Chapter Text
The shift of time had taken a surprisingly hard toll on Will. He found he woke hours before the sun set, lying in that wait with his eye trained on either Hannibal sleeping, or the soft clucking mantle clock.
He was famish by the time the sun properly set and Hannibal could be roused. He shook his shoulder when the process took too long for him. “Hannibal” he would whisper along with his nudges. “Please, wake up.”
His eyes would crease slowly as they opened. The first thing Hannibal saw every morning, Will’s excited face. He felt blessed, fortunate, the perfect curator of his own joy.
Two weeks they had been in Venice. Hannibal had slept lightly the first night, yet every night after, he lay like stone. Will, there to suffer boredom, not even a view of the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo available to alleviate it. The canopy bed was soft, stuffed with feathers and down, but these languid hours became the worst of his day.
Two weeks in Venice, and yet...
He lay on his side, attempting in vain to read with any comprehension. His mind had seemed too full to take in new facts.
He glared lustily at the way Hannibal slept. Dead and poised, he did not move, and would not move until eight, the same time every night.
He watched Hannibal’s dream as it unfurled. Boring, a recitation of their journey. The boat Hannibal had usurped and the dark underbelly of it. Will had been so thirsty on their trip. Limited possibilities to sup, he’d bled Hannibal close to dry before the opportunity to prey came, jumping random vacation yachts and work vessels.
He receded into his own mind, stone like, but feeling and thinking inside the skin.
-
Will startled back with a soft kiss on his bare chest. He looked down, the top of Hannibal’s head resting on him in perfect repose.
“Another early rise Will?”
“Four hours.” Will nodded.
“It will pass.” Hannibal turned to look in Will’s face. “It is like ‘jet-lag’, from the change of time zone.”
“I don’t think I can take much more of this.” Will looked away at the ceiling.
Hannibal got up from the bed, adorning black tie. He was going slow, waiting for Will to rise and do the same.
Will sat on the edge of the old mattress and stared at his feet.
“Do you wish to hunt?”
“Of course I do.” His gaze snapped to Hannibal and back. Will brushed his hair back. He seemed to realize how short he had been and added, “I’m sorry. I’m tired and agitated…”
“Come here.” Hannibal commanded.
Will stood, unhappily he traipsed to Hannibal’s waiting form.
“Cheer up.” Hannibal said, reaching behind Will and smacking his bottom.
Will leaned in for a kiss, a cool brush of flesh that he could almost miss, like dipping his hands in water the same temperature as the room, but it was familiar now. He attempted to put his feelings to the side.
Hannibal powdered his face and his arms like a roman lady, using light bronzers to cover the pallor of his exposed skin. In Italy, Hannibal declared it a necessary step. It would “prevent gawking and unfavorable conversation.”
Will’s flesh still held onto the melanin of his former life, though with every passing month, it evaporated slightly. Soon he would also brush himself with horsehair bristles.
-
“Who do you want?” Hannibal asked in a soft, delicate voice walking in the symphony, Carmina Burana
“Who…” Will began, “Me?”
“Yes, who do you want?” He repeated.
He hadn’t needed the reiteration of course, he’d already looked at a couple twice now. Enticing enough to make his mind a swirl of animal thought and impulse. Carefully obeyed now, but they set off his thirst like a charming oasis.
“They could almost be us.” Hannibal smirked lifting the thought of the pair from Will.
Will pulled his cuff straight.
Their seats, two rows from the stage, they traded with an ecstatic couple from Guinea.
Pretending to fumble down the row with a rueful smile, Will ambled over to their intended. “My boyfriend, he got the seat number backwards!” He smiled full of teeth, “We’re sorry.” He bumped knees and bags during his gooberish explanation.
“Please, pardon us.” Hannibal added to the couple as they bushed by.
Will sat next to one of the men, Hannibal on his right side, attempting to look embarrassed.
“Oh it’s really fine, they haven’t even begun.” One of them smiled, consoling Will.
“This happens to us all the time, I swear I’m going to be in charge of tickets from now on.” He glanced to his side secretly.
“You seem familiar.” The man gave Will a sideways glance, as if looking at him from another view would be enlightening. “Have we met before?”
Will pretended to search his mind as he rifled through the humans. “I believe we met at Marietta's new years party… Though I may be mistaken… Giorgio? Isn’t it?” Will asked.
“Yes, yes!” He agreed. “I knew I recognized you….”
“Will.” will supplied.
“Yes, Will.” He smiled and it was becoming on him.
“Do you remember Luca?” He asked, taking the man by hand and showing.
“Of course I do.” Will smiled again. “Having good luck in property still?”
“Business is going well, yes.” He was glad to be remembered fondly.
“This is Hannibal.” Will gestured softly. “He’s a new acquisition.” He laughed at his own joke to sink it in.
They all laughed as well.
“Very nice to meet you Hannibal.” Giorgio reached across the small aisle to shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you as well.” He replied softly. Fitting into a persona for the evening.
“Always nice to have compatriots at these things.” Georgio added, nodding to the stage.
“It is.” Will replied. “It’s lovely to know others are hearing things as you are, and to perhaps even talk about it after, over drinks?”
“We must.” Giorgio confirmed.
Luca’s mind danced alighted at the opportunity for drinks once the show was over.
“You must tell me how you have been.” Will added before the conductor took the stage to thunderous applause.
They nodded to confirm that, at least for now, attention should be elsewhere.
Even though he looked forward, took in every bow, every drum, every word, Will could hear still the heartbeat of his prey. He envisioned, pouring out of Georgio the blood that was sealed up in him, pressurized, waiting to flow.
Will was deep in the minds of the humans around him, experiencing through them the pleasure of the performance. But Hannibal tensed, Will could feel.
The blue white glow of a backlit phone took him out of rapture. Will gripped Hannibal’s hand, “let it go.” he thought directly.
Words never came from Hannibal, but an aura rolling off of him was dangerous.
Will looked at the human with the device. Recording the players.
“We have plans, Hannibal.” he thought.
Hannibal’s sat back, as though his predatory mood was turned off with a switch
Will reached over the threshold of the arm rest. He held on to Hannibal’s palm, rubbing his thumb against the soft ridges of flesh on his hand. Hannibal returned the affection.
-
The four walked together to their next destination. At Luca’s suggestion they came to the Divino. Swarming and busy with all kinds of humans, they blended in with the uproar. Georgio and Will told bright jokes that amused crowds, pressing wine glasses up to their closed lips, dumping the drinks into empty glasses when there were no eyes on them.
When Luca and Giorgio were warm, drunk and happy, Will offered them the invitation; “Come back to our home, more drinks are there for you, and Hannibal is silently dying to show off his art collection to someone new.”
They spoke silently with each other, Will watched in amusement the way they conveyed the consensus decision with an eyebrow, a miniscule smile. It was not as depthful as the way Hannibal and Will communicated, but it was effective.
“Of course, we would love to.” Giorgio spoke for them.
The part of Will’s brain, the one that informed his instinctual skill hummed along the walk. He walked with Giorgio, Hannibal with Luca. The humans smelled stronger, the sweat and the oil from their pores wafting to Will in the hot, humid weather.
This long game, the wait for the bite made it more enticing. It was the reason they lured these people to them. When the blood came, it would taste better, a larger accomplishment.
The unbroken deception made him feel more powerful. His abilities to beguile and charm, he looked to Hannibal behind him, smiling.
“May I use your restroom?” Luca asked when they arrived.
“Of course, it is down the hallway, on the other side of the courtyard.” Hannibal walked, gesturing.
“How about another drink?” Will asked Giorgio, his mischievous glint unmistakable.
“Please.” He replied.
Hannibal chimed in, “Please, have a seat.”
Giorgio sat in the middle of their old sofa. The embroidered fabric was worn from the centuries, but held up.
Will came through with two glasses of scotch. Setting one in Giorgio’s hand, he pretended to sip his own after a soft clink of their glasses together.
Hannibal sat in his chair to the side of the sofa, softly looking to the human with no agenda, just the gaze of an old man with no need for filling the conversational void.
“Your home feels very… Serene.” Giorgio admired.
“I feel the same about it, thank you.” Hannibal replied.
Will couldn’t agree honestly. He had yet to have a full day’s sleep, but he couldn’t deny it’s antique charm and comfort.
Luca returned to the sitting room. Will sprang up to fill him a glass as well.
Luca did not sit, but looked to the walls and their canvases. The old ornamental frames almost as impressive as the art inside them. He stopped before one. “Leda and the Swan?” He asked. “How titillating.”
“You would point out the only piece I brought with me to Italy.” Hannibal smiled, rounding the plank floor to him, viewing the piece together.
They looked at it, Giorgio paying it a glance before looking back to Will, continuing their conversation from the bar, about Will’s life in America. He was curious, as almost all people are, of the way people live in another country, almost as curious as they are of the biggest difference between the nations.
He told Giorgio how, Louisiana is like a separate country in itself. That it’s like nowhere and the people are autonomous. That Baltimore is called ‘Balmer’, that Washington DC was so affected with poverty. He let Giorgio feast on his new information, stroking the pleasure centers of his curiosity till he grew sated and tired.
“Let me pour you another glass.” Will smiled, taking the crystal by the base from Giorgio’s enfeebled hand.
Hannibal and Luca were looking on together in an old tome, the prints of woodcut reliefs.
Will made another drink for Luca too. He was not yet at the intoxication they desired for him. He took the old, empty glass and replaced it with the new one, seamlessly. He didn’t know it happened.
His mind was preoccupied with jealousy. He was jealous of Will’s relationship. He wished Giorgio cared more for the history, the art. He felt bad, at least, for thinking those thoughts.
Will dipped into Hannibal’s thoughts as well, yet more as a caress. A loving stroke as he passed by, a reminder of their union, an affection. Hannibal lifted his eyes from the book and smiled.
Giorgio had been speaking, he spoke of trips from his youth, months spent in the United Kingdom when he realized he did not speak English nearly as well as he thought he could.
Will nodded. Giorgio’s English even now was slipping, he was drunk and sliding back and forth between languages. Will knew all languages now. The warmth of the Italian filled him and he kept up perfectly.
Will watched him drink the alcohol, envious of his pleasure. He sat snugly next to Giorgio. Chatting him in Italian.
“You speak like a native.” He commended.
“Hannibal taught me, first I learned Latin, then I learned Italian.”
“I’m impressed.” His smile was loopy and uneven.
“I had a great teacher.”
“I have to admit.” Giogio’s tone lowered. “I failed Latin in school.”
Will laughed genuinely, his teeth shining off of the lamp light, his hair falling back, his throat exposed.
“Carmina Burana, then?” He teased. “Was this education or a date for you two.”
“It was a little of both.” He answered mock- ruefully.
“Speak Latin for me, please.” He ushered on, finishing his glass once more.
“Perhaps when I am not so drunk.” Will lied.
He hummed and leaned his head back, against the lip of the sofa, he held the glass with light weak fingers between his legs.
Will leaned over, with his index finger and his thumb he pinched the rim of the glass and set it on the end table. He glanced over to Luca, a heavy drinker who’s hand was on Hannibal’s shoulder to brace himself, to keep steady.
Will filled Giorgio’s glass and walked over to Hannibal and Luca. He traded glasses with Luca, who protested.
“I really shouldn’t” He put his hand out.
Will gave him a look and he took the glass.
Will walked Luca back to the sofa and deposited him next to his lover, whom Luca pat on the leg and smiled at with his intoxicated grin.
“Mio dolce amore.” He whispered with the look of a ghost, gazing on his love from a vale of separation. Leaning his head against Giorgio’s shoulder, his eyes closed. He was not yet sleeping, but fading. He dreamed of Giorgio as though he were in a deep REM state. Quiet smiles on his mouth he budged in closer to his lover’s neck.
Will returned to Hannibal who stood still by the perimeter. He wound his arm around Hannibal, stroking his waist delicately. Hannibal took Will’s hand into his own, he held the palm with eight fingers and brushed his thumbs over the top. He raised Will’s hand to his mouth pressed his cold lips to it.
Kissing.
A new advent for Hannibal. Something new, inspiring. Something Will instigated in him. The sweet human gesture that Hannibal found irresistible.
Hannibal gestured for them to press on.
Will sat on the arm of the sofa, the side where Giorgio was nestled. Hannibal sat next to Luca on the arm of the piece.
Will’s head felt heavy. Heavy with his need, for blood and the hot feeling of flesh in his hands. His hands ached for it.
Will leaned into Giorgio and sniffed him, holding back a high whine in his throat.
Hannibal touched Luca’s sleeping form, brushing the soft hair of his arm with a fingertip. His thoughts were pure. How beautiful they were. How wonderful their love was, how he wanted to be part of it.
Will pulled the bowtie from the neck of Giorgio’s shirt, unbuttoning the top of his shirt. He pulled the cotton away from his throat, gently.
He knelt forward, bending, doubled over the human’s body. His teeth felt enormous against his cheek.
Every time he did this, it felt like the first time, the way the excitement stacked up. He licked his lips unnecessarily, delaying his gratification, torturing himself.
Hannibal stared at him, his eyes never left Will’s face as he sniffed, fussed.
Will opened his mouth. He tried to be as delicate as Hannibal was. The bite that made no pain. He pushed through the skin at Giorgio’s throat easily.
The first pump of blood filled his mouth, pushed into him. And he was connected to Giorgio. He could feel through Giorgio the way the earth felt. He could relive those human sensations. Briefly, fleetingly. He could feel the perfect peace of sleep through his companion’s mind. What Will had been so torturously lacking the last few weeks he found now through Giorgio’s unconscious slumber.
He drank, wishing he were in a similar rest. Luxurious and deep he was now into Giorgio. So deep, he could lose himself in it, the blood. He went so deep.
Hannibal’s palm closed over the top of Will’s face, he clamped over his eyes and his nose he pulled back on his head, wrenching him from Giorgio’s neck that was ripped open, gaping, and Giorgio’s frantic fingers flitting over the wound as spastically as he could.
Will covered his own mouth with his hands as though that could undo his actions. He closed his eyes when Hannibal stepped in, attempting to close the wound with his own own bloody hands.
“What have I done” Will murmured to himself. He could feel it in him still, all of that blood. He was gorged, drunk on it. Fattened like a tick on a doe. “Oh no.” Will added.
Hannibal stepped away from Giorgio who lay askew on the sofa. “He is dead.”
Will slumped to the floor with a blank gaze on him. He looked at Giorgio but saw past him, into the void air beyond the sofa.
Hannibal walked around Will’s line of sight, Will too captivated to see. Until Hannibal showed Luca’s struggling grimace to him, his veiny hand covering the human mouth. “Take him as well. They will be together.”
Will looked up, the tension on his skin plying his lips apart so far up he looked. “I can’t”
“Take him or I will kill him, and waste his blood.”
“Please don’t make me do this.” Will cried softly.
“End his suffering.” Hannibal tried. He wrung Luca’s neck with his hands.
“Stop!” Will yelled. “We can make him forget all of this.”
Hannibal raised his eyebrow. “The last 5 years, finito?”
Will nodded, the dry sobs with no tears.
“You did this, fix it.” He said letting Luca fall on Will.
Luca, he was weak, helpless rolling from Will to the floor in front of him, he yelped, unable to lift himself up even from his horror and torture.
“Please.” Luca whispered in between cries, his face pressed against the wood plank floor. “Just kill me.”
Will’s gaze snapped to Luca’s eyes, a frown on them.
“Why would you…” Will trailed off.
“I can’t live without him.” The gross affection in his throat malforming his words. “You killed me already, he’s dead.”
Will turned slowly like he were a fly in a vat of honey, stuck, and slowly making his way to an exit.
“Come back here.” Hannibal demanded.
Will turned, unable to understand this cruelty.
Hannibal knelt down, picking Luca up by the back of his suit collar.
“Hannibal, please stop.” Will begged.
“You won’t do this.” He said. “Not for Luca? Not for me?”
Will’s face burned and he sobbed. “I can’t”
Hannibal growled. His face wrath and rage, he held Luca’s hair and made sure Will watched him when he bit into Luca again.
Will wanted to look away. He wished he could, but his eyes were frozen where Hannibal wanted them to be. So he starred, helpless.
Hannibal ate sloppily, letting the blood leak from his mouth and from the wound, staining Luca’s clothing and his own.
He let Luca go, his body falling back to the floor.
He was not dead. But he was no longer conscious. Without blood infusions, he never would wake again.
“Will you take him now?” Hannibal asked. “Now that his fate is decided?”
Will shook his head in the negative.
Hannibal turned Luca’s body over, so his chest faced the ceiling. He undid the buttons of his dress shirt and pulled back the soft cotton with the blood stains.
Will felt uneasy, expectant.
Hannibal pressed his fingers into Luca’s abdomen, under the rib bones and into the chest cavity. Skillfully, easily he pulled Luca’s heart from his body. He offered it to Will. His hand dripping blood, outstretched and waiting.
Will wanted to be disgusted. He was to an extent, but that heart was so hot, so recently beating, the smell and the soul.
He began to pant. He hated himself for it. He wanted to strike himself down for this lowly disgusting banal attraction he had.
“Eat his heart.” Hannibal asked.
Will shook his head.
“Eat it. Or I will throw it out of the window.” Hannibal threatened.
Will closed his eyes and shook his head. He would not.
What had Will done? He hated this night. He hated himself. A killer. He’d lost control before, he had killed before, surely. But only the evil. Giorgio, he had been so kind to them. A delightful human being full of compassion, and a charitable heart that would never beat again.
Why did Hannibal torture him? He had to wonder. He taught Will these ways. He’d never killed… Not like this.
Hannibal still held out the organ in his palm, blood dripping from it to a pool that raced through the plank seams in the floor.
He would never forgive himself this. Will slipped out of his clothes, letting them drop wherever.
He made up his mind, whatever lesson Hannibal was teaching, he would do it. He was sure, Hannibal would not stop now. He would push Will on and on, killing every human they seduced until he had his will done.
Will’s mouth elongated, his legs brought him down to the bloody flood and he whined at Hannibal. Expressing his emotion in a way he could never do in humanoid skin.
Hannibal knelt to Will’s height and offered the heart to him again. The high whistle from Will’s snout apparent, but he licked the blood on Hannibal’s fingers.
Hannibal’s free hand wrapped its fingers around Will’s ears, rubbing them back.
How long now had it been since Will had the unique texture of meat in his mouth? Months, surely. It felt alien now, like an infant's first taste of cracker. His oversized teeth grasped the whole muscle in his mouth while he gnawed on it, indelicately.
Hannibal still set on his haunches, watching Will, watching his creature devour. His mind thought positive adjectives but it mostly conjured emotion that was profound and idolatric.
Will whined as he ate the heart. He gulped the remainder down in one to be done with it.
Hannibal tutted and reached over to rub Will’s ears again.
Will backed away defensively and growled his most fearsome.
“You would bite me? The hand that feeds you?” Hannibal smiled, amused with himself.
Will bared his teeth, edging closer to Hannibal’s crouched form. Hannibal’s hand outstretched. He rubbed Will again, boldly, massaging the blood into his fur.
Will leaned into the hand. He hated himself.