Votive at Blackridge

Shohei stopped after a moment, watching Corin’s face.

“Again?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The second kiss went deeper. Corin’s body responded before his mind could assemble another clever remark. He felt the heat of Shohei through wool and cotton, felt the precise restraint in every touch. When Shohei’s hand moved to Corin’s waist, he asked first. When his thumb rested below Corin’s ear, he asked again.

Corin answered yes until the word became something he could feel beneath his skin.

They made their way to the cot without hurry. Corin pulled off his sweater. Shohei followed by unbuttoning his shirt, revealing the narrow scar along his ribs and the hard lines of a body built for endurance rather than display.

“Can I touch you?” Corin asked.

Shohei gave him a small nod. “Yes.”

Corin placed his palm over Shohei’s chest, feeling the rapid beat beneath it. Then he slid lower, over Shohei’s stomach, to the front of his trousers.

Shohei covered Corin’s wrist with two fingers. “Still sure?”

“Yes,” Corin said. “I want to make you feel good.”

From his wash bag, Corin retrieved condoms and held one up. “Preparedness.”

“You mock my routines.”

“I am learning from them.”

Shohei’s brief laugh loosened the room.

Corin opened the foil packet and rolled the condom over Shohei’s erection with deliberate care. Shohei watched him, jaw set, one hand flat on the blanket.

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” Corin said.

“I will.”

Corin lowered his mouth around him. The latex tasted faintly of lubricant. Shohei’s control lasted only so long; his hand moved to the back of Corin’s head, not directing, simply resting there until Corin drew it closer.

“That’s all right,” Corin said against him.

Shohei’s eyes closed. Corin took his time, listening to each altered exhale, each low sound Shohei failed to contain. When Shohei came, he held himself almost perfectly still, pleasure breaking through discipline in a single helpless shudder.

Corin sat back. Shohei removed the condom, tied it shut, and placed it in the small waste bag beside the cot.

“My turn?” Shohei asked.

Corin’s body answered first, but he made himself speak. “Yes. Condom.”

Shohei opened another packet. “Do you want my hands on you?”

“My thigh. Not holding me down.”

“Never.”

He rolled the condom over Corin with steady hands, then lowered himself between Corin’s knees. Shohei looked up once, waiting.

Corin touched his hair. “Please.”

Shohei took him into his mouth. Corin gripped the blanket, then forced his hand open when Shohei glanced up again.

“I’m all right,” Corin said. “Keep going.”

Shohei did. His mouth moved with maddening patience, pausing whenever Corin shifted, giving him time to ask for more. Corin had spent years being watched by strangers who believed they owned portions of him. Here, every touch belonged to a question and an answer.

“Shohei,” he said.

Shohei increased the pace.

Corin came with Shohei’s name on his tongue, body folding around the sensation until he could do nothing but lie there and let it pass.

Shohei disposed of the condom, returned with a damp cloth, and cleaned Corin carefully. He did not touch him again afterward.

“Water?” Shohei asked. “Blanket? Do you want me to go back to the chair?”

Corin caught his hand before he could move away.

“Stay until morning,” he said.

Shohei looked toward the radio, then back at Corin.

“I will need to wake if the signal changes.”

“Do that.” Corin pulled the blanket over them both. “Just stay.”

Shohei lay beside him, one hand resting open between them.

Outside, snow kept worrying at the shutters.

Dawn came blue through the shutter seams. The stove had collapsed into ash and a narrow red seam. Corin woke beneath the wool blanket with Shohei’s open hand resting near his, close enough to choose, not close enough to presume.

For one clear second, he remembered only tea, smoke, and the deliberate care of the night.

Then the radio clicked.

Shohei was awake at once. “Static.”

“Romantic,” Corin said, though his face had gone hot.

Shohei sat up, reaching for his shirt. “Good morning.”

“An aggressively normal greeting after what happened.”

“It remains a useful greeting.”

Corin dragged a hand over his face. “I am considering fleeing into the snow.”

“You would need boots.”

“There it is. The brutal professionalism.”

Shohei’s mouth curved. “You are welcome to stay.”

The answer quieted him. Corin sat up and found his sweater at the cot’s foot. Shohei had folded it during the night, which was somehow more alarming than the fact that they had shared a bed.

They dressed without haste. Snow pressed hard against the shuttered windows, turning the chalet into a dim wooden vessel adrift above the pass. Shohei warmed the last of the coffee while Corin checked the secure handset.

“I have revised the house rules,” Shohei said.

“Of course you have.”

“First: we do not pretend last night did not happen.”

Corin looked over. “A bold opening.”

“Second: either of us can say no to further contact, for any reason.”

“Good rule.”

“Third: if an alert comes in, duty takes priority until it is resolved.”

“That one I expected.”

“Fourth: you tell me before leaving a room with an exterior door.”

Corin accepted the mug Shohei offered. “You made romance sound like a fire-safety inspection.”

“I am trying to keep both subjects from becoming dangerous.”

The coffee tasted burnt and welcome. Corin drank it by the stove while Shohei opened the radio console’s maintenance panel.

“We should send the archive now,” Corin said. “Before they close every road in the county.”

“No.” Shohei’s reply landed cleanly. “The mast is damaged. The relay is unstable. A partial transmission tells whoever is listening that you are here and gives them an opportunity to corrupt or track the transfer.”

“I have copies.”

“And I want every copy to reach its destination.” Shohei tightened a small screw beneath the console. “When the road reopens, we transmit through a verified relay, confirm receipt, then move.”

Corin wanted to argue. The impulse was familiar: motion felt like agency, and agency felt safer than waiting. But Evan had died on a road because someone knew where he was going.

“All right,” he said. “Road opens, relay checks clean, dossier goes.”

Shohei looked at him. “Agreed.”

Corin returned to the handset. The overnight security log had populated in thin green lines. He scrolled through routine entries: battery status, mast signal, exterior contacts, Shohei’s scheduled check-in to Voss Protective Services.

One line made him stop.

“Shohei.”

Shohei crossed the room.

“Your four o’clock check-in was acknowledged twice.”

“Poor signal can produce a duplicate.”

“Not this kind.” Corin turned the screen toward him. “The first acknowledgment says dispatch received your challenge code at 04:01. The second says the same code arrived at 04:08. But both have the same encrypted sequence marker.”

Shohei studied the entries.

“Codes rotate after delivery,” Corin said. “A delayed transmission would arrive late once. This was held somewhere, then replayed.”

“The mast could have repeated a packet.”

“The mast cannot invent a second dispatch receipt.” Corin tapped the later timestamp. “Someone upstream wanted the system to believe you had missed your check-in.”

Shohei took the handset, his attention sharpening into something colder. “Or wanted to see how long it took us to notice.”

The coffee lost its flavor in Corin’s mouth.

Behind the radio console, Shohei removed the lower panel. Dust coated the wiring, along with old patrol labels and the faded seal of the regional emergency service. He checked the serial numbers against the laminated inventory card taped inside the cupboard.

Then he became very still.

“What?” Corin asked.

Shohei held up a narrow strip of weatherproof paper. A code had been written on it in black grease pencil: eight characters, a slash, then six more.

“That is a relay override,” he said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning someone with it can wake this unit remotely, reroute its traffic, and bypass the normal authentication sequence.”

Corin stepped closer. “Was it supposed to be here?”

“No.” Shohei’s tone had changed. “This chalet has one emergency access credential. It is printed in the county maintenance record and sealed in the ranger station below the pass. This is a spare.”

“A spare for whom?”

“I do not know.”

The code sat in Shohei’s palm like a small black wound.

Years earlier, in a windowless Voss Protective Services office, Shohei had sat across from Lachlan Voss after his first diplomatic assignment for the firm. Rain struck the glass behind Lachlan’s desk. Shohei had expected criticism for the extraction route he had altered after spotting a tail.

Instead, Lachlan had slid the debrief file across the desk.

“You deviated,” Lachlan said.

“The published route had been compromised.”

“It had.” Lachlan opened the folder to a page of access logs. “You filed the reason, the timing, and the alternate route. That is why the system exists. Not to punish judgment. To make sure every person protecting you knows where you are and why.”