In the kitchen, Hannibal put his phone away and put the water on to boil. In a few minutes, Dr. Bloom would cease to be an obstacle, one way or another.
Abigail would fake a panic attack and would demand to need to see her therapist to talk. The care facility would page Dr. Bloom, and she would go.
Or, if she did not, Hannibal would place a powerful sedative in her tea.
Either way, she would no longer be a problem.
Hannibal allowed the smile to crawl all the way across his face.
In the next room, Dr. Bloom's gentle murmurings to Will halted as her phone rang.
Hannibal walked into the sitting room as she excused herself to take the call and walked out onto the front porch.
"Your tea will be ready in just a moment," Hannibal told Will.
"Thank you," Will's voice was faint.
"I apologize that we are taxing your hospitality." Hannibal bowed slightly at Will before he picked up his coat. In the pocket were stowed the various pharmaceuticals he usually carried. "There are few things more draining than the good intentions of others."
Will chuckled, then laughed. Ah, there it was. What an enchantment Will's rare laugh was. Thoroughly disarming, as if Will was himself amazed at his capacity for mirth. A wide, wolfish grin surprising on his handsome, boyish face. Quite raffish.
Intoxicating. So much so, that Hannibal nearly forgot his purpose.
Hannibal smiled, sharing the joke with his Will.
"No, I'm glad," Will's eyes darted to Hannibal's for the briefest instance. "Thank you for coming."
Hannibal bowed slightly again, this time without self-mockery.
"It is not a crime to need something," Hannibal reassured.
If only Will had the slightest notion of his own over-taxed body's needs. Or of Hannibal's.
Dr. Bloom re-entered the small sitting room. "Will, Hannibal, I'm so sorry, Alana has had a ….spell of some kind….she's demanding me, she says she needs to talk, after everything she's been through-"
A flash of emotional pain in Will's eyes. The underlying tang of guilt. A slight flinch as his eyes tightened, as his fingers on his right hand dug into his thigh.
Hannibal moved his draped coat before his body.
"I'm sorry," Alana was saying, as she again sat on Hannibal's place beside Will. "I must go to her – Dr. Lecter? Perhaps you could stay with Will and I'll come back for you later?"
"Certainly," Dr. Lecter replied. "If Abigail wasn't asking for you, I could go to her."
"You can both go," Will's tone was edged with guilt. "I'm not going anywhere. Just come back later. I'm sure I'll be fine once I get some rest, that's all."
Alana and Hannibal exchanged a wry, dismissive glance.
"Sorry, Will," Abigail stood. "Dr. Lecter, I'll return as soon as I can."
"Take all the time you need," Hannibal said, keeping his tone neutral.
"Rest," Alana took Will's hand. "Try to rest."
Will nodded.
Alana left.
"Do you think she's alright?" Will asked, watching the door as it closed. Thinking of Abigail, and his guilt in making her an orphan.
"I think that the best thing for Abigail is what is happening right now," Dr. Lecter said, thinking of Abigail taking control, manipulating, growing confident in her own ability to deceive.
Hannibal took a slight step closer to Will, closer than was strictly necessary, just to make the younger man have to lift his chin that almost infinitesimal degree higher. The angle, making Will in his beauty reminiscent of a saint in ecstasy, the vision of the god before him.
Hannibal made a mental note to sketch the image later.
"Will, the water boils. I must prepare you tea. I would like your permission to give you a sedative as well." In his tone, Hannibal implied that the sedative would be slight. Negligible. But he was careful not to explicitly state this implication.
Both he and Will required the release a heavy dose of sedative would allow.
Will's eyes winced, and skittered to the dogs, curled on their various beds by the fireplace. "I….don't like drugs. I don't like to have to stay asleep. If I-" he coughed, self-consciousness grasping his throat. "If I…need to wake up."
"I assure you, Will, as your friend, you will not have bad dreams while I am here."
Will smiled grimly. "You're going to hold my hand?"
Hannibal smiled, politely in return, showing that he also found the idea humorous, while his mind's eye captured and poured over the same image.
"I will be here, and if I see you are having distress, I will guide you through. Dreamers are not immune to outside stimuli. If you become ensnared in bad dreams, I will help you out of them."
Hannibal kept his face still, reassuring, completely at ease with the seemingly innocuous words he had chosen.
A clash of emotions showed on Will's face. Longing for respite from his body, fatigue, hunger, fear of the drug. The desire to trust Lecter.
Lecter's heart leapt and seized as the conflict on Will's face released. As Will looked up, having decided to trust but unable to banish the apprehension, the choice of trust all the more potent in the face of the fear.
"Alright," Will said, nodding, the tight, sorrowful acknowledgement of a necessary evil.
Hannibal bowed, this time allowing gratitude to show on his face. Gratitude that Will had made the right choice and Hannibal's acknowledgment of what that choice had cost the younger man.
Will let his head fall back against the cushion again. His hands still gripped his thighs. With his eyes closed, he looked like a tormented statue, damp curls on his forehead, glasses incongruous and lovely.
Hannibal let his eyes move over Will's face, and down his throat as Hannibal pretended to feel in the pockets of his coat.
"I shall return with your tea in a moment," Hannibal said.
Will nodded.
Hannibal's eyes caressed the scratch he'd placed on Will's neck earlier. A promise of more. More he intended to allow soon.
Hannibal went to fetch the tea and the sedative.