Reunion - Part Three 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 wakes about halfway through the night, unsure of where he is at first.

Sure, he knows it’s the sofa down in the den, where he and Murdock and BA all spent about three hours playing Call of Duty last night. Well, they were playing Call of Duty. He was basically just watching them and drinking beer.

Drinking a lot of beer.

Which is probably the reason he’s awake now. He’s usually fine if he stays up for an hour or two after that last drink, maybe eats something vaguely describable as food from Taco Bell. But when he passes out before his liver has time to process all the booze in his bloodstream, he’s still sick the next day. Gets bad dreams. Unrestful, shallow sleep.

It reminds him of that week Sosa broke up with him, if he’s being honest with himself. And yeah, that’s the whole problem right now.

He’s been here before. Right where he is with Hannibal now. Old, familiar territory, he thinks.

But something isn’t really fitting in.

Charisa had had skeletons in her closet. Big ones. Awful ones. What had happened to her back in college...it was only once. Didn’t physically hurt her. But it had ripped her up inside, made her scared of sex, affection, of them, completely. He used to look in on her eHarmony account, back before she gave up on it, checks her facebook page every once in a while, maybe has BA hack her Google search history, all in the name of their security...anyway, last he looked, she was checking into artificial insemination clinics. Face keeps meaning to call her and tell her he’ll donate, if she’s really given up on having a family the conventional way. But that’s not really the point.

The point is that somebody hurt her once, that she hurt herself in their ill-advised relationship years later, and she’s never really gotten over it.

Hannibal...Hannibal isn’t like that. At all. Reluctant at first, yeah, hesitant, maybe, shoved him away that first night he’d tried to kiss him, absolutely, but hadn’t the boss told him time and again that he loved him? That Face meant the world to him? That Face would never have to fear being alone again? Hasn’t the boss, who’s really not all that good with words when it comes to emotional topics, shown him, time and time again, that he means everything he says? Like earlier, in the shower. That was Hannibal trying to say something, and he’d thrown it back in the man’s face, not sure of what was going to come out, scared to hear it...

What did Chris tell him? He was still just John back then, or something like that. And isn’t that really what’s pissing Face off about this whole thing? That he’s found out there was a John. A John, who existed long before Colonel Hannibal Smith, who had his own problems and his own life, different and distinct. And it’s not the fact that this man existed, no.

It’s that Face had never thought there was anything else to his lover.

Never really thought about who John is.

That he’d never bothered to look beyond the monolithic comfort of Hannibal.

He’d never imagined, in all the years they were together, that there was anything more to the man.

Sitting on the sofa there, in dark, Face realizes that he’s been content, in a very real way, of having his lover on his own terms, of letting Hannibal be that rock for him, of being able to cling to that and use that and take advantage of that, and never asking if there was anything underneath. If Hannibal had ever had any problems of his own.

And that when faced with the fact that it might not be so, what had he done?

Gotten pissed and left the shower when the man he claimed to want to spend the rest of his life with had tried to make love to him...

Fuck, Face thinks.

But his head is starting to pound from trying to sort it out, from the hangover and too-soft cushions. So he groans and shoves up from the couch. Tylenol. He needs Tylenol. And carbs. And a big glass of water. And more Tylenol. And then he can go back to sleep and work this out in the morning.

And then all that’s shot to shit the second he sets foot in the kitchen. Because the stove light’s on and he can smell good cigar smoke, and there’s the man himself. Hunched over an ashtray, big hand in silver hair, staring down at the counter top.

He looks miserable.

Because, Face knows, of him. Because he’s been fucking selfish. Because he always just assumed that Hannibal was perfect, that he’d had some kind of blessed life with family and West Point and the Rangers, that nothing could be worse than what he’d gone through as a kid, so it had never mattered to know. Because while Hannibal had never offered, he’d never asked. Because he hasn’t been there for Hannibal like Hannibal’s always been there for him.

The lieutenant takes a deep breath. And heads to the fridge.

Hannibal doesn’t look up, although he surely must hear him. Not as Face grabs a bag of tortilla chips and that salsa Murdock made yesterday and a big glass of water and the painkillers out of the side cabinet where they have their little medical store opened for the purposes of this mission. Not as Face sits down right next to him and finishes the water and a palmful of pills and a half-dozen heavily laden chips.

Not until Face reaches over and takes the cigar away from him, laying it aside, wrapping his hand around Hannibal’s big one. He wants to say something, but he can’t think of what it should be.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Hannibal squeezes back, and looks over at him, the expression in his eyes somewhere between excitement and sorrow. He turns their joined hands over, Face’s on top, and kisses the back of the younger man’s knuckles.

“You know I love you, Temp. You, not Chris. You.”

Face sighs, and lays his head on his colonel’s shoulder. “You do love him, John. You don’t have to lie to me about that.”

“He’s just...he’s just an old friend,” Hannibal says, and that shoulder slumps a bit.

“Back when you didn’t have anybody else. You guys must have gone through a lot together. That...that doesn’t just go away. It shouldn’t. I get that.” Face stares at his hands. "I'm...I'm not mad about that. Just wish I'd known"

“Kid...”

“It’s okay, John. It’s..it’s my own fault. I never asked.” He runs his free hand around Hannibal’s chest, closing his eyes, remembering how good it feels, how good it always feels, his lover’s heart beating beneath his palm.

Hannibal lets go of his hand but lays that arm around his shoulders, and he’s reaching back for his cigar. “I don’t think I would have told you.”

“And now?” Face asks, trying to ignore the faint ripple of fear that goes through him at asking that question.

He feels a kiss on his forehead. “What...what did you want to know?”

And for some reason, hearing the nervousness in that question makes it a hell of a lot easier for Face to reply. “What happened to your real dad?”

There’s a pause. A short pause. Hannibal eats a chip. Face can hear him chewing it slowly, and pulls back, going for one himself, sensing that maybe this is something that needs to be somewhat dispassionate if the older man’s going to get through it.

Hannibal inhales on the cigar one more time, and stares at it. And amazingly, starts talking.

“My dad...he...he enlisted back in ‘68, you know, during ‘Nam. He got my mom pregnant her senior year of high school, wanted to marry her, but he had shipped by the time she figured that out, so she married somebody else. It was one of those, avoiding the shame things women had to do back then. Didn’t tell the guy I was another man’s kid until...”

Face sits there and Hannibal sits there, the older man talking, the younger one occasionally prompting with questions, both of them finishing off those tortilla chips, everything quiet and still until the sun comes up and Murdock comes down to start breakfast.

++++++

“I hate stakeouts,” Face grumbles. “Stupid fucking stakeouts...”

“Can’t help it, man,” BA grunts back at him, across the table in the little cafe they’re holed up in. The big guy’s as bored as he is. Has to be. He’s folding a little paper football from his paper kids’ placemat Face got him as a joke. BA did all the games on the flip side, and spent about half an hour doing a very detailed drawing of Murdock doing that Spiderman kiss thing he likes to do sometimes. When he wears his Spiderman underwear. Face thought it was a very good likeness. The waiter freaked out a when he saw it. Priceless. But still. Bored. Boring. “Part o’ the game.”

They’re watching the restaurant across the street, where Collins is still having his two-hour, and counting, lunch. Inconsiderate motherfucker, Face thinks. “Isn’t there some kind of law about how long these sons of bitches can be out of the building when Congress is in session?”

BA tucks a crisp corner of crayon-scribbled paper into an obtusely small pocket. How does he do that, those big fingers of his? “You actually wan’ ‘em in there, working?” He pauses in the paper-football-making to place air quotation marks around the word “working”.

Spending too much time with Murdock, Face decides, and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t vote anymore," he jokes, looking back out to the restaurant’s facade. “Why won’t he hurry the fuck up? What is he doing in there? How long does it take a steakhouse to cook a fucking steak?”

It really is starting to get irritating. They’ve been trailing Collins all day, ever since he left the house that morning. Hannibal called at about 0530 that morning, telling the senator that if he wanted in, he needed to pay. Today, 1600, a designated bench in Washington Park. Hannibal wants him to get the receipts - the ones with bank account numbers on them. The boss asked for a thousand down, in cash, more than Collins would likely have on hand and more than he could pull in one ATM visit.

BA’s along just in case.

Just in case BA can do anything with the ATMs after Collins is done.

Just in case Face can’t pull a convincing con and he needs to step in.

Just in case Collins tries to pull some shit.

Because Face remembers damn well how that man’s hand felt on his ass yesterday, on his throat, and politicians tend to think they’re untouchable. He’s worried about this, honestly. He kind of, really is.

“Maybe they had to kill the cow, man,” BA quips and then sobers a bit, tearing his gaze away from the window. “How you doin’, Faceman? You two get your shit straight las’ night?”

Face shifts in his seat. Shit. Yeah. Hannibal. He’s been trying not to think about that.

They were up all night. All night. Just...talking. Which had been sort of weird, since he can’t remember ever doing that, like that, not even back when the shit with Sosa hit the fan like it had. Hannibal’s not a big talker. But last night...

Life story.

Complete life story.

Hannibal’s dad, leaving for ‘Nam, his mom marrying somebody else and then outing her son as a bastard on his birth certificate. The way his step-dad used to beat him, make him live in the closet under the stairs, wouldn’t so much as sign a permission slip for John to go out for track. How Chris had been the only sane element in his life until Morrison rode in specifically to find him, lit a fire in John’s disgruntled teenage self and saw him into West Point...

It’s been informative. And very helpful.

While his heart breaks for what his lover went through back then, he’s relieved it wasn’t what he’d assumed it to be. Relieved that Hannibal hadn’t had to go through what he’d gone through. No sexual abuse. But Face can’t understand why Hannibal’s mom would allow the hitting, the psychological damage. He’s having a hard time with that one. Child abuse he knows all too well, but nothing that ever happened to him was done by anyone who had the god-given responsibility to love him....

And he’s relieved that Hannibal had somebody who loved him. Chris. He totally understands the importance of Chris now. What they had in Utah, in New York, after Hannibal commissioned, after Hannibal broke up with Morrison...

But Hannibal hadn’t said much about Morrison.

“Russ was my first,” he’d said about three hours in to the discussion. “I’d hoped, kid I was, he’d be my last.”

“And?”

“And it turns that that honor belongs to you instead, kid.”

So there were still a few things the boss wanted to protect. Face could live with that, for now.

Last night had left them both exhausted, emotionally and physically drained. Hannibal had planned on making this drop, on being the one to meet Collins, but he’d been non-functional after breakfast. And sure, maybe that had had something to do with the inch-thick slabs of Canadian bacon Murdock had included with the pancakes, but that’s neither here nor there.

The boss fell asleep at the table, and he hadn’t protested when Face had bundled him up to bed. He needed the rest. And Face knew then, like he knows now, that he can handle this, so he took it instead.

“Yeah, better, I guess. We talked. It’s, well, it’s not better than I thought it was, but it’s still not great...” The lieutenant pushes a fork around on the table, trying to pull his thoughts together. “I mean, he took a month of leave to go to Phoenix when his mom was in the hospice there a couple years back with cancer. Remember how broken up he was? And she let her husband fucking beat him? What is that?”

BA listens, and nods. “My dad wa’n’t home when I was a kid. Took off on mama when she was sixteen, never looked back. She worked two jobs, jus’ to keep us afloat, you know? Refused to go on welfare, my mama. Had to drop outta school when I was fifteen to help her out, got arrested a few times, started smokin’ pot, shit like that. Mama threw me out cause I was too much trouble. I lost my job, then the Army was the only place that would take me...”

Face looks up from his flatware, amazed this is coming up. Amazed, too, because it’s the most he’s ever heard BA talk. Ever. “I didn’t know that.”

“And Murdock’s parents died in a car crash when he was six, left him with his fundamentalist grandparents who loved him and haven’t talked to him since his college boyfriend outed him his sophomore year,” BA continues, voice a bit more bitter now, “His granddaddy called Hannibal about it one time, said he didn’t think no gays should be in the military...”

That’s a bit of a revelation. “I...I knew about his parents, but...”

“Everybody’s family fucks ‘em up,” and Face realizes that BA’s smiling a little. “Don’t mean ya don’t love 'em. Don’t mean they don’t love ya.”

Face thinks about that for a moment. “Then what about mine?” he asks, half-sarcastic, half wanting to know.

“She cared ‘nuf ‘bout you...”

But he doesn’t exactly want to listen to that. “To take me to the baby box at St. John’s Childrens’ Hospital? To some fucking orphanage where all we had was hand-me-downs from the parish and we all got mocked at school and holidays meant an extra-long Mass?” Where I got raped, repeatedly, as a kid, he adds silently in his head.

BA huffs, and shoves the half-finished paper football away. “You...You coulda ended up in a sink or dumpster or sumthin’. I knew plenty’a girls that did that,” the big guy says, blunt but quiet.

“Woah,” Face says, a bit shocked as the enormity of what BA just said hitting him full force. “You just...you just said that, didn’t you?”

BA looks sheepish. “Sorry, man, that wrong, I know. But you gotta think, maybe she loved you but had a real good reason for not bein’ able ta keep ya. Or...sumthin’, fuck, I don’t know what I’m tryin’ ta say...”

And then when the big guy’s voice just stops, Face’s internal monologue picks up.

His mom loved him, but gave him up?

Hannibal’s mom loved him, but let him get abused?

Family fucks you up and you love them anyway, and that’s just the way it is?

But then he thinks about that morning, after breakfast.

About how he had to haul his half-comatose lover up the stairs to their room. How Hannibal had flopped back on the bed like a sack of potatoes, falling back, eyes closed, but still had the strength to grab Face and haul him down to the sheet with him.

To whisper, “are we good, Temp?”

He’d kissed Hannibal’s forehead and let his lover pull him close. “Yeah, John. Thanks for letting me in.”

“I was never trying to keep you out, babe,” he’d sighed. “I didn’t...didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me, boss, not with something like that,” Face had urged back, drawing the sheets up over both of them, rubbing Hannibal’s belly as he started slipping away into sleep

“Yeah, but I did, didn’t trust you enough...”

“I was being a bitch about it, too,” he murmured in reply. “That’s on me...”

Hannibal had chuckled a little. “Yeah, you were, kid...”

“Oh, go to sleep, old man,” Face replied, mock-angry.

But one of those big hands touched his neck. “I love you, Templeton. You know that, right?”

“I love you, too, John,” he’d whispered back, and laid there with his lover until he fell asleep. All of ten seconds, but still. He’d been there, right where he wanted to be, right where Hannibal had wanted him to be. Both of them working for the same thing. Both of them mending all those pieces they’ve been breaking off their relationship the last few days....

“Showtime, man.”

His eyes shoot to the window.

Movement.

Both men look at each other, on the same page immediately. BA grabs his messenger bag with the little hacking device in it and Face shells a few bills out on the table and they’re out. After their target. Uncomfortable conversation over for the moment. Probably, knowing BA, to never come up again. But as they follow Collins through the DC downtown at a discreet distance, Face can still hear those words, maybe she loved you, echoing around in his head.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Even if he’s not sure if he’s comfortable with that thought, that...idea, of forgiving whoever the bitch was, Hannibal clearly forgave his mother, and still loved her. And Face has to respect that.

And maybe, he thinks as Collins is approaching the nearest Wells Fargo ATM, that’s what BA was trying to say. Family are the people you love, and want, and forgive, and work for, no matter what. And his past has brought him here, to John, to the team, to the people who were supposed to be his family all along.

Now that, Face decides, he can live with.

But he still wants to know what happened with Russ.

And if Chris touches his man again without his permission, so help him god...

+++++

Hannibal’s pacing up and down the kitchen.

It’s almost 2100, the boys were supposed to be back by 1900, and he’s way past worried.

Way, way past worried.

“Where are they?” he growls. “Where the fuck are they?”

Murdock’s got a puzzle out on the table, pushing the pieces around, doing it backwards, so all he’s looking at is the brown of the cardboard. “They’re gonna be back, boss.”

“Face is pulling something,” Hannibal says, trying to tell himself that Collins isn’t off, having his way with his boy, or something equally horrible. He’s been afraid of that since he woke up this morning, Face already gone. He’s been beating himself up over it all day. What the fuck was he thinking? Falling asleep, letting the kid deal with this, instead of him. It should have been him, should have been him putting himself at risk for Chris... “That’s what he’s doing. He got backed into a corner and now he’s fucking pulling something.”

“Like what?”

Big chocolate eyes are watching him, and Hannibal sighs. Last thing he wants to do is set the pilot into some episode without BA or Face here to calm him down. He loves Murdock like family, he really does, but there are some things about the man that still throw him for a total loop. “I don’t know, Murdock. But something’s going on...”

Then, as if on cue from the universe itself, Murdock’s phone buzzes next to the puzzle pieces.

Text coming in.

Everybody good, be back 10-20 minutes, explain then. XOXO

“Aww,” Murdock says happily, hugging the phone close. “I love you too, BA.”

Hannibal stops his pacing and collapses into the nearest chair. “Thank god,” he mutters to himself, and reaches for the box of cigars Face has oh-so conveniently stored in the middle fo the table that morning in a not-so-subtle warning about the cigarettes. The colonel smiles a little at that. They spend all night talking, and Face still takes the time to be bitchy about the details. Sometimes, he loves the boy.

But that conversation, the conversation itself, had damn near killed him.

He’d been so afraid of what Face would say. Of how his boy would look at him, after he was done. Of how he’d let the kid down, disapppoint him. At least, that’s what he’s thought. What he’s been telling himself. All. These. Years.

There’d been none of that, though. No judgment. No anger. Nothing but soft murmurs and soft squeezes of his hand and soft, sad blue eyes. Not pity but sympathy. Maybe even a little fellowship over it. Certainly relief. The kid had been so... relieved.

Not what Hannibal had been expecting.

He hadn’t said everything, though. He couldn’t push himself through the story with Russ. Not that. What had happened with that, their relationship, how wonderful it had all been, how perfect and right and forever it had seemed to his naive younger self, is something that still hurts. After all these years, those last few days between him and Russ still hurt. And not the events in that goddamn boathouse in Germany, no. He’d lost his Russ, his lover, his mentor and best friend, a long time before that.

Russ, I can’t...I can’t keep doing this. You’re getting married to her when we get back, and...

...and I still need you, John. You. Just you...

I can’t...I can’t be part of you cheating on her. It’s already bad enough. Don’t you think I feel bad about this?

Kid, we talked about this. In-country, at Benning, that’s her time. Everywhere else, anywhere else in the world, it’s all you, sweetheart. Nothing’s going to change just because we get married...

I thought you were...Russ, I thought...I thought this thing between us...

It’s you I love, John. Only ever you...

Russ, please, don’t say that...

It’s true, baby, I love you...

He shudders even now, thinking about it. Not anything he wants to relive.

How Russ had started to get phobic about his next promotion, about the rumors starting about about is-he-isn’t-he, his fucking parents pushing him to have kids, his own whispered confession one night about how he wanted to be able to lead a normal life.

How Hannibal had told him that he’d do anything Russ needed him to, and they’d made love until the sun came up.

How Russ started pushing him after that, the way they’d go out and it wasn’t always his lover who’d fuck him that night.

How Russ had started dating women then, behind Hannibal’s back, and how Hannibal had forgiven him, tried to live with it, and couldn’t any longer, once that ring slid on that pretty girl’s finger...

And it’s harder than Chris, harder than his family, even. Because while he didn’t control anything that happened in his house as a kid, the whole relationshipwith Russ was his fault. Every day of it. He’d felt used and hollow and broken when it ended. Took him years to get over. Took him almost losing his boy to get over.

He can’t talk to Face about that right now.

They have to get through this mission first.

And Hannibal smokes half that cigar, remembering, not wanting to remember, before BA’s van finally pulls into the garage and his two missing team members drag into the kitchen. BA goes for a beer, and Face takes up position a few feet away.

The colonel groans a little inside. This isn’t good. “Report, lieutenant,” he says, perhaps a bit too tiredly.

“Boss, we got problems,” Face says, wincing a little as the words tumble out.

Hanibal groans. Figures. “How big?”

“Fucking huge,” BA supplies from his forage in the fridge.

Hannibal groans again. “He wants you?”

“Sort...of?” And then, inexplicably, Face grins.

His nervous grin. Which is not a good look on him. “Kid...”

“Wegottabargainhimdowntoathreesome,” his lover says quickly.

Hannibal listens, incredulous. He can’t exactly pull any meaning out of that statement. But he’s pretty sure he caught the word... “threesome? Lieutenant...”

“He’s on the hook, we gotta play it. But he’s threatening to go to the police and report our Mr. Baracus here for prostitution if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Which is you?”

Face gestures wildly, which means he’d like to try to con his way through this thing, knows it won’t work, and can’t figure out what else to do to convince Hannibal that his insane idea is not, in fact, insane. “It’s perfect, Hannibal, think about it. He thinks he’s got all the power, I get to be in the room so nothing happens to Luke, I control the situation...it’s perfect.” He smiles. It’s infuriating.

“What if he hurts you?”

And Face starts laughing. “A fifty-five year old man with no combat training hurt me? Are you fucking kidding me, boss?”

“Kid,” he groans, for an entirely different reason now. He’s thinking about the way Collins was touching Face at the club, the look in his eyes. “These people, powerful people... they’re used to getting their way...”

“Which is his weakness and what we’re going to exploit and it’s all going to work out fine,” Face says, shoving away from the wall, coming over, sitting down on the edge of the table. He touches the older man’s cheek. “Boss, we have to do this.”

Hannibal sighs, and shakes his head. “I make the deal. My terms. You follow my directions to the letter, lieutenant.” He looks up, at where Murdock’s cuddled up to BA, both men watching him intently. He raises his voice. “And if I think you’re in danger, at all, we pull the con and find an alternative route. Okay?”

“Roger that, boss,” Face replies with a nod, and then yawns, covering it with the back of his hand.

The colonel smiles, and taps him lightly on the ass, pushing him up. “Go to bed, kid. You have to be beat.”

Face chews on his lower lip. “Are you coming up?” he asks softly.

“Do you want me there?” Hannibal replies, just as softly.

“Always want you, boss.”

The older man answers those words with a soft, easy kiss, and Face is smiling a genuine smile as he pulls away and heads upstairs.

“We gonna turn in, too, boss,” BA grunts, pulling his armful of pilot from the room. Murdock murmurs a quiet, sane, “good to see you workin’ it out,” and then Hannibal’s alone in the silence.

He glances up at the ceiling, upstairs, where Face must be stripping down by now...and grabs his laptop.

Hannibal works for maybe an hour, adjusting his plan, making sure everything can work out on this, and then another wave of exhaustion washing over him reminds him that his boy is upstairs. Waiting for him.

He shuts everything down, hits all the lights, and walks as quietly as he can upstairs. He feels a shiver run through him, seeing the bedroom door is open to him tonight, and slips inside, stripping as he goes.

Throwing back the corner of the blankets, Hannibal slides into bed, right next to his sleeping lover. He props himself up on his side, just watching. He loves Face like this, always has, since their very first night together. Loves seeing that carefree, happy boy, body untroubled, muscles relaxed, everything about him calm and peaceful. It’s beautiful.

But the vision’s shattered as Face whimpers a bit, grabbing the blanket, sinking into dream, and Hannibal does what he always does; slot right up behind his boy, spoon his warm, supple body and take the fear away.

“Shh, Templeton,” he whispers in an upturned ear. “Shh, babe, I’m here.”

“John,” the younger man murmurs, half out of that dream.

“Yeah, kid, I’m here.”

In sleep, his boy smiles, and Hannibal kisses his forehead, relieved that nothing’s ruined between them. That they can salvage this.

Even if he dreams about Russ that night. About their break-up. About that hotel in Budapest and Chris and the way his friend had held him and fucked him and told him everything, everything was going to be okay...

+++++

Face pauses in the stairwell of the hotel, down from the room where this is all going to go down tonight, laying a hand on Luke’s shoulder. The kid, the evening’s willing victim, is a bit nervous, shivering a little in his studiously plain jacket, but he smiles at the touch.

“Okay, remember what we talked about?” Face asks, and he hopes to hell that this is going to play to script. They’ve had to adjust things a bit, with him here and all. “Some nice, friendly man with a fantastic body got you drunk and brought you here, you’re not really sure what’s going on, you’re so happy to meet Mr. Collins...”

“Right. So I don’t know who you are, he has to make the first move...I’ve got it, Mr. Black...”

“You don’t know my name, I never gave it to you,” Face warns again, putting a finger on the younger man’s lips. “And he’s probably going to call me pet or slave or something like that. Be uncomfortable with it, put up a bit of a fight, but let him have you...”

Luke nods and downs one of those airline-size bottles of vodka, then another. He needs to keep his B.A.C. at a certain level. They talked about that. Face is pretty sure he’s got all the details covered here. They’ve been at a bar the last hour, the whole thing played out right for witnesses and any security cameras. Luke had a number of beers, and had made it look like even more, stumbling back here on Face’s shoulder. Good little conman, the older man thinks fondly, and suspects likes to play this game himself, drunk straight boy accidently in a gay club somewhere. “Got it, Mr. Black.”

Face smiles, and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up just perfect. “I’m gonna have to let him hit you and obviously we need the...evidence... but I’m not going to let him hurt you, okay?”

“It has to look like a rape, I get that,” the college kid says impatiently, and looks down the hall. “Should we get going?”

“You sure? It’s going to mean...”

“I know. But for Aaron?” He nods. “No problem.”

Figuring it’s probably time to get going, get back in character, Face cups the kid’s chin and kisses him lightly. “We’ll keep your face out of the news as best we can, okay? Hannibal knows a few people...”

“Thanks,” Luke replies.

And, wrapping a supportive arm around him, Face takes him out of the stairwell and down the hall to the room they’ve checked out under the pseudonym Collins used to use at Chris’ club, rented by Face, wearing the same sort of thing he’s wearing tonight.

They’re in a good hotel, one whose decor was fairly close to what Chris had, and it hadn’t been much of anything for Face and BA to fix one of the rooms up right. It’s a good hotel, which means there can be noise complaints if things get too violent, which is actually perfect. The team’s in the room next door, monitoring the cameras. They’ve got stages they’re watching for, set events at which to call hotel security, the police, the press...

...or get in here themselves and stop it.

It’ll take Hannibal ten to thirteen seconds to respond to an emergency situation. The boss checked that and checked that and checked it again.

He’s worried.

Face, as he pulls out his room key and slides it into the electronic lock and opens the door, isn’t. Not at all. The plan’s elegantly simple. So, actually, he’s a bit excited about it.

If excited is the right word for something like this.

Collins is waiting on the bed, sipping at something dark and amber. Face’s eyes flick over, imperceptibly, to the minibar. Next to an unobtrusive envelop, a mini-bottle of the Johnny Walker is open there. Good. It doesn’t matter what he’s drinking, as long as he’s drinking something. They’ve drugged every bottle in the room. Slow-acting stuff and mild, but undetectable in the bloodstream once it’s metabolized. It should be enough to give them a half-hour or so before Collins falls asleep. At which point Face leaves and Luke can make a call to the police, sobbing about how he’s just been...

“Good evening, sir,” Face says, carefully not looking at the senator, keeping his back to the camera he knows is carefully and unobtrusively placed in a corner, and bites a Luke’s ear. “Say hello to the man, baby.”

“Hi,” Luke says, nice and shy, still clinging to the conman’s arm, holding out one hand to Collins, like he’s expecting them to shake. “It’s very nice to meet you...”

Collins is up in a second, eyes dark with lust and tinged with liquor, pulling the college kid away from Face, wrapping an arm around his waist. He lays soft fingers on that young cheek, splaying them out, touching in an unmistakable , and the conman feels queasy.

But Luke said he was okay with this, so he shoves that aside. Has to stay in the game, has to focus...

“Hi, baby,” he whispers, nipping Luke’s ear none too gently. “What do I call you?”

“L-Luke...” he gasps.

“Luke. That’s lovely.” And he turns his attention away from the kid. “Your master found me a sweet one, didn’t he?” the senator says, looking at Face. “Are you sure he’s up for the game?”

“Baby, that’s part of the fun,” Face purrs, coming over and rubbing himself up Collins’ back, letting him feel how hard he is. A quarter of a tablet of Viagra, swallowed in the stairwell. Shouldn’t be enough to cause any damage, and it’s just eough to hel him through the next half hour or so. He takes Collins’ hand off Luke’s face and guides it down his body instead. “Do you feel him? All that muscle? He’s so strong, baby, all for you...”

Luke moans as that hand hits his ass.

Collins grins, and jerks him around, pulling his head roughly back, kissing him hard and then shoving him back on the bed. Luke whimpers, and Face moves back enough to see that there’s blood running from the kid’s lip where the senator bit him.

Then out comes the knife.

Face has his hands behind his back, and clenches his left fist just so, signaling Hannibal to stay where the fuck he is, and steps forward again, laying a hand on Collins’ shoulder, whispering right in his ear. “Careful, baby, this is a trial run only, a taste of what we can offer. Master told me no cutting, no flaying and no burning tonight. He said those were the rules. I’ll have to enforce them if you get out of line...”

“Yeah,” Collins growls, “yes, that’s what he said. But don’t worry. I’m not going to cut him.”

So the conman moves away a bit, giving Collins room, and he’s a bit fascinated by how the kid’s clothes just sort of...disintegrate. He does squirm at one bit, cry out, and as the last bit of those jeans falls away, Face can see blood.

He touches the cut. Shallow. And looks up at the senator, right at his solar plexus, the highest he’s going to allow his eyes tonight, but more than enough to know what the older man is and isn’t going to do, where he’ll move or not. “Broke the rules, baby,” he hisses.

Collins stares at him for a moment, and then backhands him, hard, knocking Face down to the bed and straddling him in a second. “And what are you going to do about it, bitch?”

Face just puts his hand on the older man’s chest, in poor imitation of trying to push him back, smiling devilishly, like he's loving every second of it, and then Collins is on him.

+++++

Hannibal clenches and unclenches a fist, his fingernails leaving little half-moon dents in his palm, eyes fixed to the laptop BA has the feed on. He hates watching this. Hates every second of it. When he met with Collins yesterday to give him the final details, to grudgingly allow himself to be talked into the threesome with his supposed boss’ boy, give him the key and the time and get half the fee for the evening, he did specify certain things were out of bounds. Like cutting, burning, whipping, that sort of thing.

Collins had agreed.

And then he’d cut the kid.

Face had told him not to come in, though, which means he stayed. Stayed and watched the past twenty minutes of this. He feels sick, dirty, not being able to go in there and stop it. While Collins tore all the clothes off Face. Ordered Face to tie the boy down. Raised some bruises on his skin, bit him a few times, spanked him hard, drew blood, then took him dry.

Luke had promised he was okay with that, that he liked it, and the only thing keeping Hannibal in his seat right now is the fact that he can’t see any blood on the boy’s thighs as Collins pulls out.

BA’s casting an eye back and forth between that screen and another laptop he’s got set up, this one with a wireless card jammed in it, about half a dozen different boxes pulled up on it, grunting as he types away furiously. He’s still trying to finalize the last details on the financial end of all of this, but hacking bank accounts is both much harder and much easier than the general public seems to think. Which means they’ve had to go a different route on it. BA’s been working at this for three days, forging withdrawals and charging the hotel room to the senator’s card and things like that, and he’s starting to get frustrated. But everything has to be perfect for the police tomorrow.

Murdock’s not watching at all, no, he’s on the bed, reading a Ninja Turtles comic that Hannibal gave him. He’s still paying attention to everything that’s going on, but this distracts him just enough to where he’s not going to slip in to some kind of funk. Hannibal needs him functional, and the subject of rape seems to be, consistently, more than the pilot can handle. He’s got his suspicions about why, but nobody’s ever heard the full story on it.

“Mm, that was beautiful, baby,” he hears Face purring in his ear, and only just remembers that it’s actually the audio feed from the room. “You did him so well.”

“One of the best I’ve had in a while,” Collins is replying.

Hannibal turns his attention back to the screen. Where his lover is cuddling close to the senator, working his fingers up and down the older man’s naked chest, kissing him lightly on the cheek, holding him down to the bed with the lightest of touches. Still keeping his face out of the camera’s view, the make-up concealing his tattoo still holding strong.

“Gonna fuck you next,” the senator mutters, hand in Face’s hair. “Gonna fuck you til you bleed. You’ll love it...”

“Ooh, yes, this slave will,” Face replies.

And he has to look away again.

But it doesn’t last long, Face holding the senator, cuddling him to sleep, lulling him away from the world, and pretty soon, the drugs are taking effect.

And Collins is asleep.

“Thank fuck,” Hannibal mutters, and the other two boys look up, over at the screen, where Face is casually stretching himself, kissing Collins’ cheek and patting his naked ass fondly, kissing a half-comatose Luke lightly on mouth, no doubt whispering instructions to him quietly. Where Face is stealing the older man’s pants and shirt - “That’s cold, man,” BA laughs - and thumbs through the envelop of cash. Where Face is slipping out of the room.

And Hannibal’s off his chair in a second, hurrying to the door.

Face is waiting there as Hannibal opens the door, tired, not quite smiling, and he stumbles forward into Hannibal’s arms.

“Sweetheart,” the older man whispers, kissing him, letting fingers stray through his hair, forcing himself not to look at the welt rising on his cheek, not to smell the scent of another man on him, not to see those vulgar, tastelessly expensive clothes on him.

Face clings, like he always does when he wakes up from a bad dream, but his voice is certain. Professional, even as he's cuddled. “Did you see me at all?”

“No, kid, the tape’s clean.”

“Awesome,” he says, and looks at the bathroom door. “John, I’ve got, like, that asshole’s semen on me, he splattered a bit. Can I take a...”

“No time, Faceman,” Murdock says, and tosses over a duffle bag of clothes. “We got five minutes to get out of here before Luke calls the cops...”

Face looks down at himself, disentangling, and sighs. “Okay, fine. I’ll use a washcloth instead.” He sounds tired. He sounds exhausted, actually. Hannibal wonders how much this little performance took out of him, what’s going through his head right now. He wants to know where Collins touched him, wants to kiss every bruise, wipe away every lingering stain of contact and make love to him and hold him as he falls asleep, far from the nightmares.

But they’ve got time enough to deal with all this later. Right now, BA is pulling cables and saving files and switching off the feed from the camera in the air vent in the next room and Murdock’s up and they really, really do need to get going.

“You did good, Temp,” Hannibal says. “But take longer than thirty seconds in there and I will break your legs.”

It gets him a smile.

For tonight, that’s good enough.

+++++

Chris starts popping beers, offering the first one to Hannibal, who takes it absently, fixated as he is on his iPhone and one of the chat rooms where Amy passes them client tips. He's still coordinating with her on this whole thing.

Face doesn’t miss the way their hands brush, how Hannibal clings just a little too long, how Chris doesn’t quite let go. The lieutenant feel that dull edge of jealousy again, and starts to say something. But then BA’s turning up the volume on the TV over the bottles of Patron, and it's really not the time.

“It back from commercial, guys!”

The conman shakes it off. They can talk about that later. Besides, he’s the one sitting next to Hannibal , so he can just snuggle right in to the boss’ side. And Chris, behind the counter, sipping his tequila, can fuck right off.

Tonight, we open with the shocking story broken by Andrew Breitbart this morning. It’s no surprise when we find senators cheating on their wives in weird and unusual ways. Happened just a few months ago with Twittergate. How much lower can they go, do you ask? How about paying tens of thousands, of your tax dollars, for sexual favors, including the kidnapping and rape of young men from the Washington DC area? Graphic video was released late last night on You Tube...

Murdock offers Face the popcorn he’s munching on. “It was genius uploading it to YouTube, boss.”

Hannibal grunts, and reaches around Face for a handful of salty goodness. “Amy said the press can’t ignore it once it goes viral,” he says with a shrug, clearly bitter.

Face pats his knee beneath the counter. The boss has been sore about the media for years. Since that one incident, a couple years back, when CNN featured, quite prominently and against the family’s express wishes, the coffin of one of his boys in a smear piece on Bush. “Corrupt bastards,” he agrees

“Breitbart’s an asshole,” Chris observes.

Face shakes his head, and goes back to the report.

...So, Andrew, would you mind telling us what you’ve discovered about this story so far?

Well, YouTube pulled the video clips after only a few minutes, thank god, but I have obtained the entire half hour of video. I’m not allowed to release it, as it’s been supoened by the cops, and I can’t go in to details about what follows, but it’s horrific...

Disgusting, didn’t you say?

Absolutely. The events protrayed here are disgusting. It’s not the fact that it’s homosexual, although it’s impossible to ignore that, it’s the violence in it...

It’s shocking. Absolutely shocking. There’s a Congressional investigation already underway, and I’ve been told the DC police and the FBI are already looking in to Collins’ financials. we’ve also received word, not five minutes ago, that an arrest warrant has been issued for him, based on the description given by the young victim in the video...

Face looks down the bar at BA. “What did you do to with the video?”

“Sent it to Amy,” and BA shrugs. “She said she’d take care of it from there.”

“Glenn Beck’s an asshole,” Chris says thoughtfully.

Hannibal shakes his head, and Face feels another flare of jealousy as the boss’ attention slisp from him to his old lover. “You’re only saying that because he’s a Mormon.”

“He’s a Mormon with a blackboard. A really, really annoying blackboard...” The club owner, who really does look fantastic tonight, Face is forced to admit, points up at the TV, shotglass in hand. “Why? Why is he fucking breaking out the blackboard right now? What inane inforgraphic could you possibly be applying to this, you stupid fucker...”

BA’s got his wireless card back in, probably trying to find another news service that’s running the story, and he’s rolling his eyes, turning the screen around to face down the counter, and Murdock starts howling with laughter.

Drudge.

The main, big red headline flashing huge.

$10,000 OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS, ONE NIGHT OF ILLEGAL KINKY SEX

And it’s got a great photo of some...demon...thing in a collar that Murdock seems to recognize, because he slaps Face on the back, choking on his words, giggling them out one at a time. “You’re...hee, Face...you’re the pee-pee demon!”

“What the fuck? Face asks, taking a closer look at the screen and sitting back. “Woah, woah, I do not fucking look like that! Hannibal, I do not...”

“It’s a BBC link!” Murdock says, clicking excitedly. “It’s gone international!”

“With a photo implying that Faceman’s some demon thing from Angel?” BA grins. “I love that idea.”

“Dude, BA, you sonofabit...”

“Children,” Hannibal warns, growling a bit, and points back to the TV.

Can you speculate for us, Andrew, why this video might have been taken? Why somebody would record such a thing?

My guess, Glenn, is that somebody was hurt. Maybe something went too far and injuries were sustained. Maybe somebody at the hotel knew this was going on and wanted a way to put a stop to it. It doesn’t really matter. We have hard evidence of yet another politician abusing his power and position to gratify himself, and some responsible citizen has clearly made the decision to bring it to light, so we can bring this criminal to justice...

“Fucking-a,” BA agrees.

Chris shakes his head, twisting to look at the computer screen. “Did you charge him ten grand for that night?”

Face just smiles back. “Well, I did earn it.”

“An’ we set up his accounts so it looks like he been doin’ that for months,” BA adds. “Got enough for Aaron’s medical bills.”

“We’ll get the account signed over to him in a few weeks. There can’t be any connections between him and what we’ve done here,” Hannibal continues, downing his beer.

“But we have advanced about ten grand or so to his savings,” Face says. “So he’ll be okay for a while.”

Murdock nods along. “Masking the transactions is pretty complicated, so make sure you let us know if he needs any more than that, before we turn the account over.”

BA lays an arm around the pilot’s shoulders, hugging him close. “If he want ta testify...”

“...he can, but it’s going to be tricky. We need to know about that, too, and boss’ll come up with a suitable story for him,” Face finishes, and squeezes Hannibal’s thigh, smiling at him. “Everything came together on this one.”

Chris shakes his head, clearly speechless. “I don’t...I don’t know how to thank you all. I honestly do not.”

“This is what we do,” Hannibal tells him, and smiles back at Face, but his eyes are troubled, and Face moves that hand up to his shoulder, kissing him on the cheek. It doesn’t make that disturbance in his lover go away, though. And then the lieutenant realizes Chris looks pretty damn upset, and that’s what it must be.

Fuck, he thinks, and sits, heavily and fully, back on his own stool.

This thing with Chris, he suddenly knows, it’s not some passing thing that they’re going to leave behind when they get in BA’s van and get out of DC. No. Something has to be done about it.

They watch the rest of the report, scan through some of the things that BA’s got pulled up online. More details are emerging by the minute. The governor of his state vowing recall elections. A bipartisan Senate committee convening tomorrow to address the issue. Results released from the rape kit; penetration and seminal fluids. Collins, arrested at his DC apartment. Hauled out in chains.

The picture on Drudge changes to reflect that last piece of information, and Face feels irrationally better.

They call it a night, BA heading out, Murdock leaning against him, the two of them quarreling as the pilot picks at one of the big guy’s buttons. Hannibal lingers, fussing with something or other, and Face pulls back a bit, halfway to the door, just waiting.

It doesn’t take long.

“Things can still go wrong, Chris. In a lot of different ways. If they figure out it was us, the A-Team, doing the job on the asshole,” the colonel says quietly, still at the counter, shuffling the bottle between his big hands, his voice soft, “the police might be able...”

“...to connect you to me, and to every club member I’ve ever had.” Chris bites his lip and exhales slowly, staring up at the ceiling. “Right.”

“When we walk out of here tonight, Chris, we’re gone. You need to contact us, go through Amy, just like before.”

The club owner shakes his head. “John...”

“I’m gone, Chris, after tonight,” his lover says, and one of those big hands is twitching. Wanting to touch, Face knows, and for some reason, his heart breaks a little at seeing it. “You won’t see me again.”

Chris leans forward, over the counter, the elbows of his expensive designer jacket on the sticky of the bar. “It’s...John...John, it’s been so long...”

“I know,” Hannibal replies, and stands, leaning in a bit to meet the other man’s ear, for a few seconds only, Chris whispering something in reply. And then Hannibal pulls back again. He touches Chris’ shoulder, just once. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” Chris says, in a cracking, desperate voice.

Face can feel his heart breaking a little as his lover walks over to him, faking cheerfulness, trying to take it all in stride, hands in his pockets.

“You ready to go, kid?”

He shakes his head, looking back over his shoulder at Chris, who’s turned around now, still watching the news, and then back to his man. Not everything’s okay between them. There are still things they need to work out, Hannibal’s past to discuss, those trust issues to address.

But Face can live with that.

Because while he doesn’t have any practical claim on his lover’s sad past, he’s here with him now, and for many years to come. And, he suddenly realizes, watching Chris’ defeated posture, having a future to look forward to, to dream about, to work for and struggle for, is so much better that being left with nothing but memories.

“You need, him, don’t you?” Face asks quietly, slipping his hand into the boss’, tugging it loose from the protection of that pocket.

Hannibal lifts the younger man’s hand to his mouth and kisses it gently. “I need you, sweetheart.”

“But you need him tonight.” He says it without any judgment at all. “Him. Not me. Him.”

His lover shakes his head. “Kid...”

“Don’t bullshit me, John,” he warns, and lays an open hand on his lover’s chest. “Tell me what you whispered to him, just now.”

“Temp...”

“Come on, John. What?”

A sigh, and Hannibal’s shoulders fall a bit. “I told him...told him I loved him, and he told me I didn’t. It’s what...what we say every time we do this. It doesn’t mean anything...”

Face looks back at Chris for a moment, and then back to Hannibal. “It means something, John,” he says gently, and pulls up on his toes to kiss the boss very, very softly. The most reassuring kiss he's capable of giving. The I-love-you-and-own-you-and-you-fucking-know-it kiss. “See you back in the morning, okay?”

Hannibal’s eyes shine for a moment, but he blinks that swell of happiness away, shaking his head. “Kid, kid, you don’t have to...”

“Go, John,” he orders, and straightens his lover’s tie, tweaking it back into place. “I’ll be fine. But you won’t, if you don’t...”

But Hannibal doesn’t let him finish, catching him up around the waist instead, and kisses him. Hard. Rough. Sloppy. Almost violent. Violent and beautiful, a maelstrom of emotion. Every ounce of force, every shred of his passion in it, and when he lets Face go, his eyes are shining, bright and proper. “I love you, Templeton.”

“Love you too,” Face says, and smacks him lightly on the ass. “Don’t come home smelling like cigarettes. Or tequila. You know you can’t handle tequila. And use a condom. I’m the only man you get to bareback.”

One last quick kiss, and then Hannibal’s walking away from him again, back over to Chris at the bar, sweeping behind the counter and wrapping himself around the other man’s back, those big hands draping down his chest.

Guiding him back around.

Face watches for a moment, watches them tangle into each other, smooth and easy, like they’ve been doing this all their lives. Despite himself, despite that part of him, screaming that Hannibal only ever touch him like that, only him, ever again, he watches. And admits to himself that there’s something beautiful about it, about the outpouring of emotion there, the two of them necking like the teenagers they used to be together.

And his heart’s light, as he turns out into the foggy evening and heads for the rental car.

“Where’s boss?” BA asks.

“Everything okay?” Murdock queries.

But Face’s heart is too full, and he doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nods instead and falls asleep in the back seat on the way back to the safe house.

+++++

Hannibal buttons up his shirt, rumpled and wrinkled from where he pulled it off the floor a moment ago, where Chris threw it last night. It smells like liquor and sex and smoke and Chris. How many Sundays did he go back to West Point, smelling like this? He can’t remember.

Too many, really.

Far, far too many.

Chris is sprawled out on the bed like always, limbs everywhere. He was always a space hog when he wasn’t in a sleeping bag, Hannibal remembers fondly, always pushing for more and more room when all he wanted to do was cuddle. It was always a point they’d fight over, kiss, fuck, and forget about...

Forgetting.

Hannibal doesn’t want to forget about him.

Even if all they have from now on, of each other, are the memories.

Like last night, how they’d had a couple of drinks at the club, which Chris says he’ll have open again tomorrow night. The taxi ride back to his friend’s apartment, drunkenly kissing and touching in the back seat, the Pakistani cabbie getting more and more pissed by the minute. How they were basically, functionally sober by the time they hit his front door, but the time Chris unlocked it and Hannibal dragged him inside. How they’d actually taken their time with each other’s clothes, slower than they used to be, hotter, more kissing, more touching.

So much touching, so much skin, sweat rising, hearts racing. Chris had been almost as tight as he used to be on those sweltering nights in his crappy, shared-with-three-men New York City apartment. Back in the days after John took the virginity his friend had saved for him, and taught him all the things that Russ had shown him, and learned all the tricks Chris had picked up, and invented a few of their own together along the way.

How similar it all was, and how different.

They were both older, slower, not as flexible and not as fit as they’d been back then. They weren’t exploring or blowing off steam or fucking like rabbits because they needed the sex. No.

Nothing like that.

There had been a point, mid-thrust, staring down into his blonde friend’s lust-dark eyes, Hannibal had captured his mouth, swallowing the I love you, John, I love you before it could be given life with air. But he’d felt it, and Chris had known that, because he’d smiled his real, sweet, unsarcastic, unironic smile, and kicked his back, driving him deeper in.

He’s asleep now. Sprawled out on his back, arms and legs akimbo, soft and boneless, his lightening blonde hair falling across his face. He’s older than he used to be, wrinkles on skin that used to be so tan and so tight. He was never gorgeous, never handsome, not like Face at any rate, but there’s always been this confidence about him that made him attractive. The confidence of a man who knew what he was and what he wanted and went after it, world be damned.

Hannibal’s always admired that about him.

And watching his old friend, he wonders what his life would have been like, if Russ hadn’t come into it. If he would have moved to Moab and worked for some mountaineering company, if Chris would have joined him, if they would have spent all their time in the Canyonlands, climbing, hiking, fucking each other, fucking other men. If they’d own their own shop now, if they’d still be doing the same things, if they’d...

It’s no use wondering about what-ifs, Hannibal knows.

Chris knew what he wanted, and he’s gotten it.

But as far as Hannibal goes, there had been a different life in store for him than the one he’d imagined for himself as a teenage boy. Different from what he’d imagined as a cadet, a lieutenant, a captain, a colonel. So, so different. A hard, difficult, frustrating life.

A life that has Face in it.

His lieutenant, his boy, his Templeton. Who was lost in a fit of his own rage not a week ago over the way Chris was touching him, and yet, last night, gave Hannibal permission to sleep with his old friend.

He smiles, thinking of how alike these two men are, his first and last loves, and yet how utterly different. And Hannibal leans over Chris, kissing him one, final time, just barely brushing his lips, not wanting to wake him. Last night was the perfect good-bye. The good-bye Chris deserves.

“I love you,” he whispers to his sleeping friend.

And slips out into the rising dawn.

+++++

Face doesn’t bother listening for a cab. He knows Hannibal’s not going to have it pull up in front of the house. So he’s out on the front porch, wrapped up in flannel pants and an old blanket he found in a closet, coffee at hand.

Waiting for his lover to come walking up.

It’s foggy out, though, and visibility is shit, so Face is listening for the boss’ footfalls. He can identify everybody on the team from the way they each walk. Even pick out their moods. So he’s hoping he’ll hear the boss soon. And hopefully, the boss is happy...

He isn’t really sure how long he’s out there, the gray morning around him, coffee warming him through, legs cramping a bit from sitting on the wooden slats. But Face keeps up his vigil.

And then, just as his coffee is starting to grow cold, he hears it.

Muffled, indistinct, but unmistakable.

He stands.

Because there the boss is, that tall, strong frame coming out of the mist blowing off the lawn, one hand open to him.

And they crash together on the front porch into a hard, hard kiss, Hannibal surrounding him, Face throwing himself up into it, and he groans as his back hits the slatted wall of the borrowed house. Hannibal’s stealing his air, sucking on his tongue, trying his damndest to devour him, and he loves, loves, loves every second of it, body heating, cock swelling. Then a big hand slips down between their twisting bodies and under the waistband of his pants, and Face makes a completely undignified noise, bucking up into that touch.

“I love you,” Hannibal whispers, the words tickling through the stubble under the younger man’s lower lip.

His hand presses and turns and squeezes just so, and Templeton comes in flash of muted white, gasping into Hannibal’s shoulder, holding on for dear life as he rides through it.

“I...I love you too...” the younger man replies, shaky. “God, I love you.”

“My sweet boy...”

“Always yours. Yours...”

He lets Hannibal pull him up to their shared bedroom. Lets his lover lay him down and strip off the stained pants and wipe him clean. Watches with soft eyes as Hannibal removes his day-old clothes. And he lifts the blanket aside, letting that scarred, strong body slide in next to his, wrapping around it when it gets within range.

For some reason, in some way, Face has never felt closer to the man than he feels now.

Hannibal kisses his forehead, cuddling him close, chest to chest, cock to cock, big hands trailing up and down the nobs of his spine. “Was that okay, kid? I know, in the shower the other day...”

Face closes his eyes. Yeah. The shower. He’d been so confused, so hurt, like Hannibal thought he could just solve the whole thing with an orgasm and all the pieces would fall back into place.

That hadn’t been what he’d felt outside, on the porch just now.

That had been...coming home, maybe.

He picks at a strand of white chest hair, and shakes his head. “That was perfect,” he murmurs. Hannibal’s noble heart is beating beneath his palm, under warm skin as he slips it down to lightly cup his lover’s balls. “Do you need a turn?”

“I need to sleep, kid,” Hannibal tells his softly, stroking his shoulder. “And I need to hold you, feel you, and know you’re going to be here when I wake up.”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else, babe. Here with you is good,” Face says. And he can feel the exhaustion thrumming through his lover, that special, perfect, terrible kind of exhaustion that comes from intense emotional release. Whatever else they need to talk about, about what happened with Chris, about if he’s okay, about Russ, they can do it when he’s slept that off.

Hannibal sighs, breath warm against Face’s chest, and that’s when the lieutenant realizes that the older man’s moved down, that silver head resting on his bicep. He runs a hand into that fine hair, carding it through his fingers absently. Just feeling.

“Everybody, Temp, every person in my life has left me,” he whispers, and tightens his arm around Face’s waist. “Everyone I’ve ever loved...”

That admission brings tears instantly to Face’s eyes. He can hear the pain, and the fatigue, and the weariness, and the dread in those words and he blinks back accumulating moisture to kiss the top of the boss’ head. “Yeah, John, me too...”

“I’ll never leave you, kid. I’ll be here, as long as you want me.”

“I’ll never not want you, John. This, us...it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

He looks down and Hannibal looks up. Their eyes meet, a world of meaning passing between them. And then the boss sighs again, settling in, and Face holds him in the quiet of the morning. Until they’re both asleep, and long, long after.