Work Text:
Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. It's not a night twinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness.
Michel Foucault
*
Will woke with the blankets tangled between his legs and the fevered heat of nightmare clinging to his skin. He struggled free and sat on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. An oppressive silence hung around him. He glanced at the other side of the bed. Hannibal was gone.
Will’s first thought was to try to sleep again before he came back, but he was soaked through with sweat, overheated and thirsty and still shaking with the rapidity of his heartbeat. He went into the bathroom to wash his face and pull on a dry t-shirt. He didn’t find Hannibal there either.
Downstairs, he heard the kettle start to sing, quickly cut off. He hesitated, one foot on the top step, concrete chilling his toes, and then started down.
He leaned against the kitchen island while Hannibal filled the teapot and took down another mug. Steam twisted up from the steeping tea.
"Nightmare," Will offered.
"The same."
"I’m curious what you have nightmares about."
Hannibal gave him a thin smile. He tapped the spent tea leaves from the filter to the trash and poured for them both. "Spiced lemon verbena. Do you want honey?"
Will nodded. He watched the slow fall of dark gold from spoon to cup.
"Desolation," Hannibal said. "I dream of the absence of form. Of void."
"Lack of control. You don’t know which way is up."
Hannibal nodded once. "That’s likely a fair assessment. I dream of other things, now and then, but this one has been the most persistent of late."
"I think I fell into your dream tonight." He bent low over the counter and rested his head on his crossed arms. "I was running through the woods and then I just stepped off into nothing. Like I fell through a hole in the world."
"In the mind," Hannibal said. He looked out the kitchen window into the dark.
Will went to him and slid his arms around his waist. Hannibal set his mug down and held him so hard his bones creaked. One hand slid up into Will’s hair. Hannibal gripped the lengthening curls at the back of his neck.
They paused there for a moment, and then Hannibal let him go and stepped back abruptly.
"I need a haircut before I go back," Will said, after a moment of silence.
"I can do it. It’s not difficult."
"Really?"
"Sit down. I’ll get the scissors."
They settled in the dining room. Will sat straight in the tall chair at the head of the table and sipped his tea. Hannibal stood behind him. The rhythmic snick of the scissors soothed Will’s mind. He closed his eyes.
Hannibal roused him some time later with a hand on his cheek. "It’s done."
"Doesn’t feel much shorter."
"I prefer it longer."
"It's not getting in your eyes," Will said, but he didn't really mind. He might be glad to have the reminder, back in DC. He imagined thinking of Hannibal everytime he pushed it away from his face, and smiled.
Hannibal bent over him and kissed him upside down. He didn't offer to cut it shorter.
Will looked up at him. "What do you dream about when you’re not falling through the holes in your mind? What do you see when you hit bottom?"
"The chill of winter. Frozen mud. A pit of bones."
"Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you?"
"There is nothing to tell. Nothing that will explain me."
"I don’t want to explain you."
"Then what is it you want?"
Will turned in the chair to look up at him. "I want to know everything about you from the day you were born until the day we met."
Hannibal’s expression warmed, a faint relaxation of facial muscles, the beginning of a smile. "Is that all?" he said.
Will shrugged. "And to know exactly what you’re thinking every second of every day. But I’m trying to be reasonable."
"What were you running from in the forest?"
"I don’t know. I've had that one before, without the falling. I just know that I have to get away, and it’s tearing me up to run. Literally. Hooks in my skin and branches grabbing at me. It’d be easier to stand still and let it get me, but I can’t. I always run."
"Do you wish you could stand and face it?"
Will looked down at the floor, littered now with snippets of his own hair, like the ones that caught in the trees in the forest of his mind. A chill crept up from his bare feet and settled in his chest. He wrapped his arms around himself. "Maybe it’s better if I don’t," he said.
Hannibal pulled him upright and into his arms. They’d only done this a few times, these late night meetings. Normally, it was only Will. He got up and stayed up or else went to sleep in his own room. He still wasn’t used to having anyone with him, to having any source of comfort. He wanted to push Hannibal away, and he wanted to keep him so close that he’d never be alone again.
Hannibal leaned into him. The slant of their bodies held them together. Minutes passed. The house, modern as it was, still settled after the heat of the day. A cricket chirped somewhere, mostly drowned out by insulation and air conditioning. The clock on the sideboard ticked steadily.
"You’re safe," Hannibal told him. "Whatever pursues you, am I not worse?"
"Maybe. I don’t know, do I?"
"Do you honestly believe there is anything in you that is more frightening than I am?"
Will could feel the scourge of branches and vines, hear heavy breath behind him in the dark. "Yes," he said. "Yeah. I do."
Hannibal paused. "I would very much like to know that part of you."
Will ducked his head down as far as he could and hid his face against Hannibal's shoulder. Hannibal traced the lines of the scar on his back through his t-shirt. He didn’t move, and Hannibal didn’t move, and the second hand of the clock swung around again and again.
They could stand here all night, Will realized. Hannibal wouldn't push him away, wouldn't get bored or tired or impatient. He’d stay until Will wanted him to go.
"Whose hair did you cut before mine?" Will said. "That wasn't the first time you've done it."
"My sister's."
"What did she look like? Like you?"
"Similar. Sharp features, even when she was very young. White gold hair, perfectly straight. I imagine it would have darkened had she lived to grow up." He paused. "You're tired."
"So are you."
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I want to sleep."
"Then we should go back to bed."
"Not in bed."
"Is that where your nightmares hide? Under the bed? What proper monsters they must be."
"Don’t patronize me," Will muttered, but he smiled at Hannibal’s breath of amusement stirring his hair, and he backed off at last, immediately cold.
"Come," Hannibal said.
Will followed him into Hannibal’s study and let himself be pulled down onto the couch, stretched out between Hannibal’s legs and leaning back against his chest. He felt wrapped up in the dark as much as in the blanket Hannibal pulled over them. He turned toward the back of the couch and pressed his ear to Hannibal’s chest to hear his heartbeat.
"I’m picking up Winston from the airport next week," he said.
"It’s been months."
"There was a problem with his vaccination records."
"I thought perhaps you meant to leave him with Alana until you could bring him here yourself."
"You thought I didn’t trust you with him."
"I wouldn’t blame you."
"I know you’re not going to hurt my dogs, Hannibal."
"You sound very sure."
"I am very sure.
"I don’t see how you can be."
"Because you understand what they mean to me, but you don’t understand why, just like you don’t really understand why I’m so attached to you. It puts you and the dogs in the same boat." He paused. "And you don’t want to hurt me. Not like that, anyway."
Hannibal’s silence lasted several seconds. The rhythm of his heart neither picked up nor slowed down, but the press of his lips to Will’s forehead lingered. "I know very little about caring for animals," he said.
"I’ll leave you instructions. Don’t feed him fancy stuff the whole time I’m gone, you’ll spoil him. And probably give him indigestion. And letting him out in the yard isn’t good enough, you have to spend time with him." Will yawned. "He’s a good dog. You’ll like him."
"I hope you realize how unrealistic that statement is."
"I don’t know. You like me. I’m way more trouble than Winston."
"You don’t drool or shed on the carpet."
Will leaned up and licked the side of his face. Hannibal recoiled.
Will grinned up at him. "And my hair’s all over your dining room floor right now."
"I’m sure you have a few redeeming qualities, even if they escape me at the moment."
"It’ll be fine. I trust you."
"You’re a fool," Hannibal said softly.
"Then so are you. You said you’d hand me a knife and let me cut out your heart. And you did, didn’t you?"
"You presume I had one to begin with."
"Bigger than most. Bigger than mine, I think."
"All the better to contain the darkness within, my dear?"
Will poked him in the side. "This isn't a fairy tale, and you're not the big, bad wolf."
Hannibal paused. "Why were you never afraid of me?"
"By the time I knew enough to be afraid, you’d already done your worst. What was left to be afraid of?"
"Death. Pain. Most people fear those things."
"I thought I was losing my mind. Losing myself."
"A fate worse than death?"
"It was the cruellest thing you could've done to me," Will said quietly. "You have a particular talent in that direction."
Hannibal didn’t answer. He smoothed the blanket over Will’s shoulders, and Will settled between that warmth and Hannibal’s body. He could almost see his dreams waiting for him across a stream of dark water when Hannibal spoke again.
"I’m sorry," he said, so softly that the silence around them swallowed the words immediately.
Will tensed. "Don't say it if you don't mean it. Just don't."
"And if I don't know?" Hannibal spoke slowly, his hand on the back of Will's neck. "Regret, remorse. Both are foreign to me. Perhaps unrecognizable."
"Wait till you're sure. Maybe by then I'll have half a hope of forgiving you."
"Do you think so?"
"I don't know. I want to." He sighed and closed his eyes. "Tell me that story again. About the woman and the snakes."
Hannibal told him, in English and then in French. By the time he started on Lithuanian, Will was asleep, but the words followed him. He dreamed of a palace under the sea, of Hannibal greeting him at the gate like he had always belonged there.