Chapter 12 Briar #2
I want to argue, but I can’t. He’s right. Out here, there’s nothing but cold, hunger, and the kind of silence that would kill softer men.
Pointing to a stand of pines, their branches heavy with snow, I motion with my hand. “We’ll do the next lesson there.”
He follows. When the trees close in, the wind dies, and the temperature drops. It’s so still I can hear his breath, the scrape of his boots, the way his gloves rub together as he flexes his hands.
I drop the pack, unzip the main pocket, and start pulling out the gear.
He leans over my shoulder, curious.
I hold up a folded mylar blanket, then a fire starter, then a knife with a composite handle. “Always pack for three days, minimum. Never know when you’ll need it.”
He grins, “You’re not wrong. I’ve never made it more than three days in my own apartment without a resupply.”
I hand him the knife. “You ever use one of these?”
He flips it, catches it by the blade, tests the edge with his thumb. “Sure, but mostly for opening boxes.”
I snort, take it back, and demonstrate: I strip a branch, then start carving a notch. He watches, eyes glued to my hands.
When the shelter starts to take shape—a basic lean-to against the trunk of a pine—he helps, holding branches, testing the strength. He’s surprisingly good at following directions, even when I toss them out with zero explanation.
After twenty minutes, we have a windbreak. I wrap the mylar blanket across the frame, then anchor it with snow. Landon surveys the work, then grins at me. “It’s almost like you don’t want me to freeze to death.”
“Almost,” I say.
He drops into the shelter, sits cross-legged. “Okay, next.”
I crouch in front of him, then toss a packet of waterproof matches into his lap. “Fire.”
He tears the packet open, finds the striker, then starts arranging dry twigs and pine needles in a pyramid. I watch him fumble, drop a match, curse quietly, then try again. It’s interesting, the way he refuses to give up.
After a minute, he gets a spark to catch. The smoke is thick, acrid, but it curls up through the lean-to and doesn’t choke us out. He sits back, triumphant.
I clap, slow.
He flips me off, but he’s smiling.
For a while, we just sit. The heat from the fire creeps into the little shelter, chasing the cold from our fingers and faces. Outside, the snow falls heavier, muffling the world even more.
Landon stretches out his legs, leans back against the trunk. “Is this what you did as a kid? Survivalist camp?”
I shake my head. “The Foundry was less about surviving the elements, more about surviving each other. But Brooks used to sneak me out here—he said the cold was the only thing that ever made sense.”
He hums, thoughtful. “Makes sense to me.”
We lapse into silence, watching the fire. My thoughts drift to the Director, to the kill order, to the inevitability of the world finding us, even here. But for now, it’s just me and him and the fire, the way things are supposed to be.
After a while, he says, “You ever think about what you’d be if you weren’t… this?”
I pick up a stick, draw a line in the snow. “Never had time for it.”
He studies my face. “You could have been anything.”
I shake my head. “Not true. Some people only fit one shape.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I think you could have been a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
He shrugs. “A teacher. You’re good at it, even if you pretend not to care.”
I stare at him, caught off guard.
He grins, then pokes at the fire with a stick. “You don’t have to answer.”
But I want to.
“I think,” I say, deep in thought, “that if I could pick, I’d want to be good at something that wasn’t about breaking things.”
He nods, accepting it. “You are.”
He doesn’t elaborate, just looks at me like he sees the whole story written on my face.
The wind kicks up, rattles the shelter. We huddle closer to the fire, shoulders touching.
I reach out, touch his hand. He grabs it.
We sit like that, two men in the middle of nowhere, no mission, no orders, no future except the next hour.
I listen to the sound of our breath, the fire, the world spinning away outside.
Maybe this could be enough.
On the way back, the wind whips the snow into our faces. Landon struggles up the last slope, boots slipping, hands shoved into his pockets. I slow down, let him catch up.
He’s shivering, face red, but when I offer him a hand, he laughs and grabs it. “You just want an excuse to touch me.”
“Not just,” I say.
He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t let go.
We trudge the last hundred yards, then stop at the overlook. The world below us is blank, the valleys drowned in cloud, the sky burning pink and orange at the edge.
He stands there, breathing hard, then says, “Worth it.”
I look at him, his hair blown wild by the wind, his face raw and open.
“Yeah,” I say. “Worth it.”
We don’t say anything else. We just stand, hand in hand, watching the sun set on the world that doesn’t know where we are.
We stomp the snow from our boots on the threshold, and the blast of warmth from inside the chalet bites the skin of my face.
Landon peels off his jacket, shaking out the cold, then tosses his gloves on the bench.
His glasses fog from the change in temperature and I bite back a laugh.
His cheeks are mottled red from the wind, the wet streaks on his hair thawing into dark curls.
He grins at me, then heads up the stairs, muttering something about defrosting his balls in the shower. I watch him go, let myself track the sway of his hips, then turn to the kitchen.
For the first time all day, I check my phone.
I keep it in a lead-lined pouch, shielded from accidental pings and tracking bots, but the second I open it there’s a pulse of notifications. Five new messages, three from Brooks, one from a burner I don’t recognize, and one—encrypted, of course—from the Director.
I pour a glass of water, set it on the counter, and read the first message.
Brooks: “STATUS?” Simple, to the point. He always was a lazy communicator.
Second: “Saw drone on SW ridge, could be local or freelance. Do not engage unless positive ID.”
Third: “Dinner tomorrow night at 2100. I won’t be there, but I’ve reserved Marcus to come and prepare you both a five course meal. Consider it a thank you for ensuring you take care of my place. Please wear something that isn’t tactical gear.”
I snort, then swipe to the burner. The number is unfamiliar, the message shorter still.
“Check perimeter. Dead drop at north gate.”
The last is from the Director. The subject line is blank, the body of the message only a single line:
There is nowhere beyond our reach. Enjoy your temporary peace.
I laugh, low in my chest, and let the phone screen time out. There’s a part of me that wants to draft a reply—something sharp, maybe a taunt, maybe just a blank message to let them know I’m still alive and still not afraid. But I don’t.
I shut the phone off, drop it back in the pouch, and seal it with the copper mesh. I bury it under the kitchen sink, behind the garbage, the way a normal person hides booze or cigarettes from themselves.
If they want to find me, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.
When I look up, Landon is at the bottom of the stairs, hair wet, wearing nothing but a towel slung low across his hips. He stands in the archway, water beading on his skin, his arms folded over his chest.
I cross the room and stop a foot away, close enough to feel the heat from his body.
He raises an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Nothing urgent.”
He smiles, a little crooked. “You’re a terrible liar.”
I step closer, run my hand up his arm. “Maybe I just don’t want to ruin the night.”
He shrugs, but he’s shivering. I reach for the towel, but he snags it back, grinning.
“Get that ass to the living room,” he says. “Fireplace’s on. There’s a bottle of red with our names on it.”
He leads the way. His bare feet slap softly on the hardwood, and when we reach the living room the fire is already roaring, light flickering wild on the glass and the stone and the animal skin rug in front of the hearth.
He drops onto the couch, grabs a thick blanket and sprawls out like he owns the place, then pats the cushion beside him.
I join him, stretch my legs, and he immediately moves in close, tucking his knees up and letting his head fall onto my shoulder.
It feels… right.
He pours the wine, a deep, almost black pour, and hands me a glass. We sit like that for a while, the only sound the snap and pop of the fire, the hush of snow falling outside.
I sip the wine, let it burn and then bloom sweet. Landon makes a face at his, then takes a bigger swallow.
“You look good domesticated.”
I shake my head. “Don’t even start. I may have to kill you just for suggesting that I could be tamed.”
He grins. “It suits you.”
I snort. “I’m a weapon, Landon. Not a housecat.”
He laughs, then tucks his head tighter against my arm. “You’re a weapon who likes soft things. That’s what makes it scary.”
We drink in silence for a while. The fire burns lower, the wine disappears. He talks, softly at first, about stupid things—movies he watched as a kid, the time he got lost in a mall and convinced himself he’d been abandoned, the way his mother used to leave him little notes in his lunch.
I love the way he talks, listening to the cadence of his voice more than the words.
It’s grounding, the way he spins a memory out of nothing, then laughs at himself for caring about it.
I want to tell him my own memories, but most of them are classified, or too ugly to share, or so distant they feel like someone else’s life.
Eventually, he asks, “What about you?”
I stare into the fire, watch the logs collapse into a red lattice of embers. The urge to deflect is strong, but I resist.
“I don’t know,” I say.
He nudges me. “Come on. You had to have some memories you want to share.”
I think about it. About the few moments of childhood that weren’t drills or punishments or waiting for the next bad thing.
“When I was five, I wanted to be a pilot,” I say. “I liked the idea of being above everything else. No noise, no chaos, just sky.”
He smiles, soft and sad. “You’d have been good at it.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter now.”
He finishes his wine, sets the glass on the floor, then looks at me.
“It matters to me,” he murmurs. “You could have been anything. You still can.”
I look at him, at the way the firelight paints his skin in stripes of gold and shadow.
I set my glass down, then turn to face him fully.
“Not anything,” I say. “But maybe I can be more than just what they made me.”
He reaches for me, runs a hand through my hair. The touch is gentle, unhurried.
“You already are,” he says.
I let him pull me in, let him kiss me slow, let him taste the wine on my tongue.
This time, when we fuck, it isn’t about power or need or punishment. It’s slow, and it’s gentle, and it’s as close to love as I’ve ever let myself get.
I take my time, relearn every inch of him, let myself linger on the spots that make him gasp, the places where his skin jumps under my mouth. He gives back, as always, hands rough on my ribs, mouth hot on my neck.
When I finally enter him, we move together, not like a fight, but like a dance.
At the end, when we’re both spent and breathing hard, I pull him close and let him rest his head on my chest.
For a while, there’s nothing but the sound of our heartbeats, the fire, the hush of the world outside.
He drifts off first, breathing slow and even.
I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the Director’s message.
There is nowhere beyond our reach. Enjoy your temporary peace.
I know the peace won’t last. I know that tomorrow, or next week, the world will try to take this away from me.
But none of that shit matters anymore.
I know exactly what I’ll do if they try to take him.
Burn it all to the ground.
When the fire finally dies, I put more logs on and stoke it before wrapping us both in a blanket and carrying him upstairs, his arms loose around my neck, his face soft with sleep.
I lay him in the bed, pull the comforter up, then slide in behind him.
He wakes, just enough to reach for my hand, and laces our fingers together.
I watch him breathe until my own eyes go heavy.
This is what I wanted.
Not peace. Not safety.
Just him.
And I’d kill the whole fucking world to keep him safe.