Flash Fire by T.J. Klune

1

Nicky, yes,” Seth Gray groaned, and Nick had never been prouder of himself in his entire life. Granted, he’d also never been more turned-on, and he couldn’t quite focus because all the blood had left his brain and traveled south, but still. Hearing his name come from Seth’s mouth in that way was apparently enough to fry all the remaining circuits in Nicholas Bell’s brain.

Sweat dripped down the back of his neck as he shifted above Seth, who was lying on Nick’s bed. Seth’s glasses were crooked, his bow tie partially undone, his dark hair a mess of curls. His sweater was rucked-up, revealing a sliver of pale skin. Seth’s cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen since Nick had been attacking them for the last twenty minutes. Nick thought they’d gotten this making-out thing down pat.

However, a conundrum now presented itself: stop while they still could, or keep on going into the strange, unknown land of Putting Hands Under Clothes for a Nice Time. They had the house to themselves; it was Saturday and Dad was out to lunch with the Chief of Police Rodney Caplan and Officer Rookie to talk shop. Nick wasn’t necessarily supposed to know what shop meant, but he wasn’t stupid, no matter the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, given certain … actions he might’ve taken last year (or, to be honest, all the other years of his life). He’d seen the posts on social media calling for reform and defunding, people marching in the streets demanding change, and though he’d always been proud of his father, valid concerns were being raised, and rightly so. Dad didn’t talk much about it—at least, with Nick—and neither did Cap or the Rook, no matter how he asked. This frustrated Nick to no end.

Especially since he’d spent the morning with Dad, driving around in the new, unmarked SUV he had been given as part of his job as the lead in the newly formed Extraordinaries Division, listening to music on Nick’s phone he’d connected via Bluetooth when they ran errands. Talk about overkill. Nick treasured the time he had with his dad, but he was certainly capable of side-eyeing the fact that the seats were leather and heated, and for what? To keep Dad’s ass warm while he worked? Seemed like there were more important things to worry about.

Speaking of Dad.

He probably wouldn’t be back for hours, especially if they got a couple of beers into them. Seth had come over to help Nick with his homework (trigonometry again), and they’d promised to stay downstairs, Nick smiling innocently at his father, who had eyed them both up and down with a stern expression. Seth squeaked, as he was wont to do, his abilities to create fire out of nothing be damned.

And they had meant to only do homework. Honest. Nick wasn’t failing or anything, but he had a test coming up that he wasn’t quite ready for, and he wanted to get as much done as he could, seeing as how it was Valentine’s Day and homework was in no way romantic in the slightest. They had plans later with their friends—a double date of sorts—and he’d decided to be responsible. Mature, even.

The problem with that was, of course, Seth. Seth, whose brow had been furrowed as he’d looked down at the textbooks and papers spread out on the table. Seth, who’d been munching on pretzels while saying something about the sides and angles of triangles. Seth, who was quite possibly the hottest dude in existence, so much so that if Nick didn’t put his face on Seth’s face again in the next five minutes, he’d probably die.

“Hey,” he’d said, interrupting what he was sure was the most boring explanation of mathematics in the history of the world. “Can I show you something in my room?”

Seth had wiped the salt from his lips with the back of his hand. “What?”

Nick had leaned forward, chin in his hands. “It’s a surprise.”

“Surprise,” Seth had repeated. He’d sounded dubious, which, okay, yeah, sometimes Nick’s surprises, while well-intentioned, ended up exploding. Literally. But this was going to be a good surprise. With potentially good explosions.

(And since he was always and forever a prude, he’d flushed at his own audacity.)

But he wasn’t to be deterred. He’d stood from the table. “Come on. It won’t take long.” This wasn’t a lie. If it progressed further than it had before, it’d probably be over very quickly.

“Your dad said we couldn’t go upstairs while he wasn’t here,” Seth had reminded him, as he’d stood too.

This was true, yes. But when Nick had reminded Dad that a bedroom wasn’t necessary when it came to getting down to bidness (Nick’s words, which he’d immediately regretted), Dad said he was going to get plastic tarps to cover all the furniture so they didn’t leave boy stains. Nick, of course, had been sufficiently outraged.

Dad had made things worse by taking out an empty spritz bottle from underneath the sink, filling it with water, and saying if it worked on dogs in heat, it’d work on boys as well. And then he’d sprayed Nick in the face.

Nick loved his father more than anything, but he was convinced his sole reason for existing was to ensure Nick would remain a virgin for the rest of his life.

Which was fine with Nick, at least for now. Yes, he had a hot boyfriend who had superpowers and went by the name Pyro Storm, and yes, his body looked amazing when he was in chinos or his Extraordinary costume, and yes, Nick loved making out with said hot superhero boyfriend, but he wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to take it to the next level.

It hadn’t helped that he’d done what he always did when he didn’t know something: he researched it exhaustively. And boy oh boy, was that a mistake. It was confusing being turned-on and also slightly horrified at the same time, especially when he’d come across an article titled “How to Be a Good Bottom” that involved detailed instructions and illustrations about things like the proper way to perform enemas to avoid any side effects, and wearing gloves for prepping so one’s fingernails didn’t cause damage to the interior of the anus.

And that didn’t even begin to cover the wide and terrifying world of being a modern queer man in the twenty-first century and all that came with it. Was he a twink? A twunk? A power top? A power bottom? A bear? An otter? (He didn’t have enough body hair for those last two, but he wasn’t ready to rule anything out yet.) Did the heter-oh-noes have to deal with this? If not, then it was homophobic in ways Nick couldn’t even begin to articulate. How dare straight people avoid these little boxes.

He kept on clicking, and it was about the time he was mired deep in an unintentional exploration of furry culture (people dressed up like wolves and goats and chickens and how awesome was that) that he realized he was probably in over his head.

He was sixteen years old, dammit. He didn’t need to be a power goat twunk. He had ADHD and a healthy libido, which didn’t really leave room for anything else.

Which was why the surprise Nick had for Seth was simply tackling him onto the bed and sticking his tongue down his throat. Seth, for his part, squawked, protested once through a mouthful of Nick, then gave up entirely when Nick bit down on the skin under his ear, which immediately turned him into putty.

Nick was by no means an expert, especially since his first experience had been with a villain who’d ended up trying to kill him, but Seth’s appreciative noises and the grinding of his hips meant he wasn’t too bad, right? And Seth tasted like pretzels, which should not have been as hot as it was. Oh god. What if he had a food fetish? What were they called? Foodies? Shit. What if he was a foodie?

Nick remembered what he’d learned on Reddit about safety and consent. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You have a right to say no, and I will respect that decision.”

Seth laughed quietly. “Really. How generous of you.”

“I know,” Nick said, distracted by the way Seth’s sweater was pulling up even higher. Another inch or two, and his belly button would be exposed. Was that hot? Nick thought it might be, but he couldn’t be sure. Did he have a kink for belly buttons? What a terrible realization to have at this exact moment. He was having a hard enough time knowing he was a foodie.

“Nick,” Seth said.

“I’m not thinking anything weird!” Nick blurted as he looked up from Seth’s stomach. “I don’t want to cover you in chunky peanut butter and eat it off you!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Nick said hastily. “Forget I even said that. Let’s talk about something else. How are you? I’m fine, thank you for asking. Would you like to take off your pants and stay awhile?” But then the idea of having to take off his own pants entered his head, and he couldn’t quite catch his breath. This was both exactly what he wanted and still moving way too fast, all at the same time. He didn’t know how to reconcile the two, and the indecision made his brain hurt.

“Hey, hey,” Seth said, reaching up and grabbing his forearms. “Nicky, look at me.”

Nick did, trying to calm down before he spun out of control. While he wasn’t as bad as he used to be, he was still prone to setting himself off, his thoughts becoming nothing but static, his throat closing, vision tunneling. If he let it go too far, he’d end up with one of his headaches, which would knock him on his ass for a few hours at least.

The medicine he took—Concentra! It’ll help you concentrate!—slowed the worst of the ADHD symptoms, but the headaches had increased in frequency. A side effect, he and Dad had been told, but one he’d have to deal with, given how Concentra was the best thing for him.

He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth as Seth’s grip tightened around his wrists, grounding him. “There you go,” Seth said, brow furrowed in worry. “We’re good, Nicky. Relax.”

“Sorry,” Nick muttered, feeling ridiculous. Of course he’d ruined the moment. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He couldn’t even semi-seduce his willing boyfriend right.

“Nothing to apologize for,” Seth said, letting Nick’s wrists go and rubbing up and down his arms. “You good?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah. Just … you know how it is. I thought about your belly button and then I wondered if I have a kink for belly buttons.” He frowned. “Or something. And then peanut butter got involved, and now here we are.”

“I have no idea what to do with any of that,” Seth said, “but here.” He reached down between them and pulled up his sweater, revealing at least ten miles of taut skin. “How’s the belly button?”

“So good,” Nick breathed fervently. And because he couldn’t not, he bent nearly in half and pressed his lips against Seth’s stomach. When he felt Seth tense, he blew as hard as he could. The fart sound ripped through the room as Seth screeched, bucking his hips, knocking Nick off the side of the bed. Worth it.

“You dick!” Seth snapped at him. “What is wrong with you?”

Nick grinned up at the ceiling from his position on the floor. “I’m trying to blow you!”

“Blow me? You jerk, I’ll show you blow me, just you watch. I’m going to blow you until you can’t even remember your stupid name.”

With that, Seth launched himself off the side of the bed, landing on top of Nick, knocking his breath from his chest. Nick managed to grunt before Seth pulled up his shirt and began to blow raspberries onto Nick’s bare skin. Nick cackled as he tried to shove Seth off him, but Seth was too heavy. “Blow me!” Nick began to chant through his laughter. “Blow me, blow me, blow—”

“Ahem.”

Once upon a time, Nick fell from the top of McManus Bridge, plummeting hundreds of feet toward the pavement in what was surely going to be his messy, awful death, all because of a douchebag Extraordinary named Shadow Star who’d taken Nick’s fanfiction a bit too seriously.

And here, now, for the second time, Nick’s life flashed before his eyes because he was sure this was the end. Only this time, it wasn’t going to be because of impact trauma. No, he was going to die of mortification, because apparently his room had fantastic acoustics, seeing as how the words blow me echoed dully as he and Seth turned their heads at the same time to see Aaron Bell standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, a grim look on his face.

“Um,” Nick said. “It’s not what it looks like?”

“Really,” Dad said flatly. “Because it looks like my underage son is demanding oral sex from his underage boyfriend when they’re both supposed to be in the kitchen doing homework.”

Nick hadn’t known that hearing his father say oral sex would be so emotionally devastating. He did now.

“Oh my god,” Seth moaned, covering his face with his hands.

“Dad!” Nick yelped.

Dad rolled his eyes. “Seth, get off of Nick and get your things. I’m driving you home. Nicky, why don’t you stay here and think about all the sex you’re not going to have. In fact, when I get home, we’ll discuss exactly that.”

“What the hell,” Nick muttered as Seth slid off him. Seth refused to meet either of their gazes as he stood from the floor, cheeks aflame. “Dad, you can’t say things like that.”

“And yet I did,” Dad said, not moving from the doorway, even as Seth tried to push by him. In the end, Seth made himself as small as possible as he sidestepped Dad, back rubbing against the door frame. He didn’t even say goodbye. “I live to make your life miserable. It’s in the job description, kid. When you become a father, you get a manual called How to Screw with Your Child. It’s very informative, and it’s the only type of screwing that’ll be happening in this household for the foreseeable future.”

“I hate everything,” Nick announced grandly as he glared at the ceiling.

No response. Nick turned his head to see an empty doorway. He groaned and sat up, glancing at the photograph sitting on his messy desk. In it, a young version of Nick stood with a beautiful woman, her hair blowing in the wind coming off the ocean as she laid her head on his shoulder. Jenny Bell, his mother, now three years gone.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he asked her picture. “You’re the one who told him he had a sense of humor.”

She didn’t reply.

Nick looked away from the photograph when he heard the front door open. He jumped up from the floor and went to the window, sliding it open. The sounds of Nova City filtered through, loud and obnoxious and comforting. The air was frigid, causing gooseflesh to prickle along Nick’s bare arms. They were supposed to get snow later, the clouds above an ominous gunmetal gray.

He looked down the stone path that led to the street. Seth and Dad were walking toward Dad’s SUV parked in the space in front of the house. “He won’t keep us apart!” Nick shouted, laughing when both Dad and Seth jumped, looking around wildly. “I’ll find you, my beloved! No matter where you are, we will be together. Nothing will ever come between us!”

Dad glared up at him. “Kid, I’m warning you.”

Nick blinked innocently as he leaned forward on his elbows, breath streaming from his mouth in a thick fog. “Why, Father! It’s not my fault if the neighbors hear us and think you’re trying to keep my boyfriend from me.”

Dad slid a single finger pointedly across his throat as Seth looked as if he wished a sinkhole would open up underneath him and swallow him whole. Rude. Nick was being romantic.

But then Seth looked up at Nick and said, “We’ll be together in this life or the next,” and Nick knew it was quite possible they were meant to be.

Dad sighed dramatically before steering Seth toward the SUV.

Unfortunately, it was about this time that Nick realized two things: he was alone in the house and he was still thrumming with arousal.

He didn’t think as he turned away from the window to reach for his phone. He typed in his passcode (Seth’s birthday) and opened the internet browser. He created a new incognito tab just to be safe and typed in his favorite porn site. The screen filled with stills of men in quite a few different positions that should’ve been anatomically impossible. He swiped through until he found his favorite category, a recent addition gaining traction.

Extraordinary porn.

He sat on the edge of his bed, ready to make the most of his time alone. He clicked on the third video on the list, one he was intimately familiar with. In it, a skinny man in a ridiculous costume who went by the name Boner Boy saved a rough-and-tumble dude who worked at an oil derrick that had exploded. However, since the budget for this particular piece of cinema verité didn’t allow for an actual explosion (or an actual oil derrick), it only showed the aftermath: the man covered in artfully placed smudges and most of his clothing ripped off as Boner Boy felt him up under the guise of tending to his fictitious wounds.

Nick hit play, already anticipating the first lines of dialogue.

“You’re safe now,” Boner Boy would say woodenly. “But I should check you for serious injury. Take off your pants.”

“Yes,” Rough-and-Tumble would reply. “You should check very closely as I take off my pants.”

Except no sound came from his phone.

Oh, the actors were doing their acting, and the sex was most certainly happening on-screen, but he couldn’t hear a single thing. Nick frowned, clicking the button on the side of his phone. The volume was already turned up all the way. It should’ve been loud.

He frowned. “Goddammit. I just got this phone.”

A horn honked outside, but Nick ignored it as he lowered the volume and then turned it back up to no avail. Nick was about to throw his phone down and grab his laptop when his gaze darted to the upper right corner of the screen. A little symbol blinked at him—one he knew very well.

Bluetooth.

His phone was connected via Bluetooth to … to …

He raised his head slowly in abject terror. He stood slowly, as if in a dream, and drifted toward the open window as the horn honked again. He looked out to the street below.

The windows of Dad’s SUV were rolled down. Seth’s face was in his hands. Dad was leaning out the window. As soon as he saw Nick, he waved up at him and reached over to the dashboard to turn up the volume of the sound system in the SUV.

“Yes!” Rough-and-Tumble shouted from the speakers, echoing in the street around them. “Superpound me with your Extraordinary penis! Fill me with your superqueero power! Yes! Yes!”

A neighbor looked over at the SUV before practically running away. That certainly wasn’t necessary. What a disproportionate reaction.

Nick closed the tab. Rough-and-Tumble and Boner Boy’s passionate love affair was silenced.

Nick looked back down. Seth was banging his head against the back of the seat. Nick would have felt bad if he wasn’t already filled with fiery outrage. Before he could demand that his father apologize for ruining his life, Dad spoke first, shouting, “Get your coat, kid! You’re coming with us. I think it’s time we had a talk. You. Me. Seth.” He grinned. “Bob and Martha Gray.”

Seth snapped his head toward Dad, mouth hanging open, blood draining from his face.

Nick scoffed. How bad could it really be?