The Long and Winding Road - Hannibal/Face - Epilogue 1 of 2

Hannibal tried to bite down the anxiety he felt as he leaned over the balcony and scanned up and down the beach for about the thirtieth time in as many minutes. This should have been paradise. He had his boys back together, Joey Pacitto had been charged with the murder of Jessica Gaarder, they’d managed to slip out of Illinois despite the heavy military police presence and Hannibal had brought them here to this sprawling, isolated beach front house just north of Watsonville, California for some quality down time.

 

However, and Hannibal was really beginning to hate that word, things weren’t really going to plan.

 

There had been a more than promising start. When he had risen that early morning in Crystal Lake with the gnawing fear in his gut that Face was about to take off on them again, the very best he had let himself hope for was that he would at least be able to keep in touch. That Face would tell them where he was headed, maybe even let them have a mobile number since he had found it so easy to lie to them via e-mail. He never dreamed that Face would come back, that they would, at last, work out where all their crossed wires had led them and that Face would finally, finally admit that he loved and needed his commander just as much as Hannibal loved and needed him. 

 

And then they had had some pretty hot make up sex, but that’s what had ultimately led them to this point, and Hannibal was done with thinking about that for now.

 

He heard someone behind him and turned to see BA, still wet from the shower, padding towards him with a cold beer. He nodded in thanks as he took the can and turned back to the beach in silence.

 

“No sign of them?” BA knew what the answer would be, he just wanted to try and ease a bit of the tension.

 

“No.”

 

BA clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to the house, “He’ll come back, boss, he loves you,” and Hannibal turned to watch him leave.

 

He still couldn’t get his head around how easily Murdock and BA had accepted this thing between him and Face. It transpires they’d both known about it since the very first day that the two had stumbled into bed together after a ridiculously tits-up mission in Sacramento. Hannibal shook his head, and he and Face had thought they were being so hush-hush about it all.

 

But then Face and Murdock were so close, he supposed he should have guessed that the pilot would notice something.

 

It was so weird the way that the two of them had this almost telepathic link sometimes. He remembered BA shaking his head once after Face had just lost it when Murdock had taken a bullet graze to the neck. He’d turned to Hannibal and muttered, “They both fools boss, cut one, the other bleeds!” And Hannibal had nodded in agreement. Since Face had first left LA almost two years ago, Murdock had struggled with every single day. Some were worse than others, and Hannibal had had a taste of how truly awful things could have gone on that last day in Crystal Falls.

 

Three weeks ago...

Face had been asleep for a little over an hour when Hannibal silently slipped from the bed, pulled on his boxers and started packing up. The second that Face awoke, they were getting in that van and getting the hell out. It was going to be a long trip back south, but Face had been out of the sun and the heat for two years, and after the last month he deserved nothing less than the chance to lie next to a pool while he recovered, and that was exactly what Hannibal was going to give him.

 

He heard noises in the rest of the house as the other team members started to wake. He looked at his half filled bag, he would just finish this then he would go downstairs and explain the slight change in circumstances and plan.

 

He never got that chance.

 

He’d just opened another drawer with the intention of emptying it out when a piercing wail reached him from along the corridor. He glanced at Face who stirred but didn’t wake then grabbed his gun and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

 

He’d heard footsteps pounding down the stairs as he had reached for his gun and followed, taking them three at a time and skidding into the kitchen.

 

Murdock was standing in the doorway, hands clutching BA’s arms so hard that Hannibal could actually see the big guy wince, but he was holding Murdock back, stopping him from running out of the door in nothing but his bare feet, briefs and a cooking apron. Hannibal didn’t even have the time to register how weird that was in itself before he saw the look on Murdock’s face and his heart just sank.

 

“He’s gone! He’s gone!” Murdock was wailing, hands off BA’s arms now and reaching for the door instead, “Get off me! I need to find him!”

 

“Jus’ wait, fool!” in all the commotion, BA hadn’t heard Hannibal’s entrance, “We need to get the boss! Get some clothes on! We aint gonna find him tearing out like this!”

 

Murdock wasn’t listening, the look on his face so wild, Hannibal didn’t even think he was hearing. “I made him pancakes! They’ll be cold! Get the fuck off me!”

 

But BA hung on and even pushed him back away from the doorway and that’s when he saw Hannibal, “Boss! Face has gone again and this fool’s just lost it!” the worry in his eyes betrayed the harshness of his words.

 

“He’s not gone,” Hannibal marched over to his men, “He’s in my room.” He grabbed Murdock’s head and turned his face away from the door, “Captain!” but Murdock’s eyes were everywhere, it was like he couldn’t keep them still if he wanted to.

 

“The pancakes!” Murdock wailed and Hannibal tried again.

 

“HM! Son, listen to me!” But it was a lost cause. Murdock wrenched his head from Hannibal’s hands and darted back for the door, but BA got to him first, grabbing him round the waist and spinning him back into the kitchen.

 

Murdock reacted without thought, bringing his head back into BA’s face and his elbow into his stomach at the same time. BA hissed in pain but held on as Hannibal grabbed Murdock’s wrists, “Stand down!” he shouted, but still Murdock wasn’t hearing him.

 

 

“Murdock, buddy!” the voice came from behind them and the effect it had on them all was instantaneous. Murdock froze, everyone froze, and they all turned to the foot of the stairs.

 

Face was there, naked and clinging one handed onto the banister rail as if his life depended on it, the other arm wrapped tightly around his ribs. His skin was ashen grey and he looked like he was shaking ever so slightly, but his voice was clear and his eyes were pinned straight into his friend.

 

“Don’t worry, bud, I’m here.”

 

All the tension in Murdock’s body just leaked straight out and his whole expression and demeanour changed. He beamed at Face and started for him, Hannibal was terrified he was going to grab the kid in some kind of bear hug which would just about finish him off, but he didn’t. Instead he skidded to a halt in front of him and picked up his face in his hands, kissing both his cheeks and his forehead before stepping back to grin at him, “I made you pancakes!” he told him, as if the last five minutes hadn’t even happened, “You want them with chocolate on?”

 

Face smiled, but Hannibal could see the pain in it, “Yeah, bud, that’d be great,” and Murdock spun into the kitchen whistling a random tune.

 

As soon as he had gone, Face seemed to sag, and BA caught hold of him, ignoring his naked state, and scooped him up to place him gently on the sofa. He looked over his shoulder into the kitchen where Hannibal had his hand on Murdock’s shoulder while the pilot heaped chocolate sauce over stacks of pancakes, then turned back to Face who was still grey, fighting to steady his breathing while watching BA carefully.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the pain obvious in his words.

 

BA frowned, “What for, man?”

 

“For having my head up my ass,” they both smiled and Face’s eyes flicked over to the kitchen and back, “For nearly breaking both of them.”

 

The smile disappeared from BA’s expression and he studied Face carefully. “You stayin’ or leavin’?” he asked.

 

There was no hesitation, “Staying. For as long as he’ll have me.”

 

And BA laughed, gently ruffling his hair, “Well, you here for good then, brother, ‘cause the boss got it baaad for you!” and grinning at the lieutenant in relief, he pulled the throw from the back of the sofa and covered Face with it before heading for the stairs, “And I’m gonna go get you a shot of somethin’ Face. You look like crap.”

 

Face sighed and let his head fall back on the arm of the sofa, closing his eyes. Shit. He felt it too.     

 

“Face,” he hadn’t heard Hannibal approach, but suddenly the boss was there at his side, one hand gently tracing his jaw, the other on his shoulder.

 

“Hey, boss,” Face opened his eyes and felt his whole face light up in a smile. He turned his head to kiss the hand on his jaw then relaxed back onto the arm rest.

 

Hannibal was rubbing tiny circles in the stubble on his cheek, “I’m sorry, kid, I really am.”

 

Face cracked one eye open, “What for?” the edges of worry darkened his eyes.

 

Hannibal gestured down his body, “For this!” the snap in his voice brought a frown to expression, “We shouldn’t have done it. I told you I would hurt you. Now look at you, I’ve set you back days!”

 

Face felt himself tense, sensing an argument, “Hannibal. I’m a big boy; I can make my own decisions.”

 

But Hannibal was moving away as BA and Murdock arrived with pain med and pancakes. He caught Face’s eye as he drifted back upstairs to pack and the almost imperceptibly shake of his head had Face grinding his teeth in frustration.

 

Present day...

But since that crazy morning in Illinois, Murdock had been the calmest, the most grounded that Hannibal had ever seen. The man continued to amaze him.

 

Unfortunately, things with Face had not been going quite so smoothly. Hannibal knew that Face had always had a certain disregard for his own personal safety. He seemed to think it was more important for his team to be safe than for himself. Hannibal had worked on that with him over the years, hoping that one day he would see his own worth. He’d had some success, he couldn’t deny that, but not as much as he would have liked.

 

His plan that Face would spend the next month stretched out on a sun bed, letting his body and his mind slowly recover, had been blown out the windows the second they arrived at the house.

 

The first activity that Hannibal had had to rein in was the quad bike safari that Murdock was planning after finding three quad bikes in the garage. He was appalled to hear them planning on taking them out the next day and trying them out in the dunes; Hannibal had put a stop to it at once, had banned Face from going anywhere near the damn things. Face had just looked at him and Hannibal had tensed for an argument, but it had never come. Instead his lieutenant turned to Murdock and shrugged, “Sorry, you guys will have to go without me,” and Hannibal had exhaled in relief.

 

They had the same carry on when Murdock rented kite boarding kits, then again with the wind surfing lessons they had signed up for.

 

Each time Hannibal had expected an explosion that didn’t come, just a long hard look and apologies to Murdock. And instead of going out with the others, Face would come and lie next to his colonel, his head resting on a flat stomach while Hannibal read by the pool, or watched a movie or just looked at the sea.

 

It was only when Hannibal said that Face couldn’t go to the mall with the others, or even to the cinema, that the look started to get a little strained, but Hannibal knew he was doing the right thing. Face was still hurting, was still having nightmares every night. He wasn’t ready to do all the things he wanted to yet; and that included sex.

 

That morning in Crystal Falls when Hannibal had let Face talk him into sex had been a mistake. The surge of guilt that Hannibal had felt seeing Face in so much pain he could hardly breathe, had almost crippled him. There was no way on earth that he was going to let that happen again, and there was nothing that Face’s wheedling and whining and plotting could do about it.

 

So, in three weeks of sharing a bed, there had been nothing. Not a kiss or a touch or a blow job or even a hand job. Face had spat his dummy out, if Hannibal wasn’t going to fuck him, then Hannibal wasn’t going to touch him. But Hannibal had agreed, if that was the way Face wanted it, then fine, the more physical activity he abstained from, the more chance his body would have to recover.

 

Fine.

 

Face didn’t need to know about the hours he spent laid stock still, his cock straining hard in his shorts. He didn’t need to know about the frantic hand jobs in the shower every morning and every night, just so he could get through the next eight hours without touching. He didn’t need to know how Face walking around in nothing but swimming shorts all day every day affected him, or how sleeping next to that long, naked body on a night had him sweating with the air con on full. The lieutenant didn’t need to know any of that because he knew he was doing the right thing, and as long as Face still winced when he coughed and the fading black bruises were still visible on his skin, then Hannibal would continue to do the right thing, no matter what it cost him.

 

Or that’s what he’d thought, but maybe the price had just sky rocketed...

 

That morning...

Hannibal woke up facing the ocean, the windows open and a cool breeze on his face. Perfect. What made it even more so was the hot body pressed up against his back and the hand resting gently on his chest.

 

“Morning...” Face’s obscenely sexy ‘just woken up’ voice was right in his ear and Hannibal winced as he felt his cock spring, embarrassing quickly, into life. Then the lieutenant moved against him and Hannibal realised he wasn’t the only one with morning wood. He tried to slip out of the bed, but Face was too quick for him, the hand on his chest slipping down to grab hold of his rapidly swelling cock.

 

“Not so fast, boss, you seem to be having a bit of a problem here. Like me to help you out with that?”

 

Hannibal relaxed back into him. It seemed the kid had finally decided he’d had enough of the ‘all or nothing rule’. Excellent.

 

“Because,” Face’s voice seemed to get even more hot, “I’d really, really like you to fuck me, John. What do you say, three weeks is a long time to go without... Just think how tight I’ll be for you...”

 

Or maybe not.

 

Hannibal was out of the bed and against the wall in a second, his impressive erection proof of the partial success of Face’s seduction attempt.

 

“No,” he said, slightly embarrassed at the breathless voice he came out with. “Not until you are fit enough.”

 

Face threw himself back onto the pillows, frustration leaking from every pore, “God, Hannibal! There is nothing wrong with me! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

 

His eyes widened in shook, “Me? I’m not the one who winced climbing into the pool yesterday!”

 

Face’s hands flew up into his hair, “Seriously? Hannibal, it was fucking freezing!”

 

“I’m not the one having nightmares every night!”

 

Narrowed eyes stared at him from the bed, “I’ve had nightmares every fucking night for years Hannibal. If you’re going to wait for them to go, we’ll be too old to get it up!”

 

There was a standoff.

 

“No,” Hannibal eventually replied, “not yet.”

 

Face looked at him for one long second, then swung his legs out of the bed, “Fine,” he bit out, opening a drawer and reaching in, “That’s just fine. If you want me,” he yanked out a pair of black shorts and dragged them on, bending to pick up the black A-shirt he’d dropped in the process, “I’m going running with Murdock.”

 

Hannibal stepped in front of the door, “No, you are not.”

 

Face tugged the A-shirt over his head and took a step forward, “I am. Now, please move away from the door.”

 

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed, “Face...” and it was said in that tone he’d heard all too often over the years. It was the tone that said, ‘You are pushing your luck here lieutenant, step back and think again and Face had been ignoring that tone since forever.

 

“Don’t make me use force, Colonel...”

 

The temperature in the room dropped noticeably.

 

“You don’t need to,” Hannibal’s voice was crushed ice, grating against Face’s nerves, “I’m giving you an order, lieutenant, and I expect you to follow it.”

 

Face narrowed his eyes and Hannibal saw him swallow, hard.

 

“Come on kid,” Hannibal reached out a placating hand, “You know this is going nowhere. You’re a good soldier, the best, and you know you always follow my orders.”

 

Edging back from the grasping fingers Face felt himself seething with barely suppressed resentment, “Only because I believed in them. Believed in you,” Hannibal frowned at the tone of his voice, “but today I am going running.”

 

He stepped forward and shoved Hannibal to one side as he yanked the door open and stormed out. Hannibal was too shocked to try and stop him.

 

After a moment’s stunned inaction, he turned to the balcony and looked out, just in time to see Face, with a flustered Murdock in tow, running down the path through the gardens and onto the beach, disappearing behind the perimeter fence in seconds. Murdock stopped at the gate to tug his trainers onto his feet and throw a resentful glare up at Hannibal before he too slipped through the gate and out of sight.

 

Back to present...

And that had been, Hannibal looked at his watch, nine whole hours ago. His stomach shifted uncomfortably and he reminded himself for about the hundredth time that Face had promised he wouldn’t leave again. He’d promised, Hannibal had believed him, and the kid didn’t break his promises. He would be back.

 

Almost in perfect synchronicity with his thoughts, the latch on the gate clicked and Hannibal’s eyes snapped down to see Murdock dragging himself into the garden. He looked exhausted, and his shoulders and cheek bones were pink from too much sun. And he was by himself.

 

Again that uncomfortable shift and Murdock’s eyes lifted up to meet his, “He’s swimming,” he shouted up, “in the sea.” Hannibal felt there was a challenge in that statement that he wasn’t going to rise to.

 

Within moments, HM was standing beside him, draining a can of beer noisily and Hannibal waited. If the captain wanted to say something, he would listen, if not, well, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to hear what Face had been saying about him all day anyway.

 

Murdock crushed the can in his palm and rested his hands on the balcony looking out at the way the sea was turning red under the sunset. “You know boss,” his tone was light, conversational, nothing like the resentment Hannibal had expected, “He’s tougher than you are giving him credit for. You of all people should know that.”

 

Hannibal let out a sigh and felt his fingers contract on the railing, “I’m just trying to look out for him, HM, he’s not up to any of this yet.”

 

Turning to rest his back on the balcony rail, Murdock folded his arms and studied his colonel, “What’s got you so wound up? You think you’ll break him?” he shook his head, “I don’t think he’s the one you’re really worried about...” and he pushed off back into the house with a quick, “Shower!” thrown over his shoulder and Hannibal’s forehead creased in thought.

Epilogue 2

The Long and Winding Road - Hannibal/Face - Epilogue 2 of 2

It was almost inky dark by the time Hannibal wandered down to the beach. He’d eventually managed to spot Face in the surf by moving across the house to the room BA used and the balcony there. He watched him for a while as he body surfed, almost like he was trying to prove to Hannibal what he was fit enough to do, and then he swam out beyond the breakers and flipped over onto his back, just floating, face to the skies. Hannibal changed into a pair of shorts, made a quick detour to the bathroom, grabbed an armful of towels from the tumble drier and followed him down.

 

Face didn’t acknowledge him at all until he had swum right up to him, finger tips trailing across his ribs under the water, “Face...”

 

His eyes stayed glued to the first stars of the evening, “Hey, boss. You come to fetch me in?”

 

Hannibal swam up behind him and let his legs float up so they were either side of Face’s, stomach pressed against his back, and wrapped his arms across his chest, tucking his chin over the chilled skin of his shoulder and floating with him. “No, kid,” he dropped a kiss onto the salty skin, “I’ve come to say I’m sorry.” He felt Face tense above him and let an ironic smile drift across his mouth, “Surely it’s not that much of a rarity...?”

 

Face laughed, “You kidding? Hannibal Smith admitting he was wrong? It’s like the sky falling in...”     

 

Hannibal squeezed his arms tighter around the kid’s chest in reply.

 

“So...” Face’s voice carried that edge to it that told Hannibal he knew he was challenging, “What’s going on with you then?”

 

There was no reply as Hannibal adjusted his position slightly, making sure he wasn’t dragging Face under the water, and wondered how best to answer that question. Murdock’s parting comment had made him think, made him realise his incredibly perceptive pilot was spot on with his observation. He knew he’d not had the best couple of years, knew they’d been hard on him, sleep didn’t come as well as it had in the past, sometimes he got these headaches right across his forehead; stress, bearing down on him. He knew that finding Face in that apartment in Cabrini Green had been one of the worst moments of his life, he knew that realising he had hurt him the morning they’d made love had almost drowned him in guilt, but what he hadn’t realised until Murdock pointed it out, was how he was projecting all that fear and pain and guilt and anguish right back onto Face.

 

Yes, he was worried that if they had sex again that he would hurt his lieutenant, but that wasn’t what was fuelling his desperate protective streak. He was terrified that if Face was hurt once more, injured, damaged, taken from him again, then he would be the one who would disintegrate.

 

“I’m just trying to keep you safe,” he whispered. It wasn’t the whole truth, but he hoped it would suffice.

 

Face turned round in his arms and tugged them both upright, his toes just brushing the soft sand below them, “Well, I know there’s more to it than that, boss, but I’ll let it go - for now,” and he moved in and kissed Hannibal’s lips, feeling their warmth under his water cooled skin.

 

It was chaste at first, Hannibal was wary, waiting for him to pull back, to bring the conversation round to sex, for the whole stupid argument to start up again, but Face surprised him by sweeping his tongue gently across the older man’s lips, asking for entry, his own apology for the last three weeks. Hannibal didn’t need asking twice, he opened up at once, sucking Face’s tongue into his mouth and stroking it with his own, welcoming him home and feeling the rest of his body react in tune with it.

 

He pulled Face closer, one hand round his back, the other stroking his neck and jaw, sliding into his wet hair and feeling the warmth of his head beneath. He could feel Face bobbing slightly in the water, and knew that the few extra inches he had on the kid meant that Face would be almost out of his depth. He slid one hand down and found a leanly muscled thigh, tugging it up to his hip, trying to get Face to hold onto him.

 

But suddenly Face pulled away, his hands reaching for Hannibal’s in the black water, tugging him into shallower depths, “Over two years, John,” he breathed as he kicked backwards, “since I’ve been inside you. Too long. I need you now. I’ve been such an ass, wasting all this time...”

 

He’d obviously found his depth as he stopped, pulling Hannibal into him, and immediately finding his mouth in the darkness. Hannibal wrapped himself up in his embrace, curling his legs round Face’s hips and rubbing their erections together through their shorts.

 

It got very interesting very quickly and Hannibal began to thrust with his tongue with the same pace as his hips, feeling the cool sea water slapping between their chests with every push, but then Face was pulling away, turning his head to kiss salty sea splashes from Hannibal’s shoulder.

 

“House,” he whispered between kisses, “Bed....... Now.”

 

He tried to break free, but Hannibal held on even tighter, the muscles in his thighs locking solidly around Face’s hips. “No,” he murmured against Face’s neck. “Right here, right now...”

 

Face stopped and pulled his head back, trying to make out his commander’s expression in the darkness, “Here? God, that sounds good, but... shit... I don’t have any –” he broke off as Hannibal found his mouth in the darkness again, then trailed kisses up his face, stopping right next to his ear.

 

“Don’t worry,” his voice was obscenely hot, “I came pre-prepared...”

 

Face shuddered at that tone, “Yeah? You brought some –” and he froze, suddenly realising what Hannibal meant, “Fuck... you mean, pre-prepared as in...”

 

“Ready for deployment, Lieutenant...”

 

Laughter broke over the chopping of the waves, “You sly old fox, were you planning this?”

 

Hannibal impatiently ground his hips down into Face’s, “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared, kid. It’s even waterproof. Now are we doing this or what?”

 

Face laughed again, speaking into Hannibal’s mouth as they prepared to pick where they had left off, “Hell, yes, boss, we’re so doing -” The rest of his words were cut off as Hannibal’s tongue slipped straight into his mouth, finding his own and wrapping around it, drawing a moan from deep in the lieutenant’s chest.

 

The next few minutes probably wouldn’t have made the final cut of any but the most amateurish of adult films, it wasn’t easy to strip off wet shorts, in the sea, in the dark, wrapped up together and necking fiercely at the same time, but they managed it without drowning which had to count as a success.

 

Eventually Face had his shorts round his ankles which were firmly planted in the sand, while Hannibal had slipped one leg completely out of his and had them hanging from one foot as he wrapped his lean thighs around Face’s hips once more;  Face held him close with one arm around his back , eternally grateful for the way the water halved the colonel’s weight.

 

Hannibal’s mouth was firmly clamped on his own and he felt him ease up out of the water slightly as Face held his own cock tightly in his right hand, lining himself up in between Hannibal’s cheeks. Then Hannibal broke the kiss and leant back slightly, his eyes shining in the moonlight as he smiled at Face. “You ready, kid?”

 

Face smiled back, “Oh, yeah, always ready boss... I just don’t know how we are gonna – oh! Shit!”

 

And Hannibal dropped back down, impaling himself fully on Face’s cock and wrapping his ankles together at the back. He chuckled at Face’s aborted concerns and also at the way the kid was thrusting frantically inside him, no semblance of any rhythm or tempo, his head tipped back, silver in the moonlight, his eyes closed to the stars above him. Hannibal’s laughter died in his throat as he realised he’d never seen a more beautiful sight in his life.

 

They were both in danger of coming within seconds. Face was obviously almost lost already and Hannibal, with his cock trapped up against Face’s abs, the hot pressure deep inside him and that fucking incredible view, was only heartbeats behind. He decided to take action, jamming his hips forward and holding them there, he elicited a deep moan from Face’s lips before the kid tipped his head forward again and made eye contact, “Boss,” his voice was a strangled whisper, “Oh... I’m so close... don’t think I can hold on...”

 

“You can,” Hannibal murmured back, “stick with me, Face, find your rhythm,” and then Hannibal started to rock, slowly, backwards and forwards, rolling his lips, long and leisurely, and Face moved with him. In no time the desperation was gone, replaced instead by a slowly roiling desire, stoked just that tiny bit higher with every thrust.

 

Face adjusted his grip, pulling Hannibal in with both his arms and Hannibal fell on his collar bone, sucking and nipping at the sensitive skin stretched tight over bone, chasing water droplets with his tongue while Face whispered in his ear.

 

“Missed you... Missed this. Oh, fuck you are so tight boss, so fucking tight...” his hands slid down until they were fondling Hannibal’s ass, kneading the tight flesh as his hips continued to roll, “I need you to lose control, John...” he lifted Hannibal up slightly and pulled him in tighter, on a sharper angle, then thrust again, harder, deeper this time and... Bull’s-eye...

 

Hannibal bit down sharply on Face’s shoulder as his prostrate was nailed, hard, and Face felt his tempo pick up and his self control slide, “Oh, fuck, Hannibal, you have no idea what you do to me,” he moaned as Hannibal bit him again, higher this time, at the point where his neck met his shoulder, “Come on, John, need to hear you this time, need to hear you when you come...”

 

Hannibal threw his head back, his eyes squeezed tight and started answering Face’s thrusts, pulling himself up to drop down again at just the right moment and Face realised that the power of speech had now left him and so just fixed his eyes open instead, marvelling at the sight of Hannibal Smith riding his cock with that look of pure ecstasy on his face.

 

And then they broke. Hannibal first, jerking his hips forward with enough force to bruise and howling to the sky, “Oh, yes, oh, Temp, love you, love you so much kid, oh, God, oh...” and then Face, just watching Hannibal come, listening to his assertions, feeling the clenching muscles around his cock and the unexpected warmth over his stomach, felt himself tip over, pulling Hannibal close, burying his face in a wet shoulder and just driving himself home.

 

It was all over too quickly, Face’s thighs cramping under the strain and Hannibal sliding himself down, making Face feel suddenly cold, but then wrapping him up in his arms again, chasing those chills away.

 

“Careful, kid,” his voice was husky and knowing why sent shivers of delight down Face’s spine, “You’re gonna drown us both, come here...”

 

And somehow they half swam, half staggered out of the sea, Face shivering hard now, and almost fell onto the towels Hannibal had left on the beach.

 

Hannibal yanked the wet shorts from their ankles and threw them in the sand, then grabbed a couple more towels from his pile and pulled them over them both, tugging Face’s cold body right into his.

 

“How long were you in that sea, Face?” Hannibal murmured as he rubbed Face’s arm vigorously, feeling the shivers wracking his body, “You’re bloody freezing...”

 

“F-fucking ages...” Face stammered, “Was only g-gonna give you another m-minute, then I was coming b-back...”

 

Hannibal laughed and pulled him in even tighter, “I’m that predictable, huh? Or, do you just know how irresistible you are?”

 

Face just laughed and buried his face in Hannibal’s neck, trying to crawl into the man and his body heat.

 

They lay in silence as the minutes stretched by and Face gradually stopped shivering. Hannibal held him close and looked up at the stars, in awe of the position he found himself in here. If all this crazy running and hiding and dodging the authorities and living right on the edge of the law meant that he could have this thing he was having with Face, then he would take that life hands down over anything else that God might have on offer. Any day. No question.

 

“What you thinking about?”

 

He’d assumed that Face had fallen asleep and the quiet voice, interrupting his musings, had startled him. He looked down to see Face starring up at him, the moon reflected in his eyes and his skin a pearly silver. He looked like something magical or fey and for a moment Hannibal just couldn’t reply.

 

“Boss?” a poke to the ribs some brought him out of himself and he flicked the back of Face’s neck in return.

 

“You, you cheeky whelp.”

 

“Me?” Face was attempting to sound innocent and failing badly, “What about me? How devastatingly handsome I am?”

 

Hannibal caught his eyes and held them, “Yes,” he whispered, enjoying the look of surprise that washed through Face’s expression, the soft ‘o’ his mouth made, “and how gloriously sexy you are, and how I love that you are mine... and how I love you...”

 

Face just stared and Hannibal knew that the sudden luminescence in his eyes was nothing to do with the moon, “Boss...” his voice was like a breath against Hannibal’s neck.

 

“And how much I want to be inside you, how I want to watch you come on my cock...”

 

Face’s eyes slid shut and the lids fluttered in the moonlight, “God, yes...”

 

Hannibal turned so that his newly awakened erection rubbed against Face’s stomach and started dropping kisses on his lieutenant’s face. “House?” he whispered between kisses, “Bed?....... Now?”

 

Laughing at Hannibal’s gentle teasing, Face turned into him, pushing his own erection into his thigh, “No,” he murmured, playing his part well, “Right here, right now...”

 

There was a kiss and a chuckle in his hair, “Impatient boy,” the affection in his voice impossible to miss, “It’s a good job I was a boy scout.” He leaned over Face and retrieved a tube from the pocket of his shorts.

 

Face made some kind of disgusted snort as Hannibal pulled back across him, “You’ve planned this whole thing boss haven’t you?”

 

Hannibal looked right into his eyes, assessing how much the tone of his voice had been put on and smiled, “No, Temp, I didn’t plan this. I just really, really hoped for it.”

 

And then Face’s hand was in his hair pulling him down and his mouth was hot and inviting and Hannibal almost dropped the lube in his haste to get it open.

 

Foreplay is wonderful. It plays a vital part in the lovemaking process, relaxing both partners and slowly building to that point when the need is all consuming, and as such – there was absolutely no need for it at this moment.

 

Since that night four months ago in Montana, this had been at the forefront of Face’s mind at almost every minute of the day. All he had thought about when he got himself off, and even, although he was embarrassed to admit it, when he was with Jessie, was that moment of Hannibal slowly filling him up while he stared right into his eyes.

 

It was all that kept him holding on when Pacitto’s boys were trying to beat his insides out through his skin.

 

And now, he shivered as Hannibal’s slicked fingers slowly opened him up, he was going to get his moment back.

 

“I’m ready...” he murmured, hips twitching impatiently as Hannibal went about his task meticulously.

 

“Face...”

 

“No, Hannibal,” Face’s hand gripped his boss’ jaw, forcing him to look up at him, “I’m ready, I need this. I need to be yours... Take me... now.”

 

And how the hell could anyone, could Hannibal resist that?

 

A white heat settled over his eyes and he pulled his fingers out, mouth finding Face’s, and cock lining itself up almost of its own accord, and then he pulled back. Propped up on his arms he stopped, the wet head of his cock, just pressing at Face’s opening, “Do you know how I feel about you, kid?” he whispered, knowing that Face couldn’t look away from him now.

 

A blush swept up Face’s cheeks.

 

“Do you?”

 

He saw Face swallow. Hard.

 

“I love you,” he started to slowly push in, staring right into Face’s blown iris as he did so, “I fucking love you so damn much that there isn’t anything in my life I have ever loved more.” Slowly, slowly, he edged in, “You’re it, Temp, my everything. I’m yours and you’re mine.”

 

Face’s eyes were impossibly wide and his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders were shaking ever so slightly, ”Yes, John,” Hannibal had to strain to hear him, “and... please...” and that broken little plea snapped the tiny thread of self restraint that Hannibal had been clinging to. He pulled back and slammed himself back in, feeling Face’s entre body shift backwards in the sand, watching as his neck arched and his head tipped back, hips rising to meet Hannibal’s thrust.

 

“Beautiful,” Hannibal whispered, watching his boy bucking beneath him, all lean, wiry muscles like a prize colt, “And mine!”

 

He set a brutal pace, watching every twitch and jolt, living for each gasp and moan and gripping Face’s hips so hard he could feel the bones moving under the skin.

 

Then he dropped down, his hands buried in the sand either side of Face’s head, Face’s hands on his shoulders, hanging on for dear life, and as he leant forward, his cock head hammered Face’s prostrate with every thrust and the kid started to unravel. Hannibal watched for a moment as Face edged closer and closer to the threatening abyss, but then it was suddenly too much and Hannibal dropped his head, finding any patch of skin he could reach to kiss, to lick, to nip... and then he bit, hard and sudden, right over Face’s heart and his boy came, crying out a wordless cry, his head and his hips thrusting up to the stars and Hannibal felt himself catch light and explode as his cries mingled with Face’s.

 

Hannibal was never sure if he didn’t actually pass out for a few minutes on that night. But it was certainly very vague at first until his senses returned one by one. Sight came first as he looked down to find himself collapsed over Face’s chest and he rolled off, feeling coming back to his body with vengeance as he landed hard on a pebble right under his hip bone. He reached out an unresponsive hand to touch Face’s cheek and the kid opened his eyes and looked at him, the most relaxed, blissed out expression on his face that Hannibal had ever seen. And then the roaring in his ears died down to be replaced with the crashing of the waves instead and he could just about persuade his mouth to work.

 

“You okay, kid?” How loud had he shouted when he came? God, his throat was sore...

 

Face smiled at him, the kind of smile that opens the gates of heaven, “Never better...” and Hannibal believed him.

 

Then it was suddenly too much effort to talk, or to move and so Hannibal just grabbed the towels and pulled them over them both again, pulled Face’s head on top his chest and fell fast asleep, arms and legs entwined like a Celtic knot.

 

And that’s how Murdock and BA found them. Dead to the world and completely at peace for the first time in years. They didn’t wake when Murdock gently prised them apart, or when BA took turns in carrying them back to the house. It was only when the sunlight streamed in through the open curtains that either of them stirred.

 

But they didn’t get up – not for the rest of the week.
 

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Part 1

Face

September

 

It's like the bottom just dropped out of Face's entire world. It's not even like he was looking at the TVs as he passed the shop window, but something, maybe some weird sixth sense, just made his head turn, and it was CNN, and the scrolling news bar across the bottom of the screen caught his eye and before he knew it he'd read it and then he was frozen in place with horror.

 

It's just ten words: Body found in car park believed to be Senator's daughter, but it's enough, metaphorically, to bring him to his knees.

 

He couldn't move, he was frozen in time and space as he watched the breaking news scroll round and round the screen. It never changed, he didn't really know what he was hoping it would say, maybe 'Oh, sorry everyone, that was a mistake, she's not dead after all.' Or perhaps it would turn out to be another Senator's daughter and not Tasha Coleman, the seventeen year old he was supposed to have been protecting. But it didn't, it just mocked him with its black and white facts, forced him to swallow the magnitude of his mistake.

 

They'd taken twelve hour shifts sitting outside her door, one of them acting as bodyguard, the other three trying to get some kind of handle on the psycho who was stalking her. She was a nice kid. Mom and dad no longer together, Mom off in Florida somewhere, her living with Dad in LA. He was Charles Coleman, from a long line of Colemans, all involved in politics in some way of another, but Charles was the only one who had officially 'made it'.

 

Face didn't like him. He was arrogant, too far up his own backside and treated Tasha like she was a brainless simpleton. But Face wasn't paid to have an opinion on the client, and he liked Tasha, certainly didn't want her to fall victim to her flaky stalker, so he held his tongue and suffered her puffed up father with reasonable humour.

 

When Face was on body guard detail, Tasha often came outside to talk to him. At first he'd been worried that she had some kind of crush on him, but as the time went on, he became less sure. They talked about films, music, cartoons, harmless, simple things and he had been impressed with her wit, her brains and the fact that she wasn't freaked out that a crazed stalker was out to get her.

 

But then he'd fucked up.

 

Senator Coleman was getting very antsy, was moaning at Hannibal all the time, thought he'd paid for quality, didn't they know what would happen to his career if anyone found out he was paying federal fugitives to catch his daughter's stalker? It had been four whole days and still no one had been apprehended. Hannibal had done his best to calm the situation down but had also doubled everyone's shifts, and so it was that when Face turned up to relieve Murdock for his 2am-2pm body guard detail, he hadn't been to bed in over thirty hours.

 

But even so, he was still a soldier, he hadn't felt that bad, and he'd certainly gone for longer periods without sleep in the past. So he'd settled down, and within ten minutes Tasha had appeared in the hallway, two cans of diet coke in her hands, and they'd gone over the latest episode of '24' in fine detail.

 

Then Tasha had gone back to her room and Face, stupidly, carelessly, irresponsibly, unbelievably had fallen asleep.

 

He awoke five hours later to find her bedroom door open, and Tasha gone.

 

He'd flown out the door before he was even fully awake; fingers finding the speed dial to Hannibal's mobile almost of their own accord. He remembered that conversation in every appalling detail...

 

“Hey, kid, how's it going?”

 

He'd swallowed down the bile in his throat, “We have a real situation here, Hannibal, Tasha's gone.”

 

There was a beat of silence.

 

“You have a lead?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“What the fuck happened?”

 

Face had to stop, one hand bracing himself against the brick wall at the corner of the apartment block, “I fell asleep, boss...”

 

He could hear the fury in Hannibal's silence and the nausea threatened again.

 

“Call round her friends, family, anyone you can think of, but keep away from Coleman, I'll handle him.”

 

Face was ridiculously relieved that Hannibal had moved straight into problem solving mode and skipped over that fact that he'd royally fucked up. 

 

“Sure thing, boss...” and he knew the relief was evident in his voice, but it was short lived.

 

“And you'd better start praying that we find her, lieutenant.”

 

So Face had called every single person who had been listed in Tasha's phone, but no one had seen her, no one had heard from her. He'd asked all her friends where she might go, and they all supplied the same answer – the Mall, so that's where he'd gone. For four hours he'd walked up and down, in and out of shops, trailing through cafés and bars. And then he'd walked past that TV shop...

 

He was still there; ignoring the strange looks from the salesmen inside, transfixed with the little CNN scrolling news bar and those ten words that had blasted his life apart.

 

It's not Tasha, he tried to tell himself, It just can't be... but any scrap of hope he may have had was shattered when the picture flashed onto the screen. Face might not have been able to hear the audio but he didn't need to. The newscaster's solemn face, the picture of Tasha in a pink vest top, eyes alight and laughing, her strawberry blonde hair curling to her shoulders, was all he needed. It was true. She was dead. What the fuck had he done?

 

After a couple of minutes the photo was gone, replaced by a load of college students who looked like they were trying to break the world record for the longest line dancing line or something, but Face couldn't look away. He was still frozen, unsure what to do with his life at this point.

 

There was a buzzing against his leg, he realised it had been there for a long while and reached into his pocket. It was his phone of course, but now he could only look at it like he'd never seen it before. There was a word flashing on the screen, 'Boss' and Face knew he couldn't take that call just now.

 

Eventually the buzzing stopped, replaced by a '10 missed calls' message and somewhere deep in his numbness he was surprised there had been that many.

 

The phone buzzed in his hand yet again, this time the message on the screen just said 'HM' and that was a call that couldn't be ignored, even in his fugue Face knew that to ignore a call from Murdock could be to ignore a call for help.

 

He pressed that green button. “Hey.”

 

“Facey? That you? Where are-”

 

But Murdock disappeared, and there was another voice on the line, a deep, furious growl, “Get your sorry ass back here now, Lieutenant! I know you've heard the news...” and then it was gone and Face flicked his eyes back to the shop window just as Tasha's happy, smiling face flashed across twenty LCD TVs. 

 

His legs were like lead as he dragged himself up the steps to the apartment Hannibal was leasing under some assumed name or other. Face had found it for him, knew the second he saw it that the boss would love it. High up in the hills, the ocean, miles below, but filling the view from the balconies of the living area and the only bedroom. The number of times Face had woken up in that massive bed, the only thing he could see the blue of the sky melting into the blue of the sea...

 

The last couple of months he'd spent more time here than at his own pokey studio, he and Hannibal testing out the boundaries of this 'thing' that had started up between them. It was still such a fledgling experience, certainly couldn't even begin to call it a relationship, that Face knew it wouldn’t survive Hannibal's disgust at his actions today. And that was okay, because if that was the person he really was, then the boss was better off without him anyway.

 

He pushed open the door to the open plan living area, expecting an almost instantaneous tongue lashing from Hannibal. What he didn't expect, was BA grabbing handfuls of his shirt and throwing him against the wall so hard he heard the sound his head made on impact.

 

“You damn fool!” BA was right in his face, yelling so loudly he couldn't help but cringe back.

 

“All you had to do was watch her! A little girl Face, she was only a little girl!” BA pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back again, and again his head hit the wall with a crack.

 

“I'm sorry!” It was pathetic, he was pathetic. Was that the only think that he could think of saying to try and atone for the life of a seventeen year old girl? What the hell was wrong with him?

 

It didn't matter, it didn't seem that BA was listening to his sorry excuse anyway. He just needed to get it all off his chest, he needed to vent his rage, and if that meant beating Face's head to a pulp against the creamy white walls of Hannibal's apartment, then Face could go with that.

 

“What were you doing Face? Who were you doing that you couldn't even babysit a god-dammed baby?”

 

He was still pounding Face's head against the wall and Face was finding it harder to think with every blow, but what was BA saying here? That somehow Face had hooked up with someone? And that's why he hadn't done his job properly? How could he even think that? Is that what Hannibal thought too? And, come to think of it, where was Hannibal? Was he watching? Was he going to just let BA beat him to death here? Or... was it actually Hannibal’s idea? His blood ran cold. He certainly wasn't going to fight back and stop this from happening, he didn't have that right, but unless someone did... Well, things were starting to feel pretty fuzzy right about now...

 

“Enough!” At last; he didn't think he could keep his feet much longer, even with BA holding him up like this.

 

“Okay, BA, get off him! You've made your point, you're gonna kill him!” Was that even Hannibal's voice?

 

Face could feel hands on his arms dragging him sideways, but BA held on, trying to pound him into the wall again

 

“Hannibal!” the pull on his arms was stronger, painful now.

 

“BA.” And there was the boss, his voice calm but authoritative, and BA's hold instantly disappeared, leaving Face to stagger sideways into those arms that still tugged on him, but now held him upright as well. So that had to mean...

 

“Murdock...” Of course.

 

“I've got you buddy, it's okay, you're okay now...” And Face even laughed because, seriously? How was he ever going to be okay again?

 

“Face!” The laugh obviously hadn't been the right way to go, because Face recognised the tone of that  voice. He forced his vision to clear as Hannibal stepped right up to him and he felt Murdock's arms tighten around his chest. That tone of voice was one that Hannibal saved for the most extreme of fuck ups. The ones where Face well and truly parked his sense right at the back of his brain and just went with whatever flitted to the front instead.

 

But this job hadn't been like that at all. He'd been focussed on doing a good job. He'd had no 'distractions' to worry about, he hadn't made any last minute changes to the colonel’s plans, he'd just been there, doing his job like he should have been. But he'd been tired, he'd not slept in too long, so he'd fallen asleep. Yes, he'd fucked up, but, for the first time he could ever remember, he really and truly hadn't meant to. He knew what was coming next...

 

“Explain yourself.”

 

… and he had no ideas whatsoever.

 

BA filled the silence for him, and Face's eyes flicked to where the big guy was leaning, arms folded, against the kitchen counter, “He ain’t got nothing to say Hannibal! He was just doing what he does best and looking out for number one!”

 

Face felt that one, right in his chest, and he even felt Murdock flinch behind him, but he didn't respond, still didn’t have that right.  

 

“Hannibal, I am telling you!” Face could feel  the tension in Murdock's whole body, “Facey wouldn't do that! He just wouldn't fall asleep on a job like that!”

 

And somehow that was worse, hearing Murdock defend him like that, knowing that he was wrong, that BA was much closer to the truth.

 

“Both of you be quiet!” Hannibal snapped, “I'm talking to the LT!” he jabbed his finger into Face's chest, “and I want some answers!”

 

Face just starred at the floor.

 

“You want me to beat the answers out of him, boss?” there was a cold detachment to BA's voice that did nothing to ease the hopelessness flooding Face's body.

 

“He's done nothing wrong!” Murdock yelled back, right in Face's ear making his pounding head shriek in protest.

 

BA took a step forward and Murdock tightened his grip around Face's chest, “You'll have to get through me first!” he hissed.

 

“I said be quiet!!” Hannibal pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, trying to keep his control “In fact, since neither of you can be quiet, you can both move out!” No one moved and Murdock's arms tightened again.

 

“Did you hear me?” the look in Hannibal’s face was wild, “Get out, the pair of you. Get over to the crime scene, see what you can find out, the very least we can do for Coleman is find the bastard who murdered his daughter since we didn't manage to stop them from doing it!”

 

This was delivered looking Face right in the eye, and it hurt, just as it was supposed to. A fresh wave of fury swept over BA's face, while Murdock's arms slipped right off him.

 

Despite anything else that anyone may be feeling or thinking, the one absolute truth that none of them could escape from was that Tasha Coleman, the child they had been hired to protect, was dead.

 

It took much more snapping and even pushing before Murdock and BA finally left. Face had slumped down on Hannibal's sofa, head in his hands, and he could feel Murdock's eyes on him the whole time.

 

Eventually it was just him and the boss.

 

“So, Face, answers...”

 

And still Face had nothing to say.

 

“I'm waiting...” and the bite was there, the threat of something else beneath.

 

“I don't know. I was there. I fell asleep. I woke up and she'd gone... That's all.”

 

“That's all?”

 

Trust Hannibal to pick up on that bit.

 

“I didn't mean it like that, boss, I just don't know what happened!” Face looked up, saw the disgust on Hannibal's face and really wished he hadn't. He rose unsteadily to his feet. “Look, I don't know what you want me to say! I fucked up, I know that, I get that. So, what do you want from me? What can I do that will stop you looking at me like that?”

 

“Well, I don't know Lieutenant, maybe looking like you give even the tiniest shit that your actions got a young girl killed today would be a start!”

 

Face looked down at the floor again. So that's what Hannibal wanted to hear; how Face knew that he was the one was responsible for the end of a promising young life, how, because of him, a whole lifetime of possibilities had been erased. How there would be no wedding, no babies, no career, no grandchildren, no holidays in the sun, no retirement in Miami. How there's a mother in Florida who will never see her baby girl again, a father, much closer to home, who thought he had done the best thing he could to protect his daughter. And how, worse than that, much much worse, Tasha Coleman died in pain and in absolute terror, let down by the one man she had relied upon to protect her.

 

Face shook his head slowly. What Hannibal didn't realise is that Face knew all that, of course he did, how could he not? How could he avoid that crushing responsibility and guilt with every breath he took, but he can't say any of it. If he were to say it, or even think about it for too long, it would break him into tiny little pieces, and he really didn't think he'd ever be able to put himself back together again. 

 

And of course Hannibal would notice him shaking his head, “Truth hurt lieutenant?”

 

Face sat heavily again, head back in his hands and Hannibal took a step in, “So that's all you got then, you know you fucked up?” he didn't wait for answer, knows Face well enough to know that there wasn’t going to be one. “You think you can flash one of those fake grins and we'll all just say, 'Oh, yeah, don't worry about it, kid'? That somehow that will make it all okay?”

 

“No, I don't Ha-”

 

“Coleman wants your hide, son! He wants all of us, but you especially! And I had to stand there and defend you!” Hannibal had really hit his stride now, “And what could I say? Because there is nothing, nothing that will make up for him losing his daughter, and he wants to just shop us straight to the military, and I am having to bargain and wheel and deal to keep us safe, keep Murdock and BA safe and all because of your 'couldn't give a shit' attitude! On your feet!”

 

Face rose slowly to his feet and forced himself to meet Hannibal's stare.

 

“It's always some kind of shit with you isn't it? Always something you need me to bail you out of! Well, I'm sick of it! You use your crappy childhood as an excuse for your totally egocentric behaviour, like no one else has ever had any shit, like you're the only one who has ever had problems!”

 

Face opened his mouth to protest, that was unfair and Hannibal knew it. Face's childhood was something he didn't even like to think about, let along talk about, but Hannibal wasn't in the mood for listening.

 

“And BA's right, you just look after yourself all the time, you're the only one who matters, have you even stopped for one minute to consider what Tasha's last hour on this earth was like? How frightened she must have been? How she was probably waiting, right up 'til her last breath, for us to ride in like the damn cavalry and save her? How she died, knowing we'd let her down?!”

 

And that was where Face really didn't want to go, his primary defence mechanism kicking straight in to save him from that pain. When he was cornered, he talked; usually the first shit that popped straight into his head, and today was no different, “Jesus boss, give it a rest... it's not like I even did anything illegal!”

 

Stupid, insensitive words, about as far from the truth as Face could get, so he didn't even bother trying to block the right cross he saw aiming for his jaw. It caught perfectly and he fell, banging his head against the coffee table on his way down.

 

He stayed where he landed, no desire to move, and was dimly aware of Hannibal stooping over him, grabbing him by the shirt and hauling him upwards, “Look at me,” Face forced his eyes open and stared into Hannibal's incensed features, “You'd better make yourself scare for a while lieutenant,” it was painful, looking into that face with so much hatred and animosity directed at him, but Face forced himself not to flinch, “because I don't even think I can stand to look at you at the minute.”

 

Hannibal's words stung like barbs.

 

“And don't even think about not answering my calls again. Murdock is not my secretary.” And then he was dropped back onto the cold tile floor, and he could close his eyes against that look and those words and just listen as Hannibal's footsteps faded away and the front door slammed shut.

 

It was always going to happen. Hannibal had promised him, time and time again, that he would never tire of Face as everyone else eventually had. But that was too much of a promise to make. Face knew he was hard work, high maintenance, came with a lot of baggage, however you wanted to phrase it and Hannibal was only human after all. He'd also certainly lasted a hell of a lot longer than anyone else, in the face of extreme provocation at that, so he certainly didn't blame Hannibal, not at all. But... well, it was always going to happen.

 

He carefully hauled himself up so that he was sitting with his back against the sofa and blinked back the moisture that was clouding his vision. He needed to get a handle on himself here, decide what he was going to do. It was obvious that Hannibal had finally had enough of him so his options boiled down to either stay where he wasn't wanted, or go.

 

The thought of leaving hurt. Hannibal and his team had been his home and his family since he was eighteen years old. But staying to see Hannibal and BA look at him the way they had this afternoon? No, that hurt a hell of a lot more. And Murdock... well, that stupid blind faith the pilot had in him was even worse. No, he couldn't stay like this.

 

So that only left leaving...  Did he actually have the strength to get up and walk out on his family?  His eyes drifted to the smeared blood on the wall where BA had pounded his head earlier on and he knew he had no choice, he knew what he had to do.

 

He'd always been good at sealing little bits of his life or himself away into safety deposit boxes in his head. Any unwanted memory or experience, any unpleasant personality trait, he could easily wrap them up and seal them away. Sometimes they crept out again in his dreams, nightmares, but he could live with that. So that's all he had to do again. He could package up this life he had here, these friends, any thought or memory concerning Tasha Coleman, seal them off and move on. New opportunities, new horizons.

 

He rose shakily to his feet and looked around the room, taking in the little touches of the man who lived there, the box of cigars on the coffee table, the complete works of Hemingway on the shelves, and then he picked up a discarded t-shirt from the back of the sofa. He looked at it for a long while, then slowly lifted it to his face and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply and letting himself feel and remember; he didn't intend doing much of either any time in the near future.

 

Then he was done. He dropped the t-shirt back on the sofa, and stood up straight. As he walked towards the door he could almost hear those safety deposit boxes locking shut inside his head. The boss wanted him to make himself scare? Oh, he could certainly do that.

Part Two

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Part 2

Hannibal

 

Hannibal swore to himself as, for about the twentieth time, Face's mobile went onto the voice mail. He didn't leave a message, none of the five he had left earlier had been returned so what was the point? He pulled up at the traffic lights, the wet roads turned red in the darkness and realised that this was the point where he had to make a decision. Straight on and try to get a few hours rest at home before tracking Face down in the morning, or left and Face's apartment, see why the hell, the kid wasn't answering his calls. Again.

 

The roads shone green and Hannibal turned left.

 

As soon as he pulled up outside Face's apartment block he knew something was wrong. The parking space where Face usually parked his Corvette was empty. Hannibal hadn't been in favour of the kid getting a car as distinctive as the 'vette, but Face was determined. It was some classic model that Face had dreamed of since he was a kid, he'd even had a poster of one above his bed in the orphanage, always promised himself he would have one of his own one day. And then he'd seen this one in some auction just outside Tulsa. He'd bought it without even seeing if the damn thing ran, which of course it didn't, but BA soon brought it back to life. He'd obviously loved it and it made him happy and so Hannibal had let him keep it, although he always worried one day he would live to regret that decision.

 

But now it wasn't here, and if the damn car wasn't here then that meant that Face wasn't here either. Not good. Hannibal made sure he had his key, and let himself in to the apartment block.

 

The door to number 313 swung open under his touch and Hannibal's insides clenched. The place was as neat and tidy as it usually was. Face was minimalistic in the extreme, to say he travelled light was an understatement. Apart from clothes, the only personal items Hannibal knew he owned were his laptop and his iPod, but Hannibal could tell the difference between tidy and empty. A few opened drawers and cupboards confirmed his findings and he sat down with a bump on the sofa as it became blatantly obvious that Face had packed up and shipped out.

 

Hannibal scrubbed at his tired face with his hands and then fished out his mobile. It was no use calling Face again, he obviously wasn't going to answer him, so he called BA. It answered on the third ring, BA sounding alert and aware, despite the fact that Hannibal knew for a fact that he had woken him up.

 

“Murdock with you?” There was no need for pleasantries

 

“Yeah – on the couch What's up man?”

 

“You need to get him to call Face, I think he's done a runner on us.”

 

BA swore under his breath, “Didn't you tell him what we found out today?”

 

“No BA,” Hannibal took one last look around Face's empty apartment before walking out and locking the door behind him, “He's not been answering. I'm heading over to yours now, get that tracker set up.”

 

There was no reply from BA.

 

“Did you hear me?”

 

“Yeah boss, it's just...”

 

Hannibal wrenched open his car door, “Just what?”

 

“It just doesn't feel right, Hannibal, using the tracker on him like that.”

 

Hannibal sighed. All their cars were fitted with satellite tracking devices, Hannibal had insisted on it so they could be traced in an emergency. Trust BA to object on civil liberties grounds...

 

“Look BA, it's not like he doesn't know it's there, could have taken off in a hire car inside of the 'vette if he'd wanted to. And, he's obviously upset, we need to talk to him...” The 'before he does something stupid' was left hanging in the air.

 

He heard BA sigh, “OK boss, I'm on it.”

 

“Oh, and BA? Try not to freak Murdock out.”

 

_________________

 

Half an hour later they were huddled round the table in BA's tiny kitchen waiting for the satellite tracker to pinpoint the position of Face's car. Murdock had his phone clutched in his hand, but no one was holding out much hope that Face would return any of his calls.

 

“There,” Hannibal tapped the screen as the red dot flashed up superimposed on onto  Google Maps, “still local guys! That's great, let's go.”

 

Hannibal was out of his seat and BA reached to close the lid of the laptop but Murdock put his hand out to stop him, “Hang on...” Hannibal's brow furrowed as he saw the look on Murdock's face, “You know where that is, right?”

 

Hannibal glanced back at the screen and shook his head tersely

 

“That's long stay parking for LAX.”

 

There was a beat of silence as they looked at each other, then, as one, headed for the door

 

“Murdock, keep trying his phone!” Hannibal barked as they ran out.

 

_________________

 

There was still no answer on Face's mobile. Hannibal had completely given up hope that there ever would be, but the repeated calling made sure that Murdock was busy and kept him focussed so he let it go on.

 

They spotted the 'vette easily enough and BA abandoned the van right behind it as he and Hannibal leapt out. BA had the spare key and flicked the locks open as he and Hannibal each wrenched open a door. Of course Face wasn't there, Hannibal hadn't expected for one moment that he would be, but it was still a disappointment. He met BA's stare over the shift lever and knew his face must look as desperate as his sergeant’s.

 

He opened his mouth to speak but the ringing of a mobile interrupted him. His eyes flicked to the glove box and he dropped the catch, bringing the mobile out in his hand and his heart sank. “No wonder he's not been answering,” he muttered as he looked out of the window at the van, where Murdock was sitting in the back seat, dialling repeatedly.

 

BA followed his gaze and sighed, “I'll go tell him...” he murmured leaving Hannibal to slump over the passenger seat and wonder what the hell he should do next. 

 

_______________________

 

They spent almost forty eight hours in the airport. Trailing from terminal to terminal, buying tickets and using the fake passports stashed in the van to get through security and into the departure gates. Searching cafes, duty free shops, bars and lounges. And it was all pointless, and Hannibal had never expected it to be anything else.

 

After that, Hannibal spent another three days trawling through the lists of flights that had departed over those two days and searching every destination; looking for a connection, somewhere Face might have headed for, a link he could have followed, but again, there was nothing, and again Hannibal wasn't surprised.

 

They got together for a meeting, try to work out some options, but Murdock had retreated into his head and BA behind his temper, so Hannibal had ended up just about managing to sit on his. Eventually Murdock sought solace with Pringles and Cartoon Network while BA stormed out into the night.

 

He returned within the hour, and Hannibal was glad, he didn't think he could handle another AWOL situation, and BA was obviously feeling better for the time out.

 

“He'll come back, man,” he muttered as he slipped onto the stool next to Hannibal's at the counter sliding over a beer.

 

Hannibal looked up from the papers he was studying, “I'm not so sure, BA.” He deliberately kept his voice down, very conscious of Murdock less than three meters away from them. “All this,” he gestured to the files spread out on the table before him, “was in the boot of the ‘vette. It’s the details of every account, safety deposit box, money stash, business venture, fake i.d, everything we’ve got.” He shook his head slowly, “I had no idea the kid kept such thorough records...”

 

BA frowned, “And?”

 

“So if he’s left it for us,” Hannibal looked up and held his stare, “he’s obviously not planning on being around to sort it out anymore.”

 

They slid back into silence, Road Runner’s beep the only accompaniment to their thoughts.

 

“Shoulda controlled myself more...” BA eventually muttered into his can.

 

Hannibal sighed, “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m the one who actually told him to go.”

 

BA frowned, “Don’t believe that, boss, not for a second!”

 

“Your confidence is touching, but misplaced BA. I told him to make himself scarce for a while,” Hannibal shrugged, “Seems he took me to my word.”

 

Silence fell once more while BA studied Hannibal’s features, then he too shrugged, “Nah, he knows you boss, knows how you feel about him. He knows you wouldn’t chuck him out. He’s just having one of his prissy fits. He’ll be back.” And content with that thought, BA headed down to sit with Murdock.

 

Hannibal turned back to the folders shaking his head ironically. Face knew how he felt about him? Nothing could be further from the truth.    

 

______________________________

 

December

 

Hannibal dug his hands deep into his pockets and tried to sink into the warmth of his coat against the cold wind that blew down Fifth Avenue. It was late, almost midnight, but the streets were still crowded with Christmas revellers and holiday makers and the sight of them did nothing but dampen his mood even further. This had been an impossibly futile trip. Of course Face wouldn’t come to New York in December, he was like a god dammed cat, hated the cold, gravitated towards the heat at every possible opportunity. But Sosa had called him, said she picked up on the wire that there had been a sighting of the A-Team in New York. Hannibal knew damn well that he and Murdock and BA had been nowhere near the east coast so possibly, just possibly, Face had. But then, Hannibal stopped to wait for the lights to let him cross the road, even if Face was here, how would Hannibal ever find him? He knew any one of his boys could disappear with ease, but Face? Well, he could make himself damn near invisible at the drop of a hat. He could be in the next street and Hannibal would never even have the slightest clue.

 

No. This was pointless; he needed to get back west. BA was still trying to choke himself in guilt and Murdock... well, suffice it to say that the manic periods were getting ever more manic while the depressive spells were spiralling down with ever increasing speed.

 

This whole thing was tearing them apart.

 

But what was actually, infinitely, worse, Hannibal acknowledged as he hailed a cab, was the thought of Face, at this very moment in time - alone. And it was that single image that was pressing so heavily on him; crushing his soul, and just honestly making him want to weep.

 

________________________

 

March

 

BA had insisted on coming with him, and had also been a willing participant in keeping this little trip from Murdock. There was no point in upsetting him unless they really needed to.

 

In all honesty, Hannibal had never thought it would come to this, but he had set the wheels in motion just in case, just to make sure he had covered every eventuality. It hadn’t been too hard to persuade the authorities that he was a worried father concerned for his absent son. A description of Face had been left, false name of course, and a contact number.

 

He’d been surprised when the call came through. Knew that all John Doe bodies had their fingerprints checked and if that ever happened with Face, it would ring alarms on every Military computer in the country. They would never need to look through their missing person files and contact Hannibal about his ‘son’. But sometimes fingerprints couldn’t be taken, and then maybe, that’s when a contact would be sought.

 

When the call came in, BA was convinced it was a trap, but Hannibal wasn’t so sure. The guy on the phone never showed any real interest in pinning him down to a specific time or anything, so Hannibal felt safe enough just turning up. He wasn’t sure if BA’s offer to accompany him was based in a wish to protect him from the MPs, or from what he might find on that slab.

 

It was dark when they arrived. They’d waited until Murdock had settled into his usual evening routine of crisps and TV before telling him they were going on a supply run and heading out.

 

As BA pulled up outside the imposing building that was LA County Morgue, Hannibal felt his heart begin to pound against his ribs. What if he was wrong? What if the most unlikely thing in the world suddenly turned into reality? Could he do this? He’d seen dead bodies before, far, far too many to even remember them all. He’d even seen Face before, so badly hurt he’d been convinced he too was dead, had had to search out the tiniest glimmers of life. But this would be different. If it was Face in there, it didn’t matter how hard he searched, there would be no glimmers of life and that’s what frightened him.

 

“I’ll go in boss,” BA’s voice snapped him back to awareness and he smiled at the concern on his friend’s face.

 

“No, big guy, it’s okay, I’ve got this,” and he smiled again, almost like he meant it and let himself out of the car.

 

The staff at the desk were polite, but fairly disinterested in him. They did this day in and day out, and no doubt most people were here on false alarms. He couldn’t blame them for becoming hardened to it all; he knew only too well what that could feel like. A young woman of Asian descent took him down and by this time he was sweating inside his jacket and had his fists clenched to try and stop his hands from shaking.

 

It really did happen just like he’d seen in the movies. The table sliding out, the white sheet and the toe tag. Hannibal had taken an unconscious deep breath as his guide asked if he was ready and then pulled back the sheet. And then he looked.

 

Despite all his preparation, all his dark thoughts of the past seven months, it still came as a shock. He’d needed to grip the table tightly to stop himself from keeling over and he’d felt a wave of nausea so strong he barely swallowed it down, rise up inside him.

 

He took in the dirty blond hair, the stubbled cheeks and the finely sculpted cheek bones and realised with almost crushing relief that this wasn’t Face. But it so easily could have been. And the next time it just might be.

 

He wasn’t sure if it was that thought, or the guilt he felt at being so ridiculously relieved in the face of some other family’s tragedy, that had him just about bolting from the room before he humiliated himself by crying.

 

______________________________

 

May

 

As soon as Murdock and BA left, Hannibal took himself out onto his balcony and sat back in the chair, feet resting in the top of the railing. He looked out across the Pacific Ocean, far below him and again felt that restless unease that told him he’d been in this place far too long; over a year now.

 

They made a point of never staying in the same place for too long, not usually more than six months, and that was only if things were really quiet and settled. He’d been here over a year now. Far, far too long.

 

He lit a cigar and watched as the smoke curled up around his head and then out into the night air and wondered how long he could ride his luck here. The team were laying low, doing the minimal in jobs just to keep them fed and watered, keeping their heads down, still looking for Face, hoping against hope that he would come back on his own. And that’s why Hannibal was still in the apartment. BA and Murdock had each moved on twice since Face had left. Now they had a place together, Murdock was spending so much time sleeping on BA’s sofa, it just made sense in the end. It made Hannibal uncomfortable to have them together like that, they were so much easier to pick up by the MPs when they were all in one place, but he understood why and so let it go. Murdock had been the most unsettled by Face’s departure, he had taken to trailing round after BA like a puppy, it was almost as if he feared he would disappear in an instant as well.  

 

But if Face ever did return and Hannibal too had moved on, then how would he ever find them again? After spending nine months himself searching for Face without ever once picking up a solid lead, he understood only too well the meaning of the phrase ‘needle in a haystack’. And so Hannibal stayed on, a decision that just got riskier with every day.

 

Maybe things were about to change though. He reached forward and picked up the jiffy bag on the glass table to examine it for what felt like the hundredth time, maybe Face was thinking about coming back.

 

For nine months none of them had received any word from Face in any form at all. He’d not been in touch with Sosa, or any of the orphanages where he grew up. But then, yesterday, a parcel had arrived at Hannibal’s apartment addressed to Mr. Henry Murray, an alias that Murdock had used from time to time. It was also Murdock’s birthday, and the parcel contained a remote control helicopter. No message, no note, but Murdock was convinced it was a present from Face. Hannibal had spent the entire day thinking about it, and he had to concur that he thought Murdock was probably right.

 

Face always bought Murdock something for his birthday, usually some kind of toy or gadget he knew the pilot would love. And Murdock was the only one of them who had stood up for Face on the day that Tasha Coleman died, so it really made sense that if Face was going to contact any of them, it would be Murdock.

 

But, was it contact, or was it just a gift? The package had been mailed from the centre of LA, but that meant nothing, Face could have arranged for it to be posted from anywhere in the world without much effort at all. Hannibal had spent the entire day looking the package over and over again without being able to find anything that might be a message or a clue or a hook or anything. It still didn’t look like Face really wanted to be found, despite Murdock’s new found optimism.

 

Still, Hannibal thought as he rose and prepared to turn in, it meant that Face was still alive, and with that knowledge he knew he would sleep easier tonight than he had done at any time over the last nine months.

Part Three

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Part 3

September

 

Hannibal stood with his hands in his pockets as he stared at the calendar hanging in front of him. One year. A whole three hundred and sixty five days since Face had walked out on them. He shook his head and turned away. Never in those early days when they were tearing around the airport, wracking their brains for somewhere Face might go, someone he would turn to, did Hannibal really think a year would pass and they would be no further on. Looking at the physical proof on the calendar made him sick.

 

He walked to the window and looked out. It was very late, the city was in darkness but Hannibal could still make out the faint outline of the play park across the street. The view from his new place was nowhere near as good as the one from the apartment that Face had found for him, he obviously just didn’t have the kid’s touch, but he’d needed to move on and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

 

He sighed and pressed his head against the cool glass of the window, but if Face was to come back now or send something, some kind of contact, how on earth would he even find them?

 

Despair crashed over him like a wave.

 

______________________________

 

December

 

The cold of the metal hip flask bit into his fingers but he ignored it as he held it up to his mouth and took a long swig, feeling the heat of the liquor as it burned down his throat. Hannibal was appalled at himself, couldn’t believe how he had sunk this low, allowed himself to behave in such a pathetic manner. What the hell was he doing, going back to New York at Christmas again?

 

He squinted across the thick, black water to where the Statue of Liberty stood immobile, ignoring the flurries of snow that whipped around her in the night. He knew really, of course, why he was here, and this time it had nothing to do with Sosa, well not directly at any rate.

 

Since that year anniversary had passed, Hannibal had been consumed by a mounting feeling of hopelessness. They were never going to find Face, he would never come back to them, he would die, all alone somewhere, still believing that Hannibal hated him, had lied to him, and Hannibal would never get the chance to tell him the truth. The whole truth this time.

 

And he just couldn’t live with that level of failure.  

 

The package for Murdock had been a red herring. They were all still convinced it had come from Face, but it certainly hadn’t been a clue, or even the start of a gradual return. No, it had been a birthday present for his best friend, a message to tell Murdock he was still thinking of him; nothing more and nothing less, and of course Hannibal and BA’s birthdays had passed unmarked.

 

Every link he’d had with Face had gone. He was even finding it hard to keep his memories and needed something more, something tangible,  so he’d come back to New York. He shook his head in disgust and took another swig of the whiskey, and that was the really pathetic part, because what link was there here? That this time last year someone thinks they might have seen the A-Team here and so twelve months later on, Face may be back again? Pathetic... Face isn’t here this year any more than he was last year and Hannibal is turning into a sad and lonely old man, drinking himself into a stupor all alone in a park in New York on Christmas Eve. How much lower can he stoop?

 

He wanted to throw the hip flask into the river, but knew he would miss its warmth and so took another swig and hated himself for his weakness almost as much as he hated himself for what he said to Face sixteen months ago.

 

He folded his arms on the railings in front of him and let his head drop to rest on them, promising himself that he really wasn’t going to cry here. A boat motored past full of party goers and Hannibal heard the strains of ‘Baby Please Come Home’ drifting across the water towards him and that was almost the last nail in his emotional coffin when he heard a voice behind him, “Boss...?”

 

He whirled round on the spot, his alcohol soaked mind full of Christmas movies where everything just turns out okay on Christmas Eve and found himself looking straight at Murdock and BA.

 

It took just a minute to process that they were here, in New York, now, when he knew he left them back west, and then he wondered why that was any less likely than finding Face behind him, before he acknowledged that they both looked frozen to the bone and were obviously still waiting for some kind of answer from him, so he nodded at them and answered, “You look cold,” before he turned back to the now empty black river.

 

A couple of seconds passed before he felt the weight of an arm across his shoulders and a voice at his ear, “C’mon boss, you don’t have to do this. You know he wouldn’t want you to...”

 

Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he want Hannibal to drown in the pit of despair for the way he treated him? But he knew Murdock was right, Face might still be angry with him, but he won’t be blaming him, not at all. When things go wrong with Face, there’s only ever one person he wants to hate, one person he wants to lash out at and doubt and blame. Himself. It’s knowing that, that fuels Hannibal’s despair.

 

He was numb to the bone, and not just from the cold, but he rose from the railings and let his men lead him away.

 

_______________________________

 

One week later...

 

Hannibal had been off the whiskey for a week and he felt better for it. More clarity, more energy, but still no closer to finding Face. He had also acknowledged to himself  that maybe it was time to move on, not just practically, after all he had already moved out of his apartment, but emotionally as well. If they were never going to find Face, then he couldn’t just put his life on hold forever. If this was the way the kid wanted it, then... well, he may not be that keen himself, but it’s not like he actually had a choice.

 

New Year’s Eve. The time for making resolutions, and Hannibal resolved to get on with his life.

 

It’s still not quite midnight, however, when the brand new resolution got smashed into tiny pieces. Murdock and BA burst through the door, Murdock’s eyes wild and unfocussed and start talking loudly and at the same time.

 

Hannibal held up his hands, “Guys, guys, wait... one at a time, come on here...”

 

He watched as his boys traded a quick glance before Murdock started the explanation again, “Next week, you know boss, you know what that is?”

 

Hannibal frowned and shook his head, “January?” Was that a trick question?

 

“Yes!” Murdock looked thrilled, “January 4th!”

 

Hannibal’s frown deepened and he turned to BA who shook his head at Murdock’s attempt at an explanation before having a go himself, “Remember that old priest boss? The one Face actually liked?”

 

Hannibal nodded, of course he did. Father David Magill, later to become Monsignor, was the closest thing to a real father Face had ever had. The kid had kept in touch with him all the way through, right until the end. “But that’s no good BA, I’ve already thought of that, the old guy died remember, a few of years ago?” It hurts him to remember how floored Face had been.

 

Murdock nodded, his eyes strangely alight for a discussion on death... “Yeah, we know!” he was practically bubbling out of his skin, “January the 4th, four years ago, like you said!”

 

Hannibal’s eyes widened slightly. This was a link, he wasn’t sure how he could use it yet, but this was definitely the best, the only link they had had in over a year. He got up and started pacing, willing his mind into action, “So, how can we use this, how will this help...?” he was almost talking to himself.

 

“Well, I thought we could just stake out the cemetery, you know?” Murdock reached out and snagged an orange from the fruit bowl, “And then when Facey turns up, we can nab him, make him listen to some sense for once.” He took a bite right through the skin.

 

Hannibal stopped in his tracks and stared at his captain, “You think he’ll go to the cemetery?”

 

Murdock nodded, “Always does. I usually go with him, but not last year...” he shrugged and pulled a face at his orange, “Think your apples are off here, colonel.”

 

Hannibal stared in silence while BA snatched the orange off him with a muttered, “Not an apple, fool!” and started to peel it for him. Face went every year to Father David’s grave? He’d gone last year? They could have done this last year? He wants to shout something like that at Murdock, but the sight of his captain beaming as BA passes him the peeled orange stops him. Well at least Murdock has come up with the goods now, at least he knew this fact about Face that Hannibal didn’t. And come to think of it, why not? Why hadn’t Face told him he made this pilgrimage every year? Maybe they weren’t as close as he liked to think they were...

 

He shook his head and focussed. He had a plan to make.

 

January 4^th

It had taken a lot of wrangling to get his hands on a cemetery maintenance van, but they needed to blend right into the back ground here, Face would be on his guard when he came, they needed to make sure they were right out of sight. It was going to be a long day, three of them camped out in this tiny van, but if Face showed up, it sure as hell would be worth it.

 

The cemetery was busy. Families and couples arrived all day, most carrying festive looking arrangements to leave on their loved ones graves. Hannibal felt uncomfortable, spying on these people in their grief, but they needed to have a good view of Father David’s plot and this was the only way to do it. His stomach growled as he heard a distant church clock strike twelve and BA pushed a sandwich his way without opening his eyes from where he reclined in the back of the van. Hannibal took it without comment and bit into it, his eyes firmly fixed on the neat granite grave stone one hundred meters to his left.

 

Murdock was restless as he took his turn up in the front on watch. Hannibal, propped up against the closed doors wondered for about the millionth time, the effect that all this business with Face would have on his fragile mental health. He knew, better than anyone else alive, that Murdock faked his symptoms a lot of the time, but a lot certainly did not mean all and he knew the man was fragile. Having said that, he seemed to be coping better now than he had been eight months ago. Whatever Face had been thinking of when he sent that RC chopper to Murdock back in May, it had certainly done the trick.

 

Hannibal tried not to let the diminishing afternoon light get him down too much just yet. There were still two hours before the cemetery closed, and another nine until midnight and he knew Face well enough to understand that the kid had never paid much attention to official opening hours. He glanced up at BA, staring intently through the windshield, and then Murdock who was hunched over his DS in rapt concentration.

 

“Hey, HM?”

 

Murdock didn’t look up, “Hmm-mm?”

 

“When you came here with Face, what time did you come down?”

 

“In the morning usually, he liked it quiet you know...”

 

Hannibal met BA’s stare, “Means nothing, man,”

 

“I know BA, I know.”

 

BA turned back to the windshield and stiffened, “Boss...”

 

Hannibal was alongside him in an instant, Murdock crowding in behind them, “Is it him? Is it Facey? Can you see him big guy?”

 

“Murdock!” Hannibal hissed, eyes narrowing in the gloom.

 

A small van had pulled up, right in front of Father David’s grave, and as they watched, the driver’s door opened and a lone figure climbed. Hannibal was holding his breath watching as the figure reached into the back of the van and took out a white circular flower arrangement.

 

“That’s him!” Murdock breathed, “He always gets flowers like that!”

 

BA’s hand shot out to grab the door handle but Hannibal stopped him, “Hang on, hang on... look...”

 

Hannibal had seen what the others in their excitement, hadn’t and his heart had fallen into his boots in disappointment.

 

It was BA that voiced what Hannibal had noticed, “Oh man, that guy’s black...” 

 

Hannibal dragged himself into the back of the van once more and slumped down, trying to hold back the waves of frustration.

 

“Maybe it is Face...” Murdock’s voice suddenly sounded so forlorn, “You know he can do disguises almost as good as you boss,”

 

But Hannibal can’t even answer, can’t even tell BA not to bother when he hears the van door being opened and the big guy getting out. Looks like his New Year’s resolution hasn’t changed his life in the slightest, and it’s still just the first week on January...

 

Maybe only five minutes pass before BA is back, slamming the door behind him with maybe a little too much force.

 

“Face sent those flowers man,” he barked turning to look at Hannibal, “I jus’ know he did, they’re jus’ like the ones Murdock says he always gets. Flower man won’t tell me where he is though, even though I asked him real nice, something about customer confidentiality... Load of crap if you ask me...”

 

But Hannibal was already pushing himself up, that light in his eyes once more, “That’s right BA! Of course they won’t tell us, but who says we can’t go and take a look for ourselves? You get the name of that florist?”

 

“Damn right I did!”

 

“Well, let’s go!”

 

_______________________________

 

They switched vans, called into a restaurant for a quick bite to eat and then parked across the way from the Heavenly Boughs flower shop to wait for everyone to go home.

 

At ten past ten precisely, Hannibal deemed it quiet enough for Murdock to do a bit of breaking and entering and he slipped out of the back of the van and across the street in the blink of an eye. Hannibal and BA hadn’t even had time to get worried before Murdock was back, although Hannibal noted he looked less than ecstatic. “Success?” he prompted the second the vans doors were shut and BA had pulled out into the traffic.

 

Murdock shrugged, “Don’t know, colonel. I found the record okay, but there wasn’t a sender’s address at all. Apparently it was a transfer order from another branch, customer paid in cash.”

 

“Transfer order?”

 

“Yeah. The order was made at another branch, but it’s too far away for delivery so they called Heavenly Boughs and transferred the job to them. Happens all the time.”

 

Hannibal absorbed this new information. “So do we at least know where the order originated from?”

 

Murdock looked back at the scrap of paper in his hand, “Columbia Falls, Montana.”

 

There was a moment’s stunned silence, “Montana! Man, it’s cold up there in the winter! What the hell’s he doing up there?”

 

Hannibal studied the scrap of paper intently, “There’s nothing to say he really is up there, BA, it may just be a paper trail...”

 

BA pulled over to the side of the road and turned round in his seat, “But we are still gonna go, yeah?”

 

Hannibal felt two pairs of eyes on him and flicked his phone onto the internet, “Well, I’m certainly going to give it a go, reckon it’ll be about a five hour flight from here.”

 

“We could drive it in a day...” BA countered.

 

A heavy silence hung over the van as Hannibal stopped his surfing and looked up into BA’s face. “Look, BA, I know you want to do this, I know how this has been eating you up, but time is the key here. He might not even be there, he might just be passing through, but we need to get there and we need to get there fast. We need to fly...”

 

BA held his stare for another beat, then nodded once, “You fly and I’ll drive. Be there day after tomorrow.”

 

Hannibal leaned over and bumped his fist against BA’s bicep before turning to Murdock, “What about you HM?”

 

Murdock flicked his eyes over to Hannibal and then back to BA; Hannibal could see the conflict in his face. He turned to Hannibal once more, a decision obviously made, “I’ll ride with Bosco I think colonel.”

 

Hannibal nodded, “Well let’s go get sorted, then.”

 

_________________________________

 

It was -11°c when Hannibal arrived in Columbia Falls, quite a difference to the balmy 19°c he’d left in Los Angeles. He went straight to the airport shop and bought a brand new ski jacket and trousers, a hat that covered as much of his face as possible and some gloves. The last thing he wanted was for Face to recognise him in the street and disappear before they even had chance to speak. Assuming Face was even here of course. Then he went to his motel and checked in, asked the girl at the desk for a list of all the flower shops in town and headed out.

 

Photos of his team were hard to come by, it wasn’t like they went out of their way to have their images recorded or anything, but Hannibal had eventually found a picture of Face still on one of their digital cameras. It was a candid shot, Murdock must have taken it as Face had just vaulted over the balcony railing of Hannibal’s old apartment and landed in the gardens. Maybe he had tried to capture the stunt in mid air, but the camera was obviously a little slow as Face had just straightened up, and was looking straight down the lens, laughter in his eyes and the sun in his hair. Seeing it for the first time had taken Hannibal’s breath away. Who was he trying to kid here, telling himself he could move on with his life? In reality, it felt like he just missed Face more and more with every passing day. If this lead went cold on him here, he had no idea what he would do.

 

Now, armed with his story and his photo he walked confidently into the first flower shop on the list and smiled at the woman behind the counter. She was in her late fifties maybe, not really Face’s type, but Hannibal knew if he’d been in the shop, this woman would remember him. They always did.

 

He smiled warmly at her and she returned the gesture as he made his way over to the counter, “Hey, good to meet you,” he saw the woman eyeing him up and down, obviously checking him out and liking what she saw. Good, that had to help him.

 

“And you,” she returned, blushing a bit.

 

Hannibal leant on the counter and fixed her with his most earnest expression, “I’m really sorry to bother you. I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here in town, but someone has stolen my mobile and I don’t have his cell number and I’ve no idea where he is staying so I’m asking around. I don’t suppose you recognise him do you?” Hannibal pulled the photo out of his pocket and slid it across the counter, watching her expression carefully as he did so.

 

“Oh, yes!” Hannibal’s stomach flipped, “Yes, I know him, he was actually just in here the other day, ordering some flowers! It’s Rob, yes? Rob Taylor. I’m afraid I don’t know where he lives but he’s working up at the snow mobile place.”

 

Relief settled over Hannibal like a blanket and he had to restrain himself from just grabbing the photo and running all the way to the snow mobile place, wherever it may be.

 

“Excellent, that’s great news.” Rob Taylor was a new alias as far as Hannibal was aware, “You sure it’s this guy, yeah?”

 

“Oh, yes,” the woman replied, “you never forget a face like that!”

 

___________________________

 

A quick Google search on his phone told him that the only snow mobile place was about ten miles out of town and called, rather contritely, Snow Business. He hired a car and set off, driving past the place once before convincing himself he could drive into the car park without drawing too much attention to himself and so turned back. There was only an hour of daylight left, so Hannibal parked up in the corner of the parking lot and, took the photography equipment he’d brought with him as cover out of the boot and set up his camera and tripod, looking out towards the sunset and the mountains.  

 

He didn’t have long to wait. After twenty minutes of pretending to be absorbed in his hobby, Hannibal heard the familiar whine of snow mobiles in the distance. A few minutes later and he could see them, snaking their way back towards the centre. Hannibal turned his lens on the small party and tried to zoom in, but it was no use; all the participants were bundled up against the cold in hats and goggles. Elvis could have been driving one and Hannibal would never have known. He turned his back again and let his ears try to do what his eyes couldn’t.

 

From what he could hear, the group were holiday makers who had been out on a one day trek and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Hannibal listened hard, but could only hear moans about sore behinds and cold feet, enthusing about the scenery, and how mad Mike would be that he’d missed it. Dinner plans were discussed and tentative thoughts on booking another trek were voiced. And then Hannibal heard what he’d been listening out for, “Hey, Rob, if we book again next week, will we definitely get you as our guide again?”

 

Hannibal froze.

 

“Depends. You’ll have to talk to Shelley, she makes all the bookings.”

 

And then he melted, and all the stress and torment of the last sixteen months just seemed to slip away as Hannibal’s world righted itself again. He’d know that voice anywhere. He’d found him.

 

Footsteps crunched away from him and Hannibal heard the door of the office open and close as he packed up all his gear again as darkness fell all around him. Then he slid into the driver’s seat of his car and settled down to wait.

Part Four

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Part 4

By the time Face came out of the office again, Hannibal was sure he had lost both of his feet to frost bite, but somehow, seeing his lieutenant again after all the long months more than made up for it. He watched in his rear view mirror as Face headed out to a black four by four parked by the gates and jumped in, before driving round the back of Hannibal’s car and out onto the road. He forced himself to wait a few minutes, before following.

 

There was just enough traffic on the street to make Hannibal’s non-descript hire car blend into the background, but not too much that he lost sight of Face’s car in and amongst all the other four by fours.

 

They headed back towards Columbia Falls, but before they reached the main town, Face pulled into the parking lot of a motel. Hannibal drew up on the side of the road across the way and watched the black four by four carefully. The passenger door opened and Face emerged once more, the hood of his down jacket pulled up tight against the snow flying in the wind and he almost ran up the stairs to unlock the door, second along from the end and slip inside.

 

Hannibal killed his headlamps and sat, heart thudding in his chest as his eyes raked over the motel. It looked welcoming enough, bright and cheery, the lights in the windows warm in the cold night, but there was a kind of shabbiness to it that just made him ache. He noticed the two stars blinking in the darkness and the peeling paint on the fence and thought of Face here, all alone, for all this time and it was like a splinter in his heart.

 

He swallowed his emotions down and pulled out his mobile, it was answered on the second ring.

 

“Good evening, and thank you for calling Madame Marcella’s Massage Parlour, I’m afraid that-”

 

There was the sound of some muffled thumping.

 

“Hannibal, that you? Murdock! Keep your damn hands on the wheel! I got the phone! Hannibal?”

 

Hannibal couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his cheeks. “Yeah, BA, I’m here. You guys alright?”

 

“Yeah, we’re jus’ coming up to Seeley Lake. Sat Nav says it’ll be another couple of hours before we get to you.”

 

“Great.” Hannibal was impressed. The boys had set off almost as soon as they had dropped Hannibal home last night, but even so, arriving in two hours means the entire trip will have taken about twenty three hours. To make that sort of time, they can’t have stopped at all...

 

“What about you boss? Any luck?”

 

Hannibal took a deep breath, “I’ve got him.”

 

There was a split second’s silence, then yells and whoops split the air and Hannibal had to hold the phone away from his ear as he grinned at their reactions.

 

“Hell, yeah, boss! That’s fuckin’ it! He okay?”

 

Hannibal’s smiled dimmed a little, “I don’t know, I’ve not spoken to him yet, but he looks it. You know...” He tailed off as his eyes flicked to the run down motel and that splinter in his heart twinged again.

 

Murdock could still be heard singing ‘Rule Britannia’ in a ridiculous English accent, but BA picked up on the vibe instantly and Hannibal could hear the concern in his voice, “Hey, man, you gotta go talk to him, make it right, yeah?”

 

“I know.”

 

“So, why you waitin’?”

 

“Thought I’d wait for you guys to get here.”

 

Murdock had switched to ‘God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You’, and Hannibal could tell that BA was trying to muffle his own voice. “Don’t know how much of a good idea that would be, boss. I mean he sounds happy now, but... well, it’s been a bit up an’ down...”

 

Pinching the bridge of his nose Hannibal sighed; the fallout from this whole fiasco was going to last for months, years even. “Okay, big guy, I’ve got it. I’ll text you his address, be here as soon as you can, but I’ll go in. Speak to him now.”

 

“Good luck, Hannibal...”

 

He disconnected, but could still hear Murdock’s voice in his head as he texted the details through, then he turned back to the Motel, took a deep breath and steeled himself to get out, just as the door to Face’s motel room swung open once more and Face stepped out into the night.

 

Hannibal froze, his plans thrown into turmoil, and watched as Face jogged down the steps, bundled up against the now driving snow and Hannibal winced as he remembered how much the kid had hated the snow, how he used to whine and whinge whenever they needed to work in cold climates, how he basked in the heat once they got back to LA. How desperate must he be to hide out in one of the coldest states in the US? And there was that splinter again.

 

Fingers hovering over the ignition, Hannibal slumped down in his seat, as, for a horrible second, it seemed that Face was heading straight for him, but then he veered off to the left and ducked into the grill that Hannibal had parked right outside. From his seat in the car, Hannibal had a perfect view as Face slid into a booth on his own and picked up a menu, glancing up at the football on the TV as he did so.

 

As Hannibal watched, an attractive young waitress appeared and exchanged a few pleasantries with Face. He was sitting with his back to the window, and for a panicked moment, Hannibal wondered if this woman wasn’t the reason that Face was holed up in frozen Montana, hiding out from his team. Without being able to see his lieutenant’s face, it was impossible to tell if this girl was just another pretty face... or another Sosa. 

 

But it seemed as if his concerns were unfounded as she soon disappeared back behind the counter, and Face pulled a book out of his coat pocket and sat and read. Hannibal couldn't believe what he was seeing. As long as he had known Face, the kid had never even picked up a book to read. He didn't have the attention span to sit still and read, he even moaned if Hannibal's mission briefing notes went over two sides of A4 and he would fidget and squirm the whole time he was reading. But now here he was sitting perfectly still in an otherwise empty booth, turning pages diligently as he read. It was so far from the Face that he knew, it actually made Hannibal feel a little uncomfortable.

 

Hannibal stayed in his car watching for the full ninety minutes that Face was in the grill and by the time he had paid his bill and was jogging through the slush on the road back to his motel room, Hannibal thought his heart was going to break.

 

He’d always liked to think that he knew Face better than any other person on earth did. Certainly better than Father David, whom Face kept so much from in those latter years, definitely better than Sosa ever had, as she had proved so cuttingly, and probably better than BA and Murdock, although they had to be not far behind him.

 

He knew, for instance, that although Face was incredibly socially confident, and competent, and picked up ‘buddies’ like other people picked up groceries, he struggled to have friends. In fact, when Hannibal first met him, he had no friends at all, and from what he’d managed to work out, never had. Why? Well, the reasons for that were not so forthcoming, but over the years Hannibal had pieced them together.

 

 

 

 

First of all, trust. Trust was something that had been thrown back in the kid’s face more times than he could count, and so he had stopped giving it out. People had to earn it, and with Face, that took a long, long, time.

 

Secondly, all those social skills that Face used to a premium were an act, none of them were natural, he had to plan and scheme and consider everything he did, every word he said, and that was hard work, left him with nothing left over for real life. He couldn’t just relax and be himself with people, couldn’t take the risk that he wouldn’t just give too much away with a thoughtless word.

 

And that brought Hannibal round to number three. Face was an intensely private person, couldn’t stand the thought that someone else might know what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Hell, sometimes Hannibal got the feeling that Face even hated himself knowing what he was thinking or feeling, locked his emotions away tightly so he could slide a mask into place instead and hide behind that.

 

Given those three fairly overwhelming personality traits it was understandable that Face just couldn’t form solid, secure friendships. Until, of course he’d met Hannibal, and later, Murdock and BA, when things just clicked. Maybe it was because, in very different ways, all four of them were social oddities, or maybe it was the danger and the common reliance they shared. Whatever it was, something just fell into place and Face found that he had friends, real friends who didn’t want something from him, or need him for a specific reason, just guys who liked him for who he was, respected him, valued him, trusted him. And that made all the difference, it meant that he could trust them, let them in a bit, let himself relax, and, for the first time in his life just be himself.

 

But now he’d moved on, left those friends behind him so the question that had been needling at Hannibal over these last sixteen months was: so could he do that again? Make that journey into trust and love and friendship again? And now he had his answer – a most definite ‘no’. From Face’s point of view, the first time had been a miracle, and look how that had turned out for him, those friends he’d cherished so much had turned on him, hurt him physically and emotionally. Hannibal knew he’d never let himself make that mistake again.

 

Which was why Hannibal now found him living in a scruffy motel room far away from the warmth he loved, eating in a diner with only a book and the NFL for company and going back to an empty room and an empty bed for a night alone with no one to help him through his nightmares.

 

It was heartbreaking. And it was also all Hannibal’s fault.

 

The walk across the road to the motel seemed to take hours but be over in an instant at the same time. Hannibal found himself standing outside the door he had seen Face disappear into twice this evening already and stopped, trying to find the courage to knock. He glanced over at the drawn curtain, light spilling out through a sliver of a gap in the middle and ducked down, trying to peer in.

 

The room was small, with a kitchenette to the left and a double bed pushed up against the right hand wall. A flat screen mounted on the wall next to the kitchenette was showing the last quarter of the same football game that had been on in the grill, and Hannibal noted a pile of clothes on the floor at the floor of the bed. Face was nowhere to be seen and Hannibal was confused for a moment before he noticed the thin trail of steam creeping out of the gap at the top of the door to the en-suite and realised that this was his chance.

 

The door was locked, but since he always carried around a set of lock picks in his pocket, it only took him twenty seconds to get in. He opened the door silently and stepped inside, closing it behind him and tugging the curtains closed properly before lowering himself into the only chair in the room, almost under the flat screen facing the door to the en-suite. He had no intention of moving around as the last thing he wanted to do was to alert Face to the fact that he had company. He, better than anyone else, knew just how dangerous Face could be when it was required.

 

He sat in the chair, trying to tune the football out of his mind as he listened to the shower running. And then it stopped.

 

Hannibal swallowed hard, his palms were actually sweating, and the door to the bathroom finally swung open.

 

Face took one step into the room then stopped suddenly. Hannibal saw him tense, ready to attack, and then saw the clearly perceptible double take as his brain caught up with his eyes, and then his whole face darkened.

 

“Kid...”

 

“Hannibal.”

 

He noticed Face’s fingers tightening the towel around his hips as he seemed to lean back onto the door frame for support.

 

“Didn’t expect you now. Not after so long.”

 

Hannibal narrowed his eyes, “What? You think we’d just forget about you?”

 

Face let out a bitter chuckle, “Oh, no, I doubt you could do that, given the circumstances, just thought maybe you’d...” he shrugged, “moved on.”

 

Moved on... Ironic.

 

“No,” Hannibal knew he sounded as tired as he felt, “it’s just taken me this long to find you. Been searching since the day you went.”

 

If he was expecting Face look happy at that news, he was disappointed. If anything, even more colour seemed to drain from the kid’s face, and he rubbed his hands up and down his arms looking like a frightened child.

 

Hannibal sighed. “For God’s sake put some clothes on kid, you look bloody freezing.”

 

For a second it looked like Face was going to object, but then he just reached out to the pile on the floor and shook out his combats, leaving the trunks and the thermal leggings behind, and dragged them over his legs before losing the towel and pulling on a long sleeved thermal vest, a micro fleece crew neck and finally a navy hoody. Hannibal smiled sadly to himself; the kid hated the cold.

 

Face turned and the two men looked at each other for a long minute, then the door burst open behind Hannibal and a streak of speed in a lumberjack shirt and a baseball cap flew past him and barrelled into Face, knocking him into the wall with a thump.

 

“Where the fuck have you been Face?”

 

BA skidded into the doorway behind Murdock and threw an apologetic glance at his colonel as Murdock grabbed two handfuls of Face’s hoody and, in a move horrifically reminiscent of sixteen months ago, slammed him against the wall once more.

 

“How could you just take off like that? Without telling anyone where you were, what you were doing?”

 

Face’s eyes were wide as he stared into Murdock’s face.

 

“Didn’t you stop to think that I’d worry about you? That maybe I’d think you were dead? Or kidnapped? Or captured? Or fucking whatever?” There was a catch to Murdock’s voice that tugged at Hannibal’s already overly stretched nerves. “Bet you didn’t think of me at all yeah? What the hell does Murdock matter when you only have yourself to care about!”

 

Hannibal and BA stepped forward as one. This kind of talk would do Face no good at all right now and it was obvious that Murdock was at the very end of his rope. BA slipped his arm round the lighter man’s shoulders while Hannibal tried to prise his fingers from Face’s hoody. “C’mon man,” BA’s voice was that soft drawl that only the men in this room ever got to hear and Murdock sagged into his arms, sobbing now as Face stood stock still against the wall, his eyes right on the edge of panic.

 

“Take him outside, BA,” Hannibal hissed, one hand on Face’s chest as if he feared the kid would bolt right out of the still open door.

 

BA nodded and turned to Face as he manoeuvred a still sobbing Murdock across the room, “He doesn’t mean it you know Face,” Murdock clung to him like a life raft, “he’s just missed you so damn much... we all have...” and then they were gone.

 

Hannibal closed the door behind them and leaned on it for a moment, letting his breathing steady, then he turned back to Face who was still jammed up against the wall, his skin an alarming shade of grey and his eyes like saucers. He slumped back into the chair and rubbed his hands over his face. This wasn’t working out like he’d planned...

 

Face walked silently over to the kitchenette and pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of a cupboard. Hannibal looked up as he heard the squeak of the cork coming out and watched as Face tipped the bottle up to his lips and took three long gulps. He brought the bottle down again and wiped the neck offering it to Hannibal who shook his head, before setting it down on the counter.

 

He steadied his hands on the side of the sink and took a deep breath. “I know why you’ve come...”

 

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that. Of course he did, he would have thought the reason for his visit was obvious.

 

“...and you’re wrong.”

 

Or maybe not.

 

“You think I don’t think about Tasha Coleman at all, don’t think about what I did, don’t know what I did. But I do...” Hannibal shuddered at the bleak tone to Face’s voice, “I think about it all the time, doesn’t matter if I’m awake or asleep, it’s always there,” it was Face’s turn to shudder. “I really could have saved you a long journey, boss, I don’t think there’s anything you can say that would make me feel any worse than I already do.”

 

Hannibal closed his eyes and sighed. So bloody typical of Face to think that he was just here to make him pay, to rub salt into his already raw wounds. Didn’t he know Hannibal better than that by now? He shook his head, “Look, Face, there’s something here you need to read,” he rose to his feet and pulled a folded sheet of A4 from his back pocket, holding it out to Face. “There’s stuff in here you need to know.”

 

Face walked around from the kitchenette, and looked at the paper like it might explode.

 

“Here,” Hannibal took a step towards him, “you need to read it. Go on.”

 

Face cautiously took the paper, but didn’t unfold it. It sat in his fingers as he stared suspiciously at it, “What is it?”

 

“A copy of a letter found on Tasha Coleman’s body the day she died.” Face’s eyes shot up to his in alarm. “BA’s Scenes of Crime contact copied it for us before it was given to Coleman.”

 

Face stared at the paper in horror.

 

“Read it...” Hannibal coaxed as gently as he could.

 

Eventually Face sighed and unfolded the paper, Hannibal could see the tremors in his fingers as he did so. Then he started to read. Hannibal had read that damned letter so many times over the last sixteen months he knew it word for word. He could tell the exact second that Face had got to the third sentence as his legs seemed to give out and he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, face whiter than ever.

 

From his memory, Hannibal read along with him.

 

‘Dear Hannibal,” the letter was neatly word processed.

 

‘If you are reading this letter than that means that I am already dead. I am sorry that I never got the chance to tell you any of this when I was alive, but I’m sure, once you finish this letter, you will understand and I hope you won’t hate me for it. I would ask you not to mourn for me, not only is my death something I want, I have actually worked hard to plan it all myself.

 

‘I need to explain a bit more. The ‘stalker’ my father has asked you to trace is a man called Prakash Sahar. He’s actually my boyfriend and I love him very much. We have been together for eighteen months.

 

‘My father found out about us around sixth months ago and banned me from seeing him ever again. I love daddy a lot, but he is very narrow minded. When he looked at Prakash, all he saw was a Muslim and all he could think of was 9-11. Prakash isn’t a fundamentalist, or an extremist and he’s certainly not a terrorist, but daddy just won’t see it that way.

 

‘Anyway, I told daddy that Prakash and I had split up but continued to see him in secret. Then, when daddy found out he went crazy. The police weren’t interested, so he hired you. Told me that if Prakash ever came sniffing around me again, then you would kill him.

 

‘I can’t give him up and I can’t live without him. He feels the same way, so we have decided to leave this world together. Plans are being made and dates are being set and hopefully by the end of September it will all be over.

 

‘I have come to like and respect you and your team, and know you would never murder Prakash in cold blood as my father has told me, but this is still our chosen path. I am sorry for deceiving you and wish you well in the future.

 

‘Yours... Tasha x’

 

And then at the bottom of the page was a hastily added handwritten note.

 

‘Hannibal – it’s Face. I’d really hoped it wouldn’t be him as out of all of you he has been the sweetest and most lovely to me. But the time is set and it has to be him. I’ve just slipped a tablet into his coke. I don’t know what it is called but my pharmacist friend assures me it will only knock him out for a few hours and maybe leave him feeling a bit sick. I hope to God he’s right. Please, please don’t be too hard on him, it’s not his fault. I would have done the same to whichever one of you was on duty this morning. Tell him I’m sorry... Tash x’

 

Hannibal knew when Face finished the letter as it slipped out of his fingers and his head dropped down into his hands.

 

“Oh my God,” his voice shook almost as much as his shoulders, “Oh my God, I didn’t...” and he tailed off into a sob.

 

Hannibal watched him, at a loss as to what to do. He’d never been that good in dealing with emotion, and Face had never been one to show it much, so this was new, and awkward and Hannibal was left feeling helpless. He thought of Murdock and, for all his craziness, how he always knew what to do in situations like this. Hannibal tried to imagine what the pilot would do if he were here now, and knew he wouldn’t leave Face to deal with this alone.

 

He looked down at his lieutenant’s bent head and knew that Face was struggling to pull himself back together. Closing the gap between them, he bent down, placing a hand on Face’s shoulder, “Hey kid, it’s alright you know...”

 

He was almost thrown off his feet as Face just about exploded in front of him, “Alright? Hannibal, how the fuck can it be alright?!”

 

Hannibal took a step back and eyed him warily.

 

“I have spent the last year and a half thinking-” and he stopped, and Hannibal knew exactly why. He knew that Face just couldn’t say it, couldn’t divulge that much of himself, even to Hannibal, and there was that pain again right in Hannibal’s chest. He knew that one of them had to step up and acknowledge some of the emotions that were flying around. He looked into Face’s wild and desperate eyes and knew it was not going to be him, so...

 

He took that step forward again. “I know, Face...”

 

“What?! What do you know, Hannibal? You don’t know jack shit about me!”

 

Hannibal couldn’t help the bite that crept in to his words, “Oh, that’s right is it? That’s what you think? Well, if it’s true Face, it’s only because you never damn well tell me anything! You keep it all buttoned up so tight inside and think no one sees it!” He could see the wariness edging into Face’s eyes. “But you are wrong, so, so wrong, because I do know all about you, I’ve spent the last eighteen years of my life watching and learning and committing things to memory while you just carry on in your own little insular way, keeping me out, keeping Murdock out, when all anyone ever wants is to make you happy!”

 

Face looked damn near panicked now, and Hannibal could see his eyes flick to the door so he moved in another step, close enough that Face dropped back onto the bed as he tried to edge away, “Where do you want me to start then? Shall we start with Tasha Coleman? You’ve spent eighteen months feeling guilty as hell that your slip up killed her, you ran out on us ‘cause you convinced yourself we didn’t want you anymore, that you were a failure,” Face opened his mouth to say something but Hannibal ploughed on, “Oh, and I know that you’ll say I told you to leave, I threw you out, but you know I didn’t. You know I never would, you know I just meant for you to duck out for a few hours ‘til things had calmed down, but you didn’t, you fucking ran from me Face, ‘cause you were scared of admitting what you were really feeling!”

 

The bed creaked as Face leant back on his hands, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and his boss, “I don’t know what you mean...”

Part Five

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Part 5

“Yes you do! We both fucking know and I’m fed up of it never being said, always there in the background, for years now, blurring the edges, creating tension, making you run from me Face, so far that I might never have found you again...” And Hannibal had to stop because that pain was back in his chest and it was starting to crush him and he knew that eventually it would, unless he let it all out. He realised that, somewhere in all of this, he’d stopped talking about ‘we’ and ‘the team’ and started talking about ‘me’ and ‘I’ and that had been the problem all along.

 

Hannibal noted the familiar look of defiance forming on his lieutenant’s face and forced his anger away. Shouting at Face never achieved anything useful; as had been proved without a shadow of doubt over the last sixteen months. He dropped to his knees between Face’s legs, resting his hands on the soft fabric of his combats. 

 

“You ran because you don’t think you are good enough for me, and in your eyes this business with Tasha Coleman has just proved it. You think if you ever just open up and tell me everything that’s going on in your head, all your worries and your doubts, then I will see you as needy and weak and it will ruin everything we have. You wonder what’s so fundamentally wrong with you that no one has ever wanted to commit to you. Your parents, foster parents, that girl from college, Sosa. You think you’re some kind of emotional freak that can’t form relationships.”

 

Face’s eyes were wide and a single tear spilt over the edge and ran down his cheek; Hannibal reached out and wiped it away.

 

“You think I’m just using you for sex, a quick and easy fuck to ease the tension after a job, that if you try to make it anything more I’ll laugh at you for being naive. I’ll reject you. You act like everything you’ve ever been through, all the shit you’ve seen or done or had done to you, means nothing, that you can laugh it off, ‘cause you think if I ever see the pain or the scars then I’ll assume you’re weak, I won’t respect you and I won’t want you anymore. Am I hitting the mark so far?” Face just stared back and so he took a breath to try to ease the tightness in his throat and pushed on.

 

“You still think you’re bluffing your way onto this team, that somehow you’re not as good or as worthwhile as the rest of us. And because of that you take crazy risks, you pull stupid stunts to try and deflect the danger off us and draw it all onto yourself, and when I get pissed with you, you convince yourself it’s because you’ve screwed up, that you always screw up, that you are some kind of perpetual incompetent.”

 

There was a beat of silence as Face just stared at him and he fixed those eyes with his own, “But that’s not it at all, Face. It’s nowhere near the truth,” he leaned in a bit and dropped his voice to an almost whisper, “You’re not responsible for Tasha Coleman, and never were and we’ve never wanted you to leave. You’re more than good enough for me and I really wish you could just open up a bit and let me get inside your head. There’s nothing wrong with you, you are the most incredible person I have ever met, and as amazing as sex with you is, it’s certainly not all I need you for. I want nothing more than to help you with your demons, crush those nightmares that we all hear you suffer, and you’re on this team ‘cause you damn well earn it, every fucking day. And if I get pissed with you from time to time it’s because it fucking terrifies me that one day you are going to disappear, either with a bullet or an MP or into the middle of fucking freezing Montana, and I’ll never get to see you again. Never get to be with you. And I just can’t accept that.”

 

Face was silent, the edge of shame creeping into his eyes as his inner most thoughts were dissected in front of him.   

 

Hannibal reached a hand out and gently cupped the side of his face. “I’m in love with you, kid; have been for years. And I know you, I know you love me back. So why don’t we just stop trampling all over each other here and start acknowledging what we really want to do?”

 

Time seemed to stop for a moment as they stared at each other in silence, and then Hannibal leant in, holding Face’s eyes all the way, and pressed a kiss against his lips. This was a first – they’d never kissed before, it had always seemed too close, too intimate. Almost like they had to admit that what they were doing wasn’t just pressure sex, it was something else entirely. But Hannibal was sick of the lies and the hiding and now there was nothing more he wanted to do. He held for a moment, just pressing himself against Face’s immobile lips before he pulled back and stared into his eyes once more.

 

“Okay, kid?” he could hear the trepidation in his voice, “This okay?”

 

And Face nodded, just one sharp nod, but it was enough and Hannibal surged forward as he felt all his doubts and burdens slip away. This time he claimed Face’s mouth as he had always wanted to, searching out every secret corner, every hidden treasure, and to his delight, Face kissed him back.

 

The room was still cold, but the heat built between them very quickly. Hannibal managed to drag his boots off without breaking contact with Face and they retreated into the warmth under the duvet. Practised hands stripped away layers of clothing until Hannibal’s cold hands found warm smooth skin under their touch. Face jumped at the sensation and Hannibal grinned into the kiss, mumbling a quick apology before surging forward again.

 

It was very different to how it had been before, all those months ago, back in LA. There they had had warmth, no thick duvets needed there, and space to spread out, use all the bed, all the room, where it had always been dark, no eye contact, no connection, just the sex. But this was different. They huddled together under the duvet, crushed up tightly, the lights on so Hannibal could see and his gaze never left Face’s eyes the whole time. It was close and constricted, but intimate on a level that neither man had ever experienced before, and as Hannibal held Face’s gaze while he eventually slid himself home, he felt that he was going to combust with the intensity of it all.

 

He came hard and fast and Face fell with him, the strangled cry of “John!” that ripped from him as he released tightening Hannibal’s throat with emotion.

 

They slowly drifted back to earth together, wrapped up so tightly and touching in so many places that Hannibal had no idea any more where he ended and Face started. They didn’t even bother cleaning up, just stayed wrapped in each other’s warmth as they gradually slipped into sleep.

 

_________________________

 

There was a soft silence and a clean brightness to the room when Hannibal awoke that told him that it had snowed again over night. There was also a cold empty space beside him that told him that Face had gone.

 

He sat bolt upright, the cold morning air biting at his bare chest as the duvet fell away and panic surged through his body. What if Face had left again? What if he had just taken off? Could Hannibal even contemplate reliving the last sixteen months without him?

 

But then a movement in the corner of the room caught his eye and his head snapped round to see Face sat in the chair, feet up on the window sill, eyes staring out at the cold morning.

 

Hannibal took a moment to settle his pounding heart and ran a shaky hand through his hair, “Hey, kid, you okay?”

 

Face flicked his eyes over to the bed, then back out of the window, “Yeah, sure.”

 

Hannibal sighed, it was so obvious that was a lie but he chose to ignore it, “You look freezing,” Face was wearing only his trunks and the long sleeved vest, “Come and get under here.” He shifted slightly, making sure there was plenty of room in the bed.

 

Face didn’t move, “I’m not coming back Hannibal,” he muttered and somehow Hannibal just knew it wasn’t the bed he was talking about. His heart sank.

 

He felt the hopeless despair building up into anger and bit it back as hard as he could. Losing his temper was partly what had  got them into this mess in the first place, he wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

 

Instead he leaned forward, ignoring the gooseflesh prickling over his naked torso and tried to adopt his most reasonable tone of voice, “Well, okay, that’s fine then. You know that’s always been the prerogative of everyone on this team, you’re here because you want to be. If ever anyone wants to walk away,” he held out his hands, “then that’s just fine.”

 

Face shot him a quick, suspicious look, then turned back to the window.

 

“But if that’s your decision, then I think you at least owe us a reason why...” he left the sentence hanging.

 

From the chair at the window, Face frowned and shuffled uncomfortably but kept his eyes resolutely on the scene outside and his mouth tightly closed, so Hannibal pushed on. “Don’t you think, Face? Maybe we all deserve some kind of explanation?”

 

This time he shook his head, “I don’t know, boss... maybe it’s just not that easy...”

 

“Of course it’s easy Face! You just tell me what you are thinking, you just tell me why you don’t want to be on the team anymore!”

 

Face flashed a furious glare at him, “Who said I didn’t want to be on the team?”

 

Now it was Hannibal’s turn to frown, “Kid... you did, you just said...”

 

“I know what I said!” Face rose to his feet, “I said I wasn’t coming back, I didn’t say I didn’t want to!” and then he froze, suddenly realising that he had said far more than he had really intended and turned towards the bathroom.

 

Hannibal, however, was quicker, “No you don’t,” he whispered setting himself between Face and the door to the en-suite, “I need you to talk to me.” At some point in the night he had got up to go to the toilet and had retrieved his boxer shorts; he was eternally grateful for that small fact right now, this conversation was hard enough without him being buck naked for it.

 

Face tried to turn away, but Hannibal grabbed his arm and held on firmly, “Please, Face,” he knew he was starting to sound desperate, “you’ve hardly said two words since I got here, I really need you to talk to me.” Face tried to avert his eyes from his Colonel’s stare, “C’mon, kid, I talked to you last night, a lot, and everything I said was true, every damn word.”

 

Face wrenched his arm out of Hannibal’s grasp and turned his back, “Don’t Hannibal, please, you’re only making this harder...” His voice was strained, and Hannibal knew he was close to breaking, maybe if Hannibal just pushed a little harder.

 

“What am I gonna tell Murdock, then? He’s been out of his mind with worry since you walked out. How’s he gonna take it if I tell him you don’t want to come back?”

 

Face whirled round again, his eyes wide, “I never said that!”

 

Hannibal shrugged, “Well, what’s he gonna think?”

 

“I don’t know!” Face’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes shining with moisture and Hannibal knew he was so close to getting some answers, he just needed to push that tiny bit more.

 

“He’s gonna think you don’t care.”

 

“Of course I god-damn care!” Bingo. “Murdock and BA and, and... you, you’re all I’ve got in this world, you’re everything I care about!”

 

“If that were true, why would you want to leave us?” Hannibal knew he was baiting the kid, stoking up his temper, and he felt plain awful about it. But, he needed to know.

 

“Because I can’t do it anymore Hannibal! ‘I've just had enough and I can’t do it anymore!”

 

“Face-”

 

“I can’t let people get under my skin like this again! I swore to myself when I was seventeen years old that I would never let another person get close to me again, that I would stand on my own two feet, be an island, self reliant, tied to no one, a completely self-sufficient existence!”

 

Hannibal looked sadly at him, “A completely desolate existence...”

 

Face looked like he’d been slapped, “No! I...”

 

“Yes, Face! I saw you yesterday, in the diner,” he gestured wildly over his shoulder out of the window, “and that wasn’t being self reliant! That was just being damn lonely! And that’s not you! I know you! You need people, you need friends, hell, Face, you need us!”

 

“I’ve tried that!” Face was so far gone now, that tears were streaking down his cheeks and he didn’t even seem to notice, “Where did that get me, hey, Hannibal? It just finished the same way all the others did!”

 

The fight seemed to run out of Hannibal, “Face... I thought we’d been over that last night. We never threw you out, we never wanted you to leave...”

 

Face shook his head, “These last eighteen months Hannibal, I thought I’d never get through them. I thought I’d never survive... but I did.”

 

They stared at each other in silence.

 

“And if I had to do it again?” the bleakest of looks flowed across his features, “Well, I just know I couldn’t. Couldn’t survive it again, boss. Best to keep to myself.”

 

Hannibal felt his heart was breaking, “Kid, I can’t survive without you...” And it was true. What had happened over the last two years to do this to Hannibal, he had no idea, but here he was in a dingy motel room in Montana crying, actually, real tears, crying over another man. Hell, he’d not seen this one coming.

 

He’d looked up and as Face looked away he glimpsed the very same emotions in his lieutenant’s features as he knew were on his own, he reached out one hand in a final, desperate, gesture.

 

“Please Face, please come back. I swear I will never tire of you, never send you away, never leave you. Never.” The silence was thick enough to drown in. “Please... Templeton?”

 

Face raised his head and slowly met Hannibal’s eye.

 

________________________________

 

A lone figure stood at the edge of the road in front of the motel, eyes scanning up and down the road. The wind blasted right across the street into his face, bringing a fresh flurry of snow with it. Hannibal pulled up the hood of his ski jacket and tried to disappear further down into its warmth. He was fed up of this snow, of the biting cold, and never had Los Angeles seemed so appealing. It would be good to get back.

 

He looked up the road, straining through the heavy snow to try and spot BAs van. He and Murdock had gone to get gas, ready for the first leg of the journey back south, but how long were they going to be? Hannibal was bloody freezing.

 

Then at the end of the road he saw them coming and shouldered his kit bag, ready to jump in, the faster he was away from this place the better as far as he was concerned.

 

The big black van slowed to a halt in front of Hannibal and he stepped back to avoid the spray from the slush on the roadside. BA reached over and opened the passenger door for him and Hannibal climbed in as Murdock recoiled from the icy wind.

 

“You ready to go then Colonel?”

 

Hannibal glanced back over his shoulder at the motel, then turned to nod at BA, “Yeah – let’s go, big guy, I’ve had enough of this place.”

 

The van pulled out into the minimal traffic and silence descended over the occupants as they passed the town limits and headed out towards the highway.

Final Part

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - First Ending

Face

It was snowing again and Face moved to the window and looked up and down the road; there was no sign at all of BA’s van.

 

Hannibal turning up like that had just floored him completely. He hadn’t expected it now, it had been far too long really, those first six months when he was constantly moving around, constantly looking over his shoulder, hiding from both his team and the government, yeah, maybe then, but not after he’d been in Montana for ten months, a new man with a new life and a new name. Just seeing Hannibal sitting in his room, like a figment of one of those damn dreams he kept on having... well, he wondered if he’d finally lost his marbles, if all the Jack Daniels hadn’t, at last, pickled his brain.

 

And then that letter from Tasha... God, his stomach still did that awful crazy swoop every time he thought of it. When did Hannibal get his hands on that letter? He said they’d been looking for Face since the day he left; would they have bothered without it? If Face had stayed around, kept his phone with him, how long would it have been before Hannibal would have told him? And if he had, would Face have still gone? He feels that he would have done, that betrayal had been just too much to take, but if he’d known about Tasha, at least that would have saved him from sixteen months of torture.

 

So many questions... he looked out at the empty road, and no one to ask.

 

Then, as if the letter from Tasha had not been enough, well, then there was Hannibal and everything he had said...

 

If Face was being truly honest with himself, something he seldom liked to be, then Hannibal’s admissions had not come as a total surprise. Maybe their depth and the honesty with which they were delivered, but, and he knew this better than anyone else in the world, Hannibal was an accomplished liar and conman, just as much as he himself was. Anything Hannibal said to him had to be taken with a significant portion of salt.

 

But then his mind slipped back to the way that Hannibal had looked at him, looked into him when they had fucked last night and he shivered with the remembered intensity. Could that be faked? And Hannibal had cried, cried, Face had never seen him do that before, never, even when he heard his parents had died, so what did that mean?

 

Face scrubbed his eyes and leaned against the glass, cold on his already cold skin. What was he doing here? The right thing? Or another fucking monumental Templeton Peck screw up?

 

Hannibal’s words from the night before came back to him, ‘You think you are some kind of perpetual incompetent.’ Well, was he? Wasn’t he? Would Hannibal have bothered with him all this time if he was? Or maybe that was the whole point, Face’s inadequacies just made Hannibal feel better about himself, having someone who would always fuck up, someone Hannibal could yell at and beat up on every time his plans didn’t come together?

 

Jesus, he was so confused, his head was pounding, and this time he couldn’t blame the Jack Daniels.

 

He looked out into the road one more time and then turned away from the window. This was no good, he couldn’t go on like this pulling himself into twenty different directions at once; he’d made his decision, now he just had to follow it. He needed to just get on with this life he’d chosen, he could wrap up all his doubts again and leave them behind. He might be a perpetual incompetent, but this he could do well; he’d certainly had plenty of fucking practice.

 

As he turned his eyes fell on the bed and flashbacks from the night before assaulted him with such force he actually felt his knees buckle and he grabbed the door frame for support.  

 

 ‘You are the most incredible person I have ever met’,

 

‘You’re on this team ‘cause you damn well earn it, every fucking day’,

 

‘It fucking terrifies me that one day you are going to disappear’,

 

‘I’m in love with you, kid; have been for years’.  

 

The world pitched like the deck of a ship beneath him and he clung on tightly as images and sounds and smells and feelings battered him from within.

 

No! He forced them back. It was not going to be like this, he was not going to be like this. He had been by himself since his parents had left him on the steps of that church when he was five years old. Father David? Sosa? Hannibal? Murdock? BA?  All blips in that solitary existence, blips that had hurt him, stretched out the inner workings of his mind and his heart where he could see them and feel them and that was never going to happen again.

 

He closed his eyes and took deep, long breaths, pushing all those memories away, locking them up one by one, so deep and so secure that he hoped he’d never have to face them again.

 

He had no idea how long he stood there, gripping the door frame as if his life depended on it, but eventually he felt calm enough to open his eyes and he glanced up out of the window as he did. His stomach flipped as he saw the clock face on the church across the street and he double checked with his watch before forcing himself into action. Five past ten. He’d better get a move on; he had a snow mobile trek to guide at eleven.

 

One more deep breath, ‘Come on Rob,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you can do this...’ and he snatched up a towel and headed into the en-suite for a shower.

Sequel - The Long And Winding Road

or if that's too angsty for you try the Alternative Ending

Nowhere Man - Face/Hannibal - Alternative Ending

Face

It was snowing again and Face moved to the window and looked up and down the road; there was no sign at all of BA’s van.

 

Hannibal turning up like that had just floored him completely. He hadn’t expected it now, it had been far too long really, those first six months when he was constantly moving around, constantly looking over his shoulder, hiding from both his team and the government, yeah, maybe then, but not after he’d been in Montana for ten months, a new man with a new life and a new name. Just seeing Hannibal sitting in his room, like a figment of one of those damn dreams he kept on having... well, he wondered if he’d finally lost his marbles, if all the Jack Daniels hadn’t, at last, pickled his brain.

 

And then that letter from Tasha... God, his stomach still did that awful crazy swoop every time he thought of it. When did Hannibal get his hands on that letter? He said they’d been looking for Face since the day he left; would they have bothered without it? If Face had stayed around, kept his phone with him, how long would it have been before Hannibal would have told him? And if he had, would Face have still gone? He feels that he would have done, that betrayal had been just too much to take, but if he’d known about Tasha, at least that would have saved him from sixteen months of torture.

 

So many questions... he looked out at the empty road, and no one to ask.

 

Then, as if the letter from Tasha had not been enough, well, then there was Hannibal and everything he had said...

 

If Face was being truly honest with himself, something he seldom liked to be, then Hannibal’s admissions had not come as a total surprise. Maybe their depth and the honesty with which they were delivered, but, and he knew this better than anyone else in the world, Hannibal was an accomplished liar and conman, just as much as he himself was. Anything Hannibal said to him had to be taken with a significant portion of salt.

 

But then his mind slipped back to the way that Hannibal had looked at him, looked into him when they had fucked last night and he shivered with the remembered intensity. Could that be faked? And Hannibal had cried, cried, Face had never seen him do that before, never, even when he heard his parents had died, so what did that mean?

 

Face scrubbed his eyes and leaned against the glass, cold on his already cold skin. What was he doing here? The right thing? Or another fucking monumental Templeton Peck screw up?

 

Hannibal’s words from the night before came back to him, ‘You think you are some kind of perpetual incompetent.’ Well, was he? Wasn’t he? Would Hannibal have bothered with him all this time if he was? Or maybe that was the whole point, Face’s inadequacies just made Hannibal feel better about himself, having someone who would always fuck up, someone Hannibal could yell at and beat up on every time his plans didn’t come together?

 

Jesus, he was so confused, his head was pounding, and this time he couldn’t blame the Jack Daniels.

 

He looked out into the road one more time and then turned away from the window. This was no good, he couldn’t go on like this pulling himself into twenty different directions at once; he’d made his decision, now he just had to follow it. He needed to just get on with this life he’d chosen, he could wrap up all his doubts again and leave them behind. He might be a perpetual incompetent, but this he could do well; he’d certainly had plenty of fucking practice.

 

As he turned though, his mind betrayed him and flashbacks from the night before assaulted him with such force he actually felt his knees buckle and he grabbed the door frame for support. 

 

 ‘You are the most incredible person I have ever met’,

 

‘You’re on this team ‘cause you damn well earn it, every fucking day’,

 

‘It fucking terrifies me that one day you are going to disappear’,

 

‘I’m in love with you, kid; have been for years’.  

 

The world pitched like the deck of a ship beneath him and he clung on tightly as images and sounds and smells and feelings battered him from within. And somewhere deep in his mind, a foreign emotion tried to surface, tried to push its way out from under all the crap and locked boxes that had been piled up on top of it since the day that his parents had left him on the steps of that church when he was five years old.

 

Father David? Sosa? Hannibal? Murdock? BA?  It had tried to surface for them all over the years, succeeded to a greater or lesser extent as well, but never managed to fully escape, was always pushed back down again, harder and deeper than ever when things turned nasty. But this time, Hannibal’s words played, totally unbidden, over and over in his head, stoking that feeling, giving it clarity and purpose and strength until it was strong enough to break free and it blazed forth in Face’s mind, lighting everything up, illuminating every dark secret and corner until he could see that there was nothing in there that could hurt him. It stretched out the inner workings of his mind and his heart where he could see them and feel them and suddenly that wasn’t so scary anymore.

 

He closed his eyes and took deep, long breaths, letting that emotion, that hope that he’d never allowed himself to feel before fill him up completely, his mind, his heart, his very essence. He felt it surging through him, cleansing and healing as it went and he actually welcomed it, wanted it to be a part of him, he never wanted to face life without it again.

 

He had no idea how long he stood there, gripping the door frame as if his life depended on it, but eventually he felt calm enough to open his eyes and he glanced up out of the window as he did. His stomach flipped as he saw the black van roll to a halt in the snow outside. Both side doors opened and Murdock and Hannibal jumped out.

 

Murdock looked around him, shuffling up and down on the spot and rubbing his arms against the cold, “Hey, colonel,” his voice carried clearly in the crisp air, “are we in the right place? Are we early or something? We’re not late are we?”

 

Hannibal smiled but it was a tense one; the stress of the last few days was finally starting to get to him, “No, Murdock, we’re fine. Relax.”

 

Face pulled himself together and turned to call back into the building, “My ride’s here Shelley, I’m going!”

 

Footsteps sounded on the carpeted floor and a young woman, black Dare2Be hoody, the exact same colour as her hair, showing off her pale complexion perfectly, walked into the hallway.

 

“Oh, Rob! Sure you won’t wait for the guys to get back? They’re going to be so pissed they didn’t get chance to see you.”

 

Face smiled and pulled her into a brief hug, “Sorry, honey, long drive ahead of me. You’ll tell them I said bye though yeah?”

 

Shelley reached up and kissed his cheek, “We didn’t even get chance to get you a leaving present,”

 

A quick glance out of the window to check the van was still there and then Face turned back to the woman in front of him, “Don’t worry about it, Shell, I’ve already got everything I need.”   

 

One more deep breath, ‘Come on Face,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you can do this...’ and he snatched up his bag from the floor and headed for the door.

 

Hannibal

Just as Murdock’s fidgeting was threatening to drive Hannibal insane, the door to the  office opened and a tense figure in a black down jacket appeared and stepped out into the snow.

 

Hannibal looked up, “All sorted?”

 

Face nodded and Hannibal seemed to relax minutely. Then Murdock bounded forward and threw his arms around Face’s snow soaked black jacket, drenching himself in the process and laughing as he felt Face’s arms come up and tighten around his shoulders.

 

Hannibal fished a cigar out of his pocket and bit the top off it as he reached out and clapped Murdock on the shoulder, “Give him some space there, Murdock.”

 

Murdock peeled off and threw a smile over his shoulder at Face as climbed back in the van, the snow increasing to blizzard intensity all around them. Hannibal looked the newcomer in the eyes, “You sure about this?”

 

Face looked back, “Never been surer,” and then he smiled at him and there was so much hope and honesty in that smile that Hannibal felt his tension slide away.

 

He pointed at the still open side door of the van and smiled a true smile at last, “Well, jump in then, kid, it’s time we went home!”

 

With only the slightest skid in the deep snow, the black van pulled out of the parking lot at Snow Business Snow Mobile Hire and BA turned it south, headed for much warmer climes.

Original Ending

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face

First Impressions AKA: Five Times Hannibal Smith Began to Suspect He May Have Been Wrong About Lt. Peck and One Time He Definitely Knew He Was

 

Introduction

“No way on this earth!” Major John ‘Hannibal’ Smith thrust the transfer order back towards Colonel Mick McGrath and shook his head to further emphasise his point. “I told you, Mick, I’m sick of you sending me lame ducks all the time! What am I suppose to be running here? A Ranger unit or a fucking crèche?”

 

McGrath sighed, he knew this was never going to be easy, “Look John,” his tone was placating, “Maybe he’s not as bad as you’ve heard, Sanders is on his way over now to give us an update.”

 

That news added nothing to Hannibal’s mood, the KFC Colonel, as all the boys called him was one of Hannibal’s least favourite men, “Him?” he muttered almost in an undertone, “He’s a fucking half wit…”

 

McGrath raised a disapproving eyebrow but Hannibal was saved from his retort by a sharp knock at the door and a tall, burly man with close cropped but unmistakably red hair marched into the room. Hannibal and McGrath both stood around 6’4” and were used to looking down on most people in the force, Sanders, however, most unlike his chicken frying namesake, was at least 6’6” and just seemed to own any room he walked into. That was only one of the reasons Hannibal didn’t like him.

 

“Mick, Smith,” he nodded to the two men with a thin and snarky smile of his face, (another reason), before he turned to lounge against the edge of the desk. “I see you’ve agreed to take Peck off my hands then? Or I would imagine you haven’t had much say in the matter…” That smarmy smile was there again and Hannibal felt his blood heat.

 

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet, sir,” Hannibal hated having to give this prick his title; “The colonel here and I were just discussing it.”

 

“Hmmm,” Sanders folded his arms, “Well I can see why you wouldn’t be too keen on having him along for the ride, the boy is a right royal pain in the ass. He doesn’t follow orders, his attitude stinks, he answers back, he stirs trouble in the unit, the other boys can’t stand him…” he shakes his head, “Pain in the ass.”

 

McGrath rolls his eyes as he takes in Hannibal’s set expression, “Well, thanks for that Sanders, most helpful,” he turns back to his Major, “C’mon, Hannibal, you know you are good with boys like this one. Remember Taylor?”

 

Sanders laughs, “Peck is nothing like Taylor, Mick, I guarantee it! Once Taylor had a night in the stockade he was putty in your hands. Peck? He’s got a fucking season ticket in there; he comes out twice as fucking obnoxious as he went in!”

 

Hannibal shakes his head again as McGrath pinches the bridge of his nose, but Sanders is on a roll, “Doesn’t even bother him to take a gut-punching, I swear, that boy is as arrogant as they come…”

 

Hannibal and McGrath exchange a quick look, they both know that corporal punishment happens, but it’s certainly not meant to be condoned by the officers, “Dick…” Hannibal mutters under his breath.

 

Although he doesn’t hear the word spoken, Hannibal’s voice brings Sanders’ attention back onto him, and his thin lips break out into a condescending smile, “So, Smith, my report helped you make up your mind then? Think you can perform another miracle on him like you did with Taylor?” It’s obvious from the snarky voice that Sanders resents every success Hannibal has ever had.

 

Hannibal ignores him and turns back to his CO, “Don’t force this one on me Mick,” he pleads, “He’s a lost cause, I don’t have time for this. I’ve read his file; all he does is fuck-up and screw around. I’ve got a lot of impressionable boys in my unit; I don’t need his type setting the wrong kind of example.”

 

“John,” McGrath’s tone is almost apologetic, “Look, I’ve not got much room to move here, the brass have

paid out a lot of money to train that boy as a Ranger, and they want to see some return on their investment. It’s not a good use of resources just to boot him out on his ear.”

 

“That’s where he’s going,” Sanders interrupts, “and if I’ve told him that once I’ve told him a million times.”

 

Irritation flares in Hannibal, he’s actually starting to feel a bit sorry for Peck, having this ass-hole as his CO, no wonder he’s never been able to hold it together. “You did eh Sanders? I can see you’ve put a lot of effort into the boy there,”

 

Sanders’ eyes flash in anger, “Don’t try to pull that one Smith, it’s not just me that has had enough of Peck, three other units threw him out before I was saddled with him!”

 

Hannibal raises an eye at McGrath who reluctantly nods back, “It’s true. You really are his last chance, John. He’s looking at a dishonourable discharge if you can’t sort him out.”

 

“I can’t sort him out!” Hannibal explodes, “And I don’t even want to try. He’s reckless, useless, irresponsible, arrogant, selfish… hell; even the other boys can’t stand him!” He shakes his head, “I’ve no time for him Mick, don’t force this fuck-up onto me.”

 

McGrath rubs a hand slowly across his forehead. “Hannibal – I’m sorry. I’m gonna have to insist on this one…”

 

Hannibal swears under his breath.

 

“The brass want results, you’re the only option we have left.”

 

Hannibal turns to the door, “Six weeks!” he snaps at McGrath, “I will give him six weeks and that’s all! If he’s not got himself court martialled by then, then I want him removing from my unit!”

 

Sanders smiles his stupid smile once more while McGrath just lets Hannibal vent.

 

He gets to the door and stops with his fingers on the handle, “I will not allow a cancer like him to spread through my boys! We’ve worked too hard for him to fuck it all up!”

 

“We’ll talk about it.” McGrath’s voice is low and steady and Hannibal knows he’s pushed as far as he can today so he slams the handle down and yanks the door open, preparing to storm out, but freezes. There’s a soldier out in the corridor, standing right outside the door. Fair hair and blue eyes, a movie star’s face but with a soldier’s expression, a very pissed off soldier’s expression. Hannibal looks him up and down, his gut turning as realisation slowly dawns; he looks younger than Hannibal had imagined he would, but there is no doubt in his mind that this is the infamous Lt. Peck.

 

“Jesus, kid…” Hannibal feels like shit, “You been standing out here the whole time?”

 

“Yes, sir!” Peck’s reply is perfectly in line with protocol, but Hannibal can hear the insolence in it, just lurking below the surface.

 

“Why?”

 

“Orders sir,” Peck snaps back, “From Colonel Sanders there,”

 

There is something in the way Peck says ‘Colonel Sanders’ that makes Hannibal’s cheeks twitch in amusement, but he quickly bites it down as he turns back into the room, “That right Sanders?” he barks.

 

Sanders’ smile is so wide it looks like its going to split his face in two, “Absolutely, Smith, thought it would do the boy no end of good to hear what we all think of him, don’t you?”

 

Hannibal looks at Peck still standing to attention in the corridor and he notices the tightness of his eyes, the flushed red on his cheeks and the rigid set off his mouth and suddenly feels a wave of sympathy for the kid.

 

He looks behind him one more time; “Sanders, you are a dick-head…” he mutters then stalks past his new team member and back to his quarters. 

 

..1..

The sympathy doesn’t even last two days. It evaporates the exact moment that Hannibal is woken by the piercing phone at his bedside telling him he needs to get down to the brig and sign out his new Second  Lieutenant. It’s 5am.

 

He doesn’t rush, reckons the kid deserves a chance to cool his heels off but it’s still barely light by the time Hannibal is shown into a holding cell. Peck looks like shit. His face is grey and streaked with blood, his lip is split and swollen and his t-shirt is filthy, torn and covered in blood. Not his own Hannibal regretfully notes. At least the kid has enough about him to haul himself up to attention as his CO enters the cell, but that’s little compensation to Hannibal.

 

Hannibal looks him up and down for a moment then deliberately opens the file in his hands and starts reading, even though he knows it off by heart by now. “Picked up in town at 2am outside the Red Dragon Restaurant... Fighting with... /six/...locals...After one of them found you engaged in ‘sexual activity’ with his /wife/ in the car park...” Hannibal can’t help but shake his head at that. “Resisting arrest, foul and abusive language, threatening a civilian police officer and an MP etc. etc. etc.” He looks over at Peck, still standing to attention with his eyes fixed on the far wall. “You sure had a busy night. Got anything to say for yourself then?”

 

Peck shrugs, “Not much of a restaurant I’d say, more of a shitty little takeaway with a few tables...”

 

“Enough!” Hannibal slams the folder down onto the table and takes a forced deep breath. “You don’t seem to realise the trouble you are in here! My unit is the last chance saloon for you kid...”

 

“So I’ve been told...”

 

“And yet you still pull stunts like this! What in hell’s name were you thinking even leaving the base last night? I certainly hadn’t signed any pass out for you. Did you think you were different, special somehow? That you can just piss off any time you fancy a few drinks or a quick fuck?”

 

Anger flashes in Peck’s eyes at that last comment, but his lips stay pressed tight together.

 

Hannibal lets out a long sigh, “I’m disappointed in you. I expected more.”

 

The anger flashes again, but this time Peck’s head snaps round to face his CO, “No you’re not,” he spits, “I heard everything you and Sanders said remember? This is exactly what you expected and exactly what you got!”

 

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hannibal asks with narrowed eyes.

 

Peck flushes and goes back to starring at the wall with a muttered, “Nothing, sir...”

 

A heavy silence falls as Hannibal runs his eyes over Peck’s service record more. Eventually he lowers himself down onto one of the two wooden chairs in the room and taps his fingers thoughtfully on the table top. “Well, this is it, kid,” he leans back in the chair, eyeing Peck carefully, “this is enough to finally get you thrown out.”

 

He is sure he doesn’t imagine the brief tightening of the kid’s eyes, but then the look of bland insolence is back, “You will be pleased then sir,” there’s no mistaking the tightness of his voice however, “Saves you the bother of waiting six weeks.”

 

There’s a pause as Hannibal studies the young man in front of him, “You been trying to get yourself kicked out then, kid?”   

 

Again that flash of anger, “No, sir!”

 

“You sure about that? Got some skirt at home you want to get back to?”

 

“No, sir!”

 

“Missing your mom?”

 

Another flash, but this time Hannibal can actually see the tension in the kid’s body, the tightly curled fists and the barely reined in temper. Peck turns and meets his CO’s eye again, “No one is waiting for me anywhere,” he bites out.

 

Hannibal looks at him for just a beat then goes back to the file and flicks through the pages of misdemeanours as he ponders this very angry young man in front of him. /Has/ he been deliberately trying to get kicked out? Is he so unhappy with the army that this is the only option? But if that’s the case, why bother with the Ranger training? No one will have forced him into it, in fact, given his disciplinary record it’s a miracle he’d even been accepted. Unless... Hannibal flicks back to his scores, pre and post training. Impressive, there’s no other word for them. Obviously someone has seen some potential in the kid somewhere. Hannibal checks back again to see who signed his acceptance in Ranger school and his lips twitch in a smile of recognition, of course, General Siblinksy, the very same General who had put John Smith through Ranger school all those years ago.

 

Hannibal sighs as he makes his decision and tosses the file down onto the table in front of him, rising to his feet at the same time. “Right, kid, listen to me very carefully, ‘cause this is the deal,” He can see Peck’s eyes slide cautiously over to him, “This is your one and only chance with me, enjoy it ‘cause there sure as hell won’t be another.”

 

The surprise is evident on Peck’s face.

 

“As soon as they kick you out of this place, clean yourself up and report to my quarters. I want you right where I can see you until I can trust you. That clear?”

 

Peck nods tersely.

 

Hannibal steps right into his Lieutenant’s personal space, “And I don’t know what all this was about,” he whispers lethally, “But I will not take any bullshit from the men in my unit. You got a problem with something; you come and talk to me about it or you put up with it. You got that soldier?”

 

Another nod.

 

“I asked you question!” Hannibal roared.

 

“Yes, sir,” Peck’s voice is rough and Hannibal feels that ridiculous surge of sympathy once more.

 

“Well, don’t forget it then...” he snaps and turns on his heels letting the door of the cell slam shut behind him.

 

As he walks back to his quarters with the sun now reaching the top of the mess hall, he thinks back to his first impressions of the kid. Reckless, irresponsible, arrogant, selfish, unpopular... yeah, he would still tick all those boxes, but useless? No way, not on those scores, and not for being able to get off base undetected either, that certainly took some doing. And there’s something else he needs to add to the list as well… Furtive? Enigmatic? Hannibal isn’t sure of the right word for it just yet, but he gets the feeling that there’s definitely more to Lt. Peck than first meets the eye.

Part Two

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Part 2

..2..

It’s the shouting that reminds Hannibal about the soccer match, if he’d not been so tied up in his paperwork he might have remembered earlier. He follows the yells to the dry patch of ground behind the kitchens and is relieved to find he hasn’t missed the whole game. He spies Cptn. Jason ‘Bunter’ Harvey sprawled pitch side, swigging from a half empty bottle of water and sits roughly in the dirt next to him.

 

“Boss!” Bunter almost chokes on his drink, “Where’ve you been? Thought you were gonna miss it!”

 

Hannibal smiles at the slightly British lilt to Bunter’s voice that living in the US since the age of five has not been able to erase and nods at the action on the pitch, “Came as soon as I could. How we doing?”

 

Bunter takes another swig of water and wipes the sweat off his forehead as he too turns his eyes back to the game, “It’s tight. We’ve been 2-1 up for ages, but the bastards just equalised a couple of minutes ago and,” he glanced at his watch, “there’s only about eight minutes left…”

 

Hannibal frowns. Soccer really isn’t his game, he’s much more a baseball kind of guy, but the boys love it. It’s often the game of choice due to the ease which with it can be organised in almost any conditions, but today’s game is much, much more serious than that. He shakes his head, “I can’t face Blumenfeld if his boys beat us again, Bunt, we gonna be able to pull this one off?”

 

Bunter chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully, “Dunno boss… We just don’t look like scoring any more.”

 

Hannibal scans up and down the touch line, “We got anyone we can put on?”

 

“Nah…” Bunter shakes his head without looking. “Made our last sub about ten minutes ago, new lad came on for me.”

 

Hannibal’s eyes drift around the players looking for Lt. Peck. It’s hard to tell them apart in the middle of the pitch. In the absence of proper kits, the soccer games are always played ‘skins’ vs. ‘shirts’; Hannibal’s team are skins today and one sweaty, shirtless player looks very much like another. Or at least that’s what Hannibal thinks before he locates Peck somewhere to the left of midfield and his mouth goes dry. /Jesus/, that kid is built... Hannibal clenches his fists and pushes inappropriate thoughts to the back of his mind while he grabs Bunter’s bottle off him and takes a swig.

 

Once his thoughts are back on safe and solid ground he can register his surprise that the kid’s even playing. From what he’s heard, Peck is a bit of a loaner and not too popular with the others. It may only be a seven a side soccer game, but he knows his boys take their soccer very seriously indeed; they don’t let just anyone play for them.

 

“How’s he getting on?” he asks, glad his voice seems to sound perfectly normal.

 

Bunter shrugs, “It’s early days boss, I don’t think he’s played much before and we had to tell him the rules before we started; still don’t think he gets the off-side rule, but he’s doing-”

 

“Not in soccer…” Hannibal interrupts and Bunter turns, confused.

 

“Oh! You mean in the unit?” Hannibal nods, “Right, gotcha boss!” Bunter laughs a little at himself, “Yeah, he seems to be getting on great.”

 

Hannibal stares at the side of the captain’s head as Bunter goes back to watching the game. That wasn’t the answer he had been expecting. “Really?” he knows he sounds incredulous.

 

“He’s a bit quiet you know, think he’s just weighing us all up, maybe he’s worried the lads are gonna take the piss out of him or something, but he’s good in the exercises you know, and I tell you what-” Bunter turns back to Hannibal and stops as he sees the expression on his face. “What?”

 

“Peck, right?” Hannibal clarifies.

 

Bunter frowns, “Yeah. Something wrong?” 

 

“Well,” Hannibal chooses his words carefully. “It’s just I got the impression that he wasn’t very popular over in Sanders’ unit.”

 

Bunter scoffs, “Well, he wouldn’t be, would he?” Bunter turns to see Hannibal’s raised eyebrow and continues, “Sanders always made sure of that, boss. It wasn’t very good for your health to be buddies with our new guy over there.”

 

“Expand, Captain.”

 

“From what I’ve heard, Sanders doesn’t like him, first met him in Basic Training and has had it in for him ever since. Made him /persona non grata/ if you know what I mean, no one was to go near him, kept him as isolated as he could.” Bunter looks over at his boss’s shocked expression. “Come on Hannibal, surely you know that Sanders is a dick-head?”

 

“I /have/ heard that before,” Hannibal mutters. He frowns slightly, “But Peck’s been in other units as well, not just Sanders’. What about them?”

 

Bunter sighs. “Man’s a goddammed octopus. His fingers reach into many pies; it’s never been worth giving the lad the time of day before, not worth the flack you’d get.”

 

Hannibal picks up on the past tense, “But now?”

 

And Bunter turns to beam at him, “Now? Well he’s with you boss isn’t he? No way Sanders is gonna try anything around you. We know it and the lad knows it,” he turns back to the game, “couldn’t have come to a better place.”

 

They sit in silence for a minute while Hannibal processes this new information. Then he turns back to Bunter, “You were in the middle of telling me something.  Carry on Captain, I’m all ears.”

 

Bunter gives his boss a quick look before switching his eyes back to the game, “Oh, yeah. Well, I tell you what, boss, it’s all Sanders’ loss ‘cause I’ve never seen anyone get his hands on the stuff that Face can get hold of, guy’s like a walking warehouse!”

 

Hannibal registers the nickname. He’s heard it bandied about once or twice with the boys but never really gave it any thought before, now it’s another example of how quickly the kid is being accepted here and he’s surprised.

 

“You know how Jonno likes that Aussie rules stuff?” Bunter doesn’t wait for an answer before ploughing on, “Well, last week he was moaning about the Superbowl being on, says he never gets to see any of that Aussie stuff, anyway, two days later Face appears with a VHS of the Aussie Rules Cup Final or whatever they call it, Sydney versus Bombay or something.”

 

Hannibal stifles a smile. Bunter’s never been that good at Geography. It’s a good job the US army hasn’t moved into India yet. Or Australia for that matter…

 

“Jonno was made up! And then for Sharkie’s birthday he turns up with an ice cream cake. An ice cream cake! Where the hell did he get that out here?” Bunter shakes his head. “Tell you something Hannibal; Face’ll be real handy to have around when we get out on jobs again.”

 

Hannibal nods to himself. “So why ‘Face’ then?” he queries, eyes on the game as the final whistle draws closer.

 

Bunter laughs, “You seen him, boss? Looks like a fucking model!”

 

Hannibal laughs along with him, but is glad the Captain’s eyes are on the field and not liable to spot the heat in Hannibal’s face.

 

“It’s not just that though, it’s the way he uses it, can carry coal to Newcastle, that one…”

 

“What?” Hannibal is aware he’s probably missing out on a British-ism here.

 

Bunter laughs again, “You know, sell sand to the Arabs, that kind of thing…”

 

“Right… Well, I’m gonna ask you to baby-sit him for the next month, Bunt, get him out from under my feet.” Hannibal had made sure Peck had stayed really close for the last couple of weeks; he hadn’t relished the thought of being woken at the crack of dawn to sign him out of a cell again…

 

“Sure thing, boss.”

 

Again Hannibal is surprised; Bunter is an excellent Captain, but he is also the biggest whinge on the base. If there had been any reason at all that he didn’t want Peck tailing him for the next few weeks, Hannibal would have known about it.

 

“And try to keep him out of trouble,” Hannibal warns, “he’s been out of the stockade for two whole weeks now, must be some kind of record for him…”

 

Bunter laughs, “Yeah, I have heard that about him, it seems… Oh! Yes! Go on, go on… ”

 

Hannibal’s eyes shoot up to the penalty where a melee of players are tangled in a heap on the dusty ground. The keeper runs out towards them just as the ball bounces free and a filthy leg swings out of the tangle of limbs and connects smartly with it. It flies off a bare shin and grazes the keeper’s fingers on its way past him and right into the back of the net.

 

“YES!!!!!!” Bunter is on his feet, leaping up and down on the spot and waving his arms in the air as Templeton Peck drags himself up and out of the melee, yelling like a banshee and setting off on a mad sprint around the pitch, one fist in the air like superman with his jubilant team mates in hot pursuit.

 

Hannibal rises at a much more sedate pace and claps his hands appreciatively watching as Peck dives full length onto the dusty ground and is instantly buried in a mass of team mates all ruffling his hair and pummelling his arms and back in sheer joy and relief.

 

The referee eventually restores order but Blumenfeld’s boys only get chance to kick off before the final whistle sounds.

 

A cheer goes up from the assembled Rangers and their supporters and Hannibal watches with pride as his team leap all over each other again, congratulations all round, slapping each other’s backs and hugging each other.

 

He wanders onto the field, shaking hands with the losers and high fiving each of the winners. It seems a random path he’s taking, but it’s no coincidence that he reaches Peck just as the others have left the field.

 

“Hey,” he says, planting himself in front of the lieutenant, “Well done, Face, I’m proud of you.”

 

He knows he’s trying out the nickname on his lips, and likes the way it feels. But not as much as he likes the heat that flares within him at the way the kid’s whole face lights up at the praise, or the stupid way his stomach flips as they bump fists as Face passes him by. Hannibal feels his first impressions may have been a little off with this one. He’s going to have watch really carefully to find out. 

Part Three

 

 

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Part 3

..3..

Hannibal bangs his clenched fist against his forehead in frustration. He’s screwed up here, made a massive miscalculation and they are well and truly stuck because of it. He edges up to peer across the boulder they are sheltering behind and checks his options once again.

 

The canyon behind them is blocked by the landslip, there is no way on earth they can get out over that, not without it all coming down on top of them again. The walls are sheer rock face. With the right gear they could make it, but then they’d be sitting ducks for that sniper at the other end of the gully. Maybe in the dark, but he doubts they are going to last that long.

 

The rebels know they are here, but they aren’t sure where exactly. They’ve left three men at the head of the gully while they presumably go back for reinforcements. Once they arrive, Hannibal knows they will just advance down the canyon, flushing his team out as they go, and picking them off one by one until they are all dead.

 

Frustration boils within him. He shouldn’t have brought the guys down here, should have guessed that the heavy rains would have collapsed the sides of the gully. He’s lead them to their deaths.

 

A movement at his side brings Bunter up to his shoulder, the side of his face scratched and torn from his own attempts at getting over the landslip. “We’re running out of time, boss...” he mutters.

 

Hannibal sighs. Bunter wants to make a break for it now, before the reinforcements arrive, but Hannibal knows that they wouldn’t get to the end of the gully with those three guards left there. They obviously know what they are doing – from their chosen vantage points they can easily cover the entire canyon. Jonno wants to try and pick them off, but even Bunter knows that’s not going to happen. No one can make a clean shot from this distance, and it would have to be a clean shot otherwise all it would do is alert the guards as to their exact position, make it so much easier to pin them down once the reinforcements arrive.

 

Frustration churns within him, what the fuck has he done?

 

Hannibal turns and shuffles back down the boulder to where his team is huddled and he looks them over one by one. Bunter, his XO, loyal and brave and just wanting to get out of here. Jonno, trying to look like he’s not bothered but Hannibal can see the fear in his eyes. Piper, calm and unruffled as always holding onto the picture of the baby girl he’s never met. Sharkie, black eyes unreadable as he crouches in the dirt like a coiled spring. And, Hannibal’s stomach heaves with fresh guilt, Face, leaning up against a rock, his eyes fixed on his CO, just waiting for Hannibal to sort all this out. Ever since Hannibal gave him that second chance in his first week, Face has looked at him like he’s some kind of fucking god. It’s unnerved Hannibal before today, but now, when Hannibal knows full well he’s got his boys into this mess, it’s inappropriate in the highest degree. It’s the kid’s first trip out with them. Hannibal has kept him sidelined for three months, wanted to be sure he could trust him, wanted to be sure the kid was ready. Turns out it’s a bit of a mistake; the kid isn’t ready, not for death. But then, thinks Hannibal, who is?

 

He makes the only decision he can. “Rights boys, we are moving out...” Bunter breathes a sigh of relief while everyone else seems to tense even more. “Each man will move independently, stay to the sides, use any cover you can, and just keep moving. Once we leave here we’ll be vulnerable.”

 

“We’ll be sitting ducks, sir...”

 

Hannibal can tell Jonno is trying not to be disrespectful so he takes a deep breath before turning to answer. “There’s no other choice, Jon. We stay here we’re dead.”

 

“We should take them out...”

 

This, Hannibal had expected. “You can do that? Cleanly? All three before they get behind cover and just radio our position back to their boss?”

 

Jonno shakes his head and Hannibal sighs. “I thought not. We’re moving out. Get ready.”

 

There is movement and muttering all around him as his men turn to check their packs, but then a single voice stands out. “I can, sir.”

 

Silence falls, thick and heavy as every man freezes and turns to look at Face. Hannibal doesn’t speak.

 

“No way...” this is Bunter. “I know you are good, but no one can make that shot. You need three direct hits one after the other, bam, bam, bam otherwise we’ll just be running up a big target above our heads!”

 

Face is unperturbed, “I can do it.”

 

“No!!” Bunter’s eyes are wide as he turns to his CO, “He can’t boss, it must be half a mile to the mark, there’s a wind coming up the gully and if he misses then they will drop out of sight and radio us in! It’s suicide!”

 

“Better than being sitting ducks...” Jonno mutters.

 

“Bunter’s right,” Piper puts in, “The kid can’t do this, it would lose us our only advantage.”

 

“Yeah Hannibal,” Sharkie agrees, “we move out.”

 

Face ignores them all and keeps his eyes on his CO. “I can do this boss,” he repeats.

 

“Hannibal!” Bunter entreats.

 

“Quiet!” Hannibal barks and everyone falls silent. He looks at Face for a long time, weighing him up, considering the options. “Bunter’s right,” he eventually says, “you miss, then you screw the only chance we have of getting out.

 

Face nods. “I know. But I won’t miss.”

 

“You sure of that?”

 

Nod.

 

“All three?”

 

Nod.

 

Two minutes of silence.

 

“Okay kid, you’re on.”

 

“Hannibal! Sir! You have got to be kidding-” Bunter is silenced with a look while Face starts getting his gear ready. 

 

The tension in the air is choking. Hannibal and Face edge back up to the top of the boulder while the others, packs ready to move out in a hurry, wait down below.

 

“I’m relying on you here kid,” Hannibal mutters as Face squints through his sights, “If you aren’t 100% sure, then don’t take the shot.”

 

“I got it, boss,” Face mutters, adjusting his grip and shuffling flatter onto his stomach.

 

Hannibal looks long and hard at him, then turns and raises his binoculars to the mark, “In your own time then, Face.”

 

He can see the three guards. They are standing together at the head of the gully, only their chests and upwards visible behind the covering rocks. They are attentive, but relaxed, not expecting any attack, but keeping a watchful eye out to see if they can spot the hiding Americans. Two of them are smoking while the third casually toys with his radio.

 

Face is suddenly deathly still beside him and Hannibal knows he is going to make the shot, he almost loses his nerve there and then, almost grabs the kid and aborts the mission. Almost but not quite. Instead he flicks the record button on the binoculars and starts streaming to the hard drive.

 

It’s all over in a fraction of a second. The sounds of the shots echo up and down the gully while the three guards drop almost instantaneously behind the rocks. But it’s too quick, Hannibal couldn’t see if the shots found their mark or not, he and Face quickly slide back down the boulder and drop to the ground while Hannibal frantically hits the reply button on the binoculars, reviewing the hits.

 

“There were only two!” Bunter’s frantic voice buffets Hannibal’s concentration, “There were only two fucking shots Face! You missed one!”

 

Hannibal glances up to find Face on his knees, skin grey and waxy while he dry heaves over the dirt.

 

“There were loads!” This is Jonno, “We all heard them, man!”

 

“They were fucking echoes!” Bunter sounds apoplectic, “He’s fucking missed!”

 

Hannibal reviews the film and his heart starts pounding against his ribs, unwilling to take in what he can see. He tunes the bickering out and reviews the film once more.

 

“Why do you think he’s puking Jonno!” Sharkie sounds almost as mad as Bunter, “It’s because he knows he’s screwed up!”

 

Face is scrabbling for a drink now, hands shaking as he tries to unstop the seal on his bottle.

 

“Fucking hell, boss, he’s just a boy! Why’d you let him do this to us?”

 

“Stop!” Hannibal knows his own hands are shaking as he lets the binoculars drop to his side, “He got them. All three.”

 

There is a moment’s stunned silence.

 

“But...” Bunter looks to where Face is still kneeling in the dirt, “there were only two shots...”

 

Hannibal holds the binoculars out to his XO, “He got two with one bullet...” he whispers, still not quite believing his own eyes.

 

Bunter grabs the binoculars off his boss and holds them up to his eyes as Hannibal reaches over to rub Face’s still heaving back, the adrenalin ripping out of him, “Take it easy there, kid, you did a fucking top job...”

 

“Jesus Christ...” Bunter breathes as he reviews the evidence for himself.

 

“Saddle up boys,” Hannibal takes hold of Face’s arm and heaves him to his feet, “We’re not out of this shit yet. Let’s go before the posse arrive.”

 

“Holy fuck...” it’s Piper’s turn with the binoculars and his words ring in Hannibal’s ears as he steers his lieutenant round the base of the rock, the first steps back to safety. Holy fuck indeed... just what did he have on his hands here?

Part Four

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Part 4

..4..

Hannibal signs off the last sheet and tips back in his chair, glancing at the clock. Eleven fifteen. He’s probably just got chance for a quick scotch and then he’ll have to turn in, everyone is up for an early run in the morning. It’s been a shit day at the end of a shitty week and Hannibal is really looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep. He thinks he might need it, it’s Face’s birthday tomorrow and no doubt it will be a heavy night.

 

Hannibal pours his scotch and kicks back in his chair, his mind wandering to his second lieutenant. He has to admit, the kid’s not been as bad as he first feared. Sure, he’s no angel, but looking at the stuff in his file, theft, vandalism, whoring around, an explosive temper that always seems to end in violence, hell, even drug pushing, the minor misdemeanours he’s been up to with Hannibal are nothing. And they are getting less, he’s growing up, becoming a bit more responsible, the other guys have accepted him, and Hannibal can see shit loads of potential. That fucking amazing shot he took in Somalia? Hannibal is sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

 

He wonders what the boys have got in store for him for his birthday; it’s bound to be something pretty wild, they seem to outdo themselves every time. He swirls the scotch round and round the base of his glass, watching the shades of amber as they pitch and turn. According to his file, Face will be twenty four tomorrow, but Hannibal doesn’t buy that, not at all. He suspects he’s younger, much younger and joined up early to escape... what? Again the file says he’s an orphan (when Hannibal realised, he felt like shit for the comments he made about Face’s ‘mom’ back in that first week) a foundling who grew up in various orphanages around LA. Is that what he was trying to get away from? Or was he just eager to strike out on his own? Hannibal is slightly concerned that this bothers him so. He really shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about it.

 

He finishes his scotch and sits up in his chair once more. But he can’t deny he pleased with the kid. Pleased that he listens to Hannibal, pleased he’s toned down the violence, is keeping his temper in check. It gives Hannibal a warm feeling to realise how far he’s coming with this kid and he thinks it all might just work out for the best.

 

However, no sooner is that thought in his head, then his peace is shattered by a sharp rap on the door. Hannibal glances up; good news never knocks like that and shouts, “Yes?”

 

The door opens and Hannibal’s chest tightens as Face is shoved in by two MPs. He’s fully dressed but soaked to the skin, wrists handcuffed together and battered and bruised all over.

 

“What the fuck?” Hannibal spits as Face keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the floor.

 

“One of yours sir?” the taller of the MPs asks and Hannibal nods tersely in reply. “Fighting, sir, in the shower block. Him and three from the visiting 3^rd Infantry. One has ended up in the Med unit.”

 

A fierce pain lances through Hannibal’s ribs at those words and he folds his arms tightly across his chest, feeling the disappointment swirl up inside him, “Fucking hell, Face... Really?”

 

Face doesn’t lift his eyes, “Yes, sir...”

 

All Hannibal’s hopes and expectations for this kid suddenly crash down around his ears. “Does nothing I ever say make the smallest bit of difference to you? Don’t you care that you are pissing a promising career down the drain?”

 

Face hangs his head in silence.

 

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

 

“Sorry sir?” Face looks genuinely confused which does nothing for Hannibal’s temper.

 

“Tonight, Face! In the shower block! What was so important that you felt the need to attack three of 3^rd Infantry’s finest?”

 

That old anger is back in Face’s eyes, “And how do you know it was me boss? How do you know I started it?”

 

That brings Hannibal up short, “You saying they attacked you, kid?”

 

Beat.

 

“No, sir…”

 

“So it /was/ you.”

 

Silence.

 

Suddenly Hannibal has had enough. He’s invested six months in this kid, worked hard to keep him on the right path, built up his self confidence, made sure he’s had a chance to get on and prove himself without Sanders in his face, and this is what he gets. Hannibal realises that some things will never change, it doesn’t matter what he says to this kid, what he does, Face will always do this, will always tip off the deep end for no real reason, disappoint him, let him down. And Hannibal can’t stand it. He wants, more than anything else in the world, for this kid to make something of himself, fulfil his massive potential. But now he realises its just not going to happen, and Hannibal doesn’t think he has the stomach to sit around and watch the carnage.

 

His voice is low and deadly, “I told you, you would only ever get one chance with me, kid. And now you’ve blown it.”

 

Face looks up, horror evident on his face, made all the more striking because of the dripping bloody nose and the swollen purpling eye.

 

“I’m not interested in you any more, you’re an arrogant little shit who only thinks of himself! Have you /any/ idea how much I’ve put on the line for you these last six months? How I have tied my reputation so tightly with yours? Don’t you see that when you fuck up, you not only drag yourself down, you drag your unit down with you?!” Hannibal’s eyes are blazing with fury. “I have other boys that I am responsible for, boys who do care about their job and their team and their reputations. Reputations that your casual disregard for the rules of this unit is destroying! Well, you’ve fucked up one time too many lieutenant. And I’ve been stupid enough to be taken in by your charm and your pretty face and the hope that you might just turn out to be something more than an unwanted little delinquent who’s just crawled out the gutter!”

 

Face is literally shocked into silence as he stares, eyes wide and horrified at his CO.

 

Hannibal looks to the MPs, “Take him to the stockade, boys, I’m finished with him.” Then he turns away.

 

For a second no one moves, even the MPs are a little taken aback by Hannibal’s vitriol, but within a moment they recollect themselves and reach out to haul Face away.

 

Face is starring at the back of Hannibal’s head, shock written all over him as he is dragged back towards the door. “Boss…” Hannibal is appalled at how pathetic he sounds, but he hardens himself against it, “Please…”

 

Hannibal doesn’t turn. “Get him out,” he barks at the MPs, “He’s dripping blood on the floor!”

 

Face stumbles as he is dragged towards the door, but Hannibal doesn’t even notice.

 

______________________

 

Three Days Later

 

Hannibal is at his desk again, all the paper work for Face’s court martial laid out in front of him. All it needs now is one more signature, one name signed on a line and that will effectively be the end of Face’s military career. He pauses and stares at the empty line.

 

Should he do this? Is that what the kid deserves?

 

Of course it is. He should have known better than to have got involved. Should have thrown him out after six weeks like he said he would.

 

But then he thinks of other times, the way the kid used to look at him like he was Jesus in khakis, the way his whole face used to glow when he smiled, he way he tilted his head to one side when he was really listening hard... the way he sounded as the MPs dragged him away...

 

Hannibal drops his head and rubs his eyes. Maybe it would be kinder to try and bump the kid onto another unit, there must be someone out there who can succeed where he has failed. But with a heavy heart he realises that that is just delaying the inevitable. McGrath was right, Hannibal is good with boys like this one, and if he can’t sort him out. Well...

 

He needs to face facts here. Face is a ticking time bomb, just waiting to blow. It’s only a matter of time before he loses his temper big style and kills someone; the last Hannibal has heard Pvt. Kaplinski, that boy from Third Infantry, is still in the Med Unit, three days after the fight in the shower block…

 

He picks up his pen.

 

The knock at the door interrupts him and he pauses, nib over the signature line as he calls, “Come in…”

 

The door swings slowly open and a young soldier walks in, Hannibal quickly takes in his bruised face and the arm in a sling before spotting the insignia of the 3^rd Infantry on his cap and quickly realises who this must be. He puts his pen down and rises to his feet, extending a hand across the desk. “Sit down son, you must be Private Kaplinski,”

 

The young Private nods and takes the seat offered to him, looking very much overawed to be in the office of the almost legendary Major Hannibal Smith.

 

“How can I help you?” Hannibal is polite but guarded. If this boy is here to make a complaint about Face then this is not how it is done. There are official channels for this and Hannibal doesn’t want to get into this conversation /at all/.

 

“It’s about the incident in the shower block the other night sir…” the Pvt. flushes bright red at this and Hannibal has to hold in his sigh of annoyance.

 

“Look son, this is not how we do things here. Any complaints you might want to make about Lt. Peck should be made in writing to-”

 

“No!”

 

Hannibal is cut short by the Pvt.’s  interruption and is stunned into silence.

 

“No, sir,” Pvt. Kaplinski amends flushing a deeper shade of red, “It’s not like that - I just need to tell you what happened. If that’s okay with you sir…”

 

Hannibal sighs again. He’s not really sure he needs to hear this, and he’s absolutely certain he doesn’t /want/ to. But then, well, it is going to court martial so Hannibal supposes it’s an unpleasant necessity. He sits back in his chair and nods at the Pvt. to continue.

 

Pvt. Kaplinski takes a deep breath, Hannibal can see him actually shaking, and then he starts to relate his story.

_______________________

 

Twenty minutes later Hannibal is walking into Face’s holding cell.

 

Face looks up from where he is laid on the cot and starts to drag himself up to attention. Hannibal is uncomfortably reminded of six months ago, in another holding cell, on the other side of the world… This time, however, Face never makes it to his feet, he sways as he stands and Hannibal reaches for him, grabbing his bicep with one hand and his shoulder with the other.

 

“Don’t...”

 

With lightening fast reactions, Face shoves him away, the heel of his hand painfully hard in Hannibal’s sternum. Hannibal lets go and Face falls, hitting the side of the cot with his ribs on his way down.

 

He lies on the floor, one arm resting on the wooden cot and Hannibal can see he is biting back the pain even though every breath is obvious agony.

 

He gives him a moment to catch his breath, he’s not going to make the mistake of trying to help again, and takes the chance to look his lieutenant over.

 

It’s not a pretty sight.

 

Face is wearing the same clothes he had on when he was hauled into Hannibal’s office three days ago. The dried blood all over the front of his t-shirt a reminder of his bloody nose; his eye, no longer swollen and purple but puffy and black, bruising spreading right down to meet a cut on his cheekbone.

 

He’s unwashed and dishevelled, three days of stubble over his face and Hannibal feels the uncomfortable wash of guilt sweep over him. He’s going to have strong words with the MPs. Surely prisoners have some basic rights to hygiene and medical attention? It’s obvious that no one has even looked at the injuries that Face sustained in the fight. It’s almost like they threw him in here and forgot about him.

 

A minute ticks by and Face manages to haul himself back onto the cot, pushing aside the rough woollen blanket that has been his only comfort for the last three days as he does so.

 

“At ease,” Hannibal tells him, not willing to force him into trying to stand again just yet, and he can see the relief on the kid’s face as he lets himself sag against the wall.

 

Hannibal moves to stand directly in front of him. “I’ve just had Pvt. Kaplinski in my office;” Face’s eyes shift up to meet his for the briefest of moments before they are back, glued to the floor. Hannibal lets out a long sigh, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what really happened in that shower block, kid?”

 

“I didn’t get much of a chance…” Face replies, the murderous tone to his voice clearly evident.

 

Hannibal is instantly transported back six months into the company of an angry and disaffected young man on the brink of being discharged from the army and it makes him realise what a colossal set back to them both this is. He’s been so concerned over the last few days dwelling on how Face has let him down, betrayed his trust, disappointed him, that it never even crossed his mind that maybe Face was feeling the exact same way. That maybe the CO who should have believed in him, given him a chance to explain himself, vouched for him, had instead turned on him violently, in an instant, and then threw him out.

 

He fears that all the progress Face has made, all the progress they have made together, is going to be wiped out by his one uncharacteristically rash reaction.

 

What is it about this kid that just pushes all his buttons?

 

He sits down on the cot, as far away from Face as possible and rubs a tired hand round the back of his neck, “In fairness, Face, I did ask you what happened and if I remember correctly you didn’t answer.”

 

“Wasn’t my story to tell,” Face mutters, sitting himself up a little straighter.

 

“Jesus, Face! That’s not a decision that you could make or Kaplinski could make! He was /raped/ by those motherfuckers for Christ’s sake, you knew that, you /saw/ it! It was your responsibility to do something about it!”

 

Face lifts his head to shoot a cold look at his CO, “I did do something about it…”

 

Hannibal exhales, “I’m not talking vigilante stuff here! You’re a goddammed officer; you should have done something official!”

 

“Those shits needed teaching a lesson. If I’d gone for the MPs by the time I got back it would have been all over and it would only have been their word against the Pvt.’s. Plus Kaplinski didn’t want it reporting, didn’t want everyone to know what they had done.”

 

“Right…” Hannibal is trying, really hard, to sit on his temper, “So a broken jaw and a few cracked ribs will teach them better then? They won’t just try it on Kaplinski again or some other poor sod just as soon as you are out the way?”

 

Face returns to looking at the floor as Hannibal takes a deep breath and lets it out, long and slow.

 

“Face… Kid,” he shakes his head, “You would have been out on a dishonourable discharge if Kaplinski hadn’t decided to man-up and do the right thing here.”

 

Face shrugs.

 

“That doesn’t bother you? You would lose your career? Your unit? Your friends? You would let me think that you had betrayed my trust all for the sake of some shit scared Private who would actually be better off if he told the truth?”

 

“It wasn’t my story to tell,” Face repeats.

 

Hannibal realises he’s getting nowhere and rises slowly to his feet. He stares at Face’s bent head for what feels like an eternity before he speaks.  “Come on…” he instructs, his voice tired.

 

Face looks up at him, “Where?”

 

“Back to your quarters of course, I need Piper to look you over, it seems like the motherfuckers got a couple of good cracks in themselves.”

 

Face doesn’t move. “But… what about the charges?”

 

Hannibal looks him in the eye, “There will be no charges kid. This is over as far as I am concerned.”

 

There’s a beat of silence.

 

“Unless you want to stay here?”

 

For a heart stopping moment, Hannibal thinks Face is going to take him up on that, but then he drops his gaze and struggles to his feet, one arm clamped around his ribs, and starts to shuffle towards the door.

 

Hannibal touches his shoulder as he passes, and Face stops, the anger and resentment in his expression plain to see as he meets Hannibal’s gaze. Regret tugs at his resolve, but Hannibal knows that regret is a useless emotion and they will just have to try and work through all this. Starting right now.  

 

“Never again Face…” he warns. “You need to be straight with me, you need to be honest with me. I can’t second guess your every move, you know.”

 

Face nods tersely and heads for the door.

 

As they walk in silence, heading out to find Piper, Hannibal thinks over those first impressions of Face yet again.

 

Reckless? Definitely.

 

But Selfish? No, certainly not. And that has almost been the kid’s undoing.

Part Five

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Part 5

..5..

 

Hannibal’s head is pounding and threatening to spilt wide open; he closes his eyes and opens them again, trying to persuade his fuzzy vision to clear so that he can assess just how much shit he is in. He’s kneeling in the damp jungle undergrowth, wrists fastened together and tied securely to a tree behind him. A quick physical inventory reveals that, apart from the pounding head, he’s in pretty good physical shape.

 

The same cannot be said about Bunter. Hannibal’s gut clenches unpleasantly as he takes in the still form of his XO slumped five meters or so to his left. He too is tied roughly to a tree, but his fatigues are soaked in blood, and insects swarm and buzz around him. His skin is pale, sweat standing out on his face, but Hannibal is relieved to see the slight rise and fall of his chest as he struggles for every laborious breath.

 

Hannibal lets his head fall back against the damp bark of the tree as he marshals his thoughts and tries to remember how he ended up here. He remembered the mission, kidnapped aid workers, one the nephew of some anonymous European royal, being held somewhere in the Cambodian rain forest. His team had been here two weeks, had located the hostages, Hannibal screws up his eyes as he tries to pin down the facts, yes, he’s sure they were all free, he’s sure they were retreating… So what went wrong?

 

His eyes open again as the details come back. Yes, they were retreating. Hannibal and Bunter were bringing up the rear when Bunter went down, shots in his thigh, and Hannibal went back to help him. And that’s all he’s got. He can’t remember any more, doesn’t know how he ended up tied to this tree with a monster headache, or what happened to the rest of the team or the hostages. He looks around the rainforest, but the foliage is too dense, he can’t see anyone else or any sign of human life anywhere around him, but it’s actually difficult to see more than three meters into the jungle in any direction.

 

He hopes that means that the others got away. Hopes they have enough sense to keep going and get the hostages to safety. Hopes Piper will keep the rest of his men focussed and moving in the face of this FUBAR. Sharkie, Jonno and Face are all very young, all very inexperienced, and Hannibal knows that Piper will struggle to keep them going, but the mission has to come first.

 

And he and Bunter? Well, they will bide their time, and take their chances when they come. But Hannibal is worried that his XO is just bleeding out all over the jungle and he knows that there is no way in hell, even if a chance to escape /does/ come his way, that he will be able to carry his injured companion for the three days it would take them to hike out of this shit hole. It’s not looking good.

 

At some point, Hannibal realises he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knows is snapping back into awareness as the sounds of crashing vegetation fill his consciousness. He bites back the panic and forces himself to relax, taking it all in, storing it all away. There are five of them, obviously the Khmer Rouge kidnappers and Hannibal can tell from their faces and body language, that at least some of his team and their charges have escaped.

 

Despite his own dire situation, he cannot contain the flare of joy that jumps in his chest. He thinks of Piper, Jonno and Sharkie, all excellent soldiers and excellent men. He hopes they make it back safe, they deserve it. And Face... Hannibal registers that strange little swooping feeling he gets in his chest every time he thinks about his lieutenant and tries to justify it as regret, of maybe a bit of guilt.

 

Ever since the incident in the shower block, Face has been a stranger to him. The friendship that was just starting to build between the two of them is gone, shattered by Face’s reluctance to trust his CO and Hannibal’s horrific over reaction. Hannibal shakes his head as the memory of his hastily conceived words burns in his mind. He’s been at a loss as to how he can fix this situation between him and Face, and now it appears that his time has run out. He wonders if Face will mourn the loss of a chance to repair their mistakes as much as he does...  

 

His dry throat tightens and he can’t suppress a cough. The kidnappers turn to him as one, two of their number rising from their crouched positions and making their way towards him across the little clearing. Hannibal can clearly identify the leader; he looks the most pissed off of the five, blood smeared all across his face and neck and a black bandana tied around his head. He spits at Hannibal and barks a couple of sentences out, but Hannibal doesn’t speak a word of Khmer, so contents himself with a smirk in reply.

 

The smirk earns him a sharp backhand across the face, making his head pound even harder and his ears ring. By the time his vision clears again, the guerrillas are huddled together at the far side of the clearing, muttering intently together. Hannibal watches them carefully, tries to learn from their body language what he can’t from their speech, and waits, with ultimate patience, for the one chance he will need to get free.

 

He is working his hands constantly, twisting, turning, trying to get just that little bit of freedom that he can work with, but so far nothing is helping. He’s still tightly bound, and so he forces himself to keep calm and keep trying.

 

The thick black jungle night comes and goes twice. Hannibal aches all over from sitting immobile for so long. At some point in the first dark night, he heard Bunter regain consciousness, somewhere off to his left, but Hannibal’s efforts to talk to his XO only resulted in them both being gagged. The gags are removed a few times a day and water poured into their mouths, but that is the only sustenance they have had. Hannibal supposes the water is a good sign. It means that the Khmer Rouge obviously want to keep them alive. But for how long? Hannibal hopes they may try and ransom their two US Army hostages. He knows that the Government will never agree to a ransom, but at least it means that they will be kept alive long enough for a rescue attempt to come.

 

And Hannibal knows it will. He knows that Piper will do the right thing, will get the hostages to safety and then will give the brass every scrap of information he has on Hannibal’s last known position. But it won’t be Piper or any of his team that comes for them, no, he’s almost certain of that. Someone else, Marines perhaps, will get the job. Piper and the others are far too inexperienced to do this on their own, and Hannibal is glad. He’s sick to the stomach with worry over Bunter at the minute without having to worry about any of his other boys.

 

But at the back of his mind Hannibal knows that none of that will happen if his team don’t make it back to base alive.

 

The guerrillas leave them alone for long stretches in the day. They are obviously content that their captives aren’t going anywhere soon and so disappear for hours at a time. Patrolling, Hannibal supposes, hoping against hope that their original hostages are somewhere close by, or maybe just paranoid that there are more Rangers out there, just waiting to come back for their buddies.

 

It’s late afternoon and they are alone in the clearing again. Hannibal is listening to Bunter’s ragged breathing and the assorted sounds of the rainforest when he hears a sound over to his right. His eyes flick into the foliage and within a minute he can just make out the outline of a man, creeping forward. His heart speeds up. This is definitely not one of his captors, they seem to have no fear of being seen or heard anywhere around this clearing, Hannibal can hear them coming for miles. This person, whoever it is, does not want to be noticed.

 

Hannibal drops his head, pretends to be asleep but keeps his eyes on the approaching figure. He’s moving stealthily, hardly making a sound now, and Hannibal is glad that Bunter is sleeping; hopefully it will keep his XO safe. The figure is right at the edge of the clearing and crouches, waiting, listening, watching. Long minutes pass, but suddenly the figure seems to decide it is safe. With one last glance around, he breaks free from the foliage and sprints across the clearing, dropping to Hannibal’s side and reaching up for the gag.

 

“Jesus, Christ, Face!” Hannibal’s voice is dry and scratchy, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

 

Face is grimy, his skin barely visible through the dirt and he stinks of sweat and rotting vegetation but an easy and natural smile breaks across his face. “Hey, boss, good to see you too. You miss me?”

 

His tone is flippant, but his eyes are deadly serious as his fingers skim over Hannibal in the gloom of the jungle, checking him out, lingering at the bloody mess of matted hair on the side of his head.

 

Hannibal is almost speechless. The thought had comforted him through his long vigil in the jungle, that his other boys, that /Face/, had got away, that he was safe. But now… He is almost thrown into a panic. “Where are the others?” he hisses, “What does Piper think he’s doing coming back here with the hostages?

 

Face reaches into his pockets and brings out a glucose bar, breaking it up and dropping the pieces into Hannibal’s mouth as he replies. “Piper’s not here. He took a whack with a machete on his head, should be okay but he’s badly concussed. Jonno and Sharkie are taking him back with the hostages. I moved out with them for a day then turned and headed back here.”

 

Hannibal swallows the chunks of glucose down, almost choking himself in his haste, “You came back alone?”  His incredulity is obvious, “I can’t believe Piper let you!”

 

Face glances up at his CO as he searches about in his pack bringing out a water bottle, “Told you boss, Piper’s really out of it. He’s not in charge. I am,” Hannibal opens his mouth to hiss his outrage but then the bottle of water is tipped in and he has to concentrate on drinking and not choking. He’s sure Face timed that to perfection.

 

Bunter moans slightly and Face glances over then back to Hannibal, “Listen, boss,” and this time Hannibal can see the fear in his eyes, the concentration, the determination, “I only have a minute here, those assholes are on their way back,” he lowers the bottle and scoots over to Bunter. “I just needed to check you both out, see how you were,” he’s running his fingers over his XO; frowning at the bloody mess his legs are in. He glances back at Hannibal, “You think you can walk?”

 

Hannibal nods and the relief is clear in the kid’s eyes. “Great, ‘cos Bunt here isn’t gonna…” Face has pulled a syringe from his pack and is busy shooting something into Bunter’s arm.

 

“Face…” Hannibal can hardly speak around the terror in his throat, “you need to get out of here, kid, you can’t do this, you shouldn’t have split from the others! There are five of them you know-”      

 

“Six,” Face interrupts, “They always leave one guy about two hundred metres south east of here, near the bridge over the river,” he’s shooting another syringe into Bunter’s arm.

 

Hannibal swallows his panic, “I am ordering you Lieutenant! You need to leave the area /immediately/ and regroup with-”

 

Suddenly Face is back, right up in Hannibal’s face, his lips so close that Hannibal can almost taste his words, “Hannibal, listen to me. They have been deciding what they are gonna do with you, I was happy to wait for reinforcements, you know, just watch and keep out the way, but,” he pauses and licks his lips nervously, “they’ve decided that it’s too risky to keep you, they’re gonna kill you both, tomorrow, as soon as their boss has had chance for a little ‘chat’, you know?” Hannibal knows. “That’s why I have to move in, can’t let them do that…”

 

He doesn’t move. He’s so close and Hannibal’s heart is pounding painfully against his ribs, “You could get killed…” he whispers.

 

Face doesn’t miss a beat, “Worth it to save you,”

 

They stare at each other.

 

“How do you know their plans?” Hannibal asks, breaking the intensity of the moment.

 

“I heard them discussing it,” Face is back to business, back over with Bunter, trying to drip water into his mouth.

 

“You speak Khmer?” Again the incredulous tone.

 

“Yeah,” Face throws over another easy grin, “I thought it might come in handy.”

 

Hannibal opens his mouth to speak, but both men freeze at the distant sounds of disturbed vegetation. “They’re back…” Face hisses, shoving the bottle in his pack and scrambling back towards his CO. He lifts the gag once more, pushing it into Hannibal’s mouth and Hannibal can feel his fingers, gentle but firm, smoothing the sides of the rag, making it lie flat, trying to make it as comfortable as he possibly can. “I’ll be back,” he whispers right into Hannibal’s ear, and then he is gone, melting silently into the jungle.

 

A couple of hours pass and the daylight is starting to fade. Hannibal has spent the last two hours almost thrumming with anxiety. It was bad enough that he had Bunter to worry about, but now there is Face as well, and that’s twice as bad. Face is so young, too young, and he’s rash, reckless and irresponsible. He never thinks ahead, never plans, never considers… He’s going to get them all killed…

 

But if he’s right, and the Khmer Rouge are going to kill them in the morning anyway, then what difference does it make?

 

Still the anxiety doesn’t fade, and at the back of his mind, Hannibal knows why. He knows that somehow and for some unfathomable reason, Face is working his way into the very fabric of Hannibal’s being. And if it were Face he has to watch die in a few short hours, he knows he’ll never be able to go on.

 

As it is, Hannibal doesn’t have to wait anywhere near as long as he had thought for Face to make his move. He had presumed his lieutenant would wait for the blackness of the jungle night, but it is still barely dark when he hears distant crashing in the undergrowth up ahead of the camp.

 

The guerrillas, who are crouched together eating, hear it too and leap to their feet, brandishing their guns and whispering frantically to each other. Hannibal’s’ blood turns to ice. What the hell is Face thinking of making such a racket? Hasn’t Hannibal taught him better than that? Surely he can remember even the basic rules of covert operations? He goes back to struggling against his bonds.

 

After much heated whispering and pointing, the guerrillas move out. Hannibal senses a movement beside him and looks round as Bunter blinks his tired and confused eyes in Hannibal’s direction. He struggles against the gag that Face had placed in his mouth and manages to spit it out, hissing at his XO through the darkness, “It’s Face, Bunt. He’s gonna try and get us out. Can you move?”

 

He sees the same shock on Bunter’s face that he is sure had been on his own when Face had turned up that afternoon, but his XO only nods and starts to struggle up into a sitting position. Hannibal turns his head towards the now silent jungle and continues the desperate wrestle with his bonds. If he can only get free then maybe he can help; maybe then Face won’t have to die out here in the jungle tonight.

 

Suddenly shots ring out in the night and Hannibal and Bunter exchange worried looks. Hannibal can hear screaming and shouting, and then an orange flare rises up in the gloom of the jungle in front of him. It’s so bright that Hannibal has to clamp his eyes shut, but even then he can still see it through his closed lids. The heat reaches his cheeks and he thinks that the whole damn rainforest is on fire but then it dies back to a dull glow and he realises that the gun fire and the shouting and the screaming have all stopped and his stomach heaves as he wonders if that means that Face is dead...

 

There’s no sign of the guerrillas as Hannibal writhes against his bonds for what feels like the hundredth time. He knows the skin around his wrists is torn, but he doesn’t care, he just needs to get free, he just needs to find Face. He looks over at Bunter and sees his eyes, wide and horrified, starring out into the jungle and Hannibal whips round to see where he’s looking.

 

A figure has crashed out of the foliage, the orange glow behind him making him a silhouette, the black outline of a machete standing out above his head. Hannibal’s’ struggles go into over drive, it seems the Khmer Rouge have decided not to wait till the morning to finish off their guests. As the figure gets closer, Hannibal realises that the cords on his wrists are never going to budge and so he leans backwards onto the small of his back, transferring all his weight off his legs, preparing to strike, drawing his feet off the ground. He can kick out pretty well from this angle; maybe even break the bastard’s neck. He tenses, waiting, if he’s going out, he’s sure as hell going to take some of them out with him...

 

“Move, boss, I need to cut those ropes...”

 

Hannibal’s breath catches in his throat as he recognises the voice and throws himself forward to give Face access to his wrists, “What happened?” he hisses, pain flaring and burning as Face yanks at his arms.

 

“All dead...” Face mutters and Hannibal can hear the cold and barely contained horror in his voice, “Blew the fuckers up...”

 

Hannibal groans in pain as he is at last released, and rolls onto his stomach in the mud. And that’s when he realises. Face hadn’t been crashing about in the jungle like an amateur. Oh, no, it was far more elegant than that. He’d set a trap, thought it through, drawn the guerrillas right where he wanted them. Clever little bastard. He drags himself up onto his knees just as Face crashes out of the jungle once more, this time pulling a homemade litter behind him; he drops it down next to Bunter and starts dragging him onto it, ready to move out.

 

Never thinks ahead? Never plans? Never considers?

 

Looks like Hannibal might have been wrong again... 

Part Six

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Part 6

..And 1..

 

It feels strange to be back Hannibal muses as the jeep drops him at his quarters. He allows the driver to bring his kit bag in, returns the sharp salute and then he is alone. He’s been away three weeks, bit of medical leave after the almost disastrous Cambodia job. By the time he, Face and Bunter had reached the pickup point that Face and Jonno had planned together, Hannibal had been on the verge of collapse.

 

But after a week he’d felt fine, it was good to have a bit of R&R and a chance to visit Bunter whose leg was still in a bad way, but since then he’s just been desperate to get back to his boys.

 

He wanders over to his desk and starts flicking through the envelopes and memos waiting for his attention. He needs to head over and see his boys just as soon as he can. He’s always proud of them, but what they all did on that last mission... proud just doesn’t seem to cover it. Sharkie and Jonno got all the hostages out safely, just about carried Piper most of the way between them. And Face... Hannibal shakes his head, well, he and that kid certainly need to have a conversation. It’s about time Face learns what Hannibal /really/ thinks about him.

 

The name on a memo catches his eye and he picks it off the pile and scans through it, his eyes darkening with every word. Suddenly his good mood evaporates. The memo is crumpled up in his fist as he throws his beret down onto the desk and storms out of the door.

 

Hannibal is pacing. He hates been made to wait and he is sure that this is a deliberate strategy just to try and piss him off. He reaches the wall of the office and spins on his heel again facing the door. Five more minutes, he fumes, five more minutes and he’s going to go looking for that son of a bitch himself. But then the door swings open and Colonel Sol Sanders strolls in, beaming at Hannibal as he does.

 

“Smith! Glad to hear you are up and about again,” his false smile is replaced by a look of false concern instead, “Heard about the SNAFU that was Cambodia...” he shakes his head, “you must be losing that golden touch of yours...”

 

Hannibal ignores the blatant dig, he’s got far more important things to sort out here, “Cut the crap, Sanders,” he growls, “what the fuck do you think you are doing poaching my lieutenant like that?”

 

Sanders raises his eyebrows, “Your lieutenant? Hmm, I think you may have your facts a little confused here Smith. It seems that in your reluctance to let him into your exclusive boys-own adventure club, you never actually got around to completing the necessary paper work.” Sanders smiles his thin and snarky smile again, “So it appears that he never actually joined your unit at all Smith. He’s mine and he always has been.”

 

There is something in Sanders’ tone that sets Hannibal’s nerves on edge but he can’t quite place what. “You were eager enough to get rid of him before though.”

 

Sanders shrugs, “I didn’t think he’d last. Thought you’d run out of patience with him soon enough and they he would either be out, or back with me.”

 

Hannibal narrows his eyes, “And why is that so important then? Why do you care where he is?”

He sees Sanders tense, “You said it yourself, Smith, he’s a cancer, spreading through this army, poisoning everything he touches. And like a cancer he needs destroying. Cutting into little pieces and disposing of, and I am the one to do it...”

 

Hannibal’s chest tightens. He’s never liked Sanders, always thought he was an idiot, but now he’s beginning to wonder if he’s not actually a little unhinged...

 

He shakes his head and tries to calm the situation down a notch, “Sol,” his tone is placating, “he’s just a boy. Sure he’s made mistakes, but who hasn’t? But he’s coming on, making great progress, and he’s got shit loads of potential.”

 

“Ah!” Sanders draws himself up to his full height, eyes flashing dangerously, “I see what’s happened here, never would have put you down as being such an easy mark Smith...”

 

“What?”

 

“Got you good and proper hasn’t he? What did he do? Shake his ass in your face in the field? Or just get on his knees and blow you one night after a job?”

 

Hannibal’s eyes widen, “You have got to be kidding me...”

 

“No... I can see it in your eyes. That boy is a born whore, /that’s/ the only thing he’s good at and he’s obviously using it to keep you on a pretty short leash here!”

 

Hannibal opens his mouth to protest, but suddenly everything clicks into place, “He’s refused you.”

 

It’s Sanders’ turn to frown, “What?” he exclaims, “I don’t know what you are on about Smith! I-”

 

Hannibal steps forward and jabs his finger in Sanders’ chest, “You made a move on him back in Basic Training and he blew you off didn’t he? Told you where to go, told you he wasn’t interested...”

 

Sanders takes a step back, his mouth open like a fish, “I-” but Hannibal follows him.

 

“And that’s why you’ve been out to get him ever since, making his life a fucking /misery/, tracking him every step of the way, kicking him every chance you got, turning everyone else against him!” Hannibal is furious, “And for what? Because he dented your fucking ego?!”

 

Hannibal’s finger is still jabbing into Sanders’ chest and Sanders swipes it away, leaning right into Hannibal’s face, “I am his Commanding Officer...” he hisses, “and he needs to follow my orders whether he wants to or not! He doesn’t get to pick and choose which orders he follows and which he doesn’t, he does them all, whenever and wherever I want! That’s what he is here for, that’s all he’s good for, and if he has decided that he’s not going to do it anymore... then I will destroy him!”

 

“You’re so wrong,” Hannibal holds his stare, “That’s /not/ all he’s good for at all. You’re the one who’s been taken in here, you’ve never looked further than his pretty face to see what he’s capable of inside. He’s smart and he’s brave. He follows his convictions, is loyal and tenacious. He can think on his feet, roll with the punches, he never gives up and he’ll never back down. He’s got skills in the field that make you look like a boy scout and if he has decided that he’s not gonna follow your perverted, deviant orders, then it just shows that the kid’s got higher standards than you as well. And /you/ could have had him!” Hannibal stabs his finger back into Sanders’ chest, “Not on his knees in your office with a court martial hanging over his head, you could have had him follow you, respect you, fucking /die/ for you if you’d handled him right! All that kid’s ever wanted is someone to look up to, someone to follow, someone who gives the tiniest fuck about him as a person, and that could have been /you/, you fucking halfwit!”

 

They stare at each other as Hannibal makes a concerted effort to calm down, “But you’ve missed your chance, Sol, ‘cause he’s /not/ yours anymore he’s mine. And I get to lead him, and I get to nurture him, and I get to see what a fucking superb man he’s going to be, while /you/ get to fuck off out of his life and leave him the hell alone!”

 

For one brief moment it seems that Sanders is out of ideas, but then the tiniest hint of a smile plays over his lips, “Well, that’s all good and pretty Major Smith...” he hisses, “But you seem to have forgotten that I outrank you here. And if I say the boy is mine, then he’s mine and I am going to have fun tearing him up, tiny piece by tiny piece until he is begging to get back in my bed and save himself. And /you/,” this time the finger is in Hannibal’s chest, “can do nothing about it!”

 

Hannibal’s eyes are cold and hard as he catches hold of Sanders’ finger in an iron grip, “That would be exactly the case,” he whispers, “had I not just got my eagles. It seems to me that the brass didn’t quite share your low opinion of the Cambodia job. And since I have, I reckon that makes us equal.”

 

Sanders recovers from his shock well and opens his mouth to speak, but Hannibal is too quick for him, “And before you even consider suggesting that you might want to hang on to the kid anyway, let me give you a word of advice here,” Hannibal makes sure his fist is twisting Sanders’ finger just enough to make it uncomfortable, “I’ve heard a lot of things today that have concerned me. Maybe enough to start asking around, talking to some of the boys, seeing what they tell me about your ‘orders’.”

 

He can see the beginnings of fear on Sanders’ face, “Is that what you want, Sol? Me poking around your sordid little past here?”

 

Sanders doesn’t respond. “Well, that’s exactly what you are gonna get if you come near my boy again, or if I hear that you have been making life hard for some other poor kid fresh out of college. Do you understand that?”

 

Sanders is obviously livid, but he knows that Hannibal has got him so he nods, one terse, furious nod and Hannibal steps back.

 

They stare at each other for the briefest of moments, each wishing the other into hell before Hannibal turns away. “I’m watching you Sanders...” he warns as he stalks to the door. He slams the handle down and yanks the door open, preparing to storm out, but freezes. There’s a soldier out in the corridor, standing right outside the door. Fair hair and blue eyes, a movie star’s face but with a soldier’s expression...

 

Hannibal is struck by the most powerful sense of déjà-vu as his eyes meet his lieutenant’s, but Face’s expression is a world away from that simmering fury Hannibal had witnessed almost a year ago now. He’s never seen the kid look so open, so vulnerable and so undone. He’s starring at Hannibal with wet eyes, looking like he’s going to crumple up at any moment, and all because, for the first time in his life, he’s heard somebody defend him, and praise him and talk about him as if he’s actually /worth/ something, and knowing that almost breaks Hannibal’s heart.

 

He reaches out and grips Face’s shoulder, making sure they have direct eye contact and smiles at his lieutenant, “I meant every damn word kid. I’ve never been as wrong about anyone as I was about you and I’m glad you stuck around long enough to show me,” he glances back over his shoulder to where Sanders is glaring at them with barely disguised venom, and then back to Face, “You ready to go now, kid?”

 

Face nods, and without another backward glance, they leave.

Part Seven

First Impressions - Hannibal & Face - Epilogue

Epilogue

Time ticks on and in the three weeks since Hannibal returned to active duty he has been amazed by the change in Face. For a start, it’s the first time since he’s been in the unit that he actually looks happy. It doesn’t matter if they are going over the assault course in the pissing rain or up for a 5am run, he’s always cheerful, always smiling and it warms Hannibal from the heart.

 

Every day he is proving to Hannibal just what a damn fine soldier he is and what a damn fine leader he is going to make. Hannibal can see that he is thinking before he acts now. Maybe not always, and maybe he doesn’t always make the right choices, but it’s there and its coming and Hannibal is just so damn proud of him.

 

The friendship is coming as well, and Hannibal is pleased about that – even if he has realised he will always want just that little bit more. But he is nothing if not realistic and patient. Maybe it will come, maybe it won’t, but either way he’s enjoying things just as they are for the minute.

 

It’s a Saturday night with a rest day tomorrow, very rare and the boys are keen to make the most of it. They have arranged a Casino trip, but Hannibal just isn’t in the mood. He’s sent them off on their own for the night with his eye on a bottle of wine, some relaxing music and a good book. He can’t remember the last chance he got to do that.

 

The chance doesn’t materialise tonight either. Just as he is flicking through his meagre book stock, trying to decide which one to revisit tonight, there’s a knock at his door, and there is Face, with beer, popcorn and a crummy VHS. Hannibal answers his lieutenant’s grin and they settle down to watch the film.

 

They’re about half way through possibly the worst action film Hannibal has ever seen when he decides he wants some answers. He glances over at Face, reclined in the chair alongside him, one foot resting next to his other knee, bowl of popcorn nestled on his lap and he feels that weird pull in his chest again.

 

Face feels his stare and turns, flashing a quick grin and holding out the bowl, “Popcorn boss?” he offers.

 

Hannibal looks at him, really looks at him, trying to work out what’s in his head and its enough to make the kid’s grin falter and die just a bit, “Boss?”

 

Hannibal fixes him with his stare, “Why didn’t you tell me about Sanders?”

 

It’s not what Face is expecting and he lets the bowl drop back to his lap, turning away from his CO and starring at the TV with empty eyes.

 

“Face?”

 

“I dunno...” he eventually mumbles.

 

“I think you do...”

 

Face turns to look at him again and his look is clearly saying, ‘Are we really doing this boss? Really? You sure?’ so Hannibal nods.

 

He sighs and turns back to the screen and Hannibal is content to wait, he knows he’ll answer now and eventually he does.

 

“You wouldn’t have believed me. You’d have thought I was a liar or a whore...” The answer is only what Hannibal expected, but there is so much misery in his voice that he wants to strangle Sanders again for about the tenth time in three weeks.

 

He takes a breath, “Maybe at the beginning,” he admits, “but afterwards? Once you’d been with the unit a few weeks? Couldn’t you have told me then?”

 

Face has given up on the TV now, and is stirring the popcorn absently with one long finger. He looks thoroughly miserable and Hannibal feels bad for doing this to him, but it’s important, vitally so. He needs to know what’s going on in that head.

 

“I dunno...” Face repeats eventually, “I mean, I’m not getting at you here Hannibal, but, well, why would you believe me?” He looks up to meet Hannibal’s eyes, but his features are hidden in the half light of the room. “I mean Sanders isn’t stupid, when he told me to wait outside McGrath’s office that day you were all talking about me,” Hannibal feels the shame heat his cheeks, “he wasn’t just wanting to kick my ego, he wanted me to know how badly you thought of me, wanted me to know that you already thought I was a cheat and a liar...” Face looks back at the popcorn, “He didn’t want me to go to you, he was worried that I would tell, so he made sure I knew how futile that would be, that I was alone again before I’d even gone...”

 

Hannibal feels equal parts desperate and furious. Sanders is not going to get away with this. Face may well be safe now, but there are other kids out there that need protecting from this scumbag. He looks over and Face is staring into the popcorn, obviously a million miles away, and somewhere not too nice either judging by the look on his face...

 

Hannibal knows he needs to ask his next question, this is the one that has really been needling him, the answer he needs while he is plotting Sanders’ downfall. He takes a deep breath.

 

“Face...”

 

Face seems to cringe, it’s almost like he knows what is coming.

 

“While I was away... Did he... Sanders...” he forces himself to get a grip, “Did he touch you kid, while I was away?”

 

Face seems to slump into himself and Hannibal looks away, not trusting himself to keep a hold on his temper if he has to look at the kid at this point.

 

“I’m sorry, Hannibal...” And Hannibal’s stomach twists, it’s going to be every bit as bad as he dreaded; his elbow is propped on the arm rest of the chair and he lets his head falls into it.

 

“I’m sorry...” Face repeats and the edge of desperation to his voice is almost more than Hannibal can bare. “I just didn’t see another way, he had me cornered. The last time I said no, he set me up, planted some dope in my stuff, called it in, we were searched and that was it. Got a few of the boys to say I was dealing. Dealing boss, Jesus I would never do that...” Hannibal’s free hand is balled into a fist as he wills himself to stay calm. “And then when I was in deep shit, he said he would help me out if I... well... you know...”

 

Hannibal can feel the kid blushing, feel his utter mortification. Face takes an audible deep breath, “So I did. I didn’t want to get chucked out, not then, and I certainly didn’t want to go to prison for dealing... But... Oh, god, Hannibal, I hated every fucking second of it...” Hannibal’s silent fury kicks up another notch.

 

There’s a long pause as they both try to get themselves back together before Face continues, his voice flat and emotionless now, “So I thought if I fucked up enough, I’d get bumped off his unit, sent somewhere else where he couldn’t get to me, but it didn’t work, ‘cause the bastard was there wherever I went. It was just getting to the point when I couldn’t stand it when I got sent to you...”
 
Hannibal fills in the blanks himself, how Face would have turned up, full of hope, knowing from Hannibal’s reputation that he would be finally free of Sanders, but then... he’d heard what Hannibal had said about him in McGrath’s office, and all that hope would have been crushed. Hannibal’s stomach twists with guilt. No wonder he’d pulled that disappearing act on his first week in Hannibal’s unit – he’d probably just about reached the end of his rope.

 

“Anyway... as soon as we got back from Cambodia, as soon as you had gone, he was back. Told me he’d pull the dope stunt again. All that stuff is still on my file boss, you must have seen it,” the desperation is back and Hannibal’s fury is rising again, “he’d get me thrown out, just when things are starting to go right, and all I could think was that you’d know I’d fucked up again and I didn’t know when you were back, and I asked around and no one did, and I knew that if Sanders set me up again no one would believe me, and... I just didn’t know what to do... and...”

 

Hannibal’s fingers are cramping with the force of his clenched fists.

 

“I know I’ve let you down. I’m so sorry boss...”

 

And that does it. Hearing his boy, his smart, brave, happy  boy, sounding so broken and empty just snaps something inside him. Sanders is going to pay for this. Right fucking now. He’s up on his feet before he knows it and out of the door. His furious steps take him right round to the mess hall before the red mist clears enough to let him think and he stops. This isn’t the right way to deal with this and he knows it, but there is no way on earth he is going to let the bastard get off scot free. He leans against the wall of the mess and takes deep breaths, trying to straighten his head and think clearly.

 

He won’t ask around, but he’ll have a look at the boys in Sanders’ unit, he must have someone else lined up to fill the gap left by Face, and Hannibal is fairly sure he’ll be able to guess which one. And then he will watch and wait and bide his time and catch the fucker with his pants down and then he’ll get a one way ticket back to civilian life. Hannibal closes his eyes as he feels the rage drain away. Yes, that’s a plan, a good plan, and much more effective than just beating seven tonnes of shit out of him tonight. Tempting as that may be.

 

He’ll have to be careful though, not to let Face get wind of what he is planning. There is no way he wants Face to come within one hundred meters of Sanders ever again in his life, so it’s imperative the kid is kept in the dark. Speaking of which... Hannibal stands up from the wall, it’s time he was back, he’s got the second half of that crappy action movie to watch.

 

He walks slowly back, he wants to make sure all the anger is left behind him and when he pushes open the door to his quarters he hears the TV still playing loudly in the corner. He glances over to the chair where Face was sitting and frowns, it’s empty. With a shrug he picks up his beer can and takes a swig, kid’s probably gone for a piss or something, but then his eyes fall on the spilt beer and upended popcorn all over the floor and a chill settles into his bones. Hannibal thinks back to their conversation, Face’s admission, the guilt in his voice... and the way Hannibal flew out of the room. He’s back out of the door in a second.

 

Bursting into the boys’ quarters he sees Face at once, standing over his cot, stuffing clothes hurriedly into his kit bag. “Oh, no you don’t kid,” he murmurs to himself and in three strides he’s right behind him. “Face, stop, listen to me here,” He grabs Face’s shoulders and turns him round, stopping mid sentence when he sees the tears streaking down his cheeks.

 

“Oh, hell, kid, I’m sorry!” and he pulls him in, folding him into his chest, one hand on his shoulders, the other sliding up to the back of his head, cradling him in, feeling the tears against his neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again, “It wasn’t you, it’s never you, I was just so pissed with Sanders I couldn’t think straight...”

 

But he doesn’t even think Face is listening. His own arms have come up around Hannibal’s back and he’s holding on so tightly that it hurts, sobbing into his CO’s neck, his words coming out in a garbled rush.

 
“I shouldn’t have told you; I know you won’t want me anymore, he told me you wouldn’t want me and I tried not to believe him, but he’s right. I gave in so easily ‘cause that’s what I am, just easy, and I know you expect better and now you’ll want me to leave and I will and-”     

 

“Face!” Hannibal grabs him, one hand under his chin, one hand on the side of his head, “Stop! Now!” And Face stops, tears running freely down his cheeks, quiet desperation on his features and Hannibal does what he’s wanted to do since the very first time he saw him standing outside McGrath’s office a year ago and leans in to kiss him.

 

For a second he thinks he’s made a horrendous mistake as Face is still and silent against him, but then with a delightful breath that’s almost a gasp, Face surges forward, his arms going up and around Hannibal’s shoulders and neck again, drawing him in, pulling them closer.

 

Hannibal lets his own hands move, sweeping around Face’s broad shoulders, tangling in his hair, stroking his neck and Face’s tongue moves to stroke the roof of his mouth in reply. A ridiculous moan is pulled from his lips as he feels Face lean into him, flattening his body into Hannibal’s hard frame, pushing, pushing closer and closer; finding that some parts of his boss’s anatomy are harder than others...

 

Instantly Face pulls back and Hannibal is left startled and bereft, wondering if he has made the wrong move after all, but then he is shocked back to awareness by Face’s hands on his fly, tugging it down, clever fingers working their way inside Hannibal’s khakis, trunks, until he finds... Jesus... And then he’s on his knees at Hannibal’s feet, and Hannibal is looking down on him in some kind of lust filled daze and then...

 

“No!” Hannibal pushes him away, so suddenly and so violently that Face ends up on his backside on the floor, his mouth, framed by kiss-red lips, open in shock, his eyes wide.

 

“Oh, god...” his voice is hoarse, “I’m sorry, boss, I’m sorry, I thought...”

 

But Hannibal doesn’t let him finish. This time he is the one on his knees between Face’s legs, hands firm on his lieutenant’s biceps.

 

“I’m not Sanders...” Hannibal rasps, blue eyes locking onto blue. “I want you kid, more than I can ever remember wanting anyone ever before, but not like that,” he gestures down at his still open fly, “You are worth so much more than a quick blow job on your knees, don’t you see that yet?”

 

Face can only blink at him.

 

“If we’re doing this, and I hope to God we are, we’ll do it properly okay?”

 

Still Face can only stare.

 

Hannibal reaches out with one, gentle finger and traces the salty track left by a tear, “I’m not taking anything from you that you wouldn’t freely give. I’m not expecting anything from you that I won’t give in return. Your days of sucking cock and taking it up the arse to order are over, kid. Nothing happens unless it’s what you want. Okay?”

 

He waits. He knows Face will answer; he just needs a bit of time.

 

“Boss...?” but there’s nothing but confusion all over his face, “I don’t know what...” he shakes his head.

 

 “I’m asking you if you want to come to bed with me. Not just tonight, but for the foreseeable future. And not just the sex but...” and now Hannibal runs out of words, even he isn’t sure what he wants here.

 

“Sanders said-”

 

“I don’t fucking care what Sanders said!” Hannibal explodes, “Listen to what I am saying!” He takes a breath, “None of that shit with Sanders bothers me. I want you. Now it’s your call, kid... do you want me?”

 

Hannibal’s heart is thumping against his chest. He’s never exposed himself like this before. Ever. And it’s fucking freaking him out. But suddenly Face smiles; through his tears and his red eyes the smile blooms like a sunrise and Hannibal feels it in his heart and his groin.

 

“Oh yes boss, you’d better fucking believe it.”

 

And Hannibal smiles back, “Well, let’s go then...”

 

Within ten minutes they are back in Hannibal’s quarters, leaving the TV to play to itself and heading straight for the bedroom. It takes no time at all until they are both naked, and Hannibal can’t believe how this evening has turned out. Never in his wildest imaginings would this conclusion have come so soon, so easily. But then he sees the left over salty tracks of tears on his boy’s face and he realises maybe there was a price after all. He leans in and tastes those tracks with his tongue, gently trailing down and kissing Face’s jaw, feeling him shudder under the touch. Then Face kind of ducks, and Hannibal is confused for a second before he realises that he was going to drop to his knees again. He’s managed to stop himself this time, but now he is standing looking slightly awkward, ashamed of his nakedness and unsure what comes next. Hannibal’s heart clenches as he realises that Face just doesn’t know what to do. All of his sexual encounters have obviously involved him on his knees giving head, and since he knows that’s not what Hannibal wants, he’s lost.

 

Hannibal reaches out and places his hand against his slightly stubbled cheek, watching with a smile as Face closes his eyes and leans into his touch.

 

“You done this with any man other than colonel dick head, son?” He doesn’t even like bringing it up, but he needs to know.

 

To his relief, the slightest smile drifts across Face’s expression, “A few...” and Hannibal’s cock jumps at the obvious lust in his voice, “But no one who’s ever...” he doesn’t finish, and Hannibal doesn’t need him to. That’s enough information right there to let him know that Face has been a quick fuck for every man he’s been with. A pretty toy to take however they like. Tonight is going to be very different.

 

He leans in again, tiny kisses to his boy’s face, the corner of his lips, the corner of his eyes, the tip of his nose, his forehead and while he kisses he whispers the rules for the night so that they are both clear. “Tonight... is... about ... you... then...” Face’s eyes are still closed but Hannibal can almost see his heart pounding under his ribs, “I... want... you... to ...fuck me...”

 

At that point Face’s eyes flick open, their pupils blown wide, hardly any blue visible and Hannibal can’t suppress another smile at his expression.

 

“You like the sound of that kid? You want to fuck me?”

 

And this time he sees his cock jump at the words and he can’t resist letting his hand drift down and wrap around that hot, smooth flesh.

 

“Ah... Hannibal...” Face’s head has dropped down and Hannibal feels that thrill of lust rush through him knowing that his lieutenant is watching Hannibal fist him, “I’ve never...” he trails off into a gasp as Hannibal palms the shining head of his cock.

 

“I know you haven’t kid,” Hannibal has to suppress his own gasp as Face’s hand reaches down to mirror his own, “and to tell you the truth...” and it’s hard to talk at all now, watching those long fingers around his length, right next to his own hand doing the same to Face, “I’ve never let anyone before.” Face’s eyes snap up once again and they lock together, “Thought we could have that first time together...?” And he feels ridiculous and open and vulnerable again and wonders just what the hell he is doing giving this kid this much information, this much power over him.

 

But then it’s all okay because Face just seems to surge forward and he’s suddenly in Hannibal’s arms, kissing him with an enthusiasm which literally knocks them both onto the bed, and Hannibal really doesn’t mind as Face’s weight on him as it just grinds their cocks together so hard and it’s all just perfect.

 

There’s a tangle of limbs and mouths and heated flesh and Hannibal thinks he’s died and gone to heaven, but then Face is above him, pushing his thighs open and flicking his tongue over the inside of his legs and then the curve of his arse, and then his balls and Hannibal almost shouts out at that, and then he’s lifting one of Hannibal’s legs and lining himself up and Hannibal has to reach out and stop him with one hand while the other roots around in his bedside table.

 

He’s watching Face carefully as he reaches for the lube; the last thing he wants is to knock his confidence, and so he plainly registers the look of confusion and then dawning realisation that sweeps through Face’s expression as he sees what’s in Hannibal’s hand. Those expressions tumbling across the kid’s face tell him an entire story on their own and yet again Hannibal feels a surge of murderous rage towards anyone who has ever used his boy in such a cavalier way.

 

And then Face takes the tube and a frown clouds his face; he looks up, “Half empty boss...?” and the hurt is clear in his voice, “you do this often then?”

 

Hannibal sits up, hands immediately framing his lieutenant’s face, “Not in six years kid,” he shrugs, “makes it easier on your own, that’s all...”

 

Face seems to weigh his words up for a moment, before his smile is back and he is pushing Hannibal down onto the mattress, “Well, we’d better do something about that then, huh?”

 

And then they are back to where they were, hands and tongues and fingers and heat... and then there’s the cold thrill of the lube and he can feel Face’s finger tip, probing, gently, almost hesitantly and Hannibal needs more than that, “Just do it...” he whispers, his voice raw with lust.

 

It seems to be all Face needs to give him the confidence to do just that, and Hannibal has to bite down on his wrist as he is breached in one smooth motion by one finger, and then very quickly by another.

 

“Like this, boss?” and now he is stretching and scissoring and Hannibal vaguely registers what a quick learner he is before there’s another finger and he finds himself grinding down as Face brushes against his prostrate.

 

“Yeah...” it’s all he can manage.

 

“Are you ready for me?” Face’s voice is strained and heavy and it’s clear he’s more than ready for Hannibal.

 

“Yeah.”

 

And then the fingers are gone and Hannibal is left feeling cold and empty before he looks down and sees Face lining himself up once more. The look of concentration on the kid’s face is just adorable but before Hannibal even has the chance to berate himself for sounding like such a girl, the air is forced out of his lungs as Face bears down and pushes the head of his cock through the tight ring of muscle.

 

Hannibal throws his head back into the pillow, “Oh, god...” and he feels Face starting to pull back. “No!” His hand reaches out but Face is too far away to touch, so he lifts his leg instead, pulling a knee up to his chest, making access easier, “Don’t stop...” he whispers, “keep going...”

 

Face pushes back in, “Fuck, boss, that’s so tight...” he’s moving forward all the time, creeping in millimetre by millimetre and Hannibal looks up, holding his eyes as he edges in, and it is, hands down, the hottest thing he has ever seen in his life.  

 

“Christ, Face, you are so beautiful...” and he is. The sweat standing out on his forehead and his arms trembling as he tries to hold himself back. His eyes, bright blue around the blown irises, fixed on his boss as he fills him completely, and then he’s in.

 

He almost collapses against Hannibal’s chest as he stops and Hannibal can tell from his breathing that he is holding back, trying to calm himself down, determined he’s not going to come just yet and so Hannibal lets him wait, stroking the back of his head, but he’s desperate for some movement.

 

Eventually it comes. Face lifts himself up a bit and offers a shaky grin at Hannibal and then draws back, before sliding straight back in again.

 

“Jesus...”

 

“Fuck...”

 

They laugh together and then Face does it again and its suddenly not so easy to laugh as the heat starts to build. Face is still taking it slowly, one long pull out and one long push in and its fucking incredible, but not what Hannibal wants. “Faster...” he growls as Face reaches the end of a pull back and Face’s hips seem to respond automatically, snapping back in faster and harder than before, “Oh, yes...”

 

And that undoes him completely, Hannibal can tell the exact second he loses control and its the most incredible thing ever. Hannibal’s hands fist in the sheets, the blankets, the pillows as Face drives into him over and over again, eyes locked on his boss’ face the entire time.

 

But soon even that isn’t enough and Hannibal is pushing back into him, meeting him thrust for thrust, pulling obscene moans from both their mouths. And then, as Hannibal’s hips rise, Face meets his prostrate head on and his arm is in his mouth again, stifling a shout.

 

“You like that?” Face is breathing hard. “If I do it like this? Is that right?”

 

Hannibal can only arch his back into the thrusts and throw his head back against the pillows, chewing his arm to keep the noise down.

 

“Jesus, boss, this is fucking incredible...”

 

It’s obvious that Face hasn’t got long left in him, and Hannibal himself is bathed in sweat, his legs cramping up and he’s struggling to keep his knee up. Face seems to read his mind and grabs hold of his slipping knee, pulling it back up and resting his calf on his shoulder, before slipping his hand down and grabbing Hannibal’s cock.

 

“Come on, boss...” his thrusts are getting erratic, “I need to see you come for me...”

 

And that just finishes him off, as Face nails his prostrate again and again and works his cock frantically, he comes hard and fast, spilling all over his stomach and his boy’s hand.

 

“Oh, fuck...!” and that’s the only warning he gets before Face comes as well, and he feels the strangest sensation of fluid warmth filling him inside and he knows it’s a feeling he wants again and again.

 

Then Face collapses on top of him and Hannibal brings his arms up to go around him and they lay still, hearts pounding, sweat cooling and the smell of semen all around them.

 

Face tries to slide off him, but Hannibal holds him still.

 

“I must be crushing you boss...” Face’s voice is sleep-slurred and it brings a smile to Hannibal’s face. He shifts to one side and lets Face slip onto the mattress next to him.

 

“Okay kid?”

 

“Fucking fantastic, boss...” he cracks open an eye, “you?”

 

“Never been better...”

 

“You want another go?” and Hannibal smiles again because, right now, there’s nothing Face looks less likely of achieving.

 

“Go to sleep...”

 

“Am I okay to stay here?”

 

Hannibal clenches his jaw as he imagines who in their right mind would ever throw Face out of their bed, but he just leans over and kisses him on the top of his head, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

And that seems to be all Face needs to know as within thirty seconds he’s breathing slowly and steadily, his head on Hannibal’s shoulder, arm and leg thrown across his torso, looking like he’s about nineteen, and for all Hannibal knows, he probably is.

 

Hannibal looks over to his jacket, laid across the chair at the end of the bed and thinks of the cigars in the pocket. He really could murder a cigar right about now, but he’s sure as hell not going to move. He slips his arm around Face’s shoulder and the kid snuggles in a bit more and Hannibal knows that this is all going to work out just fine.