Chapter Text
Will had caught the name of the dish, but not parsed it. He turned the Spanish over in his head as he chopped and sliced per instruction, and Hannibal pulled condiments from the fridge. It wasn’t until the saute pan went on the gas and the tamari bottle on the counter that a picture coalesced. He looked down at the neat piles of julienned hot pepper – tomatoes – potatoes – ginger and onion – pretty pink strips of tenderloin Hannibal had set aside to marinate. For a moment he thought of Chinese restaurants and student kitchens, and not at all of where it had come from.
“Are we making stir fry?” he said. “This is like mushu pork.”
Hannibal paused in motion and looked pained. A vivid memory tugged at Will: he had had that same look in the hospital, when he’d made a grand gesture of bringing chicken soup and Will had called him on it.
Will had thought him easy to tease, back then; all his pretensions were decorative. Will had never accorded them much importance.
“Peruvian cuisine is a fusion, like all New World traditions,” Hannibal said. “There is a vein of Chinese influence.”
“In other words, yes,” said Will.
“It shares no canonical ingredients with mushu pork.”
“Are your recipes always canonical?”
It sounded forward, even as he said it. Hannibal’s expression didn’t perceptibly shift, but something in his eyes grew warm.
“No,” he said.
What lay underneath the fuss had seemed to be kindness: an offer calmly and perpetually extended. Will had liked teasing him. Only just a little, gently – as a reminder that they were known to each other.
It felt no different now. Will dropped his gaze. He caught his own reflection in the knife’s surface, and could not say to himself if the smile on his face were true.
“These are ready when you are,” he said.