Paper Doll - Part Five of Ten
Sep. 15th, 2011 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Face/OMC, Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of domestic violence and underage
Summary:
Six months after the events of that fateful afternoon, Templeton still can’t forget John...
Templeton leaned his forehead against the cold glass of his wide bay window, twisting the ring on his ring index finger, staring out across the snowy grounds. The staff was out there now, rigging up lights through the trees, hanging red and green from every bough, dusting the new layer of white from the wide decks below. Decorating for the Lynchs’ annual Christmas party, set for a few days hence.
He sighed, thinking back on it again, their last conversation, his and John’s, the bitter words that he could not make go any other way. A hundred times it seemed to Templeton, that he’d tried to go back and figure out a different thing to say, make John’s voice say something different, but no matter how many times those voices in his head said I’m sorry, John, please don’t go, don’t or I’ll leave with you, kid, we’ll leave together, Templeton couldn’t change the facts.
He couldn’t make John speak to him again.
He couldn’t bring John back to him.
He couldn't go back to John.
It had been hard, that night, bathing and going downstairs, walking in to something that should have been happy. The papers had been signed, hands had been shaken, scotch poured. Laughter and stories. It should have been glorious, his acceptance into the family, such as it could be. But it wasn’t the looks Vance was casting his way, sickly sweet, or the genuine smile on the Colonel’s face that had turned it all to ash for him. It was the knowledge that he’d betrayed someone who’d loved him, it was the memory of the look on John’s face, so devoid of anything, even grief, that made the evening as terrible as it had been. And afterward, after they went to bed, when they were lying there together, when the Colonel slipped that heavy gold ring onto his right hand, when the Colonel was whispering in his ear about you’re mine, darling boy, mine...
Well. Templeton knew he’d never see the gardener again.
He couldn’t. Couldn’t do that to himself. Not after everything that was said. Not after he’d proven himself to be the whore that John already knew him to be.
Templeton still found himself wandering the grounds though, some days, wondering if maybe he could catch a glimpse, if they could meet like they had that first day, by accident, by the most wonderful accident, if he could apologize, if John could forgive him...
But John was never there. Templeton could never find him. Ever. Murdock wouldn’t help him, Bosco refused to take a note, and he couldn’t very well talk to any of the other staff about it. Templeton exhausted everything he knew to do. After a few months of trying, when the air started turning cool and the leaves began to turn, after months of meaningless socials with Vance and encounters with Charisa, attending plays in Manhattan and concerts in Brooklyn, after so many long nights in the Colonel’s bed, Templeton lost hope completely one evening. Backside burning with pain, a ring of bruises around his neck, unable to sleep, he felt like he felt that day the will had been signed.
Empty.
He’d gone to Murdock the next day, found the man polishing the good silver with one of his sock puppet friends, said about three words of greeting and then broken down in tears.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” the Texan had asked, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
It washed over him from there, threatening to wash him away. He’d collapsed in a heap on the floor, sorrow coming hard and fast, the only thing anchoring him to the world Murdock’s arm for a long, long time.
“I lost him,” he’d said, once he’d been able to form words again. “I lost him...”
Murdock had patted his shoulder. “He’s here, Temp. He’s always been here.”
And that was when he realized, when he understood, when he’d figured it all out. When things had started to get a little better.
He couldn’t feel it for the Colonel, that murderously deep love he thought he’d had for John. There was no love there with the Colonel, not for him, no love given, just as John had said there wouldn’t be.
But Templeton knew he could live with that. He’d lived without it so long. He could live without it again.
He had to forget what he’d felt for John, pretend it never was, move on from the man he couldn’t have to the man he could, to the Colonel...
That revelation was liberating. Numbing. Made it all okay. The nights, the days, the drinking, the partying. He could enjoy it all again. Free to find happiness, Templeton told himself, and some days, on those very good days, he could almost believe it.
Except for all the days, like today, where he found himself staring out the windows on the grounds, ring cold on his hand, wondering if that tall figure he saw each evening, just beyond the hedges, could be John, wondering if John was watching him, wondering if John had had to hide those feelings away, wondering if John felt as empty as he did...
“You’re a goddamned fool, Templeton Peck,” he growled at himself, and pushed off the window. He was needed downstairs, helping Murdock with the details, and all this contemplation would do him no good. So he turned up the collar on his heavy overcoat and headed out, leaving behind the window and his only glimpse of something he’d once thought he could have.
+++++
“Is everything ready?”
Templeton looked up from his evening book, over at where the Colonel was just coming out of the bathroom, and shifted his naked body a little further into the sheets. “Checked it out with Murdock myself, sir. Looks like all the preparations are in order, the kitchen’s fully stocked, everybody knows their jobs...”
The Colonel chuckled and unwound the towel around his waist, throwing it carelessly behind him. His cock was soft against his thigh, which at least meant there was probably going to be nothing tonight. Which suited Templeton just fine. He was tired from the day, from the long day of trying to keep Murdock on task as the holiday’s decorations were brought from storage. It was amazing, the splendor of it all, the sparkle and the colors, and they’d spent more time playing than working, but still.
“What did I do before I had you, Templeton?” the Colonel chuckled, sliding in to bed next to him, reaching over to ruffle the younger man’ hair. “You’ve been doing an amazing job with the household.”
“It’s still Murdock’s purview, the house.”
“Yes, but I love how you’ve been taking an interest, making things happen, keeping them smooth. It’s all very domestic of you, my darling boy,” and a kiss was planted on his cheek. “It will be so nice, to have you here through the Christmas season. Like a proper family again, you and my son, all of us together...”
“A family?” Templeton repeated, turning that word over in his head. He didn’t think of Vance as family. The other man was friendly, more so since he’d made his application to the new Bureau of Investigation. He’d be moving down to Washington DC in the spring, to work at their headquarters, which meant he’d be out of New York, and away from Templeton. The blonde didn’t like the way his professed cousin talked to him, treated him. Too kindly, somehow, too sarcastic, certainly. After his initial threats, it made Templeton very suspicious. And Vance would be here tomorrow, staying through the new year. The very idea of it sent chills down his spine, and he didn’t know why.
“Yes, Templeton, my boy. A family,” the Colonel smiled, and rubbed his knuckles against the younger man’s cheek. “You never had one, I know. But you are my family now. I wish you would believe me...”
“Sir...” he groaned, filled with a desire, the same desire he’d had a dozen times before, to get up and leave, just leave it all behind him, walk away until his feet wouldn’t carry him any more.
“No, no, Templeton. You are my family,” the older man continued to urge, turning him around and pulling him close. “You are my family, but I sense this gap between us, as if you’re holding back from me. I wish all of you, my sweet boy. Don’t hide some part of you away from me.”
Something flared up in Templeton as those words, at the kind look in his lover’s eyes, watching him so carefully. Maybe this was it, he thought. Maybe John had been wrong, maybe the Colonel did love him after all.
“Sir, I...”
A finger touched to his lips, silencing him. “Shh, dear boy, none of that. You know what I want to hear from you.” A hand slid across his body, under the sheets, circling down. “You know what you wish to say to me, what you want to give me in return for all the happiness we’ve brought to each other’s lives.”
Happiness? “You’re pleased with me, then, sir,” Templeton purred, trying as he always tried, longing for that word to cross his man’s lips, wondering if maybe this was the night he would hear it, know, prove John wrong, prove that the loss of him hadn’t all been for naught...
“Exceedingly so, darling boy.”
Templeton wrapped his hands up around the Colonel’s wrist and sucked in that finger, still laying against his mouth, letting his lips wrap around it and sucking as he pulled it through, suggesting, teasing, getting a small gasp of approval from the older man. His heart started pounding. This is it, Templeton thought, his cock starting to rise, excitement pounding through his blood. Perhaps this was the moment he could...he could finally...
So he looked up into the Colonel’s eyes and smiled, sweet as he could, as a hair slipped around to caress his head. “I...this thing between us, I’ve always wished...” And he laid a hand on the older man’s chest, moving in a little, heart pounding, scared, thrilled. “Colonel, I...”
“Yes, my dear boy?”
“Being here, with you, like this, in peace and comfort, Peter, has been...”
...the happiest time of my life...
That’s what Templeton wanted to say. That’s what he wanted to be true. It was what he so desperately needed. It was what he thought the Colonel had given him permission for.
But that wasn't to be.
The older man lifted his broad body, tearing the sheets and blankets down, the cold air of the house instantly prickling Templeton’s skin into goosebumps, but it wasn’t the air that made his blood run cold.
It was the look on the Colonel’s face.
“What did you call me, boy?” he asked mildly.
Templeton felt the adrenalin start spiking, a rush of fire through his body, sweeping his strength away, leaving him shaking and exposed. “P-peter...” he said quietly.
The Colonel swung up over him, his weight a crushing force now, grinding down onto the young man’s pelvis, a hand sweeping up to his throat. And when he spoke, his voice was hard as iron, cool and collected, calm. Terrifingly calm.
“Did you just use my Christian name, Templeton?”
It was the same voice he used when they’d caught a group of Germans behind their lines, Templeton remembered crazily, and for a moment, all he could see was that basement in France, the smell of blood on the walls, blood on his uniform, splattered out from the man tied to the chair again and again, the rough sounds of that language echoing across the bricked walls as the Colonel gently urged the captain to hit harder, hit faster.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, couldn’t not answer that question. “Sir...”
“Did. You. Use. My. Christian. Name?”
The last word was louder, almost a yell, and Templeton found himself flinching, head falling to the side, helpless. “Sir, please, I thought...”
“It is not your place to think, Templeton,” the Colonel said in that same calm, dead tone, his fingers just starting to squeeze. “Did I give you permission to use my name?“
The young man breathed out, hard, and tried, despite himself, to push up. This was going to get bad. This was going to get very bad. But hell take it, he was babbling. “Sir, we’ve been together so long, you say I’m family, I believe...I want to be here with you, share your life...”
“I’ve taken care of you, dear boy,” the Colonel murmured thoughtfully, teeth scraping along his neck now. “I took you in and cared for you when you were alone, when you had nobody,” and his hand squeezed, tight as a hangman’s noose, tone unchanging, “when nobody else wanted you, a goddamn street urchin, destined for a brutal life and a nasty death. I saved you from that, me. I own you, Templeton Peck, I own all that you are, everything you ever will be. Do you understand me?”
Templeton gasped, his limbs starting to twitch as the air in his lungs went bad and could not be replaced. “Co-colonel...”
He was thrust back into the mattress, hard and brutal, no niceties pretended now, pillows knocked away, sheets kicked off, and his watering eyes caught a hand cocked up, ready to strike.
“Do you understand me!?!” the Colonel thundered.
Templeton’s hands grabbed at the Colonel’s of their own according, needing air, needing to breathe, and his vision was starting to narrow. He had no leverage, no way to throw the other man off of him, no way to escape from this...
And John’s voice broke through as he felt himself falling into the blackness, the memory of that last warm day, when everything was already crumbling.
Kid, here’s the thing you need to understand about the Colonel. He will kill you if he thinks...
He wouldn’t...He loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me...
Templeton felt a tear roll down his cheek, grief for not listening, grief for not believing the man who’d tried to love him, the man he’d shoved away, ignored, words gone unheeded until now...
But amazingly, that hand and that weight and that man pulled back. Templeton’s body jerked up automatically, coughing and hacking, folding double, drooling into the Egyptian cotton sheets, oxygen rushing back into his bloodstream.
A touch at the back of his neck, and he half-expected it to be John, until the Colonel spoke again and shattered the illusion.
“I don’t wish to hurt you, Templeton,” he said, voice soft again, the hint of threat still there, but far less obvious now. “I wish you everything good in the world, but you must know your place in order to achieve that.”
His throat felt raw, bruised, horribly sore, and the younger man had to flip his entire body over in order to look up at the Colonel. He was still crying, to his shame, but at the very least, that hard anger was softening. And right then and there, staring up into the Colonel’s dark eyes, Templeton knew what this was.
Knew exadtly what he had to do.
“To take such liberties with your superiors, boy, is a very terrible offense indeed,” the older man said, hands starting to roam again, touching every part of him. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am,” he said, the words catching against the abused muscles of his throat. “I am...I am very ashamed...” Cheeks burning, Templeton let himself curl up, hide his face, submit to the Colonel utterly, let those old conman muscles flex, just a little bit. “I am sorry, sir. It’s just, I love being here with you, I love you so much, and I wanted...” He let another tear leave him, the very picture, he hoped, of misery. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry...”
The Colonel laid down beside him then, pressed against his back, hand on his waist, lips at his ear. “I know you are. I can see it.” A finger caught one of his tears and wiped it away. “I can see how sorry you are.”
Templeton took a deep breath, slightly exaggerated, and let his head fall back, eyes closed. “I love you, sir,” he said, hating himself for saying it, hating himself for everything. “I love you and I want to be here. Please don’t throw me out, not right now, I don’t want to die in some cold alley in the snow...”
“I have no wish to cast you out.” A kiss on the back of his neck, and Templeton tried to keep himself pliant, sad and weak, as his anger suddenly flared. “It was a mistake that I shall forgive...”
Templeton sniffed, and wiped a hand across his face. “Thank you, thank you, sir...”
“But I cannot sleep with you tonight. Not as angry as you’ve made me,” the older man said, pulling back, and Templeton turned, blinking wet lashes. “You are not welcome in my bed tonight.”
He nodded, trying not to betray the relief rushing through him. “I understand, sir. I’ll adjorn to my own room, and...”
“You’ll do no such thing, my boy,” the Colonel said, and pointed towards the foot of the grand bed. “You’ll sleep there tonight.”
“Sir, I...”
A hand, the same hand that had nearly choked the life from him before, caressed his cheek, fingers easy. “You must learn your place, Templeton.”
There were a hundred things he could do, Templeton knew, most of them ending in the Colonel’s death and his own escape. But that would solve nothing. He’d come to know Vance’s friend Brock nearly as well as Vance himself, and the short, dark man was indeed one of the best PIs in New York. He would track him to Mexico, or Canada, or back to Europe, if that’s what it took. If the man who’d named him primary in his will was found dead. If he was found to have fled, pinning some other crime on him instead. Fighting wasn’t an option.
So Templeton pushed himself up, head down, and crawled down off the bed without a single protest. “I am so sorry, Colonel,” he murmured, standing by the side, wearing his most dejected look. “Please, please tell me you won’t change your mind, that I won’t lose you in the morning...”
“Come here, boy,” the Colonel said with a gentle smile, and pushed up to kiss his forehead. “Rest assured, you will remain under my roof."
“Thank you,” he said, more glad there as a rug on the hardwood floor and warm embers in the near fireplace than anything else. And as Templeton stretched himself out there, the Colonel switching the bedside lamp off, plunging the room into darkness, he stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought. Working through this thing in his mind. Letting old instincts guide him once again.
By dawn, when the embers went cold, when he was shivering but no longer scared, he had no solution, no solid plan, but one single thought finally fell into place.
Clarity.
That there was somebody here he could go to for help. One man he could turn to for assistance. One man who knew the Colonel, and his son, and this place, better than any other. One who’d once wanted him to follow the very path of action he now had to take.
“John,” he whispered up at the beams above, finger tapping on his chest. “Would you help me now?”
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of domestic violence and underage
Summary:
Six months after the events of that fateful afternoon, Templeton still can’t forget John...
Templeton leaned his forehead against the cold glass of his wide bay window, twisting the ring on his ring index finger, staring out across the snowy grounds. The staff was out there now, rigging up lights through the trees, hanging red and green from every bough, dusting the new layer of white from the wide decks below. Decorating for the Lynchs’ annual Christmas party, set for a few days hence.
He sighed, thinking back on it again, their last conversation, his and John’s, the bitter words that he could not make go any other way. A hundred times it seemed to Templeton, that he’d tried to go back and figure out a different thing to say, make John’s voice say something different, but no matter how many times those voices in his head said I’m sorry, John, please don’t go, don’t or I’ll leave with you, kid, we’ll leave together, Templeton couldn’t change the facts.
He couldn’t make John speak to him again.
He couldn’t bring John back to him.
He couldn't go back to John.
It had been hard, that night, bathing and going downstairs, walking in to something that should have been happy. The papers had been signed, hands had been shaken, scotch poured. Laughter and stories. It should have been glorious, his acceptance into the family, such as it could be. But it wasn’t the looks Vance was casting his way, sickly sweet, or the genuine smile on the Colonel’s face that had turned it all to ash for him. It was the knowledge that he’d betrayed someone who’d loved him, it was the memory of the look on John’s face, so devoid of anything, even grief, that made the evening as terrible as it had been. And afterward, after they went to bed, when they were lying there together, when the Colonel slipped that heavy gold ring onto his right hand, when the Colonel was whispering in his ear about you’re mine, darling boy, mine...
Well. Templeton knew he’d never see the gardener again.
He couldn’t. Couldn’t do that to himself. Not after everything that was said. Not after he’d proven himself to be the whore that John already knew him to be.
Templeton still found himself wandering the grounds though, some days, wondering if maybe he could catch a glimpse, if they could meet like they had that first day, by accident, by the most wonderful accident, if he could apologize, if John could forgive him...
But John was never there. Templeton could never find him. Ever. Murdock wouldn’t help him, Bosco refused to take a note, and he couldn’t very well talk to any of the other staff about it. Templeton exhausted everything he knew to do. After a few months of trying, when the air started turning cool and the leaves began to turn, after months of meaningless socials with Vance and encounters with Charisa, attending plays in Manhattan and concerts in Brooklyn, after so many long nights in the Colonel’s bed, Templeton lost hope completely one evening. Backside burning with pain, a ring of bruises around his neck, unable to sleep, he felt like he felt that day the will had been signed.
Empty.
He’d gone to Murdock the next day, found the man polishing the good silver with one of his sock puppet friends, said about three words of greeting and then broken down in tears.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” the Texan had asked, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
It washed over him from there, threatening to wash him away. He’d collapsed in a heap on the floor, sorrow coming hard and fast, the only thing anchoring him to the world Murdock’s arm for a long, long time.
“I lost him,” he’d said, once he’d been able to form words again. “I lost him...”
Murdock had patted his shoulder. “He’s here, Temp. He’s always been here.”
And that was when he realized, when he understood, when he’d figured it all out. When things had started to get a little better.
He couldn’t feel it for the Colonel, that murderously deep love he thought he’d had for John. There was no love there with the Colonel, not for him, no love given, just as John had said there wouldn’t be.
But Templeton knew he could live with that. He’d lived without it so long. He could live without it again.
He had to forget what he’d felt for John, pretend it never was, move on from the man he couldn’t have to the man he could, to the Colonel...
That revelation was liberating. Numbing. Made it all okay. The nights, the days, the drinking, the partying. He could enjoy it all again. Free to find happiness, Templeton told himself, and some days, on those very good days, he could almost believe it.
Except for all the days, like today, where he found himself staring out the windows on the grounds, ring cold on his hand, wondering if that tall figure he saw each evening, just beyond the hedges, could be John, wondering if John was watching him, wondering if John had had to hide those feelings away, wondering if John felt as empty as he did...
“You’re a goddamned fool, Templeton Peck,” he growled at himself, and pushed off the window. He was needed downstairs, helping Murdock with the details, and all this contemplation would do him no good. So he turned up the collar on his heavy overcoat and headed out, leaving behind the window and his only glimpse of something he’d once thought he could have.
+++++
“Is everything ready?”
Templeton looked up from his evening book, over at where the Colonel was just coming out of the bathroom, and shifted his naked body a little further into the sheets. “Checked it out with Murdock myself, sir. Looks like all the preparations are in order, the kitchen’s fully stocked, everybody knows their jobs...”
The Colonel chuckled and unwound the towel around his waist, throwing it carelessly behind him. His cock was soft against his thigh, which at least meant there was probably going to be nothing tonight. Which suited Templeton just fine. He was tired from the day, from the long day of trying to keep Murdock on task as the holiday’s decorations were brought from storage. It was amazing, the splendor of it all, the sparkle and the colors, and they’d spent more time playing than working, but still.
“What did I do before I had you, Templeton?” the Colonel chuckled, sliding in to bed next to him, reaching over to ruffle the younger man’ hair. “You’ve been doing an amazing job with the household.”
“It’s still Murdock’s purview, the house.”
“Yes, but I love how you’ve been taking an interest, making things happen, keeping them smooth. It’s all very domestic of you, my darling boy,” and a kiss was planted on his cheek. “It will be so nice, to have you here through the Christmas season. Like a proper family again, you and my son, all of us together...”
“A family?” Templeton repeated, turning that word over in his head. He didn’t think of Vance as family. The other man was friendly, more so since he’d made his application to the new Bureau of Investigation. He’d be moving down to Washington DC in the spring, to work at their headquarters, which meant he’d be out of New York, and away from Templeton. The blonde didn’t like the way his professed cousin talked to him, treated him. Too kindly, somehow, too sarcastic, certainly. After his initial threats, it made Templeton very suspicious. And Vance would be here tomorrow, staying through the new year. The very idea of it sent chills down his spine, and he didn’t know why.
“Yes, Templeton, my boy. A family,” the Colonel smiled, and rubbed his knuckles against the younger man’s cheek. “You never had one, I know. But you are my family now. I wish you would believe me...”
“Sir...” he groaned, filled with a desire, the same desire he’d had a dozen times before, to get up and leave, just leave it all behind him, walk away until his feet wouldn’t carry him any more.
“No, no, Templeton. You are my family,” the older man continued to urge, turning him around and pulling him close. “You are my family, but I sense this gap between us, as if you’re holding back from me. I wish all of you, my sweet boy. Don’t hide some part of you away from me.”
Something flared up in Templeton as those words, at the kind look in his lover’s eyes, watching him so carefully. Maybe this was it, he thought. Maybe John had been wrong, maybe the Colonel did love him after all.
“Sir, I...”
A finger touched to his lips, silencing him. “Shh, dear boy, none of that. You know what I want to hear from you.” A hand slid across his body, under the sheets, circling down. “You know what you wish to say to me, what you want to give me in return for all the happiness we’ve brought to each other’s lives.”
Happiness? “You’re pleased with me, then, sir,” Templeton purred, trying as he always tried, longing for that word to cross his man’s lips, wondering if maybe this was the night he would hear it, know, prove John wrong, prove that the loss of him hadn’t all been for naught...
“Exceedingly so, darling boy.”
Templeton wrapped his hands up around the Colonel’s wrist and sucked in that finger, still laying against his mouth, letting his lips wrap around it and sucking as he pulled it through, suggesting, teasing, getting a small gasp of approval from the older man. His heart started pounding. This is it, Templeton thought, his cock starting to rise, excitement pounding through his blood. Perhaps this was the moment he could...he could finally...
So he looked up into the Colonel’s eyes and smiled, sweet as he could, as a hair slipped around to caress his head. “I...this thing between us, I’ve always wished...” And he laid a hand on the older man’s chest, moving in a little, heart pounding, scared, thrilled. “Colonel, I...”
“Yes, my dear boy?”
“Being here, with you, like this, in peace and comfort, Peter, has been...”
...the happiest time of my life...
That’s what Templeton wanted to say. That’s what he wanted to be true. It was what he so desperately needed. It was what he thought the Colonel had given him permission for.
But that wasn't to be.
The older man lifted his broad body, tearing the sheets and blankets down, the cold air of the house instantly prickling Templeton’s skin into goosebumps, but it wasn’t the air that made his blood run cold.
It was the look on the Colonel’s face.
“What did you call me, boy?” he asked mildly.
Templeton felt the adrenalin start spiking, a rush of fire through his body, sweeping his strength away, leaving him shaking and exposed. “P-peter...” he said quietly.
The Colonel swung up over him, his weight a crushing force now, grinding down onto the young man’s pelvis, a hand sweeping up to his throat. And when he spoke, his voice was hard as iron, cool and collected, calm. Terrifingly calm.
“Did you just use my Christian name, Templeton?”
It was the same voice he used when they’d caught a group of Germans behind their lines, Templeton remembered crazily, and for a moment, all he could see was that basement in France, the smell of blood on the walls, blood on his uniform, splattered out from the man tied to the chair again and again, the rough sounds of that language echoing across the bricked walls as the Colonel gently urged the captain to hit harder, hit faster.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, couldn’t not answer that question. “Sir...”
“Did. You. Use. My. Christian. Name?”
The last word was louder, almost a yell, and Templeton found himself flinching, head falling to the side, helpless. “Sir, please, I thought...”
“It is not your place to think, Templeton,” the Colonel said in that same calm, dead tone, his fingers just starting to squeeze. “Did I give you permission to use my name?“
The young man breathed out, hard, and tried, despite himself, to push up. This was going to get bad. This was going to get very bad. But hell take it, he was babbling. “Sir, we’ve been together so long, you say I’m family, I believe...I want to be here with you, share your life...”
“I’ve taken care of you, dear boy,” the Colonel murmured thoughtfully, teeth scraping along his neck now. “I took you in and cared for you when you were alone, when you had nobody,” and his hand squeezed, tight as a hangman’s noose, tone unchanging, “when nobody else wanted you, a goddamn street urchin, destined for a brutal life and a nasty death. I saved you from that, me. I own you, Templeton Peck, I own all that you are, everything you ever will be. Do you understand me?”
Templeton gasped, his limbs starting to twitch as the air in his lungs went bad and could not be replaced. “Co-colonel...”
He was thrust back into the mattress, hard and brutal, no niceties pretended now, pillows knocked away, sheets kicked off, and his watering eyes caught a hand cocked up, ready to strike.
“Do you understand me!?!” the Colonel thundered.
Templeton’s hands grabbed at the Colonel’s of their own according, needing air, needing to breathe, and his vision was starting to narrow. He had no leverage, no way to throw the other man off of him, no way to escape from this...
And John’s voice broke through as he felt himself falling into the blackness, the memory of that last warm day, when everything was already crumbling.
Kid, here’s the thing you need to understand about the Colonel. He will kill you if he thinks...
He wouldn’t...He loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me...
Templeton felt a tear roll down his cheek, grief for not listening, grief for not believing the man who’d tried to love him, the man he’d shoved away, ignored, words gone unheeded until now...
But amazingly, that hand and that weight and that man pulled back. Templeton’s body jerked up automatically, coughing and hacking, folding double, drooling into the Egyptian cotton sheets, oxygen rushing back into his bloodstream.
A touch at the back of his neck, and he half-expected it to be John, until the Colonel spoke again and shattered the illusion.
“I don’t wish to hurt you, Templeton,” he said, voice soft again, the hint of threat still there, but far less obvious now. “I wish you everything good in the world, but you must know your place in order to achieve that.”
His throat felt raw, bruised, horribly sore, and the younger man had to flip his entire body over in order to look up at the Colonel. He was still crying, to his shame, but at the very least, that hard anger was softening. And right then and there, staring up into the Colonel’s dark eyes, Templeton knew what this was.
Knew exadtly what he had to do.
“To take such liberties with your superiors, boy, is a very terrible offense indeed,” the older man said, hands starting to roam again, touching every part of him. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am,” he said, the words catching against the abused muscles of his throat. “I am...I am very ashamed...” Cheeks burning, Templeton let himself curl up, hide his face, submit to the Colonel utterly, let those old conman muscles flex, just a little bit. “I am sorry, sir. It’s just, I love being here with you, I love you so much, and I wanted...” He let another tear leave him, the very picture, he hoped, of misery. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry...”
The Colonel laid down beside him then, pressed against his back, hand on his waist, lips at his ear. “I know you are. I can see it.” A finger caught one of his tears and wiped it away. “I can see how sorry you are.”
Templeton took a deep breath, slightly exaggerated, and let his head fall back, eyes closed. “I love you, sir,” he said, hating himself for saying it, hating himself for everything. “I love you and I want to be here. Please don’t throw me out, not right now, I don’t want to die in some cold alley in the snow...”
“I have no wish to cast you out.” A kiss on the back of his neck, and Templeton tried to keep himself pliant, sad and weak, as his anger suddenly flared. “It was a mistake that I shall forgive...”
Templeton sniffed, and wiped a hand across his face. “Thank you, thank you, sir...”
“But I cannot sleep with you tonight. Not as angry as you’ve made me,” the older man said, pulling back, and Templeton turned, blinking wet lashes. “You are not welcome in my bed tonight.”
He nodded, trying not to betray the relief rushing through him. “I understand, sir. I’ll adjorn to my own room, and...”
“You’ll do no such thing, my boy,” the Colonel said, and pointed towards the foot of the grand bed. “You’ll sleep there tonight.”
“Sir, I...”
A hand, the same hand that had nearly choked the life from him before, caressed his cheek, fingers easy. “You must learn your place, Templeton.”
There were a hundred things he could do, Templeton knew, most of them ending in the Colonel’s death and his own escape. But that would solve nothing. He’d come to know Vance’s friend Brock nearly as well as Vance himself, and the short, dark man was indeed one of the best PIs in New York. He would track him to Mexico, or Canada, or back to Europe, if that’s what it took. If the man who’d named him primary in his will was found dead. If he was found to have fled, pinning some other crime on him instead. Fighting wasn’t an option.
So Templeton pushed himself up, head down, and crawled down off the bed without a single protest. “I am so sorry, Colonel,” he murmured, standing by the side, wearing his most dejected look. “Please, please tell me you won’t change your mind, that I won’t lose you in the morning...”
“Come here, boy,” the Colonel said with a gentle smile, and pushed up to kiss his forehead. “Rest assured, you will remain under my roof."
“Thank you,” he said, more glad there as a rug on the hardwood floor and warm embers in the near fireplace than anything else. And as Templeton stretched himself out there, the Colonel switching the bedside lamp off, plunging the room into darkness, he stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought. Working through this thing in his mind. Letting old instincts guide him once again.
By dawn, when the embers went cold, when he was shivering but no longer scared, he had no solution, no solid plan, but one single thought finally fell into place.
Clarity.
That there was somebody here he could go to for help. One man he could turn to for assistance. One man who knew the Colonel, and his son, and this place, better than any other. One who’d once wanted him to follow the very path of action he now had to take.
“John,” he whispered up at the beams above, finger tapping on his chest. “Would you help me now?”
