Langue D'Agneau en Papillotes
October 31st | 5:15 PM
Will took a deep breath as he settled into his car, rubbing his eyes before glancing at his passenger's seat to see the grocery bags piled there. It was his sixth and final order of the day, the end of a lengthy shift that had sent him all over Baltimore.
Will had known that this last stop, an indoor farmer's market in the city centre, would be crawling with parents scrambling to find the best vegan and local treats to hand out to children. Still, knowing that would be the case hadn't quite prepared him for the level of bone-deep exhaustion he felt after walking out. He did his utmost in his personal life to avoid crowded places like that. Hearing all of the voices, noticing every small detail from the angry furrow on a father's brow to the weepy exhaustion of a toddler, being forced to interact with tellers and customers standing too close in line—it left him feeling emptied out, hollow and unprotected.
But this was the last of it. He had been slacking over the last week, and when he'd glanced at his bank account and realized what it would look like once rent had been taken out, he'd known he needed to get his act together. Once it was over, he could get back to the relative quiet of his home and shut out the world. It wouldn't take him too long—if the app was correct, he would be able to make it to this customer's place and back home within an hour and change. The customer hadn't left him a tip, but he'd taken the job anyway, knowing that the time he'd earn navigating the farmer's market would make it worth it. He'd given the customer the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they were either cheap or running low on funds. Perhaps they'd bought their child a special costume, something they really loved. Will wasn't sure what costume he would've selected if anyone had given him the opportunity when he was young. Probably just a fisherman. He could've kept the outfit and worn it when he went out with his dad, rather than his thin jeans and worn out t-shirts.
Will didn't pay much attention as he followed the phone's directions, brain too foggy to focus on anything other than keeping himself on the road. Even the costumes of the children already out trick-or-treating did little to distract him. There were monsters and superheroes and more witches than he could count, but they elicited no emotional response. The dogs would be getting hungry. He couldn't remember whether or not he was supposed to have picked up new food for them while he was out working.
Finally, after what felt like much longer than the thirty minutes promised by his map, Will picked up his phone and went to mark that the order had arrived in-app. An alert popped up.
H.L. would like you to knock upon arrival.
Will felt his stomach drop. No. No. His thoughts began to race, trying desperately to figure out why he hadn't looked at the order more closely. It wasn't someone who was cheap or dealing with a heartwarming backstory—it was the doctor keeping up his end of the bargain that he'd proposed in the grocery store.
For a moment, Will thought seriously about pulling away from the sidewalk. He could careen down the street, groceries still in his car, forfeiting his job and perhaps leaving the city for some place in the middle of nowhere where his tiny house would stand like a boat at sea in the fields surrounding it. Surely he could find work somewhere on the coast. It couldn't be that hard.
But then he thought of the dogs, and Alana, and the possibility of Jack calling him, and his head started to spin, and he forced himself to put the car in park and pull the key out of the ignition. He paused before opening the car door, pulling up the clock app on his phone and setting an alarm to go off in fifteen minutes. 'Block him.' This had to be the last time—no ifs, ands, or buts.
Will's head continued to spin as he grabbed the groceries and walked toward the front door of Dr. Lecter's house. He wasn't exactly a stranger to vertigo, but this did feel particularly bad. He couldn't tell if it was a warning for what was coming, or an objection to what had already occurred. Either way, the door seemed to move farther away from Will as he walked closer, as though his brain were creating its own dolly zoom. He was being overly dramatic. He just had to put the bags down, knock on the door, ensure that his customer—Lecter was nothing more than that, no matter how much he seemed to want to be—had received his order, and leave. Simple as that.
He managed his way up the steps, clutching to the bags, and knocked. He stepped back. Hannibal opened the door. The setting sun bounced off of his hair and eyes and made him look almost angelic. He had a quizzical look on his face.
"Are you quite alright, Will?" the doctor asked.
Will opened his mouth to speak.
—
The air was thick with a rich, savoury scent. Will was fairly certain that the smell was what had woken him up. Woken him up… It didn't make any sense for someone to be cooking in his own home, and come to think of it, he couldn't remember how he'd've gotten there…
Will groaned and rubbed his eyes as he sat up. It took him a moment to process what was in front of him. It was an odd green room accented with dark woods and animal skulls, the occasional set of spiralling horns set onto walls and tables. For a moment, Will's confused mind wondered if he was in a forest. The space felt just as imposing and dense.
This was decidedly not his own home.
Will clenched his jaw, running a hand through his messy hair, doing his best to fathom what was happening. He ran backwards in his mind, searching for what he remembered last. He had been working, had done several orders, had been on his way to his last stop—
Hannibal.
Will swung his legs off of the firm couch he'd been passed out on, pulling himself into an upright position, but he moved too quickly and he found himself woozy again, bracing himself on the couch's arm rest, heart pounding.
"Will?"
Will flinched at the voice, digging his fingertips into the couch for a moment and tensing his shoulders for a second.
"How are you feeling, Will?" Dr. Lecter continued, and now Will could hear his shoes on the floor of what was apparently an ornate living room. He was getting closer.
"Not great," Will grumbled, his voice groggy with disuse. "Did you drug me?"
The doctor appeared on Will's left, wearing an utterly serious expression. He was carrying a small glass of water, which he seemed poised to offer. "I'm afraid you came to me in this condition, Will. You're lucky it didn't happen while you were driving."
"It?" Will asked, brows knitting together. "What happened?"
"You've had some kind of episode," Lecter explained. "I'm happy to talk about it if you're willing to sit down and drink this."
Will eyed the cup warily, but eventually the nausea and confusion won out, and he found himself easing back down onto the couch and taking a deep, shaky breath. Hannibal handed Will the cup, emotionless, and then headed over to one of the chairs facing the couch. All of the furniture in the room looked wildly uncomfortable to Will, who was very used to his drooping second hand loveseats and La-Z-Boy.
Will sniffed at the water and then took a tentative sip. There didn't seem to be anything odd about it.
"Convenient that I passed out on your doorstep, isn't it?" Will asked after taking a sip, a bitter smile twisting his features.
"I won't lie and say that I'm not pleased that my groceries still made it to me on time," Lecter replied with a slight shrug and puckering of his lips.
"Although I suppose you can't finish cooking now, can you?" Will continued, starting to notice all of the parts of his body that were beginning to throb with discomfort. "Distracted by an invalid on Halloween. I hope you didn't have any special plans."
"I had planned for a quiet night in, so you're not disrupting anything significant. The meat is in the oven. Whether or not your appearance is a trick or a treat remains to be seen," Hannibal replied. His face remained laughably serious despite the ridiculous turn of phrase.
"I'll let you draw your conclusion for yourself," Will replied, leaning back on the couch and wincing. "Now will you tell me what happened?"
"You seem to have had a seizure. You fell and lost consciousness in the course of it, so I brought you inside and you fell asleep once you were on the couch. I was just coming back in to check on you."
"How long was I out for?" Will asked, a sense of dread growing in his gut.
"Not long. Twenty-five to thirty minutes, depending on whether or not you include the seizure itself."
"Jesus," Will cursed to himself, fumbling in his pocket for his phone. "Have you seen my phone?"
"It had a rather insistent alarm set, so I took it from your pocket to turn the alarm off and look for your emergency contacts. You have almost none. I'd recommend updating that."
"Where is it now?" Will tensed, bracing himself to have to get off of the couch.
"Right over your shoulder," Hannibal replied, nodding with his chin. Will followed the gesture to find his phone sitting on a console table pressed up against the back of the couch, just as densely decorated with animalistic décor as the rest of the room. The device seemed fine.
"What was the alarm for?" he asked, turning his brows up at the doctor as he looked back at him. "I don't think I have anywhere to be after this."
"It was a reminder to block someone. You didn't specify who."
Will blinked, turning the idea over in his mind as he set the phone down beside him on the couch and rubbed his face with one hand. And then it hit him. There was only one man in his life who he had any cause to block, and Will was sitting mere steps away from him. Will's stomach turned.
"Have you had any seizures before, Will?" Dr. Lecter interjected. When Will looked up, he thought he could spot the remnants of a smirk on the doctor's lips.
"No," Will shook his head. "I mean, not that I know of, anyway. I've been feeling a bit off recently, but not that off."
"I would recommend being seen by a physician. It would be ill-advised for you to be driving until you know the cause."
"Don't have much of a choice," Will grimaced.
"Well, you certainly can't drive yourself home tonight," Lecter replied, leaning forward. "Shall I call you a cab?"
"Wh—I mean, yes, I would appreciate that," Will replied. "Although I'm surprised you're not going to try to trap me here."
"Why would I detain you anywhere that you didn't want to be, Will?" Hannibal asked, raising his translucent brows. "I've told you that I'm trying to make amends for having made you uncomfortable. I presume that abducting you would not work in my favour."
"I guess when you put it like that," Will scoffed, looking toward one of the windows. The sun had mostly set.
"Then I'll get you your ride. Give me a moment to make the call."
"I can just use an app—"
"Just relax, Will," Hannibal replied in a firm tone, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket shut. He must've released it before sitting down. Normally, Will would've noticed something like that. "You've had a traumatic experience. Ordering a cab is the very least I can do."
"You said you didn't cause it—you don't owe me anything."
"It's common decency," Hannibal replied, striding past Will. He smelled nice. Expensive and musky. Very unlike the demeaning reference he had made to Will's own scent. "And the least I can do as a former physician."
"A physician before becoming a psychiatrist?" Will made a surprised face, moving to set the cup down on the nearest surface.
"You didn't see that when you were looking me up online? I suppose I don't advertise it much. Please put a coaster down, Will."
Will bristled as he heard Lecter walk out the door, unsure of how the doctor had even known what he had been about to do with his cup. Still, he did as he was told before picking up his phone, squinting at the screen that seemed all-too-bright in the dense room. He opened his work app and headed to the client management section without hesitation, scrolling through until he found Lecter's name and beginning the process of blocking him. He had made a promise to himself, and he intended to keep it this time.
Will had managed to get himself standing and sure-footed by the time Hannibal came back into the door frame, hands clasped behind his back. "Your ride will be here shortly, Will," the doctor stated, looking his guest up and down. "Unless you'd like to stay and eat?"
"No," Will shook his head, cleaning a smudge on his glasses with his plaid shirt. He'd found them sitting on the coffee table, carefully propped up for him to pick up more easily.
"Not even curious about what's on the menu?"
"Not particularly," he sighed, slipping his glasses back onto his face and striding toward the doorway Hannibal stood in. "Although I get the sense that you're itching to tell me."
"Perhaps another time," Hannibal replied with a soft smile, stepping out of the way and gesturing for Will to pass him. The younger man hesitated for a moment, not entirely comfortable with having his back to his customer, but the urge to get home won out fairly quickly. He clenched his jaw and trucked past, chin tilted down and one shoulder leading as if he were trudging out into a cold winter's night rather than a warm hallway.
Hannibal gave Will quiet, friendly directions back to the entryway and stood several paces away as Will pulled on his jacket—politely hung in a closet that the doctor had pointed out to him—and wiped some sweat from his brow.
"You'll need to come back tomorrow for your vehicle, of course. Unless you'd like me to drive it to you?"
"Ah, no," Will replied with a dry laugh. "I'm more than capable of doing it myself. I'll bring Ala—a friend with me, if I need to."
"Your former lover?" Hannibal asked, raising his brows.
"You remember that?" Will replied, raising his own brows in return. "Wouldn't you rather keep some space in that mind of yours for more important things?"
"Everything I am interested in is important to me. There are rooms enough in my memory palace to make space for your presence."
"Well, I appreciate your help, Dr. Lecter," Will replied, consciously choosing to ignore the strange comment as he glanced through the frosted pane of the glass, waiting for a vehicle to pull up. "And you're released from that bargain you proposed, by the way. I don't plan to keep working for you, for free or otherwise. Our working relationship had already crossed enough boundaries before today."
Will did not make eye contact when he spoke.
"That seems like a perfectly appropriate response, Will. It is often wise, though at times unavoidable, to limit conflicts of interest in the workplace. Perhaps we can consider today recompense for my… overstepping."
"Perhaps," Will replied, glancing at Hannibal over his shoulder for a moment before he heard the rushing of wheels outside. The taxi had undoubtedly arrived.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Dr. Lecter. Happy Halloween."
"Happy Halloween, Will," the doctor murmured, waiting until Will had left the threshold to step forward and pull the door closed behind him.
The street bustled with more children as Will approached the taxi, a couple of tiny cartoon serial killers cutting him off as he attempted to cross the sidewalk. He felt in his pocket for his own keys as he passed his vehicle; still there. Will gave his address as he climbed into the taxi, daring to take a final glance at the doctor's house before they drove away.
The doctor had not prepaid for the taxi. Something about that made Will feel better.
