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The first time Will calls, he's praying to the air in front of him that Hannibal doesn't pick up. He's sitting at his kitchen table, one hand clutching his phone so hard it might break–the other tapping against the old mahogany. The clock on the stove reads a burning 2:37 am, and while he feels wrong, there’s something safe about it being so late. There’s something safe about calling the BSHCI just to speak to Hannibal Lecter. It’s like homecoming week at the church he was raised, touching those red cushioned pews, feeling the preachers words deep in his gut. Words that are all nostalgia but make him believe, even if it’s just for a night.
He can't say he's even sure why he's calling. There's no reason for him to do this, no reason for him to have carefully removed himself from the bed with Molly, to have taken footsteps so light that even he can't hear them, to have checked on Walter, to have clicked the number he saved in his phone two months ago when he first thought about this.
The woman who had picked up seemed displeased with the entire thing. It’s late, she likely was watching a movie, and who would ever call for Hannibal Lecter? He's sure people did, people who were fans, women devoted to him, wannabe copycats, journalists, and everything in between. Hannibal probably gets hundreds of calls a day, he knows, he got calls when he was there. Something about that sets his skin ablaze, every atom in his body thrumming; he refuses to call it jealousy. It's something akin to that, maybe, but it could never be that. Whatever this is, it was delicately placed in Will by Hannibal. It’s a fabrication.
Still, the woman puts him through. She told him that it was late, that he probably wouldn't answer, but Will had all but begged. His voice broke over a whisper, and he had to catch himself. If Molly woke up, if she knew what he was doing right now, it would throw his carefully cultivated world off-balance. He can’t lose this, this life he has worked so hard to have, because of Hannibal.
The phone rings three times before he hears the click of it being picked up. It's only a handful of seconds, nothing in comparison to the time that they’ve spent together and apart, he knows that, but this moment feels like a lifetime.
His eyes close and his forehead presses against the cool table. Hannibal can surely hear his breathing, and a part of him wonders if he can recognize the uneven way it hits the table. If he knows just by the sound alone, that this is Will calling. (He wants him to, he won’t admit that to himself either, but he wants Hannibal to know it’s him so badly.)
"Hello?" Hannibal's voice is low, accent thick, still half-asleep.
That's why he called; he realizes so suddenly that it gives him whiplash, almost throws him out of the chair. He needed to hear his voice; his memory was warping the cadence, the accent, the way it made everything still when he heard it. In spite of all that, the voice is the same, albeit staticky over the phone, but the same one he found himself imagining when he gave himself time to pause and think. He hadn’t forgotten it, misplaced it, changed it. The voice in his memories is still Hannibal’s.
Will swallows hard, his lips part to say something, anything really, but he pulls the phone from his ear and hangs up. He lays it face down beside his head and wraps his arms around his shaking form, one of his hands brushes over the scar on his abdomen and he tries to remind himself what Hannibal is. What he did.
What Will did to cause it.
For a long time, he sits at the table, trying to collect himself. He’s cold, shaking, sweat soaking through his shirt. The scar across his stomach twitches, a misbeating heart flutter. Something that makes his mouth fill quickly with hot, sick, saliva. That one word, Hello, rings between his ears.
The second time he calls, it’s 3:45 pm on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.
He’s sitting in his car, and he knows that this is wrong. The first time was a mistake, but this? This had the potential to become a pattern. Worst of all, he’s calling at a time when he knows the conversation will be short, stilted. It has to be, if it isn’t he’s scared about what it would turn into. The anger that burns through him at war with the need to have the understanding they once had. But this is the life he wants now, he knows that. This is just… it’s closure. The last bit of it he’ll need.
He’s clicked through, they hardly give him a fight, and the phone only rings once. He can’t settle his hands, his leg is jumping in place, bumping against the bottom of the steering wheel, and his fingers pick at the seam of his pants. He’s burning, burning, burning. His stomach twists, and his jaw locks in a way that makes him almost sure he’s going to vomit, but he bites his tongue to stop that, waiting.
The phone crackles, he thinks he can hear Hannibal breathe in and he tries to cement that to memory. Something for later, when he’s alone in the shower, hand around his aching cock, and Hannibal is the only thing on his mind. “Hello?”
Will swallows, his hands tremble and he wonders why–
“Hannibal.” He whispers like the prayer of a sinner in a church foyer. Like God might hear him and cover him in the blood of the lamb. There isn’t anyone to hear him, though, that he’s sure of. If there was he wouldn’t be calling Hannibal Lecter like he’s an addict looking for his next fix. He doesn’t know why he’s whispering then, there’s no one here to listen in. No one will ever know about this. Not God, not Jack Crawford, not Alana Bloom, not Molly Foster Graham, not-
There’s a pause on the other end, a shuffling noise. The voice that answers back breathes his name like resurrection. “Will.”
“This is gonna be short.” He watches as the line moves up and his car rolls with it, his left hand on the steering wheel. “I only have a few minutes.”
This is so fucked, he knows it is. If anyone knew about this, god he can’t even imagine what would happen. He already gives them a fake name when he calls, if Alana were to check the records it be over. He’d be admitted, at the very least. Served divorce papers, stripped of his gun rights, stripped of everything. They might call in a priest or a pastor or whoever to perform a fucking exorcism, just as he had when he was a boy in the deep bayou’s of Louisiana. He needs one, to rid himself of the possession Hannibal has on him, to unclench his claws into him. He needs something, anything, so he can enjoy this life – the normality he’s worked so hard to get.
The voice on the other end remains low, as if he knows that whatever this is, it’s a secret from everyone. “I expect no less.”
“I just,” he doesn’t actually know what he wants to say. There are a million things he should say. A million things have lingered between them from the first time they met in Jack Crawford’s office.
However, he doesn’t have the time to say them all, though, and he might never. No, he squeezes the phone until it hurts, he will never. Not might. This is not going to happen again, he refuses to let it happen again.
His mouth is dry, throat constricting, and he makes this horrible noise that almost sounds like desperation. His eyes are darting through the crowd of people. Minutes have become nothing as the cars roll forward. “I just needed to know.”
“What do you need to know?” Hannibal is playing with him. The words are on his tongue, Will can feel it, Hannibal wants to say them, but he just wants to hear Will ask for it more. He knows why he’s called, but he can’t just give. Not after everything.
The door to his car opens in haste. Will jumps, blinks, and moves the phone from his ear, presses it to his thigh, clearing his throat.
Hannibal hears him, but Will sounds far away now. Suddenly, he’s a completely different person, and they both know it. Will nearly cringes when he feels his own mask come up, knows that Hannibal can see right through him, right through his person suit. “Hey buddy, how was school?”
There’s a brief shuffling, Will knows that Hannibal can hear them talking, whether it’s muffled or not, He’s trying to end the call, his fingers skitter over the buttons to click his phone off.
His son goes on about school, and Will keeps his phone so tightly in his hand that by the time they make it home he has lines indented into his skin.
The third time Will calls Hannibal, he’s decided on what he needs to say to him. Or well, what he needs to ask of him. It might not be fair, but when has he and Hannibal ever dealt in fairness?
“Will?” The voice asks cautiously.
Will sighs, somewhere between relief and despair. It’s edging more and more towards relief every time he hears the static of Hannibal’s voice. He’s stopped praying to the air that Hannibal won’t answer. These feel like steps backward, but he finds that he’s getting more and more comfortable with that. “Yeah, it’s me.”
He can practically hear the way Hannibal smiles, he can see it. It’s the smile of the Devil. “You’re the only person that calls.”
Will feels something bubble up in his chest, something he almost mistakes as warmth. His face fights to smile, a possessive part of him wants it so bad, but he keeps himself still. Neutral. This is just like a business deal.
“Am I really?” His voice gives it away, southern drawl, honeysuckle sweet around the edges. That second of bliss.
“The only one that calls and lets me speak first” He clarifies, but it doesn’t deter Will like it should. “It’s getting late, Will.”
He glances over to the clock on the stove. 1:57 am. It’s not getting late, it is late. His wife and child are asleep, and he’s calling Hannibal like he’s some affair partner they can’t know about. “I know that.”
Hannibal moves, Will can hear something, maybe the cot they try to pass off as a bed, shifting. “It’s a better time then?”
Will laughs, maybe the closest thing to a true laugh he’s felt come out of him in who knows how long. He cuts it short, remembers himself, where he is. Anything too loud and his world will shatter. “It’s never a good time.”
Hannibal hums, displeased, but he seems to know that, as well. No one calling late at night for a few minutes at a time is supposed to be doing that. There are people that can hear. Hannibal must know that. “I see.”
There’s a moment, he has to regain control over the situation. If he lets the displeasure in Hannibal’s voice seep into him, he might say more than he should. He might confess something that’s recorded, something he can’t take back. A sort of confession in a church, the kind that would get him judged, haughty eyes staring at him as he walks up the isle, whispering Lord Have Mercy, and Bless His Poor Momma’s Soul.
He isn't going to hang up, he knows that much, but the words don’t want to come out. They are locked behind a cage of teeth, they are locked behind a scar on his abdomen, across his forehead. They are locked up just as Hannibal is and Will struggles for the key.
He’s scared of the two possible answers; he’s scared that either will haunt him. Neither is good for him, at least, he tells himself that. “Was it real?”
“It?” He’s taunting him he thinks. He wants to wring him dry.
Will grits his teeth, thinks about leaving the kitchen here and now and hanging the phone up. Never calling again, pushing even the idea of calling again so far away that he forgets that Hannibal Lecter ever existed. “You know what I mean, Hannibal.”
Another moment of silence passes between them. Maybe Hannibal can sense his thoughts, maybe Hannibal is the God that Will is always pretending isn’t real, but whatever it is, he answers him this time. Tired, and Will could be forgiven for thinking that Hannibal’s voice sounds uncharacteristically wet. Could be forgiven for thinking that it quivers. “Yes, it is real.”
Will’s shoulders slump. The yes rings around in his head just like that first Hello did, makes a place for itself among everything good in his life. “I just needed to know.”
Hannibal takes a heavy breath, like his lungs have been starved of air for years. “How I feel about you is constant, Will. It always has been.”
“Never changing?” He burns when he asks, Hell on his heels, his voice is almost too loud.
The fire inside him is all-consuming these days. Every time his finger slips over the phone number, it burns hotter. Even when he isn’t calling, when he’s just staring at it. (He finds that most night he gets out of bed, sits in the pitch-black kitchen, and stares at the BSHCI contact in his phone. He doesn’t call, but his eyes burn from staring, or from tears, or from something else entirely.)
“Well,” there is the ghost of a laugh in Hannibal’s voice, “it may prove to grow stronger in your absence.”
He nods, even if Hannibal can’t see it. Lets the sound of his voice wash over him, baptizing him. It finally begins to rip up the floor that Will had so carefully laid in this new room of his own Memory Palace. He lets it, doesn’t fight it, even if he knows he should. Even if he’ll go to fixing it tomorrow. “Okay, thank you.”
The other end of the line is silent for a moment. “Is that all?”
Will leans back in the chair, trying to see into his bedroom to make sure Molly is still asleep. “Yes.”
“This bothers you so, despite your life with your wife and child?” Hannibal asks.
He presses his lips into a thin line. Even now, he knows Will better than anyone. Even now, he wants to get under his skin like some parasite. “Goodnight, Hannibal.”
On the other end of the line he sighs. “Goodnight, Will.”
The fourth time Will calls Hannibal, it isn’t out of necessity, it isn’t out of a desire to know something. It just is. He slips from the bed with practiced ease, checks on Walter, and then finds his place in the kitchen.
The voice on the other end is coated in the kind of smile Will can picture, the kind he’s seen on Hannibal’s face before. It doesn’t take much to divine it, it’s always been a fond memory of his, even when he was certain he hated Hannibal. It helps make it feel like Hannibal’s sitting right across from him, like he could reach out and touch his hands. He wonders if Hannibal imagines the same.
There’s a scratching on the other end, the smile he has can’t cover up the sound of it. “Hello, Will.”
Will finds himself smiling too, can’t help it. Nor does he do anything to stop it, even though he should. “Hey.”
“Late again? I’m becoming concerned about your sleeping schedule.” He’s awake too, though. Will wonders if Hannibal stays up every night now hoping that Will might call. He wonders if Hannibal can sense that Will wants to call every night, but doesn’t. (It wouldn’t be good for him to do that. That isn’t how closure works. It’s how sin works. Just one more time and then begging for forgiveness – buying his wife flowers, taking Walter fishing.)
It’s a nice enough image though, he finds that he likes the idea of Hannibal waiting for him. He never asked him to and he never would. Hannibal made that choice himself from the beginning, from that first day in Jack’s office all the way to him kneeling in the snow to now, sitting up at night and waiting to see if Will can separate himself from his wife long enough to call him.
He shrugs, hoping Hannibal can imagine his little gesture. The clock reads 2:12 am. “They’re asleep.”
“Is it easier to speak to me when you can pretend they don’t exist?” The scratching stops for a moment.
“I’m not pretending they aren’t here,” He says, but there’s no bite in his voice. Not like there should be, but he also isn’t pretending. He’s so aware that they’re here that he can’t relax fully.
Briefly, he considers what that really means. He’s fully aware that his family is in this house, that they trust and love him, and he’s fully aware that he’s sitting at the family table, where they eat dinner and laugh and talk about their days. He’s sitting at the table his family spends their time, warm and safe, talking to a man they believe tortured and abused Will for years. Molly has place settings, one for each of them. If he looks at the fridge, Walter’s report card is held up by an egregious fishing magnet that he got for father’s day.
This kitchen knows all the faces of Will Graham, and it does not seek out to judge him for any.
“No, of course not. However, you still call as if I’m your paramour.” Hannibal hums. “What does that say of you?”
Will bristles. It crosses his mind that, in a way, Hannibal is his secret lover. Not the kind one has after years of marriage, but the kind that someone has always wanted, wanted, wanted, but marries the person that’s the right choice. The smart choice. Just not the one they really want. He thinks there’s some kind of statistic about men who do this, and he hates that he’s a part of it.
Of course, he loves Molly and he loves Walter, but this… this is a dollhouse if anything. He doesn’t love Molly the way he should, and he knows that, as horrible as it is. He knows that she’s safe, and safety is the best thing for him. It keeps him grounded, it keeps him from becoming. She loves him and they have a good life, the one he always said he wanted. The one that was pounded into his head by the ideals of the South and the churches he grew up in.
Hannibal was his family first, at least, he wanted to be. Hannibal tried to build a family with him, in his own horrifying way, and Will rejected that. Rejected it and created his own, but still found his way back, like a loyal dog with his tail tucked between his legs.
That’s too much to think about right now. That isn’t what this call is about. “How was your day?”
Hannibal laughs then. It isn’t bitter, but it does lack something that Will is craving. “It’s the same as it is every day. I assume you know the routine.”
Will glances over to the fridge and looks at where the report card is. He can’t make out anything on it in the dark. He’s thankful for it. “Yes, I do.”
“Then why did you ask?” He’s more direct about it than Will is used to. It shakes him. He’s trying to do that.
Will tilts his head back, and stares into the blackness. “I don’t want to play this game with you.”
He’s tired of games. He doesn’t want it anymore, not with Hannibal. The only person who really knows him, who could look at him in a room full of people and know exactly what he’s thinking. They’re past the games, at least for now. This is just bare bones and honest. That’s what it needs to be.
Hannibal hums softly. “Then what do you want?”
The answer is immediate. “To talk.”
“You want to pretend I’m not where I am. That you didn’t send me here.” Hannibal’s voice isn’t sharp, but it still cuts.
Maybe he does want to play, but not a mind game, not like the one they’re so accustomed to. “Yes.”
A few beats and Will almost lets himself think that Hannibal might hang up the phone, but that’s a foolish thought. Hannibal has never hung up first, not since Will started calling and he doubts wholeheartedly that it may begin today. “My day was rather uneventful. It usually is. I drew a little, I have some lovely pieces of you but they don’t compare to the real thing.”
His lip quirks. “You’re drawing me from memory?”
“I am, right now.” Hannibal murmurs. “Unless you want to come here and model for me?”
Will sighs, hand on his face. “Don’t ask me to do that.”
Hannibal hesitates. “Are we not pretending?”
Will pauses, eyes still focused above him. If he looks forward, he can see Hannibal sketching at the other end of the table. Can see the way his eyes glance up at him and then back down to the page, furious concentrations as he tries to get the curve of Will’s jaw just right, as he gets all the regret and pain and disturbance in Will’s eyes. There's something innocent about it, about Hannibal drawing him, like they've never hurt each other before.
He sighs, exasperated. “Okay, okay. I’ll come down.”
“In my ideal world, I’d draw you nude,” he says.
Will shakes his head at that, and wants to laugh again. “How very Titanic. I would model for you, probably not nude.”
“That isn’t definitive.” Hannibal must feel like he’s won a small victory there. He probably wouldn’t let him draw him nude, but not definitely.
He’s tired, he needs to sleep. Molly will notice his absence if he’s gone too long. “No, I guess not.”
“I’m afraid to admit, I’ll never capture your likeness perfectly.” The scratching – the charcoals – stop on the other end. “Not even when we were face to face. There’s something about you, you defy me.”
“You’d have years to practice.” In my ideal world, Will almost adds. In my ideal world, you’d have years to practice and I would let you draw me nude and I’d let you do anything else if you’d only ask.
I’d have my way with you, just as you do me. You could cut me open, sew me back up, just to do it all over again and I’d push you to our bed and I’d fuck you. I’d fuck you until you forget who you are, and then after, when you’re tired and aching from being used in any way I want, you could draw me nude.
This isn’t either of their ideal worlds, however. This is the world they live in, the one they made for themselves.
“Yes.” Hannibal breathes. “I would.”
He doesn’t know why he says it. Can’t catch himself before the words are being whispered out like he’s back in the church foyer. This is the confession that gets him judged. This is only between him, Hannibal, and the air (and the recorder). “I’m yours, right now. Tell me how to pose.”
The fifth time Will calls Hannibal, it’s 12:07 pm. He should be fishing, but instead, he’s sitting on the bank of the river by himself. His tackle box is open, his fishing line broke, and his favorite homemade lure is tangled in the branches of a rotting fallen tree and getting it out has proven futile.
The voice on the other end is concerned, at the very least. “Will?”
“I miss you.” He says in place of a greeting. His face pressed hard into his knees and fuck, he feels like a child, but it’s true, and he needs to say it, and dammit, Hannibal needs to hear it. He needs to know the truth of it all. He needs to know that all he thinks about is him, even if he swore he never would.
He’s burned, cursed, flung into the depths of Hell.
This is Pandora’s box. He’s opened it, maybe he opened it the first time he called, and he knows that it’s only a matter of time before everything else slips through too. He finds that, despite how terrifying that is, he’s okay with the idea of it. Some things are terrifying, some things are meant to terrify, and then they burn, and then regrow anew.
A part of him will always think that he made a mistake. He should have run away with Hannibal, he should have escaped and they could have had so much more than this. They could have gone anywhere, they could still have Abigail.
He never should have called. He should have forgotten about Hannibal Lecter. He should have only thought about Molly and Walter. He should’ve been happy with with. Isn’t that what he always wanted? Doesn’t he finally have what he’s been told his whole life is good and right and normal?
None of that matters anymore. This is all some kind of replacement for the family he lost.
“I know.” His voice is soft and somehow the phone picks it up. Soft in a way, Will thinks he’s never heard before.
Will swallows around the thickness in his throat. Everything leads back to Hannibal, since that first call. No, before that first call. It always leads back to him, and he’s not afraid to admit that anymore (privately at least), that it always will. Even if he can’t have Hannibal, even if when he pulls Molly close to him in his sleep, he thinks about what it would be like if she were Hannibal. Even if this is all they ever have for the rest of their lives. “Do you miss me?”
The voice is still hushed, and Will divines Hannibal with him. The ghost of a hand on his shoulder, touching him in the way Hannibal always did. He wishes it was real. He wishes he could feel the warmth of Hannibal. “There isn’t a day that passes where I don’t think of you.”
Will squeezes his eyes shut, the sound of the river wants to overtake him, and it hurts. God, it fucking hurts to hear Hannibal say that. The words wash over him, they sting, saltwater against open wounds. The feeling of a horrific baptism, laid down in the lakes of Hell.
Pandora’s box is open. His voice is wet, his jaw trembles. “I wish you were here. I wish it was you in my bed, I wish that I didn’t have to divine you into existence every time we talk. I want you, even if it’s just over the phone, even if it’s only in-between months of this life. I want you, Hannibal, horribly, in a way that should get me institutionalized. I want to sleep in on Sundays with you, I want to taste your blood in my mouth, I want to know everything there is to know and I want to understand.” He breathes in; he hasn’t collected himself, but he can’t bear to hear what Hannibal might say back. “Okay?”
There’s a stunned silence on the other end. “Okay?”
He reaches out for his fishing pole, steadying his voice. “That’s it. Thank you, Hannibal.”
Hannibal takes a breath and he knows it trembles. “Of course, Will.”
He clicks the phone off, doesn’t allow Hannibal the satisfaction of reeling him in, not yet. Will stands, his phone is shoved in his jacket pocket, and he brushes the moist dirt from his pants.
His phone buzzes in his pocket.
The Canadian coast is cooler than he’s used to, but sunny. Will’s got his feet in the sand. Hannibal is late but he’s hardly concerned. Hannibal, he’s found, is late a lot these days. He gets caught up in his freedom, in driving, in going into town to buy groceries to cook Will whatever he so desires that day. It’s nice to be people in that way.
He hardly lets the phone ring. Hannibal always calls him first now, and that warms Will. It consumes him, the way a glass of whiskey with a lover might after a long day. His voice is warm on the other end. It doesn’t crackle, the phone is good for it. “Hello, beloved.”
Will smiles, leans back into the sand even though he knows it’s going to get in his hair and Hannibal will surely complain. “Where are you?”
He’s smiling, Will can hear it. “I’m on the way back now, I apologize.”
Will hums, the sand prickles his skin but he can’t find it in him to care. It’s good, it’s real. It’s evidence of the life. “You’re over an hour late, sweetheart.”
“I know, I’ll make it up to you.” He promises.
Will hums, waiting for the details of what could possibly make up for leaving Will alone this long. Hannibal being late might not concern him, but he certainly doesn’t care for it. He doesn’t want to be away from Hannibal if he doesn’t have to be. Three years was more than enough.
“I may have found us… a new pig,” he answers. “Something good.”
Will puts his arm over his face, and tries to keep the sun out of his eyes. “Is that what’s kept you away?”
“Yes.” Hannibal admits. “I was ensuring I knew where to find it when necessary.”
He’s still smiling, even though it pulls just a little too tightly on the scar on his cheek. “I reckon I can forgive that, then.”
Hannibal laughs. “How kind of you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just get back soon, okay? I miss you.” He isn’t whispering, there is no church foyer, there is no air, no God, no Jack, Alana, Molly, recorder at the BSHCI. This is just him and Hannibal, like it should have been from the beginning.
“I miss you,” Hannibal sighs warmly.
Will lets the words wash over him like he had before. It doesn’t hurt as it did then, it doesn’t burn. There are no open wounds for it to get into.
“Love you.” The words roll off his tongue with ease. This isn’t the first time he’s said it to him, and it won’t be the last, but it’s still new and strange. It still fights to come off his tongue.
Hannibal is still smiling, wide enough Will can hear it, and he’s probably way too happy for anyone alive's good. Will doesn’t care, though, even if he knows he should knock Hannibal down a few pegs for good measure. “I love you too.”
He hangs up, he still always hangs up first, warm and sated from hearing his voice. He waits until he hears the car pulling into the driveway, then he pushes himself out of the sand. It clings to his skin like a second skin, falling from his hair like rain. He moves through the sand, up to their house.
Hannibal will be displeased that Will is about to track sand over the hardwood and carpet, that he’ll have to clean sweep and mop and vacuum, but he steps through the door anyway.