A/N: Hello! Before you get to reading this, I just wanted to say thank you, seriously thank you, to everyone that has subscribed, bookmarked, kudos-ed, or even read this work. The response to the first chapter was absolutely amazing, and I cannot wait to watch this story unfold for such an awesome reading base. I am completely in awe of all of you.
Thanks to RevDorothyL, who noticed a few things Megan (backwards_blackbird) and I missed on the first chapter. :)
Beta'd by the lovely backwards_blackbird on Tumblr. Love you, chica!
Will arrived home in the late morning. He had driven out to the Tractor Supply Company in Manassas and bought everything on his list, plus a few packets of seeds that he wanted to plant. He unloaded the trunk of his car and hefted all the bags of dirt to the garden.
When Hannibal arrived, Will was mixing topsoil with peat. The mixture created a porous, nutritious blend that absorbed water easily, and it was important to coat the garden in it so that the plants would be able to grow rapidly. After he had finished mixing the soils together, Will led Hannibal into the kitchen to show him the rest of his purchases. Hannibal picked up a dried pod of peat, looking at it curiously.
"It's peat," Will explained. "You moisten it and it expands into a little pod for your seeds. It's great for germination."
"Of course," Hannibal tossed the peat back into its box. He acted as if he had known all along what a peat pod was, but Will knew the doctor just well enough to see under his façade.
"It's okay to not know things, you know," Will chided him gently. "I don't expect you to know everything, and you shouldn't pretend to do so."
Hannibal said nothing. Inwardly smiling, Will rolled up his sleeves. "Would you like to help me get all of the seeds arranged?"
"I am yours to command," Hannibal offered. Will tried not to think too hard on that.
"Great. Do you want to wet the pods, or do you want to put the seeds in?"
Hannibal took the more familiar route. "I can place the seeds."
"Okay," Will agreed, hiding his amusement. He gave Hannibal the bag of packets. "Two per pod, and let's start with two pods for each kind of plant. Sound good?"
Will set the box of pods down next to the sink and dampened one. The disc of what felt like sawdust quickly expanded, growing into a cylinder of mushy dirt. He gave the pod to Hannibal. "Now you just take two seeds, put them in the center of the pod, and push them in a little. Then you just put it back in its place in the box."
Hannibal took the peat carefully, squishing it a little with his fingertips. Will turned away to hide his smile: how on Earth did Hannibal Lecter have any right to be so goddamned adorable? He was a middle-aged man that enjoyed opera and dry wine, for crying out loud. Still, Will was thrilled to have this chance to see Hannibal try something new. He looked like a little boy in a suit. God.
The men worked in silence until Hannibal encountered the seeds Will had picked out for himself. "Pumpkin seeds? Do you wish to have Jack-o'-lanterns come Halloween?" Hannibal asked lightly.
"Oh hush," Will retorted, smiling. It was true: he hadn't gotten to carve a pumpkin in years, and seeing the seeds felt like too good of an opportunity to pass up. "You can have the guts and seeds. I'm sure you can find some old European recipe that will turn them to edible gold or something."
"I know many recipes that call for guts," Hannibal mused, "though few are of the pumpkin variety." Will laughed, causing Hannibal to smile slightly. Why have we never felt so comfortable around each other? Will wondered. Maybe he pushed the older man away because he had always felt like he was being analyzed. How stupid of him.
Once all the seeds were planted, Will put the plastic top on the box. "It's like a little greenhouse," he explained. "In three or so days, we'll have sprouts to plant."
They went back outside to the garden. "Did you have a plan for the day?" Will asked Hannibal.
"Not as such, no," Hannibal responded. "I had hoped that you might have constructed a plan for yourself. I do not wish to force any decisions on you; it would be counter-productive."
Will considered that. "Well, I haven't really planned much, but we can walk through the house and think of things as we go."
It turned out that Will wanted to change most of his house. He had never really liked the previous owner's taste in decor, but he had never felt a strong urge to alter anything. His house was a home for his dogs and place for his bed.
Hannibal hadn't liked that one bit. "You should not restrict the happinesses in your life because you do not wish to make the efforts to achieve them," he admonished. Will felt embarrassed, and he quickly made redecorating the house a priority on the list.
It turned out they had a lot of work ahead of them, but both men were excited to start as soon as possible. Redesigning a house had a certain power to it, a power that spoke to better living and greater health. Will and Hannibal sat in the living room (Hannibal had tried to brush the dog hair off the couch, but he might as well have been scooping droplets out of an ocean) and constructed a schedule for the next few weeks. They would start in Will's bedroom (and he'd just organized, dammit!) and work their way through the house. Tomorrow.
Hannibal invited Will to stay at his house in Baltimore while they were working on the bedroom. Will had initially protested—he had a sofa, after all—but Hannibal refused to take no for an answer. Will packed his essentials in a duffle and, after filling his dogs' food bowls for the night, he left with his psychiatrist.
Funny, but Will had almost forgotten that Hannibal was, in fact, his doctor. After just two days of working with him around the house, Will felt that their relationship was different, somehow. They weren't friends, necessarily, but they were... something. Will didn't care enough to label it.
They arrived at Hannibal's house in the late afternoon, and Hannibal immediately took to his kitchen to prepare dinner. Will wondered what they'd be eating that night. Hannibal wasn't prepared for a guest, after all, and his meals were usually very planned out.
Will walked into the kitchen, intending to help, and froze momentarily. Hannibal was already engrossed in his job, kneading some kind of dough onto his heavily-floured countertop. It wasn't the actual task that had captivated Will, however, but rather how Hannibal executed it. The doctor had rolled up his shirtsleeves and tied an apron around himself, which should have looked silly, but it didn't. Not at all. He was working the dough roughly, leaning his full weight on it to squash it. The muscles in his forearms tensed periodically, cording into thick bands under the man's skin.
Will watched in awe, baffled. Hannibal was far more dressed than he'd been yesterday, but he was infinitely more attractive here, in his element. Hannibal's face was scrunched in concentration, his hair just barely falling over his eye. Will's breath stuck in his throat. He had never wanted someone so badly in his entire life.
Hannibal looked up, catching his eye, and Will had to push down a moan. Hannibal continued to work the dough, leaning forward just to ease back, pushing up onto his toes at times, eyes locked with Will's.
"Did you want to help?" Hannibal purred, and Will wasn't sure what he was supposed to help with, exactly, but yes.
"Huh?" Wow. Articulate, Graham.
"If you want to cut the meat into chunks, it's right there," Hannibal tilted his head to a cut of meat on a cutting board. Will moved on autopilot, focused on the way Hannibal's eyes crinkled as he walked by. Definitely amused, then. God. Will hadn't been this continually embarrassed since high school, when he'd had that crush on Cassie Summers. Only this was his psychiatrist, and Will was no adolescent.
He sliced the meat into chunks, taking out his frustration on his task. Hannibal came over to collect the cubes, tossing them in a pot with vegetables and some sort of stock.
"Shepherd's Pie," Hannibal said, answering Will's unspoken question. "It's simple and hearty, and it goes well with burgundy. Would you get the Grand Cru from the pantry, please?"
Will found the wine and uncorked it, allowing it to breathe. He wasn't completely uneducated, after all. He watched Hannibal take the bottom crust—a perfect golden-brown—out of the oven, pour the thick stew into the crust, and top it all with another layer of crust, slicing into the dough before placing it back in the oven. "We have thirty minutes. I can make dessert, or we can discuss your budding attraction to me. Your choice."
Will blinked. What? Was he that obvious? It had only been a day! "Uh," he said, clearing his throat. "Let's make dessert?"
Hannibal smirked. "I thought you might say that. If you would, I need you to take two apples from the refrigerator and core them."
Will did as he was told, watching out of the corner of his eye as Hannibal measured out two cups of the wine and poured it into a small pot. He added sticks of cinnamon and brown sugar, then put the mixture on a low heat.
"When you've finished with the apples," he said to Will, "put them in here, and try to keep them upright." He put a lid on the pot and began mixing together what looked like another dough. More pie? That seemed rather unimaginative, considering the source.
Will cored the apples to the best of his ability (he had to scrape seeds out of both of them after he'd finished) and placed them carefully in the pot. The liquid just covered their tops and, if Will hadn't seen Hannibal making more dough, he'd have thought they were just making baked apples. Will wasn't sure what culinary trick Hannibal had hidden in his sleeve, what extra "next step" would elevate the dessert to a 'Hannibal-worthy' dessert, but Will was excited to see what happened. He washed his hand quickly, turning to watch Hannibal work. What he saw made him curse himself.
Hannibal was kneading dough again. God, why hadn't Will thought of that before he rushed through his duties? He could have taken more time to get the seeds out, and he'd have avoided watching Hannibal dominate a hunk of wet flour again. That's what it looked like, anyway; Hannibal would roll the dough into a ball, then squash it flat. Again and again, he pushed the dough down into submission.
And wow, if Will's thoughts were that pornographic over his psychiatrist making dessert, maybe he should have chosen to talk about his feelings.
Hannibal finished making dough, allowing Will to watch him in silence as he put it in the fridge then checked on the apples.
"These will take another few minutes," Hannibal announced. "Perhaps we should discuss—" oh, please, no "—what you would like to do in your bedroom tomorrow." Will breathed a sigh of relief.
"Um, I was thinking we would move the dressers and stuff out into the hallway and push my bed to the middle so we can start taking down the wallpaper," he said. Immediately, he wanted to suggest that maybe they could take a break on the bed, if need be, but such a comment would be highly unproductive, and Will really wasn't interested in discussing his libido with Hannibal.
"That's a fine plan. What are your intentions after we take down the wallpaper?" Hannibal asked.
"I'd like to paint it. Something warm, I think," Will mused. "Or maybe blue. That's a bridge we can cross when we come to it."
"So be it. If I were in your shoes? I would paint it a golden taupe. Warm, neutral colors help to evoke positive emotions, and they do not allow for such strong shadows at night."
"Okay," Will replied, "but I still want to get everything else done before I make a final decision."
"I believe our apples are almost done," Hannibal said in lieu of a reply. He checked them with a fork and apparently liked what he saw, because he took the pot off the stove and placed it on a trivet on the island. Hannibal took off the lid to let the apples cool as he rolled the cooled dough flat then carved two large circles out of it. He removed the apples from the pot and placed one in the center of each circle of dough. He then scooped up the dough from underneath, folding it around the soft apple and pinching it at the top to form a sphere. He did the same with the other apple, then coated them in an egg glaze before placing both pastries onto a cookie sheet and sliding them into his oven, underneath the Shepherd's pie.
"My apple dumplings are rather unconventional," Hannibal informed Will, "but I think you'll find them to your liking."
"I was wondering what they were," Will confessed lamely. Hannibal offered him a quick smile before turning back to the leavings of wine and cinnamon in the pot. He put it back on the stove but did not relight it. He would come back to it later, Will realized.
The Shepherd's pie was done a few minutes later, and Will helped Hannibal set the table as it rested. Luckily Will didn't have to remember too many types of silverware setting due to the simplicity of the meal. He speculated whether Hannibal was making simple meals on purpose, or if he normally cooked easy things and just showed off for company. Will couldn't decide which was more flattering; was it better to be catered to, or to be on the "inside" where Hannibal didn't feel the need to impress him?
It didn't really matter. Hannibal scooped a portion of pie onto Will's plate, then onto his own, and the stuff practically oozed scrumptiousness. Will dug in, promptly burning his tongue. Hannibal smirked, but said nothing.
The two ate in silence—Will's next few bites were cautious—until Hannibal decided to start a conversation.
"So, Will," he said, using his knife to clean some sauce off his fork, "perhaps now we can discuss your attraction to me, and how it will affect our relationship."
Will choked on his pie. "Excuse me?" he spluttered. "It—it won't! I'm not a teenage boy, Hannibal. I am in control of my libido."
"You lost control of your mind when you started sleepwalking and hallucinating. I am your psychiatrist first, Will, and you would do well to remember that. I do not want you to promise to control yourself. That is not healthy for you during this time in your life, and it will not aid in your recovery. I do not toil away my hours in your house for no reason. You are my friend, Will, and I want your mental health to return to you. So I would like to discuss your feelings toward me, whatever they are."
Will took a sip of his wine, stalling for time. He was so not prepared for this conversation. "Okay," he hedged. "I am… I am attracted to you. End of story. You're a good-looking man, Hannibal, you should know that. I do not expect anything from you, and I am content with our relationship the way it is."
"But you want something from me, even if you do not expect it," Hannibal said. "And that will impair your ability to be 'content' with our relationship. I am afraid I cannot allow that to happen. Our friendship, like many others, depends on communication to thrive. I need you to be honest with me, Will, just as you need you to be honest with me."
"I'm not sure what you want!" Will snapped, throwing his fork to his plate in resignation. The food had turned to ash in his mouth, anyway. "You're helping me completely rebuild my house for no reason. You're mowing my lawn and inviting me into your house and cooking me fucking Shepherd's pie and I have no idea why. But I can tell you that it's not helping my sanity, Hannibal. You are driving me insane with your sweat and your arms and your jeans and you kneading that fucking dough. Did you honestly expect me not to be attracted to you?"
Hannibal took a sip of his wine, unruffled. "I wouldn't say I expected it, no. Considering your infatuation with Alana Bloom, I had assumed you were at least mostly heterosexual. If I had known that cutting your grass in casual clothes would affect you so intensely, I would not have done so."
"No!" Will shouted. "I don't want this! You don't understand! You shouldn't have to, to… restrain yourself around me. I just—I just need to know why."
"Why what? Why I am choosing to help you?" Hannibal's tone was still smooth, composed. Will hated him for it. "You are falling apart, Will, whether you see it or not. Your world is collapsing in on itself, and you are content to breathe in its destruction. I, however, am not. You allow yourself to live in squalor, you hardly eat, and you would rather suffer through a one-sided infatuation with your psychiatrist than talk to him about it. I am paid to listen to you, and yet you refuse to communicate. If I can do something, anything, to revitalize a patient—especially one that catches murderers for a living—then I have a moral and professional obligation to do so. As well as a personal one.
"Why am I helping you to rebuild your home? You are unhappy there. I am unhappy there, and I have only been to your house on two occasions. I believe what I said, Will. Reorganizing your physical realm will help you to reorganize your thoughts, and it will strengthen your claim on sanity.
"Lastly, your attraction to me. I did not expect it; that is true. This does not mean that I am unhappy with this turn of events. You are an attractive man, too, Will, and I have no preconceived notions of heterosexuality. I have been attracted to you for quite a while. If I had not learned to master my emotions at an early age, I have no doubt that I would be in a far worse state than you right now."
Will was absolutely speechless. The very concept of language failed him for several seconds, so stunned by Hannibal's confession was he. "I—" he tried. His voice wasn't working. "I—I—what, now?"
Will was instantly embarrassed, though, honestly, the feeling of shame never seemed to fully fade around Hannibal. Here was his doctor, reciprocating his attraction and practically telling him that he was spending days upon days at Will's house to make him happier, and Will couldn't even say thank you.
"Thank you," he blurted. No, that wasn't right, either, and now Hannibal looked confused. Fuck it all.
"Listen, Hannibal, I'm a mess," the words poured out of Will in a torrent. "I've never been in a successful relationship, I see murder scenes during sex, and I can barely hold a conversation without imagining the other person dead. I can't tell you how I feel because I can't—" his voice broke and he had to stop for a moment to calm himself, "—I can't lose you, too. I can't see your head on top of a totem pole of bodies. I can't see you stabbed from eyes to toes with deer antlers. I can't see your back carved up into angel wings. I can't imagine killing you, feeling that absolute rush of power as I slit your throat—I can't do it! Not to you."
Hannibal finally stopped acting cool and collected. His eyes were alight with curiosity and concern. "I think perhaps it is time we finished making dessert," he decided. They hadn't remotely finished dinner, but it was cold, anyway.
Will's face twisted into a mirthless grin. "Yeah, let's make dessert," he said.
The apples were mostly done. Hannibal added a large amount of brown sugar to the leavings and cooked it over a low flame until the sugar caramelized the sauce to a glaze. He plated the apples and poured the glaze over each pastry. They looked beautiful, but Will couldn't appreciate them. He had just confessed to things that he hadn't even realized he'd been feeling, and Hannibal was acting like nothing was wrong. Fucking typical.
They sat back down at the table, and Hannibal sliced into his apple. Steam poured out, causing the entire room to smell of fruit and spices: yet another beauty Will couldn't acknowledge because he was too angry at his psychiatrist to notice.
"Will, I cannot promise you that I will not die. In fact, my death is an eventuality promised to me by Fate herself. But I can promise you that neither you, nor any other serial killer, will be my murderer. You know that I have been attacked, and by someone that took down two police officers in a matter of minutes. I am not just a psychiatrist, Will, nor am I just a surgeon. My life is very complex. It is not something you ought to know—I fear your nightmares would only get worse—but you do need to recognize that I am a fully-grown man that took down a psychopath that wanted to kill me. That is the only comfort I can give you, I'm afraid. I can reassure you, though, that you will not imagine murder scenes when you have sex with me."
"When,"not "if." God, that was sexy. "Maybe we should just eat these apples, for now," Will suggested hoarsely. "And we can discuss sex tomorrow, or something."
Hannibal grinned. It was the first time Will had seen such an honest emotion on the man's face. It suited him. "Bon appétit," he replied smoothly, taking a bite of dumpling.
Will could have cried in relief. On a list of his most honest, awkward conversations, this beat out "The Talk" by about three hundred percent. Jesus fucking Christ.
The apple dumpling was delicious, which meant Will had somehow regained his sense of taste. The dark wine baked into the apples was a reminder of the entrée, a savory undertone to an otherwise sweet dish. Even in simplistic, hurried cooking, Hannibal was an artist. Perhaps he could work Will into a piece of art, yet.
Will wasn't sure if it was the rich food or the emotional duress of their version of table talk, but he was exhausted. Tomorrow would be a new day, and maybe Will's head would clear overnight, so he could think about Hannibal's words more carefully. He begged off whiskey sours in the parlor and made his way to the guest room.
It was beautiful and classy, as was everything in Hannibal's home. Will wished he had the eye for such fine taste. As it was, he could pair plaid with polka dots and feel accomplished. Will took off his clothes and piled them into his duffle, collapsing onto the soft bed in nothing but his boxers. Today had been too long of a day to worry about things like pajamas.
He crawled under the sheets that felt like the hair off an angel's back (he needed sleep very badly, it seemed) and closed his eyes, willing his dreams to relent for one night.
A/N: Well, things are progressing a bit, aren't they? Poor Will, still tortured, but in a slightly better way than canon, no? ;)
If you see any errors that I or backwards_blackbird might have missed, please do comment. Thanks for reading!
(Side-note: After seeing Hannibal's indoor herb garden in Rotí, I'm happy I decided to give him one at Will's. That thing was sad-looking!)