First chapter out for my Hannibal AU, super nervous cause I feel my writing isn't what I want it to be as of now but that's okay cause I finally got the nerve to post it so here it is. The rest will continue on AO3.
Will was not a righteous man, nor did he pity himself much for what he was. He was cursed in his own right, and often wondered, if there was a God, why that God seemed content to watch him suffer. It was as if heâd been handed, from birth, the destiny of a tortured man.
On the nightfall of his sixteenth birthday, after a brutal fight with his father, he had run out of the house and down an old road that led to the water.Â
The mosquitoes bit hard, bugs chirped like a scream in chorus, and the air clung to his skin like sweat-soaked gauze. He knew he shouldnât be out that late, but he didnât care.
An old woman had once told him, half-laughing, that the moon listens. That it grants the wish it hears most often, and takes twice in return. He didnât believe her at the time. Not really but he still wished.Â
But that night, crying alone at the edge of the black water, whispering into the stillness for something, anything to change, the moon must have finally heard him.
What it gave him wasnât salvation.Â
Through his guttural tears, he felt his spine crack behind him, a snap that jolted his entire body. Every sob and tear turned to anguished screams. His nails grew long and curved like claws, each bone breaking, every tendon tearing and weaving itself anew. His jaw unhinged, molars and incisors lengthening, sharpening. He vomited blood between his teeth as convulsions overtook him.
When he collapsed forward, he watched his fingers distort and lengthen, fur overtaking skin. His body betrayed him in slow, brutal symmetry. When it ended, when he unfurled, his screams fused to a loud rough howl, he knew something feral had claimed him.
From that night on, the boy who had begged the moon for a change no longer existed.
Will never returned to Sulphur after he turned eighteen. The town, like the name, left a taste in his mouth, something chemical, industrial, and barely survivable. He took odd jobs in Lake Charles, kept his head down, and worked toward a quiet sort of penance.
New Orleans came years later.
It was, at the time, an attempt at normalcy. The kind only someone like him could hope for. A city big enough to lose yourself in, but old enough to still whisper back.
He joined the police academy not out of justice, but guilt. If anyone ever found out what he was, what he could do, then the only defense heâd ever have was this: I tried to be good.
Most days, the cases he took were echoes of his own nightmare. It was as if the city itself was mocking him, handing him mirror after mirror and asking: Do you recognize yourself yet?
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Will stood in the center of a rotting shotgun house on St. Roch Avenue, the wood swollen from heat, the plaster flaking like old scabs. The air smelled of damp rot and mildew, thick enough to chew. The windows were nailed shut. The walls were sweating and the woman inside or what was left of her was arranged like a warning or a prayer.
A prayer to what, he could only ask to himself.
âSame pattern,â said Officer Landry from behind him, his voice uneven. âThatâs three this week. No signs of forced entry. No prints. Not even a broken latch.â
Will didnât answer. He was crouched near the body, arms wrapped loosely around his knees. The womanâs eyes were wide open. Her throat, precise. Not torn, not the kind of savagery he knew too well. This was something else.Â
Clean, cold, intentional.
What disturbed him most was how dry she was. No blood, no trail. Just that silence where a life had once been.
He closed his eyes, just briefly.
The hum of insects. The low shiver of river fog. A voice elegant, lilting, French. Whispering something just beyond the reach of comprehension.
âIâll write up the report,â he said quietly, scrunching his nose in distaste.
Landry exhaled like heâd been holding it in for ten minutes. âYou sure you wanna stay in here alone?â
The silence spoke for itself. The officer took it for a yes and backed out without another word.
Will waited until the room was empty.
Slowly, deeply. Through his nose, taking in any notes he could.
It wasnât something he did around others. It was too much like giving himself away.
The scent hit him like a whisper curled in smoke.Â
Old and sweet. Too sickening sweet, not perfume nor decay. Something outside of that scale. Something else. It threaded through the stagnant air like silk.
Will stood, hands flexing at his sides. The feeling coiled beneath his ribs, the one he feared most. He let his hand drag over the lower half of his face as a low growl formed heavy in the pit of his stomach. The pull toward something he hid deep in his soul. The instinct that made his spine itch and his mouth dry.Â
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His hands shook as he unlocked his apartment door. Winston waited, tail tapping, eyes bright. A smile formed on Willâs face for the first time all day. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in the warm fur behind Winstonâs ears, holding on like heâd drown without it.
âHey, buddy,â he whispered.
Winston huffed softly, unbothered.Â
Will clung to him until the tremors passed.
That night, sleep refused him. He lay flat on his bed, tracing ceiling cracks like maps. Every creak in the floorboards was a step. Every sigh of the walls was a breath. Something had followed him home. A nagging and racing mind that only consumed him with every passing thought, even if he had been tired his mind wouldnât sleep.
Before dawn, he gave up pretending. He lit a cigarette and stepped onto the balcony.
The French Quarter was suspended in its in-between hour closing time thinning into first light. Ghosts tucked themselves back into their corners.
But Will felt it still. Eyes on him.
Not hostile. Not even hidden. Just⊠interested.
A gaze without shape. A question without words.
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An older man this time, late sixties maybe, skin loose over bones that no longer had use for him. Theyâd found him in a sagging Creole townhouse off Burgundy Street, the kind of place tourists called charming until they stepped inside and realized charm could mold, rot, collapse.
He was seated in a high-backed chair near the hearth as though waiting for company. Or like heâd tried to face something down and failed. His mouth hung open a little, showing teeth gone gray.
Same condition as the others: bloodless.
But this one had been prepared.
The floor had been scrubbed, polished hard enough that the boards gleamed wet in the low light. At his feet, scrawled heavy and deliberate, an unbroken ring of coarse ivory-colored salt.Â
Not an accident. A ward, a trap.
Will stood just inside the threshold, shoulders drawn tight like if he let himself ease for a second he might split open. The stink of vinegar and lavender clung to the air, sharp enough to sting the back of his throat. It made something under his skin twitch, made him want to bare his teeth at nothing.
He hated this kind of thing. Not because he dismissed it, God, he wished he could, because it felt like it was meant for him, arranged like a stage on which only he would understand the script.
He lingered too long on the ring before dragging his gaze upward to the window. The cracked panes caught the daylight in spirals, dust curling slow in the beams. The fractures reminded him of eyes.Â
Old ones, patient and watching.Â
Every hair on his body prickled upright.
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That night, he couldnât stay contained.
He went walking.
The change came quicker lately, but it never stopped hurting. It always started in the spine, like the body thought being human was the natural order and had to be broken of that illusion. Bones bowed and snapped. Hands clawed themselves open. His ribs cracked wide, stretching like wings desperate to escape.
He exhaled into the dark, steam ribboning from his jaws. Rain hung in the night like gauze. The bayou pressed close on every side, thick with secrets. Nights like this, it was easier. Nights like this, he didnât have to pretend.
The wolf moved silent through the Quarter, paws whispering across broken pavement. To anyone looking out a window, he wouldâve been a hulking shadow, menace incarnate. But no one looked.Â
The city bent differently in this shape.
Scents were everything: blood, piss, rust, jasmine. The wet rot of cypress. The perfume of a storm coming. His ears flicked toward every drip of water, every human heartbeat hidden behind shutters.
Here, he wasnât hunted.
That was when he caught it.
The same one as before, the bodies, the bloodless husks.Â
Stronger now. Purer and undiluted.
It wasnât dead, though death clung to it like perfume.
It smelled sweet, but wrong. Stillness folded over ferality. Velvet pulled tight to hide the teeth.
Will followed it, tail low, breath shallow, because not moving toward it felt worse than walking into the teeth of it.
His nose scrunched into a snarl.
The scent drew him through streets slick with rain, to wrought-iron gates strangled by ivy and a house that waited like a mausoleum in mourning. Two stories dressed in shadow and windows shuttered like closed eyes. Iron balconies, Ivy clung to brick. From the street, it looked asleep, but not dead.Â
Behind the glass, red drapes, a room lit low and honey-warm. A man sat in an armchair, long fingers poised against a folder as if heâd been waiting there forever.Â
Still, perfect, every line intentional.
Will froze under the dripping trees. His lungs seized. Fear wasnât familiar; he wasn't built for it but something in his bones recoiled and leaned forward all at once.
He had never felt this before.
And that terrified him most of all.
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Two nights later, the city bled again.
A man this time. Mid-thirties, bartender, found curled like a comma between two dumpsters off Royal. Mardi Gras beads clung to the chain-link above him, glittering in the low light like cheap halos left behind by drunk gods.
The man clutched a rosary, but it had to be staged. His hands pressed in a perfect parody of prayer, the beads wound tight around his thumbs and palms as if bound. The cross lay nestled neatly between his knuckles.Â
Will ducked beneath the tape, boots crunching through broken glass and damp flyers. The air reeked: rot, stale liquor, the metallic tang of piss. And beneath it all something too clean. Sterile. The sour bite of bleach layered over filth.Â
The scene before him set his stomach roiling. A sharp ache coiled beneath his ribs, ugly and insistent. He covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head as if that would dislodge the way the murder wanted inside his bones.
Death had never disturbed him. Death was usually food for thought. But these, these were not death. These were messages, cruel and knowing.Â
He felt it. The mocking intent of someone who had looked into his nature and chosen to play with it.
The sirens were gone. The chatter, gone. Only the buzz of streetlamps overhead and the raw sound of someone vomiting in the dark. Wet, human, alive. Will envied that ease, envied the simple violence of a body rejecting horror, instead of swallowing it whole.
âHe was last seen leaving work around two,â an officer said. Tugging at a latex glove, too tight, like the material might save him from memory. âNo struggle. No blood. JustâŠâ
He trailed off.
Will didnât answer. He crouched by the body. The scent struck him like a blade to the gut. His throat clenched, chest tightened.Â
That sick-sweet rot again. Violent in its beauty, taunting in its familiarity.
The manâs eyes were open. Just like the others but they didnât scream.
Not fear or pain.Â
The look of someone who had begged for mercy and been answered with something holy or unholy. The distinction was getting harder for Will to make.
The throat wound was clean. Careful, almost tender.
Will turned his head, following the dead manâs stare. Wanting to capture what he could, see through those eyes what they had last seen. What they had witnessed.
He lingered too long.
The alley breathed with memory. Not still, but echoing.Â
Predation left behind like residue.
Will closed his eyes and pressed his palm against the brick. Not balance nor comfort.Â
The wolf in him listening through his skin.
Something whispered back. Not in words, just a presence.
Will opened his eyes. The alley was the same but he felt haunted for the first time.
Not by the dead but by the living who knew his secret.
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The walk home helped, a little.
He kept to the shadows, blending with the scraps of night as the city sobered. Street cleaners hissed down gutters. Neon signs blinked like tired eyes. The drunks had gone to ground, most of them at least.
Will walked like a man wearing his own skin wrong. Like he was pretending to be human.
At a corner before turning, he froze.
A balcony overlooked the street, elegant ironwork, lavender in pots, carefully tended. Familiar, though he had no reason to know it.
And for a heartbeat, a figure stood there.
Tall, and still. Hands resting on the rail. Skin pale as something exhumed but beyond that he couldnât make out any features on the figure's face.
Willâs heart stumbled once.
The wind stirred, the balcony emptied.
His apartment above the antique bookstore smelled of Winston, old wood, and dust. Safe, familiar, contained. He shut the door behind him and breathed. The pressure in his chest didnât leave but it loosened, slightly.
He stripped his shirt, let it fall, leaned over the bathroom sink. Cold water shocked his face.Â
His eyes too dark, pale blue muddied into something feral. Not quite human. Just close enough to fool people.
His lips parted. His canines glinted, sharper, longer. His tongue skimmed their serrated edge, so sharp he could taste the cut of his own skin.
That scent, the one clinging to his skull, the one that coiled and pulled at every primal urge rose in his chest again. He couldnât name it, couldnât escape it. The thought of it alone made rage swell hot, blind, feral.
He gripped the sink. Hard enough it creaked in protest. The only thing tethering him to reality was the weight of porcelain against his palm.
When he finally calmed, he sat on the bed. Lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. Smoke scorched his lungs. Winston lingered close, rigid, staring into the corner shadows.
Will followed his gaze.
âYou sense it too, donât you?â His voice was a whisper.
Winston didnât bark. Only breathed.
By morning, he hadnât slept.
He dressed, drove to work, then sat in his truck outside the precinct for twenty minutes before giving up. He couldnât walk in there not with this weight still pressing his ribs, not with that scent still gnawing his thoughts.
He drove without thinking. Past cemeteries, past tourists, past sins. Until the city softened, greened. Magnolia and rot mixing on the wind.
He hadnât chosen to come here. But some part of him already knew the way.
Will froze and just stared out the window. Every hair on his arms rose. A sickness crawled his spine. His knuckles turned white against the grip on his stirring wheel.
In the second-floor, behind pale curtains, movement.
A shift, barely there.Â
Willâs heart slammed against his ribs.
He ripped his gaze away and drove off.Â
The wolf inside was silent but it listened.
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