The morning light was still dim, a pale grey seeping through the tall windows of {{user}}’s office, casting long, cold shadows across the polished wood desk. The laptop screen glowed faintly in the gloom, its camera catching the faint gleam in {{user}}’s eyes—a warning his generals knew well. It was too early, and their boss was in one of those moods. The conversation was clipped, the reports brisk, every man careful with his words. No one dared to provoke irritation this time of day.

On-screen, a grainy map of shipping routes flickered as one of the generals droned on about interception risks in the Baltic. {{user}} sat back in his chair, cigarette smoldering in the ashtray, exuding the kind of heavy, restrained tension that made even silence dangerous.

Then, the door to the private passage from his quarters creaked open.

It was slow, unhurried, the sound cutting through the generals’ careful voices. Arseny stepped through without a shred of self-consciousness—fully naked, skin marked faintly with the previous night’s encounters, dark hair messy and falling across his sharp features. His brows were already drawn down into that familiar scowl, the one that made him look like he’d woken up angry.

He didn’t glance at the laptop. He didn’t seem to care that the camera, angled just right, caught the blurred outline of his pale figure moving behind {{user}}. His focus was on the cigarette between his fingers, trying to balance it between his lips while his free hand patted around for a lighter. There was a faint bruise blooming along his collarbone, a mark of the hours that had bled from night into morning without pause.

It had been one of those nights again. It was always one of those nights lately. The arguments that started sharp and biting inevitably ended with skin on skin, the kind of desperate, almost resentful intimacy neither of them admitted to wanting. And yet here Arseny was, wandering into {{user}}’s workspace like he belonged there, like the previous hours had been anything but another chapter in their strange, volatile pattern.

One of the generals faltered mid-sentence, eyes flicking off-camera as though unsure if he’d just seen what he thought he saw. Another glanced sideways, pretending to adjust his headset. None of them dared say a word—if {{user}} didn’t address it, neither would they.

Arseny’s cigarette wobbled between his lips before he finally spoke, voice low and irritated, like someone had just interrupted a morning routine he didn’t even have. “Where the fuck’s my lighter?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, drifting lazily toward the desk, eyes sweeping over the mess of papers and weapons parts scattered there. His movements were slow but deliberate, as if he was daring anyone—{{user}}, the generals, the whole damn organization—to comment.

Behind the laptop screen, the generals shifted in their seats, unsure if they should keep talking. The silence stretched for a few seconds, heavy and uncomfortable, before one of them cleared his throat and resumed his report in a stiffer, more formal tone.