[Fic] Bullets Bars and Stone

[kittydesade]

Title: Bullets Bars and Stone
Fandom: A-Team
Characters: Murdock, Face
Word Count: 2,414
Rating: R
Summary: While the A-Team is detained, Murdock is incarcerated in the psych ward, this time by malicious forces. When the team gets him back, he's not quite the Murdock they knew.
A/N: Written with the movie!verse in mind, but could apply to either. Co-written with kikibug13 who puts a most excellent Face on things. It's her plotbunny anyway, so it's all her fault.

“Hey, wait a minute! Wait, this isn’t my... this isn’t my ward! This is not my ward! I don’t recognize him, I don’t recognize that, I don’t recognize you! You, you, who are you, anyway? You’re not my doctor! I-I-I-I want my doctor. My doctor, you hear me? I want my doctor, right, right now! I want, hey hey hey, what are you doing? What do you think you’re doing? You can’t do that to me! You can’t...”


Captain Murdock lay writhing in his bed, muttering, drooling out of one twitching side of his mouth. The litany of protests and cries had finally stopped, not that anyone paid attention or cared. At his old hospital, he’d done that all the time. And escaped, more than once, more than five or six times. They were glad to be rid of him, as helpful and friendly as he could be when he wasn’t, well, escaping.

And this new hospital with the new doctor, they were more than glad to help. VA doctor, he said. Specializing in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not that anyone was sure that’s what Murdock had. No one was sure what Murdock’s damage was, but they were glad to see the back of him all the same.

And they locked him up in a cell, pumped him full of anti-psychotics, and left him there.

Didn’t make no sense.


He’d lost track of time, lying in his cell. A small white padded room with a cot, marched out to do the necessary and spoon-fed by a man who came in four times a day and didn’t speak to him.

No one told him why he was there. He’d tried to ask the first few times they came to give him his injections. He’d tried to tell them he didn’t belong here, but they acted as if he hadn’t said anything. Didn’t look at him. Didn’t do more than hold him down and inject him with something that made him sleepy, made him drool. The muscles in his face twitched, his limbs wouldn’t work the way they were supposed to, held tight by exhaustion and sleep. Like his muscles had all the strength drained out of them. Couldn’t support his weight.

Doctors were supposed to ask questions. God knows they’d asked him enough questions when he’d been in, in and out, in and out with Hannibal. Sometimes he’d felt like answering, most of the time they’d been doctors and they wouldn’t understand anyway, or they’d think they understood and smile and nod and treat him like they had everything figured out, everything all sewn up in one neat little box. Problem was, most of his parts were outside the box. Not even in view of the box. What box?

These doctors didn’t ask him questions. Didn’t say anything or talk much except to each other, didn’t talk to him at all. It got right creepy after a while. Made him not sure he was really there. If he wasn’t being talked to and if his body didn’t feel quite right, not like his body, and if they weren’t even looking at him like he was there except like he was a pincushion to stick needles into maybe he was a pincushion. Maybe he really was just a pincushion, or a sofa. It’d probably be pretty nice to be a sofa. He could turn into a sofa and be pretty happy, but only until Thursday. When he’d turn into a penguin.

See, now, when he had only himself to be crazy to, now was when he was really in danger of losing it. Had to keep quiet. Had to stay calm, stay together, hold it together till Hannibal called for him. Because he would. Always did.

And when he didn’t call for him he broke him out. Or sent Faceman to talk him out. Face could talk his way in and out of anything, whatever Murdock couldn’t talk his way into or out of just because people didn’t argue with a crazy person, you got Face. Different approaches, same effect. Two of them were unstoppable. Four of them were an act of god. He missed his buddies, curled up in bed and staring at the sterile white ceiling with the stink of disinfectant, latex, and drugs up his nose. Half his face not working. How long had it even been since they’d started pumping this crazy shit through his veins? Days? Weeks? No clock, no time in this room. Just the white and the doctors and the bed.

He couldn’t breathe after a while. Drooling made it hard to breathe, and the snot was going everywhere. Lungs rasped. His chest hurt, and he coughed. They said he had bronchitis or something, bronchial pneumonia, broncos in his lungs. Pumped him full of antibiotics and a few days dropped off like that, and then he could sit up again. Breathing better. He rolled his eyes inside of his skull and wondered if it was always this sweaty, if he’d always sweated this much or was it just now, if ... if if. He’d lost his thoughts. Kept losing them. Couldn’t keep a thought in his head, couldn’t focus. Least he could breathe now. Through the ache in his chest and the pounding in his skull. Felt like they were trying to pound the walls down.

When the walls really did come rumbling down like Jericho he just stared at the rubble like his mind couldn’t put the pieces together. Cracks in the white, big gray cracks where the gray came down in rocks and there were people shouting. Doctors saying something that he didn’t pay attention to and there was the big guy himself, coming over the rubble like thunder. Gun as big as his leg in one hand, too. Looked pissed.

The room tilted and then he was looking down at a gold-edged belt and “Anyone ever told you from this angle your ass looks really big?” he tilted his head. Only it sort of came out blurred and he wiped his mouth on BA’s shirt.

“Shut up, fool,” BA rumbled. Behind them, more machine gun fire. Didn’t sound like anyone was dying but they sure as hell kept their heads down while Face and the bossman covered their exit. That was the bossman for ya. Always had a plan.

He was just gonna go pass out now.



Campfire. Two days later.

He knew it was two days ‘cause of how he’d asked Hannibal how long he’d been out earlier at dinner, and he’d said, two days. Then he’d offered Murdock some more dinner and Murdock had almost thrown up on the Faceman’s shoes. Sorry, Faceman.

They put a blanket over his shoulders and left him be for a while, talking about what plans they were making, what they had to do next. He didn’t know what they’d been doing, let alone what they had to do next. He just knew he felt like hammered shit. Like the wrong end of a dog. Like Hannibal’s cooking.

Okay, that was an exaggeration.

He blinked and looked up and no one was there, and for a second he was going to panic and scream until he realized, of course, stupid, they were there. They were just curled up around the fire under the blankets. Like you did at the end of a long day. Two of ‘em were, and Bosco was out somewhere on watch, and that was like it should be. Except, except they’d left him out there alone again, and he didn’t like that. Didn’t like that at all.

Oh, they hadn’t done that on purpose, but after the last time he’d been out in the world on his own without his buddies he’d ended up in a whacko shack, and look what happened then. And right now, yeah, he knew they were out in the middle of nowhere and he knew nothing was going to get to them now that Hannibal was in charge again, but it still freaked him right the fuck out. Didn’t like it, not at all. They’d left him nearby with a blanket over his shoulders and a cup of water and one of them (Face, he figured) had left him a couple boxes of animal crackers and that was nice and all but he wasn’t hungry. Was only a little thirsty, and he’d drool that all out again anyway. What he wanted most of all, right now, was not to be alone. Not to be left in a white room all by himself till he wasn’t even sure he was a real person. Wanted someone to see and hear and touch him and treat him like was Murdock, crazy and all. Not like he was a sofa.

He pulled the blanket tighter around him and crouched down and scuttled over to the Faceman. Boss needed his sleep so he could be the boss, but Faceman was good, safe, he could talk to him. He scuttled over and crouched on by.

“Mmph.”

“Hey, Face.”

“Five more minutes, babe.”

Murdock giggled. “Why Face, I didn’t know you cared. That’s so sweet.” He cuddled in, yeah, he was being stupid but he wanted to.

“Unf,” Face muttered, then opened one eye. Then opened both eyes. “Uh, Murdock?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

He grimaced. “Don’t ever call me that again.” Pause. “What are you doing?”

“Tryin’ to go to sleep.”


That was just all wrong, Face thought.

Snuggling, he was sort of used to. As much as he could manage, in fact, it was part of the fun.

But having one of the team snuggle up to him, that was right up with the most confusing ways to wake up, ever. It was just... not right.

The process of returning to consciousness continued, and he hit the point where he was about to flinch away and crawl out from under the blanket and away from Murdock when other details started registering. Like that the other man was shaking. Not big shudders as though he was cold; little trembling through his whole body. And sweating, even if it wasn’t particularly warm.

And stinking a little, although they’d all had that worse. After spending most of two days out of it, there was little reason to wonder about that, even though they had - as usual - taken care of him. There was a sharper, strange tang to the smell, but that was not that difficult to explain, considering - weird shit they had drugged him with.

And he was drooling, although that was easing away.

Murdock wasn’t good. The cheerful, brilliant cray man that he’d gotten to know was doing very badly indeed.

It was the snuggling on top of the rest which worried him.

“Murdock? You okay?” Inane, Face. That was an inane question.

It got an actual laughter in response. Well, weird laughter, but still. “Just want to go sleep. You wouldn’t think I’d want to, I mean, after having been passed out for, what, two days, but I do. It’s... wait, where are you going?”

“Get you some water. You haven’t had a chance to drink that much over those two days--”

“Don’t, don’t go...”

“...” The request, quick and automatic and unpremeditated, made Face pause. “I’ll be right back.”

“--I don’t want water. It’ll just go right out, with the drooling and the sweating and all that, and it’d just be a waste--”

“You need it, though. You need to have something to sweat and... um.”

“Drool and piss away?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t...Don’t want to be alone, though.” The shivering intensified as he even said it. “Alone is bad, you know, real bad. I mean, you stay alone long enough you start to go crazy, you know?” He giggled. “Alone means you just got you and your thoughts, and, and the thoughts, they get all mixed up and washed away, just trailing off, pfewww, and then you crash! And then you’re lost in the desert, dry and lost and weak and alone, and what good would I be if all thoughts go away, huh? Just be all empty and nothing. No little prince gonna come rescue me now. Can’t fly anything if I can’t think.” Murdock swallowed. “You still going for water?”

“Yes.”

“... good. Get me some, too, please?”

Face scuttled off to do just that. And drank some himself, rubbing his face with both hands, attempting to chase away the grogginess, before bringing some back to his bedroll and its new occupant. He’s not well enough to kick him away, dammit. That’s not what any of them could do to a teammate, not when he was this miserable and asking for so little, really.

“All right. You stay here and I stay here, but that’s just tonight, okay? Don’t think that, um, this can get into a habit.” Did he even believe himself? He wasn’t sure; even less so with the wide eyes looking up at him over the water-guzzling, barely any light to reflect in them, but they just looked dimmer than they should. If he was as bad tomorrow night and he asked again, what then?

“‘kay... I even have my own blanket.”

That made Face give a wry, quiet laugh. “Yeah. You do. Come on, let’s see how the whole sleeping thing works out.”

“Thanks, Faceman.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Oh, yes.”

Face was perfectly sure he hadn’t reached an arm around Murdock’s shoulders - but when BA shook him awake, it was there anyway. The big man’s teeth flashed in the faint glow from the fire in a grin that promised jibes about lovebirds, so he hissed, “shut up. Don’t say a word,” preemptively.

“Whereyougoing?” Murdock started awake, and his words slurred and that made his eyes widen in something like panic, and Face turned fully to him.

“Watch turn for me.”

“Oh.” The meaning sank in, and the sudden tension started leaving his face, the set of his shoulders. The shaking started toning down again.

“Go back to sleep. We’re all here.” He glared at BA with a don’t-you-dare-comment and did finally get up.

He didn’t actually start stalk off until he was at least out of sight of the fire.

Later, he wondered if Murdock had then tried to go lie close to - hell. Snuggle. With BA, too. He really hadn’t looked like he could take well being on his own.

It was still all wrong.