AN-Thank you all for following and supporting this story. You have all been lovely, so thank you for that. You all made it worth writing.

OoOoO

Will loved buttons.

Hannibal knew this by how the merman stared at them. The suit he wore today was fresh from his tailor, and what he would be wearing at his latest dinner party, the event already fully booked. It would be a grand affair featuring a theme of earth and sky for the entrees of hippogriff, rainbow nymphs, and earth angels.

His suit was a confection of purple and blue plaid, the blending color scheme intense and sumptuous, accented with gold buttons. Merfolk loved their gold, but Will seemed particularly intrigued by the concept of them. He looked like he aimed to misbehave about it too, his stormy blue eyes fixed on the dance and play of light on the metal.

Summoned up like a creature from the deep, the merman was already swimming to the surface, climbing out of his tank, and into his chair with his tail curled tightly around it. He used the stability of his positioning to lean up as far as he could to grab for Hannibal who kept well out of his reach.

"Please control yourself. I would prefer this outfit not to be stained with salt water…..or torn apart by your enthusiasm." Hannibal smiled, carefully catching the merman's hands to kiss the backs of them.

Keeping still, Will let Hannibal lave his tongue up his wrist and further up over the spray of scales that decorated his arms like a bejeweled pattern. Belated, Hannibal realized that he had gotten too close, the merman using his superior speed and barbed fingertips to snag a button off of the man's waistcoat.

Extras were always included and buttons were easy enough to sew on so Hannibal sighed as he let the decoration go, Will curling up in his chair to stare at his prize.

"It has little pictures on it." Will said, turning the button over and over in dark hands so that it caught the light. Hannibal took the initiative of stripping out of his coat so that he could start preparing their dinner.

The front door chime sounding made both beings look up in surprise, no appointments or dinners scheduled for this evening. Sighing, Hannibal shooed the merman back into his tank, Will taking his stolen button with him. Throwing a black covering over the tank, Hannibal shrugged back into his coat so see who was calling on them, unannounced and uninvited.

The incident with Abigail had made Hannibal take some precautions. If anyone turned up at his door, Hannibal would simply cover the tank. Anyone who was intimate enough to be invited inside his house was either a fellow chef, a patron of their strange arts, or a provider for the feasts themselves. Everyone was in on the game so it wouldn't be suspicious for him to have something live in his kitchen awaiting its fate or him wanting to keep it secret.

Will didn't like it, but he knew it was in his best interest to keep silent. In the dark, Will curled up sullenly into a ball, and kept his ears open. He would be ready if Hannibal needed his help.

OoOoO

"Do you have an appointment?"

Hannibal tapped down his dismay upon finding Alana Bloom and Bedelia Du Mauier on his stoop.

"Do you have a beer?" was Alana's cheeky answer, a wide smile on her gorgeous face. Hannibal made himself mirror the expression at his associates. The two woman were the closest things he had to as professional rival or any sort of competition. Bedelia owned and operated a similar concept, but only served the magical flora, not the fauna, a vegetarian restaurant of the supernatural called Belladonna. The entire idea of it tended to make Hannibal ill whenever he thought about it for too long.

"Please come in." Hannibal invited, knowing he couldn't turn them away without coming off as suspicious. Tongues would wag and not in the right way.

"How have you been, Hannibal? It's been a while." Bedelia inquired in that clinically cool tone of hers that could mean anything and nothing.

"Yes. It has. I fear I have been quite busy of late." Hannibal said, trying to charm his guests to watch it fall flat like it usually always did with Bedelia. The woman could have been carved from ice, and she was one of the few people Hannibal actually respected. He could have love her once for it, but they were too similar in all the wrong ways. They were also adverse that way too.

Alana was another story all together. Bright, intelligent, fearless, and not afraid to be feminine yet assertive, she was an unique as Bedelia yet opposite in some many different ways. She and Hannibal could have been an affair, but she was far too independent for anything long lasting. Taming her might have broken what was best about her, and Hannibal thought the world was better with her in it as is. Knowing he had to be first in a relationship, Hannibal was unwilling to be anyone's passing flight of fancy.

"So what are you working on?" Alana grinned, following Hannibal into the kitchen while Bedelia chose to stay in the sitting room. Alana felt far more comfortable here than her lover, having once been Hannibal's sous chef. She found her hand smacked with the flat of a knife just like old times when she reached for a pot's lid.

"No peeking. You had your chance." Hannibal reprimanded with a smile as he handed her a tall glass of dark beer.

"Don't be bitter." Alana laughed before taking a deep sip of her private stock. In her opinion, Hannibal made the best beer, but still refused to tell her his secret brewing ingredient. She hadn't been able to find out even while working under him.

"I don't blame you for following your heart…" Hannibal said good naturedly. Alana had been his favorite protégé. She had also been his last after Alana left him to go study under Bedelia. "…..even if it was into the arms of my rival."

"What's this?" Alana asked, nodding toward the covered tank.

"You know I don't care to repeat myself." Hannibal told her in a stern tone, looking over at her coolly. Shrugging but properly admonished, Alana walked away from the tank to lean up against the kitchen island by the built in range. She seemed determined to find out what was in that pot. Her curiosity amused Hannibal, who wouldn't tell her for the world tell it was just water he was planning to boil up some pasta in.

"Just asking. The worse you can say is 'no'." Alana mused, making Hannibal chuckle who knew from personal experience that wasn't true.
Planning to wait until Hannibal was occupied with ingredients again, Alana planned her move to try and look in the pot. Something smelled usually strange in his kitchen. Salty but not unpleasantly so.

It was all a case of mistiming really when Hannibal thought back on it. A spot of moisture from Will's tail, Alana's high heels slipping at the worst possible moment, positioning of everything in the kitchen at that point in time, it was all those little things that added up to an accident.

Alana leaned in to look when Hannibal's back was turned causing her heel to slip, the woman falling forward. She caught herself in time, but her arm knocked into the pot of boiling water, sending it flying across the smooth range and straight at Hannibal who was in mid turn with ingredients in hand. Ever brilliant, Hannibal knew it would be too late for him to save himself so he braced for the inevitable pain. So he was quite surprised when the water turned to sprays of pearls, hitting his face and suit instead of searing hot water.

Even more startling was the tendrils of water which tore the covering on the tank into ribbons, revealing a furious merman. The ropes of sharp water streaked toward Alana, fast and deadly, their intent clear if they met her flesh. Hannibal's honed reflexes reacted in time for him to move beyond shock and disbelief, the chef flinging himself in front of Alana in time. The water saturated his new suit, but did little else other than that.

"Oh my god! What is that!?" Alana screamed, turning in Hannibal's arms in time to see a very angry merman climbing out of his very open tank.

The merman's spines were no less impressive out of the water, standing up like draped spears tipped in poison coming out of his back. His barbed fingertips gouged grooves into the tile as he crawled toward them. His eyes were black as pitch and his teeth were bared, standing out sharp and serrated in his inhuman face.

The situation complicated itself further as Bedelia entered the kitchen, called forth by Alana's screaming and all the other noise.

"Oh!" Bedelia gasped. Such a reaction coming from her was actually quite a lot. Will paused to snarl at her, but kept right on coming, maiming and murder the focus of his mind and instinct.

"Everyone calm down!" Hannibal told the room sternly, coming as close to yelling as he ever did. Shoving Alana into Bedelia and both woman out of the kitchen, Hannibal turned smoothing in place to face the enraged merman denied his kill.

"Will. Stop." Hannibal ordered, kneeling down to keep the merman from following after the woman, even though it put him well within reach of fingertips that could shred his skin into ribbons.

Snapping his teeth to let out an incensed symphony of clicks and squeals, Will complained loudly at Hannibal, but controlled himself to an extent. His tail bashed against the island to dent the surrounding wood and metal, cracking the tile beneath them from the force of it.

"Will…Will…..shhhhhhh, dear one." Hannibal murmured softly, holding his hands out with his palms flat. Eventually the spines lowered and Will's eyes cleared to their grey blue beauty. When the merman started to tremble in place, Hannibal reached for Will to pet his dark ringlets, dripping salt water onto his ruined floor. Hannibal listened to Will's tears hit the broken tile in soft pings, and the women calling him through the door.

OoOoO

" It was unfortunate you had to see that." was what Hannibal said as he came through the door, making sure to close it firmly behind him

"I'm a little take aback. No, a lot taken aback. What the hell was that? Why was that…..was that thing able to get out of its cage?!" Alana yelled. "And don't tell us it was a mistake! You don't make those kind of mistakes."

"I think it would be best if you leave. Now." Hannibal told them, leaving no room for argument and giving no explanation.

Well into her temper, Alana stormed out of his house, leaving Bedelia to stare at him with those cold blue eyes of hers. Watching Alana's back until the sight of it was gone, Hannibal turned to find Bedelia studying him.

"Hannibal….You can not keep him." Bedelia said calmly in a grave sort of tone, reminding Hannibal why she was one of his favorite people. Calm, cool, and collected, she saw everything for what it was, stripping it down to bare bones with logic and inborn cunning. "It's unnatural for the both of you, detrimental even. You can not form a healthy relationship with a creature who is removed from the concept as a man who is also removed from the concept."

"It feels like I am failing him if I let him go." Hannibal said softly. He was feeling pain, deep and low in his gut, but he knew she was right. It was the searing sort of hurt, like he was being burned from the inside out meticulously slow.

"What you are feeling is love or a spectrum of it. Stop what you are doing with this creature, and do what is right for the both of you while you still can." Bedelia pressed, giving Hannibal a stern look before she left, her heels making a sharp clicking noise.

They left Hannibal alone with his new realizations, and he let them go.

OoOoO

"I shouldn't have attacked her. I'm sorry." Will said as soon as Hannibal reentered the kitchen. The merman could tell something was wrong. Hannibal's face was a closed off thing, the human wearing his mask firmly back in place. It frightened Will to see it there again.

Ignoring the merman's wavering tone and scared look, Hannibal busied himself by cleaning up his kitchen. He knew he was avoiding the issue at hand, fortifying himself to address it proper like as he finished his task. Things needed to be set in motion immediately if he was going to do this, even if it was with a heavy heart and a mind full of regret.

"I will be contacting Gideon and his crew. If all goes well, they should be here first thing in the morning." Hannibal told the merman, his tone sounding calm yet lifeless. He could move, leave Baltimore. He was rich enough with no family left alive to ask any questions about it. His acquaintances were few, and he owed them nothing in way of explanation. He could buy a house by an ocean, live right off the shore.

But…

Will would always be a secret, something he would always have to hide, and then there were the other aspects of his own life he needed to keep concealed. He couldn't hunt in a small town where any death would be too noticeable. Hannibal needed to live and pursue his type of prey in the city to escape notice, and an audience, unwilling or not, to view his 'art'.

"Why would you call them?" Will whispered, holding onto the frame of the tank to keep from sinking up the surface. He suddenly felt so heavy it was painful.

"I'm letting you go. I will make sure they take you back from where they pulled you from." Hannibal said, watching as Will's face shattered with an array of emotions. Joy, sorrow, disbelief, confusion, and so much more were beautiful to watch as they were revealed melting and mingling into one another.

"Have I insulted you or burdened you with my presence?" Will had to focus on making the words come out as clearly as possible. Everything in his mouth and throat felt too thick to work properly, like his gills were swollen and pressing in to suffocate him.

"No, not at all. This is for the best. For the both of us." Hannibal murmured. The merman sounded so broken and lost. It was difficult for him to remain unaffected by it.

"Why? So I can be alone again? So you can be alone again? I don't accept that. Don't tell me that you don't feel the same way. I know you do." Will snapped, his tail bashing against the side of the tank to spray water across the kitchen.

"You are mistaken." Hannibal stated, not letting the merman's truth take the chill out of his words. He watched as Will seemed to collapse into himself, hope and defiance withering away on his face.

"Please don't lie to me. We promised to be honest with one another." Will begged. He was not above that. Merfolk were prideful but Will was willing to implore, to debase himself for what he thought was important.

"Will, would you truly be happy spending the rest of your life living in a tank in my kitchen? To never see the ocean again? Think carefully before you answer and choose your words wisely." Hannibal said, going for the throat of the matter to snap its neck.

Staring back, Will could feel the blow of Hannibal's words. The thought of returning home to the deep blue sent his mind reeling. He could be free again. Free to move about as he was meant to do. He could go home to be with his Father Sea and Mother Moon at long last, to not hear their laments whispering to him in the dark. His parental gods wept for their lost son.

"And we have our answer." Hannibal broke the silence between them. "Are you hungry? Would you like me to make you anything?"

"No thank you. I've seem to have lost my appetite."" Will said miserably, letting go of the tank's framework to sink lifelessly to the bottom. His body landed heavily, weighted down by his sorrow.

"As have I." Hannibal said softly, finding he could no longer stand to be in his own kitchen, not while the merman was still there. He had phone calls and demands to make anyway. Chilton's replacement Gideon would be easy enough to pay off into keeping this task secret from beginning to finish.

"Goodnight, dear one."

oOo

The shattering of something expensive and fragile woke Hannibal up from a dead sleep, the chef turned predator smoothly rolling out of his bed. People mistook his love for silk as decadent, the real reason behind it was that silk absorbed sound. Seeing perfectly well in the dark and quite familiar with the layout of his own house, Hannibal strode confidently through shadow filled hallways, palming the knives he kept hidden under his pillow. The pair of small steel blades were matte black and sharp enough to carve designs into feathers.

Despite the origin of the noise coming from his dining room, Hannibal went through the kitchen first because Will…If anything were to happen to him….Hannibal tried not to think about it as he slipped down the side stairs that exited out into his kitchen, silent as any shade.

To his immediate horror, Hannibal saw that the tank stood barren of its inhabitant, the water illuminated silver by moonlight. More noise coming from the dining room area caught Hannibal's attention, the killer stalking forward on silent footpads. He didn't bother with light, having no intention of scaring away the intruder. Anyone stupid enough to break into his home was destined for his freezer, not the mercy of a prison cell.

Hannibal kept to the shadows which turned out to be almost his undoing when he nearly face planted, tripping over something unexpected on his floor. Honed reflexes were the only thing that kept Hannibal standing as he peered down at the unexpected obstacle.

It was rendered meat left out in the open to rot. Blood pooled beneath it in foul clotting lakes, stinking metallic and maritime as it dried. A chill settled over Hannibal's skin as he recognized the torn up flesh as Will's tail, jaggedly ripped apart and split done the middle, the midnight opal scales scattered about, its beauty ruined by carelessness and cruelty.

Whoever had broken into his house had decided to butcher off Will's tail and leave it in his dining room as a message. Staring down at what was left of the merman's lower half, Hannibal felt cold externally while internally white hot plasma replaced his blood with rage. Supernatural creature or not, there was no way Will could have survived that kind of maiming.

The freezer was too good a destination for this killer. Whoever had done this was going to suffer. By the time Hannibal was finished with them, death would seen and begged for as a blessed reprieve.

The intruder's noises were coming from the sitting room now. From their careless nature of knocking into things, Hannibal could only surmise that they were having some difficulty carrying out the rest of Will's corpse or the merman had injured them grievously before his demise.

Assuming the latter, Hannibal followed sporadic pools of liquid like dark mirrors. It was a trail to his quarry who stood not too far from him now, the dead man walking leaning heavily up against a wall. The void figure was outlined in silvery moonlight, giving away his position perfectly. Hannibal planned his next movements with the intent of incapacitating instead of outright killing the person when a soft whisper made him freeze mid-action.

"Hannibal?" the figure said as it turned toward him, promptly falling over from the action, which was only to be expected. It was his first time walking after all. Hannibal turned on the lights to find Will lying on his sitting room floor, covered in blue blood and other viscera with legs falling to the side uselessly.

"Will! What have you done!?" Hannibal said as he pocketed the blades, moving to kneel beside the former merman while ignoring the gore that soaked into his bedclothes.

"You were going to make me leave so I decided to change your mind." Will laughed, the noise of it pain filled as he rocked in place, trying to sit up. He managed it with Hannibal's help, the man moving to sit behind the former merman so that he could rest his now smooth back to the chef's front.

"But…..how…..?" Hannibal asked, examining the merman turned human with a professional eye. Everything about him seemed normal, smooth pale skin covered in drying filth but otherwise unblemished.

"The lack of iron helped. I got a lot of my strength and magic back after you did away with it." Will said. Hannibal's hands were upon his face, feeling his forehead. They felt cool against his strange new skin.

"You have a fever." Hannibal informed him.

"What's that?" Will laughed. Maneuvering himself, Hannibal scooped Will up into his arms easily, the former merman offered little in the way of protest. Carrying his burden easily up the stairs, Hannibal took Will to his own personal bathroom. He didn't bother to undress as they entered the shower, too busy propping Will up as they were both pelted by cold water.

"Oh….that feels good." Will moaned, turning his face toward the stream.

"Does it?" Hannibal asked, trying to ignore how Will's moaning was affecting him.

"Water has never felt cold to me before, at least not like this. It feels different. Does it always feel this way to you? So separate?" Will groaned out the words.

Hannibal didn't know what to make of that question. "Will, I need you to focus. How long will you remain like this?"

"As long as you'll have me." Will told him, his tone tentative and almost shy as if he thought there was a chance that Hannibal might not want him like this.

"You've given up a lot to be with me." Hannibal said, wishing to relieve Will of such an absurd notion.

"I like to think I'm gaining more in return." Will said softly. He was turned around to face Hannibal, the man's eyes darkly blown from lust and a desire that made him look almost feral.

Hannibal pressed up roughly against Will who winced as their groins collided. "Damn you're right. That is uncomfortable." he muttered, remembering past explorations of Hannibal's lower anatomy.

"It gets better." Hannibal promised, his smile slow and wicked.

"Show me." Will panted out.

That was all it took, Hannibal hauling them out of the shower, barely remembering to grab a towel in time to dry Will off as he stripped down. They were both reasonably dry by the time their bodies hit his mattress.

Seeing the former merman writhe around on his bed, feeling silk for the first time against his skin, was a glorious sight Hannibal would remember with perfect clarity till his dying day. He fell forward on top of Will to cage the merman within his arms and legs.

"I feel strange." Will told him helplessly, gasping for air but not in the usual way. His gills were gone now to be replaced fully with lungs, and yet he was still having trouble breathing. Hannibal seemed to be having that effect on him, especially when the man started to kiss him, his lips traveling where they liked, nibbling his way down a pale throat to Will's chest past his belly, and all the way down to his groin to tangle his hands in the newly formed curls there.

Arching his back, Will cried out as his sex was consumed, Hannibal taking Will's length into his mouth until the rosy head of it hit the back of his throat. Eyes watering but keeping his greedy mouthful in place, Hannibal sucked and licked at the virgin flesh, knowing that he could overwhelm Will.

The taste of bitter salt proved that, Will screaming out his first orgasm as a human, the pleasure torn out from his new flesh by Hannibal's mouth, precise suction, and a busy tongue.

Swallowing before he could really properly taste the merman's seed, Hannibal continued to clean the oversensitive tip, lapping up every last drop of pearly fluid. Will's cry were sweet to hear even if his seed was strangely bitter in taste, almost like spilled tears and seaweed.

The impromptu feast didn't settle well in Hannibal's stomach, the chef falling back as a sharp cramp made his entire body coil in pain. Breaking out into a cold sweat, Hannibal curled up into a fetal position to try and keep himself together, the pain in his gut radiating out from his center all the way down to his toes and fingers.

"Shhhh….It will be over soon." were words the spoken by Will and only vaguely heard by Hannibal through his pain riddled fog.

"What's happening….to…me?" Hannibal pushed the words out through clenched teeth, his accent making them sharp. He could feel himself losing consciousness fast, the man fighting against himself to stay awake just a little while longer as every cell seemed to turn against him.

"What happens to anyone who consumes one of my kind? I wasn't lying when I told you our flesh can grant death or immortality. It all just depends on how it is taken, from what part of the flesh you receive sustenance from." Will whispered, humming under his breathe when he was done explaining. He didn't like to see his mate in pain, but it was necessary, especially if Hannibal was going to join him. Though they could live up on land, merfolk were always fated to return to their real home, Will seeing no real reason to stay here. Being on land was so limiting and too many humans knew about him.

Feeling relaxed from giving Hannibal his greatest gift and stronger now that he'd had time to rest, Will picked Hannibal up off the bed, his mate plaint and easier to manage now that he had passed out from the pain. He would need to get Hannibal into the tank, and have everything ready for transport by the time Gideon's men came in the morning for a merman. Will doubted that they would recognize him like this, and even if they did, Will had no issue with killing them. Even in his human form, Will still have most of his powers, yet foul iron had no control over him.

Slipping an unconscious Hannibal into the salt water to help along his transformation, Will wondered what color tail his mate would have as he watched the new merman's gills begin to form behind his ears and Hannibal take his first breathes underwater.

Will was patient. He could wait. He had waited this long and come this far to find his mate, further than most. He could do so a little longer.

Singing to himself, Will made one last cappuccino in Hannibal's kitchen as he waited for dawn to break.

OoOoO

The End

As Will always suspected, Hannibal made a gorgeous merman. His tail was scarlet that deepened into a rich purple at the end of his fins and back spines. He looks like a creature made of ruby and amethyst accented with bright gold spotting that ran down his sides. He moved gracefully through the water, effortless in his movements as a shark. Will couldn't have asked the moon for a more beautiful or devoted mate.