indigo_angels

It was late when Face finally managed to disentangle himself from Adele and get home. He’d said he would call Hannibal for a lift, but he was just so desperate to get away as soon as he had the chance that he stalked straight out of the building and slid into the back seat of a cab that had pulled up to drop someone off. Within minutes he was home, and finding Hannibal sitting at the kitchen table looking over some e-mails, he pushed the table back and climbed onto his man’s knee, wrapping his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders and pushing his face into the comforting warmth of that strong neck.

“Hey,” Hannibal said immediately, winding his arms around Face’s broad back and tugging him close, “What’s up baby? I thought I was going to come and get you?”

For a few minutes Face couldn’t speak. He just let himself melt into the warmth and security that was Hannibal and let his breathing slowly settle back into a normal pattern as he breathed in the comforting smell that just was the boss.

“Face?” Hannibal prompted after a few minutes of silence.

“I just needed to get home fast,” Face eventually mumbled into the gap between T-shirt and neck and revelled in the feeling of being loved like this.

“Why?” Hannibal gently probed.

Silence fell once more and Hannibal waited while Face formulated his answer. Just as he thought that his boy had run out of words, Face spoke. “She’s asked me to go back to New York with her until she dies,” he eventually admitted.

Hannibal gave himself time to think before he answered. “And you said?”

“That I would talk to you about it,” Face admitted, hating himself for his cowardice.

“It’s up to you,” Hannibal answered in an instant, smoothing circles on Face’s back. “What do you want to do?”

Face pulled back and looked at Hannibal, “I want to stay here,” he said immediately.

Hannibal sighed, knowing that there was more to this.

“But I feel I should go.”

For a second they just looked at each other before Hannibal forced out a sad smile. “The very, very, last thing I want to do is to spend one more night away from your side,” he told Face sadly. “But if going to New York gives you the chance to forge the relationship with Adele that you deserve, then, hell kid, of course you should go.”

They looked at each other in the half light of the kitchen and then Face let his head fall down onto Hannibal’s shoulder once more and they hung onto each other silently as the night moved on around them. Neither one said another word on the matter, but both knew that it had all been decided, Face was going to New York.

_____________________

A hand on his forehead woke him up the next morning and he blinked the sleep out of his eyes to find himself looking up into Hannibal’s face.

“Morning Sleeping Beauty,” Hannibal cracked, shifting to settle on the edge of the bed and that’s when Face noticed he was not only out from under the covers but dressed as well.

“You going out, boss?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Yeah,” Hannibal confirmed, lifting up a little so that Face had the space to haul himself up into the pillows, “I’m going to go get those new cameras with BA.”

Face groaned and let his eyes slide shut as he scrubbed his palm over his face. “Oh, shit...” he mumbled, “I’m sorry, I forgot. Gimme ten minutes and I’ll be ready and I’ll go,” he started to swing his legs out of the bed.

“No, kid,” Hannibal put a large palm on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down. “I don’t mind going, I was awake so it made sense.” Face just stared at him, unconvinced and Hannibal smiled reassuringly before trailing his hand back up onto his boy’s forehead. “Anyway, you had a crap night’s sleep, tossing and turning all over the place, and you feel a little hot to me, so just stay here and take it easy.” Face frowned, now that Hannibal mentioned it, he did feel a little under the weather, maybe he was coming down with a cold or something. “And I’ve brought your coffee up, okay, so you can have that in bed.”

“You’re the best,” Face murmured, letting himself relax into the pillows once more as the smell of the coffee reached him.

“I know,” Hannibal smirked back as he got up and headed for the door. “And Murdock is still asleep too, make sure you get him up before eleven, or he’ll be bouncing off the walls all night.”

Face frowned, “He’s not up? What time is it?”

“Nine thirty,” Hannibal answered. “We should be back around one, okay?”

“Okay,” Face replied, still thinking how strange it was that Murdock had slept so late as Hannibal closed the bedroom door and he heard his footsteps retreating down the hallway.

Five minutes later, the throaty roar of the van reached him as it pulled off the drive, and five minutes after that, Face had slipped back into sleep.

____________________________

He opened his eyes to a raging headache and a raw sore throat and a clock that was blinking 11.45 at him. “Oh, bugger,” he muttered, rolling over and planting his feet on the floor, taking a minute to let the room stop spinning. It was obvious that his cold had arrived and his thoughts moved to vitamin C, Echinacea and cold capsules, but first he needed to check on Murdock. Yanking a t-shirt on over his tousled hair and a pair of trunks up over his legs, he headed out into the silent hallway and stopped outside Murdock’s closed bedroom door.

“Hey, buddy,” he called against the painted wood, “you can’t still be asleep!” He listened carefully and frowned at the silence that met him. “Murdock?” Still nothing, so Face slowly opened the door and peered into the darkened room. “Bud?” The bed was empty, but the duvet was still dishevelled, something that Murdock’s almost OCD levels of neatness usually didn’t allow, and Face stepped in, real worry starting up inside him now.

“Face!”

The voice made him jump and he squinted in the direction it had come from, the gap between the bed and the wardrobes and could just make out a figure crouched on the carpet. “Murdock?”

“For god’s sake Face!” there was real fear in that low, desperate, whisper. “Get out of the way or it’ll get you!”

Face’s heart sank. He recognised this well, the fear, the desperation, the very real crisis that was obviously only playing out in Murdock’s head. And they had been doing so well; it had been months, literally months and months since Murdock had been like this. Face slipped straight into well rehearsed coping strategies. “What buddy?” he asked gently, dropping to the floor and crawling towards Murdock, nice and slowly, hands open and clearly on display, “What’s gonna get me?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Murdock spat out harshly and Face paused, suddenly unnerved by the hostility in Murdock’s voice. “It’s hiding in the fucking basket! Won’t let me see it, just keeps whispering and whispering and whispering and fucking whispering in my head all the time!”

Letting his eyes drift to the innocuous looking laundry basket behind him by the door, Face wondered how best to deal with this, he’d never seen Murdock quite so agitated for years, quite so jumpy. “Okay,” he said, slowly and carefully. “How about I get rid of it for us then? Take the basket out into the yard and then you won’t be able to hear it anymore?”

“No!” Face actually jumped at the sudden volume Murdock had produced, and his eyes flicked from the basket back to his friend who was looking utterly terrified. “You go anywhere near it and it will have your throat out, Face! That’s what it wants, you! Your blood, it wants to wash itself in your blood!”

Face shivered, Murdock hadn’t been this bad for a long, long time.

“Okay,” he tried again, “why don’t we get out of here then? Leave it in here in its basket until Hannibal and BA get back and then they can deal with it while we wait in my room. What do you think?”

“No!” Murdock was pulling at his fingers, twisting them around and around in his anxiety. “I can’t get past it!”

“Right...” Face thought again. It was tempting, as it always was in these situations to just tell Murdock that there was nothing there, that it was all in his head and he wasn’t well, but they’d tried that on occasions over the years, and that just upset him even more, thinking that he wasn’t believed. Playing along was a better option Face knew, even though it didn’t feel much like it at the minute.

“Okay then,” he eventually said, taking charge of the situation, “this is what we are going to do.” Murdock looked at him, expectantly.

“I’m gonna go get BA’s weights from downstairs and then I’m gonna creep up on the basket, put a weight on top so he can’t open the lid,” Murdock was already shaking his head, hands slipping into his hair, “and then I’ll just carry the whole thing down to the yard! Simple!”

“No, no, no, no, no, no...”

Face sighed, “Murdock, buddy, why not?”

But Murdock was past listening now, “No, you can’t!” he was hissing under his breath, hands pulling his hair so tight it must have been agony, “You can’t have him, not Face, not my friend! You keep your damn claws off him, off his blood, it’s not yours, no, no, no,” and on it went, desperate, terrified rambling that simultaneously shredded his nerves and broke his heart.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath

He took a quick glance at Murdock, his face hidden in his hands as he whispered and pleaded and sobbed, and made his decision, he climbed to his feet and took a step towards the basket, determined just to get the damn thing out into the corridor so Murdock could start calming the hell down. He wasn’t prepared for what hit him, though, almost one hundred and eighty pounds of wiry muscle, slamming into him from behind, pinning his arms to his side and careering them both over the top of the unmade bed, only to crash to the floor again on the other side, Face’s head taking the brunt of the impact and then all the air in his lungs forced out of him as Murdock landed right on top.

For a few minutes, all was a bit fuzzy. Face managed to drag an arm out of Murdock’s death grip, and groped his pounding head, relieved not to feel either blood or even a lump, and then desperately sucking air into his burning lungs he manoeuvred himself onto his back, one ankle jammed awkwardly under the bed and hauled a sobbing, terrified Murdock off him to lie jammed between Face’s body and the box base of the divan.

“It’s okay,” Face whispered, feeling Murdock clinging to him like a petrified child, “We’re safe now, James, it can’t get us here, we’re safe and the boss will be back soon, okay, just calm down, we’re both safe.” He continued in this vein, every word scraping at his raw throat, stroking Murdock’s dishevelled hair, holding him tightly and wishing he’d brought his phone with him and was wearing more than his trunks and a t-shirt.
__________________

Two hours passed, and Murdock was still clinging onto him with a level of force that Face couldn’t quite get his head around. He wasn’t sobbing anymore, but he was shaking; he also hadn’t said a single word since tackling Face to the floor. Face was cold, his ankle, still trapped under the divan, was throbbing, his head was pounding, his ribs ached, his throat felt like it was on fire, he was getting desperate for a leak, his nose had started running now, all down his face where he couldn’t free a hand from Murdock to wipe it, so when he heard the van pull up outside, he felt like crying with relief.

The last few minutes until they were discovered were, quite possibly, the longest of the entire morning. Face didn’t want to shout and get the attention of the rest of the team, he was too worried about freaking Murdock out any further, so he listened as footsteps walked past Murdock’s door into his own room, could almost imagine Hannibal staring at the cold, untouched coffee on the nightstand before turning back and heading for Murdock’s room.

Slowly, quietly, the door edged open and Face twisted awkwardly on his hip, feeling Murdock tighten even more around him, until he could see the boss, watch as Hannibal’s eyes ran around the darkened room, eventually settling on the two figures jammed at the side of the bed. He didn’t speak, knew that might set Murdock off again, but his eyes locked with Face’s and he raised an eyebrow in silent question.

Face nodded at the laundry basket, “Get that out of here, boss,” he whispered, almost breathed, so worried about the man in his arms.

Hannibal just glanced at the basket and without question picked it up, pulling it through the gap in the door and Face let out a huff of relief as he heard it dropped in the hallway outside. After that, came the quiet voices of Hannibal and BA as they discussed the situation followed by the door creeping open once more and BA, with a gentle quietness that always surprised Face in these situations, walked softly across the room to kneel down at Face’s back.

“Hey, Murdock,” he said, his deep voice almost reverberating through Face’s ribs. “You ready to get into bed here? Not lookin’ a whole lot of comfy on that floor there.”

Murdock blinked and looked at at BA’s smiling face, before flicking over to Face and then back again. “The basket?” he asked quietly.

“It’s gone, man, me an’ Hannibal got rid of it for you,” the sincerity in BA’s face tugged at Face’s heart. “You gonna get up and let Faceman get somethin’ to eat?”

Murdock’s eyes flicked back to Face who smiled at him, “It didn’t get you, buddy?” he whispered and Face smiled wider still.

“Nah, course not, you saved me.”

A watery smile greeted his words and he felt the death grip on his ribs ease as Murdock let BA help him up, pulling him out of the gap between Face and the bed and settled him into the duvet, his deep voice a soothing monotone. Face rolled away from the bed, letting BA step over him to be closer to Murdock and groaned as he eased his ankle out from under the divan box.

“Easy, kid,” Hannibal whispered, trying not to disturb BA who was now sat on the bed next to Murdock, holding his hand and talking quietly to him. “You need a hand?”

“Yeah,” Face replied, letting those big, warm hands take his elbows, lift him up, hold his weight as he winced when trying to stand on his throbbing ankle. Then Hannibal slid an arm around his waist, pulled Face’s wrist over his shoulders and helped him to the door where they turned to look back at Murdock, wrapped in the duvet now, eyes closed, pale but calm, and Face let Hannibal draw him from the room.

“Bed?” Hannibal asked quietly once they were in the hallway next to the dratted laundry basket.

“Kitchen,” Face replied instead, still wanting vitamin C and cold meds and Echinacea, but now with a trip to the bathroom, coffee and toast and a soft seat and some warmth.

His ankle was feeling better with every step, life returning to it as fresh blood flowed in and by the time he’d taken his leak and they’d reached the kitchen, he was walking on his own, wiping at his running nose with the back of his hand and earning a low chuckle from Hannibal. “Still like a five year old, Face,” he muttered, dropping a box of tissues on the table as Face lowered himself gratefully into a chair. As Face blew his nose, and wiped his eyes as they started running in sympathy, Hannibal returned, stripping his own sweatshirt off and pulling it on over Face’s head, before depositing a couple of Dayquil, a glass of OJ and the vial of Echinacea down in front of the kid as the coffee machine whirred into life on the counter.

Face sighed shoved his arms through the warm sleeves of Hannibal’s sweatshirt, smelling the familiar scent of his man even through his stuffy nose as he took the meds with the juice – how wonderful it was to be so loved and known so well. He would miss Hannibal so, so much when he was in New York, and his stomach twisted uncomfortably at that thought.

“Better?” Hannibal asked as he brought two mugs of steaming coffee over and slid into the seat across from Face. Face nodded and so Hannibal got straight down to business, “What the fuck happened with Murdock then?”

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