Big Damn List fic, and pimping.
Title: Sanguine Suspicion
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Booster/Beetle, J'onn
Prompt: "Red"
Word Count: 2115
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: ...I'm not above using cliches. They're cliche because people like them. (Though to my knowledge, this hasn't been done with Boostle yet.)
Unbetaed and sleep deprived. Please to be pointing out any typos, thank you.
Sanguine Suspicion
They found him laying on a cot in a barely-lit back room. The top of his suit was missing, though his cowl remained. He was conscious and clearly surprised to see them.
"...Booster?" Beetle asked, sitting up.
Booster quickly scanned the room and, finding no shadow-lurking bad guys, grinned at his friend. "Came to spring you, pal."
"Hurry up, Booster!" Fire called from further down the hall. "There's more this way and they're cranky!"
"Can you walk?" Booster asked Beetle hurriedly.
Standing, Beetle said, "Walk? No. Run? You bet. Let's book!"
So they did, while Fire covered for them by making the other end of the hallway an impenetrable inferno.
---------------
Things didn't get weird until after they were all safely aboard the Bug again and headed home, freaky cult members aside.
During the ride, Beetle noticed the cut on Booster's neck from one of the more enthusiastic, and long-nailed, cult members. "You're hurt," he murmured, sounding more fascinated than concerned.
That pissed Booster off. They had gone to all the trouble of rescuing his sorry butt from the crazy cult, who may or may not have worshiped bats, which was just perfect because no one knew where Batman was or how to reach him...and now Beetle was-- "Ow!" Booster swatted Beetle's hand away from his neck and glared at him. The man had just poked his wound. "Yes I'm hurt, and no poking it doesn't help! Did they dope you up or something?"
Beetle looked up from his mesmerized staring at the smudge of blood on his finger. "It's so red," he said earnestly.
"...Okay, that sounds doped up. J'onn!"
"Not now, Booster."
"But--"
"Not now!"
Booster slumped back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and sulked. "Beetle's doped," he muttered sourly, voice too low for anyone to really hear.
Then he swatted Beetle's hand away from his neck again.
---------------
Of course, once they got back and Booster's oh so fascinating neck wound was safely bandaged up, Beetle stopped acting doped up. And was, in fact, confused by Booster's insistence that he had been acting so.
So everyone told Booster to quit screwing around and Booster sulked some more.
Beetle didn't remember much from his brief stay with the possibly-bat-worshiping cult, but was pretty sure there hadn't been either torture or orgies involved. Aside from that, no one had gotten seriously hurt or sued, so all in all it was considered a job well done and very little further thought was given to the kidnapping and rescue.
Later it would be remarked how very stupid that was.
---------------
It wasn't later yet that night when Booster woke from a sound sleep to find Beetle staring at him.
"Yah!" Booster yelped, trying to sit up and fling himself away from the man at the same time. He ended up tangled in the bedsheets and eventually stopped flailing to assess the situation. "Beetle?"
It was dark in the room, but Booster's eyes were adjusted to it so he could make out some details. Beetle was out of costume and in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and Booster was pretty sure he could make out the white glint of teeth from a grin.
"Hi," Beetle said, then looked down. His body language was uncertain and shy, and Booster managed to sort out the sheets enough to sit up and look at him closely. "Um...."
"What's up?" Booster asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning.
"I don't--I'm not--I--" Beetle stammered for a moment, then stopped and seemed to make a decision, spine straightening. Taking a deep breath, he bent down to rest his hands on the bed on either side of Booster's legs, holding himself up as he leaned over and tentatively brushed Booster's lips with his own.
Oh. Well that was...that was very okay. That was a perfectly logical reason for Beetle to be watching him sleep in the middle of the night, though if Booster stopped to wonder how long he'd been watching it kind of dipped over into the realm of kind of creepy. So Booster didn't stop to wonder. Instead, he reached up to wrap his arms around Beetle's neck and slowly laid back down, pulling the man with him.
As Beetle's weight settled over him, Booster's hands wandered down to tug at his shirt. Shifting, Beetle helped him and the shirt was soon tossed aside as their bare chests met.
Beetle slid his hands up and down Booster's sides, then down under the covers. He paused for a moment before staring at him dazedly and saying, "You're naked."
"I sleep naked," Booster stated the obvious.
Moaning quietly, Beetle pressed his mouth to Booster's as his fingers curled around between the bed and Booster's naked butt. They both seemed to reach the conclusion at the same time that the sheet was very much in the way and should be elsewhere as soon as possible. Then it was realized that Beetle was still wearing sweats, and again unanimously decided that they were in the way.
Then there was more kissing, deep and wet and kind of dirty, and touching, hard and insistent, and full-body contact. There was also a dull pain in the side of Booster's neck, which he realized a moment later was from Beetle peeling the bandage off his battle wound. Another moment later there was the hot, wet sensation of Beetle licking it. Like he was trying to heal with the power of his saliva or...something.
It was a little odd, but Booster wasn't going to say anything because it also felt pretty good. And the sucking, the sucking was pretty good too. The biting not so much, but Beetle's hand was on his cock and Booster decided to just go with it.
Everything blurred into a haze of rubbing and sliding and sweat and heat and pleasure, and at one point Booster thought Beetle might've hissed "Mine" in his ear though he couldn't be sure, but if he had then Booster had babbled back an agreement, and they were freefalling, gasping and holding each other.
As they dozed off, messy and sated and wrapped up in each other, Booster sleepily wondered if he should try to find and reapply the bandage. He quickly dismissed the thought when Beetle contentedly lifted his head to kiss him, languid but sincere.
Later Booster would realized the full impact of what had occurred
---------------
It was about a week after Beetle first snuck into Booster's room to nervously but effectively seduce him that Booster went to see J'onn, and later was finally set into motion.
Aside from having more sex than he had in a while, he had been noticing little things during the week. Most of them seemingly innocuous on their own, but when fitted together like puzzle pieces they started to form a suspicious picture. Like a picturesque but ultimately uninteresting panorama of a lake, where you were pretty sure that one of the missing pieces contained the Loch Ness Monster.
"J'onn?" Booster asked hesitantly. The Martian was already cringing, and he wasn't sure if it was because J'onn was reading his mind or if he just really didn't want to be bothered.
"What is it, Booster?" J'onn sighed.
"Um...do vampires exist in this time?"
There was a long pause as J'onn slowly put down his book, thick brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
Booster fidgeted. "Well, it's just another medical condition in my time, but I wasn't sure if you had it here yet."
"Just another--Booster, why do you want to know?"
Eyes focused on the ceiling as he twiddled his fingers together, Booster mumbled, "'Cause I kinda sorta think maybe Beetle might be one (either that or he's just really kinky) 'cause I think he's been sucking my blood."
J'onn stared at him. "How can you not know if he's been sucking your blood?"
"Well I wasn't really paying attention at the time," Booster said, rolling his eyes.
"Still, surely you would have noticed."
"I just thought he was a biter!" Booster defended himself, shrugging helplessly.
J'onn stared at him again. Then he slowly closed his eyes and winced, bringing a hand to his forehead as he realized just why Booster hadn't noticed sooner.
"I really didn't need to know that," he muttered.
---------------
As it turned out, a test revealed a mysterious virus in Blue Beetle. Since it was mysterious and therefore previously undocumented, there was no known cure.
Luckily, it didn't appear to be contagious, latching onto Beetle's cells and for the most part staying away from his bodily fluids. At Booster's obvious relief on hearing that, there was a sudden spate of awkward looks and uncomfortable fidgeting, except for J'onn who just looked pained and put-upon.
The main symptoms of the virus appeared to be an increased sensitivity to UV rays and a decrease in production of certain necessary chemicals. So while Beetle didn't catch fire when exposed to direct sunlight, he did sunburn faster. The reason no one had noticed was that Beetle's internal clock had gotten a little thrown off during his kidnapping and he had been sleeping during the day ever since. And on the rare occasions when he was out and about during the day, he was wearing his costume, which covered most of his skin. His goggles, apparently, filtered and lessened the strength of UV rays.
As for the blood-drinking supplementing his regular diet, Beetle hadn't actually noticed. It wasn't much, not even close to half the amount given for a blood donation, but it apparently took care of the nutritional deficiency the virus caused. When asked why he hadn't noticed anything odd about his sudden urge to drink Booster's blood, Beetle had blushed and muttered something about the heat of the moment.
His pronouncement was met with more awkward looks and uncomfortable fidgeting.
Then, of course, came the realization that the loony possibly-bat-worshiping cultists had probably had the virus as well. (No one except Booster seemed entirely comfortable using the word "vampire" to describe the situation.) Which actually explained a few things, and also apparently irritated Beetle when he realized the cut on Booster's neck had been from someone wanting to drink the man's blood.
With no real hope of a cure, there came the discussion of what to do about Beetle's condition. The sensitivity to sunlight hadn't been an issue yet, but if it did it was assumed that a strong enough sunblock would be effective in keeping Beetle from burning. The regular craving for small amounts of blood, on the other hand, wasn't as easily dealt with.
A few pints of type O blood were kept on site in case of emergency, so a unit was offered to Beetle. He just stared at the cold bag blankly for a while before giving them a look that suggested he thought they had to be kidding. Despite the fact that his body needed another dose of blood, apparently the pint held no interest to him. The craving didn't seem to understand why it was being offered that blood when Booster was right over there.
Taking the pint from Beetle, J'onn said, "We could try heating it." At Beetle's look of disgust, he frowned. "Maybe not."
"Can't we just keep doing what we've been doing?" Booster suggested.
"I like that plan," Beetle agreed, pointing at Booster. "Can we do that plan?"
After a while it became clear that Beetle's craving wasn't for blood, but for Booster's blood, specifically. Which raised the question of why. They discussed the matter at length, tossing about theories of psychological elements, certain needed properties specific to Booster's blood, adaptation of the virus to the first blood type offered, and so on.
It took them quite a while to notice that Beetle and Booster had disappeared some time during the discussion.
---------------
Sprawled out lazily in bed, Booster stared up at the ceiling as he caught his breath. Curled around his side, Beetle was still sucking at his neck. Not, however, for the purpose of drinking his blood. Beetle had already had his fill.
"I think this plan could work," Booster said finally.
Beetle let go of his neck to lift himself up and look Booster in the eye, a wrinkle of concern between his eyebrows. "You're sure you're okay with this?"
"We have sex every time you get hungry," Booster summarized, smiling. "Yeah, I'm okay with it."
"Well, we don't actually have to have sex--"
"We have sex every time you get hungry," Booster interrupted firmly.
Beetle grinned. "Of course. Good plan."
With a nod and a stern look, Booster suddenly returned the grin and pulled Beetle down to kiss him.
Definitely a good plan.
-----
On a completely unrelated note, I'm going to pimp The Justice League List of Things That Aren't Allowed (second generation), as written for the Mullet-verse.
Speaking of the Mullet-verse, I also recently wrote crackfic by the name of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky, which I didn't post here because it contains no Boostle. It does, however, contain a little about Junior's relationship with Andy, among other things (like porn!).
So there they are, and now my pimping's done.
Fandom: Justice League
Characters: Booster/Beetle, J'onn
Prompt: "Red"
Word Count: 2115
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: ...I'm not above using cliches. They're cliche because people like them. (Though to my knowledge, this hasn't been done with Boostle yet.)
Unbetaed and sleep deprived. Please to be pointing out any typos, thank you.
Sanguine Suspicion
They found him laying on a cot in a barely-lit back room. The top of his suit was missing, though his cowl remained. He was conscious and clearly surprised to see them.
"...Booster?" Beetle asked, sitting up.
Booster quickly scanned the room and, finding no shadow-lurking bad guys, grinned at his friend. "Came to spring you, pal."
"Hurry up, Booster!" Fire called from further down the hall. "There's more this way and they're cranky!"
"Can you walk?" Booster asked Beetle hurriedly.
Standing, Beetle said, "Walk? No. Run? You bet. Let's book!"
So they did, while Fire covered for them by making the other end of the hallway an impenetrable inferno.
---------------
Things didn't get weird until after they were all safely aboard the Bug again and headed home, freaky cult members aside.
During the ride, Beetle noticed the cut on Booster's neck from one of the more enthusiastic, and long-nailed, cult members. "You're hurt," he murmured, sounding more fascinated than concerned.
That pissed Booster off. They had gone to all the trouble of rescuing his sorry butt from the crazy cult, who may or may not have worshiped bats, which was just perfect because no one knew where Batman was or how to reach him...and now Beetle was-- "Ow!" Booster swatted Beetle's hand away from his neck and glared at him. The man had just poked his wound. "Yes I'm hurt, and no poking it doesn't help! Did they dope you up or something?"
Beetle looked up from his mesmerized staring at the smudge of blood on his finger. "It's so red," he said earnestly.
"...Okay, that sounds doped up. J'onn!"
"Not now, Booster."
"But--"
"Not now!"
Booster slumped back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and sulked. "Beetle's doped," he muttered sourly, voice too low for anyone to really hear.
Then he swatted Beetle's hand away from his neck again.
---------------
Of course, once they got back and Booster's oh so fascinating neck wound was safely bandaged up, Beetle stopped acting doped up. And was, in fact, confused by Booster's insistence that he had been acting so.
So everyone told Booster to quit screwing around and Booster sulked some more.
Beetle didn't remember much from his brief stay with the possibly-bat-worshiping cult, but was pretty sure there hadn't been either torture or orgies involved. Aside from that, no one had gotten seriously hurt or sued, so all in all it was considered a job well done and very little further thought was given to the kidnapping and rescue.
Later it would be remarked how very stupid that was.
---------------
It wasn't later yet that night when Booster woke from a sound sleep to find Beetle staring at him.
"Yah!" Booster yelped, trying to sit up and fling himself away from the man at the same time. He ended up tangled in the bedsheets and eventually stopped flailing to assess the situation. "Beetle?"
It was dark in the room, but Booster's eyes were adjusted to it so he could make out some details. Beetle was out of costume and in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and Booster was pretty sure he could make out the white glint of teeth from a grin.
"Hi," Beetle said, then looked down. His body language was uncertain and shy, and Booster managed to sort out the sheets enough to sit up and look at him closely. "Um...."
"What's up?" Booster asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning.
"I don't--I'm not--I--" Beetle stammered for a moment, then stopped and seemed to make a decision, spine straightening. Taking a deep breath, he bent down to rest his hands on the bed on either side of Booster's legs, holding himself up as he leaned over and tentatively brushed Booster's lips with his own.
Oh. Well that was...that was very okay. That was a perfectly logical reason for Beetle to be watching him sleep in the middle of the night, though if Booster stopped to wonder how long he'd been watching it kind of dipped over into the realm of kind of creepy. So Booster didn't stop to wonder. Instead, he reached up to wrap his arms around Beetle's neck and slowly laid back down, pulling the man with him.
As Beetle's weight settled over him, Booster's hands wandered down to tug at his shirt. Shifting, Beetle helped him and the shirt was soon tossed aside as their bare chests met.
Beetle slid his hands up and down Booster's sides, then down under the covers. He paused for a moment before staring at him dazedly and saying, "You're naked."
"I sleep naked," Booster stated the obvious.
Moaning quietly, Beetle pressed his mouth to Booster's as his fingers curled around between the bed and Booster's naked butt. They both seemed to reach the conclusion at the same time that the sheet was very much in the way and should be elsewhere as soon as possible. Then it was realized that Beetle was still wearing sweats, and again unanimously decided that they were in the way.
Then there was more kissing, deep and wet and kind of dirty, and touching, hard and insistent, and full-body contact. There was also a dull pain in the side of Booster's neck, which he realized a moment later was from Beetle peeling the bandage off his battle wound. Another moment later there was the hot, wet sensation of Beetle licking it. Like he was trying to heal with the power of his saliva or...something.
It was a little odd, but Booster wasn't going to say anything because it also felt pretty good. And the sucking, the sucking was pretty good too. The biting not so much, but Beetle's hand was on his cock and Booster decided to just go with it.
Everything blurred into a haze of rubbing and sliding and sweat and heat and pleasure, and at one point Booster thought Beetle might've hissed "Mine" in his ear though he couldn't be sure, but if he had then Booster had babbled back an agreement, and they were freefalling, gasping and holding each other.
As they dozed off, messy and sated and wrapped up in each other, Booster sleepily wondered if he should try to find and reapply the bandage. He quickly dismissed the thought when Beetle contentedly lifted his head to kiss him, languid but sincere.
Later Booster would realized the full impact of what had occurred
---------------
It was about a week after Beetle first snuck into Booster's room to nervously but effectively seduce him that Booster went to see J'onn, and later was finally set into motion.
Aside from having more sex than he had in a while, he had been noticing little things during the week. Most of them seemingly innocuous on their own, but when fitted together like puzzle pieces they started to form a suspicious picture. Like a picturesque but ultimately uninteresting panorama of a lake, where you were pretty sure that one of the missing pieces contained the Loch Ness Monster.
"J'onn?" Booster asked hesitantly. The Martian was already cringing, and he wasn't sure if it was because J'onn was reading his mind or if he just really didn't want to be bothered.
"What is it, Booster?" J'onn sighed.
"Um...do vampires exist in this time?"
There was a long pause as J'onn slowly put down his book, thick brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
Booster fidgeted. "Well, it's just another medical condition in my time, but I wasn't sure if you had it here yet."
"Just another--Booster, why do you want to know?"
Eyes focused on the ceiling as he twiddled his fingers together, Booster mumbled, "'Cause I kinda sorta think maybe Beetle might be one (either that or he's just really kinky) 'cause I think he's been sucking my blood."
J'onn stared at him. "How can you not know if he's been sucking your blood?"
"Well I wasn't really paying attention at the time," Booster said, rolling his eyes.
"Still, surely you would have noticed."
"I just thought he was a biter!" Booster defended himself, shrugging helplessly.
J'onn stared at him again. Then he slowly closed his eyes and winced, bringing a hand to his forehead as he realized just why Booster hadn't noticed sooner.
"I really didn't need to know that," he muttered.
---------------
As it turned out, a test revealed a mysterious virus in Blue Beetle. Since it was mysterious and therefore previously undocumented, there was no known cure.
Luckily, it didn't appear to be contagious, latching onto Beetle's cells and for the most part staying away from his bodily fluids. At Booster's obvious relief on hearing that, there was a sudden spate of awkward looks and uncomfortable fidgeting, except for J'onn who just looked pained and put-upon.
The main symptoms of the virus appeared to be an increased sensitivity to UV rays and a decrease in production of certain necessary chemicals. So while Beetle didn't catch fire when exposed to direct sunlight, he did sunburn faster. The reason no one had noticed was that Beetle's internal clock had gotten a little thrown off during his kidnapping and he had been sleeping during the day ever since. And on the rare occasions when he was out and about during the day, he was wearing his costume, which covered most of his skin. His goggles, apparently, filtered and lessened the strength of UV rays.
As for the blood-drinking supplementing his regular diet, Beetle hadn't actually noticed. It wasn't much, not even close to half the amount given for a blood donation, but it apparently took care of the nutritional deficiency the virus caused. When asked why he hadn't noticed anything odd about his sudden urge to drink Booster's blood, Beetle had blushed and muttered something about the heat of the moment.
His pronouncement was met with more awkward looks and uncomfortable fidgeting.
Then, of course, came the realization that the loony possibly-bat-worshiping cultists had probably had the virus as well. (No one except Booster seemed entirely comfortable using the word "vampire" to describe the situation.) Which actually explained a few things, and also apparently irritated Beetle when he realized the cut on Booster's neck had been from someone wanting to drink the man's blood.
With no real hope of a cure, there came the discussion of what to do about Beetle's condition. The sensitivity to sunlight hadn't been an issue yet, but if it did it was assumed that a strong enough sunblock would be effective in keeping Beetle from burning. The regular craving for small amounts of blood, on the other hand, wasn't as easily dealt with.
A few pints of type O blood were kept on site in case of emergency, so a unit was offered to Beetle. He just stared at the cold bag blankly for a while before giving them a look that suggested he thought they had to be kidding. Despite the fact that his body needed another dose of blood, apparently the pint held no interest to him. The craving didn't seem to understand why it was being offered that blood when Booster was right over there.
Taking the pint from Beetle, J'onn said, "We could try heating it." At Beetle's look of disgust, he frowned. "Maybe not."
"Can't we just keep doing what we've been doing?" Booster suggested.
"I like that plan," Beetle agreed, pointing at Booster. "Can we do that plan?"
After a while it became clear that Beetle's craving wasn't for blood, but for Booster's blood, specifically. Which raised the question of why. They discussed the matter at length, tossing about theories of psychological elements, certain needed properties specific to Booster's blood, adaptation of the virus to the first blood type offered, and so on.
It took them quite a while to notice that Beetle and Booster had disappeared some time during the discussion.
---------------
Sprawled out lazily in bed, Booster stared up at the ceiling as he caught his breath. Curled around his side, Beetle was still sucking at his neck. Not, however, for the purpose of drinking his blood. Beetle had already had his fill.
"I think this plan could work," Booster said finally.
Beetle let go of his neck to lift himself up and look Booster in the eye, a wrinkle of concern between his eyebrows. "You're sure you're okay with this?"
"We have sex every time you get hungry," Booster summarized, smiling. "Yeah, I'm okay with it."
"Well, we don't actually have to have sex--"
"We have sex every time you get hungry," Booster interrupted firmly.
Beetle grinned. "Of course. Good plan."
With a nod and a stern look, Booster suddenly returned the grin and pulled Beetle down to kiss him.
Definitely a good plan.
-----
On a completely unrelated note, I'm going to pimp The Justice League List of Things That Aren't Allowed (second generation), as written for the Mullet-verse.
Speaking of the Mullet-verse, I also recently wrote crackfic by the name of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky, which I didn't post here because it contains no Boostle. It does, however, contain a little about Junior's relationship with Andy, among other things (like porn!).
So there they are, and now my pimping's done.