Losing You Terrifies Me

Chapter 10

Sirens were what woke Hannibal from a sleep that wasn't that deep as it was. Several police cars by the sounds of it, traveling along the road just outside of the parking lot of the small hotel he was at.

He inhaled deeply, rubbing at his eyes, feeling a hollowness in his chest without a dark haired man curled into his side. He forced himself up and to the bathroom to shower. As tired as he was, someone had obviously found Eric's body. In a small town like this no one would be rushing about for any reason other than an emergency. He would need to move on.

His knee ached under him from his abuse of it. He knew better. He had to work with it to strengthen it back up, but he couldn't carry on the way he had been. There was pushing the limits for health and pushing the limits to be stupid and he fell into the latter category.

He rubbed at the bruising with a wince, checking the mirror to see how his forehead was fairing. It was relatively healed, nothing to be concerned over. And he simply had some bruising from Will's punch that was nothing to fret over for the time being, though the man had ended up being much stronger than Hannibal had given him credit for.

As he stepped into the hot spray of the shower, he thought over the last day or two of events that had taken place and let out a deep breath, hand going against the side of the shower to balance himself.

Will must be home by now. He would have just been at the hospital to be monitored until he woke. Hannibal was sure that Molly had already ripped him free of Jack's grip if anything he had learned about the woman proved true. After all, she did outsmart the killer he set on her just to get Will's attention. She could take care of Will better than Hannibal could.

Normally Hannibal wasn't one to let his grip go in a fight of something he truly wanted, but Will was his first. Will was full of firsts. The only exception to the rule, an exception that continued to grow.

Hannibal knew that he was wrong, that he had never been right for Will, that he was sick and twisted and he had infected Will, but there was something about having someone to finally understand him, see him as himself that made him never want to release Will. And for a long long time he had done just that. Pulled Will in closer and closer, claws digging into the man's flesh to keep him in place, but he couldn't do it anymore.

Not when each time Will forgot, Hannibal had to sink his claws in further. Not when something in the universe clearly didn't want them together. Or maybe it was Will himself that didn't want them together. Maybe Hannibal had been just as bad as Jack and had broken this man into so many pieces that he would never be put back together. His fragmented mind was all that was left.

Molly would straighten him out though. Molly and the doctors. He was sure Will would want tests done just as he had when he had encephalitis. Will had gone back to Dr. Sutcliffe multiple times before Hannibal had killed the doctor. Will wasn't one to stop searching until he found his answers. It was what drove Will mad. He needed those answers to sleep at night, even if the answers resulted in nightmares that drove the sleep from him. He was a child who couldn't stop asking why.

Hannibal turned off the shower and readied himself for the day, jeans and jacket. Not what he would prefer, but they were sturdy and would keep him warm as he walked on, taking every back road he could until he could reach another one of his safe houses, let himself rest and move on.

With one final wipe down of the hotel room and anything he touched, Hannibal left and went out onto the sidewalk letting more police cars pass him by without a second look in his direction. Because he wasn't a monster. Not in the daylight.

***

"What are you doing?" Molly questioned as Will hit the last stair and came into view. It was late afternoon, Will had been sleeping all morning and Molly had let the man sleep, thinking it had probably been a long time since he had dreamt of anything peaceful.