Love Against the Gods
Copyright 2001
Author: emmastark
Rated: ~NC-17~
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephen J. Cannell and
Universal.
Archive: No.
Warning: Slash, language, some violence.
Comments: Please
Summary: An answer to the A-Slash Missing Scene Challenge #3: In this episode, Face is being roughed up by the guys in the
bar when he fails to produce Cowboy George. Behind the men,
Murdock pulls a gun and makes them let Face go. Murdock is deadly serious
in this scene, not his usual playful, wacky self. Write a scene that explains why he is so serious and what happens after he pulls
Face out of the bar.
Special Thanks to Mel, for the episode summary!
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Love Against the Gods
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"Father, hold your fist,
'Cause I will never be
An image of yourself.
No perfect family.
Father, it's too late
To make a man of me -
I love against the gods..."
~God Don't Hold a Grudge, lyrics by Boy George~
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Murdock had been in the bathroom for twenty minutes.
Boy George didn't seem to mind. He'd laid down on one of the
motel room's two narrow beds right after their phone call to Hannibal. Perched up on his elbows, hat askew, humming and scribbling
something on an envelope.
Even if it were all the lyrics to "Rhinestone Cowboy,"
it probably wouldn't help at this point, Face thought gloomily. There was definitely something wrong in the state of Texas. Or at least in
the Floor `Em Tavern.
He glanced at the bathroom door again. Fiddled with the window shade. The air conditioner didn't look like it had worked this
century, the window was painted shut, and now he couldn't even
get the shade to go down. A hot, yellow sun glared against the glass. He could feel heat radiating off the windowpane. Sweat trickled
down his neck.
Murdock had been acting odd ever since the thing in the bar.
He hadn't really wanted to come along on this deal at all, said
he wouldn't, then changed his mind suddenly, in the middle of the night. Called from the VA and said he didn't want Face to go
alone.
Strange, but not that strange. From Murdock.
When they'd first stepped out onto Texas soil, he'd squatted down
and picked up a handful of thin, loose dirt. Let it fall between his fingers. Stared down at the ground beneath his feet like he
didn't entirely trust it. Then peered back up at Face with wide, nervous eyes.
What did Texas mean to him?
Murdock had lots of stories. Face had appropriated most of them,
in lieu of his own childhood. Lack of childhood. Childhood that, for the most part, was best left unremembered. He'd borrowed the time
Grandma tried to make boysen berry wine and the sealed, bubbling glass jar she'd put it in exploded and turned the whole kitchen
purple. He'd borrowed long days of hoeing fields with Grandpa in
the hot, Texas sun, sharing lukewarm lemonade and peanut butter sandwiches in the shade at noon, then going back to work again.
Laying on a stack of loose hay in the deep starry dark, watching
a crescent moon cross from one side of the sky to the other on a
cool Autumn night.
He had some of Hannibal's stories too, and BA's. Hannibal and his brothers playing war games in Tiller's Woods. Stick guns and pine
cone grenades. The very first plans, organizing neighbor kids
into small armies. Thanksgiving at Mama's house, turkey and stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy. Homemade
cranberry sauce and three different kinds of pie. (Funny, how
most of BA's memories had something to do with food...) BA, small (so hard to imagine, somehow), hiding underneath the grown-ups table
and listening to them talk grown-up talk.
They'd all known each other for more than a year before the
camps. But that was where they'd started to tell their stories. Huddled together in the dark, they'd whispered secrets to each other,
like kids at a campout. A very serious fucking campout. No bonfire. No marshmallows. Just stories, that seemed to hold them
together somehow, tie them together and keep the night at bay. Keep all
the horror at bay, at least for a little while. First kisses in Ford pick-ups. The accident on Old Hope Road and what became of it.
Nickel monster movies, double features, at Hailey's Music Hall,
and sneaking on the subway to get there.
But they'd all kept stuff back. He wasn't the only one who had things he couldn't bear to tell.
The other stories.
He went over to the bathroom door and tried the knob. Locked.
He pulled the tool kit out of his jacket pocket, took out his
picks. Worked them carefully. Heard the click as the lock turned.
He paused for a moment. Almost turned around. Thought very seriously about turning around.
Murdock had seemed so lost, though, when he crouched on the
ground, letting Texas dirt run through his fingers. He'd seemed so fierce
in the bar. Cold and angry. In the moment, but in some other moment
at the same time.
Love was confusing. Frightening and bewildering, beyond anything he'd ever done or had done to him. But one thing he knew for sure
about it was that it didn't stop with the good stories. You had
to listen to them all.
He opened the door.
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Murdock was sitting on the narrow counter. Back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest. Chin resting on crossed arms. His
cap shaded his eyes. He didn't move when Face came into the small bathroom and closed the door behind him.
It was an ugly room. Cheap, torn wallpaper in an orange,
geometric print.
Face leaned back against the door. They stayed like that for awhile. Quiet.
The tiny room was stiflingly hot and stuffy, but Murdock still
had his jacket on. Close around him. When he started talking, his
voice was oddly flat. Atonal. Not his usual fast, softly drawling
patter.
"I was fourteen when my father beat the shit out of me. He'd
hit me before that, sometimes. Not bad though. Just a smack or a shove. Mostly I grew up with Grandma and Grandpa, after Ma died. Well,
you know that. You know that. And they were... But once in awhile, my father would show up and take me off with him on sales runs. He
sold insurance for Alston United. All over Texas. Sometimes it was
handy to have a kid along, I guess. He'd tell people, `When the boy's mother died, I don't know what we'd have done without insurance.'
Sometimes he'd say she died in a flood that wiped out everything
we had. Sometimes it was cancer. Fire. Depended on what kind of insurance he was trying to sell. He went door to door from
Abilene all the way to Clearwater."
Face stayed very still. Very still, and listened. You could smell stale cigarette smoke, just faintly in the heavy air, over the
scent of toothpaste. It was in the walls.
"He was working the north east corner of Val Verde County.
We'd rented a room in a boarding house. I didn't get tall `til later. Then it was all at once. And I was skinny, so I guess he still
thought he could use me. One of the men who was staying there, in the boarding house, had these magazines. I never took stuff, but
sometimes I crawled in the windows of other people's rooms. Just
to look around. I never took stuff, but I took one of those
magazines."
Murdock paused.
"It kind of... explained a lot. When you start realizing
you're... not the same as other people... it's easy to think you're the
only one, that you're... wrong somehow. Crazy. `Cause you don't
realize there's anybody else like you. My father had just taken off for
the day, left me there, so I had the room to myself. I laid down on
the bed and started looking at the pictures. I knew I'd have to put
the magazine back, so I was trying to memorize `em, so I could keep
them in my head. And I was touching myself."
Murdock turned his head and looked at himself in the mirror. His voice was still steady and clear, and his eyes were... far away.
"I don't know why he came back. If he forgot something or
got a flat tire..."
The heat in the room was stifling, now. Face felt sweat trickle
down the back of his shirt, where his back was pressed against the
door.
"I never let who he was make any difference to who I was.
You know?" Murdock said. His voice was getting faster, now, though it was
still steady. And the low, vaguely Texas drawl he usually said things
with was back in his voice, softening the edges of his words again.
"I was five years old when I decided never to be like him and I
never changed my mind. But I can't... I can't not remember. Not when we're here, and those guys had their hands on you. I saw
`em,
Face. I saw `em, an' all I could smell was the flat, dry smell of Texas dirt and all I could feel was my father's hands on me. Fists. He
never said nuthin', that whole time, you know? That he was hittin' me. Just kept... But when I was on the ground, he spat in the
dirt beside me. Right in my face. I could see his spit in the dirt. `You shame me, boy," he said. He packed up and left
that night and never came back." Murdock swallowed. "That
was the last thing he ever told me. My whole life, I knew he was an asshole.
But somehow, I can't seem to make it not matter that that's the last thing my Daddy ever told me, or ever will."
They were quiet for awhile. The pipes made clanking sounds as
other people in the motel turned their water off and on. Every once in awhile, they could hear little humming noises coming from the
other room. Pieces of songs. At one point, it sounded like Boy George
was humming "I'm an Old Cowhand, From the Rio Grande" -
(yippee ay oh, kiy ay...), but then it changed again. Hard to be sure of
anything.
Face closed his eyes. Let himself see Vietnam behind the closed lids. Took a breath. "On March 16, 1970, we were coming into
base after an op. We were covered in mud. It rained the whole time we were out,
eight days of heavy, soaking rain. We were all pretty done in. You and me had
our arms around each other, walking back into camp, straggling in after the other guys. We kept arguing about
who was holding who up, but not letting go. Kidding around. A couple pilots were sitting out by their slick on the LZ while we were
going by. Smoking and drinking 33. One of them said, `Hey, Murdock, that you Murdock? Who's the girlfriend?' I started to pull away.
Because... Well, because. I... But you kept hold of me. Held onto me. Kept your arm on my shoulder,
tight. `This here's my one an' only best friend, Faceman,' you said."
Face paused. Murdock was looking at him, now. Staring over with shadowed eyes.
"Nobody..." Face said, softly. "In my whole life,
nobody'd ever called me their best friend. I wasn't... I was never much. But on that day I felt proud. Because you decided to let me be your
friend. I still am."
Face paused, then grinned a little. "I've been
around..." he said.
Murdock raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth. Just a
little.
"I've been around. But in my whole life, I never met anybody
like you."
"'m one of a kind, Facey." Murdock smiled when he said
it. But his eyes were still dark and still.
"You're the kindest, bravest, sexiest man I've ever met,
Murdock."
"Sexiest?" Murdock uncurled himself from his perch on
the counter and dangled his legs over the side. Stared down at his shoes.
Face stepped forward a little. Reached out a hand and carefully lifted Murdock's cap off his head. Nodded.
"Sexiest."
Murdock let his breath out slowly. It felt like he'd been holding
it since they got to Texas.
Face was slowly, deliberately turning on his sexuality. It was always there, kind of a carrier hum that made heads turn and
people smile, when they didn't even know why they were smiling. But when
he opened up the taps all the way, he was irresistible.
And Murdock didn't want to resist.
He wasn't a boy anymore. Not confused and alone.
This was Texas. But he wasn't a scared kid anymore.
He wouldn't forget that kid. Wouldn't forget what had happened to him. Because he'd had to be that boy to become the man he was
now. Had to go through what he'd gone through, all of it, to get here.
Face moved closer to him. Ran his fingertips down his face very, very gently. Licked his lips.
To get here. And here was a very good place.
Richter always said that telling something took its power over
you away.
Face eased Murdock's jacket off his shoulders. Leaned in very close. So close. They stayed there for a moment, breathing each
other in.
Then Face sank slowly, gracefully down to his knees.
There was no space left in the room for anyone or anything but
the two of them. No room for shame or fear. It was a very small room, and their love filled it.
Face slowly and carefully unbuttoned the button on Murdock's
khaki pants. Unzipped the zipper. Looked up at Murdock through his eyelashes, grinning just a little, but serious at the same time.
He leaned in and rubbed his cheek against the thin material that sheathed Murdock's cock. His hands traced the curve of Murdock's
ass slowly, then carefully moved his boxers down and away.
He looked up at Murdock again. Into his eyes. "Love you, you know..."
Murdock blinked back tears that suddenly threatened to fall. Squeezed his eyes shut.
Face closed his lips over Murdock's cock and leaned close, taking
him in, deep. Smelling him and tasting. Swallowing. Letting his
throat move against that hardness.
Murdock buried his hands in Face's hair (soft hair). Felt so good
to let go. So right. He gripped Face's hair tightly and urged him to move faster. Sweat ran into his eyes, burning, and he tipped his
head back. Groaned as Face flicked his tongue along the underside
of Murdock's cock and made small noises in his throat.
Face reached behind Murdock and slipped one hand down the back of
his pants, grabbed his ass and pulled him closer, tighter against
him. Touched his balls with the other hand, teasing with his
fingertips. He moved back and forth steadily, taking Murdock deeper and
deeper into himself.
Murdock's breath was harsh, panting. Eyes unfocused, now. Face's lips, tongue, mouth felt so good on him, so sweet and good. He
felt everything in him draw up.
Face felt Murdock's balls rise in his hand, felt the movement at
the base of his cock. Then Murdock jerked, and Face's mouth was full
of cum, salty and slick. He swallowed, ran his tongue very gently
over Murdock's cock, and swallowed again.
Murdock cried out. Coming felt like nothing else. Touched him in deep places, made his eyes roll back. Pierced him through. Left
him breathless and euphoric.
Face made him feel that way.
He made himself loosen his grip on Face's hair. It felt like that was his only hold on the world, besides Face's hand, still
gripping his ass, and Face's mouth closed over him. But he loosened his
grip on the soft, honey-blonde hair and petted it back into place with shaking fingers.
Face slowly, carefully let Murdock's softening cock slip out from between his lips. Then leaned forward again and kissed it,
pressed his lips against cock and balls and into the soft thatch of dark
hair around them. Brought his other arm around Murdock and, still on
his knees, held Murdock close. Breathed him in.
Murdock's breath slowed, finally, and his heart. When Face's head tipped back, so he could look up into Murdock's eyes, Murdock
stroked his cheek with his fingertips.
Face grinned up at him. "We just made it in the ugliest
bathroom in Texas," he said.
Murdock grabbed Face under his arms and lifted. Pulled him up and close. Supported his weight while the blood ran back into his
legs.
"Thank you," he whispered.
For everything, he wanted to say. For blowjobs in ugly bathrooms
and sticking by me for all this time and scamming me out of the VA
and loving me. For loving me most of all. But he didn't say it. Just held Face tightly to him.
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Somebody knocked on the bathroom door.
Face pulled back a little and he and Murdock grinned at each
other.
Boy George's voice rose a little, as he called through the door.
"If you're... um... quite done in there, mates, I'd really like to
use the loo..."
Murdock tucked himself back into his pants. Face straightened his string tie and opened the door.
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By the time Boy George came out of the bathroom, Face and Murdock were fast asleep on top of the covers on one of the narrow beds.
Their lean, muscular arms wrapped around each other.
Boy George raised one eyebrow. Grinned. Wondered if Texas was always this interesting.
He laid back down on his bed. Turned the story he'd heard through the thin bathroom wall over in his head. Scribbled some more
words on the napkin.
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~fin~