The Sculpture And The Sculpted

Chapter 2

Will tossed and turned in his bed, too hot and too cold. The fire in the room crackled too loudly and was too bright to allow him to sleep comfortably and he eventually found himself over at the window, sitting in the seat beneath it.

The moon was overly bright, brighter than Will had seen it. It lit up his room and reached the corners where the fire just didn't seem to stretch far enough. It backlit the trees eerily and Will watched the bare branches move in the wind, the wind crying as it went.

The crying grew louder and Will swore it was coming from somewhere behind him now. He rose from the window seat and fetched his robe from the foot of his bed, pulling it on and tying it around him as he went to the door of his room. When the door was opened, the sound of grief was infinitely clearer and Will immediately knew which room it was coming from.

He found the door without issue, having directed the occupant to it earlier in the evening. When he pushed it open, the noises' volume increased. Inside there was another fireplace lit to keep the room safe from winter's biting chill. It cast flittering shadows over the four poster bed where Hannibal was twisted up in the covers and crying in his sleep.

Will closed the door behind him and stepped closer to the bed, a hand taking one of the wooden posts to watch. Tears were rolling down the blond's cheeks and his brows were furrowed in agony.

"No!" he begged, voice bouncing off the walls of the room. Will jumped at how loud it was and looked around as if there might have been someone else there to see. "No! I'll kill you!"

Will tipped his head to the side curiously as he looked back over Hannibal. Maybe he had killed the guards. Will had thought it a possibility, he wasn't exactly sure what else could have happened to them, but he had never thought Hannibal would admit it aloud. Not that he was consciously doing so now, but all the same.

As he went back through the memory he wasn't even sure he could come up with how Hannibal had brought all those men to their knees. There had been at least six that Will could see, but there had been no weapon he could call to mind. No knife or rock, unless it had been lost to the snow which was plausible. There had been a scuffle, the snow disturbed though reclaimed by the fresh powder. But how could someone like Hannibal, whose skin was so tight over his bones to the point where in the firelight he might have just been bones, take on six grown and trained men?

"You killed her!" he screamed and Will gave a sigh. As intriguing as the show was, he couldn't afford someone coming in here. Hannibal had been left in his care and as much as he didn't enjoy the chore of it, if a servant came in here and then told his father, Will would be in more trouble than what it was worth. Especially if his father had been drinking, which was almost as full proof as the alcohol that the man consumed.

"Hannibal," he called, grabbing the boy's foot that was trapped up in the blanket and giving it a shake. "Wake up."

"No!"

Will stepped further around the bed, hand grasping Hannibal's shoulder as he shook him. "It's a nightmare. Wake up."

Before Will had time to think, his body was shoved down into the bed, a weight over the top of him, pinning him. Hands were around his throat and the pressure was fierce. Will gasped, his hands instinctively shooting up to where Hannibal's wrists were, pushing to alleviate the hold, but they held fast and with a strength that left Will in shock.

HIs eyes watered as he tried to suck in air that was denied to him before he had the chance to suck it in. A sour note pooled in the back of Will's throat as he reached up to push at Hannibal whose eyes burned brightly, still trapped somewhere in the memory.

"I'll end you," he hissed through his teeth, the sounds almost garbled as Will's ears rang.

A bright flame stuck somewhere in Will's chest as his lungs seized, begging for some sort of air. His heart pounded in his head as the lit match brightened. It clawed at his throat as he clawed at the boy holding him.