No Third Option - Part Two
Jan. 27th, 2011 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
PLUEASE!! PLUEASE *BEGGING ON MY KNEES* a sequel to this
No Third Option
I'd be eternaly grateful when you could write down in all your wonderful style: How they really work it out and finally do it in the right way together (maybe after years). I could offer an option, how about Face doing the boss first?
That "fill in" you wrote, with Face imagining it COULD have been the boss was just...omg *sob*.
Hannibal can’t quite get over what he did to Face, so Face comes up with his own plan to deal with the problem.
Hannibal heard the door slam shut, and tried to breath.
In. Out. Repeat.
For some reason, right now, that was incredibly hard.
Something tight, hard, cold, forming in his chest.
What the hell was that?
He was trying to do the right thing here.
Boss, please...
Kid, this can’t happen...
Wasn't he?
It had seemed a miracle to the colonel, the first time. Face, so close, right there, mouths almost, hovering, waiting to touch down for a kiss, like that kiss they’d had in the garage, almost a month before. After the fistfight, after everything was out in the open and Face had seemed almost relieved, hadn’t he? Forgiven that heinous transgression, hadn’t he? So this could be real, couldn’t it?
Face had tried to forgive him, tried to move past it all, and so Hannibal tried to believe as he reached up and around and found purchase on a jutting hipbone, as he pulled Face a little closer, bodies touching through the thick, scratchy fabric of the tacky hotel blankets. As he kissed the lieutenant, his lieutenant, tasting everything that should have been theirs, should be theirs. Hard and fast and sudden, that kiss. The world started tilting apart under the force of it, so it had seemed to Hannibal, everything...
Face flinched.
Hannibal released him immediately and the younger man had rocketed back, plastering himself against the headboard. As if magnetically repelled. Breathing hard.
In the thin blue light from the television, Hannibal didn’t try to touch him. Not that. Not right now.
It’s not the time yet, kid.
Fac had just looked at him, something inscrutable flitting behind his eyes, then curled up on his side on the opposite edge of the bed.
Can I at least sleep here tonight?
It had become a pattern since then, this thing with Face. Maybe twice a week, more if they weren’t on a mission and seemingly every night for the past three weeks, Face would pull the same stunt. He’d wait about an hour after Hannibal turned in for the night, probably waiting for him to go to sleep, but the colonel was always awake.
Awake to hear the door creak and feel the bed dip, sheets rearrange, the sensation of another warm body against his, nothing but soft skin and the prickle of hair and the exhalation of breath, the faraway heartbeat of a man who wasn’t his, couldn’t be his.
When it didn’t happen, when Face didn’t come, Hannibal wished it would.
When it did, Hannibal wished it would go away.
Because he couldn’t do this.
Not to Face. Not ever again.
And then there were times like tonight, when the lieutenant would touch him. Not just the closeness of bodies, but a hesitant hand over his shoulder, tickling down his ribs. Tonight, against his cheek. Hannibal never responded to the lightness of those little questioning caresses. The kid hadn’t gotten laid in six months, not since the warehouse and the Chinese Triad and everything Hannibal had been forced to do to keep him alive. He knew Face was just trying to convince himself that it was okay, that they could do this, that all that had come before was inconsequential.
Bullshit.
Hannibal could still fucking feel the room, the cold concrete and dirty glass, congealed blood, the drip of fresh red onto the floor and the soreness of his knuckles from the last blow he’d landed on the kid, trying to keep him quiet - fuck, he could still feel the way he just sank into all that tightness, that impossible tightness, the way Face had just taken him, the way he’d taken...
Can I at least sleep here tonight?
Boss, please...
For some reason he couldn’t quite identify,those words percolated up through his thoughts, carrying something Hannibal couldn’t quite identify. Something the kid had been trying to say, something he probably knew himself. And the kid had been asking tonight, hadn’t he? He’d been almost begging...
His chest tightened even more.
And then Hannibal was up and out of bed and headed downstairs before he could even think about it.
After Face.
Something else was going on here.
+++++
Hannibal took the stairs carefully, watching out for that third step from the bottom that squeaked. The lights were on down there, warm sound spilling out of the Wii in the living room, which meant the boys were up. Murdock had a flying game on the thing that he loved playing, Hannibal remembered, and smiled a little as he peeked around the corner.
And he was playing it now, one hand distractedly waving around, guiding the little cartoon thing across the screen, diving after balloons, even as he sat there on the sofa, right next to Face. His lieutenant was staring at the floor, staring at nothing, everything about him unfocused and scattered.
That feeling in his chest...
Flattening back around behind the lip of the wall, Hannibal couldn’t see in. More importantly, they couldn’t see him. He felt like an idiot, a coward, but somehow, wlaking in there would have made everything worse.
Because despite the hushed tones of both men, he could hear them. Clear as day.
“...I don’t know what else to fucking try,” Face was saying. “I mean, it’s been like what, six months? Shouldn’t this be over with by now?”
“Stuff takes time, Faceman,” Murdock replied, and another balloon popped in the speakers. “Probably just gotta be patient.”
“Fuck patience,” Face replied, and Hannibla felt that swell, painful, deep down. God, his boy was still hurting over this, he’d known it, he just hadn’t known how much... “I can’t take much more of this. I, I don’t know what I’m going to do...”
“He loves you.”
“Bullshit.”
“You know he does. Even after what he did...”
Hannibal felt his knees go almost too late to catch himself, and only barely managed to control his fall, down onto the step, heart pounding, guilt clouding black and thick into his mind. The kid hadn’t forgiven him. The kid was still raw. The kid was just trying to convince himself, they’d never have anything, they couldn’t, there wasn’t a way back from...
“...uck that too. Six months, and he won’t touch me. Shit, Murdock, he won’t fucking look at me! Everything’s...goddamn it...”
Then there was a sound, like Murdock was putting down the control wand. Hannibal froze. Their pilot multi-tasked like nobody’s business. Playing a game while talking to Face meant nothing - the lieutenant already had his full attention. But him actually stopping... it wasn’t good.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Murdock said, almost too soft to hear. “He’ll get over it. He’ll let you...”
“I miss him, HM...”
And there it was, that thing breaking inside him. That, right there.
It wasn’t Face.
It was him.
Hannibal felt every nerve in his body catch fire at once, skin burning, the wave of shame threatening to pull him under with the force of the realization.
Six months. Six months of refusing Face, his Face, his boy. Coldly. Without consideration. Never once asking, not once even stopping to think ...
His hand fumbled for the wall, and he pulled himself up. He couldn’t sit here and listen to any more of this, Face, like this. But he tripped or something on one of the steps, or hit the third step, the one that creaked, because there was noise and a hand on the bannister, right next to his, and that voice.
“Boss?”
He breathed out, long and slow. He couldn’t look back, couldn’t see the expression on his lieutenant’s face, didn’t want to know what he was thinking. “Face, I...”
“It’s, it’s, uh, it’s no big, Hannibal. Late and blowing off steam and...”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care about...”
Hannibal looked up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. Wished it would swallow him whole. “I mean, I can’t, kid. I just can’t. Not again.”
“It wouldn’t, I mean, it wouldn’t be, it wasn’t...”
He closed his eyes. Had to be said. “It was.”
“John...”
It sounded like that other time, that little gasped,terrified hey that Face had whispered right before Hannibal had, right before... and the colonel din’t look back, didn’t look down, not until he was safely behind his own bedroom door and his body was slumped against it and the knocks stopped and he could breath again.
Something had to be done.
But for the first time in his life, Hannibal had no idea what that could possibly be.
+++++
The sidewalk rolled away beneath him, sky ablaze with that LA sunset, and Hannibal didn’t know what to think.
Things had been quiet lately. No jobs for the past month, the boys just hanging around the current scammed property. And nothing changed over the next few days. BA working on his van, splitting his time between the safehouse and his own garage, Murdock upping his high scores on the Wii and drinking gallons of orange soda. Face... going out a lot. Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, never saying anything about it.
Hannibal wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The lieutenant had been sticking pretty close to base since, well, since. A change in the pattern could be a problem. It could have been innocent.
But Face wasn’t talking to him right now. Sure, he’d respond if Hannibal asked him a question, but there was no talking, no more conversations, no casual laughing. No laughing at all. Just terse little words when necessary.
Maybe everything to be said between them had been said. That last little exchange on the stairs. Face had probably given up, Hannibal figured. Given up on him. Nothing wrong with that. The colonel had been wracking his brain for days, trying to think of a way out of it, a way to push himself through, out of, the chewing guilt. It wasn’t like he didn’t want it. He did. He wanted Face, wanted all of him, back like that, under him, around him, consuming him. But the memories...he’d had nightmares about it, off and on. Worse the last few nights. When he tried to think, that was all he could see, and until he managed to resolve that, there was nothing to be done.
So he ran, in the evening after dinner or before, trying to clear his head before he had to go to sleep. So he spent a lot of time locked in the den, reading or researching clients. . Nothing interesting. Seemed appropriate. BA and Murdock were pointedly absorbed in their respective hobbies, Face gone, far too much tension in the house anyway.
He turned the usual corner, picking up speed through the turn as if he could outrun the unpleasantness that seemed to hang over him these days. It was stupid, he knew, following the same route every day, but he liked it. Parks, neighborhood, some good hills. Nice route.
But, it was a mistake.
He realized this too late.
A white van, painted-out windows, tires squealing, not ten feet ahead of him, too close, momentum carrying his body forward, no room to turn around before the door slid open and a gun was in his face, another driving into his back.
And as a chloroform-soaked cloth slammed down over his face and the world faded away into the roof of the dirty vehicle, blackness, nothing, all Hannibal could think about was how this all seemed rather fair.
+++++
Hannibal wasn’t really sure when he came to. It was still dark, even with his eyes opened. He forced down the little twinge of panic that inevitably hit in situations like this and tried to think, to notice.
Breath hot, close in. Skin cold, exposed. Hard cool plastic, legs apart, hands forced behind.
So that was...tied to a chair, bag around his neck, naked. No gag. Zip ties on his wrists and ankles so tight they were almost cutting into his skin. Effectively hobbled, sense-deprived. Borderline professional. Local gang? Somebody worse? He wracked his mind for who they’d fucked over recently, problems BA inevitably had in his neighborhood, anybody Face might have inadvertantly (or purposefully, he thought ruefully) pissed off... anybody who might want to hurt them.
Anybody who might want to hurt him, specifically.
But as the minutes ticked by, drawing out until every second felt like an hour in and of itself, Hannibal came up empty. He couldn’t think of anything, anyone, any reason for this. so he settled in against the impossibly slow passage of time to wait.
Wasn’t like he’d never been in a situation like this before, he told himself. But somehow, alone, like that, in the dark, it didn’t reassure him.
He just kept seeing Face, in that room, that table, and he couldn’t think of anything else but maybe, just maybe, he deserved whatever was coming...
Hannibal remembered SERE training from a long time ago, that one horrible six months he had to serve as cadre, helping run it. He’d been on both sides of this in the real world, on missions, that time in Colombia, that week in Afghanistan. He knew this whole thing intimately.
So he knew these guys definitely weren’t professionals. Nothing resembling torture came.
Small comforts.
But nothing else came, either. No food, no light, no contact, no sound, nothing. Completely isolated. The colonel had no idea how much time had passed, if time was passing at all. Seemed like days before anything, anything changed.
And when something did finally change, everything did.
The door banged open, loud and clanging metal on some bare wall, footsteps, a knife just grazing his skin as the bonds were cut. Numb from being in one position too long, still in the darkness of the blind and the failure of light to reach the room, his first swing didn’t connect with anything and he hit the ground, hard, barely avoiding biting his lip in half.
Hands hauled him up by the shoulders and slammed him onto something flat. Flat and cold and hard.
A table. Not tall enough for his long legs and his knees worked futilely against the pressing weight holding him down.
Cuffs were slapped back down on raw wrists and a vicious blow landed, right above his kidney.
There was gutteral Spanish, screamed around what had to be a very tight and confined space. A voice he didn’t recognize, two of those, actually, going too fast and too slurred for him to catch the words. Border Spanish, that weird dialect used down in Tiajuana. Was he there? The smell wasn’t quite... and then a hand grabs down on the back of his neck, rough through the fabric of the bag.
Hannibal felt his blood freeze in his veins. Not this. Please, god, not this, not this, no matter how much he might deserve it...
His head hit the table, momentarily stunning his, thoughts swimming, barely catching the sound of the door slamming, the much quieter and far more dangerous sound of a zipper running open.
Hard flesh pressed right against him, fitting in, sliding up, a knife running up his side, not quite breaking skin. Hannibal stayed perfectly still, knowing they probably wanted him to scream, knowing they want him to fight, but why? After everything, why would he? “Just get it over with,” he groaned, letting his head hit the table again. Repeated it in Spanish.
The knife hitched, almost cutting, then gone. And there was a voice in his ear, almost too quiet to hear. “Boss?”
“Kid?” he gasped, wondering if he was hallucinating, if they gave him something, making him hear the one thing that could make this already fucked situation even worse. If it had been bad before, this was going to kill him. “Don’t...don’t...”
“They’ll kill you.”
“It’s, I’m... not worth it.”
“If I don’t, you...”
“Not this. The guilt, it’ll...”
“What guilt?” the kid’s voice was low and soothing, right there, so close. “There’s no guilt. It’s okay. I’d do anything for you, couldn’t ever hurt you, you couldn’t ever hurt me, not even this, I can live with it if you’re still...”
“Is this real?” Hannibal asked slowly, not really sure what he meant or why he even said it. Something there, in his lieutenant’s desperation, not the same kind he used when their lives were threatened, something... “Is this really happening?”
“This is real, you and me, please...” The kid’s erection slid between his cheeks again, a quick little roll of hips. “What else matters?”
And then Hannibal understood. “You don’t have to do this, kid.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I...”
“You aren’t getting it, boss. I don’t care about this, what happened, it’s not...” It was startled, like the kid was just waking up, and a fresh wave of shame hit the colonel. "Everything's going to be okay, boss. I love you..."
Forcing his boy into this kind of position, making him go to horrible lengths just to...or did he need to play this out? See it through? Whatever the kid wanted - he refused to believe that there wasn’t some kind of lingering damage for the younger man, too, if he wanted to prove to Hannibal that this was somehow okay, that what he’d done was okay.
“I love you, Face,” he whispered back finally, meaning it completely, wanting to make this okay. He had to fix this. Face was telling him what he needed right now, what would fix all this, and he had to fix this. Had to trust him. And when had he not trusted his lieutenant? “Nothing changes.”
He could feel the shudder of relief that ran through that taught body pressing against his, a soft nip at his neck and then knife again, cutting the fastener on the bag, sweating skin exposed to cool air.
“No. Everything changes,” his lieutenant replied softly, kissed his neck again, sucking lightly. “I can live with that.”
His boy's cock slid up against him again. "Yeah..."
And he meant that, too.
Face hadn’t brought any slick with him, none at all, murmuring apologies about how he couldn’t, how they wouldn’t give him any. Just a quick, furtive coating of spit, like he was trying to hide it from someone. Hannibal wanted to say something, but there the kid’s cock was, impossibly hard, pushing and...
“Oh, fuck!” he half-groaned, half-sobbed, the feeling of penetration more intense than he remembered from that last time, four, five years ago. Face, sinking into him, so slowly, not nearly fast enough, rough and careful and just... “Oh... goddamn...”
He couldn’t really see anything, but the colonel just knew Face was grinning, the way he said, “sorry, boss, can’t stop,” and that was better. That was almost perfect. Then the kid rolled his hips, somehow catching that spot on the first fucking try and Hannibal’s eyes rolled up in his head. He didn’t know if Face was really that good or if he really needed this that badly, the contact, the realization of it all...
It ws hard and fast and dirty, yet it still seemed like the kid was holding back, being considerate of their surroundings, a kind of gentleness at play underneath all of it. Rough thrusts, soft hands around his hips. The colonel could feel those strong abs working against his spine, tightening, the kid close.
And then Face tugged him back a little and wrapped a hand around Hannibal’s own cock, pumping and nipped again at his ear. Pulled out all the way and snapped in hard. Feeling that little coil of tension in himself so, so ready to snap, Hannibal groaned again, shoved back, needing more, and Face’s answering push drove him flat into the table again. The kid hissed something and bit down on his shoulder, and that was it.
Hannibal was lost, splattering himself all over hand and table and floor, the hot pulses of his boy’s own release filling him, driving warmth over his prostate of an entirely different kind and he felt his knees give entirely, both of them collapsing to the floor, Face clinging to kid like a limpet, all that warmth, nothing but the sound of heavy breathing for long, long minutes.
“Kid?” he murmured after he found his voice again.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Where are we?”
He heard Face licking dry lips. “Umm, back room in BA’s garage.”
“And the Mexicans?”
A pause. “One of the local gangs owed him a favor, funny story, actually and we, uh, didn’t exactly tell them what we, what I was...”
“Are you okay, kid?”
“Boss, fuck, I’m sorry...”
There was a choke in the reply, and it almost broke Hannibal’s heart all over again. With a regretful little sigh, he pulled himself off the kid’s softening cock, and turned around in his arms.
“No, no, no.” Hannibal stroked a cheek, felt moisture there and kissed him softly. “I should be the one apologizing, Temp, putting you through this. Really fucked everything up, didn’t I?”
The kid pressed his forehead right under Hannibal’s chin, clinging to him. “Doesn’t matter now?” A question, not a statement, something akin to begging.
Hannibal was very much aware that he was very much naked, Face partially so, both of them sprawled out on the filthy floor, and he just couldn’t care. Face, here, with him, right where he fucking belonged...
“Everything’s fine,” he reassured the kid. Reassured himself and tightened his arms. “Everything’s fine.”
+++++
After the sweat started to dry, and Face started to shiver, Hannibal found the strength in his limbs to pull them both up and upstairs. It was easy going, really, up to that little apartment BA kept so neat and tidy, his photos proudly displayed.
The boss paused at one, the team together in some faceless location, everybody looking so happy. Face had his hand around Hannibal’s shoulder in it. Nearly seven years ago. He felt like he’d aged at least three times since then. But Face looked as beautiful now as he did then, that smile.
He turned to say so, but the kid had already padded past him, into the bathroom and started the shower. The colonel leaned against the counter as the kid fiddled with the dials.
“What are you doing, Hannibal?” Face asked without turning around.
“Admiring the view,” he said without thinking about it. Because he really was, the smooth skin, the way the muscles kind of rippled out under it, how...
“It’s your shower, colonel. I can wait.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Boss, this wasn’t about me playing out some goddamn sexual fantasy or something!” the kid snapped and found a washcloth in a cabinet. “Fuck! It’s not like we all of the sudden have this thing between us.”
“Don’t we?”
“No, we don’t,” Face said, and crushed the little square of terrycloth between his fingers. caked with grime, dark and oily, Hannibal noticed with a wince. “We don’t. But you haven’t been right...”
“I haven’t been right?” He could hear the edge of warning creeping into his voice, and he didn’t want it there. An automatic response to a subordinate questioning him, and they both knew it.
His lieutenant was angry now, taking shallow breaths as he talked. “No, you haven’t been right since it happened and I... fuck, I didn’t know what else to do!”
What’d the kid need right now? What did he want? Hannibal normally would know this, would know how to fix this, but right now... “It was a decent plan, kid.”
Face wasn’t really listening to him, though. He’d sagged back into the counter, against the sink, still torturing that washcloth. “It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing, Hannibal. I absolve you of your completely unnecessary guilt. That’s it.”
“Is it?”
“We needed to get your head straight, and fuck, boss, that, it, that’s...”
Oh. Right.
Hannibal reached over and took the cloth away from the lieutenant. Put his weight on one hand and leaned in. They were both still naked. He’d left everything but Face downstairs.
Everything but Face.
“Mission accomplished, kid.”
Normally, Hannibal could tell everything that was going on in that head. He’d known the kid for over ten years, since he really was a kid, fresh out of ROTC and arrogant as hell. Eager to learn. So young then... but now he was older, better at hiding, because Hannibal couldn’t read him at all. “Boss, I’m not after...”
But his protests didn’t seem real. That much was apparent. “You’re filthy, Templeton,” he said gently, taking hold of the younger man’s wrists. “Let’s get you cleaned off.”
The expression shifted, barely perceptible, but enough for Hannibal to know it was okay for him to pull the kid up and away and get him up over the lip of the bathtub and into the small little shower. He got the cloth wet. Face was still shivering, and the colonel held him close in as the water warmed its last few degrees to its scorching comfort.
Hannibal took everything slow and easy, soaping them both up, scrubbing, rinsing. Blood and oil and dirt down the drain. The water stung his raw skin, but there wasn’t much bleeding and he held it in. Had to. The kid stayed pressed up against him, right where he was held and turned and positioned. Not really moving away, but not really there and drifting further the longer they stayed like that.
Fuck.
He had to get him out, now.
Hurriedly, Hannibal got the rest of the black gunk off his boy’s skin and rubbed him down with a slightly threadbare towel from the rack. He wrapped the kid up in it, and grabbed another from himself. “Face?” he asked, going as quick as he could.
No response. Not necessarily shock. Could have been a dozen other things, too. Exhaustion, maybe. That release that always came after stress. Lots of things.
Still, the colonel maneuvered Face into BA’s bedroom, figuring the big black corporal wouldn’t care, and laughed a little to himself when he realized that smell was clean laundry and BA had probably changed the sheets. Just in case. He’d have to thank him.
Later.
The kid put up a little of a fight, which was a good thing to see, but he was either tired or unwilling, and Hannibal bundled him into bed without much trouble. The clock by the nightstand read three-twenty-one AM. Big red letters. When had it gotten so late? And as Hannibal slid in next to Face, spooning up to him, feeling the shivers subside as the space under the blankets warmed. As he rubbed along the kid’s stomach.
“Boss...” Face whispered and stopped Hannibal’s hands with one of his. “Boss, you don’t have to.”
“I should have told you kid,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I never did.”
Face bucked back into him. Skin still hot from the shower, shivering gone, something needy there in its place. “I know now.”
“Not about that, kid.” He pressed a kiss to the back of Face’s head. “I should have told you I love you a long, long time ago.”
There’s a hitch and a jerk, and he’s staring into blue eyes, unfocused, falling into sleep. “Hannibal, wait, you...”
“...love you, Temp.”
There’s a pause, and those eyes close. A contented little sigh tiptoes through the light scattering of silver hair on his chest. “Love you too, John.”
They fell silent after that, caught in some half state between sleep and waking, Hannibal’s agile mind still turning over the detail. Tomorrow, when it’s light, he’ll take the kid home, spread him out in his own bed, drag it out for hours. Make it sweet, make it last, drive away all the unpleasantness of the last few months, replace the ugliness with something beautiful.
Tomorrow. So good tomorrow.
But for now, Hannibal thinks, this is perfect.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
PLUEASE!! PLUEASE *BEGGING ON MY KNEES* a sequel to this
No Third Option
I'd be eternaly grateful when you could write down in all your wonderful style: How they really work it out and finally do it in the right way together (maybe after years). I could offer an option, how about Face doing the boss first?
That "fill in" you wrote, with Face imagining it COULD have been the boss was just...omg *sob*.
Hannibal can’t quite get over what he did to Face, so Face comes up with his own plan to deal with the problem.
Hannibal heard the door slam shut, and tried to breath.
In. Out. Repeat.
For some reason, right now, that was incredibly hard.
Something tight, hard, cold, forming in his chest.
What the hell was that?
He was trying to do the right thing here.
Boss, please...
Kid, this can’t happen...
Wasn't he?
It had seemed a miracle to the colonel, the first time. Face, so close, right there, mouths almost, hovering, waiting to touch down for a kiss, like that kiss they’d had in the garage, almost a month before. After the fistfight, after everything was out in the open and Face had seemed almost relieved, hadn’t he? Forgiven that heinous transgression, hadn’t he? So this could be real, couldn’t it?
Face had tried to forgive him, tried to move past it all, and so Hannibal tried to believe as he reached up and around and found purchase on a jutting hipbone, as he pulled Face a little closer, bodies touching through the thick, scratchy fabric of the tacky hotel blankets. As he kissed the lieutenant, his lieutenant, tasting everything that should have been theirs, should be theirs. Hard and fast and sudden, that kiss. The world started tilting apart under the force of it, so it had seemed to Hannibal, everything...
Face flinched.
Hannibal released him immediately and the younger man had rocketed back, plastering himself against the headboard. As if magnetically repelled. Breathing hard.
In the thin blue light from the television, Hannibal didn’t try to touch him. Not that. Not right now.
It’s not the time yet, kid.
Fac had just looked at him, something inscrutable flitting behind his eyes, then curled up on his side on the opposite edge of the bed.
Can I at least sleep here tonight?
It had become a pattern since then, this thing with Face. Maybe twice a week, more if they weren’t on a mission and seemingly every night for the past three weeks, Face would pull the same stunt. He’d wait about an hour after Hannibal turned in for the night, probably waiting for him to go to sleep, but the colonel was always awake.
Awake to hear the door creak and feel the bed dip, sheets rearrange, the sensation of another warm body against his, nothing but soft skin and the prickle of hair and the exhalation of breath, the faraway heartbeat of a man who wasn’t his, couldn’t be his.
When it didn’t happen, when Face didn’t come, Hannibal wished it would.
When it did, Hannibal wished it would go away.
Because he couldn’t do this.
Not to Face. Not ever again.
And then there were times like tonight, when the lieutenant would touch him. Not just the closeness of bodies, but a hesitant hand over his shoulder, tickling down his ribs. Tonight, against his cheek. Hannibal never responded to the lightness of those little questioning caresses. The kid hadn’t gotten laid in six months, not since the warehouse and the Chinese Triad and everything Hannibal had been forced to do to keep him alive. He knew Face was just trying to convince himself that it was okay, that they could do this, that all that had come before was inconsequential.
Bullshit.
Hannibal could still fucking feel the room, the cold concrete and dirty glass, congealed blood, the drip of fresh red onto the floor and the soreness of his knuckles from the last blow he’d landed on the kid, trying to keep him quiet - fuck, he could still feel the way he just sank into all that tightness, that impossible tightness, the way Face had just taken him, the way he’d taken...
Can I at least sleep here tonight?
Boss, please...
For some reason he couldn’t quite identify,those words percolated up through his thoughts, carrying something Hannibal couldn’t quite identify. Something the kid had been trying to say, something he probably knew himself. And the kid had been asking tonight, hadn’t he? He’d been almost begging...
His chest tightened even more.
And then Hannibal was up and out of bed and headed downstairs before he could even think about it.
After Face.
Something else was going on here.
+++++
Hannibal took the stairs carefully, watching out for that third step from the bottom that squeaked. The lights were on down there, warm sound spilling out of the Wii in the living room, which meant the boys were up. Murdock had a flying game on the thing that he loved playing, Hannibal remembered, and smiled a little as he peeked around the corner.
And he was playing it now, one hand distractedly waving around, guiding the little cartoon thing across the screen, diving after balloons, even as he sat there on the sofa, right next to Face. His lieutenant was staring at the floor, staring at nothing, everything about him unfocused and scattered.
That feeling in his chest...
Flattening back around behind the lip of the wall, Hannibal couldn’t see in. More importantly, they couldn’t see him. He felt like an idiot, a coward, but somehow, wlaking in there would have made everything worse.
Because despite the hushed tones of both men, he could hear them. Clear as day.
“...I don’t know what else to fucking try,” Face was saying. “I mean, it’s been like what, six months? Shouldn’t this be over with by now?”
“Stuff takes time, Faceman,” Murdock replied, and another balloon popped in the speakers. “Probably just gotta be patient.”
“Fuck patience,” Face replied, and Hannibla felt that swell, painful, deep down. God, his boy was still hurting over this, he’d known it, he just hadn’t known how much... “I can’t take much more of this. I, I don’t know what I’m going to do...”
“He loves you.”
“Bullshit.”
“You know he does. Even after what he did...”
Hannibal felt his knees go almost too late to catch himself, and only barely managed to control his fall, down onto the step, heart pounding, guilt clouding black and thick into his mind. The kid hadn’t forgiven him. The kid was still raw. The kid was just trying to convince himself, they’d never have anything, they couldn’t, there wasn’t a way back from...
“...uck that too. Six months, and he won’t touch me. Shit, Murdock, he won’t fucking look at me! Everything’s...goddamn it...”
Then there was a sound, like Murdock was putting down the control wand. Hannibal froze. Their pilot multi-tasked like nobody’s business. Playing a game while talking to Face meant nothing - the lieutenant already had his full attention. But him actually stopping... it wasn’t good.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Murdock said, almost too soft to hear. “He’ll get over it. He’ll let you...”
“I miss him, HM...”
And there it was, that thing breaking inside him. That, right there.
It wasn’t Face.
It was him.
Hannibal felt every nerve in his body catch fire at once, skin burning, the wave of shame threatening to pull him under with the force of the realization.
Six months. Six months of refusing Face, his Face, his boy. Coldly. Without consideration. Never once asking, not once even stopping to think ...
His hand fumbled for the wall, and he pulled himself up. He couldn’t sit here and listen to any more of this, Face, like this. But he tripped or something on one of the steps, or hit the third step, the one that creaked, because there was noise and a hand on the bannister, right next to his, and that voice.
“Boss?”
He breathed out, long and slow. He couldn’t look back, couldn’t see the expression on his lieutenant’s face, didn’t want to know what he was thinking. “Face, I...”
“It’s, it’s, uh, it’s no big, Hannibal. Late and blowing off steam and...”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care about...”
Hannibal looked up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. Wished it would swallow him whole. “I mean, I can’t, kid. I just can’t. Not again.”
“It wouldn’t, I mean, it wouldn’t be, it wasn’t...”
He closed his eyes. Had to be said. “It was.”
“John...”
It sounded like that other time, that little gasped,terrified hey that Face had whispered right before Hannibal had, right before... and the colonel din’t look back, didn’t look down, not until he was safely behind his own bedroom door and his body was slumped against it and the knocks stopped and he could breath again.
Something had to be done.
But for the first time in his life, Hannibal had no idea what that could possibly be.
+++++
The sidewalk rolled away beneath him, sky ablaze with that LA sunset, and Hannibal didn’t know what to think.
Things had been quiet lately. No jobs for the past month, the boys just hanging around the current scammed property. And nothing changed over the next few days. BA working on his van, splitting his time between the safehouse and his own garage, Murdock upping his high scores on the Wii and drinking gallons of orange soda. Face... going out a lot. Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, never saying anything about it.
Hannibal wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The lieutenant had been sticking pretty close to base since, well, since. A change in the pattern could be a problem. It could have been innocent.
But Face wasn’t talking to him right now. Sure, he’d respond if Hannibal asked him a question, but there was no talking, no more conversations, no casual laughing. No laughing at all. Just terse little words when necessary.
Maybe everything to be said between them had been said. That last little exchange on the stairs. Face had probably given up, Hannibal figured. Given up on him. Nothing wrong with that. The colonel had been wracking his brain for days, trying to think of a way out of it, a way to push himself through, out of, the chewing guilt. It wasn’t like he didn’t want it. He did. He wanted Face, wanted all of him, back like that, under him, around him, consuming him. But the memories...he’d had nightmares about it, off and on. Worse the last few nights. When he tried to think, that was all he could see, and until he managed to resolve that, there was nothing to be done.
So he ran, in the evening after dinner or before, trying to clear his head before he had to go to sleep. So he spent a lot of time locked in the den, reading or researching clients. . Nothing interesting. Seemed appropriate. BA and Murdock were pointedly absorbed in their respective hobbies, Face gone, far too much tension in the house anyway.
He turned the usual corner, picking up speed through the turn as if he could outrun the unpleasantness that seemed to hang over him these days. It was stupid, he knew, following the same route every day, but he liked it. Parks, neighborhood, some good hills. Nice route.
But, it was a mistake.
He realized this too late.
A white van, painted-out windows, tires squealing, not ten feet ahead of him, too close, momentum carrying his body forward, no room to turn around before the door slid open and a gun was in his face, another driving into his back.
And as a chloroform-soaked cloth slammed down over his face and the world faded away into the roof of the dirty vehicle, blackness, nothing, all Hannibal could think about was how this all seemed rather fair.
+++++
Hannibal wasn’t really sure when he came to. It was still dark, even with his eyes opened. He forced down the little twinge of panic that inevitably hit in situations like this and tried to think, to notice.
Breath hot, close in. Skin cold, exposed. Hard cool plastic, legs apart, hands forced behind.
So that was...tied to a chair, bag around his neck, naked. No gag. Zip ties on his wrists and ankles so tight they were almost cutting into his skin. Effectively hobbled, sense-deprived. Borderline professional. Local gang? Somebody worse? He wracked his mind for who they’d fucked over recently, problems BA inevitably had in his neighborhood, anybody Face might have inadvertantly (or purposefully, he thought ruefully) pissed off... anybody who might want to hurt them.
Anybody who might want to hurt him, specifically.
But as the minutes ticked by, drawing out until every second felt like an hour in and of itself, Hannibal came up empty. He couldn’t think of anything, anyone, any reason for this. so he settled in against the impossibly slow passage of time to wait.
Wasn’t like he’d never been in a situation like this before, he told himself. But somehow, alone, like that, in the dark, it didn’t reassure him.
He just kept seeing Face, in that room, that table, and he couldn’t think of anything else but maybe, just maybe, he deserved whatever was coming...
Hannibal remembered SERE training from a long time ago, that one horrible six months he had to serve as cadre, helping run it. He’d been on both sides of this in the real world, on missions, that time in Colombia, that week in Afghanistan. He knew this whole thing intimately.
So he knew these guys definitely weren’t professionals. Nothing resembling torture came.
Small comforts.
But nothing else came, either. No food, no light, no contact, no sound, nothing. Completely isolated. The colonel had no idea how much time had passed, if time was passing at all. Seemed like days before anything, anything changed.
And when something did finally change, everything did.
The door banged open, loud and clanging metal on some bare wall, footsteps, a knife just grazing his skin as the bonds were cut. Numb from being in one position too long, still in the darkness of the blind and the failure of light to reach the room, his first swing didn’t connect with anything and he hit the ground, hard, barely avoiding biting his lip in half.
Hands hauled him up by the shoulders and slammed him onto something flat. Flat and cold and hard.
A table. Not tall enough for his long legs and his knees worked futilely against the pressing weight holding him down.
Cuffs were slapped back down on raw wrists and a vicious blow landed, right above his kidney.
There was gutteral Spanish, screamed around what had to be a very tight and confined space. A voice he didn’t recognize, two of those, actually, going too fast and too slurred for him to catch the words. Border Spanish, that weird dialect used down in Tiajuana. Was he there? The smell wasn’t quite... and then a hand grabs down on the back of his neck, rough through the fabric of the bag.
Hannibal felt his blood freeze in his veins. Not this. Please, god, not this, not this, no matter how much he might deserve it...
His head hit the table, momentarily stunning his, thoughts swimming, barely catching the sound of the door slamming, the much quieter and far more dangerous sound of a zipper running open.
Hard flesh pressed right against him, fitting in, sliding up, a knife running up his side, not quite breaking skin. Hannibal stayed perfectly still, knowing they probably wanted him to scream, knowing they want him to fight, but why? After everything, why would he? “Just get it over with,” he groaned, letting his head hit the table again. Repeated it in Spanish.
The knife hitched, almost cutting, then gone. And there was a voice in his ear, almost too quiet to hear. “Boss?”
“Kid?” he gasped, wondering if he was hallucinating, if they gave him something, making him hear the one thing that could make this already fucked situation even worse. If it had been bad before, this was going to kill him. “Don’t...don’t...”
“They’ll kill you.”
“It’s, I’m... not worth it.”
“If I don’t, you...”
“Not this. The guilt, it’ll...”
“What guilt?” the kid’s voice was low and soothing, right there, so close. “There’s no guilt. It’s okay. I’d do anything for you, couldn’t ever hurt you, you couldn’t ever hurt me, not even this, I can live with it if you’re still...”
“Is this real?” Hannibal asked slowly, not really sure what he meant or why he even said it. Something there, in his lieutenant’s desperation, not the same kind he used when their lives were threatened, something... “Is this really happening?”
“This is real, you and me, please...” The kid’s erection slid between his cheeks again, a quick little roll of hips. “What else matters?”
And then Hannibal understood. “You don’t have to do this, kid.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I...”
“You aren’t getting it, boss. I don’t care about this, what happened, it’s not...” It was startled, like the kid was just waking up, and a fresh wave of shame hit the colonel. "Everything's going to be okay, boss. I love you..."
Forcing his boy into this kind of position, making him go to horrible lengths just to...or did he need to play this out? See it through? Whatever the kid wanted - he refused to believe that there wasn’t some kind of lingering damage for the younger man, too, if he wanted to prove to Hannibal that this was somehow okay, that what he’d done was okay.
“I love you, Face,” he whispered back finally, meaning it completely, wanting to make this okay. He had to fix this. Face was telling him what he needed right now, what would fix all this, and he had to fix this. Had to trust him. And when had he not trusted his lieutenant? “Nothing changes.”
He could feel the shudder of relief that ran through that taught body pressing against his, a soft nip at his neck and then knife again, cutting the fastener on the bag, sweating skin exposed to cool air.
“No. Everything changes,” his lieutenant replied softly, kissed his neck again, sucking lightly. “I can live with that.”
His boy's cock slid up against him again. "Yeah..."
And he meant that, too.
Face hadn’t brought any slick with him, none at all, murmuring apologies about how he couldn’t, how they wouldn’t give him any. Just a quick, furtive coating of spit, like he was trying to hide it from someone. Hannibal wanted to say something, but there the kid’s cock was, impossibly hard, pushing and...
“Oh, fuck!” he half-groaned, half-sobbed, the feeling of penetration more intense than he remembered from that last time, four, five years ago. Face, sinking into him, so slowly, not nearly fast enough, rough and careful and just... “Oh... goddamn...”
He couldn’t really see anything, but the colonel just knew Face was grinning, the way he said, “sorry, boss, can’t stop,” and that was better. That was almost perfect. Then the kid rolled his hips, somehow catching that spot on the first fucking try and Hannibal’s eyes rolled up in his head. He didn’t know if Face was really that good or if he really needed this that badly, the contact, the realization of it all...
It ws hard and fast and dirty, yet it still seemed like the kid was holding back, being considerate of their surroundings, a kind of gentleness at play underneath all of it. Rough thrusts, soft hands around his hips. The colonel could feel those strong abs working against his spine, tightening, the kid close.
And then Face tugged him back a little and wrapped a hand around Hannibal’s own cock, pumping and nipped again at his ear. Pulled out all the way and snapped in hard. Feeling that little coil of tension in himself so, so ready to snap, Hannibal groaned again, shoved back, needing more, and Face’s answering push drove him flat into the table again. The kid hissed something and bit down on his shoulder, and that was it.
Hannibal was lost, splattering himself all over hand and table and floor, the hot pulses of his boy’s own release filling him, driving warmth over his prostate of an entirely different kind and he felt his knees give entirely, both of them collapsing to the floor, Face clinging to kid like a limpet, all that warmth, nothing but the sound of heavy breathing for long, long minutes.
“Kid?” he murmured after he found his voice again.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Where are we?”
He heard Face licking dry lips. “Umm, back room in BA’s garage.”
“And the Mexicans?”
A pause. “One of the local gangs owed him a favor, funny story, actually and we, uh, didn’t exactly tell them what we, what I was...”
“Are you okay, kid?”
“Boss, fuck, I’m sorry...”
There was a choke in the reply, and it almost broke Hannibal’s heart all over again. With a regretful little sigh, he pulled himself off the kid’s softening cock, and turned around in his arms.
“No, no, no.” Hannibal stroked a cheek, felt moisture there and kissed him softly. “I should be the one apologizing, Temp, putting you through this. Really fucked everything up, didn’t I?”
The kid pressed his forehead right under Hannibal’s chin, clinging to him. “Doesn’t matter now?” A question, not a statement, something akin to begging.
Hannibal was very much aware that he was very much naked, Face partially so, both of them sprawled out on the filthy floor, and he just couldn’t care. Face, here, with him, right where he fucking belonged...
“Everything’s fine,” he reassured the kid. Reassured himself and tightened his arms. “Everything’s fine.”
+++++
After the sweat started to dry, and Face started to shiver, Hannibal found the strength in his limbs to pull them both up and upstairs. It was easy going, really, up to that little apartment BA kept so neat and tidy, his photos proudly displayed.
The boss paused at one, the team together in some faceless location, everybody looking so happy. Face had his hand around Hannibal’s shoulder in it. Nearly seven years ago. He felt like he’d aged at least three times since then. But Face looked as beautiful now as he did then, that smile.
He turned to say so, but the kid had already padded past him, into the bathroom and started the shower. The colonel leaned against the counter as the kid fiddled with the dials.
“What are you doing, Hannibal?” Face asked without turning around.
“Admiring the view,” he said without thinking about it. Because he really was, the smooth skin, the way the muscles kind of rippled out under it, how...
“It’s your shower, colonel. I can wait.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Boss, this wasn’t about me playing out some goddamn sexual fantasy or something!” the kid snapped and found a washcloth in a cabinet. “Fuck! It’s not like we all of the sudden have this thing between us.”
“Don’t we?”
“No, we don’t,” Face said, and crushed the little square of terrycloth between his fingers. caked with grime, dark and oily, Hannibal noticed with a wince. “We don’t. But you haven’t been right...”
“I haven’t been right?” He could hear the edge of warning creeping into his voice, and he didn’t want it there. An automatic response to a subordinate questioning him, and they both knew it.
His lieutenant was angry now, taking shallow breaths as he talked. “No, you haven’t been right since it happened and I... fuck, I didn’t know what else to do!”
What’d the kid need right now? What did he want? Hannibal normally would know this, would know how to fix this, but right now... “It was a decent plan, kid.”
Face wasn’t really listening to him, though. He’d sagged back into the counter, against the sink, still torturing that washcloth. “It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing, Hannibal. I absolve you of your completely unnecessary guilt. That’s it.”
“Is it?”
“We needed to get your head straight, and fuck, boss, that, it, that’s...”
Oh. Right.
Hannibal reached over and took the cloth away from the lieutenant. Put his weight on one hand and leaned in. They were both still naked. He’d left everything but Face downstairs.
Everything but Face.
“Mission accomplished, kid.”
Normally, Hannibal could tell everything that was going on in that head. He’d known the kid for over ten years, since he really was a kid, fresh out of ROTC and arrogant as hell. Eager to learn. So young then... but now he was older, better at hiding, because Hannibal couldn’t read him at all. “Boss, I’m not after...”
But his protests didn’t seem real. That much was apparent. “You’re filthy, Templeton,” he said gently, taking hold of the younger man’s wrists. “Let’s get you cleaned off.”
The expression shifted, barely perceptible, but enough for Hannibal to know it was okay for him to pull the kid up and away and get him up over the lip of the bathtub and into the small little shower. He got the cloth wet. Face was still shivering, and the colonel held him close in as the water warmed its last few degrees to its scorching comfort.
Hannibal took everything slow and easy, soaping them both up, scrubbing, rinsing. Blood and oil and dirt down the drain. The water stung his raw skin, but there wasn’t much bleeding and he held it in. Had to. The kid stayed pressed up against him, right where he was held and turned and positioned. Not really moving away, but not really there and drifting further the longer they stayed like that.
Fuck.
He had to get him out, now.
Hurriedly, Hannibal got the rest of the black gunk off his boy’s skin and rubbed him down with a slightly threadbare towel from the rack. He wrapped the kid up in it, and grabbed another from himself. “Face?” he asked, going as quick as he could.
No response. Not necessarily shock. Could have been a dozen other things, too. Exhaustion, maybe. That release that always came after stress. Lots of things.
Still, the colonel maneuvered Face into BA’s bedroom, figuring the big black corporal wouldn’t care, and laughed a little to himself when he realized that smell was clean laundry and BA had probably changed the sheets. Just in case. He’d have to thank him.
Later.
The kid put up a little of a fight, which was a good thing to see, but he was either tired or unwilling, and Hannibal bundled him into bed without much trouble. The clock by the nightstand read three-twenty-one AM. Big red letters. When had it gotten so late? And as Hannibal slid in next to Face, spooning up to him, feeling the shivers subside as the space under the blankets warmed. As he rubbed along the kid’s stomach.
“Boss...” Face whispered and stopped Hannibal’s hands with one of his. “Boss, you don’t have to.”
“I should have told you kid,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I never did.”
Face bucked back into him. Skin still hot from the shower, shivering gone, something needy there in its place. “I know now.”
“Not about that, kid.” He pressed a kiss to the back of Face’s head. “I should have told you I love you a long, long time ago.”
There’s a hitch and a jerk, and he’s staring into blue eyes, unfocused, falling into sleep. “Hannibal, wait, you...”
“...love you, Temp.”
There’s a pause, and those eyes close. A contented little sigh tiptoes through the light scattering of silver hair on his chest. “Love you too, John.”
They fell silent after that, caught in some half state between sleep and waking, Hannibal’s agile mind still turning over the detail. Tomorrow, when it’s light, he’ll take the kid home, spread him out in his own bed, drag it out for hours. Make it sweet, make it last, drive away all the unpleasantness of the last few months, replace the ugliness with something beautiful.
Tomorrow. So good tomorrow.
But for now, Hannibal thinks, this is perfect.
