An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hannibal (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Characters: Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter
Additional Tags: Smut, Fluff, Domestic, Cannibalism, Porn with Feelings, Blood, Post-Fall (Hannibal)
Summary:
"Hannibal was on a solo hunt and it made him nervous. Absence made room for terrible possibilities. Arrest. Retaliation. A misstep. Death, sudden and senseless.
Will's hand stilled against the scar, pressing down as though the mark Hannibal had left behind promised his return. He knew that it was childish, no better than making a wish as someone blew out their birthday candles.
It may be a ritual but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe in it.
Hannibal (TV) | Rated E | 5,359 words
Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Valentine's Day, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Post-Season/Series 03, Body Worship, Body Paint, Mute Hannibal Lecter, Top Hannibal Lecter, Bottom Will Graham, Rimming, Anal Sex
--
The door to the new safe house swings open. Hannibal steps around where Will is frozen on the threshold, taking in the scene with something waffling between distaste and whimsy.
“Well isn't that just great,” Will says under his breath.
The place looks like a Vegas fuck pad combined with a pastiche of mid-century decor, and Will knows this for a fact—he's been to plenty of crime scenes in places like this. The conversation pit in the center of the room is the perfect place to stage a body, or bodies. The kitchen with it’s white cabinets and marble countertops is the perfect place to have a catastrophic, relationship ending argument (and probably a stabbing, but he’d rather not think about that right now).
But he assumes the thing Hannibal is wrinkling his nose at right now is the bright white shag carpet, the mirrored sideboard that’s asking for at least two large piles of cocaine. And of course there’s the high backed fuschia loveseat like an oversized cuck chair overlooking the pit and its ridiculous leopard print bench covers.
Will rubs the bridge of his nose as Hannibal meanders down the hallway, his leather shoes managing not to make a sound on the square tile floor.
He hasn’t said much of anything since Will took them over that cliff and they went into hiding. At first Will thought it was their injuries. Will couldn’t say much at all once his mouth really started to swell from the wound the Dragon punched through his cheek.
But then that silence spanned a week, then two. The only way Will knew he was forgiven enough to survive is that he’d made it this far, and when Chiyoh finally showed up to let them know they could stop skulking around cheap hotels, he was certain Hannibal was never going to speak to him again.
“After Mischa, he didn’t speak for years,” Chiyoh told him as Will sat in her rental car with her, as she handed over the details about this house they were to wait in until she could get them documentation and coordinate flights.
“So it’s a trauma response?”
“You tried to kill him again,” Chiyoh had said, so cold it burned.
Will couldn’t argue with that. He had tried to kill them both, but Hannibal undoubtedly knew that the decision was centered on him. On Will’s belief they didn’t have a future.
Now they had one, whether they liked it or not. To Will’s horror, he finds that he does. The tenderness that enveloped him as he cared for Hannibal’s wounds, stole out into the night to steal food and medicine, had crumbled he epoxy he’d used to insulate his heart. The fact that he’d already fucked it up this badly, that Hannibal barely acknowledges him as he disappears into one of the bedrooms, sends cold drafts through each of its cockles.
The vision of that heart struggling with every contraction in his chest, red, raw, and weeping—the way it ached—had kept him up late every night for the past month and a half.
He follows Hannibal down the hall to what he assumes is one of the bedrooms. The one bedroom, he realizes with a touch of vertigo. The only other doors he sees lead to a small bathroom and a linen cupboard. When he turns into the bedroom, his hand goes straight up to his face all over again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters.
Hannibal’s needle has tracked back to amusement; it’s clear that he finds the satin, strawberry-colored bedspread and heart-shaped tufted headboard hilarious. That, and the fireplace littered with a cathedral’s worth of red, pink, and white candles.
“You can have the bedroom,” Will mutters, turning to head back into the living room. If the silence has taught him anything, it’s that tolerance of his presence has a pretty hard limit.
They’d only slept in the same bed when two beds weren’t available, and at that point every thread of fascia in their bodies had been so raw that the very idea of touching was unfathomable. Now, regret pulls at his insides like a taffy machine; he wants to sleep next to Hannibal. Even if it’s just sleeping.
I wonder if like. Even if Will Graham has a beautiful life post-fall, if he ever pauses, eating whatever flavorful dish Hannibal has made for him, or cuddling Hannibal to sleep, and wonders what life could have been like if they'd never met.
If he could have succeeded in repressing this side of himself, found some way to love his life repairing boats, or teaching--who would he be? Is there some timeline where that life could have been enough?
I wonder if he ever feels aimless longing, a craving for a flavor that could never exist. Maybe he knows he never could have been happy in that life...but this life is much different than he'd imagined. A lot more isolated, separate from society.
He has Hannibal, and he feels a sense of fullness and beauty, but I wonder if this little alternative future lingers. A tiny enough vision he can ignore it, but one that tugs quietly at him in unoccupied moments. Whispering, "who could you have been? who could you have been?"
After all, even though this is the only way things could have been, even though his past life is scorched earth behind him, even though he embraced this life, lives this life, loves Hannibal in his life, he didn't fully choose this life.
Hannibal chose it, something innate in Will chose it, and Will saw his place in Hannibal's world. Will accepted this life, and learned to embrace it.
But he didn't *choose* to live this way. To be this way. All that fruitless repression...he would have been anything else, if he could have chosen. He tried.
This is all Hannibal ever wanted for him. And it's beautiful. But I wonder like... if Will Graham could have had any life of his choosing, where he would be. What life could he have lived?
If he does think these thoughts, I imagine he pauses, for a moment, distant. Fork hovering for a second before a bite at dinner, or eyes open and glossy in the dark while spooning Hannibal. Hannibal notices, of course. Maybe he recognizes that feeling in himself. And he asks Will about the food, or scoots closer into his warmth, grips his hand a bit tighter. Reminds Will he is here, now. And he is loved.
thinking about hannibal and will living together post-fall and will (and dogs lol) having to get accustomed to hearing music in his home
just minding his own business, reading or tying fish lures or dissociating, when he hears an eerie sound and jumps, on edge, recalling the times his home has had intruders--until he realizes it's just his husband playing his weird ass theremin or harpsichord again
and eventually falling in love with hannibal's love for music
and hannibal can't help but notice the first time he starts playing without warning and will doesn't jump
no longer startled by sounds in his home that aren't him or his dogs
i could see him gutting fish and hearing hannibal's music, and smiling and maybe even very, very quietly, knowing he is offkey, humming along
