Hannibal - and what the heck, it's pretty much Jono's - house, FRIDAY night

[sharp_as_knives]

[OOC: Continuation of a thread from here that went private. Warnings for discussion of canon unpleasantness for probably both of them.]



Hannibal lit the fire in the library and settled on the couch, tugging Jono after him. The short walk from the dance had been quiet, but Jono still seemed disinclined to say more, so Hannibal began where they'd left off. Which included his arms around him again.

"I told you once that I was marrying all of you. Do you doubt that?"

Comments

[furnaceface]

//Of course not,// Jono murmured, shaking his head, trying not to curl into himself when he felt Hannibal's arms wrap around him. It was less to get away from Hannibal - he was leaning against Hannibal all the same - and more an attempt to let as little of himself out. His flames still twisted up around the both of them as if they had a mind of their own.

He loathed them, right then.

//I've never known you to say something like that without meaning it. I have no doubt in my mind that you know exactly what it is you're doing.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"You're quite right." Hannibal nodded. "But in order that we should be clear - I am marrying the you that is here now, and the you I first met when you were larger and blue. I am marrying the part of you that was a dedicated pawn of your Weapon X program, and the part of you that held out at the end of your world."

He said it all calmly and certainly; it was all a given conclusion so far as Hannibal was concerned.

[furnaceface]

//All of me,// Jono replied, his voice something almost hollow. Something tired. //Of course you are. I don't get to pick and choose what fragments of my mind take the fore at any given moment, nobody else possibly can.//

He didn't quite think that was entirely what Hannibal meant, either.

//Would you embrace any one of those parts separately, if they weren't a part of me, like this, as a whole?//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal hummed in thought. "Parts of each of them, I imagine. But it's the whole that makes the parts more fascinating. I might be friends with each of them independently, but added together they have more depth. The best art has many layers to it."

[furnaceface]

Jonothon fell quiet for a few seconds, eyes closed, mulling that over. He could see some merit to befriending that part of him that survived on Fortress X. His Weapon X side...

That one always concerned him.

//You're marrying every part of me,// he said finally, carefully, //then you're marrying that regret, too. You're marrying the part of me that loathes the other parts, who looks at his hands and still sees blood from the murders of entire families. That part of me who knows the ten best places to cut a man to make him give the most interesting information in the desperate hope that I'll stop, and who would, who has cut out a piece of my own soul simply to find some respite from that. You're marrying the part that hates most of the sum of the rest of those parts. That part that's been me the longest.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"I am," Hannibal agreed. "I would be lying if I didn't admit that I hoped to address some of that loathing, but light alone is blinding; chiaroscuro can be beautiful."

[furnaceface]

//That's... contrast, isn't it?//

Jono wasn't exactly a visual artist. Not unless one counted what he had been able to do with his collar, but that hadn't exactly required colour theory or an art degree. He bunched up his shoulders a little more.

//Look, I can't... can't tell you what about me is and isn't worth wanting in your life. I'm not exactly the best judge of that sort of thing when it comes to myself. Never have been. I just know that whether I'm happy where I am now or not, the sum of all my parts, the sum total of the things I've done and the places I've been... the cost of all of it has been too bloody high. My happiness now will never be worth the pain I caused to get here. I'll embrace it. I'll take happiness where I can, because I can't change what happened and there's no sense pretending otherwise. But the joy of one will never balance out the regret of the other. Ever.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal stroked Jono's hair. "Ever is a very long time." And Jono might actually have it.

"Chiaroscuro is art involving light and shadows. The light gives definition to the darkness, and the darkness throws the light into relief. Neither cancels out the other, but together they create a beauty that neither alone can."

[furnaceface]

Torn in several directions at once, wanting to just curl up and scream and shut down and stop, and all Jonothon could do was lean in closer to Hannibal's touch.

//I am the sum of my parts,// he allowed. //I am where I've been and what I've done, and how I feel about it all. And I...// He paused, and then looked up again. //I... I'm not entirely certain if I'm supposed to be happy about that, or at peace with it somehow. I'm not certain what I should be.//

Story of his life.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal didn't quite smile, but gave Jono a gentle and affectionate look. "You should be yourself. The beauty of it is that you already are. It's impossible to be wrong."

[furnaceface]

//Then why does it feel so wrong to me?//

That was the hell of it. There were too many parts to him, too many fragments of his mind, and they were all almost always at odds with one another. The closest he'd ever been to being rid of any of them was also the closest he'd come to dying since he'd gotten his powers back. And he still didn't entirely regret endangering himself that way.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Because your sharks are insidious," Hannibal said. "The mind is a complicated mechanism with a delicate balance, even without involving telepathy and multiple realities."

He stroked Jono's hair from his forehead and kissed him. "Just remember that the sharks lie."

[furnaceface]

//They do,// Jono allowed. //But sometimes they swim just close enough to the truth for me to wonder.//

Bloody sharks. They kept getting better at what they did, letting him start to feel secure again, to lure him to a vulnerable place before striking.

[sharp_as_knives]

"It makes them more insidious and more difficult to target, true," Hannibal said. "But the truth is also the best defense against them. Should we try another session of shark-killing together?"

[furnaceface]

//Perhaps,// Jono murmured, shifting his weight uneasily before just kind of giving in and oozing forward to lean against Hannibal bonelessly. //I don't know if it's all sharks, right now. There are still those. There are always those. But there are nights when the faces are far worse.//

Jono already did have a memory palace, of sorts, even before he'd met Hannibal. It was just a horrible place he didn't exactly let people visit when they wandered through his head, dedicated to preserving the memories of a thousand regrets.

[sharp_as_knives]

"I will help you with anything you like." Hannibal shifted to lean back on the sofa, supporting Jono and wrapping his arms around him. "I will kill the sharks or answer the faces. Whatever it is you need."

[furnaceface]

//I...// Jono winced, and then nuzzled his face into Hannibal's shoulder. //Are you sure that's something you want to face?//

It was something he faced, day in and out. It wasn't something he generally exposed anyone else to.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Of course." Hannibal narrowed his eyes. "If they're troubling you, I should like every chance of dealing with them."

Not to mention that Hannibal never missed the chance to meddle in somebody's mind.

[furnaceface]

Yes, well, Jono was going to ignore that last bit.

//They... they have every reason to trouble me,// he noted, softly. //I don't hold it against them, Hannibal. I have no right to.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"You may not, but I have every right to do so," Hannibal asked. "On my own behalf and yours. And even should you believe they've a right to exist, there's a difference between that and letting them cripple you."

His voice was firm, and he was not going to concede on this point. Ghosts (with the possible occasional exception) did not deserve more of a place in the world as the living, and his concern was very much Jono, not any of them.

[furnaceface]

//But they...// Jono faltered and shook his head. Okay, no, he couldn't say they didn't hold him back. They did, some days in a big way. But that was through no fault of their own. //Fine. Right. If you want to face them... that can be arranged, too.//

It meant dredging them up. It meant opening his head and showing Hannibal the shadows that crept around the edges.

Nobody got to see those shadows.

Hannibal would get to see those shadows.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal already had a fairly good idea of the nature of those shadows. And he looked forward to killing as many of them as possible.

He would have to tread carefully between art, revenge, and Jono.

"If you're amenable, there's no time like the present."

[furnaceface]

//I suppose there's not.//

And that was when the room around them melted away, and inside Jonothon's mind's eye, they were standing at the edge of a deep pit, with a thousand screaming faces with grabbing hands all looking up at them from below.

Jonothon, face whole and eyes on fire, took one look at Hannibal.

Then stepped over the edge.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal reached out and caught Jono's hand, eyes on his face.

Then stepped off to follow him down.

[furnaceface]

Jonothon hadn't expected that.

Admittedly, he wasn't certain what it was that he had expected. Hannibal to make a grab for him but to remain at the top, perhaps. For him to do something more calculated than simply take the leap with him. But Hannibal was full of surprises. Maybe someday, Jono would remember that.

They hit the bottom of the drop as if crashing into a waiting sea, arms grabbing at them and pulling them under, trying to pull their clasped hands apart. They had little interest in Hannibal. Hannibal wasn't the one who had wronged them. But Jonothon? They clawed at Jonothon. Hissed and bit and grabbed at his face and tried to gouge out his eyes and pull at his hair, tried to rend him from limb to limb. They were angry. They were violent. Of course they were.

He'd killed them.