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He's realizing that things have changed between them since day one.
He can remember when they first kissed, under the dying banyan tree, the night sky full of stars and fire and chopper blades as the smell of Agent Orange and smoke filled the sticky night air, made even more hot by their insistent tongues in the others mouth. They had thought it was the end, the finish, the grand finale of their all too short lives, doomed to end in a blast of chemical from their own and the staccato gun fire of their enemy.
He'd turned just as B.A. hit the ground, swearing, and as Face swore and pressed himself against the bark of that magnificent multi-trunked tree and, truthfully, that had probably been Vietnamese swears that bolstered the cacophony of noise until it was all just a roar in his ears. But the noise was just noise as he caught those brown eyes meeting his, a dirt covered face streaked with sweat and covered with a regulation helmet that matched a leather jacket back at the billet.
"Pretty bad out there." The words were simple, the voice a casual drawl, eyes shining with that manic glint that had always been there, no matter who claimed otherwise, as the tree above them smoldered and burned into the black sky.
"Yup." It was all he said, because there was nothing more to say. They both knew, both heard the grace notes playing as they reached the last stanza, began the coda and the long slow notes building to the final chord of the jazz they both could hear so well.
"Think we'll make it?"
"I don't know."
And then, after a long pregnant pause full of the fact that there would be no more long looks across the planning table, no more soft innocuous touches in the cockpit of a Huey, no more casual brush ups of shoulders in doorways, they both surged forward and met just as a chopper roared over head, as if heralding his acknowledgment of the other that had been building since Da Nang. He'd pulled back even then, only for a second after the first chaste kiss, fingers ghosting the younger man's neck as he breathed into the air.
"Do you-?" Even back then he had to be sure, just as he does to this day.
And just like today, the Captain smiled. "Like butter wants bread, Colonel."
He was told later by B.A. and Face, on separate occasions, that they'd looked like some god damn romantic movie featuring two Clark Gables with guns and paint on their cheeks and one with a tiger painted lopsided on a field of green. He wasn't sure if the description was flattering or not, but he always associated the smell of fire with that pilot since then and each time he caught a whiff of smoke in the air he saw burning jungle framing a Murdock silhouette.
He'd worried back then of course, just like he worried now.
They'd survived that first kiss, and many more after that, but there had been no more hints and suggestions since the night under the banyan tree. The initial hurdle had been left behind in the fire fight and there had been several nights of a new type of exploration, the kind done in supply closets, tents, and even behind a rambutan tree after a heavy night of drinking.
He loved the man even before he'd drunkenly declared his love into the dark, sometime after, during one particularly narrow escape in a grounded chopper - "Like Abelard and Heloise" the pilot had giggled at the adventure. He'd worried then, though, that perhaps, perhaps the banyan tree had only been him. All of this just him, a thing forced on Murdock by a superior officer, and he'd worried and fretted as he let his declaration hang thick in the air as he waited for some acknowledgment, one way or the other.
But the pilot had just grinned at him, head under the collective and ass barely staying hidden from the windows as brown eyes grinned at his worried blue. "Love ya too, Colonel."
He hadn't worried after that, because the pilot had just smiled with that glinting, manic grin as he kissed him then and had always welcomed each advance with open arms and an infectious laugh that rose to the stars and back. And he hadn't worried at the fact that the grin became more and more frequent because the camp happened, then Hanoi, and then long, long months of not knowing and unable to know exactly what had happened to the man he'd had to leave behind in a land of fire and blood. Nights were spent wondering if their tale would end like Abelard and Heloise and if he really wasn't stuck in a story that had happened too long ago.
And he hadn’t thought things would change even after many more equally warm, equally sticky nights that he found himself alone for.
It had taken months of waiting, lying low, figuring out what life exactly became when everything was jerked from you in one fell swoop. He spent nights nursing a drink alone at the bar, sometimes with Face sometimes with B.A. but more often than naught alone with cigar smoke from another era lingering in his ears and a tinny record player turning The Temptations to the sound of choppers and war-whoops and the ghost of a Captain that was leading it all. Those nights with a scotch never helped enough, never ended like the nights back then had, until the evening an old Army buddy walked in through the door with a Casablanca feel to the air.
And just like Rick Blaine his world turned.
News of his Isla: shadowy missions no one could explain, reported crashes, changes in temperament, a section nine, and a last helping hand from the government in finding a home in the Westwood Veteran's Administration Hospital, a mere four miles away.
Morning couldn’t come fast enough.
“Captain H.M. Murdock.” He had had to repeat the name for the nurse the next morning, disguise on and hands gripping the counter top.
She’d frowned. “He doesn’t usually get visitors.”
“Uncle, just came in from overseas.” Wouldn’t Face be proud. “Heard he was in a state and thought I’d drop by to at least say hi. He was a good kid.”
He smiled, she bought it, and there he was in the doorway of a small room that was painfully plain and painfully bare of everything but a bed, a box, and the pilot draped over the two, unmoving, head buried in the pillow.
“Murdock?”
“Mhphf.”
“Murdock.”
He was afraid to move as the pilot began to move, impressions sliding through his mind and over his eyes until he was almost unsure which Murdock he was looking at or which one he hoped to see. A Russian roulette of how this would go as the man lifted his brown eyes to meet his blue ones. There was weight in those eyes that hadn’t been there before; deep pools ripped open and on display, raw emotion disturbed now, for good or for bad he was unsure, at the sight in front of them.
“Colonel?”
He smiled as the pilot, his pilot, stared.
“Captain.”
And he couldn’t hold it in anymore, couldn’t stand the fact that he had been gone too long, been gone when it mattered, been gone when that depth had been bored into those eyes and let the others in closer to the sensitive core that he had worked so hard to protect.
So he surged forward to stop the leak and wrapped the pilot in his arms tightly, box of personals tumbling to the floor in his haste to press his forehead to Murdock’s and absorb every last thing coming from those brown depths. “Murdock…”
A shaky hand ghosted his shoulder, tentative and unsure. “Hannibal?”
He pulled back and kissed the pilot deeply, desperately, throat trembling in a way that was undignified for a man of his status. If the pilot noticed, though, he said nothing, and after a moment Murdock kissed back. He wanted to enjoy the pilot, dominate the kiss as, he always did, and reassure himself and the pilot that the long nights were over. But it had taken too long, telling seconds too long for Murdock to remember what their lips meant when together and he pulled back with concern bleeding through the bliss.
“Murdock?” He held the pilot at arm’s length, one hand unable to resist rubbing the thin – much too thin – arm that had goose bumps forming from the sudden loss of heat. “Are you all right?”
Things froze as the Major’s warnings came back. Change, change, everything changed, but what if the pilot had changed how he thought? What if they were back to that drunken night, to an officer enforcing his will on a subordinate? Fear flashed through him in what suddenly seemed as equally a cramped space as that empty cockpit as his mind delved deeper and asked if that intimacy of rank was even left at all.
Yet the brown depths just stared at him with a sudden lucidity, more focused than they had been moments before and glinting with a familiarity that brought back the smell of smoke. The pilot was smiling that wide, lopsided grin that still had just a tad too much manic in it to be completely sane, but Murdock was relaxing into the hand on his arm and speaking in that slow drawl. “Doin’ a lot better all of a sudden, if you know what I mean, Colonel.”
He smiled back at the Captain, though something inside him had reawakened and was wrapping itself slowly around his intestines. “Good, good.” His hand twitched, wanting to touch, but he stilled it with a gentle squeeze to the pilot’s shoulder. “How have you been?”
Murdock shrugged, tossing his head slightly in dismissal of the question. “Aw, Hannibal, it’s been.” No other explanation than a pointed look of those still torn-opened eyes. “It doesn’t matter what’s been, though, cause been is been and now is now. And I like the now lots better.”
And he’d had to smile because that was his Murdock. But even as he leaned in to make the ‘now’ that much more, he paused as his stomach lurched in remembrance. “Murdock. Do you…” He had to lick his lip and sigh softly to create space between them. “This. Do you still want this?”
His fingers brushed the pilot’s neck in a hopeful stroke and he was met with two lanky arms sliding around his neck, slotting into place with the soft swish of fabric. “Like butter to bread, Colonel.”
Murdock’s lips remembered the motions this time the minute he put his to the pilot’s and they’d stayed in that warmth until long after the sprinklers had turned on then off outside. And while the pilot had a tendency to wander during the heated moments after, babbled excitations often leading down a trail he hadn’t anticipated, it only took a stroke of a finger or a kiss on the lips to bring Murdock back to a trail he could follow.
But even during the lulls in the harsh white of the room and long after he had stepped back into the sun, he felt the doubt settle where it had awaken and that first moment and awkward pause stayed with him.
It all leads them to now, where the things that used to be endearing in their unchanging nature are now neither sweet nor touching.
The pilot still gives him that mischievous flash of his eyes, the occasional look that can be construed a million ways from across the room, still purrs when his jaw is rubbed with the calloused pad of his thumb. But a pattern has been emerging with more prominence since the V.A. of things Murdock doesn’t do.
And it’s those things that are beginning to bother him.
Like how the pilot, for all his physicality with Face, won’t make the first move when with him. Not even now, on a rare night alone in an even rarer silent moment right after a mission, does Murdock make a move. He’s even positioned himself on the couch, one cushion away from the pilot, easily within reach, newspaper loosely in hand as Murdock props his sprained ankle and flips through channels on the television. He’s been waiting for some hint from the lanky Texan that things can proceed from quiet domestic to heated romantic since the six o’clock news ended.
But nothing has come.
No look, no grin, no yawn to bring an arm within reach of his shoulder.
It’s not the first time this has happened, not the first time he’s been left to do the initiating and make the effort to take things from friends to lovers. He normally doesn’t mind, as he can accept that a deep part of him likes the control. But power is a fickle thing that he has learned to mind warily over the years and when he sees Murdock engage Face in a hug, bicker with B.A. over a fantasy, yet never engage him or protest an action that he initiates, it worries him.
He tries to rationalize first with the simple explanation that perhaps his pilot doesn’t want him. Doesn’t want this tonight while his ankle is wrapped and propped up by a pillow that Face had fussed overly loudly about just earlier that evening. He wishes Murdock would at least cuddle then, or brush those long fingers down his arm while throwing a soft smile his way like he did so many years ago when the background noise was jungle instead of news. But perhaps he is too demanding, too needy, too expectant of the man he’s been with for over seven years now.
Yet…what if he isn’t?
It’s beginning to unnerve him, because that coil from almost one year ago has been twisting and turning and growing until it’s made him feel heavy and full on the realization that something is off. There are no more looks, no more brushes of shoulders, no more lingering winks like there were so long ago. The memory of a mutual kiss in fire and smoke seems more distant these days, and even arms wrapping around his neck in a plain white room with a plain white purpose seems far, far away. Something is wrong and as it moves through his stomach to his chest he finds that the newspaper he’s holding is quivering.
Murdock looks over at the soft paper thunders and blinks owlishly from underneath his baseball cap. “Everything ok, Colonel?”
He closes his eyes as he shields himself with the blocky black newsprint. “Just fine, Murdock.”
There’s no answer, no sound, no shift of khakis on leather couch, so he lowers the paper just the slightest inch down and finds brown eyes that still haven’t quite lost that opened look completely appraising him carefully. “You sure?”
What can he say? How do you ask your lover if he’s no longer interested, or – and the thought hits him hard – if he’s capable of being interested anymore?
Because now that his mind is on that slippery slope of doubt, images slide in projection-like precision of the times he’s seen that manic grin, the one that caresses the pilot’s mouth like an old friend whenever they’re together. It’s the same one that dusts the Range Rider’s face, the one that plays on Captain Cab’s mouth, the one that contorts the eyes of Dick Nash. Each persona a different being with different hopes and dreams, but all with that unchanging taint to the grin on their face and he has to wonder, has to wonder indeed, if perhaps this – him and Murdock – isn’t all a beautifully intricate persona now as well.
His paper lowers at the force of this thought and there’s Murdock, staring, brown chasms furrowed with a deeper concern than can form into words. “Colonel?”
“Fine, just fine.” He’s barely aware he’s said anything at all and even he knows that those three little words say more than they should.
It’s because those words are so hollow and bare that he doesn’t – can’t – bring himself to put the flimsy shield of news text back up. It would be useless to try because by now Murdock has caught on; the pilot has never been anything but uncannily talented, second only to Face perhaps, in his ability to pick up on the unsaid and the undertones, and he can already see those brown eyes purse together in thoughtful confusion.
Head tilted, eyes scanning, Murdock leans in slightly from the force of his examination. “Colonel, you’re white as the moon in full and lookin’ just as spaced out as a Martian whose crash landed. You harboring extraterrestrials in that mind of yours, or you just having an out-of-world experience?”
And suddenly the pilot is there with a shift of his foot, peering curiously at his hairline, as if those brown eyes could pierce through to the cogs underneath even as a slender finger comes up to prod his forehead experimentally. “Hello, earth calling Colonel Smith, earth-call for Colonel Smith.”
The proximity has him take a stuttering breath. He can feel his body responding with eager inner movements and the primal part of him is ready to drop the questions and breathe in the scent of Murdock as they kiss. He responds with less intensity, however, with the practiced grace that comes from situations much more volatile than this. His hand grasps Murdock’s wrist and gently tugs it down.
“Murdock…” The brown chasms stare undeterred at the firm tone. “We need to talk.”
The pilot simply nods and sits up, taking his hand away with equally fluid grace and grins. “All right, Colonel. Anything in particular you want to chat about, or perhaps you’re just looking for a spot of company?”
He almost wishes the jovial tone were dropped as he feels neither as jovial nor as amused as the pilot does. “Murdock…” He sighs to empty the panic and unease that have begun to cloud his thoughts. “Murdock, do you want this?"
This time confusion flickers through the pilot, a slight recoil in the eyes as if sensing that this is something much deeper than space aliens and first contacts. "Want what, Hannibal?" Words flow like waves from the pilot in times of unease, a rush then a pause, and now is no exception. "I mean, if this is about having an alien possessed Colonel as a friend, I'm all right with that. After all, I told you I'm extra sensitive to space rays and space waves, so I think I'll be able to tell when it's you and not a little green man doing the talking."
He wishes he could lean forward, as he could easily do, and stop the talking with a kiss to that smiling mouth. But instead he waits it out until those brown eyes are blinking slowly at his silence and letting the concern show from the murky depths. "Your gift with space rays aside, I was hoping to talk about us.”
"Us?" So he gestures between them both and Murdock's mouth makes a perfect little 'o' that purses up into a squiggled line. "Oh."
His heart falls as he watches the younger man’s eyes change with each blink, confusion melting into the depths, replaced with a glint that he’s so well aware of, has seen so many times. When Murdock’s head lifts back up from its thoughtful bow, he knows that things have switched tracks because those eyes are just like they always have been and a grin is beginning to form that has just a bit too much upper teeth to it to be normal.
“What about us, Hannibal?”
Smooth, low, drawl pronounced, he knows what Murdock is trying to do, knows it would normally succeed if all he did was give in, reach out and acknowledge it right now with a touch to set that emotion so carefully presented loose. And it hurts because he can smell the smoke and hear the boots thumping on the ground from so long ago because yes, this is familiar, this is something he knows. But he knows this side of the man from the past, not from the now, and he’s not so sure the look in those eyes is seeing him or seeing a less experienced Lieutenant-Colonel who is still trying to figure out just how to love this man.
He wishes that he had never asked, had never thought of it, that his brain had never questioned the way that Murdock worked. Yet he can’t ignore the snake inside and he can’t ignore the manic that is showing through right now. Because he could be happy, could make this Murdock happy, and though they could both be as happy as they choose to be in these moments, the fact is that this is only a part of a whole, a fractured piece.
Was it real back then?
He doesn’t know; suspects it was otherwise the times he has are from a con man much greater in scope and abilities than Templeton Peck himself. But it doesn’t really matter at that moment; a puzzle for another day. Right now he carefully boxes the hurt and the anger into a small place and shoves it away with other things that were taken and never truly recovered from a time when smoke and fire meant something else entirely.
“You know, I can’t remember anymore.” He shakes his head and gives the pilot a tired grin that he wishes he had to fake. “Sorry about that.”
His eyes go back to his paper but flicker up to watch as Murdock leans back, confusion now spreading into the way the pilot reaches out hesitantly, then pulls the same hand back. “Oh, all right. Well, you know where I am if you remember, Colonel.”
He knows exactly how to find that part of Murdock, knows exactly what to do. And perhaps, one day, Murdock will as well, of his own accord and his own desire. Perhaps one day, when things no longer have to be seen through a part of a whole, through the safety of someone else leading, he’ll be able to feel a touch to his shoulder and look up into brown eyes without the extra show of teeth and know that the mania in them is nothing more than the normal amount for a very abnormal man.
But instead, he lets Murdock resettle back into the sofa as he flips to the next page of his walls of text on a now heavy newspaper. Yet even as the door opens and B.A. and Face begin to fill the house with bickering and laughing and loud exclamations, he knows himself well enough to realize that this calmness inside isn’t acceptance but him rising to a challenge. Because though he can’t piece the bits of Murdock back together himself, doesn’t know just how to rebuild the fractured parts inside the brilliant mind in front of him, he does know that not all challenges require action from him. Some battles simply mean stepping aside and waiting for things to work back together at the hands of the mastermind they belong to.
Will the ending be what he wants?
He’s not sure, he can’t ever be sure.
But he will wait, has to wait, because, like butter to bread, there is no one else he’d rather love.