By Smitty
They straggled into the darkened brownstone, a motley crew if ever there was one. Dinah leaned sleepily on Sand's shoulder. Ted had Kendra on his back, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck. Pieter had excused himself to return to Portsmouth, but Jack was still with them, probably the most sober of the bunch.
"C'mon, princess," Ted said over his shoulder to Kendra. "You're going upstairs."
"I'm turning in, too," Dinah said to Sand and Jack. She leaned over and kissed Sand on the cheek. "Happy birthday, kiddo. Hope it was a good one."
"It was," Sand assured her as she followed everyone else upstairs.
He and Jack stood awkwardly in the darkened vestibule. He felt like he should thank Jack for helping him out earlier that night, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to explain exactly what the thanks was for.
"Let's grab a nightcap," Jack suggested, slinging an arm around Sand's neck and tugging him toward the kitchen.
"Sure," Sand agreed amiably. He'd always considered Jack a friend. Jack wasn't as close to his age as Kendra or Al, but he seemed to understand more about Sand's past and the burden of legacies. Maybe that was because Jack had taken the time to seek him out after Wesley's funeral and all the chaos that came along with it. He'd said that working with Wesley had been the proudest moment of his superhero career and told Sand that Dian Belmont had always been his hero, and now more than ever. He had told Sand about Knight's Past, the junk shop they had funded and Jack ran, and invited him to come by for a visit any time. Sand appreciated these last treasured glimpses of the only family he'd had, more than he could comfortably express.
Jack flicked on the lights in the massive kitchen and immediately headed for the fridge. He swung the heavy door open and stuck his head inside.
"Milk, OJ, wine coolers," he rattled off, "who the hell put those in there?"
"Dinah?" Sand suggested absently, rifling through a cupboard in hopes of finding a box of Cracker Jacks. The JSA put an a monthly online order for grocery delivery and Sand was not proud to say that he paid Courtney to add the Cracker Jacks to the list with her access code and to keep quiet about the whole thing.
"Nah, Dinah drinks beer and whiskey," Jack replied. "Well, whoever they belong to, I'm moving them."
Sand turned at the sound of clanking bottles to see Jack's denim-clad ass in the air. He felt a rush of arousal and let his eyes linger on the sight, Cracker Jacks forgotten in lieu of something much more delicious. Jack was lean, but hard, though Sand had never seen any evidence that he worked out. His butt was high and round and looked firm enough--
God! What was he doing? Sand spun back to the cabinet, turning his back on Jack and searching through the snack food like a man on a mission. Getting turned on by girls and ogling his straight--probably straight--guy friend. He had to be the worst gay man ever, he decided angrily.
"Hey." Jack's voice was clearer. He must have turned from the fridge, but Sand didn't want to show his red face or tight jeans. "If you're looking for the Cracker Jacks, Court and I scarfed them earlier this week. She said you'd be mad, but I told her I'd deal with you." A sharp crack punctuated his words as Jack aimed the necks of the bottles at the edge of the counter. A double hiss and the sound of two bottle caps clattering lightly on the counter followed.
"She--? Oh, I'm going to get her," Sand growled as he slammed the cabinet closed, his annoyance and minor embarrassment at being 'outted' as a Cracker Jack freak abating his more uncomfortable problem.
"Here," Jack offered, holding out a bottle of beer. "Drink alcohol. You'll feel better."
Sand shook his head and accepted the open bottle. Jack's hand lingered for a minute and then he clinked his own bottle against Sand's.
"Happy Birthday," he said, before taking a drink. He seemed to find something very interesting on Sand's shoulder and Sand was starting to feel a little uncomfortable when Jack spoke again. "You have lipstick on your collar," he said, a faint grin creeping over his mouth.
"The hell?" Sand tried to look at his own collar and then just gave up and unbuttoned it. He sat his beer on the table and shrugged the shirt off so he could study the offending mark. "Dammit. You're right."
"Don't worry about it tonight," Jack suggested, pulling up a chair. "Just chill out."
They did, sitting silent in the kitchen for several minutes, taking the occasional drink and just breathing out the night.
"Look," Jack said after a minute. "I wanted to apologize for pushing you at that girl. I didn't mean to put you on the spot."
"Oh. No, it was fine," Sand said automatically, wincing inwardly at the fib.
"Man, it was not," Jack replied with a bit of a laugh. "You looked uncomfortable as hell. I felt like crud."
"Sorry," Sand mumbled, turning his bottle in his hands. The last thing he had wanted was to make Jack feel bad, but couldn't the other man just drop it?
"Don't be sorry," Jack insisted. "I'm sorry. I'm the asshole, I promise. Wesley said you'd had some problems with the um, you know, modern thing. But I'm a bonehead and I wasn't thinking or something."
"You talked to Wesley about me?" Sand interrupted, his brain caught on that one phrase.
"Yeah." Jack looked him in the eye for a long moment, then took a drink of his beer. "There was a picture of the two of you on his desk and I asked about it."
"Oh. I--I didn't know."
"It's not like he told me any deep dark secrets," Jack assured him.
"Apparently not," Sand muttered under his breath as he lifted his bottle to his mouth.
"You know," Jack said with a deliberate casualness, "I think Kendra's really into you."
"I think Kendra was really drunk," Sand replied flatly, taking another long drink as he stared off into space. Jack had talked about him with Wesley. What had been said? Obviously not a discourse on his sexual preferences.
"There's a reason they call it liquid courage," Jack told him.
"Look, I'm never going to have a normal relationship, Jack," Sand snapped, his stomach churning with an ache so pronounced he couldn't even identify what spawned it, "so stop trying to play yenta."
So much for liquid courage, he thought sourly. His head swam with thoughts of Doc and the secrets they'd shared and the weary knowledge that Doc was gone and he was lost in a place with a new social order and new mores and new rules that he didn't understand.
"Normal relationship? What's that?" Jack quipped, still annoyingly good-natured and apparently ignoring the yenta comment. "Seriously, man, you can't tell me it's the superhero thing. Not growing up with Wesley and Dian. I mean hell, they gave me faith again. It's rough and all, but--" Jack stopped short. "Unless you're talking about, you know... the sand, uh, silicon, er, sili...coid thing. I mean can you not have kids or you have trouble with..." Jack trailed off, spreading his hands expansively. "I mean not that it's any of my business but--"
Sand had never even thought to wonder about reproduction and his unique physiology and not being able to get it up was far from his problem.
"Jack, you don't understand," he said tiredly, leaning the bottle against his temple. The condensation dampened his skin and cooled the fever he swore he could feel coming on.
"What? Look, obstacles are just that--things to overcome. Anyone who really loves you--"
"Jack, I'm gay," Sand barked out, cutting off the older man's ramble. In the silent beat that followed, Sand realized he was sitting ramrod straight in his seat and slouched back down again, leaning on his bottle. Dammit, he hadn't meant to say that. He put the bottle to his mouth but didn't drink for fear of choking. He wondered how long it would take Jack to a) assert his heterosexuality, b) suggest that maybe he just hadn't found the right woman yet--what woman would that be, Sand wondered idly, all the plausible candidates would probably be lesbians--or c) offer to set him up with Connor Hawke. And those were the good choices.
"So you're gay. So what?"
Sand looked up to see Jack looking at him challengingly over the bottle pressed against his mouth. Jack's blue eyes looked wide and determined.
"So you don't have to deal with it," Sand muttered, looking away. In his peripheral vision he could see Jack roll his eyes, take another gulp, and then put his beer aside.
"Man, you have got to get with the century," Jack announced, getting up from the table. "It ain't about backrooms and family shame anymore."
Sand tightened his jaw as Jack took the two steps necessary to bring him into Sand's personal space and then leaned forward, bracing himself with one hand on the table and the other on the back of Sand's chair. This close, he could smell the slight aroma of ozone and old book leather that seemed to follow Jack everywhere he went.
Jack leaned into him, quick and smooth, and Sand closed his eyes automatically. Jack's mouth came up against his. It was familiar and strange in one flash, the hot strength of a man's mouth against his own again, but not the right man. No, not the same man. Jack was--Jack was Jack Knight. Teammate. Friend. Straight man.
Sand jerked back. surprised.
"What was that for?" he blurted out before his mind caught up with his mouth.
"Oh, I don't know," Jack drawled with his trademark smirk. His blue eyes twinkled at Sand. "Maybe you were just sitting there looking hot and insecure in your Brando-esque jeans and undershirt and it made me wanna do this." With that, he leaned down and licked a straight line across Sand's lips. Sand opened his mouth in surprise and found Jack's tongue slipping inside. Jack supported Sand's head with one hand, crushing their mouths together, while his other hand went exploring. His fingers traced over Sand's collarbone, sliding just under the edge of the thin white shirt.
Sand recovered enough to realize that Jack was still kissing him--kissing him again, really--and that if he didn't want to stop, then Sand didn't want him to either. He felt the pad of Jack's thumb run over his nipple and chuffed out all the air in his lungs, his cock hardening along with the sensitive bud. A tingle started under his skin. One brush wasn't enough and his chest ached for more attention. Realizing his mouth was free, he opened his eyes and saw Jack sitting back, grinning at him.
"Not so bad, is it?"
"Jack...I...I didn't know," Sand stumbled, trying to make his mouth work. He hadn't known Jack was gay too, hadn't known he liked men, hadn't even thought about it.
Much.
Jack leaned forward again and Sand stifled a groan as the other man's mouth pressed against his thin white undershirt and opened around the aching nipple.
"Shh," Jack soothed, his hands, calloused from the rod, sliding over the skin of Sand's stomach, under his shirt.
"Bite it," Sand gasped out, closing his eyes against his own need.
"What?" Jack had lifted his head; Sand could feel his warm breath through the thin cotton but not his wet mouth.
"Bite it," he pleaded, arching into Jack's mouth as the dark-haired man complied. He felt Jack's teeth press and scrape and release and sighed at the shot of pleasure that went directly between his legs. "That's it," he sighed, letting his head fall back over the wooden back of his chair as Jack licked over the bite and moved to repeat the gesture on his other nipple. He reached out blindly and found Jack's hair with the fingertips of one hand, gripping the edge of the table with the other to steady himself. Jack shifted somehow and then his cock was against Sand's, the sensation blunted through two layers of fabric. A moment later, it was gone and Sand nearly bucked up with the loss.
"I don't want to stop here," he heard Jack say in a voice that he'd never heard before, "but I will if you want."
Sand opened his eyes, shifting his view from the ceiling to Jack's face as he forced his head up. Jack's hair was tousled, his mouth swollen, and his eyes hooded. He looked utterly delicious and Sand felt the last vestiges of inhibitions and good intentions slip away.
"Don't even think about it," he replied, not surprised to hear his voice so hoarse.
A gorgeously rakish grin broke across Jack's face.
"Y'know, we really shouldn't do this in here," he murmured in Sand's ear. "We're gonna wind up with an audience.
"Let them watch," Sand grunted, but he shoved himself up in his chair. He wasn't about to perform for the entire JSA and he knew that better than anyone.
"Your room or mine?"
Sand looked at Jack's wide eyes and thought of the landfill of junk in Jack's room, disordering the terrain from the door to the bed.
"Mine," Sand said with a decisive nod.
End Part 2