Yearn | Hannigram

loose lips

Long auburn hair, a hundred ten pounds, brilliant blue eyes, high school to college age. That was the profile. Young, beautiful, smart, and easily overpowered. That was his target. Really, though, all of those things were trivial. It was about Abigail, it always was. That was how they caught him and that is what Will thought about as those bullets sank into Hobbs' chest. His obsession with his daughter had created a morgue of slaughtered youth, of lost opportunity. But what would Abigail's have been? Men like her father, men like Hannibal and Will? All of these elder killers sought to turn a young woman into a murderer herself. How young was she when all this started? Was she like Will, unable to remember or was she simply recruited on one lonesome hunting trip? Even though they never sought out the defenseless, the innocent, she would still have lived half a life. Too full of corpses for her to ever be truly alive.

      Abigail used to look for herself in crowds, flapping those raven black wings as she circled from above. Pushing blistering winds to part the crowds of college visitation groups. Smelling the fore coming death before it even began to rot. Hunting and luring in her mirrored selves for her father.

      Will wanted to tear her away from hair stuffed pillows, skin shades and bone blades. Though it would never happen, he wanted to bring her into his home and welcome her the way he never had. He would have been a good dad. Long before the days when his dogs knew the taste of man and his bed was home to the beast of the Chesapeake. Wanted her to never taste venison again, to feed her fried catfish and bake together. Paternal daydreams leak into Will's thoughts as Hannibal walks up to him on the couch, two mugs of coffee spilling over with steam in his hands. Swirled with cream in abstract lines.

      "I don't like not talking to you," Will said. He wasn't meeting the warmth of his lover's gaze, didn't see the way his top lip quivered at Will's words. He was staring out the window, looking at the snowy piles on the grass.

     "I don't like it either, my love," he says, sitting down by Will's side. He holds the out the drink for him. "You feel her absence now... more so than before?" Hannibal asked, scooting closer, letting their thighs touch

     When Will finally looked over at him, he felt lighter. His eyes watered but he fought the tears. Orange light was splattering on the tops of his chiseled cheekbones, his light eyebrows and lashes shining like insect wings. "Can't change the past, like I said yesterday. I'm glad I have you. It's just hard... things changed so fast. It feels like I just swum up for air for the first time."

     "I feel that I'm drowning in you as well... it's a lovely death, though." Hannibal smiled and Will felt himself grinning back. 

      "It is," Will said softly. He took the mug from Hannibal and leaned over to kiss him. That drunken fire still his his lips like spiced rum, no lack of love between them. There is nothing in the world that could tear them apart.

      "I've missed your touch. I will admit, if I could go back... we would all be together," Hannibal muses. A wistful look on his face like he was in a daydream. Will wondered if that was a dream about a life with a daughter or if it was of the memory of killing her.

      "I'm starting to think she would be better off without us anyway." Will runs his fingers through his hair nervously. "Her whole life was full of men trying to force her hand, trying to make her into this or that. In death she can be free."

      Hannibal hummed, a soft smile spreading across his curling pouted lips. "You may be right. Besides, I do enjoy having you all to myself."

      Will blushed as he sipped on his coffee. "I like it too." He sat the mug down on the table and sat back, letting his head rest on Hannibal's chest. He laid there for a while, just sitting in comfortable silence and gentle forgiving touches. "Have you watched the news lately?"