The 2nd Mission
Part II: Security Clearances
Trust has a waterline, and once it’s breached, the only thing left is the cold, hard math of the war zone.
The atmosphere of the Monolith was electrified.
Parker felt it the moment he stepped through the heavy security turnstiles at 0600. It wasn't a physical shake, but a shift in the building’s air pressure—the specific, high tension of a Tier-1 unit that had moved from training mode to operational.
It had been a few months since his initial orientation week. In that time, Parker had physically breached the Monolith’s perimeter only twice—mostly for brief, tactical site visits to align with Colonel Rogers on the framework. The rest of the work had been conducted remotely from the kitchen table at the cabin and over secure server connections. He had been a ghost in their machine, a voice on a secure line polishing the strategy. But this week was the capstone. The Playbook was finished and sitting encrypted on the secure cloud behind heavy firewalls. All that remained was the final integration training, application to practice, final signatures, and handing over the keys.
He walked down the main artery of the admin wing, his laptop bag heavy on his shoulder. He was in his ‘Conductor’ uniform: crisp button-down, dark denim, and the boots that allowed him to move silently on the rubberized floors.
He felt good. He felt grounded. The new ‘Anchor’ safeword had worked; the weekend had ended in a heavy, sated peace. He felt like he finally knew where he stood.
He rounded the corner toward the coffee room and nearly collided with a wall of fast-moving MultiCam pattern.
"Whoa, easy," Parker said, stepping back.
It was Mack and Mills. They were in full kit—plate carriers, drop-holsters, the works. They weren't carrying weapons, but they looked like they were two minutes away from stepping onto a bird.
"Parker," Mack said, his usual sarcastic grin missing. He looked tight, his eyes flicking to Parker’s face and then away, as if looking for a clearance badge he wasn't sure Parker had.
"Gents," Parker nodded, scanning their gear. "Heavy loadout for a Monday morning. The Colonel running a surprise drill?"
Mills shifted his weight, adjusting the straps of his carrier. "Something like that. You know how it is. The machine never sleeps."
It was a non-answer. A deflection. Usually, these two would have cracked a joke about Parker’s hair or something and asked if he’d survived the weekend with the ‘Beast.' Today, they were walled off.
"Right," Parker said slowly, his Intel instincts twitching. "Well, I’m finalizing the training schedule for the Playbook this afternoon. I’ll need the Alpha leadership in the briefing room. Make sure Brody knows."
Mack and Mills exchanged a glance. It was a micro-expression—a split second of shared awkwardness that screamed: Shit, he doesn't know.
"I’ll... pass it up the chain," Mack said, his voice flat. "Catch you later, Parker."
They moved past him, heading down toward the Ops Center with a speed that bordered on rude.
Parker watched them go, frowning. He filed the interaction away: Unit stress high. Potential disciplinary issue or surprise inspection. He didn't suspect the truth because he trusted the source. He assumed if something real was happening, Brody would have signaled him.
He continued down the hall.
Then, he saw him.
Brody was standing at the far end of the corridor, speaking with Colonel Rogers and his Squadron lead. The big man was also in full kit, his helmet tucked under his arm, his silhouette a massive block of lethal capacity. He looked exhausted and wired, the ‘Wolf’ pacing inside the armor.
Parker lifted a hand, a small, discreet wave to catch his partner’s eye.
Brody looked up. Their eyes met across the twenty feet of linoleum.
For a second, Parker expected the boyish smile—the small, private quirk of the lips that acknowledged their secret. Instead, Brody’s face was stone cold. He looked at Parker with a flash of something that looked like panic, or maybe guilt, and then immediately turned his back, ending his conversation abruptly and diving towards Alpha quarters. Vanishing behind the secure doors Parker didn’t have access to on his own. The red light on the keypad and the sound of the mag-lock engaging a firm reminder of the reality.
Parker lowered his hand, standing alone in the hallway.
He’s busy with the drills, Parker told himself, the rational ‘Conductor’ overriding the sudden sting in his chest. It’s Monday. He’s the Standard. He can’t play house in the hallway.
He turned and headed for his temporary office, pushing down the unease. He told himself it was just the building. The Monolith was designed to isolate men, and today, it was doing its job perfectly.
He didn't know yet; he was the only man in the building operating on bad intel.
Parker established his position in a small, glass-walled conference room in the joint-use annex. He set up his laptop, aligned his notebook and pen with grid-like precision, and opened the master file.
The morning schedule was tight: long breakout session with the Squadron COs and XOs to train, get final feedback and establish the reporting protocols for the new Playbook.
Parker stood at the whiteboard, getting ready for his session, but his focus was splitting. Outside, in the corridor, the tempo had shifted from office hours to staging area. He saw support staff rushing past with manifests. He saw logistics officers dealing with high activity. He knew the signs, he’d been there with the Navy teams. It was the specific, frantic choreography of a unit about to jump.
By 1030, Parker realized he was working in an isolated vacuum.
The session with the Squadron leaders had run smoothly. The crew he’d got had been attentive, asking the right questions about legal and narrative containment. But the room had been light—the Alpha Squadron leadership missing.
By 1100, the unusually heavy hum of the building was bleeding through the glass walls.
He caught the eye of a Bravo XO passing by—a man he’d worked with during his previous visits. Parker stepped out, flagging him down.
"Davis," Parker said, keeping his voice casual. "Building’s vibrating today. What’s the occasion? Rogers running a full-scale readiness drill?”
Davis stopped, he looked tired. "Something like that. Alpha is in the chute. You know how it is—when the bell rings, everyone jumps."
"In the chute for a drill?" Parker pressed, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Tempo is high," Davis deflected, checking his watch. "I gotta run, Parker."
Parker watched him go. Drills don't make men look that tired, his internal intel analyst whispered. Drills don't make people avoid eye contact.
He went back to work, but the ‘Conductor’ was no longer focused on the music; he was listening to the silence where the brass section should be.
The breaking point came at 1245.
Parker was prepping the room for the extra integration meeting—the one he had specifically flagged for Alpha Squadron leadership. The COs and XOs who had missed the morning session.
His laptop pinged. A notification from Ops Scheduling.
MEETING DECLINED: Alpha Command Element.
REASON: Operational Priority.
No reschedule request. No note. Just a hard digital door slamming in his face.
Parker stared at the screen. The Officer in him was annoyed by the unprofessionalism. But Paul in him felt a cold, sharp spike of adrenaline that had nothing to do with work.
Operational Priority.
He thought about Brody’s jumpiness—and the agitation—over their shared Sunday. He thought about the multiple laundry cycles Brody had run on the washer. How he’d mentioned having spent his Saturday at work.
He thought about the way Brody had turned his back in the hallway that morning.
The data points were refusing to form a picture of a simple training exercise. It all started to look very much like a full deployment.
Parker closed his laptop with a snap. He didn't pack up. He didn't send any follow-ups. He didn’t ask for a new slot for their training.
He walked out of the conference room, bypassing the admin wing entirely. He wasn't a consultant anymore; he was an Intelligence Officer with a suspected leak in his own house. He headed straight for the ‘Brain’—the Ops Scheduling Center—to see exactly what kind of game Brody was playing.
The Brain was a windowless hive for the mechanics of elite violence. It was quieter than the Operations Center but denser, filled with the low murmur of planners moving assets across the globe.
Most importantly, it was the space Parker needed and had access to.
The Officer walked in with his usual clearance badge visible. He didn't ask anyone for help; he didn't need to. He found an open terminal in the scheduling bay, slotted his CAC card into the reader, and pulled up the master availability grid.
He wasn't looking for classified packages, he didn’t need any operational details. He just wanted to know why his trainees weren't showing up.
He pulled up the Alpha Squadron timeline.
The entire week was a solid block of red—as well as the next 16 weeks.
STATUS: DEPLOYMENT LOCKOUT
TRANSIT: TUESDAY 1800
Parker stared at the screen. The data didn't surprise him; his gut had already done the math. He checked the metadata—the audit trail of the lockout.
ORDER GENERATED: WEDNESDAY 0900.
Under that he found the name of a certain Team Lead. The received and acknowledged time: Wednesday 0915.
The cursor blinked, mocking him with the exact timestamp of the betrayal.
Parker went still. The noise of the room faded into a dull, distant static. He reran the calculation in his head, the way he would reconstruct a failed operation.
That was last week.
Brody had known since last Wednesday.
That meant the text messages about ‘maintaining standards’ were a lie.
Their wrestling match in the garage on Sunday? A sad excuse—a lie.
The ‘Anchor’ safeword they had established to ensure safety? Built on a lie.
Parker felt the change in his own blood pressure. It wasn't the hot flush of anger. It was a rapid, terrifying drop in temperature. His internal systems switched from engagement to damage control. He went to Absolute Zero.
Every drop of blood in his body evaporated.
He realized with a crystal-clear, fatalistic certainty that Brody hadn't been honest. Hadn’t provided clarity. Brody had demoted him. He had treated Parker like a civilian spouse who needed to be 'managed' for his own good, rather than a strategic partner who required the intel to survive.
Brody had stripped Parker of respect.
The man had performed a mortal sin—strategic dishonesty—in their house.
The foundation is cracked, Parker thought, his mind already three steps ahead. If the foundation is cracked, the structure is condemned.
There was zero point to plan for any joint ops moves. He shifted his focus to drafting the exit strategy in a blink of an eye.
He didn't slam the mouse. He didn't punch the desk.
He marked his training module as ‘Incomplete due to Unit Unavailability.’ He logged out, pulled his CAC card, and slotted it back into his lanyard.
He stood up, his face a mask of bored, professional indifference.
"You done already, sir?" a young logistics sergeant asked from the next desk.
Parker looked at him. "Alpha is locked out. I can’t operate with ghosts, Sergeant."
"Oh. Right. Timing is a bitch," the sergeant muttered.
"It sure is," Parker agreed, his voice smooth and empty.
He walked out of the Monolith. He didn't rush. He moved with the measured pace of a man who had completed his deliverables and was simply heading home to pack.
He passed the secure doors of the Alpha sector and didn't look back.
Parker was enveloped in his most effective state; he was a man with total clarity, a man executing a scorched earth mission. A man capable of war crimes, a genocide, if necessary. And he was fully aware of it—the reason why men like him should never command anyone.
He was at his worst.
His afternoon was suddenly free. Plenty of time to make his move, not to wallow in pity or mourn the relationship, simply to end it.
- - -
The Bronco handled the gravel track with its usual mechanical reliability, but the cabin at the edge of the clearing no longer radiated any signal. As Parker killed the engine, he didn't see a joint home base. He saw a temporary structure of wood and stone—a coordinate on a map that had outlived its utility.
He stepped inside, his boots sounding clinical on the floorboards. The air felt stagnant. He walked straight into the bedroom and began to decommission his life. Sanitize it from this location.
He didn't throw things in a fit of rage. He moved with the terrifying, orderly precision of an inquisitor. He pulled his duffel onto the mattress and began a structured extraction. The flannel shirts were folded into tight, military rolls. The charcoal button-downs were aligned. The spare socks were tucked away. Within ten minutes, the closet was sterilized.
He wasn't just packing; he was turning the house back into a 'maintenance facility'—stripping the humanity out of the wood and stone until only the utility remained.
Packing the temporary base was about as quick as the compartmentalization of his heart.
The house felt like a vacuum.
There was no air left to breathe.
He carried the first load to the Bronco, his movements economical. He walked back inside, heading to the living room. His guitar case sat in the corner, a dark, heavy shape that had remained unopened for years before he’d arrived at this site. For a decade, he had kept that part of himself locked away—a choice between the man who could feel a rhythm and the man who could execute orders with efficiency.
Brian had been the one to pick the lock. The man had brought the frequency with him that made the music important again—safe to breathe again.
Parker stood over the case, his face set to Absolute Zero. He felt the coldness in his marrow—the familiar, clinical detachment of the first life he had lived. It was the state of mind that allowed men to sign off on destruction without a tremor in their hand. He knew he possessed the capacity for total emotional massacre. He knew he could dismantle Brody’s soul with the same surgical efficiency he reserved for a botched mission.
He could have been gone. He could have loaded the truck and vanished into the pines before the Sierra ever hit the driveway, leaving the man to return to a void.
But he wasn't a coward. Brody was the one who hid in the shadows of compartmentalized ‘Need-to-Know’ logic. Brody was the one who treated Parker like a civilian to be managed.
Parker didn't hide. He didn't need to operate in the dark. He faced the target.
He sat on the dark gray sofa, his spine an unyielding line of Navy steel. He didn't put on the lights. He simply sat in the growing shadows of the late Monday afternoon, waiting for the sound of the all-terrain tires.
He had time before his final exfil—plenty to decide which man was going to speak—deliver the sentence—when the door finally opened: the one who played the music, or the one who just executed.
- - -
Brody navigated the gravel track with a knot of raw agitation tightening in his stomach. The Sierra’s headlights swept over the dark pines, eventually settling on the gunmetal-grey flank of the Bronco parked in its usual spot. But the cabin seemed lifeless.
Brody just killed the engine; he didn’t move. He sat in the cab for a long minute, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He knew he had royally fucked up. He’d spent the day replaying the morning in the hallway—the way he’d seen the wave of Parker’s hand and chosen to turn his back like a coward. He’d told himself it was the mission, the discipline, the mask. But it was fear.
He also knew he’d made a cardinal mistake by withholding the truth. Integrity was the only thing that kept their signal clean, and he’d single-handedly scrambled it. He knew exactly how he’d feel if Parker had done the same to him—he’d have seen it as a demotion, a sign that he wasn’t trusted enough to handle the mission of their life together. He would have hated the dishonesty, and yet, he’d used it like a shield, failing the very man he was trying to protect. He violated their code.
He wanted to make it right. He had less than twenty-four hours before the 1800 wheels-up time on Tuesday. He just needed one more night. He wanted to have ‘The Talk.’ He wanted to apologize for the silence, give Parker the keys to the den, and get on that plane knowing he had a partner, a boyfriend—a home—to come back to. He wanted to know the cabin wouldn't turn soulless the second he left. He needed the grace Paul had given him to anchor him.
He climbed out of the truck and entered through the garage. He stopped at the kitchen door, gathering his breath, rehearsing the opening line of his surrender.
The sound hit him.
It was a violent wall of music bleeding through the wood of the door. The guitar wasn't played; it was tortured. The rhythm was fast, jagged, and loud—a rock cover that sounded like incoming enemy fire.
Parker was singing, his baritone no longer smooth but raw and full of grit.
“And I wonder… When I sing along with you… If everything could ever feel this real forever… If anything could ever be this good again…”
Brody’s blood went cold. He didn’t need an intel brief to understand the tone—the signal. Parker knew. The secret was out, and the betrayed was currently vocalizing his verdict; a post-mortem on a failed alliance.
Brody pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchen. He reached for the light switch, flooding the room with a too-bright glare.
He stopped dead.
The room was a ghost. The surfaces were clear. The mismatched coffee cups were gone. The half-empty bag of espresso was missing and the moka pot—their shared mornings—had been erased.
The cherished version of his life, filled with kindness, had been just a temporary contract that had now been terminated.
The kitchen looked exactly as it had for the last few years: a sterile, efficient staging area for a man who didn't plan on staying. It was a ‘Maintenance Facility’ again. Ready for his deployment just like it had been every single time before.
The ‘Joint Home Base’ had been decommissioned while he was at work.
The old, aggressive silence had reclaimed every corner and surface—sanitized and stripped of every sign of life. Turned back into a cold coordinate for a soldier without a home.
“The only thing I'll ever ask of you… You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when…”
The lyrics from the living room were a blunt-force trauma. Brody had been the one—withholding the truth.
He walked toward the doorway, his boots feeling like lead weights. He didn’t try to be silent. He wanted Parker to hear the approach of the man who had ruined the only honest thing he’d ever owned.
He stopped at the threshold of the living room. The only light came from a single lamp in the corner.
Parker was sitting on the couch, the guitar balanced on his knee. He wasn't the scruffy, warm partner who had shared the Trangia flame. To Brody, he looked like a total stranger—a high-level operative in a charcoal shirt, his face unreadable, void of any emotion. He was the untouchable high-ranking officer ready to follow his own orders. A man who had decided the system was broken and didn’t need to listen to excuses.
He didn't look up from the strings. He didn't acknowledge the entry.
He just hit the last chords, the echo of the music being the only bridge over a physical barrier no apology was heavy enough to break.
The final sounds died against the wood, leaving just very thin air where their house used to be.
“Last Wednesday. 0915.”
Parker spoke without looking up from the guitar. The words were dry, delivered with the rhythmic precision of a post-op report. He finally shifted his gaze, his eyes clinical, an absolute zero temperature. There wasn’t any fury, hurt, supremacy, or even judgement.
Brody stood frozen in the doorway. The too bright glare from behind him cast a long shadow across the floor, but it didn’t reach Parker.
“Yeah,” Brody started, his voice a gravelly, desperate plea.
“The timeline,” Parker stated, his voice low and smooth, cutting through Brody’s words like a scalpel. “You acknowledged your WARNO at 0915. You sat on the intel for five days. You didn’t mention it through the comms-check on Thursday. Not in the garage on Sunday morning. Not in this house during the day or in the bed in the evening.”
“You agreed on the safeword to secure a peace you’d already corrupted.”
Parker stood up, the movement slow and uncoiling. He didn't look like a hurt partner. That would have been something for Brody to work with. Instead Parker was devoid of any signal; he was a black hole of detachment.
“What exactly was your plan? To just vanish?”
A freezing beat.
Brody shifted; he didn’t know the answer to that.
“I thought we both dealt in truth, Brian. I thought that was our pact. But you’re another coward hiding behind a mask and misplaced agenda.”
“I wasn’t hiding!” Brody barked, the Operator’s defensive instinct flaring. “It was about the peace. I wanted us to have time without the noise.”
“No,” Parker countered, stepping closer until they were back to that symmetric, same-height standoff. “You didn't do it for us. You did it to control me. You decided I wasn't hard enough to handle the mission—our life. You demoted me to a civilian spouse who needs their reality curated. You traded respect for five days of fake bliss. While you sat alone in your agitation and torture, in a place where I couldn’t help you since I didn’t know.”
“That is dishonesty, that is not clarity.”
Brody’s jaw worked silently. He looked at the floor, the weight of the accusation hitting him harder than any physical strike. He had used the system’s logic to justify the lack of respect, and Parker had just exposed it as a plain and simple cowardice.
Inside, Parker felt the pull of the dark, cold power, he was walking on a razor’s edge. He saw the jugular—he knew he could bring up Brody’s fear of obsolescence, he could tell him he was a blunt instrument that had finally broken the one thing it was supposed to hold. He could commit total annihilation right here on the living room floor.
But he stopped. He saw the tremor in the operator’s stable hands. The trigger finger wasn’t steady. Parker knew Brody was smart and knew it all anyway. And he knew Brian was a better man than he could ever be, he couldn't bring himself to destroy that beauty. He left the man just enough air to breathe.
But Parker’s fatalism was already executing the next moves. There was no honesty to be found here, therefore no clarity, and therefore no respect.
Paul knew a man like Brian had the capacity to make someone’s life full and pure. He hoped someday the man would. It just wasn’t him.
“You aren’t planning to stay here when I’m gone, are you?” Brody asked, his voice small, his dark eyes searching the sanitized room for any sign of a different answer. Any tiniest speck of hope.
Parker didn't blink. “I don’t stay in compromised safe houses. I’m checking into the base hotel for the remainder of the week.”
Brody’s face fractured, the mask finally shattering into a look of raw, unpolished agony. “Paul, please. It’s one more night. Anchor. I need Anchor.”
Brody’s hand reached out, a desperate plea for the grounding he relied on.
Parker recoiled, avoiding the touch as if it were contagious. The refusal was a physical strike.
“Anchor requires two stable points, Brian,” Parker said, his voice reaching a terrifying level of detachment. “And there’s only one.”
He grabbed the guitar case. He walked past Brody without his shoulder brushing the man’s arm. He didn't look back at the couch, the dining table or the hand-carved bowl.
The heavy oak door clicked shut with a finality that sounded like a shotgun in the quiet of the pines.
Parker climbed into the Bronco and drove away, leaving the man alone in a cabin that wasn’t a home—filled with nothing but the old, aggressive silence.
- - -
Brody stood rooted in place for a long time.
He couldn’t move.
He wasn't able to think.
He just felt the crushing agony.
His soul ripped from his body.
- - -
Brody woke up on a bare mattress.
He hadn't slept much. Just stared to the darkness.
There wasn’t any peace left in the cabin; every corner was screaming of a site that had been scrubbed. Parker hadn’t just packed his gear; he had even stripped the sheets and washed them.
Brody lay on his side, his arm draped over the spot where the man usually anchored him. His fingers brushed the cold, textured surface of the mattress protector. It was a stark, physical reminder that the contract had been terminated.
He didn't check his phone. He knew there would be no midnight text.
He stood up, his joints protesting the cold air. His appetite was offline. He walked into the kitchen, his gaze instinctively landing on the empty spot where the moka pot had lived. He didn't even try to make coffee. He couldn't be bothered; the taste of the mud was joyless without the Navy guy’s Naples version to contrast it against. He drank a glass of lukewarm tap water and felt it sit heavy in his stomach.
The pack-out was mechanical. He didn't have much to take—he never did for his deployments. His newly found appreciations had been blooming out of Parker’s influence for months. He pulled his spare boxers from the drawer and noticed they were no longer tangled with charcoal-colored ones. The separation was complete.
He dressed in the dark. The act of putting on his uniform was no longer a point of pride; it was the closing of a shroud. He laced his boots with a grim, rhythmic intensity, pulling the tan fabric tight enough to bruise his ankles. He needed the friction to feel real.
The drive to the Monolith was a blur of black pines and a burning chest. It felt like massive chemical fire. By the time he hit the security turnstiles at 0515, ‘Brian’ had been buried deep, locked away with his feelings. Only the ‘standard’ remained.
He walked into the team room, and the air seemed to still. The other operators were also in motion ready to begin the day; crates being stenciled and gear being checked, but they all looked to the doorway.
Brody didn't wave. He didn't smile. He looked like a statue carved from the same river stone as his cabin—unyielding, lethal, and utterly solitary.
"Status report," Brody said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that pulled the room into alignment. But left no room for a boyish laugh.
"Alpha is at ninety percent readiness, Boss," Mack said, his voice unusually quiet.
“Let’s make it a hundred percent by noon," Brody ordered, walking past to his locker. “We’ve done the heavy lifting already, we can easily beat the logistics schedule and get proper lunch.”
For the last twelve hours at their home station, Brody executed a masterclass in leadership. He was efficient and attentive. He moved with a determination that made even the seasoned operators look from their distance. All while he was emotionally bleeding out, his mind a jammed mess of guilt, abandonment and obsolescence, but he used all that to build the armor stronger.
He was operationally great because he had nothing else left.
He was simply the elite weapon the government had paid for.
But every time he caught his reflection, he saw a haunted wreck. He saw a man who had tried to protect his peace and ended up buried alive. He checked the clock.
T-minus 6 hours.
The window was rapidly closing, and the only man who could ground him—grant his salvation— was currently about a hundred yards away in the admin wing, radiating a cold, absolute zero that Brody could feel through the walls of the building.
- - -
Parker woke up in the base’s hotel to the scent of industrial lemon and recycled air.
The room was a lifeless container just like the man in the bed.
The absolute clarity of the previous night had evaporated, leaving behind the damp, suffocating pressure of the drowning. He lay staring at the ceiling of the hotel room, his chest feeling dangerously light. For months, his mornings had begun with a two hundred and fifty pounds of grounding force pinned across his ribs. Now, there was only the absence of weight—a void that felt more punishing than anything else before.
His encounter with the IED had been an easier blow to deal with.
He had been right to call out the dishonesty. He had been right to demand respect. But as he sat up, the silence of the room told him he was currently the king of a very small, very cold hill.
He dressed feeling nothing but the icy fingers of drowning trying to grab him. He didn't check his phone; he knew there was nothing, the signal was dark. He felt a flicker of his fatalism—a grim satisfaction that by Friday, he would be back in his own city, locked inside his own bunker, safe from the risk of trusting someone else’s levels of access and clarity.
He spent the morning in the main conference room of the Monolith, training the unit’s top brass—the Lieutenant Colonels, Majors, and the other admin crew. He was the perfect 'Conductor.' He was sharp, professional, and entirely detached. He delivered the final integration modules of the Playbook with a clinical clarity that left no room for questions.
None of the officers mentioned the huge red blocks on the master schedule. None of them mentioned that Alpha Squadron was currently a black element. Parker didn't ask. He moved through the training like the top-tier contractor he was; finishing a contract.
He tried to ignore the way his eyes instinctively tracked the time, but couldn't.
1130.
The window was closing.
By the afternoon, he had retreated to his temporary station—the very same small, windowless SCIF in the secure annex he had nicknamed ‘The Tank’ in his previous visits. He’d never felt more aligned with a bullet and soundproof steel box designed to prevent leaks; it matched his internal climate with spot-on accuracy.
He sat at the terminal, finalizing the last tactical adjustments to the reporting structure, applying the final feedback he had received, and began the digital handover. He was deep in the zone when the blessed silence of the SCIF was shattered.
It wasn't a polite tap. It was a loud, demanding sequence of thuds against the reinforced steel door. It sounded like an evacuation order.
Parker went still.
He stood up, stepped to the door, triggered the internal mag-lock and pulled the handle.
The door snapped open in an instant, and a massive figure in full tactical gear pushed in. MultiCam uniform tight over his frame, the carrier vest and the jagged silhouette of pouches moved with a kinetic determination that bulldozed Parker backward. He didn't just walk in; he occupied the room.
Brody slammed the door shut, the lock engaged. He didn't ask for permission. He didn't offer a greeting. He breached the SCIF with a steaming intensity and claimed the space. The sharp scent of the well-used gear, the busy day and unvented agitation rolling off him in waves.
He was in his full battle rattle—helmet clipped to his belt, his frame twice its usual size in the cramped room. He looked lethal, exhausted, and raw.
Brody didn't wait for Parker to speak. He reached behind him and engaged the manual deadbolt with a heavy, final clack. It was an industrial sound that finished sealing the ‘Tank' completely, turning the sanctuary into a pressurized box capable of withstanding an explosion.
He stepped into Parker’s space, his massive, armored chest forcing its way against Parker’s, blocking the only exit with a wall of Cordura and ceramic.
Parker held his ground and didn’t move a muscle.
The ‘Officer’ and the ‘Operator’ stood chest to chest in the windowless SCIF, the air between them thick with the residue of the bridge they had burned.
Their eyes were a foot apart, meeting at the same level and boring directly into the depths of the opponent. Brows low, the animals in them were ready to bare their teeth.
The small space was suddenly loud, filled with the staccato of their breathing and the rhythm of the server racks.
Brody spoke first. He didn't apologize. He didn't beg. He looked Parker dead in the eye, his expression deadpan serious.
“You took my boxers. I want them back.”
Parker blinked, his mask flickering with genuine confusion. “The Fuck, Brody?”
“My favorite pair. Dark blue,” Brody rumbled, leaning closer, his armor scraping Parker’s shirt. “You packed them.”
The absurdity of it hit like a train. Here they were, standing on the edge of a four-month black op and a shattered relationship, in the middle of a storm, and the perfect Tier-1 operator was demanding his underwear.
Parker let out a laugh—a rich, dry but genuine sound fueled by his appreciation for life’s dark absurdity. It bounced off the steel walls, and for a split second, the Operator's mask shattered. Brody’s heart wasn’t aware of the crisis anymore; it flipped the beast upside down.
God that sound… so pure, Brody screamed inside.
Paul saw a flash of Brian in the man’s eyes, and his own cynical heart finally abandoned the orders.
The Officer’s posture faltered. The man drew a sharp jagged inhale.
The acknowledgment of their little two-man circus lowered the agitation in the room by a crucial notch.
“Operational error,” Parker admitted, a smirk tugging at his lips. “I’ll mail them to the FOB.”
“No,” Brody growled, but the heat in his eyes had shifted from panic to hunger. “We aren't leaving it like this. We aren't doing Qatar again.”
Parker looked at the man—the elite weapon system, the Wolf in his full harness—and felt his own stubbornness yield to a different kind of requirement. He didn’t want to drown, to itch, to crash and burn. He didn’t want to be right anymore.
He wanted to be grounded. He needed to provide.
Parker reached out, grabbing the straps of Brody’s plate carrier, yanking all the mass Brody was carrying. “Then come here.”
Brody’s gloved hand grabbed Parker’s jaw and hair tightly. His big arms enveloping the icy man.
The collision was abrasive and unrefined. There was no room to strip; they didn't have the luxury of skin-to-grit this time. Parker initiated the breach, his hands roaming over the Cordura and the hardware, his fingers catching on the vest. He wanted to feel the full lethal capacity of the man. He wanted to venerate the warrior who was about to vanish into the System.
Parker’s hands weren't looking for comfort; they were hunting for skin. He shoved them under the hem of Brody’s tactical jacket, ripping through the moisture-wicking layers beneath to find the expansive, furnace-warm and powerful torso. The skin was tough, etched with the history of thousands of drills, and corded with hair—a texture far removed from the delicate silk of the civilian world. It was a man’s hide, built for impact, and Parker claimed it with a desperate, assessing grip.
Brody didn’t wait for an opening. He yanked Parker’s button-down open, the sound of buttons snapping against the steel floor lost in the hum of the servers. His gloved hands—rough and unyielding—found Parker’s wide shoulders, his fingers digging into the muscle plates as if he were trying to weld them together.
They separated just enough to get Parker’s ripped shirt off and his white T-shirt over his head. Brody’s gaze roaming hungry over the exposed skin, the well-defined muscles that held more power than met the eye.
Parker dropped to his knees, yanking Brody’s tactical pants down to his thighs. He pushed his nose into the heat of Brody’s lap, inhaling a lungful of the raw, concentrated musk. It was the absolute scent of a male at his limit—the smell of the capacity to secure and the force to hold. It was the only air Parker ever wanted to breathe.
He began to venerate the manhood, his mouth finding the silky hardness and the heavy, pulsing weight of it. Parker explored every vein, every ridge, his tongue marking the territory with a relentless, greedy focus. He reached to pet the lower abdomen, the line of dark hair, and the slightly furry quads. His fingers tracing the globes of the perfect ass that he’d ogled so many times its magnificent shape had been permanently burned in his mind.
He saw every detail and the physical results of Brody’s twenty-year commitment to being the best. To Parker, the body before him was a roadmap of Brody’s loyalty.
Parker took the low-hanging balls into his mouth, his fingers playing with the rim of Brody’s entrance, sending high-volume sparks through the beast above him. Once the heavy sack was clean and covered in saliva, he slicked his fingers and returned to the shaft. Brody’s gloved hands tangled into Parker’s hair, pulling his head to force the depth. He began to fuck Parker’s throat with a rhythmic, punishing intensity.
Their eyes met—a barely visible line of sight over the top of Brody’s carrier vest and the rigid ceramic plates. The signal was loud and clear; there was no room for masks in a space this tight.
Parker’s spit-slick fingers teased the tight entrance.
“Why… do you have to be so… fucking cold?” Brody grunted and gasped while he thrusted into Parker’s warm mouth, his voice a gravelly ruin of frustration.
Parker popped the cock out of his mouth, jerking the hard cock with his hand, eyes burning with an unyielding fire. “Careful, big guy. I might bite,” he rasped, his voice a jagged edge. He wasn't pushing Brody with any frantic energy of some young whiny boy; he was giving him the cold, unyielding tone of a man, a partner. “You know I’m right.”
Brody didn't argue. He couldn't. He just gripped Parker’s hair tighter, a silent demand for the only reset that mattered.
Parker wrapped his lips back around the glistening cock and pushed his finger inside the man, instantly curling over the right spot. Brody gasped out loud, and groaned when a second finger forced its way in to join the first. Parker rubbed the sensitive bundle with just the right intensity. He’d had all the time he needed to learn the best and most devastating ways to take his man apart—to bypass the firewalls Brody had spent twenty years building.
Parker got back to full force, taking Brody all the way to the base, filling his tight throat, milking the beast until he felt the high-mass surge.
Brody let out a low roar, a poorly silenced signal of total pleasure. His warhead was pushing precum and pulsing in the soft, warm mouth, ready to unload.
Brody’s release was a full payload—viscous, musky and hot—draining everything he got. Parker drank everything he could, it was everything he needed right now, humming his appreciation around the hard cock. Cum overflowed from Parker’s mouth, a white trail of salt and truth running down his chin, soaking into his heavy stubble.
As Brody came down from the high, he didn't allow for a recovery phase. He yanked Parker up, his gloved hands catching his arms and slamming him back against the reinforced wall with a dull thud. He used his thumb to clean the warm streaks from Parker’s chin.
Parker grabbed Brody’s wrist, pulling the lethal, gloved fingers into his mouth to suck the remaining drops of the man’s essence. The pristine taste of Brian. He held the gaze, watching the way Brody’s pupils dilated at the sight of his gloved fingers in his mouth.
Brody dropped to his knees, ripping Parker’s jeans off with a frantic speed. His gloved hands cupped Parker’s balls, his mouth seeking the cock with an urgency that bordered on desperation. He needed to make Parker addicted to the warmth of him; he needed to anchor his mate to the floor.
Parker was close instantly, the rough touch of the gloves and the heat of Brody’s mouth a sensory overload. The man on his knees was a sight he swore he’d never forget, the most capable soldier he’d known giving his best to provide pleasure. He watched from above, his head thudding against the wall, as the hungry mouth devoured his manhood. The full lips around his hard rod, meant to give impossible highs. Parker’s cock pulsed, Brody’s lips parted, the rough gloved fist jerked him over the last mile. The rough, textured grit of the tactical gloves provided a punishing contrast to Parker’s slick skin—a constant reminder that the beast was still on duty even while the man was providing.
He erupted into Brody’s open mouth and across his tongue. The release was violent, some of it splattering Brody’s stubble, nose and forehead—a messy, honest designator of belonging.
Brody stayed there, grounded and unbearably happy, savoring the rich, absolute taste of his mate.
Parker breathed for a moment and moved his hands from the short hair to cup the handsome face covered in his cum. His hands were tender as he swiped the fluid from Brody’s skin, feeding the man the remnants of his own release. He leaned down, licking Brody’s face clean with slow, worshipful laps before kissing the warrior. They tasted each other—the salt, the thick juice, and the honesty of it all mixing in their mouths—while the scent of their combined heat filled their noses, raw and unshakeable. Bonding with the taste and smell of their sperm; a total system alignment before the signal went dark.
Right there, in that small SCIF container—the most clinical place on the base—they had found the most unrefined, biological truth. They were two soldiers who had successfully reclaimed their treaty in the most masculine language they knew.
Afterward, they slid down to the floor, propped against the heavy steel wall. Parker, disheveled and missing his shirt, pulled Brody’s massive, armored frame down to rest against him.
They were two predators panting and gasping for air—their alliance—in the heart of the machine. Their bare manhoods nested together.
Parker petted the short hair at the nape of Brody’s neck, his touch slow and rhythmic.
“I’m sorry,” Parker whispered into the quiet hum of the servers. “I shouldn’t have refused the anchor.”
Brody let out a long, shuddering breath, leaning his heavy head onto Parker’s shoulder. The apology gave him just enough courage to speak.
“I had hopes...” Brody started, his voice rough. “Yesterday, before the… everything. I wanted you to have the key. I hoped the cabin would be a house… a home to come back to.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I wanted to ask you. To have you as my man. Like a boyfriend, a manfriend... whatever the hell civilians call it. More than just this.”
He gestured vaguely between them. “I don't know what we are, Paul. But I know you smell perfect to me. I know I feel you. I just... I wanted some clarity. Like you.”
Parker went still. His hand stopped stroking Brody’s hair. The tragedy of the statement hung in the air.
“Clarity, huh?” Parker said softly, his voice dropping back into that analytical register. “You see, Brian, that’s the problem. Without honesty, there isn't clarity. And without clarity, the respect is just a performance. A play. A lie.”
Brody flinched slightly but didn't pull away.
“I can’t stay at the cabin,” Parker continued, his tone gentle but final. “I can’t sit there and feel the presence of a man who isn't there. Whose respect is not honest. It’s not real.”
Brody nodded against his shoulder, accepting the hit.
“It’s the exact thing that made me walk away from my first life.”
Brody swallowed. He knew it.
“I need my space,” Parker said, looking at the steel door. “Because right now, I’m not worth the respect of the system, and apparently, I wasn't worth yours either. You didn't protect me; you isolated me… You stripped me of my agency… You treated me like a liability.”
Parker swallowed hard, the drowning sensation lapping at his chest.
“I am nothing to the system. I am nothing to this unit. And without the truth, I’m just a dirty secret you keep in the woods. I didn't walk away just to live in another room with no windows. I can’t live in that shadow.”
Brody nodded again. He didn't argue. He knew the facts. He had tried to protect Parker from the war, and in doing so, he had exiled him from the bond.
They sat there for a minute longer, the ‘Conductor’ holding the ‘Wolf,’ both of them painfully aware that their window had closed.
T-minus 3 hours.
- - -
The military terminal sat bathed in the long, bleeding gold of the Tuesday sunset. It was a scene of controlled chaos—boots scuffing the concrete, the smell of jet fuel, and the warm sounds of goodbyes.
Brody moved through the crowd; all around him, the perimeter of Alpha Squadron was being breached by civilian life for one final, frantic moment. He saw a junior operator kneeling to hug a toddler; he saw a grizzled Master Sergeant holding his wife with a desperate, bone-crushing strength.
For years, Brody had looked at these scenes with a crippling, unspoken hope. He’d tried to distance himself from it all. Today, being in the middle of it hurt like a gunshot wound.
Thirty minutes ago, he had stood near the vending machines, his gear bag heavy at his feet, staring at the automatic doors. He wasn’t expecting a miracle. He knew the ‘Officer’ didn't do public performances. He knew he’d forfeited the right to a farewell the moment he’d signed the WARNO and kept it secret. But the irrational, Brian part of him—the part that had been grounded in a warm lap on the cold steel floor of the SCIF—starved for a signal. A text. A shadow in the crowd.
Nothing came. The signal was dark.
"Wheels up. Move it," the loadmaster’s voice cut through the terminal.
Brody shouldered his duffel and walked. There was no one on the airfield to witness the man taking off—only the system was watching.
He moved with mechanical precision up the hydraulic ramp, his boots sounding hollow on the metal grating. The interior was a cavern of steel and exposed wiring, smelling of hydraulic fluid.
He found his spot on the row of identical seats. He sat with his knees touching Mack’s on one side and Mills’ on the other. He was surrounded by his family—the men who knew his blood type and his secondary weapon specs—but as the ramp began its slow, whining ascent, he had never felt more solitary.
He stared through the narrowing gap of the ramp at the receding tarmac.
The ramp sealed with a heavy, pressurized thud, cutting off the world.
The engines began their low, chest-thumping growl. Then came the push—the raw, physical force of the takeoff. Usually, Brody loved the force; it felt like the system taking control, relieving him of his agency. Today, the ascent felt like it was physically ripping his heart out of his chest, the distance between him and his home expanding with a violent, unstoppable velocity.
He was a line item on a manifest now. A weapon system in transit.
He had successfully protected the home from the noise of the war. But as the plane banked hard into the black sky, he knew there was nobody left to live in it.
- - -
Parker closed the final file at 1200 on Thursday. He had beaten his timeline by 25 hours.
The handover was unceremonious. He met Colonel Rogers in the quiet of a second-floor office and traded a curt, professional handshake. There were no follow-up questions left. Parker was just the efficient consultant once more, his contract fulfilled and his presence no longer required.
He walked through the security turnstiles and handed over his visitor badge. As the steel gate clicked shut behind him, he was nothing to the unit now. Just another civilian contractor outside the wire.
On the flight to the city, he sat in the narrow seat of the commercial jet, the guitar case in the overhead bin staring back at him through the plastic like an accusing eye. He’d won the fight. He had defended his integrity and refused to live in a shadow. But as the plane crossed the landscape, the satisfaction felt leaden.
The brownstone was exactly as he had left it: sterile, quiet, and wearing the thin, hollow air of a bunker. He dropped his go-bag by the door and walked into the kitchen. He placed the moka pot—the stolen relic of the shared mornings—on the stove. He didn't light the burner. He simply stood there, staring at the polished granite counter, waiting for the clarity he’d demanded to make him feel whole.
The silence was far from the foundational kind he had shared with the man in the pines; it was the old, predatory silence that wanted to swallow him.
He had no rights. No status. He was outside the loop, drowning in the very autonomy he’d fought to reclaim.
His demons were waiting for him in the corners of the dark living room.
Days passed in their company.
After a week, Parker sat down on the sofa, ready to embrace the only companions he had.
His humanity had been sitting on the floor, locked in the case, staring angrily. He didn't turn on the lights. He didn't want a performance; he needed a connection, a discharge. He struck the strings tentatively, the sound a small, weak vibration that the walls of the brownstone heard for the first time. He wasn't playing for his guy anymore; he was playing for the ghost of the man he’d briefly dared to be.
He began to play, his voice a hushed, fragile rasp that barely carried across the room.
“Sorrow found me when I was young... Sorrow waited, sorrow won. Sorrow, they put me on the pill... It's in my honey, it's in my milk.”
He didn’t wallow in any self-pity despite the accounting of his history—the pills, the depression, the drowning he’d been fighting since the IED hit—just simply counted the facts. He closed his eyes, his fingers moving slowly over the fretboard.
“Cover me in rag and bone sympathy... ‘Cause I don't wanna get over you. I don't wanna get over you.”
The admission hung in the stagnant air of the apartment. He had executed the exit strategy. He had sanitized the cabin and his life. He had told his man to find a new anchor. But as the last note decayed into the aggressive silence of his Black Site, Paul knew his clarity had finally betrayed him.
He didn't want to get over it. He didn't want the vacuum. He didn't want the sterile loneliness.
He knew it in his bones; he had accused Brian of stripping away his agency, when in fact Paul had done exactly the same thing.
He didn’t know how to fix what he had broken.
He stayed there in the dark, the guitar resting against his chest, listening to the silence of a man who had finally achieved total clarity—the loneliest coordinate on the map.
- - -
Ten weeks later. 0200.
The world was a grainy, high-contrast landscape of ghost-green through the lens of Brody’s NVGs. He moved through the target compound with the silent, rhythmic grace of a predator who had long forgotten how to be human.
He was the ‘Operator’ on steroids. His head was entirely in the loop—calculating angles, timing breaches, and monitoring the sub-vocal comms with a clinical focus that bordered on the supernatural. He was faster than he’d been in years, operating with a cold efficiency that bordered on reckless. That had Mack looking at him sideways during every debrief.
He didn't care about the heat surrounding them all night and day. He didn't care about the exhaustion. He did the work because it was the only rhythm left, but the joy of the hunt had been replaced by a mechanical sense of duty. His heart was dark, a vacuum that even the adrenaline of a raid couldn't fill.
“In the door. Three, two, one… Breaching,” Brody whispered into his comms.
The charge blew the entrance into a spray of splinters and dust. Brody was the first man in—the engine of the breach stack. He pivoted to clear the right corner, his rifle up, his barrel tracking the shadows with a fluid speed.
He saw the muzzle flash from low behind the crates before the sound registered in his ears.
It wasn't a tactical failure. It wasn't a lack of discipline. It was just the cold, hard statistical math of the kill zone.
The round hit him low, just beneath the ceramic plate of his carrier. It felt like a high-velocity punch from a giant—a hot, shattering impact that folded his 250-pound frame like a piece of paper.
Brody hit the floor with a thud that vibrated through his marrow. The air left his lungs in a ragged, wet gasp. The noise of the firefight—the suppressed pops of his team and the shouting of the enemy—was a distant, muffled static. His world shrank down to the smell of parched dust and the metallic tang of his own blood.
He didn't think about his training. He didn't think about the extraction plan or the medevac.
His cough painted the floor in front of his eyes in dark red spatters.
Anchor, he thought, the word a silent, desperate pulse in the dark... Anchor.
The noise faded as the signal in his head began to stutter and fail. He was dying in the dirt for nothing.
He chose the silence over the truth one last time.
- - -
Note: This story is intended as a non-commercial work. Song lyric excerpts are the copyrighted property of their respective owners and are used here under fair use principles for transformative narrative context.
Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. While certain real-world entities are referenced, their depiction is entirely fictional and does not represent the actual policies, opinions, or personnel of those organizations.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
