Work Text:
darling, please don't tell me
to leave it all behind
or this unblemished skin closely grafted
will fall away as spiderwebs
and you will learn why
you never should have loved me
Looking back, after, when the papers were screaming about his crimes splattered in love and blood across Europe, she wondered if it had always been obvious and she'd just refused to see it. They told her that he was a manipulator and a killer, and that it wasn't her fault for not knowing, he was good at hiding, and she wanted to say but he was good, he was good, I know he was. Some days she thought surely she hadn't imagined everything. Some days she just wondered at the person behind his skin.
how do i-
you have drained me of my blood,
left me here to die- left me my heart to wonder what i knew.
heavy with nothing to float on, shackled to you,
and still i am drowning in lossloveconfusion-
what have you left me to breathe?
He'd stitched himself a person suit, after Hannibal had stepped out of his and into steel walls. He made it everything he'd always wanted to be, but never been able: a good husband, a good father, a good man. He'd tailored it to her when they met, and made sure she never saw between the stitches. He made it for the place in the world he'd wanted to hold, held it close enough that in his mind he pretended it was his own skin.
He'd hoped he could keep it.
But when she asked him how bad it would've been for her husband (if it had been he who would've stayed while innocents died, not this killer wearing his skin-), he knew it was doomed to unwind. Her sweet man wouldn't've been able to bear their suffering for his own selfish gains--but he could, he knew. And her sweet man couldn't do anything to fix it, he was too soft and good --but he could, he knew, because his darkness was as good as a mirror for showing what was behind the curtain. And in the process all of his self would become undone.
It was a choice, then. A double bind. He could pull open the illusion here and now with his callousness, show her what she married--or he could leave, allow the suit to unravel around him, and then hope to God he had the strength to fit himself a new one. "I'll be different when I get back," he said.
If I come back, I'll be wearing a different skin.
who shall i be for you? i owe you that.
find a pair of kitchen shears and break the flesh at its seams
and stitch it together as something unbroken-
we are nothing more than tatters
i cannot be tatters
who shall i be for?
She remembered being in bed with him, trailing her fingers down along his chest, his stomach, feeling his muscles ripple and tense in what she thought was anticipation for what they would reach below, and coming across the scar. His eyes went wide and for a second she thinks she might've seen beneath the veil he'd stitched for her--she saw violation and fury and love and agony, and she did not understand.
She thought she might now, staring at him gutted in this tell all article from the magazine he'd called trash while her coffee cooled to grimy residue in her mouth.
drowning, drowning, which of us is drowning?
sometimes anesthesia forgets to work
when the needle goes through the skin.
i never meant to hurt you, have you clawing at the thread-
When he knew that his suit couldn't do the work he needed, there was no faster way to remove it than by returning to the man who had torn him from his shell like peeling the chrysalis from a moth.
Hannibal smiled from behind the glass of the cell, and he felt himself rot and unravel at the sight.
Behind his skin, he feels more than thinks my stitches have always been weak around you .
He clung to the scraps of his collapsing suit like tattered falling too-big pants as they threatened to pool around his heels, held up and together only by his hands. Hannibal averted his eyes from the collapsing hollow skin, allowing the pretense of dignity. They both knew that soon enough he would be bare.
drowning, like lungs
coughing up their juices, i am
drowning in who you needed me to be. i cannot be for you-
i am made for the wind and the fight.
When he sat beside her bed as she woke, she met the person beneath what had been her husband. The last tatters of him were thrown together, falling apart. She could see the beast peering through the ripped and shredded skin. When he left, he left scraps of himself on her.
And when she saw the images of what had happened after, she imagined she could see the last decaying rags of him scattered amongst the gore and drifting face up in the waves.
so you have chosen
There was blood in his mouth, and it was black in the moonlight. He let the shell of Molly's husband fall from his hands as he lunged, and the last shreds of his skin pulled them both down only to slough off in the sea.
It was drowning in the ocean where he found himself finally able to breathe.
so i have chosen.
Only a few years, and the house felt empty without him.
She'd remembered how it had felt when Walter's father died, hoping to never feel that pain again. She'd never been pessimist enough to imagine it could be so much worse.
Walter watched baseball more than he ever wanted to go fishing. She started buying dry dog food. They both knew why.
The last of her husband existed only with her. The torn shreds would not leave her skin.
She started stitching herself back together at the places he'd never touched.
leave me my memories
and i will sew wings
yes,
and what a shame i am icarus
The person in the papers was bare, hatched from the man she thought he was, shedding him for a new set of shining scales. He seemed to fit his skin, fit the blood on it. She wished he hadn't.
She tried to go on walks with Wally. She collected strays. She listened as baseball played from the living room. She lay with the dogs and cried.
Had they been in the same room, she would've asked him Did you ever love us?
Had they been in the same room, he would've whispered yes, but I loved the person I wore for you more.
and farewell to waterbirds in winter,
farewell to snowmelt and furs,
farewell to how you have known me,
farewell to handcuffs and spurs.
one day I’ll see you again in the air warmed up by the sun,
so kiss me so long till the springtime when freedom has already won.
When they saw each other again, Wally was Walter and nearly full grown, and Will was not wearing even a facsimile of the man she had loved. When he saw her, he smiled with a depth that would never have shown through the veil he wore, and it was like looking at the sun reflecting off waves for years and finally daring to peer through to the darkness below. He put his hand on the glass. His prison suit fit easier on him than her husband ever had.
Even within a cage, he seemed free.
As she left, she brushed the last frayed threads of the man who wasn't from her arm, and finally felt herself.
Later, when Molly reads about their escape in the paper, she takes a sip of scalding hot coffee and turns the page.