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108°. Is that the temperature in Cuba when their bodies wash off on the beach? Or is it the angle of the lounge chairs they sit on, watching the empty pool of their new home? Will squints against the glare of the sun. It's not quite that hot today, but he forgot his sunglasses inside and his stitches pull too much for him to even contemplate going back inside to fetch them.
Hannibal's eyes are closed, but he's not sleeping. Just resting. Will wonders how often the man has ever let himself do that, just rest, pause, halt. He turns his head around so he can watch him without hurting his eyes. He's not facing the sun anymore which is an added bonus, he figures, if he even needs that when he gets to study Hannibal like this. He's fascinated, he can admit that now. He has been for quite some time.
Hannibal's eyebrows twitch as Will settles, and Will knows he can sense him watching. He doesn't know how, maybe just the noise he made moving his head around was enough, but Hannibal definitely knows. He's smiling faintly.
"Does observing me satisfy something in you, Will?" Hannibal asks. He doesn't whisper, they don't have to here, they're alone. They can call each other's real names without fear, or caution. Although, Will knows, Hannibal is always cautious. Even like this, even with his eyes closed and his feet bare to the sun. He's aware of everything. Case in point.
"I just like it." Will shrugs, knowing Hannibal will at least hear the intention of it, if not see his shoulders go up.
"The sun here is more violent than we are used to," Hannibal remarks next, and now that he says it, Will can see a faint warmth over the man's cheekbones that is not usually there.
"I'm sure we've got sunscreen somewhere," Will says, a remark of his own, or maybe an offer. Hannibal pops one eye open, like a cat awaking, and stretches his arms a little. He winces and immediately meets Will's eyes, like he didn't mean for him to see him in pain. "It's ok," Will murmurs, "no need to hide."
He can see why it would bother Hannibal to show he's hurting but really, they've gone through enough that it shouldn't matter. Hannibal doesn't even wear his suits anymore. Not here. They are much too showy for what they are trying to do, which is disappear from the public eye, be nobody's that no one will look at twice.
"Did you sleep better?" Hannibal asks then, seemingly out of the blue but Will can always tell what path Hannibal's mind took to get somewhere. He's had some practice.
"I did not have nightmares over that asshole if that's what you're asking."
108°, that's definitely not the temperature they used the night before, when their quest for anonymity led them to kill and burn for the first time since they fell off the cliff, since the Dragon. Ashes of a man who got too close, and too cocky. Flames licking and piercing the body of a lone mercenary who had the gall to pull out a gun and press it to Hannibal's temple. Hannibal had smiled, much like he smiles now, when Will had emerged from the shadow of a door, that of a seedy pub they had just slipped out of.
No one had seen them, no one had heard them. They are too deadly together, Will reflects, shivering as he reminisces and it's Hannibal's turn to study his face.
"Why the rope?" Hannibal asks next, sitting up as best he can, and Will smiles, hums, considers. He remembers the wet pile of rope on the ground next to him. He remembers Hannibal's grin as the mercenary spit insults in his face, remembers the faint smell of… something… like the fine wine one would serve with a nice, home-cooked meal. Will sits up too, eventually, and reaches over to grab Hannibal's hands, the gentleness with which he cradles them light-years away from that with which he had picked up the rope. He traces the deep lines in his palms, the veins in his wrists, circles them with thumb and index and squeezes, closing his eyes briefly as he remembers looping the rope around the crook's neck and pulling hard, squeezing the life out of him without a second thought. Only when he gets to the part where Hannibal's soft praise mixes in with his victim's last breath does Will look up, finding Hannibal's gaze on him is just as gentle.
"My bare hands would have been too intimate. Don't you think?"