Honors' Night - Part One of Three

[sonora_coneja]

Pairing: Hannibal/Russ, Hannibal/OMC
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of child abuse
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the kink meme.

We see lots and lots of stories about families. Face/Murdock/BA where their family past is traumatic.
Let's see Hannibal have his share.

My idea is this, (and it's been in my head for AGES, and I mean AAAAAGES and yes it's got elements of Harry Potter in it.)

Boss was the child of another man, an affair kept secret by his mother till say, she was 7 months in. She's told her husband the baby is his, but the husband (John Snr) eventually finds out the truth just before the birth, and promptly loses any kind of bond/love that he had for his unborn child. As a proud, traditional man, he can't bear the shame of bringing up another man's child. So he sires another baby with Hannibal's mother (my brain wants to call her Joyce and idk why) before John Jnr really has any time to bond with his biological mother.

So another is born, (boy/girl doesn't matter), and this child is very much favoured by his/her parents. The father, since the child is biologically his, and the mother, who realizes how much easier life is with her increasingly violent husband if she just backs down and accepts his wishes, much as it kills her to see her first born son treated like dirt.

John is subjected to all kinds of horrible things due to this. Author can pick and choose and add if they so please, but these have been in my head.

-Less friends due to the low-rate clothes his parents buy for him from thrift stores.
-The other kids think he's weird because he can't do simple things like tie his school tie, or do up his laces (something a parent teaches their kids to do)
-Not being allowed to participate in family meals, being told to eat away in a separate room.
-No birthdays/christmases/family trips out. He's just left to wander around the streets.
-Beatings from his father when he's found to be doing academically better than his brother/sister. John's obviously cleverer than him/her, and his grades show it, but instead of praise, he's punished. He doesn't get to go to college, because they didn't save any money for him, his father deeming him a worthless bastard fit for the gutter.

But when his school hold a career day and he meets Major Russell Morrison, he realizes that maybe, just maybe, theres hope for him afterall.

/insanely long prompt

When Major Russell Morrison drops by his high school, John Lewis realizes his life might not have to be as worthless as he’s constantly being told it is...



John kicks the wall in the counselor’s office. Fuck. He does not want to be here. Not during college fair week.

The whole place is bustling with the other students. Sitting in on presentations. Filling out applications. Giggling to each other. Talking about Brown or UCLA or William and Mary. All those expensive schools, the good schools, the ones where you go to become a lawyer or a doctor. Some high-paid job where you wear a suit and do important things and use your brain.

He looks down at his faded jeans, fingers the tear that he patched on the inside with one of those iron-on things. The ragged hem of his ancient baseball shirt. Thrift store clothing, this shit. It’ll never be a suit.

Because he’s not here to talk about schools. Real schools. Schools that'll get him away from this hellhole of a town.

A door cracks, and that fat pig, Ms Perri, pokes her stubby face out. “Mr. Lewis? Come on back.”

Rolling his eyes, John grabs his bookbag and swings it up over his shoulder, following her back into her office.

Perri’s probably going to trying to talk to him about community college. Her father, as everyone in the whole fucking school knows, taught there. She became a guidance counselor because of him. And if her daddy, in his cheap frame, hanging over her desk, was good enough to teach there, then it’s by-god good enough for everyone.

“I’ve asked you here to talk to you about something today. Something I really think you should listen to.” She sighs, and all the teen can think about are how fat her hands are, folded on the desk. “You’re too smart to give up on yourself, John. I don’t understand why you won’t even apply for a state scholarship, but...”

He scrubs a hand across the bridge of his nose. Scholarships. Application paperwork. Those take parental signatures. And that fucker Jeff won’t sign off on anything for him. He’s made that damn clear. With his fists.

That bruise is still there, right over John’s ribs. Poking at it as she talks, John remembers that fight from last week, the way Jeff roared at him, the way he’d yelled back, his little sister, cringing on the staircase like she always does, out of view, his mother and her double shot of vodka in that iced tea, watching the whole thing, eyes glazed, medicated, conditioned against it...

“I told you, ma’am. I don’t give a shit,” John mumbles. Lying Lying like he always does. Covering up for Jeff. No, not for Jeff. For himself. He doesn’t want them to know, doesn’t want anybody to know, how his so-called family treats its bastard son.

Him.

“John, you’re an extraordinary boy. Haven’t you at least considered community college?”

“I’d rather eat a bag of dicks,” he tells her blandly, grabs his bag and storms out of the office. Nobody follows him, Ms. Perri far too much of a wet noodle to try to stop him, and as he bangs through the double doors, outside to the back of the high school. There’s an alley back there where everybody goes to smoke in between classes, and it’s the middle of fifth period right now, so it’s empty.

Which is perfect.

Privacy is good right now. Privacy is fucking perfect. He needs the space. Enough space to fumble a packet of cigarettes free of his pocket, light one up with shaking fingers, let his head hit brick, stare up at the sky, clear his mind of all the things he can’t have, fight those tears down...

“Got a light, son?”

He starts, nearly dropping his Marlboro, cursing himself for not hearing the door open, for his lack of attentiveness. But the teen plays it the same way he plays everything, with just enough detachment to hide the bitterness as irony, instead of the pain it is. “No,” he says, and takes another drag on the cigarette, not bothering to look.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” he says, and sucks another lungful of burning air. The nicotine’s good. Feels very good right now. Calming. After all that bullshit inside.

“What are you doing out here anyway, son?” that mystery man asks. “You nearly knocked me on my ass, running out of the counseling center like that.”

Did he? He can’t remember. Fuck. One more thing to feel guilty about today. And in a moment of sheer vulnerability, focused on all that blue above him, John actually answers the question. “I can’t be in there right now. Fucking community college. That fat bitch wants to talk to me about community college.” He taps the ash off and laughs, feeling raw. “You know I got a fucking 1500 on my SATs? First time around? A 780 on the math portion, too. And she wants to send me to community college...”

“Those are Ivy League scores, son,” the guy replies mildly.

“Yeah, fucking Harvard.” John hits the wall behind him and runs a hand back through his scruffy chestnut hair. He needs another inhale. Now. “Probably. I don’t know. No way I’d make it in there...”

“Make it at the school?”

“No,” and he closes his eyes, smiling, thinking about how awesome that could be, a place like Harvard. Being the fuck away from Utah, his future as a ranch hand or a climbing instructor in Moab. “No, I mean, I couldn’t get in. Don’t wanna, really.”

There’s a long pause, and John thinks the guy, whoever the fuck he is, has gone back inside, leaving him in peace again, but then...

“She wasn’t going to talk to you about some fucking community college, son. I was supposed to talk to you. Until you took the fuck off on me.”

John lets his head fall, wondering what this guy’s on about, and finds himself staring right at rows and rows of brightly colored ribbons, brass insignia, kelly green fabric...and he groans.

"The damn Army recruiter?" he snorts, and folds his arms across his chest, bringing the cigarette back to his lips. "That's worse than community college."

The uniformed guy laughs. "The Army recruiter is some fat-fuck staff sergeant we've got working that job because he's too damn lazy to pass the PT test." Intense eyes seem to scan him, like this guy's taking in everything, seeing everything, evaluating, deciding, right here, if this shabby teen in front of him is good enough...and John, despite his complete lack of desire to enlist, feels a shiver run up his spine. And he wonders why he suddenly cares what the guy thinks of him.

Then the scrutiny passes, and a smile breaks out on the man's rugged face, and he holds out a hand. “Major-Select Russell Morrison, US Army Rangers. It’s nice to meet you, John Smith.”

John blinks, and goes back to his cigarette, ignoring that hand. Damn, he thinks. “It’s Lewis. John Lewis. You’ve got the wrong kid, Major-Select Russell Morrison, US Army," he replies, staring away, drawling a bit on that mouthful of a name as his eyes start stinging a bit again.

“Not a chance, son. You look just like your dad.” And the asshole grins at him, pulls out his own pack of Camels and waggles them a bit. “Now, you got a light or not?”

That freezes John for a second. Just a second. His father? His real father? Not that jackass who makes him sleep in a fucking closet? This guy knew his father? A thousand thoughts rush through him, all at once, a million questions, questions that this Morrison guy might be able to answer...but still...

"No," he says flatly, gritting his teeth, and pushes off from the wall. Walking away. Unable to make sense of all the emotion broiling up in him now. Not wanting it. Not wanting to think about his dad, the cuckolding son of a bitch who's left him with Jeff all these years....

"I'm presenting tomorrow, second period!" the major yells after him, chuckling a little. "I'll see you there, Mr. Smith!"

"Fuck off," he mutters to himself, and walks faster.

John doesn’t bother going back to class. What’s the point? Fall semester finals were four weeks ago, right before Christmas, and he studied his ass off. Beat his sister in every single class. Aced several courses himself. Killed himself on his European History paper. No reason for it, of course, beyond the look on Jeff’s face when he got their report cards and compared grades. Fuck, it was even worth the beating he got over it.

But now...now, a week into the spring semester, John knows he’s going to graduate if he fails every class he’s got, and that’s not a remote possibility. He can pass most of these classes with his eyes closed. Showing up Samantha this semester won’t prove a damn thing. She’s got a partial to Brigham Young University, up in Salt Lake. And no matter how much of a meat market that place is, it’s still better than anything John’s got in his future. Jeff wins this semester by default.

It’s depressing, really. John’s really enjoyed playing this game over the past few years. The I’m smarter than your biological daughter and everybody fucking knows it game.

Too bad, he thinks, and turns right where he should turn left.

Headed off campus.

It’s January, but it hasn’t snowed in a week, so the streets are clear. It’s cold, but John’s used to that, and he makes the mile and a half easy, his long stride eating up the sidewalk. The big log-cabin facade of The Mountain’s Edge comes into view and although they won’t be open for another half hour, he slips around back and lets himself in the side door.

Tamping his boots off and stripping his too-thin jacket off, John stomps back into the employee office, the big room with lockers, where he keeps his climbing gear and his hiking boots and that gortex Tony got him for Christmas and everything else that he’s spent a good deal of his free money on. All the stuff that Jeff would love to destroy, if given half a chance. He throws his jacket in the locker, and turns when a big head hits leg.

“Hey girl,” he says, dropping to a knee, letting the big Rhodesian Ridgeback nuzzle into his shoulder, scratching her ears. “You been a good girl today, Duchess?”

Her heavy tail starts pounding on the concrete, and she paws at his leg. John gives the huge dog a hug, hugging her tight around her neck, feeling some of the anger from earlier start to drain. He sometimes wishes he could have a dog, a real dog, but there’s no way. Jeff won’t allow it. Maybe, he thinks, stroking a hand down that soft brindle coat, maybe when he’s on his own, after graduation, he can get himself something big and scrappy, just like Duchess here, a good hiking dog, somebody who’ll keep him company...

“See you’ve got no problem letting yourself in, Johnny boy.”

He looks up, and smiles. “Hey Tony.”

Tony, the owner of the place, the guy who was kind enough to give him a job and not fire him for some of the stupider stuff he’s done with the company jeep, frowns at him. “We didn’t feel like going to school today?”

“I went,” John says cautiously, still petting the dog. “I didn’t feel like staying. Thought I could get in a couple extra hours today.”

Tanned arms cross. Tony’s no hard-ass, no. Not him. He’s in his forties, some mountain hippie who never wanted to get a real job, the kind of guy who can rattle off the merits and faults of every carabiner on the market, the guy who knows where every trail is between Denver and Salt Lake. His own photographs decorate the walls of the little mountaineering shop. He’s climbed K19, the Andes and Everest, not to mention every Fourteener in neighboring Colorado. And Tony never minds if John drags out a cot and sleeps in the back room, or takes the jeep for some week-long camping trip, or tries out a new piece of gear in the shop, as long as the teen gives him a fair evaluation of its performance.

They’ve never talked about his family, and John’s vowed they never will, but it doesn’t seem to require any explanation with Tony. Ever. The guy just knows things.

Like now.

Like how he smiles and offers John a hand up. Makes him a couple of PBJ sandwiches and a big thermos of tea and tells him to take the jeep and go exercise Duchess.

“Ten miles ought to do it, Johnny. Just take her out on one of the back roads and let her run. As long as you’ve got her back before dark, I don’t care where you go.”

So the day’s a bit better, going for a walk, his own ice crampons on, that thick gortex Tony got him for Christmas, watching the dog plow through the snowdrifts of the vast empty plains around his town of Provo, watching the sun go down on the winter horizon. He gets back to the shop around the time it gets dark, Duchess exhausted, his own face chapped and red. The shop’s open for another hour or so, until seven.

John lingers, helping Tony close up, not really talking, not wanting to go, but eventually the older mountaineer shooes him out.

“Make it home for dinner for once, would you, John?”

The teen sighs. But he shrugs his own threadbare jacket back on and heads out. Away from the peace of the shop. Into the cold. Back to the house.

Dinner. Right.

The dinner Jeff never lets him eat with the rest of them, his mom and his half-sister Samantha and that spoiled brat of a little half-brother he's got, that little fucker Mikey?

The dinner John wouldn't get at all, if his mom hadn't insisted that they had to feed him at least once a day?

The dinner he's not allowed to supplement with anything from the pantry or fridge?

The dinner that's always leftovers, leftovers that Mikey sometimes spoils out of spite, or his mom leaves in the oven and burns, or the leftovers that aren't, if it's anything good?

The dinner that leaves the mess he always has to clean up?

The dinner he has to wolf down, alone, in his tiny little room, barely big enough for its twin bed, locked in for the night, nothing but his library books to keep him company?

That dinner?

Yeah, dinner.

What a fucking joke.

John shakes his head, and turns his feet and his eyes west, heading into the last remnants of daylight, watching Mars pop up over the far mountains, brighter than any star overhead. The Greco-Roman god of war, the brute from the Illyiad, and thinks about the Spartans, about that paper he did on Waterloo. And the teen wonders if maybe the Army isn't such a bad option after all.

It's not he's got anything to lose.

"Maybe I'll go tomorrow," he says aloud to the empty street, and cracks up laughing at the absurdity of it all.

+++++

His palms almost slip on the door handle, and John realizes it’s from sweat. He’s sweating. Probably just because I ran down here, he tells himself, and shoulders his way into Meeting Room A in the Counseling Center.

John wasn’t planning on coming here today. He really intended to go to Spanish and sit through the agony of that made-for-retarded-children educational telenovela that they’ve been watching this semester.

But last night, halfway through his biography on General Persing and his early days fighting Apache along the border, he found himself wondering what Morrison had meant, he looked just like his father. Did that mean this major had known his father? His father, the man his family’s never told him a damn thing about?

So he’d come.

Which, he realizes now, was a huge mistake.

Everybody in here in J-ROTC. Six or seven guys. Some of them who already have confirmed ROTC scholarships for Utah or Colorado or Arizona schools. Most of whom sport the damn buzzcut already. Guys who are serious. Guys who want whatever Morrison’s going to be talking about. Guys who’ve talked their entire lives about being in the military, being...

Officers, he thinks with a groan, remembering Persing again, and that’s it. He’s leaving.

Then one of them, Bobby Reynolds, that jackass captain of the soccer team, preacher’s kid, turns around in his chair, staring right at John. “What are you doing here, Lewis?”

John bites the inside of his lip, and crashes into the nearest chair. “Same thing you are,” he bullshits, and Bobby glares at him, opening his mouth to say something else, and then Major Morrison comes in, briefcase in hand.

“How y’all doin’ this morning?” the rangy man asks, smiling a little as he walks by John. “Everybody doin’ okay?”

Nods. A few of the guys just have to say yes sir. John uses his long legs to lean himself back in his chair, pulling his favorite pencil out of his pocket, the one he chews when he can’t get a cigarette. Brown-nosers.

Morrison seems to think so, too, the way he chuckles and unsnaps that briefcase, piles of folders starting to spill out on to the table. He seems a little nervous, the teen thinks, and wonders at that. Didn’t the major say he was a Ranger? Aren’t they spec ops? And he’s, what, scared of a bunch of high school kids?

But if Morrison’s feeling anything, nobody else is picking up on it, and his voice is completely normal. Like he does this every day. “Okay, y’all, let’s do some introductions, so I know who I’m dealin’ with here. I’ll start.” And he lifts a hand, like he’s too lazy to wave, and goes back to his folders. “I’m Major-select Russell Morrison, US Army Rangers, Class of 1978, up here on special assignment to help get your asses into my Army.” He looks down at the folders. They’re all color-coded. Gray, light blue, dark blue, green... “Or the military, in general. I’m supp’sed to push everything equally, but... I got anybody in here who wants to go Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard or...” he taps the white folder at the end “...Merchant Marine?”

One kid, that jackass from Chemistry last year, Frank, raises his hand. “Air Force?”

“Congrats, kid, here’s your flight suit,” Morrison says and frisbees that hand a light blue folder. “Anybody else?”

Crickets.

Morrison smiles. “The rest of you want to go Army, then. Right choice.” That gets him a few chuckles, and he goes for the gray folders, handing the first to Bobby’s buzzcut, in the front row. “Okay, high and tight, tell me your story. Why do you want to go to West Point?”

John just stops. Completely. His heels fall and his chair jerks forward and that pencil freezes in his fingers. He can’t believe what he just heard. West Point? Him? The place where all his favorite figures from history came from? Grant and Sherman and Persing and Patton and MacArther? That place? A military academy? A real, honest-to-god university, soaked in all that honor and tradition and history and...

He doesn’t realize he’s breaking the pencil until it snaps quietly in his palm. Doesn’t realize anyone’s talking until there’s silence, and they’re waiting for his answer to Morrison’s question.

Why would he want to go to West Point?

“Son?” the major prompts, standing right in front of him, and John looks up at all that green, all those ribbons, the uniform of a man who’s done something grand with his life.

He shakes his head. “Curious, I guess,” he says. Morrison frowns a little, and hands him the folder.

It’s stuffed, that folder, John realizes as he sets his ruined pencil with its knawed eraser aside. Pamphlets, forms, phone numbers...everything. Then Morrison’s back up at the front of the room, talking about how great the place is, how amazing, how unique, and the longer it goes on, the more he realizes he really doesn’t belong here.

No.

No, it’s not possible.

He’s smart, damn smart and John knows he is, but that’s not enough for a place like that. Not the way Morrison’s describing it. He’s no team player. He’s nobody to take orders. And why would they want him, some bitter kid from southern Utah?

“...expecting thirty to forty thousand applicants this year. We’ll take twelve hundred out of those. The process is lengthy. The physical fitness test, the medical clearance, getting a nomination from a Senator, my endorsement on your paperwork...”

The teen feels something break, deep down.

He’d never make all that.

He slides the folder into his bookbag as Morrison wraps it up, as the questions start. What’s basic like, how much contact will I have with my family, is plebe year as bad as they say, can I still be an infantry officer, can I fly helicopters, I already sent in my app and when will I hear? and on and on.

Well, he’s got a question, he thinks, rooted to his seat as Morrison closes his briefcase and everyone heads off at the fourth period bell. John’s got a damn good question.

Why the fuck would this asshole drag him here, just to dangle something in front of him he could never have?

He almost asks, almost gets it out, but then the major’s tapping him on the shoulder and smiling a little, smiling differently. “You doin’ okay, John?”

“How the fuck do you know who I am, anyway?” he blurts out, nerves raw.

Morrison twitches, that moustache of his moving a little on his rugged face. “You really do look just like your dad, and I recognized the address in your file from...”

“My address? How the fuck do you know that?” John snaps, irritated now.

“He used to send you gifts every year, birthday and holidays. Big fucking problem for the rest of us, let me tell you. Fuck, I remember one year when we were in Germany and he just had to send you this big thing of Swiss chocolate for Halloween and his privates got into it...” the major laughs, like he’s remembering some happy memory. “Your dad was the best master sergeant I’ve ever known, worked with him for years before...well, you know...”

He coughs. Or whines. Or something, makes some horrible, desperate little noise and tells himself not to start crying. “My...my dad was in the Army?” And John’s a little surprised. His voice is completely raw. Wasn’t he expecting something like this? Or... "Know what?"

The major takes a step back and folds an arm across his chest, rubs his chin with a big, gun-rough hand, like he’s trying to come to some kind of decision.

“Come on, kid,” he finally says. “I need a cigarette. Want to show me where that smoke pit was again? I can’t find a damn thing in this school.”

Feet wooden, shock still cold in his blood, unable to do anything but find out where this all leads, John pushes up and nods.

“It’s this way.”

+++++

Turns out Morrison’s more in the mood for coffee and cigarettes, and there happens to be a diner across the street, the one that’s always full of seniors at lunch, the one John’s been in maybe twice in the last ten years.

Three times, counting now.

The bell chimes as they walk through the door, and the major’s got a bit of a swagger in his step that probably never goes away. John thinks its kind of funny, and the waitress is watching him real close. The major smiles at her and she shows them to a booth in the very back.

Despite himself, despite the fact he tries to keep this part of himself buried as best he can, John understands exactly what it is she’s looking at. The Ranger’s not the most handsome guy John’s ever seen, not built like Stallone or Seagal or any of those action heroes you see at the movies and on TV. No, Morrison looks like he’s all lean, all muscle, rangy and strong, dark blonde hair, that thick moustache filling out the angular, strong features...

“You drink coffee, kid?” the major asks, tapping the table, and John shakes himself, nods his head. God, he hopes he wasn’t staring. “Coffee, ma’am.”

The waitress heads off and Morrison watches her go, strangely intent on it, and doesn’t turn away until she’s well away behind the counter. Only then does he drag the ash tray a little closer and light up his damn cigarette. He offers John one as well, holding out the carton, and swipes it up as the teen reaches for it.

“You do any running, John?” he asks.

John smirks. “Running, hiking, canyoneering, rock climbing, rafting...anything that gets me the fuck away from home for a while.”

The lighter flicks, a faint smell of butane, and Morrison lowers the box back down for him, hands over the lighter. “Is it really that bad?”

John considers that for a moment. What’s he supposed to say? And then he pulls a stick, lights it up, looks right into Morrison’s eyes and the man’s totally serious. He really wants to know. Does that mean he cares? And why the fuck would he care, anyway? “Did my dad really send me gifts every year?”

“It really is that bad, then, if you weren’t getting them,” the major concludes, and nods a little. “Must have been hard, growing up without him.”

There’s no way John’s going to rise to that shit, so he blows a smoke ring and leans back in the booth. “He really in the Army?”

“Told you, kid. Sergeant Major, by the time he...”

“...died?”

For a moment, neither of them speak, and Morrison looks away. “Yeah, son, about five years ago. I wish I could tell you something like he died in my arms, asking me to take care of you or something, but it doesn’t work like that in real life. People go fast, when they go...”

“Did he?” John finds that he really, really needs the answer to that question. His father, dead, is something he’s always just assumed. Like if his dad were really alive, he’d come and save him and they’d go climbing and work on cars and talk together...and it’s never happened. Never will. Not if dad’s...

“He was dead by the time we got to him,” and Morrison took another long pull on his cigarette. “I’d like to think that means he went quick. And we brought him back with us, son. He’s at Arlington, if you ever...if you ever can, you should.”

Washington DC? John wants to laugh, and it pulls him out of the morbid thoughts. It’s almost as absurd as going to West Point. No, he’s going to die right here, in Utah or Colorado or maybe Wyoming. Hopefully when he’s old and gray. Maybe on a climbing accident. Doesn’t matter. He’ll never get east of the Mississippi. Probably won’t get east of the Rockies. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

The waitress comes back then, takes Morrison’s order - bacon and eggs, wheat toast - and looks at John, who flushes. He’s got three dollars on him and he needs that for lunch. Tony pays him in cash, and he keeps all of that in a coffee can in his locker at work. Jeff would take it, if he could.

“John?”

Shit. He feels his face going red, all of its own accord. “Umm...”

Morrison cocks his head. “Pancakes and a side of sausage good?” he says. John nods once, and the waitress makes the notes, puts the major’s menu back in its slot at the end of the table, and walks off.

What is it about this guy that makes him feel so unbalanced? Like he’s finally met somebody who’s his equal, more than his equal, capable of challanging him, and for John, that’s a strange, strange feeling. Welcome, scary, but... “Major, I...”

“My treat, kid. I’m the one who asked you out. Only fair I’m the one buyin’.” He chuckles and drinks half his cooling coffee in one go. “Now, tell me, John, why do you want to go to West Point?”

“I don’t,” he says. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“Yeah you have, son. You’ve thought about it. I guarantee you’ve thought about it. You’re a big history buff, right?”

John snorts. “What?”

“I read your piece on Waterloo. Ms. Perri shoved in front of me, asked me to talk to the student who wrote it, figured out who you were...read the damn thing twice, actually,” Morrison says, like it’s every day he comes to high schools in crappy backwater towns and and goes through their records and reads random, half-baked, twenty-page papers. And John knows the thing was okay, but he’d been running out of time near the end and there were only so many hours a day a guy could stare at a typewriter before...and John goes back to his cigarette, back hunched, eyes on the grain of the table. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff they put out in the Army journals, papers the colonels write at War College. This was better than ninety percent of that.”

“W-what?” he asks slowly, palming that cigarette,

“It was good. A little rough, maybe. But good. Very, very good. I especially liked your comparative analysis of Wellington’s and Napoleon’s strategies, weather removed as a factor. Interesting. I haven’t seen that angle taken before.” Morrison laughs again, and stamps out a dead cigarette in the ashtray, going for another. “But, you gotta realize a good commander can never remove environmental factors.”

“Napoleon didn’t have a back-up plan,” John says, remembering everything he read. “He didn’t take it into consideration for the battle. He assumed...”

“One has to make assumptions sooner or later, on any problems,” Morrison replies, the lighter clicking again. He sets it down, and pokes at John with two fingers. “Like I’m making the assumption that you’re into history, the exciting military bits of history and therefore into the Army.”

“How do you figure?”

“Men looking for the future go into the Air Force. Men looking for the past go into the Army.”

“What about the Navy?”

“Fuck them,” Morrison says genially. “Fuck the Air Force too, actually.”

John smiles a little, despite himself. “Was my paper really good?”

“It was. Really good.”

“West Point good?” he asks, a little surprised those words slipped out.

And Morrison pauses, like he’s not sure he should say this, but he’s going to anyway. He lays his cigarette aside and folds his hands up in front of him. “A lot of cadets come in thinking there’s kind of glory, a kind of honor that can only be earned there. It’s bullshit, and everybody figures that . Mostly, you’re hungry a lot, your body’s sore from too many push-ups, you smell like piss, you get screamed at until your ears bleed, you don’t get to sleep much, you hate your life...”

He furrows his brow. “That’s not much of a recruiting speech, major.”

Morrison picks his cigarette, nearly burned to ash now, back up. “West Point puts you through that for a reason. The place is giving you a chance to be something more that yourself, John, something beyond anything you thought you’d be. Be part of something amazing. It’d give you the opportunity to be more than some abused kid who spends all his time in the mountains.”

“Hey, I...”

“You want to be a fucking hippie, be my guest. But I think you look at your future as it is now and you hate it. You’re terrified.” The Ranger lays both his arms across the back of the booth, stretching a little. “I think you want to do something noble with your future. I think you know you have it in you to be a great man. I think you want it so bad you jerk off to it at night and cry cause you don’t get to cuddle it afterward. Tell me I’m wrong.”

John smiles, despite himself, at that terrible metaphor. It does sound good, almost. It does. He loves history, all those great men... “I don’t think I’ve got it in me to be in the military, major.”

“Course you do. You’d be fantastic at it. Give me one good reason why you think you wouldn’t be,” Morrison challenges back, and then grins. “You a faggot or somethin’?”

The teen freezes for all of a second, wondering if, if maybe... “What if I was?” he tosses back, like it doesn’t matter at all.

Morrison stares levelly back with those ice-blue eyes. The eyes of a man who knows what it is to follow orders, to give orders, to execute, kill... “You sayin’ that as an excuse to not give it a shot?”

“Uhh...”

John’s saved by the food, the laden waitress almost dropping his in his lap, staring at the major like she is, and John notices the older man got an extra serving of bacon.

He notices too, and grins at the girl. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

“Anything for a man in uniform,” she giggles back.

The pancakes smell amazing, and John can feel himself salivating already. Morrison’s not watching the waitress this time, he’s watching the younger man, and John feels himself growing extremely nervous. He’s got too many things running circles in his brain right now, too. His dad, his dad’s death, brushed out like it was, his paper, Ms. Perri, the way Morrison’s staring at him, West Point, Napoleon, those amazing eyes...

“You’ve overthinkin’ it, son. Yes or no, you wanna give this a shot? Take a leap and see where you land?”

John closes his eyes. Smells cigarettes and syrup and bacon and coffee, the faintest hint of cordite, of mud, of some faraway jungle where his father must have met his end, the places Morrison’s seen in his life, a future he could have, in all its naked, horrible, beautiful glory. Something hard, something worth his time, somewhere he could belong... “What,” he asks, looking down, not daring look that man in the eye anymore, “would I have to do?”

Morrison smiles. “Eat your breakfast first. And I’ll fill you in.”

+++++

John gets home late that night. Very, very late. A folder’s tucked into his ratty backpack, very deep. Hidden, really. A gray folder that’s got everything in it. Everything. His whole future, maybe. If he decides to take it. If he decides to open it up and start filling out those forms and figuring out how it could all work. If it could work.

Major Morrison had patted him on the shoulder after they were done with breakfast and they were headed back to the school, as he was giving him the folder. You’re the one with the power in your life, John. Even if you don’t decide to go for this. It’s your life, John, yours, yours alone... he’d said.

And damn, if that hadn’t sent a little expectant thrill right through the gangly teen.

But he still didn’t have much hope.

Lots of reasons for that, really. Like this one, waiting in the damn entrance, the second he walks in the door.

“Where you been, John?” his mom’s husband growls.

All those happy things the teen has been thinking of, all those lovely possibilities keeping him warm on his way back from work, evaporate. Instantly. Immediately. And his eyes narrow. “Nowhere, Jeff. At work,” he mutters, shouldering past, staring at the ground. “What the fuck do you care?”

A hand stops him. “I care, John, because your mother’s had a rough day. I didn’t want her to have to clean the kitchen.”

“Oh, what’s wrong with her? She run out of vodka again, been hitting the mouthwash cause Samantha can’t hit the liquor mart for her?” John snaps, wishing, not for the first time, he could throw the big, heavyset man into the nearest lake.

“You miserable little shit, that’s your mother you’re talking about...”

Under the ice, where he’d freeze to death, get fished out, all bloated and blue in the spring, the kid thinks, and he laughs, hard and cold. He tries to push past again. “Fuck the drunk bitch. She blacked out on the sofa again, Jeff?”

That jaw tightens, that hand stops him, slams him back against the stairs, telling him everything he needs to know about what kind of condition mom's in at the moment. Again. “You show her some respect, goddammit.”

“Why?” he throws back, everything growing quieter as his blood starts to pound in his ears. “Cause she didn’t take a coathanger to me when I was in that tadpole stag...”

“John! Stop it!”

He looks up, straight up, at where his sister’s on the stairs, crouching down, knees pulled up under the bright print of her skirt, her pretty chestnut hair, the same shade as his, teased out and hanging in a loose halo around her face. She’s a sweet girl, never cared that he’s only her half-brother. The only person in the family who doesn’t seem to hold his father against him. Looking forward to getting married someday, having her own family, focused on that, no matter how many college applications mom’s making her fill out.

“Isn’t there something on MTV you’d rather be watching, sis?” he retorts, sarcastic as he can manage.

She bites her lip, frowning. “John, please...”

“Go. Away,” he says.

“Daddy?” she tries. “Daddy? I cleaned up tonight, I don’t ever mind. I wish you’d let me share the chores anyway...”

And Jeff, two-faced fucker that he is, smiles up at her. “Sweetheart, you know that’s John’s job. You’ve got to stay on top of your schoolwork.”

She nods. “Daddy, I know, but...”

“Get him, dad!” a younger voice chimes in, and there’s the monster, Brett, in pyjamas, poking his grubby little face against the banister railing up on the second floor landing. Come out to gloat. He’s got his father’s mean streak, and he never misses one of John's beating if he can help it. Seven years old, and already a sadist. John hates him with a passion. “Get him, get him!”

Jeff turns his smile on that damn kid. “Go back up to your room, baby. We’ll talk in a bit, okay?”

The sweetness there turns John’s stomach, and he’s glad he had a bowl of cereal at the shop tonight. There’s no way he’s getting dinner. He’s only got a slim chance of making it into his room without getting hit, actually. But he stares back at Jeff defiantly anyway. Can’t show fear. It only makes it all worse in the end. At least this way, he keeps his pride.

One of Jeff’s hands is beginning to tighten into a fist.

Fuck.

But his sister, his inexplicably sweet sister, intervenes once again.

“I'll take Brett back to bed. Please don’t hit John tonight, daddy,” Samantha whispers softly, and stands, running up the stairs, her Converse loud on the wood, and John can hear the the little monster squeal as his sister grabs him up and hauls him away.

Jeff stares at him for a minute, grinding him back against the wall of the staircase, and then jerks the door open, right on the other side. “Go to bed, John,” he growls, and tosses him into the darkness, onto the mattress where he sleeps, into that tight little space he’s lived in since Brett was born. Slams the door shut and John can hear the deadbolt turning in the lock.

John listens for a moment, and reaches for the light switch.

Nothing.

Fuck.

Jeff’s removed the bulb again.

He wants to scream at that, John does, and he can feel that bloodlust swell up again. Wouldn’t it be lovely, if Jeff was gone? Never get questioned, hit, starved, locked away again. Be free of him, be completely free, have his own life...

It’s your life, John...

Those words from the morning, so bright, so, so honest...

Fuck that, John tries to tell himself. Morrison doesn’t know what this is like.

But still, he can’t hold onto the anger after thinking about that, after thinking about West Point, after thinking about the fact that no matter what he does, he won’t have to sleep in a closet for the rest of his life. That he could have a life, a good life... and John finds, by touch, his reading flashlight in its hidden compartment, the section of wall, right under the second stair, that he hollowed out years ago.

Clicking it on, he tears into the folder.

It’s nothing too complicated, nothing like he’s seen for some of the other places a few of his brighter classmates are applying to. Smaller than the state school, actually.

One page. One single page. Front and back. Front for personal information, name, birthdate, school history, that sort of thing. Back for essay questions. Handwritten essays, required to fit into their little boxes.

One.

Integrity is of the highest concern to United States Military Academy cadets. If accepted, you will live under an Honor Code, and be held to its standards. Tell us about the most difficult moral delimma you’ve had in your life, how you resolved it, and why you made the decision you did.

He isn’t sure about that, but John figures he’s smart enough to figure something out. There has to be something in his life he can put forward for that.

And then there’s two.

We’ve all had people in our lives who have inspired us to greatness. USMA graduates are expected to be such leaders once commissioned as Second Lieutenants. Who in your life has been such a role model for you?

That, John knows, is going to take a lot of work to figure out. And he’s only got a month to do it in. Admissions doesn’t accept applications postmarked after February 15. And there’s more than that just that. Transcripts. Birth certificate. Morrison’s recommendation. The PT test form, filled out by a physical education teacher. A Congressional nomination, although that comes later. A great deal of faith.

Slowly, he sets the folder down and lets his face fall into his hands, knees tucking up into his chest.

Dammit.

He’s never had much faith in anything.

Right then, right here, John’s not sure if he can summon it for this.

But something’s telling him he should really go for it.

So he pulls out a notebook from his bag. Labels one sheet “One” and another sheet “Two” and lays down, pen in hand, tapping against the blue lines of the paper, letting his mind cycle through the possibilities for each until long after he falls asleep, his ancient, muddy sneakers hanging off the end of the too-small mattress.

+++++

The next morning’s a Saturday, and after Jeff lets him out of his room, John bolts to the store, lighting up the second he's around the block, backpack in hand. Normally he doesn’t take it, unless it’s got something important he’s reading or something important he’s working on, and today it’s both. In addition to his homework, the ratty black bag’s got his West Point application packet in it. It’s the only thing he can think of, keeping it on him all the time, in order to keep it safe from his little brother, that bastard whose house he lives in. And the system’s been working pretty well so far.

Those questions are still turning over in his mind, all through the cold walk. Moral dilemma? Role model? Fuck, he can’t remember ever having either. It’s going to be a problem. What’s he going to say? My biggest dilemma was not lying on this application, the only person who’s ever been halfway decent was the major who asked me to apply...

Fuck, he thinks as he rounds the parking lot, cigarette tight in his teeth, digging his spare key out of his pocket and going for the back entrance. That’s not going to work.

“Hey, hey John! Are we still going out today?”

John smiles, despite himself, and forgets about the application for a minute, holding out an arm to the boy by the door. “Chris, fuck, what time is it?”

“Almost nine,” the blonde says, rising to his feet and wiping his hands off on his jeans, smiling up at him as he tucks up under his arm. “Do we still have time to go hit one of the ice walls?”

John smiles back, flicking his cigarette away.

Chris, a junior at the town’s high school, works here on the weekends with him. He’s an odd one, he really is. Wears mostly black to school and paints his nails and wears eyeliner and listens to a lot of Metallica and Slayer, that sort of thing. But John’s never met anybody better at free climbing than Chris, and the kid’s cute, despite himself, all blonde curls and bright blue eyes that only ever smile for him.

They have a lot in common, as he found out one morning last year, still in the showers during PE, face burning, terrified, trying to take care of a nastily-timed hard-on before the rest of the boys got back from volleyball. There’d been a noise behind him, and John had damn near panicked.

“That happens to me sometimes,” some bold voice had declared. “When we’re all bumping around out there on the court.”

John had turned and stared. And the blonde kid had smiled back.

It’s been sort of a natural fit ever since. Even if they aren’t really friends, Chris is probably the only person in this whole damn town John trusts. The one who’s always there for him. The first boy he ever kissed. The one he thinks he’d might like to go all the way with, someday, maybe. And he thinks for a second...but no, and smiles. He can’t write his military application application essay about his...gay boyfriend, or whatever Chris is to him.

That could be sort of weird.

“Fuck,” John tells him, daring to kiss him on the head, knowing nobody’s around to see them right now. “I forgot to ask Tony about it yesterday, Chris, but I don’t think we can get out there anyway...”

Chris’ eyes narrow. “Did that fucker not let you out of your closet again, John?”

He sighs. The junior can be awfully temperamental sometimes. “Look, no, fuck, Chris, I just...I just forgot.” And he goes for the door, pulling Chris along with him inside.

“How can you just forget, John?” Chris pouts, pushing his long hair back out of his face, walking over to dump his jacket on a waiting hook. “Come on, man, I just spent half an hour waiting for you, and...”

“Dammit, Chris, I didn’t mean to...”

“Well, I know you didn’t mean to if you just fucking forgot...”

“I didn’t mean to!” he snaps, the irritation rising now, spinning the dial on his locker. “Fuck! You’ve got no idea what this week’s been like!” He misses the number, and slams his palm down flat on the metal.

The junior’s sneakers squeak on the floor, coming closer, and there’s a hand on his arm, squeezing. “What’s goin’ on, John? You’ve been like a ghost at school the last few days, there’s some damn rumor going around about you going to the West Point presentation...”

“Fuck,” John mutters. “Is that getting around?”

“Reynolds is bitching about it to everybody he can, crying about how that asshole John Lewis thinks he’s even got a shot at getting in...”

"A fucking Mormon used the word asshole?" John chuckles.

"Don't change the subject! Is it true? Are you thinking about the Army?"

He sighs. This is the last thing he wants. Rumors. Rumors are bad. He’s probably not going to get in, and if he doesn’t, that’s something nobody’s ever going to forget about him. Ever. Especially not if it gets back to his so-called family. And that’s not something he really wants to deal with. One more thing.

It would be really, really easy to say it’s a lie. That he’s not thinking about it at all. So Chris will defend him and put all the bullshit to bed.

But he’s applying for a school that takes lying pretty goddamn serious. He saw that in the application. They’ve even got an honor code, just like Morrison explained, recited from memory. We will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate among us anyone who does. It sounds serious. It sounds really, really serious.

So lying, at least to Chris John amends in his head, probably isn’t a very good idea.

“Yeah,” he says, looking over his shoulder, watching those blue eyes widen. “Yeah, I guess I’m thinking about it. But I only went ‘cause the major giving the presentation said he knew my dad.”

“Awesome,” Chris breaths. “You could be, like, John Rambo. How fucking cool would you be?”

He rolls his eyes, and tries the combination again. “I would not be like Rambo. Didn’t he have PTSD or something?”

“Well, yeah, but he was super good at killing people. I think you’d be really good at killing people.”

John misses the combination again, fingers slipping off the dial at those words. Hell. Killing people...could he kill somebody? Could he, really? If somebody had a gun pointed at him, at his sister, he’d like to think he could. And since that’s the whole point of the Army, blowing shit up and killing people...his dad killed, right? Morrison has to have killed. He seems to be okay...

“I don’t think it’s like it is in the movies,” he says lamely, and Chris punches him. “Dick,” he grumbles back over his shoulder, no heat in the words.

“Asshole.”

“Faggot.”

“Bastard. Literally a bastard.”

“Stupid blonde.”

“Too...tall...guy,” the junior grins, and John turns around, giving up on his locker in favor of grabbing Chris up and hugging him in a little, draping his long arms down the shorter boy’s chest, laying his chin on a shoulder, feeling a hand come up to thread through his hair.

“You think I can do this?” he murmurs.

“Four years around a bunch of hot guys who work out all the time and ooze testosterone? Rrraaoww...”

“Chris, dammit, it’s not like the fucking movies...”

That body in his arms grinds back against him. “I think you’d look sexy in a uniform, John.”

Despite what kind of image the other boy likes to show off at school, Chris really is a cuddler. They do that sometimes, get a pile of rental sleeping bags and go up to the roof or out to some lonely spot only they know about, zip the bags together and snuggle in under the stars. He likes that, kissing, spooning, being able to hold Chris in his arms and feel like he’s keeping him safe from all those things that upset him so bad. It’s nice being able to protect somebody, feel needed like that...

Won't he get to feel like that in the Army? Like he's protecting something good, like from the Soviets or whatever the hell's going to replace them when they eventually collapse? That's why they kill the bad guys, right? So people like Chris are safe?

Chris is definitely worth keeping safe, John decides. But that question about killing hasn’t quite settled yet. Fuck, one conversation and his whole life’s turned upside down. Too many things to think about, parse out and put into little compartments and ponder...

“Come on,” he says instead, kissing Chris right below the ear. “We’ve got two hours before we’re supposed to open and Tony won’t be in until after lunch. Wanna see if he left any beer in the fridge?”

“Sexy in a uniform,” Chris repeats emphatically, and goes up on his tip toes to wrap into John. It unbalances them both, and they fall into a heap on the concrete floor, laughing together, and John pulls Chris into his lap, right there, kissing him hard, mouth to mouth, using his tongue a little, thrusting lightly, and his boyfriend groans into it all.

John’s not sure how long they’re there, making out in the middle of the floor, moving against each other, his hands around Chris’ waist, Chris’ hands tangling up into his thick chestnut hair. He’s thinking about it, what he might look like in a uniform, head shorn, collar up, those cadet grays, the Army green, gold bars on his shoulders, following in his dad’s footsteps...

His dad. There’s a person who’s had an influence on his life, right? The biggest influence, really, but how could he make that work? There’s going to have to be a way...

“Really, really sexy,” Chris groans, needy, and John nips at his neck, sliding a hand under the waistband of black jeans, hard, hot flesh meeting his fingers.

He should probably figure this one out later.

+++++

John waits until after seventh period to go in. To make his way back through the locker room, past all the boys coming in from PE, sweaty and laughing and then staring at him, into the gym. He doesn’t want to be here. Hates PE class as it is. But of all the things on the checklist he needs to get done, this, the fitness assessment, is the easiest to get knocked out.

All except for the part where he has to ask Coach Espisito to actually administer the damn thing.

The same man he’d told to fuck off sophomore year, when he’d asked John to join the track team.

He takes a deep breath as he hits the floor of the gym and sees the teacher in question, making a few notes on a clipboard, finished up with class.

He balks.

John really, really does not want to do this.

But the major hasn’t left him another choice.

Morrison had come by the store on Saturday, about an hour after they’d opened, saying he wasn’t going to be around the next two weeks, that he’d be hitting the southern parts of the state, and if John was really serious about the application process, he needed to meet him at the school track in something he could run in the next day.

John had been grateful, he really had been. Even if Chris hadn’t been able to shut up about how damn hot the major was. He didn’t need those thoughts with him, that night, the next day, alone on the cold athletic fields while the rest of the goddamn town was in church, going through the fitness assessment.

Six events. Pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, a 40 meter shuttle run, a distance run, and then some bullshit with a kneeling basketball throw.

“What’s that measure?” John had laughed.

“Your ability to put up with bullshit,” the major had deadpanned back, and thrown the ball at him, hard. “On your knees, kid! Let’s see how far you can chuck this bitch!”

He ended up scoring well. John figured he could do better, if it wasn’t so damn cold. The worst part of it, really, was how Morrison had corrected his form on every event, at least half a dozen times. Hands on his back, on his waist, running up his shoulders, showing him where he should pull, where he should push, how his elbows had to come up to his knees on sit-ups or how he was supposed to lean back just so on the throw. Touching him. Touching him everywhere with those big, rough, fucking strong hands. He’d laughed at the time, told the major he was overworking it and he’d free-climbed underhangs at five hundred feet before, that he’d gone on week-long hikes with a seventy pound pack before, and none of this was a big deal.

But coming off the field, John hadn’t been able to hide his burgeoning hard-on from Chris, who’d evidently been watching the whole thing from the safety of the bleachers, probably hain-smoking for all he was worth. He hadn’t invited him, hadn’t thought the other boy would want to come, and John’d felt a flush of shame come over him as Chris blew out a huge mouthful of smoke. Looking at the growing tent in his sweatpants.

“I do not blame you at all for that, Johnny,” his friend had said, grinning. “But I am going to be pissed if I can’t take care of it for you.”

And Morrison had come up behind him then, right then, and clapped him on the shoulder like there was nothing wrong at all, like he didn’t notice the fucking tent in John’s pants. But he had cast a glance over Chris’ way. “Your buddy?”

“Disaffected coworker,” Chris had drawled, and flicked ash off the cigarette, yawning.

Morrison had stared at him for a moment more, like he was trying to figure out who the blonde goth kid was, lasered on his target, and Chris finally looked away, ground out his cigarette and left.

John had wanted to go after him, wanted him to understand that this wasn’t about...

But Morrison just started talking again. “Right. So, John, who’s going to do your test?”

“This doesn’t count?”

“Hell no. You need a PE coach to do it for you.”

He’d squirmed. “Can’t you do it as the liaison officer?”

“Sure. But you should do it inside, this time of the year. Get yourself the best score possible. I need to go hit some other towns in the next couple of weeks, so I won’t be around to do it for ya.”

And Morrison had grinned, like he already knew how fucking painful that was going to be for John.

John takes another look at the gym doors behind him, and remembers how excited Mr. Espisito had been about him joining the track team, how the man had really sold him on the idea, how good his run times had been, how the coach thought he might have a shot at state, if he applied himself...

He’s still got time to get out of here, doesn’t he?

“Mr. Lewis? What can I do for you?”

But no.

Fuck.

He walks forward, feeling heavy, and reaches around, undoing the zipper on his backpack. “I, uhh...”

“If that’s your paperwork for the track team, it’s about two years too late,” the coach says, and goes back to his clipboard.

“No, no, sir, it’s not for that. I know I didn’t...I...I need you to sign off on something for a college application.”

Coach Espisito looks back up, a questioning look on his face. “College application? Since when are you trying to go to college? Thought you wanted to do rock climbing for the rest of your life and fuck everybody in the world who can’t run as fast as you.”

John feels his face growing hot. That was the last day he’d ever gone to PE, middle of last semester. It had been one of those nights, one of those bad nights, and his torso and ass been so fucked up from the belt buckle that he’d barely been able to sit down in classes. Much less take his clothes off in the locker room to change for PE. So, when he’d had to go back out into the main gym in his regular street clothes, and Coach Espisito asked him how he expected to go for a run in that, he’d covered like he always did.

By going into a rant.

About what a fucking waste of time PE was, and how unfair it was that he got lumped in with a bunch of fat-asses who needed some old guy in bad socks to tell them how to not suck as human beings. Just opened up his mouth and let his brain stream out the most hurtful things possible, like always. A girl in the class had cried. Coach had been shaking. John spent the rest of the day in the principal’s office until Jeff came to pick him up. It had gotten him beat again that night, but nobody knew about it, and that, John figured, was all that mattered.

“Yeah, I know, I said that...”

“Mr. Lewis, I’ve got no time to waste on kids who have nothing but disdain for everybody else,” and the teacher’s eyes are slightly sad. He pauses for a second. “You use your god-given talents like a club on the people around you. It’s a real shame.”

John feels his blood run cold for a second, painful, spiking through his neck, and his head falls. “Okay,” he says, and tucks the folder back into his backpack. “I’m sorry for bothering you, coach...”

He’s three steps towards the door, wondering if he can’t just wait until Morrison’s back in town in a few weeks, if he can send his application packet in then, when...

“Mr. Lewis! What college are we talking about here?”

John pauses, and grabs at the strap on his shoulder. He can feel his hand starting to shake. And he wants to walk out of here. Leave. Go find Chris and slam him back against a wall and let the blonde junior fuck his mouth until he feels anything other than scared...

But Morrison wanted him to do this, he figures, or maybe he’s supposed to do it. Maybe that’s the whole point, being honest where he hasn’t ever been honest before...

So he turns and stares at the floor. “West Point.”

He hears the coach stand and start walking towards him. “Why the hell do you want to go there, Mr. Lewis?”

“My dad was in the military, served in Vietnam and everything, I guess, and...” John mumbles, not really thinking about it, and he stops himself, horrified at what he just said. It’s not so big a school - or a town, for that matter - for anybody to not know Jeff Lewis. And he’s never said, never made the slightest mention of the fact that Jeff’s not his dad.

Ever.

He wants to hit himself. What the fuck’s wrong with him?

The coach touches his shoulder, and pulls him up, looking right at him. “Your dad never served in the military, Lewis. We were in the same high school class together, I think I would know something like that. So don’t feed me a line of bullshit.”

He sucks his lower lip in. Shit. He has to keep going now. “Look, coach, I don’t really have any options for college, and I think West Point could be a really good opportunity...” and he trails off, intensely uncomfortable, hating this thing of having to open up, of not being able to defend himself like he always, always does.

Coach Espisito looks at him for a moment, and something in his face softens. “With your grades? No options? Not even a scholarship?”

John shrugs. What’s he supposed to say to that?

“Why’d you never come out for the track team, John? You were so excited about it, the day we talked.”

He squirms. “No, look, I’m just gonna go, and...”

That hand stops him. “Why, John?”

The teen thinks about getting away, about what happened, and then thinks about having a future, maybe, and sags. “Je...my dad shredded the registration form that night I brought it home. Said he wouldn’t let me go out for the team, that if I tried behind his back, he'd...”

“He’d what?”

He shrugs again, feeling helpless. He’s not going to tell the man what Jeff had threatened him with. What Jeff had done that night to his mom, who’d actually roused herself enough to say that she thought it was a good idea for John to join the team. How Jeff had hit her again and again until John handed the forms over.

“Dad just didn’t want me doing it," he says instead. It's close enough to not be a lie.

"Why didn't you tell me this then?" Coach Espisito's voice has a bit of an edge to it. "I could have talked to him for you, or we could have worked something out. John, if you'd wanted..."

"I’m sorry I cussed you out over it. I shouldn't have done that,” the teen says, desperately needing this conversation to stop. Right the hell now.

Espisito’s hand tightens a bit, and he’s smiling tersely now.

“Okay, John. Okay. I’ve got the testing standards, I’ve done it for some of the other boys in your class, so let’s see how you do, okay? Wednesday after class sound good?”

Something tight in John’s gut, something he didn't even realize was there, starts to unknot. Coach is going to give him a chance. Even after everything...and that’s got to be a good sign.

Right?

“Anything else you want to talk about, son? Anything at all? I’ve got about an hour until practice starts up...”

“No sir. Just...thanks. Thanks a lot. See you Wednesday,” he says, grateful, nervousness starting to rise again, and races from the gym before he can think about answering that question.