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With a violence that started intimately at the center of your chest, you felt as if you were being yanked out of your bed. Sweat, once slick and warm, had effectively dried to most parts of your quaking body. Still shaking fiercely, you managed to push off your duvet and scampered to the kitchen for a glass of water. 

Dazed from waking so harshly, you reached into one of the kitchen cabinets for a cup decorated with constellations–a birthday gift when you were still small and effortlessly impressionable. Though, when you thought about it, in the here-and-now you were faring much the same. The mere insinuation of discomfort, suffering, or danger and your heart would startle like a dove to flight. 

And there was simply so much to fear nowadays. 

Glancing over at the oven clock, the hour declared itself in a dull, neon hue: 3:15 AM

Perfect. Only two more hours roughly until your actual alarm would sound off leaving you a very structured amount of time to go for a run, come home, shower, eat breakfast and take the bus to your job at the library until eight with only a paltry hour lunch to break up the day. All of that followed by classes online…

Half of you wanted to simply stay home and risk losing that job. Not to relax of course. 

In your fathers’ absence, the apartment had become rather cluttered. Between the three of them, books were askew all over the floor, boxes of artifacts stacked haphazardly on top of one another, and so much dust and debris on the ground that you could feel it through your socks. 

Marc had promised to help with the cleaning after they returned from Egypt, but that had been almost three months ago, and none of them were answering their phone.

It was just you, the messy apartment, your job and the burdens of the world left to rest on your weary shoulders. 

Against your own control you let out a stifled croak before feeling warm tears freefall down your face. If you could have sunk through the floor, through the foundation of the apartment building and into the warmth of the earth, you might have welcomed it. 

Instead, you pressed your face into your waiting hands and sobbed loud enough for only the family goldfish to hear. The long working hours, the meager pay, the bills that effortlessly burned through each bi-weekly paycheck, the news–incessant and increasingly fraught with brutality and death. You cried quietly for your life–the carousel of grief you could not step off of for even a moment of respite. 

And then your name. 

Called so quietly, you could have imagined it. But upon picking up your head, you could see Jake standing only a few feet away. At first you peered at him, wondering if the lack of sleep and the surplus of anxiety was manifesting by way of hallucinations. 

“Shit.”

You could have sworn he looked ill, but perhaps that was due to the blue light from Gus II’s fishtank. 

“Look, we’re sorry,” he started, his hands already laid out in recompense, “we should have called, should have texted, and come home like we said–”

Moving on instinct alone, you scrambled out of your chair and sized their travel bag before bolting from the kitchen and toward your room. 

“What the hell are you doing??” Marc’s panicked voice followed you close behind. “We’re sorry! Just–give that back!” 

It was wholly and utterly foolish, but you believed with your whole heart that if you chucked their bag off the balcony, they wouldn’t be able to leave again, at least for a while anyways. “No!!”

“You’re over-exhausted!” Faster than you, Marc grasped you around your shoulders and pulled you back from the sliding door that led to the balcony. 

He could feel the way you trembled and recognized it immediately. He would bet every cent of theirs that you hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and more than likely had reverted back to one of your regrettable habits–subsisting off of dry cereal and Red Bull. Thank the gods, you gave up almost immediately, dropping their bag and yielding to Marc’s embrace. 

“Jesus, kid…” He breathed before settling on the plush chair next to your bed.

Your choked cries faded into a weary silence. Marc, with one hand, reached for a tissue with which to clean away your tears. 

“I take it you missed us.” 

His attempt at humor had you huffing in reply. “You’re a liar. All of you. ‘We’ll be back soon’, you said. Does "soon” mean three months??”

“No…we…things didn’t go as planned.”

Briefly looking them over, you could see the bulk under their clothes. Underneath there was likely a trove of new, bandaged wounds that would require daily care. 

“Did you almost die?”

“Ah…you could call it that.” There was no use in lying to you; they all knew as much. “That’s why we didn’t call, it's why we didn’t come home right away. There was no way to get out of the country while we were compromised.”

Since you became aware of the nature of their work, you had learned not to press for details besides what you absolutely had to know. There was only so much you could handle before descending into a void of worry and complete confusion. It was easier to imagine them as anything other than the right hand of an Egyptian deity. Perhaps a travel writer, or even an actor travelling all across time zones…

“Layla was there. And Khonshu, he protects us when we get in over our head.” Steven suddenly offered, having noticed your impending bout of despair. “But we are sorry.”

“You said that already. And for the record I’m still pissed.” It sounded pathetic when contrasted with the veiled nature of their work.

“Well, for the record, we can also tell.” Steven gave you a gentle squeeze as if the extra pressure would dispel your frustration. “But we promise to make it up to you.” 

“I…” you sighed, trying to parse through your thoughts before speaking again. “I don’t need you guys to make it up to me. I just want you to be home. Trying to keep this all together, it was like pitching water in a sinking ship! Every day I wondered if–if I was just going in circles for no reason at all because you might actually have been killed!”

“That’s not–”

“It's happened before.” You muttered lowly before feeling Steven tense just slightly. 

He could feel the urge to bite back with his wordsThis was more than you could ever understand, more than you would allow yourself to understand and here you were bickering with him as if you were once again ten and determined to ignore your bedtime. But this was not the verbal defiance of a blubbering brat. This was their child, grown enough to worry for their wellbeing, old enough to manage their material affairs in their regrettable absence. 

“We’re sorry.” Was all Steven could offer for a third time. 

There were no guarantees in their life. Their next otherworldly endeavor could thrust them towards the precipice of some ancient peril with only the fealty of a moon deity to ensure their safety. Still holding you, Steven could feel your heartbeat, sure and frenetic. 

“Things have calmed down some…” Steven’s words were partially true. “We’ll all be around for a bit longer so you can focus on classes. That sounds good, yeah?”

He was steering clear of anything reminiscent of a promise. With a quiet sigh, you buried your face against their shoulder, allowing yourself to believe in a moment’s peace. 

“Yeah, that sounds good. Just…stay. For a few weeks. Nothing less.”

Glistening and teeming with fleshy juice, you watched Hannibal place the still-steaming portion of venison on the awaiting silver platter that lay in the center of the dining table, flanked by two stag antlers. The aroma: nutty, oaky and with the faintest touch of sweetness. Honey perhaps? Some iteration of a huckleberry reduction? It was difficult to discern and perhaps that was by your father’s design. This particular dish required a patient, refined palette fitting for the resplendent guest at the other end of the elongated table.

With the countenance of an angel, a crown, a tumble of chestnut curls framed Will Graham’s face, enhancing the startling quality of his bright eyes. Though he carried a palpable air of perpetual melancholy on his shoulders, it was second to the princely beauty found in everything from the curve of his lips to the quiet strength of his lithe body. 

No wonder Hannibal was eager to impress. 

Almost as eager as he was for you to remain polite above all things. 

“A touch of white raspberry reduction…”

A warm drizzle trickled over the meat from the silver spoon in Hannibal’s hand. When you and your father’s guest had taken in the spectacle, Hannibal went about serving Will first, then himself, and then you before taking his respective seat. 

“Will Graham, tonight I have the pleasure of introducing to you someone very close to my heart. My greatest joy.”

Waving briefly, amicably, you met Will’s fleeting gaze. 

The man seemed young, for Hannibal at least. But he was overly fond of beautiful things and Will was nothing if not the epitome of princely beauty. 

After waiting a whole minute to gather his thoughts, Will finally addressed you with more than just a nod. 

“Hannibal has said a lot about you. You’re quite the…” Even he could see the slight bruises and bandages poking out from under your long sleeves and collar, “adventurer.”

“When I want to be.” You replied with an easy smile that made Will divert his gaze back to Hannibal. 

“Will is somewhat of an adventurer himself.” Your father interjected while cutting into his venison with a fork and knife. “Though he prefers tamer adventures that are less likely to invite sudden death.”

Your smile dissipated into the stuffy dining room air. 

They spoke of concepts and memories that held little interest for you. While you took a moment to savor a bite of Hannibal’s delectable culinary creation, there was also the stifled, agonizing throbbing all along your side that still had to be reckoned with. 

Once Hannibal was finished parading his intellect around the dining room and in front of his new fiance, then you could finally lay down like you so desperately wanted to. After the crash and the scolding you had endured, some time alone to stew in your thoughts and pain was well in order. 

As you speared a slice of venison with your fork, you couldn’t help but glance back at Will who was pleasantly engaging in some verbal sparring with Hannibal. Out of all the people in the world, why did he have to choose this singular man from the desolate stretches of Virginia? And all without giving you the slightest hint that he was even seeing anyone. 

After a minute of rumination, it made more sense. The two of you hardly spent any time at home, and when you did that time tended to be solitary. Your father had his realm in his room and study and you had yours. He did pass by your bedroom on occasion, but for the most part kept his thoughts to himself and at a safe distance. Somewhere in the old chaos of adolescence, a chasm had soundlessly erupted between the two of you. Why not fill it with something more willing? 

“You’re welcome to stay here in the interim, Will.” Hannibal tossed his voice enough to snatch your attention. “It would do us all well to get acquainted better.”

“You’ll be staying?” You managed to say without sounding like Will’s presence was suctioning all the air from the room. “For how long?”

“For how long? For the foreseeable future, I’d assume.” Will replied with a wry smile. 

Looking at Hannibal, he merely passed you a disinterested stare. 

The words left your mouth in a single breath. “You could have asked, Dr. Lecter.”

Letting your fork clatter against your plate, you removed yourself hastily from the dining table before hastening upstairs. After slamming your door shut and throwing the latch, you eased yourself down on the plush duvet atop your bed. The road rash burned, your muscles, the taught plum-colored bruises, all of it the fruit of your misadventure, pulsed sharply in unison. And though your helmet had insulated you from more exhaustive injuries, a new headache started to form at the base of your neck.  

Leave it to Hannibal. Leave it to that bastard, more sentinel than man to completely upend the home life you were tethered to for eternity.

 Feasibly, could you leave? 

Perhaps. 

On your bike and with enough funds, you could perhaps make it a few months out on your own before Hannibal inevitably found you by scent alone. 

That night you slept in your day clothes, too overwhelmed to do much of anything else except sleep away your pain and irritation. It was the clatter of an early morning thunderstorm that pried you from that much needed slumber. The rain brushing against the planes of your vast windows and the disgruntled grumbling of distant thunder was tame all things considered, but after last night’s dinner, you wished for more respite. 

Your bandages felt stale and rigid with blood, practically demanding you change them and thus you hauled yourself up and out of bed before spotting something on the floor close to the door. With a slight limp, you trudged forward. 

A letter? 

It couldn’t have possibly been from Hannibal. Taking it  into your hand, the material felt flimsy, likely an envelope purchased from any local ninety-nine cent store with your name scrawled hastily on the front. Peeling open the dried glue keeping the envelope sealed, you might have thought it was empty save the singular business card inside. 

Will Graham 

Special Agent | Instructor of Record

Federal Bureau of Investigation 

(703)-***-****

And in sloppy sharpie: Call me!

Translate this sentence: If he’s working at the restaurant, he won’t be able to come to the concert at nine.

 Glaring at your laptop screen, you could feel a cluster headache starting to form, its presence looming at the base of your neck. 

 Who cares if he is at the restaurant? Who cares if he isn’t able to come to the concert at nine! Who the hell is he anyways??

Gods above and below, you could hardly stomach another conjugation exercise. If the stats bar was any indication of your language proficiency and process, you were sitting at an unsightly 54%.

It wasn’t a matter of motivation. More than any other learning endeavor, you wished to be proficient, dare you say, fluent in Spanish. Many of your friends conversed in a lively flow of innate Spanish that had always eluded your comprehension. Their cadence was so swift, the various dialects colored by distinct intricacies that had you searching for meaning that tended to come too late if at all. 

Jake, Steven and Marc had all offered their own expertise. Active learning in the throes of conversation would offer a fuller sense of language immersion, but you could only imagine yourself stumbling your way through even the most basic verb conjugations and sentences. Just imagining your own humiliation had you waving away their offer. 

With the last vestiges of your patience, you typed your answer into the text box before pressing enter on your keyboard. As if mocking you loudly and with short fanfare, the language app emitted a sharp buzz before highlighting your answer in red. Your answer was unequivocally wrong except for a few nouns, bringing your accuracy percentage down to 51%. 

“Fuck!” 

In a burst of anger, you brought your fists down on your laptop keyboard with enough force to make the goldfish tank tremble nearby. 

“Okay. That’s enough. You’re done for today.”

Having heard your outburst from the living room, Marc made his way hastily to your side before closing your battered laptop and tucking it under his left arm. 

“What the hell is going on with you, kid? That’s like the third time this week.”

In short, the three of them were not around as often as any of you would have liked. Their fates were intertwined with something within the dire straights of the divine. And while you loved your fathers with a ferocity, when you had first asked them about their work that kept them so far so often, Jake had been the one to tell you not to press and you had listened. Nevertheless, such distance meant they were not privy to the temper you had inherited.

“It’s fine. It's fine. I’m just frustrated.” You muttered with your face pressed against your palms. 

Marc, could recognize himself in the way you immediately bottled your anger when he entered the kitchen. He could see himself in the way you would monitor him sidelong, calculating when he would leave you to your anger in peace. 

“Yeah. ‘Fine’. You’re not fine. Come on, holding it in won’t do you any good.”

A torrent of beginnings, placations, words of affirmation wormed their way to the tip of Marc’s tongue only for Steven to find it in your best interest to take a more balanced approach. 

That near-permanent purl of tension between their brows eased. With a light breath, you could recognise Steven’s presence and the impending lecture that would follow. 

“I’m sorry for losing control like that,” you started, looking down at the kitchen table, “I don’t mean to–”

“Yeah, we know you don’t mean to and we’re not angry.” Steven released a measured sigh before gently patting your hand. A touch awkward, but you could appreciate the sentiment. “I think we’re just worried, and I’m worried about what….that means. You’ve been awfully tense lately.”

“The losing control part?”

Steven nodded. 

“Great.”

The threshold of your control had been waning for days now. Language learning aside, you found yourself thoroughly irritated with the world on a near-molecular level. Coursework, your health, your job, obnoxious co-workers, the neighbors that always pestered you with questions about your fathers…

Such worldly stressors frayed your patience to the point of hypersensitivity. The very texture of your clothes, the brush of your own hair against your face was enough to raise your blood pressure, if only for a moment. 

“I’m fine, really.” Sparing a glance in Steven’s direction, his eyes, almost perpetually pleading, made your throat clench. “Everything is just…overwhelming. And learning Spanish isn’t exactly helping.”

“Spanish?” Incredulous, Steven leaned forward as if to ensure he was hearing correctly. “But you’ve always been a brilliant student.”

‘Brilliant’ felt delusional and rather generous. 

Before you could respond dryly, you watched Steven tense before relaxing once again.

“What do you mean you’re ‘struggling’ with Spanish??”

You could have laughed at the dire expression Jake bore that bordered on exaggeration. The very notion that his kid was struggling with Spanish seemed too much for the man. 

“You never told us you were struggling with Spanish? How long have you been struggling? What doesn’t make sense? Why didn’t you say something sooner? Have you been watching the videos I send you?”

“Papá!” Cutting him off with a strained smile, you could tell he had on deck another twenty or so questions to bombard you with. “It’s not life or death, I’m just struggling! That’s it. I’m overwhelmed with…everything.” You confessed with a placatory gesture of your hand.” But I can handle it. Teaching myself this stuff isn’t all it's cracked up to be.”

“Jesucristo…”

Open streams of communication were something the entirety of the family lacked, but seeing it within you had Marc, Steven and Jake wondering what other qualities of theirs you might have harbored. 

“There’s no reason for you to be doing this all by yourself.” When in pensive thought, Jake often brushed his thumb across the trimmed length of his mustache, but now he found himself without that creature comfort. “You know you don’t have to do this all on your own, no?”

At the gentled inflection in his voice, you ceased making eye contact and very rapidly found the floor to be much more interesting than the conversation at hand. 

“Nope. None of that. You don’t have to look me in the eyes but you better be listening to me.” Jake straightened his posture, unwilling to let the conversation go. “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, let us help. I can help you with the Spanish and the others can help around the apartment. I know we leave you in the lurch but it's because…well, maybe there’s no good reason for it, but if you need us, we’ll be there for you. Okay?”

When you failed to answer them Jake leaned closer. “Okay?? I know we’re not parents of the year material, but at least let us help if we can.”

“Yeah, okay, okay, Papá…” 

Finally, you acquiesced. 

With Jake’s help you’d be more casually conversational in a matter of weeks. 

The very idea of Jake as a teacher did bring to mind a rather amusing image given his penchant for nonconformity, but perhaps that would work in both your favors. 

“Don’t give me that look.” Cracking half a smile, Jake was merely bringing back a sense of levity. “I’ll make a fantastic teacher.”

The meteorologist declared from her  segment that everyone on the East side of the country could expect seven to twelve inches of heavy, slushy snow. A wintery mix that would bring humanity to a brief standstill. Having already endured nearly five months of an enduring winter, such news compounded the looming melancholy you had been valiantly keeping at bay. 

In the absence of sunshine and a paltry amount of hope, you remained in bed, forgoing coffee, breakfast, and cuddling with the family cat in favor of stewing in your own misery. 

With the television off and the snow continuing in a constant deluge, you could imagine yourself being buried under a duvet of white. 

“Are you buried under there with Charles?”

Your melancholic peace? 

Dispelled by your singular father. 

Calloused hands patted down your blankets, feeling for your pitiful form. 

“No. Charles isn’t here.” You mumbled in reply, knowing the family cat much preferred to slumber curled up in front of the fireplace when you were mired in a dour mood. 

“Ah, there you are.” Knowing the extent of your patience, your father peeled back your blankets to reveal the very top of your head. “It’s over an hour past your usual waking hour. Are you ill?”

“If I said no you wouldn’t believe me, father.”

As predicted, Hannibal pressed the back of his hand to your forehead before gently pressing his fingers against your throat in a tender search for any swollen lymph nodes. Finding nothing, he settled for sitting tentatively at your desk to avoid overcrowding you. 

“Precisely. Because I am your father, that is why I know something is wrong. At the risk of sounding rather trite, parents know these things. If the matter is not physical, then I must assume it is of the mind.”

Ever your father’s child, you had developed a turbulent sense of interiority throughout the complications of  your youth. 

There was your life with Hannibal and then there was The Before. A time and place your body had forgotten but your mind still held some aged fears and timidities that came with abandonment. Even a thoroughly reasonable person would conclude that between the family you were born to and the one that found you, Hannibal was the more merciful and ever loving of the two. But no matter how many worldly delights he lavished upon you, that innate turmoil had yet to leave you in peace. 

“I don’t want to get out of bed. I…I feel like I’ve had a headache for weeks, and I just ... .I wish I could run. As far as I could. Doesn’t matter where.” You relinquished your words knowing Hannibal knew precisely how to translate your suffering into practical sense. 

“Hm. Are you having nightmares again?”

As you shook your head, Hannibal shifted, half sitting on the edge of your bed. 

With his hands resting rigidly in his lap, your father tried to regard you with as much tranquility as he could manifest. “Have you thought about running away? In earnest?” 

Hannibal always bore his fear with an intensity identifiable only to those who knew where to look. 

The slight shifting of his lower mandible, the soft drumming of his fingers, the way he would position himself before a loved one as if to guard them with his own body–all of it glaring. 

“No, never.” Offering a small smile, you wagered an attempt to diffuse the worry you had inadvertently inspired. “I would miss your cooking too much. Especially now that I know you can make cornbread.”

Hannibal’s jaw relaxed. “Even simple fare has its place within the culinary canon.”

Even you, with an air of despair clutching your shoulders, were still capable of laughing. “You’re too picky, father. There’s only so many fancy dishes I can eat every week.”

“And yet you just confessed to not wanting to run away because you admire said ‘fancy’ cooking.”

“You make Jamón Ibérico casually.”

Like a miffed bull, Hannibal huffed and directed his gaze to the side, guiding the two of you into a lull of curious silence. A creature of your senses, you could taste in the shared air of your bedroom Hannibal’s distress. Despite his refusal to talk of family beyond the two of you, some nosing around his study had revealed the existence of an aunt whose life had been snuffed out at a severe and tender age. In the most basic sense, his sister had left him, or more aptly, was taken from him. 

Even he could not remain unfazed when confronted with such a primal wound. 

“I won’t run away.”  You started softly while sitting up in your bed. “It’s more of a feeling, father; not something I actually want. But even if I did, I think it would be in the same way you run from things. That’s why we move every few years, no?”

Hannibal remained silent but fixed you intently with an unyielding stare. 

“I don’t mind. Not really. If I felt like I really wanted to get away from everything, my feelings… then I’d want you to come with me.”

For a moment, his silence prolonged as he inched closer before wrapping his arms around you and drawing you against his side. 

“Well, you would not run away because I wouldn’t let you. Where you go, I would follow regardless of your youthful whims. So, yes. I share your sentiments, child of mine.”

With each word that left his mouth, Hannibal tightened his grasp around you nominally.

“Hey! You’re gonna crush me!”

Moments of overt physical affection were rare for Hannibal, but not unheard of, though they often felt like a blitz. 

“I am not going to crush you, you’re being dramatic.”

“Tch! I wonder where I get it from…”

While you half-heartedly flailed in an attempt to free yourself from Hannibal’s bear hug, your father chanced a soft laugh.