Note: I'm sorry for not updating anything lately ( I've been extremely busy with my novels, finding work, etc. However, now that I'm on summer, I'm going to try to update more.

On a brighter note, I hope you enjoy this chapter, the newest and latest in my Hannibal Rising/Dark Blue World cross-over! That is, if anyone's still reading it lol If you are, please feel free to make premonitions on what's going to happen next or how the story's going to end! Though depending on how I feel, it may be a while off…or it may end next week. I can't be sure.

…I'm rambling again. Wow. Please enjoy!

Chapter Three

Karel covered his mouth with his hand. He leaned over the edge of the railing, looking down into the choppy sea. Never once had he imagined that he would be seasick. He was reminded of Tom Tom's death, his heart aching at the memory of loss.

Hannibal was over on the top of a barrel, slicing what was left of their cured meat, putting strips into his mouth and chewing slowly. He raised his eyes to Karel, his lips spreading into a smirk.

The ex-pilot leaned away, looking into the whitecaps again, now feeling regret for leaving with Hannibal. He missed Franta already, but something inside told him that he would see Franta again. Even so, it was as though he had left his own brother behind. He felt sick and leaned over, pressing his head against the cool top of the railing, his eyes reeling, lifting and falling with the waves below him.

He felt a hand on his back, and Karel rolled his head to see Hannibal looking down at him. He lifted a strip of the meat. Karel turned his head away, his stomach lurching, memories of the murder spinning in his head. He groaned and held his stomach.

"Come on," Hannibal said. "People are looking at you. We have to find you new clothes."

Karel turned his eyes back to Hannibal, wondering what it was that the other boy was hinting at behind the suggestion. He had learned over the last few days that Hannibal operated on many levels. He would say one thing and mean something completely different. Over the time he had spent with Hannibal, he had come to the understanding of many things that were Hannibal: He wasn't just smart, he was clever and sly; he wasn't just manipulative, he understood how people's minds worked; he wasn't just sadistic, he was sadistic with a flare of style. These were just some of the things Karel had come to notice over time, and he felt that there was more to come. This thought made his gut reel with such ill that he had to swallow hard to keep from allowing anything to come up.

"What do you mean?" he croaked, trying to keep his stomach straight and his head from spinning.

"New clothes," said Hannibal softly. "You stick out too much in this." He pulled on the hem of Karel's navy-blue jacket. "Come with me—I found someone just your size."

Karel swallowed and shook his head. "No. I don't care how they look at me—I will buy something in Canada." His English had improved immensely, Hannibal noticed. It was from all of the effort the two had poured into the language so that they wouldn't seem as suspicious when they purchased their tickets to Canada.

"If they look at you, they look at me," Hannibal whispered, putting the next slab of meat between his small teeth and chewing, his red eyes focused intensely on Karel. They had an almost animalistic look in their crimson depths. "And I don't like to be looked at."

Karel shivered. He knew where Hannibal was going with this conversation and gave in. He followed the other boy shakily across the deck and down to the cabin below. There was a man, undressed and unconscious, leaned up against the stock barrels, his mouth gagged and his hands tied. He looked older than Karel, but was small enough that his clothes would fit Karel.

Karel thought that perhaps Hannibal would have killed the man, but much to his relief, the man was very much alive. Apparently Hannibal wasn't foolish enough to kill someone on such a confined ship, where the body would be soon found and the killer caught. Hannibal handed Karel the clothes that he had folded on a nearby barrel and Karel changed into them.

"Help me," Hannibal said taking Karel's old clothes and pulling his pants on the other man. Karel pulled the pants up but kept his belt, and with Hannibal's help, he pulled the shirt, tie, and jacket over the man's shoulders.

Hannibal retied him and motioned for Karel to follow him out of the room. Karel glanced back, wondering why Hannibal hadn't just let the man go. Was he planning on eating him during the remainder of the trip? Karel shivered at the prospect of watching Hannibal eat another person.

They continued back onto the deck and across to the other side. Karel followed Hannibal down towards the cabins. He felt the boat rock to one side, and he stumbled hard into the wall. He held himself up for a moment by the railing, his face sticky with sweat. He clutched his chest. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe by the second.

Karel just couldn't understand why. He had taken a ship from Northern France to England only a few months ago, but now it was as if he had never traveled one before. He had never felt so sick in tight places, either. The cockpit of a plane was much, much smaller than the insides of the boat.

He felt Hannibal's hand on his back again, and a shiver rolled up his spine. He swallowed hard and turned his pale, clammy face up to Hannibal's. Their eyes met, and Karel quickly looked away.

"Come on," Hannibal said. "You can be sick in the room, but out here you'll draw attention."

Karel nodded and followed Hannibal down the hallway. He stumbled forwards as the boat hit another roller. His stomach dropped violently with the boat, and he fell onto the floor.

Hannibal turned around, his eyes narrowing fiercely. He walked back over to where Karel had fallen, rather elegantly in fact. It was almost as if he moved with the boat, not separately from it. He kicked Karel gently on the shoulder, but Karel didn't move.

Kneeling beside his companion, Hannibal felt Karel's pulse. It was faster than it should have been, and his neck was hot. The cannibal narrowed his eyes in thought. He licked his small teeth and carefully lifted Karel from the floor, carrying him just down the hall to their room. Once inside, he closed the door and set Karel on the lower bunk. He returned to the door, locking it tightly, and then turned back to Karel.

Hannibal checked Karel's pulse again, and then pressed the back of his hand to the pilot's forehead. His thin lips curled into a frown. Karel wasn't seasick. He was sick with something else—and from the way his shirt was becoming soaked with perspiration around the neckline, Hannibal could only guess that the illness was something formidable.

Here, he minded his hands, washing them off carefully from the small sink in their room. He dried them and returned to the bed, looking down at Karel. Hannibal knew that first he had to get Karel's temperature down. If he didn't want this meal to rot, he would have to get it through the illness as efficiently as possible.

He returned to the sink and put a cloth under the cold water, wringing it out, and then folding it. Hannibal placed the cloth over Karel's forehead, and then carefully removed the brown leather jacket from Karel's shoulders.

Hannibal knew it was dangerous to stay in a locked room with a sick man. He looked out the porthole and noted that they were high up enough that he could open it. He did, fresh cool air blasting into the confined quarters.

The cannibal then left the room to find means of medicating his next meal. He walked down the hallway, glancing in and out of rooms. Most of them had their doors closed. When he did reach an open room, Hannibal looked in and found it to be empty, but occupied. He walked in and poked lightly through the clothes on the bed. Two women were staying in this room. He made a note of their sizes—both of them were fairly small.

Hannibal looked through their dressers carefully and finally found what he was looking for—aspirin. He left the room and returned to his and Karel's. Karel had already managed to make the washcloth hot, though it was still damp.

The cannibal removed the cloth and placed it on the edge of the sink. He filled a glass with water and returned to Karel's side. He sat the younger boy up and pressed an aspirin pill against his lips. Karel's eyes slid open, and then shut again, and in his delirium, he began to murmur.

Hannibal took this chance to push the pill into Karel's mouth. He put the lip of the glass against Karel's mouth, and carefully tilted Karel's head back. Karel drank the water slowly, Hannibal pulling it away before the boy drowned himself. He felt Karel's throat to make sure that he'd swallowed the pill.

He laid Karel back against the pillow and put the aspirin beside the bed, returning to the sink to ready another washcloth. He put the cool cloth against Karel's forehead, put the small tin trashcan beside the bed, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Whatever Karel had, Hannibal was going to be sure not to catch it.