Chapter Text
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another - the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy
April 10, 2014 - Baltimore, Maryland
Will closes the patio door behind him. Hannibal's car isn't in the driveway, but that doesn't mean Will isn't expected.
A final meal before the dinner with Jack, Hannibal had said.
(The dinner, Hannibal calls it, gaze alive with anticipation. The bait, the trap, the lure, the end of the Chesapeake Ripper, Jack says with a grim expression and fatalistic finality.
The night everything changes, one way or another, even if Will isn't entirely sure even he knows which way the scales will tip when the moment comes and the time is nigh. He hopes he knows, but does he?)
The lights are off in the house. Everything's in its proper place.
Will's early anyway. He helped himself to the perpetually unlocked back patio door with grim, smug, bitter satisfaction, and he thinks Hannibal will find that more amusing than annoying.
Will freezes.
Someone is in the kitchen.
He pauses in the dining room, ears pricked.
"Let's not be hasty," a familiar voice says further in, Will's blood running cold. Jack. "I bet you have a lot to say about all this, and a lot of people are gonna wanna hear it. I want to hear it."
Will's in motion the second he hears that voice coming from the kitchen, because Jack isn't supposed to be here.
(Not now. Not yet. One more day, goddammit. One more hour. One more minute.)
Will doesn't know who the hell Jack could be talking to, except that Jack wouldn't have the lungs necessary for negotiations if it were Hannibal.
(No one's supposed to be here. No cars in the driveway. No lights on, because the main show is scheduled for tomorrow and attendance is mandatory.)
"If you do this," Jack's voice again, smooth and low, "you'll never be free of him."
No one is in the kitchen, but the pantry door is open.
Will grabs a knife from the block on the kitchen counter, and then universes and timelines and teacups shatter and come back together all in the same breath.
"If I don't do this, I'll never be free at all."
Will's entire world stops—
And then it screams.
Abigail.
Jack's back is turned to Will. He's in the doorway—
And Abigail Hobbs is behind him, holding his gun, aiming it straight at Jack's chest.
"You think I killed Nick Boyle," she says, but her voice is shaky. Her hands are shaky.
They haven't noticed Will, but—
"I'm not here because of Nick Boyle, Abig—"
But Will sees Abigail, and it's the only thing he needs to sink the knife into Jack's jugular.
Everything that can happen, happens. It has to end well and it has to end badly. It has to end every way it can. - Murphy's Law (author unknown)
Two months later - La Trinité, France
Will peers into the pantry from the doorway, towel draped across his shoulders, hair floppy against his forehead with sweat. His muscles and lungs burn from the tenets of a body in motion, and his calves are sore from all the hills they haven't acclimated to yet.
Will uses the hem of the towel to mop up the sweat beading against his temples. His forearms and the high points of his cheeks are sun-warm and pink, spoils from the war of a quaint, five-mile run.
Bodies in motion require food. Will should eat something that isn't coffee from the French press.
Lunch is in the fridge. Hannibal had left breakfast out on the island for Will before leaving for work—just like he always does. And Will put it out on the patio for the birds—just like he always does.
The pantry is as predictably well-stocked as it always is. Light pours in through the doorway from the kitchen in a thick column, but it just makes the shadows that remain that much starker.
Will doesn't bother flicking on the light switch.
The shelves are lined with rows of homemade dried pasta and hanging herb bundles. Preserves in copper pots, vinegars and oils in glass bottles, anchovies jarred in lemon juice. There are pickled oddities, too—strawberries and watermelon rind and pigs' feet galore.
(Saffron, black garlic, and truffles, oh my!)
All of it's labeled in neat, swirling letters with dates and names. Will might not know what the hell someone is supposed to do with a jar of pickled oxalis seeds, but he didn't make it to thirty-nine on his own for nothing. He's a decent enough cook, and there are plenty of serviceable ingredients tucked in between the show-stopping, Michelin-star oddities.
There’s a fridge at the back for meats and cheeses and offal of the non-human variety. A cured pork leg hangs to the side on a stainless steel hook.
Whatever Hannibal prepared for lunch before he left for work is still in the fridge, and it's sure to be delicious. Every time Will dares to grab a beer or water from the fridge, it stares at Will from its fancy ceramic Tupperware, the entire thing complete with a neat note outlining oven temperatures and cook times.
Will could capitulate, but he won't. Lunch will go out onto the patio alongside breakfast whenever he feels annoyed enough to deal with it, and the birds will surely rejoice.
Will continues to blink into the gaping maw of the pantry.
(If he stares into the darkness for too long, it's liable to blink back. If he stands still for too long, he's liable to get stuck. Chills and goosebumps and the distinct feeling he's being watched, but no one's supposed to be home except him, and this time, no one is home.
No dead daughters stowed away in the bowels of brick homes. No FBI agents to break the dam twenty-four hours too early. No serial killers lurking in the shadows.
Well. The Chesapeake Ripper isn't home, but that doesn't mean there isn't a serial killer in the room, on the loose. It only takes three, after all.)
Will shuts the pantry door. The birds aren't going to grab lunch out of the fridge for themselves.
"Hey, Will."
Will blinks.
(Goosebumps. Chills.)
Jack Crawford stares back at him.
"Oh, fucking hell."
Will cuts through the water of the lap pool, propelling himself forward with sure, steady strokes. He barely stops when he reaches the wall, the cycle of swim to the wall-twist-turn-push-swim to the other wall ingrained. His body is in motion with the serenity of repetitive movement, and his mind is at peace within the confines of his stream.
Abigail smiles at him from within the warm embrace of his memory palace. Will smiles back at her. The current of the stream parts around their calves.
As always, it's the stream that ran out behind Will's house in Wolf Trap. As always, it doesn't seem very important that Abigail has never actually seen that stream. It also doesn't seem very important that Will and Abigail have never actually had the pleasure of fishing together, only donning rods and reels and waders within the halls of Will's mind.
Still.
Cicadas chirp. Their indicators bob on the water's surface. A fishing pole is clasped in Abigail's hand, waders cinched around her waist, and long brown hair flowing down her shoulders.
Out there, a timer beeps.
Forty-five minutes fishing for trout—
(Forty-five minutes swimming laps in the pool.)
—but it barely feels like it's been ten.
Abigail's smile turns knowing. She casts her line and tilts her head toward Will. "You'll get annoyed if you don't get that."
Will shrugs. "I like being here with you."
"I know," she says, voice playful. "You can always come back."
Will's expression scrunches, but only a little.
The timer continues to beep. Forty-five minutes doesn't seem nearly long enough for a fishing trip.
(But it's the perfect amount of time for swimming laps in the pool in southern France, all while Abigail is safely tucked out of sight almost eight hours away in southern Germany.
Out of sight, maybe, but certainly not out of mind.)
Abigail's smile doesn't falter. "Don't be a stranger."
Will smirks. "Wouldn't dream of it," he says, and then he's surfacing from the pool.
His arms and shoulders are warm from the sun. The high points of his cheeks are already pink. He braces his forearms on the pool deck and pushes waterlogged hair off his forehead, chest rising and falling.
Jack Crawford's shiny dress shoes stare up at him.
"Have a nice swim?"
Will's expression pinches.
Jack isn't deterred. "I think this is what they call unfinished business," he says with a pointed stare at his bare ring finger.
"Oh, fuck off," Will bites out, all prickly irritation as his hackles rise.
Jack opens his mouth to say something, but Will doesn't stick around for it. He pushes off the wall back toward the other side; a few more laps never hurt anyone.
"Will, you can’t eat that."
"Can eat anything and anyone once," Will might mutter back if he were alone, but he’s not, so instead he brings his fork to his mouth while staring down the barrel of Jack’s disapproval.
It’s ham—from a literal, legal butcher who sources their meat from literal, legal pigs—but it's the principle of the matter. Despite Hannibal’s varied and egregious sins, Will draws the line at being guilt-tripped by a fanciful imagining of a dead man.
It might be a convincing imagining, but even Garret Jacob Hobbs had the courtesy to haunt Will in near-silence.
Will forks another bite without breaking eye contact. Jack stands across from Will, behind Hannibal. The dining room table separates them, Jack's arms crossed over his chest as he looms.
"Will," he says, like an owner sternly pleading with their dog to please just drop the squirrel carcass before you get rabies, dear God.
He’s wearing that damned tan suit, just as every other conjuring of him does. It's the last suit Will saw him in and, apparently, Will’s absolute bastard of a mind is nothing if not committed to the bit. Will almost wonders if he’ll develop a Pavlovian response to diamond-patterned purple ties and tawny suit jackets.
(He's spared himself the gore of perpetually recreating Jack's final neck wound, but his wedding ring is missing in a neat, one-two gut punch.)
"Will?"
Will’s focus snaps to Hannibal.
(But Jack doesn't snap into smoke.)
Hannibal is staring, expression placid and near-blank. The only thing betraying his confusion is the forked bite of food hovering over his plate. Cacio cheese and pepper spaghetti, Hannibal had announced, flavored with Rosebuds and Parma ham.
"Hm?"
Hannibal studies Will.
Will's not sure if Hannibal finds what he's looking for, but his gaze drifts back to his food after only a moment. Hannibal considers the neat pile of ham and pasta dotted with pink buds, but Will still feels the spotlight of his attention, regardless.
It's as good as a brand.
Jack stares Will down in the background. Will refuses to look in his direction.
Another form of attention that's as good as a brand.
"Eat," Hannibal says after he's methodically chewed his own bite, suspiciously polite as he nods toward the fork hovering in Will's hand.
Will runs his tongue against the back of his teeth, eyes darting down to consider the fork and its neat bite of food. Hannibal observes from over the rim of his wine glass.
One
Two
Three
Will brings the fork to his mouth. He doesn't quite shovel the food in with all the pettiness he can muster, but it feels like a close thing. He doesn't take time to savor it like he usually might, because that isn't part of the agreement that ensures his presence each night for three courses and dessert.
Hannibal watches him with an eerily still expression.
Will meets his gaze head-on, even if it's only so he doesn't look at the wedding band glimmering on Hannibal's ring finger.
Will wouldn't say he avoids Hannibal.
He just doesn't exactly like remembering how he feels about Hannibal, in that he doesn't like remembering that he actually kind of likes Hannibal, under all the lying and murder and mayhem and medical malpractice.
(That he's killed for Hannibal, even if only in the most indirect way possible.)
They eat dinner together every night like clockwork.
(Never mind that Will's presence at dinner is assured only through a tenuous agreement made in the middle of the night in the wine cellar over a corpse. Not the corpse of Jack Crawford, but a corpse.
Never mind that it's only dinner. Never breakfast. Never lunch. Hannibal wakes up every morning at 4 am, with breakfast ready at around 6:17 before he leaves the house for work at 7:02 most mornings. Will wakes up every morning at 5:15, but he only crawls from his room at 7:06 once the coast is clear.
Breakfast is always waiting for him on the kitchen island. Lunch is always in the fridge.)
Hannibal has a job in the city, but Hannibal is also a hedonist who values a flexible schedule, leaving the door wide open with opportunities for their paths to cross.
Hell, maybe Will should've been a museum curator for all the goddamn free time that seems to come with it. Or maybe that's just unique to Hannibal, no matter the profession, forever untouched by the space-time continuum in his pursuit of murder, mayhem, and culinary excellence.
Will doesn't join Hannibal on any of his non-work related excursions into town or the adjacent city, either, even though the opportunities are aplenty. The farmer's market and the butcher's shop and the wine boutique and the specialty grocer and the fish market. Hannibal goes other places, too, routines that Will can't divine via grocery bags, wine bottles, and twine-wrapped parcels of meat, but Will never asks.
Hannibal never offers the information, either; he's an endurance hunter, after all, and he's never needed a pitchfork or a collar to force Will's hand. Not that Will's ever needed the sharp-edged threat of a weapon to wreak havoc on the masses, either, or a leash to follow a man like Hannibal Lecter into the dark.
They drink wine together in the study sometimes.
And God forbid, Will barely had a moment alone almost the entire month he, Hannibal, and Abigail spent in Paris, the three of them haunting a short-term rental as a layover in between more permanent locales and more permanent identities. Nothing terrified Will more than blinking and finding Abigail gone. Of falling asleep and waking up to her missing but with dinner on the table. So, he didn't blink, he didn't sleep, and he for damn sure didn't leave Hannibal and Abigail alone.
("I survived him for three months without supervision, y'know," Abigail whispered into Will's shoulder almost two months ago under the vaulted ribs of the Notre Dame. Her voice hadn't been harsh, just wry and matter-of-fact. "I don't need a babysitter."
Checkerboard flooring laid below their feet, while stained glass rose above. Shadows stretched out beside them. Awfully dark for a historic monument with high walls and tall windows.
"I'm not babysitting you, Abigail," Will had wryly whispered, his gaze flicking to Hannibal at the grand organ by the entrance. "You're babysitting us.")
Will doesn't avoid Hannibal. It's just that his ability to brush off Hannibal's petty cruelties and his sharp, all-seeing eyes is fluid. Sometimes Will can; sometimes Will can't. Which isn't saying much, considering Will can barely brush himself off these days.
"Nice place you got here."
Will groans.
He rolls over to shove his face into his pillow. The silk and down feather shield is all he has against the gentle, early morning light, and the dead man pacing the length of Will's bedroom like it's a fucking racetrack.
Will doesn't roll over to check the clock, but the white noise of Hannibal moving around downstairs in the kitchen is as good as a goddamn sundial. If he's in the kitchen, then he's already finished with his laps in the pool, and if Will can hear him, then he isn't sitting down at the breakfast nook with his coffee and breakfast yet.
That puts the time at somewhere around 5:40. Maybe closer to 6:15.
"This just doesn’t seem like something Dr. Lecter would pick," Jack says to the room, ever pushing forward in the face of Will's stubborn denial. Will doesn’t need to look to know the kind of expression he's making—lips flattened out into a thin line, brow pinched, hands folded against his abdomen as he eyes the orange-yellow herringbone hardwood and off-white walls with more disgust than they rightfully deserve.
Will won't rush to their defense, but they're not that bad.
They're right at home in the rest of the villa, if nothing else. All anemic warm tones and patterned flooring packaged in a pale, peachy-orange stucco exterior, tied off with a bright terracotta roof and sapphire blue shutters. The pool deck, garage, and wine cellar look new—or at least newly renovated—but Will doesn't need the science of radiocarbon dating to estimate everything else is circa 1970s.
Jack continues. "This doesn't seem like you, either. But I guess no one ends up happy when—"
Will—
He's not fucking dealing with this.
He forces himself out of bed. The clock on his nightstand reads 5:43 am in its stark red digital glow. Will shoves the heel of his palm into his eyes as he traces a path toward the bathroom, rubbing until he sees stars.
"For the love of God, man," Jack says, stopping Will in his tracks. "Put some damn clothes on."
Will stiffens in the doorway. He looks down at himself—thin, white cotton t-shirt and boxer shorts that barely meet his mid-thigh—and then he looks over his shoulder at Jack.
They stare at each other. Will holds—one second, two seconds, three, four, five—before breaking. He leaves and doesn't even grab the plush robe hanging in the back of his closet on the way out.
The only thing Will allows himself are the glasses from his nightstand.
"Mornin’," he grits out as he steps into the kitchen, voice scratchy and low from sleep. He shoves his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, expression twisting when he steps onto the unglazed terracotta flooring with bare feet.
It's gritty.
Hannibal doesn’t seem surprised by Will’s presence—an advantage of older homes with wooden frames and creaky staircases—but his expression shutters into blankness as he turns over his shoulder and Will strides in. Hannibal's hand rigidly hovers over the French press' plunger.
Will's lips quirk up by a fraction, but the satisfaction dies when Hannibal's attention darts to Will's collarbone and neck, then down to his exposed thighs and bare feet. Will feels the pointed blade of Hannibal's attention squirm in his stomach, and he's prepared to snap with raised hackles, but then it's gone.
Maybe not gone, temporarily redirected.
Hannibal depresses the plunger on the French press, and the heated attention is partitioned and squared away like it was never even there. Hannibal's expression becomes pleasantly neutral, which is somehow more annoying than anything else he could've done.
Will snags the morning paper from beside his elbow in retribution, and then he plops down in the modest breakfast nook by the garden doors. Not that Will could understand any of the blocky headlines or fine-print articles without several hours and an English-to-French dictionary, but the Sudoku puzzle tucked in the back is an international affair.
Hannibal sets a mug of coffee by Will's arm, and Will's lips pinch.
("Will, you can’t eat that.")
Will's eyes dart to the doorway, but it's empty.
He glances up at Hannibal, meeting his eyes with steely resolve. "What's for breakfast?"