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“I can’t sleep,” Hannibal admitted to the ceiling. His voice echoed against the laminate flooring and scuffed wallpaper. From the hallway whispered the steady ticking of a clock.
“Neither can I,” came Will’s voice from beside him. Hannibal turned to face the other man. Will had his head propped up under his hand, elbow cushioned in the dark satin pillow, like he’d been leisurely watching Hannibal lie there in his own quiet agony. A reversal of the artist and the sculpture, for once; it was Will, soft curls and rough skin cast in the faint light of the moon, that gazed unabashedly at Hannibal.
“I’m afraid we can’t sleep for very different reasons, Will.”
Will raised an eyebrow at that. “Why, Hannibal, I dare say it’s the opposite.” He leaned forward and licked his lips, dyed the red of ripe pomegranate in the dark of night, as if to share a conspiratory secret.
“The reason we both can’t sleep is because I’m dead.”
Hannibal’s eyes followed the sharp edge of his teeth to the dimple in his cheek. It was true. Had Will been alive, Hannibal didn’t think he would have been able to convince him to wear what he was dressed in now. The navy silk nightshirt had its top few buttons undone because even in Hannibal’s mind Will couldn’t be orderly. But because he was in Hannibal’s mind, the glimmering fabric was embroidered with a smattering of gorgeous swans.
Hannibal resisted the urge to reach out and trace the thread. “That is quite the characterization.”
“Well, I can’t sleep because the dead don’t have a functional brain with which to go through the sleep cycle, and you can’t sleep because the knowledge of my death keeps you awake.” Will cocked his head, staring into Hannibal’s eyes.
“Do you regret it?”
Hannibal considered the question. Perhaps he’d been considering it even before Will’s tongue had carved the words from Hannibal’s own heart.
“I do not regret killing you,” he said; not too quickly, not too slowly. “It was the brightest moment of my life. It was only then, in that perfect clarity, that I realized that every life I had taken was merely a steppingstone leading to yours. The sketches upon which I could whet my pen until I finally had the chance to mark my page with your figure.”
Hannibal swallowed. “You were my magnum opus. I may never feel that way again.”
“So, what, you’re saying I was so good of a lay you can’t think of ever fucking anyone again?” The unexpected vulgarity sliced through the air in Hannibal’s lungs. It tasted like derision. In that moment, Will’s teeth were gleaming hooks, his eyes a savage ocean.
Then, like he was just a skipping record having the stylus recalibrated, Will’s face smoothed out again. When he smirked, his teeth were smooth pillars of alabaster. “Flattering, but I think your body count speaks for itself.”
Will paused, as if ruminating. His tongue flicked out to wet his cracked lips. “It’s too bad we didn’t actually have sex. I think I would have enjoyed it. I’d have let you draw me afterwards, relaxed and sated, splayed out in our bed. You’d have all the time in the world to memorize every dip in my skin, every curve in my muscle, every crest of my bones.” Will let the words hang in the air, like he knew they were bursting into blazing pictures refracting through shattered glass in Hannibal’s head.
“Do you regret that, too?”
Hannibal closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t bother answering the question. It was rhetorical; they both already knew the answer. Instead, he continued along his original train of thought, deliberating over every word like he would over a stitch through a jagged laceration.
“I do not regret eating you.” Hannibal said. “I’ve honed my craft in the culinary arts for many, many years. Respected chefs and food critics alike have eaten at my table and paid compliments to my cooking. I’ve even grown bold enough to claim I could serve a seven-course meal blindfolded.” He felt the corners of his eyes crinkle the slightest amount.
“And yet, preparing your flesh put me in a state of mind I had not been in since I first picked up a boning knife. It was refreshing. Every nerve in my body had come alight with anxiety, with anticipation, knowing that I could make one mistake and ruin what I knew would be the finest feast of my life. I didn’t, of course. You were exquisite.” His heart sped up ever so slightly at the memory. He could almost imagine the taste on his tongue.
“I made you feel like a fumbling virgin, did I? That’s high praise coming from you, Hannibal.” Will grinned at that and wiggled his eyebrows.
Hannibal’s lungs expanded.
Filled with air.
Contracted.
Emptied themselves.
“I do not regret meeting you. I do not regret framing you. I do not regret freeing you. I do not regret leaving you. I do not regret loving you.”
Will blinked at him because Hannibal thought Will should blink. His chest rose and fell ever so slightly because breathing was what kept people alive. Will waited because the living had all the time in the world.
The words sat at the back of his throat. He knew he needed to say them. Hannibal was not one to hide from his emotions. He met Will’s half amused stare.
“I regret… that you are dead.”
The world froze.
The breathing, the quiet breathing that had been drowning out the clock, stopped. Will’s eyes, eyes whose gaze been gently focused on Hannibal’s face, stilled. His form however, his silk-draped and moonlit form didn’t flicker; even in a tempest of emotions, Hannibal remained in control. Hannibal always remained in control.
The world started again.
“You probably wouldn’t believe it, but me too! We could start a support group.” Will’s gaze flicked up, as if counting something. “I think we could find a handful of our friends to join us.” He looked at Hannibal again.
“You know, you could just be normal and say that you miss me.” Then, Will seemed to consider what he’d just said. “No, asking you to be normal borders on insulting. Can’t use a word like ‘normal’ to describe anything we share.”
Share. As if he could take Will to the opera and introduce him to its snobbish patrons whose company Hannibal had long ago admitted to enjoying more than he should, considering their garish tastes. As if he could sit down with Will now and talk languidly over dinner and wine, revel in the conversation that takes place in the inverted silhouette of their words. As if he could reach out and touch his hair, his cheeks, his lips, trace the planes of his flesh with more than just his eyes. As if he could breathe in and taste the glorious concoction that was Will’s scent.
He inhaled and smelled only his own soap and the laundry detergent used to wash the sheets.
“What? Expected to smell some of my awful aftershave?”
“You wouldn’t have taken it with you.” Will would have packed lightly, bringing only what was necessary. His aftershave would not have made the list.
The man in question quirked his lips. “And how can you be so sure about that, Hannibal? Maybe I have hidden depths. You don’t know.”
“No, I suppose not,” he admitted. He knew of Will’s hidden depths, the crevices of his mind that Hannibal had so longed to explore and whisper his desires into. He had wanted a great many things from Will.
“And now you won’t ever find out, will you?”
It was another rhetorical question. Did Will mean to sink his hook into an open wound, or merely cast his line in curiosity of what he might catch?
What was Hannibal doing, imagining Will asking him these questions? He knew better. He should have constructed Bedelia instead.
Why hadn’t he?
“The world is emptier with you gone,” Hannibal found himself saying. The words tasted like Will’s tongue. Sharp and tender, melting into nothingness as they passed through his lips. They pressed together, dry and cracked.
“And now you’re alone again,” Will said. He was bleeding. A red curtain slowly falling over the stage that was his face.
Hannibal turned back to the ceiling.
He did not blink.
He did not cry.
And now I am alone again.