Work Text:
ALPHA BULLSHIT
Or, a tribute to Will’s ‘I’m fed up with this world’ resting face.
There were as many misconceptions about Hannibal Lecter as there were conceptions at all. At the second someone, in that whole wide world, decided to develop an opinion on the Chesapeake Ripper, they invariably added yet a new misconception to the already endless list. The closest one could get to understanding the Monster that was Hannibal the Cannibal was to admit that they couldn’t and move on with their life.
Yet, among all those misconceptions, some were clearly dumber than others.
High pitched sporadic laughter. Silverware scratching porcelain. Wine being poured and food being served.
The usual signs that everyone associated with endless dinners.
Will kept his sigh to himself. He knew his husband would find it rude and unsupportive. And Will knew he had to pick his irreverences carefully. He had decided to marry Hannibal Lecter, dinner parties and societies were part of the deal package, along with murder and patterned ties. He was not naive enough to think he could pick and choose and erase such a fundamental pillar of the Cannibal's way of life.
On the other hand, the company tonight was not the most unbearable Will had ever had to endure. André and Thérèse Durand, both former art forgers, were bordering pleasant actually, with their sharp humor and their soft voice. Pearl Ecsicson, and her husband about whom Will had never cared enough to learn the name, on the run for murders, were not that interesting, but at least they were closer to Hannibal, and Will's general silence was keeping them efficiently at bay. Eris Ecsicson, their daughter and the only teenager at the table, seemed to be brooding - as she always was when in company of her mother - and was tapping on the screen of her phone under the table.
Just as silent as Will, she was a good company, both of them doing little more than looking at the rest of the table with boredom and barely hidden condescension. Anyone enjoying that kind of gathering had to be below them.
“You're married with one of those social posers,” Eris had rightfully said to Will, once, during a similar evening.
“We all make bad life choices,” he had answered.
“Like marrying him?”
“Like letting the neighbors live.”
“Same, my dude. Has anyone ever told you how relatable you are?”
Will and Eris wouldn't have much contact on a daily basis, Eris hanging with the rare other teenagers in their community, and Will keeping to his boat, but, during those parties, they were each other’s allies in silence.
That evening, the dinner seemed to drag on longer than usual.
“What is time, when spent in good company?” Hannibal would have said.
That prick.
It was true that the people gathered around the table were the core of Hannibal's new social group. The Durand for their cultural sophistication and the Ecsicson for their admiration for him. Hannibal was holding many dinner parties for the neighborhood, but when it was only their three families, there was always a casualness setting in.
As betrayed by the apron Hannibal still had around the waist as he was bringing the second course from the kitchen. They were all in the knows, and Hannibal didn't mind letting them see a bit behind the curtains of his masterfully prepared dishes.
“I’ve always been wondering,” Eris whispered, her eyes away from her phone and on Hannibal who was serving her mother. “There's never any stain at all on the apron.”
“And...?” Will answered.
The idea of stains on Hannibal's clothes was ridiculously laughable.
“What's the point of wearing an apron if he never dirties himself?”
“That's... Well. That's actually a very good point.”
Will had never considered that question. Was that question deserving of consideration? If the alternative was to have consideration for the people around him, then Will preferred to focus on the question indeed.
“I think he just likes them,” he whispered, his eyes on his husband at the other end of the table.
“Aprons? That's a weird thing to like.”
“Can't find any other reasons.”
“It's not in the same vibe as his usual fashion choices,” Eris correctly pointed out.
“No. I guess it feeds into his house-husband fantasy.”
Eris grimaced, as she would do every time something domestic was being mentioned.
“Such wasted potential,” she shook her head in disappointment. “Supposedly queer, yet one's cooking and cleaning, the other's repairing motors and being emotionally constipated. You're clearly not being gay and doing crime enough, if you still have time to repeat the heterosexual oppressive models.”
That was one of the things Will liked about Eris. Indubitably, he could never understand more than half of what she was saying, but even just that half was always infinitely entertaining. In lieu of accuracy, she was at least funny and it was always strange to see himself and Hannibal through unafraid and completely disconnected eyes.
“What can I say,” Will shrugged, “they don't call us Monsters for nothing.”
“Here to reinforce patriarchy. Can't believe I'm sitting at the same table as you two...”
Eris of course knew about Hannibal and Will's centers of interest. She had access to internet and to a functioning brain. Yet, a vegan herself, she was all for putting humans at the same level as animals and didn't care what was served at the table. Hannibal was twisted enough to disguise human flesh as pork - for there was little difference to begin with - but he was not rude enough to trick someone specifically asking for a meatless dish.
Will didn't know if the fact that she had never eaten human flesh was helping Eris to stay that weirdly morally uninvolved in her neighbors' activities, but the result was there. Few people would joke as much as her about their crimes and monstrosity. Even if she seemed to be a pretty decent human being herself, only part of their unlawful community thanks to the actions of her mother and stepfather.
“Still,” she finally concluded, her eyes back on the phone, “the disappointment if they knew...”
“If who knew?” Will asked.
“The whole Alpha bullshit believers. Would destroy the myth.”
“The whole what?”
“Never heard of them before? The 'I'm a misogynistic piece of shit but it's ok, cause it's in my nature' gang. If they knew about their lil' poster boy wearing aprons cause it looks so domestic…”
“You know, I'm trying to understand. I really am. But I have zero idea of what you're talking about.”
“I told you. The Doc. And the Alpha bullshit.”
“Ok... What about those two matters?”
“Well, figure it out, my bro. Not gonna spell out the whole internet for your old ass!”
And God, did the internet need some spelling out, though Will was far from realizing that at that point.
***
The first thing Will tried to do was to google it. Literally.
‘Alpha bullshit’
Those are the words he tapped before pressing the enter key.
The first thing that came up was an article about how the idea of Alpha wolves was coming from a mistaken conclusion of biased observations. But Will already knew about that. However, it was the only result he found on that matter, all the others were on a very different subject.
Most of them were links to debating sites about something they all seemed to find to be ragingly stupid: the Alpha male mindset. Some were worried about the consequences on men's mental health, some others on the security of women in society.
Most were just mocking the whole idea and laughing in disbelief.
Will, only partially enlightened, tried another approach.
‘Alpha Male Mindset’ was what he googled next.
And more than a gold mine, it was a gold cesspool he discovered. He just had to bend over and grab about any link to be thrown through a spiral of pure bullshit indeed.
From videos, to online debates, to self-help guides. Dating coaches, pick up artists, and ‘How to become a Billionaire’ wikiHows, all lining up to give their strange and absurdly naive views on life. From what he could gather, Will started to understand that this whole thing, not so far from a pseudoscience, was mostly about men who believed themselves to be entitled to some kind of arbitrary social status, leading other men, often more insecure, in their delusions about such a thing as dominating evolutionist nature apparently imbedded in manhood, for some random reason. Hannibal and Will had been accused of Folie-à-deux but clearly, a shameful number of people had been able to find a place in that specific madness.
Though Will had never heard the vocabulary before, he knew enough about misogyny and boy club mentality to not be surprised. As often, simplistic binarisms were quick to seduce and, of all times, humans had willingly run headfirst into baseless beliefs as long as they were pleasantly presented. The idea of a dual social identity, men being either dominant or submissive, and, coming with each category, a very specific set of traits, was very easy to grasp and share, and therefore quickly spread among uncritical networks.
However, there was nothing surprising here, and if Will raised an eyebrow at the occasional violence or stupidity of some sentences, it was not as if he had any respect for humanity that could still be disappointed anyway. It was only after a few minutes of eye rolling that he finally remembered what he was doing here in the first place.
He went back to the results page and added two words at the end of his previous searched keywords: ‘Hannibal Lecter’.
The thing that surprised Will the most was how little he had to search to find an answer. The first result was exactly what he was looking for. And so was the second. And the third. And all those that followed.
That was when Will understood. The same men who were feeding that weird and ludicrous trend about that caricature of virilism... they were obsessed with Hannibal Lecter.
From link to link, from mention to mention, Will was able to dig up the most unexpected of Instagram accounts. At least dig up from his perspective, for it seemed to be a pretty popular page.
Their only posts consisted of short black and white video, with a caption in bold letters. Will recognized at once the figure of his lover on some if not most of the thumbnails. He tapped on the first, most recent one.
Right away, a loud music, with strong bass, echoed through the room, and Will quickly muted his devise.
He was in the bedroom, at night, and Hannibal was sleeping by his side. If the sudden music woke him up, he didn't let it be known and Will, after a few seconds of silence, brought his focus back to the screen of his phone.
The video was showing Hannibal, wearing the white mask and straitjacket that had been all over the news, being escorted to the court. The original footage couldn't be longer than a couple of seconds but whoever had edited it had to be a strong-willed advocate for slow motion, and the end result was about ten seconds long of Hannibal being walked three steps, his eyes in the distance. That, added with the pulsing bass and the black and white ambiance, certainly tried to create a striking effect but it mostly was profoundly laughable. And it was without even mentioning the caption.
'I'm 99% nice guys, but Ooh, that 1%...'
For a moment, Will didn't quite understand. He reread the sentence several times, trying to grasp the meaning that was eluding him, before finally accepting the truth. There was no hidden meaning. It was simply the work of someone who believed that there was something to brag about in a Hannibal level of... What? What was that post trying to reclaim? Craziness? Violence? Monstrosity? Cruelty? What in Hannibal was supposed to illustrate that statement?
The comments were mostly approving of the video, with elaborate messages such as 'so true!', 'me 100%', ‘I totally get that guy’ or even 'Kiiiiiing!'.
Was it a big, ironic joke they were all in? Was it possible that some of them could be... serious?
Puzzled, Will scrolled down to the next video featuring his husband. It was yet another video taken during the trial. This time, Hannibal was sitting down, and looking at someone out of frame - probably the judge, or his lawyer - and... that was all. It could have been a picture, for all the action that was taking place, yet it wasn't. And the editor had had to have strong feelings for zooms in and zooms out for the video was saturated with them, Hannibal's expressionless face displayed to the point of near fetishization. The music, though set at its lowest volume, was pulsing in sync with the zooming, dramatizing the otherwise placid scene.
The caption was what turned Will's puzzlement into pure bewilderment.
'Don't hurt me baby girl. There is nothing more dangerous than a nice guy with a broken heart and nothing to lose.'
Will blinked a couple of times. A part of him believed that, maybe, while reopening, his eyes would be met with a different sentence. But it didn't happen. It stayed the same. What were those men on? In what world were they living? And what part of the sentence was Hannibal supposed to illustrate? The nice guy? The broken heart? If anything, Will felt like his husband was closer to that baby girl apparently going around hurting people.
He could understand apologists. In some fashion. He was not one himself - none knew more of Hannibal's monstrosity than Will Graham - but he could accept the fact that some partial views could offer some partial redemption.
What was baffling him was not that some people could want to be associated with the idea of Hannibal Lecter. What he couldn't wrap his head around was that they were linking Hannibal with... that? Whatever 'that' was.
Will lost it fully and irrevocably at the next video. Same colorimetry, same music, same slow motion, this time featuring Hannibal during Will's trial. Wearing one of his perfectly tailored suits, he was walking down the marble stairs of the courthouse, buttoning his vest. The caption, however, was where Will drew the line.
'Ex: I miss you.
Me: Sorry, the user you are trying to reach is too busy building his Crypto-Empire.'
Will turned off his phone and laid right back down.
He was done with humanity for the days to come.
***
Yet, it was the kind of stain that couldn't quite disappear from one's mind. Like a bug, trapped in the bedroom, buzzing at night, the following thought kept coming back to haunt him:
'What the actual fuck?'
He went back to it. Of course, he did. He first tried to understand who was into that kind of content. There wasn't much on the actual creator, and Will didn't have the knowledge nor the desire to track them down. However, he could focus on the commenters. Most of them were using dummy accounts. A random stock image as their profile, nothing posted on their page. In every way, they were exactly like Will, who was scrolling through the content hidden behind the picture of a trout and the username QwertyEtc. However, a few of them could be traced back to an actual account, and Will was therefore able to get an idea of what kind of other subjects also interested that audience.
He found a wide variety of other topics, but all were gravitating around the same pillars: money (and specifically quick fantasied ways to achieve it), pro-American far-right sentiments, and every possible negative opinion on women ranking from objectification to call for murder. And that was what Will had trouble understanding.
That some uninspired and insecure man, wishing for more power and control, that didn't know what they were talking about, would see in Hannibal a dark model, Will could get it. It was more telling on the man's ignorance than it was on his power, but that was an understandable mistake. But to use Hannibal as a figurehead of sorts for virilism, that was of what he didn't make the slightest sense. Not that Hannibal was not masculine but...
Actually, yes! That was the heart of the problem. There was nothing strongly masculine in Hannibal and he had never shied away from enjoying activities and aesthetics that would be deemed more feminine today. Hannibal was much more into flowers and ballet than he was into cars and boxing. Not that it meant Hannibal was not a man. Hannibal was not a man indeed, but it had nothing to do with him liking pink and everything to do with him eating people. Once again, Hannibal's taste had little to do with anything, but still, Will wouldn't have pictured him as a telling example of masculinist mindsets. Despite his best efforts, Will truly failed to see how a picture of Hannibal at one of the parties for Baltimore's elite illustrated the sentence: 'There is only one King in the jungle'. Or how anyone could want to read an article titled 'what high-value women need to know about dating an Alpha man' when the cover was a Freddie Lounds’ stolen shot of Hannibal waiting near his Bentley, his elbow resting on the door he seemed to have just open, an expensive watch conveniently shining on his wrist.
When he saw that article, Will, fully and irrevocably lost, had looked at the bathroom door, where Hannibal was busy sorting their bath oils by smell and color after the mess Will had made and he sighed in defeat.
He needed help and guidance.
***
The next time he saw Eris Ecsicson, it was by accident. No dinner, no party to justify their presence next to each other. Will wasn't even in the neighborhood but rather on the pontoon where his boat was moored.
“Hi.”
“Good morning, Eris.”
He didn't bother her beyond those words. Despite their casualness toward each other, Will was still not the most social person out there and, though he would spend sleepless night wondering about whatever the hell he had just uncovered, he was in no hurry to find an answer and fully intended to wait for another one of their insufferably long dinners to ask the teenager about this.
However, it was Eris who walked up to him, expecting to talk to him it would seem.
“Uh... Yes?” he asked when she stopped at the stern of his boat.
“Was wondering if you continued any education after high school.”
"Why are you wondering about that?"
"I asked first."
"You didn't ask anything."
"Did you study anything after high school?"
"I got a double degree in criminal justice and criminal psychology."
"Gosh, sounds an awful lot like the former was your moral justification to pursue the latter. You graduated?"
“Yes, I did.”
“Shit.”
“Why?”
“My mother is on my back about education and stuff. I said you don't need college to be successful. I wanted to guilt trip her for thinking college is so important when the kind neighbor didn't even go there.”
“Well, I went. Why would you assume I didn't go?”
“Cause you're all instincts. Plus, they say you were good at your job cause you were mentally ill. You don't need degrees for that.”
“I...”
As often, Eris left him unsure of what was even being said to him.
“I did graduate,” he simply concluded, giving up. “I actually did long studies and became a teacher. So no, I'm not a good example of someone succeeding without traditional education. I’m not even a good example of someone succeeding at all, actually.”
“And the Doc?”
“Don't dream of it. He has more diplomas than you have years of life.”
“Shit.”
Out of frustration, she took a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up. Will had little care for parenting, therefore he let her go ahead. He was about to go back to his ropes when the topic that had been bothering him for days came back to his mind.
“I've googled it, you know.”
“Mmh?” Eris mumbled, the cigarette between her lips, the lighter at its tip.
“The Alpha Bullshit.”
Just like her cigarette, her eyes lit up, shining with pure amusement and a barely repressed laugh.
“You did?”
“You asked me.”
“It's rare, when you say to someone 'Google it' that they actually google it. Generally they just add it to the list of the things they will never know about.”
“Well, I did it.”
“What did you search for?”
“Alpha Bullshit, then I elaborated.”
“So? What do you think?”
“Well... it's bullshit.”
“Told you.”
She put her lighter back in the front pocket of her hoodie and let her fists rest there as well, eager to hear more about it.
“I must confess,” Will said, “I... didn't see it coming.”
“What?”
“Why Hannibal. What the... What's even the link?”
“Well...”
Eris gave it some thoughts, carefully breathing smoke out.
“He's rich. He is a 'bad boy' who respects no boundaries. Your man needs no law to tell him what to do. He seems to be getting what he wants. He killed his wife which feeds into the fucked-up fantasy of these guys of owning women like entitled propriety you can dispose of as you wish. He inspires fear, which they get confused with respect.”
“It's... beyond me. I don't get what they find attractive about him.”
“You married the guy, my dude.”
“Certainly not for those reasons. And their whole... I don't know... bragging? About being crazy and dangerous. Firstly, Hannibal may be dangerous, he is not crazy. And secondly... what's desirable about that? Mental instability is not sexy. I’d know.”
“They think that's impressive. Like, oh my god, look how dark he is, he must be so deep and complex.”
Will sighed. He couldn't remember why he had spent so many years hesitating between Hannibal and Humanity.
“You can't really judge, though,” Eris mused.
“Can’t I?”
“You're the same. You fell for the guy.”
“Yeah. I literally fell for him. Smashed my face on the pavement. Still got the scars. I did not elevate him. And I didn't become a superior man for it. I became a shitty one if I'm still a man at all.”
Eris just shrugged but it was obvious she was extremely amused by the situation.
“They used his picture to illustrate an article about what a woman should do to date an Alpha man,” he said, hoping to see some of his bewilderment on her face.
She laughed out loud, delighted by the idea.
“You've read it?” she asked.
“What?”
“The article. You’ve read it?”
“No.”
“It could have been useful to you.”
“I'm sorry?”
“You're dating their poster boy! Come on. Let’s see what they advise you to do!”
Without asking for any form of permission, she grabbed the lifeline and used it to hoist herself up on the boat. She then sat on the rear banquette and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“So...” she began to say while tapping. “How... to... date... an... Alpha... Man. Wait a second... Oh, yes, I see the article. Let's see what they have to say...”
Will didn't know if he was about to find it very pleasant, but there was little he could do now to prevent the girl from having her fun.
“Ready?”
“Don't plan on ever being.”
“Let's say yes. So. First advice... 'Always look your best.' Of course. That goes without saying. 'Alpha males don't like a woman with unnatural hair hue, styles and cuts.'”
Eris quickly glanced at Will's hair.
“That's checked. 'They have no interest in tattooed women.' Do you have tattoos?”
“I have scars.”
“Same.”
“He made most of them.”
“Oh... Then I guessed it's fine. They don't say anything about men tattooing their women. And somehow, I'm kinda relieved. Anyway, resuming... 'Beauty, to them, is everything natural. Also, they have an eye for great personality.' But first, they have an eye for hair hue, style and cut. Great personality comes second so I guess even if you have a shitty one, that's no big deal with that dull brown hair of yours.”
“What is most fun to mock? Misogyny or me?”
“Why choose when I can do both? So...”
She went back to the article and scrolled down.
“'Pump up the femininity'.”
She glanced at Will, his hands covered in motor oil, his shirt dampened with sweat, his scruffy beards.
“I think they wouldn't give you a pass on that one. But that would be their mistake. Three: 'be confident and humble'. You're confident?”
“Depends.”
“You're humble?”
“Depends.”
“You're not helping yourself.”
“Who would want to help themselves into dating Hannibal? The only advise is suicide for you can't even run from it.”
“Not worrying at all... Let's pursue on that light tone.”
She scrolled down a bit more.
“Four: 'Be a good listener and supporter'. That, I think, you're gonna be good. 'Alpha male hate being neglected or half-heard.'”
“They don't know the half of it...”
“Five: 'encourage him with praise'.”
“Veneration is his love language.”
“Told you this article was good.”
“You never said that.”
“I thought it was obvious through my tone and general attitude. 'For alpha males, the biggest form of appreciation is an encouragement. If you encourage him with all honesty, he's more likely to take you seriously. They get flooded with compliments, so encouragement will help you stand out, and create a special place in their hearts.'”
“I'm still not getting why anyone wants to have a special place in Hannibal's heart...”
“Wouldn't you be dead if you didn't have a special place in his heart?”
Will opened his mouth.
And closed it. Eris continued the reading in her head but wasn't able to get through the whole chapter without laughing again.
“Oh my god, 'Instead of praising the size of his apartment or car, consider talking about his lifestyle or how well-maintained he keeps his cars.' I can't! Did you ever praise him for how well-maintained he keeps his car?”
“From me, he could take it as an insult.”
“Six: 'Show that you enjoy his company'. 'Alpha males rarely get the time to hang out with someone,'”
“Oh, he has far too much time on his hands, and he barely ever left me out of his company.”
“They say in the paragraph that it should tell you of how important you are.”
“I could use a little less importance then.”
“Gosh, do you even love him?”
“They're only listing flaws!”
“Then what are his qualities?”
Will somehow didn't feel like mentioning their shared doom, the intimacy that could be developed between two identically diseased minds, the poetry in Hannibal's inhuman cruelty or the intoxicating power that came with being his equal. Instead, he said something else:
“He can be funny at times.”
“Wow, don't be too passionate about him.”
“We've been passionate enough.”
“Seven: 'Explore impressive fashion'. 'What makes alpha males fall in love? If you can show some exotic fashion sense, you may have an alpha male falling in love with you.' Doesn't that ring true to you?”
“That he likes fashion, yes. On himself. He likes the refinement, even if I think he secretly likes being the most visually eccentric in the couple. If I were to try, he would just outdo himself with absurd clothes. Not going down that road.”
“Eight: ‘Know to whom your loyalty belongs.’ ‘Alpha males don’t play well with others’.”
Will thought on Alana while he was in jail. And the Dragon sent after Molly.
And he didn’t say a word.
“Finally: 'What women should know about dating an Alpha man.'”
“I couldn't be more eager to hear it.”
He could.
“’Alpha males don't like a lot of emotional drama or psychological breakdowns because they feel they don't have enough time to deal with all that.’”
Will choked on his own laugh. It was the only answer to someone saying Hannibal didn't like drama and psychological breakdowns.
“He lives for that shit. It's a fucking hobby for him. He has time for that cause he's willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of drama.”
“’They want positive women, who are not too clingy or needy physically because they enjoy living in their private space.’”
“He gutted me. He is clearly the one that is clingy and needy physically and I'm the one who enjoys my private space.”
“I think I don't want to know the link between gutting people and being clingy. It will mess with the models upon which I’ll build my idea of relationships.”
“It will.”
“Anyway. That's what you need to keep in mind.”
Will sighed and let himself fall on the banquette as well, leaving the ropes hanging around the mast unattended.
“I rarely felt that exhausted,” he breathed out.
“Come on. There were some accurate shits there, weren't there?”
“It's not how to date Hannibal, it's how to date an asshole. Is there a congruence between these two categories? Sure! But that's not what there is to love about him.”
Eris had had her laugh but, ultimately, she agreed with Will and she simply shrugged again.
“The most ridiculous,” she said, “is how fragile their house of cards is. If they knew the very first thing about their idol, everything else would crumble down at once. The Doc may be more powerful than any of them, he is not a role model for virilism.”
Of course, he wasn't. Without speaking of model, Hannibal was simply not human enough to perform in any significant ways something as inconsequential as genders.
“You know what would be funny?” Eris asked suddenly, straightening up at once, her eyes shining with anticipation.
“Funny for who?” Will said, on the defensive.
“An Instagram account.”
“What?”
“Pictures to destroy the myth.”
“Pictures of him?”
“Not a lot would be needed.”
“No.”
“Just a couple.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Come on. That'd be funny.”
“There's nothing funny here. We are wanted.”
“I've been on the run for years and I have more than ten thousand followers on Instagram. Don't worry, it's all good fun.”
Will straightened up and locked eyes with the girl.
“Eris, I am being extremely serious. Do not do that. It may all seem very lighthearted to you, it is not. Hannibal is no joke. He is brutal and whimsical. Posting truths about him online will come with drastic consequences. And the manhunt that is after us would grant immunity to your parents in exchange for so much as a whisper on Hannibal and I. Do not do anything like that.”
“Fine, fine,” Eris sighed, getting up from the banquette.
Will leaned back. He had no desire to scare the girl but not taking Hannibal and he seriously always came with dire and painful consequences. He didn't wish that on the girl.
“I'll take the pictures and let you see which one you wanna post.”
“You're kidding m...”
But the girl had jumped off the boat and was already on her way, unbothered by the consequences of her actions. She completely missed Will's swearing.
Cursed be teenagers!
***
She did take pictures. With a discretion that nearly frightened Will. Yet, she stayed true to her words and must have listened to at least some of Will's lecture, for she didn't publish any and merely showed them to Will for approval.
They were on the patio, by the pool, and Will was fully ready to give his exhausted 'no' to all of them.
Hannibal picking up flowers to decorate the picnic table.
“No.”
Hannibal with oversized sunglasses and an old pink double-breasted waistcoat on a purple shirt carrying a shopping bag.
“No.”
“I blurred the brand on the bag.”
“No.”
Hannibal sitting cross-legged at the end of a couch, his finger resting casually on his lips as all his careful focus was on his reading of 'Love Among the Ruins: the Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens' by Victoria Wohl.
"I wanted to blur the title and the author’s name, but we would be losing all the value of the picture."
“No.”
“And blurred?”
“No.”
Hannibal walking out of the kitchen, the apron tied around his waist, a bowl of cream between his hands.
“No.”
“Come on! The apron!”
“No.”
Eris sighed and showed the next picture. Will's 'no' was on the tip of his tongue but the sight disturbed its way out and it remained stuck in the mouth.
That picture looked like those old family portraits except that neither Will nor Hannibal had posed for it. It had captured a genuine and unsuspecting instant.
Hannibal was sitting on a chair, his holding as straight as ever, one of his hands carefully resting on his crossed legs. His eyes were on something off-frame. As often, there wasn't much expression on his face, but something about his features was more open in their neutrality than what could often be spotted.
Will was standing behind him. His focus was on something else, opposite to what Hannibal was looking at. His hand, however, was resting on the hollow of his husband's neck, his fingers slightly bent to follow the delicate curve and disappearing just under the tight collar of the shirt except for the thumb that was stroking the harsh jawline. Hannibal's free hand, the one that wasn't on his knee, was resting on top of Will's, not grasping simply caressing.
Nothing was happening in this picture. Hannibal was sitting, Will was standing, they were both looking in different directions and they had absentmindedly let their hand rest on each other. But there was something vertiginous in the casualness of their intimacy. In the way neither Will nor Hannibal needed to mind the other to naturally live by their side and answer to their presence.
They simply existed in the same space, and it was enough of a reason to merge into each other. Without even a thought. Will had no recollection of that event. Why would he have remembered? He always felt the ghostly sensation of Hannibal's skin under his fingers anyway.
“This one,” he finally said without a doubt. “This one can be seen.”
“Really?”
Eris looked at it and back at Will.
“You're on it.”
“I noticed.”
“Fine. I won't argue. Plus this one is perfect for the job.”
“Why?”
“Cause you're together, we can see the rings, and you're low-key gripping his neck.”
“That's not what it is.”
“That's what they'll see.”
“What will they see?”
That last question hadn't come from Will but from a voice that had softly echoed behind their backs. Will didn't have to look back to know who it was. He had felt him approach.
“Your thought?” he asked, raising Eris' phone so that Hannibal could see the picture.
Hannibal stepped forward and, as he was standing just behind Will, his hand naturally found his husband's shoulder, absentmindedly mimicking the scene he was detailing on the screen.
“It is a beautiful shot. Why was it taken?”
“Something being beautiful is not reason enough for its existence?” Will asked, not wanting to get into the details of that whole absurd story.
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
Hannibal leaned forward and laid a soft kiss on top of Will's curls.
“Aaaaaand, I'm out,” Eris said, getting up and walking away without a glance back, her fingers already tapping on her screen to publish the next post that would break the internet.
Hannibal watched her walk away before sitting down on the seat she had left vacant by Will's side.
“What was that little conciliabule you had going on around here?”
“Hannibal?”
“That opening always foreshadows a complete disregard of my own question in favor of answering the one of yours that will come next.
“If we were the traditional couple, you think you'd be the house-spouse or the breadwinner?”
Hannibal dedicated to that subject as much serious thoughts as he would have if Will had questioned him on whether he felt a greater kinship with the existentialist or the nihilist philosophical movements.
“I would be both,” he finally said.
“Then what would I be?” Will asked.
“Both the trophy husband and the man of the house.”
“So basically, the same as you.”
“Not at all. I am our home. I both provide and care for the entity we are. I would dare to say I built us. You are the God that is prayed at the altar in the living room. I bring you belonging and you bring me exhaltation.”
“Ah yes, home and God. The two genders.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forget it.”
“As you wish.”
Hannibal grabbed Will's hand and brought it to his mouth to lay a light kiss on its back.
“I will go inside, to dress the table. Dinner is nearly ready, don't make us wait for too long.”
“Us?”
“Me and the pig.”
“Yeah. I'll be behind you.”
Hannibal stood up and let his husband with his thoughts and the setting sun.
The atmosphere was perfect, Will realized. The vivid orange sky above his head, the wind lazily blowing on the water of the pool, the smell of grilled meat in the distance. Everything was coming together to create a beautiful landscape of peace and gentle joy.
Will took his phone and looked at the screen. For a moment, he wondered if Eris had already posted the picture. But then he quickly realized he didn't really care. He had had enough of the world for the time being.
He put his phone down on the seat Hannibal had deserted and he stood up. Getting back inside by his husband's side.