|
Jimmy Price took in the scene. Not the worst he'd laid eyes
on in the last five years. Not the most personal. He tried
not to remember Beverly. He always tried to think of her
alive and smiling. Not how that bastard had left her for
them to find: a grand, sadistic display. Proof of Will
Graham's innocence. Given the chance, he would do the same
to Lecter. He thought he might just have the stomach to
follow through. Beside him, Brian Zeller asked the obvious. 'Where's Will?' They both looked up at Jack. There was a defeated man. This was absolutely going to land at his feet. But he'd played Graham for so long, no one should have been surprised when he�d finally played right back. Privately, Jimmy thought Jack should have left Will well alone, fixing boat motors in Florida and pretending he was happily married with a ready made family. He'd been different when he'd come back: centred, completely in control. No fear. Warning bells should have been ringing from the start, but Jack always did have an inflated ego, convinced of his own superiority. Now Hannibal Lecter was free. They'd never catch him a second time. They hadn't caught him the first time. All they'd had was bait. And now that bait was gone too. 'They must have fallen,' Jack stated, authority in his voice. Jimmy and Zeller shared a sceptical look. 'They killed Dolarhyde. Then Hannibal went for Will, or Will went for Hannibal, and they both went over.' Which was a fine theory until CSI found evidence of a car having, until recently, been stored in the garage at the back of the house. ~ 'You can't keep looking at me like that.' Hannibal didn't miss a beat, fingers combing through Will's hair. 'Like what?' 'Like I'm the love of your life. You looked at me like that in your cell, when I tried to say goodbye. You looked at me like that in the chapel.� �You are the love of my life. Never doubt that. You need to never doubt that.� �Why do I get the impression that if I do, someone might get hurt?� �You knew what I was when you came with me. You knew then what you are to me.� He closed his eyes and smiled. �I can�t deny that.� Hannibal�s thumb stoked his stomach through the opening between two buttons of his shirt. It was an idle touch, just the right side of sexual. �You can�t deny you like being that to me.� �No, I can�t.� �You know that if anyone ever tries to hurt you, everyone would get hurt.� Will breathed deep and let it out slowly. Arguing against him would mean moving and he was too comfortable in Hannibal's arms, head against his broad shoulder, legs stretched out on the couch, bare feet on the cushions. Arguing would be equivalent to banging his head against a wall. �Tell me about the chapel.� He murmured, �I think it�s the chapel in your memory palace.� �I imagine you there.� �I imagine you imagining me there.� �Maybe we�ve had similar conversations with each other.� Will slipped his hand over Hannibal�s, sliding his fingers under the cuff of his shirt, stroking the hairs on his arm. �I think we probably have. It�s a beautiful place. Peaceful.� �Somewhere we could talk without the world pressing in.� �Yes.� �The world won�t press in here, Will.� ~ Jack called Alana. 'We think�. We think he took Will with him.' He could hear her smile. 'Of course he did, Jack. You were the only one blind to that fire. Why do you think he gave himself up three years ago?' Jack chose not to answer that. He'd been so sure of himself. So sure of Will's fear. He'd seen the obsession, hadn't seen the reason for it. Will had told him, over and over: in Italy, in Florida. �A part of me wanted to go with him.� Clearly that part had been greater than Jack had ever imagined. 'Do you think he's coming for you?' 'Maybe. Maybe not. If Will's with him then he has his happy ending. He might allow us ours. After all, he play a small part in the conception of our son.� Jack didn't want to think about that. He couldn't wrap his head around anything that had gone on in the Verger house, particularly when it came to Alana and Margot. 'He's back on the most wanted list.' 'And Will?' 'We don't have any evidence that he left of his own volition.' Alana laughed. 'Hannibal didn't hit him over the head and throw him in his car, Jack. Was his blood at the scene?' 'Oh yes.' 'He went willingly. He finally saw in himself what Hannibal's been trying to show him since their first therapy session. He's as much in love with Hannibal as Hannibal is with him, and now he's just as dangerous. More so, possibly, because he will defend those new feelings, tooth and claw. You won't catch them now. If they're trapped, they will fight to the death for one another. Hannibal won't let them be parted. Not now. You've sired your own monster, Jack. Congratulations.' She hung up. ~ Hannibal looked up as Will stepped into the kitchen. �I was thinking of going out later.' Will smiled, nodded once. 'The man from the museum.' 'You know me too well. You don't mind?' He crossed to stand close to Hannibal�s side. �Not to mind would be inhuman. I won't stop you. I understand. Which says more about me than it does about you. You're inclined to do this, I'm the monster here.' Hannibal paused in chopping the basil. �You're not a monster. You won't stop me but you don't want me to go.' 'I didn't say that. Just... don't get caught. Having finally found you, I would really hate to lose you again so soon.' He turned his head, pressed a kiss to the side of Will�s head. �The only man to have ever caught me is here in this room. The only man capable. I've never felt safer.' 'Perversely, neither have I.' It was so easy just to turn to meet him, to brush lips against lips, to linger a little even. Still, he felt the need to immediately apologise. 'Never say you're sorry for taking what you want. You know I'm yours: body, heart and soul. However tainted it may be.� ~ Hannibal returned in the early hours. Will woke to hear the shower running and lay awake until he was joined under the sheets, Hannibal smelling of his subtle shower gel and expensive shampoo. They didn't speak immediately, but he snuggled the warmth and was welcomed with open arms and a kiss to his head. Eventually, Hannibal asked him if Will felt the need to forgive him, and with a smile, Will replied, 'If he'd given you so much as a scratch, I'd have skinned him alive.' It was worth it to hear his laugh, surprised and genuine. 'Too late I'm afraid. But maybe next time.' He knew how crazy it was that his was their pillow talk. But his internal protests were all but silent now, his inner monologue justifying every word and every action as if it was all normal. Then again, normal for him had been fucked up for longer than he cared to remember. He was what Jack and Hannibal had made him. It served Jack right for playing God; Will would have given almost anything to have seen the look on Jack's face when they found the house. Almost anything. But not Hannibal. ~ Freddie Lounds spent an hour a day at Chiltern's bedside. It could have been her, charred and scarred for life. She has no idea how or why he's alive. He hadn't had the best of times. Gideon gutted him, Hannibal framed him, Dolarhyde burnt him alive. Still he refused to die. Still hunting fame and fortune no doubt. Still searching for the next best seller. Maybe he was his own next best seller. He'd need a ghost writer. They'd all been burnt to one degree or another by the furnace that was Hannibal Lecter with Will Graham. They'd been pulled into those flames and scorched apart by them. She'd gotten away relatively unscathed. She was lucky. She was also surprised. Before Lecter's surrender, she'd spent her life looking over her shoulder, imagining he'd come for her as soon as she stopped being useful. Afterwards, she�d stayed away from him, from the asylum, hadn't visited, hadn't felt the need to further antagonise him or even remind him she was still alive, a loose thread. She�d never believed the cell would contain him. She suspected she would start looking again now, although doubtless Hannibal was going to be distracted, at least for a while, with his new companion. If the rumours were true. Not that she was one of Will's favourite people either. So if they got bored�. With any luck, they were already out of the country. It brought her no satisfaction to know she'd called it. Her own headline: Murder husbands. Okay. Just a little sliver of satisfaction. But she would never say that out loud. ~ The night they'd killed Dolarhyde it had arguably been self defence. Kill or be killed. Two lions taking down an antelope. Yet either one of them could have killed him at the end. Hannibal on his back, tearing out his throat with his teeth. Will slicing him open, wound as wide as his smile. Something about seeing Hannibal hurt, bleeding had finally freed whatever had been woken within him all those years ago. While he�d been planning it all, he�d fooled himself into thinking he could stand by and watch, because he knew the consequences of not doing so. But he�d been unable to. Hannibal was his! The thing inside him had opened its eyes, its mouth, and roared. 'If I hadn't gone for my gun. If he hadn't stabbed me in the face... would you have just let him do what he wanted to you?' They were sitting out in the patio, a beautiful warm, sunny evening. A bottle of wine stood open between them, two glasses almost empty. A cheese board with fruit and breads because Will had shied away from the meat in the fridge, despite Hannibal's promise it was just pork. It was too bright for the conversation. But Will didn't want to have it in the dark. 'I hadn't thought about it. I knew you wouldn't let him kill me.' 'You knew? I didn't know.' 'Yes, you did. You had your fun but in the end I'm too important to you.' He reached between their chairs, dangled his hand and Will took it, folded his fingers through Hannibal's. 'Egotist.' �It takes one to know one, Will. Either way, you were not going to allow anyone else to kill me. I�m yours as much as you are mine. If someone was going to kill me, it was going to be you. You can�t deny it. It might have seemed like the easy way out but when it came down to it, he had no right. I�ve done terrible things to you over the years. It has to be you.� He was correct, of course. He usually was. Hannibal�s death, by rights, was his to bring about. After all, he was the cause of most of Will�s scars. 'When you came to my cell and asked to me help you, I made the comment about the mic drop and your smile didn't slip for even a second. When you said please, the way you said please, I was hoping your attention was on my face.' The simple crudeness of it surprised him. �Do you still want to eat me, the same way you still want to eat Bedelia?� Hannibal didn�t answer immediately. Instead, he lifted Will�s hand to his mouth and kissed his fingers, nipping the tips with his teeth. Will smiled, open and trusting. �My desires for Bedelia are one hundred percent culinary. My desires for you are not. In Florence, I honestly believed the only way I would ever have you was to eat you. Now I know I was wrong and for that I do apologise. The scar on your forehead has almost entirely disappeared.� �Verger wanted my face to be perfect before he wore it. He treated the wound well.� �Verger was a very sick man, in every way possible.� �Takes one to know one?� �I am a cannibal, not a sadist.� �You were going to eat my brain while I was still using it.� He did at least have the decency to look sheepishly apologetic. �I was� passionately angry. I bared my soul to you in the Uffizi and you tried to shoot me the moment we got outside.� �You gutted me and murdered Abigail in your kitchen, despite me having warned you they were on to you.� �You lied to me about killing Freddie Lounds.� Will smiled. �Your reaction could be said to have been very slightly out of proportion.� �Are we now equal?� �Not by a long shot. But we can agree a cessation of hostilities. If you promise not to try to eat me while I�m still alive.� �I no longer want to cause you harm. You have become the man I always knew you could be. There�s nothing more to be gained from hurting you further. I believe� you could end my life, if you so wish, and I would let you.� Will stared. �Why?� �Because as much as it pains me to say it, I love you.� �Bedelia told me you did.� �And how did it make you feel, to hear that?� Will licked his lips. �Powerful.� �Did you throw that in her face, when you went to warn her about my pending escape?� He nodded. �I couldn�t help myself. It was the first time I�d seen her rattled, scared. For the first time, she was scared of you and I wasn�t.� �She was always scared of me. But she was sure of herself, of her own ability to manipulate me. She uses her sexuality, in much the way you do.� �I do not!� �You don�t do it on purpose. You have no idea of the effect you have on me. But while it�s no excuse for a lot of the things I�ve done, it was certainly part of the reason for my actions in Florence. Frustration, shall we say, takes its toll.� Will shook his head in disbelief, at the same time turning his hand in Hannibal�s and sliding their palms together. �You were going to kill me because you couldn�t fuck me.� �Now who�s being crude.� �But accurate?� Hannibal shrugged. �Close enough, I suppose. But far from the sole reason, I must point out. If you never consented to be my lover, I assure you, you would remain safe by my side.� ~ By far the most difficult conversation for Jack was with Molly Graham. After an internal debate as to whether telling her the truth or lying was the best plan, Jack decided to tell her the truth. He couldn�t be sure she wasn�t in danger. He thought not, that Hannibal wouldn�t want to upset Will by hurting her or her son. But he didn�t want to underestimate them again. She came to his office. She wouldn�t tell him where she and Walter were staying. She sat down, refused a drink and asked him straight out, �Where�s my husband?� Jack was equally as forthcoming. �We believe he�s with Dr Lecter.� �Willingly?� He nodded. �We believe so.� She was a brave woman, Molly. A strong woman. She was a survivor and she�d get over this in time. She would divorce Will when she was able, move on. Walter was still young enough that Will would eventually fade into memory. �It�s my fault. I wanted him to help find the man who killed those families. I wanted him to stop that man from killing again. I never imagined it would touch us. He warned me when he came back he would be someone different, and I was okay with that. As long as he came back. But he�s never coming back, is he?� Jack hesitated, but shook his head. �I�m sorry I dragged him into it.� �Are you?� �I didn�t know�.� He cut himself off. �Did he mention Dr Lecter during the time you were together?� �He would� start sentences but never finish them. He would get lost in his own head, this little smile on his face that I knew wasn�t for me. He told me about going to Italy to look for him but didn�t say what happened, he mentioned Alana Bloom and Margot Verger but he didn�t talk about them in any great detail. Early on, he told me he�d known Hannibal Lecter, that the doctor had been his therapist for a time, but he didn�t say much more. At the hospital, he told me Lecter had sent the tooth fairy after us, but he wouldn�t tell me why. That was the last time I saw him.� �He kept going back visit Lecter. I should have seen it but I�ve been told I�ve always been snow-blind when it comes to the two of them.� �Apparently you weren�t the only one.� She stood, lifting her handbag on to her shoulder. �Do you think Hannibal will hurt him?� Jack shook his head. �Not now.� �Good. Will deserves happiness, wherever he�s found it.� ~ His lover�s touch was possessive; large hand curved over one butt cheek, the other tight at Will�s shoulder. He suspected he was too heavy to be lying like a blanket on top of Hannibal, but he was boneless: too sated, too exhausted, to move. He�d given up fighting the inevitable on the cliff outside the house in Baltimore, dripping with his own and Dolarhyde�s blood, clutching at Hannibal�s shirt, head rested against his chest, listening to the hammering beat of his heart. He was listening to it now, heathy and steady, just like his own: wounds healed and bodies recovered. Falling into bed with Hannibal hadn�t been the crushing blow to his sexuality as he�d imagined it would be. Hands were hands, albeit it confident and strong; lips were lips, albeit it shadowed by day-one stubble and hiding teeth that settled on his flesh but never bit down. Will suspected he�d been handled with kid gloves for the first time, that he always would be unless he asked specifically not to be. He felt Hannibal�s hand stroke up to the small of his back, fingers tapping the ridges of his spine, the ghost of a haunting melody. �There�s so much I want to show you, Will, so much I want to share with you.� �I�m still recovering from the last thing you showed me.� He knew it was cheeky, but sometimes he needed to pull Hannibal back down to earth. Sometimes, he allowed it. �I�ll take that as a compliment.� Will made the effort to lift his head enough to kiss Hannibal�s chest, lick his right nipple and bite him so very gently. �Egotist.� Hannibal�s arms hugged him tightly for a moment. �Takes one to know one, Will.� It did. And he was happy about it. Very, very happy.
|