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Hannibal watches the coffee brew, on the stove, this morning, and wonders why he’s up so early and still unable to catch Will leaving for a house call. He remembers only vaguely the feeling of warm beard against his temple as Will had kissed him before leaving the house, but how long ago that was or even if it happened may only be unlocked by the coffee he’s making, if then.
The day is gray, not raining but very cold. He allows himself the leisure of assuming he can wear more than just light pants and a loose shirt today, this, now, a novelty as opposed to its opposite back in Baltimore.
Around his feet, Chiot meanders seeking treats, tummy already full from her breakfast when Will had woken, fur still damp from when she had decided it was a good time to join him in the shower. He pays her little mind beyond ducking to pick her up so she can curl in the crook of his arm as he keeps working, sleepy and contented and little.
The coffee brews and Hannibal pours it for himself, leaving it on the counter as he returns to the bedroom and selects what he’ll wear, dumping the puppy to the bed. It’s a lazy choosing, it hardly matters, but he finds himself in gray slacks and a light shirt, a vest on top and little else before he sets out into the garden, snagging his coffee as he passes the kitchen, to check on the grapes, Chiot following in blissful puppy bounds.
It seems strange, still, to hear no voices on the beach down from their home. By now, in warmer months, fisherman would be setting out from the docks to find their haul for the day. Local women with their children would be laughing in the rough French patois of the islands, and the occasional group of tourists - the ones who ventured from the bigger town - would mingle in the chatter and shrieks of their own tongues.
But now it is curiously still, too dour a day for frolicking, though the absence of the fishers is curious. The waves rustle steady against the shore and Hannibal watches them, past the fence, for half his coffee before setting it aside to guide the grasping vines through their trellises.
Hannibal tries, though often fails, not to think of Will with worry during the day. They have been here long enough now that their rhythm has been found, a stable ground beneath their feet, and steady work for steady money, however unnecessary in the grand scheme of it all, that keeps Will tired and content. But still Hannibal wonders - hopes he’s well, that the engine of the day isn’t giving him trouble, and most of all, that he returns soon.
Today, to his pleasant surprise, he is rewarded with just that, smile appearing slowly with the nearing rattle of the old truck that Will fixed up - his first project, as Hannibal took to the garden. Scooping up Chiot before she can make a break for the house, ears pricked towards the sound just as much as Hannibal’s own, he takes up his now-cold coffee and returns to meet him.
They are each halfway to each other, Will leaning into the door to close it behind him, and Hannibal sliding shut the glass door to the garden, when their eyes meet. Just a moment, only ever just that, before Will glances away, towards the puppy, and drops to a crouch.
“Chiot!” he exclaims lightly. “Come!”
She hardly needs to be taught, already thrashing in Hannibal’s arms before she’s on the ground, and she’s off like a shot into Will’s arms instead nearly as soon as her paws have hit the floor. He snags her off the ground and holds her on her back in his arms, accepting the furious licks against his long beard.
“How are the grapes?” asks Will, squinting beneath the attention.
“Adventurous,” Hannibal responds, setting his cup into the sink and turning to Will again with a smile. “I may need to seek a way to bind them tighter, without damaging the stems themselves.”
He watches as the puppy wriggles her little paws, toes splayed in joy as Will kisses her tummy and holds her up in front of him, thumbs beneath her front legs so she dangles.
“This,” he says, eyes narrowing at the dog, before setting her to the ground to run happy circles around him, jumping up to push her paws to his leg before slipping to the floor again. “Woke me at an ungodly hour for utterly unnecessary things. You notice she no longer comes to you for early morning tending?”
Hannibal merely hums, arms crossed over his chest as he watches them interact, Will working his boots from his feet and Chiot promptly pushing her little face into one of them.
“How was the engine?” he asks.
“Can I use your word?” Will laughs, half a sigh in it. “Adventurous?” He shakes his head and steps around Chiot’s intended path in dragging his boot across the floor, to make his way to the kitchen and wash the oil from his hands. “Unruly is probably a better word for it,” snorts Will.
He reaches for a towel but catches himself, shaking his hands dry and taking a bit of paper towel instead.
“But I had to get in and get out,” he adds, turning his head enough towards Hannibal to watch the man in his periphery, to allow Hannibal to see past scars and scruff to the slight smile that catches the corner of his mouth. “Do you know why?”
A briefly raised eyebrow and Hannibal regards Will’s careful and methodical drying of his hands before he tosses the paper towel and sets his hands crossed loosely over his middle, watching Hannibal from the sink with a small smile before leaning forward, enough for emphasis as for the play at secrecy.
“It’s Christmas day.”
Hannibal blinks, eyes narrowing as he mentally goes through the calendar to see if that’s correct, if it could possibly be. It’s been too long since they’ve relied on calendars that way, suffice to say to the other that ‘next Wednesday’ they would do something, or that Chiot needed her shots in three weeks.
“That would explain the beach,” Hannibal notes, amused, turning his eyes to Will again, and finding him smiling in much the same soft, amused manner. “We are rather woefully unprepared,” he adds with a wider smile, “for both dinner and gifts.”
“I could tie a lure for you,” Will offers, grin hidden behind his hand as he rubs it across his beard. “Festive colors and everything.”
“We could hang it from one of the palms, as decoration,” responds Hannibal, and Will breathes another little laugh.
Pushing from the counter, he steps closer to Hannibal, leaning into him with arms around his waist and head against his shoulder. A simple embrace, and wonderfully warm, even as a shiver trickles over Will’s skin when Hannibal sinks his fingers through Will’s hair.
“I’m almost embarassed,” Will admits, though the distant, rueful amusement lingers in his words.
“Does it matter what day it is?”
Lifting his head, Will meets Hannibal’s eyes for a moment, dark as the sea at night, and just as strangely bright. Only a moment, before he studies his mouth instead, just past him, and settles once more into the crook of his neck. He tries not to think of how many Christmases were lost, how many warm nights in front of the fire they might have spent, jazz spinning softly from the record player.
He tries not to think of when Hannibal decided that days don’t matter, surrounded by grey walls and steel bars and only the memory of times long past, fading.
“It does,” decides Will, brow furrowing. “It does matter. We’ve - we’ve never had a holiday together.”
Hannibal considers, the last time this season was near they had far more pressing matters than to celebrate; neither had cared then for anything beyond getting out of America together. Now, Hannibal draws his hand through Will’s hair again, let long here, and presses his lips with a sigh against his forehead.
"We have not,” he agrees, settling his other arm around Will’s middle and relaxing more as Will leans into him. "I can wrangle dinner," he decides, finally, confident enough in being able to improvise with that they have in the house. "You wrangle decorations. And the dog."
"She’s going to latch onto you as you cook," Will murmurs, knowing, amused. Hannibal merely raises an eyebrow.
"Then make yourself a more appealing target."
The challenge sits well with Will, his smile showing in his eyes before he tilts his head to press a kiss against the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. They stand, just so, for a long moment, until Will draws reluctantly away, cheeks warmed as he brings his fingers to his lips, hiding a dawning grin.
“C’mon, Chiot,” Will beckons, clucking his tongue before setting off out the back, foot raised expectantly as the puppy darts beneath it ahead of him. She races forward and towards him again, as Will peels off his socks and leaves them in the garden, to make his way to the shed.
He sighs, once he’s there, knowing damn well there’s no strings of lights, no stiff plastic tree to dust off, no cheap shiny garland. Jaw working in thought, he wanders further in, touching across his workbench, fingertips trailing the worn wood until something catches his attention, and his eyes narrow on it.
Attempting, and failing, not to track sand into the house, Will returns with a box in his arms, and departs again, sharing a good-naturedly suspect look with Hannibal as he passes by, each to their own part of the festivities.
The dog, in the end, bounds between the two of them, excited and confused by the sheer amount of activity between them when usually one or both are out of the house entirely. She tires herself out mid-afternoon, flopping into a sprawl on her back on Hannibal’s pillow, back legs kicking out gently in her sleep.
Hannibal, for his part, has managed roasted vegetables - some of which he feeds in passing to Will, from his fingers, as Will comes and goes throughout the house - and fish, that is far from festive but always plentiful in their house. Dessert he has chilling in the fridge as he wipes down the counter, his hands, and regards the sleepy bundle that has now rolled to splay all her limbs over the side of the bed Will usually sleeps on.
“That creature is spoiled rotten,” Hannibal comments as Will passes him again, before tossing the towel unfolded to the counter again.
Crouching, Will sets it on the tree - a length of ribbon tied to a bow, feathers and less worm-like materials from his lures forming a spray from the center of it. There are others, all a little different, scattered across Hannibal’s little orange tree, carted in from its home on the patio.
Palm branches, twisted together at their long stems, form a tropical substitute for evergreen garlands, and candles have been set up one or several apiece across most of the house, all kept in case of emergency or power outage, not entirely uncommon in the rougher storms that batter the island, but still they’ve rarely used them, preferring instead simply to remain in bed on those days until one or the other can be hassled to start the generator.
A much better use, this, where they will warmly illuminate the house once the sun has lowered a little further.
Will glances across his shoulder towards the twitching puppy, attention lingering briefly on the discarded towel as he turns back. A soft smile catches him off-guard as he returns to his work. “You say that like I’m the one who’s done it,” he responds, bottom lip held between his teeth in concentration as he twists together a bit of wire to form another makeshift ornament. “She’s no more spoiled than any of the others ever were.”
A quirk of lips in answer and Hannibal pushes from the counter to walk closer to Will, watching him deftly work the wire and leaves into beautiful shapes for their makeshift Christmas. He sits on the end of the bed and, inevitably, the warm weight of Chiot presses against his thigh within several moments, before she takes a deep breath and releases a very put-upon sigh.
“What I wouldn’t give for a dog’s life,” Hannibal comments absently, palm broad over the warm furry body, “if this is what it entails.”
He catches Will’s grin and feels his eyes wrinkle at the corners as his own smile warms. It feels strange, still, not like Christmas, just a day when both of them are home and free and able to play with their spare time. He reaches to draw fingers through Will’s hair and cups his cheek when Will turns to him.
“Dinner will be complete in an hour, with cooking time,” he tells him. “Will the house be ready or would you prefer help?”
Almost as if in echo to Chiot’s sigh, Will exhales a long breath and turns his cheek against Hannibal’s hand. A soft laugh escapes and he closes his eyes, bringing his lips closed in a warm kiss to Hannibal’s palm, as he has so many times before.
As he will, so many more.
“Kind of a lot of work for what little time is left for it,” Will muses, but seems no less pleased by the idea. Setting aside the ornament he was working on, he slips a little closer to Hannibal to sit between his legs, his back against the bed. The doctor’s hand remains pressed warm to his cheek, and Will rests against it. “Guess it doesn’t mean as much when you’re not really wanting for anything.”
A moment more of peace, like this, close to each other, before Will - another sigh accompanying - shifts with a grimace to his knees and braces his hands on Hannibal’s legs to push himself to standing. “But if you, y’know, think of anything you want - there’s not anything I want, but -”
Hannibal’s hand grasp Will’s narrow hips, sliding up to his waist as he brings the younger man closer to him once more. Without pause, Will runs his fingers back through Hannibal’s hair, watching - pleased and blushing - as Hannibal watches him, chin against his scarred stomach.
“Nothing?”
Smile flickering to life, Will ducks his head, and with Hannibal resting against his stomach, Will murmurs, teasing, “Kiss me there.”
Hannibal's eyes narrow, smile warm and almost sleepy as he sets his thumbs beneath the hem of Will’s shirt and carefully pushes it up to bunch against his fingers. He keeps his eyes on Will as he brings his lips to the raised scar to kiss it, relishing in Will’s long sigh, the way he tenses and relaxes at the feeling.
He kisses him from one end of the scar to the other, languid pulls of his lips against skin. He thinks of snow and a shattered window, thinks of lying back against the bed as Will had straddled him, whispered things into his ear, held him entirely at his mercy with gently spoken words.
"Beautiful." Hannibal says, pulling back and humming pleased at the way Will tugs his hair, doesn’t quite let it go yet. "What I want," Hannibal adds, hands up under Will’s shirt, still, as he splays them over his back, "is dinner, jazz, and to make love to you until the candles burn out." He spreads his knees further for Will to step closer. "Coffee in the morning and a day in bed together. I want you to tell me all about your clients, and I will listen. I want to wake from a nap with you on top of me, and Chiot on top of you." He grins, eyes warm as he regards Will.
"I want time with you, and I will be entirely content for Christmas."
Will looks away to hide the smile that comes on so suddenly it catches him by surprise. It seems so simple now, so wonderfully serene, that the thoughts of what it took for them to reach this point - jazz and coffee, soft kisses and softer words - seem as if those trials were in another lifetime, for other people than the two who settle so easily together now.
A moment more to temper his smile, and slipping his hands to frame the older man’s face, Will bends low over Hannibal. He tilts his face upward to kiss him, a long and lovely thing, and setting his knee against the bed between Hannibal’s legs, he leans forward further still, until Hannibal lays back and Will slinks over him.
“Do we even have any Christmas records?”
“No,” responds Hannibal, Will’s shirt caught against his wrists as he rubs along the arching length of his back, and Will’s smile widens into a grin before their mouths meet again. Longer now, hungrier but no more hurried, lips closing softly together, again and again.
When they finally part it’s with a breathless laugh, Will nearly dizzy with the pleasure of it. “But - what you asked for - isn’t that what we have almost every day already?” he asks, watching as Chiot hops from the bed and Will can settle heavy over Hannibal. He folds his arms onto the doctor’s chest, chin on them, and blue eyes upturned to watch the suggestion of a smile catch beneath Hannibal’s eyes.
“We don’t usually have candles,” notes Hannibal. “Nor an orange tree in the house.” He pushes his fingers gently through Will’s beard, to feel the man and his scars and his grin, small and crooked. Every inch of him adored, every inch of him adoring.
“No,” Will agrees, closing his eyes as Hannibal’s lips press against his brow, his nose, down to meet his mouth once more. “But all the rest of it -”
Hannibal hums agreement. “How lucky we are, then, that for us, every day is like Christmas.”
