Twenty-Five #3
His mouth twitches. “Dangerous,” he says. “To ourselves and each other. To anyone who tries to stand in the way.” He pauses. “And... honest.” That word hits harder than any of the filth.
I don’t know how long we stand there, staring at each other in that narrow corridor, but it’s long enough for the noise from the training hall to quieten down.
“Pack a bag,” he says again, finally. The sharpness has crept back into his tone, the armour sliding into place over whatever that moment was. “Civilian clothes if you have them. Enough for the weekend. Toothbrush, if you want me to still kiss you by Sunday.”
I actually let out a weak huff of laughter at that. “And if I don’t come?” I ask, because I need to hear it.
He studies me for a moment. Then he smiles.
“Then I will know you prefer to keep pretending you don’t want to whimper for me,” he says.
“And I will be... disappointed.” His eyes rake over my face.
“But I won’t beg for you, Caiden. That is not how this works.
I’m not chasing you across a base like some clingy teenage girl in a bad movie.
” The flash of pride in his eyes is sharp enough to cut.
“If you want this,” he finishes quietly, “you come to me. 1900. Motor pool. I’ll have a car.” He steps back then, finally, giving me space to breathe. “Think fast,” he says, already turning. “You have a lot of folding to do, from what I saw of your locker.”
I can’t even summon the energy to be offended that he’s been looking at my locker.
“Ari,” He stops, half-turns, looking at me over his shoulder.
I open my mouth, and a dozen things crowd my tongue.
This is insane. This is dangerous. This is the worst idea I’ve ever had.
I’m scared. I want you. I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t want to stop. None of them makes it out.
“Is there even anywhere to go out here?” I ask instead, because I am a coward and a specialist in tactical deflection. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
He huffs, the ghost of a smirk curling his mouth. “You let me worry about that,” he says. “You just worry about getting there.” Then he’s gone, back toward the training hall.
I drag in a breath that scrapes my throat on the way down and lean back against the wall for a second, staring at the spot where he’d been.
Pack a bag. Three simple words. “All right,” I mutter to myself.
“Okay. Okay.” I push off the wall and start walking back toward the barracks.
Toward my locker and a bag I’ll probably pretend I’m not packing for at least an hour.
Every step is a little war in my head. Risk versus reward, fear versus the memory of his mouth and the promise in his voice when he said ‘honest.’
He’s right about one thing. We’re already in it. Maybe the only choice left is whether to keep stumbling through half-lit corridors, or turn and walk straight into the fire with my eyes open.
“1900, motor pool, pack a bag.”
“I’m going to regret this,” I tell the empty hallway.
The corridor is dim and quiet, and for a moment I have to stop and breathe, hands braced on my hips, trying to pull myself back into something resembling a functional adult rather than whatever I am around him.
The issue I have is that I can’t get him out of my head anymore. His mouth, hands, or the way he sounds when he’s close. And Christ, that’s the part that’s really ruining me. Because lately I’ve been doing something pathetic. Something I would never tell another living soul.
I’ve been secretly, quietly, learning Russian.
It’s not the useful stuff, like the mission-relevant vocabulary Niko drills into us in briefings, or the polite phrases from the handbook.
No. I’ve been learning the things Ari says when he forgets he’s saying them.
Quiet curses mainly, mixed in with fragments of heat-coiled filth, and the low, half-swallowed words he breathes against my throat when he’s right there at the edge and trying not to make noise.
At first, I told myself I was curious, and I wanted to know whether he was insulting me or not. Whether he was mocking me or if it meant anything. But then I memorised them.
Every time he muttered “blyad” against my shoulder, or tried not to shout “bozhe, detka” like it hurt, every single time something desperate and broken in Russian pushed out of him while I had him in my hand, or my mouth, or pinned against a wall where no one could see — I’d go back to my bunk afterward like a teenager, pulling out the stupid little notebook I keep hidden inside my kit, and practice the sounds under my breath, like a man learning prayers.
I wanted to know what he was really saying and needed those words to belong to me, because something in me wanted to hear him say them again, and know, this time, exactly what I was doing to him.
I snap the notebook shut in my head and shove the memory down. God help me if Ari ever finds out. He’d weaponize it instantly, turn it into a joke, or worse, stop saying them entirely.
But right now, it’s safely locked away in my head.