indigo_angels

..4..
It’s a good job that I never thought that the touching scene in the kitchen would actually put everything right, because if I had, then I’d have been sorely disappointed. It’s not like nothing changed, because it did, it’s just there was no quick fix. Hannibal told me he still wouldn’t be taking me on the op, but that he would postpone my transfer, I could stay in the unit house while they were away, he would assign me to another unit for the month, and then we would talk when he got back. Then he narrowed his eyes at the red, blistered skin on my arms and ordered me along to see a medic.

By the time I got back to the house, they had gone. I trudged through the dark, empty rooms, making my way to the kitchen at the back, determined to do the only job the boss had ever asked me to do and found the kitchen spotless, the icebox full of food and a neat folder on the table setting out my duties for the coming month.

It was five long weeks before they returned, tired but victorious. We never had that conversation, the boss and I, but I saw the way that his eyes raked over the satellite system and X-Box I’d appropriated in their absence and he kind of nodded in my direction before he went for first shower. The next morning he formally introduced me to the others as officially part of the team, and that was good enough for me.

So, we fell into a sort of routine, Hannibal mainly ignored me still, but he did include me in the general day to day things and the looks he threw in my direction were more appraising than damning. Then we were given our next op, ten days notice until we shipped out and my big chance to finally show the boss what I was made of. Things were going well, he seemed relaxed, I could feel him watching me as we went through exercises and manoeuvres in preparation and then, rather predictably, everything went pear shaped.

One week to go, and a few of the guys were going for a drink after work and they asked if I wanted to come with them. In truth I didn’t; I was tired, I was focussed on making a good impression and I was suspicious of their motives in asking me. Shows the kind of life I’ve led, the kind of people I’ve associated with when a simple invitation out for drinks needs analysing in such depth to check for potential danger, for the possibility of people just using me for their own desires...

In the end I had worried needlessly, we had a good night, I had three, maybe four beers, and then decided to turn in earlier than the others, and that was my big mistake. I was walking down the quiet, dark roads on base, heading back to the house, wondering if Hannibal was still up, wondering if tonight might be the night that he finally decided he was going to talk to me when a blow across the back of the neck dropped me to my knees on the wet asphalt. I was up and reacting without any thought at all, fist flying and feeling the satisfying crunch of jaw bone on my knuckles even before my vision had settled enough to even see what the hell was going on. Didn’t do me much good though, the last thing I remember about that night is registering that there were maybe three or four dark shapes around me in the street before something connected with the side of my head with a fairly solid thump and everything went black.

I woke up to find daylight streaming in through the windows of an unfamiliar room and my body stretched out on an unfamiliar bed. My head was thumping and I lifted a hand up to feel the huge lump throbbing on my temple and that’s when I saw him sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

“Boss?” I queried fuzzily as I tried to haul myself up into a sitting position. “Where am I? I feel like I’ve gone ten round with Arnie...” Fear gripped my chest in its cold fingers as Hannibal just glared at me, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes like blue ice. “Boss?” My heart was thumping hard against my ribs, making my abused head pound in reply as I wondered just what the hell I had done this time that had the boss so wound up.

“You were attacked,” he answered sharply, and I found myself wondering how in the hell that would make him this angry with me, “the boys found you in the street as they came home from the bar. Said you had left early.”

I looked down at the muddy knees of my jeans and memories of the night before flitted back, the bar, the dark street, the shadows closing in on me.

“So,” I glanced back up at Hannibal’s acidic tone, “Why’d you leave early then, Lieutenant? You have someone you needed to meet? Some little business that needed attending to?”

There was something going on here, something that was flying right over the top of my head. I wondered if I would have a better chance of keeping up with things if my head wasn’t threatening to explode like this... I just looked at Hannibal and shrugged, “Boss, I have no idea what you are getting at here.”

Hannibal stared at me, still in his seat, arms crossed rigidly against his chest, “Well, let me give you a little hint then shall I?” he said, his voice still biting. “You missing anything from your pockets?”

I frowned, trying to remember what had been in my pockets when I went out, a twenty dollar note, my keys, that was about it really. I slid off the bed, keeping what I now recognised as a standard medical unit gurney between me and the Lt. Col. and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. The first thing I noticed was the sting of bruised and damaged knuckles as my fingers rooted around, but then there was the jangle of loose change and the familiar shape of my keys brushing up against my fingers and I shook my head, even more confused than before now. Then, I noticed the empty space on my wrist and my other hand instinctively wrapped around it, that unpleasant icy feeling settling in my gut at the realisation that my watch was gone, the one thing that I possessed that had been a gift, the only tangible proof that another human being had thought good thoughts about me, was no longer where it should be. “My watch,” I mumbled more to myself than Hannibal and looked around at the bedside table, eyes searching desperately for what knew wasn’t there.

“Never mind your fucking watch!” Hannibal exploded making me jump as he leapt to his feet, “What about this? You missing this Peck?”

He reached into his own pocket and pulled a couple of things out, tossing them onto the bed in between us, his eyes blazing with furious anger. I blinked as my still fuzzy head tried to process what I was seeing, and then my knees buckled as I finally worked it out, the little bag of white powder, the tightly rolled wad of dollars. Oh, fucking shit.

“Boss,” I said desperately, “you can’t think... I mean...” I looked him straight in the eye, “That’s not mine, boss, I swear I have never seen either of those things before in my life!”

Hannibal held my eyes and then shook his head with a slight smirk, “I don't know what I am most disappointed about,” his words were flat, “the fact that you would try to lie to me or the fact that, despite your unholy propensity for bullshit, this is the best lie you can come up with!”

I took a step towards him trying to force my face into something resembling the innocent I knew I was, “Hannibal, please...” I whispered, at a loss for what else I could say.

“Enough!” he yelled, “And don't call me that! You don’t have the right to call me that!” It was perfectly clear to me exactly where this conversation was heading. If I’d thought he was mad that morning back in Florida, then that was nothing compared to this. I felt my trainers on the floor next to my sock clad feet and started pushing them on, the fight or flight response building up inside me, and decking my CO would not be advisable in this situation, not at all. “You better have a good excuse as to why this shit was in your pockets when you were brought in here, Peck, or I will have the MPs down here quicker than you can blink!”

I just shook my head at him, my usually quick brain deserting me in my hour of need, “I swear they are not mine,” I whispered, my dry throat making the words come out as a guilty sounding croak.

“You leave a night out early, are found in the gutter with an egg on your head and this crap in your pockets and you expect me to believe you have no idea how it got there! How stupid do you think I am Lieutenant?”

And suddenly it all made sense. The dark shapes around me in the night, the spiked dinner back at Ranger school, the black looks I’d got from my supposed barrack mates when they saw Hannibal talking to me in the swamp... They’d set me up again, fucking Wilson and Eduardo, probably Jones and Calvert as well, but this time it looked like they’d done a damn fine job. I saw red, furious, not only about the fact that they had done this to me again, but also that I had let them, that I had relaxed enough in the presence of these people, my new ‘team mates’ to let that kind of attack in under my belt. Sloppy Face, fucking, fucking sloppy.

I looked up to find Hannibal still glaring at me, his hands tensed into furious fists, his eyes shooting daggers straight into mine and I just lost my temper, “It doesn’t even matter!” I yelled at him, seeing his surprise with a thrill of morbid satisfaction, knowing I was witnessing the self destruction of my career, “Because no matter what I say or what I do, you seem so fucking determined to think the worst of me anyway!” I could see he was pissed, but I was past caring now, needed to get things off my chest, “And what I don’t get is the why? I mean, not why do you think the worst of me, I know that anyone who’s ever spent an hour in my company could answer that question for you, but why you ever bothered coming after me?!”

I saw his eyes narrow at that but ploughed on regardless, “You came after me, don’t forget that! I never approached you; I never even put myself out there! You came after me in that swamp, you wanted me! Why? You must have read my file; you certainly know all the shit in it now, so you must’ve done then. Why did you bother if you were so certain I was just going to fuck everything up?!” I took a step back, away from his livid expression, not waiting for or even wanting an answer, just wanting to get all this anger and fire out of me. “You should have left me in the gutter where you found me, not just last night, but back there at Rudder, because I sure as hell would have been better off there than here with all this crap!”

“You didn’t even ask me what happened that morning at Rudder, why I was so fucking late,” I continued, “I bet you don’t even care that I’d been drugged, that those halfwits I shared a billet with were so fucking pissed that I had a chance with you when they wanted it, that they went out of their way to screw it up! Bet they couldn’t believe that you took me anyway, didn’t know it was only ‘cause you couldn’t get rid of me!” I took another step back, nearer to the door.

“But you do now boss, huh? Now you have the chance to not only kick me out of your team, you can kick me out of the whole damn army as well! Bet it feels like Christmas!” I could feel the heat in my eyes, knew it was right on the edge of losing it now, knew I was so, so screwed...

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you here Lt. Col. Smith,” the door was right behind me now and he still hadn’t moved, still stood against his chair, furious but incredulous expression on his face, “but I have no desire at all to spend the next few weeks as a guest of the MPs; so if you expected me to roll over for some shit I never did, you really don’t know me at all!”

And then I bolted, leaving him stunned into silence as I dragged the bed across the gap between us and burst out of the door, sprinting down the corridor and into the fire escape before I heard his outraged voice shouting me and his footsteps following me out.

Within seconds I was in the parking lot and through the shrubbery where I was knew I was well hidden. I kept to the bushes, knowing I had to keep moving, knowing that he could have a whole team out here searching for me in minutes. I had to keep going, get off base before the net was tightened.

I ran until my lungs were screaming in protest and the base was well behind me. My head was pounding from the blow I took last night, my hands and thighs were shredded and bleeding from the razor wire fences and I was shaking from head to foot with exhaustion and the cold realisation of what I had just done. Eventually I found a storm drain and threw myself in as the rain started, letting the threatening sobs take over as they wracked my entire body.
___________________

By the time the rain had gone, my tears had dried and I was huddled in the entrance of the drain wondering what the fuck I should do next. I knew I was looking at charges of possession, probably dealing as well after seeing all that money that was there, Jesus, Wilson and Eduardo must really hate me, and then there would be insubordination, AWOL... probably a few other things that Smith could dredge up as well. I was so screwed.

And then I made the decision; I wasn’t going back. I could disappear better than anyone; invent myself a new personality, a whole new life. I knew I could do it, Father David had called me ‘Artful Dodger’ back at the home, said he’d never met anyone as good as wriggling out of a mess as I was. Guess it was all the practice I got over the years. And moving on wouldn’t mean losing much, I had nothing to lose after all, and the new me I could create would be much better than Templeton Peck with all his failings, his military dismissal and his criminal record. I rubbed tiredly at my eyes, how the fuck did my attempts to better myself and make Father David proud of me end up like this? I seriously, honestly, wished I was dead, wished I wasn’t just too chicken shit to do something about it.

I sat there until it was dark, still no closer to an immediate plan, the ten dollars and a useless set of keys in my pockets never materialising into something useful no matter how many times I checked them, and then I just got up and wandered out, past caring, past anything much by that point.

I walked for three hours, just trudging down tracks and side roads, not really sure where I was going, no real aim in mind when I ended up at the outskirts of Columbus. I wandered past a bar, quiet and out of the way and decided that I would go in and drink until my paltry financial supplies ran dry and then I would think again.

___________________

It’s amazing how far ten dollars will go when you aren’t fussy what you drink, or who you accept drinks from. I attracted a bit of attention sat up at the end of the bar on my own, obviously down on my luck. The type of attention I always attract, boyfriends eyeing me with hostility in case I make a move on their girls, sad, lonely old men wondering how much persuasion I will need to go home with them or suck their cock in the alley out the back. And the sad thing is, I’d do any of those things, have done on numerous occasions, whatever seems the best way to survive or just to get through the night at any given time, I’d do.

So I accepted the drink from the overweight, sweaty bald guy at the end of the counter, all of the drinks in fact, and hoped he’d try and get me to go home with him, I didn’t fancy the entire night in another storm drain, but knew that I’d have to be pretty damn drunk to stomach the night with him.

Things were just starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and I could see him watching me avidly, licking his lips occasionally and adjusting his trousers over his crotch. He was obviously aware enough of his failings that he was going to wait until I was fairly drunk before he made his move but was getting impatient; I guessed his hard on must be uncomfortable, trapped against his fly like that.

Just as he was downing his drink a little faster than before, obviously priming himself to make a move, something skidded into my eye line on the wooden top of the bar in front of me and I squinted, trying to make out what it was. I picked it up and my heart jumped a little as I realised it was a watch, my watch. I turned it over just to check, to read the inscription, ‘Believe in yourself and the world is yours. F.D.’, one of Father David’s favourite sayings, inscribed onto my leaving present from him. I was so glad he couldn’t see the mess I was in right now.

Pleased as I was to get it back, my fuzzy brain suddenly registered that the watch couldn’t have walked here on its own and I turned slowly to the figure beside me, dreading seeing Wilson’s smirking face, just as Hannibal pushed a glass of orange juice my way. “Here you go, kid,” he said quietly, “you look like you need this.”

I stared at him in horror for a second, then stood up as quickly as my drunken state would allow but he just grabbed my arm and yanked me back down onto my stool, “Sit down,” he muttered, “you try to walk out of here and you’ll just end up flat on your face.” I sat roughly back down and wondered where the MPs were, if they were going to arrest me in here with everyone watching or if Hannibal was going to take me out, do it in the parking lot.

“Drink that,” he pushed the OJ towards my hand, “you need to dilute some of that alcohol inside you.”

I just shook my head, my fingers wrapped tightly around my watch like it was a life preserver. “How did you find me?” I muttered.

Hannibal let out a long sigh, “I have spent the last seven hours driving round and round, looking in every coffee shop, bar and store between here and the base for you, kid.” I frowned at him not understanding why he wasn’t just hauling me off to the stockade. He saw my confusion, “I wanted to give you your watch back,” he offered, sad smile curving his mouth.

I looked down at the watch and tried to put it on but my fingers wouldn’t work properly, the alcohol dulling my dexterity, forcing a frown across my forehead as the frustration built. Suddenly, cool fingers were there instead, holding my arm still, fastening the buckle, smoothing the leather down around my wrist. “Where did you find it?” I asked, wondering why such cool fingers left such heat in their wake.

He paused at the end of his task, both hands holding my arm gently in his before he let go and slid his fingers away, I was surprised how much I missed them already. “In Wilson’s room,” he explained quietly, “along with more drugs and tablets. More money.”

Silence fell between us. “So, that means...” I eventually stuttered out.

He sighed, “It means I thought about what you said this morning about what happened at Rudder and it made me think. I found out who you bunked with back there, found out they were here now as well, thought I pay them a little visit. And now they are staying in the stockade for a while.” I nodded slowly wondering at his ability to surprise me yet again. I heard his deep inhalation, “I’m sorry I never asked why you were late. I’m sorry I was so quick to think the worst of you this morning.”

I was surprised he had apologised, but really, what did any of that matter? It’s not like it’s going to be any different the next time around. I shrugged, “It’s okay,” I muttered, “I don't blame you.”

I could feel him frowning at me and then his hand reached out again and held my wrist gently, one finger stroking the skin which lay next the watch face, “You don’t pay much heed to your inscription, do you?”

I just shrugged; I loved Father David, of course I did, he was the only person I did love, but, hell, he was such a hopeless optimist sometimes. Saw things in me that just weren’t there. Again Hannibal sighed, “Come on, kid, let’s get you back.” His arm was around my shoulders, laying down heat wherever it touched, his other hand on my bicep, gripping it tightly as he pulled me to my feet, easing me away from the stool.

As I stood, swaying slightly, leaning against the boss’ hard frame, I sensed movement at the end of the bar and then saw the big fat guy standing right in front of Hannibal, his piggy eyes narrowed in anger.

“Yes?” Hannibal asked mildly, but I felt his body tense next to mine.

“Where are you goin’ with ma boy?” he asked in a slow drawl the smell of sweat stinging my nose.

I saw Hannibal frown and felt myself flush red in utter mortification. Every time, every damn time things start to pick up some fucking ass hole screws it all up for me.

“Your boy?” he asked politely, “I don't think so, friend. This young man is with me, and right now I am taking him home.”

Home. Why did that word send such delightful shivers right through my entire body?

“Like hell y’are!” I wondered at the brains of the guy at that point as Mr. Sweat actually raised a hand and shoved Hannibal in the chest, “I got the kid drunk, I get to take him home!”

Hannibal’s frown deepened, “You got him drunk?” Mr. Sweat nodded vigorously, “Just so you could take him back to your place and fuck him?” Again came the nod, and now I knew he was seriously lacking in the brain department. Couldn’t he read the look in the boss’ face?

There was just a second’s silence as Mr. Sweat stared at us and Hannibal glared back, before he sighed, long and hard, and then turned back to me. “Hey, kid,” he said gently, “you okay to just lean up against the bar for a second here?”

I nodded as he stood me against the counter, the wooden beam digging into my back, before he turned back to Mr. Sweat who was frowning at him with his little piggy eyes. “Doesn’t it tell you something that you have to get a boy drunk before he will even consider looking at you twice?” Hannibal asked in an almost conversational tone of voice; Mr. Sweat’s frown turned to one of anger. “And you also better count yourself lucky that you hadn’t got around to laying one of your fat little fingers on him yet, because if you had, you’d be getting more than this from me.”

Mr. Sweat opened his mouth, probably to ask what ‘this’ was just as Hannibal drew back his fist and let fly with wicked right hook, catching the puffy face perfectly and crashing the huge sweaty body to the floor, breaking a stool on the way down. I looked around in trepidation as the whole room fell silent, the barkeep leaning over the counter to look down at the prone man on the floor but Hannibal just reached into his wallet and pulled out a few notes handing them to the barkeep. “Here you go, friend,” he said cheerily, “that’s for the stool and should be enough for a drink all round,” he nodded at the few patrons dotted about and then turned back to me. “Well, Face,” he asked and my heart jumped at his first ever use of my familiar name, “You about ready to leave?”

I couldn’t speak; my throat had closed up again and my head was suddenly spinning so I contented myself with nodding. It seemed enough for Hannibal, though, he smiled at me, a real, genuine smile, and then slipped his arm around me, the other gripping my arm tightly, and led me smoothly out to his car.

Next