Coming to Terms
Oct. 29th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
I'd like to see something post-movie, with Face realising he's (always been?) in love with Hannibal. He stops hitting on random people, but it takes him ages to get his courage up to approach Hannibal.
But from Hannibal's point of view, Face hasn't scored in a while and is now propositioning him as a last resort. Cue Face having to prove himself, and insecure Hannibal slowly letting his guard down. Bonus points if Face recruits Murdock and BA to help his cause!
Face realizes he’s in love with Hannibal and tries to do something about it, but of course, he bungles the whole thing and it all spins off-balance.
Everything changed, the day Face came to his big realization about Hannibal Smith.
It wasn’t anything huge, not one of those earth-shattering events some people liked to talk about on bad daytime TV or write about in bargain-store tell-alls. No, it was the opposite of huge. Small. Very small. Without significance in the grand plan of the universe. Nobody else would have cared about it at all.
It was early morning on one of Hannibal’s jobs, one of those new and slightly insane jobs they seemed to be picking up over the last few months. They were up in an abandoned ranger station in Arizona strip country, a boarded-up, disintegrating mess, watching a certain road for a certain truck.
The stake-out had been going on for days, and tedium was turning into sheer frustration for the entire team. Too many of the same old stories. Too much time to fill with thoughts.
Face disliked spending that much time in his own head. It was uncomfortable. It brought up all manner of unwanted things. Like Hannibal. But he really didn’t want to think about the boss right now. He needed to pee.
The conman roused himself from his sleeping bag and bare floorboards at the far back end of the old timber building. It was dawn, or near enough, and the place was cast all in pale gray light that made everything look the same. He tiptoed towards the back porch, careful not to wake Murdock and BA, asleep in their bedrolls spread out on ancient sofas.
Hannibal was outside. The Arizona sun was low on the horizon, and it was still cold. The land here was a maze of red rock and scrubby junipers, broken only by the occasional granite boulder and little threading stream. The road they were watching ran through that, sometimes visible, sometimes not. The boss had his back to the door, and didn’t turn as Face threw him a casual hello.
“Sleep well, kid?”
“Sure, dad,” Face said now, drawing out on the last word jokingly as he moved over to the edge of the encircling patio and unzipped his pants. The plumbing was useless. “You were supposed to trade me at midnight.”
“You needed your sleep.”
“How was the evening?”
“Long, boring, uneventful.”
“No luck?” Face shook off a little as he finished and tucked himself back into the pants he’d been wearing for four days. “That truck’s got to be coming through here sooner or later.”
“We’re not exactly working with the good intel anymore, Face.”
“I know, boss, but I scammed us this info myself,” Face replied, sitting down next to the boss, letting his legs hang over the edge, blinking into the sunrise.
Hannibal bumped his shoulder with a closed fist, smiling now. “Then it has to be good, right, kid?”
“Exactly, boss,” Face laughed, those thoughts spreading out across him like an oil slick. The colonel, Hannibal, was the first person who ever believed in him. The only person, it seemed sometimes. BA liked him and Murdock looked up to him, but Hannibal trusted him. Hannibal pushed him, praised him, made him a better man. All the years...
Goddamn thoughts. He hated those thoughts. They must go away. “Boss, this sucks. Why couldn’t we just get these guys at origin or destination?”
“Your intel, Face.”
“Your plan, Hannibal.”
The sun rose a little higher, pulling itself above the horizon and into the sky, while the two men sat there. Face felt like there was something he be saying, something terribly important, something that was just out of reach but coming closer, when Hannibal nudged him with something hard and cold.
It was his Baretta. The thing was gleaming, muzzle to hammer. Had Hannibal taken it apart and cleaned it for him?
“I took a look at your sidearm last night, kid. Jammed up...”
“... in our last firefight in Nogales, yeah, thanks,” Face said and meant it. He really wanted to say something. What was it? "You didn't need to do this." That wasn't what he wanted to say, but it was still true.
Hannibal shrugged. “It was a long night.”
The boss had cleaned his gun. The boss had actually done that. The boss had done that for him.
But, stealing another look at the colonel made Face's heart seize up.
Not even an admonishment about proper weapon care? No sarcastic quip? What was going on? Was Hannibal really that worn out? Had these last few months been that hard on him? He did look exhausted, his eyes creased more than they had been, his skin a little more gray, the wear of thing beginning to show. Why hadn't Face seen that before?
It was a completely foreign concept to him, Face was forced to admit to himself. Hannibal had always been so strong, so permanent a fixture in Face’s life, he'd never considered that the man might feel human weaknesses like the rest of them. Finding out the man had worries and fears and misgivings would be a little like it had been when the nuns had told him his mother wasn’t coming back. It would be the end of something.
And Face didn't want to see the end of this.
That thing, those words, whatever it was he wanted to say was welling up inside him now, fighting for space inside his skin, pressure mounting, like he’d seam and burst and it would all come spilling out. Face shut his eyes. What was it?
“Face...”
Then he knew, and he fumbled the gun he’d almost forgotten he was holding and Hannibal’s hand was on his, steadying him, making him feel light. “Hannibal,” he said, the words rushing faster through his head than his tongue could get them into line, “Hannibal, I gotta tell you...”
“Face!”
“What, Hannibal?”
Face opened his eyes. The boss was pointing at the road. A column of dust was rising from it. “Showtime, kid.”
“I’ll get them up,” Face said, jumping up and running inside. He paused for a second, though, just inside the door and let himself sag.
The opportunity was gone, but he knew now what it was he wanted to say, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it, not right now. Maybe not ever, if he was really honest with himself.
But there, in the stillness of the station house, he knew exactly what it was and nothing, nothing was going to make it better or make it go away.
He was in love with Hannibal.
It was as simple as that.
+++++
Nothing was different at all, Face reflected at the bar a week later.
It didn’t change anything at first. They still had to go blow up the track and menace the company and get their client his diamonds back and get paid and get the hell out of this weird little slice of America and find a place, preferably with working showers and unobtrusive staff, to spend the next night or two. That all had to be done, and Face got it done.
They’d gotten stuck in Page. That wasn’t part of the plan. It was the largest town around, the only place of any consequence at all in Navajo country. It marked exactly the distance BA’s van had covered before breaking down. The mechanics still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Murdock had gone nuts over margaritas in the hotel bar and there was a swimming pool, so it wasn’t too bad.
Face still felt horrible, though, as if he was constantly on the edge of throwing up. Sensation had gone dull, everything processing through his brain in monochromatic blues. Nothing tasted good, nothing felt soft. It was very strange.
He was pretty sure there was a fix. Face hadn’t said anything to Hannibal about that morning. Not about loving him, anyway. He’d thanked him again for the gun, real casual, as they were shooting out tires, but that was it. Men didn’t discuss things like that, like this. Men did not tell their commanding officer that they were in love with him.
There was a girl down the counter, watching him over half-finished lowballs and sweating beers, red lips playing with an olive.
“She’s a looker, Face,” Hannibal said, taking the stool next to him, on the side away from the girl. He stole a look over the lieutenant’s shoulder.
“She’s just looking at me,” Face grumbled, still nursing his first margarita of the night, now almost completely diluted by melting ice. “That’s all that’s going on, Hannibal. Don’t worry,” and he jabbed a finger in the general direction of Hannibal’s chest, “I am not thinking with my dick right now.”
Hannibal looked at the girl again and sighed. He put his beer down. “Maybe you should, kid.”
“What?”
“How long’s it been?” Hannibal asked, using that colonel tone of his. Paternal. Interested. Fucking nice. Face hated it. “And you’re turning down a perfectly good offer?”
“Probably got herpes,” Face replied, and that was a lot meaner than what he’d normally say. “Definitely looks like the type.”
“What’s gotten into you lately, lieutenant?” And now Hannibal was using the other colonel tone. Authoritative. Angry. “You’ve been off your game...”
Face waved his glass around. “There is no game here, sir.”
“Still,” and they both noticed the girl was gone now, “she was interested.”
“Why are you so concerned with who I sleep with?” Even the little bit of alcohol was agitating through his already confused thoughts and he hated the implication in Hannibal’s words. Tequila was an angry spirit, urging him to go for it. “I don’t need to go get fucked, Hannibal.”
The boss was just staring at him.
“Okay, if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you do it?”
“Fuck you?” Hannibal asked, his voice dipping into a low timbre that reverberated through Face’s spine. Why had he never noticed that before?
“Yes, sir, if you don’t think I’m getting enough.” Face could have kicked himself the moment the words left his mouth. “If you’re worried.”
“I didn’t say that, kid.”
“I’d let you,” Face said into his drink. “I wish you would, boss.”
Hannibal clenched, fists balling on the bar top. “How many is that?”
The older man was asking about his drink. Face looked at the glass, feeling his stomach sink. This wasn’t good at all. He could be such an idiot, coming at it like this was about drunken sex. Better to let everyone keep some dignity at this point. “Five,” he lied.
“I think you’ve had enough kid,” he said, making a decision, and wrapped a strong arm around Face’s shoulders and pulled his to his feet. “Let’s get you back to the room.”
The lieutenant shuddered a little at the feel of the arm through his shirt, and let Hannibal lead him out of the bar. He was losing him here, he could tell. The colonel would just slip away from him, further and further out of reach, lost to some current forever, if he didn’t man up and do something.
Men could still show their feelings, right?
Face dug in his heels and stopped the forward momentum against low-pile carpet. He twisted his way back around and grabbed Hannibal’s collar with a needy hand. The colonel looked ready to punch him, but then something passed over his eyes and he loosened his grip, just a little.
“Face?”
But Face already had his lips where he wanted them, a quick steal of a kiss, a light brush across the other man’s mouth without a hint of teeth. He pressed his face into Hannibal’s chest. What did he need to do, to say, for Hannibal to let him in? “Please, Hannibal. I need you...”
Hannibal pushed Face back, eyes dark, and then laughed. “Tequila’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it, lieutenant?”
And, as Hannibal practically tossed him into the room that he was sharing with Murdock, Face had to agree. No more tequila for a while. He wasn't going to have time.
He was going to have to prove himself to this man.
+++++
Their next job was in Albuquerque, which made Face think that Hannibal was desperate, or had some master plan the rest of them weren’t in on. The conman hoped it was the latter, because New Mexico was lousy with military installations. Large, highly secure military installations. They'd been trying to avoid those.
The drive was long, hot and uncomfortable. BA had managed to get the van working, but not the air conditioning or the radio, and the only good thing to be said about that was at least it wasn’t July.
Face spent the too-long ride curled up in the back, the others leaving him alone. He stayed in the van during Murdock’s pit stops and detours. He was faking a hang-over, thoroughness ever a part of his professional ethos. Hung-over Face would have had no patience for fake dinosaurs and UFO mock-ups at gas stations.
It gave him time to consider his options, and the former lieutenant was drawing a complete blank on what, exactly, those were. He knew how to seduce, to flatter and wheedle and promise. He had no idea how to win somebody over. Especially not somebody like Hannibal.
It wasn’t as if he had an example to go off of. Face had never seen Hannibal in a long-term relationship, female or male. He’d never thought it odd. The colonel had always been devoted to the Army, first and foremost, to the Rangers and the command and the mission and the men.
Most women couldn’t handle the extra baggage that came with spec ops guys. Long hours, longer deployments. Strange scars. Too many things seen, too many things done, too many things that had to remain unsaid. It was rare to find a woman who could handle it. That’s one of the reasons Face had loved Charisa so fiercely. He’d thought she’d understood. Maybe she had, a little too much.
Hannibal had never had a Charisa, Face knew. But it wasn't like the man was asexual.
It was sometimes easier, even with the insane policies in place, to get what one needed from the other guys. They all understood, they all knew the score, and nobody ever talked about it. Face had done it, every once in a while, in some forward base with no comforts and no release from the horror of day to day ops. Hell, he knew first-hand they all had. They just never talked about it.
They never talked about anything important.
The van had stopped. Great. Hannibal cracked the back door. The light was blinding. “Rise and shine, Face. Still alive back here?”
“Where the hell are we?” He was hung-over, so he groaned. The world outside was blasted, sick grays and twisted rock. Face wondered if his mood was affecting his vision somehow. “Fucking Mordor?”
The pilot popped up around the corner of the door. “Face,” he said in that perfectly reasonable tone of voice that always preceded the crazy, “You know we’d have to be going south to go there.”
“Yeah, that’s right, buddy,” Face said, sitting up and blinking a few times, trying to clear his thought. He might have been faking a hang-over, but the yellowed, knawing pain in his gut was real. It had been there ever since the station. There was no getting rid of it. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to run. He wanted to wrap his hands under Hannibal’s sweat-soaked t-shirt and... “They probably don’t sell Indian jewelry there either. So, where...”
“It’s the Four Corners,” BA grumbled and nodded over to the concrete monument. A pack of fat, giggling tourists from Oklahoma were standing up there, holding hands as somebody else snapped a photo of them standing in four different states. “Guess what that crazy ass fool wants us to do?”
“Let’s go, kid,” Hannibal smirked.
And how fortunate. Face didn’t even have to fake the groan as Murdock pulled him from the van.
+++++
Murdock had stretched a seven hour drive into a fourteen. It was amazing how the pilot had the ability to do something like that, in May, in a fucking desert, and none of them were angry with him.
Around Farmington, Face had decided he’d better pick himself up and do something. Find an eighty percent solution and go with it for the time being. Sitting up was a start. Getting back in on the conversation, a lively mix of mission, memories and UFO hunting procedures, was a good next step. By the time the sun had set and they’d rolled into their motel, Face still had nothing.
Hannibal had the client met them at some divey little place out by the interstate. The paint on the walls was peeling, but the chili was good and the client seemed genuinely grateful. He was outlining a problem pertaining to water rights and ranchland and rival biker gangs. Hannibal looked downright intrigued, and that was good enough for Face. They promised to meet up with him in a few days and left.
They only had two rooms for the night, and it wasn’t until they were on their way back to the motel that Face remembered that it was BA’s turn to room with Murdock. That meant he was rooming with Hannibal.
He hung back at the van as Murdock went to go find a vending machine, watching Hannibal make a beeline for the room. Probably wanted a shower, Face thought, hoping the boss wasn’t just trying to get away from him. He’d probably embarrassed the man, coming onto him like that, drunk or otherwise. BA was tinkering with the a/c unit, alternating between growling curses and murmuring endearments to the vehicle as he worked. The big man didn’t seem to notice Face standing there, so Face cleared his throat loudly.
“That’s really the way you wanna start this, Face?” BA asked without looking up. "Little basic for you."
“Start what?”
“Hand me a screwdriver, will ya?”
Wordlessly, Face fished it out of the box on by the front left wheel, and BA did a little salute thing when he took it. He wanted to tell the big man that the parking lot at almost midnight was no place to be doing this. But it wasn’t a great place for a conversation, either, and here they were. “There something wrong with you, Face. You haven’t been right since the stake-out.”
“Yeah.”
“So? What did you want to ask me?”
“Can I room with Murdock tonight?” The words came out in a tumble. Face knew exactly how suspicious it sounded. “I mean, I know how much you hate it and you did all the driving today, and I know I spent the whole ride...”
“Don’t you ever lie to me, Face,” the big man said, pulling out of the engine block and facing the conman, arms crossed.
“I’m not lying.”
“Bullshit.”
Face struggled not to break down. “I just, I can’t... I can’t room with the boss tonight, BA. Please.”
BA nodded, digesting, and went back to the van. “You figured it out?”
“Figured what out?”
“The boss. He said something, didn’t he?”
And that was unexpected, so Face went with it. “What do you know about it?”
“First time I met the guy, he shot me. To save you. Some punk-ass lieutenant balls-deep in a stack of tires.” BA started laughing.
“I was his lieutenant. You know how commanders get,” Face said, giving voice to a thought he’d been having all day. It was even sadder said aloud. But something was expanding inside his chest now, choking the air from his lungs. It was making it hard to think.
“Murdock and I, we’re his men. But you, that’s a whole different story. You’re his boy, Face. Saw it the second he pulled you into my van. Ain’t no friend you go through all that for.”
“BA...”
“This is me doing you a favor, man. Go deal with it and leave me 'lone. Need to get this fixed.”
That was it. Conversation over.
Face slunk into the motel, and lingered for a moment outside the room, fingering the plastic key, wondering what he could say, what he should say, if there was anything at all he could do. But when he finally keyed the door and let himself in, Hannibal was already asleep.
Face turned on the bathroom light and let it spill out into the room. Hannibal had pulled the black-out curtains. Fumbling, he found his bag and locked the bathroom door behind him.
The shower was total shit, one of those low-flow heads, but it took the smell and the salt off, and that was good enough for right now. He noticed a discarded threadbare towel on the floor. Wet footprints. Hannibal.
Face groaned, and leaned forward on one arm, biting his lip. He couldn't stop the sudden flood of images.
Hannibal, standing in the hot steam filling the little room, coming over, getting in with him, turning Face around and pressing his back against soap-slicked tile, murmuring to him as he trailed hard kisses along his jawline.
Face let his free hand slip to his chest, tracing and tugging at a nipple for a moment, then down to tangle in his pubic hair, brush down the length of his erection, run a thumb across the slit.
Hannibal was throwing a knee between Face’s, getting a bruising handful of hip and angling him out and back, off his feet, the touches hot in the hot air, a teasing finger along the underside of his balls, and a soft query as to the nature of that evening’s activities. In his mind's eye, Face nodded, and the finger moved back.
His hand was pumping now, hard, his lips holding back the little gasps as red twinges shot through him, radiating outwards, felt everywhere. Hannibal had a second finger in him, a soft nip to the ear, asking if he was ready, Face telling him he’d been ready since the day he’d reported in, Hannibal spreading his legs wider, lifting him.
Face came, hard, spilling into his hand and across the wall and into the warm, slow drizzle of water that passed over his shame, but couldn’t wash it away. There was his commander, someone he loved, sleeping outside, and he’d just jerked off to the thought of him. He felt sick.
Face shut off the shower and climbed out, a little unsteady. He dried off and dressed automatically, his flaccid cock inside the indifferent cotton briefs another unwanted reminder of what he’d just done.
It hit him, then, that this couldn’t be about sex. That’s why Hannibal had rebuffed him. Everything with him seemed to come down to that. This couldn’t. This was more important. This had to be more important. It had to be real.
Face switched off the light and let the steam roll out into the larger room. In the dry air, the wane clouds vanished immediately. He picked his way carefully over to his bed, the empty one, but it didn’t feel right, the moment he sat down. He looked over to Hannibal’s.
The aftershocks of his orgasm were still tingling in his extremities, and seemed to spark into life the second he touched Hannibal’s arm in the dark.
There was a hand on his wrist instantly, digging in, and a low growl of warning. That happened sometimes. Murdock had gotten punched once. Face laid his other over the top. “Hannibal, it’s me.”
That seemed to snap him out of it. “Face? Something wrong?”
And that would be Hannibal’s first question. His heart sank a little, but what had he been expecting? “Last night, what I said...”
“It can wait until morning,” Hannibal said, and turned over.
Face pulled him back. They couldn’t really see each other, but it still semed important that Hannibal could see him. “Can I sleep with you?” He just blurted it out, and was glad for the obscuring darkness. “Not like that, no, no, nothing like that. Sleep, that’s it.”
“Your own bed not soft enough, lieutenant?”
“Afraid of the dark, colonel.”
There was no response right away. Face despaired for a second, and heard the soft movement of blankets being pushed around, and there was a hand at his waist, pulling him down onto bare sheets, and an arm over him, tugging the cheap thermals back up.
Hannibal had scooted down to give Face his own side, and as soon as the conman got situated, he turned to face the opposite way. That’s not exactly what Face had wanted, but it was better than nothing. The sheets were warm from Hannibal’s body, and he felt the twist in his gut, and he willed himself to not get hard again. Anything but that.
“I must be an idiot,” Face heard Hannibal mutter to himself, and nothing more passed between them.
+++++
Face recognized two facts immediately upon waking the next morning.
He’d snuggled up against Hannibal in the night.
He had morning wood.
The former lieutenant cursed his luck and tried to roll away from Hannibal. That took all his willpower to even contemplate. He’d pressed in close, nose tucked against collarbone, one hand resting over the boss’s chest, a leg in between Hannibal’s. It was comfortable. It was perfect, the warmth and the smell, an oh-so-familiar musk overlaid with the faintest hint of cigar smoke and the desert heat.
But there it was, wedged against Hannibal’s hip, and Face knew couldn’t let the other man see this, feel this. This wasn’t supposed to be the driving factor here, and he couldn’t afford to let some bullshit biological function mess things up for him.
The colonel must have been a lighter sleeper than Face remembered, though, because as Face tried to roll away, Hannibal caught him, bringing them fully together from the waist up.
“Scared of the dark, huh, Face?”
Of course Hannibal would go for that. The younger man his eyes ad wondered if he could will his engorged member to settle down. The little friction between them was almost painful. “Sometimes it gets the better of me, boss,” Face replied, trying a grin and hoping that would work. “Thanks for letting me.”
“You needed your sleep,” Hannibal said carelessly, as if it meant nothing at all, and Face supposed it probably didn’t. Not now, anyway. He was going to change that. He was going to show Hannibal... “Are you alright down there, kid?”
The tone had shifted. Away from conversational. Figured. Shit. “Yeah, uh, you know how that happens, right?”
Hannibal pulled back a little, some unreadable thing lurking behind his eyes, and after a breathless second, moved back in. “You need some help with that?”
A hard, heavy hand brushed down the front of him, light over his underwear, and Face choked back a groan. It couldn’t be about this. That was the plan had been. Couldn’t be about this. No matter how much he wanted it. “No, no sir."
"Seems like you do."
"I’ll be, this, okay, this isn’t what I was asking for.”
That expression changed into a questioning look, Hannibal obviously unable to believe that. Face forced another grin and took the colonel’s hand away, feeling something inside rip as he did it. “I just wanted to sleep, boss, really.”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Hannibal announced, disentangling himself and pushing away. “You take care of that if you have to in,” and he pointed, “your bed.”
It wasn’t until after the bathroom door clicked shut that Face realized how he must have come across. He lay there for a minute more, listing out to himself all the ways he’d just been an idiot, and then went to find his pants.
+++++
The motel was nice enough, if nice was the right word, to have one of those hot breakfast bars. It wasn’t great, but they had an electric waffle iron. Murdock was pulling his third out of the machine when Face walked up and got himself a huge cup of coffee. Bitter and acidic. Seemed to fit.
“How’s it going, faceman?” Murdock asked, filling a cereal bowl up with syrup and stuffing at least ten butter packets into his pockets. “Sleep well?”
“Good enough, buddy. Where are we sitting?”
Murdock pointed and Face followed. They’d gotten a private table off in the corner, and it was still early enough so where the only other people who were up were business travelers. It wasn’t crowded.
BA hardly looked up from his paper as Face plopped down in the seat with a sigh. “Nothing to eat?”
“Here? Are you shitting me, Bosco?”
BA winced a little at the name and stole one of Murdock’s waffles. “Went that bad, huh?”
“I’ve done better,” Face said slowly. “Can’t say I’ve done much worse.”
Murdock leaned forward, using one of those stage whispers with BA. “You mean Hannibal finally tried to talk to Face?”
“Shut up, fool!”
“Oh, this is great,” Face said, letting his chair tilt up on the back legs. “My friends both knew about this before I did...”
“It’s not like it’s ever been a big secret,” Murdock said honestly, without a trace of the lunatic coming through. “Hannibal loves you.”
There was nothing much to say to that. “He didn’t try to talk to me.”
Murdock’s mouth got real big, and BA shook his head. Face took another sip of coffee. “But evidently, what I think about this doesn’t matter to him.”
"You're gonna have to give him some time, Face. Let him get used to the idea."
"Of what?"
Murdock and BA exchanged a look, and Murdock folded his hands on the table, next to the soggy plate of waffles. "Face, you are you, and..."
"And what?"
BA cuffed Murdock lightly. "What this idiot's tryin' to say is that we're here to help."
Despite himself, Face started laughing. "I thought you two would be pissed or something."
"Hell no. I'm sick of watching this crap year after year..."
"...I think it's kind of romantic..."
"...and if we gotta help you get it over with, then that's what we're going to do."
"Thanks," he said, feeling better despite himself. "But I'm not sure there's anything you can do."
"Give him some time. Hannibal's a serious man, Face," BA said.
"You, facey, not really."
That had gotten him laughing. Maybe he should eat something after all.
But the little sliver of hope brought on by the conversation shattered when Hannibal finally joined them. Not a word, not a glance, nothing. The meal was nothing but one long awkward pause after another, as Face desperately tried to get the older man to engage on something, anything, with no success. It was like Hannibal didn't realize he was there. The younger man finally gave up, and sat through the briefing, wooden.
The tension between him and Hannibal, between Murdock and BA as they watched it, was overwhelming. Face couldn't get out of there fast enough. And as he sweet-talked the desk clerk and a rental car company at the same time, Face promised himself that, above any other consideration, the mission was going to come first. Everything, everything, was going to go off without a hitch.
That's what it was all about, right? Hannibal would respect that, wouldn't he?
This job was going to be perfect.
Right?
Wrong.
It took Face exactly four days and the three hours of the drive south to realize this op was completely fucked. It wasn’t the client, who seemed fairly sincere and able to pay, and it wasn’t the plan, which was typically brilliant.
It was a bad feeling. Face couldn't quite put his finger on it.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the man’s property happened to lie close to the White Sands Missile Range. Or the creased landscape, treeless and stark, that reminded Face a little of Afghanistan.
“We can’t pull something here, boss,” Face told him and handed him back the binoculars. “The bases out here have to have regular patrols.”
“State troopers, local cops, FBI, we’ve beaten them before, Face.”
“Military police might be a little more interested in catching us, Hannibal.”
They were parked a little ways up the ranch’s road, using a rental car. There appeared to be a number of things wrong with the van, besides the air conditioning, and BA hadn't been able to get it fixed, even with Murdock's help. They’d been at it for days, leaving Hannibal and Face to do almost all of the leg work. Together. Alone.
It was nice to have friends.
“We’re going to be fine, kid,” Hannibal told him with a conviction that threatened to cut through all Face’s doubts. “It’s far enough away. We won’t have any issues.”
“You know it’s going to be Holloman Air Force Base that responds...”
“Face!” Hannibal snapped, throwing the truck into gear. “You are acting like an old woman. What’s wrong with you?”
And how was he supposed to put that into words, when he didn't even know himself? No good. Face stared out the window instead.
He’d been finding excuses to not use his own bed the last three nights. It’s uncomfortable, I found a cockroach, I don’t want to be alone. That last had drawn a little, uncertain smile from the colonel. But Face hadn’t snuggled in again, not consciously or while sleeping, and Hannibal hadn’t offered. Maybe that was it.
He heard the engine turn over. “I need you focused, Face.”
"I thought I'd been getting everything done."
"You have," Hannibal admitted. "Perfectly."
Normally, this was the part where Hannibal would ruffle his hair or punch his shoulder, something like that, and they'd exchange innocent barbs and have a good laugh. Instead, there was only dead air.
They’d always been close, their relationship always full of little touches and gestures and nudges, but Hannibal seemed to have forgotten that lately, too. It was driving Face crazy. He needed the contact. He needed to feel his skin against Hannibal’s, touch something living and warm and wanted.
Without really meaning to, he twisted around and leaned over the shifter, curling his hand against the colonel’s neck, drawing himself up and in. His lips brushed over the pulse point in Hannibal’s neck, and he let his head fall against the other man’s shoulder.
He even got to stay there for a long moment, the truck rumbling against the brakes, before Hannibal grabbed him firmly and pulled. There was an uncertainty in the colonel, the same expression he’d had for the last few days now, some unresolved emotion flickering inside those strong features and blue eyes.
“You really need to get laid, kid,” Hannibal finally said.
Face felt that rare sting inside him, the one that always precipitated into tears, and he pulled back to his window. Hannibal was watching the rain-rutted road anyway. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, you’re probably right about that.”
“How about we go out tonight, the team, like we used to? It’s Friday. There's a good bar area west of downtown...”
“Sounds good,” Face said without enthusiasm, and they started back up the road to go check out the ranch.
That little voice inside him keep insisting that something was very, very wrong. But Face couldn’t place the source of it, and decided it must be the fact that Hannibal, clearly, didn’t plan on letting him in. That was the worst thing he could think of. That's what had to be happening.
+++++
“If you want to go give it a whirl, Murdock, please, go.”
It was a Friday night, and it was a lively downtown, and it was an exceptional nice cowboy bar, a low, rambling place full of neon beer signs and wood-framed rodeo photographs. All the servers were in cowgirl boots and cut-off shorts that left nothing to the imagination. Drinks were a hell of a lot cheaper than in LA. And there was that mechnical bull in one corner, surrounded by a cheering mix of locals, college students and military. It was nice.
Face couldn’t stand it.
One of the girls at the table with them craned her head in the direction of the whooping crowd. There was an especially loud roar. “Somebody got thrown off,” she said. What was her name? Jessica? Jennifer? Face couldn’t remember.
“I’d like to give it a spin,” Murdock told her, and she giggled. Drunk. Definitely drunk
“You should go,” Face told him. “Seriously, dude. Go enjoy yourself.”
The other girl, whose name probably started with an N, smiled at the pilot. “What’s wrong with your friend?
“He needs some cheering up,” the pilot explained to the girls. “Temp here got a little drunk last week and embarrassed himself in front of the boss.”
“Ooh!” they both said at once.
Face banged his head down, making the collection of finished glasses jump a little.
“It’s okay,” Murdock said comfortingly. “You weren’t really that drunk.”
“That makes it worse, buddy,” Face said, sitting up and going for his jack and coke, because it seemed to make sense right now. Alcohol. Fixed anything, right? And the world had retreated a little, which was nice. Everything had faded to the background, the country music, the din of the crowd, lights, the details on those girls' faces. Everything a little dim and a little quiet.
But he still saw Hannibal clearly. Out of all the fogged chaos around them, there was Hannibal, walking towards them. His heart leaped a little, and then he remembered the long, hot silence between them in the car after the ranch, full of half-started conversations and nothing that mattered.
Alcohol. Not working.
“Hannibal!” Face said to the approaching man. “Good choice on the bar.”
“Having fun?” The tone was light, but the words still seemed sink like lead through Face’s thickening mood. There was all the booze. The girls. It looked bad. It looked typical. So much for sincerity.
Face forced himself to look Hannibal in the eye. He didn’t really wan to, didn’t want to see the disappointment. But the boss actually seemed happy, almost relieved.
Face could have died right there.
“Murdock, got you a number for the bull. BA’s waiting in line for you. I’ll walk over with you,” Hannibal said, and held out a little white ticker paper. The pilot practically leaped for it, only pausing to give Face a questioning look, asking if he was okay with this.
“You should go,” Face told him. Hannibal gave the girls another once-over, smirked, and led the captain away. Deliberately leaving him behind. Why did the man have to be so accommodating?
“That’s your boss?” one of the girls asked. He nodded, and she kept going. “He’s cute.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Face said evenly, staring after him.
“How’d you embarrass yourself?”
You lost him. The thought popped into his head and wouldn’t go away. It’d been a long week, his nerves were shot, and all he could hear in his in head was that quiet, unending mantra. Fuck that. He wasn’t built for this kind of abuse. Charisa had almost killed him, why did he want to go through that again? And this was going to be worse, was already worse. Hannibal hadn’t even left him yet, which he of course would sooner or later, everybody did, and this was already worse.
Face drained his glass and set it down hard. He smiled at Jessica, who smiled back. “Didn’t you say you lived pretty close to here?”
“We can walk, but it’s a rough neighborhood.”
“I think I can handle it,” he told her, offering her his hand and escorting her out. And after she’d started with her eager, unschooled kisses and he’d stripped her down and she’d asked about his tattoo and he’d fucked her into the mattress, and she’d fallen asleep, Face found himself in the predawn hours, in an unfamiliar bed, wondering.
Why was it so easy with her, but so impossible with Hannibal?
He found his pants and called a taxi.
The half hour ride was torture. Face couldn’t decide if Hannibal was going to be pissed or pleased. He wasn’t sure which one was going to be worse.
Turned out, he didn’t need to worry about, because when he got to the lobby, BA and Murdock were sitting around, coffee in hand, laughing and joking. That was a good sign. He wondered where Hannibal was.
Face got himself a cup and sat down. “How was the bull, Murdock?” he asked.
“Good, facey,” the pilot said, a note of expectation in the words.
BA wasn’t so patient. “Come on, fool, how was it?”
The girl? Face shrugged. “Honestly, I’ve had better,” and they were both staring at him with open mouths, “but she was pretty decent for a college chick...”
“Not Hannibal?”
He almost lost his mouthful of coffee out through his nose. It really hurt. “No, not, not Hannibal. Wait, what?”
“You didn’t leave with Hannibal last night?” BA asked somewhat urgently. “We thought...”
Murdock looked alarmed. “We thought he was with you.”
“No,” Face said, suddenly feeling defensive. “He just left to go do the bull thing and there were those girls...”
“Face, he just showed me where BA was and said he was gonna go rescue you from those sorority chicks...”
His ears felt hot, every inch of skin burning. He was such an idiot, such a fucking idiot, and he hated to ask, because he already knew what the answer was going to be.
“You're telling me, Hannibal's not here?"
Murdock shook his head.
"And we have no idea where Hannibal is?”
“None.”
And wasn't this just fucking perfect?
+++++
Hannibal was definitely missing. That was easy to determine. Figuring out where he was, wasn’t. Nobody on the team carried cell phones, except the prepaid ones and then only on an emergency basis only. They hadn’t been out here on a job before, so they didn’t have any established safehouses or contacts. There was nothing to start with. But that had never stopped Face before.
It took him eight phone calls, two favors, one bribe, his fake FBI badge, a number of miles on the odometer and six hours to figure out that the local police didn’t have the boss, in the morgue or in a cell. That was something. But it didn’t make Face feel any better.
“What the hell happened?” Face groaned. He couldn’t get the possibilities out of his head long enough to think them through. That Hannibal had vanished into a holding cell on Kirtland AFB. That Hannibal was dead out in the desert. That Hannibal had just decided to leave.
That he was really gone. Hannibal was gone. That he wasn't coming back.
Face couldn't get any further that that. It was making this difficult.
“Don’t matter,” BA said seriously. They were back at the hotel, Face laying back on the bed and BA munching the last hamburger on the sofa. Murdock was lost in some obsessive-compulsive fugue state or something, scanning through every page in the phone book. “We gotta find him.”
“I get that. But why is he gone? Fuck, why isn’t he back?”
“It’s been a weird week, Face,” BA pointed out and looked over at Murdock. “For all of us.”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t just wander off.”
“You took off last night.”
“Yeah, but...” Face stopped himself from adding that that was what he did. All the time. Constantly. To everyone on the team. To Hannibal.
How many nights had the boss sat up, wondering where Face had gone? How many mornings had he waited for him to show up, wondering if something had happened? How many times had Face walked away, some girl on his arm, leaving Hannibal just wondering?
The lieutenant felt shame well up in him, drawn up from some reservoir of regret he’d never known he’d had. Before the stake-out, he never would have believed it was there at all. Now, he was all too aware of it.
He tried to lock the onslaught of realization away, down below the surface, where things like that belonged. But he’d been doing that too long, far too long, without even realizing it, and whatever mechanism had facilitated that appeared to be broken. Or maybe it was worn out. Whatever it was, Face lost the battle with himself and he knew.
All those empty nights, spent with others, he’d spent alone, walking away from the only thing that might have filled him.
Utterly overwhelming, it flooded through him, gray and viscous and gumming, so Face didn’t realize he was crying until Murdock reached a hand up and told him to stop.
“It’s okay, faceman.”
“No, Murdock, I think I really fucked up this time...”
“It’s okay,” Murdock insisted, and dumped the open phone book in his lap. “Remember her?”
Face looked down at the name. It wasn't good, it was the opposite of good, but it was worth a try. Bingo. “Do you believe in consequences, Bosco?” he asked, and tossed the other man the book.
The big man looked slightly uncomfortable, opening to the dog-eared page, but retrieved the van keys from under a cushion anyway. “We should probably go pay her a visit.”
+++++
BA made Face stay there. In his room. With the phonebook. Alone. Something about not wanting to see Face punch out a woman.
And the conman did recognize the name. Hannibal had never had anybody long term, but this major, she’d lasted longer than most. And she’d been older. She’d be past her twenty years retirement mark now, she’d be a civilian, she’d be working at a civilian hospital or something. It was possible that she’d ended up in New Mexico. She’d talked about it.
Face waited three minutes before calling the number. Things were never that convenient. Things couldn’t be that convenient. Her? Here? Running into Hannibal? He couldn’t accept it.
But it was definitely that woman who picked up the phone. “Hello?” And she sounded sleepy.
Slamming the receiver back down in its cradle, Face didn’t really know what to do. His brain felt as if it’d been bubble-wrapped. Nothing was getting through. Nothing was making any kind of impression at the moment.
Face was at a complete loss. He needed something to hang on to, but there was nothing. Murdock and BA were going to check out Hannibal’s old fuck-buddy. He was stuck here, in some motel, without a car and without any leads. The client wasn’t expecting them until tomorrow. His socks were still mostly organized in his bag over in the corner. Nothing to do. Face didn’t like the way that rubbed against his exhausted brain, heavy and abrasive, sandpaper across the surface of his thoughts in the silence of the empty room.
There was nothing to be done about Hannibal.
Alcohol was leeching from his pores, he hadn’t changed his clothes since yesterday, and the smell of that girl’s cheap perfume was still in his nostrils, so Face decided to do the only sensible thing he could, which was take a shower and see what turned up.
The first part of that plan was adequate, the scalding water not really hot enough, the soap a human rights violation, but all of it adequate.
The second part, however, where Face came out of the bathroom and saw what turned up, was a little more difficult to define properly.
Hannibal was there, right there, sitting in the room, smoking a cigar next to the half open window and flipping through stills on a digital camera.
What the hell was Face supposed to do with that?
+++++
Face didn’t really trust himself to speak, so he dragged himself over to the other chair at the table and sat down. Hard. His vision was practically swimming, although that could have been the exhaustion or the hot shower, or any of a number of things that had nothing to do with Hannibal being here.
The older man looked at him with a faint air of amusement. “How was your night, lieutenant?”
“Fucking horrible.”
“That’s what you get for playing around with the college...”
“Is that how we’re going to play this?” Face demanded.
“Play what?”
“Where the hell were you?”
Hannibal actually looked surprised, as if he had no idea what the younger man was talking about, and Face had never wanted to walk out on anybody more than he did right now. Slam the door on his way. Make it very dramatic.
Then Hannibal taped the ash off the end of his cigar just so, and he only did that, like that, on rare, rare occasions. “I was out, kid,” came the soft reply, just a little on edge, and Face had a crazy thought that maybe Hannibal had needed the time to think. But Hannibal always knew what he was about. Hannibal wouldn't need time to think. Wouldn't have needed to think about him.
“For eleven fucking hours?”
“Working on the job.”
“Not with your old fuck buddy from Fort Benning?” Face let the phone book fall hard on the table, open to the dog-eared page.
“Oh, look at that, she did retire here.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Hannibal.”
“Face, you’re turning into a fifteen year old girl. You know that?” Hannibal said with that weary colonel voice he used sometimes, and shut the phone book. “I was done with her years ago. Why am I looking at this?”
"Murdock..." Murdock. Murdock. He’d just been trying to help, and Face hadn’t thought it through.
"Where are they?"
"Looking for you."
"You let them go off by themselves, Face?"
“You were gone, and we didn’t know...”
Hannibal just looked pissed, and that was exactly the reaction Face didn't want. “Stop talking and listen. I wanted to double check on something. Had to be done last night. Came back, grabbed a car, went out.”
“And you didn’t tell us.”
“Didn’t tell us? Or didn’t tell you, Face?”
“Fine. Didn’t tell me,” the conman replied quietly, and buried his head in his hands.
“You were busy,” Hannibal practically growled, and bit down, hard, worrying the end of the cigar with flat molars. “And this shit with the phone book... Face, you’ve been weird for the last week. What's going on?”
“Since Page.”
“Is that was this is about?” Hannibal said with a slight laugh. “Face, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You were drunk. You were really, really drunk.”
Face couldn’t do this. He was too exposed, reeling from the morning and lack of sleep, suddenly aware that he was in nothing but a towel. He hadn’t even bothered to dry off all the way. And here was his boss, giving him a pass for the one thing he desperately needed some understanding on. Could the floor open up and swallow him? Could he just drop dead? Was that possible?
“I wasn’t that drunk,” Face muttered. “I wasn’t drunk at all.”
His heart was pounding in his ears. Hannibal didn’t say anything at all. And finally, as if from a great distance, he heard the muffled sound of a chair dragging through carpet, and hard, hot hands closed down around his wrists, insistent.
“Leave me alone, Hannibal.”
“Look at me, lieutenant.”
He didn’t want to see what was there. Whatever disappointment or uncertainty or frustration or whatever was going to be in Hannibal’s face. But the hands, the voice, the man himself, wasn’t anything Face had the energy to disobey right then, so he lifted his eyes, terrified, and there must have been something there, because Hannibal...
“Oh, kid.” Hannibal’s words carried a world of meaning, and he moved forward in the chair, a little closer, until their knees were almost touching. A hand was on Face’s shoulder. “Face, I’m sorry.”
And the lieutenant had never heard those three words, in that sequence, from Hannibal before. The novelty alone was enough to break through the miserable fog that had settled into his brain.
“What?”
“I said, I’m sorry.”
“No, boss, it wasn’t anything I should have told you, drunk or not.”
Hannibal did that growling thing again, and then he was brushing the stubble on Face’s cheek, the contact sending sudden shivers through him. “No, you shouldn’t have played it off. You need to trust yourself, kid.” His voice drops. “You need to trust me. Do you trust me, Face?”
A dozen answer flit through Face’s fading thoughts. With my life. With everything I have and ever would. I’d follow you to hell, sir. You’re the only one. I never knew before.
But it all sounded too ridiculous in his head, stuff you’d read in one of those grocery-store magazines. Hannibal would laugh and call him a girl again. “You’re not mad I lied to you?”
“Furious.”
“I know, boss, you’ve told me not to scam the team, totally messed that one up here...”
“No way of knowing where I stood with you,” Hannibal interrupted, cutting off the half-senseless babble. Face tried to ignore the swelling emotion in his chest. He was not going to cry. Hannibal’s fingers were moving softly. Down his jaw, along his bare chest, raising goosebumps threatening to undo him completely. “Didn’t know if you were being flippant with me this whole time, if you wanted a release, if you meant it...”
“I meant it, Hannibal,” Face panted, noticing his heart was racing just a little bit, like he’d just started a run and blood flow hadn’t quite gotten up to where it needed to be. The last few hours were definitely catching up to him, relief drowning out the stress, the sheer weight of it lifting and leaving him a tired husk. But he wanted this, he wanted to feel this, and although it took a conscious effort, Face kept himself awake.
“I know, kid.”
The first kiss was light, questioning and chaste. Closed lips touched lightly to his, and even through the closing window of consciousness, Face could feel Hannibal’s uncertainty. Little clenches, small recoils. Had to stop it. Had to let him know.
He struggled to right himself, lifted forward a little, and then he was leaning over Hannibal, half out of the chair, gripping the table for support with one hand and settling the other between them as he fought urgently for entrance.
To Face’s surprise, Hannibal leaned back, letting the younger man explore his mouth. Tentative at first, the older man let the kiss deepen, his CO groaning as his body fought for breath against the onslaught. Before Face knew what he was doing, he was straddling Hannibal’s legs, hand roaming freely, the towel fallen to the floor, tasting the smoke still left on his lips, feeling the strain lessen, watching the man he loved open up beneath him.
"Should have done this years ago." Face wasn't entirely sure who said it.
Hannibal picked Face up as if he weighed nothing at all, turned around and dropped them both on the bed. He pulled back and when he came back, his shirt was gone, and he and his talented mouth started a long, leisurely expedition downwards.
Face was lost in the sensation. Warm sunlight from the window, the previously exposed blanket radiating the heat under his back, Hannibal’s skin sliding slowly across his, hot and tight and glorious. It was perfect, he thought, and everything faded into a beautiful oblivion.
+++++
He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until the light touch woke him up. He was under the sheets now, the corded muscle of his CO’s arms easy around him, reassuring and comfortable. Like they’d always been here. He should have done this years ago.
Face moaned a little and turned, staring right into a pair of sleepy blue eyes. “You okay, kid?”
“Just tired,” he yawned. “Murdock and BA back yet?”
“They called. Be back in an hour or so. Said they had a really fun time at her house.”
“I bet she made them lattes.”
“Woman always was obsessed with that appliance,” Hannibal said, and tried to pull away.
Face just twisted around, so they were chest to chest. The boss had stripped down to his boxers, and Face could feel everything of the older man. “She wasn’t good enough for you.” He ran his fingers through the light salt and pepper hair across Hannibal’s still-toned pecs, catching a hard nipple and drawing a slight gasp. “None of them ever were.”
“You’re one to talk. Watching you go off, night after night, almost more than a man can take, Face. That’s going to stop.”
Face shivered at the possessive tone in his lover’s words. “Only if you keep me satisfied, sweetheart,” he teased.
“You don’t think I’m up to the task?” Hannibal asked archly, and Face just grinned. “Arrogant little brat.”
“Old fogey.”
“Insolent kid.”
“Geriatric geezer,” Face said, and settled his chin against Hannibal’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling. Who ever could have guessed? “How’s this going to work, boss?”
“I’ll figure it out, Face.”
“I’m sorry I lied.”
“I know, kid.”
“No...”
“I mean, I knew you were lying. Figured I’d let you take things at your own pace. Let you work this one out,” Hannibal murmured in his ear. “My thinking was to just jump you, right there in that bar.”
“Oh, goddamn it, Hannibal...”
“Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we need to get going.”
Hannibal always had the best plans. Face decided, right then and there, he wouldn’t be making any more himself for a long, long time.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
I'd like to see something post-movie, with Face realising he's (always been?) in love with Hannibal. He stops hitting on random people, but it takes him ages to get his courage up to approach Hannibal.
But from Hannibal's point of view, Face hasn't scored in a while and is now propositioning him as a last resort. Cue Face having to prove himself, and insecure Hannibal slowly letting his guard down. Bonus points if Face recruits Murdock and BA to help his cause!
Face realizes he’s in love with Hannibal and tries to do something about it, but of course, he bungles the whole thing and it all spins off-balance.
Everything changed, the day Face came to his big realization about Hannibal Smith.
It wasn’t anything huge, not one of those earth-shattering events some people liked to talk about on bad daytime TV or write about in bargain-store tell-alls. No, it was the opposite of huge. Small. Very small. Without significance in the grand plan of the universe. Nobody else would have cared about it at all.
It was early morning on one of Hannibal’s jobs, one of those new and slightly insane jobs they seemed to be picking up over the last few months. They were up in an abandoned ranger station in Arizona strip country, a boarded-up, disintegrating mess, watching a certain road for a certain truck.
The stake-out had been going on for days, and tedium was turning into sheer frustration for the entire team. Too many of the same old stories. Too much time to fill with thoughts.
Face disliked spending that much time in his own head. It was uncomfortable. It brought up all manner of unwanted things. Like Hannibal. But he really didn’t want to think about the boss right now. He needed to pee.
The conman roused himself from his sleeping bag and bare floorboards at the far back end of the old timber building. It was dawn, or near enough, and the place was cast all in pale gray light that made everything look the same. He tiptoed towards the back porch, careful not to wake Murdock and BA, asleep in their bedrolls spread out on ancient sofas.
Hannibal was outside. The Arizona sun was low on the horizon, and it was still cold. The land here was a maze of red rock and scrubby junipers, broken only by the occasional granite boulder and little threading stream. The road they were watching ran through that, sometimes visible, sometimes not. The boss had his back to the door, and didn’t turn as Face threw him a casual hello.
“Sleep well, kid?”
“Sure, dad,” Face said now, drawing out on the last word jokingly as he moved over to the edge of the encircling patio and unzipped his pants. The plumbing was useless. “You were supposed to trade me at midnight.”
“You needed your sleep.”
“How was the evening?”
“Long, boring, uneventful.”
“No luck?” Face shook off a little as he finished and tucked himself back into the pants he’d been wearing for four days. “That truck’s got to be coming through here sooner or later.”
“We’re not exactly working with the good intel anymore, Face.”
“I know, boss, but I scammed us this info myself,” Face replied, sitting down next to the boss, letting his legs hang over the edge, blinking into the sunrise.
Hannibal bumped his shoulder with a closed fist, smiling now. “Then it has to be good, right, kid?”
“Exactly, boss,” Face laughed, those thoughts spreading out across him like an oil slick. The colonel, Hannibal, was the first person who ever believed in him. The only person, it seemed sometimes. BA liked him and Murdock looked up to him, but Hannibal trusted him. Hannibal pushed him, praised him, made him a better man. All the years...
Goddamn thoughts. He hated those thoughts. They must go away. “Boss, this sucks. Why couldn’t we just get these guys at origin or destination?”
“Your intel, Face.”
“Your plan, Hannibal.”
The sun rose a little higher, pulling itself above the horizon and into the sky, while the two men sat there. Face felt like there was something he be saying, something terribly important, something that was just out of reach but coming closer, when Hannibal nudged him with something hard and cold.
It was his Baretta. The thing was gleaming, muzzle to hammer. Had Hannibal taken it apart and cleaned it for him?
“I took a look at your sidearm last night, kid. Jammed up...”
“... in our last firefight in Nogales, yeah, thanks,” Face said and meant it. He really wanted to say something. What was it? "You didn't need to do this." That wasn't what he wanted to say, but it was still true.
Hannibal shrugged. “It was a long night.”
The boss had cleaned his gun. The boss had actually done that. The boss had done that for him.
But, stealing another look at the colonel made Face's heart seize up.
Not even an admonishment about proper weapon care? No sarcastic quip? What was going on? Was Hannibal really that worn out? Had these last few months been that hard on him? He did look exhausted, his eyes creased more than they had been, his skin a little more gray, the wear of thing beginning to show. Why hadn't Face seen that before?
It was a completely foreign concept to him, Face was forced to admit to himself. Hannibal had always been so strong, so permanent a fixture in Face’s life, he'd never considered that the man might feel human weaknesses like the rest of them. Finding out the man had worries and fears and misgivings would be a little like it had been when the nuns had told him his mother wasn’t coming back. It would be the end of something.
And Face didn't want to see the end of this.
That thing, those words, whatever it was he wanted to say was welling up inside him now, fighting for space inside his skin, pressure mounting, like he’d seam and burst and it would all come spilling out. Face shut his eyes. What was it?
“Face...”
Then he knew, and he fumbled the gun he’d almost forgotten he was holding and Hannibal’s hand was on his, steadying him, making him feel light. “Hannibal,” he said, the words rushing faster through his head than his tongue could get them into line, “Hannibal, I gotta tell you...”
“Face!”
“What, Hannibal?”
Face opened his eyes. The boss was pointing at the road. A column of dust was rising from it. “Showtime, kid.”
“I’ll get them up,” Face said, jumping up and running inside. He paused for a second, though, just inside the door and let himself sag.
The opportunity was gone, but he knew now what it was he wanted to say, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it, not right now. Maybe not ever, if he was really honest with himself.
But there, in the stillness of the station house, he knew exactly what it was and nothing, nothing was going to make it better or make it go away.
He was in love with Hannibal.
It was as simple as that.
+++++
Nothing was different at all, Face reflected at the bar a week later.
It didn’t change anything at first. They still had to go blow up the track and menace the company and get their client his diamonds back and get paid and get the hell out of this weird little slice of America and find a place, preferably with working showers and unobtrusive staff, to spend the next night or two. That all had to be done, and Face got it done.
They’d gotten stuck in Page. That wasn’t part of the plan. It was the largest town around, the only place of any consequence at all in Navajo country. It marked exactly the distance BA’s van had covered before breaking down. The mechanics still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Murdock had gone nuts over margaritas in the hotel bar and there was a swimming pool, so it wasn’t too bad.
Face still felt horrible, though, as if he was constantly on the edge of throwing up. Sensation had gone dull, everything processing through his brain in monochromatic blues. Nothing tasted good, nothing felt soft. It was very strange.
He was pretty sure there was a fix. Face hadn’t said anything to Hannibal about that morning. Not about loving him, anyway. He’d thanked him again for the gun, real casual, as they were shooting out tires, but that was it. Men didn’t discuss things like that, like this. Men did not tell their commanding officer that they were in love with him.
There was a girl down the counter, watching him over half-finished lowballs and sweating beers, red lips playing with an olive.
“She’s a looker, Face,” Hannibal said, taking the stool next to him, on the side away from the girl. He stole a look over the lieutenant’s shoulder.
“She’s just looking at me,” Face grumbled, still nursing his first margarita of the night, now almost completely diluted by melting ice. “That’s all that’s going on, Hannibal. Don’t worry,” and he jabbed a finger in the general direction of Hannibal’s chest, “I am not thinking with my dick right now.”
Hannibal looked at the girl again and sighed. He put his beer down. “Maybe you should, kid.”
“What?”
“How long’s it been?” Hannibal asked, using that colonel tone of his. Paternal. Interested. Fucking nice. Face hated it. “And you’re turning down a perfectly good offer?”
“Probably got herpes,” Face replied, and that was a lot meaner than what he’d normally say. “Definitely looks like the type.”
“What’s gotten into you lately, lieutenant?” And now Hannibal was using the other colonel tone. Authoritative. Angry. “You’ve been off your game...”
Face waved his glass around. “There is no game here, sir.”
“Still,” and they both noticed the girl was gone now, “she was interested.”
“Why are you so concerned with who I sleep with?” Even the little bit of alcohol was agitating through his already confused thoughts and he hated the implication in Hannibal’s words. Tequila was an angry spirit, urging him to go for it. “I don’t need to go get fucked, Hannibal.”
The boss was just staring at him.
“Okay, if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you do it?”
“Fuck you?” Hannibal asked, his voice dipping into a low timbre that reverberated through Face’s spine. Why had he never noticed that before?
“Yes, sir, if you don’t think I’m getting enough.” Face could have kicked himself the moment the words left his mouth. “If you’re worried.”
“I didn’t say that, kid.”
“I’d let you,” Face said into his drink. “I wish you would, boss.”
Hannibal clenched, fists balling on the bar top. “How many is that?”
The older man was asking about his drink. Face looked at the glass, feeling his stomach sink. This wasn’t good at all. He could be such an idiot, coming at it like this was about drunken sex. Better to let everyone keep some dignity at this point. “Five,” he lied.
“I think you’ve had enough kid,” he said, making a decision, and wrapped a strong arm around Face’s shoulders and pulled his to his feet. “Let’s get you back to the room.”
The lieutenant shuddered a little at the feel of the arm through his shirt, and let Hannibal lead him out of the bar. He was losing him here, he could tell. The colonel would just slip away from him, further and further out of reach, lost to some current forever, if he didn’t man up and do something.
Men could still show their feelings, right?
Face dug in his heels and stopped the forward momentum against low-pile carpet. He twisted his way back around and grabbed Hannibal’s collar with a needy hand. The colonel looked ready to punch him, but then something passed over his eyes and he loosened his grip, just a little.
“Face?”
But Face already had his lips where he wanted them, a quick steal of a kiss, a light brush across the other man’s mouth without a hint of teeth. He pressed his face into Hannibal’s chest. What did he need to do, to say, for Hannibal to let him in? “Please, Hannibal. I need you...”
Hannibal pushed Face back, eyes dark, and then laughed. “Tequila’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it, lieutenant?”
And, as Hannibal practically tossed him into the room that he was sharing with Murdock, Face had to agree. No more tequila for a while. He wasn't going to have time.
He was going to have to prove himself to this man.
+++++
Their next job was in Albuquerque, which made Face think that Hannibal was desperate, or had some master plan the rest of them weren’t in on. The conman hoped it was the latter, because New Mexico was lousy with military installations. Large, highly secure military installations. They'd been trying to avoid those.
The drive was long, hot and uncomfortable. BA had managed to get the van working, but not the air conditioning or the radio, and the only good thing to be said about that was at least it wasn’t July.
Face spent the too-long ride curled up in the back, the others leaving him alone. He stayed in the van during Murdock’s pit stops and detours. He was faking a hang-over, thoroughness ever a part of his professional ethos. Hung-over Face would have had no patience for fake dinosaurs and UFO mock-ups at gas stations.
It gave him time to consider his options, and the former lieutenant was drawing a complete blank on what, exactly, those were. He knew how to seduce, to flatter and wheedle and promise. He had no idea how to win somebody over. Especially not somebody like Hannibal.
It wasn’t as if he had an example to go off of. Face had never seen Hannibal in a long-term relationship, female or male. He’d never thought it odd. The colonel had always been devoted to the Army, first and foremost, to the Rangers and the command and the mission and the men.
Most women couldn’t handle the extra baggage that came with spec ops guys. Long hours, longer deployments. Strange scars. Too many things seen, too many things done, too many things that had to remain unsaid. It was rare to find a woman who could handle it. That’s one of the reasons Face had loved Charisa so fiercely. He’d thought she’d understood. Maybe she had, a little too much.
Hannibal had never had a Charisa, Face knew. But it wasn't like the man was asexual.
It was sometimes easier, even with the insane policies in place, to get what one needed from the other guys. They all understood, they all knew the score, and nobody ever talked about it. Face had done it, every once in a while, in some forward base with no comforts and no release from the horror of day to day ops. Hell, he knew first-hand they all had. They just never talked about it.
They never talked about anything important.
The van had stopped. Great. Hannibal cracked the back door. The light was blinding. “Rise and shine, Face. Still alive back here?”
“Where the hell are we?” He was hung-over, so he groaned. The world outside was blasted, sick grays and twisted rock. Face wondered if his mood was affecting his vision somehow. “Fucking Mordor?”
The pilot popped up around the corner of the door. “Face,” he said in that perfectly reasonable tone of voice that always preceded the crazy, “You know we’d have to be going south to go there.”
“Yeah, that’s right, buddy,” Face said, sitting up and blinking a few times, trying to clear his thought. He might have been faking a hang-over, but the yellowed, knawing pain in his gut was real. It had been there ever since the station. There was no getting rid of it. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to run. He wanted to wrap his hands under Hannibal’s sweat-soaked t-shirt and... “They probably don’t sell Indian jewelry there either. So, where...”
“It’s the Four Corners,” BA grumbled and nodded over to the concrete monument. A pack of fat, giggling tourists from Oklahoma were standing up there, holding hands as somebody else snapped a photo of them standing in four different states. “Guess what that crazy ass fool wants us to do?”
“Let’s go, kid,” Hannibal smirked.
And how fortunate. Face didn’t even have to fake the groan as Murdock pulled him from the van.
+++++
Murdock had stretched a seven hour drive into a fourteen. It was amazing how the pilot had the ability to do something like that, in May, in a fucking desert, and none of them were angry with him.
Around Farmington, Face had decided he’d better pick himself up and do something. Find an eighty percent solution and go with it for the time being. Sitting up was a start. Getting back in on the conversation, a lively mix of mission, memories and UFO hunting procedures, was a good next step. By the time the sun had set and they’d rolled into their motel, Face still had nothing.
Hannibal had the client met them at some divey little place out by the interstate. The paint on the walls was peeling, but the chili was good and the client seemed genuinely grateful. He was outlining a problem pertaining to water rights and ranchland and rival biker gangs. Hannibal looked downright intrigued, and that was good enough for Face. They promised to meet up with him in a few days and left.
They only had two rooms for the night, and it wasn’t until they were on their way back to the motel that Face remembered that it was BA’s turn to room with Murdock. That meant he was rooming with Hannibal.
He hung back at the van as Murdock went to go find a vending machine, watching Hannibal make a beeline for the room. Probably wanted a shower, Face thought, hoping the boss wasn’t just trying to get away from him. He’d probably embarrassed the man, coming onto him like that, drunk or otherwise. BA was tinkering with the a/c unit, alternating between growling curses and murmuring endearments to the vehicle as he worked. The big man didn’t seem to notice Face standing there, so Face cleared his throat loudly.
“That’s really the way you wanna start this, Face?” BA asked without looking up. "Little basic for you."
“Start what?”
“Hand me a screwdriver, will ya?”
Wordlessly, Face fished it out of the box on by the front left wheel, and BA did a little salute thing when he took it. He wanted to tell the big man that the parking lot at almost midnight was no place to be doing this. But it wasn’t a great place for a conversation, either, and here they were. “There something wrong with you, Face. You haven’t been right since the stake-out.”
“Yeah.”
“So? What did you want to ask me?”
“Can I room with Murdock tonight?” The words came out in a tumble. Face knew exactly how suspicious it sounded. “I mean, I know how much you hate it and you did all the driving today, and I know I spent the whole ride...”
“Don’t you ever lie to me, Face,” the big man said, pulling out of the engine block and facing the conman, arms crossed.
“I’m not lying.”
“Bullshit.”
Face struggled not to break down. “I just, I can’t... I can’t room with the boss tonight, BA. Please.”
BA nodded, digesting, and went back to the van. “You figured it out?”
“Figured what out?”
“The boss. He said something, didn’t he?”
And that was unexpected, so Face went with it. “What do you know about it?”
“First time I met the guy, he shot me. To save you. Some punk-ass lieutenant balls-deep in a stack of tires.” BA started laughing.
“I was his lieutenant. You know how commanders get,” Face said, giving voice to a thought he’d been having all day. It was even sadder said aloud. But something was expanding inside his chest now, choking the air from his lungs. It was making it hard to think.
“Murdock and I, we’re his men. But you, that’s a whole different story. You’re his boy, Face. Saw it the second he pulled you into my van. Ain’t no friend you go through all that for.”
“BA...”
“This is me doing you a favor, man. Go deal with it and leave me 'lone. Need to get this fixed.”
That was it. Conversation over.
Face slunk into the motel, and lingered for a moment outside the room, fingering the plastic key, wondering what he could say, what he should say, if there was anything at all he could do. But when he finally keyed the door and let himself in, Hannibal was already asleep.
Face turned on the bathroom light and let it spill out into the room. Hannibal had pulled the black-out curtains. Fumbling, he found his bag and locked the bathroom door behind him.
The shower was total shit, one of those low-flow heads, but it took the smell and the salt off, and that was good enough for right now. He noticed a discarded threadbare towel on the floor. Wet footprints. Hannibal.
Face groaned, and leaned forward on one arm, biting his lip. He couldn't stop the sudden flood of images.
Hannibal, standing in the hot steam filling the little room, coming over, getting in with him, turning Face around and pressing his back against soap-slicked tile, murmuring to him as he trailed hard kisses along his jawline.
Face let his free hand slip to his chest, tracing and tugging at a nipple for a moment, then down to tangle in his pubic hair, brush down the length of his erection, run a thumb across the slit.
Hannibal was throwing a knee between Face’s, getting a bruising handful of hip and angling him out and back, off his feet, the touches hot in the hot air, a teasing finger along the underside of his balls, and a soft query as to the nature of that evening’s activities. In his mind's eye, Face nodded, and the finger moved back.
His hand was pumping now, hard, his lips holding back the little gasps as red twinges shot through him, radiating outwards, felt everywhere. Hannibal had a second finger in him, a soft nip to the ear, asking if he was ready, Face telling him he’d been ready since the day he’d reported in, Hannibal spreading his legs wider, lifting him.
Face came, hard, spilling into his hand and across the wall and into the warm, slow drizzle of water that passed over his shame, but couldn’t wash it away. There was his commander, someone he loved, sleeping outside, and he’d just jerked off to the thought of him. He felt sick.
Face shut off the shower and climbed out, a little unsteady. He dried off and dressed automatically, his flaccid cock inside the indifferent cotton briefs another unwanted reminder of what he’d just done.
It hit him, then, that this couldn’t be about sex. That’s why Hannibal had rebuffed him. Everything with him seemed to come down to that. This couldn’t. This was more important. This had to be more important. It had to be real.
Face switched off the light and let the steam roll out into the larger room. In the dry air, the wane clouds vanished immediately. He picked his way carefully over to his bed, the empty one, but it didn’t feel right, the moment he sat down. He looked over to Hannibal’s.
The aftershocks of his orgasm were still tingling in his extremities, and seemed to spark into life the second he touched Hannibal’s arm in the dark.
There was a hand on his wrist instantly, digging in, and a low growl of warning. That happened sometimes. Murdock had gotten punched once. Face laid his other over the top. “Hannibal, it’s me.”
That seemed to snap him out of it. “Face? Something wrong?”
And that would be Hannibal’s first question. His heart sank a little, but what had he been expecting? “Last night, what I said...”
“It can wait until morning,” Hannibal said, and turned over.
Face pulled him back. They couldn’t really see each other, but it still semed important that Hannibal could see him. “Can I sleep with you?” He just blurted it out, and was glad for the obscuring darkness. “Not like that, no, no, nothing like that. Sleep, that’s it.”
“Your own bed not soft enough, lieutenant?”
“Afraid of the dark, colonel.”
There was no response right away. Face despaired for a second, and heard the soft movement of blankets being pushed around, and there was a hand at his waist, pulling him down onto bare sheets, and an arm over him, tugging the cheap thermals back up.
Hannibal had scooted down to give Face his own side, and as soon as the conman got situated, he turned to face the opposite way. That’s not exactly what Face had wanted, but it was better than nothing. The sheets were warm from Hannibal’s body, and he felt the twist in his gut, and he willed himself to not get hard again. Anything but that.
“I must be an idiot,” Face heard Hannibal mutter to himself, and nothing more passed between them.
+++++
Face recognized two facts immediately upon waking the next morning.
He’d snuggled up against Hannibal in the night.
He had morning wood.
The former lieutenant cursed his luck and tried to roll away from Hannibal. That took all his willpower to even contemplate. He’d pressed in close, nose tucked against collarbone, one hand resting over the boss’s chest, a leg in between Hannibal’s. It was comfortable. It was perfect, the warmth and the smell, an oh-so-familiar musk overlaid with the faintest hint of cigar smoke and the desert heat.
But there it was, wedged against Hannibal’s hip, and Face knew couldn’t let the other man see this, feel this. This wasn’t supposed to be the driving factor here, and he couldn’t afford to let some bullshit biological function mess things up for him.
The colonel must have been a lighter sleeper than Face remembered, though, because as Face tried to roll away, Hannibal caught him, bringing them fully together from the waist up.
“Scared of the dark, huh, Face?”
Of course Hannibal would go for that. The younger man his eyes ad wondered if he could will his engorged member to settle down. The little friction between them was almost painful. “Sometimes it gets the better of me, boss,” Face replied, trying a grin and hoping that would work. “Thanks for letting me.”
“You needed your sleep,” Hannibal said carelessly, as if it meant nothing at all, and Face supposed it probably didn’t. Not now, anyway. He was going to change that. He was going to show Hannibal... “Are you alright down there, kid?”
The tone had shifted. Away from conversational. Figured. Shit. “Yeah, uh, you know how that happens, right?”
Hannibal pulled back a little, some unreadable thing lurking behind his eyes, and after a breathless second, moved back in. “You need some help with that?”
A hard, heavy hand brushed down the front of him, light over his underwear, and Face choked back a groan. It couldn’t be about this. That was the plan had been. Couldn’t be about this. No matter how much he wanted it. “No, no sir."
"Seems like you do."
"I’ll be, this, okay, this isn’t what I was asking for.”
That expression changed into a questioning look, Hannibal obviously unable to believe that. Face forced another grin and took the colonel’s hand away, feeling something inside rip as he did it. “I just wanted to sleep, boss, really.”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Hannibal announced, disentangling himself and pushing away. “You take care of that if you have to in,” and he pointed, “your bed.”
It wasn’t until after the bathroom door clicked shut that Face realized how he must have come across. He lay there for a minute more, listing out to himself all the ways he’d just been an idiot, and then went to find his pants.
+++++
The motel was nice enough, if nice was the right word, to have one of those hot breakfast bars. It wasn’t great, but they had an electric waffle iron. Murdock was pulling his third out of the machine when Face walked up and got himself a huge cup of coffee. Bitter and acidic. Seemed to fit.
“How’s it going, faceman?” Murdock asked, filling a cereal bowl up with syrup and stuffing at least ten butter packets into his pockets. “Sleep well?”
“Good enough, buddy. Where are we sitting?”
Murdock pointed and Face followed. They’d gotten a private table off in the corner, and it was still early enough so where the only other people who were up were business travelers. It wasn’t crowded.
BA hardly looked up from his paper as Face plopped down in the seat with a sigh. “Nothing to eat?”
“Here? Are you shitting me, Bosco?”
BA winced a little at the name and stole one of Murdock’s waffles. “Went that bad, huh?”
“I’ve done better,” Face said slowly. “Can’t say I’ve done much worse.”
Murdock leaned forward, using one of those stage whispers with BA. “You mean Hannibal finally tried to talk to Face?”
“Shut up, fool!”
“Oh, this is great,” Face said, letting his chair tilt up on the back legs. “My friends both knew about this before I did...”
“It’s not like it’s ever been a big secret,” Murdock said honestly, without a trace of the lunatic coming through. “Hannibal loves you.”
There was nothing much to say to that. “He didn’t try to talk to me.”
Murdock’s mouth got real big, and BA shook his head. Face took another sip of coffee. “But evidently, what I think about this doesn’t matter to him.”
"You're gonna have to give him some time, Face. Let him get used to the idea."
"Of what?"
Murdock and BA exchanged a look, and Murdock folded his hands on the table, next to the soggy plate of waffles. "Face, you are you, and..."
"And what?"
BA cuffed Murdock lightly. "What this idiot's tryin' to say is that we're here to help."
Despite himself, Face started laughing. "I thought you two would be pissed or something."
"Hell no. I'm sick of watching this crap year after year..."
"...I think it's kind of romantic..."
"...and if we gotta help you get it over with, then that's what we're going to do."
"Thanks," he said, feeling better despite himself. "But I'm not sure there's anything you can do."
"Give him some time. Hannibal's a serious man, Face," BA said.
"You, facey, not really."
That had gotten him laughing. Maybe he should eat something after all.
But the little sliver of hope brought on by the conversation shattered when Hannibal finally joined them. Not a word, not a glance, nothing. The meal was nothing but one long awkward pause after another, as Face desperately tried to get the older man to engage on something, anything, with no success. It was like Hannibal didn't realize he was there. The younger man finally gave up, and sat through the briefing, wooden.
The tension between him and Hannibal, between Murdock and BA as they watched it, was overwhelming. Face couldn't get out of there fast enough. And as he sweet-talked the desk clerk and a rental car company at the same time, Face promised himself that, above any other consideration, the mission was going to come first. Everything, everything, was going to go off without a hitch.
That's what it was all about, right? Hannibal would respect that, wouldn't he?
This job was going to be perfect.
Right?
Wrong.
It took Face exactly four days and the three hours of the drive south to realize this op was completely fucked. It wasn’t the client, who seemed fairly sincere and able to pay, and it wasn’t the plan, which was typically brilliant.
It was a bad feeling. Face couldn't quite put his finger on it.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the man’s property happened to lie close to the White Sands Missile Range. Or the creased landscape, treeless and stark, that reminded Face a little of Afghanistan.
“We can’t pull something here, boss,” Face told him and handed him back the binoculars. “The bases out here have to have regular patrols.”
“State troopers, local cops, FBI, we’ve beaten them before, Face.”
“Military police might be a little more interested in catching us, Hannibal.”
They were parked a little ways up the ranch’s road, using a rental car. There appeared to be a number of things wrong with the van, besides the air conditioning, and BA hadn't been able to get it fixed, even with Murdock's help. They’d been at it for days, leaving Hannibal and Face to do almost all of the leg work. Together. Alone.
It was nice to have friends.
“We’re going to be fine, kid,” Hannibal told him with a conviction that threatened to cut through all Face’s doubts. “It’s far enough away. We won’t have any issues.”
“You know it’s going to be Holloman Air Force Base that responds...”
“Face!” Hannibal snapped, throwing the truck into gear. “You are acting like an old woman. What’s wrong with you?”
And how was he supposed to put that into words, when he didn't even know himself? No good. Face stared out the window instead.
He’d been finding excuses to not use his own bed the last three nights. It’s uncomfortable, I found a cockroach, I don’t want to be alone. That last had drawn a little, uncertain smile from the colonel. But Face hadn’t snuggled in again, not consciously or while sleeping, and Hannibal hadn’t offered. Maybe that was it.
He heard the engine turn over. “I need you focused, Face.”
"I thought I'd been getting everything done."
"You have," Hannibal admitted. "Perfectly."
Normally, this was the part where Hannibal would ruffle his hair or punch his shoulder, something like that, and they'd exchange innocent barbs and have a good laugh. Instead, there was only dead air.
They’d always been close, their relationship always full of little touches and gestures and nudges, but Hannibal seemed to have forgotten that lately, too. It was driving Face crazy. He needed the contact. He needed to feel his skin against Hannibal’s, touch something living and warm and wanted.
Without really meaning to, he twisted around and leaned over the shifter, curling his hand against the colonel’s neck, drawing himself up and in. His lips brushed over the pulse point in Hannibal’s neck, and he let his head fall against the other man’s shoulder.
He even got to stay there for a long moment, the truck rumbling against the brakes, before Hannibal grabbed him firmly and pulled. There was an uncertainty in the colonel, the same expression he’d had for the last few days now, some unresolved emotion flickering inside those strong features and blue eyes.
“You really need to get laid, kid,” Hannibal finally said.
Face felt that rare sting inside him, the one that always precipitated into tears, and he pulled back to his window. Hannibal was watching the rain-rutted road anyway. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, you’re probably right about that.”
“How about we go out tonight, the team, like we used to? It’s Friday. There's a good bar area west of downtown...”
“Sounds good,” Face said without enthusiasm, and they started back up the road to go check out the ranch.
That little voice inside him keep insisting that something was very, very wrong. But Face couldn’t place the source of it, and decided it must be the fact that Hannibal, clearly, didn’t plan on letting him in. That was the worst thing he could think of. That's what had to be happening.
+++++
“If you want to go give it a whirl, Murdock, please, go.”
It was a Friday night, and it was a lively downtown, and it was an exceptional nice cowboy bar, a low, rambling place full of neon beer signs and wood-framed rodeo photographs. All the servers were in cowgirl boots and cut-off shorts that left nothing to the imagination. Drinks were a hell of a lot cheaper than in LA. And there was that mechnical bull in one corner, surrounded by a cheering mix of locals, college students and military. It was nice.
Face couldn’t stand it.
One of the girls at the table with them craned her head in the direction of the whooping crowd. There was an especially loud roar. “Somebody got thrown off,” she said. What was her name? Jessica? Jennifer? Face couldn’t remember.
“I’d like to give it a spin,” Murdock told her, and she giggled. Drunk. Definitely drunk
“You should go,” Face told him. “Seriously, dude. Go enjoy yourself.”
The other girl, whose name probably started with an N, smiled at the pilot. “What’s wrong with your friend?
“He needs some cheering up,” the pilot explained to the girls. “Temp here got a little drunk last week and embarrassed himself in front of the boss.”
“Ooh!” they both said at once.
Face banged his head down, making the collection of finished glasses jump a little.
“It’s okay,” Murdock said comfortingly. “You weren’t really that drunk.”
“That makes it worse, buddy,” Face said, sitting up and going for his jack and coke, because it seemed to make sense right now. Alcohol. Fixed anything, right? And the world had retreated a little, which was nice. Everything had faded to the background, the country music, the din of the crowd, lights, the details on those girls' faces. Everything a little dim and a little quiet.
But he still saw Hannibal clearly. Out of all the fogged chaos around them, there was Hannibal, walking towards them. His heart leaped a little, and then he remembered the long, hot silence between them in the car after the ranch, full of half-started conversations and nothing that mattered.
Alcohol. Not working.
“Hannibal!” Face said to the approaching man. “Good choice on the bar.”
“Having fun?” The tone was light, but the words still seemed sink like lead through Face’s thickening mood. There was all the booze. The girls. It looked bad. It looked typical. So much for sincerity.
Face forced himself to look Hannibal in the eye. He didn’t really wan to, didn’t want to see the disappointment. But the boss actually seemed happy, almost relieved.
Face could have died right there.
“Murdock, got you a number for the bull. BA’s waiting in line for you. I’ll walk over with you,” Hannibal said, and held out a little white ticker paper. The pilot practically leaped for it, only pausing to give Face a questioning look, asking if he was okay with this.
“You should go,” Face told him. Hannibal gave the girls another once-over, smirked, and led the captain away. Deliberately leaving him behind. Why did the man have to be so accommodating?
“That’s your boss?” one of the girls asked. He nodded, and she kept going. “He’s cute.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Face said evenly, staring after him.
“How’d you embarrass yourself?”
You lost him. The thought popped into his head and wouldn’t go away. It’d been a long week, his nerves were shot, and all he could hear in his in head was that quiet, unending mantra. Fuck that. He wasn’t built for this kind of abuse. Charisa had almost killed him, why did he want to go through that again? And this was going to be worse, was already worse. Hannibal hadn’t even left him yet, which he of course would sooner or later, everybody did, and this was already worse.
Face drained his glass and set it down hard. He smiled at Jessica, who smiled back. “Didn’t you say you lived pretty close to here?”
“We can walk, but it’s a rough neighborhood.”
“I think I can handle it,” he told her, offering her his hand and escorting her out. And after she’d started with her eager, unschooled kisses and he’d stripped her down and she’d asked about his tattoo and he’d fucked her into the mattress, and she’d fallen asleep, Face found himself in the predawn hours, in an unfamiliar bed, wondering.
Why was it so easy with her, but so impossible with Hannibal?
He found his pants and called a taxi.
The half hour ride was torture. Face couldn’t decide if Hannibal was going to be pissed or pleased. He wasn’t sure which one was going to be worse.
Turned out, he didn’t need to worry about, because when he got to the lobby, BA and Murdock were sitting around, coffee in hand, laughing and joking. That was a good sign. He wondered where Hannibal was.
Face got himself a cup and sat down. “How was the bull, Murdock?” he asked.
“Good, facey,” the pilot said, a note of expectation in the words.
BA wasn’t so patient. “Come on, fool, how was it?”
The girl? Face shrugged. “Honestly, I’ve had better,” and they were both staring at him with open mouths, “but she was pretty decent for a college chick...”
“Not Hannibal?”
He almost lost his mouthful of coffee out through his nose. It really hurt. “No, not, not Hannibal. Wait, what?”
“You didn’t leave with Hannibal last night?” BA asked somewhat urgently. “We thought...”
Murdock looked alarmed. “We thought he was with you.”
“No,” Face said, suddenly feeling defensive. “He just left to go do the bull thing and there were those girls...”
“Face, he just showed me where BA was and said he was gonna go rescue you from those sorority chicks...”
His ears felt hot, every inch of skin burning. He was such an idiot, such a fucking idiot, and he hated to ask, because he already knew what the answer was going to be.
“You're telling me, Hannibal's not here?"
Murdock shook his head.
"And we have no idea where Hannibal is?”
“None.”
And wasn't this just fucking perfect?
+++++
Hannibal was definitely missing. That was easy to determine. Figuring out where he was, wasn’t. Nobody on the team carried cell phones, except the prepaid ones and then only on an emergency basis only. They hadn’t been out here on a job before, so they didn’t have any established safehouses or contacts. There was nothing to start with. But that had never stopped Face before.
It took him eight phone calls, two favors, one bribe, his fake FBI badge, a number of miles on the odometer and six hours to figure out that the local police didn’t have the boss, in the morgue or in a cell. That was something. But it didn’t make Face feel any better.
“What the hell happened?” Face groaned. He couldn’t get the possibilities out of his head long enough to think them through. That Hannibal had vanished into a holding cell on Kirtland AFB. That Hannibal was dead out in the desert. That Hannibal had just decided to leave.
That he was really gone. Hannibal was gone. That he wasn't coming back.
Face couldn't get any further that that. It was making this difficult.
“Don’t matter,” BA said seriously. They were back at the hotel, Face laying back on the bed and BA munching the last hamburger on the sofa. Murdock was lost in some obsessive-compulsive fugue state or something, scanning through every page in the phone book. “We gotta find him.”
“I get that. But why is he gone? Fuck, why isn’t he back?”
“It’s been a weird week, Face,” BA pointed out and looked over at Murdock. “For all of us.”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t just wander off.”
“You took off last night.”
“Yeah, but...” Face stopped himself from adding that that was what he did. All the time. Constantly. To everyone on the team. To Hannibal.
How many nights had the boss sat up, wondering where Face had gone? How many mornings had he waited for him to show up, wondering if something had happened? How many times had Face walked away, some girl on his arm, leaving Hannibal just wondering?
The lieutenant felt shame well up in him, drawn up from some reservoir of regret he’d never known he’d had. Before the stake-out, he never would have believed it was there at all. Now, he was all too aware of it.
He tried to lock the onslaught of realization away, down below the surface, where things like that belonged. But he’d been doing that too long, far too long, without even realizing it, and whatever mechanism had facilitated that appeared to be broken. Or maybe it was worn out. Whatever it was, Face lost the battle with himself and he knew.
All those empty nights, spent with others, he’d spent alone, walking away from the only thing that might have filled him.
Utterly overwhelming, it flooded through him, gray and viscous and gumming, so Face didn’t realize he was crying until Murdock reached a hand up and told him to stop.
“It’s okay, faceman.”
“No, Murdock, I think I really fucked up this time...”
“It’s okay,” Murdock insisted, and dumped the open phone book in his lap. “Remember her?”
Face looked down at the name. It wasn't good, it was the opposite of good, but it was worth a try. Bingo. “Do you believe in consequences, Bosco?” he asked, and tossed the other man the book.
The big man looked slightly uncomfortable, opening to the dog-eared page, but retrieved the van keys from under a cushion anyway. “We should probably go pay her a visit.”
+++++
BA made Face stay there. In his room. With the phonebook. Alone. Something about not wanting to see Face punch out a woman.
And the conman did recognize the name. Hannibal had never had anybody long term, but this major, she’d lasted longer than most. And she’d been older. She’d be past her twenty years retirement mark now, she’d be a civilian, she’d be working at a civilian hospital or something. It was possible that she’d ended up in New Mexico. She’d talked about it.
Face waited three minutes before calling the number. Things were never that convenient. Things couldn’t be that convenient. Her? Here? Running into Hannibal? He couldn’t accept it.
But it was definitely that woman who picked up the phone. “Hello?” And she sounded sleepy.
Slamming the receiver back down in its cradle, Face didn’t really know what to do. His brain felt as if it’d been bubble-wrapped. Nothing was getting through. Nothing was making any kind of impression at the moment.
Face was at a complete loss. He needed something to hang on to, but there was nothing. Murdock and BA were going to check out Hannibal’s old fuck-buddy. He was stuck here, in some motel, without a car and without any leads. The client wasn’t expecting them until tomorrow. His socks were still mostly organized in his bag over in the corner. Nothing to do. Face didn’t like the way that rubbed against his exhausted brain, heavy and abrasive, sandpaper across the surface of his thoughts in the silence of the empty room.
There was nothing to be done about Hannibal.
Alcohol was leeching from his pores, he hadn’t changed his clothes since yesterday, and the smell of that girl’s cheap perfume was still in his nostrils, so Face decided to do the only sensible thing he could, which was take a shower and see what turned up.
The first part of that plan was adequate, the scalding water not really hot enough, the soap a human rights violation, but all of it adequate.
The second part, however, where Face came out of the bathroom and saw what turned up, was a little more difficult to define properly.
Hannibal was there, right there, sitting in the room, smoking a cigar next to the half open window and flipping through stills on a digital camera.
What the hell was Face supposed to do with that?
+++++
Face didn’t really trust himself to speak, so he dragged himself over to the other chair at the table and sat down. Hard. His vision was practically swimming, although that could have been the exhaustion or the hot shower, or any of a number of things that had nothing to do with Hannibal being here.
The older man looked at him with a faint air of amusement. “How was your night, lieutenant?”
“Fucking horrible.”
“That’s what you get for playing around with the college...”
“Is that how we’re going to play this?” Face demanded.
“Play what?”
“Where the hell were you?”
Hannibal actually looked surprised, as if he had no idea what the younger man was talking about, and Face had never wanted to walk out on anybody more than he did right now. Slam the door on his way. Make it very dramatic.
Then Hannibal taped the ash off the end of his cigar just so, and he only did that, like that, on rare, rare occasions. “I was out, kid,” came the soft reply, just a little on edge, and Face had a crazy thought that maybe Hannibal had needed the time to think. But Hannibal always knew what he was about. Hannibal wouldn't need time to think. Wouldn't have needed to think about him.
“For eleven fucking hours?”
“Working on the job.”
“Not with your old fuck buddy from Fort Benning?” Face let the phone book fall hard on the table, open to the dog-eared page.
“Oh, look at that, she did retire here.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Hannibal.”
“Face, you’re turning into a fifteen year old girl. You know that?” Hannibal said with that weary colonel voice he used sometimes, and shut the phone book. “I was done with her years ago. Why am I looking at this?”
"Murdock..." Murdock. Murdock. He’d just been trying to help, and Face hadn’t thought it through.
"Where are they?"
"Looking for you."
"You let them go off by themselves, Face?"
“You were gone, and we didn’t know...”
Hannibal just looked pissed, and that was exactly the reaction Face didn't want. “Stop talking and listen. I wanted to double check on something. Had to be done last night. Came back, grabbed a car, went out.”
“And you didn’t tell us.”
“Didn’t tell us? Or didn’t tell you, Face?”
“Fine. Didn’t tell me,” the conman replied quietly, and buried his head in his hands.
“You were busy,” Hannibal practically growled, and bit down, hard, worrying the end of the cigar with flat molars. “And this shit with the phone book... Face, you’ve been weird for the last week. What's going on?”
“Since Page.”
“Is that was this is about?” Hannibal said with a slight laugh. “Face, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You were drunk. You were really, really drunk.”
Face couldn’t do this. He was too exposed, reeling from the morning and lack of sleep, suddenly aware that he was in nothing but a towel. He hadn’t even bothered to dry off all the way. And here was his boss, giving him a pass for the one thing he desperately needed some understanding on. Could the floor open up and swallow him? Could he just drop dead? Was that possible?
“I wasn’t that drunk,” Face muttered. “I wasn’t drunk at all.”
His heart was pounding in his ears. Hannibal didn’t say anything at all. And finally, as if from a great distance, he heard the muffled sound of a chair dragging through carpet, and hard, hot hands closed down around his wrists, insistent.
“Leave me alone, Hannibal.”
“Look at me, lieutenant.”
He didn’t want to see what was there. Whatever disappointment or uncertainty or frustration or whatever was going to be in Hannibal’s face. But the hands, the voice, the man himself, wasn’t anything Face had the energy to disobey right then, so he lifted his eyes, terrified, and there must have been something there, because Hannibal...
“Oh, kid.” Hannibal’s words carried a world of meaning, and he moved forward in the chair, a little closer, until their knees were almost touching. A hand was on Face’s shoulder. “Face, I’m sorry.”
And the lieutenant had never heard those three words, in that sequence, from Hannibal before. The novelty alone was enough to break through the miserable fog that had settled into his brain.
“What?”
“I said, I’m sorry.”
“No, boss, it wasn’t anything I should have told you, drunk or not.”
Hannibal did that growling thing again, and then he was brushing the stubble on Face’s cheek, the contact sending sudden shivers through him. “No, you shouldn’t have played it off. You need to trust yourself, kid.” His voice drops. “You need to trust me. Do you trust me, Face?”
A dozen answer flit through Face’s fading thoughts. With my life. With everything I have and ever would. I’d follow you to hell, sir. You’re the only one. I never knew before.
But it all sounded too ridiculous in his head, stuff you’d read in one of those grocery-store magazines. Hannibal would laugh and call him a girl again. “You’re not mad I lied to you?”
“Furious.”
“I know, boss, you’ve told me not to scam the team, totally messed that one up here...”
“No way of knowing where I stood with you,” Hannibal interrupted, cutting off the half-senseless babble. Face tried to ignore the swelling emotion in his chest. He was not going to cry. Hannibal’s fingers were moving softly. Down his jaw, along his bare chest, raising goosebumps threatening to undo him completely. “Didn’t know if you were being flippant with me this whole time, if you wanted a release, if you meant it...”
“I meant it, Hannibal,” Face panted, noticing his heart was racing just a little bit, like he’d just started a run and blood flow hadn’t quite gotten up to where it needed to be. The last few hours were definitely catching up to him, relief drowning out the stress, the sheer weight of it lifting and leaving him a tired husk. But he wanted this, he wanted to feel this, and although it took a conscious effort, Face kept himself awake.
“I know, kid.”
The first kiss was light, questioning and chaste. Closed lips touched lightly to his, and even through the closing window of consciousness, Face could feel Hannibal’s uncertainty. Little clenches, small recoils. Had to stop it. Had to let him know.
He struggled to right himself, lifted forward a little, and then he was leaning over Hannibal, half out of the chair, gripping the table for support with one hand and settling the other between them as he fought urgently for entrance.
To Face’s surprise, Hannibal leaned back, letting the younger man explore his mouth. Tentative at first, the older man let the kiss deepen, his CO groaning as his body fought for breath against the onslaught. Before Face knew what he was doing, he was straddling Hannibal’s legs, hand roaming freely, the towel fallen to the floor, tasting the smoke still left on his lips, feeling the strain lessen, watching the man he loved open up beneath him.
"Should have done this years ago." Face wasn't entirely sure who said it.
Hannibal picked Face up as if he weighed nothing at all, turned around and dropped them both on the bed. He pulled back and when he came back, his shirt was gone, and he and his talented mouth started a long, leisurely expedition downwards.
Face was lost in the sensation. Warm sunlight from the window, the previously exposed blanket radiating the heat under his back, Hannibal’s skin sliding slowly across his, hot and tight and glorious. It was perfect, he thought, and everything faded into a beautiful oblivion.
+++++
He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until the light touch woke him up. He was under the sheets now, the corded muscle of his CO’s arms easy around him, reassuring and comfortable. Like they’d always been here. He should have done this years ago.
Face moaned a little and turned, staring right into a pair of sleepy blue eyes. “You okay, kid?”
“Just tired,” he yawned. “Murdock and BA back yet?”
“They called. Be back in an hour or so. Said they had a really fun time at her house.”
“I bet she made them lattes.”
“Woman always was obsessed with that appliance,” Hannibal said, and tried to pull away.
Face just twisted around, so they were chest to chest. The boss had stripped down to his boxers, and Face could feel everything of the older man. “She wasn’t good enough for you.” He ran his fingers through the light salt and pepper hair across Hannibal’s still-toned pecs, catching a hard nipple and drawing a slight gasp. “None of them ever were.”
“You’re one to talk. Watching you go off, night after night, almost more than a man can take, Face. That’s going to stop.”
Face shivered at the possessive tone in his lover’s words. “Only if you keep me satisfied, sweetheart,” he teased.
“You don’t think I’m up to the task?” Hannibal asked archly, and Face just grinned. “Arrogant little brat.”
“Old fogey.”
“Insolent kid.”
“Geriatric geezer,” Face said, and settled his chin against Hannibal’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling. Who ever could have guessed? “How’s this going to work, boss?”
“I’ll figure it out, Face.”
“I’m sorry I lied.”
“I know, kid.”
“No...”
“I mean, I knew you were lying. Figured I’d let you take things at your own pace. Let you work this one out,” Hannibal murmured in his ear. “My thinking was to just jump you, right there in that bar.”
“Oh, goddamn it, Hannibal...”
“Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we need to get going.”
Hannibal always had the best plans. Face decided, right then and there, he wouldn’t be making any more himself for a long, long time.
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Date: 2011-05-04 04:43 pm (UTC)Loved it!
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Date: 2011-05-04 08:58 pm (UTC)