Barricade

by Lindsey Black

  Jett hadn’t even managed to turn off the lights, let alone get under the blankets. He was sprawled face down on the bed in only his underwear and for a moment all Sasha could think to do was stand there and stare. Jett had long, lean legs and he had the amazing dimples just above his arse cheeks that drew the gaze. Fixated on them momentarily, Sasha almost missed the white crisscross of scars over his body. In the light they shone a faint silver against the rest of Jett’s bronze skin. Sasha closed the door and silently went to the bed, reaching down to study the patterns on Jett’s skin. Mostly blades of some kind, if Sasha had to guess.

  ‘Tickles,’ Jett mumbled, turning his head to look at him and then groaning and closing his eyes tight against the light.

  ‘Did you get these training?’ Sasha had a few scars from training with the knife, but nothing like what he was seeing.

  ‘Most of them,’ Jett mumbled into the pillow. ‘Some were just stupid accidents.’

  ‘Did you hit yourself with your sword?’

  ‘So many times.’ Jett turned onto his back so he could look up at Sasha. It didn’t help Sasha’s concentration at all, gaze trailing down the length of Jett’s torso.

  A hand came up and cupped his cheek, drawing Sasha’s gaze back to Jett’s frowning face.

  ‘Stop staring.’

  ‘Well, put some clothes on then,’ Sasha reasoned. He enjoyed the way Jett’s face flamed, the pink colouring starting high on his chest and working its way up.

  ‘It’s a good idea,’ Jett agreed. ‘I’m freezing.’

  Sasha put his hand on Jett’s calf and winced because he did indeed resemble a Popsicle. He got up and grabbed a pair of cargos from Jett’s closet, tossing them to him on the bed and then finding a thermal top. By the time he turned, Jett was already pulling the pants on but somehow watching him pull the cargos up his thighs was just as appealing as watching them come off.

  ‘You’re still staring.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Sasha grunted, throwing clean socks at Jett and then kicking his boots over. ‘Hurry up, Enzo wants to hear what we found out. He’s waiting for you.’

  ‘You mean he’s waiting because you told him to,’ Jett snickered, pulling his boots on but not bothering to do them up. As soon as he was dressed he draped his arms around Sasha’s neck and fell in against him, inhaling deeply. ‘You smell so good.’

  It had been a very long time since Sasha had someone hug him because they found comfort in his touch. Jett melted against him, pushing harder into his body as if he couldn’t stand there to be space between them. Sasha wanted to push him back down on the bed, strip his clothes back off and lick every one of the man’s scars until the taste of him was permanently recorded in his senses.

  ‘I’m happy you missed me,’ Sasha rumbled, wrapping his arms tight around Jett and leaning into him, curling over him and inhaling the scent of his hair, knowing exactly what Jett meant.

  ‘Who said anything about missing you,’ Jett muttered, but the smile was obvious in his voice and Sasha clutched him tighter.

  ‘Are you feeling up to dinner?’

  ‘Maybe? Can everyone be sort of quiet?’

  ‘I think we can manage that.’ Sasha kissed the top of his head and took his hand, tugging him to the door and leading the way back up to the living area.

  Matti had a pot of something on the stove. Another stew, Sasha guessed from the scent. Enzo sat on a couch with Anna, obediently rubbing her belly.

  ‘How’s the head, Pavlova?’ It was cruel, that Enzo was so happy to be the source of someone’s pain, but Sasha let him because they were bonding and he refused to be the reason that took any longer than necessary. It seemed Enzo had taken Jett under his wing and was treating him almost like a little brother. Whatever worked for them, Sasha was fine with. It just had to work.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Jett mumbled and for the most part he did seem okay. He had an obvious hangover, but considering the potency of Enzo’s home brew Sasha was actually impressed he was standing, let alone functioning mostly as normal.

  Sasha sat on the couch across from Enzo and pulled Jett down beside him, pleased when Jett immediately slumped in against his side.

  ‘Okay, so we’re all here, what did you find out?’ Enzo looked at Matti stirring the stew on the stove and then back to Sasha expectantly.

  ‘The guys from Six-Six-Eight have been stuck in town for a few days,’ Sasha started, of the opinion that soldier’s lives came first. ‘I think they’ll make it back tomorrow. They seemed to be doing fine but the heating was off in their tower. We fixed it on the way back through, it was just a blown circuit but still something we should check here before winter really settles in.’

  ‘I already told you I would check them tomorrow,’ Matti reminded him. Sasha didn’t need the reminder, he trusted Matti to do as they’d discussed. He was just mentioning it so Enzo knew what was going on.

  ‘Okay. So they’ve obviously had trouble with the locals as well,’ Enzo clarified.

  ‘Yeah. There was a dead guy in their cage.’

  ‘How dead are we talking here?’ Enzo looked between them, curious, while Jett glanced at Matti with a more horrified expression. He was looking paler than usual and Sasha checked his temperature but he seemed fine.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jett assured him, pushing his hand away. ‘How dead was dead?’

  ‘You two shouldn’t hang out anymore,’ Matti interrupted, putting a chunk of deer meat onto a plate and then placing it on the floor for Anna, who took one sniff of the air and abandoned Enzo for the food.

  ‘No pulse for days dead,’ Sasha said bluntly.

  ‘Okay, that’s gross. Why’d they leave a stiff in the cage?’

  ‘I suspect he wasn’t dead when they left,’ Matti suggested drolly. ‘I also suspect they weren’t sure he was infected and so put him in the cage until they got back and could check.’

  ‘So, what? They just took some dude out of the town and shoved him in the cage until they got back, didn’t get back and this guy died?’ Even Enzo thought that was weird, which said a lot.

  ‘He was infected,’ Matti revised the explanation, trying to justify their actions.

  ‘Yeah but they didn’t know, right? And even if they didn’t know if he was or not, why shove him in the cage? Just shoot him, or let him go wander through town until he dies. Putting him in the cage is plain weird!’

  ‘Because he was from the north side of the wall,’ Sasha butted in when it was obvious the conversation was going to go in circles. Enzo fell silent, squinting at him as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard him right.

  ‘The north side,’ Enzo checked and Sasha just nodded.

  ‘Well then. That’s different.’

  People didn’t get sick on the north side. You had to come in contact with someone sick and no-one was sick on the north side. The man must have displayed symptoms that made the team suspicious and they put him in the cage to wait and see. But then they’d had to go into town, and their infected person had died in custody.

  ‘So there’s a tunnel.’ Enzo slumped back on the couch, his head lolling to the side while he let that sink in.

  ‘Kuznetsov said Dyogtin’s team are looking for it. Kuznetsov’s guys just found a weapons supply.’

  ‘So they have a tunnel and they’re armed?’ Enzo snorted. ‘This just gets better and better!’

  ‘Is that weird?’ Jett finally joined in around a large yawn that stretched his mouth in ways Sasha should not have been thinking about but couldn’t help while Jett was curled up against his side.

  ‘That they’re armed with a tunnel? Yeah, Pavlova, that’s weird.’ Matti shook his head and left the stew to simmer, coming over to sit on the empty couch.

  ‘No, people getting sick above the wall? Is that unusual?’

  ‘Yes!’ They all sternly announced in unison.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Wait.’ Sasha frowned at him, pulling back far enough to get a clear look at his face, needing to see his expressions.
‘Have you seen someone sick, north of the wall?’

  ‘A few,’ Jett confirmed. ‘On the way here, they kept approaching the truck.’

  Sasha had suspected it, but it was different somehow to have it confirmed. Another piece to a puzzle with an image he couldn’t see. It was hard to complete a puzzle when you couldn’t see the big picture, so to speak.

  ‘That’s new,’ Enzo muttered, but Jett was shaking his head, frowning in confusion and shifting to sit up properly.

  ‘No, that’s old,’ Jett corrected.

  ‘Explain,’ Matti cut everyone off before anyone could be more confused.

  ‘There were outbreaks in the camps all the time, right after they first built the Barricade,’ Jett pointed out.

  ‘Is that true?’ Matti looked stunned, which meant that was not something most people knew.

  ‘There were whole camps abandoned.’ Jett sounded completely certain. ‘People died by the tens of thousands. Everyone from camps knows that.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re not from a camp, so how do you know that?’ Enzo leaned his elbows on his knees, studying Jett.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not from a camp?’ Matti asked, long legs stretched out in front of him. ‘You said you were born there.’

  ‘I was born there, but my mum died soon after and I was taken to a facility.’

  ‘What sort of facility?’ Sasha scowled darkly, knowing a lot of rumours about secret facilities scattered across the Russian continent and not liking the idea of Jett having been in any of them.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Jett promised, patting his knee. ‘But even in the facility, everyone knows the camps got infected a lot.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Enzo looked to Matti for answers.

  ‘Without someone being infected, it’s not. It’s not airborne, you have to come in physical contact with someone who has it.’

  ‘Unless it originated there,’ Sasha reasoned. He didn’t like where his train of thought was going.

  ‘But then it would’ve broken out in the north, not the south. That makes no sense,’ Matti shook his head, ‘and it should’ve spread. Such large populations living in close proximity? No way could that’ve been contained.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ Jett shrugged. ‘But there have been breakouts in Korea and China from the beginning, and there were infected people on the road on the way here.’

  ‘From the beginning,’ Matti interrupted, expression unreadable. Jett nodded, but was still struggling to follow the line of the conversation. ‘Define the beginning.’

  ‘From the Russian invasion of North Korea.’

  ‘But that’s before the Barricade.’ Enzo took a large gulp of coffee and swished it noisily around in his mouth.

  ‘At the time of the first outbreaks, perhaps,’ Sasha reasoned. Potentially it was the first outbreak but he wasn’t ready to examine that line of thought just yet.

  ‘Regardless, we’re seeing outbreaks now. Here.’ Matti pulled them back in, redirecting so they could stew on the what ifs later, alone.

  ‘Do you think the infection came through the tunnel? That it came in from the south?’ Enzo ran a nervous hand through his hair, snagging his man-bun and pulling out his hair tie so his hair sprang into thick curls around his shoulders.

  ‘It seems that way,’ Sasha agreed softly. ‘But I don’t understand why people are gathering in the town instead of going north.’

  ‘They’re up to something,’ Enzo agreed. ‘Wait ’til you see the messages they wrote for us today.’

  ‘What messages?’ Sasha had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘All through town they spray painted slogans like ‘Barricaders not welcome’. Basically marked out the business district.’

  ‘Why don’t they want us in the business district?’ Sasha mused, but it was a question for tomorrow, when he’d had time to sleep on things and figure out a smart course of action.

  Matti got up and checked the stew, serving up bowls and bringing them over one at a time before settling back down with his own full, steaming bowl. They ate in silence, enjoying the warm broth and the chunks of meat and potato. After walking thirty kilometres it was rejuvenating but also left Sasha uninclined to do anything besides go to bed. Jett apparently felt the same, taking his empty bowl to the sink to rinse and not bothering with seconds, just marching off down the stairs.

  ‘I’m happy to take watch and do the dishes,’ Matti suggested, smiling when Enzo moaned in relief.

  ‘I’ll take second shift,’ Enzo agreed, Jett can have third, Sasha can take the early morning.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ he agreed quickly. ‘I’ll tell Jett.’ He put his bowl in the sink for Matti to take care of and then hurried to catch up with Jett, wanting to sleep with him. He wasn’t hard to catch, taking the stairs deliberately slow, one hand on his side. Sasha didn’t bother asking if he was okay, simply fell into step beside him, amused because Jett had gone straight past his room and then through the bathroom and didn’t stop until he got to Sasha’s door, looking at it expectantly. Sasha reached around him and pushed the door open, letting him go in first and then closing it behind them.

  Jett was just standing there, staring at him, slender and tired with rumpled clothes. He was somehow still the sexiest thing Sasha had ever seen and he lunged forward, reaching down to wrap his arms around his thighs and lift him from the floor, pleased when Jett instinctively wrapped his thighs around his hips. Jett’s hands clutched at Sasha’s shirt over his shoulders, tugging it up and over his head so only his arms were left in the sleeves. It was awkward and uncomfortable but he didn’t care, careful when he put Jett down on the bed and shoved the sleeves from his arms. Jett kicked off his boots, almost hitting Sasha in the head but he dodged it just in time, taking his own boots off so he could free himself from his cams.

  Jett was stuck with his hands on the button of his pants, staring at Sasha standing naked in front of him. Heat washed through Sasha and he reached out to push Jett’s hands away, flipping open the button and peeking inside. His scrutiny had Jett half hard in seconds, which only made Sasha want him more, pulling the cargos off his long legs and tossing them aside so he could run his hands up the smooth inside of Jett’s thighs. Continuing the slow slide, his hands moved under Jett’s shirt and pushed the material up the length of him until Jett pushed up off the bed enough that Sasha could remove the clothing entirely, watching Jett’s nipples harden in the cold.

  The bandage on his side looked clean but Sasha tentatively stroked the tape and looked questioningly at Jett.

  ‘If you stop I will kill you,’ he promised in a breathless whisper. ‘It doesn’t even hurt.’

  That was a lie, but Sasha let him tell it and focused instead on the face so close to his own. He pushed Jett’s hair back and admired the soft lines of Jett’s brow, the thick curve of his eye, the fan of his lashes, the long line of his nose, the bow of lips. He wasn’t stupid enough to tell Jett he was pretty, but he was.

  ‘How are you real?’ Jett mumbled, looking momentarily confused as he stared at Sasha’s face. It made Sasha laugh, but he didn’t linger on the comment, too absorbed in his own exploration of the man under him. He lay a line of kisses down Jett’s jaw and throat but lingered at his collarbone, trailing his fingertips along the bone and then biting down on it, sucking a faint mark onto his skin. It shouldn’t have made him feel powerful, but it did. Like he owned the man simply because he’d left a red stain on his skin.

  There were fine, white scars littered across Jett’s chest, more on the left side than the right. Sasha licked a wet trail from one to the next until Jett was laughing and trying to squirm free. Amused, Sasha settled against his side and placed a soothing hand in the middle of Jett’s chest, holding him steady while he studied the lines.

  ‘Why more on this side?’

  ‘I’m right handed. I have a habit of using the left side defensively, that foot’s usually backward, but it’s forward when defending, so…�
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  That made sense. It also indicated the wounds were from fighting, whether in training or actual warfare Sasha wasn’t sure he even wanted to know. He was trying hard not to imagine the kind of upbringing Jett might have had. Testing facilities were not training facilities. That was why they weren’t called the same thing. He didn’t want to imagine the things Jett might have been through, not when he was touching the evidence of what went on.

  It was Jett’s hands that drew him away from his fears, stroking down his sides and then following each ridge of his abdominals to his sternum. Sasha liked the small smile that turned up the corners of his full lips and he leaned in to catch them between his own, desperate to keep the taste of him on his tongue.

  Jett’s hands didn’t stop their exploration and when Sasha pulled back Jett’s eyes were open, as if he didn’t dare blink in case he missed something. Jett’s gaze was fixated on his fingers where they were stroking Sasha’s nipple, fascinated as it hardened under his touch. Closing his own fingers around Jett’s, Sasha held tight to his hand and pushed him down into the blankets, sliding lower so he could nuzzle the inside of Jett’s thigh.

  ‘Feels so good,’ Jett mumbled, hands sinking into Sasha’s hair, tugging gently at the longer strands on top.

  ‘I can see that,’ Sasha smiled against his warm skin, tentatively licking at Jett’s hard cock, amused when it twitched and bobbed toward him as if seeking more. Sasha was happy to oblige, shifting closer so he could close the whole length in his mouth, encasing it in the wet warmth. He assumed from the raw moan Jett exhaled that he was enjoying it.

  He was tired, his legs were sore and his feet ached, but Sasha couldn’t think of anything else he would rather be doing than sucking Jett off. Being isolated on the Barricade, your imagination played strange tricks on you, taunting you with images of people who didn’t exist and the unrealistic sounds they made. But Jett made sounds sweeter than any of the moans in Sasha’s fantasies. When Jett touched him it was with a desperation Sasha couldn’t imagine. When he looked down at him through dark, hooded eyes, the silent whispers were so much more nuanced than just ‘yes’ and ‘more’. Sasha felt like he was drowning, his world reduced to eliciting a response, his own aching desire stoked by each fervid sigh of pleasure.