Chapter Text
Four Years after Maine; Copenhagen
It’s a chilly day and Will wraps his scarf around his neck snugly. It’s the same old scarf, the blue one from the time before. Hannibal keeps threatening to replace it but Will won’t let him.
He breathes on his hands for a moment to warm them, then shoves them back in his pocket and quickens his step. He’s just seen the man he’s following turn left at the street corner, off onto a side street. It’s going to be harder to follow there, less foot traffic, easier to be spotted. He considers his options for a moment and then keeps going.
He follows for a few more blocks as the pedestrian traffic grows sparser and then decides he’s too exposed to keep going. Not when he’s not sure he really wants to do anything about this. When this is all just theoretical, albeit a theory he’s been turning over in his mind for quite a while.
Besides, he needs to get the groceries home before Hannibal gets cranky about not having everything he needs for the perfect dinner. God forbid dinner be imperfect. Some things don’t change.
Will watches his quarry vanish out of sight and then turns and heads back toward the car. He tucks the shopping bag he’s holding in with his other purchases, then drives out of the city toward the vacation home they’ve rented for the month. Sometimes in their travels they like to stay in the heart of cities; this time, Hannibal’s chosen something more out of the way. More private.
Will isn’t entirely sure whether he just wants the seclusion, or whether he had something more practical in mind. He wonders idly whether somewhere there’s a website that traffics in vacation rentals for killers. Secluded romantic hideaway an easy drive to the city; two car garage with plenty of room for body disposal; easy-to-clean linoleum. That shouldn’t be funny. It really shouldn’t.
The phone rings when he’s a few miles out and he answers on speakerphone. “I’m on my way. The shops were a disaster. And I ended up with the one clerk who doesn’t speak English, or pretends not to, so someone else had to help me - it turned into a whole thing.”
“I don’t think there’s a clerk in Denmark who doesn’t speak English, Will. It’s mandatory in the schools.”
“I found the only one. Maybe he was home-schooled.” Hannibal sighs so loud Will can hear it through the car speakers, can imagine the expression that goes with it, and he smiles fondly. “Don’t be too mad. I tracked down every single one of your requests, eventually. I’ll be home in twenty minutes.” He hangs up before Hannibal can give him a long lecture on the various cheeses he was tasked with bringing home.
Will makes it home in exactly eighteen minutes, unloads the car, and makes his way into the rental house. Coming home when they’re on vacation is always so odd, so quiet without the dogs. He suspects Hannibal enjoys the temporary reprieves from fur and slobbering.
He lets the smells from the kitchen lure him in exactly like the cartoons he used to watch as a child, imagining a beckoning finger of irresistible aromas lifting him from the ground and wafting him along the hallway. When he reaches the kitchen he pauses in the doorway to enjoy the show for a few minutes. This never stops being one of his favorite things to watch, no matter how many critically acclaimed plays, operas, or ballets they attend together. He’d pretty much always rather stay home and watch Hannibal cook for him.
This looks like a particularly elaborate production, several different pots bubbling away, scents coming from the oven, a few dishes piled up in the sink in contrast to Hannibal’s usual care to wash up as he goes. He turns to Will with a smile and brushes an over-long strand of hair out of his eyes with the back of a flour-covered hand and Will melts a little, again, always. He drops the groceries on the counter and presses himself tight against Hannibal’s back, arms around his waist.
For the time being he’s forgotten all about the man he’s seriously considering letting Hannibal kill, lost in the sheer delight of being home. He smiles and says, “There’s all the damn cheese you could ever want. Do your own shopping next time if you want it done quickly. Or teach me how to say “give me the most pretentious cheese you have” in Danish. Happy anniversary, love.”
********************
Two Weeks After Maine: Rosario
Will lingers in the steamy bathroom for a while, towelling himself dry, stretching delicious aches from his muscles and giving Hannibal a chance to miss him for a few minutes longer. Eventually he returns to the bedroom, gathers up discarded items of yesterday’s clothing strewn about the room as if a tornado had cut a path through the closets, and drops everything in the hamper before finding clean clothes.
It’s still far too early for conversations about chore divisions but he occasionally feels slightly guilty about the terrible mess he persists in making of Hannibal’s--their--bedroom. Not that guilty, and there’ve been no complaints, given the activities that tend to lead to the clothing tornados, but he doesn’t want to start taking any of this for granted. It’s too hard won.
Clean and dressed, he wanders into the dining room to find breakfast laid out. Hannibal’s waited to eat, but he’s well into a mug of coffee, newspaper spread out, still mussed and rumpled, tanned and longer-haired, everything and nothing like the Hannibal Will first met all those years ago. Just because he can, he drops a kiss to the back of Hannibal’s neck before saying,“Thank you for breakfast.”
“How long are you going to keep thanking me for breakfast?”
“As long as you’re going to make it for me.”
Hannibal looks pleased. He always looks pleased, since Will arrived. Will wonders how long the honeymoon stage is supposed to last when it starts this many years into two people knowing each other and when they had to spill and cross this many oceans of blood to get to it. He guesses that “supposed to” doesn’t really apply to the two of them, never really did and probably never will.
He makes inroads into breakfast before asking, “What are we doing today? Do you still want to start showing me around the city?”
“I thought maybe tomorrow.”
Will doesn’t bother to hide a smirk. “You said that yesterday. And the day before that. Don’t you have to get back to work at some point?”
“One of the advantages my antiques have over psychiatric practice is that they can be left unattended for extended periods of time without calling me in the middle of the night in crisis. My clients can survive without my opinion of their dusty attic findings for the summer.”
That surprises Will and he glances up sharply from his breakfast. “The summer?”
“The summer. I’m taking a sabbatical of sorts.” There’s the smugness again. “Assuming you do not object to extra time in my presence.”
Will doesn’t object. He’s achingly aware of the fragility of their situation, in the moments when he can get enough clarity from the fog of giddiness and relief and sex to think about it rationally. They could be recognized tomorrow and in custody by next week. They may, when they come down from this honeymoon period, drive each other crazy and realize none of this was ever going to work. One of them may end up leaving. One of them may end up stabbing the other; it’s an outside chance at this point but not one he’s completely able to discount.
This, right now, might be all they have. The last scraps of spring and then a single summer before reality sets in. He’ll take a summer. “No objections.”
“Then we have time. I’ll show you the city. I’ll show you the countryside. I’ll show you anything you wish. Tomorrow. Let’s stay home today.” Hannibal turns back to his newspaper.
Will doesn’t hide his pleased smile. He came so far to get here, where else could he possibly need to go? They’ll stay home, then.
He’ll finish breakfast and do the dishes and then go outside for a walk in the sun. He’s too pale from a winter in Maine, he’ll stand out if they ever actually leave the house unless he gets a little color. He’ll start making a list of things he needs to buy when they eventually do go into the city. He’ll make the list in Spanish, for practice. In the afternoon and evening they’ll spend time together making dinner and love and elaborate plans for things to do the next day. And then the next day, most likely, they won’t do any of those things.
It sounds like a good way to spend a summer.