Chapter 1

"Danger is lying somewhere in the air, Chris. You might not know it by now, but if you're stupid enough to follow through with whatever fate has been planning for you, you are going to fall for your own trap."

While gasping for a little bit of air to help him escape from the bad thoughts he was having, the thirty-nine year old man realized that he must have passed out during the night. By waking up, the voices talking to him in his dreams vanished, without him getting a chance to identify anything. Chris could probably have done anything not to be forced into realizing his situation, but at some point, he knew he had to open his eyes and get back to reality. He knew that this had been going on for a few days now, maybe even weeks, and he still hadn't found the source to his mind's behavior, but he also knew that this wasn't the right time to grieve. Not for a man who had a great responsibility on his shoulders- like himself, who had a mission to back up his team. He had to follow this through with for another day, before taking time off.


"So... Are we heading for anywhere special here, Captain?"

Cold gusts of wind lurked behind the corner, and as soon as they had taken one step each into darkness, it started to lay over them as a membrane.

He must think I'm crazy, asking him if he wants to take a walk in a deserted town in the middle of the night, but he doesn't know that I actually want to show him something, if he hasn't come up with that by himself, but, uh.. I don't know if I should just yet.

"Captain? You aren't lost or something, right?" Piers studied Chris' facial expressions while he waited for a response from him, something that took several more seconds to get.

"..Uh?" No, of course not, could we rest ourselves here for a while?"

Piers nodded, doing a quick tug on his head, thinking about what would be best for the man who stood next to him. After all, he did not know what it was that broke out in a chaos inside of Chris' head every night. The only thing he actually knew for sure was that he had been there to comfort him every time it happened.

He started improvising by picking up things from his bag, before settling down to build a fire. The way his hands were working on different items to build the fire was quite fascinating, considering the cold that bit hold of him as a wild wolf.

Chris had to sit down quickly to prevent the legs from getting stuck in a particular position. He was just about to lend over a hand to help the younger man when the fire suddenly succeeded getting lit, hitting Chris' hand which he had begun bringing closer Piers' own hands. He felt a quick stab of pain as the fire touched his skin, coloring two or three fingers partly red, with the damages reaching a bit over his forearm. He was just about studying the burns that he just recently had received, when he suddenly found himself looking straight at a third hand, which was tenderly lain above his own. The younger man's skin felt forbiddingly soft against his as he began soothing him by doing slow motions over the marks.

"Haven't you learned not to play with fire yet, Captain?"

Piers sat so close to Chris that he could feel the warmth of his breath against his neck for every word he uttered. Chris hastily turned up his own head and was greeted immediately by two bright eyes that began to study his own dark blue eyes. A vision of that man, sitting this intimately near himself was something that struck him from the inside, with even more power than the fire had used against him.

"Nah, I guess I haven't. Weren't this proof enough of that?"

Chris just replied honestly to the question he had been asked. Because apparently, he hadn't learned not to play with fire, but he was referring to a whole different kind of fire than the one Piers had been alluding to.

Piers gave away a sigh of relief when he saw that Chris smiled at him, it made him know that he at least didn't blame him for what had happened. He let his caressing hand slowly wander up Chris forearm as he inspected the look upon his face to see if he would express a feeling of pain.

"I'd be glad beyond words if you could tell me more about what all of those... bad thoughts you are having at night. What are they all about? It's probably none of my business, but I just thought I'd ask you, considering I may have just a tiny right to know."

But he didn't just have a 'tiny right to know'; he had every right to, if he wanted to. Piers had been the one to be there every time it had happened, and that part had come to be more important to Chris than to figure out what the actual thoughts indicated. The only problem was that Chris didn't understand himself why he was terrorized by his mind.

"To be honest, I haven't got a clue myself what it's all about. It's just like my head speaks to me, like earlier tonight, it told me that I'm going to fall for some kind of trap. Yeah, it sounds kind of weird, but I'm just repeating what I heard."

Piers shook his head slowly before moving his hand to another place, pinching Chris jokingly in the cheek.

"Well, I think it's enough with traps for tonight, you've already got burnt by fire and everything."

Before he knew it, he grabbed hold of his soldier's wrist just the same second that he had pinched him. Piers' eyes seemed to grow bigger for a second which most likely depended on the shock that Chris' sudden reaction gave him. Their eyes were locked on each other's as Chris could feel a rising pulse with his palm, a signal that made him realize that he wasn't alone with feeling a rising heartbeat after all. Even though he knew they probably had different reasons for this to be happening.

Without any warning, the pain in Chris' hand began sneaking closer, but he fought to not being forced showing it.

"I think it's about time we take care of these wounds of yours, Captain. I believe I have some equipment in my bag, just hold on, I'll get them for you."

Piers was either a mind reader, or Chris was simply lousy at hiding pain, whatever it was, he wanted to insist, but Piers had already left his spot to go looking for everything he needed. Chris could almost swear that the bag was lying on a place much farther away now than it had done previously, but it probably didn't depend on anything else but his eyes playing a trick on him. When he, just a few seconds later, thought he saw a huge shadow reflecting in the snow, the argument got nothing but stronger.

In the next second a loud noise was heard very close to Chris, but there was not enough time for him to react to it. Before he knew it, he felt a hard object hitting his head, while his body fell down to face the snow-covered ground. And before he had a chance to understand what was going on, all things in front of him went from black to complete darkness.

/There we go then, my first ever fanfic. This is far away from the standards of "good enough", but hey, what should I say, I am actually trying my best to improve my writing here! I am also working on more chapters of this story, and I expect chapter 2 to be done soon.
So.. that's everything from me for this time, I guess. :)