Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The knock at the door was deliberate, not loud, but clear. Will didn’t move. The bottle tilted in his hand as he sat slumped on the steps leading down from his porch, shoulders curved in on themselves like a creature waiting for the dark to finish it off. A moth fluttered against the porch light. The knock came again.

Will squinted into the thick Virginia night, the screen door swinging slightly on its hinge. "If it’s the cops," he slurred, voice gravelled with disuse and whiskey, "I'm not armed. For once."

The door creaked open behind him.

"You left the gate open," came Hannibal's voice, smooth and low. "Winston was halfway to the woods before I caught him."

Will chuckled, sharp and humorless. “He’s smarter than me, then. Knows when to run.”

Hannibal stepped onto the porch, pausing beside him. Will didn’t look up. He stared at the half-empty bottle in his hand like it was a lifeline, a weapon, a wound.

"You shouldn’t be here," Will muttered.

"You called me," Hannibal said, calmly.

Will blinked, confused. He glanced up at the doctor. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did. Or rather, you left a message at three in the morning.” Hannibal studied him. “You didn’t say anything. But you didn’t hang up either.”

Will frowned, trying to piece together memory from mist. “Didn’t mean to,” he whispered.

“No,” Hannibal said softly, lowering himself to sit beside him on the step. “But something in you did.”

Will turned the bottle in his hand. The glass was slick with condensation, his fingers unsteady.

"I wanted to sleep," Will murmured. “I really tried.”

“And?”

Will’s jaw twitched. “Dreams won’t shut up. They’re loud. They chew through everything.” He turned to Hannibal, and for a moment the eyes beneath the curls were feral and wet, full of grief, of rage, of shame. “I see them. Even when I’m awake now.”

The silence stretched. Only the distant hum of frogs, the sigh of wind through trees.

Hannibal’s voice, when it came, was not unkind. “Alcohol dulls the edges, but it also blurs the barriers. The things you try to drown tend to float.”

Will looked away. “You always talk like that? Or is it just to make yourself feel better about playing therapist to a drunk?”

“I’m not here to feel better,” Hannibal said, tone cooled but not cold. “I’m here because you are unraveling. And you’d rather fall apart alone than be seen doing it.”

Will let out a strangled laugh. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to fall apart?”

“No.” Hannibal turned to him then, and his voice dropped to something more intimate. “I wanted you to break open. There’s a difference.”

Will stared at him, gaze swimming. “You think this is enlightening?” He gestured vaguely to himself, to the bottle, to the dark. “This is rot, Hannibal.”

“And yet, you called me to witness it.”

Will sagged, eyes glassy. “I didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.”

Hannibal inclined his head, his voice barely above a murmur. “You aren’t.”

He reached over, gently took the bottle from Will’s unresisting hand, and set it aside. Then, after a breath, he eased closer—just enough for their shoulders to brush. Not pressing. Just present.

Will closed his eyes.

“Stay,” he whispered. “Just… sit with me. Until it gets quiet.”

“I will.”

And they sat like that, in the porch light’s dull halo, in the thick summer dark—Will’s head slowly tipping toward Hannibal’s shoulder, and Hannibal still as a statue, a sentinel against the night.

_____

The next morning

The morning was bright. Too bright.

Will stirred against sheets that weren’t the coarse weave of his couch throw or the scratch of denim over wood. No—these were his actual bed sheets. Cotton, soft with too many washes. The scent of dog and cedar lingered faintly, but something else clung there, too. Something deliberate.

Cologne.

He blinked slowly at the ceiling. His head ached. His tongue felt thick. And beneath the haze of nausea and regret, there was a sense of something wrong—or rather, something too right.

He sat up abruptly. The room tilted, pitching sideways, and he braced himself with one hand on the mattress.

He was in bed.

He hadn’t fallen asleep in bed.

He was still in his clothes from the night before, though his boots had been removed, set neatly beside the nightstand. His jacket, draped over a chair. A glass of water waited on the bedside table, with two aspirin laid carefully on a folded napkin.

He stared at them for a moment. Then reached, wordlessly, and drank.

Will rubbed a hand down his face. It was an odd dissonance—waking up in his own bed without any memory of getting there, yet everything touched with a kind of reverence. As if he hadn’t staggered drunk into the night but had been carried, delicately, like something fragile.

And that’s when it hit him.

Hannibal had carried him.

Not dragged, not supported under the shoulder—but lifted. Will could feel it now, phantom-like: the shift of arms beneath his knees and back, the unyielding press of Hannibal’s chest against his side. A memory half-formed, like something felt underwater.

Will’s stomach churned—not from the alcohol, but from the quiet weight of something else. A presence.

The bottle was gone. The porch light was off. And at the far end of the room, sitting in the armchair like it belonged to him, was Hannibal Lecter.

Will froze. How had he not noticed him before?

Hannibal had a book in his hand—closed now—and his gaze lifted from the page to meet Will’s. There was no smile, no smugness. Only observation. Presence.

Will's voice cracked, low and harsh. “Did you carry me?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

“You were dead asleep. I didn’t think the stairs would be kind.”

Will collapsed back against the pillow, a hand over his eyes. “You carried me. Like some Gothic bride.”

“You are considerably heavier than a bride,” Hannibal said, almost lightly. “But less resistant.”

Will groaned. “Why are you still here?”

There was a pause.

“You asked me to stay.”

Will peeked through his fingers, then slowly let his hand fall to the sheets. “I didn’t mean in my house.”

“No,” Hannibal said, standing now, setting the book down with a soft thunk*. “But I thought you’d prefer not to wake alone. And—” he stepped closer, not looming, but deliberate “—I didn’t want you to choke to death in your sleep.”

Will made a noise—half snort, half cough. “So you saved me. Again.”

Hannibal’s brow furrowed faintly, as though the concept didn’t sit right. “I remained. That is not the same as saving.”

Will sat up slowly, the room tilting. His body ached in all the soft ways regret settles into bones.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, quieter now. “Shouldn’t have seen me like that.”

“You invited me to see you. As you are. Not as you pretend to be.”

Will turned his face away. “I was drunk. That wasn’t me.”

“No,” Hannibal said, gently. “It was more you.”

Silence fell between them like a dropped pane of glass. Will looked toward the window, trying to swallow the slow throb in his throat.

“I don’t want your pity.”

“You never had it.”

Will’s head tilted toward him, wary. “Then what do I have?”

Hannibal studied him, something too still in his expression. “My attention. My interest. My regard.”

“You sound like you’re describing a patient,” Will said.

“No,” Hannibal replied. “Not anymore.”

Will’s chest felt tight. “Why didn’t you leave?”

Hannibal took another step forward, then stopped. “Because you needed someone to stay. And I wanted to be that someone.”

Will looked down at his hands. They were clean. Someone had washed the faint sticky traces of whiskey from his fingers.

“Is this what it’s going to be like with you?” he asked. “Always knowing too much. Always doing the thing I don’t ask for out loud?”

Hannibal’s voice was soft as velvet, final as stone. “Yes.”

Will exhaled, long and quiet. He didn’t say *stay*, but he didn’t ask him to leave, either.

And Hannibal, precise and patient, went to the kitchen to cook.

Chapter Text

Will's Kitchen

The scent of coffee came first—dark, strong, purposeful. Will followed it like instinct, barefoot and sore-headed, pausing at the threshold of the kitchen.

Hannibal stood at the stove, sleeves rolled, posture relaxed. He moved like someone in his own home: clean, assured, entirely at ease. There was a pan on the burner, something sizzling gently within it—eggs, maybe. Will blinked at the sight like it was wrong. Or worse: like it fit too well.

“You cook,” Will rasped, “like you own the place.”

“I’m borrowing it,” Hannibal said, without turning. “And I brought the ingredients. Yours were—insufficient.”

Will glanced toward the counter. A paper bag sat beside a cutting board: eggs in a recycled carton, cured bacon, something green and precise, probably herbs. Of course Hannibal had brought his own herbs.

Will rubbed at his temples and shuffled to the table.

“Did you sleep?” he asked, warily.

“For a few hours. In the chair.”

Will tried not to wince. “Christ.”

“I’ve slept in less comfortable places.”

“I haven’t,” Will muttered. “And it’s my damn house.”

Hannibal didn’t smile, but there was amusement at the corner of his voice. “Then reclaim it. Start by eating.”

Will accepted the plate when it was placed before him. He stared at it. The eggs were folded like silk, the bacon crisped just shy of burning, the toast drizzled with oil and cracked pepper. It looked like a bribe. Or a favor too heavy to refuse.

He picked up the fork and took a bite without speaking. The silence stretched as he ate—slowly, carefully, letting the food settle over the nausea and hollowness in his gut.

Hannibal poured two cups of coffee and took the seat across from him.

For a while, they didn’t speak.

Then Will said, not looking at him, “Why did you really come last night?”

Hannibal didn’t feign surprise. “Because you called.”

“You said I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t.”

“So why come?” Will set the fork down, the clink louder than it should’ve been. “You don’t make house calls, Hannibal. Not without purpose.”

Hannibal sipped his coffee. “I was concerned.”

“Since when do you do concern?”

“I do it rarely. And only for a select few.” He met Will’s eyes, steady and calm. “You are among them.”

Will looked down. His hands curled loosely around the coffee cup, the heat grounding him.

“I don’t like you seeing me like that,” he said.

“I know.”

“I don’t like needing you.”

Hannibal didn’t move. “And yet, here we are.”

Will exhaled through his nose. “It doesn’t mean anything. Me calling you.”

“It meant enough for me to come.”

“I was drunk.”

“You were honest.”

Will pushed the plate away, appetite gone.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.

Hannibal leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low and deliberate. “I want what’s already mine, Will. The parts of you you try to throw away. The ones that only show themselves in the dark.”

Will’s breath caught.

“That’s not love,” he said. “That’s possession.”

Hannibal didn’t blink. “It can be both.”

Silence.

Will stood up slowly, pushed the chair back, and took his coffee to the sink. He stared out the window, watching Winston trot through the grass, tail high.

“You stayed,” he said again, quietly. “No one ever does.”

Hannibal came to stand beside him, not touching, but close enough that Will could feel it—like static on the skin.

“I will,” he said.

Will didn’t answer.

But he didn’t walk away, either.

_____


Evening, Will’s House

The day passed slowly.

Will cleaned. Not for cleanliness, but for order. He scrubbed the porch, rinsed out Winston’s water bowl twice, threw away the whiskey bottle. When he got to the bedroom and saw the sheets still too neatly made—smoothed down in the shape Hannibal had left them—he stripped the bed entirely.

By evening, he’d run out of things to do. So he stood barefoot on the porch, arms crossed, as the cicadas droned and the light turned gold across the trees.

Hannibal hadn’t returned.

Will told himself that was good.

He told himself that again when he heard the car pull up his drive.

A black sedan. Familiar. Controlled. Hannibal stepped out in a dark coat, a bag in one hand. His movements were as calm as they’d been last night—nothing urgent, nothing dramatic. Just there.

Will met him halfway down the walk.

“You didn’t have to come back,” he said.

“No,” Hannibal said, meeting his eyes. “But I wanted to.”

Will exhaled sharply and rubbed the back of his neck. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This. Showing up. Inhabiting things.”

“I stayed because you asked. I came back because you didn’t say not to.”

Will turned and walked back to the porch. “That’s not consent, Hannibal.”

“No,” Hannibal agreed, following him at a polite distance. “But it is an opening.”

Will stopped at the door. His hand rested on the screen, not quite pushing it open. “I need space. Not someone cleaning up after me. Not someone carrying me to bed like I’m broken.”

“You are not broken,” Hannibal said quietly. “You are bent beneath the weight of what you carry. There’s a difference.”

Will laughed—dry, brittle. “That sounds like something you tell your patients right before prescribing something they won’t take.”

Hannibal tilted his head. “You are not my patient, Will.”

“Then what am I?”

Hannibal didn’t answer.

Will turned to face him fully, the porch between them.

“I’m serious,” he said. “What do you think this is?”

“A moment,” Hannibal said. “An edge. You’re deciding whether to retreat or step forward.”

“You make it sound romantic.”

“I make it sound honest.”

Will looked down at the floorboards beneath his feet. Then back up, jaw tense. “I’m not a project. Or a puzzle you get to take apart. I don’t want you in my house. I don’t want you in my head.”

“And yet,” Hannibal said gently, “I am in both.”

Will’s throat worked. He wanted to slam the door. But instead, he stepped aside. Held it open.

“Dinner, then,” he muttered. “Just dinner.”

“Of course.”

Hannibal stepped through without brushing him. Without pressing.

Will watched him move inside. He hated how natural it looked. How inevitable.

He shut the door softly behind them both.