A little less conversation... [Part I]

[eyes_adrift]

It began normally enough.

Evening in Groznyj Grad, and like usual, Leshovik and I were prowling around rooftops, trying to get a bead on the target. Leshovik had thought he'd found the target's quarters the other night, so we found the perfect rooftop nest and set up to wait.

Leshovik and I talked a little, but he seemed preoccupied. That was fine. Snipers are patient. I can wait a long time. So can Leshovik, actually, though you wouldn't think so.

We didn't have long to wait before I caught sight of the target and things took off from there.

When we got back, well, things got a little ugly.

But then...they got better.

snow_death: Alexei pushed aside the flap of the bivouac and allowed the younger man to duck under. It was dark inside, and he located the oil lamp and lit it. It flared into life and he turned down the wick.

A dulcet glow fell over the canvas and blankets. That was more inviting.

It was humble, but by now he'd learned a thing or two about roughing it well.

He had a bedroll and several blankets on the floor, as well as the standard blanket and pillow set up in the hammock.

Sometimes he preferred one or the other. The hammock was an essential for damp ground and leaf litter, but here in the cavern the floor was dry rock, and so one could bunk anywhere it was comfortable.

Since they usually stayed in one place for many weeks, one could afford a more permanent kit, considering they were always evacuated by Kamov.

A collapsible camp chair sat in the corner.

"Looks about like yours, I guess?" he said, with a solicitous raise of his eyebrows. "Raining outside. I can hear it beyond the cave mouth."

He looked down, where his chess kit peered out of his rucksack, but didn't make a move to pull it out and set it up.

eyes_adrift: "You have good ears," Aryol said, almost absently, as he looked around Lynx's tent.

Rain was good. Cleansing. It would destroy even the minute amount of evidence they'd left behind. Scuff marks on the rooftop where they'd nested, their footprints in the dirt. The rain would scour that all away, and it would be like they'd never been there.

Aryol leaned down to unbuckle the strap around his thigh that held his holster in place, then unbuckled his belt. He'd been in such a hurry to tell them the news that he still had on half his gear. His rifle and balaclava, he'd left in the other tent, but he still wore all the rest on his belt and and in the various pockets of his camo jumpsuit.

"Okay if I put this there?" he asked, gesturing with belt in hand over at the camp chair. He paused, looking between the hammock and bedroll.

"Where do you sleep?"

He and Leshovik always slept in a hammock. They didn't even have a bedroll, even though there were a lot of times when it would be more convenient to be on the ground and not balanced precariously.

snow_death: Alexei laughed quietly and gave him a loose smile.

"Anywhere I want. I like some flexibility. I'm not a small man, and sometimes being in the sling just makes me feel like a walrus in a net."

He shrugged.

"Sometimes it's all right, though. Like a...cradle."

He glanced at Aryol, casually dissembling his gear.

Seemed like the kid never had a moment of self-doubt.

"Put it anywhere you like," he said. "I don't mind."

Lynx's head brushed the top of the canvas, no matter how high he tied the support strings of the bivouac.

"Make yourself comfortable. I don't know what you feel like, if you want to sack out for a while..."

He paused.

"Or just relax."

eyes_adrift: That made Aryol smile, and he felt a little better.

Aryol's smiles usually came easily, but this one was a little quicker, a fleeting sideways dart.

He'd caught the slightest hesitation in Lynx's speech, as if he was choosing his words with care.

He liked that. He'd been right about Lynx, he thought.

"Thanks."

Aryol looped his gunbelt over the back of the camp chair, then sat down in it. He leaned forward so he could unlace his boots.

"So, where are you sleeping tonight?" he asked, pulling off one boot and stowing it under the chair, then starting to unlace the other.

As he worked, he glanced up at Lynx, dark brows peaking in question.

snow_death: "Thought I'd sleep on the floor," he replied, shrugging out of his jacket. "I feel like spreading out. Luxuriating," he added, wryly, with a squint.

He glanced at Aryol, briefly, noting the slightly dusky sand tone of his skin, the olive tones warm and earthen in the lamplight.

"You're a good-looking kid," he said, after a moment, with a smile and no particular loading to the words.

"...Not going to bother you if I strip down to my tank and shorts, is it?"

He rubbed his jaw, feeling the slight bristle of a day's growth.

"I'm sick of gear."

eyes_adrift: In spite of everything - his bad call, the fight with Leshovik - Aryol grinned.

"No, it's not going to bother me," he said, with mild amusement.

He kicked his other boot under the camp chair, then stood up to remove the rest of his essential gear so he could set it on the chair seat, where it would be safe.

Aryol began unbuttoning his camo jumpsuit then, but with no particular haste, shrugging out of the sleeves, then stepping out of the rest. Underneath, he wore a plain grey tank and shorts.

He set the jumpsuit back on the chair and reached down to grab hold of the hem of his undershirt and pulled it over his head. That, he tossed back on the chair as well, and then stripped off his shorts.

Aryol was lean and strong, and his body young and supple with easily defined muscle. He did the same daily exercises Leshovik did, though he'd never had formalized Spetsnaz training.

But he knew he looked good. Not as skinny as he had been three years ago, when he'd first met Leshovik. He'd filled out with muscle, but had stayed lithe.

It was a little cold, but he stepped across to Lynx's bedroll and slipped in.

Aryol settled on his back, looking up at Lynx, a smile tugging at his lips. "It's not going to bother you if I strip," he asked, "is it?"

snow_death: Alexei's laugh was soft and low.

"I don't always like Leshovik's attitude," he remarked, hiding his smile as he turned away, easing his undershirt up and over the over-broad span of his shoulders. "But I can't fault his taste."

He was amused by the guileless enthusiasm Aryol led with-amused, and a little pained, somewhere inside. Clearly the spotter been neglected in his younger life, not held, not shushed. Not whispered to. He sought human contact eagerly, openly, like a half-grown puppy.

His heart went out voraciously, as it always did, to those who had been underloved and unappreciated.

He hesitated, back to the other soldier, before pushing his shorts down gently, and stepping out of them.

Alexei frowned at nothing for a moment.

"You want me to..."

He glanced behind him.

Aryol's eyes were like embers in the low light. The rain fell outside, and it sounded torrential. Deafening.

"...turn out the light?"

eyes_adrift: Aryol cocked his head, but then smiled slowly.

"No," he said, with a small shake of his head, "leave it on. I'd like to see you."

Naked, Lynx was even more impressive than clothed. Aryol's eyes dropped from his face to run over his body. Powerful arms, broad chest, solid, sculpted abdomen. His legs were pure power, thick and hard with muscle.

Lynx was entirely unlike Leshovik, who had a much leaner build. Aryol found Lynx's body fascinating, for its mountainous proportion. Big dick, too, but he'd known that. It was just nice to take in everything at once.

He looked like some kind of wrestler. Aryol found it funny that a guy like Lynx, who didn't have to be nice, was so...

Aryol didn't really have the word.

He shook his head.

"You have a great body. You must do a lot of crunches."

Aryol was fairly sure he could count every one of Lynx's obliques if he wanted.

snow_death: Aryol was looking utterly at ease, there, in his bedroll, like a kitten who'd been shoved off the couch, licked the cream off its whiskers and promptly found a new favorite spot on the sun.

Alexei's eyes honed in on him, as he approached, and knelt like a savage, staring hard at the young spotter. Drinking in his stormy beauty, trying to read his eyes.

"I don't pretend to know what you want," he said slowly, his voice low and hushed. "But I'll make love to you, if that's what you need."

eyes_adrift: Aryol caught a new note in Lynx's voice, an edge of something dangerous. It made his heart thrum, and he paused, to wet his lips.

"What do you want?" he returned, quietly and evenly.

Aryol held Lynx's gaze, which was lambent and narrowed.

"I'm just here because I want to be here. I'm here because I like you, and you're nice to me."

He reached out then, and laid a hand on Lynx's thigh.

"This doesn't have anything to do with anything other than you and me. The world is full of stuff that's complicated. This is simple."

Aryol let his thumb stroke across the smooth, taut skin.

He dropped his voice. "Tell me what you want. Tell me what you like, and I'll do it. Doesn't matter what it is."

Aryol frowned then, and reconsidered. "Well, almost. There's some really fucked up shit I won't do, but anything else..."

He shrugged. "Anyway, try me."

snow_death: Lynx paused, and moved forward in a crouch, smoothly, silently, on his fingertips and the balls of his feet, watching Aryol slowly sink back beneath his insistence, until he was caging the younger man, but not touching him.

The spotter's gaze was black but shone like a midnight sun. No trepidation was reflected.

"The Longshot told me you were scared of me," he said. "But here you are. Bold as brass and twice as hard."

He paused, looking Aryol over, trying to temper the hunger in his eyes.

After a moment, Lynx let his broad hand come to rest on the spotter's throat, and stroked his thumb slowly along the tender pulse.

"You ask me what I want," Lynx ground out, his voice like honeyed grit, light eyes rising with solemn focus. "...I want to make love to you."

His lashes swept down.

"Until you break."

eyes_adrift: Suddenly Aryol's heart pounded, and he remembered his fear.

It was not the fear that Lynx would hurt him, because once you knew what to expect, that was never frightening. It was the thrill of the unknown, of the side of Lynx that was hidden and wholly unexplored.

He shivered, and swallowed.

"Wow," he said, softly. "No one's ever said that to me before."

He licked his lips.

"No one's ever done that to me before."

His chest rose and fell, quicker now, more shallow. Under Lynx's callused thumb, his pulse sang.

Aryol brought one hand up, and laid it against Lynx's ribcage, feeling the stilled power and the controlled breathing.

He wondered at what kind of man Lynx was, who could just say things like that and really mean them. He was like no one Aryol had ever known.

Finally, he nodded. "Okay," he breathed, then tried to reclaim his grin, but he felt so breathless, he could barely stop. "Go for it."

snow_death: Alexei almost wanted to smile, but all that passed his chiseled mouth was a slight outward drawing of the granite contour, that could have been easily misconstrued as a sneer.

He drew back the blankets, and eased his body beneath them, watching Aryol all the while, never breaking his eyes away from his face, a contradiction of striking dark looks and blinding good nature. Sweetness and light, the kid was made of.

Lynx didn't hesitate, but reached out with one powerful arm, seeking the younger soldier's naked body, curling around it- encompassing it, and drawing him against his strapping chest

Gently, ever so gently. Laying his lips against the spotter's soft and parted mouth as he unobtrusively gathered both of Aryol's wrists and moved them behind his back, pinning them there in a single hand.

"Do you know what chiaroscuro is?" he murmured, as he mouthed lightly, playing along the contours of Aryol's breathless lips. "It means light-dark. I would have given you that moniker, if you were mine."

He meant to say, 'if you had been one of my men', but somehow he didn't stop and correct himself, distracted by the younger man's supple skin. His warmth, his lean and responsive serendipity.

eyes_adrift: Aryol breathed out softly, leaning his head up to touch his tongue to the edge of Lynx's lips.

He wanted to be Lynx's, right then, and not anyone else's, and not just for the night.

But he didn't say it. He didn't want to make things awkward. And Aryol knew that the things you wanted most were the ones you never got.

"Why?" he asked instead, not understanding the rest. Aryol's hair and eyes were dark, and his skin, fairly dusky, rather than pale.

Lynx's skin was tanned, and his hair was was dark and shorn tight, but his eyes were the most amazing shade of blue Aryol had seen. He'd noticed them right away, back when they'd first been tapped for this mission. If anyone was light-dark, it was Lynx, for that reason.

He arched back, testing his boundaries, stretching his pinned arms and savoring the restraint. It felt good, to be held like this, as if Lynx wanted to guarantee his attention, that it was important.

snow_death: "Because your inner glow suffuses your darkness," whispered Alexei, sliding his mouth over Aryol's at last, claiming his mouth wholly.

He devoured those lips, pressing his body against the spotter's, feeling himself rise below, like a Christ resurrected.

His free hand eased down Aryol's back, over his buttocks, feeling, possessing, learning the lay of the land.

"You're special. He doesn't see it," he breathed, tightening his grip, feeling the kid's body arch into him as he moved his mouth lower, down his throat. "He's blind."

His broad thigh drove Aryol's strong young legs apart and settled there, between them.

Alexei could feel the throb of blood in the spotter's cock, nestled beside his own in an indecent press.

"I'll fill you," he hissed, softly, licking across a dusky nipple. "Shape you around me. Wear you down. Make you mine."

A kiss, against the downy soft fuzz of the kid's abdomen.

"I'll hold you as long as you want me to."

eyes_adrift: With every word, Aryol trembled, stripped defenseless.

His breath hitched in his chest and came in hard gasps, though he tried to control it.

No one had ever said things to him like that before, well, no one had said them and meant them. He'd been told he was special before, but the people who had said it always wanted something from him in return.

But Lynx...wasn't like that, he could tell.

Aryol felt nearly overcome, like he wanted to cry, but he no longer knew how.

Lynx's body felt hard and permanent against his shivering muscles. He wanted Lynx to do all the things he murmured into Aryol's skin, and more.

"I want to be yours," he whispered, even though he knew he shouldn't.

To voice it aloud would guarantee it never happened, but at the same time, he had to say it.

snow_death: "That's good," murmured Alexei, "because you already are."

He eased his hands down Aryol's lean form, releasing his hands at last, and without warning, lifted his hips, bringing the spotter's legs over his own massive shoulders- caressing his thighs and supporting the small of his back. Exposing the tender netherregions of his body, beneath his cock and balls.

Lowering his head and letting his tongue touch the ruched skin of the entrance, delicate and glancing as a butterfly.

eyes_adrift: Aryol gasped at that touch, which he felt with more intensity than any amount of hard fucking he'd had in the past.

The intimacy of it made his breath hitch, and his hips buck reflexively, nearly convulsing. He felt perfectly exposed in a way he'd never been before, open with not just body, but with his whole being.

He'd been right to be scared, he thought, but at the same time he trusted the man with everything.

That was what it must be like to have a spotter.

Aryol trembled hard now, but he arched his hips and opened himself to Lynx more fully, breath still catching in his throat, rendering it almost impossible to speak.

"Y-yes," he managed, shakily and then, "Please."

snow_death: "You're shaking," he observed, in an undertone, tracing a slow, warm circle within the sensitive ring of flesh. No pressure yet. "Just like a lamb."

The younger man's body had released its tension in a rush that made his insides flutter. God, that was sweet.

Alexei's arms tightened, pulling Aryol's body closer, supporting him effortlessly as a feather. His tongue flickered across the forbidden opening, turning gently on pointe, playing against each minute ruche of crepe-soft tissue.

Now Aryol was straddling his face fully, his thighs utterly spread and lax, his thighs alive with fine motor tremors.

Alexei was hard as Cleopatra's needle, down below where Aryol couldn't see, jutting up like iron.

His broad hands played slowly down the spotter's stomach and chest, spread and stroking. His fingertips brushed a nipple, and caught it, absently, rolling it in his callused pinch, releasing it and brushing over the pectoralis once more.

"He do this to you?" Lynx said, in a guttural breath.

eyes_adrift: Aryol let out a soft mewl, only a whimper, his brows tightening as he tried to answer.

"No," he whispered then. No one had.

Lynx had released his wrists earlier, but only belatedly did Aryol move them. He brought his hands up to seek out Lynx's arms, fingertips shaking, trailing against muscle carved from marble, smooth and dense yet soft in texture.

"No one's ever - "

His breath caught and hitched again. Aryol ran his fingers down Lynx's arms, stroking the fine bones that ran across the backs of his hands, his fingertips curling around Lynx's wrists.

Not to lift his hands away, but just to brush the lightest of touches against Lynx's pulse, like feathering the trigger in anticipation of the shot.

Aryol curled up his shoulders then, leaning forward, stomach tightening. He brought both hands to one of Lynx's, then slowly pulled on his arm, bringing Lynx's wrist to his mouth so he could kiss it.

He kissed it the way Leshovik kissed him sometimes, with deliberate slowness, open-mouthed and unhurried. He took his time to trace every contour with his tongue, wetting the skin, which carried with it the taste of salt and leather.

snow_death: "Da, malchik moyo," Lynx whispered, between strokes of his tongue, closing his eyes, "Do that. I like it."

Aryol was strong, isometric. He admired the sensual contortions of his physique, restrained though he was by position.

Alexei was longing to take him farther.

He wanted to break him with pleasure, make him transcend his short existence of practical sacrifice for something more sacred.

The passes of his tongue became more firm, dipping slightly into the entrance, more and more, until at last the full length and breadth of his tongue slipped inside Aryol's ass.

Lynx moaned, pleased.

The scent of the kid was like musk and black coffee, male and heady.

He shoved his face deeper, grinding it into his buttocks, tongue-fucking the kid without mercy.

eyes_adrift: The sensation felt unlike any other Aryol had known, soft and firm and slick at once, gentle, but relentlessly insistent. It spread throughout him, stung through thighs and abdomen and cock, which pulsed hard and wept against his belly.

His hands on Lynx's trembled, going numb, and he could barely keep the strength in nerveless fingers to hold on to that broad palm. Aryol sucked hard at Lynx's wrist now, like he could draw in air from the seal around wet and satiny skin.

He had to break off to breathe and pant, but he kept his cheek pressed close against Lynx's wrist, grasping him as tightly as he could, unwilling to let go.

Aryol could not contain his voice though he knew he had to be quiet. Short, low moans caught in his throat in an erratic tempo, torn away and breathless.

He felt himself pass beyond the point of thought, when there was only reaction.

His inhibitions shattered, and he gave himself over to sensation.