At some point, Toric had started running. The city was still mostly asleep, strict in their practiced curfews that they hadn’t had time to unlearn yet.

By the time Toric made it back to the warehouse, he was panting, sweat beading at his brow. His heart was still racing as the sharp lines of the building came into view. In one quick sweep, he saw that most of the team had already finished cataloguing what they could. The supply crates were stacked and sealed, marked with chalk for transport. Outside, Kael stood guard near the loading bay, flanked by two of their trucks sputtering thick exhaust fumes. She looked half-dead on her feet, with one gloved hand loosely gripping the strap of her rifle, the other rubbing at her eyes. She yawned, wiping away the sleep.

The unit had thinned out for the night, and some already rotated out to get some well-needed rest. Toric willed his breath under control, giving quiet orders as he passed along the flank like he’d never left. He finalized the last patrol shifts for the night. He didn't let his eyes linger longer than necessary. He didn’t know what they’d give away if he did. 

With his order, the men Kael hadn’t let leave their posts, finally filtered toward corners of the warehouse. A sea of floor mats unrolled, and rifles pulled close to chests. The familiar rhythm of post-battle exhaustion had finally nestled in.

Toric was still restless when he pulled out his pack. He took the upper level under the guise of keeping watch. From up here, he could see the skylights, the crates below, the sleeping bodies stretched in staggered rows. Really, he just needed the distance. Needed to get his fucking breathing under control. His chest still felt like it was clamped in a vice. 

His bedroll was thin. The concrete floor pressed hard and cold into his spine even through the fabric. He welcomed it. Even if it wasn’t enough to quell the heat that still pulsed along the back of his neck, behind his knees, low in his gut. An echo of shame that refused to burn out. It didn’t matter how long ago he’d left. His body remembered. 

Toric didn’t know what time it was when the whole building finally settled. He only had the low rhythm of air and the distant tick of cooling steel to keep track. What little warmth the solar panels had gathered during the day had bled out long ago. All that was left was the dry chill and the silence of weapons at rest.

Toric lay stiff on his mat near the far wall, his jacket half-unzipped, with boots he didn’t bother to remove. He couldn’t think clearly enough to focus on anything but the wreckage in his own fucking head.

Remove your armor, Toric.
I could make you forget the lines you drew.
You’re not wrong to want it.

That fucking bastard.

He let out a bitter breath through his nose, pushing clammy hands into his hair.

He killed civilians.

That should have been the line Toric wouldn’t cross. The one thing that kept all of this from mattering. 

But instead, all Toric could see was the warehouse being cleared in half the time. His men coming out clean and victorious. Crates of fresh food and enough munitions to restock at least three sectors. It would be enough to keep them going. Enough to keep this push alive.

Vox was right. And it made him sick.

Heat still radiated from where his sinister, elegant mouth had ghosted along his jaw. The humiliating sound he’d made when their lips finally touched, wet, slow and devastating, had only made it worse. 

He shifted on the edge of the mat, his stomach twisting into nausea, his thighs locking tight against a deep throb that threatened to embed itself. 

Every time he tried to summon rage, it fizzled out before it could rise to the surface. Dissolving under the slow weight of logic unfurling. The desperate thrum in his veins that burned hot with want.

He hated Vox for dragging his desires out of the cage he’d locked them in. Hated him for finding the cracks in his armor just to press on them until they ached. Vox was a man who dismissed morality as if it were nothing, as if righteousness had no place in a war like this. That wasn’t the kind of man Toric was. He wouldn’t let it be. 

Toric stared at the ceiling, eyes blurred out to nothing but the pale visage of Vox’s perfect face. His fists lay clenched against his thighs.

He should be furious. People had certainly died in the east district. Those bombs detonated in civilian zones. Children lived there. Families just seeking refuge from the chaos. 

And yet… all he could hear was that smooth fucking voice, and feel those deft hands skimming along the edge of his coat. The way Vox waited between words, like he was sculpting something out of silence. A cruel architect.

Toric swore under his breath and shifted again. Heat surged in his gut at the motion, flaring to life with the drag of fabric against sensitive skin. The shame wasn’t too far behind.

He wanted to punch something, or scream. But that would only serve to further his insanity. His men had already started to question his judgment.

So, he just laid there, forcing in shallow breaths, with his skin on fire. Flushed from ears to chest. His cock twitched, needy, stiffening from the mere thought of a certain sly mouth. And  he couldn’t hate himself enough to undo it.

The soft assuredness of his touch. His sharp voice. That calculating look in his eyes, like he knew Toric, all the way down to the core.

Toric shifted, one leg bent slightly. His breath caught despite himself.

Fuck.

He turned over, facing the wall, trying to breathe through it. Trying to will it down. It shouldn’t be hard. He’d spent years burying this.

He’d known how to since he was a kid. Keep his eyes forward. Act like he didn’t notice until the feeling dulled into nothing.

Toric exhaled, sharp and ragged, dragging the thread-bare blanket up like it could smother the heat clawing its way through his spine. 

He tried to stop himself. He really did. Teeth cut into his bottom lip, trying to register the pain instead of the arousal. Blot it out. Blot it out.

He felt his fingers twitch against his will. Then, without his permission, his hand moved down, trembling and unsure, slipping beneath the waistband of his trousers. The heat of his own arousal nearly made him moan from the sheer want of it. 

Thick fingers wrapped around himself with a bruising grip, trying to choke the desire out of himself. Maybe this was all he needed. Just pressure. It wasn’t arousal. It was just an animal need. Nothing more.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

And there he was again. Vox, in his mind like a sickness. He could imagine Vox’s control, his restraint fracturing. His voice turning into nothing more than a low whimper. Just a creature, ruined and ragged. He saw Vox on his knees, saying his name like a prayer.

Toric.

A needy breath that he was desperate to hear. To see his perfectly neat and cold composure finally undone. 

The thought hit fast, like a blow to the sternum—knocking loose a ragged held breath in his throat. He gritted his teeth and drew his thighs up, his body locking up in heat. His fist flexed, then moved—down, squeezing tighter, dragging slow across skin slick with sweat. He wasn’t gentle. Every stroke was a punishment. He wanted to bruise the thought out of himself. Disgust coiled tightly in his chest, trying to kill the urge of it.

But the thought only rooted deeper into his mind. Bringing to life filthy images that made his hand crush and pulse to the rhythm of blood thumping in his temples. 

He imagined pinning Vox hard to the wall—his pristine uniform rumpled, with a few droplets of blood on the collar, his hair falling loose around his face. One of Vox’s hands would be clutched at his chest, just to brace himself—while Toric’s mouth found the side of his throat. He could feel the warm, damp puff of his breath. A shutter running through his voice.

Toric… please—

Toric hissed through his teeth, unable to stop himself, pumping faster now, almost frantic. His cock throbbed in his grip, leaking, aching, with every nerve on fire. He wanted to beat the arousal out of himself. Maybe if he could rub it raw, the guilt would outweigh the urge. Make the want stop clawing through punishment alone.

His mind wouldn’t listen. Toric imagined dragging Vox to his knees. His hand fisted in that perfectly golden hair, forcing his head back. He imagined the pressure of his own fist to be the pressure of a mouth instead. Vox, with flushed cheeks and a drooling, slack mouth, his pupils blown wide. Lips puffy and red as he struggled to keep them open.

He wanted it. He’d beg for it.

Please.

Toric’s hips jerked, and he stifled a high cry biting into his own knuckles, the teeth splitting skin from the strain. His body stuttered and convulsed without his consent, chasing something it shouldn’t want. His spine arched hard, thighs spasming. 

Orgasm tore through him like a wound. A brutal release that hit in waves. His whole body twitched, bucking through the aftershocks, chasing the high. 

Then, after it was over, the feeling of need and relief quickly turned sour on his skin. The taste of shame clogging the back of his throat, and the ceiling staring down at him like judgment carved in stone.

Breathless and wrecked, he lay there, panting into the crook of his arm. The mess cooling on his hand and his stomach as sticky and unpleasant as spoiled fruit.

He didn’t move to clean himself off. Leaving the mess on his own skin as punishment. Hazy eyes just stared at the wall, the guilt crushing down like lead.

He’s not an ally.
He’s everything you’re fighting against.

Toric pressed his face harder into the crook of his arm, heart pounding like it hated him.

He lay there, breathing hard, ruined and humiliated in his own bunk. No one was watching. There were no eyes peering from the dark. No one could see to judge him. But still, it felt known.

He turned over and pulled the blanket over his shoulders, curling in. Trying to disappear into the mat. Desperate to shut out the part of himself that had just surrendered to the man he swore he hated.

***

A week passed and they received nothing from Vox. Then another. 

Toric tried to push down the guilt—the memory of warm breath against his mouth. His feelings weren't real. And Vox wasn’t good. It had all been manipulation. Just another game Vox had played to strategic advantage.

That should have made the silence easier. But the emptiness hung around him like a ghost. He felt even more hollow than before. 

So he kept busy. Managed nightly patrols. Oversaw rationing. Took stock of inventory twice over just to fill the hours. That had always worked in the past. 

Eventually, Toric knew that this too would burn away to nothing more than a lingering bitterness. Something distasteful, but manageable. He wouldn’t be controlled through anything primal or hedonistic. Above all, he was a righteous man. That was the one thing he wouldn’t allow himself to compromise on. 

And then, late one night, something came through the static and monotony. 

Grainy footage flickered to life on one of their reclaimed monitor feeds. Two minutes of half-corrupted footage, bleeding static along the bottom edge. The feed stuttered, cut to black, then snapped back into focus with a whine. 

A government convoy lay overturned in Sector Two. The transports surrounding it lay split open like insect husks. Fires licked hungrily at the wreckage, their molten light dancing across splintered pavement. Black smoke spiraled upward in slow, oily columns.

The slender, trembling figure of a girl no older than seventeen, clawed her way from beneath one of the overturned vehicles. She was barefoot, still wearing a government issued uniform. A uniform that looked like she’d tore at herself, as if the mere presence of it on her skin was a sin.  She was still unknown to him, but soon, he’d come to know her name. 

Virelle.

She had bright copper-red hair that streamed behind her like fire caught in the wind. Blood soaked one sleeve of her shredded black and gray uniform, and ash clung to her face and neck from the wreckage. Even injured, her presence radiated something volatile, wound tightly beneath the skin. Her eyes, wide and sharp, flashed with the feral awareness of an animal that had finally been released from captivity. 

Virelle had been one of the hyper-containment cases. Just like Vox. Toric vaguely remembered a file of a meta who fit her description. Though, at the time, much younger. The file spoke of her powers, too unstable to harness, but too powerful to ignore. She was the kind of metahuman the Unified Government feared most. The kind they hoarded away like perfect little trophies. 

She stumbled out of the vehicle, and dropped to her knees with the last bit of her energy bleeding out. Around her was a cacophony of destruction. Mangled bodies and smoking rubble framing her tiny form in the center like a painting with too much detail.

The smoke moved, and from behind her, another figure solidified through the mist. Unfazed and god-like, walking through the blaze like it meant nothing.

His boots crushed over glass and cinders without even a breath of hesitation. Firelight coiled along the trim of his white uniform, and the air shimmered faintly. Whether it was from the heat or from the barely subdued power in his veins, Toric wasn’t sure. 

He bent and swept her into his arms without hesitation. Her gaze locked to his with a small look of bewilderment, but she wasn’t afraid.

The camera zoomed in, craning in and out of clarity as it tried to narrow in on the figures. Vox carried her like she weighed nothing. And maybe she didn't. The girl looked half starved, emaciated. As fragile as a teacup. Even if Toric knew she wasn’t. One of Vox’s pale arms braced beneath her legs, the other steady against her back. She barely had the energy to keep her eyes open, and once in his grasp, her head dropped to his shoulder, and she let her eyes flutter closed.

He walked her out in full view of the street camera, the flames behind him a living backdrop. 

Toric watched it unfold from the warehouse terminal, with arms crossed, and jaw locked. The glow of the screen lit his face with cold fire. 

He could feel it. Through the grainy footage he could see civilians hunkered down behind half rotted windows staring out in awe. They didn’t see Vox for what he really was.  All they saw was a man rising against oppression, pulling the forgotten and feared back into the light. A reckoning for justice.

Vox wasn’t just appearing randomly, saving people of little value, overthrowing militias in dead areas. No, he was building something. And the people were eating it up. Every execution of their oppressors drew people further in. Every word spoken served to deepen his sanctity.

Toric knew it was only a matter of time before Vox made the plan to branch off from any fragile allegiances. 

Because, right now, he was recruiting his own army.