indigo_angels (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
indigo_angels) wrote2011-11-30 11:15 pm
indigo_angels) wrote2011-11-30 11:15 pm
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A Mother's Love - Chapter Thirty Eight - Penultimate Chapter
As the morning light slowly filtered through the gaps in the blinds, painting the walls a faint orange, Face was still sitting where Hannibal had left him, his expression blank, his mind reeling.
His first reaction to Hannibal walking out on him like that had been to leave. His bag was already packed, his worldly possessions combined into one medium sized holdall and if that was what the boss thought of him now, then maybe he would be doing everyone a favour if he just disappeared.
But then, even before he’d managed to struggle to his feet and get his stuff, it had struck him; he’d had a sudden, searing image of Hannibal, gun raised to his temple, pulling the trigger and the force of the vision had almost crushed him, and he realised then what he had done, how violently he had betrayed the man who loved him.
It was more than that, though, much more. And as he sat through the small hours of the morning and the black of the night slowly, slowly receded, he thought back to his early days with Hannibal and the vow he had silently made as a soldier, long before they had been anywhere near the point of making vows as lovers.
Hannibal had been the first person to look twice at the angry young lieutenant who could run his mouth as fast as his body; the first person to ask ‘why?’ instead of just reaming him out, and that was all it had taken for Face’s life to turn around. He found that with someone to trust him and believe in him and value him he could start to be a better person, a more level person, and he vowed that he would repay that trust by always being exactly what Hannibal wanted him to be, always doing whatever it was that needed doing.
And he had. For almost twenty years he had done whatever was needed perfectly and often without Hannibal even having to say anything. Maybe the methods he chose weren’t always what the boss had had in mind and maybe the end results were a little different too, but Face had instinctively known the big picture, known what was expected of him and he had moved heaven and earth to unsure that that was what he had delivered for his colonel.
Until yesterday. And that was the thing that had brought him up short and shocked him back into real life. It didn’t matter whether Silas had shot Hannibal or not, it didn’t matter whether Face had checked out his facts properly or not. All that mattered was what Hannibal had expected of his XO in that situation, and in the quiet calm of the night, those expectations were crystal clear to Face now.
He was right to kill Pike the way he did; as unpleasant as he usually found taking a life, as unsavoury as the after taste of his over enthusiastic shooting might be, Pike was a threat to his team and would not have stopped in his crazy vendetta until he was dead. Face was right to kill him.
And after that his role was clean up. He should have sanitised the situation, made sure nothing existed to link either him or the team to the whole debacle. And if the worst had happened, if his CO, his life, his love had been killed, then he should have stepped up to the mark and taken control. Someone needed to move the bodies, someone needed to meet up with BA and Murdock and tell them what had happened, someone needed to be there for Murdock, be strong for BA, someone needed to organise a burial, someone needed to command the unit until they all decided what they were going to do with themselves. And that someone should have been him.
Regardless of what he owed Hannibal as a lover, the vow to hand over his heart and soul for all eternity had come after the vow to be the very best soldier, and later XO, that he possibly could be. He’d said he would never let Hannibal down, never, and now he had - and why? Because he’d been out-thought? Out-manoeuvred? Out fought? Out soldiered? No. Because he’d been damn selfish. Shame washed over him in a hot wave.
’I can’t trust you Face, I just can’t.’ Those words were haunting him now, circling round and round in his brain like a whole kettle of vultures and he realised what that meant to him, losing Hannibal’s trust like that. He wouldn’t be XO anymore, couldn’t be, how could you have an XO you didn’t trust? So where did that leave the team? How could they take on missions? How could they survive without that income? He couldn’t even begin to consider the knock on effects into his personal life, how much Hannibal would be able to stand by him and how much he wouldn’t.
And of course the ripples didn’t stop at Hannibal either, they just kept on spreading, absorbing everyone and everything they came into contact with. BA for example; he saw himself as chief protector of the team, and he would gladly stand between any one of them and a threat. The problem was, how was he supposed to do that if he thought that the biggest threat to Face came from his own hand rather than the hand of an adversary?
And then there was Murdock, and Face let his head droop as yet another tsunami of shame hit him. Murdock dealt with so much, coped with all the times his own mind back-fired on him and in all of those times, he’d never, ever been tempted to just jack it all in and top himself. Face knew that for a fact as it had come out in one of their all night whisky induced bonding sessions, where Hannibal and BA would eventually pass out and Murdock and Face would talk until dawn, wrapped up in a shared blanket marvelling at how they seemed to be two halves of the same brownie. Murdock’s joy at life, his wonder at waking up every morning and just being alive was far too strong for that.
He rubbed at his eyes, gritty with lack of sleep, and wondered what Murdock would think of him, giving up like that in a moment of despair. Refusing to tough it out, refusing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe he didn’t need Hannibal to be able to live, and that maybe there were others out there who needed him and were relying on him to help them get by.
Face had fought all his life. He’d fought to stay sane and to stop the world from beating him down when many others would have given in from the first moment. He’d fought to stay in the army when the powers that be decided he was too risky, too unstable. He’d fought to stay by Hannibal’s side and then later with his team when others had tried to split them up, and he’d fought to be the very best person he could be for his family, to be everything they needed and stop the darkness inside him from rearing up and claiming his soul.
And then, for two short minutes, he’d given up; given up the fight, given up striving to be the good man that Hannibal wanted him to be and let himself slide down into desolation and despair. He hadn’t seen what was needed from him, in fact he hadn’t seen anything beyond his own determination that he simply wasn’t good enough to be able to survive without Hannibal in his life. He’d been a coward, he’d taken the route of least resistance and now it looked as if that moment of weakness was going to cost him everything he held dear.
So what were his options now? To sit here and mope and feel desperately sorry for himself and wait until someone came to check on him and take his weapons and shoelaces off him? Or was he going to man up and try to fix some of his mess before it destroyed them all?
There wasn’t a decision to make, he hauled himself to his feet, took a second to steady his aching body and then quietly let himself out of his room looking for where Hannibal had taken himself off to.
He didn’t have to look far. As soon as he was on the landing and glanced out of the circular window letting daylight into the stairwell he saw him, sitting outside, the early morning light giving his hair and his jumper an other-wordly glow. The house hugged the sides of a small fishing lake, the decking at the rear stretched out right over the water so you didn’t even have to leave the property to catch your dinner. Hannibal was on his butt in the sand on the tiny beach that crept gently down to the lake’s edge, cigar in hand and face raised to the mountain which climbed up out of the water on the far side. The whole scene, the sun rise, the lake, the mountains, Hannibal... it was all so beautiful and a very sharp reminder to Face about all he could have lost.
He limped outside in his sleep shorts and his bare feet and immediately felt gooseflesh rise all over his body in the cool of the early morning. He steadfastly ignored it though, the chill in his heart over the things he’d done and the things Hannibal had said far outweighed any chill in the air. He padded straight over to the still figure in the sand and dropped down so they were sat side by side, adjusting himself until he could sit comfortably without straining his painful ankle.
Hannibal didn't greet him, didn’t move at all and Face suddenly found himself lost for words, floundering at the best way to tell the man he loved how sorry he was that he tried to run out on him here. Permanently. But in the end, as he scrambled in a very un-Face-like way to open the conversation, it was Hannibal that spoke first. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly and Face looked around at him in shock.
He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, still sporting various cuts and bruises from his fight with Pike. His jaw was covered in stubble and his eyes were heavy and bloodshot with dark shadows underneath, he looked dreadful and Face felt his heart crack just a little at the sight.
Without pause he leant in, his arm creeping around Hannibal’s waist, his other hand resting gently on his taut stomach and felt himself almost melt with relief when Hannibal raised his arm and allowed Face to nestle up against the soft wool of the caramel sweater, complete with smears of blood all down the front.
“I’m sorry too,” Face whispered, unwilling to risk his voice at such an emotional moment, “for all the ways I let you down.”
Hannibal tugged him in more firmly at those words and even pressed a kiss to the top of his head; filling Face with a hope that maybe there was a way out of this for them.
“No, kid, you have nothing to apologise for here, this is me, this was my call and I’m the one who dropped the ball.” Face frowned, confused but Hannibal took a long draw of his cigar, cleared his throat awkwardly and continued with his obviously pre-planned words. “I should have guessed how all this was affecting you; the cumulative effects of everything that’s happened recently and the things you can remember from when you were little.” Face flushed and looked down at the sand, wondering, not for the first time if Hannibal had a fast track right into his head. “I could see you had things bothering you, you’ve been saying different things in your sleep,” Face flushed even deeper, “looking edgier every time you came back from seeing her... But we never seemed to find the time to go over it, did we?”
Face didn’t say a word; he just stared at the sand between his legs and wondered where this was going.
“Anyway,” Hannibal cleared his throat again, “I hadn’t realised how badly it was affecting you and that was very remiss of me. I’ve had a little chat with Murdock and he’s made a few suggestions,” he cleared his throat yet again, oozing awkwardness into the morning air, “and I’ve managed to get the number of a really good therapist in Dallas. Someone who’s had a lot of success with people who have... who... who are finding things really tough,” and now Hannibal was almost as flushed as Face.
“Hannibal...” Face murmured, his eyes on the sand.
“So I thought maybe we could head out that way and see if she’ll see us, hey?” Face could tell from the difference in his voice that Hannibal had turned towards him and he closed his eyes in shame. “We could take a few months off, get some rest, just take the time to chill and you could work out some of these things that are making you... feel down...” he finished lamely.
“Hannibal,” Face repeated through gritted teeth, “I don’t need to see a shrink!”
“Temp,” there was pain in that voice, raw, anguished pain and Face couldn’t stop himself from looking up, hating to hear that tone in the man he loved. “I can’t lose you, kid.” Hannibal ground out. “And I can’t let you do that to yourself either, you are too special, too precious...” Face swallowed hard. “It will be fine, we can beat this,” Hannibal’s arm tightened on him, reawakening the pain from the bullet track in his bicep, but Face ignored it. “You and me, kid, we’ve done worse than this before, yeah? This, these, feelings, you’ve been having – we can whup their asses too, right?”
Face swallowed around the golf ball that had apparently lodged itself in his throat and wondered just who Hannibal was so desperately trying to convince here that they could kick Face’s obviously suicidal depression. He took a deep breath. “Boss,” he said, slowly and carefully, “you don’t have to worry about me-”
“Face!” Hannibal interrupted, shock clear in his tone. “You think I don’t care how you are feeling? I know I got a bit heated up there last night, but it’s not because I don’t care! I care so much it scares the fucking crap outta me...!”
Leaning in, Face swallowed his shame at the way this conversation was going and made sure he held Hannibal’s eyes with his own, made sure that the boss could see the truth in there, the absence of a con, the absolute and total honesty in Face’s words and his soul. “John,” he said slowly and carefully. “You don’t have to worry about me ‘cause I’m not going to... do anything stupid,” he paused, wanting to make sure his words had got through.
“Temp, honey,” Hannibal’s hand was shaking as he reached to touch Face’s cheek. “You don’t have to hide from me. I was there, remember? I saw what happened... I know I said some pretty harsh things earlier on, but this will be okay for us, you hear me? We can get through this. It will be fine.”
Face bit down on his frustration and tried again. “I don’t want to die, John,” he said quietly, his voice starting to break over his words. “I want to be with you. Always. It was just... I thought you were dead...” And that was it, as much as he could take finally reached and he pitched forward grabbing on to Hannibal so hard it must have hurt, his words coming out in a stream of pain that he had no way of stopping. “I thought I couldn’t go on without you, but I realise I was wrong now, I realise that if you... if, that happens someday then you’ll need me to go on and be strong for the others and that’s what I’ll do. Hannibal, you don’t have to worry about me, you can still trust me, you don’t have to leave me, I can do this, I can be whatever you want me to be. Haven’t I always done my job? Haven’t I always delivered the goods for you? Haven’t we always been a good team?”
“Oh, the best, baby, the very best!” Hannibal rushed to reassure him. “And I’m not leaving you, I’d never leave you, I thought you knew that, this will be fine, it will, I swear to you, we’ll get all of this all worked out.” He let Face cling to him, wrapping his own arms around his shaking back and felt hot, desperate tears leak from his eyes, wondering how he would feel if Face had died, how much he would feel like getting up and carrying on...
He was appalled to see his boy like this, so strung out and overwhelmed. Appalled at the words that had come tumbling out, that Face had felt he’d had to be something specific for Hannibal all these years, that being himself wasn’t enough.
But that was a topic of conversation to file away for another day and Hannibal fully intended not leaving this haven in the mountains until he’d covered a number of topics with Face; the suicide attempt obviously one, Adele, his father, his recently recovered childhood memories, and now this, the others. He couldn’t believe he’d let things get this bad, that he’d let Face hide this much from him, maybe if he’d known what was really going on in the kid’s head that stunt in the alley wouldn’t have been such a shock to him, maybe he could have even guarded against it, just like he needed to guard against it now.
Face was still shaking and clinging, but he wasn’t crying and that worried Hannibal, he knew they weren’t there yet, that Face was still holding on to too much pain inside him and it needed an outlet. Despite their differences over the last twelve hours, Hannibal knew his boy well, knew exactly what he needed to let go, and so as Face clung to him, his fingers vises on his arms, Hannibal twisted his own head so he was leaning down and slowly, gently, so, so, lovingly, he pressed the most cautious of kisses onto his boy’s lips.
The response was overwhelming. Face reared up in an instant, moving his hands to the back of Hannibal’s head to hold him in place and kissing back with a force borne of desperation. For a second, Hannibal struggled simply to contain him, but finally he managed to assert control, to take the lead, control the strength and pace and gently guide Face into something more careful, more fulfilling for both of them and he realised that that was a fairly accurate metaphor for their entire existence together.
Face had always been brave and strong, both mentally and physically, but he’d also been vulnerable. He would charge into everything he did with a hundred and ten percent effort and enthusiasm, he would roll with the blows, adapt as he went along, but he could never sustain that pace forever. Running like that, firing on all cylinders, burned him out pretty quick and when he was burning out, he was at the mercy of his emotions, his quick temper, his impulsivity, his sharp tongue all surged to the fore and got him into trouble. And that’s where Hannibal had come in. He was able to take all that enthusiasm and energy and channel it more appropriately, stop the burn out before it even started and let Face moderate his own behaviour. It had worked, it had worked beautifully for years and Face played the ying to his yang by keeping Hannibal grounded in return, not letting him get too swallowed up in the jazz and making sure that there was enough sense in his crazy-insane plans that they could actually come together effectively.
They were a team, like Hannibal had told him, the best team there was. But of course, as Hannibal was just starting to realise, even the most wonderful of arrangements had a downside and that happened when Hannibal didn’t notice the warning signs that Face was still burning out, or if he couldn’t get in to prevent that final shove, the shove that had Face rapidly spinning out of control. Thinking Pike had killed him in that alley, that had been it, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back; Hannibal had managed to haul him back for the short term, but the events of last night, their row, Hannibal storming out the way he had, had all just conspired to push him right back out on the edge again.
As they kissed, Face suddenly yanked Hannibal’s sweater up and away and Hannibal shivered with the first wash of the morning air on his torso, breaking their connection for the very briefest of seconds before reaching down to meet Face’s searching mouth with his own. He realised that he’d known all of this all along, known how Face could react if pushed hard enough. Did he really think the kid was suicidal? Was going to slit his wrists the second he was left alone? No, he didn’t. If he’d really feared that then he never would have left him alone all night the way he had. The kid had made a primitive knee jerk reaction in that alley, a response to fear and desperation from a man who had never developed more appropriate coping strategies, and whose fault was that?
Hannibal realised that he had contributed to this as much as he had contributed to everything that Face had done and lived and learned since he sixteen years old – still a baby. But it was like BA was always trying to tell him, Face wasn’t that child anymore, and it was long past the time where Hannibal should have stopped propping him up emotionally and let him stand on his own two feet a bit more. He knew that’s what needed to happen now if Face was ever going to achieve any kind of emotional stability in his life...
All rational thought, however, was firmly shoved to the back of his mind the second that Face found the bulge in the front of his trousers and started insistently rubbing at it with his hand. Hannibal moaned as the arousal in his gut started to twist and rise, and in seconds they were both scrabbling to undo the button on his cords and shove them down over his tense thighs, pushing his briefs down at the same time and he hissed as he felt the cool sand on his bare skin.
Face’s shorts were the next to go, and within a minute they were both naked, the morning sun warming them and turning their skin a pearlescent gold, and in all this time since Hannibal’s jumper had come off, they had never broken their kiss, not once. But now, with his lungs burning and his pulse thumping in his ears, Hannibal lifted off and Face fell back into the sand beneath him, his eyes closed and his chest heaving for breath as he lifted a knee to rest against Hannibal’s side, a hand right on his tattoo, keeping up that contact.
Fancy a visual? Click here. NSFW
For a second Hannibal just stared at him, letting his eyes run up and down his strong lean body as it lay in the sand beneath him. The smooth planes of muscle, still baring the marks of Silas’ capture, the dusky nipples, taut in the cool air, his beautiful cock, flushed dark red where it lay against the tan of his stomach, smearing it with pre-come that glistened in the sunlight. His eyes were closed, purple smudges underneath them that betrayed his state of exhaustion and suddenly Hannibal felt a fear unlike anything he had ever known that they would lose this thing they had together and he vowed to himself that he would never let that happen.
He wanted to take his time on the body beneath him, spend hours covering every inch of that glorious skin with his mouth and his fingers and his love, but he knew he couldn’t do that, not this time. Looking back up into the kid’s expression, he saw the desperation there as Face opened his eyes and returned his stare. He saw the way that his breath was starting to hitch more rather than settle down, he saw the needy little twitches in his fingers, and how his eyes were swimming in the tears that needed to flow.
Hannibal knew exactly what was needed from him here, and he wasted no more time in fulfilling that need. His head dropped and found Face’s lips once more, plunging straight in with his tongue, opening the kid up so he could fill him with his love. He transferred all his weight onto his left arm, dropping to his elbow and feeling Face’s fingers digging hard into the flesh of his bicep. Then he let his right hand drift down as his hips dipped to rest gently on Face’s abdomen and he wrapped both their cocks up together in one large palm.
Face keened into his mouth and responded by thrusting his pelvis up hard into Hannibal, his fingers tightening and the little hitches Hannibal could feel in his breathing telling the older man that the tears were here at last. Hannibal felt his own return in response, hot and angry behind his closed lids as he moved himself, moved Face, kissed him, loved him and tried to pull him through this.
It was desperate, frantic, frenzied, and Hannibal knew he would have bruises where Face’s fingers were clutching almost convulsively at him and he was trying in return to steady his own hips, the tugging of his hand, keep them gentle, but it was a losing battle. Face started thrusting up harder into him, the sobs audible now even through the desperate need in their kiss and Hannibal reached with the fingers half buried in the sand to grab at any part of his boy that he could reach, determined to be everything he could for Face now and forever. He got a handful of hair and held on tight, thrusting and tugging and kissing, kissing so hard, desperate now in his desire to drive all this pain and insecurity out of the man he loved once and for all.
Face’s hands had moved to his back and were clutching feverishly at the muscle he found there as he tried in turn to bury himself in everything that was Hannibal, knowing damn well that what they were doing here wouldn’t solve anything for him, but that it was all he needed right now, and god he needed it so much. He pulled Hannibal down even harder, trapping their cocks together and Hannibal dragged his hand out, using it to hold Face’s head, moulding them even closer, mashing their chests together, pushing Face back into the sand, as lost in all this as Face was now.
And then Face started shuddering beneath him, shaking apart with each thrust of Hannibal’s heat onto his own and Hannibal tried to pull back, tried to give him the space and the air to come, but Face held him still, kept their mouths fused even though neither of them had the motor control to actually kiss as their climaxes reared up to absorb them.
Face went first as Hannibal felt his own twisting, roiling heat filling his cock, and then there was that glorious wet warmth against his stomach, making their cocks slide frenetically against each other as Face’s emptied, spurting hard in time with the sobs that Hannibal could feel in his mouth. Then Hannibal fell, jamming himself down hard, sealing his mouth over Face’s to catch those broken little sounds as he spilled over and over again, mixing his seed with his lover’s wanting that act alone to be enough to bind them together forever.
They shuddered through their mutual release and as soon as Hannibal came back to himself and realised that their mouths were still melded together, he started kissing again, slowly this time, deeply, passionately, licking through his boy’s mouth, tasting tears on his lips and trying to kiss around the sobs that were still there, take them away along with all the pain they represented.
He tipped onto his hip in the sand, pulling Face with him, keeping them meshed together and slowly used his mouth to bring his boy down from the edge, gently lessening the intensity of his caress, pulling back slightly until he was running kisses along a stubbled jaw, and Face’s sobs were nothing more than jerky, stuttered breathing.
He kept on going, gently, lovingly kissing cheeks, eye lids, forehead, nose until Face finally opened his lids and looked across at him from red rimmed, bloodshot eyes. In silence they regarded each other. Face looked exhausted, mentally, emotionally and physically but somehow he looked better, as if something evil and toxic had been gouged out of him, painful but necessary, leaving him finally able to rest and heal.
As if he could almost read Hannibal’s thoughts, Face’s eyes grew heavy and he let them slide shut, almost at once going limp in his lover’s arms. Hannibal screwed his own stinging eyes closed once more and gathered his poor exhausted boy up into his arms, hoping he would sleep for hours, hoping that they would both be strong enough to fix this mess when he woke up.
Next
Thankyou so much karenjd for the wonderful image that inspired the beach scene! x
His first reaction to Hannibal walking out on him like that had been to leave. His bag was already packed, his worldly possessions combined into one medium sized holdall and if that was what the boss thought of him now, then maybe he would be doing everyone a favour if he just disappeared.
But then, even before he’d managed to struggle to his feet and get his stuff, it had struck him; he’d had a sudden, searing image of Hannibal, gun raised to his temple, pulling the trigger and the force of the vision had almost crushed him, and he realised then what he had done, how violently he had betrayed the man who loved him.
It was more than that, though, much more. And as he sat through the small hours of the morning and the black of the night slowly, slowly receded, he thought back to his early days with Hannibal and the vow he had silently made as a soldier, long before they had been anywhere near the point of making vows as lovers.
Hannibal had been the first person to look twice at the angry young lieutenant who could run his mouth as fast as his body; the first person to ask ‘why?’ instead of just reaming him out, and that was all it had taken for Face’s life to turn around. He found that with someone to trust him and believe in him and value him he could start to be a better person, a more level person, and he vowed that he would repay that trust by always being exactly what Hannibal wanted him to be, always doing whatever it was that needed doing.
And he had. For almost twenty years he had done whatever was needed perfectly and often without Hannibal even having to say anything. Maybe the methods he chose weren’t always what the boss had had in mind and maybe the end results were a little different too, but Face had instinctively known the big picture, known what was expected of him and he had moved heaven and earth to unsure that that was what he had delivered for his colonel.
Until yesterday. And that was the thing that had brought him up short and shocked him back into real life. It didn’t matter whether Silas had shot Hannibal or not, it didn’t matter whether Face had checked out his facts properly or not. All that mattered was what Hannibal had expected of his XO in that situation, and in the quiet calm of the night, those expectations were crystal clear to Face now.
He was right to kill Pike the way he did; as unpleasant as he usually found taking a life, as unsavoury as the after taste of his over enthusiastic shooting might be, Pike was a threat to his team and would not have stopped in his crazy vendetta until he was dead. Face was right to kill him.
And after that his role was clean up. He should have sanitised the situation, made sure nothing existed to link either him or the team to the whole debacle. And if the worst had happened, if his CO, his life, his love had been killed, then he should have stepped up to the mark and taken control. Someone needed to move the bodies, someone needed to meet up with BA and Murdock and tell them what had happened, someone needed to be there for Murdock, be strong for BA, someone needed to organise a burial, someone needed to command the unit until they all decided what they were going to do with themselves. And that someone should have been him.
Regardless of what he owed Hannibal as a lover, the vow to hand over his heart and soul for all eternity had come after the vow to be the very best soldier, and later XO, that he possibly could be. He’d said he would never let Hannibal down, never, and now he had - and why? Because he’d been out-thought? Out-manoeuvred? Out fought? Out soldiered? No. Because he’d been damn selfish. Shame washed over him in a hot wave.
’I can’t trust you Face, I just can’t.’ Those words were haunting him now, circling round and round in his brain like a whole kettle of vultures and he realised what that meant to him, losing Hannibal’s trust like that. He wouldn’t be XO anymore, couldn’t be, how could you have an XO you didn’t trust? So where did that leave the team? How could they take on missions? How could they survive without that income? He couldn’t even begin to consider the knock on effects into his personal life, how much Hannibal would be able to stand by him and how much he wouldn’t.
And of course the ripples didn’t stop at Hannibal either, they just kept on spreading, absorbing everyone and everything they came into contact with. BA for example; he saw himself as chief protector of the team, and he would gladly stand between any one of them and a threat. The problem was, how was he supposed to do that if he thought that the biggest threat to Face came from his own hand rather than the hand of an adversary?
And then there was Murdock, and Face let his head droop as yet another tsunami of shame hit him. Murdock dealt with so much, coped with all the times his own mind back-fired on him and in all of those times, he’d never, ever been tempted to just jack it all in and top himself. Face knew that for a fact as it had come out in one of their all night whisky induced bonding sessions, where Hannibal and BA would eventually pass out and Murdock and Face would talk until dawn, wrapped up in a shared blanket marvelling at how they seemed to be two halves of the same brownie. Murdock’s joy at life, his wonder at waking up every morning and just being alive was far too strong for that.
He rubbed at his eyes, gritty with lack of sleep, and wondered what Murdock would think of him, giving up like that in a moment of despair. Refusing to tough it out, refusing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe he didn’t need Hannibal to be able to live, and that maybe there were others out there who needed him and were relying on him to help them get by.
Face had fought all his life. He’d fought to stay sane and to stop the world from beating him down when many others would have given in from the first moment. He’d fought to stay in the army when the powers that be decided he was too risky, too unstable. He’d fought to stay by Hannibal’s side and then later with his team when others had tried to split them up, and he’d fought to be the very best person he could be for his family, to be everything they needed and stop the darkness inside him from rearing up and claiming his soul.
And then, for two short minutes, he’d given up; given up the fight, given up striving to be the good man that Hannibal wanted him to be and let himself slide down into desolation and despair. He hadn’t seen what was needed from him, in fact he hadn’t seen anything beyond his own determination that he simply wasn’t good enough to be able to survive without Hannibal in his life. He’d been a coward, he’d taken the route of least resistance and now it looked as if that moment of weakness was going to cost him everything he held dear.
So what were his options now? To sit here and mope and feel desperately sorry for himself and wait until someone came to check on him and take his weapons and shoelaces off him? Or was he going to man up and try to fix some of his mess before it destroyed them all?
There wasn’t a decision to make, he hauled himself to his feet, took a second to steady his aching body and then quietly let himself out of his room looking for where Hannibal had taken himself off to.
He didn’t have to look far. As soon as he was on the landing and glanced out of the circular window letting daylight into the stairwell he saw him, sitting outside, the early morning light giving his hair and his jumper an other-wordly glow. The house hugged the sides of a small fishing lake, the decking at the rear stretched out right over the water so you didn’t even have to leave the property to catch your dinner. Hannibal was on his butt in the sand on the tiny beach that crept gently down to the lake’s edge, cigar in hand and face raised to the mountain which climbed up out of the water on the far side. The whole scene, the sun rise, the lake, the mountains, Hannibal... it was all so beautiful and a very sharp reminder to Face about all he could have lost.
He limped outside in his sleep shorts and his bare feet and immediately felt gooseflesh rise all over his body in the cool of the early morning. He steadfastly ignored it though, the chill in his heart over the things he’d done and the things Hannibal had said far outweighed any chill in the air. He padded straight over to the still figure in the sand and dropped down so they were sat side by side, adjusting himself until he could sit comfortably without straining his painful ankle.
Hannibal didn't greet him, didn’t move at all and Face suddenly found himself lost for words, floundering at the best way to tell the man he loved how sorry he was that he tried to run out on him here. Permanently. But in the end, as he scrambled in a very un-Face-like way to open the conversation, it was Hannibal that spoke first. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly and Face looked around at him in shock.
He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, still sporting various cuts and bruises from his fight with Pike. His jaw was covered in stubble and his eyes were heavy and bloodshot with dark shadows underneath, he looked dreadful and Face felt his heart crack just a little at the sight.
Without pause he leant in, his arm creeping around Hannibal’s waist, his other hand resting gently on his taut stomach and felt himself almost melt with relief when Hannibal raised his arm and allowed Face to nestle up against the soft wool of the caramel sweater, complete with smears of blood all down the front.
“I’m sorry too,” Face whispered, unwilling to risk his voice at such an emotional moment, “for all the ways I let you down.”
Hannibal tugged him in more firmly at those words and even pressed a kiss to the top of his head; filling Face with a hope that maybe there was a way out of this for them.
“No, kid, you have nothing to apologise for here, this is me, this was my call and I’m the one who dropped the ball.” Face frowned, confused but Hannibal took a long draw of his cigar, cleared his throat awkwardly and continued with his obviously pre-planned words. “I should have guessed how all this was affecting you; the cumulative effects of everything that’s happened recently and the things you can remember from when you were little.” Face flushed and looked down at the sand, wondering, not for the first time if Hannibal had a fast track right into his head. “I could see you had things bothering you, you’ve been saying different things in your sleep,” Face flushed even deeper, “looking edgier every time you came back from seeing her... But we never seemed to find the time to go over it, did we?”
Face didn’t say a word; he just stared at the sand between his legs and wondered where this was going.
“Anyway,” Hannibal cleared his throat again, “I hadn’t realised how badly it was affecting you and that was very remiss of me. I’ve had a little chat with Murdock and he’s made a few suggestions,” he cleared his throat yet again, oozing awkwardness into the morning air, “and I’ve managed to get the number of a really good therapist in Dallas. Someone who’s had a lot of success with people who have... who... who are finding things really tough,” and now Hannibal was almost as flushed as Face.
“Hannibal...” Face murmured, his eyes on the sand.
“So I thought maybe we could head out that way and see if she’ll see us, hey?” Face could tell from the difference in his voice that Hannibal had turned towards him and he closed his eyes in shame. “We could take a few months off, get some rest, just take the time to chill and you could work out some of these things that are making you... feel down...” he finished lamely.
“Hannibal,” Face repeated through gritted teeth, “I don’t need to see a shrink!”
“Temp,” there was pain in that voice, raw, anguished pain and Face couldn’t stop himself from looking up, hating to hear that tone in the man he loved. “I can’t lose you, kid.” Hannibal ground out. “And I can’t let you do that to yourself either, you are too special, too precious...” Face swallowed hard. “It will be fine, we can beat this,” Hannibal’s arm tightened on him, reawakening the pain from the bullet track in his bicep, but Face ignored it. “You and me, kid, we’ve done worse than this before, yeah? This, these, feelings, you’ve been having – we can whup their asses too, right?”
Face swallowed around the golf ball that had apparently lodged itself in his throat and wondered just who Hannibal was so desperately trying to convince here that they could kick Face’s obviously suicidal depression. He took a deep breath. “Boss,” he said, slowly and carefully, “you don’t have to worry about me-”
“Face!” Hannibal interrupted, shock clear in his tone. “You think I don’t care how you are feeling? I know I got a bit heated up there last night, but it’s not because I don’t care! I care so much it scares the fucking crap outta me...!”
Leaning in, Face swallowed his shame at the way this conversation was going and made sure he held Hannibal’s eyes with his own, made sure that the boss could see the truth in there, the absence of a con, the absolute and total honesty in Face’s words and his soul. “John,” he said slowly and carefully. “You don’t have to worry about me ‘cause I’m not going to... do anything stupid,” he paused, wanting to make sure his words had got through.
“Temp, honey,” Hannibal’s hand was shaking as he reached to touch Face’s cheek. “You don’t have to hide from me. I was there, remember? I saw what happened... I know I said some pretty harsh things earlier on, but this will be okay for us, you hear me? We can get through this. It will be fine.”
Face bit down on his frustration and tried again. “I don’t want to die, John,” he said quietly, his voice starting to break over his words. “I want to be with you. Always. It was just... I thought you were dead...” And that was it, as much as he could take finally reached and he pitched forward grabbing on to Hannibal so hard it must have hurt, his words coming out in a stream of pain that he had no way of stopping. “I thought I couldn’t go on without you, but I realise I was wrong now, I realise that if you... if, that happens someday then you’ll need me to go on and be strong for the others and that’s what I’ll do. Hannibal, you don’t have to worry about me, you can still trust me, you don’t have to leave me, I can do this, I can be whatever you want me to be. Haven’t I always done my job? Haven’t I always delivered the goods for you? Haven’t we always been a good team?”
“Oh, the best, baby, the very best!” Hannibal rushed to reassure him. “And I’m not leaving you, I’d never leave you, I thought you knew that, this will be fine, it will, I swear to you, we’ll get all of this all worked out.” He let Face cling to him, wrapping his own arms around his shaking back and felt hot, desperate tears leak from his eyes, wondering how he would feel if Face had died, how much he would feel like getting up and carrying on...
He was appalled to see his boy like this, so strung out and overwhelmed. Appalled at the words that had come tumbling out, that Face had felt he’d had to be something specific for Hannibal all these years, that being himself wasn’t enough.
But that was a topic of conversation to file away for another day and Hannibal fully intended not leaving this haven in the mountains until he’d covered a number of topics with Face; the suicide attempt obviously one, Adele, his father, his recently recovered childhood memories, and now this, the others. He couldn’t believe he’d let things get this bad, that he’d let Face hide this much from him, maybe if he’d known what was really going on in the kid’s head that stunt in the alley wouldn’t have been such a shock to him, maybe he could have even guarded against it, just like he needed to guard against it now.
Face was still shaking and clinging, but he wasn’t crying and that worried Hannibal, he knew they weren’t there yet, that Face was still holding on to too much pain inside him and it needed an outlet. Despite their differences over the last twelve hours, Hannibal knew his boy well, knew exactly what he needed to let go, and so as Face clung to him, his fingers vises on his arms, Hannibal twisted his own head so he was leaning down and slowly, gently, so, so, lovingly, he pressed the most cautious of kisses onto his boy’s lips.
The response was overwhelming. Face reared up in an instant, moving his hands to the back of Hannibal’s head to hold him in place and kissing back with a force borne of desperation. For a second, Hannibal struggled simply to contain him, but finally he managed to assert control, to take the lead, control the strength and pace and gently guide Face into something more careful, more fulfilling for both of them and he realised that that was a fairly accurate metaphor for their entire existence together.
Face had always been brave and strong, both mentally and physically, but he’d also been vulnerable. He would charge into everything he did with a hundred and ten percent effort and enthusiasm, he would roll with the blows, adapt as he went along, but he could never sustain that pace forever. Running like that, firing on all cylinders, burned him out pretty quick and when he was burning out, he was at the mercy of his emotions, his quick temper, his impulsivity, his sharp tongue all surged to the fore and got him into trouble. And that’s where Hannibal had come in. He was able to take all that enthusiasm and energy and channel it more appropriately, stop the burn out before it even started and let Face moderate his own behaviour. It had worked, it had worked beautifully for years and Face played the ying to his yang by keeping Hannibal grounded in return, not letting him get too swallowed up in the jazz and making sure that there was enough sense in his crazy-insane plans that they could actually come together effectively.
They were a team, like Hannibal had told him, the best team there was. But of course, as Hannibal was just starting to realise, even the most wonderful of arrangements had a downside and that happened when Hannibal didn’t notice the warning signs that Face was still burning out, or if he couldn’t get in to prevent that final shove, the shove that had Face rapidly spinning out of control. Thinking Pike had killed him in that alley, that had been it, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back; Hannibal had managed to haul him back for the short term, but the events of last night, their row, Hannibal storming out the way he had, had all just conspired to push him right back out on the edge again.
As they kissed, Face suddenly yanked Hannibal’s sweater up and away and Hannibal shivered with the first wash of the morning air on his torso, breaking their connection for the very briefest of seconds before reaching down to meet Face’s searching mouth with his own. He realised that he’d known all of this all along, known how Face could react if pushed hard enough. Did he really think the kid was suicidal? Was going to slit his wrists the second he was left alone? No, he didn’t. If he’d really feared that then he never would have left him alone all night the way he had. The kid had made a primitive knee jerk reaction in that alley, a response to fear and desperation from a man who had never developed more appropriate coping strategies, and whose fault was that?
Hannibal realised that he had contributed to this as much as he had contributed to everything that Face had done and lived and learned since he sixteen years old – still a baby. But it was like BA was always trying to tell him, Face wasn’t that child anymore, and it was long past the time where Hannibal should have stopped propping him up emotionally and let him stand on his own two feet a bit more. He knew that’s what needed to happen now if Face was ever going to achieve any kind of emotional stability in his life...
All rational thought, however, was firmly shoved to the back of his mind the second that Face found the bulge in the front of his trousers and started insistently rubbing at it with his hand. Hannibal moaned as the arousal in his gut started to twist and rise, and in seconds they were both scrabbling to undo the button on his cords and shove them down over his tense thighs, pushing his briefs down at the same time and he hissed as he felt the cool sand on his bare skin.
Face’s shorts were the next to go, and within a minute they were both naked, the morning sun warming them and turning their skin a pearlescent gold, and in all this time since Hannibal’s jumper had come off, they had never broken their kiss, not once. But now, with his lungs burning and his pulse thumping in his ears, Hannibal lifted off and Face fell back into the sand beneath him, his eyes closed and his chest heaving for breath as he lifted a knee to rest against Hannibal’s side, a hand right on his tattoo, keeping up that contact.
Fancy a visual? Click here. NSFW
For a second Hannibal just stared at him, letting his eyes run up and down his strong lean body as it lay in the sand beneath him. The smooth planes of muscle, still baring the marks of Silas’ capture, the dusky nipples, taut in the cool air, his beautiful cock, flushed dark red where it lay against the tan of his stomach, smearing it with pre-come that glistened in the sunlight. His eyes were closed, purple smudges underneath them that betrayed his state of exhaustion and suddenly Hannibal felt a fear unlike anything he had ever known that they would lose this thing they had together and he vowed to himself that he would never let that happen.
He wanted to take his time on the body beneath him, spend hours covering every inch of that glorious skin with his mouth and his fingers and his love, but he knew he couldn’t do that, not this time. Looking back up into the kid’s expression, he saw the desperation there as Face opened his eyes and returned his stare. He saw the way that his breath was starting to hitch more rather than settle down, he saw the needy little twitches in his fingers, and how his eyes were swimming in the tears that needed to flow.
Hannibal knew exactly what was needed from him here, and he wasted no more time in fulfilling that need. His head dropped and found Face’s lips once more, plunging straight in with his tongue, opening the kid up so he could fill him with his love. He transferred all his weight onto his left arm, dropping to his elbow and feeling Face’s fingers digging hard into the flesh of his bicep. Then he let his right hand drift down as his hips dipped to rest gently on Face’s abdomen and he wrapped both their cocks up together in one large palm.
Face keened into his mouth and responded by thrusting his pelvis up hard into Hannibal, his fingers tightening and the little hitches Hannibal could feel in his breathing telling the older man that the tears were here at last. Hannibal felt his own return in response, hot and angry behind his closed lids as he moved himself, moved Face, kissed him, loved him and tried to pull him through this.
It was desperate, frantic, frenzied, and Hannibal knew he would have bruises where Face’s fingers were clutching almost convulsively at him and he was trying in return to steady his own hips, the tugging of his hand, keep them gentle, but it was a losing battle. Face started thrusting up harder into him, the sobs audible now even through the desperate need in their kiss and Hannibal reached with the fingers half buried in the sand to grab at any part of his boy that he could reach, determined to be everything he could for Face now and forever. He got a handful of hair and held on tight, thrusting and tugging and kissing, kissing so hard, desperate now in his desire to drive all this pain and insecurity out of the man he loved once and for all.
Face’s hands had moved to his back and were clutching feverishly at the muscle he found there as he tried in turn to bury himself in everything that was Hannibal, knowing damn well that what they were doing here wouldn’t solve anything for him, but that it was all he needed right now, and god he needed it so much. He pulled Hannibal down even harder, trapping their cocks together and Hannibal dragged his hand out, using it to hold Face’s head, moulding them even closer, mashing their chests together, pushing Face back into the sand, as lost in all this as Face was now.
And then Face started shuddering beneath him, shaking apart with each thrust of Hannibal’s heat onto his own and Hannibal tried to pull back, tried to give him the space and the air to come, but Face held him still, kept their mouths fused even though neither of them had the motor control to actually kiss as their climaxes reared up to absorb them.
Face went first as Hannibal felt his own twisting, roiling heat filling his cock, and then there was that glorious wet warmth against his stomach, making their cocks slide frenetically against each other as Face’s emptied, spurting hard in time with the sobs that Hannibal could feel in his mouth. Then Hannibal fell, jamming himself down hard, sealing his mouth over Face’s to catch those broken little sounds as he spilled over and over again, mixing his seed with his lover’s wanting that act alone to be enough to bind them together forever.
They shuddered through their mutual release and as soon as Hannibal came back to himself and realised that their mouths were still melded together, he started kissing again, slowly this time, deeply, passionately, licking through his boy’s mouth, tasting tears on his lips and trying to kiss around the sobs that were still there, take them away along with all the pain they represented.
He tipped onto his hip in the sand, pulling Face with him, keeping them meshed together and slowly used his mouth to bring his boy down from the edge, gently lessening the intensity of his caress, pulling back slightly until he was running kisses along a stubbled jaw, and Face’s sobs were nothing more than jerky, stuttered breathing.
He kept on going, gently, lovingly kissing cheeks, eye lids, forehead, nose until Face finally opened his lids and looked across at him from red rimmed, bloodshot eyes. In silence they regarded each other. Face looked exhausted, mentally, emotionally and physically but somehow he looked better, as if something evil and toxic had been gouged out of him, painful but necessary, leaving him finally able to rest and heal.
As if he could almost read Hannibal’s thoughts, Face’s eyes grew heavy and he let them slide shut, almost at once going limp in his lover’s arms. Hannibal screwed his own stinging eyes closed once more and gathered his poor exhausted boy up into his arms, hoping he would sleep for hours, hoping that they would both be strong enough to fix this mess when he woke up.
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Thankyou so much karenjd for the wonderful image that inspired the beach scene! x