No Third Option
Nov. 9th, 2010 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Okay, lovely meme, let's ramp up the angst a notch! I'd love to see H/F 'fuck or die' with a difference - Face doesn't know it's Hannibal doing it to him. Face blindfolded and Hannibal not allowed to make a sound or they'll both be killed. How does Hannibal do this? Does he get it over with as quick as he can? Does he somehow try to let Face figure out it's him? I want angst and trauma and aftermath, people. Bonus points for H/F having been dancing round each other for ages, but never actually having taken that step into forming a relationship yet.
Hannibal retrieves Face from the Seattle triads, but the price he has to pay to get the kid back is beyond anything he could have imagined. The boss doesn’t deal very well with it. At all. But don’t worry, I hate sad endings...
Hannibal's never believed in no-win situations. He refuses to buy into the notion that there are ever only two ways something can end. It's what made him so damn good at what he did in the Army. It's what's keeping them busy and fed right now. And it's what's kept his team alive all these years, through it all.
But he's not sure if looking for a third option is really such a good idea right now.
"Did you understand what I said?" some asshole in a suit asks him again in an almost friendly tone. He knows there are at least two guns in the room, judging from the slides that were racked after they finished patting him down and walked him up here, to this horrible wall of one-way glass. They've got decent stand-off distance. Too much for him to close before they can fire.
Didn't plan for it, not the offer. A step behind. It's going to get them both killed, or...
"I understood," he grates out, "that your mother fucked dogs. So, this must be a step up for you, eh?"
The safety on gun numbers three, four and five are clicked off, and somebody cocks. This situation, not ready to fire? That could be worth exploiting. But he's hit again, hard, butt of an AR-15 straight into his left kidney and Hannibal can practically feel the cell walls rupturing, pain exploding in his already battered body. He's going to pissing blood for a month, and the only thing that keeps him on his feet is the solid three hundred pounds of Chinese bodyguard that's bearing full down on his back. Forcing his cheek flat on the cold glass. Forcing him to look at the guy with the bolt cutters, rapping rhythmically on the metal table next to Face, who's naked and slumped over and blindfolded and bleeding from a cut in his scalp. He's not talking. Must be unconscious.
"That's going to do a significant amount of damage," the triad boss behind him muses, the faintest hint of that Cantonese cadence clipping the edges of his words. "I imagine it will be quite painful for your boy in there. You, of course, being a good leader, must watch. We will let you have his body, for your loyalty in coming down here to get him, after what you did to our operations here in Seattle."
"Least I could do.". But there's worry in his voice he can't hide.
There's dried blood on the walls in the little room. He can see it, dark stains on unsealed concrete. And he remembers some of the stories he heard back when he first came in, the things that went on during Vietnam, the police reports out of Hong Kong Murdock translated for them when they were still surveilling these people.
Hannibal knows what comes next. He watches. Maybe they torture him too, just for the hell of it or to give the new guy some practice. Then they're both dead.
That's option A.
"He was quite insistent on not giving you away. I wish my men held up so well under electrocution. Former special forces men must be expensive. I applaud your investment. Loyalty should be rewarded, don't you think, Mister Smith?" the boss continues, like he's reading a fucking script in a fucking movie and Hannibal wants to kill him for that alone. "I will let you walk out of here with him, just like we agreed. My word is god here, none of my men will fire."
If Hannibal, only if Hannibal goes in there and...how did the asshole put it? Dishonor your own man, Mister Smith. He needs some punishment for not taking his life once captured, thus putting you in danger...
That's option B. Hannibal's not real fond of that one, either.
"What do you want?" the colonel asks, trying to ignore the clawing pain from his lower back. "What else do you want?"
"I love desperation in an enemy, Mister Smith. But you both fought well. And you had the balls to come here to get him back. Seems a shame to kill you. So many Americans just aren't worth the bullets," the triad boss says behind him, trailing a heavy hand down Hannibal's spine. "I'm offering you a chance."
Dishonoring his lieutenant. That's exactly what this will be. Proving to Face, at least in their eyes, that his commander's life is more important than his. That he's beneath consideration. That his favored status has been a lie, all this time. That he'll probably kill himself for it later. That's what the gangsters expect from this. Hannibal knows it. The boss knows it. It's just as good as killing them, probably, to his own people. Hannibal never did understand the Chinese.
This, it's fucking insane. But there's no plan, not even a contingency one that's been sitting on a shelf in his head somewhere. He has to improvise. But there's no third option here. Just Face, his lieutenant, battered
"Fine," he says in a voice that he barely recognizes as his own.
The boss barks a command, guttural and sharp, and Hannibal's jerked upright. The goons are laughing. He counted the right number of guns. He doesn't make any protest as the door to the side is unlocked.
The boss grabs him before he can go in. Hannibal considers breaking his wrist. Thinks the better of it. "You talk, we shoot. Make it quick."
Dishonoring, destroying... Face? He wants to laugh. That's not what he's doing here at all.
He's saving the kid.
He's destroying himself.
There’s another order ripped out in rough Cantonese, the boss screaming at the minion with the bolt cutters and he backs off. Face groans a little, shaking himself out as he pushes up from the table, clearly awake now, and yells something back. Hannibal doesn’t quite catch it - he was never very good with the dialect - but it’s enough to get the man to raise his post-modern torture device with clear intention to strike, before the boss catches his arm and corrects him softly. The man bows a little a backs off, out of the room.
“Mister Peck?” the boss asks softly, grabbing a handful of Face’s hair and jerking him sharply around. The kid doesn’t struggle, controls his breathing, flaring nostrils the only sign of his agitation. Staying calm. “Mister Peck, I have decided what we’re doing with you.”
Good, kid, Hannibal thinks, willing Face to stick with that. If he has to beat this out of him, and he will if he needs to...
“You are beneath contempt. Sneaking into my house, seducing my women, stealing my secrets. I dislike this.” He throws the kid’s head down, hard, forehead reverberating off the metal table. “This man is here to demonstrate my displeasure to you.”
Face clenches a wrist. His knuckles are black, veins burst beneath, cuts along the top, a huge archipelago of scabs, caked to his elbow. Hannibal can’t see anything else from this angle. And he wonders how many of these gang members Face put down, with smug satisfaction that does nothing to stem a certain growing queasiness he hasn’t felt since his first arctic training op. He can still hear the sergeant’s voice.
You are off the reservation out here, gentlemen. Civilization is a distant memory. If you die out here, and you can, we won’t know about it until next spring...
Hannibal is not going to let Face die in this warehouse.
The boss snaps his fingers and gestures to lieutenant, clearly summoning Hannibal closer. He bites his tongue and walks all the way into the room.
It’s a better angle.
He feels the blood drain from his face.
Kid’s going to need a hospital visit when they’re done here.
If they make it out.
“Listen to me, Mister Peck. We have your boss, John Smith, in a holding room down the hall. Same place we had you earlier.”
Face laughs weakly. “He... is going... to kill all... of you...” he gasps, shallow from pain. Hannibal tries to assess the damage. Does the kid have broken ribs? This is going to be worse if the kid’s got broken ribs. Face is going to struggle.
“Not after we’re done with him. My men always need entertainment. Like right now. Fight, hit, resist, anything, I will drag your leader in here and let you watch me disassemble him.” He smiles, looking right at Hannibal. “I’m going to start with his feet.”
The colonel shakes his head, and the boss takes the bolt cutters from where the minion left them, slinging the damn things over his shoulder. “Take him dry,” he adds.
And then he’s gone.
And it’s just Hannibal, and just Face.
+++++
This is not exactly how Hannibal envisioned their first time together.
He’s not particularly romantic, but he does like his plans. And he’s had plans for Face. Big plans that involve trips to one of those ocean hotels in Bali or Malaysia, little plans revolving around pizza and beer and accidental touching. Leading to sex. Very hot, very wonderful sex. Lots and lots of plans, none of which he’s ever been brave enough to carry out.
He’s never been sure. Hannibal’s tried to bring it up, wanting to know for certain, but Face just laughs and gets this wistful expression and it never goes anywhere.
There are glances, sometimes, Face watching him when he doesn’t think the boss is awake or paying attention. That time he was in the hospital after the Kenyan op and he found Face asleep, head on his lap. How Face sometimes fights BA to room with Hannibal when they have to share rooms. Every time Face asks if he can stay the night at Hannibal’s apartment, claiming he’s too drunk to drive or his latest fling’s ended and he needs to talk.
Those moments, and a hundred others that don’t matter any more because after this, there’s nothing. If he gets Face out of here alive, if they boss honors his word, losing that is a small price to pay.
Their first and only time, locked in a glass box, the scum outside watching.
Not at all what he wanted.
What he wanted doesn’t matter. Just Face. Face is what matters right now.
He pushes down the sudden wave of nausea and steels himself and gets on with it.
Hannibal’s got a plan for this. The plan is to make it as fast as possible without hurting the kid more than he already is. Not give him any indication of what’s going on, who’s doing this to him. Pick him up, walk out of here. Possibly shoot the boss, all of them, really, if it’s at all convenient.
He closes a hand down around Face’s wrist and yanks him up, gives him a once-over. The kid’s handcuffed, hobbled, the chains the only thing on him, other than the blindfold and the angry tension in his lower jaw. Even like this, he’s beautiful, and Hannibal feels his cock twitch in a way that makes him want to curl up and die.
He runs his hands down the kid’s body, trying to make sure there isn’t any telltale swelling he can’t see. Internal injuries, breaks, anything. Nothing. Some contact burns, too much blood, but nothing deep.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Face asks, the words tripping on each other. And there’s the beginnings of fear. Hold it together, kid, please don’t break.... “Back, stomach, on the table, up against the wall? Maybe, maybe really romantic and do foot over a shoulder...”
Hannibal closes his eyes for a moment. He can’t find anything wrong.
Time to get going.
He turns the kid around, so they’re facing each other. The kid’s defiant but scared, in control, but it’s a fragile thing. It’ll crack before they’re done here. He’s going to start talking. Hannibal just knows it knows it.
That doesn’t stop him from backhanding the kid across the face, sending him sprawling back, hard. Exactly what some dumbass minion would do to his boy. And before Face can keep talking, Hannibal presses a hand against his throat as a subtle warning, cutting off just a little bit of his lieutenant’s air, shutting off any further taunts that might get him killed.
Face starts coughing, choking, and Hannibal leaves his hand there a moment more before flipping the younger man over, chest to the table and bodily holding him down. Hannibal presses the kid’s thighs apart as far as they’ll go with the chain between them and ignores both the rising sickness and the horrible growing hardness between his own legs at seeing Face spread out like this.
He slips a hand between those perfect cheeks, fingering the kid’s tight entrance, wanting to stretch him, knowing that’s not allowed, wondering if there are going to be stitches later...
His stomach heaves, and he barely chokes it back.
The kid’s head shoots back, hard, and Hannibal is grateful for it, dodging quickly, expecting it, making it look like nothing, simultaneously grinding the kid’s face down into the table and undoing his fly. He’s definitely hard by this point, hard enough, anyway.
He’s doing this for Face. He hates himself more than he ever thought possible. Kid, forgive me...
“Asshole,” Face growls, and Hannibal has to punch him twice more for that. He has to shut up, he has to. He’s going to get himself killed if he fights this... Hannibal cuffs him in the ear and that seems to do it. The man underneath him bucks one more time and then goes still, definitely having trouble now, struggling to draw air.
“Hey...” he says softly.
Hannibal’s resolve almost breaks. He wants to pull Face up for one first, last, singular embrace, hold him in, let him know that it hasn’t all been bullshit and missed chances, that there’s been somebody in his life who loved him, finally taste those lips, know what this thing between them is, tell him everything that’s never been said...
...right before he’s either shot or dragged off and tortured to death and his body thrown in a dumpster to be found in a week or two, tagged, taken to the city morgue, left unidentified, unknown...
Hannibal pulls himself up, on to the balls of his toes, and slams home.
And the sound that rips loose from Face’s throat is going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
+++++
It goes pretty quick from there.
Hannibal wants to take a page from Murdock’s book and escape into some fantasy world, where they’re in some gorgeous place, warm breeze, soft bed, those blue eyes open and eager and lustful and willing and wanting, where he can touch every flawless inch of skin, where hands are pulling him down, knotting against his spine, where Face is whimpering in pleasure, begging for more...
But Hannibal can’t let himself do that. It wouldn’t be honest and it wouldn’t be fair and he can’t betray the kid any more than he is right now. So he forces himself to feel it, the unbelievable tightness that would, under better circumstances, be thrilling. The rough burn of friction that slowly eases in a way Hannibal can’t bring himself to think about. Listen to those cries die into choked sobs. Watch the sweat bead on the kid’s back, wanting to lick it off, taste his boy for the first time, take that blindfold off and whisper in his ear and watch the shudder run through Face at the sound of his commander’s voice, fucking him...
Hannibal’s never done, never seen this done, not in all his years, so he’s not exactly sure when he’s supposed to stop, but part of him, deep down, doesn’t want to. Can’t. And he goes further than he means to. Absorbed in the details, he doesn’t notice his balls tightening or the dim threat of orgasm until it’s too late, and he’s holding in his own moan through his release. Endless, it seems, pumping deep into his boy, hands leaving more bruises on clean skin, darkening the ones that are already there.
He pulls out, horrified at his own reaction, watching the blood mix with his semen, dripping down the kid’s leg, pooling underneath him. Chains clank and Face starts to slide off the table, legs failing. He can’t catch him, can’t gather him up and take him out of here, because door’s open and the triad boss is smirking at him, coming over, pushing Face all the way off. The kid’s head bounces off the floor. He doesn’t say anything at all.
The blindfold’s soaked.
Hannibal lets one of the minions drag him from the room, too stunned to do anything. He feels like he’s in a fog. Everything’s gray, indistinct, far away. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, the only real thing.
The door closes, opens again, and the boss comes out, wiping his hands.
“That was nicely done, Mister Smith. If you’ll follow my secretary,” and where the hell had the girl in tight dress come from, “she’ll get you settled while you wait.”
“I’m not letting him out of my sight.”
“I gave you my word. You’re free to go. But let me clean him up first. Put on the appearance of putting on appearances. Save you both face.” And then the man’s dangerously into Hannibal’s personal space. “And since you did so well, I won’t tell him it was you.”
They were scooping Face off the floor now. All the fight in him was gone. Hannibal had done that to him. Hannibal had broken him apart.
How is he ever going to fix this?
“What kind of tea can I get you?” the girl chimed in an irritatingly pleasant voice and Hannibal doesn’t have the energy to fight the gentle tug on his arm as she pulls him away from the bloody place, into an exceptionally clean waiting room and down onto an exceptionally comfortable sofa, and he goes blank for a little while.
+++++
A fine china cup of oolong sits cold at his elbow, untouched, by the time they finally bring Face out. He’s in the same suit he was wearing five days ago, when he disappeared, clothing in surprisingly good shape, which means they stripped him before they went to work, Hannibal knows, his chest tightening at the thought of his boy, naked and beaten, so alone...
“This belongs to you, I trust?” the gangster asks smoothly, signaling to his men to release the kid, and Hannibal catches him before he hits the ground. “I don’t want to see you here again.”
“Fuck you,” Face says, voice shaky, and spits out a long stream of grunted Cantonese slang, raising laughs from the bodyguards. “Hannibal, can you kill this motherfucker?”
“He’s letting you walk out of here, Face. That’s enough.”
“Hannibal...”
“Shut up, kid,” he says quietly, and runs a hand through the kid’s hair, noticing the wince. “What happened?”
Face doesn’t speak, just starts quivering involuntarily, and Hannibal nods and pulls him to his feet, holding almost all of his weight. The mob boss is grinning. Hannibal seriously considers filling his boy’s request, but there are more important things to do. Like get Face to a hospital. Like find the nearest toilet and vomit until there’s nothing coming up but bile. Like take a long shower and try to get clean.
But who's Hannibal trying to fool?
He'll never be clean again.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
+++++
In the last few years, there have too many hospital visits for Hannibal’s comfort. He’s gotten pretty good at making reasons for why his men are there. Gunshots, missing skin, broken bones. Those are easy. But Face is clearly showing signs of torture, days of it, and there are going to be questions Hannibal can’t answer. Staff will take notice. Police will be called.
Face must be thinking the same thing, because even though he’s half-senseless in the passenger seat, he reaches over and covers Hannibal’s big hand with his own. The skin’s been rubbed raw from the cuffs, red and scabbing. “We can’t,” is what he says.
“You could have serious internal injuries, Face.”
“A rib, maybe,” he replies, and his breathing’s still a little shallow. “But they can’t do anything about that anyway, boss...”
“Face, we need to get you checked out...”
Hannibal looks over and the kid tries to crack a smile. It’s hard, because the left side of his face, cheekbone to chin, is swollen. Right where Hannibal hit him. The kid shakes his head instead, and goes back to staring out the window. “I’ll be okay.”
Hannibal can practically smell the sex on him under the tired clothes, but he doesn’t press the issue. He doesn’t know what the right way to handle this is. I’m sorry I raped you, Face, but they were going to kill us both or maybe, I came to get you back and I couldn’t figure a way around their conditions? or, even better, I love you kid and I hope we have a chance to do this under better circumstances?
He rejects them all in turn.
“Fuck that,” Hannibal growls, mostly to himself because Face is falling asleep, and he goes for his pre-pay.
He makes a habit of keeping track of his old friends. The ones who think the conviction was bullshit and don’t mind helping out in a contingency situation. Which is why he and Face are greeted at their hotel by a worried-looking man in a military buzz and issued glasses, holding a small bag, reading a newspaper in the lobby and rising to his feet when he sees them. Face gives Hannibal a dirty look.
“You called somebody.”
“Major Mike Harris. You remember him, right? Second tour in Afghanistan? Our emergency contact for this mission?”
“Yeah, but...”
“They told me they’d used electricity, kid,” Hannibal says in a low voice, rubbing the other man’s shoulder, trying to reassure him. “You’re getting checked out.”
Face looks at the doctor, and back to Hannibal. Nods.
“You want me to come?”
His eyes tear up spontaneously, wet emotion that doesn’t fall, and he shakes his head. Hannibal gives the major the room key and settles down to wait, lost in the haze of his own guilty conscious. Thought isn't working right now. He can't process this. He just knows he's done something unforgivable. There's no coming back from it.
The major’s back down in an hour or maybe longer, fingering one of those little hotel bottles of Jack from the minibar. He sits down next to Hannibal, a secluded part of the lobby, nobody else around anyway, and leans forward a little so his voice doesn’t carry.
“Boy was beaten pretty bad. Cracked a few ribs, but he says he’s had worse...”
“He has.”
“Right, I mean about the ribs. He doesn’t appear to have any internal bleeding. Those contact burns... I’ve got some stuff for that, I’ll write you a list. The bruising will heal up on its own, and I stitched up some of the worst cuts, bandaged the rest.” He adjusts his glasses. “He said I could talk to you about this. There’s... something else.”
Hannibal’s heart starts pounding again, even though he knows what it is. Everything in him, even his body, is responding to the necessity of a con. He hates himself for it. Hates that he has to lie and pretend like he doesn’t know. “What?”
“He was raped. Big guy, too. There’s some... damage.”
“Did you...”
“Yeah, got him cleaned up, took care of what I could. But he’s going to need, well... it’s not something I typically see. What the fuck happened to you boys?”
“Local triads.”
The doctor blinks. “Shit, I’m switching my diagnosis from shocked he’s taken this much damage to amazed he’s still alive.”
“Anything else?”
Hesitation. “No, I’ll, shit...” He hands him the room key. “It’s good to see you, John.”
“You too, Mike.”
He rips a piece of paper out of his notebook, neat recommendations for treatment written there. Hannibal takes it. He feels leaden. “Take care of him. The long term effects of this sort of thing...”
“He’s a Ranger, Mike,” Hannibal says with a confidence he doesn’t feel, with worry he most certainly does, and that’s that.
He heads up, his heart in his throat, finds Face sprawled out over one of the clean twin beds, laying on his belly, pillow clamped down over his head, shaking.
Hannibal pulls a chair over, not wanting to sit next to the kid, not really wanting to touch him, not having the right to anything anymore. He’s violated his lieutenant, the man he claims he loves, and for a horrible second, he wonders if he did the wrong thing and it would have been better to just be shot.
But he pushes that away and finds words again. “How are you doing, kid?”
There’s nothing. Then a muffled, “he told you?”
“Yeah.” Hannibal can barely answer.
Face rolls over on his side, losing the pillow and staring straight at Hannibal. He reaches out for a hand, pushing his fingers in between Hannibal’s, closing the tips down hard on the backs of Hannibal’s knuckles, pulling him close. Hannibal gets down on his knees. Their noses are almost touching.
“I’m sorry,” Face says.
Something breaks in Hannibal. “Wh...why are you sorry, kid? That’s insane, this wasn’t your...”
Those tears are back and this close, it’s pretty clear that he’s been drugged out a little, just for right now and just for the pain. Mike must have done locals for the stitches... “I wanted you, you know, t’be my first, boss,” he says, slurring a little, eyelids fluttering, hand relaxing, slipping away. “But now...I’m sorry...”
Hannibal kisses the top of his head and holds his hand until he falls asleep, then falls back against the nightstand and cries until the tears won’t come anymore.
+++++
Once he recovers a little, enough to stand up and walk to the desk and keep his voice even, Hannibal calls BA. It’s a stupid thing to do from the room, he knows he should go use a pay phone or something, but he’s not leaving Face alone.
“Hannibal? Did you find him?”
The second it became apparent that Face had been snapped up by the triads they’d just spent the last month fucking with, Hannibal ordered BA and Murdock out of town. Hadn’t told them where to go or how long to stay in one place. Face’s condition was a pretty sobering example of why Hannibal hadn’t wanted to know where they were - the Chinese could easily have come after the rest of his boys, too.
“Where’d you end up?”
“You told me...”
“Close enough to Seattle?”
“I can be there in a couple hours. This fool’s drivin’ me crazy. Where you at?”
Hannibal wonders if the boss’s protection extends past the warehouse. Into tomorrow. Over Murdock and BA as well. It’s a chance he’s going to have to take. “Face needs to sleep.”
“How bad?” BA’s tone shifts, and Hannibal can almost see him starting to puff up, ready to go get those bastards who hurt his friend.
Hannibal looks over his shoulder, back towards the narrow bed where Face is sprawled out on his stomach, pillow rolled against his side, naked under white sheets that are spotted here and there with red, a livid mark on the back of his neck exactly the size of Hannibal’s hand. He shudders.
“Pretty bad. He didn’t tell me much,” at least that’s true, “and you’re not going to ask.”
“Did they...”
“No, he’s still in one piece.” Physically, that little voice in his head says and his stomach rumbles threateningly. “Doc’s got him drugged up. When he comes to in the morning, I’ll see if he’s doing well enough to move.”
There’s a pause, like BA’s taking in everything Hannibal’s not saying, and he can hear Murdock babbling something in the background. “He’s got a point,” the big sergeant says. “How’d you get him out, boss?”
“Be ready when I call tomorrow,” Hannibal says, and lays the receiver back down in the cradle. He’s still watching Face, that steady rise and fall of the kid’s chest a reassuring sight, letting him know that the drugs are helping his boy find some peace right now.
There’s none for him.
He’s glad. That’s the why it should be.
And that’s the way it’s going to be from now on.
+++++
Hannibal’s not exactly sure what he was expecting from the kid today. He’s fairly certain it wasn’t this. He can’t quite figure out what this is.
Face is in the back, playing some game with Murdock that involves looking for Audis and hitting the other one first when they spot one on the freeway through the windshield, the two of them giggling like idiots, an occasional coherent sentence drifting forward to where BA’s just shaking his head and pretending like it's really pissing him off, and Hannibal’s pretending like he’s working on something really important and can't possibly take part in the bickering.
Face is leaning over the back of his seat now, bandaged wrist clearly in view, blood blisters over his knuckles. Poking him.
It’s so at odds with the way he was when Hannibal woke him up this morning, a light hand on his shoulder. It was ten and he’d called BA already - Hannibal was not taking chances - and Face had to get up so they could get going.
There was some confusion in those beautiful blue eyes, then recognition and relief, trust showing there that Hannibal doesn’t deserve anymore.
“Hey boss.”
“Hey, kid. BA’s on his way...”
But that was as far as he’d gotten before Face had sat up and pressed into him, catlike, begging for a hug, for contact, and Hannibal had let himself fall into that temptation, opened his arms and held his boy. For a moment, reveling in the closeness like he always does, before his brain started working again and he remembered.
He’d pulled back. “You should have something clean in your luggage.”
Face’s eyes rolled over to the wall, a little snort. “Right,” he said and let himself fall back into the sheets and groan.
Now he’s whispering something, wants something... what? Is he speaking English?
“French toast? You want french toast?”
“Oui,” Face says with a grin, tapping him a little harder. Hannibal looks up. At least some of the swelling’s gone down. “IHOP at the next exit, BA.”
“Ohh,” Murdock chimes in, clapping. “Rooty Tooty Fresh’n’Fruity!”
“Only thing fruity in here’s you, Murdock! Hannibal, you are not sugaring these two up and makin’ me drive back to LA,” BA growls. "I'm gonna kill one of them. They bad like this!"
“Next exit, BA,” Face repeats. “Blueberry syrup, man, big stack of pancakes, so good...”
“Sittdown, fool!”
“Hannibal,” and the kid’s got that fake whine in his voice that Hannibal secretly loves, “come on. Four days of getting electrocuted doesn’t earn me french toast? With artery-clogging bacon? And hot chocolate?”
“Come on. When I get that done to me, they call it therapy,” Murdock jokes.
“Yeah, buddy, but you get it done by one of those cute little nurses in those slutty little outfits.”
“Naw, Facey, they all look like men.”
“And you’re telling me you’re not into that?”
“What, they didn’t have some leather-clad dominatrix doing it for ya, Face?” BA laughs.
“Sorta.” Face’s tone is light. “She was this cute little thing in one of those dragon-print dresses, something out of a goddamn James Bond mov... Bosco, get over! You’re going to miss the turn-off!”
“Better take it, BA,” Hannibal sighs, the memory of the secretary still fresh in his mind, her pale little hands tugging him away from where Face lay in a pool of his own blood on the raw floor...
“Oh, Dairy Queen!” Murdock practically squeals. “Can we do ice cream after?”
“No!” Hannibal and BA both yell at the same time, BA grumbling to himself about some damn crazy fools who’re beggin’ for a beatin’, Hannibal telling himself that this is normal. If you’re not dead, it’s funny, if you lived, you have to celebrate, that Face never takes anything seriously anyway, and it’s probably better that he doesn’t start now.
It’s better.
He can let go. It’s better that he can. Face doesn’t need him right now. Face shouldn’t need him right now. Definitely better like this.
Hannibal lets himself relax, just a little.
But when they’re done with IHOP, and all the genuine hilarity of Face flirting with the waitress, looking like he does and Murdock telling her that it’s BA’s birthday and the look on the big guy’s face when he came back from the bathroom, and the I-5 and goddamn LA traffic and Murdock’s back at the hospital and BA’s dropping Hannibal off at his current apartment, Face jumps out after him, bag in hand.
“What are you doing, Face?” he asks, in no mood for this.
“Coming with you,” the kid says, that smirk of his on that handsome, battered face. “Don’t you wanna make sure I don’t go try to get laid tonight? Keep me out of trouble?”
“You’re a big boy. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he says. He can’t do this right now. The strain of the day’s wearing on him. He just wants to go polish off that fifth’s of Jack that sitting by the sink and forget any of this ever happened, forget the way the kid’s body felt, clenching around him... he starts walking, fumbling for keys.
“I’m sorry,” Face says. Again. It freezes the blood in Hannibal’s veins and he stops at the door, key half in the lock. There’s a hand on his shoulder. “I guess I was flying pretty high on the happy pills last night...”
“That’s got nothing to do with it, kid.”
“Then... you don’t mind?” It’s hopeful. It’s horrible.
Hannibal tightens his fist, feeling the teeth of the keys bite into his palm. “No, kid, I don’t but...but you’ve been through... something, and that’s...”
“Been through what, Hannibal?” he says, trying to laugh. “We’ve all, you know, that...”
“I know, kid.”
“I... I don’t want to be alone tonight, boss.”
Hannibal puts both hands on the kid’s shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “This is not the way to start something, kid. Not the time.”
“I’m not asking for that.” Face leans forward a little, a hand closing down over the top of Hannibal’s outstretched arm, playing with the sleeve of his jacket, tightening down, and Hannibal would give anything, anything at all right now to let himself lean into that. If he had anything left to give. He’s pretty sure he left his soul in that warehouse, soaking into the porous floor of the little interrogation room, the price of Face’s life. He’s got nothing left to offer the kid now. “Just this. Please.”
Hannibal lets a hand run up into that soft hair, savoring the feeling, tightening down a little, playing, better than when he did this yesterday. It’s not caked in sweat and oil and filth, and that realization makes him pull back, palms clammy in the evening air. But the kid's leaning forward a little more, eyes half-closed, clearly wanting something that Hannibal can't give him.
He's ashamed.
“Good night, Face.”
His boy opens his eyes fully, the brightness fading a little. “Right, too soon,” he says, nodding and looking away. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Hannibal waits on the step until Face gets back in the van, tosses his bag behind him into the back, he and BA clearly having some kind of conversation about it, one that involves a lot of gestures and hand motions and probably confused words. BA shoots Hannibal a look, too far away to read, and the former colonel sags against the door frame as they drive away into the night.
+++++
It’s actually a couple of days, more like a week, ten days, maybe twelve, before Hannibal sees Face again. He’s supposed to hold a team debriefing the day after they get back, every time they go out. Old military habit that’s still proving pretty useful. Examine the op, list out lessons-learned, things that went well and things that didn’t. But what’s Hannibal supposed to say this time? Sorry guys, I had to rape Face, let’s remember to not fuck with international organized crime in the future? Is that really going to help anybody?
But the boys like their patterns, and BA calls him and he can’t keep deleting his voicemail and it turns into a very uncomfortable hour. Face is still acting like there’s nothing wrong, although the lactic acid and bruising and knitting-up scar tissue is clearly getting the best of his body. He’s a little too happy, a little too excited, a little too touchy-feely with Murdock.
So, the briefing? It’s an exercise in futility, nothing really accomplished, and Hannibal’s folding up his notes when he sees Face and Murdock down the way, near the door of the BA’s garage where they hold these things. Hannibal pauses, watching.
They’re talking, and it ends with Murdock patting Face on the shoulder and BA pulling him away, and then Face is walking towards him, tailored suit hanging loose around him. He looks smaller, somehow, hunched into himself.
“Can we talk?”
Hannibal nods.
There’s a little office in the back, one that BA rarely uses, desk and a battered sofa. Hannibal takes the edge of the desk and Face flops down gratefully, holding a hand against his side, trying to find a good position.
“Worst part about cracked ribs, impossible to get comfortable,” he says, eyes fixed on Hannibal.
He doesn’t have a cigar on him. He could really use a cigar right now. “What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Boss, have you been avoiding me?”
“No, kid, I...”
“Because, I mean, you basically threw me out that night.”
“You weren’t in my apartment, kid.”
“Fuck, Hannibal, you know what I mean,” Face snaps, throwing up his hands. “I’m sorry about what I said, your doc buddy drugged me...”
“I already told you, I’m not...”
“...bothered by that, yeah, I got that. Doesn’t mean you want it. Doesn’t mean you want me.” That last bit’s whispered.
Hannibal slides off the edge of the desk and takes an empty section of cushion. He lets a hand drop to the kid’s leg, notices a little bit of a wince as it lands. “You’re the best man I’ve ever served with, Face...”
“Don’t give me that party-line bullshit, Hannibal! It doesn’t mean anything!”
He lets his face drop into the other hand. “Kid, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m...”
He’s not looking at the kid, so he doesn’t notice anything before the explosion occurs. “Do you know what I had to fucking do in there ? Did they tell you? Because that wasn’t easy, sitting there, taking that, and, and now you won’t even look at me! What happened? Damaged goods in your unit no fucking good to you, boss?”
“Face...” and Hannibal gathers the courage to look up and over at his boy. He’s flush with rage, eyes shining with those tears again, fists balling so hard the scabs on his hands are starting to tear loose. He wants to end this, to stop it before Face say it and he hears it, because he knows where this is going. But there’s no stopping the kid now that he’s going and Hannibal can’t. He doesn’t deserve anything, any consideration.
“I don’t give a shit about the torture, whatever, it happens, comes with the territory, trained for it, whatever the fuck, but I had to lay there and take it from some asshole when it, when it, it, it should have been...” He pauses for air, and Hannibal finds himself sucking air. The little office seems close, too close. “...but that’s all past now and some bullshit that is, but I know how you are, your whole damn nobility thing, poor Face, poor kid, and, and... fuck, John, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh god...”
And with that, the storm seems to have broken, and so has Face, and the kid’s hugging his own chest and he can’t hold back those tears anymore. The same tears that drenched the blindfold are drenching his shirt.
Hannibal doesn’t know what to do, just runs his hand a little further up, squeezing, unable to stop himself from responding to this massive outpouring of emotion. He wants to pick the kid up and take him away from all of this. He wants to leave him alone. He wants to drive him back into the ancient piece of furniture and kiss him until there’s no breath left for tears or sadness or anger or lies. God, how he hates the lies...
“That, that, Face...”
The kid lifts his face a little, their eyes meeting, an endless sea of regret flooding out of him through that perfect blue. Hannibal’s done this. The past two weeks, the rest of his boy’s life. He’s done this to him, taken his peace away, taken more, things he can’t give back, and he’s so sick of the lies.
“I did it for you, boss, I let it, didn’t stop it, they told me...”
Hannibal looks away and drops his hand. “...that they’d kill you if I didn’t do it.”
“Yeah, exactly, they...” and Face stops. And Hannibal’s heart skips a beat. And hands are yanking him around at an almost painful angle. “That they’d kill me? Or kill you?”
Hannibal knows he’s going to lose him. Right here, right now. Something black shudders through him and he accepts that. He should be feeling like this.
“Kill both of us unless...” he pauses, continues. “... unless we completely lost face in front of them, unless I abused you, violated...that they’d kill you, Temp...”
His voice fails, and there’s nothing more to say anyway, so he stands up and walks towards the door, leaning hard against the jam with one arm, seeing it again, his boy, crumpled, the smell of it, that scream. His head drops below his elbow, hard on the splintered wood, overwhelmed.
Face, screaming.
Face, talking. Talking? Asking him a question?
“It was you?"
Hannibal nods. “I’m sorry. I failed you, Temp. There was no third option, but I didn’t make the right choice, I failed you...”
He hears Face get up and his hand goes for the knob. He can’t turn around, can’t look, can’t see it, can’t face this, and he has to get out of here, right now.
“John?”
It’s tentative, quiet, unsure, and Hannibal shuffles just far enough around to see the kid’s vicious right hook coming straight for his left ear.
He doesn’t argue with it at all. Just goes down in a bloom of pain, nerves screaming as he spins around, staggers back, collides with the office wall, shaking old photographs of old cars. Face is breathing hard, head cocked just a little, like he’s looking for something, but Hannibal’s empty, nothing to see, and Face hits him again. And again. And again.
Stomach’s next after the kid opens his hand, going for the palm-heel, blood flowing from his knuckles, beating the air out of him, bending him in half, and an elbow comes down hard on an exposed shoulder and Hannibal collapses with a grunt. There’s no fighting back, not against this, not Face, who has every right to be jerking him back up and throwing him, throwing him halfway across the room to catch the desk across his hips and fall backwards at an angle and with a force that’s trying to snap his spine.
It’s fast and it’s brutal. Everything’s spinning, nothing solid, nothing still, least of all the kid, who’s got some unreadable expression on his face as he storms over and drives Hannibal up and backwards over the desk, legs off the ground, hands pressing him down by the throat, thumbs pressing down against his windpipe with a crushing force that can only be coming from pure rage, and it’s only when Hannibal’s vision begins to gray, and then whites around the edges, that he starts fighting, clawing up, pushing against that arm, thrashing against the hips holding his down, pained grunts escaping now.
His body’s decision, not his. As far as Hannibal’s concerned, if Face wants to kill him for what he did, it’s a fair price, because his boy made it through that fucked-up day alive, and Face could have easily taken those goons apart, and there’s a surge of pride in Hannibal’s chest jut as his limbs start to tingle with the first stages of oxygen deprivation...
...and the pressure’s gone. His body’s on the floor. He starts coughing, hacking, rolling onto his side and curling up from the force of it. Sensation starts to return.
Warm hands are rubbing up and down him now, soothing his chest, gentle and easy. A mouth, soft against his ear, kissing his jaw.
“Face, I’m...”
“Did you feel that?” Face asks, heavy with emotion, kneeling over him. “Alive, boss. I'm alive. Goddamn it, you’re alive. You’re still here...we're here, together, cause you, you did that for... me...” and anything else Face wants to say is lost as words fail him and the exertion gets the best of him and he’s crumbling apart, weeping openly.
Hannibal pushes himself up, lip split, something warm leaking above his eye. He wipes what he can away on the black of a now-ripped sleeve and pulls the sobbing lieutenant into his arms, holding him as tightly and completely as he can, careful of the bandages, rocking slightly. Hannibal lays his head down on top of Face’s, and Face’s fingers tangle into Hannibal’s shirt and soon enough, that’s not enough, and they both lift away at the same time.
Hannibal looks down and Face looks up and their lips crash together with no less violence and no less force than Face was using to beat some sense into the colonel only moments before. It’s soft, almost hesitant at first, neither man sure what the other needs quite yet, and then Face sighs and Hannibal takes advantage and opens his boy up and sort of tightens a hand against the kid’s back and there’s a coppery taste from Hannibal’s busted lip and something else, something wonderful, that’s uniquely Face. Light licks, slow exploration, connection, exactly what he's always wanted, exactly what he feared he'd lost.
Beautiful.
Time passes, or possibly doesn’t, just like that, until Hannibal breaks it off, gasping, his throat still raw. Face whimpers a little and leans his forehead against Hannibal’s.
“I thought I’d lost you, John,” he whispers. “Do you still want me? Damaged goods you’ve already opened?” and there’s an encouraging little tease in the words, and a disturbing bit of pain.
Hannibal smiles, despite himself and kisses Face again. Smartass. If you live through it, celebrate. He loves the way the kid shudders when he does this. He's going to enjoy learning more about that later on. “Hmm, but you’re my damaged goods.”
“Opened me up. Can’t return me now. Strict no return policy,” Face murmurs, planting a hand between them, teasing a nipple through Hannibal’s shirt. “Stuck with me.” The kid smirks.
“What?”
“You look like shit, boss.”
Hannibal takes a good look at his boy. Bruises are fading to yellow now, bright pink scar tissue replacing open wounds, his hands busted up again, hair ruined, a lopsided grin on his face. “And you’re beautiful.”
Face bites his own lip and starts chuckling. “You are so full of it, boss.”
“What? You are!” Hannibal protests, only able to stay serious for a moment, that wonderful sound infectious, lifting his spirits, lifting his own free, until they’re both laughing so hard Hannibal’s worried that Face is going to re-injure his ribs. And there’s still tension in the kid’s body and a slight resistance against his arms, and it gets a little worse as it dies down, and he’s not even sure if the kid’s aware of it.
Hurt in there, fear, a lot of residual pain. Hannibal makes a note of it. Boy’s not out of the woods yet. He’ll wait. However long it takes, he’s going to wait. But he doesn’t say that, just thumps Face’s back lightly instead, and grins at him.
“Now, kid, tell me. Why’d you hit your commanding officer?”
“Do you think you’d accept my forgiveness without that?” Face replies, a twinkle in his eye, and Hannibal feels light, warm, at those simple words.
“Then, then I’m...”
“Such a stubborn bastard sometimes? Oh, hell yes.”
And then they’re laughing again, and that’s how BA finds them on the floor of his office, curled up into each other, every inch of Face trying to press against every inch of Hannibal. Face waves, grinning. “Crazy fools,” he mutters, and walks back out again, setting off a fresh round of laughter.
Damn, Hannibal thinks as his sides start to cramp and he kisses Face's cheek, but it’s good to be alive.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Okay, lovely meme, let's ramp up the angst a notch! I'd love to see H/F 'fuck or die' with a difference - Face doesn't know it's Hannibal doing it to him. Face blindfolded and Hannibal not allowed to make a sound or they'll both be killed. How does Hannibal do this? Does he get it over with as quick as he can? Does he somehow try to let Face figure out it's him? I want angst and trauma and aftermath, people. Bonus points for H/F having been dancing round each other for ages, but never actually having taken that step into forming a relationship yet.
Hannibal retrieves Face from the Seattle triads, but the price he has to pay to get the kid back is beyond anything he could have imagined. The boss doesn’t deal very well with it. At all. But don’t worry, I hate sad endings...
Hannibal's never believed in no-win situations. He refuses to buy into the notion that there are ever only two ways something can end. It's what made him so damn good at what he did in the Army. It's what's keeping them busy and fed right now. And it's what's kept his team alive all these years, through it all.
But he's not sure if looking for a third option is really such a good idea right now.
"Did you understand what I said?" some asshole in a suit asks him again in an almost friendly tone. He knows there are at least two guns in the room, judging from the slides that were racked after they finished patting him down and walked him up here, to this horrible wall of one-way glass. They've got decent stand-off distance. Too much for him to close before they can fire.
Didn't plan for it, not the offer. A step behind. It's going to get them both killed, or...
"I understood," he grates out, "that your mother fucked dogs. So, this must be a step up for you, eh?"
The safety on gun numbers three, four and five are clicked off, and somebody cocks. This situation, not ready to fire? That could be worth exploiting. But he's hit again, hard, butt of an AR-15 straight into his left kidney and Hannibal can practically feel the cell walls rupturing, pain exploding in his already battered body. He's going to pissing blood for a month, and the only thing that keeps him on his feet is the solid three hundred pounds of Chinese bodyguard that's bearing full down on his back. Forcing his cheek flat on the cold glass. Forcing him to look at the guy with the bolt cutters, rapping rhythmically on the metal table next to Face, who's naked and slumped over and blindfolded and bleeding from a cut in his scalp. He's not talking. Must be unconscious.
"That's going to do a significant amount of damage," the triad boss behind him muses, the faintest hint of that Cantonese cadence clipping the edges of his words. "I imagine it will be quite painful for your boy in there. You, of course, being a good leader, must watch. We will let you have his body, for your loyalty in coming down here to get him, after what you did to our operations here in Seattle."
"Least I could do.". But there's worry in his voice he can't hide.
There's dried blood on the walls in the little room. He can see it, dark stains on unsealed concrete. And he remembers some of the stories he heard back when he first came in, the things that went on during Vietnam, the police reports out of Hong Kong Murdock translated for them when they were still surveilling these people.
Hannibal knows what comes next. He watches. Maybe they torture him too, just for the hell of it or to give the new guy some practice. Then they're both dead.
That's option A.
"He was quite insistent on not giving you away. I wish my men held up so well under electrocution. Former special forces men must be expensive. I applaud your investment. Loyalty should be rewarded, don't you think, Mister Smith?" the boss continues, like he's reading a fucking script in a fucking movie and Hannibal wants to kill him for that alone. "I will let you walk out of here with him, just like we agreed. My word is god here, none of my men will fire."
If Hannibal, only if Hannibal goes in there and...how did the asshole put it? Dishonor your own man, Mister Smith. He needs some punishment for not taking his life once captured, thus putting you in danger...
That's option B. Hannibal's not real fond of that one, either.
"What do you want?" the colonel asks, trying to ignore the clawing pain from his lower back. "What else do you want?"
"I love desperation in an enemy, Mister Smith. But you both fought well. And you had the balls to come here to get him back. Seems a shame to kill you. So many Americans just aren't worth the bullets," the triad boss says behind him, trailing a heavy hand down Hannibal's spine. "I'm offering you a chance."
Dishonoring his lieutenant. That's exactly what this will be. Proving to Face, at least in their eyes, that his commander's life is more important than his. That he's beneath consideration. That his favored status has been a lie, all this time. That he'll probably kill himself for it later. That's what the gangsters expect from this. Hannibal knows it. The boss knows it. It's just as good as killing them, probably, to his own people. Hannibal never did understand the Chinese.
This, it's fucking insane. But there's no plan, not even a contingency one that's been sitting on a shelf in his head somewhere. He has to improvise. But there's no third option here. Just Face, his lieutenant, battered
"Fine," he says in a voice that he barely recognizes as his own.
The boss barks a command, guttural and sharp, and Hannibal's jerked upright. The goons are laughing. He counted the right number of guns. He doesn't make any protest as the door to the side is unlocked.
The boss grabs him before he can go in. Hannibal considers breaking his wrist. Thinks the better of it. "You talk, we shoot. Make it quick."
Dishonoring, destroying... Face? He wants to laugh. That's not what he's doing here at all.
He's saving the kid.
He's destroying himself.
There’s another order ripped out in rough Cantonese, the boss screaming at the minion with the bolt cutters and he backs off. Face groans a little, shaking himself out as he pushes up from the table, clearly awake now, and yells something back. Hannibal doesn’t quite catch it - he was never very good with the dialect - but it’s enough to get the man to raise his post-modern torture device with clear intention to strike, before the boss catches his arm and corrects him softly. The man bows a little a backs off, out of the room.
“Mister Peck?” the boss asks softly, grabbing a handful of Face’s hair and jerking him sharply around. The kid doesn’t struggle, controls his breathing, flaring nostrils the only sign of his agitation. Staying calm. “Mister Peck, I have decided what we’re doing with you.”
Good, kid, Hannibal thinks, willing Face to stick with that. If he has to beat this out of him, and he will if he needs to...
“You are beneath contempt. Sneaking into my house, seducing my women, stealing my secrets. I dislike this.” He throws the kid’s head down, hard, forehead reverberating off the metal table. “This man is here to demonstrate my displeasure to you.”
Face clenches a wrist. His knuckles are black, veins burst beneath, cuts along the top, a huge archipelago of scabs, caked to his elbow. Hannibal can’t see anything else from this angle. And he wonders how many of these gang members Face put down, with smug satisfaction that does nothing to stem a certain growing queasiness he hasn’t felt since his first arctic training op. He can still hear the sergeant’s voice.
You are off the reservation out here, gentlemen. Civilization is a distant memory. If you die out here, and you can, we won’t know about it until next spring...
Hannibal is not going to let Face die in this warehouse.
The boss snaps his fingers and gestures to lieutenant, clearly summoning Hannibal closer. He bites his tongue and walks all the way into the room.
It’s a better angle.
He feels the blood drain from his face.
Kid’s going to need a hospital visit when they’re done here.
If they make it out.
“Listen to me, Mister Peck. We have your boss, John Smith, in a holding room down the hall. Same place we had you earlier.”
Face laughs weakly. “He... is going... to kill all... of you...” he gasps, shallow from pain. Hannibal tries to assess the damage. Does the kid have broken ribs? This is going to be worse if the kid’s got broken ribs. Face is going to struggle.
“Not after we’re done with him. My men always need entertainment. Like right now. Fight, hit, resist, anything, I will drag your leader in here and let you watch me disassemble him.” He smiles, looking right at Hannibal. “I’m going to start with his feet.”
The colonel shakes his head, and the boss takes the bolt cutters from where the minion left them, slinging the damn things over his shoulder. “Take him dry,” he adds.
And then he’s gone.
And it’s just Hannibal, and just Face.
+++++
This is not exactly how Hannibal envisioned their first time together.
He’s not particularly romantic, but he does like his plans. And he’s had plans for Face. Big plans that involve trips to one of those ocean hotels in Bali or Malaysia, little plans revolving around pizza and beer and accidental touching. Leading to sex. Very hot, very wonderful sex. Lots and lots of plans, none of which he’s ever been brave enough to carry out.
He’s never been sure. Hannibal’s tried to bring it up, wanting to know for certain, but Face just laughs and gets this wistful expression and it never goes anywhere.
There are glances, sometimes, Face watching him when he doesn’t think the boss is awake or paying attention. That time he was in the hospital after the Kenyan op and he found Face asleep, head on his lap. How Face sometimes fights BA to room with Hannibal when they have to share rooms. Every time Face asks if he can stay the night at Hannibal’s apartment, claiming he’s too drunk to drive or his latest fling’s ended and he needs to talk.
Those moments, and a hundred others that don’t matter any more because after this, there’s nothing. If he gets Face out of here alive, if they boss honors his word, losing that is a small price to pay.
Their first and only time, locked in a glass box, the scum outside watching.
Not at all what he wanted.
What he wanted doesn’t matter. Just Face. Face is what matters right now.
He pushes down the sudden wave of nausea and steels himself and gets on with it.
Hannibal’s got a plan for this. The plan is to make it as fast as possible without hurting the kid more than he already is. Not give him any indication of what’s going on, who’s doing this to him. Pick him up, walk out of here. Possibly shoot the boss, all of them, really, if it’s at all convenient.
He closes a hand down around Face’s wrist and yanks him up, gives him a once-over. The kid’s handcuffed, hobbled, the chains the only thing on him, other than the blindfold and the angry tension in his lower jaw. Even like this, he’s beautiful, and Hannibal feels his cock twitch in a way that makes him want to curl up and die.
He runs his hands down the kid’s body, trying to make sure there isn’t any telltale swelling he can’t see. Internal injuries, breaks, anything. Nothing. Some contact burns, too much blood, but nothing deep.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Face asks, the words tripping on each other. And there’s the beginnings of fear. Hold it together, kid, please don’t break.... “Back, stomach, on the table, up against the wall? Maybe, maybe really romantic and do foot over a shoulder...”
Hannibal closes his eyes for a moment. He can’t find anything wrong.
Time to get going.
He turns the kid around, so they’re facing each other. The kid’s defiant but scared, in control, but it’s a fragile thing. It’ll crack before they’re done here. He’s going to start talking. Hannibal just knows it knows it.
That doesn’t stop him from backhanding the kid across the face, sending him sprawling back, hard. Exactly what some dumbass minion would do to his boy. And before Face can keep talking, Hannibal presses a hand against his throat as a subtle warning, cutting off just a little bit of his lieutenant’s air, shutting off any further taunts that might get him killed.
Face starts coughing, choking, and Hannibal leaves his hand there a moment more before flipping the younger man over, chest to the table and bodily holding him down. Hannibal presses the kid’s thighs apart as far as they’ll go with the chain between them and ignores both the rising sickness and the horrible growing hardness between his own legs at seeing Face spread out like this.
He slips a hand between those perfect cheeks, fingering the kid’s tight entrance, wanting to stretch him, knowing that’s not allowed, wondering if there are going to be stitches later...
His stomach heaves, and he barely chokes it back.
The kid’s head shoots back, hard, and Hannibal is grateful for it, dodging quickly, expecting it, making it look like nothing, simultaneously grinding the kid’s face down into the table and undoing his fly. He’s definitely hard by this point, hard enough, anyway.
He’s doing this for Face. He hates himself more than he ever thought possible. Kid, forgive me...
“Asshole,” Face growls, and Hannibal has to punch him twice more for that. He has to shut up, he has to. He’s going to get himself killed if he fights this... Hannibal cuffs him in the ear and that seems to do it. The man underneath him bucks one more time and then goes still, definitely having trouble now, struggling to draw air.
“Hey...” he says softly.
Hannibal’s resolve almost breaks. He wants to pull Face up for one first, last, singular embrace, hold him in, let him know that it hasn’t all been bullshit and missed chances, that there’s been somebody in his life who loved him, finally taste those lips, know what this thing between them is, tell him everything that’s never been said...
...right before he’s either shot or dragged off and tortured to death and his body thrown in a dumpster to be found in a week or two, tagged, taken to the city morgue, left unidentified, unknown...
Hannibal pulls himself up, on to the balls of his toes, and slams home.
And the sound that rips loose from Face’s throat is going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
+++++
It goes pretty quick from there.
Hannibal wants to take a page from Murdock’s book and escape into some fantasy world, where they’re in some gorgeous place, warm breeze, soft bed, those blue eyes open and eager and lustful and willing and wanting, where he can touch every flawless inch of skin, where hands are pulling him down, knotting against his spine, where Face is whimpering in pleasure, begging for more...
But Hannibal can’t let himself do that. It wouldn’t be honest and it wouldn’t be fair and he can’t betray the kid any more than he is right now. So he forces himself to feel it, the unbelievable tightness that would, under better circumstances, be thrilling. The rough burn of friction that slowly eases in a way Hannibal can’t bring himself to think about. Listen to those cries die into choked sobs. Watch the sweat bead on the kid’s back, wanting to lick it off, taste his boy for the first time, take that blindfold off and whisper in his ear and watch the shudder run through Face at the sound of his commander’s voice, fucking him...
Hannibal’s never done, never seen this done, not in all his years, so he’s not exactly sure when he’s supposed to stop, but part of him, deep down, doesn’t want to. Can’t. And he goes further than he means to. Absorbed in the details, he doesn’t notice his balls tightening or the dim threat of orgasm until it’s too late, and he’s holding in his own moan through his release. Endless, it seems, pumping deep into his boy, hands leaving more bruises on clean skin, darkening the ones that are already there.
He pulls out, horrified at his own reaction, watching the blood mix with his semen, dripping down the kid’s leg, pooling underneath him. Chains clank and Face starts to slide off the table, legs failing. He can’t catch him, can’t gather him up and take him out of here, because door’s open and the triad boss is smirking at him, coming over, pushing Face all the way off. The kid’s head bounces off the floor. He doesn’t say anything at all.
The blindfold’s soaked.
Hannibal lets one of the minions drag him from the room, too stunned to do anything. He feels like he’s in a fog. Everything’s gray, indistinct, far away. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, the only real thing.
The door closes, opens again, and the boss comes out, wiping his hands.
“That was nicely done, Mister Smith. If you’ll follow my secretary,” and where the hell had the girl in tight dress come from, “she’ll get you settled while you wait.”
“I’m not letting him out of my sight.”
“I gave you my word. You’re free to go. But let me clean him up first. Put on the appearance of putting on appearances. Save you both face.” And then the man’s dangerously into Hannibal’s personal space. “And since you did so well, I won’t tell him it was you.”
They were scooping Face off the floor now. All the fight in him was gone. Hannibal had done that to him. Hannibal had broken him apart.
How is he ever going to fix this?
“What kind of tea can I get you?” the girl chimed in an irritatingly pleasant voice and Hannibal doesn’t have the energy to fight the gentle tug on his arm as she pulls him away from the bloody place, into an exceptionally clean waiting room and down onto an exceptionally comfortable sofa, and he goes blank for a little while.
+++++
A fine china cup of oolong sits cold at his elbow, untouched, by the time they finally bring Face out. He’s in the same suit he was wearing five days ago, when he disappeared, clothing in surprisingly good shape, which means they stripped him before they went to work, Hannibal knows, his chest tightening at the thought of his boy, naked and beaten, so alone...
“This belongs to you, I trust?” the gangster asks smoothly, signaling to his men to release the kid, and Hannibal catches him before he hits the ground. “I don’t want to see you here again.”
“Fuck you,” Face says, voice shaky, and spits out a long stream of grunted Cantonese slang, raising laughs from the bodyguards. “Hannibal, can you kill this motherfucker?”
“He’s letting you walk out of here, Face. That’s enough.”
“Hannibal...”
“Shut up, kid,” he says quietly, and runs a hand through the kid’s hair, noticing the wince. “What happened?”
Face doesn’t speak, just starts quivering involuntarily, and Hannibal nods and pulls him to his feet, holding almost all of his weight. The mob boss is grinning. Hannibal seriously considers filling his boy’s request, but there are more important things to do. Like get Face to a hospital. Like find the nearest toilet and vomit until there’s nothing coming up but bile. Like take a long shower and try to get clean.
But who's Hannibal trying to fool?
He'll never be clean again.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
+++++
In the last few years, there have too many hospital visits for Hannibal’s comfort. He’s gotten pretty good at making reasons for why his men are there. Gunshots, missing skin, broken bones. Those are easy. But Face is clearly showing signs of torture, days of it, and there are going to be questions Hannibal can’t answer. Staff will take notice. Police will be called.
Face must be thinking the same thing, because even though he’s half-senseless in the passenger seat, he reaches over and covers Hannibal’s big hand with his own. The skin’s been rubbed raw from the cuffs, red and scabbing. “We can’t,” is what he says.
“You could have serious internal injuries, Face.”
“A rib, maybe,” he replies, and his breathing’s still a little shallow. “But they can’t do anything about that anyway, boss...”
“Face, we need to get you checked out...”
Hannibal looks over and the kid tries to crack a smile. It’s hard, because the left side of his face, cheekbone to chin, is swollen. Right where Hannibal hit him. The kid shakes his head instead, and goes back to staring out the window. “I’ll be okay.”
Hannibal can practically smell the sex on him under the tired clothes, but he doesn’t press the issue. He doesn’t know what the right way to handle this is. I’m sorry I raped you, Face, but they were going to kill us both or maybe, I came to get you back and I couldn’t figure a way around their conditions? or, even better, I love you kid and I hope we have a chance to do this under better circumstances?
He rejects them all in turn.
“Fuck that,” Hannibal growls, mostly to himself because Face is falling asleep, and he goes for his pre-pay.
He makes a habit of keeping track of his old friends. The ones who think the conviction was bullshit and don’t mind helping out in a contingency situation. Which is why he and Face are greeted at their hotel by a worried-looking man in a military buzz and issued glasses, holding a small bag, reading a newspaper in the lobby and rising to his feet when he sees them. Face gives Hannibal a dirty look.
“You called somebody.”
“Major Mike Harris. You remember him, right? Second tour in Afghanistan? Our emergency contact for this mission?”
“Yeah, but...”
“They told me they’d used electricity, kid,” Hannibal says in a low voice, rubbing the other man’s shoulder, trying to reassure him. “You’re getting checked out.”
Face looks at the doctor, and back to Hannibal. Nods.
“You want me to come?”
His eyes tear up spontaneously, wet emotion that doesn’t fall, and he shakes his head. Hannibal gives the major the room key and settles down to wait, lost in the haze of his own guilty conscious. Thought isn't working right now. He can't process this. He just knows he's done something unforgivable. There's no coming back from it.
The major’s back down in an hour or maybe longer, fingering one of those little hotel bottles of Jack from the minibar. He sits down next to Hannibal, a secluded part of the lobby, nobody else around anyway, and leans forward a little so his voice doesn’t carry.
“Boy was beaten pretty bad. Cracked a few ribs, but he says he’s had worse...”
“He has.”
“Right, I mean about the ribs. He doesn’t appear to have any internal bleeding. Those contact burns... I’ve got some stuff for that, I’ll write you a list. The bruising will heal up on its own, and I stitched up some of the worst cuts, bandaged the rest.” He adjusts his glasses. “He said I could talk to you about this. There’s... something else.”
Hannibal’s heart starts pounding again, even though he knows what it is. Everything in him, even his body, is responding to the necessity of a con. He hates himself for it. Hates that he has to lie and pretend like he doesn’t know. “What?”
“He was raped. Big guy, too. There’s some... damage.”
“Did you...”
“Yeah, got him cleaned up, took care of what I could. But he’s going to need, well... it’s not something I typically see. What the fuck happened to you boys?”
“Local triads.”
The doctor blinks. “Shit, I’m switching my diagnosis from shocked he’s taken this much damage to amazed he’s still alive.”
“Anything else?”
Hesitation. “No, I’ll, shit...” He hands him the room key. “It’s good to see you, John.”
“You too, Mike.”
He rips a piece of paper out of his notebook, neat recommendations for treatment written there. Hannibal takes it. He feels leaden. “Take care of him. The long term effects of this sort of thing...”
“He’s a Ranger, Mike,” Hannibal says with a confidence he doesn’t feel, with worry he most certainly does, and that’s that.
He heads up, his heart in his throat, finds Face sprawled out over one of the clean twin beds, laying on his belly, pillow clamped down over his head, shaking.
Hannibal pulls a chair over, not wanting to sit next to the kid, not really wanting to touch him, not having the right to anything anymore. He’s violated his lieutenant, the man he claims he loves, and for a horrible second, he wonders if he did the wrong thing and it would have been better to just be shot.
But he pushes that away and finds words again. “How are you doing, kid?”
There’s nothing. Then a muffled, “he told you?”
“Yeah.” Hannibal can barely answer.
Face rolls over on his side, losing the pillow and staring straight at Hannibal. He reaches out for a hand, pushing his fingers in between Hannibal’s, closing the tips down hard on the backs of Hannibal’s knuckles, pulling him close. Hannibal gets down on his knees. Their noses are almost touching.
“I’m sorry,” Face says.
Something breaks in Hannibal. “Wh...why are you sorry, kid? That’s insane, this wasn’t your...”
Those tears are back and this close, it’s pretty clear that he’s been drugged out a little, just for right now and just for the pain. Mike must have done locals for the stitches... “I wanted you, you know, t’be my first, boss,” he says, slurring a little, eyelids fluttering, hand relaxing, slipping away. “But now...I’m sorry...”
Hannibal kisses the top of his head and holds his hand until he falls asleep, then falls back against the nightstand and cries until the tears won’t come anymore.
+++++
Once he recovers a little, enough to stand up and walk to the desk and keep his voice even, Hannibal calls BA. It’s a stupid thing to do from the room, he knows he should go use a pay phone or something, but he’s not leaving Face alone.
“Hannibal? Did you find him?”
The second it became apparent that Face had been snapped up by the triads they’d just spent the last month fucking with, Hannibal ordered BA and Murdock out of town. Hadn’t told them where to go or how long to stay in one place. Face’s condition was a pretty sobering example of why Hannibal hadn’t wanted to know where they were - the Chinese could easily have come after the rest of his boys, too.
“Where’d you end up?”
“You told me...”
“Close enough to Seattle?”
“I can be there in a couple hours. This fool’s drivin’ me crazy. Where you at?”
Hannibal wonders if the boss’s protection extends past the warehouse. Into tomorrow. Over Murdock and BA as well. It’s a chance he’s going to have to take. “Face needs to sleep.”
“How bad?” BA’s tone shifts, and Hannibal can almost see him starting to puff up, ready to go get those bastards who hurt his friend.
Hannibal looks over his shoulder, back towards the narrow bed where Face is sprawled out on his stomach, pillow rolled against his side, naked under white sheets that are spotted here and there with red, a livid mark on the back of his neck exactly the size of Hannibal’s hand. He shudders.
“Pretty bad. He didn’t tell me much,” at least that’s true, “and you’re not going to ask.”
“Did they...”
“No, he’s still in one piece.” Physically, that little voice in his head says and his stomach rumbles threateningly. “Doc’s got him drugged up. When he comes to in the morning, I’ll see if he’s doing well enough to move.”
There’s a pause, like BA’s taking in everything Hannibal’s not saying, and he can hear Murdock babbling something in the background. “He’s got a point,” the big sergeant says. “How’d you get him out, boss?”
“Be ready when I call tomorrow,” Hannibal says, and lays the receiver back down in the cradle. He’s still watching Face, that steady rise and fall of the kid’s chest a reassuring sight, letting him know that the drugs are helping his boy find some peace right now.
There’s none for him.
He’s glad. That’s the why it should be.
And that’s the way it’s going to be from now on.
+++++
Hannibal’s not exactly sure what he was expecting from the kid today. He’s fairly certain it wasn’t this. He can’t quite figure out what this is.
Face is in the back, playing some game with Murdock that involves looking for Audis and hitting the other one first when they spot one on the freeway through the windshield, the two of them giggling like idiots, an occasional coherent sentence drifting forward to where BA’s just shaking his head and pretending like it's really pissing him off, and Hannibal’s pretending like he’s working on something really important and can't possibly take part in the bickering.
Face is leaning over the back of his seat now, bandaged wrist clearly in view, blood blisters over his knuckles. Poking him.
It’s so at odds with the way he was when Hannibal woke him up this morning, a light hand on his shoulder. It was ten and he’d called BA already - Hannibal was not taking chances - and Face had to get up so they could get going.
There was some confusion in those beautiful blue eyes, then recognition and relief, trust showing there that Hannibal doesn’t deserve anymore.
“Hey boss.”
“Hey, kid. BA’s on his way...”
But that was as far as he’d gotten before Face had sat up and pressed into him, catlike, begging for a hug, for contact, and Hannibal had let himself fall into that temptation, opened his arms and held his boy. For a moment, reveling in the closeness like he always does, before his brain started working again and he remembered.
He’d pulled back. “You should have something clean in your luggage.”
Face’s eyes rolled over to the wall, a little snort. “Right,” he said and let himself fall back into the sheets and groan.
Now he’s whispering something, wants something... what? Is he speaking English?
“French toast? You want french toast?”
“Oui,” Face says with a grin, tapping him a little harder. Hannibal looks up. At least some of the swelling’s gone down. “IHOP at the next exit, BA.”
“Ohh,” Murdock chimes in, clapping. “Rooty Tooty Fresh’n’Fruity!”
“Only thing fruity in here’s you, Murdock! Hannibal, you are not sugaring these two up and makin’ me drive back to LA,” BA growls. "I'm gonna kill one of them. They bad like this!"
“Next exit, BA,” Face repeats. “Blueberry syrup, man, big stack of pancakes, so good...”
“Sittdown, fool!”
“Hannibal,” and the kid’s got that fake whine in his voice that Hannibal secretly loves, “come on. Four days of getting electrocuted doesn’t earn me french toast? With artery-clogging bacon? And hot chocolate?”
“Come on. When I get that done to me, they call it therapy,” Murdock jokes.
“Yeah, buddy, but you get it done by one of those cute little nurses in those slutty little outfits.”
“Naw, Facey, they all look like men.”
“And you’re telling me you’re not into that?”
“What, they didn’t have some leather-clad dominatrix doing it for ya, Face?” BA laughs.
“Sorta.” Face’s tone is light. “She was this cute little thing in one of those dragon-print dresses, something out of a goddamn James Bond mov... Bosco, get over! You’re going to miss the turn-off!”
“Better take it, BA,” Hannibal sighs, the memory of the secretary still fresh in his mind, her pale little hands tugging him away from where Face lay in a pool of his own blood on the raw floor...
“Oh, Dairy Queen!” Murdock practically squeals. “Can we do ice cream after?”
“No!” Hannibal and BA both yell at the same time, BA grumbling to himself about some damn crazy fools who’re beggin’ for a beatin’, Hannibal telling himself that this is normal. If you’re not dead, it’s funny, if you lived, you have to celebrate, that Face never takes anything seriously anyway, and it’s probably better that he doesn’t start now.
It’s better.
He can let go. It’s better that he can. Face doesn’t need him right now. Face shouldn’t need him right now. Definitely better like this.
Hannibal lets himself relax, just a little.
But when they’re done with IHOP, and all the genuine hilarity of Face flirting with the waitress, looking like he does and Murdock telling her that it’s BA’s birthday and the look on the big guy’s face when he came back from the bathroom, and the I-5 and goddamn LA traffic and Murdock’s back at the hospital and BA’s dropping Hannibal off at his current apartment, Face jumps out after him, bag in hand.
“What are you doing, Face?” he asks, in no mood for this.
“Coming with you,” the kid says, that smirk of his on that handsome, battered face. “Don’t you wanna make sure I don’t go try to get laid tonight? Keep me out of trouble?”
“You’re a big boy. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he says. He can’t do this right now. The strain of the day’s wearing on him. He just wants to go polish off that fifth’s of Jack that sitting by the sink and forget any of this ever happened, forget the way the kid’s body felt, clenching around him... he starts walking, fumbling for keys.
“I’m sorry,” Face says. Again. It freezes the blood in Hannibal’s veins and he stops at the door, key half in the lock. There’s a hand on his shoulder. “I guess I was flying pretty high on the happy pills last night...”
“That’s got nothing to do with it, kid.”
“Then... you don’t mind?” It’s hopeful. It’s horrible.
Hannibal tightens his fist, feeling the teeth of the keys bite into his palm. “No, kid, I don’t but...but you’ve been through... something, and that’s...”
“Been through what, Hannibal?” he says, trying to laugh. “We’ve all, you know, that...”
“I know, kid.”
“I... I don’t want to be alone tonight, boss.”
Hannibal puts both hands on the kid’s shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “This is not the way to start something, kid. Not the time.”
“I’m not asking for that.” Face leans forward a little, a hand closing down over the top of Hannibal’s outstretched arm, playing with the sleeve of his jacket, tightening down, and Hannibal would give anything, anything at all right now to let himself lean into that. If he had anything left to give. He’s pretty sure he left his soul in that warehouse, soaking into the porous floor of the little interrogation room, the price of Face’s life. He’s got nothing left to offer the kid now. “Just this. Please.”
Hannibal lets a hand run up into that soft hair, savoring the feeling, tightening down a little, playing, better than when he did this yesterday. It’s not caked in sweat and oil and filth, and that realization makes him pull back, palms clammy in the evening air. But the kid's leaning forward a little more, eyes half-closed, clearly wanting something that Hannibal can't give him.
He's ashamed.
“Good night, Face.”
His boy opens his eyes fully, the brightness fading a little. “Right, too soon,” he says, nodding and looking away. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Hannibal waits on the step until Face gets back in the van, tosses his bag behind him into the back, he and BA clearly having some kind of conversation about it, one that involves a lot of gestures and hand motions and probably confused words. BA shoots Hannibal a look, too far away to read, and the former colonel sags against the door frame as they drive away into the night.
+++++
It’s actually a couple of days, more like a week, ten days, maybe twelve, before Hannibal sees Face again. He’s supposed to hold a team debriefing the day after they get back, every time they go out. Old military habit that’s still proving pretty useful. Examine the op, list out lessons-learned, things that went well and things that didn’t. But what’s Hannibal supposed to say this time? Sorry guys, I had to rape Face, let’s remember to not fuck with international organized crime in the future? Is that really going to help anybody?
But the boys like their patterns, and BA calls him and he can’t keep deleting his voicemail and it turns into a very uncomfortable hour. Face is still acting like there’s nothing wrong, although the lactic acid and bruising and knitting-up scar tissue is clearly getting the best of his body. He’s a little too happy, a little too excited, a little too touchy-feely with Murdock.
So, the briefing? It’s an exercise in futility, nothing really accomplished, and Hannibal’s folding up his notes when he sees Face and Murdock down the way, near the door of the BA’s garage where they hold these things. Hannibal pauses, watching.
They’re talking, and it ends with Murdock patting Face on the shoulder and BA pulling him away, and then Face is walking towards him, tailored suit hanging loose around him. He looks smaller, somehow, hunched into himself.
“Can we talk?”
Hannibal nods.
There’s a little office in the back, one that BA rarely uses, desk and a battered sofa. Hannibal takes the edge of the desk and Face flops down gratefully, holding a hand against his side, trying to find a good position.
“Worst part about cracked ribs, impossible to get comfortable,” he says, eyes fixed on Hannibal.
He doesn’t have a cigar on him. He could really use a cigar right now. “What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Boss, have you been avoiding me?”
“No, kid, I...”
“Because, I mean, you basically threw me out that night.”
“You weren’t in my apartment, kid.”
“Fuck, Hannibal, you know what I mean,” Face snaps, throwing up his hands. “I’m sorry about what I said, your doc buddy drugged me...”
“I already told you, I’m not...”
“...bothered by that, yeah, I got that. Doesn’t mean you want it. Doesn’t mean you want me.” That last bit’s whispered.
Hannibal slides off the edge of the desk and takes an empty section of cushion. He lets a hand drop to the kid’s leg, notices a little bit of a wince as it lands. “You’re the best man I’ve ever served with, Face...”
“Don’t give me that party-line bullshit, Hannibal! It doesn’t mean anything!”
He lets his face drop into the other hand. “Kid, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m...”
He’s not looking at the kid, so he doesn’t notice anything before the explosion occurs. “Do you know what I had to fucking do in there ? Did they tell you? Because that wasn’t easy, sitting there, taking that, and, and now you won’t even look at me! What happened? Damaged goods in your unit no fucking good to you, boss?”
“Face...” and Hannibal gathers the courage to look up and over at his boy. He’s flush with rage, eyes shining with those tears again, fists balling so hard the scabs on his hands are starting to tear loose. He wants to end this, to stop it before Face say it and he hears it, because he knows where this is going. But there’s no stopping the kid now that he’s going and Hannibal can’t. He doesn’t deserve anything, any consideration.
“I don’t give a shit about the torture, whatever, it happens, comes with the territory, trained for it, whatever the fuck, but I had to lay there and take it from some asshole when it, when it, it, it should have been...” He pauses for air, and Hannibal finds himself sucking air. The little office seems close, too close. “...but that’s all past now and some bullshit that is, but I know how you are, your whole damn nobility thing, poor Face, poor kid, and, and... fuck, John, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh god...”
And with that, the storm seems to have broken, and so has Face, and the kid’s hugging his own chest and he can’t hold back those tears anymore. The same tears that drenched the blindfold are drenching his shirt.
Hannibal doesn’t know what to do, just runs his hand a little further up, squeezing, unable to stop himself from responding to this massive outpouring of emotion. He wants to pick the kid up and take him away from all of this. He wants to leave him alone. He wants to drive him back into the ancient piece of furniture and kiss him until there’s no breath left for tears or sadness or anger or lies. God, how he hates the lies...
“That, that, Face...”
The kid lifts his face a little, their eyes meeting, an endless sea of regret flooding out of him through that perfect blue. Hannibal’s done this. The past two weeks, the rest of his boy’s life. He’s done this to him, taken his peace away, taken more, things he can’t give back, and he’s so sick of the lies.
“I did it for you, boss, I let it, didn’t stop it, they told me...”
Hannibal looks away and drops his hand. “...that they’d kill you if I didn’t do it.”
“Yeah, exactly, they...” and Face stops. And Hannibal’s heart skips a beat. And hands are yanking him around at an almost painful angle. “That they’d kill me? Or kill you?”
Hannibal knows he’s going to lose him. Right here, right now. Something black shudders through him and he accepts that. He should be feeling like this.
“Kill both of us unless...” he pauses, continues. “... unless we completely lost face in front of them, unless I abused you, violated...that they’d kill you, Temp...”
His voice fails, and there’s nothing more to say anyway, so he stands up and walks towards the door, leaning hard against the jam with one arm, seeing it again, his boy, crumpled, the smell of it, that scream. His head drops below his elbow, hard on the splintered wood, overwhelmed.
Face, screaming.
Face, talking. Talking? Asking him a question?
“It was you?"
Hannibal nods. “I’m sorry. I failed you, Temp. There was no third option, but I didn’t make the right choice, I failed you...”
He hears Face get up and his hand goes for the knob. He can’t turn around, can’t look, can’t see it, can’t face this, and he has to get out of here, right now.
“John?”
It’s tentative, quiet, unsure, and Hannibal shuffles just far enough around to see the kid’s vicious right hook coming straight for his left ear.
He doesn’t argue with it at all. Just goes down in a bloom of pain, nerves screaming as he spins around, staggers back, collides with the office wall, shaking old photographs of old cars. Face is breathing hard, head cocked just a little, like he’s looking for something, but Hannibal’s empty, nothing to see, and Face hits him again. And again. And again.
Stomach’s next after the kid opens his hand, going for the palm-heel, blood flowing from his knuckles, beating the air out of him, bending him in half, and an elbow comes down hard on an exposed shoulder and Hannibal collapses with a grunt. There’s no fighting back, not against this, not Face, who has every right to be jerking him back up and throwing him, throwing him halfway across the room to catch the desk across his hips and fall backwards at an angle and with a force that’s trying to snap his spine.
It’s fast and it’s brutal. Everything’s spinning, nothing solid, nothing still, least of all the kid, who’s got some unreadable expression on his face as he storms over and drives Hannibal up and backwards over the desk, legs off the ground, hands pressing him down by the throat, thumbs pressing down against his windpipe with a crushing force that can only be coming from pure rage, and it’s only when Hannibal’s vision begins to gray, and then whites around the edges, that he starts fighting, clawing up, pushing against that arm, thrashing against the hips holding his down, pained grunts escaping now.
His body’s decision, not his. As far as Hannibal’s concerned, if Face wants to kill him for what he did, it’s a fair price, because his boy made it through that fucked-up day alive, and Face could have easily taken those goons apart, and there’s a surge of pride in Hannibal’s chest jut as his limbs start to tingle with the first stages of oxygen deprivation...
...and the pressure’s gone. His body’s on the floor. He starts coughing, hacking, rolling onto his side and curling up from the force of it. Sensation starts to return.
Warm hands are rubbing up and down him now, soothing his chest, gentle and easy. A mouth, soft against his ear, kissing his jaw.
“Face, I’m...”
“Did you feel that?” Face asks, heavy with emotion, kneeling over him. “Alive, boss. I'm alive. Goddamn it, you’re alive. You’re still here...we're here, together, cause you, you did that for... me...” and anything else Face wants to say is lost as words fail him and the exertion gets the best of him and he’s crumbling apart, weeping openly.
Hannibal pushes himself up, lip split, something warm leaking above his eye. He wipes what he can away on the black of a now-ripped sleeve and pulls the sobbing lieutenant into his arms, holding him as tightly and completely as he can, careful of the bandages, rocking slightly. Hannibal lays his head down on top of Face’s, and Face’s fingers tangle into Hannibal’s shirt and soon enough, that’s not enough, and they both lift away at the same time.
Hannibal looks down and Face looks up and their lips crash together with no less violence and no less force than Face was using to beat some sense into the colonel only moments before. It’s soft, almost hesitant at first, neither man sure what the other needs quite yet, and then Face sighs and Hannibal takes advantage and opens his boy up and sort of tightens a hand against the kid’s back and there’s a coppery taste from Hannibal’s busted lip and something else, something wonderful, that’s uniquely Face. Light licks, slow exploration, connection, exactly what he's always wanted, exactly what he feared he'd lost.
Beautiful.
Time passes, or possibly doesn’t, just like that, until Hannibal breaks it off, gasping, his throat still raw. Face whimpers a little and leans his forehead against Hannibal’s.
“I thought I’d lost you, John,” he whispers. “Do you still want me? Damaged goods you’ve already opened?” and there’s an encouraging little tease in the words, and a disturbing bit of pain.
Hannibal smiles, despite himself and kisses Face again. Smartass. If you live through it, celebrate. He loves the way the kid shudders when he does this. He's going to enjoy learning more about that later on. “Hmm, but you’re my damaged goods.”
“Opened me up. Can’t return me now. Strict no return policy,” Face murmurs, planting a hand between them, teasing a nipple through Hannibal’s shirt. “Stuck with me.” The kid smirks.
“What?”
“You look like shit, boss.”
Hannibal takes a good look at his boy. Bruises are fading to yellow now, bright pink scar tissue replacing open wounds, his hands busted up again, hair ruined, a lopsided grin on his face. “And you’re beautiful.”
Face bites his own lip and starts chuckling. “You are so full of it, boss.”
“What? You are!” Hannibal protests, only able to stay serious for a moment, that wonderful sound infectious, lifting his spirits, lifting his own free, until they’re both laughing so hard Hannibal’s worried that Face is going to re-injure his ribs. And there’s still tension in the kid’s body and a slight resistance against his arms, and it gets a little worse as it dies down, and he’s not even sure if the kid’s aware of it.
Hurt in there, fear, a lot of residual pain. Hannibal makes a note of it. Boy’s not out of the woods yet. He’ll wait. However long it takes, he’s going to wait. But he doesn’t say that, just thumps Face’s back lightly instead, and grins at him.
“Now, kid, tell me. Why’d you hit your commanding officer?”
“Do you think you’d accept my forgiveness without that?” Face replies, a twinkle in his eye, and Hannibal feels light, warm, at those simple words.
“Then, then I’m...”
“Such a stubborn bastard sometimes? Oh, hell yes.”
And then they’re laughing again, and that’s how BA finds them on the floor of his office, curled up into each other, every inch of Face trying to press against every inch of Hannibal. Face waves, grinning. “Crazy fools,” he mutters, and walks back out again, setting off a fresh round of laughter.
Damn, Hannibal thinks as his sides start to cramp and he kisses Face's cheek, but it’s good to be alive.
