sonora_coneja (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sonora_coneja) wrote2011-04-10 03:54 pm
sonora_coneja) wrote2011-04-10 03:54 pm
Xanadu - Epilogue
Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: violence, slavery, mentions of child abuse
Summary: Epilogue for fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
I’m considering doing my final research paper this year on human trafficking and have been doing some looking things up tonight. And it’s hard to sift through everything, but a scenario took place in my head one night and hasn’t left since, so I have to request it.
I want something that hurt. That is brutal and may be hard to write and I’d like even harder to read it. So if anyone can take this on, you’ll be amazing.
We all know that Face was an orphan and there are some lovely fics where things have happened to him before he joined Hannibal’s unit. Things to make him street-savvy. Here’s my catch: Hannibal’s team is sent on a mission to break up a supposed human trafficking ring. When they get there they can immediately try to break it up or have to go undercover to get the sex-slaves out. Either way, I want Hannibal to walk in on something happening to a young blonde slave. And to not know what to do or how to save him, but to eventually do so. (If there’s an inclusion of Hannibal secretly going to Face and gaining his trust and promising to get him out, I’ll be blown away.) And then give him a place to call home. I’d love an aftermath of Hannibal and his unit trying to embrace Face and help him find a new life, which can or doesn’t have to be in the army. Just with Hannibal, please. With a bunch of hard ordeals along the way.
Anyone??
Five years after the events of the Xanadu, Hannibal still remembers that skinny blonde kid he helped set free...
Five Years Later
Hannibal opened the door to his office. Stared at the service-As hanging up on the hook next to his desk. Yesterday’s cigar, perched on the edge of its ashtray. The pile of paperwork. The going-away plaques and prayer rugs and the big one, from Korea, that had arrived before he had, all those years ago, back when he was still in Arizona, with... And seriously considered just walking the fuck out of there rather than deal with any of this.
Any of it.
He’d tried to make sense of it sense then. What he’d found with that kid, the boy he’d eventually named, the one he’d tried to help. Why? Why had he fallen so hard, so fast? That first time... he’d tried to accept that there wasn’t anything wrong with him, that what he’d felt wasn’t unnatural or wrong, that he hadn’t possessed any desire to possess. Like the kid’s doctor had tried to tell him.
But he had wanted the boy. Wanted him bad. And although it hadn’t been as common after the first year or so, Hannibal still found himself, on the quiet nights that weren’t filled with gunfire or the smell of blood, after Kosovo and Panama and Somalia and Colombia and the Philippines and too many others, laying awak. Listening for those quiet snores in the darkness. The telltale shifts of the pad next to his bed, the pull of sheets, the slide of warm skin, the murmured I love you, John...
He shook himself and tore his eyes away from the damn Korean paraphrenalia.
No.
There was no use in remembering. No point in wondering. Right now, Face could just as easily be working on his masters in chemistry as he could be back to the whoring, homeless, dead in a gutter. Hannibal didn’t feel the need to indulge the old guilt, the old fears. The kid had decided to leave. Whatever happened to him had been his choice. No matter how he spun it over in his mind, there was nothing more to be done. He’d done all he could. Given everything he’d known how to give, and knowing Face, had a few choice things pinched on the side. Face knew what he was doing. The kid had trusted him. He trusted the kid.
Even so, he’d tried not to think about what that note meant, those last words that were seared into his memory.
I’ll be worthy of this, I'm strong, you'll see, we’ll be together, we’ll be together again, equals like you wanted...
Most days, he could live with that. The not-knowing. The trusting. His loss. Face's gain. It had almost killed him. At first. Now, he could live with it. Mostly. Most day.
But he missed, oh fuck, did he miss...
A hand fell on his shoulder. Startling him away from the old memories of that smile, that laugh, the way his heart seemed to skip, every time...
“Get your cover, Hannibal? We’re gonna be late.”
And no, his damn hat was still sitting on the desk, right where he’d forgotten it. Hannibal grabbed it, and followed him out to the Georgia evening.
O-Club. It was an O-Club night. A new batch of baby Rangers in, fresh out of the mint at Bragg, and Morrison always threw one of these little shin-digs on such occassions. Have to celebrate the young men coming up after us, Hannibal the general liked to say, but mostly, Hannibal didn’t really care for this shit.
So, way too many people, far too crowded, for his instincts to settle down. Whole thing just made him nervous instead. And he could easily meet any of his new men the next Monday, on the field or in the pits or on the range. Really see what they could. See them in some kind of natural setting.
So he did the minimum. Shook hands he needed to shake, listened to the small talk, settled at his usual empty corner of the bar and waited. Morrison would give a speech in a few minutes, the whole tip-of-spear and America’s elite bullshit he normally threw at the kids.
Fuck. The whole thing was exhausting.
“Jameson, double,” he told the bartender, fishing around in his pocket for a five.
When another body dropped in next to his.
“Beer me.”
Hannibal looked up.
Dark gold curls, that teasing little smile, a sensual curve to the spine...
All wrapped up in a neat set of BDUs.
Fresh Ranger tag, sewn in red and gold, on the shoulder.
Leaner, longer, taller, darker, tanner, older. Still beautiful. More beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen...
But it wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be.
Hannibal couldn’t ask, couldn’t move. Not daring...
But those nimble fingers, the same ones that had played against him in the night, so many nights, those fingers took the brown bottle from the guys behind the counter, taking one, long, unending draught of it. All of it. In one go. Blue eyes locked with his, over the top. And it wasn’t until the bottle finally came back down, when it rolled between nervous hands, that he was able to ask it.
Hannibal felt almost afraid, wondering if he was hallucinating, or dreaming, or if this person just really really looked like... “How... how’d you get on post?”
“Like it’s hard, major?” came the little response. And those eyes narrowed. “Sir, look, I...”
“I thought I told you never to call me sir,” the older man said, going back to his drink, trying to curb back the rise of emotion, the rush, five years of anger and worry and longing and absence and love all fighting for escape at the same time, jostling, nothing able to get past any other, nothing sorting out at all. “Thought we’d talked about that.”
“We talked about a lot of things,” the man next him agreed, getting another beer. He took a sip. “We used to talk about everything.”
“Those were good days,” Hannibal replied, not sure what to say, what to do, how to keep himself from crying or yelling or hauling that kid off of the stool and slamming him against a wall, begging him for an answer, kissing him senseless, maybe both at the same time. “I miss those days.”
And to his surprise, the kid actually laughed. Hard. Sweet. That same sound, carefree and happy, the one they’d found together, the one he’d fallen in love with.
“What?” he grumbled, feeling a smile starting to form under the surface, bubbling up through everything else. “I do miss that.”
“Five months, Hannibal? You spent five months stuck trying to fix some broken kid in the ass-end of Arizona, and you miss it?”
“Yeah,” the major said, and dared, just a little bit, laying a hand on the kid’s shoulder, fingers brushing that patch. Such a small thing, he mused silently, such a small thing to have lost all this time for.
“I miss it.”
“Why?” Face asked, turning in to him for the first time. And he was scared too, Hannibal saw. It made it all easier, somehow, knowing that, seeing that.
“I miss you,” he said softly, squeezing a little as much as he dared. “I’ve missed you every fucking day since then.”
“John,” Face said, voice shaking just a little bit, and Hannibal melted a little inside, hearing his name again, hearing his name spoken so. Like it was the most important thing on the planet. Like it meant everything. Could be everything, anything. Something good. “John, look, I know you’re probably pissed at me...”
“You did what you had to do,” Hannibal replied softly, realizing his hand was still up and couldn’t stay there. “You did what you wanted to do. That’s... that’s what matters.”
“I didn’t... I never meant...” he stopped, and shook his head. “No, wait, I meant what I said that... but I just... I just needed... I didn’t want to take anything else from you. Wanted you to never have to worry about me...”
And at that, Hannibal forced himself to take a look, a really good look.
The kid had lieutenant’s rank on, that single bar, stitched in subdued gold. College then. College, basic... how the fuck had he gotten through basic? Much less Ranger School? How had he dealt with that, the yelling, the mindgames, the dehumanization?
And Hannibal suddenly felt worse, wondering if he’d somehow pushed the kid down this path, if Face had only done this for him, if the kid had some kind of misplaced concern about their parity, their equality, their worth measured against each other... but now wasn’t the time.
Now wasn’t the place to start worrying about the implications. Face was back. Face had found him again.
That’s what mattered.
That was the only thing that would ever matter.
“John...” Face said, faltering a little. “John, I didn’t do this so... I mean, I’m not asking for... I
“Temp,” he said, watching those hands twitch, one rub up across that fine jaw. “Temp, I’m not mad. I couldn’t be more proud of what you did that day. Couldn’t be more honored to have been part of that. And I couldn’t be more proud of the man you’ve become.”
No reply. Just a shake of head, a heave of shoulders. Those eyes, starting to shine, wet. “Still your boy?” he asked, almost too quiet to hear.
“Anything you want, Face.”
He nodded. Slow. Smiled. Fast. “Good. Cause I already requested a transfer to your unit.”
Hannibal laughed then, laughed for real, laughed like he hadn’t laughed since that Christmas Eve, so long ago, and Face laughed along with him, and it trailed off into laden silence, the two Rangers each watching the other, and this was no place for that either, Hannibal knew.
“Come on, kid. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, throwing a tip in the jar and standing up, clapping Face on the shoulder again. There would be time for questions later. Stories shared, history found, everything out in the open. Eery ugly moment. Every small triumph. But tonight wasn’t the time for that, Hannibal knew, a friendly hand on the kid’s shoulders, leading him out, showing him the way, following behind, keeping up.
“Anywhere I want to go?” Face asked as they hit the cooler air outside, walking through the parking lot.
“What’s that?”
“Where we’re going.”
“Yeah, kid. Anywhere you want.”
He grinned, hands studiously tucked into his armpits, hat a little crooked on that wonderfully overlong hair, darker now than it used to be but still beautiful, more beautiful that ever. “Your bed,” he said instantly. “Your bed.”
“Face, I...” Hannibal stammered out, overcome now, keys almost falling out of his nerveless grip. “We just...”
“Nothing you don’t want to do,” he murmured, smiling up at him, and the major felt his heart swell, remembering his own words to a shattered little boy all those years ago, seeing the man standing in front of him now, whole, complete, offering his half of their whole. Confident. Certain. Still needing. Still so, so sweet. “Sleep with me, John. Indulge me, please...”
“I guess I couldn’t stop you now, could I?” he murmured back.
Face dared to press against him, to kiss him, soft and fleeting, going up on his tiptoes in issued boots. “I think you’d be surprised what I can do, John,” he said. And winked.
No the major thought to himself, watching his boy watching him.
There was nothing about Face he’d ever doubt possible.
Nothing.
And, smile reaching the surface now, breaking open, filling him, Hannibal kissed him back.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: violence, slavery, mentions of child abuse
Summary: Epilogue for fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
I’m considering doing my final research paper this year on human trafficking and have been doing some looking things up tonight. And it’s hard to sift through everything, but a scenario took place in my head one night and hasn’t left since, so I have to request it.
I want something that hurt. That is brutal and may be hard to write and I’d like even harder to read it. So if anyone can take this on, you’ll be amazing.
We all know that Face was an orphan and there are some lovely fics where things have happened to him before he joined Hannibal’s unit. Things to make him street-savvy. Here’s my catch: Hannibal’s team is sent on a mission to break up a supposed human trafficking ring. When they get there they can immediately try to break it up or have to go undercover to get the sex-slaves out. Either way, I want Hannibal to walk in on something happening to a young blonde slave. And to not know what to do or how to save him, but to eventually do so. (If there’s an inclusion of Hannibal secretly going to Face and gaining his trust and promising to get him out, I’ll be blown away.) And then give him a place to call home. I’d love an aftermath of Hannibal and his unit trying to embrace Face and help him find a new life, which can or doesn’t have to be in the army. Just with Hannibal, please. With a bunch of hard ordeals along the way.
Anyone??
Five years after the events of the Xanadu, Hannibal still remembers that skinny blonde kid he helped set free...
Five Years Later
Hannibal opened the door to his office. Stared at the service-As hanging up on the hook next to his desk. Yesterday’s cigar, perched on the edge of its ashtray. The pile of paperwork. The going-away plaques and prayer rugs and the big one, from Korea, that had arrived before he had, all those years ago, back when he was still in Arizona, with... And seriously considered just walking the fuck out of there rather than deal with any of this.
Any of it.
He’d tried to make sense of it sense then. What he’d found with that kid, the boy he’d eventually named, the one he’d tried to help. Why? Why had he fallen so hard, so fast? That first time... he’d tried to accept that there wasn’t anything wrong with him, that what he’d felt wasn’t unnatural or wrong, that he hadn’t possessed any desire to possess. Like the kid’s doctor had tried to tell him.
But he had wanted the boy. Wanted him bad. And although it hadn’t been as common after the first year or so, Hannibal still found himself, on the quiet nights that weren’t filled with gunfire or the smell of blood, after Kosovo and Panama and Somalia and Colombia and the Philippines and too many others, laying awak. Listening for those quiet snores in the darkness. The telltale shifts of the pad next to his bed, the pull of sheets, the slide of warm skin, the murmured I love you, John...
He shook himself and tore his eyes away from the damn Korean paraphrenalia.
No.
There was no use in remembering. No point in wondering. Right now, Face could just as easily be working on his masters in chemistry as he could be back to the whoring, homeless, dead in a gutter. Hannibal didn’t feel the need to indulge the old guilt, the old fears. The kid had decided to leave. Whatever happened to him had been his choice. No matter how he spun it over in his mind, there was nothing more to be done. He’d done all he could. Given everything he’d known how to give, and knowing Face, had a few choice things pinched on the side. Face knew what he was doing. The kid had trusted him. He trusted the kid.
Even so, he’d tried not to think about what that note meant, those last words that were seared into his memory.
I’ll be worthy of this, I'm strong, you'll see, we’ll be together, we’ll be together again, equals like you wanted...
Most days, he could live with that. The not-knowing. The trusting. His loss. Face's gain. It had almost killed him. At first. Now, he could live with it. Mostly. Most day.
But he missed, oh fuck, did he miss...
A hand fell on his shoulder. Startling him away from the old memories of that smile, that laugh, the way his heart seemed to skip, every time...
“Get your cover, Hannibal? We’re gonna be late.”
And no, his damn hat was still sitting on the desk, right where he’d forgotten it. Hannibal grabbed it, and followed him out to the Georgia evening.
O-Club. It was an O-Club night. A new batch of baby Rangers in, fresh out of the mint at Bragg, and Morrison always threw one of these little shin-digs on such occassions. Have to celebrate the young men coming up after us, Hannibal the general liked to say, but mostly, Hannibal didn’t really care for this shit.
So, way too many people, far too crowded, for his instincts to settle down. Whole thing just made him nervous instead. And he could easily meet any of his new men the next Monday, on the field or in the pits or on the range. Really see what they could. See them in some kind of natural setting.
So he did the minimum. Shook hands he needed to shake, listened to the small talk, settled at his usual empty corner of the bar and waited. Morrison would give a speech in a few minutes, the whole tip-of-spear and America’s elite bullshit he normally threw at the kids.
Fuck. The whole thing was exhausting.
“Jameson, double,” he told the bartender, fishing around in his pocket for a five.
When another body dropped in next to his.
“Beer me.”
Hannibal looked up.
Dark gold curls, that teasing little smile, a sensual curve to the spine...
All wrapped up in a neat set of BDUs.
Fresh Ranger tag, sewn in red and gold, on the shoulder.
Leaner, longer, taller, darker, tanner, older. Still beautiful. More beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen...
But it wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be.
Hannibal couldn’t ask, couldn’t move. Not daring...
But those nimble fingers, the same ones that had played against him in the night, so many nights, those fingers took the brown bottle from the guys behind the counter, taking one, long, unending draught of it. All of it. In one go. Blue eyes locked with his, over the top. And it wasn’t until the bottle finally came back down, when it rolled between nervous hands, that he was able to ask it.
Hannibal felt almost afraid, wondering if he was hallucinating, or dreaming, or if this person just really really looked like... “How... how’d you get on post?”
“Like it’s hard, major?” came the little response. And those eyes narrowed. “Sir, look, I...”
“I thought I told you never to call me sir,” the older man said, going back to his drink, trying to curb back the rise of emotion, the rush, five years of anger and worry and longing and absence and love all fighting for escape at the same time, jostling, nothing able to get past any other, nothing sorting out at all. “Thought we’d talked about that.”
“We talked about a lot of things,” the man next him agreed, getting another beer. He took a sip. “We used to talk about everything.”
“Those were good days,” Hannibal replied, not sure what to say, what to do, how to keep himself from crying or yelling or hauling that kid off of the stool and slamming him against a wall, begging him for an answer, kissing him senseless, maybe both at the same time. “I miss those days.”
And to his surprise, the kid actually laughed. Hard. Sweet. That same sound, carefree and happy, the one they’d found together, the one he’d fallen in love with.
“What?” he grumbled, feeling a smile starting to form under the surface, bubbling up through everything else. “I do miss that.”
“Five months, Hannibal? You spent five months stuck trying to fix some broken kid in the ass-end of Arizona, and you miss it?”
“Yeah,” the major said, and dared, just a little bit, laying a hand on the kid’s shoulder, fingers brushing that patch. Such a small thing, he mused silently, such a small thing to have lost all this time for.
“I miss it.”
“Why?” Face asked, turning in to him for the first time. And he was scared too, Hannibal saw. It made it all easier, somehow, knowing that, seeing that.
“I miss you,” he said softly, squeezing a little as much as he dared. “I’ve missed you every fucking day since then.”
“John,” Face said, voice shaking just a little bit, and Hannibal melted a little inside, hearing his name again, hearing his name spoken so. Like it was the most important thing on the planet. Like it meant everything. Could be everything, anything. Something good. “John, look, I know you’re probably pissed at me...”
“You did what you had to do,” Hannibal replied softly, realizing his hand was still up and couldn’t stay there. “You did what you wanted to do. That’s... that’s what matters.”
“I didn’t... I never meant...” he stopped, and shook his head. “No, wait, I meant what I said that... but I just... I just needed... I didn’t want to take anything else from you. Wanted you to never have to worry about me...”
And at that, Hannibal forced himself to take a look, a really good look.
The kid had lieutenant’s rank on, that single bar, stitched in subdued gold. College then. College, basic... how the fuck had he gotten through basic? Much less Ranger School? How had he dealt with that, the yelling, the mindgames, the dehumanization?
And Hannibal suddenly felt worse, wondering if he’d somehow pushed the kid down this path, if Face had only done this for him, if the kid had some kind of misplaced concern about their parity, their equality, their worth measured against each other... but now wasn’t the time.
Now wasn’t the place to start worrying about the implications. Face was back. Face had found him again.
That’s what mattered.
That was the only thing that would ever matter.
“John...” Face said, faltering a little. “John, I didn’t do this so... I mean, I’m not asking for... I
“Temp,” he said, watching those hands twitch, one rub up across that fine jaw. “Temp, I’m not mad. I couldn’t be more proud of what you did that day. Couldn’t be more honored to have been part of that. And I couldn’t be more proud of the man you’ve become.”
No reply. Just a shake of head, a heave of shoulders. Those eyes, starting to shine, wet. “Still your boy?” he asked, almost too quiet to hear.
“Anything you want, Face.”
He nodded. Slow. Smiled. Fast. “Good. Cause I already requested a transfer to your unit.”
Hannibal laughed then, laughed for real, laughed like he hadn’t laughed since that Christmas Eve, so long ago, and Face laughed along with him, and it trailed off into laden silence, the two Rangers each watching the other, and this was no place for that either, Hannibal knew.
“Come on, kid. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, throwing a tip in the jar and standing up, clapping Face on the shoulder again. There would be time for questions later. Stories shared, history found, everything out in the open. Eery ugly moment. Every small triumph. But tonight wasn’t the time for that, Hannibal knew, a friendly hand on the kid’s shoulders, leading him out, showing him the way, following behind, keeping up.
“Anywhere I want to go?” Face asked as they hit the cooler air outside, walking through the parking lot.
“What’s that?”
“Where we’re going.”
“Yeah, kid. Anywhere you want.”
He grinned, hands studiously tucked into his armpits, hat a little crooked on that wonderfully overlong hair, darker now than it used to be but still beautiful, more beautiful that ever. “Your bed,” he said instantly. “Your bed.”
“Face, I...” Hannibal stammered out, overcome now, keys almost falling out of his nerveless grip. “We just...”
“Nothing you don’t want to do,” he murmured, smiling up at him, and the major felt his heart swell, remembering his own words to a shattered little boy all those years ago, seeing the man standing in front of him now, whole, complete, offering his half of their whole. Confident. Certain. Still needing. Still so, so sweet. “Sleep with me, John. Indulge me, please...”
“I guess I couldn’t stop you now, could I?” he murmured back.
Face dared to press against him, to kiss him, soft and fleeting, going up on his tiptoes in issued boots. “I think you’d be surprised what I can do, John,” he said. And winked.
No the major thought to himself, watching his boy watching him.
There was nothing about Face he’d ever doubt possible.
Nothing.
And, smile reaching the surface now, breaking open, filling him, Hannibal kissed him back.