Honors' Night - Part Two of Four

[sonora_coneja]

Pairing: Hannibal/Russ, Hannibal/OMC
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of child abuse
Summary: Part two of 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...

/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...



“Why are we down here, John? You are fucking with my entire weekend.”

“Shut up and just go through the damn box, Chris.”

“This is like the seventh box I’ve looked at. How much shit does your family have down here?”

“A lot,” he says, and tears into the next shelf.

That Friday night, after passing his fitness test on Wednesday and getting a copy of his transcripts from Ms. Perri on Thursday, and learning that Morrison’s got something called the DODMERB scheduled for next Tuesday up at Hill Air Force Base, John had had his flashlight propped up on his knee, at just the right angle for writing, his notebook containing his first few thoughts on essay question number two.

One of the biggest influences in my life has been my father. I never got to meet him, but I’ve always tried to imagine what kind of man he was, and what kind of man he’d want his son to be. I wanted to be that man for him...

But he got stuck on that.

He flipped the application back over. He hadn’t filled it out yet, the front, all the easy stuff. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Morrison called him that first day.

John Smith.

That was his dad’s name, right? Was that his name, too? And he’s got no idea what his social security number is, and they want it. What the hell? Why doesn’t he know that?

Too many unanswered questions.

And he needed his birth certificate anyway.

So he’d called Chris to come over and help him go through the basement to find it. Everyone else is up in Salt Lake City today, a place he’s never been, at an ice rink or some shit like that. They won’t be home until dinner. They’re going to a good steakhouse, too. But that’s how family outings always are. The bastard gets left at home while everybody else is out having fun, pretending he doesn’t exist. Samantha says she hates it, not having John around. John tells her he doesn’t give a shit.

It’s not really true. But at least it gives him some freedom. And Chris is here, so it’s not too bad.

They’ve spent the last four hours tearing the room apart, and so far, they’ve come up with nothing. Now they’re knee-deep in old cardboard boxes full of toys and old photographs and taxe returns, but not birth certificate. Not yet, anyway.

“We gotta keep looking, Chris. The fucking thing has to be here somwhere.”

But the blonde junior’s just plunked himself down on the basement’s threadbare little sofa, putting his black combat boots up on the opposite armrest. “Come on, John. Can’t you get it from the school or something?”

“No, they need an original,” he says, jerking open the door to a little closet in the very back of the unfinished basement. It’s the only place they haven’t checked yet, where all the holiday stuff is kept. “The school won’t have that.”

“John, jesus, Jeff probably fucking burned it or something!” Chris calls from the other room, and John can hear a lighter flicking.

“Yeah, maybe,” he yells back, and stares at all the boxes of Christmas decorations, Easter, Halloween... he never got to go trick or treating as a kid. Or hunt for Easter eggs at the church with everyone else. At Christmas, Santa never came for him, not once, and he remembers that, sitting on the stairs in his footie pyjamas as Samantha squealed in the living room over some new toy, wishing that his real dad would come and take him away...

He sniffs. Probably just the dust, he thinks, and arches up on his toes, trying to see what’s back there. He never comes in here. Fucking decorations.

There’s a couple of cardboard boxes back in one corner, and John realizes they aren’t like the rest of the boxes in here. No, these are old orange crates, where all the rest are clean and marked in marker with things like Lights - Outdoor and Ornaments. It’s enough to get his attention, so he reaches back there and wrests them free of all the shit that’s on top of them.

Four of them. Heavy. Duct-taped shut.

“Chris! Get your ass in here! Need a hand!”

Between the two of them, it’s nothing to get the boxes out into the clear space of the main room in the basement, spread out in front of the sofa. The boxes are very old. That brittle feel to the cardboard. The designs on the side all faded and washed out from time.

John kicks at one. “Probably nothing in there.”

“Yeah,” Chris agrees, taking a drag on the cigarette and offering it over to John, who takes a hit and hand it back. “Probably nothing.”

“Baby diapers or something like that.”

“Sure, why not?”

Silence for a moment, and John can feel the nerves starting to rise again.

“Fuck it,” he grunts, and, flicking out a pocket knife, gets the duct tape cut. It’s old, and it’s been taped over more than once. It’s a mess, really, like it’s been opened and sealed up again a number of times over the years. It takes it a minute to scoot the top off.

And it’s Chris who speaks first.

“What the fuck is this?”

John can’t speak, can’t move, can’t fucking think as his boyfriend lifts one of the little packages out of the box. The paper’s faded, but clearly had reindeer on it at one point, a bow that was jerked off, leaving a bare spot that’s yellowed with age.

He knows what it is.

“John?”

He wets his lips, throat still thick. “It’s...Morrison told me...can...can I see that?”

Chris, serious all of the sudden, hands the package over and flops back down on the couch, tucking his hair back behind his ears, just watching as John tears the lines of dried tape away from the edges of the paper, unwrapping it slowly.

It’s a little gift box inside, like the kind you get from department stores, more tape, and inside that, there’s a small set of gloves and a matching knit beanie, blue and green, clearly handmade, clearly meant for a child.

A note in faded black ink, tucked inside the cap.

Johnny, not too much this year, sorry. It’s hard to find a good Christmas present over here in the Philippines. Everything here is jungle. One of my sergeant’s wives knit this for you though, isn’t that nice of her? Stay warm for me in the cold mountains! Love you and miss you, baby. Your Dad

“John?” Chris asks again, and John dimly realizes the other boy is standing behind him, running his hands up his arms, pressing against his back. “John, what’s going on?”

John shakes his head, and feels himself sway a little. He lets Chris guide him back down to the sofa, and finds himself staring into a pair of black-rimmed cerulean eyes, his boyfriend straddling his lap and running both his hands through John’s hair.

He looks over at the box again. “Morrison told me my dad...sent me gifts every year. I never...I never saw any of it.”

Chris kisses him lightly. “Wanna open the rest of them?”

He shakes his head, but Chris reaches back around and picks one at random, something in blue paper with little balloons on it, and puts it between their pressed bodies. “Bullshit,” he says flatly, and taps the box. “Come on. He went to all the trouble to send these to you.”

John takes a deep breath, barely holding back the tears as Chris sits patiently on his lap, waiting for his answer.

But John’s not that kid. Not the kid these were sent to. Not the kid his father must have thought he was.

He’s got no right to any of this.

He moves Chris off his lap and kneels by the boxes, starting to unload them of their contents. “I’m going to check these, see if the birth certificate’s in here. Can, uhh, I think there’s some duct tape in the kitchen? Can you go find it for me, Chris?”

“John, don’t...”

“I’m looking for that, Chris. There’s no reason to start digging in to any of the rest of this.”

“Fine,” the blonde huffs, and he’s gone, stomping up the stairs.

Leaving John to have his breakdown alone, tears streaming down his cheeks as he carefully places each gift on the floor, checking each for anything that might be significant. There is something here. Thirteen years of something. For Halloween and Easter and Christmas and birthdays. Gifts for his birthdays, parties he never had, candles he never got to blow out, holidays he never participated in. Books and baseball mits and toy cars and plush dinosaurs and and candy, maybe. Other things too. A little blue bunting blanket, a “Baby’s First” book from Hallmark that only has his footprints and handprints in it. A photograph, faded and old, his mother holding a red-skinned, sleeping newborn in her arms. An entire history of a boy, some happy kid, whose father loved him, cared for him, took an interest in him, wanted him...

He does find it, though, a manila envelop stamped with the county hospital’s name. There’s another underneath it, as he tugs it loose, one addressed to him here, an APO box for the return address. John stares at that one for a moment, and then just starts piling the presents back on top until he can’t see it anymore.

“Find anything?” Chris asks, sitting down crosslegged next to him, duct tape around his wrist.

John brandishes the envelop. “Think this is it,” he says, and unfolds the top. The paper crinkles and his fingers pause. “Chris, I don’t know if I...”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Chris says, rolling his eyes, snatching the thing away and easing the single sheet inside out, sitting up on the sofa, leaving John on the floor by himself. He stares at it. “Fuck, man...”

John looks up. “What is it?”

“According to this?” And Chris hands it over. “Your last name is not Lewis.”

There it is. In black and white.

Certificate of live birth.

August 23, 1967.

John Michael Smith.

Mother, Joyce Anne Lewis.

Father, John Ryan Smith.

Chris leans back into the musty cushions of the sofa, going for his carton of cigarettes, tapping two out and snapping his Bic awake, while John continues to stare at the paper. “What do you bet that’s where Jeff figured out you weren’t his progeny?” And Chris hands him one of the cigarettes, adjusting so that John’s right between his legs, and John lays his cheek on the blonde’s thigh as strong fingers start massaging his scalp. “I mean, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with your family?”

“I’ve got my birth certificate,” John says, feeling his lungs burn and his eyes sting. It’s just the smoke. He’s only tearing up because of the smoke. He stares at the ceiling. Chris’ fingers feel good in his hair. He’s not wondering if there are any photos of his father in any of those boxes. Why the presents are here, instead of in a landfill somewhere. Why his mother’s such a fucking coward that she never gave him any of this. “That’s the only thing that matters right now.”

+++++

John shifts a bit on the stiff plastic of the exam table in the Hill Air Force Base clinic. It's been half an hour since the last time he's seen anybody, four hours since he got here, and he still hasn't seen the doctor.

They've done x-rays, dental work-up, an eye exam with a pen and blinking lights that he didn't quite grasp the purpose of, and some female sergeant with too much eye make-ups in her BDUs spent half an hour going through an entire clipboard of questions about his sleeping habits and if he ever feels depressed and if so, why and for how long and does he smoke, well how many packs a week?

Add to that, that voice in his mind sneers at him, the indignity of having to be driven up here. John hates that that had to happen. He could have come on his own, if Morrison had signed the form that would have left him on base, which he refused to do, but he doesn't have a legal driver's license, which he would have had to present as proof of ID along with the letter anyway. He's got a pretty good forged one, but it gives his age as twenty-one, and he knows that probably wouldn't have been the best idea in the world, waving something like that around at some military police guy.

He's starting to run out of patience at this point, and it's well past his lunch period. Which his stomach is timed to, no matter how shitty the food at the cafeteria is.

And the teen's considering just getting up and asking about what the hell the hold-up is when the door bangs open. A big guy with eagles on his collar, clicking open a pen, stethoscope around his neck. Must be the doc, he figures, and settles back onto the table.

"Hi there, John...Smith, I'm Doctor Waters, I'll be finishing up with you here today," the officer says, leafing through the clipboard that the sergeant had been scribbling all over earlier as he settles into a chair. "How you doin' with all of this?"

John Smith

He's not sure how he feels about that name yet. The name he's never know he had. Driving up here this morning, through Salt Lake City, he asked Morrison what he should do about that.

You have to put that on your forms, kid, that Smith. If that's your legal name, you gotta use it...

"A little hungry," he admits now, readying himself to make some smart-ass remark about wait times and military efficiency and and cranes his neck up. But the doctor stops on a page and circles something rapidly, making a noise in the back of his throat, and John forgets what he was going to say. "What is it?"

"You've got a number of old breaks, John. Your right arm...twice, I'm guessing? Your ankle, a few of your lower ribs and just looking at you, I'd guess something happened to your nose at some point. And that's just from what your medical records say." The doc scoots the chair closer, straddling it, the clipboard hanging down in front of him over the edge. "I need to ask you something, Mr. Smith, and I need you to be honest. You understand that?"

He nods, feeling his stomach clench up. Here's where he loses it. Here's where they figure it out and decide that he's not worth it and tell him not to waste their fucking time. And for some reason, the thought of that sort of bothers him. "Y-yeah."

"You know how you got those injuries?"

He takes a deep breath.

The arm, the first time, was a bike accident. The second time, it was Jeff throwing him down the basement stairs. His ankle he broke rappelling off a wall in northern Arizona two years ago. The ribs are from another fight with Jeff, last year. He'd pissed blood for a week. And his nose...his nose had been the first time he asked if he could get a learner's permit. "I do a lot of rock climbing," he says faintly.

The doctor's staring at him.

"And...my stepdad, sometimes..."

...he hits me...

John can still hear his admission, his deepest shame laid bare, given voice for the first time in his life ringing in his ears, half an hour later, staring at his half-eaten fries at the base Burger King. It’s a small little place mostly emptied of lunch chatter, a few moms with their preschool children, chatting over diet cokes and chicken nuggets.

He feels a small pang, watching one bounce her son in her lap as her older daughter rolls a little toy car around on the sticky tabletop. His mom hadn't ever been allowed to take him anywhere when he was young, and then, when the beatings started and the drinking started, she hadn't been able. John can't remember what she was like before the alcohol. He's trying and he just can't remember.

What kind of woman outs her son as a bastard on his birth certificate? He can't figure it out and it's been fucking bothering him for the last week. He wants to ask, but it's mom. She’s barely present these days, mind drowned, half-dead...

He’d cried in front of the doc, for fuck’s sake. Cried. Just a few sniffles, a few tears, but still. The guy had been nice enough to let him, to ask if he wanted to talk to somebody, that it would all be confidential and it wouldn’t mean a police report, but he’d shaken his head. Last thing he wanted was to talk to somebody. Not that, not about that, not ever.

But what’s really throwing him for a loop, John realizes, watching that mom with her little boy, is why everybody is being so fucking nice to him lately. Morrison, the doctor, hell, even Coach Espisito when he’d filled out that paperwork, telling him good luck and to come talk to him if he needs help with anything. Everyone.

It’s fucking bizarre. Nobody's ever nice to him. He doesn't allow it.

John hates people being nice to him, hates having to think that outside his home is better, that he doesn’t have anywhere safe, anywhere good, that he’s forced to live in hell while everybody else has the energy to smile...

"What the hell's wrong with you, kid?" Morrison asks, taking the last two bites of his own hamburger. "You've been completely silent since your appointment ended."

What’s he supposed to say? My stepdad wishes I was dead and my mom can’t remember I’m alive and I can’t figure out why the fuck you’re helping me?

No. Not that.

So... sarcasm. Sarcasm is always good. "Some old guy drug me the fuck up here and threw me in a room for almost five hours," he grunts.

Morrison grins at him and leans back in his chair, clearly not ready to rise to the bait. "You make it sound like I fucking kidnapped you and duct-taped you up in the trunk and hauling you out to my fucking double-wide to have my way with you." And he chuckles again.

The teen feels a blush starting to come over his cheeks at that particular mental image. Bound up and held down and fucked hard...he's got no idea what that would feel like. But there's something about this man, this Ranger, that makes him think it would be really, really good.

Then Morrison kicks him under the table. "Seriously, John, as your liaison officer, I gotta ask...did something go wrong in the appointment?"

He hesitates.

The major leans forward, his eyes a little sharper, some of that intensity starting to show. "John..."

"Major, if...if I...if I told you that Jeff...he...I’ve got a couple of old breaks..."

And Morrison sighs. "John, look, I can't even imagine what your home life must be like, I really can't, if that kind of stuff is going on. But the med folks aren't worried about any of that. They probably needed to know if you had some kind of bone problem, okay? Don't sweat it. You're going to be fine."

He nods once. "What about psych stuff? The doc said... does that count against me or something?"

"John, you've got a bigger issue with your fucking attitude and smartass mouth than any underlying emotional problems," Morrison tells him, rolling his eyes, and John feels his thigh under the table. "Come on, we've got a three hour drive to get you back to Provo. And I wanna stop off at the BX before we head back."

The BX, John learns on the short, slow drive over, is basically a department store, but smaller and with less selection and everything from a federally-approved manufacturer - I think of it as what a Macy's must look like in the Soviet Union, Morrison tells him - but they aren't there for cut-price electronics or pet food. No, not that. The major flashes his ID at the greeter at the door and steers John back to the ass end of the big space, right back to a smaller store marked Clothing Sales.

It's all uniform stuff. Air Force blues, Army greens, long rows of undershirts and ties and socks in drab, matching colors. A bog wall of nothing but little boxes, rank and ribbons and patches. But they aren't there for any of that, Morrison says, and shoves him all the way to the back, to a low bench and a wall completely dominated by haphazard stacks of long shoeboxes.

Boots.

What the...

"Here you go, kid," Morrison says, tossing him a pair of clean socks for a hopper in the corner. "What's your size?"

"Uhh...what?"

"Shoe size, kid, what's your fucking shoe size?"

"Why?"

The Ranger jams his thumb back over his shoulder at the wall of boots. "You'll want to get 'em broken in before you get there, learn how to run in the damn things, avoid the worst of the blisters, all that shit. You'll need a couple pair of socks, too. Trust me, you'll thank me later."

John bends to look. Everything here, according to Morrison, is tax free, but still, ninety-six, thirty-five is a bit out of his price range, with the sum of his personal finances a mere hundred and five bucks in crumpled bills in a coffee can a hundred miles away, pockets empty. "Shit," he mutters to himself, and frowns as he looks up at Morrison. "Why didn't you tell me you're going to bring me here?"

Morrison looks confused for a second, and then smiles, realizing. "No, kid, my treat."

"Man, lunch is one thing, but,” and John hangs his head, wondering why in the hell he’s doing this to himself. All the shit this is dredging up, things he doesn’t want to know, things he doesn’t want others to know... “I'm probably not going to get in, and...that’s a lot of money and..."

Rough hands land on his shoulders and force him back onto the bench. John looks up at him, wondering what the fuck is prompting all of his. But there's no sympathy there. None. Just some kind of weird determination, like Morrison sees something in him that he can't, that nobody's ever seen in him, some bizarre kind of faith... "Take your fucking sneakers off, kid, and lets find you a pair that fits."

John doesn’t understand it, why Morrison gives two shits about him, but he goes for his left Converse anyway, tugging at the laces. “Twelve and a half or thirteen,” he says, letting the ancient thing drop, and looks up at the major with every ounce of strength he can muster. “But I owe you a pair of boots.”

The Ranger stares back down at him levelly for a moment, making something shift, deep down in John, like he just realized something he can't quite identify. Something...

It's a moment, fleeting, and the teen feels himself reeling as the older man turns away.

"Okay kid." A box catches John square in the chest. "Here, try those. And we'll say you owe me for them."

+++++

Chris bumps John’s leg under the table in the school library, jostling him none too gently, and slams his bookcover down, shoving it away. “How long are we going to be at this, man? It’s lunchtime. I’m fucking hungry.”

“Until we fucking find him, Chris,” John grumbles, and grabs the 1966 book off the top of the stack at his elbow, tossing it over. “Just keep going, okay? We’ve got maybe three more of these to go.”

“How are you getting to that number, exactly?” the blonde junior asks, chewing at a black-painted nail.

John sighs and starts leafing through the senior pages of 1965. “Mom’s thirty-seven. Which means she got pregnant with me when she was eighteen or so. That puts her in school around this range.”

“And you really think your dad was another student?”

“You think she was out fucking some twenty-five year old?”

Chris shrugs. “I don’t know. Screwing around on your husband’s pretty fucking bad...”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t,” he says. No Smiths in the photographs here. “They weren’t married at the time. They got married cause she got pregnant.”

“They tell you this shit?”

“Jeff likes to throw it at me sometimes, you know, instead of his fists. Like I’m the reason my mom’s a fucking whore...” he begins, the old anger welling up again, all the old questions. Like why his mom hadn’t just married his dad, his real dad? Or gotten some back-alley abortion, like Jeff always told her she should have?

They’ve been doing this for the past forty-five minutes, looking through the yearbooks, page by page, cause they don’t have indexes in the back that tell what student’s where. John spent the hour prior to that working out his letters to both Senatorial offices, to his district’s House Representative. He can get a nomination from any of them. Morrison explained it all in the car ride back from Hill AFB the week before - he has to get those sent out this week, if he wants to get an interview. He’ll have to steal some stamps from mom’s top desk drawer...

And then Chris taps his knee. “Yo, John, take a look at this.”

Looking over his boyfriend’s shoulder, John follows the line of his eyes down his arm, down his finger, right to where it’s resting on the football team’s group photograph. A tall guy, in the rear, in thin pads. A guy with his face.

“Fuck,” he breathes, touching it for some reason he doesn’t quite understand. “That’s...”

“John Smith, all-state runningback, 18 when pictured,” Chris reads, and squeezes John’s knee under the table. “He looks just like you.”

“Y-yeah,” he says, feeling faint. That’s his dad. His dad. The man he’s tried to picture a thousand times, the man who has always escaped him, always been out of reach, a quantity he could not fill. “He does.”

Chris lays his head on John’s shoulder, the comforting weight it always is, pushing close. And that’s when they hear it.

“Hey, faggots!”

John can feel Chris tense up against him, then force himself to relax, and he groans internally. His boyfriend only ever deals with these problems in one way.

And he doesn’t stray from form today. Nope. He lolls his head around the cup of John’s shoulder, hugging his arm close. “You hear that sweetie? The good little Mormon’s calling us fags, it must be true.”

On that silent cue, John shoves Chris off, hard, rocking the younger boy back onto his chair. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Chris,” he groans, not faking it at all. If he could get through one of these encounters, just one, without the blonde making a bigger fucking deal of it all as a way out...

“Blow me, asshole,” he says amiably, and smiles up at Bobby Reynolds. “And as for you...”

“Shut up, faggot,” Reynolds snaps, and grabs the yearbook away from John. “So, what are you two girls looking at today?”

“Pictures of your mom,” John replies easily.

“She’s as ugly as you are,” Chris continues, tapping a heavy boot on the floor and winking broadly. “But your dad, man, your dad was so cute...”

“My father’s a man of god!” Bobby growls, and Chris bursts out laughing.

John sighs. “Okay, Reynolds, what did you want?”

The preacher’s son casts an eye down at him. It’s a judgmental eye, a nasty eye. “I heard you were applying to West Point.”

“Well, you heard wrong. I’m not.”

“Well, that’s good. Cause I wouldn’t want my future alma mater polluted with trash like you.”

“Hey, cocksucker, John’s not trash,” Chris says, something like disbelief in his voice, the sarcasm all gone. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be all religious and enlightened and you stand there condemning a guy on some completely false charge of being...”

“Oh, it’s not cause you’re a homo that I don’t want you there, although, right, that too,” Bobby replies, crossing his arms with entitled indignation. “I don’t want you there because you’re probably the worst person in this entire school. You’re one of the worst people I’ve ever met. You don’t go to church, you treat your parents with no respect, you walk around here like you’re god’s gift to the class of 1985 and you fail, on every level, to do a damn thing for anyone else around you. You treat everybody like they’re dirt, John, except for your little goth buddy here. You’re selfish, John. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met. How do you eve think you’d cut it in the Army?”

“Fuck you,” John replies, his stomach starting to churn, those words cutting deep.

Bobby leans down and grips the edge of the table, speaking very slowly now. “I’ve wanted to get in to West Point since I was eight, you bastard. I’ve been working towards it my whole life. You think you’re just going to waltz in and take it from me because you decide to, on a lark? You don’t deserve to be there, you’ve never done a single thing ...”

“And you do?” Chris snaps, jumping in to defend him like he always does.

“Yeah, I do. You know why...”

“I don’t give a shit why you...”

“You wouldn’t understand...”

“...call me a faggot again and...”

“...what you are...”

John can’t really hear them any more. They’re fading away. And something in him is ripping. It’s true. He knows it’s true. All of it...and his anger starts to bloom again. All the things that have happened in his life. All the things that haven’t. Some of it his fault, sure. But it all comes down in the end to the people who were supposed to be there for him, all the people who aren’t, who never will be, everybody who’s let him down his entire life, starting with his mom, his dad...even his dad...

He’s only ever had Chris, his one friend, all these years. He’s never been part of a team. He doesn’t know how to deal with people. He’s pushed everybody away, his whole life. He’s never learned how to get along with them. How is he supposed to lead anybody?

How the fuck could he possibly be an officer?

He stands up, very carefully, chair scratching across the scuffed floor. Loud enough for both of the other students to stop their arguing and look at him. John grabs his bookbag off the back of his chair and slides it up on his shoulder.

“You don’t need to worry about anything, Bobby. You’re right. I wouldn’t deserve something like that. I’m not going to mess up your dream,” he says softly, feeling utterly defeated, and starts walking away.

“John...” Chris begins.

“Fuck off!” he yells back over his shoulder. The librarian shoots him a nasty look, and he gives her the finger on his way out.

+++++

John’s laying on the floor in the back room of The Mountain’s Edge, staring up at the ceiling, trying not to think. Duchess is curled up next to him, massive head on his leg, whimpering a little, giving voice to his own inner turmoil like only a dog can do.

He’s not going to West Point. He’s not even going to try.

He’s been here, on the floor, for...a while. Since leaving school after the whole Bobby Reynolds bullshit. Tony was cool about it, like Tony’s cool with everything. Took one look at him and told him to go chill out in the back. John thought about asking him for pot - he knows the old hippie’s got some somewhere - but settled for a beer instead. But the can’s empty now, and his breath smells like cheap hops now, and he’s no closer to any kind of answer.

If there is an answer to have.

You’re the most selfish person I know...

He’s got no idea what the fuck he should be thinking about. But he does know there’s no fucking way he’s getting off this floor.

The shop door chimes, its little bell signaling the arrival of a customer. Duchess lifts her head, taking the weight off his leg, and John can hear talking out in the shop front. Probably somebody asking about ice crampons or something. But then Tony sticks his head into the back room.

“Hey, John, you know a guy named Russ Morrison?”

“No,” he sighs, rubbing a hand across his eyes. His back is starting to hurt, from laying on the bare concrete for this long, and his eyes really hurt, from staring up at the damn lights overhead. He’s not going to West Point. He’s going to stop torturing himself now, stop learning all these fucking things about his family, about himself. All this shit he doesn’t want to know. “No, I don’t.”

His employer shakes his head. “Well, he says he knows you...”

“Tell him to fucking leave, Tony!”

“I think I’ll stay, kid.”

He cranes his neck further around.

And yeah, Morrison’s right there. John groans, and flops back to staring at the ceiling.

Duchess picks herself up, trotting out, and Morrison says something too quiet to Tony for John to hear, and then the door closes.

They’re alone.

There’s a moment.

Silence.

And then Morrison nudges him with a foot. “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”

“Major...” John groans, brain trying to process why the fuck Morrison is here, how he could be here, how he would know...

“I come by to take you on a run, and you’re fucking laying on the floor?”

Answers that, and John feels his heart sink a bit. Of course. It’s not like the man knew, not like the man was worried about him...

“Yeah, looks like I am.” And even John’s a little taken aback by how bleak, how bitterly sarcastic, that sounds coming out of him.

Morrison, still standing above him, frowns a little, and drops down onto his heels, shoving his cowboy hat a bit further up on his head. He looks damn good in the thing, John thinks, and remembers Chris, trying to defend him in the library, what he said as he walked out, and hates himself more.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” John says, and finds the energy somehow to push himself off the floor. It gets him a better angle on the Ranger, an easier way to look into his eyes and say... “Fuck. No.”

Those eyes bore into him, cutting him open, laying him bare, and John has to look away, has to look down.

“I don’t deserve to be there,” he admits quietly, feeling empty, having to say it to this man, who’s been irrationally good to him. “I’m not a good person, major. Why the fuck would you want me at your school?”

Then Morrison does something nobody but Chris has ever done. He reaches out and pulls John into a hug.

It’s sudden. It’s also tight, close, awkward, and for a moment, John tries to fight his way out of it. But then the major’s rocking a little bit, pulling them around on the hard floor, making it all easier, making it comfortable. Making it good.

“You’ve got a choice to make here, kid,” Morrison whispers in his ear, fingers brushing softly through his hair, just once. “You can keep being this person you hate, this John Lewis, or you can change everything. You can make John Smith a good man.”

“I don’t... I don’t think I’d know how,” he whispers, hating himself for letting this man hold him like this, hating his own weakness, hating every single fucking thing about...

“We’ll work on it. I promise you, kid, we’ll work on it. But you have to want it,” the major murmurs, surprisingly gentle.

John presses his face into Morrison’s shirt. He can smell him like this. The scent of soap and musk off his skin, simple and comforting. He’d kill to become a man like this, strong and certain and possessed of this kind of clarity, this kind of faith... “I think it’s too late,” he replies, sniffling.

That hand’s back in his hair, fingers rubbing in slow circles. “Why don’t we start with whatever the fuck happened today.”

As a tear slides down his cheek, John does just that. He starts talking.

About everything. Not just Bobby Reynolds. About his mom and Jeff and his little monster of a brother. About the beatings and his room and the way he treats people at the school and the boxes of presents in the basement and the photo in the library today. Everything but Chris, everything but him, and then that escapes him too, and he's crying. Really crying, and John hates himself all over again.

But the longer he goes, the tighter those arms gets around him, the more soothing the murmurs of acknowledgment, the soft interjections and questions, and there’s a little voice in the back of his mind saying maybe, maybe, maybe...

+++++

Russ shifts a little on the cold concrete floor, his leg falling asleep under him, but he can’t move too far. John’s curled up against him, face to his shoulder. He can feel him breathing. Now that he’s gone silent.

And the Ranger’s got no idea what to think.

He’s seen his fair share of fucked-up situations. He’s got boys back home at Benning, corporals and sergeants, who have fucked-up pasts. He’s spent more hours than he cares to think about bailing his men out of jail downtown or responding to calls about domestic violence or issuing paperwork for stupid, stupid shit. He had a male-on-male rape on his watch one time, about three years ago. Russ is well familiar with the kinds of things even supposedly decent people can do to each other. But child abuse...child abuse is something he can’t countenance.

At all.

That stream of words that just poured out of the boy is damn near incomprehensible. Those adults he’s forced to live with, all the things they’ve done to him over the years... Russ feels a murderous anger in him. He’d like nothing more than to march over there right now and put Jeff Lewis in the fucking hospital, then prison, for what he’s done to this boy.

But that won’t solve a goddamn thing. Not for John. And it won’t absolve him of his own responsibility in this situation.

Russ feels so, so goddamn guilty.

If he’d known...

Against him, John is struggling to get his breathing under control, no doubt trying to reconcile with himself his willingness to cry on another man’s shoulder. Or maybe not, the Ranger tells himself, keeping his arms tight around the boy. Not if what the kid said about his...boyfriend... is true.

That should be the kicker. That should be an instant disqualification. If the kid’s really homosexual, Russ needs to walk away from this one entirely. Tell John that’s a deal-breaker. Go focus his attention on some other kid, one that doesn’t have all these damn issues and a loving family that’s going to give him the support he needs to get through West Point and a healthy interest in the opposite sex...

But he can’t.

Not just because it’d be hypocritical of him.

Not just because of his guilt.

Even if that is the reason he's here.

Russ still remembers John’s father. Master Sergeant John Ryan Smith. He was a mouthy sonofabitch, a bit too aggressive for his own good, but he’d never had a better NCO, before or since. The Army put him through training, sure, but it was Sergeant Smith who taught his ignorant lieutenant-ass how to be an officer, how to lead men, how to win their loyalty and the importance of returning it in kind. Sergeant Smith had been everything they tell you in training that an NCO is supposed to be, and if he’d lived, he probably would have retired as a Chief.

But Sergeant Smith wasn’t without his problems. He drank sometimes, drank a lot when he did, mostly around the holidays. He’d get drunk and get in fights, and Russ still remembers the day after Christmas in 1979, when he got the 0230 call from the MPs.

Still hung-over from the Christmas party at Panama’s O-Club, Russ had told them to fucking keep him in the drunk tank until morning, where he’d found him around lunchtime, dishelleveled and depressed.

“Tell me one reason why I shouldn’t leave you in here over the weekend, Smith,” he’d yawned, staring through the bars. “You’ve been doin’ this to me a lot lately. Can’t seem to keep you out of the bottle right now.”

He’d sighed. “It’s my kid, sir.”

Oh. Of course. His son again. That made sense. “Yeah?”

The sergeant shook his head. “His mother never forgave me for not dying over in ‘Nam.”

“Goddamn, Smith,” Russ groaned. They all knew about Smith’s kid. He’d never been subtle about that.

But he did only have the one photo, the baby photo of a cute little baby, wrapped up in a blue blanket, resting against his mother’s chest in the hospital. There was a story here, he suddenly realized. Some kind of deep pain. Something that probably needed to be given voice.

But calling the man out on it would get him nowhere, Morrison knew, and so he took a more subtle approach. He sat down on the bench opposite, faking a yawn as he lit up a cigarette and offered the pack to his sergeant. “This is a story I gotta hear, Sergeant.”

It came out slowly, over the length of that cigarette plus one more. She’d been the girl he’d crushed on all through high school, a year behind him in class, cute blonde thing, cheerleader, everything going for her. Everybody wanted her, including his best friend Jeff Lewis - they’d nearly come to blows a couple times, over who got to date her. He’d loved her, wanted to marry her. Then he turned 18 and got his draft card in the mail, the number way too low to avoid getting snapped up by Uncle Sam. So Smith had done what he believed was the right thing...

“Went down to the recruiting office and signed the fuck up. Told them I wanted special operations and if they didn’t like that, they could kiss my ass and I’d go next door to the Marines.”

“And they gave it to you?”

He’d laughed. “What do you think, captain?”

Smith had thought about it, talked to her folks, bought a ring. She’d cried, Joyce had, when he gave it to her in his truck, way out on some backroad, under the summer stars. She’d cried and kissed him and one thing led to another. It’d been his first time, and he knew, just knew, that she was the only women he’d ever love

Then his shipping-out date got moved up and so did the wedding, but she didn’t show up at the Justice of the Peace’s office, the day they’d agreed, and he’d been too stunned to go after her. He was horribly hurt. Ripped up a number of her letters, when they arrived, months later, out in Vietnam.

“But then I got the one of my kid,” Smith said, smiling up at the ceiling. “That baby photo. She said she’d named him after me. John Smith. Said he had my eyes.”

“But?” Russ prompted, blowing out a mouthful of smoke into the cell.

“You know how it is, captain, single gal alone with a baby like that? She got married as soon as she found out she was pregnant. To Jeff.” He’d sighed again. “I’ve trusted, all these years, that Jeff was treating them both okay...”

“But?”

“I don’t know. Something’s wrong, maybe. I never hear back from him, when I write or send something. And you’re going to think it’s crazy, but I had this dream this week...” He’d looked up, bleak. “You plan on having kids, captain?”

“No,” Russ has said flatly. There was no way he could. He had nothing against women, even if they didn’t do much for him in terms of sexual interest. Russ knew a few guys - had fucked a few guys - who got married and had families. But he hoped to hell he wasn’t capable of that, of promising things to a woman and betraying her in such a manner, telling her he loved her and then cheating like that. “No, never.”

“It’s almost like the kids we’ve got, the privates, I imagine,” and Smith smiled. “I want to make them all better men, you know? And I’d like the chance to do that for my own son. Boy needs a father. I want him to be a good man. And Jeff...”

“What’s goin’ on, John?” he asked, grinding his butt out on the concrete floor.

“I just need to go home, captain. I need some leave.”

“Utah?”

“Yeah, boss. Utah.”

“We’re in fucking Colombia...”

“There are hops. The Air Boys bubbas or the CIA has to have a C-130 or something back up to the States at some point, captain,” he’d said, not quite begging, but close enough for Russ to be taken aback. Smith was not a man overly given to emotion, even for the Army. “Please. Just approve my leave, I’ll figure it out from there.”

He’d sighed, thinking of how goddamn busy things were going to get. About the folder that had come across his desk, the day before. A new location, a new target, a careless mistake they were only going to be exploit for another week or so. “We’ve got a mission in two days, John. We’ll be out there a week, tops, and I need you on point. I need you with me. After that, though, you can have all the goddamn time you want, okay?”

Master Sergeant Smith had stood, smiling, every trace of the past half hour gone. “Roger that, Captain Morrison. Thanks.”

“Great,” he’d said, clapping the other man on the shoulder, “now go get a damn bath or something. You smell like a sty.”

And that, of course, was the mission where John Ryan Smith died.

Where his legs got blown clean off by a landmine. Where his life had bled out, pooled around him, dark and congealing, by the time they got to him. Where Russ had had to go back to their base and clean out his footlocker, everything John owned in the world, finding the photo of his son. That little baby boy, his whole life ahead of him.

Something’s wrong.

Smith’s voice had haunted his dreams for years.

Morrison had tried. He had. He had the footlocker packed up and shipped to the address in Provo, Utah. He’d tried to help with John’s life insurance and back pay and everything else that should have gone to his son, a John Lewis, according to the will on file with the Benning Legal Office. But Legal couldn’t find any John Lewis in Provo, Utah, and the money was subsumed by the system again. Morrison had called a number of times, trying to explain the situation, asking them to look for a John Smith instead, but it was too late. Fifty-thousand dollars that should have been that kid’s, money his sergeant had goddamn well earned, was gone.

He’d meant to go, just to be sure. He did. But then Colombia heated up and he lost two years to the jungles and then there had been the Philippines, the hospital in Okinawa, Africa, the hospital in Germany...and before he knew it, four and a half years had passed and he hadn’t taken a day of leave in all that time, at least, nothing enough to get him back to the States and into Utah.

Then his commander had thrown down an offer.

“Career-broadening, Morrison. We need to get you out of the field, into a staff job for a little while, if you want to make rank. I’ve got a list of places we could...”

There it was. His way to John Smith Junior. A fucking gift from god.

“Academy Liaison Officer,” he’d replied, casting an eye down the list, making sure he saw right. “Southern Utah.”

“Russell, that’s not exactly the best choice for...”

“Fuck my promotion,” he’d said, even though it pained him to say it. “That’s what I want. Liaison Officer.”

And now here he was, cradling his biggest mistake in his arms. What might this kid’s life had been like, if his father had gotten here five years ago? As a Master Sergeant, Smith might have landed himself a cushy desk job at Benning, or wherever he wanted, someplace he could have worked normal hours, a job that would have let him be there for his son. Legal probably could have gotten him full custody, especially with the abuse that had been going on. The teen might have been happy, might have been whole, might have had a chance...

It doesn’t bear thinking about. He’d beaten himself up for not letting Smith take his leave so many times over the years. And the night after they’d gone to Hill AFB, after the kid had admitted his step-dad beat him, Russ had gone back to his rental apartment in Salt Lake and drunk himself stupid. Too many regrets. Too much guilt.

But it wasn’t guilt that makes him want to do this for John Junior here. No. If the kid was worthless, he wouldn’t bother. But he’s not useless. He’s smart, very smart, and he’s obviously a survivor, if he’s made his way through the minefield of his life here in Provo. Athletic, too; Russ can feel good muscle through the kid’s threadbare shirt. And he’s hungry for a better life, desperate for it, and those men, oftentimes, make the best soldiers he’s ever known.

That’s all not really worth a West Point appointment, though. Not alone, anyway, not individually. And Major-Select Russell Morrison isn’t too keen on the entire concept of mercy. But there’s something more to the kid, Russ feels, something deep inside, fighting to get out. There’s a warrior in here, in the oldest sense of the word, something that might make him a general someday, if he can stop struggling against the world long enough to realize it. If the world would give him a break. Vast potential, in this boy. He was born for this job. He was born to be a soldier...

And deep down, very deep, Russ knows he wants it for himself, wants to harness it and train it and hone it to a killing edge and see it grow. He wants the kid, and he’s not entirely sure it’s altruistic, not even sure it’s entirely platonic. But Russ knows he can help the kid, goddammit, he can...

“You can let me go now,” John says, sniffling again, trying to push away.

Russ opens his arms, but the teen doesn’t move but to pull away from his chest. His blue eyes are rimmed in red, his skin flushed dark from crying, and he’s shaking a little.

Reaching for the carton in his pocket, Morrison pulls out a couple of cigarettes, lighting his own and holding the other out to John. “Looks like you could use this, son.”

“Th-thanks,” John says, and Russ lights it for him as he brings it to his lips. They sit there in silence for a moment or two, filling the air around them with coils of smoke, before the teen damn near crushes the filter, grinding it between his fingers. “Major, I don’t want you to think that I’m...”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Russ says easily, trying not to think about how cold he feels without that kid’s bulk against him. “A big part of my job is listening. I’ve talked to my guys about everything from a cheating wife to suicidal thoughts to what kind of carburator they’re installing in their project car. You’ll be amazed how often you’ll see men cry. There’s nothing wrong with it...”

John shakes his head. “I mean... you asked me, that first day, if I was a fag, and I obviously...”

“Everything you do in life kid, anything worth doing, involves sacrifice. The Army probably most of all. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

He looks down at the glowing end of his cigarette. “Sacrifice?”

“Yeah,” Russ says, thinking about his own empty apartment, furtive handjobs in back alleys that have to last him for months. “Sacrifice.”

“Is it worth it?” John asks, puffing away. “For god and country and all that bullshit?”

The Ranger thinks about that for a moment. Is it? No lover, no family...but then he smiles. All the places he’s gone. The world he’s seen. The bad guys he’s killed. The time given to his men, men like John’s father, men like John, men who’ve needed a shoulder to cry on or a challenge to works towards. The good that’s ultimately come of it all. “Yeah, kid. It’s worth it.”

John rolls that cigarette, still nervous, but the nicotine seems to be calming his raw nerves. “Am...am I worth it?”

“Yeah, John,” Russ replies softly, realizing how goddamn true it is as he says it. “Yeah, you’re worth it, too.”

Those ice-blue eyes blink at him once, and then John twitches a bit. The major picks it up instantly, and holds out an arm, letting the teen fall back in to his side, pliant as a sack of potatoes. Morrison dares, just for a moment, running his fingers through soft hair, not at all wondering what it might be like if he...

“I’ll keep working on my application,” he whispers.

“Yeah, John,” Russ murmurs back. “I know you will.”

+++++

John’s locking up the shop, the night star bright overhead in the cold, clean sky, when he gets tackled from behind.

“Hurry the fuck up, John!” Chris laughs. “It’s fucking freezing out here!”

The senior turns around, catching him around the waist and kissing him on the temple. It’s true. It is freezing, and there’s not even any snow to make it worthwhile. “If you’d not do that, I could...”

Chris bites at his ear. “Just hurry up.”

John was worried, after the incident in the library, that the junior wouldn’t want anything more to do with him. After he’d finished sobbing his life story into Morrison’s surprisingly sympathetic shoulder, after he’d found the strength to stand up on his own, he’d asked Tony for the rest of the day off and run down to Chris’ house. He’d found his friend sprawled out on his bed, Rainbow on the fucking turntable, muddy boots up on his sheets. He’d been upset, Chris, pouting like he usually did. But the conversation had ended when he’d kissed the other boy and taken him down to the bed again and they’d lain there together for a little while, making out, feeling each other...

That afternoon with Morrison had put a lot of things into perspective for him. Like the fact that, to a certain degree, Bobby Reynolds had been right about him, yet that wasn’t a death sentence. It didn’t mean he couldn’t change.

So he’d been making an effort. Being less condescending. Stopping some of the sarcastic comments he seemed to default to. Trying to be a little more polite, when people talked to him. One or two of his teachers had noticed, told him they appreciated it. Even Tony had commented on it.

“Whatever that Morrison fella said to you the other day, John...seems like it was a good thing for ya.”

He’d smiled back. “Yeah, Tony, I think it was.”

He’s got the application almost completely together. After his talk with Morrison four or five days ago, he put the effort into it. Got it finished. Even got those letters off to the Congressmen, mailed from the shop, and Tony promised he’d keep an eye out for any responses. Everything’s going to plan, on schedule, working just fine...

But he still doesn’t have that first essay question.

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.

It’s really starting to stress him out.

The lock clicks and there Chris is, still wrapped around him as they walk away. Out of the parking lot, though, it’s not safe. They separate. John feels instantly colder.

"Good-night, then?" he asks, uncomfortable.

Chris sighs. "Got homework to do. If I do it.”

“You should,” John says. “Maybe go to college yourself next year...”

The junior is supposed to go right at the street, John left, but they pause at the curb, an awkward foot or so between them. Chris kicks at the ground, his hands jammed in his back pockets, looking up at the sky.

“Naw,” he finally says. “I’m not cut out for it. I’d like to move to New York City or something. You know, be in a place where I can be what I am and no little god-boys are running around, telling me I’m going to hell for it.”

John chews the inside of his lip. New York. Yeah, there’s supposed to be a pretty big gay community in New York. He could even see Chris, if everything works out okay. But still...he doesn’t know why that makes him a little nervous. “New York’s expensive, Chris.”

“You’ve got your dreams, John, and I’ve got mine,” he sighs, and starts off.

John watches him go for a moment, wondering what the hell that was about, and turns for home.