Chapter Text
“You had to have at least suspected.”
Will is so angry he can barely look at him.
Hannibal purses his lips thoughtfully and runs his tongue over his teeth. “When he approached me at my office, I did suspect he was alluding to you, yes.”
Already knowing the answer, Will asks anyway, “so, you wanted to just push my buttons in the middle of a work day or are you starting a long con with Jack Crawford?”
“A little bit of both.” The doctor smiles and takes a step forward despite Will’s venom. He tacks on, “additionally, it gave me a nice opportunity to stop in and drop off your lunch between classes.”
That softens Will’s tension slightly. He lowers his voice and chuckles humorlessly. “Busy day for you.”
“This also means I can provide your clearance without you having to see a strange doctor.”
Will chuckles again grimly and rolls his eyes to the ceiling while he takes a seat on the edge of his lecture hall’s desk. “Or you could bar my clearance and I can pour myself more guiltlessly into academia.”
“If we were suggesting things you didn’t truly want, yes, certainly I could do that.” Hannibal gazes performatively over his shoulder and then slides closer to Will, resting a palm on his cheek.
“ Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, scattering it freely forever, ” he quotes.
Will’s mouth twitches up, helpless to the other’s romantic side. “And you’re fine with this? With me always being someone else?”
“Have you considered that I love your anyone-ness?” Hannibal crowds him against the desk, managing to tower over Will where he sits.
“That you prefer me scattered and malleable? Yes, the thought has crossed my mind,” Will grumbles.
The doctor smiles and leans in to whisper against his lips, “whole, yet unpredictable.”
During the peck, Will feels an insulated bag pushed into his hands, smelling of last night’s falafel – no doubt remade into something new – and the doctor is off again before the students pour in.
Will tries to play back the morning’s events, from the moment he assumed Jack tracked down his husband to report him like a misbehaving child (only for Will to discover it was his husband’s own con that brought them together). Prodded like he was when they were first getting to know each other, in the way he hates. Of course he came off as hostile, now seeming to Jack all the less stable, less capable of social interaction.
Almost as if Hannibal needed to spice things up by playing the stranger. God knows that man’s full landscape of intentions.
Okay. Focus. As the students find their seats and turn on their computers, Will peeks into the thermal bag and sees a letter atop the tupperware. Predictably, it’s laced with love in a typical stubborn subversion of owed apologies:
‘Blessed to not be separated by time.’
Something Will said to him six years ago. Something else he said, that same night, which was the last time they had an argument with bloodshed:
“You always speak of forgiveness, but it’s so transparent that you… just want to be excused from revenge.”
And the man who, days later, would become contractually bound to him, replied, “I delight in your small revenges. But you also have yet to deem me unforgivable.”
He resigned to love then. Couldn’t help it. They never bled each other (in anger) again, instead opting for some semblance of health so they might have a chance at eventual joy.
They had practically no real relationship to speak of before all this, just a fathom-thick, molten chemistry that they poured into the mold of a marriage.
The fading out of log-in sounds and growing hush of expectant students cues Will to attempt some mental presence now.
Slide one…
and, right, guess he’s back to bodies anyway, always back to blood.
After the lecture, a tired-looking young recruit approaches him to either network or bargain and Will’s annoyed before he hears him speak. He can nearly scent the Cape Cod on him. The Easter ham and Thanksgiving football games with the family. Not things on their own so malicious, but they create someone so antithetical to what Will sees in the mirror that it makes his skin crawl.
“Hi Professor,” the man tries and fails to grasp Will’s eye contact and trudges on, “I’ll get right to it. My wife is expecting and I have to defer until spring, but thank you for, uh, enlightening seminars.” He gives a little wave to signal the end of his point.
So Hannibal was right, Will can be a judgmental asshole. Or however he put it. He switches off the projector and stands tall. “Some advice?”
The man nods but doesn’t produce words. He almost seems to swallow a flinch.
“Don’t hurry back.” Will wants to hold thoughts like that in, should probably try to encourage the growth of the beating bureaucratic heart that pays him biweekly, but he feels a moral obligation to warn the eager ones.
The other tries to hide hurt with an uncomfortable smile. “Are you about to tell me I don’t have what it takes?”
Will sighs. The messy social dance, the perpetually incorrect word choice. “I’m trying to tell you to spend time with your family before you’re so entrenched in the field that you feel guilty simply prioritizing the lives of those you know personally.”
The recruit looks taken aback and doesn’t manage to shift his face out of discomfort before replying, “oh, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
It’s not a comfortable thing. Admitting some lives should just count more. “And congrats,” Will tries for a smile but he senses it comes out hollow. It feels hollow. Sometimes empathy for joy is a sad thing.
Wanting a family is an itch he was cursed with. (And in his list of curses, it sits alongside his genes.)
His phone shows a call was missed at precisely one minute after the end of his lecture. Six years of marriage and four of those spent with an educator and the man still thinks he’d end punctually.
Will hits call, leaving one ring for the man to lower the burner and wipe his hands, a second ring for him to pull out his phone and smile at the caller, and halfway through the thi–
“Leaving soon?”
“Yeah, just packing and, oh– uh, can you hold?” Will sees a figure in the doorway.
A huff. “You called me.”
But Will doesn’t reply to the impatient tone, lowering the volume and shoving the phone into his pocket.
“Hey, Alana.”
She steps one foot in front of the other in a strong, practiced way. “Hey, yourself. Sorry if I interrupted.”
Will smiles, now given a chance to push some buttons too, even through the fabric of his trousers. “Just my partner, nothing urgent.”
Her face contorts to almost amused surprise, maybe a small tinge of disappointment. “I didn’t know you have a partner.”
His chest inflates a little, prepared to say something embittered. He lets the majority of the venom out with an exhale. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t so sure you wanted to get to know me.”
“Nothing personal,” she quips too quickly.
He grimaces skeptically. “Feels personal.”
“Listen,” she swallows, “I just stopped by to ask if you met with the psychiatrist. I sensed Jack’s scheme was to spring that on you.”
Huh.
The profiler nods in sudden understanding. “Were you the culprit behind the introductions?”
At least she looks apologetic. “Jack asked me first, but I told him our relationship was too informal. It would be unprofessional.”
Will can practically hear the smirk that must be on his husband’s eavesdropping face - he can barely stamp down his own laugh. “I’ll be better off without an M.D. mining around in there, actually.”
“Give Hannibal a chance. You might not have much in common, but it could be beneficial to have someone to talk to,” Alana smiles at nothing, “someone to talk to who isn’t your partner,” she adds on clumsily.
Slow to adapt to this new information. Noted.
It’s officially impossible not to laugh, but it’s passable as something else. He nods and says his goodbyes, already waiting for whatever remarks Hannibal has been queueing up while listening through his pocket. Will wonders if he’s been taking notes.
The second the phone is back up to his ear, the doctor starts, “I think she has a little workplace crush.”
Jeez. “Everyone has had a workplace crush on you, doc.”
A tut from the other side. “I meant on you.”
Very possible, though the thought is bizarre. Not a serious one, if she does. “Maybe she has a buried paraphilia for dangerous academics.”
“I’m not sure something so commonplace would make it into the DSM.”
Will chuckles brightly. He’s always liked their back and forth. The sounds from the kitchen remind him to feel guilty. “I can hear the spatula scraping in the background there, but you have to know I am going to eat the lunch you made me while I drive home.”
A theatrical sigh. “I do know that.”
The doctor is probably happy Will is eating at all these days, even if the bites are taken at red lights.
Will spills tahini mayo on his passenger seat and handbrake, but otherwise it’s a pretty uneventful drive. Even though they’ll probably bicker again about the events of the day, he’s feeling excited to be home. Their street is lined with bright orange sugar maples and red buckeyes cutting through the green from manicured bushes and Italian cypresses. In the back of his mind, Will feels kinship with the over-wide maple interrupting the neighborhood’s otherwise transplanted palatial shrubbery.
Some day they’ll move again. Find a house with a yard. Build a greenhouse. Grow old, yadda yadda.
But, until then, Will commutes to fucking Baltimore.
Not so bad. He sees Buster’s silhouette in the window, the house’s glowing innards where his husband bustles about. Pretty great, actually. Will wants to stay acidic, but he and Hannibal both know there’s no expectation for apologies just as there’s no expectation for a ceremony of forgiveness.
Cutting the ritual out altogether has saved them a lot of time and disappointment.
How to make a marriage work: weather each other.
Will huffs a laugh and fishes for his house key.
Hannibal greets him at the door together with their four dogs and Will, as always, tries to split his attention lest someone feels left out.
“Smells good,” he remarks, while the doctor takes his coat. Autumnal, spicy, sweet.
Despite impressing him with culinary prowess precisely every day, the man still preens at the praise. “I’m baking a pie.”
The younger man sniffs at the air again. “Mmm, pumpkin?”
Hannibal smirks and blinks prettily. “Yes, dear?”
Will fakes impatience. He knew he’d say that. “Are you baking pumpkin pie?”
“Yes, it’s pumpkin pie,” Hannibal starts while he pushes Will gently into the kitchen, “and while that bakes, I would like your company as I eat my own dinner.”
“Sure, I’ll pou–”
“Already have your glass waiting.” Hannibal pulls Will forward by the waist and sniffs at his neck.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Will leans back to look the man in the eyes, “but what’s with the dependence tonight?”
The other brushes Will’s curls back behind his ears, hums thoughtfully, and murmurs, sweetly but shamelessly, “I had fun today.”
Of. Course. “Oh my God.” The agitation comes rushing back, though, as always, painted in begrudging affection. He jokingly shoves the other man back toward the dining room and shakes his head while he grabs his glass. “Who is this thing I live with?”
The doctor scents the air around him thoughtfully again, pauses, and shakes a thought away. Subtle, but there.
“What?” Will senses a hunch.
Hannibal hesitates, an action that hangs odd on him. “I don’t want to insult you anymore than I have today.”
The annoyance is turning into mild concern. “What, Hannibal?”
The doctor’s jaw twitches in consideration. “I think you have an infection. A flu, something.”
Will laughs. “You’re telling me I smell ‘off’?”
And the jaw twitch again.
“Like cytokines, inflammation. Yes.” Hannibal tries to soften the blow of concern by adding, “underneath the smell of spilled tahini mayo, of course.”
Will knows he’s coming down with something, but he doesn’t want to talk about it tonight. It’ll spawn another self-care discussion that ends with his husband’s subtle inward praise and terse outward criticism. Instead, he replies, “I’m fine. I’ll take an ibuprofen. Just eat your dinner.” This time his hollow-feeling smile comes across as more genuine.
Success.
As if on cue, Will’s head starts to pound, accompanied by a wave of nausea. He tries to take little breaths through his nose to quell the feeling, but all it does is hit him with the overlapping reek of baking pie, pungent wine, and fennel salad.
A third sensation joins the headache and the nausea: a burning stare. He can see both desperate concern and self-control battling out of the corner of his eye.
Concern wins. “I know I played with your boundaries today, Will, but I now have to step further. You have five days before I take you to a doctor.”
He snorts. “I have five days to get better? What does that even mean? You’ve established no metric.”
Hannibal smirks with one side of his mouth, lifting his fork again. “It’s a symbolic ultimatum, of course.”
Will smiles at the ceiling. “Of course.” The other man is already mentally drafting the email to a colleague, no doubt.
After a short period of silence while the doctor chews, he bears more bad news. “I’ve invited Alana for Saturday.”
It never ends.
–
Nearly seven years ago, Will spoke to a stranger who had become a habit in his life. A stranger who was also his closest friend. Only chance encounters through shared smoke breaks outside of the library. Will was always bolder when he smoked. “I can’t tell if you are mentally disciplined or just a tightly wound hedonistic degenerate,” he teased.
Despite his typical verbosity and quick wit, all that Hannibal said in reply was, “I think you can tell.”
It was just cool enough – just enough of an invitation to see him – that Will kissed him after a few beats of silence. It came as a surprise to both of them. Will had never been much of a risk-taker and the other man… was risk incarnate. Something he needed from very early on.
They were nebulous conversation partners to lovers and, within the year, lovers to wed. No dating or engagement to muddy their special ties with convention.
Just the drama of contract.
–
Will turns to his reading bedmate in the low lamplight. “How do we know that time passes?” He knows him more now. As much as anything can know Hannibal. And isn’t that all he ever wanted?
Hannibal closes his book and sets his glasses on the nightstand. “Perhaps in becoming different. The gift of our union is to constantly change and be changed.”
The younger man scoots down to have the covers at his chin. “How did you know I was asking in reference to our marriage?”
“I didn’t. But I was answering in reference to our marriage.” The doctor shuts off the lamp and they pull closer together for warmth.
In the dark, Will speaks softly, “sometimes my whole concept of time is in reference to you. Before you, the present, and wondering who will die first.”
Hannibal’s face tightens where it’s pressed against his temple.
Will’s sick and it’s not nothing. Not lethal, likely, but not nothing.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack drags him from his lecture hall again the following day. Still about the Sycamore Killer case, though this time with no surprise shrinks.
When they pass by the hallway with the agent’s office, he explains hastily, “Will, I need your imagination on this. I know it’s hard to look, but… we’ve got a fresh one in the lab.” His voice rings with genuine apology, though without the implication he’d change the situation. Already gaining the intel that Will has to be flung into things if he’s expected to put up with them.
Now it’s more than pictures pinned to a board. More than a PowerPoint.
The body of the woman, covered in treacle and bits of forest, was left in front of the city hall building in Gainesville, Georgia. Her son came forward and identified her, assuring the police that she was no sort of public figure – a cashier at a supermarket, called in missing by her supervisor. A tale as old as time if it weren’t for the circumstances of her being found. The Gainesville PD decided the due diligence of ex-boyfriend interviews and financial statements was pretty pointless in this case and passed it to the feds. Fair enough.
She’s the fourth case like this they’ve been passed, the fourth body land-shipped from the South, still glossy with a treacle that holds onto slugs, moths, and sycamore leaves like an unfinished cocoon.
A woman in the lab speaks to them without looking up from the corpse, “C.O.D: drowning.”
While the room contemplates the absurdity of that, Jack injects social rules into the conversation. “These are Agents Katz, Zeller, and Price.”
The man at the end of the table chimes in before Will says anything, “and he’s sorry.”
Will looks back to Jack, who doesn’t confirm or deny the need for apology. A confirmation in itself.
Agent Katz finally looks up, her expression giving the sense that she owns the lab (or that she’s consulted more often than she needs to consult.) “Entomologist-turned-professor-turned-profiler. At least you should feel at home in this case.” Per lab standards, everyone’s gloved hands stay firmly in front of them and – thankfully – no one offers to shake Will’s. “You as unstable as they say?”
“I’m still a professor,” is all Will can muster in response to the abrasiveness. Something about the discomfort of the rest of the room makes him feel right at home, like the social filter that was rotted away by her grim profession is the same brand as his. Even though his husband might have her tongue for that quip.
Maybe the answer to her question is ‘no, I’m stable just in the wrong waters.’ Maybe the answer is also, ‘we’ll see.’
Jack asks him to look at the body beyond just what’s on the clipboards.
Truth is, there isn’t much else. It’s obvious, so basic that it seems tactical, a semi-intentional red herring. Somehow. It’s not to do with sweetness, but with the availability of it over glue. It’s not to do with Donna Marie but the availability of her over the killer’s true target. The women aren’t covered in filth and twigs, but the gentle, vulnerable things of the forest. A burial ceremony from a one-person religion. Drowning is violent and too slow, but ultimately not the cruelest. Not quite sadistic.
Nothing like me, Will’s mind supplies.
“She’ll be delusional, but have enough insight to know that she is.”
No one in the room looks too shocked at the pronoun. Stereotypes have to govern profiles and these seem to be gentle, loving post-mortem images.
Jack asks, “is she creating religious artifacts? Reminds me of old medicine.”
While he ponders the question, Will also reworks his concept of Jack. Despite the crass auto-show-esque name for his exhibit and his coarse social interactions, he’s an academic at heart. Interesting. Hannibal’s probably worked that out already, or else he’d have no interest in this new hobby of manipulating Jack Crawford. He’s also got a keen eye for a bleeding heart.
The profiler finally responds, “she’s definitely following a belief system more than a compulsion. Not sure if these women are all doing something wrong or all doing something right.”
Something else Will notices about this new social group: something about Zeller. A little more agape than the others, his presence in the lab seeming a little more accidental.
Will taps his knuckles on a nearby stool before remarking, “I have to go do my actual job.” And he departs just minutes after his arrival, giving him the sensation that this auxiliary paycheck is more for the mental toll and less for his labor.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Pray for all the sleepwalkers with stone floors,” Will says, while his husband examines his hip bruises. It seems he tripped over something in the night – he’s thinking an ottoman – and onto the rug by the hearth. He was found seated at the table, deep in a dream. Had to have been a little creepy, he thinks.
Hannibal doesn’t smile at the attempted levity, instead replying, “Donald can see you on Monday evening.”
Once again, he attempts levity, though now with a little grudging tone. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I smell even more rancid today?” It’s easier for them to throw these tiny barbs at each other in moments like this. Will doesn’t like the thought of his husband unsettled, even though he is as well.
“The increase in antibodies often smells sugary. I would like to have you examined before the undertones become a stench.” The doctor presses into the bruise slightly to see what the blood does.
Will doesn’t wince. It’s not such a bad feeling, being aware of his body. “What if it isn’t an infection? Or treatable?” Finally he dares to drag forth the background of every redundant discussion. It's the obvious question, but needs to be asked.
“I doubt as much,” comes the reply. No qualifiers. Almost placating.
The younger man imagines it is as much a defense mechanism as it is a placation. A lie to serve them both for now.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday afternoon, Jack approaches him again. Will is really starting to associate the man’s face with his deteriorating division of work and private world. His weekend suddenly hangs in the balance.
As much as he’d like an excuse to not have to out himself to Alana tomorrow night, he still would like at least one fucking day to wallow in self-pity over headaches and his new side job.
“We’ll likely need to head south,” the agent says by way of greeting. And, because he can’t legally ask about Will’s home life, he tactfully tries, “do you need notice? I know you have pets.”
“I have a doctor’s appointment next week that I can’t miss,” he deadpans. It sounds trivial when he says it like that. It sounds like an annual physical that the Bureau could reschedule by the end of the day. The pathetically empty social schedule of the professor whose reputation consists of animal company and instability. As a small rebellion to that, Will impulsively attaches, “my husband can care for the dogs.”
Ill-considered and probably going to unfold in a messy way very soon, but it’s out now. Well, part of it.
Jack expertly hides any surprise. (Ex-detective, probably, like half the people here.) “Any way you could push up that appointment?”
Of course he could. He doesn’t want to, but of course he could pull any strings at any university hospital in the tristate. He’s married to a wealthy and attractive (and highly manipulative) polymath. The world is at his fingertips.
And, because Will is losing his fight and is admittedly always curious about female serial killers, he dumbly replies, “uh, sure.” Sunday brain-invasion it is. A perfect pairing with his Saturday evening social crumbling.
A restless weekend of perpetual bad news before a week marinating in his bleak childhood haunts.
Before he leaves, Jack passes him a folder with a Monday morning plane ticket to Atlanta. The annoying confidence behind presumption.
“So, I heard Jack reached out to you already,” Alana says, across the table. Fork aloft with a performative propriety.
Hannibal swallows his bite and reaches for his wine glass. “Yes, he and Will certainly make an odd pair. Not sure either needed to supplement the source of stubbornness in their lives, but they found each other anyway.” His smile glints, perhaps overly affectionate. Will would have something to say about his default flirtation, certainly.
“That was nice of you, Hannibal, thank you. For going.” Alana fidgets a little under the charm. “You’ve already met with Will privately, then?”
Every free moment, in fact. Too delightful a question. “Yes, we’ve met now a few times,” he offers coyly. At the sound of rustling from the stairs, Hannibal attempts a regretful frown. “In fact, I must confess something.”
Not quite knowing what to expect from her former mentor, Alana puts down her fork. “Oh?”
As the rustling undoubtedly makes its way to where they keep the alcohol, Hannibal continues, “Will and I are quite close already.”
She lets out a disbelieving chuckle, “since meeting this week? Are you implying what it sounds like you’re implying?”
He wishes his husband would emerge from the shadows, but Will so rarely aids him in his theatrical whims anymore. “Not quite so salacious, no. We’ve known each other for years, actually.” Hannibal reaches for his wine again and takes a small sip.
“He didn’t say anything.” She has yet to leave disbelief for anger, but he senses its approach. Alana turns her head toward the noise from the other room, likely suspecting the shuffling belonged to the dogs until the distinct sound of a deposited glass. She mouths to Hannibal, “is someone here?”
“Will is here,” Hannibal says matter-of-factly and at speaking volume, “just feeling avoidant and liquor-inclined tonight, it seems.” He can’t help the critical shade to his word choice.
Alana pivots in her seat, looking borderline bewildered at the news that her colleague is welcome to hang around alone in the doctor’s house. “Will?” She calls out curiously.
“I’m not having alcohol,” he calls back (with a biting tone) from the living room. Finally, he emerges, only to stand awkwardly by the fireplace. Something orange quickly dissolves in his drink, which he tries too late to conceal from Hannibal.
Headaches again.
“Hey, Will.” Alana eyes his clothing, nothing too storytelling except his absence of shoes. She tries to embrace the absurdity of the situation. “Uh, how are you?” A million questions cross her features, but she asks none of them.
“Too tired to be good company,” he looks over at Hannibal and decides to add the gentler host voice they’ve talked about, “sorry.”
“Hannibal was saying you two know each other. Well. And you didn’t think to mention that to me the other day,” she makes a dejected person’s attempt at playfulness.
The younger man sighs and sits at the head of the table. “No one thought to mention a surprise psychiatrist to me, so I guess it slipped my mind that I married this one.”
Alana’s mouth slams shut like a fish. When she speaks again, it’s slowly and through a confused smile. “Y’know, before in my life, I’ve used the phrase ‘at a loss for words’, but I truly, now, get that feeling.”
“Sorry, Alana, Hannibal walks a tightrope between enjoying his private life and enjoying the theatrics of surprise.” Will looks over at his husband, who has decided to silently concede the point. “I’m sure he viewed Jack’s request to profile a certain, unnamed socially inept professor at Quantico as his big opportunity to spill the beans.”
She shifts in her chair and reaches for her pint glass, ready to submit to this turn of events. “So, I guess I should ask: how long have you been married?”
“Six years and some change.”
“Six years?” Alana leans forward and puts her elbows on the table, running some mental numbers. “So the rumored but unseen love affair of the much sought after Dr. Lecter was… with my future colleague.”
Will whips his head to Hannibal jokingly, as though demanding an explanation.
Hannibal finally lowers himself to the conversation again and looks across at her. “Yes, I suppose you were starting your second-to-last year of residency when Will and I met.”
Alana sets her IPA back onto the table and turns to Will. Restless, but overall holding her own. “Our stories have been woven together for years and I am the unaware fool.”
The elephant in the room: at least she didn’t attempt to seduce anyone at the table.
The younger man steps in again. “We truly wanted to keep our private lives quiet. By the time you and I shared hallways at Quantico, the idea of telling you felt, I don’t know–”
“Territorial?” She poses, flicking her eyes briefly at Hannibal.
Will laughs, gratefully, at her bluntness. “Yes.” They weren’t friends, didn’t even talk long enough alone to allow for personal lives to come up. Her probable crush on his husband really is at the heart of why he said nothing. That, and the intimidating idea of mentioning a same-sex relationship in the walls of the academy.
Now, with his reputation as deeply unstable, the ‘out’ thing is hardly a big deal.
Alana swallows, trying to loop the host into the conversation again. “I know Hannibal was establishing his own practice back then, but what about you, Will?”
He wishes his chalk-flavored fizzy drink was brown liquor right about now, but he sips from it anyway. “I’d moved up here to finish some research after being strongly suggested out of the police force. Stabbed. Then, insects. Second masters at GW and dropped out of my doctorate. Gave a one-off seminar to some cops in DC and was pulled aside by someone from the Bureau.”
“The FBI scouted you like a pop star on karaoke night.”
He smiles at the image. “They wanted me for the field. That didn’t work out.”
Alana bites her tongue to hold back whatever psychoanalytic impulse was clamoring up her throat, but Hannibal chimes in, gripping his husband’s hand:
“Seems that they never stopped wanting you for the field.”
Will avoids the eyes in the room, feeling patronized, and harshly quips, “goes to show that what was once a disappointment now is tiresome in all its nagging.”
“And here you are, voluntarily sitting at a table with two psychiatrists anyway,” she teases.
Hannibal rises to standing and takes Alana’s empty plate, announcing dessert.
Will knows that there are already three perfectly dusted tiramisu cubes waiting in the fridge; the man always makes an extra copy of his hostings for Will.
Even if he’s out of town.
It borders on a compulsion, if he had to put a word to the behavior. (No less endearing or delicious for it.)
“I feel like I’m meeting you for the first time,” Alana says quietly when they’re left alone.
“Nothing wrong with a fresh start,” he smirks down at the wooden table ornaments.
She nods, though the sentiment could sting a little. Alana shines at the thought anyway. “You’re bold at home. I like seeing you in your element.”
The man hums at the thought. “And where are you in your element?” He’s heard enough about himself tonight to last him a lifetime.
“I don’t know.” She gazes down at the now empty table in front of her. “The mountains this time of year. The aspens and the deer. Cycling in the morning. Banana bread… what?”
Will becomes aware that he must look surprised. “I thought you’d have a more... bookish and refined answer, to be honest.”
She laughs like it’s absurd and lifts her glass toward Will’s medicinal drink, joking softly, “to meeting for the first time.”
He lifts his near empty glass to her and parrots, “to meeting for the first time.”