Chapter Text
They stopped for the night in the middle of Death Valley. Will pulled the van off the highway at a deserted campsite and used the small charcoal grill next to the picnic bench to cook steaks. He wrapped potatoes in tinfoil and set them among the coals to bake.
No one passed by on the road. Wind whispered over the dry earth and blew a fine dust over the asphalt road surface with a sound almost like song. As sunset slipped into dusk, they heard a coyote howl. Hannibal stood at the edge of the campsite and faced outward into the dark. Will walked over to stand beside him.
He put a hand on Hannibal’s back. “What do you think?”
“The sense of space is immense,” Hannibal said. He leaned into Will’s touch and lifted his chin toward the far horizon, which was quickly vanishing into unrelieved night. “The world feels naked, and the sky is always watching.”
“Do you like it?”
“Not entirely. But the forest can hide many things. At least here one would always be able to see what was coming. ”
“The ocean’s like that too,” Will said. “You can’t hide from anything out there. I figured out a lot of stuff when I was crossing the Atlantic.”
Hannibal turned his head away from the dark and toward Will. “Things about me?”
“Things about you. Things about how I felt about you.”
“How do you feel about me?”
If Hannibal had asked him in his office, or over his dinner table, or from behind a wall of glass, Will wouldn’t have been able to answer. Here, on the naked Earth at the edge of the night, it was easy. “I love you,” Will said.
Hannibal’s expression shifted away from the simplicity of childhood. He turned his back to Will, though he didn’t pull away from his touch.
Will stood behind him and rested his cheek on Hannibal’s shoulder. He could feel Hannibal’s quickened breath and heartbeat. “Do you want to hear the end of the story?”
“Is it — a good ending?” Hannibal asked.
“Depends how you look at it, I guess.”
Hannibal was silent for a long time. “Tell me,” he said.
“The boy was falling from the stag’s back, remember?”
“I remember.”
“The stag caught him as fell, but it caught him on its antlers. It pierced the boy right through. Then he was bleeding too, and his blood mixed with the stag’s and with the forest’s.”
“Did he die?” Hannibal asked.
“He was dying, but the stag brought him to the heart of the forest and laid him down on it. The boy could hear nothing but the steady beat of it, and its blood flowed into him and filled him up. But it wasn’t enough. He set his teeth into the beating heart, and the taste was so good that he ate it all up.”
“Life for life,” Hannibal said.
“Something always has to die. Afterward, he found the black stag lying on its side. It told him that the heart of the forest had been its heart as well.”
“And so the boy had to leave him behind.” Hannibal’s back stiffened as he spoke, and he swallowed after the last word.
Will took his hand. “The boy told the stag that since its heart was inside him now, they’d have to share, and that they’d have to stay together always. They could never be parted again. And they left the forest that was dying around them and they walked toward the sea.”
Hannibal held his hand in a grip that ground Will’s bones together and twisted his knuckles. He had to bite the inside of his cheek against the pain, but he took it. It didn’t ease for a long time.
“We should eat,” Will said finally. “The potatoes must be done by now.”
Hannibal turned toward him. The emptiness in his eyes reminded Will of the moment when he’d told Hannibal he didn’t want to see him or think about him ever again. It was not a child’s expression, or at least it shouldn’t be. Will pulled him close and kissed his forehead and held him.
“Are we going to the sea?” Hannibal asked, very soft against Will’s neck.
“Would you like that? I thought we might get a boat and sail down to Baja. And if you don’t like it there, we could go anywhere.”
“I will go where you go,” Hannibal said. “Always.”
Will led him back to the fire. They ate dinner outside with the sky watching them.