Torvald Ulfsson is twenty-eight when he loses his first team.

  The Swedish man strides into ISFT's headquarters, waving briefly at the receptionist as he makes his way to the familiar briefing room. Gis team's handler briefs them - looks like this is going to require the entire team. It seems to him like a routine if dangerous mission. Then again many of their missions are hazardous. Nothing that he and his sword can't handle, with the help of his team.

  What would he do without them? he thinks, and then tries to push that thought aside. He learned that lesson early and well; relying on others only leads to disappointment.

  Back to the mission. They're to go to a certain skyscraper mid-town where a rival company has their R&D department. There they need to steal a set of plans and a prototype. It seems simple enough, even if the building's security is hefty.

  As usual they take a chopper to a location nearby and head in on foot.

  The break-in goes smoothly as ever, thanks to Anatoliy and Valentin. Sanya manages the physical security of course, and Valentin guides them through the bowels of the building to where the plans and the prototype are supposedly stored.

  Torvald catches Anatoliy's change of expression before anyone else does, though. "What is it?"

  "Th-this is big," the shorter man stammers. The rest of the team, Torvald included, crowds around him and his wrist computer to see what's going on.

  It is, indeed, big. World-ending big. As things turn out, the company they're infiltrating is into more dangerous things than HQ either knew or told them. He doesn't understand all the details, but they're building some kind of killer nanobots. And while Torvald has problems with the world and how it is, it contains one - or maybe than one more now - person that he cares very much for.

  The shock doesn't - can't - last long. Collectively they decide to use what grenades they've brought to blow this room and hopefully the research. They want to blow the building itself but they don't have any C4.

  Fucked up situation.

  They leave the room littered with grenades and flee for the stairwell to escape the blast. There, they're caught by the company's drones, outnumbered almost hopelessly on the stairs.

  Valentin is the first to fall, caught in the crossfire as they all scramble downwards. Konrad almost makes it to the exit but a bad fall leaves him vulnerable - and despite Torvald's efforts, they have to leave him there.

  An explosion rocks the building as he and his remaining team members flee into the data tunnels.

  Even here they're not safe. Usually data tunnels aren't monitored, nor do drones patrol them. But that doesn't hold true now.

  Sanya is caught by drone lasers while she's trying to defend Cássio. It's all for nothing, because he's caught in the tunnel as it collapses.

  Panting for breath, Torvald flees the tunnels with Anatoliy. He'll mourn his lost team members and the sacrifice they had to make to keep humanity safe later. For now, he pushes those feelings down where he keeps everything else during a mission and presses forward.

  The pair barrel forward out of a manhole just in time, the tunnel crumbling behind them. But it seems like their trial isn't over just yet. Exhausted and wounded, the mens' next enemy is company security - mostly drones, but some humans.

  Torvald doesn't hesitate. He spares a thought for his lovers, at the same time whipping out his weapon and diving for cover. The man flicks blue eyes over to the place he saw Anatoliy diving for. Good. He's safe. Torvald signals the man to make his way to the car and without waiting for a response, flips on his shield and charges.

  He manages to beat back security just long enough for Anatoliy to bring the skycar around.

  Torvald flings himself in and they take off, getting away from the blazing laser pistols behind them. He looks out the back window, eyes darting frantically. "Shit, they've got a car too."

  "Hold on, then," Anatoliy tells him resignedly.

  He whips the car down into the lower layers of Novalectrum, zipping around this and that building and trying in vain to lose their pursuers. This deep into the city the air smells awful due to the manufacturing plants on this level, so they both do their best to breathe lightly.

  "They're gone," Anatoliy says suddenly, gripping the wheel until his knuckles turn white.

  Before the blond can reply, the other car appears suddenly around a corner - they just barely avoid a collision. The thought that he might be killed yet hardly crosses his mind. The thought that his last surviving team member might die has him putting down the window, ignoring the stinking breeze that washes over him.

  "Cover me!" the blond shouts without a backwards glance, leaning out the window. He leaps onto the other skycar, flicking his shield back on midair, landing with a thud. His fighting blood roused past all quenching, teeth pulled back in a rictus of fury, the blond dodges a hail of panicked gunfire that punches a series of holes in the roof of the car before stabbing his sword downward.

  The attack elicits a little scream from the driver. He twists his hardlight sword viciously, still snarling, and the man at the wrong end of it shudders and falls still. But soon he realizes his mistake. He should've been paying attention to the passenger too.

  The man gets in a lucky shot with a grenade, and Torvald watches the car bearing the very last surviving member of his team get enveloped in a ball of flame.

  Time seems to slow then, the flaming skycar containing Anatoliy beginning to fall - his eyes meeting the other man's as he loses control of the vehicle. His teammate is wounded desperately.

  The fury takes him further then, guiding his actions more than conscious thought ever could. With a wounded scream, Torvald stabs the enemy driver through before yanking him from his seat. He slips into the window and slams himself down in the man's place, engaging the autopilot with hardly a thought. The backseat passenger is carrying a gun, but before he can bring it to bear Torvald slices it and the man's hand off with his sword, the close quarters making it awkward. In very nearly the same moment, he takes hold of the now-screaming man's throat with a claw grip and squeezes with every ounce of rage he's ever experienced.

  Once, twice, three times, he bashes the back of the man's head up into the roof. And then he does it again until the man goes limp and his blood flows down Torvald's fist and onto the expensive leather.

  For some moments there's nothing outside him, his screaming, another man's throat between his fingers. But then he recalls Anatoliy, and begins trying to calm himself.

  It's hard, especially when he has to shove the corpse over so he can take the car out of autopilot. He's shaking, as he always does when he's coming out of his battle-rage. For once he regrets the time this takes. But there's nothing to be done about it.

  One good thing about him circling is that he manages to find the getaway car, much the worse for wear and crashed on a nearby roof. Torvald drives the unfamiliar car as best he can and lands next to the flaming car.

  Anatoliy is alive, if only just.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Get me outta this thing," the man slurs. He's covered in blood, and the less said about the wound in the back of his head the better. But there's no real helping him. Torvald's seen enough men to die to know that much.

  So he pries the door of the wrecked skycar open with his sword, slashes the belt, and pulls the dying man out of the thing.

  "Nnhg...thanks," he mutters weakly.

  "...pulled your ass out of the fire enough times before, yes?"

  "'S true." Anatoliy coughs harshly. "Look...'m not gonna make it. Called for an extraction for you though."

  There's nothing for Torvald to say that and therefore he doesn't.

  The man dying on this roof coughs again, recovers a little. "My family. Don't tell 'em I died like this. Tell 'em I didn't see it coming or somethin'. And h-here." Anatoliy pulls a knife from his boot, hand shaking. "Take this. Don't forget me, would you?"

  Torvald nods.

  "And...maybe you don't have to do this shit forever, yeah?"

  "But the contract," Torvald protests.

  "Fuck the contract," Anatoliy spits weakly. "B-buy it out or somethin'. You're too good to do this forever, y'know."

  Once again he doesn't know what to say.

  Torvald doesn't see how he's supposed to leave ISFT. He doesn't see anything right now, for the blood dripping down his real eye - he must've sustained a scalp wound while he was too lost to fury to notice. But he takes the Anatoliy in his arms and simply holds the man until all life drains from him.

  Only then does he hear the chopper, coming to pick up the sorry remnants of his team. It's just him now.

  Torvald doesn't speak the entire way back to headquarters. There's nothing to say; in fact there's no one left to speak to. Hardly anyone he wants to speak to.

  If only Bog were here.

  Despite his protests the medics see to him, cleaning and bandaging the wounds he's sustained. All the while, he wonders when he might start running towards something good rather than away from something bad.

  He doesn't have an answer for that. He doesn't have an answer for much of anything right now.

  The debriefing is awful. Not only because Agent Kravchuk tries to be sympathetic to him - which only ends up making him angry - but the man offers him a few weeks' leave.

  "Absolutely not," the one-eyed blond replies instantly. He can't imagine sitting idle at home, thinking of today's events. And it won't bring his team back either.

  "I'm afraid it's not optional," Kravchuk tells him regretfully. "You need to recover and we need to build a new team, as well as investigating what you found." The older man peers at him, again with that caustic sympathy. "I'm sorry for what you've lost, but if you go out again now you'll only be throwing your own life away."

  In the end Torvald has no choice. Angrily he sweeps out of the building and into his own car, heedless of the blood still drying on his clothing.

  Barely he clings to the shred of sense telling him he shouldn't go out in this mood; he'll only wind up starting a fight or worse. Instead he brings up the computer in his skycar and taps out a message to Bog. Can you come over tonight?

  His finger hovers over the send button for the longest time. Then finally, with a distinct effort of will, he presses it.

  The blond is nearly back to his apartment when he gets an answer.

  can it wait?

  i'm a lil busy right now

  Please, Torvald makes himself send. Then, I need you.

  It is desperately difficult to admit, but again he manages.

  i'll be over in fifteen minutes, Bog responds after a while.

  Thank you. I'll make it up to you somehow.

  Torvald, knowing that those "fifteen minutes" could encompass up to half an hour, pulls up to his apartment, parks, and hops into the shower, careful of the tape on his scalp wound. Afterwards he dresses in his robe and sits at his table, pouring himself a belt of vodka.

  It's not a particularly good idea to drink alone right now. He knows that much. But Bog's coming, right?

  Torvald fights back the vague wish that Etienne were here too, gulps down some liquor, and just tries to hold on until his partner gets here.

  He just barely catches the chime of the computer in his bedroom. Raises bleary eyes in time to see his door open and Bog barrels in, slamming the door behind him.

  From the look in the demiboy's cyan-glowing eyes Torvald can see he's worried, even if he'll never be able to admit it. "What happened?"

  That and the vodka he's already had - that's all it takes. He spills his guts to Bog like he hardly ever does, NDA be damned. Uncharacteristically his lover sits quietly and listens, though he appropriates a glass and some of Torvald's liquor.

  "C'mon to bed with me," Bog urges afterwards, though it's hardly dark.

  The blond allows himself to be so urged. Lets Bog catch his hand and tug him towards his bedroom.

  A pair of warm hands slides the robe off his scarred shoulders and presses him into bed. Moments later Bog has disrobed himself and is crawling into bed beside him.

  He doesn't know how ravenous he is until his partner pulls him into a kiss.

  Afterwards, resting under the blankets with the person he trusts above all others, Torvald allows himself to fall to pieces. And after that he falls asleep, comforted by Bog's warmth.