Chapter Text
It took three days to preserve the meat from this second pig of Hannibal's. It must have been a large animal, larger than the first Will had helped him prepare. He commented on the size and amount of the meat only once. Hannibal said nothing in reply, only looked expectantly into Will's eyes, as though he were waiting for another, better observation. Will looked away then and they did not speak for a while. The silence was broken when Hannibal explained a particular trick he wanted Will to use to slice the back meat for smoking.
On the fourth day after the dog appeared, Hannibal let Will sleep late into the morning. Will had begun to count time by events, as Hannibal never spoke of days of the week and there was no change in routine--no Sunday Mass--to mark the passage of the days. Will was perturbed to find that it was in fact the way the rituals of his faith marked time that he missed the most from his old life.
His old life, replaced by this new life with Hannibal and with the dog, who had taken to following Will around the homestead. Neither of them were chained, but still they stayed. Will called the dog good and named him Noll after one of the younger lay monks from the Abbey, who had always been smiling, even when they worked hard and had little to eat in the lean months.
Hannibal had stoked the fire recently. The room was warm when Will pulled himself from under his blankets. He smiled, remembering the endlessly cold mornings at the abbey. He shook his head, feeling silly for so often letting his mind retreat to the past. He remembered what Hannibal had said the night Will had thought he wanted to run away.
Only do things you like.
Will should not think on his old life. He had never truly liked it. Not like he liked this place, this beautiful country, this warm house. He'd once felt some kind of satisfaction for never breaking under the strain of his work in the field and the yard at the abbey. But he'd never felt the strange comfort and joy of purpose that he felt when he worked with Hannibal, farming his land and preserving his food.
From their hands, their life-- their survival--would spring. Will had never felt so close, so in control, of his future as he felt when they'd tucked the dried, salted pork away in the cold store carved into hard rock underneath Hannibal's house. That meat would see them through the long dark of the winter, Hannibal had told him. He had much more than last year, much more than they both would need to stave off starvation, Hannibal said, because of Will.
"I'm glad you are awake, little one," Hannibal spoke from the door of his house that faced the water.
Will looked up at him and smiled when he saw a long line and several hooks in Hannibal's hands.
Hannibal asked, "Would you like to fish with me today, Will?"
Will, smiling even more broadly, nodded and followed Hannibal hastily to the river bank. They walked out onto the dock. Will took a long, neatly woven line from Hannibal's strong fingers and plucked one of the hooks from his open palm.
"You are familiar with the method," Hannibal said.
Will flashed him a wry smirk. "I imagine it's the same everywhere, don't you?" Will tied the hook onto the line as though he'd done it last only days ago and not a decade. His father had fished with nets of course, but sometimes they had tied up long lines across nearby streams that fed into the sea, or Will had used his own line to pass the long hours on his father's boat.
As his fingers lengthened the slack and pulled it up again, testing a long disused memory of his body, he felt something light fill up his chest. He was smiling again, looking down at the line, and across the water, and then, finally, to Hannibal, who was watching him. There was no small amount of pleasure, even awe, in Hannibal's eyes and mouth as he looked at Will.
Will cast his line and sat down upon the dock, sinking his bare feet into the chilling water. "Just tell me if I do it in some way you wouldn't," he said.
Hannibal sat down beside him and cast his own line. "Of course," he replied.
They roasted three fish that night and pickled five more. Will's haul had been prodigious, while somehow Hannibal's had been less so. Will suspected he hadn't been giving the task his full attention. Warmth curled in his belly and across his cheeks as he thought of Hannibal's eyes straying from the water, from their task, and to Will's busy hands and his frown of concentration.
Noll had paced at their backs earlier that morning, but soon had settled curled next to Will. Will and the dog spent much of the rest of the rapidly chilling fall that way, settled together on the dock. Hannibal, saying nothing, but brushing an encouraging hand across Will’s shoulders, left them to the fish and busied himself in the garden, the house, and the woods behind his small field.
Will let his mind wander, draw into himself and out into the world, as his fingers waited patiently, reflexively tightening to bring in fish after fish, day after day. He felt peaceful, happy, and pleasantly useful, especially when Hannibal said one night, with a profoundly pleased light in his eyes that they had so much fish, they must go to the town and barter it away.
“I should go as well?” Will asked. He realized, while he felt some trepidation, he was also aware of a strange kind of excitement within himself.
“Yes, of course,” Hannibal replied. “I would have you use your wonderful gift for me, little one.”
Will bit back an assertion that the gift could not be wonderful if it were so wicked. He understood those were the words the monks and the Fathers had told him. The words Hannibal had said kept him caged at the Abbey, in body and mind.
He’d found himself contemplating such a cage. The words of the monks and the Word of God. What was wickedness truly, he’d begun to wonder by himself at the water. He’d thought on Noll, who used the gifts god granted to his kind with no apparent thought or question, no hesitation. And why shouldn’t Will? As long as he did no harm, he did not think a sense, so similar a thing to smell or sight or hearing--that which all creatures used and thrived upon--could be thought of as a wickedness.
When Will did not speak right away, Hannibal shifted and considered him carefully. Will thought perhaps Hannibal was able to tell, in some look on Will’s face or change in the set of his shoulders, that Will was thinking of God and his old life, questioning himself and the world. Will found himself smiling and Hannibal tilted his head in silent inquiry. They had become proficient in speaking with few words in the past weeks.
“Did you know,” Will said softly, “that I no longer think of myself as a monk?”
Hannibal did not move. His hands, which had been stirring the pot over the fire, slowed and stilled.
Will continued, his voice gone slightly shaky, “In my mind, I am not one of them. They are monks. They believe what they have been taught. They live in the Abbey. They work for the glory of God. I do not.”
“You live here now,” Hannibal said. His eyes had fallen to the fire. His hands quickened, turning the stew.
“I work for myself,” Will told him. It felt significant to say so. “And for you.”
Hannibal’s expression changed minutely, a hardening in the set of his jaw. “We work together,” he said. Will knew Hannibal had not taken Will because he wanted a servant. Will had never been a true slave to Hannibal.
“Yes. But, I think I should walk behind you when we go into the town,” Will replied. “I think I should keep my eyes on the ground. It is not so important that people understand this as we do.”
Hannibal looked up from the fire and smiled. “I thought so, as well, little one.” After a moment his gaze fell to Noll, sitting with a bone at Will’s feet. Hannibal’s expression dimmed to a neutral mask. “We will not take the dog.”
Will frowned. “I can’t say he won’t follow--”
Hannibal’s eyes cut to Will’s and they were suddenly cold. “Then we will chain him.” He picked two bowls up from where they were warming near the coals and poured out a portion of the stew for them both. He passed one to Will without another word.
Will ate. Chewing slowly on the food and the idea that, while Will had never been a true slave-- never beaten, never broken--there had never been a question as to who was the master.
Will had always been subordinate. At home with his family, at the Abbey, and even here. His lot was never to lead. He looked at Hannibal, who he trusted now because...because he must. And Hannibal had been kind and strange and Will must believe in something or--he did not know. Will did not want to go back to the Abbey and he knew there was nowhere else for him.
Hannibal could chain the dog, or chain Will again, if it pleased him, and Will was not sure he would want to leave this place, his new home.
He thought Hannibal might like to know such a thing, but he could not speak the words. He held them in his mouth and suddenly wanted to press his body to Hannibal’s. It would be good for Hannibal to know how much he did not want to leave. It would be a good way to show him, since Will could not speak of it.
Will no longer believed the ways bodies wanted each other was the work of the Devil. He had not as a young boy, having seen the joy his parents had taken in such activities in their one room cottage. He had only believed in such evil at the Abbey because it was important to him at the beginning of his time there to absorb everything, to be as good as possible, and be right with God. He realized now how easily he had let the monks and priests and godly men around him shape his thoughts.
It occurred to him suddenly how much his mind had turned from that world in the few months he had lived with his captor.
Hannibal, his captor. Hannibal, his master. His friend.
Hannibal’s words slowly churning in his mind as he stared out into the lapping waves of the quiet river. As he stared into the crackling, dancing fire. As he stared into Hannibal’s strange, dark eyes, which were the slightly purpled color of the blood that had been painted onto the crucifix that had hung upon the High Altar in the church. Will’s mind had changed, for Hannibal.
Will set his food aside. Hannibal met Will’s eyes and did the same.
As so often was his wont, Hannibal waited for Will to speak.
Will’s lips had gone dry and he licked them slowly. His head felt light on his shoulders, his mind reeling. “I am changed,” he said. “I am changing and I don’t know how to stop.”
Hannibal’s expression did not change. “Do you wish to?”
Will shook his head no, but said, “I would have, I think.”
Hannibal now actually looked a little impatient with him. “The past does not matter,” he hissed lowly. “It is dead and we are not.” He leaned closer to Will. His eyes were bright again with something fierce and not a little wild. “Do you wish to be other than you are now, Will?” He demanded.
Will closed the space between them. He pressed his lips firmly to Hannibal’s, for only a brief moment. When Hannibal’s mouth opened slightly to pull Will’s lips into his, Will pulled back, feeling shaken. He looked up into Hannibal’s eyes and said, “No.” His heart was pounding.
Hannibal gathered Will into his arms, pulling him tight against his chest. He smiled and Will smiled back