Paper Doll - Part Eight of Ten
Sep. 15th, 2011 07:15 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:
Christmas approaches, the time for John’s plan to swing into action, and then an unexpected variable mixes it all up, once again...
Templeton shoved his hands in his pockets, shivering without his jacket, following Bosco down to the garage.
It was still freezing outside, but most of the snow had been swept away for the party this evening. There was an army of staff and hired help, putting last-minute touches on decorations, inside and out. Murdock was running around the kitchens, making sure everything was just so. Templeton had just come from there, laughing, trying to get the butler calmed down about the fruit cakes not being hard and nasty enough, when Bosco had come to fetch him for...whatever they were doing.
The day of the party, the kick-off of the Lynch holiday season, one of the routinely best celebrations on Long Island, he’d been told, and Templeton could summon no joy over it.
Two days since he’d seen John. Two nights alone in his own room, without his lover. But without his owner, either. He hadn’t been asked to perform for the Colonel the past two nights, which had been a relief. But Templeton wasn’t sure if it was the company - which was now in the double digits as the holidays approached - or some kind of malaise, for why he had not been summoned to service. He wasn’t feeling too well, the Colonel wasn’t, complaining of mild heartburn after meals for the last day or so. Complaining loudly over cards the previous night, retiring early, leaving Templeton to deal with Vance and his gumshoe buddy Brock and a few others who were staying at the estate.
“Looks like Murdock’s at it again,” Vance had laughed. “Probably put motor oil in the old man’s soup again.”
Everybody had laughed, even Templeton, going along with the group, being everything they needed him to be, doing everything John needed him to do. But he’d caught the twisted smirk on Brock’s face as Vance had said it, and it had chilled him to the core.
He was glad to be out of that den of vipers. Even if he still didn’t yet understand what Bosco wanted from him.
“Why are we out here, Bosco?” he asked, breath hanging in the air as the big Negro shoves the garage door open. “I need to get back before the Colonel misses me. He wants me to check out some of the food with him, he said it’s not tasting right and...”
Bosco shook his head. “Go on, fool,” he grunted, taciturn as always, and jammed his finger at the dark interior of the garage.
With a shake of his head, Templeton stepped inside.
And then he broke into a huge smile as his eyes adjusted and the door closed behind him, seeing who was waiting for him against the side of the Colonel’s Rolls, leaning forward, smoking the stub of a cigar.
“John!” he exclaimed, rushing forward, throwing eager arms around his lover, getting a big bear hug in return.
“I haven’t seen you in nearly fourty-eight hours,” John murmured, right in his ear, caressing his cheek and tipping his chin, just back enough to place a soft peck on the younger man’s lips. “I thought I might die.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Templeton replied, laying a hand on John’s chest, pushing himself up for another of those luscious kisses. “I would be so sad.”
“Indeed, lad. So would I, not being to do this...”
“Do what?”
“This,” and John’s blue eyes were dancing as he leaned in, bumping noses. “Merry Christmas, Templeton,” he whispered softly, words heavy with meaning, and kissed him hard.
Merry Christmas.
Christmas, as if it meant so much more to John than just this bullshit celebration, bright candles and good food and the whirl of well-heeled laughter. Templeton wondered at that, dimly, in the back of his mind, as he clung to John and kissed him back, savoring the way the older man’s lips felt against his own.
He’d never really celebrated Christmas. At the orphanage, it might have meant a new toy, a dinner prepared by some of the neighborhood women, Mass and prayers and no Santa. After he enlisted, well, there were no holidays in the trenches, and Paris afterward was nothing but empty parties, much like this promised to be, and then it was one of his busiest nights in Chicago, finished by mopping spent, sticky moonshine from the bar tops...
But with John, he thought, perhaps with John it might mean something.
“What are you thinking about, Templeton?” John asked softly, releasing his with one last, soft brush of lips. “What’s going on in there, kid?”
“Christmas,” he said with a sigh, leaning back a bit. “I mean, it’s just...I never...”
John’s eyes softened, and his hand on the small of the younger man’s back spread out a bit in recognition. “Oh, Temp, I hadn’t even thought about that,” he said gently. “And to send you back to that man, when it should be you and me, a real Christmas for you, love, not this phony pageantry of the Colonel’s...”
“It’s okay,” Templeton said, shaking his head, not wanting to acknowledge the pang of longing that shot through him, thinking about their night together, about how he wanted to spend every night like that, with John, John’s hands, John’s cock, John’s voice... “I’ll be okay.”
“I know, kid, I know. For a little while longer. Maybe a week, New Year’s at the latest, I swear it. I’m working on the plan now...”
“Can you tell me any more?”
“No, not yet. Soon. Very soon,” John murmured, and spread his legs, dragging Templeton closer, palming his buttocks, letting him feel the growing hardness there. He nuzzled into Templeton’s slicked hair, his own silver locks falling about his face. “Can I see you tonight, Temp? Please, kid, I can’t bear the thought of you alone, with him, on Christmas...”
Heart expanding so fast he thought it might burst, Templeton laid his head down on John’s shoulder. “Midnight. I’ll be back up to my room as midnight. Can you make that?”
“Love, I would do anything for you. But... he’s not making you sleep with him?”
The young man pushed away, ashamed at John’s mild tone, the non-accusatory little statement, walking a little ways away to brace himself up over the car’s hood. “No, John. He hasn’t touched me since... since...since we...”
“Made love?” John’s voice was warm, wrapping around him like a thick blanket. Templeton looked behind him, a strange fear coursing through him, but there was nothing but reassurance in the way he was looking at him. The older man lifted one of Templeton’s hands to his mouth, and gently kissed his knuckles, closing his eyes, lingering. “Since that?”
Templeton nodded slowly, touching a hand to John’s cheek. “I never want to sleep with him again, John. I don’t want him where you are. It’s not his place any longer...”
“And he’s not demanding it?”
“Not yet. He’s been feeling poorly since that night the roads were blocked.”
“Since the roads...” and John turned away, hand over his mouth, as if he was thinking very hard about something. “And he lets you have your own room?”
“There’s company anyway,” Templeton replied, a bit confused. “He doesn’t demand I sleep in his room if there’s company...”
“Indeed,” John murmured, and then shook himself a little, coming back to Templeton and splaying a hand out on his side, kissing his neck lightly, nipping a little as he pulled off. “What good luck for you and I, then. Shall I come to you at midnight? Should we have our Christmas together?”
“Yes,” Templeton said instantly, tangling up around John for one last kiss, light-headed, floating in the blue of those eyes. “Yes, god, John, please...”
“Sweet lad,” John murmured, and kissed him back. But on his lover's lips, Templeton could taste the slightest edge of nervousness, and he had to wonder again, what the hell was going on in this place?
+++++
The party was amazing. A spectacle. A glorious thing. Champagne flowing through crystal, the flashing light off silver and jewels on pale skin, the deep reds and greens and golds glowing in the candlelight that suffused the entire house and the gardens beyond. All the beautiful people moving about in furs and silks, flowing in and out of each other, their voices mingling in the cold Christmas air. There were fireworks and ice sculptures and reindeer...
And through all of it, Templeton kept checking his pocket watch. The beautiful gold pocket watch the Colonel had given him before the guests arrived, the inside engraved with his name and a message.
Templeton Arthur Peck
Beloved
He’d been trying very, very hard to ignore that last word. The beloved. He wasn’t. Not by the man who’d given him this shiny bauble. He was only interested in the hands moving across the flawless face. The short hand and the long hand, coming together at the top. Midnight. He wanted it to be midnight. He wanted to be upstairs, with John, bared and open and loved and seen for what he was.
Not as some plaything, dressed up and paraded out in front of people he cared nothing for.
Templeton looked at that watch again.
Eleven-twenty-two.
Close enough. He could wait out the remaing thirty-eight minutes...
And thus resolved, he poured what was left of his drink into the nearest vase of horrendously expensive flowers and made for the back stairs.
But.
“Templeton!” Vance exclaimed, coming over, sweeping through the throng with arm out-stretched to pull the blonde into a big, friendly hug. The new Bureau agent had been in a mood all evening. Templeton had been trying to avoid him. “Templeton, wonderful! Father’s been looking everywhere for you! Let’s go see the old man, shall we?”
“I...”
But there was no fighting it, the way Vance pulled him back towards the Colonel’s drawing room.
“Relax,” Vance said as if he actually meant, and patted him on the shoulder. “Just come pay your respects, and I’ll let you get back to flirting with every woman in sight.”
Templeton blinked. Had he been? Maybe. Perhaps. Likely, actually. It had become second nature at events such as these...
He thought of John once again, of the night they had promised to each other, and then swiftly tried to banish it all away again. He had to stay focused now. He had to keep his mind in the game.
But with the Colonel on the other end of a smoky room, lounging back in his favorite chair with a glass of his favorite port in hand, cubano smoking away in the ashtray, Templeton’s resolve almost failed.
The Colonel looked much as he had on many a night in France, on the worst nights in France, like a warlord from medieval days, surveying his excesses with bored pride.
And suddenly the young man had a flash of memory, of the Colonel’s quarters back in France, where the officers used to gather.
That one night when the Colonel had a captured German woman in there, stripped naked, right down to her garters, forced to suck off officer after officer.
The night where Templeton had stared down into scared eyes and known that if he couldn’t get hard for it, the rest of the officers would know what he was.
The night the Colonel had set up for him to keep the eyes off his newest Lieutenant, to prove his eagerness with women, to dispel the rumors that he’d only received a commission because he was fucking the Colonel...
He shook himself. No. No. He wasn’t a scared boy any more. Nothing like that was going to happen on Long Island. He didn't need to fuck anyone he didn't want to now, not now, not ever again...
Vance seemed to see it too, the Colonel's loathsome display of power, because he leaned over and whispered, “thinks he’s king of the fucking world” right into the younger man’s ear, right before pushing him off in that direction.
Templeton was proud of himself for being able to walk in a mostly straight line in that direction. His knees felt watery. Every second, it seemed, was harder and harder to spend around this sorry excuse for a human being, and not with his own, true lover...
“Templeton, nephew,” the Colonel said, reaching out a hand. “How good to see you! You’ve been scarce tonight.”
He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets with a touch of attitude, just as he was supposed to, as had become second nature over the past six months. “Well, there are just so many pretty girls here tonight...”
“Indeed,” the Colonel sighed, lifting an eyebrow and turning to one of the older men seated nearby, one of his partners from his firm. “This one, absolutely incorrigible.”
Everyone laughed politely, and Templeton was about to launch into something along the lines of it’s quite the party, uncle, I’ll see you tomorrow, when a coughing fit racked the older man’s body. Bending him nearly double.
It was loud and rough and awful, cutting through the chatter of the room, and Templeton had to fall to his knees, rushing forward, to keep the Colonel from pitching forward on to the floor, holding him steady. And when those dark eyes flicked up, his face coming up from his lap, Templeton was shocked to see ashen skin and pain. So much pain.
He deserves it, a little voice in the back of his head whispered, but Templeton batted it away. Now was not the time.
“Colonel...”
“I...I’m feeling tired, Templeton,” the Colonel said, trying to stand, stumbling in the attempt, knocking over his half-finished glass of port. “I think I’ll withdraw for the evening now...”
“Uncle, that was...” he breathed, genuinely concerned. It sounded terrible.
“Help me up to my room, you shiftless boy,” his old commander gasped, belittling him even as he asked his help, and Templeton couldn’t look anyone in the face as he helped him from the room. But he did get a good look at Vance, standing off to the side, sipping casually at a glass of scotch as if nothing at all was wrong.
Vance smiled at him as he left with the Colonel’s weight bearing down against his shoulder.
And goosebumps prickled out on Templeton’s skin.
+++++
“You’re a good boy,” the Colonel said, patting his arm as Templeton sat him down on the edge of his bed, easing him down, leaning over him to start undoing buttons and clasps and the like, setting each item carefully aside. “Do you know that, Templeton? Do you know how highly I value you?”
Templeton bit his lip, and nodded slowly, smoothing down a silk cummerbund as he removed it. “Yes, yes sir, I do...”
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Templeton, my sweet boy.”
He shucked the dinner jacket and bow tie off the Colonel next, and started on his buttons. He felt horrible - all he could think of was the hour, the approach of the appointed time, of John’s big hands caressing his skin, the promises they’d made each other. And there was the other man he’d promised himself to in another way, ashen and gray, slumped forward on the bed as if he would fall at any moment. Sick. So clearly sick. “I’m g-glad I’m here, too, sir.”
“Of course you are,” the Colonel said, and coughed. “You were in such bad shape in Chicago. I wondered, when I read the paperwork, how you were keeping afloat.”
“It’s better...it’s better here with you,” Templeton replied, slipping the older man’s shirt from his shoulders and laying it aside with the rest. “It is.”
“You must have struggled for money, my boy.”
“At times,” he admitted and wondered where this was going.
“And what did you do? Starve? Go without? I doubt it, Templeton. You love your comforts so. Even in the War, you wanted your comforts.”
Templeton dropped to his knees, slipping off the Colonel’s loafers, and willed himself not to respond the way he wanted to. To not ask if a chocolate bar or a clean bed could really be considered a comfort. To say that he had never slept with the Colonel for those things anyway, that the sound of a heartbeat against his ear had been enough for him then. Had been his world. “I made do, sir.”
And the Colonel stopped the young man, right as his hands reached the buttons of his fly. “You sold yourself, Templeton.”
Everything froze up inside of him.
A hand touched his ear, urging his face up. “You sold yourself, Templeton. Brock Pike told me as much. That you would take clients, from time to time, male and female, at your club in Chicago.”
“...no, I never...”
“You should have come back to me then, Templeton,” the Colonel continued, far too softly. “You should have remembered me, when you were fucking them. You should have come home here then.”
Templeton felt shame rip through him, remembering those nights. The nights he needed contact, needed to feel another man’s skin against his own, needed to know that he was wanted, that somebody might care about him, if even for a few moments...
“i’m sorry, sir,” he whispered, blinking back the tears. “I didn’t know I was still welcome here, after...”
“After what you had become. After you’d whored yourself.”
“Sir, please,” Templeton begged, still on his knees, head hung again. “It’s Christmas, sir. Can’t we have a good Christmas toge...”
But he was interrupted by the sound of a hacking, nasty cough, and Templeton pulled himself up at the sharp tug of his ear.
Horrified by what he saw.
There was blood flecked on the Colonel’s bleached undershirt, tiny spots barely noticeable in the half-light from the room’s little fireplace, and there was blood on his lips. “Oh, god,” Templeton breathed, and hurried to the bathroom, wetting a cloth to dab the older man’s face. “Oh, sir, what’s going on?”
A hand, surprisingly strong, burning hot, caught his own and stopped Templeton from touching him. “Why did you come back to me, Templeton? Why?”
The younger man licked dry, dry lips. “Sir...”
“Because you love me?” the Colonel whispered, voice weaker, something gravelly in it. “Is that why you came back?”
“Sir, I...” Templeton stammered desperately, trying to think of something to say, something that didn’t involve fear and loneliness, trying not to think of John...
“Why, Templeton?”
“Colonel, please...”
That hand tightened. “You will answer me, boy,” the Colonel growled, failing but somehow all the more terrifying for it. “Why did you come back?
The young man was barely keeping himself from panic, barely stopping himself from bolting from the room, and then he remembered John’s words to him.
...you must play your part with the man. Don’t give him or Vance, the little bastard, a damned thing to suspect...
And it hit him.
Vance.
Oh, god...
But, even with the sudden horror that was spreading over him, he had to do this. Had to, absolutely had to say...
“You came for me, sir,” he whispered, not having to force the tears wetting his cheeks. “You called me here, so I came...” Those dark eyes were on him, narrowed and bloodshot and terrifying, and Templeton was only barely able to force the rest of it out, looking away from that ruinous gaze. “I’m yours, sir. I’m your boy. I’ll always be your boy...”
That hand released from his wrist, and Templeton took a deep breath, and another, before he was able to look up again. “I came because I...”
The Colonel’s eyes were already mercifully shut, his breathing slowing into pained, shallow sleep, and Templeton could do nothing but stand there, head bowed, not sure what to think or how to think it, until the strangest urge came over him. An urge to just grab a pillow off his side of bed and put an end to all of this...
But then he remembered Vance's words, Vance's casual interest, Vance's arrival, what Vance surely must want...
So he fled, down the hall to his own room, slamming the door behind him.
And for a moment, all Templeton heard was the sound of his own breathing, and the pounding of an insidious idea that would not go away, a truth he couldn't let in.
Something that would destroy him utterly, if it came to pass.
Then there was rustling, and the strike of a match, and a warm glow filled the room, growing bright and brighter, reaching him through the inside of his eyelids. Candles, Templeton realized as he gave up and cracked his eyes open, a tear falling instantly down his cheek. Candles. On his dresser and the low side table by his reading chair and on the window sill. John had brought candles...
And there was John, hands cupped around a match as he moved to the next candle, barely recognizable but for his height. He was out of those rough work clothes for the first time, a dark pinstripe suit gracing his lean frame, silver hair greased back, all of it accentuating his beauty in a way that was new and wonderful, wonderful...
He felt a sudden swell of love for the man. His man. His lover. The firs love he’d ever known...
But his words, the game, the evening, the truth that couldn’t be ignored any longer...
I’m your boy...
You sold yourself, Templeton...
So then it shifted.
Then it shattered.
His inside tore and every muscle failed and he pitched forward as he grabbed for the edge of the dresser, body failing him, the world fading out until the only thing that existed at all was John rushing to him, catching him as he fell.
And when they were nothing more than a tangle of limbs, laying together, every inch of him pressed to John, John surrounding him completely, Templeton lay his head back, and breathed out what he had seen there, in the Colonel’s room. What he’d seen as he was staring at the slow wreck of the man who, despite his other sins, had once saved his life.
“Vance is poisoning him, John,” he whispered. “Vance is killing him.”
“I know, kid,” that beautiful voice replied softly.
Templeton bit his lip, bit back the roar of anger, the surge of grief, the hurricane of emotion sweeping through him and realized he was shaking. “Vance is killing him because of me, John.”
“You’re just an excuse, Temp. Vance has wanted to kill him for years,” John said softly, splaying a big hand across the younger man’s belly. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s wrong.”
“It’s been earned by that man, Temp.”
He shook his head. “Killing...this isn’t some war, John. We have to stop it.”
He expected something. A tightening of arms, a kiss, soft reassurances, some little whisper of protest.
But there was nothing
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing at all as the hot, horrible tears leaked down his cheeks, tears for a man he didn't love but once thought he had, tears for a man who cared for him, in his own twisted way, and the younger man could feel his heart failing, second by second, the longer John didn’t speak.
And it almost stopped, when John finally did.
“...why?”
Templeton was stunned for a moment. Stunned to hear something so...callous, perhaps. Or almost happy. As if John was glad about this. He didn’t know what to feel about that, about the revelation from the bedroom, how to think, a dozen different things screaming through him all at once.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Only what I said, kid. There’s no reason to...”
“No reason?!” Templeton snapped, and tore away, leaping to his feet and starting to pace. “But Vance...Vance is killing his father! He’s killing somebody, and he’ll pin it on me and...”
“I know,” John replied midly, pulling himself up to lean against the wall where Templeton had been, only a moment before. “Damnation, kid, I know...”
“Then what about your plan to get us out of here? Can’t do that if I’m in...in...”
“It’s a complication,” John growled, pushing away from the wall and stalking over. There was some kind of strange fire in his eyes, one that sent a shiver through right through the younger man, and he found it hard to keep his footing as his lover approached. “It’s nothing but a complication, Templeton. A minor inconvenience...”
“A man’s life is an...an inconvenience?” the blonde asked, swallowing hard, as one of John’s big hands landed on his shoulder. He shook his head. “John, this...”
“This is a gift, Temp, one you can’t turn away...”
He sagged, those words drilling down through him, reaching deep down, back to all those nights he’d laid beside the Colonel, tears rolling down into the curve of his ears, all those mornings, keeping his figners from shaking as he adjusted the Colonel’s waistcoat or tie or sleeve, the parties, the women he was forced on, the women he forced himself on...and Templeton realized he was shaking. “No...”
But there was no force in the word, and John seemed to know that, too, coming closer, pulling them together, back to chest, and he kissed the skin right below Templeton’s ear. “Kid, if the Colonel’s coughing blood, if this has been going on for several days, there’s likely no saving him. He’s gone past what we can help...”
“You don’t know that...”
John opened a hand, firmly pressing down on Templeton’s belly, and kissed him again. His voice was calm, collected, emotionless. “He’s going to die, Templeton. He’s going to die, there’s nothing we can do...”
“Don’t...don’t...say that,” he pled. “He’s dying because of me.”
“He’s dying because of Vance. Not you.”
“But if I hadn’t come here, if I hadn’t accepted his offer, if I hadn’t agreed to his...his marriage proposal...”
“You had no choice, Templeton. It’s not your fault. Nothing...”
He clutched at John’s hand, where it rested against him, the guilt of the past year making him near dizzy, the heights it was taking him to. “I lost you that day, for my foolishness...”
“Hush, my love,” John soothed, and turned Templeton about, cupping his chin, the warm blue of his eyes washing over the younger man like the balmy waters of some equatorial sea. “Hush. Next you’ll be saying you shouldn’t have come here at all. And horrible as this all is, where would such a thing leave you and I?”
The emotion, that thick, throaty emotion buffeted him with the force of a shell, exploding overhead, and Templeton had to cling tight, run both hands under John’s handsome coat, closing tight around his back.
And his lover kissed the top of his head, holding him close. “We’ll survive this, I swear that...”
He laid his cheek on John’s shoulder, unable to stop the shaking now. Too many things, so many things... “I didn’t want something to to come at so horrible a price, John. It’s too high a price.”
“Nothing horrible, Templeton,” and there was fear then, coloring the edges of John’s voice, enough. “Dear god, nothing horrible could ever come from you. Don’t...don’t ever...”
“I don’t want to,” he said, desperate, and grabbed up for double handfuls of silver hair, yearning up for a kiss. “Please, I wouldn’t...”
And the same need seemed to tear through them both at the same time, John lifting his buttocks, Templeton slinging his legs up around a lean waist, mouths crashing together as John flung them both back towards the bed. They hit, tumbling together in the low golden glow of the candlelight, grunting and tearing until both of them were laid bare to the other man, nothing hidden, nothing horrible at all. Just as John promised. Kissed and caressed and tasted and loved...loved again, loved always, the two of them twisted into one another, with no end or beginning, no morality, no sin, no future and no past...
“He save my life,” Templeton whispered in the silence that followed the fury of it all, as John lay against him, slick skins cooling in the Christmas night, his fingers tracing the jutting line of his lover’s collarbone. “John, we can’t...he saved my life...”
Another kiss, a calloused hand sweeping down his naked arm. “Go to sleep, my love,” came the soft words in his ear. “It’ll be better in the morning. Nothing horrible, never anything horrible...”
“John, the morning...”
“I’ll be here, Templeton. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep, my love. ”
But when his eyes shut, it was a different bed he was laying in.
A clean bed. A real bed.
The first he’d seen since coming to the front.
There’s a bed.
A clean bed. A real bed.
The first bed he’s seen since coming to the front.
Templeton stares at it with huge eyes as the moon lays bright over the yet-unspoiled fields beyond.
It’s big, big enough for two people, piled high with pillows and a beautiful white coverlet, thrown back to reveal creamy-smooth sheets. Amazing. Not even Father Abbot had a bed like this. And to find such a thing in a war zone...
No wonder the Colonel wanted him to bathe first. No wonder the Colonel took such care to make sure he was clean. He’s been in the trenches for months now, and all the grime and grit and dried blood and everything that had washed away from him, into that wonderful warm water...
“Do you like what you see, Templeton, my little soldier?” the Colonel asks, coming up behind him and running both hands down his arms. The Colonel loves to touch him, the boy’s noticed. There have been so many touches, these past few days. Since his commander found him on an inspection of the front lines. Since his commander called him to his tent and told him there would be a new duty for him, one far away from the killing and the dying. His aide, at the Colonel’s side always, to do whatever was required. A promotion even, to Lieutenant...
It’s wonderful. They’ve been here only a few hours, and already a real meal, a warm bath, and now a real bed. He’s never known anyone to care for him, as the Colonel does. Perhaps he has a chance of surviving this war. He’d never imagined having that. He’d never imagined having this.
“I know officers are more privileged than the enlisted men, sir,” he replies, eyes still locked on the bed, hand coming up to touch the new gold bars on the collar of his fresh uniform, worn now for the first time, “but I never imagined it would be like this.”
“You may have anything you want, Lieutenant Peck,” his commander tells him gently. “Anything I can do for you, my sweet boy...”
Sweet? Templeton thinks of himself as many things, few of them good, despite his face that the nuns used to say would tempt the angels themselves, but sweet was never one of them. And then he notices that the Colonel’s very close to him. The Colonel’s very, very close behind him.
“...but this is my bed.”
Something in him goes cold, that same winter chill running into his veins that he feels when the shells are falling, when ear drums burst and men scream and the air’s filled with the smell of blood. Fear. He’s come to know it well here, that fear.
He pulls away, and the Colonel lets him go. Templeton turns around, those hands trailing off him, and he frowns. “Sir?”
The Colonel smiles at him, a warm, patronizing smile. “This is where I sleep, when I’m at Headquarters.”
“Then...then where shall I sleep?” he asks, confused.
“I would have you close to me, Templeton.” The Colonel’s dark eyes are on him. “I would have you very close to me.”
He frowns. “Sir, I don’t understand.”
“You will, my boy,” his commander says, stepping forward, and his hand is back, fingers sliding up into the damp curls forming at the base of his skull. “Shall I should you?”
“Sir...”
“You do want to follow orders, don’t you, Templeton? Like a good soldier?”
“...yes,” and he nods, above the knot that’s forming in his gut. He can’t explain that. But orders, orders are something that he does understand. Isn’t that what the Army’s about? Orders? “Yes sir,” he says, a bit bolder, remembering what every senior sergeant has told him since he first got here. “Yes sir, I follow orders.”
“Good boy,” the Colonel whispers, his eyes dark in the failing light of encroaching night. “Kneel up on the blankets. And remove your clothes for me.”
“Sir?”
“Your clothes, Templeton, remove them,” his commander breathes, kissing him so, so gently on the lips, even as a big hand pushes the boy back towards the bed. “I want to see every gorgeous inch of you, my beautiful boy, as I claim you for my own.”
Despite the fear, Templeton feels a slight thrill run up his spine. He still doesn’t quite understand it, but his Colonel wants him here, wants to see him, wants him...wants him
“Yes sir,” he replies, but he can’t get his hands to stop shaking as he slips the first button, ever so gently from it’s hole.
The Colonel’s eyes are dark. So very, very dark...
Templeton shot up in bed, flailing, not remembering where he was for the moment, disoriented, panicking. No.
No.
He didn’t want to be there.
He didn’t want that.
He didn’t want the Colonel’s fingers jamming up inside him, that cock, barely slicked, invading him in the most brutal manner possible, didn’t want the tears to course down his face, didn’t want to turn and kiss as slime ran down his thighs, didn’t want to whisper that thank you, thank you of a boy who’d never known anything but emptiness...
Then a hand touched him in the darkness, and he threw himself about, damn near falling off as he clawed his way to the foot of the mattress, shaking, every nerve in his body screaming...
“Templeton,” a warm, beautiful, tenor voice whispered, cutting the darkness, peeling it away to reveal a lanky man with hair silver in the moonlight. “Templeton, kid, what’s wrong? What's going on?”
Fuck. Just...
Fuck.
And he shook himself.
“...John?” he asked weakly.
“Yeeah, kid, I’m here...”
And Templeton ran his hands over his face, pinching into his palms, and Templeton heard himself groan, groan loud, as strong arms pulled him close. Into warm skin and soft hair, that comforting smell, that wonderful, magic scent of his lover’s body...
“Templeton, kid...” John murmured, and it took Templeton a few moments to realize he was in his lover’s lap, being rocked.
He wanted to protest. Wanted to say that he could stand on his own two feet. That he was not an emotional wreck and he could laugh it off, grin and bear it, as he had everything, his entire life.
But it felt too good to throw away, with one of John’s hands on his back, one in his hair, and he just sighed, and pressed closer, and tried not to think about that scared little boy he was, that scared little boy he’d carried inside him, all the long years since.
Strip slower, the way I want it. Slower, my boy, slower. You must always do what your lover asks of you. You must always think of him first. Next to him, you are inconsequential...
“You’re right, John,” Templeton whispered, clinging tight to his lover. “You’re right. He does have to die...”
And for long minutes, the only sound in the room were the subtle exhalations of breath, neither man willing to speak.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of domestic violence and underage
Summary:
Christmas approaches, the time for John’s plan to swing into action, and then an unexpected variable mixes it all up, once again...
Templeton shoved his hands in his pockets, shivering without his jacket, following Bosco down to the garage.
It was still freezing outside, but most of the snow had been swept away for the party this evening. There was an army of staff and hired help, putting last-minute touches on decorations, inside and out. Murdock was running around the kitchens, making sure everything was just so. Templeton had just come from there, laughing, trying to get the butler calmed down about the fruit cakes not being hard and nasty enough, when Bosco had come to fetch him for...whatever they were doing.
The day of the party, the kick-off of the Lynch holiday season, one of the routinely best celebrations on Long Island, he’d been told, and Templeton could summon no joy over it.
Two days since he’d seen John. Two nights alone in his own room, without his lover. But without his owner, either. He hadn’t been asked to perform for the Colonel the past two nights, which had been a relief. But Templeton wasn’t sure if it was the company - which was now in the double digits as the holidays approached - or some kind of malaise, for why he had not been summoned to service. He wasn’t feeling too well, the Colonel wasn’t, complaining of mild heartburn after meals for the last day or so. Complaining loudly over cards the previous night, retiring early, leaving Templeton to deal with Vance and his gumshoe buddy Brock and a few others who were staying at the estate.
“Looks like Murdock’s at it again,” Vance had laughed. “Probably put motor oil in the old man’s soup again.”
Everybody had laughed, even Templeton, going along with the group, being everything they needed him to be, doing everything John needed him to do. But he’d caught the twisted smirk on Brock’s face as Vance had said it, and it had chilled him to the core.
He was glad to be out of that den of vipers. Even if he still didn’t yet understand what Bosco wanted from him.
“Why are we out here, Bosco?” he asked, breath hanging in the air as the big Negro shoves the garage door open. “I need to get back before the Colonel misses me. He wants me to check out some of the food with him, he said it’s not tasting right and...”
Bosco shook his head. “Go on, fool,” he grunted, taciturn as always, and jammed his finger at the dark interior of the garage.
With a shake of his head, Templeton stepped inside.
And then he broke into a huge smile as his eyes adjusted and the door closed behind him, seeing who was waiting for him against the side of the Colonel’s Rolls, leaning forward, smoking the stub of a cigar.
“John!” he exclaimed, rushing forward, throwing eager arms around his lover, getting a big bear hug in return.
“I haven’t seen you in nearly fourty-eight hours,” John murmured, right in his ear, caressing his cheek and tipping his chin, just back enough to place a soft peck on the younger man’s lips. “I thought I might die.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Templeton replied, laying a hand on John’s chest, pushing himself up for another of those luscious kisses. “I would be so sad.”
“Indeed, lad. So would I, not being to do this...”
“Do what?”
“This,” and John’s blue eyes were dancing as he leaned in, bumping noses. “Merry Christmas, Templeton,” he whispered softly, words heavy with meaning, and kissed him hard.
Merry Christmas.
Christmas, as if it meant so much more to John than just this bullshit celebration, bright candles and good food and the whirl of well-heeled laughter. Templeton wondered at that, dimly, in the back of his mind, as he clung to John and kissed him back, savoring the way the older man’s lips felt against his own.
He’d never really celebrated Christmas. At the orphanage, it might have meant a new toy, a dinner prepared by some of the neighborhood women, Mass and prayers and no Santa. After he enlisted, well, there were no holidays in the trenches, and Paris afterward was nothing but empty parties, much like this promised to be, and then it was one of his busiest nights in Chicago, finished by mopping spent, sticky moonshine from the bar tops...
But with John, he thought, perhaps with John it might mean something.
“What are you thinking about, Templeton?” John asked softly, releasing his with one last, soft brush of lips. “What’s going on in there, kid?”
“Christmas,” he said with a sigh, leaning back a bit. “I mean, it’s just...I never...”
John’s eyes softened, and his hand on the small of the younger man’s back spread out a bit in recognition. “Oh, Temp, I hadn’t even thought about that,” he said gently. “And to send you back to that man, when it should be you and me, a real Christmas for you, love, not this phony pageantry of the Colonel’s...”
“It’s okay,” Templeton said, shaking his head, not wanting to acknowledge the pang of longing that shot through him, thinking about their night together, about how he wanted to spend every night like that, with John, John’s hands, John’s cock, John’s voice... “I’ll be okay.”
“I know, kid, I know. For a little while longer. Maybe a week, New Year’s at the latest, I swear it. I’m working on the plan now...”
“Can you tell me any more?”
“No, not yet. Soon. Very soon,” John murmured, and spread his legs, dragging Templeton closer, palming his buttocks, letting him feel the growing hardness there. He nuzzled into Templeton’s slicked hair, his own silver locks falling about his face. “Can I see you tonight, Temp? Please, kid, I can’t bear the thought of you alone, with him, on Christmas...”
Heart expanding so fast he thought it might burst, Templeton laid his head down on John’s shoulder. “Midnight. I’ll be back up to my room as midnight. Can you make that?”
“Love, I would do anything for you. But... he’s not making you sleep with him?”
The young man pushed away, ashamed at John’s mild tone, the non-accusatory little statement, walking a little ways away to brace himself up over the car’s hood. “No, John. He hasn’t touched me since... since...since we...”
“Made love?” John’s voice was warm, wrapping around him like a thick blanket. Templeton looked behind him, a strange fear coursing through him, but there was nothing but reassurance in the way he was looking at him. The older man lifted one of Templeton’s hands to his mouth, and gently kissed his knuckles, closing his eyes, lingering. “Since that?”
Templeton nodded slowly, touching a hand to John’s cheek. “I never want to sleep with him again, John. I don’t want him where you are. It’s not his place any longer...”
“And he’s not demanding it?”
“Not yet. He’s been feeling poorly since that night the roads were blocked.”
“Since the roads...” and John turned away, hand over his mouth, as if he was thinking very hard about something. “And he lets you have your own room?”
“There’s company anyway,” Templeton replied, a bit confused. “He doesn’t demand I sleep in his room if there’s company...”
“Indeed,” John murmured, and then shook himself a little, coming back to Templeton and splaying a hand out on his side, kissing his neck lightly, nipping a little as he pulled off. “What good luck for you and I, then. Shall I come to you at midnight? Should we have our Christmas together?”
“Yes,” Templeton said instantly, tangling up around John for one last kiss, light-headed, floating in the blue of those eyes. “Yes, god, John, please...”
“Sweet lad,” John murmured, and kissed him back. But on his lover's lips, Templeton could taste the slightest edge of nervousness, and he had to wonder again, what the hell was going on in this place?
+++++
The party was amazing. A spectacle. A glorious thing. Champagne flowing through crystal, the flashing light off silver and jewels on pale skin, the deep reds and greens and golds glowing in the candlelight that suffused the entire house and the gardens beyond. All the beautiful people moving about in furs and silks, flowing in and out of each other, their voices mingling in the cold Christmas air. There were fireworks and ice sculptures and reindeer...
And through all of it, Templeton kept checking his pocket watch. The beautiful gold pocket watch the Colonel had given him before the guests arrived, the inside engraved with his name and a message.
Templeton Arthur Peck
Beloved
He’d been trying very, very hard to ignore that last word. The beloved. He wasn’t. Not by the man who’d given him this shiny bauble. He was only interested in the hands moving across the flawless face. The short hand and the long hand, coming together at the top. Midnight. He wanted it to be midnight. He wanted to be upstairs, with John, bared and open and loved and seen for what he was.
Not as some plaything, dressed up and paraded out in front of people he cared nothing for.
Templeton looked at that watch again.
Eleven-twenty-two.
Close enough. He could wait out the remaing thirty-eight minutes...
And thus resolved, he poured what was left of his drink into the nearest vase of horrendously expensive flowers and made for the back stairs.
But.
“Templeton!” Vance exclaimed, coming over, sweeping through the throng with arm out-stretched to pull the blonde into a big, friendly hug. The new Bureau agent had been in a mood all evening. Templeton had been trying to avoid him. “Templeton, wonderful! Father’s been looking everywhere for you! Let’s go see the old man, shall we?”
“I...”
But there was no fighting it, the way Vance pulled him back towards the Colonel’s drawing room.
“Relax,” Vance said as if he actually meant, and patted him on the shoulder. “Just come pay your respects, and I’ll let you get back to flirting with every woman in sight.”
Templeton blinked. Had he been? Maybe. Perhaps. Likely, actually. It had become second nature at events such as these...
He thought of John once again, of the night they had promised to each other, and then swiftly tried to banish it all away again. He had to stay focused now. He had to keep his mind in the game.
But with the Colonel on the other end of a smoky room, lounging back in his favorite chair with a glass of his favorite port in hand, cubano smoking away in the ashtray, Templeton’s resolve almost failed.
The Colonel looked much as he had on many a night in France, on the worst nights in France, like a warlord from medieval days, surveying his excesses with bored pride.
And suddenly the young man had a flash of memory, of the Colonel’s quarters back in France, where the officers used to gather.
That one night when the Colonel had a captured German woman in there, stripped naked, right down to her garters, forced to suck off officer after officer.
The night where Templeton had stared down into scared eyes and known that if he couldn’t get hard for it, the rest of the officers would know what he was.
The night the Colonel had set up for him to keep the eyes off his newest Lieutenant, to prove his eagerness with women, to dispel the rumors that he’d only received a commission because he was fucking the Colonel...
He shook himself. No. No. He wasn’t a scared boy any more. Nothing like that was going to happen on Long Island. He didn't need to fuck anyone he didn't want to now, not now, not ever again...
Vance seemed to see it too, the Colonel's loathsome display of power, because he leaned over and whispered, “thinks he’s king of the fucking world” right into the younger man’s ear, right before pushing him off in that direction.
Templeton was proud of himself for being able to walk in a mostly straight line in that direction. His knees felt watery. Every second, it seemed, was harder and harder to spend around this sorry excuse for a human being, and not with his own, true lover...
“Templeton, nephew,” the Colonel said, reaching out a hand. “How good to see you! You’ve been scarce tonight.”
He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets with a touch of attitude, just as he was supposed to, as had become second nature over the past six months. “Well, there are just so many pretty girls here tonight...”
“Indeed,” the Colonel sighed, lifting an eyebrow and turning to one of the older men seated nearby, one of his partners from his firm. “This one, absolutely incorrigible.”
Everyone laughed politely, and Templeton was about to launch into something along the lines of it’s quite the party, uncle, I’ll see you tomorrow, when a coughing fit racked the older man’s body. Bending him nearly double.
It was loud and rough and awful, cutting through the chatter of the room, and Templeton had to fall to his knees, rushing forward, to keep the Colonel from pitching forward on to the floor, holding him steady. And when those dark eyes flicked up, his face coming up from his lap, Templeton was shocked to see ashen skin and pain. So much pain.
He deserves it, a little voice in the back of his head whispered, but Templeton batted it away. Now was not the time.
“Colonel...”
“I...I’m feeling tired, Templeton,” the Colonel said, trying to stand, stumbling in the attempt, knocking over his half-finished glass of port. “I think I’ll withdraw for the evening now...”
“Uncle, that was...” he breathed, genuinely concerned. It sounded terrible.
“Help me up to my room, you shiftless boy,” his old commander gasped, belittling him even as he asked his help, and Templeton couldn’t look anyone in the face as he helped him from the room. But he did get a good look at Vance, standing off to the side, sipping casually at a glass of scotch as if nothing at all was wrong.
Vance smiled at him as he left with the Colonel’s weight bearing down against his shoulder.
And goosebumps prickled out on Templeton’s skin.
+++++
“You’re a good boy,” the Colonel said, patting his arm as Templeton sat him down on the edge of his bed, easing him down, leaning over him to start undoing buttons and clasps and the like, setting each item carefully aside. “Do you know that, Templeton? Do you know how highly I value you?”
Templeton bit his lip, and nodded slowly, smoothing down a silk cummerbund as he removed it. “Yes, yes sir, I do...”
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Templeton, my sweet boy.”
He shucked the dinner jacket and bow tie off the Colonel next, and started on his buttons. He felt horrible - all he could think of was the hour, the approach of the appointed time, of John’s big hands caressing his skin, the promises they’d made each other. And there was the other man he’d promised himself to in another way, ashen and gray, slumped forward on the bed as if he would fall at any moment. Sick. So clearly sick. “I’m g-glad I’m here, too, sir.”
“Of course you are,” the Colonel said, and coughed. “You were in such bad shape in Chicago. I wondered, when I read the paperwork, how you were keeping afloat.”
“It’s better...it’s better here with you,” Templeton replied, slipping the older man’s shirt from his shoulders and laying it aside with the rest. “It is.”
“You must have struggled for money, my boy.”
“At times,” he admitted and wondered where this was going.
“And what did you do? Starve? Go without? I doubt it, Templeton. You love your comforts so. Even in the War, you wanted your comforts.”
Templeton dropped to his knees, slipping off the Colonel’s loafers, and willed himself not to respond the way he wanted to. To not ask if a chocolate bar or a clean bed could really be considered a comfort. To say that he had never slept with the Colonel for those things anyway, that the sound of a heartbeat against his ear had been enough for him then. Had been his world. “I made do, sir.”
And the Colonel stopped the young man, right as his hands reached the buttons of his fly. “You sold yourself, Templeton.”
Everything froze up inside of him.
A hand touched his ear, urging his face up. “You sold yourself, Templeton. Brock Pike told me as much. That you would take clients, from time to time, male and female, at your club in Chicago.”
“...no, I never...”
“You should have come back to me then, Templeton,” the Colonel continued, far too softly. “You should have remembered me, when you were fucking them. You should have come home here then.”
Templeton felt shame rip through him, remembering those nights. The nights he needed contact, needed to feel another man’s skin against his own, needed to know that he was wanted, that somebody might care about him, if even for a few moments...
“i’m sorry, sir,” he whispered, blinking back the tears. “I didn’t know I was still welcome here, after...”
“After what you had become. After you’d whored yourself.”
“Sir, please,” Templeton begged, still on his knees, head hung again. “It’s Christmas, sir. Can’t we have a good Christmas toge...”
But he was interrupted by the sound of a hacking, nasty cough, and Templeton pulled himself up at the sharp tug of his ear.
Horrified by what he saw.
There was blood flecked on the Colonel’s bleached undershirt, tiny spots barely noticeable in the half-light from the room’s little fireplace, and there was blood on his lips. “Oh, god,” Templeton breathed, and hurried to the bathroom, wetting a cloth to dab the older man’s face. “Oh, sir, what’s going on?”
A hand, surprisingly strong, burning hot, caught his own and stopped Templeton from touching him. “Why did you come back to me, Templeton? Why?”
The younger man licked dry, dry lips. “Sir...”
“Because you love me?” the Colonel whispered, voice weaker, something gravelly in it. “Is that why you came back?”
“Sir, I...” Templeton stammered desperately, trying to think of something to say, something that didn’t involve fear and loneliness, trying not to think of John...
“Why, Templeton?”
“Colonel, please...”
That hand tightened. “You will answer me, boy,” the Colonel growled, failing but somehow all the more terrifying for it. “Why did you come back?
The young man was barely keeping himself from panic, barely stopping himself from bolting from the room, and then he remembered John’s words to him.
...you must play your part with the man. Don’t give him or Vance, the little bastard, a damned thing to suspect...
And it hit him.
Vance.
Oh, god...
But, even with the sudden horror that was spreading over him, he had to do this. Had to, absolutely had to say...
“You came for me, sir,” he whispered, not having to force the tears wetting his cheeks. “You called me here, so I came...” Those dark eyes were on him, narrowed and bloodshot and terrifying, and Templeton was only barely able to force the rest of it out, looking away from that ruinous gaze. “I’m yours, sir. I’m your boy. I’ll always be your boy...”
That hand released from his wrist, and Templeton took a deep breath, and another, before he was able to look up again. “I came because I...”
The Colonel’s eyes were already mercifully shut, his breathing slowing into pained, shallow sleep, and Templeton could do nothing but stand there, head bowed, not sure what to think or how to think it, until the strangest urge came over him. An urge to just grab a pillow off his side of bed and put an end to all of this...
But then he remembered Vance's words, Vance's casual interest, Vance's arrival, what Vance surely must want...
So he fled, down the hall to his own room, slamming the door behind him.
And for a moment, all Templeton heard was the sound of his own breathing, and the pounding of an insidious idea that would not go away, a truth he couldn't let in.
Something that would destroy him utterly, if it came to pass.
Then there was rustling, and the strike of a match, and a warm glow filled the room, growing bright and brighter, reaching him through the inside of his eyelids. Candles, Templeton realized as he gave up and cracked his eyes open, a tear falling instantly down his cheek. Candles. On his dresser and the low side table by his reading chair and on the window sill. John had brought candles...
And there was John, hands cupped around a match as he moved to the next candle, barely recognizable but for his height. He was out of those rough work clothes for the first time, a dark pinstripe suit gracing his lean frame, silver hair greased back, all of it accentuating his beauty in a way that was new and wonderful, wonderful...
He felt a sudden swell of love for the man. His man. His lover. The firs love he’d ever known...
But his words, the game, the evening, the truth that couldn’t be ignored any longer...
I’m your boy...
You sold yourself, Templeton...
So then it shifted.
Then it shattered.
His inside tore and every muscle failed and he pitched forward as he grabbed for the edge of the dresser, body failing him, the world fading out until the only thing that existed at all was John rushing to him, catching him as he fell.
And when they were nothing more than a tangle of limbs, laying together, every inch of him pressed to John, John surrounding him completely, Templeton lay his head back, and breathed out what he had seen there, in the Colonel’s room. What he’d seen as he was staring at the slow wreck of the man who, despite his other sins, had once saved his life.
“Vance is poisoning him, John,” he whispered. “Vance is killing him.”
“I know, kid,” that beautiful voice replied softly.
Templeton bit his lip, bit back the roar of anger, the surge of grief, the hurricane of emotion sweeping through him and realized he was shaking. “Vance is killing him because of me, John.”
“You’re just an excuse, Temp. Vance has wanted to kill him for years,” John said softly, splaying a big hand across the younger man’s belly. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s wrong.”
“It’s been earned by that man, Temp.”
He shook his head. “Killing...this isn’t some war, John. We have to stop it.”
He expected something. A tightening of arms, a kiss, soft reassurances, some little whisper of protest.
But there was nothing
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing at all as the hot, horrible tears leaked down his cheeks, tears for a man he didn't love but once thought he had, tears for a man who cared for him, in his own twisted way, and the younger man could feel his heart failing, second by second, the longer John didn’t speak.
And it almost stopped, when John finally did.
“...why?”
Templeton was stunned for a moment. Stunned to hear something so...callous, perhaps. Or almost happy. As if John was glad about this. He didn’t know what to feel about that, about the revelation from the bedroom, how to think, a dozen different things screaming through him all at once.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Only what I said, kid. There’s no reason to...”
“No reason?!” Templeton snapped, and tore away, leaping to his feet and starting to pace. “But Vance...Vance is killing his father! He’s killing somebody, and he’ll pin it on me and...”
“I know,” John replied midly, pulling himself up to lean against the wall where Templeton had been, only a moment before. “Damnation, kid, I know...”
“Then what about your plan to get us out of here? Can’t do that if I’m in...in...”
“It’s a complication,” John growled, pushing away from the wall and stalking over. There was some kind of strange fire in his eyes, one that sent a shiver through right through the younger man, and he found it hard to keep his footing as his lover approached. “It’s nothing but a complication, Templeton. A minor inconvenience...”
“A man’s life is an...an inconvenience?” the blonde asked, swallowing hard, as one of John’s big hands landed on his shoulder. He shook his head. “John, this...”
“This is a gift, Temp, one you can’t turn away...”
He sagged, those words drilling down through him, reaching deep down, back to all those nights he’d laid beside the Colonel, tears rolling down into the curve of his ears, all those mornings, keeping his figners from shaking as he adjusted the Colonel’s waistcoat or tie or sleeve, the parties, the women he was forced on, the women he forced himself on...and Templeton realized he was shaking. “No...”
But there was no force in the word, and John seemed to know that, too, coming closer, pulling them together, back to chest, and he kissed the skin right below Templeton’s ear. “Kid, if the Colonel’s coughing blood, if this has been going on for several days, there’s likely no saving him. He’s gone past what we can help...”
“You don’t know that...”
John opened a hand, firmly pressing down on Templeton’s belly, and kissed him again. His voice was calm, collected, emotionless. “He’s going to die, Templeton. He’s going to die, there’s nothing we can do...”
“Don’t...don’t...say that,” he pled. “He’s dying because of me.”
“He’s dying because of Vance. Not you.”
“But if I hadn’t come here, if I hadn’t accepted his offer, if I hadn’t agreed to his...his marriage proposal...”
“You had no choice, Templeton. It’s not your fault. Nothing...”
He clutched at John’s hand, where it rested against him, the guilt of the past year making him near dizzy, the heights it was taking him to. “I lost you that day, for my foolishness...”
“Hush, my love,” John soothed, and turned Templeton about, cupping his chin, the warm blue of his eyes washing over the younger man like the balmy waters of some equatorial sea. “Hush. Next you’ll be saying you shouldn’t have come here at all. And horrible as this all is, where would such a thing leave you and I?”
The emotion, that thick, throaty emotion buffeted him with the force of a shell, exploding overhead, and Templeton had to cling tight, run both hands under John’s handsome coat, closing tight around his back.
And his lover kissed the top of his head, holding him close. “We’ll survive this, I swear that...”
He laid his cheek on John’s shoulder, unable to stop the shaking now. Too many things, so many things... “I didn’t want something to to come at so horrible a price, John. It’s too high a price.”
“Nothing horrible, Templeton,” and there was fear then, coloring the edges of John’s voice, enough. “Dear god, nothing horrible could ever come from you. Don’t...don’t ever...”
“I don’t want to,” he said, desperate, and grabbed up for double handfuls of silver hair, yearning up for a kiss. “Please, I wouldn’t...”
And the same need seemed to tear through them both at the same time, John lifting his buttocks, Templeton slinging his legs up around a lean waist, mouths crashing together as John flung them both back towards the bed. They hit, tumbling together in the low golden glow of the candlelight, grunting and tearing until both of them were laid bare to the other man, nothing hidden, nothing horrible at all. Just as John promised. Kissed and caressed and tasted and loved...loved again, loved always, the two of them twisted into one another, with no end or beginning, no morality, no sin, no future and no past...
“He save my life,” Templeton whispered in the silence that followed the fury of it all, as John lay against him, slick skins cooling in the Christmas night, his fingers tracing the jutting line of his lover’s collarbone. “John, we can’t...he saved my life...”
Another kiss, a calloused hand sweeping down his naked arm. “Go to sleep, my love,” came the soft words in his ear. “It’ll be better in the morning. Nothing horrible, never anything horrible...”
“John, the morning...”
“I’ll be here, Templeton. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep, my love. ”
But when his eyes shut, it was a different bed he was laying in.
A clean bed. A real bed.
The first he’d seen since coming to the front.
There’s a bed.
A clean bed. A real bed.
The first bed he’s seen since coming to the front.
Templeton stares at it with huge eyes as the moon lays bright over the yet-unspoiled fields beyond.
It’s big, big enough for two people, piled high with pillows and a beautiful white coverlet, thrown back to reveal creamy-smooth sheets. Amazing. Not even Father Abbot had a bed like this. And to find such a thing in a war zone...
No wonder the Colonel wanted him to bathe first. No wonder the Colonel took such care to make sure he was clean. He’s been in the trenches for months now, and all the grime and grit and dried blood and everything that had washed away from him, into that wonderful warm water...
“Do you like what you see, Templeton, my little soldier?” the Colonel asks, coming up behind him and running both hands down his arms. The Colonel loves to touch him, the boy’s noticed. There have been so many touches, these past few days. Since his commander found him on an inspection of the front lines. Since his commander called him to his tent and told him there would be a new duty for him, one far away from the killing and the dying. His aide, at the Colonel’s side always, to do whatever was required. A promotion even, to Lieutenant...
It’s wonderful. They’ve been here only a few hours, and already a real meal, a warm bath, and now a real bed. He’s never known anyone to care for him, as the Colonel does. Perhaps he has a chance of surviving this war. He’d never imagined having that. He’d never imagined having this.
“I know officers are more privileged than the enlisted men, sir,” he replies, eyes still locked on the bed, hand coming up to touch the new gold bars on the collar of his fresh uniform, worn now for the first time, “but I never imagined it would be like this.”
“You may have anything you want, Lieutenant Peck,” his commander tells him gently. “Anything I can do for you, my sweet boy...”
Sweet? Templeton thinks of himself as many things, few of them good, despite his face that the nuns used to say would tempt the angels themselves, but sweet was never one of them. And then he notices that the Colonel’s very close to him. The Colonel’s very, very close behind him.
“...but this is my bed.”
Something in him goes cold, that same winter chill running into his veins that he feels when the shells are falling, when ear drums burst and men scream and the air’s filled with the smell of blood. Fear. He’s come to know it well here, that fear.
He pulls away, and the Colonel lets him go. Templeton turns around, those hands trailing off him, and he frowns. “Sir?”
The Colonel smiles at him, a warm, patronizing smile. “This is where I sleep, when I’m at Headquarters.”
“Then...then where shall I sleep?” he asks, confused.
“I would have you close to me, Templeton.” The Colonel’s dark eyes are on him. “I would have you very close to me.”
He frowns. “Sir, I don’t understand.”
“You will, my boy,” his commander says, stepping forward, and his hand is back, fingers sliding up into the damp curls forming at the base of his skull. “Shall I should you?”
“Sir...”
“You do want to follow orders, don’t you, Templeton? Like a good soldier?”
“...yes,” and he nods, above the knot that’s forming in his gut. He can’t explain that. But orders, orders are something that he does understand. Isn’t that what the Army’s about? Orders? “Yes sir,” he says, a bit bolder, remembering what every senior sergeant has told him since he first got here. “Yes sir, I follow orders.”
“Good boy,” the Colonel whispers, his eyes dark in the failing light of encroaching night. “Kneel up on the blankets. And remove your clothes for me.”
“Sir?”
“Your clothes, Templeton, remove them,” his commander breathes, kissing him so, so gently on the lips, even as a big hand pushes the boy back towards the bed. “I want to see every gorgeous inch of you, my beautiful boy, as I claim you for my own.”
Despite the fear, Templeton feels a slight thrill run up his spine. He still doesn’t quite understand it, but his Colonel wants him here, wants to see him, wants him...wants him
“Yes sir,” he replies, but he can’t get his hands to stop shaking as he slips the first button, ever so gently from it’s hole.
The Colonel’s eyes are dark. So very, very dark...
Templeton shot up in bed, flailing, not remembering where he was for the moment, disoriented, panicking. No.
No.
He didn’t want to be there.
He didn’t want that.
He didn’t want the Colonel’s fingers jamming up inside him, that cock, barely slicked, invading him in the most brutal manner possible, didn’t want the tears to course down his face, didn’t want to turn and kiss as slime ran down his thighs, didn’t want to whisper that thank you, thank you of a boy who’d never known anything but emptiness...
Then a hand touched him in the darkness, and he threw himself about, damn near falling off as he clawed his way to the foot of the mattress, shaking, every nerve in his body screaming...
“Templeton,” a warm, beautiful, tenor voice whispered, cutting the darkness, peeling it away to reveal a lanky man with hair silver in the moonlight. “Templeton, kid, what’s wrong? What's going on?”
Fuck. Just...
Fuck.
And he shook himself.
“...John?” he asked weakly.
“Yeeah, kid, I’m here...”
And Templeton ran his hands over his face, pinching into his palms, and Templeton heard himself groan, groan loud, as strong arms pulled him close. Into warm skin and soft hair, that comforting smell, that wonderful, magic scent of his lover’s body...
“Templeton, kid...” John murmured, and it took Templeton a few moments to realize he was in his lover’s lap, being rocked.
He wanted to protest. Wanted to say that he could stand on his own two feet. That he was not an emotional wreck and he could laugh it off, grin and bear it, as he had everything, his entire life.
But it felt too good to throw away, with one of John’s hands on his back, one in his hair, and he just sighed, and pressed closer, and tried not to think about that scared little boy he was, that scared little boy he’d carried inside him, all the long years since.
Strip slower, the way I want it. Slower, my boy, slower. You must always do what your lover asks of you. You must always think of him first. Next to him, you are inconsequential...
“You’re right, John,” Templeton whispered, clinging tight to his lover. “You’re right. He does have to die...”
And for long minutes, the only sound in the room were the subtle exhalations of breath, neither man willing to speak.
