What He Could Have - Part Two of Two
May. 28th, 2011 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of attempted suicide
Summary: Part two of two for this:
I wrote this fill over on the last meme for a Sosa/Face relationship fic where Sosa is still a virgin when she meets Face but he doesn't know it...
Anyway, I got this request in the final comments:
You know what tho... I'd LOVE to read this from Face's view now!! So much angst, and the way she ripped his heart out... why (after the general 'Face sleeps with ya once and never calls') he gives her a second smile, what's so special about Sosa in the beginning... and then (of course) the fallout, and Hannibal's part in that... especially when Sosa breaks his heart.
Face finds Sosa. But isn’t Hannibal the one he really wants?
Face is woken by a light touch on his shoulder, Monday morning.
And his first thought it that it’s Hannibal.
He’d had a dream, or a memory, or something in between, watching that old encounter in front of him as he tried, and failed, to find a reason to get off the bathroom floor. That little thing, all those years ago, this stupid fucking miscalculation...
It had been a typical Friday night. O-Club, downtown, a taxi back to Hannibal’s place. And Face, in his butterbar stupidity, three months in the unit, four months out of training, and barely a year out of college, had thought there was something going on that night.
That Hannibal was looking at him, stray glances when Face wasn’t really looking.
The way their fingers had brushed when Hannibal handed over a third beer.
How the boss had almost, almost reached out for him as they were leaving, big hand recoiling back to a pocket, sheepish grin firmly in place. Almost leaning on him in the taxi.
That hand on the small of his back as he pushed Face into the house ahead of him, sending sparks through the younger man's body.
When Hannibal had gotten out the good scotch and asked him if he wanted to talk.
“Talk about what, boss?” Face had asked.
“Anything, kid,” Hannibal said, pouring them both doubles with just the right amount of ice. “We don’t do enough of that, you and I.”
“Mentoring?”
“Key to a healthy team,” Hannibal said, and nodded at him, gesturing them both into the den where Sergeant Harris’ XBox was still hooked up from last weekend. The big battered leather couches you could just sink in to. “Need you close, kid.”
He’d stared down into his glass. Was Hannibal coming on to him? It almost sounded like Hannibal was coming on to him. And how many nights had he fantasized about this very thing? The two of them, alone, on the couch, some awkward conversation that turned to...more. “How do you mean, boss?”
“I see a lot of potential in you,” Hannibal said, leaning on the back of the sofa with one elbow, head resting on his fisted hand, just... watching, maybe. With soft, soft blue eyes.
“Yeah? Nobody’s ever had much use for me...” Face had mumbled.
“Hey, hey, can that shit right now, el-tee,” the colonel had said, taking Face’s drink, his own, setting them aside on the table. “Whatever happened before, you’re a Ranger now, part of America’s elite. You’ve got a home here now, a...family, really...”
“Your unit?”
“This is your home, Face. As long as you want it to be.”
And like the lovesick idiot he was back then, the obscenely drunk little baby Ranger he was that night, Face had turned to, right into Hannibal, scooting a little closer. He’d heard a little, encouraging, inhalation of breath, and he’d dared, he’d fucking dared, to put a hand on Hannibal’s chest. Felt that strong heartbeat through his palm. Known right then and there he’d never want anything else.
“With you?”
Hannibal hadn’t shoved him away. No. Hadn’t made a move. “Yeah, kid.” And his free hand, that big hand, had come to rest on Face’s shoulder. “With me.”
“You want me, Hannibal?” he’d asked, the alcohol getting the better of his better judgment, everything going quiet.
“Face, I...”
The lieutenant swung himself up, right into Hannibal’s lap, leaning in close. Wanting this. Wanting this man. Wanting so bad it hurt. “You mean it, boss? You actually want me?”
“Kid, please...”
And Face had taken that as an invitation, seen it for something it wasn’t.
And kissed him.
For a second, maybe two. Closed mouth, sweet, almost chaste. But enough to taste the scotch, the man beneath, all that strength, and oh, oh, it was everything, the truth of Hannibal’s words something Face could have, something unbelievable...
Before Hannibal jerked him off, forcing them apart. Leaving Face on his lap, just...breaking the contact. The kiss. Shattering it.
A moment passed.
“What are you doing, kid?”
Confusion exploded up through Face’s groggy brain. “You said...you said you wanted me, boss.”
There had been something unreadable in Hannibal’s steel blue eyes. “Face, you don’t...you don’t have to...”
He’d tried to lean back in, but Hannibal stopped him, grabbing his wrists and forcing him away again. “I want to. Don’t you want to?”
“Face...”
“If you don’t want me...”
“Face...”
“I mean, if you’re worried, I won’t say anything, you know I can keep a secret...”
“Face!”
Those hands tightened to crushing force on the lieutenant’s wrists.
And he’d stopped. Instantly.
“Face,” Hannibal said in a softer voice, peeling the younger man off of him, off to the side, back on the cushions. “Face, this isn’t how... when I say I want you... this isn’t how things work in my unit. You understand? A home, family, it’s all a brotherhood. Platonic. Nothing more. You understand that?”
Face felt crushed. Devastated. “Fuck,” he said, scrunching both his hands into his hair, pulling hard. “Fuck, boss, I didn’t mean to...I just thought you...”
...felt the same way as me...
Hannibal had watched him for a moment more, and then roughed his hair up, tried to smile, that expression... was that a disgusted expression? It had to be a disgusted expression.
And everything in him went cold as Face was hit with the enormity of what he’d just done.
Fuck, fuck, he’d fucked everything up. Just admitted to his commanding officer he was into guys. Just tried to come on to his commanding officer. Just fucking kissed his commanding officer. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...
“Motherfucker, boss, look, I’m, fuck, I can’t...” he choked out, feeling the tears starting up, just under the surface, three months of longing coming to a head, going to crest, going to crash. “I’ve fucked everything up, shit, sir, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...”
Hannibal stood up and pulled Face’s protesting, panicking body up with him. “You’re drunk, kid.”
“No, Hannibal, really, I shouldn’t, I, I’m, fuck...”
“You’re drunk. We all do stupid things when we’re drunk. Let’s get you to bed, okay? It’s okay, kid, it’s okay...”
“It’s not, it’s...” he’d half sobbed as he’d leaned on the boss’ broad, comforting shoulder, Hannibal holding him close, holding him so he wouldn’t fall on his face, walking him down the hall to one of the spare bedrooms.
“We can talk about this in the morning,” Hannibal had said softly, depositing Face on the bed as hastily as he could, falling away, in the doorway, establishing a distance that, even then, Face knew he’d never close again. “It’s okay. Morning, I promise.”
Except they never talked about it.
Ever.
And it hasn’t been okay.
Ever since then.
And when that hand hits his shoulder, Face half-expects it to be Hannibal, waking him up that morning, telling him it really was okay, that he feels the same way, that there’s something between them, that there could be more, that there should be more, that they could give it a try, that it could work...
“Face? Face, you okay man? Boss sent me to see if you was dead or whatever the fuck.”
But it’s dark eyes watching him now, dark eyes in a dark face, a big hand shaking him gently, concern radiating out and Face has never hated Hannibal more than he does right here, right now.
"It's okay," he lies. "I'm okay.
+++++
Face closes the fridge, beer in hand. He really needs to go to the store, or order in. Or something. He’s basically out of everything that’s not alcohol.
He’s really not sure what day it is. Maybe Thursday.
He’d gotten rid of BA on Monday, some smooth excuses about a rough weekend and needing a day or two off, and the corporal had narrowed his eyes and told Face not to con him, and Face called him insubordinate and threw him out of his apartment.
Monday.
And it’s probably Thursday now.
He really hasn’t been paying attention. Playstation, beer, sleep, television, beer, sleep, more sleep, more beer. That’s pretty much been it. All he’s been doing. He pulled his cell phone battery out as soon as he’d slammed the door on BA, hasn’t checked his email, and nobody else has come over.
Not Charisa.
And not Hannibal.
Face pops the cap off the bottle and finishes half of it in one go, considering the corner cabinet in his kitchen for the fourth time since he woke up this last time.
The military issues painkillers in obscene quantites, and no matter how against regs it is, almost everybody keeps what they don’t use. Almost everyone’s got at least one bottle of perscription Vicodin or Valium or Percoset or industrial-sized Motrin in their medicine cabinet. After one bullet wound, a torn rotator cuff, chronic tendonitis in his left foot, three broken fingers, sixty-two stitches and that one cold he’s had in the last twelve months alone, Face could probably fell an elephant with his private pharmacopeia.
Doesn’t take that much, though.
Only takes a moment. What difference does it make?
He sips at the beer.
It’s not like anyone would miss him, not really. The military would just reduce him to a number, put it on a slide, tell the troops that there are resources available to prevent this kind of thing. BA would probably be glad to see him gone, the number of times he’s pissed the big guy off. Murdock probably wouldn’t remember him, after a few days. Father Magill would be upset about his favorite orphan condemning his immortal soul, but then, Father Magill’s dead himself, so that’s not really an issue. Charisa clearly doesn’t give a shit. And Hannibal?
He sips at the beer.
Hannibal would probably be pissed at him for not shooting himself or committing seppuku or falling on his sword or some shit like that. However soldiers, warriors, are supposed to do it. He’d be so disappointed. Probably wouldn’t even come to his funeral, if he had a funeral.
And he probably wouldn’t have a funeral. No ceremony, city morgue, just another unclaimed...
Why the fuck hasn’t Hannibal come over?
At the very least, Face knows he’s AWOL. Other shit. A lot of trouble. Enough for somebody, anybody, the goddamn Benning MPs to come over and drag him out to the stockade.
So not even the military cares where he is right now, and Face wants to laugh.
If only he’d figured this out sooner.
Saved himself a lot of grief.
But why hasn’t Hannibal come over?
I never loved you, kid, and I never will...
The beer’s empty and it’s getting dark outside. Face chucks the bottle in the trash and tries not to think about the medicine cabinet.
He really, really doesn’t think about it.
Who’d want you, Face? What’s the point in staying when you can’t be part of anything...
“Shut up,” he mutters to that voice and gets another beer, flopping over to switch on the TV.
Face isn’t the kind of guy to keep a lot of photos around. Charisa had commented on that at one point, a few months back. Everything’s on his computer, the few pictures he does has, dating back to that first day of Texas A&M ROTC training. Nothing before. Nothing from his childhood. His life, the only part of it he’s cared about, started when he joined the military.
He does have one framed picture, though, on the bookcase right next to the TV, and he picks it up now. Something very frank he took in the bay of the C-130 somewhere over the Pacific, his first year on the job, fooling around with his brand-new digital camera.
Hannibal, a major then, hair just starting to gray, in non-issue combat gear, kneeling down in front of one of the jump seats, hands on the knees of a very skinny corporal. Corporal Michael Keyes. Face remembers the moment. The boss offering some pre-mission advice to a terrified boy.
He’d been killed, Corporal Keyes. The first man Face had ever lost, the kid’s chest blown open by a fifty-cal round. But they’d gotten his what was left of his body out. Hannibal had taken two bullets to the leg, to make sure that had happened.
He won’t be your last, el-tee, Hannibal had told him on the flight back, squeezing Face’s hand as the sergeant administered another dose of morphine, eyes on the olive drab tarp in the corner. This is what I meant, kid, about family. This is family...
Face isn’t really sure why he kept the photo.
He remembers, though, that that was the moment, watching Hannibal talk to the kid, both of them completely ignorant of what was coming for them all, that he could be loyal to this man. That he could trust him. That maybe love meant more than a dick up his ass and a warm place to sleep.
I don’t want you...
The lieutenant thumbs the glass over the boss’ still image.
He’d like Hannibal to have this, at least. If anybody comes looking. If he ever comes looking. He’d like the boss to know he’d kept it. Why. But he doesn’t have a pen on him, isn’t sure where one would be, and he kisses the place where his thumb just was. Puts the frame back in its dusty little footprint.
Looks back over at the medicine cabinet.
Probably best to just get it over with.
Nobody’s going to miss him anyway.
And his hand is on the cabinet knob when he hears the knock at the door.
Probably not...
“Face?”
...Hannibal?
“Face, kid, you home?”
He plasters himself back against the cabinetry, wondering if he’s asleep again, wondering if...
Another knock, louder this time. “Face, come on, kid, I know you’re there, your ‘vette’s here, you haven’t been at work in five days...”
It’s Friday?
Face blinks.
Hannibal left him alone for five fucking days?
Fuck that.
And he goes back to the cabinet, heart in his feet.
Doesn’t answer the door at all.
It's not worth the I told you so.
He just couldn't bear it.
The biggest bottle in here is the Vicodin from his knee surgery, Face knows. The biggest and the fullest.
What are you doing, kid? he hears.
That goddamn voice that’s been talking to him all this time, Hannibal’s voice and Face slumps a little. “What the fuck do you care?” he grumbles to himself, fingers holding over that Vicodin. Probably won’t be enough. A couple of beers, those five or six Valium he’s got left, just slide right off...
He left his beer over by the TV, so he needs to go get that, and thank fuck, the banging on the door’s stopped.
So he turns.
And there’s the boss.
Hanging off the open door.
“What are you doing, Face?”
The lieutenant’s fingers tighten down around the two bottles in his hand, clenching into a kind of fist, and he knows Hannibal’s eyes are watching those. “Forgot you had a key,” he laughs.
“Thank christ I did,” his commander says, voice soft, taking a step towards him, and Face takes a step back. “What are you doing?”
“What are you?” the lieutenant throws back flatly, amazed himself at how flat, how empty, those words sound. He’s numb. Completely numb. Encased in a wonderful shell nothing’s going to penetrate.
“I haven’t seen you for a week,” Hannibal almost whispers, face a curious shade of gray. “I tried calling, sent BA by on Monday...”
“And you what, just let it go?”
“He said you...said you...fuck you’ve pulled weirder shit on me, Face, than not showing up for a week, but...” and Hannibal takes another step forward, and another, moving incrementally towards Face as he’s talking, careful, like he’s trying not to startle some frightened animal. “But we were at the Club tonight...”
They’re almost touching now, and that’s the last thing in the world Face can handle right now. “Hannibal, look, please...”
“I saw your girl, kid,” Hannibal says, reaching out but not touching . “I saw Charisa with...”
Face closes his eyes. Already? Really? Would she? “Figures,” he mumbles, and pulls back from Hannibal. But there’s nowhere to go. He's trapped.
He hates it.
He wishes Hannibal would leave.
So he could get on with it.
“What happened?”
And there’s a hundred things Face could say to that. Lies, half-truths, the things others would see, understand, things that would get Hannibal out of here.
But one of those come out.
The truth does instead.
He’s too raw to stop it.
“I’m not enough.”
Hannibal looks up from the bottles in Face’s hand for the first time, features stamped with a confusion the lieutenant knows dimly, somewhere, that he’s never seen on the man before. “What?”
“I’m not good enough to keep her, boss. I’m not good enough to keep anybody. I’m too goddamn fucked up. I don’t... I don’t deserve...don’t deserve her, a family, Hannibal...”
“Face, that’s not true...”
But he’s not listening. “Everybody throws me away, boss,” he says, desperate to make Hannibal understand why he has to leave, right the fuck now. “Nobody wants me, nobody’s ever wanted me, I’m fucked...so it’s okay, it just makes sense, it’s okay, I’m okay with it...”
“Face, stop it,” Hannibal says, a little harsher, cutting the lieutenant off and on top of him now, bodies smashed together, a big hand slipping around his, trying to tug those bottle away. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
“She left,” Face says, hollow, feeling nothing, not even the way Hannibal’s pulling him into his arms, taking his weight, not how the pills are suddenly gone, leaving his hand empty, not even the wracking breaths passing through them both. “She left me, she didn’t want me, she didn’t, she didn’t, nobody does, so what the fuck good am I? Why should I stay...”
“Oh, Temp,” Hannibal murmurs, hugging him tight. “I want you to stay. I want you to stay. Please, stay with me...”
And Face just closes his eyes against it.
It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.
+++++
Hannibal waits as long as he can like this, breathing in the acrid smell of stale sweat, feeling those hands dig deeper and deeper into his ACU blouse, listening to the silent, silent sobs.
He wants to kick himself.
Or something. Something bad. Something to remind him what a fucking idiot he’s been this week. What almost happened on his watch.
The colonel honestly doesn’t think Face would do such a thing. He’s had the training, Hannibal has, the sit-down sessions all commanders have to go through, the ones with the photographs and the statistics and the psychiatrists. When they emphasize the warning signs, the after action, the way you’re not supposed to eulogize at the funeral. Mostly, it’s bullshit. He’s had one of these in his unit before, back when he was a captain. Nobody had known, nobody had suspected, and nobody found out until three days after it happened.
Nobody had checked.
And he’s left Face alone. All week.
It was a stupid fucking thing to do. BA had mentioned that Face was actin’ like a damn fool, but that wasn’t really all that informative. And Hannibal hadn’t pressed. Just gave the kid leave for the week and thought nothing of it.
Don’t fucking lie to yourself, John, he admonishes himself, peeling Face off the wall. The kid is limp and unprotesting in his arms. He needs a shower, clean him off, wake him up and sooth him back down. It’s like he’s in shock or something. The shower’s going to help. You failed your boy.
He knows it.
He does.
He should have pressed BA. He should have called. Should have come over. Should have done one of a thousand things he was expected to do as a commander, as a fucking human being with a connection to another.
But no. He’d been pissed.
He’s been pissed at the kid since the ring.
Face had been so excited, so proud, his little teddy bear, the engagement ring, and Hannibal couldn’t even smile. Couldn’t say anything real. Because all the older man had seen, in that moment, was everything he was losing. How Face would pull away from him. Fall into his own family. A husband, a father, kids...beautiful little blonde children...
But then the colonel had seen Sosa at the Club, drinking with that nurse friend of hers and flirting with some guy from Signals, little touches. He’d stared and she’d eventually looked up, met it, her guilt in her eyes, everything she’d done.
And he’d flown over here.
The bathroom door’s open, at least, and Hannibal leans his unresponsive lieutenant up against the wall while he turns on the shower. Tests the temperature.
“Come on, Face,” Hannibal says softly, running a now-wet hand into greasy curls, massaging the kid’s scalp, hoping for some kind of reaction. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
The kid doesn’t move at all, no, his eyes sliding shut instead. In protest? Hannibal’s not sure, but still, he strips the kid, briefs and everything, that rotten smell of refused alcohol on his skin too awful too ignore any longer. He pauses a moment, and then does the same for himself, letting the uniform, boots, boxers fall to the bathroom floor.
There’s nothing between them, nothing at all, and no sound in the room but the water pounding on the floor of the tub as he lifts them both in to the shower and pulls the curtains.
There are things of hers in here. A pink razor, hair products too cheap to be Face’s, and Hannibal reaches past those for a bottle of body wash, the brand he’s seen the kid with on deployments before. She didn’t take anything, he muses as he measures out a good-sized palmful. It must have been bad. Very, very bad.
Hannibal tries not to think about what he wants to do to her, what he’d threatened to do to her at the burger burn. He grits his teeth and lathers that gel in his hand, swiping it across Face’s lightly furred chest.
Face buckles again.
Hannibal grabs him, holds him, pressing the younger man back into him, a big hand flat on the kid’s flat belly. Face leans forward a little, bracing himself against the shower wall, letting the warm water sluice down his curved back, falling between them, through his hair and down his downcast head, rolling off. It’s beautiful. Face is always beautiful. Always has been.
Hannibal wants to kick himself.
For not coming over.
For never meeting the kid halfway.
For not reaching out that night, so long ago, when his sweet, beautiful boy had crawled into his lap and begged for a kiss. Begged to be with him.
All Hannibal had been able to remember then was his break-up with Russ, how everything had gone to shit between them, how he’d vowed, as that broken captain, smoking a cigar on the edge of the Balkans, bombs falling in the dark of the night, that he’d never fall in love with another military man again. That he wouldn’t put himself through the pain. Put anyone else through the pain. That certain things were incompatible with his life. How sacrifices had to be made, if he was going to survive.
So he’d sealed up, hardened, locked himself away, too far for Face to reach after only a few months together. He hadn’t been willing, able then.
Then.
It’s been years now, years. And every day, a little more, Face has opened him back up. Crawled into his heart. Taken up residence.
And then Face had found a girl. Of course he had. His sweet, clever, canny, bisexual boy had found himself a girl. Like he deserved. Full of hope for a family. Like he deserved. Not this fucked-up excuse of a life Hannibal could offer him.
It’s ironic, really. Hannibal wants to laugh at the irony, as he cleans the dead weight in his arms. It’s Face, the boy who wanted his commander more than anything once, who’s given up hope for anything more with another man. While he, himself, John, the man who vowed he would never try, has found himself desperately longing for it. For Face. For...
...for something more.
His hand’s moving lower, and that last thing he wants to do is molest Face in the shower. Who knows how the kid’s going to react, going to remember, something like that right now? But there’s no response, no indication, still, that his lieutenant even knew he was here.
He hasn't been, not really. Not since Charisa. Face must have felt so alone, to not come to him. Locked out. Desperate. Incredibly desperate...
He tries not to think about it, choosing to focus on the task at hand. Finding his boy. Bringing him back.
So, soapy hand trembling, Hannibal brushes down the kid’s cock.
Nothing.
“Come back to me, Face,” he murmurs, low and soft in that soaked ear. “Come back to me. I need you, kid. Can’t lose you...”
Face shivers, moans, just a little.
Hannibal smiles.
Progress.
Shivers are starting up, so Hannibal finishes, cleaning every square inch of skin he can, squatting down to wash the kid's legs, sliding up, hands trailing up across the kid's buttocks, up his spine. Shampoos his hair, and Face is going to kill him tomorrow, but he doesn't bother with the conditioner. Wants to get this over with.
It's torture.
Face doesn't speak as the water shuts off and Hannibal wraps a fresh towel around him, rubbing firmly. He's hoping for a smile, but the kid's still blank.
Fuck.
He gets himself dried off, too, and bundles the kid away again, back into his bedroom. Fluffing that tired-looking, unmade bedding as best he can, the colonel notices it all smells like woman, like Charisa, and he can't put Face back in that. So he leans Face up against the wall again and goes for fresh sheets, remaking it all faster than he can ever remember making up a bed before, even at West Point that first summer.
Hannibal catches Face watching him, blue eyes tracking up a bit, still expressionless, as he turns down one side and plumps the pillows. "All new, Temp," he says gently, and holds out a hand, open in a gesture he hopes the kid can understand right now. “Let’s get you to sleep, okay?”
He stumbles a little as the colonel pulls him away, and Hannibal sweeps him easily around, up into bed, snuggling him into cool cotton that smells like dryer sheets. He’s tempted to leave the kid like that, let him sleep, not do anything that’s uninvited, but Face is starting to curl up, clawing at the pillow as his knees pull up, and Hannibal’s seen enough shock in his life to know that’s not a good thing.
He does the only thing he can think to do.
He crawls in, right next to Face, plastering himself up against the younger man’s back, forcing his knees down with one of his own legs, one hand on his boy’s forehead, the other on his belly, rubbing soft circles.
“Shh, Temp,” he whispers. “I’m here, you’re here, everything’s okay, you’re not alone...”
“...leave...” comes the little answering whimper, almost too low to hear. “I’ll never...”
He clings closer to the kid, fresh fear rushing through him. “Face, there are... fuck, kid, there are people here who love you.”
“No, no there aren’t.”
“There are, Temp,” Hannibal murmurs. “I... I love you...”
“No, you don’t,” his boy says into his pillow. “Fuck you...”
That’s when the tears start, and carry Face away from him again. But Hannibal doesn’t move away, doesn’t let go, and when it finally breaks, when breathing slows and sleep takes over the grief, that’s when he gets up. Goes back into the kitchen. Pulls every fucking pill bottle in that fucking cabinet, even the ibuprofen and the multi-vitamin, and flushes the whole fucking lot down the toilet.
It doesn’t make him feel any better, though, as he collapses against the bathroom wall, head in his hands.
It’s not okay.
Nothing’s ever going to make it okay.
His boy deserves so much better than this. Than this fucking mess of a life.
Than everything he's ever given him.
Than him.
+++++
When Face wakes on Saturday, the first thing he notices is the warm body against his. Nothing else. And for a split second, in the time it takes for him to open his eyes, he thinks it might be her. Charisa, coming back.
But.
That’s not a woman’s arm around him, not a woman’s chest, not a woman’s slender leg and rounded hip.
No.
It’s all angles and planes and hard lines and lean, long muscle, a cock, almost against his own, stubble, eyes. Blue eyes...
“Good morning,” Hannibal says. Like it means something that he’s here.
Why the fuck is he here?
Face stiffens and pulls back fast, as far away as he can get without falling off the bed. The first thought, the very first, screaming through his brain, is that he did it. That he’s dead. That this is hell, just like Father Magill might have warned him, and at any moment, at any moment...
“Temp...”
Oh yeah. First name? He’s definitely in hell.
Hannibal looks startled as he sits up a little. Well fuck him. What is he doing here? “Temp, you okay? Last night, you were...”
Last night?
Oh fuck.
Last night.
He remembers last night. The medicine cabinet. The knock at the door. The hope that Hannibal would leave. The way he’d just gone cold inside. The shower. The bed. The words, the horrible words, all that come back to me bullshit. Things Hannibal couldn’t possibly mean.
Yet.
The boss is here.
The boss is in bed with him.
Don’t get carried away, Peck. He’s concerned now, sure, but...
“I was drunk last night,” he says flatly, rolling out of bed and motherfucker, why is he naked? The lieutenant starts casting about for a pair of boxers or something. Not looking at Hannibal. “Just drunk.”
The older man makes a little grunting noise that’s a whole lot of things he’s not saying. “Why didn’t you talk to me, kid? Why didn’t you talk to any of us? Why... how could you even think about doing that?”
Face finds a pair of sleep pants in his top drawer, and that’s good enough for right now. “Doing what?”
“Face,” ...and it’s back to Face, is it? Insincere lying bastard... “Face, you had... I thought... what if I’d gotten here an hour later? Found your body on the floor? Do you have any idea what that would do to Murdock and BA, to everyone at the unit?”
He shrugs. He really, really wants Hannibal out of his bed. Out of his house. Out of his life. Now.
“They’d be okay.”
And yeah, that gets Hannibal out. Right up to him, in fact, and he’s naked, too. From the shower, right? What the fuck? Face sort of wants to hit him. The boss knows he’s double-hinged. The boss has to remember the couch, all those years ago. Why would he do something like this? Why?
“They would not be okay,” Hannibal growls, slamming him back into the wall, violent, too fast to stop. “Do you know what a suicide does to people? What happens to the people left behind? How they never get over it? How you hurt the ones who love you most?”
He just shakes his head. It’s all too much. Way too much to take in right now. “They don’t...I’m not...”
“They love you, Face!” Hannibal snaps, fist contacting the wall, hard, an inch from Face’s ear. “We all... we all love you.”
“Right,” he tries to laugh. “You love me. Sure. Like one of your boys, like a son. Can’t let one of your boys go, nope, imagine the fucking paperwork that would generate for y...”
“Face...”
“Dude, just fucking leave, would you? I’m fine. I’m not going to kill myself, not going to do anything.”
“Face, I can’t do that, I’ve got a responsibility...”
“I don’t care what the fucking regs say, get out of my goddamn house,” he hisses, desperately wanting the universe to stop tilting around and go back to plane. Go back to what it’s supposed to be. What it always has been. What he knows to be real. “Get the fuck out of my life, Hannibal.”
“...I’m sorry.”
It’s whispered, so Face damn near misses it. Well, that, and the fact that Colonel Hannibal Smith does not apologize. Ever. For anything. Under any circumstances. He’s never heard those words come out of the man before.
Still.
“Sorry for what?” he demands, voice nearly unrecognizable, even to himself
And the colonel’s breathing fast and shallow. Leaning in. “I thought I’d lost you to her,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Couldn’t be happy for you...”
“You wouldn’t have lost me, boss,” Face says, confused now. What is this? What the fuck is going on? There’s nothing solid to reach for at all, nothing except the warmth of Hannibal’s body pressed close to his own, and that’s the one thing, the very singular thing, he can’t have. Can’t, can’t, can’t have...
“And then I almost lost you last night because, because...” A hand touches his cheek. “Did you think about how I’d feel, Face? Did you wonder at all?”
“I thought,” he says, and licks dry lips, and answers, because this is some kind of unreality that is going to fade when he wakes in the morning, somewhere his guard doesn’t have to be up because none of it exists, “I thought you’d be pissed, that I didn’t do it right.”
“Right?” He sounds vaguely horrified.
“With a gun or something like that.”
Hannibal’s just staring at him, something terrified in his eyes, and fingers slide around the lieutenant’s neck, pulling their foreheads together. “I wouldn’t have been pissed, Face,” he whispers, almost too quiet to hear. “I wouldn’t have been mad.”
Face feels his heart sinking. So Hannibal really doesn’t care. Not even that tiny fucking amount...
“I wouldn’t have survived it, Face. Knowing I’ve caused you so much pain.”
“Hannibal, you...”
“I’ve caused you so much pain,” he says again, urgent. “Not even giving you the simplest of things. Not giving in to what I...”
Face tries to stay neutral, tries to keep his mask of indifference up, but those last words? Those words from before...
...come back to me...
“Giving in to what?” he manages to push out, dry and cold.
“Like this,” Hannibal whispers back, hand shifting, cupping his chin.
And then their lips meet.
It’s electric, like his first kiss was with her, but more. So much more. Everything, really, right here, the better part of a decade of frustration and, and... longing, maybe, in the way that Hannibal’s urging him to part, open up, let him in, let him be exactly where Face has always, always wanted him to be.
But.
So Face shoves him away. Hard.
So hard Hannibal damn near trips over his own feet, saved from falling only by the edge of the bed, where he crumples up against, head turned, eyes down lips pressed together in a thin line of defeat.
He doesn’t realize one of his hands is in a fist until he looks down at it.
And Face wonders, wonders, if maybe, just maybe, there might be something more going on here than...
“Pack a bag, kid,” Hannibal says, and it’s nothing but the colonel talking now.
“Taking me to the hospital, boss?” Face asks, hard and biting. He remembers his first job, the suicide attempt he’d seen there with one of the sergeants. Had to go stay with mental health until the mental health folks cleared him again for active duty. “Gonna leave me on the damn ward?”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“And the hospital’s better why?”
“My place,” Hannibal says with a sigh, and looks up. “You’re gonna stay at my place.”
“Until when? Why? What the fuck difference does it make to you?”
There are a hundred emotions flicking away behind pale blue eyes, but whatever Hannibal’s thinking, he doesn’t give voice to it. “You remember what I said about family, kid, when Corporal Keyes...”
“Yeah,” Face says, voice husky all of the sudden. “I remember Corporal Keyes.”
Hannibal pushes off the bed, and comes over, putting a hand on Face’s shoulder. “It makes a fucking difference to me, your life, Templeton,” he says softly. “You’re not alone in this. I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone...”
“Hannibal, I’m okay...”
“Stop lying to yourself, Face,” Hannibal says, “and pack that damn bag. This is no place for you to have to be right now. Let me take you home, kid...”
Face wants to argue. Wants to fight him. Wants to do a hundred things that he doesn’t do.
No.
Instead he just falls forward, the boss catching him without a second thought, just like Face knows he will, and he buries his face in that strong shoulder. “She’s gone...” he murmurs.
“Yeah, kid,” Hannibal whispers back, holding him close. “I know, I know, I know...”
+++++
It’s three weeks before Face even thinks to ask.
Huh.
They’re outside right now, Face stretched out in a reclining lawn chair he’d made Hannibal buy him a few years ago, in the absolute smallest set of swim trunks he can find that don’t make him look totally gay. The boss is up on the porch reading some book. It’s Sunday and there’s a game this afternoon. They’re going to have to start getting set up for it soon, but right now, it's just...peaceful.
None of the guys from the unit, not even BA and Murdock, know he’s been moved in. Basically. Basically moved in.
And Face wonders when he started thinking about this whole thing like that.
Hannibal let him take the room upstairs, the one the boss normally uses for a library, but it’s quieter, more out of the way, than any of the rooms downstairs or in the basement. Nice and snug, and Face has been waking up to the spines of the boss’ books for the better part of a month now. It’s soothing, somehow, being so close to something that Hannibal loves, without actually having to be close to the man.
Not that he wanted to be at Hannibal’s place.
Not really.
But, on Sunday morning when he wakes up and the boss was waiting for him downstairs with a truly excellent breakfast and ridiculously good coffee, when he pulled up a stool and got a warm, friendly hug, when Hannibal started telling West Point stories, like about the time they duct taped the Navy midi to the ceiling during Army-Navy Week, as he sat there and just sort of soaked in it, Face had figured that maybe this would be survivable.
It’s not like it’s been exactly pleasant, though. Face had quickly realized all the colonel’s cooking knives only came out at meals, that his personal arsenal had vanished, that there wasn’t a drop of alcohol or a single painkiller anywhere to be found.
And the boss hasn’t exactly been giving him space, either. Especially not that first week, when he’d been so clingy BA had asked about it. Even now, he can’t go half an hour without Hannibal checking in on him, and usually, like right now, when he’s trying to get a tan outside, the older man’s there. He can’t even close the door when he showers, for fuck’s sake.
It’s all very, very insulting. In a way.
But Hannibal, Face knows, doesn’t want to leave him alone, and after a few days, he realized that no, he doesn’t want to be alone either. That being with Hannibal, even like this, even under these circumstances, is, well...
There’s something, just something, about having the boss wake him up, dump his running shoes in his lap and demand he get his ass up, they’re losing daylight. Or the way the boss knows how to make absolute perfect coffee. Or how it feels when they both crash on the couch and watch The Sopranos and listen to Hannibal critique the mobsters’ gun handling techniques. Or how he sarcastically asked for a good-night kiss that first night, and to his surprise, he’s actually gotten one. On the lips. A little peck on the cheek, nothing serious. But still. It makes him wonder.
It’s all starting to make him wonder.
“What’s that about?” he’d demanded.
“Just glad you’re okay, Face,” Hannibal had replied.
He gets one every night now.
So, really, it’s...nice. Almost. Almost nice. He’s still not quite sure how he should feel about all of this, but...
“I’m not going to kill myself, Hannibal,” Face says, taking the little glasses off his eyes and sitting up in the lawn chair. “You know that, right, boss? I didn’t really want to...”
Hannibal’s in the shade of the patio, smoking a cigar, and the lieutenant can’t help but look. The way his elbow’s bent up on his knee, the paperback lazy in a lazy hand, bare-chested, the lightest dusting of salt and pepper hair that Face has always, always, wanted to touch, cargos loose around long, stretched legs. “I know, Face,” he says, without even bothering to glance up.
“You know?”
“Yup. Nothing wrong with you at all.” Hannibal agrees mildly, and turns the page. “You’re fine.”
“So, can I leave?”
“Sure.”
Things are never that easy with this man. What’s his game? “You’re going to let me leave? Like, I can go?”
“Face,” and Hannibal doesn’t even bother looking up, “if you want to go, go.”
“You won’t stop me?”
“Try it and find out.”
Face considers this for a moment. All the reasons Hannibal could be saying this. “You’re going to stop me, aren’t you, boss?”
Hannibal shrugs. Turns another page.
“Fuck it,” the lieutenant says back, putting his sunglasses back on. “We’ve got Murdock and everybody coming over today, right?”
“Yeah,” Hannibal says. “Yeah, we do.”
“Maybe I’ll go home tomorrow, then,” Face replies, closing his eyes beneath the little tanning glasses, settling his hands up his head, staring up at the warm and cloudless sky.
“Hmm, maybe you will,” comes the teasing little reply, voice closer, and he peers up. At Hannibal. Right by his chair. Pants bagging down low over his lean hips, barefoot in the grass. He’s not quite smiling. No, it’s a considerate look. A considering look. “Maybe you will.”
“Watch me,” Face retorts, feeling that slide start up again, deep in his gut. “I’ll be so out of here.”
“I’m sure you will be,” Hannibal murmurs, one hand on the top of the lieutenant’s chair, those bright eyes watching him.
Face feels weak. Like everything’s falling apart. This can’t be real. It can’t be. He has to be wrong about what he sees there, in the boss. It’s the glasses or something, so he pulls those slowly off, and offers the colonel his best shit-eating conman grin to gloss over his own confusion right now. “Zero-five, I’m gone.”
“Out the door,” Hannibal muses, giving nothing away.
“Fucking-A, boss,” the lieutenant says, grin starting to fail.
“My boy, all on his own again...” And Face barely suppresses the moan in his throat as a big hand slips into his hair, fingers knotting into his hair, messy curls he hasn’t bothered to gel or comb out yet today. His head’s tugged back, just a bit, and his eyes lock onto Hannibal’s. “My brave boy...”
“Boss...” Face pleads, needing this to stop, needing it to stop before it all collapses, before he wakes up...
But he doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever it was he was going to say. Not at all. Because then the colonel’s lips touch to his, not asking for anything today, just offering, offering, and Face can almost taste it, how good it could be, how good it might be, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s opening up into it, letting Hannibal in.
Neither man quite moves into the other, but before Hannibal breaks it off, Face is arched up off the chair and the colonel’s got a knee up on the taut fabric of the seat, his other hand on the younger man’s shoulder, which he uses now to press Face back. Back and away.
“You’re free to leave any time, if that’s what you want, kid,” the boss says in the softest voice he’s ever used. “You’re absolutely free to go.”
Face licks his lips, feeling that old hope start to flare up in him, and this time, he doesn’t tell it to shut up and go away. Maybe. Maybe... “Meh. Tomorrow.”
“Right,” and Hannibal’s smiling, stepping back, walking away. “I’m going to go take a shower before the guys get here, kid,” he yells over his shoulder, and Face might just imagine it, but he’s pretty sure there’s another heated look thrown his way, right as the boss disappears into the house.
He realizes he’s all tense and leaning forward in his lawn chair. That his nerves are sparking white. That there’s something warm starting to build down in his belly. That telling himself that Hannibal doesn’t mean any of it doesn’t quite seem to work.
...maybe, maybe, maybe...
+++++
It’s loud in here. Too loud to think. Much, much too loud to talk. Much too loud to not be wearing double layers of hearing protections
This is the worst part of missions. Sub-standard transportation. Give him first class any day over this.
He’s been living with Hannibal, straight up living with the man, bickering-over-toilet-paper living together, for the last few months. And now they’re coming back from their first op. Victorious. Objectives met, all the right people dead, a good mission.
Better, really. Because it’s given him something to focus on these past few weeks, besides how much sex he’s not getting, Face figures.
Goddammit it.
After that afternoon, things changed. Good change. Change Face thoroughly approves of. They seem to be repairing the friendship they were dangerously close to losing over his infatuation with Sosa. Hannibal listens when Face needs to talk and holds him when he needs to cry and takes him out to the shooting range when he needs to blow something up. Hannibal will touch him now; stroke a hand up his back or into his hair, kiss him, curl up on the couch with him, slot up next to him and run an arm around his waist and hug him close. The hugs are, somehow, the best. As is the way the older man looks at him, so much emotion, so much longing, hiding behind those deep, wise eyes.
So things are good. Better. Almost perfect. Except for the no sex thing. The no sex thing which is pissing him off to no end.
Hannibal just... won’t. For whatever reason, the reason they’ve never discussed. Hannibal won’t.
Won’t fuck him.
Evidently, the boss isn’t up for that. Or at least, not with him, not with Face.
And it is driving the lieutenant batshit insane.
There’s the boss now, looking cramped and uncomfortable in the small bay of their commandeered civilian aircraft. Murdock’s up in the cockpit, BA passed out and tied down in the jump seat, and Hannibal’s looking cramped and uncomfortable, hunched up, making notes for his after action report, pencil tapping on the cold metal floor.
He doesn’t look up as Face passes over to the padding he’s got spread out in the back corner of the bay. Good enough to sleep on right now.
Some of the boss’ stuff is over here. Laminated maps and figures and intelligence reports, their weapons, safed for the flight. And action figures, the planning action figures are there too, in their little zip-lock bag, Wolverine for BA, some kind of anime robot that Murdock loves, Hannibal’s Indiana Jones.
As Face lays down, fiddling with the ear plugs he’s got in, he takes out his own figure.
The little green army man from Hannibal’s bag of little green army men back home. Face always takes a little green army man. Simple, he tells the rest of them, but it’s because he doesn’t have a favorite character or anything like that. The nuns weren’t too keen on that sort of thing. And the few toys any of them had in the orphanage were recycled to the younger kids. Never anything to his own, nothing to keep.
Never anything that was his own.
He feels the colonel’s eyes on him, but Face ignores that and just leans forward instead, taking the little plastic soldier away from his commander, staring at the thing. He wishes he had a favorite toy, something he could walk into the base thrift store and recognize, something from the toy store that’s an update of some happy memory. Wishes there was something else he could offer this man besides a shattered, meaningless past.
Sometimes Face feels like his life didn’t start until he joined the Army, and how fucking sad is that? No wonder, no wonder he’s not good enough for Hannibal to...
Not good enough for the boss. Not good enough for...
Then everything shifts.
A hand closes over his, his palm flexing tight up around the dull green figure. So tight it hurts. And that other big hand, all rough skin and ancient callouses, slides down his cheek.
The boss is laying down next to him, Face realizes with a start, spooning up behind him on the narrow, musty-smelling pallet.
Face jerks, startled at this. In the five weeks or so he’s been living in Hannibal’s place, the boss hasn’t once tried to sleep with him again. Not since that...that bad night. Not a single time. And he’s been beginning to wonder, was the colonel only trying to sooth him that night, was Hannibal only trying to calm him, was it all some complex manipulation to...
But here Hannibal is. Right with him here.
Mouth meeting his.
For a moment.
And then Hannibal’s talking.
The damn plane’s a dual-prop, and sound insulation in the fuselage is non-existent, so Face knows he won’t hear anything, nothing at all. But the boss must realize this, because the boss thinks of everything, and right now Hannibal’s bringing his mouth close to the lieutenant’s ear, whispering quietly enough to override the noise of the engines, as he tugs those little foam plugs clear.
“Remember that op, kid?” he asks, low, almost silent.
Face knows. Face remembers.
Face nods.
“Family. You’re family, Temp, you’re what I love in this world. You’re what I come home to...” he murmurs, and Face knows, instantly, how much it must be costing the boss to say something like that. He wants to say so, but a thumb is petting his cheekbone, and Face suddenly can’t formulate words. At all.
“You’re home,” Hannibal continues, taking the army man away. Like he knows. Like he knows, somehow. “You’ve got a home with me, if you want it, as long as you want it...”
Face feels himself start to shake. Shaking apart. Everything imploding.
“Let me take you home, Templeton. I want to take you home...”
And the lieutenant closes his eyes.
Falling into that.
Letting it finally carry him away.
+++++
“Boss...”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I’ve been thinking...”
There was never any spare bedroom again, after that mission. No lonely apartment. No nights spent wondering if the person next to him wanted to be there. Just long days followed by long nights, exploring, memorizing, remembering, giving.
Nothing but good things. Nothing but certain, sure things.
Until Iraq.
Until Sosa shows back up, bitter and biting, and all Face wants to do is scream at her about what she did to him, what he almost did because of her. But he crumples instead, those old wounds threatening to tear open, let his guts spill all over the desert sand. The edges stay together though, and when he sees Hannibal later that day, there’s no need for words, no need at all, and as his hands grasp and clench on the edge of a narrow mattress pad, big hands soft and hard on his waist at the same time, that monster cock splitting him open, reminding him he’s home, Face figures he can live with her reappearance.
Until it gets them thrown in jail.
Six months. Six months without the boss, without Murdock and BA. Six months without his family. Six months, alone. Six months with lots of time to think.
About Hannibal.
And Charisa.
Hannibal came for him, though, forgave him his stupid little outburst, fucked his brains out somewhere near the New Mexico border, and on they went, on their roaring little rampage of revenge that only ended in fresh agony, and that kiss, that kiss with the woman he’d maybe always love. Just not like that anymore.
“About what, Temp?”
Blue eyes watch him now in the dark. Blue, comforting eyes. Big, comforting hands on his waist, holding him as his body pulls back in to shore, the waves of their shared orgasm fading to lapping little things, and Face snuggles in closer, needing to feel every inch of his commander, his lover, his man, his mate. Like he always does. Like he always will.
“About Charisa, boss. Since we saw her on the pier...”
The younger man can feel the older stiffen, just a little, like he always does when Sosa’s name comes up. “You were playing her, right, Temp?”
They’ve been over it a thousand times. And no matter how hard Face kisses the former colonel, no matter how hard he comes when that magnificent cock is buried, deep inside him, no matter how often he goes out of his way to make sure Hannibal’s got a bed that fits his long body and his favorite brand of cigars and doesn’t have to worry about any of the details these past five months or so, he still thinks he’s going to lose Face again. To a bullet or a woman or jail...
“I love you, John,” Face says gently, running a hand up into all that fine, silvery hair. “You know I love you...”
Hannibal grabs his wrist, and rolls them both around, so he’s spread out on top, pinning Face flat to the bed beneath him. “Please tell me you were playing her.”
“She’s in pain, boss,” Face says, staring up at that face he loves so much, and cups a hand over Hannibal’s cheek. “Something’s not right with her...”
“And you, what? What are we talking about here, Temp?”
He’s got an inkling. Something that’s been bugging him since the phone booth.
...you knew I was a player and you wanted to play...
It wasn’t true, he’d realized over the past few months, looking back. Well, not completely true. Something else, hiding behind it.
Her face had kind of done this... thing. Her eyes going dull, or something. Something faint, echoing out deep. How she’d never really engaged with him, how she’d been so hesitant, so resisting, how she never initiated anything that wasn’t sex, and not even that, their first time together...
Their first time had been her first time.
He can guess the rest of the story.
She’d given up on herself, on ever finding anyone, on ever having something real. Like he had, once. Except there hadn’t been anybody to catch her, nobody to turn to, and Face feels horrible, letting her bear that kind of grief alone, suffer in silence while he’d tried to force all those... things on her.
It had hurt her. He'd done that, he'd hurt her. A lot. But she’d never opened up to him about it, never said a damn word, never shed a single tear in his presence. Not like women normally did.
And there’s only one conclusion for that.
“I think somebody did something bad to her, John. I can’t ignore th...”
“You don’t owe her anything, sweetheart. Not after...” and Hannibal’s entire body is tensing up. They’ve never talked about that night, the pills and the shower and the desperate, frightened words that passed between them. Face knows Hannibal hasn’t ever forgiven Charisa for that.
But Face never blamed her at all.
“I can help her. Whatever’s going on, I can help her.” He slides a hand up between their bare chests, feeling the angular planes of his lover’s body, savoring the way, even now, he can draw a sweet, sweet gasp, fingers closing on one of those hyper-sensitive nipples. “But I won’t go see her, boss, not unless you’re okay with...”
The former colonel kisses him then, hard and desperate, claiming Face as frankly as he had not half an hour ago, foreheads pressed together in the darkness, joined, the boss’ warmth, filling him. “You’re an amazing man, Templeton Peck,” Hannibal murmurs in the lieutenant’s ear as he pulls away. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
Face shivers, and answers in the only way he knows how. The only way he’s ever wanted to.
“Yes.”
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of attempted suicide
Summary: Part two of two for this:
I wrote this fill over on the last meme for a Sosa/Face relationship fic where Sosa is still a virgin when she meets Face but he doesn't know it...
Anyway, I got this request in the final comments:
You know what tho... I'd LOVE to read this from Face's view now!! So much angst, and the way she ripped his heart out... why (after the general 'Face sleeps with ya once and never calls') he gives her a second smile, what's so special about Sosa in the beginning... and then (of course) the fallout, and Hannibal's part in that... especially when Sosa breaks his heart.
Face finds Sosa. But isn’t Hannibal the one he really wants?
Face is woken by a light touch on his shoulder, Monday morning.
And his first thought it that it’s Hannibal.
He’d had a dream, or a memory, or something in between, watching that old encounter in front of him as he tried, and failed, to find a reason to get off the bathroom floor. That little thing, all those years ago, this stupid fucking miscalculation...
It had been a typical Friday night. O-Club, downtown, a taxi back to Hannibal’s place. And Face, in his butterbar stupidity, three months in the unit, four months out of training, and barely a year out of college, had thought there was something going on that night.
That Hannibal was looking at him, stray glances when Face wasn’t really looking.
The way their fingers had brushed when Hannibal handed over a third beer.
How the boss had almost, almost reached out for him as they were leaving, big hand recoiling back to a pocket, sheepish grin firmly in place. Almost leaning on him in the taxi.
That hand on the small of his back as he pushed Face into the house ahead of him, sending sparks through the younger man's body.
When Hannibal had gotten out the good scotch and asked him if he wanted to talk.
“Talk about what, boss?” Face had asked.
“Anything, kid,” Hannibal said, pouring them both doubles with just the right amount of ice. “We don’t do enough of that, you and I.”
“Mentoring?”
“Key to a healthy team,” Hannibal said, and nodded at him, gesturing them both into the den where Sergeant Harris’ XBox was still hooked up from last weekend. The big battered leather couches you could just sink in to. “Need you close, kid.”
He’d stared down into his glass. Was Hannibal coming on to him? It almost sounded like Hannibal was coming on to him. And how many nights had he fantasized about this very thing? The two of them, alone, on the couch, some awkward conversation that turned to...more. “How do you mean, boss?”
“I see a lot of potential in you,” Hannibal said, leaning on the back of the sofa with one elbow, head resting on his fisted hand, just... watching, maybe. With soft, soft blue eyes.
“Yeah? Nobody’s ever had much use for me...” Face had mumbled.
“Hey, hey, can that shit right now, el-tee,” the colonel had said, taking Face’s drink, his own, setting them aside on the table. “Whatever happened before, you’re a Ranger now, part of America’s elite. You’ve got a home here now, a...family, really...”
“Your unit?”
“This is your home, Face. As long as you want it to be.”
And like the lovesick idiot he was back then, the obscenely drunk little baby Ranger he was that night, Face had turned to, right into Hannibal, scooting a little closer. He’d heard a little, encouraging, inhalation of breath, and he’d dared, he’d fucking dared, to put a hand on Hannibal’s chest. Felt that strong heartbeat through his palm. Known right then and there he’d never want anything else.
“With you?”
Hannibal hadn’t shoved him away. No. Hadn’t made a move. “Yeah, kid.” And his free hand, that big hand, had come to rest on Face’s shoulder. “With me.”
“You want me, Hannibal?” he’d asked, the alcohol getting the better of his better judgment, everything going quiet.
“Face, I...”
The lieutenant swung himself up, right into Hannibal’s lap, leaning in close. Wanting this. Wanting this man. Wanting so bad it hurt. “You mean it, boss? You actually want me?”
“Kid, please...”
And Face had taken that as an invitation, seen it for something it wasn’t.
And kissed him.
For a second, maybe two. Closed mouth, sweet, almost chaste. But enough to taste the scotch, the man beneath, all that strength, and oh, oh, it was everything, the truth of Hannibal’s words something Face could have, something unbelievable...
Before Hannibal jerked him off, forcing them apart. Leaving Face on his lap, just...breaking the contact. The kiss. Shattering it.
A moment passed.
“What are you doing, kid?”
Confusion exploded up through Face’s groggy brain. “You said...you said you wanted me, boss.”
There had been something unreadable in Hannibal’s steel blue eyes. “Face, you don’t...you don’t have to...”
He’d tried to lean back in, but Hannibal stopped him, grabbing his wrists and forcing him away again. “I want to. Don’t you want to?”
“Face...”
“If you don’t want me...”
“Face...”
“I mean, if you’re worried, I won’t say anything, you know I can keep a secret...”
“Face!”
Those hands tightened to crushing force on the lieutenant’s wrists.
And he’d stopped. Instantly.
“Face,” Hannibal said in a softer voice, peeling the younger man off of him, off to the side, back on the cushions. “Face, this isn’t how... when I say I want you... this isn’t how things work in my unit. You understand? A home, family, it’s all a brotherhood. Platonic. Nothing more. You understand that?”
Face felt crushed. Devastated. “Fuck,” he said, scrunching both his hands into his hair, pulling hard. “Fuck, boss, I didn’t mean to...I just thought you...”
...felt the same way as me...
Hannibal had watched him for a moment more, and then roughed his hair up, tried to smile, that expression... was that a disgusted expression? It had to be a disgusted expression.
And everything in him went cold as Face was hit with the enormity of what he’d just done.
Fuck, fuck, he’d fucked everything up. Just admitted to his commanding officer he was into guys. Just tried to come on to his commanding officer. Just fucking kissed his commanding officer. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...
“Motherfucker, boss, look, I’m, fuck, I can’t...” he choked out, feeling the tears starting up, just under the surface, three months of longing coming to a head, going to crest, going to crash. “I’ve fucked everything up, shit, sir, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...”
Hannibal stood up and pulled Face’s protesting, panicking body up with him. “You’re drunk, kid.”
“No, Hannibal, really, I shouldn’t, I, I’m, fuck...”
“You’re drunk. We all do stupid things when we’re drunk. Let’s get you to bed, okay? It’s okay, kid, it’s okay...”
“It’s not, it’s...” he’d half sobbed as he’d leaned on the boss’ broad, comforting shoulder, Hannibal holding him close, holding him so he wouldn’t fall on his face, walking him down the hall to one of the spare bedrooms.
“We can talk about this in the morning,” Hannibal had said softly, depositing Face on the bed as hastily as he could, falling away, in the doorway, establishing a distance that, even then, Face knew he’d never close again. “It’s okay. Morning, I promise.”
Except they never talked about it.
Ever.
And it hasn’t been okay.
Ever since then.
And when that hand hits his shoulder, Face half-expects it to be Hannibal, waking him up that morning, telling him it really was okay, that he feels the same way, that there’s something between them, that there could be more, that there should be more, that they could give it a try, that it could work...
“Face? Face, you okay man? Boss sent me to see if you was dead or whatever the fuck.”
But it’s dark eyes watching him now, dark eyes in a dark face, a big hand shaking him gently, concern radiating out and Face has never hated Hannibal more than he does right here, right now.
"It's okay," he lies. "I'm okay.
+++++
Face closes the fridge, beer in hand. He really needs to go to the store, or order in. Or something. He’s basically out of everything that’s not alcohol.
He’s really not sure what day it is. Maybe Thursday.
He’d gotten rid of BA on Monday, some smooth excuses about a rough weekend and needing a day or two off, and the corporal had narrowed his eyes and told Face not to con him, and Face called him insubordinate and threw him out of his apartment.
Monday.
And it’s probably Thursday now.
He really hasn’t been paying attention. Playstation, beer, sleep, television, beer, sleep, more sleep, more beer. That’s pretty much been it. All he’s been doing. He pulled his cell phone battery out as soon as he’d slammed the door on BA, hasn’t checked his email, and nobody else has come over.
Not Charisa.
And not Hannibal.
Face pops the cap off the bottle and finishes half of it in one go, considering the corner cabinet in his kitchen for the fourth time since he woke up this last time.
The military issues painkillers in obscene quantites, and no matter how against regs it is, almost everybody keeps what they don’t use. Almost everyone’s got at least one bottle of perscription Vicodin or Valium or Percoset or industrial-sized Motrin in their medicine cabinet. After one bullet wound, a torn rotator cuff, chronic tendonitis in his left foot, three broken fingers, sixty-two stitches and that one cold he’s had in the last twelve months alone, Face could probably fell an elephant with his private pharmacopeia.
Doesn’t take that much, though.
Only takes a moment. What difference does it make?
He sips at the beer.
It’s not like anyone would miss him, not really. The military would just reduce him to a number, put it on a slide, tell the troops that there are resources available to prevent this kind of thing. BA would probably be glad to see him gone, the number of times he’s pissed the big guy off. Murdock probably wouldn’t remember him, after a few days. Father Magill would be upset about his favorite orphan condemning his immortal soul, but then, Father Magill’s dead himself, so that’s not really an issue. Charisa clearly doesn’t give a shit. And Hannibal?
He sips at the beer.
Hannibal would probably be pissed at him for not shooting himself or committing seppuku or falling on his sword or some shit like that. However soldiers, warriors, are supposed to do it. He’d be so disappointed. Probably wouldn’t even come to his funeral, if he had a funeral.
And he probably wouldn’t have a funeral. No ceremony, city morgue, just another unclaimed...
Why the fuck hasn’t Hannibal come over?
At the very least, Face knows he’s AWOL. Other shit. A lot of trouble. Enough for somebody, anybody, the goddamn Benning MPs to come over and drag him out to the stockade.
So not even the military cares where he is right now, and Face wants to laugh.
If only he’d figured this out sooner.
Saved himself a lot of grief.
But why hasn’t Hannibal come over?
I never loved you, kid, and I never will...
The beer’s empty and it’s getting dark outside. Face chucks the bottle in the trash and tries not to think about the medicine cabinet.
He really, really doesn’t think about it.
Who’d want you, Face? What’s the point in staying when you can’t be part of anything...
“Shut up,” he mutters to that voice and gets another beer, flopping over to switch on the TV.
Face isn’t the kind of guy to keep a lot of photos around. Charisa had commented on that at one point, a few months back. Everything’s on his computer, the few pictures he does has, dating back to that first day of Texas A&M ROTC training. Nothing before. Nothing from his childhood. His life, the only part of it he’s cared about, started when he joined the military.
He does have one framed picture, though, on the bookcase right next to the TV, and he picks it up now. Something very frank he took in the bay of the C-130 somewhere over the Pacific, his first year on the job, fooling around with his brand-new digital camera.
Hannibal, a major then, hair just starting to gray, in non-issue combat gear, kneeling down in front of one of the jump seats, hands on the knees of a very skinny corporal. Corporal Michael Keyes. Face remembers the moment. The boss offering some pre-mission advice to a terrified boy.
He’d been killed, Corporal Keyes. The first man Face had ever lost, the kid’s chest blown open by a fifty-cal round. But they’d gotten his what was left of his body out. Hannibal had taken two bullets to the leg, to make sure that had happened.
He won’t be your last, el-tee, Hannibal had told him on the flight back, squeezing Face’s hand as the sergeant administered another dose of morphine, eyes on the olive drab tarp in the corner. This is what I meant, kid, about family. This is family...
Face isn’t really sure why he kept the photo.
He remembers, though, that that was the moment, watching Hannibal talk to the kid, both of them completely ignorant of what was coming for them all, that he could be loyal to this man. That he could trust him. That maybe love meant more than a dick up his ass and a warm place to sleep.
I don’t want you...
The lieutenant thumbs the glass over the boss’ still image.
He’d like Hannibal to have this, at least. If anybody comes looking. If he ever comes looking. He’d like the boss to know he’d kept it. Why. But he doesn’t have a pen on him, isn’t sure where one would be, and he kisses the place where his thumb just was. Puts the frame back in its dusty little footprint.
Looks back over at the medicine cabinet.
Probably best to just get it over with.
Nobody’s going to miss him anyway.
And his hand is on the cabinet knob when he hears the knock at the door.
Probably not...
“Face?”
...Hannibal?
“Face, kid, you home?”
He plasters himself back against the cabinetry, wondering if he’s asleep again, wondering if...
Another knock, louder this time. “Face, come on, kid, I know you’re there, your ‘vette’s here, you haven’t been at work in five days...”
It’s Friday?
Face blinks.
Hannibal left him alone for five fucking days?
Fuck that.
And he goes back to the cabinet, heart in his feet.
Doesn’t answer the door at all.
It's not worth the I told you so.
He just couldn't bear it.
The biggest bottle in here is the Vicodin from his knee surgery, Face knows. The biggest and the fullest.
What are you doing, kid? he hears.
That goddamn voice that’s been talking to him all this time, Hannibal’s voice and Face slumps a little. “What the fuck do you care?” he grumbles to himself, fingers holding over that Vicodin. Probably won’t be enough. A couple of beers, those five or six Valium he’s got left, just slide right off...
He left his beer over by the TV, so he needs to go get that, and thank fuck, the banging on the door’s stopped.
So he turns.
And there’s the boss.
Hanging off the open door.
“What are you doing, Face?”
The lieutenant’s fingers tighten down around the two bottles in his hand, clenching into a kind of fist, and he knows Hannibal’s eyes are watching those. “Forgot you had a key,” he laughs.
“Thank christ I did,” his commander says, voice soft, taking a step towards him, and Face takes a step back. “What are you doing?”
“What are you?” the lieutenant throws back flatly, amazed himself at how flat, how empty, those words sound. He’s numb. Completely numb. Encased in a wonderful shell nothing’s going to penetrate.
“I haven’t seen you for a week,” Hannibal almost whispers, face a curious shade of gray. “I tried calling, sent BA by on Monday...”
“And you what, just let it go?”
“He said you...said you...fuck you’ve pulled weirder shit on me, Face, than not showing up for a week, but...” and Hannibal takes another step forward, and another, moving incrementally towards Face as he’s talking, careful, like he’s trying not to startle some frightened animal. “But we were at the Club tonight...”
They’re almost touching now, and that’s the last thing in the world Face can handle right now. “Hannibal, look, please...”
“I saw your girl, kid,” Hannibal says, reaching out but not touching . “I saw Charisa with...”
Face closes his eyes. Already? Really? Would she? “Figures,” he mumbles, and pulls back from Hannibal. But there’s nowhere to go. He's trapped.
He hates it.
He wishes Hannibal would leave.
So he could get on with it.
“What happened?”
And there’s a hundred things Face could say to that. Lies, half-truths, the things others would see, understand, things that would get Hannibal out of here.
But one of those come out.
The truth does instead.
He’s too raw to stop it.
“I’m not enough.”
Hannibal looks up from the bottles in Face’s hand for the first time, features stamped with a confusion the lieutenant knows dimly, somewhere, that he’s never seen on the man before. “What?”
“I’m not good enough to keep her, boss. I’m not good enough to keep anybody. I’m too goddamn fucked up. I don’t... I don’t deserve...don’t deserve her, a family, Hannibal...”
“Face, that’s not true...”
But he’s not listening. “Everybody throws me away, boss,” he says, desperate to make Hannibal understand why he has to leave, right the fuck now. “Nobody wants me, nobody’s ever wanted me, I’m fucked...so it’s okay, it just makes sense, it’s okay, I’m okay with it...”
“Face, stop it,” Hannibal says, a little harsher, cutting the lieutenant off and on top of him now, bodies smashed together, a big hand slipping around his, trying to tug those bottle away. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
“She left,” Face says, hollow, feeling nothing, not even the way Hannibal’s pulling him into his arms, taking his weight, not how the pills are suddenly gone, leaving his hand empty, not even the wracking breaths passing through them both. “She left me, she didn’t want me, she didn’t, she didn’t, nobody does, so what the fuck good am I? Why should I stay...”
“Oh, Temp,” Hannibal murmurs, hugging him tight. “I want you to stay. I want you to stay. Please, stay with me...”
And Face just closes his eyes against it.
It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.
+++++
Hannibal waits as long as he can like this, breathing in the acrid smell of stale sweat, feeling those hands dig deeper and deeper into his ACU blouse, listening to the silent, silent sobs.
He wants to kick himself.
Or something. Something bad. Something to remind him what a fucking idiot he’s been this week. What almost happened on his watch.
The colonel honestly doesn’t think Face would do such a thing. He’s had the training, Hannibal has, the sit-down sessions all commanders have to go through, the ones with the photographs and the statistics and the psychiatrists. When they emphasize the warning signs, the after action, the way you’re not supposed to eulogize at the funeral. Mostly, it’s bullshit. He’s had one of these in his unit before, back when he was a captain. Nobody had known, nobody had suspected, and nobody found out until three days after it happened.
Nobody had checked.
And he’s left Face alone. All week.
It was a stupid fucking thing to do. BA had mentioned that Face was actin’ like a damn fool, but that wasn’t really all that informative. And Hannibal hadn’t pressed. Just gave the kid leave for the week and thought nothing of it.
Don’t fucking lie to yourself, John, he admonishes himself, peeling Face off the wall. The kid is limp and unprotesting in his arms. He needs a shower, clean him off, wake him up and sooth him back down. It’s like he’s in shock or something. The shower’s going to help. You failed your boy.
He knows it.
He does.
He should have pressed BA. He should have called. Should have come over. Should have done one of a thousand things he was expected to do as a commander, as a fucking human being with a connection to another.
But no. He’d been pissed.
He’s been pissed at the kid since the ring.
Face had been so excited, so proud, his little teddy bear, the engagement ring, and Hannibal couldn’t even smile. Couldn’t say anything real. Because all the older man had seen, in that moment, was everything he was losing. How Face would pull away from him. Fall into his own family. A husband, a father, kids...beautiful little blonde children...
But then the colonel had seen Sosa at the Club, drinking with that nurse friend of hers and flirting with some guy from Signals, little touches. He’d stared and she’d eventually looked up, met it, her guilt in her eyes, everything she’d done.
And he’d flown over here.
The bathroom door’s open, at least, and Hannibal leans his unresponsive lieutenant up against the wall while he turns on the shower. Tests the temperature.
“Come on, Face,” Hannibal says softly, running a now-wet hand into greasy curls, massaging the kid’s scalp, hoping for some kind of reaction. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
The kid doesn’t move at all, no, his eyes sliding shut instead. In protest? Hannibal’s not sure, but still, he strips the kid, briefs and everything, that rotten smell of refused alcohol on his skin too awful too ignore any longer. He pauses a moment, and then does the same for himself, letting the uniform, boots, boxers fall to the bathroom floor.
There’s nothing between them, nothing at all, and no sound in the room but the water pounding on the floor of the tub as he lifts them both in to the shower and pulls the curtains.
There are things of hers in here. A pink razor, hair products too cheap to be Face’s, and Hannibal reaches past those for a bottle of body wash, the brand he’s seen the kid with on deployments before. She didn’t take anything, he muses as he measures out a good-sized palmful. It must have been bad. Very, very bad.
Hannibal tries not to think about what he wants to do to her, what he’d threatened to do to her at the burger burn. He grits his teeth and lathers that gel in his hand, swiping it across Face’s lightly furred chest.
Face buckles again.
Hannibal grabs him, holds him, pressing the younger man back into him, a big hand flat on the kid’s flat belly. Face leans forward a little, bracing himself against the shower wall, letting the warm water sluice down his curved back, falling between them, through his hair and down his downcast head, rolling off. It’s beautiful. Face is always beautiful. Always has been.
Hannibal wants to kick himself.
For not coming over.
For never meeting the kid halfway.
For not reaching out that night, so long ago, when his sweet, beautiful boy had crawled into his lap and begged for a kiss. Begged to be with him.
All Hannibal had been able to remember then was his break-up with Russ, how everything had gone to shit between them, how he’d vowed, as that broken captain, smoking a cigar on the edge of the Balkans, bombs falling in the dark of the night, that he’d never fall in love with another military man again. That he wouldn’t put himself through the pain. Put anyone else through the pain. That certain things were incompatible with his life. How sacrifices had to be made, if he was going to survive.
So he’d sealed up, hardened, locked himself away, too far for Face to reach after only a few months together. He hadn’t been willing, able then.
Then.
It’s been years now, years. And every day, a little more, Face has opened him back up. Crawled into his heart. Taken up residence.
And then Face had found a girl. Of course he had. His sweet, clever, canny, bisexual boy had found himself a girl. Like he deserved. Full of hope for a family. Like he deserved. Not this fucked-up excuse of a life Hannibal could offer him.
It’s ironic, really. Hannibal wants to laugh at the irony, as he cleans the dead weight in his arms. It’s Face, the boy who wanted his commander more than anything once, who’s given up hope for anything more with another man. While he, himself, John, the man who vowed he would never try, has found himself desperately longing for it. For Face. For...
...for something more.
His hand’s moving lower, and that last thing he wants to do is molest Face in the shower. Who knows how the kid’s going to react, going to remember, something like that right now? But there’s no response, no indication, still, that his lieutenant even knew he was here.
He hasn't been, not really. Not since Charisa. Face must have felt so alone, to not come to him. Locked out. Desperate. Incredibly desperate...
He tries not to think about it, choosing to focus on the task at hand. Finding his boy. Bringing him back.
So, soapy hand trembling, Hannibal brushes down the kid’s cock.
Nothing.
“Come back to me, Face,” he murmurs, low and soft in that soaked ear. “Come back to me. I need you, kid. Can’t lose you...”
Face shivers, moans, just a little.
Hannibal smiles.
Progress.
Shivers are starting up, so Hannibal finishes, cleaning every square inch of skin he can, squatting down to wash the kid's legs, sliding up, hands trailing up across the kid's buttocks, up his spine. Shampoos his hair, and Face is going to kill him tomorrow, but he doesn't bother with the conditioner. Wants to get this over with.
It's torture.
Face doesn't speak as the water shuts off and Hannibal wraps a fresh towel around him, rubbing firmly. He's hoping for a smile, but the kid's still blank.
Fuck.
He gets himself dried off, too, and bundles the kid away again, back into his bedroom. Fluffing that tired-looking, unmade bedding as best he can, the colonel notices it all smells like woman, like Charisa, and he can't put Face back in that. So he leans Face up against the wall again and goes for fresh sheets, remaking it all faster than he can ever remember making up a bed before, even at West Point that first summer.
Hannibal catches Face watching him, blue eyes tracking up a bit, still expressionless, as he turns down one side and plumps the pillows. "All new, Temp," he says gently, and holds out a hand, open in a gesture he hopes the kid can understand right now. “Let’s get you to sleep, okay?”
He stumbles a little as the colonel pulls him away, and Hannibal sweeps him easily around, up into bed, snuggling him into cool cotton that smells like dryer sheets. He’s tempted to leave the kid like that, let him sleep, not do anything that’s uninvited, but Face is starting to curl up, clawing at the pillow as his knees pull up, and Hannibal’s seen enough shock in his life to know that’s not a good thing.
He does the only thing he can think to do.
He crawls in, right next to Face, plastering himself up against the younger man’s back, forcing his knees down with one of his own legs, one hand on his boy’s forehead, the other on his belly, rubbing soft circles.
“Shh, Temp,” he whispers. “I’m here, you’re here, everything’s okay, you’re not alone...”
“...leave...” comes the little answering whimper, almost too low to hear. “I’ll never...”
He clings closer to the kid, fresh fear rushing through him. “Face, there are... fuck, kid, there are people here who love you.”
“No, no there aren’t.”
“There are, Temp,” Hannibal murmurs. “I... I love you...”
“No, you don’t,” his boy says into his pillow. “Fuck you...”
That’s when the tears start, and carry Face away from him again. But Hannibal doesn’t move away, doesn’t let go, and when it finally breaks, when breathing slows and sleep takes over the grief, that’s when he gets up. Goes back into the kitchen. Pulls every fucking pill bottle in that fucking cabinet, even the ibuprofen and the multi-vitamin, and flushes the whole fucking lot down the toilet.
It doesn’t make him feel any better, though, as he collapses against the bathroom wall, head in his hands.
It’s not okay.
Nothing’s ever going to make it okay.
His boy deserves so much better than this. Than this fucking mess of a life.
Than everything he's ever given him.
Than him.
+++++
When Face wakes on Saturday, the first thing he notices is the warm body against his. Nothing else. And for a split second, in the time it takes for him to open his eyes, he thinks it might be her. Charisa, coming back.
But.
That’s not a woman’s arm around him, not a woman’s chest, not a woman’s slender leg and rounded hip.
No.
It’s all angles and planes and hard lines and lean, long muscle, a cock, almost against his own, stubble, eyes. Blue eyes...
“Good morning,” Hannibal says. Like it means something that he’s here.
Why the fuck is he here?
Face stiffens and pulls back fast, as far away as he can get without falling off the bed. The first thought, the very first, screaming through his brain, is that he did it. That he’s dead. That this is hell, just like Father Magill might have warned him, and at any moment, at any moment...
“Temp...”
Oh yeah. First name? He’s definitely in hell.
Hannibal looks startled as he sits up a little. Well fuck him. What is he doing here? “Temp, you okay? Last night, you were...”
Last night?
Oh fuck.
Last night.
He remembers last night. The medicine cabinet. The knock at the door. The hope that Hannibal would leave. The way he’d just gone cold inside. The shower. The bed. The words, the horrible words, all that come back to me bullshit. Things Hannibal couldn’t possibly mean.
Yet.
The boss is here.
The boss is in bed with him.
Don’t get carried away, Peck. He’s concerned now, sure, but...
“I was drunk last night,” he says flatly, rolling out of bed and motherfucker, why is he naked? The lieutenant starts casting about for a pair of boxers or something. Not looking at Hannibal. “Just drunk.”
The older man makes a little grunting noise that’s a whole lot of things he’s not saying. “Why didn’t you talk to me, kid? Why didn’t you talk to any of us? Why... how could you even think about doing that?”
Face finds a pair of sleep pants in his top drawer, and that’s good enough for right now. “Doing what?”
“Face,” ...and it’s back to Face, is it? Insincere lying bastard... “Face, you had... I thought... what if I’d gotten here an hour later? Found your body on the floor? Do you have any idea what that would do to Murdock and BA, to everyone at the unit?”
He shrugs. He really, really wants Hannibal out of his bed. Out of his house. Out of his life. Now.
“They’d be okay.”
And yeah, that gets Hannibal out. Right up to him, in fact, and he’s naked, too. From the shower, right? What the fuck? Face sort of wants to hit him. The boss knows he’s double-hinged. The boss has to remember the couch, all those years ago. Why would he do something like this? Why?
“They would not be okay,” Hannibal growls, slamming him back into the wall, violent, too fast to stop. “Do you know what a suicide does to people? What happens to the people left behind? How they never get over it? How you hurt the ones who love you most?”
He just shakes his head. It’s all too much. Way too much to take in right now. “They don’t...I’m not...”
“They love you, Face!” Hannibal snaps, fist contacting the wall, hard, an inch from Face’s ear. “We all... we all love you.”
“Right,” he tries to laugh. “You love me. Sure. Like one of your boys, like a son. Can’t let one of your boys go, nope, imagine the fucking paperwork that would generate for y...”
“Face...”
“Dude, just fucking leave, would you? I’m fine. I’m not going to kill myself, not going to do anything.”
“Face, I can’t do that, I’ve got a responsibility...”
“I don’t care what the fucking regs say, get out of my goddamn house,” he hisses, desperately wanting the universe to stop tilting around and go back to plane. Go back to what it’s supposed to be. What it always has been. What he knows to be real. “Get the fuck out of my life, Hannibal.”
“...I’m sorry.”
It’s whispered, so Face damn near misses it. Well, that, and the fact that Colonel Hannibal Smith does not apologize. Ever. For anything. Under any circumstances. He’s never heard those words come out of the man before.
Still.
“Sorry for what?” he demands, voice nearly unrecognizable, even to himself
And the colonel’s breathing fast and shallow. Leaning in. “I thought I’d lost you to her,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Couldn’t be happy for you...”
“You wouldn’t have lost me, boss,” Face says, confused now. What is this? What the fuck is going on? There’s nothing solid to reach for at all, nothing except the warmth of Hannibal’s body pressed close to his own, and that’s the one thing, the very singular thing, he can’t have. Can’t, can’t, can’t have...
“And then I almost lost you last night because, because...” A hand touches his cheek. “Did you think about how I’d feel, Face? Did you wonder at all?”
“I thought,” he says, and licks dry lips, and answers, because this is some kind of unreality that is going to fade when he wakes in the morning, somewhere his guard doesn’t have to be up because none of it exists, “I thought you’d be pissed, that I didn’t do it right.”
“Right?” He sounds vaguely horrified.
“With a gun or something like that.”
Hannibal’s just staring at him, something terrified in his eyes, and fingers slide around the lieutenant’s neck, pulling their foreheads together. “I wouldn’t have been pissed, Face,” he whispers, almost too quiet to hear. “I wouldn’t have been mad.”
Face feels his heart sinking. So Hannibal really doesn’t care. Not even that tiny fucking amount...
“I wouldn’t have survived it, Face. Knowing I’ve caused you so much pain.”
“Hannibal, you...”
“I’ve caused you so much pain,” he says again, urgent. “Not even giving you the simplest of things. Not giving in to what I...”
Face tries to stay neutral, tries to keep his mask of indifference up, but those last words? Those words from before...
...come back to me...
“Giving in to what?” he manages to push out, dry and cold.
“Like this,” Hannibal whispers back, hand shifting, cupping his chin.
And then their lips meet.
It’s electric, like his first kiss was with her, but more. So much more. Everything, really, right here, the better part of a decade of frustration and, and... longing, maybe, in the way that Hannibal’s urging him to part, open up, let him in, let him be exactly where Face has always, always wanted him to be.
But.
So Face shoves him away. Hard.
So hard Hannibal damn near trips over his own feet, saved from falling only by the edge of the bed, where he crumples up against, head turned, eyes down lips pressed together in a thin line of defeat.
He doesn’t realize one of his hands is in a fist until he looks down at it.
And Face wonders, wonders, if maybe, just maybe, there might be something more going on here than...
“Pack a bag, kid,” Hannibal says, and it’s nothing but the colonel talking now.
“Taking me to the hospital, boss?” Face asks, hard and biting. He remembers his first job, the suicide attempt he’d seen there with one of the sergeants. Had to go stay with mental health until the mental health folks cleared him again for active duty. “Gonna leave me on the damn ward?”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“And the hospital’s better why?”
“My place,” Hannibal says with a sigh, and looks up. “You’re gonna stay at my place.”
“Until when? Why? What the fuck difference does it make to you?”
There are a hundred emotions flicking away behind pale blue eyes, but whatever Hannibal’s thinking, he doesn’t give voice to it. “You remember what I said about family, kid, when Corporal Keyes...”
“Yeah,” Face says, voice husky all of the sudden. “I remember Corporal Keyes.”
Hannibal pushes off the bed, and comes over, putting a hand on Face’s shoulder. “It makes a fucking difference to me, your life, Templeton,” he says softly. “You’re not alone in this. I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone...”
“Hannibal, I’m okay...”
“Stop lying to yourself, Face,” Hannibal says, “and pack that damn bag. This is no place for you to have to be right now. Let me take you home, kid...”
Face wants to argue. Wants to fight him. Wants to do a hundred things that he doesn’t do.
No.
Instead he just falls forward, the boss catching him without a second thought, just like Face knows he will, and he buries his face in that strong shoulder. “She’s gone...” he murmurs.
“Yeah, kid,” Hannibal whispers back, holding him close. “I know, I know, I know...”
+++++
It’s three weeks before Face even thinks to ask.
Huh.
They’re outside right now, Face stretched out in a reclining lawn chair he’d made Hannibal buy him a few years ago, in the absolute smallest set of swim trunks he can find that don’t make him look totally gay. The boss is up on the porch reading some book. It’s Sunday and there’s a game this afternoon. They’re going to have to start getting set up for it soon, but right now, it's just...peaceful.
None of the guys from the unit, not even BA and Murdock, know he’s been moved in. Basically. Basically moved in.
And Face wonders when he started thinking about this whole thing like that.
Hannibal let him take the room upstairs, the one the boss normally uses for a library, but it’s quieter, more out of the way, than any of the rooms downstairs or in the basement. Nice and snug, and Face has been waking up to the spines of the boss’ books for the better part of a month now. It’s soothing, somehow, being so close to something that Hannibal loves, without actually having to be close to the man.
Not that he wanted to be at Hannibal’s place.
Not really.
But, on Sunday morning when he wakes up and the boss was waiting for him downstairs with a truly excellent breakfast and ridiculously good coffee, when he pulled up a stool and got a warm, friendly hug, when Hannibal started telling West Point stories, like about the time they duct taped the Navy midi to the ceiling during Army-Navy Week, as he sat there and just sort of soaked in it, Face had figured that maybe this would be survivable.
It’s not like it’s been exactly pleasant, though. Face had quickly realized all the colonel’s cooking knives only came out at meals, that his personal arsenal had vanished, that there wasn’t a drop of alcohol or a single painkiller anywhere to be found.
And the boss hasn’t exactly been giving him space, either. Especially not that first week, when he’d been so clingy BA had asked about it. Even now, he can’t go half an hour without Hannibal checking in on him, and usually, like right now, when he’s trying to get a tan outside, the older man’s there. He can’t even close the door when he showers, for fuck’s sake.
It’s all very, very insulting. In a way.
But Hannibal, Face knows, doesn’t want to leave him alone, and after a few days, he realized that no, he doesn’t want to be alone either. That being with Hannibal, even like this, even under these circumstances, is, well...
There’s something, just something, about having the boss wake him up, dump his running shoes in his lap and demand he get his ass up, they’re losing daylight. Or the way the boss knows how to make absolute perfect coffee. Or how it feels when they both crash on the couch and watch The Sopranos and listen to Hannibal critique the mobsters’ gun handling techniques. Or how he sarcastically asked for a good-night kiss that first night, and to his surprise, he’s actually gotten one. On the lips. A little peck on the cheek, nothing serious. But still. It makes him wonder.
It’s all starting to make him wonder.
“What’s that about?” he’d demanded.
“Just glad you’re okay, Face,” Hannibal had replied.
He gets one every night now.
So, really, it’s...nice. Almost. Almost nice. He’s still not quite sure how he should feel about all of this, but...
“I’m not going to kill myself, Hannibal,” Face says, taking the little glasses off his eyes and sitting up in the lawn chair. “You know that, right, boss? I didn’t really want to...”
Hannibal’s in the shade of the patio, smoking a cigar, and the lieutenant can’t help but look. The way his elbow’s bent up on his knee, the paperback lazy in a lazy hand, bare-chested, the lightest dusting of salt and pepper hair that Face has always, always, wanted to touch, cargos loose around long, stretched legs. “I know, Face,” he says, without even bothering to glance up.
“You know?”
“Yup. Nothing wrong with you at all.” Hannibal agrees mildly, and turns the page. “You’re fine.”
“So, can I leave?”
“Sure.”
Things are never that easy with this man. What’s his game? “You’re going to let me leave? Like, I can go?”
“Face,” and Hannibal doesn’t even bother looking up, “if you want to go, go.”
“You won’t stop me?”
“Try it and find out.”
Face considers this for a moment. All the reasons Hannibal could be saying this. “You’re going to stop me, aren’t you, boss?”
Hannibal shrugs. Turns another page.
“Fuck it,” the lieutenant says back, putting his sunglasses back on. “We’ve got Murdock and everybody coming over today, right?”
“Yeah,” Hannibal says. “Yeah, we do.”
“Maybe I’ll go home tomorrow, then,” Face replies, closing his eyes beneath the little tanning glasses, settling his hands up his head, staring up at the warm and cloudless sky.
“Hmm, maybe you will,” comes the teasing little reply, voice closer, and he peers up. At Hannibal. Right by his chair. Pants bagging down low over his lean hips, barefoot in the grass. He’s not quite smiling. No, it’s a considerate look. A considering look. “Maybe you will.”
“Watch me,” Face retorts, feeling that slide start up again, deep in his gut. “I’ll be so out of here.”
“I’m sure you will be,” Hannibal murmurs, one hand on the top of the lieutenant’s chair, those bright eyes watching him.
Face feels weak. Like everything’s falling apart. This can’t be real. It can’t be. He has to be wrong about what he sees there, in the boss. It’s the glasses or something, so he pulls those slowly off, and offers the colonel his best shit-eating conman grin to gloss over his own confusion right now. “Zero-five, I’m gone.”
“Out the door,” Hannibal muses, giving nothing away.
“Fucking-A, boss,” the lieutenant says, grin starting to fail.
“My boy, all on his own again...” And Face barely suppresses the moan in his throat as a big hand slips into his hair, fingers knotting into his hair, messy curls he hasn’t bothered to gel or comb out yet today. His head’s tugged back, just a bit, and his eyes lock onto Hannibal’s. “My brave boy...”
“Boss...” Face pleads, needing this to stop, needing it to stop before it all collapses, before he wakes up...
But he doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever it was he was going to say. Not at all. Because then the colonel’s lips touch to his, not asking for anything today, just offering, offering, and Face can almost taste it, how good it could be, how good it might be, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s opening up into it, letting Hannibal in.
Neither man quite moves into the other, but before Hannibal breaks it off, Face is arched up off the chair and the colonel’s got a knee up on the taut fabric of the seat, his other hand on the younger man’s shoulder, which he uses now to press Face back. Back and away.
“You’re free to leave any time, if that’s what you want, kid,” the boss says in the softest voice he’s ever used. “You’re absolutely free to go.”
Face licks his lips, feeling that old hope start to flare up in him, and this time, he doesn’t tell it to shut up and go away. Maybe. Maybe... “Meh. Tomorrow.”
“Right,” and Hannibal’s smiling, stepping back, walking away. “I’m going to go take a shower before the guys get here, kid,” he yells over his shoulder, and Face might just imagine it, but he’s pretty sure there’s another heated look thrown his way, right as the boss disappears into the house.
He realizes he’s all tense and leaning forward in his lawn chair. That his nerves are sparking white. That there’s something warm starting to build down in his belly. That telling himself that Hannibal doesn’t mean any of it doesn’t quite seem to work.
...maybe, maybe, maybe...
+++++
It’s loud in here. Too loud to think. Much, much too loud to talk. Much too loud to not be wearing double layers of hearing protections
This is the worst part of missions. Sub-standard transportation. Give him first class any day over this.
He’s been living with Hannibal, straight up living with the man, bickering-over-toilet-paper living together, for the last few months. And now they’re coming back from their first op. Victorious. Objectives met, all the right people dead, a good mission.
Better, really. Because it’s given him something to focus on these past few weeks, besides how much sex he’s not getting, Face figures.
Goddammit it.
After that afternoon, things changed. Good change. Change Face thoroughly approves of. They seem to be repairing the friendship they were dangerously close to losing over his infatuation with Sosa. Hannibal listens when Face needs to talk and holds him when he needs to cry and takes him out to the shooting range when he needs to blow something up. Hannibal will touch him now; stroke a hand up his back or into his hair, kiss him, curl up on the couch with him, slot up next to him and run an arm around his waist and hug him close. The hugs are, somehow, the best. As is the way the older man looks at him, so much emotion, so much longing, hiding behind those deep, wise eyes.
So things are good. Better. Almost perfect. Except for the no sex thing. The no sex thing which is pissing him off to no end.
Hannibal just... won’t. For whatever reason, the reason they’ve never discussed. Hannibal won’t.
Won’t fuck him.
Evidently, the boss isn’t up for that. Or at least, not with him, not with Face.
And it is driving the lieutenant batshit insane.
There’s the boss now, looking cramped and uncomfortable in the small bay of their commandeered civilian aircraft. Murdock’s up in the cockpit, BA passed out and tied down in the jump seat, and Hannibal’s looking cramped and uncomfortable, hunched up, making notes for his after action report, pencil tapping on the cold metal floor.
He doesn’t look up as Face passes over to the padding he’s got spread out in the back corner of the bay. Good enough to sleep on right now.
Some of the boss’ stuff is over here. Laminated maps and figures and intelligence reports, their weapons, safed for the flight. And action figures, the planning action figures are there too, in their little zip-lock bag, Wolverine for BA, some kind of anime robot that Murdock loves, Hannibal’s Indiana Jones.
As Face lays down, fiddling with the ear plugs he’s got in, he takes out his own figure.
The little green army man from Hannibal’s bag of little green army men back home. Face always takes a little green army man. Simple, he tells the rest of them, but it’s because he doesn’t have a favorite character or anything like that. The nuns weren’t too keen on that sort of thing. And the few toys any of them had in the orphanage were recycled to the younger kids. Never anything to his own, nothing to keep.
Never anything that was his own.
He feels the colonel’s eyes on him, but Face ignores that and just leans forward instead, taking the little plastic soldier away from his commander, staring at the thing. He wishes he had a favorite toy, something he could walk into the base thrift store and recognize, something from the toy store that’s an update of some happy memory. Wishes there was something else he could offer this man besides a shattered, meaningless past.
Sometimes Face feels like his life didn’t start until he joined the Army, and how fucking sad is that? No wonder, no wonder he’s not good enough for Hannibal to...
Not good enough for the boss. Not good enough for...
Then everything shifts.
A hand closes over his, his palm flexing tight up around the dull green figure. So tight it hurts. And that other big hand, all rough skin and ancient callouses, slides down his cheek.
The boss is laying down next to him, Face realizes with a start, spooning up behind him on the narrow, musty-smelling pallet.
Face jerks, startled at this. In the five weeks or so he’s been living in Hannibal’s place, the boss hasn’t once tried to sleep with him again. Not since that...that bad night. Not a single time. And he’s been beginning to wonder, was the colonel only trying to sooth him that night, was Hannibal only trying to calm him, was it all some complex manipulation to...
But here Hannibal is. Right with him here.
Mouth meeting his.
For a moment.
And then Hannibal’s talking.
The damn plane’s a dual-prop, and sound insulation in the fuselage is non-existent, so Face knows he won’t hear anything, nothing at all. But the boss must realize this, because the boss thinks of everything, and right now Hannibal’s bringing his mouth close to the lieutenant’s ear, whispering quietly enough to override the noise of the engines, as he tugs those little foam plugs clear.
“Remember that op, kid?” he asks, low, almost silent.
Face knows. Face remembers.
Face nods.
“Family. You’re family, Temp, you’re what I love in this world. You’re what I come home to...” he murmurs, and Face knows, instantly, how much it must be costing the boss to say something like that. He wants to say so, but a thumb is petting his cheekbone, and Face suddenly can’t formulate words. At all.
“You’re home,” Hannibal continues, taking the army man away. Like he knows. Like he knows, somehow. “You’ve got a home with me, if you want it, as long as you want it...”
Face feels himself start to shake. Shaking apart. Everything imploding.
“Let me take you home, Templeton. I want to take you home...”
And the lieutenant closes his eyes.
Falling into that.
Letting it finally carry him away.
+++++
“Boss...”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I’ve been thinking...”
There was never any spare bedroom again, after that mission. No lonely apartment. No nights spent wondering if the person next to him wanted to be there. Just long days followed by long nights, exploring, memorizing, remembering, giving.
Nothing but good things. Nothing but certain, sure things.
Until Iraq.
Until Sosa shows back up, bitter and biting, and all Face wants to do is scream at her about what she did to him, what he almost did because of her. But he crumples instead, those old wounds threatening to tear open, let his guts spill all over the desert sand. The edges stay together though, and when he sees Hannibal later that day, there’s no need for words, no need at all, and as his hands grasp and clench on the edge of a narrow mattress pad, big hands soft and hard on his waist at the same time, that monster cock splitting him open, reminding him he’s home, Face figures he can live with her reappearance.
Until it gets them thrown in jail.
Six months. Six months without the boss, without Murdock and BA. Six months without his family. Six months, alone. Six months with lots of time to think.
About Hannibal.
And Charisa.
Hannibal came for him, though, forgave him his stupid little outburst, fucked his brains out somewhere near the New Mexico border, and on they went, on their roaring little rampage of revenge that only ended in fresh agony, and that kiss, that kiss with the woman he’d maybe always love. Just not like that anymore.
“About what, Temp?”
Blue eyes watch him now in the dark. Blue, comforting eyes. Big, comforting hands on his waist, holding him as his body pulls back in to shore, the waves of their shared orgasm fading to lapping little things, and Face snuggles in closer, needing to feel every inch of his commander, his lover, his man, his mate. Like he always does. Like he always will.
“About Charisa, boss. Since we saw her on the pier...”
The younger man can feel the older stiffen, just a little, like he always does when Sosa’s name comes up. “You were playing her, right, Temp?”
They’ve been over it a thousand times. And no matter how hard Face kisses the former colonel, no matter how hard he comes when that magnificent cock is buried, deep inside him, no matter how often he goes out of his way to make sure Hannibal’s got a bed that fits his long body and his favorite brand of cigars and doesn’t have to worry about any of the details these past five months or so, he still thinks he’s going to lose Face again. To a bullet or a woman or jail...
“I love you, John,” Face says gently, running a hand up into all that fine, silvery hair. “You know I love you...”
Hannibal grabs his wrist, and rolls them both around, so he’s spread out on top, pinning Face flat to the bed beneath him. “Please tell me you were playing her.”
“She’s in pain, boss,” Face says, staring up at that face he loves so much, and cups a hand over Hannibal’s cheek. “Something’s not right with her...”
“And you, what? What are we talking about here, Temp?”
He’s got an inkling. Something that’s been bugging him since the phone booth.
...you knew I was a player and you wanted to play...
It wasn’t true, he’d realized over the past few months, looking back. Well, not completely true. Something else, hiding behind it.
Her face had kind of done this... thing. Her eyes going dull, or something. Something faint, echoing out deep. How she’d never really engaged with him, how she’d been so hesitant, so resisting, how she never initiated anything that wasn’t sex, and not even that, their first time together...
Their first time had been her first time.
He can guess the rest of the story.
She’d given up on herself, on ever finding anyone, on ever having something real. Like he had, once. Except there hadn’t been anybody to catch her, nobody to turn to, and Face feels horrible, letting her bear that kind of grief alone, suffer in silence while he’d tried to force all those... things on her.
It had hurt her. He'd done that, he'd hurt her. A lot. But she’d never opened up to him about it, never said a damn word, never shed a single tear in his presence. Not like women normally did.
And there’s only one conclusion for that.
“I think somebody did something bad to her, John. I can’t ignore th...”
“You don’t owe her anything, sweetheart. Not after...” and Hannibal’s entire body is tensing up. They’ve never talked about that night, the pills and the shower and the desperate, frightened words that passed between them. Face knows Hannibal hasn’t ever forgiven Charisa for that.
But Face never blamed her at all.
“I can help her. Whatever’s going on, I can help her.” He slides a hand up between their bare chests, feeling the angular planes of his lover’s body, savoring the way, even now, he can draw a sweet, sweet gasp, fingers closing on one of those hyper-sensitive nipples. “But I won’t go see her, boss, not unless you’re okay with...”
The former colonel kisses him then, hard and desperate, claiming Face as frankly as he had not half an hour ago, foreheads pressed together in the darkness, joined, the boss’ warmth, filling him. “You’re an amazing man, Templeton Peck,” Hannibal murmurs in the lieutenant’s ear as he pulls away. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
Face shivers, and answers in the only way he knows how. The only way he’s ever wanted to.
“Yes.”
