Chapter Text
With a palm pressed flat against his spine to brace his back, Will flips the latch of the nursery window and pushes up the old wooden frame. Bright sun beams through and casts large blocks of rectangular light onto the floor, separated into four even quadrants.
Will steps back, passes his hand over the dividing shadows, and inhales a deep breath.
It’s late Autumn in southern Sweden. Colder, somewhere rural between Bastad and Torekov, than the bustling cities. Colder, where wind skims the Kattegat sea, grows frigid, and blankets the coast of the Bjäre peninsula with the stench of sulfur and brine.
Brisk air billows through the window, mixing with the smell of paint thinner and sun-bathed plastic.
Will looks up, cocking his head at the room before him—at the six long stripes of yellow paint warming the white stucco walls.
He digs through the front pocket of his coveralls and holds a paint swatch inches from his nose. A small, pale yellow square. Squinting an eye, he looks past the swatch and back to the wall, then tosses the swatch to the floor.
He sighs and smoothes a hand over his belly, as if to ask the two winter melon-sized pups growing inside of him if Weston Flax is any better than Dusty Daisy.
He could still see his feet in August when they first docked in Gothenburg. A slightly obstructed, but still very much there , spread of ten toes peeking out from under the stretched waistband of a threadbare pair of pants.
Whiskey and morphine. Boats and nausea. The fine line between miracles and mistakes.
Bonding as a defense against grave injury, against death—it was something Will had learned about in high school, in an Introduction to Dynamics class. Deo-epinephrine, vincular enzymes, Morsus Vitae, the ‘bite of life’ —he didn’t want to bond with Hannibal, just as badly as he didn’t want to walk the earth without knowing Hannibal was somewhere on it.
Will had meant to kill them both, but Hannibal was slipping, bleeding to death on the shore. His scent, fading fast.
He doesn’t miss the boat, or Chiyoh, for that matter, but he does miss those early developmental stages—the privilege of shifting more than an inch or two without rousing the zippy pups inside of him.
Will looks at the wall, then back down at the swatches. They look more and more like shades of scum and tartar the longer he stares. Nothing as sweet as Lemon Bar or as vibrant as Citrine Canary.
Red was an immediate no. Blue and pink too cliche. Yellow feels right, despite the test swatches on the wall oxidizing into shades of amber rot.
Even mistakes deserve a cozy place to sleep once they’ve left the womb.
“Not to your liking?” Hannibal asks, emerging from the hallway behind.
Will doesn’t turn, but runs a hand over his eyes and up into his hair. He tugs at the roots a little, then releases.
“The Weston Flax is more neutral than Cornsilk, ” Will says. “Although not as light as,” he pulls another swatch from his pocket, “Candlelit Dinner.”
“You turned your back on Sunny Afternoon,” Hannibal says, strolling to a stop just before the open window. He looks out into the courtyard.
Two small birds chase each other through the shrubs, chirping sing-song and eager. Leaves rustle and scatter where they dart in and out.
Hannibal’s scent mixes with the wind, clogs Will’s sinuses and wraps around his neck like a noose.
Mallow. Anise. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow—the shrub, not the days going by. Poison. Gelseminic Acid. Hopeanine. The little purple flowers that nearly killed Missy.
Alpha.
Will gnaws at the soft flesh of his inner cheek. He follows Hannibal’s gaze from the birds to the window trim, where it lingers for just a moment, before Hannibal licks his thumb and wipes a droplet of yellow paint from one of the hinges.
Hannibal’s attention drifts upward, eyes curious and sharp, and catches Will staring back.
Will swallows. An inconvenient heat creeps up the back of his neck and announces itself in the splotchy blush across his cheeks. Something runs warm and damp between his legs. It might be slick, or piss. He stopped trying to tell the difference months ago.
Hannibal’s lips quirk into a not-smile. Something knowing, but weary. His nostrils flare. His fingers twitch ever so slightly, and then, just as quickly, the moment is gone.
Hannibal regains his composure and returns his attention to the six stripes on the wall.
Slick, then.
Will clears his throat and speaks to the floor. “It was too saturated. It looked like French’s.”
Hannibal tilts his head at the wall.
“Mustard. French’s mustard,” Will says. “You’re still stuck on the—“
“Fiddlehead Green, yes.”
Will nods. “It isn’t bad.”
“I believe the word you used was suffocating.”
“Smothering,” Will scowls. “And dark. Too dark.”
With a purse of his lips, Hannibal continues to make his way around the room, hands clasped behind his back.
They need rugs, cabinets, shelving. A changing table, or two. Linens and blankets and deep wardrobes to shove them into. They need mobiles and stuffed animals and cotton bibs the colors of Jordan almonds.
Most of all, they need a cradle, round and wide enough for twins.
They found themselves in Sweden several months after their plunge into the roiling Atlantic by way of an old colleague—Professor Eric Kepler at the University of Gothenburg—a wealthy philosopher with an 18th-century Scanian farmhouse for sale.
Kepler was a relic of Hannibal’s stint in Paris as a young man, who knew him not as Hannibal Lecter, but as the curious and ever-fascinating polyglot Lucas Saunier.
Hannibal’s Swedish was shit, though he was reluctant to admit it, and his Skånska was even worse. Will guessed this was the reason for Hannibal and Kepler’s surviving connection: Kepler must have humored a younger, more ostentatious Hannibal—one donning an assembly of loosely stitched rags, rather than an expertly stitched person suit.
Kepler must have found him charming.
They had considered docking in Lisbon, Málaga, or Marseille—cities that Hannibal knew well—but for all its foreign strangeness, Gothenburg was far enough and inconspicuous enough for two American fugitives to call home. Kepler was “indebted,” according to Hannibal, and Will was happy to ignore the particulars if it meant securing a home in his final trimester.
The farmhouse wasn’t Hannibal’s taste, but it was Will’s.
High, vaulted ceilings. Large windows framed by unfinished wood paneling and laid brick. It sat in the center of a copse of pine and spruce, on a generous two-and-a-half acres of land, complete with a shed in the back with a neatly thatched roof. Playing house with Hannibal didn’t appeal to Will any more than it had with Molly, but it reminded him of Wolf Trap, with its well-worn interior and sturdy foundations.
By September, it felt more like Hannibal’s Baltimore home than Wolf Trap, fully furnished with his traditionally alphan ebony-stained oak pieces and baroque flourishes. Heavy armoires with Ball-and-Claw feet, Chesterfield leather sofas, neoclassical commodes, and the occasional modern sconce.
Will took care to furnish his own room at the opposite end of the house, building himself a small but noble nest.
Now, it’s little more than a humble scattering of thick quilts, unwashed clothes, sundries from the nautical mom-and-pop shops along the shore, and a mélange of uniquely shaped stones from the rolling hills nearby. Familiar and cozy enough to soothe an anxious mother, private and secluded enough to keep the monsters out.
Hannibal has yet to be welcomed in, and Will has no plans to extend an invitation—a sorry attempt at correcting what he feels was a grave mistake. Claiming Hannibal as a mate is a death knell, its toll only dampened by the announcement of their twins.
Will wants Hannibal. Constantly. But he doesn’t want to want him. And he doesn’t want Hannibal to know just how badly that need has festered.
All that’s left to furnish is the nursery, a decidedly joint effort, which means nothing has been agreed upon or purchased yet.
Not even a cradle.
“Have you given any more consideration to the drapes?” Hannibal asks, circling Will and scanning the room, pretending the dust and stained drop cloths are enough to hold his attention.
“No velvet.”
“I preferred the flocked jacquard myself.”
“Too heavy. Pups need light, as do most living things.”
“I’m not opposed to linen.”
“You are. In every color except beige, you are.”
“Hemp is breathable and takes well to natural dye—safflower, indigo, walnut. Are you familiar with shibori?”
“Wrinkles too easily. I’m not steaming curtains everyday, are you?”
“Perhaps a compromise, then. Raw silk fades beautifully in the sun.”
Will chuffs a dry laugh through his nose. “Sounds like a marketing gimmick.”
Hannibal’s lips twitch into a smile, then settle. He slides his hands into his pockets. “I’ve already ordered samples.”
“From Ekman’s?”
“Nowhere local. A supplier in Bologna.”
“You can’t find silk in this country?” Will scoffs. “I’m sure the shipping costs alone will have me crawling back to polyester.”
“Are you sincerely concerned about the cost?”
Will thinks, then— “No.” He crosses the room and sits on a small metal fold out chair to alleviate the strain on his back and hips. It’s a slow way down, but once he makes it it’s a godsend. He busies his hands with the crooked lids of paint cans and picks at clogged brushes.
Idle hands, idle hands, idle hands…
He steals a furtive glance at Hannibal when it's safe to look.
Hannibal looks good. Healthy. No longer sickly pale, swaddled in bloody gauze and makeshift splints in the cramped quarters of the boat. He’s regained most of the muscle mass he lost recovering from his injuries, and it’s hard for Will not to notice the way his trousers hug the strong curves of his thighs.
The thick, scarred edges of his mating bite peek out from under the low-cut collar of his wool sweater, and Will wonders if Hannibal covers it when he’s out alone.
It’s the only lasting symbol of their one-way bond, the scar of a claim Will never meant to stake. Is it humiliating? Degrading, even, for someone like Hannibal?
It would be a lie for Will to pretend it doesn’t please him in some way—the control, the imbalance of power. The impossibility of ever fully being the mouse caught in Hannibal’s eager claws again.
Is it worse to feel its absence?
“I’m expecting a delivery in Gothenburg in the early evening,” Hannibal says, carefully stepping over the blue tarp below his Oxfords. “I’ll need to collect it before 6. I thought we might attend a small dinner at Dr. Kepler’s home afterward.”
He bends down to pick up a discarded paint swatch, Falling Star, and raises it to the wall. He looks at Will like he always does—with more hope than Will could ever know what to do with—then down to where Will’s hands are rubbing wide, anxious circles over his bump.
Will forces a sigh. “I’ve been on my feet all morning.”
Will is tired, and appropriately apprehensive. With Hannibal, when have “dinner plans” ever just been dinner plans?
“It’s an hour to Varberg,” Hannibal says, taking a step closer. “Another forty-five minutes to the airport. You can rest in the car.”
“All cooped up? I’m waking up every hour as it is, it’ll be harder in the car.”
Will doesn’t say the obvious: all cooped up with your scent, your roasted hazelnut and peppercorn. The sweet olive bushes in Thibodaux, like sticky apricots, or the soft musk of swamp rose mallow rising from the surrounding wetlands of Lake Erie. All cooped up with every comfort meant to tempt me. All cooped up with the stench of rum and blood, of every vice asking me to forgive you.
“We’ll crack the windows. Drive along the water,” Hannibal says, eyes still fixed on Will’s hands, following as they circle out to the sore sides of his ribs. It’s an aching that isn’t kept secret. Will knows Hannibal burns to touch him, and Hannibal knows he can’t.
“You’ll add a half hour to your trip if we take the coast,” Will says.
“I can reschedule with the good doctor. You’re due in six weeks, it’s hardly unreasonable.”
“Don’t. You need the company.“
“Yours is far more appealing than the loose band of bohemian zealots and desk jockeys Dr. Kepler considers intellectuals.”
Will snorts and just as quickly catches himself. He wrestles his lips into a tight line and wipes his grin away with the back of his hand. He looks Hannibal dead in the eye. “I didn’t offer.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Will drums his fingers against his thighs before struggling to a very pregnant stand. He chews at his bottom lip and looks up at the ceiling.
He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t care. He should leave the room. “What did you order?”
“Something from home. Something I’d like to share,” Hannibal says, eyes bright and taunting.
Will raises a brow.
“With you,” Hannibal adds.
“From Baltimore?”
“Is Baltimore home, Will? It hasn’t been, I think, for some time.”
Will thinks about Molly—about their life in Maine, his dogs. About everything that felt too easy to let go of.
His teeth sink deeper into his lip.
A little over four hours in a car with Hannibal Lecter. A little over four hours in a car with his mate. Not his alpha, exactly, but his mate. Worse things have happened between them, surely. Things measurable by the width and length of various fruits, vegetables, and itty bitty legumes.
Miraculous mistakes.
“We’ll skip dinner. Windows down. All the way,” Will says, temples beginning to throb being so near Hannibal without scenting him, without touching him. Biology be damned, but the pups are kicking and clawing, too. Little pointy elbows and loose feet playing contact sports with organs and bones. Will grimaces, and for good measure, adds, “All of them.”
Will can practically taste Hannibal’s crooked smile, and he certainly smells his pleasure. It’s something sharper than sweet olive.
Your heady cypress and sulfur, like my stubborn father’s bad cologne. Your pride.
“Excellent,” Hannibal says. “We’ll be sorely missed, but the day will be even more thrilling for your charity.”
“It’s not my intention to provide the entertainment.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to try, though in my experience, you’re perfect company even when you try your hardest not to be.”
A warm blush spreads across Will’s nose like a bad rash. If he could rip it from his cheeks he would. Instead, he wipes a clammy palm against the back of his neck.
His throat feels dry and hot.
He needs to change his boxers.
He needs to get his head on straight.
A little over four hours in a car with Hannibal Lecter, after several months cooped up with him on a boat.
Worse things.
“We’re stopping in Halmstad for those fried almonds,” Will mutters, heading for the door.
Hannibal peers through the nursery window at the courtyard again.
The birds are gone. Small-but-there holes in the bushes and a smattering of torn leaves prove the fervor of their chase. “Have you eaten your way through the last batch already?” he muses.
Will blanches. He shoots Hannibal a threatening glare over his shoulder that says, in so many carefully chosen words, shut the fuck up.