Silent, his forearms still crossed, hands still at the bottom of his shirt, his abdomen partially exposed.

I pushed his hands away, stepping close enough our chests touched. No doubt he could feel my heartbeat.

“I want to undress you,” I told him.

“No complaints.”

“Let me lead? Every step of the way?” I asked again. “Please?”

“Even for stuff like this?”

I nodded.

“Got it.”

I’d compared the situation room to a shoebox in the midst of a tomb of concrete. This dorm room was a tenth the size, so small I could reach across it and touch two separate walls. A bed, shelves, a cabinet.

Two of us, a bit of light, and what felt like a whole world of dark thoughts in the space beyond, like the situation room had had its concrete.

But he was warm. I kissed him, and it felt both warm and sad.

It helped with that lonely feeling without really solving it.

I pulled off his shirt and I pulled off my sweater. He stood there, breathing in deep, looking at me, and I breathed that in. Being wanted.

I thought without thinking about anything, my brain a febrile buzz.

I couldn’t reach out. Every resource or ally I had was tied up or gone. I wasn’t supposed to contact my team, my parents weren’t supports, the Warden leadership had its concerns and even Jessica wasn’t available. I had an appointment with Darnall for later but that did nothing at all for now.

It made me feel isolated, lost, and cold.

So I held onto another warm, willing body, kissing it, pressing it down onto a cot barely big enough for one person.

The approach we were taking as a collective felt wrong. I’d tried to articulate what I wanted, what I thought we should do. I’d tried to pursue that, going to where the powers came from.

I had suspicions, but no energy or wherewithal to pursue them. I wanted to be out there, chasing that gut feeling that had been nettling me. But I couldn’t. To do so would be a betrayal on several levels.

It didn’t feel right, but I’d concede to the greater authority.

Base, animal instinct, much neglected, at least, felt kind of right. It was hard to call it wrong, at least, when it was so far from morality or black and white thinking.

I tasted his skin, his sweat, and I smelled him. He smelled like herbal tea. I touched the expanse of him and I looked at him in the dim. Between tasting him and smelling him, nuzzling him, my face wasn’t more than a half inch from him at any point. His hair tickled me and mine no doubt tickled him.

I felt the chase of other thoughts, familiar and wrong, and sank deeper into mindless sensation to escape them. Drank in the small male sounds.