Hannibal's house (that Jono clearly thinks is his), Sunday

[sharp_as_knives]

Despite Hannibal's former office well on its way to being converted to a workout room, Jono had gone out running today. Since it generally took him a while, Hannibal had decided it would be the perfect time for a very personal meal.

After his run, Jono had worked out. And then headed for the sauna. Hannibal sent him a bit of amused approval as he plated his lunch, then let him have his time alone - his wrappings hadn't gone back on in over a week now, but he had needed a bit more decompression time after returning home. It was a work in progress.

Meanwhile, he was going to enjoy his pot au feu - marrow bones to one side with some very good salt and toasted baguette slices, tender meat sliced thin with vegetables arranged nicely among the slices, and just a bit of mustard and horseradish swirled in.

Bon(e) appetit was probably too obvious a pun, wasn't it? Never mind, then.



[OOC: WARNING - CANNIBALISM. Contents of Hannibal's meal (and thus the discussion about it) very much NFB.]

Comments

[furnaceface]

Hannibal, you really knew Jono well, didn't you? Because of course he was keeping himself locked in too tightly. He used to do this to himself so often he just accepted it as status quo. These days, he'd relaxed so much that slamming up those walls was what took the effort.

He sort of wished he could sigh, right then.

//S'not so bad as all that. Keeps the voices out. Quiet's good for a headache, innit?//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal gave Jono a look. "Restful quiet is. Silence isn't. A bit of white noise is all to the good. Your muscles aren't the only thing," he paused to dig at one of those bunched shoulders, "that's too tense."

[furnaceface]

Jono's brow furrowed a little, mostly in reaction to the fingers working at his shoulders, and he opened his eyes again to stare at the sprawled-out felines on the bench nearby. They had it all figured out, didn't they?

//I think 'tense' is more or less the default state for most of me, Hannibal,// he muttered, shaking his head a little. //But sometimes I need the quiet, too. When your mind is constantly listening in to the thoughts and feelings and sensations of all of the other minds around you, it's easy to get lost in it. White noise doesn't hurt, but sometimes I need to shut it all off just to be able to figure out where I fit, without the rest of the world chattering at the borders.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal nudged Jono to lie down so he could get at those shoulders and his back. "You fit here," he said. "And the only chatter nearby will be me and the cats." If they were thinking anything other than purring. "Don't stretch out, but don't tense up, either." He firmed his lips for a moment, then went for the bluntness Jono sometimes seemed to need. "There's nothing more sinister in me now than you're used to seeing every day."

[furnaceface]

And the flamingos outside (who mostly just dreamed of shrimp) and the rest of the residents of the island, because it wasn't as though the house's walls kept their voices out, either, but Jono didn't think Hannibal would buy for a second that these barriers were because of them. He wrinkled his nose a little, but obediently stretched himself out -- physically, not psionically -- across the part of the bench that wasn't currently being taken up by Hannibal and the fuzzballs.

//No, I know,// he allowed, and tentatively nudged his own barriers down, just a little, giving a little psionic brush against the corners of Hannibal's consciousness, just for a brief moment, long enough to demonstrate that he was letting his guard down somewhat. //You're no less you than you were yesterday, or the day before. Same man I said 'yes' to and all that. I guess I just...// Hm. Just what? Even Jono wasn't certain what reply was the correct one, all of a sudden. //I'm not afraid of seeing something new and terrifying in you or anything like that. If I was, I'd be doing more than putting up a wall. Go looking, maybe. Or head in the other direction instead. Lord knows I'm good at running.//

This was true, more or less. Jono was an excellent runner. Usually in moments when running was a terrible idea.

[sharp_as_knives]

"What, then?" Hannibal asked. He got a bit more oil and brought it to bear on a particularly hard knot between Jono's shoulder blades. He had rather a good idea himself, but yes, Jono was very good at running. It would require a singular mix of bluntness and delicacy. "Afraid you won't be as horrified as you feel you should be?"

[furnaceface]

Jono's wince this time was less about the knot and more about the words.

Ouch.

//Possibly that.// Almost certainly that. //I don't know that there's much that I can find out about you that'll horrify me more than any of the rest of it. I just... maybe I'm more concerned about what I'll find out about me.//

There really was no better way to put that one.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal soothed Jono's muscles with his hands. "And if you find out that it's something you could enjoy rather than condone, what would that say about you?" he asked gently. "That we share something more in common? That you know more today about yourself than yesterday? That you're capable of looking past learned mores and discovering your own right and wrong?"

[furnaceface]

And now Jonothon had to fall silent for a little longer, still. He didn't want to just out and say that he had a line drawn in the sand, that there were some things he'd rather never have in common with Hannibal. But this conversation was starting to feel like a sandy pit, and the more he struggled to climb back up the side of it, the more his footholds crumbled and fell loose, sending him sliding back downward again.

//Maybe that's what I'm afraid of. That I don't entirely know what it would say about me, anymore.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal strengthened his grip just a little, more a gentle massage than an outright caress. "Do you know what it would say about you to me?" he asked. "That you enjoy the taste of a meal well-prepared, regardless of its origins." He leaned forward to kiss Jono's head. "No more and no less." No judgement.

[furnaceface]

//To you, of course it would,// Jono pointed out, voice still just a murmur all the same. //It's your cooking.//

You possibly had a slight bias, there, Hannibal.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal shrugged, acknowledging the bias. "So, until you have a better idea, use mine. Or come up with another."

Carefully.

[furnaceface]

Carefully was pretty much the name of the game right now, yes. Jono glanced over his shoulder at Hannibal, flames a dim, deep red, like guttering embers struggling to stay lit. His eyes had gone a sort of fiery orange to match.

//I respect you,// he said, finally. //I care for you very much, and in most things... I trust your judgment, implicitly. More than I trust my own, most days. My own judgment is... suspect, at times. More than I care to admit.//

He looked back downward again, glowing eyes settling on the bench underneath him, and then shrugged his shoulders just a little.

//But I do know when I'm not ready for something, Hannibal. I'm damaged, but I'm not a child.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"You don't have to be a child to be uncertain," Hannibal answered. He wiped his hands on the towel and came to sit on the floor by Jono's head, fingers in his hair.

"You don't have to be ready for this yet, either. Just remember that it isn't a failure to change your mind, and it isn't weakness, either. Should you decide this is never a thing you'll enjoy with me, well - there are tastes of yours I don't share, either. I only ask that you base that decision on your own needs and desires, rather than those imposed upon you by unknown authority figures in any one of your lives. Can you do that?"

[furnaceface]

//It's really been no secret for quite some time that I have a few problems with authority,// Jono noted, his voice carrying the vaguest notion of amusement. //I promise you, Hannibal, these problems are my own. Probably stemming, in no small part, to the sheer number of times I've almost been eaten, myself.//

Those experiences certainly hadn't helped, anyway.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled back. "It's hardly my fault that there are some rather unsavory people out there." He wasn't even sorry for the pun, no. He petted Jono's hair, rubbing his scalp. "Do you know, I still haven't given up on that promise? Until you could trust my judgement, I said, I would only eat those I was certain you would approve of. You've trusted my judgement for some time, I think, but I'm still holding to that restriction. It's regrettably easy."

[furnaceface]

//Figured you were,// Jono muttered, leaning his head into Hannibal's touch again. Didn't matter what he was conflicted with, good still felt good, damn it. //If ever I doubted, trust me, I'd be bringing it up with you. I appreciate it, you know.//

That Hannibal was holding back, restricting his options. He figured Hannibal knew him well enough to understand which horrible people were fair game, when it came to murder. Even these days, coming to re-discover a respect for life again, there was no shortage of scum to choose from.

//Maybe...// He mulled on it for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. //Maybe at least part of it is that it's a reminder that those people are out there. It's one thing to kill. I'm not completely certain how I feel about bringing it home.//

It was probably worth noting that this wasn't Jonothon asking Hannibal to stop bringing it home. It was Hannibal's home before Jono had moved in, for a start. It was more that he was sorting, now. He could excuse a lot in the heat of the moment, could excuse reflex and reaction and desperation and rage. Cooking and eating the results were something else entirely. Something colder and more calculated, more vicious, that involved holding on to that moment well after it was gone.

Frankly, Jonothon didn't have that kind of energy.

[sharp_as_knives]

Vicious? Not at all. It was merely turning ugliness into art. Redeeming the irredeemable. Perhaps a bit of a nose thumbed in their face, but Hannibal was rarely vicious. Viciousness caused too many mistakes.

"For each one in here, there is one fewer out there," he pointed out. "One section of lives made more pleasant by its absence." Not to mention any that were discouraged by the artistic displays he left behind. He shrugged. "But that isn't what I bring home. What I bring home is only material."

[furnaceface]

//Only material?// Jono was looking over at Hannibal again, eyebrow raised. //You mean you don't think about who they were when you eat them? About what they did?//

Come to think of it, he'd never really asked if they got that much consideration once they'd made it from murder scene to roasting pan.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal shrugged. "Occasionally, perhaps, I reflect upon their improvement. But for the most part, no. I enjoy my art more than their ugliness." It wasn't their lives that made it into his memory palace; it was the artistry at their ends.

[furnaceface]

//Then they're just meat, another ingredient,// Jono murmured, and now he was reaching out to tickle Joni's belly, because she'd just rolled over and stretched, and sometimes a person just needed to spring the therapeutic cat belly trap. //I suppose if you never really think of them as people in the first place, if they never deserved that sort of consideration, that would almost seem like the logical next step...//

Some parts of his head were finding this easier to wrap around than others, go figure.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal just nodded and reached out to scratch Joni's head. She was in heaven, the tiny thing. (Beethoven was decidedly ignoring them all.) "Animals are often much more deserving."

The cats certainly agreed.

[furnaceface]

//I have yet to meet any who have convinced me otherwise,// Jono allowed. //Animals do what they do to survive. Most people, because they enjoy the way that making other people feel small makes them feel big.//

How many of humanity's worst horrors were because somebody had decided that their own lives and experiences were somehow worth so much more than somebody else's? At least when it came to animals, that wasn't generally because of a conscious decision made to not empathize.

[sharp_as_knives]

Whereas Hannibal's own horrors and art involved quite a bit of empathy - but rarely in the favor of the ones he killed.

"And some enjoy it even though it grants them nothing, and they know it will grant them nothing, and yet they persist in their rudenesses and petty cruelties." Hannibal's expression said what he thought of them. "Animals are never randomly so ugly."

[furnaceface]

//Oh, I don't know. Joni's relentless when stalking crickets,// Jono murmured, giving her tummy (so fuzzy!) another tickle. //Never did anything t'you, luv, did they?//

There was purring involved. She was already forgiven.

Little monster.

//I suppose there is a fair bit of difference between people and crickets.//