Hannibal

[alcuin]

Alcuin Delaunay sat at a small metal table in a police interrogation room, his hands folded tightly in his lap to stop them from trembling. The fluorescent light above him buzzed faintly.

He had dressed carefully that morning, choosing a dove-gray cashmere sweater and black slacks—simple, elegant, deliberately unassuming. His usual style, though today it kind of felt like a costume. He tugged at the cuffs, his fingers brushing the faint smudge of charcoal still clinging to his skin from sketching the night before. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had tried to distract himself, but his drawings had turned out like every other attempt for the past three days: dark, jagged lines, incomplete.

He had barely stepped out of his car at the studio lot that morning when two detectives intercepted him. Their tone had been polite but firm—Could he come down to the station to answer a few questions about Anafiel Vessar?—and the polite veneer didn’t fool him for a second. He had agreed, of course; refusing would have only made things worse.

Alcuin rubbed his thumb along the edge of his palm, an old nervous habit, as he replayed his last moments at Anafiel’s house for the hundredth time. He had been careful, hadn’t he? The door locked behind him. The lights off. He'd already admitted to the police that he'd been there that day, and (convincingly, he thought) expressed his uncertainty about the exact time. Perhaps someone had seen him to pinpoint it more exactly, in a way that might be damning? A neighbor? A camera? Or even worse, had he left behind some damning piece of evidence in his panic? His fingerprints all over the house could be explained easily enough...

His breath hitched at the thought. You could have saved him, a small voice in his mind whispered, insidious and relentless. If you’d stayed—if you hadn’t run—he might still be alive.

Thank God, he thought, that was an actor. He thought he'd gotten through that interrogation pretty well, but they'd told him to stay put, that someone else would be coming to talk to him.

Comments

[alcuin]

Alcuin nodded. “And I’m between roles right now, I start shooting something in a few weeks. I haven’t really known what to do with myself, I’ve found myself just… staring at the wall sometimes.”

[anamusebouche]

"Did you spend a lot of time with him?" Hannibal asked. Finally, the young man would have to admit to him what the relation was between them.

[alcuin]

Alcuin ran a hand through his hair, and after a moment, nodded. “I… loved him.” But even in his voice, it was almost like there was an asterisk at the end. A footnote of it’s complicated.

[anamusebouche]

Hannibal nodded only, pleased that this was out. "Then will you tell me about your relationship with him?"

[alcuin]

“He was…” Alcuin was clearly struggling now. With words, but also holding back emotion. “My advocate, my mentor, and yes my lover and… I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t always healthy. It was complicated.”

[anamusebouche]

"Healthy," Hannibal echoed. "How so? Was he abusive?"

[alcuin]

“No,” said Alcuin quickly. But then as soon as the word left his mouth he seemed to hesitate, and then said, “I mean. Certainly not physically and not even emotionally. But I suppose if I had to look back objectively… I think he was isolating me. Manipulating maybe.” He sounded reluctant.

[anamusebouche]

"It can be difficult to admit to ourselves the darker sides of those we love," Hannibal offered. "I'm not here to judge Anafiel," he assured the young man. "Only to investigate the impact he had on you and your well-being. Clearly talking about him fills you with anxiety."

[alcuin]

“It’s just that I’d only recently started having these feelings. I’d never… pushed back, before. I suppose I’m feeling guilty for feeling anything but grief.”

[anamusebouche]

"Ah," Hannibal replied. "Were these feelings reciprocated?"

[alcuin]

Alcuin was confused for a moment by the question. "Do you mean, was Anafiel also having doubts about our relationship? I think he seemed... disappointed, that I was pushing back. I imagine he was accustomed to me just trusting him implicitly."

[anamusebouche]

"How long were you together then?" Hannibal asked.

[alcuin]

"He became my manager seven years ago," Alcuin said. "Romantically involved for... five or six." He paused, and then added, "I um. I actually first met him when I was a child, though."

This was not on his Wikipedia page, or even in the tabloids. The official story was that Anafiel "discovered" him randomly.

[anamusebouche]

"Where you involved when you were a child?" Hannibal asked, without judgement. Without judgement, though Hannibal would very strongly disapprove. Fortunately, Anafiel was already dead.

[alcuin]

"No!" Alcuin looked slightly horrified at the suggestion. "I - no. We didn't become romantically involved until a year or two after I moved to LA, I was I think 23."

He relaxed a little. "I just mean, most people think he just randomly discovered me working as a waiter or something. That isn't exactly the truth, he was a... friend of the family."

[anamusebouche]

"You knew him," Hannibal said to let Alcuin continue that trail of thought.

[alcuin]

Alcuin was pretty sure he’d never told anyone this who didn’t already know.

“My father was an army officer,” he said. “He died when I was very young, I don’t remember him. But he made his best friend promise that he would take care of me if anything ever happened to him.” Pause. “That wasn’t Anafiel. His name was Roland, and he sent my mother money every year. Sometimes visited, brought presents,.. once when I was about fourteen he brought his boyfriend with him. Anafiel.”

[anamusebouche]

"How did that make you feel?" Hannibal asked.

[alcuin]

Alcuin shrugged. "Roland was nice. Kept sending money... which made things a lot easier for us, my mother worked in a bakery. He had family money of some kind, he was just rich for no reason, you know? When I graduated from high school he offered to help send me to college, but my mom got sick so I stuck around... and then Roland died. And Anafiel came to see us, give us the news personally and also ah, he left something for us in his will. It was enough to set up my mom, whose cancer was gone by then, and Anafiel, well... he suggested I could back with him to LA. That he could get me modeling jobs. So I did."

[anamusebouche]

Hannibal heard him and made a few notes as Alcuin spoke. It seemed Alcuin gravitated to older men with power. Perhaps that was why he was drawn to coming to therapy as well. "How old were you when you came here with him?"

[alcuin]

“Almost twenty one,” Alcuin said.

[anamusebouche]

"Who initiated your relationship?" He asked then.

[alcuin]

"... I did," Alcuin said, though something about it seemed almost unsure. "It was a few years later though. I was infatuated, so I decided to ah... seduce him."

Though if he thought back on it now, he did wonder if some of the way it happened involved Anafiel wanting him to think it was his idea.

[anamusebouche]

"Are you doubting your recollection on this?" Hannibal asked, noting the tone of voice.

[alcuin]

"Oh, I just - I don't know. It was a long time ago. Maybe I'm just remembering it through the lens of things that happened later. But I do want to be clear that my relationship with him was... entirely consensual. I wanted him. I loved him."