Keeping Myself Alive Through Your Empathy

by The_KickIt_Domain

Summary:

“Have we chased the nightmares away?” Hannibal asks. Are you still with me? he doesn’t. But Will hears his silent question. The bed creaks as he turns onto his side, and Hannibal rolls over to face him.

“I was so cold for so long without you, Hannibal. And now that you’ve taken me out of stasis, it hurts like hell.” There’s a waver in Will's voice. Hannibal wonders if their new intimacy has shaken his foundations as profoundly as it has Hannibal's.

“Now that you’re letting yourself feel again, your wounds are exposed to the open air.”

Will rolls his eyes. “When the snow melts, you can see every dog turd from the whole winter out on the lawn."

"Such a beautiful mind you have," Hannibal says. He’s rewarded with an audible laugh, and a demure glance through thick eyelashes. “I’m right here, Will. I will help you adjust to the temperature.”

–

After evading the FBI, Will and Hannibal hole up in a cabin deep in a Pennsylvania forest to heal their wounds and their relationship. As winter melts into spring, another predator on the run turns up to find his usual safe house is occupied.

Chapter 1: Tell Me Again How You’re Tortured

It starts as a memory pushing through frozen soil. 

The dark room, with its 70s wood paneling, is warmly lit from a source Will can’t see. It’s certainly not the fireplace; there’s nothing in there but the charred corpse of a little boy. Connor Frist, the Lost Boy who couldn’t pull the trigger on his family.

But nobody else seems to see it, and soon Will doesn’t either.

Will’s new wife is still wearing the sensible dusty rose dress she wore to the courthouse. Instead of sitting beside him, she’s a few seats away. Every time he looks over, her face is blurred, like a throwaway photo from a disposable camera. The comparison holds when he catches his own reflection, glaring red from the shards of mirror that have replaced her eyes.

Molly’s father sits nearby, a quiet man with a nose full of broken veins. He and Will are silent together, alternating gulps of their respective liquor. Whiskey burns the back of Will’s throat, even as everyone around him sips from plastic champagne flutes. Champagne, like this life he’s playing at, is too soft for him.

“Whatever you’re drowning, son, you just make sure you hold its head under until the bubbles stop coming,” his father-in-law mutters. Will always wondered what happened to him. Now, as ever, he does the old man the courtesy of not asking. 

There’s a plate in front of him now, gilded bone-white china that’s much too nice for a place like this. Centered on it are delicate slices of gray matter. Will doesn’t have to reach up to know that he won’t feel his own hair. 

He’ll feel something soft, but not that.

With his best manners, he uses a fork and knife to slice off a piece of himself and put it to his lips. It’s a savory frost melting on his tongue in lieu of a grocery store wedding cake.

Smash cut to him sitting on the side of his and Molly’s bed, and she murmurs, “It’s alright. Wally’s dad and I were both too tired to do it on our wedding night the first time, too.” She never uses his name, always Wally’s dad , but he can’t begrudge her that. There’s a name Will never mentions, too.

But Will is not too tired. He isn’t even too drunk. It’s just that the idea of her hands on him makes him nauseous with grief. All he can see is his own wretchedness in her mirror-eyes and black rivulets of blood on her cheeks. The bedsheets rise like tongues of flame around her.

Her words aren’t barbed, not intentionally. Will almost wishes they were; it’s what he deserves. It’s worse that they’re spoken with resignation. Molly is sufficiently deprived by fate to never think of life as a fairytale.

The problem is that Will’s life is a fairytale. It’s the kind written to warn children about wolves who lie in wait, ready to pluck them from their fields or the woods where they gather kindling. It’s the kind told about peasants who climb the walls of a castle and undergo the unspeakable when they’re caught.

Now he’s on the edge of a frozen lake, alone as ever, and always weighed down by the reproach of the dead.

Bushes rustle across a long expanse of ice and snow. The moonlight is as menacing as the man with the antlers who steps out to stand on the other side. His skin is glossy and fathomless as a black scrying mirror. But Will doesn’t feel menaced. He feels beckoned. And this time, he will not simply stand there.

Will takes a tentative step onto the ice. The ground beneath him is solid, and his boots don’t slip. Each step is steady, as he stares into the unblinking eyes that await him. 

There isn't so much as a creak until he's reached the center of the lake. Then, the quiet night shatters as fists crash through the ice from below. They grab his ankles and yank him down, down, until the cold swallows him whole.

–

Like a sonic storm formed of double kick drums and compressed wails, Josiah’s rental truck hurtles through the dark. The terrain makes it so you can’t drive too fast out here, so the nu metal raging from his speakers is the only outlet he’s got right now.

He knows some people turn their music down when driving gets the least bit treacherous. But if Josiah could fight a car crash with his bare fists, he would, and he thinks he would probably win.

Yeah, yeah, that’s an insane kind of thing to believe. It’s that kind of attitude that got him here in the first place. 

A lack of fear makes you decide to break all your own rules. Makes you do things like take a girl from outside the McDonald’s where she works. From a parking lot in the town where you live with your fuckin’ girlfriend and daughter. With security cameras that might pick up the name of your business plastered across the driver’s side of your goddamn truck.

After the past week, Josiah is starting to think that maybe being afraid can be good sometimes. It keeps you from making stupid fuckin' mistakes like that. Cuz yeah, it was probably too dark for them to see details, and they live (lived) in a place that’s just big enough that he’d probably be too hard to identify. But for the first time ever, a cop had come by to question him. The girl’s body had still been warm, tied to the pool table in his detached garage. They had never been that close before.

And that’s because up until now, he’d only let that side of himself out far away from home. He’d take road trips in rental cars using only fake names and stolen cash, laying groundwork in some places so he could come to collect years later.

Now he’d broken his rules, and if he hadn’t gotten out when he did, it would only have been a matter of time before his secret was out and he was getting grilled in prison.

He isn’t really gonna miss his girlfriend, Sandy. She’s all right, but they barely talk, and it’s not like she ever knew his actual deal.

Allie’s another story. The idea of never seeing his daughter again really fuckin’ sucks, but better that than she know what he is. He’ll slit his own wrists before he lets that happen.

But in the meantime, he’s got ways of keeping himself going. He’s got a lot of practice going off the grid without computers to help him. But then, he’s managed to kinda fuck that up too.

The thing about robbing a bank is it’s better to hit one-light towns where nobody’s really expecting trouble. That’s what all those Prohibition bank robbers really got right. You just get in there, surprise the hell out of everybody, and you’re gone before they have time to call the cops. And the cops in these towns are all just too clueless to do anything about it, at least here up north.

It’s gotta be a bank, because in the country, a convenience store owner’s gonna have a gun or a mean dog, or both, and they’ll be really excited for the chance to play hero.

As long as you don’t do it too many times too close together, then you don’t have issues with feds or anything. And see, that’s where Josiah’s made yet another mistake. After getting the fuck out of Michigan (stupid, stupid, fuckin' stupid shitting where he eats motherfucker) he hit one place in Indiana and one in Ohio, and even though he switched to a different car he didn’t switch to a different wig.

And now he’s an interstate criminal. Well… known to be one. As far as he knows, nobody’s tied any of the other things he’s done together. Hard to do when they’ve got so little chance of finding the bodies. (Except, now, in goddamn Grand Rapids.) He should have brought along more than one. Or just made another one. After all, hair is free. Anything can be free if you just take it.

Every bump on this old dirt road jolts Josiah. He can feel them gnawing at the cushions of his joints. It makes him feel, for the first time, like he’s aging. The shocks on this old truck aren’t as good as the ones on the one he owns. Well, owned. He’ll never drive that again either.

All his tools, his livelihood, his family, it’s all gone. 

Fuck it, though. He’s built up from nothing before and he can do it again. Once he gets over being mad as hell and people stop wondering about him. He needs somewhere to hide out for a while until people have new things to obsess over. And maybe while he’s there he can screw his head back on and figure out what the fuck he’s gonna to do now. 

If he remembers right, there’s an empty house (and a kit buried, if he needs it) not too far from here, and there’s nothing for miles around that can be tied to him.

The thick trees obscure any light that may show up in the darkness, but Josiah grew up in the rural Pacific Northwest, where the trees were even taller. Nothing that comes out of the dark can scare him. He’s the scary thing that comes out of the dark, anyway.

Finally, his headlights pick up a familiar opening in the trees, and he slows as he turns right and crosses a wooden bridge slippery covered in months-old, clumpy leaf litter. This time, he does turn the music down. He also turns his headlights off, just in case his shit luck continues and there is someone there for the first time fuckin’ ever.

The house is set further back on the property, and there’s a shed off toward the outskirts where he usually stashes whatever car he’s driving. It would be easy enough to pretend that the place is his if someone ever rolled up on him. Even easier to kill whoever happened on him and dump them in the nearby river. Not that he’s ever had to, but there’s a first time for everything.

Josiah digs in the backseat of his truck for his overnight bag, with its bundles of cash, and slings it over his shoulder. Sighing, he nudges the cab door shut with his hip, and every careful step toward the cabin sucks up mud from newly melted ice. If he remembers right, the cabin has as close to a perfect mattress as anything he’s ever slept on. It’s a waste for whoever leaves the damn place empty, but he’s never been more ready to finally get some fuckin’ sleep. 

Of course , tonight flood lights blast him in the face. He withdraws into the closest shadow, but not before he catches sight of a tall, broad-shouldered figure in the window.

As he makes his way back to his truck, trying not to crash through the brush like a spooked deer, he’s pretty sure that the figure spotted him too.

–

Hannibal awakens to a shivering, whimpering bedmate, and curiosity flows through him like a shock of IV fluid. Part of him wants to simply watch Will in the throes of his nightmare; it’s like a beautiful echo of who he was when they first met, seen through a block of ice instead of a simmering stock pot. But the larger part of Hannibal reminds himself that Will would likely wake up and know Hannibal was cataloguing his suffering again. No matter how gorgeous Will is in his agony, this peace has been too hard won to be spoiled so carelessly.

“Darling?” Hannibal shuffles closer to Will. “Darling, wake up.”

Obediently, Will blinks awake, but only just. “Cold,” he grits out through chattering teeth.

Unease replaces curiosity as Hannibal pulls him into a warming embrace. Not only is Will’s skin approaching corpselike, but this is the first nightmare he has experienced since they started sharing a bed. The creeping worry that Will will leave him again is always ready to make itself known.

“There now…” Hannibal murmurs the sort of nonsense one is supposed to. His gaze tracks to sheer curtain fluttering in a frigid breeze, and he releases Will to roll out of bed.

“Don’t, don’t.” Will’s voice trembles as he grasps for Hannibal. It would be terribly endearing if it weren’t so unreasonable. Gently, but forcefully, he pries Will off of him as if shucking an oyster. Will whines as he falls back against his pillow.

“I’ll only be gone a moment, Will. You’ll be warmer with the window closed.”

Right as Hannibal’s feet hit the floor, the room is illuminated by the automatic outdoor lights. Over the six or so weeks they’ve been at this safe house, they haven’t seen another soul other than in their very rare trips to a general store a half hour’s drive away. Hannibal creeps toward the window with dual purpose—in the past only animals have triggered the censors, but tonight, he catches something distinctly bipedal retreating into the bushes.

It is retreating, however. As well it should. Hannibal will let it go, at least until Will goes back to sleep.

For now, he slips back under the covers and turns onto his side. Will’s eyes shine in the remaining seconds of artificial light before the room darkens once more. His consciousness must have fully returned, because he hesitates to draw close to Hannibal again.

Hannibal reaches for him and Will finally responds by nuzzling against his chest. Every time Hannibal opens his arms and Will accepts the invitation, every time he holds out his hand and Will takes it, it is something to celebrate.

But sleep draws no closer as they lie together. Will still trembles in his arms, even as Hannibal draws the blankets up to their chins and shares his body heat.

“Has your conscience returned to haunt you, Will?” Hannibal finally says, foolishly hopeful that the answer is no, but primed to distrust Will even if it is.

“Conscience has only ever been superimposed on my dreams, Doctor Lecter,” Will says, voice dry as a drought-riddled hillside. “Revisionist history.”

“Then what are you rewriting now, I wonder?”

Will waits to answer, as Will often does, and Hannibal feels the silence coat his stomach in sourness. Only when his breath has evened out does Will speak.

“Events that precipitate lost time,” he says. “But the narrative is pitch black and applied with a heavy hand. Writing over it just makes it more inscrutable.”

It isn’t difficult to understand Will’s meaning. Both of them have wasted many years that could have been better spent as partners. Their game had been exciting, all-consuming, but tied together with a thread of anguished hunger. The hangover from that sense of deprivation, the time they spent in their prisons, literal for Hannibal and self-made for Will, seems to linger in the space between them. 

As that space grows smaller, Hannibal can’t help but feel the weight. But as far as he’s concerned, now that they’re together, there’s no need for it.

“Perhaps you’re seeing time in only two dimensions,” he suggests.

“A throughline split in two,” Will muses. 

Where does the difference between past and the future come from? 

Mine? Before and after you.

Hannibal runs his palm down Will’s bare, muscled back, feels it arch slightly beneath his touch.

“In Ancient Greek, two words for time are chronos and kairos,” Hannibal says. “You may be more familiar with the former, referring to linear time, where we march inevitably into the abyss. Kairos, however, sees time as a collection of key moments. Life happens in these moments, and they are not bound to any timeline.”

Will pulls back. “Kairos is God’s time, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hannibal says. “It is defined by awe and moments of transfiguration.”

“Once a megalomaniac…”

Chuckling, Hannibal smooths his thumb over Will’s jawline, considering whether or not to lean in and kiss him. He only manages to part his lips before Will makes the choice for him. The press of his mouth is magnetic in its certainty, but over in the space of a slow blink.

“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal murmurs, “were you to revise a moment of transfiguration, which would you choose first?”

“Going in reverse chronological order: the cliff, after we slayed the dragon.”

Hannibal’s eyes fall shut, and he meets Will inside that memory. They’re there again, covered in blood from their shared kill, holding each other close. It’s a vision Hannibal has preserved with painstaking detail and will hold until he expels his final breath.

“Two transfigurations then, both his and your own. How could such a thing be improved upon?” Will’s curls, wild with sweat and sea air, brush against Hannibal’s lips.

“Well, obviously I wouldn’t try to kill us this time.” There’s a silent, you idiot , at the end of that sentence, another thing only Will Graham could ever get away with.

“What would you do instead?”

The cadence of Will’s breath changes again to something shallow, almost distressed. Hannibal is about to prompt him again when he finally says, “Take you to bed.”

In their shared memory palace, Will takes Hannibal by the wrist, and they pick their way through broken glass. In the real world, Hannibal feels Will’s breath on his neck, the bridge of his nose tickling the soft spot behind his ear. In both, Will’s nails dig into him so hard Hannibal hopes they’ll draw blood.

“You would not have me treat our wounds first?”

“No.” Will’s voice drops, and the scent of arousal pricks at Hannibal’s senses. “Nothing will ever be as erotic to me as the sight of your blood. I want the bed covered in it, and in mine, while I fuck you.” 

In just seconds, Will Graham has again stolen the upper hand. Hannibal swoons like a maiden whose champion has been skewered in the joust. He sinks into the bed, devastated, and Will follows, climbing into his lap.

“I did not realize that was something you wanted.”

Healing from their injuries had taken a lot of energy, and enjoying one another’s quiet company would have been fulfilling all on its own. But now that Hannibal has tasted Will, after desiring him for so long, he can’t get enough. As often as he dares to, Hannibal indulges himself by bringing Will off with his hands and mouth. Will welcomes his touch, and has even reciprocated as much as his injuries have allowed. However, their sexuality had been much more subdued than Hannibal yearns for it to be.

Of course Hannibal is intrigued by this new level of intensity. Well, intrigued certainly is one of many ways Hannibal could be described right now. Breathless and turgid are two others. 

The corners of Will’s mouth curl as he feels Hannibal hardening between his legs. He reaches for one of Hannibal’s hands where they’re resting on his ribs, presses it to the scar etched into the flesh of his stomach. The one Hannibal put there.

“You’ve been so deep inside me,” Will says. He cants his hips forward, so their cocks drag together through thin fabric, and Hannibal doesn’t bother suppressing a soft moan. “I think I should get a turn, don’t you?”

In a final moment of lucidity, Hannibal remembers the figure fleeing into the woods. But he will not let something as banal as a pig on the property get in the way of this .

“The door,” Hannibal whispers. “Lock it.”

—

In the time it takes for Will to lock the door and return to bed, they’ve both fully stripped down. The image before Will wavers between the moon-soaked interior of their current hideaway and the bedroom where he should have taken Hannibal over a month ago.

Before that instant of transfiguration, Will had paced every room of Hannibal’s cliff house. He knew what it looked like, an atmosphere perfect for the location but too brisk for what was to occur that night, too brisk for the hot flush of regret smothering Will’s every breath over what he and Hannibal could have had. 

The crisp white sheets bled crimson under his gaze even then. Of all his years inside the minds of murderers, he’d never had thoughts so bloody. His vision had gone red as the birth canal that carried him to this new version of himself.

Those sheets bloom red now as he pushes Hannibal against them. Hannibal’s face drips with blood from Will’s wound, and Dragon’s flesh is still nestled in his fangs. Will pulls off Hannibal’s ruined sweater, the image fed by the current, moonlit sight of Hannibal’s already naked torso. The room smells like an open treasure chest.

Here in the cabin, Hannibal twists to retrieve lube (no condom—no point when they’d already baptized one another in blood) and places it in Will’s open hand.

Will kneels between Hannibal’s long, gorgeous legs. “What do I do?” he asks. He isn’t ashamed of his inexperience. He has no patience for shame, after all he has done, all that they’ve done together.

“It’s hardly necessary, but I imagine you’d like to start by using your hands.” 

That look, unruffled as the vision of him taking punch after punch in Randall Tier’s place, flickers like a candle about to blow out. When Will slicks his fingers and thrusts two inside Hannibal, it’s gone. Hannibal jolts and his mouth falls open in a choked cry.

“You’re right,” Will says. “I do like it.”

“Will.”

Hannibal is thrown, but he loves it, opens himself to Will to let him see how much. Will digs his thumb into the pucker of the bullet scar and Hannibal grunts. In his mind’s eye—both their minds’ eyes—the wound is still open, and Will’s fingers come back wet with gore. Those of his other hand, still inside Hannibal, stroke at the nub of his prostate until he squirms.

Will’s mouth waters, gums tingle with the need for stimulation. He dives in and covers Hannibal’s chest with bruises and bites, the pressure easing that itch, but nothing short of being inside Hannibal could soothe it completely.

“Are you ready for me, Hannibal?” Will whispers the name, the feeling of it in his mouth more intimate than any of the endearments Hannibal has used on him.

Hannibal’s eyes glow like a predator’s, even when he’s on his back. But they’re glassy too. If it’s pain, it’s welcome pain.

“Always, my love.”

He lets Will manhandle him into position, and Will aligns the head of his cock and pushes into Hannibal as if he’s done it a thousand times before. All the breath leaves Will’s lungs in a deep, shameless groan, as the taste of copper floods his mouth. He doesn’t wait for permission to start to move, even as Hannibal tenses and hisses through his teeth.

His face looks nothing like the way it did in Will’s homicidal dreams, masked with that infuriating, smug pride. After the first few painful seconds of adjustment, Hannibal’s expression slackens. His eyelids grow heavy and Will can barely see more than the whites of his eyes. When he blinks, they leak tears that roll over his temples and into his hair. It’s like with every thrust, Will’s nudging him up the ladder to paradise.

It’s surreal for a second there. Will has never considered himself a slouch when it comes to sex, but he’s never made anyone’s face do that before. He thought topping Hannibal was going to be a much harder sell than this, but maybe he shouldn’t have. Because now, Hannibal Lecter is tipping his head, baring his neck in total submission. Will traces Hannibal’s jugular with the tip of his tongue, his rhythm steady and sensuous.

“Curiosity got the cat’s throat ripped out, Hannibal.” 

As if he’s raising an argument, Hannibal purrs and claws at Will’s hips. “Don’t tempt me.”

The tears drying on Hannibal’s face shift into black streaks in the moonlight and Will quickens his pace almost in spite of himself. He thinks of Hannibal tearing into Dolarhyde’s throat, for a moment, seized with the image of doing the same right here, right now.

“Come on. Neither of us want that, baby. Then I couldn’t do this to you again,” Will says, half to Hannibal, half to himself. Hannibal whimpers like a helpless beast, ripping a wild laugh from Will's chest. “...And I wouldn’t get to hear you make those pathetic little noises, either.”

That one makes Hannibal snarl and tighten his legs around Will’s back. The cold that plagued Will’s nightmare is evaporating in a cloud of steam with the heat of Hannibal’s body, clenched around his cock, pressed flush against and around his torso, scratching the skin off his back. Will’s hips give a sudden, aggressive thrust, and he lets brutality overtake him.

To keep his teeth off Hannibal’s throat, he wraps his hand around it, bracing himself on his opposite forearm as he thrusts. His grip tightens, too tight to let in the air Hannibal’s gasping for. Will can tell Hannibal is close from the way he bears down, the way he thrashes, fucking himself on Will’s cock as Will holds his ground and pushes back with equal force.

Before he can pass out, Hannibal comes like a train whose brakes have failed, crashing into whatever gets in its way. Will releases Hannibal’s throat, gripping the bed to keep from being thrown off of it. Hannibal shudders through the aftershocks, babbling as Will delivers a handful of punishing strokes. As he orgasms, his vision goes red.

When Will’s mind clears, they’re firmly back in the cabin. The moment is rewritten; the cold, gone. He shivers anyway, and Hannibal pulls him tight against his chest.

—

Being claimed so utterly by the person he loves seems to have obliterated Hannibal’s capacity for thought. For as long as he’s been in love with Will Graham, and especially considering the fact that they aren’t strangers to one another’s bodies, the possibility that he could feel this way had never occurred to him. 

Episodes of strong emotion have been seldom throughout Hannibal’s life, but always so intense as to result in some loss of control. Will Graham has triggered such things before, so he should probably have expected it to happen again.

“Who’s done this to you before?” Will growls in his ear, and heat once again pools in Hannibal’s stomach.

“They’re dead,” he answers. 

“Good.” Will hooks his leg over Hannibal’s and wraps a possessive arm around his waist. “If they weren’t, I’d kill them.”

In truth, no one has done this to Hannibal before, but he feels exposed enough as it is without admitting that.

Perhaps nightmares still trouble Will, but there’s no denying that he has come into his power. It’s the most beautiful thing Hannibal has seen in his life, as paralyzing as witnessing a solar eclipse.

They lie in silence for another stretch of time, before Will gets up to fetch a towel. Hannibal stares at the wooden beams in the ceiling, wondering what exactly he’s become.

As forceful as Will had been during their lovemaking, he is gentle as he cleans Hannibal and dresses his semi-limp body in fresh pajamas. They settle back into bed, not touching. Hannibal feels Will’s nervous glances, flicking toward him, then away.

“Have we chased the nightmares away?” Hannibal asks.

Are you still with me? he doesn’t.

Will hears his silent question. The bed creaks as he turns onto his side, and Hannibal rolls over to face him.

“I was so cold for so long without you, Hannibal. And now that you’ve taken me out of stasis, it hurts like hell.”

There’s a waver in Will's voice. Hannibal wonders if their new intimacy has shaken his foundation as profoundly as it has Hannibal's.

“Now that you’re letting yourself feel again, your wounds are exposed to the open air.”

Will rolls his eyes. “When the snow melts, you can see every dog turd from the whole winter out on the lawn."

Hannibal reaches out to cup his chin. “Such a beautiful mind you have.”

He’s rewarded with a smile, an audible laugh, and a demure glance through thick eyelashes. As gorgeous as Will is in his lethal glory, Hannibal is glad that he hasn’t fully lost this side of himself. Hannibal dares to imagine it will now be reserved fully for his own enjoyment.

“I’m right here, Will,” Hannibal says. “I will help you adjust to the temperature.”

“I know you will,” Will whispers.

Then he sighs, eyes falling shut as Hannibal slides his hand around to the back of his head. They come together in the center of the mattress, and soon Will’s breath evens out. He molds to Hannibal’s body in his sleep, soft and vulnerable, as if he didn’t just rearrange every millimeter of Hannibal’s flesh and spirit.

Faraway, Hannibal hears an engine start up. Tires churn up foliage as the vehicle moves further and further from earshot.

Notes:

Hoooooo boy! I gave myself a migraine listening to Slipknot while I tried to get in the Josiah headspace jeee-hee-zus. The character is based on irl serial killer and nu metal fanboy Israel Keyes, who was a huge piece of shit. He’s been touted as one of the “best” serial killers, so I think it’s only fair if Will and Hannibal fuck him up. If you want to learn about him, you can go read “American Predator” by Maureen Callahan or listen to one of the million billion podcasts about him.

Or, you know, don't do that and instead just watch Hannibal again. It’ll make you happier.

S/o to Jenny Odell’s “Saving Time” for putting the chronos/kairos thing back on my radar (and apologies to Madeleine L’Engle for forgetting—it’s been a few years).

I ain’t too proud to beg for comments and kudos. I would *love* to talk to you and hear your thoughts on the story (including the sexy bits!), Will and Hannibal’s relationship, or anything else that strikes your fancy!

Chapter 2: I Know Why You Plague Me

Summary:

Jack and the team make an uncomfortable revelation.

Hannibal and Will get vulnerable.

Notes:

So turns out this *does* sort of require you to read the first one in the series for this to totally make sense, but chaos can also be fun sometimes, right?

Six Weeks Earlier

“Hope you brought your listening ears with you!” Jimmy Price’s sing-song is way too loud after a long drive and the third sleepless night in a row.

“Jimmy, it’s 7 a.m.,” Zeller mutters.

“Sorry. Been babysitting the nephew, and it’s destroyed the way I talk.”

“What have you got for me?” This forensic review, thankfully, is done in a conference room. Here, Jack can sit in a chair nursing his coffee instead of perching on an autopsy table and staring at a mutilated body. 

Not that he can’t handle it, but hell if he isn’t tired. And he really wonders sometimes, really wonders, if he isn’t the only sane person who works in this damn place.

Of course, for all the table space stretched out in front of them, the three men are huddled at one end around Jimmy’s laptop. When Jimmy opens the video editor, it displays that same knee-level shot from inside Hannibal’s cliffside house. Broken glass and blood litter the surroundings, and the only sounds are of wind and waves. 

So it was after the fight and the fall. Good. Jack has watched Will Graham die enough times to last him the rest of his life.

“Yeah, I’ve seen this before. Tell me why I’m looking at it again.” 

“It’s not about looking. It’s about listening ,” Jimmy says. He swipes the mouse over the progress bar and increases the volume. “In about five seconds…”

Outside the frame, a car door slams. Jimmy’s head whips toward Jack, excited, the way a kid looks at you before he does a belly flop into a swimming pool.

“Okay. Freddie Lounds’s car door. So what?”

“Just wait,” Zeller holds up a hand as if Jack’s about to jump out of his chair. Jack resents that, after all these years, his team still thinks he’s that much of a hothead. Even more, he hates that they’re kind of right. He bites his lip and keeps listening.

The second sound is a trunk opening and closing. The third is a door—this time to what he assumes is the house. It creaks and clunks in the way an exterior door might.

Jimmy pauses the video and pushes his chair back enough to look at both Zeller and Jack on either side of him. “Now where does that one come from?”

Zeller slides a diagram of Hannibal’s floor plan along the table to Jack and taps his finger on a red x. “If the camera is set up here, the only nearby exterior door got shattered along with the window.” He slides his finger across the diagram. “The only other option is the front door on the opposite side of the house.”

“I need more than that.”

“And more you shall have.” Jimmy advances the video a few more minutes.

Another car door shuts. Almost immediately afterward, footsteps crunch against glass, and he hears Freddie’s gasp, likely at the sight of Dolarhyde’s body and the gory mess all over the patio.

“So, she could have opened the car door, gone around to the front, gone back to her car, then come around the other way,” Jack says. 

He has to follow this throughline, he reminds himself. It’s his job. Freddie being the culprit is the most obvious answer. They know she was there. It’s what the evidence says.

Still, doubt is creeping in. Jack doesn’t like doubt. Doubt leads to hope, and hope hurts.

“Yeah, but why would she do that first when the story’s obviously right there? It makes more sense that there was someone else who came to the house before her.” Zeller’s voice strains in the way it always does when he’s winding up for an argument.

“And look at the spectrogram,” Jimmy says. He clicks over to a window peeking out behind the video and zooms all the way out. “These blue squiggles have different amplitudes. This one here is the first slam, this is the second, this is the third, this is the fourth . Each one after those first two is a different distance from the mic.”

“All right, all right, I follow you,” Jack says. If there’s one thing he doesn’t want to deal with right now, it’s losing an argument with his science team. He’s already lost enough in the past seventy-two hours.

“So maybe there was someone else there,” Jack says, “but even if there were, that doesn’t exonerate Freddie Lounds from killing Thomas Demsky.” 

(The fact that he was possibly a notorious mafia hitman and may have drugged her might let her off the hook, but that all was still under investigation.)

“No, but this probably will,” Jimmy says, with so much confidence that Jack raises his eyebrows and shifts forward in his seat. He closes the video, but keeps the sound editing software open and selects a new file. “This is from Freddie’s recorder. We found it wedged between two couch cushions—smelled like red wine.”

“And old man.” Zeller wrinkles his nose at the memory, and Jack suppresses the same response. Freshly-dead-body smell aside, there was a mildewy scent, like years of dead skin never vacuumed out of the carpet or furniture, in Demsky’s house.

“Yes. That too. Now the sound quality is pretty bad, I’m assuming because of the liquid damage—”

“But the fact that there are other voices at all …” Zeller says. Jimmy points at him with a yeah, what he said emphasis.

Hitting the play button brings out Freddie’s voice first, the words garbled but her voice halting even on its own. Only the sudden spike of blue sound waves on the screen warns Jack to brace for the sudden crash, shatter, and thud before another long silence. 

Murmuring something inaudible, Jimmy drags the cursor a few minutes over the mostly empty track until the waves start up again in weak fits and starts.

Then he hears men’s voices. The words are unclear, but the voices, and the cadence in which they speak to one another, Jack would recognize anywhere. Cold sweat drips down the center of his back, sprung from hope that turns quickly to dread.

“Sound familiar?” Jimmy says, eyes bright.

Sucking breath in through his nostrils, Jack steadies himself enough to put his coffee cup on the table. He runs his hands over his face. When did his skin get so damn loose? He thinks, probably, around the time Bella got sick—or when he found out she was sick, anyway. That’s around the time everything else went to shit, too.

“He’s alive,” he says, shaking off the weight of all those years as best he can.

Both Jimmy and Zeller are smart enough not to ask which one of the two voices Jack means. Jack isn’t entirely sure himself. Mostly, he wants Will’s survival, but as the recording continues, he hears the familiar, unsettling camaraderie between Will and Hannibal. That old nemesis just keeps cropping up like a bad case of eczema, and Jack is starting to think bringing Will onto the Tooth Fairy case was like scratching an old wound until it opened up again.

To say nothing of what it had done to Will

Suddenly, the sound spikes again, with a new male voice roaring to life. Jack jolts upright at the scuffle, frozen by the primal soundtrack of violence, until the new voice finally cuts off with a distorted garble. He can’t hear the arc of blood, but he can hear the man drowning in it. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation, or maybe it’s just because this case is so personal, but Jack is affected more than usual.

“She didn’t do it,” Zeller says.

Jack forces himself to inhale. “Guess not,” he mutters. Agitated, he pulls his jacket off and drapes it over the back of his chair. “But I can’t say I like the alternative you’ve given me, gentleman.”

“At least Will Graham is alive, right?” Jimmy says.

“Jimmy.” Zeller’s voice is urgent, eyes flashing over to the still-playing sound file. 

“Oh, right,” he turns to hit pause on the recording, but Jack holds up a hand. 

“Don’t.”

The only sounds coming from the speakers are hushed, urgent voices, out of breath in the way one would expect after a struggle. But clearly, there’s something that comes after that his team is trying to protect him from.

“Agent Crawford, I don’t think we need to keep…” Jimmy’s hand is still hovering over the mouse, but it’s already too late.

At that moment, an unmistakable moan, unmistakably Will Graham’s, lashes out of the speakers like a hand slapping Jack across the face. His first thought isn’t coherent. The second thought is coherent, and it’s that Hannibal has turned on Will, gutted him again. But then, they would have found two bodies if that were the case.

And rejecting that possibility, Jack’s first thought is left to form into something so obvious he wants to hurl.

“Fuck…they’re not…”

“Oh no, that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Zeller says.

“Shut up!” Jack shouts. He springs to his feet and starts pacing. “Turn that shit off. What the hell am I going to tell his wife?”

The two techs stare at Jack, jaws tense and eyes wide as silver dollars; like at any moment he might pick up the laptop, or maybe one of them, and throw it against the wall as hard as he can. At this point, he wouldn’t put it past himself.

This is probably one of the moments where he should use those breathing exercises the counselor taught him. Four seconds in, six seconds out. Or something. He can’t remember. His stress needle has already flown past overload.

Only one thing can diffuse some of this rage, and it’s taking action. Some action. Any action.

He picks the least unpleasant thing he can think of first.

“Looks like I’ve got some charges to drop.”

–--

Present Day

The bed is empty when Will awakens, as it almost always is. Without cold wet noses and the sound of tails swishing through open air, Will sleeps until the sun is too insistent to ignore. Hannibal takes the hours he doesn’t need to sleep to do with as he chooses. Will isn’t sure he wants to know what that consists of, or even whether Hannibal wants him to know.

Will rotates his shoulder in its socket. Six weeks out from having it dislocated, wrenched from between two rocks jutting from the ocean cliffside, it has mostly healed. Having put so much of his weight on it last night, though, is making it complain.

Vivid images flood Will’s vision—the whites of Hannibal’s eyes, how the corners of them leaked black streaks as he strained for breath under Will’s grip. Will’s cock swells, and briefly, he considers taking care of his erection then and there. He shakes his head against the urge. Later. Maybe he can tempt Hannibal back upstairs after breakfast.

But right now, a sizzle floats up the steps from the kitchen, competing with the whir of the range fan. Hannibal is cooking meat of some kind—non-human as far as Will knows—and Will might be getting his hopes up, but he’s pretty sure catches the tang of sautéing onions, celery, and bell pepper. 

This safehouse is surprisingly mundane for Hannibal. The popcorn ceilings are low and the beige carpet pile is worn down in the places where they walk the most. But it’s clean, and the appliances are only about ten years out of date instead of thirty (not like in that dump of a house where they’d briefly stayed right after crawling out of the ocean).

Hannibal doesn’t look up from the stove when Will reaches the bottom of the staircase, but the steps creak like an old schooner in a storm. All the same, when Will wraps his arms around Hannibal’s waist from behind, Hannibal goes completely still.

Vapor-like, the thought drifts through Will’s mind: No one else is allowed to do this while he’s cooking. But the pressure of Hannibal’s back against Will’s front increases. It’s like the weight of a fly landing on a scale, but it’s weight all the same. Satisfaction curls inside Will’s gut like the wicked smile that marks its surface.

Will slips his hands beneath Hannibal’s apron and the hem of his t-shirt (because out here, with no one to judge him but Will, Hannibal wears t-shirts). They explore the coarse hair over Hannibal’s stomach, the tight pull of his apron keeping Will’s hands from straying further. Will and Hannibal don’t normally eat as high on the hog out here, and the two of them spend hours walking in the woods, but there’s still some softness to Hannibal from his years of sitting in a cell at the BSHCI. Arms looped and locked around Hannibal’s waist, Will’s lips rest on his vertebrae and his nose brushes the dip beneath his skull.

“Did you just smell me?” Hannibal jokes, but his voice is softer than Will thinks he intends it to be.

Now that there’s no reason to be subtle, Will indulges in a deep inhale. Underneath the pungent aromatics going translucent in the pan in front of him, the meat sizzling in its own juices on the back-burner, Hannibal’s scent is supple and inviting as a leather armchair.

“Difficult to avoid when you smell so goddamn good,” Will says with his exhale.

“Perhaps you’re confusing me with the food,” Hannibal says.

Will shakes his head, nose not straying too far from that incredible fragrance. “You might be the bloodhound, but I could still find you with my eyes closed.”

His palm slides over Hannibal’s hip, fingertips dipping into the top of his waistband. If only the stove weren’t hot, Will could bend him over it. He rubs his cheek against Hannibal’s and can feel the muscles there bunching into a grin. 

“Something funny?”

“Not at all. I’m merely delighted and somewhat surprised at how demonstrative you suddenly are with your affection.”

Hannibal turns slightly so Will can see his bared teeth, the way his slightly greasy hair flops over his forehead. He hasn’t showered yet either, probably for the same reason Will hasn’t. They’re not ready to wash the smell of one another off their skin.

“It would seem that you truly do wish to see us conjoined.” Hannibal nudges the chopped vegetables around the pan with his spatula.

A knot tightens in Will’s stomach. He’s just insecure enough still to read flippancy in Hannibal’s words. Until now, Hannibal has initiated most of their contact. Will hasn’t put him off, but he hasn’t taken this much control since they were at Luca’s house weeks ago.

Hannibal must notice his hesitation, because he says, “When we pursue what we desire, we open ourselves to risk, which requires vulnerability.”

He taps his spatula on the side of the pan and rests it there. Turning down the burner, he faces Will.

“Some confuse vulnerability with weakness, but to take risks in pursuit of reward requires courage. Cowardice circumvents risk, but obviates reward.” 

Hannibal cups Will’s face, his other hand splayed in the center of Will’s back. Unable to help it, Will lets Hannibal’s gaze reel him closer.

“Tell me, WIll, do you view your desire for me as vulnerability or weakness?”

“If I said vulnerability, would that make you my reward?”

The crackle in the air between them fades as Hannibal’s eyes fall closed. “If the result of your pursuit of me has satisfied you, then I would hope so.”

“Now who’s being vulnerable?”

When Hannibal’s eyes open, a starving child with a man’s face looks back at him, barely restraining his anxiety at the prospect of yet another loss. Mindful of the stove still hot behind them, Will holds Hannibal close, oil-splattered apron and all.

As Hannibal eagerly reciprocates, Will angles his chin up to whisper in his ear.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be satisfied, Hannibal. I’ll just want more and more of you—wring you out drop by drop, until the day we die.”

“Will,” Hannibal murmurs. Will holds him close enough to feel his full-body shiver.

“But yes. You are my reward.” When Will forces himself to back away, it’s like there are weights on his ankles. He nods at the stove. “Don’t let the Trinity burn.”

With a sharp cough, Hannibal turns back to the stove. “I was just about to make the roux.”

“Then shall I get out of your hair?”

“Only if you’d like breakfast,” Hannibal says. He glares at Will over his shoulder, as if to pre-empt any snarky double-entendres about Will having Hannibal for breakfast. “Go pour yourself some coffee.”

He pours it into one of the matching bone-white mugs, the only one with a chip in it. The imperfection makes it feel like kin.

“Grillades’ fantastic, but I’ll definitely have to make you shrimp and grits once we’re near the coast again,” Will says.

“I was nearly desperate enough to buy a bag frozen from the grocery store if they had not undergone such unacceptable cryo-dessication,” Hannibal says. He picks up the whisk, and the kitchen soon becomes noisy with popping grease and metal against metal. Will is too late to razz him for not just saying “freezer burn.”

He leans against the counter, watching Hannibal and letting his gaze drift to the iPad resting ostentatiously nearby. He meets Hannibal’s eye and gets a quick nod of assent before picking it up, awakening a high definition image of Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes .

(Last time Will had used the iPad, he’d replaced The Garden of Earthly Delights with a still of the Flying Toasters screensaver from the early 90s. Hannibal hadn’t commented.)

When Will opens the iPad, he is met with the homepage for Tattlecrime.com.

Normally Will would give the site as wide a berth as possible, but there hasn’t been much to do during his convalescence. Well, other than read, get several of the teeth that Dolarhyde had damaged yanked out, and occasionally fool around with Hannibal when they weren’t in too much pain.

“The monster of the week appears to be a young man from Michigan,” Hannibal says as he finishes whisking. “A contractor. He allegedly abducted a young woman straight from a drive through, and Miss Lounds uncovered some interesting facts about his travel records. This is all still alleged as the girl has not been found, but the circumstantial evidence is compelling.”

Josiah Taylor . A contractor. One who mostly did construction work in Grand Rapids, but also “volunteered” his services to rebuild in areas that had recently experienced natural disasters; hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires. Freddie specifically called out Katrina. As he reads, Will’s jaw works until his remaining molars ache.

“Something about him bothers you,” Hannibal observes. “Is it his victim selection?”

Utter chaos. So many left to rot. Authority figures abandoning or antagonizing those they were supposed to serve. It was a perfect hunting ground. Will wonders if their paths crossed and wonders how many more deaths could have been prevented if only he’d paid more attention.

“Will?”

Will shakes the visions of muddy water, of broiling skin and bloated bodies out of his head. “Let’s not spoil the morning with psychoanalysis, okay?”

Hannibal nods, lips pressed together as he turns the burners off. “In that case, I’m just about ready to plate these, and then I’ll join you at the table.”

Before Will puts the iPad down, he saves a low-res jpeg of Big Mouth Billy Bass and sets it as Hannibal’s new, pixelated wallpaper.

–--

Lovers have put their hands on Hannibal like this in the kitchen before, and Hannibal had begrudgingly allowed it…at first. It always felt like a childish bid for attention on their part. He’d deflect the groping with a quick peck on the cheek and a polite dismissal.

Will didn’t seem to require Hannibal’s attention, only the scent of Hannibal’s sweat and the feel of his skin. His touch was obscene in a way that, for the first time, made Hannibal want to drop to his knees and let their meal burn to a crisp on the stove.

The shift in Will’s behavior made Hannibal feel like he’d been shoved off the bottom step of a staircase. He was in no immediate danger, but his heart still raced and adrenaline shot through his bloodstream. 

The past several weeks had been spent in a quiet haze of painkillers, hushed conversation, and occasional tender touch. In just the last twelve hours, Will has become suddenly inflamed, and Hannibal can see himself burning alive in his fire so clearly. It shouldn’t draw him closer, but it does.

Now, he watches with gratification as Will’s lips close around a forkful of meat caked in grits. Will’s eyes close in pleasure, and he hums softly through closed lips. It should be annoying, the way Hannibal’s pulse flutters at the vision, but he’s been too lost for too long.

“Acceptable?” Hannibal asks, needlessly.

The grin on Will’s face would be answer enough, were Hannibal not so greedy for his approval.

“Exceedingly.”

Hannibal makes a show of preening. “High praise from a Southern boy.”

“Are these ‘thanks for the sex’ grits?”

And just like that, Hannibal’s glow is doused. The scent of the meal he’d so lovingly prepared repulses him, because now it’s nothing more than a joke. The power Will wields over him suddenly becomes unbearable, the fact that such a light jab can deflate him so quickly.

“Hannibal?”

Will’s smile falters, because he sees. Of course he sees. The only defense Hannibal can immediately grasp (other than a steak knife) is to avert his eyes.

“If you wish to trivialize what happened last night, you might say so,” Hannibal says with as much haughtiness as he can muster.

“Hannibal, look at me.” 

The tone is so commanding that Hannibal can’t help but comply. Setting his fork and knife down on the rim of his plate, Will reaches across the table for Hannibal’s hand. Hannibal has become so helpless, has fallen—both literally and figuratively—so far, that he allows it.

“I’m not trivializing anything, Hannibal,” Will says softly. He runs his thumb over Hannibal’s knuckles. “I’m bringing it into the light, because I want it to keep happening.”

Breath stacks in Hannibal’s chest, forming a bottleneck in his throat. This weakness, this loss of language so rarely encountered in his adult life, manifests like physical pain. The only relief is the balm of Will’s eyes on his face like winter sunlight.

“You challenged me to pursue a life with you,” Will continues. “Life requires a balance of light and dark, at least mine does.”

Balance. To hear the word come from Will Graham’s lips should be laughable, especially with his behavior in the kitchen only minutes ago. But that is a different subject than the one Hannibal wishes to discuss.

“I don’t see what happened between us as darkness,” Hannibal says. “The thought of us together representing only darkness denies our relationship dimension.”

“Dimension is exactly what I’m looking for. Nothing either of us can say will make what happened any less meaningful. I’m sorry if I made you think it didn’t matter to me. It…it did. More than I can…”

At last, seemingly too overcome to continue, Will squeezes Hannibal’s hand and raises it to kiss his knuckles. Hannibal bites the inside of his cheek to hold back any more embarrassing emotional displays. With a final squeeze, Will releases Hannibal and picks up his fork.

“Actually, I had been thinking more about our conversation last night about kairos and chronos,” Hannibal says. “About what moment I’d select from our chronology were I to rewrite part of it.”

The fork clanks against Will’s plate again. A sheen of false indifference guards his face. “Oh?”

Hannibal nods. “I was thinking about when you awoke after our escape from Muskrat Farms.”

He had visited that memory countless times, the sensations vivid—the thud of bullets against flesh as Chiyoh picked off their pursuers, the ache of plodding steps in the snow, Will’s weight limp and bleeding in his arms as Hannibal’s clothing rubbed his burnt skin raw.

“Would you not have surrendered yourself?” Will’s shoulders are an inch and a quarter higher than usual, storing guilt or grief or perhaps both.

Hannibal shakes his head. “I wonder whether, had I cooked this for you, you would have still sent me away.”

Will is quiet, eyes suddenly glassy. Then he laughs his bleak, devastating laugh, and shakes his head.

“I’ll admit. Sometimes I wonder what I would have said if I’d just drank a cup of coffee before I opened my damn mouth that day.”

In spite of the ache in the pit of his stomach, Hannibal smiles. “Perhaps if I had not been so obsessed with tea cups at the time…”

Within a second, Will is out of his chair and kissing Hannibal. One hand cups the back of Hannibal’s head and the other grips his shoulder, holding them in place as Will gives as much as he takes. His mouth is warmer, his presence more solid than Hannibal could have expected from anyone in his world.

Finally, Will pulls back an inch, so that Hannibal can still feel breath on his face. “I love you, Hannibal,” he says.

“Yes. You too. I love you too, Will.” It comes out in a faltering croak over grits and stale coffee. But none of that matters, because Will loves him.

And Hannibal can always tell him again under more romantic conditions.

The tension between them has evaporated once more. Will sits down and resumes his breakfast as if he didn’t just say words that Hannibal had never thought he’d hear so plainly, even if they spent a lifetime together. After a few seconds to collect himself, Hannibal picks up his knife and fork and cuts into the meat, steam curling from the incision and into his nostrils. It’s been quite a while since they’ve had anything more complicated than steel cut oats or eggs.

“How is your mouth feeling?” Hannibal asks.

“Fine,” Will says with a shrug. “Not sure why you’re concerned. Other than the grillades this is mostly mush…as it should be.”

Hannibal smiles placatingly. “All the same, I’d like assurance you are in as little pain as possible before your procedure tomorrow.”

Will looks like he wants to speak, but he chews and swallows first. His table manners have come quite a long way since he and Hannibal met all those years ago.

“I’d like assurance that we’re not going to get caught. You said Chiyoh’s coming with?”

“Chiyoh will send a friend of hers to collect you, but I will remain here,” Hannibal says. He doesn’t relish the idea of letting Will go off by himself, and from the way Will’s head snaps up from his grits, he is not so pleased with it either.

Still, he concedes. “That’s probably for the best. We’d probably be recognized together in town. Who’s the friend?”

“She was introduced to me as Vi,” Hannibal says. “She seems…a little different, but adaptable to adverse situations. And I trust Chiyoh with my life. And yours.”

Will raises an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t respond otherwise. They eat in silence for a while, but Hannibal can feel a shift like a pressure change preceding a weather system. Their dormancy is ending, and soon both of them will grow restless. How that will present itself is unclear to Hannibal.

As much as Hannibal relishes Will’s passion… love …for him, he does not yet know what to do with it. It fills him with a visceral emotion he cannot name. 

He refuses to call it fear.

Chapter 3: You Had to Be a Liar Just to Infiltrate Me

Summary:

Hannibal meets Josiah, Will almost does, and Josiah finds alternative accommodations.

Notes:

This is where the "Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con" comes in (not involving Will or Hannibal). If you want to skip altogether, don't read Josiah's POV sections (the second and fourth sections). If you want more details, click the toggle below.

Details

Josiah makes a quick, yet jarring reference to a past non-consensual blow job that ended in murder. Then, when he's attacking the couple, he takes out some lube and makes it clear he's going to rape one of the victims right before the scene cuts. Later, there's also an implication that the victim choked to death during the rape and Josiah may not have noticed until it was over.

and if you skip that section and want to know the key info you need to take into the next chapter—

Details

Josiah watches Will fishing from the bushes and thinks about killing him, but then decides not to because Will starts talking out loud as if he knows he's there. He then goes and murders a couple so he can stay in their house and eat their food. He hides their bodies in the back of his truck and leaves them overnight instead of disposing of them because he's too tired.

This is "implied/referenced" to be clear, though.

Also, if there's any aspect of the violence you think I should tag more specifically, please give me a heads up. I'm not trying to spring anything on anyone on purpose, but it's possible that I take some level of fictional-murder tolerance for granted in this fandom.

Foreign tire tracks have churned the mud behind the house into parallel trenches. The retreating shadow of the pig that laid them surface in Hannibal’s thoughts. He idly wonders what it intended. Was it a burglar? A would-be squatter? Perhaps it will return and they will see.

(Not if it knows what’s good for it.)

Hannibal leaves the tracks and sets off on his daily constitutional alone. Since Hannibal’s bullet wound recovered enough for him to take exercise, this has been an activity he and Will share. Together, they wind through leaf litter and decomposing logs as their threads of conversation weave their bond tighter than even Hannibal had thought possible. But at the moment, Will is winding flies in the den, having intuited Hannibal’s need for space. 

For all Hannibal applauded Will's vulnerability this morning, his own skin now crawls with the ghost of Will’s caresses. It itches with the remaining traces of sweat and semen that he couldn’t get himself to scrub away beyond a few cursory swipes with a wet cloth. The taste of Will is on his lips from their kisses, kisses that almost pulled Hannibal back upstairs to bed before he politely separated himself.

For a moment, Will’s fingers dug into Hannibal’s waist, his teeth grazed over his bottom lip. But finally, gracefully, he had released him.

The center of Hannibal’s chest shouldn’t ache like this, the way it did when Will paced his office in the days before the scales fell from his eyes, when he glowed with feverish visions. It’s foolish to yearn for Will the way he did during the years they were separated. Since the previous evening, Will had pinned him in place and infiltrated him, clung to him and breathed him in like oxygen. It’s much more than Hannibal ever expected to have, and yet he had dreamed of it for years. Of course he had.

A long branch, thin yet sturdy, lies broken to the side of a recently fallen tree. When Will accompanies Hannibal on his walks, he always homes in on one of these and uses it as a walking staff. Since he is not here to do so, Hannibal picks up the branch and uses it himself. Despite his turmoil, the corners of his mouth tick up at this phantom connection to his love.

Hannibal’s edginess could be a matter of feeling reduced to bestial need, the way he felt in Palermo as he watched Will discover his gift in the Norman Chapel. In fact, the last time Will pursued Hannibal with this much ardor was when he followed Hannibal to Italy. Hannibal had been foolish to believe, for those few minutes in the Uffizi, that Will had decided to run away with him after all. 

But Hannibal has only ever been hunted by Will, never lovingly pursued. Why should he believe now is any different? Why shouldn’t he expect the other shoe to drop?

It had been easy enough to accept passion in the immediate wake of surviving three near-death experiences in a row. It had also been easy to accept that Will would enjoy Hannibal’s gentle overtures during their recovery.

But for as much as Hannibal dreamed of being the focus of Will’s unbridled lust, the truth is more complicated. Fulfilling in ways his imagination could not have supplied, but laden with unexpected baggage too, baggage heavier than Hannibal prefers to carry.

So where does that leave him? A pathetic, spoiled thing unable to enjoy the prize he’s risked his life and freedom to obtain?

His question is interrupted by a rhythmic thudding and plopping of wet earth being turned over. Silently, Hannibal lays the stick on the ground and creeps forward, peering around a copse of trees. 

About fifty yards ahead, a clearing is partly obscured by ash tree trunks patterned like prison bars. A man in a canvas jacket stands in its center. The shovel that he thrusts into the ground has a fresh barcode sticker affixed to its shaft. He steps on it with a dirty work boot, worries it, then turns the dirt over carefully, as if he plans to try to replace it in a way that makes it look like it had never been disturbed in the first place.

Behind him is a truck, its wheel wells and the base of its cab lined with dried mud. It calls to mind the waterlogged tire tracks outside the cabin. Hannibal imagines it to have fishing gear beneath its camper shell. Possibly a rifle.

By the time the man takes a break to stretch his spine, Hannibal has reached the edge of the clearing.

The man is plain, someone who could melt into a crowd like rain soaking into sand. Stringy hair falls over prominent ears, and workers’ hands protrude from a sleeve that he draws across his forehead to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes.

He is only remarkable in that Hannibal recognizes him from the home page of this morning’s edition of Tattle Crime. Their visitor last night, and in this current moment ostensibly, since this is still Hannibal’s property, is Josiah Taylor.

It seems like a good time for Hannibal to let himself be seen. He slips his hand into his pocket, thumb caressing the grip of his hunting knife.

“Hello,” he says.

Josiah’s eyes shift, and when he registers Hannibal, they widen with recognition. He doesn’t seem threatened, but he still has the sense to grip his shovel more tightly.

“Hello.” Josiah has the flat, surly voice of a teenager, though he must be Will’s age or slightly older. His jawline has only the lightest hair growth, but probably more than a day’s worth.

Hannibal gestures toward the truck.

“I suppose it was your headlights that awoke me last night?” A half truth. It was Will’s nightmare that truly awoke him, but it could very well have been Josiah’s headlights, had that not been the case.

“House used to always be empty,” Josiah says, peevishly. “Didn’t think I’d be bugging anybody.”

Inhaling, Hannibal is at last struck by the connection. When he and Will had first arrived at the cabin, swollen with injury, the adrenaline finally draining from their systems and allowing the pain to set in, there had been a distinct smell to the house. There was a particular musk to the linens that should not have been there, although the bed was crisply made. At the time, Hannibal had attributed it to the contractor who had prepared the home for their arrival. Perhaps they had taken some liberties. But now, Hannibal realized the person he hired had not been the culprit.

“You look familiar,” Josiah says.

Hannibal gives him a moment to elaborate, then says, “Do I? Who do I look like?”

“I’d say Hannibal Lecter, but they said that cop pushed him off a cliff like two months ago.”

Interesting way to interpret it.

“A pity that news outlets don’t take the time to check their facts any more.”

Josiah is still, like a computer calculating, only betrayed by the hum of its internal systems. The scent of wet earth combined with long-unlaundered clothing strengthens as Hannibal draws closer. Even now, Josiah stays planted as surely as the saplings surrounding them. 

“They never said they found the body,” he says, lifting his chin, glass-blue eyes staring shamelessly back into Hannibal’s. “In fact it was pretty weird how fast they stopped posting about it. Just that one video then nothing. Almost like they were trying to hide something.”

He looks from Hannibal, down at the hole at his feet, the carefully formed mound sitting at its lip threatening to topple over at any moment.

“I guess you could call this rude, huh?” 

Predator or no, Josiah’s laugh still sounds like the call of a small forest creature. Hannibal grants him the favor of mirroring him; a close-lipped smile that brings the downward tilt of his mouth into a straight line.

“I find myself in a benevolent spirit. It can feel rewarding to assist a fellow traveler, wouldn’t you say, Josiah?”

This is the moment the mask shatters, and not in delight at being recognized by a favorite celebrity. Cold rage slashes across Josiah’s expression.

“How do you know my name?”

“I take it you have not had a chance to check Tattle Crime this morning,” Hannibal says.

With a thud, the shovel falls across the partially dug hole and Josiah finally moves. Unwisely, yet intentionally, he turns his back to Hannibal and stomps halfway across the clearing. Hannibal allows him the hubris as he watches his fists clench. After all, he said he was feeling benevolent.

Josiah’s shoulders heave once, then he says, just loud enough to be heard, “Did they find her?”

“Not yet, but you are suspected enough that someone in your household allowed Freddie Lounds access to your travel records. They lead to some fascinating conclusions.”

“That fucking—” Josiah kicks a clump of humus and it flies an impotent few inches, the leaves too damp to scatter.

“Tell me, what has changed? You knew you were under suspicion, and they were pursuing you for robbery.”

“Robbing a bank isn’t the same at all. They said you like fucking with people. You’ll have to do better than that.”

If Hannibal had poorer self-control, he’d grin. To say something so impolite, and still keep his back turned. Clearly he has quite a lot of faith in his own abilities.

Josiah’s curses are muffled by his hands, whispered and cut short. Sweat marks spread like wings in channels along the back of his shirt. A vision of the Red Dragon, face down, flickers through Hannibal’s mind, and the memory warms him.

“What did you seek if not notoriety?” he finally calls when Josiah takes too long to turn around.

The question works exactly as intended. Josiah rounds on him, his volume rising. “That’s what a lot of people don’t get. But you should. You should know it’s better when you’re getting one over on everybody. But that’s not why—”

His mouth stops producing sound as surely as if Hannibal had interrupted him.

“You’re ashamed,” Hannibal says. Unlikely, but again, provocative.

“No, I just fuckin’ know what people are like, and I’ve got a daughter ,” he says, taking an aggressive step toward Hannibal. “And now that people know …”

Hannibal moves forward to match him, carefully avoiding the abandoned shovel. “Your child will endure a lashing for your every crime, each time someone remembers one. She’ll be your sin-eater, stuffed on stale cakes as you slip into a new life with no repercussions…”

If Josiah feels shame of any kind, it’s not over the pain that his daughter will endure because of him. But the man stalking toward Hannibal is possessed by the indignant fury of a monster seen fully for the first time. Then, suddenly, he freezes, at last seeming to realize exactly upon whom he’s advancing in the thick of his tantrum, and how unwise it would be to continue.

“You were a careful man once, were you not?” Hannibal says.

Tendons flex in the man’s unshaven jaw. “I was. I am. Even if they look into every one of those travel records, they’ll never find any of the bodies.”

“And the girl from Grand Rapids?”

Josiah scowls. It is a wonder he is able to open his mouth wide enough to say, “Maybe.”

Five years ago, Hannibal would judge this loss of control. Now, he knows that everyone is susceptible to at least one type of poison. Hannibal has embraced his own so thoroughly that it now is a part of his blood chemistry. If Will Graham were to be taken from him again, the withdrawals would be unbearable.

( Then why are you letting him out of your sight? )

Hannibal wrenches his focus outward once again. “Did she mean so much to you?” 

Josiah shakes his head as if to evade the stink of the question and spits into the leaves for good measure. Perhaps they’ll have a chance to sit down together and revisit the question after Will leaves for his appointment. Although, given Will’s repulsion at the sight of Ms. Lounds’s article this morning, Hannibal is curious what will happen if he encounters this man. For all he acts like an apex predator, all Hannibal sees in Josiah Taylor is a slithering snake for his mongoose.

And how novel it would be for Hannibal to give Will a gift that he may actually recognize as one.

“I’m afraid we cannot house you tonight,” Hannibal says. He assumes Josiah has read enough Tattle Crime to know who the “we” refers to. “However, there is another home closer to the main road. They may provide suitable accommodations. Once you are done uncovering the treasure you’ve buried on my property, of course.”

Their gazes both flick down toward the half-dug hole at their feet. Hannibal can only assume there are some implements there he would rather not be caught with at a traffic stop.

“Oh yeah? Who are they?”

“A couple that look to be in their late sixties. Not terribly athletic.” 

They look much easier to subdue than Hannibal expects to be at their age. In fact, Hannibal has considered paying them a visit himself, especially after a moment of prolonged eye contact with the woman in the small shopping area he and Will take turns visiting. Her eyelids narrowed to slits as if she were trying to place him somewhere in her long term memory. 

Easier to have someone else do the work for him.

Josiah squints. “Any dogs? Kids?”

Hannibal shakes his head. “Retired empty nesters, from my fleeting observations.”

A cloud passes over Josiah’s eyes as he considers. Hannibal knows how his tongue must itch for the taste of blood. After several years of imprisonment and weeks of convalescence, he’s starting to feel it too.

At last, Hannibal gives Josiah a final once over, then one to the truck. The tailgate obscures the license number, but the camper shell has enough defining characteristics that it shouldn’t matter.

“Good luck, Josiah,” Hannibal says. He has no qualms about turning his back and weaving his way through the tree trunks, scooping up the walking staff as he passes its resting place. He’ll leave it by the side door for Will to find on their next walk.

Will isn’t at home when he returns, and neither is his fishing gear. Whether he also encounters Josiah in the woods is his own business. But even though Hannibal has every confidence that Will can handle himself, he would rather he doesn’t yet.

—

The thing about people out here in the country is they don’t lock up. They really should, maybe even more than city people. Even fucking bears can open doors, and when you’re out here, nobody can hear you scream. These people that Hannibal sent him to—they have a gate, but it’s wide open. Why is that? Why don’t people actually lock their gates? What even is the point of having one? It’s like they’re asking for it. 

Josiah pulls the truck up the gravel driveway and behind a tangle of shrubbery. These people clearly don’t have the juice to do much of their own landscaping, and either not enough money or not enough fucks to give to hire someone else to do it for them.

He likes that they aren’t home yet. He likes catching them out by their cars. People are less on guard getting in and out of their cars—too busy grabbing their stuff or hitting the garage door opener or adjusting the seat. By the time they look up, bam , there’s a gun in their face.

It had only been early afternoon by the time Josiah had dug up his kill kit. He has ones buried all over the country just in case he gets the itch when he’s in the area. Maybe he’d do a job somewhere and would have time to visit a national park. Maybe there’d be a tornado a county over and there’d be so much chaos during the aftermath that Josiah could swoop in and do a little damage of his own.

They say what—like a thousand people have gone missing from national parks in the last twenty years or so? Something like that. Rangers don’t have time to look. They don’t want to. They don’t carry anything but flare guns and bear spray.

Before nightfall, he’d had some time to kill, so to speak, so he’d gone to sit by the creek. He’d brought the gun with him because why not? He didn’t have shit to lose anymore. 

Maybe he should’ve used it on himself, but fuck it, the cat was out of the bag. Allie’s life was ruined either way. Might as well stay alive until the cops tracked him down, and then maybe he’d take a couple out with him.

He’d walked about half a mile from his car and concealed himself in the bushes. It was muddy, but he figured he was a mess anyway and he’d clean up when he finished with that couple.

As a boy, he’d do this for hours—sit perfectly still, teaching himself utter silence. Animals would get close enough to stab if he wanted to. And he’d think about it, yeah, but he wasn’t that stupid. He didn’t want to lose a perfectly good knife in some stupid deer’s bleeding throat for no reason.

But the stalking skills had come in handy with hikers—those college girls in Montana (tied up, choked, thrown down a crevasse when he was done having fun with them). Those two old drunk guys in Washington in their boat (picked off with one bullet each and sunk into the deepest part of the lake). That dumb asshole in his dumbfuck hiking shorts on week twelve of the Appalachian trail (turns out someone can choke to death on a dick).

And then this guy showed up, and Josiah recognized him right away.

It was that cop, Hannibal’s too-old-to-be-a-boytoy. He was all suited up in waders and carrying fishing gear.

The cop would be pretty if it weren’t for the big red scar splitting up half his face. But on the other hand, Josiah never really cared for pretty guys, so the scar makes him better-looking actually. Makes him look like he’d put up a hell of a fight, especially if it’s like Tattle Crime said and he helped Hannibal kill that other freak. 

Honestly, it’s not like he wouldn’t be able to handle it, but Josiah gets annoyed if they put up too much of a fight. It’s more fun when they’re scared stiff.

But he bet even this guy couldn’t fight a gun.

His hand strayed to the one sitting in his lap. Maybe he could just kill him. Hannibal would probably like a better sidekick, one who wasn’t just going to eventually change his mind and turn him in anyway. Hell, Josiah would even fuck him if he asked. Boys, girls, didn’t really matter to him either way.

He picked up the gun, aiming squarely at the center of his back. Just in range. All he’d have to do was squeeze.

“I always thought guns lack intimacy,” the cop suddenly said to the open air, not turning around as he stood knee deep in the middle of the fucking stream.

A chill ran down the back of Josiah’s neck like he was being unzipped. What in the actual fuck. He knew the guy couldn’t hear him, he hadn’t even cocked the gun.

“I don’t know who you are, or what you’re after, but my name is Will”—god dammit he hated knowing their names—“And if you want to talk…” The cop flicked his line back then cast it. It arched overhead before landing in the water. “Happy to talk.”

Talking was the last thing that Josiah wanted to do. Especially not with Will. He hated when they talked. He hated when he knew their names. Killing this guy here, now, wouldn’t be fun at all. 

So he decided not to. He just waited and waited and waited until fucking Will packed it up and went back to Hannibal. To a really fucking nice house and the most comfortable bed Josiah had ever slept in in his whole life.

Man, thinking about this is really helping to get his blood up while he waits for these doomed assholes to get home.

It’s dark when their station wagon finally trundles through the wide open gate, and their headlights illuminate their rusty garage door. Before they have a chance to turn them off, he’s out of the car and at the driver’s side door. Sure enough, the driver doesn’t notice him until he’s opened it. The guy’s keys aren’t even out of the ignition.

“Shut up, get out, and put your hands behind your head,” Josiah says.

The woman shrieks (they don’t always, but there’s a certain type that does and boy does Josiah hate them). The man flaps his hands as if he really thinks it’d be smart to restart the car. Josiah puts the barrel flush against the side of his head.

“Lady, you scream again, and I pull the fucking trigger on your husband. Now, get. Out. ”

They do, whimpering all the while. Josiah’s a little surprised they don’t hang onto their dignity a little harder. Usually rural people are made of stronger stuff. But that’ll just make this go easier.

He takes them straight into the garage. It’s stacked with bullshit they obviously never use. Most garages are. People really don’t know how to take care of their things. They just collect it and nest in it like trash birds. 

There are zip ties in his bag, retrieved from the ground this afternoon, and he’s got them on their wrists and ankles before they even notice the gun is lowered. They’re too busy wincing as he orders them onto their creaky-ass knees.

Wide, blinking, stupid eyes search his face for some point of weakness they can sink their teeth into. Some string they can pull to make him feel sorry for them.

“You must be hungry,” the woman says. “If you want, I’ve got some—”

He doesn’t let her finish before he wraps the duct tape around her mouth, around the back of her head. 

“Just couldn’t shut up like I asked, could you?” he says to her.

Sure, maybe he is hungry, but he doesn’t need her help for that. His whole life there was never enough to eat, so he learned how to take care of it himself, and if that meant stealing or killing or whatever then fine.

Randomly, Hannibal pops into his head, and he wonders if he might ever want to try eating a person. Not today of course, but at some point. Sure. Who gives a shit.

The man, his chin quivering, croaks, “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright, Mar—”

Josiah backhands him across the mouth before his wife’s name can come out of it. The roll of tape, still attached to her head, falls limp at the woman’s shoulder and pulls a big clump of her gray hair out of its ponytail. Tears roll over her wrinkled face and the tape that digs into her cheeks.

The man’s lip is bleeding, and he looks up at Josiah with a scowl.

Oh, so now he’s a big brave man. Well, they’ll just see how fucking brave he is.

Josiah tapes over the husband’s mouth, too, even as he works his jaw in a feeble attempt to keep him from getting a good seal. It’s annoying as fuck. Maybe Josiah should have just capped them right away so he could make some beans or whatever and take a goddamn shower.

If it weren’t for that stupid fucking cop blowing up his spot.

If it weren’t for the fact that he’d blown his whole life to shit.

Okay, yeah he’s pretty worked up. He needs to get some of this stress out of his system.

With a huff, he gives the couple a once-over to tighten their restraints and make sure they can’t reach anything sharp. Then he pulls a tube of KY out of his backpack. The woman’s eyes widen, and she tries to scream. 

Screams sound so stupid muffled like that behind a gag. Can’t be satisfying either. What’s the point? Why do they even bother?

“Jesus Christ, calm down. I’m not going to rape you,” he says.

Her face relaxes for a moment, but only a moment. Because then he grabs the man by the back of the head and pushes him down onto his face so hard he can feel the thud through the soles of his shoes. Blood leaks from the man’s nose onto the cracked concrete floor and he snorts, struggling to breathe as his nasal cavity swells and the tape remains firmly fixed around his mouth. 

Josiah looks back at the woman as he slowly undoes his belt, just so he can witness the new wave of terror washing over her.

“You’re just here to watch,” he says.

—

When Will gets home, all he can think about is getting into the shower. Going out today had made him feel dirtier than usual, but it’s nothing some scalding hot water and two rounds of shampoo can’t fix.

His skin had started tingling as soon as he reached the stream’s bank. He’s not sure why. It was a gorgeous spring day, the water a little higher from rain and snow melt, the sun bouncing off its face. But he’d felt eyes. Unfriendly eyes. Eyes that hated him.

Will isn’t psychic. He’s always been adamant about that, with himself and with everyone else. But out at the stream, something had felt off. He felt like an animal being hunted, and it made his stomach roil. So just to be safe, he turned himself into a person to whoever happened to be listening. 

Maybe his instincts were right. Or maybe he’s been alone with Hannibal for so long he’s starting to sense killers where there aren’t any. Or maybe he’s just projecting, considering what he himself has become.

Will had spotted Hannibal sketching in the living room and only given him a nod in passing. After this morning, better to let Hannibal come to him.

Hannibal had only truly retreated from Will once, and that had only been because he’d believed Will rejected him. Will isn’t even sure you could call it a retreat. In war, they don’t call it a retreat when you leave your enemy bleeding to death on the field. 

But today was the first time he felt Hannibal pull away like a normal person, and Will knew it was because he’d come on too strong. It had happened with girls in college, it had happened with Alana, and now it was happening with Hannibal.

This time, he knows it isn’t because of his intensity. Hannibal has been whispering spells to conjure Will’s intensity for years; he’s had plenty of time to brace for that energy to return to him threefold. No, Hannibal is processing something else. Will just hopes he figures out what he wants and doesn’t avoid Will the rest of the night to keep it concealed.

Will steps out of the shower. The bathroom isn’t too ridiculous; just a little bigger than his and Molly’s had been and with fixtures that aren’t shedding cheap coating like lizard scales. The exposed log walls and river-rock countertops give it the feel of a mid-range ski lodge. 

He takes a fluffy, freshly laundered towel from the rack. It might be a modest house, but Hannibal sure doesn’t skimp on the amenities. Will rubs the towel over his hair, face, and body, then rummages through one of the drawers to retrieve a tube of scar gel. 

When he stands and rubs the fog from the mirror with his palm, Hannibal is standing at his flank.

Will only pauses, not letting the surprise show on his face. Can’t give Hannibal the satisfaction; not that kind, anyway.

“Practicing for your horror movie debut?”

Hannibal moves forward, pressing himself up against Will’s back and bracketing him with his hands on the counter. Warm lips press against Will’s still damp cheek.

“Do you think I need the practice?” Hannibal murmurs as he kisses the top of Will’s ear. Will supposes he doesn’t have to worry too much about him being avoidant tonight.

“I think you’ve had plenty. Did you grease the hinges or something?”

Apparently, Will’s question doesn’t merit a response. Hannibal is much too interested in tracing Will’s exposed scars with his fingertips. Eyes on the mirror, Will takes in how Hannibal curls around him, molding to his shape almost protectively. His bare arms and neck warm Will even more than the shower did.

Will wonders if, through all Hannibal’s machinations, this had always been part of the end game. Had Hannibal always wanted to handle Will like something precious? Even as he cut him and let him burn and broke his heart?

He chuckles as Hannibal rubs his face in Will’s hair like a cat scent-marking. “You’re going to get all wet.”

“What’s to be done about that?”

Will sets the unused gel tube on the counter and turns around. Hands settle on his bare waist, and Hannibal’s erection presses against his through his pants.

“Go take your clothes off and get on the bed,” Will says.

At first, Hannibal doesn’t move a muscle. Will searches his face, and with his next breath, his chest fills with endearment.

“You want me to say please,” Will says softly, smiling. Hannibal’s pupils dilate and Will lifts his chin to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Please, Hannibal. Go lie down and wait for me.”

At the light exhale against his face, Will's heart flutters like a love letter released to the wind.

In the bedroom, Hannibal lies propped up on his elbows, obediently naked. Will hasn’t bothered to bring his towel. There’s nothing he feels like hiding from Hannibal. Hannibal doesn’t look at his scarred body with pity. If anything there’s pride in his face. It should piss Will off, and maybe someday it will. But not tonight.

He reaches the foot of the bed, taking in all of Hannibal—the muscles and sinews, sharp angles and the soft, hidden places where Will hasn’t spent nearly enough time. That attractive, infuriating light of curiosity peeks through the haze of lust surrounding Hannibal. And in the center of it all stands exactly the thing that Will is hungry for, hard and drooling at the base of Hannibal’s stomach.

“Tell me, Will, what is your des—” Hannibal cuts himself off with a gasp as Will takes him into his mouth with no warning. Fingers scrabble at Will’s shoulders, slipping on the droplets still dripping from his hair.

This is the first time Will has done this to Hannibal. It’s definitely not from a lack of desire; his mouth has been generally out of commission and probably will be for a little while again after tomorrow. There’s no way Hannibal hasn’t noticed Will hungrily eyeing his crotch the past couple nights. And last time Hannibal sucked him off, the thing that got Will over the finish line was imagining the way Hannibal would taste.

But the reality is even better than Will had imagined. Savory flavors coat his tongue. The feel of the cock in his mouth is hot and smooth and hard as polished marble in sunlight—a work of art that accepted mortality because it wanted so badly to become flesh.

Under Will’s palms, the muscles of Hannibal’s thighs tremble. Will squeezes, not knowing if he wants to still them or simply absorb their movements into himself. When he does, Hannibal bucks up, and a deep groan resounds through the room.

With a gasp, Will raises his head as his hand takes over working Hannibal’s shaft. “You’re not trying to stroke my ego are you?”

“I assure you, darling Will,” Hannibal says, panting, “you’re the only one who is doing any stroking right now.”

Will can’t help his grin at the stupid pun. “Tsk, tsk, Hannibal. The lowest form of humor.”

“Will…”

Before Hannibal can keep whining, Will sucks him down again, tongue pressed firmly against the bottom of his shaft. His eyes fall shut as he luxuriates in Hannibal’s pulse held inside of him, vital blood vessels just a bite away. 

Maybe when Will comes back from his appointment, he’ll ask Hannibal to fuck him. The thought makes him moan around Hannibal's cock. Hannibal echoes him, but at twice the volume.

Empathy soaks up the indulgent sounds, the desperation thrumming below Hannibal’s skin, the erratic grasping at bedclothes and skin and hair, until Will feels a knot in the pit of his stomach. One hand searches for Hannibal’s, and he twines their fingers together. He’s no expert, but he pays attention, and it’s all he can do to keep from coming himself as he sucks Hannibal through a convulsive orgasm.

It’s unfair, but unsurprising, how delicious it is.

Hannibal, boneless, takes heaving breaths. Will ghosts his lips up his body, cock twitching at the tickle of Hannibal’s chest hair.

“Hannibal, I need you,” Will whispers against his ear.

“When?” Hannibal whispers.

When?

Will huffs. “Signs point to now,” he says. He tucks his face into Hannibal’s neck and scrapes his teeth over his Adam’s apple.

“I mean, when did you feel it for the first time? That need.”

That ache.

“The exact moment?” 

And maybe the question should have been a turn on. Maybe for other people it is, but as Will considers it, his erection starts to flag.

He pulls back to look Hannibal in the eye. “Do you really want to talk about this right now?”

“I do,” Hannibal says. 

Post-orgasm, some of the sharpness has returned to Hannibal’s eyes, but he hasn’t put any distance between them. The opposite, really. He’s refusing to let Will go, both physically and verbally. 

Still, Will rolls onto his side, dick now mostly soft. He faces Hannibal, gaze falling to the imprints of his own teeth from the night before, to the rosette of the bullet wound.

“The first time I truly knew I needed you,” Will says, “is when I woke up in the hospital after that night.” 

Already, Will can feel himself drifting away. There is no other way to talk about it than being disembodied, to hear his own voice as some stranger telling a story of something that happened to someone else. If he were in his body, his throat would go dry, and he wouldn’t be able to answer the question at all. And if he tried to push through, he would weep so hard that everything holding him together would rip at the seams, maybe irreparably

“When it finally sunk in that you had left me alone. I felt some vital part of me had been carved out. And I kept waiting and waiting for the pain to kill me, and then I kept wishing it would.”

He can’t help but look at Hannibal. When something hurts, he always looks at Hannibal. Hannibal looks back with eyes fathomless as sea caves, and Will feels the ghost of a linoleum knife in his gut.

“Never before that?”

The hurt doesn’t stop, it’s almost worse with the extra twist of disappointment in Hannibal’s question, but Will still closes his eyes. In the darkness, he sees a frozen lake, two bright eyes illuminated on the opposite shore, awaiting him.

“Maybe. Maybe there was no moment. Maybe it was just the entire timeline, and I started needing you as soon as I had permission to.”

You’re supposed to be my paddle.

I am.  

A warm weight against his cheek brings Will back to himself, to the bed, to the blurry shape of Hannibal beside him. It takes another burst of salt on his tongue for him to realize his poor vision is caused by tears.

And then he’s on his back, and the weight is all over him, and so are Hannibal’s lips.

“I’m here, Will,” Hannibal whispers. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll always take care of you.”

Will is too overwhelmed to answer, but he kisses back and clutches Hannibal like he’s the only thing keeping him attached to the earth. Vaguely, he observes that Hannibal seems to be feeling much better than he was. And this—Will at his most raw and wrecked and vulnerable—must have been exactly what he wanted.

That probably should piss Will off. Maybe someday it will. But tonight, it doesn’t.

—

Molten cheese from cheapo microwaved enchiladas burns the roof of Josiah’s mouth at the same moment he hears the garage door opening.

Fuck.

He’d left the woman in the garage for a while, just because he didn’t feel like killing her yet. She’d kind of dissociated or whatever after a while and gone quiet once he was done with her husband. He’s not sure what ended up finishing him off. Probably getting choked with the belt, but Josiah hadn’t really been paying attention.

He grabs his gun and sprints to the front door, yanking on the knob. The door opens an inch then suddenly stops. Shit . Fucking chain lock. He undoes it, then races into the front yard, where he spots her loping away like a fucking chicken.

Yeah, yeah, it’s human nature to try to keep living or whatever but come the fuck on.

He could run after her, knock her over the head, drag her back and kill her. But what’s more suspicious out on a country night? Somebody screaming bloody murder or a gunshot?

Josiah’s a good shot. Not that he’d need to be at this range. But before he can squeeze one off, she slips in the gravel and falls hard on her hip in the driveway. Another, stupid, muffled scream. You’d think she’d be out of them by now.

This has been nothing but annoying, so when he finally reaches her, he just gets it over with.

He puts the body in the camper shell, then goes back for the other one and does the same with it (at least the garage door is open now). He covers both of them with a tarp that he dug up this morning and secures it with some bungee cords.

Normally he’d take care of cleanup all in one go. Take them out somewhere and take them apart, then put them somewhere they’d never be found. But fuck if he isn’t tired. And the cheese on those frozen enchiladas has probably cooled down by now.

They’d be okay in the truck. Just one night couldn’t hurt, could it?

Notes:

Woohoo! So, I've got the rest of this all planned out. My (our??) favorite guest star is finally showing up in the next chapter!

I do have an unrelated one shot that I'm working on right now that might come out before I post the next chapter, and I hope you have a chance to take a look at it too when it's done. 😊

(Also please leave a comment if you have the slightest inclination. They really make my day and I love talking with y'all about our favorite show.)

Chapter 4: Eat Motherfuckers Alive Who Cross Us

Summary:

Will and Hannibal try to survive their first few hours of separation, but at least they're distracted.

Also, Villanelle causes a scene at a McDonald's.

Notes:

WE MADE IT TO VILLANELLE, EVERYBODY! And a very happy Mads-and-Hugh-break-the-internet Weekend to you all!

Even the inferior kitchen lighting makes Will look like an angel. Despite the battles he has fought, or more likely because of them, the muscles of his shoulders and back are proud, his curls a halo tickling his slim neck. 

They’d risen before dawn so Will could depart for his appointment with as little fanfare as possible. It’s still dark enough for Hannibal to see Will’s face reflected in the window as he washes his chipped coffee mug. Of all the identical mugs, Will always chooses the one with the difference, the one a hair’s breadth from cracking all together. 

( Beleaguered words from years before offer themselves up: I’m beginning to feel like an old mug. Or perhaps it's a subtle reference to broken tea cups. Will is not above quiet insinuation, stealthy jabs. )

Will glances at their reflection in the window, then back down at his chore.

“I see you, Hannibal,” he says, setting the mug in the drying rack.

Suspicions are cast off, and in the space of a heartbeat, Hannibal stands in front of Will.

“To my endless wonder, yes, you do,” Hannibal says. A hand slips to Will’s waist as he turns to face Hannibal, meeting his lips with gratifying eagerness.

“Seems like such bad timing for me to leave now,” Will says after they separate, breathless from their kiss. “The last two evenings have been…revelatory.”

“Oh? And what have you learned?”

“That there’s more than one way to wreck you.”

If only he knew how many, and how many ways he’d already found. “You seem to have made it your mission to discover every possible way in which to do so.”

Hannibal breathes in harshly when Will cups his jaw and kisses him again. Hedonistic creature that he is, Hannibal melts into it as surely as he let Will inside again last night, after he’d recovered from his confession.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were grateful for the opportunity to come up for air."

“Yes, but I think you do know better,” Hannibal says. Against his own impulses, he tips his chin back out of range of Will’s insistent mouth. “You are not eager for your freedom, then? Rushing away to clear your head of my influence?”

Will stills. “Do you really believe that?”

“You are at liberty to go where you please. You might even come back with the cavalry if you wished, and there would be nothing I could do to stop you,” Hannibal says.

“Hannibal, you arranged this whole thing,” Will says with a weak chuckle, the kind he gives when he realizes there is little worth laughing about.

After too long a silence, Will pulls back and gives Hannibal a piercing look, the kind that inflicts true injury. Every time Will looks at Hannibal this way, Hannibal feels it like a knife.

“That’s what the chaperone is for though, isn’t it? To make sure I don’t betray you?”

“There is never a single reason to create a contingency plan,” Hannibal says. “For instance, if you were alone and something were to happen to you, I would have no way of knowing what.”

Will gives him a lopsided smirk. “But that’s just one reason.”

Clever boy. Hannibal leans in to kiss him again, and when Will turns his head away, it makes Hannibal’s mouth water. Will gasps as Hannibal’s lips smash over his cheek, down his face, the line of his jaw, the hollow of his throat and to the side of his neck. The temporary walls between them are torn to shreds, paper-thin as they were.

“I’d say if you love something let it go—”

“—But that would be awfully trite of you.”

With that, Hannibal’s mouth latches onto the side of Will’s neck, and he sucks Will’s tender skin between his incisors. A full body shudder racks through Will where he’s pressed head to ankle against Hannibal, fingertips digging into his latissimus dorsi. Every twitch of Will’s muscles begs Hannibal to bite down, but he resists.

( By the skin of my teeth. )

When Hannibal finally releases him, Will lets out a grunt, as if he’s dropped a heavy weight. Panting, his arms relax around Hannibal’s back, and Hannibal’s thumb smooths over the pink mark he’s left behind. A matching blush blossoms on Will’s face over a fond smile.

“There you are,” Will whispers, reaching up to brush a lock of hair from over Hannibal’s eyebrow. It immediately falls back.

Something stings Hannibal’s nostrils, makes his eyes start to water. He clears his throat, mouth opening to deliver some clever response. Will looks vexingly unsurprised when none is forthcoming.

“I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, baby,” Will says softly, his words so sweet that Hannibal can’t bear to do anything but sprinkle in a dose of the profane.

“Hopefully I’ll still be able to feel you inside me by then.”

Desire glints in Will’s eyes, and he runs the tip of his tongue over one canine tooth. “If we had time, I’d make it a sure thing.”

Just as Hannibal’s gaze tracks to the clock on the wall, they’re interrupted by the sound of an engine and heavy tires churning up mud outside. Will sighs theatrically as Hannibal steps back.

“Right on cue,” Hannibal says. Will answers with a laugh more satisfying than the sound of any orchestral piece and gives Hannibal one more peck on the lips before mumbling something about forgetting his toothbrush.

The doorbell rings as Will disappears down the hall. With a deep breath, Hannibal composes himself and scoops up a dossier from the kitchen counter before opening the front door.

On the stoop stands a young woman in her early twenties with a pinched mouth and long neck that makes her look like a malevolent swan. The clothing she wears is a foreign woman’s parody of an American’s—the most high end label flannel and denim she could possibly find, brand new lace up work boots, and a trucker cap over pigtail braids.

Behind her stands a white truck with a camper shell, a corona of mud spray dried around the wheel wells.

“Good morning! Vi, I presume?” Hannibal says, putting on his most jovial attitude, despite the fact that the sunlight has not yet broken through the trees.

“Hello, Doctor. Sorry to tell you, but your truck stinks.”

It would, if it carries the cargo Hannibal suspects it does.

“I have added more credit to your account for the inconvenience, and you won’t need to drive it for long.”

It’s then that Will reaches the bottom of the stairs, a flannel shirt buttoned up over his white tee, boots laced under a pair of jeans. The two of them are perfectly coordinated in a way that makes the hair on the back of Hannibal’s neck prickle. Vi gives Will an exaggerated once-over, too exaggerated to indicate physical attraction. That bodes well for everyone. Especially her.

But even if she did show attraction, Chiyoh would be unhappy if Hannibal killed one of her charges. It would not do to make Chiyoh unhappy—not when he needs her more than ever, and not when he owes her their lives.

Vi’s eyes drop to the dossier, and Hannibal hands it to her. “Identification, addresses, and petty cash,” Hannibal says. “Nothing too in depth, as I trust you remember our previous communication.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Vi says in a lower-pitched voice, throwing Hannibal a salute, a childlike mockery of his formality. It is rude, yet playful, so he will let it go. He senses her ferality. Even if she were a pig, she would be a wild boar—resourceful, intelligent, deadly.

He imagines Will can figure out how to handle her.

Hannibal makes an exaggerated look out the front door at the indigo sky. “It’s quite a drive, so it would be best if you were on your way.”

“Let’s go, Billy,” Vi says, punching Will in the shoulder. Hannibal suppresses a grin at the way he flinches away in surprise.

“Tell me we’re not going with Billy.”

“Yesiree,” Vi says, playing at a Southern accent. “Billy-Bob, my honeybug, sweety pie…I don’t know…hotdogs and hamburgers. Whatever. Come on.” She marches toward the truck, but Will stays behind, turning to Hannibal in the doorway.

If only Will didn’t wear consternation as beautifully as delight. Hannibal’s hand lifts to smooth the crease from his brow anyway, and Will leans up to kiss him again, with force, like he’s trying to bruise. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he insists.

It sounds like he’s trying to convince more than Hannibal alone.

“I know,” Hannibal says—all he has time to say before Will is kissing him again, so hard that he’s shoved against the doorjamb, nearly hitting the back of his head.

“Hey!” Vi shouts. “You’re not going to war! It’s just the dentist!”

Before Hannibal can open his mouth, Will says, “Yeah, yeah, she’ll kill me if I bore her. We’ll be fine.” He gives one more exasperated sigh, Vi’s childish mantle slowly drawing itself around him. “I love you, okay?”

“Ti adoro, Will,” Hannibal says, allowing one more, much softer kiss that leaves Will flushed with delight.

He watches, fixing a placid expression on his face as the truck disappears from sight, all the way until he’s shut the door behind him and settled in an armchair in the living room. For the first time in months, he is wholly, completely alone.

The house is quiet in a way it has never been. The absence of Will, the idea of him being further away than the stream or nearby general store fills Hannibal with a sort of dull pain that he hasn’t felt since he was alone in his cell at the BSHCI, unsure if he’d ever see Will again.

Closing his eyes, Hannibal’s thoughts drift back to the night before, to the bedroom—their bedroom. Once his tears had dried, Will had rolled Hannibal onto his front and made love to him with an unhurried tenderness that left him trembling for hours afterward. The effect was so transparent, Will knew better than to demand an explanation. It was a mercy that Hannibal did not deserve, particularly after the honesty he had asked of Will so shortly beforehand.

Instead of turning the tables, as he might have in another timeline, Will led Hannibal downstairs and sat him in this very armchair. He covered Hannibal in a chenille blanket, prepared a simple dinner—one too simple for Hannibal to demand it be eaten at the table—and brought it to him where he sat. After they had gone to bed, Will had pulled Hannibal against his chest and held him until Hannibal’s arm had gone numb.

In addition to being the target of his brutal passion, Hannibal had long dreamed about being subjected to Will’s gentle affection. While Will’s wrath was intoxicating, the specter of his nurturance haunted Hannibal since early in their acquaintanceship.

He’d watched Will’s soft dominance with a tug of jealousy, in the way he ran his palms over his dogs’ fur and nuzzled their necks.

He’d deluded himself into thinking he could experience it vicariously by making Will a father (then killed that dream with Abigail).

He'd been assaulted by intrusive thoughts of Will in bed, arms encircling his wife, when Frederick had mentioned Will's recent marriage in a fit of pique.

Domestic fantasies lingered behind hidden doors in Hannibal’s memory palace during his years imprisoned. He tried to keep those doors closed, but with so much time alone, he couldn’t help but indulge. Of all his indulgences, those were always the ones that left him feeling the emptiest. 

Even if Hannibal were to win Will to himself, he had earned nothing but Will’s savagery. A hand, perhaps a knife, at his throat. His body painted with bruises and cuts. He’d thought that was all he could hope for.

Solid weight on his back, smooth skin pressed to his, Will’s forehead set against Hannibal’s temple, their fingers interlaced as Will moved inside of him and whispered words of love in his ear? Those were images were only trotted out when Hannibal wanted to torture himself.

But that is now his reality. And now that he has felt both Will’s lust-fueled ferocity and his loving command, losing it would be nothing short of catastrophic.

So why is he letting Will out of his sight, even for a day?

It’s better this way, he supposes, to know whether Will would come back if given the opportunity to leave. After all, he did come back for him once; although Hannibal isn’t sure he could take another three years of separation. It’s barely been an hour and already he feels like his heart is drying to a husk.

Natural light spills through the windows at last, evaporating Hannibal’s reverie, sparking gratitude at the passing of time. Normally he loves to eke the value of every hour he spends alive, but today he wants to murder every minute he’s separated from Will. If he weren’t alone, a fugitive who needed to keep his wits about him, he would consider using tranquilizers on himself.

There are three sharp knocks at the door, and Hannibal remembers the more immediate reason that drugging himself would be unwise. He stands, straightening his clothing, and makes his way to the front door for the second time today.

Standing on the stoop, brimming with exhausted rage, is Josiah Taylor.

—

They’d switched from the truck to a gray Dodge Charger within about half an hour, which was a relief. The truck had smelled very obviously like fresh corpses. Will wasn’t really sure how to broach the topic, so he’d checked the backseat and for a way to edge into it.

“You a hunter?” he’d asked when he spotted a rifle case. Maybe it was an open-ended enough question to find out whether this was a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of job for her.

“Do you really think this truck is mine? Get real,” Vi had said. That had, of course, brought up more questions that it had answered, but the fact that it was cold enough this morning that Will had put gloves and a hat on was definitely comforting.

They’d left the truck in a turnout on a two-lane road, hiking about a quarter mile down a public trail in silence until they reached this much faster, much sexier muscle car.

And once the sun was well to the tree line, Will had looked over at Vi and said, “How fast do you think this thing can go?”

The corner of her mouth twitched, and without looking at him, she’d mashed her foot on the gas pedal. 

After that, she started to warm up to him.

Eventually, Vi is forced to slow down behind a semi-truck, and both of them grumble wordlessly. There’s only so many traffic laws they can break at this time of day without risking getting pulled over. Will is grateful he doesn’t have to mention it first.

“So, am I supposed to call you Vi in public or is that your actual name?”

“It’s short for Villanelle,” she says.

“Villanelle. That’s really pretty.”

From the way she smiles at him, glittering and manic, he knows he’s broken through some wall most people don’t. “I know, right? I picked it myself.”

“It’s a kind of poem, isn’t it?” Will knows it is, of course. Even if Hannibal wasn't constantly reading and quoting poetry around him, Will at least knows his Dylan Thomas.

“That’s not where I got it from.” She shrugs, then slips into that abomination of a Southern accent again. “But out there you can call me Maggie May.”

“Southerners stick out like sore thumbs up here, you know. You’ll bring more attention to us.”

“Yeah, I know…” she says, like he’s the biggest dork to ever fog a mirror. “It says Mary in the file. But you’re still Billy.”

Will had been Billy in kindergarten; he can deal with it for another twenty-four hours. “Fine.”

Around noon, he convinces her to stop at a McDonald’s a little off the highway. 

“You know they’ve got these, like, everywhere , right?” Villanelle groans as she pulls into the parking lot.

“So what?” Will says. “I haven’t had fast food in ages.”

“Does your old man forbid it?”

The answer is yes, he probably would, but it isn’t as if Will has had the opportunity or desire to test Hannibal’s limits. “Living in the middle of the woods kind of gets in the way,” he deflects, reaching for the door handle.

“Oh! Wait!” She reaches into the back seat for the portfolio Hannibal gave her. She takes a small clamshell box out of it and opens it to reveal a gold wedding band. “Will you marry me, Billy Bob?”

The surprise tosses Will over an imaginary cliff, with a whooshing in his ears to match. The cartilage in Will’s rib cage turns to a solid mass, locking together, which doesn’t make sense at all because she’s not really asking him to marry her. But firstly, his previous marriage didn’t end too well, and secondly, this ring, whether it’s a cover or not, is from Hannibal .

Then his more practical side alerts him to another unpleasant fact: that he’ll have to take his gloves off to wear the ring. Well, he reasons, it was going to have to happen at some point. Breath still locked inside his lungs, he plucks at each leather-covered finger.

It’s not hard to slip into Vi’s headspace—she wears all of her feelings on her face in a way that an agent of her type probably shouldn’t. But then, the state of Will’s ring finger is shocking, and she wasn’t hired to hide her feelings from him (at least Will doesn’t think she was). It’s covered in a layer of scar tissue, with no fingernail to speak of to cover a still-tender, discolored nail bed. The joint is bent at an angle that’ll likely never straighten.

“Did he do that to you?”

“Not on purpose,” Will says. Hannibal had said it was caught in a cluster of underwater stones; saving him had incurred the damage. “I was unconscious, though, so I can’t be sure.”

“Maybe you should keep that on actually,” she says, nodding toward the single glove Will still holds in his opposite hand.

Will looks at the ring for another moment. Then he nods.

“If he wants me to wear a ring, he can put it on me himself,” Will decides as he puts the glove back on.

Vi groans, clapping the box shut. “Oh brother .” Without another word, she jams it back into the portfolio and shoves the whole thing under the seat. She’s already halfway up the walk toward the restaurant before Will is out the door, ears burning. He’d meant to keep the thought inside, but having had no one but Hannibal to talk to for so long had made him a little too honest.

That can’t be a good sign.

Inside, small children run up and down the aisles shouting and throw food wrappers and small toys. Vi’s eyes dart around as if she’s surrounded by loose hamsters. She grimaces, elbows tucked into her sides like she’s trying to protect her vital organs.

“What, is McDonald’s not like this everywhere ?”

“Shut up or I’ll mess up your other fingers,” she mutters. Will snickers.

After they sit down with their Big Macs and French fries, and after all that protesting, Villanelle digs in like it’s her first meal in a week—elbows on the table, small jaw unhinging like a python’s to take in half the burger at once. It’s all gone within less than two minutes, then she starts in on the fries. He thinks about ribbing her about it, then he thinks about her accent and what her childhood may have been like, then he thinks about what Hannibal would say.

“I think the McFlurry machine was actually working if you want dessert,” Will decides to say instead. “I could go for some Reese’s pieces.”

“I’m supposed to get you ice cream after your appointment because that’s all you’ll be able to eat.”

“You got a special ice cream allotment?”

She licks salt crystals off the tips of each of her long fingers. “That’s exactly what he called it actually. Except he said sorbeeeeet. You two are huge nerds.”

There’s no arguing with that.

It strikes Will that, for all he’s been dwelling in what most would think of as the “real world” this morning, he hasn’t thought much about Molly or the last time he was in a McDonald’s. Was it after some soccer thing of Wally’s? Or on the way home from visiting Molly’s sister who never made enough food for guests? Was he that bad of a husband that everything about that part of his life had been forgotten that easily? Or had he been so unhappy that he’d spent the entire time dissociated?

The fries taste like salted shoe leather. He realizes now that they had tasted the same way back then, too. This was no homecoming. And that was just fine.

Villanelle slurping the last of her soda yanks him back into the moment.

“So how did you lose your teeth?”

“Chiyoh didn’t tell you?”

“Chiyoh doesn’t talk much,” Villanelle says. “I only really talked to your sugar daddy.”

“He’s not—” Will bites his lip. The less he says about Hannibal in public the better. “This is probably a car conversation.”

“Why? Everyone here’s lost lots of teeth,” Villanelle says, gesturing widely and speaking more loudly than would be considered polite. A little cruel of her, a little classist, but Will lives with Hannibal Lecter, so that part is nothing he isn’t used to.

“Yeah, well, not for the same reasons,” Will says. “Mine was a little bit more…sudden and forceful.”

“Uh huh…” Villanelle says. There’s a light in her eyes that’s ravenous for gossip; very clerk-at-the-corner-store or bored retiree. At least the rest of the road trip won’t be boring. He has a feeling that the surface level of his and Hannibal’s story will probably be dramatic enough to keep her entertained.

And maybe she’d ask uncomfortable questions, but she wouldn’t delve deep into his motivations—ask him to pluck moments from their timeline and hold them up to the light. There’d be no talk of moments that crystalize what he and Hannibal mean to one another and the prisms they’ve sculpted each other into.

Tender gums sting with salt where his molars used to be as Will pokes at them with the tip of his tongue. He’s doing okay chewing on one side of his mouth. Does he really need to go to this appointment? Maybe he could ask Villanelle if they could turn around and go back…

“That girl is looking at us,” Villanelle says, voice flat and dangerous. 

Will halfway expects to look up and see her in a staring contest with a five year old, but instead he glances back and locks eyes with a gawky young woman with a bob haircut in a company polo shirt. She’s half-concealed by the condiment table, wiping the same circle on the counter unconvincingly.

She can’t place him, but she recognizes him and knows he’s a fugitive. And, he realizes with a cold wash of dread, she might not be the only one. There are questioning looks floating in his direction from all sides of the restaurant, including some hushed whispers from a table of teen girls in the corner who can plainly see his face. A couple camera phone lenses raise stealthily across the room like snail eye stalks.

Will turns as casually as he can to face Villanelle. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll wrap it up here and get back on the—”

“Hey! You looking at my man?” Villanelle shouts in a shockingly good non-regional accent, squaring her shoulders and lowering her head at the McDonald’s worker as if she’s ready to charge. The camera’s pan swiftly from Will to Villanelle.

“Don’t…” he whispers. The air tightens around them. 

No matter how hard he keeps his eyes locked on Villanelle’s face, she refuses to look back at him, and right now, that’s probably for the best. It would look too choreographed. He drops his eyes to the table, tries to look chastened, like a stereotype of a weak guy used to his woman overreacting.

“Close your mouth. You look like a fish,” Villanelle says to the terrified girl. Then she stands. “Come on, baby, let's go. Leave the trash for the trash.”

Following her lead, like the good, whipped little husband he’s playing, he leaves the food wrappers where they are. It’s not a murder scene. It’s not even a crime scene. No beat cop is going to take it in evidence no matter how hard the true crime fans want them to. 

As he follows Villanelle, Will tries to casually cover the scarring wound on his face by rubbing the back of his neck in mock-embarrassment. He doesn’t think anyone would be able to identify his scar from that video posted on TattleCrime, but he’d like to keep it that way. 

But then, it’s probably too late.

However, Villanelle is doing a great job keeping all eyes on her when she smacks a metal canister full of ketchup packets onto the floor at the trembling worker’s feet. The employees behind the counter burst into derisive laughter. And that, Will has to admit, is a pretty good sign. Even if someone in there does call the cops, they won’t put up a united front, and by then he and Villanelle will be long gone.

Will has to scurry to keep up with her as she books it out the door and drops into the front seat of the Dodge. He should probably be less amused, should probably be more afraid of getting caught, but Villanelle isn’t afraid. Villanelle thinks that was hilarious, and Will thinks that even someone without an empathy disorder would find that catching.

“Guess Altoona isn’t the best place for McDonald’s if you’re wanted by the FBI,” he says, buckling his seatbelt. 

“Uh, yeah, ya think?” Villanelle says. “Let’s get out of here.” 

They peel out of the parking lot and back onto the highway.

–

Before Josiah had embarrassed himself with too much babbling, Hannibal directed him to the downstairs bathroom to get cleaned up. The water judders out of the shower head, cutting through a layer of dust gathered on the bathtub floor.

So he's not good enough to use the master bathroom. Fine. Whatever. He gets that showing up uninvited like this is rude, and he brings his hunting knife into the shower with him, just in case. But this is bad. Really fucking bad. And this time, he can’t deal with it by himself.

Well "can’t" is a strong word. He could if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. And this whole thing was Hannibal’s stupid idea anyway.

After he’s dried off and dressed, he snags a mug from the drying rack in Hannibal’s sink and pours himself the dregs of a coffee pot resting on the counter. There’s a chip in the mug and the coffee is lukewarm, but fuck him if he’s going to complain about it. When he sits down, Hannibal’s eyes rest a beat longer on the mug than Josiah would expect, but his expression doesn’t change.

“It doesn’t fucking make sense,” Josiah says, once he’s settled into his chair. “I locked up the truck cab and the back. It wasn’t an easy thing to break into. And it was so fucking early in the morning when I got up to dump them. Every time I give myself the fucking tiniest of breaks lately something like this happens.”

Hannibal doesn’t answer right away, and for the first time, Josiah takes a good look at him. Bags hang under his eyes, almost like he’s had as shitty a sleep as Josiah did. His hair is loose, the collar of his shirt slightly undone and pulled crooked. When Hannibal notices Josiah noticing, he gives a deferential nod.

“I understand the feeling. I fear some of this may inadvertently be my fault.” 

Sulfur tickles Josiah’s nose, the strike of a match igniting the fire under his warming anger. “What do you mean?” 

“Will Graham was gone early this morning with no trace. At first I held some hope that he was only fishing, but then I found his equipment in the shed, and our truck was still parked nearby, and I feared the worst.”

Josiah’s fist tightens around the mug handle, and he wishes the liquid inside were as boiling hot as he feels his own insides getting. He’d throw it in this fucker’s face. Hannibal’s eyeline drops to the mug again, poised, waiting. Maybe it’s a fight Josiah could win, but he’s been on an unlucky streak and this is Hannibal’s home turf.

Sucking in air through his nostrils, he lets his hand relax and flatten onto the table. Hannibal’s shoulders visibly drop.

“You can’t trust anybody, man,” Josiah shakes his head. “Didn’t he put you in prison in the first place?”

“That is what the papers would have you believe,” Hannibal says. “The truth is I turned myself in.

“What? Why?”

Looking exhausted, and like he’d aged ten years since yesterday, Hannibal says, “I was curious what would happen.”

“Was it worth it?”

Hannibal doesn’t answer. So that’s probably a no. 

“I don’t get it, was”—and this is another rude question but fuck it. If he’s rude, he’s been rude already, and this motherfucker’s boyfriend stole his goddamn truck — “was the sex really that good?”

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth twitches. That’s gotta be a yes. So the guy is human. That’s kind of disappointing actually.

“I should’ve killed him yesterday when I had the chance,” Josiah says, then watches closely for Hannibal’s reaction. Hannibal gives him nothing. He’s suspiciously deliberate about it, too. Josiah pokes a little harder. “Saw him out by the river. I know he couldn’t see me but he was talking like he knew I was there. It was weird. Had my gun pointed at him and everything and he just starts in like we were in the middle of a conversation.”

Hannibal shakes his head. “He would not call himself one, but Will Graham is a mystic. He has a hypnotic quality that has been the downfall of many dangerous men.”

Oh, fuck that.

“That’s bullshit. You just think he’s hot.”

“And yet you showed him mercy.”

“Maybe I just didn’t want to piss you off.”

Hannibal actually smiles this time. “Fair enough.” 

Ego. That’s the key. Stroke his ego. Josiah can do that.

“Everybody’s got a soft spot, I guess. But then look what happens when I do one thing right,” and he’s sure to throw big scare quotes around right . “This is why I don’t believe in God.” 

Well, it’s one of the reasons—other than the fact that God was shoved down his throat his entire life and he never got anything out of it other than an empty stomach and a bunch of stupid rules that never did him any good. It’s the reason he spent his childhood in stupid homesteader cults and never listened to Linkin Park until he joined the goddamn army.

“After all this time, you’d think I’d have built up some credit for doing everything right and could catch a break here and there.”

“You’re making the assumption that God uses a predictable reward system for human beings rather than operating at his own pleasure,” Hannibal says. “Perhaps what God enjoys most is chaos. Perhaps he likes watching us try to puzzle our way out of troublesome situations such as these. In a way, it could be considered an honor. The saints would certainly consider it so.”

“Are you saying you’re a saint?” This guy can’t be serious. Can he? Josiah is trying to stroke his ego. He knows it’s there. It's covered in enormous flashing lights but still it’s harder to find than the goddamn clit.

Hannibal grins. “No.”

All Josiah can think of is the fucking Big Bad Wolf when this guy smiles. What sharp teeth he has. 

That’s okay. Josiah’s teeth are pretty sharp too.

“Have you finished your coffee?” Hannibal asks, his back straightening, his fur flattening to the skin of a perfect host as if nothing had changed at all.

“Sure, thanks,” Josiah says. “But I hope you’re ready for all that saintly fucking chaos, because it’s gonna affect you too. If they left that truck anywhere nearby there’s bound to be a search party at the door within a couple days.”

He hands the empty mug to Hannibal as Hannibal stands. “Surely it can wait,” he says. “You may use the guest room tonight. I would love to have you for dinner.”

Josiah laughs out loud, and Hannibal gives a close-lipped smile, disappearing into the kitchen behind him. He thinks nothing of the fact that he doesn’t hear the sink running—just the sound of the back door opening and closing again. He’s too busy wondering who they might be eating tonight.

Notes:

These drama queens, I swear.

Chapter 5: Somebody, Tell Me How I Got Here

Summary:

Freddie causes a power outage.

Josiah gives Hannibal a pep talk.

Will and Villanelle eat ice cream and talk about love.

Jack feeds some ducks.

Notes:

Hallooooooo! Not much violence this chapter (mostly just references to past violence)—enjoy.

The sky outside Freddie Lounds’s motel is a flat blue-gray, and she isn’t sure if it’s from smog or the fogged bathroom window. Along with the FBI team, she lost the trail of Josiah Taylor somewhere outside Cleveland.

She has been on the road for about three days, and so far this is the worst motel of the run. Flip-flops-in-the-shower bad. When she opened the microwave, there’d been a paper plate covered in gluey buttered noodles that looked like someone had been trying to rediscover penicillin.

Grand Rapids had actually been lovely, if a little chilly. She’d thought about sticking around to watch them drag the lakes for that poor young woman’s body, but the hunt is always so much more fascinating. Freddie loves a good perp walk—as long as she isn’t the one in handcuffs.

The past six weeks have been a blur. In some ways, it feels like dues paid with interest. In others it’s been an obstacle course that’s left her muddy, her clothes ripped and knees skinned.

She runs mousse through her curls, glancing at her phone where it lies face-up on the counter next to her spilled makeup bag. It’s still a frustratingly black mirror.

Fortunately, she only spent about forty-eight hours locked up over the whole misunderstanding with Luca Barbieri/Thomas Demsky, but after they let her out, they’d made her sign an NDA. And this time, she’d actually honored it. The line is that Luca was “found dead” and the story is about the man himself, not his murder.

Because who else could have done it other than Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham? Or both? And god knows the FBI doesn’t want the public to know those two had survived the fall.

And the fact that she can’t say anything about that is driving her absolutely crazy. Sure, she still has the video. The Red Dragon story is a great end point, a huge question mark with an open space just begging for a sequel in the event that she does have the space to talk about it. Maybe she can push the envelope and question the timing of Demsky’s death and its closeness to the crime scene (although that would be a pretty big risk, especially now that Jack Crawford is on leave—possibly permanently).

But she knows it had to be one of them. She has no proof. Jack hadn’t actually said a word to her about it when she’d been released, but his heavy silence had said it all.

Will had survived Hannibal Lecter. Why wouldn’t it work the other way around?

For all her certainty about what Will Graham is, sometimes their whole situation keeps her up at night. Had he made a last minute decision or had throwing them off the cliff been the plan all along? If they are alive now, maybe the answers are still knowable.

Cringing with futile hope, Freddie pulls the hair dryer from the bathroom wall and stabs the on button with her index finger. The overhead light and fan both sputter out, leaving the room illuminated only by muddy natural light. She sighs.

Freddie knows people think all she cares about is money. Maybe if they could see this shitty motel room, they’d think twice. She wouldn’t be living like this if she didn’t care about the truth.

Graham and Lecter have to be out there somewhere, and dammit, she wants to be there as soon as they pop up.

But in the meantime, she is working on the book with the information she has and is soldiering on with new cases. The new investigators don’t know yet to keep her away from people like Josiah Taylor’s girlfriend. She’s back to conning her way into crime scenes, just like old times.

Right on cue, her cell lights up on the bathroom counter, a text from the agent currently simping for her. There’s always one. This time he’s younger, with a puppyish face and, unfortunately, equally as slobbery.

Found his truck out in Penn. Drop you a pin soon.

As long as her phone is in her hand, Freddie checks the Tattle Crime tip box. One subject line catches her eye, which has a video clip attached. She opens it up, waiting what seems like an eternity for it to load before finally disconnecting from the terrible wifi with a growl and using up precious data to see it more quickly.

“Oh my god,” she says. Her words echo in the tiny bathroom. 

She rushes to her laptop. Pennsylvania will have to wait.

—-

Maybe he got a few hours of sleep on that old couple’s lumpy mattress last night, but Josiah naps the afternoon away a lot better in Hannibal’s downstairs guestroom. This one has a fly tying station in the corner with a workshop stool in front of it. There’s a pegboard covered in spools of thread every color of the rainbow. A row of jars hold bits of bone and feather and pine needle.

Obviously Hannibal set it up to keep Will busy. To keep him around or from running away or whatever. Clearly it didn’t work. Pathetic. But Josiah only has time to feel smug for a couple minutes after he crashes onto the pillow.

When Josiah cracks his neck and stumbles out of the bedroom, he’s met with the smell of roasted meat. A little thrill stabs the center of his chest as he wonders who it belongs to. The kitchen is a few steps from where he’d been sleeping, and Hannibal is facing the doorway as he walks in, leaning against the counter and glaring at his iPad.

“Are you well rested?” Hannibal says, dragging his eyes away from the screen.

“Yeah. Any news?”

Wordlessly, Hannibal hands the iPad to Josiah. It’s no surprise to see Tattle Crime pulled up, but it is a little surprising to see the headline.

Will Graham Spotted in Altoona Altercation

Has the immortal mental case risen from his watery grave and into the arms of a new psychopath?

One Tattle Crime reader filmed Will Graham trading his fight with the Tooth Fairy for a fight against tooth decay while slurping a McDonald’s soda in small-town Pennsylvania. 

In two shocking twists of the knife, not only has Jack Crawford’s rogue bloodhound survived his plunge into the Atlantic, he has apparently traded murder husband Hannibal Lecter for a much younger mystery woman.

Given the coma that Lecter put Graham in nearly four years ago, one wonders whether this young blonde’s attitude would be enough to protect her from Lecter’s vengeance (if he managed to also survive the fall—which, readers, is a pretty big “if”).

So, are we meant to believe in a new, meek Will Graham, whipped into submission after ripping a multiple murderer to shreds? 

There are a few explanations for this bizarre behavior, one of the most likely being head trauma, maybe bringing on a bout of amnesia. But, I think my readers are savvier than that. And, I think, so is Mr. Graham.

The article is interrupted there by a video that Josiah taps to play. He watches as a young woman with wide, crazy eyes makes a big show of knocking over an aluminum container of ketchup packets, all the while staring down a terrified McDonald’s employee.

Josiah knows sleight of hand when he sees it. He keeps his eyes on Will, who is staring at the floor, doing his best to cover his face with his gloved hand. Will’s got some kind of game going on, and Josiah isn’t sure what it is. The thing is, he can’t be sure whether Hannibal knows what it is either, and Hannibal isn’t giving away shit.

“Who’s the bimbo?” Josiah says.

“That is something I am also keen to find out,” Hannibal says. The edge to his voice is sharp as Josiah’s hunting knife. “But I’m afraid, as predicted, the bad news isn’t mine alone.”

Josiah’s eyes snap up from the screen to Hannibal, who gestures for him to look back down again. Beneath the video and article about Will is a picture of Josiah’s missing truck, parked off the side of the highway. Will didn’t even bother ditching it on a side road. Just in a fucking turnoff, like he wanted it to be found.

He can barely take in all the writer’s little clever wordplay and judgmental bullshit about him. The cops found the bodies wrapped up in tarps. They found Josiah’s fingerprints and hair and his fishing gear and a couple of his guns and a bunch of his other stuff. There was no way to deny it was his.

And it’s not like he’d used a condom with that guy last night.

So now there are bodies. They don’t even need to find the girl in Grand Rapids to know for sure now. No plausible deniability. He’s fucked. Because Will had stolen his truck this morning.

What a wild goddamn coincidence. 

“He knew I was out there. Do you think he knew he’d be setting me up?”

Hannibal sighs. “Perhaps I flatter myself to think that he left our truck as a courtesy to me, but perhaps he took your truck believing the couple merely owned two vehicles.”

Yeah. Because I’m sure he doesn’t know what a fucking corpse smells like.

Josiah’s vision clouds. A voice inside him is screaming, Hannibal did this, you dipshit. He’s playing you. They’re both playing you. That chick is probably playing you, too.

But that’s the same voice that has been responsible for Josiah’s shitty decisions for the last couple weeks. And Josiah has been following Hannibal Lecter’s story close enough for the last four years to know that he’s been a total idiot where this Will guy is concerned. 

Plus he still looks like shit right now. Yeah, he’s put on a nice white button up shirt or whatever, but it’s wrinkly and the top two buttons are undone, with no undershirt. His hair is still hanging in his face and his eyes are still as puffy as they were this morning.

But what’s going to happen to Josiah if he gets caught out because of these stupid sons of bitches and their drama? 

He’ll get stuck eating all that garbage prison food and his hands and his face will puff up. He won’t get to listen to his music. He’ll be bored all day long and everyone will either be asking him annoying questions or just leaving him there with other fuckwits who will either try to fuck him or shank him. What a miserable existence. How could Hannibal stand it?

Josiah blinks hard, even though he can’t see the image in his head, even if it’s just a feeling he gets in his fingers and up the back of his neck. When he blinks the feeling is pressed out into a meaningless goo.

When he opens his eyes, Hannibal is looking at him, his face that had previously looked pained is now subdued. Josiah isn’t sure if it’s because he’s trying to keep it together or what, but he should probably just try and talk about something else for now. Maybe try to make the guy like him a little better because it’s kind of hard to tell where he stands with him.

Luckily, he turns away, opening the oven and taking out a big tray of really fucking good-smelling meat. Josiah’s stomach growls louder than the squeak and clank of the oven door, but he couldn’t give less of a shit.

“Can I help with anything?”

“You could open the wine and bring it to the table,” Hannibal says, with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “The meat needs a moment to sit, then it will be carved and plated.”

The opener is already next to the bottle and a couple fancy glasses. Josiah does what Hannibal says.

The dining room looks way different than it did when he got there this morning. There’s some kind of plaid table cloth, but it’s really fine stitching, like it’s plaid that’s trying to be classy or something. There’s a doe skull on the table, bracketed by a couple smaller ones (rabbits maybe?). They’re nestled in bare branches and pine cones, one of them seeming to look straight up at Josiah with its hollow eye sockets.

Eventually, Hannibal appears and sets the steaming plate of meat in the bed of branches. Beside it is a plate of asparagus in some kind of vinaigrette sauce and potatoes. It’s kind of simple for all Josiah has read about Hannibal’s dinners, but he guesses there’s not a lot of custom grocery stores around here or whatever.

“So, who are we eating?” Josiah says, already digging in as Hannibal takes his seat.

Hannibal eyes Josiah as he picks up his knife and fork. “This is simply roast beef. Sadly, we”— Hannibal clears his throat—“I haven’t had the opportunity to hunt since arriving here.”

“Too bad,” Josiah says. “Never tried long pig. Thought it’d be fun.”

“Normally I have more time to prepare. And more notice.”

A warning flares inside Josiah’s brain again, and he sits up a little straighter, squares his shoulders. He makes sure to chew and swallow before he says, “Guess I owe you an apology for the inconvenience.”

Hannibal nods like he’s some kind of royalty. But then, if Josiah remembers right, he is actually a count, isn’t he? Like that vampire from the puppet show his kid used to watch on TV except not cutesy.

“I don’t need to worry about being breakfast, do I?” Josiah might as well ask. It’s not like they’re pretending they don’t know what the other is about.

“Hospitality is a long-abandoned societal value that I find worthy of observance, as long as both host and guest maintain mutual respect. Ptolomea is reserved for those who betray their guests,” Hannibal says.

“What’s that?” 

“In Dante’s concept of Hell, it’s the final stop. The ninth circle,” Hannibal says.

Right. All that fancy literature stuff. That’s going to be hard to keep up with, but hopefully not a dealbreaker. 

“Didn’t really go to school, and that’s not the hell they taught us about in church.”

Hannibal cocks his head like he’s some kind of tropical bird. “You certainly have strong feelings about your religious upbringing. Were you very active in the church as a child, Josiah?”

“My parents couldn’t think for themselves, so they made everything we did religious. If we weren’t living on some compound, we were freezing in a five hundred square foot cabin with no electricity or plumbing out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere with only talk radio for entertainment,”Josiah says.

Hannibal blinks slowly. Probably because Josiah said a bad word at the dinner table. It’s getting harder and harder to believe that this princess is one of the most dangerous murderers who ever lived, or that he was having freaky sex with the cop. He comes off like such a prude.

“And were you ever a believer?”

Josiah shrugged. “I was just trying to survive, you know? Oldest kid. Mom was a space case, and dad left a lot to go make money at building sites so I had to watch the kids and hunt. We didn’t have books or any of that other than the Bible and random other stuff that’s no good to anybody.”

Other stuff being pamphlets, like the ones they used to pass around at gun shows back when he was a kid, that you can only really torrent anymore. Josiah isn’t into any of that shit. Obviously he’s not a good person, but he doesn’t think he’s better than anybody because he’s white. He’s better because he’s smarter and stronger and merciless in a way that normal people aren’t.

“I imagine you became resentful of God due to your parents’ neglect of your physical needs.”

He’s about to snap back at Hannibal, but instead he takes a minute to put a bite of meat into his mouth. Fatty texture and savory juices coat his tongue, and he feels the electrical current in his blood dial down a notch or two.

“It’s not even that,” he says. “The whole thing is just a stupid idea. Why would I believe in some dumb sky daddy running the universe? People pray for their lives all the time when I get my hands on them, and that’s never, ever stopped me.”

“And yet you believe you are suffering cosmic retribution now, as your life falls apart,” Hannibal says. “Tell me Josiah, was it your puritanical upbringing that caused you to sabotage your life in Grand Rapids? Did you, perhaps, believe that your sins made you unworthy of the successful business and life you had built with your partner and child?”

Ah, this fuckery again. Well, if this snooty asshole wants to play ball, Josiah doesn’t need a psychology degree to pick up a bat.

“What about you? I watched your trial and read that shitty book about you, but I saw through the bullshit. You lost everything because you were obsessed with Will Graham. That’s self-sabotage.”

Hannibal’s fork stops halfway to his mouth, but only for a moment, before it continues his path. He takes a bite, all self-possessed as if Josiah hadn’t hit a nerve.

“Perhaps,” he says.

“Come on,” Josiah lowers his fork and knife, but keeps both gripped hard in his hands, just in case. “You turned yourself in because you were curious what would happen ? Why else would you do that if you weren’t doing it for attention. And it’s not like you wanted all these other fuckers’ attention. Why would you give a shit about them? You just wanted his attention.” 

Now, Hannibal is looking up from his plate as Josiah searches his face for clues. Yeah, maybe he should’ve been more careful, but he’s kind of committed to this he-doesn’t-deserve-you thing now. And honestly, the guy looks kind of amused, so it can’t be the worst angle. It’s enough to make Josiah keep going.

“And sure, you had it for a little while, and now he’s fucked you over again—and for what? A little pussy? When he had the most famous predator in the world at his side? What a loser. You’re better than that.”

Setting down his fork, Hannibal reaches for his wine glass, and waves it under his nose before taking a sip. “I appreciate the pep talk,” he says as he sets it back down, “although your delivery could have been more tactful.”

“Like I said—born and raised a hick.”

“You and Will have that in common,” Hannibal says, kind of wistful. It makes the hair on the back of Josiah’s arms stand up.

Josiah has a drink of his own wine. It’s not usually the kind of thing he likes, but this one is actually really good. It tastes like berries but not too syrupy, with an aftertaste that kind of reminds him of whiskey. For a while they eat in silence, Hannibal staring into the middle distance. Maybe he’s plotting something. Hopefully it’s Will’s take-down and not Josiah’s, but Josiah thinks maybe a nudge would be a good idea.

“Maybe we should track them down,” Josiah offers. “You can take care of him once and for all. Give him what’s been coming to him.”

Hannibal sniffs. “Believe me, I have tried more than once before.”

The only thing keeping Josiah from being completely disgusted by Hannibal right now is how pleased he is to know he’s the superior monster in this room. Never in his life, including with the girl in Grand Rapids, has he ever let himself be brought so low by another person. He’s never let himself get so far gone for anyone. If God isn’t real, love certainly isn’t either.

“See, this is where being a romantic gets you,” Josiah says. He drains his glass, and Hannibal looks grim as he refills.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about my nature,” Hannibal says. “Regardless, we will need to quickly make arrangements to leave the area, for both of our sakes.”

He stands, as does Josiah, and they clear the table together in silence. As Josiah sets their plates in the cupboard, Hannibal dries his hands on a dish cloth. 

“Please excuse me,” he says. “If we are to escape notice of the FBI, I have some calls to make.”

Josiah hopes that the fact that he’s helping might even the score a little bit from all the cussing, but who knows? He should probably barricade the door to the guest room tonight anyway, and sleep with his knife under his pillow.

—

Will and Villanelle change clothes, and cars, at a bungalow in a run-down suburb of Pittsburgh. It’s the kind of place with long grass and no HOA—a place where people mind their own business. Villanelle pulls the Charger into the two car garage and exchanges it for the type of mid-size SUV that looks like every second car they’d seen out on the highway.

Hannibal’s dental surgeon sees Will after-hours so they run into as few people as possible, and he puts Will under for his appointment. 

Probably for all the times he’s been drugged and poisoned, and for all the damage that has been done to his brain over the years, he should be wary of sedatives. But then, Will has always kind of hated getting his teeth worked on. It was something he’d forced himself to do once he’d grown up and finally gotten the insurance for it. Like being well-read, keeping himself well-groomed and his clothes clean, a healthy set of teeth was the sort of thing he wielded against people trying to sniff out ways to outclass him. 

But boy does filling twenty year’s worth of cavities ever take a lot out of a guy. So yeah, he was happy not to have to relive all that.

Once Villanelle gets them back to the safehouse after his appointment, he flops onto the couch like a ragdoll. His mouth is sore and his mind is cloudy, but it’s honestly kind of nice, and he’s making Villanelle laugh. A laughing Villanelle is a Villanelle who is much less likely to kill him.

She hands him an open pint of ice cream and a spoon. The blue and green landscape on the carton registers as Ben & Jerry’s, and he squints to read the name before digging in.

“Chubby Hubby? Is this some kind of joke?”

“You’ll eat it and like it, Billy Bob,” she says, like his choices are that or a knife to the throat. Then, she takes her phone out of her pocket and sits next to him. “Here, if it makes you feel better, we’ll call your real hubby.”

“He’s not my husband,” Will groans, but his chest clenches with delight at the idea. The pain of missing Hannibal, even after just twelve hours, is visceral. He’s starting to look at Villanelle and see Hannibal the way a cartoon wolf looks at a cartoon pig and sees a ham.

Fortunately, his beloved’s face is soon staring back at them both. But it’s so small and so flat and untouchable it almost hurts worse to look at.

“Say ‘hi, papa!’” Villanelle says, nudging Will’s arm.

“Hiiiii,” Will says obediently before he can think about what he’s done. His spoon falls out of his hand into his lap, and he clumsily grasps for it. When he looks back up, Hannibal is smiling like a gator. Will’s hand goes straight to his neck, where he’s hyper aware of the mark from this morning.

“I take it the anesthesia has not yet worn off,” Hannibal says. “Are your new teeth nicely set?”

Will’s hand rises to his cheek. He considers trying to open his mouth to show Hannibal, but finds himself too uncoordinated. “My…hands are full,” he finally says.

“I can see that,” Hannibal chuckles. “How are you feeling?”

“I miss you,” he says. Too fast, much too fast. He can feel Villanelle’s eyes rolling so hard it makes his own head hurt.

“And I you, darling,” Hannibal says. Will’s cheeks burn. “But I am afraid I have some logistics to discuss with Vi privately, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“Because you have Chubby Hubby to enjoy,” Hannibal says.

“I don’t have any hubby here to enjoy, and whose fault is that?” Will snaps, which is one of the most embarrassing things that has ever come out of his mouth. And he’s been on much more powerful drugs in front of Hannibal.

“Wooooow…I’m going to go in the other room now,” Villanelle says, and Will would be a lot angrier that she’s taking Hannibal away without letting him say goodbye if this ice cream weren’t so tasty.

For what seems like an eternity, Will sits alone in front of a blank TV screen. The light in the kitchen behind him lets him see himself as a silhouetted reflection. He hopes that they leave it off—he never had one back in Wolf Trap, when he lived by himself. TV programming was always a strange mixture of uncanniness and intensity that Will could never predict. Either he’d be unsettled by bad acting or caught off-guard and manipulated by good acting when he was unprepared. Even watching sports, especially with sports—the raw aggression would seep into his pores.

The TV had always been on in the house in Maine. At least at first, until Molly had finally noticed the way he’d retreat from her and Wally whenever it was on. When she started keeping it off more and more, Will could feel how edgy and resentful it made Wally, how it started to stoke resentment.

It’s nice to have quiet evenings now—just conversation and maybe a little music. Not to mention the first good sex he’d had in his life.

Hannibal makes it so easy. After making everything so difficult for Will for so long, now that they’re truly together, suddenly he makes living so much easier.

Why hadn’t Hannibal come with him? Why isn’t Hannibal here now ?

When Villanelle comes back into the room, she’s brought her own ice cream with her. She looks at Will with her head cocked, with that same playful predatory look Hannibal so often gets. Will swallows around a lump in his throat.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he says, swiping at his cheek. Apparently the separation, however brief, makes his eyes water.

“You really miss daddy, don’t you?”

She knows Villanelle enjoys poking; the way she does it is skin-deep, and it shouldn’t bother him. Her methods don’t cut nearly as close to the marrow as Hannibal’s, or even Bedelia’s. But when he’s high, slumped on the couch, it’s enough.

“It’s not like that…” Will mutters. “He should call me that if anything.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, too much information. I don’t need to know about all your freaky shit,” Villanelle takes a bite of her ice cream, then sucks on the spoon for a moment after the ice cream is gone, looking thoughtful. “Although, that’s a little surprising. He seems really bossy. Older people are always so bossy.”

“He’s not that much older than me,” Will says.

“Yeah, right.” She’s almost sulking herself now. “I hate older people. You’re always just a plaything to them.”

A wound, then. An old wound, but one that hasn’t quite closed up. That explains a lot.

“You wanna talk about it?” Will offers.

“No,” Villanelle says, much too quickly. Then, “It doesn’t matter. She didn’t want me.”

“Did you kill her?”

“No!” Villanelle scowls up from her ice cream as if she’s offended he would even suggest it, then looks back down and stabs at the hard-packed top of it. “Just her husband.”

“So you’re not still in love with her?”

“I wasn’t in love with her,” Villanelle says. “I don’t fall in love. I’m not a person like that.”

That’s a song Will has heard before. “Hannibal thought the same thing.”

Villanelle groans, letting her head fall back against the couch. “You’re just as bad as the rest of them.”

“Yeah, well compared to you I’m an old man too.” Will takes a big bite of ice cream. And if there’s one good thing about Hannibal not being there, it’s that he’s able to talk with his mouth full without getting scolded. “So there.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, as fudge and peanut butter melts on his tongue. This safe house is devoid of personality, even worse than the cabin, terribly un-Hannibal in every way. It’s like a model home; Will wonders if he tried to pull one of the books out of the flakeboard shelves if he’d discover that it was just a bunch of cardboard backings glued together.

Villanelle’s accent cuts through his wandering thoughts. “I thought getting older is supposed to make you wiser, but you two just seem really stupid to me. Look at your finger. And that.” She points at the hickey on his neck, and then pokes at the bone saw scar on his forehead. “And did he give you that too?”

God help him, Will lifts up his shirt to reveal the smile from Hannibal’s linoleum knife, like a little kid showing off a wound he’d gotten skateboarding. “Yeah, he gave me this one too.”

“What the fuck, Billy Bob?” Villanelle says. “What is wrong with you?”

“What really happens as you get older is that you get more and more proof that you’re going to die anyway. For some people, that means they hole up with what they have and hang onto it as hard as possible. But sometimes it makes you stop worrying as much about self-preservation and more about what will make your life actually mean something.”

Villanelle blows a raspberry. This time it’s Will’s turn to roll his eyes. He can feel his gums and cheek starting to hurt, and he realizes it’s because he’s got a manic grin on his face. The anesthesia must be starting to wear off, and he is clearly, irrevocably an unwell man—and, for some reason, probably way too bold right now for his own good.

“Just wait. You’re going to fall in love with the wrong person and it’ll ruin everything you think you know about yourself and turn your whole life upside down,” Will says. “And you’ll bleed, and probably almost die at least once, and you’ll just keep coming back for more.”

Villanelle shakes her head. “Nuh-uh.”

Will shrugs. There’s no explaining things like this to people, especially when he can barely explain it to himself after what must be thousands of hours of thinking about it. But if anyone is ever going to find out, someday, it’s someone like her. She has a psychopath’s boredom, but she also has Hannibal’s curiosity. It’s going to get her into a lot of trouble someday.

“So how do you know Chiyoh?”

“Sniper training,” Villanelle says.

“Oh, she’s good at that,” Will says. He sticks his spoon in the half-eaten ice cream and pulls his collar to the side. “She gave me this one.”

Villanelle looks impressed as she scrutinizes the bullet scar on his shoulder. “It’s not my favorite weapon. I prefer to do things up close.” She sits back again. “How do you know Chiyoh? Did you meet before or after she shot you?”

“After. She helped me find Hannibal a few years ago. She’s…”

“Weird.”

Will isn’t sure he’s qualified to say something like that. He shrugs again.

“Kinda hot though, right?” Villanelle prods, eyebrow raised. Maybe it’s residual from the novacaine, but something in Will’s face must encourage her. “Wiiiiill….did you hook up with her?” her voice drops to a hush, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your hubby.”

“Not my husband,” Will whispers back.

“I won’t tell him you keep saying that either.”

“I mean, she kissed me.”

Villanelle sets her carton on the coffee table, then bounces up on her knees to fully face him. Her enthusiasm, built all the way back up at the prospect of a little gossip, makes her look like a third grader at a slumber party.

“Was it really boring? I bet it was boring.”

“I honestly can’t remember. She threw me off a train right after.”

Instead of looking deflated, Villanelle looks even more delighted. She leans in further, grabbing the back of the couch for balance.

“Did you do a backflip?” she whispers.

Will closes his eyes and peers through the slowly dissipating haze around his memories. “Actually, yeah. I did do a backflip.”

Villanelle squeals, picking up her pillow and whacking him square in the face so hard he reaches up to make sure all his new teeth are still in place. Fortunately, they are. He would hate for this separation, and, he remembers with a wince, this enormous risk to his and Hannibal’s freedom, to have been a total waste.

—-

Pollen crowds Jack Crawford’s sinuses as he sits on a park bench, staring out at a duck pond and feeling about a million years old. Nature is supposedly good for him right now, as he tries to figure out what the hell to do next, at least that’s what the counselor said. But all it’s been doing so far is making him sneeze and dirtying his boots.

A few feet away sit a pair of mallard ducks, one male and one female. They used to be afraid of him, which is fair—he knows he’s a big scary guy. It helps to sit down, to wear a shorter jacket, to coo a little bit like he’s talking to a baby or a kitten. And of course they’re suckers for some frozen peas.

Seeing them together makes him a little sentimental, a little lonely for Bella (but what doesn’t?).

Isn’t that some sad old man shit?

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and sickness blooms in his stomach when he sees Molly Graham’s name scrolling sideways across the screen.

He’d never ended up telling her about that recording. They hadn’t told anyone that Will and Hannibal had survived. The FBI had locked down that information, and then, of course, they’d pushed Jack out for his trouble.

He couldn’t say it wasn’t expected. But then, there have been lots of things that Jack should have expected over the years.

When he answers the phone, Molly jumps right in.

“Hey, Jack…I’ve got some more questions about Will.”

Every time she’s called him over the last six weeks, she’s been matter of fact. She’d accepted Jack’s brisk non-updates and allowed him to hurry her off the phone with little to no news. This time, though, all the politeness is drained from her voice.

He wonders if she’s processed the shock of losing him, and if the anger is starting to set in. Maybe she’s finally doing the research that she should’ve done when they got together. She—a wholesome-as-pie widow with a son—couldn’t have done the kind of detective work that Jack would’ve done on someone and then still married Will.

As much as he cared about Will, still does, it doesn’t add up.

When Jack had arrived at Molly and Will’s home in Maine, almost two months ago now, the man had looked out of place. It’d been like he was living in a drawing he’d made as a little kid of what his life would be like when he grew up. There were a lot of things that were contradictory about Will Graham, but he was always the kind of guy who seemed like he needed to live in those contradictions, not pick one and stay there.

But Jack believed a man should determine for himself who he wanted to be. Anything else would make him a hypocrite. If Jack had let other people tell him who he was, he’d never have left his old neighborhood.

So if Will wanted to live in that picture he’d drawn, especially after everything that’d happened with Lecter, Jack wouldn’t stand in his way.

Jack had just hoped, foolishly, that maybe stepping out of that role, just for a couple weeks, wouldn’t take too much out of Will. Maybe some time away would’ve let him build up resilience. Jack had thought—hey, somebody was feeding him, he was fixing boat motors like he always said he wanted to, he had his dogs, he was getting laid. There had to be enough energy in the tank to get him through the one case. He’d give his insights, they’d catch the guy, and Will could go back to living inside that life he’d designed for himself. Sure, he’d be a little shaken up, but he had a nice woman and a safe place to recuperate.

Of course Hannibal had to blow everything up. Jack realizes that Will had probably known that’s exactly what would happen all along. All the signs were there. Will had been warning him, telling him for years.

But Jack was so great at only hearing what he wanted to. At least until he had been forced to hear something else.

“I imagine you’re curious about Will and Dr. Lecter’s relationship?” Jack preempts.

“I—” Molly sounds like he’d suddenly dropped something shiny in her path, like it wasn’t what she had been planning to pick up, but she can’t help herself. “I don’t like how you said ‘relationship.”

“It’s taken me years to wrap my head around the two of them,” he continues. “They were my friends during a really dark time in my life, or at least Will was. And I thought Hannibal was. Will tried, he really did, and I did too, but I could never be the kind of friend to him that he needed me to be.”

“You were too busy using him to solve cases,” Molly says flatly. 

So if Will told her anything about his past, he did tell her that much. The shame washing over Jack used to be icy, but it’s been recycled enough by now that it’s lukewarm. It feels even dirtier now. It feels dirtier every time.

“I was so focused on the job, and my wife’s cancer, I didn’t see what the man really needed. I couldn’t see him the way Hannibal could, and the way he could see Hannibal. And I couldn’t see how deep it all ran until it was too late, even though I should’ve.”

Molly sighs so sharply that Jack almost pulls the phone away from his ear. “Is that code for, ‘they were sleeping together?’”

A big white goose starts marching toward him and his mallards like it owns the damn park. Jack hates geese. He wants to hiss at it to make it go away, but he doesn’t want Molly to think he’s reacting to what she said. 

Maybe he should just tell her what he knows. But what would that do other than hurt her and get him in trouble with the FBI? Half-truths are better. If everyone else can tell them, then so can he.

“If you’d asked me that two months ago I would’ve said no way, but I’ve had a lot of time to think,” he says. “Now I just can’t say. But I think there is love there that most people will never understand.”

It comes out before he can stop it. Is , not was. An amateur mistake. He goes still, as if he’s stepped on a dry twig while deer hunting. 

But Molly glosses right over it. “So you’re saying this blonde is a rebound, then?”

Jack is on his feet. The goose flaps off in alarm, and the mallard couple waddle away, nonplussed at the sudden movement. His hands are already fishing in his jacket pocket for his keys.

“ What blonde? ”

Notes:

Killing Eve fans, for clarity's sake—Villanelle is talking about Anna in this chapter.

Thank you so much for reading! Please comment if you have a minute—it makes me really happy and I love interacting with y'all. 😊😊😊

Chapter 6: Everybody Dies, Shuffle on, Remove It

Summary:

Everyone is drawn toward the cabin at once.

Notes:

Be warned—this chapter gets violent at the end.

Will is back on the frozen lake tonight. There are no hands on his ankles to drag him into the icy depths this time. It leaves off with what he’d been seeing two nights ago—the man with the antlers is on the opposite side of the lake, watching. He’s a dried ink-spot, still as a tome, but even as Will walks toward it, he draws no closer to his destination.

It shouldn’t be so hard. I’ve already given everything. I’ve already said yes.

His steps get more and more arduous, and he looks down to see he’s plodding through slush. When he raises his head, only one antler branches within view, the rest obscured by woods. Are the trees getting closer, or is the monster withdrawing from him?

Wait. Don’t. Please wait for me.

With all the force Will puts behind it, he should be bellowing those words, but instead they get stuck in his throat like a wad of peanut butter. There is no forward motion—the shape is soon fully consumed by the treeline. Will is alone, now knee-deep in ice.

Will wakes up gasping. A chill wafts in through the cracked window of his bedroom in this strange house. The bed is smaller, and so empty that, for a moment, panic suffuses every inch of him.

Then, he pulls himself together and remembers where he is. The last thing he did before he locked himself up in this room was spend a few hours on the couch with Villanelle, consuming the entire pint of ice cream and recounting his relationship with Hannibal from beginning to now. Only a minute or two into the saga, her face had pulled into a mask of disgust.

Your face is gonna freeze like that, Will’s dad had said to him here and there when he was a kid. He’s starting to think her’s had done just that.

“If someone did like, half those things to me, I'd track them down and kill them,” she’d said. 

“I tried,” he said. “It didn’t take.”

“You’re so weird. Are you sure you want me to take you back to him? I know some people who might hire you to…be creepy for them, I guess.”

Saying that Hannibal would find him anywhere he ran probably wouldn’t do much to convince her to bring him back home, but Will knew it was true. The thought was more comforting than it had any right to be; the thought that no matter where Will went, Hannibal was tied to him with invisible wire.

But apparently, if that nightmare is anything to go by, part of him still doubts.

Will glances at the digital clock next to the bed and groans. It’s very early yet, but it’s still only twenty minutes before the alarm is set to wake him. He’s exhausted, and his mouth is throbbing now that the numbing agent has worn off, but there’s no point in going back to sleep.

The sooner he is reunited with Hannibal, the better.

–--

Memories of just a few short weeks ago keep Hannibal company in the dark. A body pulled off of him with a wine glass stem shoved deep into a wrinkled throat. A blade disemboweling a dragon. His beloved Will, sated, smiling dazedly at him with a mouthful of blood.

All evening, Hannibal holds vigil, waiting for the whisper of footsteps on the staircase. It would be a shame if Will came home to a dead body. Hannibal’s cock begs for a hand on it at the thought of what might happen if Josiah lives long enough to see Will’s return.

But Hannibal won’t let it be his own hand. Not even he has that sort of claim on his body now. One would think he’d had enough of waiting after three years imprisoned, but the anticipation is too sweet to ignore.

And of course, the dark blankets him in a thin layer of doubt. He wants to trust, but past behavior is hard to push from his mind. Jack Crawford is out there somewhere, his traitorous thoughts remind him. Historically, Will can almost always be swayed to take the man’s side.

The thought makes him dig his nails into his palms until they ache, until he can manage to lock the thoughts away behind a heavy door.

He spends the evening packing—lightly—for himself and for Will. Everything fits in a single suitcase, which will be useful in the storyline he has set out for his overnight guest. Few of their belongings can’t be replaced. 

Briefly, the chipped mug, still sitting outside the kitchen door, flits through his mind. But no, it needs to stay exactly where it is, because Hannibal will not be answering any calls come morning.

At long last, sunlight filters through the curtains of the bedroom. Only a few more hours of playing the role of the pining lover. Fortunately or not, he’s had a lot of real-world practice since that fateful day he and Will met in Jack Crawford’s office at Quantico.

In their discussions the previous evening, Josiah nudged insistently at the cosmetic rift Hannibal had insinuated between himself and Will. But Josiah is not a pack hunter; he is a solitary predator, like a bobcat. If he truly believes he has the intellectual complexity to join forces with Hannibal, he is fooling himself.

Hannibal has crossed paths with many predators in his lifetime, but he has never ever doubted the fact that he is the lion in the room. Only Will has transformed his solitary existence into a two-person pride. No one else will ever come close.

Josiah’s appearance occurs so swiftly after Hannibal comes downstairs, he suspects the man got little sleep last night as well. If Hannibal had not hidden the car keys in his room, he expects Josiah would have enough sense to steal the truck. Hannibal also suspects that he knows that if he’d tried to take them, he would have been met with pitch darkness and a heavy arm around his throat.

He’s fully dressed, shoes and all, as Hannibal lays bacon strips into a pan.

“We heading out now?” Josiah says.

“I’ve arranged a flight, leaving from a regional airport, but it won’t be available until midnight.” He turns away from the stove, pours coffee into a mug for Josiah, and passes it over.

Josiah’s face is blank as he retrieves a carton of heavy whipping cream from the fridge and tips an alarming amount of it into the cup.

“Sugar?” he asks. 

Hannibal nods toward the cupboard. He suppresses his amusement as Josiah takes three spoonfuls. Although, if anyone understands the greed for luxury borne out of a deprived childhood, it’s Hannibal.

Perhaps some of Will’s empathy is beginning to wear off on him. But probably not.

“So you’re saying we should just wait here until it’s night again?” 

Josiah is foolish to ignore his suspicions. However, Hannibal has been whittling down Josiah’s trust in his own instincts for the better part of two days. Insisting his instincts are driven by a secret deference to a god he doesn’t believe in has taken its toll.

“Leaving now would only put us at greater risk of being seen,” Hannibal says. He cracks an egg into another non-stick pan, not bothering to ask how Josiah likes them prepared. “We’ll go after the sun sets.”

His phone, left face up on the counter to maintain the illusion of trust, lights up with an “unknown number” (as Hannibal has named Vi’s cell phone in his contacts).

Josiah’s eyes drop to the scrolling name across the screen.

“Who’s that?” he says.

“A scam call, I imagine,” Hannibal says. He nods toward the cupboard. “Set the table. Breakfast will be ready shortly.”

–--

Will frowns as his call goes to an automated voice mail message. He lowers the phone, hanging up without saying anything.

Villanelle glances from the driver’s seat. Her forehead creases over the top of her aviator sunglasses, black as a motorcycle cop’s. The rising sun is shining right into their eyes, but she hasn’t complained yet.

“What’s your problem?”

“Hannibal isn’t picking up his phone.”

“Grow up. He’s probably busy.” She heaves a sigh, clearly the more adolescent of the two of them.

“Busy doing what ?”

“I don’t know. Just don’t be so clingy, it’s kind of a turn-off.”

That hits Will right in the gut. It has never occurred to him to worry about something so banal, so normal . He and Hannibal aren’t normal. Now that he thinks about it, though, the last couple days with Hannibal seemed to have exposed some raw nerves. Hannibal had gone walking without him, placed just enough distance between them to put Will on edge.

Definitely enough to give him a nightmare.

Maybe Will has been too demonstrative. Maybe Hannibal preferred him out of reach, and now that he’s had room to think, he realizes that there’s no allure in a Will Graham who isn’t playing hard to get.

“That’s stupid,” he says out loud.

“You’re stupid,” Villanelle snaps.

Will sighs, staring down at Villanelle’s phone, still dark as a scrying mirror. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Without another word, she leans forward to turn on the radio. The static of a station, just barely coming into full clarity, fills the car. He picks out the bone-deep angst of mid-80s rock. Villanelle, in a wan soprano, starts singing along.

“ Till now…I always got by on my own, I never really cared before I met youuuu ,” she croons. She glances at him again; he can feel her mocking eyes through her lenses. “They’re playing this song just for you and all your drama.”

Will drops the phone in his lap so he can rub his hands over his face. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Takes one to know one. Don’t worry, you big baby—you’ll see your daddy soon. Come on, sing with me!”

Will is about to say no, then he finally remembers who he’s talking to. Now that he’s told her his and Hannibal’s story, he supposes the only way to keep her entertained now is to let her mercilessly rib him.

The radio signal has strengthened, and the static is gone, and he gives up. He’s thrown away all his attempts to be normal and chosen a life on the run with his cannibal lover; how much weirder is it to sing along to the radio with a Russian assassin? So he does, using the most begrudging tone he can muster.

“ How do I geeeet you alooooone …”

Villanelle laughs triumphantly. “See, was that so hard?”

Will’s mood is lifting tenth by tenth of an inch, when the song is cut off by the eerie tones of an emergency bulletin. Ann Wilson is replaced by a robotic voice.

“Pennsylvania and federal law enforcement warns to be on the lookout for two suspects: one Caucasian male, brunette, 5’10” with a scar on the left cheek, and one female, blonde 5’8”, driving a gray Dodge Charger. Do not approach suspects, considered armed and dangerous. If spotted, call 911.”

Once the bulletin ends, the song is already over and has moved on to grating local ads.

“Dammit,” Will mutters. 

“Relax,” Villanelle says. “We got a new car, and those descriptions could be anybody.”

“This scar couldn’t be just anybody,” Will says. “And it’s not like they’d put out a bulletin for a couple people acting up in a McDonalds. They know they’re looking for Will Graham.”

“So what?” 

Villanelle’s hands flex on the wheel. He can feel the excitement coming off her in electrical waves. For someone who is so prone to boredom, this must be as thrilling as Christmas morning is to a small child.

She turns the music up, and other than a playlist of songs Will heard thousands of times in the boatyards of his childhood, they’re silent for a while. Will sinks into his seat, pulling his beanie lower to try and obscure his face as much as possible.

After an hour or so, a sign off the side of the highway heralds a gas station turnoff. As they get closer, Villanelle cuts off a Hyundai and takes the off-ramp. The driver behind them leans on the horn as she rattles over a double yellow line.

“Jesus,” Will says. He grabs what Wally once was grounded for calling the Oh, Shit! handle over the passenger door. “That won’t draw attention at all. Great job.”

At the end of the off-ramp, she pulls into a nearby gas station. Will sighs, and leans his head against the window. This is the last place he wants to be after hearing that emergency alert.

“Calm down,” Villanelle says without looking at him. “It’ll be fine.”

She brings them to a hard stop at one of the gas pumps, removes the cash bundle in her pocket, then selects a few bills before stashing the rest. Will shifts in his seat. Walking around with a big wad of fifties would definitely put anyone with even a small suspicious streak on guard.

She smiles primly at him. “You want some ice cream?”

“I’ve had enough, thanks,” he says.

She opens the door and slides out of the front seat, then struts into the shop like nothing could possibly touch her. Will wonders if she has as many scars as he does, and how many she’ll need to get before she tones down the smugness (if such a thing is possible).

She’s gone for a minute, then another, and he picks up the phone, dialing Hannibal’s number again. This time, when the voice mail message kicks on, he leaves one.

“There must be a good reason you aren’t picking up,” he says, aware of the edge in his voice. “Call me back when you get this.”

He hangs up, just as he catches movement in his side mirror—a black car pulling up to the pump behind them. The engine cuts, a door slams on the driver’s side, and Will watches in horror as Jack Crawford paces toward the shop.

---

When Jack enters the convenience store, the first thing he sees is a blonde young woman with an Orioles cap and dark glasses covering her eyes—paying for her gas and two Cokes with cash. She is the same build, and her face is of the same shape, as the woman in the Tattle Crime video.

At first it seems too good to be true, but in spite of her textbook disguise, she smiles brightly and talks to the guy behind the counter like her voice is covered in glitter. Jack watches out of the corner of his eye as she starts to fill up her SUV’s gas tank. There isn’t anyone in the passenger seat, but that doesn’t mean Will isn’t in the bathroom or wandering around somewhere else.

Not wanting to spook her, Jack takes his time adding money to the pump.

“That young woman over there didn’t happen to give you a name, did she?” he asks the dead-eyed man behind the counter.

“Uh-uh,” the man grumbles.

“Did you see anyone else get out of that car before I got here?”

The man glares at him, hand that isn’t jabbing at the cash register absently twisting a few strands of his neckbeard together. 

“Uh-uh.”

Again.

Jack clenches his jaw, holding back his impatience. This guy doesn’t know that he is—was—the head of the BAU, and subtle questioning has never been one of Jack’s strong suits. This guy probably just thinks he’s planning to harass this woman. The transaction finishes, and Jack grinds out a thanks , before walking out to his car to try his luck.

When he approaches, he sees the SUV rock slightly, but he doesn’t see any movement in the back seat. Maybe if he just reaches his car via a quick stroll along her passenger side…

“Do you need something?” the blonde woman says, a very obvious fuck-off underscoring her words.

“Hello, miss. Can you tell me if there are any bait shops around here? I’m on my way to meet some friends for a fishing trip, and I realized I’ve forgotten some supplies.”

If Will is hiding in the car, he’ll know Jack’s onto him. Best case scenario, it plants the seed that will eventually make him come to his senses. He coats his words in as much charm as he can, but the rust shows through, and the wrinkle denting the space over her sunglasses tells him she isn’t buying it.

All the same, when she turns back to the pump, he cranes his neck to glance into the front passenger seat.

Nobody leaned back there. The windows are tinted too dark for him to see in the back.

Jack glances around the parking lot, over to the bathroom door with a red placard over the doorknob saying it’s occupied. His eyes stay fixed on it as he starts to fill his own gas tank. After a couple minutes of intense staring, the woman’s engine starting up in front of him wakes him from his reverie—he looks up just in time to see the SUV drive off.

Jack had guessed wrong again. Either Will and the woman had parted ways, or he’s hiding in the back, drinking a bottle of Coke.

He should call it in. That would be the responsible thing to do. The BAU team isn’t far away if they’re still investigating Josiah Taylor.

But hell if Jack lets any of those other motherfuckers at the bureau get to Will or (probably) Hannibal before he does.

–--

If Jack had only waited another minute, he would have seen the bathroom door open to reveal a woman with fire engine-red curls. She hurries to her car, parked along the side of the convenience store, and gives chase.

–--

Usually Josiah is an expert at waiting. To be a good hunter, you’ve got to get comfortable with staying put, silently confined to a cage of shrubs or tree branches. But today is dragging on like a kindergarten talent show. All the books in the house are snooty poetry and philosophy, and going outside is out of the question. Even when he finally scrounges up a crime thriller, it sucks so bad that his eyes roll off the page.

And then there’s Hannibal’s phone, and the way it keeps lighting up on the small table between their two armchairs. He’s left the phone face up on the table, like he’s daring Josiah to pick it up and look at who’s calling. But Hannibal doesn’t even bother to look at the thing, he’s too absorbed in some brick that isn’t even written in English. Probably it’s from wherever he got that weird accent.

To keep the urge to snoop from getting him by the throat, Josiah stands up and begins to pace.

He glances out the front window, nudging the curtains aside to peek at the empty gravel driveway. It stretches down to the little bridge separating the cabin from the bumpy access road, and it weaves like a lazy river through patches of foliage up to the front, then branches off in one direction toward the shed where Josiah had parked that first night.

“Restlessness is the product of an overactive imagination. Or someone devising schemes.” Josiah spins from the window when Hannibal speaks to him. “Have you decided to strike out and forge your own path after all?”

He really should say yes, but Hannibal phrases it as a challenge. Like, if Josiah says yes, that he wants to take off, then he’ll be failing some sort of toughness test.

“Nah,” Josiah says, biting back his irritation, “just not really into any of those old books.”

“Then perhaps you would be more interested in reading about current events.” 

Hannibal hands over his iPad, and with a sigh, Josiah unlocks it. It opens straight to Tattle Crime again (is that the only reason Hannibal uses this thing?), and right smack in the middle of the page is a picture of his girlfriend Sandy, staring into a web cam, their living room in the background. It’s not just a picture either, it’s a video preview.

Rage claws its way up to Josiah’s face and lights it on fire. When he looks up, Hannibal’s normally blank expression is slightly curled into a smile. Fuck him for that.

“I’ll make us tea,” Hannibal pulls himself out of the chair. Josiah catches the brief wince as he rises; a crack in his armor. That, at least, is a ticked box in Josiah’s favor if this goes south.

When Hannibal is finally out of the room, Josiah hits play on the video, and is met with the canned voice of that annoying reporter on the other side of the Skype call.

“Sandy, did you have any suspicions about your partner’s double life?”

Sandy wrinkles her nose, the way she did when Josiah tried to kiss her after a few Bud Lights or when he told a sick joke.

“Of course not. Do you think I’d let my kid near him if I did?”

My kid . Like Allie wasn’t his too. If he were the kind of guy who killed people he knew, she’d have just earned herself a real bad end. Then again, that’s kind of the direction he was heading in. If he’d stuck around after killing that girl. For the zillionth time in the last week, he kicks himself for how he’d let things go so bad.

“Are any puzzle pieces coming together for you, now that there’s irrefutable evidence that he’s a murderer?”

“We both went out of town for work so much, I didn’t really think much of it.”

“They’ve begun to put together a pattern of disappearances in National Parks with nearby bank robberies, which appears to have been how your partner was funding—”

“He’s not my partner anymore.”

Bitch. She doesn’t even miss him. Honestly, he doesn’t miss her either, but boy has she turned on him fast. If it were safe for him to go back, she’d be fucking fish food.

Every word that follows is her spilling her guts about everything he did that she should have noticed before. His gun collection and his travels to disaster zones; his skill with taking apart the spoils of his hunting trips (she sure was happy to eat that venison, though, which she doesn’t say). She washes her hands of everything to do with him.

He wasn’t even in love with her, and look how she fucked him over.

“If Josiah is watching this, do you have anything you want to say to him?”

“Can I swear?”

“As long as you don’t mind if I bleep out a word here and there.”

“Great. [Bleep] you, Joe. I hope you get caught, and until you do, stay the [bleep] away from us.”

Oh, he’s never wanted to go back to Grand Rapids more in his life. Even more than when his life there was relatively happy—as happy as he ever could be in the normie world anyway.

He’s still fuming when a text message alert rolls down from the top of the screen. Unknown Number again. Glancing up at the room around him, he checks whether Hannibal is lurking somewhere in the shadows. Nothing there. He lets the alert take him to the messages app.

Unknown Number

Why aren’t you answering your phone?

Unless Josiah is wrong, and he knows he’s not, there is only one person that message can be from. Adrenaline sets him vibrating as he navigates back to the browser then shakily sets the iPad on the side table.

He rises, silently passing through the kitchen toward the room where he’d spent a sleepless night. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hannibal pressing the plunger down on a press swirling with flabby tea leaves. Hopefully, the guy keeps his back turned toward him for just a little longer.

The only thing Josiah has now is his backpack, and in that backpack is a pistol and a hunting knife. Except, now that he searches through every zippered pocket, he sees neither. Panic rising, he searches under the bed, in the drawers of the desk that houses the fly tying station. But he knows. He knows they won’t be there.

And when the shadow from the doorway floods the dark room, he knows for sure.

“I took your weapons,” Hannibal says.

Josiah doesn’t hesitate. He rises from a crouch, turns, and charges.

–--

“Did you lose him?” Will says from his cramped position on the floor of the backseat.

“Relax, he didn’t see you,” Villanelle says.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

She takes her eyes off the road for just a moment, throwing him a withering glance. “Just stay down.”

So, Jack is still tailing them, with a full tank of gas and his teeth sunk into a lead. He won’t let go unless he’s shaken off somehow. There isn’t too much time to do that—they’re getting way too close to the cabin. There is just this one road, then one more turnoff. Maybe they can keep driving until they reach a town, then try to lose him again.

But no. He needs to get to Hannibal as soon as possible. If he leaves Hannibal behind, it willjust be another entry in their ledger of betrayal and abandonment. Now if only the asshole would pick up his phone or at least answer Will’s text message.

A wave of nausea undulates through Will’s body.

Because maybe Hannibal had taken this chance to bolt. Maybe in the last eighteen hours or so, object permanence had evaporated; maybe Hannibal had lost faith in Will’s loyalty. That, or the FBI got to him. Jack isn’t in charge anymore, if Freddie’s articles are true. If Jack was dangerous in his official capacity, he’ll be even worse now. And after that line about the bait shop, Will is almost certain that Jack knows where Will is .

He dials Hannibal again, but the call goes straight to voice mail. Bile rises in Will’s throat.

“Hannibal, you can ignore me all you want,” he says through clenched teeth. He ignores Villanelle’s raised eyebrows over the top of her glasses as she glances back at him. “But you can’t run from me forever. Wherever you go, I’ll be right behind you. I will hunt you all the way to the end of the world, and when I catch you, you won’t be able to pry me off. I’ll break out of any cage they put me in, and not even my death or yours will keep you safe from me. Call me back.”

Will ends the call, chest rising and falling at the pace of his growing anger.

“Wow,” Villanelle says through shocked laughter. 

“What?”

“That was kind of hot, but you guys have a lot of issues.”

He’s about to shoot back something snarky when the car makes a hard right turn. It almost fishtails, and Will gets thrown around the backseat like a loose water bottle.

“Fuck,” he hisses. 

“You’re welcome. Your FBI man was following too close to make the turn. He’ll have to find a place to turn around. Now, hang on.”

He grasps the metal base of the front passenger seat seconds before the road turns from asphalt to dirt and gravel. Villanelle doesn’t slow down at all, and the SUV bounces wildly over the rough terrain. The chemicals rushing through his bloodstream protect him from the worst of it, but he’ll definitely have some bruises when this is all over.

“When we get there,” he says, voice jolting along with the car, “I’m going to jump out, and you’re going to stall Jack until I get inside.”

“And what am I supposed to say to him?”

“Whatever you want. Just, try not to kill him.”

Villanelle groans. “Come on…”

“Just wait until I’m back. I’ll take care of it. If anybody kills him…” 

It should be me.  

The thought would make him shudder if he weren’t already completely unmoored, and if he hadn’t already known it deep down for a long time.

The shreds of his former life make him hope it doesn’t come to that. But if Hannibal is still there, and if Jack threatens him somehow, Will knows whose side he’s on. It’s not Stockholm Syndrome, it’s not some spell that Hannibal has cast over him or the effect of forcing Will into his thrall. This is Will’s choice. And it’s permanent.

And Hannibal will be there when they get back, if he knows what’s good for him.

There’s another hard right turn, the rhythmic bump of wooden planks below them, and Will knows it’s time. 

“Pull along the side of the house,” he says. Gravel sprays from beneath tires, and she slams on the brakes, putting it into park. He lets go of the front seat and goes for the door handle.

“Hurry up and get out,” Villanelle shouts, like she’s shooting the ground in front of his feet.

Will scrambles out of the car, but before he can sprint forward, he hears the huff of a large animal, sees a flash of iridescent black hovering over long legs and hooves. A familiar stag ambles around the side of the house.

Hannibal is still inside. But something is wrong.

Sucking a deep breath in through his nose, Will creeps after the stag to the kitchen door. It’s now disappeared, but his eyes fall to the planter next to the door, where his usual chipped mug flashes like a beacon. Sitting beside it is a staff-like tree branch stripped of its leaves.

A crash from inside the house snaps him back into action.

He picks up the branch and silently pushes the unlocked door open.

–--

Hannibal is crouched low behind the overturned dining room table, still grasping Josiah’s hunting knife. His teeth are bared in a primal growl. And sure, he’s been putting up a good fight, but Josiah has him cornered again, and this time he’s nearly out of breath and a whole lot less slippery. 

Josiah is younger and stronger, and he isn’t breathing nearly as hard. He’ll get the fuck out of here after he guts this washed-up old fruit.

Sometime during this stupid cat and mouse thing they’ve been doing around the house for the last who-knows-how-long, Josiah had grabbed a butcher knife. 

One more push, and this’ll be over.

Then something cracks against the side of his face, and before Josiah can process what happened, he’s on the ground. It’s like something had exploded inside his head, his ears ringing as he claws at the ground, dizzy and disoriented. Did he have a fucking aneurysm or what? A voice bounces around the inside of his head warning, You dropped the knife. It’s not in your hand.

Then all the bones in that hand crack. The impact rips a guttural scream from the depths of his lungs.

“I know your face,” the new voice tells Josiah which way is up. His eyes raise to a flushed figure standing over him, frizzy curls framing a scarred face. 

The beast in Josiah recognizes the beast in Will. His eyes are cold. Inhuman. And the beast in Will is just starting round one, while Josiah’s is already on the ropes.

“You’re that prick Josiah Taylor.” Will’s lip curls. Josiah struggles to sit up, but Will pins him back down with a fucking treebranch to his diaphragm, forcing out the rest of his air and cutting off his words before they can even form. “You picked the wrong fucking house.”

Josiah can’t even scream as the bones in his other hand crack under Will’s boot. Blinding pain swells in both hands until he thinks they’ll pop, blood forced into them from the ruthless weight of Will’s knees holding his arms in place.

A fist comes down, straight into Josiah’s face. Blood fills his mouth, his throat, and he’s so glad that he’s incapable of begging for his life, because he would never survive that humiliation.

Will Graham’s fist pulls back one last time. His knuckles drip red.

And right before the lights go out, Josiah’s inner voice says, You should have fucking listened to me.

Notes:

I've never been happier to be in a fandom where the source material has impossible timelines. 😂 Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please let me know!

Chapter 7: Come Take It, It's All for You

Summary:

Will, Hannibal, and Villanelle make their escape, leaving a few presents behind.

The blonde woman struggles with pulling a suitcase from the back hatch of her SUV. It falls to the ground as Jack pulls up and parks beside her in the gravel driveway. Instead of retrieving it, she stares at him, wide-eyed and pouting, as he steps out of the driver’s side door and slams it behind him.

“Afternoon, miss.” He smiles, trying the kindly-older-man mask that usually works on women he’s trying to set at ease. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I just wanted to make sure you made it home okay.”

“Why are you following me?” Her voice is strange, and it’s not just the well placed crack at the end of her sentence. It’s accented, different than it had been in the video.

“I mean you no harm. While you weren’t looking back at the gas station, I saw there was someone in the back of your car. I didn’t want him to get you somewhere alone and hurt you.”

Her eyes go wide as fifty-cent pieces as she staggers back from the open tailgate. “Oh my god!”

“Would you mind if I had a look?”

“Please!” She scurries back another few feet, now with both hands covering her mouth.

The fear is convincing, so convincing that Jack doesn’t trust it. But if she’s giving him full access to the car, he might as well take a look. He circles to the back door, takes his revolver out of his pocket, and carefully reaches for the door handle.

“If you’re in there, don’t try anything stupid,” he says, barely biting back Will’s name.

He braces, whips the door open, and points his gun at whatever’s inside.

Nothing.

For a moment, he stands, waiting for Will to materialize from the gray synthetic upholstery, but he has about as much luck with that as he’s had with everything else over the last couple months. With a huff of disappointment, he lowers his weapon to his side.

A blinding stab of pain through his right forearm, and he drops it completely.

“Fuck!” Turning toward his attacker only agitates the nerves and tendons in his arm, but then the blade is gone, leaving a swell of dark blood in its wake. He whirls around, stemming the blood with his hand and drawing his arms closer to his chest. His own gun is now pointed at his face.

“You should have just minded your own business.” The woman’s accent is heavier now, Russian or Eastern European. The gun’s muzzle is stone-still.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done.”

In the standoff that follows, Jack recognizes all the things he should have recognized before—the new car smell wafting from the back seat, her crisp flannel shirt and designer jeans. As he takes in the sight of her, he half-wonders if Hannibal had a daughter nobody knew about.

“Now what happens?”

“He asked me not to kill you,” she says. “But if he hadn’t I would. It’s rude to follow a girl home like that after she told you to go away.”

“My apologies,” he says, fully aware he does not sound sorry in the slightest. “Who’s ‘he’?”

“Hmmmm… actually he said I should try not to kill you, so…”

“Who is he?”

“Do you really want to find out? Because that might actually be even worse for you.”

It has to be Will. It just has to be. And even if it’s Hannibal, the answer is still, “Yes, I want to talk with him.” Jack sucks in a deep breath to counter the ache in his arm—four seconds in, six seconds out—and then adds, “Please.”

She cocks her head, curious. Then, her shoulders relax, and the air around them loosens its tension. 

“That’s more like it.”

–--

Will Graham is resplendent as he stands over Josiah Taylor’s broken body. His shoulders heave in the wake of his efforts, and his knuckles bleed the way they did when he presented Randall Tier’s body like an offering so long ago. The coolness in Will’s eyes and the set of his jaw beneath his wild mess of too-long curls, makes him look like a mad king who insists on carrying out his own executions.

His gaze lifts to Hannibal’s face, and that coolness turns to smoke.

“How long has he been here?” 

“Long enough to make an attempt on my life.”

Will’s empty hands flex, then relax again. He steps over the body, giving it a mulish kick as he does. Another kick, and table flips from its side onto its back, legs extended above it like a dead cockroach.

“Try again.” Will’s voice is like the spark that comes from stone grinding against stone. “You didn’t answer any of my calls today. There was a murder two nights ago just down the road that I somehow helped uncover. How long has he been here?”

Hannibal sees no point in continuing to obfuscate. The only time Hannibal has been able to hide anything from Will for longer than a day or two was while Will’s mind was on fire.

“I granted him shelter here last night.”

There is only a flicker in Will’s face, lamplight reflected off a scalpel, but somehow the cut of his cheekbones and chin seem sharper. He prowls toward Hannibal, until he’s standing on the same side of the flipped table. The air smells of copper and matches and rage-sharpened sweat.

“Did you fuck him?”

Hannibal shakes his head.

“Did he fuck you?” The question is so throttled with possessiveness that Hannibal struggles to put a sentence together. 

“No. We had dinner. He slept downstairs.”

Will sneers over his shoulder at the body, then turns back to Hannibal. “Well, thanks to your meddling, Jack Crawford is outside right now.”

“Is it because of my meddling or the scene you made for the occupants of that restaurant?” Hannibal says. “You really should be more careful about what you put in your body.”

The conviction in Will’s glare falters, because Hannibal’s is the likelier truth. Jack is gullible, but he can still piece together a puzzle when he applies himself, and certainly they must have found Freddie Lounds’s recording device in the sofa. Hannibal wishes he had been there to watch Jack listen to that recording. Delicious.

“Do you have a plan?” Hannibal asks.

“Do you have a plan?”

“I apparently have some voice messages I need to attend to.” The phone is still safely stowed in Hannibal’s pocket, even after his tussle with Josiah.

“We don’t have time—”

Before Will can finish, the first voice mail is already playing on speaker. The smoke in Will’s eyes catches fire; he looks like he’s ready to leap forward and grab the phone from Hannibal’s hands.

“There must be a good reason you’re not picking up,” his compressed voice growls from the speaker. “Call me back when you get this.”

The version of Will standing before him grits his teeth. Hannibal skips to the next message, another demand that Hannibal return his call. Will’s wrathful energy has contracted to the narrow point before a supernova.

“Hannibal, you can ignore me all you want, but you can’t run from me forever. Wherever you go, I’ll be right behind you.”

Hannibal holds Will’s eye contact like a knife’s handle, his heart pounding in his ears.

“I will hunt you all the way to the end of the world, and when I catch you, you won’t be able to pry me off. I’ll break out of any cage they put me in, and not even my death or yours will keep you safe from me. Call me back.”

For a moment, the two of them stand, suspended. 

At last Hannibal can take the silence no longer. He hurls himself at Will, lunging for his mouth so forcefully their teeth clack together. Will’s hands claw at his back as their tongues compete for space within one another’s mouths.

“Forgive me, my love, for doubting your commitment,” Hannibal murmurs into his ear, an echo of other times they’ve embraced one another, blood-soaked. Will grips Hannibal’s hair until the roots sting, then takes his mouth again. Hannibal gasps for air when they part.

“You should be embarrassed” Will’s fingertips tease the side of Hannibal’s neck, the sensations arousing as a hand on his cock. “That’s the second time in as many months that I’ve had to come to your rescue.”

“Even if I felt shame, your radiance would burn it to ash.” 

Jack or no Jack, Hannibal is seriously considering undressing Will right there in the dining room. They’ve melted together, the heat consuming them both demands they become one body. Nothing could stand in the way—

“HEY! Are you assholes going to help me or just make out?” 

—except perhaps a lioness barrelling into the room, shoving her prey along in front of her. 

Vi stands behind a nonplussed Jack Crawford. His hands are above his head, one gripping a forearm wound that drips blood onto the carpet. If Hannibal were planning to stay in this home, he’d be very put out by that. But then again, the carpet could use replacing anyway. Pity.

“Jack. How wonderful to see you again,” Hannibal says. Will doesn’t disconnect from Hannibal, keeping one hand at his back as he turns toward the other two.

“For fuck’s sake, Will,” Jack says. “You’ve sunk so low.”

“Hey, don’t be homophobic,” Vi says.

“I’m not homophobic. He’s a cannibal,” Jack juts out his chin toward Hannibal.

“You didn’t tell me that part, Billy Bob! That’s fucked up.” She looks genuinely impressed, and Hannibal can’t help but grin.

“Who the fuck is Billy Bob?” Jack’s eyes drop to the pulp that used to be Josiah’s face. “And who is that dead man on the floor?”

Will’s hand has lowered to Hannibal’s hip. Hannibal couldn’t be more delighted at the way he doesn’t shrink under Jack’s scrutiny. It may not be too much to hope that Will is unashamed of his nature as he stares Jack down.

“That’s Josiah Taylor, so you’re welcome,” Will says. 

“And that’s Hannibal Lecter!” Jack shouts.

“Stoooooop yelliiiiiiing!” Jack jolts as Vi grips his shoulder and digs the barrel of the gun into his back. “What should I do with him, Billy Bob?”

Hannibal turns back to Will, but he is as inscrutable as he was long before they became lovers. Blood stumbles from Jack’s arm wound, but the rest of his body is still, his breathing contained by pride. Hannibal considers taunting him, asking him if he is still so haunted by Bella’s loss, and the loss of his position at the Bureau, that perhaps he should be resigned to death. But considering his and Will’s shared past, and this new precarious balance, it seems too big a risk for Hannibal to bear.

“Come on, Will,” Jack whispers.

“Will?” Hannibal is suspended over a cliff all over again, feeling just at Will’s mercy as ever, wondering who will be taken down this time.

–--

Freddie’s eyes are downcast as she places one foot after another in the gravel driveway, each step crunching under her high heels. Risking a sprained ankle sounds awful out here. 

But not as awful as when the footsteps multiply and continue even after Freddie stops walking.

She looks up from the ground, and coming down the driveway toward her is the blonde from the video. Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter follow close behind.

“Miss Lounds, as I live and breathe,” Hannibal says.

Freddie trembles, less at the sight of Hannibal than of Will, whose face is flecked with what can only be blood. Ruse or not, only one of those men has dragged her body through broken glass before. 

The woman looks much different than she did in the video, her wide-eyed, psychopathic grin now fixed on Freddie. Her hands go to her pocket, but before they can stop shaking enough to slip inside, the woman is pointing the gun at her. Freddie raises her hands over her head, palms open.

“Will. Is that…is that Jack Crawford’s car?”

“You know exactly what it is,” Will says.

As he speaks, the young woman strolls, no, swaggers up to Freddie, looking her up and down as if she were considering her for a role in a snuff film. The gun barrel caresses Freddie's jaw. The metal isn’t as cold as it should be, warm but not hot. Freddie can smell the residue as the muzzle drags across her chin, but it must have discharged long before she arrived. She’d heard nothing as she walked up to the house.

The gun stops its movement over Freddie’s skin, and she finally opens her eyes. The woman stares, transfixed by Freddie’s hair. As her free hand rises to touch it, Freddie holds back a shuddering breath and bites her tongue to keep from screaming. The clip is undone, and her hair falls down around her shoulders.

“You have beautiful hair. You should wear it down,” the woman says to her. Is that a Russian accent? What are these two mixed up in, now? Freddie’s terror, as it often does, begins to get edged out by curiosity.

“Th-thank you,” Freddie says. “Who are—”

“Shhhh….” The gun is pressed beneath Freddie’s chin once again, the woman’s mouth curved with delight. Her fingers are still in Freddie’s hair. It almost feels…good. Freddie’s blood burns under the surface of her skin, and for the first time in decades, something like shame churns in her stomach.

Another moment stretches by as the woman’s fingers pinch a tiny cluster of hair behind Freddie’s ear. 

She yanks them out at the roots.

“OW!” Freddie shrieks, eclipsing the woman’s laughter as she admires the red strands lying limp in her hand, follicles and all. But the woman is also stepping away, lowering the gun, walking toward Will and Hannibal, who are still as graveyard angels.

“I’m sure you know better than to stand in our way, Ms. Lounds. However, we left some gifts inside for you, as a token of good faith,” Hannibal says.

“Do the gifts make up for you drugging me and framing me for murder?” At least she’s calmed the shake in her voice enough to sound clever rather than cowed.

“I believe they do, actually.” 

Hannibal looks different, certainly from his prison jumpsuit, but also from the suits that provided his uniform before. For as much as Will Graham takes the shape of the people he spends time with, Hannibal seems to have morphed into a version of him instead. 

God, they’re fascinating. This will all make an excellent sequel, if she can survive it.

“Wait for twenty-four hours before you publish anything,” Will says. His face is colored with the same disdain as when they spoke to one another for the first time, when he threatened her in a way that would come to characterize their whole relationship.

But at least he knows better than to think she won’t write about this.

“Cross my heart, hope to die,” she says. Her eyes flick over to the blonde girl, who looks at Freddie like she’s a fascinating bug she’d like to pull the legs off of, one by one.

The three of them eye her carefully, then Will and Hannibal get in the car. The woman’s eyes remain locked on Freddie until she slides into the backseat. As they drive away, she rolls down her window, leans out, and blows a kiss.

–--

Will wakes to the smell of the ocean and bright sunlight sailing through French doors. He sits up and stretches his arms over his head, startling when he notices movement nearby. On the opposite wall rests a full-length mirror wrapped in an ornate, gilded frame. When Will looks up, he notices there’s a matching one fixed to the ceiling.

Will grins. How lurid, Doctor Lecter. 

For now, he leaves the subject be, covering himself with a silk robe he finds in the bathroom before joining Hannibal on the patio. Even with his unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes, Hannibal looks like he could have stepped out of a high fashion magazine. When he spots Will coming toward him, the hard angles of his face soften. 

There’s a chair open beside a small glass table, and an empty white cup beside a carafe. Will picks it up and runs his thumb over the chipped rim.

“I didn’t see you pick this up,” he says as he sits, and Hannibal hurries to pour fragrant coffee into the cup.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Hannibal says. 

Will’s chest tightens, but he keeps quiet. The turquoise sea shimmers at the end of a long, winding path leading from their back garden. Up until now, there’d been no chance to admire it. They had arrived in Cuba by plane late the night before, and Villanelle had stayed on board as it refueled then set off across the Atlantic. 

It was a new moon, so the rural landscape was shadows against a black background as Hannibal drove them home. They’d showered blearily and collapsed into bed without so much as a tour.

“There are no other houses for miles. We are as isolated as we were in the cabin, though we have much more freedom to move about in public places here.”

“Will we be staying a while?”

“We can surmise the outcome of our gamble with Jack Crawford, although we can’t predict whether we’ll continue to be pursued.”

“It was a dice roll you agreed to,” Will says. “I don’t regret it. You love games, so I imagine you don’t either.”

Hannibal sighs, basking in the glow of Will’s persistent understanding.

“In any case, I have no plans to leave unless given a reason to,” Hannibal says. “And will you stay with me?”

Hannibal looks like a dog hoping for a table scrap, as if Will hasn’t already handed over his entire life willingly. Will wants to point that out, but instead he reaches across the table, palm up. For a moment, Hannibal stares at his hand, then with a sly glance at Will’s face, takes it.

“I’ll stay.” It’s as good as a vow, as far as Will is concerned, and if the way Hannibal’s face relaxes into a smile is any indication, the message is received.

They’re quiet for long minutes. They sip bright, acidic coffee mellowed with cream, and Will moves his thumb over the back of Hannibal’s hand in time with the waves lapping against the sandy shore. It’s springtime, still temperate, a few nonthreatening rain clouds hugging the horizon.

“We’re on God’s time again.”

“Yes,” Hannibal murmurs. “Although, perhaps he’ll be kind enough to allow this state of being to last longer than a moment.”

He brings Will’s hand to his lips, not so much to kiss it as to hold it and let his breath raise the hair on the back of Will’s fingers. Hannibal’s hands and lips are warm, his eyes still glassy as they focus on the sea. At the sight, everything in Will’s chest cavity and upwards tightens, from his throat to his lungs to his heart.

“I’ve long wanted to take you here, Will.”

Dormant grief stirs in Will’s stomach; it seems to always be waiting inside him, ready to swell into something bigger than he can contain.

“Since the first time we were meant to…”

“Sooner,” Hannibal says. “Were I to do it over again, I would have persuaded you to come with me long before the scales fell from your eyes.”

“I wouldn’t have understood,” Will squeezes Hannibal’s hand. Hannibal squeezes back. “I would have…” he would have been too afraid, too overwhelmed. Made a different kind of mistake. “I wouldn’t have seen this for all it is. Not so soon. And I don’t think you would have seen me either.”

“Perhaps not.” Hannibal says. “But we do now.” 

Hannibal turns his eyes from the ocean view, the lush green stripe separating it from their new home. Gold highlights in his hair shine under the morning sunlight, and Will is overcome by how beautiful he is, how love radiates from him.

“Hannibal.” Will pushes words through a constricted throat. “Come back to bed with me?”

“Of course,” Hannibal says. 

They rise leaving the empty coffee cups where they are, and leaving the French doors open as they undress and stretch out on the rumpled covers. Where the cabin was modest, this home is luxurious; where Hannibal’s Baltimore home was moody and macabre, this one is idyllic, monochrome white linens, blond wood, and (of course) gold details.

Celestial, Will’s mind supplies. A heaven Will never dared hope for. How remarkable that Hannibal, of all people, was the one to take him here. 

They lie face to face. Hannibal’s warm palm cradles Will’s jaw again, and Will closes his eyes as he leans into it. An involuntary hum rises from his chest as Hannibal’s lips brush over his. Their kisses deepen, the twisting roots of their desire binding them together more tightly than ever. 

“Will,” Hannibal whispers. “May I have you?”

“You have me already,” Will says. 

Hannibal looks bemused, but there’s a tremor in his voice when he says, “Obtuseness is unbecoming of you, Will.” 

“God forbid I unbecome.”

If Hannibal were the type of man to roll his eyes, he would have been caught much sooner. But Will can tell he really wants to. Instead, he pushes Will onto his back and crawls on top of him, smothering his smile with decadent kisses. Will pulls away from Hannibal as much as he’s able to with his head flat against the bed, and Hannibal moves his attention from Will’s lips to his neck. It makes Will’s hips jolt, his dick hardening in the compressed space between their bodies.

“You can have me any way you want Hannibal.” He means to sound sultry, but with Hannibal’s weight on his chest, he struggles to get any words out at all.

“Thank you, Will.” The words are so reverent, so gentle, they calm the pounding blood in Will’s ears.

At the first gentle slide of lips against his collarbone, Will knows there will be nothing quick about what’s to pass between them. But he doesn’t want to rush it, either. For years, Hannibal has looked at him with hunger, and Will is ready to admit how intoxicating it is to be his source of nourishment.

Blunt curled knuckles slip between his back and the mattress, their pressure points nudging him onto the ridge between pleasure and discomfort. Then Hannibal’s lips are on his chest, his tongue swirls around a nipple and teases it up from his skin. Will clenches his teeth, fingers clutching the sheets. His cock twitches as Hannibal applies the same attention to the other nipple. If he wasn't hard before, he certainly is now. 

Then Hannibal’s mouth is gone, leaving a wet chill. Shivers ripple through Will in its wake.

“Are you gonna…”

“Not yet,” Hannibal says. “I have plans for you.”

Even Will is surprised at the purr this draws from his chest as more nerves awaken under Hannibal’s tongue. Lower, lower, he moves until he’s gripping Will’s ass and licking along the dip between his thigh and pelvis.

“You’re delectable.” Never have words sounded so worshipful, yet so threatening.

Well, Will can make threats of his own. “Keep that up, and I’ll co—” he breaks off with a gasp as Hannibal’s lips close over one testicle, sucking on it until Will is squirming. 

He comes up on his elbows to watch Hannibal savor every sensitive inch of his balls and taint, teasing just enough at his rim that Will jerks involuntarily. Unbothered, Hannibal indulges himself, a vision of passion slowed frame by frame. By the time Will’s cock is in his mouth, Will has lost control of his movements, shaking so hard that he’s afraid that when he comes he’ll break apart completely.

Suddenly, Hannibal sits up, leaving Will’s dick pulsing so hard it hurts. Everything snaps back to real time, except Will’s heart, of course, which is pounding at 170 BPM. He falls back against the covers, whimpering, because now it’s clear to him exactly what he’s in for.

“Oh no,” he says, only opening his eyes when he feels the mattress shift.

“Oh yes.”

Hannibal opens the side table drawer. Solid maple, Will’s mind offers as he grasps to control the unnamed emotions, closing in on him. They belong to both him and Hannibal, and they multiply and feed off one another until the space around the bed is choked with them. Will looks up at himself as Hannibal settles between his legs and slathers his fingers in lube; his body is mottled with red marks from Hannibal’s mouth.

Hannibal looks up and meets Will’s eyes in the mirror, then drags their focus back down from the ceiling to his face.

“I’d encourage you to watch. You’re unspeakably beautiful like this—glowing from the caress of morning sun, body liquid with pleasure. You should see the proof for yourself.”

Contentment settles onto Hannibal’s face, along with so much admiration Will’s first impulse is to curl into a ball. Instead he closes his eyes, tips his head back as Hannibal pushes his index finger inside of him. Will exhales, knows he’s arching his back like a whore but doesn’t care.

“I think you can take more than that.” Hannibal’s lips are red and glistening as he slips another finger into Will’s ass. Will’s eyes roll upward. Hannibal’s back and shoulders bow over him as he strokes deeper. They’re broad, muscled, like a wingless angel plunging to Earth.

At the first brush of fingertips against his prostate, Will grunts and bucks his hips. His eyes snap shut as the sound burns his self-consciousness to a crisp. Fingers undulate inside of him until he’s panting, pre-come welling up from his slit and spilling down the sides of his shaft.

“Hannibal, god…oh my god…”

Hannibal chuckles, and Will feels it against his neck.

“I suppose I should be flattered, but we both know it’s not true.”

“Fuck me,” Will says between gasps. “Please, Hannibal.”

There’s no reply, and the fingers disappear. But instead of complying, Hannibal gives him another finger. This time, Will can’t hold back his moan—high, throaty, and mortifying. But it enflames Hannibal so that he can’t respond with anything but a possessive, self-satisfied grunt. The feeling is so intense, the thrust of Hannibal’s fingers so relentless, Will feels himself floating away.

Hannibal must feel it too, because his other hand grips Will by the hair and yanks him up off the pillow.

“Stay,” Hannibal hisses into Will’s ear. Near-delirious, Will thinks that at last Hannibal might sink his teeth into his throat. Will would let him. He’d come harder than he’d ever come in his life, and then he’d bleed out in Hannibal’s arms. It almost feels like destiny.

But that’s not what happens. 

What does happen is Hannibal pulls away completely, and Will drops back against the bed again. His eyes open in time to see Hannibal up on his knees. A slick fist circles his uncut cock, an obscene drop of precome hanging from the tip. 

Hannibal might be drooling as he stares down at Will’s supine body. He hooks his arms under Will’s thighs and jerks him forward. God, it’s happening. It’s finally fucking happening. 

A sweaty clump of hair falls over Hannibal’s forehead, making him look every inch the predator he is.

“Watch.”

Will does. He watches every moment, as he feels the hard pressure against his still-tight rim give way, as Hannibal sinks all the way inside him. Then, they’re face to face again. A drop of Hannibal’s sweat splatters against Will’s forehead.

“Divine,” Hannibal whispers, a prayer only Will is meant to hear.

“H-hannibal.” It’s a complete sentence. The only sentence he knows right now.

As if his own name is a command, Hannibal starts to move, slowly at first. Will’s spine curls as Hannibal pushes his knees toward his chest, then bends down to nuzzle against Will’s cheek. It’s so tender, like he’s just as overwhelmed as Will and needs to stay anchored in the midst of all the ferocity. Wrapping his arms around Hannibal’s neck, Will puts all his remaining effort into laying kisses up the side of Hannibal’s face.

Frantic tension drains from Hannibal’s limbs. He relaxes against Will’s body until Will feels like he might break in half. But that doesn’t matter, that he’ll accept too.

“I’ll watch,” Will promises. “I’ll stay.”

Hannibal inhales, deep and exultant. “My Will.”

It continues, their lovemaking melting them both into pools in the Cuban heat as they murmur laconic praise to one another. For all their day-to-day verbal sparring, this needs little commentary.

Then, Hannibal stops. “Ride me,” he says. There’s enough of a question mark at the end that Will doesn’t feel commanded—just needed.

“I’ll go harder than this,” Will warns him, breathless, both with the growing ache in his back and the anticipation of watching.

“Please,” Hannibal pulls out slowly, letting Will’s legs down and lying on his back.

The burn as Will sinks onto Hannibal’s cock isn’t so bad. In fact, he can see himself craving it. Can see himself waking up starving for the feeling of Hannibal stretching and filling him this way. He tries to start slowly, but within a minute he’s lost his grip, vaguely aware of the aggressive slapping of skin on skin and the knock of wood against plaster. When he glances down, Hannibal is glancing around at the mirror behind him, no doubt mesmerized by the sight of Will’s ass riding his cock so hard.

“I’m gonna come, Hannibal.” It comes out in a whine, but Will is beyond caring. From the look on his face, it only stokes Hannibal’s arousal.

“Come.” His eyes and hands traverse Will’s body from head, down his chest, ending at where they’re joined. One hand closes around Will’s dick, and Will knows it’s over.

Hannibal’s name is on his lips, but Will can only manage, “Ha—” as he ejaculates. It’s everywhere—in Hannibal’s chest hair, splashed on his throat all the way to the tip of his chin. 

Will rides it out, trembling at the mind-ruining sight of Hannibal covered in his come. But before his mind can catch up with his body, Hannibal pulls him hard against his chest. He mercilessly fucks up into Will, arms locking around his back as Will squeals with oversensitivity. But there’s no quarter for shame in this room. Not now.

When Hannibal comes with a shout, Will feels like his heart is bursting.

Coming down takes far too long. Hannibal’s arms slacken, but Will clutches him like he might spin off the planet’s surface if he lets go. He buries his face in Hannibal’s shoulder as Hannibal soothes him, rubbing his back, rocking ever so slightly. His breath takes ages to steady, but the heartbeat he feels through Hannibal’s skin serves as a metronome, bringing them back in sync.

“Are you still with me?” Hannibal says, an echo of the insecurity Will’s felt from him for nearly two months.

“I told you. I’m staying,” he rises onto his hands, still straddling Hannibal even though he’s since slipped out of Will.

“Then why do you look so unsure?”

Will’s hand rises involuntarily to his own face, as if he can tell by touch how it looks. Sure he has concerns about how they’re going to evade capture, about Hannibal’s knack for needless subterfuge, the risk of losing this peace they’ve found and devolving into yet another power struggle. But none of those things are enough to tear him away. So…

“Because you’re still unsure,” Will realizes aloud. “Do you still not believe I’m staying? Even after…”

Hannibal sits up against the headboard. He’s still covered in come, but it doesn’t seem to bother him, and Will can’t help but feel a rush of pride—despite this sudden swerve into angst.

“I no longer doubt your devotion,” Hannibal says, “but I am concerned we may have some ongoing points of contention that may one day cause you to reconsider.”

“Like what, the fact that you keep manipulating me into murdering people?”

Hannibal gives him one of his more frustrating answers. The kind where he stares at Will without blinking. Except this time it’s more resigned, almost sad.

“What if you didn’t have to do that?”

And now Hannibal blinks. “Are you implying you’re willing to premeditate?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Will smiles, but Hannibal’s smile is bigger. He leans forward, wrapping his hand around the back of Will’s head, and pulls him into an aggressive kiss.

“I have some suggestions.” Hannibal rubs his nose against Will’s, radiating a joy pure enough that you’d never know its roots were so sinister. “But first, a shower.”

–--

Freddie waits until she can’t hear the car anymore before letting herself relax. Then, she takes a deep breath, steels herself, and continues up the gravel path toward the front door.

She’s only taken two steps onto the porch when a weak voice calls out, “Hello? Is someone there?”

Her hand hovers over the door knob for a moment before she opens it.

The scene is gruesome, but not as bloody as some she’s seen before, including the remains that Will and Hannibal left of the Tooth Fairy. A man lies on the floor, his broken face a swollen mass of blood and exposed bone that she can barely stand to look at.

Eye to lifeless eye with that face is Jack Crawford. He’s hogtied, and blood pools beneath an arm and a mangled foot. It’s not enough to kill him. Not right away at least.

“Wh-h-oo…” he says. His lashes flutter, as one would as they fought the effects of a hallucinogen or sedative. He looks more helpless than he did in his hospital bed after Hannibal attacked him in Baltimore. “I…can’t see who it is. Will?”

“No, Jack, it’s me.” She’d say more, but she’s distracted by an envelope lying on the ground next to Jack. The outside reads: Freddie Lounds. Her skin thrills with a mix of horror and delight.

Ms. Lounds,

If past is prologue, we can assume you will discover this message before the FBI rides to the rescue. If you are in time to save Jack Crawford, use the syringe on the overturned table to revive him from his stupor. I’ve done you the favor of preparing it. All you need to do is inject it in the location of your choosing. 

There is a First Aid Kit in the kitchen, and his wounds could do with treatment to avoid infection.

Before that, however, you may have time to peruse our remaining belongings and take what you believe may be of value to your readers. At your own risk, of course.

By the way—the man beside Agent Crawford is Josiah Taylor.

Cordially,

Hannibal Lecter

When Freddie realizes that she’s smiling, a sick, guilty feeling coats her stomach. Whatever people think about her, she’s not a monster. Reluctantly, she picks up the syringe. As she’s about to inject Jack a ringtone blares out, coming from his jacket pocket. She jumps a little, biting her lip.

Surely this can wait long enough to look.

As she reads the name scrolling across the screen, that sick smile returns with a vengeance. She answers the phone. 

“Hello, Molly.”

Notes:

Oh my GAWD we made iiiiit!!

Hopefully that's not too much of a cliffhanger (assume Jack is going to make it and Molly is not happy to hear from Freddie). I just wanted a little rope to tie on another sequel if I felt like getting back to this particular series.

In the meantime, I've got another WIP, The Only Form of Permanence, a Hannigram time-loop fic starting at the beginning of season 1. Would love to see you over there. ;-)

Aaaand if you liked it, please let me know!

Notes:

Follow me on Tumblr @ml-nolan, where I talk about multifandom stuff, original fiction, and other delicacies.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Caches