Chapter Text
The wassail hangover hit them both, but it was harder on Hannibal. Will woke to the sound of him being sick in the bathroom, which he hadn’t quite believed was possible. Will squinted at the ceiling and wondered if he should get up and do something.
He started to sit, but his head sloshed with hot, nauseated pain. He carefully lay back down. Hannibal walked stiffly into the room, set down water and aspirin on the bedside table, got into bed, and lay down flat with a damp cloth over his eyes.
Will squinted at it. “M’jealous,” he said.
Hannibal pointed silently toward the aspirin.
Will took them and drank the water. “Going to shower.”
Hannibal made no response.
Will stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out. He didn’t think Hannibal would be wanting it any time soon. He made coffee and fed the dogs. The cold air when he let them out helped his head. The coffee helped more. He stood outside, barefoot on the stone patio with his toes slowly going numb and the steam warming his face. The air smelled of cold rain and leaves returning to the soil.
Nearly human again, Will poked his head into the bedroom. “You alive?”
Hannibal raised two fingers from the blanket, let them fall, and made a small negative noise.
“Coffee?”
Hannibal turned his head away. A moment later, he seemed to regret moving even that much and turned it carefully back to center.
Will got him more water and the eye mask he kept in the freezer behind the giant knob of fresh churned butter he’d bought at the market a while back. Hannibal frowned at it and then at Will, but he let out a breath of relief when Will laid it across his face.
“I do look in the freezer occasionally, you know. When do you even use it? I’ve never seen you.”
“I haven’t since you got back,” Hannibal murmured. “My eyes ache when I stay up too late reading.”
“Which you did because I wasn’t there to fall asleep on you.”
Hannibal made a tiny noise of assent. Will smoothed his hair back from his face. "Anything else I can do to help?"
"Stay."
"Okay. Hold on. I want to get some more coffee." Will came back with coffee and gingerbread men and got into bed with him. Hannibal turned over and laid his upper body across Will's lap with a sigh. Will rubbed the back of his head. "Let's go easier on the wassail next year."
"I believe I would prefer wine," Hannibal mumbled.
"We put those popcorn strings on the tree last night. Do you remember?"
"No," Hannibal said, though it sounded less like a denial of the memory than of the entire night. There had been a fair amount of straight bourbon after the wassail and the bonfire.
"I sort of do. Anyway, we better try again. It looks like drunk elves invaded our living room."
Hannibal grunted. Will ate a gingerbread man and left him in peace.
"Crumbs," Hannibal said.
"I'll change the sheets later."
"I mean that you are getting crumbs on me. I can feel them in my hair."
He was right. Will brushed them out. Hannibal made a discontented sound and buried his face in the bend of Will's thigh and hip.
Will stroked the back of his neck. "Is this why you like it when I'm hurt?"
"I don't like it when you are hurt."
"You'd rather I wasn't, but you still enjoy it. You like that I need you. That I'm vulnerable."
Hannibal was quiet for a few seconds. "Yes. You feel the same?"
"Yeah. Not the nicest way to feel, I guess. But I like... I like this."
Hannibal turned his head carefully and blinked up at him with the most open expression Will had ever seen on his face. He could hear the click of gears inside Hannibal's mind slow and stop.
Will cupped his cheek and stroked the sharp line of his cheekbone and soft hollow under his eye. "You like it too."
Hannibal turned toward Will's palm and used it to hide his face. "Yes. Very much."
"We can do this anytime you want. Doesn't have to be post-wassail.”
"I didn't know I wanted it," Hannibal said.
They stayed like that, almost without moving, for another hour while Hannibal drifted off. Will watched him sleep. After a while, he slept himself.
\*
Hannibal recovered enough to go to the market that afternoon for his Christmas dinner shopping, which was fortunate because Will had scheduled the harpsichord delivery for that day.
It arrived so soon after Hannibal left that they must have passed each other on the road. Will hoped they hadn't passed each other in the driveway, or he'd have some explaining to do when Hannibal got back. The movers took it into the music room and settled it by the windows. It looked just like Will had imagined it would. As he paid and saw them off, he heard music in the back of his mind and saw himself sitting at his desk in the corner and listening.
For a second, he wondered if he should move the desk, if Hannibal might prefer to be alone, but only for a second. Will had never been as sure of his welcome with anyone as he was with Hannibal. He swept the floor one more time, switched off the lights, and closed the door until Christmas morning.
After he'd taken the dogs out to play, cleaned up the last of the mess from the night before, and made himself a sandwich, he rehung all the popcorn strings. It took longer than it should have, and the dogs kept trying to eat them, but he was nearly finished by the time Hannibal walked in the door.
Will looked over at him. Hannibal was wearing a faintly cross expression and brushing rain off his jacket and the bottoms of his pants while Wig tried to sniff every part of him at once. Their eyes met across the room, and both of them smiled.
"Missed you," Will said. He had meant it to be casual, but it came out sounding almost shy.
"I missed you as well." Hannibal picked Wig up and met Will in the middle of the room for a kiss that also aspired to be casual and didn't make it. The bonfire last night had burned off another layer of their armor. Every touch felt new and tender.
"I fixed the popcorn," Will said.
"It does look better. I have a pheasant for Christmas dinner."
"What are you doing with it?"
"I had thought pheasant Normandy, but I'm not certain that I want any more apple cider at the moment. Perhaps roasted with lemon. Will you help?"
"Sure. I'd like to."
They looked at each other for a long, warm moment, and Will had to laugh.
"What is it?" Hannibal said.
"I don't know. Everything's easy all of a sudden."
"Then let us take advantage of it. I'm sure it won't last."
Will rolled his eyes and helped him put away the groceries.
\*
Hannibal had also bought lights for the tree. He'd floated the idea of candles, but Will just looked at him, looked at the dogs, and he'd dropped it. They put them up that afternoon, hung the ornaments, and laid pine branches along the mantelpiece. The resin scent from the boughs and the tree filled the whole house. That evening, they roasted chestnuts in the fireplace and ate them sitting on the floor. Winston flopped over Hannibal's leg, and Wig curled up in the bend of his knee.
"They like you better," Will said. He couldn't stop smiling.
"I feed them more often than you do."
"True."
Hannibal had foregone wine and even coffee and made them both tea steeped in hot milk with honey.
"This is a little gross," Will said.
"It is soothing. If you don't want it, there is nothing stopping you from making coffee yourself."
“Yours is better.”
Hannibal looked predictably pleased. "I suppose I could—”
"No, don't." Will caught his wrist. "It's okay. Stay here."
The next few days passed with the same quiet warmth. They walked the dogs. They brined the pheasant. Will turned off his computer and phone the day before Christmas. He didn't want to get a last minute call from Jack or Interpol. He only wanted this feeling to last.
Before he fell asleep on Christmas Eve, he spent a few minutes lying in the dark, listening to Hannibal breathe and wondering why this seemed so significant when his past Christmases as an adult had been one more date on the calendar. He thought of the scar on his thigh, the Lecter crest. Will had been alone since his father died and often enough before that. Maybe this was what family was supposed to feel like.
\*
On Christmas morning, he woke up with something lying across his feet. His first thought was that it was one of the dogs, but it wasn’t heavy enough for Winston and Wig would bite his toes. He rubbed at his eyes and squinted down at it.
A red and white tube lay over his ankles. It took Will a good ten seconds of sleepy blinking to pick up on the fact that it was knitted, vaguely sock-shaped, stuffed with stuff, and in all respects resembled a Christmas stocking. It had a small silver jingle bell on the toe.
Hannibal wasn’t in the room, and breakfast smells were coming from the kitchen. Will got himself into a sitting position and held the stocking in his lap. The first little package fell out. It was wrapped in gold tissue paper and soft all the way through. He weighed it in his hand. Light.
His last Christmas stocking had been when he was seven. He'd gotten into an argument with his dad over the existence of Santa and then of God. It had also been the first time Will had really pushed his dad to tell him something, anything about his mother, and it had ended with him getting grounded on Christmas Day. He’d gotten a wind-up car, a yo-yo, a chocolate bar, and an orange. He was pretty sure this stocking had an orange stuck down in the toe too.
Hannibal came into the room bearing a breakfast tray. “I see I’m just in time.”
“I didn’t get you one,” Will said. “Didn’t even think about it.”
“It never occurred to me that you would. But I thought you might enjoy it.”
Will held the first soft little package in his hands. “You’re not going to do this every year, right?”
“Should I not point out that you sound as if you hope I will?”
“You should not point that out, no. I’ll just open this.” He took a sip of coffee and started unwrapping tissue paper. A pair of leather work gloves emerged. They were tan and lined with blue fleece and fit perfectly. “These are really nice,” Will said, hoping he’d managed to keep the surprise out of his voice.
“I am aware of the sort of thing you like,” Hannibal said. “I simply don’t see any harm in trying to expand your horizons occasionally. But not in your Christmas stocking.”
Will leaned over to kiss him. “Is that a house rule?”
“It can be.”
The next thing was a small box containing four small chocolates dusted with gold. The package after that was weightier and rigid. Will unwrapped it and found the Orvis Access titanium fly reel that he’d been thinking about buying last winter before he left for France. He stared at Hannibal. “Can you literally read my mind? I didn’t say a word about this. It’s not even in my browser history.”
Hannibal looked pleased. “I asked someone at a shop and described your interests. I’m glad he knew what he was talking about.”
“They have fishing stores in Paris?”
“Of course.”
Will set the reel on his knee to admire and fished out the last item, which was indeed an orange. He held it in his hands and looked down at it, remembering the orange he’d gotten in his last stocking. His hands hadn’t fit all the way around it. “Thank you. For all of this. Did you really get a tree every year in Baltimore? Or do Christmas at all?”
Hannibal put an arm around him and held out Will’s coffee cup until he took it. “I got one when I had holiday parties, which was most years. The wassail, the chestnuts, yes, fairly often for my guests. I had never made gingerbread men before.”
“You still haven’t. I made them. You just baked them.”
“I think we may call it a joint effort.”
“Nope. I even cut most of them out. And cleaned up the dog puke.”
Hannibal brushed a kiss across his temple. “If you insist.”
They ate croissants and plum jam while the light shifted from white to pale gold. Hannibal twitched the curtains apart to show a pink stained sky.
Peaceful as it was, Will kept seeing the harpsichord sitting in the music room and was only halfway through his second croissant when his patience ran out. “I got you something. You want to see?”
“I didn’t see anything under the tree.”
There were a number of boxes under the tree, most of them, as threatened, for Will, but not all. Winston and Wig each had a box as well. “It wouldn’t fit under the tree. It’s in the back room.”
Hannibal looked at him, spreading jam on his croissant. “You don’t want to wait until after breakfast.”
“Not really.”
“All right.” He set the tray aside and pushed back the covers. “Let’s go.”
Will led him down the hall. Both of the dogs joined them and snuffled at their bare feet. Will stopped at the door, eyes on the wood grain in front of him. “If you don’t like it, or it’s the wrong kind, or—” He clutched the doorknob.
“Will. Open the door.”
He opened the door. His heart gave a massive thump as Hannibal stepped into the room.
Hannibal stopped when he saw it. He said nothing. After a second or two, he walked forward until he could lay a finger on the strip of dark wood inlaid into the cherry. He put his other hand on it and moved around until he could touch the keys and then he sank down onto the bench and began to play.
It was nothing Will knew, but the music pulled at him. He drifted over, and Hannibal shifted on the bench to make room. The notes flowed upward to an odd discordant peak and cracked into descending shards of shattered glass that hit the ground and settled into silence.
Will looked at Hannibal’s blank face. “What was that?”
“My own composition. Untitled. I wrote it years ago.” He skimmed his fingers over the keys. “After that first dinner party.”
“When you fed them the man you killed in the mental hospital.”
Hannibal inclined his head an inch. “I haven’t thought of it since I left Baltimore, but it returned to me the moment I touched the keys.” He took Will’s hand and placed it on the smooth, cool white of the ivory.
“Is it okay? The harpsichord? It’s a good one, right?”
Will expected questions about how he’d gotten it, if it could be traced, but Hannibal only laid his hand over Will’s and pressed his fingers down on a chord. “It is superb. I have missed playing.”
“You can keep going. We haven’t got anywhere to be.”
Hannibal hesitated, but his eyes returned to the keys and he touched them with his free hand. “Perhaps …”
Will listened to him play for the next hour. He would’ve listened for longer. Hannibal played beautifully, which was unsurprising; Will wasn’t sure he willingly did anything that he was less than perfect at. What kept Will riveted was Hannibal’s half-closed eyes and almost dreamy expression, the way he moved with the music and the way it seemed to peel back another layer of his facade.
Hannibal finally stopped and closed the lid on the keyboard. "I would like to show you your gift now," he said.
He spoke so quietly that the words blended with the mood of the music. Will took his offered hand in silence. They walked into the living room with notes still hanging in the air around them.
Hannibal chose a box from under the tree. It was about the size of his palm, flat and thin. "That is part of it," he said.
Will eased up the tape and peeled back the paper. He suspected jewelry or some family heirloom. In a way, he was right. When he lifted off the lid, he saw the single surviving photograph of his mother, the one that fallen into a puddle on his basement floor when Walter Drake took him. Zeller and Price had shown him what was left of it later, a pile of soggy pulp in an evidence bag.
Will stared at it. His mother looked back at him, smiling, hair and dress blowing in the wind. This was the second time he'd gotten it for Christmas. His father had given it to him the same year he'd been grounded on Christmas day for talking back. Now you know everything I do, so stop asking.
It took him a few seconds to even form a coherent protest. "This can't — it was destroyed." He looked at Hannibal. "They showed it to me. There was no way you could've fixed it. Nobody could have.”
"I didn't. Here. This is the second part." Hannibal gave him another box, this one larger but still flat.
Will couldn't wait to peel the paper off this time. He ripped it down the center and revealed a wooden box with a hinge, about six inches square and not more than an inch deep. He opened it, and it unfolded into something like a saint's icon. Hannibal had painted his mother exactly as she had been in the photograph. If anything, she was more lifelike here than she had been on the ancient photo paper, glowing with color and ready to step out of the wood panel.
"The photograph is of the painting," Hannibal said. "The original is, as you said, lost."
"But how — how did you even see it? You didn't leave France until after Drake got me."
"I did not see it in person. Ms. Lounds had a picture of it on her phone. I saw that."
"And you painted it just from that. From memory."
"Memory can be powerful." Hannibal paused. "I wasn't certain it would be welcome."
Will held the painting open on his lap and leaned into Hannibal’s side. "It's welcome."
“Are there memories you would care to share?"
"Of her? I don’t have any. I was being literal when I said I never knew her. Dad wouldn't say much. I don't even know if she's dead or alive. That photo was all I had. Have." He picked it up again and held it up next to the painting. "When did you find time for this? Where — do you have a secret painting studio in the basement?"
"In the old bedroom upstairs. It seemed safe enough while you were in the wheelchair. I have been concerned you might want to move back up there, but I relied on your dislike of change."
Will elbowed him gently and then turned to kiss him. He lingered there with his eyes closed, Hannibal's warm mouth under his and the soft sigh of his breath. "Thank you."
"Merry Christmas, Will."
"We should probably forget about gifts next year. Neither of us is going to be able to top this."
Hannibal slid his fingers through Will's hair. "Perhaps not, but I will enjoy trying."
"The fishing reel was pretty good."
"We should go somewhere in the spring. I believe there are some good spots near the Swiss border. You can test it out."
"While you do what? Not fish, I assume."
"Keep the dogs occupied. Walk in the woods. Draw you."
"You won't be bored? I can go on my own."
"I will not be bored." He looked out at the garden and the pond and the pale blue sky. "I cannot imagine being bored in your presence any more than I can imagine being bored with our life together.”
Will looked at his faraway expression. “Are you happy? You said you were content, but that’s not the same thing. Can you be happy without …” Killing. He’d been afraid to ask before. He was still afraid now.
Hannibal turned back to him. He looked a little like he had when he was playing the harpsichord, solemn and oddly younger. “I am happy, yes. More than I have ever been. What would you do if I said no?”
“I really don’t know. Rather not find out.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Promise?”
Hannibal took his hand. “I promise.”
Will let out a slow breath and took another, filled with the scent of pine from their Christmas tree, woodsmoke from the fireplace, and Hannibal at his side. “I believe you,” he said.