OOM: for Ganymede

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal's room in Milliways is quite simple, for his standards.

There is a book case full of well-worn old books, a small fireplace with a comfortable-looking chair, some historical prints of Florence, and a small harpsichord. There's a desk, and a desk chair to go with it. Most furniture is vintage midcentury modern, unobtrusively luxurious and classic. He even has what must be a small kitchen, made up from two towers and an island.

Everything is rich, warm wood and mature colours -- an off-grey, and some accents in oxblood red.

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

"I had not, right until now," Hannibal says, smiling.

[the_cupbearer]

"And now that I have?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Now that you have, I wish to taste immortality," Hannibal says.

[the_cupbearer]

"There are probably easier ways to do that," he says. "Taste immortality."

He could think of a few offhand.

[cook_the_rude]

"I can't easily think of any recipe involving semen," Hannibal muses. "Blood, on the other hand..."

[the_cupbearer]

"White Russians," he chuckles. "There's a whole cookbook with it, actually," Ganymede says. "You should look it up."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal snorts with laughter. "Oh Ganymede, what a fount of knowledge you are!" he says. "That way, we'll never get down to business, because now I need thate cookbook."

[the_cupbearer]

"Yes, you do," he says, slipping a hand around Hannibal's waist, familiar enough to pull it off. "But you needn't get it right this moment, I assure you you can collect it any time."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal willingly follows.

"I think for the next bit," he ponders, "you will need to be naked."

[the_cupbearer]

"You think?" he asks, amused, and beginning to take off his shirt of dark blue breezy cotton, and bright white trousers. "Your surety could use some work."

It doesn't take him long to disrobe, though, and he ends up very shortly bare save for the bleached snakebone choker and an anklet.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves.

"Would you lie on the desk, please?"

[the_cupbearer]

"Face up, or face down?" he asks politely.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal thinks for a moment.

"Face up, please," he decides.

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede obliges him, laying back comfortably across the desk although his legs below the knees dangle down.

"And what now?"

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes a scalpel out of his drawer of drawing materials.

"Patience, Ganymede."

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede raises a brow, but lays back to watch Hannibal interestedly, head resting on his bent arms. His chest is slim, but deep enough when he breathes to make him look muscular, capable.

"Am I to be your canvas?" he asks silkily, chin lifting while he licks his lips.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal sets his scalpel to Ganymede's nipple, and gives it a twist, sending it into a spiral, then sideways, back and forth.

He peers at it, eyebrow raised. In a thin line of blood, hardly more then a scratch, there's a small snail sitting on Ganymede's chest, with the nipple as the center of its shell, which extends outwards in that spiral through and around the areola.

[the_cupbearer]

His chest twitches, muscles contracting in response to the scalpel's cut; he can feel the sting of his skin being split but when he glances down, though he's careful not to move too much, he barely sees any blood.

"You drew a snail on me," he says, as if asking to confirm that's what the design was supposed to be.

[cook_the_rude]

"Accurately observed," Hannibal says. "They have been on my mind."

[the_cupbearer]

"Might I ask why?" he asks, laying his head back again. "And more importantly, why is it on me?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Snails like to eat in company," Hannibal says. "I think you need another one."

[the_cupbearer]

"Do they?" he asks with the smallest of chuckles. "And how would you know that, my friend?"

[cook_the_rude]

"I raise my own," Hannibal says.

[the_cupbearer]

"Do you? And do you feed them to things you want to eat later as well?" he asks, well familiar with the concept."

[cook_the_rude]

"I prefer oysters for that," Hannibal says. "Oysters, acorns, marsala."