Rated: NC-17 Violence, angst, swearing, war
memories, m/m slash (Face/Murdock)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephen J.
Cannell and Universal.
Title taken from the song "And I Love You So" by Don
McLean
Summary: When Murdock tries to help Face ward off his
nightmares, he is bombarded by memories of when the
two of them met in Vietnam. The past and the present
begin to interweave. . .
Note: This is set about six months before either of
my other stories. It’s my first attempt at a longer
TAT piece. Plus, it’s my first attempt at (partially)
setting a story in Vietnam, during the war. So any
constructive comments are very welcome!
Part Five: Tremble
BA lay in the cool dark, wondering why they save the
sad songs for the lonely hours. It was almost three
in the morning and on every station singers wailed out
their heartache. Reba McIntyre, Billie Holiday, the
Carpenters, the Eagles.
He reached over and turned the dial again. Don
McLean. You got to know music when you drove as much
as they all did. Leaning back, driving down long,
empty highways, listening to the radio. Murdock would
sing along with all the songs in his own low mellow
voice, or imitate the singer, or harmonize
effortlessly with some other crazy voice ‘til BA
threatened to throw him out of his van and lay him
down on the road and run over him a few times to quiet
him down.
Sometimes, if they were all tired and Face was
relaxed, didn’t have all his defenses up, he’d start
singing too. Comin’ in kind of quiet at first, easing
his voice up against Murdock’s. And BA would be
quiet, then. And Murdock wouldn’t make any funny
voices. Hannibal would crack open his window and
light a cigar. And Murdock and Face would sing.
Music and memory washed over BA, there in the
darkness.
…And I love you so
People ask me how
How I’ve lived ‘til now
I tell them I don’t know.
Murdock could sing anything, from light and funny to
break your heart sad. Face didn’t have his range, but
he had a real sweet tenor, real clear. And when they
sang together it was beautiful.
I guess they understand
How lonely life has been
But life began again
The day you took my hand.
Face would just lay there, head resting against his
seat back and the window, eyes closed. BA would catch
glimpses of both of them in the rear view mirror.
Face’s eyes would be closed and Murdock would look at
him as they sang. Murdock never let his voice waver,
even on the sad songs, but sometimes tears would trace
their way down his cheeks.
And yes, I know, how lonely life can be
Shadows follow me
And the night won’t set me free…
BA reached out and turned off the radio. But you
can’t switch off memory. The first time he’d heard
them sing together was in Vietnam.
They were going in to retrieve a couple guys who’d got
overrun during the night. Hard to tell how they were
holding up, and the area was pretty warm, so they were
all goin’ in. Cozy trip back if they were lucky. If
the guys were still there to bring back.
Murdock wheeled them over the green, past the Song Toh
River, into the foothills. He’d started to sing "My
Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" real loud. Nice, but
loud, and Faceman had joined in. They’d been sitting
together in the front, ‘cause Hannibal had wanted to
talk to Ray about something, gear, maybe. Murdock
took it right into "Oh, Susanna" next, then Old Black
Joe. And BA would never forget looking up there at
the two of them singing, smiling, catching each
other’s eyes. Later, everything would change. Later,
everything would be crushed out of them, almost
everything. But right then they looked so sweetly,
uncomplicatedly happy. They were in the middle of a
war, but right at that moment he’d felt like he was
seeing what love was supposed to be. They’d glowed
with it.
"Why the Fool cain’t sing with ‘im no more, without
cryin’…" BA thought.
None of them ever talked about that. They’d remember
Vietnam, sometimes, stories, people they served with,
stunts they pulled. Hannibal’s plans and Face’s cons.
BA and Ray’s feats of strength and engineering and
Murdock’s aerial wizardry. But they never talked
about the fact that Murdock and Face had been lovers
then. As they’d begun to heal from the war, all of
them, BA had hoped sometimes… but nothing. He hadn’t
given up hope, though. Even after so many years.
He’d been there at the beginning, watched them fall
for each other. And despite everything that had come
between, they still looked at each other sometimes.
Murdock, when Face had his eyes closed, singing along
with the radio in the van. Face, when Murdock walked
a stone wall like a tightrope or flew a chopper or
slept, arms sprawled, cheek pressed against the
pillow.
"Why you thinkin’ on this now?" BA wondered. Maybe
the sad songs, or something in the air…
He decided it was about time to check on Murdock’s
progress.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Murdock took a deep breath.
He felt like he’d been in deep water for awhile, and
was just now lifting to the surface. For a moment,
when he opened his eyes, he expected to see army green
tent fabric. He expected to smell the jungle damp of
Vietnam, instead of the fresh salt smell of ocean and
the harshness of warm brandy. He let the breath out.
He could hear someone moving softly, but not silently,
through the house. BA. Must have woke up when he
opened the door.
Murdock stretched a little in Face’s arms. He felt
all warm and cozy. It was a shame that there were all
those rules an’ regulations about people sleeping
together, ‘cause just sleeping together, having a warm
body next to yours when you woke up, was so nice.
The VA had its good points. It had got him though,
and he wasn’t the only one, back in the beginning when
everything was off-kilter black Wonderland. When the
only thing he could remember with any clarity was
blood and pain and hurt in endless, repeating
permutations. The VA had its good points. Red jello
at every meal, like it was its own indispensible food
group. Doc Richter. Ping pong at three in the
afternoon with Larry the Barker. But it was awful
cold at night. Didn’t matter how many blankets you
piled on.
Been there almost as long as Faceman lived in the
orphanage, now. He wondered if Face had been cold.
BA had reached the door to the front room and was
looking in, looking for them in the dark. Murdock
watched as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, found
him and Face on their corner couch.
He walked over, real quiet, and stood near Murdock,
looking down at them.
Murdock smiled at him. "He wasn’t on a date," Murdock
said softly.
BA growled under his breath. "C’n see that, fool."
They were quiet for a moment. Comfortable quiet. BA
stared out at the ocean. The moon was high, now. But
it still sparked a little on the waves as they turned
onto the beach below.
"I was rememberin’…" Murdock looked at Face. His
head drooped over him a little, now, and the moonlight
kind of shined the edges of his hair. "Back when we
all first got together."
BA nodded. There was a lot of history to push through
to get there, but you didn’t forget.
Murdock picked out the soft little crow’s feet that
accented Face’s closed eyes. He could almost see the
young conman silhouetted over his friend, longer hair,
funny for the army, but Vietnam wasn’t a real
regulation sort of place. Fuller cheeks, and bulked
up a little with lifting weights and hauling gear. He
was strong now, but it was a more stripped down kind
of strong, more running, more… years. Not the kid no
more. Pretty funny, actually, that he’d ever called
him that. Like he’d been that much older. Like he’d
been any more experienced. Neither one of us knew
what we were doing, really. But we learned, he
thought. And suddenly he didn’t know if he was
talking about the war part of the war. He closed his
eyes. He wasn’t there yet. Don’t push it.
He opened his eyes when BA draped an afgan over his
legs.
"Ah’m goin’ back out, fool. You need somethin’?"
Murdock shook his head. "You could stay. There’s
lots of bedrooms."
BA just walked out of the room and out of the house.
"Fine, be uncomfortable you big mudsucka," Murdock
thought affectionately. Then he frowned.
Face was trembling.
People did all kinds of things in their sleep.
Scream, cry, talk, walk. But Murdock had never, ever
known anybody else who trembled, just laid there and
shook.
First time he’d seen it, it’d freaked him out. Scared
him. This guy just layin’ there, not a word, not a
sound, trembling like… like what?
The first time he’d seen it happen was in Vietnam.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
God he was cherry there. No place should have to
carry so many first times, ‘cept maybe the front seat
of a Ford pick-up.
He’d been sharing a fox-hole, dug into blood-red dirt,
wet, filthy, fuckin’ miserable. And more than a
little cozy, thank you very much. BA and Ray got
their own foxholes. But Hannibal said to look out for
the kid (and who was lookin’ out for who, he’d begun
to wonder). So they were layin’ there, side by side,
and he was starin’ up at a black sky and wonderin’ how
the hell he was gonna get out of this place, this
whole place, war, country, out of the shit and back
where he belonged in any kind of one piece. Feelin’ a
little sorry, if you want to know the truth. Why me
and the whole bit. And the body next to his starts
trembling.
Murdock didn’t move. Just shifted his eyes over. The
kid’s face was locked into some kind of mask (God,
that kid had more masks). This one seemed truer,
though. He looked younger. This face wasn’t fear,
exactly, but yeah, it had fear in it. More like…
bearing it. Takin’ it. Not movin’, not thrashing
around, no screaming, no tears, just takin’ it. And
trembling.
Murdock had laid there in the dirt and remembered.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He was seven years old. The raw edges of his mother’s
death hadn’t worn off yet (would they ever?) and he
was staying with his grandparents. Those were the
better times. The more stable times. They had a big
farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, thousands of
acres all around.
He was in the house alone. Grandma was out in the
back garden, picking tomatoes to put up. He was
sitting at the kitchen table, drawing. Grandpa had
bought him a big sheaf of drawing paper in town and
one of the big boxes of crayons, the ones with all the
good colors and the little sharpener in the back. He
was drawing airplanes. He almost always drew
airplanes. Sometimes he drew dogs. Grandpa’s dog,
Alfred, was humming and dreaming under his chair.
He heard a noise. He figured it was the bird again,
but he got up to go look anyway.
A little finch had been trying to make itself a nest
on the front porch for the last week. Circling,
bringing grass and little sticks and putting them up
on the ledge that ran around the underside of the
porch roof.
When he opened the door, the bird flew into the
kitchen.
He’d had time to think that maybe now it could be his
bird and it would be nice to have a bird if Alfred
would promise not to eat it. But then the bird wasn’t
just flying around the kitchen, looking kind of pretty
and wild against the checked curtains and the yellow
painted walls. The bird started to run into things.
It hit the glass of the window over the sink and it
made a scritchey little thumping sound.
It fell a
little, then caught itself in the air, then circled
again. It ran into the window over by the kitchen
table and made that terrible sound again, that little
crashing sound.
Murdock ran over and opened the kitchen door. "Here,"
he shouted. "Over here! Over here!"
The bird swooped low, then around into the corners of
the room, flying fast in the narrow space.
Murdock propped open the front door with a tea towel,
then shoved open the window by the table. He drug a
chair over by the sink and climbed up on it and tried
to open that window too, but it was heavy and he
couldn’t get it unstuck.
The bird smashed hard into the window beside him and
he ducked, landing halfway in the big white sink. The
bird fell.
He reached out his hand. The little finch lay on the
white tile of the countertop. Murdock reached for it
carefully. His mother had taught him to be gentle
with small things. It was one of the things he
remembered.
He scooped the bird carefully up into his hands. He
could feel the softness of its feathers and its little
claws. He could feel its fast breathing. But mostly
he could feel it tremble.
The little body shook and it made him want to cry.
The little black eyes looked at him. He couldn’t tell
how it was feeling, except that it was shaking so hard
for such a little bird, and he thought maybe that said
it was scared. He’d be scared if he was a little bird
and he couldn’t figure out how to get out of Grandma’s
kitchen and back in the sky.
He put it close to his heart, like you would a baby.
"It’s okay," he said. "You’re okay."
After a little while, it stopped trembling, but all at
once, sudden. He stroked one finger down its back,
along one wing. But now it didn’t move at all.
"HM, boy, you lettin’ all the flies in again?
Grandma’s gonna have your hide…" Grandpa came in the
front door, taking off his work gloves. He stopped
when he saw Murdock, sitting in the kitchen sink with
the tiny little body clutched to his chest.
Grandpa walked across the kitchen and over to the
sink. He reached out one finger and petted the bird
just like Murdock had.
"Came in, huh?"
Murdock nodded.
"Bashed its little self."
Murdock nodded. He could feel tears burning his eyes,
tracing down his cheeks. "I… I held it real gentle,
Grandpa. It was trembling so I held it real gentle…"
Grandpa put his hand on Murdock’s head. He had the
biggest hands of anybody Murdock had ever seen, and
the heaviness of that hand was warm. It made him feel
better, but also more like he could cry.
"Sometimes…" Grandpa paused a little, then looked into
Murdock’s eyes. They had just the same eyes as each
other. "Sometimes a thing can die just from being
scared, HM. Or sometimes things are hurt inside,
where you can’t see it, and they die from that. It’s
just part of things."
"I don’t like that part," he said.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Murdock had laid there in his foxhole and wondered
which it was. Are you scared or are you hurt inside,
where I can’t see it?
He had reached out and almost touched the other man,
almost laid his hand on his head, but then he drew
back.
This kid kept making him feel things he didn’t want to
feel, things he wasn’t sure he was supposed to feel.
When he’d seen him all beat up that way, in the med
tent, he should have felt bad for him. And he did
feel bad for him, but he also felt… Well, seeing him
in the all together like that, he’d felt all hot
inside, kind of. Now he was laying next to him,
shoulder to shoulder in their little hole in the
jungle under a ragged, patched poncho liner and he was
feeling all warm inside, like something about him was
melting whenever he came near this guy.
This is why they think you’re crazy, he’d thought.
Because you are crazy.
Then he had reached out and stroked the honey blonde
hair of the man beside him. He told himself it was
just to make him come out of the bad dream. And the
trembling did stop after a little while. But then he
couldn’t get the feel of that soft hair out of his
head.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Murdock reached up and ran his hand through Face’s
hair. It was a little darker now. (And mine’s a
little thinner.) But it felt the same. Soft.
Everything was getting mixed up tonight, memories and
real things.
"It’s okay," he murmured softly, letting his fingers
drift gently across Face’s temple. "You’re okay."
It was strange to be in his arms right then. Felt
like they were both trembling.
Murdock found one of Face’s hands and drew it to his
chest. He laid it over his heart and pressed it
there. "I’m here," he said. "It’s okay."
After awhile, Face stopped trembling. Murdock found
himself putting one hand to Face’s heart, just to make
sure… well, to make sure.
He tried not to think about loving him. But memory
was like ocean, that night. It was washing over him
and you couldn’t stop it. It was telling him the
whole damn story, whispering it in his ears, and he
knew that when he closed his eyes it would take him
back again.
