Nameless One, 8/18
Jul. 3rd, 2011 07:38 am![[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".
The weeks settle into a hushed sort of normality that Face alternately clings to and despises. B.A. disappears into the barn and seems uncertain how to talk to Face, anymore, and he wonders what exactly Hannibal and Murdock told him. Murdock keeps up the cheerful act that Face appreciates at first, but grows to hate.
Something happened! he wants to shout at them. Stop pretending it’s all okay when it’s not. It never comes out though. He just grits his teeth and bears it, laughing when he’s expected to and joining into the dinner conversations like everything is okay.
And it is, he thinks, it is okay now, he feels normal, utterly normal. Balance is something so precious when your sanity is perched on a teeter-totter, waiting for the other side to fall or rise.
Hannibal is the worst, though. He’s avoided Face since that morning, like he’s unsure what to do or say, except that can’t be right, because the boss is the man with the plan—the one who always knows what’s going on. It’s driving Face crazy, he thinks with a small smile at the joke. Crazier than normal.
He seeks him out in the study, knocking on the door and standing uncertainly at the threshold. Hannibal barely glances up from his book.
“Hey boss,” Face says, pretending like he always does, except this time it’s important that Hannibal pretends back. “I just wanted to know if we were moving on soon.”
Hannibal considers it. “When are the owners supposed to be back?”
Face shrugs. “Not for a month or so. I just thought—”
“We’re good here,” Hannibal says as he goes back to his book. “We’ll stay for a while.”
“Okay,” Face ignores his disappointment. The house’s walls keep reminding him that they saw him in his moment of madness, too, and he feels like he can’t get away from them fast enough. If they kept running, they could leave this behind them and everything would go back to normal. They would treat him like he was normal, instead of something that’s been shattered and haphazardly taped back together. “Right.”
“That all?”
“Yeah, guess so,” Face says. He closes the door behind him and the creak of the hinges sound like something breaking a little more inside him.
He doesn’t notice it, at first, even though he knows it’s coming eventually. Unlike the other kind, which builds and ratchets like a bolt being tightened too far, these spells are subtle. They sneak up on him and catch him off-guard. It is a slow descent into this kind of madness, nothing like the frantic, careening rush of the other ones.
One morning, he wakes up before everyone else, remembering the slow, hazy dreams he had last night. Random snippets of filtered blue halls of the orphanage and black and white collars, institutional grey-greens of the prison walls, muffled voices talking to him, about him, from far away.
The kitchen is still in disarray from dinner last night, but he manages to dig out a mug from the sink and waits for the coffee to drip into the pot. The quiet feels muffled, when there should be Murdock singing to himself as he cooks or B.A. grumbling or even Hannibal’s low chuckle when he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s amused.
He sits out on the porch in Hannibal’s usual spot and stares out at the pasture. The sun is just starting to struggle over the horizon, languidly stretching her arms across the grass and into the nooks and crannies of the buildings, burning off the last droplets of dew from the night. A few of the horses softly nicker at each other. One of the cats from the barn is curled up on top of a post, lazily watching a field mouse make its way through the grass.
He takes a sip from his coffee and thinks, I’m content, right before he notices the tears running down his cheeks.
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".
The weeks settle into a hushed sort of normality that Face alternately clings to and despises. B.A. disappears into the barn and seems uncertain how to talk to Face, anymore, and he wonders what exactly Hannibal and Murdock told him. Murdock keeps up the cheerful act that Face appreciates at first, but grows to hate.
Something happened! he wants to shout at them. Stop pretending it’s all okay when it’s not. It never comes out though. He just grits his teeth and bears it, laughing when he’s expected to and joining into the dinner conversations like everything is okay.
And it is, he thinks, it is okay now, he feels normal, utterly normal. Balance is something so precious when your sanity is perched on a teeter-totter, waiting for the other side to fall or rise.
Hannibal is the worst, though. He’s avoided Face since that morning, like he’s unsure what to do or say, except that can’t be right, because the boss is the man with the plan—the one who always knows what’s going on. It’s driving Face crazy, he thinks with a small smile at the joke. Crazier than normal.
He seeks him out in the study, knocking on the door and standing uncertainly at the threshold. Hannibal barely glances up from his book.
“Hey boss,” Face says, pretending like he always does, except this time it’s important that Hannibal pretends back. “I just wanted to know if we were moving on soon.”
Hannibal considers it. “When are the owners supposed to be back?”
Face shrugs. “Not for a month or so. I just thought—”
“We’re good here,” Hannibal says as he goes back to his book. “We’ll stay for a while.”
“Okay,” Face ignores his disappointment. The house’s walls keep reminding him that they saw him in his moment of madness, too, and he feels like he can’t get away from them fast enough. If they kept running, they could leave this behind them and everything would go back to normal. They would treat him like he was normal, instead of something that’s been shattered and haphazardly taped back together. “Right.”
“That all?”
“Yeah, guess so,” Face says. He closes the door behind him and the creak of the hinges sound like something breaking a little more inside him.
He doesn’t notice it, at first, even though he knows it’s coming eventually. Unlike the other kind, which builds and ratchets like a bolt being tightened too far, these spells are subtle. They sneak up on him and catch him off-guard. It is a slow descent into this kind of madness, nothing like the frantic, careening rush of the other ones.
One morning, he wakes up before everyone else, remembering the slow, hazy dreams he had last night. Random snippets of filtered blue halls of the orphanage and black and white collars, institutional grey-greens of the prison walls, muffled voices talking to him, about him, from far away.
The kitchen is still in disarray from dinner last night, but he manages to dig out a mug from the sink and waits for the coffee to drip into the pot. The quiet feels muffled, when there should be Murdock singing to himself as he cooks or B.A. grumbling or even Hannibal’s low chuckle when he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s amused.
He sits out on the porch in Hannibal’s usual spot and stares out at the pasture. The sun is just starting to struggle over the horizon, languidly stretching her arms across the grass and into the nooks and crannies of the buildings, burning off the last droplets of dew from the night. A few of the horses softly nicker at each other. One of the cats from the barn is curled up on top of a post, lazily watching a field mouse make its way through the grass.
He takes a sip from his coffee and thinks, I’m content, right before he notices the tears running down his cheeks.
