I lay on my back looking at the concrete roof, Axel had managed to get a fire started and the atmosphere between us wasn't the easiest. For the past half an hour we barely spoke to one another.

"So you know everything about me evidently. Tell me something about yourself." I finally mustered up enough courage to make conversation. He looked over from previously being mesmerised by the dancing flames and I rolled onto my side, propping myself up with my elbow.

"I can't discuss my private life." He said with a straight tone. I let out an audible, frustrated grumble. I sat up, crossing my legs and bringing myself closer to the fire.

"What was it like growing up with the commander as a father?" A rare flash of emotion appeared on his face but then the soldier in him came back out, his posture straightened, his shoulders tensed and he avoided eye contact.

"Harper." He warned with his Lieutenant voice.

"Is it so bad to let me in? Nobody is here, we're literally stranded in a cave in the middle of nowhere. Who is going to know what we talk about?"

I stood up and walked to the cave entrance, checking up and down the river for a rescue boat. There wasn't one in sight so I just felt my clothes in the hopes that they were dry. I grabbed my T-shirt and slipped it on, returning to my position in front of the fire.

"It was...hard." He said, pausing for dramatic effect or to pluck up the courage to continue. "I was born here, into this. My mom was a medic and my dad was a private. He worked his way up the ranks over the years and by the time I was born he was the Lieutenant."

I nodded along, listening with great interest to his story. I watched the passion in his eyes whenever he mentioned his mother, clearly he thought very dearly of her.

"My mom didn't agree with the way he treated me. She wanted me enrolled in school, mixing with kids my own age. She didn't want me to train. But she got sick and died when I was five, leaving my father to make all of the decisions alone.

"I'm sorry." I said quietly.

"I never went to school. I lived on the camp, I didn't leave the camp. I was treated like one of the soldiers here, like a criminal. I trained from five years old twelve hours a day on the assault course.

I struggled as a child because there were no toys here, no games, nobody my own age. I was strictly military born and bred and my father, I think somewhere along the way he forgot I didn't actually commit any crimes.

I ate slop, like everyone else. I wasn't allowed to leave, I wasn't allowed to live in the staff quarters or use the hot showers. I did punishments, he went hard on me. Maybe even harder than he went on anyone else."

"That's terrible." I exclaimed. He shrugged.

"It's all I knew." He replied. "When I turned sixteen I was a major and it was the first time we started getting recruits around my own age. Except now I had a rank, I couldn't socialise with them or form bonds and friendships. Not that they even wanted too.

To them, I was an officer, in charge of keeping them on the straight and narrow. They made my life hell and there was no escaping them considering I had to eat, sleep and shower with them.

So I remained professional, dished out the disciplinaries and punishments which made them hate me even more but I wanted to make my father proud. The more he treated me like one of the criminals the more I wanted to prove I wasn't one but to this day, nothing I ever do is enough."

"It sounds like you've had an incredibly lonely life Axel. You were not accepted by the staff here, seen as a criminal in their eyes and you were only seen as staff in the eyes of the criminals."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Who was your confidant?"

He shuffled awkwardly, offering up no reply.

"Where was your support?"

Silence.

"Did you have any friends at all?"

"I'm not here for that. I made Lieutenant when I turned twenty and when my father retires I will take over as commander, I can't have friends."

"But taking over, is that what you want or is that what is expected of you?" I asked gently, he paused for a few quiet minutes. Thinking everything over before he offered me a reply.

"It's hard to say. I've never known anything else. This is what I was born to be, it's who I am. I can't imagine living any other way. I was born military, just like my father was and his father before that. I will die military but the difference is, I'm not gonna have any kids along the way. The cycle will end with me."

"I'm sorry you don't feel good enough for your father but I can tell you from experience that you are plenty good enough. You're closed off, you're good at dishing out orders and don't even get me started on the punishments." He smiled proudly but it didn't reach his eyes.

"My father is a tough man to please. I mean look at me now, I'm sitting here talking to you. Allowing you to look at me, call me by my first name, break my orders. My father is right, I suck at my job."

"You're allowed to let someone in. I just wish you would open yourself up completely." He gave me half a smile.

I lay down on my back, resuming my ceiling staring. Quiet time passed between us, I spent it throwing and catching a ball of socks into the air, he spent it poking at the fire.

"So you didn't make a vow not to fuck the recruits?"

He laughed, showing me his perfect teeth.

"Harper." He uttered with warning.

"C'mon, what else do we have to do here besides talk?" I shuffled up on my knees. "You ask me questions, I ask you questions and our answers get left behind in this echoey cave. Deal?"

He thought about it quietly and then sighed.

"When I made Lieutenant I had to swear under oath not have intimate relations or relations at all with any of the recruits. I swore on a bible."

"Are you religious?" I asked.

"...no." He replied, almost questioning his own decisions. "But that's not the point. I can't get involved with the recruits that's just wrong."

"So you just have random one night stands from whoever you pull at the bar?"

"Not really." He admitted, pulling an unsure face. "I shared a bunker with seven other guys during my teenage years, I had to learn a great deal of self control. Now I just suppress it."

"Suppress feeling turned on?"

"These questions are mega personal, we shouldn't be talking about this."

"Wait, so you've never been with any of the recruits? - like in secret?"

"No Harper, never. I can't show them my orgasm face one day and then make them run track the next it just wouldn't work." He laughed dismissing the insanity right away. I laughed too, hearing the word 'orgasm' on his lips just sounded alien.

"Do you have an ugly orgasm face Lieutenant?" I joked.

"I can honestly say I've never seen it but I can't imagine it looks pretty."

"Show me, fake an orgasm right now."

"What? No! You're so strange!" He laughed.

"Go on you coward, I'll show you mine, watch." I crinkled up my eyebrows and squinted my eyes, biting down on my lip and allowing a small moan to escape from the back of my throat.

His smile dropped immediately and he studied my face with absolute interest, desire burning in his eyes.

"Now you." I prompted, going back to my laugher.

"Fuck Harper, I can't do that." His cheeks started tinging pink in the fires reflection.

"Go on" I poked him.

He closed his eyes, sucked in a breath and then released it without opening his mouth but still making an inaudible noise with the back of his throat.

I laughed out loud. "Good job you're not a woman, you would never get away with faking it."

"You fake it often?" He questioned, then realising what he said, his eyes widened in fear, "I'm sorry don't answer that. I shouldn't have asked that."

"I've been with my fair share of men who didn't have a clue what they were doing. I think faking it is a skill every woman has picked up over time."

"Oh." He went back to awkwardly poking the fire.

We heard the horn of a boat not too far in the distance and both stood up to run to the door.

"Stay inside, get dressed." He ordered, throwing on his wet T-shirt. He left the cave and threw me my trousers, waving his hands in the distance.

I followed him out but he shoved me back.

"Get dressed before you come out here, they'll see."

"Does it really matter? I can just tell them they were wet." I muttered whilst stepping into the wet slacks.

He glanced at me for a second, frowned and then returned his gaze back to the boat.

"You don't want those pervs looking at your panties." He told me as I zipped up the crotch.

The boat anchored along side the cave and Axels posture changed right before my eyes.

Gone was the carefree, relaxed attitude.

The Lieutenant was back.