The air was thick with smoke and tension. The message had just come through — a quiet, coded whisper in the communicator:
> "Eliminate the target. No witnesses."
Ash froze. The words echoed in his head, heavy and unreal.
He looked across the small, dimly lit safehouse — the peeling wallpaper, the single flickering bulb — and saw Vernon sitting by the window, loading his weapon with calm, practiced movements. The faint light cut across his face, softening the sharpness, making him look almost human again.
Almost.
Ash's throat tightened. The world outside was chaos — gunfire in the streets, shadows moving between walls, trust crumbling like ash — but here, in this space, there was silence.
And something he couldn't kill.
"Ash," Vernon said quietly, not looking up. "We move at dawn."
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Instead, he took one step forward. Then another. His boots made no sound on the worn floorboards made of wood.
When Vernon finally turned, Ash was already there — close enough to see the tremble in his lashes, the faint scar along his jaw, the way his breath hitched.
"Something wrong? You have been acting strange since the message" Vernon asked, voice low.
Ash shook his head. "No," he whispered. "Everything."
Before Vernon could speak again, Ash reached out — grabbed him by the collar — and bit his lips. Then pushing his lips by his tongue and tasting his every last bit through the kiss. Vernon panted as Ash pushed him against the wall and kissing all over the body.
It wasn't gentle. It was desperate. It was fire meeting oxygen, a collision of fear and want and the ache of knowing this might be their first and last moment.
Vernon stiffened, startled, but only for a second. Then his hand found the back of Ash's neck, pulling him closer. The world fell away. There was no mission, no sides, no orders — only this.
They moved like people who had been waiting their whole lives for this mistake.
Ash's fingers dug into Vernon's coat; Vernon's grip tightened around his waist. Their breaths came in broken gasps between kisses, their foreheads pressing together like they needed to hold each other to stay alive.
Outside, thunder rolled — distant but unrelenting — and rain began to strike the windows, sharp and fast.
Inside, the air was tightening with heartbeats.
Veron took the initiative to open the buttons of discipline that Ash was protecting with life. His hands reached the part that Ash never thought he will ever give someone permission to. The pain flushed out in Ash's face as Vernon started to shake his hips. Soon the pain turned into smile of pleasure. Ash looked into Vernon's passonate eyes filled with youth and licked his nipples. There body entangled each other like two slithering snakes.
When they broke apart, Ash's chest was rising and falling too fast. Vernon looked at him, eyes darker than he'd ever seen, searching for something — a reason, a lie, a truth.
"Why?" Vernon asked, voice raw.
Ash swallowed. His words came out like a confession. "Because tomorrow, I might have to kill you."
Silence.
Then Vernon's hand came up, brushing the side of Ash's face — slow, tender, unguarded. His thumb traced the corner of Ash's mouth, and for a heartbeat, he smiled — small, sad, knowing.
"Then kiss me again," he whispered, "before tomorrow comes."
Ash did.
The rain grew louder, drowning the world outside, washing away every sound except the quiet rhythm of two people holding on to something they shouldn't.
Time blurred. The space between them vanished completely, until there was nothing left to hide behind — no uniforms, no ranks, no lies. Only skin, warmth, and the ache of being known too late.
They didn't speak again. Words were useless now.
What they shared wasn't gentle or graceful. It was a storm — wild and consuming — born of too much silence and too many unspoken truths.
When the night finally began to fade, they lay tangled together on the cold floor, the smell of rain and gunpowder in the air. Ash's hand rested over Vernon's chest, feeling the steady pulse beneath his skin.
It shouldn't have felt peaceful. But it did.
For a moment, there was no war. No orders. No death waiting outside the door.
Just two souls who had found each other in the one place they weren't supposed to.