#who knew mischa hates spiders

[ask-the-cyclone]

Does anyone here dislike spiders? And/or have a fear of them?

-👑

I do not like them.

Dude the other day you fully ran out of the building because there was one inside the choir room piano

NOOOO I DID NOT

I think they’re fine. Don’t bother them, they don’t bother you

Not my favorite. I like tarantulas because you can see them, little spiders not so much

I’m the resident spider killer/relocater. I’m indifferent

I have one that lives in my hair. Her name is Charlotte.

*starts screaming*

[stranded-labyrinth]

post fall hannibal and will are regularly blowing each other's backs out on beaches and beds and every other available surface in cuba. life is good and they're killing and eating folks together on the reg. they learn and know everything there is to learn and know about one another, until one night they're cooking and hannibal sees a spider in one of the vegetables and five minutes later he's on the counter while will busts a lung laughing at him but gets rid of the spider in like five seconds while also identifying which kind it is and what its habitat usually is etc etc so basically a little fic based on your post and featuring entomologist will graham

i had to look at pictures of garden spiders for this. i hate you.

anyway, this didn't end up being very crackficy at all. as a matter of fact, this is just angst LOL. i'm sorry for taking it so far beyond the direction you wanted it to go in

also, big warning for arachnophobia, because spiders are talked about a LOT in this fic!

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The weaving maiden, doomed to repeat her greatest accomplishment and gravest error for years to come.

Every so often, Hannibal found himself thinking back to her story. While he scarcely spoke of it, it had become one of his favorites.

There were two people on Earth who knew why Hannibal so frequently consumed human flesh, and one of them had counted herself amongst the dead that lay in his past. That left only one, who had stood alongside him, searing the other contender’s arm on a grill to show Hannibal the wonders of southern barbeque.

Then there was the classic depiction in Greek myth of mortals boasting to the divine, divinity striking down mercilessly until the mortal would indeed understand that there are fates worse than death.

Rule number one of the ancients: Never equate yourself to a god, nor place yourself above them.

Hannibal was quite certain that, should he have been born approximately 3,000 years prior, he would have been flayed open in public.

That being said, the myth was one of the only ones in existence to truly be able to make his skin crawl, and thus its horror was far more embedded into his mind than any of the other tragic tales of the Greeks (save for one that he’d lamented by heart for approximately four years).

People often made the mistake of assuming that spiders died off in the winter. They could not be more wrong.

There was a time years ago, during those frozen months in Lithuania, in which his captors had been able to keep their fires burning.

Their first goal had always been to simply obtain ransom money and be on their way. Hannibal could remember the glow of campfires then, Mischa asking him when they would be going home. He never had an answer for her.

He remembered killing all the spiders for her in their little den.

Easily frightened as she was, being so young, she sought her older brother when seeing something crawling horribly fast along the wall, or along the floor. Even sitting innocently in the corner, those little creatures frightened her, and thus they were swiftly sent back to whence all things came with a hard PAT.

There had been one that had passed them by, as it turned out. Mischa discovered it sitting in the corner and let out a shrill cry, loud enough that one of their captors had shouted at her for it. Hannibal did swiftly away with the offending arachnid, neither of them knowing what had already taken place before its discovery.

A day came not long after, closer to their freezing days, where Hannibal could remember Mischa growing sniffly. Searching around, he discovered the likely perpetrator: A dust bunny in the corner, aggravating her allergies.

He remembered grabbing it, hoping to remove it from their den.

He could almost forget her hunger pain induced cries when he remembered the way she screamed as hundreds of the spider's babies cascaded over them both. He had very nearly drowned her out with screams of his own that day.

Spiders, for every day since, were associated with exactly one scene in his mind: Fear, death, and the cold.

Arachnophobia, as people seemed to so commonly deem just about any distaste of the horrible little things, always seemed to be the butt of the joke. Something to be mocked for, something pathetic, something weak.

He was not weak.

That being said, he was rather fortunate that the concept never came up to begin with. In their little house, Hannibal had yet to see any of the cursed creatures. The most he’d hear of them were from Will, who would find one on occasion and inform Hannibal that he’d taken it outside, before going on about its species, where it was native to, the patterns of its body, and then inevitably inform Hannibal that he had just, in fact, been bitten by the little rascal.

Hannibal smiled to himself as he went on with his chopping in the kitchen, wondering just how much poor treatment at the hands of an animal Will could withstand. He imagined Will would forgive just about any creature that wasn’t human. Most of all, it was pleasant to be able to find himself unaffected by the knowledge of the arachnid’s presence, for once. Perhaps it could be said that it was because he never actually laid eyes on them.

In the middle of his thoughts, his eyes focused more on the pan he was pouring into than his hands, it seemed that the outer shell of the onion he’d been chopping was touching his hand. Odd, he thought he’d brushed those aside already.

And then it moved, and he glanced at his hand.

--------

Will stepped through the hall, brows furrowed in confusion. He could have sworn he’d heard his name be called, quickly and in a tone he’d never heard Hannibal use before, but he’d received no response when he called back.

“Hannibal?” he called, beginning to head towards the kitchen. “Are you–

Any question he may have had cut off entirely when he stepped into the kitchen, only to see Hannibal perched on the furthest possible counter.

Cowering.

Before he could so much as question him, eyes radiating concern, he spotted movement across the floor between them.

When his eyes locked onto it, he couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh hey there, little guy,” he cooed as he bent down, scooping the spider off of the floor and into his palms. “What are you doing inside? You’re never inside! Did someone leave the window open, hm? Were you curious?”

He doesn’t notice Hannibal staring at him, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow. 

“Oh, you’re a pretty little guy, aren’t you? Yellow garden spider!” Will declared proudly. “Oh, your stripes are just beautiful…”

Hannibal swallowed hard, willing his voice to not quiver as much as he was sure it would.

“Will.”

Will glanced at him, snapped out of his reverie by the reality of his petrified lover.

“Kill it.”

It was not a request. It was a command.

Will frowned.

“Hannibal, I’m not killing it, you know that,” he argued. “I’m just gonna take it outside.”

Hannibal’s mouth opened to speak, his vocal cords cut off when they were inundated with things he could say. Let it go so it can come back? So it can lay eggs? So it can bring its swarm?

So he’ll be drowned in frightened screams again, no longer knowing which are his own?

Will’s eyes raked over him, his frustration beginning to dissipate.

“Hannibal,” he began, daring to finally ask, “why are you on the counter?”

Hannibal did not answer, his eyes firmly locked on the vile creature in his lover’s hands.

Concern melted back into Will’s look. “Hannibal…” He took a step forward. “It’s not gonna hurt you, see? Look, it’s just–”

As Will held the little beast out, Hannibal flinched.

“Whoa– Okay, okay!” Will said quickly, taking several steps back. “Look, I’ll…I’ll just take it outside, okay? You won’t have to see it again.”

“It’ll come back,” Hannibal said, quiet enough that he was just barely heard. “It’ll come back in hundreds.”

Will stood still, as though searching for a solution. He had never seen Hannibal like this before, not ever. He had never seen Hannibal frightened.

As the creature moved in his hands, he could feel a particular spot beginning to itch. Looking down, he saw a rather familiar two pin pricks in the heel of his palm.

He sighed.

He dropped the spider to the floor.

And he stomped.

He swallowed hard, trying not to audibly gag at the distinct crunch feel beneath his shoe. The quick shattering of the exoskeleton, like tiny tectonic plates forced to shift beneath a great weight. A little world coming to an end.

He lifted his foot, staring down at the curled up remains of the critter he was going to let outside.

Some small agony swelled in his chest, and he looked to Hannibal, the way he always did.

Hannibal was finally breathing again, his face showing nothing but pure relief.

And the agony was gone.

Carrying the spider corpse to the window to give it a good toss outside, the realization dawned on Will that he would do just about anything to never see that fear in that man’s eyes again.

It wasn’t the first time he took a life at Hannibal’s behest that he never thought he’d take.

And Hannibal gazed at him the way he imagined humanity had been gazing at the moon for thousands of years, in silent awe of the beauty he was beholding.

Somewhere deep in his memory palace, a little boy had someone to kill the spiders for him, too.