Chapter Text
Will woke with a raging headache. His nose was full of a strong, acerbic pine scent, and when he moved his hand, he found it sticky with sap.
On moving his arm further, he felt a dull pain spread through his torso starting at his shoulder, and, at his involuntary wince, he found his entire face aflame in a sharp throb.
Not dead then. Dead wouldn’t hurt this much.
He took several deep breaths, steadying himself through the pain, trying to shove his adrenaline back into the box so that he could get his bearings.
Once he’d laid still for a few minutes, his pain receded enough for him to focus on his surroundings. He heard rustling pine needles, now and again shot through with a burst of activity -
squirrels? please let it be squirrels
- bird song -
I know that bird song, I’m close to home
- very low embers -
that fire needs tending, it’s cold as marble out here
- and deep, rhythmic breathing, just to his left.
There were very, very few people to whom that breathing was likely to belong. Will wasn’t sure he wanted to open his eyes to see any of them. He did anyway.
...of fucking course
Hannibal lay sleeping on his side facing Will, sandy hair hanging lank in his closed eyes, dried blood crossing his face in brown rivulets. His mouth was open just a little, and the little pool of drool under him told Will this wasn’t a fake sleep; he was well and truly out.
how the fuck…
you know what, no. I’m not even going to ask.
he’d better not be fucking injured
he’d better know where we are
he’d better have some grand fucking master plan
and that plan had better involve painkillers, a change of clothes, and a sandwich, all in the very near future
He closed his eyes again and breathed deep a few times to psych himself up, then pushed himself to sitting using the heels of his hands on the cool earth. Pain ripped through him like a shot, but he powered through, bending his knees underneath him to stand. He wobbled a little, joints protesting every second of it, then opened his eyes again to get his bearings.
He’d been laying down in a pallet of pine needles, Hannibal beside him on his own pallet. They’d obviously been placed on purpose, piled there from visible voids in the forest floor. Snow was hilled around them, shoved out of the way of their dirt clearing. A small dugout area in front of them held a heap of red glowing ash, still crackling just the littlest bit. Hannibal couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours, given the level of that fire.
He was wearing the same shirt and pants he’d been in when Cordell had knocked him out, but now he had on a thick wool peacoat. Will didn’t want to know where Hannibal had found it. He rummaged in the pockets anyway, finding a quarter, a nickel, and a chintzy little pocket knife, the kind a boy scout might have on a keyring.
They were up on a wooded rise, a little stream running in the gully below them. Will made his way down to it, his joints loosening a little, but the pain in his face still a constant burn. The water looked clean enough, and Will frankly didn’t care if he died from amoebic dysentery at that point in his life, so he drank a few cold handfuls, realizing just how parched he was. must be the anaesthetic. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the water.
Jesus Christ.
Now he really hoped for that amoebic dysentery.
He really, truly did look like someone who’d recently been thrown off a train, had their head sawed open, and then escaped from a back-alley face transplant surgery. Imagine that.
His eyes were sunken deep into purple bruises. Brown, flaking dried blood covered him in so many places he couldn’t tell where the real injuries began. Even the older injuries (the older injuries being the ones that occurred three days ago, rather than two days ago or yesterday) had reopened at some point.
The water was freezing, but Will dunked his hand in again and splashed it on his face, over and over again. The cold replaced the pain and made him feel sharper, more present. Eventually, he had all the old blood off, and all the new blood off, and he could see himself more clearly.
He was a mess. And even though Hannibal, sleeping sweetly and soundly on the hill above, was directly responsible for only one of his wounds, he still blamed him for each of them.
He wanted nothing more than to just walk away, to follow the stream down to the sea and then along shore until he found civilization; or to follow it up into the mountains, where he could grow his beard out and live in a tree trunk and eat acorns for the rest of his days. Either one would be better than running away with a fugitive. Becoming a fugitive, which, he reflected, he technically already was.
Either one would be better than being subsumed by Hannibal again, reliant on him, responsible for him.
He sat there, watching the slushy, iced stream, for what must have been half an hour. The cold had thoroughly penetrated his lungs by now, and every breath was a sharp, sweet ache. He was incredibly present, in a way he hadn’t been in months.
Hand in his pocket, he rolled the smooth nickel across his knuckles, around and around, fidgeting to stay warm while he turned his choices over and over in his head. He could leave. He could walk in any direction, and eventually find help. He could be free of Hannibal, leave him to die in the elements, or to be captured by Verger’s men, or taken by the police, or eaten by some wild animal. Leave him to escape and live free again, to haunt the forests as an urban legend.
But then what? Wouldn’t he always wonder? And hadn’t that always been the problem, that he couldn’t stop wondering? That he couldn’t cut Hannibal out of his head? And not knowing where he was would make it so much worse, with the promise that he could reappear at any moment. No, better to know, and to have power in the knowledge. Better to keep an eye on him himself.
And even then, under all of that, the little voice kept whispering at the back of his brain: what about mercy?
Could he really leave him here, unarmed, cold, and alone? Will wasn’t that person. He knew it, and Hannibal knew it.
Fuck.
When he climbed the hill again, he found Hannibal still sleeping. The fire had burned itself cold, nothing but white ash left in the pit.
He walked the perimeter of their little camp, gathering the driest branches he could find. He brought them to the middle and piled them to his side, then took a handful of the needles from his own bed and put it in the center of the pit.
He pulled the little pocket knife out of his coat and struck the butt of it against a smooth rock he’d found by the firepit. The rock already had a few nicks in it, presumably from when Hannibal had done the same thing last night.
He sparked it several times before the needles caught, and he let them burn for a minute before piling the sticks around.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bundle that was Hannibal shift. He ignored him. The flames began licking up around the branches, singeing off their needles with wisps of smoke.
Hannibal sat up groggily, rubbing at his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was slow and gravelly. “Will. You should have woken me.”
“You looked so fucking peaceful, how could I have disturbed that?” He shot back before he could stop himself. He could stay with Hannibal, but that didn’t mean he had to be an adult about it.
“Will…” Hannibal sharpened up, putting on a much flatter voice, one with more affected patience.
“What, were you dreaming about our new life together? Our new domestic bliss in the middle of the fucking forest?” Will poked at the fire with another stick, still refusing to meet Hannibal’s eyes. He knew he was being childish, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Will, calm down. You need stitches, you’ll make the scars worse.”
“You’d like that though, wouldn’t you. You’d like to see your scars on my face, big and ugly.”
“I…”
“You what, Hannibal.” He finally looked up at Hannibal, finding nothing but gentleness. Hannibal’s hair was still sleep-mussed, his clothes wrinkled.
Hannibal looked away and swallowed hard. He spoke softly. “...do you want me to say yes?”
Will paused, taken off guard. “Do I want… what do you mean?”
“Do you want a confession of guilt? That I injured you and enjoyed it? That seeing your face permanently marked will give me pleasure?” Hannibal looked back at him, eyes soft. As vulnerable as he’d been in sleep. “Would that satisfy you?”
Will thought for a long moment, not dropping his eye contact. Finally he asked, in a measured tone, “If not for pleasure, why do it?”
“The line between pleasure and suffering is a razor’s edge. Falling to one side or the other can be more a matter of chance than of choice.”
“And would you have chosen to enjoy it, if you could?”
“If I could, I would have chosen not to do it at all. If there lay a pathway in my mind that didn’t end in either of our suffering, I would choose it every time.”
“And now? Where does your pathway lead?”
“Curiously, nowhere.”
Will gave him a questioning look.
“We seem to have been given a blank slate. The path has blurred in the face of our infinite potential.”
Infinite potential. That wasn’t quite how Will would put their current situation. He poked at the fire again, thinking on it for a long moment. When he finally spoke again, he was gentler.
“We’ll still be scarred.”
“Our bodies are a map to our histories. We carry our scars with us as a reminder of our conquest over suffering.” Hannibal stood as he spoke, straightening his clothing the best he could.
“Suffering is behind us then, and onward to pleasure?”
“We shall see.” Hannibal gave him a long, curious look, and with that, he went down to the stream to wash himself up. Will stayed up on the hill tending the fire and thinking.
Hannibal’s nature was to cause pain, to destroy. He could no more trust Hannibal than he could a tiger; but tigers, too, can be tamed, and their love is all the sweeter for their violence.
He had no doubt that Hannibal’s vision of their future was blurred: his own was just as muddy. This was truly new territory, the two of them lost, with no other path but onward together. Sure, at the next town, he could easily call the police, gather the massive reward for putting the Chesapeake Ripper behind bars, and get a nice, cozy ride back to Wolf Trap.
But there was something in Hannibal today that Will had never seen: uncertainty. It made him curious. It made him want to know, want to dig, want to explore. He felt, for a moment, that he understood how Hannibal felt about him.
Will heard the rustling of footsteps up the hill, and Hannibal appeared over the crest. He looked tidier, but still bruised and exhausted. He was holding a white rabbit by the feet. Its neck was at a completely wrong angle.
“We have to eat something,” he offered at Will’s concerned look.
Will nodded and handed him the little knife, then sat and watched as Hannibal skinned the animal with as much finesse as he was able in the middle of the forest with a dollar store pocket knife.
He gutted it and spitted it, and they both watched as it cooked over the fire, drops of grease popping and exploding on the pile of sticks.
“Where will we go?” Will asked, eyes on the rabbit.
“I have a place. It will take us a day to walk there, maybe more.”
“Will they find us?”
“It’s unlikely.” Hannibal left it at that. He fingered the little knife, flipping it end over end in his big hand. The gears in his head were turning smoothly, like clockwork. And then, with no change of expression, he handed the knife back to Will. They made brief eye contact as Will took it from him, their fingers brushing against each other quick and hot. Will put it back into his coat pocket.
Hannibal pulled the rabbit off the fire, and they both burned their fingers and tongues in their hurry to get something into their stomachs. It was unseasoned and stringy and greasy and the best thing Will had ever eaten.
Afterwards, they buried the bones and guts under the fire ash, and buried that under fresh dirt, and buried that under the pine needles that had been their pallet. When they were done, the cleared snow in the area was the only thing that gave away their presence; by the end of the day, a fresh flurry would cover even that.
Above them, the sky was grey, and obviously thinking about letting go. Hannibal looked up at it, getting his bearing for the sun, then pointed to their left.
Will started walking, and Hannibal followed.