Caly

The swath of wilderness has four fire towers, each miles apart and separately staffed.  Each can see so far across the mountain range and can radio to the national service in the event of smoke.  Each person has rudimentary EMT skills, survivalist skills, and can be pressed into service in case a hiker or camper needs aid.  Each person gets a weekly supply drop.  The towers have solar panels for some creature comforts.  Each has three radios so that two can always be fully charged while the other is in use.

Alex is assigned to the fourth tower, the one with the flattest terrain in a nod to his prosthetic leg.  It’s called the Delta tower, and he snorts at the symmetry in his life.  From Delta Force to Delta tower.

He takes the job because he needs time to heal.  He needs quiet and solitude.

Ironic, then, that his first night, his radio crackles to life with a hail from the Charlie tower, and when he answers, he hears your bright voice introducing yourself, welcoming him to the summer.

“I was in Delta for the last three years,” you explain.  “I only moved to Charlie this year.”

Alex feels a sting of guilt.  He likely pushed you out because of his leg.  “I’m sorry,” he replies.  “I think they moved you because I’m missing the lower half of my left leg.”

“Oh, no worries.  Charlie tower is nice, and it’s new terrain for me to explore.  I just wanted to welcome you.”

“Thank you.”

You sign off, and Alex sighs, makes his way back to his cot.  Your cot, until now.  He stares up at the ceiling and waits for sleep to come.  It takes a long time:  after an entire lifetime of the noise of war and tragedy, the near-silence of his tower is as loud as a bomb.

-----

Alex can see how this would be a tough gig for most people.  The average well-adjusted person would struggle with the solitude.  His days are long, and with no smoke on any horizon, he is in charge of filling his hours. 

He acclimates to the terrain.  He hikes his territory in wider arcs.  Part of his job’s secondary tasks include checking the blazes on the trails, clearing any debris, and making sure the emergency supply caches are stocked.  He takes to it like a fish to water:  all those years of precise military training, put to use making sure everything is neat and orderly.

His evenings are spent sitting on his tower, the wide windows open to allow the breeze in.  This high up, every direction is picture perfect.  If he turns to the left, he can see the sun setting in all its technicolor glory, and he swears there are colors that have no name—the thin bands of melding between purple and orange, orange and fiery red.  If he turns to the right, it’s already dark, and the sky is a velvety blackness.

His first few weeks, the only person he speaks to is you:  a daily and nightly hailing that goes from tower to tower to base camp, so that everyone is accounted for.

“Charlie to Delta,” you call each night.  “Here to tuck you into bed.”

Alex smiles at it each time.  “Delta accounted for.”

“Excellent.  Sweet dreams, Delta.”

-----

It’s the teenagers that put you and Alex on chattier terms:  a foursome of nineteen year-old girls, a troublesome age where they are technically adults but unable to legally drink.  They are camping in the area between Alex’s tower and yours, and they spend their first night setting off fireworks.

“You’re seeing this, right?” you crackle through his radio.

“Affirmative.”

“Bravo tower called them in to base.  They have permits to camp, so we’ll have to keep an eye on them.  Still….shitheads, setting off fireworks during fire season.  Do you think you can make your way down to them tomorrow and give them a lecture?”

Alex grins, then presses the button on his radio.  “You don’t want to do the honors?  I feel like you have a ready-made lecture.”

“Well, for one, I’d hate for you to not have any fun during your first summer.”

“And two?”

“Two is, I have to hike through and resupply my caches.  One needs repaired.”

Alex considers it.  He’s used to… less than kind ways of convincing people to bend to his will.  But idiot teenagers?

“Any suggestions?” he asks.

He hears your laugh over the radio and it makes him smile.  “Whatever you do, don’t try to meet ‘em on their level.  Teenagers are assholes.  Give them the straight facts about forest fires, and be prepared for them to call you a vulgar iteration of ‘Smokey the Bear.’”

“You speaking from experience?”

“I repress it each year, Delta.”

-----

You hail him a little earlier that night. 

“Charlie to Delta.  How’d it go?”

Alex makes sure to press the button so you can hear the massive sigh he heaves.  He only got back to his tower half an hour earlier, just before the sun fully sank in the western sky.  He was so tired he didn’t bother to cook a proper meal — he smeared a bunch of peanut butter on bread, made a couple of sandwiches that he bolted down in a handful of wolfish bites.  Now he’s in the process of removing his prosthetic leg when he hears you calling on the radio.

“I’m back.  I survived.”  He sets his prosthetic on the bed beside him and groans as he kneads at his thigh.  His muscles are tight and knotted, and he’s sore, but it’s a good sore from putting in a lot of hiking.

“You put the fear of god in them?”

“I tried.”  He leans back against his pillow and feels the muscles in his back relax one by one.  “They didn’t seem to care about the forest or the loss of human life if they start a fire.  I had to frame it as all the cute lil bunnies that would die.”

“So long as they stop setting off fireworks.”  You pause, then ask, more playfully, “they verbally abuse you?”

He laughs, but it trails off into a wide yawn.  “Yeah, but standard stuff.  ‘Peg Leg.’”

“Boo.”

“Right?  I thought kids were more clever nowadays.”

“Two summers ago, I had to break up a campsite of teenaged boys,” you tell him.  “Same deal, fire conditions were high.  One called me ‘Smokey the Bear,’ but another looked me over and said, ‘I wouldn’t mind climbing up on Ol’ Smokey.’”

Alex laughs again.  Yawns again.  “Youths,” he chuckles over the radio.

“Youth is wasted on them.”  A beat of static as you hold the line.  “Well, I appreciate you handling it.  You’re a seasoned pro now.”

He tries not to note the warm flush of feeling at this tamest, faintest overture of belonging.  He tries not to let his mind immediately go to where it goes:  that with everywhere else he’s belonged, he had to kill for the right.  He had to do nefarious things.  Evil things.  Here, on the fire tower?  All he had to do was hike down to the lake and give a stern talk to a foursome of giggling, slightly drunk young women.

“Anytime.”  His voice has an edge of roughness to it, but you must just chalk it up to tiredness.

“Alright, I’ve kept you on too long.  Go to bed and sleep well, Delta.”

“You too, Charlie.”

-----

From there, you talk more.  Not just in the mornings or evenings for check-in, but at random intervals throughout the day.  You both drop a lot of the formalities on the radio too.

You break in one afternoon, your voice startling him as he works his way along a bit of trail that needs cleared. 

“What do you look like, Delta?”

As always, your non-sequiturs make him smile.  “I’m hideous.”

“Liar!”

“I wasn’t born so much as created in a lab,” he teases.  “And it didn’t go well.  Just really disgusting looking.”

“So you’re one of a kind, then?”

He draws his arm across his forehead to wipe away the sweat beading there.  He’s been hacking away at encroaching undergrowth with a machete, and you calling is a welcome break.

“Is this a prelude to something saucy?” he asks.  “Like, are you gonna ask what I’m wearing next?”

“Oh, Delta.  I imagine you’re wearing a white t-shirt, cargo shorts, and a red baseball cap.”

Maybe it’s a good sign that he startles now.  That he had no idea someone was watching him.  He’s been swinging his machete and feeling good to use his body for good work, and he never even noticed that he was being observed.

Still, he freezes like his training taught him.  He scans the landscape, quick but thorough—

Your laughter bursts out of his radio.  “I’m on my high-powered binoculars.  I can see you, but you can’t see me.”

“Then why are you asking what I look like.”  He does a slow turn with his arms out.  “Here I am.”

“I can’t make out your face that well.  But from the blur I can make out, you look disappointingly human.  No lab experiment at all.”

-----

The next day brings much-needed rain, and Alex lounges in his tower.  There’s a dog-eared copy of “War and Peace” (yours? He doesn’t know) that he is trying to work through just so he can be one of those impressive, kinda irritating people who can say they’ve read “War and Peace.”  But the rain drums on the roof, and the words—all those confusing Russian names that he can’t keep straight—swim together in front of him.

He reaches for the radio.  “Delta to Charlie.  How’s the weather over there?”

It takes you a moment to answer, and your voice is husky when you do.  “Sheets of rain here.”

“Did I wake you up?  Sorry.”

“Just dozing.  Can’t pass up on a good doze when the weather obliges.”  A beat.  “What’s up, Delta?”

“Trying to read ‘War and Peace’ and getting nowhere.”

“Oh, fatal mistake.  Summer in the tower calls for Jack London, Larry McMurty, Louis L’Amour.  The Russians are strictly for winter.”

“Duly noted.”  He pauses and turns his head to look out one of the wide windows.  Water streaks down, and the horizon shows nothing but thick black clouds.  “I was curious what you looked like.”

Your laughter carries over the radio and makes him smile.  “Well….I wasn’t formed in a lab.  In fact, I was, you know, in my mom with my twin.  But I partially absorbed my twin, so I have three eyes, four ears—”

“That’s wild.”  He laughs.  “What else?”

“Only one mouth, normal sized, but like, twice as many teeth.  I look like some fucked-up fish that you’d find in the Mariana Trench.”

“You speak really well for someone with a mouthful of teeth.”

“Thanks.”

“So you’re one of a kind too?”

He can’t account for why your voice turns sad and sighs as you reply, “just a lonely whale operating on a frequency no one else can hear.”

-----

And that—the rainy day where the two of you check in with each other, leisurely, comfortably—is what leads your chats into deeper waters.

“Why are you out here?” you ask him one day.

How to answer it?  The easy but still-true answer is that he needed the job.  Not because of money—he’s set up well enough for the rest of his life, so long as he doesn’t acquire any expensive habits between now and old age.  It’s more an inability to not work.  He’s had a job since he was twelve when he worked on a farm down the road from his house during the summer.  From farmhand to bus boy to lifeguard to soldier to undercover agent to freedom fighter to… what?  This, for now. 

The tougher, more-true answer is that he needed to feel useful in a way that didn’t involve death.  He needed a place to heal the sore spots in his soul, the places that burn because they’ve been grated raw by the world.

Instead of answering, he volleys a question back to you.  “Why are you asking?”

“Everyone comes here for a reason.  We have to, because no one without a reason would just take this job.  Why else would we sign up for so much seclusion?”

“Maybe I just needed the stipend a lot.”

You laugh.  “You’d make the same basic amount at McDonald’s, and you’d get to go home to a larger bed and hot shower each night.”

“But here, I don’t stink like fry oil.”

Another laugh, and it never fails to make Alex smile—the warm merriment traveling through the airwaves over the miles that separate you. 

“So Alpha has been here the longest, and he’s here because he’s just your standard loner.  Nice guy.  He just kinda hates society and likes to spend his time in the mountains.  A real Thoreau-type,” you say.

“You’re sure he’s not working on any manifestos in his spare time?”

“Nah.  He actually spends a lot of his evenings whittling these really lovely little wooden animals, right?  He gives everyone one at the end of each season.  Last year he whittled foxes.”

Alex wonders if you have similar conversations with the other towers about him, and he finds the thought doesn’t bother him.  You seem kind; most of your humor is gently teasing, if that.  He imagines you hailing Bravo tower and saying something like, “Delta had his first teenager encounter.  He’s one of us now.”

You continue over the radio.  “Bravo is a woman too.  She’s a writer, and she has this sturdy, bare bones laptop that she can charge with the solars.  She basically bangs out two, three really rough drafts here, then goes home after fire season to polish ‘em up.”

“Yeah?”  He glances at the dog-eared copy of “War and Peace” that he’s pretty much given up on.  “Anything I might’ve heard of?”

“Probably not, unless you are into shifter smut.”

He knows he’s missed a lot, being out of step with the mainstream, but his mind boggles.  “What’s that?”

“Like….”  You trail off, and he hears you clicking your tongue as you think.  “Shifter is shape-shifter.  Werewolves, humans turning into other creatures.  And smut is….you know.”

“Like two werewolves are in a romance?”

“Oh, Delta.”  Your laughter is more of a giggle over the line, a he-he-he that might seem flirty except for the tendril of nervousness threaded through it.  “It’s, uh, usually a human and a shifter.”

“Seriously?  Doesn’t that make it bestiality?”

“Well, the shifter isn’t a beast.  It’s a fully consensual being, just not a human.”

He’s completely confused.  “And people read these books?”

“Bravo does really well.  She goes to all sorts of romance conventions and has a robust fanbase.”

“For werewolf and human smut?”  He can’t hide the way his voice pitches up in incredulity.

“Different strokes for different folks.”

“Well, shit.  I guess,” he replies, still baffled, and it makes you laugh again.

A moment later, though, you sign off—it’s supply drop day, and you have the furthest to go for yours.  Alex looks thoughtfully at the radio in his hand, realizes that you never circled back to your original question to him, and that you never said why you’re on a tower either.

-----

You don’t ask the question again over the next few weeks, so Alex asks it.

“Why are you out here?” he asks one evening.  There are thunderheads in the west, but the weather service says they should spend themselves before they get close enough to do any damage from lightning strikes.

You’re a long time in answering him.  You go so long that the line seems dead, and he adds, more playfully, “you some sort of smut writer too?  Alien smut, maybe?”

It draws a laugh out of you, but it lacks the usual bright merriment.  “I’m not that creative, unfortunately.”

“C’mon,” he wheedles.  “You gotta give me something, boss.”

“Boss?” 

Alex shuts his eyes, winces.  It just slipped out, his weird little term of affection.  His nickname for people he feels comfortable with.  Women he feels comfortable with. He hasn’t said it since Farrah, since their time together in Urzikstan, him at her right hand, helping rebuild until—

“Did I lose you there, Delta?”

“Still here.”

“Why are you here, then?  Turnabout is fair play, and you never told me.”

He doesn’t bother to point out that you never told him why you were on a tower.  That you’re similarly withholding from him.  He wonders if you’re hiding similar hurt, or if you need a similar sort of healing that can only come from being away from other people.

“I just needed time away,” he tells you.

The line is silent for a long stretch again, and then your voice comes across, smaller than he’s ever heard it before.

“Me too.”

-----

A grey day weeks later when low clouds obscure the sun and cast the landscape in a weird, muted light:  you hail Alex late morning when he’s fiddling around with a loose wire on one of his solar panels.

“Quid pro quo, Delta.  I’ll tell you my tale of woe if you tell me yours.”

He sets down the channel locks he’s been using and makes his way over to the steps.  He settles down, then answers you.

“Who says I have a tale of woe?”

“Because you never answered me the way I never answered you.  If you’re here because you love the wilderness, you would have just said so.”

“Fair.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and then you add, “and because everyone here has a tale of woe, including Alpha and Bravo.  But it’s not my place to tell their stories.”

Alex turns his head and gazes off across the slope to the west, the gentle valley that leads down to the lake that separates his area from yours.  He has no idea what you look like or what you’re even doing right now.  Are you on a trail, resupplying a cache, and did the spirit move you to call him?  Are you in your tower, peering in his direction with your binoculars?

He knows part of his reintroduction to the world will have to involve letting people in.  Extending trust even if it isn’t earned yet.  Why not start with a person he hasn’t seen?  Why not start with telling his story into a radio, when he doesn’t have to look you in the eye and see your reactions?

“Well,” he starts.  “There was a woman.  But really, before that, I had this job, and I did a lot of bad things that seemed like the right thing at the time…”

-----

He talks so long his radio dies.  He talks so long, the light grows dimmer—sunset is close—and he has to pause, clean up his abandoned project, and head up into the tower.  You’ve been silent for most of his story, only offering little one-word encouragements to continue, or keep going, or little noises of sympathy.  Or at least they sound sympathetic. 

And it’s a revelation how it all just pours out of him, every wretched moment:  the shit he saw and did on Delta Force, the worse shit he saw and did in the CIA.  The moment he tried to turn it around, sacrifice himself for a noble cause, and how he woke up in a clinic in the most agonizing pain of his life.  How he was airlifted to Turkey, how they amputated his leg there.  Then the long road to recovery and back to Farrah, happy to serve at her right hand as she rebuilt her country to be a beacon to the region. 

How he fell in love—how could he not?  How that love was gently rebuffed, and how there was no great falling out or massive argument. 

How ordinary it was, when he realized he couldn’t live with Farrah and not have his love reciprocated.  How Farrah couldn’t love him the way he needed.

All the drama and chaos of his life, and going out like that:  a love-sick boy on a plane back to the United States, sulking and hurt.  And that sulking and hurt nothing but a veneer over the deeper pain.

Then his radio gives its warning beep, and he has to sign off before you can reply.  As he heads in for the evening, he grows more and more horrified at what he’s done.  Oversharing to the nth degree.  His face flames hot; the tips of his ears burn so much he’s sure he looks like a beacon in the growing darkness.

-----

You call him back a few hours later.

“Are you free?” you ask.  “I wanted to give you time to eat, relax, unwind…”

“Yeah.  I’m free.”  His voice comes out rough, craggy around the edges of his words.  He shuts his eyes tight and lays back in his cot.  He waits for you to give him hell or worse, give him a gentle brush-off.  Something like maybe we should just stick to the nightly check-in.

“I appreciate you sharing all of that with me.”  A beat.  “I realize it must have been hard, trusting a stranger with your story.”

He snorts.  “You hardly seem like a stranger anymore.”

“Someone you haven’t formally met yet, then.”

“It was easier, I think.  Talking to someone I hadn’t met yet.  I could have never said any of that to my sisters or cousins or friends back home.”

He hears the sympathetic cluck of your tongue.  “I get it.  Sometimes it’s harder to share the dark stuff with the people closest to us.”

He feels a curious sensation in his chest at this exchange; a weird snagging against the back of his breastbone, like something barbed loosening there.  He hears no judgement in your voice.  No horror at the things he’s done in the name of freedom and country.  Maybe it will come later, but right now, he only hears sympathy and understanding.

“Quid pro quo,” he reminds you. 

He hears the sigh, and he hears a rustling over the radio.  Like you’re leaning back in your bed too, getting comfortable.

“Well, there was a man,” you start.  “Isn’t there always?  A man or a woman or some goddamned person that throws you off the trajectory of your life and leaves you spinning.”

You talk so long your radio dies.

-----

Alex wonders sometimes if you talk with the other towers like you talk with him.  He wonders if you and Bravo, say, chat about your various traumas.  Maybe Bravo was cheated on too, and the two of you spend radio-draining hours commiserating. 

He doesn’t think so, though. The two of you fall into a rhythm:  you spend your evenings and well into the night talking—deep shit, embarrassing shit, the shit neither of you would probably tell anyone else.  The mornings and daylight hours bring a sheepishness to your back-and-forth, a sort of “can’t believe I admitted that last night, so now I have to soften it with goofy teasing and joking around.”

But then the sun sets, and you’re back to baring your souls to each other.

The fire season is halfway over when you tell him one night that you appreciate him more than he knows.  That excising all of the bad feelings has led you to sleep better than you have in years.

“I don’t know how it happened, but you’ve become my closest confidant,” you admit. 

He doesn’t tell you then, but he considers it after you both sign off for the night:  how he’s sleeping better than he has in years too.  And how he’s confided in you more than anyone else, even Farrah.

And then he considers how the thought of Farrah doesn’t raise the sharp ache of loss it used to. 

He considers how this may be him healing.

-----

“What are your plans after the season ends?” he asks.  He’s been mulling that question over for himself.  He has no plans at all.  He could always crash at his cousin’s place for a few months—he’s got a rambling old farmhouse in Michigan, and he’s invited Alex more than once to join him. 

“I got a place in Colorado,” you reply.  “I have a seasonal job at a winter resort.”

“What do you do there?”

It’s daytime, so the jokes are in full force.  “I’m a caretaker.  Also working on my novel.  It’s just me and a bunch of ghosts and also the specter of my own alcoholism.”

Alex laughs.  “There was alcoholism in ‘the Shining’?”

“In the book, yeah.”  You pause, and Alex hears you give a little grunt of effort.  He knows you’re on a trail, clearing out a downed tree.  “Anyway, I do a little bit of everything at the resort.  Mostly I give out skiing lessons and man the medic hut.”

“Sounds like a good gig.”

“It is.”  Another beat, another huff as you move a heavy section of tree.  Alex hears the thud as it lands on the soft ground.  “What about you?”

“Not sure yet.  I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

You heave a sigh, and he imagines you sitting down or leaning against a tree to rest.  “There’s a whole swath of society that does this sort of seasonal work as a living.  I could give you some sites to look at.  Ideas of what to do during the winter.  If you plan on doing this again next year, I mean.”

He chuckles again.  “I definitely haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“C’mon.  You don’t want to do another summer on the tower?”

He isn’t against the idea, exactly.  The summer has turned out to be exactly what he’s needed:  time and space away from others, time to be alone with himself.  And a friend on the radio, which he hadn’t counted on. 

But this was only ever meant to be a stop-gap.  He never intended to become a lifer on the fire tower, because he has always imagined a life more ordinary.  A regular job and a home and partner to come home to every night. 

He tells you as much now, and asks, “do you want to do this forever?”

“I never planned on it.”  Your voice sounds thoughtful, maybe a little sad.  “I guess it was supposed to be a stop-gap for me too, and now here I am…”

He knows now how you’ve been hurt.  The story of a husband who used you, then cheated, then left you with less than nothing.  How it launched you out of the trajectory of your own life, as you said, and how you find yourself drifting now.

“You could go anywhere,” he tells you.  “Anywhere at all.  And you could do anything.”

“You want me to put down some roots, Delta?”  You sound playful now, and he smiles to hear it.

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing, right?”

“It’d be tough to start over in a place where I didn’t know anyone,” you admit.  “It’s tough to make friends as an adult.  Starting over, all that shit.”

Alex shakes his head, rueful.  “Don’t sell yourself short.  You made a friend in me in a matter of months.”

You laugh over the radio, your usual merry sound that makes that barbed pain behind his chest wall unfurl a bit.  “How about you get settled somewhere, and I’ll come glom off of you until I put down some roots of my own.”

“That’s a deal,” he replies, quick, and you laugh over the radio again, but Alex spends the rest of the golden afternoon imagining an entire future that looks a lot like the present:  him in his own place somewhere undefined, and you nearby, just a phone call away to chat or listen or vent.

-----

The season is a month away from ending when the fire starts.

It’s two fires, actually:  one sighted early by Alpha tower, and the second sighted by you in Charlie.

“The Service is keeping an eye on them,” you tell him one evening.  Your voice has a taut quality that Alex realizes is fear.  He’s never heard you afraid before.

“They are sending in a team to strip out a fire line,” you continue.  “Hopefully it will keep them from merging.”

Alex eyes the smoke on the horizon.  The wind has been carrying the acrid scent of burning to him all day.  “Have you been in a fire situation before?” he asks.

“Once, but it was small.  It was handled before it became a big thing.”

“You able to move out quick if you have to?”  He thinks of his years of training and experience.  He can light out in less than a minute if he has to. 

Your scoff over the radio tells him all he needs to know, but you kindly answer with your words anyway.  “Of course I can move quick, Delta.”

-----

The weather is against you:  high winds and no rain.  The wind takes the fires and pushes them to ungodly heights, and no rain ever comes.  Alex can’t tell what is a genuine cloud and what is smoke now—everything is hazy, and his eyes feel like they are laden with grit. 

The fires merge within a couple of days, and the situation changes from concerning to dangerous.

“I need you to look at the map on the wall,” you tell him without preamble.  The taut quality of your voice is gone, and now it shakes with fear.

He takes the three steps over to the wall where it’s tacked up, the corners curling and yellowed with age.  There are notations on it in neat printing, some of them humorous.  He’s looked at it all summer and always assumed it was you who named some of the local features, like Twisted Knee Trail and Drunken Fratboy Pond. 

“I’m looking at it,” he tells you.

“You see where you are in Delta tower.”

“Affirmative.”

“Look northwest.  Do you see Wapiti Meadow?  It’s on the other side of the canyon.”

He leans closer and studies it.  Does the quick math. 

“Looks like it’s about five or six clicks from me.”

“Correct.  There’s a research station there so it’s the best place the helicopter can set down to get us.  Alpha hiked out two days ago, and Bravo caught a ride with the fire fighters who were cutting the line.  It’s just us now.”

Alex’s stomach sinks, and he turns to look out the window.  The fire churns thick plumes of black smoke in the air.  It’s like a beast, ravenous for more acreage.  “We’re evacuating.”  The thought occurs to him then, and he returns to the map.  Wapiti Meadow will be a hike but he should be fine.  You?

“The northern edge of the fire is between the rendezvous spot and you,” he says, and now his voice is laced with fear too.

“I’m leaving now,” you reply.  “I have to flank it.  Take only what you absolutely need.  Wet a cloth and tie it over your mouth and nose.  And take some water.  Not enough to weigh you down but enough to hydrate you.  Don’t underestimate the smoke in the air.”

He makes his way over to his cot and sits down, pulls out his pack and starts to check its contents.  He’s always ready to go in a moment.  He’ll be fine. 

A not-tiny sting of guilt lances through him:  this was your tower, and the service gave it to him because of his leg.  Now you have to make your way through dangerous terrain around a wild fire because of him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you. 

“None of that shit,” you snap over the radio.  “Don’t you dare apologize.  Get moving, and I’ll see you at Wapiti Meadow. 

“Please be careful, Boss.”

“I’ll see you there, Alex.”

It’s the first time you’ve called him by his first name all summer, and it’s the jolt he needs to finish his preparations and launch him out the door of his tower. 

He gives it a backwards glance, realizes it will be gone within a day or two.  At the last minute, he turns back and pulls the map from the wall.  He has his smaller one in his pocket that he can consult with his compass, but he has the idea to save the tower map with your notations.  A memento from your home for so many summers, your refuge from the wider world while you healed.

He folds it and puts it in his pack, then leaves. 

-----

He makes it to Wapiti Meadow okay.  He underestimated the haze from the smoke, and how quickly it would make his vision blurry with tears.  Near the end of his journey to the rendezvous, he has to stop every few hundreds of yards to wash out his eyes and blink his vision clear again. 

By the time he gets there, the helicopter is already in the clearing.  A grim-faced ranger offers his hand and helps haul Alex up into the helicopter, and he does a quick scan of the others there.  The ranger, the helicopter pilot, and a man that he later learns is a research scientist at the Wapiti station. 

No you.

For the majority of Alex’s professional life, he’s only been a member of teams where everyone was expendable.  He himself had been left behind for dead more often than he wants to count.  It’s that history that makes him stand up as much as he can in the tight quarters of the helicopter, makes him loom over the ranger, and growl, “we aren’t leaving her behind.”

The ranger, who perhaps has some understanding of the lookouts on the towers, only looks back at him and mildly replies, “we weren’t planning on it, buddy.”

Over the headset, the pilot adds, “she’s only a click or two away now.  She’s been radioing in every thirty minutes.”

It would be more dramatic to say that there is a frenzy at the end, that the helicopter’s blades start to turn, that it starts to rise from the flattened grass of the meadow just as you break through the treeline and make a run for them.  It’d be more dramatic to say that Alex reaches out a hand as you reach out a hand, and that your fingertips brush, and that you either lose your grip on him and fall, then die in the fire, or that he hauls you into the helicopter just as it’s lifting off.

In the end, neither happens.  Alex is all turned around from the smoke and the adrenaline, so he’s looking in the wrong direction when you break through the treeline.  The pilot says, “there she is,” and Alex has to look to see where everyone is looking before he finally sees you for the first time.

The pilot hits the controls and starts the rotors, but the helicopter is firmly on the ground when the ranger—not Alex—extends his hand and hauls you in.  The lower half of your face is covered with a damp cloth, but the top part of your face is black with smoke.  Tear tracks cut clean lines from the corners of your eyes, and you’re coughing and sputtering as the ranger hands you a bottle of water.  Alex watches as you pour half of it over your face, then drink the other half, and it isn’t until the helicopter is a few feet in the air that your eyes find his and light up.

That barbed, snagged feeling in his chest unfurls completely when he finally lays eyes on you.  Even sweaty and smoke-stained, tears leaking from red-rimmed eyes, a skinned knee oozing blood… you’re absolutely gorgeous to him.  The voice on his radio, helping him heal.  The voice hailing him each night, tucking him into bed, wishing him sweet dreams. 

“Delta,” you say, and your voice sounds brighter in person than it did over the radio, even roughened up by the smoke.  “Alex.  Good to finally meet you.”

You hold out your hand and he takes it eagerly, and he cannot stop the smile that breaks across his face as the helicopter takes to the air. 

Gen wasn't there when it happened. When a bullet drove through Soap's skull at point blank. When Soap collapsed and spilled a crimson halo around what she had affectionately termed his "fuckass mohawk." She wasn't there when he was fitted with a foam and plastic collar and hauled into a van to be transported to an emergency medical facility.

But Ghost was.

She was headed toward them, boots pounding on concrete when Price's voice cut through comms.

"All stations - this is Bravo in the blind. Threat neutralized... Bomb is safe... Requesting immediate medevac."

Gen stood in the sterile on-base hospital, her pits clammy with adrenaline sweat, her hair crusty with the same. She stood in front of Ghost, eyes blazing.

"They say it's a close shave." The joke landed flatly between them. "Missed him by a hair." Another dud. "...it's a fifty-fifty shot."

The look Gen gave him would have killed a lesser man.

"That wasn't a joke," Eve placed a warning hand on Ghost's forearm, "GSWs to the head are the cause of 48% of TBI-related deaths. But the good news is that he's still with us, which gives us a reason to hope."

Gen shook her head, turning to stare at the glowing green sign above the exit.

The running man.

"You should have been faster," she accused, throat working, "where were you?"

"Coming from the other side," Ghost explained patiently, his deep brown eyes not entirely unsympathetic, though they didn't meet her sharp, blue gaze. She knew it wasn't because it was her.

"Not good enough," she ground out, "we were told to hold position. You should have-"

"I did what I was ordered to," Ghost cut off the rebuke sharply.

"You didn't tell me until he'd been in surgery for four hours." Gen hated how her voice cracked.

The moment Ghost had texted (not called, texted), she had been lying in Soap's room waiting for him to return. An hour, then two had passed, and she had to admit to herself that even Soap couldn't shower that long. Her phone had buzzed - a quick one-two. Face buried in his pillow, she'd blearily brought it to her face and found purchase on just two words:

IN SURGERY

She leapt up, not bothering to snatch up her sweatshirt as she tore through the base, shouldering past privates and lieutenants alike. Any indignant squawk was silenced when they saw the look on her face.

She pushed through the door to his hospital room, heart stuttering as she took in a sharp breath. Her eyes widened.

The rest of the 141 stood in a semicircle around the bed, the steady beep of the heart monitor the only indication that Soap was alive.

Gen swallowed, eyes trained on the deep rise and fall of his chest. The dark lashes lying still against his too-pale cheeks. Anywhere but the tubes and wires that fanned out around him like angels' wings. The halo of gauze that hid the reality of what had happened in that tunnel.

"He'll be okay," Gaz assured her gently, "the doctors said it was a close miss, but he should be able to come out of it in a week or two."

Gen said nothing, her gaze snagging on his hand, carefully placed on the side of the bed so as to allow his...

"Pulseox," Eve supplied. "Just to make sure he's getting what he needs."

"That stays on?" Was all Gen asked in return. The others began to filter from the room. Only Ghost brushed his shoulder against hers as he passed.

"For now," Eve said gently. "Can I get you anything? Or, if you wanna talk..."

"No," Gen's eyes hadn't left Soap's hand. Her nostrils flared. She swallowed again.

"Okay. I think visiting hours are over in twenty minutes. I'll wait for you in the cafeteria."

"Mm."

Eve wasn't sure if that was an agreement or not.

Gen sat, perched atop the aircon intake, and stared at the stars. A cigarette hung limply in her hand. The sun had set a while ago. The air had begun to chill. But she had no reason to go to sleep quite yet.

She heard the heavy tread of boots before the door squeaked open, every sound for her benefit. Every crunch of gravel the words that Ghost couldn't, wouldn't, say.

"Can I bum one?" He lowered himself against the rough metal by her feet, planting one foot solidly in the sediment. Gen didn't bother to look as she leaned forward, handing him hers,

"Here," she murmured, eyes tracking a commercial flight just outside their airspace.

"Ta," he took a heavy drag, and Gen knew he held it. She'd done the same. Felt it char her from the inside out. It was a relief. A release.

Minutes ticked by and neither spoke, though Gen already knew what he'd say when he did.

"'s Orion," Ghost pointed to the constellation. He always started with Orion.

"I know," Gen replied, kicking her boot heel against the aircon.

"He was a warrior."

"I know."

"Fought Mother Earth herself."

Gen took a deep breath through her nose. Her chest ached. She reached for the crumpled box of cigarettes in her pocket. The metal rasp of her lighter filled the air between them, the flame illuminating dried tracks on her cheeks. She said nothing.

"Won out in the end," Ghost continued, "because he's in the sky forever, and we still know his name." Ghost rested his head against the metal with a soft thunk, his blond hair, Gen realized as she glanced down, shaved rather short on the sides and back.

"New look," she commented.

"Needed a change," Ghost agreed.

"Gonna itch like hell in your mask."

"Mm," Ghost pointed to another constellation, twisting to do so. "Scorpion. Thing Orion was fighting. Stung him."

"Uh-huh," It came out rather choked as Gen let the black tar coat her lungs. Her following sigh was white, obscuring her vision for a short moment. She leaned back on her palms, once more letting the cigarette burn.

"But it can't get him now," Ghost said, "That's the point, you know?"

Gen kicked the aircon once more, her boot brushing Simon's shoulder. He didn't move.

"It's time to sleep," Ghost said once their cigarettes had burned to the filter, too gentle by half. "Tomorrow's another day."

"Yeah," Gen hopped off the unit.

They descended to their rooms, stinking of cigarette smoke and chill air.

---

Gen hated how right Ghost was. It was another day. She woke at 05:00, ran four miles, and ate breakfast before she showered. She watched teammates make small talk as they readied for the range. She shot horribly. And she continued.

Until visiting hours.

She was the first there, that first day. Fresh shirt, fresh uniform pants, hiking shoes having dried last night. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea - that he'd woken right after the mission. She tugged the old, worn upholstered wooden monstrosity of a visitor's chair closer to his bed, barely holding herself aloft by her elbows. Balanced forward on her toes, her calves shook as she took him in one more time. As pale as yesterday. His dark hair limp and brushing his forehead. Not a hint of blue.  She planted her heels on the ground, leaning closer.

"Soap," she murmured, eyes tracking down to his shoulder, then the corded muscle of his arm. The rest of the SAS was inked into his forearm in delicate, fine lines. Her chest ached as she fought the urge to reach out and trace those lines. "Who dares wins," it tore at her to continue the path downward, toward a hand draped limply on the blanket, seemingly unmoved since yesterday, except the IV that had been inserted had been moved. The thin plastic tube snaked under the covers, instead.

Gen made a note to ask Eve what it might be.

"Johnny," she tried again, mouth sluggish around his name, "can you hear me?"

Not as much as a twitch of the eyelid greeted her. Those eyelids that creased at the corners when he grinned at her. Those teeth that gleamed white and straight like...

tombstones...

Gen lay on the rec room couch. Her head, against her better judgment, had found its way into Soap's lap. She groaned, the world spinning on an altogether unfathomable axis. One grounding, blessed constant was the warmth that Soap seemed to radiate no matter the situation. She let out another soft moan, turning to bury her face in his stomach.

"Hard night?" He teased lightly.

"You Scots drink like you don't want to live," Gen groused into the well-worn fabric of his sweatshirt.

"Aye, most of us don't," Soap conceded, "you gonna be sick?"

"No," Gen said, entirely unconvincingly.

"I believe you," Soap lied. A moment passed between them. Then, something warm rested on the crown of her head. Hesitant, then heavier. Gen's eyes shot open as it registered. Carefully, Soap began to rake his blunt, straight-cut nails over her scalp and through her hair. She stiffened.

"Hm?" Soap paused, "no good?"

Gen didn't reply for a long moment, expecting Soap to retreat. Instead, he slowly began anew, raking carefully through her short-cropped hair.

"My mom used to do this for me when I was sick," he explained, dropping his voice to a soothing murmur, "was always a comfort."

Gen slowly reached a hand up, grasping at the front of her own shirt. Soap didn't move; didn't change pace or try to explain further. Gen let her eyes slip shut as he continued, fighting an embarrassing heat that began to well behind her eyes. She clenched her jaw, grasping her shirt tighter in her fist.

She gulped down a shuddering breath, suddenly thankful that Soap seemed to have been overcome by an uncharacteristic quietude. It's why she liked getting drunk with him - away from the boys, he would get almost... contemplative. Not maudlin, but altogether... softer. Less boisterous. As if the alcohol sapped the essence of him, leaving only the dregs of the man and what he'd done.

Gen liked seeing someone else hurt, selfish as that was.

"I never..." she mumbled into his belly, unable to complete the sentence. Not when the thought of comfort conjured its polar opposite.

"Well," he brought his hand to the nape of her neck, massaging the base of her skull, "now you have." They lay like that for minutes, Soap alternately running his nails over her and massaging temple, cheek, and neck. When, ten minutes in he encountered the soft shudders and telltale wetness of her surrender on his pass over her cheekbone, he said nothing. He simply swiped it away and continued on his path.

Until she had no more tears to cry.

---

She folded over herself, forehead resting just beside that hand of his.

She turned, staring up at him through heavy lids from where she lay. Mechanical blips and beeps replied with hollow reassurance.

She'd learned her lesson too many times before. There was no use in hoping, or praying, or begging.

Or crying.

And yet the tears came, silent as they tracked over the scar that crossed the bridge of her nose - one of the first things she'd ever let Soap touch when they were alone.

It was when they first fell into bed together after an op, adrenaline crash leading them both to what Gen reckoned would be a quick and dirty roll and ended up being Soap, inimitable Soap, propped on his elbow after having put his all into a kiss and looking at her like she'd hung the moon in the sky herself. He'd gently traced that scar and whispered, awestruck, that he'd always found her striking.

She'd slapped his hand away, rolling over to gather her things and head back to her room. He'd watched her the whole time, that dopey smirk affixed to his lips as if he'd just handed her his heart.

She took a breath, saliva sewing her lips together, and finally reached for him.

His hand fell almost too naturally over her crown, the soft heat of it no small comfort. Gen closed her eyes.

And sobbed.

---

"Oh, no," Eve whispered as she and Ghost stepped into the room. Gen had fallen asleep at some point, having cried herself out of any remaining energy. It was the first time Eve had seen her like this.

The second time Ghost had.

"Blanket," Ghost beckoned to Eve, taking the scratchy wool thing they'd meant for one friend and draping it carefully over the other's shoulders. She didn't move, only letting out a soft sigh. Ghost's fingers brushed the back of Soap's hand before resting carefully, just a moment.

"We'll come back," Eve took Ghost's other hand. He nodded.

"We'll come back," he agreed.

The week after, when Soap's eyes fluttered open and his hand trembled as he tried to bring it to scrub at his face, was the first time Gen had ever initiated anything.

It should have been gentle.

It could have been careful.

But in the end it was neither.

It was Gen, heedless of the fact that she could hear Price and Gaz approaching, or that Eve and Ghost had only just stepped away for coffee, throwing herself across the room. Standing, chest heaving, as Soap's eyes fixed on hers, then drifted down to the bridge of her nose.

"Hey Genie," he croaked, expecting her to scowl or snap back.

And she did. As she threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in the thin fabric of his hospital gown. It took a moment for his brain to catch up, surprise still written on his features when Price and Gaz rounded the corner, before he melted into her embrace, resting his cheek on the crown of her head. His arms circled her gently, one hand over her shoulder.

The other tangled in her hair.

"You're alive," she breathed.

"The-" I coughed. "You want me to peg you?" I dropped my voice to a panicked whisper, glancing just over his shoulder at the other men in the bar.

"I'm ready." He said again. My eyebrows rose, in spite of myself.

"What made you want to do it?" I finally asked.

"Ah, hen, you seem so enthusiastic about it." He dropped his cheek into his hand, looking at me with undisguised affection. He only dropped his gaze to play with his glass, bashfully adding, "...and I talked to the boys about it. They said to give it a go."

I nearly waterboarded myself a second time.

"You asked the boys?" I swiped at my mouth, eyes watering. "You asked the boys." I repeated. "You asked the boys if you should let me fuck your bum."

"Aye, well, we were talkin' about our ladies and it just came up, you know?" He scrubbed at his neck, cheeks turning an endearing shade of pink.

"Pegging does not just come up." I sat back with a heavy thump. "How does pegging just come up?"

"Look, sometimes you get a wee bit blootered and you get to talking about how proud you are that you're trying to get pregnant-"

"Who's trying to get pregnant? Not us!" I decided not to try to take another sip of beer until this conversation was over. It was his turn to look confused.

"We're not?"

"No!" I replied shrilly. "Why would you think that?"

"Wh- b-" He stuttered before finally managing, "You've been letting me cum inside of you for weeks now!" He leaned forward. "What's that except trying to get pregnant?"

"It's a creampie fetish!" I croaked. "I have a creampie fetish you- you-" I floundered. "weirdo!" I took up my beer, chugging the remainder of it with a grimace.

"I'm the weirdo?" He laughed. "You're the one who just told me it's a fetish for you to be jizzed in. Kind of feels like something you could have told me about." He sat back, eyeing me. "Besides, that's not the point of what it was we were discussing."

"You want me to fuck your arse." I supplied. "Yeah, I recall what the conversation was."

"So?"

I pursed my lips, biting back giddy amusement.

"Let's get you home, big guy."

---

We were both a little too enthusiastic when we got back to his flat, eagerly pushing through the front door and barreling toward the bedroom. Just as we got toward the bed, he grasped my waist. His kiss was almost tentative. When he pulled back, he was practically vibrating with nervous energy. We fell with a slight bounce on the soft mattress, giggling like teenagers as we lay on our sides next to one another.

He ran a hand over my side, sighing into another kiss as I ran a hand over his chest.

"Johnny," I sighed, grasping at his pec as he carefully wormed his fingers under my shirt, caressing my ribs. He trembled when I mirrored his movements, dragging my hand down from his chest to his stomach, rounding it over his side. I dragged my teeth over his lower lip, giddily giggling one more time.

"Come on," he groaned, throwing his head back. "You're making me self-conscious."

"Oh, I'm making you self-conscious," I teased, cheeks pink. "Not talking about getting pegged with your mates over at the bar."

"Aye, well that's hypotheticals, isn't it?" He flushed. "I mean, I can't imagine why or how Gaz let Kara put a pinky up his bum but it's a far fucking sight from having the bloody prospect staring me in the face." He rolled on to his back, running a hand over his face. He shot me a look, eventually breaking into a sheepish grin. "It's not every day a guy asks to be the woman."

"Be the woman?" I propped myself up on my elbow. "That's not what's happening, love." I trailed a finger over his chest. "You think this makes you a woman?"

"Or at least a little queer."

"Johnny!" I slapped his chest. "That's not okay."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" He tried to fend off my short attack as I smacked him again. "I take it back!" He cried, curling in on himself.

"Damn straight you do." I rolled over, sprawling on his chest. "First of all, that's offensive to queer folk-"

"I know, I know!"

"And second of all..." I sighed, running a thumb over his cheekbone. "If you don't want to do this, it's not a problem."

"That's not it." He craned upward, kissing my palm softly. "It's just... not something I thought I'd ever want."

"Because you're a man?"

"I guess?" He flushed, averting his gaze for a moment.

"Oh, darling." I kissed his forehead. "So, let's talk about it a little more, huh?"

Beers in hand, now sprawled on the couch, we both looked at the notebook in front of me.

"Pros:" I declared, "Feels good." I turned to him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He agreed.

"Cons:" I looked up at him one more time. He took a sip of his beer. "You're not sure it will feel good. It makes you feel emasculated."

"Ten dollar word, there."

"Uh-huh. And you're worried it makes you a wee bit gay."

"Just a wee bit."

"And remind me what the problem is if you find out you like men?"

"Dunno, doesn't it make me a creep?"

I snorted. "You are a creep, dear. The way you talk about women is frankly disrespectful."

He threw his hands in the air, beer sloshing dangerously in this bottle. I took a long swallow of my own as I reviewed the pros and cons list.

"Pro." I finally said, taking up the pen again. "We're being vulnerable with one another." He eyed me warily, lowering his arms. "Pro: We might find a new dimension to our relationship." He nodded, less warily than at any other point tonight. "Pro." I tried one more time. "I trust you. And I hope you trust me. So if this is something you're interested in, I'd like us to give it a go."

"Okay," he nodded more confidently. "But... not tonight." He rested a hand on his belly. "The beer's running right through me."

I grimaced. "Go shit, dear."

"Going." He sprung up, hurrying to the bathroom. I silently agreed with his assessment. Those sounds coming from the loo did not inspire confidence in trying this out tonight.

--

A week later, I stood in front of a grinning, blushing Johnny, his hands loosely bound to the headboard. His chest heaved as he took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Good?" I purred, rounding the bed with long, languid strides. The high heels pressed uncomfortably into the balls of my feet, but the look on his face made it worth it.

"Yeah." He breathed, his eyes shining, his cheeks a deep red. I smiled warmly as I noticed that even the tips of his ears had turned red. "God, you look amazing."

It was my turn to flush. "Oh, this old thing?" I ran a hand down my side, fingers dancing over the lace bustier I'd donned. It felt appropriate, given the harness Johnny and I had fumbled through getting me in not thirty minutes prior. Between my legs bobbed a carefully chosen, thin black dildo. "I guess it's alright." I purred, strutting toward him.

I watched him stiffen as I placed a knee on the bed, the mattress dipping ever so slightly as I crawled closer. His eyes hooded as I positioned myself between his spread legs, running my hands over his thighs. My heart fluttered when he trembled. We both let out shuddering, nervous breaths.

And then giggled.

"Oh god," I ran a hand through my hair. "Does this... does this work? Is this working?" I expected him to tell me no, but his grin softened, then faded.

"It's working too well, darling." He admitted. "I'm so hard it hurts."

I took another breath as he caught his lip in his teeth, fighting a self-conscious grin. I nodded, crawling closer. I licked my lips as I dragged my nails over his thighs, just hard enough to feel the hair along them give way. Johnny sighed, then groaned as I dragged them back upward, barely skirting the sensitive skin of his groin. His cock twitched and I found myself unable to tear my gaze away, repeating the gesture to watch a bead of precum well up at his slit.

I once more skated my hands just shy of his cock, heart racing as I lightly caressed his balls. They jumped, his stomach tightening in either surprise or pleasure.

"The way you respond..." I whispered, catching myself by surprise at just how reverent it sounded. I ran a hand over his abs, taking a sharp breath when they rippled under my touch. "You ready for the blindfold, love?" I breathed, leaning over him to snatch the fabric off of the nightstand.

"Mhm." He nodded, strained.

It had been his idea - that if he couldn't see me when I entered, he'd be less nervous. I leaned over him, arching my back so that my tits dangled just shy of his mouth. He lapped at my nipple when he lifted his head. I adjusted the blindfold. I felt his hips rock against my stomach when I pulled away.

"Can you see?"

"Not really." His response was breathy. He was panting like he'd just outrun enemy fire.

"Good." I purred. I leaned close, brushing my lips against his before softly deepening the kiss. For a moment, he stiffened, then relaxed into the kiss, his tongue brushing over my bottom lip as he mouthed my lower lip between his.

"Shit, babe." He rasped, and he twitched underneath me. I dragged a hand over his pec, then his abs, once more settling between his thighs. I couldn't help but pause, taking in the tableau, hands resting, unhurried.

Here he was, spread out like a fucking feast, all because I'd asked a few weeks ago, and he'd said yes. His muscular arms were clenched taut, fists gripping the restraints looped around his wrists. His lips were parted and pink, looking for all the world like he expected me to have him lap at my rubber cock next. His chest was flushed in a delicious little triangle of anticipation...

God, he was beautiful.

Least of all because his abs were clenching so hard his stomach scooped with each breath.

"Babe," he tried again, "I'm fucking dying here. Please."

"Right." I cleared my throat, once more running my nails over his skin. His hips snapped up sharply when I ghosted over his cock before taking it loosely into my grasp. One, two soft pumps had him whining in the back of his throat. I swallowed, eyes trained on his cock as I continued to tease him.

After a few more soft pumps, I adjusted myself, tugging his hips to spread him out in my lap. He yelped, then giggled, chest turning a deeper shade of red. I wriggled my hips under him again, the dildo brushing his cheek as I did so. He inhaled sharply.

"Is this it?" He asked.

"Oh no, darling." I replied, throaty and deep. "I'm going to make you cum first." He was about to reply when I spat into my hand and wrapped it around his cock, giving it a firm stroke. His groan of surprise was all I needed. I slowed, loosened, and began to pump.

It felt... exhilarating... having him at my mercy. Each time his thighs tensed or his hips lifted, I paused. Slowed until he relaxed back into the mattress. Another dribble of spit had him arching upwards with a strangled whimper.

"You beautiful bitch." He gasped as I leaned down to run the tip of my tongue over his slit.

"Is that what I am?" I wrapped my hand around him again, stroking twice before taking him into my mouth and throat. He groaned, straining against me as I popped off of him. It was the perfect lubricant as far as I was concerned. I tightened my grip, twisting my wrist and watching the head of his cock turn a dangerous red. He was babbling, now, something about letting him touch me.

"Now, now." I watched him with eyes that couldn't really see anymore, pulling away entirely. "Be good." He let out a strangled sob, hips once more sagging against my thighs. Only once he stopped twitching with every heartbeat did I take him up again.

Then again, when he was close, I stopped.

"We didn't agree to edging." He moaned, sweat gathering at the hollow of his neck and on his forehead. My shimmering, beautiful boyfriend.

And I get to peg him.

I nearly lost my composure then and there.

"Ask nicely." I commanded, grinning wildly.

"Please finish me, baby."

I groaned, one hand reaching to cup his sack while I gripped him tight. It took no more than ten seconds for him to tighten, groaning that he was close. I sped up, rolling his balls in my hand. I couldn't tear my gaze away from his cock as he began to pant, profanity spilling from his lips as his climax built.

"Yes, babe, fuck yes I'm so close. Please, fuck, please!" Music to my fucking ears.

I giggled giddily, flushing, as the first rope of cum shot from his cock, striping his shoulder and pec (and potentially the pillow behind his head).

The second shot over his abs, slicing diagonally in a gorgeous, glistening line. And the third… his cock drooled just under his bellybutton, dripping down his side just so.

“Damn.” We said at the same time. He groaned, hips pulling away when I stroked one last time, squeezing a last pearlescent bead from him.

“Too much.” The explanation was strained. I carefully laid him against his stomach, trailing a finger down his shrinking shaft.

“Just wait.” I trapped my lower lip between my teeth, suddenly restless and eager to press forward. Instead, I bent at the waist, dragging my tongue over his abs and lapping up the now-cool evidence that I could play him like a fiddle.

It was bitter. Salty. Honestly, I’d always hated the taste. But the flex of his stomach and abs underneath me, the way I knew the air was that much cooler now… god, it set my blood on fire.

“Johnny,” I lilted as I crawled closer to his ear. I brushed my lips against his and he let out a shocked whine, pressing himself closer. I straddled his waist, curling my hand around his neck as his spend smeared between us. “Are you ready for the main event?” I teased, rocking my obscenely wet center against his middle.

“God yes.” He lifted his hips again, trying to notch himself at my entrance.

“Wrong top, wrong bottom, my dear.” I murmured against his lips.

"What do you mean?" He panted, grinning widely. I could feel his eyes sparkling from under the blindfold, no doubt crinkling at the corners as his eyebrows climbed his forehead. "I don't get to stick it in?"

"Believe that's my job tonight, love." I giggled.

"Right." His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "Right." He murmurs again, his grin fading to a nervous smile.

I slid down his body, once more setting myself between his thighs. I grabbed the bottle of lube lying to my right alongside a glove. I snapped the wrist audibly when I pulled it on, watching him jump minutely at the sound. Another concession for him. He wasn't ready for a bare finger.

"What if you end up with shit on your hand?" He'd argued. I had to wait a few days to teach him about how he could prevent that particular scenario.

Still, prepped as he was, he still insisted on the glove. And since it was more for him than for me at this point, I agreed.

I poured some lube into my palm, slicking two fingers carefully. A wicked idea formed, and I leaned closer, ensuring that he could hear the squelch of lube over latex. The hitch in his breath was audible. It was only when my cheeks began to ache that I realized that I was grinning.

Then, in my best approximation of low, soothing tones I murmured, "Ready? Just the tip."

He nodded, then quipped, "That's always a lie: Just the tip."

"It is." I said. But I was careful as I circled his asshole. Instead of pressing, I massaged. If he flinched I paused. And the first two times I tried to touch him, he did flinch away. I waited, and tried again. And on the third time, he finally relaxed enough for me to carefully press inward. Just the tip, as promised. Just up to that first knuckle.

I swept it along the inside, allowing him time to adjust to the odd feeling.

"Ah," he sighed, relieved, "that isn't so bad, eh?"

"No? Good." My lips hardly moved. I was busy cataloguing the myriad new sensations. He was tight like a drum around the edges, and then so, so empty otherwise. It was easy, running my finger along his internal rim. "I'm gonna push in more, okay?" I asked softly. He nodded, relaxing further as I pressed to the next knuckle.

"Yeah, not bad." He said, widening his knees. "Easy." He sighed.

"Second finger?" I asked, pulling out.

"Yeah." He agreed. The second finger was just a little more difficult. But not terrible. The latex crinkled against itself, and I wondered if he could feel it catching and folding as I slowly entered with two fingers this time. I wondered if it would feel better without the glove, or if I'd be as concerned about shit as he was.

That said... the change in him was immediate. I pressed deeper, until I couldn't press any further, and continued to explore. Down and around, then back up and-

"Oh." I breathed as I found it.

"Fuck-" he yelped. What was it my research said? A walnut? Yeah. The prostate. Found it.

I did as I'd read and gently hooked my fingers, dragging the pads of my fingers over it. Glancing up at him, my eyes skittered and snagged on his cock. He was getting hard again. Fast.

I made the motion again and lost the ability to breathe. It wasn't a groan that he let out, but a strangled, choked off whimper. A sound that trailed off into something almost overwhelmed.

Again. And his cock twitched.

Again. And he sobbed out my name.

Oh no.

I'm addicted.

I knew I couldn't change the rhythm. Not when he was gripping his restraints and begging for me to continue. I couldn't not keep going when his hips began to move against my fingers, twisting into just the right position.

"Oh, baby." I cooed. "I hate to do this, but we have to stop here." I was panting alongside him, cheeks burning and eyes wide and fixed on his hole as I slowly pulled out.

I quickly pulled off the glove, tossing it over my shoulder and grabbing the bottle of lube.

"Just put something in, sweetheart. Don't make me wait for it." He begged.

"You got it." I agreed, already shifting his hips in my lap once more. I blinked down at the dildo. It was woefully straight, and I worried it wouldn't properly reach his prostate.

But he urged me again, planting his feet on the mattress and lifting his hips one more time, and I banked that particular fire. He was the one asking after it, now, and I was going to deliver.

I quickly lubed the dildo and pressed it against him. He didn't even try to pretend he wanted to resist. He ground as best as he could, chest and arms flexing once more as he tried to overexert.

"Hey," I ran a hand over his side. "Hold on, now." I shuffled forward, one hand gripping over his thigh. And then, between the two of us, we managed to get him seated on the dildo.

He shifted, and then, again, that whine.

"There it is." He melted, then tensed as he tried to lift himself off of it.

"No." I gripped his thigh tighter, grabbing his other. "I move. You lie there." We both froze, because the tone in my voice was...

"Yes ma'am." He breathed, that blush brushing over his chest and shoulders again.

"...good." It sounded more certain than I felt.

The first rock into him made my lower back twinge. I shifted again, and this time it was fluid. But I stuttered when my hips met his ass.

"Good?" I asked uncertainly.

"Mhm." He bit his lip. "Feels... good even when you don't get my..." He didn't manage to say it.

"Prostate." I agreed, and pulled out slowly. So slick sounding. Almost as slick sounding as me when he was on top. Almost.

I began to figure out the rhythm, then, and realized I'd need to hitch his thighs around my waist. He moved easily, melting into the position with a sigh.

I began to thrust into him again, falling into a steady rhythm more easily than I thought. My eyes wandered, watching his pecs bounce with each soft impact of my hips against him, watching his arms tense with each slow retreat. His lips fell open, each pleased sigh almost inaudible.

I began to move harder, egged on by the color of his cock and the jerk of his hips as I managed to tilt upwards just enough to brush his prostate again.

He groaned, pulling his legs up higher.

"Babe," he gasped, "try..." he blindly tried to hook his ankles up over my shoulders. My eyebrows shot up.

"You sure?"

"'m flexible."

"...okay." My grin was audible, and I hoisted his legs where he wanted. I braced myself on my palms, grunting. The position dragged the small rubber cock against his prostate again. His toes curled, the air wheezing out of him as we managed to find that perfect angle.

I groaned in return, grasping his pec as I tried to keep up the pace.

Luckily, it took all of five more thrusts before he was begging me to grab his cock.

I did, pumping once. Twice. Thrice.

And then he was cumming again, folding in on himself as he shouted, sobbing as I continued to rock into him. Each thrust in was met by a softer, smaller shudder and he managed with a weak groan just two smaller spurts.

I waited until he went boneless, then pulled out, shuffling toward the foot of the bed.

He was panting, flushed, and grinning dopily when my feet touched the carpet and I carefully lowered him to the mattress. When I pulled off the harness, my lips peeled away wet and hypersensitive from the harness gusset.

I crawled to his side, untying his hands and tugging a few tissues from the nightstand. I was wiping him clean when he tugged off the blindfold.

"Good?" I asked, unable to hide my unmitigated adoration when my eyes met his. I dabbed at his spend, swiping it up and off of his chest.

"Yeah." His eyes were heavy and equally adoring. I could smell the word 'love' on his thoughts.

"Good." I finished cleaning him up.

"Just one thing..." His eyes trailed low as I walked to the ensuite, tossing the tissues in the trash.

"What's that?" I said, returning to join him on the bed.

"It's your turn." He said, gleefully pouncing on me.

I squealed with surprise as he kissed me, pulling me tight against him with an arm around my waist. But god, did I love him. It was exactly what I needed when his fingers easily found their way between my legs, dragging over my clit on their way to their destination inside of me. He hauled me underneath him, pressing kisses from my lips to my neck to my breasts. Then down my stomach and right where he belonged.

He ate me with a ferocity that I hadn't seen since we started dating. As if we'd unlocked some missing piece in the puzzle of our sex life.

I groaned, hips leaping as he attacked my g-spot, his tongue laving over my clit. I gripped at his hair, grinding against him as each oversensitive nerve was set on fire.

"Fuck yes." I whined, gripping harder.

"Love you." He slurred between sloppy sucks and licks. "So fucking much."

His grip tightened over my hips as I came with a stuttering groan; tongue tingling, heart racing, and body running hot.

"Fuck." I sighed, head lolling. My eyes fluttered closed as he kissed my thighs, then my stomach, pulling himself next to me and nuzzling his cheek against my chest. "So, we're gonna do this again, right?"

"Oh, definitely." He agreed. "You free tomorrow?"

I laughed, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.

"Maybe next week." I said softly.