sonora_coneja (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sonora_coneja) wrote2010-11-15 11:59 pm
sonora_coneja) wrote2010-11-15 11:59 pm
Code of Conduct (Part 2/2)
Pairing: Murdock/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: dub-con (Murdock/Face), non-con (Murdock/OMC), violence
Summary: Second half of a fill for this prompt on the kink meme. Part One found here.
Murdock went crazy after being held captive - raped, tortured and forced to watch his friends killed - for several months. He's gay but incapable of giving consent to sex because any instance of a guy coming onto him gives him a bad case of flashback. The only person aware of that is Hannibal.
Face and he are sharing a bed one night and Face finally gives in to UST and starts to make advances at Murdock. Initially Murdock says no but Face thinks he's just shy and doesn't stop, until Murdock gives in. They have sex. Except that while Face was having sex with Murdock, Murdock was, in his head, back in his cell, being used by one of the guards, making sure to give the said guard a good time in exchange for food and not being tortured that night.
The next day all hell breaks lose when Murdock is incapable of snapping out of his flashback, convinced that Face and the rest are his captors; he's broken, freakishly obiedant and respectful, begging for mercy and offering Face more sexual favors in exchange for food.
Lots of Murdock!angst, freaking out Face, Hannibal wanting blood. And don't have Murdock snapping out of it after 10 minutes, have it lasting for days.
Face and Hannibal are trying to put the pieces together as Murdock continues to slide through his memories, reliving the loss of both his crew and his sanity. Face is determined to see it all through to the end, and Murdock's got no choice...
Murdock can’t remember how long he’s been here. Too long, really, he reflects. Any amount of time would be too long here. It’s one of those things he doesn’t want to think about. Time passing is a very bad thing, and Murdock doesn’t want to know how it’s getting along. They haven’t been keeping track. There’s no need.
Time’s marked out by their captors. Days aren’t important, just the intervals. That’s when they’re safe.
Right now, the times when they come and ask questions or don’t ask questions, when people end up dead, like right now, they are definitely not safe.
They're all outside, in the courtyard of this mansion where they’re being held. The basement cell is disgusting, but it's easy. Out here, it's harder. It’s warmer and the high adobe walls encircle a plethora of fruit trees and there’s the pleasant smell of cultivated lawn and the free air above, calling for him to return, step into the sky and fall away from all this...
Murdock grinds his teeth and drags his eyes back to the ground, back to what’s real. His thoughts haven’t been right since Will. Catches himself wandering, like he did when he was a kid and bored in class, but much worse. There’s too much to take in, too much, all the subtle little angles that he’s trying to figure out. He would be okay, but he can’t shut his brain off. It keeps working, working on any stimulation it gets, any question, any problem. And this? It's like chewing glass.
They’re prodded forward, out of the garden, into a small run behind the main house. Concrete, high walls, barbed wire. Murdock can’t scale that, not naked like he still is. Something new’s on the air, and he knows that smell. Confirmed as they turn the corner.
A kennel.
The breeze feels good on his skin, he notices, something inside him trying to crawl out and float away, and he bites his lip, pulling himself back here. He can’t fail his men. Whatever these bastards are planning on doing, the guys are going to need him here.
Chain link rattles, and the sergeant squeezes his hand, bumping into him, fear in her touch. So far, he’s managed to keep her safe.
Doesn’t mean four of his others haven’t died since then. He’s pretty sure they’re leaving her for last, but he doesn’t say that out loud. Never says anything other than rescue is coming and we’ll get our chance, ladies and stow that shit, we’re not going to die here. Five left. He’s going to get them home. They’re all going to die here. He can’t decide which. His brain won’t process it.
A metal gate slams shut behind them, and they’re inside. There’s barking, baying, starved voices rising above the stained concrete, scarred paws digging under the , a man in black combat fatigues they’ve never seen before watching them with the drug lord who owns this place.
One of those fucking teenagers is standing there next to him, and gestures to Murdock, then back over his shoulder.
This doesn’t really require any explanation.
“Pick,” the boss says, lighting a cigar. It’s a simple gesture, one that reminds the captain of the major who was keepng tabs on him, back in Panama. Dropped in on him every once in a while, included Murdock in his unit’s beer nights, the Ranger, what was his name...
Captain, can you hear me? We’re not going to let you go, son. I’m right here...
He shakes it away. He’s got no time for his brain’s bullshit right now. “What, not sure I understood that...”
The teenager’s got a knife at his throat and their captor gets real close. “You talk, or you pick.”
Pick?
“Chinga tu madre,” Murdock snaps. He’s not putting up with that shit, not any of this. They’re getting out of here alive, they have to.
A mouthful of stale smoke in blown into his face, and the knife cuts skin. “Pick, or you all go in. No use, Americanos, except maybe for your sweet ass...” and that fucking bodyguard starts laughing, too.
They’ve been coming for him sometimes, usually at night, probably when they’re bored, nothing better to do. no HBO out here in the jungle, no, none of that, just him, knocked around and held wide. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it could, all things considered, but he’s not a fan. Screws up his eyes and thinks about the lieutenant that’s waiting for him, a blonde with blue eyes and the sweetest smile, a man who loves him, who wants these things with him, giving, not taking...
“Murdock, I know you can hear me in there. It’s not real, please come back...”
He can’t. “Too many things to focus on right now,” he mutters and chooses not to feel that hand on his shoulder.
His senior NCO, a master sergeant with rough hands and worn creases around his eyes and an unfailing sense of humor that's kept them all laughing, even here, stops him before he eve realizes he's moving forward, hand on his chest, giving his captain a little nod, a whole conversation wrapped up in that single glance.
He steps forward, shaking, still walking.
Murdock goes cold.
“Sergeant Olander! I did not order you forward! Get back here, airman!”
Too late. The locks on the inner cage are popping open.
Murdock, we need you back. Here... and something cold slides between his bound hands, resting against his belly. Hold onto this, captain, might help...
Cold.
It pulls him back for a moment, and he blinks, looking at the man in front of him, kneeling next to him, hand over the bag of frozen peas that’s between the pilot’s hands. No frozen peas in Colombian prison. No sun-warmed soft chair under his back. This is something else.
Hannibal. That was the major’s name. Hannibal, a worried look in his eyes. Like the Carthegian who burnt Rome. Got his whole city destroyed.
“Is it okay to have him out here, Hannibal?”
“We need to keep trying to anchor him back down, Face. Sensory input...”
“I thought you said he needed to work through it.”
“It’s been three days, kid, we need...”
But none of that shit matters right now.
“My sergeant, sir, he’s trying to keep us safe,” Murdock mutters, and opens his hands, the bag slipping out again, and he’s wondering again if there was something he can do, if there’s some way he can throw this fucker on his back off, if he can get to the cage, which is worse, the screaming or the cheering or the blood, but there’s nothing, nothing, and he eventually can’t take it any more and rolls onto his back, watching the clouds above, calling him home, a giggle starting up in the back of his mind and moving outward that he’s never heard before, and one that he can’t quite stop for a long, long time.
+++++
“Is that the last one?”
“No,” Face says, flipping the page closed in the green folder, “Brian Olander. Master Sergeant. Three kids. This guy has a page and a half of medals and, oh, tons of disciplinary paperwork...”
He lets it hang. They both know that means the guy was probably shit-hot.
“How many left?”
“Two... three. Co-pilot, the CIA guy, listed as a civilian mechanic, right? and a... fuck, a female tech sergeant? What the fuck was a female doing out there?”
“I never got the story,” Hannibal replies, lips pursed, and he taps the dry erase marker against the glass of the living room slider. “Mix-up, somebody out sick that day, something like that. I always wondered what happened to her...”
Face sighs and pulls out Murdock’s medical record again. It’s not telling him anything. Nor are the psyche evals, flight plans, investigation reports or the CIA case files. All shit Hannibal’s gotten his hands on in the last three days. Half the stuff has SCI-TOP SECRET stamped on it. Extremely classified. Face wonders how Hannibal managed to his hands on it, and part of him feels a little better knowing that the boss still has contacts willing to risk serious jail time to help them out.
But the last three days... that doesn’t make anything better.
Murdock’s been drifitng in and out. He’ll eat jello when they give it to him, wash his hands or take a piss or lie down if they guide him there. Sometimes he’s almost lucid, almost sane, and he’ll talk to Lynch, or his old boyfriend or another one of his men, talking to Face. Stupid shit, that. There’s muttering and screaming in turn. But there’s a kind of rambling narrative emerging from it all, and Face has talked Hannibal into helping him map it all out.
He wants to know, know what Murdock’s going through, wants to know who he is. Or was. Before all this. It’s part of him. And Face wants to know it so when Murdock, his Murdock, finally comes back, they won’t have to hide anything. So that everything’s there.
And he thinks it might help. Because right now, he can’t do a goddamn thing but listen.
BA’s more of less recused himself from the entire thing, taken refuge in the small garage, keeping the door locked. He loves Murdock, just like they all do, but he says he can’t take it, and there’s something haunted in his eyes at meals, so Face respects the fact that Hannibal’s not pressing the issue. Especially after what they’ve got out here on the glass.
Electrocution, a broken hand, men shot in front of him, killed in worse ways, the rapes...
He looks over to where Murdock’s sitting on the floor by the window, head lolled against the sill, staring out, toying a little with his shirt. He hasn’t spoken since the incident with the peas on the back patio, nearly six hours ago. It’s dark out. It’s been dark out for a while now. They’ve got the light on outside, bugs gathering on the walls out there, so Hannibal can go over his flowchart of notes on Murdock’s flashbacks.
“Boss, I’m going to take him to bed,” he says, and Hannibal just nods, not really listening, and Face holds out a hand.
“Come on, HM, let’s get you tucked in.”
Face has no idea if this is going to work. Murdock hasn’t slept in two days, but he lets Face haul him up and sways so much that the lieutenant has to wrap an arm around his shoulders in order to keep him from running into the walls as he takes him back down the hallway. Murdock doesn’t fight him at all. Maybe exhaustion’s finally catching up with him, Face thinks as he opens the door and slowly pulls the pilot in...
...only to have Murdock bump him up against a wall, hands on his hips, playing just under the waistband as he slips to his knees. Face, scattered as he is from the stress of the past few days, lets his head hit cheap paint and goes with it, for just a second, Murdock’s fingers dancing along bare skin, cheek pressed against his fly, and it’s only the whispered little plea that keeps Face from wrapping up his hands in that black hair and begging...
“... not her. Por favor, it will be very good tonight, I promise...”
Everything in Face starts screaming, and he jerks sideways, Murdock landing on his hands and actually crawling over. “I swear, you don’t have to take her, too...
Murdock thinks the carpet’s a little too plush under his hands, like there’s something warm and comforting about concrete now and soft things should all be suspect. How many times has he been here, like this, in this man’s private study, staring at his boots, knowing what’s coming next? How long since time stopped working?
She’s here tonight. She’ s never here. He doesn’t know why she’s here. There’s a leak in his mind that won’t let him hold onto it long enough to figure it out.
He’s pretty sure everyone else is dead. It’s just the two of them left. He hates them for leaving her to last, knows it’s his fault for protecting her. He chose the order this went in. He made the decision about how his men were killed. It’s a horrible thought, but a coherent one, and he holds onto it as everything tilts, clinging tightly to the floor as it threatens to throw him off.
Nothing moves right any more. He’s not sure who’s fault that it, though.
“Si, Americano,” the asshole in front of him says, dragging him up by the back of his head. His hair’s gotten long, too long, way out of regs, and he starts giggling at the thought. What’s the CO going to say when he gets back? he wonders, and the thought is so hilarious that he can’t stop laughing, can’t stop...
There are hands on him again, and they almost feel like Nick’s, the way Nick would hold him and tell him that everything was going to be alright, listening to that heart beat, Murdock, it’s okay, you don’t have to do this... and that’s what snaps him back awake, what gets him focused again on this.
He needs to be lucid. He has to ignore that thing in the back of his brain, the cracks in his brainstem where all the most basic functions are, where everything’s going to fail and cave and collapse.
So, he forces himself to feel it, that hardness in his mouth, swollen flesh between his teeth, the acrid taste of dried sweat, the bitter choke that comes and how he’s wretching into that evil carpet. The laughter. All of it.
And he looks back over at the sergeant, gaunt and staring, a rough gag tearing into the corners of her mouth and a syringe held against her neck by that fucking teenager. There’s nobody else in the room. Just the four of them. And the syringe.
“It’s heroin, Americano,” the boss whispers in a voice that makes his blood go cold. “I want you to tell me about the flights.”
The flights. The flights. Is that what they’ve done these last three months for? Is that really all these motherfuckers want to know? All they want? How does this even apply to what he’s supposed to be doing with his life?
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life...
Were they? Was anybody, really? He’d only ever just wanted to fly, only wanted to fly, West Point bending over backwards to get him in, the Air Force Academy losing his application too many times. He’d never wanted to be here, never wanted this...
And Murdock’s no doctor, but he had friends in high school who used. The dosage is going to kill her.
Something’s going to kill her sooner or later. He’s got no doubt of that.
I will never forget that I am...
He hasn’t forgotten where he learned that. He can’t. Old sweat, the smell of vomit in the hallway, the upper classmen applauding as the first of their company falls out in spectacular form, half-digested chicken fingers from lunch on the floor.
That’s the kind of commitment we expect from our plebes! Push yourselves until there’s nothing fucking left, and keep going! Article two! If I am captured...
Murdock manages a smile. He remembers it now, and the crack in his brain lets it out before he can contain it. “That’s right, motherfucker. I am an American. And so is she. And we’re above...”
And he doesn’t need to say the rest, because the world’s sliding again and too many things are happening at once.
The asshole nods.
The teenager moves.
The needle goes in.
The woman screams.
He doesn’t know how he manages it, but Murdock’s got the drug lord’s head betwen his arms and wasted as his muscle is, the surge of adrenalin is more than enough to twist that unshaven neck until something snaps and muscles go limp.
Enough to hold to throw himself backwards at the desk and grab the handgun the dead man left there when he was still alive and prepping, where Murdock saw him leave it.
Enough to pop off three shots so fast the first one doesn’t even seem the heart to hit before the last one blows a fist sized chunk out of the back of the teenager’s skull, ruining the beautiful plaster behind.
Enough to kneel down by her side, and enough to hold her hand as her eyes go red and she starts convulsing and enough to see that this is going to take hours.
Enough to hold the muzzle just far enough over her so as not to burn the skin.
Enough to pull the trigger one last time.
Enough to leave the gun on the floor and somehow get out of the building, and enough to make it to a road and then to a town and a bus and another town and another bus, until he’s losing track of who he is, so much of him left behind in contrails as he throws the afterburners on and goes to bingo fuel, what’s left of his mind escaping through the cracks.
Enough to make it to the back of a church that smells like rotten cabbage and lean his head against a wall and not cry, skin on fire.
Enough to fall out of the sky and crash again and feel like Nick’s there, holding him, telling him everything’s going to be okay.
Enough to shake his head, whisper, no, no, because I’ve never killed anyone before, to the shapeless void inside him.
Enough to let the emptiness take him.
And everything’s quiet for a little while
+++++
Face strokes the pilot’s hair, not sure of what he should do. He’s got the man pinned to the ground, far enough away from the puddle of jello-colored vomit, legs wrapped up and wrists pinned. Murdock’s strong when he wants to be, but Face has never seen him move like that, a kind of tension in the leap that uncurled and drug him down and very nearly snapped his neck. His friend. Thrashing and screaming and then just going limp. All the bone-breaking pressure evaporated. Like he’s dead. Like nothing works anymore.
Face figures he should be relieved. Like maybe it’s over. Close enough to over. But he’s mostly just worried.
He cautiously unwinds his legs and pushes off Murdock’s chest. Face doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Not this, not Murdock just lying there, breathing shallow and harsh. And Face doesn’t know what he’s expected to do. There’s no how-to manual with something like this.
So he does what he thinks might be the best idea. He pulls Murdock up, gently lifting him from the floor and sets him on the bed, rubbing a bare foot that he hasn’t been able to get a shoe on for the last three days.
Then he leans up a little and plants a soft kiss on Murdock’s head, just inside the line of all that messy, unwashed hair. “Sleep well,” he says, and tries to go, has to go, before he lays down with his best friend and holds him close and makes sure that nothing bad at all can get to him, because that’s what makes the bad things come, and Face feels something tighten in his chest as he realizes he’s still stroking Murdock’s forehead and he can’t stop himself.
He burns for this man. He does, and he can’t stop, and it’s not fair. Not to Murdock, who doesn’t deserve the nightmare of his past clouding every sunny path in his future. Not to Face, who’s only ever been in love this one time, and can’t touch now, can’t have him, can’t give him what he deserves, what he should have...
But he twitches again, and moans, and it’s not over. Not quite yet.
And Face suddenly realizes what’s going on. The damage is done. There’s no fixing the abuse, the years of drugs, the years of silence. But he’s good at talking. So Face talks.
“Murdock?” Face whispers, lips close. “Murdock, buddy, can you hear me? I need to tell you something. I need you...”
I need you to listen to me
Murdock looks up at his tattered crew. They’re exhausted, grim, eyes pinched and faces set. Everybody’s alone with their own thoughts. He can’t stand for that. He can’t allow that. He knows what he sees there and he doesn’t fucking like it at all.
“I need you to listen to me,” he says, a little louder, and heads turn. Ears perk. “Everybody. Come on.”
Murdock’s nobody’s idiot. He sometimes sees things faster, like the pieces slide together in his head before the world has time to figure its own puzzles out. Like he knows what’s going to happen before it knows itself. It’s what makes him the best fucking pilot he’s ever met. Sometimes it’s a second ahead. Sometimes, sometimes, like the time he got that green folder in the mail and unfolded it on his dad’s lap in the hospital and knew he was going to West Point, sometimes he can see everything. Like he’s at thirty thousand feet and visibility’s perfect. Beyond the horizon.
He knows how this is going to end. He knows. But knowing doesn’t mean he can stop it. Knowing doesn’t mean anything in this situation except that it’s going to be worse for him than it should be. And it’s going to be pretty fucking bad, irregardless.
“I want you to listen to me,” he says. “We are going to get out of this. I promise you that.”
Heads nod. They trust him. Because they believe in him. Because they know who he is and what he’s done and they think they know what he’s going to do.
Except it’s all bullshit.
And he’s lying through his teeth.
They are all going to die.
“... it’s not your fault, buddy...
There’s a hand on his forehead, like somebody reaching down into deep water, offering him a path to the surface. He stares up at it for a moment, and looks around him at those faces. At those memories of faces. Eyes he closed.
He closes his own.
Loose fingers close down around his thumb and pull it off Murdock’s warm skin. It’s like a baby’s hand, not sure what to do with itself, the movement half-formed.
There’s silence.
“Face?”
It’s like a baby’s question, unsure, unintentional, looking for an answer, and this, at least, Face can answer. “Yeah, buddy, I’m right here.”
A soft little sigh. “I thought it was you.”
“Always.”
“I lied to them.”
“You didn’t...”
“I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t bring them home, I failed...”
Face feels stubble on his fingers as he slowly moves to cup his best friend’s chin. There are a thousand things he wants to say, but all of them seem trite and insignificant against whatever war is going on in Murdock’s head right now.
“You’re the best man I know, HM. How could you possibly fail anyone?”
I will trust... One last echo, and then it’s silent.
Then there’s stillness.
And when it breaks, when Murdock’s lips lean up into his, when his pull down onto Murdock’s, when everything from the last three days starts to shatter apart and let Murdock out, Face isn’t sure whose tears he feels on his cheeks and it really doesn’t matter.
When Hannibal comes to check on them, his boys, he finds them like they’re supposed to be, cuddled into one another, Face’s arm thrown protectively up and around, Murdock’s nose stuffed into a shoulder, breathing together and quiet. And he thinks about waking them up, and then he doesn’t, and carefully shuts the door behind him.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: dub-con (Murdock/Face), non-con (Murdock/OMC), violence
Summary: Second half of a fill for this prompt on the kink meme. Part One found here.
Murdock went crazy after being held captive - raped, tortured and forced to watch his friends killed - for several months. He's gay but incapable of giving consent to sex because any instance of a guy coming onto him gives him a bad case of flashback. The only person aware of that is Hannibal.
Face and he are sharing a bed one night and Face finally gives in to UST and starts to make advances at Murdock. Initially Murdock says no but Face thinks he's just shy and doesn't stop, until Murdock gives in. They have sex. Except that while Face was having sex with Murdock, Murdock was, in his head, back in his cell, being used by one of the guards, making sure to give the said guard a good time in exchange for food and not being tortured that night.
The next day all hell breaks lose when Murdock is incapable of snapping out of his flashback, convinced that Face and the rest are his captors; he's broken, freakishly obiedant and respectful, begging for mercy and offering Face more sexual favors in exchange for food.
Lots of Murdock!angst, freaking out Face, Hannibal wanting blood. And don't have Murdock snapping out of it after 10 minutes, have it lasting for days.
Face and Hannibal are trying to put the pieces together as Murdock continues to slide through his memories, reliving the loss of both his crew and his sanity. Face is determined to see it all through to the end, and Murdock's got no choice...
Murdock can’t remember how long he’s been here. Too long, really, he reflects. Any amount of time would be too long here. It’s one of those things he doesn’t want to think about. Time passing is a very bad thing, and Murdock doesn’t want to know how it’s getting along. They haven’t been keeping track. There’s no need.
Time’s marked out by their captors. Days aren’t important, just the intervals. That’s when they’re safe.
Right now, the times when they come and ask questions or don’t ask questions, when people end up dead, like right now, they are definitely not safe.
They're all outside, in the courtyard of this mansion where they’re being held. The basement cell is disgusting, but it's easy. Out here, it's harder. It’s warmer and the high adobe walls encircle a plethora of fruit trees and there’s the pleasant smell of cultivated lawn and the free air above, calling for him to return, step into the sky and fall away from all this...
Murdock grinds his teeth and drags his eyes back to the ground, back to what’s real. His thoughts haven’t been right since Will. Catches himself wandering, like he did when he was a kid and bored in class, but much worse. There’s too much to take in, too much, all the subtle little angles that he’s trying to figure out. He would be okay, but he can’t shut his brain off. It keeps working, working on any stimulation it gets, any question, any problem. And this? It's like chewing glass.
They’re prodded forward, out of the garden, into a small run behind the main house. Concrete, high walls, barbed wire. Murdock can’t scale that, not naked like he still is. Something new’s on the air, and he knows that smell. Confirmed as they turn the corner.
A kennel.
The breeze feels good on his skin, he notices, something inside him trying to crawl out and float away, and he bites his lip, pulling himself back here. He can’t fail his men. Whatever these bastards are planning on doing, the guys are going to need him here.
Chain link rattles, and the sergeant squeezes his hand, bumping into him, fear in her touch. So far, he’s managed to keep her safe.
Doesn’t mean four of his others haven’t died since then. He’s pretty sure they’re leaving her for last, but he doesn’t say that out loud. Never says anything other than rescue is coming and we’ll get our chance, ladies and stow that shit, we’re not going to die here. Five left. He’s going to get them home. They’re all going to die here. He can’t decide which. His brain won’t process it.
A metal gate slams shut behind them, and they’re inside. There’s barking, baying, starved voices rising above the stained concrete, scarred paws digging under the , a man in black combat fatigues they’ve never seen before watching them with the drug lord who owns this place.
One of those fucking teenagers is standing there next to him, and gestures to Murdock, then back over his shoulder.
This doesn’t really require any explanation.
“Pick,” the boss says, lighting a cigar. It’s a simple gesture, one that reminds the captain of the major who was keepng tabs on him, back in Panama. Dropped in on him every once in a while, included Murdock in his unit’s beer nights, the Ranger, what was his name...
Captain, can you hear me? We’re not going to let you go, son. I’m right here...
He shakes it away. He’s got no time for his brain’s bullshit right now. “What, not sure I understood that...”
The teenager’s got a knife at his throat and their captor gets real close. “You talk, or you pick.”
Pick?
“Chinga tu madre,” Murdock snaps. He’s not putting up with that shit, not any of this. They’re getting out of here alive, they have to.
A mouthful of stale smoke in blown into his face, and the knife cuts skin. “Pick, or you all go in. No use, Americanos, except maybe for your sweet ass...” and that fucking bodyguard starts laughing, too.
They’ve been coming for him sometimes, usually at night, probably when they’re bored, nothing better to do. no HBO out here in the jungle, no, none of that, just him, knocked around and held wide. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it could, all things considered, but he’s not a fan. Screws up his eyes and thinks about the lieutenant that’s waiting for him, a blonde with blue eyes and the sweetest smile, a man who loves him, who wants these things with him, giving, not taking...
“Murdock, I know you can hear me in there. It’s not real, please come back...”
He can’t. “Too many things to focus on right now,” he mutters and chooses not to feel that hand on his shoulder.
His senior NCO, a master sergeant with rough hands and worn creases around his eyes and an unfailing sense of humor that's kept them all laughing, even here, stops him before he eve realizes he's moving forward, hand on his chest, giving his captain a little nod, a whole conversation wrapped up in that single glance.
He steps forward, shaking, still walking.
Murdock goes cold.
“Sergeant Olander! I did not order you forward! Get back here, airman!”
Too late. The locks on the inner cage are popping open.
Murdock, we need you back. Here... and something cold slides between his bound hands, resting against his belly. Hold onto this, captain, might help...
Cold.
It pulls him back for a moment, and he blinks, looking at the man in front of him, kneeling next to him, hand over the bag of frozen peas that’s between the pilot’s hands. No frozen peas in Colombian prison. No sun-warmed soft chair under his back. This is something else.
Hannibal. That was the major’s name. Hannibal, a worried look in his eyes. Like the Carthegian who burnt Rome. Got his whole city destroyed.
“Is it okay to have him out here, Hannibal?”
“We need to keep trying to anchor him back down, Face. Sensory input...”
“I thought you said he needed to work through it.”
“It’s been three days, kid, we need...”
But none of that shit matters right now.
“My sergeant, sir, he’s trying to keep us safe,” Murdock mutters, and opens his hands, the bag slipping out again, and he’s wondering again if there was something he can do, if there’s some way he can throw this fucker on his back off, if he can get to the cage, which is worse, the screaming or the cheering or the blood, but there’s nothing, nothing, and he eventually can’t take it any more and rolls onto his back, watching the clouds above, calling him home, a giggle starting up in the back of his mind and moving outward that he’s never heard before, and one that he can’t quite stop for a long, long time.
+++++
“Is that the last one?”
“No,” Face says, flipping the page closed in the green folder, “Brian Olander. Master Sergeant. Three kids. This guy has a page and a half of medals and, oh, tons of disciplinary paperwork...”
He lets it hang. They both know that means the guy was probably shit-hot.
“How many left?”
“Two... three. Co-pilot, the CIA guy, listed as a civilian mechanic, right? and a... fuck, a female tech sergeant? What the fuck was a female doing out there?”
“I never got the story,” Hannibal replies, lips pursed, and he taps the dry erase marker against the glass of the living room slider. “Mix-up, somebody out sick that day, something like that. I always wondered what happened to her...”
Face sighs and pulls out Murdock’s medical record again. It’s not telling him anything. Nor are the psyche evals, flight plans, investigation reports or the CIA case files. All shit Hannibal’s gotten his hands on in the last three days. Half the stuff has SCI-TOP SECRET stamped on it. Extremely classified. Face wonders how Hannibal managed to his hands on it, and part of him feels a little better knowing that the boss still has contacts willing to risk serious jail time to help them out.
But the last three days... that doesn’t make anything better.
Murdock’s been drifitng in and out. He’ll eat jello when they give it to him, wash his hands or take a piss or lie down if they guide him there. Sometimes he’s almost lucid, almost sane, and he’ll talk to Lynch, or his old boyfriend or another one of his men, talking to Face. Stupid shit, that. There’s muttering and screaming in turn. But there’s a kind of rambling narrative emerging from it all, and Face has talked Hannibal into helping him map it all out.
He wants to know, know what Murdock’s going through, wants to know who he is. Or was. Before all this. It’s part of him. And Face wants to know it so when Murdock, his Murdock, finally comes back, they won’t have to hide anything. So that everything’s there.
And he thinks it might help. Because right now, he can’t do a goddamn thing but listen.
BA’s more of less recused himself from the entire thing, taken refuge in the small garage, keeping the door locked. He loves Murdock, just like they all do, but he says he can’t take it, and there’s something haunted in his eyes at meals, so Face respects the fact that Hannibal’s not pressing the issue. Especially after what they’ve got out here on the glass.
Electrocution, a broken hand, men shot in front of him, killed in worse ways, the rapes...
He looks over to where Murdock’s sitting on the floor by the window, head lolled against the sill, staring out, toying a little with his shirt. He hasn’t spoken since the incident with the peas on the back patio, nearly six hours ago. It’s dark out. It’s been dark out for a while now. They’ve got the light on outside, bugs gathering on the walls out there, so Hannibal can go over his flowchart of notes on Murdock’s flashbacks.
“Boss, I’m going to take him to bed,” he says, and Hannibal just nods, not really listening, and Face holds out a hand.
“Come on, HM, let’s get you tucked in.”
Face has no idea if this is going to work. Murdock hasn’t slept in two days, but he lets Face haul him up and sways so much that the lieutenant has to wrap an arm around his shoulders in order to keep him from running into the walls as he takes him back down the hallway. Murdock doesn’t fight him at all. Maybe exhaustion’s finally catching up with him, Face thinks as he opens the door and slowly pulls the pilot in...
...only to have Murdock bump him up against a wall, hands on his hips, playing just under the waistband as he slips to his knees. Face, scattered as he is from the stress of the past few days, lets his head hit cheap paint and goes with it, for just a second, Murdock’s fingers dancing along bare skin, cheek pressed against his fly, and it’s only the whispered little plea that keeps Face from wrapping up his hands in that black hair and begging...
“... not her. Por favor, it will be very good tonight, I promise...”
Everything in Face starts screaming, and he jerks sideways, Murdock landing on his hands and actually crawling over. “I swear, you don’t have to take her, too...
Murdock thinks the carpet’s a little too plush under his hands, like there’s something warm and comforting about concrete now and soft things should all be suspect. How many times has he been here, like this, in this man’s private study, staring at his boots, knowing what’s coming next? How long since time stopped working?
She’s here tonight. She’ s never here. He doesn’t know why she’s here. There’s a leak in his mind that won’t let him hold onto it long enough to figure it out.
He’s pretty sure everyone else is dead. It’s just the two of them left. He hates them for leaving her to last, knows it’s his fault for protecting her. He chose the order this went in. He made the decision about how his men were killed. It’s a horrible thought, but a coherent one, and he holds onto it as everything tilts, clinging tightly to the floor as it threatens to throw him off.
Nothing moves right any more. He’s not sure who’s fault that it, though.
“Si, Americano,” the asshole in front of him says, dragging him up by the back of his head. His hair’s gotten long, too long, way out of regs, and he starts giggling at the thought. What’s the CO going to say when he gets back? he wonders, and the thought is so hilarious that he can’t stop laughing, can’t stop...
There are hands on him again, and they almost feel like Nick’s, the way Nick would hold him and tell him that everything was going to be alright, listening to that heart beat, Murdock, it’s okay, you don’t have to do this... and that’s what snaps him back awake, what gets him focused again on this.
He needs to be lucid. He has to ignore that thing in the back of his brain, the cracks in his brainstem where all the most basic functions are, where everything’s going to fail and cave and collapse.
So, he forces himself to feel it, that hardness in his mouth, swollen flesh between his teeth, the acrid taste of dried sweat, the bitter choke that comes and how he’s wretching into that evil carpet. The laughter. All of it.
And he looks back over at the sergeant, gaunt and staring, a rough gag tearing into the corners of her mouth and a syringe held against her neck by that fucking teenager. There’s nobody else in the room. Just the four of them. And the syringe.
“It’s heroin, Americano,” the boss whispers in a voice that makes his blood go cold. “I want you to tell me about the flights.”
The flights. The flights. Is that what they’ve done these last three months for? Is that really all these motherfuckers want to know? All they want? How does this even apply to what he’s supposed to be doing with his life?
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life...
Were they? Was anybody, really? He’d only ever just wanted to fly, only wanted to fly, West Point bending over backwards to get him in, the Air Force Academy losing his application too many times. He’d never wanted to be here, never wanted this...
And Murdock’s no doctor, but he had friends in high school who used. The dosage is going to kill her.
Something’s going to kill her sooner or later. He’s got no doubt of that.
I will never forget that I am...
He hasn’t forgotten where he learned that. He can’t. Old sweat, the smell of vomit in the hallway, the upper classmen applauding as the first of their company falls out in spectacular form, half-digested chicken fingers from lunch on the floor.
That’s the kind of commitment we expect from our plebes! Push yourselves until there’s nothing fucking left, and keep going! Article two! If I am captured...
Murdock manages a smile. He remembers it now, and the crack in his brain lets it out before he can contain it. “That’s right, motherfucker. I am an American. And so is she. And we’re above...”
And he doesn’t need to say the rest, because the world’s sliding again and too many things are happening at once.
The asshole nods.
The teenager moves.
The needle goes in.
The woman screams.
He doesn’t know how he manages it, but Murdock’s got the drug lord’s head betwen his arms and wasted as his muscle is, the surge of adrenalin is more than enough to twist that unshaven neck until something snaps and muscles go limp.
Enough to hold to throw himself backwards at the desk and grab the handgun the dead man left there when he was still alive and prepping, where Murdock saw him leave it.
Enough to pop off three shots so fast the first one doesn’t even seem the heart to hit before the last one blows a fist sized chunk out of the back of the teenager’s skull, ruining the beautiful plaster behind.
Enough to kneel down by her side, and enough to hold her hand as her eyes go red and she starts convulsing and enough to see that this is going to take hours.
Enough to hold the muzzle just far enough over her so as not to burn the skin.
Enough to pull the trigger one last time.
Enough to leave the gun on the floor and somehow get out of the building, and enough to make it to a road and then to a town and a bus and another town and another bus, until he’s losing track of who he is, so much of him left behind in contrails as he throws the afterburners on and goes to bingo fuel, what’s left of his mind escaping through the cracks.
Enough to make it to the back of a church that smells like rotten cabbage and lean his head against a wall and not cry, skin on fire.
Enough to fall out of the sky and crash again and feel like Nick’s there, holding him, telling him everything’s going to be okay.
Enough to shake his head, whisper, no, no, because I’ve never killed anyone before, to the shapeless void inside him.
Enough to let the emptiness take him.
And everything’s quiet for a little while
+++++
Face strokes the pilot’s hair, not sure of what he should do. He’s got the man pinned to the ground, far enough away from the puddle of jello-colored vomit, legs wrapped up and wrists pinned. Murdock’s strong when he wants to be, but Face has never seen him move like that, a kind of tension in the leap that uncurled and drug him down and very nearly snapped his neck. His friend. Thrashing and screaming and then just going limp. All the bone-breaking pressure evaporated. Like he’s dead. Like nothing works anymore.
Face figures he should be relieved. Like maybe it’s over. Close enough to over. But he’s mostly just worried.
He cautiously unwinds his legs and pushes off Murdock’s chest. Face doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Not this, not Murdock just lying there, breathing shallow and harsh. And Face doesn’t know what he’s expected to do. There’s no how-to manual with something like this.
So he does what he thinks might be the best idea. He pulls Murdock up, gently lifting him from the floor and sets him on the bed, rubbing a bare foot that he hasn’t been able to get a shoe on for the last three days.
Then he leans up a little and plants a soft kiss on Murdock’s head, just inside the line of all that messy, unwashed hair. “Sleep well,” he says, and tries to go, has to go, before he lays down with his best friend and holds him close and makes sure that nothing bad at all can get to him, because that’s what makes the bad things come, and Face feels something tighten in his chest as he realizes he’s still stroking Murdock’s forehead and he can’t stop himself.
He burns for this man. He does, and he can’t stop, and it’s not fair. Not to Murdock, who doesn’t deserve the nightmare of his past clouding every sunny path in his future. Not to Face, who’s only ever been in love this one time, and can’t touch now, can’t have him, can’t give him what he deserves, what he should have...
But he twitches again, and moans, and it’s not over. Not quite yet.
And Face suddenly realizes what’s going on. The damage is done. There’s no fixing the abuse, the years of drugs, the years of silence. But he’s good at talking. So Face talks.
“Murdock?” Face whispers, lips close. “Murdock, buddy, can you hear me? I need to tell you something. I need you...”
I need you to listen to me
Murdock looks up at his tattered crew. They’re exhausted, grim, eyes pinched and faces set. Everybody’s alone with their own thoughts. He can’t stand for that. He can’t allow that. He knows what he sees there and he doesn’t fucking like it at all.
“I need you to listen to me,” he says, a little louder, and heads turn. Ears perk. “Everybody. Come on.”
Murdock’s nobody’s idiot. He sometimes sees things faster, like the pieces slide together in his head before the world has time to figure its own puzzles out. Like he knows what’s going to happen before it knows itself. It’s what makes him the best fucking pilot he’s ever met. Sometimes it’s a second ahead. Sometimes, sometimes, like the time he got that green folder in the mail and unfolded it on his dad’s lap in the hospital and knew he was going to West Point, sometimes he can see everything. Like he’s at thirty thousand feet and visibility’s perfect. Beyond the horizon.
He knows how this is going to end. He knows. But knowing doesn’t mean he can stop it. Knowing doesn’t mean anything in this situation except that it’s going to be worse for him than it should be. And it’s going to be pretty fucking bad, irregardless.
“I want you to listen to me,” he says. “We are going to get out of this. I promise you that.”
Heads nod. They trust him. Because they believe in him. Because they know who he is and what he’s done and they think they know what he’s going to do.
Except it’s all bullshit.
And he’s lying through his teeth.
They are all going to die.
“... it’s not your fault, buddy...
There’s a hand on his forehead, like somebody reaching down into deep water, offering him a path to the surface. He stares up at it for a moment, and looks around him at those faces. At those memories of faces. Eyes he closed.
He closes his own.
Loose fingers close down around his thumb and pull it off Murdock’s warm skin. It’s like a baby’s hand, not sure what to do with itself, the movement half-formed.
There’s silence.
“Face?”
It’s like a baby’s question, unsure, unintentional, looking for an answer, and this, at least, Face can answer. “Yeah, buddy, I’m right here.”
A soft little sigh. “I thought it was you.”
“Always.”
“I lied to them.”
“You didn’t...”
“I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t bring them home, I failed...”
Face feels stubble on his fingers as he slowly moves to cup his best friend’s chin. There are a thousand things he wants to say, but all of them seem trite and insignificant against whatever war is going on in Murdock’s head right now.
“You’re the best man I know, HM. How could you possibly fail anyone?”
I will trust... One last echo, and then it’s silent.
Then there’s stillness.
And when it breaks, when Murdock’s lips lean up into his, when his pull down onto Murdock’s, when everything from the last three days starts to shatter apart and let Murdock out, Face isn’t sure whose tears he feels on his cheeks and it really doesn’t matter.
When Hannibal comes to check on them, his boys, he finds them like they’re supposed to be, cuddled into one another, Face’s arm thrown protectively up and around, Murdock’s nose stuffed into a shoulder, breathing together and quiet. And he thinks about waking them up, and then he doesn’t, and carefully shuts the door behind him.
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Thank you for sharing.
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