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Had Hannibal known this was going to happen, he would have bought a better boat.
Or, at the very least, ensured this one was in adequate shape. The 1985 Amel Maramu had sat unhoused on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay for approximately four years now. Time and its persistent lack of mercy has taken its toll on the ship’s interior. Mildew clings to the floorboards like a second skin, and the dust fills his lung cavity so badly he fears he will choke on it. Fortunately, the fixings have remained mostly intact: stable beds, running water, a functional kitchen. Comfortable, but hardly sustainable for sailing down to the Caribbean, let alone performing surgery in.
He is at least glad it had not gone to waste, although this was far from the future he envisioned for the ship. He once saw its potential as a conduit for joy. Days on the open water, a shared bottle of wine between them, and laughter loud enough to drown out the waves. He often pictured Abigail with them, too. Will had always said he wanted to teach her how to fish, and what better way to introduce their new lives together than exactly that? He had thought it a shame when he abandoned this boat with the rest of his past life after catching the lingering scent of ginger on Will’s clothes. At least now, its intended master has finally found his way back home.
The man in question is currently resting in one of the cabin’s two bedrooms, the other occupied by Chiyoh. Her boundless loyalty proves to be a blessing again. She had tracked Hannibal’s location down immediately after the news of his escape broke, and fetched the abandoned sailboat the moment she became aware of their need to flee. When all of this blows over, he will have to prepare a dinner in her honor.
For now, however, the three of them will have to survive off of the ship’s excuse for a stove. There is not much food aboard, primarily a few frozen meats and canned goods that had yet to rot within the safe house, but a great chef always knows how to make their resources work in their favor. A floorboard creaks behind him. Hannibal does not turn to face him. He already knows from the scent of sweat alone who it is.
“Ah, so the dead has returned to the living.” Hannibal glances over his shoulder. His eyes shift over Will’s face, to the red, jagged line spread across the corner of his lip to the edge of his malar, held together by a sting of black thread. Hannibal did not make the initial incision. He would not have been so sloppy, but he did stitch the wound back together. It is his hands that will decide how the mark will heal, how the seam of their joined pack hunting will forever be engraved on Will’s skin. There are certain parts of this world he can place back together. That is something he can live with.
“Levanta muertos,” Hannibal says, turning his attention back to the “stove” (An inadequate term for the shabby heating surface, but he currently lacks a better one). “Boneless chicken served in a blend of spices and a warm broth. Known to ‘raise the dead’ from its significant restorative properties. It is said it could cure any hangover.” He waits for Will’s inevitable comment on how it is really “soup,” but it never comes. What he hears instead is the inhale of anticipated speech, followed by a cry of pain. The Dragon’s attack had struck Will deeper than it seemed on the surface, something neither of them truly realized until the initial wave of adrenaline and euphoria faded. Even now, the wound seems determined to intrude in their space.
The food forgotten, Hannibal comes to Will and grasps his chin, closing his mouth with a soft clack of teeth. “Don’t speak,” he commands. “You will hurt yourself if you try.”
The “yeah, no shit” look Will gives him is all the response Hannibal needs to know he won’t try again. He pulls away, returning to the pot. “This is temporary,” he reassures. Will had awoken just in time; the soup is about finished. He removes two bowls from the cabinet above the sink. These are the one pieces of porcelain he has no temptation to shatter. Their current supply of dishware is limited. He glances over his shoulder. “With time, it shall be as though this never was.”
***
The old saying goes that if you want something done right, you do it yourself.
Hannibal could not agree more. There is something so satisfying about having the control to make the final product the best it can be, especially when you know you are the best. He goes beyond doing it right. He does it better. Yet, when shock gives way to hunger and the first aid kit stored on the ship proves to be insufficient, a bright red target on his back and a bullet in his stomach elevate a simple supply run to a near impossible feat. So, he has entrusted Chiyoh with the task.
The sound of a handgun slide being racked snaps through the air. A handgun- far from her usual weapon of choice, but the rifle would draw too much attention. Yet, she refused to go anywhere without a means of protection. Hannibal suspects she hasn’t in quite some time. He sits across from her in the ship’s cramped common area (Facing away from the stove, of course. He would rather not look at it). They have been going over everything they will require for the journey ahead: food, medical supplies, bathing soap, and, of course- “We need a notepad,” he adds lastly, “and something to write with. A pen would be preferable.”
Chiyoh looks up from her pistol. “We?”
He feels a chill ghost his neck. Long has it been since anyone dared to speak on the subject of his muteness. He should have figured this would happen. Chiyoh is one of the few people alive who witnessed that interlude in his life. Though he never would have guessed it would come up like this: in such a blatant accusation. ‘We?’ she doubted. We, we, we, as if Will’s voicelessness was contagious. He straightens his spine. “It’s for Will.”
If Chiyoh has any doubts about his claim, she does not make them known. She holds his gaze for a moment before returning her attention to the gun, not saying anything further than that. Within a half hour, the sailboat docks at the quiet ports of New Bern. All possible entryways for peering eyes have been sealed with whatever blankets and pillows they could find aboard. Hardly a single trickle of sunlight slips through the cracks. Hannibal thinks of sea burials, of bodies being returned to the tide, and wonders if he traded one tomb for another. In any case, he is grateful to have company.
Will comes to spread out on their L-shaped couch. He had wanted to switch out the white leather, now yellowed with oxidation, before they ever boarded together, but such is the way of fate. Hannibal takes his place next to him, the small rustle of the worn cushions squeaking through the silence. He adds onto it with his own disruption.
“Traditionally, when Buddhist monks took upon a vow of silence, they would carry a staff of iron called a khakkhara. The noise from the staff was used to frighten away predators in the absence of voice.” His hands fold in his lap, and his thumb presses right above his wrist. “I have instructed Chiyoh to bring you one of your own.” He turns towards Will, finding him already staring back. “Will you scare me away?”
Will’s lips into something akin to a smile, and were it not for the silk binds straining his cheek, he would no doubt be laughing. In a distant hall of his mind, he hears an echo of the warm sound, and it brings a reflecting smile onto his own face.
The sound of footsteps thudding from the outside hushes them. The two of them look up simultaneously at the set of windows across from them. A tall shadow looms across the muted light. He hears the clacking grow closer, closer, before pushing past them. The noise fades, but Hannibal continues to follow the echo in his mind.
***
Will doesn’t use the notepad right away.
It spends its first few days as a yellow stain on the kitchen counter. Not even the rock of the sea manages to deter the insufferable thing from its spot, wedged between a set of pens and that damn stove again. Hannibal worries it will collect dust with the rest of the ship. He is considering throwing it away- perhaps casting it overboard where it cannot mock him any longer. Though such behavior would be counterproductive.
He does not necessarily need to talk to Will. He could sit with him in silence forever and never grow bored, but an exchange of words would be preferable. Communication offers a window into thought. It is the closest he will ever come to peeling back the layers shielding the other man’s mind without the use of a blade, and having regained conversation with Will only recently, he is beginning to crave any kind of exchange.
Will finally caves in on the fourth day. He had just returned from one of his “excursions,” as Hannibal has begun to call them- the moments of alone time where Will conceals himself within the inner workings of the ship- but rather than locking himself away in their room or loitering on the deck, he makes a straight line to the ship’s kitchenette. The faint rustle of paper alerts Hannibal to the shift from his place across the room, and he focuses upon it. He watches the ballpoint pen move along the page. The image that barges its way through Hannibal’s mind is not one of the present, but rather a reflection behind a long bolted shut door. Will, pale, mute, and wounded, looks an awful lot like Hannibal did at age thirteen.
He had been so small, in both age and stature, small enough where he could not stop the swing of a clipboard to his cheek. The children were not the sole ones who went hungry at the orphanage; they only lacked the size and strength to act out upon it. The adults were not so misfortunate, and a mute child who cannot tell on you is a particularly easy target. It especially helps when said child is the former master of the house, and is unable to participate in certain mandatory activities, say, the children’s choir. That had earned him a busted lip, and he returned it with a fork to the monitor’s fist. An outsider may easily diagnose this situation as self-defense, and Hannibal will let them believe it, but he will always know the truth. He wanted to hurt him. He wanted him to understand the pain of his own strike.
But, vengeance is in the nature of man, and they would not let him forget it. They had dragged him out of his bed and into the cold night. Hannibal had woken up in a fit- again- from a nightmare. The noise had been enough to disturb what little sleep the staff got, so they ripped him from the warmth of his blankets and shoved him into the toolshed, far away enough where no one would hear him if he began to scream once more. He tried to hide from their light, even if simply to delay the inevitable, but he was not fast enough. He had emerged the next morning with an inflamed, hand-shaped mark on his thigh. His leg flares with a burning ache.
It is not until the words are practically being pressed against his face does he realize Will has finished writing. His eyes squint as he reads, The stern light needs repair.
Hannibal blinks. “You may tend to it when we arrive.”
Will’s brows pinch. Where?
“Our nearest sanctuary is located in Cuba,” he replies. “You will like it there. Plenty of places for a man to fish.” Or cliffs to be cast off of, his mind supplies.
For a moment, he thinks Will will continue, but instead, he turns on his heels and heads back down into his mechanical sanctuary. He takes the notepad with him. This should be a win in Hannibal’s books. Will is corresponding with him again, they are running away together. All the broken pieces have come together tidily. So why does his stomach feel sick?
***
In the vastness of the sea, there is not much to do but eat, sleep, and repeat. Will has settled into the cycle with ease, likely an adaptation from his childhood pinballing along the Mississippi. Hannibal is fairing in a similar vein. Confinement to a sailboat follows a similar routine as a cell, but considering he has spent the better part of three years staring at the same four walls, a change of scenery is refreshing. Their time spent together has caused some of Will’s nomadic nature to bleed into him- from Baltimore to Paris, to Florence, to Baltimore again. Stillness implies stability, and neither he nor Will has enough of it between them to remain stationary. He only wishes he had brought some books with him.
With a lack of enrichment seemingly becoming a recurring theme in Hannibal’s life, he has decided to use this period to reflect. So much of his time in prison had been dedicated to doing as such, but in the novelty of his circumstance, he finds he has new material to consider. More specifically, the question has come to mind: Why could he not stomach Will’s new method of communicating? It has been years since he has worn the old, battered glove of a therapist, but the knowledge necessary to dissect the human psyche has sustained. He still recognizes the symptoms. If he were his own patient, he would chalk up his response to trauma… but that can’t be right.
Hannibal is not an abuse victim. That term is reserved for pitiful creatures, the sniveling ones who would come crawling into his office, unable to realize that the power to end their suffering was already in their hands. No, Hannibal is not one of them. He was not abused. He was informed. What had occurred at the orphanage was simply another part of his education, nothing more than a footnote in the narrative of the man he would become.
Regardless, he knows he is not the only man at sea in need of reflection. Will finds his as he often does: gazing upon the water, searching for something solid in the distorted image. He comes to stand behind Will’s perch by the pushpit. He has grown quite tan over the years, Hannibal notes. Never would he have thought he would feel envy for a star, but seeing as the sun has kissed Will in areas his lips have only dreamed of touching, he cannot help but wish to take its place. He sits and joins him on the bow, legs dangling off the pointed edge.
“Considering capsizing the ship?” He asks, the cold Atlantic spraying his plum-shaded skin.
Will finally acknowledges his presence with a glance and picks up his- likely purposefully ignored- notepad from his right. Coming to terms with being alive.
His fingers fidget at his sides, thumbs rubbing over the indexes. “You had said you could not save yourself.” Hannibal turns towards Will with a tilt of his head. “Which leaves you to damn yourself instead.”
Will’s hand tightens around the pen for a second. He places his next note near the bottom line. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t?
“I think whether or not you are damned depends entirely on your point of view,” he responds. “The only difference between a martyr and a masochist is how they take the punishment.”
Will only huffs and tosses the notepad to the side again. Well. Hannibal knows when his presence is no longer welcomed, and though he tends to linger regardless, he senses that he will not receive anything else out of this exchange. Stray water droplets cling to his legs even after he rises to his feet, and the chill of their presence in the morning air makes him all the more eager to return to the cabin.
He hears the throw before he feels it, the faint rustle in the air. He has often heard it in his memories; in the final moments before the kiss of Judas, standing tall over his office while the records of his past life are tossed over Will’s head. The books fall with stentorian crashes, the papers almost inaudible in their slower descent. Galileo's law of falling bodies. Hannibal was never granted the mercy of air resistance. Not as a child, when his frostbitten skin collapsed into the snow. Not as a man, kneeling on his kitchen floor with stinging eyes. Not as another half, standing at a cliffside on a moonlit evening. The front page strikes against his skull.
His hand moves back and smoothes over the point of contact, checking for raised signs of another injury to attend to. Nothing. No trickles of blood from a broken lip, or welts on his thigh. The projectile had struck him on the base of his head. He feels the sting on his cheek. His eyes flicker down towards the wooden deck. Even against the Atlantic’s wavering winds, the bold black word sticks out in his gaze.
WHERE?
Hannibal cocks his head to the side. Had he not already informed Will of their destination? He knows where their target lies, knows where the ship is headed, but neither of them can fathom what stretches beyond the horizon. Their future is charting towards an unknown direction. Where, he understands, do they go from here?
“You took fate by the reins when you gave yourself to the Chesapeake," he says, rolling his neck back into place. “Mine is entirely in your hands.”
Will stares at him for a moment longer, a hardness set in his eyes, before turning back towards the sea. The wound in his side stabs with protest as he crouches down and retrieves the casted pages. He brings it back to its rightful spot before placing his palm on Will’s shoulder, lingering for a moment longer than necessary. His hand starts to slide away when a sudden grip on his wrist stops him.
Hannibal freezes. Still holding onto him, Will begins to write within his line of sight. He presses the ink tip a little too hard into the paper, and he’s surprised that it does not tear. At least the force is a good distraction from how his heart threatens to lurch at Will’s touch. Your fate is safe with me.
Whether Will means that he does not intend to kill him, or if he will not allow his legacy to go to waste, Hannibal is unsure, but the sentiment is genuine all the same. He finally lets go of him, even if Hannibal is not quite sure he wanted him to. Reluctantly, he squeezes his shoulder once more and descends back down into the hull.
***
The notepad taps twice against his shoulder.
The halls of the BSHCI were haunted, in the same way that empty churchyards and abandoned hospitals are haunted. There is a constant awareness of lingering presences no longer there, and the silence which follows their absence. Hannibal’s cell had been particularly quiet. Dr. Chilton’s former office was as far as one could get from the standard prison wing. They had placed him there by design, of course, away from where his influence could stain the rest of the world. In the end, he had found his own method of escape. No cage could ever contain a predator of his size.
In the present, waves clash all around him. There are no ghosts on board, only he and Will, and whatever lost souls they carry between them.
Another set of taps beats to a heart’s rhythm. He’s not angry. He wasn’t going to get much sleep, anyway. Hannibal reaches over, and light bursts into the cabin with a soft ‘click’ of the bedside lamp. It’s a tight fit on their shared twin-sized mattress, made all the more evident in the moments either of them tries to move. It’s a series of awkward bumps and twisted limbs that brings them across from each other, with Hannibal at the head of the bed and Will at the foot. They fall into this placement naturally. This is where they will always be in the end: sitting across from the other, where the rest of the world is out of reach.
A singular sentence stretches in the interstice:
My speech was delayed.
Hannibal’s eyes scan the canary colored page. Once, twice. “It is common for children with atypical neurological functioning to-“
Will shakes his head and quickly scribbles, Not that. His pen hovers in the air for a moment before adding, Fine. Yes, that, but it wasn’t the only reason.
A familiar hunger stirs in the pits of Hannibal’s stomach. He could be nourished by the very sight of Will, yes, but never satisfied. Satisfaction implies reaching a point where he is content to walk away, and he is long past any thoughts of separation, let alone when he has just begun to scratch the surface. He knows Will better than anyone, and yet not well enough. There is nothing too insignificant when it comes to him, no detail too small in the fresco of Will Graham’s psyche not worth appreciating. He wants to know everything. He wants to know what makes him tick, how he prefers to stir his drinks, the order in which he gets dressed in the morning, down to the last sock, and he wants to know what drove Will to the same silence that once consumed him.
“Tell me,” he whispers.
Will flips over to the next page and puts his pen to paper. When I did talk, it never sounded like mine. The words always sounded like they belonged to someone else.
Hannibal licks his lips and rolls the confession on his tongue; savors it. “You wanted to speak for yourself.”
He nods, and the faint edges of relief smooth over his features. Took years for me to find my own voice.
It had taken Hannibal the same.
His speech had been the first thing the doctors tried to fix. To his aunt and uncle’s credit, they attempted everything one could think of; from child therapists and clinics, to boarding school programs, and tried and true comforts. Closure had been a significant motivating factor for them. The only way they would know what made him lose his voice in the first place, what turned this once bright-eyed young man into a mute beast, was if he could say it. Even if he could speak, why would he tell them? His sins were not theirs to keep.
The one method with some merit was when the doors to his uncle’s studio had been opened to him. Hannibal’s love for art had come into fruition long before that day, but in the absence of speaking, a pencil could express what words could not. That, and the crunch of a man’s face beneath his swing. He had walked away from that fight with a soreness in his throat and a dull ache in his head. It felt good. The pain was liberating, not like the kind that came with being at the mercy of men. Art and violence, beauty and pain- two sides of the same coin, both used to give a boy voice when he had none.
“What gives you voice, Will?”
The other man considers this. He watches the outline of Will’s tongue press against the threaded inside of his cheek before settling on an answer. He lets Hannibal take the stationery from his hands when he is finished. Just one word has been left: You.
He does not dare to breathe, although it feels like he finally can for the first time. In retrospect, he would think of these roles as reversed. It is Will who gives Hannibal his voice. Will, who once stood tall before a classroom and painted The Ripper in a portrait of elegance. Will, who could find Hannibal in any corner of the world, regardless if he dares not to look. He is more than glad to return the favor. He sets the notepad on the ground in favor of taking Will into his arms. “Get some rest,” he whispers. He lets the twilight embrace them once more, and falls asleep to the sound of Will’s breathing.
***
Hannibal has such a profound fondness for the night.
They call monsters “creatures of the night” for a reason. Shadows are protectors for beings like him. Their shielding welcomes opportunity, and the ability to live without scrutiny. Even during his darkest days in Europe or the hospital, solace would be found within the evening. He could often gaze upon the midnight sky and imagine Will staring back at him from the other side of the cosmos. All night skies are different depending on a variety of factors. Location, time, atmospheric conditions, but distance hardly made a difference to his heart. He could always count on him and Will sharing stars and felt comfort in the bridges between constellation points. So, yes, he enjoys nighttime.
This, however, was not always the case. There was once a time when moonlight was a dreaded presence for him. Sleep meant that he was vulnerable to dreams, and dreaming meant… Well. He has the scars to prove it. The earth has spun around on its axis approximately eleven thousand times since then, and Hannibal is as far as he can be from the Baltic Sea, so why does the circumstance feel the same?
He tells himself that a lot of it has to do with the protruding smell of fear beside him. He had caught a whiff of it before the sheen of sweat had begun to build on Will’s forehead. He will wake him from his unconscious torment… eventually. He is not delaying to harm Will; he is simply observing him. Hannibal has only seen Will’s nightmare through secondary recount; he’s never had the privilege of witnessing it first-hand. Not so freely.
However, like stalking nightmares, Hannibal is in the unfortunate practice of making assumptions with Will. He is often one step ahead in the game, but he did not think the soft cries Will was making would turn into guttural wails. The noise doesn’t sound human. It’s more akin to the pain cries of an animal, piercing through the apathetic darkness and ripping open Hannibal’s eardrums. He sobs and thrashes, more animated in his agony than he had been on the shores of the bay. It is a wonder how the no doubt pain in Will’s straining wound does not wake him. For a mute, he could scream well enough at night.
‘They will hear him.’ The whisper curls like smoke inside of him, churns his stomach and seizes his breath. A boy’s voice, but far too rough for one his age, more so by his pleas. ‘They will hear him. He is going to wake them up. Why are you not silencing him?’ He reaches out and shakes Will by his forearm. “Will,” he whispers. The restless man does not stir. Screams continue to reverberate off the cabin’s walls, bleeding into the other rooms. There will be hell to pay if he does not quiet soon. “Will!” He tries again, raising his voice slightly. He shakes him harder, bordering on the desperate.
Will wakes with a start. His body lurches in the bed, coming straight for Hannibal. The movement is fast- too fast- like the swing of a fist. Hannibal raises his arms, crossing them into an X to shield himself from the blow. A hand does land on him, but it is a gentle touch, one that grounds him enough to allow his defensive stance. He opens his eyes and unexpectedly finds sympathy instead of anger. Will opens his mouth as though he is attempting to say something, but Hannibal is already on his feet. The air in the cabin is suffocating. He wants Will to stop looking at him, he wants to shut off all the lights and find the nearest object to attack with. He wants more than he knows how to handle. He rushes outside.
Winter in the Atlantic is harsh, however closer they tread to the equator. Goosebumps are already pebbling his skin. It’s a cloudy night, not a star in the sky. He descends into the dark until he reaches the edge of the bow. This shouldn’t be happening. Will is the one who had the nightmare. If anything, he should be back in the cabin, soothing away his fears, not struggling to breathe despite being in a vacuum of fresh air. He feels something thick drape over his shoulders, and recognizes the velvety texture to be the bed’s blanket. Will leans against the railing and taps his pen on the cold metal surface.
You okay?
He exhales. As a boy, Hannibal could not put a name to the feeling a raised hand would evoke. Now, as a man, Hannibal- polyglot, lover of languages- once again finds that description eludes him. “That entirely depends on your definition of the word.” Refusing to allow Will to examine that further, he changes the subject. “Tell me, what was your dream about?”
The slight twitch in Will’s face tells him that he is aware of what he is doing, but complies all the time. He picks up his utensil with an exhale. Hannibal peers over his shoulder, watching the words come to the page as they are being written. D went for you instead, it says, Kicked you while you were down. Sliced your face like Picasso’s paintstrokes. His fingers tremble around the plastic pen as he adds, I couldn’t move. My body was paralyzed while he tore you apart. I was helpless to do anything but watch.
A reflection, Hannibal thinks. He presses his tongue against his teeth. “The parts of our faults we see in others are often the most difficult to face.”
A frown tugs at Will’s lips. Perhaps his face changes or some shift in his posture gives it away, but he can see it in his eyes that Will knows. He knows, and Hannibal has the abrupt urge to tuck his face beneath the blanket, away from his too-seeing gaze. This happened to you before, he writes.
No sense in hiding now. It will merely prove Will’s claim. “For a time, yes,” He whispers. “Mischa had taken my voice with her.” He pulls the blanket tighter over his frame. “This is not something I had intended for you to see.”
Will is somewhat startled by this. He flips the page. You want to be seen.
“When I choose to,” He retorts with a clipped voice. “Not when I cannot control it.”
But as Hannibal cannot control what Will sees, Will cannot control how he sees it. They are both equally ineffective in that matter. He uncovered his muteness, but he can tell Will senses there is something more, something beyond his possible realm of knowledge. Then again, Hannibal thought many aspects of himself once fit within that category. He will figure it out eventually, and he would rather that happen on his own terms. “That is not why I am…” ‘Upset’ sits on the tip of his tongue, but it is too small of a word. Five letters are not enough to describe the magnitude of emotion squeezing his lungs. “Why I left your side.”
The other man stiffens out of the corner of his eye. Will places a hand on his back, pressing against the tight muscles between his shoulder blades. He takes a breath. “To some, my muteness was not seen as a sign of struggle; they considered it to be an offense. The attendants at my orphanage were particularly displeased with my condition. They already had many issues to face: starving children, infectious disease, struggles for warmth…” He swallows. “My silence was a catalyst for their frustrations. If I did not speak, they would strike me for it, and go on in peace knowing I could not say a word about it.”
He hears an inhale. Hannibal has seen the righteous flare in Will’s eyes before- while pointing a gun in a man’s face or witnessing a divine level of intervention for a deserved fate. For a moment, Hannibal thinks he might pick up his pen and demand the names of each person who ever dared to raise a hand at him. Not that it would do him any good. Hannibal had taken care of that problem years ago. He expects Will to do just that when he raises the notes to his level again. Instead, he turns it over after penning a singular sentence. Three words are inscribed on the page. I love you.
For the second time in his life, Hannibal finds himself speechless.
Will’s usual script is neat, but unsteady. His hands twitch far too much for any sort of stability. The handwriting before him now is nothing of the sort. The words are stable, sure, more certain than he has known Will to be with anything in his life. In script. He has longed for years to hear Will declare his requite, but instead he has it in writing, like two schoolboys passing secret notes beneath their desks rather than a voice to speak it into existence.
“Could you not have waited to say it instead?” He croaks.
A minute passes before Will writes again. I didn’t, He states in ink. You’ve already heard me say it, just not with that phrasing.
Hannibal knows languages are individualistic creatures. They take the same form as snowflakes, with each carrying its unique rules and patterns which cannot be found in any other dictation, yet amongst the differences, almost every one has a means of conveying love. There are hundreds, thousands of ways to speak the same universal truth. “Ti amo,” I love you. “Je t'aime,” I love you. “Aš tave myliu,” I love you. Love has made its way into Will’s vocabulary and taken shape in a language of its own. “Didn’t I?” I love you. “I forgive you." I love you. “It’s beautiful.” I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. How many times has his confession been lost in translation? As many times as his own dialect has slipped past Will, most likely.
“Perhaps we both could benefit from a sense of directness.”
Then, allow me to rephrase. It is the last sentence he writes before casting the pages aside. No words could speak what a brush of lips could scream.
The first kiss is tentative. Will’s lips sink against his own for a split-second before resurfacing. An appetizer. No, that’s not quite right. The touch is more akin to trying a new dish, something you anticipate the flavor of, but will never know how it truly tastes until you take the leap of fate. He had considered what Will’s flavor profile would be many times, but not even his favorite fantasies could have compared to the real thing. The blue eyes staring into his flash with hunger, and this time, Will devours him without any hesitation.
And oh.
So this is what it feels like to be kissed.
Hannibal is familiar with the intimacy of a touch of lips. Well, perhaps “intimacy” is not the right word. “Pleasure” is more accurate, or simply “experience.” To him, he considers it to be choreography; a part of the song and dance that is being a lover, but holds little value beyond such. Kissing for the sake of kissing. Will kisses for the sake of kissing him. Suddenly, Hannibal is a boy again, trying to find the genesis of his manhood in the mouths of older strangers. He will have to construct a new room in his mind palace exclusively for this, one he intends to visit again, and again, and again-
Will’s jaw unhinges, and he hears the thread groan with the strain. “Your stitches-” Hannibal gasps between their lips. “They will tear.”
He sighs and shakes his head. Let them, he can practically hear Will say. He presses his lips harder against Hannibal’s. I want it. He is only aware of the fact that he is crying when Will begins to lick the salty tears off his cheeks and takes hold of his wrists. He guides them to exactly where he wants them: one on his waist, the other tangled with his curls. Hannibal uses this as permission to pull them closer. He would have happily died like this- in the arms of the man he loves, choking on his lips- but Will is cruel enough to pull away, and kind enough to remain close enough where he can feel his warmth.
Hannibal’s trembling hands pick up the discarded notepad. He turns back to the page of Will’s confession. In the first line beneath the writing, he leaves his unspoken response: I love you, too.
***
The stitches are removed after two weeks, three days after they docked the coast of Havana.
Healing comes easier now that they are free-range. It comes as no surprise that Hannibal rests better on a real bed rather than a stale mattress in a rocking room. Above all else, he is happy to have a functional stove again. Will is equally elated to have a functional mouth once more. It’s almost cartoonish how much he stretches his jaw once Hannibal removed the sutures. He rubs his hand along the line of his jaw, sighing with relief.
“Hannibal.” Will’s voice is metallic, scratchy and strained with disuse. It is still the sweetest sound Hannibal has ever heard.
“Will.” Hannibal tracks the motion of Will’s hand as he rests it on his knee. He sets the silver scissors down on the counter. “Do you prefer to stir your coffee clockwise or counterclockwise?”
His brows furrow for a second before the expression eases, and something akin to endearment graces his lips. “Clockwise,” he answers, “and I have a bad habit of licking the spoon afterwards.”
Hannibal returns the look. “There’s nothing wrong with indulgence.” He brings his hand to cup Will’s cheek, and his thumb smoothes over the raised railroad track marks along the skin. “I apologize. I could not prevent the scarring.”
Will smiles, and the tenderness in his eyes follows into the kiss he presses into Hannibal’s palm. “That’s okay,” He murmurs into the skin. “I wouldn’t want you to, anyway. It's a good reminder.”
‘I would like to remember everything,’ says a younger Hannibal while trailing at his tutor’s feet. The older man would have to slow his steps to accommodate his tiny legs. There it is again: another thing Will has in common with his younger self. They should start a jar for this- one coin in every parallel, and have the funds go towards a rainy day. “To remember is not always a blessing,” his self from the present responds.
It’s a bit of a sting. If anyone else were to know the pain of memory, it would be Will. Hannibal has done his due diligence in that. He stands and gathers the equipment sourced from his first-aid kit, placing them into the sink and running them under hot water. The heat scaldes his skin, but he appreciates its warmth. Aside, Will stares at him so intensely that he can feel the gaze caressing the nape of his neck. Hannibal returns the look on instinct, and it’s not just the morning sun that softens his face. “I want to remember, with you.” Will’s voice is barely audible over the tap. “You have given me something worth remembering.”
Hannibal does not reply to that. He fears the words may overwhelm him if he tries. An alternative to the other jar: the amount of times he manages to leave him uncertain in conversation. If they had been keeping that one since the first day they met, it would have been well past full by now. He goes back to cleaning. Will is the first to break the silence. “You told me our fate was in my hands,” he sighs, his palms dragging over his thighs as he leans back. “I am curious to know if my reign extends to our old friends.”
The tweezers nearly clatter from Hannibal’s hands. He looks up from the sink. “You have had much to think about in your silent retreat.”
Will rises to his feet. He comes to stand behind him, close enough that his chest presses against his back. His arms snake around his stomach, and he lowers his head to his collar of Hannibal’s sweater, mouthing at the skin peaking beyond its edge. Terrible boy. What a distraction he makes from resterilizing tools. “I’ve been thinking,” Will hums. Hannibal feels the vibration within his veins, “It’s been far too long since we had dinner together.”
Hannibal grins. He closes the tap and turns within Will’s embrace. His head dips, and he kisses the corner of his lips, just at the start of his newest scar. It is disappointing that they were denied the opportunity to feast upon their first pack hunt, but some of his hunger is quelled by the certainty of there being more. There will always be more in regards to Will. He is still smiling when he pulls back. “Come,” he says. “We can choose the recipe together.”
They do not exchange any words as they journey to the kitchen. For once, Hannibal welcomes the silence.