This chapter is for Anke who is always telling me she wants more of Face's POV. Well, believe it or not, when I started writing this series that was exactly what I had in mind to do too. However Templeton is an elusive, little conman who constantly manages to deflect attention away from himself to the other characters! But no matter, I've sat him down, we've had a heart to heart and the next chapter will exclusively reveal his true feelings...

...I think!


Part 10

Damaged that was him!

Peck had known for a long time and chosen to ignore it. Then when he finally allowed himself to acknowledge it, it had been easy to lay the blame elsewhere – never take the responsibility, make it someone else's problem. But even then he had known there was going to come a time when he not only had to admit it, he also had to recognize that it was a part of him. And he had to accept the savage truth that he was always going to end up at some point in his life when he finally found the courage, bleakly reviewing just what a mess he had made of things.

Oh, he had denied it and forced it away for sure but somewhere deep in his soul where he allowed the truth to exist, be it tightly controlled, he had known this day would come and he would have to face it. Well the day was here!

He was sitting on the porch, having dropped Robby Blake off at his parole officer's place. Kid would survive it, Peck was sure. He would maybe even take his advice and go and see his dad. Blake may get the beating he feared but he may never get a second chance and Peck didn't want the kid getting to the same age he had before he found the courage to have the conversation with himself.

Murdock had been cool when he got back but distant and Peck had found he could not look his lover in the eye. Trust Murdock – he knew Peck even better than he knew himself and he must have seen that this was what the conman needed; to be alone with himself, to face his fear; to finally examine exactly what he was.

So Peck was sitting on the porch in the warm evening sunshine. In front of him the white picket fence – God if only it was as easy to fulfil the dream as it was to get the fence! Peck smiled, let himself remember the house hunting he had Murdock had done before they finally found this little house in a quiet sleepy part of town. Nothing like the places he had scammed in the past but Murdock had nodded with approval when Peck had chosen it; nothing like the pretence that he had lived with for years, maybe this was something else?

Stop it! He mentally pulled himself back, away from thoughts of fences and houses, when it came to having this conversation with himself he was a master at getting sidetracked on to anything and everything. But not this time. This time he was going to do it!

So how far had he got? Oh yes; damaged! That's why he let himself get into these messes; that's why he let it all happen. He was supposed to be a mature man now, supposed to be over his youthful folly, supposed to be able to say no to temptation. He shook his head slowly; Templeton had always found temptation hard; he had never quite managed to understand the concept of fidelity completely, and certainly never managed to put it into practise!

He remembered Lesley, so many years ago now. But he could breathe the scent of her like she was here today, standing on the porch; immaculate, beautiful and full of the joys of youth. He wondered for the thousandth time if she was the root of his problems, if her rejection of him had sent him into this downward spiral. If she had not walked away, if she had given herself to him like she had promised, would he have evolved into this damaged, selfish soul?

So that was it then! Easy really – why had he bothered putting off this conversation for so long? His problems started and ended with that bitch Lesley Bectall and all that he had done since could be traced back to her!

But wait – Lesley was no bitch, in fact she was one of the most selfless, caring individuals he had ever met. And wasn't he supposed to be being honest with himself even though the concept still scared him half to death? There was no use in giving her the blame. If he was going to examine his own character failings, he had to look well before Lesley and accept that her rejection of him was just her acceptance of the fact that he was irredeemable, even then. He was not good enough for her, never came close and thus the option of marriage had never really been an option. She had finally seen the truth; she was better off becoming a nun, marrying God – what sort of a message should that have given him if he hadn't been too arrogant to see it?

So if his flaws came well before Lesley maybe they were genetic? Yeah, that made sense; AJ Bancroft – a man it was so easy to blame. Bancroft ran away from him and even at the very end, he didn't have the guts to come clean and tell him the truth, confess to his only son. This fear of commitment, this inability to make anything last and this overwhelming desire to press the self destruct button whenever any one came close – his father's fault, obviously!

Or his mother maybe – Samantha, a name he could roll off his tongue but was never quite able to put a face to. She was a passing memory; a smell of sweetness and a sense of warmth in the gathering gloom. But she had given him away, not wanted him either. Was that a defect in her, or something she saw in him? For all his cute wide eyed smile, blue eyes and snowy blonde hair, had she seen the thing in him that had sent her away? She could have kept him if she'd really wanted, surely a child of her womb, born of her blood, what could have stopped her from keeping him, if not what she saw in him?

Peck gulped. Both sets of genes then – parents who ran a mile when commitment came calling at their door. How easy to lay the blame on them and exonerate himself entirely, especially because neither were there to argue their case and never would be.

How easy to deal it all out, like a croupier at a blackjack table – apportion the blame to everyone else except himself. Lesley, parents and then of course there was his childhood, don't forget that! A time of constant impermanence and upheaval when all he craved for was structure and routine – one children's home to another, one set of people to the next! Was it any wonder that he had never felt he could call anywhere his home? Instead he slipped from one bed to another – a habit he would keep even in adulthood – taking all he could and keeping all he was deep inside, locked away, never allowing it to come near enough to the surface so it could be hurt again. Never allowing himself to feel closeness, never allowing anyone to reject him without him rejecting them first. Never, never, never!

But lust he was good at, oh man he was good! From the first fumbling with little pre-teen girls his own age, through the pain and invasion of bigger, stronger boys and men attracted by his blonde, angelic looks and his thin, tight body, to the prostitutes of Vietnam and the brutal, base attack on his body in General Chow's bamboo hut as the sweat ran like rivers down his back and the grunts of the Viet Cong soldier who rutted on him were silenced by the screaming deep in his soul. Lust everywhere!

And then the women! Oh the women! Thousands of them; beautiful, vacuous and so shallow – all of them there to satiate the lust in him. But though they administered to his physical need they never touched the orphan boy deep inside; the boy who craved nothing but love and who always slept alone, no matter who shared his bed.

The boy that even now screamed from within his mature, aging body; leaping to be touched by anyone and everyone; still not able to believe that he was worthy enough to be truly cherished for his own sake.

For that was the crux of it; Peck allowed himself to think the awful truth, the truth he had ignored for so long. He had grown up in a world devoid of love; there was duty and a certain amount of order but no love. And so he had no comprehension, could not understand what true love was, did not even know what it looked like. He had never experienced that nurtured feeling, the calm certainty on going to bed that all would be the same in the morning; that his family would still be there to love him. He had never seen his parents share caring, meaningless kisses that meant so much; never had them take him into their embrace and share with him, the person that their love had made, that sweetness. Never, never, never!

Maybe he had not been made in love at all but in lust – a wild mad animal passion that stirred the loins with the need for immediate gratification and then evaporated away with the coming of the morning sun. That passion he could understand although he did not fit the bill with that either since nine months later a night of fervour produced an unwanted, unneeded soul - him.

He sighed. His muscles felt suddenly cramped, so he stood up, moving slightly to lean on the rail. Across the way Mr Liebowitz was cutting his grass. Mr Liebowitz was about the same age as Peck – his grass was always tidy, he had a pretty if fading wife, two strong sons and a daughter, who last fall had presented him with his first grand child. Peck waved to him now and Mr Liedowitz waved back happily. Mr Liebowitz understood what love was but Peck did not, never had; so when he had finally experienced it, in the soft, forgiving form of his beautiful pilot, no wonder he did not recognise it. Instead he believed it was the emotion he had mistakenly thought of as love all these years – lust and lust was only ever transitory.

Lust Peck could do easily, lust he knew how to satisfy, indeed he was an artist at it but love, love was different. He saw it now. Love was alien and frightening and so he dealt with it as he dealt with everything else he did not understand in his life- he ran away. He had run away from it for thirty years then he had kidded himself he had faced up to it when he finally started the relationship with Murdock but that wasn't true. Standing on the porch, being brutally honest with himself he knew he was still running!

He just had to replay this morning in his head, or any other night when somebody, anybody, offered him the chance of lust. He leapt at it every time – Lorelei, Robby, countless others on the long list of short, sad goodbyes that his lovers had been consigned to.

Love frightened him too much. Love pulled at his heart and made him contemplate commitment; made him promise forever and he knew well from his experience of life that there was no forever – no one could deliver that. Better to strangle love at birth, better to push it away or drown it with the bodily juices of physical lust; better that than allow it to control him, to build his expectation to levels that never could be fulfilled. Better the little pain of betrayal focused on him than his own ultimate heart ache later.

He saw it clearly now. Lesley and his parents and the seemingly endless possession of prospective adoptive families who always seemed to be initially attracted to his pretty packaging but never pursued him further – could they see it in him too? – had taught him when he was still naive enough to believe in happy endings that he was never going to get one. And he had spent the rest of his life behaving in ways that ensured that would be the case.

The only people he had ever loved had been the Team. But that was a manly love born from the shared horrors of firstly Nam and then the years on the run. Hannibal he had loved like the father he had wanted all of his life. It still gave him a warm fuzzy feeling when he remembered the night long ago when the Colonel had made him one of the Team. Damaged he had been sure but not so badly so that there wasn't something deep inside that Colonel Smith could salvage and he had. And BA, the big brother he had never had. If BA had been there to protect him he would never have fallen foul of the petty, sexual deviants that feasted on pretty orphanage boys. He would never have built up the deep lack of confidence deep in his soul, that overwhelming certainty that he was never going to be good enough, try as hard as he might. But he had met them both too late, when his flaws were already entwined into the being he was and his course was set. Oh for a few short years they had controlled him enough so that he could be good but as soon as the iron hand of the Colonel was lifted from his life, he floundered like he was always bound to. He was grateful for the time they had given him and the chance to be a part of a family that he had always craved but they had not taught him about passionate, real love. Not taught him what he saw now to be an undeniable truth – he feared to understand love.

No, he had to look for another source for that knowledge.

Murdock was different, had always been so. Right from the very beginning, Murdock had slipped under his radar like the talented pilot he was, quietly and stealthily and oh so slowly. Murdock needed him like no other being ever had. Murdock had been so damaged he had allowed himself to unravel and lost everything but he had come back and Peck had helped in that process. Murdock understood love and he loved the worthless conman. Murdock touched him deep inside and no amount of pushing away was ever strong enough to dislodge him from that precious place he inhabited in Peck's heart. Murdock hung on, stubborn and stuck tight like a limpet. Murdock understood him and compensated for Peck's flaws, even when he hurt him deeply, even like last night and today. In short Murdock loved him with all the madness in his soul, and Peck knew from experience that there was a goddamn lot there!

Standing on the porch, Peck felt tears spring into his eyes. It did not matter about his past; it did not matter about his genetic flaws nor his personality problems that had stored up over the years. It did not matter whose fault any of it was. Murdock would forgive him everything and Peck would always return to those loving arms because Murdock simply made him better.

As if on cue Peck heard him now, rustling behind him to announce his presence. How did he know that Peck had come to the end of his pondering? That he was ready to talk? How did he do that?

He turned to see the crumpled figure of his dreams – flapping T shirt, faded denims, and baseball cap; strange uniform for his personal redeemer but fitting nonetheless. "I am an idiot," Peck said softly.

"I know," Murdock agreed, squeezing in behind him to sit somewhat precariously on the rail. His eyes were attractively sparked in the shaded porch by compassion and empathy.

Peck gulped, ran his hand through his hair and Murdock drank in the familiar gestures but did not speak. He knew that Peck had been beating himself up and he knew it was something he had to do. It was true – confession is good for the soul, particularly tormented Catholic boys who constantly failed to acknowledge their perfection because of their impractical and unsolvable emphasis over a few stupid, insignificant flaws.

"You know me; any bit of tail and I have to chase it!" Peck giggled unconvincingly.

Murdock nodded. "I think it must be pre-programmed into your DNA."

"I didn't … that is Robby and I didn't … we kissed but we…. I said no…"

Murdock snorted. "You want a medal?"

"Maybe a thrashing would be better."

"Whoa! Don't want any of that sort of stuff here. It's a nice neighbourhood – what would Mr Liebowitz say? Anyway I'm pleased to hear nothing happened, although it doesn't really matter. I had the green eyed monster for awhile but I'm over it now."

"You did?"

"Contrary to what you think I am not a saint, Face." He smiled smugly. "Well maybe I am, cos I realised that no body else would put up with you – not like I do."

Peck sighed, sat back down on the chair, making sure his knee was in contact with Murdock's leg, feeling the electricity that sparked between them. "Lust and love – why can't I tell the difference, Murdock?"

"Oh you can, Face – you're a smart boy. You just choose not to, when it suits you."

"You know me too well."

"Yes, I do."

They sat quietly for awhile and watched Mr Liebowitz finishing his chores.

Finally Peck said, "You shouldn't forgive me so easily."

"Oh, it's not easy, believe me. But I'm a born optimist and I keep on hoping that maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time you'll understand."

"I'm pretty stupid, aren't I?"

"Only when you want to be, which is, of course, quite often."

"I don't deserve you, Murdock."

"Oh but you do Templeton. My old grandmother – remember her? She was very clear on it – we always get what we deserve in this life. And I deserve you. Come here!"

Peck hitched off the chair and threw himself into Murdock's arms, the safest place he had ever known and the nearest that he would ever come to calling his home. They cuddled together for long moments and then Peck pulled away.

"Don't thank me!" Murdock said quickly. "You can do that later right now I want to talk to you about something that's important."

"And this wasn't?" Peck rolled his eyes but waited patiently as Murdock went back into the house. He came back carrying something long and quite heavy, a few minutes later.

"Not as important as this, Face! Perhaps you would take this new honest approach to your life a little further and explain to me why I found a sniper rifle in your closet?"


TBC