sonora_coneja

Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: Epilogue of a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.

Another Hannibal-meets-Face first time request, but with a twist. At that point, Face is one of/employed by the enemy. Either through ideals or lies or blackmail, Face is on the other side when Hannibal first meets him.

Hannibal, of course, sees the potential in the kid, and sets out to convince and/or seduce Face away from the Dark Side. Slash is preferred, but not strictly necessary.

Templeton Peck, conman and adopted son of mafia cappo Anthony Santori, gets more than he bargained for when he’s sent to take down the new VP of a major defense contractor, John Hamilton. Seducing John isn’t a problem. Dealing with the fallout, however... that gets a bit trickier, especially once he finds out who John really is, and what he’s trying to do.

~Eighteen months later~

It was summer.

Summer in California. Warm and breezy and beautiful and as far away from New York City as Peck could get himself without doing something really stupid like going to Hawaii or leaving the country. It was nothing like New York. He’d never been around so many happy people in his life. And the crime was all run by the Mexicans and the gangs and there was no cosa nostra here, nobody looking for him at all...

He’d thought they might have been coming after him at one point. Then he realized they wouldn't bother. Realized it over breakfast. A small diner in South Carolina, a huge pile of biscuits in front of him and a huge mug of coffee, picking idly at it, wondering, remembering, and right when he got to the point in the narrative where he started blaming himself for John’s death, there it was.

... have received this footage of union foreman and reputed underworld mob boss Anthony Santori in an extremely compromising position...

He’d smiled for the first time in a week.

His sex tape was on the news.

And his sex tape stayed on the news, played almost non-stop by gleeful networks until long after Santori’s body washed up on shore, after dozens of people got hauled into court, after the Congressional hearings. He’d stopped watching the news after those concluded, clicked it off in a dingy motel in New Mexico.

He’d done it for John. He’d done it. John’s men had been avenged, more saved, just like he’d wanted.

“Love you,” he’d whispered to the empty room, and curled up in a ball and wept until there was nothing left. What was he supposed to do now? And he didn’t know how long he stayed like that, fisting a pillow against himself, staring into snow outside, like static on a dead television set, until it finally came to him.

...be that honorable man I know you can be...

John’s plan.

...you just need the chance... I’ll take care of you, kid...

John had had a plan for him, he realized, a plan, he was going to do what he promised, he’d never lied, he just didn’t know how to ask if I wanted... and then he’d had to bolt to the bathroom, and barely had time to get the toilet seat up before his stomach upended itself and he’d collapsed in a sweating, reeking heap on the laminate floor.

He’d betrayed John for nothing.

He’d given him up, given up his future and his past because he’d been scared of everything. Sacred of Santori and his behavior and his callousness, scared of turning into him, of falling in love with the horror and embracing it. Scared of John and his depth of feeling and the fact that there could be men in the world that good, that true, dedicated to something beyond their own selfishness and greed. Scared to admit that one man was using him and the other was trying desperately to get Peck to believe in something better.

And he’d tried to have it both ways, and couldn’t, and tried to laugh it off and couldn’t, and tried to pretend it was a million different things that it wasn’t, and couldn't make any of them fit. He’d tried to re-order the world, his world, and lost everything, lost the only thing that had mattered, that had ever mattered. His attempt to save it all had barely been premeditated, thought up on the fly and only then, largely out of guilt. No, he could have stopped it all from the beginning, the pain he'd felt, the lives laid waste, if he'd just picked a side and stayed with it. If he'd been able to be brave about it.

John had thought Peck was brave. It was the only thing he could truly say John was wrong about. Wrong. He was a coward.

Which was why John was dead.

John was dead, because he, himself, was afraid.

He was afraid to become that good man John so blindly believed he could be.

John had loved him. Love without reservation, fear, blindness or judgment. John had seen what Peck was, everything, all of him, and loved him anyway.

And Peck had destroyed him for it.

The realization very nearly killed him.

Peck would gladly have died there in that shitty motel bathroom, easily the lowest point in his young life so far, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the courage to take that road down into the darkness, so he just laid there instead, unable to move under the weight of his own crimes, thinking about nothing, and time had slipped away.

Peck pulled a hanging garment bag out of his closet, trying to forget that horrible day. He’d gotten through it, hadn’t he? And something good had come out of it. Snapped him out of his aimlessness, the fog of regret that had consumed him. He’d mourned enough, Peck had decided.

He was going to try John’s plan.

And he’d ended up here.

The guys at the frat didn’t have to share bedrooms, but the things were miniature. Most of the others only used theirs for sleeping or fucking co-eds. But Peck’s had a big bay window that overlooked the sunny slope of houses that ran to the beach, and out, across the blue of the Pacific. He loved that view, something he’d never had in New York, and he spent as much as he could there, staring out, across those vast waters. He had to be out by the time the semester started in August.

But that was okay. He’d be okay.

He’d found, when he got here, he didn’t need to change his name. His records really were clean. Which meant he’d still had all his credits from NYU, which the University of California system had been more than happy to accept. Some didn’t transfer. That was fine. Just more school. Which was fine.

Because he'd wanted to forget.

It had been nice, going to class, pledging a frat, getting a stupid civilian job tending bar at nights, learning to surf, running on the beach in the mornings, screwing the occasional girl to keep up appearances, never sleeping with men to avoid the memories, doing homework on the busted leather couches of the common rooms, occasionally shocking everyone by breaking out Maria’s recipes and whipping up Italian-style feasts. It fueled stories about him, sure, as did the time he busted up a fight on the front lawn during a party and the five people had to go to the hospital. His temper would flare every once in a while; he wasn’t perfect, and he made mistakes. Learning to deal with regular people was a challenge. He’d had to bite back some of his old manipulative habits. Some nights, he’d remember John, his cigars and his laugh and the way his arms felt or the sound of his voice, telling Peck that he loved him, that he was loved...

But overall, it had been normal and quiet and easy here. A good breather. Space to remember what it was to be a human being.

And now it was over.

He unzipped the bag and pulled out the ROTC uniform. Dark green, drab, a small line of meaningless ribbons on the left lapel. One, the marksmanship medal, he actually cared about. They were talking about sniper school. He’d requested Ranger training.

His CO at school had told him nobody got Ranger school right away. He didn’t care, he’d said. He wanted it, and he refused anything else the old officer wanted to put on his assignment preference paperwork until he’d put that at the top.

He had to at least try, right?

They had their ceremony tonight. Celebrating the end of the year, graduation. Not officers yet, but close. Commissions would be coming down soon, his CO delivering them personally, report dates and locations listed out, the next four years laid out and decided for him by some assignment team, needs of the Army.

Second Lieutenant Templeton Peck. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, not exactly, but under all the bullshit and doctrine and buzz words that had been stuffed down his throat in the last year, Peck thought he’d caught the faintest taste of what John had loved.

And being close to what John had loved...

That dam he kept in his head, holding back all the memories of those few happy months, the happiest in his life, polluted by anguish and poisoned, ruined, came rushing back to him with that single thought. The way John had looked at him in the club that first day, those blue eyes, transfixed, rifling through the man’s apartment, seducing him, the feel of John’s skin against his, those scars, that scar and all the confusion and pain and the sheer overwhelming faith the man had had in him...

... you’re beautiful...Face...

Peck started stripping off his his t-shirt, the flip-flops, starting on his cargo shorts, unable to stop the flood, trying desperately to bite it all back, keep it from overwhelming him right now, not right now, any time but this...

...love you, kid...

And it was so loud in the silence of his mind that Peck could have sworn it was spoke out loud. But that was insane, he was insane for allowing this bullshit to go on and on and on in his head, tormenting him with the memories of somebody he’s never have back, and he clenched a fist and punched the wall before he knew what he was doing.

“Goddamnit,” he hissed, out loud to his own mind, “leave me the fuck alone, please!”

Then the door, which he suddenly realized he’d never closed, slammed shut and a cold certainty ran through him, and fear. There was fear, too, and plenty of it, but where had that ever gotten him?

So he pushed it away, pushed everything away, heart hammering in his chest.

And turned.

Nothing. Nobody. Just the closed door. Just silence.

He wanted to hit his head against the wall. Probably just the wind or the air pressure in the house. So stupid, so fucking stupid, and he shook out a wifebeater, trying to remind himself that he couldn’t be embarrassed if there was nobody else in the room, and there was a knock on his door.

Luke, one of the younger guys, frowning at him.

“Dude, what?” Peck asked.

“Dude, like, was that guy here to see you?”

“What guy?”

“The big Army guy, gray hair. Passed him on the stairs, looked kind of pissed off...”

“Colonel?”

“How the fuck would I know what a...”

Peck didn’t wait to hear the rest of the ninteen-year-old’s fumbled sentence, just shoved past him, barefoot and shirtless, and took off down the stairs, jumping them two at a time, his heart still hammering, straight past a knot of frat brothers playing Call of Duty, out the front door... and he stopped cold.

Definitely an Army guy. Tall, thin. Class-As, red beret on over silver hair that was just a little too long be considered in regs, that walk he’d know anywhere.

Peck felt himself tense, hanging there out of the frat house door, and then, barely able to hold himself back from screaming and crying and doing something extremely girly that he’d never live down and would probably result in his immediate expulsion from the military, before he’d even joined, he drew in a deep breath, held it...

“Colonel Smith!”

It exploded out of him, loud and exuberant, causing a crash behind him and a long string of profanity, and the uniformed man stopped.

Peck was down there in a heartbeat, not trusting himself, still thinking he could be wrong, was wrong, had to be wrong, that this couldn’t be John, not his John, because John would never have left him alone, because John was dead...

But today was the day that an orphaned kid who’d fucked his way off the streets and made it through his teenage years in the mafia and managed to bring it all down behind him was graduating from ROTC, the day he’d earned his butterbars, and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to take a little something on faith.

“John?” he asked quietly, wanting to reach out and touch, knowing that was a fucking bad idea. “John, is that...”

“How you been, Face?”

And it was only the other man’s quick thinking that kept Peck from hitting the sidewalk in shock.

Hands caught him, those big calloused hands, holding him steady, holding him close but far enough away. A distance between them, but Peck didn’t care, because this was John, his John, standing here, alive and well, smiling at him like this was the world’s funniest joke, those keen blue eyes, taking it all in...

“I thought you were dead.”

“Nearly,” and his face clouded for a second. “Your bullet came out clean. Santori’s got me in the chest. BA says I barely made it to the hospital in time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Kid,” and John’s hands tightened around his shoulders, pinched hard with effort, and Peck knew what it was costing the man to not just draw him in and kiss him senseless, because Peck was fighting the same urge right them. “Kid, you’ve been lead around, lied to, manipulated and abused for god knows how long. I was not going to turn you into my personal slave.”

“What?”

“You needed to be your own man, Face.”

“I wanted to be your man, John,” he said softly.

And John smiled at that. “I don’t want to own you, kid. Never did.”

The words stung. “So, so what, you thought it’d be easier for me to grieve for you? Let me go?”

“I figured you needed... shit, Temp... I’m...”

“No good with these things?” Peck said, trying to tease through the thick blanket of tears in his voice.

“...sorry.”

And that was hilarious, Peck thought. “I shot you.”

“It was a good shot, too. Right through the meat, minimal damage. I’ve been hearing good things about your range scores...”

“You’ve been keeping track of me?” Peck asked, a warm flush, long forgotten, running through him now, as fresh and wonderful as the first day he’d felt it, the first time he’d laid eyes on his man...

“What can I say?” John grinned and let go of him. He handed over a fat envelop. “Everything was good enough for me to convince the pencil pushers to get you your bars today.”

“I’m getting commissioned?”

“By me, tonight, if you’d like. That’s why I’m here, figured it was time...”

Peck was stunned. “I thought I was going to be waiting...”

“Ranger school starts in three weeks. You’ll need your bars in order to go.”

John had done all this for him? “And this is your idea of me being my own man?”

“You’ve become that, Face. I can see it,” the colonel said quietly. “I want you to have every opportunity you deserve. You’ll survive or fail on your own merit. It's you against yourself. There’s no scamming those people. You're ready for it.”

So I'm here.

Peck stared at him, across the distance and the long months and all the betrayal and his own idiocies and all the sleepless nights, wishing John had been there, holding him, needing his comfort, wanting it... and here he was. Offering him exactly what he needed. Not what he wanted, not letting him fall back into himself, to become less again. Pushing him, driving him. Offering a challenge. No bullshit. No cons. Something real.

And how hard had it been for John? Peck wondered. Holding back, holding off, giving Peck the space he so desperately needed to get all the shit straight in his head, watching his boy struggle from afar, waiting for him to figure out...

“John?”

“What, Face?”

“If I gave you a hug right now, would that be totally homo?”

“Except for the part where you’re half naked, no, kid, I think it’s okay,” John said with a laugh.

It was quick and brief and without touching, completely appropriate for a colonel giving an ROTC cadet good news, but it was more than enough to hear Hannibal’s heart beating in his chest, still strong, still alive, both of them, still alive...

John pushed them apart much too soon, and smiled, feral and broad. “And Face, everyone calls me Hannibal. You should, too. Can you do that?”

He smiled back. He knew what the colonel meant. John and Templeton had to be put away, wrapped up and cherished and brought out only for special occasions, only when they were alone and the world could narrow down and they could use such casual intimacies with each other. They weren't for everyday use. Hidden, held, loved. That's why they were for.

This was a different world Lieutenant Faceman Peck would be stepping into, one with its own rules and laws and idiosyncrasies. A world that was utterly worthwhile now, because somebody in it had cared enough, finally cared enough, to treat him like he was a man worth knowing, worth keeping, worth planning for, worth waiting for, worthwhile...

“Yes, sir,” he said with a tight nod and a matching grin, something indescribable running through him at the thought of the world opening up at last, opening up for him. Bringing him here. Bringing him home. “Yes sir, I can do that.”