Only One Choice
Nov. 11th, 2010 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: pg
Warnings: non-con
Summary: A corollary fic for this prompt on the kink meme and my No Third Option fill.
Hannibal won’t let Face stay at his apartment after the rape in No Third Option. BA lets him come back with him. Purely a scene-filler fic for another lovely author!
Face taps BA on the shoulder. “I’m going with him.”
The sergeant frowns a little. “I’ll wait til you get inside.”
Face hops out, feeling the jar in his chest above his lungs as he grabs his stuff. He shouldn’t be doing this, but he has to. Hannibal’s been weird all day, yesterday too. Ever since Face came out into that waiting area, relieved to see his commander alive and whole, crushed to see him so... reserved seems like the wrong word. Barely touched him, barely responded, and Face is terrified that Hannibal saw what happened. He’s been thinking about it all day.
What if Hannibal was on the other side of the glass, gun pressed to his head, forced to watch some tattooed criminial tear his lieutenant apart, helpless, like he hates? It’s going to chew him up. Probably going to chew him up, regardless. The man knows. He told the doc it was okay to tell him. He knows how much Hannibal hates unknown quantities and Face isn’t arrogant enough to think that he’s going to be all hunky-dorey with this... this thing. Hannibal has a right to know, in case there are issues and Face trusts him implicitly, so what’s the harm, he thought?
Wrong answer. Seems to be making everything worse
It’s true what he tells the boss. He doesn’t want to be alone, not tonight, when everything hurts and painkillers give him such bizarre dreams. But it’s more than that.
He needs to know if they’re still okay. He needs to make sure that Hannibal’s okay.
It’s hard to tell. The boss is stand-offish, cold, tight and coiled into himself, not even giving Face the most basic comfort of a kiss. And worse, Hannibal won’t let him come in.
The lieutenant knows exactly how injured he is. Everything aches, bruises restricting movement, stitches stinging. Face honestly doesn’t want anything more than to sleep on the man’s sofa and tease him in the morning over coffee and maybe kiss him, just to let him know that everything’s okay and that they’re both still here. That Hannibal’s still here, and that it was worth it for that very reason. He doesn't want to be alone.
Then Hannibal touches him, plays a big hand through his hair, and Face has to stop himself from turning into it and kissing the palm, savoring the taste of this man. He closes his eyes, unable to stop himself from leaning forward, eyes fluttering, not brave enough to look. Offering. Can’t Hannibal see what he’s asking for, what he’s willing to give, what they need to do here?
Guess not, because that hand? It’s gone now, the reassuring sensation fading and leaving him cold in the night.
“Good night, Face,” Hannibal says, voice low and eyes hard. Set, like he does when he’s done talking about something.
That’s it, then. He opens his eyes, shifts his gaze, feeling like an idiot. “Right, too soon.” But he can’t just leave like that. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Hannibal replies, but there’s no conviction behind it at all. Face’s heart sinks. He’s lost him. If he can ever say he really had the man at all.
“Thanks for staying,” Face tells BA, slinging his bag in the back again and flopping into the passenger’s seat.
“Boss been weird today, Face.”
“Tell me about it,” he grumbles, and looks down at his hand. It hurts to move it, but that doesn’t stop him as the anger suddenly boils over. “God fucking damn it, Bosco! What hell is wrong with him? ”
“Face, man’s pretty beat up over what happened to you...”
“Enough to let me sleep on his fucking sofa?” he moans, and he can’t seem to get that chill of out his bones. A dull, throbbing thing. “Shit, BA, I can’t...they grabbed me when you guys were out... it's just...”
BA throws the van into drive, anger showing in the cant of his shoulders. “I got an extra bed. You’re welcome to it, man.”
Face realizes he’s all tensed up and it’s causing his sore back muscles to spasm. He collapses back against the seat. It's better than nothing, and it's generous coming from BA. “Thanks, Bosco.”
“No worries,” BA tells him.
Hannibal's still out front, and Face imagines he sees the man holding a hand in a little half-wave and maybe there's some grief, some regret, in the way the man's slumping down against the entrance wall...
You fucking idiot, Peck, Face tells himself as BA pulls away and cages his eyes forward on the empty road. Hannibal doesn’t want you.
+++++
BA’s got a little apartment over his personal chop shop. He works on other people’s cars, commission and word of mouth kind of stuff only, the sort of business in a part of town where nobody much seems to care if you come home well after one AM with a shotgun in hand and a friend who’s clearly been through hell. Face had asked why he’d live in a neighborhood like this, and BA had just shrugged and told him, somebody gotta set a good example for the kids ‘round here.
The apartment’s small, tight, neat. Things are precisely placed, sparse furniture well cared for, his kitchen organized as he goes for a beer. He holds one out to Face and goes to turn on the heat.
Face inspects the tiny place. The man would deny it until the end of time, but BA’s far more military than the rest of them. Face chalks that up to the differences between officers and enlisted, how you train, what you learn. Three years as a civilian before, eight years in special ops and a year on the run hasn’t done anything to erase those habits from the big black man. There are still signs of it, his corporal rank and the battalion coin framed in the shadowbox Murdock gave him. Photos. Deployments, full of people from before his discharge. One of his mother helping pin on his private-first-class rank at a promotion ceremony. American flag in the background. Everybody smiling. BA’s got to be nineteen in it.
Face picks this last one up. BA’s one of those guys who joined up as a means of escaping a terrible situation. He’s admitted before that if he hadn’t, he’d probably be working as a clerk in a liquor store or as a dealer, something like that. Face can relate to the sense of limited options, at least.
But BA’s got family, friends from before, people, the way the military’s supposed to support its folks. Made him damn loyal. Made him a great soldier.
Face never had any of that. Doesn’t now, didn’t then. Weren’t very many other officers who were good for anything beyond shop talk and darts at the Club. No girl he was ever serious about, except for Sosa and that had been a disaster. Wasn’t anybody from before, growing up in orphanages and foster homes. All those years, alone...
There’s been one constant, though. And that’s what made him a good soldier.
He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if that’s gone now.
“You need to sleep,” BA says, coming back in and taking the photo. “Hannibal gonna kill me if I let you just...”
“Hannibal was the only one at my first promotion,” Face says quietly. “You’re real lucky, man.”
“He like your family, ain’t he? Gotta be hard, not having that...”
“It’s gotta be hard, leaving it behind,” Face says, cutting him off.
BA thumbs the glass of the picture and smiles a little. “Naw, I still see Ma sometimes, and she understands. Can’t really lose ‘em.”
“Friends?”
“People you care ‘bout, who care ‘bout you. They never go away,” BA replies. “Like you guys.”
Face groans, a shot of pain running through him again. Breathing too deep. The other man helps him ease down to the sofa. “What if they do, Bosco?”
“Man, Hannibal’s just... he really beatin’ himself up right now. You should have seen him when we realized you was gone. Never seen him like that.”
“Yeah, well, fuck, I’ve never seen him like this,” Face says darkly.
BA hesitates, like he wants to ask something but can’t quite, then shakes his head and goes for it. “How’d he get you out of there?”
“It’s not what he did, what I let happen, or something like that,” Face says with a shrug, and watches his friend’s expression darken, that temper coming out now, and he holds up his hands against it. “Wasn’t much choice about it.”
“Need to talk about it?” BA offers. He’s a little nervous about asking, a little worried about a yes answer. It’s in the way he’s standing right now. It’s a brave offer to make, and Face has no doubt that BA will listen to whatever he’s got to say. He’s continually surprised by the philosophic streak that seems to run through this man. He’s glad it’s there tonight.
But he can’t think of what to say. Something like, I let somebody rape me so Hannibal wouldn’t get killed, or perhaps I’ve been in love with boss ever since we met what-do-you-think-about-that or how about while it was going on, the only thing I could think about was him or a dozen other things that men did not ever say to one other? It’s man code. That crap’s not discussed.
Neither is he should have been my first and last and only. Wouldn’t do to say that.
And that’s really what’s been eating at Face today and yesterday, too. His half-whispered confession, the one Hannibal doesn’t seem to give a damn about, inarticulate but accurate. It should have been Hannibal. It should have been long and drawn out and frustrating, an exploration of unknown territory, memorization, exploitation of weaknessess until both of them were breathless and laughing and hard and moving against one another. It should have been Hannibal, spreading his legs, pressing into him, rocking inside of him, hands smoothing hips, little gasps and declarations of how good it was, how perfect they were together, of how it should have been this way all along, how it always has been.
Insane. Clearly, he’s insane, and it’s not fair to Hannibal and certainly not fair to him, tormenting himself with these things...
Face feels something hot on his cheeks and fuck, he is not going to tear up in front of BA.
The black man puts his photograph back and finishes off his beer in one long swig, eyes intent, watching. There’s nothing judgmental there.
“The sofa folds out, but it’s shit. You want the bed?” he finally says, and Face has never been more grateful to anyone in his life for speaking.
“Couch is fine. Got a blanket?”
“Everything gonna be okay, man,” BA says, getting a quilt and a pillow from a little closet and tossing it lightly on the end of the couch. The quilt looks like something his mom might have made him. Face fingers it lightly as he unfolds it. Nice work. “You hear me? It all gonna work out, whatever it is.”
“Right.”
“You need me to...”
“I’m okay, Bosco, thanks,” Face says, and curls up, waiting for BA to leave, trying not to remember the way that felt inside him.
It should have been Hannibal, and maybe that’s why Face kept thinking about him while it was happening. Imagining those hands holding him down were Hannibal’s, that the blow to his ear was incredibly like the one the boss throws when they’re sparring, that the hard stomach against his hips was scarred just like Hannibal’s, that Hannibal was hung and would feel like that, his mind telling him it really was the boss doing all those things, that they were far away from all the horrible pain, that Hannibal was taking him away to someplace he’d always wanted to go...
...hoping that he could rip off the blindfold and the cuffs and whisper to him that everything was going to be alright, that everything was more than alright now, now that they were together, that he loves him...
Face buries himself in the pillow, hugging it close so BA can’t hear the wracking sobs, and cries until he’s hollowed out all his grief.
Hannibal’s never going to touch him now.
And it was still worth it.
Rating: pg
Warnings: non-con
Summary: A corollary fic for this prompt on the kink meme and my No Third Option fill.
Hannibal won’t let Face stay at his apartment after the rape in No Third Option. BA lets him come back with him. Purely a scene-filler fic for another lovely author!
Face taps BA on the shoulder. “I’m going with him.”
The sergeant frowns a little. “I’ll wait til you get inside.”
Face hops out, feeling the jar in his chest above his lungs as he grabs his stuff. He shouldn’t be doing this, but he has to. Hannibal’s been weird all day, yesterday too. Ever since Face came out into that waiting area, relieved to see his commander alive and whole, crushed to see him so... reserved seems like the wrong word. Barely touched him, barely responded, and Face is terrified that Hannibal saw what happened. He’s been thinking about it all day.
What if Hannibal was on the other side of the glass, gun pressed to his head, forced to watch some tattooed criminial tear his lieutenant apart, helpless, like he hates? It’s going to chew him up. Probably going to chew him up, regardless. The man knows. He told the doc it was okay to tell him. He knows how much Hannibal hates unknown quantities and Face isn’t arrogant enough to think that he’s going to be all hunky-dorey with this... this thing. Hannibal has a right to know, in case there are issues and Face trusts him implicitly, so what’s the harm, he thought?
Wrong answer. Seems to be making everything worse
It’s true what he tells the boss. He doesn’t want to be alone, not tonight, when everything hurts and painkillers give him such bizarre dreams. But it’s more than that.
He needs to know if they’re still okay. He needs to make sure that Hannibal’s okay.
It’s hard to tell. The boss is stand-offish, cold, tight and coiled into himself, not even giving Face the most basic comfort of a kiss. And worse, Hannibal won’t let him come in.
The lieutenant knows exactly how injured he is. Everything aches, bruises restricting movement, stitches stinging. Face honestly doesn’t want anything more than to sleep on the man’s sofa and tease him in the morning over coffee and maybe kiss him, just to let him know that everything’s okay and that they’re both still here. That Hannibal’s still here, and that it was worth it for that very reason. He doesn't want to be alone.
Then Hannibal touches him, plays a big hand through his hair, and Face has to stop himself from turning into it and kissing the palm, savoring the taste of this man. He closes his eyes, unable to stop himself from leaning forward, eyes fluttering, not brave enough to look. Offering. Can’t Hannibal see what he’s asking for, what he’s willing to give, what they need to do here?
Guess not, because that hand? It’s gone now, the reassuring sensation fading and leaving him cold in the night.
“Good night, Face,” Hannibal says, voice low and eyes hard. Set, like he does when he’s done talking about something.
That’s it, then. He opens his eyes, shifts his gaze, feeling like an idiot. “Right, too soon.” But he can’t just leave like that. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Hannibal replies, but there’s no conviction behind it at all. Face’s heart sinks. He’s lost him. If he can ever say he really had the man at all.
“Thanks for staying,” Face tells BA, slinging his bag in the back again and flopping into the passenger’s seat.
“Boss been weird today, Face.”
“Tell me about it,” he grumbles, and looks down at his hand. It hurts to move it, but that doesn’t stop him as the anger suddenly boils over. “God fucking damn it, Bosco! What hell is wrong with him? ”
“Face, man’s pretty beat up over what happened to you...”
“Enough to let me sleep on his fucking sofa?” he moans, and he can’t seem to get that chill of out his bones. A dull, throbbing thing. “Shit, BA, I can’t...they grabbed me when you guys were out... it's just...”
BA throws the van into drive, anger showing in the cant of his shoulders. “I got an extra bed. You’re welcome to it, man.”
Face realizes he’s all tensed up and it’s causing his sore back muscles to spasm. He collapses back against the seat. It's better than nothing, and it's generous coming from BA. “Thanks, Bosco.”
“No worries,” BA tells him.
Hannibal's still out front, and Face imagines he sees the man holding a hand in a little half-wave and maybe there's some grief, some regret, in the way the man's slumping down against the entrance wall...
You fucking idiot, Peck, Face tells himself as BA pulls away and cages his eyes forward on the empty road. Hannibal doesn’t want you.
+++++
BA’s got a little apartment over his personal chop shop. He works on other people’s cars, commission and word of mouth kind of stuff only, the sort of business in a part of town where nobody much seems to care if you come home well after one AM with a shotgun in hand and a friend who’s clearly been through hell. Face had asked why he’d live in a neighborhood like this, and BA had just shrugged and told him, somebody gotta set a good example for the kids ‘round here.
The apartment’s small, tight, neat. Things are precisely placed, sparse furniture well cared for, his kitchen organized as he goes for a beer. He holds one out to Face and goes to turn on the heat.
Face inspects the tiny place. The man would deny it until the end of time, but BA’s far more military than the rest of them. Face chalks that up to the differences between officers and enlisted, how you train, what you learn. Three years as a civilian before, eight years in special ops and a year on the run hasn’t done anything to erase those habits from the big black man. There are still signs of it, his corporal rank and the battalion coin framed in the shadowbox Murdock gave him. Photos. Deployments, full of people from before his discharge. One of his mother helping pin on his private-first-class rank at a promotion ceremony. American flag in the background. Everybody smiling. BA’s got to be nineteen in it.
Face picks this last one up. BA’s one of those guys who joined up as a means of escaping a terrible situation. He’s admitted before that if he hadn’t, he’d probably be working as a clerk in a liquor store or as a dealer, something like that. Face can relate to the sense of limited options, at least.
But BA’s got family, friends from before, people, the way the military’s supposed to support its folks. Made him damn loyal. Made him a great soldier.
Face never had any of that. Doesn’t now, didn’t then. Weren’t very many other officers who were good for anything beyond shop talk and darts at the Club. No girl he was ever serious about, except for Sosa and that had been a disaster. Wasn’t anybody from before, growing up in orphanages and foster homes. All those years, alone...
There’s been one constant, though. And that’s what made him a good soldier.
He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if that’s gone now.
“You need to sleep,” BA says, coming back in and taking the photo. “Hannibal gonna kill me if I let you just...”
“Hannibal was the only one at my first promotion,” Face says quietly. “You’re real lucky, man.”
“He like your family, ain’t he? Gotta be hard, not having that...”
“It’s gotta be hard, leaving it behind,” Face says, cutting him off.
BA thumbs the glass of the picture and smiles a little. “Naw, I still see Ma sometimes, and she understands. Can’t really lose ‘em.”
“Friends?”
“People you care ‘bout, who care ‘bout you. They never go away,” BA replies. “Like you guys.”
Face groans, a shot of pain running through him again. Breathing too deep. The other man helps him ease down to the sofa. “What if they do, Bosco?”
“Man, Hannibal’s just... he really beatin’ himself up right now. You should have seen him when we realized you was gone. Never seen him like that.”
“Yeah, well, fuck, I’ve never seen him like this,” Face says darkly.
BA hesitates, like he wants to ask something but can’t quite, then shakes his head and goes for it. “How’d he get you out of there?”
“It’s not what he did, what I let happen, or something like that,” Face says with a shrug, and watches his friend’s expression darken, that temper coming out now, and he holds up his hands against it. “Wasn’t much choice about it.”
“Need to talk about it?” BA offers. He’s a little nervous about asking, a little worried about a yes answer. It’s in the way he’s standing right now. It’s a brave offer to make, and Face has no doubt that BA will listen to whatever he’s got to say. He’s continually surprised by the philosophic streak that seems to run through this man. He’s glad it’s there tonight.
But he can’t think of what to say. Something like, I let somebody rape me so Hannibal wouldn’t get killed, or perhaps I’ve been in love with boss ever since we met what-do-you-think-about-that or how about while it was going on, the only thing I could think about was him or a dozen other things that men did not ever say to one other? It’s man code. That crap’s not discussed.
Neither is he should have been my first and last and only. Wouldn’t do to say that.
And that’s really what’s been eating at Face today and yesterday, too. His half-whispered confession, the one Hannibal doesn’t seem to give a damn about, inarticulate but accurate. It should have been Hannibal. It should have been long and drawn out and frustrating, an exploration of unknown territory, memorization, exploitation of weaknessess until both of them were breathless and laughing and hard and moving against one another. It should have been Hannibal, spreading his legs, pressing into him, rocking inside of him, hands smoothing hips, little gasps and declarations of how good it was, how perfect they were together, of how it should have been this way all along, how it always has been.
Insane. Clearly, he’s insane, and it’s not fair to Hannibal and certainly not fair to him, tormenting himself with these things...
Face feels something hot on his cheeks and fuck, he is not going to tear up in front of BA.
The black man puts his photograph back and finishes off his beer in one long swig, eyes intent, watching. There’s nothing judgmental there.
“The sofa folds out, but it’s shit. You want the bed?” he finally says, and Face has never been more grateful to anyone in his life for speaking.
“Couch is fine. Got a blanket?”
“Everything gonna be okay, man,” BA says, getting a quilt and a pillow from a little closet and tossing it lightly on the end of the couch. The quilt looks like something his mom might have made him. Face fingers it lightly as he unfolds it. Nice work. “You hear me? It all gonna work out, whatever it is.”
“Right.”
“You need me to...”
“I’m okay, Bosco, thanks,” Face says, and curls up, waiting for BA to leave, trying not to remember the way that felt inside him.
It should have been Hannibal, and maybe that’s why Face kept thinking about him while it was happening. Imagining those hands holding him down were Hannibal’s, that the blow to his ear was incredibly like the one the boss throws when they’re sparring, that the hard stomach against his hips was scarred just like Hannibal’s, that Hannibal was hung and would feel like that, his mind telling him it really was the boss doing all those things, that they were far away from all the horrible pain, that Hannibal was taking him away to someplace he’d always wanted to go...
...hoping that he could rip off the blindfold and the cuffs and whisper to him that everything was going to be alright, that everything was more than alright now, now that they were together, that he loves him...
Face buries himself in the pillow, hugging it close so BA can’t hear the wracking sobs, and cries until he’s hollowed out all his grief.
Hannibal’s never going to touch him now.
And it was still worth it.
