Page 63 of Whisper

David waited for him. He reached for Kris, pulling him close. Their foreheads brushed. Kris smelled the coffee they’d shared and David’s musk, his sweat. He shivered.

“Be careful,” Kris whispered. “This is…”

Everything. What they’d come to Afghanistan for. The most dangerous mission they’d undertaken.

Except, it wasn’t them undertaking it. It was David, without Kris.

“I wish I could come with you,” he breathed.

“You have to be careful here.” David’s gaze seared into Kris, burning his soul. His eyes were brighter now, suns going supernova, set against the blackness of his face paint.

David had always been unreadable, a star fixed in the heavens, something Kris could see and feel but never touch, never know. He lived like he was an event horizon unto himself. Everything seemed to fall into David and get swallowed up in the churn of his heart, his soul. Kris had no idea, none at all, what was going on. What David thought, or even felt.

“You and Jim, alone here. I don’t like it. Make sure you have tight security. Keep an eye on Shirzai’s guards. Be careful.” David’s hands closed around his. “Keep an extra weapon on you at all times.”

Kris had his handgun strapped to his thigh and an AK-47 next to his pack. He nodded.

“Kris… I’m coming back.” David’s voice rumbled.

“You’d better.”

David reached for him, for his cheek. His big hand cradled Kris, one thumb stroking his cheekbone. His hands were cold, dry, roughened from being in the field for six weeks. Kris tried to stop his whimper, his gasp, but he couldn’t. He melted into David’s touch, turned into his hand. His lips grazed David’s wrist, chapped skin barely kissing his pulse.

“I’m coming back toyou.”

Finally, David let him see, when Kris looked into his eyes,everything. Desperate hunger, aching need, a raw, almost painful yank toward each other. Days and nights by each other’s side, David’s constant attention, his physical touch, the way their souls had curled into the other. “I’m coming back to you,” David whispered, his voice shaking. “If you want that.”

Kris grabbed him, both hands wrapping around David’s face, his head, and pulled him the last inch until their lips met. Their lips were chapped, dry skin catching, and David tasted like bad coffee and Afghanistan’s dust, dust that clung to his mouth and his beard and his skin. But Kris didn’t care. He kissed David like he was trying to bring him back to life, trying to resuscitate his soul. Trying to merge, in some way give David a part of Kris to carry, bury a part of David inside of him. David’s arms wrapped round him, all the way around, encircling him and drawing Kris against David’s bigger, stronger body. He could spend forever in David’s arms, fall into David, live each day beginning and ending with David’s lips and his arms around him, just like this.

“Haddad!”

David pulled back, breaking their kiss. He didn’t let go of Kris.

Palmer, leaning out of the building, stared at them. “We’re rolling out in five, Haddad. On the move.”

“Yes, sir.” David never looked away from Kris. Palmer disappeared back inside.

David’s face paint was smeared, black and green and brown smudged together around his lips and chin, his cheeks where Kris had grabbed him. “I’m sorry,” Kris breathed.

David kissed him again, a soft peck on the lips. “I’m not.” He licked his lips. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long. I didn’t know if you— And it wasn’t the place, or the time.”

This hardly was, either, at the penultimate moment of their hunt for Bin Laden. But what if everything went wrong after this moment? What if all their good luck, every roll of the dice that had come down in their favor, turned once David went into the mountains? What if this was all they ever had?

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

David smiled, and it was like watching the sunrise over the Hudson River in March, when the light struck the first buds of spring and the last snow melted into a dizzying spray of rainbows, and the air was bursting with potential, with everything that could ever happen in that one golden ray of perfect light. Forget that they were freezing, standing in dust and rock and dry snow, with wind whistling through the shattered mudbricks of their camp at the base of Bin Laden’s last stand in the mountains. Kris would remember this moment, this smile, this kiss, this feeling, for the rest of his days.

A tinny horn honked. David cursed. “Gotta go.”

They jogged back inside, David grabbing his pack and running to Shirzai’s trucks. Palmer and the rest of his team were loading up in the beds. Ryan sat in the lead truck, next to a scraggly fighter with one milky eye and a long, jagged cut, fresh and oozing blood, going down one side of his face. Ryan and the fighter spoke in fast Russian, gesturing back and forth to a map.

“You, uh, have paint on your face.” Jim sidled up beside Kris. He waved to Kris’s mouth. “Might want to wipe that off before Ryan sees.” Jim’s lips quirked in a tiny smile.

Kris scrubbed his jacket sleeve over his mouth, rubbing away streaks of green and brown and black just before Ryan hopped out of his truck and jogged over. He handed Kris a marked-up map, a duplicate of his own. “Here’s our route. Shirzai and Majid say we’re staying off the main roads ’cause they’re mined. We’re driving to this mountain, and then hiking up the rest of the way.”

“We’ll wait for your radio check-ins. Be safe.”

Ryan studied Kris. “You too,” he finally said. Turning, he jogged back to the truck.