Reunion - Part Two 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 and BA don’t talk on the way back to the safe house, except for BA to ask if he’s okay and Face to reply that he checked one of their accounts on his phone and it looks like Chris’ fronting fee of ten-grand has gone through so they might as well get something decent for dinner.

BA looks like he wants to ask more, but he just slides into the nearest Walmart parking lot. And considering the general decay of the inner DC neighborhood, Face stays in the van. Doors locked.

And pulls up his iPhone’s seach engine.

He considers maybe checking something like ancestry-dot-com, or another one of those family geneaology sites. Mormons are fiends for geneaology. But he doesn’t even have to go that far. Because he gets multiple hits on Jeffery Lewis and Provo, Utah. Provo High School’s website and its archive of student photos. Facebook pages, Samantha Marie Armstrong, a self-described homeschooling mom who has an album marked Christmases Past, Jeff Lewis in all of them, nothing of John in anything, so that can’t be right. Brett Lewis, who has big photo albums of himself in Oakleys, in front of some Apache helo in the sandbox, cronies posing with M-4s, but nothing of his family. Goddamn Marines, Face thinks, and goes back to the search results.

There, on page two, right at the top, is a page from the Salt Lake Tribune. The line right under it reads West Point Cadet Testifies at Lewis Trial.

That, Face clicks.

It’s something that been’s scanned, a scan of an old printed paper, and he has to read it three times before he gets the jist of what it’s saying.

Salt Lake City - September 12, 1986

The domestic violence case against Jeffery Lewis heated up this week as his wife’s son, John Smith, returned from West Point to take the witness box.

Last week, the jury viewed John’s official medical records from his initial Army physical and heard testimony from his examining physician concerning multiple injuries Smith allegedly suffered while living in Lewis’ household as a boy.

Smith collaborated the evidence by describing the injuries to the jury, as well as answering questions about the specific incident that led to Lewis’ arrest the previous year.

The defense countered in the cross-examination with questions about whether or not Major Russell Morrison, a US Army Ranger who had been on campus the night of the incident, had used excessive force in preventing further injury to Mrs. Lewis.

Smith was quoted as answering “Jeff’s lucky the major got there before me, I don’t have the training in how to put a man down in one blow without killing him.” Major Morrison was supoened for the trial as well, but the Army has not released him to testify.

Sentencing for Jeff Lewis will commence next Thursday, with a maximum sentence of ten years possible. No plea bargain was accepted for this case.

Face stares at it.

Domestic violence? Major Morrison? Wife’s son...

...multiple injuries Smith allegedly suffered while living in the Lewis household as a boy...

There’s nothing else. It’s part of some kind of archive project the summer interns are put on for some fucking reason, which is described at the bottom of the page for some fucking reason, and Face can’t find anything else. What are the details here? What the fuck happened? What was the result? Of the trial? Of that doctor’s exam? Fuck, was Hannibal...as a kid... He can feel himself breathing hard, heart beginning to pick up.

Fuck. No. No. That’s not possible. Hannibal would never...had never...as a boy...

Abused?

And Face is barely aware of hitting the button to turn the screen off, or the way his phone slides from his hand to hit the floor of the van, as a wave of nausea washes over him. As he remembers that first time, stripping his white robe off in the back room after Mass, that heavy, lustful hand on his neck, pushing him down, those soft, soft words...

My lord, you are a vision, aren’t you, Templeton? Such a pretty boy...

F-Father Richard? I...

It’s okay, Temp. Nothing to worry about. On your knees, there’s a good boy...

BA jerks open the van door, the grinding noise of the rollers startling the former lieutenant back to the here and now even as the tears threaten.

“You okay, man?” the big guy asks quietly, again, asks again, more concern in his voice this time as he lays his load of groceries down.

“Yeah,” Face says, his voice thicker than he would have liked, and his eyes are slicked half shut by moisture he will not, cannot, let fall right now. “Just...this thing with the boss...why wouldn’t he tell me?”

BA’s silent for a moment, and then climbs into the van from the back door, slamming it shut behind him. Face can feel him leaning against the back of his seat. But he can’t look back to see it.

“Whaddaya mean?”

“I...” and he swallows, rubbing a hand across his chin as BA moves back into the driver’s seat, trying to think of what to say and how to say it. How not to just say everything. “I don’t know why the boss wouldn’t tell me about...whatever, you know? I told him about everything, BA. Fucking everything. You know how bad that everything was for me? How hard it was to say it? But I fucking told him...”

BA stares at him for a moment, and Face looks away, right as the small little answer comes. “Some things we don’t want no-one else to know, man. Jus’ can’t.”

“But...” the lieutenant whispers desperately.

The big guy shakes his head, and starts the car, pulling out of the space and back out to the road. “I know there’s shit in HM’s past he ain’t tellin’ me. None of you fools know ‘bout what happened in Mexico, and I ain’t ever gonna talk about it. Sure you got things o’ your own...”

“BA...” he says, thinking. What don’t they know about him? About his life? The team doesn’t know he was molested as a kid. Nobody knows that but Hannibal. That was his last secret, his worst, most horrible secret. He’s hidden nothing.

But if Hannibal’s hiding that same thing, that same fucking thing...

What does that mean? What does any of this mean? What’s he done wrong, that the boss doesn’t trust him? What kind of relationship do they have, where he shares and Hannibal doesn’t?

What is he to that man? Hannibal promised they were equals, that he wouldn’t take advantage of him, that he wanted to be a real, honest lover, that nothing would be hidden, that they’d share everything...

“No, Face.” His voice is level, steady, a straight line compared to Face’s own plunging curve of despair. “If the boss wants to tell us, he’ll tell us. Can’t force anything outta that man.”

“But...this, BA...”

“You love him, Temp?”

And that question, his real name, delivered as they’re zooming through the traffic, is enough to knock Face out of his gray, numbing fears for long enough to catch the other man’s eye. “Well...yeah?” he replies, not sure where this is going.

“Then you gotta respect his boundaries, man.”

Face looks away, out the window, and doesn’t speak again.

Not until they get home, to the safehouse, where Hannibal and Murdock are in the living room, laughing over some episode of Top Gear on the TV, the research for the mission fanned out across the floor, a cigar smoldering in its ashtray, the pilot zooming towards them to jump into BA’s arms, the boss lowering his book to smile over the top...

He knows he’s being selfish.

But Face just can’t take it. All that normalcy. Not now. Not when everything that’s underlaid it for him all these years, Hannibal, Hannibal’s honesty with him, Hannibal’s trust in him, Hannibal’s faith in him, is being torn to shreds.

He can’t take it.

He can’t.

But then Hannibal takes one good look at him, and he’s up in a heart beat, book forgotten, bare feet messing up the carefully arranged elements of the Plan. “Shit, Temp, what’s wrong?” he asks, concern on his face as he nears. “What’s up, kid?”

Face stiffens, a lump forming in his throat, thinking about his lover being molested as a boy, thinking of Father Richard, thinking of those old promises, those whispered no secrets, Templeton, everything shared, I promise..., the way Hannibal was so unwilling to touch him and was this the reason why, because he’d been molested, and oh, god, had Face forced something horrible on the man he loves by demanding sex, by demanding this between them without knowing, without knowing, and how can they ever make love again, if his lover is so hurt about those events, those horrible, horrible events, and he doesn't know how he'll be able to manage without that, without their connection, without John...

...and so many emotions are boiling up in him right now that Face feels like he’s going to explode. But the boss needs an answer. He has to keep himself together long enough to give out an answer.

“Had a talk with your boyfriend today, and he gave me this,” he manages to grind out, and digs the thumb drive out of his pocket. His hand’s shaking as he tosses it the six feet between them. “BA can fill you in on the club.”

Hannibal catches it easily, that hint of fear on his face again, like he’s afraid that Face knows, and Face feels his heart shrink back from his ribs.

“Kid...”

“No,” he says, torn somewhere in the no-man’s-land between anger and sadness. “Just...no.”

When he brushes past, into the kitchen to help Murdock make dinner, Hannibal just staggers back and doesn’t touch him.

Face’s heart falls further.

But everything’s better after food, better because of him.

Because Face picks himself up in between his second and third beer and promises himself he won’t be a shit, because Aaron deserves some justice, and if BA’s right, if Hannibal does have the right to keep such a horrible secret from him, then he can’t hold it against him. So he plasters a grin on, one of his super-secret ones that not even the boss can see through, and apologizes for being a shit about Chris, and Hannibal smiles back, relieved, like everything’s over, and the guys relax, and they get through that night’s planning session with a few laughs about what tomorrow night’s going to hold.

But the tears pour out of him that night in the shower, once he locks the door and flees into the obscuring sound of the water. And when the nightmare comes again, when that fat, flabby priest is shoving his cock in his mouth, as the taste, the smell of it all come back to him once more, when he’s woken by a gentle shake on his shoulder, when Hannibal asks him, Temp, baby, what’s wrong, all Face can do is shake his head.

And despite the fact that Hannibal spoons up behind him and holds him, no different than the way he would on any other night for any other dream, Face can’t stop shaking.

They can’t ever talk about it again.

They can’t ever talk about anything again.

+++++

“Don’t know why I gotta be the pimp, man,” the corporal grumbles. “This ain’t my scene.”

“You aren’t the pimp, BA, you’re... the proprietor,” Face suggests, grinning. He almost feels good, almost, for the first time since meeting Chris.

He loves a good con, he really, really does. He’s pacing the office, barefoot, feeling a slight chafe from the skin-tight leather pants he’s got on. Thank god it didn’t have to be latex, but the leather’s still uncomfortable. He thinks he looks the part, though, hair sprayed completely black, heavy eyeliner, studded black collar, wine-red shirt falling loose around his wrists, faded bruises painted on, suggestive...yeah, it should all be in order. One look for Senator Asshole, at him, at what could be on sale here, and this thing should be in the bag. “You create a safe space for possibilities to happen.”

That gets him a raised eyebrow. “Nice try, man.”

“Seriously, BA, you’re the scariest person we’ve got, BA,” Face says “You...fit this better than Hannibal would. And besides, it’s the smaller part anyway.” Which is true. Hannibal’s hatchet-man position in this thing is going to get a lt more air time. He’s going to be the one guiding every one of the Senator’s movements from here on out.

It’s a simple plan. So simple it seems a little strange. Hannibal had completed the first stage on the Senator’s private jet two days back, giving him this address and a warning about how you better come out, Senator Collins, unless you want footage of you with a male prostitute splashed out to the Washington Times.

Tonight, they’re show him the footage, prove the threat, and offer him something better. Then BA’s going to have Hannibal set it all up for him. Then Face is in charge of the actual leg work - making sure the room looks like the one from the video, that there’s no connections to Chris, that there’s some kind of paperwork linking it to the Senator, that the man there the first night and that he’ll be willing to testify in court, that the cameras are hooked up correctly, that the police arrive in time...

There will be witnesses, evidence, proof, press releases, indictments, investigations, political scandals, divorces and an absolute fire storm. It’s going to be a great time. He hopes. Or it will all go horribly wrong. No telling yet.

BA huffs, not quite shaking his head and not quite laughing. “And why you playin’ my whore? Thought Murdock was supposed to do that.”

Face pauses. Yeah. That’s true. When they have to pull cons, the whole team, instead of the straight-forward threaten-intimidate-explosion!-arrest-unpaid kind of jobs, Murdock’s better with the character pieces. Like Steve Buscemi. Does good with the crazy. And BA is a lot more comfortable being physical with him than Face.

But right now... well, it might be selfish, but Face needs the con. Needs to be something else, even if it’s just for a few minutes. He likes the focus. It’s cathartic. Better than simply being the requisitions man. So, he’d asked and Murdock had switched, without so much as a question. Without talking to him at all. Murdock’s not talking to him at all right now...

“I feel better handling this one, BA.”

“Hannibal gonna kill you, man.”

“We talked about it. And I think we can all agree that I’m prettier,” Face shoots back, running a hand down his abs, bared beneath the open buttons of the burgandy button-down. “Dontcha think, Bosco? Wouldn’t you just love to handcuff my white ass to your bed and spank it til I cry?” and he bats his eyes.

“You crazy, man,” BA grunts, smiling back. He’s a bit nervous, the big guy is. He normally doesn’t take a central role in these things, but frankly, they really do need this to be intimidating. And not Hannibal’s brand of subtle, deep-seated power. No, it needs to be loud and brash and obvious and very, very physical...

Face s about to reply with that, to tell BA that again, to remind him , but then the phone buzzes on the surface of the polished chrome desk in the club’s main office. Both he and BA look down at it.

There’s a text from Hannibal.

Incoming.

Which means Hannibal’s got him on surveillance. The Senator’s on his way up here now.

“Game on, BA,” the con man says, flipping the screen off, smoothing wrinkles out of his skin-tight leather pants as he adjusts himself, right up on the edge of the desk. “You ready?”

BA nods, straightens, and that look comes over his face, the one he used to wear when they were on missions, clearing buildings, clearing caves...

And there’s a knock at the door.

“Enter,” BA barks, and looks up at Face again.

But there’s nothing to say, because the game’s on, so he winks and hopes for the best.

It begins dramatically, with the door banging open, with an older man in a very nice double-breasted suit charging in, right for the desk, and Face tenses, ready, just in case.

He recognizes the man. And not just from Hannibal’s research, but from the news. Senator Matthew Collins. What party, what state, Face doesn’t really give a shit. He’s one of the ones who’s can be found, quite frequently, on CNN or Foxnews, ranting about this or that, demanding that he be respected because he was in the fucking Navy for four years. He’s a blow-hard in public, and one look at him now reveals him to be quite the sadist in private. Not that Face didn’t already know that, based on what happened to Aaron, but he’s glad Murdock’s not the one going up against him.

He stops, though, just short of the desk, jamming his hands in his pockets, clearly angry, clearly trying to pretend like he has no idea what this place, or what he’s doing here. “Are you Mr. Baracus?” he demands. “The bastard who snuck a man aboard my plane to make idle threats? I don’t take well to that sort of thing. And certainly not from somebody like you.”

“You should’a come to me in the first place. Wouldn’a had no problems like this at allI,” BA says, ignoring the little jab, dismissive, cool, flicking an imaginary piece of dust off his tailored suit that he and Face picked up this morning. Like he owns the fucking place. Which, of course, is the whole idea. “I know ‘bout Chris. He nuthin’, man. Don’t provide nuthin’ real. And you hurt one o’ his boys.”

“Your man made similar accusations on my plane...”

“And that why you here now.” BA smiles back, reaching out to slide a hand up the dark red silk of Face’s shirt. “So I can fix your little problem for you.”

“What problems?” Senator Collins demands, and now that arrogance is attempting to cover up other things. Like fear. Like lust, as his eyes flick over Face.

BA leans forward. “Like you’ problems with hurtin’ little college boys. Takes trainin’ to take that kinda pain you like dishin’ out. Chris don’t teach his right...” And he runs his hand heavily up Face’s back. Face reciprocates with a wanton little moan. “I think you’d find I do.”

“I’m a United States Senator for fuck’s sake!” Collins protests, a bit weaker this time, his eyes locked on Face. “The only problem I have is some fucking fag attempting to make baseless accusations...”

Face is off the desk, a small knife flicked out and open, blade to the senator’s neck, before the man can take another breath. “Master doesn’t make baseless accusations,” he hisses and scrapes the edge of the dulled-just-enough steel up the senator’s jugular. At this angle, the bruises on his wrists ought to be well-visible, and he can only hope the man takes the right message from those. “You shouldn’t insult my master in his own house.”

“Pet!” BA snaps, half standing. “Pet, give the Senator and I a moment to talk business. Go get you’ pretty self ready for later.”

Face smiles, and backs down as ordered, lowering his eyes, slinking back, as graceful as he can. “Yes, master,” he murmurs, turning to kiss BA’s hand, and then, snicking the knife dramatically shut again, slinks from the room.

“That’s a lot to take in, John,” Chris says, breaking the silence that’s reigned in the room for the past few seconds, the silence that took over the second Face stopped talking, and he reaches behind him for the bottle of Patron. “A lot.”

“It’s a lot to ask, I know,” Hannibal concedes, nodding, staring down at his cigar in the ashtray.

“What’s there to take in, Chris? What’s there to ask?” the young man at the club owner’s elbow demands. “Aaron’s in the fucking hospital because of that damn Senator! If I can help these guys...”

“Luke, it’s not just like you go in there and let him spank you or stick one of those knobby dildos up your ass, we take some photos and blackmail the asshole,” Chris replies, lining up shotglasses. John smiles, despite himself, despite what they’re talking about, remembering how that was always Chris’ answer to everything. Tequila shots. “What they are talking about...”

“Yeah, I get it, Chris. Just like Mr. Black here just described,” and he gestures at the sullen mass of conman across the bar top of Chris’ club. "I’ll have to cry to the police, testify in court, all that shit.”

“Think you can pull it off?” Face asks pointedly.

He gets a nod in return. “Fucking-a, man.”

The kid, Luke, one of Aaron’s good friends, is a kid who’s not connected to the BDSM scene here in DC, who keeps his private life private, whose family thinks he’s straight, who likes to bottom and doesn’t mind the pain. Just what they need for the plan. Chris guaranteed he’d find them somebody like that, when Hannibal asked him a few days ago, along with the thumb drive and some detailed pictures of that room. But Hannibal needs to be sure.

Before he throws this young man out there as bait.

“You do realize what could happen, don’t you, son?” Hannibal asks, watching for Face’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. The kid’s so good at reading body language, he’ll know if there are issues. “What the potential dangers are?”

“Jesus, boss, I just briefed him!” the lieutenant interjects.

Hannibal sighs.

Kid’s been impossible. Absolutely fucking impossible since this thing started, and it seems to be getting worse by the day and it doesn’t make much sense. At all. Not his piss-poor attitude. Not the way he won’t look Hannibal in the eye. Not the way he’s hunched up right now, completely ignoring what they’re trying to do down at Chris’ place.

It’s pissing Hannibal off, more than a little bit. He knows the last week or so has been rough on the kid, and he means to rectify that as soon as they’re done here. But after they’re done. They’ve got a mission to perform. Why can’t the kid get his head back in the game and fucking focus like they need to do here? He’s always professional. Shit, even after that thing with Sosa, their first mission after the hideousness of that break-up, Face still did his fucking job...

“We all heard what you said, Face,” Chris nods, and slides the overflowing glass in front of him. “No worries there.”

“Oh, shut up, Chris,” Face sighs, and tosses the tequila back in one long swig, the elegant sweep of his neck more stubbly and rough than it usually is. And he coughs into his sleeve.

“It’s okay, Mr. Green,” Luke replies, using the name Hannibal gave as his own, just in case, and looks over at Chris, nodding. “I wanna do this for Aaron.”

Face looks over at Hannibal. “That’s it boss, we’re usin’ him.”

“Kid...” Hannibal warns, shaking his head.

Then Face tenses.

Then Face drops off the stool, hard, digging in his pocket for something.

Sending a shockwave of recognition right through Hannibal.

Kid’s heard something, felt something, sensed something with those preternatural senses of his. In a building that’s supposed to be completely empty for this meet.

“Mr. Green?” Chris asks, half amused.

“Luke, get down, hide,” he growls, taking the cue from Face, and flicks his eyes over to Chris. “Play along.”

His old friend cocks an eyebrow, but doesn’t have a chance to respond, to ask, before the door bangs open and a booming voice fills the space...

“Chris! We need a wor...”

...and stops dead.

Senator Collins.

Fuck.

Hannibal feels his heart skip a beat, a shot of fear, wondering how the fuck they’re going to get out of this, but then he looks down at Face.

A collar around that unshaven neck of his.

His body hunched down on his knees.

Total submission just oozing out of him.

And the colonel feels himself relax somewhat. Ah. Aha.

This is going to be good.

Senator Collins, in the meantime, seems to have adjusted from the shock of seeing his new pimp’s whore and right-hand man in his enemy’s club, has marched over and he’s right here, right at the counter, glaring at Hannibal for a moment, before turning to Chris.

“I came down here today to ask you what the fuck one of your major competitors was doing with video of me from your club, but...” and the Senator shakes his head. “But here we all are.”

“Yes, here we are,” Hannibal says expansively, butting in before that shock on Chris’ face can be interpreted for the fear that it is. He stretches back against the bartop, letting his jacket fall open, the shoulder holster visible underneath, and he’s very, very glad Face always insists on what he calls “real clothes” for missions in major metropolitan areas. If he was in his preferred denim right now, they would have lost this one already. “Isn’t that something?”

It gets the Senator’s attention. “You’re the asshole from the plane,” he growls, and narrows his eyes. “What the hell...”

“I do what Mr. Baracus needs me to do,” Hannibal replies smoothly. “And Mr. Baracus needed to pay for what Chris here gave us.”

The Senator’s nostrils flare. “And you, Chris, you with your privacy rules and secrecy clause...”

“You hurt one of his boys, Senator Collins. Did you think he wasn’t going to do anything?” Face interrupts, cutting that line of questioning off in the quick, rising to his feet, which John just now notices are bare. Fuck, what did that kiddo with his shoes? “You hurt one of his soft, sweet little boys,” he continues in a low purr, slinking forward, reaching out to stroke his fingertips down the other man’s lapel, every bit of his lithe, catlike grace thrown into this effort. And it’s working, because the Senator’s full attention is on him. “You damaged a boy who had no appreciation for pain...”

“Like you have?”

Face makes a happy little sound in the back of his throat and slides that exploratory hand up around the Senator’s neck, fingers twisting up into the man’s obviously dark-dyed hair, and Hannibal hazards a glance over at Chris.

Who looks fascinated under that air of detachment he’s been perfecting since he was twelve.

“Is that what you want, boy?” the Senator’s asking, one of his own hands sliding around Face’s neck, thumb and forefinger framing the bottom of his jaw. “You want me to hurt you?”

“Mmm, makes me feel free,” Face whispers, pressing closer and closer, Collins’ free hand coming down to cup his ass through the tailored wool of his suit. “It’s like dying, every time...”

And Hannibal feels a flash of anger come over him. Face, in the arms of another man, is just not something he can handle right now. At all.

So he clears his throat, snaps his fingers. “Stop flirting, bitch,” he orders, harsh and loud.

Face immediately disengages, eyes down, shuffling back again, and Hannibal jerks his chin up, hard, like he’s inspecting the teeth on some half-wild dog.

“The boss let you out of your kennel for one reason,” he says in a long-suffering voice. “But you’d do anything for a taste of cock, wouldn’t you?”

“No, sir,” Face whispers, meek, submissive.

“I think I’m going to have to tell Mr. Baracus about this little infraction.”

“No...no, sir...”

It's convincing. He sounds genuinely afraid.

“Are you giving me an order, slave?”

“No sir.”

Hannibal yanks him up a little further, watching the Senator out of the corner of his eye, and dammit if the man doesn’t look like he’s getting hard. Sick fuck. But that’s enough of that. So he waits a moment more, and releases him. “Say goodbye, slave. We’re leaving.”

Face’s eyes are blank, empty of that firy spirit Hannibal loves so fiercely, and he nods, padding over to Chris behind the bar.

“Goodbye, sir,” the lieutenant whispers, placing a hand over Chris’ groin, squeezing just a little. “Any time my master can ever pay you for anything again...”

Chris, without missing a beat, grins back and slaps Face hard enough to raise red on his cheek. The kid cringes, utterly believable. Senator Collins looks fascinated. And Hannibal feels another hot surge of...well, is that jealousy or curiosity? Because, those two, together, everything Chris knows, all Face’s little moves...

“Get out of my fucking club, bitch,” his old lover growls.

Hannibal nods. “Thank you for your business, Mr...”

“Not you, Mr Green,” he says, shaking his head, and shoots a patented baleful look at the Senator, edging carefully out from behind the bar and grabbing the man’s arm, pulling him towards the door. “Collins, get the fuck out or I’m calling the police and reporting you for trespassing.”

That gets a laugh. “You can’t,” he says with a smile, but turns away anyway, his eyes leaving Face’s body only grudgingly. “You can’t do a damn thing to me!” he yells over his shoulder as Chris drags him from the room.

Face looks at Hannibal.

Hannibal looks at Face.

And they both sigh deep sighs of relief as a door bangs noisily open and then shut again.

“Damn...” Hannibal murmurs, amazed they got through that with the con still intact. “Fuck, kid...”

“Meh, boss, you know it’s the ass,” Face says, and bends down, helping Luke up. “Gets ‘em every time.”

“That was fucking amazing,” their adopted team member says, smiling as he grabs for the tequila, pouring himself another shot. “Fucking. Amazing. You really know your stuff, Mr. Black. Do you...”

“Not a chance,” Face says playfully, and steps out from behind the counter, frowning as his bare feet hit the floor. “Shit, it’s sticky back there. Gross...”

“Fucking amazing is right,” Chris says, coming back in the room and taking that shot right out of Luke’s hands, downing it in one go and pours himself another, throwing that one back too. He shudders, obviously feeling that burn, and shakes his head. “I thought we were screwed.”

“What did you tell him?” Hannibal asks.

He gets a shrug. “Told him I was going to go fuck the kid again and he needed to stay the hell off my property or I’d go get a restraining order...”

“Which he knows is a hollow threat,” Hannibal points out seriously.

“Jesus, really?” Chris replies sarcastically, rolling his eyes, and then grins. “Doesn’t matter. All he could think about was how dead sexy Mr. Baracus’ boy was. So much better than mine, according to him.”

“That’s the idea,” Face replies, pulling his socks back on from wherever he secreted them, making a face. “So Luke, you think you can handle it?”

“Once I’m naked? Not an issue,” the young man confirms.

“Awesome,” Face grins, and stands again. “Oh, no, wait, you’re going to do that I’m straight and he raped me in horrible ways, boo hoo, scarred for life bit. Scratch the seduction techniques.”

Luke grins, and Chris hands him a shot of tequila, and then passes one to Face. The two younger men clink glasses, and go at the same time.

It’s a nice moment, or seems to be, for the other three men in the room, and Hannibal feels suddenly uncomfortable. Face still has the collar on, which is suddenly heinous and must be removed, and Hannibal motions him over, unlocking the little buckles. Hoping like hell that’s all that’s bothering him about this. “Why did you have this on you?” he grumbles.

“Always be prepared,” he says, and shifts a bit. The colonel notices his lover’s eyes are locked on Chris, that Face is touching the place where Chris hit him, and, well, fuck.

Is Face really that upset about all of this?

He must be.

And Hannibal suddenly wonders what the fuck Chris said to Face, when the kid was here the other day.

Oh.

Oh.

Chris always knew how to keep a secret, but...

“Boss?” Face asks, turning around, and Hannibal realizes his hands are still on that collar, still stroking the stubbled skin of his lieutenant’s neck.

He draws back, mouth curiously dry, and tries to smile. It’s harder than it should be. “Kid, could you, ahh, give Chris and I a few minutes? I want to...”

But Face moves away, almost instantly, his voice light and happy, like it always is after a con, but his shoulders are pinched ever so slightly in defeat, too subtle for anyone but Hannibal to see it, and the older man feels his heart crack, just a little bit. “Sure. I’d like to go see this room, anyway.”

“And take anything you need. Fuck, strip the thing if you need to. I’ll never use the place like it is again...”

“Really? Cause that would be useful.”

“Yeah, of course. Show him, Luke,” Chris asks the kid next to him. “It’s the third one on the left.

“No prob, Chris.” He nods to Face, coming around. “Come on, it’s this way.

Hannibal sits down hard as his boy leaves the room, running a big, tired hand up into his silver hair, and reaches blindly out for that ashtray and it’s half-consumed contents. He can hear Chris messing around with more bottles and ice and glasses, and then a double of scotch gets shoved into the mserable tent of forearm and forehead where he’s trying to hide his own, sudden, surging doubt.

“Don’t even know what to say, John,” his old lover murmurs thoughtfully. “That entire thing, you two, just locked on to each other like that...that was amazing. Your boy is something else...”

“He really is,” Hannibal mutters, sipping at the smooth amber fire without really tasting it. Just a burn in his throat and a hot slide in his guts. “He really, really is.”

“So,” and Hannibal looks up to see Chris leaning over the bar, his dark eyes locked on, “what did you need to talk about?”

He opens his mouth, but the words he want to say aren’t there, the ones about his concern for Face, his worry about this mission, his apologies for the scene... but he shakes his head instead, smiling without much enthusiasm as one, sudden, singular memory shooting to the surface of his thoughts. “Remember Thanksgiving my senior year?”

“Oh, fuck,” Chris sighs, and grabs the scotch from where he put it back on the shelf. “Let’s go get a booth, baby. This is gonna take a while.”

+++++

John woke first, had to have, because when Chris finally cracks his eyes open, there his friend is. Stroking his hair, those big fingers pulling through the tangles. He can feel the headache coming on, but it doesn’t matter. It feels so good like that, cradled back against his friend’s chest, held, touched...

Nobody touches him like John did. And he doesn’t enjoy being touched by any man, like he enjoys being touched by John.

Which really blows.

Because John’s in love with another man, a man Chris can’t compete with, and that’s just the way it is. That’s the way it’s been for the past four years. And, knowing John, that’s the way it’s going to be until Russ decides otherwise. Which is something that Chris worries about on behalf of his best friend...

“You awake, man?” John asks, lightly sucking on the rim of Chris’ ear, blowing a stream of cool air across wet skin.

Fuck, caught out, Chris thinks to himself, and yawns dramatically, laying his arm back around his friend’s neck, feeling the short, shaved stubble where there used to be long chestnut curls. Just another reminder of what John’s become. What he’s on his way to becoming in the future. “Yeah. I’m up.”

“Good,” and John presses his lips to Chris’ neck, not quite kissing him, not quite not. “Because I promised Samantha I’d help her make breakfast.”

Chris smiles, and turns around, rubbing against every inch of his friend in the tiny guest bed in the tiny guest bedroom. Technically, there are two beds in here, but John shoved a chair under the doorknob last night and they managed on just one.

“Can’t believe you actually talked me into coming to your sister’s house for Thanksgiving,” Chris grumbles, not minding at all, bumping John’s jaw with a soft kiss. “In fucking Flaggstaff, of all places...”

John grins at him and kisses him back. “I think I promised you a weekend of hiking down around Sedona, city boy,” he teases, cock hard already between them, his hands roaming down Chris’ back smoothly, one finger dipping right in at the top of Chris’ cleft, rubbing lightly, and the blonde moans. “Among other things.”

“Baby, you don’t have to bring me back here for that,” Chris murmurs back, and cranes up for another kiss as he crawls up, positioning himself just so.

“Her husband’s really, really Mormon,” John warns.

Chris touches his friend’s face, pulling their eyes together as he reaches between them and slides down, still slick enough from last night to take John, no problem. “You really, really want to walk out of here sporting morning wood, Lewis?”

John laughs, and kisses him again, the pair of them swallowing each other’s gasps as everything fits back where Chris wishes it could always be.

But it can’t.

Because John’s already trying to convince him to go to college, to give up the scene and the bar where he works and his friends in the neighborhood back in New York, so he can blend in, be like everyone else, and never have to worry about getting harrassed over liking cock over pussy.

Because John doesn’t see the issues with his relationship with Russ, believes the man to be infalliable, doesn’t see how bad it’s going to hurt him when it all inevitably comes to a crashing end.

Because John, despite all the shit his family’s put him through over the years, agreed happily to spend his Thanksgiving break with them this year.

Because John always thinks that people can be better than what they are, that they can be different, more, perfect, everything he wishes they could be. And Chris knows, in his heart of hearts, he is what he is, and he’ll never change.

Not even for John.

No matter how much he wishes he could.

“Yeah,” he says, shaking his head and pouring them both another drink. “I remember that Thanksgiving.”

“What a fucking mess that was,” John sighs, patting himself down for a cigar. Chris offers him a cigarette, and his old friend shakes his head. “Face hates it when I smoke those things.”

“Based on the way he looked when he left?” Chris replies, pulling two out and retrieving his lighter. “I don’t think he’s kissing you any time soon.”

John huffs, and shoots him a questioning glance. Chris raises an eyebrow and lets both those cigarettes sort of dangle off his lower lip as he cups his hand and lights them.

“And I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about why he might be pissed at me right now?” the colonel asks in that quiet, commanding way of his.

“I did kiss you,” Chris offers. "In front of him."

A big hand takes one of the cigarettes away from him, and John puffs on it pensively. “I mean, what did you tell him? About me?”

Chris thinks for a second. What did he tell the kid? “Nothing, I don’t think. I just said you didn’t like talking about your family.”

“Fucking understatement of the year,” John grumbles, and a good half-inch of the cigarette disappears into gray ash in one deep breath, and one long, long exhale of smoke. Chris sips at his scotch, just waiting for it. And his friend shakes his head again. “But I mean, how did you put that?”

“I don’t know, John, like...why I called you Lewis that first day, and that he should ask you about what happened.”

John slumps a bit. “I can’t tell him,” he says, quiet, almost desperate. “I just can’t.”

“Why?” Chris asks, pretty sure he knows the answer, thinking about Thanksgiving again. How damn happy John was to be invited, how good everything had seemed at first, that first day, hanging out with John’s sister and brother in law, playing with John’s nephews, little more than toddlers, John’s mom, John’s little brother, who’d been quiet but smiling. Meeting John’s sister’s inlaws, who were a wonderfully nice bunch of people, so much so that Chris almost regretted moving to New York, if people like that could actually come from the same church as those who’d made his high school years unbearable.

And then there had been the day itself.

It’s fine, it’s all just great. Chris is curled up on the sofa with one of John’s nephews, the two year old with the cute little smile, pointing out the Snoopy balloon coming up in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“I’ve been there, you know,” the blonde tells little eleven-year-old Brett, who’s playing with the GI Joe his big brother John brought him as a present yesterday. “I’ve watched the parade in New York City.”

The kid shrugs. “So?”

Chris shrugs back, and hugs that toddler, who’s clapping his hands and laughing at the TV set. “I thought it was cool, that’s all.”

Brett’s quiet, though. Brett’s quiet through the rest of the morning, quiet as he weaves his way in and out of the kitchen, where John’s mom and his sister and his sister’s mother-in-law are fixing up the potatoes and the turkey and the rolls and the pies and everything ese. Brett’s quiet when John calls him out to the back patio where al the men are smoking cigars and laughing to one of thoes endlessly bizarre West Point stories. Brett’s quiet as he plays with the other kids who are here today, family from Samantha’s husband’s side.

Brett’s not quiet as they sit down for dinner.

One of the other kids screams, and John’s mom gets up for the second time, making apologies for her son’s rudeness.

The husband’s dad, John’s...well, Chris isn’t really sure what the old guy is to John, but it doesn’t really matter, smiles down the table. “I guess not everybody gets the good genes,” he laughs, joking, and everybody laughs with him.

Chris can see the slightest bit of color come over his friend’s cheeks. “Naw, Mr. Kissinger, they just beat the manners into me at Basic.”

“I don’t believe that for a second, not with how wonderful your sister is, too. I think your mom must be doing something right,” the older man says, and his wife grasps his hand, smiling.

John shakes his head, but smiles back. “Mom did her damnedest,” he replies, not quite lying, not letting the man at the end of the table see anything but a happy, well-adjusted family.

Fuck, Chris thinks and spears another bite of turkey and cranberry sauce. No way this is going to end well. Not if John’s buying into the fucking illusion which, if the last few days are any indication, he’s starting to.

One, big, happy family.

Fuck. John can be such a fucking idealist sometimes.

“You turned out good, all on your own,” his mother, Joyce, replies from where she’s trying to take that GI Joe away from Brett, at the kids’ table. “We’re so proud of him, making it into West Point...”

“I’m gonna be a soldier, too!” the brat declares suddenly, smashing the Joe down on the table, barely avoiding his soda, standing up. Everyone at the table is looking at him now, which is probably exactly what he wants.

Well, everyone but Chris.

Because Chris is watching John.

“Awesome, Brett!” his friend enthuses. “We can both be in the Army together...”

“Not the Army,” Brett says, crossing his little eleven-year-old arms across his chest. “I’m gonna be in the Marines!”

John leans back in his chair, definitely smiling. Chris tenses. Fuck. Fuck. From what little he’s seen about the inter-service rivalry attitudes his buddy’s already picked up ... “Naw, Brett, you wanna go Army. We’re much better.”

“Marines!” the kid snaps.

“Army, man,” John shoots back, still smiling.

Then the little monster frowns. “No. Marines!”

John’s mother opens and closes her mouth, and tries to get Brett to sit back down. “Honey, we can work this out after dinner...”

“No!” he yells, stamping his foot.

The tension’s growing. The adults are quiet. The kids are staring. And John’s smile is starting to crack. “Mom...” he begins, quiet and uncertain.

“No, no! I don’t wanna do what he says! I won’t! I won’t do it!” Brett yells again.

And Joyce yanks him up by the arm, grabbing the doll away from him. “Brett Paul Lewis, you will go to your room until you can settle down...”

“I don’t wanna go!” he screams, knocking his mom’s hand away, thrusting a fist at John. “I don’t hav’ta leave! Make him leave! Make him leave! He doesn’t get to eat at the damn table! He’s not real family! I’m your son, just me, he’s the bastard...”

“Brett!” Joyce explodes, jerking him up hard, trying to drag him away while a kind of quiet horror grips the room. Chris is focused on John, who looks like he wants to either die or kill the kid. “You do not talk to your brother that way!”

“He’s the reason dad’s in jail!” Brett screams, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, face bright red with fury. “Dad’s in jail and you’re a whore!”

“Brett,” Samantha says quietly from her own seat as her in-laws look on, some mix of horror and disapproval on their faces, and Chris knows that expression on their face. They’re judging her. Judging Joyce. Judging John, right the fuck now. “Brett, stop...”

But the kid can’t. He’s too far gone. “I hate you!” he’s screaming at John. “I hate you, you bastard, I hate you! You put my dad in jail, you lied to the police, I fucking hate you!”

John stares at his little half-brother for a moment, at the family around him, and Chris can tell, his friend is mentally calculating just how unwelcome he’s becoming, the longer these people have to think about Brett is saying.

Then, “John, that true?”, Mr. Kissinger asks, a pitying, accusatory tone already creeping into his tone, and six-foot-four of future Army officer is shoving back from the table, a bleak look in those beautiful blue eyes, and he’s out of the dining room in an instant.

Chris shoves back too, glaring at Samantha, who seems to be melting in her seat. “You should fucking tell your in-laws the truth about your fucked-up family,” he growls, guessing at what’s going on here and hitting it square on the nose, based on her reaction, and runs after his friend.

John’s gotten fast, very fast, in the last few years, and Chris runs at least two miles, in his good loafers, no less, down some dirt road in the middle of that scrubby pine forest, until he spots him. That big, lanky form, off to the right about fifty feet, collapsed down on a rocky outcropping, head in his hands.

Gingerly, Chris sits down next to him. Pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, pulling two out with his lips, lighting them both, hand cupped over to protect the little sputter of flame from the cold November wind.

“Let’s go to Sedona tonight,” Chris offers, not knowing what else to say, holding out one of the cigarettes. “I’ll call the motel and tell them we’re going to be a night early.”

John takes the Camel wordlessly, nodding, and it’s then that the blonde realizes his friend is crying.

“There’s no reason to tell him,” John sighs now, older, wiser, no less confused than he was then, sipping at his scotch, dry-eyed but far away. “Honestly, why should I? Why should I unload all that bullshit on him?”

“Why not, John?” and Chris covers one of his friend’s hands with his own. “He already lives with all your baggage. Why not tell him what it is?”

John shakes his head and turns his palm up, the callouses there still familiar to Chris, even after all these years. “It’s not that simple...”

“And since when are you such a fucking coward?” Chris throws back. “That you can’t tell your lover that your home life sucked?”

Blue eyes dart up to meet his own. “I’ve worked through it, Chris. It doesn’t matter any more...”

Chris leans in. “Then why not tell him?”

John opens his mouth, like he’s about to answer, but then the kid in question butts in.

“Hey, boss?” Face asks sharply, a random assortment of pillows and picture frames in his hands, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face. “Boss, can I get the keys? I need to go off-load this stuff.”

John jerks his hand back from where he’s holding on to Chris, and grinds out the cigarette. “Yeah, sure, kid,” he says, headed over. “We’ll get going. Done here what we came here to do.”

He pushes past, into the back hall that Face just came from, and the lieutenant looks defeated when his lover doesn’t so much as touch him on the way out.

Chris sighs, and stands. Fucking hell, John he thinks. “Face, you got everything you need?”

“Yeah, I got Luke’s number and...” and he pauses, glancing back helplessly down the hall and back again, shoulders slumped a bit, like he wants to ask what they were talking about but has decided that’d be a stupid idea. “And I think that’s everything.”

“Well, you’ve got my number,” Chris says, uncertain. “Call me if there are any problems.”

He nods. “Thanks, Chris. I just...Hannibal...”

“Go after him,” he advises. “He’s worth it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Face says, and turns away.

Chris watches his retreat, half wondering what he must look like naked. Amazing, probably, he decides. And then decides his old friend is a fucking idiot, if he lets this one get away over something this fucking stupid.

+++++

Hannibal watches the half-cracked bathroom door from the security of their shared bed, listening to the water, wondering if he’s allowed in. If Face didn’t want him in there, he would have locked the door. Right?

Or maybe Face doesn’t want him in there but wants him to know that without being told, so the door’s open so the kid can get even more pissed at him when he fails to do what he’s supposed to here.

Or maybe Face forgot the door entirely, but’ll yell at him if he goes in there.

Or grudgingly allow him in but secretly be pissed about it.

Or smile and pretend like everything’s just dandy but go cry on Murdock’s shoulder later.

Or...

But he’s not in the mood for Face’s games right now. Not at all. It’s been nearly a week since he so much as kissed his lover. And he’d got that little display from the afternoon stuck in his head, Face in that damn collar, another man’s hands all over him, his boy’s hand on his friend’s groin...

But Hannibal growls and pushes himself up off the bed. Fuck this. Just...fuck it.

So he strips his shirt off over his head, pushes his sleep pants away as he stalks over to that half-open door and slips in, naked.

Face is there, just beyond the shower curtains, his hard, smooth body a dark shape against the translucent barrier that Hannibal rips away. Those blue eyes are confused, narrowed a little, one hand frozen right across a pec, foamed soap leaking down that tanned, toned chest, running down, pooling in that navel that his boy loves to have licked, further down, into dark, wiry hair, caressing that pillar of flesh, that full sac, further, further, touching what has to be Hannibal’s favorite place in the world...

Hannibal feels himself growl again, his own cock hardening at the very thought of being buried in his boy’s sweet, grasping heat, and forgets the shower curtain, forgets the club, forgets the mission, forgets Chris and Russ and his fucking family, because there’s only one thing that really matters to him, right now and ever, and he needs to feel that again.

Right the fuck now.

Face’s eyes go wide again as Hannibal steps over the edge of the tub, as Hannibal crashes forward into him, grabbing thick, wet hair, kissing him desperately, forcing his burgeoning erection into the crease of Face’s thigh, demanding everything.

And despite the fact that that soapy hand is pressed against his own chest, despite the fact that he can hear Face gasping in hard, harsh breaths that unerringly mean he’s scared, the kid opens up to him.

His boy gives.

Like he always, always has.

It’s fast, under the pounding spray of the shower that has him soaked in a moment. It’s fast and sudden, Hannibal stealing that handful of shower gel, using two fingers right from the start, swallowing every groan down as he lifts a sculpted thigh up to his own waist and slams that perfect body again the tiles and drills in and thrusts and bites and comes, rewarded with the hot spread of semen against his own belly and a soft, weak hand in his hair, holding on.

His lover’s eyes are dark, dilated and relaxed, that sweet, almost boyish look of relief that he’s worn after every orgasm, from the very first, and Hannibal holds Face up as his feet slip back down to the wet floor of the tub.

Holds and touches and tastes, lips sucking lightly on the pulse of his throat, loving him. Loving him like he's never loved anybody before, and he thinks about what Chris said that afternoon.

He already lives with all your baggage. Why not tell him what it is?

Why not?

Maybe...

“Come to bed with me, sweetheart,” he entreats, kissing those red, swollen lips as lightly as he can manage. Trails of white are running off his lover’s chest and thighs, down the drain, and he’s afraid of what’s going to happen when the evidence is gone. Face always does better with hard conversations when it involves contact, bare skin, silence, reassurance. And he does better like that too, although for different reasons. Or maybe the same. Hannibal doesn’t really know why they only ever talk while naked in bed together, but it’s the way it is. So it has to be now. Before Face remembers that he’s mad. Before Hannibal remembers that he’s afraid. “Please. We have to...”

Leaning up against the back of the shower like he is, breathing hard, recovering, Face watches the older man for a moment more, and then shakes his head slowly. He flips his water-dark curls off his forehead, tries to smile, and moves away, his flexing back to Hannibal, going for the shower gel once again.

Just a step, but it’s enough. Enough to speak volumes. Enough to tell him that he was right to be worried. Wrong to come in here.

So Hannibal gets out and grabs a towel off the rack and puts the door back where he found it, the edge of light betraying nothing of whatever is going through his boy’s head right now as he dries himself and flops back on the sheets.

It doesn’t do him any good to speculate, because he doesn’t get an answer.

Because a still-damp Face pads back into the room fifteen minutes later, grabs Hannibal’s soft flannel pants off the floor and his own pillow off the bed, and heads downstairs.

Well, fuck, he thinks as the bedroom door snicks shut, and that image of Face and Chris together follows him into sleep.