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Laughter bounces between tiled walls, echoes creating echoes.
“--So there’s me in the ditch, in my boxers, the policeman is looking at me like--” For a moment Scott’s voice is completely drowned out by Ted’s thundering laughter.
Booster heaves for breath so hard he wheezes.
“The policeman--” Scott begins again with considerable effort in between his own giggling, but all three of them are too tired at this point, they all crossed the border of sanity long ago: Now just the vaguest idea of an upcoming punchline is sending them into hysterics. Ted’s started to squeak at the end of each peal of laughter, doing his best to get a bit of air in between, and those squeaks are the funniest noises Booster knows, nothing could ever come close, so he can’t help but collapse back and laugh even harder. The motion makes him slip off his seat, into the center of the circular hot tub, and Scott jolts forward to save him before he ducks under completely, and he pulls him bodily back up next to him. The maneuver cracks Scott up even harder, at a higher pitch than either of them, and it feels like they’re never gonna be able to stop.
“No, I --hahh-- I need--! I need to know what--!” Ted chokes out helplessly, teary-eyed, but then inevitably he squeaks on the next inhale, and it sets everyone off again even more than before. They’d have been thrown out of the pool area -- probably thrown out of the hotel -- long ago if anyone else was in here.
They were already worn out, now they’re exhausted, and Booster’s head feels like it’s going to explode, but sitting here sharing stories has made everything -- everything! -- too funny to handle. Too funny to stop.
“So-- So-- In the end--” Scott gasps out, skipping the policeman’s reaction altogether. “In the end I had to play nice, and he took me to the station. They gave me a space blanket --”
The mental image alone makes Booster’s midsection clench even tighter, pitching his laughter high. He can’t take it; the space blanket, the boxer shorts, how Ted’s looking at him now and laughing, and squeaking, and laughing.
“Just -- Okay, just let me tell it!“ Scott pleads in breathless exasperation, but he cracks up almost immediately. “You’re gonna wake up every guest in the hotel!”
“You are!” is all Ted manages to retort in between squeaks.
“No, whu-- wait--!” Booster lowers his head to force two deep-ish breaths, his diaphragm cramping, and somehow he manages to regain a tiny bit of oxygen, manages to steady his voice a tiny bit. “Okay--!” he giggles. “So -- So, fine, you’re at the police station, in a--?”
“And I’m trying so hard to explain, but--” Scott grins, pressing his forearm across his stomach like something's about to burst. “I’m trying to explain that my-- my wife--” He has to force down a few lungfuls of the humid, heated air too, obviously preparing himself for the home stretch. “Like-- ‘Officer-- my wife had a nightmare, and our -- hahh -- our bedroom wall's gone and I… I can’tlosethatbankstatement’!” He barrels through the sentence to finish before he’s overcome by the contagious insanity, laughing so hard his voice cracks, and it’s perfect, it’s even better than Booster could foresee. All three of them are gonna expire right here.
Now Booster is lying diagonally in the floor-level hot tub, helplessly resting his pressure boiler head on the tiled floor behind, and he giggles and gasps and wonders at what point he’s going to pass out from anecdote-induced asphyxiation.
Then slowly, unevenly, with several false starts, Booster and Scott and Ted start fighting their way back to slightly more efficient breathing. Scott is massaging his aching face even as he grins and breaks into occasional giggling.
Ted, meanwhile, is sitting with a hand shielding his eyes, because every time he looks up at either of them he starts tittering again. “Oh my God,” he whimpers, bending his upper body forward in the churning water. “Scott, oh my God! ‘Officer! My wife--!’”
“We’ve gone insane.” Scott inhales in a worn-out gasp, his body so limp he seems close to getting swished around the jacuzzi by the water jets. “It’s happened. They’ll come running in with the straight jackets.”
Booster nods against the tiled floor, eyes aimed unfocused and tear-blurred at the ceiling. “I think– Ah. I think you’re right. All the sane people went to bed, we should’ve been diagnosed when we went down here.”
Three full days of uninterrupted mission time across four countries. By the time the final few members of the (newly formed and apparently already dissolved) Nyxus gang were handed off to the local Nepalese authorities, everyone was wiped. Apparently so noticeably wiped that when they called up Max in New York to give him an update, Max assured them he’d set them up with hotel rooms for the night right here in Pokhara. At this point the League would have been happy with roughly the right number of floor mattresses… But for some reason Max’s contacts has gotten them rooms in the kind of hotel Max might stay in.
The main surprise was how intensely plain and non-fancy it looks on the outside: An unassuming slab of a dirty gray concrete building, with a small, unadorned entrance. But then they walked into the lobby and it was all velvet and gold and real marble, and the size of a royal ballroom. Accommodations for people so rich they don’t want the non-rich to even know it’s there.
Sure, they’ve been debating whether this is just a high-value reward from their boss, or a genuine mix-up he’s going to blow a gasket over when he gets the bill. Tora was particularly worried, and the team spent some time convincing her they definitely shouldn’t call him up again for clarification.
“Ahh, I haven’t called Barda yet.” Scott straightens up, looking back at the door they came in through, next to the gigantic crystal-clear empty pool. “Anyone know the time difference?”
“Uhh. Nine hours? I think.” Ted pauses, rubbing an eyebrow with the pad of his ring finger. His smile is tired, but he seems to be able to look at them now without cracking up. “And-- oh. Is it Nepal with the extra thing? Like an added... twenty minute difference or something?”
Booster shrugs his sore shoulders, offering an apologetic smile. He’s reliably wrong about time zones every time they come up, and by now he’s learned not to weigh in.
“Okay, so --” Scott laboriously works himself upright in the water and starts climbing out of the hot tub with the aid of the metal handrail. “Nine hours maybe, plus or minus something. Which way?”
“Thattaway!” Ted grins, pointing at the door. Scott chuckles and flicks his foot just as he exits the water, splashing him.
“Ohh, I’d already forgotten about the matching swim shorts!” Ted squeaks, and starts giggling again. “We look like... I don’t know, a team about to compete in something.”
“I told you I’m not made for synchronized swimming,” Booster declares, earning another round of laughter.
The hotel lobby has exactly one type of male swimwear available, black and red lycra trunks. Not even for sale; Complimentary when asked for, handed over in a tiny box of clear plastic. It’s hotel service as a carnival game; who knows what they’re willing to hand out for free if you’re rich enough and shameless enough to ask.
“We’ll have to do the choreography some other day.” Scott, dripping on the sand-coloured floor tiles, makes a balletic swoop with his arm as he bows at them. “Time for sleeping or calling wives.”
Ted bows back, not so deep his chin makes contact with the water. “Can I call anyone’s wife?”
“Sure! Just not mine.”
They all share a moment of mutual, exhausted giggling, and then Scott disappears through the exit at the other end of the sizable room. The impact of the closing door sends a subtle ripple through the glass-like surface of the swimming pool.
The funny thing about Scott is that when he reaches the right level of tired, he becomes relaxed and giggly and nonchalant the same way he gets when he’s drunk. He's not too uptight to begin with, of course; just something loosens up a little more.
But maybe that’s true for all of them.
Booster inhales deeply through his nose, then slumps back and lets it all out as a voiced, contented sigh. The water jets massage his sore muscles -- sore both from the mission and the laughing fits. Then, having waited for what he figures is a respectable amount of time since their colleague left, he allows himself to turn his head and look over at Ted with non-professional, non-platonic things on his mind. Not that he’s been able to stop those thoughts from coming these last few days when there’s not been a single opportunity to touch or speak in a non-professional, non-platonic way; But he’s been making an effort to not even letting his gaze linger on Ted, not on the mission, not in the hotel lobby, not in the changing room, and especially not sharing a hot tub along with their friend and teammate.
But now. Finally, after a thousand billion years…
God.
It was worth the wait. He ravenously takes in the sight of Ted sitting there on the other side of the hot tub. The closed eyes, head angled back, and the traces of a smile still pulling at his parted lips as he breathes slowly, deeply. Those strong arms are spread to either side with his elbows resting on the floor behind, offering an unobstructed view of his bare chest, droplets in his chest hair glittering as they move with every long, even breath, over skin flushed pink by the heat. Even the easy, relaxed way he sits in the water, knees casually splayed, fills Booster with an urge to go underwater exploring.
Booster chews his lip. How can anyone take this? That’s how sexy Ted looks unintentionally, that’s his baseline level when he’s not even aware Booster’s sitting straight across from him with all his blood rushing from his head.
He silently shifts along the circular ledge they’re sitting on, scooting closer, just close enough to be able to reach out and touch him. Touch him – where? The possibilities are endless, and tempting, and a lot of them come with little follow-up ideas and scenarios that are gonna stick in his mind for weeks… But Ted’s still sitting there, resting, unaware, sexier than Booster knows how to deal with.
“Teddy,” he murmurs.
“Mm?”
“You’re really-- It's just too-- Can I--” The ideas are overflowing, too many at the same time, and whatever suggestion Booster had in mind when he started speaking can’t be picked out among the others anymore. But also his one still-functional brain cell is telling him the majority are impossible; Some physically, but most of them simply because Ted’s definitely not gonna go for things in a hotel hot tub they’ve never even discussed before. “I, I mean -- If I--”
Ted opens his eyes, already frowning slightly in confusion at Booster’s staccato indecision. Then he sees the way he’s being looked at, and his eyes widen just a bit. “Ah,” he breathes.
Booster can feel a heat rise in his face from how he flubbed that lead-in, now that they finally have a moment alone together. Ted makes him feel like an overexcited, inexperienced teenager sometimes. “I was just thinking, um–” He chuckles with a flushed smile. “We could go to my room if you don’t want anything… in here.”
Wow. Smooth.
There’s a subtle movement to Ted’s head as he looks at Booster, like a tiny side-to-side flick; A no. “Booster. It’s not--”
“You look so good,” Booster murmurs, angling his head down. A man with a full-hearted plea. “You’ve been looking so good all week, and we haven’t had a single moment to ourselves, and now there’s finally a--” He’s about to say ‘a few hours’, but he has no way of knowing what time it is. It was dark out when they arrived at the hotel, but who knows how many hours have gone by; It could be bright day outside by now for all he knows. “--A window...” he substitutes softly. As far as he's concerned, he’ll get there even if all they have is fifteen minutes.
“A window…?” Ted whispers in disbelief, glancing anxiously towards the door. “Booster. We’re here with the League.”
The League, who’ve all gone to their separate hotel rooms, on several different floors. A frustrated giggle escapes Booster, but he regrets it immediately. “We’re always with the League,” he points out as patiently as he can. “We all live together. They’d be farther away here than in the Embassy.”
Ted’s skin, which has been turned an endearing pink by the heat of the water, flushes slightly more red as he looks away. “Oh sure, it’s a matter of distance…!”
“Well, isn’t it?”
Ted huffs, not answering except with a disbelieving shake of his head. And the expression on his face makes Booster realize with a cold flush this isn’t the kind argument he wants to -- or ever could -- win this way. He's really sitting here whining because his partner is sitting there, mostly undressed, looking sexy next to him? He's acting like that's the bad option?
Man, he wouldn’t want fifteen minutes in a hotel room with himself right now.
“I’m -- Jeez, I’m acting like --” Booster murmurs to himself. He turns in the water, fully facing Ted. “I'm sorry. Erase that, I'm just so-- You're right.”
Ted’s still looking away as he wipes his face slowly with a palm, and he groans. “Mm. Too tired to think.” It’s unclear which one of them he’s talking about, or if he means both. He refills his chest, gaze fixed on seemingly nothing. “And me, I, uh... I could have gone, you know, but I didn’t.”
Gone...? “What do you mean?”
Ted glances back for a moment, and his frown eases into a weary, self-conscious smile. “I mean... Just now, when Scott went. It was the obvious opportunity to wrap up, right? Just… Good idea, I need my beauty sleep, let’s go. I got my non-suspicious exit served on a platter.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes, the smirk remaining. “But I… didn’t wanna go yet. I’m so worn out I’m barely conscious but I, uh, I guess I still don’t want to.”
There’s a full-body rush of warmth through Booster’s body, different from the water jets. He looks at Ted, and that smile is so wonderful. Even if Ted might just be exhaustion-drunk right now, like Scott was. “No?”
Ted sits back, shoulders a little lower than they’ve been. “I mean… We’ve wrapped up a mission from hell, we did a great job! Again! Everything by the book. My… jaw’s aching like a bitch after that wallop I took, and I haven’t even been complaining! Much,” he adds when he sees Booster’s about to comment, and it makes Booster laugh. Ted continues, voice rising slightly: “Don’t I deserve a, a single moment when I can unwind in a hotel jacuzzi together with my– with you?”
Booster can tell by the edge in his voice it’s a question he’d like answered, so he takes a moment to think. “Well, I think I deserve it.” He gently places his hand on the ledge, between him and Ted. “And I didn’t even get my bell rung today, so that means you definitely deserve it.”
Ted snorts, still with that weary, handsome smile.
“But, um, just so we’re on the same page...” Booster ventures slowly, with care. “It’s the kind of unwinding where you… don’t want things to happen.” He says it as neutrally, as sympathetically as he can, not even as a question, because it’s become very important to him that Ted doesn’t think he’s expecting or demanding anything. He can wish with his entire being, sure, but that’s it.
Ted makes an odd noise and shifts his position, suddenly becoming very interested in the mortar along the tiles between them, scratching at it with his thumbnail. “I mean, I’m… God, I’m not making this any easier for myself, I know that.”
Booster waits for clarification, but Ted only frowns down at the mortar-picking he’s engaged in, although it seems it’ll only wear down the fingernail and not the mortar. “Which means…?”
“It means, uh...” Ted empties his lungs through his nose, which takes a while. “It means no, I don’t wanna get, uh, carried away in… in an unfamiliar place, when we don’t know how much time we’ve got until we’re meant to leave, with our team. But I guess--” The S whistles between his teeth. “--I somehow figured this is… the next best thing. For the moment. While we’re here.” He glances quickly at Booster’s face, a self-conscious smile which makes a few pieces fall into place, and only makes Booster’s body feel tighter and hotter than before.
“Aha,” Booster breathes in appreciative realization.
“I mean, there are no rules against… enjoying the view while talking,” Ted murmurs, tired, conspiratorially. Then he adds, louder, “Also a top-tier jacuzzi is a top-tier jacuzzi, come on. This is a high-class experience right here!”
“Definitely.” Booster grins, leaning back again, resting his arms and letting his fingertips dangle into the hot water. “But it doesn’t beat the view. Not even close.”
Ted exhales, a little unevenly, and pulls both hands through his damp curls. His voice is insistent and low: “So with that... out in the open, can we please, uh, dial back again for now? Behave ourselves a little bit?” He squirms and gradually positions himself as before, sprawled comfortably out, head hanging back, eyes closed. “We’ll be back home tomorrow.”
We can misbehave then, Booster almost adds, but stops himself with a smirk. He’s still hot and hard and feeling like a starved castaway staring at a three-course meal, but somehow getting even more excited by Ted’s halting confession helps. Both of them are feeling the strain of no nightly meetings, no stolen moments in private in between briefings and home-cooked dinners. They’re a team, they can cooperate.
And sure, they’ve been on these kinds of missions before; days without nights, without rest, without a single minute to put aside the hero persona. It wears you down, it exhausts your head and your body, and when it’s done you just want to sleep for two weeks straight and not have to look at your teammates’ faces for at least three.
But here they are, neither of them wants to say goodnight even though they should. And they both, apparently, delightfully, want to be intimate when they can’t. So instead they’re spending their night in a hot tub, enjoying each other’s company – and the view – instead. It’s frustrating, but not entirely non-titillating too. Whetting the appetite until they can catch up.
Booster lets his gaze take in all of Ted again, both salaciously and tenderly at the same time. And he’s hungry for Ted’s attention even if it’s platonic. “How’s the jaw?” he asks softly, looking at the newest patch of bruising starting to form along the left jawbone.
Ted smirks with closed eyes. “I barely noticed it, really, when I caught that punch. It’s always the ones you barely register that start hurting the most, what’s up with that?”
“Got more adrenaline fighting a strong opponent, maybe?”
“Hm.” It’s the kind of noise saying he hasn’t thought about it before, but he’ll consider it and might very well agree. “How’s the ankle?”
Booster snorts, not too proud of the crash landing he made after the fighting was done. He was so drained at that point, all he’d tried to do was descend so he didn’t have to navigate his body in quite so many directions anymore. But he misjudged, he thought the ground was a different angle and farther away than it was. “It's nothing.”
Ted opens his eyes and sits up, meeting Booster’s gaze. “Says the guy who limped into the hot tub,” he scoffs. “Can you move it okay?”
“Of course I can m--” Booster flexes his foot underwater, which immediately makes a gentle throb of pain travel up his leg, making his voice hitch. “--move it okay.“ He grimaces tightly. It wasn’t that bad earlier.
“Uh huh,” Ted retorts sardonically, giving him a look. He pats the ledge. “Raise it.”
Booster sighs theatrically at Ted acting like he's a first-line medic, before he shifts his position, leaning on his hands, and swings his left leg out of the water to rest it up on the tiled floor. Just the shift in gravity creates a pulse of pain that moves up through the joint, and a suppressed grunt escapes him. Ted’s already frowning in concern, and he turns and scoots closer to assess the injury, kneeling on the seating ledge, between Booster’s lower legs.
The moving water blurs the outline of his lower body, but Booster can easily make out the black and red of Ted’s trunks, and allows himself a moment for appreciative gazing before he forces himself to stare up at the ceiling, the back of his head resting in the water.
“Okay...” Ted murmurs somewhere up there, studying the ankle up close. Then he places a warm hand on Booster’s knee, wordlessly coaxing him to rotate the leg outward, and it sends a sparkling bolt of lightning up along the inside of Booster’s thigh straight into his lower body. “Heat wasn’t the best idea,” Ted informs him. “I can definitely see swelling.”
“Yeah, I can feel some, too,” Booster breathes, bending his uninjured, still submerged, leg across the back of Ted’s hips, pulling him close. He can’t take it. He can’t lie still all splayed out and passive if Ted’s gonna be touching him. It’s impossible.
But the playful, sexy impulse doesn’t play out the way his short-circuited brain imagined, because the moment Ted’s pulled off balance he makes a whoop of surprise and flings out an arm on instinct, creating a small tidal wave in the water directly in front of Booster’s face. About two thirds of it goes straight up Booster’s nose.
He can barely hear Ted’s voice over his own coughing. A soft “Boos--!” that might be concerned or angry or amused, too many things are happening to tell. He flails trying to get upright again, to get his head out of the water, but he knocks his injured ankle hard against the stone tiles, which makes him gasp, which makes him inhale more water, and all he fucking wanted to was to enjoy a high-class jacuzzi with the sexiest engineer on earth.
Everything's burning. Finally Booster’s upright again, miserable, coughing, whimpering, half curled up in the water as he grasps his own shin hard with both hands, holding his leg up so his foot won’t make contact with the bottom. He blinks and blinks to get the blurring film of water and tears out of his eyes.
There's a sound of Ted sucking air between his teeth. “Ooh. Shit. Are you okay?”
Booster nods weakly as he keeps coughing up the last gallon of water in his system. Talking isn’t possible yet, but he can hear just fine -- like how his miserable nod is immediately answered by giggling.
“No–-” Booster chokes out in humiliated protest. Getting made fun of when he’s in pain, when none of the misery was deserved to begin with. “Don’t e--even--”
The giggling changes to the kind where the giggler is obviously trying to stop. Like the gradual closing of a pressure valve; The volume decreasing, but the pitch rising. Then it’s like a coupling bursts somewhere, and Ted can’t hold back anymore, his laughter thundering, then quickly muffled.
“Teddy--!” Booster complains, but now he hears the whine in his own voice and he realizes what a goofy, shortsighted attempt at flirting that was, and he starts giggling too, mingled with coughing. With his hand he sweeps his wet hair out of his eyes, and sees Ted almost doubled over still trying to stop laughing.
“That was--!” Ted squeaks, his shoulders bouncing with each choked-back giggle. “Ohh, that was so--”
“That was inten--” Booster stops to cough, which feels weird when he’s grinning. “That was intensely cool and sexy, actually, like the-- the smoothest, most seduct--” He hiccups. ”--tive... thing you’ve ever seen. Is what you were going to say.”
Another set of choked giggles spills out Ted, quieter now, as he sits with a hand pressed against his mouth, bright eyes looking affectionately at Booster.
Fine. Booster can bear getting laughed at by someone looking at him like that.
“I’ve never seen anyone go directly from playboy to half-drowned cat before,” Ted points out, eyes glimmering.
“That’s right, you’ve never seen it.” Booster’s wet hair falls into his eyes again, annoyingly well-timed evidence. Finally he feels like he’s approaching non-watery breathing again. The throbbing pain in his ankle is leveling out.
“Maybe it’s just–” Ted murmurs. “Instant karma.”
Booster slumps back with a sigh. His hair is still obscuring his view, heavy and wet against the bridge of his nose, but he’s feeling too sorry for himself to do anything about it. “So what'd you do to deserve that pain in your jaw?”
He hears Ted snort. “I applied for the Justice League.”
“That’ll do it.”
For a moment there’s only the drone of the jacuzzi motors, and the burning in his nose and throat and eyes and lungs, but then Booster feels gentle fingertips at his forehead, and the curtain of his hair is brushed back. He can see again; see Ted who’s moved in closer, looking at him in silence with a smile, holding his gaze warmly, but also like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, or like he’s waiting for the solution to be revealed. And the hand that brushed away Booster’s fringe doesn’t move from the back of his head where it stopped, fingers threaded through wet hair.
Booster’s low in the water and sits as still as he’s able, forcing himself not to say anything, no teasing or seductive remark, not a single sound. Not a muscle moving, because if he tries anything now he’s pretty sure it’ll end in another disaster again, and it’s Ted who said he didn’t want anything to happen but if it’s Ted that makes it happen he’ll gladly, enthusiastically, go along with it. Just don’t jump ahead, don’t move.
They’re sitting so close and Ted’s gaze moves to Booster’s lips. A droplet falls from his curls, tapping Booster's chin before it runs down his throat and back into the tub. Their breathing’s changed, almost like they've synced up. And Booster feels ready to burst, but the anticipation is so good too, It’s happening, this is happening. The sharp edges of pain in his body are melting away, everything feels loosened and made malleable by the heat and constant massaging of the water, and then the fingers threaded through Booster’s hair tense and close up just a bit, like it’s involuntarily, but the pull in his hair makes him gasp. He realizes his fingertips have found the upper edge of Ted’s trunks in the water. Slow. Slow. He can feel his own fingers trail along the top seam, brushing lightly against the soft skin of Ted’s stomach. Finding the end of the knotted cord with his other hand, pulling--
And then comes a rush of water, another wave, and Ted is upright in the water, already turning away and stepping towards the built-in steps. “Ohhh no, no,” Ted mutters under his breath, voice hurried and uneven. “No. No. Definitely not.”
Booster collapses gently back in the water, squeezing his eyes shut. What happened to not making a move? Idiot. He clears his throat. “Sorry,” he murmurs, glancing back up. “I know w--”
Oh shit. Every working neuron in his brain is derailed by the sight of Ted’s ass in the black and red trunks, a revelation as he steps out of the water; Trunks that were wonderfully skin-tight before, but now they’re wet they’re contouring and highlighting everything as Ted’s climbing out, water rushing down his thighs; As Ted raises one leg, then the other, wet elastics stretching over muscles and skin and curves and divots, and then bunching, then stretching again.
Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ. It makes you just wanna just get right in there and --
Booster hears himself make a soft, pleading squeak, a whimper, and pushes himself off the ledge he’s sitting on to duck his whole body and head underwater for a moment. It does the opposite of cooling him down, it’s like falling to the bottom of a lobster pot, and the twinge of discomfort and anxiety he feels at being completely submerged doesn’t affect his rock-hard erection at all.
He needs to be way more laid back than this. He needs to be smarter about this, more patient. But there have been too many nights since he touched Ted the way he likes to touch him, exhaustion has wiped out all self-discipline, and if Ted feels the same way right now then why can’t they fucking do something about it already?
No, pull the breaks. Emergency stop. You’re not some kind of animal in heat. He can enjoy the view knowing there’s a high likelihood he can go exploring there tomorrow. Especially when his chances improve if he sticks to just admiring tonight.
Booster pushes himself back up with his hands on the seat behind him, like finishing a low-gravity bench dip, and grunts sharply when he forgets himself and braces his left foot against the bottom of the jacuzzi. Above the water, he sees Ted’s made his way to the edge of the empty swimming pool, where he stands, back (and glorious ass) turned towards Booster, breathing deep, arms folded tightly across his chest.
Booster would love to sit in mindful contemplation of what he's seeing, but the tension in Ted’s posture stings in him. All Ted wanted was some high-class jacuzzi time, and Booster had to cut it short.
Booster moves across the circular tub and finds the control panel of the hot tub, pressing the main button Scott used to turn it on earlier. The streaming of the water jets quickly lessens, and then stops, along with the droning of the motors. The room’s suddenly so quiet. “Sorry,” Booster repeats now he doesn’t have to shout over the noise.
Ted turns and looks back over his shoulder, a flushed smirk on his face. “No, I think, uh, that one was on me.” He turns away again, looking at the undisturbed water. “Oof. Wrong time, wrong place.”
Booster carefully starts making his way up the steps, pulling himself up by the handrail. “It's okay. Guess I just--” He feels his face move into a goofy smile. “I can’t help but get excited when I’m in a hotel with you now.”
This is the first time they’re together in an actual hotel since the stay in Nevada last year. A big fight, a big discovery, and a very wonderful arrangement after that.
Hotels in the course of duty used to be just another place to sleep, a neutral nowhere place to get a few hours’ rest. But now the concept of a hotel bed feels like a world of possibilities, it's a place without limits, it has him thinking about waking up in the morning and turning over to see Ted hogging the blanket and then getting to kiss him awake.
How is he meant to be normal and act like they’re just buddies and colleagues in their separate rooms after something like that?
“...Yeah,” Ted replies softly, on an exhale. Then he adds, lower: “Yeah. Okay, wow, I need... Uh–” He clears his throat, then seems to make up his mind as he does a smooth forward fold at his waist, arms outstretched, and tips himself forward. There’s a splash, and then he’s disappeared completely, at least from Booster’s point of view.
Oh. Alright.
Booster chuckles to himself as he slowly makes his way across the floor in a series of hops and limping steps. There’s a definite flicker of excitement, almost pride, in him that he could have the same effect on Ted that Ted has on him. But… it’s also so unfamiliar being wanted by someone who’ll only allow himself to act on it in very specific settings. When everything’s just right. And sometimes, maddeningly, not even then.
And a complicating factor, as well: That it’s become a little bit of a turn-on too, at this point, the way Ted’ll hold back just a little bit; How he needs that just-so coaxing, which means Booster has to put some actual thought and effort into what he’s saying and doing; Force himself to focus (and refocus, and refocus, and refocus). Dialing back when he gets too frantic, following cues, doing his best to sync up with Ted’s body and head again and again...
Turns out some puzzles feel more rewarding when you have to solve them over and over in new ways. And when the prize you unlock is sex with Ted Kord.
Ted resurfaces with a gasp a good distance from where he jumped in, almost at the middle of the pool. He whips his curls back, arms fanning out wide. “Ahh, that’s cold…!” he squeaks as he turns to face Booster with an out-of-breath grin. Then he points out, “Helps!”
Booster has to giggle at Ted, the practical-minded thinker in triumph. The intellectual’s solution to Booster’s very primal one.
Ted frowns as he sees Booster hop across the floor. “Oh, I’m an asshole, I forgot about your leg,” he exclaims softly, guilt evident on his face -- while obviously trying not to stare at the very strained lycra of Booster's matching trunks.
“It’s a sprain, not an amputation,” Booster chuckles. He’s limped his way to the pool, and he braces with a hand as he sits down on the floor, scoots the final few feet, and swings his feet over the edge to let them dangle into the water. It’s a genuine shock of a temperature change, so cold it’s bordering on painful, and makes him suck a sharp breath between his teeth.
“Told ya.” Ted grins, although his voice shivers.
Booster has to make an effort to untense his body as he sits there. Goosebumps spread along his thighs, traveling up to his torso and arms. “Jeez! That’s gotta be below freezing!”
“Of course it isn’t,” Ted snorts, seeming to take pride in what he’s subjecting himself to. “Good for your sprain, though. And good for – the system. You should take a dip.”
Booster wrinkles his nose. “This is more than enough for me, thanks.”
“Wuss,” Ted smirks, turning around again and continuing outward, his strong pale shoulders moving in wide butterfly strokes.
Booster’s eyes follow him all the way to the far edge of the pool, where Ted smoothly coils his body and curves his legs under and in front of him. His feet make contact with the pool wall for only a short moment so he can rotate the rest of his body and push off in the opposite direction, gliding back towards Booster.
So graceful it’s unfair.
As he begins his way back their eyes lock. “I’m telling you, you should try,” he calls out across the water.
Booster smiles, resting his chin in his hand. “Can’t.”
“I don’t mean like doing laps, just a quick dunk. It’s a pretty good… reset.”
Booster shakes his head. “I can’t swim.”
“You just need to be careful. It’d be good low-resistance training for the ankle, you know, if you don’t overdo it.”
“Ted.” Booster chuckles softly. “I can’t swim.”
Ted stops, the sudden halt of his body creating a gentle wave moving towards Booster. “What do you mean you can’t swim?”
“I can’t.” Booster sits up straight, trying to sound casual and carefree. He’s the one who’s decided to try to explain this to someone again, he points out to himself. “I mean -- I can swim, I just can’t in --” He gestures loosely at their surroundings. “This. Here. In this type.”
“In--?” Ted paddles in place, then starts making his way towards Booster again, slightly faster than before. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The water in this age. It’s wrong.”
Ted snorts, incredulous, and has to snort again to expel chlorine water. “You’re pranking me.”
One day. One day Ted and everyone else will be in a situation where they’ll be the only person who makes sense in a world that thinks they sound insane. “Your water’s all wrong," he points out. "It’s not anything like what I – everyone – swam in.” He reaches out a hand to splish the surface, displaying evidence he’s painfully aware only he can see. “It’s straight up the wrong, you know, consistency. Buoyancy.”
“You're sure that the sprain hasn’t spread to your head?” There’s a disbelieving, heightened pitch to Ted’s voice. “What do you mean? It’s water! This is what water is.” He reaches Booster’s side of the pool and hooks his hands around the ledge next to him, hanging off the side. “I mean, I guess… Saltwater has some more lift to it. Is that what you mean?”
Booster wrinkles his nose and waves a hand in frustration. “No, I’ve tried saltwater. Dead Sea. It’s barely different from this.” The comment comes out with a touch of a petulant whine to it, and he realizes he can’t be frustrated at how Ted doesn’t automatically understand a thing he’s never experienced before.
Right. Better try picking this up from the start.
“So-- Okay.” Booster rolls his shoulders back and sighs. “You know I mentioned the… freshwater crisis thing? It started way before I was born, but the conservation stuff, the tech fluids, those were just, you know, regular in my time.”
Ted stares at him in befuddled silence.
“So obviously--” Booster spreads his arms, indicating the room. “Why would anyone put water -- this kind of water -- in a pool at that point? Why would we want to swim in that? It’s got way more important uses.” Every time he pauses, Booster hopes to see some kind of enlightenment and understanding wash over Ted’s face, but he seems just as confused. “And so-- thin!" He sighs. "We have, you know, a wealth of varieties just for workouts! With different selling points, whichever you’d prefer.”
“You had-- Wait--” Ted shakes his head, wet curls dripping. “You had different brands of-- swimming pool... water?”
Booster looks at him in overbearing weariness. “Not water, but you get the idea. I preferred Aquelle myself, good for speed, kinda slick-feeling.” He gestures as he speaks. “But you’d get a better strength workout with something like ProdaFluid, but it’s more upscale, you only find that in the expensive places. There were like-- eight…? -- more types, but I didn’t usually--”
“But-- You--” Ted's confusion seems to build, he’s almost verging on distraught. Or insanity. “You can swim! I’ve seen you swim!”
Booster shifts uncomfortably and trails the all-too-liquid surface with a flat hand. He titters. “No, you’ve seen me swim with the flight ring on.” He raises a dripping hand to show how his fingers are bare. “That’s how I get the right, um… updrift, the way I’m used to. I can’t... I can’t get the hang of... this stuff,” he snorts, trying to seem more annoyed than self-conscious.
Ted’s frown softens and something close to a smirk creeps in. He shifts his grip on the ledge and moves, laterally, a little closer. “So… You just avoid swimming for real because it, what, feels wrong?”
“I sink!”
Ted breaks into a giggle, but clears his throat when Booster looks at him. “No, no, that’s --ah-- very understandable,” he assures him softly, although his facial muscles are clearly straining not to grin. “Wrong brand of water.”
“Ted, I’m confessing a deep dark secret here...!” It’s meant as a complaint, but seeing Ted trying not to laugh is as contagious as always, and Booster has to press his own lips together not to grin or start giggling.
He has been keeping it secret, except from Trixie who was there when he first discovered the problem, and later -- a few strangers who’ve seen him, sometimes rescued him, when he’s made new attempts.
With some care and planning it’s not been an issue. On missions and for exercise he’s got the ring, and adjusting to water instead of air is a mostly automatic process now, he doesn’t need to spend much mental energy on it at all. And for unplanned outings with friends or colleagues he can tan on the beach, or enjoy the seaside bar... Or stick to the hot tub.
But now it turns out there’s one person who can make him leave a nice hot jacuzzi for a painfully cold swimming pool to dangle his feet into when he hasn’t even got the ring on.
Booster sits back, resting on the heels of his hands. “Do you realize how frustrating it is to be a good swimmer when... When everybody else is used to the wrong kind of liquid and that means they think you can’t swim?”
Ted still seems tickled by the wrong liquid concept, but he tilts his head, offering at least an impression of considering it. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. I mean, are you really that helpless in normal water? What consistency was this type you used to swim in?” He wrinkles his nose. “Jam? Syrup?”
“It wasn’t-- The consistency doesn’t change all that much between them, just what they’re like to move in. This isn’t--” Booster scoops up a little bit in his hand. Most of it runs down his wrist and arm. “--Efficient for anything physical, it’s for drinking and showering and getting up your nose.” He can still feel the burning, deep in his head just behind his eyes. Then he adds, firmly: “You’d probably be helpless in ProdaFluid, you know. Float to the top or something, like a piece of styrofoam.”
“I bet,” Ted grins, obviously amused. “But come on, there’s no reason for you to sink in this. I mean, even if you’ve been using the ring as water wings--”
Booster groans dejectedly to show he doesn’t appreciate the comparison.
“--Your technique is excellent! You can’t swim like that and sink, ring or not. And if you were a cyborg or had tungsten blood or something I’m pretty sure they’d have picked that up on our League physicals.” His smile turns mischievous. “...Or is that your real deep dark secret? Is there only one actual human in this room right now?”
“There’re none. Scott left, remember?” Booster gets a kick out of the cackle that joke earns him, but it’s only a short distraction from the sullenness he’s feeling. “But no, really, I can’t stay afloat, I can’t move in it. At all. I’ve tried a hundred times, and one of these days I’m not gonna manage to fight myself back to dry land. That’s how I know to stick to hot tub depth when I don’t have my ring on.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Ted insists so quietly it seems he’s talking to himself, and he kicks away from the ledge, moving at an angle through the water until he’s bobbing directly in front of him.
For a moment Booster is worried the scientist he’s in love with might get so intrigued he’d pull Booster into the water just to immediately prove -- disprove -- his theory… But he hopes there’s enough of the Blue Beetle -- or the man who might like to explore the view tomorrow night -- present in him to skip the surprise practical experiment.
“So, let’s just entertain the thought...” Ted begins, worryingly scientific. And yet the gentle, amused look in his eyes makes Booster want to lean down and kiss him. “That maybe, you know, it’s less sinking and more panicking.”
Booster scoffs. “I’m an excellent swimmer! You said it yourself, I shouldn’t be able to sink -- but I do, so that means there’s a-- an additional... factor.” He tries to use more educated terms as if he’ll be more convincing that way.
“But it feels wrong,” Ted offers softly as he holds Booster’s gaze with equal amounts sweet and infuriating understanding -- or patronization. “It doesn’t carry you like you’re used to. And maybe, you know-- You haven’t been swimming unassisted for years, right? Maybe flying’s rewired your expectations a little bit, too.”
Booster tries adding as much contempt to his voice as he’s able: “Flying doesn’t feel anything like swimming.”
Ted doesn’t react to the dismissive reply, his voice still soft and cheery: “How would I know?” He pauses as if to think, and then moves lower in the water, until he’s looking up at Booster with the waterline just below his nose, something amused and affectionate and mischievous in his eyes. Kinda like a shark. A shark you’d really like to kiss. The look catches Booster unprepared, and he doesn’t understand what caused it, but it makes something hot and tight and tingling stir inside him again, and it makes him sort of not care if he understands or not.
And Ted’s looking at him like that from just four or five feet away... But four or five feet of icy miserable useless 20th Century water.
There’s an intimate silence as the gentle waves created by Ted’s body wash against Booster’s calves. The goosebumps return.
“What?” Booster murmurs softly. “You’re trying to lure me in?”
His face half submerged, Ted’s smile widens a little, still holding Booster’s gaze. He bobs up, the wetted curls dripping water onto strong, freckled shoulders. “What if I taught you?”
The offer is unexpected, and ridiculous. But the hint of heat and playfulness and confidence in Ted’s eyes make a great -- if surprising -- selling point. In his head memories pop up, of multiple evenings in the League’s gym room when it was brand new, when they were brand new... Except this time it’s not freeweights and PRs, this time the end result will just be a lot of splashing and another dozen lungfuls of pool water. Booster makes a face. “Ted... I know how to swim.”
Ted’s intriguing intensity falters for a moment as he titters. “I know. That’s why it’s a cinch. I’m saying I could teach you how to swim in 20th Century water.” He spreads out his arms and does a slow backward butterfly stroke.
“You mean... now?”
Ted shrugs. “As a start. We’ll figure out how much time you need as we go along; Five minutes, five months? Plenty of pools in New York, if we need them.” He sweeps an arm along the surface, gesturing behind him. “It’s shallower at the other end. You can start out standing.”
Booster shifts his hands further back behind him, almost like he’s bracing himself, lowering his center of gravity towards the safe, tiled floor. And he studies Ted. Extremely doubtful, but… intrigued. He misses swimming, real swimming. And he imagines how he’d be able to enjoy the sight of Ted’s body in the daytime too, and then go straight back home afterwards. Together.
But then there's the fact he’s already had to face tonight: There’s fantasy, and then there’s reality.
“Pretty risky undertaking,” Booster points out in a drawn out voice. “Looking after someone who might sink like a stone, with an injured leg--” He flexes his ankle even though it’s underwater, which means Ted can’t really see it. Like he’s proving something to himself first. But he realizes the cold water’s actually done good, there’s only a little tightness in the joint now, not even pain. Huh. Booster dips his chin down, lowering his voice to an innocent murmur: “And with no one else in here?”
Ted’s face flushes a subtler but beautiful pink, contrasting with his chill-pale shoulders and chest. “I mean-- Uh-- Previous... agreement still stands.” He exhales quietly, a little tensely, as shyness tinges his smile. “We practice swimming, and, uh, nothing else for now.” He clears his throat. “Carefully. And then at the end you let me, uh, swim an extra lap if I need to.”
Booster grins, a flash of warm appreciation moving through his limbs, along with amusement, anxiety, excitement, heat, frustration, joy. Continuously feeling thirty thousand different emotions whenever he’s alone with Ted, but the vast majority of them are good. Addictive.
Like getting hooked on a drug that’s into you, too.
Booster sits in silence. Then he nods. “Okay.”