Work Text:
As far as Will could tell, he and Hannibal were both, at their core, creatures of solitude.
Initially he thought this might be a problem, but settling into domesticity proved to be easy. Their former lives had crumbled around them and now they had rebuilt them to fit together, with puzzle-piece ease. Will would wake up early, before the world had begun to stir, and go for a run in the balmy Cuban dark, getting back in time for the sun and Hannibal to rise. They would have breakfast together. He’d take care of little chores around the house, go grocery shopping with Hannibal, maybe help with lunch if he was asked to. Sometimes he’d work on their boat, sometimes he’d go fish.
He spent a lot of time alone, and a lot of time outdoors. Despite the injuries he sustained in the fall, he felt healthy and strong.
Will wiped his hands on his shirt and got up from the cold concrete of the floor in the garage, where he was usually sequestered while working on the boat. He needed to go into town to get a specific part for the engine, but it was getting late and it would have to wait. He made his way back inside the house, deciding to take a shower before Hannibal got dinner started.
After his shower, Will went looking for Hannibal. He could hear the muted sound of the little television in the living room, and when he entered the large, open space, he found Hannibal on the couch, wearing pale blue cotton pajamas. His legs were crossed and his hair was brushed away from his face. There was a bottle of expensive wine on the table in front of him and a little plastic mug Will had gotten in a Happy Meal from McDonald’s in his hand; the cutlery and dishes Hannibal had ordered online still hadn’t arrived.
Hannibal took a sip from his mug and looked up as Will drew near. “Good evening, Will.”
“Hey. What are you watching?”
“A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Will looked at the screen and then back at Hannibal, who was watching it with a rapt expression on his face. It felt strange seeing him like this, fully healed, yet so different from the image Will had carried with him in his head all these years. Stripped of suits and prison uniforms and without the snowy backdrop of Baltimore, Will felt like he was seeing him for the first time.
“Can I sit with you?” Will asked.
Hannibal glanced up. “Did you wash your hands?”
“Did I wash my hands? Are you serious?”
“Motor oil stains terribly.” Hannibal sounded almost apologetic as he moved a little to the side. Will sat down in the space Hannibal made for him, feeling the lingering warmth from his body on the bare skin of his arms.
“Have you seen it before?” Will asked, nodding towards the television.
“Oh, yes.” Hannibal perked up a little behind his mug. “This might be my favorite film.”
Will’s brows rose and an odd feeling of not quite knowing Hannibal as well as he thought he did settled into his gut. He always thought he’d learned everything he needed to know through the artistry of his kills, through everything they had gone through together, but in this moment, he felt like this could be just as important. Hannibal sipping wine out of a plastic mug in his pajamas, watching his favorite film.
“Didn’t pin you for a Tennessee Williams kind of guy,” Will said, mostly to fill the silence.
“The complexity of characterization is rather compelling in his plays. And I do feel for Blanche. It’s a travesty that she should end up at the mercy of that horrid beast of a man.”
Hannibal made a sweeping gesture towards Marlon Brando, skulking about in the shadows on the screen. Coincidentally, he was wearing what Will was wearing: a plain t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Will huffed a small breath.
“That’s how I used to feel when you invited me over to your place,” he said and pointed at Marlon Brando, observing Vivien Leigh from the murky corner of the room. “Like I was intruding upon some private little world of your making.”
Hannibal turned to him with a genuine spark of interest in his eyes. “I invited you into it. I meant for that world to be shared.”
“It wasn’t that easy. Not that you weren’t accommodating or anything, you were just… inaccessible. Somewhere else.”
Hannibal glanced at Vivien Leigh on the screen. “You don't honestly mean to imply that I was stuck in a fantasy world, clinging to some fictitious past.”
“No. I meant what I said. You were there, and I couldn’t quite reach you. I know why now. You couldn’t share everything, then.”
Hannibal put his mug down on the table in front of him and turned to look at Will, eyes sliding over his face, lingering on his mouth. “But now I can.”
“Now you can.” Will gave a small smile. He hesitated only for a moment before he moved closer, leaning his head on Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal’s arm wound around his back and pulled him close, and he tilted his head to the side so his cheek rested against the top of Will’s head. Will felt Hannibal’s breath there, felt the heat of it when Hannibal turned and kissed his hair. Just once, quick and chaste, but Will’s heart still beat hard enough that he heard it in his ears.
“You never intruded,” Hannibal said, voice low, rumbling. “You always belonged in my world.”
Will laughed softly. “Only a three-piece suit short. And then there’s the issue of motor oil on your mocha couch.”
“Mere surface,” Hannibal said, dismissive. “I would have recognized you as a missing part of my life no matter how you appeared to me.”
Will tilted his face, burying his nose in Hannibal’s neck. He took a deep breath, tinged with Hannibal’s scent and the cologne they shared. “I didn’t feel that way about you when we first met.”
“But now you do,” Hannibal countered.
Will smiled into his skin. “Now I do.”
They watched the rest of the movie in silence, hardly moving, only shifting once or twice so they fit more comfortably together. It all seemed so unbelievably easy.