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Chapter Text

The cafeteria's dining lounge was thrumming with the sounds of feet raining down on the freshly mopped wooden floorboards, and from all corners; flurries of plaid skirts and pleated pants and uniforms with beaming golden crests pinned on every breast pocket passed by, matched in splendor by every youthful face of the private academy that hosted them. There wasn’t a corner that went untouched by the wealth of the highschool’s Ivy League graduate parent sponsors. And like their parents, the students held every reason to continue the lavish lifestyle, always aiming to outdo the other. As teenagers of their time, they were willingly blind to the political horror surrounding the country, chasing instead temporary delights of variety like moths enjoying the last flickers of a dying flame.

 "Look, Jason bought me chocolates, he's the sweetest," cried Bella in excitement as she lifted the frilly box containing Richart delicacies.

Hannibal could see the corners of Jack's eyes twitching but the typically outgoing boy said nothing this time.

"My girlfriend bought me two tickets to the Cirque du Soleil." Frederick announced proudly, waving the cream envelope around like a feathered fan.

"I've received nothing today. What about you, Bloom?" Sneered Freddie.

Alana flushed. Everyone at the table knew Alana's locker was never empty, its metal door always bulging from the swell of gifts and letters its owner received. "Regardless of gifts I have no one to claim." She said bashfully. She then turned her eyes to a small wooden box with green engravings swirling around its lid and sides. "What's that?"

This same box just so happened to be in front of Hannibal on the linen of the table.

"A gift." Hannibal responded, not particularly interested in it.

All eyes flew to him.

"Oh. From who? To whom?" demanded Frederick.

"To me I presume. And someone. Doesn't say who," Hannibal replied. ( These people are quite simple minded ). Then, "I appreciate its craftsmanship."

"Have you opened it?" Asked Jack with intrigue, setting down his puzzle journal, ever the mystery enthusiast.

Hannibal pried the lid off with ease to reveal a single glass cologne bottle. 

"That's fascinating, Hannibal," Alana cooed over the antique pinwheel shaped perfume. 

"You may have it, if you want." Hannibal said, bored at the reveal, he'd been much more intrigued by its casing. 

"I can't take that!" Alana exclaimed. "You shouldn't give away gifts someone carefully thought out for you, it's rude."

Hannibal agreed in the end on the basis of manners and gift exchanges and all they pertained and whatnot. Soon enough the group's conversation flew elsewhere. With it, Hannibal's eyes grew distant, as they always did among the mediocrity that led every school day at the academy.

Around the group, other students had steadily begun taking off in flocks to do whatever it is they did with the rest of their lunch break. Now far at the other end of the long table remained only Will Graham. It was pure coincidence when Hannibal's eyes landed on him, or perhaps a lack of anything better to do. 

Even the embossed metal lunch utensils grabbed more attention than Will Graham ever did, and Hannibal had never seen the boy with any box of chocolates, or tickets to a circus, or pinwheel perfume sat in front of him. He was a lone wolf, and one of the few students who got into the school on a full ride scholarship. ( So surely he has to have some wit about him ). Or so had thought Hannibal, back when school first started and someone had pointed out Will to him. But when fall passed, and with them now deep into the thrush of spring, homecoming past, several sports games, and other frivolous events hosted by the school past, not one peep had ever escaped the introverted boy. 

And Hannibal never sought one out of him, disinterested in humans as he was, and only really surrounded by people because they chased for Hannibal's attention first.

Will Graham presently spooned another dividend of soup into his mouth( he's hardly made a dent in it ) and beneath the long sweep of brown curls, Hannibal could just make out the sight of Will tracking his eyes steadily across the finite words of the book in front of him. 

Then, fleetingly, Will's expression shifted from neutral to surprised, his grey sullen cheeks turning pink and plump, eyes bright. He even swept his foliage of curls away from his eyes to see the words before him clearer. Finally, unabashedly, Will gave an abrupt loud chort of laughter. 

The other residents of the table glanced at Will, then looked away equally fast with disinterest. Will seemed to remember his surroundings and dipped his head down. 

But Hannibal's gaze still lingered. He was slightly surprised at the amount of emotion Will had shown in that single second. 

So what? Thought Hannibal, expecting Will to do…what exactly? More?

Will now scratched the side of his face, a gesture Hannibal recognized as nervousness and one he’d seen frequently displayed by the adults that visited his house for a game of Mahjong .

 With his hand still cradling his neck, Will slowly glanced up directly into Hannibal's eyes. The dusting of blush across Will's cheeks faded to his previous pallor and his eyes widened, the boy then turned away, obscuring himself from Hannibal's staring. 

( What was that? )

"Hannibal, are you coming or not? Next period begins in five minutes," Alana called him back to earth. 

Hannibal gathered his things and left the cafeteria and the strange boy in it behind.

…

"Remember, your conjugations test is this Friday. I will tolerate no incorrect grammar or spellings so- Merde , Graham where have you been?"

All eyes turned to Will, who appeared twenty minutes late with half his uniform soaking wet. Reeks like the water from the lake , Hannibal thought absently from his seat.

"Well, take a seat already. Jesus you should have gotten changed at least." Ms. Dumond exclaimed then turned back to the blackboard as she wiped the board.

Will took his seat diagonally of Hannibal's by the window, a sloppy pool of water puddling below him. " Je m’en fous ." Will muttered under his breath.

( 'I don't give a fuck.')

Hannibal's lips gave the barest of amused twitches.

…

"The usual sir?" The astute man by the counter asked. 

"Yes," Hannibal responded. "Mischa likes anything with vanilla or lavender in it."

Without moving a single inch from his spot, Hannibal took a quick glance around at all the perfumery and other extravagant gifts within the shop. He abhorred arriving at this particular Gift Boutique due to his particularly sensitive sense of smell but today he held his breath with renowned interest in the displays surrounding him.

An uncharacteristic idea has struck him, and Hannibal is someone who likes to see things carried out to their end if they can promise even a little entertainment.

Hannibal (unusually) hesitated before asking, "Do you have anything a boy my age might like in here?"

The man(Mr. Roger) raised a single grey brow, "I reckon you'd be the best judge of that."

Hannibal nodded thinking back to the boy of few expressions. ( Perhaps a Dummy's Guide on how to make more expressions. Or a new pair of uniform pants, since he got lake water on his. Surely he's thrown his old pair away? Though of course, thinking on it further, this gift shop won't have either of those things ).

After a quick look around he finally decided on something simple to buy impulsively.

…

Hannibal stared blankly at the packaged thing in his locker. He'd kept it there to avoid lugging it around all day(and maybe safe keeping).

Most students rarely put actual padlocks on their lockers, seeing as gift exchanges and valentines trend all year round at their academy to the extent that some even made a game of seeing who got the most. 

Though Will was evidently different in that respect. He was someone who (as far as Hannibal knew) had never received a gift or had any sort of admirers. So Hannibal shouldn't have been so surprised to find Will's locker firmly sealed with a lock in place. 

Hannibal glanced down at the prepared gift in his hands and to the hall around him. He needed time to pick the padlock open and also to ensure no one would witness him. 

Without much preamble, Hannibal went to the opposite wall, smashed the glass, and slammed down the emergency fire alarm lever in the manner a mad scientist might pull a switch to an electric chair.

Students and teachers alike evacuated out of the building like exterminated roaches. In the meanwhile everyone was busy scurrying, Hannibal took his time picking at Will's lock with his gold cuff-pin. After successfully budging it open Hannibal casually plopped the box inside and closed the locker.

Satisfied, Hannibal left to join the other students outside.

…

"Apparently it was a false alarm," Alana said as the group strolled back into the building "Who would do such a thing?"

"Oh don't droll on too much, someone probably just wanted out from a test, can't blame them, especially if it's from Mr. Payne's geometry class. Mr. Payne-in-the-ass as he happens to be."

"You're still taking geometry Freddy?" Frederick asked snidely. 

Hannibal had already tuned them out, slightly frustrated that they were still following behind him like baby ducklings.

"Hey, I'm busy running both the school's newspaper and the photography club. We can't all get off to numbers and proof theorems." Freddy's expression changed to mischief. "No, that's not right. You're probably getting off to Will Graham instead."

Everyone halted, shocked by Freddy's vulgarity. 

"I don't get off on that desolate thing." Frederick had gone as bright red as a lobster's ass. 

Hannibal looked between Freddy and Frederick in confusion, as they'd never once brought up the other boy in conversation before. 

"Right, I saw you checking him out the other day while scribbling in that cute diary of yours." 

"I'll have you know, my Intro to Psych teacher asked us to choose a subject to do mock evaluations for. I'll pass Will's results off as being my father's and turn the paper in," Frederick explained rather quickly. "It also just so happens that Will is one massive weirdo. The ideal candidate. You know he likes stomping around like a troll in the lake? He always talks to himself too."

"And I suppose you happen to know this from all your stalking eh?" Freddy probed, always eager for a scoop. Frederick immediately shut up, sourly glaring at the redhead.

"You're hardly one to call out others for stalking, Freddy, I see the stuff you post in the newspaper about people, and Will in particular." Alana interjected. "They've been calling him Grim Graham since that article you posted at the beginning of the year. "

"Anyone so obsessed with corpses as he is deserves that moniker." Freddy laughed. "It makes me happy to hear you read my papers dearest, Alana."

"Whatever."

Now Hannibal truly was perturbed. (How long had these sheep known about Will?) 

"He's obsessed with corpses?" Hannibal arched a perfectly manicured brow. 

"Very." Freddy said, pleasantly surprised to be the reason Hannibal joined the conversation. "He, Frederick and I share an art class together. He's a tad too eager about painting dead bodies."

"Very Grim indeed," Hannibal afforded her a small grin as penance for the gossip's intel. Freddy smirked and Alana looked at him in shocked disapproval.

…

Hannibal watched from his own locker spot a little further down the hall as Will finally pried his own open. 

Will stared blankly into it, confusion evident on his face. 

(Hannibal supposed that everyone deserved the novelty of one locker gift at least once in their time at high-school.)

Slowly Will reached in, procuring the box gently, as if fragile. Hannibal's eyes honed in on the other boy.

Will's expression flickered between wary and curious, until he finally  pried loose the thin maroon ribbon the brown parcel was wrapped in. He lifted the card and turned it over (where Hannibal knew he'd written out the name Will in calligraphy ) and at last took apart the wrapping. Within it was a  hand-bound, and limited edition hardcover of Shakespeare's King Lear.  

Hannibal waited with bated breath as Will turned it over, admiring the engraved cover with gold leaf and dyed page edges. Finally, Will smiled, a smile so feather soft that Hannibal's mind immediately produced the image of a painted Eros cherub as a twin comparison to Will's expression. The longer he stared at the book the more Will's face flourished with color as it had in the cafeteria, though this time it was longer lasting. Beautiful , thought Hannibal in startling realization.

...

"Mr. Lecter, you can't add another course at this point in the year."

"I have a free period in the course I am requesting to join," Hannibal provided (in his mind, logically).

"Be that as it may you'll have too much work to catch up on for the semester, I'm not sure it will be good for your schedule."

Hannibal withheld a sigh, ( some people require a different form of logic ), and retrieved from his bookcase a slim envelope. He handed it over to his school counselor and watched as she opened it to find a rectangular slip of paper. Her eyes blew to the size of saucers and she went to her desktop and typed away. 

"I've informed the teacher. You start Painting 1 tomorrow.

"Thank you," Hannibal said politely.

Chapter Text

The day’s sky unnaturally swallowed the sun in its billowing grey mouth, only spitting it out minutely before rolling the yellow pearl behind its cloud teeth again. Will moved through the coarse wet grass with his pant legs rolled up to his knees until he arrived at a big tree with an abandoned rabbit burrow at its base, the ideal spot for him to deposit his school bag into. This particular tree seemed to Will a grand giant more domineering in his life at school than even the headmaster who ran it. It was a landmark of his secret haven, away from the upper class snobs and sour looks always sparrowed into Will.

It was second only to the lake which currently remained, as typical, empty. After the socks and shirt came off, Will ran into the water with reckless abandon. He swam until he was well into its depths, his pale skin blending with the grey reflections of the water from an eagle’s eye point of view. Some time passed, with it, tranquility left, and in came the unwelcome sensation of being watched . Will opened his milky blue eyes, turning his head ever so slightly in the direction of the grass and fern skirts surrounding the rim of the lake. 

There was nothing there, but a shiver still chased fear down Will’s spine, making his hairs stand on end on the side of his body still exposed to air. Unable to take the sudden chill, Will turned over on his belly and swam to the edge before exiting the lake. He hurriedly got dressed and returned to class.

…

Will gripped both hands in his hair over his slumped head, unable to stand the droning of the voices behind him.

“He’s one crazy sonofabitch isn’t he?” Someone was saying, “Someone oughta buy him some perfume, too.”

“Stop it, he’ll hear you.” A female voice whispered, though her tone was edged with laughter. 

“Who gives a fuck if he hears me? He looks like a wet dog and smells like one too. Rumor says he killed Ed Derik.”

“What? Who’s that?”

Will bit at his nails self soothingly, unconsciously plucking out lumps of hair from his scalp with his other hand.

“Some senior who used to bully him last year. He disappeared towards the end of the year-”

Eventually the nail gave away, but Will kept biting and biting and biting until he was going into his own skin . Lightly at first, then deep enough to draw blood around his finger. He tore into it desperately, letting his mouth fill with the taste of iron.

“All they found were his shoes… hung by their laces in a tree.”

"Shut the hell up!" Will ground out, turning his blazing eyes behind him to find only the unassuming the back of the classroom wall there.

It was full of ostentatious posters and quotes in curly fonts once spoken by the United States' founding fathers.

There were no gossiping students in sight.

The conversation Will overheard had actually happened two years previous, at his old school. That time seemed far away now, but what remained the same was the way all eyes in the current classroom narrowed in his direction, leering at Will as if he was some psychward escapee.

Will made eye contact with the blond boy from earlier. He wasn't leering. Only looking at him blankly. Will glanced away first.

"There's no one there, Mr. Graham." Said Ms. Dummond. "Is everything alright?"

…

Will observed, confused as the Val-girls and boys scurried out of the room cheerily, all flashing dimples and bolstering laughing blushes that rivaled that of the old Sunblom's illustrated Saint Nicholas for the famous Coca-cola ad that came ‘round each christmas. For him things were different, having startled at the red alarm shrilling its ear-splitting call during English class. He noticed his classmates standing up and leaving out the door while the teacher at the front closed shop. Will stood up and followed behind the others like an orphaned street mutt asking for scraps. It was only after someone asked ‘ Is there a fire?’ that he glued the dots together and grumpily wondered why they couldn’t use a regular ol’ church bell nearby(the way civilized small town folk do) instead of the ear-assaulting noise wrought on from every godforsaken corner in the building.

“Where are you going, Willy-boy?” said the nuisance of a boy Will dubbed Braces . He'd caught him at the hallway corner.

Braces was mostly annoying, thankfully not at all prone to fighting as he was to speaking about Will as if he wasn’t there. He was certainly no Ed Derik, resembling instead more of an incessant mosquito.

“Somewhere called none-of-your-concern, Braces,” Will retorted. I could use a fly-swatter about now.

“ ' Nun'yer'concern' ? ” mocked Braces. “And it's not Braces, my name’s Frederick.”

“I’ll stop calling you Braces when you stop calling me Willy-boy, now shoo.” 

Frederick did not shoo , sticking by Will's side like gum as he walked in the opposite direction of the student mobs.

Will meant to go to his locker for his notebook to save himself the trouble of retrieving it later on but was stopped by a teacher who nagged both boys about the dangers of staying in a building ‘they weren’t sure had an active fire or not’ . Braces looked triumphantly towards Will, as if the idiot hadn’t just been told off too.

“I pity you, you look lost. I bet they don’t have emergency fire alarms back in your swamp state," Braces said as the pair exited the building.

“Look there’s pretty-boy back there, why don’t you tail after him and ask for a treat?” Will gestured to the blond boy among the last exiting the building. “He’s the head of your crew, isn’t he? Don’t tell me they already kicked you out, Braces.”

“No one’s the head of anything, and again, it's Frederick,” Frederick stammered. "And no one's kicked me out."

“Freddy’s looking at us by the way, careful, she might find out about us, darlin’ ,” Will crowed in a slip of his southern drawl.

The boy stormed off and Will scoffed, glad to be alone again.

…

What the hell is this?

Will looked inside his locker, feeling his brows set heavy in a frown. Inside was a rectangular brown package tied in a red ribbon. He dragged it out, suspiciously eyed his name on the card, and tore the gift open, negligent of the clear effort that had gone into the neat packaging. It was a fancy copy of King Lear . 

He looked around him at the buzzing hallway but found no one suspicious lingering about. Without much ado, Will opened to one of the first pages, skimming;

Fairest Cordelia,

Thou art most rich being poor.

Most choice, forsaken. And most loved, despised.

Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.

Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.

Gods, gods! ‘Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect

My love should kindle to inflamed respect.

Will scratched his neck, smiling wryly down at the strange gift the way one would after receiving a sloppy wet kiss on the cheek from their granny. Is someone pulling my leg?, Will thought. He’d never read much of Shakespeare, but he supposed now was as good as any time to start. After all, someone had gone through the trouble of breaking through the lock just to leave him this gift.

…

The next day went by in its usual stupor.

Will trudged his way towards the library, opting to forego the cafeteria today. He chose a desk in the far back and leant back with another book, wondering why he hadn't thought of spending his lunch break there before. 

It was around twenty minutes into the break when someone other than Will walked in. What the hell is he doing here? Will thought as he watched Blondie look around the library before his eyes fell on Will from across the room. Oh God, tell me he's not -

And sure enough, Blondie walked over towards Will holding a picnic's worth of stuff in the tray in his hands.

"Is this seat taken?" Blondie asked, tone clipped. Polite .

"Well, uh, no." Will looked pointedly towards all the other empty seats and tables around the room but Blondie merely nodded and took the spot next to him.

Upon sitting down, the boy took the food and items off the tray, then he did what Will could only describe as: orchestrate . The tall boy swiftly moved with flourish, arranging various cutlery in their correct order around his plate of food, fixing anything out of place with a long elegant finger, even neatly folding the napkins and placing one over his lap as if he was sitting at a five star restaurant and not a school library. Once everything seemed to be in its correct spot, he gave it an inspective once-over, until satisfied. He sat up rim-rod straight, finally cutting neatly into his steak with a knife and fork, and being notably sure to not let any foods touch.

What the actual fuck? Thought Will, somewhat amazed by the pretentious boy.

They were silent for some time, and to his surprise, Will broke it first;

"What- what are you doing here?" Will asked incredulously. "Why aren't you with your usual posse?"

"My posse?" Blondie's nose crinkled slightly in displeasure. "Oh. I infer you are citing the students who frequent my orbit. They're in the cafeteria, I suppose."

"Frequent your orbit?" Will chuckled dryly. "Who even says that?"

"I just did." Blondie arched a brow, looking at Will like he was a simpleton. 

"You lack almost as many social cues as I do, Blondie." Will muttered, closing his book on the table.

"My name is Hannibal." Hannibal said, looking down at Will's book. "What are you reading?"

"East of Eden, by John Steinbeck," Will replied. 

Hannibal only hummed and went back to cutting his steak. Will watched as the other boy brought the piece up to his lips and bit into it with closed eyes. Something about the way Hannibal avowed his relish in the taste of the food had Will's stomach churning hungrily with envy. It made an embarrassingly loud noise, so palpable that Hannibal stopped eating. He set his fork down to dab at his lips with a napkin before looking at Will. "You should have brought your food with you, Will."

"You know my name?" Will asked.

"Did you not know mine before I told you?" Hannibal's face was neutral but Will could feel some of his affronted demeanor.

"Sorry, no," Will stammered.  

"I'm not offended," Hannibal said.

"I can tell you're lying," Will spoke bluntly.

Hannibal froze.

"That's impossible, Lady Murasaki trained me well," Hannibal said in a tone Will guessed was as close as the boy ever got to grumbling. "What was my tell?"

Will grew suddenly uncomfortable. "There wasn't one. Your eyes just dilated a little."

Hannibal looked at Will in a newfound light, as if only just barely actually seeing him.

Will coughed, "Why are you really here, Hannibal?"

"I came here to keep you company," Hannibal replied simply and went back to eating. Will was surprised to find no visible dishonesty in his words. Hannibal looked again at Will only to find the latter scrambling to drift his gaze away.

"Not fond of eye contact are you, Will?"

"Eyes are distracting–" Upon seeing Hannibal's raised brow, Will felt like elaborating "-you see too much, you don’t see enough." Will found himself spilling the words over the edge of his lips, saying more in one sentence than he'd spoken in the entire year. "And-and it’s hard to focus when you’re thinking, um, ‘Oh those whites are really white,’ or ‘he must have some eye disease,’ or ‘Oh, is that a burst vein?’ So yeah, I try to avoid eyes whenever possible.”

"I imagine what you see touches everything else in your mind." Hannibal's hand twitched. "Your morality is present yet shocked at the connections you make, appalled at your dreams. No safe spaces in the bone arena of your skull for things you love."

Will gaped, "What are you? Some sort of shrink?"

"I'm sorry Will, I like observing, it's what I do. I can't turn it off. Anymore than you can, I think. You understand don't you?"

Will didn't know what to say, he felt flayed open, like an exposed wire inside the boat motors his father fixed. He sensed that if given a chance, Hannibal could find Will easily among all the one hundred other wires. There you are , he would say. The frayed one. It was a strange sensation, one he found he rapidly disliked. Will began subconsciously picking at the skin around his finger nails.

Hannibal seemed to hesitate after the pregnant pause, "Would you like some of my food?"

"What?" Will mumbled, "Oh. I'm fine."

Hannibal dropped his eyes to Will's stomach after another inordinately loud grumble. Will cursed under his breath but Hannibal seemed hardly inclined to make fun of him. The other boy only picked up his fork and lifted it in offering to Will's direction. Unthinkingly, Will leant forward and bit off the steak. 

It wasn't till he was chewing through it and saw Hannibal's stunned expression that Will realized what he'd done. Will flushed in embarrassment, choking slightly on the food.

The rest of the break continued in silence. Will left first, telling himself this was a one-time occurrence. Already forgetting about the blonde boy who unusually chose to spend time with him.

…

The art room was a wide space exhibiting several propped up easels and canvases. Along the shelves was a collection of shined paint jars, brushes sat in cleaning solutions, cantii poised both in jar and stick form, chamois cloths draped like curtains over drawers, gesso buckets sat at the ready, and even a sawing set to make wooden canvas frames stood in the corner of the room. There wasn't a spot in the room that didn't have some art supply weighed against it, or that wasn't somewhat sprinkled with paint. Surrounding them all were tall rectangular windows that slipped in beams of light and sent dust motes visibly floating in various directions through the air. It was these things that made the classroom Will's favorite in the entire academy. Left behind on the other side of the door was the varnished woods and frilly decorations that garnished the rest of the buildings. There were no archaic class systems here, people proved their worth through creation.

"I want you all to choose one of the three composition sketches you did of the still life to paint," Ms Primms said as she strode around the hemisphere formed by the students' work stations. 

"Ms Primms?" Tobias Budge asked.

"Yes, Tobias?"

"Will we ever have complete creative freedom in our assignments again?"

Some eyes drew to Will at this. Ms. Primms smiled amicably, "I'm not sure yet, I sensed a disturbance in last week's critique so I've decided to hold off on another similar assignment until I feel the class is ready to explore such waters again."

There was a chorus of murmurs across the room, no doubt pinning their accusations and complaints on Will. He unapologetically ignored them all in favor of mixing his oils on the wooden palette.

"Nonetheless, know that most of the in-class work should be purely observational. While you ladies and gentlemen get to painting, I'll put on some music-"

The old door creaked open, announcing Hannibal's entrance. 

"Oh, you must be the new student joining us today," Ms Primms welcomed. She led Hannibal to the back of the class to discuss privately. Will allowed himself a glance to the pair before returning to his painting without another thought.

"Hey Will," Matthew Brown piped up from his work station next to Will. "I'm barely on the first sketch, want to see?"

Will looked at him with a raised brow. 

-

The art room was rather disheveled when Hannibal first entered. There wasn't much to say about the few paintings he'd passed by, expressly reminded why he never joined the painting class in the first place. Beneath his arm he produced the portfolio full of his own work and set it on Ms. Primms' desk for her to look at. Hannibal noticed the intense appreciative looks she cast on every one of his paintings. 

"Your skill is far above this course's mandates," she whispered so that the others wouldn't hear. "Why didn't you apply to Advanced Painting instead?"

Hannibal's reason currently spoke to another brunet boy across the room. After a few more exchanges of words between Ms. Primms and him, Hannibal was finally allowed to go set up. He didn't take much time deciding where he would sit. 

Will did not make eye contact with him as Hannibal strode over and began propping up an easel. The boy beside Will was the only one aware of his presence, rolling his eyes as Hannibal essentially shoved himself in between the two of them(there are no assigned seats so Hannibal didn't understand why the boy was being so difficult).

Time flew by, and before Hannibal knew it he was already recreating the still life of fruits and vases in the middle of the room into his canvas when finally -

He caught Will looking at him out of his periphery. Hannibal withheld a smug smile, no doubt Will has noticed my painting by now.

His brush strokes picked up speed and rhythm (it didn't count as showing off if it was simply a matter of skill). And when he was done Hannibal turned to glance at Will, who unfortunately was now looking elsewhere. It didn't matter, Hannibal was sure he'd captivated Will's interest for now.

Will contemplated letting Hannibal know that he'd accidently let a streak of blue splash across the back of the other boy's vest. Whatever, it's not my business anyway.

Matthew kept peeping around Hannibal to talk to Will. Matthew was a skrunkly boy, and one of the few students who didn't mistreat Will but rather spoke the odd word or two to him. Granted, he spoke in riddles with everyone. 

"Hey Will, do you happen to have bread?" Matthew asked.

Hannibal paused his painting.

"No, I don't have any." Will replied, slightly confused.

Hannibal continued making long strokes across the background of the scene he laid out.

"What about rubber bands?" Matthew probed.

"I don't have those either."

"Crud, oh well. Thanks anyway," Matthew turned back to his own canvas. His head popped up around Hannibal's shoulder again and once more he asked, "Will?"

"Yes?"

"I like your painting."

"Excuse me," Hannibal turned to Matthew. "Would you mind toning your voice down a bit? I'm losing my concentration."

"A small bird can't gang up on two hawks."

"I beg your pardon?"

Will watched the pair with bated amusement.

"Me and Will, are hawks." Matthew smiled crookedly before returning to his sketch, unbothered.

…

Will walked to his locker at the end of the day. He was surprised once more to find another package there. This one was slimmer in width, and lengthy in height. He opened it to reveal a hair comb styled like a switch-blade. 

Are you calling my hair messy? Will wondered. He flipped it around and in between his fingers.

" You like it don't you ?" Ed's disembodied voice whispered. " I always admired you, Will ."

Will spun his head around. His eyes grew frantic, finding no one but himself in the hallway. 

" Don't forget me ."