Chapter Text
It’s a bit extravagant to call them fallen angels. That’s what TattleCrime calls them.
They were once described to Will as wicked beasts, rebellious and vile things, that were throw out of heaven. In a sense, Will sees how the description could fit. They were once respectable people among Heaven. Wickedness set in like a fever sickness. Their literal fall off the cliff only made the term stick.
He doesn’t breathe life into his past life. TattleCrime is the only link to it, and he occasionally looks over the site once in a blue moon. Freddie still believes them to be alive. In the comments of some of her reports and theorisation about where they could be, people have their own theories. Among them are the correct ones: that Will and Hannibal swam to shore and took off. Some berate Freddie, telling her to just give up the hunt. And then there’s the very few of ‘fans’, and when he gets to their comments, Will shuts off the computer.
He still remembers it. He still feels it.
The cold, and the fear, and the slight sliver of hope: those things seemed to evade them until Hannibal hauled them both out of the sea. It was a small battle in itself trying to breathe life back into Will. His body wanted to give up. Let him die, it seemed to scream at Hannibal even after they left the beach and fled to a cabin.
Chiyoh was waiting there with everything he had asked for. Both of them shared silent, powerful glances, before the weeks of recovering began.
A shiver runs up Will spine at the memories. They all flood back to him, cresting over him and dragging him into cold darkness, just as the sea had done. He drums his fingers on the wooden desk, the rhythm being the only thing keeping his mind here.
Atrani is wedged between the sea and the hills. It offers enough protection from prying eyes, especially since Will’s noticed that the town is mostly filled with young children and elderly grandparents. Sometimes the tide brings in wealthy foreigners from all corners of the world, but they rarely stay.
Will is no less careful though.
He closes his laptop and looks down to his notepad. There’s a new boat anchored just off the beach. Will’s been watching them for a few days. The normally quiet town is louder now, like how a sudden shatter of glass can destroy silence. It’s harsh and hurtful. The people of the town carry on though. The new tourists keep themselves to the bar near the beachside, keeping their sounds to one area at least.
Out of the three new tourists to this island – two men and one woman – it’s one man he’s had his eye on for a few days. Every day, when he would wander to the sea with his fishing supplies just before the sun peaked over the horizon, he would scope out the boat. Anchored a bit away from the beach, he knew the make of the boat. It wouldn’t be huge, but it would take a short swim to get out there. One of the men is just as deplorable as himself. Will has seen his story on TattleCrime, Freddie spewing stories about what the man now in the town has done.
Will knows not to take Freddie’s words at heart. She has a special talent of spinning stories. But it is something that grabbed his attention when he was watching the website for his own story. And what Freddie had to say, Will amended, fit the man perfectly. A short, stout man in his late fifties, his wife was a bit younger than him, but the opposite. Where he was loud and obnoxious, she was quiet and sheltered.
Will continued to go to the beach every morning, but taking a particular route down a road that passed the bar. He just wanted to gauge the people he was reading about. The other man was similar to the first: brash and loud and wholly uncivilised.
Will gets up from his chair and closes his notebook. Hannibal is cooking downstairs; the aromatic smells have been carried up through their villa for the past hour. Will’s stomach rumbles slightly.
When he wades down the stairs and into the kitchen, he shoves his hands into his jean pockets.
Hannibal casts him a look before returning to his cooking. “You spent longer than usual in the office,” he notes, “is everything alright?”
Will nods. “Freddie is still thinking up new ways for us to have survived.”
It gets a huff of a laugh out of Hannibal, a mere curve of the corner of his lip and his shoulders moving slightly. “It was a tough fight for us to stay in this world. I wouldn’t be surprised if she started making grand assumptions of how we did it.”
Will strides over to the countertop. He watches Hannibal work for a moment, noting how he moves within the kitchen. It’s like how he kills. He knows what his body is doing, and it moves just like water – free flowing and fluid, but deadly.
“Can I ask you a question?” he says suddenly.
Hannibal casts another look up at him, and nods.
Will swallows. “We haven’t…we haven’t killed since the fall. We’ve been running for a few weeks now, and…I don’t know if this is an odd, or demented, question but…”
Hannibal waits. He holds Will’s gaze while he waits for the words to come to the other man.
“There’s an itch that needs to be scratched,” Will says simply, rubbing the back of his neck, “and I think I know who might help.”
Hannibal hums simply. He turns off the burners and walks to the other side of the kitchen to fetch some plates. “Is that why you’ve been spending more time in the office? And more time watching Ms Lound’s website for days on end?”
Hannibal places the plates down on the worktop.
He gives Will a look. “Does this have anything to do with those obnoxious hell raisers that are down by the beach?”
Will pauses. “Yes,” he eventually answers, “I’ve…I’ve been watching them. Something doesn’t feel right. If what Freddie says is true, they won’t be missed if something were to happen.”
While plating up the food – some freshly caught fish Will brought in that morning – Hannibal clicks his tongue. “You know better than to trust what Ms Lound says William.”
“I know that.”
“But you still feel like you need to interfere?”
“Yes.”
Hannibal doesn’t reply.
Getting to the boat is easy. Anchored only a few metres out from the beach, Will hauls one of the rowboats into the water and rows out within a few minutes. He clambers on to the boat, taking his knife out of its holster by his waist. The lights are off, and the only light showing him his bearings is coming from the full moon overhead.
It shimmers off of the water and shines bright white light against the surface of the boat.
He hears a noise. He freezes and listens. It’s a sob.
His grip on his knife tightens as he continues to stalk through the boat. The deck is clear. He steps down to head towards the cabins, but stops again at the sight of light shining from underneath the door.
Another sob breaks the silence and Will heads for the door. There’s muffled talking from inside, words being spoken that he can’t make out.
When he steps into the cabin, his eyes wander to the body of a man already on the floor. Above him, and standing in a forming puddle of blood, is the man Will has heard so much about, and his wife being held in front of him: a knife pressed against her throat.
The man’s face is flushed, damp with a few beads of panicked sweat dripping down. His wife is wide-eyed, frantically looking at Will: the eyes of a normal man who’s just snapped.
“I’ve s-seen you hanging around,” the man spits and stutters, “I told them. I told them! Killers! There are killers here!”
Will looks at the knife at the wife’s neck. It’s pressed against her flesh, her throat bobbing with choked off sobs. Will doesn’t move a muscle, and he remains silent.
“I could turn you both in, you know!” the man continues with his ramblings, “I have friends – IMPORTANT friends, quiet high up in the FBI who would pay a pretty penny for you and the other fag.”
Will raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” his tone is measured.
The man is shaking. The trembles in his hands aren’t even being hidden. His wife’s grip on his arm is leaving angry red marks.
Will tightens his hold on his own knife.
The man spits out, “You and that other one! I’ve hear the stories – of you two running away together. It’s disgusting.”
Will notices a brief moment where the man is so consumed with spewing hate that he relaxes the hold of the knife slightly. Within a second, Will rears his arm back and flings the knife passed the woman’s neck and into that of the man’s. He goes backwards, but has the opportunity to slash the woman’s neck as they both go down.
Will stumbles forward, pushing the man off of the woman.
He presses his hand to her neck. Suddenly, the flood comes back.
You’ve done this before. Abigail. You’ve done this exact thing for Abigail – and look how all of that turned out-
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he mutters, applying pressure to the woman’s wound.
She grabs his arm, staring panicky up at him. “Em-Emilia!”
Will frowns. “What?”
She raises a shaking arm towards a wooden door. “M-My baby,” she sobs, a gush of blood spewing through Wills’ fingers. Eventually the woman’s eyes glaze over, and her body goes limp. It’s an odd thing, Will notes, seeing a person die. You can tell the exact moment where they leave. The rest of you then just shuts off like a computer. Will looks towards where the woman was pointing and slowly gets to his feet.
Slowly, he creaks open the door.
There’s a little girl inside.
She’s backed into the corner of the bunk, hands pressed against her ears. Slowly, Will raises his hands. “Emilia?” he asks softly.
She waits a moment. “Have the monsters gone?”
Will pauses. Looking back into the main cabin, at the three bodies lying on the ground, he swallows. “Yeah, yeah they are/”
He slowly steps into the room, making sure that he doesn’t frighten her more. “They’re gone now Emilia, but you need to come with me, okay?”
She frowns slightly. “Why?”
The poor girl can’t be more than four. She has baby fat clinging to her cheeks, rounding her face. Sandy blond hair is gathered up into two messy pigtails. She looks so innocent.
Will slowly lowers himself down on one knee. “They’re gone, but more might come. I’ll protect you. But you need to come with me.”
She seems to think about it for a moment, before slowly crawling over the bunk and towards Will. He lifts her up into his arms and looks around the small cabin.
“We’re going to play a game, okay?” He grabs a blanket from the small bunk and throws it over the girl in his arms. “We’re going to play hide-and-seek. Can you shut your eyes for me?”
She does.
“Good! Now, if I hide you under this blanket, it’ll protect you from the monsters. I’ll bring you to safety, okay?”
Almost immediately, the arms around his neck tighten slightly and she buries her head into his shoulder. He makes sure that the blanket covers her, and she’s shielded from the blood scene he has to walk back through.
When he clambers back down to his rowboat, he moves the blanket back from the girls head and wraps it tightly around her frame. The cold night winds are beginning to sweep in off the ocean.
“You’re Emilia?”
The girl nods against his shoulder.
“That’s a very pretty name,” he adjusts her slightly so that he has both arms to row the boat. While going to the beach, he tries his best not to think about what the girl might have gone through. What might have happened had he not hit his mark on the man’s shoulder. He dealt with his wife without a second thought. Would he have done the same to this girl?
Will frowns slightly. Probably.
When they get to shore, it’s a five minute walk to the villa. Emilia, he notices, starts to fall into a sleep while he walks. Hannibal greets him at the door. He eyes Will’s bloodied shirt and hands, and then the bundle in his arms.
“Another stray?”