Chapter Text
Rain heaved from the sky, making one adolescence’s spirit and styled hair damp with humility. Thankfully for Hannibal, home was just right around the misty corner.
Fetching a lone key from his back pocket, he spat on the ground before jamming it in the lock, hot air welcoming him at last as he pushed through the door.
“I’m back..”
Hannibal muttered insincerely, closing the door from behind and shaking his head, water droplets flying everywhere from his umber strands.
The walls were silent, not atypical for their home. Yet, there was a soft screeching sound he could hear in the distance, the living room perhaps?
Cracking his neck, the teen lamely dropped his school bag on the ground and made his way to the living space, eyes going stale when he saw his little brother situated at the small coffee table.
Murdoc flinched a tad as he noticed Hannibal’s presence and quickly hid something in his hand while pulling on the table cloth, seemingly tidying it up to its usual draping spot.
“The hell are you doing?”
The bowl-cut hair boy blinked a few times at the simple question, eyes soon crinkled in annoyance, “Tch, nothing.”
Hannibal responded in kind, rolling his own eyes, “When did you get back?”
“An hour ago..”
“Is the old man home yet?”
“Wot do you think?” Murdoc huffed petulantly before leaning his back against the sofa, nails pricking on his knuckles.
Not wanting to spend his already depleted energy on the little prick any longer, Hannibal deeply groaned and set off to retrieve his bag from the floor before skipping up the stairs.
“Father?”
Hannibal called out, his voice quiet as he creaked through the corridor.
“..Father?”
He called again, louder this time.
“Not home yet huh, ya bastard?” Hannibal whispered to no one in particular, except for maybe the primeval portrait of their paternal grandparents on the wall, but they weren’t any cause for concern.
After tracing along the out-dated wallpaper, he went into his bedroom, shoulders immediately at ease.
Slowly unadorning his wet coat, he carelessly tossed it by the foot of his bed, as well as chucked his bag in a corner somewhere, and finally let himself plunge heavily on the bed.
The slightly firmed mattress and the softness of his pillows beckoned the exhausted teen to rest, which came in as easily as the grey clouds accompanying the rain.
Hannibal was just going to take a nap, as he has always done after coming home from school.
A much needed nap.
As evening settled in and the rain still prevailing, nothing but unusual peace wafted through the house.
Nothing much happened, aside from Hannibal catching his brother snooping through his belongings when he woke up. Saying something about wanting to watch a movie from his hidden stash of X-rated VHS tapes.
After delivering a big slap on the back of the boy’s head, he compromised by putting A Clockwork Orange on the TV to shut him up.
Murdoc was eating his dinner in the living room while Hannibal was more or less enjoying his own bowl of slop in the kitchen, head weighing down empty and fatigued.
In a blink of an eye, mechanical hands reached near 11 o’clock and Hannibal was getting restless.
Disappearing up the stairs, he went into his father’s study with a school form in his hand.
“Hey, yer not s’posed to be in there..” Murdoc said as he peered in the doorway, not even trying to be subtle.
Sitting down on the leather chair that’s way too luxurious for office use, Hannibal ignored the comment and started to go through one of the drawers, at least the ones that weren’t locked.
“Hanni, what are ya snooping ‘round for-”
“Oh, piss off.”
He could see Murdoc was nervously looking around the room, even looking off to the window, as if the man of the house would pull up in any second.
Hannibal was very doubtful of that.
“There it is,”
Slightly smiling to himself, Hannibal took out a copy of an old contract and laid it flat on the table surface, along with his own sheet of paper.
He’s done this many times before yet he still couldn’t forge his father’s signature without directly using the real sign as reference. Grabbing one of the fountain pens, Hannibal carefully looked over the signage and dragged the nib across the provided space.
“..What’s that for? Report card?”
“Oh my- can’t you just stay quiet? Go to fuckin’ bed, you maggot.”
“Don’t have to be rude to me like that, faggot-”
Murdoc ran away as soon as Hannibal stood up.
He could only scoff when he heard a bedroom door slammed from afar.
After putting everything back to where it was, Hannibal exited the room and closed the door, putting himself to bed.
As weeks went by, life was as typical for the two of them, until they noticed it wasn’t.
For some families, it’s completely normal for the father to not come home for an extended period of time, whether it was because of work or of other affairs. As for the Niccals brothers, their dear old father wouldn’t even bother to inform them on how long he would be gone, not even a clue on when his return would be and that was normal.
One week was nothing, not even two. But one whole month?
Now that might be a cause for concern, especially when some people, who claimed to be from the bank, were at their doorsteps asking for late fees.
And what was Hannibal supposed to say to that? Sorry, their only guardian with all the money ain’t here, check again in the next ‘round up, ya?
He called his father’s main office many times, day after day.
No one answered and when someone did, they’d say he wasn’t there and that’s all they know.
Hannibal tried calling the other pubs the man owned too and they all said the same exact thing; No one knew where Mr Niccals was at this time.
Not like they would know at any other time, useless bastards.
“Bloody shit..”
Hannibal harshly slammed the landline phone to the floor and squeezed his temples, his second cigarette burning on his lips.
“Why is everyone so bloody unhelpful… no one knows anything, not one lousy sod..”
The teen walked into the living room with a hunched back, seeing Murdoc busying himself in craving a game of tic-tac-toe on the coffee table with a pocket knife.
“Oi, s’that mine?”
Murdoc sneered, “No, I beat up the neighbour’s kid for it.”
“Tch, well ain’t that class of you..”
It was early in the morning for them, too early.
Both of them hadn’t attended school the past week, and the reason for that was getting more impossible to leave it unsaid. One was the growing unease from their father’s whereabouts and two, they ran out of food.
No, dead serious. Groceries were running low in general, not even a slice of bread or a drop of milk was saved.
Murdoc ended up having a brief tummy ache a few days ago, thanks to munching on raw green chillies for snacks. It seemed like he recovered alright but Hannibal knew he was getting hungry.
And he hated it.
This whole situation made Hannibal painfully aware of how much he depended on their old man and how powerless he actually was.
He wasn’t even confident he could take care of his kid brother alone.
“Hanni, I’m hungry. Can’t we get something-”
“Shut up, can’t yer see m’busy ‘ere?”
The boy returned his stare like a dead goldfish, “Busy smoking drugs on the countertop? Yeah, that’s not busy to me!”
“It’s medicine. Now leave me alone, go watch telly or somethin’, I don’t wanna look at your ugly mug right now.”
Murdoc stood still for a moment, frowned, before retreating back to the living room.
What the hell was Hannibal going to do?
Maybe he should’ve tried harder in getting a part-time job or accepted being a manwhore and found an older gal to mooch off on. Now, even his pot was running out.
“Damn it.”
Later that night, he snooped into his father’s study and bedroom, trying to find any hidden stash of money laying around.
Be it as sleazy and ignorant as the drunken bastard man could be at most times, when it came to his money, he didn’t take it lightly.
It was quite impressive, Hannibal had no inkling idea on where his father could’ve hidden his extra quid and jewellery. Yet, he knew it was in the house somewhere, he just couldn’t pinpoint it no matter how meticulously he searched.
Perhaps his father was justified in doing so, Hannibal was acting like a real dirty sniffing rat in this instance.
Fed-up, the teen lied on his bed, feeling oddly exhausted.
And when Murdoc approached him again, that exhaustion turned into frustration.
“Hanni, I’m hungry…”
“...”
Slowly turning his head, Hannibal gave a petty smile, “What do you want me to do, cut my arm off and feed it to you?”
He was waiting for a sarcastic response back, but all he got was a silent Murdoc.
“God, you don’t have to give me such a miserable look,” Hannibal sighed, rubbing over his face sullenly.
The boy shifted his weight side to side, sniffing his nose, “..can’t you call yer mama?”
Hannibal froze, taken aback, “What? What for?”
“I don’t know..maybe she can make dinner..”
“That’s a stupid thing to say.”
“...you’re the stupid one.”
Both of them went quiet for a moment, awkwardness filling the air.
“Where did dad go?”
“Murdoc, do I look like I know?”
“...”
“..C’mere,”
Hannibal gestured as he moved to make space for Murdoc on the bed, in which the latter accepted and jumped on, wiggling himself under the blankets.
“Are you gonna go to school on Monday?”
“Don’t know Mudz,”
“Okay, if yer not going, I’m not going.”
Both of them looked up at the ceiling, eyes adorning the same emotions; fear and helplessness.
It was uncanny, usually Hannibal would feel ecstatic relief whenever their old man would leave the house. He could play his drums as loud as he wanted and smoke out in the open with no problem.
Sometimes he would even invite his mates over and a few hook-ups in the middle of the night, freely thrashing the place before he’d have to clean it up, just in time for the man to come home.
Though, handling his brother’s behaviour without his father’s intimidating presence was a tad difficult. However, Hannibal would just lock the bugger out of the house at that point. Which certainly didn’t make him qualify for the big brother of the year award.
Now with that hated presence gone, things didn’t feel right.
Well, no shit, that bastard didn’t leave them with any money for emergencies such as this.
This was considered as one, right?
But not an emergency dire enough for them to call his mother. Hannibal wouldn’t want to bother her…she wasn’t Mother Teresa, she was a busy woman.
“Hanni, d’you think dad’s dead in a ditch somewhere?” Murdoc whispered in the dark, his eyelids slowly closing.
“Maybe passed out drunk..”
“What if someone nabbed him?”
Hannibal breathed out a laugh, “Doubt it, ya know how big he is? I’d be more worried about folks gettin’ nabbed by him.”
That earned him a soft laugh.
“...Hanni, d’you feel weird?”
“Hm?”
He could feel Murdoc shuffling underneath the covers, “With him not being here…it feels kinda weird, like I miss him.”
“Really? Huh, well I for one hope he never comes back.”
Murdoc hummed before he went quiet.
He fell asleep shortly after.
“…”
Hannibal continued looking up at the ceiling, mind dazed with nothing in particular, just the sense of uncomfortable tension pounding in his chest.
Maybe he should make a call to his mother tomorrow.
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Murdoc jolted awake as something smacked him right on the face.
“Oww..”
Groggily sitting up and opening his crusty eyes, he found a plastic-wrapped sandwich just lying beside him.
He quickly noticed it was early in the morning.
He noticed his brother was standing by the bed too, wearing his sepia bomber jacket and a pair of dark denim jeans.
Murdoc tilted his head, “Is it school time-”
“Quickly eat and get ready. We’re going off to find him.”