rhymeswithcannibal | Until we get a real season 4...

Until we get a real season 4...

[Continuing from thread here.]

The weather forecast for Bethany Beach, Maryland said there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms for the next two days, but currently all the weather seemed to be bringing was cloud cover just dense enough to turn the entire sky steel gray.

Hannibal had a spring in his step as he slid out of the passenger side of the rundown pickup truck they'd bought for cash and never transferred out of the original owner's name. They could leave this behind without worrying that it would ever ever track back to them. No breadcrumbs for Uncle Jack at this marina to have him looking at boats that had been docked for a minimum of three years and then recently left.

"It's the farthest slip from the parking lot," he said as he opened the tailgate and reached in to drag a heavy, wheeled cooler out and settle it on the gravel at his feet.

Five months after they'd died at the cliff house, Hannibal had put some effort into changing his appearance. His skin was tanned, his hair was longer and shaggier, his beard was full, but could never be full enough to hide his distinctive cheekbones, and he was wearing jeans, work boots, a heavy fisherman's sweater, and a bandage on his left hand that he ignored as he worked.

"The keys are in a combination lockbox hidden on deck. I engaged a service to come in quarterly to ensure that the boat was aired out and maintained to a functional standard. We shouldn't have to spend too much time getting our house in order before we can leave."

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Hannibal glanced down at Will's hand, watching him trace that line. He didn't flash back to Baltimore, he wasn't afraid, he wasn't sad. Once again his dominant emotion was curiosity, seasoned with a touch of pride for the man Will had become, so unlike the Will Graham he had first met.

Looking back up, he searched Will's face for hints to his thoughts and mood. "I have trust in myself, and despite all my doubts, I have trust in you."

That trust didn't include expecting that Will would never hurt him. That would be blind, and he'd shed the scales from his eyes when it came to Will and his forgiveness. No, but he trusted that Will's curiosity would stay his hand for now.

"I'm not frustrated." He met Will's sharp edge with blunting solidity, rock to Will's scissors. "You have unleashed me on the world, Will, and the only reason you can hold the devil is because I permit it."

He put a finger on Will's stomach, tracing the path his knife had once taken with a lighter touch than Will had used. "You will have to try harder to frustrate me."

The wounded bird no longer. What had exited the BSHCI was fundamentally different from what had entered.

There was a stillness, nearly a peace, as Will had traced his thumb over Hannibal's abdomen. He accused Hannibal of being mercurial, and was himself so, to a lesser extent, mood hovering currently in that place of detached curiosity.

Will's fingers curled into the fabric of Hannibal's sweater, tight, thought not jerking him forward. His expression closed, mouth twisting into an unpleasant line, "You permit it because you want me close enough to keep that tight hold. And when that ceases to be the case, you will be surprised at the strength of my grip." Hannibal was not fully unleashed on the world, in Will's prerogative, and would never allow that to be the case. It was terminal parole at Will's discretion.

The closed off expression cracked open at Hannibal's unexpected touch, eyes widened fractionally, the unpleasant line of his mouth falling slightly open on a short, sharp inhale. It was like being punched, the swelling strength of emotion conducted to the surface by the light touch of that single digit, barely felt through the fabric of his own sweater. Disgust. Anger. Want. The muscles in his abdomen clenched and instead of trying to stay rigid under the shiver threatening him, he moved.

Will closed fingers around Hannibal's wrist, attempting to jerk his hand away, to crowd him bodily and leverage Will's own grip on Hannibal's sweater to hold Hannibal in place. He broke eye contact to lean in, to speak with his mouth just near Hannibal's ear, voice barely a whisper, "I think you look forward to my efforts."

What Will had become in BSHCI was an actor, both in the dramatic sense and the active sense.

Hannibal's appreciation for drama made every day with Will interesting; he couldn't predict him as well as he'd thought he could in the days when his hubris led him to watch Will's mind catch fire and blow life into the flames rather than douse them.

Later he'd find this memory hung on the door knob in the kitchen of the cabin where they'd recovered from slaying a dragon. Now his eyes tracked across Will's face, taking in the complexities of emotions Will wasn't covering as well as he might want to.

His own emotions stayed behind the mask of solid calm until Will leaned in, then his eyelids drooped while he followed his own advice to be mindful of emotions only Will had ever managed to elicit. Wanting him physically was nothing - just another appetite - but wanting a life with him, wanting to see him every day, wanting to share himself? Only Will.

And he let Will pull his hand away, let Will hold him in place, and when Will challenged him, he turned his head enough to rub his beard against Will's cheek and offer his own low words near Will's ear, "Don't disappoint me."

There was no "or else." This wasn't an ultimatum; it was a challenge.

And in the sense of an actor who critiqued Hannibal's theatricality while ignoring his own penchant for it. Though to a greatly lesser extent.

Will would always hold a grudging acceptance of the things that had happened between them, burning and cutting pieces of each other way, empty spaces where the want for the other trickled in to fill like water in a cistern. That did not mean forgiveness and certainly not forgetting.

An ultimatum would have been met with blood, teeth in sensitive flesh, then nothing more. But this, along with Hannibal's previous challenge had Will's undivided attention. It felt like manipulation, not of Will to act, but of Will to admit he wanted to act, to give in to acting. He did not think too deeply on his reasons for meeting the challenge save to flex his upper hand and remind Hannibal who was less invested. Those reasons were like a frozen lake, the ice nearly opaque, but enough to see the shape of other things as dark shadows swimming beneath. He did not intend to fish those waters yet.

Instead, he straightened, pulling his expression into something carefully neutral. "I want to touch you." He tipped his head just slightly to the side, brow creasing. He tugged at Hannibal's sweater. "Without your shirt on." There was the lure and here was the hook, "And I want your hands tied while I do it."

He arched a brow and sought Hannibal's gaze with his own.

Knowing that they were playing a game where most of the moves happened in subtleties, to Hannibal's mind an ultimatum would show he'd already lost. Will might have the upper hand in who was more invested, but they'd both given up their old lives to be with each other. Will had given up his wife and step-son for Hannibal. How did that weigh against three years behind glass?

He tilted his head when Will straightened, sensing something coming, but not what came. I want to touch you. He'd issued a challenge and Will was meeting it, but there had be a caveat...

When the caveat came, he twitched an eyebrow while he weighed the risk and reward potential in the demand. "The same effect could be achieved if I simply agree to keep my hands where you place them."

He couldn't just leap to agree, now could he?

Will's view on Molly and Wally were complicated. He had found a peace in imparting certain knowledge onto Wally without the worry of having passed on any faulty genetics in the process. Molly had been a stable and practical person, aware of Will's past and accepting of him in a way that he had not experienced with previous romantic endeavors. Giving them up for Hannibal wasn't the whole of the scenario, Francis Dolarhyde's attack had irrevocably changed things. They were better, safer, without him.

That slight twitch of Hannibal's eyebrow was a vicious bloom of delight in having surprised Hannibal utterly. He tried to keep any sign of triumph from pulling his face out from the expression of bland neutrality he currently wore.

"No, not the same effect," Will replied. He trusted Hannibal to control himself, but that would put the locus of control in Hannibal's hands. By submitting to being tired, the control stayed with Will and did not pass to Hannibal.

Hannibal could leap to agree, but that would throw the balance of power too wildly in Will's favor.

Molly and Wally were definitely safer without Will. Especially with Hannibal out in the world. Hannibal was almost always at peace with himself and his plans and desires, but when he told Francis to kill them, he'd experienced a sense of watching himself from that outside that was entirely foreign to him.

They could only be safe if they didn't come between him and Will, though that wasn't unique to Molly and Wally. Anyone who got in the way was disposable. The day that he'd noted Will's bare ring finger had been one that had made Will's adopted family safer.

The twitch of his eyebrow was all the tell Will was going to get from him. "Tell me what you'll get from having that degree of control over me."

He knew, but he wanted to hear it. That was the price of admission and concession.

They were an unspoken line that Hannibal would not cross again without fatal consequence. The first attempt could be put aside due to their survival alone (though not forgiven, not forgotten).

Continuing to wear the ring would have been disingenuous after their conversation in the cabin. He still had it on his person, but that, too, would change. Will had no intentions to seek them out in person or keep informed as to their circumstances. He was closing the book and setting them free.

The twitch of Hannibal's eyebrow had been tell enough for Will.

"Why Hannibal, I'll get your having handed it to me," Will said with the faintest hint of smug, recalling Hannibal's previous statement. "The idea pleases me."

If life was kind to Will's former family, they'd move forward, certain that he'd died a hero's death.

Will got Hannibal's concession and his restraint. Hannibal got Will's hands on his bare skin and an opportunity to see just what that did for Will.

He was still while he thought about it, even considering and discarding the thought of requiring Will to say please before he agreed, but once he'd reached a point of decision, he allowed himself a hint of a smile and asked a deliberately ambiguous question. "Where do you want to take this?"

If life could be kind in one instance, this would be the time for it to be so.

Will's fingers uncurled from Hannibal's sweater and he took a step back, "Here." He took a step towards the L shaped seating area beyond the kitchen, nodding to the short arm. Two poles rose up from either side on the ledge behind the back of the seating. Anchor points.

He turned back to Hannibal, "I'll be back." He planned to go back below deck to get the fishing line he'd seen down there. Then paused, "Unless you want me to watch?" And there was the faintest hint of his own amused smile.

Rather than answer Will's question, Hannibal simply pulled his sweater off right then and there and began to neatly fold it. "Don't let me keep you."

If Will wanted to touch him shirtless and Hannibal had agreed to it, he saw no purpose to playing coy about it.

In the meantime, he could have a bit more wine and go sit to wait for Will to come... tie him up. It was outside of his complete comfort zone, but Will did have a tendency to get him there, inadvertently or intentionally.

Will did not watch Hannibal disrobe. The act didn't interest him, the flesh under it did and Will would have that soon enough. He turned and headed to the door leading below deck. He'd seen the line neatly stowed down there on a shelf next to a pegboard where Will commandeered a sharp pair of utility scissors. Taking both items, he headed back up, resolve not wavering, allowing no doubts to stay his hand or change his mind.

He was too curious.

With decisive steps, Will moved to Hannibal, making no show of hiding what he held, rather holding both items up as though in display before inclining his head to Hannibal. "Are you going to offer me you wrists?" He then turned his full attention to unspooling a length of line, clipping it off, then folding it and clipping it in half.

Hannibal eyed the fishing line in Will's hands and made no move to offer him his wrists. "I agreed to be restrained. I didn't agree to court injury from the restraints, particularly not to my hands."

He relaxed back in his seat and gave him a level look. "If that is your material of choice, I will have to decline and move on to my other plans."

He'd be disappointed, but even least interest wasn't going to give Will the leverage to get Hannibal to take that particular risk.

Had he any reservation or second thought, this would be the easiest way out while saving face. It was also a small but powerful bit of knowledge to tuck away.

"Injury would only come from struggling," Will said blandly. "Did you intend to struggle, Hannibal?"

But. Hannibal had been accommodating and while Will's intent was decreasing, it was still there. He idly began to wind the lengths back on the coil. "What would be your material of choice?"

His response was only faintly challenging, perhaps because he already knew the answer. "Do you have experience in safely restraining someone with fishing line?"

If Will wanted to practice, they could find someone else for him to work with.

"It's clear that your intent is to ensure that I don't work my way free." He let a bit of his smugness slip out on that. "Given that I didn't stock purpose-specific restraints, I suggest rope. I trust that you know a variety of useful knots and the risk of serious abrasion if I struggle should satisfy the streak of sadism that had you fetching fishing line."

He let the flat look stand in place of a verbal answer.

And that would be a resounding no on the offer of finding someone to practice on.

Will's eyes narrowed slightly at that smugness. "My intent was to ensure you were disinclined to struggle. Any injury resulting would be your own doing and not from any imagined sadism on my part." If Hannibal was courting Will's ire, he was doing an excellent job.

Had Hannibal stocked purpose-specific restraints, they would have gone overboard from presumption.

He turned without another word, taking both utility scissors and line, to exchange them for rope before his curiosity guttered entirely.

Smugness was Hannibal's natural state of being, and he'd gotten a bit out of practice at hiding it over the past few years.

"Of course," he agreed mildly. Will could protest, but he had a Hannibal-specific streak of sadism that was difficult to pretend didn't exist.

While Will was gone, Hannibal absently examined his wrists, tracing the lines of scars left by Matthew Brown, flexing his wrists to gauge how much play - millimeters - he could eke out after Will bound them. He had no intention to struggle or attempt to get free, but his trust for Will wasn't absolute.

Incarceration had carved away some of that cultured outer layer, it seemed.

A Hannibal-specific streak of sadism that the man himself had grown in Will, not that Will would own to it at this point.

Will appreciated that lack of absolute trust. He wanted Hannibal to have that little niggle of doubt in the back of his mind where Will was concerned. It pleased him. And it would please Will more to watch Hannibal flex his wrists in the grip of knots that would tighten based on attempts to flex out of them.

He emerged again, slightly less piqued and slightly more amused at that thought. He held up the thinner nylon rope for Hannibal's inspection, "Does this met your criteria?" Bitchiness indeed.

More that incarceration had given him no motivation to put effort into maintenance and upkeep on his facade.

He would always have that niggle of doubt. Will had drawn him in and deceived him with a skill that had sent Hannibal into a spiral that had torn up not just his life in Baltimore, but his life in Florence. That wound may have scarred over, but it still ached.

He barely glanced at the rope in Will's hands as he extended his arms to offer Will his bare wrists, turned up to display the scars that were as much Will's doing as if he'd held the knife himself. "It's a better choice, thank you."

Good manners never hurt, right?

Time to leave his comfort zone. He wasn't eager for the rope, but having Will's hands on him would (probably) make it worth the sacrifice. Once you give up your freedom for the hope of seeing someone again, agreeing to a bit of bondage to have that someone engage in something so intimate didn't seem that big a price to pay.

Hannibal and his own actions had torn up that life in Baltimore, the life that never was, and that life in Florence. Hannibal's own penchant for feeling things so strongly and reacting to his distaste for it with destruction. Will did not pity him.

Good manners mollified slightly more than smugness, yes.

Will cradled the back of Hannibal's wrist in his palm, his thumb slid over the scar on the inner wrist, tracing the line that he'd put there by proxy. "You're welcome."

He tied the rope deftly into a constrictor knot around Hannibal's wrist, "I am unsure your level of familiarity with boating knots." Will leaned in, placing his outside knee on the padded bench near Hannibal's hip, guiding Hannibal to stretch his arm to one of the poles. He added a constrictor knot around the pole and looked down at Hannibal arching a brow. "I wouldn't tug too experimentally on that."

Hannibal would be offended by pity. He had (over)reacted and that was on him, but Will had willingly stood in his office and taken part in the dismantling of Hannibal's life that had been meant to start a new life for both of them.

It had... after a fashion.

But now they had this life, where Hannibal sat bare-chested allowing Will to tie his hands and kept the door on the memory of the last time he'd been tied up firmly closed.

He watched Will work and said dryly, "I have had cause to learn a thing or two about knots. I'll refrain from pulling."

Will had wanted the crimes unmasked and Hannibal to be unable to keep hiding in plain sight. He accepted responsibility for his part in things, now.

After a fashion.

His pleasure at that dry tone was visible as Will took Hannibal's free wrist, cradled the back of it in his palm and ran his thumb slowly over the scar on the inner wrist, as he had the first. He appreciated the difference in texture from skin to scar, the warmth of Hannibal's life pulsing just under the surface, "For recreation or food preparation?"

He kept the rope taut as he stepped in to Hannibal's side again, placing his opposite knee on the padded bench and leaned in to tie another constrictor around the pole first, then Hannibal's wrist this time.

Hannibal didn't have to ask if Will enjoyed touching the results of his efforts. The way Will stroked the scars said everything. The scars had little sensation, but the nerves in the unharmed skin around them seemed determined to make up for that lack with heightened sensitivity. Enough so that appearing unmoved by Will's touch required a deliberate effort on Hannibal's part.

He allowed himself a hint of a smile for the question. Now at Will's mercy, he could have equivocated, tried to direct thoughts away from his passions. They'd both know better. "Food preparation is recreation for me."

He held that smile, held himself still and calm despite the pleasant weight of anticipation in his bones, and kept his attention fixed on Will's face. "Now you have me where you want me. What will you do?"

The pleasure Will felt at the feel of raised scar tissue under the pad of his thumb originated from the dark, thorny place in him that that came to the surface when Will had initially aimed Matthew Brown at Hannibal, then pulled his trigger. He was glad, now, that the attempt had been unsuccessful, but there was no thought to regret for having made the attempt in the first place. It had been... necessary... in ways that Will only now understood. At the time, Will had been trying to judge the act as a drop of ink marring the clear water of a pond without waiting for the drop to spiral out into a pattern he would later appreciate.

Will shifted his weight to his knee, folding his leg under him and half sitting on the bench, facing Hannibal's side. He ignored Hannibal's question for the moment, choosing instead to focus on Hannibal's skin and how it felt under his fingertips. He pressed the pads of his fingers lightly against Hannibal's side, just under the edge of his pectoral and traced down over his ribs, the intercostal muscles between them.

"Are you curious?"

Perhaps there would come a time when Hannibal would share with Will what the aftermath of Brown's attack had been like. Likely not. He'd admitted to the nightmares for Alana more to maintain his person suit than to confide in a friend. Had he been unaffected by such a brutal attack, Alana would have looked harder, and perhaps she would have seen something that would have forced his hand with her.

Who knew how events would have unfolded after that? In some other universe it had, and he wished that other Hannibal well.

In this universe, in this now, everything that had happened had brought them here, to Hannibal breathing slowly and steadily as he held himself still while Will drew a ticklish line down his side. "For as long as we both live, I will be curious about you."

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