Chapter Text
Life became surprisingly less complicated during the end of the world.
Hannibal Lecter, former surgeon and psychiatric doctor, woke up at six in the morning, as he did every day, to start his new routine.
Hanging up his handmade banner, preparing the morning meal, reading a little and playing the harpsichord; sometimes the violin, if he was in the mood. Sitting in his comfortable folding chair and watching the colors in the sky until blue turned orange, orange turned black and on the ground crawled the unwelcome company.
Alana cried and screamed until puking when the first news about waves of undead escaping their graves hit both their ears, but Hannibal just leaned back in his chair and said: “I hope only the recent ones have risen.”
For he was used to the metallic scent of blood and the sour stress hormones secreted by men at the height of their fear and pain, but the stench of rotting flesh? Worse still when it became known that they walked and survivors from the surrounding area talked of how unbearable it was to breathe on sunny days, when ghouls hovered like flies around the non-walking dead.
Alana was eaten by them, three months after the big breakout. At least what Hannibal left of her—little meat on the bones and her full head.
Don't eat brains because the danger of a prion is real and present. Zombies don't care about that anymore. Hannibal theorized that the origin of such a pandemic could be attributed to some careless fellow man-eater who got too cocky.
He found Bedelia in her huge house a few days after that, in one rare expedition to the rest of the city; hiding in the farthest corner, revolver in hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She appeared weak and hungry, but to her ill fortune, so was Lecter.
She smiled resignedly at him, not before pointing out the reasonableness of his preservation in such a dimension, asking if it was as easy as walking slowly along them, accompanying them in their blood-and-guts filled feasts. Hannibal shot her in the face and cut her into thick, transportable portions.
Everything was so simple, far fewer appearances to keep up.
Really, the only thing that weighed on him was having to leave his original home, after hordes piled into the adjoining areas to ravage the few remaining living creatures.
He found a new one, similar in size to his own, on the outskirts of town, surrounded by a bunch of more conveniently uninhabited houses. Getting rid of the terrified owners sheltering there was easy.
Hannibal would then spend half the day in his new kitchen and office, and the other half on the roof, with binoculars and a rifle, observing the devastated neighborhood. Waiting for food to arrive on their own feet.
And sometimes he shot first—because he felt compassion enough not to make their last moments more distressing. And sometimes he pulled his pocket knife, because he missed the hunt too. Rather difficult to enroll in when guarding against the defense of prey, and the thousands of creatures essentially seeking the same as you.
Lecter drank wine until nightfall, until the cold was too much even for him and his matured bones. Thinking vaguely of what he was going to do once the electricity ran out there. Along with the alcohol, along with the food, along the peace.
☆
Hannibal waited, but no one came. He kept the campfire going and the sign all day, ALIVE INSIDE.
He was aware of others like him, looking for opportunity and ensuring their own survival above everything.
Lecter wasn’t the only one to completely abandon the almost instinctive urge for solidarity, for loners existed in abundance and even when a companion was a graspable reality, Hannibal didn’t desire it. Alana hardly counted as a fattening pig for him, entertaining, until his supplies ran out, and had to give her proper purpose.
So he waited, until the flames dimmed, and he found trouble in keeping his head up. Maybe tomorrow. There was meat in the fridge for another two weeks. Three, if he cut his daily consumption in half. People were becoming less frequent near his place.
The doctor wouldn't rule out the possibility of undertaking the doubly dangerous task of going out to actively search for anybody. As much excitement it gave him to intrude into someone else's shelter and sniff after them like a bloodhound, the disadvantages were piling up, for one thing.
By eleven o'clock, Lecter gave up his waiting and wrote off another precious day.
But the sudden glare a few yards down the street was more interesting. Because before the glare, came the crash. And before that, tires burning the asphalt.
Raising the binoculars to his face, Hannibal scanned the strolling corpses for the source of the fire. A car accident, what appeared to be some old pickup truck, smashed into the unpowered light pole two blocks away.
The driver must have died in the loud wreck. And if the poor soul was still alive, they were unconscious. The swift flames were engulfing the hulk.
All around, a near-perfect circumference consisting of flesh-eaters gathered, and Hannibal remembered one of the several things he heard on the “101 facts about the ghoulish neighbor to know and recall” program broadcast on the radio—on the only station still on air. Same one where, around eight at night, names of the missing, the dead and the converted recognized in the snarling masses, were listed.
For some unknown reason, they liked fire.
More than liking it, it intrigued them, although honestly hard to suppose they could still understand the chemical process behind its creation. They would stand around, not touching or moving away, their cold gelatinous eyes riveted on the dancing and gleaming flames, until they vanished or reached them.
You couldn't scare them with it, but you could distract them. And if you were fast enough, catch them there too.
So watching the walking corpses lose their little attention in the colors and heat spectacle ahead wasn’t the fascinating part.
The one who didn't stick around was. Hannibal saw him. A male. Caucasian, a complete, lean body. Young, with long curly, brown hair. Beautiful and grayish.
Hannibal caught him through the binoculars, unnecessarily interested. He watched him appreciate the fire briefly, before turning with clumsy, heavy feet in the opposite direction of the hurrying stream of dead
He stumbled and bumped into others, balancing on his center of mass until regaining his balance, and continued his directionless journey. Most of the undead only moved their heads in two directions: downward, to look for food on the ground, and upward, to look for food on the rooftops.
That particular beast twisted its neck at all angles, appreciating the facades of the surrounding homes and few businesses. The others lying and swaying, the stars twinkling in nights that no longer suffered from polluting artificial lights. He raised a hand to stretch his fingers, and if attempting to grasp something in the air.
Then, he patted his dirty pants pockets, moving upward his hands to his bare chest; and Hannibal couldn’t distinguish well his face from a distance, but he could securely say that the creature looking for something.
The atypical former-person continued to search for a while, and Hannibal gazed at him for much longer than essential, strangely enraptured. He angled his wobbly head again until his unfocused gaze was looking in the direction of Lecter's ceiling, and Hannibal felt like he was being watched.
The brunet frowned, as none of his kind usually did.
Minutes later, he walked up to the smashed display window of a former antique shop. He leaned against a wall, to swing both legs over the rubble and disappear into the gloom.
Hannibal remained seated for several more minutes, perhaps half an hour, facing the direction of his new friend's small hiding place.
☆
For the rest of his afternoon, Hannibal awaited again. Same thing into the full week.
At twelve o'clock, the dead brunet left his nightly refuge and began his own routine, one that Hannibal easily identified.
He would come out of his hiding place, to stand for around ten minutes under the awning’s shade, never in direct, prolonged contact with the sun.
Then he would walk as straight as possible on the sidewalk, careful in his own way not to touch anyone. Losing himself among long deserted streets, scarcely populate with some fellow deceased.
Hannibal knew that in them laid a nomadic nature, that made it extremely difficult to become accustomed to their disfigured faces when they appeared in his neighborhood for a few days, weeks at times. Soon they migrated, driven by their hunger.
But his curious friend disappeared all day long, until nightfall, when he returned with no missing limbs or newly acquired wounds, save for some bloodstains smeared around his uncovered mouth and chest, possible product of his feeding. Then he entered his shattered shelter, not before a respective period of exploration.
He picked things up from the ground, rotated them between stiff hands, threw them away after a fair while, and started with a new one. He watched the many living animals, given the freedom to run or fly among the dead. They didn’t eat animal flesh, for reasons still unknown. Hannibal’s friend bent over the others like himself, ones already rotting in the street, and spent a long time picking at and examining the inert bodies.
On three occasions, the creature tore skin and cracked open skulls to idly eat what he found inside, with his legs spread open on the ground and mounds of greenish, dirty flesh between them as he sucked runny eyeballs directly from their sockets. At that, Hannibal couldn’t help the nausea that seized him, for in the many months of restricted co-living, he seldom witnessed their grotesque version of cannibalism.
Repulsion and curiosity, obsessively growing, were housed practically in the same space within him.
☆
Hannibal kept an eye on him for seven full days before doing anything. A real stupidity. A huge irresponsibility, the most confusing nonsense.
He didn't honestly give it much thought.
Lecter filled a bottle with gasoline, set on fire the piece of fabric shred crammed inside and thrust it a few feet into the air, so it landed over the garbage pile hidden between two buildings. The danger of setting fire to the entire structure—next to every surrounding house—was terribly high, but what else could he do.
Naturally, the horde of walking dead around caught the glow, and the glow caught them, with its symphony of interested grunts flowing along the winds.
All contributing, except, of course, for Hannibal’s inquisitive friend; much more fascinated by the old, half-destroyed radio he found on one expedition.
Hannibal stumbled upon him again, plopped down against a wall while shaking the ruined thing next to the ear, and the doctor thought, that perhaps the creature was looking for the noise one would expect to be emitted. Through the binoculars, he appreciated the brunet scrunching up his face, painted with something that would’ve been called confusion in a human.
Hannibal would have liked to see how many more emotions he could mimic with those rigid features, but the plan was in motion and his stopwatch ticking.
He descended the house stairs with utmost speed, silent and immersed in the steps to follow. It would be a single opportunity, and he had exactly the same period of time it took fire to burn out.
So he opened the front door and, having covered himself in blood from neck to face, he recalled another piece of information provided by his current favorite radio program. The man-eating beasts were terribly attracted to the smell of fresh blood, like sharks. Only thing they seemed to enjoy more was the stench of an infected, festering wound in living flesh.
They smelled it from meters away, immediately following after it. The big advice was along the lines of conscientiously covering up injured areas so as not to attract their attention, especially if wanting to cross infested territories. Otherwise, you’d be reduced to a wet skeleton once the last one was done.
His smart friend spotted him immediately, obvious to Hannibal, even with the street between them. Others probably perceived it too, but the fire's black, thick smoke masked the scent effectively.
The dead man struggled to get on his feet, sniffing the air like a mouse and reducing the distance to a few meters, until his outstanding eyes landed on Hannibal Lecter's red-tinted face. They were blue, his irises.
Hannibal stood at the same spot, his home’s entrance. The curly-haired creature did not trudge, like the others. He walked, advanced quickly.
☆
Real clarity came when he actually had him.
Manacled and chained to one pillar in the large living room, staring at him for several hours a day without knowing what to do.
What ridiculous impulse had overcome Hannibal to believe that he’d have any remote purpose for his presence?
The creature struggled daily, for a good while, with the chains of his makeshift muzzle, giving up miserably as minutes passed, unable to break the small padlock holding the dented and pitted rectangle of metal over his mouth.
Hannibal wasn't quite sure too why he decided to pierce it either, because as far as most were aware, the dead didn't need air. But he didn't find it right to completely cover the man's face.
When tired of fighting with the muzzle, he switched his efforts to the chain encircling the admittedly thin waist. When that too proved futile, the beast dropped onto his backside and remained for another while leaning against the marble, waiting. Waiting for what? For the start of another day and a new fight.
Surprisingly, Hannibal didn’t lose interest, though he did lose the justification for such a decision.
So he watched, for a while.
☆
His new routine consisted of getting up, preparing breakfast, waiting a few hours on the top of his home for new food. Returning at dusk, to see the decreasing struggle of his friend.
Pulling for hours at the chains, seeking to undo the knot behind his dirty curls, and looking at Hannibal with fury. Fury of a dead man, of a starving man.
When Hannibal had had enough of referring to the creature as friend, comrade, or companion—his new roommate—he did what probably not many else did:
“What's your name?”
The man grunted and growled, groaned and his glassy eyes browsed his home interiors, before turning again to the chain restraining him.
“Do you understand what I'm saying?”
Of course, he didn’t. Lecter contemplated that idea of others trying to reason with the dead, as did Hannibal at that moment, to come rapidly clear that no fruit could come of it. Quicker and wiser was to shoot.
“My name is Hannibal Lecter. It's a pleasure to meet you. How do they call you?”
Another grunt in response, and he exhaled heatless air in his direction. He breathed. Or, at least, was inhaling air.
Up close, Hannibal appreciated a myriad of details on the living corpse. The radio mentioned that the disease was spread by bite and by another as yet unknown means, assumed by many, contaminated bodily fluids. Whatever affected those who rose out of their graves.
Hannibal’s friend bore no bites. Under his sickeningly pale skin, little veins and arteries of permanently-stopped-circulation came to vision.
On his flat belly, Hannibal found three neat, yet open, clean holes. Bullet impacts of a small caliber, topping a much older-looking, horizontal scar that had faded long ago. His pal, survivor of a rather intimate murder attempt, and the victim of a quick, efficient hand.
The rest of his visible skin exhibited no tooth, tool, or weapon marks. Neither did his long neck nor the handsome face, covered with light stubble.
“Would you like to tell me who murdered you?” Lecter asked jokingly. As expected, no reaction was provided.
A man dead prematurely and, by the look of the flesh, very fresh. Perhaps he didn't even make it out of the morgue before he was resuscitated.
But he smelled of wet soil and leaves, completely unlike the stench of bloated, stale flesh that his kindred carried. He smelled of the forest after the storm, of grass and weeds, encroaching on the abandoned buildings of Baltimore. Mature, dense, thriving nature.
Ignorant to Hannibal's train of thought, the man continued to tug at his bonds until the sun set and with the punctuality of a clock separating noon from midnight, he dropped back down to… rest. Or sleep, or whatever he did with the eyelids down, head thrown back.
The next day, at exactly ten o'clock, he would begin his battle again and if Hannibal were less careful, in a few months he’d manage to wear down the material that shackled him.
Hannibal smiled. “How about…, Will?”
For the not-so-little, persistent beast.
Will opened his eyes and staggered his head forward, examining Hannibal's face with unnatural concentration. He replied with a new low groan, akin to an expression of agreement. Pleasant surprise.
“I believe it suits you, Will. You're not giving up, are you?”
☆
So they talked. Hannibal talked.
He liked to sit across from him, drinking. He had the opportunity to realize that perhaps the one thing he missed about his former life was having someone to talk to, or at least, someone who would listen.
Will adapted easily to the task.
At night, exhausted of fighting, he spread out on the floor to doze and Hannibal started his chatter.
He began by listing things he did, what he saw. Sometimes helicopters would fly over his destroyed domain, and half the time Hannibal hoped one of them would catch the tarp hanging over the building’s side, or the white paint with which he wrote “ALIVE MAN – NEED HELP.”
Never happened. All remaining standing military and marine’s resources were focused on large populations, not isolated survivors. It made sense.
It also gave him the space to pull in the desperate innocents, who thought they had finally found someone else to lean on, and got turned into Hannibal’s provisions for the next week. Much more profitable when they carried with them substantial endowments of canned food, water, medicine, or weapons.
And that's what he talked about, until it became repetitive.
Then Hannibal got to the little stories. First, of some notable patients, laughing to himself as he recalled living neurotic masses like Franklyn Froideveaux or psychosexual deviants of Mason Verger’s sorts, hopefully both dead and eaten.
The places he frequented, the opera and art galleries, bookstores and museums. The few friends he sustained, the even scarcer romances. Alana, Bedelia, Antony. Jack Crawford and his lack of awareness, all the years working under the nose of the hunter, following his trail. The FBI, the investigations, diagnoses and profiling. Agents who came close, very, very close. So much that Hannibal felt respect for them, even with his hands around their necks or the razor at the bottom of their faultless bellies.
Will didn’t answer, as expected, but he never averted his vague vision. He wouldn't look Hannibal in the eye either— Not fond of eye contact, are you? —but he would linger. He remained still and quiet, grunting inevitably from time to time, and his wobbling head seemed to nod, as if to say I'm listening, go on.
So Hannibal kept on.
☆
And Lecter began feeding him, especially when the intensity and frequency of his struggling decreased and Will spent more hours lying on the floor than trying to break his chains. When closed his eyes and laid his body on its side during their sessions , the doctor concluded that he must have been… starving .
On the radio they didn’t discuss their lifespans, how long dead ones could go with no food. From what he could observe, it seemed Will ate on an almost daily basis. Trapped he had been for five days.
Will’s eyes opened, half jumping to raise to all his height, immediately Hannibal set foot in the room, accompanied by a full human brain, previous property of a farmer named Jeff Goldman—according to the driver's license.
“Now, you want this,” Lecter declared, gently balancing the dripping piece of meat with one hand. Will propelled himself with both arms outstretched in front, wiggling his fingers in a gripping gesture, “and I will provide to you, if you allow me to remove the muzzle.”
He stepped closer, at which Will immediately lowered both arms, and it was the first time Hannibal suspected that perhaps Will understood a lot more. Growling in approval, Will’s bleary eyes exhibited meekness.
The plate was set down at Will's feet, who was already bending down to hold it. Hannibal pulled the man’s hip chain, immobilizing him.
“And if you attempt biting me, I'll smash your head in.”
For emphasis, Lecter lightly whacked Will’s calf with the imposing twenty-pound hammer in his other hand; previously used to sink good Jeff's chest.
Honestly, he couldn't be helped much by such a threat in case his friend's decision-making was based entirely on the plain, basic feeling of hunger. If any kind of reasoning held no more value to him than a bird’s singing at dawn. It rather served as a personal assurance.
Will held still as best he could, despite not being able to fully control the slight perpetual swaying of his body. His hands fell lax at the sides, and he groaned once more, to give his agreement.
When the doctor slid the pierced metal out of his face, the first thing Will did was lunge forward, and though Hannibal's reflex was to raise the hammer over one shoulder to drop it on the frail dead man's nape, no such thing was needed. Will collapsed to his knees, which cracked painfully, and he practically fell face first to the ground.
Frantic, the brunet grabbed fists of gray matter and gorged his mouth with the huge mouthfuls, smearing his cheeks with brains and darkened blood.
Over the torrent of grunts, slurps and moan-like noises, Hannibal circled the desperate creature, the hammer dragged behind him, subsequently abandoned against the back of one couch as the doctor chose to sit and witness.
The meat vanished, and Will threw himself over one side when done, like an overfed animal.
“So you were hungry,” he pronounced with an apologetic smile. “Pardon me for keeping you waiting so long, I had no idea.”
Will, as usual, didn’t reply. The strange imitation of real breathing rose in frequency to short explosive puffs and eventually slowed, his white chest expanding and sinking with a deceitful natural cadence. He watched Hannibal from his resting spot, who wanted to believe that the small gleam behind the mists of such cold eyes was gratitude.
A new thing for Lecter to do. First he ate, then Will ate too, and the two could continue their conversing.
☆
The evolution of their dynamics was another unsettling surprise in a world where little could provoke such emotion.
Certainly, Hannibal didn't have the resources or the facility to be allocating part of his spoils to the creature tied to the mast. No valid reason to keep feeding him, to bring closer the bowl of water when he caught Will trying to drink dirty water from a bucket after a week of confinement.
No reason to close the curtains at dawn, because the beast was bothered by sunlight, or open them at dusk, because the dance of the stars and the moon attracted him as the crackling of flames could not.
Will didn't have to reciprocate that, either. No matter how quick his reflexes or how sharp his cunning, on any of the occasions when he decided to remove the muzzle to make him eat, or the moment he put it back on, Lecter could be bitten. Will could turn, in some window of inadvertence, to bury teeth rows in his face or arm’s tender flesh. Yet he never did.
The brunet waited patiently for mealtime, and tamely allowed the excursion of Hannibal's hands over his head to be released. Hannibal even found it a habit to groom and clear the area Will inhabited.
Even more confusing when Hannibal chose entirely to discard the muzzle, for Will to do nothing about it either.
So Hannibal watched closely each time, just to examine and catalog those different changes in his mannerisms.
Sometimes Will would eat like a little one, messy all over, to the point of scattering half of his food on the floor around and the skin of his cheeks.
Other days, he preferred to bring piece by piece to the lips, fingers tips along in his mouth and chew meticulously, for minutes that stretched into full hours.
With that, Hannibal could determine what pleased him more.
Undoubtedly, the brain was Will’s absolute favorite, although he seemed to enjoy eyes, skin, cartilaginous parts such as noses and ears too. Will broke bones with unexpected force and drank the marrow like a hyena. He kept severed fingers to chew on during the night. It reminded Hannibal of a small dog.
Hannibal kept the evenings conversational.
When Will finished eating and got done with tugging the chain on his body—activity he was noticeably beginning to lose interest in, intriguing Hannibal—the doctor chose his favorite couch, now conveniently positioned six feet away from the man, to talk.
Lecter’s new subject of predilection: reciting from start to finish the books on advanced medicine, surgery, and psychiatry he devoured during his years in school and practicing his profession, explaining step-by-step terms and procedures as if he once again was a teacher at Johns Hopkins. He would make Will questions that would naturally remain unanswered, telling himself that he lost nothing by just asking. He recalled students more obtuse than a literal walking dead man.
When Hannibal himself became bored with talking about human bodies and their functions, he moved on to the other items in his limited physical library, or the vast mental version.
It was another method of understanding what made the creature curious. Generally, he kept his attention focused on Hannibal's face or hands when listening to him, but Hannibal also learned that Will was unwilling to follow him for hours at a time, depending on the topic.
When the words became too long and the concepts too abstract, Will would lie on his flank, rolling over to face the wall behind him and stay still for long, or until Hannibal fell silent.
When talking about psychiatric pathologies and mental illness, reading novels aloud or simply spreading the pages of the few art books he could salvage—to show him the beauty of brushstrokes captured long before the end of it all spread across Earth—Will would not move an inch of his body, immersed in Lecter's warm voice.
Always listening.
Hannibal couldn't opportunely stifle the blossoming feeling. The calendar on his wall announced the passage of fourteen and a half months. For how long he'd had Will since he'd found him, about three weeks.
He thought of it as the product of many things. Isolation, lack of emotional, intellectual, physical stimuli. The true intelligence lurking behind Will's glassy gaze. The various minimal aspects of his existence, all a battered reflection of what would have made him a unique person in life. His fondness for specific things and the absence of it for others.
The genuine beauty of his gray face, of his stiff, graceless body, which regained a certain coordination each passing day until the continuous wobble was nearly imperceptible.
Hannibal didn’t find it terrible, but inconvenient. Most likely, it baffled Will more than himself.
So he decided to give it a little try.
Will dragged the plate between his spread legs and started chomping, visibly wary for once, before the polished twenty-gauge shotgun, at the end of Hannibal's arm.
And he made a flat, silent warning as he raised it against Will’s face, so barrel and eye saw into each other.
“If I were to release you right now, will you try anything?”
No answer. Will stiffened his gesture, to let him know the question was being processed. The futility of such a thing flew over Hannibal, already willing to risk everything for mere morbid curiosity.
But Will didn’t nod or deny, resuming his silent dinner. Hannibal gave him the benefit of the doubt.
☆
For a few days, Hannibal expected to wake up with a deep, stinging bite on the face. Maybe on the unprotected belly.
He expected not to wake up at all.
Will allowed the chain to be removed and instead of bolting or running or crawling against the man who imprisoned him in the first place, he simply kept eating. Hannibal sat there a few feet away, watching him.
Once finished, Will stood up and walked to the door and found it locked. Two tugs on the lever were enough for him to give up and shuffle back to his accustomed, to sleep.
Lecter guarded him for two more hours, before exhaustion also set in, and he opted to rest— that one door unlocked.
Will never broke in, and Hannibal never went to him either. His acute hearing picked up without trouble the little creaks and squeaks—turned a rumble every few nights—that Will left behind as he moved in the vicinity. He wasn't sure what he was doing at twilight, nor did he feel an immediate desire to interrupt the dead man’s nightly activities.
All he knew was that at dawn, Will was once again sitting against his favorite mast, and in different areas of his house, there was a new mess. Most outstanding ones, in the kitchen and in the library. Two or three broken dishes, the refrigerator open. Thawed meat, half-eaten or missing altogether. Other items strewn about the floor. He tried to prepare lunch , Hannibal amused himself.
Books wide open with odd, shapeless and meaningless scratches found in some, made with the few quills or inkwells left around.
It caused him no more burden than having to clean up and throw away some trash, rearrange his battered and vandalized books.
What really caught Hannibal off guard was the fact that Will wanted to keep listening to everything he had to tell.
As the day reached its end again and Lecter chose his preferred seat in the spacious living room, Will would find a place too and, with his pretty glassy eyes, wait for the words to pour out. Hannibal would spread the books over his legs and smile openly, sincerely, at Will. For the first time, he didn't have the exact words to express the novel emotion burning in his chest.
Will diligently followed him as the hour approached, and listened unperturbed to the day's lesson from start to finish. He still felt the impulse to walk away when the subject bored him, but the incidence of such behavior was less.
Hannibal continued to read his books, telling his little stories. Reminiscing about his patients and their problems, the solutions he provided and the intrigues that inundated him. Sometimes he spoke of longings he held and things he was never able to obtain.
He didn't realize at what moment, when a certain sunset—after a reckless amount of wine—the story of his parents and Mischa Lecter's name escaped his mouth along the stabbing pain penetrating his heart, accompanied by sweet relief at the thought that her little body was turned to dust long before all that.
Nor did he notice how one of Will's icy hands closed around his ankle, having slipped inadvertently into the vicinity of Hannibal resting place, lost in a still bitter-tasting memory.
Hannibal’s eyes snapped open, throwing a hand out in search of the shotgun behind the couch. Before a finger could be laid on it, Will simply rested his chin on Hannibal's knee.
His mouth went dry in an instant, disarmed in more ways than one. Will didn't grunt or mutter, as usual, but in total silence, he rested his head on Hannibal's thigh, breathing gently until he closed his eyes and petrified there, not loosening his grip on Lecter's leg. He thought about pushing him away politely, or attempting to question him.
On his colorless face, nothing but calmness was read, something akin to compassion. Hannibal mentally reviewed how much he revealed during his pitiful slip. Plenty, for someone as Will to detect— smell —the ancient affliction, and offer his comforting touch.
It wasn’t enough for Will to demonstrate the uniqueness of his being with his every faded nuance, his slightly grumpy and reclusive attitude, accompanied by the near puerile curiosity that seized him when Hannibal showed him new ideas, concepts, figures.
When he sat at the piano to recite his favorite Chopin, or a violin over the shoulder, and squeeze every note out of it and fill the house to the brim with exhilarating melodies; Will dropping to the floor besides, knees to the chest and his smooth back hunched, listening with all the admiration in the world. Hour after hour, together in their melancholic evenings.
An abundance of devices for Will to flaunt what magnificent creature stood before Hannibal—the very same under whose lowered chin the former doctor slipped a few fingers, to raise his tender face and appreciate every last detail in him.
So Will opened his eyes parsimoniously, their gazes locked until outside the periphery of Lecter’s vision nothing endured but rings of bottomless blue and the fireplace’s faint glow.
☆
Will kept proving himself. Offering Hannibal messes and private adventures he hadn't expected to undergo.
It was a problem in itself, grooming him for the first time in only God knows how long; embarrassingly anxious about the possibility of Will’s fresh, rainy nature scent disappearing, as soon as he gave him the first soap wash. No such thing took place.
Will, cooperative yet cautious, allowed himself to be guided into the bathroom, undressed and touched by the impertinent doctor, who took the opportunity for the first-ever thorough inspection.
Hannibal looked for wounds that could’ve gone undetected in prior observations, and located them in the form of old scars that surely healed when Will’s skin was vivid. A stabbing on the left shoulder. Mild-ugly cuts over his arms and back, some along his calves. An old surgery wound on the hip. Rough and calloused hands, those of a true working man.
It came as another round of experimentation for Hannibal, and in the absence of protest from Will, he simply kept pushing. There was a constant danger, that just as with a wild animal, one false move—too fast, too strong—could trigger his instinct for self-preservation and earn him a deep bite on the face.
But after so much time together, Hannibal was well aware that Will wasn’t at all like a feral beast, not even resembling reptiles whose tolerance was based primarily on convenience—unsuitable for caring or bonding.
Will, almost certainly along the rest of walkers outside, was neither dead like the poor souls hiding in the doctor’s fridge, nor alive like Hannibal and the ones still digging up the ruins.
Perhaps his reflexes' sharpness quickness and the sensitivity of his limbs were partially to completely impaired, but Will kept some level of reaction to stimuli. In particular, to Lecter's hands feeling the defined muscles of his lean athletic body.
At certain touches, he pulled away. After others, he chased. Will didn't seem to like it when Hannibal’s fingertips scratched the holes in his stomach.
Then Hannibal took his time running the soap from his back down to the legs, wrapping the arms around Will as the two of them stood in the shower, around the time Will acquired the custom of leaning his whole wet body against Hannibal’s front, soaking him in the process, to the man’s nonexistent annoyance.
For his warm forest scent filled Lecter’s lungs until it coated their insides and suddenly, the undiscovered longing for wide skies and towering landscapes was satiated for some few hours.
Hannibal Lecter got supplied with the irritating, sporadic reminder of his human condition, that revealed itself in desires as simple as going out and roaming freely—as he had never valued any other thing over his autonomy, and was sane enough to reluctantly admit he’d been stripped of an important aspect of it.
“Please tilt your head back, Will.” Indifferent to any of his friend's inner conflict, Will simply let himself do and move, turning his face away from the water trickle as bubbles were rinsed out of his now soft hair.
As Hannibal dried and dressed the dead man in brand-new, untorn clothes, dozens of questions assailed him, all which also would painfully end up unanswered.
Will hid the face in Hannibal’s neck when requested to lift each leg to holster the blue jeans, and the flow of cold air over the skin there bristled his hair, for various reasons.
The cold man held Lecter's broad shoulders for support and nodded at Hannibal when he announced they were done. Subsequently, Will got on his way to find the spot he owned now, where the doctor ended up piling stacks of books and magazines for his friend's recreation.
He developed his own set of habits and amusements once he was free to walk around the house, so many that Hannibal never witnessed in another undead; cementing his theory that beings like Will were not human, living or dead, but part of a third group whose nature would possibly always elude him.
And it might have appeared to be the discovery of a myriad of things and experiences for Will, but at the heart of it all, it was a simple reconnection.
The way he ran his fumbling fingers over the piano keys to appreciate the dissidence of tones between them. Full minutes spent gazing at every illustration in every book and using all his mental dexterity to articulate a phrase, word, or syllable until Hannibal swore he could see the smoke rising from his head.
Or how could Hannibal forget when Will made a genuine attempt to taste and swallow the first dish cooked for him, rejected immediately, so very clearly he preferred to stick to his diet of raw guts and brains, thank you very much. At least he tried to drink water; although without closing his lips tightly around the cup, subsequently wiping his wet mouth and chest in bewilderment as half the contents were emptied over him.
And even Hannibal tried to convince him several times to join him in the dining room, to which Will simply opted to take his plate and head back to the living room, eating while watching the outside through open windows.
Hannibal relented after numerous nights, so the novel tradition of dining together, watching the streets or the stars, came in existence.
So many things that became a shared activity so gradually until Hannibal ended up catching them both one evening, sitting on the roof to watch the sky. Will didn't notice the obfuscation in Hannibal, completely fascinated by the astral dancing and pointing to the glowing points of the night's mantle that deserved to be admired the most.
Will was remembering little by little the things he must have enjoyed in life, together with Hannibal, providing the companionship and warmth he was deprived of so long ago, long before his whole modern present.
Hannibal felt it perfectly when it began and flared up. The mortifying flame of affection, feeding on the oxygen from experiences. Every moment watching the clever creature rediscover another part of himself.
He would not have bothered to develop it had it not been for Will stoking it in him, as he sought him around the house and accompanied him in his labor; whether it was sharpening a knife, cooking or cleaning. Whether it was continuing to hunt those who made the mistake of seeking asylum and watching Will's work closely as he took it upon himself to peel the skin off their face with the teeth or plunge their skulls with strong hands and drink the juices inside.
When the night was too cold, and without the option of wasting valuable energy on heating, Hannibal would curl up in front of the fireplace, wrapped in blankets, to read aloud a new excerpt from the chosen novel—some Mrs. Woolf for the longing mind—and Will would make sure to be present and observant to whatever was shared.
Often without touching or allowing it in return, but allowing him to know he was there, and there was nothing Hannibal wished so fervently on such occasions as being able to bestow on him the gift of speech—to recover and rehydrate his voice so that he could hear it
just once, if that was all Hannibal was allowed.
Zero shame in admitting it, and Hannibal felt no qualms about externalizing his yearnings to the very man who had inadvertently learned all of his secrets
“I won't say I don't enjoy your company as things sail right now, dear Will,” he mused and broke the deathly silence around, drawing the increasingly sharp attention of his dead friend, “but there is a multitude of answers I'd like to get from you that I'm convinced you can’t put out in words anymore.”
Will and his full, expectant eyes. Are you even aware?
I’m sure are.
“And they certainly aren't everything among… men like us. But they do facilitate a lot of matters, don't you agree?”
Will responded with nothing but a new affectionate gesture of his, consisting of scanning the entire room with uncertain eyes, as if looking for something to say and cheer him up.
Instead of speaking out loud, he bumped his forehead gently against Hannibal's temple and allowed the delicate contact of their skins to express what he could no longer. He growled, very low, not aggressive in the least.
Hannibal smiled, and if anyone had seen it, they would point out it was no happier than a vision of tears rolling down his cheeks: “I’ve never strived to be sentimental, but it’s now that I can confess… it breaks my heart. Everything I will never see about you, lost forever.”
If you were a cop, a criminal, maybe a fisherman. All or none. If you fell into the definition of “bastard” or if you possessed a kind soul. Whether you would have despised me to the core or offered your friendly hand and smiled at the sight of me.
How old you were, who your first love was, and the name of your last dog. How they named when you came into the world and why you left it so soon, being so astounding, so lovely. Why would anyone want to remove you from this reality. Did you deserve it?
Whether you would have changed me, or I would have .
He swallowed the lump in his throat with difficulty, believing that if the course of things had turned just a few grand, just a few years before, he would not have protested.
But Will didn't pull away, firmly pressed against Hannibal’s side, breathing in his ear, to remind him he still was around. Under the glow of the fire warming them both, Lecter could almost pretend his demise never came.
There was red on his lips and cheeks, contrasting the deepening blue of his eyes, and under its own volition, Lecter's head turned to deposit a petal-soft kiss on the coolness of Will’s face.
“Please excuse me if I’m souring the mood, amico mio. I’ve been listening to my sole voice for too long now.”
☆