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Their relationship is a peculiar transcript. Written in blood, carved with violence, brilliant red on bone white marrow, pulsating oaths into their systems, and intertwining their forms into a single cohesive being after all the fights and vengeance went down in flames.
These days, he wakes up wondering how it would feel like to be gentle.
Sunrise, bitter coffee, eggs on toast if not with jelly. Sometimes he skips breakfast but Hannibal still prepares him a plate. He’ll sit and watch TV, hearing the spoon and fork scrape the plate when the food goes to waste and grips the back of his newest stray just a little tighter until his heartbeat comes down.
The last time someone touched him tender was probably Molly, but he can’t recall any of those memories. Instead, he remembers broad hands, all over him, cupped under his chin as he’s fed porridge or soup or something he can’t quite recall entirely but that touch. That hand. That warmth and the skin, the little scrape of a cut under the thumb - Will knows. It was Hannibal. Not Molly.
Rough sea, rocking boat, he’s trying to breathe, trying to keep him alive under the weight of the storm and he kept shaking him hard. Kept shouting for his name. His voice was so rough, scraping his throat raw because he needed to be heard. He needed him to hear : Don’t you fucking dare die on me now.
Sunday church in Louisiana. He used to follow his neighbour for service every week while his father struggled to flush yesterday's alcohol out of his body. His own religion was frothy in bottles. Over time, he’d succumb to it, on his knees, clutching his chest for mercy and he wouldn’t be granted one. His neighbour would call Will at college telling what had happened and Will would remember her hand around his as his father was lowered down. Six feet underground and he’d toss the dirt onto the coffin as Jolene gripped his shaking shoulders.
Waves lapping at his feet when he turns forty five. Paws next to him, turning in circles, whining softly asking to be let free but he cannot, it’s a dog-free beach so he keeps the leash and looks over to the right where Hannibal’s lounging under the large tree. Remnants of birthday lunch surround him as he lies on his back, straw hat over his face, khaki pants rolled up to his shin on left side and left a bit longer on the right one. His arms folded under his head, making him look picturesque.
Last night, Will told him that he was happy.
It’s been five years since they fell. Head first into the ocean. Five years trying to make up his mind whether he wanted to stay or run. Whether he wanted to pick up the phone and make that call. Five years of yes or no or maybe, and endless nights spent awake sipping on whiskey trying to chase away worries. Wedding band rolling between clumsy fingers, falling with clatter each time and he’ll go down with it onto his face. Found fallen and curled onto his side on the worst of the nights, when morning comes.
Five years of slapping away tentative hands trying to reach, clinging to the broken float on the water, soaked to the bones but refusing help because he couldn’t. He just couldn’t until suddenly, he can.
Now he makes his way back to the tree, Lily in tow, sullen in her resignation to never be unleashed on this beach. Nose down, paws dragging and Will plops next to Hannibal on the picnic blanket with a huff. Puts an arm around her and forces her down as well and she comes easy. Slots herself between two human bodies and places her snout on Hannibal’s belly. Turned away from Will. Sulking.
Lazy eyes peer from the rim of the hat as Hannibal gazes down at her, bringing a hand to rub her head. “I don’t have a say in your freedom, dear.” He says, voice raspy from sleep and the cigar he shared with Will after their meal.
Will snorts and tosses the leash onto his chest. “She’s free as long as she doesn’t roam the beach on her own,” he hums. He shakes off the sands from his feet and tips onto his back, stealing the hat from Hannibal’s face when the sun glares too harshly at him.
The disapproving cluck of a tongue makes him smile. The shuffle of bodies as both Hannibal and Lily rearrange themselves to fit Will in until they’re comfortable under the tree.
For a while it’s just the sound of the waves, gentle as it kisses the shore, pulls away and returns again. The breeze is quiet, excepting the rustle of the leaves above them that sings a soft lullaby.
From his right, Hannibal interrupts. “Would you prefer your dinner outside or inside?”
“The house you mean?”
“Restaurant or home.” He clarifies.
“Home.” Will says.
He doesn’t have the energy to face many these days. Friday market, Saturday fishing and the occasional free lancing at the auto shop are adequate to keep his social life going. One Sunday he goes on hikes with Lily these days. No more churches. No more bibles or rosaries, or prayers before meals because there’s no need to set examples to a child that doesn’t genetically belong to him.
“But I’m cooking,” he says.
“You burned a casserole the last time you tried.” Hannibal reminds.
There’s no judgement but Will flaps an arm blindly, satisfied when it hits Hannibal on the jaw. He leaves it there, lets it be taken hostage by Hannibal’s hand and brought to his mouth for a kiss.
“If that’s what you want -,”
“I want to order in,” Will announces. The shiver of want boiling from the kiss makes him change his mind rapidly. “Or maybe we can just pack something on the way back home. Something light.” He suggests, feeling his chest ache from a breath he doesn’t know he’s holding in.
He lets it out in a rush.
It’s not a new gesture. The kiss. It’s been there for maybe three years now. Or four if Will counts the first time Hannibal did it and was slapped hard across his face until his sharp eyetooth caught his lower lip and tore and blood dripped.
“Don’t - Don’t do that.” Will had warned. Feet stumbling backwards, the hem of his pants too large because it was measured for Hannibal, dragging and almost making him fall. His hands had shaken. His entire body felt that way as well.
He remembered drowning in whiskey until he passed out in the living room for the first time that night.
He remembered Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder. Touching just so briefly until he stirred and his flat voice telling him that it was morning and maybe he would like a softer surface to sleep on instead of the cold tiles.
The next time he’d dared was after a year or maybe close to that. When Will had stopped flinching or distancing himself every time Hannibal came near. When Will had called him a coward instead for creating the distance between them when it was him who drew the line and Hannibal carefully minded his steps.
But Will had denied. “It’s you.” He had said. You made me do this, do that and plunge to death. You made me come here and an array of complaints he dumped on Hannibal on the dinner table, fork and knife clattering as he speared a steak he was sure came from a human.
It’s you, you and you.
“The veil of naivety you insist on wearing has large holes on them, Will.” Hannibal had told him. “As a matter of fact, there is not enough fabric to cover the sins you’ve committed under no duress but your own choice. Your own accounts and yet you continue to play the victim. You continue to blame everything on everyone but yourself.”
In another word, he told him to look in the mirror and Will didn’t need a mirror to look into. The back of the damned silver spoon was enough for that job.
“That’s not the point,” he hissed. Because it wasn’t. He wanted to warn about something but entirely sidetracked into a field full of landmines. So he tried to scramble his way out.
“You can’t go flirting around with other people while introducing us as - as - partners.” He gritted out.
Murder husbands, Freddie wrote once and it kept ringing in his head every time they came across someone from this town. Eyeing them like they didn’t know how to approach two gay married men.
Honestly, Will didn’t know how either.
But that’s a different load to unpack. One too heavy and too full of creepy crawlies he didn’t want to face that night.
Unfortunately, Hannibal poked. “Rest assured, that was not my intention, Will, and even if it were so. It astounds me that you would care.”
Will had scoffed, hidden behind another complaint about the choice of image Hannibal decided to paint for them in order to settle here. “You said we’re married. Unless you’re graduating to a cheating partner.”
The argument wasn’t settled but the dinner was done. The night pulled over and lifted up for the sun. On their following Friday market, Hannibal took his hand in front of the fruit seller and kissed the back of it.
His eyes dared Will to slap him again. In front of all of those people. Make him bleed and see Will quiver in return but that hadn’t happened at all. Instead, Will let him have that show and smiled with his teeth baring.
And so followed the third, fourth and many times afterwards.
It was so frequent that it became normal.
A good morning kiss on the back of Will’s hand if he didn’t drink himself into a stupor and helped with the dishes after breakfast. A thank you kiss on the back of Will’s hand if he did the laundry and folded and kept them after as well. (Even if Hannibal will rearrange them later when he wasn’t there to notice).
A kiss in the passing. On the back of Will’s hand. In the heart of his palm. On the inside of his wrist. On the tips of his fingers if there was too much wine.
A kiss to his cheek on Hannibal’s 54th birthday when Will had gifted him a watch.
A kiss to the crown of his head after a haunt. Soaking in blood, smelling like iron, watching fire eat up the evidence in the depth of the night. The hand around his wrist kept him anchored to reality because his head couldn’t stop swinging between right and wrong.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Stay right here. With me.”
Gone were the days when Will used to ask, “Where else would I go?” Because there were so many places he could go and had been and would never like to go ever again. So he would hold back as tight as he could and breathe in. Let the pressure around his skin and flesh and the knowledge that it's Hannibal keep him grounded.
A kiss that was nothing bloomed into something from there on forth.
Somewhere between the cheek and the heart of his palm, Will began to feel the trickle of want. And now under a shady tree at the beach, it sizzles and burns his skin.
“Too full from lunch?” Hannibal asks. Will’s hand still clasped in his hold. Tucked under his breastbone, near Lily’s nose. Her breath huffs warm and wet every now and then. Reminding Will of what they have become.
A family of sorts.
It took years, revelation like skin peeling off his flesh. Blood and tears and splintered bones but now they’re here; Hannibal, Lilly and Will. A family all the same.
It warms him to realise that. Like the silken chocolate sweetened with marshmallow on the worst of the winter nights, it gives him the ultimate sense of comfort to know he’s where he finally belongs.
“Something like that,” he sighs, giving a squeeze to Hannibal’s hand and he tries it for once.
This thought he keeps having these days: how would it feel like to be gentle.
He brings their hands to his mouth and kisses the back of Hannibal’s. Warm and dry.
His heart thunders in his chest and Will keeps his eyes closed. Keeps his breaths even as he brings their hands down. This time they fall into the small space between their bodies. Hannibal doesn’t take it to his chest again.
Will tries to not think too much but he’s curious what’s going on. What his action has made Hannibal think. If it was too much or -
“What would you like?” Hannibal asks, interrupting his thought.
“What?”
“For dinner.”
“Oh.”
He runs a number of choices through his head, skipping through all, feeling nauseous at the thought of food because his stomach is full of proverbial butterflies. Wings flapping with anticipation.
Never has he ever thought he would feel alive like this again.
Not in the way a pact hunt made him feel.
The adrenaline is almost cloying thick and simmering. Giving him ulcer the more he suffers in silence.
He wants to know. He wants to let know. But he also knows that Hannibal already knows. It feels like a collision between adulthood and teenage years.
The logic and understanding are there but just because they are there doesn’t mean he’s not nervous. Because, god fuck. He is nervous.
He sits up at once. His hand jostling in Hannibal’s hold, the straw hat falling onto his lap while Lily obliviously naps between them. Hannibal’s thumb presses over his pulse and when Will turns to look, half hooded eyes are already gazing at him.
Veils with holes, Hannibal once said. I can see you, you can see me, so why try to hide?
Breathing in the salt air, Will feels a certain tranquility as he leans down. The hand in Hannibal’s, he lets him keep. While the other he brings to support his weight. Palm pressed to the surface on the side of Hannibal’s head and he hovered there for a moment.
A silent warning, for what he’s about to do.
But Hannibal doesn’t move, doesn’t push him away, simply awaits there on his back. One hand on Lily, the other gripping onto Will’s, chest swelling and sinking with irritating steadiness. Eyes as calm as the ocean today while Will feels unhinged.
Nerves frying and heart racing as he leans down and kisses him gently. On the mouth.
Their lips meet, partly dry and partly wet. They stick when he pulls away. His breath stutters out of his nose and he shivers as the breeze tickles the back of his neck.
“This okay?” He asks. Voice a broken whisper as he goes in again. Stuttering in his lean, waiting and fearing to be pushed but Hannibal sits up, meets him halfway with a sigh.
Will kisses his top lip, moves to his lower one and feels them drag against his own, slide and slot back in. Over and over again, intervened by incrementally softer sighs.
His palm aches from supporting his weight and he bends lower, pushes Hannibal down so he’s flat on his back and Will can lie on top of him. But he forgets to count Lily between them.
She yelps at the sudden weight and takes off in a sprint.
“Shit.” Will curses, scrambling onto his feet and stands for a second, eyes wild between the distance where Lily ran to and Hannibal in front of him. He runs.
The wind whips at his cheeks in fury as he runs towards the ocean. Lily in her abrupt freedom has decided to chase the waves to where they come from.
Her mouth stretched into a grin in glee. Cream fur - a result from the mix between a mutt and a retriever, Will thinks - gleaming pale yellow under the shy sun. She’s drenched in salt water, her medium built doing strong strokes as she navigates her way through the waves like a pro.
“Come back here,” Will hollers at her after his whistling failed.
He's hips down in the water, chasing Lily along the shore, thankfully, and not deeper into the sea. Sea foam clings to his shirt and naked arms. When he turns he can hear Hannibal clearer, calling his name. Walking on the sand, tracing their paths while staying dry on land.
Will dunks his head under the water because it doesn’t make sense to stay quarter dry. Might as well, he thinks and dunks again. Lily swims a circle and returns to him. Tongue lolling sideways in excitement, looking to play. Likely thinking she’s been forgiven.
Will waits patiently until she’s close enough. But the moment he moves to catch her, she paddles away.
“Christ.” Will huffs, letting the waves wash him ashore, trying to think of a better trick to coax her when he hears Hannibal call him again. He looks.
“Nobody’s here,” Hannibal says. Stepping closer towards the sea. Wet sand under his feet, toes sinking in and he’s so pale in comparison to Will.
Will doesn’t always notice it but when he does it seems to always take him by surprise. Like how his veins are blue compared to his green. The sand grains stand out on the white canvas of his skin.
His ankles are bare, speckles of salt and pepper hair climbing up his shin and the curve of his calf makes Will swallow a surge of need.
“Let her be,” he says. “She’ll return when she’s tired.”
His hair dancing to the wind, swooping across his face as he holds out a hand for Will to take. A carefree smile on his face, eyes crinkled at the edge with a kind of happiness that looks brand new on him.
Will takes his hand, then takes his face and kisses him again.
Resuming what he left behind in purchase of his over eager girl. Thumb over his ear and another under his mouth, tugging his lips to part as he swipes a tongue and tastes the salt.
His other hand hugs his waist and he pulls him into the sea. Tipping them over so they fall. Salt water rushing into their mouth and nose and Will laughs.
“Sorry,” he says, when they resurface. Not meaning it at all as he pushes his hair back from his face and watches Hannibal do the same.
Swaying with the wave, he grabs onto him again. Kisses the side of his face, along the edge of his jaw, teeth catching onto the stubble and skin and he feels Hannibal’s arms wrap around his waist and pull him in.
This time, he smiles into it. Slips his tongue in and feels the stroke of Hannibal’s against the muscle. Their teeth collide when Hannibal grins the same. His hands squeeze the flesh of Will's rear as fingernails rake down Hannibal's back. Hisses, gasps, muffled grunts and bites.
It's salty like sea water but Will wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially when he feels Hannibal laugh into it as Lily returns to their side, woofing enthusiastically to gain their attention. Her body colliding with theirs as a wave comes and crashes all three of them onto the shore.
Gentle, he thinks.
This is how it would feel like to be gentle. With you.