Chapter Text
I Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
“Face, who did this to you? Who hurt you so thoroughly?” Hannibal saw right through the young officer’s advances. Moving his way through the ranks of the U.S. Army he’d seen his share of floating young men, so often off balance and thinking access to guidance was for other people.
Face needed to deny the Major’s assertion, almost said, “I don’t know what you mean,” but stopped himself. That would be inviting conversation, not what he wanted right now. No, he was losing this particular con and the stakes were too high to let that happen, he was running out of options. He was also on the verge of being out of what dignity he had left and at this point he’d do what he had to do to set this evening back on course to his ultimate goal.
“Hurt? No.” His hand had been on the back of the sofa. Moving it to barely light on the Major’s shoulder, his thumb whispered up along the stubbled throat, eliciting no change in Hannibal’s expression. To most anyone else it would appear there had been no effect on the senior officer. Face wasn’t just anyone else. The sophomore conman saw the tell, he watched as that Adam’s apple bobbed in response to the gentle stroke of heat and the promise of more.
“Come on, Hannibal,” he cajoled, his voice not quite breathy. “You wanna fuck me? You can.”
“No Face,” was the firm answer given as the Major rose from the sofa.
Following him halfway across the room Face pressed on, “Please. I want you to.” Then adding for emphasis along with his face in a practiced expression, “Really.”
“What makes you think I’d be interested in something like that?”
“Come on, Hannibal. Think I haven’t seen you check me out?”
“You ever hear of a little thing called ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ Lieutenant?”
“Think we’re beyond that.” Then with a well-rehearsed smile, “Come on. I know you want to.”
It didn’t take someone of Hannibal’s acuity to see through the kid’s facade. “No Face.”
The ramifications of what would happen to him if he didn’t close this slammed into the Second Lieutenant’s brain, it again persisted that he had to make this happen. “Please,” more quietly this time. Face’s eyes shifted left to right, the gears grinding. “I’ll be really good for you.”
Hannibal only shook his head as he took steps in the direction of the door.
The young officer was desperate. He needed this. He needed Hannibal and the only sure way was to offer his body. He had learned the hard way it was what people saw in him and wanted. His intellect and talents outside grifting weren’t worth bartering. Had they been he would have caught a break a long time ago. “Please don’t go. Please Hannibal. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please don’t go. I need you. I need to be in your unit. Please. Whatever it takes.”
Hannibal stopped, turning to look back at the pleading young man, “You think the way into my unit is through a fuck?”
Face said nothing, yet Hannibal could see him still begging all the same.
Hannibal wouldn’t approach him, the authority needed to remain his. “Face, come here.” He watched as the handsome young man all but scrambled across the room. Face stood holding one hand in the other behind his back, head dropped, submissive.
With his stomach sinking at the sight, Hannibal lifted the young man’s chin with a crooked finger and thumb. The head came up, but the eyes didn’t follow. When they finally did open they were shifted to the side, obviously looking away, unchallenging.
“Look at me.”
When he did Hannibal saw they were red and stressed, desperate. “Face, I’m going home now.” This sent the younger man’s chin trembling.
“Please Major,” Face whispered.
Unable to contain himself any longer he gave in to the need to pet the kid’s cheek. “I’m going home. I want you to go to bed. Get a good night’s sleep. Then you are to report to my office at seven hundred tomorrow.”
Face swallowed hard, again looking away.
“Am I understood?”
His reply was a weak nod and even weaker, “Okay.”
The Major didn’t have the heart to demand a “Yes, sir.” With a hand on the kid’s shoulder, Hannibal instead finished, “We’re going to talk about this. Hopefully work something out.”
*******
It wasn’t more than four minutes when a knock reverberated through the door. Face hurried to see what the Major had forgotten, wanted to say, wanted him to know. Or maybe he had changed his mind. If he had, Face knew it wasn’t a stretch when he had told the Major he’d make it good. After a night, hell after an hour, the Major would be his.
But it wasn’t Hannibal.
“What was he doing here?”
“Wha...What do you mean? I’m...”
“You’re what? Hmmm? You’re what?!”
The blow to the temple was upon him before he comprehended the movement. He hit the floor with all the grace of a soldier caught unaware. Of a soldier who was afraid to protect himself from his attacker. One who knew any reciprocation would result in more hardship than was already at hand.
“Tell me! What are you, Face?”
But how could he answer when the air had been forced out of him by a toe soundly rammed into his diaphragm?
“Don’t want to tell me?”
Face’s head whipped to the side from a backhand.
“What are you, Face? You fucked? I think you’re fucked. Are you fucked or were you fucked?”
Hands made their way to Face’s pants and with little struggle they were pulled down. But how much struggle could there have been after slapping the hands away once? When they came back a second time Face’s hair was grabbed in two fists and his head slammed to the floor. The strike was hard enough to cause not only vertigo but also a disturbing bout with tunnel vision.
“Let’s see what we have here.”
Without preamble and whereas the use of one would have answered the question, three fingers were shoved inside him causing a yelp to escape from somewhere beyond where his conscious mind currently floated. Along with the slicing pain, he could swear he heard skin tear somewhere in the distance, but that was only his imagination, wasn’t it?
Of course it was, he reasoned with himself. He wanted to continue the thought, let it take him away from the pain. He could feel himself shutting down. He needed an escape from his senses. He needed Hannibal. He wanted...
“Jesus Christ, Face. So he didn’t fuck you. Did you have to bleed all over me? Maybe you should keep that baby lubed at all times. Never know when you might need it.” This was said as the blood-streaked hand was wiped vigorously on the LT’s shirt.
“So, what did you do for him? Get on your knees? He take you in your mouth?” The voice was somewhere over him. “How many times have I told you, bed all the women you want, but when it comes to your ass, it’s mine?”
When the kick to his back came he tried, really tried to accept the blame for what was happening to him. But with that last assault he could no longer remain with his body. He felt if he did, if he rode this out tonight he would never recover.
He felt a sympathy for the husk, being abandoned to its own fate as it were, and closed himself off from it completely. He let himself ride a lazy wave. He thought of Major Smith, Hannibal, didn’t know where he stood with the man. After all, he had made a complete ass of himself. Was supposed to be at the Major’s office in the morning, no doubt for a dressing down. Didn’t matter anymore. That tunnel was narrowing down. He felt himself puff out like a blown candle.
*******
It was 2300 hours and Hannibal had a comfortable buzz roaming through his head, thinking to himself, Now would be the time to go to bed. He instead listened to the unnamed whisperer who urged him to bring the bottle of scotch along with to the sofa. This late-night companion encouraging him to let down his carefully constructed self-control never started as a clear vocalization. Only as a guide there to somehow outline his actions.
The longer time passed, the more it took shape. Sometimes he thought it was Andy’s voice he heard. But that couldn’t be. With his obsession with fine wines, Andy would never degrade himself nor urge John to forgo measured ounces and tumble into sloppy drunkenness. Hannibal would often be forced to drag himself from the inebriated murkiness into a world of logic to consciously remind himself the voice couldn’t be Andy’s. He hadn’t come along with to Benning. Hannibal had been forced to leave him behind.
That particular night after he returned home from Face’s apartment he didn’t set himself adrift without moorings. Unlike so many of those other nights when the bottle tempted, then lured him into an uneasy and vague darkness, he focused his mind to ponder the young lieutenant whom he had left unfulfilled not long before. It dug at him in the way it had when he tamped down his desire to while in the man’s company. Instead he had kept his wits about him. Glancing at the clock he saw it was close to midnight. Pushing away the voice telling him one more wouldn’t make a difference he left the bottle on the coffee table to make his way to the master bath. With freshly brushed teeth he stripped down to climb into bed, None too soon, he thought to himself. He needed to be on time but also presentable in the morning when he met with Face.
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