Archive of Our Own ^beta

Murdock couldn’t quite remember a time when it had been calm inside his head. He was used to the colors and the smells and the voices; sometimes a cacophony, other times the inside of a not too busy coffeeshop, probably around 11 in the morning.

There were moments when things got louder, more. Usually when he had less to do, like when he was sitting in the back of the van or walking down the street with its endless sidewalk tiles, just stone after stone after stone. Idle minds and all that. Sometimes it got really, really loud; the suffocating kind of loud that made him want to pop open his skull like a soda cap and take out his brain to rinse it under the faucet. Those moments usually existed at night, when everything around him settled into quiet while it just got louder and louder inside. That was usually when he found himself back in ‘Nam, varying degrees of it. And there’s better places to be.

Way back when, when they had first been hiding out and hanging around in California again, one of the first few times he’d spend a night outside of the VA, Face had taken a real earnest look at him and told him he could always come for him when that happened, under the guise of misery loves company. He told Murdock he had trouble sleeping too, and who could blame them. So when it became hard again, to live in it, Murdock would climb out of his bed or the backseat of the van or off a couch, and find Face. And neither of them were surprised when B.A. started joined them too; looking a little more soft around his edges than he did during the day.

Murdock always found it hard to wake them if he had to, but they had made him promise he would. He secretly felt a bit better waking B.A. though, because Face always startled when someone woke him up. Sometimes when they were on the road Amy would watch the sunrise with him. There were nights when he woke up and Hannibal was already sitting somewhere, reading a book with a drink in his hand. Murdock felt like everybody in the world must have trouble sleeping these days. 

His brain just was what it was and it was what he was, and it was never as bad as some people would like him to believe. At least he thought so. And they were his thoughts, so his thoughts on his thoughts were what counted the most.

There were moments he thought he heard the whirring of helicopter blades, somewhere outside or far of. Squinting at the sky he’d find nothing. It made him feel both relieved and disappointed.

Because the skies, oh the skies were where it was at; where he could look down at where it was all happening, above the noise and surrounded by it, doing something no one could deny he was best at. There wasn’t a single soldier or doctor or psychiatrist that could deny he was a pilot, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Murdock thought it quite probable that he’d been delivered by stork. Dropped out of the sky as a baby after miles and miles of stork air travel. He liked the thought.

“Murdock!” Face yelled over the roar in the cockpit, wide eyed and digging his nails into the leather of the copilot seat. “Watch it- watch the-!”

And Face was wonderful, he was, and he wasn’t as dumb as he looked by a mile, but up in the air Murdock was stretches ahead of him. He had seen the jagged edge of the mountain, had seen the small aircraft chasing them coming in from their left; had reckoned their wannabe assailants would try to steer them into the mountainside before they had thought of it, probably. It was a clever move, just not a perfect one. If Murdock was right about the winds, which he was pretty sure he was, this was going to be easy-peasy.

“Lemon squeezy, muchacho,” Murdock tried to calm Face’s nerves, since he could get so worried. Murdock loved moments like this, where the whole face of a plane lit up, telling him exactly where he needed to push and pull and what he needed to do. He hummed along as everything sang. It was going to be a little tight, sure, but he’d maneuvered tighter fits and faced cleverer opponents. They sped towards the mountain, towards the edge already pontifically filling up most of view from the cockpit window.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck-” Face grabbed Murdock’s upper arm like a vise. Murdock grinned. He watched the other plane come closer, waited another two beats, a breath, and yanked the beautiful machine towards the skies, turning her on her side. He heard a loud crash behind them and he knew the other pilot just lost the bluff and the control of his craft, whacking her wing into the rock. Happens to the best of ‘em.

Well, maybe not the best.

Murdock hollered as he rolled the bird over, letting her fly a deserved victory lap. Face was cursing and white knuckling his arm, a quick prayer to Mary somewhere amidst it. Murdock laughed at him.

“We lost ‘em, Facey. We’re in the clear!”

He turned, they could head back now, back to where Hannibal and B.A. were hopefully having as good of a time as they were having.

“You’re crazy!” Face shouted, and his voice could climb those octaves so nicely.

“Howling Mad, baby!” Murdock laughed, elated, adrenaline soaring.

Face started laughing with him, finally letting himself feel their windfall. 

“Murdock you-!” Face released Murdock’s shoulder to comb his hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you did that!”

Murdock turned to Face and basked, because Face could do that really well, smiling at him all big and playing sun.

“Your pilot is a pilot is a pilot!”

“I don’t know whether to smack or kiss you right now.”

It was a joke. Murdock, for all infinitude of things he didn’t understand, understood jokes. But the laughter got stuck in his throat like a wishbone and his stomach did a funny flip- kind of like it had done moments before when making that roll, kind of like flying.

He couldn’t look at his friend then, which was strange because Murdock was very experienced at that, very practiced, and he’d always liked doing it before. He looked at the map instead.

“Well,” he chuckled, but it wasn’t really real, “it’d be real bad manners to slap your pilot, now.”

And Face didn’t notice when he maybe usually would have, because he was still laughing and shaking his head.

Murdock shook it off, pocketed it, didn’t stare at it head on. He looked at the map and outside again, focusing on how to get back and land, focusing on doing something good.

It sat on his chest though, sweeping its tail and purring like a cat. Grinning at him like it knew something. It only jumped off when they saw B.A., Amy and Hannibal standing over crates of cocaine and five goons tied in a bow, smug even from far away.

That night he woke up Amy, even though Face had been sleeping on the couch right next to him, curled up and looking young in a way he didn’t look awake anymore since ‘Nam. So he went to Amy and she had yawned and put a hand on his shoulder and it felt very different from when Face did it.
They sat next to each other on the porch, cloaked in the night and watching the pinpricks of diamond light sparkle on its veil. There was jukebox in his brain and it was starting to turn the vinyls around slowly. It whirred as the mechanical arm picked one up and put it on the turntable. The needle fell down and the record starting spinning lazily.

Murdock let his head fall in his hands. “Not Nat King Cole,” he whispered.

Amy asked him what was wrong, what he meant. She nudged him in the side with her elbow. He was singing before he could stop himself.

“In a restless world like this,” and Amy chuckled at him. “Love is ended before it’s begun,” and so on. And he sang the whole song while Amy swayed side to side, not minding some of the missed notes. She was a pal like that.

The thing was, not much changed, not even when the cat sat on his chest or the jukebox chose another record. The thought that maybe it would be nice if his friend kissed him wasn’t as earth shattering, heaven moving, as it maybe should be. They worked, whether or not Murdock was seeing him in a different light. Slightly different. Just a little more orange where it had been more yellowy before. Especially later in the day the orange turned into a color so deep, it almost looked like pink. He would stare at him then, not really minding if he’d get caught, but no one ever seemed to notice or mind. Face would just smile back at him. Murdock wondered if he could tell anyone, eventually, when the cat stopped sweeping its tail. He could always tell his psychiatrist or one of the nurses. But it didn’t really feel right, that, putting something as orange-pink as Face in their hands. He didn’t know what color they’d make him.
He thought maybe Amy could pick up on it, sometime, if she really tried. She didn’t dismiss the things he did or said when a lot of people would. He could tell her. It would not be hard, in theory. A few words. He wasn’t sure if it would feel right.

Whether or not it would feel right would have to wait for a minute anyways, a gun was being pointed at his forehead.

“You either tell me where your buddies are hiding out, or they’ll find you here with a hole in your skull.”

Oh, oh, all those holes people always threatened to make. A hole in the heart, a hole in the head, he was familiar. The firearm trembled a little in front of him. This man (kid, really, couldn’t be older than 23) was not going to shoot him between the eyes, not unless something startled him enough to manifest a twitchy finger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir!” he rebuked in a panicked British accent. “I already told you, I’m just vacationing here!” He bent his back and sucked a great shaky breath. “Please, sir, please believe that I am just a man from North West Hampshireskyredales. I am just a humble catalogue layout designer.”

The man holding the gun looked down at him stumped. “You- You don’t-” Confusion turned into anger. He lowered to gun but raised his hand, wrapping it around Murdock’s throat and digging his fingers into his jaw. “Watch yourself, man. I’m not one to be messing around with.” He threw Murdock back onto the carpet of the hotel room. He was actually very easy to mess around with, but Murdock didn’t say this because he’d like to go through this momentous holdup as smoothly as possible. He hoped the guys knew where he was, hoped they’d noticed one of the smugglers wasn’t present and that he wasn’t either.

Murdock scrambled upright. “Yes, sir, of course , sir.”

The guy with the gun glared at him, nostrils flaring. “Stop-” his voice shook. “Stop fucking around with me, man.” He raised the gun, arms shaking. Murdock almost felt sorry for him. 

The cavalry never made him wait very long. He thought he could smell a hint of tobacco even before he saw the glint of an iron. The young man had been nice enough to leave the large sliding doors towards the pool open a crack. The amateur had his back turned towards it. When he noticed there was something going on behind him, Hannibal already had a barrel of his own pointed at him, steady and cold.

“Put down the weapon, kid.”

 The man was frozen, doing nothing but blink and point his gun at nothing.

“Hey, Hannibal,” Murdock greeted.

“Hello, Murdock,” Hannibal smirked back.

“No, no, no, this can’t be happening,” the outnumbered criminal panicked, one hand in his greasy hair.

Hannibal almost rolled his eyes at him. “You’re surrounded, let’s get it over with painless as possible.” He pointed at the door leading to the hall.

There was nothing to see there but the door, which confused Murdock for second as well, before suddenly the wood was kicked out of its hinges. A loud crack and a thump later B.A. stood in the door opening, looking pissed and monumental.

“Hey, B.A.!” Murdock waved at them, and B.A. blinked at him, which he caught in his hand and brought to his chest.

The criminal in their midst (well, the real, actual bad guy criminal, not the A-team kind of criminal) was shaking and Murdock thought, well, this is it. He’s going to drop the gun and they’d tie him up and they could go get some dinner while the restaurants were still open. What surprised him then, was the fact that suddenly the man moved, as if he knew the crazy people surrounding him didn’t actually like shooting down twenty year olds that much, and took a step closer to Murdock, pointing the gun back to his face again.

“You’re letting me go,” the man stated before anyone could say anything else. “You’re letting me walk out of here or he’s dead.”

Murdock turned, saw Hannibal glance somewhere past the door opening and saw the way B.A.’s eyes had gotten all big.

“Think this through,” Hannibal tried, but the man squeezed his eyes shut. “If you shoot him you’ll be looking at a lifetime in prison instead of a few years.”

“I don’t care! I don’t fucking care, shut up!” He was swinging his arm while speaking. “I’ve got nothing to lose, man, I’m- Just do as I say or he bites it, I’m not fucking playing around.” His voice had gotten all hoarse and wobbly as he got red in the face. He sneered and nodded as B.A. put his hands up and took a step back, clearing the door opening.

“Okay, alright,” Hannibal said, and for the man to be able to look at Hannibal as he spoke he had to turn around. And because this man was as green as grass he did. Hannibal made it worth it, put on a show of slowly raising his hands and putting his gun down, looking him in the eyes.

The man nodded, a jerk of the head. The gun he was holding moved slightly to the left, slightly past his face. “Good. Now-”

A shot rang out and the man screamed, staggering. There was something warm and wet on Murdock’s face. Hannibal ran forward to grab the dropped pistol off the floor. Murdock’s ears were ringing. The man kept screaming, holding up his arm, eyes wide at the blood and ruined flesh where five fingers should be. B.A. tackled him to the ground. Murdock raised a hand to his cheek, swiped them around a bit, and his fingers came back sticky and red. Aha.

Face entered his vision, skidding and dropping to his knees in front of him, eyes like saucers and breathing fast. He was searching Murdock’s face like there was something to find, urgently and, Murdock noted with displeasure, terrified. He felt him brush a thumb over his cheek, smudging the specks of blood. Oh, he was being very orange right now.

“Murdock,” he said on his breath out, “are you…” 

Murdock reached for the hand on his cheek. “I’m alright,” he reassured, even though it was just second too early for that. “I’m okay.”

Face still looked faintly sick and crystal clearly worried but he nodded. “Jesus, I’m sorry, I- I didn’t know if that was going to work.”

And that was a lie, because if Face could be counted on to do anything it was take a shot. He may have been worried, but he had known before pulling the trigger, Murdock was sure of that. B.A. was hauling the man out of the room, Hannibal on his tail.

“You’re alright, captain?” he asked.

“Spring showers, coronel.”

Hannibal looked at him intensely before nodding at him, looking slightly conflicted. He rolled his shoulders and walked out the room, helping B.A. with dropping the man off where he needed to be.

Murdock was still holding Face’s hand. He looked at how Face looked at him, and then dropped his gaze to his mouth. It wasn’t the time, even though it would be if they were in a movie. No, he’d get blood and pieces of hand all over him. Face’s eyes had become slightly questioning. Murdock tried to get his feet under him, reaching out when the other man offered him a hand. Murdock chuckled at this, he’d only been able to let go for a second, could never let go for long. Face didn’t ask.

“You’re covered in blood,” he stated.

“That I am, that I am.” Murdock let go of his hand to slap it on his shoulder. “And thanks to you, nothing of it is my own.”

Face smiled painedly at that. “Let’s get out of here before the cops arrive.”

On the ride back home Face sat very close to him, knees digging into thigh. He produced a bottle of water and a rag and Murdock roughly scrubbed his face clean with it. He didn’t protest when Face took the cloth from him, muttering about the spots he’d missed and carefully wiping along his jaw. Murdock watched him focus and glow pink in the evening light.

Murdock thought Amy might be one ‘blue eyes’ by Elton John away from figuring him out. He didn’t know how to feel about that, so he tried to convince Hannibal they just needed to use the rusty chopper from the vacated airstrip to make his plan work. Hannibal had looked at him funny but had ultimately indulged him.

“Now just don’t go flying off, Captain,” he’d warned him around a cigar, eyes bright and clever. He answered him in salute. The cat on his chest purred and wouldn’t get off, even up in the air.

This time it wasn’t Murdock who was waking anyone up. This time he was the one crouching next to a shabby motel bed, knees digging into the questionably colored carpet. He took Face’s clammy hand in his.

“Let’s get out of here,” was all Face said, a little raspy.

Murdock threw on his jacket and slipped on his converse.

The night air was cool as it balanced on the threshold of fall, even in California. Murdock secretly always liked it when they were staying in places a little seedier, a motel at the edge of town. It meant that when they walked out of the door onto the landing the bleach blonde smoking a cigarette with a baby on her arm didn’t blink twice at them. They passed other rooms and sometimes there were voices, real or coming out of a television.

There was a guy sitting against the railing on the stairs they were taking down and he asked them if they had any smokes. Face pulled one out of his pocket and lit it for him, frowning and puffing, making him glow orange against the dark blue again. He always found a way.

Murdock jumped down the last few steps and dragged Face with him. He liked the sound their footsteps on the asphalt made now that things were so quiet. A car drove past to break it, and then the night was mostly still again. The streetlights flanking the long parking lot made their shadows tall and short and tall and short again. The lightshow stopped when the parking lot gave way to grass; a large and mostly unkept lawn sporting a couple of trees and picknick tables that were starting to rot. They didn’t talk about what it had been that made Face gasp and heave into his pillow. Face wouldn’t want to talk about it and Murdock barely wanted to ask about something he already knew the answer to. It didn’t matter. Murdock bumped his hand against Face’s. His fingers reached out and Murdock took them. There wasn’t anyone here but the hedgehog sniffing the grass to see, anyways. 

“This is a nice place for a picnic.” Murdock stopped in his tracks to lay out a blanket he produced from the night’s fog. He let himself fall down. Sitting didn’t feel quite right, not with all the weight of the night above him, so he stretched out his arms like a swift as it slept in flight and let himself fall back. The high grass tickled his neck. “Care to join, sugar?”

Face looked down at him with an expression so openly fond it made Murdock’s insides spontaneously audition for the roles of balloon animals.
Face’s knees popped as he sat down next to him and they chuckled about how they were getting old.

“You know what the thing is, as well?” Face asked him, one arm propping him up so Murdock could look up at him hanging over him with stars for a halo.

Murdock hummed and Face looked slightly past him, maybe at a particularly interesting blade of grass.

“I didn’t even ever think I’d get to this age.” And Face didn’t look perturbed or sad, there was even something sweet in there, something a little tangy in the slight curl of his lips. He let his eyes meet Murdock’s for a second before looking away again.

“I mean, you know, with Vietnam and everything after that it was… You don’t really get the luxury of looking ahead. I know some people do- really cling onto something to live for, something to look forward to but, I don’t know, that never worked for me. Could picture myself a few days older, not years and years.”

Face tangled his hand in the grass and he was very close to Murdock but not touching and it made him feel like one of those plasma globes where you put your hand on the plastic and lightning tries to touch you but doesn’t. B.A. got him one as a present last Christmas and it stood proud and high on his nightstand at the VA.

Blades of grass fell out of the sky like snow and Murdock closed his eyes as Face sprinkled a handful over his face. He blew some of them away.

“But even before that,” Face continued, and his voice was a little quieter than before, and Murdock knew the real secret-telling was starting now. He wiped away the grass and opened his eyes to bear witness. “When I was a kid, and then a teenager I, uhm… I never really saw it. Maybe because as a child everything was so unsure and, well... I don’t know. It was never really mine, all of it, and even as I got older I just… I couldn’t imagine it. I could play pretend and think I was going to grow up to be like the people in the books and the movies and be someone. Someone with… roots I suppose. To have a place to stay, someone to stay with, someone to be,” he listed. “But somewhere deep in my heart I knew. I just knew that wasn’t going to be me. Sometimes that shakes me.” Face made a spear of his hand and dug it into his chest. “That I was maybe always meant to be this. Something… not quite real.” He looked at Murdock with a such concern it turned into questioning, like Murdock knew much more than he actually did. “Does that make sense?”

Well, Murdock did know this.  “No.”

And Face didn’t even look that taken aback by it.

Murdock propped himself up on his elbows too, this wasn’t a laying down conversation; half laying down would do. “It doesn’t make sense to me at all, Facey. Because I think you’re proving yourself wrong, you just can’t see it.”

It was almost a little unbearable, being watched so intently. To be surrendered to.

“Those people in the books and the movies and everything,” he treaded on, “they’re the ones that aren’t real. They live plasticky, two dimensional lives. That’s their whole thing. They’ve only got their feet in the ground because their writer dug them in. They’re not real- you’ve been comparing yourself to something that ain’t real.” Murdock couldn’t help but frown and smile at the same time.

Face squinted at him half disbelieving, half desperate. “But,” he started, and Murdock was already shaking his head. “It’s not just the books, I see it in people everywhere. Everyone seems to have their feet in the ground, some roots, but me.”

Murdock let out a huff, and he hoped he wasn’t being callous. “I know you didn’t grow up in a way you deserved,” and the corners of Face’s mouth pulled down into expression Murdock didn’t often get to see him wear. “But these deep, ancient roots of them family trees, they’re not everything buddy. And they’re fucking rotten, most of the time too. Now you know what you are?”

And Murdock smiled at him, smiled at his worry lines and the tenseness in his shoulders. It made him look sharp around his edges, like the edge of a cliff or tiny pieces of glass. It didn’t look quite right. He reached out to give his shoulder a tiny push, to break the lines.

“Moss.”

“Moss.” Incredulous.

“Moss.” Affirmative. “Oh, you’re so fucking moss, baby. You can grow anywhere, even the greyest, most jagged rock you’d color green.” Murdock couldn’t really help the fondness or the faces he was making because of it. “You’ve got so much in you and around you and that’s why you’re still here. That’s how you weathered all those unimaginable years and came out one of the best people I know.”

Murdock couldn’t help but smile at him and forget about the time and the silence that it left. It was only when blue eyes got so wide it reminded him of never-ending Arizona skies that he could tear his gaze away, looking instead at his hand digging in the grass.

“Yeah, you’re real alright,” he said on a breath out. “And I know I play a little fast and loose with what’s real and what’s not but, Face, I never have to wonder about you.”

It was a little painful, looking back and meeting eyes that looked back at him all mortified. But he couldn’t really stay away for long, with him.

“You’re the realest thing I can think of.” And wasn’t that a truth times ten. If both B.A.’s van and Billy were real but in different ways, Face was the realest thing of all.

A hitch in the breath. “You think all that of me?”

He couldn’t really lie about that, now could he?

“A lot of time up here is spend on you.”

He was so, so close. Murdock snaked his fingers through the grass to meet his. They tangled. There wasn’t really much else he could do but ask.

“I’m gonna ask you something crazy, now.” 

Face scrunched his brow all sad-like while Murdock collected his courage.

“Can I kiss y-”

And the people in the coffee shop stopped talking and cat jumped off his chest and the jukebox stopped picking up new songs and the plastic separating his skin and the lightning disappeared. Just for a moment, a hitch in time, it was quiet. Face fit him real nicely, like a puzzle piece, especially when Murdock pushed himself up and put his arm around his body to pull him close so that Face gasped into his mouth. His hands were on his jaw, on the back of his head, careful but demanding and Murdock smiled into the kiss.

He broke away.

Hands slid from his head to his shoulders as Face blinked at him, shallow breaths pulling from his chest. He looked questioning, almost worried, which Murdock tried to melt away with a smile. He couldn’t really think straight.

“It’s nothing, jus’, ah,” he breathed, not sure what he wanted to say. “Just lookin’ at you.”

Face did thaw at that. He huffed, slotting his hands together behind Murdock’s neck. “Alright,” he said, letting himself be looked at, and Murdock was done for, over, finished, had. Face just smirked lazily.

“Are you done?”

Murdock shook his head quite seriously which earned him a soft laugh.

“Okay, well, tell me when.” In the meantime Face took Murdock’s hand in his and raised it to his mouth, butterfly-like kisses branding his knuckles.

“You’re real sweet,” Murdock told him.

“And you’re taking too long.”

“Been waiting for long as well.” Which made Face pause and look up at him, smile fading.

“Then stop.”

Murdock huffed a laugh at the simplicity, throwing his head back, looking at the stars for a second. “Yeah, alright.”

Face pounced at the starting shot, and they were more pushing their smiles against each other than making out but that, too, was perfect. Face kept pulling at him and Murdock let himself be pulled. He found himself on his side, tangled.

“I can’t believe you,” Face whispered against his lips.

“What can’t you believe?”

“Just…” He softly brushed his lips over his, a ghost of a touch, a tease. “Everything.” He gave Murdock a short kiss on the lips, a peck, and then one on his cheek and his jaw and the tip of his nose back to his cheek again. “Thanks,” Face grinned.

“Ah, the pay’s great,” Murdock grinned back, and though his blood was pumping like it did when he was raising an aircraft into the skies, a comparable comfortableness, a well-worn contentment was undercurrent to the electricity. He kissed him back, on his cheek and watched him smile so sweetly. Maybe it was all the history or the inevitability of it, hell, maybe it was their age, but none of this felt strange or mint. It was new, alright, but in the same way the living room of the home you’ve lived in half your life looks different after changing the wallpaper and getting a new couch. It was still the same living room in the same house.

Even though it meant turning away, Murdock had to let himself fall onto his back into the grass. A laugh escaped him, more breath than voice. Face settled at his side, held his hand and everything as they looked up at the stars. It was only quiet for a moment.

“Murdock, I don’t want to fall asleep out here.”

He shushed him. “It’s fine, its great here.” Murdock squeezed his hand.

“I think I saw a rat just now.”

“We’ve slept in worse places.”

“Which doesn’t mean anything. There’s a perfectly fine motel room with beds waiting for us.”

“This is romantic. I could point out constellations for you if that’ll help.”

Face laughed. “I think you’ve already quizzed me on most of them.”

“You’re not letting me be romantic on purpose.”

He felt Face turn to him. “You absolutely don’t need to- okay, I just definitely saw a rat. Murdock, I want to go inside.”

Murdock nodded and pushed himself up. “The light pollution’s messing with the view anyway,” he acquiesced. He got another kiss for his trouble when he got his legs under him so it was fine.

“What were you thinking anyway.” Face brushed away some leftover blades from the grass-attack off his shoulder. “Sleeping outside, on the ground. Sorry to say, we are not twenty anymore.”

They didn’t let go of each other’s hands until they reached the door to their motel room, and when Murdock looked at his hand in the half-dark of their room, some of the orange pink had rubbed off on it. He patted the empty space on his bed and the black cat jumped on and curled into itself, purring contently. He patted it.

“I thought Billy wasn’t allowed on the bed anymore,” Face mumbled, sleep coating his voice.

“’s not Billy.”

Face pulled the covers up high. “Well, introduce me tomorrow.”

Murdock scratched the cat behind the ears. “Will do.”