Yearn | Hannigram

faces of death

ART BY ME, art IG @/: formeldehyde

Will and Hannibal moved once again, Hannibal had them packed up and ready to fly in just two nights time. At this point, they were lost in the wind, leaving only ghosts in the places where they'd once been. This time, they'd planned to cross the pacific over the Philippine sea, where they'd go largely unnoticed. From there, they'd board a ship and head to Thailand.

Will was giving Winston a piece of ham wrapped in cheese, hoping he'd be calm enough throughout the long plane ride. He happily trotted into the backseat of the car as the men packed the trunk with just a few suitcases. Now, Hannibal surely felt more comfortable carrying a bit more weight with them. Will was watching the sun set over the dark blue ocean waves, crashing against the shore. He looks up and sees those crows, black feathers cutting through the soft winds and swooping down towards the tree line. How much of his life will be running?

     As much as the thought should plague him with doubt, it doesn't. Not even Hannibal's confession that he'd deceived Will once again could pull the two of them apart now. Surely it hurt, they were supposed to be equals, but the idea of Hannibal hiding things he knew may hurt Will- that just made him more lovable. The protective side of Hannibal was one of the most deeply rooted parts of his being, he was a protector before he was a killer. Abigail, and now Will, had pulled those cords around his heart and brought about a careful paternity in Hannibal's nature.

Will was stubborn, and Hannibal knew this, if he really had known that the police believed Hannibal had killed Jack and not Will, he may have acted rashly. He was a fledgling killer still, processing how to hide properly, he was surely not ready to gloat the way the Ripper did. He did yearn for the shock of the FBI when they found out that not one, but two of their former employees had been butchering Baltimore. They were in the throws of love and so much of Will wished the world could see it-see them for what they truly are. But Hannibal was patient, planned. At the end of the day, though much less romantic, it may be better for Will Graham to be dead.

     "I know why you lied, and I appreciate it now. I just want us to be partners in all of this, I don't want something as petty as lies to eat away at us. It's hard to believe how far we've come..." Will sighs into Hannibal's chest. "I hated you, I was a wreck, unable to stomach what was growing under my skin. At the time it felt like leeches, just sucking whatever was left of me dry. I was just an empty vessel," Will spoke softly, but with purpose. Such careful words, ones that have been spoken before. "It's like Randall happened, I blinked, and then there I was, covered in Jack's blood and wishing for nothing more than an eternity with you. Finally something again. Finally yours."

     "See, how strong love overwhelms us. See, how it wounds and destroys and yet when Aphrodite wants to soothe, nothing cures as love cures," Hannibal muses in Will's ear as they rest against each other in the back of the jet. His arm is tight around Will's waist, grazing the soft skin of his hips from where they peek below the seam of his sweater.

     "So, my love, shoot me gently, barely break my skin with your terrible arrows," Will quips. Hannibal's eyes light up with pride that Will recognizes the play. "Medea? Really? You better not tell me you're about to leave me for a newer younger bride," he jokes, voice ever-thickening with dreariness. 

     "If you eat my heart, you swallow my pain," Hannibal quotes, before pressing a kiss to the space between Will's eyebrows, then tracing down his nose with soft pecks. "I would never leave you, Mylimasis."

     Hannibal wears the face of death like a mask, building it with wax made from pig's fat painted with pigments of crushed petals. It is grotesque and glittering with polished bits of bone and teeth. It fits perfectly over his sculpted cheekbones, settling on the bridge of his nose where he surely takes in the scent of gore and polish. He shares it with Will now, handing it over and letting it slide gently over Will's scruffy cheeks. He buckles the tanned hide straps around the back of Will's head, ever so careful as to not catch any chestnut curls inside the latch. Slowly, and carefully taking time to make sure it is adjusted to his lover's wishes. He does this, and they share the same face now. Clinging like a second skin, sinking into the muscles and tendons so that when either of them look into a reflection, on glass or the soft skin of a body of water or bath; they see each other. Like their irises have mixed, rubies sunk at the bottom of the sea or hyacinths blooming in a field of sunburnt red grass.

      They wear it out, wear it to the helpless rabbits who scatter across the tops of their feet. Two sides of a golden coin, forged in the pits of tartarus and blessed with such a holy fire. This mask of the macabre is some amalgamation of animalistic instinct and elevated Darwinism. The Greeks had once proclaimed their affinity towards tragedy, naming it so after the god of revelry, wine, and madness. Dionysius was an ivy covered deity worshipped in theatre, orgies, and festivals full of masked men and unabashed indulgence. The blood of whom been slaughtered by the Chesapeake Ripper and his lover would be enough to swell thousands of wine glasses and season the religious feasts for years. They would simmer and drip fat, that bubbling oil echoing through the senses to invite all those who wish to consume. Consumption, Will's torn flesh between Hannibal's untamed teeth

The face of Garret Jacob Hobbs was sunken in and wearing his smirk. Tattooed with the outlines of gutted bucks, stuffed with taupe fur, his stomach punctured by bullet wounds where antlers should've hung him. This face plastered itself to the backs of Will's eyes for months. It sought to glue itself to the rosy flesh of Will's cheeks, some desperate attempt to outlive his own fate. The mask of Hobbs' face would be made of broken ribs and stained with the scarlet spray of a sliced throat. His mouth stuffed with blood soaked black feathers and gagged with an azure amulet, a trademark to Abagail's freedom.

     The face of Randall Tier was hidden behind massive artificial jaws that cloaked the mere child beneath. A frail and weak boy that just so happened to have a carnivore heart. As his life drained, his face had morphed and shaped itself to resemble the black stillness of the same wendigo that Will loved. Tier had been sent in order to repay the debt Will sewed behind bars, one that left permanent scars across Hannibal's wrists. While Will had pummeled Tier to pulp, like a cub who'd just discovered his strength, the antlered mannequin of the morose just stared back at Will so satisfied; waiting anxiously for Will's new birth. Randall's true visage had resembled a half-assed Anubis, one with great fangs jutting from behind his lips, spreading them wide across the severed mandibles. His wrapped around the articulated taxidermy. The face of his death was layered in divine timing and love; the blood dipped thorny roses gifted to a date, the white wine brought before a first kiss.

     The face of the bartender was obliterated, split and remolded. Smelling so strongly of pine, beer, and terror. His mask was transparent in ignorance, mistletoe melted into the surface and hollies in his eyes. A testament to Will's loyalty, an offering to the gods of holy matrimony. Will would sooner rip and tear his way through someone's chest than allow them to slide their skin across Hannibal's like that. The waiter's face was twisted in ecstasy and his flirtatious tongue had been severed by a blade. Something Will would do to anyone that even tried to come between what he and Hannibal have grown. This face marked the point of no return, the integrity of Will's interest and intent.

     The face of Jack Crawford was wide eyed and slack jawed in shock. A corpse predetermined by fate. Properly, he should've been shrouded in the purple shawls of oracles, surrounded by venomous wasps to sting his so willfully blind eyes, if only they'd had the time. He'd been essentially mauled; a most feral attack. It had been the first of Will's kills that was so personal. Bitten and bled out, a death sealed with and by betrayal. Jack had worn many a mask in his time, concerned friend, desperate colleague, battle-scarred boss; whatever fit the narrative he wS using to choke Will in facade. Now, this face he will wear forever. His expression was alive and rested in disbelief, even in death. Limp and leaking across Hannibal's kitchen floor. The blood waded around his body like a flowing spring, swallowing Will's past as it grew to a mighty river. Soon after it was swallowed by gas and flame, torched in preservation. A shining adornment to Will Graham's tipping point.

      The face of the grocer, rotten and salty with the ocean water. By now, he'd be seeded with fish eggs where his stomach split as it crashed against the coast. He is the first victim of Hannibal and Will's privacy. His dark skin had glistened with sweat in the Caribbean heat, lip twitching with anxiety when he stepped out of his car. He was a complete fool to face the Ripper, he had to be a desperate man. One quick snap of bone and his brain was skewered and dead. His grimace now grown over by barnacles, flesh eaten away at by scavenging fish. Lost in the waves, neck snapped and lungs full of the sea.

The face of the fisherman, of void and vengeance. A murder given to Will as a treat, presented like a feast or frenzy. Now, something Will only remembers fragmented. The image of that fishermen in Will's mind is broken apart like a glass, barely held together with cracked shards of shadow. They dance and shake, vibrating at the seams where they meet graying hair and sunspots.

      Death waits for us all, patiently and close by. Soaking our flesh in formaldehyde, freezing our bones in time by rigor mortis.