Shoebox
When he was younger, his brother had a pet rabbit called Karen.
Murdoc could remember finding it dead; lying in a scarlet puddle on the grass with its feet in the air, the pinks and reds of muscle and guts glittering through a wound in its belly. The sun's heat had been stewing its insides; he could remember the stink of it.
Fox had eaten her, Dad said. Hannibal buried her in a shoebox, with 'Karen' scrawled over it in blue felt-tip pen, at the back of the garden.
This was the same, in a way.
He had found Hannibal in the bathroom when he returned from school, stood over the sink, with Dad's razor in his hand - and he hadn't noticed him, and so Murdoc stood staring with narrow eyes, as he had stared at Karen's steaming, torn-up carcass.
Hannibal had paused, retched out a gluey, tar-clotted cough, then looked into the mirror and slid the metal blade down the crown of his head. It glided across the wet flesh easily, scratching dully, and then cleanly split the skin. He heard it.
Hannibal didn't make a sound at the pain but his tongue moved reflexively, lashing spit, a dog gnashing inside of its muzzle. Quickly, he dipped the razor blade back into the small basin of water.
His hand came back dripping pink, and then the water was red mist.
"What is goin' on in here?"
Murdoc leaned against the doorway, frowning. The scene in the bathroom was, quite literally, the stuff of fucked-up dreams: after all, Hannibal was standing, one thick-knuckled hand clutching a razor, salvia oozing down his chin, with his hair shaved off to the scalp. Great wads of it, coarse, black and sparkling with dandruff, were lying about room. Hannibal had turned to him without a word.
There was a single red jewel of blood on his forehead.
It was then that he felt that familiar churn in his stomach, the blood, something awful and, somehow, hilarious. Now the razor fell into the sink, and Hannibal's hand came to his forehead and pressed over the wound.
Murdoc stepped into the room unsteadily, slightly shocked, but insatiably curious. His mouth slipped with the movement of a grin.
"Where the – Christ – where did all ya hair go?"
He only noticed then that his brother was unusually pale; white like wax or sour milk. Last night's black-eye was healing well, but now stood out garishly; it was weeping greenish puss from the corner, swollen and violet like a rotten plum.
"Well, I dunno, babe," Hannibal spat, swinging around to face him completely with two smacks of his bare feet. Red liquid squoozed between his fingers, "Must've just fell off while I was shavin' my fuckin' bikini line. Yeah?"
He stared at him, hard, for a few seconds, and then sat down on the edge of the bath, one hand pressed against his forehead. The other scrubbed the saliva from his chin, and then ran across his thigh. It left a dark streak on his grass-stained jeans.
"God, you're an annoying little shit," he muttered.
Murdoc ignored this and looked about. The bathroom was ugly, with avocado-coloured tiles and an off-white sink, now full of blood-blurred water. Today it was messier than usual. Atop the sink, with a toothbrush and a thin, slug-like tube of Aquafresh, was a black comb, clogged with grey grease, and a tub of shaving cream. Hannibal's favourite plaid shirt was scrunched up on the toilet seat, and his denim jacket hanging over the cold radiator.
Murdoc knew it would, as always, have a spare packet of Sobranie Black Russians in the top pocket. Funny; twenty-years-old and jobless, Hannibal never had any money, but somehow always managed to buy luxury, Bond Villain cigarettes.
He'd nick one later, there was something far more important at hand.
"Why have you shaved you're hair off?"
Hannibal glared at him through his lashes. He ran his tongue across his lower lip – that too healing, after being ripped raw and leaky by a bad, drunken piercing attempt, and then turned away.
"Mm?" Murdoc asked, and then his smile closed and thinned, "You got pissed last night and you're – ah-ha – making the best of a bad job?"
The remaining hair was nothing but dark, wet slithers, stuck to his forehead and cheeks. Hannibal did not answer, just pushed the hair back and glowered.
Toots and The Maytals' Funky Kingston drifted down the hallway from his record player.
"That's what happened with the lip, what else should I expect –y'know?"
Hannibal smacked his bloodied hand on his knee, wiped it around, and then held it back to his forehead. Again, more dark smears on the blue fabric.
He snarled, another splash of spit flying, "I suggest you fuck off, Murdoc, before I smash ya face in. Fuck right off."
"It's just not a good look for you." He saw the flat muscles in Hannibal's chest and arms visibly flex, loosen, prepare. Murdoc sniggered, despite being slightly afraid, "No offence, but y'look like a complete wanker. Skinhead. That's –"
"'M serious, man. Shut up!" Hannibal snapped, spit flying, and then his hand fell down from his forehead and cracked into a fist. Staring at Murdoc, his face once again changed: twisted the way it had ten years ago after finding Karen the rabbit, named after Karen Carpenter, mauled by a fox in the night. There was accusation there, accusation he couldn't understand, and anger and disappointment.
"Alright," he said, and then stepped forward once again. The bathroom smelt of rabbit food and there was a rusty stain on the ceiling.
He was unsure whether he should stay here, but pissing off his brother was far more interesting than drinking tap-water in the kitchen, or listening to the radio, or sitting with Dad while he dozed and dribbled on the sofa in an old work shirt – a hairy, wasted arm on the carpet, dog-eared porn magazines at his side.
He picked up Hannibal's shirt carefully and then sat on the toilet, knees almost touching his, cheek resting in his palm. Hannibal's eyes fluttered closed and dabbed his fingers against the wound. "Fuckin' head," he mumbled.
"How'd you manage that?"
"We ain't got any new blades, 'ave we?" Hannibal said, grimacing at his fingers, "All blunt."
Nodding, Murdoc began unlacing his boots, cords standing out in his throat. "Do you – I mean, we must have somethin' for it," he suggested, raising his eyebrows. Hannibal shrugged.
"Doubt it."
"We had some o'that Calpol stuff." He frowned. He could remember the bottle of pink, sugary goo from years back – Hannibal had fed it to him after the broken nose from the playground.
There was a pause, Hannibal scrubbing his hand under his chin and then back over the cut on his head. The black slithery hair fell back into his eyes. He, too, was frowning, sucking his torn lip thoughtfully.
He said, voice sounding tacky, "I downed it last night."
Murdoc stared at him incredulously. "You what?"
"For tha eye." Hannibal gestured lazily, and then shrugged once again, "An' the lip. 'S only that 'three to five years' stuff. Don't do anythin', see?"
"So there's nothing?"
"Might have somethin'. I think there's some TCP knockin' round downstairs."
"Some what?"
And then Hannibal went completely still. Slowly, his head turned to face him, and his mouth inverted into a savage kind of smile; nicotine-stained teeth and a white coated tongue slipping over a torn lip. A fox. Here, Murdoc could see the grain of his dark hair and all of the blue veins in his wet, shaved head.
"TCP, that stuff Mum used to use.," He said.
"What stuff?"
Hannibal made a noise like a broken lawnmower, a muscle jumped in his jaw.
"You can't even fuckin' remember?" He barked, saliva bursting through his shredded mouth, eyes growing wide, "That bottle of antiseptic stuff Mum 'ad. An' she put it on cuts or when you had a bad throat she gave it ya. Mum's stuff. Don't you – you don't remember?"
Hannibal's bruised eye started to weep again, and he blinked furiously.
"She always used it. All the time. Used to stink, yeah? You remember? An' sting like a bitch."
Without another word, Murdoc stood and then set off into the kitchen, air inside thick with rotten drain and bacon fat. He picked his way into the top left cupboard, just above the oven, and took out its contents. The medicine cupboard contained nothing but an empty bottle of Calpol, an old, pale honey and lemon throat syrup, and, right at the back with the secret Gin, a blue and green labelled bottle of a dark liquid. TCP. He picked it up.
Dad was asleep in the room opposite, the silence mingling with the smell of vinegar oddly comforting. His warm, beery breath sputtered through him as the TV garbled behind grey fuzz. He would wake up soon, no doubt.
Murdoc rushed back upstairs.
"No anaesthetic," he explained, shaking the bottle of antiseptic. Hannibal looked up at him wearily.
"Whatever."
Murdoc sat down beside him and then shook some of the liquid into his palm. He rubbed it around a bit, swallowed, and then held his hand in the air.
"Right. C'mon then."
Hannibal shuffled to face him fully, and then Murdoc's hand slapped soggily against his head. The room smelt of a hospital. Lemon and bleach and human meat.
"Y'littlebastard!" Hannibal hissed, spit sparkling in the corner of his mouth. He whacked the back of his hand against Murdoc's shoulder, causing him to jut backwards, "Don't press down on it, for fuck's sake."
Murdoc reduced the pressure and bit down on a chuckle.
"Cryin' out loud, man," Hannibal was muttering, "fucking 'ell. You're supposed to use cotton wool. Mum used cotton wool."
Murdoc didn't understand how he expected him to remember. Fact was, to him, 'Mum' was little more than a word. A faceless, nameless person.
Mum was just an impression of something: the skeleton of a leaf, or a breath clouded on cold glass, or a paper bag caught in a tree.
He didn't mind, though, because he knew no different. He said slowly, "We didn't 'ave any."
Hannibal didn't look the same any more, all shaven and cut up. He realised then that this was probably marking the end of something, like signing a hospital admission certificate, or lowering a shoebox into dark earth.
"Why've you really done this?"
The question was asked softly, if slightly brashly. That pissed him off. Hannibal huffed and then batted his hand away irritably, grunting, "Get off. You don't know what you're on about."
Because he didn't.
"Now, what, exactly, is the point in tellin' me that?" Murdoc snapped, his mouth down turning bitterly, "There's no point. I'm tryin' to help, here."
Hannibal stood and threw his denim jacket over his shoulders, "Well then, don't bother in the future, poppet."
Murdoc then took the bottle of TCP and smacked it down on top of the sink. The blood-mist in the water was thinner now, but still red. It was all red mist now.
"Why?"
"I don't want it."
Murdoc scoffed, "Why?"
"'Cause you never actually help anything, do ya?"
Hannibal turned to him quickly, glaring through a blackened, bloodshot eye, pink water sliding over his skin. He was more than pissed off now, with the questions, with that voice and that fucking face that looked so much like Mum's, so much the way he remembered.
He wiped his hand over his mouth and then shrugged.
"You fuck up everythin', don't ya?"
His little brother's face fell and his eyes were ready to turn to anger or to tears but Hannibal didn't care; sometimes he thought it well deserved. After all, that fucking face had messed up everything here. He'd messed up when he finished off the secret Gin, he'd messed up when he hadn't locked Karen's hutch that night, and he'd messed up Mum's brain when he started growing in her fucking belly and made sad, made her down TCP and Vodka and a bottle of aspirin while she watched The Price Is Right –
It was clear, by the wide eyes and dark frown, that he didn't understand, and so Hannibal ran a hand over his head (clean and changed now, it was like shedding an old, dead skin) and then pushed his arms into his jacket.
He looked him in the eyes.
"Karen's dead," he said.
A/N: I've always been fascinated with Hannibal as a character. So, I did a little snooping around, and I found three, maybe four fics where he's mentioned?
I had to remedy it. Obviously, no-one really knows much about Hans whatsoever, so I subconciously created this really bitter little skin that spits when he talks and blames his brother for their Mum's dependency on happy pills. :) I don't know how that came about, but whatever, I've had fun.
I'm actually considering writing a full chaptered fic about him, where I'd 'expand' him more, though I'm still not sure. If it interests ya, let me know, yeah?
As always, poorly proof read and kind of vile. Hope you liked and thanks for reading!