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When his father called. Will had let it ring. Almost too long. The air was breath-hot and sticky. Winston naps in the shade. It’s an angry kind of summer.
There’s a slow inhale on the other line. Crackled drag of a cigarette. “I saw you on the news...” the old voice drawls.
“You never called.” Will’s damp oak porch smells like honeyed mint leaves and dogs. The sun beats down on the earth, making the horizon sway hypnotically.
“m’sorry.” Sweat pools in his hair and sticks to the back of his neck like sin.
“I raised you better than that,—— didn’t I?” The deep voice on the other line bears the familiar affliction of a half-buried trailer home. “Yes, sir.” Will stays unnaturally still, his flesh aches to move. To run far into the woods and grow teeth, to tear at something and bleed.
His father grunts, unimpressed. “When I first saw you, up on the T.V at the bar…I thought they’d caught you.”
Will stays silent. Insistent, stagnant, godly silence.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know that.”
Will’s chest stays still. His lungs ache to breathe. It's penance.
If he can take this, he can take—
“I caught you once,” His father sighs, and Will can almost see it. His old man sat up against the sofa, whisky in hand, beard gray, eyes grayer. Will curls, vulture-low, eyes down.
“Killin’ a dove in our backyard with the neighbor's slingshot. Your little body shivering, tellin’ me you loved it.” Will closes his eyes, stars dancing across his eyelids.
His father won’t stop. “I’d assumed you meant the dove.” Will sees it. The half smile on his father’s face that never reaches his eyes. Worn piano keys, divots in the driveway, sun-warmed tea, and a waft of gasoline. The weight of growing up wrong.
“God loves you despite.” His father said, because it’s what he was raised to do.
“Do you?”
“I am not God.”
“Goodbye.” Will wipes the wet on his face. Sweat and tears, salt and sin. His father ends the line.
--------------------------
Will drinks a lot that night. Stripping himself of layers, even though the dark is only getting colder. It’s when he looks out the window that he sees him.
Hannibal is cruel for showing up when he does. Had a way of doing so.
They don’t say anything to each other.
They don’t cry. Or touch.
He gets up. And goes to bed.
Swallows what he has to deal with.
Hannibal isn’t there when he wakes up.
He left a note, Will doesn’t read it, but a part of him doesn’t mind.
--------------------------
Hannibal shows up the next night. Will isn’t any less drunk, but he is more annoyed.
“Why’re you here?”
“I’m your friend, Will.”
Will hits him then, hard. Something cracks and splits. Will thinks he might kill him—
He doesn’t, and Hannibal bleeds for something.
--------------------------
A dog in the night, Hannibal comes back. Standing at the end of the porch where the light can’t quite reach him.
Will briefly revels in the damage he’d done.
“My dad called.”
…
“Explains the whisky.”
“Lots of things explain the whisky.”
“I suppose.”
“Why are you here, Hannibal?” His voice sounds stronger than he feels.
…
“I had an inkling of your distress.”
Hannibal cocks his half-shadowed head at him. Expectant of God knows what.
Will glares at him.
“I may have bugged your phone.”—
…
“You’re such a dick, you know that?”
…
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m not.”
Will laughs. Hannibal tries to smile.
-
[six years later]
-
Will stands at the doorway of the newly discovered nursery, bug-eyed, quiet, frozen. A tiny ball of cloth and child nestled in the crook of his arm. Sunset shines through the elegant stained glass arched above the infant's crib. Hannibal thinks this is how Lucifer felt when he saw the Virgin Mary hold young Jesus for the first time. How the devil felt seeing the creation of God, the son sent to ruin him. His knees are soaked with the blood of the infant's parents.
Orphanism wasn’t what they’d been pursuing tonight.
The old cabin is unchanged despite the bloodshed. Deeply isolated in a dense Canadian wood, a prime candidate for anonymity. The boat that was once their lifeline is rusty, barely lasting them the time it took to heal their wounds. Hannibal had the worst of it, strewn and fevered. Will, despite gaining a new plethora of scars himself, was left entirely in control of their lives for those long months. Hannibal frustratingly remembers very little of his delirium. Just their skin on each other and the rocking of the waves. It was only when Hannibal could walk steadily himself, that Will decided it was time they'd come ashore.
Will, who is now seemingly in a trance, holding the child with a fierceness you don't hold children. Dazedly walking out the door, leaving Hannibal to deal with the mess they’d made just minutes before. Swallowing thickly, he finishes what they’ve started.
Was it necessary, after everything, to balance another life between them? The blood suddenly smells very sour.
Hannibal meets the other man outside. The strange statue cast in shadow and harsh wind.
“Will-“ he starts. Almost pleading.
He stops. Headlights piercing through the fog.
It takes seconds for Hannibal to throw them under the porch. Body screaming. He doesn't usually doubt his ability to kill, but he's old, he’s tired, and his body is freshly unbroken. The small car slows as it approaches them. Hannibal narrows his eyes in the dark.
Will doesn’t look up. Anger flashes somewhere primal within him.
The car stops roughly. A flashlight stabs the thick air, casting the shadow of a broad, armed man. The baby's mumbles threaten to break their fragile silence.
Snap.
Will jerks his head upwards. His swirling blue eyes piercing Hannibal as the other man drops his hands. Will’s looking for a defining something,
…
Hannibal hesitates before slowly facing his palm upward. A sacrifice, submission.
Will takes it.
With just one of them, maybe the man would’ve stood a chance.
-
[two years later]
-
He lies as the root of salt and sin. His consciousness flexing like mist rolling down a hill.
Mischa, perpetually young, unevenly rendered, oozing by the bank of a sloshy black river somewhere south of the Lecter estate. Once, he’d seen fly-ridden deer lap aimlessly at the unforgiving water, their skulls spilling downstream. Half of her is melted into the muck like a dead thing left in the sun. The dead grass blending in with the dark gray-blue of the cloud-crowded sky. She mouths something to him, toothless. His ears are barraged by wind, by knives, by men. He doesn’t need to hear her to know she’ll miss some syllables when crying out his name.
Vaguely but definitively, he knows he is not awake. The sand is cool like snow. Its whiteness makes the blood look red despite the moonlight. Every time the harsh whip of his hair hits his face, memories of his distant lives flash across his eyelids. He’s in the woods, a dirty room filled with children, his aunt's garden, the bloody kitchen. Twice he’s on his knees in the cold.
The wind ceases and his girl stands just before him. Fully materialized. The fat in her cheeks returned with a healthy glow of pink. He hears her now. The voice of a toddler, girl, a woman. He doubles over, crying out, melting into the earth.
When he was about eleven, a nun was found dead outside the orphanage he’d been residing in. She was neither particularly cruel nor outwardly kind. Something she wore, or bathed in left her with the familiar notes of his mother‘s rose perfume. He didn't kill her, he doesn't care to know what did. It wasn't like he was looking for clues when he found her. He didn't sleep much, so he was the first.
The death made him think. Her bony hand was clutching a delicately crafted cross. He frowned over her body only for a moment. Wondering what hand god had in this.
He thought that maybe, the hand of god had created him for the punishment of eating his sister. That in God's eyes, even before he had done anything deserving of such an enactment, he was deserving of that retribution. Or that in the ideal of collectivism, he could not be spared.
A part of him burns. He's glad she’s dead. He’s glad that god was wrong. The baby teeth at the bottom of the bowl could never have served to punish him. He loved her. She could’ve never disgusted him. He’s proud, that in the face of god cruelty, at the head of his orchestrated abandonment. Hannibal had emerged with love. With beauty and religion he had turned God's punishment back in on itself. The little boy, who kneels in the snow without a sister. Who ate without her by his side. God doesn't have that on him. He has it on god.
Dreams however, place a certain lack on his decades of psychological refinement. Hannibal twists in the in-between until he’s laying on crimson silk with the air knocked out of him. He stares at a dark wood ceiling. He feels the heat of a body next to him. He can't seem to catch his breath. Lady Murasaki is as beautiful as he remembers. Her dark eyes crinkled and searching. Silky black hair falling over her shoulders in rivers. “The world can’t bear you Hannibal '' She tells him, and he knows it. The blanket is too heavy, her words are too mumbled. “ this will consume you.'' She breathes on his lips, and he knows it. When Lady Murasaki's eyes finally meet Hannibals she freezes. Maybe she sees it on his face.
“What is left of you to love?”
He hates how angry he still is, that she sounds so defeated. There is nothing ugly about it. There is nothing ugly about him! He raises his chin, turning away and closing his wet eyes. Waves lap at his cheek. He thinks he might be bleeding. That the sea is the blood.
Will Graham is his gift from the foam. For a moment he is overcome by pride. He wants to laugh, cry, to hold him and know that he is loved. Light pierces down on Will’s sleeping face. Hannibal reaches his hands to hold the sun. Will leans into the touch.
Will opens his eyes and Hannibal feels the ocean turn to ice.
—
Hannibal does not lurch forward. He just opens his eyes, his body tense and agitated. Will is practically laying on top of him so he knows any hope of leaving without waking him is futile. Hannibal is itching to get something done. To create or destroy. He knows, to put almost insultingly simply, that he is in a bad mood.
Their lazy living is proven by the risen sun peeking behind the curtains. Hannibal moves Will off him, maybe a little rougher than he should’ve. He hears an annoyed huff behind him. His hands are a little shaky. He ends up burning himself while making eggs. Will joins him then, pretending like he’s been asleep the whole time, pretending like he isn't a little upset that Hannibal didn’t wake with him like they usually do.
“Good morning Will.” He says, not looking at him and running his hand under cold water.
“It’s noon.” Will stays at the base of the walkway between the kitchen and living room.
Hannibal gives the clock a look. “I suppose it is.”
-
They don’t see each other for the rest of the day. Hannibal stays inside to fester. Will’s out fixing their boat. Readying it for any needed escapes. Or maybe he's just avoiding coming home.
-
“Do you want to talk about it?” Will holds a cup of tea in his hands, a peace offering, an invite to the little couch the dogs usually nap on. “About what?” Hannibal raises his lip a little and takes the cup. The candle light makes it hard to see Will’s expression but he can smell his unease through the melting wax.
“Whatever’s got you acting like this?” He huffs a little laugh like he's trying to lighten the mood, or like he’s uncomfortable. Hannibal closes his eyes, flexes his fingers, and sits down. “Are you satisfied with this?” He asks, very pointedly. “Have I made you happy?” Will’s body shifts away from him, he looks like he’s feeling the words on his tongue, and they’re sour. “I’m not playing these games with you Hannibal. Have I not proven enough to you?” Hannibal places a hand on the armrest, searching and cold.
Will laughs bitterly. Ice gnaws at Hannibal’s reason and his anger is really his fear. The creeping, taunting fear that one day Will would regret the choices that lead them here.
Of course he knew when he lifted the other man by his side on the bluff, that the old Will Graham wouldn't have been able to live with ways he had been irrevocably changed. And they both knew they couldn't live without the other.
Rather than make that choice Will had thrown the two of them to die. Hannibal knew he had let it happen, because the moment was so perfect that he was alright with it being their last.
Has anyone else died for you?
They lived, of course. Hannibal awoke on the rocky sand. Gasping, blind, and frantic. He’d dragged Will up the beach, desperate in every way he could be. He doesn’t like to think of it, his hands on him, weeping away their sins. Will finally opening his eyes, his arms twisted over his face, his gaze haunting. At the sight of him. At the knowledge that they instead, had to live. Together.
Hannibal snaps at him violently. Will chokes on something. The slam of the door behind him sounds like ceramic hitting the floor. Hannibal, who never yells, screams. He can feel the air leaving him.
-
Hannibal wakes up to an empty driveway. He spends the day not moving, even while thirst claws at his throat and the dogs whine for food. Sickness holds him down. The shadows cast by the curtains are the only thing telling him time hasn't stopped. The sun sets before he hears any tires on gravel. He doesn't breathe until the cold air hits his face. Will basically stumbles out of the old blue car. A mess of sweat and dirt. He closed the distance as fast he could, Will folding in on him. Hannibal smells the iron. He feels Will shake his head against his chest.
“You don't have to tell me about it.” Just come inside.
“Can’t you tell?”
“What has happened to you, or something you have done, or how you feel about whichever. I won’t do you the disservice of trying to predict you.”
Will huffs at his words. Leaning into him. “I didn’t even notice until after I’d done it, I didn’t care. All I was thinking about.” He paused, “was what would've happened to you, to me, if someone found us.”
“Ah,” Hannibal treads lightly. He resists the urge to press, instead he coxes Will into the house. He looks tired, and maybe not entirely sober. Will stumbles against him on the way to their shared bathroom. Hannibal turns the shower on, cold, how Will likes it. “Do you need me to take care of anything?” Hannibal asks gently. The other man starts pulling at his sweat-stained top. Will looks at him in a way. “Trunk of the car.” Then he disappears behind the fogged glass.
Hannibal won’t deny the twist in his heart, or the smile that appeared on his face. He closes the door behind him, leaving Will to think about the blood beneath his fingernails. Flicking through his mental list of comforting southern recipes.
When Hannibal opens the trunk he understands the sweat, the wetness in the corner of his eye. Her dark hair and pale skin, no older than twenty.
-
By the morning of Will’s return they’re all over each other. The sex is forgiving. They might not have days to make amends. Who knows what's out to kill them. They must love in haste.
“I've made my choices.” Will breathes into his skin. Delight. Goes unsaid, but Hannibal can feel the beating of Will’s heart in his palm. He knows it.
-
A year later.
-
Hannibal was never a child who looked up at the stars. He never denied their beauty or doubted the poets who would speak of their lovers' eyes reflecting the sky. Still, things he couldn't touch didn’t interest his young mind. Most hopes of love were dull to him. When he got older he let go of his mild annoyance and instead favored a lack of importance.
Despite, Will wanted to go out in the twilight, talking in vague nonsenses. Hannibal never denies him much. So he folds a blanket big enough for two, and waits. Their night was young and quiet, the start of winter. When the air bites, clouds threaten snow, but leaves still cling to trees and the sun isn't so easily hidden away. Still, Hannibal has had the pantry stocked, and restocked. He's rationally satisfied they're fit to survive the Canadian cold Will had dragged them to. He makes the most out of their abandoned woods, washes the sand from his hair.
Hannibal lays his head against the wall, calling inside the house when he realizes he’s been standing there for minutes. The soft thud of wool socks approaches him in happy pitters.
“Sorry,” Will throws him a lopsided smile, squeezing into his boots. Evidence of a farm dog on his pant legs. Everything’s well and they brush their shoulders together. Not bothering to lock the door behind them.
Will leads him down a familiar trail, where they walk their dogs each morning. Every pawprint is a mark of the life they've made. The pair settle against the rocks and dirt of a small clearing overlooking a shallow ledge. Hannibal watches as Will carefully builds a fire. His rough hands forming, creating. Dirt and coal clinging to the surface of his skin. He thinks the dogs will get to lick them clean. Lucky them.
Lost in the sight, Hannibal doesn't notice the air getting colder around him until goosebumps develop on his legs. He hates it. He hates how he's reminded of baggy socks on papery ankles. He hates when he touches Will he probes for a loss of fat he should know he won’t find. Will brings the pain he soothes. God's cruel. God smiles when he notices Hannibal staring.
He smiles back and extends his palm. Will wipes his hands and takes it. Hannibal breathes the scent, mountain smoke and damp wood. Sweet bare skin and the cold scent of vanilla from the body wash they share. For a long moment, he can't think of anything else.
Hannibal had guessed it was shooting stars, he noticed it last year as well, but Will never mentioned it, so he never asked. Shuffled his priorities to the frontline things, in the leaky sink in the spare bathroom.
They both have their hands wrapped around their knees like they're younger than they are. The wind begins to howl softly. Hannibal doesn’t resist the urge to stare, sketching this moment into time.
Will is staring up at the sky like nothing on Earth matters. Hannibal frowns like he’s jealous of the stars.
Hannibal clears his throat. Bending to the sound, Will turns to look down at him through his cropped, short curls. He's perfect. "I'm curious to know how you know there's going to be shooting stars." The older man moves his head away, the shadows from their fire casting the arches of his face in an eerie light.
Will gives him a brief, sharp look. He’d known Hannibal already noticed the starfall. It’s rude of him not to play along with Will’s gauge of a somewhat special moment. ‘An intimate revelation of beauty’ Hannibal would call it. For Will, he's sharing the itchy grass of stargazing in his childhood. "I saw them last year," He glances back at the darkened woods and shivers. “ ‘came out here by myself. You never asked, sleeping and pretending it'll keep us from getting mad at each other.” It feels like pressing a bruise, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Pretending we still need to heal.”
"I only mean to give you space.” There’s a frown in his voice.
Will looks more amused than anything, his quiet laugh carried by the mountain's draft. It's a sound Hannibal will keep locked into the corners of his mind. The sky, as if it's listening, awakes in response. The moon is smiling, in its own crooked way. Puffs of clouds break and the two scarred men are basked in some Gods light. The air shifted, expectant. Hannibal remembers Will's soft gasp. His breath rings in his ears.
It's quiet, soft, and far too innocent for the two of them to deserve.
"Wish for something." Will says quietly minutes later. Breaking away from his trance. Hannibal looks at him all funny like. Will pushes, his chapped lips pressed together like he's trying not to laugh at himself; "Maybe something’ll listen."
"Of course," Hannibal says, suppressing a smile of his own. And maybe it's out of amusement, or maybe everything's so beautiful anyway, so he might as well believe in wishes.
Will's the only thing he can think of. The night is the only thing he can condemn. Harsher clouds start moving in slowly, whistling with frost and urging them inside. Will leads them onto their feet. Their hands touch the whole way home until Hannibal pulls them onto the porch.
Will’s eyes are reflecting what must be Heaven, leaning against the railing like he expects the moon to whisk him away. Hannibal waits for him at the door with the kind of private look people write poetry about.
"Wow," Will breathes.
He couldn't possibly notice that Hannibal wasn't looking up. “Yes,”
"wow.”