Lost - Part Five
Sep. 8th, 2011 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsDespite the lack of food Face had consumed over the past few days, he found that his appetite deserted him once he was sat at the table with the others. He nibbled at a slice of pizza and sipped his beer and let the others talk around him, conversation exactly as it would have been if Face hadn't just spent the last few days being beaten and raped by some psychopath with a grudge against the boss. For some reason, he found that quite hard to reconcile in his head. But he didn't let it show. He lay back in his seat and ignored the pain that wracked his body, he smiled in all the right places and laughed at all the jokes and felt he had done a pretty good job at fooling them all.
But of course he hadn't, they knew him far too well for that, but, just like Hannibal, Murdock and BA decided that if that was the way he wanted to handle it, then they would play along, see where it led them.
As the night wore on, Hannibal grew more and more concerned by Face. The kid was obviously in severe denial mode, and while that might always be his favoured coping strategy, they both knew only too well that it was effective in the short term only. So where did that leave them two months down the line when denial was no longer an option? Hannibal balked at the fallout they would have to face at that point.
And he'd been so close to opening up before, after the shower, when his eyes were red rimmed and shining, and his expression so lost, Hannibal was sure another few minutes would have seen that shell crack and maybe they could have achieved a little acceptance and a little healing. But then BA had shouted from downstairs, he'd been listening to the police radio and wanted Hannibal to know that Jefferson had been picked up and was now being held on suspicion of kidnap, assault and sexual assault. The whereabouts and indeed identity of the victim was currently unknown. Hannibal knew that it wouldn't take them too long to figure out who the victim was, his only concern was that they kept it to themselves. He knew that the rights of rape victims instructed that they should, he was just worried as to whether or not that courtesy extended to rape victims who were also federal fugitives. He supposed time would tell.
By the time he'd got back upstairs, Face's shell had reformed, even thicker than before, and it seemed that his chance to get through had gone.
It was a little after midnight before Face made a move to turn in for the night. Hannibal knew that they had all just been waiting to see what he wanted to do, that they would have all sat up the whole night through with him if that's what he'd wanted. But his eyes looked heavy, and he seemed to be getting paler by the minute. The skin around the gash on his forehead looked pink and angry and Hannibal longed to take a look at it, but something told him that Face had been messed with just about all he could cope with so far today.
But Face was as wily as ever, he waited until everyone else had just started on a new bottle of beer before he abruptly got to his feet and announced he was going to bed. By the time that Hannibal had made the effort to neck down at least some of his bottle and followed him up, he was too late; Face was already asleep, lashes fanned out over darkly smudged eyes, the bruises on his face, neck and wrists standing out harshly against the unnatural paleness of his skin, the sheet pulled up to his neck and gripped tightly, almost protectively in his fingers.
Hannibal sighed and thought of the way Face usually slept, sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread wide, butt naked, and shook his head, he could see from here that he'd kept his pjs on, and to see him curled in on himself like that, almost in the foetal position was just wrong.
He went to the bathroom and got himself ready for bed, and keeping his own pjs on in respect of Face’s obvious preference, he gently slid in behind him, wrapping an arm carefully around his midriff.
________
It was a little after two a.m when the first nightmare came. Hannibal woke from his light doze the instant that he heard Face moan in his sleep. Anyone who ever shared a room with Face soon became intimately acquainted with the nightmares, but since they had started sharing a bed, Hannibal had become adept at heading them off, keeping Face asleep and making sure a bad dream didn't turn into a full blown waking terror. He had no idea what they were about, however, and had long stopped asking as it was blatantly obvious that that was one secret that Face was far from ready to share with him just yet.
Tonight was a different matter entirely though; the little whispered, 'No!'s and the way that Face clutched convulsively at the sheet told their own story. Even so, Hannibal did his job well, hands and voice and lips soothing his troubled lieutenant back into sleep before the nightmare could really take hold.
The other difference, however, was the way the nightmare came back. Over and over again, Hannibal soothed him into sleep, stroking back his hair and whispering words full of love and encouragement, but over and over again they came back, often within the hour, Face twisting and crying out in his arms, his expression so full of anguish and naked fear that Hannibal had to hold back his own tears.
Eventually though, long after the birds had woken and the sun had crawled above the horizon, Face finally beat the dreams into submission and slept soundly for more than an hour, Hannibal, exhausted, but far, far too tightly wound to go back to sleep himself, just lay and held him and watched him and wondered if letting the police deal with Jefferson had been the right thing to do.
______
The sound of the toilet flushing woke him up and his hand automatically reached out into the empty space where Face had been. He was on his feet in a second, padding silently over to the door of the en-suite and peering in through the gap in the door.
Face was naked, his pjs on the floor at his feet and his back to Hannibal. He was bent over looking in Hannibal's toilet bag, rooting around and oblivious to his audience. It gave Hannibal a moment to take in the bruising on his ribs, around his kidneys and, most upsetting, all down the inside of his thighs; it ignited the anger inside of him yet again.
Meanwhile, Face had found what he was looking for, lifting up the bottle of painkillers that Hannibal had been given after he broke a couple of ribs six months ago and flipping the lid off, tipping the last two into his palm and dry swallowing them in an instant. Hannibal winced; Face hated taking pain relief usually, it made him feel sick, sometimes even made him vomit, and so he always preferred to suffer the pain, unless of course it was so bad he couldn't stand it...
“Morning,” he greeted him brightly and Face reacted as if he had been stung. He whirled on the spot, losing his balance as he did and crashing into the shower cubicle. In the same movement, his arm shot out to the side and he grabbed a towel, yanking it to cover his nakedness and staring at Hannibal with wide, startled eyes.
“Jesus Christ, boss,” he muttered as he righted himself to lean against the wall. “What the fuck you creeping up on me like that for?”
Hannibal frowned. “I wasn't kid,” he responded evenly, “I was just checking you were alright.”
“Of course I am alright,” Face muttered furiously, snatching his shorts up from the floor and dragging them on without dropping the towel, “I was just taking a piss, why the fuck would I not be alright?”
Hannibal watched with a sinking heart as Face, usually so confident in his nakedness, scrambled back into his shorts under the cover of the towel and decided not to mention the painkillers. Instead he moved on. “Look,” he said walking to the washbasin so that he could turn his back on Face and give him a little privacy, “we've nothing on today, why don't you go back to bed and I'll bring you some breakfast up, the view out of the windows is absolutely incredible. We can spend the whole day in bed if you like.”
Given an offer like that, he knew that Face would snap his hand off, liked doing nothing better than spending long, lazy hours in bed, eating, chatting, holding each other, loving each other. But he was sadly not surprised to see the look of horror that washed quickly across the kid's reflection in the mirror before he managed to compose himself as he walked back into the main room. “Nah,” his reply was studiously casual, “thought I'd go over some figures and stuff today. If we are spending so much money on this place, I gotta make sure we can still eat and buy ammo, nice views won't keep us alive.”
Hannibal tried really hard to keep those words from spiking right through his heart, but as he watched Face grab some clothes and go around the corner to get dressed out of his eye line, it was very, very difficult.
________
By the time Hannibal was washed and dressed, Face had disappeared downstairs. Following him down, Hannibal spotted him sitting at the dining table near the huge glass doors leading out to the back yard, he was hunched over one of the laptops, untouched cup of coffee at his side and Hannibal felt his heart ache as he noticed the reading glasses perched on his nose. Face had had the glasses about a year, but hardly ever wore them, he'd said when he'd been told he needed them, that he was the youngest on the team and he was damned if he was going to be the first to wear glasses. Hannibal had just laughed at him, and itched to tell him how sexy he looked in them. The fact that he was wearing them this morning told Hannibal that his head must be pounding, despite the painkillers he'd taken.
Hannibal walked into the kitchen area to get himself a coffee and by the time he came back around to where Face was sitting, the glasses were out of sight.
“How's it looking, kid?” he asked, leaning on the opposite side of the table to Face.
“Hmm?” Face pretended that he hadn't noticed Hannibal up to that point and looked up from the screen, “Oh, hi, boss, urm, yeah – not so good. We could do with another job as soon as possible really.”
“Yeah?” That was no surprise to Hannibal, knew it was part of Face's denial technique to get back out on jobs as soon as possible.
“I'll transfer some money into the checking account to tide us over for a few days though, okay?”
“Sure,” Hannibal had absolutely no intention of going out on a job any time soon at all, but he saw no harm in playing along with Face. “Am I okay to get some supplies in this morning then?”
Face went back to his screen, a hand running through his hair and Hannibal noticed it trembling ever so slightly and wondered when he last ate. He sighed, things were going downhill pretty quickly.
“Yeah, boss, just don't go crazy okay?”
Hannibal forced out a smile, “You gonna come with me?”
Face glanced up, a look of horror washing through his expression quick as a flash before he composed himself with a bland expression. “Nah, I'm good thanks. Need to work through all these figures.”
Hannibal nodded, he'd expected as much. “Where are the others?”
“BA's in bed still, Murdock's doing laundry.”
“Okay then, I'll get going, be a couple of hours. You want anything?”
Shaking his head, Face offered up a false smile and turned back to the screen while Hannibal, hands clenched into impotent fists grabbed the keys to the van from the side and forced himself to walk calmly out into the crisp morning.
________
By the time he'd parked up and located a drugstore, Hannibal felt a lot calmer, but no more sure how to handle this situation with Face. He knew that what had happened with Jefferson had really devastated the kid, but exactly how, exactly why, he just couldn't guess. All the way on the forty minute drive he was trying to imagine how he would feel if it had been him that had been violated like that, but of course he couldn't. He had no real idea about how Face was feeling, no idea about what to expect from him, no idea how to help him. All he knew was that they were drifting further apart by the hour and if he didn't do something to stop it, then before the end of the week the best thing that have ever happened to him would be over; there was no way that Hannibal could let that happen.
He was in the drug store line, waiting to be served, when he saw it; the little A5 flyer pinned to the notice board. It seemed to have put there just for him and the headline screamed out at him, 'Are you or someone you know a victim of sexual assault?' he leaned forward to read the smaller writing underneath. 'Does it feel like you have no one to talk to? Nowhere to turn? Don't despair, we can offer advice, information or just a sympathetic ear, 24/7. You need us? Call S.O.S, Survivors of Sexual Assault' and listed at the bottom was a toll free number. Hannibal stared at it for a long while, and then just as he reached his turn in the queue, he reached up and snapped a photo of the flier on his phone.
Ten minutes later, out in the sunshine of the nearby park, Hannibal took a deep breath and started dialling.
________
Face was exhausted. Deep, refreshing sleep had not really come his way at all while he was in Jefferson's care and last night, despite Hannibal's best efforts, the nightmares and vivid dreams that had come almost as soon as he closed his eyes had ruined any chance he'd had of waking this morning feeling refreshed. His head had been sagging while he was trying to look over their finances, and that combined with the pounding in his head and all the other aches and pains meant that before Hannibal was even at the end of the road, Face was back upstairs, stripped down to his shorts and sliding back under the sheet.
All he got was more of the same though. Jefferson's leering face staring down at him, burning heat in his ass, splitting him in half, hands everywhere forcing him down, forcing him to submit, cruel words mocking him, taunting him. Before he knew it he was awake again, gritty eyes full of tears, hand jammed into his mouth to stop the screams he knew were coming and a determination that he couldn’t put Hannibal through another night like last night.
___________________
Hannibal drove faster than he knew he should on the way back, trying to shave as much time off the drive as he could. His phone call to SOS had filled him with almost equal parts hope and horror.
When his call had first connected he been introduced to Dawn and stumbled through a hastily concocted story about his wife and how she had been raped recently. It was only when he had inadvertently said 'he' for about the third time that Dawn gently asked if he would prefer to speak to one of their male volunteers. Flushing bright red, Hannibal had agreed that that might be best.
He was a little more honest with Sean when he called Hannibal's mobile a few minutes later and they spent almost an hour in conversation. Sean, himself a victim of rape almost fifteen years ago explained how confused Face would be feeling right now, the guilt, the thoughts that somehow he had deserved what had happened to him, how he might feel dirty and unlovable but deep down in need that love more than ever before.
Hannibal had never considered that Face would blame himself for what had happened, not when Hannibal himself was so busy wishing he had been the one to go into that alley, or that they had trailed Jefferson together or that he had at least been close enough to the kid to actually save him, it was crazy that they would both blame themselves for what was, effectively, only Jefferson's fault.
Hannibal wanted to know how things had worked out for Sean, and at first he had been very reluctant to tell. Eventually though, Hannibal persuaded him and his story had struck fear right through his heart. Sean was gay and had been in a relationship when he had been raped, and despite his partner being patient and understanding with him, the relationship broke down. Sean realised now that it was because of his own feelings of self loathing that this happened, but at the time he had convinced himself that it was his partner who didn't want him anymore after the rape. Once he was on his own he drifted into a spiral of despair, culminating in a suicide attempt that was only thwarted by his landlord coming round to check his oven after complaints of faults from another tenant.
The suicide attempt took place exactly a year after the original attack and was the turning point in his recovery. The hospital he was taken to to have his wrists stitched put him in touch with a counsellor, and a full three years after his ordeal started, Sean felt ready to get back into a relationship with someone.
The story horrified Hannibal, knew that if Face ever tried to kill himself it would be with something a lot faster and more permanent than a knife to the wrists... The thought almost sent him into a panic even though Sean tried to reassure him that his own experience was much more extreme than that suffered by most survivors of rape, but that was no comfort to Hannibal, not when he remembered what had happened to Corporal Harvey.
The second he got off the phone from Sean, with the number of a good counsellor if he could ever persuade Face to visit her, he quickly redialled with Murdock's number and it was answered almost immediately.
“Wassup, bossman?”
“Murdock,” Hannibal was almost running back to the van as he talked into the mouthpiece, “where's Face?”
“Um,” Hannibal could hear Murdock getting to his feet and walking as he replied, “he went back to bed. Problem?”
Hannibal fumbled with the keys as he tucked the phone under his chin. “No. Yes.” He didn't know what to say, “Look Murdock, I'll be back within the hour, just go check on him, make sure he's alright, don't leave him alone. Okay?”
The worry was clear in Murdock's voice, “Okay, boss, no problems.”
Hannibal just hoped Murdock was right.
Next
But of course he hadn't, they knew him far too well for that, but, just like Hannibal, Murdock and BA decided that if that was the way he wanted to handle it, then they would play along, see where it led them.
As the night wore on, Hannibal grew more and more concerned by Face. The kid was obviously in severe denial mode, and while that might always be his favoured coping strategy, they both knew only too well that it was effective in the short term only. So where did that leave them two months down the line when denial was no longer an option? Hannibal balked at the fallout they would have to face at that point.
And he'd been so close to opening up before, after the shower, when his eyes were red rimmed and shining, and his expression so lost, Hannibal was sure another few minutes would have seen that shell crack and maybe they could have achieved a little acceptance and a little healing. But then BA had shouted from downstairs, he'd been listening to the police radio and wanted Hannibal to know that Jefferson had been picked up and was now being held on suspicion of kidnap, assault and sexual assault. The whereabouts and indeed identity of the victim was currently unknown. Hannibal knew that it wouldn't take them too long to figure out who the victim was, his only concern was that they kept it to themselves. He knew that the rights of rape victims instructed that they should, he was just worried as to whether or not that courtesy extended to rape victims who were also federal fugitives. He supposed time would tell.
By the time he'd got back upstairs, Face's shell had reformed, even thicker than before, and it seemed that his chance to get through had gone.
It was a little after midnight before Face made a move to turn in for the night. Hannibal knew that they had all just been waiting to see what he wanted to do, that they would have all sat up the whole night through with him if that's what he'd wanted. But his eyes looked heavy, and he seemed to be getting paler by the minute. The skin around the gash on his forehead looked pink and angry and Hannibal longed to take a look at it, but something told him that Face had been messed with just about all he could cope with so far today.
But Face was as wily as ever, he waited until everyone else had just started on a new bottle of beer before he abruptly got to his feet and announced he was going to bed. By the time that Hannibal had made the effort to neck down at least some of his bottle and followed him up, he was too late; Face was already asleep, lashes fanned out over darkly smudged eyes, the bruises on his face, neck and wrists standing out harshly against the unnatural paleness of his skin, the sheet pulled up to his neck and gripped tightly, almost protectively in his fingers.
Hannibal sighed and thought of the way Face usually slept, sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread wide, butt naked, and shook his head, he could see from here that he'd kept his pjs on, and to see him curled in on himself like that, almost in the foetal position was just wrong.
He went to the bathroom and got himself ready for bed, and keeping his own pjs on in respect of Face’s obvious preference, he gently slid in behind him, wrapping an arm carefully around his midriff.
________
It was a little after two a.m when the first nightmare came. Hannibal woke from his light doze the instant that he heard Face moan in his sleep. Anyone who ever shared a room with Face soon became intimately acquainted with the nightmares, but since they had started sharing a bed, Hannibal had become adept at heading them off, keeping Face asleep and making sure a bad dream didn't turn into a full blown waking terror. He had no idea what they were about, however, and had long stopped asking as it was blatantly obvious that that was one secret that Face was far from ready to share with him just yet.
Tonight was a different matter entirely though; the little whispered, 'No!'s and the way that Face clutched convulsively at the sheet told their own story. Even so, Hannibal did his job well, hands and voice and lips soothing his troubled lieutenant back into sleep before the nightmare could really take hold.
The other difference, however, was the way the nightmare came back. Over and over again, Hannibal soothed him into sleep, stroking back his hair and whispering words full of love and encouragement, but over and over again they came back, often within the hour, Face twisting and crying out in his arms, his expression so full of anguish and naked fear that Hannibal had to hold back his own tears.
Eventually though, long after the birds had woken and the sun had crawled above the horizon, Face finally beat the dreams into submission and slept soundly for more than an hour, Hannibal, exhausted, but far, far too tightly wound to go back to sleep himself, just lay and held him and watched him and wondered if letting the police deal with Jefferson had been the right thing to do.
______
The sound of the toilet flushing woke him up and his hand automatically reached out into the empty space where Face had been. He was on his feet in a second, padding silently over to the door of the en-suite and peering in through the gap in the door.
Face was naked, his pjs on the floor at his feet and his back to Hannibal. He was bent over looking in Hannibal's toilet bag, rooting around and oblivious to his audience. It gave Hannibal a moment to take in the bruising on his ribs, around his kidneys and, most upsetting, all down the inside of his thighs; it ignited the anger inside of him yet again.
Meanwhile, Face had found what he was looking for, lifting up the bottle of painkillers that Hannibal had been given after he broke a couple of ribs six months ago and flipping the lid off, tipping the last two into his palm and dry swallowing them in an instant. Hannibal winced; Face hated taking pain relief usually, it made him feel sick, sometimes even made him vomit, and so he always preferred to suffer the pain, unless of course it was so bad he couldn't stand it...
“Morning,” he greeted him brightly and Face reacted as if he had been stung. He whirled on the spot, losing his balance as he did and crashing into the shower cubicle. In the same movement, his arm shot out to the side and he grabbed a towel, yanking it to cover his nakedness and staring at Hannibal with wide, startled eyes.
“Jesus Christ, boss,” he muttered as he righted himself to lean against the wall. “What the fuck you creeping up on me like that for?”
Hannibal frowned. “I wasn't kid,” he responded evenly, “I was just checking you were alright.”
“Of course I am alright,” Face muttered furiously, snatching his shorts up from the floor and dragging them on without dropping the towel, “I was just taking a piss, why the fuck would I not be alright?”
Hannibal watched with a sinking heart as Face, usually so confident in his nakedness, scrambled back into his shorts under the cover of the towel and decided not to mention the painkillers. Instead he moved on. “Look,” he said walking to the washbasin so that he could turn his back on Face and give him a little privacy, “we've nothing on today, why don't you go back to bed and I'll bring you some breakfast up, the view out of the windows is absolutely incredible. We can spend the whole day in bed if you like.”
Given an offer like that, he knew that Face would snap his hand off, liked doing nothing better than spending long, lazy hours in bed, eating, chatting, holding each other, loving each other. But he was sadly not surprised to see the look of horror that washed quickly across the kid's reflection in the mirror before he managed to compose himself as he walked back into the main room. “Nah,” his reply was studiously casual, “thought I'd go over some figures and stuff today. If we are spending so much money on this place, I gotta make sure we can still eat and buy ammo, nice views won't keep us alive.”
Hannibal tried really hard to keep those words from spiking right through his heart, but as he watched Face grab some clothes and go around the corner to get dressed out of his eye line, it was very, very difficult.
________
By the time Hannibal was washed and dressed, Face had disappeared downstairs. Following him down, Hannibal spotted him sitting at the dining table near the huge glass doors leading out to the back yard, he was hunched over one of the laptops, untouched cup of coffee at his side and Hannibal felt his heart ache as he noticed the reading glasses perched on his nose. Face had had the glasses about a year, but hardly ever wore them, he'd said when he'd been told he needed them, that he was the youngest on the team and he was damned if he was going to be the first to wear glasses. Hannibal had just laughed at him, and itched to tell him how sexy he looked in them. The fact that he was wearing them this morning told Hannibal that his head must be pounding, despite the painkillers he'd taken.
Hannibal walked into the kitchen area to get himself a coffee and by the time he came back around to where Face was sitting, the glasses were out of sight.
“How's it looking, kid?” he asked, leaning on the opposite side of the table to Face.
“Hmm?” Face pretended that he hadn't noticed Hannibal up to that point and looked up from the screen, “Oh, hi, boss, urm, yeah – not so good. We could do with another job as soon as possible really.”
“Yeah?” That was no surprise to Hannibal, knew it was part of Face's denial technique to get back out on jobs as soon as possible.
“I'll transfer some money into the checking account to tide us over for a few days though, okay?”
“Sure,” Hannibal had absolutely no intention of going out on a job any time soon at all, but he saw no harm in playing along with Face. “Am I okay to get some supplies in this morning then?”
Face went back to his screen, a hand running through his hair and Hannibal noticed it trembling ever so slightly and wondered when he last ate. He sighed, things were going downhill pretty quickly.
“Yeah, boss, just don't go crazy okay?”
Hannibal forced out a smile, “You gonna come with me?”
Face glanced up, a look of horror washing through his expression quick as a flash before he composed himself with a bland expression. “Nah, I'm good thanks. Need to work through all these figures.”
Hannibal nodded, he'd expected as much. “Where are the others?”
“BA's in bed still, Murdock's doing laundry.”
“Okay then, I'll get going, be a couple of hours. You want anything?”
Shaking his head, Face offered up a false smile and turned back to the screen while Hannibal, hands clenched into impotent fists grabbed the keys to the van from the side and forced himself to walk calmly out into the crisp morning.
________
By the time he'd parked up and located a drugstore, Hannibal felt a lot calmer, but no more sure how to handle this situation with Face. He knew that what had happened with Jefferson had really devastated the kid, but exactly how, exactly why, he just couldn't guess. All the way on the forty minute drive he was trying to imagine how he would feel if it had been him that had been violated like that, but of course he couldn't. He had no real idea about how Face was feeling, no idea about what to expect from him, no idea how to help him. All he knew was that they were drifting further apart by the hour and if he didn't do something to stop it, then before the end of the week the best thing that have ever happened to him would be over; there was no way that Hannibal could let that happen.
He was in the drug store line, waiting to be served, when he saw it; the little A5 flyer pinned to the notice board. It seemed to have put there just for him and the headline screamed out at him, 'Are you or someone you know a victim of sexual assault?' he leaned forward to read the smaller writing underneath. 'Does it feel like you have no one to talk to? Nowhere to turn? Don't despair, we can offer advice, information or just a sympathetic ear, 24/7. You need us? Call S.O.S, Survivors of Sexual Assault' and listed at the bottom was a toll free number. Hannibal stared at it for a long while, and then just as he reached his turn in the queue, he reached up and snapped a photo of the flier on his phone.
Ten minutes later, out in the sunshine of the nearby park, Hannibal took a deep breath and started dialling.
________
Face was exhausted. Deep, refreshing sleep had not really come his way at all while he was in Jefferson's care and last night, despite Hannibal's best efforts, the nightmares and vivid dreams that had come almost as soon as he closed his eyes had ruined any chance he'd had of waking this morning feeling refreshed. His head had been sagging while he was trying to look over their finances, and that combined with the pounding in his head and all the other aches and pains meant that before Hannibal was even at the end of the road, Face was back upstairs, stripped down to his shorts and sliding back under the sheet.
All he got was more of the same though. Jefferson's leering face staring down at him, burning heat in his ass, splitting him in half, hands everywhere forcing him down, forcing him to submit, cruel words mocking him, taunting him. Before he knew it he was awake again, gritty eyes full of tears, hand jammed into his mouth to stop the screams he knew were coming and a determination that he couldn’t put Hannibal through another night like last night.
___________________
Hannibal drove faster than he knew he should on the way back, trying to shave as much time off the drive as he could. His phone call to SOS had filled him with almost equal parts hope and horror.
When his call had first connected he been introduced to Dawn and stumbled through a hastily concocted story about his wife and how she had been raped recently. It was only when he had inadvertently said 'he' for about the third time that Dawn gently asked if he would prefer to speak to one of their male volunteers. Flushing bright red, Hannibal had agreed that that might be best.
He was a little more honest with Sean when he called Hannibal's mobile a few minutes later and they spent almost an hour in conversation. Sean, himself a victim of rape almost fifteen years ago explained how confused Face would be feeling right now, the guilt, the thoughts that somehow he had deserved what had happened to him, how he might feel dirty and unlovable but deep down in need that love more than ever before.
Hannibal had never considered that Face would blame himself for what had happened, not when Hannibal himself was so busy wishing he had been the one to go into that alley, or that they had trailed Jefferson together or that he had at least been close enough to the kid to actually save him, it was crazy that they would both blame themselves for what was, effectively, only Jefferson's fault.
Hannibal wanted to know how things had worked out for Sean, and at first he had been very reluctant to tell. Eventually though, Hannibal persuaded him and his story had struck fear right through his heart. Sean was gay and had been in a relationship when he had been raped, and despite his partner being patient and understanding with him, the relationship broke down. Sean realised now that it was because of his own feelings of self loathing that this happened, but at the time he had convinced himself that it was his partner who didn't want him anymore after the rape. Once he was on his own he drifted into a spiral of despair, culminating in a suicide attempt that was only thwarted by his landlord coming round to check his oven after complaints of faults from another tenant.
The suicide attempt took place exactly a year after the original attack and was the turning point in his recovery. The hospital he was taken to to have his wrists stitched put him in touch with a counsellor, and a full three years after his ordeal started, Sean felt ready to get back into a relationship with someone.
The story horrified Hannibal, knew that if Face ever tried to kill himself it would be with something a lot faster and more permanent than a knife to the wrists... The thought almost sent him into a panic even though Sean tried to reassure him that his own experience was much more extreme than that suffered by most survivors of rape, but that was no comfort to Hannibal, not when he remembered what had happened to Corporal Harvey.
The second he got off the phone from Sean, with the number of a good counsellor if he could ever persuade Face to visit her, he quickly redialled with Murdock's number and it was answered almost immediately.
“Wassup, bossman?”
“Murdock,” Hannibal was almost running back to the van as he talked into the mouthpiece, “where's Face?”
“Um,” Hannibal could hear Murdock getting to his feet and walking as he replied, “he went back to bed. Problem?”
Hannibal fumbled with the keys as he tucked the phone under his chin. “No. Yes.” He didn't know what to say, “Look Murdock, I'll be back within the hour, just go check on him, make sure he's alright, don't leave him alone. Okay?”
The worry was clear in Murdock's voice, “Okay, boss, no problems.”
Hannibal just hoped Murdock was right.
Next
