Love and Other Mission Anomalies, MI4, Hunt/Brandt, 3/4

[topaz119]

They introduce Will as "Agent" Brandt and make a point of saying he's just helping out, as though Will is making a play for his old job and they want to be sure everyone is aware of where they owe their loyalty. Will's tempted to tell them to relax, that the only way he'll be back on their side of the fence is if he can't pass his physical and if that happens, well, he'll be happy to show them how well he can play the game. For now, though, he's there only to keep his brain from completely atrophying. And maybe a little to keep an eye and ear out for his team, but nobody needs to know that.

Will has always liked the work--picking apart the fabric of the whole to follow the seemingly unrelated threads, weaving them together to cast events in a completely different light--and it does, if nothing else, give him something to focus his mental energy on. By the end of his first week, he has a standing meeting with the acting director--one of the former assistant directors he'd known in his earlier life on this side of the fence--to see how new intel fits with the data Will carries around in his head, faces and names and places that exist only in fragmented form elsewhere thanks to the disavowment. By the middle of the second week, the meetings are happening so often that the director begins sending a car and driver to collect Will from his physical therapy so they can take the meetings by video on the commute to the IMF offices. It fucks with Will's routine a little--it's a bitch flipping from the intense focus PT demands to the equally intense but purely mental effort of not missing that one detail that might make everything make sense--but the plus side of actually feeling useful again is worth the whiplash.

Will is actually with the director when she takes the call that they've lost an entire team. She excuses herself immediately--you understand, Brandt--and Will and his laptop are swept out of the discreetly opulent office and back to the desk he uses in the analysts' bullpen. The news has filtered down through the ranks; there's a palpable layer of somberness blanketing the room. No one knows anything for certain, of course--the agency will only confirm after they've dealt with any fall-out brought on by the mission failure--so the vaguest of details are fodder for the churn. Will gets it, he does. People need some outlet for the uncertainly, but he does not need to deal with the gossip and the conjecture. He needs facts. Analysts generally don't work with any one team for exactly this reason, but if he needed any confirmation that he's stopped thinking like one of them, this is it.

He blocks out everything that's not verifiable and plugs in what he personally knows as true, and at the end of an hour, he's almost positive it's not his team down. There's no way he can know for sure, but he recognizes Benji's taste in surveillance electronics in one req, and he knows Jane's dress size and what designers work best to both showcase her stunning figure and hide the weapons she goes in with in another. Putting those two together and adding in an offhand remark by one of their pilots about a HALO drop in the South Pacific--which is pure Ethan, the crazy son of a bitch--and Will is as certain as he can be that it's not his team dead in Tangier.

It's still somebody's team, though, and that's never an easy thing to process.

There's an accident at DuPont Circle that has traffic so monumentally fucked up and the Metro so overloaded that Will walks the final ten blocks to his apartment. He'll pay for it the next day, but he can't take either the knowing, unspoken sympathy of the IMF driver nor the normal, impersonal press of the hundreds of civilians in the subway, all of them oblivious to the men and women who put their life on the line for that normalcy.

Growing up a military brat on the standard rotation of USAF bases, with the odd naval air station thrown in for variety, Will's always thought he knew why, when a plane assigned to the base went down, the first thing every dependent did was listen for the phone, why the first thing every crewman did was reach for it. Even his father had the decency to pick up the phone and say Not me. In his too quiet apartment, though, with no possibility of getting an equivalent call, Will finally understands the necessity of those calls for real and he wonders how his mother and her friends didn't go insane.

Between the somewhat ill-advised hike up Connecticut Avenue and a Vicodin from his stash, Will manages a semi-respectable night's sleep without resorting to other, more liquid, forms of coping, and is back in his routine with the rising sun. He re-doubles his efforts in PT, and spends all of his time at the IMF heads-down in bank records and wire transfer authorizations, all of which conveniently allow him to ignore the speculative looks thrown his way. Wearing himself out day after day isn't the best plan he's ever come up with, but he's defaulted to worse in his life. He's vaguely aware that he can't keep it up for forever, that he's going to crack and it's going to be a monumental bender this time, but before he can prove that right, an email appears in his secure inbox, nothing more than a airline ticket confirmation number for a flight leaving Dulles in less than two hours.

Will looks at the screen for a long few seconds, not at all sure what to call everything that's crashing through him, but he can sort that out later. He shuts down his system and slips the laptop in his go-bag, calling the director's assistant to touch base with her on the way out of the building. They're already in the loop; somehow, Will is not surprised. Also unsurprisingly, there's an SUV and driver waiting for him at the front entrance, one that makes the trip out to Dulles in less than an hour, rainy Friday afternoon traffic notwithstanding. Will barely glances at the destination listed for the flight, only hands the TSA guy his boarding pass and passport and then goes through the shoes-laptop-suit jacket X-ray dance as efficiently as possible. The ticket is business class and he's spared a chatty seatmate--or maybe the other seat belongs to him, too. It's anybody's guess. He tucks his go-bag under the seat in front of him and sort of marvels at how his hands haven't been shaking at all.

When the flight attendant asks, he deliberately goes for a Scotch, neat, and then nurses it through the relatively short flight to Freeport. It's mostly still in the glass when they collect the trash on their final approach; Will is going to take that as a positive. The car waiting for him this time is an open Jeep; the contrast between the cold and rain and tinted windows that he'd left in is so great Will can't believe it's anything but deliberate. There's a vague sense of being manipulated, even though he knows it's with the best of intentions, but it doesn't matter that he knows: it still works, the sun and wind scouring off layer after layer of the crap that's taken up residence in his psyche. By the time he's met by a smiling concierge, there's an easiness starting to take hold, one that he hasn't felt in longer than he cares to admit.

The room the concierge shows him to is on an upper floor, with expansive views of the lush green of the resort landscaping giving way to the brilliantly-shaded water beyond. The shower is running, so Will thanks the concierge, shoves his laptop in the room safe, and leaves his cane in the corner. He investigates the mini-bar and, deciding that tempting fate with another Scotch seems like a poor decision, opts for a water and opens the sliding glass door out to the balcony. He manages to get his dress shoes and socks off, but stalls out after that, seduced by the view and the a surprisingly comfortable chair right inside the doors. By the time the shower stops and Ethan walks out to join him, he thinks he might have lost another layer or two.

"Hey," Ethan says, padding across the room, wearing nothing but a towel low in this hips, beads of water still sliding down his skin. He rubs a second towel over his hair, turning into a shaggy, wild mess that he rakes back away from his eyes, careless and easy. Will looks closely but doesn't see anything but the slightest shadow of a bruise over his ribs. "You're a little over-dressed." Ethan's gesture takes in Will's suit and tie, still knotted and relatively uncreased. "You want some help with that?"

Ethan steps up close and Will lets him push his suit jacket off his shoulders, but then stops him when he reaches for the tie.

"Wait," Will says, giving in to the need to touch and fitting his hands to where the edges of the towel are caught on Ethan's hips. Ethan's skin is cool and damp against Will's. He stays still, like Will asked, a half-frown of concern on his face. Will drops his head to rest against Ethan′s chest, breathing in slow and deliberate. "Waiting around for news fucking sucks," he mumbles.

"Tell me about it," Ethan agrees, and Will hears echoes of what Jane's told him about the endless couple of days in the Ukraine, days that don't exist for Will at all except for all the shit that he deals with every morning. "We heard about Tangier in debriefing on the way back."

"Yeah," Will says. Ethan touches him, a light brush of his fingers along the back of Will's neck and a little more of the tension leaches out of Will's shoulders. He turns his head so he can press a kiss along Ethan's ribs. Ethan shivers against him, and Will digs his fingers into Ethan's hips to keep him still enough for another kiss, and another. "Let me?" he breathes, tugging lightly on Ethan's towel, and smiling when Ethan makes a choked off sound that could be anything, but definitely means yes.

The towel comes off with one quick pull and then Ethan is naked in front of him, his breath coming in a measured rhythm, while his hands move restlessly over Will's shoulders. Will smooths his hands down over Ethan's hips, along his thighs, making sure to take his time. He's thought about this, about their first time, how it might go, what they might do, but now that its here, all he knows is that he's not rushing. He drops his head lower and mouths over the curve of Ethan's hip, stopping long enough to suck a bruise into the thin skin there, then bites quickly at the mark.

"Fuck," Ethan swears, but he's staying still, letting Will do what he wants, and Will can't think about that, absolutely cannot think about Ethan Hunt standing there and taking what Will gives him, or he'll lose it before he really even gets started.

Will sits up, tips his head back so he can watch Ethan's face as he first touches his cock, strokes it to hardness. Ethan watches him back, his eyes darting between Will's face and his hands, and his breath speeds up, shallows out. He makes a low, soft noise when Will cups his balls, so Will spends some time there, kneading them gently, rolling them until Ethan's eyes slide closed and his hands are digging into Will's shoulders.

"Ethan," Will says quietly. "Ethan, look at me." He stills his hands until Ethan drags his eyes open, and then says, "Do you want more? Do you want me to suck you?"

He expects a sarcastic comment or two, a snapped Do it, Brandt, or at the very least a Duh?, but Ethan only gasps, "Please. Please," and Will is helpless to resist. He leans forward again, this time to lick carefully across the top of Ethan's cock, learning what he likes, how he tastes. He takes his time here as well, dipping the tip of his tongue into Ethan's slit, pressing the flat of it along and under the crown, wrapping his lips around the head to suck lightly, then pulling off and starting again.

Ethan is shaking against him, and Will is hard-pressed to remember the last time he's been so turned on without being touched himself. His own cock is hard and aching, but he ignores it in favor of relaxing his throat and taking Ethan as deeply as he can. He does it again, and then twice more, and Ethan moves, finally, a short, sharp snap of his hips that he stills almost immediately, and again, Will can't think about Ethan holding himself in check. He can't help moaning low in his throat, though, swallowing around Ethan as best he can before pulling off and gasping for air.

"Ethan," Will says, and his voice is already a little rough, already a little used, and there's another thing Will has to let go. Ethan looks down at him and traces his thumb along Will's lower lip, closing his eyes and shuddering when Will sucks it into his mouth, biting down on the pad of it before he lets it slide free.

Ethan lets him draw it out a little bit longer, but then Will looks up at him through his lashes, his mouth still wrapped around Ethan's cock and that's it for Ethan's control, his hands sliding up to knot tightly in Will's hair, his hips driving his cock deep into Will's mouth. It's good, Will thinks, a brief flash of coherence that's swept away by the visceral reality of Ethan fucking his throat, one hard thrust after another until Will can't breathe or see or feel, until Ethan is all Will knows, all he wants to know.

That doesn't change even after Ethan comes. Before Will catches his breath, Ethan is pulling him to his feet, pulling him close enough that he can feel Ethan's heart beating fast and hard against his own chest. Ethan cups Will's face in his hands and kisses him like he's renewing the claim he laid in the park, long and slow, licking the taste of his come out of Will's mouth. After a while--Will isn't sure if it's two minutes or twenty, he lets go of Will, but only to start stripping him slowly, tie and shirt unknotted and unbuttoned, warm hands sliding up under his t-shirt to stroke along the skin of Will's back, his belly, laying new claims on top of the ones he'd made the last time they'd been together.

Will's breath catches hard in his throat as Ethan turns his attention to his belt, and then the button and zipper on his pants. Ethan moves deliberately, as though he doesn't want to rush either, but it only takes a few more seconds before Will is naked, too, Ethan's hands moving proprietorially over his ass and thighs before he takes Will's cock in a firm, sure grip that is all about making sure Will understands that there's a claim on it, too. Will closes his eyes, not to shut Ethan and his focus out, but to draw his own inward, to let go of everything that's not Ethan's hands on his body, Ethan's mouth on his jaw, his neck. Ethan learns him better with each stroke, finds out exactly where to touch to make Will shudder, how hard to touch to make him moan.

Will likes it rough, likes it so that it hurts almost as much as it feels good. It's not that hard to find guys who will go that way, but Ethan takes him head on and lets him lose himself in it without hesitation. Will hears himself from a distance, a low gasping litany of yeahfuckpleasemore as Ethan slaps Will's cock lightly back and forth between his hands, testing his limits, taking everything Will knows how to give him, holding him safe and pressing him further than he′s ever been.

"More?" Ethan asks, again and again, waiting for Will to say it, say please, making him ask for it a little more desperately each time, until Will breaks and sobs for it. "Good boy," Ethan murmurs, and gives it to Will, drags his nails the length of Will's cock, harder still across the head, and makes Will come with an almost soundless scream.

Will holds on to Ethan mindlessly, his hands hard around Ethan's arms, a solid point of contact in a world gone fragmented and chaotic, doesn't let go even when there's a bed under him and he doesn't have to keep himself vertical, even when he's back in his body enough to know it's Ethan blanketing him, one leg thrown possessively over Will, murmuring slow words against Will's skin, so quiet Will's not even sure he's supposed to hear them.

Neither one of them is in a place where they sleep well, especially not having another person in the bed, but every time Will jolts awake, it doesn't take long to remember and the sound of the ocean and the feel of Ethan next to him drop him back into sleep.


Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4

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