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sonora_conejaPairing: Face/Murdock
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
So I had a wierd birthday, across the ocean from friends and family. I ate a tub of ben and jerrys, and then watched some dvred top model.
Soooo - could someone write a fic where face or murdock has their first bday as a member of the team, and its all kinds of lonely until the other surprises them? And I will love you forever if this features their first time together.
Sorry for moping all over the meme
Murdock’s having some trouble dealing with his first birthday away from all his old memories, completely alone. But he doesn’t figure on Face, figuring it out.
There aren't any fireflies in Iraq.
Murdock had known this at some kind of intuitive level. No fireflies. Not enough moisture for the little guys. No place for them at all. Not in this scorched place.
Not this far from home.
His grandparents used to take him to Maine in the summer. His mom's home state, or so he remembers being told. That rocky, cold, beautiful coast. Nothing but sea grass and the dark under the firs and the gray-blue of the Atlantic Ocean, stretching out to the edge of the world. Hot, sticky days spent on the beach, in the rocks, playing. And at night, the fireflies came out.
They're here for you, baby, his grandmother used to say. Your mama, watching out for you in the night..
Always on his birthday did those little flickering lights seem to be thickest. Late June, the ground lit up like the skies above, and he wondered what it'd be like to fly. If mom was up there, too.
And when his grandfather had passed, dead in Texas, conjunctive heart failure, it's to that ocean that they brought the ashes, and added gramps to the glowing swirls that rose from damp grass as the sun fell. The spirits of the people he'd loved, there with him.
Or at least, that's what he'd believed, up until high school biology class and learned that it was nothing more than bioluminescence. Nothing spiritual about it. Nothing magical. Just bugs doing buggy things.
But even after gran passed, his freshman year of college, he'd brought her north to those rocky coasts, wanting her to be with gramps and mom. Those scientists had it all wrong, he'd figured. This was what they were, those little lights. Something he'd loved once. Something he never should have lost.
Murdock tries every year to get back to Maine. Every birthday until he was eighteen, college a bit trickier but still manageable. Active duty...he never stayed too long in any of the places they stuck him, somebody always reluctantly willing to pull him out, or an easy way to break out, or in a place where he doesn't have to worry, because it's wet enough for that glow to light itself and he always, always makes sure to say hi to her first, because she's the one he had the least amount of time with. Says hello to his memories of laughter and birthday cake and toy planes wrapped in paper too shiny to tear.
Says hello to the people who loved him...
But there's nothing like that here in the desert. Just barren dunes, a landscape that wanted to kill a long time before the IEDs showed up. Just their little forward operating location, bare bones, landing his MC-130 on torn dirt. Just desert-drab tents and bad showers and the sparks off their fire in the cold of the night.
Which are almost good enough.
Because there are people here he loves, too, people he can see through the flickering flames, people he doesn't have to conjure up, whose voices still work in harmony with the dry air. That grumpy teddy bear of a BA and Hannibal, who saved him from that terrible place last year. And Face, of course Face, smiling and laughing, his teeth flashing like his eyes do sometimes, beautiful. And so out of reach.
Murdock wonders sometimes what his mother would think of this, him being in love with another man. And he could ask her. It's birthday. She should be here. He could reach out and ask.
Mama, I love him. I'm in love with my best friend. You understand? Is this okay? Do you still love me...
But there's no answer. Just the wood crackling as it burns down, bright embers scattering up into the night, and he watches these for a moment. But there's no answer. She can't answer.
She's not here with him right now.
Murdock stands, fast, knocking over his chair. The other three look up at him, three sets of unsurprised eyes. They've gotten too used to him, the pilot realizes despairingly. They don't know that something's wrong. They can't, they can't.
Because he's all alone.
On the one day he desperately, desperately doesn't want to be.
"Ima goin' to bed," he announces, forcing a smile, and it's only in his imagination, shallower and less distinct than the void where his family should be, only in his mind that Face reaches out to him in concern.
As he flees backwards, into their tent, where's no light to bother him at all.
He curls up on his cot, boots and all, willing sleep to come. Has to come. Has to come and take him away from today, from this day in early June, away from his birthday and everything he doesn't, can't, won't, will never have...
There was one last birthday, the last good one, the one where his mother held him up at the edge of the table and laughed with him gramps lit the candles out on his cake. She was in a yellow summer dress, the table all spread out by the edge of the lake, the other neighborhood kids all there, gran taking photos on her big bulky polaroid.
Six candles.
But even though he’s barely big enough to see over the table, he knows something’s wrong. Gramps isn’t lighting all of them. That’s odd. Gramps should be lighting them all...
Blow them out, James. Make a wish and blow them out, his mother had whispered. She was everywhere, hugging him, kissing his ear, reassurance. Nothing wrong at all, not with her there.
But he doesn’t known if he can wish for what he wants.
Doesn’t know if he should.
Will I get it, mama?
I wished for a beautiful son once, James, and look who I got to meet six years ago today...
He stretches baby-fat fingers against the rough, chipping paint of the picnic table and dares to think ...I want him. Oh, I want him, just him...
He blows. With all his heart.
First on, second off, third, fourth, fifth off, sixth on, those still incandescent in the darkness, flickering, flickering, and he can’t blow them out, no matter how hard he tries, and he’s standing up on the bench, puffing like the wolf in that story, but those candles won’t go out.
But his mother’s pulling away, the warmth gone, retreating as night falls, the world fades away, silence descending, six little flames flickering in the darkness where’s nothing but this and him, and little James can feel himself crying, crying, and nobody’s there to...
“Murdock?”
That voice. That voice is so familiar...
“Murdock, buddy, are you...”
It’s always right there, the thing that knaws at him, the one that tears at him, like an electrical storm at thirty-thousand feet, like the goddamn nexus from that terrible Star Trek movie, offers up those times and those places he’ll never have again, and certainly not have now, not stuck in the middle of the fucking...
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, man? Bad dreams?”
He wants to thrust it all away, lock it out, reach out and grab it, but he can’t resolve it in his head, and torn between action and inaction, Murdock finds himself curling up, tighter and tighter, wanting nothing more than to get away, to fire up those engines and feel the roar and watch the gimbles shift him up into the air...
“Murdock, please, talk to me buddy, don’t let this take you over, you’re okay, you’re safe...”
Until the weight distribution on his cot shifts, like a pallet breaking off its moorings and throwing the entire balance off, turning everything into something it shouldn’t be as his mind’s racing for liftoff...
Until a hand settles on his knee.
And now he’s grounded.
He can’t go anywhere.
So Murdock forces his eyes to open, taking in the dim interior of their drab tent, the smell of rubber and old canvas and cordite lingering from yesterday’s op. Forces himself to take in every detail, every rip and every dusty corner and every misplaced sock. And he forces himself to smile at the man sitting just beyond his furled knees.
First on, second off, third, fourth, fifth off, sixth on
Binary. Simple. Basic. Thoughtless.
“It’s 33.”
There’s no reaction at first.
And this is what they do with him.
When they don’t understand, they don’t react.
And it’s okay. Sort of.
Face has learned, Murdock figures, how to put up with the odder things by now. The sock puppets and the panic attacks, those are fairly normal for the team by this point. But those are the predictable things.
He hasn’t seen one of these yet. Not some disassociative episode. Never like this.
And the pilot despairs, just a little, knowing how it must look, how he must sound. Wishes this didn’t happen, that his thoughts stayed on the shelf where he put them, didn’t move around on him when he wasn’t looking right at them.
Yet...
His friend isn’t moving away. Isn’t pulling back. No. No. Nothing like that at all. And over the pounding of his heart, Murdock wonders if he really did imagine the concern he saw earlier, the faint frown that had followed him away from their nightly fire and into the dreary dream of his mother, his family...
“33?” Face finally queries. His hand on Murdock’s knee is rubbing a little now. Almost unconscious, like the fingers themselves aren’t aware of what they’re doing.
Fair enough, Murdock shrugs, and hopes that emergency smile isn’t failing him. “How... how old I am, today. 33.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“Not much’a’day,” he says softly, still looking away. At anything that isn’t the lieutenant. He’s still trying to figure out if he was dreaming, or if that was a real memory. If he really wanted Face, even back then. If he already knew. Like how he saw his drop-dead gorgeous teammate for that first time, his stomach turning over, that red stab of heat he’d never felt before.
How he feels it now. Radiating out from Face’s hand on his knee. He feels it now.
“What did you used to do? You know, before?”
No no no no no. Not that. Not now. Questions are of the bad right now. But Face is here and Face is touching his knee and he trusts his friend implicitly. So maybe this is okay.. Maybe he can do this.
“We use’ta go up to Maine. Big forests. Big lakes. Lots of ocean. Fireflies...” he tries, and falters, stopping.
That hand stays on his knee, but his shitty little cot moves again and Face is holding his hand now, thumb playing over the back of his knuckles. Does his friend know what he wants to say? Is his friend worried? Face is such a good conman. Gotta be good at reading people, to be a good conman, Murdock knows.
Somehow, that encourages him, and he realizes that Face isn’t doing nothing.
“The candles were all wrong. Lit up wrong. Should have been six,” he murmurs to himself. “Should have just been six. My wish was all wrong...”
“What’d you wish for, Murdock?” Face asks, low, soft, and very close, kneeling between his legs now, pushing the pilot’s own hand back up close to his chest. “What’s so wrong about it?”
He shakes his head, very slowly. “Can’t have it, can’t have it...”
“What, Murdock?”
It’s still confusing. He was six. He was six. He didn’t know Faceman when he was six. So none of this makes any goddamn sense at all.
“Me? You wanted... you wished for me?”
Oh.
Hell.
Shocked blue eyes meet his, and the pilot goes cold.
Now he’s done it, Murdock knows. Really put his foot in this now. He’s just said it out loud. The words got out of him when he wasn’t paying attention. And you aren’t supposed to tell anybody what you wish for. It doesn’t come true if you say it out loud.
Won’t happen now.
There’s no way.
He desperately wants to escape, to scoot back on the cot until the weight will shift, really should shift and tilt and throw him off, onto solid ground again, where he can laugh it off and apologize and get Face to leave. So he can curl up and curse his stupid brain that never leaves anything where he leaves it. Cry in the darkness, maybe, and wait for his fucking birthday to end and the memories to fade again and the world to go back to the way it’s supposed to be...
Murdock can’t bear to look at those eyes anymore. His friend’s perfect eyes. Wide. He’d give anything to have those eyes see him, see him differently, see him, see him really and truly...
“Buddy,” Face murmurs, and belatedly Murdock realizes he’s not going anywhere. Hasn’t moved. Can’t. The lieutenant’s still holding on. He hasn’t let go yet. “Oh, jesus, James...”
He licks his lips and stares at the rough material of the cot between his legs. “You don’t gotta say it, Faceman. Don’t say it. Jus’ go...”
“Murdock, look, I... if you’ve got a birthday wish... we could, I mean, I wouldn’t mind if we...”
Oh, no, then. Face doesn’t want him.
Not like he wants Face to want him.
Doesn’t want to belong to him, like he so very much wants to belong to Face. And if it’s anything less than that, it’s nothing at all. Worse than nothing. Face offering something that he wants, wants so bad, but not in the good way. Like he flirts with the girls at Medical when he's getting Hannibal painkillers. Ain’t enough to touch if he can’t keep. That would be worse, so much worse, because knowing still wouldn’t be having. Wouldn’t be...might be the end of everything.
So he licks his lips again, faint hints of peppermint chapstick and the steak they had for dinner, tasting what surely must be Face, under it. Savors it. “Don’t... don’t need you to...” He takes a deep breath. His friend’s body is close to his, not quite touching but close, and he can feel all that beautiful body heat. So close. So close, like he’s always wanted it.
Murdock forces a smile and throws himself up.
He can say this. He scratches a leg with the boot on his other foot. He really can.
“Naw, Faceman, you know me, always sayin’ crazy...”
His buddy slumps a little on the cot. “You should have told us about your birthday, Murdock. Hannibal actually loves throwing birthday parties.”
“Yeah?”
Face doesn’t look up. “Yeah, buddy. Why...why didn’t you say anything?”
This is... unexpected. Or maybe, no, it’s perfectly expected. Exactly what was going to happen, him saying his wish out loud and ruining all the magic. “It ain’t the same, Faceman,” he sighs, thinking about this. “My... it was my family, and I can’t see them here, they can’t find me here, it’s not where... not where we used to go together, and...”
Face is up, coming over, moving with that impossible grace the man is so possessed of. “Hey, Murdock, there are people here who love you too, you know that?” He lays a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “People here who really care about you...”
Murdock bites the inside of his mouth. The lieutenant’s got that look, that look he knows so damn well at this point, and is going to try to kiss him again. He won’t survive another of those. He’ll come all to pieces. “You don’t gotta give me anything, Face,” he says, putting a hand up between them. “I don’t want it if you... if you’re jus’ tryin’ to...”
“James...I, I care about you, buddy,” he says softly, in a tone he’s never used before. Almost...wistful, maybe, sweet and deep. “I care about you...”
“Face, please, don’...”
A thumb traces the knobby skin over Murdock’s knuckles. “You should call me Templeton...”
“Why?” he asks and, feeling utterly defeated, scuffs his shoe on the rough wooden slats of their floor.
“Want to hear you say it, James, when...”
“When what?”
“When I do this, buddy...”
No. It’s not the same voice. It’s a different voice. Something new. Something...and he looks up.
Right as Face’s lips seal down over his.
It’s...it’s...
It’s over far too quick, and he moans a little as his friend pulls back. “Is that what you wanted, James?” The words are tinged with uncertainty, hesitation.
“You... want me? Really really?”
Face sighs, but that’s not what convinces the pilot. Not the words that come next. Not the little fuck yes that’s whispered against his rapidly heating skin. No. Not that.
It’s the way Face’s hands, those clever sniper hands, are shaking as they run down Murdock’s arms. The way his fingers tremble as they tangle up with Murdock’s own. And the hesitation with which their lips touch again, chaste and sweet, sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted.
I want him, mama.
It's your birthday, baby. Wishes come true on your birthday...
And Murdock starts kissing him back.
Murdock can remember his grandparents kissing him, a quick peck on the cheek, on the top of his head, a little squeeze of the shoulder to garnish. Or his mother, kissing his forehead, his nose, as she’d tuck him in and fold the book back up and turn off the lights. The kind of kiss that made him feel like he was loved, like he was special. Like somebody’s there, somebody wants him there...
That’s how this feels.
That’s how Face feels.
Like he loves him.
He sinks into it, opening up, letting Face wash over him. And Face does, does everything he’s ever thought Face would do, those lips against his, those hands against his, everything he has on offer, his best friend accepting it all, always accepting him, always knowing, like he knew tonight. But it’s flooding him totally, and he has to pull away. Buries his face in the strong shoulder in front of him, bodies not quite touching.
Murdock draws a shuddering breath.
“You okay, buddy?” asks the soft murmur.
“Yeah, Temp, I’m good.”
He can practically hear that smile, like dawn on a winter’s morning, and Face is moving them now, stripping them now, all the layers disappearing, and there’s nothing between them but cold desert air, heating up, everything heating up.
The only illumination in the tent right now is a string of Christmas lights, up in the high metal of the crossbeam, and Murdock’s looking up at it. Thinks it might be moving a little, a thousand points, gold and high in the shadows. Almost, almost like...
“Hey, James, stay with me, stay with me...”
His eyes snap back down, and there he is. His teammate, his friend, his... his lover. And Face runs a hand down the pilot’s naked shoulder, raising goosebumps.
“You really here?” Murdock whispers, daring to reach out and touch, like he hasn’t with his mother, his family, in years. Knows his fingers won’t touch anything. But here there’s smooth flesh and blue eyes, keeping hm level, keeping him grounded.
“Yeah,” Face says and wraps both hands around the pilot’s waist. He leans his forehead against Murdock’s and sways his hips a little, moving them back. “I’m really here, baby. Even though... I never thought we’d...”
“Me neither,” and Murdock giggles. A bit.
“Wanted you...” his friend sighs, and strokes up his hip. A circuit his fingers are running.
“Why?” he asks.
Cerulean blue smiles back at him, rainwashed sky just darkening into evening, and Face kisses Murdock again, curling them around each other. Awareness of anything else, everything else, everything but this, falls away and his friend pulls him down, keeps him from falling. The pilot almost registers soft sheets, a thin pad, the stuff Face keeps on his own narrow plank of a bed, but it doesn’t matter. Only Face matters, only the way they’re kissing each other, kissing like it will never happen again, and only Face, he only feels Face...
A lotion-slick finger trails between his cheeks and Murdock sighs against his best friend’s neck as it slips inside him. As another follows. As Face works him open, a little you’re so tight, love how tight you are, baby let loose against his fevered brow, and another light kiss. The captain's leg comes up, knee to chest, and they’re both holding it there, fingers twined together. A nip against his chin, and Face brushes his cheek and there it is.
That first push.
He's never imagined it this good.
Face, graceful in everything he does, flows through this. Breaching, penetrating, sinking home, and Murdock doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the lieutenant moans and asks if it’s okay.
He still can’t speak, so he nods, and Face’s eyes go soft, and then he starts moving, one hand wrapped into Murdock’s hair, the other in the tight space between them, cupping his balls, lips working against the curve of neck and shoulder.
It’s slow and easy, almost languid, nearly unbearable. It’s not gentle, somehow not gentle, but that’s okay, he needs that, needs that to keep him here, remind him that this is real, that Face is really with him, like this, that they’re...
They climb up that slope together, right to the edge, and that’s when Face squeezes and thrusts in hard and it’s all there. Everything he’s ever wanted. Murdock whimpering just a little as he comes. Face grunting softly as he follows right behind. Both of them panting into each other’s mouths, too blissed out to kiss, wanting to nonetheless, Face’s weight against his own as they surface out of it all.
And it just slips out.
“Thank you,” Murdock whispers as Face arranges them both into his down sleeping bag, fussing over zippers with shaking fingers.
“Anything, James,” Face replies, and snuggles into him. “I’ always...”
Two peas in a pod, you boys, Murdock hears from somewhere, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he looked up right now, he might see his mother standing there, shutting the cover of the evening’s story, tugging up the edge of the overstuffed little bedroll, kissing them both on the forehead...
He thinks he almost feels that, and shoots straight up, overheated chest hitting the chill desert air. And there she almost is, hand on a lightswitch that doesn’t exist here, ready to turn off that string of lights overhead, telling him without words to go to sleep...
But she doesn’t go without words, no, she turns and smiles and blows him another kiss. I love you baby...
“Love you,” he whispers after her.
But it’s Face who answers. Face who looks up at him, surprised again, but Murdock tries not to be afraid this time. Tries to be brave. And that blue blinks shut, and back open, and there’s another of those kisses, harder and needier and more, so much more. So, maybe, just maybe...
“I love you, Temp,” the pilot tries, as those gun-calloused hands pull him back down. “I love you...”
The answering smile nearly blinds him in the dark of the tent.
“I love you too, James,” he murmurs back, limbs sleepy and still now, the two of them sharing one pillow and one of the lieutenant’s elbows, and Murdock wants to poke an eye up again, thank her again, but she’d just tell him to go to sleep, to have nice dreams, to wake up happy in the morning, a year older, her brave little man...
Face’s fingers twist softly on his chest.
And Murdock lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
So I had a wierd birthday, across the ocean from friends and family. I ate a tub of ben and jerrys, and then watched some dvred top model.
Soooo - could someone write a fic where face or murdock has their first bday as a member of the team, and its all kinds of lonely until the other surprises them? And I will love you forever if this features their first time together.
Sorry for moping all over the meme
Murdock’s having some trouble dealing with his first birthday away from all his old memories, completely alone. But he doesn’t figure on Face, figuring it out.
There aren't any fireflies in Iraq.
Murdock had known this at some kind of intuitive level. No fireflies. Not enough moisture for the little guys. No place for them at all. Not in this scorched place.
Not this far from home.
His grandparents used to take him to Maine in the summer. His mom's home state, or so he remembers being told. That rocky, cold, beautiful coast. Nothing but sea grass and the dark under the firs and the gray-blue of the Atlantic Ocean, stretching out to the edge of the world. Hot, sticky days spent on the beach, in the rocks, playing. And at night, the fireflies came out.
They're here for you, baby, his grandmother used to say. Your mama, watching out for you in the night..
Always on his birthday did those little flickering lights seem to be thickest. Late June, the ground lit up like the skies above, and he wondered what it'd be like to fly. If mom was up there, too.
And when his grandfather had passed, dead in Texas, conjunctive heart failure, it's to that ocean that they brought the ashes, and added gramps to the glowing swirls that rose from damp grass as the sun fell. The spirits of the people he'd loved, there with him.
Or at least, that's what he'd believed, up until high school biology class and learned that it was nothing more than bioluminescence. Nothing spiritual about it. Nothing magical. Just bugs doing buggy things.
But even after gran passed, his freshman year of college, he'd brought her north to those rocky coasts, wanting her to be with gramps and mom. Those scientists had it all wrong, he'd figured. This was what they were, those little lights. Something he'd loved once. Something he never should have lost.
Murdock tries every year to get back to Maine. Every birthday until he was eighteen, college a bit trickier but still manageable. Active duty...he never stayed too long in any of the places they stuck him, somebody always reluctantly willing to pull him out, or an easy way to break out, or in a place where he doesn't have to worry, because it's wet enough for that glow to light itself and he always, always makes sure to say hi to her first, because she's the one he had the least amount of time with. Says hello to his memories of laughter and birthday cake and toy planes wrapped in paper too shiny to tear.
Says hello to the people who loved him...
But there's nothing like that here in the desert. Just barren dunes, a landscape that wanted to kill a long time before the IEDs showed up. Just their little forward operating location, bare bones, landing his MC-130 on torn dirt. Just desert-drab tents and bad showers and the sparks off their fire in the cold of the night.
Which are almost good enough.
Because there are people here he loves, too, people he can see through the flickering flames, people he doesn't have to conjure up, whose voices still work in harmony with the dry air. That grumpy teddy bear of a BA and Hannibal, who saved him from that terrible place last year. And Face, of course Face, smiling and laughing, his teeth flashing like his eyes do sometimes, beautiful. And so out of reach.
Murdock wonders sometimes what his mother would think of this, him being in love with another man. And he could ask her. It's birthday. She should be here. He could reach out and ask.
Mama, I love him. I'm in love with my best friend. You understand? Is this okay? Do you still love me...
But there's no answer. Just the wood crackling as it burns down, bright embers scattering up into the night, and he watches these for a moment. But there's no answer. She can't answer.
She's not here with him right now.
Murdock stands, fast, knocking over his chair. The other three look up at him, three sets of unsurprised eyes. They've gotten too used to him, the pilot realizes despairingly. They don't know that something's wrong. They can't, they can't.
Because he's all alone.
On the one day he desperately, desperately doesn't want to be.
"Ima goin' to bed," he announces, forcing a smile, and it's only in his imagination, shallower and less distinct than the void where his family should be, only in his mind that Face reaches out to him in concern.
As he flees backwards, into their tent, where's no light to bother him at all.
He curls up on his cot, boots and all, willing sleep to come. Has to come. Has to come and take him away from today, from this day in early June, away from his birthday and everything he doesn't, can't, won't, will never have...
There was one last birthday, the last good one, the one where his mother held him up at the edge of the table and laughed with him gramps lit the candles out on his cake. She was in a yellow summer dress, the table all spread out by the edge of the lake, the other neighborhood kids all there, gran taking photos on her big bulky polaroid.
Six candles.
But even though he’s barely big enough to see over the table, he knows something’s wrong. Gramps isn’t lighting all of them. That’s odd. Gramps should be lighting them all...
Blow them out, James. Make a wish and blow them out, his mother had whispered. She was everywhere, hugging him, kissing his ear, reassurance. Nothing wrong at all, not with her there.
But he doesn’t known if he can wish for what he wants.
Doesn’t know if he should.
Will I get it, mama?
I wished for a beautiful son once, James, and look who I got to meet six years ago today...
He stretches baby-fat fingers against the rough, chipping paint of the picnic table and dares to think ...I want him. Oh, I want him, just him...
He blows. With all his heart.
First on, second off, third, fourth, fifth off, sixth on, those still incandescent in the darkness, flickering, flickering, and he can’t blow them out, no matter how hard he tries, and he’s standing up on the bench, puffing like the wolf in that story, but those candles won’t go out.
But his mother’s pulling away, the warmth gone, retreating as night falls, the world fades away, silence descending, six little flames flickering in the darkness where’s nothing but this and him, and little James can feel himself crying, crying, and nobody’s there to...
“Murdock?”
That voice. That voice is so familiar...
“Murdock, buddy, are you...”
It’s always right there, the thing that knaws at him, the one that tears at him, like an electrical storm at thirty-thousand feet, like the goddamn nexus from that terrible Star Trek movie, offers up those times and those places he’ll never have again, and certainly not have now, not stuck in the middle of the fucking...
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, man? Bad dreams?”
He wants to thrust it all away, lock it out, reach out and grab it, but he can’t resolve it in his head, and torn between action and inaction, Murdock finds himself curling up, tighter and tighter, wanting nothing more than to get away, to fire up those engines and feel the roar and watch the gimbles shift him up into the air...
“Murdock, please, talk to me buddy, don’t let this take you over, you’re okay, you’re safe...”
Until the weight distribution on his cot shifts, like a pallet breaking off its moorings and throwing the entire balance off, turning everything into something it shouldn’t be as his mind’s racing for liftoff...
Until a hand settles on his knee.
And now he’s grounded.
He can’t go anywhere.
So Murdock forces his eyes to open, taking in the dim interior of their drab tent, the smell of rubber and old canvas and cordite lingering from yesterday’s op. Forces himself to take in every detail, every rip and every dusty corner and every misplaced sock. And he forces himself to smile at the man sitting just beyond his furled knees.
First on, second off, third, fourth, fifth off, sixth on
Binary. Simple. Basic. Thoughtless.
“It’s 33.”
There’s no reaction at first.
And this is what they do with him.
When they don’t understand, they don’t react.
And it’s okay. Sort of.
Face has learned, Murdock figures, how to put up with the odder things by now. The sock puppets and the panic attacks, those are fairly normal for the team by this point. But those are the predictable things.
He hasn’t seen one of these yet. Not some disassociative episode. Never like this.
And the pilot despairs, just a little, knowing how it must look, how he must sound. Wishes this didn’t happen, that his thoughts stayed on the shelf where he put them, didn’t move around on him when he wasn’t looking right at them.
Yet...
His friend isn’t moving away. Isn’t pulling back. No. No. Nothing like that at all. And over the pounding of his heart, Murdock wonders if he really did imagine the concern he saw earlier, the faint frown that had followed him away from their nightly fire and into the dreary dream of his mother, his family...
“33?” Face finally queries. His hand on Murdock’s knee is rubbing a little now. Almost unconscious, like the fingers themselves aren’t aware of what they’re doing.
Fair enough, Murdock shrugs, and hopes that emergency smile isn’t failing him. “How... how old I am, today. 33.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“Not much’a’day,” he says softly, still looking away. At anything that isn’t the lieutenant. He’s still trying to figure out if he was dreaming, or if that was a real memory. If he really wanted Face, even back then. If he already knew. Like how he saw his drop-dead gorgeous teammate for that first time, his stomach turning over, that red stab of heat he’d never felt before.
How he feels it now. Radiating out from Face’s hand on his knee. He feels it now.
“What did you used to do? You know, before?”
No no no no no. Not that. Not now. Questions are of the bad right now. But Face is here and Face is touching his knee and he trusts his friend implicitly. So maybe this is okay.. Maybe he can do this.
“We use’ta go up to Maine. Big forests. Big lakes. Lots of ocean. Fireflies...” he tries, and falters, stopping.
That hand stays on his knee, but his shitty little cot moves again and Face is holding his hand now, thumb playing over the back of his knuckles. Does his friend know what he wants to say? Is his friend worried? Face is such a good conman. Gotta be good at reading people, to be a good conman, Murdock knows.
Somehow, that encourages him, and he realizes that Face isn’t doing nothing.
“The candles were all wrong. Lit up wrong. Should have been six,” he murmurs to himself. “Should have just been six. My wish was all wrong...”
“What’d you wish for, Murdock?” Face asks, low, soft, and very close, kneeling between his legs now, pushing the pilot’s own hand back up close to his chest. “What’s so wrong about it?”
He shakes his head, very slowly. “Can’t have it, can’t have it...”
“What, Murdock?”
It’s still confusing. He was six. He was six. He didn’t know Faceman when he was six. So none of this makes any goddamn sense at all.
“Me? You wanted... you wished for me?”
Oh.
Hell.
Shocked blue eyes meet his, and the pilot goes cold.
Now he’s done it, Murdock knows. Really put his foot in this now. He’s just said it out loud. The words got out of him when he wasn’t paying attention. And you aren’t supposed to tell anybody what you wish for. It doesn’t come true if you say it out loud.
Won’t happen now.
There’s no way.
He desperately wants to escape, to scoot back on the cot until the weight will shift, really should shift and tilt and throw him off, onto solid ground again, where he can laugh it off and apologize and get Face to leave. So he can curl up and curse his stupid brain that never leaves anything where he leaves it. Cry in the darkness, maybe, and wait for his fucking birthday to end and the memories to fade again and the world to go back to the way it’s supposed to be...
Murdock can’t bear to look at those eyes anymore. His friend’s perfect eyes. Wide. He’d give anything to have those eyes see him, see him differently, see him, see him really and truly...
“Buddy,” Face murmurs, and belatedly Murdock realizes he’s not going anywhere. Hasn’t moved. Can’t. The lieutenant’s still holding on. He hasn’t let go yet. “Oh, jesus, James...”
He licks his lips and stares at the rough material of the cot between his legs. “You don’t gotta say it, Faceman. Don’t say it. Jus’ go...”
“Murdock, look, I... if you’ve got a birthday wish... we could, I mean, I wouldn’t mind if we...”
Oh, no, then. Face doesn’t want him.
Not like he wants Face to want him.
Doesn’t want to belong to him, like he so very much wants to belong to Face. And if it’s anything less than that, it’s nothing at all. Worse than nothing. Face offering something that he wants, wants so bad, but not in the good way. Like he flirts with the girls at Medical when he's getting Hannibal painkillers. Ain’t enough to touch if he can’t keep. That would be worse, so much worse, because knowing still wouldn’t be having. Wouldn’t be...might be the end of everything.
So he licks his lips again, faint hints of peppermint chapstick and the steak they had for dinner, tasting what surely must be Face, under it. Savors it. “Don’t... don’t need you to...” He takes a deep breath. His friend’s body is close to his, not quite touching but close, and he can feel all that beautiful body heat. So close. So close, like he’s always wanted it.
Murdock forces a smile and throws himself up.
He can say this. He scratches a leg with the boot on his other foot. He really can.
“Naw, Faceman, you know me, always sayin’ crazy...”
His buddy slumps a little on the cot. “You should have told us about your birthday, Murdock. Hannibal actually loves throwing birthday parties.”
“Yeah?”
Face doesn’t look up. “Yeah, buddy. Why...why didn’t you say anything?”
This is... unexpected. Or maybe, no, it’s perfectly expected. Exactly what was going to happen, him saying his wish out loud and ruining all the magic. “It ain’t the same, Faceman,” he sighs, thinking about this. “My... it was my family, and I can’t see them here, they can’t find me here, it’s not where... not where we used to go together, and...”
Face is up, coming over, moving with that impossible grace the man is so possessed of. “Hey, Murdock, there are people here who love you too, you know that?” He lays a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “People here who really care about you...”
Murdock bites the inside of his mouth. The lieutenant’s got that look, that look he knows so damn well at this point, and is going to try to kiss him again. He won’t survive another of those. He’ll come all to pieces. “You don’t gotta give me anything, Face,” he says, putting a hand up between them. “I don’t want it if you... if you’re jus’ tryin’ to...”
“James...I, I care about you, buddy,” he says softly, in a tone he’s never used before. Almost...wistful, maybe, sweet and deep. “I care about you...”
“Face, please, don’...”
A thumb traces the knobby skin over Murdock’s knuckles. “You should call me Templeton...”
“Why?” he asks and, feeling utterly defeated, scuffs his shoe on the rough wooden slats of their floor.
“Want to hear you say it, James, when...”
“When what?”
“When I do this, buddy...”
No. It’s not the same voice. It’s a different voice. Something new. Something...and he looks up.
Right as Face’s lips seal down over his.
It’s...it’s...
It’s over far too quick, and he moans a little as his friend pulls back. “Is that what you wanted, James?” The words are tinged with uncertainty, hesitation.
“You... want me? Really really?”
Face sighs, but that’s not what convinces the pilot. Not the words that come next. Not the little fuck yes that’s whispered against his rapidly heating skin. No. Not that.
It’s the way Face’s hands, those clever sniper hands, are shaking as they run down Murdock’s arms. The way his fingers tremble as they tangle up with Murdock’s own. And the hesitation with which their lips touch again, chaste and sweet, sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted.
I want him, mama.
It's your birthday, baby. Wishes come true on your birthday...
And Murdock starts kissing him back.
Murdock can remember his grandparents kissing him, a quick peck on the cheek, on the top of his head, a little squeeze of the shoulder to garnish. Or his mother, kissing his forehead, his nose, as she’d tuck him in and fold the book back up and turn off the lights. The kind of kiss that made him feel like he was loved, like he was special. Like somebody’s there, somebody wants him there...
That’s how this feels.
That’s how Face feels.
Like he loves him.
He sinks into it, opening up, letting Face wash over him. And Face does, does everything he’s ever thought Face would do, those lips against his, those hands against his, everything he has on offer, his best friend accepting it all, always accepting him, always knowing, like he knew tonight. But it’s flooding him totally, and he has to pull away. Buries his face in the strong shoulder in front of him, bodies not quite touching.
Murdock draws a shuddering breath.
“You okay, buddy?” asks the soft murmur.
“Yeah, Temp, I’m good.”
He can practically hear that smile, like dawn on a winter’s morning, and Face is moving them now, stripping them now, all the layers disappearing, and there’s nothing between them but cold desert air, heating up, everything heating up.
The only illumination in the tent right now is a string of Christmas lights, up in the high metal of the crossbeam, and Murdock’s looking up at it. Thinks it might be moving a little, a thousand points, gold and high in the shadows. Almost, almost like...
“Hey, James, stay with me, stay with me...”
His eyes snap back down, and there he is. His teammate, his friend, his... his lover. And Face runs a hand down the pilot’s naked shoulder, raising goosebumps.
“You really here?” Murdock whispers, daring to reach out and touch, like he hasn’t with his mother, his family, in years. Knows his fingers won’t touch anything. But here there’s smooth flesh and blue eyes, keeping hm level, keeping him grounded.
“Yeah,” Face says and wraps both hands around the pilot’s waist. He leans his forehead against Murdock’s and sways his hips a little, moving them back. “I’m really here, baby. Even though... I never thought we’d...”
“Me neither,” and Murdock giggles. A bit.
“Wanted you...” his friend sighs, and strokes up his hip. A circuit his fingers are running.
“Why?” he asks.
Cerulean blue smiles back at him, rainwashed sky just darkening into evening, and Face kisses Murdock again, curling them around each other. Awareness of anything else, everything else, everything but this, falls away and his friend pulls him down, keeps him from falling. The pilot almost registers soft sheets, a thin pad, the stuff Face keeps on his own narrow plank of a bed, but it doesn’t matter. Only Face matters, only the way they’re kissing each other, kissing like it will never happen again, and only Face, he only feels Face...
A lotion-slick finger trails between his cheeks and Murdock sighs against his best friend’s neck as it slips inside him. As another follows. As Face works him open, a little you’re so tight, love how tight you are, baby let loose against his fevered brow, and another light kiss. The captain's leg comes up, knee to chest, and they’re both holding it there, fingers twined together. A nip against his chin, and Face brushes his cheek and there it is.
That first push.
He's never imagined it this good.
Face, graceful in everything he does, flows through this. Breaching, penetrating, sinking home, and Murdock doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the lieutenant moans and asks if it’s okay.
He still can’t speak, so he nods, and Face’s eyes go soft, and then he starts moving, one hand wrapped into Murdock’s hair, the other in the tight space between them, cupping his balls, lips working against the curve of neck and shoulder.
It’s slow and easy, almost languid, nearly unbearable. It’s not gentle, somehow not gentle, but that’s okay, he needs that, needs that to keep him here, remind him that this is real, that Face is really with him, like this, that they’re...
They climb up that slope together, right to the edge, and that’s when Face squeezes and thrusts in hard and it’s all there. Everything he’s ever wanted. Murdock whimpering just a little as he comes. Face grunting softly as he follows right behind. Both of them panting into each other’s mouths, too blissed out to kiss, wanting to nonetheless, Face’s weight against his own as they surface out of it all.
And it just slips out.
“Thank you,” Murdock whispers as Face arranges them both into his down sleeping bag, fussing over zippers with shaking fingers.
“Anything, James,” Face replies, and snuggles into him. “I’ always...”
Two peas in a pod, you boys, Murdock hears from somewhere, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he looked up right now, he might see his mother standing there, shutting the cover of the evening’s story, tugging up the edge of the overstuffed little bedroll, kissing them both on the forehead...
He thinks he almost feels that, and shoots straight up, overheated chest hitting the chill desert air. And there she almost is, hand on a lightswitch that doesn’t exist here, ready to turn off that string of lights overhead, telling him without words to go to sleep...
But she doesn’t go without words, no, she turns and smiles and blows him another kiss. I love you baby...
“Love you,” he whispers after her.
But it’s Face who answers. Face who looks up at him, surprised again, but Murdock tries not to be afraid this time. Tries to be brave. And that blue blinks shut, and back open, and there’s another of those kisses, harder and needier and more, so much more. So, maybe, just maybe...
“I love you, Temp,” the pilot tries, as those gun-calloused hands pull him back down. “I love you...”
The answering smile nearly blinds him in the dark of the tent.
“I love you too, James,” he murmurs back, limbs sleepy and still now, the two of them sharing one pillow and one of the lieutenant’s elbows, and Murdock wants to poke an eye up again, thank her again, but she’d just tell him to go to sleep, to have nice dreams, to wake up happy in the morning, a year older, her brave little man...
Face’s fingers twist softly on his chest.
And Murdock lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 06:08 am (UTC)But the fireflies and the melancholy that starts the story and how we still have a taste of that sadness even in the end, tempered with beautiful hopefulness, it's just magnificent. And the fact that Face is Murdock's birthday wish? *squeep!* Much love!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 07:01 am (UTC)But this? This actually had me on the verge of tears. Misty eyes, tight throat and everything. Thank you. Nice to know I can still be moved.
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Date: 2011-06-03 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 12:34 pm (UTC)