Chapter Text
The sound of the phone ringing makes Will feel sick. What on earth is he doing, he can't be doing this, he would have to be insane to be doing this.
Another low tone sounds as the signal searches for its recipient. His knuckles are white on his glass of whiskey. He's had too many tonight. Way too much to be making these kind of life altering- no, life ruining decisions.
The call connects. Will almost chokes. His heart is racing with anxiety. He's crazy, that's the only explanation. After all these years, he's finally lost it.
"Thank you for calling the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, how can I assist you?"
Will swallows hard, but the moisture has left his mouth. "Uh, I'd like to speak with one of your patients."
The receptionist speaks quickly, reciting a long-memorized script. "Your entire call will be recorded and may be monitored at any time, during or after your correspondence. We maintain the right to share any pertinent information from your conversation with law enforcement, should the need arise. May I have your full name, please?"
He takes another sip of whiskey. "Will Graham."
The receptionist is quiet for a half a beat. "Hmm. that name sounds familiar. Do you call here often, Mister Graham?"
Will sighs bitterly, wondering if she worked here when he was incarcerated. "This will be my first and only time contacting your patients," he says. Just this once. Just to take the edge off.
"Al-right," she says, stretching it out like she's working on something else on the side. "And which one of our patients would you like to speak with?"
Will tries to center himself, calm his nerves. His voice still wavers a bit when he says it.
"I'd like to talk to Hannibal Lecter."
"Okay- oh." She's silent for a moment, cheerful veneer slipping. "Alright, I'll...tell Doctor Lecter you're on the line for him, then."
"Um-" He interrupts her, sweat blooming near his hairline. "Would you be able to do it without giving him my name?"
She sounds as nervous as Will feels when she says "Why?"
He sighs. In truth, it's because he's still considering hanging up. The frantic piece of him that's still waiting for another knife in his gut feels like hanging up wouldn't even be enough, that he needs to pick a direction and bolt at the first sign of his voice through the phone.
So why the fuck is he doing this?
He might just hang up after Hannibal answers. Maybe hearing his voice would be enough to sate him for a while. Just a little 'Hello? Hello?' to rub across his teeth. A quick fix. A hair of the dog that's bitten him, and Lord knows it's bitten him.
If he does feel satisfied with that, he'll end the call and go back to bed. Better for Hannibal not to know it's Will calling.
He pictures the scenario, feels bile rising in his throat. Hannibal hearing that mousey receptionist say 'There's a Will Graham on the line for you, Doctor Lecter'. Would he pick it up immediately, or make Will sweat a bit first? He'd purr out that sensual little 'Hello, Will' that makes him want to jump out of his skin. And Will would be speechless. The sound of his name on those lips- Good evening, Will. To what do I owe the pleasure, Will? I knew you'd finally come crawling back to me, aren't you glad I made sure you could find me, Will?
"I'm uh, hoping to catch him off guard," he says through gritted teeth. Fuck, he hates himself right now. This is so weak. Shame burns the back of his neck like a branding iron. A mark of ownership that never seems to fade, along with the scars on his stomach and forehead.
The receptionist sighs, as if she's tired. He imagines this isn't even the strangest thing she's witnessed today. "Okay. Fine, I'll just tell him there's a call waiting. But don't blame me if he doesn't pick up."
A part of Will is hoping he won't.
He waits. One ring. Two. He drains his glass, contemplates refilling it. He doesn't want to risk the dogs barking and waking anyone, doesn't want to explain why he's drinking on the back porch in the dead of night. Three rings. He shivers, the early autumn air cutting easily through his pajamas. He should go inside. This is a terrible decision. It's self-destructive, really.
"Hello?"
And just like that, a magnet is attracting the iron in Will's blood and sending it speeding to his head. Not sated. Never, ever sated. Starving, starving.
"Hello? Who is this?"
Will's tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He has to clear his throat to make his mouth even consider obeying.
"It's me, Hannibal."
The silence is charged, buzzing around Will for an endless moment before Hannibal breaks it.
"Will. It's been a while."
A guilty shiver races up his spine. Say it again, say it again. Will sets down his glass before his grip can shatter it, settling to dig into the porch railing. "Yes," he says. "It has."
"What made you decide to call me, tonight of all nights?"
It wasn't just tonight. It was the night before, before, before. Hell, almost every night for the past two years.
"Maybe I just wanted to make sure you hadn't escaped. It's not like you to just fall from my radar for so long. I haven't even seen your name on a trashy website in over a month. It's suspicious."
Hannibal sounds pleased when he responds, like Will's already given everything away. "Don't worry, Will. I'm still here, right where you left me."
Will nods. "Good."
"You sound like you're on edge. If I didn't know better, I might think you've been understimulated without me."
He lets the statement hang for just a moment before adding "Where is your wife, this evening?"
A flare of anger rises in his gut. Then guilt. Shame.
"She's asleep."
Hannibal hums. "I wonder if she's noticed your absence."
Will chews the inside of his cheek. "Maybe she has," he says. "It's not uncommon for me to get up in the middle of the night."
"Do you still have nightmares, Will?"
Will sighs, sinking into a rocking chair. He's stricken with a frightening familiarity, like they're sitting down for a session. Maybe they are. Will lets his eyes slipped closed. Hannibal is sitting across from him, in one of the leather armchairs in his office. Like it was yesterday. An ache spreads across his chest.
"I do. No more or less than before, really. They're just more predictable now."
The vision of Hannibal in his mind lifts a brow. "In what way?"
Will shrugs noncommittally. "No new killers, no new nightmare fodder." He lets a drop of venom into his voice. "It's all reruns these days."
A slight smile quirks at Hannibal's lips and Will feels like a trapped animal. "Will Graham's greatest hits," he muses.
Despite himself, the anxiety bubbles out of him in the form of laughter. "Something like that."
"Does she know?"
Another wave of shame. Technically, he's not doing anything wrong. This is reckless, and a bit pathetic, and very stupid, but not technically wrong. But the guilt that's sitting like an anvil in his stomach seems to think otherwise.
"She knows bits and pieces. Surface-level things."
Hannibal smiles wider. His eyes sparkle in the glow of a nearby fire. "You still hold our secrets close, then."
Will sighs sharply, ignoring the blush dusting his face. "She wouldn't understand it if I tried to tell her. No one would." He chuckles bitterly. "You've isolated me. Again."
"And we are alone without each other. Again."
Will is quiet for a short while. He comes very, very close to hanging up the phone. "Are they treating you alright in there?" he asks after a fashion.
Hannibal chuckles on the other end of the line and Will feels that instinct to run again, straight toward Hannibal this time. "Did you truly fear that I was planning an escape, Will? Or was there another reason you called?"
Will swallows. The inside of his mouth tastes as bitter as his thoughts. "...I wanted to check in, I don't know. It's been a while, I wanted to know how you were doing."
He makes Will wait for an answer. "You told me that you never wanted to think of me again, the last time we spoke. Now you are asking after my wellbeing under the cover of night. What changed?"
"Nothing changed," he says. "I still don't want to think of you."
Hannibal looks away from Will, staring at the office windows even though the curtains are drawn. It kills him, seeing the other man so wounded, even if it's only in his mind. "I see."
"But I still do, anyway. I'd prefer if I didn't, but I do."
A soft smile plays at the other man's lips, but he doesn't resume their eye contact. "Do you?"
Will nods. "Often."
"And what do you think of, Will?"
He stares at the vision of Hannibal. He wants to reach out, to take him in his arms and kiss him until they both suffocate.
"It depends on the day," he admits. "Some days I think about you wasting away in there, waiting for me until you rot into nothing."
"It would be entirely possible," Hannibal concedes, not obviously affected by the confession. "You could simply keep me locked in this box, try to move on and forget me." The Hannibal in his mind turns to face him again, smirking. "Your decision to call me tonight leads me to believe that this option left you wanting for more."
Will cracks a wry smile. "It's boring. Waiting. I think about breaking in and killing you myself. Still can't believe you got out of the death penalty."
"Would you be satisfied, if I was executed?"
He licks his lips. "Only if I'm the one flipping the switch."
Hannibal laughs again. It's potent, and his tolerance is low from years of withdrawal. Will is already itching for another hit. "You may have to fight Alana Bloom for that privilege."
Will's smile falls. He looks around the office. At the bookshelves above them and the ladder that leads to them. Hannibal's desk, near the fire still crackling away. It feels so right, sitting here together. He hasn't been here in years, yet it feels like Will is simply returning for his weekly appointment. Comfortable, easy.
Like coming home.
"I mostly just imagine you existing," he says softly. "Sometimes I wake up before my alarm, at the crack of dawn, for no real reason. And a part of me thinks that it's probably when they wake you up for breakfast. I make coffee and eggs and I wonder how much you hate whatever they're feeding you. I was there, I know what it's like. They over-salt everything, don't they? It's all you can taste."
"Yes," Hannibal breathes. He sounds captivated and it fuels Will like nothing else. "It's dreadful, though I would imagine that's the point."
"When I'm sitting on the porch at the end of a long day, I find myself imagining you, too. Sitting in silence, lost miles away. Do you enjoy living in your memory palace, Hannibal? Am I there? Am I...are we happy, wherever we are in your head?"
"Happier than either of us are alone. Though the version of you in my mind doesn't compare to reality."
Will laughs around the knot forming in his chest. "Neither does mine."
He opens his eyes, and he's sitting on the back porch. It's dark, and chilly, and his ass is sore from sitting in the wooden chair for so long. Will looks out into the darkness of his yard, searching for the glow of a rogue firefly.
"It's when I can't sleep, that I think of you the most," he confesses. His voice feels small in the vacuum of the night. "I lie awake at night, wishing that I could just slip into rest, and I think about you. I wonder if you're sleeping well, if you have nightmares too. If the bed in your cell is nicer than mine was, if they make you shower in the morning or at night- if your hair is still wet when you lie down and if it bothers you." He feels tears welling up in his eyes as the words spill forth. He smiles through them. "I wonder if you're thinking about me. If you miss me. If you wish you could forget me. If you're hoping I'll call or write or visit. And then I eventually fall asleep, picturing you sleeping too."
Hannibal sighs, pained and blissful all at once. Will bites his lip to keep from sobbing.
"Why did you really call me tonight, Will?" He asks, voice heartbreakingly tender.
"You know why," He says, voice thick with tears.
"Tell me. Please."
Will's never heard Hannibal beg for anything and it rips open a piece of his heart. It's a piece that should be desensitized to damage by now, but it aches and bleeds and writhes, desperate like a wounded animal. The piece that belongs to one person, and one person alone.
"I miss you," he says. His lips burn with it. "I called because I miss you."
"Will."
He sobs quietly, listening.
Hannibal takes a deep breath before speaking. "I rise at six o'clock every morning. The food is terrible but they let me cook my own meals from time to time. I do spend a sizeable part of my day in my memory palace, but Alana has provided me with books and drawing materials to keep my feet on the earth. I've taken to detective stories lately, a genre that has never interested me before. I practice portraiture. My depiction of Frederick looks more like a man than he does."
Will lets out a tear-choked chuckle, grateful to know that Hannibal is well. Safe. Still himself.
Hannibal continues, fondness curling around his words. "I sleep as well as I ever have, though the mattress is not kind to my back. I shower in the mornings, thankfully. My hair is always dry when it meets the pillow."
Will shuts his eyes, but doesn't picture anything. He just listens to Hannibal's voice as it floats through the phone and into his head.
"I think of you as often as you think of me, if not more. Whenever you find yourself thinking of me, it is safe to assume that I am returning the gesture. I do miss you, terribly. I ache with how deeply I miss you. I would never wish to forget you, aside from wishing that I could meet you once more and get to know you for a second time. And I always hope to hear from you. I'm so pleased that you called, Will. I can promise that I'll be waiting eagerly to hear from you again, the moment this call is over."
Will breaks. He curls in on himself, weeping. His emotions are bleeding together. Relief, agony, regret, shame. Love.
"Are there any other questions that plague your mind when you think of me, Will? I can answer them for you, if it helps."
He takes in a shuddering breath, trying to speak around his feelings. "Nothing else. Just...sit with me for a while. Let's give each other some company, just for tonight."
Hannibal is smiling, Will knows it. "I'd like that."
They sit in silence for the most part. Occasionally Will mumbles a 'You still there?' into the abyss. Each time it is met with a gentle 'Yes, Will. I'm here.' Will feels so calm, together in the dark with Hannibal. It's not healthy, he knows it. He's here with Hannibal Lecter, his guiltiest pleasure. The pleasure has outweighed the guilt tonight, it seems.
When Will wakes, it's to the sound of Molly's voice.
"Will? What are you doing?"
He grumbles, squinting into the early morning sun. His whole body aches from sleeping in the chair.
"Did you fall asleep back here?" She asks, casting him a concerned look.
Will stretches, wincing. His head is killing him. He notices his phone in his lap. It's dead.
"What time is it?" He asks.
Molly reaches out a hand to help him up. "It's six a.m. Come back to bed, babe."
Will nods, shuffling his way back to their bedroom. Six o'clock, when Hannibal wakes every morning. He must be exhausted- how long did he stay on the phone with Will last night? Until Will's end of the line went dead, just listening to him sleep? The idea makes him happier than it should have.
He pushes the thought aside. He's gotten his fix, for now. With any luck, last night will satisfy his cravings for a while. He's hoping he won't need to call again any time soon.
Once he settles into bed, Will finds that he can't sleep. A nagging thought keeps him awake. He's tossing and turning late into the morning, thinking it over.
Eagerly. Hannibal is waiting for Will to call again, eagerly.
And Will's eyelid twitches. His mouth goes dry.
Just one more hit. Just to take the edge off. Then he'll stop.
Just another quick fix.