Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every day after school, at 4:08pm exactly, Will Graham allows himself to be towed down the sidewalk in front of your house by between four and six dogs, of varying shapes and sizes. Three minutes before this - every day, after school - you open your window on the pretext of letting a little fresh air into your upstairs bedroom. In reality, it allows you to spot your fellow student scoot around the corner into your street, barking at one or other of his charges to get out of this person's garden or not to sniff that person's car. You carefully position yourself so you can see him, but he can't see you - if he chose to look up, which he never does, probably too busy juggling leads and trying to not step on paws - and watch him the whole length of the sidewalk, until he rounds the corner at the other end.

This has been going on for perhaps a year.

Will Graham - you learned quite quickly, upon moving to the area to start your sophomore year of high school - has a part time job dog walking to earn a little extra money. He walks the same collection of dogs every day, and sometimes you catch sight of him later at night, ambling back the other way with a golden brown mixbreed, who winds his way between Will's legs underneath the street lights. Someone - whom you later identify as Dexter Frontier, who barely shows up to school and spends most of his time in class scraping the mud off his Converse on the back of the chair in front of him - tells you the dog's name is Winston. You feel vaguely jealous of Winston.

One afternoon - towards the end of your sophomore year - your counseling session with Dr. Du Maurier runs over, and you find yourself walking faster than normal to get home - only to run into Will Graham himself. The dogs swarm around your legs, tails wagging furiously against your thighs as they investigate the new person they have entangled within their forest of leads. Will apologizes profusely, struggling to wrangle the pack away from you, before moving on hurriedly down the street. He doesn't make eye contact once throughout the whole encounter.

Maybe he just doesn't know who you are, you consider over your soup dinner later in the evening. Maybe it's something more than that.

Will lives with his father, you deduce from overhearing him quietly decline a party invite during Algebra. His not-very-present father, and Winston, the dog. In the spring of sophomore year, Will breaks his glasses when a ball hits in the face during soccer, and he spends the rest of the day staring at his feet, in a combination of shame and embarrassment that he has to concentrate so hard to see where he is going. Instead of walking home that day, he climbs into the passenger side of a dusty flatbed truck, driven by a larger and stockier version of him (sans glasses). Will fits the seat like it's made for him, and shows up the next day with his glasses fixed. No one passes comment, apart from a dark haired girl who asks him if he is okay after yesterday. Will merely nods in reply.

"Play nice," Mischa warns you, waving a potato on her fork, when you start talking about befriending Will over dinner. "You don't want to scare him off." You resist the temptation to roll your eyes, choosing instead to cut a sausage in half and devour it. A little of the gravy from Mischa's potato has splashed onto the table, and she presses her sleeve to the wood to clean it up.

"I will be perfectly nice," you retort coolly, gathering gravy onto your sausage pieces with your fork, "and use a cloth for that next time."

Later that evening, you haunt your window, ignoring the moth bobbing about the dim bulb of your nightstand's light. Ten minutes crawl by until Will slopes past, pausing only briefly to let Winston - no longer on a lead, which was instead looped over Will's shoulder - sniff at something interesting in the gutter. You watch him go the whole way past, and you make plans.

--

Will crosses out the message in the front of his copy of 'The Great Gatsby' before the teacher manages to reach the room. You tilt your head slightly to watch him scratch his name into the front page of the text (underneath the scribbled over Christmas greeting to someone by the name of Jodie) and flick idly through the first chapter, eyes moving up and down as he scans the occasional few lines. Your own copy is newer - although there's a few creases where you have already read through it - in comparison and you slide it over your desk to line it up with the corner. The seating plan taped to the door has placed you directly to the right of Will Graham, two rows from the front. Close enough.

"He dies at the end."

"Pardon?," you look up to see Will staring at some point around half a foot to the left of your head.

"Gatsby," Will's eyes flick down to look at the cover of his own copy, then back up to the thin air he was making eye contact with before. "He dies at the end of the novel. You probably know that already, though," he nods his head in the direction of your book.

"How do you know that?," your eyebrows raise a little in interest.

Will's shoulders lift a little, crinkling the fabric of his jacket, "it's a new copy, no rips in the cover or anything. But you can see where your thumb has sweated onto the pages and creased them slightly. You're a careful reader." Bravo.

"I will take that as a compliment," you smile a little, just enough to reassure him. "Hannibal Lector. You are Will Graham, am I correct?," you half extend your hand in a more formal greeting.

"How do you know my-", his brow creases a little in confusion, but he is interrupted as the teacher calls out his name to register him, and his head snaps to the front. You sit back in your chair, crossing your legs quietly as you wait for your own name to be called. The two of you don't interact for the rest of the period but, once outside, he stops you beside the lockers. The way he heaps on layers of clothing - despite the mild quality of the weather today - rounds his shoulders and widens his ribcage. You find yourself drawn to the buttons on his checkered shirt - the third one dog is different from the rest; an oversized white button in the midst of an otherwise unwavering line of small black eyes.

"Hannibal, is it?," he questions you, pushing his glasses back into the bridge of his nose. You nod gently. "We had Art together last semester."

"We did," the mismatched canine forms and frustration over the color wheel spring to mind. You were a line artist, working primarily in inks. Will painted his feelings. Invisible human hackles bristle at the memory of his portrait of Winston.

Will swallowed, "I suppose I'll see you around, then, Hannibal."

"I suppose you will."

He turns on his heel and leaves, scooting through the hallway crowds to wherever his next class is - Geometry, you later learn - leaving you to ponder his pale expression and messy curls.He passes you briefly at lunch time, but he says nothing, and whisks his lunch away to some far side of the cafeteria, burying himself in a group of people who seem to dress quite similar to him, only sligtly messier. There's an order to Will's layers, like a finely constructed pastry. There's layers to the Will underneath the carefully chosen clothing as well, you know that much already..

Yes, you decide, you are most definitely interested in Will Graham.

Chapter Text

Mischa catches up with you at lunchtime, sliding her tray down next to your own and seating herself smartly before a boy in your own year can sit down. He holds his tray in an awkward fashion, slightly lopsided so the meatballs in his spaghetti roll to one side of his plate, the toes of his sneakers turning inwards slightly, before skirting round the table to sit opposite you. You only really know him vaguely from the same art class you had with Will last year - sat at the back of the classroom on the right, liked using charcoal a lot - and he ducks his head down to his food, avoiding eye contact. Mischa pretends he isn't there at all.

"I want to meet this Will Graham you keep going on about," she stares you dead in the eye, twirling her fork in her spaghetti. She's wearing the little black star earrings, who twinkle a little in the electric lights of the cafeteria, you bought her for her fourteenth birthday.

"You'll eat him alive," you tell her with all seriousness. One brown eyebrow arches itself slightly in derision.

"I will not, Anniba," your nose wrinkles a little at the nickname. It's been floating around for twelve or so years. Fortunately it has never caught on within your school life, but Mischa persists with it anyway. She chews on her spaghetti as a pause, before continuing."I will be perfectly nice," her eyes light up a little, pupils shrinking, "maybe you could invite him over for dinner sometime. Since you never shut up about him."

"I do not!", your fork spears a meatball with slightly more force than you intended, and clacks off the plate underneath it.

"You do so," she retorts mischievously, stabbing one of your meatballs when you are distracted with indignation, despite the fact she has a full plate to herself. "You are quite enamored with Mr. Graham."

"I am intrigued, Mischa," you correct. "There is a difference. He's a interesting character and I would like get to know him better. I want to be his friend."

She shakes her head a little, flicking her fringe out of the way. "Whatever you say, Anniba."

"Will you ever stop calling me that?"

"No."

--

Later in the week, you stand in front of your English class and give an oral presentation on cooking around the world. Your fingers glide in the shapes of pastry dishes and soup pots, as you conduct the class in the nuances of food preparation in the Far East, the cold north of Europe, the deep south of Brazil. The assignment is to give a talk on something you are pesonally interested in, to help the class interact better and improve oral skills.

You as applauded at the end, but you only watch for Will's hands - his own eyes are focussed there as well, scrutinzing the notes he has brought for his own presentation. Either that, or scrutinizing the chipped nail on his right hand. One of the two.

Dexter scrapes what smells suspiciously like dog muck off of his shoe onto the back of a short haired girl's chair and slides out from his desk to give his own presentation. It is unlikely to be worth listening to, if experience is anything to go on. You turn to Will once you are back in your seat, and he's still looking through his notes, shifting the page to read his scrawl on the piece of paper underneath. Two floppy ears and a kind eye peek over the top sheet - you can recognise the face of Winston anywhere, even in scribbled format with a blue biro. Will chews the dead skin off of his lip, eyebrows lowering in concentration.

"If you are feeling nervous," you offer quietly, leaning over a little, "it can help if you find a friendly face in the audience to fix on. Then you won't be looking at your notes the whole time." From behind his glasses, Will look across at you and nods silently. "It will help you project your voice better too," you add, and he nods again in gratitude.

Will gets up to do his presentation next, clutching his note paper in his left hand. He drops it on the desk within the first few seconds of his talk - about the role of dogs in history, as if it would be anything but - and doesn't refer to it, instead choosing to focus out onto the class, picking out one area (or person) to look to. Just as you instructed. You smile in encouragement, feeling his eyes on the space around half a foot to the left of your head.

--

Will is all elbows and soft grunts of frustration in cooking class. He lacks finesse in his work - in the same way his art is loose and unbridled - and your brow furrows in concern every time his knife slides a little too close to his fingers. It's one of the few classes where he is forced to ditch his layers, stripping down to grey shirt. The thread frays a little around the collar, and there's a hole appearing in the seam at the top of his right sleeve, which stretches every time he moves. Every now and then, he lifts his glasses to wipe the sweat from underneath his eyes. You tug your stag head patterned sweater down a little from your throat, before returning to peeling your potatos.

"If you don't bring the whole blade off the board when you chop the celery, you will get it done faster, Will," you put down a potato, and select another one, picking off a hair or two before resuming peeling. Will grunts beside you and tries to adjust his technique, if a little reluctantly. You go quiet again, pressing your knife cleanly through your potatoes and dropping them into a pot of boiling water you have on the shared cooker for your work area.

"Do you like helping people, Hannibal," Will is clumsily skinning his carrots, leaving dents along the surface where he has pressed too hard. You shrug a little, disguising a cringe at how close the peeler comes to removing the skin from his middle finger.

"I like helping interesting people."

Will pauses for a moment to clean his glasses on his shirt, before pushing them back up his nose. "What's so interesting about me?", you can feel his eyes on the backs of your hands as you carefully dice Mrs. Rathbone's liver into delicate chunks. "That's quite a big liver."

"It was quite a big animal," you answer smoothly, "and you are interesting, I suppose. Not many people are." Will's eyebrows crease inwards a little in thought, but he shrugs it off and picks up his knife again to continue trying to cut his carrots into even shapes.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Chapter Text

A not particularly sociable widow in her early fifties with grown children, Mrs. Rathbone does not receive a lot of visitors. To your knowledge, she was dismissed from her teaching post at Baltimore Community High School the year before you moved to the area, for improper conduct or something to that effect. It matters little now. She is rather more a cow than a calf - which is a bit more of the standard size for liver, but you find the original taste lacks something.

Given her propensity for insulting her neighbors and other members of her community - and her house being set further away from most surrounding homes - Mrs. Rathbone's corpse is not discovered for several days. Canadian neighbor Clint Murray notices that her dogs have not been out in the front yard for a while. He tries the door himself at first, before calling in local law enforcement to assist him in his endeavors to reach a possibly injured and trapped woman. The police are greeted by a rather different sight in Mrs. Rathbone's kitchen round the back of the house; the lack of howling from her two pedigree German Shepherds is due them making a meal of her slowly decomposing body. Claw marks have shredded open everything from her lower face and throat to her hips. Officer Wilhelm has to remove one from gnawing on her left thigh and the other from rooting around in her ribcage, whilst the forensics team close in to try and work out what has occurred.

Her torso cavity is shredded to the extent that no one notices the very clean removal of the liver.

--

Will's pastry is soggy.

He turns the pie around on the plate with the tips of his fingers - messily trimmed with a craft knife, you guess by the angles of the edges - and tilts his head back a little. The cracks in his lips match his bread mixture of confusion and frustation at the object in front of him. You watch him prod it with a clean fork, becoming increasingly annoyed at the dents left in the side of his pie by its prongs. You place your own dish a little further away from his than you normally would, in the hopes of not making him feel so bad.

"I'd eat it," another student, by the name of Dean, leans on the work surface with one elbow, eyeing up Will's product. Will swiftly pushes his plate closer to your own, trying hard not to inhale the scent of Walmart assistant steak and kidney in a light gravy sauce that wafting upwards from your pie. It's quite hard to avoid, you are aware.

"No one asked you," Will snaps at him, face scrunching a little. You catch a glimpse of white canines when he enunciates the "ah" vowel.

Dean shrugs and raises his hands in defense, "just saying, dude."

He leaves - presumably to disobey the teacher's orders and eat hius own pie before it's been graded - and you sidle up to Will on the pretext of checking over your dish. Will tries vainly to get rid of the dents in the side and the slight lumps in the pastry on top, but you can still smell the slightly burnt mince on the inside. You avoid wrinkling your nose, instead leaning forward to view it a little closer. Beef mince, you ascertain. It's a shame he didn't pick something with a little more flavor.

"It's doesn't look that bad, Will," you never were very good at consoling people, "it smells nice." Will's face scrunches a little again, as if he can tell you are lying. "Have you made a pie before?"

"No, I don't think so," Will tucks a curl of black hair behind his ear, as if thinking. "My dad is more of a pasta kind of guy." You file that away for later.

"Well, it's a good first effort. I could give you some advice if you want?," you offer with as much sympathy as you can muster.

"No thanks," it's brushed off along with a few flecks of flour clinging to the shoulders of Will's shirt. "I'll be fine."

You accept it for now, but it just makes you all the more determined to have that change.

--

Later in the week, Will sits next to you at lunch. Mischa glides past the table and whispers something in Danish to you that causes you to swat at her. You miss, but it generates a small huffing laugh from Will. His eyes crinkle closed for a second and hs lips stretch into a smile. It's rather obvious he doesn't laugh a lot, and that makes it all the more gratifying.

(You swat Mischa at home later that day, over the head with a softback copy of 1984. She talks all the way through the five o'clock news in return.)

He chooses the fish, bumping his tray a little against yours when he sits down, "they didn't have any of the pasta dish left."

"You sound disappointed, Will," you spear a few fries, "do you like pasta as much as your father?" Will's eyes expand a little from behind his glasses and he tries to hide it by pushing them up his nose. The fries are a little more salty than you would like, but you swallow them anyway.

"I like pasta, yeah," he pushes the side of his fork into the fish, breaking the crisp batter, and pulls a chunk towards him before stabbing it with his fork. The aroma of sea salt and cod reaches you from his plate, which mixes a little with the faint damp smell of his jacket. Even when the air is dry and crackly, like just before a storm, Will always smells a little damp. Maybe it's to do with where he lives - which you still don't know exactly where - but it's always as if he came into the building out of the rain, and has been steaming dry for the last twenty minutes. Drying a dog off with a towel, sans the canine scent. You push it out of your mind by eating a few more of your fries, dipping them in a small blob of sauce at the edge of your plate.

You move your fork to dig at the unappetizing looking chicken breast on the other side of the plate (you could cook it better, you are sure), "have you ever made pasta yourself, Will? As in, physically made the pasta from scratch." The chicken lives up to your every expectation and is slightly undercooked in the middle. You revert to the fries, picking through the overly burnt ones.

"I think so? Yeah. Yeah, I have," he swallows a chunk of fish whole, throat swelling a little as it travels down. "We have a pasta machine at home but my dad doesn't really know how to use it. I have used it at least once or twice." You nod encouragingly, almost stabbing your cheek with your fork and the fries on it. He picks up on your interest and continues, "one time I think. I think I was fourteen? And I tried to make that one thats long and flat," he tries to gesture with his hands, thumbs pressing into his finger tips to show the shape.

"Tagliatelle?"

"That one," he brightens a little. "Anyway I made the strips too big or something, and they cooked wrong and Wins-my dog, Winston, ate it all before I could serve it up." He gives out another small laugh, more of a hm-hm than anything else, "he was sick later on my bed, but it was okay because. Because I needed new bedding anyway. We just ordered take out pizza in the end."

You smile in encouragement, very aware of the half fry sticking out of your mouth. Will pretends he isn't staring at it in an attempt to avoid eye contact.

"We have a pasta machine at home as well," you carefully push your burnt fried over to your chicken, which you have no intention of eating, "but my sister is the one who really knows how to work it. I'm a better cook, though." Will's chin moves a little in nodding acknowledgement.

"Was your sister the one who came past earlier?," he has noticed your rejection of the chicken, eyeing it hungrily. You inhale it on your fork and lift the breast onto his plate, watching his eyes widen a little behind his glasses - there's a large scratch on the right lens - again. Wiping your fork off on your fries, you nod.

"That was her," your fork and knife push the remaining fries around the edge of your plate to catch any remnants of sauce. "I think she would like to meet you."

Chapter Text

When Will Graham is fourteen, he asks his first crush out on a date. Her name is Alana Bloom, and she blossoms whenever she opens her mouth. People look at her eyes when they talk to her. She is powdery and light, like old stage make up that is used anew on dancers' faces. She is all soft curls and triangular joints and a good striker in soccer. Will first meets her on the third day of middle school, when she lends him a pen to do his writing assignment in English. (He doesn't give it back for three years, at which point it's nearly run out and her name has almost rubbed off the side. She takes it back anyway.)

Alana teaches Will to pronounce different names of Italian foods, because she's going there in the summer and he shows enough quiet enthusiasm to hold her attention outside of the classroom. Alana laughs when she meets Will walking Winston and Winston plants two warm paws on her stomach in greeting, ears flopping all over the place. (Will is highly embarrassed, face going the color of a margherita pizza.) Alana slaps the desk mid-class debate in anger, silencing the boy who had decided to interject that her point on Huck Finn's role in 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' is invalid because she is a girl.

She walks home with Will one day, and talks about how she loves traveling, how she loves the culture and the language and the food. The food! Will is quiet for most of the time, but he shuts the door with thoughts filled with thoughts of foreign food and determination. Alana is too interesting to be impressed by milkshake and a trip to the movies. He pulls the dusty machine out of the back of the closet and cleans it under the tap, clumsily drying it with paper towels. Will has never used the pasta maker before in his life, but he presses on, appointing Winston as his assistant in pasta-ery (or whatever it is called).

Three hours later and Winston wretches all over Will's pillow, staining the starry bedspread with slobber and failed tagliatelle. Boots scraping on the welcome mat signal the older Graham coming home, just after half past nine, and he takes one look at his son before picking up the phone. Will reddens to the same shade of his pizza, which arrives steaming and brimming with cheese half an hour later. He falls asleep on his dad's leather jacket watching 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. Will mentions it to no one at school, and avoids Alana for the rest of the week in quiet shame.

When Will is fourteen, he asks his first crush out on a date. And Alana says no.

--

"Do you play sports other than soccer, Will?," you lean over the rail at the bottom of the bleachers, dangling a scuffed sports bottle from one hand. Will runs a hand through his sweaty curls, one pupil slightly more dilated than the other. He huffs a little and takes the bottle off of you, swigging a few gulps of water before stoppering the top again and passing it back to you. His palm has left a sweaty print on the side of the bottle.

"Just soccer," Will has a zit growing on the side of his nose and he tries to angle his head away from you slightly as if he can feel it there, "for now, anyway. I guess I'd like to try football or something. I don't know. I'm a decent runner, I guess." You tug at the collar of your sweater where it is getting a little scratchy and shift your weight to your other foot, nodding. "Sometimes I go running with Winston, and we play," he waves a hand, sides still half-heaving a little, "catch and stuff."

"Maybe you could try athletics?," a couple of pieces of hair from your fringe cling to your forehead. You haven't even been exercising.

"Maybe? I don't know," he scratches at his elbow, grey-blue eyes scanning his arm for whatever is causing the itch. Just out of the reach of his unevenly trimmed nails, a cluster of three small insect bites redden his skin. You consider pointing them out to him. "I don't really have anything on those guys. I'm okay at soccer." He rolls his shoulders, and the fabric of his soccer tee is pulled back, pressing against his ribs as he moves. You pretend to be very interested in the scratch on his glasses - which has actually gotten larger, actually - instead of studying his bone structure. That does not feel particularly friendly.

"It's always something to consider," you proffer. Will nods a little to one side - before a bark from the coach has him bounding across pitch and away towards the other students on the team. His saliva on the drinks bottle smells faintly like sweetcorn.

--

Will appears in a fine mist of flour and nervousness next to you in the cooking classroom. He inhales some of the flour by accident and sneezes into the front of his shirt, pulling it up to cover his nose. You observe how his eyes crush themselves closed and open slowly, watery even, as he tries not to spread his baking-snot everywhere. He mumbles an apology under his breath, before picking up a rolling pin.

"I was thinking," he gingerly pushes it across his bread dough, as if afraid he will flatten it out too far and it will be damaged behind repair, "about what you said about athletics." You press your knuckles into your own dough, feeling the flour dust your skin and the uncooked bread press against your fingers. "I think they are having another set of try-outs and stuff next week, for some of the running. I might go along," he loses confidence in his plan and his rolling pin hesitates for a moment, pressing down a little too hard on one side, "just to see what it is like. What they want. Might not even do any trying out, I might just watch." He huffs a little in frustration, and sprinkles some flour onto his slab of dough.

"That's good, Will," you warm your voice to be as encouraging as possible. "Even going to see is a good idea. If it interests you, you can always try out later on. You never do know." Will nods, as enthusiastically as he can manage. He applies too much pressure to his dough and it splits - a flash of panic lights up his eyes and he sets the rolling pin aside, folding over the dough in the hopes of rescuing it.

Your teacher chooses that moment to ghost over behind you - Mr. Hobbs fancies himself light footed, but you can hear the slap of his loafers on the plastic based floor - and lean over your shoulders. You can almost smell the distaste on his face, the upward wrinkle of his slightly crooked nose (baseball accident) at whatever is displeasing him this time. His stale breath fills the space between you and Will as he exhales hard. You detect not even the slightest hint of toothpaste clinging to his teeth.

"Abysmal," the first word out of his mouth is directed at Will, but your eyes narrow to slits all the same. Will shoulders drop a little and he stops trying to knead his dough back to life, twisting a bit between his fingers as he waits for the rest of Mr. Hobbs' verdict. The man leans forward a little to inspect Will's handiwork, and makes a noise of displeasure. "Just like you attempt at the pie. You have not used the right amount of ingredients. Too much flour." He sticks a sausage-shaped finger into Will's dough and pushes it around a little bit. Will just stands by, floury hands limp at his sides. "See this consistency? It is all wrong."

"Yes," Will conveys as little emotion as possible in his voice, but his chin is still angled for his chest and his glasses slide down his nose a little bit.

"And your pie," Mr. Hobbs' snort is both somewhat pig-like - although that may be bias from your angle - and derisive, "that was awful. If we had the time, I would have you redo it. Fortunately for you, we don't. Or unfortunately, in terms of your grade." Will nods - the smallest jerk of his head in acknowledgement - whilst Hobbs picks up the wilting dough mound and drops it into the nearest bin. "Start again." With that, he drift-slaps off to disturb other students, and Will turns to the fridge to make up for lost time. You fit your dough into your bread tin thoughtfully.

It appears you have found dinner.

Chapter Text

"I still don't get why you haven't asked him over for dinner yet, Anniba," Mischa has brought her homework to the table and doodles with one hand whilst she stirs her soup. She presses her spoon against one of the potato chunks, crushing it on the bottom of the bowl, and makes a couple of notes on her paper. Two orange spots of soup have appeared near her neatly lettered title, but her eyes slide right past them. "You spend more time with him than with anyone else. Even me," her lips tug downwards in exaggerated sadness.

"You aren't even in my year, Mischa, and you spent all of middle school driving it home that it 'is not cool' to be seen with your siblings, older or younger," you blow gently across the surface of your soup, before spooning a little into your mouth. The lentils could have been put in a little earlier, but you actually quite appreciate the texture. "Besides, I think I can safely say Will Graham is my friend. Friends are supposed to spend time with each other." If you breathe in deeply, the scent of perfume floats across the table. "Why are you wearing perfume?"

Mischa shrugs a little, "I don't use it enough and I like smelling pretty." Fair enough. "And you are avoiding what I am saying now. If you two are such good friends, then why haven't you brought him over yet? You never bring anyone over, but then again," she stirs her soup the other way, watching the ingredients bob about in the resulting small whirlpool, "you don't really have a lot of friends."

Which is a little too true for your liking, come to think of it.

"I'll think about it," you conceed, sipping more of your soup. Mischa stirs her own bowl some more before a pair of eyeballs bob to the surface, blue-grey irises rolling upwards to fix her with a dead stare. She creases into a smile, and laughs, drawing a ripple-mouth in the soup with the tip of her spoon.

--

You bide your time quietly until later in the week, when Will has grown as crumbly as his attempts at making shortbread about culinary class. He is quieter than usual, chewing on his blue and white striped drinks straw, when you slide your lunch tray onto the table next to his. The previous evening he had passed your house later than usual, letting his canine charges meander past your drive at 4:27pm. Perhaps something is seriously up, or perhaps he is as troubled by his lack of prowess in the kitchen as one could imagine. You press your fork into one of the pepperoni pieces on top of his pizza and quietly pull it onto your place. He doesn't have much of a reaction.

"Something appears to be troubling you, Will," the meat is chewy and burnt, and sits heavy on your tongue in a most displeasing fashion. You swallow it anyway, so as not to be wasteful. Will picks at the cheese on top of his pizza, eyes dull and disinterested in the meal at hand. "Is it cooking class? Or something more than that?"

Will's epaulettes scrunch a little when he shrugs, brushing the hair that tangles around his ears to lie on his neck, "probably. I just need to practice, I guess."

"Possibly it is just that," you lower your voice, softening the tone to act as a verbal comforter. "You cannot be the best at everything, so it is very good that you are trying in the first place. Many people would have given up on trying to progress, but you on the other hand continue to try." This appears to ease him a little, and he shifts the tense out of his shoulders, making more of a move for his food. You press your fork down onto your unappealing smelling sweetcorn, squashing it between the prongs into an even less tasteful yellow mess. Somehow you doubt the taste would have been much of an improvement on the smell.

Cracking the crust of his pizza and biting some of it off - avoiding some of the burnt parts - Will glances at your own tray, "you're pretty good in the kitchen. How did you learn that?"

You shrug a little yourself, gently pressing your knife through the breaded fish on your plate, "lots of practice and home cooking. I would say it's a bit of a passion of mine. Speaking of which," you pop a little cod into your mouth and swallow it dutifully, "I was wondering if you wanted to come around for dinner tomorrow? I don't often get to cook for friends and the like." Will's lips twitch a little at the mention of 'friends', in what you can only assume is a positive response. Hopefully that indicates you are not wrong in your assumption.

"I'll have to check with my dad but that'd be good, that'd be," he's a puppy, barely containing his rising excitement at the thought - the thought of visiting someone else's house, of being invited over - as if it is the first time it's happened, "great, even. I mean I have to walk the dogs and things, my job," you nod and he understands, "but I should be able to come over after that. Is that okay?"

"Shall we aim for six?," you smile into your fork, and he nods back. The rest of lunch is spent in quiet conversation - Will loves crime novels, it seems, and he sheds his quiet shell a little to tell you about the latest one he's been reading. It's good. It's progress.

--

Will trots towards the school gate at the end of the day, beaten canvas messenger bag thrown over his shoulder and hands curled around the lining deep in his coat pockets. His gait has slightly more energy than normal, as if there is a cushion of air between his his feet - forest green Vans today - and the Baltimore sidewalk underneath. You open the driver side door of your car, and get a foot inside before the vague fall sunlight catches his glasses turned towards you over his shoulder. Will raises a hand to wave at you, fingers not quite touching each other, and you hesitate for a moment (reluctant to admit you are a little surprised) before waving in greeting back. Across the parking lot, you can see his teeth when he smiles, before he turns back to where he is headed and disappears into the street.

It's incredibly reassuring.

--

Through the haze of sprinkled sugar and the warm scent of freshly baked cookies, Mr. Hobbs agrees to meet with you after school. He furrows his brow a little but your request to discuss how to further improve your culinary skills - for extra credit, maybe, you know - passes for good enough reasoning. At the end of cooking class, you surreptitiously sharpen the knives as they are given to you to wash. Dean cuts his finger on one putting it away, streaking the work surface with red until he can get hauled off to the nurse's office. (He doesn't come back for bag, but his brother picks it up during passing period).

"What'd you want to see me about, Lector?," Mr. Hobbs perches himself on his desk, leaning on his hands, when you come in - following a counseling session, as per your usual Friday routine - and drop your bag onto one of the kitchen units. "You are already topping the class. Extra credit isn't really needed." You allow yourself the tiniest of smiles.

"It has come to my attention, Mr. Hobbs," behind you, the kitchen knives shine in the slightly yellowed light of the kitchen classroom as the cutlery drawer slides open, "that recently you have been terribly rude."

Chapter Text

Will arrives right on time, nervously hovering at the bottom of your drive with his hands balled in his pockets. He clearly recognizes the house from his dog walking - you realized you missed him today, but you were too preoccupied procuring the meat for dinner to be home in time - and feels a little odd about, well, going inside. You are busy in the kitchen when the doorbell rings, keeping one eye on the rice as you stir the curry sauce, occasionally tasting from the spoon. A red spot of sauce appears on your apron, and you add a sprinkle more seasoning to the mixture.

As a consequence, Mischa answers the door, wrapped in a fifties style dress adorned with a decidedly less fifties style cupcake print. You can hear her chatting to him in the door way (he offers answers and acknowledgement of what she says, albeit - a little to your delight, you must admit - shorter than the ones he gives you). She guides him to the kitchen when your back is to the door, as you drain the water off of the rice into the sink. You pull three plates out of the cupboard, setting them down carefully on the remaining free space on the kitchen work surface.

"I'll leave you two to talk," you don't need to turn round to know she has winked at you, "I'm going to watch the rest of 'Delicatessen'." As you turn, you catch Will's eyebrows creeping down a little as if trying to remember something. Your lips stretch a little into a smile, and you gesture him towards the kitchen table, where one of the chairs has already been pulled out. Devoid of his usual jacket, Will looks smaller in just a plaid shirt and vest, but the checkered fabric tightens over his biceps and shoulders. He does sport after all. As if unsure if it was the right thing to do, Will seats his, hands fiddling with the lowest button on his shirt.

Drying your hands on a tea towel, you fetch a spoon from the cutlery drawer and start dividing up the rice between the three plates, "I apologize for not quite being ready on time, Will, the curry sauce took a little longer than I anticipated," you are careful to shape each portion of rice into a broad circle filling the plate - around an inch between it and the edge, though - and flat on top. Once satisfied (and without wasting a single grain of rice, you are proud of your precision with measurements), you turn to pour the sauce into the pot of chopped meat, stirring it slowly and folding it over the chunks. "I do want to welcome you to my humble home," you turn back to face Will as you ensure the curry sauce is well soaked into the meat, before reaching for a final pot of kidney beans and pouring them in as well.

"It's very nice," Will tilts his head back to survey the high ceiling, almost clinical lights reflecting off of his glasses. "I don't know about humble." You stir the beans into the sauce, before moving to the plates and beginning to spoon it onto the rice base. "I don't mean any offence by that, it's just," Will's shoulder lift a little, and he watches your hands as you work, "quite big."

"I am very fortunate," you direct your smile at the food, smoothing the curried meat and beans with the back of the serving spoon, before placing a single chunk of uncurried meat on top of each dish. The equivalent of a herb sprig, you suppose. "Our parents work good jobs."

"What do they do?", he watches your hand delicately work the spoon across the food with interest. You push one of the plates towards him, setting one other where you would sit. Fetching cutlery for the pair of you and Mischa, you hand him a knife and fork, placing another set by your own plate. (You resist the urge to hipthrust the drawer closed.)

"One doctor, one surgeon," you balance the third plate in one hand, mimicking a waiter, and wave the cutlery in your other hand at him, "hold on a moment, will you, Will? I just need to take this through to Mischa. Cannot let her go hungry." Will nods, and you coast out of the room. Mischa fills the length of the leather couch, resting her feet on the armrest at one end. She cranes her neck back to see you enter and set her dinner down on the coffee table in front of her, slightly crooked front teeth showing between her lips when she smiles.

"Better get back to your friend," her grin widens a notch. You throw her cutlery at her stomach, and swivel on your heel out of the room.

Back in the kitchen, you find Will guiltily mid-bite. You wave your hand to encourage him to carry on, and skirt the table to pick two glasses out of one of the kitchen cabinets, "what would you like to drink with that? We have a variety of juices or cordials, if you do not want just water."

Will pauses for a moment, loading curry sauce onto his meat, before answering, "could I have apple juice?" He tugs his vest down a little, watching the air above your right shoulder for a response.

"Of course," you open the fridge with your foot and delve inside for the apple juice - just a glass of water for yourself - before bringing it back to the table. Pouring him a glass, you seat yourself at the table and pick up your fork. Will mumbles a thanks, and continues quietly eating his food for a few moments.

"What is this, exactly?," his glasses have slipped down his nose a little, so you can see the grey clouds of his irises over their rims.

"Pork," you pop a chunk of meat into your mouth, watching how he folds the sauce into the rice, once he has finished the meat and kidney beans, "in a light curry sauce, with kidney beans and pilau rice. It's one of my signature dishes." Will nods in agreement with this last statement, eyes back to focussing on his food. The two of you lapse into silence for a while, the quiet punctuated by the occasional clack of a fork on a plate or the sounds of gentle chewing. You idly imagine Will's canines hungrily tearing through the little sections of Mr. Hobbs' abdomen he has been devouring for the past few minutes.

As he pushes his rice into a small pile in the middle of his plate, something occurs to Will. His knife clinks on his fork, and he tilts his head a little to one side, "where are your parents?"

You smile just a little into your glass of water, as the rain begins to lash down outside, "business trip."