Work Text:
Hannibal stops walking, and Will stops with him, their arms interlinked. A soft hush of snow drifts with the wind, into the path forged by their boots and along the way forward to their home. It collects in the corners of shop windows decorated with twinkling multicolored lights and pine boughs.
Hannibal breathes in deep the night air, despite the cold. He fights a shiver, remembering colder winters and blank dark loss. He holds Will’s arm tighter, clings to his own personal talisman of heat.
There’s snow falling heavy. Fat white slow flakes down all around them in the air.
It falls thick, coating the wide pavement and the street beside it, decorating the green spry pine wreaths on the tall iron streetlights. It heaps up like cotton atop the piles of snow already fallen.
Hannibal would normally wish to hurry on and be inside already; be home and safe with a warm drink nestled in hand against the cold.
But with Will here beside him, the snow is just little motes, little flashes in the dark, sparkling like diamonds in the streetlights.
And it dissolves in the white cloud of their exhaled breath in the cold.
“Listen, my love,” Hannibal murmurs, full and humbled by a wonder he holds dear, but doesn’t let anyone see. Will sees it anyway. “Listen to the bells.”
Will obeys, shutting his eyes to the evening. He tips his head back, to rest held and warm against Hannibal’s shoulder. He listens to the bright and lovely sounds pealing from the cathedral they’re walking past.
Each little bell rings out full and beautiful, washing the air with its tone. Each unique, and each weaving its own way through the harmony and melody.
For a moment, Will seems lost where he stands. His eyes are shut and roving behind his lids. His lashes are dark and full against his cheeks, and his face turns to Hannibal’s. He’s never been so beautiful.
Will’s drifting with the bells along the currents of the air.
High and low, small and bold, they sound and sound without end. Hannibal can’t think, doesn't want to think of anything else but Will’s face in this perfect white light of the streetlamp, and the big copper bells swinging.
“But listen to the bells,” Will murmurs, with that little private smile playing on his lips, and Hannibal is smiling with him.
“Yes.”
They share a kiss, just a small tender movement to fit themselves together. The wind is biting cold, and they are alone in this heat they have created together. People pass them by on the street, and Hannibal doesn’t mind that they see.They're lucky to have seen.
“Merry Christmas, Will,” Hannibal says, as the echo of the last note of the bells beats out into the darkness.
“Happy Christmas, Hannibal, and happier still ones to come.”
Hannibal is only warmth and perfect beauty and pine scent and light, as they walk on.