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As a child, Will's safe space was his father's bedroom. He would crawl out of bed after a nightmare, or sometimes after spending hours trembling under the covers, unable to fall asleep, and worm into place beside him. His father was a heavy sleeper, but sometimes he would rouse himself enough to wrap an arm around Will. Most of the time Will laid next to him, absorbing his stifling body heat and hiding his face in his father’s chest, until morning came. His father never asked him questions, and by the time Will was eight, his nightly visits became another part of their routine.
He missed his father. He hadn’t been the most emotionally available of men, but he did his best, and he was a good man at heart. His funeral had been thirteen years ago, but Will still remembered the feeling of his sturdy, warm arm curling around his shoulders.
No one could replicate his father. But Hannibal’s office had the same warm, safe feeling as his father’s bedroom had. He closed his eyes and imagined himself there when the world got too overwhelming. He had memorized the smell of musty books and the cinnamon scented candles Hannibal burned in there. He had memorized the layout of the bookcases. He would notice if one volume was out of place, if the ladder was moved, if the chairs and desk were rearranged, if the carpet was stained.
He had imagined himself there so many times as he walked through the fresh crime scene. Greying wooden flooring crawled over the bloodstained carpet, matching leather chairs took the place of an ugly end table and a ripped couch splattered with brain matter, high bookcases lined the walls instead of the gruesome artwork painted there by the man Will was trying to crawl inside the head of.
He was fine until he reached the bedroom. The rest of the family had been laid out in the garage, like a row of soldiers waiting to be tossed into a shallow grave. Their murders, gory and brutal and slow, had taken place in the living room, dark trails of blood snaking through the entire house. There was no trail leading into the bedroom, or out of it. The walls weren’t painted with blood. There were no brains on the mattress. Just two figures, one small, one sturdy, and long gone cold, lying together under the covers where they’d been slain.
Will held it together. He backed out of the bedroom, resisting the urge to slam the door. He wanted to lock away the sight, to erase it like a bad dream. He wanted to run to his father’s bedroom and curl up under his arm.
He did his thing, stuttering through his explanation to Jack, flat-out ignoring Zeller’s request for him to repeat himself when he saddled up late. “I have class in twenty minutes,” he lied, and fled. Since his father’s bedroom was no longer his place to be, he went to Hannibal.
He pulled into the driveway shaking, breathing hard and clutching his pounding heart like he’d just outrun a bear. He staggered to the front door, weak at the knees, gasping. He meant to knock, but his muscles were like jelly, and his hand scraped noiselessly against the wood several times before he changed his mind and jammed one finger into the doorbell.
A minute passed. Will’s heartbeat quickened. He felt sick and dizzy, so he knelt down, his head tilting forwards and knocking into the door as he grew too weary to hold it upright. Hannibal could be out, or he could be with a client. He could check the driveway for other cars, but that would require turning his head, and Will had lost his sense of control. He was a tattered leaf in the wind, frail and slowly tearing, helpless to stop himself.
The door swung open. Lucky thing it opened inward, or else Will would have been knocked clean off the stoop. He tipped forwards, landing on a pair of grey-checkered pants.
“Will?”
Hands gripped his shoulders and heaved him upright. The door clacked shut behind him, and he was ushered deeper into the house he’d grown to love so much. As if Hannibal knew, he took Will to the office, settling him in his usual leather chair.
“Will?” He could see Hannibal, hear him, touch him if he wanted to, but it was like he was a million miles away. “Will, can you tell me what is wrong?”
He tried. All that emerged from his tightening throat was a pathetic whimper. His chest was on fire. He needed air, and to stop his heart from hammering against his ribcage.
“You are safe, Will. You are with me.” Hannibal laid a hand on his back, fingers splayed, a warm point against the cold creeping through Will’s veins. “I believe you are having an anxiety attack. You must try and breathe with me.”
Hannibal sounded the same as he always did. There was no wary confusion, no condescending pity. The normalcy helped Will snap back to reality, helped him grapple for control of his breathing. Hannibal guided him gently, his hand warm on Will’s back, chest heaving exaggeratedly until Will managed to drag in a full breath of his own.
“Good, good,” Hannibal murmured. He took one of Will’s limp hands in his own, brushing his thumb over his knuckles. “Keep breathing, Will. Focus on nothing else.”
Will disobeyed him, slightly. As his breathing slowly evened out, he stared holes into the empty chair across from him. He could smell the rich leather, smooth and cool against his skin. He could smell Hannibal, too; he always wore expensive cologne, and it always smelled like the woods.
“Will?” He flinched, and Hannibal shushed him, the hand on his back rubbing soothing circles. “You are alright, Will. You are here in my office. It is just us.”
“I’m sorry,” Will panted, when he could speak again.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Hannibal shifted positions, kneeling on the carpet instead of squatting. “Another crime scene, I presume?”
“Yeah,” Will said. His voice was still shaking. His hands were shaking, too. “It wasn’t that bad, just... it reminded me.”
“Reminded you of what?” Hannibal asked, to fill the silence.
Will’s eyes filled with tears. “He separated them,” he said, half-dodging the question, “he put—he put the rest of them in the garage, because—because they weren’t-- he wanted the f-father, and the son, because it reminded him—and it reminds me--”
“Will,” Hannibal said firmly, and Will realized, crashing back painfully to reality, that he had been calling to him for a while. “Are you with me?”
Will nodded jerkily. Hannibal hummed, reaching up to tuck a stray curl behind Will’s ear.
“Good. Stay with me, yes?”
Will nodded again. He drew in a few shaky breaths, forcing himself to calm down before he spoke again. “I don’t-- I don’t want to go back out there.”
“That is understandable.” Hannibal pushed his fingers through Will’s hair. It was tangled, but his fingers somehow avoided the snags. “You may stay here as long as you like, Will. My door is always open to you.”
“Don’t-- don’t you have patients?”
“I’m currently indisposed,” Hannibal replied easily. “One of my patients needs my help.”
Will let out a sound that was half a groan, half a sigh, slumping forwards in his chair. “Is that what I am?” he asked, under his breathe, but Hannibal’s lips twitched like he’d heard it.
“Is that what you are?”
Will scrubbed his hands over his face. His cheeks were wet and his hands were still shaking. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“On the contrary, I am glad that you did.” Hannibal took Will’s hands in his own, drawing them away from his face, forcing Will to meet his gaze. His eyes, usually so sharp and calculating, bore a softness that made Will’s heart flutter. “I would rather have you here, with me, when the world becomes too much for you.”
Another man (smarter man) might have thought that an odd thing for your psychiatrist to say, but Will only felt warmth blossoming in his chest at the words. It was an invitation, not just for his presence, but for his presence while he was at his worst. Not since his father’s old house had he found an open door to his own suffering. He had not crawled underneath a comforting arm since he was a child.
Hannibal’s expression shifted, his emotions indecipherable each time. Will had the uncanny feeling that he was reading his thoughts. “I will get you some water,” he said at length. He stood too quickly, patting Will’s knee before he left.
Will stayed where he was, head hung between hunched shoulders. He felt exhaustion slowly overtaking him like a fog, his muscles limp, his lungs sore, his eyelids heavy. He wanted to curl up and sleep, but he also wanted to be awake when Hannibal came back. In the end, Hannibal returned to find Will sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest, head lolling but eyes still open. He was, rather rudely, getting dirt from his sneakers on the expensive leather, but if Hannibal minded, he didn’t mention it.
“Drink slowly,” he instructed, pressing a cool glass of water into Will’s hands.
The ice water was a soothing balm to his scraped-raw throat, and he drank greedily, slowing only when Hannibal took the glass by force. His touch was still gentle, a guiding hand in preventing Will from choking as he gulped the salve.
“You may stay as long as you wish,” Hannibal said, answering the question that had been violently shuddering at the edges of Will’s mind. Instantly, his remaining anxiety was sapped, replaced by an overwhelming weariness that had him sinking into the chair with a soft sigh.
As his eyes drifted shut, he heard Hannibal chuckle. He could picture the easy, wide-mouthed smile Hannibal wore so often when talking to Will. The image filled him with warmth, and he felt himself drifting.
When he awoke several hours later, he would be laying across a comfortable sofa, no longer in the shadowy office, but in Hannibal’s living room. He was tucked under a thin blanket, less warm than his father’s arm but no less comforting, and he found that even if he wasn’t there anymore, he was still in a safe place.