Extended TDY
Nov. 28th, 2010 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/OMC
Rating: r
Warnings: none
Summary: I asked for something angsty, and I got this in response! Which was perfect, BTW...
I've been thinking for a while about prompting something where Face joins the army, meets Hannibal in Ranger school, falls in love etc, the typical stuff... and then he discovers Hannibal is very much unavailable. And he can't even hate the other guy cause he's not a big bad rival, he's just a nice guy and perfect for the boss. Cue angst. But I kind of want to see Hannibal/OMC for some reason and I didn't think anyone would want to do that.
So there it is if you're interested.
In the wake of the phone call at the end of Early PCS, Hannibal’s current lover, Jake, reflects on where they are together, and how they got here.
Jake let the phone slide out of his hand and hit the couch with a dull thud. It barely registered. His apartment was dark, his mind was blank. Everything seemed heavy right then, oppressive, and he unlocked the balcony and tiptoed outside into the failing light and sticky heat of the Georgia evening. Sat down. Curled up the crack between the wall and the edge of the little storage room.
What the hell had gotten into John this time?
It was a question he really already knew the answer to. It was that soldier, that young lieutenant, the one who’d had all the problems. John had been talking about him for the past few months, staying late at work, always explaining it as there’s a kid who’s never had anyone give a shit in his entire life or sometimes he needed to talk, what could I do, things like that. But maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. He’d been worried about it.
Why?
Jake knew exactly how this worked. He’d been dealing with it for the last six years of their relationship. Hell, he known from the first moment he’d laid eyes on John, nine years ago, that it wasn’t going to be normal. He knew he weren’t going to see each other every night, that they couldn’t move in together, no matter how much his lover wanted to, that there’d be no next step, this week or two years from now, and he was okay with that, he really was.
Jake had always known it wasn’t going to last.
And, if he was being honest with himself, which was a mood he occasionally tried on when nothing was working but shame, like tonight, he was okay with that. He wasn’t really looking for anything more.
He liked their dynamic, liked it the way it was, the casual conversations, the quiet evenings at home, how John might be calm and gentle one night and hard, biting, the next. Sometimes they had months together at a stretch, and sometimes he’d be away on assignment or John would be off on one of those missions, the kind he came home from with hollow eyes and no stories, no words, nothing but touch and rough hands and stubble across his neck. It was simple and it was terribly complicated, but he’d always figured it was worth it.
John was worth it. John had always been worth it.
But there needed to be something else in the man’s life, something more, and Jake knew that the colonel wasn’t going to be able to get it where he was. But if he left, there’d be nothing left of him. John was going to have to make that decision for himself.
Even if he didn’t want to.
I can retire in six years, John had said after the orgy or bacchanalia or whatever it was those Army boys called that party that followed the pinning-on ceremony. Spooned up close behind, chest hard and unyielding against his own back. Jake did his fair share of mountain-biking, trekking, but his exertions couldn’t match with John’s. Probably because it had nothing to do with people trying to kill him. I can retire. No more rules. We won’t have to worry.
He’d laughed. We can travel...
That’s right, anywhere you want to go. Those places you talk about...
And, oh, there were places, beautiful places, places where you could go and get lost in the landscape, free, unworried...
We’ll have to come back sooner or later.
And John’s grip had lessened a little, moving over, nose to nose now, in the darkness. We can worry about that when we get back.
It had almost been a plea.
Jake hadn't had an answer for it. And that scared the hell out of him.
+++++
John had done all his traveling in the military, which meant he’d gone to places where you couldn’t tell the difference between blood and dirt and grass, where you walked on the sidewalks to avoid the landmines, like the place where Jake had first seen him.
He still remembered it. Bosnia. He had begged his way over as a war correspondent, back when the military was still playing around with the concept of embedding journalists, worried about what they might see, what they might report. In his first three weeks, he’d already decided that it was a bad idea, not because of the violence, but the lack of violence.
The horrible, stretching lulls between horrific bursts of panic. Civilians being killed, the air campaign going on. Public Affairs didn’t know what to do with him. Not a whole lot to see on the ground. Took a lot of photos of children in the hospitals, flies buzzing around. Horrible things happening in a beautiful land.
He and one of his crew members had been in the chow hall that night, after coming back from the children’s hospital, neither of them tasting whatever it was the Army was trying to feed them, drinking strong, bitter coffee with blank stares. He was twenty-three, just a few years out of school, where he’d spent all his time drinking and rock-climbing, going to class when he felt like it. He’d never really believed these things happened. He couldn’t get those kids out of his mind.
Why the fuck did I come here?
And then he saw, then he knew, a sandy-blond captain, maybe a few years older than him, tall in tired fatigues and an M-9 strapped to his thigh, casual, like it didn’t mean anything. It looked like his nose had been broken at some point, set back together crooked, dirt clinging to the lines of his face, but his eyes were bright, sizing them both up. Something quietly forceful about him. The kind of man, Jake remembered thinking, you’d want with you on a life raft in the middle of the Arctic Ocean while the polar bears were swimming out to get you...
There was a little moment, quiet and quick, too quick for anyone else to catch, and Jake had felt a flush creep up his neck.
And then the captain had smiled.
“Jake Marsden, right? NBC? Hannibal Smith. Nice to meet you.”
And then he’d sat down.
“PA called me about your crew out here. We’ve got a mission day after tomorrow if you want to come,” he said, and patted a cigar out of some hidden pocket. Box of matches, Cyrillic writing on the side. “That is, if you really think it’s a good idea to go out there with nothing but a camera.”
“People deserve to know what’s going on out there.”
“They shouldn’t have to,” the captain had said, his brashness hiding some species of regret. Silent as he puffed his cigar awake, and then he grinned. Like he was offering to show them some new dirt bike trail, his favorite cafe in Rome. “But you’re here, so you might as well go with somebody who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Keep your asses out of trouble.”
"I'm sure I'll be grateful for that service," Jake had replied somewhat coyly, and the captain, Hannibal, had nearly choked on his next lungful of air.
Jake smiled at the memory. God, they had both been so young back then. He'd been the same age as that lieutenant of his was now. And the journalist felt a pang of sympathy. He knew what it was like, waiting for somebody like John...
He wondered how hard it was going to be to walk away.
+++++
We shouldn’t be doing this...
Hannibal...
Jake, you’ve got no idea...
Stop being an idiot and kiss me...
The first time, Hannibal had gotten the weekend off. Hannibal never got weekends off. A long weekend. Five days. More like a week. Hannibal didn’t want to take it, but his men had insisted - he deserved some time off.
“They just want me gone,” he’d laughed when they’d met up in Berlin. Germany was the only place Hannibal could get a reliable flight to, and Jake had been just fine with that.
He’d spent a semester in that city, back in college, he’d told Hannibal, knew the place pretty well. Offered to show him a few places, bars he liked, some of the sights. Completely innocent, really. He hadn’t offered anything like that, like what he’d been wanting to offer the last few months. “It’ll be fun. Come on, get away from all this for a few days...”
But as he watched the captain striding through the train station, oblivious to the people around him, the clean, happy civilians, Jake knew that Hannibal only agreed for his benefit. Probably would have spent his time off in the gym or reading one of those classics he always had with him, otherwise. He didn’t really want to be here. Didn’t need to be here.
But he’d come for Jake.
That was his first real insight into what he’d later come to learn, and love, about the man.
It had been a little awkward, both of them staring at each other, Hannibal’s sole civilian backpack slung over one shoulder, Jake’s hand shoved in his back pocket. Then Jake laughed a little and Hannibal smiled and they were going for a taxi.
“Six months of pay, tax free. It’s ridiculous what my bank account looks like,” Hannibal had said when Jake had started making calls for reservations a few weeks ago. “Let’s do this right.”
“What is that, hazard duty pay?” Jake had asked, feeling proud that he’d picked up a few things from the military guys in the three months he’d been in-theater. The military pay system still made no sense to him.
“No, per diem allowance. Fucking accounting’s all screwed up with the war. They’ve got me listed as being on a TDY,” and Hannibal had grinned. “Extra ninty bucks a day.”
Temporary duty assignment, Hannibal out here in Bosnia. Jake tried to tell himself that, that it was just temporary, whatever this was between them, and he’d booked a king at the Grand Hyatt. They hadn’t really talked about it. He liked to live dangerously. The look on Hannibal’s face as they pulled up to the entrance, an attendant opening his door for him, was priceless.
“Goddamn,” Hannibal told him over drinks in the lounge that evening, and Jake had nodded. He’d never stayed in a place this nice, either.
“Happy I suggested you go get a suit in Sarajevo?” Jake teased. It looked good on him too, dark cloth against that tanned skin. Made him look like a whole new man. Made him look out of place, but then, Hannibal was doing that to himself.
Hannibal just kept surveying the room. The captain was on edge, still on edge, keyed up, like there was going to be trouble amidst the soft jazz and quiet conversation. Like he couldn’t wait for it to happen.
“Hey,” Jake had said, and reached under the little bar table, rubbed a hand over Hannibal’s knee. The other man jumped, just a little and tried to relax. Jake could almost hear him thinking there’s nobody here, I’m not going to get busted. He’d mentioned DADT once, just once. That had been his explanation for why he wouldn’t touch Jake anywhere on base, why there had only been one or two fleeting little kisses, nothing solid. “It’s okay, captain. Nothing’s going on here. It’s just you and me, no explosions...”
“Jake, it’s... been a long time for me, and I’m not sure what you expect... here.”
Blunt. Very appropriate. Most guys he’d known would go around and around an issue like that, but then, Jake had never met anyone like Hannibal before. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Hannibal had said with an expression between a grin and a grimace, stamped out his cigar and signed the tab. As they left, Jake left his arm slip down around Hannibal’s waist, and he’d felt the captain’s hand close down around his.
Holding him close.
But things had changed once they got back up to the room, once he'd gotten Hannibal's jacket off, once Hannibal threaded his hands up into Jake's hair, once they were both breathing hard.
Oh, Hannibal...
If we’re going to do this, you should start calling me John.
We don’t have to do this.
I want to, I do...
It’s okay, I get it...
“Jake?”
The dark-haired main blinked a few times, pulling out of the memory. The sun was completely gone. How long had he been out here?
“Jake, what are you doing out here?”
John was standing in the door. Different from the man he’d known almost a decade ago, that cocky captain. His hair had gone gray since then, more scars gathered under that uniform. That attitude had shifted, his brash self-confidence mellowing, changing, all that intellect channeling into those crazy plans he loved so much, experience allowing him to make moves that looked insane and yet pull them off. He had quite the reputation these days. They’d tried to pull him up to the Pentagon more than once, settle him down in some nice office somewhere, working strategy. He’d never gone. He’d been fairly creative in the ways he’d avoided it.
Jake was so proud of him.
“Just watching the sun set, colonel.”
“We’re facing south, sweetheart.”
God, how long had it been before John would use a phrase like that? Years. Years. And then, that, at breakfast one morning. Just slipped out. Jake never got tired of the way it sounded. “How would I guess that you’d pick up on that?” Jake laughed weakly, and John sat down next to him with a heavy little grunt. “You pick up on everything,” he added. He’d always been in awe of this man.
“You’re the adventurer. I’d think you’d...”
“You’re far more adventurous than me. Afghanistan? I don’t have the balls for that one. already told them I’m done with the war reporting....”
John dropped an arm around Jake and he leaned into it, resting his head on his lover’s shoulder, like he had so many times before. It was...
“Comfortable.”
“I’m at a loss for that one, honey.”
“I’m comfortable, Jake. It’s a good place to be. Here.”
Jake could hear what he wasn’t saying. John was bad at communicating. But Jake, well, he,was a reporter, it was his business to know what people weren’t saying, and he always, always knew what John wasn’t saying. That the military was a comfortable place to be. That no matter how many times he jumped out of an airplane, at night, into territory full of people who wanted to kill him and didn’t even know it yet, it was far easier than facing the world without that structure, that purpose. But if he brought it up, John would just shut up, not talk, close down. He didn’t want that right now.
“Do you remember Berlin, baby?”
John started laughing. “During Bosnia?”
“I was just thinking about it. The one where I tried...”
“When we had a great time touring the city and you got us a fantastic hotel and...”
Jake felt his face getting hot. “My pathetic little twenty-something year old self tried to seduce you?”
“Wasn’t anything you did wrong, Jake. I loved it. I loved you, even back then. I just couldn’t...”
“I know. It wasn’t fair of me to push you like that.”
They had had a good time, John glossing over the little indiscretion the same as he was doing right then, with a smile and a laugh and a wave of his hand, enjoying the city. John had another three months left in Bosnia, which got extended to six, then nine. On TDY, the whole time. Jake had had to come back to the States about a month later, some medical emergency with his mother, but it wasn’t until he moved to Atlanta that he saw John again.
It was a total accident, three years later, that they’d found each other again. They’d kept in touch, called and later emailed, maybe once or twice a month, John always happy to listen to Jake’s stories, Jake happy to hear John’s voice, neither of them talking about anything real. Where they were, what they were doing. He’d gotten interested in the military after Bosnia, been back a few times since. But for whatever reason, he’d pissed his boss off and gotten assigned to some puff piece on a change of command ceremony and there John was, major rank on his shoulders, drinking with some of the others at the Club. He’d looked different in his service dress. He’d looked older, more tired. Still beautiful.
John saw him, and gave him a little nod, lighting him up inside, old feelings swirling awake again, but all he could do was smile back. That extended TDY is over, he'd thought, what can possibly come up now?
They’d gone out for drinks that Saturday. Gone back to Jake’s apartment, fallen asleep in a pile on the couch with some crappy movie on HBO, gray static when Jake woke at four AM, John wrapped around him.
He’d taken the chance, because John wasn’t going to. John didn’t do things like that. Jake wasn’t going to let this slip away again. Even then, he’d known it wasn’t fair. That John was hemmed in by his circumstances, something that must have been unbearable for somebody like him, who was supposed to be in charge, who was supposed to command, to fight, who was blessed with his depth of belief.
Jake had tried to tell himself that he’d be setting John free with this, letting him have all the things he always wanted and never let himself have. It was true, but there was nothing honest about it. No altruistic of him, but it wasn’t exactly selfish, either, he’d reasoned. He’d just never met anybody like John, and he’d never meet anybody like him again. He couldn’t let him go.
He wanted, but didn't John want, too?
So he’d let his hands wander. Let his lips follow.
John’s blue eyes had snapped open, met Jake’s, and then he’d made a little sighing sound, sat up, grabbed...
He hadn’t understood, then, how deep this would run, how far under his skin John would get, how that tenacity and single-mindedness and faith John had would be transferred into their relationship. How hard he’d fall for him.
But... had Jake given him something? Or had he just taken something away?
“I feel like I’ve forced you,” Jake admitted quietly, that illogical guilt overwhelming him. They loved each other. Would he even be thinking about this without that lieutenant around? Was he scared? Threatened? “All these years, I feel like I’ve forced you.”
“That,” John said, tugging his lover gently to his feet and rubbing a hand across his chest as he reached behind and opened the balcony door, “is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“John?” Jake asked, and then bit his tongue right before the rest of it came out. Before the take me to bed came out, and it was forcing again.
“Shut up, sweetheart,” John said, and that effectively ended the discussion for a while.
Jake desperately needed his lover to take the lead from here, and John didn’t disappoint. The colonel held him tight, pulling them both back to the bedroom, easy kisses ghosted across his neck, nibbled along his ear. John bit at his lower lip, captured his mouth, a deep kiss sparking those connections they’d built upon over the past six years, breaking apart only when both men were shivering, coming back together. They fit into one another like they were made for it, like they belonged like that, and Jake let his head fall forward into Hannibal’s neck with a low moan, letting everything else go.
He loved it, this easy familiarity. Jake didn’t need to turn on a light to find the buttons on John’s BDUs, John just knew where Jake was ticklish as he tugged at his light t-shirt, played his shorts open. Sensitive spots were exploited and teased as they peeled off all those layers between them, skin meeting skin as they hit the bed in a tangle of limbs. Speeding up, arousal building, soft playfulness giving way to John’s aggressive focus, that intensity he brought to everything he did, growling a little as he pounced on Jake.
The other man loved this, loved those heavy hands flipping him over, playing over his spine, his ass. Fingers, slick and skilled, pushing up into him, spreading him open. Jake sighed and let the tension go out of neck, relaxing into the pillow bunched between his arms.
John nipped lightly at his ear, grabbed his hips, an irrefutable argument, and then, ohhellyes, that was it, right there, as that massive shaft sank into him, deeper and deeper, both them right where they belonged, right where everything was right and good...
It was far too soon before John was biting down on his shoulder and flooding him, filling him, triggering Jake's own release with the sheer intensity of it all, confirming those old claims, promises, and Jake was glad they weren't facing one another, that John couldn't see the tears.
It wasn't enough time. It never had been. It never would be.
It occurred to Jake, both of them laying there, not really touching, just enjoying as sticky heat cooled in the air conditioning, that John hadn’t ever really come back from that TDY, that it had never really ended. That John had been so hungry back then, and maybe that wasn’t the point anymore. That it was only ever supposed to be temporary and how in the hell had it kept on this long?
Wasn’t it time?
Shouldn’t John get a chance to come home, go back, get something that belonged in his world? Finally have a part of his weird, strange little world for himself? All these years, and Jake still didn’t feel like he understood John’s life, what he faced every day when he put on that uniform, how the military was, everything switching back and forth between that same lethal seriousness and ridiculous humor that John himself seemed to embody. Jake didn’t want what was between them getting in the way of that, and it couldn’t not, how had this ever resulted in anything but isolation from a world where isolation couldn't be tolerated...
“Do you love the kid, John?”
A kiss was pressed to his temple. “I love you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Jake, if you’re having those doubts again, we talked about...”
“What happened with him?”
There was a long silence, one of those silences John used when he didn’t want to talk.
“Baby...”
“He left. He’s going to Korea.”
“Baby, if you want him...”
“I want you.”
Jake shifted, turned so they were facing one another, trailed a hand down John’s side. He didn’t say what he was thinking, that it wouldn’t make it through another deployment, that when John got called up for Afghanistan, it would be years. That he wouldn’t be able to go that long. That it would be ever worse, knowing that John could. John had made a career of denying himself. Jake didn’t have that kind of conviction. It was the biggest difference between them, the one insoluble factor in their relationship, and he’d never been able to talk to John about it.
Because John loved him.
And he loved John.
Sometimes, not always, that was enough. It could be enough right now, couldn’t it?
“...you should go after him.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?”John murmured thoughtfully, without intention, without concession, and Jake had a sudden, horrible thought that maybe he’d only offered because he knew that would be the reaction.
Jake nuzzled up into a broad shoulder, John lifting his arm to let him in, both of them arranging themselves around the other, getting comfortable again.
“It’s your decision, sweetheart,” Jake murmured, and John just shivered in response. Silent again. There’d be nothing more tonight. Well, that was to be expected. That was just how John was, and Jake loved him anyway.
Neither man moved after that, and sleep crept in, covering half-formed decisions and the night slipped away.
Rating: r
Warnings: none
Summary: I asked for something angsty, and I got this in response! Which was perfect, BTW...
I've been thinking for a while about prompting something where Face joins the army, meets Hannibal in Ranger school, falls in love etc, the typical stuff... and then he discovers Hannibal is very much unavailable. And he can't even hate the other guy cause he's not a big bad rival, he's just a nice guy and perfect for the boss. Cue angst. But I kind of want to see Hannibal/OMC for some reason and I didn't think anyone would want to do that.
So there it is if you're interested.
In the wake of the phone call at the end of Early PCS, Hannibal’s current lover, Jake, reflects on where they are together, and how they got here.
Jake let the phone slide out of his hand and hit the couch with a dull thud. It barely registered. His apartment was dark, his mind was blank. Everything seemed heavy right then, oppressive, and he unlocked the balcony and tiptoed outside into the failing light and sticky heat of the Georgia evening. Sat down. Curled up the crack between the wall and the edge of the little storage room.
What the hell had gotten into John this time?
It was a question he really already knew the answer to. It was that soldier, that young lieutenant, the one who’d had all the problems. John had been talking about him for the past few months, staying late at work, always explaining it as there’s a kid who’s never had anyone give a shit in his entire life or sometimes he needed to talk, what could I do, things like that. But maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. He’d been worried about it.
Why?
Jake knew exactly how this worked. He’d been dealing with it for the last six years of their relationship. Hell, he known from the first moment he’d laid eyes on John, nine years ago, that it wasn’t going to be normal. He knew he weren’t going to see each other every night, that they couldn’t move in together, no matter how much his lover wanted to, that there’d be no next step, this week or two years from now, and he was okay with that, he really was.
Jake had always known it wasn’t going to last.
And, if he was being honest with himself, which was a mood he occasionally tried on when nothing was working but shame, like tonight, he was okay with that. He wasn’t really looking for anything more.
He liked their dynamic, liked it the way it was, the casual conversations, the quiet evenings at home, how John might be calm and gentle one night and hard, biting, the next. Sometimes they had months together at a stretch, and sometimes he’d be away on assignment or John would be off on one of those missions, the kind he came home from with hollow eyes and no stories, no words, nothing but touch and rough hands and stubble across his neck. It was simple and it was terribly complicated, but he’d always figured it was worth it.
John was worth it. John had always been worth it.
But there needed to be something else in the man’s life, something more, and Jake knew that the colonel wasn’t going to be able to get it where he was. But if he left, there’d be nothing left of him. John was going to have to make that decision for himself.
Even if he didn’t want to.
I can retire in six years, John had said after the orgy or bacchanalia or whatever it was those Army boys called that party that followed the pinning-on ceremony. Spooned up close behind, chest hard and unyielding against his own back. Jake did his fair share of mountain-biking, trekking, but his exertions couldn’t match with John’s. Probably because it had nothing to do with people trying to kill him. I can retire. No more rules. We won’t have to worry.
He’d laughed. We can travel...
That’s right, anywhere you want to go. Those places you talk about...
And, oh, there were places, beautiful places, places where you could go and get lost in the landscape, free, unworried...
We’ll have to come back sooner or later.
And John’s grip had lessened a little, moving over, nose to nose now, in the darkness. We can worry about that when we get back.
It had almost been a plea.
Jake hadn't had an answer for it. And that scared the hell out of him.
+++++
John had done all his traveling in the military, which meant he’d gone to places where you couldn’t tell the difference between blood and dirt and grass, where you walked on the sidewalks to avoid the landmines, like the place where Jake had first seen him.
He still remembered it. Bosnia. He had begged his way over as a war correspondent, back when the military was still playing around with the concept of embedding journalists, worried about what they might see, what they might report. In his first three weeks, he’d already decided that it was a bad idea, not because of the violence, but the lack of violence.
The horrible, stretching lulls between horrific bursts of panic. Civilians being killed, the air campaign going on. Public Affairs didn’t know what to do with him. Not a whole lot to see on the ground. Took a lot of photos of children in the hospitals, flies buzzing around. Horrible things happening in a beautiful land.
He and one of his crew members had been in the chow hall that night, after coming back from the children’s hospital, neither of them tasting whatever it was the Army was trying to feed them, drinking strong, bitter coffee with blank stares. He was twenty-three, just a few years out of school, where he’d spent all his time drinking and rock-climbing, going to class when he felt like it. He’d never really believed these things happened. He couldn’t get those kids out of his mind.
Why the fuck did I come here?
And then he saw, then he knew, a sandy-blond captain, maybe a few years older than him, tall in tired fatigues and an M-9 strapped to his thigh, casual, like it didn’t mean anything. It looked like his nose had been broken at some point, set back together crooked, dirt clinging to the lines of his face, but his eyes were bright, sizing them both up. Something quietly forceful about him. The kind of man, Jake remembered thinking, you’d want with you on a life raft in the middle of the Arctic Ocean while the polar bears were swimming out to get you...
There was a little moment, quiet and quick, too quick for anyone else to catch, and Jake had felt a flush creep up his neck.
And then the captain had smiled.
“Jake Marsden, right? NBC? Hannibal Smith. Nice to meet you.”
And then he’d sat down.
“PA called me about your crew out here. We’ve got a mission day after tomorrow if you want to come,” he said, and patted a cigar out of some hidden pocket. Box of matches, Cyrillic writing on the side. “That is, if you really think it’s a good idea to go out there with nothing but a camera.”
“People deserve to know what’s going on out there.”
“They shouldn’t have to,” the captain had said, his brashness hiding some species of regret. Silent as he puffed his cigar awake, and then he grinned. Like he was offering to show them some new dirt bike trail, his favorite cafe in Rome. “But you’re here, so you might as well go with somebody who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Keep your asses out of trouble.”
"I'm sure I'll be grateful for that service," Jake had replied somewhat coyly, and the captain, Hannibal, had nearly choked on his next lungful of air.
Jake smiled at the memory. God, they had both been so young back then. He'd been the same age as that lieutenant of his was now. And the journalist felt a pang of sympathy. He knew what it was like, waiting for somebody like John...
He wondered how hard it was going to be to walk away.
+++++
We shouldn’t be doing this...
Hannibal...
Jake, you’ve got no idea...
Stop being an idiot and kiss me...
The first time, Hannibal had gotten the weekend off. Hannibal never got weekends off. A long weekend. Five days. More like a week. Hannibal didn’t want to take it, but his men had insisted - he deserved some time off.
“They just want me gone,” he’d laughed when they’d met up in Berlin. Germany was the only place Hannibal could get a reliable flight to, and Jake had been just fine with that.
He’d spent a semester in that city, back in college, he’d told Hannibal, knew the place pretty well. Offered to show him a few places, bars he liked, some of the sights. Completely innocent, really. He hadn’t offered anything like that, like what he’d been wanting to offer the last few months. “It’ll be fun. Come on, get away from all this for a few days...”
But as he watched the captain striding through the train station, oblivious to the people around him, the clean, happy civilians, Jake knew that Hannibal only agreed for his benefit. Probably would have spent his time off in the gym or reading one of those classics he always had with him, otherwise. He didn’t really want to be here. Didn’t need to be here.
But he’d come for Jake.
That was his first real insight into what he’d later come to learn, and love, about the man.
It had been a little awkward, both of them staring at each other, Hannibal’s sole civilian backpack slung over one shoulder, Jake’s hand shoved in his back pocket. Then Jake laughed a little and Hannibal smiled and they were going for a taxi.
“Six months of pay, tax free. It’s ridiculous what my bank account looks like,” Hannibal had said when Jake had started making calls for reservations a few weeks ago. “Let’s do this right.”
“What is that, hazard duty pay?” Jake had asked, feeling proud that he’d picked up a few things from the military guys in the three months he’d been in-theater. The military pay system still made no sense to him.
“No, per diem allowance. Fucking accounting’s all screwed up with the war. They’ve got me listed as being on a TDY,” and Hannibal had grinned. “Extra ninty bucks a day.”
Temporary duty assignment, Hannibal out here in Bosnia. Jake tried to tell himself that, that it was just temporary, whatever this was between them, and he’d booked a king at the Grand Hyatt. They hadn’t really talked about it. He liked to live dangerously. The look on Hannibal’s face as they pulled up to the entrance, an attendant opening his door for him, was priceless.
“Goddamn,” Hannibal told him over drinks in the lounge that evening, and Jake had nodded. He’d never stayed in a place this nice, either.
“Happy I suggested you go get a suit in Sarajevo?” Jake teased. It looked good on him too, dark cloth against that tanned skin. Made him look like a whole new man. Made him look out of place, but then, Hannibal was doing that to himself.
Hannibal just kept surveying the room. The captain was on edge, still on edge, keyed up, like there was going to be trouble amidst the soft jazz and quiet conversation. Like he couldn’t wait for it to happen.
“Hey,” Jake had said, and reached under the little bar table, rubbed a hand over Hannibal’s knee. The other man jumped, just a little and tried to relax. Jake could almost hear him thinking there’s nobody here, I’m not going to get busted. He’d mentioned DADT once, just once. That had been his explanation for why he wouldn’t touch Jake anywhere on base, why there had only been one or two fleeting little kisses, nothing solid. “It’s okay, captain. Nothing’s going on here. It’s just you and me, no explosions...”
“Jake, it’s... been a long time for me, and I’m not sure what you expect... here.”
Blunt. Very appropriate. Most guys he’d known would go around and around an issue like that, but then, Jake had never met anyone like Hannibal before. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Hannibal had said with an expression between a grin and a grimace, stamped out his cigar and signed the tab. As they left, Jake left his arm slip down around Hannibal’s waist, and he’d felt the captain’s hand close down around his.
Holding him close.
But things had changed once they got back up to the room, once he'd gotten Hannibal's jacket off, once Hannibal threaded his hands up into Jake's hair, once they were both breathing hard.
Oh, Hannibal...
If we’re going to do this, you should start calling me John.
We don’t have to do this.
I want to, I do...
It’s okay, I get it...
“Jake?”
The dark-haired main blinked a few times, pulling out of the memory. The sun was completely gone. How long had he been out here?
“Jake, what are you doing out here?”
John was standing in the door. Different from the man he’d known almost a decade ago, that cocky captain. His hair had gone gray since then, more scars gathered under that uniform. That attitude had shifted, his brash self-confidence mellowing, changing, all that intellect channeling into those crazy plans he loved so much, experience allowing him to make moves that looked insane and yet pull them off. He had quite the reputation these days. They’d tried to pull him up to the Pentagon more than once, settle him down in some nice office somewhere, working strategy. He’d never gone. He’d been fairly creative in the ways he’d avoided it.
Jake was so proud of him.
“Just watching the sun set, colonel.”
“We’re facing south, sweetheart.”
God, how long had it been before John would use a phrase like that? Years. Years. And then, that, at breakfast one morning. Just slipped out. Jake never got tired of the way it sounded. “How would I guess that you’d pick up on that?” Jake laughed weakly, and John sat down next to him with a heavy little grunt. “You pick up on everything,” he added. He’d always been in awe of this man.
“You’re the adventurer. I’d think you’d...”
“You’re far more adventurous than me. Afghanistan? I don’t have the balls for that one. already told them I’m done with the war reporting....”
John dropped an arm around Jake and he leaned into it, resting his head on his lover’s shoulder, like he had so many times before. It was...
“Comfortable.”
“I’m at a loss for that one, honey.”
“I’m comfortable, Jake. It’s a good place to be. Here.”
Jake could hear what he wasn’t saying. John was bad at communicating. But Jake, well, he,was a reporter, it was his business to know what people weren’t saying, and he always, always knew what John wasn’t saying. That the military was a comfortable place to be. That no matter how many times he jumped out of an airplane, at night, into territory full of people who wanted to kill him and didn’t even know it yet, it was far easier than facing the world without that structure, that purpose. But if he brought it up, John would just shut up, not talk, close down. He didn’t want that right now.
“Do you remember Berlin, baby?”
John started laughing. “During Bosnia?”
“I was just thinking about it. The one where I tried...”
“When we had a great time touring the city and you got us a fantastic hotel and...”
Jake felt his face getting hot. “My pathetic little twenty-something year old self tried to seduce you?”
“Wasn’t anything you did wrong, Jake. I loved it. I loved you, even back then. I just couldn’t...”
“I know. It wasn’t fair of me to push you like that.”
They had had a good time, John glossing over the little indiscretion the same as he was doing right then, with a smile and a laugh and a wave of his hand, enjoying the city. John had another three months left in Bosnia, which got extended to six, then nine. On TDY, the whole time. Jake had had to come back to the States about a month later, some medical emergency with his mother, but it wasn’t until he moved to Atlanta that he saw John again.
It was a total accident, three years later, that they’d found each other again. They’d kept in touch, called and later emailed, maybe once or twice a month, John always happy to listen to Jake’s stories, Jake happy to hear John’s voice, neither of them talking about anything real. Where they were, what they were doing. He’d gotten interested in the military after Bosnia, been back a few times since. But for whatever reason, he’d pissed his boss off and gotten assigned to some puff piece on a change of command ceremony and there John was, major rank on his shoulders, drinking with some of the others at the Club. He’d looked different in his service dress. He’d looked older, more tired. Still beautiful.
John saw him, and gave him a little nod, lighting him up inside, old feelings swirling awake again, but all he could do was smile back. That extended TDY is over, he'd thought, what can possibly come up now?
They’d gone out for drinks that Saturday. Gone back to Jake’s apartment, fallen asleep in a pile on the couch with some crappy movie on HBO, gray static when Jake woke at four AM, John wrapped around him.
He’d taken the chance, because John wasn’t going to. John didn’t do things like that. Jake wasn’t going to let this slip away again. Even then, he’d known it wasn’t fair. That John was hemmed in by his circumstances, something that must have been unbearable for somebody like him, who was supposed to be in charge, who was supposed to command, to fight, who was blessed with his depth of belief.
Jake had tried to tell himself that he’d be setting John free with this, letting him have all the things he always wanted and never let himself have. It was true, but there was nothing honest about it. No altruistic of him, but it wasn’t exactly selfish, either, he’d reasoned. He’d just never met anybody like John, and he’d never meet anybody like him again. He couldn’t let him go.
He wanted, but didn't John want, too?
So he’d let his hands wander. Let his lips follow.
John’s blue eyes had snapped open, met Jake’s, and then he’d made a little sighing sound, sat up, grabbed...
He hadn’t understood, then, how deep this would run, how far under his skin John would get, how that tenacity and single-mindedness and faith John had would be transferred into their relationship. How hard he’d fall for him.
But... had Jake given him something? Or had he just taken something away?
“I feel like I’ve forced you,” Jake admitted quietly, that illogical guilt overwhelming him. They loved each other. Would he even be thinking about this without that lieutenant around? Was he scared? Threatened? “All these years, I feel like I’ve forced you.”
“That,” John said, tugging his lover gently to his feet and rubbing a hand across his chest as he reached behind and opened the balcony door, “is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“John?” Jake asked, and then bit his tongue right before the rest of it came out. Before the take me to bed came out, and it was forcing again.
“Shut up, sweetheart,” John said, and that effectively ended the discussion for a while.
Jake desperately needed his lover to take the lead from here, and John didn’t disappoint. The colonel held him tight, pulling them both back to the bedroom, easy kisses ghosted across his neck, nibbled along his ear. John bit at his lower lip, captured his mouth, a deep kiss sparking those connections they’d built upon over the past six years, breaking apart only when both men were shivering, coming back together. They fit into one another like they were made for it, like they belonged like that, and Jake let his head fall forward into Hannibal’s neck with a low moan, letting everything else go.
He loved it, this easy familiarity. Jake didn’t need to turn on a light to find the buttons on John’s BDUs, John just knew where Jake was ticklish as he tugged at his light t-shirt, played his shorts open. Sensitive spots were exploited and teased as they peeled off all those layers between them, skin meeting skin as they hit the bed in a tangle of limbs. Speeding up, arousal building, soft playfulness giving way to John’s aggressive focus, that intensity he brought to everything he did, growling a little as he pounced on Jake.
The other man loved this, loved those heavy hands flipping him over, playing over his spine, his ass. Fingers, slick and skilled, pushing up into him, spreading him open. Jake sighed and let the tension go out of neck, relaxing into the pillow bunched between his arms.
John nipped lightly at his ear, grabbed his hips, an irrefutable argument, and then, ohhellyes, that was it, right there, as that massive shaft sank into him, deeper and deeper, both them right where they belonged, right where everything was right and good...
It was far too soon before John was biting down on his shoulder and flooding him, filling him, triggering Jake's own release with the sheer intensity of it all, confirming those old claims, promises, and Jake was glad they weren't facing one another, that John couldn't see the tears.
It wasn't enough time. It never had been. It never would be.
It occurred to Jake, both of them laying there, not really touching, just enjoying as sticky heat cooled in the air conditioning, that John hadn’t ever really come back from that TDY, that it had never really ended. That John had been so hungry back then, and maybe that wasn’t the point anymore. That it was only ever supposed to be temporary and how in the hell had it kept on this long?
Wasn’t it time?
Shouldn’t John get a chance to come home, go back, get something that belonged in his world? Finally have a part of his weird, strange little world for himself? All these years, and Jake still didn’t feel like he understood John’s life, what he faced every day when he put on that uniform, how the military was, everything switching back and forth between that same lethal seriousness and ridiculous humor that John himself seemed to embody. Jake didn’t want what was between them getting in the way of that, and it couldn’t not, how had this ever resulted in anything but isolation from a world where isolation couldn't be tolerated...
“Do you love the kid, John?”
A kiss was pressed to his temple. “I love you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Jake, if you’re having those doubts again, we talked about...”
“What happened with him?”
There was a long silence, one of those silences John used when he didn’t want to talk.
“Baby...”
“He left. He’s going to Korea.”
“Baby, if you want him...”
“I want you.”
Jake shifted, turned so they were facing one another, trailed a hand down John’s side. He didn’t say what he was thinking, that it wouldn’t make it through another deployment, that when John got called up for Afghanistan, it would be years. That he wouldn’t be able to go that long. That it would be ever worse, knowing that John could. John had made a career of denying himself. Jake didn’t have that kind of conviction. It was the biggest difference between them, the one insoluble factor in their relationship, and he’d never been able to talk to John about it.
Because John loved him.
And he loved John.
Sometimes, not always, that was enough. It could be enough right now, couldn’t it?
“...you should go after him.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?”John murmured thoughtfully, without intention, without concession, and Jake had a sudden, horrible thought that maybe he’d only offered because he knew that would be the reaction.
Jake nuzzled up into a broad shoulder, John lifting his arm to let him in, both of them arranging themselves around the other, getting comfortable again.
“It’s your decision, sweetheart,” Jake murmured, and John just shivered in response. Silent again. There’d be nothing more tonight. Well, that was to be expected. That was just how John was, and Jake loved him anyway.
Neither man moved after that, and sleep crept in, covering half-formed decisions and the night slipped away.
