This chapter might not look like much, but please don't skip it. It sets up the plot ;)

Chapter 3

"Are you going fishing?" Mrs. Sarandon asked, who happened to walk past Will's and Hannibal's house on the following Friday afternoon. The couple was preparing their car with fishing hooks, two chairs, and a portable freezer box.

"Yes, Mrs. Sarandon, like most weekends," Hannibal answered friendly and gave an innocent smile – as if Hannibal was capable of such. He was sure that Mrs. Sarandon was not walking past their house by pure chance but because she had heard from other neighbors that Will and Hannibal frequently went on weekend trips, and she had wanted to know more.

"You like to cook, Mr. Leuchtenberg. Do you have good recipes for fish? What kind of fish is it that you are fishing?"

"We don't cook the fish, we throw them back in the water. We are against animal cruelty whenever possible. And regarding what we fish, that depends on where we go. We have baits for both salt and freshwater fish, and we like to explore different spots in the region."

"Ah, that's nice. You know, Mr. Greyson and Mr. Kale, who live at the end of the road, both love hunting. Maybe you should do a joint hunting and fishing operation before our next barbecue."

"As I said, Mrs. Sarandon, we are no fans of animal cruelty. As soon as we have caught a fish, we throw it back into the water. I would never make an animal suffer unnecessarily," Hannibal replied and could see Will from the point of his eye cowering down behind the car – probably to hide a fit of laughter.

"Ah, well, I wish you a lot of… fun? Is fishing fun?"

"Lots of fun. The tranquility, the peace… not that we wouldn't have any of this here… but we love to observe the nature."

Mrs. Sarandon smiled nervously, probably unhappy with the gossip she had obtained, and continued her walk down the road. Hannibal turned around and saw Will with a huge grin on his face who was just securing the tent material on the back seat. "No animal cruelty," he imitated Hannibal sarcastically. "I throw them right back into the water."

Hannibal smiled sadistically and closed the trunk. They were ready to go hunting.

The week had been uneventful and so was the car ride. Another one of Will's rules stated that every fourth time, they actually had to go fishing. Initially, he had said every second time, but with a lot of persuasion and pleasing, Hannibal had extended the rule to every fourth time. Luckily, today was not a fourth time.

They were driving up north and when it became evening, they were coming by a bar in the middle of nowhere. Will suggested to have a drink there before driving back to the parking lot they had seen a mile earlier where they could park and sleep in the car. They had their tent with them, but it was too dark outside to set it up. They could put the backseat back and move all stuff to the floor and the front seats, which allowed even Hannibal to have a comfortable sleeping position – although he maintained that the most comfortable sleeping position was with his arms around Will and then everything else was unimportant.

They entered the pub which could have been straight out of a Tarantino movie. There were some rockers drinking beer, some bikers drinking even more beer, several very muscular women playing pool, and some other sketchy guys drinking stronger stuff than beer. Will and Hannibal did not really fit into the scenery, so they sat down at a table near the window. A blonde waitress with double-D breasts who would have surely loved to pour some booze over her legs and feet for Tarantino came over and took their orders. Hannibal, even though being a wine person, ordered a beer just to fit in. Will was proud of Hannibal, since he had trained him to keep a lower profile. Sometimes Will compared Hannibal to one of his dogs who needed training, and Hannibal always replied by asking whether his dogs would fuck Will as good as he did.

Will had a look around the bar and observed the people. He still used his knowledge of criminal profiling to spot new victims for Hannibal in the crowd – well, for him and Hannibal. But today they were just driving through and not looking out for a meal.

During the second beer, there was a fight coming up between two men who had been playing pool with two of the double-D ladies. Will and Hannibal watched them throw punches until the cooks and the bikers intervened, leading not only to a full out brawl, but also to the pub emptying itself rapidly – mostly because a lot of them were being thrown out.

"You need a bouncer, Sandy," one of the chefs said when returning to the kitchen.

"If you give him your salary, I'll hire one," Sandy, who appeared to be in charge here, replied.

Hannibal and Will, being uncomfortable with only so few people being left, got up and paid. "Are they giving you trouble often?" Hannibal asked.

Sandy shrugged. "It's a pub. I'm just glad when they are not bleeding on the floor. These damn wood tiles are horrible to scrub."

Hannibal nodded understandingly. He had never owned wood tiles.

The couple left, and outside, they watched some of the bikers mount their vehicles and drive off. One of them, however, was still tumbling around, trying to find the keyhole.

"We should stop him from driving," Will muttered, but Hannibal pushed him forward to the car. "Let Darwin handle this one," Hannibal muttered and took the keys from Will's hand. He was a lot more resilient against alcohol, so he used to drive when they were slightly intoxicated.

"Hey, we had decided to drive back," Will protested when Hannibal turned the car in the direction that the highly drunk driver had gone.

"Hannibal, please," Will pleaded, having a feeling where this would go.

It was not long until they had caught up with the biker who was driving in anything but a straight line through the forest street. There was not a single streetlight and Hannibal turned off the car lights.

"Hannibal, please," Will muttered. "The meat won't stay fresh that long in the freezer box."

"Then we pretend we have forgotten something, and we will come back a day earlier," Hannibal said and pushed down the gas pedal.

Will grabbed hold and prepared for the crash. It was, however, just a mild clash – Hannibal had only gently touched the biker's back which was enough for the drunk driver to not being able to handle the fluctuation and he fell down, slithering for another thirty meters along the road. Hannibal stopped the car less than five meters away from him. He grabbed a knife and gloves from the glove box and stepped out of the car.

Will sighed, cursed himself and Hannibal, and followed him. When he arrived, Hannibal had already removed the driver's helmet. He was still conscious but appeared to have a concussion. Hannibal kneed down next to him and carefully pressed the knife into the side of his neck. The blood was flowing out instead of splashing, keeping everything but Hannibal's gloves and the asphalt clean. Will returned to the car to get gloves, a scalpel, a torchlight, and the freezer boxes.

Having done this so often, Will and Hannibal were doing teamwork without even talking to each other. Hannibal watched Will cut open the flesh and together they removed the liver and the heart, Hannibal's favorite parts of the body. They would not harvest more, as to not make it too obvious what the reason of this dissection was.

"Do you hear that?" Hannibal asked and stopped mid-movement.

"Wolves," Will replied. He had also heard the howling.

"If we throw his body down that forest slope, there is a good chance his cadaver will be attacked by animals. With a bit of luck, they won't find out that we took out some organs beforehand. Let's also take one lung."

Will let Hannibal do the work and when they were done, they carried the body, the bike and the helmet to the slope at the side of the road and pushed it down.

"They won't think that an animal carried him there all the way," Will replied.

"I don't care what they think. We are sufficiently far away from out little suburb and we have not left any traces. And even if they vet the pub. We were just two innocent passers-by."

Will was not so confident as Hannibal, but he had learnt to trust him. Hannibal had gotten away with a lot of things, and he had been in this business far longer already.

"We have to drive back though. We cannot drive past the blood on the asphalt."

Hannibal agreed and they turned around. They drove through the entire night and Will only woke up when the sun was rising, and Hannibal was entering a parking lot of an actual fishing grounds.

"We're at the Greenbarks park," he explained. "There is a river less than a kilometer's walk from here."

"Less than a kilometer," Will complained, but at least he was the one who had been sleeping. They took their gear and started walking. As it was sunrise and they were in the middle of nowhere still, they were alone. They found a nice spot near the river and settled down.

Hannibal took out some sandwiches and gave them to Will. "I had prepared those while you had been still at work yesterday."

"Chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches," Will said hesitantly. "Is that chicken?"

"No," Hannibal said and took a bite.

Will sighed. Ten years and he was not d'accord yet with the idea of knowingly eating human meat. But the years with Hannibal had changed him. He had swapped his life with a wife and a child for that of murdering with a cannibal.

The rest of the morning they were sitting by the riverside and catching up on sleep. Around noon, they did start to fish. "You know that this means that the next six times we won't go fishing," Hannibal said.

Will said nothing. Why on Earth had he, a previously heterosexual man, not only fallen for another man, but a self-serving, arrogant, homicidal, sadistic, psychopathic, cannibalistic murderer? Maybe because that murderer had fallen in love with him and done everything for him – including trying to kill him, which was Hannibal's way of expressing affection. Hannibal had a soft side that he had only allowed to show Will. Will had seen Hannibal cry on several occasions, he had seen him worry, he had seen him hurt. He had seen him proud when Will had started to commit atrocities knowingly.

When it became afternoon, they decided to pack their things and return. They would arrive back home probably around midnight and since they were returning earlier than planned, they preferred not to have any witnesses.

It was indeed shortly before midnight and the night was pitch-black. It was new moon, so if it weren't for the streetlights and the headlights of the car, there would have been absolute darkness. Will just wanted to return home to his own bed. Neither the co-driver's seat nor the fishing chair were comfortable places to sleep. He was also unhappy with how the previous night had turned out, while Hannibal did not seem to be preoccupied in the slightest.

"Don't worry, Will," Hannibal said when they entered the already very familiar streets of the tiny district they currently called their home. "I am sure everything will turn out fine."

He had not even finished speaking these words when suddenly the motor of the car stalled and stopped.

Will looked at his partner with a are you kidding-face. The last thing they needed was their car to break down while they had several organs in their freezer box, as well as bloody gloves and knives in the trunk.

They both got out and had a look under the hood. "I can't seem to see what is wrong," Hannibal said. He had the flashlight turned to minimum brightness. "At least we now have a valid reason for being back so earlier. We realized that our car was giving trouble, and we wanted to get to a car workshop as close as possible to home, so we turned around before our car gave up entirely."

"We are less than a mile from our home," Will said.

"You want me to push," Hannibal read between the lines.

"I promise you, I will make it up to you," Will muttered.

"You don't have to make it up to me, you will just have to let me punish you later for doing this to me," Hannibal said in a silent voice and smirked at Will. Then he gave him a quick kiss and added, "get in the car, I will push."

They slowly pushed the car down the road. The scenery was absolutely silent, dark, and peaceful. They had just come around the last corner when Hannibal heard a muffled scream. He stopped pushing and started to listen. Was that just his imagination? He was the sanest person he knew, and hallucinations were Will's thing, not his.

Will pulled down the window and asked, "what's up?"

"Sshh," Hannibal said and gestured him to be silent. Then he heard it again. It sounded like a woman's voice. He looked around and spotted the only house with a burning light. He gestured Will to follow him. Since they had kept their car lights turned off, there were only the streetlights to illuminate the scene, and they were luckily right now in the middle between two of those, in the darkest spot. Hannibal and Will crept towards the house at the corner which had a light burning on the second floor. The window was tilted, and they heard again the voice of a woman pleading, "please don't".

Hannibal and Will cowered down in the front yard which was full of bushes and flowers of different sorts.

"Be silent, you stupid bitch," they now heard the voice of a man.

"That's Mr. Noakes," Will mouthed and Hannibal, reading his lips, nodded.

The noises that followed were obvious for what was happening up there. Will closed his eyes. They had moved to this suburb thinking they would find peace here. Instead, he had to listen to the sounds that he made regularly in the night, just with the difference that he made them voluntarily. There was no doubt in what Mr. Noakes was doing to his daughter Theresa up there in either his or her bedroom. After a few minutes, they heard the sound of steps diminishing, seeing the light in the staircase going on and off, the light in another room going on and off, then the light in the upstairs bathroom going on and off, and eventually the last light of the house switching off.

Hannibal and Will returned to the car in silence. Hannibal pushed the car all the way to the front door. Will carried the freezer box to their "meal-preparation-room" on the second floor and put the meat into the proper freezer. They then went to bed without speaking a word.

"Will…" Hannibal eventually said.

Will pretended to be asleep.

"Will… it would be the right thing."

Will pretended to be asleep.

"Will… you know Theresa…"

Will turned around. "Why can't we just pretend we didn't witness that?"

"Because your moral compass tells you not to."

"And your moral compass tells you to eat Mr. Noakes."

"Yes." Hannibal paused. "The summer is nearly over. We should cherish the time we can still do a BBQ."