Chapter Text
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Graham Residence
The police may not have been able to find Abel Gideon yet, but neither had Will.
After leaving a gruesome scene at the site of his escape, where he strung up the organs of the murdered guards on a tree like they were Christmas ornaments, Abel Gideon had effectively vanished. It was telling he had left his surgical trophies behind.
“If he still thought he was the Chesapeake Ripper, he would have taken the organs with him,” Will muttered as he read the TattleCrime article for the fourth time.
“Was he stringing up the organs to develop his own MO or something?” Jesse said, standing on his tiptoes to try to read over Will’s shoulder. Will just looked at him.
“What?” Jesse said. “I ask Abigail about this stuff all the time.”
“The Chesapeake Ripper would have done it better,” C.J. said in a bored voice from the kitchen where he was putting away the dishes. Sometimes Will was more than a little worried about what exactly went on in C.J.’s mind.
“No, he’s peacocking for the Ripper,” Will said. “It’s like roses and chocolates before a first date.”
“Do you really not like this guy or something?” Jesse said. “You’re sorta glaring at the tablet.”
Will was not glaring at the tablet. It wasn’t any of his business if another serial killer was interested in the Ripper. And the interest was purely because Abel Gideon needed to know who he was; it wasn’t actually a first date or anything. He doubted the Ripper would sleep with Abel Gideon even if it were. Probably.
The front door banged open, and Will nearly jumped out of his seat. Abigail stood there, her face pale.
“Dr. Chilton’s missing,” Abigail said. “The FBI thinks Abel Gideon’s got him.”
“What a shame,” Will said dryly.
“And there’s another psychiatrist; they just found his body. He interviewed Gideon for a book,” Abigail continued all in a rush. “Agent Crawford thinks he wants all the psychiatrists who interviewed or treated him. Alana Bloom, Hannibal—”
“Hannibal?” Will said, sharply.
“Dr. Chilton had an armed FBI guard and Gideon still got him, so they want to put everyone at risk in a safe house.”
“Good,” Will said. “He’ll be safe there while we hunt down our elusive prey.”
“But Hannibal refuses to go! He said he was sure there was nothing for him to fear from Abel Gideon, and he wouldn’t leave.”
Goddammit, Hannibal.
Baltimore, Maryland
Lecter Residence
“Stubborn bastard,” Will grumbled as he stomped up the porch steps, ignoring the rain that was intermittently patting his hair. “Can’t sacrifice just a little bit of his comfort, can he? He’d rather stay home and die.”
“I mean, maybe Hannibal has a good reason to think he’s safe,” Abigail said, attempting to hold the umbrella over both of them and struggling to keep up with Will’s fast pace. “Maybe he never really interacted with Gideon?”
“If he gets himself murdered, I’m gonna kill him,” Will said, stabbing the doorbell button. “Stupid, selfish asshole—what am I supposed to do if he dies, huh?”
He waited irritated for a few moments. Nothing.
“And Alana needs him, of course,” Will said belated.
He rang the doorbell again.
“Oh come on!” Will shouted when still no one answered the door.
“Hannibal gave me a spare key for emergencies,” Abigail said, “though I think this is more of an emergency than he ever planned on.”
The two seconds it took Abigail to unlock the door felt like two seconds too long if Abel Gideon was on his way. Will barged into the house, ready to shame Hannibal into packing up and relocating to a safe house right this instance.
“Oh my god,” Abigail gasped.
There was a vase of flowers smashed on the floor of the entryway, the clear crystal shards scattered on the floor and the flowers trampled. Some of the jagged pieces of glass were stained red, and was that blood on the floor?
Heart in his throat, Will charged into the parlor. The room was empty.
“Hannibal!” Will called.
Something clattered in the dining room. Panicked, Will rushed in. There was a body on the dining room table. Not Hannibal’s, thank god.
It was the armed guard; the one that was supposed to be keeping Hannibal safe. The man’s belly was split open and things that were supposed to be inside him were bubbling up through the incision to try to be on the outside instead. The man turned his head slightly to look at them, hands clasped to his stomach to try to keep it all in, his face pale and sweaty.
“No, no, no—” Will said.
The dining table was covered in a white bedsheet and a kitchen trolly with surgical instruments sat nearby, like a parody of an operating room. A lamp whose shade had been tilted up served as an impromptu OR lamp. There was a discarded surgical mask lying next to Will’s feet.
“Where’s Hannibal Lecter?” Will demanded. “What’d Abel Gideon do to him?”
“Will! He’s barely conscious,” Abigail scolded as she fumbled for her phone in her purse.
The man weakly shook his head.
“Wasn’t here,” the man gasped out through the pain. “Lecter had to help-p Bloom with the profile. I was just… I was… here to secure the house. Gideon wanted—he wanted the safe house.”
“Abel Gideon broke in, but found you instead of Lecter?” Will said. The man nodded once and then choked on a gasp of pain. “And he tortured you because he wanted to know where the safe house is?”
“Once he… he couldn’t find Lecter, yes,” the man confirmed, face scrunching up in distress. “I told him, I told—” He made a horrible sound that was like a bitten off keen.
“You told him where the safe house is?” Will said. “Where? Where’s the safe house?”
“677031. Town—Township Road 140.”
I can’t believe Hannibal was actually right to avoid the safe house.
“Google Maps says that’s on the west side, outside of town,” Abigail said.
“He wants… he wants to meet—”
“Yeah, the Chesapeake Ripper,” Will said. “Too bad for him; he’s gonna meet someone else instead.”
Will grabbed Abigail’s arm, dragging her to the entrance of the dining room, out of hearing range.
“He’s not going to be conscious for much longer,” he said quietly. “Call 911, but when they arrive, stall as long as you can before telling them the safe house is compromised. I want a chance to introduce myself to our wayward killer before the FBI take him instead.”
“That’s gonna be one hell of an introduction,” Abigail said. “I should go with you.”
“No way to explain why both of us left a critically injured agent. And I’m not letting you hunt a man like Abel Gideon on your own.”
The drive to the safe house was agony. Too much rain, too much distance, and the clock was ticking fast.
He parked his car on a gravel shoulder far enough away that his prey wouldn’t see him coming. Making his way through the woods surrounding the property, he stayed as silent as possible, the rain helping to cushion the sound of his footsteps. It was late enough in the evening that darkness had fallen, and out here away from the streetlights and the hum of car engines, he felt at peace. It felt like he was night fishing, and nothing existed but him and the fish.
Abel was a very active predator in the middle of a hunt, and Will knew exactly where he would be.
When he reached the clearing surrounding the safe house, he could see his quarry standing in the pitch black yard. Gideon stood like a man captivated, staring straight ahead.
The curtains were drawn open in several of the windows, including the large dining room window, where Will could see Alana setting the table. The light inside spilled out into the night like a television in a dark room. Alana was the tv character performing her scripted role, unaware she had an audience.
This would not be an easy hunt. Will was too close to the house to shoot without someone hearing. He would have to fight Gideon man-to-man if he wanted his prey to himself.
Gideon, on the other hand, had the gun he had lifted off the agent he had attacked and no reason to fear using it. As long as he hit his target with the first shot, he could be long gone before any armed agents could descend upon him.
Now was the time to act, before Gideon had a chance to use his weapon.
The Alana who was folding cloth napkins faded away. Instead she became the Madonna in one of Boticelli’s paintings. He imagined Alana’s long dark hair partially hidden under transparent veils and a colorful silk maphorion that wrapped around the crown of her head. Her future child was no longer still forming in her belly but instead was swaddled in her arms.
He imagined from her gentle swaying and the movement of her lips that she was singing a comforting lullaby. The baby laying against her chest blinked sleepily. Back and forth she rocked until the infant was slumbering, safely wrapped in mother’s arms.
This was Alana’s future. She would hold Hannibal’s sleeping child in her arms; a child she would comfort and love and raise with Dr. Lecter. They’d be a family.
Gideon began to lift his gun, ready to aim.
It’s not my responsibility to save her.
It’d be easier to catch Gideon as he was fleeing; he’d be too busy trying to make a quick escape to watch for unanticipated company. Hell, he’d probably flee into the woods right into Will’s arms. And when the armed guards heard the second gunshot, they’d think it was Abel Gideon shooting a second time.
I’m sorry, Alana. I’m too selfish in the end.
The real Alana, still pregnant and setting the table, seemed to be talking to someone. Hannibal moved into view, balancing two plates of food that he delicately set on the table. Gideon took aim.
No! Not Hannibal!
Before he even knew what he had done, Will was across the yard and tackled Gideon to the ground. Despite the jarring impact as the two of them tumbled to ground, by some miracle the gun didn’t fire.
“Well, this is interesting,” Gideon said in a strained voice, trying to catch his breath after getting the air knocked out of him. “I didn’t expect a guard in the woods. Do you know what happened to the last FBI agent I encountered?”
“Not with the FBI,” Will said with a sneer.
“Oh? Concerned citizen then?” Gideon said with an amused smile as he and Will tussled for control of the gun. “You know, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a escaped serial killer on the loose. I hear he’s quite dangerous.”
“I’m with the Chesapeake Ripper,” Will snarled in Gideon’s ear, as he bent Gideon’s hand at an unnatural angle to get him to drop the firearm.
Gideon stifled a yell of pain and let go. Will kicked the gun far away from both of them and got Gideon in a headlock with a hunting knife against his throat.
“Well, you’re not with me—at least I don’t think you are—so that means I’m not the Ripper. I still get a little muddled on that point.” Gideon jerked his head to the side to try and see as much of Will as possible. “And what are you, his messenger? An apprentice? A partner in crime?”
Technically, he hasn’t actually helped the Chesapeake Ripper with any of his kills yet, so he couldn’t claim partner in crime.
“It doesn’t matter,” Will mumbled.
“Your face is remarkably red at the moment,” Gideon noted calmly. “I know, you’re a fan. Maybe I really am him then; do you want an autograph?”
“I’m his lover,” Will snapped.
“That must be an interesting relationship,” Gideon said, because of course he could never keep quiet for even a minute. “Would you mind introducing me to your lover? I’ve been hoping to have a little heart-to-heart with him.”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” Will said. “I eat killers like you.”
“I’d say you do.”
“Not like that,” Will said. His face was probably even redder now.
“Ah yes, the surgical trophies, they weren’t trophies at all were they?” Gideon said. “Of course, that makes sense. Sounds a little unfortunate for me; your plan is to make me into tonight’s main course, isn’t it? You know my late wife did used to say I always take things too far, and one day my goose would be cooked.”
Will saw in his mind what Gideon intended to do. He didn’t give Gideon time to grab the surgical knife out of his belt.
Hopefully the rain would wash enough blood from the ground before morning.
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Graham Residence
Will opened the front door quietly, mindful that it was past the boys’ bedtime. He had called ahead to let Abigail know he was alright, especially since his clothes were soaked with rain and blood; he probably looked a fright.
Abigail was sitting in one of living room armchairs with a book in hand. She took in his appearance with a glance, a worried expression passing over her face.
“The agent was dead before the ambulance even arrived,” she said, “so I never told anyone the safe house was compromised.”
Will nodded.
“Is it bad I’m relieved the agent died?” she said, as if she expected Will to have a better grasp of morality than she did.
“It was for the best,” Will said. “We didn’t even kill him. And, um, do we have space in the freezer?”
“Plenty of it,” Abigail said. “Want me to help?”
As they worked getting the meat bled and packaged for the freezer, Will struggled to keep his hands steady. He kept thinking of Alana, what he almost let happen to her. God, what had he nearly done?
Afterwards, when the blood that had been soaking his gloves finished swirling down the kitchen sink drain, he gripped the counter edge to steady himself, his knuckles turning white.
“Everything alright?” Abigail asked, grabbing bleach from under the sink. Cleaning up afterwards was her responsibility for now. Practice makes perfect, after all.
“Yeah,” he rasped, unwilling to tell her what he’d nearly done. The back door clicked shut as she left for the barn. Will ran a hand through his sweaty hair, tried to take in a deep breath. A hand touched his arm, and he whirled around.
No one was there.
But from where he was standing he could see into a small part of where the living room should be, and that was not his living room. Instead of drywall, there was floor to ceiling wainscoting made of dark cherry wood. As he crept closer, sunlight streamed in through arched windows and illuminated the space, revealing a simple but elegant wooden desk and chair resting on an oriental rug, and a leather armchair several feet away.
He was sitting in the armchair, or at least a past version of himself was.
This was Dr. Bloom’s office, and Alana herself was standing by one of the windows trying to look both welcoming and professional.
“I’m going to have to refer you, Will, to another psychiatrist.” She said it as nicely as possible but in a firm voice; it was clear she would not tolerate attempts to change her mind.
Will watched his past self smile in a way that was both self-deprecating and amused as he admitted, “Because I kissed you.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment of awkward silence. He bet she had weighed in her mind the benefit and harm of further discussing the kiss itself and had judged it a distraction to the more necessary goal of ensuring that unstable Will Graham got the therapy he needed. “The psychiatrist I’m referring you to is one the best; he was once my mentor, in fact. You’ll be in good hands.”
To anyone else the comforting look on her face combined with the strong, measured cadence of her voice meant she was calm and unaffected. But Will’s empathy could see through it. He suspected she felt she had crossed a line by not cutting off their doctor-patient relationship until after he had kissed her. She had been gently encouraging him—at least until now—in his pursuit of her, perhaps motivated by her need to repair broken things. And he had been the perfect broken man for her to fix, or so he had let her believe.
His past self said with a dry chuckle, “I doubt even he can help me. Therapy doesn’t work on me, Alana, I know all the tricks.”
“Will—”
“Thank you. I know you did your best, but I’ll be turning down the referral.”
Alana frowned.
“I think you’re deliberately misunderstanding the purpose of therapy. It’s not about tricks.”
“No, it’s about fixing me.” He sounded more bitter about it than he remembered.
A shadow passed over Alana’s face, a strange mix of doubt and hurt and concern.
“Therapy is best described as an attempt to understand ourselves more deeply, and a place to heal. An opportunity to improve ourselves. My job is merely to provide a non-judgemental environment, and to educate when needed. I’m concerned to learn you believe that therapy is about fundamentally changing you.” She paused, probably making mental connections between the current topic and his recent actions. “Why, exactly, did you kiss me?”
“I thought that would be obvious.” It was supposed to be a reference to how desirable she was, but his attempt at humor fell flat.
“You do realize someone who wants to change who you are, not merely help improve or heal, is not someone you want as a psychiatrist, or as a dating partner for that matter.”
Alana only believed that because she didn’t realize who he really was. What he had nearly let happen to her tonight was all the proof he needed of how wrong she was.
The sunlight faded away, leaving him once again in his dark house in the middle of the night. Fear squeezed at his belly, some unnamable fear stoked by the fact he’d nearly seen a family murdered tonight. He was at the boys’ room before he even realized he needed to see them and know they were safe.
He cracked open the door. C.J.’s bed was closest, and he could see him fast asleep partially buried under the covers and an Ellie-sized lump in the comforter snuggled up next to him. At this point Will was going to have to accept no one obeyed the “no dogs on the bed” rule.
In the bed across the room, however, Jesse was not asleep. He was sitting up absently fiddling with his phone, probably playing a game. Glancing up with a guilty look, he ceased his efforts at half-heartedly tapping at the screen.
There was no excitement from staying up past his bedtime or the thrill of winning a game in his slumped shoulders, so Will figured it safe to assume that whatever this was, it wasn’t about the game on his phone.
Will walked quietly across the room and sat on the bed to ask, “Everything alright?”
“Can’t sleep,” Jesse said with a shrug. After hesitating a moment, he asked Will, “Do you ever have nightmares?”
Will could see the ghost of a figure out of the corner of his eye; a flash of white fabric and pale skin and dark hair. He knew who it was. The imaginary Elise Nichols slowly prowled behind him.
“Most nights,” Will admitted. Had Jesse been having nightmares?
“What are they about?” Jesse asked.
The days between when Will realized that Garrett Jacob Hobbs was the Minnesota Shrike and when he finally cornered Hobbs at the hunting cabin, Will had been tormented by nightmares of himself as Hobbs. Over and over he dreamt of killing Elise Nichols. Shooting, strangling, stabbing—no bodies had turned up yet so there had been no way to know how Hobbs killed his victims, so Will’s dreams had killed her in every way possible.
Her hair between his fingers, her skin underneath his palms, her blood coating everything became as familiar as the brush of his dogs’ fur when he reached out for them upon waking.
“How about we settle on the description ‘disturbing’ and leave it at that,” Will said.
The dreams changed after he actually found Hobbs. If he thought it was bad before, it was worse now.
The imaginary Elise Nichols finished circling around him and stood in front of him. She was alive and smirking: no bruises around her throat from a hand cutting off her air, her white dress was pristine and clean with no blood, no wounds punctured his skin. It was how she appeared now in his nightmares. Elise Nichols alive and well, because there had been a different victim.
At night Will was trapped in a nightmare world where Hobbs had tired of substitutes, and finally killed and ate his golden ticket instead. A world without Abigail.
“I dream about fire,” Jesse whispered.
Elise Nichol’s mouth opened to reveal small flames dancing on her tongue. The fire spread in seconds, consuming her tongue, then her lips. Her skin blackened and curled as it devoured her with no mercy. Will could feel the heat too close to his skin, and fought the urge to shy away from the fire—he didn’t want Jesse to guess what he was seeing. When the flames finally died down all that was left was a curled-up charred body on the ground, too small to be Elise Nichols. The body now looked like Colin Frisk’s.
“Am I right to assume this has to do with Colin?” Will said. “It must have been scary to watch him die.”
“I wouldn’t say scary; I was so angry at him,” Jesse said. “His stupidity was going to get us caught. I thought he deserved it. He couldn’t even shoot a gun right, and he was scared and weak... or, I mean, that’s what I thought at the time.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. I mean, he was supposed to be my brother, then he was dead and gone. And I dream about him sometimes.”
Now that Will thought about it, it likely wasn’t just fear of death fueling Jesse’s particular nightmares, especially when it was a bullet that had killed Colin, not the fire. But burning the body in the fireplace is how Eva Blair and her adopted children had disowned Colin Frisk after he was already dead.
“Some dreams it’s him that goes into the fire, sometimes it’s going to be me,” Jesse said, discarding his phone in disinterest onto the bed.
“When what we fear might happen to us happens to someone else instead, our minds try to find a way to blame the other person for what happened to them,” Will said. “If they deserved it, and you don’t, then it won’t happen to you, or so you want to tell yourself.”
Jesse nodded, and his face scrunched up like he was about to cry. Will was completely screwing this up.
“Jesse, listen to me,” Will said as he moved beside Jesse and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “What happened to Colin Frisk will never happen to you. Not because Colin did anything to deserve what happened to him, because he didn’t. It’s because this family is nothing like Eva Blair’s. There is nothing you could ever do that would make you no longer my son.”
Jesse did begin to cry then. Will didn’t know what to do; he felt so unprepared to be a father.
He remembered being eight and crying, hiding in his room, because none of his classmates wanted to talk to him. One boy in particular liked to call him a freak, and viciously pinched his arm on more than one occasion just to hear Will’s cry of pain. The others laughed like it was a joke, and the shame of it choked him every time he had thought about it. His father had pretended he didn’t hear the sobs.
Then he was fifteen. A woman was missing in their small town. There were policemen and search parties, but Will already knew it was for nothing. He saw in his mind what her husband had done, even if no one believed him. Over and over he’d see it; the man hit her, again and again, until she stopped breathing. He was too old to be crying then, but he couldn’t stop the tears regardless, and his father’s scorn had felt more painful than even the arm pinches.
He pulled Jesse into a hug, desperate to make sure he wouldn’t feel like Will had felt all those years ago. That he’d never feel shame for crying. It took long minutes until at last the quiet sobs died down to sniffles.
“Everything will be ok, I promise,” Will whispered.
Will kept holding him, hoping against hope Jesse wouldn’t feel alone and scared. It was a strange helpless feeling, wishing he could heal someone else’s anguish. Eventually Jesse fell asleep, and Will stayed long enough to make sure the nightmares didn’t immediately return.
He felt guilty admitting it, but Will wished he had someone to hold him through his own nightmares.
Baltimore, Maryland
Lecter Residence
Will lingered on Dr. Lecter’s front porch, neither knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell. It was hard to believe this might be the last time he would stand here.
Surely there was nothing wrong in taking a minute to commit to memory everything he was about to lose. Even the expensive stone work of the porch and the precisely trimmed bushes in the yard—which he had once found off-putting and intimidating—had become dear to him now. They were elegant and classic, just like Hannibal himself.
He rang the doorbell, and it didn’t take long for the master of the house to answer. To Will’s surprise, he was wearing only two pieces of a three-piece suit, an almost casual look, at least for Hannibal. He looked achingly good. Blue windowpane pants and vest perfectly tailored, and a brown paisley tie, the sort of thing Will wouldn’t normally notice, but today he made an effort to. He wanted every detail, just so he can hold onto them in his memory.
“Will,” Hannibal said, warm smile gracing his face. “I had been hoping you would visit, especially after that unfortunate interruption.”
“We can’t be friends,” Will said, bluntly.
Hannibal’s head jerked slightly away from Will, almost like an aborted flinch. For a second, Will could swear Hannibal’s mouth twisted into a snarl, but when he looked again to make sure, all he could see was Hannibal’s normal comforting gaze, though the smile was gone.
“I shouldn’t come over to your house anymore,” Will said with a bitter laugh. “Believe me, it’s for the best.”
“Will— ”
“When’s the wedding?” Will said sharply, skirting around Hannibal and giving him a wide berth as he stalked inside and towards the parlor.
“I’m not sure what wedding you are referring to,” Hannibal said.
Was he being belligerent? Or was it a poor attempt at humor?
“Alana,” Will said, which as much “obviously” he could fit into his tone.
“I don’t know of any set wedding date yet,” Hannibal said. “I can ask Margot the next time I see her, if you wish.”
Why would Margot know the wedding date when the groom didn’t?
“And the baby shower,” Will said. “When is it?”
He really ought to just shut up and leave. Not like Hannibal asked to deal with his crazy.
“I think there is a strong possibility they won’t have one,” Hannibal said. “Margot’s brother would be less than supportive of her decision, and he controls the family finances. May I ask why you want to know?”
“I was asking about Alana’s baby shower, not Margot’s,” Will said.
“I would consider the child will be both Alana’s and Margot’s, especially when they are married,” Hannibal said. “Will, I admit I’m not entirely sure what this conversation is about.”
“Wait,” Will said, more than a little confused. “Are you saying Alana is marrying Margot? And they’re having a baby together?”
Hannibal stared at him, as if truly baffled as to why Will was confused. Oh god, Alana and Hannibal really had broken up and she had moved on and Will had almost let her die.
“I thought she was marrying you!” Will blurted out.
Instead of immediately responding, Hannibal’s face turned calculating. No doubt he was adding 2 plus 2, so to speak, only instead of “2” he was adding up Will’s jealous and erratic behavior the past few months. Oh shit, he was going to figure out just how infatuated Will was with him.
“Did you think I was flirting with you, Will, while engaged to another?”
Oh god, Hannibal knew I had been flirting? And he had been flirting back?
“Regardless, I’m concerned by your decision,” Hannibal said. “I wouldn’t suggest ending a friendship. You’ve recently become a father to three, and a support network is recommended. And I, of course, wish to be a help to you.”
“What? Oh, um, disregard what I said,” Will said, his face probably beet red from embarrassment by now. “It no longer—never mind.”
“Because you thought I was to marry Alana,” Hannibal said, connecting the dots in his mind.
Will laughed unamused, running a hand through his own hair, leaving it disheveled and curling around his face. Hannibal very much wanted to kiss him. Instead, he cupped his hand loosely under Will’s chin, and Will obligingly tilted his head up to meet Hannibal’s gaze.
“I was about to prepare lunch. I would very much like you to join me,” Hannibal said. “As a date.”
Will’s smile—a rare beautiful thing to see on him—was there and gone a second, but it was enough.
“I’d be happy to, Doctor,” Will said. There was a mischievous but satisfied glint in his eyes, like a cat playing with a mouse before finally devouring it. “Oh, um, let me call Abigail first. I didn’t plan to be gone this long, and I don’t want her worried.”
“Of course. I’ll be in the kitchen. Join me when you’re ready.” Hannibal let his gaze slowly sweep over Will, savoring the sight of him standing there, eager and wanting.
Taking a quick mental inventory of the kitchen, he realized due to the recent dinner party, his kitchen was unfortunately only stocked with the sort of meat that could be found at the butcher or the market. Disappointed, he fetched the bowl of oysters he had purchased fresh this morning. It was not the same as something he had hunted himself, but it would have to do. At least it was something still alive for Will to tame with a knife.
He fetched the ingredients—champagne, butter, chives—plus an assortment of Swiss chard, kale, and collard with garlic, white wine, and pepper flakes to braise as a side dish. He began to heat the butter in a pan, letting it melt.
When Will joined him in the kitchen, he heard him mutter in an embarrassed sounding voice, “She wasn’t even surprised.”
“Abigail is a very perceptive young woman,” Hannibal said, placing the hilt of an oyster knife in Will’s hands. “Care to help?”
“Brings back memories,” Will said with a half-smile, gripping the knife with familiar and practiced ease. “One of the benefits of growing up where I did.”
Will grabbed a kitchen towel to wrap over his thumb, and pierced the first oyster at the hinge, rocking the knife to loosen the top shell.
“In Louisiana,” Hannibal said, remembering what Will had already mentioned about his childhood. “Any detriments? Or was it all benefits?”
Will finished swiping the knife through to separate the meat from the shell, and then he paused. His eyes roved back and forth, his mind working on some memory or revelation.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. This, here, with you,” Will said slowly. “It was never talked about in Louisiana, at least not in flattering terms. And I’m not personable, people don’t tell me about their lives, so even after I moved, no one ever explained how this feels or what to do with what I feel.”
Hunching his shoulders, Will continued his task, almost as if he wished to ignore what he had just admitted. Hannibal watched him, clever hands expertly manipulating the mollusks.
“It’s not any different than falling in love with a woman,” Hannibal said. “If you discount the discourteous things ignorant people might do or say about the relationship.” Will swallowed hard, probably taken aback by the open admission of falling in love.
“But I’ve never—it’s only ever been sex for me,” Will said. “I have no experience with these feelings, not even with women, not until recently.”
Giving into impulse, Hannibal lifted the hand Will clutched the knife with and brushed a kiss over the knuckles.
“Nor me,” Hannibal softly admitted. “But love is a pleasure we can explore together, if you wish.”