Chapter Text
Will helped Hannibal out of the shower. They were both finally clean after days of travel. Safe. Silent in their shared pain and exhaustion. Hannibal had barely managed to stand for the length of the shower, and his knees buckled now. He sat down hard on the lid of the toilet while Will dried him and wrapped him in a towel.
Will got himself dry and then turned down the bed and turned up the heating. He put an arm around Hannibal, pulled him up again, and got him into the bed.
Hannibal lay back with an extended sigh. He watched Will through half-closed eyes, sleepy and trusting. He had let Will care for him without question, let Will decide their course and choose their destination, had done everything Will asked that was within his capabilities at the moment. It was hell on Will’s nerves.
“How are you?” Will asked. Croaked. He hadn’t spoken for nearly a day, putting everything he had into getting them here.
“In pain. Tired.”
That was the other thing. Hannibal wasn’t lying or even bothering to wrap the truth up in his usual elegance. If Will asked him a question, he answered it, stark and straightforward.
“Yeah. Me too. I’ll get your pills.”
He got the bottles, water, and two bananas because neither of them had eaten for too long and the pills were meant to be taken with food. Hannibal swallowed painkillers and antibiotics and drained the water, but his mouth twisted when Will offered him the banana.
Will sighed. “Come on. We haven’t got anything else left. I’ll go to the store tomorrow.”
Hannibal took it and started eating. Will did the same with about as much enthusiasm. Their entire diet for the last two days had been bananas, raisins, saltines, and peanut butter. Hannibal finished his and dropped his head back on the pillow.
Will took the peel for him. “Good job. You’re doing great.” It came out on reflex, the kind of thing he’d said when Walter was sick. Painfully inappropriate here. Will froze, caught between one life and the next, raw with exposure that he didn’t really understand.
But Hannibal looked up at him without mockery or even amusement. “Am I?”
Something in his eyes made Will brush a hand across his forehead and pull the covers up again, tucking them in around him. “Yeah. You are.”
*
They slept in the same bed. Will could’ve taken the couch. It was big enough to be comfortable. He didn’t want to. It made him twitchy to be that far from Hannibal, and Hannibal seemed happier when he was close.
Will woke in the night when Hannibal’s arm caught him a hard blow across the chest. He jerked upright and away, and Hannibal did the same, but with a low, almost animal noise. To Will, veteran of night terrors, it sounded a lot like fear.
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m going to turn on the lights.”
Hannibal flinched from the light and then stared around the room, at the shadowed corners, and finally at Will’s face. He had sweat on his upper lip, and the sheets were tangled around him. His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak.
“Bad one?” Will said.
Hannibal nodded slowly, like even that much human communication required effort. He looked lost.
Will got him a glass of water and a damp towel to wipe his face. Hannibal took them both in silence. He drained the glass. “Thank you,” he said.
“Lie down,” Will told him.
They lay on their sides, facing each other. “You don’t get a lot of nightmares, huh?” Will said.
“No.”
“You can wake me up. Any time.”
Hannibal stared at him, eyes almost completely black in the dim light. Slowly, he snaked out a hand and held onto the front of Will’s T-shirt. Will put a hand over his. Hannibal closed his eyes.
*
Hannibal drifted through the next few days. He slept most of the time and ran a constant low-grade fever. When Will asked him if that was something to be worried about, he surfaced from his fog long enough to assure Will that it wasn’t as long as it didn’t get worse.
It didn’t get worse, but Will wasn’t sure he was getting better either. He took to spending most of his time sitting on the bed with Hannibal, propped up against the headboard, reading or just staring out the window. Hannibal lay on his good side, curled toward Will, not quite touching.
“Would you read to me?” Hannibal said on the third day.
“You sure? It’s just a kid’s book. I found it under the couch.”
Hannibal just nodded, and Will started reading.
The book was about a boy who got lost in the woods. He went into a cave that kept going deeper and deeper until he came to another world where monsters lived. Will found the boy's journey uncomfortably familiar in places, but maybe anything that involved monsters would have produced the same effect.
Hannibal listened attentively, blankets pulled up to his chin, face soft as he looked up at Will. He didn’t look bored. He was probably too tired to be bored. Will was hovering on the edge of that himself. Cooking their meals and bringing in firewood was about as much as he wanted to do in a day.
Besides, he didn’t really like leaving Hannibal alone. He watched Will until he left the room, and he was still watching when he came back. Will worried that he didn’t get much rest in between.
His eyes were closed now, and Will set the book down.
“Don’t stop,” Hannibal murmured.
“Not bored yet?”
“It’s a novel experience. I never read this sort of thing as a child.”
“What did you read?”
“Mathematics. History. Plato and Aristotle.”
Will smiled. “I can’t really imagine you as a kid, but I can imagine that.”
“I was a terrible child. A horror. You would have disliked me very much.”
Will looked down at him, the expanse of his body drawn in on itself, curled up small beside him. “I don’t believe that,” he said.
“I was demanding and abrupt and arrogant, quick-tempered and often rude.”
Will shook his head. “Nope. Still not seeing it. Just the mental image of a tiny you in a tiny suit, sorry.”
Hannibal gave him an irritated glance. “Should I then assume you were born surrounded by dogs with a fishing pole in one hand and a nitrile glove on the other?”
“I did learn to fish pretty young. Would’ve had a dog if I could. What were you like, then?”
“I’ve just told you.”
“Quick-tempered, abrupt … yeah, starting to see it. Keep going.”
Hannibal regarded him coldly, face still half in the pillow. “If you can do nothing but deliberately rile me, go and stir your soup instead. From the smell, it could use the help.”
Will smiled at him. It hurt his face, but it was worth it. “If you say so.” He slid a hand through Hannibal’s hair on the way out.
*
A week later, when Hannibal had healed enough to make it out of bed for more than two minutes at time, Will found him in the kitchen, staring into the fridge.
“Is this all we have?” Hannibal said. “You’ve been to the store three times.”
“I asked if you wanted anything.”
“And I told you what I wanted.”
“You said the basics. There’s butter and bread and milk and coffee. Cereal. Cheese. What else do you want?”
“I will write you a list.” His tone implied that Will had filled the kitchen with Velveeta and Vienna Sausages.
Will looked on with amusement as Hannibal wrote out a grocery list in his usual absurdly elegant hand. That tired him out enough that he had to sit down on a kitchen stool. He thrust it at Will. “Take it.”
Will took it. “Okay. But if I’m going back to the store, you’re getting back in bed.”
Hannibal didn’t answer but he did let Will take his arm and walk him to the bedroom. He was silent as he got into bed. Will sat next to him and looked down at the stubborn set of his jaw. “Are you doing this on purpose?” he asked.
“Am I doing what on purpose?”
“Acting like this.”
“How am I acting?”
“Arrogant, quick-tempered, abrupt, and often rude. Is this regression or do you just—“ Will stopped. He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
Hannibal turned his face away. Will ran his thumb behind Hannibal’s ear and down his neck and watched his tension ease.
“If this is what you want from me, there are other ways to get it,” Will said.
“Are there? This seems safer at the moment.”
Maybe it was safer. It was better than anything they’d managed so far. “Okay,” Will said. “You take a nap. I’ll get the food.”
“How long will you be gone?” Hannibal asked quietly.
Manipulation or not, it made Will’s heart lurch. “Not more than an hour, I promise.”
*
Will bought what he could find of Hannibal’s list and then went to the bookstore. The house had no TV, no internet, and almost nothing to read if you didn’t like westerns. Will didn’t.
He bought half a dozen books, a chess set, and, on impulse, a set of blocks with architectural features that was supposed to let you build various Greek ruins. Columns and architraves and arches. The cashier told him her daughter loved it.
“Got some stuff to entertain us,” Will said when he got home. He left the bag on the bed and went to unpack the groceries.
When he returned, Hannibal was sitting on the floor with most of the Parthenon assembled in front of him. Will sat down beside him. He leaned against the bed and stretched his legs out. “You like them?”
“The proportions aren’t correct.”
“You can build anything you want, you know. It doesn’t have to be what it says on the box.” Will drew his knees up. It was easier to look at the wooden model than at Hannibal. He’d actually had this exact conversation with Walter over a Lego Mindstorm robotics set last Christmas.
Hannibal removed one block, which somehow caused the entire structure to collapse.
“Did you build it like that on purpose?” Will asked.
“Not consciously. But the weak point was easy enough to spot. It usually is.”
Will looked at the pile of fallen blocks. “How do you feel about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
Hannibal took a breath, objection written clearly on his face. He let it out again and leaned back against the bed. His shoulder touched Will’s. “All right,” he said.
He followed Will into the kitchen and watched him make sandwiches. Will cut them into triangles and served them with carrot sticks. After lunch, they played chess. Hannibal beat him five times in a row without any apparent effort.
“I always thought it was a dull game,” Hannibal said. “All it requires is a modicum of strategy and the ability to think ahead.”
Will could see him suddenly, a much smaller, slighter version of Hannibal, but with the same expression of careless pride, knocking over someone’s king.
“You want to do something else?”
Hannibal pressed his hands flat against the table. He looked at the chess board, barren of all but a few pieces on Will’s side. “Would you read to me again?” he said.
“Sure.”
They went back into the bedroom. Will read him Aristotle’s Poetics until he fell asleep.
*
That night, Hannibal woke from another nightmare, silent and staring. Will pulled him into his arms and felt Hannibal clutch at his shirt. Will closed his eyes and breathed into his hair. Hannibal pressed his face against Will’s chest. It was the closest they’d been since the moment on the edge of the bluff. Will didn’t want to let him go. He put a hand flat on Hannibal’s back and held him there.
“I haven’t had nightmares since I was twelve,” Hannibal said.
“Not ever?”
“Not ever.”
“What are they about?” Will asked.
Hannibal was quiet for the length of a few breaths. “The ocean. I’ve lost you under the water. I catch your hand, but you pull away. You want to be rid of me, even at the last.”
Will looked down at him. He curved a hand over the back of Hannibal’s head, and he took a chance. “You know that’s not true,” he said softly. “You know I’ll always take care of you.”
Hannibal didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, but Will could feel the heat of tears on his chest.
A long time passed in rigid stillness before Hannibal spoke again. “My sister is waiting for me at the bottom of the sea. She has such sharp teeth.”
“She can’t have you,” Will said. “You’re mine.”
*
The next day, Will heard a cut off, guttural sound from the back yard. He went out to look. Hannibal was standing over the body of a man who lay in the grass. The man’s neck was twisted to an unhealthy angle. His eyes were open and staring.
Will looked at Hannibal, whom he had left napping in a cushioned wicker chair in the sun all of ten minutes ago.
“He woke me,” Hannibal. His voice was rough, and he looked confused. He had a hand pressed to the wound in his side. “He didn’t smell like you.”
“That’s not a good reason to kill someone,” Will said. He looked down at the body. There was a clipboard next to it. Some kind of environmental survey. “Shit. What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Are you upset?” Hannibal asked.
“No,” Will said sharply. He was upset not to be more upset.
“I can help.”
“You’ve done plenty already. Go back in the house. And stay there. I need to think.”
Hannibal went without a word.
Will knelt by the body. At least it was clean. No blood. It looked like he’d come through the side gate. The front door was obscured by a massive holly hedge and easy to miss. So he’d ended up back here. This was where he’d stay, Will decided. The yard was big and private. It would take a while to dig the hole and it would be murder, so to speak, on his shoulder, but it was safer than trying to move him.
He went to the mudroom for a shovel.
*
It took Will until evening to finish the job. He’d thought he could push through the pain from his shoulder but, after a while, he lost function and had to rest. While he rested, he watered the ground to soften it. He’d stored the environmentalist in the shade under a lilac. The flies found him quickly, and Will tried not to look at his face while he dug.
The sun was setting by the time Will tipped him into the grave and filled it in and laid the sod over it. In a week or two, there would be no sign of any disturbance of the ground. Will searched briefly for appropriate words, but he had none. His bones hurt. He was smeared with mud from head to toe. He felt as if he had buried himself.
When he went into the house, he found Hannibal on the bedroom floor. He was building a spire. Oddly delicate for something made from chunky wooden blocks, it stretched three feet into the air.
Will had been heading for the shower, but he stopped and sat down, facing Hannibal, on the other side of the structure.
Hannibal was drawing an arched doorway onto one of the blocks with a pencil. He didn’t look at Will. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said.
“I know.”
“Will you punish me anyway?” He said it as if that was a reasonable, legitimate possibility, as if Will might spank him or ground him or send him to bed without his dinner.
“No. You don’t get punished for accidents.”
“Lenient,” Hannibal murmured.
“Hannibal …” Will rubbed dirty hands over his dirty face. “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Okay. I’m going to clean up and then I’ll make us something. But tomorrow we have to talk about this.”
Hannibal kept drawing his doorway and didn’t acknowledge that Will had spoken at all.
*
Will still had dirt under his nails the next morning. He scrubbed them while he let the pancake batter rest. He cooked blueberry pancakes and bacon. He and Hannibal sat across the small table from each other with the morning light coming through the curtains.
“You first,” Will said.
“You’re the one who wanted to talk,” Hannibal said.
“I buried the guy you killed yesterday. You first.”
Hannibal drew his fork through the syrup and held it up to catch the light. “There are several factors at work here. The nightmares. My dependence on you. Our unease with each other. We have no settled pattern of behavior now that does not involve violence. We are searching for a way forward.”
Will picked up his coffee cup to warm his hands. “Got that. Thanks. What about the rest of it?”
“You wouldn’t hurt a child,” Hannibal. He was looking down. The sun fell caught in his lashes and turned them nearly white. “Nor abandon one. In my current state, I cannot trade you violence for violence as I might at another time. You are pushed into the role of caretaker.” He nodded to the grave outside. “Cleaning up after me.”
“Those are practical reasons,” Will said. “You don’t play with blocks for practical reasons.”
Hannibal was silent. He cut out a wedge of pancake, chewed, and swallowed. “I took apart your life, brick by brick. You did the same to me. You seem to have put yourself back together.”
“And you want me to do the same for you?”
“I want time,” Hannibal said. “I want the assurance that you won’t leave me until I know I can bear it.”
Will made himself eat and breathe and not promise anything he might regret later. “How old were you? When she died?”
“Nine. Almost ten.”
“Well. I’ve been letting you stay up way too late then,” Will said.
*
“It’s too early,” Hannibal said, petulance creeping into his voice, a childish slant to the words as he looked up from his book.
It was eight-thirty. Will felt ready to fall over. He was still exhausted from the grave digging the day before, and his shoulder hurt so much that he could barely lift his arm. “I don’t want any backtalk from you tonight. You’re tired, and so am I. Go brush your teeth. Right now, please.”
Hannibal looked up at him with genuine surprise, like he’d thought Will wouldn’t — what? Take it seriously? Go that far? Will couldn’t read the succession of expressions that passed over his face, but, in the end, Hannibal nodded and put his book away.
Will watched him brush his teeth and change into his pajamas. He remembered telling Hannibal he would be a good father. He’d felt sure of it, then.
When Hannibal was tucked into bed, Will sat beside him, leaning against the headboard. “Do you want a story?”
“Yes, please,” Hannibal said. “The first one you read me, about the boy who finds monsters.”
It hadn’t been that good a book the first time around, but Will went and got it anyway. He started to read. “When Tommy looked into the cave, he thought he could see lights inside, moving like fireflies.”
Hannibal moved closer, and Will put an arm around him. Hannibal rested against him, a warm, solid weight, head on Will’s good shoulder. They were both asleep before the end of the first chapter.
Will woke in the night and nudged a sleepily grumbling Hannibal down until he was lying flat. Will stayed as he was, stroking his hair until he was still again.
He thought about the morning, about starting over, about teaching Hannibal how to fish.