Chapter Text
The cold of winter is beginning to seep in, but the snow has not yet reached this part of the forest yet. Hannibal's creation remains uncovered, though half-frozen, at the base of a tree.
He doesn't regard it as much as he takes note of Will's expression. His tongue worries over his bottom lip, and he holds tight to Hannibal's hand, his breaths shallow.
"You know," he says, not taking his eyes off of Tobias Budge's corpse, "I'm not sure what, at this point, I consider your first kill for me."
Hannibal smiles and thinks of the other recent murders, all of them cleaned up by the FBI, and otherwise consumed. He wonders if he should have brought their dinner. He decides, though, that it's best they eat elsewhere; this dinner will not be had with a show. Not this one, at least, which has been left to grow putrid and rot for several days now.
The animals have left the corpse alone, though, so Hannibal's design is still in tact. He kept them off with some electric wiring, which he'll take home with them once they're done observing.
"Does it matter?" he replies, stroking his thumb over the back of Will's hand, feeling the veins beneath his skin. "All of them are for you, if you desire them to be."
Will smiles—maybe bitterly, maybe not—and rolls his eyes.
"Are those flowers from the same batch you delivered to me at Quantico?" he asks, gesturing at the mass of half-rotted crimson foliage filling both the spaces within and around the corpse.
"Sweet Williams, yes," he says, and turns to touch Will's face with his free hand. He strokes at Will's cheek, idly toys with a stray curl at his hairline.
"You're a cocky son of a bitch," Will chuckles, shaking his head.
"No one will find this," Hannibal counters. "None but you, Will. This is all yours."
Will leans against him. "Red and black and gory and all for me," he murmurs.
Raising an eyebrow, Hannibal runs his hands entirely through Will's curls and wonders if he should ask if his darling reads minds, but he's left with a quiet snort in response.
"You were muttering it in your sleep all last night," he says. "Some sort of creepy mantra."
"You don't mind."
"No," Will agrees. "I don't."
They take a few minutes longer to admire the remains of the Violinist. After killing him and draining him of most of his blood (only some of which he had used for sanguinaccio dolce the night of the ballet), Hannibal had taken him out to this property of his, where no one would find the displayed body. He tied Budge to the base of the tree, binding his wrists and nailing them above his head so that he might never again touch what was not his. Hannibal eviscerated the man next, emptying him of his guts, and strewing them about the ground in front of him to be wasted, compared to what he had done with his own victims.
As a last minute thought, he gouged out the corpse's eyes, just for daring to have stolen the gaze of Will.
Transformed, now, Hannibal welcomes Will's observation. He stays at Will's side, content to focus on his scent while he admires the gift.
"Alright," Will says, after some long minutes, pulling himself away. "You promised dinner, and I don't want to eat it here."
Hannibal dips his head and steps back. "Of course not. There's a spot closer to the car."
"Making me hike on an empty stomach," Will grumbles, but leads the trek back anyway.
"Not necessarily," Hannibal calls, striding forward to catch him by the arm. "I carried Budge the distance. I could certainly carry you."
He's met with wide eyes for that comment, and before Will can protest, Hannibal sweeps him up into his arms and carries him back to the car. It's Hannibal's 'murder car,' as Will dubbed it, not registered under his name and fit for all terrain driving.
"You gonna rip me up, too?" Will wonders, wrapping his arms around Hannibal's neck. "Make dessert out of what's left?"
Feeling Will's nose press into his shoulder, he laughs. "Not tonight, my love."
Will laughs, too. They're both giddy from the cold, from resting in bed for nearly two days, from being done with the Egalitarians and the Violinist. They deserve to have some fun, after all.
He only ends up carrying Will part of the way back to the car; his rib was not broken when he hauled Tobias Budge to his final resting place, and he would rather spend his energy on other activities.
While Will leans against the hood of the car, Hannibal retrieves the picnic cloth from the backseat. Calypso is asleep on top of it, curled up and whuffing in her sleep. She's still small, but no longer frightfully so, and when he wakes her, she slaps her tail against the cloth.
"Come, now," he says, snapping his fingers.
With a full body wiggle, she gets up and tries to jump onto the ground. For all the progress she's made, though, she's still clumsy, and stumbles upon the impact. Hannibal's chest clenches, but she rights herself immediately and quickly waddles off to join Will.
Hannibal lays out the blanket and sets out their lunch of soup and fresh baked bed, kept warm thanks to the insulated padding lining the basket. The lidded bowls of soup are hot to the touch, and Hannibal has to handle them with the napkins he's brought.
Will joins him, and Calypso does, too, though they have to dissuade her from nosing against the hot dishes. She is quickly distracted, however, by a squirrel rushing down a nearby tree.
"Wish we could've brought the others," Will sighs, watching her go after it.
Considering most of her time is spent at Hannibal's home, dear Calypso hasn't had as much exposure to the wonders of nature as Will's dogs. She runs head on into a tree, and Hannibal winces.
"They would have likely found the body," he reminds Will, "and that is a mess I would rather not clean."
Will smiles wryly and pries the lid off of his bowl, the vacuum seal breaking with a pop and a burst of steam. "Fair enough."
Calypso, who is struggling to find her way to the front of the car and back, will not be making the distance to the body. After several minutes of running around in circles, she collapses on the edge of the picnic cloth and licks at her paws, which have likely begun to bite with the frosted earth.
They finish their soup in relative silence, Will mopping up every last drop of the broth with bread. He moans appreciatively when he's finished, and Hannibal doesn't call him on the uncivil behavior.
They are, after all eating out in the woods, and Hannibal does appreciate his moans.
Will is focused on their surroundings, though. Despite their last night in the woods, he seems as tranquil as ever in the company of the trees.
Hannibal feels serene himself because of it.
"How long do you want to stay here?" he asks, thinking of the sightless Violinist up the hill, of the arriving cold, of the people waiting for their return in Baltimore.
The story of the disastrous opening of the Ballet, after all, has gotten out. Freddie Lounds will be the first hound on their tails, if she hasn't tried to get to them already.
"A few hours, maybe," Will mumbles, clearing the space in front of him and laying down. His head lands on Hannibal's lap. "I brought my gear for a reason, you know. I plan to catch at least some fish."
Hannibal absently strokes at Will's neck. "Of course," he sighs. "But after that?"
"We can leave if you want to, Hannibal."
"We'll stay as long as you like," he answers, smiling down at him, "but I was thinking more broadly. Would you consider relocating?"
Will frowns, but it doesn't seem entirely negative. Calypso wriggles across the blanket to lick at his fingers, and he scratches her head. "Are you asking me to run away with you?"
"Would you be averse?"
"Not really," Will admits, blinking as he says so as if shocked at his own response. "What has you thinking about it?"
Hannibal considers this, and again the Violinist and Lounds, but also Jack Crawford and the rest of their world. "As ideal as Baltimore's hunting grounds are," he answers with a sigh, "I fear there are too many sharks in the water. I don't want a repeat of Friday's escapades, and I certainly don't want an excuse for Jack to be breathing down our necks."
Blinking up at him, Will shifts in his lap. He looks amused, lips threatening to curl in a smirk, one eyebrow raised.
"You want us to skip town before we do something dumb and have to."
"Well." Hannibal opens his mouth to argue, to say it's not so simple, but resigns and begins running a hand through Will's curls. "I suppose," he says. "It's precautionary."
Will smiles, then, clearly pleased. "I guess I wouldn't mind a change of scenery," he admits. "Would be nice not to have Jack watching our every move. Or be somewhere statistically less likely to land us facing off another pair of serial killers."
"We are not a pair of serial killers."
"Maybe I'm not," Will snorts, and lifts a hand to jab Hannibal in the chest. "But you are."
Hannibal stops stroking Will's hair.
"Oh, come on. You're not offended by that, are you?"
He just swallows. Will rolls his eyes and sits up to shove at him genially.
"Hannibal," he says. "You literally just brought me to a fucking corpse in the woods. Not your first one, either. That makes you a serial killer."
Narrowing his eyes, Hannibal just answers, "You would be the expert, I suppose."
"Damn straight." Will looks him in the eye, and his expression softens. "You're terrible, you know," he mutters, shaking his head. "But I'll move away with you, yeah. Run off and be your murder husband, or whatever the fuck it means."
His gaze lowers to his lap as he begins muttering to himself, and Hannibal watches with a curious smile.
"Murder husband?" he repeats, smiling. He doesn't mind that title.
Will glances back up sharply and glares. "No. You will not start saying that. Christ. Murder husbands. Of course you'd like it."
"I said no such thing."
"You didn't have to," Will reminds him. "I can read you like a book."
Off by the car, Calypso yelps in excitement at a stray leaf. Hannibal watches her fondly, and realizes with some horror that it shows on his face, judging by the gleam in Will's eye.
"It wasn't always so easy, though," Will adds, winking at him.
Hannibal scowls indignantly, but it's hopeless. He's spent so long fighting the beasts inside him, and Will's gone and let them loose.
"And to think," he mutters, "that I thought you would be the one transformed."
But, no, Will's beast had been there all along. Hannibal's had been the ones that needed unleashing.
Will pats him on the shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better," he offers, "I wouldn't have liked the dead body gift before I met you."
Hannibal sighs and settles against him.
"It does, darling. Thank you."
Will chortles, because it's not true, and that's perfectly alright.