Chapter Text
Memories of her parents were vivid and nebulous. Should she focus on any one moment with them, it faded like light on an untreated negative. Instead, she bathed in emotions left behind, soaking in them luxuriously. When she rose back out of the abyss of the past, she felt momentarily touched by them as if her mother and father were still alive. That warmth never lasted long, cooling quickly until it seemed it had never existed at all.
He was the one who lingered in her memory long after her mother vanished back to where she came from deep in her mind. Her father. The man who had groomed her to be his apprentice by taking her on hunting trips — for deer and another type of doe of the two-legged variety. Ones with long brown hair, wide eyes.
Young enough to have the world at their feet.
Old enough to be ripe for the picking.
They all looked like her. The girls who she had lured into her father’s crosshairs.
It hadn’t bothered her at the time. She was too busy basking in her father’s love to fully understand what she was doing, though part of her was aware. The part that observed everything with eyes wide open. There was no denying she was culpable in those girls’ deaths.
Was she proud of what she had done? Maybe. Maybe not. She wouldn’t trade the time spent with her father for anything. Thanks to him, she had a skill most people her age couldn’t comprehend. He had shown her a path that excited her like little else. Should she ever find herself lost in the woods for a significant period, she would survive.
She had been lucky.
When her parents had died, murdered in cold blood, she had nearly gone with them. Her father had killed her mother, then sliced her own throat seconds before bullets pierced his flesh, ending him. She could feel herself slipping away and had fought as hard as she could to reverse the inevitable. For a moment, she had considered letting go. The two men in the kitchen with her and her father had jumped into action, working feverishly to save her life.
She had been lucky.
Days later, she awoke in the hospital to find herself an orphan in name only. Yes, her parents were deceased. To her amazement —and annoyance, she can admit now — she had gained two godfathers of sorts. They couldn’t have been more different at first glance. Still, she had felt herself drawn to them.
One was nebbish though attractive, with curly brown hair, an unruly bit of scruff and owlish glasses on his baby face, and a professor’s wardrobe that seemed to have been acquired at a thrift store. His blue eyes were what had caught her attention and held it even now. There was a vacant quality to them that had made her wonder if he was haunted. He had killed her father, after all. She couldn’t decide back then if what had lingered was how horrible that act had been to experience … or how much he had enjoyed it.
The other had striking features and a wardrobe straight from Savile Row. Impeccably groomed; fabulously dressed. Never a hair out of place nor an outfit not purposely put together, he was the very definition of a gentleman. However, there was a savageness to him that appealed to her. He didn’t show it to her initially, keeping it well tucked away. Somehow, she had sussed it out intuitively. It helped that she had recognized his voice as the one who had called the house that fateful day and asked to speak with her father right before all hell broke loose.
She had been lucky.
Despite her devolving into a spoiled brat in reaction to feeling abandoned and alone and angry, the men stayed by her side when anyone else would have turned away. Such as the lady psychiatrist who, though nice, kept pushing her way into her life; that was one relationship she could do without. She had thought there might be potential with the journalist whose hair reminded her of wildfire. Alas, the woman had been just as bad as the female shrink — only more direct.
As it happened, her men had been able to stay close initially due to their professions. The professor actually did teach at the Federal Bureau of Investigation academy of all places. He also was a criminal profiler for the bureau who had been on her father’s trail. The gentleman was a psychiatrist who assisted with the bureau’s cases. Together, they swooped her up and did their best to keep the unwanted from her.
A lot had transpired from the time she had woken up in the hospital. She had “died,” for starters. It had been the gentleman’s idea and as she trusted him completely, she went along with it. What she didn’t like was that her “death” would come at the professor’s expense. Her fondness for him had taken longer to formulate, but once it had, it pained her to hurt him; to know the gentleman had been intentionally causing him great distress. He had explained it well enough for her to understand that it would be beneficial in the greater scheme. There was a sadness about the gentleman that ultimately had made the decision for her.
To this day, she couldn’t be sure if he had manipulated her or if he had let her see him unguarded for a moment. She suspected it was a mix of the two with an emphasis on the former. Though she hoped it was the latter.
Now, she lay awake in her bed in a mostly silent house. The clock on her phone showed it was going on six. Her internal alarm clock had made it pointless to set an actual alarm on these days. She knew what time he would get up to be out of the house not long after first light. He had been doing so for the better part of two years regardless of where they had been living. The men would get up together and she would hear them puttering around quietly, always careful not to wake her.
For so long, they had mostly succeeded until she had finally decided she wanted to have a real relationship with the professor. Not just the surface one for which they had been settling for so long. She had lost so much time while the gentleman had been scheming and she had been skittish. When she was reunited with him, she had vowed to herself to make it right. Easier said than done. It wasn’t until they moved into this house eight months ago when she took action, tired of the hesitant baby steps the two of them had been taking.
Saturdays were their day. The mornings belonged to them. She loved this time with him more than she could ever articulate. This was another thing she intended to correct one day soon. Over the years, she had lost so much that it pained her that her professor, her surrogate father, might not fully know how much he meant to her.
Thirty minutes later, she sat near the bottom of the stairs by the front door, dressed for the weather and their chosen activity. Luckily, it didn’t require a special outfit since whatever she wore with her jeans and boots would be covered. He came out of the kitchen on time as he always did, stopping when he saw her, a shy yet satisfied half-grin lifting one side of his mouth; the glasses that had made him look owlish long gone. Her heart tightened every time he looked at her like that. A constant reminder he liked having her with him.
“You’re up. Thought maybe you decided to sleep in.”
He said that every week.
“And miss all the fun? Not a chance.”
She said that every week.
The grin blossomed into a brilliant smile that brought about one on her face, as well.
“Let’s go get your gear, Abigail. The fish wait for no one.”
Will Graham had taken the most unconventional route to acquiring his family. He had always liked the idea of being the paterfamilias though his own upbringing had left a bitter aftertaste. In his own way, he had been a father in his previous life. Never meeting a stray pup he didn’t instantly forge a connection with, Will had acquired a furry brood to call his own. Of all of them, it was Winston he missed the most. The golden-haired mixed breed had been the last to find a place in Casa Graham.
Their meeting had been kismet as Will had been feeling lost, unmoored when he happened upon Winston roaming an empty road late one night. Providing the dog a home and a bath had given Will purpose in the interim. Winston had taken to Will as much as Will had to him, the pooch seemingly keeping a watchful eye on his broken master during their short yet meaningful time together.
While he had no way of knowing what had become of his beloved dogs once he had walked away from his old life, Will still spent time with them in his memory palace. This was a hall of residence in his mind where he could stay for hours visiting with old friends or enjoying some peace away from the disquiet of the outside world. It was here he played fetch with his pups, fed them, bathed them, lay with them on the floor in front of the fire. His heart ached a little less after each visit.
The first time he met Abigail Hobbs had been awkward and tense to say the least. He didn’t count their initial encounter in the kitchen of her childhood home in Minnesota, where her father had held her at knife point seconds before gliding the blade along her throat. No, he officially met the young woman he now cared for deeply at the Port Haven Psychiatric facility in Baltimore, Maryland, upon her release from the hospital.
She hadn’t trusted him for a second, warily eyeing him as he twitched his way through their stilted conversation. It hadn’t helped that the tabloid blogger Freddie Lounds had been whispering poisonous nothings in Abigail’s ear prior to his arrival. The flame-haired siren had called out to the vulnerable girl in a bid to get the exclusive rights to her story — and planted the seeds of Abigail’s own discontent.
After all, why should she let down her guard for the man who ended her father’s life? Even if that same father had been intent on ending hers? Family was everything and Will — at that point, at least — was nothing more than the person who had destroyed her happiness with a few pulls of the trigger. He hadn’t even managed to stop her from bleeding to death.
That had been him.
Will had only met him a few days prior and only then because he had been tricked into meeting him. It had been supposed that the psychiatrist, recommended by his then-boss Jack Crawford, would offer insight on a serial killer Will had been tracking at the behest of the FBI. The same killer whose trail would lead them to Minnesota and the Hobbs house. What Will had realized almost too late was that the doctor wasn’t only there to assist in catching the killer.
He was there to analyze Will.
Suffice to say, the criminal profiler had seethed upon learning the truth. To his surprise, he found he couldn’t shake the psychiatrist, mentally or physically. Their paths continued to cross and soon they had developed a bond. One that had become unbreakable when they took it upon themselves to become guardians of sorts to the young woman whose blood was on their hands, both literally and figuratively.
Then came the dark period when he believed he had lost her for good.
By his own hand nonetheless.
Every now and again, he could still feel her ear in his throat. Remembered how it rose up his windpipe and shot out of his mouth when he coughed it up into his kitchen sink. The image of the bloody appendage against the clean stainless steel haunted him still, rushing to the forefront of his mind when he caught a glimpse of the spot where the ear should reside.
Only Will hadn’t killed her.
He hadn’t even sliced off her ear.
That had been him.
It had taken Will quite some time to understand why the psychiatrist, his friend, had gone to such measures to destroy Will’s life. It hadn’t been just Abigail’s death that he had been framed for, but others that Will had attributed to an alleged copycat killer who had made himself known around the same time as the Minnesota Shrike — aka Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Abigail’s father — had come to the FBI’s attention for murdering several young women in the area.
This supposed copycat who had set his sights on Will, not to kill him but to help him unleash his full potential. Will’s empathic abilities had made him the best criminal profiler in the field as it had allowed him to mentally and emotionally become the killer he sought. Such a gift gave him insight that no one outside of someone who had killed for the thrill of it would be able to intuit or understand.
As he saw Abigail waiting for him at her perch on the staircase near the front door of their current home, Will felt a wave of gratitude for how his life had turned out. Walking away from his previous reality, one where he had been wary of his own shadow despite being drawn to the darkness that others lived comfortably within — cut off from humanity not because he didn’t understand it, but because he understood it all too well — had been the best decision.
He had been rewarded for following his instincts. In quick succession, he had acquired a partner he cherished more than anything and had the young woman he thought of as a daughter returned to him. What was a little bloodshed when the results had been so positive?
A wide smile unfurled on Will’s lips as Abigail rushed out to the garage to get her fishing gear. It was followed a second later by a satisfied hum as strong arms wrapped around him from behind. Those lush lips were nibbling at his neck one moment and at his earlobe the next.
“Miss me already? We’re not even out of the house yet.”
“I’m always hungry for you, Will. You should know that by now.”
From the off, he had never been able to take his eyes off Will. In their first meeting, he had been captivated by the delicate man with an intellect to rival his own and the sad blue eyes. Sad because he was being kept on a short leash by a boorish, inferior man who would try his damnedest to keep up with the two men without succeeding for more than a few minutes. Special Agent Jack Crawford had understood too late that by indulging Will’s dark side and loosening the reins he had so fastidiously held tight he was allowing his pet empath to run right into the welcoming arms of the one who had groomed him so well.
Crawford had sought out Will when the serial killer dubbed the Minnesota Shrike had become a thorn in his side. As head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, he had form with Will and no qualms about seeking him out. This despite the younger man being on the spectrum as well as him stating he preferred the classroom after being shot in the field previously. However, when Crawford got an idea in his head, he was like a dog with a bone. He was also bull-headed to a fault.
Enter Hannibal Lecter.
The psychiatrist took one look at Will that day in Crawford’s office and knew he had to get to know this small, insular man. Will needed his guidance, his tutelage, to become the being that lurked within. Hannibal could see the nebbish man was dying a slow death pretending to be the person they all thought he was. Crawford and Alana Bloom, a colleague who had kindly recommended Hannibal to the special agent to get a bead on Will’s psyche, had bought into the persona Will projected of the nice, quiet man in the corduroy and plaid who wouldn’t harm a fly.
What they had refused to see until they had no choice was Will was none of these things. He was a dark swirl of rage that had desperately sought an outlet. One that he had found as a criminal profiler where he could inhabit killer after killer, better living through empathy. When Hannibal had found him, Will was ripe for the picking. Enticing him to bite into the apple had been fun until he realized the cost.
Bit by bit, Hannibal had taken away everything Will had loved most. Abigail. His sense of self. His job. Alana. Stripped him down to his barest essentials. Disassembled him.
Only to his surprise, Hannibal was not needed for the reassembly. Will had taken on the task himself and, if the good doctor was being completely honest, his protégé had done an impressive job. Discovering the hard way how fully this reborn Will had embraced his dark side, Hannibal had been so proud. Even as his breath had been stifled by the rope around his neck, there were joyful tears in Hannibal’s eyes when he had learned from the man Will had sent to kill him, in retaliation for all that Hannibal had put Will through, that his dear friend had been behind his near demise.
There always had been more to his feelings for Will than mere friendship. He knew himself well enough to admit it had been love at first sight and knew Will well enough to know it would take time for him to come around. Happily, Hannibal had watched him struggle with his emotions during their therapy sessions — both the ones mandated by Crawford in the early days and later, when Will had resumed their time of his own free will after being released from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he had been remanded after Hannibal had had his fun.
He continued to observe Will even after they had left their old lives behind and fled into absentia with their darling Abigail. To his surprise, Will had requested they share a bed once they began cohabitating. It was obvious to Hannibal that the idea of sleeping alone disquieted Will more than them sharing a bed did. He hadn’t seen it coming, which he had admonished himself for resolutely, yet he didn’t object. How could he when everything he had ever wanted was coming to fruition?
Sex was another matter.
But that’s a story for another time.
Now, Hannibal kept his gaze on Will for his own pleasure as well as his husband’s.
------
It was Will who had proposed that fateful night a few months after they had arrived in the last town which they had called home. They had gone for a walk along the pier after dinner, stopping for a moment to take in the view of the moonlight dancing on the dark water.
“There is only one thing that could make this moment even better,” Will opined.
“And what is that?” Hannibal wondered, unable to read his lover in the pale light.
Will turned toward him, a question in his eyes.
“Marry me.”
Those blue eyes were clear yet intent. Hannibal had his answer at the ready yet needed to be sure Will meant what he had asked.
“If it were anyone else, I would say it was insane,” Will informed him, reading him easily. “We’re not like the people here...or anywhere. Yet when I see happy couples strolling the neighborhood or canoodling in restaurants downtown, I want that. I want us to be bound to one another till death do us part.”
“Aren’t we that already?” Hannibal challenged. “You are the only one for me, Will. That will never change.”
“Then let’s make it official,” Will shot back. “I’m not saying we do it tomorrow. I want to be your husband, Hannibal. Don’t you want to be mine?”
Hannibal smiled sweetly at the sincere man before him.
“More than anything. I just needed to be sure this was what you truly wanted, dearest Will.”
A smile spread across the younger man’s face.
“So, that’s a yes?”
“Yes, my dove. I will marry you.”
They married nine months ago. There had been a ceremony, of sorts. It had been witnessed by Abigail as the family drained the life out of a pastor with a rather conservative view of love and family, making his views known loudly to the crowd that had gathered in the bleachers of the town athletic field one Sunday afternoon. The trio had learned about the topic of the service via a flyer attached to the windshield wiper of their car a few days prior.
New to the community, having assumed the post after the previous pastor had retired a couple months before, the new pastor had been making waves in the small town with his beliefs. To the family’s dismay, as well as a fair share of their neighbors, the pastor wouldn’t rest until everyone shared his myopic view of the world — he had declared himself a messenger of God. Hannibal had not been amused by the pastor’s narcissism. It was a nice town filled with decent people for the most part. After spending ten months as residents, the family had decided it was time to take a stand.
That night after the event at the athletic field, the pastor had been tied down on top of his dining room table, blood trickling out of him as consciousness became tenuous. He fought against Hannibal’s request for as long as possible. Hannibal had been inspired to take advantage of the occasion just as Will had with their marina walk a few months prior. Seeing how delighted his lover was by this romantic gesture pleased Hannibal greatly.
As for the pastor, he experienced no joy that night. Unbearable pain came next, along with the promise of doing to his equally conservative wife, bound and gagged in the kitchen, what they were doing to him once they had finished with him. It was the latter that had finally broken him, thinking by doing so he would spare his spouse. He married Will and Hannibal, and died immediately after though not without cursing what he had referred to as their unholy union.
The next morning, the pastor had been found in front of the Presbyterian church he had led for a mere six weeks. He had hung from a large wooden cross, crucified and disemboweled.
His wife was never found. Their house sold for five thousand dollars above the asking price based on the gardens in the front and back yards. No other property boasted such robust plant life no matter how hard their owners tried to emulate it.
------
Hannibal often thought about that glorious night. Particularly when observing Will as he slept beside them in their bed. Today, for a reason he couldn’t glean, Hannibal was especially loath to have Will go fishing with Abigail. Abandoning the dishes in the soapy sink for the time being, he wrapped his arms around his gorgeous spouse and enjoyed a quick nibble, knowing Will wouldn’t be deterred for long.
“Are you okay? You’ve been off this morning,” Will observed, his calloused hands running over Hannibal’s exposed forearms, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows. “While I love the extra attention, you’re making me nervous. Do we need to cancel?”
Taking time to consider Will’s offer, Hannibal buried his face in his husband’s neck, soaking up that wonderful scent that was distinctly Will. Ultimately, he let him go, only for Will to turn around and slide his arms around Hannibal’s waist.
“Your offer is quite tempting, my dove, but no. Enjoy your time with Abigail. I know how much you both like your quality time together. We can discuss my ennui when you return.”
Will stared deeply into those hazel eyes for a long moment.
“You spoil me. You know I love nothing more than to discuss our ennui over a nice bottle of red.”
A slow grin spread across Hannibal’s lips.
“Best hurry home then.”
Matching his husband’s grin, Will captured that mouth, making quick work of eliciting a low growl from Hannibal before breaking the kiss.
“Hold that thought,” Will teased. He slipped out the back door through the kitchen, leaving Hannibal with an erection and a growing sense of unease that their honeymoon may be coming to an end.