A Mother's Love - Chapter Thirty Seven
Nov. 30th, 2011 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsIt was hard to work out what exactly happened next, something hit his wrist, hard, spinning the gun from his grasp even as the bullet exploded from the barrel, he felt a sudden sharp pain in the back of his head but when he opened his eyes, an automatic reaction to the shock, he was still in the alley, still laid flat on his back, but this time looking up at a pale, bloodstained Hannibal Smith, fear and pain clear in the blue eyes that stared down at him. Face let himself sink back into the filth and darkness once more and marvelled at the speed in which he had ended up in hell like this, and of course it had to be hell, because where else would he be when he had to spend the rest of his days looking at the man he loved with bullet holes all through his chest?
There was rustling beside him and then muffled, pained gasps and a voice, the most precious voice in the universe whispering frantically into his ear. “Face! Face, dear god, look at me! Open your eyes and look at me!” Face just screwed them closed even more forcefully; there was no way he was going to get involved in mind games in his own personal version of hell. The rustling and the shuffling continued, followed by a ripping, tearing sound and then there were hands on him, poking in his hair, prodding the part of his head that hurt like fuck at the back. “What have you done, oh, baby, what have you done?” The terror in those words lanced through Face like an icy spear, and without thought, he opened his eyes, compelled to look up at their owner.
Hannibal was pale, the smears of blood on his face standing out in sharp, sharp contrast to the whiteness of his skin. His hands were running all over Face’s head, and he could feel them shaking as they touched, coming away daubed in blood. He glanced down, couldn’t really help it, even though Hannibal’s bloody chest was the last thing he wanted to see, the violence that had killed him, the reason he’d ended up in perpetual hell like Face himself. He frowned in confusion at the loose hoop of duct tape hanging around his boss’ neck and realised that at one point it had been a gag, and then his eyes ran down to that pale caramel sweater and he stared in confusion at the grime he saw, the odd smear of blood, but no bullet holes, no evidence of exsanguination. Without thinking he raised his hand, the same hand that had been holding the gun and frowned at the pain moving it had caused, but then he was touching and finding Hannibal warm and whole and feeling very much alive.
With a hiss of pain, Face was pulled up off the ground and enveloped in a fierce, desperate hug that he could do nothing else but return. He was still confused, still had that searing pain in his head from the one bullet, but if this was hell, then maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he had first feared.
“Oh, god, Face, I thought you had done it, I thought you were-” Hannibal stuttered to a halt and buried his face in the warmth of Face’s neck, shaking hard and whispering, “What were you thinking? What were you thinking?.” And Face just held on to him, grabbing at any bit of clothing or skin he could manage and tried to wrap his head around what the fuck was going on.
But then Hannibal was pulling him up, grabbing him off the floor and almost carrying him towards the still open door of Silas’ Cadillac. “Get in, kid,” he whispered, his voice anxious, “we need to get out of here pretty damn fast.”
He tried to push Face into the back seat but he resisted, grabbing hold of Hannibal’s biceps in his hands and staring at him right in the eyes. “I saw him shoot you,” he whispered, the memories those words conjured up almost more than he could stand. “I thought you were dead...”
Hannibal wilted under his agony, “No baby,” he whispered, still lowering Face into the car. “He didn’t shoot me, he was being a prick, trying to scare me, trying to make me freak or piss my pants or something.” He shook his head sadly, “He was never going to kill either of us that easily.”
Still Face frowned, realising that Hannibal had been gagged, restrained by the tape and that’s why he hadn’t moved or shouted out to Face before he got his hands on Pike’s gun. He put a hand up to the back of his head which was throbbing in time with his pulse and looked at the blood on his fingers. “I shot myself...” he whispered, wondering why the hell he was still breathing.
Closing his eyes against the pain of those words Hannibal leant in and kissed Face, hard and fast on his lips before pulling back. “You didn’t,” he reassured him, “I kicked the gun away just in time, you’ve got some shrapnel damage, that’s all, but it’s not too deep.”
Face stared at him, trying to take it all in, only just starting to realise what he almost did, his eyes flicked over to where he knew Silas was slumped at the side of the alley, only just starting to realise what he had done... “Oh, god, John... Pike...”
Again Hannibal kissed him, lifting his legs at the same time and bundling him into the back seats. “I know,” he whispered, “I’m sorting it. You stay here while I get this done.” Face stared at him and Hannibal could see the shock setting in, knew how Face felt about taking a life, the way it always hit him. “You had no choice,” he reassured him, desperate to get this mess tidied up, desperate to get out before the cops showed up. “He was gonna kill us both, Face. And Murdock and BA, probably your mom and Eddie too. You had no choice.”
He got no answer, Face just pulled his legs up and curled into himself on the leather of the back seats while Hannibal hauled Pike’s body into the trunk, picked up their guns, poured gas from a can in the back all over the ground and then threw a match, watching in grim satisfaction as the alley went up in flames. He forced himself to drive slowly and carefully away from the mini inferno, back out onto the main street and away from the hospital as the first sirens sounded off in the distance.
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Face was fairly unaware of the drive to meet up with Murdock and BA and the van. He knew that’s where they were going, could hear Hannibal on his cell as he drove, making arrangements, reassuring Murdock that they were both okay, but he was buried so deep in his own personal fog he could never have said whether they had taken ten minutes or ten days to get to where they were going.
They met up at the back of a car park in a rest station and Hannibal was ruthlessly efficient the second he pulled over next to the van. He stalked around to the back door of the Cadillac and hauled Face out, his hands firm but gentle and then carried his unresponsive lover over to the open door of the van. Murdock was waiting in the driver’s seat as Hannibal laid Face in the back, stroking his hair and kissing him quickly on the lips.
“Murdock is gonna drive up to the house with you kid,” he whispered quickly. “Me and BA have to sort some stuff and then we’ll follow you.”
He tried to pull away but Face reached up and grabbed him, his fingers gripping like claws in his desperation. “No,” he gasped and Hannibal felt a spike of sympathy rush through him. “Don’t boss, don’t leave me please, don’t leave me.”
“Hey, kimosabe,” Murdock’s voice, strained and on edge but forcibly cheerful reached back from the driver’s seat. “Don’t you worry about nothin’, here, you an’ me are gonna have a nice drive up into the hills an’ Hannibal and the big guy will be there before we know it, right bossman?”
“Right,” Hannibal agreed, peeling Face’s fingers off his arm and sliding out of the door of the van.
“John, please...” Face begged and Hannibal hardened his resolve.
“I have to go,” he told him firmly, “I have to sort this,” and Face withdrew, understanding in his eyes and curled back in on himself again, wrapping his arms around his torso as he watched Hannibal get to his feet outside. Looking at the devastation in his boy’s expression, the colonel sighed. He and BA needed to do this right now, they needed to tidy up all these loose ends, and after that – shit – he knew he’d have some major repairs to do with Face as well.
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Murdock kept up a steady and chipper monologue all the way up to the house in the mountains they were renting for the next few weeks. It was a tough job, as the only words Face spoke in the entire two hour drive were to ask Murdock to pull over when his concussion made him bring up his dinner all over the side of the road.
They set off again almost at once, Murdock keen to get somewhere safe and Face added frequently to the contents of the bucket Murdock had given him on the long drive through the rapidly darkening night.
When they arrived, Murdock left Face curled around the bucket in the back of the van while he checked the place out, switched on the electricity and quickly allocated the rooms. Then he came back, and, cheerful voice firmly in place, helped Face from the back of the van and straight into the master bathroom where he had already started the huge bath running.
“I’m fine, Murdock,” Face said tiredly when he saw what was going on. “I don’t need a bath, I just need to go to bed.”
“Course you need a bath!” Murdock told him brightly, “’Cause I’m the one who washes all the sheets an’ I aint washing sheets that you’ve mucked all over on purpose, Face. Look at the state of you!”
Face didn’t need to look, he could feel the dirt and the grime, the sweat and the blood all over him, and Murdock’s comments about the sheets were a little off as well, they all took turns with the chores, the only thing that Murdock did more than the others was cook. But deep in his head, Face knew that Murdock was right, and that his friend only wanted the best for him, so he stripped down slowly and let Murdock help him into the water, sighing as the heat immediately soothed every ache and pain other than the ones inside him.
He lay back in the water as Murdock gently washed him down, poked about in the back of his head, removing tiny fragments of shrapnel with some tweezers and finally numbed and cleaned the gash on his head before sealing it with wound glue. Then he let himself be towelled dry and led to the bedroom where the duvet was turned down and his sleep shorts were already out and waiting for him.
Clean and dry, but with his body pulsing in pain, his stomach rolling with nausea and nightmares already creeping into his fuddled brain, he dragged the shorts on and crawled under the duvet, wondering if he could hold it all together just until Hannibal got back. But he didn't have to worry, just as the shaking was starting to get the better of him and turn into something a little closer to convulsing, he felt the bed dip and smelt Murdock’s familiar body spray as his best friend in all the world climbed, fully dressed, under the covers with him. He immediately turned towards that warmth and Murdock was there for him, opening his arms and letting Face crush himself up against Murdock’s hard chest. Within seconds the shaking was subsiding, morphing into something more like trembling, and Murdock’s big hands were on his head and his back, keeping away from the shrapnel site, but just holding, soothing, comforting, and with two hands full of t-shirt, Face let himself start to come down.
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Face was sleeping, but Murdock was wide awake when he heard Hannibal and BA come in just short of three a.m. He lay still, holding Face securely while he slept and lifted his head to acknowledge he was awake when Hannibal cracked the door open. Hannibal nodded back, let his eyes run over Face’s sleeping form and then crept back out into the hallway. Murdock gave him a few minutes, made sure that his arrival hadn’t disturbed Face’s sleep, and then gently extracted himself from his friend’s grip, sliding out of the bed and following the sound of quiet voices down the stairs.
BA and Hannibal were both sat at the island in the middle of the kitchen, one on either side with two glasses and a bottle of Johnny Walker between them. BA leaned over to snag a third glass for Murdock while Hannibal pulled out a stool for him. “He okay?” he asked quietly as BA poured two fingers into the whisky glass.
Murdock downed them in one and BA filled his glass again.
“He’s okay,” he answered softly, “but really, really freaked out. What the fuck happened?”
Hannibal sighed and rubbed at his forehead before quickly relating everything that had occurred since he had left the house that morning. When he’d finished, the three sat in silence, each mulling over their own particular thoughts.
“Shit boss,” Murdock eventually whispered into the silence. “What if... what if Pike had decided to be a little more straightforward and a little less of a jackass? You’d be dead right now, both of you.”
BA shifted uncomfortably and Hannibal rubbed two fingers across his forehead. “But we’re not,” he ground out flatly. He couldn’t get that image of Face laid out in the alley, lifting the gun up to his head, pulling the trigger, actually pulling the fucking trigger, out of his head at all. It was like it was on a perpetually repeating loop, burning itself into his mind.
“He thought you were dead, Hannibal,” Murdock offered, reading the look in Hannibal’s eyes and automatically defending Face.
“I know, but how could he do that? I just-” he stopped, they all stopped, straining their ears to catch the sound drifting down from upstairs.
“Fuck...” in a moment, Hannibal was on his feet, running for the stairs, hearing Face’s shouts, wondering where the weapons were, wondering what he’d find in that bedroom... He burst through the door and saw Face was sitting upright in the sheets, awake now, his eyes confused and downright scared. He looked over at Hannibal standing in the doorway and then they both moved, Face leaning forwards, reaching out for the comfort, Hannibal climbing right onto the bed, crawling up and gathering him into his arms, both of them far, far too close to knowing what it was like to be alone.
They stayed like that, immobile in each other’s arms for long, silent minutes until Face needed more and edged around, letting his eyes stay closed and his lips feel their way along Hannibal’s jaw until he was close enough to reach the older man’s lips. He stretched up, pressing his own mouth firmly against Hannibal’s and slipping his tongue out to flick against closed lips, asking for the entrance he was always granted.
Not this time though. One minute Face was being held securely, his cock just starting to swell slightly at the promise of what was to come, the next he was being roughly pushed away, so hard he fell back against the headboard and Hannibal swung himself around, presenting his stiff back to Face as he let his head fall down into his hands.
Face was stunned into silence for almost a minute as the piercing pain of rejection slowly filtered through his body to pool coldly in his heart. And then it hit him, why Hannibal was turning him away, what he’d done in that alley, the way he’d killed Silas Pike. Shot after shot after shot he’d let rip into the bastard, and why? Because he’d lost control, let his emotions get the better of him and allowed his heart to rule his head. Stupid. Hannibal was always telling him he had to stop and think, he couldn’t get away with reacting like a five year old, that one day it would get someone killed.
Well, today it had done, but only Pike, who’d wanted to kill them all and hadn’t Hannibal said that was okay? That Face had had no choice? Or had he only said that to get him into the car? To let Hannibal clear up his mess and get their butts out of there before the cops turned up?
When they’d started on this whole ‘Soldiers of Fortune’ thing, Hannibal had told them, over and over again, that it was not their role to be a lynch mob. They would stop the bad guys and present them and enough evidence to the police so that they could be taken care of in an appropriate way. If the need was strong enough then they would use deadly force, but otherwise – no; in no circumstances at all were they going to turn into vigilantes.
So, was that what this was all about? That Face had killed Pike in cold blood when there had been no real need? Hannibal wasn’t dead, had never even been shot; all Face needed to have done was to turn around and look and they could have taken care of Pike in a much less bloodthirsty manner. But he hadn’t, he’d ended up blasting the guy’s internal organs all over the wall in the alley, and now Hannibal was disgusted in him, in the bloodlust he’d seen in Face’s eyes as he repeatedly pulled that trigger, so disgusted that he wouldn't let Face kiss him, didn’t want to hold him anymore... and where the hell did that leave their relationship now? His insides turned to ice, was it over? Was Hannibal so appalled in him that he didn’t want him in the team anymore? In his bed? Face swallowed hard, he couldn’t let that happen, he just couldn’t – he would do anything on earth to stop it.
“I’m sorry...” he choked out and Hannibal twitched slightly, looking at Face from under the hand cradling his head. “I can’t believe I did that,” he whispered, “I should never have shot him like that.”
That eye slid shut again and Hannibal wilted even more, his sigh clearly audible in the silence following Face’s words. The quiet stretched on and Face began to panic. He felt nauseous once more and wasn’t sure if it were due to his concussion or the waves of disapproval he could feel rolling off the boss. His heart was hammering against his ribs and he was sweating, that nasty cold sweat of fear. He couldn’t believe that his apology had fallen on deaf ears the way it had; if anything it had only seemed to stoke Hannibal’s resentment of him even higher. So if the apology had failed then what was left for him? Justification seemed the next best alternative.
“I thought you were dead,” he offered plaintively, “I saw him shoot at you, heard the shots, saw him laughing. How the fuck was I supposed to know he was only playing mind games?” Hannibal got to his feet and walked to the window, staring out sightlessly, tension obvious in every plane of his body from his folded arms to the veins that were standing out on his neck.
Face shifted to the edge of the bed, testing his swollen ankle on the floor and willed Hannibal to turn and face him, tell him it was alright, he understood. When no such reassurances came, he ploughed on. “So, maybe I didn’t do it the way you would have done, maybe I messed up where you wouldn’t have. But, shit, John, I did my fucking best!”
Still Hannibal stayed still and silent, staring out of the window and Face slowly got to his feet, the panic and the adrenalin in his veins masking the pain in his foot. “I know I shouldn’t have killed him,” he stated to Hannibal’s rigid back, “I know you always say that brings us right down to their level and we are better than that, should be better than that,” he shook his head and took a step in, tentatively resting a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder, “but I... I just lost it for a second there, I thought I’d lost you!”
Hannibal made a disgusted little growl and shrugged Face’s hand off him, a movement that hurt more than anything that Face had suffered at Pike’s hands in the last week. He recoiled physically from the man he loved, stumbling a little in his shock and suddenly the room was far too small and Hannibal’s presence was far too painful and he just needed to get away. He leaned heavily on the chest of drawers as he forced his ankle to take his weight long enough to get to the door and then he stopped, tears in his eyes, his throat as tight as a bow, shaking from the effort of standing on his own two feet. He gripped the door handle tightly and stared down at the beige carpet, determined to have one last go at bringing Hannibal round.
“I’m sorry John,” he whispered, the bitterness of his words impossible to miss. “I’m so fucking sorry that I’ve let you down here. But I did it because I love you,” he implored. “Because I thought he’d hurt you and I fucking love you.” There was no response. “You have no idea how I felt,” his voice scratched at his throat on the way out. “No idea what it was like to have to watch the man I love scythed down in front of me like that by a psycho with a gun...”
He depressed the handle, but before he had chance to even start to open the door, Hannibal was on him, swinging him around and slamming his back into the wall next to the door so hard he hit his head yet again. He started to slide down but then the boss was there, a big hand around his throat, holding him up, his furious face just inches from his lieutenant’s and Face froze, recognising a Hannibal Smith right at the end of his rope when he saw one. “No, Face I don’t!” Hannibal spat, boiling hot fury evident in every syllable. “But I do know how it feels to watch some dickhead with a piece threaten to blow you apart right in front of me ‘cause I’ve seen it, haven’t I? Too many fucking times to count!”
Face knew that was true, he’d felt that terror himself. But this was different, this time he’d really thought that Hannibal was dead.
“But they were all assholes,” Hannibal continued, “Pike one of the biggest ones going. What about if it’s not an asshole wielding the gun? What then, hey, Face? What then?”
Face just stared at him, thoroughly confused.
“You, Tried. To. Kill. Yourself!” Hannibal iterated, punctuating each word by banging Face against the wall. “I sat and watched as you lifted that gun and put it to your own fucking head! Your own head Face! How do you think that made me feel? What in fuck’s name were you even thinking?”
Things finally slid into place in Face’s head and he struggled against the hand on his throat. “I thought you were dead!” he defended himself desperately.
“You should have looked!” Hannibal yelled at him. “You should have fucking well checked!”
Face was rapidly losing control himself and the pressure of Hannibal’s grip on his neck was beginning to hurt. He wrapped both his hands around Hannibal’s wrists even as he started yelling back. “I didn’t want to see you dead! I didn’t want to remember you like that, all shot up and gone!”
“And that would have mattered? When you were planning on offing yourself anyway?” Face’s mouth opened but no sound came out. “And so I have to watch you blow your own fucking brains out all over the fucking ground instead then do I?!” Hannibal spat back. “DO I?!!”
Face had no answer to that, and with his silence, Hannibal’s fury ran out to be replaced by tragic resignation. “How can I ever trust you again after this?” he asked, the rawness of his voice impossible to miss.
“What?” Face asked quietly, shocked by the realisation of what he’d done.
“How can I let you go out on a job knowing that this is what you would do if the shit really hit the fan?” Hannibal asked him. “How can I let you run the risk of getting captured if I think you are gonna add yourself to the ‘death in custody’ statistics? How can I carry on this relationship with you if I think that every time we fight I’m gonna find you swinging from a rope somewhere?”
“John, I...” Face started, but he was soon cut off.
“I can’t trust you Face, I just can’t. And without trust then what the fuck is the point to all this?”
Face just stared, his eyes filling with moisture, the pain in his chest so acute he was having trouble breathing around it. “What do you mean?” he whispered, but Hannibal just shook his head and removed his hand, frowning at the marks he could already see standing out on Face’s skin.
“Just go to bed, Face,” he answered tiredly and turned at once, slipping out of the door, leaving Face to slide down the wall and slump into a heap on the carpet.
Next
There was rustling beside him and then muffled, pained gasps and a voice, the most precious voice in the universe whispering frantically into his ear. “Face! Face, dear god, look at me! Open your eyes and look at me!” Face just screwed them closed even more forcefully; there was no way he was going to get involved in mind games in his own personal version of hell. The rustling and the shuffling continued, followed by a ripping, tearing sound and then there were hands on him, poking in his hair, prodding the part of his head that hurt like fuck at the back. “What have you done, oh, baby, what have you done?” The terror in those words lanced through Face like an icy spear, and without thought, he opened his eyes, compelled to look up at their owner.
Hannibal was pale, the smears of blood on his face standing out in sharp, sharp contrast to the whiteness of his skin. His hands were running all over Face’s head, and he could feel them shaking as they touched, coming away daubed in blood. He glanced down, couldn’t really help it, even though Hannibal’s bloody chest was the last thing he wanted to see, the violence that had killed him, the reason he’d ended up in perpetual hell like Face himself. He frowned in confusion at the loose hoop of duct tape hanging around his boss’ neck and realised that at one point it had been a gag, and then his eyes ran down to that pale caramel sweater and he stared in confusion at the grime he saw, the odd smear of blood, but no bullet holes, no evidence of exsanguination. Without thinking he raised his hand, the same hand that had been holding the gun and frowned at the pain moving it had caused, but then he was touching and finding Hannibal warm and whole and feeling very much alive.
With a hiss of pain, Face was pulled up off the ground and enveloped in a fierce, desperate hug that he could do nothing else but return. He was still confused, still had that searing pain in his head from the one bullet, but if this was hell, then maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he had first feared.
“Oh, god, Face, I thought you had done it, I thought you were-” Hannibal stuttered to a halt and buried his face in the warmth of Face’s neck, shaking hard and whispering, “What were you thinking? What were you thinking?.” And Face just held on to him, grabbing at any bit of clothing or skin he could manage and tried to wrap his head around what the fuck was going on.
But then Hannibal was pulling him up, grabbing him off the floor and almost carrying him towards the still open door of Silas’ Cadillac. “Get in, kid,” he whispered, his voice anxious, “we need to get out of here pretty damn fast.”
He tried to push Face into the back seat but he resisted, grabbing hold of Hannibal’s biceps in his hands and staring at him right in the eyes. “I saw him shoot you,” he whispered, the memories those words conjured up almost more than he could stand. “I thought you were dead...”
Hannibal wilted under his agony, “No baby,” he whispered, still lowering Face into the car. “He didn’t shoot me, he was being a prick, trying to scare me, trying to make me freak or piss my pants or something.” He shook his head sadly, “He was never going to kill either of us that easily.”
Still Face frowned, realising that Hannibal had been gagged, restrained by the tape and that’s why he hadn’t moved or shouted out to Face before he got his hands on Pike’s gun. He put a hand up to the back of his head which was throbbing in time with his pulse and looked at the blood on his fingers. “I shot myself...” he whispered, wondering why the hell he was still breathing.
Closing his eyes against the pain of those words Hannibal leant in and kissed Face, hard and fast on his lips before pulling back. “You didn’t,” he reassured him, “I kicked the gun away just in time, you’ve got some shrapnel damage, that’s all, but it’s not too deep.”
Face stared at him, trying to take it all in, only just starting to realise what he almost did, his eyes flicked over to where he knew Silas was slumped at the side of the alley, only just starting to realise what he had done... “Oh, god, John... Pike...”
Again Hannibal kissed him, lifting his legs at the same time and bundling him into the back seats. “I know,” he whispered, “I’m sorting it. You stay here while I get this done.” Face stared at him and Hannibal could see the shock setting in, knew how Face felt about taking a life, the way it always hit him. “You had no choice,” he reassured him, desperate to get this mess tidied up, desperate to get out before the cops showed up. “He was gonna kill us both, Face. And Murdock and BA, probably your mom and Eddie too. You had no choice.”
He got no answer, Face just pulled his legs up and curled into himself on the leather of the back seats while Hannibal hauled Pike’s body into the trunk, picked up their guns, poured gas from a can in the back all over the ground and then threw a match, watching in grim satisfaction as the alley went up in flames. He forced himself to drive slowly and carefully away from the mini inferno, back out onto the main street and away from the hospital as the first sirens sounded off in the distance.
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Face was fairly unaware of the drive to meet up with Murdock and BA and the van. He knew that’s where they were going, could hear Hannibal on his cell as he drove, making arrangements, reassuring Murdock that they were both okay, but he was buried so deep in his own personal fog he could never have said whether they had taken ten minutes or ten days to get to where they were going.
They met up at the back of a car park in a rest station and Hannibal was ruthlessly efficient the second he pulled over next to the van. He stalked around to the back door of the Cadillac and hauled Face out, his hands firm but gentle and then carried his unresponsive lover over to the open door of the van. Murdock was waiting in the driver’s seat as Hannibal laid Face in the back, stroking his hair and kissing him quickly on the lips.
“Murdock is gonna drive up to the house with you kid,” he whispered quickly. “Me and BA have to sort some stuff and then we’ll follow you.”
He tried to pull away but Face reached up and grabbed him, his fingers gripping like claws in his desperation. “No,” he gasped and Hannibal felt a spike of sympathy rush through him. “Don’t boss, don’t leave me please, don’t leave me.”
“Hey, kimosabe,” Murdock’s voice, strained and on edge but forcibly cheerful reached back from the driver’s seat. “Don’t you worry about nothin’, here, you an’ me are gonna have a nice drive up into the hills an’ Hannibal and the big guy will be there before we know it, right bossman?”
“Right,” Hannibal agreed, peeling Face’s fingers off his arm and sliding out of the door of the van.
“John, please...” Face begged and Hannibal hardened his resolve.
“I have to go,” he told him firmly, “I have to sort this,” and Face withdrew, understanding in his eyes and curled back in on himself again, wrapping his arms around his torso as he watched Hannibal get to his feet outside. Looking at the devastation in his boy’s expression, the colonel sighed. He and BA needed to do this right now, they needed to tidy up all these loose ends, and after that – shit – he knew he’d have some major repairs to do with Face as well.
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Murdock kept up a steady and chipper monologue all the way up to the house in the mountains they were renting for the next few weeks. It was a tough job, as the only words Face spoke in the entire two hour drive were to ask Murdock to pull over when his concussion made him bring up his dinner all over the side of the road.
They set off again almost at once, Murdock keen to get somewhere safe and Face added frequently to the contents of the bucket Murdock had given him on the long drive through the rapidly darkening night.
When they arrived, Murdock left Face curled around the bucket in the back of the van while he checked the place out, switched on the electricity and quickly allocated the rooms. Then he came back, and, cheerful voice firmly in place, helped Face from the back of the van and straight into the master bathroom where he had already started the huge bath running.
“I’m fine, Murdock,” Face said tiredly when he saw what was going on. “I don’t need a bath, I just need to go to bed.”
“Course you need a bath!” Murdock told him brightly, “’Cause I’m the one who washes all the sheets an’ I aint washing sheets that you’ve mucked all over on purpose, Face. Look at the state of you!”
Face didn’t need to look, he could feel the dirt and the grime, the sweat and the blood all over him, and Murdock’s comments about the sheets were a little off as well, they all took turns with the chores, the only thing that Murdock did more than the others was cook. But deep in his head, Face knew that Murdock was right, and that his friend only wanted the best for him, so he stripped down slowly and let Murdock help him into the water, sighing as the heat immediately soothed every ache and pain other than the ones inside him.
He lay back in the water as Murdock gently washed him down, poked about in the back of his head, removing tiny fragments of shrapnel with some tweezers and finally numbed and cleaned the gash on his head before sealing it with wound glue. Then he let himself be towelled dry and led to the bedroom where the duvet was turned down and his sleep shorts were already out and waiting for him.
Clean and dry, but with his body pulsing in pain, his stomach rolling with nausea and nightmares already creeping into his fuddled brain, he dragged the shorts on and crawled under the duvet, wondering if he could hold it all together just until Hannibal got back. But he didn't have to worry, just as the shaking was starting to get the better of him and turn into something a little closer to convulsing, he felt the bed dip and smelt Murdock’s familiar body spray as his best friend in all the world climbed, fully dressed, under the covers with him. He immediately turned towards that warmth and Murdock was there for him, opening his arms and letting Face crush himself up against Murdock’s hard chest. Within seconds the shaking was subsiding, morphing into something more like trembling, and Murdock’s big hands were on his head and his back, keeping away from the shrapnel site, but just holding, soothing, comforting, and with two hands full of t-shirt, Face let himself start to come down.
_______________________
Face was sleeping, but Murdock was wide awake when he heard Hannibal and BA come in just short of three a.m. He lay still, holding Face securely while he slept and lifted his head to acknowledge he was awake when Hannibal cracked the door open. Hannibal nodded back, let his eyes run over Face’s sleeping form and then crept back out into the hallway. Murdock gave him a few minutes, made sure that his arrival hadn’t disturbed Face’s sleep, and then gently extracted himself from his friend’s grip, sliding out of the bed and following the sound of quiet voices down the stairs.
BA and Hannibal were both sat at the island in the middle of the kitchen, one on either side with two glasses and a bottle of Johnny Walker between them. BA leaned over to snag a third glass for Murdock while Hannibal pulled out a stool for him. “He okay?” he asked quietly as BA poured two fingers into the whisky glass.
Murdock downed them in one and BA filled his glass again.
“He’s okay,” he answered softly, “but really, really freaked out. What the fuck happened?”
Hannibal sighed and rubbed at his forehead before quickly relating everything that had occurred since he had left the house that morning. When he’d finished, the three sat in silence, each mulling over their own particular thoughts.
“Shit boss,” Murdock eventually whispered into the silence. “What if... what if Pike had decided to be a little more straightforward and a little less of a jackass? You’d be dead right now, both of you.”
BA shifted uncomfortably and Hannibal rubbed two fingers across his forehead. “But we’re not,” he ground out flatly. He couldn’t get that image of Face laid out in the alley, lifting the gun up to his head, pulling the trigger, actually pulling the fucking trigger, out of his head at all. It was like it was on a perpetually repeating loop, burning itself into his mind.
“He thought you were dead, Hannibal,” Murdock offered, reading the look in Hannibal’s eyes and automatically defending Face.
“I know, but how could he do that? I just-” he stopped, they all stopped, straining their ears to catch the sound drifting down from upstairs.
“Fuck...” in a moment, Hannibal was on his feet, running for the stairs, hearing Face’s shouts, wondering where the weapons were, wondering what he’d find in that bedroom... He burst through the door and saw Face was sitting upright in the sheets, awake now, his eyes confused and downright scared. He looked over at Hannibal standing in the doorway and then they both moved, Face leaning forwards, reaching out for the comfort, Hannibal climbing right onto the bed, crawling up and gathering him into his arms, both of them far, far too close to knowing what it was like to be alone.
They stayed like that, immobile in each other’s arms for long, silent minutes until Face needed more and edged around, letting his eyes stay closed and his lips feel their way along Hannibal’s jaw until he was close enough to reach the older man’s lips. He stretched up, pressing his own mouth firmly against Hannibal’s and slipping his tongue out to flick against closed lips, asking for the entrance he was always granted.
Not this time though. One minute Face was being held securely, his cock just starting to swell slightly at the promise of what was to come, the next he was being roughly pushed away, so hard he fell back against the headboard and Hannibal swung himself around, presenting his stiff back to Face as he let his head fall down into his hands.
Face was stunned into silence for almost a minute as the piercing pain of rejection slowly filtered through his body to pool coldly in his heart. And then it hit him, why Hannibal was turning him away, what he’d done in that alley, the way he’d killed Silas Pike. Shot after shot after shot he’d let rip into the bastard, and why? Because he’d lost control, let his emotions get the better of him and allowed his heart to rule his head. Stupid. Hannibal was always telling him he had to stop and think, he couldn’t get away with reacting like a five year old, that one day it would get someone killed.
Well, today it had done, but only Pike, who’d wanted to kill them all and hadn’t Hannibal said that was okay? That Face had had no choice? Or had he only said that to get him into the car? To let Hannibal clear up his mess and get their butts out of there before the cops turned up?
When they’d started on this whole ‘Soldiers of Fortune’ thing, Hannibal had told them, over and over again, that it was not their role to be a lynch mob. They would stop the bad guys and present them and enough evidence to the police so that they could be taken care of in an appropriate way. If the need was strong enough then they would use deadly force, but otherwise – no; in no circumstances at all were they going to turn into vigilantes.
So, was that what this was all about? That Face had killed Pike in cold blood when there had been no real need? Hannibal wasn’t dead, had never even been shot; all Face needed to have done was to turn around and look and they could have taken care of Pike in a much less bloodthirsty manner. But he hadn’t, he’d ended up blasting the guy’s internal organs all over the wall in the alley, and now Hannibal was disgusted in him, in the bloodlust he’d seen in Face’s eyes as he repeatedly pulled that trigger, so disgusted that he wouldn't let Face kiss him, didn’t want to hold him anymore... and where the hell did that leave their relationship now? His insides turned to ice, was it over? Was Hannibal so appalled in him that he didn’t want him in the team anymore? In his bed? Face swallowed hard, he couldn’t let that happen, he just couldn’t – he would do anything on earth to stop it.
“I’m sorry...” he choked out and Hannibal twitched slightly, looking at Face from under the hand cradling his head. “I can’t believe I did that,” he whispered, “I should never have shot him like that.”
That eye slid shut again and Hannibal wilted even more, his sigh clearly audible in the silence following Face’s words. The quiet stretched on and Face began to panic. He felt nauseous once more and wasn’t sure if it were due to his concussion or the waves of disapproval he could feel rolling off the boss. His heart was hammering against his ribs and he was sweating, that nasty cold sweat of fear. He couldn’t believe that his apology had fallen on deaf ears the way it had; if anything it had only seemed to stoke Hannibal’s resentment of him even higher. So if the apology had failed then what was left for him? Justification seemed the next best alternative.
“I thought you were dead,” he offered plaintively, “I saw him shoot at you, heard the shots, saw him laughing. How the fuck was I supposed to know he was only playing mind games?” Hannibal got to his feet and walked to the window, staring out sightlessly, tension obvious in every plane of his body from his folded arms to the veins that were standing out on his neck.
Face shifted to the edge of the bed, testing his swollen ankle on the floor and willed Hannibal to turn and face him, tell him it was alright, he understood. When no such reassurances came, he ploughed on. “So, maybe I didn’t do it the way you would have done, maybe I messed up where you wouldn’t have. But, shit, John, I did my fucking best!”
Still Hannibal stayed still and silent, staring out of the window and Face slowly got to his feet, the panic and the adrenalin in his veins masking the pain in his foot. “I know I shouldn’t have killed him,” he stated to Hannibal’s rigid back, “I know you always say that brings us right down to their level and we are better than that, should be better than that,” he shook his head and took a step in, tentatively resting a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder, “but I... I just lost it for a second there, I thought I’d lost you!”
Hannibal made a disgusted little growl and shrugged Face’s hand off him, a movement that hurt more than anything that Face had suffered at Pike’s hands in the last week. He recoiled physically from the man he loved, stumbling a little in his shock and suddenly the room was far too small and Hannibal’s presence was far too painful and he just needed to get away. He leaned heavily on the chest of drawers as he forced his ankle to take his weight long enough to get to the door and then he stopped, tears in his eyes, his throat as tight as a bow, shaking from the effort of standing on his own two feet. He gripped the door handle tightly and stared down at the beige carpet, determined to have one last go at bringing Hannibal round.
“I’m sorry John,” he whispered, the bitterness of his words impossible to miss. “I’m so fucking sorry that I’ve let you down here. But I did it because I love you,” he implored. “Because I thought he’d hurt you and I fucking love you.” There was no response. “You have no idea how I felt,” his voice scratched at his throat on the way out. “No idea what it was like to have to watch the man I love scythed down in front of me like that by a psycho with a gun...”
He depressed the handle, but before he had chance to even start to open the door, Hannibal was on him, swinging him around and slamming his back into the wall next to the door so hard he hit his head yet again. He started to slide down but then the boss was there, a big hand around his throat, holding him up, his furious face just inches from his lieutenant’s and Face froze, recognising a Hannibal Smith right at the end of his rope when he saw one. “No, Face I don’t!” Hannibal spat, boiling hot fury evident in every syllable. “But I do know how it feels to watch some dickhead with a piece threaten to blow you apart right in front of me ‘cause I’ve seen it, haven’t I? Too many fucking times to count!”
Face knew that was true, he’d felt that terror himself. But this was different, this time he’d really thought that Hannibal was dead.
“But they were all assholes,” Hannibal continued, “Pike one of the biggest ones going. What about if it’s not an asshole wielding the gun? What then, hey, Face? What then?”
Face just stared at him, thoroughly confused.
“You, Tried. To. Kill. Yourself!” Hannibal iterated, punctuating each word by banging Face against the wall. “I sat and watched as you lifted that gun and put it to your own fucking head! Your own head Face! How do you think that made me feel? What in fuck’s name were you even thinking?”
Things finally slid into place in Face’s head and he struggled against the hand on his throat. “I thought you were dead!” he defended himself desperately.
“You should have looked!” Hannibal yelled at him. “You should have fucking well checked!”
Face was rapidly losing control himself and the pressure of Hannibal’s grip on his neck was beginning to hurt. He wrapped both his hands around Hannibal’s wrists even as he started yelling back. “I didn’t want to see you dead! I didn’t want to remember you like that, all shot up and gone!”
“And that would have mattered? When you were planning on offing yourself anyway?” Face’s mouth opened but no sound came out. “And so I have to watch you blow your own fucking brains out all over the fucking ground instead then do I?!” Hannibal spat back. “DO I?!!”
Face had no answer to that, and with his silence, Hannibal’s fury ran out to be replaced by tragic resignation. “How can I ever trust you again after this?” he asked, the rawness of his voice impossible to miss.
“What?” Face asked quietly, shocked by the realisation of what he’d done.
“How can I let you go out on a job knowing that this is what you would do if the shit really hit the fan?” Hannibal asked him. “How can I let you run the risk of getting captured if I think you are gonna add yourself to the ‘death in custody’ statistics? How can I carry on this relationship with you if I think that every time we fight I’m gonna find you swinging from a rope somewhere?”
“John, I...” Face started, but he was soon cut off.
“I can’t trust you Face, I just can’t. And without trust then what the fuck is the point to all this?”
Face just stared, his eyes filling with moisture, the pain in his chest so acute he was having trouble breathing around it. “What do you mean?” he whispered, but Hannibal just shook his head and removed his hand, frowning at the marks he could already see standing out on Face’s skin.
“Just go to bed, Face,” he answered tiredly and turned at once, slipping out of the door, leaving Face to slide down the wall and slump into a heap on the carpet.
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