Chapter Text
“Don't build a bridge into thin air.”
― Zenith, Julie Bertagna
“Good thing it’s a Tuesday for me, huh.”
Hannibal blinks, lets himself take Will on the other side of the camera. Younger, but entirely himself; he is just as warm with his smile, just as careful to avoid eye contact, still runs his hand through his hair when he’s both tired and nervous.
“Tuesday?”
“So the clock tells me,” Will deadpans, resting his cheek against his fist, eyes narrowing as Hannibal just continues to watch him. Then Will’s lips part, tongue between, and he sighs, “did you have another of your days where you zone out entirely?”
Hannibal blinks, Will just nods, that seeming answer enough.
“So I suppose you didn’t read our book this week?”
Hannibal wonders, in that moment, what Will knows, how much he could, simply by watching him, by seeing as he was - is, always is - so good at doing with him. Always a slight smile and the backs of his fingers against Hannibal’s face when he was lost in thought, always knowing when to leave a cup of coffee and make his way upstairs or take the coffee to the kitchen and return to rest his weight against Hannibal’s tense form on the couch.
“No,” Hannibal says, word tilting at the end to almost be a question that Will answers without prompting, without being told. He lifts a book and holds it to the webcam, the light glaring off it before it focuses. “Exodus.” Hannibal is fairly sure this has nothing to do with the Bible.
“You know, you chose this one, you’re the one that suggested that since most young adult novels are not to your standard of taste you would like one that touches on pertinent issues that you can discuss and hone in on instead.”
Will’s face comes into focus again and he smiles.
Something tugs at Hannibal that he can’t place, it’s not the nostalgia of closeness, not a memory… or at least not one from there, not from the place where he sleeps on a plane on his way to Paris. It is like a sensation of a breeze when there isn’t one, the knowledge of what it feels like even when it’s not there. It’s strange, makes Hannibal feel out of control and confused, and so, so tired.
But what’s stranger is he remembers. He remembers those words, he remembers selecting the book from his sister’s shelf - surprisingly, with her permission - he remembers.
Entirely impossible, but he finds himself smiling.
“I read the first few chapters,” he says, “and then -”
“You didn’t even get to the good part then, it’s unlike you to stop so soon,” Will tilts his head, lips pressed into a wry smile, “you’re usually so persistent.”
“Where are you?” Hannibal asks instead, finds Will blinking and shifting until he can sit a little higher up in his chair, he reaches to adjust the camera to the new angle, the sound of it moving over the monitor a little too loud in the speakers.
“Current coordinates unknown,” Will explains, almost sombre, “I have been lost within this urban jungle for my entire life barring the one trip I took that I’m sure you remember well enough.” Will’s eyes wrinkle, his smile breaks free again and he shakes his head.
“Did you sleep at all, Hannibal?” he asks, and there is that concern again, that soft, pitched question Hannibal knows well, through sighs and words and gestures, or just his presence alone. This is the Will he knows, this is the Will that can never change, age or time or dream aside.
Hannibal moves his eyes to the top of the Skype window, the time displayed there several hours out from his own, the day entirely different. The place -
“It’s midnight where you are,” Hannibal comments absently, checks his own watch before turning his eyes to the camera again, finding Will there entirely amused, legs crossed on his chair, now, hands down to hold his ankles.
“After daylight savings two weeks ago, yes, six hours difference.” He tells Hannibal, entirely too patient, entirely too calm, and Hannibal wonders how often this must happen, in this reality, how often he must appear so absent and confused and entirely apart from everything around him. He shakes his head, feels an anguish entirely too deep in his chest as he looks at Will, in France, and he himself, here, in Baltimore.
“I slept,” Hannibal answers finally, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, the bridge of his nose, “I think I slept, some dreams linger more than others, I can’t seem to wash those away.”
“Did you try to wash them away?” Will asks, and Hannibal has to look at him again, wonder how he knows, before he realizes that perhaps in this world, this universe, he had told Will of such a superstition.
“I fear if I do, I will lose them, and I’m not yet ready to.”
“Water’s the medium that transcends -” Will sighs, “everything,” he rocks a little on his chair before catching himself against his desk so he doesn’t spin away from the camera, “it washes away the physical and mental and spiritual of everything, allows you to be clean with it, and cleansed with it.”
“Many religions seem to think so,” Hannibal agrees, settling back in his own seat and crossing his arms over his stomach, “ablution, in many cultures, baptism, mikvah, amrit sanskar. The idea of ideal purification when immersed entirely in water.”
Will laughs, shakes his head. “That program sounds brutal,”
“Which?”
“Baccalaureate.” Will confirms. Hannibal frowns.
“We’re not anointed there,”
“No but you learn about it,” Will laughs again, “look at you, half of those words aren’t in English, and you pronounce them like you speak Hebrew and Hindi. Don’t tell me you learned another four languages since you last spoke to me.”
Hannibal just smiles, eyes wrinkling at the corners in pleasure. He had spoken of things like this with Will before, at dinner, wrapped together in sheets after intimacy and comfort, just talking, about anything either or both of them knew, asking the other if they did not.
“Just those two.” He responds and finds Will turning away from the camera for a moment, murmuring something in quick French he can’t quite catch through the microphone as Will has turned away, but it shoulds rougher, at least, than any French Hannibal knows. When Will turns back he just shakes his head, leans to adjust the camera more to show a large dog - Winston - at Will’s side, before the creature turns to pounce onto the bed and curl up on it as Will watches fondly.
“Anyway,” Will takes up the book again, flicking through the pages as he seeks something, setting his finger to one and closing the book around it, “it’s funny you bring water up.”
“Because the world is flooded in Exodus?” Hannibal asks, playing the straight man as Will narrows his eyes and holds the book up almost menacingly.
“Because of what that means.”
“Beyond the pertinent concern of our world flooding as global warming melts more and more of the polar ice caps?”
“You know, for someone smart you are entirely too pedantic.” Will points out, but he’s smiling, and Hannibal can’t help but smile back. These words he knows well, but it is another kind of knowing, another level of knowing. These words he has caught against his own lips, heard muttered at people who refuse to listen to Will, refuse to believe just how smart he is because he hides it so well.
“Perhaps I am not far enough into it, yet, to know.” Hannibal comments, raises an eyebrow, finds that Will is all too willing to fill in the blanks for him as he settles back, turns to make a soft sound to his dog, to see his tail wag and beat against the pillow he’s curled up on.
“Water transmits movement, depth, changes,” Will says, “the smaller it is the more interesting it is, brooks run quickly, lakes hold clear depths of things we cannot fathom -”
“The oceans?”
“The oceans are monotonous,” Will claims, gesturing with the book, “oceans are a collective of everything at once, too much information, too much space, too much everything.”
“But the brooks and rivers all flow to the sea,” Hannibal says, shifting in his seat as he hears something from downstairs but doesn’t bother to go to the door again, “are you implying all that collective interest becomes overwhelming?”
“That’s what Bertagna’s implying,” Will says, almost exasperated, but he’s grinning, happy to be able to talk about this with his friend. Hannibal wonders if he’s happy, in France, if he knows people there, if they are kind, if they understand what Will is, what magic he holds within him and how important it is for everyone, not just themselves, together.
He wonders, briefly, if Will - this Will, now Will - knows of Hannibal’s feelings for him, he wonders if that has ever come up between them. He doesn’t even know how he met him, and the thought saddens him, pulls the corners of his lips down in a frown before he shakes his head and rubs his eyes, listening to Will go on.
“Microcosm not macrocosm,” Will explains, “concentrating on one small thing, the island of Wing, within the ocean. Then the tower in the sea, still isolated, still the one thing. It makes this entire book introspective, it makes it impossible not to look and think about ourselves and what we’re doing, to the world, to nature… what both are doing back, to us.”
“And what of Fox?” Hannibal asks, grinning when Will blinks at him, wide-eyed, “The weave?”
“How far did you read?”
“Just the first few chapters,” Hannibal reminds him, and Will shakes his head, laughs.
“Then when you get to em we’ll talk about them, the Weave is an ocean in and of itself, the Ghosts inside it just as the city in the ocean, forgotten and quiet things, but always important things.”
“Hannibal!”
The older boy looks past his laptop for a moment, frowns, turns back to Will to apologize before Mischa barges into his room with an exasperated look.
“Dinner, now, you know how mom gets when you’re like this, it’s rude.”
“Can’t have that, can we?” Will sniggers through the screen, and Mischa tilts her head before coming around to stand at Hannibal’s side, her brother watching her as though he has never seen her before, and look at Will. Will salutes, a brief gesture with his book and tilts his head.
“The elusive sibling,” he comments, Mischa blinks, cheeks darkening a little before she feigns an air of indifference.
“The unexpectedly good looking friend,” she replies, and Hannibal has to laugh at how awkward Will looks for just a moment, being told he is good looking, being recognized for it. Perhaps here, still, he is just as he is in Hannibal’s memory, shy and hard to convince of his own wonder. Mischa turns from the screen and lifts her eyebrow at her brother.
“Dinner, Hannibal, come on.”
“Alright.”
Without another word, she’s gone, back out of his room and down the stairs calling that she told him, that she knows he won’t come down for a while, that perhaps they should eat him instead when he gets there, to rid the world of his rudeness. Hannibal can’t take his eyes from the door for a very long time, and when he does, he sees Will engrossed in the book again, thumb between his teeth, absently chewing against the nail.
“You guys are so alike it’s uncanny,” Will comments, eyes up above his glasses as he grins, sets the book away and stretches his arms over his head with a groan. Hannibal lets himself indulge in the sliver of skin that Will’s stretching reveals, before directing his eyes up again.
“Are we?”
“She talks just like you,” Will tells him, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on top before one arm snakes out to adjust the camera again, point it down to him where he rests, tired and young, so, so young.
“Will you read the book?” Will asks, waits for Hannibal to nod, “Good, because we’re a week behind already on our list. You’ve got the list right? You better have the damn list.”
“I have the list.” Hannibal is fairly sure, just as he is certain that Will would tell him of their next book regardless, list or no list. He thinks how it is quaint, entirely them to find something to share across borders and countries. Same books on different shelves, same stars in different skies. He watches Will yawn, stifle it with a fist and blink up at the camera again.
“Why were you late?” he asks, and Hannibal has to think back to realize that apparently he had been. By twenty-eight minutes.
“Bus was late,” he lies easily, “and I found myself engrossed in a discussion when I got home.”
“About what?”
“How to properly make pilaf,” Hannibal smiles, feels his entire body pull him every which way with how overwhelming everything is. His mother alive, his father most likely also, Mischa, and now Will, here, before him when he had thought of him all day.
“Do you guys use cardamom?” Will asks, and Hannibal inclines his head, wondering if, in this world, this place, Will adores the meal as much as Hannibal himself does, he wonders - if he does - who had introduced him to it. Perhaps in this world, this place, Will’s mother never left, perhaps she had taught her son as Hannibal’s had taught him.
How many things, here, are different? What is a place like this for everyone, a heaven or a hell? He wonders if everyone had come here somehow on their own, converged in one deep sleep to meet, again, just to see.
Just to know.
“You know I’m not on tomorrow,” Will interrupts his thoughts with a groan and another stretch, it’s growing later for him, and perhaps this Will can sleep, “helping dad at the shop after school and I will be slaughtered after. Gives you time to read the book.”
Will’s grin is contagious, and Hannibal nods again, feigning at remembering, feigning at knowing all of these details that are so commonplace here, so normal, entirely what they should be.
“I’ll finish it,” he promises, to Will’s infinite pleasure.
“I’ll write, though,” Will continues, “the usual, endless barrage of useless information on fish you don’t know or care about.”
“Hardly,” Hannibal comments, reaches for his phone to check if there are any missed messages on it, or calls, finds that he has several and it warms him, though not all are from Will, “I won’t forget it, tomorrow.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t lose your mind, being entirely untethered from technology for a day.”
“I’m hardly an addict,”
Will raises an eyebrow, and Hannibal wonders if he is one of those adolescent horrors who plays games on his phone, who constantly messages and ignores the world around him.
“You read every single paper that’s been put up online. Why, is beyond me, but I remember the last time you missed an issue.”
“What happened?”
“Anarchy.” Will yawns again and shakes his head. “I need sleep.”
Hannibal just nods, aware that he is needed downstairs, that he has to go to dinner, that he has to pretend everything is fine as he dines with ghosts he has only seen behind his closed eyes for thirty years. Will tosses his glasses to the table and rubs his eyes, and Hannibal thinks of how on nights like that, he would set his hands to Will’s shoulders and rub there, pulling tension from him, and sounds that grew louder and more inappropriate, until Hannibal kissed him or shifted where his hands were touching, to accommodate.
He misses him.
In the most real sense of the word, Hannibal misses Will. Because he isn’t here, because he isn’t the man Hannibal had seen through hell and back, because he had let that man go, he had cut them apart and tasted the blood against his skin as the rain nearly drowned him outside of his own home.
Before him, Will is mumbling something, maybe in French maybe English, it’s hard to tell, but when he drops his hands he’s smiling.
“You always say it first,” Will murmurs again, shakes his head when Hannibal blinks, asks him what, “doesn’t matter. Okay well. I have six hours… five, I have five hours, to get some sort of sleep before school calls me and then work calls after.”
“Will,”
“Keep your phone on you, I’ll send some interesting things.”
“I will, I -”
“Adieu,”
“Will -”
“I’ll see you soon.” Will’s smile lingers on the screen until the camera disconnects and Hannibal watches the Skype window return to the basic admin screen. Half an hour, no more than that and he feels as though he’s breathing again, in all of this. He watches the screen a moment more before closing it with a quiet click.
He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he’s made his way downstairs, his mother chastising him for being late to dinner, that it will get cold. He doesn’t realize it lingers until his sister kicks him under the table, catches his eye. And then he smiles wider, to her childish confusion.
If he only gets the one day, here, he thinks, at least it has been one worth the effort of dreaming about.