indigo_angels

Face

It was snowing again and Face moved to the window and looked up and down the road; there was no sign at all of BA’s van.

Hannibal turning up like that had just floored him completely. He hadn’t expected it now, it had been far too long really, those first six months when he was constantly moving around, constantly looking over his shoulder, hiding from both his team and the government, yeah, maybe then, but not after he’d been in Montana for ten months, a new man with a new life and a new name. Just seeing Hannibal sitting in his room, like a figment of one of those damn dreams he kept on having... well, he wondered if he’d finally lost his marbles, if all the Jack Daniels hadn’t, at last, pickled his brain.

And then that letter from Tasha... God, his stomach still did that awful crazy swoop every time he thought of it. When did Hannibal get his hands on that letter? He said they’d been looking for Face since the day he left; would they have bothered without it? If Face had stayed around, kept his phone with him, how long would it have been before Hannibal would have told him? And if he had, would Face have still gone? He feels that he would have done, that betrayal had been just too much to take, but if he’d known about Tasha, at least that would have saved him from sixteen months of torture.

So many questions... he looked out at the empty road, and no one to ask.

Then, as if the letter from Tasha had not been enough, well, then there was Hannibal and everything he had said...

If Face was being truly honest with himself, something he seldom liked to be, then Hannibal’s admissions had not come as a total surprise. Maybe their depth and the honesty with which they were delivered, but, and he knew this better than anyone else in the world, Hannibal was an accomplished liar and conman, just as much as he himself was. Anything Hannibal said to him had to be taken with a significant portion of salt.

But then his mind slipped back to the way that Hannibal had looked at him, looked into him when they had fucked last night and he shivered with the remembered intensity. Could that be faked? And Hannibal had cried, cried, Face had never seen him do that before, never, even when he heard his parents had died, so what did that mean?

Face scrubbed his eyes and leaned against the glass, cold on his already cold skin. What was he doing here? The right thing? Or another fucking monumental Templeton Peck screw up?

Hannibal’s words from the night before came back to him, ‘You think you are some kind of perpetual incompetent.’ Well, was he? Wasn’t he? Would Hannibal have bothered with him all this time if he was? Or maybe that was the whole point, Face’s inadequacies just made Hannibal feel better about himself, having someone who would always fuck up, someone Hannibal could yell at and beat up on every time his plans didn’t come together?

Jesus, he was so confused, his head was pounding, and this time he couldn’t blame the Jack Daniels.

He looked out into the road one more time and then turned away from the window. This was no good, he couldn’t go on like this pulling himself into twenty different directions at once; he’d made his decision, now he just had to follow it. He needed to just get on with this life he’d chosen, he could wrap up all his doubts again and leave them behind. He might be a perpetual incompetent, but this he could do well; he’d certainly had plenty of fucking practice.

As he turned his eyes fell on the bed and flashbacks from the night before assaulted him with such force he actually felt his knees buckle and he grabbed the door frame for support.

‘You are the most incredible person I have ever met’,

‘You’re on this team ‘cause you damn well earn it, every fucking day’,

‘It fucking terrifies me that one day you are going to disappear’,

‘I’m in love with you, kid; have been for years’.

The world pitched like the deck of a ship beneath him and he clung on tightly as images and sounds and smells and feelings battered him from within.

No! He forced them back. It was not going to be like this, he was not going to be like this. He had been by himself since his parents had left him on the steps of that church when he was five years old. Father David? Sosa? Hannibal? Murdock? BA? All blips in that solitary existence, blips that had hurt him, stretched out the inner workings of his mind and his heart where he could see them and feel them and that was never going to happen again.

He closed his eyes and took deep, long breaths, pushing all those memories away, locking them up one by one, so deep and so secure that he hoped he’d never have to face them again.

He had no idea how long he stood there, gripping the door frame as if his life depended on it, but eventually he felt calm enough to open his eyes and he glanced up out of the window as he did. His stomach flipped as he saw the clock face on the church across the street and he double checked with his watch before forcing himself into action. Five past ten. He’d better get a move on; he had a snow mobile trek to guide at eleven.

One more deep breath, ‘Come on Rob,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you can do this...’ and he snatched up a towel and headed into the en-suite for a shower.

Sequel - The Long And Winding Road

or if that's too angsty for you try the Alternative Ending