Hannibal's house (not that Jono cares), Saturday evening

[sharp_as_knives]

These weeks on the island did not, for the most part, affect Hannibal the same as everybody else; sex was an enjoyable pastime, but one he could largely forego in the face of other...enjoyments. Which didn't mean he hadn't been somewhat restless and wanting this week. He'd sharpened his knives, filled his pantry, and been very artistic in doing so. But even with a multiverse of rude people to choose from, it seemed wasteful to do too much of that.


[OOC: For the one mentioned, specifics NFB. Warnings for blood, sex, and...just...general Jono and Hannibalness.]

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[sharp_as_knives]

In answer, Hannibal leaned forward, lacing his fingers with Jono's again, stretching out over him so the flames surrounded them both and the blood on Jono's skin smeared onto his own. He returned to the mark he'd made on Jono's cheek and bit down, drawing blood at the edges to match his work below, and then sucking it from him, his tongue playing over the wounds.

[furnaceface]

That... that was... Wow.

Once upon a time, Jonothon had loathed himself a little, the way he was now, because among so many other things he couldn't do, kissing was up there on the list. But this, Hannibal's mouth, his teeth and tongue moving against where fire met flesh, was so much more intimate than kissing. He shuddered again, closed his eyes tight and found himself wishing that he at the very least had lips or a functional lower jaw so that he could give some sort of teasing nibble back.

Instead, he writhed upwards a little, pressed as much of his body as he was able against Hannibal, held him in place with the leg he'd twined around Hannibal's own and sent Hannibal another burst of approval and want, peppered with flickers of thoughts that went a few steps beyond absolutely filthy.

[sharp_as_knives]

For all the things Hannibal had possessed over the years, there were a few things he had seldom had the pleasure of. High on that very short list was being close to a person, someone who knew and accepted him. And with Jono, he could get closer than any other. He wasn't going anywhere.

He snaked his tongue into Jono's flames, exploring his wounded palate and the back of his teeth, and let more of his weight settle, the curves of his chest muscles fitting in the gap of Jono's, skin to skin to flame.

[furnaceface]

That, what was possibly the world's most morbid French kiss, might have elicited a gasp out of Jonothon. Or maybe a sob. Some sort of reaction that properly demonstrated just how the way Hannibal was pressed up against, up inside of him was affecting him. A peck on the cheek was one thing, something he'd been rather resigned to settling for for the rest of his life. A hand in his flames, that was something else, something that pushed a limit, that skirted the line from bold straight on into fearless, and it was possible that the person who would've been most afraid was Jono.

This was both. This was that fearlessness, an embrace, a kiss that explored an intimacy that Jono never dreamed he'd be able to share with somebody else. Hannibal explored the remains of the wreck of his upper jaw the same way any lover would kiss their partner. Like it was his to discover, his to caress and savour, without fear or disgust or pity. Like he was something beautiful.

Moments like this, wrapped around Hannibal physically and psionically, he could almost forget that he believed so thoroughly that he wasn't.

Jono remembered Hannibal's order to put his hands above his head, but right then, with Hannibal's tongue exploring what once was his mouth and Hannibal's heart beating practically inside his own chest and bringing the steady rhythm of his breathing along with it, he could hardly help but move them. Hannibal was right there, and he had to grab on to his shoulders, hold him close, pull him closer, feel him breathe and live and exist as somebody separate and the same and not in the least afraid.

As somebody who could make the monstrous into something beautiful.

[sharp_as_knives]

It was one of Hannibal's specialties, after all. Too many people thought the monstrous and the beautiful were mutually exclusive; Hannibal had no such difficulty. And if Jono wanted to share that ability, leach a bit of appreciation from him, he was welcome to it. It was there, prominent among the hunger and possessiveness and more of that seldom-spoken L word that all fueled his own pleasure.

He breathed slow and deep, moving all along Jono's body, pressing them together with delicious friction, and not all the sparks were Jono's fire. He coaxed Jono with thoughts, too, offering up his own mind for the same overlap as their bodies.

[furnaceface]

It was an offer that Jonothon was almost desperate to accept, at this point. He opened his own mind, managed to scrape together enough focus to create a shared space between them. A place where they could be separate, but folded into one another, a perfect embrace of wants and emotions, bleeding freely into one another. They could still remain themselves, of course - their thoughts were still their own, their personalities and their ideas - but anything they wanted to share, or, for that matter, anything they wanted to take, was fair game.

Jono, for one, was going to start by appreciating those deep breaths. And, perhaps, by offering Hannibal a first-hand account of exactly how much that fearlessness had managed to move him.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal took that, gathered it into a careful bundle in his own mind, and returned it with his own appreciation - of Jono's mind, his acceptance and courage and kindness and monstrousness, and of his body, flesh and flame both, aesthetic and unique.

He went hunting, skimming through Jono's experiences, and found one, strong and bright among the others. Its intensity called out, and he caught at it, diving in: the memory of Jono, whole, and then burning pressure turning to pain, and then tearing and burning and -

[furnaceface]

- fire. Fire, burning, ripping, screaming until there was nothing left to scream with. Gayle laying hurt somewhere, the last thing from his mind, the world a shattered inferno around him and the sound of screams ringing in his ears and ripping through his mind, too loud to block out. Too much pain, too much cold to even be able to focus enough to guess at how.

That much fire shouldn't have been so cold.

They were screaming at him. Screaming at him and he wanted to reach for them, to beg them for help, but the fear he was feeling... it wasn't even entirely his own.

He was still alive.

He was still awake.

And there was no way in the world he could possibly be either, and it didn't matter how much he begged, pleaded for somebody to help him, or to do anything it took to just make the pain stop, nobody dared come anywhere near -

//... Hannibal?//

If Jono had been occasionally twitching before, he was trembling now, not pulling away or even blocking off that part of his mind, but definitely wondering why that was suddenly the memory that had been pulled to the fore.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal sent a wave of soothing warmth in answer, along with the memory of why he'd caught at it - it was intense and important, and he had been curious. He breathed deep, as Jono hadn't been able to, processing the experience, and shared once more that breath, and his appreciation, and the marvel that Jono was alive.

He couldn't - and wouldn't - change those old memories, but he could and would mitigate their recollection. If none of that had ever happened, Jono would not be here now, would not be his, would be a much more dull person.

But it had happened. And now it was in the past. Jono wasn't alone, he had no need for fear, and the only pain here was what he had asked for.

[furnaceface]

Jono nodded, both in their shared mindspace and out, hands clutching a little more desperately to Hannibal's shoulders. There was an ache left behind from that memory, too; a sort of phantom pain in the wreck that used to be his chest.

He threw himself a little more desperately into the sensation of Hannibal's breathing, hoping to escape that memory for a while and retreat into more comfortable headspace.

It was true enough, life had been anything but boring since his powers had manifested. And where they'd ultimately led him to... this? This, he couldn't complain about, no matter how he felt about some of the stepping stones along the way.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal obliged, continuing to breathe slowly and deeply, his chest moving Jono's where they fit together so nicely. He moved his hands along the sides of Jono's chest, stroking good sensations to counteract the painful echoes. And he continued to kiss him, continued sharing his pleasure and his pleasant thoughts in a way that only Jono as he was now could experience and appreciate.

[furnaceface]

Jono soaked all of that in, let himself absorb the pleasure and the affection, heaping it all on top of that keyed-up feeling, halfway hoping to just drown it out. He nuzzled his face up against Hannibal, smearing blood across his cheek without even really thinking about it, and tried to get closer to Hannibal still, to lose himself a little more in touch and thought and a warmth that was only half his own.

There was a little note of question, a request, a plea. Hannibal had wanted him to beg, earlier. Now he was very much ready and willing to do just that.

Help him feel needed.

Help him feel whole.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled with just a touch of fond exasperation and nudged Jono, taking control of their shared space, letting everything he was drowning that feeling in leak into it, letting the intensity and the adrenaline of that moment fuel the pleasure and affection, adding to it instead of fighting it.

Help Jono feel needed? Help him feel whole? That was pointless - he was needed, and he was whole. He just didn't see it, too busy trying to hide parts of himself.

[furnaceface]

Jono gasped. Not physically, of course, though a few more sparks drifted up through the air around them as he did so. But there in their minds, Jonothon gasped, moaned, shuddered and swallowed at a lump in his throat while his face burned and his chest heaved and his emotions twisted in on themselves.

That... that was not a way he'd ever put that particular memory to use, before. He was smouldering around the edges, just as much fear and desperation as lust and affection, writhing together and mixing until they were almost indistinguishable from one another. Except that there was more, always more, and Jono's own fear, from an old hurt that still made him ache to this day, had nothing on Hannibal's affection and passion.

When all was said and done, when one was fed into the other, poaching from the old to enhance the new, Jono was left begging again, but this time it wasn't for escape, it was for gratification.

He wanted to lose himself in more, wanted the world to melt around them in a blur, and he wanted to drag Hannibal down with him.

[sharp_as_knives]

And that sounded like a wonderful idea to Hannibal. He offered up two memories of his own: one from earlier this week, the pollen-fueled ferocity and artistry that had filled his pantry from the worst pig he could find. And another, to match the trauma of Jono's: that moment of smelling Will's betrayal on his collar, realizing that the man he'd thought was his match had been lying to him.

[furnaceface]

Hannibal's experiences, his memories, both served to heighten Jono's own emotions, twisting and intermingling in a knot of passion and fury and predatory lust, and to draw his own mind away from the shock of suddenly re-living his own past traumas. In that moment, he was the hunter, seeking out his prey, working off his frustrations and his hunger in the heat of the moment, ridding the universe of one more ugly being.

In that moment, he was a man in love, discovering betrayal, learning that the trust that he'd dared to give had been given to somebody who didn't appreciate it, who didn't want the gift that had been freely offered.

In their shared space, he was furious, he was hurt, he was frightened. He was powerful. He was the one in charge. He was as close as any man could ever be to God.

And he was being swept away in that feeling. That overwhelming, satisfying feeling that whatever came to him, that was the fate he'd built for himself. And this, this moment right now, every single emotion twisting between them, it was his. It was theirs. They'd made this.

They were this.

[sharp_as_knives]

They were all of this. Hannibal was himself, and he was a teenager confused and hurting in a nightclub. He reached further and he was Glacia's general, headblind and uncertain and powerful. And further yet, half-buried, he was a confident and cunning soldier and a scared survivor at the end of the world.

He welcomed them all, every version and memory - breathed for the ones that needed it, offered his strength and his certainty, his fearlessness and caring. His own ferocity melted into Jono's, differing shades of joy and violence, and music threaded through all of them, sharp and soaring.

He wove a melody of their lives, his own single line with Jono's chords beneath it, all of them together moving toward a crescendo.

[furnaceface]

All of Jonothon's parts had never sung in harmony quite the way they were doing now. True enough, they were added to, enhanced by a chorus of Hannibal's own design, a symphony of blood and victory, of quiet dinners and deafening passion and every single bit of artistry the man had to offer.

What they were left with on the other end of it all was something not Jono, and not Hannibal, but a culmination of the two, proud and damaged, deadly and calculating and reckless and careful, deep breaths and fire, sharp, unreadable smiles and intelligent eyes that could see directly through a person right into their mind before ever resorting to just reaching in and taking what they wanted to see.

Jono licked his lips and smiled, drank in the way it made his face hurt like it was some kind of artistic victory, a mark of ownership, but also of trust, and acceptance.

He was a monster, and that was a point of pride. He was everything the rest of the world had come to respect and to despise, and he was perfect. He wouldn't have it any other way. What was there to regret? Every sour note, every missed chord was well behind them now, and every step they'd taken had brought them to this, to the music yet to come.

Jono was whole, and he was hungry, and there in their mind, he leaned forward, pressed his mouth almost viciously against Hannibal's, and kissed him, laid claim to him, in turn.

Damn right, there were teeth involved.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled into that kiss, returning it in kind. He was - they were - a god, and everything was beautiful, even the horrible parts. The fire all around them sparked every nerve and set them aflame without burning; their minds and flesh moved together, singing.

[furnaceface]

Jono rocked up against Hannibal, hands roaming now, fire engulfing the both of them and so help him, if he could just fold Hannibal up and tuck him neatly into his chest so that they could be entwined like this for always, he'd be tempted to try. But then there's so much he'd miss. Even if here in their mindspace, he could still appreciate Hannibal right down to his core, there were things that existed outside of their heads - the sharp sting from the knife he'd been toying with, for a start, and the sudden shock of feeling where for so long there had been none - that were worth remaining distinct and apart for, too.

This confidence, though... and the laser-like focus that Hannibal put into everything he did, the pride that he carried with him, so that there was no doubt that when he did something, he'd do it perfectly, they were intoxicating, and every time Jono took a taste of those things for himself, every time it wound a little more thoroughly into the them that they were weaving, he found himself falling a little closer to the edge, to something delicious and overwhelming.

They were so close, now, to the cliff's edge, the very same one they'd toppled over together before, when Hannibal was heartbroken and Jono was an offering, but this time instead of dragging one another over and holding on for dear life, Jonothon looked at the edge, and then raised an eyebrow as if asking, 'Why fall over? We were made to fly.'

[sharp_as_knives]

And Hannibal smiled back, and dug his fingers into the fresh wounds in Jono's side, curved his hand gently around Jono's waist, held on tight, and jumped.

[furnaceface]

This.

This was what it was like to be fearless. To be complete. To be untouchable and absolutely secure in that fact.

This. This was free-fall in reverse, like all of the pieces that had been scattered across the ground were gathering themselves up, piecing themselves together, and then returning to the shelf they'd been knocked from.

This was what it was to exist so close to a person that the two of them were almost indistinguishable from one another, and in doing so, feel that in no uncertain terms, they were more themselves than they'd ever been.

This was teeth and fingernails, this was skin against skin, this was fire and blood and cold sharp metal and promise, surviving the world's end and lasting long enough to see the sun come up again, to hold hope and joy hostage and to ransom them off in exchange for strength and acceptance and being more whole than anyone had been for longer than either realized.

If this wasn't love, Jonothon didn't know the meaning of the word. And right then he was going to take it and weave it in with the rest, watching the ground continue to fall away.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal watched and enjoyed the artistry, and guided the weave, nudging it into place. He reveled in their flight, the way they matched each other every second and every ecstatic inch of travel. This was a journey of their own creation, exciting in its promise, rapturous in its execution, and thrilling in the uncertainty of its path.

It was wonderful, and perfect, and largely beyond words, but Hannibal managed yes.

[furnaceface]

Yes, Jonothon agreed, not daring to look down again. Not caring enough to try. They had all they needed here, they had themself, the two of them folded into one, riding this moment higher and higher. Eventually they'd crest, hit a peak and have to retreat from it again, and then they'd have to come back down.

If Jono had his way, coming to face that peak would involve breaking through and being left all the more exhilarated for it, instead of simply hitting the ceiling and being stuck on a plateau somewhere with nowhere to go but to drop again.

He gave a shameless, playful, reckless grin.

To break through, did Hannibal suppose they'd need a running start?

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had no doubt they could do it with or without. But what was the point of doing anything halfway? He grinned back and grabbed to every memory of speed - riding their motorbikes through the English countryside, speeding through the sky when Jono had used his collar, dancing and twirling together - and twined them into the mix gleefully.