Don't Give Me Hope

Jed rolled over in the bed and punched down his pillow, irritated. He didn’t know how anyone could sleep with the racket the twins were making outside. Even with the doors to the slaughterhouse firmly shut, he could hear their howls all the way up at the house, along with the screams of whoever had the misfortune to be caught in one of their traps that afternoon. It wasn’t usually something he allowed them to indulge in so close to home, but there was no one else to pick up the slack there. Jesse had sliced his arm open on a rusty scythe in one of the barns, leading to stitches and tetanus shots (read: expensive), which meant he and Abram were working overtime at the butcher shop to keep up shorthanded until he’d healed. If the twins didn't do it, it just went to waste.

"Fucking Christ," he growled, sitting up again as a particularly loud wail drifted through the open window. He had half a mind to hang them both on a meat hook himself if it meant he wouldn't be dead on his feet at work tomorrow. He got up to close the window, heat be damned, and crawled back into bed. He hadn’t even settled down again when the creak of a floorboard announced someone's presence, and he blinked over at a shadowy figure that had to be Robin. There were no guards on her door anymore. She could have made a run for it. She could have cut their throats while they were sleeping. It sounded more restful than what was happening right now.

"Hey…" He looked on with concern. Obviously, the noise was keeping her up too.

It didn’t fit neatly beside the violence.

And somehow that made all of it feel more real instead of less.

Her fingers tightened faintly around his when he mentioned their mother, something deep in Robin’s chest aching unexpectedly at the softness in his voice when he spoke about her. There was no performance in it. No attempt to make himself look better. If anything, it sounded like someone carefully handling pieces of a life he didn’t let himself touch very often anymore. Robin found herself trying to picture it despite herself—a younger version of him standing in a garden behind the house while his mother worked, Jesse still small enough to fit beside him without tension living in his shoulders yet, Patience laughing somewhere nearby before the world changed around all of them. The image felt painfully normal.

“You sound different when you talk about them,” Robin murmured quietly after a long stretch of listening, her voice rough around the edges but steadier now than it had been before. “Not different in a bad way,” she added softly a second later, like she didn’t want him misunderstanding her. “Just… lighter, I think.” Another scream echoed from outside, muffled more by distance this time than anything else, and her body still reacted instinctively—a small tightening, fingers curling hard around his for a second before she forced herself to unclench again. She hated that she was already adjusting to it. Hated even more that the safest place in this house somehow seemed to be beside the man everyone else feared most.

“You’re very diplomatic about telling me I look like hell,” he murmurs, finally glancing toward Hannibal. There’s a beat where he studies him — that calm, attentive way Hannibal has of watching people like he’s cataloging every small fracture they try to hide.

At the question, though, his movement slows. For a moment he says nothing, gaze drifting toward the darkened apartment beyond the kitchen before he exhales quietly through his nose. “Restaurant stuff,” Alex says at first, automatic and insufficient. Then his shoulders loosen slightly in reluctant surrender. “Investor meetings. Staff shortages. One of my sous chefs quit mid-service three nights ago because apparently getting screamed at over truffle oil was his breaking point.” The corner of his mouth twitches faintly without humor. “Which honestly… fair.” His eyes flick briefly toward the knife Hannibal’s turning in his hand. “And I haven’t really stopped moving since. Because if I stop moving, I usually start thinking.”

The threat lands hollow when the corner of his mouth keeps threatening to curve upward anyway.

He hears the dramatic boredom in her voice and finally gives in with a quiet sigh through his nose, setting the spoon down long enough to grab a second tasting spoon from beside the stove. “You’re impossible,” he mutters, though there’s too much fondness in it to mean anything sharp. Then he turns and crosses back toward her, stopping just close enough to hold the spoon out in offering.

Jesse hiked the woods at least once a week, twice or more if he had the time, to check on the twins' traps. He didn't know where all of them were, and they moved them often, but some of the larger ones--like the spike pit--were too labor intensive to move on a whim. There was no good trapping if they were just going to leave the meat to rot, as Jed had reminded them again and again, so it was mostly for him that he made these weekly circuits. His oldest brother took a lot on his shoulders, and Jesse tried whenever he could to make life a little easier for him. God knew Zeke and Eli weren't going to.

The woods were practically their natural habitat anyway, and there was something soothing about the routine, his mind settling as he hiked the familiar-to-him terrain. Most people would find it almost impassable way out here, and while he knew there was a mapped trail nearby, it was a challenge even for experienced hikers. Jesse took tourists on it a couple times a year for the extra cash-- and yes, he always brought them back alive. It was bad for business if people went missing on his watch. The safest way in and out of these woods was with a guide.

There was a steep ravine up ahead, and he skirted carefully along the edge. It was climbable, but he didn't fancy clawing his way back out if he didn't have to, and an accidental fall down there could be fatal if the hiker was very unlucky. Occasionally, he came across an animal that fell in and couldn't get out. There was something else down there today, and his eyes widened as they picked out a human shape. "Hey! Are you okay?"

At his question, she tested a little weight on it and immediately winced, shaking her head with a quiet laugh that sounded more frustrated than amused. “Okay, yeah. That’s a no.” Her shoulders sagged briefly before she glanced back up at him, a little embarrassed all over again. “I promise I’m normally much more capable than this. Falling into ravines just isn’t one of my stronger skills.”

But when he mentioned staying out here if he had to, something softer crossed her face. Surprise, maybe. Or gratitude she didn’t quite know what to do with yet. “You’d really stay?” she asked quietly, searching his expression like she was trying to figure out if anyone could actually mean that so casually.

The woods suddenly felt less endless than they had an hour ago.