#oh dear! the anons are enabling this behaviour!

[thlayli-ra]

hi knightreigns anon back again 🎉 how do you think that knight, having been a loner for so long and very used to taking care of himself, would respond to aftercare (particularly from roman)? he seems to me like a guy who’s very “i can take care of myself” but lets face it… sometimes you Can’t. and roman wouldn’t let him.

oh and on a darker note- knight is alone, both by choice and as a result of him being kind of an asshole. would roman exploit that. how well would it work do you think

ANYWAY thank you for indulging me i will probably be back. i hope your day is going well !

Hello again! Back for more mindless dissecting of two lovely, beefy gentlemen, I see? Very well...

(Friendly reminder that this is all my own head cannons based mainly on my fanfictions)

To answer your question, would Knight accept aftercare from Roman? Yes, absolutely he would! Simply because he needs it. His back is all swollen and torn, he's exhausted and beaten down from not only their match but also their play in the Winner's Room and if Roman is offering to rub lotion on his wounds and lather him in praise, he's gonna take it.

Because first of all, Knight likes intimacy (in my fics, he's a big ol' slut!). He likes to bat his big, blue eyes, get fawned over like the prettiest girl at the ball then rock someone's world between the sheets. He has an ego, remember, or as he calls it, 'an undeniable kavorka'.

He is also not above using other people to meet his needs, which is a by-product of him being a loner. If he can't get something done by himself, he will find someone who can. For instance, in 'Break These Chains', he seduces and manipulates Bobby Lashley to help free him from Bray Wyat/Uncle Howdy's clutches.

What he struggles with, however, is the concept of altruism - doing something out of kindness, with no ulterior motive. He experiences this when Bobby find him in a extremely rare moment of vulnerability (Knight is the kind who never lets the mask slip) and it makes him question his motives for once;

"You were supposed to stick to the game plan. Seduce him, have him put down Wyatt and Howdy, maybe have a little fun along the way if you were lucky enough... You were never supposed to go and start having actual feelings for the guy."

Yet, by the end of the fic, Bobby lightly scolds Knight for smoking a cigar in his car and Knight's immediate reaction is 'oh well, guess that's it then'. That's just how the world works in his mind, you get what you need from somebody and move on (I have a sequel in mind that will challenge this mindset greatly for him!)

So going back to Roman, the after-care is purely transactional. Both men got what they wanted and leave it at that, then when Knight inevitably goes for Roman and his championship again, there's nothing personal between them.

As for your other query; would Roman exploit Knight's loner status?

Yes. Kinda???

Roman's at the top of the food chain in WWE. He's the Undisputed Champion, he's the Tribal Chief, he is untouchable. There's nothing he really needs from Knight. Like I said in my last post, he's more a toy for Roman to play with or take his frustrations out on.

Roman wouldn't so much exploit Knight's loneliness as expose it and use it as a way to mock him. Roman is surrounded by his Bloodline who does his every bidding. If he wants Knight for his Winner's Room, he'll send Jimmy and Solo to 'collect' him, he'll have them attack Knight in the ring so he can pick at the bones, he'll have them restrain him or wear him down, maybe even pass him around a bit. Oh and uh, Paul Heyman likes to watch... just saying! All just to highlight how easily it is to get to Knight since he's left himself wide open while also saying 'you can't touch me, look at what I have. You wish you had this!'.

The closest Knight has ever had to an ally (and look, he's right there in that gif👆) is John Cena, who's something of a mentor to Knight and eventually passes the torch to him, hence why Knight now wears an arm band as part of his gear. But what happened to Cena? Roman had Solo take him out! In a very specific way too - they targeted Cena's throat!

Silencing a prolific speaker? Taking one of his greatest weapons away from him? Hmmm... think there was another message there?

In the end, it was this exact advantage that won Roman the title match - he had his Bloodline to help him through while Knight had nobody in his corner. Perhaps one day, Knight will make a deeper connection with someone, somebody who is open to his friendship, has similar interests and similar goals. A similar catchphrase, even? Perhaps...?

[weconqueratdawn]

Submission: Morcilla Extract - commentary request :)

(Submission from @theseavoices in response to this)

Hannibal watched him with a fond calculating warmth. Will recognised it as love, now. It was so good it hurt. Vicious and so, so tender.

Will looked at his plate. “How long can we do this?” he asked. “How long can I have this for?”

From the opposite side of the table, he felt an increase and then a release of tension. A swirl of something dark and brittle, and a decisive letting-go. “I want nothing to change,” Hannibal said. “You, however, seem certain that something must.”

Will slumped back in his chair. “Something will,” he said. “We have coalesced, gravity has shifted. It will continue to shift, until a new balance is found.”

“You’re afraid the balance won’t be in your favour.”

“I’m tired of thinking about it,” said Will. “Weighing up who is gaining and who is losing. If we’re to dance, then let’s.”

“Dancing requires a partner, not an opponent,” said Hannibal. “Is that what you see?”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “Sometimes.” He remembered Hannibal’s flushed skin under his palms, the heat of his body. “This afternoon, I thought about blood. I thought about flesh, your flesh. You felt so real. So human.”

Hannibal didn’t bother to keep his piqued curiosity hidden. He had no need to pretend anymore. “The body is a gift to one’s lover,” he said, after a beat of consideration. “A sacrifice to their pleasure, that yet receives pleasure in return.”

Will poked stubbornly at the last of his food. “I enjoy your pleasure,” he said. “I did today. It seems appropriate that I should witness it, cause it. That it should be mine. That it should always be mine.”

When he glanced up, Hannibal looked enraptured. Though physically unlikely they could manage much so soon, Will wondered if he would let himself be taken back to bed.

“And what about your pleasure?” Hannibal asked. “Can I make the same claim?”

“In a partnership you would,” Will said. “Give and take. What would you like to give, Hannibal, and what would you like to take?”

Hannibal stared at him with burning eyes. Will felt a spark of triumph. This was a dance indeed, though he wasn’t sure which kind. Even for him, the rules were never clear. He would always follow and never lead. Not for long, anyway.

He ducked his head, and softened his posture. It wasn’t a subtle manoeuvre but it didn’t matter. Hannibal would recognise his forfeit for what it was - a gesture of peace.

“Consider it a gift,” he said. “Next time.” Then he stood and began clearing away.

———-

I’d love to know your whole background thinking behind them in this fic - I found it very like the show, in terms of their ‘dance’

-info info info…

Oh dear, I can feel this getting long already :0

First things first – thanks for the curiosity and that major compliment there! Which leads me into your question about my background thinking when setting out to write this fic….

The short answer is I’m obsessed with the idea of Hannibal in love and trying to imagine what that might look like after they’ve both come to an understanding - here, particularly in relation to Hannibal’s cannibalism. Morcilla is my first real shot at this – it’s set at some point after Inosculation (which is all post-twotl torturous emotional fall-out in a Will-centric setting) so they’ve, essentially, dealt with some issues and settled down together by the time this fic begins.

A big question for fic-writers post-fall is whether Will has fallen in a Biblical sense, too – is he going out hunting with his new husband?? – and post-fall fics tend to deal with the necessary struggles around that. It’s mostly assumed that Will is somehow “out of danger” and that as Hannibal’s love object he’s safe from any further victimhood. That makes a lot of sense, of course, as we’re fic writers and we usually want them both to end up finding some kind of peace with each other.

But my brain couldn’t let the potential threat to Will lie – Hannibal’s motives and actions are extremely complex and changeable, even more so once strong emotions are added. Is it really possible that he could settle into cosy domesticity permanently and stop raising a certain amount of hell (at least the particular kind he directs at Will)? The answer is – I don’t know. But I thought it more than reasonable that Will should and would be thinking along these lines.

The passage you chose is the start of Will questioning this – this is why he asks “How long can I have this for?” Hannibal later introduces, obliquely, the main topic of the fic by stating that “The body is a gift to one’s lover.” Now, I maybe a little preoccupied by gift-giving and the cultural obligations it produces - I blame my anthropology studies for this – it fits their murky “dance” too well. Gifts are complicated things. So are bodies, and when we’re talking about Hannibal and bodies, the complications are far more diverse than they might be for you and I. When Will asks, “What would you like to give, Hannibal, and what would you like to take?” he’s wondering as much about Hannibal’s cannibalistic desires as he is about anything else. He’s asking, more or less: do you want to eat me?

This gets more explicit later on in the fic. Will, with the levels of calculation life with Hannibal necessitates, offers out a solution with the comment that this way Hannibal can have his cake and eat it (you can probably guess how from the title :D). I can hear some crying out at the suggestion that Hannibal might eat Will – that he loves Will too much, he needs his physical presence, and that after all their periods of separation he would have learned his lesson about the value Will has for him. And I completely agree – but the desire might still be there, and this is what Will is questioning (and then later – boldly? cleverly? stupidly?? – offering him a solution to). Will is as curious about Hannibal as Hannibal is about him and he wouldn’t be able to let this go without an answer.

I hadn’t written or thought very deeply about Hannibal’s particular brand of cannibalism before, and I was dying to. The general picture we get is of a predatory act, one founded on dominance and then carried out with extreme and ostentatious elegance. Clearly this kind of behaviour wouldn’t cut it for Will - he is and could not be Hannibal’s victim, in the sense of Hannibal’s historic pathology. If he is to be eaten by Hannibal, the circumstances would have to be very different and would have a very special significance for Hannibal.

I read up about cannibalism - sometimes it’s easy to forget it’s a real thing which exists in the real world :) - and was reminded that anthropologists distinguish between two main types: exocannibalism (the eating person outside of the community e.g. a celebration of victory over an enemy) and endocannibalism (the eating of a person inside the community, usually a family member and often related to mourning). Does that last one sound familiar? ;)

I find it *impossible* that both Will and Hannibal are not aware of the cultural implications of cannibalism and have not read about it extensively. Will must be well aware of the specific and unusual position he is in - as far as he knows (I’m assuming they haven’t discussed Murasaki) the only other other person Hannibal has loved he ate, as part of a traumatic childhood event which undoubtedly shaped his pathology. What are the odds on Will surviving that kind of love unscathed?

And that’s the point at which I started writing :)

I’ve still got submissions open should anyone else want to quiz me about a fic of mine and anon asks are always enabled. Doesn’t have to be a huge chunk - whatever you fancy!