water back. He fell quickly into step with his uncle when Derek started jogging again. The terrain was actually rougher on this path and required all of John attention so he didn’t trip over anything. The Charlie-horse hit faster the second time and he nearly fell on his face when it struck.
Derek caught him when he stumbled, steadying him and then crouching down to take John’s calf in hand. He massaged out the cramp with strong, certain fingers and John breathed a sigh of relief, groaning in pleasure as the pain went away. And then he looked down to realize that Derek’s face was right next to his crotch, a zing slicing through him.
Thankfully, Derek stood right at that second and, apparently oblivious to his affect on John, said, “Okay, let’s head back before you do yourself some serious damage.”
John walked slowly because he wasn’t sure the cramp wouldn’t return a third time. He finally complained to Derek, “You know, I’m in good shape.”
Derek quirked a grin at him and agreed, “You are. Running’s a whole different set of muscles, though, so it’ll take you a while to get up to par.”
Meeting his uncle’s blue-green eyes, John asked, “Every morning?”
“Every morning,” Derek confirmed.
John sighed and thought, Well,
at least I won’t have any energy left over to be inappropriately horny.
Derek gripped his shoulder and consoled, “You’ll get used to it fast, don’t worry. Now come on, let’s start up again.”
They’d reached the fork in the path and John groaned, but dutifully started jogging again. He could only be grateful that they were really on the way home. Thankfully, the cramp didn’t return, nor did the pinch in his side, and they were home in about fifteen minutes. Warm-down was another ten minutes and it was seven by the time they actually went back into the house.
Derek tossed a banana at him and said, “Eat that and hit the shower.”
John caught the fruit and slogged towards the bathroom, completely wrung out. He met up with his mother in the hall and accused, “Ten miles?”
She laughed softly and kissed his sweaty forehead, brushing his bangs off his forehead. “How far did you get? Five?”
He muttered, “Four-ish,” and continued into the bathroom.
The water felt awesome and John sagged against the cool wall tile and just stood under the spray for a solid five minutes, relaxing. He washed up finally and dried off, finishing a scant fifteen minutes after he’d started, the long-established, ‘never know when we need to run’ conditioned into him. Doing his hair took longest, which his mother loved to comment on whenever it would cause the most embarrassment.
John left the bathroom with a towel around his waist and paused, hearing his mother and Derek talking in the kitchen. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he moved over to listen.
“No, I think it’s a good routine for him,” Derek said. “Needs more potassium, though. We should boost his caloric intake all around if I’m going to train with him at night, too.”
His mom agreed, “I’ll pick up some protein mix so you guys can have shakes in addition to the regular meals, but yeah, I’ll start making better food choices when we shop.”
Derek rumbled a chuckle and suggested, “How about I take over the food duties?”
John returned to his room at that, mind whirling. Did they know something he didn’t, or were they just feeding on each other’s paranoia? Had he slacked off too much, focusing on being a kid when he should be in training? Really, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a stable home life and maybe he had been getting soft.
“What’s wrong?”
Jumping at Cameron’s question, John told her, “Nothing,” and went to his bedroom to get ready for the day. He had a lot to think about.