TWENTY-FIVE
CAIDEN
I wake up because my arm has died. Not metaphorically.
Properly. Literally. Shoulder to fingertips, gone.
There’s a dull throb running through it like my circulation has taken personal leave, and for a second, I lie there trying to work out what exactly I did to deserve this.
Then the weight across my chest shifts slightly.
It’s warm, solid, and very much not the blanket.
Ari.
He’s asleep on top of me, one arm folded under my shoulder, his head tucked just right against my collarbone as if that’s his new pillow and my circulation can get over itself. His breathing is slow, even, and deeper than it’s ever been for as long as I’ve known him.
I stay very still, taking in the tiny features of his face. Still absolutely dumbfounded that this impossible, beautiful man is really mine.
I don’t remember falling asleep, not properly.
I remember lying down beside him on the sofa because it was late and neither of us had the strength to pretend that we’d go our separate ways like sensible men.
I remember his head on my chest, then the whole evening blurring into warmth, breathing, and the kind of tired that knocks you clean out.
Carefully, I try flexing my fingers.
Pins and needles hit me all at once, the vicious little bastards, and I have to bite back a whimper. Ari murmurs something under his breath and presses closer without waking up. My chest aches so suddenly in this moment, it’s almost embarrassing.
Right. Fine. Excellent. Very normal response to a man using me as a mattress.
I tilt my head enough to check the time.
Too early. Also not early enough, which is the irritating thing because I have to go.
The knowledge sneaks up on me with a quiet, unreasonable sort of resentment, not because I can’t survive one morning briefing without being wrapped round Ari on his brother’s sofa, but because this is the first time in weeks we’ve been in the same room without distance, tension, and logistics sticking their oars in.
I’ve barely had him back for one night and already the day wants me elsewhere.
Still, some things don’t change, no matter how much you glare at them.
“Ari,” I murmur, barely above a breath. I get nothing. I try again, softer. “Hey. Come on. You need to wake up.”
He shifts, his brow furrowing, and his mouth pulling into the smallest annoyed frown. His grip tightens for a second like his body wants to keep me as a body pillow, before the rest of him catches up.
“What...” he says. It isn’t really a question. It’s more of a complaint dragged up through sleep.
I smile before I can stop myself. “Morning.”
His eyes open slowly. They’re unfocused at first, then they sharpen as awareness slides back into place. For a second, he looks at me, properly looks, taking in where he is, how he’s ended up here, and the fact that I’m still here and not something half-dreamed.
“Oh,” he says after a breath, which from him is practically poetry.
“I have to go,” I tell him quietly. “Can’t miss the briefing, unless I fancy spending the rest of my week getting bollocked.”
He lets out a long breath, then nods once. No complaining and no petty attempts to keep me there longer. That’s Ari. He understands limits better than anyone I know, even when he hates them.
“Stay warm,” he says, his voice still rough with sleep, like it’s an instruction and not a concern. And the stupid thing is, it gets me.
“I will,” I say. I ease my arm out from under him with all the care of a man defusing something unstable, and he makes a small, displeased sound in his throat before rolling onto the cushions instead, dragging the blanket up without ever properly waking.
He looks unfairly beautiful like this. Not in a soft way exactly, more...
unguarded. There’s a massive difference.
I lean down and I kiss him.
It’s brief, mostly because if I let it become anything other than that, I’ll miss the briefing and possibly the next twelve hours of my life.
Still, his mouth moves against mine on instinct, even half-asleep, and he hums softly as if I’ve done something sensible for once. “Sleep,” I murmur against his mouth.
He doesn’t answer; he’s already gone again.
I stand there a second longer looking at him sprawled across that borrowed sofa under a too-thin blanket, and commit the whole sight of him to memory like I’m preparing for a drought.
Then I gather my jacket and trainers, pull them on quietly, leave the flat, and stepping out into the cold.
I make the briefing with a narrow margin to spare, my hair still damp from the two-minute shower and refusing to behave, which at least keeps me from having to speak to anyone while I’m trying to flatten it down with my hand.
I take my place, listen, and nod where required.
The reassignment is old news here. I’m just another body slotted in where one’s needed, another name moved from one list to another.
Part of me is still quietly thrilled by the geography of it all, which is ridiculous given the circumstances, I know, but there it is.
Ari is somewhere on this same base, and I woke up with him asleep on me.
That fact keeps popping up at inconvenient intervals, making the rest of this place feel faintly unreal.
Work fills the hours the way it’s meant to.
Reports, equipment checks, and a training issue that isn’t really an issue once someone competent has had a look at it.
The kind of day that would vanish from memory by tomorrow if it weren’t for the fact that I keep feeling little reminders of last night at odd moments.
Like the faint ache in my shoulder where Ari slept on me, for example.
I don’t see him all day, and I don’t see Niko either.
That part gets harder as the hours go on.
Not because I think anything’s happened in the meantime, but because the flat has started existing in my head as another job on my checklist for the day, one I’m not currently on.
Is Niko eating? Is Vladimir napping or climbing onto furniture with criminal intent?
Has Ari had time to sleep properly, or is he already back to functioning out of habit?
I eat when the window allows. The food is the same as it always is — hot enough, bland enough, technically present — and I hardly notice it beyond the fact that it keeps me functional.
Afterwards, I take the opportunity for a proper shower, scrubbing off the smell of the base and the day until the water runs lukewarm and my skin starts objecting.
I stay in there a few minutes longer than I normally would, head bowed, letting the sound attempt to drown out my thoughts.
I don’t manage it, but I get points for effort.
By late afternoon, the base settles into that strange early-evening lull, and I head to the mess because if I don’t eat now, I’ll end up forgetting entirely, and I’m already one missed meal away from becoming unbearable.
Ari is already there.
He’s at one of the smaller tables along the wall.
His posture is loose enough to say he’s off-duty, at least officially, and there’s something about the sight of him under normal lighting doing something as ordinary as eating food that hits me hard.
He looks up when I approach, his expression neutral enough until something soft flickers through before he gets it back under control.
“Varrik,” he says, smirking slightly.
“Sir,” I reply, sitting opposite him, close enough that our knees nearly knock under the table. No one pays us the slightest bit of attention. Two officers eating together isn’t notable. That anonymity feels like a gift right now. “How are they?” I ask quietly.
His eyes stay on mine when he answers. “Managing.” Which, translated from Ari, means not well but not on fire. “Niko’s functioning,” he adds. “The baby’s healthy. Loud. Hungry. All the usual things.”
“Sounds about right,” I reply, trying not to smile.
Ari’s mouth twitches. “They’ll be fine for the night,” he says after a moment. “Niko won’t sleep much, but he’ll manage. He always does.”
I watch the line of his mouth when he says it and the slight tension in his jaw. He’s carrying more than he says out loud, which is hardly breaking news, but I still catch it. “I stayed with him all yesterday,” I tell him. “He didn’t argue.”
“That means he trusts you,” Ari says.
“Or he was too tired to put up a fight.”
“Probably both.”
We eat in companionable silence for a few minutes, which still feels mildly miraculous after weeks of distance.
The mess hall hums around us; it all folds into the background until this little bit of table feels oddly private despite being completely exposed.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed that, just sitting opposite him while the world gets on with itself.
When Ari looks up again, I can tell there’s already a decision in his eyes before he speaks.
“We need somewhere private,” he says, low enough that it doesn’t carry.
There’s no point pretending I don’t know what he means. “After lights out.” I think for a minute, running through the map of the base automatically. Corners, blind spots, and places where people only go if they’ve got a reason.
“Motor pool?” I ask.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “As usual.”
“I’ll meet you there,” I reply, grinning.
We finish eating without drawing attention to ourselves.
When we stand, Ari passes close enough that the contact at my side could almost be accidental if anyone were looking, which nobody is.
It’s brief, but it’s enough to send a bright little current straight through me that I have to very firmly ignore.
I watch him go, then drag my eyes elsewhere before I start looking obvious.
Night will come soon enough.