Nameless One, 14/18
Aug. 16th, 2011 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofknavesTitle: Nameless One
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tripatch
Rating: R
Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Summary: Kinkmeme prompt, Face secretly takes meds for bipolar disorder. But for whatever reason, Face is no longer on his meds. Then the manic behavior starts, from getting into a mess of fights to needing to have tons of sex with strangers. Then when the emotional roller coaster stuff starts, Face begins cutting himself during the darkest times. His teammates notice, and try to help but Face is stubborn and refuses help, heavily in denial.
Additional Notes: Title taken from James Clarence Mangan's poem, "Nameless One".
B.A. grounds him, a force as unshakeable as a rock.
Face finds him outside in the sanctum of the shed and quietly slips in. B.A. will chase anyone out if they make too much noise or disturb him, but he lets Face stay occasionally when he needs a haven. Face carefully clears out a space on the workbench and watches B.A.’s broad hands maneuver into the tight spaces of the engine he’s fixing. Those broad palms never waver in their work and the shed is nearly silent except for the sound of their breathing and the steady tink tink of metal against metal.
“Have I ever told you about my first car?” B.A. asks suddenly.
Face shakes his head, handing over the socket wrench at B.A.’s gesture. The metal clangs against the bolt, prying it loose somewhere beneath the car. B.A.’s voice talks steadily over it.
“1977 DeTomaso Pantera GTS – beautiful, I’m telling you. You ever seen one?”
“No,” Face says, dragging his memory. He has a dim notion that it’s a nice car, but that’s about it. He always was one for the shiny, the outside appearance more important than the inside. He knows what car he needs to drive to convince someone he’s a businessman, what one he needs to show he’s an arrogant punk with too much money, but he’s never been about the nuts and bolts and inside mechanisms like B.A. is.
B.A. whistles lowly. “I was hot shit in that car, man. Everyone stopped when I went by. But the engine was shot. I had to replace the damn transmission twice, the brakes kept going out, couldn’t keep the lines clean. Had to bleed ‘em every month or so. And the gas gauge was broke. Kept tellin’ me I had half a tank when I was runnin’ on fumes.”
“You fixed it?” Face asks.
“Yup,” B.A. says. There’s the sound of metal groaning and he rolls out from underneath the car again, wiping his hands on a rag as he pokes around for a new bolt. “They never took though. Kept having to constantly put her up on blocks to make sure she would run.”
“How long did you keep her?”
“Seven years. I loved that car. My momma kept askin’ me why I didn’t get a new one, somethin’ more reliable, but I tol’ her that it was my car.”
“Why did you keep her?” Face asks, confused.
B.A. keeps looking through his tools for a bolt, finally pulling one out and nodding with satisfaction. He looks at Face evenly. “I owed that car a lot. If it had run perfectly, I’d never have learned how to fix it, y’know? The more things that went wrong with it, the more I loved it, the more I learned. You see those guys with the hot-shot rice burners? You think they know how to fix ‘em when they break down? Nah, man. There’s no love, nothing to ‘em. And those suckas will break down at the drop of a hat.”
The ground beneath his feet has oil stains, staining the concrete a rusty brown color. Face keeps staring at them, feeling like it’s a Rorschach test. He tilts his head, trying to see a butterfly.
“Yeah?” he echoes faintly.
B.A. nods. “Yeah. Any of those cars that look real pretty on the outside have a lot more goin’ on in the inside. More bolts, lines, more things that can go wrong.”
“Seems like a lot of work,” Face says quietly. “You ever think it wasn’t worth it?”
“Whenever that sucka was giving me trouble, sure. But you learn how to fix the things that go wrong, keep up with ‘em, and they’ll outrun anything on the road.”
When B.A. talks like this, his steady deep voice rumbling as smooth as the engines he fixes, it’s in short bursts. He says what he needs to, never clogging up the air with unnecessary words. His conversations are like crocodiles, Face thinks, where all that’s visible is the surface and it looks like an ugly log, until they surface and the whole picture is revealed. Not pretty, not glib, but with meaning in their own right. Once he’s said what he needs to, he’ll sink down below the water again and neither Face nor Murdock nor Hannibal will get anything out of him again until he wants to talk.
Face slides out of the workshop and leaves B.A. to his work.
Author:
tripatchRating: R
Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Summary: Kinkmeme prompt, Face secretly takes meds for bipolar disorder. But for whatever reason, Face is no longer on his meds. Then the manic behavior starts, from getting into a mess of fights to needing to have tons of sex with strangers. Then when the emotional roller coaster stuff starts, Face begins cutting himself during the darkest times. His teammates notice, and try to help but Face is stubborn and refuses help, heavily in denial.
Additional Notes: Title taken from James Clarence Mangan's poem, "Nameless One".
B.A. grounds him, a force as unshakeable as a rock.
Face finds him outside in the sanctum of the shed and quietly slips in. B.A. will chase anyone out if they make too much noise or disturb him, but he lets Face stay occasionally when he needs a haven. Face carefully clears out a space on the workbench and watches B.A.’s broad hands maneuver into the tight spaces of the engine he’s fixing. Those broad palms never waver in their work and the shed is nearly silent except for the sound of their breathing and the steady tink tink of metal against metal.
“Have I ever told you about my first car?” B.A. asks suddenly.
Face shakes his head, handing over the socket wrench at B.A.’s gesture. The metal clangs against the bolt, prying it loose somewhere beneath the car. B.A.’s voice talks steadily over it.
“1977 DeTomaso Pantera GTS – beautiful, I’m telling you. You ever seen one?”
“No,” Face says, dragging his memory. He has a dim notion that it’s a nice car, but that’s about it. He always was one for the shiny, the outside appearance more important than the inside. He knows what car he needs to drive to convince someone he’s a businessman, what one he needs to show he’s an arrogant punk with too much money, but he’s never been about the nuts and bolts and inside mechanisms like B.A. is.
B.A. whistles lowly. “I was hot shit in that car, man. Everyone stopped when I went by. But the engine was shot. I had to replace the damn transmission twice, the brakes kept going out, couldn’t keep the lines clean. Had to bleed ‘em every month or so. And the gas gauge was broke. Kept tellin’ me I had half a tank when I was runnin’ on fumes.”
“You fixed it?” Face asks.
“Yup,” B.A. says. There’s the sound of metal groaning and he rolls out from underneath the car again, wiping his hands on a rag as he pokes around for a new bolt. “They never took though. Kept having to constantly put her up on blocks to make sure she would run.”
“How long did you keep her?”
“Seven years. I loved that car. My momma kept askin’ me why I didn’t get a new one, somethin’ more reliable, but I tol’ her that it was my car.”
“Why did you keep her?” Face asks, confused.
B.A. keeps looking through his tools for a bolt, finally pulling one out and nodding with satisfaction. He looks at Face evenly. “I owed that car a lot. If it had run perfectly, I’d never have learned how to fix it, y’know? The more things that went wrong with it, the more I loved it, the more I learned. You see those guys with the hot-shot rice burners? You think they know how to fix ‘em when they break down? Nah, man. There’s no love, nothing to ‘em. And those suckas will break down at the drop of a hat.”
The ground beneath his feet has oil stains, staining the concrete a rusty brown color. Face keeps staring at them, feeling like it’s a Rorschach test. He tilts his head, trying to see a butterfly.
“Yeah?” he echoes faintly.
B.A. nods. “Yeah. Any of those cars that look real pretty on the outside have a lot more goin’ on in the inside. More bolts, lines, more things that can go wrong.”
“Seems like a lot of work,” Face says quietly. “You ever think it wasn’t worth it?”
“Whenever that sucka was giving me trouble, sure. But you learn how to fix the things that go wrong, keep up with ‘em, and they’ll outrun anything on the road.”
When B.A. talks like this, his steady deep voice rumbling as smooth as the engines he fixes, it’s in short bursts. He says what he needs to, never clogging up the air with unnecessary words. His conversations are like crocodiles, Face thinks, where all that’s visible is the surface and it looks like an ugly log, until they surface and the whole picture is revealed. Not pretty, not glib, but with meaning in their own right. Once he’s said what he needs to, he’ll sink down below the water again and neither Face nor Murdock nor Hannibal will get anything out of him again until he wants to talk.
Face slides out of the workshop and leaves B.A. to his work.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-17 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-17 12:35 am (UTC)Murdock and B.A. kind of talk sideways. Murdock is very flashy and cryptic, but B.A. has real depth there that gets lost in his speech. I like to think that he kind of talks in metaphor, to say what he means, without having to sacrifice his tough guy image.
I'm glad it worked so well for you--like I said, B.A. is hard to get a handle on. I keep wanting to just throw in some 'foo'!' and 'sucka', but there's a lot more to him that I want to do justice to.
And wow, that didn't sound pretentious and artsy at all. *sneaks off*
PS, I tried to make the navigation a little bit easier? I know it was getting a bit unwieldy. I just wanted to see what you thought of the chart thingie and if it works better for you?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-17 12:39 am (UTC)Yep, the new layout worked great for me! It let me click around until I found where I'd left off and jump from one chap to the next without going back. Poifect!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-17 12:48 am (UTC)Yay! I'm glad it worked for you!