Murdoc refused to put his school blazer on in front of her, because he didn't want her to remember he was quite so young. Of course, it was a hand-me-down of Hannibal's, and so, of course, it was far too large. Hannibal had always been a lot bigger than he was. He could still remember him lying asleep on the sofa with his torso naked, and he still remembered aching with jealousy. He remembered those big arms tight and wrapped up in layers of muscle that flexed inside as he breathed, his shoulder blades huge and thick and shaped like shark fins, the predatory bunching in his abdomen and chest, the light scent of the sweat drying in the soft hair under his pits. He was sixteen at the time and already colossally and unapologetically masculine. He was great sleeping beast in its mating prime, the air around him tasting like strength and sex.
Murdoc was unsure whether it was because of his discovering cigarettes from a much earlier age, but he seemed cursed with long, spidery bones and nothing to fill them out with, like rack of lamb served up and clearly killed too young.
He wasn't sure who Pris would prefer in a tight-fitted t-shirt, but he hoped it would be himself.
She was still asleep, he presumed, although her eyelids were slightly open, and he could see the colour white rolling into light blue, then rolling back to white, from beneath her eyelashes. He didn't know whether this was dreaming, or watching him. She was still, despite her weakness and pregnancy, terrifyingly unpredictable and so difficult to keep still, like a frantic caged bird.
"Pris," he said to her.
She didn't move.
"Pris, I've gotta go to school," he told her, and glanced back at his school blazer hung on the banister of the stairs. "I'll be back soon."
She turned to face the wall, her hands clasped before her face like an infant sucking its thumb. How painfully ironic. He shook his head, closed the door, and shrugged the blazer over his shoulders.
He could see, just in front of him, a glass. Or rather pieces of glass, tiny and glittering like flies' wings. It seemed to be extremely far away, but also incredibly close, as though the shards were reflecting directly up into his pupils and sent him greenly sunblind. He tentatively wriggled his fingers across the tabletop, and the pieces of glass tinkled musically, like a wind chime or a dream catcher.
In a way he felt as though dreaming – a he had a loud, primitive noise in his ears, like the echo of a very hollow drum, and he seemed to have a mouth full of ants, or ladybirds, small crawly things. He blinked heavily a few times and moaned Pris' name. This was one of the worst hangovers he'd suffered in a long time.
When he tried to stand the sun felt like gains of salt burning his irises, and he squeezed them shut, cowering, and then fumbling his way towards the door, hiding in its shadow. He only then noticed there were droplets of dried blood on his lips – he tasted its amorous, metallic flavour, and licked its sticky film from his teeth. He covered his eyes with his arm, slung up around his brow, and sighed, swallowing thickly. The back of his head seemed to be burning, hot, changing. He turned to his left a little, to see where his hair had met the wall.
The fresh yellow paint, the scent of it drying as strong as garlic in his nostrils, had a long red stain streaked across it.
When Pris woke her breath stirred dust particles in the air. Lonely in their thousands, the warm snow-flakes were just visible in the sunlight. They flew away from her face, but then dived, and then swarmed back towards her quickly, attacking, causing her to blink rapidly, squeaking with small shock. She swatted her hands around before her face and hauled herself up into a sitting position.
Murdoc had been here. The wax he'd used on his hair, presumably to fix his fringe over his crazy, molten eye, had left a greasy, almost rubbery slick on the pillow, and his dandruff was skittered about over the duvet. She could kind of smell him, also, which was deeply unnerving, because it was so similar to Hannibal's smell on the sheets. Similar in the way that it clung to the cloth for hours and drenched the whole room in a thick, almost liquid way – those Russian cigarettes, a hard, grainy, black smell, mixed with girly fabric conditioner (camomile and lavender, she thought) and then deodorant so cheap it was muskily, weirdly scented like mouth-wash.
She screwed up her nose and sighed. The time was around two o'clock, and she was pleased with herself for managing to sleep for so long – since she'd heard of the thing growing in her, and since Hannibal had become obsessed with painting their whole flat yellow, she had not slept longer than around five hours a night. The feeling of rest settled within her like a belly full of hot, sweet tea. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and then noticed Murdoc's note.
My Dad will be gone by about 12 – 1:30 usually. I'm not sure what pregnant girls are meant to eat, but I'm guessing milk? So I've left you loads of milk, and there might be some tea bags left. And there are two eggs, and one piece of bread (check for mould though).
Sorry about that. But yeah, hope you're O.K. and I'll see you later. I'll be back about 3:30.
Murdoc
She picked it up and then dropped it within a few more seconds, her senses impaired. This was the first time she'd felt a hunger she wanted to satisfy, and now there was nothing but mouldy bread and milk. She wanted to slap that useless little kid within an inch of his life for it – surely he knew the Mother's didn't feed like babies? Surely he knew she needed more than a glass of milk?
Nauseatingly, and in an almost hyper realistic way, she felt the weight of her breasts slap against her, and burn full of her own salty milk. She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead, looking down at her legs. Her tummy was pushing into her thighs and forcing the flesh to spread across the duvet, apparently moth-eaten with cellulite.
She quickly turned her head away from herself and stood up, grasping the bedside table. There was no noise in the house, so his Father had clearly gone off somewhere. Maybe he had something hidden somewhere. Hannibal used to hide chocolate raisins in his sock drawer when they were younger, and somehow she knew Murdoc himself would be no different, because they were all full of secrets here, and she noticed rather uncomfortably that all good things were hidden. She didn't know why.
Her feet hit the carpet more inelegantly than they ever had before, weighed down by her forever-self-engorging midriff. Muscle memory told her to keep moving forward, because ahead was Hannibal's room. She swallowed a rather odd, fleshy taste in her mouth, and then nearly hawked back to spit when she thought suddenly of the taste of Hannibal; in particular, the aftertaste of a blow-job. She shook her head and found herself wrapping her arms around her ballooned stomach, blinking hard, attempting to rid herself of the terror that he would miraculously, like the old days, slide out from behind the door frame and lean against it, smirking, and then loudly pucker his lips at her.
Kiss for Daddy?
She felt her gag reflex wiggle.
Come on, kiss for Daddy?
Why had she ever accepted him calling himself Daddy? Now she remembered it like this, stood here, the way she had been years ago before her broke her in two, then four, then six, two again, she realised it was so fucked up she should have known this would have happened years ago. And yet, still, the familiar feeling of her heart hitting her ribcage in the sprightliest way started up, and she felt the swollen pulsation in her throat, her tongue sliding back dangerously, her garbled brains hooked and ready to be pulled through her nose, and the heat of her internal organs spreading outwards, warming and chilling her simultaneously. It was that feeling of true fear, the fear and excitement of being this close to him, and being wanted by him – it made her feel weak, and special.
She never let him know that, of course.
The staircase was only two more steps away now, and so instead of succumbing to the temptation to go into his room, lie down on that bed again, remember things being easy, she walked downstairs.
Murdoc was right that the bread was moulding, and so she aggressively turned a six pint carton of milk up to her lips and drank it down hard. It slithered it way over her chin and clothes, but she couldn't have cared less. She would have to leave and buy some food somehow, from somewhere.
She picked up what she thought to be their Father's jacket, an old grey woollen thing that smelt old and musty, and slung it over herself. She opened the door. Then the baby kicked, kicked, kicked, kicked her into the ground.
"I had never ever meant to hurt you," Hannibal told her. "Even when you were basically a little kid, and you still had long hair, and all that – I never once meant you any fuckin' harm."
She didn't reply.
"When I took your virginity I was gentle, wasn't I? You forget that, y'know. The first time I was so gentle, I was so careful, I remember you feeling like one of those little glass swan's in my hand, cool with tiny curves, and so breakable, so fuckin' breakable, so frail."
He pressed his forehead against the wall, freshly sanded, dry and dusty, a desert land in front of him. He gripped the phone tighter, pushed it harder against his ear, bit his tongue between his teeth to shock the tears of out his eyes.
"And you still had long hair, and then you cut it when you were a few months older. I can still remember you all rubbing your hand over the back of your head, and it was all cleanly shaven off, and you looked so proud of yourself and so excited for the bollocking your Mum was goin' ta give ya. And that, as well, I told you I loved you then. And you forget that. You forget a lot of things, really."
There was a pause.
"You forget me. I didn't used to be like this."
She wasn't responding, but he was sure he could still hear her breathing into the receiver.
"There are so many things about you that I could have easily forgotten but I never did, not like you did with me. I didn't forget that one night where I was asleep in the car and you kissed my cheek, like a little baby all soft and wet. I was pretending to be asleep. You didn't know that. And you said 'Oh Hans,' in this quiet voice. I know you've forgotten that. Please, answer me."
No answer.
"Pris?"
No answer.
"You always did play hard to get," he laughed. He put the phone back into the cradle and then placed it back on the table. His foot got caught in the severed wire, frayed and coloured at the end, connecting it to the line.
A/N: Another chapter done!
Once again apologises for its lateness, I've been the most incredibly hard few months of my life, but finally I'm done with this one. A huge thank you and lots of love to: Super Gazellian, Guest, cherry-magpie-x and K9Train, you're all wonderful! :D
I hope everyone enjoys, please let me know what you think!