What Goes Around (Part Two)
Dec. 9th, 2010 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face, Face/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part Two of Two for a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Intense Face whomp and non-con, pwease?? With more than one person beating up on Face, too, because I see Face fighting them so much he has to be held down. And when Hannibal finds him, he has no clue what happened to Face and maybe doesn't find out until the people who took Face show up again (it can even be years later) asking for the team's help, and only Face recognizes them and freaks out. Cue Hannibal being all "suck it up, Lieutenant. We're taking this mission." And then more bad things happen to Face. And Hannibal's all guilty when he finds out. Face can forgive him or be pissed at him for not listening in the first place. Up to you, lovely. <3
H/F, obvs. End it however you want, too, happy or sad.
Face takes on more than he can handle when he doesn’t report a brutal rape he suffers as a young lieutenant. He doesn’t realize how deep the damage goes until they pick up a job, working for the same guy who raped him all those years ago... and it all starts up again.
Face was at the door barely before Hannibal got there. The handle jerked open, inward, at the same time Hannibal was going to open it. The kid jumped a little as Hannibal laid eyes on him, and looked away. Again. He felt a surge of anger. His boy was still lying to him about something. Lying without talking.
Goddamn it.
“Hey...boss. You’re, uh, early.”
“BA found our kid.”
“Great,” Face said, just a little too fast. “You’re going to need me, right? And Murdock stays here to watch the phones?”
“I’m going to stay with him...”
The lieutenant sagged just a little bit, then laughed. “It’ll be great to stretch my legs, thanks, boss.”
“Face...” Hannibal began, noticing bruising around the corner of the kid’s lips, which looked chapped to the point of bleeding. Bruising around the base of his neck, almost hidden by the collar of his shirt. Voice a little hoarse. Should he ask, or...
“No point in wasting time,” Face said, pointing over Hannibal’s shoulder to where BA was, easing around the colonel. “Take it he can fill me in?”
“Sure, but...”
But Face was already down the drive.
Definitely avoiding.
In the kitchen, Murdock was playing with one of his sudokus. Only one. And he was doing it in pencil. Lots of erase marks. Something was wrong. Hannibal patted him on the shoulder, and looked over at where the client’s wife was watching him. The colonel nodded at her. “We think we’ve found something. I don’t want to get your hopes up...”
“Is he alive?”
Hannibal nodded, and she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, thank god...”
“I need to talk to my captain, ma’am. Do you...”
“I’ve got some stuff I can do,” she said, and then hesitated. “My boy...”
“He’s safe right now. We’re going to get him back for you.”
“I know you will,” she said firmly, and made to leve. Murdock caught her around the waist and spun her around on her way out, giving her quick peck on the cheek and whispered something in her ear that got her laughing. She slapped him playfully, and then they were alone. Murdock put the muffin down, face serious. Sane.
For some reason, that made him extremely uneasy.
“Boy’s outside Baltimore,” Hannibal told him. “Face and BA are going to figure out why they’re holding him. No leverage and no way in until we figure that out. I’ve asked them to go get...”
“Hannibal?”
It was quiet. Murdock’s serious voice.
“What is it, captain?”
Murdock bit his eraser. Chewed on it, really. Had been for a while. The end was almost all the way off now. He went back to his muffin. “... nothing, boss.”
Bullshit. But Hannibal ignored his instincts, didn't press.
Hannibal patted his pilot on the shoulder again, some kind of dread fogging into the bright kitchen, and headed down the little hall to the bathroom, lost in thought as he did his business and went to flush. Face, now Murdock, his boys acting weird on him. What the hell was going on here?
His hand hit the lever, pushed down, and then he noticed. A slight stickiness, that smell, clinging to the back of the bowl, around the hinges of the seat. Same thing on the handles of the sink. White. Crusting. The faintest hint of...
Hannibal knew that smell.
Dread settling in hard and thick now, he found himself headed back to the den. The armchair, the one he’d left his lieutenant pouting in last night, had been moved, leg drag showing in the dust on the hardwood floor. Shoved hard. More of that stickiness, smeared, like somebody had tried to clean it up. More disturbances in the light dust. Blood, just a few drops, gone unnoticed on the dark leather.
His lips chapped, almost to the point of bleeding...
Hannibal sat back. Looked up. The first thing his eyes settled on was a paddle displayed lovingly on a shelf. Frat thing, Greek letters burned into the wood. He got up, turned it around.
Alpha Kai Delta. Business Fraternity. Georgia Tech. 1999.
Face’s first year with him have been 1999. At Benning.
Hannibal’s mind was in pursuit of an answer to a question he could barely formulate. The semen in the bathroom, on the floor, blood, Face acting weird... lost in that, he didn’t notice Murdock coming in until the pilot was right next to him, squatting, playing a finger over the floor. Pushed his baseball cap back.
“He said it was consensual, colonel...”
And that was it. The answer. The answer to a question he’d always wanted to ask, the question he didn’t want to be asking now.
“How bad was it?”
“Heard everything, boss,” Murdock drawled. “Ain’t nuthin’ in the world gonna convince me Face wanted it like that.”
Hannibal, I can’t...
I don’t give a shit about your personal bullshit, kid...
Guys, five of them...
Georgia Tech, 1999
I don't give a shit...
Hannibal stared straight at that paddle, lost somewhere between guilt and pure unadulterated rage. He wanted a cigar, he wanted to scream, he wanted a plan...but then, sometimes the simplest answers were the best ones.
“I’m going to castrate that son of a bitch.”
+++++
Hannibal called a meeting that afternoon, pulling Face and BA off the scam they were trying to run down at a Baltimore garage. Didn’t matter anyway. A quick call to Murdock, a few minutes searching on the Baltimore Sun articles from about three years ago, and they had everything they needed.
“... and that’s when the real estate deal seems to have gone bad,” Face concluded, shuffling his notes. He didn’t look up at Hannibal. His jaw still ached from last night, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t, meet the man’s gaze. He had no idea what Murdock had told him.
Not that it’s fair to ask him not to tell in the first place, Face told himself, and kept his eyes down.
“So, this guy was in bed with the mob at one point?”
“Right. His company was part of some real estate developments up in Boston, Jersey city, bunch of places. Things went bad, he ditched, left them holding several hundred million worth of debt.”
“No wonder they’re pissed,” Hannibal muttered around his cigar. He’d smoked two in the past hour alone, and Face knew how upset he had to be to be doing that. Murdock had said something. Murdock had to have said something... “...t least we know what we’re dealing with, not a gang of trigger-happy idiot gangbangers from the hood.”
BA snorted his agreement. "Professionals better, Hannibal, man?"
“We are talkin' 'bout the Russian mob here,” Murdock interjected. “D’you see Eastern Promises?”
“Yes, captain,” Hannibal said. “But they’re still not going to just kill the kid because they get scared. No, they want...”
“They want the family to suffer,” Face said, biting his lip. “They want to extract the maximum amount of pain possible, and then they’ll kill the kid. If they don’t start chopping him up first.”
Hannibal was looking at him now. The lieutenant could feel, like he always felt it, the sheer intensity of that man’s gaze tickling along the edge of his senses, filling him with warmth. “You’re right, Face. The maximum amount of pain. The question is, what are we going to do to stop it?”
Face felt himself shaking a little as Hannibal moved on, started discussing the plan. He still felt sick from vomiting last night, and begged his stomach not to give him away now. He tried to pay attention, but just couldn't.
He knew why all that focus, all that conviction, couldn't and wouldn't be dedicated to his problem. He'd given that up. But oh, if only... but he was selfish. The kid was more important.
So Face shook himself and pushed away the grief and pretended like everything was okay, like he didn't see Hannibal watching him, and he got through the briefing.
Jut like he was going to get through everything else.
+++++
Afterward, BA went to go grab take-out something or other for dinner and Murdock wanted to go with him, which left it just Face and Hannibal. Hannibal was outside, smoking still, and Face padded back to one of the bathrooms, tossing his shirt away. With the day spent working the area where they thought the kid might be, Face hadn’t had time to look at the damage.
It was significant.
His entire torso was battered purple and black. Nothing had faded yet, the skin gone turgid and sore from the pooled blood, just underneath. It hurt to breath, hurt to move. The rib he could feel, cracked but not broken all the way, under an especially nasty section of...
“Oh, kid.”
The conman checked the mirror. Yup, there he was. Hannibal. Standing right behind him with a look of... what was that? Shock? Revulsion? And fuck, if Face couldn’t think of a decent excuse, Hannibal was going to know.
They stared at each other through the mirror for a moment, and then Hannibal came around, leaned up against the counter next to Face, eyes travelling over him slowly. Face had never felt more exposed.
“What is this, Face?” Hannibal asked, reaching out to stroke last night’s marks, the dark smudges around his neck, and Face shuddered involuntarily, the touch so familiar, so new, resisting the urge to lean up into it.
“Nothing.”
“Stop lying to me, kid!”
Face looked away, wanting that hand off him, wanting that hand everywhere, that touch, just like Hannibal would hint at sometimes with his fist bumps and shoulder pats and everything, everything else. “It’s nothing, boss. Rough sex...”
“When? Where? We’ve been the case this past week.”
“Well, maybe I couldn’t help myself, had to go out...”
“Bullshit,” Hannibal spat, and that hand ran up his neck, cradling his right cheek, thumb rough on growing stubble. “Face, spill it.”
Great. Now Hannibal was breaking out the first names. That boded not good, not good at all. Face didn’t dare move. “Like I said, boss, rough sex,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, trying to keep himself from descending down into the agony he’d been skirting for so many years. “Aaron...”
“What’d he tell you, kid? That he’d turn us in? That he’d hurt us? Face, you could have come to me, I would have listened.”
Face laughed, short and mirthless and harsh. “Oh, right. Cause I’m going to just come right out and tell you I’m...” and he faltered. Wanted to kick himself for almost saying it, for Hannibal almost knowing. He was going to have enough to worry about the anger and the disappointment from the boss now. Enough as it was. He couldn’t bear to add disgust to that list, couldn’t bear Hannibal’s reaction to...
“That you’re what, kid? Bi? Gay? Doesn’t make what he did to you okay.”
And that snapped his attention up and over, fear shaking his thoughts all loose and he kept his eyes locked forward. Naked, terrified. Had Hannibal always known? No, he couldn’t have. They would have had a talk. Possibly ending in his transfer to another unit. had to be one of those intuitive leaps the boss took so frequently. No proof, he could bluff his way out... but Face looked down at his chest, the memory of the past week, and he knew, he just didn’t have the strength.
He sagged, defeated. “Don’t you think I know that?”
That thumb was stroking his cheek now, pressing in just a little. “You’re better than this, kid.”
And there they went, off with the gay chat, the I-don’t-understand-why-you-like-it-up-the-ass-but-I’ll pretend-it-doesn’t-bother-me chat. His sinuses were stinging, and holy hell, did his body really have to do this to him right now? Like being a faggot needed confirmation. Hannibal’s gay lieutenant, crying. What a great little twist in the story, Peck, and Face screwed his eyes shut against it.
“Hannibal...”
“Why didn’t you come to me back then? You could come to me with anything, I’d always...” Hannibal murmured, softer and softer, closer and hotter. And then soft lips, much softer than he’d expected, than he’d dream about so many times, were brushing his cheek. “I’d do anything for you...” and it was almost a whisper. Those lips found his, closed down, asking, searching, and for one horrible, perfect second, Face let himself relax.
Then he surged out of Hannibal’s embrace, somehow finding himself against an opposite wall, wiping his mouth, and the look on the boss’s face... what was that? They both paused, then spoke at the same time.
“I don’t want your...”
“Face, I didn’t mean...”
“... goddamn sympathy...”
“...don’t want to force you so soon...”
A burst of words, then silence. Face shook himself, not believing Hannibal would actually go this far, furious at this part of himself getting out. All his fault. All these years, and Hannibal had managed to unravel it in a single afternoon. Fucking hell, and he made for the bathroom door, needing to get out of here, away, somewhere else, anywhere...
Hannibal just leaned up against the knob, blocking his escape. “I’m sorry, kid.” It was almost plaintive. Bullshit. Hannibal didn’t do contrite.
“About what?” he snapped, unable to stop himself, his voice thickening with swelling emotion. “About me being a fag? About... Aaron, or how this is going to screw up us finding that little kid? About...”
“About not, about not... shit, Face, all these years, and I never knew, I never...” and both hands were on his shoulders, pulling him in, and Face didn’t have the energy to fight it. Hannibal hugged him in tight. “I failed you, Templeton,” he finished in a shaking whisper, almost too quiet to hear, the grief louder than the actual words. “I failed you, never told you, my beautiful boy...”
One of those hands on his shoulder was snaking up, never losing contact, fingers tangling in Face’s hair. The lieutenant cringed, and Hannibal stopped immediately, blue eyes searching for an answer, so close together now. Face pushed the panic down enough to catch a quick thought. Not rough or hard or demanding, this. Gentle, almost scared. An apology...
Hannibal moved his thumb again, and it broke something inside of Face. He surged forward, wrapping his arms around his commander’s neck. Then his face was buried in a shoulder and he was crying, and Hannibal was nudging his chin up, so much different from last night, and those lips closed back down around his, sparking nerves, drawing a moan, driving him open, seeking out everything. The taste of cigars was in his mouth, and something salty that could have been from him, and the faintest hint of something intoxicating, blood and sand and sweat and strength, flowing into him, taking him, claiming...
Gasping for breath, Face pulled back, hands still hooked behind the other man’s head and looked up, a ball of nervousness rolling around beneath his cracked ribs. What was Hannibal doing? He wasn’t... “John, I...”
“It’s okay, Temp,” Hannibal said, softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
He laid his head against that chest, listened to the strong heart, beating within, the rumbling of Hannibal’s reassurance. But even then, he knew. None of this was over yet.
No matter what Hannibal thought about it.
+++++
Crickets, as Hannibal hung up the phone.
Then Aaron was staring, talking...
“What are you doing, colonel! That was insane!”
“Insane is what you hired us to do,” Hannibal said, picking his unlit cigar up, biting the end. Aaron looked panicked. For himself. Not his son. Selfish motherfucker, Hannibal thought with an internal growl.“Face is going to get you both out, safe and sound...”
“How do you plan to keep them from killing us?”
It was late, well after midnight, and the colonel had forgotten how difficult these night shifts were. How hard they were on the body. But it was worth it. Hannibal had moved himself onto nights with Face to keep an eye on him, to make sure the kid slept, to smile smugly at Aaron as Face stayed close in on the way through the door.
The Russians had called. They wanted a meet. Money. Kid returned safely. It may or may not have had anything to do with Hannibal’s conversation with them yesterday. The one he hadn’t told Face about. The one that was eating away at him. He wasn’t sure he could go through with this...but the kid...
“I assure you, if anyone can do it, it’s Face,” Hannibal concluded, keeping behind that smug confidence he used to pull out in mission briefings, the ones that ended with everyone staring at him in disbelief. His boy, who knew that look and smiled a little at seeing it, nodded back. “Piece of cake. We have done this before.”
“I don’t like it,” Aaron said, staring at the kid. “You said we’re dealing with the Russian mafia?”
The man was playing it like they didn’t know. Like they wouldn’t have checked. Like Face hadn’t gotten ahold of bank accounts, his company invoices, old records, emails. A smile and a logical story was all it took to uncover all the man’s dirty little secrets.
Hannibal had already told Face - they had to play along with whatever assumptions were being thrown at them. It would just make it all easier in the end. “If you want your son back, this is what we’re going to have to do.”
Aaron shook his head. “Why is this happening?”
“I don’t know. But we are going to get your son back.”
Face was sitting back and away. His eyes were hooded, his expression neutral. He was pissed about this, and Hannibal felt a pang of guilt. Couldn’t be helped, though. “We do this sort of thing all the time, Aaron. Your kid will be fine.”
“He fucking better...”
Hannibal jerked his head, and Face nodded back, standing up. Murdock had rigged the stuff up in the den for Hannibal to monitor, more comfortable, he’d told the client, and kept the door locked now. “Good night,” he said, and opened the den door.
Easing himself down on the end of the couch, Hannibal checked the read-out of the screen and let a knee fall open and out. A clear invitation. Face smiled at him and toed out of his shoes and slid himself down on the smooth leather, a vision of grace, eyes still uncertain. He settled in with a soft sigh, and Hannibal stroked down that warm side.
“Everything’s okay, kid,” he murmured, bending down to plant a kiss on an exposed cheek, brushing the hair away from his eyes. His stomach tightened. He was going to make everything okay, wasn’t he?
Face had curled up alone on the couch that first night, waking with a jolt after about an hour, whimpering in some broken voice that had no business coming from his boy. After that, Hannibal sat with him, like he was sitting with him now, feet propped up on the coffee table, a book in hand, Face’s head in his lap. Sleeping quietly under Hannibal’s soft touch. Being able to touch, to stroke, finally, after all these years, was a heady feeling. The bruising was fading to ugly yellows, healing up, but Hannibal didn’t think it’d be so easy on the inside.
Hannibal was trying. Holding him, arm wrapped around the kid’s waist, careful of the injuries. Telling him everything was going to be okay. Face would lean into him, hold on, but Hannibal knew his boy didn’t quite believe him. Hard experience had taught the kid at an early age the cost of trust given, the likelihood of trust lost...
...years of damage to peel away, years of abuse to repair, to drive from his mind, to replace, to heal...
Make him whole, John, make him full again...
Hannibal’s head fell back, hitting the back of the wall, and he jerked up. Zero-four-fifty-two, almost dawn, not quite light out yet, nothing awake, nothing alive in the new day yet, and the colonel went cold.
Face was gone.
A pit formed his stomach, and Hannibal crept out of the den quietly, soft on his feet. Kitchen, hallway, living room, entrance... that was the circle of the downstairs, and then he noticed the peel of light from the bathroom. Hannibal told himself to relax, that Face had just needed...
He pushed the door open. And there Face was, balled up in a corner against the sink cabinet, wadded into himself like a discarded towel, shirt gone. His eyes were blank, just staring, as Hannibal dropped to his knees in front of him, heart plummeting. He’d never seen the kid like this, never seen him this empty. Fresh bruising along his collarbone, over his pecs, shallow scratches closing up beneath.
Hannibal wanted to reach out, pull him in, but he couldn’t. Didn’t dare. If he touched, he might shatter his boy apart. Never find all the pieces again. He shuffled forward a little. “Templet...”
Face swallowed, head jerking up, pupils flaring and then focusing down. He tilted his head, ear to his shoulder. “You said nothing new. No indications. Play along. Right?”
“This wasn’t part of that. This stops, Face. Don’t you get that? You don’t have...”
“You want the police called? This close to getting the boy back? Fuck that. Fuck that, boss. We have to find him.”
Hannibal was barely breathing now. He didn’t know what scared him about this more, the vacant stare, that calm, flat voice.... “This doesn’t need to be...”
Face was still watching the ceiling, like he was suspicious of its intentions, not really talking. “That kid... sooner or later...” and he shuddered and rolled forward, undulating up into Hannibal’s arms, chin settling down, rubbing his cheek against Hannibal’s own, catlike and fluid. Graceful. “... if that happens, I couldn’t...it’s a choice, Hannibal. Doesn’t count... that kid’s not going to get one...”
Perfect. Hannibal flushed with the unreasonable rush of pride, followed by shame. He hadn’t saved Face from this tonight, hadn’t stopped anything, failed, failed, when he promised he wouldn’t. Face must hate him, and Hannibal couldn’t stop himself from laying a hand on an exposed knee, as if the kid would vanish if he didn’t
“You’re what matters, Templeton. You’re the only thing...”
But Face just clung to him tighter and didn’t let him finish. Hannibal wrapped his arms around, breathing deep, inhaling the scent of this man and suddenly felt a lot better about what he was planning to do.
+++++
Face paused for a moment before following the others out of the van, down and out into the staging area, a few streets down from the meet, rental car at the ready. Breathing hurt, lungs fighting for air from beneath those cracked ribs. He should have been thinking abut the mission, getting into gear, focusing.
But he couldn’t.
Because everything was dark in his head, thoughts rising up as half-formed wisps of smoke, like he was on fire inside.
Because he could still feel it from last night, and it wasn't all...
Because it had been a relief when Hannibal had fallen asleep.
Hannibal... and Face groaned.
The colonel had always thought about things in the terms of the plan, of the ways things should be, must be, couldn’t not be. One thing the military taught its officers was how to never say no, never back down from a problem, never admit defeat. Hannibal, Face suspected, had taken those lessons to heart a long time ago, as a junior lieutenant during the Cold War who’d thought his life would be about fighting against absolutes, a righteous existence. The colonel’s plans always worked not because he believed they would, but because there existed in his mind no other possibility.
Face knew he didn’t have that kind of conviction. He’d never had an absolute to fall back on, no real faith, no easy solution, not like Hannibal did. No doctrine or ideology or dogma worth believing in. No, he’d spent the last ten years running after terrorists and narco-traffickers and warlords in unpronouncable regions, and it had made him something of a pragmatist when it came to the way things should be.
So, when Hannibal had finally fallen asleep, the first time Face had seen the man shut his eyes in the preceding three days, he’d taken the opportunity for what it was; a chance at the less horrible of the options available to them.
Or, that’s what he’d told himself at the time.
Getting away from the horrible feeling of Hannibal touching him just to calm him down, making him feel better. That’s what it had been about. Escaping that.
Sure, Face wanted to give in, give up, but he couldn’t be sure what the boss was offering, couldn’t be sure about anything. Because he was an officer, and because he was Hannibal, and Hannibal took care of his men. The boss was just doing what he thought he needed to do, holding his lieutenant, letting him sleep on his lap, hinting at things...
Things that Face, being ever-practical, knew probably weren’t going to come. Maybe Hannibal did want it. He’d never take it. Not now. Not after seeing his boy broken and bleeding on the bathroom floor. If it wasn’t his guilt over letting it happen, it’d be his guilt over taking advantage, or something like that. No, it was all gone...
He’d slowly made his way up the stairs. Looking for something. Needing something. Just to fill that hole Hannibal was digging in him, the one that probably wasn’t going to get filled. Needing it to hurt, just for a little while.
Clarifying.
Terrifying.
Aaron had been waiting in the upstairs bedroom.
And Face had locked the door.
He wasn’t a big fan of brutality. Normally. In their line of work, getting the wires crossed between pleasure and pain was dangerous. Face had seen too much of that during their stint in Africa to ever want to experience such a fall himself. Seen it in Aaron’s face as the man had made him hold his own legs open, taken him dry, his own groans not entirely...
“Face, man, what you thinkin’ ‘bout?”
The lieutenant realized BA was standing right there.
“Nothing, dude. Poor kid,” he said, reaching for something to say, and it must have been the right thing. BA nodded.
“Come on. You gotta get going.”
Face glanced over at Aaron, and then back to the boss, who was briefing him on what they needed him to do. Stay quiet, mostly. Not lose his temper. Let Face get proof of life. Settle terms of payment, the when and the where. Make threats. Aaron looked pissed, more at the mention of the money than how he wasn’t getting his son back today. Said he’d hired them for a more creative option, and Hannibal’s mouth had tightened at the corners.
Hannibal wanted to protect him, he said. Yet here the colonel was, sending his lieutenant in alongside Aaron, the man who was hurting him, to keep the man in line and because Face spoke Russian and could easily be mistaken for any number of frightening potentials.
Which was all bullshit.
There were other options on how to play this. Lots of other angles, better angles, even. But this? This was insane. What was the boss playing at?
Every nerve in his body was screaming at his proximity to Aaron, to Hannibal, and the conman, for once in his life, had no idea if he was going to be able to pull this off. Face knew he was barely hanging on right now, he knew it, and if there was some kind of issue, some kind of problem...
“Face?” BA asked, quieter this time, worried.
...but Hannibal believed in his plan and its efficacy, and no power on earth was going to tell him otherwise. No amount of logic. No measure of pragmatism. He didn’t accept alternatives, alterations, problems, once the plan had been set. And it always worked. Face knew this implicitly.
And that was really it, wasn’t it? The whole fucking issue, right there. The thing that was capable of reaching down through the fog. The thing that was going to get him on his feet and fighting.
Hannibal.
Hannibal was the only thing Face had ever really believed in. And now he didn’t know what to think, what to do.
So, hating himself, lacking another option, knowing that this was always going to be the way it was and hating that, too, Face hopped out of the van.
+++++
It was easier, slipping into a role, being the amorphous man hired by Aaron to ensure that his kid wasn't fucked with. Face was fine with that. It was helping. Helping him think clearer.
He hated organized crime. Gangs were one thing, nasty little organizations full of fifteen year olds who shot one another over stupid bullshit, drugs and girls. In that regard, they were predictable. Always assumed the worst. Easy.
But the mafia, especially the Russians, were completely different. They’d smile and chat over coffee, and then somebody was behind you, trying to slit your throat. Face never knew what he was walking into, in one of these situations, and that always made him nervous.
“So, what’s Hannibal’s problem?” Aaron asked conversationally. They were being made to wait in the office lobby of the shipping company’s dockside warehouse. That was another thing Face hated about organized crime. It always wanted to flirt with legitimacy.
“With what?” Face asked, fake accent thick on his tongue. He was trying to stay calm, trying to figure if he could work this con. Hannibal hadn’t given him much detail.
“I thought you guys were supposed to be good at solving problems. If I’d wanted to hand over the ransom money, I would have just done it.”
And something flared in Face at that. Hadn’t these people specifically said... “I thought there was no ransom demand at first.”
Aaron shrugged. “I know how we must look on paper to these assholes, but most of my assets aren’t liquid, there’s no way...”
You cheap bastard, Face thought, the memory of his own family abandoning him coming suddenly to mind and only the opening of the office door kept him from doing something lethal right then.
They were led down onto the main floor of the warehouse, back to a row of room built up on a second-story platform. Narrow stairs. Black out curtains over the windows. Face felt his M&P .308 rub under his arm and knew they were going to take it away. Wouldn’t have done to show up naked, though.
Patted down, Face relieved of the gun and his favorite ceramic blade he’d forgotten was stashed in a pocket, Aaron stripped of his cell phone, both men are pushed into chairs at the foot of a desk. Youngish man, about Face’s own age, cut the end off a cigar and contemplated them both very carefully.
The conman’s eyes darted to the wrapper, still laying on the desk. Hannibal’s favorite brand, very hard to get, the ones Face keeps in him steady supply of. His eyes narrowed a little, but he had to keep an even countenance for Aaron.
They talked, the Russian supremely disinterested in anything Aaron has to say, a prison tattoo curling around his hand. Aaron, sounding more and more insincere about his own intentions as the conversation rolled on.
Face could feel it, the clinging tendrils of that fog, trying to drag him back down, pull him so far down in himself that he’d never... and it took the lieutenant a moment to realize that the man was speaking to him in Russian.
“I'm sorry, I don’t understand,” he replied in kind.
The man nodded, and jabbed the cigar towards Aaron. “He raped your leader’s wife, your sister, did he not? Very terrible offense, almost as great as how much money he’s cost my family. Thank you for bringing him here today.”
What? Face wanted to laugh, because that didn’t make any damn sense. He had to be missing something in the translation, this... “I, um...”
Leader’s wife? There was no way, no way in hell, Hannibal ever would have... and he felt something hot rush through him at that, the implication
“Please, if you wait outside,” and the mobster waved the goon over, the one who’d taken Face’s gun, “we will be done in a few minutes.”
“Face,” Aaron whispered urgently, “what is he saying?”
Face just shook his head. “I’m not catching it all.”
“But...”
The goon came over, a little too close, and there it was, the edge of fear, panic beginning to creep over Aaron’s features. But Face barely had time to recognize it for what it was. Because the door opened behind them, and he turned, and there, framed against the saturated halogens of the warehouse proper, tall, certain, a little nod to the man at the desk, a nod back, all that presence...
“Hannibal?”
“The kid’s downstairs, in the main office.”
What the hell was going on? “Hannibal...”
The older man’s face twisted up a little as he moved, prowled, into the room, straight over to the goon, who handed over Face’s little arsenal. Hannibal tossed Face the pistol, flicked open the dull blade himself. Predatory. Smooth. Like he always got before...
“Hannibal, what the fuck are you...” Aaron began, and Hannibal calmly turned on his heel and backhanded the man with a force that knocked him clear out the chair, up over and back, landing in a heap, and Hannibal was on him, knee pressing his chest to the ground firmly, that blade hovering right over a wildly beating artery in the neck. The asshole’s eyes were huge, confronted with real violence, violence against him, threatening his life, maybe for the first time in all his life, and Face felt a bubble beginning to form in him, despite himself. Warm.
Hannibal was staring straight at him, steady. Determined. “Face, get the hell out of here.”
“Fuck that,” he spat. “You’re not...”
Hannibal’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then he stood, kicking the prostrate man as he did so, Face catching every shifting emotion, every iteration... and Hannibal was right there, Hannibal was on him, hand on his shoulder, lips on his ear. “Go get the kid and take him home, back to his mom.”
Face let his forehead fall, his fingers wrapping around Hannibal’s wrist. “Boss, you don’t have to do, well, whatever the fuck...”
“This is the deal for the little boy’s life, kid.”
“Yeah, but...”
“He hurt you,” Hannibal said softly, and Face knew, not a force on the planet was going to stop whatever it was he’d set in motion. “He hurt you, Templeton. You deserve to know it’s ...”
Aaron started laughing loudly, and Face wondered how in the hell the man heard. They were practically whispering. If he’d just reacted to the touching. The lieutenant looked over Hannibal’s shoulder, and Aaron was sitting up, trying to stand. “You fucking faggot...”
Face ddn’t really have to aim, just brought the gun in his right hand around the edge of Hannibal’s body and squeezed the trigger. One shot, a hard explosion in the small space, and then a loud, wailing scream. The lieutenant smiled grimly, and moved around Hannibal, made a show of kicking the man back down to the ground, blood pouring out of his upper thigh. He grabbed a fistful of the client‘s hair, jerked his head back, hauling him up a little, wanted to say something clever and witty and funny, something he’d remember later, but the look there was enough for him.
“On second thought, boss, you’re right,” he said, and tucked the gun back into its holster. Turned to leave. “I do feel better. And thank you,” he added in Russian with a last little smile at Hannibal, “for helping us avenge his wife.”
“He’s lucky to have loyal people under his command,” the Russian replied casually from his seat, where he’d been the whole time, and flicked the ash off the cigar.
Face let the door snick shut behind him, and closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then another. Steadying himself, ever as he heard a second scream peel loose from the man inside... the rapist, yours, he reminded himself and down and away he went, not sure how he was feeling, not sure how he should feel about it...
But it was a genuine smile he flashed the cute little boy, tow-headed and sleepy, like they’d just gotten him up from a nap, the subject of so many photos in the house he’d spent the last ten days in. Face felt his heart tighten when the secretary - of all people - handed him over.
“I’m taking you home, kid,” he told the little boy. “Everything’s going to be just fine. You’re safe...”
The kid just wound right down into his arms, heavy and trembling. And Face remembered his mother, crying over him, unable to sit still, showing them baby videos on the computer. How Aaron hadn’t seemed overly worried, like a man who’d lost his Rolex, how Aaron had held him down in that alley... and that settled it, didn’t it?
Face tightened his grip on the kid and left, out into the bright afternoon, squinting into the sun. It seemed to him, right then, that he hadn't really seen it in years.
+++++
The van door slid open, Murdock’s grin faltering, face pale.
“Face, where’s...”
“Just drive.”
He handed the boy off to Murdock, who told him that Uncle Face and BA were very serious, but that he’d be home with his ma real soon. Lapsed into ridiculous jokes, the kind you’d find on popsickle sticks. The kid laughed. Who’ve thought the pilot would be good with kids?
Face just sagged into the passenger seat. What the hell had he just allowed to happen?
BA looked over at him. “I don’t like this, Face.”
“Hannibal’s okay,” Face said shortly. “Probably having a couple of rounds with the Russians by now.”
“Aaron?”
Face shook his head, and BA fell silent, turning the van out onto the highway, night gathering as they slipped back towards Anapolis and all the unpleasant questions Face knew he wasn’t going to be able to answer.
The eight year old clutched at Murdock’s leather jacket, both of them sprawled out on the back seat, somehow instinctively understanding that the three of them were here to help. falling asleep.
Not knowing that Face had just let his father die. Killed him, really. Let the Russians kill him. Let Hannibal... the lieutenant’s stomach tightened, and he couldn’t focus on that right now.
Poor kid, losing half his family like that. Having his father taken away.
What was he supposed to say? Tell the woman the truth about the man she’d married, started a life with? I’m sorry ma’am, but your husband was a sex offender, was probably going to hurt your son eventually and this was better... Break her apart like that? Make her carry that knowledge around with her for the rest of her days? Make her worry that her little boy had already been touched? No, no, she’d be haunted. That wouldn’t do at all.
But he couldn’t focus on that. He couldn’t focus on it at all. Face just kept seeing it, Hannibal, in his mind’s eye, standing in that doorway like the angel of death, a kind of anger he hadn’t seen in the man in years radiating off him, that calmness that belied... what, exactly?
He raped your leader’s wife, your sister...
Hannibal had set up a deal. Hannibal had set up Aaron’s death. Traded him, the boy’s life for the father’s. But he hadn’t done it for the little boy or his mother.
He’d done it for Face.
Whatever he’d done. Whatever he was still doing, whatever the Russians were doing. Face didn’t believe for a second Aaron was dead yet. No, the scam he’d seen laid out in the
Face slunk down in the seat. He had to stop thinking about that. Narrow down. Get through this.
They pulled into that long driveway, lit up, beautiful. He needed an answer, one he could deliver convincingly. A good answer. An answer that would leave everybody happy. He couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it anywhere...
He hurt you, Templeton. You deserve to know it’s...
“It’s over, ma’am,” Face said as evenly as he could. The wife had torn herself away. She was still crying, her anxiety hanging off her like a cheap dress. People were here, an older lady that might have been her mother, a friend or two, even though they’d asked her not to invite anyone over. They were out on the front porch, everyone inside, that grandmotherly type fussing over the boy, casserole out on the kitchen table where Face had passed so many nights, waiting for Aaron to come for him...
Face braced himself against a pillar. Had a sudden urge to tell her, tell her everything. Let her know what a snake her husband was. Why she shouldn't care that his body was going to be found in a landfill in a week. How she was better for it, how her son was safe now.
You're the only thing that matters...
That was the problem, though. Such an answer would be selfish. It'd be in the service of making himself feel better, relieving that raging guilt he had. Over everything they'd done since coming into these people's lives, ripping them apart...
“What happened, Mr. Peck?” she asked softly. “Where’s my husband?”
He couldn’t look at her as he began his story. As he told a version of the truth. A version that was almost right.
A total lie.
But one they could live with. And one that did nothing to make Face feel any better about himself.
Seemed like the right thing to do.
+++++
“Why’d you tell them it was your wife?”
It was the first time Face had spoken to him since the job.
Hannibal shifted against his headboard. Looked up from his book. One of those Joseph Conrad collections Murdock always seemed to have around. Something lyrical in the prose, sweeping his thoughts away from last week. From the blood on the floor, soaking into his pants, his socks, caking on his skin... reading wasn’t helping him forget it. He normally wasn’t a fan of brutality. He’d severed a vein before things had gotten too out of hand.
Telling himself he’d probably saved Aaron a few days of inevitable pain didn’t help. Protecting the rest of the family from any further incursions almost made it okay.
But Face, keeping Face from any further harm...
“I needed them to agree. Needed something they’d accept.”
“You could have told them it was your lieutenant,” Face said, not moving into the room at all, and he looked desperate. Why was that, exactly?
“You know how these guys are about their sexual preferences...”
“Sure. But...”
Hannibal sighed. Why had Dmitri mentioned that to the kid? He’d told him how upset his second in command was over his sister’s rape, how he shouldn’t bring it up. But those guys played by different rules. Probably thought he was doing Face a favor. Wasn’t that the whole point? “I wanted them to know how goddamn important it was...”
“... that you have a go at the asshole? You didn’t need...”
“They expected it, kid,” Hannibal said, and considered him for a minute. Bags under his eyes, shoulders drooped, shirt wrinkled. Wasn’t like his boy to be this sloppy. So quiet over the past few days. “What’d you tell...”
“We destroyed that family, boss,” Face blurted out, eyes distant, and Hannibal heard what the kid wasn’t saying. Made him wish he could go back and kill Aaron again. Or not. Why had letting the Russians finish him off over three, four days seemed like such a bad option, again?
“It was not your fault, Face.”
“You...”
And Hannibal was up, by the door, moving Face away so he could swing it shut. Keep his lieutenant from bolting. God, like this, so close, hands on either side of Face’s body, the man was practically in his arms. Almost. He was jumpy, uncomfortable, maybe from the ribs. “It was not your fault, kid,” he repeated, slow. So Face would listen. Believe, for once.
The lieutenant cringed, brought his hands up into his hair, palms pressing against his temples like he was trying to keep something from getting out. His elbows brushed Hannibal’s pecs. Stayed there. “If I hadn’t...”
“That’s insane, Face. You didn’t...”
“You know it’s true. I let him do that to me. I fucked up, boss. Look what happened!”
The desperation was getting thicker, heavier. Hannibal could hear it as it twisted into him, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in a little more. Face looked like he was trying to sink through the wall. Breathing hard.
“What’d you tell the mother?” he whispered.
Face shifted uneasily. “That we’d had something set up, they’d given us their assurances and that the second we walked through the door, they shot her husband between his eyes and let me take the boy out. And I told her... some of the stuff we’d found out about the deal...”
“Face...”
“I didn’t know what else to say...”
He just nodded. “It’s a good story, kid.”
“It’s true, he’s dead because of...”
“Because of me, Temp. Me. It was my choice. It’s mine to carry,” Hannibal said softly, and pulled those hands down, grasping his boy’s wrists lightly, meeting no resistance. Blue eyes regarded him warily, and there was that question again.
“Why’d you tell them I was your wife?"
The colonel hated that question. He hated that Face had to ask it, that he’d never told him this before, that it had taken them this to get them here.
Hannibal touched his forehead to Face’s, dropped his wrists and touched his boy’s face. He trailed his fingers across flawless skin, groaning internally at the feel of it, smooth and rough all at once. “Because,” he murmured, “I needed them to understand what that bastard had taken, and who he had taken it from, what that person meant to me.” He rolled down a little, catching the swell of disbelief in those blue orbs and pressed his lips against a cheek. “Who that person was to me, the depth of it...”
Hannibal tasted salt, and pulled back, staring into him, trying to find some spark, some hint, that was he was trying to say was sticking, catching, getting through. Nothing. There was nothing but doubt. All the pain Face had been through in the course of this job, all the years before, this thing living in the back of his mind. Gang-raped, blaming himself for it all. Thinking... oh, hell...
“You’ve always been the one, Templeton. My better half, my beautiful boy...”
And that did it. Face collapsed against him, sobs tearing out of his shaking body, all his weight on Hannibal. Finally, finally, Hannibal celebrated as he took his boy in, held him, felt him, right where he was supposed to be. Trembling himself, the colonel stroked down Face’s back, the muscles tight under his hands, counting the vertebre, tightening around his waist. Face leaned his head back, asking. Hannibal gave, so willingly, that first pass light but searing, burning down through him, and he knew at that what he’d always suspected; he’d never be able to give him up. Not now. Not ever, after this.
Face’s knees gave out as the kiss deepened, as Hannibal put everything he had into it. He caught the younger man as he fell, following him down, hand still braced against the door, slamming it forward onto its hinges, cradling him, keeping that battered back off the hardness behind. Nothing hard, nothing hard again, not for his boy. He needed his time to heal...
“Mmmphh,” Face groaned and broke away, gasping, eyes sparking with pain as his lungs fought against cracked ribs. Shit, Hannibal had forgotten about those, but Face didn’t seem to care. He shot out a hand and wrapped it up in Hannibal’s loose shirt, keeping them apart, holding them together. He blinked back his tears - had he been crying this whole time? - and stared right at Hannibal. Into him. “Boss...”
Hannibal tweaked an earlobe. “John,” he prompted, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile.
“Hanni... John, if you want me...”
Hannibal shook his head, wanting to. But it couldn’t hurt. He couldn’t let it hurt. “It’s too soon. You’re still...”
“... I don’t care. Please, I need...”
“I know what you need, kid,” Hannibal assured him, and who was he to refuse something like that. The colonel kissed his boy again, light and fast this time, and pulled him closer, if that was even possible. Closed down around him. Picked him up like he was nothing.
And then they were on the bed, Face laid down and smiling, tears drying white as Hannibal slowly eased the kid’s shirt off, those light cotton pants he loved so much, the ones that framed his ass so well. Loved the way the younger man watched in admiration as he pulled back himself and slipped from his own clothes, the evidence of his arousal, his own need, clearly on display. Moaned at that first touch of bare skin. So much skin, smooth and easy and better than he’d dared dream. The bruises were fading, almost gone, mere thumbnails of what they had been, pale memories that still had the power to hurt.
Hannibal straddled his lover, brushed through that lovely hair again, let his hand play there for a moment. Chest to chest, the air hot between them, cold around. “Do you want me, Templeton?”
A nod. Just one.
He nibbled along the kid’s jawline, soft little nips that had Face squirming, but didn’t move otherwise. Didn’t want to tease it out of him like that. “I’m yours, Templeton. Everything...”
Face shuddered, and wrapped his arms around Hannibal’s back, flicking up. “You’ll...”
“... never leave you, always love you?”
His eyes got huge. “John,” he murmured, clearly fighting something in himself. “After everything?”
“Please, Temp, believe me...”
Something fogged and then cleared away, leaving nothing but blue sky, open horizons, and Face let his head hit the pillows. That smile again, perfect, luminous. “Yeah, John, I do.”
Then it was all silent, open space between them, loud and close, Face wrapping his legs around Hannibal’s waist, Hannibal reaching for the lube he used sometimes, for cold nights he hoped would never come again now. Working his boy open, slow and easy, watching eyes flare, memorizing the little twitch as the pad of his finger brushed against that sweet spot, all the little reactions. A lifetime of things to learn, to explore, but right now, Face needed this, and Hannibal needed it all the more for that. So he didn’t waste time, drawing delicious little sounds as he pushed his way in, groaning as that beautiful body opened up and welcomed him home.
He set an smooth pace, Face holding his shoulders still, keeping them together as Hannibal moved in and out, deep and long and hard, sweat slicking up between them, cries mingling, everything lifting up into airless reaches, warm and sudden but hardly unexpected, Face breathing out his name as Hannibal filled him, as he spilled himself across them both, and Hannibal stroked down shaking limbs as their shared climax subsided. He couldn’t tell where he ended and Face began.
The kid didn’t let him pull out, and Hannibal was fine with that, holding him close, hands straying. Face nestled into him, arms caged in and a blissed expression playing across his features, sighing into overheated skin.
“Love you, John...”
Hannibal kissed him on the top of his head. “You too, kid. You too.”
It was going to take time. The inside wouldn’t heal like his skin did, trauma so much harder to reabsorb, process, discard than blood. There’d be problems. Fights. Arguments. It wasn’t just the rape - Face was his own special breed of insecure, and Hannibal knew it. Nothing was truly settled, not yet, not in one night. Hannibal had a lifetime of damage to heal in his boy. This wasn’t really the end of something, but the beginning.
And Hannibal couldn’t wait.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part Two of Two for a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Intense Face whomp and non-con, pwease?? With more than one person beating up on Face, too, because I see Face fighting them so much he has to be held down. And when Hannibal finds him, he has no clue what happened to Face and maybe doesn't find out until the people who took Face show up again (it can even be years later) asking for the team's help, and only Face recognizes them and freaks out. Cue Hannibal being all "suck it up, Lieutenant. We're taking this mission." And then more bad things happen to Face. And Hannibal's all guilty when he finds out. Face can forgive him or be pissed at him for not listening in the first place. Up to you, lovely. <3
H/F, obvs. End it however you want, too, happy or sad.
Face takes on more than he can handle when he doesn’t report a brutal rape he suffers as a young lieutenant. He doesn’t realize how deep the damage goes until they pick up a job, working for the same guy who raped him all those years ago... and it all starts up again.
Face was at the door barely before Hannibal got there. The handle jerked open, inward, at the same time Hannibal was going to open it. The kid jumped a little as Hannibal laid eyes on him, and looked away. Again. He felt a surge of anger. His boy was still lying to him about something. Lying without talking.
Goddamn it.
“Hey...boss. You’re, uh, early.”
“BA found our kid.”
“Great,” Face said, just a little too fast. “You’re going to need me, right? And Murdock stays here to watch the phones?”
“I’m going to stay with him...”
The lieutenant sagged just a little bit, then laughed. “It’ll be great to stretch my legs, thanks, boss.”
“Face...” Hannibal began, noticing bruising around the corner of the kid’s lips, which looked chapped to the point of bleeding. Bruising around the base of his neck, almost hidden by the collar of his shirt. Voice a little hoarse. Should he ask, or...
“No point in wasting time,” Face said, pointing over Hannibal’s shoulder to where BA was, easing around the colonel. “Take it he can fill me in?”
“Sure, but...”
But Face was already down the drive.
Definitely avoiding.
In the kitchen, Murdock was playing with one of his sudokus. Only one. And he was doing it in pencil. Lots of erase marks. Something was wrong. Hannibal patted him on the shoulder, and looked over at where the client’s wife was watching him. The colonel nodded at her. “We think we’ve found something. I don’t want to get your hopes up...”
“Is he alive?”
Hannibal nodded, and she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, thank god...”
“I need to talk to my captain, ma’am. Do you...”
“I’ve got some stuff I can do,” she said, and then hesitated. “My boy...”
“He’s safe right now. We’re going to get him back for you.”
“I know you will,” she said firmly, and made to leve. Murdock caught her around the waist and spun her around on her way out, giving her quick peck on the cheek and whispered something in her ear that got her laughing. She slapped him playfully, and then they were alone. Murdock put the muffin down, face serious. Sane.
For some reason, that made him extremely uneasy.
“Boy’s outside Baltimore,” Hannibal told him. “Face and BA are going to figure out why they’re holding him. No leverage and no way in until we figure that out. I’ve asked them to go get...”
“Hannibal?”
It was quiet. Murdock’s serious voice.
“What is it, captain?”
Murdock bit his eraser. Chewed on it, really. Had been for a while. The end was almost all the way off now. He went back to his muffin. “... nothing, boss.”
Bullshit. But Hannibal ignored his instincts, didn't press.
Hannibal patted his pilot on the shoulder again, some kind of dread fogging into the bright kitchen, and headed down the little hall to the bathroom, lost in thought as he did his business and went to flush. Face, now Murdock, his boys acting weird on him. What the hell was going on here?
His hand hit the lever, pushed down, and then he noticed. A slight stickiness, that smell, clinging to the back of the bowl, around the hinges of the seat. Same thing on the handles of the sink. White. Crusting. The faintest hint of...
Hannibal knew that smell.
Dread settling in hard and thick now, he found himself headed back to the den. The armchair, the one he’d left his lieutenant pouting in last night, had been moved, leg drag showing in the dust on the hardwood floor. Shoved hard. More of that stickiness, smeared, like somebody had tried to clean it up. More disturbances in the light dust. Blood, just a few drops, gone unnoticed on the dark leather.
His lips chapped, almost to the point of bleeding...
Hannibal sat back. Looked up. The first thing his eyes settled on was a paddle displayed lovingly on a shelf. Frat thing, Greek letters burned into the wood. He got up, turned it around.
Alpha Kai Delta. Business Fraternity. Georgia Tech. 1999.
Face’s first year with him have been 1999. At Benning.
Hannibal’s mind was in pursuit of an answer to a question he could barely formulate. The semen in the bathroom, on the floor, blood, Face acting weird... lost in that, he didn’t notice Murdock coming in until the pilot was right next to him, squatting, playing a finger over the floor. Pushed his baseball cap back.
“He said it was consensual, colonel...”
And that was it. The answer. The answer to a question he’d always wanted to ask, the question he didn’t want to be asking now.
“How bad was it?”
“Heard everything, boss,” Murdock drawled. “Ain’t nuthin’ in the world gonna convince me Face wanted it like that.”
Hannibal, I can’t...
I don’t give a shit about your personal bullshit, kid...
Guys, five of them...
Georgia Tech, 1999
I don't give a shit...
Hannibal stared straight at that paddle, lost somewhere between guilt and pure unadulterated rage. He wanted a cigar, he wanted to scream, he wanted a plan...but then, sometimes the simplest answers were the best ones.
“I’m going to castrate that son of a bitch.”
+++++
Hannibal called a meeting that afternoon, pulling Face and BA off the scam they were trying to run down at a Baltimore garage. Didn’t matter anyway. A quick call to Murdock, a few minutes searching on the Baltimore Sun articles from about three years ago, and they had everything they needed.
“... and that’s when the real estate deal seems to have gone bad,” Face concluded, shuffling his notes. He didn’t look up at Hannibal. His jaw still ached from last night, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t, meet the man’s gaze. He had no idea what Murdock had told him.
Not that it’s fair to ask him not to tell in the first place, Face told himself, and kept his eyes down.
“So, this guy was in bed with the mob at one point?”
“Right. His company was part of some real estate developments up in Boston, Jersey city, bunch of places. Things went bad, he ditched, left them holding several hundred million worth of debt.”
“No wonder they’re pissed,” Hannibal muttered around his cigar. He’d smoked two in the past hour alone, and Face knew how upset he had to be to be doing that. Murdock had said something. Murdock had to have said something... “...t least we know what we’re dealing with, not a gang of trigger-happy idiot gangbangers from the hood.”
BA snorted his agreement. "Professionals better, Hannibal, man?"
“We are talkin' 'bout the Russian mob here,” Murdock interjected. “D’you see Eastern Promises?”
“Yes, captain,” Hannibal said. “But they’re still not going to just kill the kid because they get scared. No, they want...”
“They want the family to suffer,” Face said, biting his lip. “They want to extract the maximum amount of pain possible, and then they’ll kill the kid. If they don’t start chopping him up first.”
Hannibal was looking at him now. The lieutenant could feel, like he always felt it, the sheer intensity of that man’s gaze tickling along the edge of his senses, filling him with warmth. “You’re right, Face. The maximum amount of pain. The question is, what are we going to do to stop it?”
Face felt himself shaking a little as Hannibal moved on, started discussing the plan. He still felt sick from vomiting last night, and begged his stomach not to give him away now. He tried to pay attention, but just couldn't.
He knew why all that focus, all that conviction, couldn't and wouldn't be dedicated to his problem. He'd given that up. But oh, if only... but he was selfish. The kid was more important.
So Face shook himself and pushed away the grief and pretended like everything was okay, like he didn't see Hannibal watching him, and he got through the briefing.
Jut like he was going to get through everything else.
+++++
Afterward, BA went to go grab take-out something or other for dinner and Murdock wanted to go with him, which left it just Face and Hannibal. Hannibal was outside, smoking still, and Face padded back to one of the bathrooms, tossing his shirt away. With the day spent working the area where they thought the kid might be, Face hadn’t had time to look at the damage.
It was significant.
His entire torso was battered purple and black. Nothing had faded yet, the skin gone turgid and sore from the pooled blood, just underneath. It hurt to breath, hurt to move. The rib he could feel, cracked but not broken all the way, under an especially nasty section of...
“Oh, kid.”
The conman checked the mirror. Yup, there he was. Hannibal. Standing right behind him with a look of... what was that? Shock? Revulsion? And fuck, if Face couldn’t think of a decent excuse, Hannibal was going to know.
They stared at each other through the mirror for a moment, and then Hannibal came around, leaned up against the counter next to Face, eyes travelling over him slowly. Face had never felt more exposed.
“What is this, Face?” Hannibal asked, reaching out to stroke last night’s marks, the dark smudges around his neck, and Face shuddered involuntarily, the touch so familiar, so new, resisting the urge to lean up into it.
“Nothing.”
“Stop lying to me, kid!”
Face looked away, wanting that hand off him, wanting that hand everywhere, that touch, just like Hannibal would hint at sometimes with his fist bumps and shoulder pats and everything, everything else. “It’s nothing, boss. Rough sex...”
“When? Where? We’ve been the case this past week.”
“Well, maybe I couldn’t help myself, had to go out...”
“Bullshit,” Hannibal spat, and that hand ran up his neck, cradling his right cheek, thumb rough on growing stubble. “Face, spill it.”
Great. Now Hannibal was breaking out the first names. That boded not good, not good at all. Face didn’t dare move. “Like I said, boss, rough sex,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, trying to keep himself from descending down into the agony he’d been skirting for so many years. “Aaron...”
“What’d he tell you, kid? That he’d turn us in? That he’d hurt us? Face, you could have come to me, I would have listened.”
Face laughed, short and mirthless and harsh. “Oh, right. Cause I’m going to just come right out and tell you I’m...” and he faltered. Wanted to kick himself for almost saying it, for Hannibal almost knowing. He was going to have enough to worry about the anger and the disappointment from the boss now. Enough as it was. He couldn’t bear to add disgust to that list, couldn’t bear Hannibal’s reaction to...
“That you’re what, kid? Bi? Gay? Doesn’t make what he did to you okay.”
And that snapped his attention up and over, fear shaking his thoughts all loose and he kept his eyes locked forward. Naked, terrified. Had Hannibal always known? No, he couldn’t have. They would have had a talk. Possibly ending in his transfer to another unit. had to be one of those intuitive leaps the boss took so frequently. No proof, he could bluff his way out... but Face looked down at his chest, the memory of the past week, and he knew, he just didn’t have the strength.
He sagged, defeated. “Don’t you think I know that?”
That thumb was stroking his cheek now, pressing in just a little. “You’re better than this, kid.”
And there they went, off with the gay chat, the I-don’t-understand-why-you-like-it-up-the-ass-but-I’ll pretend-it-doesn’t-bother-me chat. His sinuses were stinging, and holy hell, did his body really have to do this to him right now? Like being a faggot needed confirmation. Hannibal’s gay lieutenant, crying. What a great little twist in the story, Peck, and Face screwed his eyes shut against it.
“Hannibal...”
“Why didn’t you come to me back then? You could come to me with anything, I’d always...” Hannibal murmured, softer and softer, closer and hotter. And then soft lips, much softer than he’d expected, than he’d dream about so many times, were brushing his cheek. “I’d do anything for you...” and it was almost a whisper. Those lips found his, closed down, asking, searching, and for one horrible, perfect second, Face let himself relax.
Then he surged out of Hannibal’s embrace, somehow finding himself against an opposite wall, wiping his mouth, and the look on the boss’s face... what was that? They both paused, then spoke at the same time.
“I don’t want your...”
“Face, I didn’t mean...”
“... goddamn sympathy...”
“...don’t want to force you so soon...”
A burst of words, then silence. Face shook himself, not believing Hannibal would actually go this far, furious at this part of himself getting out. All his fault. All these years, and Hannibal had managed to unravel it in a single afternoon. Fucking hell, and he made for the bathroom door, needing to get out of here, away, somewhere else, anywhere...
Hannibal just leaned up against the knob, blocking his escape. “I’m sorry, kid.” It was almost plaintive. Bullshit. Hannibal didn’t do contrite.
“About what?” he snapped, unable to stop himself, his voice thickening with swelling emotion. “About me being a fag? About... Aaron, or how this is going to screw up us finding that little kid? About...”
“About not, about not... shit, Face, all these years, and I never knew, I never...” and both hands were on his shoulders, pulling him in, and Face didn’t have the energy to fight it. Hannibal hugged him in tight. “I failed you, Templeton,” he finished in a shaking whisper, almost too quiet to hear, the grief louder than the actual words. “I failed you, never told you, my beautiful boy...”
One of those hands on his shoulder was snaking up, never losing contact, fingers tangling in Face’s hair. The lieutenant cringed, and Hannibal stopped immediately, blue eyes searching for an answer, so close together now. Face pushed the panic down enough to catch a quick thought. Not rough or hard or demanding, this. Gentle, almost scared. An apology...
Hannibal moved his thumb again, and it broke something inside of Face. He surged forward, wrapping his arms around his commander’s neck. Then his face was buried in a shoulder and he was crying, and Hannibal was nudging his chin up, so much different from last night, and those lips closed back down around his, sparking nerves, drawing a moan, driving him open, seeking out everything. The taste of cigars was in his mouth, and something salty that could have been from him, and the faintest hint of something intoxicating, blood and sand and sweat and strength, flowing into him, taking him, claiming...
Gasping for breath, Face pulled back, hands still hooked behind the other man’s head and looked up, a ball of nervousness rolling around beneath his cracked ribs. What was Hannibal doing? He wasn’t... “John, I...”
“It’s okay, Temp,” Hannibal said, softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
He laid his head against that chest, listened to the strong heart, beating within, the rumbling of Hannibal’s reassurance. But even then, he knew. None of this was over yet.
No matter what Hannibal thought about it.
+++++
Crickets, as Hannibal hung up the phone.
Then Aaron was staring, talking...
“What are you doing, colonel! That was insane!”
“Insane is what you hired us to do,” Hannibal said, picking his unlit cigar up, biting the end. Aaron looked panicked. For himself. Not his son. Selfish motherfucker, Hannibal thought with an internal growl.“Face is going to get you both out, safe and sound...”
“How do you plan to keep them from killing us?”
It was late, well after midnight, and the colonel had forgotten how difficult these night shifts were. How hard they were on the body. But it was worth it. Hannibal had moved himself onto nights with Face to keep an eye on him, to make sure the kid slept, to smile smugly at Aaron as Face stayed close in on the way through the door.
The Russians had called. They wanted a meet. Money. Kid returned safely. It may or may not have had anything to do with Hannibal’s conversation with them yesterday. The one he hadn’t told Face about. The one that was eating away at him. He wasn’t sure he could go through with this...but the kid...
“I assure you, if anyone can do it, it’s Face,” Hannibal concluded, keeping behind that smug confidence he used to pull out in mission briefings, the ones that ended with everyone staring at him in disbelief. His boy, who knew that look and smiled a little at seeing it, nodded back. “Piece of cake. We have done this before.”
“I don’t like it,” Aaron said, staring at the kid. “You said we’re dealing with the Russian mafia?”
The man was playing it like they didn’t know. Like they wouldn’t have checked. Like Face hadn’t gotten ahold of bank accounts, his company invoices, old records, emails. A smile and a logical story was all it took to uncover all the man’s dirty little secrets.
Hannibal had already told Face - they had to play along with whatever assumptions were being thrown at them. It would just make it all easier in the end. “If you want your son back, this is what we’re going to have to do.”
Aaron shook his head. “Why is this happening?”
“I don’t know. But we are going to get your son back.”
Face was sitting back and away. His eyes were hooded, his expression neutral. He was pissed about this, and Hannibal felt a pang of guilt. Couldn’t be helped, though. “We do this sort of thing all the time, Aaron. Your kid will be fine.”
“He fucking better...”
Hannibal jerked his head, and Face nodded back, standing up. Murdock had rigged the stuff up in the den for Hannibal to monitor, more comfortable, he’d told the client, and kept the door locked now. “Good night,” he said, and opened the den door.
Easing himself down on the end of the couch, Hannibal checked the read-out of the screen and let a knee fall open and out. A clear invitation. Face smiled at him and toed out of his shoes and slid himself down on the smooth leather, a vision of grace, eyes still uncertain. He settled in with a soft sigh, and Hannibal stroked down that warm side.
“Everything’s okay, kid,” he murmured, bending down to plant a kiss on an exposed cheek, brushing the hair away from his eyes. His stomach tightened. He was going to make everything okay, wasn’t he?
Face had curled up alone on the couch that first night, waking with a jolt after about an hour, whimpering in some broken voice that had no business coming from his boy. After that, Hannibal sat with him, like he was sitting with him now, feet propped up on the coffee table, a book in hand, Face’s head in his lap. Sleeping quietly under Hannibal’s soft touch. Being able to touch, to stroke, finally, after all these years, was a heady feeling. The bruising was fading to ugly yellows, healing up, but Hannibal didn’t think it’d be so easy on the inside.
Hannibal was trying. Holding him, arm wrapped around the kid’s waist, careful of the injuries. Telling him everything was going to be okay. Face would lean into him, hold on, but Hannibal knew his boy didn’t quite believe him. Hard experience had taught the kid at an early age the cost of trust given, the likelihood of trust lost...
...years of damage to peel away, years of abuse to repair, to drive from his mind, to replace, to heal...
Make him whole, John, make him full again...
Hannibal’s head fell back, hitting the back of the wall, and he jerked up. Zero-four-fifty-two, almost dawn, not quite light out yet, nothing awake, nothing alive in the new day yet, and the colonel went cold.
Face was gone.
A pit formed his stomach, and Hannibal crept out of the den quietly, soft on his feet. Kitchen, hallway, living room, entrance... that was the circle of the downstairs, and then he noticed the peel of light from the bathroom. Hannibal told himself to relax, that Face had just needed...
He pushed the door open. And there Face was, balled up in a corner against the sink cabinet, wadded into himself like a discarded towel, shirt gone. His eyes were blank, just staring, as Hannibal dropped to his knees in front of him, heart plummeting. He’d never seen the kid like this, never seen him this empty. Fresh bruising along his collarbone, over his pecs, shallow scratches closing up beneath.
Hannibal wanted to reach out, pull him in, but he couldn’t. Didn’t dare. If he touched, he might shatter his boy apart. Never find all the pieces again. He shuffled forward a little. “Templet...”
Face swallowed, head jerking up, pupils flaring and then focusing down. He tilted his head, ear to his shoulder. “You said nothing new. No indications. Play along. Right?”
“This wasn’t part of that. This stops, Face. Don’t you get that? You don’t have...”
“You want the police called? This close to getting the boy back? Fuck that. Fuck that, boss. We have to find him.”
Hannibal was barely breathing now. He didn’t know what scared him about this more, the vacant stare, that calm, flat voice.... “This doesn’t need to be...”
Face was still watching the ceiling, like he was suspicious of its intentions, not really talking. “That kid... sooner or later...” and he shuddered and rolled forward, undulating up into Hannibal’s arms, chin settling down, rubbing his cheek against Hannibal’s own, catlike and fluid. Graceful. “... if that happens, I couldn’t...it’s a choice, Hannibal. Doesn’t count... that kid’s not going to get one...”
Perfect. Hannibal flushed with the unreasonable rush of pride, followed by shame. He hadn’t saved Face from this tonight, hadn’t stopped anything, failed, failed, when he promised he wouldn’t. Face must hate him, and Hannibal couldn’t stop himself from laying a hand on an exposed knee, as if the kid would vanish if he didn’t
“You’re what matters, Templeton. You’re the only thing...”
But Face just clung to him tighter and didn’t let him finish. Hannibal wrapped his arms around, breathing deep, inhaling the scent of this man and suddenly felt a lot better about what he was planning to do.
+++++
Face paused for a moment before following the others out of the van, down and out into the staging area, a few streets down from the meet, rental car at the ready. Breathing hurt, lungs fighting for air from beneath those cracked ribs. He should have been thinking abut the mission, getting into gear, focusing.
But he couldn’t.
Because everything was dark in his head, thoughts rising up as half-formed wisps of smoke, like he was on fire inside.
Because he could still feel it from last night, and it wasn't all...
Because it had been a relief when Hannibal had fallen asleep.
Hannibal... and Face groaned.
The colonel had always thought about things in the terms of the plan, of the ways things should be, must be, couldn’t not be. One thing the military taught its officers was how to never say no, never back down from a problem, never admit defeat. Hannibal, Face suspected, had taken those lessons to heart a long time ago, as a junior lieutenant during the Cold War who’d thought his life would be about fighting against absolutes, a righteous existence. The colonel’s plans always worked not because he believed they would, but because there existed in his mind no other possibility.
Face knew he didn’t have that kind of conviction. He’d never had an absolute to fall back on, no real faith, no easy solution, not like Hannibal did. No doctrine or ideology or dogma worth believing in. No, he’d spent the last ten years running after terrorists and narco-traffickers and warlords in unpronouncable regions, and it had made him something of a pragmatist when it came to the way things should be.
So, when Hannibal had finally fallen asleep, the first time Face had seen the man shut his eyes in the preceding three days, he’d taken the opportunity for what it was; a chance at the less horrible of the options available to them.
Or, that’s what he’d told himself at the time.
Getting away from the horrible feeling of Hannibal touching him just to calm him down, making him feel better. That’s what it had been about. Escaping that.
Sure, Face wanted to give in, give up, but he couldn’t be sure what the boss was offering, couldn’t be sure about anything. Because he was an officer, and because he was Hannibal, and Hannibal took care of his men. The boss was just doing what he thought he needed to do, holding his lieutenant, letting him sleep on his lap, hinting at things...
Things that Face, being ever-practical, knew probably weren’t going to come. Maybe Hannibal did want it. He’d never take it. Not now. Not after seeing his boy broken and bleeding on the bathroom floor. If it wasn’t his guilt over letting it happen, it’d be his guilt over taking advantage, or something like that. No, it was all gone...
He’d slowly made his way up the stairs. Looking for something. Needing something. Just to fill that hole Hannibal was digging in him, the one that probably wasn’t going to get filled. Needing it to hurt, just for a little while.
Clarifying.
Terrifying.
Aaron had been waiting in the upstairs bedroom.
And Face had locked the door.
He wasn’t a big fan of brutality. Normally. In their line of work, getting the wires crossed between pleasure and pain was dangerous. Face had seen too much of that during their stint in Africa to ever want to experience such a fall himself. Seen it in Aaron’s face as the man had made him hold his own legs open, taken him dry, his own groans not entirely...
“Face, man, what you thinkin’ ‘bout?”
The lieutenant realized BA was standing right there.
“Nothing, dude. Poor kid,” he said, reaching for something to say, and it must have been the right thing. BA nodded.
“Come on. You gotta get going.”
Face glanced over at Aaron, and then back to the boss, who was briefing him on what they needed him to do. Stay quiet, mostly. Not lose his temper. Let Face get proof of life. Settle terms of payment, the when and the where. Make threats. Aaron looked pissed, more at the mention of the money than how he wasn’t getting his son back today. Said he’d hired them for a more creative option, and Hannibal’s mouth had tightened at the corners.
Hannibal wanted to protect him, he said. Yet here the colonel was, sending his lieutenant in alongside Aaron, the man who was hurting him, to keep the man in line and because Face spoke Russian and could easily be mistaken for any number of frightening potentials.
Which was all bullshit.
There were other options on how to play this. Lots of other angles, better angles, even. But this? This was insane. What was the boss playing at?
Every nerve in his body was screaming at his proximity to Aaron, to Hannibal, and the conman, for once in his life, had no idea if he was going to be able to pull this off. Face knew he was barely hanging on right now, he knew it, and if there was some kind of issue, some kind of problem...
“Face?” BA asked, quieter this time, worried.
...but Hannibal believed in his plan and its efficacy, and no power on earth was going to tell him otherwise. No amount of logic. No measure of pragmatism. He didn’t accept alternatives, alterations, problems, once the plan had been set. And it always worked. Face knew this implicitly.
And that was really it, wasn’t it? The whole fucking issue, right there. The thing that was capable of reaching down through the fog. The thing that was going to get him on his feet and fighting.
Hannibal.
Hannibal was the only thing Face had ever really believed in. And now he didn’t know what to think, what to do.
So, hating himself, lacking another option, knowing that this was always going to be the way it was and hating that, too, Face hopped out of the van.
+++++
It was easier, slipping into a role, being the amorphous man hired by Aaron to ensure that his kid wasn't fucked with. Face was fine with that. It was helping. Helping him think clearer.
He hated organized crime. Gangs were one thing, nasty little organizations full of fifteen year olds who shot one another over stupid bullshit, drugs and girls. In that regard, they were predictable. Always assumed the worst. Easy.
But the mafia, especially the Russians, were completely different. They’d smile and chat over coffee, and then somebody was behind you, trying to slit your throat. Face never knew what he was walking into, in one of these situations, and that always made him nervous.
“So, what’s Hannibal’s problem?” Aaron asked conversationally. They were being made to wait in the office lobby of the shipping company’s dockside warehouse. That was another thing Face hated about organized crime. It always wanted to flirt with legitimacy.
“With what?” Face asked, fake accent thick on his tongue. He was trying to stay calm, trying to figure if he could work this con. Hannibal hadn’t given him much detail.
“I thought you guys were supposed to be good at solving problems. If I’d wanted to hand over the ransom money, I would have just done it.”
And something flared in Face at that. Hadn’t these people specifically said... “I thought there was no ransom demand at first.”
Aaron shrugged. “I know how we must look on paper to these assholes, but most of my assets aren’t liquid, there’s no way...”
You cheap bastard, Face thought, the memory of his own family abandoning him coming suddenly to mind and only the opening of the office door kept him from doing something lethal right then.
They were led down onto the main floor of the warehouse, back to a row of room built up on a second-story platform. Narrow stairs. Black out curtains over the windows. Face felt his M&P .308 rub under his arm and knew they were going to take it away. Wouldn’t have done to show up naked, though.
Patted down, Face relieved of the gun and his favorite ceramic blade he’d forgotten was stashed in a pocket, Aaron stripped of his cell phone, both men are pushed into chairs at the foot of a desk. Youngish man, about Face’s own age, cut the end off a cigar and contemplated them both very carefully.
The conman’s eyes darted to the wrapper, still laying on the desk. Hannibal’s favorite brand, very hard to get, the ones Face keeps in him steady supply of. His eyes narrowed a little, but he had to keep an even countenance for Aaron.
They talked, the Russian supremely disinterested in anything Aaron has to say, a prison tattoo curling around his hand. Aaron, sounding more and more insincere about his own intentions as the conversation rolled on.
Face could feel it, the clinging tendrils of that fog, trying to drag him back down, pull him so far down in himself that he’d never... and it took the lieutenant a moment to realize that the man was speaking to him in Russian.
“I'm sorry, I don’t understand,” he replied in kind.
The man nodded, and jabbed the cigar towards Aaron. “He raped your leader’s wife, your sister, did he not? Very terrible offense, almost as great as how much money he’s cost my family. Thank you for bringing him here today.”
What? Face wanted to laugh, because that didn’t make any damn sense. He had to be missing something in the translation, this... “I, um...”
Leader’s wife? There was no way, no way in hell, Hannibal ever would have... and he felt something hot rush through him at that, the implication
“Please, if you wait outside,” and the mobster waved the goon over, the one who’d taken Face’s gun, “we will be done in a few minutes.”
“Face,” Aaron whispered urgently, “what is he saying?”
Face just shook his head. “I’m not catching it all.”
“But...”
The goon came over, a little too close, and there it was, the edge of fear, panic beginning to creep over Aaron’s features. But Face barely had time to recognize it for what it was. Because the door opened behind them, and he turned, and there, framed against the saturated halogens of the warehouse proper, tall, certain, a little nod to the man at the desk, a nod back, all that presence...
“Hannibal?”
“The kid’s downstairs, in the main office.”
What the hell was going on? “Hannibal...”
The older man’s face twisted up a little as he moved, prowled, into the room, straight over to the goon, who handed over Face’s little arsenal. Hannibal tossed Face the pistol, flicked open the dull blade himself. Predatory. Smooth. Like he always got before...
“Hannibal, what the fuck are you...” Aaron began, and Hannibal calmly turned on his heel and backhanded the man with a force that knocked him clear out the chair, up over and back, landing in a heap, and Hannibal was on him, knee pressing his chest to the ground firmly, that blade hovering right over a wildly beating artery in the neck. The asshole’s eyes were huge, confronted with real violence, violence against him, threatening his life, maybe for the first time in all his life, and Face felt a bubble beginning to form in him, despite himself. Warm.
Hannibal was staring straight at him, steady. Determined. “Face, get the hell out of here.”
“Fuck that,” he spat. “You’re not...”
Hannibal’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then he stood, kicking the prostrate man as he did so, Face catching every shifting emotion, every iteration... and Hannibal was right there, Hannibal was on him, hand on his shoulder, lips on his ear. “Go get the kid and take him home, back to his mom.”
Face let his forehead fall, his fingers wrapping around Hannibal’s wrist. “Boss, you don’t have to do, well, whatever the fuck...”
“This is the deal for the little boy’s life, kid.”
“Yeah, but...”
“He hurt you,” Hannibal said softly, and Face knew, not a force on the planet was going to stop whatever it was he’d set in motion. “He hurt you, Templeton. You deserve to know it’s ...”
Aaron started laughing loudly, and Face wondered how in the hell the man heard. They were practically whispering. If he’d just reacted to the touching. The lieutenant looked over Hannibal’s shoulder, and Aaron was sitting up, trying to stand. “You fucking faggot...”
Face ddn’t really have to aim, just brought the gun in his right hand around the edge of Hannibal’s body and squeezed the trigger. One shot, a hard explosion in the small space, and then a loud, wailing scream. The lieutenant smiled grimly, and moved around Hannibal, made a show of kicking the man back down to the ground, blood pouring out of his upper thigh. He grabbed a fistful of the client‘s hair, jerked his head back, hauling him up a little, wanted to say something clever and witty and funny, something he’d remember later, but the look there was enough for him.
“On second thought, boss, you’re right,” he said, and tucked the gun back into its holster. Turned to leave. “I do feel better. And thank you,” he added in Russian with a last little smile at Hannibal, “for helping us avenge his wife.”
“He’s lucky to have loyal people under his command,” the Russian replied casually from his seat, where he’d been the whole time, and flicked the ash off the cigar.
Face let the door snick shut behind him, and closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then another. Steadying himself, ever as he heard a second scream peel loose from the man inside... the rapist, yours, he reminded himself and down and away he went, not sure how he was feeling, not sure how he should feel about it...
But it was a genuine smile he flashed the cute little boy, tow-headed and sleepy, like they’d just gotten him up from a nap, the subject of so many photos in the house he’d spent the last ten days in. Face felt his heart tighten when the secretary - of all people - handed him over.
“I’m taking you home, kid,” he told the little boy. “Everything’s going to be just fine. You’re safe...”
The kid just wound right down into his arms, heavy and trembling. And Face remembered his mother, crying over him, unable to sit still, showing them baby videos on the computer. How Aaron hadn’t seemed overly worried, like a man who’d lost his Rolex, how Aaron had held him down in that alley... and that settled it, didn’t it?
Face tightened his grip on the kid and left, out into the bright afternoon, squinting into the sun. It seemed to him, right then, that he hadn't really seen it in years.
+++++
The van door slid open, Murdock’s grin faltering, face pale.
“Face, where’s...”
“Just drive.”
He handed the boy off to Murdock, who told him that Uncle Face and BA were very serious, but that he’d be home with his ma real soon. Lapsed into ridiculous jokes, the kind you’d find on popsickle sticks. The kid laughed. Who’ve thought the pilot would be good with kids?
Face just sagged into the passenger seat. What the hell had he just allowed to happen?
BA looked over at him. “I don’t like this, Face.”
“Hannibal’s okay,” Face said shortly. “Probably having a couple of rounds with the Russians by now.”
“Aaron?”
Face shook his head, and BA fell silent, turning the van out onto the highway, night gathering as they slipped back towards Anapolis and all the unpleasant questions Face knew he wasn’t going to be able to answer.
The eight year old clutched at Murdock’s leather jacket, both of them sprawled out on the back seat, somehow instinctively understanding that the three of them were here to help. falling asleep.
Not knowing that Face had just let his father die. Killed him, really. Let the Russians kill him. Let Hannibal... the lieutenant’s stomach tightened, and he couldn’t focus on that right now.
Poor kid, losing half his family like that. Having his father taken away.
What was he supposed to say? Tell the woman the truth about the man she’d married, started a life with? I’m sorry ma’am, but your husband was a sex offender, was probably going to hurt your son eventually and this was better... Break her apart like that? Make her carry that knowledge around with her for the rest of her days? Make her worry that her little boy had already been touched? No, no, she’d be haunted. That wouldn’t do at all.
But he couldn’t focus on that. He couldn’t focus on it at all. Face just kept seeing it, Hannibal, in his mind’s eye, standing in that doorway like the angel of death, a kind of anger he hadn’t seen in the man in years radiating off him, that calmness that belied... what, exactly?
He raped your leader’s wife, your sister...
Hannibal had set up a deal. Hannibal had set up Aaron’s death. Traded him, the boy’s life for the father’s. But he hadn’t done it for the little boy or his mother.
He’d done it for Face.
Whatever he’d done. Whatever he was still doing, whatever the Russians were doing. Face didn’t believe for a second Aaron was dead yet. No, the scam he’d seen laid out in the
Face slunk down in the seat. He had to stop thinking about that. Narrow down. Get through this.
They pulled into that long driveway, lit up, beautiful. He needed an answer, one he could deliver convincingly. A good answer. An answer that would leave everybody happy. He couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it anywhere...
He hurt you, Templeton. You deserve to know it’s...
“It’s over, ma’am,” Face said as evenly as he could. The wife had torn herself away. She was still crying, her anxiety hanging off her like a cheap dress. People were here, an older lady that might have been her mother, a friend or two, even though they’d asked her not to invite anyone over. They were out on the front porch, everyone inside, that grandmotherly type fussing over the boy, casserole out on the kitchen table where Face had passed so many nights, waiting for Aaron to come for him...
Face braced himself against a pillar. Had a sudden urge to tell her, tell her everything. Let her know what a snake her husband was. Why she shouldn't care that his body was going to be found in a landfill in a week. How she was better for it, how her son was safe now.
You're the only thing that matters...
That was the problem, though. Such an answer would be selfish. It'd be in the service of making himself feel better, relieving that raging guilt he had. Over everything they'd done since coming into these people's lives, ripping them apart...
“What happened, Mr. Peck?” she asked softly. “Where’s my husband?”
He couldn’t look at her as he began his story. As he told a version of the truth. A version that was almost right.
A total lie.
But one they could live with. And one that did nothing to make Face feel any better about himself.
Seemed like the right thing to do.
+++++
“Why’d you tell them it was your wife?”
It was the first time Face had spoken to him since the job.
Hannibal shifted against his headboard. Looked up from his book. One of those Joseph Conrad collections Murdock always seemed to have around. Something lyrical in the prose, sweeping his thoughts away from last week. From the blood on the floor, soaking into his pants, his socks, caking on his skin... reading wasn’t helping him forget it. He normally wasn’t a fan of brutality. He’d severed a vein before things had gotten too out of hand.
Telling himself he’d probably saved Aaron a few days of inevitable pain didn’t help. Protecting the rest of the family from any further incursions almost made it okay.
But Face, keeping Face from any further harm...
“I needed them to agree. Needed something they’d accept.”
“You could have told them it was your lieutenant,” Face said, not moving into the room at all, and he looked desperate. Why was that, exactly?
“You know how these guys are about their sexual preferences...”
“Sure. But...”
Hannibal sighed. Why had Dmitri mentioned that to the kid? He’d told him how upset his second in command was over his sister’s rape, how he shouldn’t bring it up. But those guys played by different rules. Probably thought he was doing Face a favor. Wasn’t that the whole point? “I wanted them to know how goddamn important it was...”
“... that you have a go at the asshole? You didn’t need...”
“They expected it, kid,” Hannibal said, and considered him for a minute. Bags under his eyes, shoulders drooped, shirt wrinkled. Wasn’t like his boy to be this sloppy. So quiet over the past few days. “What’d you tell...”
“We destroyed that family, boss,” Face blurted out, eyes distant, and Hannibal heard what the kid wasn’t saying. Made him wish he could go back and kill Aaron again. Or not. Why had letting the Russians finish him off over three, four days seemed like such a bad option, again?
“It was not your fault, Face.”
“You...”
And Hannibal was up, by the door, moving Face away so he could swing it shut. Keep his lieutenant from bolting. God, like this, so close, hands on either side of Face’s body, the man was practically in his arms. Almost. He was jumpy, uncomfortable, maybe from the ribs. “It was not your fault, kid,” he repeated, slow. So Face would listen. Believe, for once.
The lieutenant cringed, brought his hands up into his hair, palms pressing against his temples like he was trying to keep something from getting out. His elbows brushed Hannibal’s pecs. Stayed there. “If I hadn’t...”
“That’s insane, Face. You didn’t...”
“You know it’s true. I let him do that to me. I fucked up, boss. Look what happened!”
The desperation was getting thicker, heavier. Hannibal could hear it as it twisted into him, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in a little more. Face looked like he was trying to sink through the wall. Breathing hard.
“What’d you tell the mother?” he whispered.
Face shifted uneasily. “That we’d had something set up, they’d given us their assurances and that the second we walked through the door, they shot her husband between his eyes and let me take the boy out. And I told her... some of the stuff we’d found out about the deal...”
“Face...”
“I didn’t know what else to say...”
He just nodded. “It’s a good story, kid.”
“It’s true, he’s dead because of...”
“Because of me, Temp. Me. It was my choice. It’s mine to carry,” Hannibal said softly, and pulled those hands down, grasping his boy’s wrists lightly, meeting no resistance. Blue eyes regarded him warily, and there was that question again.
“Why’d you tell them I was your wife?"
The colonel hated that question. He hated that Face had to ask it, that he’d never told him this before, that it had taken them this to get them here.
Hannibal touched his forehead to Face’s, dropped his wrists and touched his boy’s face. He trailed his fingers across flawless skin, groaning internally at the feel of it, smooth and rough all at once. “Because,” he murmured, “I needed them to understand what that bastard had taken, and who he had taken it from, what that person meant to me.” He rolled down a little, catching the swell of disbelief in those blue orbs and pressed his lips against a cheek. “Who that person was to me, the depth of it...”
Hannibal tasted salt, and pulled back, staring into him, trying to find some spark, some hint, that was he was trying to say was sticking, catching, getting through. Nothing. There was nothing but doubt. All the pain Face had been through in the course of this job, all the years before, this thing living in the back of his mind. Gang-raped, blaming himself for it all. Thinking... oh, hell...
“You’ve always been the one, Templeton. My better half, my beautiful boy...”
And that did it. Face collapsed against him, sobs tearing out of his shaking body, all his weight on Hannibal. Finally, finally, Hannibal celebrated as he took his boy in, held him, felt him, right where he was supposed to be. Trembling himself, the colonel stroked down Face’s back, the muscles tight under his hands, counting the vertebre, tightening around his waist. Face leaned his head back, asking. Hannibal gave, so willingly, that first pass light but searing, burning down through him, and he knew at that what he’d always suspected; he’d never be able to give him up. Not now. Not ever, after this.
Face’s knees gave out as the kiss deepened, as Hannibal put everything he had into it. He caught the younger man as he fell, following him down, hand still braced against the door, slamming it forward onto its hinges, cradling him, keeping that battered back off the hardness behind. Nothing hard, nothing hard again, not for his boy. He needed his time to heal...
“Mmmphh,” Face groaned and broke away, gasping, eyes sparking with pain as his lungs fought against cracked ribs. Shit, Hannibal had forgotten about those, but Face didn’t seem to care. He shot out a hand and wrapped it up in Hannibal’s loose shirt, keeping them apart, holding them together. He blinked back his tears - had he been crying this whole time? - and stared right at Hannibal. Into him. “Boss...”
Hannibal tweaked an earlobe. “John,” he prompted, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile.
“Hanni... John, if you want me...”
Hannibal shook his head, wanting to. But it couldn’t hurt. He couldn’t let it hurt. “It’s too soon. You’re still...”
“... I don’t care. Please, I need...”
“I know what you need, kid,” Hannibal assured him, and who was he to refuse something like that. The colonel kissed his boy again, light and fast this time, and pulled him closer, if that was even possible. Closed down around him. Picked him up like he was nothing.
And then they were on the bed, Face laid down and smiling, tears drying white as Hannibal slowly eased the kid’s shirt off, those light cotton pants he loved so much, the ones that framed his ass so well. Loved the way the younger man watched in admiration as he pulled back himself and slipped from his own clothes, the evidence of his arousal, his own need, clearly on display. Moaned at that first touch of bare skin. So much skin, smooth and easy and better than he’d dared dream. The bruises were fading, almost gone, mere thumbnails of what they had been, pale memories that still had the power to hurt.
Hannibal straddled his lover, brushed through that lovely hair again, let his hand play there for a moment. Chest to chest, the air hot between them, cold around. “Do you want me, Templeton?”
A nod. Just one.
He nibbled along the kid’s jawline, soft little nips that had Face squirming, but didn’t move otherwise. Didn’t want to tease it out of him like that. “I’m yours, Templeton. Everything...”
Face shuddered, and wrapped his arms around Hannibal’s back, flicking up. “You’ll...”
“... never leave you, always love you?”
His eyes got huge. “John,” he murmured, clearly fighting something in himself. “After everything?”
“Please, Temp, believe me...”
Something fogged and then cleared away, leaving nothing but blue sky, open horizons, and Face let his head hit the pillows. That smile again, perfect, luminous. “Yeah, John, I do.”
Then it was all silent, open space between them, loud and close, Face wrapping his legs around Hannibal’s waist, Hannibal reaching for the lube he used sometimes, for cold nights he hoped would never come again now. Working his boy open, slow and easy, watching eyes flare, memorizing the little twitch as the pad of his finger brushed against that sweet spot, all the little reactions. A lifetime of things to learn, to explore, but right now, Face needed this, and Hannibal needed it all the more for that. So he didn’t waste time, drawing delicious little sounds as he pushed his way in, groaning as that beautiful body opened up and welcomed him home.
He set an smooth pace, Face holding his shoulders still, keeping them together as Hannibal moved in and out, deep and long and hard, sweat slicking up between them, cries mingling, everything lifting up into airless reaches, warm and sudden but hardly unexpected, Face breathing out his name as Hannibal filled him, as he spilled himself across them both, and Hannibal stroked down shaking limbs as their shared climax subsided. He couldn’t tell where he ended and Face began.
The kid didn’t let him pull out, and Hannibal was fine with that, holding him close, hands straying. Face nestled into him, arms caged in and a blissed expression playing across his features, sighing into overheated skin.
“Love you, John...”
Hannibal kissed him on the top of his head. “You too, kid. You too.”
It was going to take time. The inside wouldn’t heal like his skin did, trauma so much harder to reabsorb, process, discard than blood. There’d be problems. Fights. Arguments. It wasn’t just the rape - Face was his own special breed of insecure, and Hannibal knew it. Nothing was truly settled, not yet, not in one night. Hannibal had a lifetime of damage to heal in his boy. This wasn’t really the end of something, but the beginning.
And Hannibal couldn’t wait.
