There’s always mud or water or something unpleasant they have to endure before they can quit. He very resolutely does not think about the submissive nearby who wants nothing to do with him.
Graham is not still or calm.
Colton can hear him pacing. He tries not to let on that he’s watching him, eyes half closed.
Graham checks his watch. He inhales deeply and then exhales. He rolls his shoulders. He pauses, stares down the tunnel like a fight is coming their way.
“Incoming?” Colton asks.
He finally shakes his head. “No, no, I guess not.” He sounds annoyed.
Graham unbuckles then re-buckles his helmet. Another few minutes tick by. He licks his lips, rubs a hand across his stomach absently. “Maybe we should see if they need some help?”
“What’s up?” he asks Graham quietly.
“I don’t want to sit here is all,” he says, teeth gritted. “It’s a fucking waste. We’re here to do an exercise, so let’s fucking do it.”
Colton nods. Hopes he doesn’t piss the man off by making conversation, but it’s obvious to him that Graham needs a distraction. “They said we were rotating in. How long have you been on this exercise?”
Graham huffs a breath out. “I don’t know. Two days? We were on the trail of a rogue nuclear weapon, and then we had to liberate a building, and then… something else, I don’t fucking know, and now we’re here.”
“You haven’t slept or had a break in two days?”
“That’s right. That’s why we get paid the big bucks.”
Two days of constant simulation fighting and no sleep. He’s surprised Graham is holding up so well.
“Do you usually spend this long doing simulations?”
“No.”
Christ. Talking to Graham is awful if he isn’t going to make any attempt to engage.
Graham sighs and shifts on his feet. “I’m usually put on retrieval missions. Track submissives and recapture them, turn them over to the military.”
“What? That’s a thing?”
Graham throws him a confused look. “Which part?”
“Submissives just out in the world needing to be brought back. They go AWOL?”
“Yeah. They figure out they’re going to be bred to a lot of Dominants with little control but maximum utility and can’t refuse. They have no choice but to attempt an escape.”
“And you… find them?”
Graham nods. “I am paid well to do so.”
There’s more to it than that. There has to be. “You turn them in and you get to stay free?”
Graham turns to him, practically snarling. “I do my fucking job and I stay alive and in one piece. The government doesn’t fucking own me anymore. I’mfree.”
Is that freedom? Maybe that’s as close to freedom as a submissive gets. No Dominant controlling him, no military oversight… Working for a private contractor that gets all their money from the government.
It isn’t great.
Colton isn’t exactly free himself, but he has the potential to be discharged and left alone to live his life and have a normal job anywhere in the country he decides to settle. And he would be able to take a submissive with him when the time comes.
It isn’t as easy for a submissive. Colton doesn’t move, keeps his eyes lowered so he’s looking up at Graham through his lashes, not wanting to provoke him when the topic is so controversial. And when Graham is unstable. He isn’t holding up as well as he’s pretending he is.
