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Footsteps approached. Will focused harder on his laptop.
“Are you almost done?” Hannibal asked.
“No.”
“I told you when dinner would be ready.”
“And I told you I wouldn’t be done by then and you’d better put it off if you wanted to eat together.”
“You can work after dinner.”
Will let his glasses slide down his nose enough to look at Hannibal over the tops of them. “I’m working now.”
“There’s no reason not to postpone this.”
“There was no reason not to postpone dinner.”
“Eight is a reasonable hour to dine.”
“It’s not any more reasonable than six or seven or nine. It’s just the one you prefer.”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“Not for me. Go ahead and eat. I’ll heat it up later.”
Hannibal crossed the room to stand beside him. “Will, you’re being churlish.”
“I’m working.”
“There’s absolutely no reason not to—“
“Apart from my desire not to be ruled by your literally pathological compulsion to get the two of us sitting down together at the same time every night?”
“I’m not inflexible. Not when there’s a good reason.”
“The things I want are as important as the things you want. My reasons are as good as yours.”
Hannibal paused. “You did this on purpose.”
“It’s a discussion we were going to have. Seemed like a good idea to have it over something relatively trivial.
“Trivial?”
“Don’t— I said relatively. You don’t treat me like another person. You treat me like an extension of yourself. Which is good in a lot of ways and less good in others. This is one of the ways it’s less good.”
“It's not a conscious decision,” Hannibal said.
"I know. But you can make a conscious decision to stop it.”
"I don't think you want me to do that.”
“You can't hold yourself over me like a threat, Hannibal. I'm not afraid of you.”
“Obviously, I can't force you to eat with me." His tone implied that he could and might.
Will pushed his computer back and rested his face in his hands. "I am happy to eat with you. You know I am.”
"But not tonight.”
"I'm making a point.”
“For no reason whatsoever.”
Will looked up at him. “Really? You don't see the reason? You don't see that I might be a little concerned about your reaction if I do something you consider out of bounds? At what point do I stop being part of you and become fair game?”
Hannibal stood up minutely straighter. "If you wish to cast aspersions on my self-control—“
“That’s not what I’m doing.” Will walked to the window to put some distance between them. "I'm trying to do the right thing, and you're being a stonefaced asshole. As usual.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I fail to see--”
“You don’t fail to see. You refuse to see. You’re smarter than I am, you’re better at people, at— at relationships.” He tried not to say it as if it left a bad taste in his mouth and could tell he’d failed. "Why won't you—"
“But you are, of course, an expert in my literally pathological desires," Hannibal said.
Will let his head thunk back against the wall. He was going to say something he’d regret soon. Maybe he already had. He’d never seen Hannibal look genuinely offended before.
“I’m going for a drive,” he said.
“You wanted to work. Please, don’t let me disturb you.” Hannibal pivoted gracefully on one heel and strode from the room.
Will grabbed the keys to the Aston Martin and went out the back door. The familiar and sour taste of fear bubbled up his throat, not of Hannibal or anything Hannibal might do to him, but fear of unbalancing the precarious ground on which their joined lives rested.
A fingernail moon hung in the blue evening sky. Will drove to the house they'd bought, the house Hannibal had bought for him, and rolled down the window. He took in the scent of dried grass, the whisper of leaves, the goldenrod-colored door with its streamers of peeling paint and bare carved wood.
Will’s name was on the deed to the house. They had a joint checking account. He’d never thought he’d want this with anyone. Now that he had it, it seemed both impossible and vital that it last.
His phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled a little as he answered. “I thought I told you never to call me again,” he said.
“Fuck you too, Graham,” Lounds said. “And don’t tell me it’s too late, that’s not your asleep voice.”
“The fact that you know that is horrifying. What do you want?”
“When are you coming back? I have venues to book. You are coming back, right? I didn’t just dream having that conversation where you were a reasonable human being for once?”
“I’m coming back,” Will said, on a sigh. “September ninth, three weeks. That’s enough, right?”
“That is nowhere near enough. You should be coming on the book tour with me.”
“One of us would not survive that.”
“As long as it’s you. Did I tell you I bought a gun? What’s so great about France anyway?”
“It’s full of people who can’t talk to me because I don’t know French. Why did you buy a gun?”
“Uh, because people keep trying to kill me?”
“So you wanted to help them out? Did you bother to get any training? Do you have any idea if you can point it at someone and pull the trigger?”
“I think I could pull the trigger on Hannibal fucking Lecter, yeah.”
As if he’d ever be sloppy enough to give her the chance. “Get some training. And don’t sleep with it under your pillow.”
“I’m not an idiot, Graham.” She paused. “I was thinking of asking Cade to teach me.”
Will closed his eyes. “What are you doing.”
“Just thought I’d mention it.”
“Are you seriously asking for my blessing? To— What, seduce him? Date him? Extract information from him and ruin his career?”
“I’m not asking you anything. I just wanted to see how pissed off you’d be.”
“He’s ostensibly an adult. He can make his own decisions.”
“I thought you’d be more protective.”
“Someone’s going to crush his heart sooner or later. Why not you?”
“What makes you so sure there’s going to be heart crushing?”
“He’ll slip up and tell you something he shouldn’t, and you’ll post it. At least call me when it happens, so I can try to smooth things over with Jack.”
“Nice to know you trust me so much,” Lounds said, and Will thought there was some actual annoyance there.
“I trust you to be exactly what you are. Which is the same thing I told Hannibal, by the way.”
“It’s creepy as hell when you call him by his first name. Do not do that when we’re talking to the press. And stop trying to reverse psychology me into being decent to your boy scout.”
“Your boy scout now. Have fun.”
He hung up on her and sat for a few minutes while the quiet night pressed in around him. He did trust Hannibal to be what he was, and who he was. Maybe tonight had been a mistake.
The moon fell toward the peak of the roof. He had no clear idea of what he should do, but he knew what he wanted to do. He drove back slowly. The roads out by the new house didn’t have streetlights. Sometimes he saw eyes in the dark.
When he got home, he found the lid to one garbage can askew, almost sliding off. He lifted it to check for cats or rats inside and found instead the salmon he knew Hannibal had been making for dinner. He set the lid back in place.
All the lights in the kitchen were off. No sign of Hannibal. Will found him in the study with a glass of wine and a faraway look.
“You’re back,” Hannibal said, maybe with the faintest note of surprise.
“I just went to the house.”
“I suppose you’ll want to finish your work now. I was about to retire.”
Will took the wine glass from him and then took his hand. “Actually, I thought I’d cook for us. Scrambled eggs and toast?”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is. Come on, please?”
Hannibal sighed and some of the stiffness went out of his posture. “I still don’t know if you do that deliberately.”
“Do what?”
“The way you’re looking at me right now.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“It’s an astonishingly precise replica of the look you gave me from the floor of your cell at the hospital.” Hannibal touched his cheek. “I would describe it as sincere and desperate.”
“Oh.” Will felt himself flush slightly. “No, not— Not on purpose.”
“Perhaps that’s why it’s still so effective. Lead the way.”
Will turned on all the lights in the kitchen. He set out eggs and bread and butter and started chopping chives, because at some point in the past six weeks he’d become the kind of person who automatically garnished things. Even scrambled eggs.
“I don’t know if I should apologize,” he said. “I can’t figure out if I did anything wrong. I’m pretty sure I hurt your feelings, and I am sorry for that, but maybe you’d rather pretend you don’t have any and apologizing would just make it worse."
“I’ve never pretended to be devoid of feeling, Will. Least of all to you. Or for you.”
“There’s a difference between having feelings and letting someone in far enough that they can hurt you.”
“And how does it feel, to know that you can do that to me?”
Will slid fork tines through egg yolks and started to beat them. The only sound in the room was the clink of metal against the china bowl.
“I like it,” he said.
“You feel a sense of power.”
He dropped butter into the skillet and watched it foam. “Yeah.”
“Good. To give such a gift, even inadvertently, and receive only your indifference in return would be far more painful than anything you might do with it.”
“I hope you’re right about that.”
“It’s a novel experience, if nothing else. You’re never boring, Will.”
He poured the eggs into the pan and watched the butter bubble around the edges. “I was trying to avoid something worse,” he said.
“I know. Nothing you said was inaccurate.”
Will closed his eyes briefly. “Okay. Good. So you’ve got it? I don’t have to worry about this anymore?”
Hannibal stepped up behind him as he slid the eggs onto plates. Will leaned back against his chest and buttered the toast.
“Do you trust me so much?” Hannibal asked. “You’d simply dismiss this from your mind on my word?”
“You’ve done more than I have to make this work. Why wouldn't I trust you?”
“I betrayed you.”
“Do you actually think that or do you just know I think that?”
“I can see your point of view.”
Will smiled briefly. “When you choose to.”
“Yes. Shall we eat by the fire?”
“We can eat in the dining room. It’s fine, honestly.”
“No. As I said, I can see your point of view.”
He picked up the plates and held them out for Will to sprinkle on the chives. Will did and then followed him into the study. They sat facing the fireplace. The logs had burnt down a dull black, spiderwebbed with glowing embers.
“I have a job to do tomorrow,” Hannibal said. “A diagnosis of sorts. You know the Saint-Ypres Vineyard?”
“I’ve seen the sign.”
“The owner wishes me to discover what has gone wrong with a batch of his rosé.”
“How?”
“With my nose.” Hannibal smiled faintly. “Not a task I’ve used it for previously, but I am unfortunately familiar with most ways in which wine can suffer. It will be interesting from a technical standpoint. You may come if you wish.”
“I’d like that.”
They ate in a silence that waxed more uncomfortable as the food disappeared, at least for Will, who still had things he felt he ought to say.
“I saw the fish," he said. "Did you leave the lid off on purpose?”
“Not consciously.” Hannibal lifted a hand and let it fall. “It’s possible. Of course I wanted you to know. It seems I want you to know everything these days.”
“Disturbing?”
“Incredibly.”
“Do you remember that guy at the market in town last week, the one selling asparagus who called you—“
“I remember. Please don’t repeat it.”
“I wanted to let you do it. I wanted to do it myself. I remember looking at him and thinking he just… He had to go.”
“Will. You cannot— You must not say things like that. It gives me too much hope, and I know you don’t mean it.”
“I feel guilty for making you live like this. I know that’s fucked up. Beyond fucked up. But I do.”
Hannibal was silent for a long time. A log cracked and partially collapsed into coals. Flames flared up briefly, and a light rain pinged off the roof.
“The man you mentioned, I have not thought of him since that day," Hannibal said.
“I have.”
“And now that you have recalled him to my mind, ask me what I want most in this moment.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to take you to bed.”
Will turned to look at him. “Really?”
“I won’t say that I am substantially changed, but where one puts one’s focus and attention does make a difference.”
He stood and held out his hand. Will took it and let Hannibal reel him in close, free hand sliding over his hip and the curve of his ass. Hannibal kissed him and kissed him, light, individual presses of his lips to Will’s mouth and jaw and neck.
“Bed,” Will told him, but he didn’t move. After spending the evening at odds, he was entirely happy to stand in the circle of Hannibal’s arms and know that he was welcome.