by Lanyon, Josh
Cocky sonofabitch. No way was Vic going to like this, although he had to admit to a little curiosity given the way Sean carried on when Vic was fucking him. Racked and helpless — like it was just the best thing in the world to have Vic’s dick shoving in and out of him. He’d even cried a little the first time — and not because Vic had hurt him. They’d both pretended not to notice.
Sean started fingering him again in that embarrassingly intimate, knowing way. Vic jumped.
“Jesus, would you try to relax?”
“I am relaxed!”
Sean laughed, and Vic reluctantly laughed too although he was a little angry at being forced into this.
Okay, in fairness he wasn’t being forced. Sean would accept it if he said he’d changed his mind. He wouldn’t be happy but he’d take it. And he’d still let Vic have him. But…Vic couldn’t do that to him because clearly this meant something to Sean. Proved something. God knew what.
He could feel Sean’s dick, rigid as a snub-nosed lance brushing against his buttocks. His own dick was soft as a limp noodle. In fact if his genitals retreated any further from this assault he’d turn into a girl.
Actually…that felt kind of good, the way Sean’s finger was touching him there, stroking so lightly. The tip of his finger was slippery with oil and it pushed gently into Vic and then pulled out; he was getting a sort of rhythm going and Vic made himself relax into it. His sphincter muscle automatically gripped Sean’s finger — biology kicking in — but the friction wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t bad at all if he was honest.
Yeah, that was nice…
And Sean was patient. And careful. He pushed his finger in deeply and continued stroking until Vic was actually relaxed enough to permit another finger to slip inside — definitely a weird feeling, but after the initial uncertainty of whether his body would permit this transgression…it sort of felt good. Sean was touching him expertly as though feeling for something…
Vic gasped as a jolt of pure pleasure lit up inside him. All hands on deck. Sean nipped his shoulder, and oddly that felt good too.
“Do that again,” Vic ordered, unevenly.
Sean did it again and Vic gulped. Sean took the opportunity to slide another finger inside Vic’s body.
He was sort of getting used to it now, and he liked the way Sean’s fingers were twisting and stroking inside his body — weird though it was. He’d always liked Sean’s hands.
Sean pulled his fingers out. The bedsprings squeaked beneath as he moved into position, and Vic felt the alien brush of latex as the blunt head of Sean’s dick pushed at the door of his body.
The condom changed everything, made him self-conscious, made him remember what they were doing, what they were risking. He tensed, but Sean was soothing him with whispers and a caressing hand on his cock. Vic forced himself to relax, he wanted to get this over with now. Sean pushed in.
It hurt. Bright pain flashed behind Vic’s eyes and he briefly considered murdering Sean for raping him, but even as the red tide of fury rose, the pain was easing and a strange quivering awareness replaced it. Not exactly pleasure but…well, not like anything he’d ever felt before.
“Sorry, sorry. It’ll get better, you’ll see,” Sean was whispering, and his hands petted and fondled until Vic’s dick was hard again, and he was relaxed.
The fullness, the sense of being overwhelmed by another body, was disconcerting, but even that wasn’t…bad exactly. Just strange.
Sean moved, sliding in a little further, then pulling out. He cautiously rocked against Vic and Vic cautiously pushed back against him. Sean’s thrusts grew stronger, and Vic shoved back harder, and now they had the rhythm of it, the push pull, the rise and fall.
There was a temptation to wrestle for control, but he could feel Sean’s urgency, his need, and after all, this was about giving Sean what he wanted, so Vic let go and just went with it, let Sean drive it, letting it build speed like a steam engine picking up until it was rocketing along on its own momentum and he couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to.
Strangely, he didn’t want to.
Sean’s cock thrust in and out, faster and harder, and then he changed the angle and Vic felt something like a fireball of intense, fierce physical delight roll up his spine and burst in the back of his skull. At the same time orgasm rushed up through him and he came in hard spurts of milky white.
Sean was still humping against him, making small, desperate sounds, and Vic, still telling himself he just wanted this over and forgotten, rolled his hips and tried twisting back. Sean arched, slamming in and out until he suddenly shouted and Vic could feel that pulse of liquid heat — contained — but there nonetheless.
They collapsed together, a sweating tangle of arms and legs, gasping for breath. Vic felt a crazy sort of triumph that he had managed this, managed to give Sean what he wanted. After he’d caught his breath, he rolled over, groggy with release and weariness, reaching for Sean, pulling him close. Sean crawled clumsily into his arms, burying his head in the curve of Vic’s shoulder and neck.
He was murmuring something hot and emotional into Vic’s skin, the meaning half-blurred by the thundering pulse in Vic’s ears.
“What did you say?” Vic asked uneasily.
But Sean shook his head, denying the words.
oOo
Present day, , Somewhere in the Aram Mountain Range, Kunar Province, Afghanistan
The chopper set down in a sparkling powder of fresh snow. Vic was the first one down the ramp and out into the thin, cold air, M held at ready. His team followed on his heels.
The silence in the makeshift LZ was almost eerie. Moonlight spotlighted snowy pine trees and surrounding rocky crags. Nothing moved.
“Where the hell is he?” O’Riley asked at last.
Vic shook his head, eyes raking the barren plateau for any sign of life. “Let’s fan out. Have a look for him. He’s supposed to be on his way.”
They spread out, moving quickly across the mountain top. Not so much as a ground squirrel stirred.
Vic jogged to the edge of the clearing, looking down the mountain side. He could see the nubby carpet of pine trees and conifers. Not a glimmer of light from anywhere but the moon overhead.
“Where are you?” he asked softly.
The wind made a ghostly sigh through the funnel of rocks.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vic saw the flash of white light. A blast rent the night. Vic turned as a giant, invisible hand seemed to gouge into the earth in front of the nose of the chopper, sending snow and rocks flying his way. He hit the ground as shrapnel slammed into the side of the chopper and pinged against the rotary blades.
Mortar fire.
He looked for his guys and saw them flattened behind cover. Matturo yelled across the clearing, “Two o’clock. The bastards are firing mortars from over that ridge.”
The ridge was on the other side of a gorge separating this mountain from the next.
One of the chopper’s door gunners returned fire with his M machine gun, though it was doubtful he had a viable target.
Vic considered the ridge as another flash indicated a second mortar was being lobbed their way. Light, probably hand-held mortar, and far enough away to make that strike near the nose of the chopper more a matter of luck than strategy — which wouldn’t help Vic’s team if that luck held and they ended up stranded on this mountaintop — surrounded by al Qaeda. He remembered Marsden’s words about not wanting another Roberts’ Ridge. Marsden was going to piss himself when he got word of this. Although anyone could have predicted what would happen putting a chopper down in the middle of these mountains.
Not like there was any choice about it. From the moment Vic had heard Sean Kennedy was the fox in the snare, he’d been determined to go.
The second mortar hit beneath the mountain top. Snow and rocks and shrapnel flew into the night and then rained down while Vic, Matturo, and Riley hunkered under what cover they could find.
Matturo was swearing a blue stream when he
popped his head up again. “If this frogman doesn’t show up, how long are we planning on hanging around here?”
“Working on it.” No small arms fire. So far, so good. The dividing gorge between this mountain top and the ridge where the insurgents were holed up would slow al Qaeda down only briefly. And these mountains were filled with bad guys to whom the sound of those mortars and machine gun fire would be reveille.
“Looks like they were waiting for us,” O’Riley shouted.
Vic shouted back, “If they were waiting for us this place would be swarming with al Qaeda.”
“Well, it won’t be long now.”
That was sure as shit true.
Another mortar exploded in the mountain below them. Vic could feel the mountain shake as the round thudded into its face.
“Any sign of our boy?” O’Riley called again from his position behind a scraggy evergreen that looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. “I got nothing. Any sign of him?”
Vic looked across to Matturo. Matturo shook his head.
“Let’s give him a little while,” Vic said. “Maybe traffic was heavy on the .”
O’Riley guffawed.
Every fifteen seconds another mortar round hit the hillside, usually beneath the crest but occasionally striking the cliffside above. Given the randomness of the impacts, Vic suspected the mortar team lacked a forward observer. What they did seem to have was an endless supply of ammo and boundless enthusiasm for their mission.
If Sean was trying to get up this mountain, the mortar fire would be one hell of a disincentive. And if he wasn’t trying to get up this mountain…
In the lull between rounds, Vic jumped up and zigzagged back to the Chinook, boots pounding gravel. Taking shelter on the other side of the ramp, he yelled into the chopper, “Somebody get on the radio and contact base. See if one of the CIA’s drones can give us Kennedy’s coordinates.”
In the distance he could hear the mortar firing. The longest minutes of his life ticked by while he waited for an answer.
When it came, it was not good.
“They’re not picking anything up.”
Sean. Don’t do this to me.
“He’s not moving or they can’t find him?”
Another eternity while he waited.
“They can’t find him.”
Okay. That could mean a couple of things. If one word defined the SEALs it was silence. And the fact that Sean had gone silent could mean the drone wasn’t positioned where it needed to be or there was a problem with it or with the live feed. It could mean Sean was lying low somewhere where the surveillance drones couldn’t see him.
It could mean he had been captured.
Or killed.
But Vic wasn’t going to accept that until he had proof. He turned to jog back to the clearing but the pilot, Cheyney, appeared at the top of the open ramp. She called after him, “Captain Black! We can’t hang around here any longer.”
Vic threw back, “We’re not leaving without Kennedy, so simmer down.”
“I’ll simmer you down, Stoney,” Cheyney snapped. “Any minute one of these ragheads is going to show up with an RPG and punch a hole in my bird. We’re taking off.”
Vic thought fast.
“Fair enough. Leave me here. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the mountain.”
She made a sound that in another woman might have been considered a squeak. “Leave you here? Are you out of your goddamned mind? This mountainside is going to be crawling with hostiles within the hour.”
“Someone needs to wait here for Kennedy.”
“Look, Stoney, I don’t like it either, but —”
“If he’s here, I’ll find him.”
“Stoney. What are you — you know as well as I do that he’s — that there’s a good chance he’s been captured or killed. The live feed isn’t picking up any activity.”
“No way.”
“No way? What do you mean, no way? Stoney, no way can I leave you here. I’ve got my orders too, you know? And even if I didn’t —”
He couldn’t hear this. He liked her. They’d had some good times together, but… no. He said, “Katie, give me three hours. I’ll head for the valley below. It’s a natural landing zone. You can pick me up there at….”
“That’s getting way too close to sunrise.”
“We’ll still have a little margin.”
She was shaking her head.
“Listen, if Kennedy’s still alive we can’t fly out of here and leave him on this rock with hundreds of insurgents closing in on him.”
“And what if he’s not still alive? Stoney — Vic — no one is writing off Kennedy. But there are other ways to handle this.”
“If al Qaeda finds him before we do, they’ll execute him. You know that.”
“I know that. I also know…” Her voice trailed. “You’re out of your goddamned mind.”
“Three hours. That’s all I’m asking.”
“It’s not that simple. We’ve got another storm front moving in fast. Snow is on the way. We’re losing our window.”
“Then you better not be late.”
She was motionless for a long moment, a dark shadow against the blinking lights and movement within the chopper.
“I must be out of my mind. How the hell am I supposed to explain —?”
But she was talking to herself.
oOo
Eleven years ago, , Bancroft Hall, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland
“So when were you going to tell me?”
The one look at Sean’s face he’d risked had hurt too much, so Vic was staring out the window of their dorm in Bancroft Hall, staring over the summer-green tops of trees. It made it worse because Sean was trying so hard not to show anything — after all those times Vic had warned him his face gave too much away. “I’m telling you now.”
“Now.” Sean’s voice was flat. “Okay. You’re telling me now. We’re…how many weeks from graduation? And you tell me now you’re thinking about the Rangers?”
“If I can get in.”
Sean jumped up from the bed and began to circle the room. “You’re going to cross commission to the fucking army? Your family’s been navy since your great-great-great crawled out of the ooze. And you’re suddenly talking about becoming an Army Ranger? You did notice we’re in fucking Annapolis, right?”
Vic turned then. “What do you want from me?”
Sean gaped at him. “What do I want? Well, Black, I guess I wanted what we’ve been talking about for three years. You and me in the marines together —”
“You jackass,” Vic yelled. He got his voice under control with an effort. “And how did you think that was going to work, Kennedy? It’s not even like we were going to be in the same unit. What the hell were you thinking? We were going to go steady? We were going get married?”
“What the hell was I thinking?”
“We’re career military. We can’t just…we’re not the kind of guys who…”
“Come out?”
Vic stopped cold. After a silence that seemed as deep and raw as the Mariana Trench, he said carefully, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Sean just stared back at him with those clear, light eyes.
Vic said — making it just as plain and to the point as he could — “Maybe it’s different for you. You got in here on an appointment and there’s only your aunt to think about. My grandfather was an admiral in the Second World War. My dad — my whole family — is expecting me to live up to —” The look on Sean’s face stopped him. Vic said roughly, “I don’t mean that, Sean.”
Sean was smiling now, and that fierce white curve of his mouth was far worse than the hurt that had twisted his face a moment before. “Why not? It’s the truth. It’s what you think. I’m glad you said it. It makes it —”
Vic grabbed his shoulders, pressing his mouth to Sean’s stopping him from saying it. He didn’t want to hurt Sean. That was the last thing he’d ever want. He’d have given his soul
to take it all back, to erase the last half hour, to change the future. But regardless of what he said or didn’t say, this was the way it had to be. There wasn’t any other way for them. He’d always known it, and he’d told himself that Sean did too. That despite what Sean said, what they’d both said, Sean knew the truth as well as Vic did. But maybe Vic had been seeing what he wanted to see because Sean…had always had that stubborn, irrational streak of idealism. Or stupidity.
Sean tore free and got on the other side of the room. He was shaking — and so, Vic was surprised to note, was he.
“Listen,” Vic said, keeping his voice low. “This isn’t anything to do with how I-I feel—”
Sean yanked off the class ring he wore. Vic’s ring, actually, because they had secretly exchanged their class rings as Second Class Midshipmen. He hurled it with vicious accuracy at Vic. The heavy ring hit Vic squarely on the bridge of his nose and bounced away.
oOo
Present day, , Somewhere in the Aram Mountain Range, Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Vic was already a hundred meters down the steep, rocky slope when he saw the Chinook wheeling away like a great black bird. It silhouetted briefly against the enormous red moon and then was gone.
The mortar crew continued to take petulant shots at it until it had vanished, the sound echoing off the stone walls, and then rolling away into a silence as absolute as the grave.
Vic reached for a handhold and something skittered away from his hand.
Cautiously, and very quietly, half-walking, half-sliding he got down the steep hillside until he reached a trail of sorts. He kept his eyes peeled because Sean Kennedy was somewhere on this mountain and Vic was going to find him if it was the last thing he did.