indigo_angels

Sometimes, you start to realise that you might not know those closest to you as well as you think... Hannibal and Face discover some startling truths about each other over a long weekend in Phoenix. Some brief mentions of attempted non-con and a bit of whomp!

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It’s funny, sometimes you think you know someone, I mean really know someone and then they go and do something that just blows everything you thought was them right out of the water, and you end up wondering if you even knew them at all...

I’ve known Face since he was nineteen. Officially nineteen at any rate; I don’t even think the kid himself is 100% sure on his date of birth, and he’s forged so many documents and lied so many times that even the vague hint of truth he might have once possessed has gone. Anyway, as far as the army was concerned he was nineteen, straight out of Ranger School with kick-ass scores and a file as thick as my arm. I remember looking through it, trying to balance the glowing recommendations with the damning indictments, coming across words such as ‘astute’, ‘inventive’, ‘uncooperative’ and ‘obnoxious’ alongside phrases like ‘no respect for authority’ and ‘outstanding leader’; to say it was confusing would be the understatement of the year.

But then that just about sums him up, the kid is the biggest paradox I have ever known.

I suppose it was the complete contradictions in his file that sent me out to look at him in the first place. I watched him running the range and there was just this spark to him that marked him out. He was competitive, anyone could see that, constantly checking out the others, pushing himself to keep with the leaders and then just cruising past at the last. But there was something else. He laughed and joked with the other guys at the end, received a few back slaps and high fives, but as everyone moved off together to the mess hall, he was on his own, studiously avoiding looking like he was alone, but still. He intrigued me.

So I went to Russ, told him I needed this kid in my unit, Russ wanted to see his file and I reluctantly handed it over, there was enough in there to make any General balk, but I talked him round. There was once a time when Russell Morrison would have done anything for me.

So the kid turned up with this attitude so fucking huge he kept on tripping over it; it was hilarious in a frustrating kind of way, but me and the boys worked on him, wore him down, polished up his rough edges, and, I swear, he just made us all fall in fucking love with him. Some more than others I admit, but there was just something about him, the baby of the unit, he could get the guys to clean his boots for him just by smiling at them. Unbelievable.

But he delivered the goods as well. Every single mission he produced over and above what was required, consistently reliable, shit hot skills, quick on the uptake and fast on his feet; when Russ asked me to go small, very small, there was no choice. It damn near broke my heart leaving the rest of the boys, but there was no one else I wanted at my side more than Face. Maybe that should have given me a heads-up right there.

For five years there was just the two of us, almost unheard of in army circles, but we were good, we were fast and we got the job done. Sometimes I cursed him, he was still hot headed, tended to veer off the plan too much for my liking, seemed content to throw himself in danger, safe in the knowledge I would haul his ass to safety in the nick of time. He has no idea how many nights sleep I have lost over the years going over and over the ‘what ifs’ while he snored not three feet away from me. But generally we got along just fine, I was more comfortable in his company than any other human being I’d ever known, and I knew him inside out. Or at least I thought I did.

Face always said being picked up by me was the best thing that ever happened to him. After the whole sordid business with the plates he didn’t say that for a while and I wished the boys had just let me carry the can for them.

We had a fight, can’t even remember what it was about now, and I ended up shouting at him to go, told him I knew he wanted to, knew he wished I’d never set eyes on him and damn him if he didn’t look at me like a kicked puppy. For about half a minute he just stood there with those fucking blue eyes full of tears and then he said, “You want me to go, boss? Where would I go? You’re all I’ve got.”

Yeah, I felt like the world’s greatest shit.

So we stumbled along together, four social misfits who only seem to function as a whole, not as individuals, and we carved out this niche for ourselves. Soldiers of fortune I told them, not fucking mercenaries, you won’t catch me in the same profession as Pike for all the sand in Iraq. And for a few years it seemed to work okay, the boys seemed happy, I was happy, we had enough money to stay afloat, managed to keep one step ahead of the various fuck-wits assigned to hunt us down. It was a life at any rate.

But then Face started acting weird. He’s got no family, the only priest he’d ever liked from his childhood has passed on and while he’s got more contacts, acquaintances, associates than I will ever be able to comprehend, he’s no other friends, only us and so he was always with one of us. We even had an unspoken agreement, HM and Bosco and I, that when we went off for some down time with or family or friends, which we did manage from time to time, someone would stay with Face. We never discussed it, the kid would go ballistic if he thought he was some kind of charity case, but it was nothing like that. He was a contact junkie, didn’t do well on his own, prison seemed to hurt him more than any of us, although on the outside he looked like the one who had coped the best.

Then suddenly he started heading out on his own, late night walks, meeting a girl in a bar, just going to a club, no one else was ever invited, no offers of company were ever accepted and I just didn’t like it. BA laughed at me, said I was pissy ‘cause Face was getting a life of his own at long last, but it wasn’t that at all. Something was wrong, I could just feel it.

Eventually I’d had enough. BA and Murdock had headed up north to meet up with BA’s mom for a long weekend and Face and I had holed up in Phoenix to meet up with an old buddy of mine. Face knew him, Toby had left the army about six weeks before the kid arrived, went back to college and trained as a doctor, but we’d met up before and Face had always tagged along. Not this time though. He’d given some lame excuse about encroaching on my time with Toby and saying he had a sore throat and was going to bed early, I didn’t buy it but I went out anyway, thought maybe the kid just wanted some time on his own.

So Toby and I were in this bar, sitting outside in the cool of the evening when Tobes suddenly leaned over my shoulder, “Hey,” he didn’t sound alarmed so I let my hand slide away from my gun and turned in my seat to see where he was looking, “I’m sure I’ve just seen Face go into that bar, I thought you said he wasn’t well?”

I squinted into the last rays of the sun and tried to work out which bar he meant, “He wasn’t,” I told him, feeling the sense of unease claw at my insides, “Maybe he’s feeling better and looking for us. We should go over. Which one was it?”

I turned back to Toby just as he shook his head and leaned back in his seat, “Nah, you must be right Hannibal, it was that one at the end, and it’s a damn gay bar. Last place you’d find Face, huh?”

I laughed along with him, but couldn’t beat down the sense of foreboding rising inside me.

My mind wasn’t on the rest of the evening after that, the beers tasted a little flat, and as much as I tried, I often found myself drifting out of the conversation. Eventually Toby stood up and tossed a few notes on the table, “Well, old friend,” I felt his shrewd eyes upon me, “I’m not as young as I was, and if I have to do this keynote speech tomorrow, I’d better turn in.”

I rose to join him, knowing damn well that he could drink until the early hours and still put on a damn good show in the morning. We shook hands across the table, “Still on for Vegas then?” I asked, hoping my distraction hadn’t offended him too much and he squeezed my hand in both of his.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, boss!” It made me laugh that he still called me that after all these years.

It was a little after eleven by the time I got back to the room and wasn’t at all surprised to find it empty. I wondered how to play this, I could wait up for him, catch him in the act, demand an explanation... But what the hell would that be? What right did I have to ask anything about how he filled his own time? I wasn’t his CO anymore, just a friend, that’s all.

I decided to take a shower, have a nightcap and then go to bed. If he came back while I was still up then maybe we would talk, if he didn’t... well, this plan was going to be flexible.

As it turned out it was just before three by the time the door creaked open and he crept in; I’d been unable to sleep and heard his steps in the corridor before he’d even slotted his key card home. A sharp smell of smoke, drink and semen followed him in and my heart dropped as I realised that Toby had been right. He slid straight into the en-suite and the shower ran for almost fifteen minutes before he stole back in again, tip toeing to the bed and making it tip slightly as he slid in next to me.

We lay stock still as I listened to his breathing gently slow and I kept up my pretence of being asleep. I’d had years and years of watching him fall asleep, he always dropped off much easier than me, and I could tell when he was almost there, his breathing long and soft, then he turned on his side, yanking the quilt up over his shoulder and muttered a quiet, “Night, boss...” before he drifted off.

I’d heard the first birdsong of the day before my eyes closed.

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My breakfast had been cleared away and I was onto my third cup of coffee and the sports section when he appeared the next morning, looking bleary eyed and a little on the shifty side. He slid onto the chair across from me and I pushed the coffee pot over the table towards him in silence; neither of us functioned well before that first cup of coffee.

The waitress had taken his breakfast order and I was studiously examining the baseball fixtures before he eventually spoke.

“Went looking for you last night.”

I looked up at him, making sure my face was as bland as they come. So that’s how he was playing this then? Dishonestly? Well, good. Two can play at that game and my conscience would now be clear since he had set the rules. I couldn’t abide deceit within the team, was more than a little disappointed in him that he’d chosen to go down that route again, especially after past conversations and repercussions, but I wasn’t averse to fighting fire with fire. “Yeah?” I looked back at my paper, “Wondered where you were when I got in. So, where’d you get to?”

I watched him carefully as he fiddled with his coffee cup, “Hmmm, the Radisson, thought you might be there,” the whole sentence was delivered more like a question, “there was a band on so I stayed.” Only when he had finished did he meet my eyes and I smiled at him. Good, but not good enough. I knew that if I checked there would have been a band on in the Radisson last night, kid always was thorough, but he’d never been good at lying to me.

“Nah, we were over on East Weldon at a bar,” and there it was, that slight twitch that I’d been looking for. Gotcha, kid. His eyes flashed up at me but I was playing it cool, didn’t want him to think I was suspicious of him. “Hey, Face,” I tapped the paper lightly, “Kick-Ass is still playing here, you fancy it tonight?” I knew he’d wanted to see it when it first came out, had sulked when his movie partner wouldn’t go, but Murdock didn’t do R rated films. Even comic book films.

Unfortunately the waitress chose that exact moment to appear again with his Eggs Benedict which gave him the chance to formulate a perfect reply. “Thanks,” I watched him wink at her and shook my head as she blushed right down to her toes, god, that kid had no shame, she was old enough to be his mother. A bit like me. Father though, obviously.

“Kick-Ass?” He even felt confident enough in his untruth to look me right in the eye as he delivered it, “Nah, I’m good thanks, boss, saw it on the flight back from that job in Hawaii.”

Nicely done.

“I thought I’d head back out to the Radisson again, got another band on.”

And again. He knew he had me then, knew I hated any type of musical instrument that you plugged into an amp. But that was okay, I’d wanted him to go out on his own anyway.

I folded my paper and got to my feet, “Okay, then kid, I’m heading out for a bit. I’ll see you later.”

I had a plan to prepare.

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Seven pm and Face was in the bathroom while I chilled on the balcony, glass of red, good book, and waited for him to leave. He eventually tapped on the glass doors from the room side and raised his hand in farewell before slipping out the door and into the corridor beyond. I put down the book I wasn’t even reading and stood against the balcony railing waiting for him to appear below me. There he was, and there was that annoying little swoop my guts did whenever they caught sight of him anew and I shook my head.

How did he manage to look so fucking edible in every damn thing he wore? Jeans and a white short sleeved shirt. If I wore that I’d look like I was headed to a rodeo, especially around here, but he just looked good. (There must be a better word for it than that, but hey, I’m a man and my testosterone tends to get in the way of my poetic skills.)

He disappeared around the corner and I ducked into the room to get changed; phase one of the plan – ready for action.

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