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The bed frame creaked quietly as Will moved to push himself off of it. His feet hit cold wood flooring, reflective of the damp weather outside the house. Hannibal was still asleep, lying on his back. His hair, grown just long enough to splay out across the feathered pillow, and his hands, one resting open-palmed by his head, the other placed across his abdomen. The sight of Hannibal like this, so vulnerable in sleep, captivated Will in such a way that made him want to crawl back under the covers with him. Instead, he made his way towards the washroom down the hall.
The cold light from outside painted the dark walls with streams of white, a crack in the glass letting in the smallest amount of harsh wind that shook the dripping trees. He moved to flick the light switch on, but the click was followed only by more of the same darkness he had walked into. Sighing, he pushed his hands under unheated water, rubbing the soap over the skin and cupping the water into his palms to splash it on his face. The sensation ripped him from any lingering sleepiness in his limbs, and sent a shiver down his back. He was wearing only his sleeping shorts, and a thin T-shirt.
In the mirror, he could see half his face illuminated by the outside light, the other half masked in blue darkness. The shadows caught his bones in a way that made him seem almost gaunt. His beard was ragged, untrimmed and almost falling off the edges of his jaw. He rubbed his hand through the hair, the sensation itching at his skin and feeling more like a weed he had left to grow from lack of care, instead of a part of him. His body ached. The stitches in his cheek itched. He looked like he had been living in solitary confinement, the hair atop his head curling outwards, unbrushed and wild.
The bottom drawer under the sink contained a razor, a pair of scissors, some extra towels. In the glass cabinet hooked to the wall, he found shaving cream.
Carefully, he brought the razor over his injured cheek, avoiding the area as best he could. The drag of the blade across the rest of his face pulled slightly at his hair.
In the end, blood trickled down the side of his face where he had accidentally nicked the edge of his stitching, and the aftershave he found burned a little, but the absence of such a frenzied mess had taken away a good 5 years; the haggard man no longer staring back at him in the mirror. He brushed his hair back, taming the curls somewhat, and smiled.
Stepping over the threshold to their shared room, the floorboards shifted underneath his feet as he placed them back down. The body lying in the bed seemed small and still from where he stood, the rise and fall of his chest almost unnoticeable to Will. An image like that of an open casket; a white sheet raised to cover half his body, hands placed delicately on top of each other, and a face pale and smoothed from the rainy weather visible through the glass door to the porch.
Hannibal then turned his head slightly, showing colour in his cheeks, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of Will leaning against the door-frame.
“Come here,” he said, smiling, his voice thick in his throat from disuse. “Let me see you.” His hand, the one closest to the middle of the bed, extended, beckoning Will to come closer.
He did just that, legs catching a shiver again as he pressed his feet into the cold wood. Hannibal’s hand still extended, Will placed his own on top, a soft touch, and descended onto the bed. They let their hands fall down to the mattress, letting go, and Hannibal pushed himself up off his back to mimick the way Will was sitting. Now, facing one another, legs somewhat interwoven in an attempt to be comfortably close together, Hannibal raised his hand and placed it lightly against Will’s ripped cheek.
His lips formed a small smile, accompanied by a look of reverence that danced in his eyes, the way they shone like he could be tearing up. The sight caused a heated ache in Will’s gut, and in his chest.
He let out a smile of his own. “That bad, huh?”
“Such youthful beauty,” the other man replied, shaking his head minutely in response to the stiff humour. “Forgive me the shallowness, but I dare say they have cut you from marble.”
Warmth bloomed underneath the skin on Will’s face. “Come on, you’re just glad I got rid of the homeless-guy look.” It garnered a chuckle from the both of them.
“I did miss the skin of this face, I won’t lie.”
“Good,” Will said, softly.
Hannibal’s hand lingered for a few more moments, his thumb tracing the edge of the stitching, before the warmth of his palm left Will’s face completely. Immediately, Will missed the press of skin on skin, but stayed still and pressed his own hands into the meat of his thighs. Hannibal turned to face the windows beyond the end of the bed, where the wind rattled through the evergreens, and the rain beat down against all sides of the house. The fireplace burned quietly, just set aflame most likely, but the cold felt distant from Will. With Hannibal so close, the bed sheets still warm from both of their bodies pressed into them through the night, he didn’t shake.
It was still early. “Back to bed?” Will asked.
Hannibal turned his head back to gaze at him once more, that same look in his eyes, with something reserved behind them. “Yes, I think so,” he said, and moved to grab the thick duvet from the end of the bed. Tugging it towards their chests in a smooth motion, then leaning back into the cushion of the pillows underneath his head.
They both settled into an antagonizing closeness as the fire raged higher, until Will turned onto his side to face Hannibal. Minutes later, he lowered his hand, gingerly, onto Hannibal’s bare chest, near the open space between his rib cage. They both moved slow, breathed slow and heavy, as if this could somehow trigger the detonation of some invisible grenade lodged in the empty space between them.
They fell back asleep eventually, Hannibal’s hand resting atop Will’s. His slow and unconscious breathing moving their arms up and down in a rhythm.