Small Cell
Apr. 14th, 2011 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: death!fic
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
Err, okay, I asked for this... Feel like an ass, but... week from hell. Involved days of screaming at work. It's either meme or heavy drinking...
Seriously, I don't care if it's noncon or death!fic, I need something angsty to work on. Something really, really angsty...
And I got this...
A few pages back there was a prompt that was really angsty. The prompter wanted to see Hannibal diagnosed with some disease and given a set period time to live. In reaction to that he creates a truly epic bucket list and sets about crossing stuff off it. The top of the list is confessing his love to Face.
I seconded this prompt because it sounds epic and very, very angsty. Not only the angst that Hannibal would go through but also Face's reaction to hearing what he has wanted to hear from Hannibal for years. And then having the rug pulled out from under him because of the reason Hannibal is telling him. This one really cuts to the bone when you consider Face's abandonment issues. To have to lose Hannibal at all would be gut wrenching but to lose hime right after finally finding out that Hannibal is as in love with him as he is with Hannibal. Well, it doesn't get more angsty than that.
Plus, there is poor Murdock and BA to consider. They would be devasted at losing Hannibal as well. Though, much as I hate to say it, I have a secret desire for that to drive them into each other's arms. Cause hurt needs comfort too!
Anywhooo. I seconded the original prompt and I now submit it for your angst consideration!
So I wrote...this...
When Face takes Hannibal go to the emergency room, he finds out the boss has been hiding something very, very important.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Face isn’t leaving the room. Hannibal’s not mad with him, though, not really saying anything at all, didn’t try to kick him out, didn’t order him to leave. He’d let Face stay, and not because Face asked to or threw a fit. Just let the lieutenant stay in the room.
And they were in a room. The nurse in the ER had taken one look at Hannibal and brought them to a room, an actual room, something dark in the woman’s face as she gave him something for the cough, and injection Hannibal took with closed eyes and a deep breath.
Hannibal hated shots.
And they hadn’t waited very long.
And now the doctor’s here, drawing blood.
“Who are you, again? Family or...”
A hand lifts off the exam bed, reaches over and squeezes the lieutenant’s. Something in the way the colonel does it, something in the urgency of it, and there’s a smile along with it. Face catches his breath.
Hannibal’s never looked at him like this before.
There’s blood on his shirt.
It scares the shit out of him.
“He’s here with me.”
The doctor looks them both over and nods. He puts a cotton ball over the puncture as he withdraws the needle. Pressure to stop the bleeding. The colonel grins, just a little. He’s had so much worse...
So why is Face so scared? for Hannibal? For himself?
“It’s good to have support at times like this,” the doctor says, capping off the blood sample and laying it on a tray. “You two seem happy together.”
“We have been,” Hannibal says, lifts their joined hands, turning them a little, and Face is staring at him now. “Been together a long time.”
That fear, it’s growing, cancerous inside him, mutating every other thought. “What’s wrong with him?”
The doctor takes one more look at Hannibal. He sees something. Face can tell. But he doesn’t know what the doctor’s seeing. He knows what he knows, how BA and Murdock left this morning to go see BA's mother, how Face came in from his run and went to take a shower, how he heard Hannibal coughing in the bathroom, found a discarded, bloody washcloth in the trash. How he thought about it as he soaped up, washed off and then heard the boss in his bedroom, weezing like his lungs would explode. And how Face was there with him, trying to right him, holding him, feeling the coughs spasm through that solid frame, that permanence he’s depended on for most of his life shaking to its very core. The boss hadn’t fought him when he’d said hospital goddamn now.
Just leaned against the car door and hacked, eyes watering, words dead between them. Dead air. Nothing but dead air.
“I can run this through the lab, but I can already tell you what’s coming. Have you been experiencing shortness of breath, pain in your chest, weight loss...”
“Just tell him,” Hannibal says and doesn’t meet Face’s questioning gaze. “We both know what it is.”
The doctor looks pissed now. “Do you already know?”
“Got the tests about eight months ago.”
“Had it metastasized?”
Hannibal doesn’t say anything, and Face feels like he’s falling. Tests? Metastasized?
Eight months?
And the past eight months...
...have been, for lack of a better word, amazing.
They’ve been taking on fewer jobs, fun jobs, if Face is honest about it, pro bono, mostly, for people who needed it. And it’s taken them to some amazing places, given them excuses to linger, like Hannibal's never lingered before.
They’d been to Australia, helping a rancher and then spending a month in a yatch, sailing around the Whitsundays, up to Indonesia, a visit to one of those sea hotels in Bali and scuba diving the Sipadan wall. A job in sub-Saharan Africa, saving a village from the local warlord, which Murdock had loved and BA had cried over it all one night when he thought they weren’t looking. A trek through Ireland, Scotland, the ferry up to Iceland and the glaciers and the vast expanses of the northern reaches of the world.
Sadder things, too, and slower. They’d stopped off after a Baltimore job at Arlington, where Hannibal took a fresh bunch of flowers to Morrison’s grave, the colonel spending the entire day walking through the white rows of stone. A visit to upstate New York, the visitors’ center of West Point on Parents’ Weekend, gray uniforms running everywhere, a sad smile on the colonel’s face. A sinfully expensive dinner at a world-famous restaurant in New York City, a whole blissful weekend at that hotel, easy and fun and light like things haven’t been for so, so long. Talking about buying a house, big enough for all four of them, Murdock had asked, and Hannibal had just smiled.
And then there was that other thing, the thing that’s been turning over in his mind. One night, about a week ago he found Hannibal talking over skype, face blank. A woman with the boss’ features, a teenage boy beside her, Hannibal’s splitting image, holding her hand as she cried. She’d looked at Face through the camera, tried to smile, and Hannibal had asked him gruffly to get the fuck out.
They’re talking about treatment, about the dangers of combined small cell carcinoma without chemo, if he’s a smoker and why he hasn’t told his partner about this, how he’s managed all this time.
And Face isn’t listening. He can’t hear any of it. Wonders about coughing fits he’s missed, about signs of fatigue he hasn’t seen, weight loss he hasn’t really noticed. Symptoms he chalked up to other things.
Sure as fuck not lung cancer.
“How... how much time does he have?” the lieutenant asks, not really wanting to know, wanting to yell at this doctor that he's not some guy that's Hannibal's fucking, that they've never been that, that Hannibal's never given him that and he came to terms with that about a year into his first tour with the man and no matter how much he wants it, how much he's always wanted it, about how he's losing it all now and who the fuck said that was okay...
“I don’t know. Not much. I don't want to give you the wrong impression...”
He’s talking to Hannibal again, and Face doesn’t hear any of it. The doctor’s calling Hannibal by the name on the fake ID, and it’s not Hannibal’s name, so it’s like the doctor’s talking to somebody else. That hand tucked into his, gripping, holding on, that’s what’s real. That’s what’s Hannibal. Not the man talking to the doctor, too calm, but the gravelly breath, the heartbeat against his skin.
That blood sample, alone on its tray.
Face can’t tell what’s marked on it. A cylinder of Hannibal, wrapped in indifferent glass, labeled with a name, social security number, that’s not his own. Isn’t that what they’ve become over the past ten years on the run? They’re still themselves, but only to each other, layered in too many lies for anybody else to know what’s underneath.
If he loses Hannibal, he’ll lose himself. The glass will break, he’ll splatter away, nobody able to put the pieces back together.
“Come on, Temp,” Hannibal says, and tugs on Face’s hand. He’s still holding it. Why is he holding it? They’ve never... “We need to get home.”
“I’ll get you the first appointment with the oncologist in the morning,” the doctor says, and offers a card. Hannibal takes it, and pulls Face up. “I’m not the specialist, but I think it’s probably too far gone for chemo.”
“Thank god,” is the boss’ soft reply, and Face has to hold him, hold him up, take his weight, as the terrible coughing resumes.
And follows, all the way back to the house.
And stays, long after both of them should have been asleep, Face’s fingers curling into his pillow. He climbs out of his own bed and pads into Hannibal’s. Presses against him, rubbing the boss’ chest through his shirt. The lieutenant can feel ribs. He drops his forehead into the back of Hannibal’s shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, kid,” the boss says between coughs.
Face doesn’t reply, just keeps massaging, and eventually, the horrible sound subsides, breathing slows, steadies, drifts into sleep.
So he's alone.
To hear himself cry.
+++++
“I am not going to die in a hospital bed, Face!”
“I’m not asking you to!”
“That’s exactly what you’re asking me, Face! Exactly!”
“Would you just fucking listen...”
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
That ends the conversation. That ends the conversation every time, the same conversation they’ve been having for the past few days, since the hospital and the oncologist and the uncomfortable news. A month. A month at best. Probably less. The doctor had scheduled scans. Hannibal hadn’t gone, and no amount of begging from Face would get him to change his mind.
So they’d switched to yelling. It was easier.
“Jesus, boss, you’re not lifting a goddamn finger to save your...”
And that’s when Hannibal yanks him off the bar stool and smashed him into the wall. Once, twice. “You don’t fucking have the right...” he manages and then the coughing starts again, folding him over, loosening his grip and he almost falls. Face catches him but the boss pushes away from him, tears away, leaves. Leaves him alone.
BA’s in the garage. Murdock’s with him. Face called them the second he woke, that first morning, got them back here. They’ve been inseparable, and invisible, since the yelling started. BA told Face to get himself the fuck under control. Murdock told them to both shut the hell up and deal with whatever it was between them. The pilot’s distraught, but he’s taking it better than BA. He’s taking it better than all of them, except Hannibal.
Hannibal hasn't been emotional about any of this. Still playing the colonel, and Face can't stand to see that. He should be allowed to break down, allowed to express himself, but he doesn't, he won't let himself, and it's killing the lieutenant.
“Boss...” he pleads, holding out his arms, but Hannibal’s out of reach, trying to get some water. His hands are shaking too bad to hold the glass and it shatters in the sink. Face flinches as the boss swears, first in English and then in Urdu, which sounds so much nastier. He settles for leaning back against the edge of the counter.
They stare at each other for a moment.
Face breaks first. “Boss, I don’t want...”
Hannibal shakes his head and goes for another glass. His hands are steadier now. He looks good. Doesn’t look like he’s dying. But then, Face has seen him at his worst, hung over, grieving, blown open and bleeding. He just looks... thin, tired. Gaunt. In pain. but he won’t take anything for that, either. Won’t take anything at all. “I know, kid. But we always accepted the fact that death is...”
“Part of the job?”
“It’s part of our lives, yeah. Part of who we are.”
“Well you’ve had eight months,” Face snaps, unable to help himself. “I’ve had a week. We’ve had a week.”
“Face, if it happened in the field, you wouldn’t have had any time at all...”
And then it hits him. Then he realizes. “You weren’t going to say anything. It wasn’t that you hadn’t done it yet. You weren’t going to.”
Hannibal looks at the ceiling. Doesn’t reply.
“Shit, boss. What were you thinking?”
“I’d hoped...”
“What, you were going to die on a job? Let yourself get shot? Killed in action, and all that bullshit? Is that why we've still been working?”
Hannibal’s pale, but even at that, he gets whiter, the blood draining. “No, no, Face. I couldn’t let anything happen to you boys...”
“But
“How could you do...why...”
“These things should just be over when they’re over.”
Face understands that. He came to terms with that himself, a long time ago, something Hannibal told him to do before their first mission together. A bullet, a knife, an elbow, glass shards from an explosion, anything can do it, kid. When it comes, know why you’re there in harm’s way, understand why you’d let yourself die....
But there’s no choice in this. There’s nothing any of them can do. There’s no reason for it. It shouldn’t be happening. It won’t do anything for anybody.
It’s meaningless.
Face is by Hannibal’s side, brushing a hand up his chest, feeling those decaying lungs fighting for air, fighting for the breath that will tide over until the next. He leans into it, feeling his forehead barely touch. Feeling those hands, wet from the dropped glass, slide up into his hair.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers it against Hannibal’s shirt, wishing the fabric was there, that there was no physical barrier between them. Wishes it like he hasn’t wished it in years, not since he decided he couldn’t long for something he couldn’t have, not since he started sleeping with everything that threw itself at him and never, ever being able to approximate his old fantasies. “Fuck...”
“I should have told you boys,” Hannibal says, nodding to his own words. “Eight months...”
“Three weeks?” But the lieutenant knows, there’s no amount of time that will make this okay. And what have they been doing the last eight months?
“Sixty three years,” Hannibal says, still stroking through Face’s hair, “is not enough time.”
Face closes his fists tighter into that shirt, all the things between them, wishing he could tear it away. “Twenty four,” he whispers back, remembering that very first day. More than half of his life, wrapped up in this man, this man, holding him, touching him, like he wants him. Like they have something more between them. “Only twenty four years for me.”
“The best years,” Hannibal assures Face, sounding like he’s reassuring himself. “I don’t feel like I’m dying.”
“I wish you weren’t.”
That hand starts massaging, just a little, and doesn’t let him move away. “Yeah, kid. I wish that too.”
They stay, just like that, until the garage door bangs and the other two give them wary looks met with sad smiles, and they start discussing the merits of Chinese takeout and beer and everything’s almost normal.
Except Face keeps thinking about it, and he knows.
If the boss is going to go out this way, it can’t be meaningless.
The boss has a plan.
And whatever that is, Face thinks as he sips at his Bud and watches the other three laugh and joke and chow down on chow mein, he is going to do his damnedest to support.
Just like he always does.
Just like he always would have.
+++++
“What’s next on the list?” Murdock asks.
Hannibal raises an eyebrow. Something solid came up this morning. Face can see it in the tissue, crumpled hastily up in the boss’ hand. He’s still in bed, and the pilot bounced in here like a five year old on Christmas morning. He’s the one who figured it out. Figured out what the boss has been up to since the initial diagnosis eight months back.
“What list?”
“Your bucket list,” BA supplies, moving behind Murdock, placing a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “That what we been doin’, ain’t it? Things you wanted to do before you die?”
Hannibal glances over at Face, and Face holds his hand out for the bloody tissue. No need to scare Murdock with that right now. The pilot’s barely staying level as is and BA’s got his hands full trying to keep him that way. The big guy doesn’t seem to mind, and if Face saw them talking softly this morning, holding hands, sitting close.
He doesn’t begrudge them, well, anything. He doesn’t have the energy right now.
“Things you boys wanted,” Hannibal says in a voice that breaks Face’s heart. “I know how much Murdock always wanted to go to Bali, and how angry you used to get over the insanity in Africa, like that time we were in Somalia, BA. Face, you used to talk about Scandinavia and you always had that thing for New York City...”
“And what do you want, boss?” BA asks. “I get visiting Morrison, your college, your family, but what do you want?”
He’s laying against the pillows, body looking somehow more emaciated than before. Maybe because they’re finally talking about it. Talking about it like it’s perfectly normal to talk about Hannibal dying. Like Hannibal dying is something that should be happening. “I never gave it much thought.”
Because he shouldn’t be dying, Face thinks, and because he wasn’t expecting to die like this. “There has to be something we can do for you, boss.”
The boss gives them each a look in turn, and lingers on Face. A little smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Surprise me,” he says, cocky and happy like he always used to be, until the coughing starts back up again and Face can’t pretend anymore.
He slides in around Hannibal and offers him a handful of tissues. The boss grabs for them blindly and the lieutenant has to hold them to his mouth, rub his back until the fit dies down.
“How about going home?” Face asks quietly, aware that Murdock and BA are listening intently. “We’ll buy a house, put up photos, buy groceries, go for walks in the evenings...”
“I don’t want to die in bed in a house in suburbia, kid.”
“Screw the suburbs. But did any of us really want to die overseas?” Face’s mind is still rebelling at the very thought of this, the thought of this whole thing, but somehow he forces himself to say the words. Words he knows to be very, very true. “Come on, everybody has somewhere they want to go back to.”
Hannibal’s shaking a little. His body seems to take a while to recover from these coughing fits, a little longer every time. “You don’t.”
Face risks it. What the hell? It’s going to hurt him to admit this, but... “No. It didn’t matter, if it was under your command.”
There’s a long, long silence.
“Utah,” Hannibal finally says. “I was born in southern Utah. I could die there.”
It takes a few moments, a few false starts, to get the words out of his mouth, bone dry and rattling, but Face finally says it. Holds on to Hannibal’s hands tight and says it. “Then that’s where we’re going, boss.”
+++++
It’s not hard to find a place. Surprisingly easy, actually. A few days, and everything set up. A little ranch house on the far outskirts of Monticello, Utah, right on the edge of the Canyonlands. They use the back roads, the smaller routes, to get there. Hannibal spends the entire drive in the passenger seat of the van, watching the country shift.
He seems to relax when they get out of the polluted sprawl of LA, even more when they leave California behind entirely and enter the deserts of Arizona, into the rise of the land, into high, arid plains and deep-cut mesas. There’s something wistful in his face, the same expression the lieutenant saw a few times on their last few trips. How Hannibal looked out over the Highlands, the way he watched the sun rise in Somalia.
Saying goodbye.
But the boss wants to keep the tone light, and Face doesn’t want to upset that. So the team’s like it should be, that first night, as Murdock barbeques on their new back patio, as Face examines the house. It’s all furnished, southwest and warm, everything perfect; the interior designer that he hired has done an admirable job for as much time as she’s had. This little effort has emptied one of their bank accounts. They’re all okay with that.
“There’re only two bedrooms, boss,” Face tells him, flopping down on the sofa across from where Hannibal’s talking on his cell. “Best I could do. I’ll sleep in here. Murdock and BA...” and he kind of shrugs.
Murdock won’t leave BA’s side, haunted by some species of memory the rest of them don’t share. The big corporal seems okay with that. Couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar. He's happy for them.
Hannibal nods and holds up a hand, finishing the conversation. “Day after tomorrow?... great, I owe you... yeah, even still... okay, see you then.” He tosses it away and smiles. “It’s about time those two got together.”
Face wants to scream, wants to know, if it isn’t time that they, the two of them, right here in this room together, got together. How Hannibal missed the signs all these years, how Hannibal must never have wanted him, how it’s okay if Hannibal wants him now, now that nothing matters. But he doesn’t say any of that. The boss seems stronger here, in the fresh air and wide skies and open land of his youth, even just this afternoon, and Face can’t upset that.
“Yeah,” he says instead. “Happy for them.”
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch, kid...”
The boss, actually offering to share his bed. Sick and dying, and he’s willing to bunk up. Face laughs, hard and mirthless. That’s an offer he can’t accept. What if something happened? No, no. Can’t risk Hannibal’s fragile grasp on his well-being. How he’s done it, so long, keeping up the appearance of health, Face doesn’t know. “You don’t need me hogging the sheets right now.”
Hannibal gets up, something hiding behind those blue eyes. But he doesn't give voice to it. Like he's never given voice to it. “Lets see how Murdock’s doing with that chicken.”
“Sounds good, boss.”
+++++
The next week or so goes by far, far too quickly.
They talk and they eat, Hannibal less and less of both every day. Old stories and old recipes. Reliving everything they’ve done together, laughing over past victories, remembering friends who fell in combat, carrying the past into the present, long into the night, starting up early in the morning.
Face tries to stay in tune to what Hannibal needs, tries to support him with the coughing starts, helps him out of bed in the mornings and around the house, which the boss says he loves, anything.
The night before, he had to help Hannibal shower. Stripped down to his boxers and removed all of the other man’s clothes, careful of the growing tenderness underneath, and took the colonel’s weight against his own and helped him in. Too light. There wasn’t any hiding from it there, not from the wasting effects of the cancer, how thin, how gray, how drawn the boss had become. He’d let Face run the sponge down his back in slow, even swipes, and buried his face in the younger man’s shoulder.
It had taken a few minutes for Face to realize the boss was crying.
For the first time in twenty-four years, Face was watching Hannibal cry.
He’d stayed that night, each night since, in bed together, not knowing what Hannibal needed from him or how. Not touching or cuddling or anything like that, like he’d once dreamed about. But close enough for them both to know they weren’t alone yet, and Face feels himself tearing up now, thinking back about it, how Hannibal was facing something they couldn’t fight, couldn’t beat, and how fucking brave the man was being about it. Facing it, like he’s faced everything else in his life...
“Who’s the dog for, boss?”
Hannibal’s out front, talking to somebody in a mud-splattered SUV. There’s a German Shepard curled up at his feet, head lifted and cocked, watching. Ears prick and it bends around, staring at Face as the lieutenant walks over.
The SUV drives away and Hannibal holds up a hand, a farewell gesture, pets the dog. “Old favor called in,” he says, and flicks the leash. The animal obediently pulls up and follows him, limping just slightly, big eyes watching Face sharply.
Beautiful, Face thinks, remembering how he always wanted a dog as a kid, a pet of any kind, how he never could, and Hannibal hands him the lead. The lieutenant gives the boss a questioning look.
“Isn’t it for Murdock?”
“No,” Hannibal says, and scratches the big dog behind the ears as she starts sniffing Face’s leg. “No, Diana here’s not for Murdock. Three years old, military working girl put out of commission by shrapnel a few months ago.” He directs Face to where he’s petting, lays his hand over the lieutenant’s as he shows him where to run his fingers through the warm, soft fur. “Well trained and loyal. Needs a good home.”
“Ours?” Face can’t help the way his throat tightens when he says it.
The colonel’s got his weight against Face, kind of leaning on him, stroking his hand. “Yours, kid. The dog’s for you.”
At that, Diana pushes her head up Face’s leg, nose wet, and whines a little, like she knows. Like she understands, and Face fists both his hair into that sleek fur. “Why?” he asks.
“She’s an orphan, a war vet, I’m sure you two will have a lot to discuss,” Hannibal jokes, and pats Face on the back, something unsaid there. “Let’s introduce her to the family.”
A dog, his own dog... and Face feels his cheeks getting wet. "When do we give you what you want?"
Hannibal doesn't reply. Giving Face the room to work out his own thoughts, his own logic, just like he always does and Face hates him for it, can't stand not hearing that voice. Weak and gouged by the disease as it is, it's still Hannibal's voice, soothing and warm, like nothing in the world can be wrong if that voice is talking.
“I don’t deserve this, you, the team, any of it...”
“Bullshit, kid,” Hannibal says. “I don’t deserve you.”
The lieutenant sits down, hard, on the concrete of the walk up to the front door, the one Hannibal’s making his slow way up now. The dog whines again, nudges his shoulder, and he wraps his arms around her, sobbing into the dark fur, feeling like the whole world’s spinning away from him
+++++
Three days later, Hannibal can’t get out of bed. At all. He groans as he tries to lift himself, a little while before sunrise, and Face is there in an instant. There wasn’t any coughing last night.
At all.
“What do you need, boss?” Face asks, squeezing his hand, knowing, not wanting to know, too afraid to pray for it to be otherwise. This can’t happen. This can’t... “What can I do?”
“Outside, kid,” he says, and that voice is almost gone. “Not in bed.”
Face somehow gets his arm under the boss’ shoulder and flicks open the lock on Diana’s crate. She treads softly after them, as Face opens the bedroom’s slider and helps Hannibal out onto the back patio. It faces east, out over the wide lands, out towards the dawn, just tinging the edge of the sky pink now. Sunrise in the desert. Face thinks he understands why Hannibal loves this land.
Settling Hannibal into his favorite lounge chair, Face tries to smile and fails miserably. They both know what’s going on here. “Let me go get...”
“We’ve talked,” and fingers, surprisingly strong, grab out for him. “Don’t go.”
The lieutenant doesn’t move, hearing fear for the first time in this whole thing, except to grab another lounger and drag it close, touching Hannibal’s. The dog sit down beside him, lays her head in Hannibal’s lap. He pets her idly, smiles a little, and his other hand’s on Face’s leg, keeping the same easy rhythm.
Dawn progresses. Face listens intently to everything, how the boss’ breath is coming short and harsh, like his lungs are shutting down, like his heart’s going to stop pumping, how he’s so close to...
“What are you... thinking about...Face?” Hannibal asks, words coming slowly and in bursts.
Face shakes his head. Why not? He can’t stand the thought of the older man kicking off without knowing, without being able to tell him... “In the hospital, boss, the doctor thought I was your partner...”
“You... are.”
“Not like that.”
That hand leaves his thigh and pulls his face around, those fingers retaining something of their strength, the most reassuring thing Face has felt in the last few weeks. Since the hospital. “What if I thought that?”
“Don’t... don’t...”
“I’ve always thought of you like... the man I wanted to spend the rest... of my life with...”
Face starts laughing, because if he doesn’t laugh, he’s going to shatter apart, and with Hannibal gone, there’ll be nobody to clean up the pieces. “Don’t think you had much choice there, boss.”
“Didn’t want... need...” and he shakes his head. Voice momentarily passed beyond his control. Hannibal swallows a few times. “You were... my choice, Templeton. I love you...”
“Hannibal, don’t say it just because you think I need to hear...”
“You deserve... the truth... Temp.” That hand won’t let him tear away, and those blue eyes are already sliding down towards something Face has seen before, but never like this. Never this horrible. Never this kind of loss. “I’ve always...too scared you didn't...”
He’s slipping away and Face can feel it. He’s holding on with both hands to what’s left, feeling that fine silver hair between his fingers, the little pants of air against his forehead. Hannibal’s lost almost everything that would let anyone know he was still alive, pinched and pale, worn out, his body giving over, but he’s the most beautiful thing Face has ever seen, and all he can think about is why he gave this up, why he was too scared, why he never asked, why he never said...
“I love you, John Smith.”
Desperate and quiet, like somehow saying this will take them both back, like to when Hannibal found out about the cancer, back further, maybe, back all the way, to that day he first reported in, when he first saw this man, when he first fell in...
Hannibal tries to smile. “Not lying... are you, Temp?”
“I was never any good at lying,” he says, trying to smile back, his grief already fighting to the surface, threatening to snuff everything else out. “I am so sorry, I am so fucking sorry...”
“Shut up, lieutenant... and kiss me...”
Face dashes encroaching tears out of his eyes, laughing genuinely at that, how even now, Hannibal manages to growl at him. And the younger man moves, repositioning carefully, not wanting to cause this man any more pain than what he already must be struggling with, and pressed one soft, open-mouthed kiss to Hannibal’s dry lips.
One of those fading hands holds him in for just a moment. He can feel everything, everything they never had, everything that’s always been there between them, and it’s too much, too much, too much to lose.
“Don’t leave me,” Face begs.
“I...never will, Temp...”
Close enough to taste, to breath in, take in, feel the last feeble...and that’s it.
There’s no more.
+++++
“Are you sure about this, guys?”
Face is standing in the door, civilian hiking pack leaning against the wood, Diana sitting by his feet. Jeep keys in his pocket. Small gray box in his hands, the weight of the entire world inside of it.
Murdock nods. “Bossman would have wanted it this way.”
“But we’re a team. Shouldn’t we...”
BA nods. “He wanted it like this. Told me not to let you be a damn fool ‘bout it.”
They’re both worried for him. They're grieving and they're worried and he can see it in their faces. And the lieutenant knows he’s taking this hard, and it makes perfect sense to them, and they’re not judging him. They insisted, actually, that he be the one to do it.
Take Hannibal’s ashes out to the place in the Canyonlands he indicated on a map a few days back. Some place he remembered from his childhood. Scatter him into the breeze right before dawn. Let him be somewhere peaceful, somewhere he loved. Far from the wars he was born to fight.
He looks at the box in his hands, and back up at his friends, his family, the only family he’s ever known, but nothing’s the same. Everything’s gone. Murdock’s smiling and crying at the same time. BA hasn’t broken down yet, but his dark eyes are wet. Face gives each of them a hug in turn, wordless, and shoulders his pack.
“You comin’ back?” the pilot asks before he can leave completely, hasty and scared.
Face doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything, really. He’s got Hannibal’s ashes and Hannibal’s dog and Hannibal’s last words, all for him, all of it for him, and he knows that’s enough to go on. That’s enough to go on with.
“It’s a three day hike to the spot Hannibal indicated,” he says. “Three days back.”
“He loved you, Face,” BA says, an edge of fear in his voice.
And Face can’t deny he hasn’t thought about it.
But one of them was always going to have to die alone, and maybe that’s why neither of them ever said anything, when it gets right down to it. But Face is glad it’s him. Glad he was able to give that to his commander, his friend, the love of his life. That Hannibal didn’t have to die alone. That Hannibal got his wish, that he got to spend the rest of his life with the man he loved.
Him. Faceman. Templeton Peck.
The honor of it’s staggering. Absolutely staggering. And, he thinks, it may, one day, be enough.
One day. Not today. But...one day.
“I know, BA,” Face says and whistles to Diana. “He told me.”
Hannibal wants him to keep going. That’s what the boss was trying to do. Make sure his lieutenant would survive this.
Who’s Face to deny him that?
And the box feels lighter in his hands.
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: death!fic
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
Err, okay, I asked for this... Feel like an ass, but... week from hell. Involved days of screaming at work. It's either meme or heavy drinking...
Seriously, I don't care if it's noncon or death!fic, I need something angsty to work on. Something really, really angsty...
And I got this...
A few pages back there was a prompt that was really angsty. The prompter wanted to see Hannibal diagnosed with some disease and given a set period time to live. In reaction to that he creates a truly epic bucket list and sets about crossing stuff off it. The top of the list is confessing his love to Face.
I seconded this prompt because it sounds epic and very, very angsty. Not only the angst that Hannibal would go through but also Face's reaction to hearing what he has wanted to hear from Hannibal for years. And then having the rug pulled out from under him because of the reason Hannibal is telling him. This one really cuts to the bone when you consider Face's abandonment issues. To have to lose Hannibal at all would be gut wrenching but to lose hime right after finally finding out that Hannibal is as in love with him as he is with Hannibal. Well, it doesn't get more angsty than that.
Plus, there is poor Murdock and BA to consider. They would be devasted at losing Hannibal as well. Though, much as I hate to say it, I have a secret desire for that to drive them into each other's arms. Cause hurt needs comfort too!
Anywhooo. I seconded the original prompt and I now submit it for your angst consideration!
So I wrote...this...
When Face takes Hannibal go to the emergency room, he finds out the boss has been hiding something very, very important.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Face isn’t leaving the room. Hannibal’s not mad with him, though, not really saying anything at all, didn’t try to kick him out, didn’t order him to leave. He’d let Face stay, and not because Face asked to or threw a fit. Just let the lieutenant stay in the room.
And they were in a room. The nurse in the ER had taken one look at Hannibal and brought them to a room, an actual room, something dark in the woman’s face as she gave him something for the cough, and injection Hannibal took with closed eyes and a deep breath.
Hannibal hated shots.
And they hadn’t waited very long.
And now the doctor’s here, drawing blood.
“Who are you, again? Family or...”
A hand lifts off the exam bed, reaches over and squeezes the lieutenant’s. Something in the way the colonel does it, something in the urgency of it, and there’s a smile along with it. Face catches his breath.
Hannibal’s never looked at him like this before.
There’s blood on his shirt.
It scares the shit out of him.
“He’s here with me.”
The doctor looks them both over and nods. He puts a cotton ball over the puncture as he withdraws the needle. Pressure to stop the bleeding. The colonel grins, just a little. He’s had so much worse...
So why is Face so scared? for Hannibal? For himself?
“It’s good to have support at times like this,” the doctor says, capping off the blood sample and laying it on a tray. “You two seem happy together.”
“We have been,” Hannibal says, lifts their joined hands, turning them a little, and Face is staring at him now. “Been together a long time.”
That fear, it’s growing, cancerous inside him, mutating every other thought. “What’s wrong with him?”
The doctor takes one more look at Hannibal. He sees something. Face can tell. But he doesn’t know what the doctor’s seeing. He knows what he knows, how BA and Murdock left this morning to go see BA's mother, how Face came in from his run and went to take a shower, how he heard Hannibal coughing in the bathroom, found a discarded, bloody washcloth in the trash. How he thought about it as he soaped up, washed off and then heard the boss in his bedroom, weezing like his lungs would explode. And how Face was there with him, trying to right him, holding him, feeling the coughs spasm through that solid frame, that permanence he’s depended on for most of his life shaking to its very core. The boss hadn’t fought him when he’d said hospital goddamn now.
Just leaned against the car door and hacked, eyes watering, words dead between them. Dead air. Nothing but dead air.
“I can run this through the lab, but I can already tell you what’s coming. Have you been experiencing shortness of breath, pain in your chest, weight loss...”
“Just tell him,” Hannibal says and doesn’t meet Face’s questioning gaze. “We both know what it is.”
The doctor looks pissed now. “Do you already know?”
“Got the tests about eight months ago.”
“Had it metastasized?”
Hannibal doesn’t say anything, and Face feels like he’s falling. Tests? Metastasized?
Eight months?
And the past eight months...
...have been, for lack of a better word, amazing.
They’ve been taking on fewer jobs, fun jobs, if Face is honest about it, pro bono, mostly, for people who needed it. And it’s taken them to some amazing places, given them excuses to linger, like Hannibal's never lingered before.
They’d been to Australia, helping a rancher and then spending a month in a yatch, sailing around the Whitsundays, up to Indonesia, a visit to one of those sea hotels in Bali and scuba diving the Sipadan wall. A job in sub-Saharan Africa, saving a village from the local warlord, which Murdock had loved and BA had cried over it all one night when he thought they weren’t looking. A trek through Ireland, Scotland, the ferry up to Iceland and the glaciers and the vast expanses of the northern reaches of the world.
Sadder things, too, and slower. They’d stopped off after a Baltimore job at Arlington, where Hannibal took a fresh bunch of flowers to Morrison’s grave, the colonel spending the entire day walking through the white rows of stone. A visit to upstate New York, the visitors’ center of West Point on Parents’ Weekend, gray uniforms running everywhere, a sad smile on the colonel’s face. A sinfully expensive dinner at a world-famous restaurant in New York City, a whole blissful weekend at that hotel, easy and fun and light like things haven’t been for so, so long. Talking about buying a house, big enough for all four of them, Murdock had asked, and Hannibal had just smiled.
And then there was that other thing, the thing that’s been turning over in his mind. One night, about a week ago he found Hannibal talking over skype, face blank. A woman with the boss’ features, a teenage boy beside her, Hannibal’s splitting image, holding her hand as she cried. She’d looked at Face through the camera, tried to smile, and Hannibal had asked him gruffly to get the fuck out.
They’re talking about treatment, about the dangers of combined small cell carcinoma without chemo, if he’s a smoker and why he hasn’t told his partner about this, how he’s managed all this time.
And Face isn’t listening. He can’t hear any of it. Wonders about coughing fits he’s missed, about signs of fatigue he hasn’t seen, weight loss he hasn’t really noticed. Symptoms he chalked up to other things.
Sure as fuck not lung cancer.
“How... how much time does he have?” the lieutenant asks, not really wanting to know, wanting to yell at this doctor that he's not some guy that's Hannibal's fucking, that they've never been that, that Hannibal's never given him that and he came to terms with that about a year into his first tour with the man and no matter how much he wants it, how much he's always wanted it, about how he's losing it all now and who the fuck said that was okay...
“I don’t know. Not much. I don't want to give you the wrong impression...”
He’s talking to Hannibal again, and Face doesn’t hear any of it. The doctor’s calling Hannibal by the name on the fake ID, and it’s not Hannibal’s name, so it’s like the doctor’s talking to somebody else. That hand tucked into his, gripping, holding on, that’s what’s real. That’s what’s Hannibal. Not the man talking to the doctor, too calm, but the gravelly breath, the heartbeat against his skin.
That blood sample, alone on its tray.
Face can’t tell what’s marked on it. A cylinder of Hannibal, wrapped in indifferent glass, labeled with a name, social security number, that’s not his own. Isn’t that what they’ve become over the past ten years on the run? They’re still themselves, but only to each other, layered in too many lies for anybody else to know what’s underneath.
If he loses Hannibal, he’ll lose himself. The glass will break, he’ll splatter away, nobody able to put the pieces back together.
“Come on, Temp,” Hannibal says, and tugs on Face’s hand. He’s still holding it. Why is he holding it? They’ve never... “We need to get home.”
“I’ll get you the first appointment with the oncologist in the morning,” the doctor says, and offers a card. Hannibal takes it, and pulls Face up. “I’m not the specialist, but I think it’s probably too far gone for chemo.”
“Thank god,” is the boss’ soft reply, and Face has to hold him, hold him up, take his weight, as the terrible coughing resumes.
And follows, all the way back to the house.
And stays, long after both of them should have been asleep, Face’s fingers curling into his pillow. He climbs out of his own bed and pads into Hannibal’s. Presses against him, rubbing the boss’ chest through his shirt. The lieutenant can feel ribs. He drops his forehead into the back of Hannibal’s shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, kid,” the boss says between coughs.
Face doesn’t reply, just keeps massaging, and eventually, the horrible sound subsides, breathing slows, steadies, drifts into sleep.
So he's alone.
To hear himself cry.
+++++
“I am not going to die in a hospital bed, Face!”
“I’m not asking you to!”
“That’s exactly what you’re asking me, Face! Exactly!”
“Would you just fucking listen...”
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
That ends the conversation. That ends the conversation every time, the same conversation they’ve been having for the past few days, since the hospital and the oncologist and the uncomfortable news. A month. A month at best. Probably less. The doctor had scheduled scans. Hannibal hadn’t gone, and no amount of begging from Face would get him to change his mind.
So they’d switched to yelling. It was easier.
“Jesus, boss, you’re not lifting a goddamn finger to save your...”
And that’s when Hannibal yanks him off the bar stool and smashed him into the wall. Once, twice. “You don’t fucking have the right...” he manages and then the coughing starts again, folding him over, loosening his grip and he almost falls. Face catches him but the boss pushes away from him, tears away, leaves. Leaves him alone.
BA’s in the garage. Murdock’s with him. Face called them the second he woke, that first morning, got them back here. They’ve been inseparable, and invisible, since the yelling started. BA told Face to get himself the fuck under control. Murdock told them to both shut the hell up and deal with whatever it was between them. The pilot’s distraught, but he’s taking it better than BA. He’s taking it better than all of them, except Hannibal.
Hannibal hasn't been emotional about any of this. Still playing the colonel, and Face can't stand to see that. He should be allowed to break down, allowed to express himself, but he doesn't, he won't let himself, and it's killing the lieutenant.
“Boss...” he pleads, holding out his arms, but Hannibal’s out of reach, trying to get some water. His hands are shaking too bad to hold the glass and it shatters in the sink. Face flinches as the boss swears, first in English and then in Urdu, which sounds so much nastier. He settles for leaning back against the edge of the counter.
They stare at each other for a moment.
Face breaks first. “Boss, I don’t want...”
Hannibal shakes his head and goes for another glass. His hands are steadier now. He looks good. Doesn’t look like he’s dying. But then, Face has seen him at his worst, hung over, grieving, blown open and bleeding. He just looks... thin, tired. Gaunt. In pain. but he won’t take anything for that, either. Won’t take anything at all. “I know, kid. But we always accepted the fact that death is...”
“Part of the job?”
“It’s part of our lives, yeah. Part of who we are.”
“Well you’ve had eight months,” Face snaps, unable to help himself. “I’ve had a week. We’ve had a week.”
“Face, if it happened in the field, you wouldn’t have had any time at all...”
And then it hits him. Then he realizes. “You weren’t going to say anything. It wasn’t that you hadn’t done it yet. You weren’t going to.”
Hannibal looks at the ceiling. Doesn’t reply.
“Shit, boss. What were you thinking?”
“I’d hoped...”
“What, you were going to die on a job? Let yourself get shot? Killed in action, and all that bullshit? Is that why we've still been working?”
Hannibal’s pale, but even at that, he gets whiter, the blood draining. “No, no, Face. I couldn’t let anything happen to you boys...”
“But
“How could you do...why...”
“These things should just be over when they’re over.”
Face understands that. He came to terms with that himself, a long time ago, something Hannibal told him to do before their first mission together. A bullet, a knife, an elbow, glass shards from an explosion, anything can do it, kid. When it comes, know why you’re there in harm’s way, understand why you’d let yourself die....
But there’s no choice in this. There’s nothing any of them can do. There’s no reason for it. It shouldn’t be happening. It won’t do anything for anybody.
It’s meaningless.
Face is by Hannibal’s side, brushing a hand up his chest, feeling those decaying lungs fighting for air, fighting for the breath that will tide over until the next. He leans into it, feeling his forehead barely touch. Feeling those hands, wet from the dropped glass, slide up into his hair.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers it against Hannibal’s shirt, wishing the fabric was there, that there was no physical barrier between them. Wishes it like he hasn’t wished it in years, not since he decided he couldn’t long for something he couldn’t have, not since he started sleeping with everything that threw itself at him and never, ever being able to approximate his old fantasies. “Fuck...”
“I should have told you boys,” Hannibal says, nodding to his own words. “Eight months...”
“Three weeks?” But the lieutenant knows, there’s no amount of time that will make this okay. And what have they been doing the last eight months?
“Sixty three years,” Hannibal says, still stroking through Face’s hair, “is not enough time.”
Face closes his fists tighter into that shirt, all the things between them, wishing he could tear it away. “Twenty four,” he whispers back, remembering that very first day. More than half of his life, wrapped up in this man, this man, holding him, touching him, like he wants him. Like they have something more between them. “Only twenty four years for me.”
“The best years,” Hannibal assures Face, sounding like he’s reassuring himself. “I don’t feel like I’m dying.”
“I wish you weren’t.”
That hand starts massaging, just a little, and doesn’t let him move away. “Yeah, kid. I wish that too.”
They stay, just like that, until the garage door bangs and the other two give them wary looks met with sad smiles, and they start discussing the merits of Chinese takeout and beer and everything’s almost normal.
Except Face keeps thinking about it, and he knows.
If the boss is going to go out this way, it can’t be meaningless.
The boss has a plan.
And whatever that is, Face thinks as he sips at his Bud and watches the other three laugh and joke and chow down on chow mein, he is going to do his damnedest to support.
Just like he always does.
Just like he always would have.
+++++
“What’s next on the list?” Murdock asks.
Hannibal raises an eyebrow. Something solid came up this morning. Face can see it in the tissue, crumpled hastily up in the boss’ hand. He’s still in bed, and the pilot bounced in here like a five year old on Christmas morning. He’s the one who figured it out. Figured out what the boss has been up to since the initial diagnosis eight months back.
“What list?”
“Your bucket list,” BA supplies, moving behind Murdock, placing a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “That what we been doin’, ain’t it? Things you wanted to do before you die?”
Hannibal glances over at Face, and Face holds his hand out for the bloody tissue. No need to scare Murdock with that right now. The pilot’s barely staying level as is and BA’s got his hands full trying to keep him that way. The big guy doesn’t seem to mind, and if Face saw them talking softly this morning, holding hands, sitting close.
He doesn’t begrudge them, well, anything. He doesn’t have the energy right now.
“Things you boys wanted,” Hannibal says in a voice that breaks Face’s heart. “I know how much Murdock always wanted to go to Bali, and how angry you used to get over the insanity in Africa, like that time we were in Somalia, BA. Face, you used to talk about Scandinavia and you always had that thing for New York City...”
“And what do you want, boss?” BA asks. “I get visiting Morrison, your college, your family, but what do you want?”
He’s laying against the pillows, body looking somehow more emaciated than before. Maybe because they’re finally talking about it. Talking about it like it’s perfectly normal to talk about Hannibal dying. Like Hannibal dying is something that should be happening. “I never gave it much thought.”
Because he shouldn’t be dying, Face thinks, and because he wasn’t expecting to die like this. “There has to be something we can do for you, boss.”
The boss gives them each a look in turn, and lingers on Face. A little smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Surprise me,” he says, cocky and happy like he always used to be, until the coughing starts back up again and Face can’t pretend anymore.
He slides in around Hannibal and offers him a handful of tissues. The boss grabs for them blindly and the lieutenant has to hold them to his mouth, rub his back until the fit dies down.
“How about going home?” Face asks quietly, aware that Murdock and BA are listening intently. “We’ll buy a house, put up photos, buy groceries, go for walks in the evenings...”
“I don’t want to die in bed in a house in suburbia, kid.”
“Screw the suburbs. But did any of us really want to die overseas?” Face’s mind is still rebelling at the very thought of this, the thought of this whole thing, but somehow he forces himself to say the words. Words he knows to be very, very true. “Come on, everybody has somewhere they want to go back to.”
Hannibal’s shaking a little. His body seems to take a while to recover from these coughing fits, a little longer every time. “You don’t.”
Face risks it. What the hell? It’s going to hurt him to admit this, but... “No. It didn’t matter, if it was under your command.”
There’s a long, long silence.
“Utah,” Hannibal finally says. “I was born in southern Utah. I could die there.”
It takes a few moments, a few false starts, to get the words out of his mouth, bone dry and rattling, but Face finally says it. Holds on to Hannibal’s hands tight and says it. “Then that’s where we’re going, boss.”
+++++
It’s not hard to find a place. Surprisingly easy, actually. A few days, and everything set up. A little ranch house on the far outskirts of Monticello, Utah, right on the edge of the Canyonlands. They use the back roads, the smaller routes, to get there. Hannibal spends the entire drive in the passenger seat of the van, watching the country shift.
He seems to relax when they get out of the polluted sprawl of LA, even more when they leave California behind entirely and enter the deserts of Arizona, into the rise of the land, into high, arid plains and deep-cut mesas. There’s something wistful in his face, the same expression the lieutenant saw a few times on their last few trips. How Hannibal looked out over the Highlands, the way he watched the sun rise in Somalia.
Saying goodbye.
But the boss wants to keep the tone light, and Face doesn’t want to upset that. So the team’s like it should be, that first night, as Murdock barbeques on their new back patio, as Face examines the house. It’s all furnished, southwest and warm, everything perfect; the interior designer that he hired has done an admirable job for as much time as she’s had. This little effort has emptied one of their bank accounts. They’re all okay with that.
“There’re only two bedrooms, boss,” Face tells him, flopping down on the sofa across from where Hannibal’s talking on his cell. “Best I could do. I’ll sleep in here. Murdock and BA...” and he kind of shrugs.
Murdock won’t leave BA’s side, haunted by some species of memory the rest of them don’t share. The big corporal seems okay with that. Couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar. He's happy for them.
Hannibal nods and holds up a hand, finishing the conversation. “Day after tomorrow?... great, I owe you... yeah, even still... okay, see you then.” He tosses it away and smiles. “It’s about time those two got together.”
Face wants to scream, wants to know, if it isn’t time that they, the two of them, right here in this room together, got together. How Hannibal missed the signs all these years, how Hannibal must never have wanted him, how it’s okay if Hannibal wants him now, now that nothing matters. But he doesn’t say any of that. The boss seems stronger here, in the fresh air and wide skies and open land of his youth, even just this afternoon, and Face can’t upset that.
“Yeah,” he says instead. “Happy for them.”
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch, kid...”
The boss, actually offering to share his bed. Sick and dying, and he’s willing to bunk up. Face laughs, hard and mirthless. That’s an offer he can’t accept. What if something happened? No, no. Can’t risk Hannibal’s fragile grasp on his well-being. How he’s done it, so long, keeping up the appearance of health, Face doesn’t know. “You don’t need me hogging the sheets right now.”
Hannibal gets up, something hiding behind those blue eyes. But he doesn't give voice to it. Like he's never given voice to it. “Lets see how Murdock’s doing with that chicken.”
“Sounds good, boss.”
+++++
The next week or so goes by far, far too quickly.
They talk and they eat, Hannibal less and less of both every day. Old stories and old recipes. Reliving everything they’ve done together, laughing over past victories, remembering friends who fell in combat, carrying the past into the present, long into the night, starting up early in the morning.
Face tries to stay in tune to what Hannibal needs, tries to support him with the coughing starts, helps him out of bed in the mornings and around the house, which the boss says he loves, anything.
The night before, he had to help Hannibal shower. Stripped down to his boxers and removed all of the other man’s clothes, careful of the growing tenderness underneath, and took the colonel’s weight against his own and helped him in. Too light. There wasn’t any hiding from it there, not from the wasting effects of the cancer, how thin, how gray, how drawn the boss had become. He’d let Face run the sponge down his back in slow, even swipes, and buried his face in the younger man’s shoulder.
It had taken a few minutes for Face to realize the boss was crying.
For the first time in twenty-four years, Face was watching Hannibal cry.
He’d stayed that night, each night since, in bed together, not knowing what Hannibal needed from him or how. Not touching or cuddling or anything like that, like he’d once dreamed about. But close enough for them both to know they weren’t alone yet, and Face feels himself tearing up now, thinking back about it, how Hannibal was facing something they couldn’t fight, couldn’t beat, and how fucking brave the man was being about it. Facing it, like he’s faced everything else in his life...
“Who’s the dog for, boss?”
Hannibal’s out front, talking to somebody in a mud-splattered SUV. There’s a German Shepard curled up at his feet, head lifted and cocked, watching. Ears prick and it bends around, staring at Face as the lieutenant walks over.
The SUV drives away and Hannibal holds up a hand, a farewell gesture, pets the dog. “Old favor called in,” he says, and flicks the leash. The animal obediently pulls up and follows him, limping just slightly, big eyes watching Face sharply.
Beautiful, Face thinks, remembering how he always wanted a dog as a kid, a pet of any kind, how he never could, and Hannibal hands him the lead. The lieutenant gives the boss a questioning look.
“Isn’t it for Murdock?”
“No,” Hannibal says, and scratches the big dog behind the ears as she starts sniffing Face’s leg. “No, Diana here’s not for Murdock. Three years old, military working girl put out of commission by shrapnel a few months ago.” He directs Face to where he’s petting, lays his hand over the lieutenant’s as he shows him where to run his fingers through the warm, soft fur. “Well trained and loyal. Needs a good home.”
“Ours?” Face can’t help the way his throat tightens when he says it.
The colonel’s got his weight against Face, kind of leaning on him, stroking his hand. “Yours, kid. The dog’s for you.”
At that, Diana pushes her head up Face’s leg, nose wet, and whines a little, like she knows. Like she understands, and Face fists both his hair into that sleek fur. “Why?” he asks.
“She’s an orphan, a war vet, I’m sure you two will have a lot to discuss,” Hannibal jokes, and pats Face on the back, something unsaid there. “Let’s introduce her to the family.”
A dog, his own dog... and Face feels his cheeks getting wet. "When do we give you what you want?"
Hannibal doesn't reply. Giving Face the room to work out his own thoughts, his own logic, just like he always does and Face hates him for it, can't stand not hearing that voice. Weak and gouged by the disease as it is, it's still Hannibal's voice, soothing and warm, like nothing in the world can be wrong if that voice is talking.
“I don’t deserve this, you, the team, any of it...”
“Bullshit, kid,” Hannibal says. “I don’t deserve you.”
The lieutenant sits down, hard, on the concrete of the walk up to the front door, the one Hannibal’s making his slow way up now. The dog whines again, nudges his shoulder, and he wraps his arms around her, sobbing into the dark fur, feeling like the whole world’s spinning away from him
+++++
Three days later, Hannibal can’t get out of bed. At all. He groans as he tries to lift himself, a little while before sunrise, and Face is there in an instant. There wasn’t any coughing last night.
At all.
“What do you need, boss?” Face asks, squeezing his hand, knowing, not wanting to know, too afraid to pray for it to be otherwise. This can’t happen. This can’t... “What can I do?”
“Outside, kid,” he says, and that voice is almost gone. “Not in bed.”
Face somehow gets his arm under the boss’ shoulder and flicks open the lock on Diana’s crate. She treads softly after them, as Face opens the bedroom’s slider and helps Hannibal out onto the back patio. It faces east, out over the wide lands, out towards the dawn, just tinging the edge of the sky pink now. Sunrise in the desert. Face thinks he understands why Hannibal loves this land.
Settling Hannibal into his favorite lounge chair, Face tries to smile and fails miserably. They both know what’s going on here. “Let me go get...”
“We’ve talked,” and fingers, surprisingly strong, grab out for him. “Don’t go.”
The lieutenant doesn’t move, hearing fear for the first time in this whole thing, except to grab another lounger and drag it close, touching Hannibal’s. The dog sit down beside him, lays her head in Hannibal’s lap. He pets her idly, smiles a little, and his other hand’s on Face’s leg, keeping the same easy rhythm.
Dawn progresses. Face listens intently to everything, how the boss’ breath is coming short and harsh, like his lungs are shutting down, like his heart’s going to stop pumping, how he’s so close to...
“What are you... thinking about...Face?” Hannibal asks, words coming slowly and in bursts.
Face shakes his head. Why not? He can’t stand the thought of the older man kicking off without knowing, without being able to tell him... “In the hospital, boss, the doctor thought I was your partner...”
“You... are.”
“Not like that.”
That hand leaves his thigh and pulls his face around, those fingers retaining something of their strength, the most reassuring thing Face has felt in the last few weeks. Since the hospital. “What if I thought that?”
“Don’t... don’t...”
“I’ve always thought of you like... the man I wanted to spend the rest... of my life with...”
Face starts laughing, because if he doesn’t laugh, he’s going to shatter apart, and with Hannibal gone, there’ll be nobody to clean up the pieces. “Don’t think you had much choice there, boss.”
“Didn’t want... need...” and he shakes his head. Voice momentarily passed beyond his control. Hannibal swallows a few times. “You were... my choice, Templeton. I love you...”
“Hannibal, don’t say it just because you think I need to hear...”
“You deserve... the truth... Temp.” That hand won’t let him tear away, and those blue eyes are already sliding down towards something Face has seen before, but never like this. Never this horrible. Never this kind of loss. “I’ve always...too scared you didn't...”
He’s slipping away and Face can feel it. He’s holding on with both hands to what’s left, feeling that fine silver hair between his fingers, the little pants of air against his forehead. Hannibal’s lost almost everything that would let anyone know he was still alive, pinched and pale, worn out, his body giving over, but he’s the most beautiful thing Face has ever seen, and all he can think about is why he gave this up, why he was too scared, why he never asked, why he never said...
“I love you, John Smith.”
Desperate and quiet, like somehow saying this will take them both back, like to when Hannibal found out about the cancer, back further, maybe, back all the way, to that day he first reported in, when he first saw this man, when he first fell in...
Hannibal tries to smile. “Not lying... are you, Temp?”
“I was never any good at lying,” he says, trying to smile back, his grief already fighting to the surface, threatening to snuff everything else out. “I am so sorry, I am so fucking sorry...”
“Shut up, lieutenant... and kiss me...”
Face dashes encroaching tears out of his eyes, laughing genuinely at that, how even now, Hannibal manages to growl at him. And the younger man moves, repositioning carefully, not wanting to cause this man any more pain than what he already must be struggling with, and pressed one soft, open-mouthed kiss to Hannibal’s dry lips.
One of those fading hands holds him in for just a moment. He can feel everything, everything they never had, everything that’s always been there between them, and it’s too much, too much, too much to lose.
“Don’t leave me,” Face begs.
“I...never will, Temp...”
Close enough to taste, to breath in, take in, feel the last feeble...and that’s it.
There’s no more.
+++++
“Are you sure about this, guys?”
Face is standing in the door, civilian hiking pack leaning against the wood, Diana sitting by his feet. Jeep keys in his pocket. Small gray box in his hands, the weight of the entire world inside of it.
Murdock nods. “Bossman would have wanted it this way.”
“But we’re a team. Shouldn’t we...”
BA nods. “He wanted it like this. Told me not to let you be a damn fool ‘bout it.”
They’re both worried for him. They're grieving and they're worried and he can see it in their faces. And the lieutenant knows he’s taking this hard, and it makes perfect sense to them, and they’re not judging him. They insisted, actually, that he be the one to do it.
Take Hannibal’s ashes out to the place in the Canyonlands he indicated on a map a few days back. Some place he remembered from his childhood. Scatter him into the breeze right before dawn. Let him be somewhere peaceful, somewhere he loved. Far from the wars he was born to fight.
He looks at the box in his hands, and back up at his friends, his family, the only family he’s ever known, but nothing’s the same. Everything’s gone. Murdock’s smiling and crying at the same time. BA hasn’t broken down yet, but his dark eyes are wet. Face gives each of them a hug in turn, wordless, and shoulders his pack.
“You comin’ back?” the pilot asks before he can leave completely, hasty and scared.
Face doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything, really. He’s got Hannibal’s ashes and Hannibal’s dog and Hannibal’s last words, all for him, all of it for him, and he knows that’s enough to go on. That’s enough to go on with.
“It’s a three day hike to the spot Hannibal indicated,” he says. “Three days back.”
“He loved you, Face,” BA says, an edge of fear in his voice.
And Face can’t deny he hasn’t thought about it.
But one of them was always going to have to die alone, and maybe that’s why neither of them ever said anything, when it gets right down to it. But Face is glad it’s him. Glad he was able to give that to his commander, his friend, the love of his life. That Hannibal didn’t have to die alone. That Hannibal got his wish, that he got to spend the rest of his life with the man he loved.
Him. Faceman. Templeton Peck.
The honor of it’s staggering. Absolutely staggering. And, he thinks, it may, one day, be enough.
One day. Not today. But...one day.
“I know, BA,” Face says and whistles to Diana. “He told me.”
Hannibal wants him to keep going. That’s what the boss was trying to do. Make sure his lieutenant would survive this.
Who’s Face to deny him that?
And the box feels lighter in his hands.
