Dark Edge of Honor

by Aleksandr Voinov

  “Well, strictly speaking, the Doctrine doesn’t apply to you, since you don’t follow it. But in some ways, you do. Just different. I don’t mind that you’re not part of it. I wish you were, but it wouldn’t make a difference.”

  Mike felt the strong need for that offered alcohol now. He was going to need it. “Why doesn’t it make a difference?” He took the glass as Sergei finished filling it, resisted the urge to toss it all down his throat without tasting it.

  “Different kind of brotherhood.” Sergei grinned, showing most of his teeth. “Not as expected, and…not welcome, but…” He reached for Mike’s shoulder and pressed it. “I trust you, Mike. I’ll go to war with you. If I can’t trust you, who’s left?”

  Holding that gray gaze, steadily, was one of the most difficult things Mike had ever forced himself to do. It wasn’t that he would directly betray that trust—he wouldn’t. Sergei as a man, as an individual, as the lover in his bed, had no need to fear betrayal. Like everything else in life, though, the shades of gray were becoming a puddle of mud. Sergei wouldn’t see it that way, not when he discovered the truth. Not when he learned that the rebels knew where the troops were going, thanks to him. The politics and the solidarity of the thing went hand in hand. The Doctrine was all he was. And Mike would do well to remember that.

  “Your intergalactic fraternity, for one,” he managed, half jesting, half cynical.

  “There are even bad apples in that. One, I know with certainty.” The grin turned into something much fiercer, a snarl of anger. Sergei half turned and drank the alcohol, then set the glass down after his shoulder flexed as if he’d considered breaking the glass in his hand. “Ah, fuck this. I’ll do my duty.”

  The muscles at the corner of his left eye twitched. Mike rubbed at it, turned away. “Is your duty so far removed from what you feel is right?” He couldn’t bring himself to redirect the raw emotion surfacing in the soldier. Not directly. It was too much, too close. Too personal. More intimate than he was able to cope with, right then.

  “Following orders is right. Giving orders for the wrong reasons isn’t. Brother shall not raise hand against brother. It’s not right. But obeying an order is right. Can I respond to a crime with a crime?” Sergei frowned and shook his head. “Make myself guilty because somebody has transgressed? The Doctrine is worth more than that. Disobeying will damage the state more than my death. So the Doctrine is clear on what I have to do.”

  Mike sank into the couch with his drink, spinning the glass, watching the slosh of liquid. He looked up, studying the man’s exposed neck critically, the marks blatant in the lamplight with the uniform jacket gone. “No one should stand above the law. Not even those who create, those who enforce it. Especially not those. Who holds them accountable for their actions?” It took effort to keep his voice low, his tone level. To drain the emotion from his words. Not sure if he succeeded. “If no one is willing, and able, to step forward and hold those in power accountable, then the system fails. Self-destructs. Devoured from within by its corruption.”

  Sergei seemed to consider it. “The damage to the system is limited in this case. Men can be replaced. They are being replaced while we speak. As long as the state thrives, the Doctrine is fulfilling its purpose. But we all have to know our place and our duty. Exposing mistakes of our betters can undermine the authority of the whole structure. And that, in war, is unforgivable.”

  Mike’s grip on the glass tightened until the grooved facets dug into his palm. “So the atrocities visited upon the few are negligible? So long as the whole continues to exist, despite the fact that in considering the whole, you disregard the well-being of everyone? Each person, as an individual, has needs that will be neglected, overlooked.” He wanted to point at those marks, ask how many others there were, physical, mental. Ask why Sergei truly believed so deeply that it didn’t fucking matter. “The difference matters to me, Sergei. Someone—not the Doctrine, but an individual—put those marks on your neck.”

  Sergei reached up and rubbed his throat. “Yes.” He poured himself another glass and drained it. “Take me to bed. Maybe it matters tonight.”

  It didn’t seem to fit, Sergei giving in so easily. Something more was going on than Mike was aware of, and that didn’t sit well with him. At all. He pushed off the couch and eased across the room, snagging the man’s hand and dragging him in his wake. If he paused at all, Mike knew he’d never make it to the bedroom. And he really wanted to sleep in a bed, this week, at every available opportunity.

  Sergei was silent and intense, closing the distance immediately when they’d arrived at the bed, hands on Mike’s belt, opening his trousers, pulling them down, all in one movement, no hesitation, just eager to have him bared and in bed. He kissed Mike deeply, passionately. “I think I want you to fuck me. Just because.” A wicked gleam in his light eyes.

  “Whatever you want, Sergei.” Mike meant what he said beyond the immediate context, but found he was unable to put it into words. They wouldn’t come. They had no form. Whatever it was didn’t even have a tangible emotion to be labeled. Mike crushed his mouth against Sergei’s, kissing him back with equal intensity, and pushed everything else away.

  No gray, no politics, not here. For a while he just wanted to forget everything and let himself get lost in this. Sergei’s hands ran over his body, his belly, his sides, the touch both sure, strong and seductive, promising more, hard body pressed against his. “Whatever…I want?” Sergei murmured between kisses. “That’s…tempting.”

  Mike slid his arms around Sergei’s waist, tugging the T-shirt from his uniform pants enough to get his hands against the man’s warm, smooth skin. “It is? Why, what do you want?” Miles of skin, contoured by hard muscle, and he trailed his hands up Sergei’s spine, mapping every inch.

  “Everything I can get.” Sergei grinned at him. “I’m selfish.”

  “Sometimes being selfish is healthy. Especially when you’re the only one interested in giving you what you need.” Mike buried his face in the man’s neck, inhaled his scent. Whatever they washed and treated their uniforms with, it clung to Sergei like a final barrier, a Doctrine stamp of ownership. He wanted to drag him into the shower and scrub it away. “I’ll do my best, though.” He curled his mouth in a smile against Sergei’s neck, then nipped at the skin along his jaw.

  Sergei’s arm tightened around his chest, and Mike felt the other hand burrow into the hair at the nape of his neck, tightening into a fist, the bones of the knuckles hard against the base of his skull. He didn’t care. A little pain made it feel real, instead of seeming as if everything that passed between them was a dream he couldn’t hold on to. Took effort to push the thoughts away.

  Mike focused on the skin beneath his hands, solid, warm, real. The grind of Sergei’s hips against his, jolting his arousal, making the blood pound in his ears. Maybe if it pounded hard enough, it would drown out the whispers in his head.

  He pushed at Sergei, forcing the heavier man back, toward the bed, until the half-dressed soldier fell onto the mattress with a grunt. Fingers fumbling, suddenly unable to get Sergei naked fast enough, Mike fought with the unfamiliar uniform, loosened the belt, got the damned thing off him. When he looked back, discarding the slacks in a heap on the floor, Sergei was sitting up, pulling the T-shirt off over his head, face obscured inside the fabric. Mike didn’t hesitate, just tackled the man, pinning him to the mattress. Licking a path up the center of his chest to latch onto a nipple and suck it into his mouth.

  Sergei groaned, pushing up against him to feel more friction, baring his teeth in a snarl of pleasure. “Fuck, you’re just so good at this…” He was getting fully hard fast, legs opening to invite him, to get more friction there too. “Wish I’d known earlier how good it feels.”

  Mike let his teeth drag gently over the sensitive flesh as he pulled away. He looked up at Sergei, grinning. “Not that good, you’re still coherent.” Then he returned his mouth to Sergei’s chest, nipping a path down the center of his body, licking the gr
ooves between flexed abdominal muscles, and finally closed his lips around the head of the man’s cock.

  “Not—not now.” Sergei arched with another, deeper groan, pushed up toward Mike’s lips, all but begging to get more and be taken deeper. His legs opened in a clear invitation, one knee pulled up further.

  He didn’t even bother responding to that, unless his drawn-out hum counted, and Mike decided that it did, since Sergei practically shuddered at the feeling it made, thrumming his sensitive nerves with vibration. Mike ran his hands up the inside of Sergei’s thighs, enjoying the rasp of hair, the soft skin over muscle, even here, and grabbed the base of the man’s shaft to take him deeper. Laving his tongue around the glans, loving the taste and feel of giving him pleasure this way. More than anything, Mike liked looking up the length of Sergei’s body and seeing the reactions, the emotions, playing over the man’s features.

  Sergei reached down and pulled his cock away. “I’m getting too close…” He grinned, eyes gleaming with desire. “Much prefer getting fucked if I haven’t come yet.” He reached down to pull Mike up by the shoulder, then met his gaze. “I’ll try that, too, afterward. Still not good enough, but I keep learning.”

  Mike’s brain was so hazed with his own arousal, feeding off Sergei’s, that most of what the man said didn’t register on a rational level. “Need lube.” He sucked on Sergei’s knuckles, twined the tip of his tongue in between his fingers, not really caring what part of the man’s body he tasted, so long as he could. His lips trailed down to Sergei’s wrist, from there to the tender flesh at the top of his leg, following the groove down, past Sergei’s hand.

  “Yes. You’re too big to take with just spit.” Sergei grinned and half turned to reach the nightstand. “Don’t waste too much time…”

  That much registered, at least. No, he wasn’t going to waste anything. Wasn’t about to hurt Sergei either, if he could help it. Mike slathered his cock gingerly, trying not to stimulate himself any more than could be helped, and then slid his slick fingers behind Sergei’s sac, down the groove of his ass, over his anus.

  Sergei opened his legs further, eyes fixed for a long moment on Mike’s cock, expression hungry. “Been looking forward to this all day. Taking all this with me to the barracks, you know?”

  Mike circled the muscle with the pad of his finger, then pressed in. “You keep doing that, your brothers will wonder why you have a smile on your face all the time.” He propped his free hand on the mattress by Sergei’s shoulder and leaned in for a slow, lingering kiss, sliding his finger in and out, twisting it, coating the sensitive tissue with as much lube as he could. Leg bent, his thigh brushed against Sergei’s.

  Every inch of contact burned his nerve endings, searing the feel of the man into him. Mike pushed the heel of his hand against the smooth flesh beneath Sergei’s sac and pushed a second lubed finger in, swallowing the moan from his lover and echoing it back in another kiss.

  Sergei reached for him, touching anything he could get to, stroking and sliding, fingers curling when Mike hit the spot. He was rapidly losing all intentions, mind clearly in idle mode, empty of thoughts or words. He could have been just anybody right now. The soldier was well and truly gone, and Mike would have wagered that he didn’t even give fuck about the Doctrine right then.

  Mike sure didn’t. Didn’t give a fuck about anything beyond the man beneath him on the bed. The man who writhed against his invading touch, a hunger bordering on voracious. Sucking on Mike’s tongue, biting his lip, grabbing him, pulling him closer. Every time they came together like this, the intensity just ratcheted that much higher. In the back of his mind somewhere, it frightened him. Mike wasn’t thinking about that, refused to. Just focused on that mouth, those hands, as he pulled his fingers from Sergei’s body and grabbed his cock, aiming to penetrate the man in one smooth, long thrust.

  Sergei arched into it and then glanced down with a groan.

  Hooking an elbow behind one of Sergei’s knees, Mike licked his lips and grinned, pulling his hips back for a slow thrust. “Feel good?”

  Good didn’t even begin to describe it. The eyes glazed with lust, pale skin flushed with arousal, he was looking thoroughly ravaged already and Mike was far from done with him yet. He’d never seen anything like it. Words escaped him; instead, he focused on not losing control, each stroke searching for that perfect angle, more about feeling and intimacy than the frantic journey to completion.

  “Good is an inadequate…” Sergei struggled to make any sense, but then seemed to just give up and ride the sensation, groaning, pushing and clenching around him. It was always striking how vulnerable Sergei was in bed, how young he seemed in his responses. Not jaded. Not professional. At least the Doctrine didn’t follow him into bed.

  The Doctrine soldier disappeared when the uniform came off. The man’s duality was fascinating. Mike slid his braced arm under Sergei’s neck and shoulders, tightened his grip. “Move with me,” he warned, and rolled suddenly, onto his back, releasing the man’s leg.

  Sergei responded on instinct, limbs adjusting easily, fluently, like a change in dynamics during wrestling or hand-to-hand combat. He ended up on top, grinning, and bent down to kiss Mike deeply. “I like this.” Moving, grinding against him, he tried to get the best angle and soon found it, the grin now wolfish. “Think I could stop and fuck you instead.”

  “If you want,” Mike panted, managing to tear his gaze away to fumble for the bottle of lube. “The view from down here is just fine.” And that was an understatement. Mike watched Sergei’s face, the heavy flush of color increasing on a particularly deep thrust. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to meet the man’s downstroke with the full vigor of his arousal. He contented his need to move with a few shallow thrusts and distracted himself with his hands, tracing the corded muscles in Sergei’s arms, shoulders, neck, everywhere. Yeah, words definitely escaped him. Intelligent thought processes totally disengaged.

  “Good. Tell me when you’re…close.” Sergei kept moving, but opened his legs wider. Leaning back, he reached between Mike’s legs, prompting him to open wider, and took his sac in his palm, squeezing with his strokes, his thigh muscles standing out from the exertion. His cock moved with his strokes, so hard it was nearly flat against his stomach.

  Mike would’ve laughed if he could have found the breath to. Close? That had been an almost perpetual state since he’d slid his fingers into Sergei’s ass. He ran his hands up Sergei’s thighs, loving the way the muscles resembled stone. As if the man astride him was sun-warmed marble, a statue from some ancient civilization on Old Earth.

  He grunted when Sergei clamped down around him, every muscle in Mike’s body tensing. Added together with the feel of Sergei’s fingers massaging and stroking his sac, and Mike couldn’t see anything.

  “Oh, fuck.” Mike arched up, heels digging into the mattress, utterly lost. Knew he needed to say something, had meant to, couldn’t recall what it was. Couldn’t have, if his life depended on it. The swell of sensation, the heat flooding through his blood, the tingling in his groin…he was so lost he’d forgotten his own name.

  Sergei bent down, kissed him again and all but cradled him against his body, moving enough to keep stoking the desire. Sweat drops mingled, the slap of flesh against flesh, and ragged breathing in the room, but outside, nothing existed, and nothing mattered. Sergei kissed and bit his neck, clutching, the movements now less smooth and barely controlled, but who cared?

  The change in angle, the break in rhythm, was enough to let Mike regain his senses, his breath. His fucking sight, for gods’ sake. He rolled his hips up to meet Sergei’s rocking strokes, nipped the man’s neck, twining his arm around the sweat-slicked broad back.

  “Fuck me, Sergei. Want to feel you.” Mike snaked his other hand between their bodies, fumbling for the man’s cock. Smearing the slick precome over Sergei’s glans, he stroked the hard flesh with gentle fingers. Didn’t want to make him come, just wanted to feel, to touch, and couldn’t get
enough.

  Sergei’s teeth dug into the muscle of his neck, his shoulder, and the sharp edge of pain threaded through Mike’s pleasure-heated body. His cock pulsed against the resistance of Sergei’s body, and Mike thrust up into the sensation with a ragged gasp. He arched his neck, turning his head away, opening himself to the man’s mouth against his skin. His thighs fell open, the hunger of his body driven purely by instinct, arousal. It only served to lock Sergei where he was, the heavily muscled legs clamped against Mike’s ribs, every shift and flex communicating the power of that body into him.

  Sergei moved much harder and faster now, movements very nearly dislodging Mike, but neither of them cared. Sergei sped up, his strength easily enough to hurt or injure a lover, if it hadn’t been held in check by Mike’s strength. They both came with such an intense pleasure, it felt as if it was ripping them apart. Nothing else. Nothing more. Nothing beyond that clutching, mad desire flashing along their nerves and across their brains. Mind-blowing.

  Sergei slowly relaxed, released, breathed more deeply, then wiped the sweat from his face. He was grinning widely. “You all right?”

  Mike managed to muster enough strength to tighten his arm around Sergei’s body, holding him against his chest. “Better than just all right.” He smiled, feeling loose, free, a rare sensation. Slid his hand down the man’s spine, enjoying the lassitude in a body that, just moments before, had been charged with such power and barely contained force. “Much better. You?” He trailed his lips over Sergei’s shoulder, tasting the sharp tang of sweat and sweet exertion.

  “No comparison.” Sergei straightened and rolled his shoulders, a delicious, rippling view of a strong, sated body. “It’ll be hard to pretend you’re just some native,” he murmured. “I’ll try, though, just to have you there.”

  Mike wanted to close his eyes, drape an arm over his face and hide whatever showed in his eyes, his face. Forced himself to keep his hands on Sergei’s thighs and meet the soft gaze studying him. “Will be difficult for me too,” he admitted, squeezing the relaxed muscles beneath his touch. “Will make it work. I won’t endanger you. I promise.”