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On Sunday’s, in a sizable apartment in France, Abigail is awakened by the scent of bacon sizzling, calling to her like a burnt offering, attempting to calm her. To soothe her.
The kitchen is, to this day, not a comfort for her. Even if Will Graham tries to make it as such. Making breakfasts she likes, filling her stomach with sweet and savory and warmth like love. He’s trying to soothe some trauma in her, a distant knowledge that one day she’ll die here, and they’ll eat her, not unlike how the three of them have eaten people. How they continue to eat people.
Maybe she should be thankful they’ll take eat of her. Flesh and blood filling them, not wasting her, loving her, in a way that only makes sense for them. But she isn’t thankful; she’s happy that Will doesn’t seem so settled into this life, that he holds his resignations and needs to make it homey. Warm, because then she has more time to plan.
On some occasions, however, she does seem to forget this and can find herself comforted by the notion of a warm breakfast and the normality a Sunday brings. It’s nice, even if she doesn’t want to admit it out loud.
She pads into the kitchen, dressed for the day (which consists of sitting in the living area and if she’s lucky, going out with them to the market). Will always cooks breakfast on Sundays. She doesn’t know why, but he’s fond of trying to make her happy, even if the idea of that usually makes her stomach knot up.
A part of her thinks she can be happy here, for the time she’s given. Will tries, maybe more than her dad did, and Hannibal – she might be more of a pet to him but he’s kept her well-fed and alive, if even just for Will’s sake. A child for a father, same as any other lamb fit for slaughter.
“Good morning,” Will greets her as she takes a seat as the island. “Making your favorite.”
“Hi Will,” she says and accepts a mug of coffee from him.
If there’s anything Will’s particularly good at, it’s making coffee. She won’t begrudge him that ability, it’s so much simpler than anything Hannibal ever makes for them. Unlike Hannibal, he makes a normal pot of coffee with nothing fancy to say for it, and sometimes it really does taste like love.
She sips the warm liquid, filled with milk and sugar.
“Hannibal’s out,” Will nods as he plates up bacon, cut and sugared strawberries, and pancakes. “So it’s just us today.”
Abigail hums a little.
She never really did escape her father, she thinks. Neither of them are a good degree of separation from him, but especially Will. She’ll have to pay one day, for the crime of others, and it’ll be Will that pushes it forward when he realizes someone has to die. It won’t be him.
Still, today is good so far. There’s no point in jumping ahead of herself quite yet.
Breakfast is good, even if she can’t forget what the bacon really is – can she judge them for being cannibals? Wasn’t she one long before Will? Doesn’t she like the taste too?
Most days she spends her time in her room. It’s exactly anything she could ever want, Hannibal’s nice like that. Or his need to please Will is nice like that. It’s a comfortable room, nice bed with a big duvet, high walls, posters, a pretty vanity, more clothes than she’s probably ever had and her very own private bathroom. Like they plan on staying here for a long while yet.
She isn’t sure which wins more in regards to Hannibal’s niceness, but she’s happy for it either way.
Today, she sits in the living room, feet tucked under her, and reads. She knows how to please her father; she knows how to please Will. Just being in the same room is good, sometimes Will takes her fishing which is a lot nicer than she thought it would be, but usually this is good. Sitting to his right, thumbing page after page of a book she got for her birthday.
Later, they’ll watch TV, something of her choice because Will always lets her pick, and she entertains the idea that it makes her happy because sometimes it does. The longer she’s here with them, the more she feels that. The idea she’ll die one day, hung up and bled out, is always there but it’s getting smaller. Less relevant. That happened with her father too.
It’s wrong, sinful, she knows they don’t love her, not in a good way, not in a way that’s right. One day, Will is going to give in to what she knows Hannibal wants, but maybe she should be allowed to like what she has now. Especially since Will himself hasn’t settled into this life either?
Hannibal comes home halfway through the afternoon, which is earlier than either of them expected and means she doesn’t get to watch TV with Will anymore. It’s odd, but she’s sad about that.
She doesn’t know what Hannibal did today, but she also doesn’t want to ask. That’s his business, his and Will’s, and he’s happy to keep it to himself just as she’s happy to keep reading.
When he steps into the living area fully, he finds a way to put himself into Will’s space, but not exactly touch him. If they’re together, they’re making a good effort to hide it, for whose sake, she doesn’t really know, but their new identities have them listed as a family.
Strange, now that she thinks about it, when she read the passport Hannibal had made for her, they all share the same last name. As if they’re one in three, as if they always will be.
“Hey,” Will says, not closing the little bit of space between them.
He always seems a little uncomfortable with the attention Hannibal gives him. Abigail has noted this a few times but she’s also noted the fact that Will is receptive to it regardless of his discomfort. Craving it, maybe, and unsure of what that means for him. She gets that. Hannibal’s nice, albeit determined for things to always go his way.
Even so, she’s seen them together more than once, in the kitchen, lying up on the couch together, a kiss here and there she definitely isn’t meant to know about. They aren’t great at hiding, and she’s hardly a child so she doesn’t know why they would. They’re going through the motions, just trying to figure this all out for them. Where one of them stands in regards to the other.
It’s almost sad. She wonders if it’s her fault.
“Hello, Will,” Hannibal makes himself comfortable on the couch. “Abigail.”
“Hi,” she says and sticks her nose back into her book. She thinks Hannibal knows how she feels, even if Will doesn’t want to accept it. That or he knows what’s to become of her. Either way, he makes the choice to keep his distance currently.
“Will made breakfast.” He comments, even though Will makes breakfast every Sunday. “How was that?”
“It was good,” Abigail flicks her eyes up to look at him. “It’s my favorite part of Sunday.”
That feels silly, but it’s the truth somehow. The longer this goes on, the more sure of it she is. Will makes this normal for her, even if she doesn’t trust him. It’s nice of him to make the effort. Despite how she knows he’ll offer her up for slaughter one day. She isn’t mindless, she knows where her destiny lies.
Once Hannibal’s home, the atmosphere changes, and she hates to admit that she misses it. Before, she thought she preferred Hannibal, even if she couldn’t trust him, but the more she’s watched, the more she’s learned, she knows Will is the safest option. And yet, he peels himself from the couch and follows him to god knows where in the apartment. Disappearing for hours at a time.
They leave her to sit on the couch with her book, and to fill out applications for university. This is one of the few times she doesn’t follow them, whatever they’re doing isn’t her business. They haven’t forced her to participate in breaking bodies down (if that’s what they’re doing at all) and she doesn’t want to insert herself into that, not currently.
Sometime later, when she’s three-fourths done with her book, they come back from wherever they go. They smells like bleach, the chemical sticking to their skin like incense.
There’s always something like guilt on Will’s face after, like maybe he hasn’t fully accepted this life. Sometimes that makes Abigail feel good, like she isn’t alone, but most of the time it upsets her. He–they both dragged her along for a life none of them were ready to commit to.
Today though, Will’s face isn’t as bleak. Goosebumps prickle her skin, and she tries not to think about it.
Will clears his throat. “How’s the book?”
She dog-ears the page and sets it down, smiling. “It’s good. I like it a lot.”
At the end of it all, she figures she can be enough for them – for him. She can play the part better than when she was with her real father. She’s learned so much and sometimes, when she pushes it all away, she can forget how she’ll be forsaken, how she was forsaken for this life.
Hannibal cuts pieces of fruit for her to snack on at the island while he and Will cook in front of her. It’s always a show, and she’s always pleased to watch. Morbid as it may be, it’s entertaining.
Everything sizzles and pops beautifully. His talent for cooking a person is far expanded from what her father’s ever was, and she often asks questions during this time. For herself and for them.
When did you learn to cook?
How do you pick a recipe?
Would you teach me?
For what it’s worth, he always answers his questions in a way meant to soothe her. The same way Will cooks her breakfast on Sunday’s to soothe her. Even if they’re lies, lies to make Will happy and to keep her docile.
Will chops the vegetables, the meat, for whatever they’re making. He rarely actually cooks it all, even though she thinks he probably could if he put his mind to it. They work as a good team anyway, Abigail thinks, all things considered. They’re finding a balance, at least in the kitchen.
Dinner is usually a quiet affair, like eating dove and lamb might be. If anyone talks, it’s Hannibal, and then they merely respond. Each meal feels closer to communion somehow, like the last supper, and she’ll eat and she’ll know. Not today though, luckily.
They watch one thing on TV after dinner, after they clean the dishes, something of Hannibal’s choice. It’s some attempt to bridge a gap, she knows, because before she never knew him to watch any sort of television. She curls up on the loveseat and reads, and they sit on the couch, and when it’s half past 9, she gets up and excuses herself.
She changes into pajamas, cleans her face, and waits until the clock in her room says 9:57 before she sneaks down the stairs back to the living area, expecting them to have hidden away somewhere again so she can make use of the TV to watch what she wants in peace.
The lights are out, dark, and she’s standing in the threshold between the hall and the living room. It takes her a moment, everything’s too silent, too dark for her, but she’s glad she didn’t walk all the way in.
Bristling at the voices coming from the living room, she calmly tucks herself against the wall, trying to listen. Taking a breath and holding it as she sneaks a full look into the living room, half expecting them to be discussing their next move, but finds her lungs empty when she sees Will press Hannibal’s face into the couch. His body shakes, trembles. He’s mostly dressed, she thinks, but she can’t see more than an outline of Hannibal in the dark. His body laid flat, pinned, against the couch.
It takes a moment for her to realize what she’s even looking at, like her eyes just can’t adjust to this, but Will whispers something to him, she can’t tell what it is, but Hannibal’s entire body reacts to it. He jerks, moans, and the undefined shape of Will’s body moves against him. That’s enough, she turns back and goes up the stairs, uncomfortable and feeling oddly caught, like a child truly walking in on their parents.
Once she’s shut herself in her room she turns on her ipod, sticks her nose back in the book, and decides she’s going to finish it tonight.
She wants to scrub the image from her mind, to be anywhere but here in this moment. Feeling bad for walking in, but feeling worse for knowing that Will is finding his way. That they are together.
It’s a little over an hour later than Will knocks on her door. She knows it’s him because Hannibal tells her goodnight in the living room and Will makes an effort to come up here and appear – comfortable. Like a family without betrayals.
Abigail takes a breath, removes her headphones, and clears her throat. “Come in.”
The door opens, and he’s put together again. Relaxed, even, more than he has been in a long time. “I just wanted to tell you goodnight. Hannibal says goodnight too.”
She looks at him, her finger sat squished between the last few pages of her book. It’s easy to be the sacrifice, but it’s easier to worm her way in and make the attachment stronger. She knows, she did it with her dad. She can do it again. Lamb that she is, she isn’t helpless.
Abigail looks up and nods. Calculated, she smiles. “Goodnight, dad.”
Will pauses, only for a second, his mind trying to catch up to the word that slipped from her mouth before he smiles back at her. “I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.”
Rubbing her tongue over her front teeth, she contemplates the next words out of her mouth. “Love you too.”