#tcncommandmcnts

      BROWS ARCH AND LIPS PULL DOWNWARD    into    a   comical   frown   .    shoulders   roll    into    a    shrug   and    lips    twist    upward   to    form    a   smile  .    “Sorry.”    he   was    proud    of   himself    regardless   ,    for    picking    him   out   .   “Does that mean you’re investigating something?”    brown    coquettes   narrow   .      /   @tcncommandmcnts  .

❛ Apparently, I'm NOT the only one in this BAR, tonight... ❜

unprompted asks || always accepting ! 

a curious but well guarded STARE -- he considers, he observes, and the beast within his gaze PROWLS.  snipped from the same cloth -- Hannibal doesn’t necessarily think so.   His answering smile is a thing of curiosity and indulgence ... 

“ Am I ? “  And he circles, hands settled so naturally in his pockets.  They share something -- he wonders if John knows what it is.  ( No, how could he, of course ?  The blood on his hands, washed clean, cannot be washed away from the eyes of a GOD.  The human soul is an intricate and lovely thing and John’s .... John’s is the color and taste of blood. ) 

“Would that be so bad?”

they’re a tangle of limbs, sweat, and sore muscles on the bed. matthew hasn’t known calm save for these rare moments where john is so close he could easily taste him. instead he closes his eyes, cards his fingers through sweaty dark hair and hums softly. there is peace here, craft from hungry fingers and desperate kisses. it started as a slow dance this time, just playful touches stolen while they’d gone about the day almost mundanely.

it ended up with matthew between john’s thighs down on his knees, looking up at him as though the man hung the moon in the sky and breathed purpose in his lungs.

there was the difference with john, he was never on his knees for long no, those fingers coax him up and when he’s dragged up to meet his lips john regards him as matthew imagines an equal. mirrored souls, he’d mused with one night, drawn in again and again by haunting blue eyes and the kindness of those hands.

ruination sounds exquisite now that john mentions it with breathless humor.

legs snare hips and teeth sink possessive against john’s throat, matthew rolls with his weight until he’s astride him with a satisfied smirk.

“John!” James grins, lifts his hand to give the other ghost a friendly slap on the back. It was unfortunate that the detective didn’t make it back to the hotel  —  a friend lost, only to be seen on Halloween. James would be more than happy to have him as a permanent resident once again.

“It’s always a pleasure having you! I must say, the Cortez has never truly felt whole since you passed.”

you rude ass heaux . unprompted husband asks 1 / ???

when he finds john’s body, he forgets to breathe.

the truth was always there, in the way their forays never quite left the boundaries of the hotel john called home. it was evident in how he never once questioned the odd hours john kept or the fact a hotel was his home. he remembers feeling burnt by chilled fingers and breathless come morning. john is a collective of passionate vibrancy in his lungs; kisses, fingers twisted on sheets, the knife slicing into flesh, the taste of blood on his lips, a shared kill. john is a great many things in matthew’s mind and a consuming fire in his heart.

above all things though, john was dead.

soft words, soft fingers, both touch and ply at the nape of his neck.

a broken plea, a mantra begging to be wrong falls silent on his lips. his fingers are still twisted violent into old fabric, the stench of decay rising up as he sees countless bullet wounds in the tattered sweater.

fingers ply to his jaw now, coaxing him away from one half of the truth and tears blind him at first as he grips john’s wrist, as he feels him warm beneath his hands.

“how long...?”

how pitifully quiet and small his voice has become, a tremor of a gasp filling his lungs and stifling the sob clenched vicious at his throat. matthew does not look at the past, the navy blue sweater and the rotted flesh. no, he looks up at blue eyes and the comforting presence of here and now, of john’s voice whispering gently to him.

“what does this mean john? are you-? was it real?”

are you real?

he reaches for him then, tasting tears on his lips as he cradles john’s face closer, as he kisses his sorrow onto the familiarity of his mouth. I couldn’t save you, naively he wants to shout, to shake the corpse left as a footnote to who john lowe was when living. it feels real enough to kiss him until his lungs hurt.

fingers twist in dark hair and he looks up at those haunting blue eyes.

“how do I fix this?”

it’s rare but it happens, here he is sitting at a bar and there’s a voice coming sweetly over his shoulder, matthew is surprised. the words offer promise, offer something more and he finds himself refraining from baring teeth and instead choosing to follow the lure of the man’s warm smile. again he is surprised at how easily that smile gets beneath the armor of his mask.

i know, it whispers warm and silken, i know what you are.

again he is surprised when after exchanged names and two drinks, john takes his hand in his own and presses lips to his knuckles. he asks matthew to dinner, to see him again more intimately. in private there’s no need for masks don’t you agree matty? he’d said, whispered against his ear like it was a secret. how could he refuse such casual intimacy? at last a kindred spirit saw him and desired him not for violence’s sake but for the simplest need of all; companionship.

his breath comes undone first, quivering under john’s lips.

dinner never happens as one expects, instead matthew is unmade beneath first tender lips and then clever hands. how sweetly he cries, held to muscle and flesh and bone, falling victim to primeval hungers. to rut. to devour. john’s hands lay claim to the aching skin of his thighs, to the arch of his throat. john’s teeth descend ravenous to a shoulder and coax matthew to crying out, to begging with basic wants.

please, he pants out against sheets, against lips he takes to his mouth and nips at with quiet affection, with desperate need, please don’t stop.

it is in the morning, in the wake of reckoning, that he knows his world is utterly ruined and defined by bruised lips and the warmth of john’s smile, the way his hand upon his cheek settles the quaking restlessness in matthew’s chest. more than his world, his reason for wandering, for circling searching searching searching has been destroyed with the taste of john’s lips come morning.

tonight, john asks, searching his face, will I see you again?

matthew is silent, hungry in a way that no pleasure can satiate. he makes no promise and says goodbye with a kiss, fortifying his heart against the inevitable break when john grows weary and tosses him aside. so he hunts, circling and breathing in the day while waiting hungrily for the night. what he cannot expect is for him.

it is in the night, they bare their souls and he sees john, perceives him with blood on his breath, and truly sees him. matthew has not once felt his heart ache so profoundly since graham, since before. his prey lay squirming between them and john’s next words shake him, the same words when they first met.

“you’re not what I expected.”

john’s fingers ply through blood, cupping his cheek, and how easily he falls to it. matthew’s eyes flutter close and his mind races searching for answers and wondering if it was wrong to hope. he meets john’s gaze then, part starved for attention part quiet cruel calculation should this be too good to be true.

“we’re full of surprises,” matthew whispers and stands quiet as john startles him once more, as he surprises him with his action. by taking the knife from his hand and driving it clean into the muscle of shoulder, claiming the warmth of his prey and leaving nothing but cooling meat at their feet. his heart races anew and he thinks, he preys, he is not dreaming as he often did. they are blood and teeth and hunger together and at last he feels whole.

john’s eyes do not look away when he pulls free the knife, admiring instead as matthew carves and twists, creating something intimate from flesh and bone. a serenade for the predator perched at his side, for the hawk that’s chosen to alight to the same branch as him. when he finishes, he touches john’s cheek, regards him in a new light when he sees the pleased sort of smile on those lips.

“it’s beautiful in a way,” john says, stealing a kiss from him.