Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1781017.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      No_Archive_Warnings_Apply, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_A-Team_(2010), The_A-Team_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Templeton_"Faceman"_Peck/John_"Hannibal"_Smith
  Character:
      Templeton_"Faceman"_Peck, John_"Hannibal"_Smith, Original_Male_Character
      (s)
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Modern_Setting, Alternate_Universe_-_Mob, Lies,
      Deception, Mission_Fic, Alternate_Identities, Undercover, Past_Child
      Abuse
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-13 Words: 29904
****** Hook, Line, and Sinker ******
by Sonora
Summary
     Templeton Peck, conman and adopted son of mafia cappo Anthony
     Santori, gets more than he bargained for when he’s sent to take down
     the new VP of a major defense contractor, John Hamilton. Seducing
     John isn’t a problem. Dealing with the fallout, however... that gets
     a bit trickier, especially once he finds out who John really is, and
     what he’s trying to do.
Notes
     Again, an earlier fic, and not necessarily my best work but... IDK,
     I'm attached to it? Written, as almost all of these were, for the old
     kink meme.
     *cuddles up in happier memories*
Music throbbed out of untuned subwoofers as the heels of women’s shoes clicked
and strutted on the long black stage. Sequins. Long hair. Fake boobs. The smell
of stage cake make-up mixing liberally with that of liquor.
The blonde at the bar pushed his drink away. Checked his watch. Almost time.
I’ve got somebody coming in today. Business associate, new guy, Santori had
told him over the phone this morning. Afternoon, around four. I want you there,
Peck. Need you to check him out. Need you in with him.
That’s all he’d gotten. That’s all he usually got. It was enough to work with.
Peck was good at what he did. Very good. Good enough for the family to overlook
his decidely un-Italian heritage, his youth, how he swung both ways. He was
useful to them, and they to him, ever since Santori had found him on the
streets of the Bronx, orphaned and alone, starving and stealing at the tender
age of thirteen. He’d gotten caught picking the cappo’s pocket, offered to blow
the guy for free as an apology. Santori must have found it funny or something.
Next thing Peck knew, he’d had a good shower and clean clothes and a place to
sleep, a chance to go back to school, a foot in the door with one of the most
dangerous crime families on the East Coast. He’d leveraged all of that over the
last ten years to get himself into a fairly comfortable position with these
people.
His people, really. Maybe. Someday. They’d been talking about recommending him
for membership, making him a made guy. Peck didn’t really give a fuck about any
of that Godfather bullshit, but the money was better and the respect was there
and a little part of him, the twelve-year-old part of him who’d watched both
parents die in a car crash, liked the idea of finally being accepted, fully and
completely, without condition.
Not that he’d ever say that last part out loud. Or admit it to himself.
He ordered another drink, the girl behind the bar giving him a wink and the
top-shelf stuff. Peck smiled back mechanically, using that movie-star look of
his that opened so, so many doors for him. Stripper though she was, she still
blushed.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Text. The mark was here.
Peck swung around on the stool, away from the show, towards the main doors of
the stripclub, scanning for details. Two men, both in dark, tailored suits with
open-necked shirts, a short, pudgy guy and a taller man with dark hair and a
crooked nose. Ignoring the girls on stage, focused, talking to each other.
Intent on doing something.
Different than Santori's usual guests.
The first was clearly some kind of professional executive, the kind of guy Peck
liked to fuck over for fun when he got bored between Santori’s assignments.
Boring but lucrative.
Not him.
The second guy, the tall one, was far more interesting. There was something
about him, something in the way he carried himself, the easy confidence he had,
even in here, staying relaxed while still being tense, prepared.
Peck could have laughed. Couldn't be simpler. Everything about the man screamed
military, current or former. Probably an officer. Damn fine facade.
A man to be concerned about.
That one was the mark.
Peck picked his drink up in one hand, waiting.
Blue eyes met his as the men brushed past, the tall man’s gaze meeting him own.
Peck barely kept himself together as the essence of the man washed over him.
The presence in that gaze was overwhelming. A wild intelligence, a certain
knowledge of life that only men who’d killed seemed to possess but tempered by
some emotion that those in his own circles didn’t indulge. Conviction. Most of
all, there was conviction. A force of nature, this one, immense power, barely
reined in.
Then came a slight widening of the eyes, mouth going slack, attention a bit
closer than mere, dispassionate evaluation would require.
Good.
Let the mark start forming the proper opinion.
Peck sipped his drink and allowed himself a shy smile, keeping his own churning
uncertainty locked away. Kept his own face soft, not letting the tall man see
anything Peck didn’t want him to. And he knew how he wanted to play this one,
who he was going to be. So he dropped his gaze, away and down. Letting the tall
man see hesitation. Sparking those protective instincts. Brushing against the
edge of military sensibilities. Lighting him up.
He let himself look up once, after they’d passed him, and found the tall man
staring back at him. Back by the door of Santori’s office for whatever meeting
they were here for. Watching.
Better than good.
Peck finished his drink in one long toss, making sure the mark watched him do
it, watched him get up a little too fast, watched him rush out.
Got him, he thought smugly to himself.
Peck pulled a pair of sunglasses on and went for his GTO, parked lovingly at
the end of the lot. The fall air was crisp, just turning cold, and he started
laughing. Whatever it was Santori wanted out of this guy, the conman was going
to thoroughly enjoy getting it.
++++
Did you see him, Peck?
Absolutely, Mr. Santori.
I don’t trust these assholes, coming down themselves to mess with one of my
union deals...
And at that point, Peck had rolled his eyes and held the cell phone a little
further away from his ear and tuned out the usual drabble about union labor and
political connections and all that other shit that the Family had its fingers
in. Didn’t care about the details.
White collar crime was all fine and good, but Peck was an analog man himself.
He liked the simple things in this business. Collections, running his
neighborhood, intimidation... it was just more fun than balance sheet and
hiding the margins.
Like right now, drumming his fingers against the counter in Rob Cera’s
laundromat, waiting for the owner to cough up his weekly kick-back. Man ran one
of the biggest books in the city, and the fact that it was Peck’s to run was
yet another sign of Santori’s high opinion of him. The place was’t empty, and
the few customers who were waiting around were giving him a wide berth.
Peck winked at the bookie’s wife. “How much longer is he going to be?” he asked
her in a conversational tone that was too smooth to be anything but
threatening. “I’ve got kind of a busy day and he’s holding me up. If you don’t
have it, I can always come back tomorrow.”
The little manila envelop she handed fit nicely in his pocket as he walked back
out to his car.
New guy coming to deal with me. It’s fucking insulting.
Santori was pissed, pissed because one of his most lucrative ventures was this
deal with these defense people, gouging parts for humvees, inserting ghost
expenses in the contracts, using cheaper materials than what specs called for.
Peck had helped him get it. Inserted himself into their New York offices as an
intern and do all sorts of damage, gleaning enough blackmail-worthy material to
destroy the company’s stock base and bankrupt it and land two of the board
members in jail, unless they agreed to the occasional fee alteration, as
Santori had put it.
That had been three years ago.
Peck didn’t think his prior connections with the company were why the cappo had
brought him on for this.
You want me around with this fucker? Need to be along on whatever you’re doing
with him tonight.
You can find him on your own, Peck...
Sometimes he got the idea Santori had no idea how he worked, how a good con
worked. It’ll make him suspicious. Needs to be obvious what I do for you. It
needs to look like we’re in real tight...
The cappo had laughed at that and told him which little bistro they’d bought
out for the night. Peck didn’t bend over for his employers once he’d learned he
didn’t have to, had put at least two fellow soldiers in the hospital for trying
it, but he had no problem playing rent boy for a con.
And he knew he wasn’t going to have a problem with it on this one.
+++++
“John Hamilton,” the tall man from earlier in the day introduced himself,
business card in hand, as Peck slid into the chair next to Santori. Good as
time as any to start.
“Peck,” he said, letting himself sound a little distracted. That wasn’t hard to
fake. There was something bout this guy... He examined the white rectangle with
a thoughtful expression before tucking it into a back pocket. Dinner was over,
and everybody had moved on to drinks. It was starting to get loud. More casual.
Good time for this.
“Senior VP out of Colorado Springs?” Peck asked and got a little nod in return.
“Mr. Hamilton will be taking over here in New York for a while,” Santori told
him. “We’ll be dealing with him on all our union business.”
“That’s right. I heard Mitch McClellan was out sick,” Peck replied easily,
letting himself slide into those details he didn’t care about. “Something
chronic?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good,” Peck told him and patted his cappo on the back. Letting the
movement go big, letting his words get loud, like he was just this side of
inebriated. “He’s nervous as all hell about you being here. Doesn’t like
change.”
“Peck...”
“He’s worried you’re going to cancel our union contracts.”
Hinting that John might want to be careful. That maybe he couldn’t quite trust
Santori. That Peck was giving him this information because not everything was
okay between him and his patron. Steel blue eyes crinkled, obviously catching
the subtlety. Just a moment, then John shook his head and started laughing.
“Shut the fuck up, Peck,” Santori growled, genuinely pissed now.
He’d apologize later, but for now, Peck just waggled a cell phone in front of
the cappo’s face. “Came over to tell ya, Marcus just called about that thing in
that place from last week...”
Santori frowned deeper, grabbed the phone. “You’re drinking too much again,
Peck. I want you out of here when I get back. John, sorry, gotta go deal with a
problem...”
And then they were alone in a back corner, John just watching the room,
watching him.
“Interesting man, your boss.”
Fucking perfect.
“He tries.”
“And what do you do for him?”
He smiled at the man. “He, he took me in after... well, a while ago. I’m trying
to finish up college right now.” Which was true. He rarely had the time for
more than twelve or so credits a semester, but NYU had been surprisingly
flexible with him, and he was only a class or two away from graduating. Santori
was proud of that, too. Had to have a business degree, it seemed, if only to
keep up with all the bullshit. “Been with him since I was thirteen.”
“It worth it?”
Peck shrugged, like he cared, like it wasn’t, but he didn’t want to say so.
“Money’s good.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
“You noticed that,” Peck said, and let it hang for a moment, making sure it was
going to hold, before pushing back and grabbing his coat. “It was nice meeting
you, John,” he said and got up to leave.
He could see his breath as he waited by the curb for a taxi. Downtown, this
time of night, it wouldn’t be hard to get one, but he wasn’t really trying. He
pulled out the business card and a pen. He was waiting for...and there it was,
behind him, the door cracking open and then shut again, a warm burst of noise
rushing out and then nothing but footsteps.
“You like to run off on me?” John said, coming up right alongside him.
He was smoking a cigar, a good one, and Peck snatched it and inhaled deeply.
“Just time to leave.”
“Not on my account?” the man asked and took his cigar back. He looked down at
the younger man, some weird range of thought playing through him, too fast for
Peck to catch.
Peck looked back at the bistro, then down, back to bistro and finally up meet
the mark’s eyes. There really was something there, something that left him
shaking and weak inside. What was it? “Want to split a cab?”
They stopped at John’s first, a small apartment building, warm and inviting.
The man got out, and Peck slipped the driver an extra fifty and told him to
drive around the block and come right back. He stuffed his hands in his pockets
and followed John up the stairs to the front door of the building, just
waiting.
“What are you doing, kid?” John finally asked, just like he was supposed to.
Peck drew himself in a little closer. “The boss would want me to make sure you
got home safe. Plenty of idiots in the city might try to do something stupid,
and you’re new here...”
“I can take care of myself, Peck.”
The conman believed that and moved accordingly, pleased at how John’s breath
was catching as he broke into his personal space. “I can see that, I was
just...” and he was close enough now to put a hand on John’s arm. “Just wanted
to make sure you aren’t lonely in this big, scary place...” and he was close
enough to rear up and press a light kiss against John’s lips. His fingers
closed down around a little wax box in his pocket, drawing it out slowly. “That
we’ve got everything taken care of...”
The last bit was whispered, and then cut off, as John leaned in and took his
chin in hand and kissed him back, hard and rough, pulling him around and
driving him into the wall. Peck felt a surge of heat, that same one from
earlier, and a warm spread of pleasure. Oh, this was going to be too easy, the
emotion in this man, boiling right under the surface...
Then it all stopped. John pulled away, still holding his chin. “He tell you to
come here?”
“Come here?” Peck mimicked with a little laugh. “He used the word fuck,
actually. But he says that a lot, so...”
John released him. “He uses you like this?” The indignation, the... sadness,
was clear in his voice. Peck noticed that with a vague amusement. He’d never
heard any mark sound sorry for him. What was there to be sorry about?
Peck let his head fall back against the wall. “It’s not a big deal. We both
know what he is, John.” He looked up. “You do know what he is, right?”
“I read the news,” John said tersely, and then hesitated. “What happens if I
send you away?”
“Do you want to?”
The VP, or whatever the hell he was, kissed Peck again, slow and gentle this
time, stroking his chin as he did so, a hint of tongue, the scent of good
cologne lingering after he pulled away. His lips were so soft... “It’s a very
bad idea.”
There was something tense there. Closet gay, Peck thought to himself. Could
have something to do with the military’s policies, if John was still active
duty. And that raised a whole new set of questions.
Peck nodded, stroking a hand up and down the edge of John’s suit jacket.
“You... read the news. Right. This is probably the right move, then. But I
don’t share his priorities, John.” The conman tucked the business card back
into John’s coat. “That’s my personal cell number.”
“What am I going to do with it, kid?”
He let himself shiver a little at the last word. Sounded so right, rolling off
those delicious lips. “If you need anything, anything, and I’m not talking
about that, you can call me. I can get you anything you might need while you're
in town.”
John smiled. “I doubt that.”
“It's free of charge. And that's a service you might want to take advantage
of,” Peck said.
"I'll think about it, Peck."
The conman allowed himself a blush and kicked at the ground, like he didn’t
know what to do or how to end it, being rejected, still being tease. Inside, he
was grinning like an idiot. “Good night, John.”
“Good night, Peck.” The man’s posture was tense, drawn, anxious. Oh, this
really was going to be too easy. Man had no idea he was being played.
The conman nodded and started off, around the corner where the cab was waiting
for him. He slipped into the back, palming the box of wax, now with a perfect
imprint of John’s apartment key, into his pocket. One of the man’s credit cards
appeared out of a sleeve. Thing looked brand new.
Peck smiled. This should be more than enough to start looking into who John
Hamilton really was.
+++++
Peck didn’t waste any time.
The next morning, Saturday, he camped out in front of John's apartment until
the man went for a run. The new key worked great, but there was nothing here.
Just a corporate place, non-descript furnishings, no wallet, nothing but a
crumpled receipt in a jacket pocket, deep and tight, probably not noticed. Cash
payment to a Starbucks, listed as the Fort Carson BX location. $5.95.
Americano, sticky bun. Military, Peck told himself and put the receipt
carefully back. Too bad there wasn't a credit card number on it. But that was
the only thing he found. Time to keep moving.
All the banks and offices were closed that day. So there was no point in doing
anything through semi-official channels, charming some teller into giving him
access or a secretary into spilling the office gossip on the new VP. He fully
intended on getting to that if necessarily.
This was just easier.
No matter how much the guy whined.
“But Peck, you gotta understand,” the NYU computer science grad student told
him for what had to be the tenth or eleventh time in the past year. “The
computer’s not some magical mystery machine that lets me do whatever the hell I
want. I can’t just...”
He rapped the rather heavy set of bundled VCDs against the doorframe. “Man up,
Ron Weasley. I brought you anime. The series with the girl who’s a cat.”
“That’s not... and it’s a, err, she’s not...”
“Talking cat, schoolgirl, raccoons flying around on their balls, whatever.” He
hated anime. It was ridiculously hard to get most of the weirder titles in the
US, thank god, but Peck did enjoy a challenge and his rather convoluted supply
chain from Asia worked just as well for other, more lucrative contraband. And
it was a guaranteed way to get this guy to help him out.
Peck pushed past him into the dorm apartment, slapping the set into the geek's
chest and sat down on his worn little sofa, legs spread wide. “I’ll let you
suck me off. And if you’re a good boy,” he purred, “I’ll even think about
letting you come.”
Well, anime and sex.
The grad student flushed bright red but still walked over, shoved back the
trunk he was using as a coffee table and fell to his knees. Peck stroked his
head as the geek unbuckled his belt and worked the buttons, imagining silver
hair instead of red between his fingers, hard skin on stroking palms, the
faintest taste of cigar smoke still hanging in the air around him, John's
tongue the one that was curling around him...
It didn’t take very long after that.
His geek was good, very good, and Peck was still feeling the last remnants of
orgasm, sitting there, flipping through channels, when the awkward student
appeared in the doorway, a slight grin on his face and a handful of papers in
his hand.
“So, I hacked the bank. It’s a corporate card, listed to the defense company
you said he works for, so that all checks out. But,” and the geek held a hand
up against Peck’s flare of irritation, “I know you wouldn’t be happy with that,
so I ran a scan of the servers, see what’s stored in...”
“Do not geek out on me, dude,” Peck warned and the other man blanched. He knew
exactly what kind of work Peck was in. It was one of the reasons he always
agreed to help him out.
So, anime and sex and too many viewings of Goodfellows. Peck could live with
that.
“The time stamps on the account seem to check out, his access granted a few
years ago. Then I used that to back door into the company’s payroll records,
where he’s got a six or seven year history. But, they’ve all been forged. This
guy got this card last week, and he’s never drawn a real paycheck.”
“Bank or the company?”
“Huh?”
“Who forged the... whatever, who set it all up for him?”
“Had to have come from the company, with collusion from the bank,” the geek
guessed. “I mean, this was a concerted effort. And a good one. Everything looks
completely legit. Wouldn't have found it at all if ...”
“They were expecting us to run a background check,” Peck muttered to himself,
not listening anymore, the possibilities narrowing down.
Definitely a plant. Definitely here with support of the company. Didn’t seem
too happy with the deal. But if they guy was military, as Peck strongly
suspected he was, that didn’t make any sense at all. FBI, maybe. But DoD? They
dropped bombs on people in foreign countries and brought bottled water to the
huddled masses after hurricanes. They didn’t investigate crime in the United
States.
He was going to have to be careful with this one.
“Thanks,” he told the geek, turning his face away when the redhead tried to
kiss him and didn’t bother looking back at the wistful expression that followed
him out the door and down the hall. They both knew how this worked, and
besides, Peck was pretty sure the guy liked the abuse.
Too easy.
Peck hated that, too. Which was why, he figured, his thoughts turned back to
John as he left, those rough hands and deep eyes, anything but simple...
He felt that flush of heat again and tried to ignore it. Just a mark, just a
job... but his hands felt weak and he could still see John smiling at him,
smiling like nobody had ever smiled at him before...
Yes, very, very careful.
+++++
“Kid, this is ridiculous.”
“Keep calling me that, John, you’re going to hurt my feelings.”
Wednesday.
Peck hadn’t been able to turn up anything further on John, and he was pretty
sure it was wasted effort. For all he could reasonably tell, the man was
exactly what his background check said he was; former Army officer, hired out
of there by the defense company, living in Colorado Springs for the last seven
or eight years, unmarried, no children. The narrative made sense, and Santori’s
usual people hadn’t turned anything unusual up.
So here he was, in John’s very nice corner office, a few late-stays wandering
around outside its glass walls, drumming his fingers against the top of a very
nice cherry wood humidor. He'd scammed it himself, so he knew it wasn't any of
that cut-rate shit that he usually used in situations like this. Peck had
already dismissed the delivery men. It was just him and John now.
“Why is this in my office?”
“Mr. Santori wants you to understand how valuable your friendship is to him.”
Peck didn’t like doing this, the egregious gift-giving. If it had been his
choice, he would have just brought a box of cubans over and played it down, but
the family had a certain way of doing things, and this was all part of it.
“This is a bribe.”
For reasons like that.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.” Peck plucked a cigar out and sniffed it
appreciatively before handing it to John, who automatically tucked it into his
jacket pocket. “Mr. Santori’s a generous man.”
John’s fingers closed down around the cigar, brushing Peck’s and he backed off,
circling behind his desk. “I’m not for sale. I don’t care about whatever
arrangement you had with Mitch.”
“Everyone’s got a price, John,” Peck told him. “And everyone’s got something
they don’t want to give up. Sooner or later, it’s going to be one or the other.
It’s how they work.”
John caught the “they” and his head shot up sharply. Responding to what he
clearly though was an inadvertent slip. Just like he was supposed to. “Which
side of that equation are you on, kid? The selling or the taking?” His voice is
almost sad again. Why was that?
“That’s really going to depend on you, John. What do you want?” He didn’t move
as he said it, lets his eyes turn away a little. No guile. A touch of
embarrassment. A touch of embarrassment he almost felt. Even if John was sent
here, he didn’t belong in Peck’s world. He wasn’t that kind of man.
There was nothing for a few seconds, and then John chuckled, deep and warm, and
whatever tension evaporated instantly. “I want to take you to dinner, kid.”
John admitted to a complete ignorance of Manhattan eateries and let Peck tell
the cab where to drop them off. The conman picked a casual little French place
where he knew the owners and, after he replaced their broken oven last year,
free of charge, where he usually never had to pay. But it was best to let John
think he was running things. Let him think he was getting away with his bush-
league manipulations (because there was no reason that John would consent to
dinner without an ulterior motive). He had a quick conversation with the
hostess, explaining the situation, and she giggled and led them back to the
best table in the house.
“Was that French?” John asked, sincerely surprised, as the girl practically
skipped away.
“I’m not allowed to speak something other than guido?”
“I didn’t mean...”
“Minoring in Arabic, too, John. Not an idiot,” and he smiled, to let John know
it was okay, and laid his hand across on the table, letting his fingers play
along the top of the older man’s hand.
“Peck...” came an almost pained little moan, and he looked up to see the VP
blushing. Actually blushing. Just a little, but it was there. Unmistakable.
The conman continued stroking, keeping his voice low and soft, concerned. And
he was; wasn’t right, whoever was keeping this man locked up in himself. Peck
was going to fix that, set him loose, cage him up somewhere new, he reminded
himself. “This isn’t Colorado Springs, John. No mega-churches here, no
Penacostals wandering around. New York’s much more...”
Then his hand was pulled away. “I wanted to talk business, kid.”
“No you didn’t,” Peck replied with a little disappointed laugh and looked over
at the approaching waitress, bottle in hand. His favorite. Without even asking.
That was something Peck loved about this job, and John’s raised eyebrow just
made it all the better.
They both stayed silent as the woman showed them both the label, decanted the
bottle and offered John the cork. He sniffed it lightly, nodded, and brilliant
red liquid splashed into tall crystal.
“And no you don’t.”
John’s hand was still around his wrist, and he squeezed a little now, stopping
Peck from going for the wine. “Kid, I have to ask you a very serious question.”
The younger man tilted his chin a little, looking for the angles, trying to
suss out John’s own con.
“Is that humidor bugged?”
Peck started laughing. A real laugh, nothing forced or faked about it, John
letting go of his hand in surprise as the laugh grew louder and merrier. “Haha,
man, what kind of business do you think we’re running? We’re not fucking
terrorists. You’re dealing with a bunch of old men in bad socks...
heehee...smelling like garlic...”
John still looked a little stunned, and then, after a moment, starting laughing
and relaxed back into his seat. “Yeah, I guess that is a little paranoid of
me.”
Peck wiped a tear away. “Seriously, John, we’re not all bad. You’ll learn
that.” Tension returned to the other man’s shoulders, and Peck turned his hand
in John’s, turned so their palms were together. “You have to learn that. You’ll
see it. They don’t just let things go. They aren’t going to let you pull the
deals they’ve got in place with your company, too much money involved...” and
he coughed, like he shouldn’t have spoken. “We’re good to our friends. I’d like
you to be our friend, John.”
John smiled back at that, like he’d just gotten one over with Peck’s seemingly
involuntary slip-up, and brought his other hand up over Peck’s, and the younger
man felt thick callouses there, gun callouses, felt something deep down flip-
flop as he was enveloped in that reassuring grasp, and was John talking?
John was talking.
And holding up his wine glass, just a little, watching Peck with amusment.
“What should we toast to?”
Fuck it, it was just going to make this whole thing more believable.
“To friends?”
“Friends.”
Crystal clinked together, and John’s eyes didn’t leave him, Peck noted with
satisfaction, as he took a small, answering sip and leaned all the way back,
reluctantly pulling his hand with him, out of that warmth and away. He arched
his spine a little against the back of the chair and settled in. “So we talked
about business, then, John. Don't you want to know what I want to talk about?”
John laughed again. Peck could get used to that sound, he really could...
"You're a brat, Peck."
"You love it," he replied, and soon they were talking about Mormons and hunting
and whether or not snow fell in the city in the winter and how in the hell Peck
managed to get that many Cohiba Siglos in such a short amount of time, and Peck
just smiled.
Enjoying the evening.
Looking forward to where he was taking it.
And John didn’t disappoint. Played right to script.
Dinner was light and wonderful and perfect, brought out by the owner himself.
He shook Peck’s hand warmly, just like he always did, and the young man gave
John a little wink as he introduced them, rattling away in French, and his
stomach did that little flip-flop as John winked back, and replied in kind.
“How do you know him?” John asked after the owner left and their coq au vin was
steaming on perfect white plates.
Peck shrugged and sipped at his wine. “They had some trouble about a year ago
with their imported oven. One of those massive Italian things, can’t buy ‘em
around here. I found them a new one, brought it over, got in installed.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. The food’s worth it.”
After they finished and John intercepted the bill and they gathered their coats
and left the warmth of the cozy little place, Peck shoved his hands in his
pockets and stood a little off to the side of the door as John came out after
him, folding his wallet away.
“Well, you managed to clean me out, kid,” he said lightly.
“Tell me it wasn’t worth it,” Peck teased back.
John nodded. “That was wonderful. Better than what I’ve been doing the last
week or so.”
“I know all the good places, John. City like this, you’ve got no excuses.”
There was one of those awkward pauses, and John moved a little closer. “So,
what now?”
He made sure he backed up a little. He didn’t want to, but he did. “We talked
business. Mission accomplished. I should be going.”
“Kid...”
“I’ve got a test in the morning, John. I really should go...”
John got in front of him, and tentatively ran a hand down the sleeve of the
younger man’s jacket. Peck shivered, the touch was so light. Was he nervous?
Unsure? Uncomfortable? “We could split a cab.”
The young man let his expression go slack and he looked away. “You already said
no. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I said no to something being sold to me.”
That demanded an angry response, something he’d long ago had to learn how to
fake. “I’m not a whore, John,” he snapped, turning away, walking down the
street, mercifully fairly empty still, this early. It just might work...
“Kid!”
He stopped.
There it was.
Peck made sure the anger was shining out in his voice as he answered levelly,
“What, you’d rather we’d hit an alley than dinner, me on my knees, sucking you
off? There’s one right like right there, we can go for it if that’s what you
wa...”
“Kid, I’m sorry,” John said, coming alongside him and wrapping an arm around
his waist from behind, wrapping up around him, and Peck couldn’t stop the
little whimper that escaped him in that simple movement. He could feel hard
muscle through that suit, wondered what this was going to be like, hard and
rough, soft and easy... “Put my foot in my mouth. I guess I’m just feeling a
little out of my depth with all of this.”
“Long way from the Rocky Mountains?”
John nipped at his ear. “It’s just been awhile," he admitted haltingly.
How much of that was true? Honesty at the heart of it, Peck thought. John was a
good man and good men couldn’t hide lies from themselves, couldn’t quite make
it believable. But he was damn close to convincing, and that was good enough.
“We can split a cab,” Peck said softly, acquiescing, and John’s hand, right at
the small of his back, guided them both back to the curb and away.
+++++
Peck didn’t even need to pretend that he’d never been in John’s little
corporate apartment before, because they barely made it to the elevator before
the older man grabbed him and shoved him up against a wall, knee between his
legs, ravishing his mouth. A hurricane blast against his concentration. But he
held himself back, like he always did.
Just a mark. Watch him.
It wasn’t calm and reserved like it was the first time, and it seemed to be
more desperate, rusty skills fueling it imperfectly, but the electricity was
still there and Peck groaned, letting John in. There were teeth and hard
thrusts of tongue, and it was exactly what it should be, needy and immediate,
something that was going to play to his advantage, because John seemed to have
no intention of stopping... and then John did that thing with his tongue and
Peck groaned louder and decided to let himself go. The con had gotten him here.
He could enjoy it.
No harm in that.
Right?
At some point, the elevator must have stopped, because John was opening the
door of his apartment, John was pushing him inside and back to the bedroom,
John was tugging his jacket, his shirt, everything off him, falling away onto
the floor, biting along the length of his neck, pushing him back.
Peck smiled and relaxed into it, letting himself fall back onto the sinfully
soft bed, letting his legs fall open in invitation and John made a wonderful
little noise as he kicked his shoes off and dove on top of him.
With a quick grin, Peck caught the older man with his legs before he could move
it, squeezing his thighs tight, flipping them over and kissing him back,
holding him down until John growled at him, and the game was on. Everything
getting harder and faster, pure lust at play as the two men wrestled with each
other, hard muscle slick under sweating skin, erections hard and breath coming
in tight gasps, until Peck was flipped down once again and John was straddling
his lap, fingers playing in the soft line of hair below him navel.
His body was burning, on fire, for this man above him, grinding on top of him.
Peck reached up for John’s buttons, considering for a moment and then ripping
down the front, popping them off, tearing the shirt open, rearing up to tease a
hard nipple, trying to push the dark fabric away...
John caught his wrists again and pulled back. “Shirt stays on.”
Through the haze of his own arousal, Peck barely managed to file that
information away. Man could have a kink. Or he could be trying to hide
something. “No fair,” he pouted.
“Stays on,” came the soft answer, and John was there again, naked from the
waist down, impressive cock hard between them as he settled between Peck’s
legs. He bit at the younger man’s neck again, lips ghosting on over-heated
skin. “How do you like it, kid?”
Peck didn’t want to think about this one at all, just pulled his knees up to
his chest and grabbed that hair again and their mouths were almost touching. “I
just like it.”
“I don’t have...”
Ah, no lube, then, no condoms. Peck didn’t think it was a good idea to go for
the stuff in his jacket pocket. What the hell? “Fuck me, John,” he murmured and
John’s steel blue eyes flared to black
Spit wasn’t quite enough and John didn’t do quite a good enough job of
stretching him open, and the man was hung. So it burned at first, a little too
much, but he’d had much worse in his life, and there was still something
delicious about this, about John, made this all okay, better than okay. Peck
threw his head back and moaned in the most wanton voice he could manage, again,
not something he needed to fake, as John sank in to his balls, hands braced on
the back of Peck’s thighs.
“Fuck...” the man over him said, words shaking, and Peck grabbed a handful of
shirt, begging him to move.
It came in hard, erratic thrusts, and Peck could see the concentration in the
man’s face, utterly focused, and it suddenly hit him that John wanted this to
be good for him. John wanted it for both of them, and there was no con in it.
John was as lost in this s he was. The thought flashed through him like
lightning, and it was like somebody hit a switch and all sensation magnified,
grew, and he was overwhelmed again. Overwhelmed by this man, so different from
anybody he’d ever met, anyone in the Family...
And then, then John’s hand closed down over his cock and he felt the edge of
whatever it was about John, that thing he didn’t understand and all that was
just too much. It wasn’t long before he was spilling over the man’s hand, and
he was filled with that delicious sensation, and John was pulling out and
collapsing down next to him, breath hard and ragged. Matched his own.
No words were spoken, and although Peck usually wasn’t one for cuddling, he
still snuggled into John when the older man lifted his arm and welcomed him in.
No harm in that either.
If it was what the mark wanted, needed...
In order for this be convincing his brain remembered, and screamed in warning.
He couldn’t get lost in this, he couldn’t...
John drew him up for one slow, sweet kiss, eyes blown and hair slicked against
his forehead, thumb playing under Peck’s chin. “To friends, kid.”
And all Peck had the energy for a lazy nod before his head hit the pillows.
+++++
Peck woke alone, red LEDs flashing out the time as 2:38 AM. That warmth next to
him was gone. The scent of their earlier exertions was still thick in the air,
and he breathed in it, trying to imprint that smell in his memory. It wasn’t
the best sex he’d ever had, but the sincerity in John, that need, some long
repression finally being finally over... that was something he’d never come
across before. He yawned, and waited for the toilet flush.
When it didn’t come, he was up and out of bed, soft on the balls of his feet,
at the door of the bedroom, out into the short hall. The apartment wasn’t so
big as all that. The search didn’t take long.
In the bathroom. Light under the door. John’s voice, low and indistinct, long
pauses in between short little sentences.
He leaned up against the wall and listened, barely breathing, muscles quivering
from holding still.
“...things are going fine... Nothing like that, it’s better than the places
they normally put us up in...right, no fucking pricing limits...no, BA, don’t
put Murdock on... hello captain, sorry it’s so late...no progress, but I think
I’ve found somebdoy... no, I haven’t seen the ninja turtles...give the phone
back to BA...”
Peck rubbed his hands together. It was chilly in the apartment but he could
barely afford to care. Murdock and BA. Sounded fake, but it was something. And
then he went cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.
“...I think I’ve found somebody who can help us, may be able to flip the
kid...you’d like him, you’d both like him...yes, BA, he does work for the
asshole... we’ll see on that, too early to tell... it would make things easier,
yes...how are things back in the unit, you boys doing okay without the boss
around...”
The conman pushed up and crept quickly back to the bedroom, mind working fast,
chewing on the pieces. May be able to flip the kid? Unit? What unit? Who the
fuck asked about the Ninja Turtles? What exactly was John here to do?
Flip the kid...
He slipped back into the sheets before John returned.
Flip the kid... you’d like him...
Why was that bothering him?
Quickest way to the bottom of the Hudson. Something he’d actually seen done
once or twice, and Peck wasn’t stupid enough to think that Santori wouldn’t do
it.
But wasn’t that exactly what he wanted John to try? Wasn’t this what he was
looking for from this man? Gain his trust, get under his skin, figure out what
he was doing here and why and who he was working for and stop him?
...you’d like him...
The way he’d said it, and that look in his eyes, the sadness. There was
something to that, Peck realized. And somewhere, deep down, he didn’t think
that meant John wanted to turn him over to Witness Protection afterwards. It
almost sounded like the man wanted to keep him. Didn’t it?
Insane thoughts for an insane hour. This was an opportunity, a fucking open
door and there was no reason to be light-headed. Excited, maybe. Thrilled. He
should be thrilled about this.
But didn’t it sound like the man wanted...
Get a grip, Peck, he ordered himself, but couldn’t stop the burst of anger,
like he needed to be saved, and then he heard the flush and went limp, face
down, just like he’d woken up.
John made no noise at all as he lifted the blankets and eased back into bed.
The movement was enough for Peck to justify a little half moan and a roll,
right back into John’s settling body..
He let his eyes flutter open. “... you left,” he whined.
John spooned him close and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Go back to sleep,
kid.”
Wasn't hard. His body was screaming for rest, and this was more comfortable
than he’d been in a long time, and Peck didn’t even need to fake the pleased
little sound that escaped him.
Arms, John’s arms, closed around him, and he relaxed into it. Might as well
enjoy it while he could.
No harm in that.
Right?
+++++
Things were good like that for a while.
In the morning, after that first night, Peck had woken up with John petting his
hair, a light smile playing on his lips, amused and happy and content. The man
looked content, looked like a man who was never really content, and this a new
and novel experience. When he saw Peck finally open his eyes, purring up into
that touch like a well-fed kitten, the VP kissed him gently, hand on his cheek.
“What time do you have to go to class, kid?”
“Test is at eleven,” he yawned and stretched a little, pushing as much of
himself against John as he could. “So we’ve got some time.”
“I have work.”
Peck hazarded a look over at the clock. 7AM. “We’ve got time.”
“No, we really don’t...” the older man groaned, and Peck swung himself up and
over, sitting down on that flat belly, hand under the crumpled shirt, teasing
one nipple, then the other.
“You said it’s been a while, right?” he asked mischeviously, and felt a quick
stab of guilt as John’s face clouded.
“Was it... was it not good, kid?” The concern was real.
Peck leaned down to kiss him again, tangling into that hair, rubbing his ass
back against John’s cock, a plan forming in his head. If he hadn’t done this in
a while... “It was wonderful, John. You’re wonderful.”
Those strong hands grabbed his hips. “Don’t bullshit me, kid. We’ve known each
other less than a week.”
“Feels like longer, doesn’t it?”
John stared, eyes wild, hesitant. Holding back, Peck thought to himself smugly
and ignored that creeping guilt.
“Don’t worry about it, John. Don’t worry about any of it.” He kissed him again.
“We can do this whenever you want, however you want. I’ll show you things
you’ve never seen.” Kiss. “Take you places you’ve never been.” Kiss. “Please,
John, let me...”
“Why?”
It was a simple question, and Peck couldn’t stop his simple, honest answer from
following it.
“I’ve never met anyone like you...”
Something snapped in the other man and John took him and flung him back down to
the mattress and held him down as he fucked him, better this morning, still
slick from the previous night, filling him up, all the little places that he’d
never known were empty until now...
And that was how it all started. A week turned into two, two turned in to four,
and before Peck really knew what happened, John was calling him to ask him out
on their two-month anniversary.
“It’s just sex,” he said into the phone, legs splayed in the back row of Modern
Economic Structure. The girl sitting next to him turned, and the guy in front
of him scrunched into the lecture. “Why do you want to go ruin it with
occasions?”
“Please, kid.”
Peck had learned there wasn’t much he could refuse that particular voice. “When
and where?”
“My place, whenever you’re free tonight.”
He’d learned a lot about John, or whoever he really was, in the past few weeks.
Nothing useful, though, so he’d had to keep coming back. Santori wasn’t exactly
happy about that, but Peck had managed to keep John argued down from his
original position and nothing bad had come of the change in leadership yet, so
the cappo was okay. John had even thanked him for the humidor. Whatever the VP
did at work, Peck didn’t know.
And he’d kept to his promises, like he always did, spending long nights
exploring the older man’s skin, finding all his little sensitive spots,
teaching him things he’d never learned, perfecting all the things he knew,
letting John dominate him and still guiding him along. It was obvious - nobody
had ever taken the time to do this for John, or maybe John had never been able
to let himself go.
Peck didn't care. This was good. Like they fit together. It was beyond
addicting, the commanding presence this man had, pure alpha male, confident and
sure of himself in a way people in the Family were, but different. It wasn’t
based on arrogance, on bravado.
It was just who he was.
Someone he’d earned the right to be.
+++++
When Peck got there that night, it was like it was every night. Some light
conversation, easy touching, heavier, arousal, kissing, John pulling him back
to the bedroom, undressing...
Peck put a hand up as the older man started with his own buttons. “You don’t
have to do this, John. Your scars...”
John had told him about an injury he’d sustained in the first Gulf War as an
Army infantry lieutenant. Shrapnel, took a piece of flesh clean out of his
side, right under the armpit. He’d felt it through the shirt John always wore
when they did this. A pretty big hole. Others, he’d said, smaller but worse.
John paused. “You said you didn’t care.”
“I don’t.”
He bit his lip and shrugged out of his shirt. Peck moaned a little, and surged
up to lick down that chest, so exposed, relishing the feeling of open skin for
the first time, tanned and scarred and somehow right, perfect for this man who
was so rough and so enthusiastic. There was the scar, right under his arm, and
Peck rubbed a hand across it, his fingers denting in beneath the surface. A
hole, indeed...
“It’s amazing you lived through this,” he said in wonder.
John lifted his head a little, laying back like he was bored, or trying to
decide something. “It almost killed me..”
“I’m glad it didn’t,” Peck said, and leaned in to kiss it. The scar tissue was
white, even after all this time...
“...last year.”
It was so soft, Peck almost didn’t hear it. But there it was, the words falen
from John’s lips, and incredibly nervous, pained expression on John’s face. He
stopped and pulled back, dropping even the pretense of sensuality. “What are
you talking about?”
“I got it last year, in Iraq, right when the war broke out. Our convoy got
attacked a few miles from base. Almost everyone died. Twenty-six of my guys.
Another four lost limbs. I was lucky I kept my arm. Got up and crawled that
last two miles after the motherfuckers left...”
And he was still talking, but Peck saw the tattoo on his arm, on the bicep,
huge and unmistakable, dark... “You’re active duty?” he asked incredulously.
John was staring at him now. “Yes.”
Peck felt sick. He didn’t like where this was going, where this was going to
lead. The world was tilting around him and he didn’t know what he was supposed
to do right now. Play the conman? It was automatic to do that, and there was
that look on John’s face that begged a response... “Army Ranger?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Hanni, er, John Smith...” he began, and then stopped, like
he was embarrassed to be explaining this. Maybe he was, and part of Peck, too
large a part, want to just laugh this off and call the scar and the tattoo and
everything else sexy and get back to it. Bu he couldn’t, he had to press, had
to push, what they were going to have to do about this...
“You’re name’s not John?”
“My men call me Hannibal.”
Those steel-blue eyes made sense now, watching him, gauging for reactions,
probing, and Peck felt himself going on the defensive.
“Hannibal?” He started edging back. He had to. He had to be shocked, had to be
shaken, had to be... “What? You work for...”
“I asked them to set this up. I needed to figure out what was going on, and it
all led back to corruption, union corruption...”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“That convoy, that day. Our hummer armor was defective. Weak steel, too thin.
Somebody installed sub-standard material in our vehicles and I had to tell
twenty-six mothers that they’d never seen their sons again.” He was sitting up
a little, that damn tattoo very, very visible. “My guys, who knows how many
others, because your fucking mob leeches off...”
“Don’t you dare!” Peck warned, up and at the door. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
“Your people are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of mine!” John
thundered and was up and off and imposing, right over Peck, hands on either
side of his head, and the conman got the very real feeling that he wasn’t
talking to John any more, the repressed, beautiful man he’d first met, that
this was Hannibal, whoever that was, that Hannibal had always been in there,
watching him, waiting for this moment, and even though he'd been expecting some
kind of reveal, he wasn't sure what to say to this.
“I will fucking dare! This organization of yours is hurting my boys, and I
can’t stand for that!” His fist crashed into the wall two inches from Peck’s
head. It stayed like that for a moment, and then opened, bracing him, like his
anger was spent for the moment, capacitor discharged. “Killing my men, Peck. I
can’t let this stand. And if I have to take Santori’s family apart to do it...”
Peck’s own temper was boiling under the surface, seething. So it was true. He’d
almost let himself be lulled into the complacency of this, this... relationship
of theirs, believe that John was who he said he was, and he wanted to go to his
backpack and get his gun and just shoot this asshole for daring to threaten his
family...
But he couldn’t let it show. Not too much, anyway, so he forced the tension in
his gut to uncoil and let himself slump forward into the rent boy persona, non-
threatening and weak. “Holy shit, John...”
“I’m sorry, kid. I understand if you feel betrayed...”
“So, so what? What has this been about?”
John forced his face up and looked into his eyes, searching for something Peck
sure as hell wasn’t going to let him find. “This has been about us, kid. You
and me. I swear it.”
It was Peck’s turn to stare.
“And I’m sorry I need to ask you this, but...”
“...you want my help,” Peck finished for him.
“I need your help.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
A hand came up and crashed back down on the wall, then something in Hannibal’s
face softened back into John’s concern. “Kid, is no life for you. Getting sold
out, a quick fuck, some gift for your boss to throw at anybody he wants to win
over? What have they ever done for you?”
“It’s my family...”
“Kid, you told me yourself, you’re not Italian. Do you really think there’s a
future for you in this business? Or do you think they’re going to get tired of
you when you get a little older and bury you out in the New Jersey woods? A
rent boy, not good for anything real...”
“Shut the fuck up!” Peck yelled, but John pressed down on him before he could
move.
“You are expendable, Peck.”
And that one really did sting, echoing down through him to resonate deep, deep
down. At a level he found incredibly disturbing. He couldn’t shake the thought
that this man was right, and he started shivering. He wanted out of here. But
Peck couldn’t go anywhere. John, Hannibal, had the door pinned shut, but there
was nothing but sympathy in the man’s eyes.
“I am so sorry, but you’re not stupid. I’d wager you’d see it yourself, if
you’d let yourself...”
“This is my family, John,” and he was pleased at how his cracked and raw his
words sounded. “I can’t just up and leave...”
“I can help you.”
“...no...”
“You’re looking for something, kid. This could be something, you know, between
you and me, I could give you a family, I could give you so much more. Kid,
you’re better than this and you fucking know...”
“Don’t...” he whispered, forcing tears, the oldest trick he knew. Let his voice
thicken. Tried to crumble to the ground. Consumed in grief was one he always
did well. “Don’t, please...”
“Peck,” and John caught him and held him close, stroking his hair, “Peck,
please. I can’t get to the information I need. Santori’s got it, I need it. I
need your help.”
“I can’t...”
“Don’t make me beg, kid,” John said softly, wiping moisture away from Peck’s
cheek. There was that same sincerity in the gesture, in the expression, and the
conman suddenly knew where the sadness was coming from. John was worried for
him, he was afraid for him, he thought... and then there was those men, his
dead soldiers, most probably no older than himself. And he realized with a
start that John, Hannibal, whoever it was he’d been taking to bed for the last
eight weeks, felt the same way about him as he did about those soldiers.
Conviction? No, not hardly. Man of ideals, man who lived by a code, who would
clearly have died for any of those men. No cappo was ever like that. Peck let
himself wonder, just for a crazy second, what it would be like, being in a
place and with people like John, like Hannibal... So when John said, “I don’t
want to see anything happen to you, kid,” Peck was pretty damn sure the man
meant it.
The conman felt sick, because he knew what he had to do and he knew how this
was going to end and it wasn’t fair to John. Even if the man had wandered into
their world and this was how his world handled problems and he really ought to
have known better.
“John,” he said in that choked voice, and wrapped himself around all that bare
chest and if the tears came a little too easily, that was okay, because it
worked for this. In a while, maybe after they’d fucked, maybe not, he’d leave
and call Santori and plans would be laid. But not yet. Right now, he just
needed John to hold him while he sobbed. Needed John to believe that he'd
flipped him.
...you'd like him, you'd both like him...
“I am so sorry, Peck.”
Make him think you’re distraught, make him believe that you’re going to
agree...
So finally Peck pushed away all other considerations and nodded, deciding to go
for the jugular, bringing this little symphony to its rousing climax, wrapping
up the first movement and transitioning to the second with a furtive, upward
glance and beautifully tear-stained eyes.
He was going to hollow this man out.
Then maybe Santori wouldn't order him killed.
“What do you need me to do?”
+++++
As the cab pulled up in front of the non-descript office building that evening,
Peck felt a surge of triumph and made sure he squeezed Hannibal’s hand in
nervousness.
Blue eyes, no longer so familiar, softened in sympathy. “It’s going to be okay,
kid.”
“Can you protect me from what they’re going to do if they find out about this?”
He was worried about that, everything in him screaming about what Santori might
do if he wasn’t informed about the specifics of the situation before finding
out about it.
“I’ll keep you safe, kid.”
“I don’t know, John.”
Peck hadn’t been able to figure out what had been going on all day.
He’d had a sublimely effective break-down on John the previous night, who’d
bundled him up into his arms and taken him back to bed. The older man had
stayed awake for a long time, arm around Peck’s back, stroking his skin with
those gun-rough fingers, staring into the darkness.
“I’m going to need your cell phone, kid,” John had told him when they woke, all
the sweet closeness gone.
“Don’t trust me, John?” he asked. “I’m hurt.”
There hadn’t been an answer. Just a look on Hannibal’s face, one not belonging
to a man accustomed to being disobeyed or questioned. Didn’t seem like John at
all. Peck had felt another pang of loss, dull and deep, one that persisted
still.
He’d handed over his phone and spent the day curled up on John’s sofa, watching
daytime TV, while John made a ridiculous number of calls.
Now, the man was different Not incredibly, unrecognizably different. Just
different. The commanding presence, the essence of him, hadn’t changed. It was
incredibly subtle, Peck knew. The way he carried himself, the way light teasing
had given way to more direct words. Building a distance. Subtle, but there.
Like he was slipping into a different role as he guided a studiously anxious
Peck up into the building and elevator and out into a mostly empty office,
lights on in a glass conference room without exterior windows where a small
group of men were waiting.
Was Hannibal peeling away the layers of John that he’d been hiding himself in
these past few months, or was John simply being submerged back into Hannibal?
Having some professional experience in the subject, Peck was leaning towards
the latter. But he wasn’t sure.
Hannibal. It made him sick.
And he wasn’t sure to what degree Hannibal had been playing him.
So he balked, letting himself collide back into Hannibal, turning around and
grabbing his hands before the military man could react. “John, please, I don’t
know if this is a good idea...”
“I told you, I’ll take care of you, kid. That hasn’t changed,” he said, clearly
exerting effort to not lean forward and hug him, a silent, pleading apology in
his face. Peck understood, that stupid fucking policy about gays in the
military, and he was liable to get Hannibal in some real trouble if he kept
trying to test the boundaries. That would get him nowhere. But the boundaries
were there, which meant Peck could use those boundaries against Hannibal, keep
him on edge, keep him unbalanced, maybe tip him off completely, for insulting
the Family...
“Right,” he said with just the right amount of hurt and nodded, letting go.
“I’m okay.”
“Brave boy,” Hannibal said across the rift between them and thumbed over his
shoulder to the conference room. “Let’s go meet the team.”
There was a massive amount of paperwork with something like this. Hannibal had
already apologized for the necessity of it, but there was no way around it.
Can’t protect you unless you’re in the system somewhere, Hannibal had
explained. Peck didn’t care, as long as he was able to get to Santori in the
next few hours and let the cappo know. Otherwise, once this filtered down to
their FBI contacts, things could get ugly.
Hannibal held the door for Peck and closed it behind him. The young man balled
his hands up into his pockets and shuffled his feet a little, fully well aware
of the scrutiny being directed his way by the little group clustered around the
table.
The colonel sat down at the head, and motioned for Peck to sit down opposite
everybody else. It was unmistakable. The last little shreds of John were out of
sight, tucked away. The older man was completely at easy, in command, Peck
thought, and his stomach turned over. The wave of nausea come on too fast to
hide, and Hannibal winked at him.
“Good, glad you all make it.” He pointed at Peck. “Everybody, this is the
informant I spoke about on the phone this morning. Let’s go around the room and
introduce ourselves...”
Peck’s eyes flicked over each of them as they spoke, trying to figure out what
he was dealing with. A cute dark-haired man, head cocked just a little, HM
Murdock, at your service, a big black guy with an incredibly dubious expression
on his face, Corporal BA Baracus, and lastly a variety of suits that couldn’t
be anything other than FBI. One of these last ones was staring at him, open-
mouthed, and Peck grinned inwardly as the gaze flicked over to Hannibal.
“Aren’t you Special Agent Carter?” he asked the one who’d looked at him. “Yeah,
I think you are.”
“Of everybody you could have flipped, Col Smith,” the man said, ignoring Peck
completely, “I’m surprised it’s our little Templeton here.”
Hannibal raised an eyebrow at Peck, who belatedly realized he’d never told the
man his first name. He hated using it, sounded ridiculous. “Why’s that,
Carter?”
“He arrested a very good friend of mine a few years back,” Peck replied, still
sounding nervous. He was feeling it. This guy knew him. Peck remembered that
morning, the one where he’d been thrown out of bed by the SWAT team, the man
next to him handcuffed and marched into the station in a bathrobe, all the
evening’s surveillance equipment seized, all the needed blackmail material
lost. Then he grinned. Time for some snark. “I didn’t know he’d remember me.
I’m flattered you care.”
“You do know what he does for them, don’t you?”
“What he talked ‘bout, Hannibal?” the big black man, BA, interrupted, and Peck
caught the anger in the words.
“What matters right now, corporal, is that Peck’s agreed to help us.”
“Ain’t nothing good about no gangsters, Hannibal...”
“Aw, BA, I think he’s kinda cute. A little cute gangster,” and that was the
other man, Murdock, who was grinning like an idiot and doodling on a notepad.
“Cute little baby gangster. Larval. Larval gangster.”
Who said shit like that?
“I am not a gangster,” Peck spat, trying not to crack up.
Carter, that FBI asshole, snorted. “No, no you’re not, Templeton. Would you
like me to go over what we’ve got on you? How about...“
The noise was growing as little side conversations started up between the two
military guys, the FBI agents, questions forming, and Peck shot a pleading
glance over to Hannibal, begging for help. If he could only drive a wedge
between Hannibal and the rest of this little task force...
“I’m well aware of what the kid does for the mob here,” Hannibal growled,
effectively silencing the room. “Let’s get him processed and back to Santori
before I have another armor failure on my hands,” Hannibal continued in an
incredibly dismissive tone, and the FBI agents all exchanged a little look.
Carter, shook his head and started pulling papers out of a folder by his elbow.
“Now, Templeton Peck, I want you to understand the seriousness of what you’re
about to agree to here...”
+++++
By the time they were finished, Peck’s hand was cramping up from too many
signatures, and the dark haired guy, Murdock, was cat-napping in his chair. BA
looked extremely bored. There was something about those two, the way they
looked at the colonel, the way they’d spoken to him over the past few hours,
deferring to him completely, the loyalty he saw in both of them... he wanted it
for himself. Those thoughts came up again, the ones about working for somebody
like Hannibal, being there, every day, not just for a fuck and a cuddle, but
for a real reason, for something real.
Peck realized he wanted to know what that felt like.
But here he was, betraying everybody in his life, John with his actions, his
Family with his feelings...
“That’s the last one, Templeton,” Carter said, and Peck slumped back
gratefully.
“Thank Christ, “ he muttered, and saw Hannibal smile at him. Wasn’t the same
smile he’d been using the last few months, but it was pretty damn close. He
smiled back weakly, and yawned. “So, I’m good?”
“We need you to wait outside while we confer,” the agent said, and he looked to
Hannibal. The colonel nodded his head and waved him out, Murdock standing up to
follow.
“No, captain, sit down. We need you in here. BA, can you watch him please?”
Murdock sank back down into his chair, grumbling in an exaggerated stage
whisper, “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.” It was actually a
pretty good Michael Corleone impression, and Peck started laughing as BA
ushered him outside.
“Crazy fool,” he growled at the man behind him, and then looked at Peck. “You
gonna cause me any trouble, fool?”
“No,” Peck said cautiously. This was the one he was going to have to watch out
for.
“Good. Cause I will beat your ass, no joke. Hannibal thinks he know what he’s
dealing with in you, but I know better.”
“Based on what?”
BA just fixed him with a stare, and Peck’s first inclination was to start
laughing. He thought better of it and quailed just a little, inwardly wondering
how deep the ties between these three men went and what he would have to do to
cut them apart.
It was a good ten minutes before the little group emerged from the conference
room. Hands were shaken, pleasantries and thank-yous exchanges and Peck got one
last icy look as the FBI left and it was just the military guys left, talking.
He let himself collapse up against the nearest wall, hand up in his hair. “I’m
glad that’s over,” he muttered to himself, and looked up at Hannibal, who was
clearly torn between his men and his shiny new informant. Peck mentally punched
the air in victory when Hannibal was there, pulling him back up and patting him
on the back.
“You did good, kid. I’m proud of you,” Hannibal said sincerely, and Peck
literally had to fight to keep from surging in for an embrace, a tidal wave of
emotion swelling up in him at those simple words. He cursed himself inside. Why
should that affect him so much? Especially since Hannibal believed he'd just
gotten Peck to betray his entire Family?
Peck didn't trust him, couldn't trust him, he told himself, because he's
probably just playing you, using you while he works on his own plans...
Murdock looked at them both, and some kind of recognition seemed to come into
those fevered eyes of his. “He another one of your projects, boss?”
Hannibal didn’t answer, but there was a clench of tension in his neck and a
slight tightening of his eyes, like what this Murdock character had said hit
home somewhere. Interesting. “You boys got a good place to stay while you’re
here?”
“Have you seen the hotel rooms in this town?” BA complained. “Closets. Sharin'
one with this fool...”
“We’ll get you an apartment as soon as we can, okay?”
Peck sniffled a little. “I could do that, if you’d like.”
“Aw, hell, no, Hannibal, I ain’t sleeping anywhere this fool finds...”
“BA, it’s just an offer. And no kid, don’t worry about it.” He turned around
and looked at the two behind him. “You boys got the plan?”
“Batshit as usual, boss,” Murdock grinned.
“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going to get Peck back to the dorms.”
Murdock pulled a very reluctant BA away, and the second the elevator doors
closed, Peck practically leapt into Hannibal’s still-open arms, shaking.
“John...”
Hannibal froze, and looked towards the elevator, relaxing considerably when he
noticed it was shut, that they were alone. “Shh, I’ve got you. Everything’s
okay.”
“Your guys don’t seem to like me very much.”
“Murdock loves you, I guarantee it, and BA, well, he'll warm up to you.”
“Don’t take me back to the dorms tonight, John,” Peck begged. He kept a dorm
room on campus, just for appearances’ sake and also because it occasionally
came in very handy. But tonight, he couldn’t stomach the thought of it. And he
wasn’t sure what would happen if he left Hannibal alone. He had to keep
tightening down his hold on the man, keep him off-kilter. An absence tonight
could undo weeks of work. “Don’t leave me alone after that.”
Hannibal seemed to hesitate, and then pulled him up for a long, slow, burning
kiss that left them both breathless and panting. “After all this, I wasn’t sure
if you’d still want...” he began when they pulled apart.
“I want, John,” Peck said, and Hannibal ran a reassuring hand through his hair.
“My brave boy,” John whispered and Peck felt that surge of emotion once more,
but this time he couldn’t stop it, and he really was crying, and he told
himself it was okay, that he could use it later, and he collapsed into the
reassuring strength that was this man, scheming done for the evening.
Exhausted.
Safe.
No matter how self-delusional that belief might be.
+++++
Hannibal had given Peck back his cell phone when they’d gotten home, back to
John’s apartment. And wasn’t that nice? He’d made his own calls, told Hannibal
it was necessary, and the colonel just nodded.
Shmuck.
Trusting him like that...
Mr. Santori, making progress.
What kind of progress, Peck? Haven’t heard from you in a week or two...
It’s been worth it. You got time today, boss?
Tonight. Wife’s doing dinner at the house
Peck looked over the top of his coffee, black, strong, no bullshit. It was a
crowded, noisy little place, one of those student coffee shops with an ironic
name, carefully battered furniture and too many hipsters, but it was decent and
they’d both just gotten out of class and he wanted to get this over with.
“How you been, Neo?” Peck asked serenely, batting his eyes at the redhead
stumbling over his own feet to sit down. “You want anything? My treat...”
“You’re fucking crazy, man, you know that? Do you have any idea what you asked
me to do last night?”
“Yeah, dig up some military records. I’m going to get you something. You want,
what, a latte?”
“Did you hear what you just said? Military, Peck. Military networks. You know
how illegal that is?”
“Mocha?” Peck joked, making like he was going to leave.
“Seriously!” the geek said urgently, and the conman slid back down into his
chair. “This is beyond fucked up...”
“Okay, okay, get your voice down,” Peck said, and rubbed the geek’s knee under
the table, smiling reassuringly. “Were you able to get those guys for me?”
The redhead fished a big document envelop out of his messenger bag and handed
it over. “You owe me.”
“Getting pushy on me, buddy?” Peck snapped, letting a little edge into his
voice and the geek sort of shrunk back into his chair. Satisfied, the conman
reached in. “So, you don’t want to bore me with the details?”
The geek actually looked a little sick. “Damnit, man, so illegal...”
“You do this all the time. What’s the fucking problem?”
The redhead stood up and leaned forward over the little cafe table. “I’m not a
motherfucking, shitsucking, manipulating, asshole criminal who shells for some
bigger motherfucker downtown,” he hissed.
He just started shuffling the papers out of the envelop. Damn, this was thick.
“Yes, but you still take it up the ass from me.”
“Let me tell you something, Peck. When you’re putting bullets through the heads
of gangbangers who’ve pissed your boss off, I’m going to be working out in
Silicone Valley making a shitload of money...”
“And drinking organic champagne and playing with diamond-studded buttplugs,”
Peck replied with a little laugh. “Fuck your future.”
“At least I have one,” the redhead snapped.
Peck hadn’t know the pale grad student was even capable of that much anger. It
took him aback, but he hoped it wasn’t showing. Why would it be? He was so good
at lying. But it didn’t matter, because when he looked back up, the geek was
gone.
He shrugged and went back to the papers.
We haven’t had you over for dinner in a while, have we, Peck? The wife’ll be
glad to see you...
I’ll be there, Mr. Santori. Can I bring anything?
If you’d stop by Lugo’s deli and pick up my order...
Peck smiled and started skimming the papers.
It wasn’t a pretty picture.
Evidently, they specialized in the ridiculous.
Captain HM Murdock, decorated combat pilot and bugfuck crazy, judging by the
psychiatric records. Corporal Bosco Baracus, moonlighted on the amateur MMA
circuit and had a real bad attitude, according to his personnel evaluations.
Lieutenant Colonel John Smith, aka, Hannibal.
John.
He paused at that one, realizing how much he wanted to know who this man was,
like how much he used to love reading the backstory novels on video games and
movies before his parents died. Having met a small part of him, he wanted to
know all of him. Wanted to know everything.
And what was in there scared him.
Not like Santori scared him. Hannibal wasn't the kind of guy who’d take a
fourteen year old orphan along on a hit and then enlist the kid’s help in
weighing the body down in the East River. Take him out for ice cream after. Not
that kind of scary.
This man was noble to his core. His record screamed of it, his actions shining
through the dry military writing of performance reports and citations, entire
sagas contained in short little lines of type. The thing about Iraq was true.
So were a ozen other operations. Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia, the
Philippines... it just went on and on.
The geek had even found a couple of articles, one from the Army Times, glossy
printer photos, a funeral at Fort Bragg. Hannibal was there in his uniform,
beret at a rakish angle, handsome as fuck. Little caption under the photo. LTC
Smith oversees funeral of PVT Lewis, “Died a national hero...”
Peck felt his stomach turn over and he let the stack fall to the table.
Why?
This guy was just a job.
So what was going on with him?
+++++
He was still thinking about it that night, helping Maria Santori slice up the
buffalo mozzarella he’d picked up for her. The entire crew was over, drinking
beer and watching basketball in the huge living room. He’d always loved this
house. Not so much for the heavy-handed American Revival decor, not for the
ridiculous size of the place, but for that living room. When all the guys were
over, laughing and drinking and bullshitting. Like a family was supposed to.
He’d missed that, his year on the streets, the warmth of his parents’ tiny
apartment, mom baking cookies, dad teaching him how to play poker and how to
keep a straight face, so as not to give the game away.
But they’d died. Left him alone. None of the the family on the West Coast would
come out and get him, and he’d escaped the CPS and their rules and their
indifferent foster family, only to find the New York City was a rough place to
be homeless in the winter. All the things he’d done, trying to avoid
starvation...
And then Santori had found him and picked him up and he’d finished growing up
in this house, in its big hallways and garlic-infused kitchen, guns hidden in
practically every room. And he’d remembered dad’s lessons about poker face, and
not showing what he was really feeling, not ever, so as not to lose the new
family...
Peck suddenly wondered what his father might say, if he could see him now, if
he knew what his son had done with that tiny kernel of knowledge. If he knew
his son was busy screwing over a good man like John...
He didn’t even notice he’d cut himself until Maria was there with a paper
towel, hustling him over to the sink, squeezing down on his thumb.
“You’ve been distracted all evening, baby. You feeling okay?” she asked and
brushed a strand of hair out of his face. It was longer than he usually wore
it, but John had made a comment about liking it long, so he’d let it grow. The
man liked to run his fingers through it, grab big handfuls during...
“Fine, Mrs. Santori,” he said with a winsome smile, and she laughed, slapping
him lightly and going back for her Pinot Grigio.
“Don’t you try your little conning cuteness on me, Templeton.” She was the only
one who ever used his first name. Such a sweet woman, black-haired and just
this side of heavyset. Fantastic cook. Somewhere between a big sister and an
aunt to him, a MILF to his high school buddies. He had no idea how Santori had
kept her all this time. “You’re hiding something.”
“Come on, ma’am, you know I can’t make you an accomplice to a crime.”
She cocked her head a little, letting the wine glass dangle between her
fingers. She wore more jewelry than most rappers. It had always amazed Peck how
she was able to keep them clean in all that cheese and tomato sauce and...
“It’s not about some job, honey. I know that look. I know that look very well.
So, who’s the lucky girl?”
“What?”
Maria frowned. “You’re in love, baby. Don’t you see it?”
Gravity stopped working for a moment, everything sliding out of place and
locking in at the same time. A little voice in the back of his mind started
fucking cheering, being acknowledged for the first time, the truth of what had
been nagging him for the past two months finally given a word and voice in this
sweet Italian woman who washed bloodstains out of her husband’s clothes, who’d
washed them out of his own...
He was too stunned to say anything at all.
She frowned, like she could tell she’d said something wrong, hit a nerve, and
patted his hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry about, Templeton. It happens to
every man, sooner or later.”
“I’m not...”
“Not what, Peck?”
Santori. The conman threw Maria a desperate glance, and the woman, who’d spent
most of her life around this thing of theirs, gave him a little nod and started
laughing. Forced, but good enough for the half-bottle of wine she'd put down.
“I was asking him about whether or not he was thinking about quitting school.”
She always teased him about that. “He’s too smart for that fucking place.”
“Can I borrow him for a moment, love?”
The lovely woman waved them out with her wine glass. “Go, go, I can finish up
here. Templeton cut himself anyway.”
The cappo led him outside, far enough away from the house out of the cold lawn,
far enough to avoid any bugs that might be there. Being paranoid was typically
a good idea in their line of work.
“So?”
Peck knew he had to say something, that he had to hide whatever he was feeling,
that emotion he had to ignore right then, and he picked his words carefully.
“He’s working for the DOD, investigating some bullshit about faulty
equipment...”
“Can’t pin that on us,” Santori growled, sounding none too confident. “We
collect from the company. It’s not our fault if they produce sub-standard
equipment instead of taking a financial hit. We’ll work that. What’s your
impression of the guy?”
“Dedicated. He’s pissed about this. Could work to our advantage...”
“Okay, make sure that it does. You need anything right now?”
“No, I’m good, boss.”
“One more thing before we head back inside.”
“Yes, boss?”
“We’re talking about opening the books in a month or two. I’m proposing you for
membership.”
You are expendable, Peck
“...what?”
“The whole fucking-men thing is going to have to stop, but other than that, I
think you’re ready. You’re a good earner and you’re fucking smart. We can use
you, Peck.”
Kid, this is no life for you...
There was a snowstorm in his head, heavy and thick and he couldn’t see through
it. so he fell back on instinct and went for the lie. The lies he was so good
with. “That’s, that’s great news, Mr. Santori. I barely know what to say.”
“Good, good,” Santori said, laughing again. “Come on. Stop helping my wife with
her bullshit, come watch TV.” The cappo clapped him on the back, and turned to
go. Peck didn’t move for a few moments, rooted to that spot. He couldn’t help
but remember Hannibal, remember John, doing that to him last night...
The man that I love.
He wanted to break down and cry. He wanted to scream it out. He wanted to laugh
until he couldn’t breath, giddy, free to feel something he hadn’t known since
the CPA had come to drag him away from twin graves that weren’t even covered
with sod yet.
But he couldn’t do any of those things, he knew. Celebrate? Bullshit.
Now, like then, he wasn’t able to do anything but mourn.
And then he bit down the rage and got his feet moving, and followed Santori
into the house.
+++++
It was almost too easy, manipulating this man.
Even if it had lost some of its sheen since last week’s revelation.
“Time to get up, kid,” John murmured against his ear.
Peck rolled into that warm sound, nudging his nose against the older man’s bare
neck as he ran his fingernails lightly down John’s sides. He loved having this
man naked now, really naked. The slide of skin on skin, the way he smelled,
that light dusting of hair over sculpted muscle, even the scars that littered
the otherwise flawless expanse. All his to touch and feel and lick now. Loved
it. “Mmm, no, Wanna stay here.”
He felt an arm slide around his waist, and rolled his hips forward, letting
John feel his morning wood. “Can’t, kid.” It wasn’t quite forceful enough. “The
team’s going to be in here in a few minutes.”
“And you haven’t told them.” Peck pushed himself away with that, like it hurt
him, and it did, but he wasn’t normally the pouty type. If John wanted to hide
who he was from the rest of the world from now until the end of time, that was
none of Peck’s business. He himself was inclined to laugh it off and give John
a blowjob, getting them both cleaned and dressed just in the nick of time. Peck
was still having to play the rent boy.
But he was okay with that. He didn’t trust his own judgment right now. It was
easier to play the role, the overlapping and conflicting roles, than it was to
be honest right now. “You’re not going to tell them, are you?”
“Kid, we talked about this,” and those blue eyes were sad again. He was a man
far too used to it, Peck thought to himself. “I can’t tell them.”
“I know, I know. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Your fucking enlightened military that
hates the gays,” Peck said sarcastically, and shimmied out of the sheets before
John could kiss him, fishing around on the floor for his jeans, shaking them
out.
The other man sat up and moved back against the headboard, hands open,
emploring. “It doesn’t change anything, kid.”
Peck sniffed his shirt. Could he get away with this? He was a college student,
wasn’t he? He pulled it on. “Right. Absolutely changes nothing. You can’t tell
your buddies there you’re gay because of your job, can’t tell them about us
because of your job. None of it’s your fault.” What had he done with his socks?
“You’re really just a victim in this situation. Poor gay victim of the
military’s bullshit. Don’t worry, I understand.”
“I don’t...”
“What? Don’t think of yourself as a victim? Guess it would be a little hard,
Hannibal...”
And either John had some kind of super speed or Peck's quest for his left sock
had consumed him to the point where he’d just blocked it out, but suddenly
there John was, right in front of him, hauling him up by the arm.
Not speaking. Some hard grief in his face that Peck knew he wouldn’t give voice
to.
Peck stared at the man’s hand, clenching down just below his shoulder, fingers
almost touching. He swallowed, like he was far more nervous than he was. “What?
Gonna throw me out for using your real name?”
“John is my real name,” he said softly.
Definitely not what he’d been thinking. But Peck could work with that - it was
still real. He’d rather it be something less, rather than more, hurtful at this
point. He couldn’t afford to start pulling his punches, not now, though, and so
he pushed through the little film of nausea that seemed to coat all such
actions there days and went for it.
The conman smiled, matching that sadness he always saw in this man, and touched
his cheek. “Not from what I’ve seen in last couple of days.”
“Don’t be like this, kid.”
“No,” he said, and knocked John’s, Hannibal’s, whoever’s hand off his arm, “no,
you’re right. I’m being an idiot. We, this... my life...” and he tried to force
a smile, like he was fighting with himself. It wasn’t hard to fake. “I
understand.”
The older man laid his forearms on Peck’s shoulders, possessive and strong, and
smiled down at him, playing with the short hairs on the back on his neck. The
door buzzer rang, letting them know that Murdock and BA were downstairs, right
now, standing in the morning cold, wanting to be let in and let up. John didn’t
budge.
Peck shoved a hand in his pocket and squirmed a little. He honestly had no idea
what the man was doing, what he was looking at. “John?” he asked, hating the
uncertainty creeping into his voice, not knowing how to stop it. “Shouldn’t you
let them in? BA’s already pissed enough about this assignment.”
“He’ll get over it,” John murmured, that blissful expression really starting to
confuse the younger man now, and leaning in until his lips were very nearly
touching Peck’s ear. “You’re beautiful, Templeton. You’re the most beautiful
thing I...” and there he faltered, smile failing, like he was unsure of
himself, and Peck shifted a little, one of his hands splayed out on the older
man’s flat abs. John took a breath, and smiled again. “Well, you know.”
The buzzer rang again.
“I’ll go let them in,” Peck said, pressing a kiss into one of those calloused
palms as he untangled John’s arms, reaching down and hooking up the older man’s
pants by a belt loop. And he didn’t look back as he fled.
He barely managed to get himself out the room, out into the little central room
with its television and kitchenette unit. Peck hit the button to open the door
and got the cereal out of one of the small cupboards. Lucky Charms, the kind
the pilot seemed to like so much. He poured himself a huge bowl and drowned it
in milk and took himself over to the sofa, switching on the TV. Saturday
morning cartoons. Thoughtless, easy.
Peck crossed his legs up under him on the cushion and noticed, with his first
bite, that his hands were shaking. Why? Because John had just called him
beautiful? He’d heard that before, heard it from other men before. He fucking
knew what he looked like. He worked on it. He used it.
No, it wasn’t the word itself. It was the way John had said it, the way John
had used his name, whispered it like some kind of prayer. No mark had ever used
it on him before. No mark had ever spoken to him like that. Raw need and
affection and something else, something selfless. He hadn’t said it because he
was looking for anything in return.
He’d said it for Peck’s benefit. Peck’s benefit alone.
His eyes stung. What was it with this man and his goddamn selflessness?
There was a knock on the door, more a hard pounding than an informative tap,
and there was he was, right behind Peck, sliding a hand down his chest.
“You’re a better man than you think you are, kid,” John said, low and honestly.
“You’d figure that out, if you just let yourself.”
And what was Peck supposed to say to that? How was he supposed to feel about
that?
The younger man just stared at the TV, not really registering the door opening
or Hannibal’s voice, greeting his men, until Murdock flopped down next to him.
He’d come to really like the pilot over the last couple of meetings. He was
definitely crazy, like the time he’d brought sock puppets and acted out
Hannibal’s current knowledge of the Santori organization to the colonel’s
narration, adjusting for Peck’s corrections and narrowly avoiding BA’s fist a
few times.
They weren’t exactly in the planning stages right now. Hannibal seemed to know
what he wanted to do, but he needed more information in order to do it. Peck
kept telling him that it wasn’t going to be a matter of finding a paper trail
or evidence sitting around somewhere, which Hannibal seemed to understand and
had his own ideas about. Over the past few days, Hannibal had chewed cigars in
the evening and sent BA and Murdock off to do some kind of surveillance and
picked Peck’s brains over who did what, where and how, occasionally biting back
shock or disgust at some of the things that came out. Overall, though, the
plan, he’d said, was all coming together. Today, they were going to go over the
details.
“How’s it going, muchacho?”
He craned his neck back, where Hannibal was talking to BA about something or
other, and BA was staring right at him with a frown on his face. Peck waved.
The frown deepened.
“He’s cranky today, isn’t he?”
“Big mean man like that?” Murdock said and turned the volume on the TV up.
“He’s always cranky. When’d you get here?”
“Few minutes ago,” he said, forcing himself to be happy, and slurped at the
sugary milk in the bowl. “Cold out, isn’t it?”
“Why you always over here, eatin’ the boss’s food, fool?” BA asked, settling
down into the chair next to them. Peck smiled, and shoveled a huge spoonful of
soggy cereal into his mouth. He really did love those little marshmallows in
this stuff. At least it was less angry, more gruff, representative of some
progress. He hoped.
“He brought it over himself, BA,” Hannibal sighed, not a trace of the earlier
affection present in his voice, and Peck felt himself wilt, just a little. He
knew it was hypocritical of him, but he hated the dichotomy in this man. Hated
it in himself. Why couldn’t things just be simple, just the two of them, no
lies and no scheming, no mission, no complications. Just bare skin and soft
words and... “Peck? You in there? Would you mind joining us at the counter?”
When had BA and Murdock moved?
“Uh, sorry, Hannibal. Cartoons, you know...”
"Stealin' a bowl of your cereal, kiddo!" Murdock hollered, going for the box
and a can of orange soda instead of milk, and Peck grinned as he shoved himself
up.
“You sure about this kid, Hannibal?”
“I was up late trying to get a paper done, BA,” Peck groaned theatrically. He
caught a little smile from Hannibal, from John, as Murdock moved over for him,
bumping bowls with him like they were doing shots, and BA rolled his eyes, all
of them waiting for the boss to start talking.
Hannibal struck a match and lit one of those cigars Peck had given him. Inhaled
deep. Paused. Grinned.
“Here’s what I’m thinking, boys...”
+++++
Peck had to hand it to Hannibal; he was impressed by the plan.
The plan was simple. The plan was elegant. The plan was clearly insane, and if
it worked, well, Santori would probably was going to drop Peck down a very deep
hole and that would be the end of it. Because the plan didn’t revolve around
killing Santori, which had surprised him a little. So, at the end of all of
this, the cappo would still be alive. He’d come after Peck. He’d come after
Hannibal, and Murdock, and BA, and Special Agent Carter and anybody else who’d
been marginally involved. Contracts would be put out. Heads would be collected.
Scorched earth.
That’s just how things worked.
And that afternoon, walking the three miles back to his dorm from Hannibal’s
apartment, Peck couldn’t quite decide how he felt about it. Or what he should
do.
What Hannibal was planning wouldn’t just expose the union ties and the deal
with the defense company. It was going to tear a bleeding wound in Santori’s
operations that the feds would attack like the maggots that they were.
The basic premise, as Peck understood it, was getting the cappo to admit to the
deal. Hannibal was going to get him to renegotiate the terms, push him hard
about it the right words are said. That was the evidence the DoD needed to
break its legal obligations and haul the entire senior leadership board in
front of Congress to testify. That was Hannibal’s concern in the matter. None
of it was going to be admissible in court. So Hannibal didn’t think it
mattered.
Seemed a little myopic of him, Peck thought. There were broader repercussions
that he didn’t think Hannibal cared about or had even considered. Special Agent
Carter would have all the info. But a few bank account numbers, the right
people paid off or threatened or cajoled, that testimony as a starting point...
it would be like using wikipedia to find sources for a research paper. Patterns
would emerge, evidence would surface. It would all add up to federal
indictments. Other enterprises would be discovered, all their businesses laid
bare. Vast ripples, from a single cappo admitting to the deal.
And it might not even work. Santori might not go for it.
It all depended on whether or not Santori believed Hannibal was VP John
Hamilton or not. And that was going to depend on what Peck told him. And if
Peck went to him right now and told him who Hannibal was and what he was here
to do...
He had the sudden image, one he’d seen a dozen times before, of John, a bullet
in his neck, skin graying as the blood died on the concrete and veins
collapsed, hands still twitching...
Peck tucked his chin deeper into his scarf and turned up the volume on his
iPod, washing it all away in a dark blue surge of post-rock. That was enough
thinking for the day, he decided. More than enough.
But the image persisted well back to the dorms, up the stairs and into his room
as he flopped down on his bed. The details shifted. It was his face now, the
bullet was in his neck, and that was his blood on the floor. He had no doubt of
it. Santori had taken him in, treated him like a son, hardly ever took
advantage of him, even agreed to pay for what the scholarship wouldn’t cover
when he’d gotten accepted to NYU, but Peck knew better than to believe the
cappo wouldn’t kill him. He’d probably be the first on the chopping block after
all this came out.
If he can find you... that little voice in the back of his head whispered, and
wasn’t that absurd? Of course they’d find him. No matter what Hannibal did with
him afterwards.
And what was Hannibal’s plan, exactly? His idea for getting Peck out? He’d
asked the colonel after BA and Murdock were gone, right before he’d left
himself.
“John, what happens to me?”
Hannibal had rubbed the butt of his second cigar into the too-small ashtray. He
looked tired. He looked like he was trying to hide the fact that he was tired.
“I told you, kid, I’ll take care of you. I promise, you’ll be safe.”
“You going to take me with you?”
“You know I would, kid...” and then John had cut anything further off by
capturing Peck’s mouth for a long, long kiss.
Peck didn’t believe for a second that Hannibal really know who or what he was
dealing with. Terrorists who made broad proclamations of hate for the United
States and blew up buildings in his hometown were one thing. Men who smiled and
laughed and slipped a knife between your ribs when you weren’t looking were
something else entirely. Peck knew Hannibal didn’t have it in him to deal with
their brand of evil.
You’re a better man than you think you are, kid
How else could John say something like that, unless he truly believed it? And
if he believed it, how could he possibly understand what they were capable of
doing to him? No, John, Hannibal, he was what he was, a colonel who just didn’t
understand...
You know I would kid...
The thought hit Peck cold and he bolted upright, tearing his headphones off and
balling his hands up in his hair. Shit, how could he have been so stupid?
There wasn’t a way to do this. He couldn’t manipulate Hannibal out of his plan,
couldn’t manipulate the plan around anything that mattered. Couldn’t prevent it
from blowing a big fucking hole in the middle of his family. Couldn’t stop
Santori once his blood got roused. It wasn’t that there were too many moving
parts to control.
It was that the men he was dealing with were too entrenched in the way they did
things. That his man was too entrenched in the way he did things.
...I would...
Except he wouldn’t. John wouldn’t take him away from this. He couldn’t, not
with his job. Couldn’t have some kid living with him, probably couldn’t even
afford the rumor of it. And Peck suddenly knew what that sadness was in John,
that thing that was always haunting the man; he knew it too. He couldn’t do a
damn thing for Peck.
John was lying.
Everything went still in Peck’s head, like all his senses had been cut off at
once, nothing getting in, that single truth rippling outward.
Peck was going to help him, help John because he was an idiot and had fucking
fallen in love with his fucking mark. He was going to destroy everything he’d
known for the last ten years for, for what? Some stupid fucking emotion that
wasn’t going to lead anywhere? For some man who just felt sorry for the poor
mafia whore, a man who was too ashamed of what he was to even admit it to his
closest associates, a man who had never intended to follow through on anything
he said?
A man who was just going to leave him when this was all over, abandoning him to
the witness protection program, just like his parents had left him, alone and
at the mercy of some fucking government agency that didn’t give a shit whether
he lived or died...
He caught himself, breathing hard, fingernails digging into his palm hard
enough to draw blood. Peck stared at the red lines he’d dug in his own skin and
he knew he wasn’t being fair. But it didn’t matter how fair he was being or not
- it was true. He was going to be alone in the world again if he did this.
Nothing was worth that.
You’re beautiful, kid...
“Shut the fuck up, John,” he muttered, and swung his feet off the narrow pad
that passed for a bed here. Not like that queen-sized one in John’s apartment
with the down mattress topper and those sinfully soft sheets...
He slid his jacket back on and grabbed his car keys and headed for the parking
lot around the corner. $800 a month to rent a parking space, and every penny
was worth it right then to have a space that he knew was his. Just his. Nobody
else’s.
...I’ll take care of you...
Peck told himself to knock it off. To not think about it. Because that bed,
that apartment, all the sweet words, the reassurance and comfort and ease of
things, everything about the past two months had been an absolute falsehood, a
carefully constructed reality that was going to blow away in the first stiff
breeze, something he could never have. Because it had never existed. It never
would.
But he still hesitated as he pulled out his cell phone, stared at the glowing
contact list on the screen. He had their house number listed under “home”,
Santori’s number listed under “dad” and Maria’s as “mom”.
What kind of fucked-up was he?
He pushed the button. It rang. Once, twice, and he almost hung up, but
Santori’s caught it on the third ring.
“Hey, Peck, how’s it going? Everything going well with your project or whatever
the fuck?”
Casual. In case the goddamn feds were listening. “Yeah, my homework’s going
great,” he replied, and sunk down in the seat, closing his eyes. “I’ve almost
got it wrapped up. Just wanted to run a few things by you.”
“Tonight?”
“Can’t wait.”
“Come by the club. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Santori.”
“And Peck?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“I’m proud of you.”
That was it. The line went dead, and Peck let his forehead hit the steering
wheel for a moment. It was decided, and it was over and there was nothing more
he could do.
“Goddamn it, John,” Peck muttered, and threw the car into drive.
No time to think about it anymore. He had to get going.
+++++
Peck wasn’t there for the first official meeting.
He had been there for the first unofficial meeting, the one he’d set up with
Santori that night he’d figured out that John, Hannibal, had been lying to him
all along. The cappo had had a good laugh, found an excuse to go hit something
repeatedly with a baseball bat, and then gotten down to doing some planning of
his own.
I’m proud of you...
It involved letting VP John Hamilton come down to the strip club one afternoon
and discuss some of the inconsistencies he’d found in the books and some of the
problems he was having with accounting. Santori had hemmed and hawed and let
Hannibal get to his point, which was that there was something fishy in the
state of Denmark and he was not happy about it.
“We can’t continue doing business like this.”
“You can’t continue doing business at all if you terminate our agreements. I’ll
pull labor, force you to hire outside the unions, tie you up in court for years
for discriminatory employment processes...”
“You’re backing me into a corner here.”
“The government never looks at their books. We both know how it works. You
charge them whatever the fuck you want and make windfall profits, we get a
share, nobody gets hurt, everybody’s happy. What’s your fucking problem?”
Hannibal had actually blown a fucking smoke ring at Santori from across the
table, and looked over at Peck, who was doing his homework and his absolute
best impression of silenced resignation in the back corner of the messy room.
Like he was there because he’d had to be, because Santori made him be there.
Peck caught Hannibal’s eyes, and quickly adverted his own. His face was
burning, and in a way, he was grateful for that. He’d never delineated his
relationship with the cappo to Hannibal, letting the other man have the room
and time to form his own wrong opinions. Sure, he would occasionally let
Santori fuck him, but it had been like that since his parents had died and it
hadn’t mattered to him in a long, long time. Shame would make this all more
believable for Hannibal, like he really had a reason to betray the man who’d
taken care of him for the past ten years.
“We need to renegotiate this arrangment of yours.”
“Why, you arrogant motherfucker, it’s your fucking business model that’s
broken, you...” and Santori had gone off, fountaining profanity, and Hannibal
just sat there and waited for him to finish, and said something incredibly
witty and the cappo had laughed and they’d talked for another half hour before
shaking hands and agreeing to another meeting.
Hannibal had cast a strange little glance over Peck, wistful, maybe, before
he’d left.
“Should I go catch him in the parking lot?”
“He’s completely distracted by you, Peck,” Santori observed calmly. “I don’t
know how you do that.”
“Just like anybody else I go after, ‘cept you.”
“I know all your tricks, son.”
He hated it when Santori called him that, he really did. Mostly because he had
to answer the same thing, “gee, thanks, dad,” and see that little shiver of
pleasure. The cappo had his sick side, sure. But in Peck’s experience, so did
the rest of the goddamn planet. Like Hannibal, pretending to care about him and
being so sweet while all the time, underneath it all...
“He’s an asshole.”
“Well, let’s keep him on the hook. Go get him.”
So Peck had run out after him, backpack in hand, and curled up around
Hannibal’s waist, clinging to him like a life raft in a storm, and let Hannibal
bundle him up and take him out for a beer and a good, easy fuck to round out
the day. Trying to con the conman into thinking he cared.
Laying there in bed afterward, Peck had listened to John’s light snoring, just
thinking. He had no doubt the man cared about him on some level. It was evident
in the way the older man touched him, the way he looked at him, like that look
in the office earlier in the day. It made it all the worse, knowing he was
lying to him. Knowing that beneath all those layers of concern and care and
thoughtfulness, Hannibal was just like every other man he’d ever known.
Using him.
Normally, he was fine with that. Usually, he was doing the greater share of the
using. It made it all balance out, made what he did okay and safe and fun, most
of the time. But there was nothing fun about this. Here, there was no
satisfying irony, just a knawing hypocrisy that somebody in his line of work,
in his world, couldn’t afford to care about.
So why, why, was this bothering him so fucking much? Because he'd fallen in
love? What the fuck was that, anyway, love? Useless.
All of it utterly fucking useless.
He hadn’t slept at all that night.
Peck was perfectly alright not being there for the next meeting a day or two
later, the first official meeting,the one Hannibal and Santori had shaken hands
on. He didn’t need to be there to watch Hannibal to pretend to be jealous of
Santori’s casual and understated possessiveness. Watch Santori play him. Watch
the damnation of the man he’d stupidly fallen for...
Besides, this was going to be a hell of a lot more fun.
“Are you sure you can’t do this legally?” he asked Murdock as they swung into
the parking lot of the JFK helicopter terminal. Where the NYPD kept the police
choppers. “Not that I’m complaining or anything.”
Murdock adjusted the name tape on the uniform flight suit Peck had located for
him and grinned that lopsided grin of his. “Come on, faceman, dontcha wanna go
wrangle us our own bird?”
“One Air Wolf, coming right up,” he grinned, liking the nickname the crazy
pilot had started using for him, yeah, faceman, like the faceman for the con,
and cause you’re so gosh-darn cute, hey BA, ain’t he cute...
He patted the captain on the shoulder, and they both cracked up laughing. Peck
still felt a slight ache in his chest, though, even as he sidled up to the
sergeant at the counter and Murdock lounged against it in his mirrored
aviators, interjecting the occasional comment to Peck’s firehose of smooth talk
and plausible explanations and forged paperwork. He felt it even after they’d
secured Murdock full access to the flightline. After they walked out there to
inspect, the pilot talking about planes like old girlfriends and the crazy
maneuvers he’d pulled in them, the ache was there.
Because Peck realized that, in another life, he and Murdock might have been
friends. Good friends, maybe. And he told the captain his eyes were stinging
from the jet fumes and maybe they ought to go get BA and order pizza and get
back to Hannibal’s apartment so they could get the skinny on the first official
meeting.
It didn’t matter. After Santori got done with all of them, there wouldn’t be
enough left to fit in a shoebox. And that’s just the way it was going to have
to be.
+++++
Peck had brought his vintage Super NES from school over a week or two ago, and
he and Murdock were vying for space on the short sofa, controllers in hand,
yelling at each other over a not-so-friendly game of Mario Kart. They’d been at
it for a couple of hours, and Peck was seriously considering swapping out to
something a little less combative - Murdock had sharp elbows - when BA and
Hannibal showed up.
“Who wants orange chicken?” Hannibal hollered out over the noise of the
television, and Peck nearly caught another one in the chin when Murdock went
vaulting over the back of the sofa. Peck paused and muted the game, and slid up
next to Hannibal, bumping him good-naturedly. BA, unpacking the little white
take-out cartons, nodded, and Peck smiled back. Maybe he was finally getting
somewhere with the big guy.
And why would that fucking matter at this point in the game, Peck? that evil
little voice asked him, and he bit his lip.
“How was your day?” Hannibal asked in a low voice, pitched perfect to carry
under Murdock’s frenzied explanations and coordinating sock puppet story, BA’s
mock-exasperated replies. He’d clearly had a lot of practice at that, Peck
though, and snapped open a pair of chopsticks.
The conman grinned and started sniffing at the cartons, looking for his
favorite mandarin chicken. “Wasn’t too bad. We got the chopper. And thank you
for letting me do that, I’ve always been a little scared to try scamming from
the police...” and then he trailed off as Hannibal’s big hand covered his own,
fingers coming down to trace those veins on the underside of Peck’s wrist,
effectively stopping his search. Sending a shiver clean through him.
BA and Murdock abruptly stopped talking, staring at their commanding officer,
who made a little harrump sound deep in his throat and laughed weakly. “Pick
one. You can’t have all of it, kid.”
Peck froze for a second. Murdock and BA were looking at them and John had asked
him to keep things quiet, and Peck still wanted to do that for him. Wasn’t such
a big thing, really, no matter how much he wanted to run a hand through that
silvery-gray hair and kiss him square on the lips and show these other two that
they might be the team, but he had more of a claim on John’s soul then they
ever could.
But, there again, he was assuming that Hannibal felt the same way about him
that he felt about...
“Just looking for the mandarin,” he said and jerked his hand free. The thanks
in John’s eyes was subtle, but there, and he just started chatting with the
team, everybody digging into their food with gusto, Hannibal talking about the
meeting. Went well. Santori had agreed to renegotiate - something that made
Peck incredibly happy, the man could be downright punchy at times - and they
were having another meeting to finalize the day after tomorrow. Hannibal would
be picked up, dropped off, never knowing where he was headed.
“Kid, do you know where they’re going to hold it?”
He shrugged, considering. “We’ve got a couple of fairly typical places. Usual
stuff. Sure.”
“Good. Tomorrow you and BA go check those out. I want us prepared.”
Prepared? No such thing on this one.
Peck could let the man have his illusions for a few more days. And Hannibal was
clearly a man who liked being in charge. Liked things going his way. Liked it
when a plan came together. What it was going to be like for him, having all of
that suddenly stripped away?
“Hey, fool, you wanna come out to a movie tonight?” BA asked gruffly, and
Hannibal smirked a little bit out of the corner of Peck’s eye. “This idiot
wants to go.”
Murdock nodded. “Come on, Faceman. It’ll be fun.”
Peck looked over at Hannibal. “You going?”
“I’m supposed to be a mild-mannered VP from the Midwest, remember, Face?”
Peck loved the way the nickname sounded, the way John just said it. Made him
feel almost like he could be part of things. Like he could forget what he’d
done to them and...“I already told you, they don’t have this place under
surveillance and it’s not like you have to sit at home on your ass...”
“Reading tonight,” the colonel said firmly.
Peck knew how to take a hint and smiled at Murdock. “I’ve got a paper due
tomorrow. I should probably go work on that. You guys know how to get there?”
Murdock brandished a map and subway directions and BA rolled his eyes, and all
too soon, they were both gone and it was just him and Hannibal, picking up the
remains of dinner, watching one another.
John broke first, foot heavy on the lever that opened the small trash can. “Do
you really have a paper due tomorrow, kid?” he asked, and there was that
fucking wistfulness again. Peck didn’t know if it made him want to strangle or
kiss the man.
“No.”
“So,” and there was a little bit of a tease in John’s voice that wasn’t quite
teasing as he threw away the rest of the trash, “you lied to me, kid.”
Peck didn’t feel like standing up, didn’t feel like moving, didn’t feel like
doing anything right then. He certainly didn’t feel like playing around with
John tonight. Every time he looked at him, at that handsome face, that strong
body, that brilliant intelligence that overshone all the sadness and sweetness
and goodness that was encapsulated there, Peck felt his stomach twist and his
belly warm and a tingle come over his skin, that feeling, and he would have
done anything, anything to be rid of it.
“My life’s a fucking lie,” he muttered, more to himself than anything else, but
there John was, nonetheless, right next to him, cupping Peck’s hands together
and up off the counter, holding them still.
“It doesn’t have to be, kid,” and Peck could almost let himself believe that
was sincerity he heard in the other man.
Almost.
But he knew better.
He’s just using you, Peck...
I’ll take care of you, kid...
“You’d don’t have to be... this...”
God, he was such an idiot, just a stupid, fucking idiot, letting himself let
John get this close, developing these kinds of, of fucking feelings for a man
who thought he was nothing more than a common whore.
"I..."
And then Peck stopped himself cold.
He shouldn’t have even been talking, not like this, so exposed, so close to
bringing it all to an end, to cutting all of this away and going back to being
himself and not playing this fucking role and not dealing with emotions that
had no place in his life.
But Peck didn’t feel like lying. For the first time in ten years, he just
couldn’t do it.
But he couldn’t not, so instead he found the strength to push up and away from
the kitchen island and grab his backpack and head for the door and get through
it and away before John did anything at all. And he managed to get the elevator
shut before John could reach him. And he was almost half a block away before he
heard the footsteps behind him, and all he could think of was how familiar this
was, like that first night together when he’d done this specifically to piss
John, specifically to get this reaction. And now all he wanted to do was get
away but John was still following him.
He shoved his hands deep in his pockets against the creeping winter chill and
cursed whatever twisted, godless fate had brought him here, to the other side
of things. So now he was the one being manipulated, and holy hell, wasn’t there
anything real in this world anymore?
“Temp!” John shouted, and since it sounded like John, really like John, and
since it was really his name, Peck halted and listened as John ran the last few
yards. He didn’t have a jacket on, just his paper-thin sweatshirt and jeans,
but he didn’t look cold. Wasn’t even shivering. And for some reason, that
single, small thing made him seem more a Ranger than anything Peck had seen in
him before.
Peck started walking again.
“Temp, kid, please, wait!”
He turned and spread his arms wide, walking backwards. “Right here, John.”
John got in front of him, between him and everywhere else he wanted to be, and
ran his hands down Peck’s shoulders. “Kid...”
“I’m not a whore,” he snapped. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to protect me from
that. You can walk away from your job here, knowing that you did right by me,
okay? Now can I go?”
“Back to school?”
“Wherever the fuck, doesn’t matter.”
“Temp,” and there was his name again, and John was holding his hands again,
chuckling. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry, I’m just, I don’t usually, I...”
Under the words, through his own flaring anger, Peck caught the edge of
something solid, something honest, in what John was trying to say, and he
stepped a little closer, letting John pull him in. “Don’t usually what?”
The older man took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Like it was something worth
hearing. “I haven’t done this before, and I’m not, not really sure...”
“Haven’t done what before, John?”
“You, this, with a man, Peck. I lied to you about... You’re the first time
I...” and then John just looked away, staring over the top of Peck’s head, and
Peck saw that throat bob as John swallowed his words. “Doesn’t matter. You’re
right. It’s all gotten too tangled up and after this is over... I’ll let you
get going.”
Peck felt something in him crack apart as John slid his hands away and started
back towards the apartment, shoulders crunched a little against the cold. He
could see his own breath, coming out in tight, hard pants, fogging the air
between them, all that space...
...you’re the first time...
... and before he could stop himself, take stock and say you fucking retard,
don’t you know he’s just fucking playing you, there’s no way he’s not gay, no
man just switches teams for some pretty face, Peck was the one running. Peck
was the one gathering the other up in a tight embrace, Peck was the one
standing on his toes trying to reach the other’s mouth, smiling around those
lips as he pulled him down for a kiss.
John seemed shaken, so Peck tightened his grip around those hard shoulders and
pulled him in closer, seeking permission, wanting to share that white-hot fire
inside him with this man, the man who put it there and fanned it and had just
sent it into an all-consuming blaze. Peck didn’t even care if the little
statement was true or not. He didn’t believe it for a second, and he wasn’t
going to let it become any kind of reality, but he couldn’t ignore how it was
making him feel. Maybe if he just got it all out of his system...
Yeah, that could work. That had to work. Because he couldn’t stop himself.
An arm played around his waist and held him in close, pulling him up a little.
At the same time, John finally opened his mouth, giving Peck the slightest
little touch, and the feeling of John’s tongue sliding over his own made Peck’s
vision white around the edges.
The conman fisted his hands deep into that silver hair that he loved so much,
groaning at how the slight change in angle seemed to bring them closer together
now, and John’s hand strayed a little lower, thumbing the waistband of his
tight jeans. John’s skin was cold, icy, despite everything, and Peck wanted
nothing more right than for his lover to feel the heat he was feeling, know
what he was doing to him...
He broke off and laid a cheek against John’s heaving chest, letting a hand come
up to play along side, drawing a shudder out of the other man. Or maybe that
was the cold. Peck wasn’t sure. He wasn’t feeling anything but this right now.
“Take me to bed,” he murmured, and John just looked down and brushed the hair
from his forehead.
“You really do have a beautiful face, kid.”
Peck started laughing as John unlocked the door and took him inside.
John maneuvered them both back to the bedroom somehow, so smooth, never losing
contact, calm and easy. Peck didn’t even notice it until his lover turned him
around, hands running down his front, stripping his jacket off, his button-down
shirt, nibbling at his ear. It was different. Somehow, it was already
different.
“There was something about you,” Peck realized John was growling in his ear,
“the second I saw you sitting at that shitty little bar, I knew there was
something about you.”
“Oh?” he half-laughed as the cool air of the room hit his bare skin, and John
started on his pants, swaying a little as he pressed himself full against
Peck’s back. “Some mob guy...”
“No, you weren’t like the guys I was coming to see.” John nipped lightly at
Peck’s ear and moved down to slide his jeans off, his shoes and socks and
underwear. “You were different. You are different, kid. You’re not like
them...”
“Mmm, why not?” Peck asked, stepping backwards and stepping free, pulling John
along by the belt, fingers nimble on the buckle, even as the older man pulled
his own sweatshirt over his head and tossing it away. “I’m exactly like them.”
“No,” John said, shaking his head, kicking out of his pants as they pooled
around his ankles. “You’re nothing like them...” and he grabbed Peck’s head
with both hands, kissing him soundly even as he pushed him the rest of the way
down to the bed and slid up over him. “You’re so much more...”
“No, I’m... oh god...” he groaned as John’s tongue laved up his neck, “no,
John, I’m so much less, than them, than you, everyone...”
John pulled back a little, running a soft thumb along Peck’s cheekbone. The
sheer intimacy of the touch brought stung in the young man’s eyes and John just
stayed there for a moment before smiling and kissing him lightly on the tip of
his nose. “No, no, Templeton Peck...no... you’re everything.... everything I
ever...”
Nobody had spoken to him like that since the accident, since his mother and
father had left him and now he was going to lose this, too, he was going to
lose everything all over again... and he very nearly flew off the mattress,
wrapping both arms around John’s neck, not crying, just shaking, and he felt
John wrap an arm around his back, just holding him. Not asking for anything.
Not trying to get something or steal something or anything like that.
Just holding him.
It undid Peck completely and he balled his fists against John’s back, murmuring
what he thought was absolute nonsense until he felt John’s tighten around him
and force his chin back, those perfect blue eyes shining.
“You love me?” John asked quietly, and Peck, far away from anything resembling
common sense or survival instinct or familial obligations or anything real, let
himself float up into this dream that he’d surely wandered into, and nodded.
Then everything started coming in images and clipped sensation, like he was
watching it through a strobe light, like it was all too intense to be taken in
as an unbroken whole, his brain not accepting all the stimulation at once, and
he whimpered, wanting this, wanting everything.
John kissed him once more, this time with an infinite tenderness...
He laid Peck back down...
There was a slick finger at his entrance, the eager pad circling him slowly
before pushing right in...
Peck’s back arched up and his head flew back as John went straight for his
prostate, grazing it on every pass as he scissored the young man open, adding a
second finger, more lube, a third...
He was drifting upwards, nothing holding him down as John moved back, and then
crashing back down as John moved in, hands splayed around his hips, filling
him, filling every hole and pit and empty spot within him, splitting in him
two, pulling him together...
His heels dug into John’s back, feeling the delicious slide of flesh on flesh,
the cool air overwhelmed by the heat building on their skin, filling the space
between them, making that space irrelevant, pointless, non-existent...
A surge of warmth inside of him, delicious, John groaning his name, his real
name, as he flooded into him, fucking perfect...
Those big calloused hands everywhere, stroking him, easing him down, smoothing
him, pulling him close...everything between them in perfect synch now, like it
had never been before this, everything laid bare, everything removed, and Peck
had never considered how much better, how fucking wonderful it could be if he
just let go of the lies... if it could be like this. Every day. Always. Honest.
Between them, just like this.
...and only when John hugged him close, murmuring softly in his ear about how
wonderful he was, how perfect and soft and lovely and right, fucking right, it
all was and they were and how he was never going to let this go, never going to
leave him, did Peck let himself fall back down to earth and remember.
Remember everything.
And then, then, that's when Peck started crying.
+++++
In the morning, John didn’t ask him about the tears. Just kissed him and
laughed and pulled him into the bathroom for a very extended, very pleasant
shower. The older man wasn’t given to overblown displays of emotion, last
night's love-making notwithstanding, Peck knew, and the little smiles, the
happy glances, light touches... it was enough. It was more than enough.
It was overwhelming.
But that he could deal with. One of his best friends, a made guy in their crew,
had killed his girlfriend, straight out, about a year ago when he’d caught her
cheating on him. Killed the other man, too. Peck had helped manhandle the
bodies down to a dumpster in Jersey, and the whole time, his friend had been
talking. Light, joking, usual bullshit. But his knuckles had been white on the
steering wheel.
What it had taught him was this; everyone had something they loved, and in
their line of work, sooner or later, you’d lose it.
Better sooner than later, that voice said, back from wherever it had been
banished to last night. Peck poked at his cereal. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry
anymore.
John filled the reservoir up in the coffee maker and tapped a folder against
the counter in front of Peck. He was smiling, all that sadness from the last
few months gone, and Peck felt that warmth again. He found himself smiling
back, and leaned up for a kiss, which was graciously given.
“Mm, kid, got something for you before the boys get here,” John said, handing
him the folder. “Thought you might deserve a little something for helping us
out.”
Peck furrowed his brow in question, and opened it slowly. “Paperwork, John?”
“Take a closer look.”
“NYPD...” and he stared up at John. “This is my juvee record.”
“And your CPA file, and the reports from our buddies at the FBI that mention
you by name, and that one booking from the college police from last year for
drunk and disorderly...”
“It’s everything,” he breathed, thumbing through it, not daring to hope. “Holy
shit, John, this is everything. You got copies...”
“No, I got the originals. Everything’s been pulled. All of it. Digital, hard
copy, all of it.”
“Why?”
John leaned down on his elbows right next to him, and gave him a quick peck on
the cheek. “Because you deserve the choice of a different future. You may not
trust the government, and I’d say that’s not a bad policy, but I believe in
you, kid. You can make something of yourself, be that honorable man I know you
can be. You think you can’t do it, but you can.” The door rang, and John pushed
off and buzzed BA and Murdock in. “You just need the chance.”
It was the most Peck had heard John say at one time in the whole of the time
he’d known the man. He closed the folder reverently, laying a hand on the
cover. “Thank you, John,” he said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking.
“Love you, kid,” John said, offhanded and affectionate all at once, and it
almost broke Peck’s heart.
That kind of faith, in Peck, in people in general, was exactly why Santori was
going to win this one. Why he always won.
Why John was going to end up dead.
The guys came in, Murdock with a pink cake box full of donuts. Peck grabbed
three and Hannibal handed him a steaming mug of black coffee and Murdock
jostled him and asked him if he’d seen Billy, his imaginary dog, and BA clapped
him on the back and asked how he was doing. Peck smiled, despite himself. It
was almost like he was part of the team.
“Hey, hey, Faceman, what’s wrong?” Murdock asked around a mouthful of jelly-
filled goodness.
“Had him come over a little early. Gave the kid the folder,” Hannibal said,
emphasizing the last word, and the other two guys broke out in matching grins.
“I think he liked it.”
“You happy about that, Face?” BA asked in that gruff voice of his, staring at
him a little too intently, and Peck nodded around his own donut, blushing.
Face.
Almost like he was part of the team.
Except he wasn’t. And he never would be.
“Good. We need to go scope sites. Hannibal, can I borrow you little mobster
here?”
“Ex-mobster,” Hannibal said proudly, tapping the folder. “And yeah, Face, you
know what places we need to check out, right?”
He nodded and grabbed his stuff. “Santori uses a few of the same places for
everything. Shouldn’t be an issue.”
Murdock handed him a GPS unit. “Make sure you get the coordinates, Face. So’s I
can find the bossman.” He was going to be running air support tomorrow. Peck
nodded and stuffed the small device into his bag. He smiled at BA, who kind of
squinted back at him.
“Come on, big guy, let’s get going.”
Halfway down the hall, just in front of the elevator, Peck stopped, seized by
the sudden, horrible thought. A single flash of his mother, ten years ago,
running back inside the house and interrupting him right in the middle of a
Zelda boss fight on his NES. I didn’t get my kiss before I left, Templeton
she’d said, and you know I love you...
That had been her thing, always saying goodbye, always say I love you because
you never know if that’s the last time you’re going to see...
Except he knew.
And Peck was running, right back to the door, right back inside, grabbing
Hannibal around the shoulders, just like last night, pulling the taller man
down for a long, deep kiss that left him gasping in horror, but Peck didn’t
care about any of that, didn’t care that Murdock and BA were staring, didn’t
even care about the triumphant little you owe me a hundred bucks, fool behind
them, didn’t care about anything except whispering, “I love you,” in John’s ear
and hearing the heated reply of “I love you too, now get going,” growled
against his ear.
Peck nodded. He looked back over his shoulder at BA, who was shuffling some
bills into his wallet with a grin.
“You ready t’go now, man?”
Peck stared at the man in his arms, wanting to remember him like this forever,
happy, relaxed, silver hair bright in the morning light, practically glowing...
and he realized he didn’t have a single photo of him. There’d be nothing...
But he couldn’t worry about that. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t let
something like that affect him now. He couldn’t...
“Yeah, BA,” he grinned with an enthusiasm he didn't feel. “Let’s get going.”
+++++
Peck did know all the places. All the places Santori could possibly use to meet
with John, all the places he usually used. He hadn’t given them a pre-set
location because he didn’t want them to be doing what they were doing right
now, driving and scoping and figuring sniper angles and extraction points and
all that bullshit.
Which was why Peck wasn’t actually taking BA to any of those locations. Santori
had ordered him not to.
Don’t show those motherfuckers any of the usual places. Got something special
in mind...
“Ain’t much time to get set up anywhere, Face,” BA grunted as they pulled out
of the third abandoned warehouse. “How many more we got to do?”
The sun was setting and this was going to be useless in a few hours anyway.
“One more,” he said quietly, leaning his head up against the glass of the
rental car, hating himself. He had his own plan, but it was going to be
useless. He couldn’t save John from Santori. He couldn’t save Santori from
John. Either way, he lost somebody important to him, the past he’d never asked
for or the future he probably couldn’t live up to. He had no idea what he
should do.
“Face?”
“What, BA? Oh, go left here.”
The black man’s face tightened as he turned into traffic on a major roadway,
swinging them out of Astoria and back towards the city. “You break the boss’s
heart, I’m gonna break you.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Good. Keep it that way. He don’t need to tell me, but I know he got plans for
you...”
“He likes his plans, doesn’t he?”
BA laughed. “How else you think he get a call sign like that?”
Peck nodded, digesting that. Made sense, actually. The greatest classical
strategist, an insane mission... “That story, the one he told me about the
soldiers who died,” and BA’s hands tightened down on the steering wheel so hard
that Peck was surprised the thing didn’t just break, “is that really why you’re
here?”
“Yeah, that why we’re here. Some of them was my friends...”
They drove in silence for a few more minutes, and then Peck saw the turn he was
going to need BA to take, the last place Santori had told him was okay to tell
him about. That turn, right there... and they passed it.
Should he go back? Should he go forward, go with his own stupid plan?
“Go right and them right again at the next light,” Peck said, sinking a little
lower in the seat. “That’ll be the last place.”
BA nodded. The morning’s revelation, the boss’ faith, seemed to have gone a
long way to assauging the big man’s doubts. But Peck knew, absolutely knew,
those were still there.
And he could have kissed him for it. That just might get John out of this
alive. He was desperately hoping for that.
“Can you take me back to my dorm when we’re done? I need my car.”
“Why?”
“It’s Sunday night,” Peck explained as the pulled up to the ramshackle
collection of buildings, right along the shore. “Family dinner.”
+++++
Peck managed to get away from BA without getting visibly upset. He’d made a
life out of putting on a good face during even the most horrible of things, and
it only mildly bothered him, having to lie to BA. It bothered him, because in
lying to BA, he was really lying to John. He’d asked BA to pass the news along,
that he had to go to Santori’s house tonight.
Had to go over there tonight.
Because John’s plan wasn’t going to work.
He wished like hell this could all be different, that he wasn’t going to have
to do what he was going to do in the next twenty-four hours, that all of this
wasn’t between them. That his parents had lived, and he’d grown up in lower-
upper middle class comfort with mom and dad, and gone to West Point or enlisted
or something like that, and had met the Legendary Hannibal Smith - as BA seemed
to regard the man - under better circumstances, in kinder times. But this was
the hand he’d been dealt, and while Peck knew the value of cheating, he also
knew when when the deck was stacked against him and there was just no winning.
So everything was churning up in him. Churning, churning. Horrible.
The drive across tow barely registered, and it was a miracle he didn’t have an
accident, as wrapped up in his own thoughts as he was. The city fell away and
the suburbs began, trees appearing and the lights growing dimmer and further
apart, until the headlights of his GTO told him that he’d pulled into the
driveway of the house where he’d grown up.
Of his family.
Of that son of a bitch who’d...
Fuck, what the hell was wrong with him?
He hesitated for a second, and then got himself up and out and up the steps to
push the doorbell.
It rang. Once, twice, and he almost lost his nerve and ran, but then Maria
answered the door, standing there like some Roman goddess, smiling. “Templeton!
How lovely! Haven’t had you Are you here to talk to Anthony, or did you just
want dinne...”
But she didn’t get a chance to finish, because Peck wrapped his arms around her
plump body and held on, letting his forehead hit the top of her hair, wanting
to feel something solid. She fell silent, and patted him on the back, soft and
maternal, waiting a few seconds before pushing him back and grabbing his chin,
meeting him with her soft, worried gaze.
“What’s going on in that cute little head of yours, Temp?” she asked, leading
him inside and into the kitchen. Warm goodness was bubbling away on the stove
and the cutting board was still littered with tomato guts and cheese and
crushed herbs. She deposited him on a stool and went to the liquor cabinet.
“Talk to me. You don’t want my husband seeing you like this, so let’s get you
pulled together before he gets home.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t ask.,” she said, and handed him a double whiskey, pouring one for
herself as well, and settling down next to him. “What’s going on?”
He took a deep drag on the glass, and looked right at her. “I need your help.”
She nodded. “Is it something you need me to do, or something you need me to not
do?”
He looked away and Maria slammed the glass down right in front of him. “You
better have a damn good reason.”
“I didn’t start it, Maria, remember that.”
“Talk to me, Templeton,” she said, rubbing a hand over his knee. “Talk to me.”
And he didn’t want to, but pretty soon the whole story, everything, how he’d
met a man and fallen in love but he was marked now, all of it, tumbling out of
him, gushing, flooding the kitchen with the agony of the past three months, and
soon he couldn’t talk anymore, because the words wouldn’t come. Dried up, his
grief leaving him tired and shaking but dried eyed.
Maria’s hand hadn’t left his knee the entire time, but when he finished in with
halting, seizing sobs, she enveloped him again, kissing the top of his head
like she had when Santori had first brought him home, the first time it had
happened...when she’d done nothing to stop it...
“I need it, Maria,” he said, although they both knew it was a lie.
“I can’t let you do that, sweetie,” she whispered, and just shook her head. “I
can’t...”
“You could sit down here and let him drink. You could go upstairs. Like you
always did,” Peck said evenly, without anger or judgment. He’d never blamed her
for it. After his year on the streets, he’d never really minded. And if it
helped now... he could...
She bit her lip, trembling a little and tried to smile. “Oh, you really do love
this man, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Peck was surprised by how fast it came, swift, without hesitation. Even
now.
“Okay.”
And he kissed her again as an SUV pulled into the garage and five or six voices
could be heard chattering away, and she handed him a tissue.
“You’re a good man, Templeton,” she told him, a touch of admiration in his
voice.
“That’s what he says, too.”
He wished he’d been able to take John up on his offer.
He wished he’d had a chance to find out.
+++++
The warehouse that Santori finally settled on was a dark tumble of buildings
down by the shore. Not one of his usual places. Dark, even in midday. Didn’t
help that it was cloudy and cold, and worse inside. Peck could see his breath,
and inside the mechanic’s gloves, his fingers were still cold. He stuffed them
into his arm pits. No good.
Maria had made pancakes this morning, studiously avoiding the eyes of her
husband and adopted son, both. He had no idea what she believed about his
little request. That he thought Santori could be talked out of this course of
action by Peck offering himself up? That he was trying to save his lover?
Provide a distraction? Erase the memory of a man who’d been marked for death?
He didn’t know what she’d thought.
But he was fairly sure she didn’t know the truth.
He looked over at Santori, the four guys who’s come with them. The sick son of
a bitch had demanded that he be here for the big reveal. Wanted to really make
the fake VP suffer before he killed him.
Wanted him to know just how fucking hard he’d been had.
The cappo flashed him a quick grin and checked his watch. “Right on time.”
“Military punctuality, Mr. Santori,” Peck volunteered.
“Out of sight, son. Let’s not ruin the fun too soon.”
He nodded, and moved into the deep shadows. Peck felt nauseous, the morning’s
meal disagreeing with him, seven hours later. He hadn’t eaten lunch. His
stomach was screaming at him. Hell, everything was screaming at him.
Everything. Trying to tell him that this wasn’t going to work, that he should
just call John and tell him not to fucking come, that Santori was going to put
a bullet in his brain, that the lives of his dead men weren’t worth that
risk...
Hannibal would still come.
There was nothing he could do. Peck had already missed his chance to stop this.
He could only hope that going forward wasn’t going to explode in his face.
I love you too kid...
And there he was, Hannibal himself, looking edible in one of those tailored
suits, gorgeous, being escorted by one of Santori’s men, a bored expression on
his handsome face.
Peck felt that stab of warmth, followed quickly by one of shame, and his smile
faltered.
And then they started talking.
Santori was playing him, dangling the promise of maybe easing up on the fees in
exchange for this or that, Hannibal insistent but still polite inside that John
Hamilton persona, everybody else just waiting, waiting to see how this was
going to go down. When the piano wire would come out, a knife, a gun with its
suppressor firmly screwed on...
And there it was, the slightest shift in tone, that change in stance, Santori’s
version of coiling, going for the kill, and he turned around and looked right
at where he knew Peck was hiding.
Just a glance, but a significant one, and Peck took a deep breath, and stepped
out into the single pool of weak light to stand with the rest. There was no way
of telling what was out there, standing here. He couldn’t see anything but John
He had no eyes for anything else.
“... you see, Hannibal, I’d be inclined to accept your offier, and it is a good
one,” Santori was saying, John jerking visibly at the use of his military
handle, “but, see, your boy here is actually my boy. Which is probably why
you’re here without backup, without your air support. They have no idea where
to find you, do they?”
Hannibal’s eyes flickered over to Peck, who’d just made it into the weak light,
and everything in him started to collapse, crumbling, like all the internal
support was going out of him, like his spine had been removed and he couldn’t
keep himself upright, fighting only with the hope... “Kid...”
“Like you said, John, I work for them,” he said, and palmed the gun out of his
sleeve. He hated the way metal felt against gloves. No real feel for the
weapon. Focus on that, he told himself, all the insignificant details, all of
it, none of the bullshit...
He couldn’t see anything. He’d brought BA here, hadn't he? He’d given the
coordinates to Murdock, right? All on a blind guess. He’d made a blind guess,
and he’d been right, and he’d been ready to declare victory from that alone.
Alone.
He was alone.
He could have laughed.
Story of my life.
“Hey, colonel, did you really think I was going to let you waltz in here and
destroy my operation?” He nodded to Peck. “Do it.”
“You motherfucking...” Hannibal started to yell, not at Santori, no, no, right
at Peck, he was yelling right at Peck, and from a distance of two yards, his
twenty-three year lover raised the six-shot revolver and squeezed the trigger.
What went through his head at that moment, Peck would spend the rest of his
life trying to forget.
Hannibal actually screamed, a sound that reverberated through the rafters, and
fell to his knees. Santori stepped forward, kicking the colonel over and spat
on him, turning contemptuously. He looked straight at Peck. “Shoulder shot,
Peck. Messy. Especially for you.”
John wasn’t screaming now. He was groaning, so different from the noises he’d
made when they were together, in that soft bed with all those soft touches, too
similar, too similar for Peck to stand, and he knew there were tears now.
Santori was coming right for him now, two of the guys, men he’d known for the
past ten year, lunging to hold him still, wrenching his gun away.
It took four of them, and he still dragged them nearly to the ground before the
caress of a hot gun barrel against his forehead, Santori’s hand, jerking his
head back, stopped him cold. Once he was sure he’d gotten the conman’s
attention, he pointed the gun behind him.
Straight at Hannibal.
“You flipped on me, didn’t you?”
“No, no, I never...”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” the cappo thundered, and Peck squeezed his eyes shut. “Did.
You. Flip. On. Me?”
He could still see Hannibal. Still alive, a shoulder shot wouldn’t be fatal, if
BA would only fucking show up. “... yes...”
Santori squatted down. “I’ve been worried about you, Peck. Your little pleading
bullshit last night, the last few months... I should have dropped him in the
East River the day the showed up. Should never have trusted you with it...”
“Boss, please, you don’t have to do this, he’s just some stupid soldier looking
for revenge...”
“SHUT UP!” Santori roared, and pulled the trigger. Twice. Impossibly loud in
the echoing space, those shots. But there was nothing more from Hannibal.
“You’re too weak, Peck. You’re a weak little queer. There's no place for you
here.”
Peck just glared at him, the red starting to haze up in his vision. What did it
matter at this point? If John was dead, John was dead... six of them, one of
him, somebody had to have a gun...
“Kill him.”
And then two things happened at once.
The forehead of the man above him vanished, a red mist filling the now-vacant
air, another gunshot ringing clear.
Peck broke upwards with an elbow and back with a heel and he was out, free, and
going for the dead man’s gun.
The warehouse exploded. The fight was fast, dirty and over entirely too fast.
BA, from wherever he’d stashed himself, killed two, and Peck got three, two
shots, one broken neck, and the rest of the clip emptied in the direction that
Santori had fled, the opposite direction from where BA came out, the cappo
vanishing into the gloom, Peck’s surge of adrenalin not enough to overcome the
fury he was feeling, and the shots went wild.
He stared off, unwilling to look down, unable to see John’s body mangled by the
.308 rounds. There wasn’t any sound. No sound at all.
BA came up behind him, M-4 tucked into his shoulder like an old friend. Peck
turned to look at him, knowing the horror was showing in his face, and when BA
reached out a hand and he heard a chopper in the distance and the faintest
sound of those red-blue sirens, he ran, throwing the gun away, running as fast
as he could, running away from the disaster that was his life, running through
the adrenalin to the exhaustion on the other side, running until his knees gave
and his muscles burned and he found himself under some bridge somewhere where
he collapsed against a concrete wall and pulled his knees up to his chest and
waited for the sun to fall and the darkness to take him away.
+++++
“What we doing here, fool?”
Murdock sighed and rubbed his face. He thought he’d explained this well enough.
Maybe he hadn’t. It was entirely possible he’d imagined the entire conversation
this morning, wasn’t it? Neither of them had slept in the past two days, not
since the big charlie foxtrot down at the abandoned warehouse, the boss getting
shot, Faceman running off like he had, setting down to find Bosco kneeling next
to Hannibal, blood everywhere...
The pilot tried to get it out of his mind. He couldn’t focus, certainly not
with the bossman who wasn’t even there bleeding on the carpet next to then,
chewing a cigar impatiently, waiting for Murdock to come up with the answer.
“This little GPS doohickey,” and he waggled it, “had these coordinates punched
in. Last line after the warehouse. Gotta mean something.”
“An NYU grad dorm?” BA asked sarcastically. He was never sarcastic, and it
grated against Murdock’s already disturbed thoughts, like orange zest going
into cake batter and he hated citrus in his baked goods, and it was having
enough trouble pulling everything together anyway... he shook it off. Now was
not the time to be indulging free association. Or cake cravings. He tried to
crawl back on top of himself. Hannibal would've wanted him to do that.
“And a name,” Murdock said, pointing to a pair of initials. “BA, we gotta at
least check it out. We’re here, ain’t we?”
The dorm manager, a mousy little woman with half-painted nails screwed the top
back down on her bottle of Honeysuckle Peach polish - which didn’t smell
anything like either, Murdock thought to himself - and nodded. “That’s probably
Will McMasters.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“If he’s home,” she said and gave them his apartment number.
Three floors up. BA knocked on the door and Murdock leaned against the wall,
wondering if the Hannibal in his mind had followed them up here, wondered if he
might ask the man for some advice. But then, it’d only be advice comin’ from
himself and not from the colonel at all and that didn’t seem like a good idea
at all. He didn’t trust his own judgment right now.
“Think I’d be afraid to live in a building where the landlady just gave out my
name to passing riffraff.”
“Be glad she did, fool.” BA hadn’t spoken much since the warehouse, not since
Murdock had seen him, hands covered in red, jacket throw aside and his shirt
ripped off, pressed against the boss’s chest, trying like hell to stop gushing
wounds... and that was probably something he should mention, right?
“Hey, buddy, don’t get blood on the kid’s furniture,” Murdock said as the door
cracked, and clapped him on the shoulder. BA glared.
“Um, can I help you?”
“Hey, look, BA, it’s a ginger! Are you the ginger formerly known as Will
McMasters?”
“... goddamn it, Murdock...”
What was BA’s problem? The man was a ginger, bright red hair and pale skin,
watching them warily.
“Umm, yeah...”
“We’re friends of Templeton Peck’s,” BA interjected.
“Templeton...” and the grad student scratched his head and snapped his fingers.
“Peck? Cute, infuriating, nice body, raging asshole?”
The two Rangers exchanged a look and Murdock shrugged. “That’s the one,
muchacho!”
And the door opened wide.
Will offered them both something to drink, which they declined, and then warmed
up one of his computer monitors and grabbed an opened FedEx envelop from the
messy coffee table. “Okay, so yesterday, I got this,” he said, handing over the
mailing envelop, “with a CD and a note inside from Peck. Wasn’t his handwriting
on the label, but whatever. Said that he’d be sending a couple of his friends
by, and I should sit on this until they, you guys, got here.”
“Us guys?”
“Yeah, Captain HM Murdock and Corporal BA Baracus.”
They stared, and he laughed nervously. “I, uh, I pulled your records for him a
few weeks ago. Pretty crazy job you guys have...”
“What was on the disc, fool?”
“A shitstorm,” the geek said with a faint grin, and opened a video player. Just
a scene of a small bedroom, somebody lithe, thin, sitting there, reading a book
on his stomach, facing away from the camera. “I mean, I thought it was just one
of his jokes, you know, cause he’s kind of an asshole...”
Murdock leaned in. A door opened, a man coming into frame, darker, heavyset,
and the man on the bed pushed up a little.
“Daddy?” came the voice through the speakers.
“Shh, baby, you don’t want mommy to hear, do you?”
“No, daddy...”
“Shut it off!” BA roared at the geek, and then turned to Murdock. “You brought
us over here to watch porn?” BA demanded of Murdock, who just shook his head,
recognizing something in the voices.
“No, buddy, that’s faceman. ‘S Peck.”
BA looked aghast. “...why?”
“I don’t really know, but this gets pretty, err, well, you know who that man
is, right?”
Murdock nodded. “Santori, right?”
“I ain’t gonna ask you again, fool,” BA growled, “why're we here watching that
kid’s home movies?”
The geek looked back and forth between them, holding out his hands. “Are you
fucking kidding me? Do you know what this is? If this got out? That one of the
biggest mobsters in New York is a flaming homo? His life would be worth shit.
People would start testifying against him. Hell, he might turn himself in just
to get away from all his buddies who’d be out there trying to kill him! Peck
explained everything in the note...” and he offered that up, too.
BA ripped it out of his hands while Murdock stared at the footage on the
screen. He hadn’t really asked Face what he’d done for the mobsters, teased him
about it, but he hadn’t really asked. He wouldn’t have guessed... this
“... yeah, you right, he does say that in here,” BA said faintly, and handed
the note back to the geek.
“Indictments are going to roll, arrests are going to be made, people’ll flip...
good times,” the geek agreed. “Fun, isn’t it?”
Murdock was still staring at the computer screen, the cold reality of it
leaving his thoughts surprisingly undisturbed, ice on a Minnesota pond in
January.
Here Faceman was, not twenty-four hours after leaving them at Hannibal’s
apartment, where Hannibal had seemed so happy, so at ease, in this thing
between them, whoring himself out in such a humiliatating way... for what?
Had he known Hannibal’s plan wasn’t going to work from the start? Had this been
his way of trying to redeem himself? Make sure Hannibal was still able to get
his man, despite...
Had he really loved John this much, that he was willing to do this for him?
It wasn’t enough, and it never would be, and never could be, not after
everything that had happened, a story he wasn’t privy to and had no business in
knowing, but he himself had to honor this. What both men had tried to do, tried
to give each other. What both men had lost.
Murdock had to do it. For both Hannibal and Face. They both deserved so much
more from this situation, and so this, this just couldn't be the end.
It had to be a start. A beginning. Like neither man would ever receive. Fate
was a cruel bitch sometimes...
“Hey, Bosco?” Murdock said quietly. “Let’s send it to everybody.”
BA blinked, and then grunted in agreement. “The whole fucking planet.”
"You up for that, ginger?"
“Hey, I don’t know how much you guys know about computers. It’s not like some
magical do-everything box...” the geek began and then stopped, biting his lip,
like he was thinking about some happy memory, and smiled. “But I should be able
to get this on the six o’clock news.”
Murdock dug a hand into a pocket.
This had to be the start of something better.
+++++
~Eighteen months later~
It was summer.
Summer in California. Warm and breezy and beautiful and as far away from New
York City as Peck could get himself without doing something really stupid like
going to Hawaii or leaving the country. It was nothing like New York. He’d
never been around so many happy people in his life. And the crime was all run
by the Mexicans and the gangs and there was no cosa nostra here, nobody looking
for him at all...
He’d thought they might have been coming after him at one point. Then he
realized they wouldn't bother. Realized it over breakfast. A small diner in
South Carolina, a huge pile of biscuits in front of him and a huge mug of
coffee, picking idly at it, wondering, remembering, and right when he got to
the point in the narrative where he started blaming himself for John’s death,
there it was.
... have received this footage of union foreman and reputed underworld mob boss
Anthony Santori in an extremely compromising position...
He’d smiled for the first time in a week.
His sex tape was on the news.
And his sex tape stayed on the news, played almost non-stop by gleeful networks
until long after Santori’s body washed up on shore, after dozens of people got
hauled into court, after the Congressional hearings. He’d stopped watching the
news after those concluded, clicked it off in a dingy motel in New Mexico.
He’d done it for John. He’d done it. John’s men had been avenged, more saved,
just like he’d wanted.
“Love you,” he’d whispered to the empty room, and curled up in a ball and wept
until there was nothing left. What was he supposed to do now? And he didn’t
know how long he stayed like that, fisting a pillow against himself, staring
into snow outside, like static on a dead television set, until it finally came
to him.
...be that honorable man I know you can be...
John’s plan.
...you just need the chance... I’ll take care of you, kid...
John had had a plan for him, he realized, a plan, he was going to do what he
promised, he’d never lied, he just didn’t know how to ask if I wanted... and
then he’d had to bolt to the bathroom, and barely had time to get the toilet
seat up before his stomach upended itself and he’d collapsed in a sweating,
reeking heap on the laminate floor.
He’d betrayed John for nothing.
He’d given him up, given up his future and his past because he’d been scared of
everything. Sacred of Santori and his behavior and his callousness, scared of
turning into him, of falling in love with the horror and embracing it. Scared
of John and his depth of feeling and the fact that there could be men in the
world that good, that true, dedicated to something beyond their own selfishness
and greed. Scared to admit that one man was using him and the other was trying
desperately to get Peck to believe in something better.
And he’d tried to have it both ways, and couldn’t, and tried to laugh it off
and couldn’t, and tried to pretend it was a million different things that it
wasn’t, and couldn't make any of them fit. He’d tried to re-order the world,
his world, and lost everything, lost the only thing that had mattered, that had
ever mattered. His attempt to save it all had barely been premeditated, thought
up on the fly and only then, largely out of guilt. No, he could have stopped it
all from the beginning, the pain he'd felt, the lives laid waste, if he'd just
picked a side and stayed with it. If he'd been able to be brave about it.
John had thought Peck was brave. It was the only thing he could truly say John
was wrong about. Wrong. He was a coward.
Which was why John was dead.
John was dead, because he, himself, was afraid.
He was afraid to become that good man John so blindly believed he could be.
John had loved him. Love without reservation, fear, blindness or judgment. John
had seen what Peck was, everything, all of him, and loved him anyway.
And Peck had destroyed him for it.
The realization very nearly killed him.
Peck would gladly have died there in that shitty motel bathroom, easily the
lowest point in his young life so far, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have
the courage to take that road down into the darkness, so he just laid there
instead, unable to move under the weight of his own crimes, thinking about
nothing, and time had slipped away.
Peck pulled a hanging garment bag out of his closet, trying to forget that
horrible day. He’d gotten through it, hadn’t he? And something good had come
out of it. Snapped him out of his aimlessness, the fog of regret that had
consumed him. He’d mourned enough, Peck had decided.
He was going to try John’s plan.
And he’d ended up here.
The guys at the frat didn’t have to share bedrooms, but the things were
miniature. Most of the others only used theirs for sleeping or fucking co-eds.
But Peck’s had a big bay window that overlooked the sunny slope of houses that
ran to the beach, and out, across the blue of the Pacific. He loved that view,
something he’d never had in New York, and he spent as much as he could there,
staring out, across those vast waters. He had to be out by the time the
semester started in August.
But that was okay. He’d be okay.
He’d found, when he got here, he didn’t need to change his name. His records
really were clean. Which meant he’d still had all his credits from NYU, which
the University of California system had been more than happy to accept. Some
didn’t transfer. That was fine. Just more school. Which was fine.
Because he'd wanted to forget.
It had been nice, going to class, pledging a frat, getting a stupid civilian
job tending bar at nights, learning to surf, running on the beach in the
mornings, screwing the occasional girl to keep up appearances, never sleeping
with men to avoid the memories, doing homework on the busted leather couches of
the common rooms, occasionally shocking everyone by breaking out Maria’s
recipes and whipping up Italian-style feasts. It fueled stories about him,
sure, as did the time he busted up a fight on the front lawn during a party and
the five people had to go to the hospital. His temper would flare every once in
a while; he wasn’t perfect, and he made mistakes. Learning to deal with regular
people was a challenge. He’d had to bite back some of his old manipulative
habits. Some nights, he’d remember John, his cigars and his laugh and the way
his arms felt or the sound of his voice, telling Peck that he loved him, that
he was loved...
But overall, it had been normal and quiet and easy here. A good breather. Space
to remember what it was to be a human being.
And now it was over.
He unzipped the bag and pulled out the ROTC uniform. Dark green, drab, a small
line of meaningless ribbons on the left lapel. One, the marksmanship medal, he
actually cared about. They were talking about sniper school. He’d requested
Ranger training.
His CO at school had told him nobody got Ranger school right away. He didn’t
care, he’d said. He wanted it, and he refused anything else the old officer
wanted to put on his assignment preference paperwork until he’d put that at the
top.
He had to at least try, right?
They had their ceremony tonight. Celebrating the end of the year, graduation.
Not officers yet, but close. Commissions would be coming down soon, his CO
delivering them personally, report dates and locations listed out, the next
four years laid out and decided for him by some assignment team, needs of the
Army.
Second Lieutenant Templeton Peck. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, not
exactly, but under all the bullshit and doctrine and buzz words that had been
stuffed down his throat in the last year, Peck thought he’d caught the faintest
taste of what John had loved.
And being close to what John had loved...
That dam he kept in his head, holding back all the memories of those few happy
months, the happiest in his life, polluted by anguish and poisoned, ruined,
came rushing back to him with that single thought. The way John had looked at
him in the club that first day, those blue eyes, transfixed, rifling through
the man’s apartment, seducing him, the feel of John’s skin against his, those
scars, that scar and all the confusion and pain and the sheer overwhelming
faith the man had had in him...
... you’re beautiful...Face...
Peck started stripping off his his t-shirt, the flip-flops, starting on his
cargo shorts, unable to stop the flood, trying desperately to bite it all back,
keep it from overwhelming him right now, not right now, any time but this...
...love you, kid...
And it was so loud in the silence of his mind that Peck could have sworn it was
spoke out loud. But that was insane, he was insane for allowing this bullshit
to go on and on and on in his head, tormenting him with the memories of
somebody he’s never have back, and he clenched a fist and punched the wall
before he knew what he was doing.
“Goddamnit,” he hissed, out loud to his own mind, “leave me the fuck alone,
please!”
Then the door, which he suddenly realized he’d never closed, slammed shut and a
cold certainty ran through him, and fear. There was fear, too, and plenty of
it, but where had that ever gotten him?
So he pushed it away, pushed everything away, heart hammering in his chest.
And turned.
Nothing. Nobody. Just the closed door. Just silence.
He wanted to hit his head against the wall. Probably just the wind or the air
pressure in the house. So stupid, so fucking stupid, and he shook out a
wifebeater, trying to remind himself that he couldn’t be embarrassed if there
was nobody else in the room, and there was a knock on his door.
Luke, one of the younger guys, frowning at him.
“Dude, what?” Peck asked.
“Dude, like, was that guy here to see you?”
“What guy?”
“The big Army guy, gray hair. Passed him on the stairs, looked kind of pissed
off...”
“Colonel?”
“How the fuck would I know what a...”
Peck didn’t wait to hear the rest of the ninteen-year-old’s fumbled sentence,
just shoved past him, barefoot and shirtless, and took off down the stairs,
jumping them two at a time, his heart still hammering, straight past a knot of
frat brothers playing Call of Duty, out the front door... and he stopped cold.
Definitely an Army guy. Tall, thin. Class-As, red beret on over silver hair
that was just a little too long be considered in regs, that walk he’d know
anywhere.
Peck felt himself tense, hanging there out of the frat house door, and then,
barely able to hold himself back from screaming and crying and doing something
extremely girly that he’d never live down and would probably result in his
immediate expulsion from the military, before he’d even joined, he drew in a
deep breath, held it...
“Colonel Smith!”
It exploded out of him, loud and exuberant, causing a crash behind him and a
long string of profanity, and the uniformed man stopped.
Peck was down there in a heartbeat, not trusting himself, still thinking he
could be wrong, was wrong, had to be wrong, that this couldn’t be John, not his
John, because John would never have left him alone, because John was dead...
But today was the day that an orphaned kid who’d fucked his way off the streets
and made it through his teenage years in the mafia and managed to bring it all
down behind him was graduating from ROTC, the day he’d earned his butterbars,
and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to take a little something on faith.
“John?” he asked quietly, wanting to reach out and touch, knowing that was a
fucking bad idea. “John, is that...”
“How you been, Face?”
And it was only the other man’s quick thinking that kept Peck from hitting the
sidewalk in shock.
Hands caught him, those big calloused hands, holding him steady, holding him
close but far enough away. A distance between them, but Peck didn’t care,
because this was John, his John, standing here, alive and well, smiling at him
like this was the world’s funniest joke, those keen blue eyes, taking it all
in...
“I thought you were dead.”
“Nearly,” and his face clouded for a second. “Your bullet came out clean.
Santori’s got me in the chest. BA says I barely made it to the hospital in
time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Kid,” and John’s hands tightened around his shoulders, pinched hard with
effort, and Peck knew what it was costing the man to not just draw him in and
kiss him senseless, because Peck was fighting the same urge right them. “Kid,
you’ve been lead around, lied to, manipulated and abused for god knows how
long. I was not going to turn you into my personal slave.”
“What?”
“You needed to be your own man, Face.”
“I wanted to be your man, John,” he said softly.
And John smiled at that. “I don’t want to own you, kid. Never did.”
The words stung. “So, so what, you thought it’d be easier for me to grieve for
you? Let me go?”
“I figured you needed... shit, Temp... I’m...”
“No good with these things?” Peck said, trying to tease through the thick
blanket of tears in his voice.
“...sorry.”
And that was hilarious, Peck thought. “I shot you.”
“It was a good shot, too. Right through the meat, minimal damage. I’ve been
hearing good things about your range scores...”
“You’ve been keeping track of me?” Peck asked, a warm flush, long forgotten,
running through him now, as fresh and wonderful as the first day he’d felt it,
the first time he’d laid eyes on his man...
“What can I say?” John grinned and let go of him. He handed over a fat envelop.
“Everything was good enough for me to convince the pencil pushers to get you
your bars today.”
“I’m getting commissioned?”
“By me, tonight, if you’d like. That’s why I’m here, figured it was time...”
Peck was stunned. “I thought I was going to be waiting...”
“Ranger school starts in three weeks. You’ll need your bars in order to go.”
John had done all this for him? “And this is your idea of me being my own man?”
“You’ve become that, Face. I can see it,” the colonel said quietly. “I want you
to have every opportunity you deserve. You’ll survive or fail on your own
merit. It's you against yourself. There’s no scamming those people. You're
ready for it.”
So I'm here.
Peck stared at him, across the distance and the long months and all the
betrayal and his own idiocies and all the sleepless nights, wishing John had
been there, holding him, needing his comfort, wanting it... and here he was.
Offering him exactly what he needed. Not what he wanted, not letting him fall
back into himself, to become less again. Pushing him, driving him. Offering a
challenge. No bullshit. No cons. Something real.
And how hard had it been for John? Peck wondered. Holding back, holding off,
giving Peck the space he so desperately needed to get all the shit straight in
his head, watching his boy struggle from afar, waiting for him to figure out...
“John?”
“What, Face?”
“If I gave you a hug right now, would that be totally homo?”
“Except for the part where you’re half naked, no, kid, I think it’s okay,” John
said with a laugh.
It was quick and brief and without touching, completely appropriate for a
colonel giving an ROTC cadet good news, but it was more than enough to hear
Hannibal’s heart beating in his chest, still strong, still alive, both of them,
still alive...
John pushed them apart much too soon, and smiled, feral and broad. “And Face,
everyone calls me Hannibal. You should, too. Can you do that?”
He smiled back. He knew what the colonel meant. John and Templeton had to be
put away, wrapped up and cherished and brought out only for special occasions,
only when they were alone and the world could narrow down and they could use
such casual intimacies with each other. They weren't for everyday use. Hidden,
held, loved. That's why they were for.
This was a different world Lieutenant Faceman Peck would be stepping into, one
with its own rules and laws and idiosyncrasies. A world that was utterly
worthwhile now, because somebody in it had cared enough, finally cared enough,
to treat him like he was a man worth knowing, worth keeping, worth planning
for, worth waiting for, worthwhile...
“Yes, sir,” he said with a tight nod and a matching grin, something
indescribable running through him at the thought of the world opening up at
last, opening up for him. Bringing him here. Bringing him home. “Yes sir, I can
do that.”
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