His pulse roared in his ears. His throat ached with the things he couldn’t say. His body remembered things his mind wasn’t ready to. The indescribable pull. The want.

He hated this. 

He wanted it so badly.

Then Vox kissed him.

A real kiss this time, different from their previous encounter. When Vox had let his lips briefly drag along the outline of Toric’s mouth, barely there, a soft touch that felt more like a whisper. This one was intentional, unmistakable.

Vox’s lips barely parted, and he didn’t force. But the drag was devastating in its patience, nonetheless. His mouth was warm and clean. A stark contrast to the blood and dirt on Toric’s skin. Even starker to the battlefield still screaming inside his chest.

Every one of Toric’s nerves lit up like it had been waiting. Like his body had been counting down to this moment against his will.

Vox always remained one step ahead, impossibly restrained. He tilted his head just slightly to deepen the kiss, and let his fingers splay wider, brushing the side of Toric’s ribs like he was holding something fragile. He knew Toric could shatter under the wrong pressure.

Toric’s mind was unraveling. All the logic remaining was slipping sideways. His grief, his rage, and even his guilt were all collapsing inward, transforming into something hot and heavy in his stomach.

He didn’t kiss him back. His mouth stayed slack, uncertain—caught between protest and surrender. But he felt every detail. The press of Vox’s lips, the warm flick of his tongue, and the unbearable gentleness of it all. 

It was too much. His own body betrayed him with a small, involuntary whine that escaped from his throat. The sound of it was a pitiful, too real whimper. Pulled out of somewhere deep and buried.

Vox stilled at the sound, and pulled back just enough to breathe the space between them. It was just enough for Toric to feel how close they still were and how his own breath caught in his lungs. The heat between them hanging in the air like a fog.

“You can want this,” Vox said, voice low and decadent. “It’s not weakness.”

His hand moved higher, ghosting up the center of Toric’s chest, fingertips grazing the dip of his collarbone, to feel the faint tremor of his pulse. They settled over his heart.

“You’re allowed,” he murmured against his lips. “To feel this. To need something.”

Toric clenched his eyes shut, trying to blot out all sensation. He didn’t trust himself to move. He felt like he was standing on the edge of something — some ravine he’d spent his whole life pretending didn’t exist.

“Let me,” Vox said, softer this time, pleading.

His lips brushed against Toric’s again — barely a kiss, more like a breath. A request.

“Let me have you.”

Toric quivered violently and uncontrollably. Vox felt it in his hands first, where they rested against his chest. The terrified tremble of someone teetering on the precipice of instinct and collapse. He was trying to breathe but couldn’t catch it right. A jagged exhale hissed past his teeth.

“...fuck.” 

Just a small guttural sound that came out wrecked. A syllable turned inside out. Something between a warning and a plea, the kind you whisper when you’re already too far gone to mean either.

Vox leaned back down slowly and brushed his mouth over Toric’s. Just a press of lips, not a claim.

Toric was shaking so hard now, that Vox could feel it through every point of contact. The fear was all over him, raw and thick and burning through his skin. It wasn’t just of Vox, but of himself, of what this meant, and of how far he’d already let it go.

And then, slowly, hesitantly, Toric moved.

It was just a small, trembling shift of lips. His tongue flicked forward, and it wasn’t confident.

But it was contact. It was yes.

The moment he felt Toric’s tongue brush against his own, Vox surged forward, deepening the kiss like he’d been holding back a flood. His hand slid around Toric’s neck, to ground him. His other arm came to brace low  beneath the ribs. He was careful not to touch the wound, but it was close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from it.

Toric whimpered into his eager mouth and his body curled into the sensation, into the pain and want tangled together.

His ribs were on fire now, stitched muscles spasming with every breath. His blood was rushing loud in his ears. Heat pulled low, dark and electric, and he was already hard in his trousers. A reaction that Vox saw, and didn’t plan to ignore.

Toric didn’t open his eyes. The thought of looking, and seeing Vox looking back at him, would break whatever fragile line he was still gripping onto. So he kept his eyelids clenched shut. His body continued to betray him as his cheeks flushed ruby red. His heart was hammering so hard it was vibrating in his chest.

This wasn’t permission. It was surrender. 

The blood was tacky at his side. It’d worked its way to the surface of the fresh gauze, soaking warm through the bandages. It stained Vox’s pristine tunic a dark crimson, like a promise.

Vox’s grip shifted suddenly, turning ironclad. Pure desire bleeding over logic. His hands moved, fingers clenching hard around Toric’s biceps, possessive, and grounding. And then he moved and climbed fully on top of him in a single, fluid motion to straddle his hips. He braced his weight just enough to avoid the wound, but it was close enough that Toric could feel every line of his body. His way lithe thighs clenched around his own. The way deft hands clutched onto exposed skin.

Vox moaned into his mouth. A guttural, raw sound that startled Toric. There was no control left in it, composure completely abandoned. It spilled out desperate and unfiltered, like Vox himself hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted this. Or how much he’d been waiting for this moment.

Then heat bloomed across Toric’s hips, unmistakable. Vox’s body eased down, slow and deliberate, aligning them chest to chest, hips meeting, and the hard press of him grinding forward, dragging against the thin line of Toric’s waistband.

The feeling of their contact hit like an electric snap behind Toric’s ribs, and panic shot up his spine. He gasped a sound, sharp, out of pure reflexiveness, and his whole body flinched. His eyes flew open with pupils blown wide, and his breath snagged halfway up his throat. His thighs locked out of want and terror.

“Wait—!” Toric said, nearly hyperventilating. The word tore out from somewhere buried, rough and too loud in the hush of blood in his ears. Before he’d even gotten it out, his hands flew up, shoving hard at Vox’s chest. It wasn’t to hurt him, just to stop. He needed to halt the momentum before it became something he couldn’t take back.

But Vox didn’t stop. He pushed forward to catch Toric’s mouth again, his lips parting roughly, hungrily. Biting now, just a drag of perfect teeth. Then he moved, wet, messy presses of his mouth ran along the edge of his jaw, down his neck, and toward the sensitive skin near his ear. The movement was ruinous, pure hunger.

Toric’s breath hitched, stuttering to breathe. His body was arching with confused heat. Shame bloomed in his chest like firelight, flickering under every touch. He was still trying to push him off. Or maybe he wasn’t. He was shaking so hard he couldn’t tell. Still terrified. But the want felt stronger. That part of him was winning.

Vox could feel it.

Toric’s head tipped back against the pillow, hard. His breath was trembling out in shallow gasps, his chest rising fast beneath the fresh bandages, ribs screaming with each motion. But the pain wasn’t enough to ground him. It wasn’t enough to cut through the intoxication of what was happening — or the way he felt.

Because it wasn’t just heat anymore, or the friction and weight of Vox on top of him. It was want. Shame. The two of them twisting together so tight it made his throat close up. He felt a burning sensation building behind his eyes. 

God, he might actually fucking cry, and not from pain or grief, not from the loss of his men — but from this. From being touched like this. From being wanted like this. From the agonizing weight of his own want.

It felt like failure. It felt like surrender. It felt like being pulled under the tide of something he’d spent years clawing away from.

He couldn’t fucking stop him. He should have.

Vox's mouth was on his throat now, tongue dragging over the pulse point, reveling in the taste of his hesitation. His hands had moved, one going to brace against the bed, the other cradling the back of Toric’s neck like he was something precious.

Toric made a low sound in the back of his throat, half-breath, half-broken noise. He didn’t know if he wanted to sob or beg. Vox’s lips were quiet against his skin, all heat, no cruelty. 

“Let me.” He placed another kiss, lower, in the cavity of his shoulder. “It’s okay.” His lips brushed against his collarbone. “Let me have you, Toric.”

Toric's hands fisted in the sheets, falling through his own mind, nowhere to grapple onto. 

His body shifted, hips twitching up without meaning to. An animal betrayal. It felt like drowning. But his body was consenting. It wanted this.

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face into his shoulder, breath catching on another broken gasp, trying so hard not to fall apart under the weight of his own want. But it was too late, he was already unraveling before Vox’s eyes.

Vox leaned back just enough to breathe, desperate to see him.

Their hips finally met, Vox’s full weight pinning him down now, and the contact made his own restraint rupture. The pressure was unbearable, and exquisite — the delicate friction of it. Heat bloomed  between them like a wildfire. Vox then rolled his hips forward, slow and deliberate, grinding down. And he wasn’t disappointed with the hard line of Toric’s cock that twitched in response.

Toric made a strangled sound barely more than a breath, but Vox heard it, felt it. There was no hiding it now. No more denying it.

The bandages were damp, clinging to Toric’s skin, but that hardly registered. His fatigues were stained and soaked through with blood and shame and arousal. Vox could feel every twitch, and every helpless pulse. His eyes dragged down the bulk of his form, not hiding his hunger. The wall of cold indifference he typically wore, dropped and forgotten.

"You feel it too," Vox murmured, voice rougher than before. He rocked into him again, slower. Toric responded, still trying to hold back, hissing through his teeth.

“You don’t have to say it,” Vox whispered, leaning close, his mouth at his ear now. “Just let me feel it. Let me show you.”

He licked the sweat-slicked curve of Toric’s neck, and Toric bucked beneath him, his breath breaking apart.

Vox bit down on the skin there, not hard, just enough to welt. His hands were spread wide, palms flat against Toric’s chest like he was mapping the shape of him. He wanted to know every inch, every part that ached. He wanted to activate every nerve still capable of pleasure.

He rocked into him again, grinding harder now, groaning softly at the friction. It wasn’t polished, and he didn’t bother hiding it. His hips stuttered against him like he’d been waiting too long, and something inside him was finally slipping free.

Toric flinched and gasped, overwhelmed by the sensation he’d never allowed himself to experience,  and Vox swallowed the sound with his mouth, lips parting over his. Vox pulled back, breathless, and sat back on his thighs, his hips still flush against Toric’s. He reached down, fingers curling tight around Toric’s wrists.

“Hands,” he said lowly, and dragged them upward.

Toric resisted but not enough to stop it, his arms trembling from the effort, his palms curled into fists like they could still shield him from what was already happening.

Vox flattened them to his own chest, pressing Toric’s hands against the stained white fabric of his tunic.

“Touch me,” he breathed. “I want you to.”

It was a command, not a request. But it came out breathless. Toric’s fingers twitched, muscles locked in place.

Vox exhaled sharply, almost a growl, and his hands moved to his own collar, starting to undo the fastenings with a precise, feverish intent. Each button came free with a sharp click. The tunic opened down the center, stained through with blood and sweat, clinging to his skin.

Toric finally opened his eyes. It was too hard not to. He’d already imagined what he looked like underneath his cold exterior, underneath that perfect holy white. He wondered if he was as perfect and pale as he imagined. 

His pupils were blown wide, his lashes damp. His face looked ruined, and it wasn’t from the pain, but from the want. His mouth hung open, breath unsteady, with his pulse jumping visibly in his throat. He looked like he didn’t know what was real anymore. Like Vox had broken something inside him and now it was too late to put it back.

“You—” Toric tried, but his voice was shredded. He couldn’t finish the thought.

Vox let the tunic fall open, slipping down his arms, baring the lean, scarred planes of his chest. He was thin and pale as frost, but not delicate. That was the part that surprised Toric. He was cut in sharp angles, stretched taut over the quiet strength of someone who had survived things no one should survive. His chest, his ribs, had the small notches of old burns and surgical seams. Ghosts of electrodes. Metal and violence. Every inch of him said: This is what they made me into. 

Toric’s breath caught in his chest. Vox wasn’t soft, he was shaped by sharp edges and pain. The horror made him even more beautiful. His body was a history written in restraint and violation and now he offered it forward like a gift.

Toric’s hands were splayed against him. Bare skin. Heat meeting heat. He had been scared to look. But now, he couldn’t stop looking.

The sharp cut of Vox’s ribs, the way the light slipped down the hollow of his collarbone, the wiry strength threaded through muscle and scar—it made Toric’s throat close up. He thought he was just processing the moment, but his body said otherwise. The ache of want tightening in his gut like something shameful, like a sickness.

He hated how much he wanted it—how much the sight of Vox, stripped and still, wrecked his defenses. How close they were. How real it was. With no battlefield, and no mind games. Just his hands on another man’s bare chest. It was too much and not enough all at once.

It wasn’t the desire he lacked. It was the terror that stopped him, afraid of what would happen if he let himself give in. Of what it would mean.

Then, before he could stop himself, his fingers twitched, just enough to feel him. His skin was warm and smooth. Firm in a way that made his stomach knot and his chest go tight.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Vox murmured, his voice softer than it had been all night. “Not war. Not power. Just me.”

Toric looked at him like he didn’t know whether to cry or scream. His whole body was shaking, torn between surrender and collapse. His lips parted again, but no sound came out.

Vox leaned down and kissed him once, slow and dragging.

“Let me have you.”