Chapter Text
February 28, 2015
Will Graham loves his husband.
I love my husband. Will forces himself to think the phrase word by word, mining for the truth in it. It’s something he’s begun to think of as a sort of motto to get him through his marriage- aware of the fact that it’s something only someone in a failing marriage would need to do.
I love my husband. I love my husband. I love my husband . My husband is brilliant, and clever, and generous. My husband takes care of me. My husband values my opinion. My husband fucks me well and frequently. My husband used to fly three hours each way twice a month just to see me, when we lived apart. My husband never complains about my night terrors. My husband is richer than God. My husband is the envy of everyone we meet, to the point where people think awful things about me, in order to come up with an explanation for why my husband would have possibly chosen me to settle down with- that’s how great my husband is. My husband sometimes seems as if he was created in a lab, a specimen called Perfect Husband.
I love my husband.
Will certainly doesn’t think he’d settled, marrying Hannibal. If anything Hannibal had been the one to settle, which Will is consistently reminded of when bearing witness to the shallow judgment of the Baltimore elite.
They are at such an event- Hannibal is charming snakes and Will is scowling into a champagne glass.
Hannibal is a handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered and obviously European. He dresses well, if showy. He turned fifty in January, though besides the little things- slightly more gray in his hair, wrinkles a touch more pronounced- Will finds he’s indistinguishable from the man Will had met seven years prior. Same three piece suits for near every occasion, same carefully gelled hair, same easily powerful aura. Hannibal Lecter knows how to command a room, and he is doing so, low voice talking conspiratorially about something or another to other wealthy, well-dressed socialites.
Will is trying and failing to not look as unpleasant as he feels. If Hannibal had once found Will’s sullen rancor charming, or at least quaint, he doesn’t any longer, which is evident from the glare he’s been shooting at him all night.
In all honesty, something had seemed off with Hannibal since around their first wedding anniversary, over a year prior, but Will had tried not to think too much on it- the honeymoon period couldn’t last forever, after all. Will wouldn’t say things had gotten bad until last Christmas, when Hannibal had informed Will last minute that he was going to Italy to spend a couple days with his sister and, “Don’t worry yourself with accompanying me, darling, just stay here and catch up with work and I’ll be back before you know it.” (Hannibal hadn’t actually called him darling, but it had felt like it, condescending and so much like the older men when fussy wives that Hannibal and he used to mock on the ride home from whatever obnoxiously fancy event- Will loved being able to resort Hannibal to rudeness, loved how his eyes would crinkle up as he would teasingly admonish Will for being so mean.) Will had spent that Christmas alone, not even able to bring himself to tell anyone that he was essentially abandoned with no warning. He didn’t even care that much about Christmas, which was why he felt he had no right to complain about what had happened, but it was shitty, and it was just another in a laundry list of shitty things Hannibal had done to him- things he never expected Hannibal to do.
Will watches and feels the frustration build like it's a part of him. It’s not easy for Will to look at Hannibal and not love him, but it is easy to look at him and not feel any love from him. There is a flash of something in the way Hannibal looks at him, and everyone else, when he himself thinks he isn’t being observed. Disdain, like they are barely human. Or as if Hannibal considers himself more than human.
Will has watched Hannibal look at people like that for over seven years. Will thought he was an exception to that look. He is no longer so sure.
My husband has a cruel streak. My husband is neurotic. My husband is possessive to the point of being controlling. My husband thinks as highly of himself as people think of him. My husband always has to be right. My husband keeps secrets. My husband no longer looks at me the way he used to. I can feel my husband losing interest in me the way I feel the heat from the sun or the chill of darkness- with complete certainty.
And then, in quiet moments, in a place in his mind he didn’t dare to examine fully, Will thinks:
There might be something deeply wrong with my husband.