Sorry for the HUGE absence on this one, but I've been turning this over in my head and its a biiiiitttt disjointed, but I hope you like!

"I remember Piers. Please just... stop this. Isn't that what you wanted? For me to remember?"

Chris reached, mind juggling all he possibilities of what would or could happen next and how to act though his massive body had been frozen by time. The scene laid before them was not one easily forgotten, by neither the B.S.A.A., nor those who had once hired the young sniper. He should have known easily, put together the pieces of their experiences together and the words that sultry, though hinting came completely unfettered until every clue had been uncovered. First had been their meeting. His name. The first time they'd ever spoke at that conference celebration of horror back in the day, scotch in hand. the fluids in his youthful fingers when they'd met again had not been the same eerily smooth liquor that had burned away his remaining judgement then... However, it had been the principal. Never to turn down a drink from a pretty face, not one with those kinds of smooth features, eagerly looking up to him with anticipation, hopes, and dreams. It had been the story. He came to Chris on a night so similar, years later, with that pretty smile on his lips that made it impossible to focus. The name that was never important to him just as before which seemed to titillate the tawny haired younger man to no end as he struck short analogies for Chris, prolonging their engagement. He'd frozen Chris in these moments, his heart stopping along with the hypothermia of their situation.

"I want a lot more than that captain."

The knife digging so keenly into the flesh of their commanding general Wills, showed just how far they had come. Yes it started with the name, but it had continued. Piers gave him every opportunity to seize the moment while it lasted and it was because of Chris' ignorance that their present situation had escalated so. It was sharp. Clearly. Slicing like the caress of a lover along the carotid of the man motionless in his arms, held poised in perfect position to lock away any clear or sanctioned shots that might end their swaray before the contract was at its end. Not the one with the men who had hired the boy. But the one that had begun all those years ago when he'd stolen innocence from a young man and thrown him away like a cheap whore. He'd done everything the captain asked of him, and Chris seamlessly made him look the fool. Too many years of waiting for the man to keep a promise he had no intentions of keeping when he'd made it. Jill hadn't been wrong. He'd hit an all time low that night, and Piers was the victim, so here the roles had been reversed. There had been hopes among the B.S.A.A. that after this there would be no sign of the sniper and he would disappear into obscurity. Their job he did for their competitors was over, and that meant that under these circumstances there would be no reason for him to continue their uncomfortable relationship. After all. It took four years for him to show his face again after the incident. No one expected to see nor hear hide nor hair of the tawny haired sniper for at least another four. They had hoped anyway. When Chris heard that Piers had turned up again in Virginia, just outside a major military base Chris couldn't pass the opportunity by.

Like the fifteen year old had once done for him, Chris had chased this sniper across the whole of the world. Different countries and jobs, as compared to the fact that Piers had once been forced to try chasing his dreams with the B.S.A.A., only to have the man who claimed his childhood tell him he didn't have the stuff. Well this was the end and the ultimate testament to that moment. There was no endgame. He should have seen it coming. Soldiers are trained to think short term with missions, who can they save in those few seconds when the pin is pulled, and the grenade hits the deck. Piers had covered the real reasons behind his actions, with the long game, but in the end it always comes back to the natural instinct to act quickly. Dead agents, with clues to aid his memory. A contractor to fund the job and look the part of the evil dictator. All those little things that he'd done over the expanse of their time together all had been a giant smokescreen for what this really was. Revenge. He'd waited all that time for his captain to come through for him. A hero who wouldn't remember his face passed the few hours the laid together. Chris let the world down half a hundred times but as it seemed he could give a rat's ass right now just what the world thought. It was his fault the kid was here with him, within reaching distance but so far away as he eyed the man in uniform, fingertips slipping against the fabric of his cuff that jerked ruthlessly up against the old man's spine.

The lock was flawless. Arm behind the back, impairing it, while his python of a grip on the knife in hand, sharp enough to split hairs, scissored flesh with tiny nicks, threatening to decapitate in one flawless movement. One leg, clad in black and grey camo-fatigues, had been slipped precariously between the other's, half stepped in front of the general's right so with one minor attempt at escape would send his body headlessly hurtling to the ground at Chris' feet. It let a foul taste in the mouth. The same way he'd held the sniper against those plush, fluid stained sheets high class sheets. Forcing his face to the pillows with one arm passed fracturing up against his spine, Chris could remember all the silent tears that passed down those soft cheeks. He'd asked for it yes. Not in the sense that he'd asked for the beating he took, but after half a night of begging the captain to stop, the rest of the night had changed to rasped, hoarse begging for Chris to 'make him earn it.' He'd sure as hell earned it all right. There were reasons that this kid was pissed. That kid had been far under the age of consent. Under the age of anything. Chris ruined that boy and he knew it. And after all was said and done, and he'd shoved away all those memories so deep into his mind that he didn't remember those soft features, and coy glances; he punched the kid in the gut and took away his dream. How much more of a dick can one be? Fifteen was not an age to start forming attachment to a drunken captain like Chris; but it had happened, and with honesty on his side... he wasn't sorry the younger man had picked him. He was sorry for what had happened, but not for the meeting, and not for the strange intimacy they enjoyed.

"I remember Piers. Everything. What I did. What I promised to you. Just put down the knife." Such a futile thing to ask as enchanting hazel obs, flecked with gold caught his own chocolate browns the luster that sparkled there coming to light when full lips pulled to their sultry smile and passed to true happiness. It looked right on those features, even holding hostage a man who would be his death warrant. Acknowledgement, that was something a man like Piers' craved. To have the man that he'd fought for the attention of for so long look at him for what he was. At leasr, for what he had been. "Release the General, Piers. We'll talk about it."

"We can talk about it here captain. You really remember do you? I was starting to think that all that drinking had gone to your head. Granted it took you almost twenty agents before you figured it out. But I have to say, I'm not disappointed." Chris had heard about the dead members of their agency after Piers had escaped from B.S.A.A. custody, his own fault for having been led on so thoroughly; and for creating the person who had done it. Every one of those men had died in manners similar, their throat's slit with a coin crammed into their mouth, just under the tongue. They had come too far for all of this to be for naught. Too far for the snipers aiming to take him out whenever they had a clear shot to be called down. That was of course granted any of them could. Piers Nivans was the best sniper his eyes had ever had the chance to rest on, made clearer by the fact that he read them all like books, shifting strategically in ways that kept the line of fire impossible to take only one of them. He'd been asked to take his down. Jill demanded it.

'You can't afford to let him go Chris. After everything that's happened between the two of you, you are in too deep. He can unmake you Chris. You're entire reputation in the B.S.A.A. and he isn't afraid to use that. It would undo too much good to let him be taken captive.'

So Jill wanted Piers dead. This lithe, perfect, pretty little thing that held more strength in his pinky finger than most men in their line of work could muster in a lifetime, including himself. Jill was right though. He would have been lucky if they could sweep this all under the rug. If Jill could get Headquarters to accept her statement, and after perhaps a thousand more inquiries. She'd given him specific instructions, including staying out of this shit until it was 'handled.' Make certain their team didn't go down with his stupid mistakes and somehow make it all okay that he raped a fifteen year old kid. Yet, he had agreed. He let her handle these things because for all intents and purposes it wasn't his reputation on the line here, it was the B.S.A.A.'s and their livelihood. They were always under fire from the press and the government. In this case, they couldn't afford for any one of them to find out that their founding agent, their best captain, was a habitual drunk with a nasty propensity toward little kids. He knew that wasn't how it was, but if anything ever got out about this, that was how it would be played out. That was, until he'd done the research. After that, Jill's words were long gone. Was it alright to say the infatuation ran in both ways? Piers had latched onto stories of this hero and wanted in. Chris had been taken by him the moment they revisited one another at the conference. That saunter he had was pure poetry, along with his skills mimicking his own for marksmaship and C.Q.C. It wasn't healthy that was for sure, but he knew people like this, and he didn't want this to be over even though now that they were face to face he could see the intention passed those sharp orbs. That was if he couldn't talk him out of it. These hits against the high ranked officials of the B.S.A.A. that had occured after files had been 'mysteriously misplaced' in his office thanks to a certain someone, were not random. They couldn't be. And they weren't sanctioned by anyone. No one had hired the boy this time. So why do this if not just revenge? He'd figured that out once he figured out who he was. Hero worship manifested in many ways. But in a soldier as talented as this, it had reared its head in the manner of an outlaw. And the thing about outlaws though, was that when you scrapped beneath the surface you found a vigilante.

He'd dug deeper. The coin was the give away. Piers made a habit of giving things away in a simple fashion, tha he'd spent a year misreading as some kind of deep and mysterious angle, but he was in fact so simple. "They flipped right?" The smile on those full tiers changed immediately from adoration to pleasure, half lidded eyes locking on Chris. The struggling man in his arms was cussing, the snipers bellowing in his ears just to get him a clean shot from their coms, and Jill telling him to stop talking and shoot him. Sill they were staring at each other, the knife sliding ever deeper into the first layer of skin and into the next of that dermis, revealing a tiny ribbon of red. "You aren't some ruthless killer. You walked away from the army and got hired by the men who would give you the resources to clean up the B.S.A.A."

"What makes you think its not because I really just want to watch you suffer..., hm captain?"

"Because, you are a soldier. Guys like you don't turn bad over night, and well I know what I did was shit, it wasn't enough to break you. You aren't the kind who turns their back on a slight. It wasn't just me you were mad at, it was the B.S.A.A."

"Don't get me wrong captain I am furious with you. Fuck me once shame on you, fuck me twice shame on... oh that's right," Piers laughed just the slightest, shaking his head, "That's right, the second time never happened. No matter how many times you tried."

"SHOOT HIM REDFIELD!"

A jerk of the knife and the man in his arms silenced, quieted by the threat of another layer of skin kissing the sharpened edge. Chris glowered once, knowing full well that the man in his arms had a death sentence on his head one way or another. Each one of those men who had hired him, had been on the payroll for group who hired Piers. Sneaky little thing getting a look at his 'employers' while doing work for them. "Shut up Wills. Look Piers. Me and you can bicker all you want form now until the end of time, but I'm not stupid. You can see that can't you? You picked this place for a reason. You knew there was no way out Piers."

"Why should I want one? I did my job, even if your men wouldn't let me. You read my file captain. You remember me now. You know full well I don't need an escape from this place. I did what I set out to do with, or without the help of the B.S.A.A., and without you. I earned that right to call myself whatever I see fit and now that I've done my job, contract killer or not, I've done the right thing. Even if you people didn't. I tarnished my name for you. For what you stood for. But hell... at least I won't go out without you knowing it." Fingers gripped and tightened on the knife, wrist twisting ever the slightest as Piers took what looked like the first real breath he'd had in years. "You know I had wondered captain. If I was going to die without ever having someone know. But its how a sniper should go. Ten bullets all trained with my name on them."

"Wait! Piers. Come on think about it. What you've done-

"I have. I orchestrated the whole thing."

"I know Piers but I don't want you to... Just hold soldier." Chris swallowed. When that hostage fell, it would mean a dozen rifles resounding taking their pound of flesh as well.

"Soldier?" Piers face contorted with he term, swallowing just the slightest, that look from the interrogation room when Chris had hit him. A blow that knocked the wind out of him. "I haven't been a soldier in years. I wasn't good enough, or old enough, or-

"Goddamn it I'm your captain! You follow my orders! You should have been mine from the beginning but things happen, shit happens. Fall in line." Half lidded eyes opened fully, bow shaped tiers parting ever slightly before a shake of the head turned to an urgent nod; grip on that knife in his nimble hands loosening. "You are my soldier Piers. Under me. You will follow orders." Silence rung in the echo of Chris' overpowering baritone; that always cocky, smarmy tone cut out by massive command. He'd made a mistake before, but not again even if it cost him a lifetime of grief. They'd take care of the lies and deceit within the B.S.A.A., founded by a little help from a certain tawny haired villain, and he wasn't letting him go again. The shock had settled in over the young man as well as every person among them, orders to stand down as the knife at the man's neck and confusion spread, though it didn't stop Chris from speaking. "I'm a captain of the B.S.A.A. I founded the damn thing, what I say goes soldier, and what I say is, I looked at your file. I know what I've done, ad I know what you are doing. These men were guilty. I'm taking you back... in one piece and we are making this right. You are mine. Understand soldier?" The knife clattered to the ground, General Wills lunging forward with the orders to shoot, but the captain was in charge of this operation, and each stood down as he reached out, gripping that always just out of reach wrist for the first time, giving a lopsided grin.

"I... yes sir."

: )