Hannibal's house (where Jono's in "trouble"), Monday afternoon

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had gotten up early that morning and skipped his morning run in favor of heading directly to the Boards. He still wasn't entirely convinced that the cleanup should be his job, but he did have the expertise for it, and he wanted Jono happy, so he'd been willing to make the compromise. Today was the last of it.

Which didn't mean he actually enjoyed it all. He'd already swept up bits of vases and ribbons, candles and dead flowers, and set the broken chairs to one side; today he had left for cleaning up the blood stains from the floor and the side of the stage. By the time he'd finished enough to call and schedule the carpenter and contractor for the rest, he was sweaty, slightly sore, and more than a little annoyed.

A shower took care of some of that. The rest, he fully intended to take out on Jono.



[OOC: For the one mentioned, expected to go NSFW, and standard warnings for what these guys do not really being remotely safe or sane for anybody but them. (But it is completely consensual.)]

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[sharp_as_knives]

"Oh?" Hannibal turned his head and brought his arm up to pull Jono down for a kiss.

[furnaceface]

Jono quite happily, hungrily, met Hannibal's mouth in that kiss, nipping at his bottom lip with his teeth as though in retaliation for all of that teasing that Hannibal had been doing to him just a moment before.

Another mouth appeared by Hannibal's ear, blue lips pulled into a smirk as eyes like blood looked him up and down, faintly amused.

"There is quite a lot of me to go around," he whispered, reaching and settling his hands on Hannibal's sides, above where the burning Jonothon was holding on tightly, and below where the whole Jonothon had his arms. "I suppose the real question is how much of me are you up for?"

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal chuckled and reached up to bring that Jono down for a kiss. "As many as you like. I am marrying all of you, after all."

Eventually.

[furnaceface]

"Mmm," the Apocalypse-tainted Jonothon agreed, voice a low purr. "I'd say you've got your work cut out for you, but we've all met you."

"Intimately," the other two intoned in unison.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal laughed. "So you have. And I you, though seldom so individually. And you know I do enjoy a challenge."

[furnaceface]

"Well," the taller, broader Jonothon's lips pulled into a smirk, "I know any of us would love the excuse to get out more."

... Which earned him a swat to the shoulder and a look from Jono Prime, who had no intention of making this a regular thing. Because really, now.

[sharp_as_knives]

"I rather enjoy the all of you together." Hannibal leaned into the original Jono.

[furnaceface]

And the original Jono held him tight, more than a little possessively, as the other two simply smirked, faintly.

... The other three, now, as another whole Jono stepped into view from the nothingness around them, arms crossed over his chest, obscuring only somewhat the metallic implant marring the skin there.

"Likely more than most of us enjoy it," he drawled, and then prowled over to grab Hannibal by the shoulders, to manhandle him into a fierce kiss, himself. Unlike the others, this one seemed less to be showing appreciation, and more to be staking a claim. Hannibal was his. Even if his insistence on the lot of them forming one coherent mind between them galled him so.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled into the kiss and bit at Jono's lower lip. "I wondered when you were going to show."

[furnaceface]

Jono grinned fiercely in return, grip of Hannibal tightening as the other three (original flavour included) stepped backwards, folding into one another until only he and the cracked whole remained. If they had been in physical space, his hands would have easily left bruises on Hannibal's shoulders.

"I'm always somewhere or other," he replied, a fierce glint in his eye. "In spite of the best efforts of some."

[sharp_as_knives]

"All parts are present in the whole." Hannibal wrapped one arm around the Jono in front of him, holding on just as fiercely, but leaving the other free for the whole Jono.

[furnaceface]

"The grudging whole," Jonothon replied, glancing over his shoulder at the cracked, patched-up thing that he was a part of. He raised an eyebrow faintly. "Though I must commend you on your repair job, you understand it does make my life more difficult."

"That's really rather the point," the whole Jono scoffed, stepping forward to claim Hannibal's free arm for his own. "My life is mine."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled at the Jono in front of him. On anyone else, it might almost be an apology.

"While I care for all the parts, you aren't the whole. You don't belong on your own any more than a lung or a kidney does. Or any more than a prosthetic limb, perhaps, since you were created artificially."

[furnaceface]

Well. That wasn't well-received at all. That Weapon X shadow's eyes narrowed, lip curling in fierce distaste.

"A prosthetic," he snapped. "As though I didn't have a year all to myself, doing things he only wishes he had it in him to do. I'm meant to be fine with that? To resign myself to life in the back of his head, only to come out when he's too much of a coward to get blood on his hands himself?"

[sharp_as_knives]

"If the whole of you truly wished to do the things you did," Hannibal pointed out, "you would never have existed." He stroked the shadow's face. "You would remain a savage portion of the whole, necessary and beautiful only in combination with the others."

[furnaceface]

Jonothon remained silent as the shadow bristled, looking for all the world like he was going to bite Hannibal's fingers clean from his hand, all while leaning into the touch.

"And instead I'm what?" His voice was calm, too calm, a dagger's edge covered in something too cold to be even ice. "A parasite? Or maybe a dog he keeps around, to be unleashed when it's convenient?"

[sharp_as_knives]

"Instead," Hannibal answered, "you are a savage portion of the whole, necessary and beautiful in combination with the others, but which cannot see that necessity and beauty in the rest of your being."

[furnaceface]

"The rest of my being is weak," the shadow growled, pulling Hannibal roughly toward himself, away from the whole. "Hypocritical. He'll act so bloody pure, ever the righteous bleeding heart. Right up until he needs somebody to disappear. And he's needed far more people to disappear than his holier-than-thou heroic obsession would have anybody believe."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal shook his head. "The rest of you is stronger than any one piece on its own. You are only part of that strength."

Hannibal reached back for the whole Jono, letting him do the pulling.

[furnaceface]

Jonothon was all too happy to oblige, pulling Hannibal back into his arms, away from the shadow, with ease. He smiled, ignoring the shadow easily.

"And where were we?"

The shadow's eyes sparked white-hot in frustration and anger.

"Don't you fucking ignore me! Don't you dare go right back to pretending I'm not here!"

[sharp_as_knives]

"You are always here," Hannibal answered, though he kept his eyes on the whole Jono. "Right here." He stroked Jono's face, smiling. "You and so much more."

[furnaceface]

The shadow made a disgusted sound at that, looking for all the world like he wanted to spit fire at the both of them to take back what had once been his life. But the hell of it was, he couldn't. At the end of the day, his continued control had depended on Mesmero's continued focus on keeping the original mind from coming to the fore, and with M-Day, that had ceased to be a point in his favour.

Spitting flame in frustration, he faded out of sight again.

"Thought he'd never leave," Jono murmured, leaning into Hannibal's touch. "Why do I keep him around, again?"

Because you couldn't carve him out, Jon.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal gave Jono a fondly exasperated look. "Do I need to repeat for you what I just said to that part of you? And despite what that part thinks," he paused for a kiss, "you do know he's a necessary part, even if you don't always appreciate the fact."

[furnaceface]

"Yes, well, he wasn't necessary before he came along," Jono muttered, though there really wasn't any heat in it. He remembered quite well what it felt like to have pieces of his mind carved away. Even the pieces that he hadn't wanted around in the first place. He leaned in to kiss Hannibal again. "Anyway, it's nice to have somebody to blame for all of my insufferable moods."

And he wondered why the shadow in his head resented him so much.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Yes," Hannibal said. "Yourself." He smirked. "Fortunately, I rather like your insufferable moods, at least most of the time."

He kissed the front of Jono's neck, a rare treat. "So, shall we continue, just the two of us? Or did you have more in mind?"