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Will calls Hannibal in a blur. He doesn’t consciously make the decision, and he almost hangs up, but then he hears Hannibal’s voice, and he hears his own voice, and he warns him. Hannibal has taken so much from so many people, including him. But Will warns him. A voice in the back of his mind tells him there was really no way around this. No other path. Will would always end up here, and he would always make this choice, willingly or not. Hannibal had dug his hooks in so deep there would be no removing them without fatal injury.
“I… want to go with you,” Will says, slowly, before his brain has even caught up with that small voice. It tells him, might as well follow those hooks. You don’t want to get ripped to pieces.
Will follows them, and, more importantly, Will wants to follow them.
He can almost hear Hannibal’s satisfied smile on the other end of the line. It carries warmth, and it sounds like victory.
“Of course Will. I’ve already made a place for you.”
_____
Hannibal leads Will onto the plane with his hand on his shoulder, firm and unyielding, but with a strangely large amount of comfort to it. They’re in a little line, Will and Abigail, with Hannibal bringing up the rear – almost like beloved pets being led back to their cage.
Will is still stunned by a multitude of things; his actions, being one, and Abigail’s realness being another. He welcomes the guidance, because he needs it.
Hannibal had used a word Will had barely registered when he ushered him inside his house earlier. He’d saidfamily, but it hadn’t made sense, not until Abigail appeared in the doorway, bags packed and ready to go.
Hannibal only removes his hand once he’s been seated between them. He crosses his legs and waits patiently for takeoff, him and his odd new family completely silent.
_____
A few hours into the flight Hannibal pats Will’s hand, and, once he has his attention, gestures to Abigail, who has fallen asleep on his shoulder. Will smiles briefly at her, fond, but it tightens. Hannibal slowly slides his hand away as he quietly asks the flight attendant for a drink.
The flight attendant nods and hums warmly, smiling at the three of them. She thinks they’re cute; a little family all nestled in a row. The younger of the two men seems nervous, but she gives his frigid features no more thought than “he must not like flying”.
It’s not the flying.
_____
They’re almost to their destination when Will finally relaxes. The last seven or so hours he’s been ramrod straight in his seat, worried about what might happen when they land. Hannibal might still kill him; the teacup might not be as glued back together as he suggested it was.
Or maybe it is, but he’s just waiting to shatter it again, and Will will lose everything. And then he’ll lose his life.
It’s been seven hours of constantly running through scenarios, when Will’s mind shuts them down like a kill switch has been hit. He comes to the realization all at once that it doesn’t matter; he doesn’t care. He hasn’t cared since he made his decision to go with Hannibal, and he’s been trying to make himself this entire flight. Maybe if he cared what happened he could paint this choice in a better light.
But he doesn’t and he can’t. He knows what he decided, and he doesn’t regret it. How could he, when Hannibal is the only person who has ever made him feel this hard-wired to reality, to himself. He knows himself around him, and when Hannibal leaves, so does the ease of feeling at home in his own mind. Will couldn’t give that up if he tried.
He’s made his bed, and it’s with Hannibal, and with Abigail, and he will lie in it. And he will accept what that brings.
Will turns from the window and smiles at Hannibal for the first time since they left Baltimore. It’s a small thing, but it’s sincere.
Hannibal looks proud.
_____
Hannibal is proud, and content, as he watches Will sleep in his seat. Abigail had stirred long ago and is reading a magazine she found in the back of her chair; Hannibal glances to her every now and then, but mainly focuses on Will’s lolling head.
Will has made his choice, and he chose Hannibal. Hannibal notes that now they can move past his betrayal, seeing as it never did come to fruition. In the end, Will accepted his gift as he should have, as Hannibal wanted him to.
Teacups can be glued, after all. And if they’re kept safe and properly packed they will never break again.
Hannibal smiles to himself as the plain jumps a bit in the air, causing Will’s head to hit the window with a slightthunk. Will stirs, but Hannibal pats his knee and Will falls back asleep, face turned towards him, for the last remaining hours of the flight.
_____
They arrive in Bologna, in the early morning, and take a grumbly, sleep mussed train to Florence. Hannibal opens the door to their new apartment, gesturing wide and allowing Abigail to enter. Will follows, with Hannibal’s hand on his lower back.
It’s an opulent place, and somehow feels just as much home to Will as Hannibal’s office did. Maybe it’s the decor, which screams Hannibal’s touch from every nook and cranny, but Will suspects it more has to do with who is living in it than any inlaid table or brass-footed tub.
Abigail turns and smiles at him, wide, when she reaches the kitchen, and Will feels warm.
_____
Hannibal shows him Florence just as he said he wanted to. He’d whispered it, when Will had walked into the kitchen the morning after their arrival to the smell of eggs and the sight of Abigail already at the breakfast counter, eating in her pajamas. He’d sat in the chair next to her, and Hannibal had walked around the island with a fresh plate. Weaving his arm between the two, he’d placed breakfast in front of Will and his face right next to him, telling him his plan in the quiet, almost romantic manner of a honeymooner.
Will had supposed that notion wasn’t completely far off, though it seemed a bit odd to apply to their situation. Still, he’d nodded, completely enticed by the idea.
And it is enticing, as much as it is a bit ridiculous. Will chuckles to himself as they walk shoulder to shoulder through Florentine streets, Hannibal offering a bit of history, a fact here or there. They do this several times, over several weeks. Many times they end up in the Uffizi, under the Botticelli.
During one of these walks, Hannibal looks sideways at Will, sly and, Will admits, suave in the way only Hannibal can achieve, and holds out his hand, palm facing the sky. Will raises an eyebrow, smirks, but takes it anyway.
_____
A few weeks into their stay, Will falls asleep on Hannibal’s bed to the sound of his voice. He’s reading a book aloud, in Italian, which Will can so far only partially understand. It’s soothing, nonetheless, such a pretty language, and Will is out the moment Hannibal begins to card his fingers through Will’s hair.
This happens several nights in a row, and Will moves into the master bedroom with Hannibal shortly after. In the back of his mind Will knew his stay in the room across the hall was most likely temporary, as evidenced by the fact he hadn’t truly unpacked yet.
He huffs his things onto Hannibal’s bed, their bed, and Hannibal begins to put them away.
_____
They become that couple: the disgustingly romantic couple that everyone teases about but is, at the same time, secretly jealous of. Hannibal is completely nonplussed about it, and fairly public in his affections for Will. Will is somewhat less so, but more due to the fact that he is still trying to figure out how they got here than any reservations about outward displays of intimacy. It shouldn’t make sense, they shouldn’t make sense, but it does and they do.
It’s also highly amusing to the both of them, when they get right down to it, and ever more so to Abigail, who chuckles whenever Hannibal places a kiss to Will’s temple and those around them smile softly. If only they knew what else that mouth had done.
Hannibal introduces Will as his husband, Abigail as their daughter, and they are, to the outside, the picture of a happy family. Not the most normal, certainly not nuclear, but the Fiorentini think this for trivial reasons, in that they’re a bit of a hodgepodge gathering of people. Suspicion falls nowhere near their direction. No one can truly know what a family does behind closed doors.
They love Florence; Abigail is doing well here, so they try to extend their stay as long as possible. They make friends. They also make meals.
Dinner guests often ask what the lovely couple does together in their spare time, as typical in polite conversation. Their professions are, in fact, quite different. Dr. Fell is a professor, but his husband was, before they moved here, an investigator of the private sort. Most of them are lucky, and get answers ranging a large variety of topics. They are mostly true, and only add to their charm and seemingly perfect marriage.
(Will mentions once that he misses fishing, and Hannibal promises to take him – there are some lovely lakes in Tuscany. Maybe they’ll take a trip down coast sometime too, go on the Mediterranean. The current plethora of people surrounding them comments on the stars in their eyes. They smile, partially at the comment, and partially at the large bite of Fiorentino one of their guests takes.)
Others get only a shared, wicked smile, and their wrists held down as Will and Hannibal lunge at them from either side of the formally decorated table.
Abigail wanders in idly, still in her dress, when the proceedings are done. She always does, however they end. She played piano for this guest, as she does for everyone, telling each of them in endearingly careful, lilted Italian how good of a teacher her father is, that she’s been playing since she was six, that she gave it up for several years only to be inspired again by Florence’s passion… They’re always as taken with her as they are with her parents. She wonders how taken they would still be if they saw her now, tiptoeing around a gathering pool of blood, asking Hannibal what they’re going to make for dinner tomorrow. There’s a slight smile on her face, sweet and helpful: the picture of a perfect daughter - or rather, Hannibal’s perfect daughter.
She catches Will’s eye and mentions the fishing trip again, because they still haven’t gone, not all together. Not as a family.
They’re happy in their new life, in their shared wickedness and how far they’ve paddled from the shore of humanity, and how everyone seems to think they’re still miles inland. The teacup stays on a high shelf, pushed back and wrapped in tissue.