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The sound of a slammed door echoes through the house and snaps pain behind Will’s closed eyes, where a headache is blooming. He smiles from his seat at the kitchen nook, knowing Hannibal’s expression without needing to look; the subtle wince, fearful of damage to the woodwork.
“We should not have moved,” Hannibal fairly growls, feet clacking over the tile; pacing. An uncharacteristic show of worry. “Not at such an important stage of her development.”
“She’s a child, not a houseplant Hannibal,” Will snorts. He’s not sure that he’s ready to deal with two pouting four year olds at this moment. It’s already been a long day. ”She’ll be fine. Look at me—I moved all the time as a kid.”
When stony silence greets him, he opens one eye to peek at his companion, and is met with the most disparaging look he’s ever seen, raised brows and unamused features screaming really, Will? He retreats once more behind his eyelids, presses the cool glass to his forehead. It’s all ice, the whiskey already working its way through his tired limbs.
Fair point, he thinks to himself.
“I thought we wished to give her a better life than circumstance permitted us,” Hannibal says, from farther away. Something clinks loudly against the walls of Will’s mind as he busies his hands. A drink? The tap turns on, water drumming against the sink. No, of course: dishes.
“Well, it’s not like we had a choice,” Will sighs, “They were too close. They would have found—” you, his mind finishes unhelpfully, they would have found you and put you away like before. But no, that’s not fair. It hasn’t been that way since Will left his last lonely flat in the keys with the man passive-aggressively washing dishes before him, and maybe long before that.
“They would have found us, and taken Mischa,” he finishes, hoping Hannibal didn’t hear the stumble, knowing that he had.
He opens his eyes cautiously, looks over to where Hannibal stands at the sink, shoulders heavy, face turned away. Guilt rattles brittle fingers in his chest.
Another sigh, and he gets up, setting the glass on the counter as he steps to frame Hannibal’s form with his own, as best as he can. He slides his hands down scarred forearms, presses them chest to back, I didn’t mean it evident in every move of his body. He feels Hannibal give in, feels his weight shift back against him slightly, and he laughs against a warm shoulder, lets the muffled sound thrum over them.
“What exactly,” Hannibal asks stiffly, “do you find humorous about this situation?”
Will presses his face into Hannibal’s neck so he can feel the smile there, before murmuring,
“I think, no matter how many times we move, she is going to turn out better than us. I mean, the chances of her growing up to marry a cannibal are—”
An indignant huff, and Hannibal pulls away, shooting a glare at Will, who can’t help the stupid grin he feels, the kind that he knows looks awkward with his scar twisted through it. The kind he only allows here, with Hannibal.
Hannibal sees the glass on the counter and dumps ice into the sink, and the slightly-louder-than-necessary clatter it makes jarrs Will’s headache back to life.
“I am not worried about Mischa finding happiness with someone… unconventional,” Hannibal says, looking at Will as though daring him to comment. Laughter prickles in his throat (Really, Hannibal? Unconventional?) but he is dutifully silent. He raises a hand, gesturing for the other to continue, and Hannibal nods faintly, pleased. The glass in his hands is subjected to the stress he’s struggling not to let through in his voice.
“I worry,” he continues, “that she will not find happiness. That she’ll chase it from place to place, not understanding why it eludes her when others find it so easily. I worry that she will look at the world around her with uncomprehending eyes, and feel anger that she does not fit in.”
His own eyes flicker sharp over Will, who squirms uncomfortably beneath the brunt of the words. But Hannibal’s not done, yet.
“Or worse, that she will find it, only to have it dance away when faced with something as trivial as a particularly cold day, a shattered mug, or the memory of a mistake.”
Will’s hand twitches, wanting to cover his scars, but he forces self-consciousness down and grips the edge of the counter more tightly. Hannibal, for his part, has gone still at last, the nervous energy fled, and he looks out the window behind Will rather than meeting his eyes.
Will is reminded of the first time they met, a lifetime ago. Before scars and bars and the flicker of sadness that Hannibal can’t hide, he remembers a predator and his own inability to see all the depth of him. The warmth of Jack’s office, the smell of printer cartridges and coffee, and Hannibal asking him Do you have trouble with taste? He wonders if Hannibal had been happy, then, with his office and the opera, and eating dinner alone. Will smiles; and his stupid khaki outfit. Wonders if he had felt fulfilled before Will came along, or if he only realized then that he’d never really been happy at all.
And he knows that this is only half about Mischa. It had been easy to become lulled into contentment when they’d had the reassuring safety of anonymity. Of a community that knew nothing of them, or their past; of a school where the teacher assured them “it’s a very progressive program,” as though having two fathers was really the most uncommon thing about Mischa’s life. The need to uproot them had not just upset her, it had thrown into sudden, unflattering light that they are not the people they pretend to be. Their past is here, between them now, once again painful and inescapable no matter how far they’ve come.
He shifts to his right, closing the space between them, letting his arm press against Hannibal’s next to him, feeling the warm, solid reassurance but not forcing.
I’m sorry.
They are silent.
And then, Hannibal chuckles, turns so they are both leaning with their backs against the counter, side by side. He folds the towel in his hand into smaller and smaller squares before setting it aside.
“Perhaps… I should have just asked you to dinner,” He muses dryly. Only the unwilling flicker of his eyes to Will’s scar suggests that he’s not completely joking. Will crosses his arms in front of him, amused for a moment by the thought.
“I would have said no.”
Hannibal’s lip twitches as though he, too is trying to imagine such a situation and finding it difficult.
“And, given your... unconventional tastes, that’s probably for the best,” Will finishes, a laugh breaking through halfway, despite his best efforts.
Hannibal smiles softly, though his eyes are still distant, and Will feels the unmistakable tug of affection.
He steps in front of Hannibal, sensing at last that it is wanted, slides his arms over the smooth fabric at his waist, presses their foreheads together. He stays that way, for a minute, breathing in the familiar cologne, feeling the tandem rise and fall of their chests.
“I found happiness,” he ventures quietly. He tilts his head up, finding the warm press of lips that feels more like home than any house has.
“Have you?” Hannibal asks when they part, eyes dark. He’s searching for a real answer, would always rather have painful truth than kind lies.
Will smiles, and kisses him again, this time leaning in, tightening his grip on Hannibal’s waist to something desperate, and it’s good, it’s teeth and tongue and the quickening pound of his heart when Hannibal sighs against his mouth.
“Yes,” he gasps, nerves alight where spread hands skim under his shirt, across his shoulder blades and pull them closer, chest to toe, “I have.”
A softer press of lips, and he pulls back, mindful, always, of the angry four year old upstairs. He slides a hand to Hannibal’s face, making sure he sees the truth in his next words.
“And we can deal with scars and snow, and would-be hitmen as we need to,” he adds, soft, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Hannibal doesn’t answer, but his mouth parts, and Will knows he’s said the right thing.