indigo_angels

Face:-
Before I bumped into Beth, I was planning on just hitting the showers then collapsing into bed. Hannibal had been like a bear with a sore ass all day and took it all out on me. I like to think I’m fairly fit, in fact I know damn well that I am, but, shit, I’m not made for running that damn range six times in one day. Captain America himself would struggle with that one. I hope beating me into the ground has made the old guy feel a bit better about himself...

By the time I’d done number six, every muscle in my body was alternating between cramping up like mad and feeling like a bag of jello, and heading out to the barbecue arranged for the Screaming Eagles’ last night before they rejoined the real world, did not seem too appealing. Well, until Beth appeared that was.

So here I am hauling my aching bones through the camp, homing in on the music, the smoke and the smell of beer with the promise of a night of passion to look forward to. Or maybe she’ll be happy with a quickie behind a tent somewhere and then I can go to bed and try and forget the way that the boss keeps on glaring at me like I’ve done something really, really bad.

I spot BA first, sitting up on top of a jeep with six or seven guys I only know by sight. They’re obviously playing drinking games and I raise my beer to him as I stroll on by, he can hold his ale better than anyone I know, so I hope he’s got some good money staked on himself. Murdock is next and I laugh as I see that he’s managed to grab himself an apron and get behind one of the huge oil drums we use as barbeques out here. He has a whole crowd of admirers flocked around him, all ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ at his wild cooking techniques. I stand and watch for a while, it’s like ’Cocktail’' with flames, and I know he’s going to talk about this night for a long, long time.

He spots me and waves, tossing a steak into the air and spinning on the spot before catching it and flipping it back into the flames. Everyone cheers and I whistle enthusiastically at him as he takes bow after bow. God, I love that guy and not for the first time I wonder how different my life would have been if he’d ended up in my dorm in the orphanage.

Eventually I tear myself away, needing to find Beth so she can help me lick my physical and emotional wounds, walk around the corner from the food and stop dead in my tracks.

It never even occurred to me that Hannibal would be out tonight. This type of thing is really not his scene. I mean he likes alcohol, he likes music and he likes a party, but not generally with a couple of thousand grunts he doesn’t. The fact that he is here at all shocks me, but the reality that there’s some huge chested, red headed... bimbo just about crawling up his lap and trying to reach his lunch with her fucking tongue renders me frozen and speechless. Quite a feat I can assure you.

I have no idea how long I stand there goldfish-esque in the dark, it’s probably about ten seconds, but in all seriousness it really could have been half an hour, but I’m shaken from my trance by Hannibal’s laconic voice, the one he saves to piss off hostiles, “You want something, kid?”

My only response is to blink at him like a stunned owl, but then Jessica Rabbit takes the opportunity to slide her fingers (and I notice her nails are red and who the fuck has painted nails in a war zone?) up his thigh, getting dangerously close to his crotch, and something inside me just seems to implode.

There’s a buzzing in my head that I know wasn’t there before, and my heart is pounding so hard it’s painful. My fingers are cramped up into tight, tight fists and I step forward, knowing that I’m going straight to hell for even considering punching a woman’s lights out.

But before I get the chance to ruin any shot I might still have for the Pearly Gates, there are strong hands on my shoulder and on my chest, and then Murdock’s thankfully not red hair swims into my vision and the buzzing stops long enough for me to tune in to his babbling monologue, “So I need to head back and get changed, you’ll come with me Face, yeah? You know I can get lost sometimes with all these fucking tents the same colour, and it’s dark, and I might have to borrow somethin’ from you, but that’s okay isn’t Faceguy, ‘cos we’re buddies, yeah? Best buds! So come on, that’s right, just keep walkin’ away, walkin’ away. You got it...”

I know what he’s doing, of course I do, I’m not stupid, and I suppose I love him all the more that he would see this, and know me, and care enough to do something about it. But I don’t. I let him push me away, but all the time my eyes are on Hannibal and his fucking smug smile and all I can think is, why?

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