Author's Note: Unlike most people, who've been able to write in a matter of hours heartfelt small fics of some tribute of the two actors that passed away this week, I am simply incapable of that. So I've spent the last days since David Bowie's passing, weight feeling increased by Alan Rickman's, struggling and scribbling this one. As simple as it is.
Music rec list at the end.
Note: I purposefully didn't take on a specific clear relationship here. You can read and interpret it in whichever way you prefer.
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own anything related to Hannibal, book movie or series.
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It wasn't anywhere near night time, but the thickness of the fog outside took away the light and submerged it in an eerie quietude, scattering and drowning it away. It could be early morning or late afternoon; the world had an uneasy sense of stillness inside the small, modest house they had taken for hiding place. The identical houses on the other side of the street didn't help to break the illusion of stagnation. Increased it, multiplied it, probably.
This house wasn't Hannibal's ideal place nor strategic move, but it turned to be a conveniently effective safehouse, a hiding in plain sight just as Will advised, before they finally moved out of the US.
Though on this day, it all seemed be boosted by the utter normality of their surroundings now sunk in that mist. It felt like being surrounded and suspended in a cold hazy sea, neither up or down, foward or backwards, under the surface, just suspended and stuck in a slow loss of consciousness. Much like a different time, a non metaphorical sea.
That is, if he let his mind wander off.
The static sense caused by that dark half-light was making him feel restless, so Will stopped his thoughts and tried to get a hold of his mind. He turned on his heels and climbed down the stairs, descending towards an increasingly warmer, yet just as hazily lit room as the outside.
The living room was lukewarm by the fireplace burning the remaining logs the inhabitants of the house had left before going on a winter vacation. Although the strange feeling from before remained, the fire tones that immersed the division felt more familiar, a calming, albeit bittersweet peace.
Hannibal was sitting quietly on an armchair facing the flames, his back turned to Will. The room was different in structure, the home of a regular small family, the armchair modern and not vintage as the ones Hannibal would have favored, but the whole image felt familiar. As Will approached, he registed each aspect individually; Hannibal's frame, slightly leaned foward, face darkened by the dancing shadows cast, expression an odd mix of sadness and quietness, the paper in his hands turned an old yellow by the light, an opened envelope left on the small table in front of him. With an apparently slower brain from the previous static, Will processed each part to sum the mundane and clear fact that Hannibal was holding a letter.
Which didn't make sense. He actually looked at the table again to look for a fountain pen, finding none. Will frowned, puzzled.
Hannibal noticed his curious attention, but didn't turn to him with a smile as usual. His eyes remained distant on the fire, an uncommon action.
"A letter from my aunt Murasaki," Hannibal explained plainly. Despite his empathy, Will didn't immediately acknowledge the emotion around him. More out of reflex than any intention to peek, Will read the top of the paper sheet in Hannibal's hands. He was actually holding two separate papers, the second hidden behind the one with 'My dear Hannibal' written in a careful ink calligraphy. The letter had five small paragraphs.
"Your aunt knows where we are?" He questioned before processing much past that. It didn't feel plausible that someone would just address a letter to Hannibal Lecter and expect it to not be intercepted or put Hannibal in imminent risk. His eyes turned to the envelope, and found it addressed to a different, unknown foreign name. French. The sender also had a French name, but no return address.
"I always send her a letter. Birthdays and holidays at first. Have done so since I first went to my boarding school in Paris, and it grew into a habit. Whenever I moved, I'd write her. She would always reply me, even though sometimes I missed the letter by some circumstance." Read, if he had to leave in some form of hurry. But Will was hardly imagining many scenarios throughout the years when that had happened, where Hannibal had been too close of being caught, or that he wouldn't have returned to retrieve the letter after the storm had passed. As if to confirm Will's thoughts, Hannibal proceeded. "I did get back most of the letters, one way or another."
"You wrote in Florence?" Will inquired. No need to elaborate on the particular details of either time periods of his stay there, nor elaborate on the implication the question carried.
Hannibal took a moment of silent contemplation, contemplation of something Will wasn't privy to, before replying.
"Yes." It was a simple answer, soft. He was distant."I never got to read her last reply."
So there had been such an easy link all along, apparently. Something so obvious and mundane that neither FBI nor Mason had been able to notice and get a track on? Thinking about it, a dated but perpetually refined letter wouldn't have been a strange mean of communication at all considering Hannibal's character; he even sent Jack letters. Most likely, neither parties considered he would leave such a thread of crumbs trailing from his family directly to him, specially not one that hardly appeared to be as entertaining to Hannibal as a murder tableau.
The FBI had tried to track down Hannibal's remaining family and arranged for some questioning when he fled Baltimore, but likely had only done so through telephone, at best. Maybe there was some clear collaboration from their part, or the feint promise of one, in order for the FBI to leave them almost out of the investigation; either way, tracking Hannibal's aunt mail outside the US would have been more complicated. Mason, on the other hand, would have easily taken advantage of that, had he known of their existence at all. Best guess would be, Hannibal's family weren't so easy to find.
Will hadn't heard about Hannibal's uncle and aunt much at all during the investigation, hence he himself hadn't gone in search for them instead of heading to Lithuania and finding Chiyoh instead.
The reminder of Chiyoh brought a sudden curiosity as how Hannibal's aunt and uncle would be, judging by the aunt's handmaiden and family servant.
"How long haven't you seen them?"
"Nearly two decades. I'm guessing my uncle had no problems telling that truth to the police when they tried to question him, and called them off his way. My aunt would never inform the police of my whereabouts. Neither would my uncle."
"You wrote from the Hospital too?" Chilton would have been greedily over that precious insight into Hannibal's mind if Alana had allowed him access to Hannibal's personal mail. Will wouldn't know if any evidence of that had transpired in Chilton's books; he had avoided any form of information regarding Hannibal Lecter for three years. Now, the mere idea of Chilton scavenging for anything personal made Will feel offended. The immediate relief was that Hannibal would have known that too, and wouldn't grant anyone the satisfaction. "I can't imagine you doing that."
"I didn't. They knew where I was either way."
Finally recovering some of his mind to a decent processing ability, he looked at Hannibal. The same mix of expression still marked the lines of his face, carved deeper by the shadows. A watery trail glinted as it reflected the flames, and Will blinked, breath cut slightly shorter.
"My uncle has died."
Will breathed in slowly, the action harder to accomplish. He gave a small nod, though he didn't exactly know why, and his eyes averted to the fire for a moment too.
I'm sorry would have been the immediate reaction, and he felt the words try to unblock the lump on his throat, but it tasted hollow and almost inappropriate so he swallowed them down.
Facing other people's grief was something he had avoided whenever possible while consulting for the FBI, and it had never stopped being painful and stressful to face their sorrow over a loss. But it was different with Hannibal. 'Different' meant confusing. The emotion seemed to blur between them, Will inadvertably now feeling the echo of Hannibal's, but neither fully dreading nor welcoming it.
He pondered for a moment if that action, the mere feeling of Hannibal's emotions would help him; he wanted help whichever way there might be, however, Will suddenly felt intrusive in the room, stepping and invading what was a personal and delicate moment. Slowly nodding again more to himself than to Hannibal, who probably couldn't see the moviment but likely felt it, Will stepped back.
"No."
Will halted, turning to him again.
"Stay. Please."
He did. Walked past Hannibal and sat into the other armchair, too reminescent of their past sessions. There was no shielded form of personal victory or any intention to.
He remained silent, any word sounding wrong in his mind, but as the silence prolongued beyond any comfort, he asked:
"When did it happen?"
"Six days ago."
That didn't help at all, did it. The next obvious question wouldn't help either. Might as well stop them, then. Will nodded sillily again, the helpless weight increased now. He looked at the letter, imagining the words the ink drew on the paper, the delicate hands betrayed by a frail tremble, knowing how the news would hurt, but needed to be given.
The second paper sheet remained tucked, hidden behind the first. Hannibal knew where Will's gaze was focused without looking at him.
"My uncle." He didn't move to re-read it. "Despite the complexity of forgiveness, he forgave me many years ago. My aunt often included a remark of his, specially if he enjoyed a certain essay I might publish." Hannibal's fingers stroked the paper however slightly and placed the sheets on his lap. "He left me a poem."
A drop landed silently, smudging the ink in a delicate pattern.
"I would have liked for you to meet them. Appropriately, I wrote exactly that to my aunt in my letter. By the time I would have sent her a new one, we would arrange for a meeting." His lips barely curled to a phantom of a smile, the irony too irresistibly loud and clear for him to want to stop it from prying its glory through the tragedy. It was just who he was; a natural reaction to the refinely ruthless God of Irony, even if he was the one suffering.
Specially if he was the one suffering.
There was little Will could say or do to help, and changing anything was obviously beyond him. Still, the upsetting weight of helplessness over a pain that wasn't his own, yet stung and made it hard to swallow, clawing his own throat, was consuming. Will wasn't sure what to do. Think.
Maybe to look for a gauge of stability and safety, like years past, or to try to provide that to someone else - both notions rather ridiculous, no matter how he thought about it - but he didn't think. His hand reached out and held Hannibal's, not in sympathy, but understanding.
The reaction was intense enough for Will to have registered it even if he didn't have an empathy disorder. Hannibal's head turned slightly-too-fast to his hand, not expecting the action, the touch. It was a flicker of surprise quickly faded, but it had been there for Will to see clearly. Hannibal looked at him at last, and there was a smile now, stripped of irony, as he saw the genuine empathy that fascinated him in the very beginning.
"You mentioned your uncle once on a session. He took you in when you were young. Rob...ert, right?" Will tried, feeling immediately embarrassed. 'Genuine' also came with his often lack of adequate conversations.
"Robertas." Hannibal wasn't annoyed in the slightest, rather, relieved. "And yes."
"What was it like, to be taken in?"
"Refreshing. I appreciate intelligence, which both my uncle and my aunt share. He was always artistically irresponsible, pleasantely combined with irresponsibility of age. Seeing him then, he reminded me of a bluebird."
Hannibal's smile didn't weaken as he spoke, even chuckled at times and so did Will, and time did feel suspended and static then. He was glad it was so. Unburdened and pleased by the sharing of those memories, Will hoped to meet Lady Murasaki, and so did Hannibal, as uncle Robertas built a definative chamber in his Memory Palace.
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Author's Notes: This has taken me over 15hours to write. It was supposed to be 700 words. wtf
The quote about uncle Robert/as is taken from Hannibal Rising novel by Thomas Harris, as well as the in-novel description of how he reminded Hannibal of a bird here adapted with the ultimate lyrics.
I compiled a whole music list to write this. And I'm particularly thankful to CMusic tv channel, which provided unexpectadly appropriate music in writing-needed time. They're all beautiful tracks, so allow me to share:
- Lost at Sea (Snow Ghosts)
- I Giorni (Ludovico Einaudi) played by Daniel Hope
- Snow and Light (Dustin O'Halloran)
- As Evil as Dead (Akira Yamaoka)
- Ghosts of the Red Sand (The Trouble Notes)
- Lazarus by David Bowie simply as homage
Thanks for reading, hope you can review and please point out grammar mistakes you spot.