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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Will would enjoy watching Hannibal work, either in silence or with audio commentary. He would not divorce himself from the fact that it was a human body, a life Hannibal had taken, that was being transformed and arranged. There were things Will had accepted when he and Hannibal survived, this was one of them. It would be a strange and beautiful process, and Will would move in a spiral, a wider berth at first, to take in the whole of the process, then circle in, taking the details, a glass of wine or whiskey in one hand, perhaps. His spiral would move tighter, closer to Hannibal, to feel the heat of him as he worked, to watch the concentration in his face, the expressions he made or lacked while creating.

They had already killed together. Creating together was the next logical step. Will knew it would come, had the tremble of anticipation down to his bones when he thought of that future, slipped away from the veil of horror that no longer belonged to him.

Will would not actively seek out proof that Hannibal was responsible for those sorts of deaths that may geographically occur in their territory. But if one were apparent, obvious... he would let his displeasure be felt lest the lack of it be taken for permission.

No artistic renderings of beastiality where they would be eating, then.

"I'm sure you don't," Will replied brow furrowed. The yacht was exusable for the fact that Will should have known better and Hannibal had already purchased it. Anything going forward... "Given our different definitions of discretion."

Hannibal had always enjoyed an audience. Will had been his audience often enough, but he'd never been allowed to see behind the curtain - attempt at eating his brain notwithstanding. Hannibal welcomed the chance to show Will his art, to see the meticulousness with which he worked. Even his efforts to avoid appearing distracted would falter in the face of his need to see Will's reactions as he worked.

Creating together would be another consummation.

What was wrong with Leda and the Swan?

"Our disagreements are interesting." He moved farther into the water, watching the bottom and only occasionally glancing at Will. "I wouldn't miss them for some false peace when it's important that we learn how to disagree without knives."

Will would see that need, despite Hannibal's atttempts to appear less than distracted, and Will would meet it by letting his reactions show. No attempts at hiding, no looking away. He would see and he would let Hannibal watch every understanding, every nuance change expression on Will's face.

A deep intimacy, blades and fingers moving over a flesh canvas spread between them. Breath catching. Long looks to watch the reaction of the other. More of that perfect understanding that cuts straight to the core.

Nothing. tt would just make a pleasing sacrifice in the face of Hannibal's requests.

Will inclined his head at that, attention caught as he reached carefully into the water, bringing out a rock with a large and a small starfish attached to it. "Edible or not?" He really liked the phrase over much. He already knew where it would end up, the anticipation curled in his stomach, not yet, by at some point in the future it would apply to a human person and when he asked it, he would be watching Hannibal's face to see if his pupils dilated, if the set of his mouth tightened.

"I think we're getting better. Neither of us bled today," And that was saying a lot give their history.

This was the partner Hannibal needed - someone who was unafraid to see and understand. Bedelia had been present, she had watched, but she'd been unable to go beyond looking to seeing. Will had learned how to see and how to understand. Hannibal didn't need approval, but he had grown to crave that understanding.

Hannibal had nothing at all against sex - he quite enjoyed it even - but anyone could rub against another human being in one way or another and find some release. What he and Will would do, would create together, would make sex almost superfluous, at least for a night.

Hannibal's precious Boucher was long gone, and he wouldn't put a print of the same painting in its place. Will could win that negotiation without even needing to engage. Hannibal would just replace Leda and the Swan with Bouguereau's Dante and Virgil in Hell.

The question drew his attention, and he paused in his wading to see just what Will was presenting. "Edible, but not overly flavorful. Unless you want them for table dressing, they may live another day."

Assessment of starfish done, he resumed his hunt, but Will's observation deserved another pause. "Can you say that would have been the case if either of us had been armed?"

Edited (removing random hard returns) 2017-07-05 17:00 (UTC)

The understanding they had of one another, the connection forged between them during the hunt, and in the future, while creating, it transcended the physical, surpassed the indulgence of the flesh for an a more spiritual ecstasy. It was this experience that was most prized by Will, he craved it, but preferred an ascetic measure of abstaining, left wanting for the lack so he would appreciate it all the more when it happened. He did not fear that overindulgence would lessen it, but only that he might lose himself to the need an fulfilling of the need.

It would be less a specific argument for that particular print and more of an overall attempt at having a say in the decor of rooms that would be mutually used. Though he would neither need or want to argue against any Inferno inspired print.

"A last minute pardon for them," And Will returned the rock and starfish to the water, resettled it carefully back into place.

Will shot Hannibal a flat look, "That question isn't easing away any resolve to stay armed in the future." Which wasn't exactly an answer.

Will had spoken of the appreciation of the quiet time between actions. Living their lives between such transcendent events could only enhance their appreciation.

At least neither of them would be suggesting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun.

"I'll take that as a no," he said, no apology in his tone. "Would you be disappointed if your temper led you to kill me already?"

Enhance the appreciation, sharpen the anticipation.

Eating under the gaze of their first mutual kill? Some might consider that an act of private amusement. Will would, now months removed from the situations, find some dark humor in it.

He did not answer right away, instead paused to consider, to think about how he would feel leaving Hannibal bleeding, dying on the sun warmed sand. "Disappointed? No." Will moved slowly through the water so as not to disturb any sea life into further hiding. He closed the distance between himself and Hannibal. "The loss of you, now, by my own hand, would be a fatal and self inflicted wound to me."

The loss of Hannibal to another, well. Will would not allow that. Hannibal's death was for Will alone as his own was for Hannibal.

Blake was better suited for the study than the dining room.

He stood, collection bag trailing in the water, and watched Will approaching, canting his head slightly while he absorbed Will's words. "Do you find me now standing in your stream, perhaps sitting on its banks as your past drifts past your legs?"

The boundaries had become more fluid, would become more fluid still. They would have to find reasons to clash out of self-defense, to give them reason and need to reinforce the walls between me and thee.

Will, at some point, would ask Hannibal to define what the exact difference was in a sitting room, a formal sitting room, a study, etc becauase it amused him and seemed unnecessary for a lower key lifestyle.

"On the banks, sometimes walking beyond the shore, through the bare trunks of the trees." Sometimes in shadows so dark he appeared a shadow himself, crowned with branching antlers. No longer was it a fearsome sight, a warning.

There would always be reasons to clash, always small hurts to inflict, soft areas to press. It was the nature of their relationship that the smooth, solid parts would have jagged edges waiting to draw blood.

Imagine Hannibal living in a two bedroom tract home with an all electric kitchen and an HOA...

Will no longer needed a warning when he had his own rack of antlers. Hannibal enjoyed the warm thrill of triumph to hear that he had made his own incursions into Will's mind; the balance was proper and needed.

He took careful steps to close the distance between them, standing near again as they had back at their picnic spot. "Neither of us wants such dire self-inflicted wounds." Yet. "I can say from experience that the memory of you, no matter how vivid it may be, is no substitute for the reality, sharp edges and all."

Nonsense. Lean-to in the woods with a center partitions so the animals could take up half the space to help keep the heat in the winter.

He stared too long into the abyss and found a sympathetic company.

Will watched Hannibal's approach, a small, self deprecating smile at the corner of his mouth. Sharp edges and all. Antlers and all. "Are we going to require a space for arguments? Stripped bare of anything harmful so pique doesn't force our hand to something we regret?"

That would be more civilized than an HOA.

"That implies that we can plan all of our confrontations." He glanced back down the beach toward their belongings. "Did you plan today's?"

They had many other wounds that appeared healed on the surface, but still festered beneath. Some might come as surprises to both of them.

"Our surest guarantee for now is our mutual recognition that our lives are flames that will burn together or extinguish together. Beyond that, we can survive flesh wounds."

Will would be surprised Hannibal didn't delight in HOAs, enforcing the appearance of upkeep, not tolerating grass a centimeter above the agreed upon length in the bylaws.

His answer was a flat and narrow eyed look and one word, "No."

With an exhale that released the faintest stirrings of annoyance from him, keeping tension from his shoulders, Will replied, "As evidenced." He inclined his head, "Can we burn together without burning each other too badly?"

The bland uniformity was a blight.

Unlike Will, his own mood hadn't shifted. He had been enjoying his foraging, and he was enjoying this discussion. Not everything between them would be easy, could be easy, but easy would be boring all too quickly and the path of boredom was a bloody one when Hannibal Lecter walked it.

He laid a hand on Will's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "No."

He waited, wanting Will to look up at him, even if it was only a glance. He needed him to see that he was serious. "Not indefinitely. But I believe that we can have years where that fire keeps us warm before the blaze must have its due."

Also, neighbors.

Easy was never a path they could walk together, it was simply impossible. Which did work in the favor of keeping Hannibal from finding his own bloody amusements. For now.

Will looked up at the touch. He could see the seriousness in Hannibal's face, in his eyes. He gave a soft nod, "That's enough. It's more than expected, really." Will had expected to die that night in Hannibal's kitchen, then again in Florence, at the Verger estate, on the cliff.

As long as they burned together, it was fine.

Nosy suburban neighbors.

"There's very little between us that's expected." He lowered the collection bag until it touched the sand they were standing on, then dropped it and pinned its top with a foot to keep it from being swept away. Only then did he draw Will into his arms.

"When I met you in Jack's office, I could never have expected that we'd end up here with the threads of our lives so tangled together that the only way to separate them is to have Atropos cut the knot."

The true secret to Hannibal's success, living in a neighborhood genteel enough that everyone minded their own business.

Will leaned fractionally into Hannibal, as though drawn by the pull of the man'a gravity. He reached up, cradling the base of Hannibal's skull in his palm, fingertips light in sliding through Hannibal's hair.

"If you had any inkling then, would you have cut and run?"

If you're poor, you're weird; if you're rich, you're eccentric.

He lifted his chin just enough to put weight into Will's hand in his hair. With an arm around Will's waist, his other hand up at his shoulder blade, he said nothing while he considered the question carefully.

"No." He leaned his cheek against the side of Will's head and lowered his voice. "As I was then, accustomed to my singularity, I would have thought clearly about the threat you present to me, and I would have killed you."

He'd scoffed at the idea that Will could change him, and he had been terribly wrong.

He could feel the vibration of Hannibal's words through his chest, against his skin. Will drew his free hand to Hannibal's waist, slipping under the unbuttoned shirt to touch skin, to splay fingers over the sun warmed skin.

"Instead you didn't consider me a threat at all," And here they were, thanks to Hannibal's hubris.

He slid his fingers across Hannibal's skin to his spine, touch ghost light, fingertips climbing over each spinous process. Will kept his voice low, a calm sort of curiosity leading him to ask, mouth very near Hannibal's ear, "Would you have displayed me?"

If a distant observer happened to see them, perhaps through a pair of binoculars, this scene would speak of romance. That hypothetical observer might see their embrace and that they were talking and guess, understandably, that they were sharing confessions of love, promises of a life together.

Instead...

"The Chesapeake Ripper had been dormant at the time when we first met." He wanted to stretch out under that touch, lengthen his spine to extend the time it would take for Will to count each vertebra. "I would have made you disappear as the Shrike's victims did and let Jack and his people believe that you'd gotten too close and he'd taken you off the game board."

He turned his head, lips against Will's ear, a feather light kiss in each syllable. "I would have eaten your heart before you could find mine."

The distant observer would be right in guessing that there was an intimacy to the moment, though not of the ordinary variety.

Will's breath caught caught in his chest, the rise and fall stalling for a moment. He paused with his hand between Hannibal's shoulder blades, almost mirroring Hannibal's touch on Will, shirt slightly rucked up in back. Will did not shudder at the warm breath of words, they settled inside of him like a fantasy moment under a thin glass dome so fragile the motion might shatter it. Instead, he turned he pressed his mouth in a dry, chaste brush of lips against the angle of Hannibal's jaw.

"That is an acceptable answer." He spoke with his mouth still against Hannibal's skin, words a warm breath.

Hannibal closed his eyes and he could see himself back in his beautiful Baltimore kitchen, a glistening heart laid out on a cutting board. Somewhere, in some other universe, some other Hannibal had decided that his curiosity wasn't worth the risk that this man with the marvelous, terrible imagination would bring into his carefully constructed life.

That other Hannibal might be happy, but his happiness would lack the dimension that came with the suffering they'd both lived through. He knew better than to create a meal with only one note; there needed to be some bitter to keep the sweet from being too cloying.

He huffed softly, amused. "You have me curious what an unacceptable answer would have been." He leaned back just enough to see Will, not breaking away, but interested in a response that wasn't really suited for romantic murmurs.

A safer existence, certainly more boring than what had passed. Will knew the man he had been back then, if given a glimpse of this bloody future, would have turned away in horror at all the bodies he would step over to get closer to Hannibal. He would have seen Hannibal locked away under Chilton's tender care.

Chilton would be the only winner in those two alternate realities.

Will allowed this and tipped his head slightly, eyes narrowing in thought, "Framing me, the same as you did, casting the perception of madness and persecution, then leaving me buried like a cursed relic in the BSHCI." He paused, "Not honoring any part."

Chilton would still be Chilton, which took quite a bit away from any victory there might be in that.

He idly rubbed circles between Will's shoulder blades as he listened. "That would be an unacceptable answer. To frame you as I did, I had to get to know you well enough to get the details right."

He smiled wryly. "Getting to know you was my mistake if all I wanted was to continue my life in Baltimore as it had always been."

By the time Will was in BSHCI, Hannibal was already well down his road to ruin. He'd had a sense of that when Will had begged him for help from his cage and an unfamiliar and very inconvenient compassion had first made itself known to him.

In some other universe, Hannibal and Will would have him for dinner.

"You moved through the world with confidence that nothing changed you, affected you, unless you allowed it." And then Hannibal had put Will away, but couldn't stay away.

"It's difficult to be so clever with no one to appreciate it,"

He had understood, at that point, Hannibal's appreciation for having a hold over someone. When the chance was offered, he took it, and he had turned it against Hannibal so well.

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