Author's Chapter Notes:

This part contains coarse language, slash, and semi-graphic sex. This half of Tell Tale is told through Ben's point of view. There is a purposeful change of tense throughout the work.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are property of their various owners. Ben Ladue belongs to me.

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Likewise, the story of a thousand pages begins with one single word. I guess they mean that everything has to start somewhere, and they usually start small. But sometimes, things are just there, full blown from the beginning, like a tornado.

Like him.

I look back and know my life is never going to be the same, it all changed in that instant, the first time I saw him. I didn't know him well that first day, but I had already made up my mind about him. As the days went on, I found that, more than anything, I was right. Friday came and went, Monday, too, and still not so much as a crack in his composure, not a fissure of frustration. The man was a machine. We'd push, and he just pushed back, harder. One way or another, every man in that group learned what to do, and what not to do.

Rule #1, listen and listen well. Rule #2, stay out of his way. Rule #3, never call him crazy. Maybe I should have made that Rule #1… It's debatable.

That first day, we'd been out on the obstacle courses since four that morning, from when it was still bite your ass cold till when you were so hot you wanted to peel your clothes off and go lay face down in the nearest trough. I'd actually done it a time or two myself since I'd gotten here. I'd run that course so often in those preceding months that I could have done it with my eyes closed. It was busy work, what they were landing us with. For someone who'd spent the last fifteen years of his life dreaming about making it into SpecOps… it was humiliating. Basic Training that never ended, just repeated itself over and over, like some giant fucking broken record.

I'd finally been given the chance to join Delta, only just settling in. The guys… the guys, they liked me, right, but him? Oh no, not him, not Freeman, not that long, lanky fuck with the chip on his shoulder almost as big as his fat fucking head. Within weeks of my joining, the chance was taken away from me again. They said I had a temper. Doc labeled me as overly aggressive, said I lacked self-control, was a danger to the others on my squad.

Too violent for the US Army. Give me a fucking break.

I could have beaten any one of those pussy bastards into the pavement and nobody would have blinked an eye. See, it wasn't the violence that got Colonel Byrd. It was the fact it was a Sergeant I'd gotten a hold of. Said it was patently disrespectful, a blatant disregard of rank. He asked me why I did it, asked me over and over again until I was so tired of hearing the question I could have pounded my fucking head on the desk. Cause I never gave him an answer. How could I have?

What the hell was I going to tell him? That we don't ask, and we don't tell, but we find each other anyway? That I'd gotten in good with those green eyes over in the Officer's Club? That I had a real thing for him? That I'd been seeing him for months on the side, going to fucking titty bars and paying off the strippers to have a little alone time together? That I just couldn't get enough of him and when I found him with his ass in the air and Freeman balls deep in my fucking bed that I just snapped?

Somehow 'The motherfucker had it coming' sounded just a little bit better on my end of things.

Took eight of them to get me off him. I'd broken two bones in my right hand, but I didn't know it then. Just sat in the corner, shaking and shivering, listening to them screaming and running around like a bunch of preschoolers. Some fucking soldiers. Oh god, is he breathing? Jesus Christ, Ladue, what did you do to him?

Taught him a fucking lesson, didn't I? You don't touch what's not yours.

The medics rushed him off. Heard the infirmary sent him out to County General. Heard it was bad. Heard he fell into a coma. I sat in my cell in the brig and laughed all night long, until I couldn't anymore, till all I could do was sit and rock and hold my hand, till I wanted to fucking cry I was so goddamn mad. They left me there one more day before they let the Doc set the bones, put my arm in a cast. It was seven days before Byrd even called me into his office, and then I just sat there with leg irons clapped around my fatigues cause they didn't have a pair of handcuffs big enough to fit around the cast, played the asshole card cause it was the last in my hand, watched my fucking career wash right down the drain in front of me.

It was a damn wonder he didn't court marshal me and send my ass straight to Leavenworth. Guess he decided a cell wasn't good enough. He gave me a whole fucking country to serve my time in. All the way back to a fucking E1. Fuck the pay cut, that never even crossed my mind, but the fact that I was there, I was there, in Delta, living my dream, and then that fucking rat-faced bastard took it all away from me. I don't think he even liked men. He just… found out, somehow, knew it was just the place to strike… He fucking… wanted me out of Delta.

Shoulda just tried to out me to Byrd, no, he had to play a fucking game, didn't he? Oh, but he bit off a little bit more than he could chew… Somebody's always gotta fuck with the short guy, always.

And now, now here I am, doing my time on the desert fucking sands. Oh, but it's not all bad. I got the boys. We're all good friends, and after one prick NCO, the pansy Captains they send our way are nothing. All until him, that is, and that's really what I was talking about in the first place, wasn't it? How it all changed when he got here. Not all of us liked him from the start, not like me. McCall was the next to catch on, then Nunez, those two I was closest with, trusted my judgment, you see.

See, that first day, we were in the briefing room. The building we occupied had once been housing for none other than the Republican Guard. God, I loved those stories about Desert Storm, about G-Day, my Uncle told me all the time, as many times as I wanted to hear. Said it was the day the Army finally started getting their balls back. Oh, he was the reason I wanted in the Army to begin with. Walking legend in my eyes. He told me once, that there is nothing more satisfying than defeating a worthy enemy and more than anything, the Republican Guard were truly worthy foes that they faced. Funny how serendipity works.

We were all sat behind our little wooden desks, the others waiting to rib him, me, I was just watching. I could take one look at him and know there wasn't going to be any pushing him away, but the others hadn't quite figured that out yet. That first day, he walked in, this underfed straw-blonde scarecrow in desert camouflage, and it didn't take them long.

"Good morning, ladies…This is not boot camp. You are not here to learn. You are here because you are the biggest fuck-ups the Army has. This is not day camp. I am not here to babysit you. I will not coddle you, comfort you, or hold your hand. From this day forward, we will train. You already know the course, but you will run it till you can run it backwards, and you will run it faster than you ever have before. You will bleed, and you will like it. You will hate me… and I will enjoy every minute of it. Any questions?"

I could have come in my fucking pants. God, I was hopeless for him from that day on, I think.

Took him six months to really warm up to me. I swear, it's like trying to approach a wild animal. You just gotta… edge up to him sideways and hope you don't scare him off, or he doesn't rip your throat out along the way. That night, when he took me down in the riverbed, I could've cried from frustration…took me eighteen months to have that little psychotic break the Doc had been talking about. I mean, I never wanted to do it… never in my life have I ever hurt someone that I loved, and I love him, God, I love him, and I couldn't… couldn't take it anymore. Having what I wanted, held right in front of me, always too close, the man has no sense of personal boundaries, I mean.

I just wanted him… wanted him till it drove me crazy. I got him alone, far enough away the others wouldn't hear a scuffle, just me and him, and a K-bar in my pocket. I didn't bring a gun. Didn't care if he killed me, kind of thought it was better that way. Wasn't planning on making any friends doing something like this, was I? He knew where we were going, wandering off together, we always did, he had restless feet, always going somewhere, having me tag along for a pair of ears to rattle to. Rocks, rocks, everywhere, fucking rocks, a crop of 'em, God, he trusted me… I'll never forgive myself for that, for even chancing to betray that trust that was so hard-won. But he drove me crazy! What else do I say? I can't explain myself past that. I backed him up against the rock and pressed the blade in deep and he froze, couldn't see his face, his breathing still so fucking even, and as I fumbled with his fly he started laughing, and I wanted to slit his throat right fucking then.

"Is that what you want?" So demeaning, sneering, laughing, I hated him. I told him.

"I hate you… I can't take this anymore… You can tell them I forced you."

The crazy fuck, he leaned into the knife, leaned in till he started bleeding fast and the blade was sinking farther and farther and I had to pull back before the whole thing opened up on me… Damn him! Stupid fuck would kill himself, take even that satisfaction away from me... but then…

"You won't have to," he whispers, and he's kissing me, actually kissing me, driving our mouths and our bodies together, and he's actually clumsy, like some over-eager teenager and it just makes me want him more, everything makes me want him more. Had lube… never intended on hurting him that way, even wanted to make it good for him… maybe I am fucking crazy… it would hurt him, wouldn't it? To make him like it when he didn't even want it? But I never wanted to hurt him…Dear fucking God, he rode me till my knees and my palms were raw with the sand. I think he wanted to punish me for pulling the knife on him. Instead, I came so hard I bit two of my fingers down to the bone trying to keep myself quiet when it happened.

He'd never been with a man before, but there was none of the usual 'I don't know about this' hysterics. We sat together in silence while he sewed my fingers shut in the moonlight. I winced and hissed, and he just laughed at me, looked up through those girly fucking lashes.

"You pussy bastard."

"You couldn't've used anesthetic or something?"

"Do I look like I just carry a syringe on my person daily?"

"Why not? Needle and suture…Knife, knife… 'nother knife, pistol."

"A man can never have too many knives," he defended.

"You carry everything else on there…"

He laughed again, and I thought… I could listen to that sound forever. The air was cold, his hands were warm where mine were cold, 'cept where the stitches were throbbing and the needle sliding in and out and him breathing right next to me and it was bliss, I tell you. That night was heaven. I could've died that night and been happy, I think.

I've had more nights like that, though, that's the great thing. Tonight was a night like that, least that's what I thought.

I remember, us rushing up the corridor to the old sick bay, McCall at watch at the head of the hallway. He slid to a stop and stared at McCall, looked back to me.

"He knows?" he said, accusingly.

"My wife is a lawyer for GLAAD. If she thought I had a problem with gay people, she'd take that problem and she'd shove it straight up my ass."

"A lawyer?" he said suspiciously. I laughed.

"Four Eyes is into older women."

"Hell yeah, man," he grinned at me, "Like a fine wine. They only get better…"

"Where're the others?"

"Oh yeah," Four Eyes said, as though he had just remembered, "Turns out you gave an order for a night exercise which we three kings are presiding over… It'll be an awful boring exercise though…"

He looked at me, and shook his head, almost proud, I preened.

"You know, you two keep jaw-jacking and jacking's all you'll be doing. Go on, I live vicariously through you." He threw a thumb backwards. We laughed and took off.

"Three more months," I said, clapping him on the shoulder as I passed.

"I'm carving the days into my fucking arm, man," McCall grinned.

Forty five minutes later, we're laying sweaty and sated, pressed too close together in a twin pallet, thin knees knocking together under thin cotton while we drive elbows into exposed ribs and laugh.

"Ow! God dammit! Ow.. I give, I give!"

"Pussy," he says to me again, though he knows damn well he'd never let me do anything but lose. I don't mind it. He loves to celebrate a victory.

We breathe hard, and his arm is wrapped around mine and I can feel the pulse on the inside of his elbow while the sheets are cooling against us after the second go-round, and I sigh and close my eyes and just bask in the nearness of him. The light's out when next I open my eyes, and the phone is ringing. I hear him fumbling around in the dark, and my shoulder feels cold where his head is missing from it, and finally there's the slap of plastic under his fingers instead of the sound of wood.

"What the fuck?" I mutter.

"Who is that?" The speakerphone asks.

"Never fucking mind who that was, who in the fuck is this?" he asks soon after, wrenches my head sideways and shoves me face first down into the pillow, all with his eyes still closed.

"Jack, this is Michael."

I can practically hear the gears whirring in his head. Finally,

"Corian? How did you get this number?"

"Yes. It's important. You must be alone."

He sits up. The pallet creaks.

"What is it? What's going on?"

"They're coming for you, Jack. Do you hear me? That little stunt you pulled up north didn't make you any friends. Vreeland wants you harvested, do you understand me? He wants your work gathered, and he wants you dead."

He moves in the dark, pulls at his mouth with the palm of his hand.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You're alive as long as they don't have your research. You have a cryptologist at your disposal, Jack. I don't have to lay it out for you, do I?"

"No," he says quietly, and the phone clicks.

Now? Now we sit in the dark and breathe.