Spring Break
Oct. 29th, 2010 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Face/OMC, Face/Hannibal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Ok, so there is some fabulous tortured Face fic already on this meme which I have devoured, but I can't help wanting a bit more.
I'd like to see something where Face is captured and tortured and is also raped. When he's finally rescued by the team even the thought of having sex makes him panic.
Nightmares mean that he wakes up screaming every night, and because it reminds Murdock too much of something that happened to him, and BA is busy comforting Murdock, Hannibal is the one who stays and comforts him etc.
Cue several weeks later Face goes to Hannibal to ask him to help him remember that sex can feel good.
Please Anon?
Face is captured. By Mexican drug dealers. Not a happy time for Face. And, after Hannibal gets him back, he still needs something more from the boss.
Face knew there was something bad about this one the second he came to. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. A few thin beams of light broke the stifling darkness, and the place reeked. Shed, probably. But there was dried blood on his face and his tongue felt thick and something hard between his wrists, and a sharp, shooting pain through his back and up his neck.
That meant capture.
That wasn’t such a problem.
But then, there was the way they’d rigged him up. His feet didn’t quite touch the ground, his body hanging solely on the binding between his wrists, suspended from an unseen ceiling by meathook or chain. It was impossible to stay still, a slight swing produced by the act of breathing.
That was a problem.
Moving only brought more pain, with the rope digging into the soft skin on the inside of his arms, and he realized with a wince that he was breaking apart slow-growing scabs with every oscillation. But he couldn’t stop it.
He groaned, trying to clear his thoughts. That sting in his head seemed to have crusted over every other consideration, but slowly, he forced his brain to start working again. The last thing he remembered was going down to the pool at the five-star resort villa he’d conned them for a midnight swim, but that didn’t really matter all that much right now.
They’d been hired by an American to come down here, to the Yucatan, and find his daughter. Stupid girl had gone to Cancun for spring break and never got back to Yale. They’d managed to locate her, drugged out and senseless in the back of a bar in some nothing little town up in the mountains.
How she’d gotten there was an interesting story, and only really mattered to him right now because it involved some local Gulf Cartel soldiers who were generally well-known for their knife work. All things considered, Face was really rather curious. Yeah, curious. He'd go with that.
A door banged open, harsh daylight spilling over the two figures standing there. One of them disappeared into the pronounced shadows for a moment, and a single, swinging bulb illuminated the shed.
“Hola, Senor Peck,” one of the faceless forms chuckled. “So, you like to blow up our warehouses?”
Oh. Right.
“What can I say, pendejo?” Face retorted with all the levity he could muster. “You know us Americans. Just can’t resist those explosions.”
“Yes, like your movies,” the other replied in a thicker accent, and drew in closer. Face recognized him. Carlos Ramirez, the captain of this unit. He was limping a little. “I love American movies. But stupid to shoot one in Mexico.”
“How’s that bullet Hannibal put in there doing? We opted not go with the CG, sorry about that. I’m a practical effects kind of guy.”
“You’re a funny one, senor,” Ramirez said, flicking his cigarette butt at Face’s chest, and the American noticed for the first time that they’d stripped him naked. “I think I will enjoy this.”
“Well, every movie’s got to have its unhinged, psycotic antagonist,” Face observed with more humor than was strictly necessary. “Guess you’re it, buddy. We get you a copy of the script yet?”
“I think you’re all tied up, no?”
Face grinned, long experience alone keeping the growing fear from showing. These guys were butchers. They’d leave dead children on parents’ doorsteps, just to make a point. “Come on, you know I’m just going to escape, and kill you, right?”
“There is no ride off into the sunset for you, cabron. We so deep in the jungle, takes your boss months to find us,” the cartel captain said with equal levity. “We send him little reminders from time to time, se he don’t miss you.” He stepped in close enough for Face to smell the old tequila in the other man’s sweat. Face felt a hand run down his chest, lower, until he could feel sharp fingernails digging in around his balls.
He swallowed, but didn’t say anything. The captain’s hand tightened. “Comprende, senor?”
Face let his expression go neutral and his eyes thin down. The drug runner understood that well enough, and left the shed, laughing.
Yeah. He was definitely screwed.
They left him there, in the stinking space that only grew hotter as the day went on. There wasn’t any difference between waking and unconsciousness, and he stopped trying to keep track of which was which. It didn't matter. Neither state brought him any comfort or reassurance.
That was the worst part of that first day, the anticipation. Waiting for something, anything, to happen. Straining to make out shapes in the darkness, to discern noise in the silence. There was nothing, just the sensation of sweat running from every pore and a rising desperation that couldn’t be fully quashed. He was completely alone.
Face had no way of knowing when they cut him down or how far they dragged him, after the thin, wane beams of day finally drained from the shed. He didn’t have much sense of it at all, only the way he’d screamed as they forced his arms back to his sides, the sensation of rocks scraping along the top of his feet, how nice the dirt felt when they finally threw him down and the lukewarm mercy of an upended bucket of water.
He found himself staring at Ramirez’s boots.
“I think to myself, what would US Army be doing in the Yucatan?” the man began, loaded with an easy confidence that made Face want to crawl away as far and as fast as he could. He kicked at the Ranger tattoo, and the lieutenant’s world blurred, just a little. “Then I think, no, your American military won’t get involved down here. You come to rescue the yellow-headed bitch.”
Face tried a pithy comeback - pithy comebacks always made these things more bearable, no matter what Army training said about not pissing off your captors - but his mouth was too swollen for anything more than a croak.
Ramirez ignored this. “No, you are not in the Army.” He must have made some kind of gesture, because Face was hauled up and flung hard onto a smooth table. He landed square on a shoulder, and couldn’t suppress the whimper. “Maybe you were, I don’t know. No me importa.”
Face managed to get a quick look around. Another warehouse, this one complete with pallets of little white packages, forklifts, men scurrying around with AK-47s. Men standing still and watching their boss.
His cheek was ground into the desk, an elbow sparking that pain in his neck and pinning him down. Ramirez’s teeth bit softly at his earlobe. “I have a little gift for you, senor Peck.”
And at that, Face felt the first blast of cold, uncontrollable fear. Struggling was useless. He was too weak to throw off the heavier man bearing down above him, and then came the unmistakable sound of a zipper being undone.
A hot tongue licked a vile trail up his neck, and the soft voice continued itching in his ears. A hand grabbed his ass and a knee kicked his legs apart so violently that his buckled under the strain. “Don’t fight me, vendejo. You ought to enjoy it while you still can.”
And with that, he felt something hard and fat at his entrance, and without any preparation at all, drove in.
Nothing could have stopped the scream. He barely recognized it as his own. The only good thing about it was that it faded quickly, into inaudible sobbing. Face felt something tear, and then things got a little easier, which only made it all worse.
Ramirez grunted, and grabbed the conman’s hips hard enough to leave bruises, setting a brutal pace until, at last, he pulled out and barked a command to his men.
The pressure gone, Face crumpled off the table, breathing hard, hoping it was over. But Ramirez was right in front of him, pumping his own cock, once, twice, a couple more times, and then came with a loud roar that echoed through the warehouse.
Face barely had time to shut his eyes, but it got in his nostrils. He felt he'd never be free of that smell again.
The cartel boss ran a hand up the lieutenant’s face, dragging his spent seed through the other man’s hair. He traced a circle around Face’s lips, sadistic in his gentleness, and then pulled back, smirking.
“Get him something to eat."
And that, at least, was something.
+++++
Face didn’t hold it against his team. He could never hold anything against any of them.
They dragged him back to his shed, threw him into something that had probably once been a dog crate and gave him some kind of tasteless corn gruel in a grimy tin and threw a bucket of water at him. They padlocked the cage and left laughing. From what he could catch of the Spanish, they were trying to figure how long he’d last.
Longer than you would, he wanted to say. But his throat was still too sore.
Face considered the situation from every angle. He knew all the rules, he’d been through all the survival training, and he knew he was supposed to eat what he could, when he could. But then, the Army at their worst wasn’t allowed to do anything worse than break a finger and play loud recordings of crying babies and not feed you for three or four days.
They didn’t rape you in training.
Rape. It was an ugly word. He turned it over in his mind a few times, and then discarded it as vehemently as he did the gruel. He wasn’t going to eat - after all, he wasn’t in the Army any more, so screw their rules - and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start using the word rape.
Torture, maybe. Torture was a manly word. Torture was acceptable.
He didn’t blame Hannibal for this. Face understood the situation perfectly. He’d let his guard down, he’d gotten snatched. The mountains were impassable to anyone who didn’t know the terrain, helicopters useless in some areas, his location hard to determine and rescue unlikely.
But there was that little voice in the back of his mind, stronger than the dull throb of his raw wrists, stronger than that burn below his tailbone that he was trying so hard to ignore. It told him to hold on. Hannibal would come for him. Hannibal would move heaven and earth for his men, any of his men. Hannibal wasn’t going to leave him here to die.
It was only a question of how long it would take. In the darkness, alone and still shaking from the adrenaline release, it almost seemed possible. Face could hold on to that.
He had to.
+++++
If Face knew anything, it was human nature, and humans like their routines. So he wasn’t too surprised when things settled quickly into a rhythm for him. Every morning, they’d kick the crate and throw some kind of alleged food at him. They’d leave him alone until nightfall, when they’d drag him out and spray him down, in some kind of deference to the boss’s habit, and haul him off somewhere.
It was usually the warehouse, but not always. Once it was the patio in front of a rickety-looking house. Another time it was the back of a rusted Jeep. Sometimes he screamed, sometimes he could choke it back. Sometimes Ramirez took his time, and sometimes it was far, far too fast. Then they might throw a few punches or kicks or get out a belt, something like that. Nothing too sophisticated, but when did it ever need to be? He bled, and they cheered.
Face comforted himself with the thought that at least it wasn’t that nice college girl who got tossed back into a cage every night. At least she didn’t cry silently to herself, alone in the dark. At least she didn’t have to face the knowledge that sooner or later, if she was lucky, she’d have a bullet burn a path into her frontal lobes.
It wasn’t much, but Face took what he could get.
The days blurred together, everything the same. Despite himself, he started dreading the cooling air, those last rays of light in his darkness. The darkness was easy. The darkness didn’t grab onto unhealed wounds and squeeze. He could hear their footsteps long before they threw open the door. Their grip lasted long after they let go.
And then the dreams started. He’d see Hannibal’s face, concerned, furious, whispering to him, telling him it was all going to be okay. And Face believed him, until he woke and realized.
Today’s was especially vivid. But it wasn’t quite right, because it’d been dark for hours now, and nobody had come to pull him out. Hannibal was there, murmuring to him, yelling for BA to find some bolt cutters, holding him through the bars.
“Not real,” he muttered, and felt that cruel, imaginary hand run down his cheek. “You’re not real.”
“I’m real, Face. I’m right here, and I’m real. I’m not leaving you, kid,” came the reply. But it was only what he wanted to hear, Face thought to himself, and the dream faded away.
Face woke up in a wash of white. Everything was white; walls, ceiling, bedding, the confused nurse adjusting an IV bag by his side.
Panic set in, hard and fast, and he felt his body start thrashing involuntarily. The nurse called for a doctor, screaming in nice, clean, city Spanish at top of her lungs. But it was Hannibal who came rushing in.
It took a moment for Face to process this, and a moment longer to realize that the boss was trying to get him to calm down.
“... easy, kid. I’ve got you. You’re safe, we’re all safe,” Hannibal was saying, in the kind of voice you’d use to sooth a baby back to sleep. He moved a hand, probably to run through Face’s hair in that familiar, easy, fatherly way of his, but stopped when Face flinched.
The lieutenant felt a burn of shame creep up his face, and tamped it down. Everything was okay now. Hannibal had come for him. “Colonel?”
“We got you out of there, Face, and burnt it to the ground,” Hannibal said, unable to hide the growl.
“How long?” The lieutenant noticed his words were slurred and hard.
“Three weeks,” and Hannibal wasn’t looking at him now. “We barely got you here alive. They found some damage, Face...”
Face forced the sudden upwelling of fear back down, and forced a grin. They both knew it was fake, but he did it anyway. “It’s okay, boss.”
“It’s not okay, kid.”
“You found me."
And that, at least, was undeniable.
+++++
Face wanted out of that damn hospital.
It was one of the good ones in Cancun, the kind that catered to tourists and rich businessmen, and was as nice as anything in the States, but Face begged Hannibal to get him out. He didn’t like how quiet it was at night. He couldn’t stand the stillness. A routine is a hard thing to break, and he found himself reliving it all that first night.
Hannibal refused to let him leave, citing the malnutrition and extended dehydration and probability of infection and all those other things that required stitches. But after that first night, the colonel had showed up right at sundown. Hannibal would pull a chair over to the bed, and hold Face’s hand when he woke up, stroke down his damp hair and tell him everything was going to be okay.
Face believed him. He always believed Hannibal. And things started to get a little easier.
Murdock and BA didn’t come. Given Murdock’s history, the conman didn’t even ask, but Hannibal told him anyway. The pilot had gone into one of those depressions of his over what had happened, retreating into some strange corner of his mind to hide from an old horror. Everything was sock puppets and colorin books right now. BA stayed with him in the penthouse Hannibal had sprung for, at one of the nicest hotels in Cancun.
After the first four days or so, the staff let him have a wheelchair. After the second week, he felt good enough to start walking again. Around week three, Face was starting to get antsy.
“If you feel good enough to leave, Face, we’ll get out of here,” Hannibal told him, and then got that look on his face that said he thought the conman was trying to pull one over on him.
“I feel fine, Hannibal,” Face replied. They were upstairs, in the little rooftop garden at the hospital. The sun was shining, with a nice breeze coming in off the ocean, and the city stretched out around them in a riot of color.
“I don’t believe you.”
Face wasn’t lying. Not exactly. “Boss, really, I’m doing fine. The docs said everything’s healed up, all the, um, all the stitches are out...”
“Temp,” and the lieutenant started a little at the use of that name, “you still wince when people try to touch you. That girl in the cafeteria yesterday...”
“So I’m supposed to just go drag the first girl who smiles at me into the nearest linen closet?” Face protested, the thought of it making him a little sick. He could still feel Ramirez’s hand closing down around him, and he shut his eyes against the memory.
“All I’m saying is that you need to get your head straight!” Hannibal snapped.
“This isn’t the Army any more, boss. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want. You can’t order me to mental health or whatever!”
The colonel stared at his lieutenant for a moment, and Face wondered if he’d crossed some kind of line. Some species of hurt flitted across Hannibal’s face, and then he was gone, the stairwell door slamming shut behind him without another word.
Face stood there in the sun for a moment. “Shit,” he muttered, and took after after him.
The lieutenant barely caught up with Hannibal before he left his room. The older man was packing up the stuff he’d brought over; a pillow from the hotel, a tooth brush, a few changes of clothing. Standing there in the doorway, watching it, the lieutenant suddenly realized how little any of them owned, how paltry.
Hannibal hadn’t noticed him yet. The older man was leaning, unsteady fists digging into thin covers. What had he gone through to get Face back? He hadn’t asked.
None of them had much to their names, not since the mess with Morrison, and living out of a suitcase for that long took a toll. Sure, none of them starved, and they lived pretty comfortably, considering. But when it came right down to it, all they had was one another.
Face felt something swell, and then crest inside him. Before he could give himself permission to do it, he was crossing the room and circling an arm around Hannibal’s back.
Ever the soldier, even now, the colonel turned sharply, a look of anger giving way to one of concern, and then trepidation. “Face?” he asked thickly.
The younger man buried his face in Hannibal’s shoulder, feeling a day’s worth of chin stubble rubbing against his forehead. “Hannibal, I...”
“What’s going on, kid?” And wasn’t that nice, Hannibal turning around and lifting Face’s head up gently, uncertain. Their eyes met.
“I, uh, Ramirez, he...”
“It’s okay, Face,” Hannibal breathed, his voice husky now. “Just tell me what you need.”
Tentative, because he didn’t know if it was okay or not, Face moved his lips up to met Hannibal’s. Those lips were softer than he thought they’d be, but they didn’t open for him, not yet. In fact, they broke off way too soon. Hannibal twisted a little to the side.
“Don’t do that,” Face begged, catching the colonel’s cheek with an open palm and pulling him back. He felt like he could see all the way to the bottom of those blue, blue eyes.
"You're still recovering, kid."
“Hannibal, he took something. I can’t feel anything but that right now.”
“I’m not in the habit of giving out mercy fucks, kid,” Hannibal said, gruff, and Face felt his heart almost break. "Don't ask me for that."
“I don’t need a mercy fuck, Hannibal. For chrissakes, we’ve been circling this for years. I need you,” he pleaded, stressing the last word as much as he dared.
“Kid.”
“Please,” he whispered, “make love to me.”
And that seemed to decide the issue. Hannibal wound one hand into Face’s hair, and soon the lieutenant was lost in the blissful, searing warmth of his CO’s mouth. The kiss started out gentle, and then grew more heated. Face felt himself growing hard under the silk robe Hannibal had brought over from the hotel, and noticed an answering bulge in the other man’s pants.
Face reached a hand down, and Hannibal moaned softly, deepening the kiss but being so careful not to tug or pull or do anything rough with that one hand. Hannibal was still holding back, a tell-tale tenseness in his back as Face moved his other hand down to the bottom of his shirt and tugged.
Hannibal stepped back and stripped off the t-shirt, throwing it carelessly behind him. Both hands moving to shove the robe off Face’s shoulders, leaving him naked in the middle of the room. He stopped for a moment, and the lieutenant reached out a hand, fingers tracing a nipple.
“Boss?”
Hannibal smiled. “Fucking gorgeous,” he said approvingly, and dove back in, reaching down to cup his lieutenant’s ass, and lift him gently up onto the bed.
Face had to put a hand behind him to steady himself as Hannibal lovingly ravaged his mouth. He had a split second of panic, and the boss stopped immediately.
“What’s wrong?"
The conman closed his eyes for a second, and leaned into Hannibal again. That smell, the feel of that skin on his, was something unique. Something new, and something very, very familiar. Already imprinted. How lovely. Everything was fine. There was nothing ugly here.
“Nothing, Hannibal,” he whispered and started unbuckling his CO’s belt. Hannibal smiled, took the hint and let Face help him out of the uncomfortable garment. The colonel toed his socks and shoes off, then kicked out of the fall denim, as open and exposed as his lieutenant was. In that moment, Face felt he might love him for that. He let his hands wander over the unbroken skin, wanting to memorize every plane and every curve, that this moment might stretch on long after it was over.
Face was painfully aware of his own erection, his cock weeping now, and Hannibal took mercy on him, wrapping his big, comfortable hand around his lieutenant’s manhood, erasing all thoughts of Ramirez with one stroke. He didn't have to choke back the moan this time, earning himself a smile and a nip from the older man, and Face let himself fall back on the mattress.
Somehow, Hannibal managed to reposition Face's knees lengthwise on the bed and maneuver himself between them without breaking that contact. His lips, his hands were everywhere, his warmth bleeding into the lieutenant, so careful to avoid still-healing wounds and fading bruises. Face lost all sense of anything but that touch, Hannibal’s touch, as the horrors of his capture started to fade.
Hannibal’s own cock was burning against his leg, and Face fumbled on the side table for a moment before finding the small bottle of hand lotion that Hannibal, ever mindful, had gotten for him. He pressed it into the other man’s hand.
Hannibal somehow managed to look surprised, but Face just shook his head, and then came a wonderful push into him, one slicked finger, and then another, Hannibal taking the time to stretch him out right. It was entirely different from before. No pain with this, and then Hannibal touched something in there, and Face groaned in pleasure.
The ever-concerned question was soft against his neck. “You ready, kid?”
Face nodded in contentment, and then Hannibal was there, inside him, slowly rocking in and out, one hand still firmly around Face, hot and tight and wonderful. They seemed to find their rhythm automatically, like it’d always been there, and Face wished it really could go on forever just like that, his breath coming in short little pants and his fists balling up in the sheets. But they were both too close, and soon, too soon, Hannibal was coming inside him, and he was coming in Hannibal’s hand. Everything was warm and messy and Face thought that was just perfect.
The colonel’s head dropped to the pillow next to Face’s, and the conman instinctively wrapped his arms around the other man’s body, both still wracked by the aftershock of orgasm.
“Don’t pull out yet, boss,” Face said, and realized how desperate he sounded after the words left his mouth. How he was clinging to Hannibal like a child after a bad nightmare. He supposed, in a very real way, he was.
“You’re okay, Face.” Hannibal kissed him on the forehead. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
Face smiled, feeling the first nudging of sleep offering to take him away. It would be different now. Everything was going to be different now, and he let himself enjoy a real, honest smile. How a couple of months could change things.
"I know."
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Ok, so there is some fabulous tortured Face fic already on this meme which I have devoured, but I can't help wanting a bit more.
I'd like to see something where Face is captured and tortured and is also raped. When he's finally rescued by the team even the thought of having sex makes him panic.
Nightmares mean that he wakes up screaming every night, and because it reminds Murdock too much of something that happened to him, and BA is busy comforting Murdock, Hannibal is the one who stays and comforts him etc.
Cue several weeks later Face goes to Hannibal to ask him to help him remember that sex can feel good.
Please Anon?
Face is captured. By Mexican drug dealers. Not a happy time for Face. And, after Hannibal gets him back, he still needs something more from the boss.
Face knew there was something bad about this one the second he came to. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. A few thin beams of light broke the stifling darkness, and the place reeked. Shed, probably. But there was dried blood on his face and his tongue felt thick and something hard between his wrists, and a sharp, shooting pain through his back and up his neck.
That meant capture.
That wasn’t such a problem.
But then, there was the way they’d rigged him up. His feet didn’t quite touch the ground, his body hanging solely on the binding between his wrists, suspended from an unseen ceiling by meathook or chain. It was impossible to stay still, a slight swing produced by the act of breathing.
That was a problem.
Moving only brought more pain, with the rope digging into the soft skin on the inside of his arms, and he realized with a wince that he was breaking apart slow-growing scabs with every oscillation. But he couldn’t stop it.
He groaned, trying to clear his thoughts. That sting in his head seemed to have crusted over every other consideration, but slowly, he forced his brain to start working again. The last thing he remembered was going down to the pool at the five-star resort villa he’d conned them for a midnight swim, but that didn’t really matter all that much right now.
They’d been hired by an American to come down here, to the Yucatan, and find his daughter. Stupid girl had gone to Cancun for spring break and never got back to Yale. They’d managed to locate her, drugged out and senseless in the back of a bar in some nothing little town up in the mountains.
How she’d gotten there was an interesting story, and only really mattered to him right now because it involved some local Gulf Cartel soldiers who were generally well-known for their knife work. All things considered, Face was really rather curious. Yeah, curious. He'd go with that.
A door banged open, harsh daylight spilling over the two figures standing there. One of them disappeared into the pronounced shadows for a moment, and a single, swinging bulb illuminated the shed.
“Hola, Senor Peck,” one of the faceless forms chuckled. “So, you like to blow up our warehouses?”
Oh. Right.
“What can I say, pendejo?” Face retorted with all the levity he could muster. “You know us Americans. Just can’t resist those explosions.”
“Yes, like your movies,” the other replied in a thicker accent, and drew in closer. Face recognized him. Carlos Ramirez, the captain of this unit. He was limping a little. “I love American movies. But stupid to shoot one in Mexico.”
“How’s that bullet Hannibal put in there doing? We opted not go with the CG, sorry about that. I’m a practical effects kind of guy.”
“You’re a funny one, senor,” Ramirez said, flicking his cigarette butt at Face’s chest, and the American noticed for the first time that they’d stripped him naked. “I think I will enjoy this.”
“Well, every movie’s got to have its unhinged, psycotic antagonist,” Face observed with more humor than was strictly necessary. “Guess you’re it, buddy. We get you a copy of the script yet?”
“I think you’re all tied up, no?”
Face grinned, long experience alone keeping the growing fear from showing. These guys were butchers. They’d leave dead children on parents’ doorsteps, just to make a point. “Come on, you know I’m just going to escape, and kill you, right?”
“There is no ride off into the sunset for you, cabron. We so deep in the jungle, takes your boss months to find us,” the cartel captain said with equal levity. “We send him little reminders from time to time, se he don’t miss you.” He stepped in close enough for Face to smell the old tequila in the other man’s sweat. Face felt a hand run down his chest, lower, until he could feel sharp fingernails digging in around his balls.
He swallowed, but didn’t say anything. The captain’s hand tightened. “Comprende, senor?”
Face let his expression go neutral and his eyes thin down. The drug runner understood that well enough, and left the shed, laughing.
Yeah. He was definitely screwed.
They left him there, in the stinking space that only grew hotter as the day went on. There wasn’t any difference between waking and unconsciousness, and he stopped trying to keep track of which was which. It didn't matter. Neither state brought him any comfort or reassurance.
That was the worst part of that first day, the anticipation. Waiting for something, anything, to happen. Straining to make out shapes in the darkness, to discern noise in the silence. There was nothing, just the sensation of sweat running from every pore and a rising desperation that couldn’t be fully quashed. He was completely alone.
Face had no way of knowing when they cut him down or how far they dragged him, after the thin, wane beams of day finally drained from the shed. He didn’t have much sense of it at all, only the way he’d screamed as they forced his arms back to his sides, the sensation of rocks scraping along the top of his feet, how nice the dirt felt when they finally threw him down and the lukewarm mercy of an upended bucket of water.
He found himself staring at Ramirez’s boots.
“I think to myself, what would US Army be doing in the Yucatan?” the man began, loaded with an easy confidence that made Face want to crawl away as far and as fast as he could. He kicked at the Ranger tattoo, and the lieutenant’s world blurred, just a little. “Then I think, no, your American military won’t get involved down here. You come to rescue the yellow-headed bitch.”
Face tried a pithy comeback - pithy comebacks always made these things more bearable, no matter what Army training said about not pissing off your captors - but his mouth was too swollen for anything more than a croak.
Ramirez ignored this. “No, you are not in the Army.” He must have made some kind of gesture, because Face was hauled up and flung hard onto a smooth table. He landed square on a shoulder, and couldn’t suppress the whimper. “Maybe you were, I don’t know. No me importa.”
Face managed to get a quick look around. Another warehouse, this one complete with pallets of little white packages, forklifts, men scurrying around with AK-47s. Men standing still and watching their boss.
His cheek was ground into the desk, an elbow sparking that pain in his neck and pinning him down. Ramirez’s teeth bit softly at his earlobe. “I have a little gift for you, senor Peck.”
And at that, Face felt the first blast of cold, uncontrollable fear. Struggling was useless. He was too weak to throw off the heavier man bearing down above him, and then came the unmistakable sound of a zipper being undone.
A hot tongue licked a vile trail up his neck, and the soft voice continued itching in his ears. A hand grabbed his ass and a knee kicked his legs apart so violently that his buckled under the strain. “Don’t fight me, vendejo. You ought to enjoy it while you still can.”
And with that, he felt something hard and fat at his entrance, and without any preparation at all, drove in.
Nothing could have stopped the scream. He barely recognized it as his own. The only good thing about it was that it faded quickly, into inaudible sobbing. Face felt something tear, and then things got a little easier, which only made it all worse.
Ramirez grunted, and grabbed the conman’s hips hard enough to leave bruises, setting a brutal pace until, at last, he pulled out and barked a command to his men.
The pressure gone, Face crumpled off the table, breathing hard, hoping it was over. But Ramirez was right in front of him, pumping his own cock, once, twice, a couple more times, and then came with a loud roar that echoed through the warehouse.
Face barely had time to shut his eyes, but it got in his nostrils. He felt he'd never be free of that smell again.
The cartel boss ran a hand up the lieutenant’s face, dragging his spent seed through the other man’s hair. He traced a circle around Face’s lips, sadistic in his gentleness, and then pulled back, smirking.
“Get him something to eat."
And that, at least, was something.
+++++
Face didn’t hold it against his team. He could never hold anything against any of them.
They dragged him back to his shed, threw him into something that had probably once been a dog crate and gave him some kind of tasteless corn gruel in a grimy tin and threw a bucket of water at him. They padlocked the cage and left laughing. From what he could catch of the Spanish, they were trying to figure how long he’d last.
Longer than you would, he wanted to say. But his throat was still too sore.
Face considered the situation from every angle. He knew all the rules, he’d been through all the survival training, and he knew he was supposed to eat what he could, when he could. But then, the Army at their worst wasn’t allowed to do anything worse than break a finger and play loud recordings of crying babies and not feed you for three or four days.
They didn’t rape you in training.
Rape. It was an ugly word. He turned it over in his mind a few times, and then discarded it as vehemently as he did the gruel. He wasn’t going to eat - after all, he wasn’t in the Army any more, so screw their rules - and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start using the word rape.
Torture, maybe. Torture was a manly word. Torture was acceptable.
He didn’t blame Hannibal for this. Face understood the situation perfectly. He’d let his guard down, he’d gotten snatched. The mountains were impassable to anyone who didn’t know the terrain, helicopters useless in some areas, his location hard to determine and rescue unlikely.
But there was that little voice in the back of his mind, stronger than the dull throb of his raw wrists, stronger than that burn below his tailbone that he was trying so hard to ignore. It told him to hold on. Hannibal would come for him. Hannibal would move heaven and earth for his men, any of his men. Hannibal wasn’t going to leave him here to die.
It was only a question of how long it would take. In the darkness, alone and still shaking from the adrenaline release, it almost seemed possible. Face could hold on to that.
He had to.
+++++
If Face knew anything, it was human nature, and humans like their routines. So he wasn’t too surprised when things settled quickly into a rhythm for him. Every morning, they’d kick the crate and throw some kind of alleged food at him. They’d leave him alone until nightfall, when they’d drag him out and spray him down, in some kind of deference to the boss’s habit, and haul him off somewhere.
It was usually the warehouse, but not always. Once it was the patio in front of a rickety-looking house. Another time it was the back of a rusted Jeep. Sometimes he screamed, sometimes he could choke it back. Sometimes Ramirez took his time, and sometimes it was far, far too fast. Then they might throw a few punches or kicks or get out a belt, something like that. Nothing too sophisticated, but when did it ever need to be? He bled, and they cheered.
Face comforted himself with the thought that at least it wasn’t that nice college girl who got tossed back into a cage every night. At least she didn’t cry silently to herself, alone in the dark. At least she didn’t have to face the knowledge that sooner or later, if she was lucky, she’d have a bullet burn a path into her frontal lobes.
It wasn’t much, but Face took what he could get.
The days blurred together, everything the same. Despite himself, he started dreading the cooling air, those last rays of light in his darkness. The darkness was easy. The darkness didn’t grab onto unhealed wounds and squeeze. He could hear their footsteps long before they threw open the door. Their grip lasted long after they let go.
And then the dreams started. He’d see Hannibal’s face, concerned, furious, whispering to him, telling him it was all going to be okay. And Face believed him, until he woke and realized.
Today’s was especially vivid. But it wasn’t quite right, because it’d been dark for hours now, and nobody had come to pull him out. Hannibal was there, murmuring to him, yelling for BA to find some bolt cutters, holding him through the bars.
“Not real,” he muttered, and felt that cruel, imaginary hand run down his cheek. “You’re not real.”
“I’m real, Face. I’m right here, and I’m real. I’m not leaving you, kid,” came the reply. But it was only what he wanted to hear, Face thought to himself, and the dream faded away.
Face woke up in a wash of white. Everything was white; walls, ceiling, bedding, the confused nurse adjusting an IV bag by his side.
Panic set in, hard and fast, and he felt his body start thrashing involuntarily. The nurse called for a doctor, screaming in nice, clean, city Spanish at top of her lungs. But it was Hannibal who came rushing in.
It took a moment for Face to process this, and a moment longer to realize that the boss was trying to get him to calm down.
“... easy, kid. I’ve got you. You’re safe, we’re all safe,” Hannibal was saying, in the kind of voice you’d use to sooth a baby back to sleep. He moved a hand, probably to run through Face’s hair in that familiar, easy, fatherly way of his, but stopped when Face flinched.
The lieutenant felt a burn of shame creep up his face, and tamped it down. Everything was okay now. Hannibal had come for him. “Colonel?”
“We got you out of there, Face, and burnt it to the ground,” Hannibal said, unable to hide the growl.
“How long?” The lieutenant noticed his words were slurred and hard.
“Three weeks,” and Hannibal wasn’t looking at him now. “We barely got you here alive. They found some damage, Face...”
Face forced the sudden upwelling of fear back down, and forced a grin. They both knew it was fake, but he did it anyway. “It’s okay, boss.”
“It’s not okay, kid.”
“You found me."
And that, at least, was undeniable.
+++++
Face wanted out of that damn hospital.
It was one of the good ones in Cancun, the kind that catered to tourists and rich businessmen, and was as nice as anything in the States, but Face begged Hannibal to get him out. He didn’t like how quiet it was at night. He couldn’t stand the stillness. A routine is a hard thing to break, and he found himself reliving it all that first night.
Hannibal refused to let him leave, citing the malnutrition and extended dehydration and probability of infection and all those other things that required stitches. But after that first night, the colonel had showed up right at sundown. Hannibal would pull a chair over to the bed, and hold Face’s hand when he woke up, stroke down his damp hair and tell him everything was going to be okay.
Face believed him. He always believed Hannibal. And things started to get a little easier.
Murdock and BA didn’t come. Given Murdock’s history, the conman didn’t even ask, but Hannibal told him anyway. The pilot had gone into one of those depressions of his over what had happened, retreating into some strange corner of his mind to hide from an old horror. Everything was sock puppets and colorin books right now. BA stayed with him in the penthouse Hannibal had sprung for, at one of the nicest hotels in Cancun.
After the first four days or so, the staff let him have a wheelchair. After the second week, he felt good enough to start walking again. Around week three, Face was starting to get antsy.
“If you feel good enough to leave, Face, we’ll get out of here,” Hannibal told him, and then got that look on his face that said he thought the conman was trying to pull one over on him.
“I feel fine, Hannibal,” Face replied. They were upstairs, in the little rooftop garden at the hospital. The sun was shining, with a nice breeze coming in off the ocean, and the city stretched out around them in a riot of color.
“I don’t believe you.”
Face wasn’t lying. Not exactly. “Boss, really, I’m doing fine. The docs said everything’s healed up, all the, um, all the stitches are out...”
“Temp,” and the lieutenant started a little at the use of that name, “you still wince when people try to touch you. That girl in the cafeteria yesterday...”
“So I’m supposed to just go drag the first girl who smiles at me into the nearest linen closet?” Face protested, the thought of it making him a little sick. He could still feel Ramirez’s hand closing down around him, and he shut his eyes against the memory.
“All I’m saying is that you need to get your head straight!” Hannibal snapped.
“This isn’t the Army any more, boss. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want. You can’t order me to mental health or whatever!”
The colonel stared at his lieutenant for a moment, and Face wondered if he’d crossed some kind of line. Some species of hurt flitted across Hannibal’s face, and then he was gone, the stairwell door slamming shut behind him without another word.
Face stood there in the sun for a moment. “Shit,” he muttered, and took after after him.
The lieutenant barely caught up with Hannibal before he left his room. The older man was packing up the stuff he’d brought over; a pillow from the hotel, a tooth brush, a few changes of clothing. Standing there in the doorway, watching it, the lieutenant suddenly realized how little any of them owned, how paltry.
Hannibal hadn’t noticed him yet. The older man was leaning, unsteady fists digging into thin covers. What had he gone through to get Face back? He hadn’t asked.
None of them had much to their names, not since the mess with Morrison, and living out of a suitcase for that long took a toll. Sure, none of them starved, and they lived pretty comfortably, considering. But when it came right down to it, all they had was one another.
Face felt something swell, and then crest inside him. Before he could give himself permission to do it, he was crossing the room and circling an arm around Hannibal’s back.
Ever the soldier, even now, the colonel turned sharply, a look of anger giving way to one of concern, and then trepidation. “Face?” he asked thickly.
The younger man buried his face in Hannibal’s shoulder, feeling a day’s worth of chin stubble rubbing against his forehead. “Hannibal, I...”
“What’s going on, kid?” And wasn’t that nice, Hannibal turning around and lifting Face’s head up gently, uncertain. Their eyes met.
“I, uh, Ramirez, he...”
“It’s okay, Face,” Hannibal breathed, his voice husky now. “Just tell me what you need.”
Tentative, because he didn’t know if it was okay or not, Face moved his lips up to met Hannibal’s. Those lips were softer than he thought they’d be, but they didn’t open for him, not yet. In fact, they broke off way too soon. Hannibal twisted a little to the side.
“Don’t do that,” Face begged, catching the colonel’s cheek with an open palm and pulling him back. He felt like he could see all the way to the bottom of those blue, blue eyes.
"You're still recovering, kid."
“Hannibal, he took something. I can’t feel anything but that right now.”
“I’m not in the habit of giving out mercy fucks, kid,” Hannibal said, gruff, and Face felt his heart almost break. "Don't ask me for that."
“I don’t need a mercy fuck, Hannibal. For chrissakes, we’ve been circling this for years. I need you,” he pleaded, stressing the last word as much as he dared.
“Kid.”
“Please,” he whispered, “make love to me.”
And that seemed to decide the issue. Hannibal wound one hand into Face’s hair, and soon the lieutenant was lost in the blissful, searing warmth of his CO’s mouth. The kiss started out gentle, and then grew more heated. Face felt himself growing hard under the silk robe Hannibal had brought over from the hotel, and noticed an answering bulge in the other man’s pants.
Face reached a hand down, and Hannibal moaned softly, deepening the kiss but being so careful not to tug or pull or do anything rough with that one hand. Hannibal was still holding back, a tell-tale tenseness in his back as Face moved his other hand down to the bottom of his shirt and tugged.
Hannibal stepped back and stripped off the t-shirt, throwing it carelessly behind him. Both hands moving to shove the robe off Face’s shoulders, leaving him naked in the middle of the room. He stopped for a moment, and the lieutenant reached out a hand, fingers tracing a nipple.
“Boss?”
Hannibal smiled. “Fucking gorgeous,” he said approvingly, and dove back in, reaching down to cup his lieutenant’s ass, and lift him gently up onto the bed.
Face had to put a hand behind him to steady himself as Hannibal lovingly ravaged his mouth. He had a split second of panic, and the boss stopped immediately.
“What’s wrong?"
The conman closed his eyes for a second, and leaned into Hannibal again. That smell, the feel of that skin on his, was something unique. Something new, and something very, very familiar. Already imprinted. How lovely. Everything was fine. There was nothing ugly here.
“Nothing, Hannibal,” he whispered and started unbuckling his CO’s belt. Hannibal smiled, took the hint and let Face help him out of the uncomfortable garment. The colonel toed his socks and shoes off, then kicked out of the fall denim, as open and exposed as his lieutenant was. In that moment, Face felt he might love him for that. He let his hands wander over the unbroken skin, wanting to memorize every plane and every curve, that this moment might stretch on long after it was over.
Face was painfully aware of his own erection, his cock weeping now, and Hannibal took mercy on him, wrapping his big, comfortable hand around his lieutenant’s manhood, erasing all thoughts of Ramirez with one stroke. He didn't have to choke back the moan this time, earning himself a smile and a nip from the older man, and Face let himself fall back on the mattress.
Somehow, Hannibal managed to reposition Face's knees lengthwise on the bed and maneuver himself between them without breaking that contact. His lips, his hands were everywhere, his warmth bleeding into the lieutenant, so careful to avoid still-healing wounds and fading bruises. Face lost all sense of anything but that touch, Hannibal’s touch, as the horrors of his capture started to fade.
Hannibal’s own cock was burning against his leg, and Face fumbled on the side table for a moment before finding the small bottle of hand lotion that Hannibal, ever mindful, had gotten for him. He pressed it into the other man’s hand.
Hannibal somehow managed to look surprised, but Face just shook his head, and then came a wonderful push into him, one slicked finger, and then another, Hannibal taking the time to stretch him out right. It was entirely different from before. No pain with this, and then Hannibal touched something in there, and Face groaned in pleasure.
The ever-concerned question was soft against his neck. “You ready, kid?”
Face nodded in contentment, and then Hannibal was there, inside him, slowly rocking in and out, one hand still firmly around Face, hot and tight and wonderful. They seemed to find their rhythm automatically, like it’d always been there, and Face wished it really could go on forever just like that, his breath coming in short little pants and his fists balling up in the sheets. But they were both too close, and soon, too soon, Hannibal was coming inside him, and he was coming in Hannibal’s hand. Everything was warm and messy and Face thought that was just perfect.
The colonel’s head dropped to the pillow next to Face’s, and the conman instinctively wrapped his arms around the other man’s body, both still wracked by the aftershock of orgasm.
“Don’t pull out yet, boss,” Face said, and realized how desperate he sounded after the words left his mouth. How he was clinging to Hannibal like a child after a bad nightmare. He supposed, in a very real way, he was.
“You’re okay, Face.” Hannibal kissed him on the forehead. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
Face smiled, feeling the first nudging of sleep offering to take him away. It would be different now. Everything was going to be different now, and he let himself enjoy a real, honest smile. How a couple of months could change things.
"I know."
