'An Improbable Fiction (That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain)' Part 2 for srmarybadass
Merry Christmas, srmarybadass!
Title: An Improbable Fiction (That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain)Part 2
Author: ???
Rating: NC-17, and R for a lot of dirty language
Pairing: Pynch and H-BAMF.
Word Count: 12,547
Summary: Life at West Point gets worse and worse for Vance Burress when he transfers there in the middle of the second semester, has the worst possible roommate, and gets involved in a really bad plan.
A/N: I. Had. So much fun writing this. It wouldn’t stop itself and I actually put off writing the end because I didn’t want to be sad when it was over. I greatly enjoyed the prompts I got to work with. It was a challenge getting to write Pynch, but one I would gladly do all over again. I’ve gotten to love them a lot. I hope it’s enjoyed! Merry Christmas, srmarybadass
-----
“I hate you.”
Peck laughed, loudly, and Vance would have punched him if Murdock hadn’t pushed him away, telling him to be nice. He’d never been this hung-over before.
“I’ll make ya any hangover food ya want, Vancey,” Murdock offered with a smile, getting up from the couch to grab an apron.
“Vancey?” He mouthed at Peck, who mouthed back just to go with it, but looked a little put out over Vance getting a similar nickname to the one Murdock had for him. They watched Murdock gather some things from the closet. When Murdock turned to him expectantly, he said to surprise him, and the pilot disappeared from the dorm to go cook. Vance must have had a wary look on his face, because Peck told him he didn’t need to worry about Murdock’s cooking, except if there was any sort of secret sauce involved.
Vance climbed onto and stretched out on the couch that they weren’t supposed to have in their dorm. The really nice one that he figured Peck had smuggled in. He would have taken a nap, too, if Peck hadn’t leaned forward and nudged him.
“How did it go last night? The plan.”
“Can we not discuss it until I’m completely sober? And be quiet,” Vance added, rolling onto his side.
Peck persisted, sitting on the end cushion, shoving Vance’s feet up so he was forced to curl his legs. “Hannibal told me to let him know what had happened as soon as I find out.”
Vance glowered at him. “You’ll find out when I actually like you guys again. I should use jujitsu on you.”
Peck grinned, but there was something serious in his expression. Vance thought maybe he was going to tell him something, but instead, the con artist simply turned, leaned back into the sofa, and turned on the television.
Vance wanted to know what Pike had done to the kid.
-----
Phase two of the plan was to be set in motion at the campout. It was decided that they would switch their tent with someone other than Pike, a lieutenant by the name of Sosa that Peck seemed to have had a short history with. When told about it, hush-hush by Murdock and BA, all it sounded like to Vance was whining, but he guessed, upon seeing her, if a girl like that had left him, he wouldn’t have been too pleased about it either. She was hot, he admitted it.
Because Pike couldn’t know that Vance was involved with any of the others, he was forced to ride over to the camping site with a group of loud pricks from his own dorm, missing out on a spot in BA’s sort of cool vintage GM van. He was squished into the back of an Escalade, glaring at the back of Pike’s head where he sat in the passenger seat, comfortable, not obliged to speak to anyone else, and avoiding being elbowed by a cadet who expressed himself with too many hand motions.
It was raining just enough when they got there that he fished out an umbrella immediately before getting out of the vehicle. He noticed Pike still sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window, sunglasses covering his eyes, and figured he could implement his own little touches to this plan.
“I know you probably don’t plan on melting anytime soon, but I could use your help with our tent.”
Behind the shades, he could barely see Pike’s eyes brighten up at the comment, and his dark eyebrows arched, a smirk becoming present. “You and your little dog are blowing my cover. Get in here, Burress.”
It may have been the first time Pike had called him by his name, and Vance processed the way it sounded for a moment, and it may have been in reaction to it, but he did as he was told and got back into the Escalade, taking the seat just behind Pike. He even pulled the door shut gently.
“What exactly are we doing?”
“Avoiding getting wet and covered in mud. Sit here and if anyone sees us, pretend you’re looking for something or on the phone. They’ll have the tents up in no more than twenty minutes.”
Vance actually grinned, liking that. Liking it a lot.
He settled back in the car, thinking he would just wait it out, but Pike turned to look at him over his shoulder, and pulled those damn sunglasses up to the top of his head. “What are you going to be doing on this particular outing, cupcake?”
”He’ll try to be charming, in his own choice way. Don’t let him be. Show you’re impervious to it.”
“Why? Are you asking me out Brock?”
“Mm, fantasize later, hon,” Pike replied, but he shifted in his seat, which made Vance think he’d caught him. “There’s a tradition where everyone ranked cadet is taken by the higher-ups someplace into the forest at night. It’s like a survival game. We leave you somewhere, and you have to come find us.”
“Now are you asking me to come find you in the middle of the woods?”
Vance had to force the mental images that made themselves present to go the fuck away.
“I may be,” Brock shrugged, winked.
Vance gave him a dark look, feeling like he could use this to his advantage. “You’re asking?”
And Brock’s grin disappeared, the glare returned. Vance had caught him. But there was nothing else said by the older guy, so he took the next step himself.
“I’ll see if I can find you, but I may go looking for someone else,” he said, which made Pike snort. To be true, Vance didn’t think he opposed that much to the idea of finding Pike leaning against a tree, waiting for him…
He looked out of the window hurriedly. “What number is our tent, Pike?”
“Twelve.”
The lack of a taunting petname made Vance pull open the door of the car. “They’ve put it up.” He looked to Pike, who had replaced his sunglasses in front of his eyes, but turned his head just enough to signal he was looking back. “Hope someone decides to find you.”
He jumped out into the rain, opening his umbrella as he walked swiftly to a tent that clearly didn’t have a twelve on it.
-----
“Do I have to? If it rains again this things is going to electrocute me.”
“For Christ’s sake! You whine more than any girl I’ve ever heard.”
“No he don’t, Faceman. You’ve got that title all to yerself.”
“BA’s right Face. Vance comes second to you in the complaining arena.” This was chuckled around a cigar.
“Ok, ok, time for you all to shut up.”
“Ow!” Peck had jabbed Vance with a wire as payback. He knocked the blonde away. “Seriously. You may not put that thing on me. There’s no call for it. I’m twenty and took the same basic training everyone else did. If Pike tries to rape me or something, I’ll just kick his ass.”
There was another little jab before Peck turned around with a sigh. “Hannibal, the camera is instrumental to the plan, right?” He acted as though Vance couldn’t see the pointed look he was giving their colonel.
When Hannibal opened his mouth to respond, Peck completely cut him off. “I so won’t be coming to find you tonight if you don’t make him wear this.”
Vance and BA both rolled their eyes, calling that bluff without hesitance. Hannibal, however, seemed to be taking it seriously, uncertain. And then BA’s amused expression became a bit wary, and Vance needed to find out how Peck did that.
After a minute, Hannibal took a slow drag on his cigar and met Vance’s eyes. “You wouldn’t want all the work BA put into making that mini-camera to be for nothing, would you kid?”
Vance glared at Peck as Peck glared back at him. He seemed to be stealing all of his precious nicknames, and neither of them were particularly pleased about it. He hoped the wrinkle of his nose displayed that.
“I should never have sat with you guys for lunch…”
“Actually, you shoulda never stood in the middle of Washington Hall,” Murdock interjected, looking up from the laptop that was supposed to display everything the camera picked up. The pilot pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, then whooped as Peck’s irritated face came onto the screen.
Vance was pretty sure his expression mirrored that.
-----
Following the higher ranking men into the tall, imposing trees and darkness didn’t feel like the best idea to Vance even before they left the camp site. His emotions were mixed upon discovering that his tent was paired with two others, and one happened to be that of his friends. The system for choosing the cadets to go on the mission was simple. They were selected by an anonymous lieutenant or captain, or in Peck’s rare case, colonel. But they could find whoever they wanted to.
Vance wasn’t paying the best attention as they were led deeper and deeper through the trees. He was occupying himself by texting Peck, whom he could hear laughing somewhere to the right and behind him as they bantered.
He’d asked why Hannibal had chosen him over BA and Murdock, teasing, and Peck had explained that they’d set up a deal that Hannibal would choose one of them each year until they each got a turn. There was a winking face at the end of that message.
Now he was about to send one about the probability of some other cadet stumbling upon Peck and Hannibal once they’d located each other, but didn’t get to hit the right button, because the whole group suddenly stopped. He looked around slowly. If he held his hand out, he doubted he’d be able to see it. The men standing around him made the closed-in illusion even worse.
He felt himself get pulled away by someone, a grip on his arm a little too tight for his liking, and he followed that man for maybe an hour before he was left on his own. The open expanse of the darkness around him was horrible when he took a second to notice it. It would put any ill-trained cadet on edge.
Keeping his calm, he set off to find Pike, continuing to text Peck as he did so, mainly as an excuse to use the light on his phone so he could find his way better. It was cheating, but that didn’t deter him in the slightest.
After another hour or so, as he pulled his jacket tightly around himself, another text came through. Peck had spotted Pike and sent the coordinates. Naturally, it was a brutal path to the location and took him so much time to get there that he was sure Pike wouldn’t have stuck around, just to deliberately make this more difficult. Pike didn’t seem like the sort to follow the rules, either.
Vance was genuinely surprised when he found a little nook along a cliff by a small stream and Pike was there.
He purposefully shone the light of his phone straight at the dark-haired man. Frowned seriously in the face of his taunt. “Damn. I found the wrong person.”
“That’s a shame. Who were you looking for, sugar?” Pike asked, blinking at the harsh light, but smirking.
“Oh, well, I heard Hannibal Smith was somewhere in these woods.” He said it to see the reaction, and realized he probably shouldn’t have, but his curiosity won out. He wanted to know the full story, use it to his advantage if he could. That’s what Pike did, according to Hannibal. Using the same tactic in return seemed like an appropriate move.
“Smith? You have a thing for older men?” The reply was easy, but the annoyed glint in Pike’s eyes gave it all away.
“I have a thing for legends, maybe,” Vance purred, then remembered the damn camera and hoped like hell that Murdock and BA, back in the tent watching everything, wouldn’t show that bit of footage to Hannibal later.
He stepped away from the stream into the opening crag and saw it wasn’t just a nook, it was a cave that probably formed ages ago. Joining Pike just inside the opening, but against the opposite side, he sat down. They looked at each other for a while, Pike’s smirk slowly fading, Vance uncertain of what he was even doing. The rules were to return once you’d found a superior, and the first five groups back wouldn’t have to sleep outside naked. He didn’t particularly want to curl up tonight on the muddy ground without clothes, but something was making it hard for him to be in a hurry.
“Why’d you pick this spot?”
He tried to read the look that passed over Pike’s face, but it was hard. “It’s quiet. And no one usually finds you.”
“That’s unproductive, since the point of the mission is to be found,” Vance pointed out dryly.
“For some people. For others, sweetheart, it’s a chance to get to know someone better if you do get found.”
”Keep him wanting you until the last possible moment. Then let him have you, think he’s won you. He’ll have put in an effort and he’ll subconsciously want to hold onto you longer.”
Vance hesitated. Now he wasn’t sure if he was going by the mission or by his own rules. But when Pike moved forward closer to him, he figured he could throw the two together. No harm in that, from what he could tell.
“Why would you want to get to know me?” He asked quietly, now that Pike was mere inches away.
“Let’s just say I find you irresistible, sweetheart.”
“Bastard.”
“Bitch.”
The uneven wall of the cave wasn’t exceptionally comfortable, but being pushed back against it with Pike’s mouth pressed against his own made for a more pleasurable experience. It was rough, heavy, and Vance forgot about the plan. Forgot entirely when Pike bit his bottom lip and he opened his mouth to let their tongues meet.
Pike more or less had him pinned, one hand on his chest, keeping him pressed into the rock, the other on his hip, bruising. It didn’t stop Vance from pushing forward, trying to get Pike closer, tugging on his polo shirt.
The kiss left him breathless, but Pike gave him no time to settle down, moving from there to nip none too delicately at his earlobe, that spot behind it, and down his neck.
That’s when Vance remembered the camera again.
The way he pushed at Pike was half-hearted and didn’t work until he punched his roommate in the shoulder, hard. Pike pulled back with a curse, looking at him like he was a complete idiot. He felt like one, immediately craving that mouth again.
“Look, I don’t want to sleep outside tonight,” he grumbled, and saw the way Pike rolled his eyes. As enticing as he was, he seriously made Vance want to punch him. “With or without you,” he added, for good measure, and started getting up. “Instead, I would like to sleep in our tent. And if you would care to get off your ass and join me, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
Pike grumbled, but he also completely openly looked Vance up and down, eyes blown.
“Then let’s race back, beautiful.”
-----
He rid himself of the camera along the way, making sure Pike was ahead of him before he pulled off the top button of his shirt, the most ingenious hiding place for a micro-camera, of course, but not if Pike detected it, and something told Vance he would if he had the chance to.
He kept the thing, certain that BA would pummel him if he were to just drop it in a bush.
Sliding it into a back pocket, he casually hooked his thumb in when Pike glanced back at him, eyes roaming again.
They were back in the camp second. He wasn’t surprised to get a text from Peck, knowing that Hannibal had simply told the blonde where to find him and Peck had undoubtedly gone straight there so they could have their fun, but he was surprised over what the message said.
It told him to not even dare sleeping with Pike. There was a threat, too, which he overlooked.
He wanted to turn his phone off, do as he pleased, but he thought for a moment over what he knew this guy had done to his friends. And thought more about what he didn’t know. About Peck.
He sent back a reply, then did turn his phone off, right as he and Pike arrived at tent twelve.
-----
“After you, princess,” Pike taunted, throwing in a rude tone that Vance knew was fake by the lust-filled edge to Pike’s green hues. It was there so that any listening ears wouldn’t catch the hitch to the endearment.
Into the tent they went, and Vance was immediately shoved down and pressed against the slightly uneven ground on his sleeping bag. He pulled back some, looking up at Pike as he hovered above, and frowned at the smug grin there.
“Ow,” he said, pointedly. Pike chuckled.
“Need me to kiss it better?”
“That depends on how well you kiss.”
“I can show you,” Pike returned, and he did. There was that mouth fitting against Vance’s, and damn if it wasn’t enough to send an amazingly pleasurable shock through him. There was a short battle for dominance until Pike brought a hand up, gripping Vance by the hair, and tugged his head down to rest on the ground, bringing a grunt out of him. The sound was muffled, Pike following him down, not letting them separate for even a second.
It didn’t take any special encouragement from either of them for their hands to start roaming each other. Pike’s fingers tugged his shirt up, making fast work on the buttons that made Vance curious as to how many guys had been in his place before. Which caused a sharp irritation in him that he couldn’t explain, and didn’t like.
He momentarily forgot it when warm hands slid up his sides, fingers pressing just enough. He unconsciously arched into it, the same moment he hooked the belt loops at Pike’s hips and pulled him down. Both of them let out a soft, low noise into the other’s mouth, Pike keeping Vance from tipping his head back with that hand returning into his hair.
Vance started to try to rip Pike’s polo shirt, just get the damn ugly thing off, but Pike growled. They separated for a second for Pike to pull the article off and glare at him, but Vance huffed and tugged him back down. Having hot skin against his own forced a shudder down his spine, one that made him moan quietly.
He scratched down Pike’s shoulders, not too gently by the sharp hiss the other man gave. In turn, Pike bit down on the muscle along the curve of his neck and shoulder, enough to make him wince, and continued biting along his collarbones until he had Vance pressing up into him off the floor and could slide his hands around to clutch his ass.
Then it came. Vance heard it, but Pike didn’t.
He had to start struggling to get the darker-haired man to pull back, even though Pike tried to pin his wrists down. When he managed to get free, he stood and snatched his shirt from where it had been thrown.
“Where the hell are you going?” Pike asked, rising, trying to block him.
“Shut up! I heard something. Outside.”
Pike glowered at him, but stayed quiet, and five seconds passed before a voice spoke up.
“Is Vance Burress in there?”
Quickly doing up his buttons, Vance watched Pike with his head tilted down. He definitely looked frustrated, but the way he was watching Vance was possessive.
“You lost one.”
“What?” Vance asked, maybe a little mean.
“A button, idiot. The top one.”
The camera. It would have made him laugh. Instead, he grumbled, “Whose fault is that?”
“Vance Burress. You’ve got a call from the campus.” The person outside called, and Vance hoped the voice didn’t give it away. Even if it didn’t, his stomach dropped when Pike moved to follow him when he went to open the tent, though he stood back.
Peck was outside, arms folded across his chest, looking particularly bored, as well as put-out. He only glanced at Vance, as if uninterested, and motioned him over. There was no sign that Peck was giving telling that he and Vance knew each other, and Vance matched it by sighing and stepping out, where it was again raining.
However, Peck took a glance up again and upon his gaze landing on Pike, gave a cold smile. Vance didn’t like it. “Oh, hey Brock.”
“Doing someone’s dirty work, Peck?” Pike clipped, and Vance didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at him. Instead he put his hands into his pockets and let the exchange go on.
“No, dirty work would require me being on your level.”
“Oh, you know you’ve been on my level before, gorgeous, and you enjoyed it.”
Vance let Peck move forward and punch Pike. He thought it was probably deserved, but he had to stop it after that, or shit would go down on all sides and he wasn’t fond of cleaning up things like that.
“Hey, you’re here about me, right? I don’t want blood in my tent.”
Peck backed off, and Pike stood there, blood dripping from his nose, like he was waiting for a chance, and Vance wasn’t going to let him have it. He motioned toward the row of tents that he knew were full of radios for contact back to the school. “I’ll follow. You can keep the rain off of me.”
He went after Peck as the blonde stalked off, but when he glimpsed Pike on his way, he didn’t particularly want to go, and that was the first sign that told him this plan wasn’t going to work.
-----
The video was playing through in the background as Vance was leaned back in his friends’ tent, Murdock next to him asking questions, such as, “What did you step in there? That squelch noise was awful.”
Peck was outside somewhere, not cooled off enough to be anywhere confined. Hannibal asked what happened, Vance had told him Pike’s nose was probably broken, and there had been a lot of cursing from all three of Peck’s lovers.
“What did Pike do to him?”
He was asking, because he’d figured out that he wasn’t going to just find out. And he was realizing that he may have needed more of a reason than he was given to go through with this, because Pike being an asshole somehow wasn’t enough.
There was a silence. Then Peck came in, closing up the tent behind him, and he stood there, looking right at Vance.
“I was a bet.”
Even though he understood it, Vance found himself snorting, tilting his head, and not believing it. “How?”
“A few of Pike’s buddies bet him that he couldn’t win me over and see if my reputation was really what people said it was.”
Now he had it. Upon doing some secret research, hacking into USMA’s computer records system in his spare time, he had found out plenty about his companions. Until now, he’d overlooked Peck’s absence of parents, but things were dropping into place. Too easily.
Peck sat down as Vance nodded at him, not sure what to say, pretty sure he didn’t need to console the con artist, figuring that he was a few days from being promoted to the rank of lieutenant and lieutenants could handle their own, especially this one. Comforting people wasn’t Vance’s style, either way.
He sighed, cringing as the noises coming from the video playback became increasingly suggestive, since by now in the footage he’d stuffed the thing into his pocket.
Just before Peck’s voice came through, calling for Vance from outside the tent, doing exactly as Vance had texted him, there was a particularly loud shifting noise. Murdock turned to him, eyebrows up, smirking. “Is that where he grabbed your ass, pal?”
It was a harmless gesture, he didn’t think much before he did it, but when he flipped Murdock off, BA growled to the side and Peck frowned at him. Murdock took it in stride, shrugging, which is the reaction he’d wanted, but he still wished he hadn’t done it. It was tense now around these four, he couldn’t place why, and that was never good.
This was the point where he needed to stop it all.
“Look, guys… I don’t want to be part of this plan.”
Even knowing about how much of a heartless prick Pike was, had been, probably always would be, Vance thought he was the one who could live with it, and thought he was an idiot for it, but it wasn’t his place to correct the innate douchebag in anyone.
He thought he saw Hannibal nod some from where he was sitting by BA, but all he got to concentrate on was the way Peck gave a dry, humorless laugh, sneering at him. It made him really not care for Peck, not at that moment, at least.
“What, has he gotten to you now, Burress?”
“Only because of the four of you,” Vance snapped, and, not caring that it was childish, he huffed out a big breath. “I didn’t mention that in that film, the girl who has to play the player is faced with all the god-damned repercussions.”
“Oh, you’re a girl, then?” Peck was walking the line, staring at Vance purposefully, pushing for a reaction. He was going to get one in a minute.
“I’m not fucking doing this anymore.”
“I didn’t know you had a kink for assholes, Vance.”
“I think if I did you’d be the first to know, Peck.”
“Enough!” Hannibal said, and Vance started to settle down, irritated most that this whole conflict was even being drawn out, that he wasn’t getting what he wanted.
But Peck seemingly didn’t hear the colonel. “Why don’t you go to him, you fucking lynch? Hang the plan and go running off to him, and don’t crawl back when he kicks you around and uses you, too.”
“Face, kid, enough.”
Hannibal got down next to Peck, putting himself in the kid’s line of vision, and Peck must have seen something stern there, because he pulled away, getting into his sleeping bag, and rolled so that he didn’t have to face the rest of them. Vance would have called him a baby for it, but he knew what lines not to cross.
Before Hannibal could turn around, or BA could still him with a look, or even before Murdock could grab him, Vance got up and walked out of their tent. Left. It looked like he would be sleeping outside after all, but at least he had some fucking clothes.
-----
Life became seriously boring from that point on. He didn’t go see his friends, although Murdock, BA, and even Hannibal tried to contact him. Murdock, he was pretty sure, had slept outside his door for a night after hammering on it incessantly. He’d pretended he hadn’t been there, and had a hard time taking the earplugs out when he realized the noise had stopped.
Pike was pissed at him. Whenever they were in their room at the same time, Pike would either ignore him or glare at him, and Vance learned to just stay away after he got punched in the eye. Far away.
The paperwork for dropping out of the school was sitting on his desk. He’d ripped up three copies of it already. But he’d still gone back and printed out a fourth.
It would be easy. It’s what he had wanted to do the day he’d gotten there. That way not only would his best friends and the guy he’d come close to fucking hate him, but his father would too. More than he already did for sending Vance here and not paying attention to his son’s actual desires.
Sitting down, he managed to complete only the top of the first page before dropping his pen, pushing his chair back, and storming out of the room. The promotion ceremony was today, and he knew he needed to be there.
He’d fucked everything else up.
-----
When he took a seat next to Hannibal in the crowd, BA and Murdock leaned around the colonel to look at him, surprised, but apparently pleased. Vance didn’t say anything, not even a greeting, but he guessed he didn’t need to. Hannibal’s hand came down on his shoulder for a moment, meaning something, but Vance wasn’t going to look at him to figure it out. They weren’t the only reason he was here.
The ceremony proceeded, drawn out and boring, enough to cause he and Murdock both to fidget. They watched Peck receive his lieutenant’s bars, grinning out over at them, and sat through the rest of it, silently urging it to be over.
When it was, they rose together and shuffled out of the rows of seats, standing in a pile waiting for Peck to come join them. Vance found himself looking down at his feet.
“It’s alright you ain’t been around, man,” BA said to him, interrupting the conversation that was going about how handsome Peck had looked in his uniform.
Sighing, Vance looked up at him and managed a smirk. “Was he high-maintenance this morning?”
“Aw, hell yeah, like you wouldn’t fucking believe, Burress.”
“He spilled some coffee on his uniform and went all Lady Macbeth on us. ‘Out, god-damn-stupid-ass spot!’ Right? Ain’t that what he said, Hannibal?” Murdock piped in.
Hannibal chuckled warmly. “That’s right, Murdock.”
The pilot nodded, then a devilish grin worked its way across his face. “The three of us had to settle his nerves after that. We-“
“No details!”
Vance put up his hands, warding Murdock off some, BA and Hannibal cracking up, right as Peck joined them.
“What’s so funny?”
“Vance is.”
Peck’s head snapped around to look at him. His expression was hard, but closed in, too, and Vance didn’t bother trying to read it. He gave a shrug, though, opened his arms a little, as if saying ‘Hey, I’m here, but you can see that, and I’m kind of a jerk, I know, I know.’
There was a small twitch of a smile. “Thanks for coming, Lynch.”
It would always be between them. That’s what the nickname meant. But it was forgiven.
“Oh, god, don’t thank me for that.”
The joke was needed. It righted the world from it’s almost turned-over state. Peck’s full-blown grin proved it. Although, the next thing Vance was going to tell them might possibly ruin that all over again.
“I wanted to inform all of you that I’m not going to be here next school year, next semester. I’m transferring.”
None of them looked as shocked as he expected them to, but they all sort of frowned sadly. Somewhere inside him, he registered that it should be touching, but he mostly found it annoying. Annoying that he’d actually made good friends who cared about him and what he wanted, and they were here, where he didn’t need to be. It was also funny, in that same cruel way.
“Where to, son?”
“Oh, I’m not sure yet. Everest, probably. Or Phoenix. Anywhere that gets me into criminal justice.”
“You could do that here,” Peck speaks up, and Vance is a bit thrown at the complete turn-around their friendship seems to like to take.
“But here I have to wear that,” Vance said, motioning at the uniform Peck was wearing with a smug smirk and a raise of his eyebrows, and they were all laughing.
He managed to fix this. Now there was only one other thing for him to try before the year was over and they went into summer break. He hoped he wouldn’t come out of it with any broken bones or bruises, but something told him not to count on that too highly.
-----
The door of his dorm swung open and slammed closed. Vance glanced up from finishing the paperwork for his transfer, slightly stressed from having called his father and explained what he was doing. Basically, he’d been interrogated, his actions questioned unendingly until he’d finally broken and said that he was going to do what it was he’d always wanted to do and wouldn’t be stopped. He didn’t know how to interpret his father’s silence, or the connection suddenly ending.
He acknowledged that he should have probably waited until after the arrangements had all been sorted. He was also certain that he was about to regret the text he’d sent Pike about an hour ago.
“How did you get the number to my cell phone, asshole?”
Pike remained right by the door, but his cold eyes told Vance he wasn’t going to leave until he got the answers he wanted. He watched his roommate hold out his phone, then it was practically thrown at his head. He almost managed to duck his head in time to avoid it.
“What the fuck is this?”
Vance rubbed the sore spot that he knew would give him a headache soon and leaned down to pick up Pike’s phone. He saw it was open to his message, and looked up to meet Pike’s eyes, frowning, not too happy about the predicament. But he wouldn’t be happy with himself until he went through with this, so he threw the phone back. Hard.
“An apology.”
Pike let out a curse when his phone connected, a reward to Vance’s efforts, and stalked across the room angrily to his bed. Vance watched him sit down, then they were staring at each other.
“So, I’m sorry.”
“For that night? I’m was over with it when it happened, babe.” Pike sneered.
Vance stood, leaning back against the railing of his bed, shoving his hands into his pocket and shaking his head at Pike. “No, not for that night. Fuck that night. I’m apologizing for leading you on.”
Pike’s eyebrows did this interesting thing where one went down to meet his eye and the other arched upwards. “What, you’re telling me you were playing me?”
“No. I’m telling you I let you play me. For two reasons,” Vance paused, shifted, seeing that he had Pike’s attention. The outcome of this could turn into anything. He didn’t know what he expected, though he reasoned it probably wasn’t anything good. “The first is that you’re irresistible, and it’s as fucking annoying as waking up to cadets running drills outside our window, yelling like they’re five years old. I hate you for it, but can’t do shit about it. Don’t fucking grin,” he grumbled, taking in all the different expressions crossing Pike’s face. The one that settled there was curiosity, and Vance prepared himself for his next stand.
“What’s reason number two?” Pike said it languidly, amused, with a smirk. Vance hoped what he was about to say would kick it right off Pike’s face. If not, he might just do it physically.
“The second reason is that you’re a dick who fucks with people’s emotions, takes advantage of them, and leaves them. You did it to three of my friends, and we decided to show you what it’s like when it’s done to you. Which involved me getting close to you and you not getting what you wanted out of me. And you’re still not going to get it, any of it.”
Pike blinked. He was processing it all, lowering his gaze, and Vance left it there, sitting back down, returning to what he had been doing.
Then he heard Pike stand and move closer. “I’m not going to get any of it?”
This unexpected turn had only run through Vance’s mind as a vague possibility. He hadn’t prepared for how to react to it. “What?”
“I’m not going to get any of what I want from you? None?”
Vance managed a glare. “Not my family’s money, or the chance to fuck me over, no. Jerk.”
“But what if all I want right now is to fuck you over, say, my bed?”
“I’m leaving.”
Vance wasn’t sure why he dropped that out there, but it felt like the right thing to say. He watched Pike’s confused expression and sighed. “I won’t be here next year. I’m putting in a transfer. So you shouldn’t want anything with me.”
A few minutes passed of Pike examining him, trying to possibly see the hint of a lie in his eyes, and Vance finally held up his paperwork to prove his claim. He set it back down and pushed it far away on the desk after he’d given Pike enough time to look it over, and they both just sat there.
Then Pike shrugged. “What if I still do? Let’s say you’re worth it, sweetheart.”
“Worth it for how long? Until you’re done fucking me? Before I wake up tomorrow? Until I go? Or am I worth it even after all of that happens?”
“What are you asking here?” Pike moved back a little.
“… I’m not sure. I really want to hit you.”
Pike laughed.
“But I want to make out with you, too.”
“You can, Vance.”
He shook his head. “No. You didn’t answer me.”
“Damn, you’re sly.” Pike muttered. Vance thought it was the only response he was going to get, until Pike kept talking. “I have no damn clue. I want to go with ‘after,’ though. After all of that.”
“Why?”
Pike bit his lip, scowled, like he didn’t want to admit anything. But he rolled his eyes and gave in. “Because you drive me crazy, Burress. I’ve wanted you since you got here. And that night in the tent, I was mad after you left, and I usually don’t give a shit. And I can’t fuck you over if you know my game. I think you’d call me on my bullshit.”
“I can promise you I would, muffin.”
Pike nodded, sneering. “So hit me or make out with me already. Your move.”
Vance chose both.
In the midst of Pike reeling back from the punch, he pulled him forward and crushed their mouths together, hard, deepening almost immediately. They fumbled backwards, Vance getting pushed back into his chair as Pike pressed him down, then getting pulled up again and walked to Pike’s bed, falling on it carelessly. He hit his foot on the rail and cursed against Pike’s mouth, who laughed and kept ravaging him. Vance hit him on the shoulder, but pulled him in closer.
Pike didn’t take his time to start moving down his body, and Vance found that he enjoyed it, the fast, rough pace. Enjoyed it a lot, especially when Pike shoved his t-shirt up and over his head, exposing Vance from the waist up and taking full advantage of it with both his mouth and his hands. Vance gasped and hissed at the slight pain of Pike biting down on that same spot he’d bitten when they’d done this in the tent. That mark hadn’t gone away for a week, and he subconsciously hoped this one would last longer.
“Ah, fuck, Pike, hurry up,” he groaned, trying to get Pike’s new polo shirt off of him.
“Just rip it,” Pike growled, preoccupied by trailing bites and licks down Vance’s chest to his navel, flicking his nipples all at the same time. Vance gave a snort and a laugh, but he clutched the shirt in fists, joyously pulling the material apart until it tore and he could slide it down Pike’s arms and throw it aside, in the vague direction of his own bed.
Pike reached Vance’s hipbones and had to pin him down. He did it harder than he needed to, and Vance bucked up against the grip just to make sure there would be marks. A hand slid beneath his waistband, fitting over the curve of his ass, then tugged down, bringing his PT shorts off his hips, sliding them down his toned legs until they were gone, and the same treatment was applied to his boxers.
Vance pulled Pike back up, and ignored the disgruntled glare aimed his way as he went for Pike’s belt, tugging it open hard enough to force a grunt out of Pike, then he one-handedly undid the button the same time he yanked open the zip, and off went Pike’s dark jeans, shucked onto the floor. He realized at this moment that this would get them both in so much shit if anyone found out, and didn’t find it in himself to care or even bring it up. He would happily be kicked out, except he put so much time into those transfer papers, it would be a shame. Right now, though, pulling off Pike’s boxers all the way with his legs and driving his hips up against him, Vance still figured he wouldn’t give a damn.
Their cocks slid together, drawing deep groans and curses from them both, then Pike was reaching under the bed and brought back a tube. For the second time, Vance thought about how many people Pike may have done this to before and growled, taking it upon himself to bite along Pike’s neck. He felt a wince and, satisfied, licked over the spot teasingly.
Then two fingers were pressing against him, and he arched a little bit, wondering how Pike had coated them so fast with the lube. It didn’t matter, because they slid inside, both at once, and Vance jerked when they immediately curled inside of him, pressing against sensitive walls, finding little hot spots. Pike drew a curse from him, and grinned against his peck where he was licking around a nipple, and the next time he curled his fingers, pushing up and twisting a little, Pike let out a shout, seeing edges of white.
“You like that, sunshine?”
“Fuck, keep doing it,” Vance groaned, pushing his hips down. Pike continued stretching him open with his fingers, teasingly brushing against his prostate the minimal amount, then withdrew once Vance couldn’t stop squirming.
“Settle down, or this will hurt and it will be your own fault,” Pike told him, lining up when Vance’s legs spread apart all on their own. Vance pulled him down, pressing their mouths together, drawing that tongue into play, distracting himself while Pike pushed in.
They both let out deep moans, and there was only a second before Pike started moving, already thrusting at a quick pace that had Vance gasping and cursing and clinging, legs coming around so he could hook his ankles at the small of Pike’s back, digging in to force him deeper. It was rough, and Vance knew he might be drawing blood from how much he was digging his nails in and dragging them across Pike’s spine. He hoped there would be marks, even scars.
Pike hit his prostate dead on after a shift in position, shoving Vance up just a fraction, and Vance’s head pressed back against the pillow, his neck exposed for Pike to kiss down, driving him fast to his orgasm.
“Oh, damn, fuck, Brock, yeah, there.”
Vance whimpered when Pike slowed down, teasing him, and he rocked his hips down harshly, biting his lip as he started shaking. Pike’s hand slid down to wrap around his cock, stroking in the same rhythm.
Pike nibbled around his ear and sped back up when Vance whimpered pathetically, and it only took a few more thrusts before Vance clenched around him, shuddering through his release, sticky white coating both of their stomachs. Pike slammed into him, cursing at the sudden tightening, and let go with one more push when Vance used the last of his energy to rock down into him.
They fell onto the bed, Vance wincing when Pike pulled out, both of them looking down at themselves in mild discomfort. They shoved one another as they got up to go for the shower, and Vance got there first after tripping Pike, slamming the door in his face. Pike smacked him when he came out, pulling off the towel around his waist and groping him before pushing him out to take his turn.
Vance was spread out on his bed when he was done, and he watched Pike pause for only a second before smirking and coming to join him.
He hoped it was damn sure worth it, especially when he woke up with Pike’s face pressed between his shoulder blades, an arm thrown over him.
-----
It wasn’t just Peck who called him Lynch after he and Murdock stumbled in on a similar scene a week later, right before the semester was supposed to end.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Title: An Improbable Fiction (That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain)Part 2
Author: ???
Rating: NC-17, and R for a lot of dirty language
Pairing: Pynch and H-BAMF.
Word Count: 12,547
Summary: Life at West Point gets worse and worse for Vance Burress when he transfers there in the middle of the second semester, has the worst possible roommate, and gets involved in a really bad plan.
A/N: I. Had. So much fun writing this. It wouldn’t stop itself and I actually put off writing the end because I didn’t want to be sad when it was over. I greatly enjoyed the prompts I got to work with. It was a challenge getting to write Pynch, but one I would gladly do all over again. I’ve gotten to love them a lot. I hope it’s enjoyed! Merry Christmas, srmarybadass
-----
“I hate you.”
Peck laughed, loudly, and Vance would have punched him if Murdock hadn’t pushed him away, telling him to be nice. He’d never been this hung-over before.
“I’ll make ya any hangover food ya want, Vancey,” Murdock offered with a smile, getting up from the couch to grab an apron.
“Vancey?” He mouthed at Peck, who mouthed back just to go with it, but looked a little put out over Vance getting a similar nickname to the one Murdock had for him. They watched Murdock gather some things from the closet. When Murdock turned to him expectantly, he said to surprise him, and the pilot disappeared from the dorm to go cook. Vance must have had a wary look on his face, because Peck told him he didn’t need to worry about Murdock’s cooking, except if there was any sort of secret sauce involved.
Vance climbed onto and stretched out on the couch that they weren’t supposed to have in their dorm. The really nice one that he figured Peck had smuggled in. He would have taken a nap, too, if Peck hadn’t leaned forward and nudged him.
“How did it go last night? The plan.”
“Can we not discuss it until I’m completely sober? And be quiet,” Vance added, rolling onto his side.
Peck persisted, sitting on the end cushion, shoving Vance’s feet up so he was forced to curl his legs. “Hannibal told me to let him know what had happened as soon as I find out.”
Vance glowered at him. “You’ll find out when I actually like you guys again. I should use jujitsu on you.”
Peck grinned, but there was something serious in his expression. Vance thought maybe he was going to tell him something, but instead, the con artist simply turned, leaned back into the sofa, and turned on the television.
Vance wanted to know what Pike had done to the kid.
-----
Phase two of the plan was to be set in motion at the campout. It was decided that they would switch their tent with someone other than Pike, a lieutenant by the name of Sosa that Peck seemed to have had a short history with. When told about it, hush-hush by Murdock and BA, all it sounded like to Vance was whining, but he guessed, upon seeing her, if a girl like that had left him, he wouldn’t have been too pleased about it either. She was hot, he admitted it.
Because Pike couldn’t know that Vance was involved with any of the others, he was forced to ride over to the camping site with a group of loud pricks from his own dorm, missing out on a spot in BA’s sort of cool vintage GM van. He was squished into the back of an Escalade, glaring at the back of Pike’s head where he sat in the passenger seat, comfortable, not obliged to speak to anyone else, and avoiding being elbowed by a cadet who expressed himself with too many hand motions.
It was raining just enough when they got there that he fished out an umbrella immediately before getting out of the vehicle. He noticed Pike still sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window, sunglasses covering his eyes, and figured he could implement his own little touches to this plan.
“I know you probably don’t plan on melting anytime soon, but I could use your help with our tent.”
Behind the shades, he could barely see Pike’s eyes brighten up at the comment, and his dark eyebrows arched, a smirk becoming present. “You and your little dog are blowing my cover. Get in here, Burress.”
It may have been the first time Pike had called him by his name, and Vance processed the way it sounded for a moment, and it may have been in reaction to it, but he did as he was told and got back into the Escalade, taking the seat just behind Pike. He even pulled the door shut gently.
“What exactly are we doing?”
“Avoiding getting wet and covered in mud. Sit here and if anyone sees us, pretend you’re looking for something or on the phone. They’ll have the tents up in no more than twenty minutes.”
Vance actually grinned, liking that. Liking it a lot.
He settled back in the car, thinking he would just wait it out, but Pike turned to look at him over his shoulder, and pulled those damn sunglasses up to the top of his head. “What are you going to be doing on this particular outing, cupcake?”
”He’ll try to be charming, in his own choice way. Don’t let him be. Show you’re impervious to it.”
“Why? Are you asking me out Brock?”
“Mm, fantasize later, hon,” Pike replied, but he shifted in his seat, which made Vance think he’d caught him. “There’s a tradition where everyone ranked cadet is taken by the higher-ups someplace into the forest at night. It’s like a survival game. We leave you somewhere, and you have to come find us.”
“Now are you asking me to come find you in the middle of the woods?”
Vance had to force the mental images that made themselves present to go the fuck away.
“I may be,” Brock shrugged, winked.
Vance gave him a dark look, feeling like he could use this to his advantage. “You’re asking?”
And Brock’s grin disappeared, the glare returned. Vance had caught him. But there was nothing else said by the older guy, so he took the next step himself.
“I’ll see if I can find you, but I may go looking for someone else,” he said, which made Pike snort. To be true, Vance didn’t think he opposed that much to the idea of finding Pike leaning against a tree, waiting for him…
He looked out of the window hurriedly. “What number is our tent, Pike?”
“Twelve.”
The lack of a taunting petname made Vance pull open the door of the car. “They’ve put it up.” He looked to Pike, who had replaced his sunglasses in front of his eyes, but turned his head just enough to signal he was looking back. “Hope someone decides to find you.”
He jumped out into the rain, opening his umbrella as he walked swiftly to a tent that clearly didn’t have a twelve on it.
-----
“Do I have to? If it rains again this things is going to electrocute me.”
“For Christ’s sake! You whine more than any girl I’ve ever heard.”
“No he don’t, Faceman. You’ve got that title all to yerself.”
“BA’s right Face. Vance comes second to you in the complaining arena.” This was chuckled around a cigar.
“Ok, ok, time for you all to shut up.”
“Ow!” Peck had jabbed Vance with a wire as payback. He knocked the blonde away. “Seriously. You may not put that thing on me. There’s no call for it. I’m twenty and took the same basic training everyone else did. If Pike tries to rape me or something, I’ll just kick his ass.”
There was another little jab before Peck turned around with a sigh. “Hannibal, the camera is instrumental to the plan, right?” He acted as though Vance couldn’t see the pointed look he was giving their colonel.
When Hannibal opened his mouth to respond, Peck completely cut him off. “I so won’t be coming to find you tonight if you don’t make him wear this.”
Vance and BA both rolled their eyes, calling that bluff without hesitance. Hannibal, however, seemed to be taking it seriously, uncertain. And then BA’s amused expression became a bit wary, and Vance needed to find out how Peck did that.
After a minute, Hannibal took a slow drag on his cigar and met Vance’s eyes. “You wouldn’t want all the work BA put into making that mini-camera to be for nothing, would you kid?”
Vance glared at Peck as Peck glared back at him. He seemed to be stealing all of his precious nicknames, and neither of them were particularly pleased about it. He hoped the wrinkle of his nose displayed that.
“I should never have sat with you guys for lunch…”
“Actually, you shoulda never stood in the middle of Washington Hall,” Murdock interjected, looking up from the laptop that was supposed to display everything the camera picked up. The pilot pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, then whooped as Peck’s irritated face came onto the screen.
Vance was pretty sure his expression mirrored that.
-----
Following the higher ranking men into the tall, imposing trees and darkness didn’t feel like the best idea to Vance even before they left the camp site. His emotions were mixed upon discovering that his tent was paired with two others, and one happened to be that of his friends. The system for choosing the cadets to go on the mission was simple. They were selected by an anonymous lieutenant or captain, or in Peck’s rare case, colonel. But they could find whoever they wanted to.
Vance wasn’t paying the best attention as they were led deeper and deeper through the trees. He was occupying himself by texting Peck, whom he could hear laughing somewhere to the right and behind him as they bantered.
He’d asked why Hannibal had chosen him over BA and Murdock, teasing, and Peck had explained that they’d set up a deal that Hannibal would choose one of them each year until they each got a turn. There was a winking face at the end of that message.
Now he was about to send one about the probability of some other cadet stumbling upon Peck and Hannibal once they’d located each other, but didn’t get to hit the right button, because the whole group suddenly stopped. He looked around slowly. If he held his hand out, he doubted he’d be able to see it. The men standing around him made the closed-in illusion even worse.
He felt himself get pulled away by someone, a grip on his arm a little too tight for his liking, and he followed that man for maybe an hour before he was left on his own. The open expanse of the darkness around him was horrible when he took a second to notice it. It would put any ill-trained cadet on edge.
Keeping his calm, he set off to find Pike, continuing to text Peck as he did so, mainly as an excuse to use the light on his phone so he could find his way better. It was cheating, but that didn’t deter him in the slightest.
After another hour or so, as he pulled his jacket tightly around himself, another text came through. Peck had spotted Pike and sent the coordinates. Naturally, it was a brutal path to the location and took him so much time to get there that he was sure Pike wouldn’t have stuck around, just to deliberately make this more difficult. Pike didn’t seem like the sort to follow the rules, either.
Vance was genuinely surprised when he found a little nook along a cliff by a small stream and Pike was there.
He purposefully shone the light of his phone straight at the dark-haired man. Frowned seriously in the face of his taunt. “Damn. I found the wrong person.”
“That’s a shame. Who were you looking for, sugar?” Pike asked, blinking at the harsh light, but smirking.
“Oh, well, I heard Hannibal Smith was somewhere in these woods.” He said it to see the reaction, and realized he probably shouldn’t have, but his curiosity won out. He wanted to know the full story, use it to his advantage if he could. That’s what Pike did, according to Hannibal. Using the same tactic in return seemed like an appropriate move.
“Smith? You have a thing for older men?” The reply was easy, but the annoyed glint in Pike’s eyes gave it all away.
“I have a thing for legends, maybe,” Vance purred, then remembered the damn camera and hoped like hell that Murdock and BA, back in the tent watching everything, wouldn’t show that bit of footage to Hannibal later.
He stepped away from the stream into the opening crag and saw it wasn’t just a nook, it was a cave that probably formed ages ago. Joining Pike just inside the opening, but against the opposite side, he sat down. They looked at each other for a while, Pike’s smirk slowly fading, Vance uncertain of what he was even doing. The rules were to return once you’d found a superior, and the first five groups back wouldn’t have to sleep outside naked. He didn’t particularly want to curl up tonight on the muddy ground without clothes, but something was making it hard for him to be in a hurry.
“Why’d you pick this spot?”
He tried to read the look that passed over Pike’s face, but it was hard. “It’s quiet. And no one usually finds you.”
“That’s unproductive, since the point of the mission is to be found,” Vance pointed out dryly.
“For some people. For others, sweetheart, it’s a chance to get to know someone better if you do get found.”
”Keep him wanting you until the last possible moment. Then let him have you, think he’s won you. He’ll have put in an effort and he’ll subconsciously want to hold onto you longer.”
Vance hesitated. Now he wasn’t sure if he was going by the mission or by his own rules. But when Pike moved forward closer to him, he figured he could throw the two together. No harm in that, from what he could tell.
“Why would you want to get to know me?” He asked quietly, now that Pike was mere inches away.
“Let’s just say I find you irresistible, sweetheart.”
“Bastard.”
“Bitch.”
The uneven wall of the cave wasn’t exceptionally comfortable, but being pushed back against it with Pike’s mouth pressed against his own made for a more pleasurable experience. It was rough, heavy, and Vance forgot about the plan. Forgot entirely when Pike bit his bottom lip and he opened his mouth to let their tongues meet.
Pike more or less had him pinned, one hand on his chest, keeping him pressed into the rock, the other on his hip, bruising. It didn’t stop Vance from pushing forward, trying to get Pike closer, tugging on his polo shirt.
The kiss left him breathless, but Pike gave him no time to settle down, moving from there to nip none too delicately at his earlobe, that spot behind it, and down his neck.
That’s when Vance remembered the camera again.
The way he pushed at Pike was half-hearted and didn’t work until he punched his roommate in the shoulder, hard. Pike pulled back with a curse, looking at him like he was a complete idiot. He felt like one, immediately craving that mouth again.
“Look, I don’t want to sleep outside tonight,” he grumbled, and saw the way Pike rolled his eyes. As enticing as he was, he seriously made Vance want to punch him. “With or without you,” he added, for good measure, and started getting up. “Instead, I would like to sleep in our tent. And if you would care to get off your ass and join me, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
Pike grumbled, but he also completely openly looked Vance up and down, eyes blown.
“Then let’s race back, beautiful.”
-----
He rid himself of the camera along the way, making sure Pike was ahead of him before he pulled off the top button of his shirt, the most ingenious hiding place for a micro-camera, of course, but not if Pike detected it, and something told Vance he would if he had the chance to.
He kept the thing, certain that BA would pummel him if he were to just drop it in a bush.
Sliding it into a back pocket, he casually hooked his thumb in when Pike glanced back at him, eyes roaming again.
They were back in the camp second. He wasn’t surprised to get a text from Peck, knowing that Hannibal had simply told the blonde where to find him and Peck had undoubtedly gone straight there so they could have their fun, but he was surprised over what the message said.
It told him to not even dare sleeping with Pike. There was a threat, too, which he overlooked.
He wanted to turn his phone off, do as he pleased, but he thought for a moment over what he knew this guy had done to his friends. And thought more about what he didn’t know. About Peck.
He sent back a reply, then did turn his phone off, right as he and Pike arrived at tent twelve.
-----
“After you, princess,” Pike taunted, throwing in a rude tone that Vance knew was fake by the lust-filled edge to Pike’s green hues. It was there so that any listening ears wouldn’t catch the hitch to the endearment.
Into the tent they went, and Vance was immediately shoved down and pressed against the slightly uneven ground on his sleeping bag. He pulled back some, looking up at Pike as he hovered above, and frowned at the smug grin there.
“Ow,” he said, pointedly. Pike chuckled.
“Need me to kiss it better?”
“That depends on how well you kiss.”
“I can show you,” Pike returned, and he did. There was that mouth fitting against Vance’s, and damn if it wasn’t enough to send an amazingly pleasurable shock through him. There was a short battle for dominance until Pike brought a hand up, gripping Vance by the hair, and tugged his head down to rest on the ground, bringing a grunt out of him. The sound was muffled, Pike following him down, not letting them separate for even a second.
It didn’t take any special encouragement from either of them for their hands to start roaming each other. Pike’s fingers tugged his shirt up, making fast work on the buttons that made Vance curious as to how many guys had been in his place before. Which caused a sharp irritation in him that he couldn’t explain, and didn’t like.
He momentarily forgot it when warm hands slid up his sides, fingers pressing just enough. He unconsciously arched into it, the same moment he hooked the belt loops at Pike’s hips and pulled him down. Both of them let out a soft, low noise into the other’s mouth, Pike keeping Vance from tipping his head back with that hand returning into his hair.
Vance started to try to rip Pike’s polo shirt, just get the damn ugly thing off, but Pike growled. They separated for a second for Pike to pull the article off and glare at him, but Vance huffed and tugged him back down. Having hot skin against his own forced a shudder down his spine, one that made him moan quietly.
He scratched down Pike’s shoulders, not too gently by the sharp hiss the other man gave. In turn, Pike bit down on the muscle along the curve of his neck and shoulder, enough to make him wince, and continued biting along his collarbones until he had Vance pressing up into him off the floor and could slide his hands around to clutch his ass.
Then it came. Vance heard it, but Pike didn’t.
He had to start struggling to get the darker-haired man to pull back, even though Pike tried to pin his wrists down. When he managed to get free, he stood and snatched his shirt from where it had been thrown.
“Where the hell are you going?” Pike asked, rising, trying to block him.
“Shut up! I heard something. Outside.”
Pike glowered at him, but stayed quiet, and five seconds passed before a voice spoke up.
“Is Vance Burress in there?”
Quickly doing up his buttons, Vance watched Pike with his head tilted down. He definitely looked frustrated, but the way he was watching Vance was possessive.
“You lost one.”
“What?” Vance asked, maybe a little mean.
“A button, idiot. The top one.”
The camera. It would have made him laugh. Instead, he grumbled, “Whose fault is that?”
“Vance Burress. You’ve got a call from the campus.” The person outside called, and Vance hoped the voice didn’t give it away. Even if it didn’t, his stomach dropped when Pike moved to follow him when he went to open the tent, though he stood back.
Peck was outside, arms folded across his chest, looking particularly bored, as well as put-out. He only glanced at Vance, as if uninterested, and motioned him over. There was no sign that Peck was giving telling that he and Vance knew each other, and Vance matched it by sighing and stepping out, where it was again raining.
However, Peck took a glance up again and upon his gaze landing on Pike, gave a cold smile. Vance didn’t like it. “Oh, hey Brock.”
“Doing someone’s dirty work, Peck?” Pike clipped, and Vance didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at him. Instead he put his hands into his pockets and let the exchange go on.
“No, dirty work would require me being on your level.”
“Oh, you know you’ve been on my level before, gorgeous, and you enjoyed it.”
Vance let Peck move forward and punch Pike. He thought it was probably deserved, but he had to stop it after that, or shit would go down on all sides and he wasn’t fond of cleaning up things like that.
“Hey, you’re here about me, right? I don’t want blood in my tent.”
Peck backed off, and Pike stood there, blood dripping from his nose, like he was waiting for a chance, and Vance wasn’t going to let him have it. He motioned toward the row of tents that he knew were full of radios for contact back to the school. “I’ll follow. You can keep the rain off of me.”
He went after Peck as the blonde stalked off, but when he glimpsed Pike on his way, he didn’t particularly want to go, and that was the first sign that told him this plan wasn’t going to work.
-----
The video was playing through in the background as Vance was leaned back in his friends’ tent, Murdock next to him asking questions, such as, “What did you step in there? That squelch noise was awful.”
Peck was outside somewhere, not cooled off enough to be anywhere confined. Hannibal asked what happened, Vance had told him Pike’s nose was probably broken, and there had been a lot of cursing from all three of Peck’s lovers.
“What did Pike do to him?”
He was asking, because he’d figured out that he wasn’t going to just find out. And he was realizing that he may have needed more of a reason than he was given to go through with this, because Pike being an asshole somehow wasn’t enough.
There was a silence. Then Peck came in, closing up the tent behind him, and he stood there, looking right at Vance.
“I was a bet.”
Even though he understood it, Vance found himself snorting, tilting his head, and not believing it. “How?”
“A few of Pike’s buddies bet him that he couldn’t win me over and see if my reputation was really what people said it was.”
Now he had it. Upon doing some secret research, hacking into USMA’s computer records system in his spare time, he had found out plenty about his companions. Until now, he’d overlooked Peck’s absence of parents, but things were dropping into place. Too easily.
Peck sat down as Vance nodded at him, not sure what to say, pretty sure he didn’t need to console the con artist, figuring that he was a few days from being promoted to the rank of lieutenant and lieutenants could handle their own, especially this one. Comforting people wasn’t Vance’s style, either way.
He sighed, cringing as the noises coming from the video playback became increasingly suggestive, since by now in the footage he’d stuffed the thing into his pocket.
Just before Peck’s voice came through, calling for Vance from outside the tent, doing exactly as Vance had texted him, there was a particularly loud shifting noise. Murdock turned to him, eyebrows up, smirking. “Is that where he grabbed your ass, pal?”
It was a harmless gesture, he didn’t think much before he did it, but when he flipped Murdock off, BA growled to the side and Peck frowned at him. Murdock took it in stride, shrugging, which is the reaction he’d wanted, but he still wished he hadn’t done it. It was tense now around these four, he couldn’t place why, and that was never good.
This was the point where he needed to stop it all.
“Look, guys… I don’t want to be part of this plan.”
Even knowing about how much of a heartless prick Pike was, had been, probably always would be, Vance thought he was the one who could live with it, and thought he was an idiot for it, but it wasn’t his place to correct the innate douchebag in anyone.
He thought he saw Hannibal nod some from where he was sitting by BA, but all he got to concentrate on was the way Peck gave a dry, humorless laugh, sneering at him. It made him really not care for Peck, not at that moment, at least.
“What, has he gotten to you now, Burress?”
“Only because of the four of you,” Vance snapped, and, not caring that it was childish, he huffed out a big breath. “I didn’t mention that in that film, the girl who has to play the player is faced with all the god-damned repercussions.”
“Oh, you’re a girl, then?” Peck was walking the line, staring at Vance purposefully, pushing for a reaction. He was going to get one in a minute.
“I’m not fucking doing this anymore.”
“I didn’t know you had a kink for assholes, Vance.”
“I think if I did you’d be the first to know, Peck.”
“Enough!” Hannibal said, and Vance started to settle down, irritated most that this whole conflict was even being drawn out, that he wasn’t getting what he wanted.
But Peck seemingly didn’t hear the colonel. “Why don’t you go to him, you fucking lynch? Hang the plan and go running off to him, and don’t crawl back when he kicks you around and uses you, too.”
“Face, kid, enough.”
Hannibal got down next to Peck, putting himself in the kid’s line of vision, and Peck must have seen something stern there, because he pulled away, getting into his sleeping bag, and rolled so that he didn’t have to face the rest of them. Vance would have called him a baby for it, but he knew what lines not to cross.
Before Hannibal could turn around, or BA could still him with a look, or even before Murdock could grab him, Vance got up and walked out of their tent. Left. It looked like he would be sleeping outside after all, but at least he had some fucking clothes.
-----
Life became seriously boring from that point on. He didn’t go see his friends, although Murdock, BA, and even Hannibal tried to contact him. Murdock, he was pretty sure, had slept outside his door for a night after hammering on it incessantly. He’d pretended he hadn’t been there, and had a hard time taking the earplugs out when he realized the noise had stopped.
Pike was pissed at him. Whenever they were in their room at the same time, Pike would either ignore him or glare at him, and Vance learned to just stay away after he got punched in the eye. Far away.
The paperwork for dropping out of the school was sitting on his desk. He’d ripped up three copies of it already. But he’d still gone back and printed out a fourth.
It would be easy. It’s what he had wanted to do the day he’d gotten there. That way not only would his best friends and the guy he’d come close to fucking hate him, but his father would too. More than he already did for sending Vance here and not paying attention to his son’s actual desires.
Sitting down, he managed to complete only the top of the first page before dropping his pen, pushing his chair back, and storming out of the room. The promotion ceremony was today, and he knew he needed to be there.
He’d fucked everything else up.
-----
When he took a seat next to Hannibal in the crowd, BA and Murdock leaned around the colonel to look at him, surprised, but apparently pleased. Vance didn’t say anything, not even a greeting, but he guessed he didn’t need to. Hannibal’s hand came down on his shoulder for a moment, meaning something, but Vance wasn’t going to look at him to figure it out. They weren’t the only reason he was here.
The ceremony proceeded, drawn out and boring, enough to cause he and Murdock both to fidget. They watched Peck receive his lieutenant’s bars, grinning out over at them, and sat through the rest of it, silently urging it to be over.
When it was, they rose together and shuffled out of the rows of seats, standing in a pile waiting for Peck to come join them. Vance found himself looking down at his feet.
“It’s alright you ain’t been around, man,” BA said to him, interrupting the conversation that was going about how handsome Peck had looked in his uniform.
Sighing, Vance looked up at him and managed a smirk. “Was he high-maintenance this morning?”
“Aw, hell yeah, like you wouldn’t fucking believe, Burress.”
“He spilled some coffee on his uniform and went all Lady Macbeth on us. ‘Out, god-damn-stupid-ass spot!’ Right? Ain’t that what he said, Hannibal?” Murdock piped in.
Hannibal chuckled warmly. “That’s right, Murdock.”
The pilot nodded, then a devilish grin worked its way across his face. “The three of us had to settle his nerves after that. We-“
“No details!”
Vance put up his hands, warding Murdock off some, BA and Hannibal cracking up, right as Peck joined them.
“What’s so funny?”
“Vance is.”
Peck’s head snapped around to look at him. His expression was hard, but closed in, too, and Vance didn’t bother trying to read it. He gave a shrug, though, opened his arms a little, as if saying ‘Hey, I’m here, but you can see that, and I’m kind of a jerk, I know, I know.’
There was a small twitch of a smile. “Thanks for coming, Lynch.”
It would always be between them. That’s what the nickname meant. But it was forgiven.
“Oh, god, don’t thank me for that.”
The joke was needed. It righted the world from it’s almost turned-over state. Peck’s full-blown grin proved it. Although, the next thing Vance was going to tell them might possibly ruin that all over again.
“I wanted to inform all of you that I’m not going to be here next school year, next semester. I’m transferring.”
None of them looked as shocked as he expected them to, but they all sort of frowned sadly. Somewhere inside him, he registered that it should be touching, but he mostly found it annoying. Annoying that he’d actually made good friends who cared about him and what he wanted, and they were here, where he didn’t need to be. It was also funny, in that same cruel way.
“Where to, son?”
“Oh, I’m not sure yet. Everest, probably. Or Phoenix. Anywhere that gets me into criminal justice.”
“You could do that here,” Peck speaks up, and Vance is a bit thrown at the complete turn-around their friendship seems to like to take.
“But here I have to wear that,” Vance said, motioning at the uniform Peck was wearing with a smug smirk and a raise of his eyebrows, and they were all laughing.
He managed to fix this. Now there was only one other thing for him to try before the year was over and they went into summer break. He hoped he wouldn’t come out of it with any broken bones or bruises, but something told him not to count on that too highly.
-----
The door of his dorm swung open and slammed closed. Vance glanced up from finishing the paperwork for his transfer, slightly stressed from having called his father and explained what he was doing. Basically, he’d been interrogated, his actions questioned unendingly until he’d finally broken and said that he was going to do what it was he’d always wanted to do and wouldn’t be stopped. He didn’t know how to interpret his father’s silence, or the connection suddenly ending.
He acknowledged that he should have probably waited until after the arrangements had all been sorted. He was also certain that he was about to regret the text he’d sent Pike about an hour ago.
“How did you get the number to my cell phone, asshole?”
Pike remained right by the door, but his cold eyes told Vance he wasn’t going to leave until he got the answers he wanted. He watched his roommate hold out his phone, then it was practically thrown at his head. He almost managed to duck his head in time to avoid it.
“What the fuck is this?”
Vance rubbed the sore spot that he knew would give him a headache soon and leaned down to pick up Pike’s phone. He saw it was open to his message, and looked up to meet Pike’s eyes, frowning, not too happy about the predicament. But he wouldn’t be happy with himself until he went through with this, so he threw the phone back. Hard.
“An apology.”
Pike let out a curse when his phone connected, a reward to Vance’s efforts, and stalked across the room angrily to his bed. Vance watched him sit down, then they were staring at each other.
“So, I’m sorry.”
“For that night? I’m was over with it when it happened, babe.” Pike sneered.
Vance stood, leaning back against the railing of his bed, shoving his hands into his pocket and shaking his head at Pike. “No, not for that night. Fuck that night. I’m apologizing for leading you on.”
Pike’s eyebrows did this interesting thing where one went down to meet his eye and the other arched upwards. “What, you’re telling me you were playing me?”
“No. I’m telling you I let you play me. For two reasons,” Vance paused, shifted, seeing that he had Pike’s attention. The outcome of this could turn into anything. He didn’t know what he expected, though he reasoned it probably wasn’t anything good. “The first is that you’re irresistible, and it’s as fucking annoying as waking up to cadets running drills outside our window, yelling like they’re five years old. I hate you for it, but can’t do shit about it. Don’t fucking grin,” he grumbled, taking in all the different expressions crossing Pike’s face. The one that settled there was curiosity, and Vance prepared himself for his next stand.
“What’s reason number two?” Pike said it languidly, amused, with a smirk. Vance hoped what he was about to say would kick it right off Pike’s face. If not, he might just do it physically.
“The second reason is that you’re a dick who fucks with people’s emotions, takes advantage of them, and leaves them. You did it to three of my friends, and we decided to show you what it’s like when it’s done to you. Which involved me getting close to you and you not getting what you wanted out of me. And you’re still not going to get it, any of it.”
Pike blinked. He was processing it all, lowering his gaze, and Vance left it there, sitting back down, returning to what he had been doing.
Then he heard Pike stand and move closer. “I’m not going to get any of it?”
This unexpected turn had only run through Vance’s mind as a vague possibility. He hadn’t prepared for how to react to it. “What?”
“I’m not going to get any of what I want from you? None?”
Vance managed a glare. “Not my family’s money, or the chance to fuck me over, no. Jerk.”
“But what if all I want right now is to fuck you over, say, my bed?”
“I’m leaving.”
Vance wasn’t sure why he dropped that out there, but it felt like the right thing to say. He watched Pike’s confused expression and sighed. “I won’t be here next year. I’m putting in a transfer. So you shouldn’t want anything with me.”
A few minutes passed of Pike examining him, trying to possibly see the hint of a lie in his eyes, and Vance finally held up his paperwork to prove his claim. He set it back down and pushed it far away on the desk after he’d given Pike enough time to look it over, and they both just sat there.
Then Pike shrugged. “What if I still do? Let’s say you’re worth it, sweetheart.”
“Worth it for how long? Until you’re done fucking me? Before I wake up tomorrow? Until I go? Or am I worth it even after all of that happens?”
“What are you asking here?” Pike moved back a little.
“… I’m not sure. I really want to hit you.”
Pike laughed.
“But I want to make out with you, too.”
“You can, Vance.”
He shook his head. “No. You didn’t answer me.”
“Damn, you’re sly.” Pike muttered. Vance thought it was the only response he was going to get, until Pike kept talking. “I have no damn clue. I want to go with ‘after,’ though. After all of that.”
“Why?”
Pike bit his lip, scowled, like he didn’t want to admit anything. But he rolled his eyes and gave in. “Because you drive me crazy, Burress. I’ve wanted you since you got here. And that night in the tent, I was mad after you left, and I usually don’t give a shit. And I can’t fuck you over if you know my game. I think you’d call me on my bullshit.”
“I can promise you I would, muffin.”
Pike nodded, sneering. “So hit me or make out with me already. Your move.”
Vance chose both.
In the midst of Pike reeling back from the punch, he pulled him forward and crushed their mouths together, hard, deepening almost immediately. They fumbled backwards, Vance getting pushed back into his chair as Pike pressed him down, then getting pulled up again and walked to Pike’s bed, falling on it carelessly. He hit his foot on the rail and cursed against Pike’s mouth, who laughed and kept ravaging him. Vance hit him on the shoulder, but pulled him in closer.
Pike didn’t take his time to start moving down his body, and Vance found that he enjoyed it, the fast, rough pace. Enjoyed it a lot, especially when Pike shoved his t-shirt up and over his head, exposing Vance from the waist up and taking full advantage of it with both his mouth and his hands. Vance gasped and hissed at the slight pain of Pike biting down on that same spot he’d bitten when they’d done this in the tent. That mark hadn’t gone away for a week, and he subconsciously hoped this one would last longer.
“Ah, fuck, Pike, hurry up,” he groaned, trying to get Pike’s new polo shirt off of him.
“Just rip it,” Pike growled, preoccupied by trailing bites and licks down Vance’s chest to his navel, flicking his nipples all at the same time. Vance gave a snort and a laugh, but he clutched the shirt in fists, joyously pulling the material apart until it tore and he could slide it down Pike’s arms and throw it aside, in the vague direction of his own bed.
Pike reached Vance’s hipbones and had to pin him down. He did it harder than he needed to, and Vance bucked up against the grip just to make sure there would be marks. A hand slid beneath his waistband, fitting over the curve of his ass, then tugged down, bringing his PT shorts off his hips, sliding them down his toned legs until they were gone, and the same treatment was applied to his boxers.
Vance pulled Pike back up, and ignored the disgruntled glare aimed his way as he went for Pike’s belt, tugging it open hard enough to force a grunt out of Pike, then he one-handedly undid the button the same time he yanked open the zip, and off went Pike’s dark jeans, shucked onto the floor. He realized at this moment that this would get them both in so much shit if anyone found out, and didn’t find it in himself to care or even bring it up. He would happily be kicked out, except he put so much time into those transfer papers, it would be a shame. Right now, though, pulling off Pike’s boxers all the way with his legs and driving his hips up against him, Vance still figured he wouldn’t give a damn.
Their cocks slid together, drawing deep groans and curses from them both, then Pike was reaching under the bed and brought back a tube. For the second time, Vance thought about how many people Pike may have done this to before and growled, taking it upon himself to bite along Pike’s neck. He felt a wince and, satisfied, licked over the spot teasingly.
Then two fingers were pressing against him, and he arched a little bit, wondering how Pike had coated them so fast with the lube. It didn’t matter, because they slid inside, both at once, and Vance jerked when they immediately curled inside of him, pressing against sensitive walls, finding little hot spots. Pike drew a curse from him, and grinned against his peck where he was licking around a nipple, and the next time he curled his fingers, pushing up and twisting a little, Pike let out a shout, seeing edges of white.
“You like that, sunshine?”
“Fuck, keep doing it,” Vance groaned, pushing his hips down. Pike continued stretching him open with his fingers, teasingly brushing against his prostate the minimal amount, then withdrew once Vance couldn’t stop squirming.
“Settle down, or this will hurt and it will be your own fault,” Pike told him, lining up when Vance’s legs spread apart all on their own. Vance pulled him down, pressing their mouths together, drawing that tongue into play, distracting himself while Pike pushed in.
They both let out deep moans, and there was only a second before Pike started moving, already thrusting at a quick pace that had Vance gasping and cursing and clinging, legs coming around so he could hook his ankles at the small of Pike’s back, digging in to force him deeper. It was rough, and Vance knew he might be drawing blood from how much he was digging his nails in and dragging them across Pike’s spine. He hoped there would be marks, even scars.
Pike hit his prostate dead on after a shift in position, shoving Vance up just a fraction, and Vance’s head pressed back against the pillow, his neck exposed for Pike to kiss down, driving him fast to his orgasm.
“Oh, damn, fuck, Brock, yeah, there.”
Vance whimpered when Pike slowed down, teasing him, and he rocked his hips down harshly, biting his lip as he started shaking. Pike’s hand slid down to wrap around his cock, stroking in the same rhythm.
Pike nibbled around his ear and sped back up when Vance whimpered pathetically, and it only took a few more thrusts before Vance clenched around him, shuddering through his release, sticky white coating both of their stomachs. Pike slammed into him, cursing at the sudden tightening, and let go with one more push when Vance used the last of his energy to rock down into him.
They fell onto the bed, Vance wincing when Pike pulled out, both of them looking down at themselves in mild discomfort. They shoved one another as they got up to go for the shower, and Vance got there first after tripping Pike, slamming the door in his face. Pike smacked him when he came out, pulling off the towel around his waist and groping him before pushing him out to take his turn.
Vance was spread out on his bed when he was done, and he watched Pike pause for only a second before smirking and coming to join him.
He hoped it was damn sure worth it, especially when he woke up with Pike’s face pressed between his shoulder blades, an arm thrown over him.
-----
It wasn’t just Peck who called him Lynch after he and Murdock stumbled in on a similar scene a week later, right before the semester was supposed to end.
The course of true love never did run smooth.