AN: So, I don't anything except a heart that loves the A-Team and a father/son relationship between Hannibal and Face.
Takes place after Mexico, somewhere in between the 8 years and 80 completed missions.
There's something about this place that Face just can't let himself despise. Some call it hell while others refer to it as Death's living room. Some just refer to it as the Sandbox but it's anything but a fond childhood memory of building castles in a square, wooden box.
Face, though, he doesn't give it a name. He can't, really. The impossibility of it stems from a deep seeded belief that's been drilled into him since his first memory of the orphanage where a nun leans over his fevered six year old forehead and presses soft lips to it in order to calm him. It does, because the little boy believes she's perfect, loves her more than anyone he has met at the only place he has to call home. He coughs once before licking his dry, chapped lips and says one word in order to tell her so, "Momma." She never kissed his forehead again, and to this day he can't recall her real name. Once you give something a name it changes everything.
So, he never calls the base they are stationed at anything except it's technical term. Even the spot where his chair and kiddie pool sit just far enough in front of Murdock's grilling station so that the warmth rolling off of it doesn't combine with the desert heat uncomfortably, and just close enough to where he can hear the clanks of B.A. working on his motorcycle without it being annoying, and just in the right vicinity so that when Hannibal walks up the old man will stop right in front of the sun so that Face can look up at him and complain about the fact that the Colonel is ruining his tan is just referred to as 'there'.
Murdock and B.A., they call it whatever they want. Murdock even more so than Boscoe unless the big guy is in one of his rants. Hannibal, too, calls it by many names, even opting to call it home in the middle of a, "Let's go home, boys," after a plan has come together. It only takes two completed missions for Hannibal to notice that Face lags behind, shows up later to their tents than all of them. It takes B.A. and Murdock four, but no one ever mentions it. They just leave the space around the fire for the conman to fall down into between Hannibal and Murdock and watch silently as he leans forward to grab the drink they've left for him as he pinches the bridge of his nose with his left hand like it's the secret to putting on a convincing mask. Face leans back up, let's go of his nose, takes a swig of alcohol, and then he's the sight of picture perfect health, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to anyone who doesn't sit around the fire. They don't mention it though, just toast and start talking about anything other than war, battle, and the place Face never refers to.
But there's nights when he doesn't show up at all. They are few and far between because the Lieutenant is determined, stubborn, and a damned good conman and people like that just don't go and cower in a corner in the desert to lick their wounds. Even when he doesn't plop down between the pilot and commanding officer, they don't go looking for him. B.A. and Murdock argue about stuff good naturally, until they heat things up just enough so that Hannibal will have an excuse to leave. The Colonel still doesn't go looking for Face, because if you're looking for something you don't know where it is and he knows exactly where his Lieutenant is. So he goes where he always goes in a slow, weary walk, neck of a beer bottle held loosely between his aching fingers. It takes him awhile, because he doesn't run like Face does, but he gets there and no matter how many times he walks up over the sand dune the sight that greets him will always punch him in the gut.
The first time he ever walked up over mounds of sand to find his Lieutenant, the only time he went looking for him after they returned from a mission, was a lot like a man finding out he had a son in the world for years and never knew about it until the child had done a fine job of convincing himself that he didn't need anyone, including a father. Make no mistake, that didn't stop Hannibal, but it sure as hell screwed with every plan in his book. The kid had been knees down in the dirt, head hung too low for a man so cocky, and shaking fingers pulling too tightly at tufts of small waves of hair. Hannibal did the only thing he could do, and sank down beside him on his rear end, legs bent and elbows resting on them while he loosely held a beer bottle in his hand. He swirled it around a moment, pretending not to notice the kid scramble to find a mask that Hannibal would believe and a taste of a convincing lie on his tongue. Then, when Face had came to the realization the Colonel already knew, the Lieutenant sank back on his own rear end to sit exactly like Hannibal without a single word rolling off his tongue, or a mask in place.
Hannibal offered him the drink without a word of his own, and soon shaking fingers accepted it, a parched throat drowned most of it, and a steadier hand offered back the rest.
A thick swallow and a, "It's not home. Don't call it that," broke up the sound of wind blowing sand across the desert. Face watched it fight in the wind. Hannibal fought to watch Face, because it's hard to look in a mirror for some people, and for others it's hard to look at other people and see a mirror. The dark shadows laying underneath seemingly hollow eye sockets on the kid's face almost make the Colonel's own wrinkles deepen around his eyes and mouth and when he gives a frown they actually do.
He didn't say anything then, and he doesn't now. He just offers the drink, Face takes it, and once again the Lieutenant watches the sand struggle against the wind as if it's his entire life being played out in a motion picture. Then, he says, "It's not home. Don't call it that," but it's not defiant.
Face does everything so well to a T that the older man begins to wonder if this too has become one long con in itself, but then suddenly the kid runs a bruised and bloodied hand through his hair just before running it along his sternum that's fortunate enough to still be in one piece after their latest mission, and gives a small snort of laughter.
Hannibal makes new wrinkles in his face by raising an eyebrow because in all the times they've been in this situation Face has never laughed and if the kid is going to break tradition the Colonel may as well do it too. "What?"
It's loud and rough in both their ears because Hannibal has never spoken while sitting on top of the sand dune and he doesn't miss the way Face flinches a fraction of an inch. The Lieutenant's hand lingers on the surface of black and blue skin around his chest while he shakes his head. "I could've died today."
It's not at all what Hannibal was expecting and he can only find himself wishing he had a cigar in his mouth to let the jazz ease whatever is about to happen, but he doesn't have one, doesn't even pat his pockets to check before saying, "As opposed to any other day where you're not in harms way?"
Face doesn't laugh, just nods his head. "That's my point. Every day there's a chance that I'll be dead the next and...I don't know...it's not that I have a death wish or anything...," he trails off and Hannibal waits long enough to know that he's not going to finish unless the older man reveals too much first.
"It's scary as hell, but it's home and it's not going anywhere, Face."
The kid turns his head so quickly it draws a wince as his bruises are bothered, but he just stares at Hannibal in every bit of Templeton Peck before he's back to being Face in two point six seconds and leaning his head to the side with a defensive grin. "Ah, come on Boss, you don't know that. We could be shipped out tomorrow and never come back."
Hannibal nods and looks away because he doesn't want to look at one man and talk to another. "Yeah, Kid. We could be, but that's not what I meant and you know it."
Face doesn't say anything, and Hannibal's been around him long enough to know that he won't because even if the Lieutenant will stare down the death dealing end of a gun and willingly press his forehead to the barrel so that it's not aimed at Murdock, B.A., or God forbid, Hannibal himself, the kid will never voice the love he has for their invaluable, makeshift family and his place among them. So instead of waiting for an answer, Hannibal stands, downs the last of the beer, and swipes fondly at the mussed hair of the kid knowing Face will come home eventually when he realizes his home is the safest place in the most dangerous one.
But just as he removes his hand after a friendly swat from Face, a thought occurs to him and he narrows his eyes down at the younger man. "You call me old man."
"What?" Face looks up at him with an eyebrow raised.
"You've called me old man for years and nothing's changed."
"Well...you're...older," Face grins and it's every bit of the kid Hannibal has tried his hardest to keep from hiding away from the world and the way he doesn't deny that he actually has given Hannibal another name besides his technical one tells him he has so far succeeded.
Hannibal shoves his head again, but mindful of the Lieutenant's soreness, and pulls him up from the sand, because even though Face will wander home sometime or another, he knows it's his purpose to bring back the kid underneath.
They're halfway down the sand dune when Face stops walking and when Hannibal looks he's just about to reach out to him because the younger man is rubbing at his chest again.
"Kid?"
The Lieutenant grins at him, a little more wearily than before, and knuckles an eye. "I feel older than you, old man." Hannibal chuckles, but doesn't move because Face remains standing still, hand to his aching chest, and he drops the one knuckling his eye while working his mouth like a fish a few times before smiling again and this time it's even more burned out. "I want to go...back...home."
It's taken him so much effort to say it that Hannibal thinks the Lieutenant is going to fall over and sleep until he's buried beneath two feet of sand being blown over him. So before that happens, the old man, as Face sometimes bravely calls him, wraps an arm around his shoulders and leads him back to wherever the rest of their family is waiting for them. He leads him back home.
AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!