Work Text:
‘Twas the night before Christmas, in old Baltimore
Not a person was stirring. Not anymore.
The organs were hung by the veins that they bear,
A sign Abel Gideon had surely been there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
Bullet wounds gaping in their bloody heads.
Awaiting the needle was Will in his cell,
He’d settled himself to a lifetime of hell.
When in the asylum there arose such a clatter,
Will sprang from his cot to see what was the matter.
Away from his cell he flew like a flash,
When his bars and his gates came down with a crash.
The glare of the headlights on new-fallen snow
Blinded the guards and allowed Will to go,
When, what to Will’s wondering eyes should appear,
But a shiny black Bentley bringing Hannibal near.
Will weighed all his options, so few and so grim,
He knew in a moment—he must go with him.
Though Hannibal’s friendship he didn’t much crave,
Will had lost all that mattered, and his life he could save.
The two drove through the night to a lonely old town,
With its lights blackened out and a truck broken down.
The doctor, he slowed until they were still.
He turned his cold gaze, and he smiled at Will.
Two men there were sitting, alone in the night.
And they looked suspicious and ready to fight.
Will saw what they hid, in their eyes and their minds,
Violence and cruelty he knew he would find.
“What help do you need?” said the doctor too kindly.
One snorted and laughed; the other said dryly,
“Get back on the highway if you want to see morning,
We don’t need your help, and you’ll get no more warning.”
The chill of foreknowledge gripped Will in his chest,
As Hannibal rose and ignored their request.
The two men just mocked him as they shook with laughter,
Not knowing how soon they would meet the hereafter.
One sensed his own danger before 'twas too late.
The other gripped Hannibal, his eyes wide with hate.
Blood burst from his mouth in a blossom of color,
And Hannibal watched as his blue eyes grew duller.
The first man was up and at Hannibal’s throat,
His right hand was pulling a gun from his coat.
Will burst from his seat, out in the raw air,
The knife in his hand—how did it get there?
The blood…it was cloying and sticky with heat,
As Hannibal lifted Will back on his feet.
The bodies there lay spreading stains on the road.
Then Hannibal knelt in the blood that there flowed.
He gazed slyly at Will, his hand on the hilt,
And Will felt a swift pleasure, in spite of his guilt.
A wink of the eye, and a twist of the head,
Soon gave Will to know he had naught more to dread.
The doctor spoke little but went straight to his work,
And cut out the sweetbreads, then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, to the Bentley they strode.
Will’s heart was pounding with the power he craved,
And darkness there settled, like dust on a grave.
And Will heard a whisper, ere the cold night was still,
“I’ll always be with you, whenever you kill.”