Chapter Text
Beverly was told to stick to the road and avoid nightfall. Wolves were always a problem, but they rarely attacked unless provoked. The warning she got had most to do with its size. The woods of Chesapeake were massive and sprawling, and while mostly safe, it was far too easy to get lost in them and never find your way back to the main road that cut across it. Wolf Trap village was nearly half a day on horseback away, but she couldn’t her help her herbalist ways calling at her.
So many plants and flowers she’d never seen before stole her gaze and time and drew her further and further from the road. Panic was always last on Beverly’s list of agendas when lost – she’d experienced it many times in her career, and this would be just another walk in the park until she’d find her way.
But hours passed and no paved road greeted her, but she didn’t worry, not yet, and soon she found a friendly face among the trees – a young man in his late twenties with a rifle strapped to his back. “Are you lost,” he asked with some concern.
“Embarrassingly so. Could you just point me back to the road?”
“I can, but it’s far, and wolves do come out at night.” He looked up at the darkening sky, the last rays of light cleaving through thick canopy. “My home is close,” he offered and Beverly really had no choice but to accept it. He seemed decent and, well, she had a sharp knife if he wasn’t.
The home was a cabin, and while it looked a little run down on the outside, the inside was well lit and taken care of. There was a large bed, table and chairs, shelves filled to the brim with books, and a stone hearth to keep the place warm.
“Will my horse be all right outside,” she asked after a well fought insistence to sleep on the floor.
“I wouldn’t worry. The wolves never come by these parts.”
“Why is that?”
The young man, Will, just shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you.”
Beverly was fortunate to bring her own food because Will had nothing to offer, but also didn’t take anything in turn. She questioned his lifestyle as odd and the only answer she managed to squeeze out was a terrible fondness for solitude. He was very quiet, a listener, though very strange and distant. Then again he was a man who lived alone in the middle of a forest. Peculiarity was mandatory, but his face spoke a lot as well. There was an old scar stretching from his forehead and along his hairline, and another around his neck. It looked like nothing an animal could leave on a man who lived in the wild. Solitude made sense then, an escape from whatever gave him that.
Will’s eyes had long since adapted to the dark and he found his way around with little issue. He left her alone in some dead hour of the night while she slept by the hearth, seeking someone he felt called to. He was never certain where his instincts would take him, strange whispers scratching and pulling him in the right direction, but they never took him very far. Hannibal was never very far.
A short trek away and Will found him sitting on a log in his human form and behind him two large tan wolves chewed and fought over bones and leftovers. The animals paid no attention to Will as he sat by him, too enraptured in the remains of their meal.
“Is that dinner in our house,” Hannibal perked up but deflated into mischief as soon as Will shook his head. “Shame. We’ll have to resupply soon.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve been to a city,” Will mused and rubbed his hands. Winter was coming around and of all the boons he received from Hannibal’s attempt to turn him, a resistance to the freezing winds was not one of them. “We could go to a bar, find someone adequate. Like good old times.”
Warnings of wolves only went so far, and there was always someone snooping around the woods with ill intentions. Bandits were fond of it, a sort of people rarely missed, but Will never asked what or who he ate. It was hard to tell with Hannibal what promises he truly kept and what he skirted around. The Wendigo was a hunter after all, a predator, and they never asked questions.
Hannibal took his cloak off, an accessory for him, and draped it over Will. “Any in mind?” And Will took to thinking but Hannibal already had someplace in mind. “How about your old hometown?”
There was always trepidation in Will when Hannibal would mention that place, equal part joy and dread. He could never resist a trip home. “We could go to the bay,” Will looked at him with some excitement, waiting for the other’s approval that came in the form of a nod.
It had been a long time since their last visit. Will still remembered fondly the last time he passed by the Hobbs’ Inn, Abigail had two grandchildren sitting on the counter, listening to the stories of a veteran hunter. Chances were she wasn’t alive anymore.
The passage of time was strangely frozen in these woods, in this new life with Hannibal where his wine and food kept Will tethering on the verge of change, but never quite spilling over. Days could bleed into weeks when he didn’t sleep, and sleep could stretch into months, but those they took together. It was a comfortable existence, just the two of them, the wildlife, and the occasional passerby. Will saw things in this life he never though he would – the other end of the forest, different town and villages. He wasn’t proud of what he’d do there, but a man had to eat, and Hannibal was especially good at cooking for someone who mostly ate raw.
“I don’t suppose I could sneak in with you,” his Wendigo asked when Will was ready to leave.
The question didn’t dignify an answer but Will humoured him, gently shaking his head. “Wouldn’t want to give our guest a heart attack,” and he leaned in to leave a kiss on his lips that Hannibal gladly took. The Wendigo loved lying next to him in bed as the other slept, but he preferred to do it in his dark and cold skin, a thing Will would have more trouble explaining. “Tomorrow.”
With dawn, Will took the lost woman back to the road.
“I heard some creepy legends surrounding these woods,” she said, though it came out more like a question. “Do you know any?” Will shook his head and she continued, “I heard the one about some demons that stole human skin, walked among the villagers, fed and played sick games on them.”
Will chuckled. “I’ve been here for a long time. Trust me, this place is deserted.”
A shake of hands and a small exchange, then Will watched her ride off when they found the road again. Hannibal slinked out of the trees to watch as well, but also to prod and bargain over his shoulder.
“She’s very lean, would make a terribly good dish.”
“She was nice.”
“How does nice taste like,” Hannibal wondered and licked his lips, though he knew the difference in taste and often wondered if Will could tell when he ate. “Better than the worst, I bet.”
Will turned and smacked a book against his chest. “She wanted to repay me and had more interesting things to give than coin.”
Hannibal’s eyes lit up at the sight of leather bound paper. A new book and one he hadn’t read before – an herbalist’s manifesto. “All right,” Hannibal said as he flipped through the pages and saw many a plant that never grew in these woods. “But I will insist we make that trip to the city as soon as tomorrow.”
Lack of food had him nervous, or perhaps he found another recipe he wanted to show off with. The truth of the matter was usually a lot more grim, if Will was asked. He was yet to take a human life and that was an aspect of him Hannibal loved trying to fix.
“Tomorrow,” Will agreed with a smile and prepared himself for more bargains and whispers, more gentle prodding in a direction he didn’t want to go.
The games never stopped.