Reunion - Part One of Three

[sonora_coneja]

Pairing: Face/Hannibal, Hannibal/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of BDSM, child abuse
Summary: Inspired by a comment from stackcats on the Honor’s Night fic!

The A-Team is hired by a club owner in Washington DC. But nobody’s more surprised than Face to find out that the client is somebody from Hannibal’s past...



Face doesn’t really know what to expect from this job.

Only that this damn place is in DC. Like, Washington DC. Where the Pentagon is. Where the fucking FBI is. Where Sosa’s apartment is. It’s a stupid place to be. A damn, damn, damn stupid place to be. Fuck, he’d rather just avoid the entire East Coast altogether.

He’s told the boss this how many times? Warned him about the dangers of working west of the Mississippi how often? But, dammit, they just had to take this job. Even with the encrypted email accounts, dead-dropped messages, it’s just not safe. Even if they haven’t had a decent-paying job in the last four months, it’s not worth it.

But Hannibal said they had to at least test it out.

They’re going to get caught on this one. Face just knows it. Which is why he insisted he handle the initial meeting, instead of the boss.

The former lieutenant sighs, and stuffs his hands in his pockets as he heads down the little flight of stairs to the basement door. It’s a good neighborhood, a quiet neighborhood, one of those places State Department employees live, narrow streets and old buildings. This is an old building, the right address. The sign on the door says is Baker Street Gentleman’s Club, and even though this is definitely not Baker Street, that name means he’s in the right place.

There’s a prearranged series of events here. One knock. Tell the doorman that he’s Mr. White, here to see Mr. Black about next week’s performance schedule. Ask how the boys have been doing lately. Wait for the doorman to call.

Meet the prospective client.

Face knows they shouldn’t.

But he’s sick of scamming houses and eating burgers and having Murdock stitch him up, getting shot up for pennies. And it’s hard on BA, it’s hard on Murdock right now...Hannibal, worried he’s not doing right by them...the boss is so stressed...

He bites his lip, and knocks.

Everything goes to plan. So far, he tells himself, and steels himself for whatever’s through the next door.

But what’s here...

Music worthy of any San Francisco club is pouring out of a small portable stereo somewhere in the room. The lights are low, the space rich in dark velvets and heavy leathers, table scattered about, chairs still stacked up on them for cleaning, a line of booths where somebody’s smoking. A bar takes up an entire side of the room, a bar that looks like it was carved by hand back in the 1700s, and in the middle, something entirely new. A stage, two poles, a young dark-haired man wrapped around one of those, spinning slowly in what has to be one of the more sensual positions Face has seen in a while...

“Like what you see, Mr. Black?”

He smiles to himself, and heads over to that booth. The man who just spoke, his cigarette is bright in the half-dark of the room, and Face is reminded of Hannibal, just a bit. “I think he’s very good, Mr. White,” he comments, sliding into the booth across from the potential client. The young man on the stage is bent back, spine to the bar, hands almost on the ground, legs curled just so, slowing his momentum as he tosses up and winds up to the top again. “I think he’s very flexible.”

The client laughs, and takes another draw on his cigarette. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“When I read the place had the words Gentleman’s Club in the name, I figured it might be something like this.” He leans back, hoping he comes across as cool and disinterested as he wants to. In truth, he’s a little irritated. Is this supposed to be a test? Because it’s a little obvious if it is. Also, he hates getting hard when he can’t do anything about it. And if that kid up there keeps doing that flipping thing he’s doing right now... “Why would it bother me?”

“You Army boys, always so touchy about your sexuality. That’s why,” the client replies, and claps his hands, voice raising a bit. “Robby, baby, warm-ups are over!” The kid dismounts, graceful as a cat, loose yoga shorts falling back down around hard thighs as he comes over to their booth, and the client slides a hand up into that slightly damp hair. “You look good up there, baby. Go get yourself pretty before we open, okay?”

The young man smiles, batting his eyes a little. “You really think so, Chris?”

“Ask Mr. Black here what he thought. He’s going to be helping me pick somebody to replace Aaron this week.”

That smiles turns on him under the influence of that smooth lie, and Face can’t help but smile back. Cute. Young. Half-naked. Probably some college kid from American University who needs the cash. Not his thing, really, but he’s not going to let himself be backed down by the client on this...whatever the hell is going on. “You’ve got some talent for it, Robby.”

“Thanks,” he beams back, and leans down to give the client a quick peck on the cheek. The older man huffs, but slaps the kid on the ass on his way out.

“He looks like a nice kid,” Face says, watching the client watching the dancer saunter on out of the main room. Now this guy, Chris, he’s a little bit more what Face normally likes. Older, light blonde hair just starting to fade into gray, lean and trim, takes care of himself obviously, just a hint of humor playing around the edges of his mouth...and again, he’s reminded of Hannibal and he can’t figure out why. “Yours?”

“No, no, I don’t...currently have a partner or anything like that. But you know how some of these boys are, just need to be stroked a little,” and the client finally tears his eyes away as the door shuts, suddenly serious. “Now, we can get down to business, can’t we, Mr. Black?”

“It’s Face,” the former lieutenant says, and nods. “And yeah. Why do you need to hire the A-Team, Mr. White?”

And the client lays it all out.

The Baker Street Gentleman’s Club is one of those places you only find in a city like DC. A discreet, elegant, low-profile gay bar. A very exclusive gay bar. Members pay exorbitant fees for absolute privacy, including signing a contract to not reveal the identity of any other man in the club. In return, Chris is willing to cater to certain tastes.

“Not like a brothel, Face. I don’t sell anybody anything. Prostitution is not allowed here. I simply provide...”

“Rooms?”

“Opportunities.”

The membership roles contain everybody from college students to high-ranking officers and civil servants, even a Senator or two.

And that was where the trouble began.

“I have - had - one member who was a congressman from, oh, let’s say Utah,” and Chris smiled. “He had some very...specific kinks. I informed him that kind of behavior wasn’t welcome in my club, and if he did it again, he wouldn’t be welcome here any more. So, the next time he came out, I put a camera in his room, just to make sure. I should have had the doorman pat him down, but he would have found something else to use, I’m s-sure...”

He’d hurt his partner, hurt Aaron, one of the dancers, Chris explains. Bad enough to require hospitalization, skin grafts, lots of skin grafts. The kid’ll never dance again. He'll be lucky if rehab can get him a tenth of the flexibility he had before. There's a lot of scar tissue.

“But I can’t bring charges against him for assault. He’s already told me he’ll have me shut down for prostitution. And if that happens, everyone else here gets hurt. I take great pride in ensuring my clients’ privacy...”

Face nods. “So, what do you need from us?”

Chris huffs, angry this time. “Aaron doesn’t have insurance, and he’s not officially on my payroll, cause he’d lose his student loans or some damn thing like that, so my company’s can’t cover him. He’s going to have a long recovery. He needs more money than I have in savings...”

“But that fee for us, that fifty thousand? That won’t help him?”

And Chris ignores it, leans forward, tapping the table. “And the assault needs to be brought forward somehow. I’ve got tape on it, I’ve just got no way of linking it to the crime without damaging my own clients in the process...and...fuck, kid, you should have seen Aaron, he was so...he looked like he’d slid two hundred feet down a chimney, all the skin on his back, just shredded, burned...I should have stopped him...shouldn’t have let him go...”

Chris stops talking, runs out of words, eyes red, shaking hand going up over his mouth, and Face changes his mind. Fuck the fact that this asshole is a Congressman. No. This could be a good job. This could be a rewarding job. This could be a very well-paying job... and he touches the client’s hand for just a moment.

“Let me talk to my boss about it,” he says. “If we decide to take your case, and I’m not saying we will, we’ll be at the Starbucks on Lynn Street, out in Arlington, at zero-six-hundred tomorrow. If we’re not there by six-thirty, you can assume we’re not coming.”

The client nods. “I know the place.”

“Awesome,” Face says, and pats the client’s shoulder again as he walks away. “It’s gonna be okay, Chris. I’ve seen Hannibal handle much worse than this.”

“Hannibal?” the client calls out, right before he reaches the door, and Face turns.

“Yeah,” he replies, a bit confused that this Chris guy would pick up on that, that he wouldn’t already know Hannibal’s name. “Yeah. Hannibal Smith.”

There’s the flick of a lighter, and the glow of a fresh cigarette, and Chris chuckles a little. “Hannibal Smith. Imagine that,” he says softly.

Huh, Face thinks, and already has the boss up on his cell phone by the time he hits the street.

+++++

“Face, are you sure you said six?”

“Six to six-thirty, boss. It’s what I told him.”

“Well, it’s seven now, kid,” and Hannibal sighs, pushing back from the chipped coffeehouse table, unfolding his long legs. “Let’s get going.”

Face shrugs his messenger bag over his shoulder and follows Hannibal out. His lover looks tired. Really fucking tired. They just had two jobs in New York, one of which paid barely enough to cover expenses, the other of which didn’t pay at all, but they did because BA said they had to. And yeah, the looks on the kids’ faces were kind of gratifying, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve had a truly dry, dry, dry run of late. And they needed this job. So much so that Hannibal didn’t blink twice at hearing it’d be taking on a Senator. Especially not once he heard what had happened to that poor kid. But...

Maybe it’s for the best, Face tries to tell himself as they hit the street. Maybe it’s just fate, or something. Some reason for walking away from this one. Some problem, some trap, some fucking issue waiting for them in it...

“John! John Lewis!”

Face starts a bit, and looks up. That was Chris’ voice, wasn’t it? Their client, who’s really fucking late...

The client’s half running towards them, down the empty morning sidewalk, coming from the direction of the subway station.

And Hannibal’s frozen, right to the spot.

He stops just short of the boss, eyes bright, and rubs his hands together, smiling wide, not saying a thing. Neither is Hannibal. Face tenses. Whatever’s going on... “Boss?” he asks, turning to his lover, who’s staring at the client, eyes wide, his hands doing that twitching thing they do sometimes when he’s worked up about something. “Do you guys...”

But they’re not listening to him.

Nope.

Not at all.

Because Hannibal’s shifted back a bit and Chris has shifted forward, both of them just staring at the other, and then they both break at the same time, Chris lunging in and throwing his arms up around Hannibal’s neck, Hannibal laying a hand around Chris’ waist and holding him close, both of them wrapping up around each other like a pair of lovesick teenagers.

Face is confused. A bit. More than a bit. And he’s watching it in confusion, not sure what the hell he should do about this. But the second he hears his lover sigh, the second Hannibal presses a fraction closer...

Yeah. That’s all over.

“Umm, boss?” he snaps. “We are kind of out in public, and being fugitives and all, maybe we should get on with the details with our client here...”

“He’s the client?” Hannibal asks, looking over at Face. He looks dazed.

“So he’s Hannibal,” Chris says, not looking at Face at all, winding a finger up into silver hair. “Thought I remembered something about that.”

“Yeah, you remember, right? Russ hung it on me after that Laos run back in ‘90...”

“I heard about him, John. I take flowers out to him sometimes...”

“You shouldn’t bother. He was a fucking traitor...”

“Yeah, but you two...”

“Chris, don’t...”

And that Chris, that word, it’s spoken exactly the way Hannibal says his name, says Templeton, when they’re alone, when they’re in bed, when Face is staring up into blue-blown eyes, his lover’s cock buried inside him, giving him everything, everything he’s ever wanted... and he clears his throat.

Loudly.

The two older men separate, looking for all the world like teenagers caught by their parents, Hannibal a bit sheepish, Chris practically glowing. There’s an awkward distance between them now. At least one of them is getting a hard-on. The street's still empty, but who knows how long that's going to last? It’s all intensely uncomfortable.

“You two know each other, John Lewis?” Face snaps, throwing that weird name back at Hannibal. He’s pretty sure it’s not one of the aliases he’s created for the boss, that John Lewis. What the fuck is going on?

“Umm...” Hannibal says, looking over at Face, and then back to Chris, a stupid-happy smile on his face now. “Face, this is Chris. Chris, Face...”

Chris smiles, and winks at the younger man. “Yes you are,” he chuckles.

“We met already, remember?” Face says flatly, jealousy roaring through him now. “I assume you two have, too?”

“Yeah, we, uhh...” and, uncharacteristically flustered, Hannibal looks back over at Chris, who’s now got his hands jammed in the back pockets of his pants. The simple little gesture makes the club owner about thirty years younger. “We, oh, fuck, we...”

Chris reaches back out and takes one of those big, beautiful hands into his. “We went to high school together.”

“I was such a dork,” Chris continues, rolling his eyes. “John here, though...sexy, even back then...”

"Don't see yourself short, Chris." Hannibal squeezes the club owner’s hand. “I thought you made a cute goth.”

“Yeah, fit in great up back there at Provo High...”

"I don't think you were ever concerned with fitting in, Chris..."

Provo? Provo, Utah? Promised land of...and Face shakes his head, unable to pull anything coherent out of that conversation, and his mouth just latches on to the first thing his brain can manage to get itself around. “Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me, Hannibal? You’re a fucking Mormon?”

And both men look at each other once more, and burst out laughing.

+++++

Face tosses his beer pull-top away, letting it clatter across the marble countertops of the scammed vacation rental in Georgetown they’re using for a safehouse. He can hear them outside as cooling, numbing lager slips smoothly down his throat. Hannibal and Murdock and BA. All outside on the patio, picking at the remains of grilled chicken and salad with that amazing dressing the pilot makes. Laughing, talking, watching the fireflies rise from the dark grass, laughing more.

Hannibal and Murdock and BA.

All of them laughing at some joke Chris is telling.

Why the fuck is Chris here, the lieutenant wonders bitterly, taking another pull on that beer. The whole meeting was bad enough this morning, with Hannibal more relaxed than the same time Face made him come twice in half an hour, chuckling and smiling as he reviewed the Plan with Chris. The unvetted, uncensored, typically insane Plan. Which involves Face having to locate - and scam - a BDSM club, a private plane, ass-less leather chaps for Murdock, pimp bling for BA, a pest exterminator set-up, a boatload of fireworks and at least thirty rats, preferably wild if possible. It has no possibility of ending well.

Face takes another sip of beer. He’s mad right now. But why? Oh, sure, he’s pissed Hannibal didn’t go over the Plan with him before briefing it to the client. He’s pissed about how the client basically had his hand down Hannibal’s pants earlier. He’s pissed that Hannibal offered to drop the client’s fee and do it all pro bono. He’s pissed about how Hannibal let the client kiss him goodbye. And he’s really, really pissed that Hannibal invited the fucking client over for fucking grilled chicken.

But that’s not why he’s mad.

He’s mad because Chris is...well...he’s not really sure. It’s Chris, though, it’s definitely Chris.

“Hey, Face,” the older man says now, the screen door banging shut behind him, coming right for the door in the darkened kitchen. The younger man has to give him credit. Grudging credit. He looks good. One of those men who you could never mistake for straight, but it’s not that tacky femme style, despite the eyeliner. No, he really does look good. Understated but unmistakable, and that’s definitely D&G he’s wearing... “Do you guys have anything besides PBR?”

“Murdock and BA made the last grocery run,” Face shrugs, wanting to tell this guy to just fuck off. “Usually, BA keeps the grocery list edible.”

“Meh, I was a broke twenty-year-old, once upon a time,” Chris replies easily, and takes up position right across from Face, folding an arm, sipping lightly. “John was a never a Mormon, you know. His family was, yeah, but...well, you know about how all that was for him.” He looks away, voice suddenly bitter. “Jeff was such a fucking asshole. So was John’s mom.”

“Right...yeah, I know, he, uhh, he doesn’t go to church,” Face supplies, hoping it sounds like agreement, that his own ignorance on that subject doesn’t show. Hannibal’s got a sister that lives in Flaggstaff, a brother who’s a sergeant in the Marines - both of them mentioned but once or twice, never visited for holidays. That’s his extent of knowledge on his lover’s family. Who the hell is Jeff? And Hannibal’s mom? There’s never been a hint of her, not even a photo, not even a name...

“He did for a while, you know, different places in the city,” Chris says with a shrug. “Wanted to see if there was one he liked, but... well...we had better things do on the weekends he could get out than go sit in a pew and hear about how the gays burn in hell.”

“Wait, New York? Is that where you and Hannibal met? I know he went to West Point...”

“West Point. Yeah, he definitely went to West Point,” and Chris chuckles as if at some old, fond memory.

Face suddenly feels more off-balance than he had in a long time.

He knows a little something about his lover’s past, but not much. He went to West Point, got into Ranger School right out of there, first live-op in Afghanistan, got promoted to Captain six months early... so all he knows is Hannibal's Army life.

And Chris, some fucking interloper, knows it all.

“New York City?” he prompts, trying to keep his cool.

“Yeah, I moved there when he was...a cow?”

“A sophomore, yeah, okay.”

Chris nods. “I was a year behind John in school. He told me to stay in, finish out high school in fucking Provo, which became unbearable after he left. Anyway, I left the second I was able, six hundred bucks in my pocket and no idea what I was walking into out there...” He chuckles again. “I got a good gig, dancing at one of the better clubs, and John happened to walk in one night...” he pauses again, smiling. “Walked right up onto the stage, Army buzzcut and all, tore his shirt off, and...kid, you okay?”

Face had just thought about that for a moment, tried to picture it, Hannibal, twenty years younger, smooth, none of those scars on him yet, rushing the stage at a goddamn gay bar for an inpromptu strip show with his boyfriend...and now he’s thinking about the first time he kissed the man, crawling into his lap, begging for affection, Major Smith so withdrawn and cold, distant, unwilling. Thinking about how it had taken the threat of suicide, years later, to get the faintest hint of that kind of passion...

“You okay, Face?” Chris asks again, setting his can down. “I mean, if...”

“No,” he says, blinking a sudden tear away, trying to play it off like it’s nothing. “No, it’s just, I can’t imagine what he was like back then.”

“He was gorgeous,” the club owner replies instantly, awe in his voice. “Gorgeous.”

Face leans back on the counter, feeling a bit weak. “You two were, uhh, dating, back in high school?”

“Dating? No,” Chris smiles ruefully. “We worked together, went climbing together, camped out and drank beer and fooled around together. But we weren’t really dating. We weren’t really friends, to be honest.”

“You sound like you know him pretty well...”

“We had a lot in common. And John...John wasn’t really in to friends back then.”

What? That does not sound like Hannibal. None of this sounds like Hannibal at all. Face shakes his head, and kills the rest of his beer, the sounds from outside drifting through the cracked kitchen window. “Then you guys dated in college?”

“I didn’t go to college, kid. I just danced. And we never dated, it was more open than that. John just came out on the weekends for a fuck and a cuddle and the holidays when Russ was off on a mission or whatever and he couldn’t fly out to Georgia to be with him...”

Face stops him. There’s that Russ again. Like this morning, their little exchange about Arlington, about how Chris takes flowers out there... “Russ? I don’t...”

Chris picks his PBR back up, eyes narrowing as he takes a quick sip. “Russell Morrison? I thought...if you worked for John, you worked for him, right?”

“General Morrison?”

“Yeah, General Morrison. Fuck, those two hooked up right before R-Day at WEst Point, and let me tell you, I never had the prayer of a claim on John after that...”

Chris keeps talking.

But Face is reeling.

Morrison. General Russell-fucking-Morrison. The cocksucker who sold them out. Who sold Hannibal out. Who gotten blown the fuck up by the CIA...

Who Hannibal used to smoke cigars with, and drink scotch with, and spend long evenings with while Face waited at home on the couch like a goddamn wife...

They used to...

Starting when...

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

And then the worst thing possible happens.

“How you two doin’?”

It’s Hannibal. Coming over to the fridge. Letting a big hand touch Chris’ shoulder as he walks past. One of those big, beautiful hands. Touching Chris the way it’s supposed to touch him, that intimate little caress that Face has always believed to be a sign of love, of ownership...

Oh, wait. He knows what he’s feeling.

That’s not anger.

Oh, no.

He’s fucking jealous. So jealous he’s literally seeing spots. So jealous he could literally kill Hannibal for this, right the fuck now, for locking him out of all of this past...

“Yeah, the kid and I are just having a little talk about the good old days,” Chris chuckles. “Remember that time you found me in the Peppermint Hippo down on...”

Then two things happen at once.

The beer Hannibal was snapping open slips from his hand.

And Face explodes.

“What the fuck, Hannibal? You make me fucking beg you for years for the slightest hint of affection and you fuck this asshole on stage for an audience?” He’s yelling. He doesn’t care. “And you were fucking Morrison at the same time? That bastard who did this to us? Is that why you wouldn’t let me kill him when he fucking deserved it? Because you were still sucking his cock...”

“Face!” Hannibal snaps, some of the force gone, his voice shaking. “Face, I...”

“Don’t even try to tell me that’s not what you were doing all those nights I waited up for you to come home! I know you, boss, you fucking love giving head!”

Chris, off to the side, nodded just perceptibly.

Which meant that Face’s righteous anger was even more righteously diverted.

“And don’t even get me started on this fucker, boss! Who’s apparently got the origin story on John Hannibal Smith that nobody on this team has ever fucking heard! What the hell’s wrong with you? You trust some bitch you fucked back in high school over your own men? Over me? The man you said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?!”

“Face, that’s enough!”

But oh, no, oh fuck no. Hannibal is not pulling command voice on him tonight, and Face crosses his arms, going quiet. “Who’s Jeff?” he asks.

And Hannibal goes completely still. Completely. Like stone.

Chris is staring at the floor.

Murdock and BA watching from the half-open door.

And, both mortified and strangely elated, light-headed and shaking from the outpouring of emotion, Face shoves away from the counter, stalking out of the kitchen. “I’m going to bed, John,” he growls. “You can sleep on the couch. Or get a fuck and cuddle from your old high school buddy there, I don’t care...”

“Face.” It’s Chris, behind him now. “Face, I didn’t mean to...”

He sighs, pausing in the doorway, not bothering to look back. “Don’t worry, Chris, we’ll still take care of your senator for you. But we’re charging him, Hannibal. We can’t fucking afford to not right now,” he manages to get out, and flees the scene.

Lying in bed twenty minutes later, after Murdock and BA have already gone to their room, feeling very much alone in the big bed he claimed for him and Hannibal, feeling empty, Face can hear quiet talking from downstairs, and that’s when the tears come.

+++++

John - Hannibal, Colonel, Boss, whatever the fuck his name is now - flops down on the sofa opposite Chris, who’d left the kitchen almost as soon as that Face kid did, who’d watched the other two, BA and Murdock, flee almost as fast as Face had.

He looks bad, John does. Tired. Exhausted. Weary beyond belief.

He looks like the last few years have taken a horrible toll on him.

It’s not like Chris doesn’t know the story, or at least, the part that was released to the public. Their initial conviction, Russ’ murder. And then there were those blogosphere rumors about Black Forest corruption and CIA involvment. But he hadn’t thought John had anything to do with the A-Team. Those rumors had started up about a year and a half ago, confirmed by a few of Chris’ friends who live in California and a blogger they’d put him in touch with, an Amy Adams who’d assured him they were real but wouldn’t give him anything more than that email address since Chris wouldn’t give her the story...

He’d never thought it would be John who would show up. He’d never thought, all those years ago, when Russ asked him to make sure John came to Honors’ Night, that something like this could happen to his old friend. That he could be brought this low. Or rather, that John believed himself to be brought so low...

And maybe that is what’s wrong with John.

"When did we get old?" Chris asks softly, watching his former best friend carefully as he spits out the first cliche that comes handily to mind, not wanting to just come out and say what he’s thinking yet. "When did that fucking happen?"

"Happens," John replies softly, not looking at him

"Yeah, well, to normal people like me. What’s your excuse?" and Chris tries to get a smile in response.

John grunts, and nothing more. But then, John's in the middle of lighting a cigar. He switched to those in college, Chris remembers. Couldn't keep up with the running on the cigs, he said, but the blonde always suspected it had something to do with Major Morrison.

Everything in his old friend's life has revolved around the people he loved, the people he wanted to love him back. His family, Russ, this new kid...their relationship's evidently a lot tighter than Chris had guessed from the way Face had been flirting last night. That suave, confident, drop-dead sexy exterior had fallen away so quickly in the kitchen, a scared, hurt little boy underneath...

"I'm sorry," he says. "Shouldn't have been, well...you know."

"I was doing it back," John says, far away, staring up at the ceiling like he's trying to see through it to the floor above. "It's okay, Chris, I’m not angry at you for..."

"That's...fuck, I am not apologizing for kissing you," Chris humphs, remembering all those nights they used to spend together, the jealous looks from his roomies when his fucking gorgeous gay Army friend used to come over and kick them all out. "We're old friends. Your boy can get himself over that."

"We've been monogamous, Face and I," John says, still quiet. "Almost, oh, six years now."

John, monogamous, for six years? He was with Russ for almost ten, but it had never been exclusive, and then after, it’d been nothing but one-night stands for years. Chris wants to laugh, but they can deal with that later. "No, jesus, I mean about the old stuff, your past. I just assumed he knew."

John blows a smoke ring. "Well, he doesn't. You're the last person alive who knows a damn thing about it, now that Morrison’s gone." He shakes his head. "I wanted to keep it that way, Chris."

"Why?" the club owner asks, a little chilled by how carelessly his old lover's just brushing off Russ like this. "He’s obviously dedicated to you. So why not fill him in on your past?"

Nothing's said, and then John gets up, walks away, and it's not until Chris hears the soft crack of the fridge that he knows his old friend didn't wander off on him.

"Beer?" John asks, and tosses the can to him as he falls back into the sofa, smoke curling through his lips in the half-light of the room, head back as he cracks the tab.

Chris doesn't do a thing to his.

"John, why don't you go talk to him?"

There's a moment of silence.

"There’s no help for it, Chris." He sips thoughtfully. "He'll pout for a few days until I’ll tell him to get over it or he gets bored or needs a fuck and that’ll be the last of it. No harm done. It’s the way he is."

Chris bites the inside of his cheek and gets up, sitting down right next to John and taking the beer, cigar, away from him. It sounds like bullshit, it really does. "Fuck if there's no harm done. You should be up there, begging his forgiveness..." and he grins. "On your knees. With flowers and the promises of a really, really good blow-job."

John smiles a bit, too, at that. "He's not you, Chris.”

“He seems like he can be a bit of a prissy bitch. How is that not like me?” Chris laughs, and sobers instantly as John’s body language goes from bad to worse. Something’s going on here, something more than the puppy love John had for him, or the thrill of being owed, mentored, taught John had with Russ. Maybe, maybe John really has, this time, honestly fallen in love. So, then, what’s the fucking problem? He touches John’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s going on, John?”

John grunts again, and tries to pry the other man off. “Chris, let me...”

But fuck whatever John thinks he needs. John doesn’t know what the hell he needs, and never has. He doesn’t take care of himself. John ignores everything but whatever obstacle is in front of him. Sometimes - like the time they were two days back in the Kaibab and he broke his ankle and walked out on the damn thing - that’s an amazing skill. Other times - like the first time he got shot on a mission and Russ had to call Chris to come down to Georgia for a few weeks and play nursemaid, just to make sure John didn’t do anything stupid - it’s an incredible negative.

So Chris absolutely does not let John dislodge from the couch and escape. No. Fuck that. Instead, he swings right up into his old friend’s lap and slams both hands down on the wall right behind his head. “Let you do what, John?” he growls in his best imitation of a threat, knowing there’s no way he could physically take the former military man. “Let you keep running away from whatever the fuck’s bothering you? Let you keep lying to that aborable boy of yours up there? Let you keep avoiding whatever the hell you hate about your past?”

John growls back - a real growl, the one Russ taught him - and puts a hand on Chris’ chest, pressing him back. “It’s none of your business, Chris.”

“It is my business, Lewis,” he hisses quietly, slapping John’s hand away and driving forward with his hips, the threat of holding John not quite convincing, even to himself. “It’s my business because I do know your past. I never imagined you were this fucking ashamed of it.”

“Chris, you don’t understand...”

“Fuck that, John. I do understand. I was there, remember, and there’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. It wasn’t your fault.”

Until that, that last word, John’s been staring up at him with icy blue eyes. Now, though, now they close and his chin drops and his body sags perceptibly. “Chris, I can’t talk about this...”

Progress, Chris thinks, and touches his old lover’s cheek. Intimately. Like he used to. Like they touched each other on those nights together, John already claimed by another man, Chris already knowing that there’d never be anyone for him, if it wasn’t John. And it hits him now, that this is exactly the problem.

“John,” he murmurs, and presses a soft kiss to his friend’s forehead. “John, c’mon, if you can’t tell your boy, tell your old friend. You gotta tell somebody. You gotta let it out, whatever happened with Russ...”

Those blue eyes open, and meet his for moment, and John shakes his head, looking away again. “We broke up back in ‘94, Chris. There wasn’t anything more between us when he...”

“When he betrayed you?” Chris asks, leaning in close. John can’t hide a damn thing from him, no way, no from a man he slept with, on and off, for the better part of thirteen years. And Chris catches the silent acknowledgment, relishing the feel of John’s body against his again, even if it is under these unpleasant circumstances. “If your kid was there when all this happened, don’t you think he deserves to know?”

“Chris...” and John swallows, touching Chris for the first time now, running both his big, wonderful hands up into gray-gold hair, pulling their faces close. “Chris, Templeton... Templeton’s had a hard life. Far worse than mine. He’s depended on me, from the day he first walked into my unit, to be strong for him. How am I supposed to tell a kid who was orphaned by his mother that despite mine having very, very good reasons for hating me, I was kept around? How am I supposed to tell a kid who was molested when he was fourteen that my own step-dad used to beat me? He needs me to be whole for him...”

“Nobody’s whole, John,” Chris whispers. There’s something else here, too. “Nobody’s perfect. Maybe if he knew, it would be something you shared ...”

“No, Chris.” and that’s John’s quiet-but-stubborn voice. The I’m-not-changing-my-mind voice. “I can’t tell him.”

“So he needs you to be perfect, and you need him to be reliant on you. So what, John? So you can both keep ignoring your pasts? So you don’t have to think about your pain because you’re fixing his? ” Chris asks softly, laying the back of his hand gently against John’s cheek. “Can’t you see how co-dependent that is? Do you really want your whole relationship built on that premise, like you need each other to make up for all the bad things that happened a long time ago? It’s dysfunctional, John, you can’t live your life together like that...”

“Chris...”

And then it hits him. Why John never mentioned Russ. Maybe why John never mentioned his family, either, his father or his step-father. Because that’s what John must be to Face. A father, a mentor, a family. More than a lover, more than an old commander. And for John, all those types of people have ever done is leave.

“John,” the club owner says as firmly as he dares, gripping close with his thighs, completely wrinkling up his suit. “John, you aren’t going to betray his trust. You aren’t going to abandon him for a promotion like Russ did with you. You won’t let him d...”

John doesn’t let him finish. Not at all. No. John surges up inside, capturing Chris’ mouth with his own, a hard, desperate kiss that reminds the other man of the first time he saw John after the break-up with Russ. After the call that had Chris at JFK Airport the next day, starting his first trip to Europe. Captain Smith had taken a week of leave from Bosnia at Chris' urging. They'd shared a Budapest hotel room they barely left the entire time, doing nothing but eating and sleeping and fucking. Most of all fucking, a kind of panic in every snap of John's hips, every pass of his lips, taking him too fast, too hard, not talking about a damn bit of it until the fourth night.

Until it had all come spilling out, just as it needed to.

Chris had thought the other man's grief would overwhelm him, as well, as they lay entwined together, the words flowing out of his friend until the sun rose.

John had been in so much pain then. And now Russ had hurt him again, and how had he managed to survive it, if he hadn't spoken of it to his current lover.

What has happened to his friend?

Chris pulls away, wondering how well he still knows this man. Pulls away and feels weightless as John’s hands slip off him. He touches John’s knee, kneeling down for a moment, and squeezes lightly. “That’s not what you need tonight. You don't need me.” The club owner stands. “I’m going to head home now, give you some time to go do that.”

John shakes his head. “He’ll have the door locked,” he mutters.

High maintenance, Chris thinks to himself, thinking of how he was in his thirties, and wonders if it'd be okay for him to say something to Face. Later. Bitch to bitch. Over martinis, or something. Help John out here.

“Then talk to him in the morning,” he says, knowing John won't do it, and smiles. “Then you can get to work on my case.”

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving that,” John says, stronger now, and Chris gets the impression that the old Captain Smith, or Hannibal, or whatever name the military gave his friend, is coming back to the fore. “We’ll get that slimy bastard for you. But honestly, Chris, we’re old friends. I don’t mind putting the fee aside...”

Chris chuckles, despite not really feeling it, and leans back down over John, kissing him lightly once more, pulling away again before John can touch him. “Absolutely wouldn’t dream of it, Hannibal. There’s only one thing in this world I won’t pay for...”

“...and that’s a new set of sheets if you ruin mine,” John finishes, echoing one of the things Chris used to tease him with back when they were still a couple of foolish kids finding themselves and each other in New York.

“Well, you did it enough,” Chris replies softly, touching John’s shoulder again before moving away to the front door. He’s parked a few blocks away, and he needs to get going before things start following old patterns too closely. Which they will, if he stays. And he can’t do that to his old friend. “You going to be okay tonight, John?”

“I meant it,” John tells him quietly. “What I said that night, when I told you...”

“We were never in love, John,” Chris says, shaking his head and opens the front door.

“Chris!”

It’s sharper, and he turns, looking back at his old lover. “What?”

John’s got his head in his hands, cigar glowing in the shadows there. He still looks wrecked. Worse than before, actually, and Chris feels bad about what he said earlier, about them being co-dependent. Not that it’s not apparent, at some level, that there’s an element of that in their relationship, but...

“We’ll be in touch, Chris,” his old friend says, not saying whatever he was going to say before. But that's okay. They weren't ever in love, it's true, no matter how much the blonde wishes they had been.

"Get some sleep, John," Chris nods back, and leaves the house, and that’s all there is for their first evening together in over fifteen years.

+++++

Face is in a state of near-misery for the next few days.

As he does the shopping for Hannibal’s Grand Plan.

As he scams rats and exterminator equipment and uniforms for him and BA, for tomorrow, for the club scam. As he gets Murdock all gussied up like a pilot from the private jet company that the Senator uses and makes sure Hannibal’s good to go for the drive down to Richmond and that other scam’s in place that’ll get him and Murdock on the Senator’s plane, the scam where the boss will offer the mark something better than what Chris was giving him...

“You tied it wrong again,” he says automatically, looking up from his GQ as Hannibal clumps down the stairs. “It looks like shit.”

Big hands go instantly to that dark tie, and Hannibal’s shoulders sag a bit. “Never been very good at ties,” he sighs.

“Yeah, I know,” Face replies, going back to his magazine.

“Kid, would you...”

This time, he doesn’t look up. Because fuck that. He is not touching that man. “No.”

“Face...”

“I think Murdock’s out talking to BA,” he informs his lover. Possibly ex-lover at this point. Face hasn’t decided yet. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“It’s for the job, Face.”

“Chris’ job? Your old fuck buddy’s job? That job?” he asks, knowing damn well he’s being a shit, and turns the page. Fuck, more ads. Why do they put so many ads in these magazines?

“The job that we’re being paid very well to do?” Hannibal half-growls at him, stirring a bit from the funk he’s been in since that night Chris came over for dinner. They’ve barely spoke since then. Face had come downstairs that morning and found Hannibal out on the back porch, smoking a cigar, clothes rumpled and tired, looking as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night.

He’d asked if Chris had stayed the night.

Hannibal had stared at him for a moment, and then just pushed past him into the house.

And things have been very, very tense ever since.

“Yeah, I think I remember something about that, boss.”

Something like anger flashes over Hannibal’s face. “Well, since you insisted on charging...”

Face tries to smile.

He doesn’t want to show the colonel how much this is all ripping him up inside.

Seeing Chris.

Seeing his lover, all over another man, a happiness flitting through him that Face has rarely seen himself, and never since the jail break. It’s failure, his own, pure and simple, it has to be. He’s not giving Hannibal what he needs, some how, some way, he isn’t delivering. So, an old lover shows up, one who apparently knows the boss better than Face ever will, and of course that’s going to be far more appealing than his sorry, tired ass...

But Russ. Fucking Russ. Not General Morrison. Not Morrison. Not even Russell.

Russ.

They were lovers? They were...involved? To the point where they spent holidays together? Starting when Hannibal was going to college? When he was eighteen? And Face had threatened to kill the man. No, fuck, not threatened. Begged. He’d begged Hannibal to let him kill a man that the colonel had...

Why doesn’t he know any of this? Fucking hell, why can’t he fill in all these blanks? and what scares him most of all is that those blanks are there because Hannibal wants them there. Hannibal doesn’t want him to know about his past. Hannibal doesn’t care enough to tell him. Hannibal has never let him in on anything real, nothing, when he’s told the man every single damn thing about his life, every defeat, every loss, every ounce of pain, fuck, that time he got cornered in the supply room when he was fourteen...

“...your old fuck buddy?” the lieutenant asks, getting it in there quick, twisting the knife with a little pull of his lips.

And the magazine’s suddenly ripped from his hands.

A surge of adrenalin floods into his bloodstream, muscles tensing, waiting for the fight, and Face stares defiantly up at Hannibal, not giving a shit what’s coming next. The boss’ blue eyes are shifting a bit like they do when he gets really angry, hands clenching around the now-ruined GQ, and Face, right now, could give two shits if he gets hit...

But nothing like that comes.

What does come is worse than a blow.

“Goddammit, Temp,” Hannibal says softly, letting the magazine fall to the ground, and that’s what Face is staring at when the rental car pulls out of the driveway and BA comes to get him.

“C’mon, fool," the big guy grunts, tapping the wall, "we gotta go get the club.”

“Right,” Face says, blinking back a tear, and stands, plastering his most dazzling grin on. “Let’s go put those rats to good use before Murdock names the rest of them.”

+++++

Face gets the rats deployed into the club while BA taps the phone lines.

It’s not hard.

The rats, which they got from a reptile feed supply shop, don’t seem all that upset about it as they run, helter-skelter, into all corners of the upstairs office area. Murdock was a little worried earlier, as he went about giving them all names like Grumpy and Papa Smurf and Tron while he was feeding them. Wouldn't be right to free 'em from the snakes just to kill 'em again. Face has absolutely no intention of killing the little beady-eyed bastards. Sure, rat hands freak him out a bit, but he doesn't want to see them dead.

It shouldn't be a problem. BA’s setting...something...up on one of his damn computers so every time a call’s made, they’ll be able to intercept it. So, when the exterminators are called, which shouldn’t take too long based on the volume of rats they just dumped into this place in Virginia City, they’ll be able to answer. And get there first. And convince the the club for the evening. And run the scam on the Senator, land the lie that Hannibal’s laying on him right...now.

Face pulls out his phone, glancing at the time as he hefts the last rat cage down the back hall of the empty club, back towards the security office where BA’s grumbling and swearing and fussing under some table. “We got half an hour, BA, before the manager gets in. You done yet?”

“I’m almost done here,” he grunts back.

And the lieutenant lets the cage hit the floor. He feels exhausted. He’s felt exhausted since Chris showed up. Fucker. “Thank fuck. This place is weird...”

“Leather? Chrome? Weird shit on the walls?” BA replies, short and testy. He’s been short and testy since Chris showed up. Fucker that he is. “Don’t seem so bad to me.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that must seem like some biker bar to you...”

“Don’t go to no biker bars, man.”

“Come on, BA, don’t lie, I bet you loved that shit...”

“This a gay club, man."

"Dude, you're gay, too!"

"You still know more 'bout it than me.”

"BDSM? Can you imagine me asking Hannibal to spank me with some cat-o-nine-tails? While wearing assless chaps?"

"You or the boss in the chaps?" BA pauses, biting back the edge of a smile, and Face feels a bit better. But he shakes his head, sobering back into that dry, unhappy place he's been in for the last few day, and starts unhooking a bunch of wires and shit from his closed laptop on top of the table. "You know Murdock hates clubs."

“Yeah, well, Hannibal...we...we don’t go to clubs any more, BA,” Face sighs, trying to remember the last time he was in a place like this that wasn’t for a job. He and Hannibal used to play sometimes, both of them arriving at different times, the boss in disguise, Face in his innocent corporate desk monkey get-up, and they’d hunt...

But they haven’t done that in years. Not since that last deployment, the conviction, the escape. And suddenly Face tihnks about that scene Chris described to him, the strip club, the Eighties, Hannibal - John, just John - stripping on stage...

“You okay, man?”

Face blinks, a pair of dark eyes are watching him closely from their vantage point on the floor, and then notices that his cell’s going off in his hand. Huh. He doesn’t recognize the number.

“Fine,” he sighs, and slides the bar to answer the call.

“Face? Kid? John said you’d be by to pick up that thumb drive today...”

Chris. Fucking Chris. Motherfucker.

And Face sighs again. “What thumb drive?”

“The one with the video on it? He said he needed it...”

BA is definitely not doing anything but staring at him, and Face wants to punch something. Stay professional, buddy he tells himself. He really doesn’t hold with Senators doing much of anything, least of all putting college boys in the hospital. Even if that college kid worked for his lover’s ex-lover. Fucker that he is. “I don’t know anything about a thumb drive, Chris. He didn’t mention it.”

“Can you come by in the next hour or so?”

He just sounds way too chipper, and Face scrubs a hand up into his hair. “Chris...”

“John went by John Lewis until we dug his fucking birth certificate out of the basement for his West Point application and figured out his real dad’s name was Smith. Jeff...his step-dad’s name was Lewis. It’s...it’s kind of an in-joke now, but he was pretty...”

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?” Face asks, gripping the phone. "Step-dad? I thought..."

“Just come by the club, kid. Don’t be a bitch about this,” Chris says softly. “Come on over, we’ll talk.”

The line goes dead, and Face slips the phone back in his pocket, a little stunned, wondering, wondering...

“Everything okay, Faceman?”

“Yeah, uhh...” and he tries to formulate words, mind spinning with possibilities. “We have to go pick something up from Chris.”

“’Kay,” BA says levelly.

Face pinches the bridge of his nose. “Did you know Hannibal had a stepdad?”

The big guy shrugs. “Makes sense. All that father stuff he used to do for the guys...”

“Yeah,” and there have been a lot of those talks, those actions, and Face remembers all of it. The way he always made sure every marriage in the unit was celebrated. How he’d go head to head with generals, and not just Morrison, to get his guys back from theater if they had a baby on the way or a high school graduation to attend. All those nights he’d stay late, a safe shoulder to lean on while they cried about the divorce papers that came in the mail that week, the notification she was getting sole custody, that one horrible time somebody’s kid had committed suicide while they were in Afghanistan. Every time the boss took some young enlisted kid aside to talk about attitude or education or responsibility or a hundred other things... “but that’s what a colonel’s supposed to do...”

But BA’s not really interested, or something, and shakes his head. “Nobody valued family like he did. I never seen any colonel like him before...”

“Yeah, but...”

“C’mon, man, get your rat cage,” and BA kicks the damn thing for emphasis as he rolls his little toolkit back up, “and we git goin’.”

Face has BA drop him off on a different side street than last time. He remembers exactly where the club is, but distracted as he is, trying to remember what Hannibal’s told him about his father, the one time the boss discussed his family, he damn near walks past it entirely.

The only thing that stops him from just continuing on down the alley and turning right where he’s supposed to turn left is a soft “hey, kid,” that stops him in his tracks.

It’s Chris.

He looks as well put together as last time, loafers to the open neck of his understated Prada button-down, but Face isn’t sure if his hair is messed up like that on purpose. He’s got one foot up on the brick of the wall behind him, shoulders back, body arching, blowing smoke up at the sliver of sky above.

He looks upset.

“Went by the hospital earlier to see Aaron,” Chris says absently. “He’s doing better than he was, but the docs are saying there’s nerve damage...the second I saw what was going on, I got the bouncers down there. How does a man fuck a kid up like that in thirty seconds?”

Dammit, Face thinks.

That puts the whole righteous anger thing out of the question, doesn’t it?

And that thought makes him hate himself, more than a little bit.

Face shakes his head, coming a little closer, trying to stay upwind so he doesn’t get that smoke smell in his clothes. “It doesn’t take that long to destroy somebody. Half a second’s enough, if you know where to cut...” And he stops, suddenly aware that it’s probably not the best thing to be telling Chris right now, considering. Even if the man did have his grubby paws all over Hannibal. “It’s, umm...yeah.”

But Chris just blows out another mouthful of smoke and flicks the ash off his cigarette. “That’s right. You’re a Ranger too.”

“Ex.”

“Phfft. I’d be shocked if you boys actually thought of yourselves as not soldiers anymore.”

“We did kind of get discharged and incarcerated...”

A smile creeps up the edges of Chris’ face. “John’s a soldier, kid. It was the only thing that ever meant anything to him. I’m guessing you’re the same as him, or you wouldn’t be following him now.”

He spreads his hands. “Where else would I be?” the lieutenant asks softly.

The club owner rolls his cigarette, staring at it for a moment, and then tosses it away. “Thumb drive’s in the office, Face.”

And Face follows him down the stairs into the back door of the basement club.

Chris’ office is nothing like the main rooms of the club. It’s small, simple and cluttered, papers everywhere, things tacked to the walls, bookcases stuffed with binders and ledgers. “I do everything hard copy,” the owner explains as he moves over to his desk, going for the top drawer.

“Tax evasion?” Face grins - the DC metro area is like that. Loves to bitch about its lack of presence in Congress, about the whole taxation without representation schtick. Everybody here wants cash, no records, no provable income, so they don’t have to pay taxes on it.

“Security,” Chris replies. “I don’t care what they say about computers, I don’t trust the damn things.”

“Who’s going to hack you?” Face asks, a bit too bitter, really, walking along the wall with all the photos.

“You’d be surprised how vicious the press is in this town,” the older man says. “Everybody wants their scoop up on the news ticker at CNN. Political sex scandals are big business here...”

But if he’s still talking, his voice is suddenly very, very far away, because there’s a picture of Hannibal.

It’s a grainy photo, old, yellowed inside its frame. A photo of a tall, lanky kid in West Point grays, saluting a very, very young Morrison, a big American flag off to their right.

“He was still just John back then,” Chris says softly, popping up alongside Face and taking the frame carefully, almost reverently, off the wall. “He was so damn happy that night.”

“Commissioning?” Face asks, realizing his voice is thick. “You were there?”

“Oh, me? Hell no. But Russ was. Came back from wherever the hell he was in the world to make sure he was the one who handed John his butter bars.” Chris flips the picture frame over and pops the back out of it. “John was damn happy,” he murmurs.

There’s a note on the back of the picture, faded blue ink, Hannibal’s strong hand.

Chris, I wouldn’t have made it through without you. Your friendship’s meant everything to me. Thank you for believing it was possible. Love - John

Face stares at it for a moment. Longer than a moment. The other day makes a bit more sense. Hannibal’s not the kind to take that love word for granted. And the lieutenant sighs. Fuck. What’s really going on here? “You said you wanted to talk?”

Chris takes the photo back and snaps the back into place again. “I’m sorry, Templeton, about that little display the other day. It’s just...John and I never had any boundaries. We slept with each other, we slept with other people. That’s just the way it was. But he said you two had been monogamous for a while now...”

“I love him,” Face says, feeling hollow, wondering a bit at the very deliberate use of his first name. “I really do. We agreed to that together. It’s nothing I forced on him.”

“I can understand that, kid,” Chris says, and touches Hannibal’s face in the photograph before putting it back on the wall. “He wanted that with Russ, but...”

“What happened with Russ?” Face asks, not realizing how desperate it’s going to sound until it come out. “What happened with his family? You said he had a step dad...”

Chris bites his lip, and goes back to his desk, sitting down heavily, staring away. “Kid, there’s...John’s...he told me you’re an orphan.”

And all that anger? That Face put on the back burner when he heard about Aaron? Oh, oh, it’s coming back...

But the older man must have caught the look on the younger’s face, and winces a bit. “He didn’t mean anything by it, kid. Just that you two...that you were his family.”

Face is fully prepared to launch some snippy comment back, the thought that Hannibal’s plenty comfortable giving his past away when he’s not even in the fucking room. But... “Wait, don’t you mean he’s my family?”

“There aren’t many things worse than not having a family growing up, right?” And Chris taps his desk, like he’s trying to think of what to say next. “John...John didn’t really have one either. Nothing like you went through, I’m sure. But it was hard on him, really hard, you'd have to ask him just how fucking hard it was. And then Russ showed up, pitching West Point at our high school and talked to John about it and...he never looked back. I don’t think he likes to. There’s a lot of pain there.”

Face shakes his head slowly. Pain. Yeah. That makes sense. And he’s pretty sure that’s all he’s going to get. “Hannibal never talks about pain.”

“I know,” Chris replies, and produces the thumb drive, walking back over and handing it to him. “Here, this has all the surveillance footage. Aaron knows I’m giving it to you guys. He told me to tell you, nail the bastard to the wall.”

“We’re going to take care of it, Chris,” he tells the cub owner. “We’ll get this guy the justice he deserves. And Aaron’s money.”

Chris nods, and touches Face’s shoulder. “Look, kid, I wasn’t trying to upset you that other day. I didn’t understand what there was between you two. And for the record? I’m happy. I’m happy John’s got somebody like you in his life.”

“Somebody young, cute and good in the sack?” Face grins, falling back on the old defense mechanisms, more out of habit than anything else.

Chris just shakes his head. “Somebody who’s as devoted to John as John is to him. His real dad died before he could meet him, his step-dad hated him, and Russ...well, I always thought Russ just wanted to own him, but who the hell knows? I couldn’t have John after Russ got him...”

“And you?”

The older man flashes him a grin, and pats him on the shoulder gently. “I’m...I’m not cut out for that kind of dedication to one man for the rest of my life anyway. But John...it’s all John ever wanted...”

And it hits Face as Chris keeps talking. It hits him like a thunderbolt from Zeus himself, that Chris is dedicated to one man. That Chris is probably every bit in love with Hannibal as he was when they were in high school together. That Chris likes his lifestyle, liked the openness he’d once had with the boss, likes the openness he has here, now. But there’s something here, in the club, in its purpose, something that would seem to indicate that Chris has carried John with him, his entire life.

And John, his loving, jealous, passionate, affectionate, growly, wonderful John, has carried something of Chris with him. Their past together, their life in Utah as teenagers, the things they must have gotten up to in New York, that open, breezy, no-strings relationship they’d had, forced on them by Morrison, who Face still can’t fit in to this puzzle. But he knows how empty that kind of life it. And if Hannibal’s been living that life, that empty, horrible life, nothing but betrayal in the relationships that should have mattered most...

...then Hannibal’s just as fucked up as he is.

What does that mean?

Does the boss hide it better? Cope with it better? Or does it explain everything Face has ever wondered about with regards to the man?

It’s a haunting question, one that stays with the lieutenant, all the way back to the van, back to the safehouse.

While Chris’ final words ricochet through him, over and over.

...it’s all John’s ever wanted. Somewhere to belong. Someone to belong to. Someone to wake up with in the morning. Someone to say I love you and actually fucking mean it...