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indigo_angelsMix of of action, angst, hurt/comfort and tension. M&M sexual situations, both con and non-con, adult themes, brief mentions of child abuse and not-particularly-explicit whomp/violence are also evident, you have been warned! :D
Word Count: 81,222
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“Retreat!” Face snapped, his voice sounding oddly flat in the thick mist of the night.
“What!?” BA’s incredulous retort however was perfectly clear.
“Fucking retreat!” Face yelled back, “Now, Corporal, move your ass!”
BA didn’t move and Face was forced to halt his own feet and turn to stare back at his teammates.
“They got the boss, man!” BA hissed at him, “An’ we don't leave no one behind!”
In three furious strides Face was right in BA’s personal space, almost nose to nose with the big guy, “Yes, they got the boss,” his voice a dangerous whisper, “Which makes me in command now, so follow my orders and fucking retreat!”
BA adjusted his grip on the semi-conscious Murdock and leant right into his XO’s face, “We don’ leave no one behind!”
For a second Face didn’t move, but then he whipped his hand gun up and into BA’s face, his expression cold as ice, “You follow my orders or I take the Captain and put a bullet through your leg. Your choice BA.”
The stand-off was as dangerous as each of its components and for a horrific moment Face thought he was going to be called upon to follow through with his threat but then BA barrelled past him, almost shoving him to the ground as he went, dragging Murdock with him, “You a piece of fucking shit, Faceman!” he spat as he passed.
Face only narrowed his eyes, took one last glimpse of the huge wooden house, built to house some rich Russian aristocrat back when the empire was at its strongest, now a rotting ruin of its former glory and took off after what remained of his team.
~~~
Twenty minutes of yomping found them back at the jeep. Face had only spoken once, to ask if BA needed a hand with Murdock, and since BA didn’t respond in the slightest, he hadn’t bothered again.
BA helped a slightly more sentient Murdock into the back of the jeep before stamping around and ramming himself into the driver’s seat. Face, still trying to make sure that he had covered their tracks was forced to sprint after their vehicle, throwing himself in the back next to Murdock as BA simply took off in a shower of dirt with clearly little intention of waiting for his XO.
Face only sighed and gathered a quiet and worried looking Murdock into his arms, staring out of the back of the jeep as BA’s furious driving took him further and further away from his boss.
~~~
It was a forty minute drive back to the old trapper’s cabin they were using as a base. No one spoke the entire trip back, but at least Murdock looked to be completely back with them by the time BA screeched to a halt outside the tiny wooden shack. He threw open the driver’s door and stamped around to the back of the jeep, just about hauling Murdock out and across the mud to the door. Face lay back for a minute, letting the silence fill him as he stared out at the fog shrouded forest all around them, how the fuck BA had even found his way back here, Face had no idea at all. His heart was still hammering, he knew that Murdock, ear pressed to his chest the whole way back, must have been able to hear it, and he wondered if it would ever settle before they got Hannibal back. And they would get Hannibal back, he was damn sure of that. He just didn’t know how yet.
The silence was comforting and Face considered staying the night out in the jeep. He had no desire to return, alone, to the cot that he and Hannibal had shared for the past three nights, and he had less desire to have to face up to BA’s anger all night. But. He was CO now, he had a responsibility, Hannibal expected things from him, and if there was one thing Face never did, it was disappoint Hannibal.
He sighed long and hard before dragging his aching bones out of the jeep and trudging back to the cabin.
Face expected BA to be in one of the foulest moods known to men. What he didn’t expect was the big guy to seize him by the throat the second he stepped in the room and throw him so hard against the wall that he heard the sound of splintering wood.
“What you go and make us leave the boss behind for, Face?!” Blinking through the pain fogging his eyes, Face could see the utter fury in BA’s expression, “We don’t never leave a man behind! Never!”
Fingers ineffectually scrabbling at BA’s iron grip, Face eventually gave up and chopped both of his hands down into the juncture of BA’s neck and shoulders, shocking and hurting the big guy enough that he let go and Face staggered out of his grasp.
“You a coward, Face!” BA spat, one hand rubbing his neck, the other stabbing an accusing finger in his XO’s chest.
Face held back the right cross that his arm was desperate to swing at BA and stepped forward instead, fists clenched at his sides, “We had no choice, BA! We were compromised! We had to make a tactical retreat!”
“Fuck tactical retreat!” BA hardly ever swore, “You was scared man, so you run! Leavin’ the boss in the shit!”
“We were outnumbered!” Face retorted hotly, “Murdock was out cold. We had no idea where they had taken the boss! Hell, BA, we don't even who the fuck these bastards really are!”
“He wouldn’t have left you.”
The line was delivered coldly. It was calculated to cause maximum pain and it hit its mark squarely. For a second, Face sagged so much he almost went down, but just as Murdock reached for him, he caught himself and straightened, looking BA right in the eye, “I don’t give a fuck what you think,” he asserted, “All I know is that I am in charge now, and you do what I say.”
They stared each other down.
“We regroup, we plan and then we go back and get the boss the hell out of there. But we do it my way,” there was nothing but hostility in Face’s eyes, “You got that Baracus?”
For a moment, it looked as if BA were setting up for round two of the argument, but Murdock’s soft voice simply saying, “Bosco...” stopped him and he made do with the smallest of tight nods instead.
Face suddenly looked and felt exhausted. He spared one solitary glance for the rumpled sheets spread over the two cots Hannibal had pushed together on their first night here, and then went straight through to the back room where all the photos, maps and intel were spread all over the table, taped to the walls, scattered across the chairs. Surreptitiously scooping up the little army commando that Hannibal used as his marker for the plan and holding it tight in his fist, Face spoke to the others without looking at them. “BA, you take first watch, come for me in two hours to take over. Murdock, you need to get some rest, you can go last.”
Then turning his back on the others he looked down at the remains of Hannibal’s ill fated plan and started scrabbling around in his brain for one of his own.
_____________
BA seethed as he walked the dark and silent perimeter; he still couldn’t believe that Face could be so cowardly and shallow. When he’d first met Lt. Peck that fateful day in Mexico, he had been far from impressed. His reckless stupidity had endangered both the mission and Hannibal’s life. And because Hannibal had been so desperate to save his worthless ass, BA had ended up with a bullet hole in his arm and a pancaked van. Then, when they had snatched him at the very last minute from the flames of his own funeral pyre, he was so buzzed up that he thought the whole thing was some brilliant joke. When he didn’t have his tongue down the throat of Tuco’s wife that was.
BA had wondered what someone as obviously brilliant as Colonel Hannibal Smith was doing with such a waste of space as Peck for his XO. His question had been answered about three months in when he and Murdock had returned to their shared quarters to find Hannibal nailing Face’s ass over the kitchen table... Hannibal had been utterly mortified while Face, rather predictably, thought it was some huge joke. BA had been more than a little shocked, more at the reaction of his dick at the sight than anything else, while Murdock had just nodded serenely on his way to switch the TV on and asked them to keep it down at bit.
So, now BA understood that the boss just kept Peck around to satisfy his more intimate needs, which was weird but at least it cleared everything up. And BA supposed that Face could hold up his end of a mission when he needed to. They’d only been out a few times so far and Face had been pretty quiet, sticking close to the boss most of the time, but at least he hadn’t done anything that got any of them into trouble. Until tonight of course.
As BA checked and rechecked the silent forest around him, he pondered what exactly it was that had made him so damn furious that they had left Hannibal behind. He conceded that Face had made a few good points, they were outnumbered, caught well on the back foot, and Murdock had been knocked out cold when BA had dived on him as machine gun fire suddenly raked their position. Given those circumstances, it actually did make sense to pull a tactical retreat and regroup. So, why did BA feel so royally pissed about the whole thing?
The answer hit him an hour and forty minutes into his watch and it was exactly what he had said to Face earlier on, ‘He wouldn’t have left you.’ And that was it. Hannibal would not have left Face. BA would have had to drag him, bodily away from the damn kid to make him leave. Anyone willing to shoot a perfectly innocent civilian just to make sure they got to their damn fool XO in time to save his neck wasn’t going to turn tail and run out on him the second the bad guys snatched him in some godforsaken Russian forest. Why? Because the boss obviously had feelings for the guy. Feelings that Face, clearly didn’t return.
BA felt that anger stir within him again as he managed to put into words exactly what it was that had made him so damn furious earlier on; Hannibal loved the kid, would do anything for him, while Face had turned tail and ran, forced the others to run too, the first second that the going got tough. The boss was a living legend and deserved far, far better than a pretty little coward like Face. He checked his watch again, ten minutes left on his watch and he sighed, well bugger that, he and his cold, shallow XO were going to have a little chat...
~~~
It would have felt good to storm into the little cabin, throw the door open so wide it crashed into the wooden wall, make the whole damn place shake, but BA remembered Murdock and the guilt he already felt about nearly cracking the guy’s skull open as he tackled him over enthusiastically to the ground, tripled within him. Crazy needed his sleep, and BA would have to make his point with Face another way.
The door still creaked as BA slid in, but not enough to even make Murdock stir and, offering the pilot a secret, tender smile, BA slipped straight through the first room and into the back, his anger bubbling just under the surface. The sight that met him, however, stopped him dead in his tracks. He had expected Face to be working, it was obvious when BA stormed out on his watch that Face was starting to go over the plan, seeing the lieutenant sprawled over the table, sound asleep, did nothing for his temper; until he looked more closely however.
Face had obviously fallen asleep as he worked, head dropping onto piles of paper with rough sketches, maps and diagrams scrawled all over them. A pencil was balanced loosely in the fingers of his right hand, while in his left – BA’s heart gave a little lurch – was the little soldier figure that Hannibal used as his token in the plan reveals, and even in sleep, Face’s fingers were so tight around the plastic figure that BA knew he would never be able to prise it from his XO even if he had wanted to. He looked up into his lieutenant’s face and again that tightening as he saw the red puffy eye lids, the obvious tracks of dried tears streaking down those far too pretty features.
The scene was enough to make BA stop and think. He still thought the guy was an asshole, still thought he was a coward for running out on the boss, but maybe, just maybe he did see Hannibal as something more than a ticket to ride.
Studying the pale, drawn skin, the dark circles under his eyes and those puffy red lids themselves, BA let out a short huff and came to a decision. Kid looked like shit, and he was the only one around here with enough experience in these types of things to be able to plan something that might just get the boss out in one piece. BA shook his head and turned back to the door. He could sleep in daylight, he’d let the kid have another couple of hours...
_____________________
Face woke with a start and blinked around the sun filled room in confusion. It took him just a minute to piece everything back together, why he’d woken up cold and stiff in a wooden chair, head resting in all of his planning notes, why he wasn’t curled up next to Hannibal in one of the tiny cots that felt more natural to him than a bed. Hannibal... his stomach clenched and he had to fight the urge to vomit as his mind replayed that horrific minute last night as the plan all went to hell and those guys came from nowhere, showering Face and the others with machine gun fire as they dragged the boss away.
He wondered why BA hadn’t come to get him for the watch last night and figured it was just the big guy being completely arsey about the whole thing still. Jesus, as if Face wouldn’t have done anything, absolutely fucking anything to get the boss back last night. If it had just been him, well, that was a different story, but he was CO now and had his men to think of, couldn’t let Hannibal down by getting them all shot to pieces in the first two minutes he was in charge. Whole night was just a pile of fucking crap. Had been much easier when it was just the two of them, Face had always known where he was then, who he could trust, what he needed to do, because they had lived in their world of two and in Face’s eyes it had been perfect.
He tried to rub what felt like a tonne of grit from his sore eyes and remembered his embarrassing meltdown last night. The truth of the matter was that he just couldn’t think how the hell they could pull this off without Hannibal. They’d been surprised yesterday by the extra security that was in place around the old house, their intel had been completely inaccurate, but now that Face knew what was there he couldn’t think of a single damn way to get around it, and he knew Hannibal’s time was running out.
That’s what had brought on the tears, the utter terror that yet again he was about to lose the most important person in his life, and if that happened again, then he knew that there was no way on earth that he would be able to survive it; he was finished. And if something did happen to Hannibal then what would be the point in living anyway?
His eyes felt like they were on fire and all he really wanted was a hot shower with his lover, but he had to pull himself together and get on with this, because everything was resting on him now. He was just so relieved that no one had been around to see him fall to pieces last night; he could only imagine what BA would make of him then...
“Hey, muchacho,” Face jumped, horrified at being caught with his defeatist thoughts, and opened his eyes to see Murdock leaning in the doorway, arms folded and a careful expression on his face. “You okay?”
Face painted on one of his best false smiles and leant back in his chair, forcing himself to look relaxed, “Sure, buddy,” he answered, “It wasn’t me that almost got my head split open there last night, how are you doing?”
Murdock watched him for a moment before nodding slowly and offering up his own false smile, “Yeah, fine Faceman, just double hunky dory.”
Murdock’s expression didn’t falter in the slightest and Face had the most uncomfortable feeling that his act wasn’t fooling anyone at all here. Instead he rose to his feet determined to put some space between himself and the far too perceptive pilot by going for a leak and then to track some food down, “Where’s BA?” he asked, more as a way to cover the silence than for anything else.
Nodding at one of the cots Murdock moved out of Face’s way as he drifted past and Face glanced over, seeing the big guy sprawled out, fully clothed and fast asleep on top of his sleeping bag. “He kept watch all night,” Murdock explained following Face’s eyes, “let us get some sleep.”
Face nodded and wondered if that was BA’s real motivation, or rather he just didn’t want to speak to Face at the minute, never mind actually follow one of his orders. He wasn’t going to say that to Murdock, though, knew which way the captain would jump if he were pushed... Instead he patted him on the arm, and with a final glance at the sleeping BA, made his way outside.
__________________
As the sun passed the zenith point and started its long slow descent towards night, Face decided that he was as ready as he would ever be. Calling Murdock and BA into the room he took a deep breath before starting his briefing.
“Okay. This is going to be a tough one. We’ve already found out that most of our intel is crap, we have no idea how many of these guys there are, where they have the boss, or even why they have taken him.” He raised his eyes to carefully stare at his team.
Murdock was the fastest on the uptake, “What, you think those guys deliberately took the boss?”
Face nodded. “Think about it, think about what happened last night, how they showered us with machine gun fire, but sent four guys with hand guns after the boss. They wanted to take him, if they’d wanted to kill him, he’d have got the same treatment we did.”
There was silence for a minute as this assertion was pondered on before Murdock spoke up again, “But that’s crazy, no one knew we were coming.”
Face raised an eyebrow at him.
“What? You think this was a set up?”
Again Face nodded, “Undoubtedly. Whoever these guys really are, they knew we were coming, they had a plan to separate us from the boss and they knew who they were prepared to kill and who they weren’t.”
Silence fell and BA’s scowl deepened.
“Shit, Facey... we really are up against it here.”
Face let that thought sink in for a moment before continuing, “So, the trickiest bit is going to be getting into that house. If they know who we are and they know we got away, then they will be expecting us to come back for the boss. We already found out last night that that house is locked up tighter than a General’s sense of humour, and those flood lights on the roof light the whole area up brighter than a Christmas tree, so...” Face paused, suddenly nervous about his big reveal, “the only way we are going to get in, is going to be – from the roof.”
There was a beat of silence before BA, obviously forgetting that he wasn’t speaking to Face, piped up, “From the roof man? We not Santa Clause you know!”
“I know,” Face replied calmly, “and we’re not going in though the chimney, we are going in through the skylights, here,” he tapped one of the photos of the grand wooden house where Hannibal was being held prisoner.
“You missin’ the point, pretty boy,” BA muttered resting on his knuckles and leaning over the table towards Face, “Without Santa’s reindeer, we aint gettin’ on that roof.”
Cracking out his best ingratiating smile, Face leaned even closer, “We’re Airborne Rangers, Bosco,” he whispered, “We don't need flying reindeer.”
This only seemed to confuse BA even more, “We aint got no plane though fool!” he objected, “How are we gonna get up so we can float down?!”
Face knew that most of BA’s increased tension was centred on his ever intensifying reluctance to fly, so tried his best, like Hannibal always did, to ignore it and carry on. “We don't need a plane,” he replied easily, pulling out a map from under his sketches, “’Cause look what we do have, right here!”
He tapped his finger meaningfully and Murdock let out a long admiring whistle, “Oh, good thinking, Face my man, good thinking right there!”
BA shook his head, “You crazier than the bossman if you think that’s gonna work...”
Face just levelled him with a flat stare. Of course it was going to work, it just fucking had to.
Next Chapter
