Chapter Text
Will Graham picked at the grease smudged under his nails, letting his mind wander as he waited for the waitress to make her way over to his table. It was taking a while, which was surprising. Then again, it was a holiday weekend, Will supposed.
He'd been coming to Hal's Diner once a week for lunch since he'd discovered the place with his friend, Bev. She worked for the FBI—a glorified vacuum cleaner, she dubbed herself, doomed to an eternity of picking up rogue hairs and dead skin cells—and rarely had time to spend with friends, but she had insisted Will try Hal's famous bacon sloppy joes and, well, Will couldn't refuse bacon. He'd been enchanted by the atmosphere, an eclectic blend of French bistro and old-fashioned diner, but it was the food that kept him coming back week after week.
Eating alone, of course, presented several an awkward situation. A perpetual bachelor, Will preferred the quiet companionship of his various dogs over the intrinsic compromises of a relationship. He was a particular man, a personality borne of peculiarities and idiosyncrasies that didn’t do well interacting with another person’s set of peculiarities and idiosyncrasies.
That wasn’t to say that Will was lonely; in fact, he quite enjoyed his solitude. He was primarily a boat mechanic, though he often found himself elbow-deep in the viscera of many different types of motors. He’d never opened a store—everyone in town knew where his house was, and he was more comfortable in his shed than anywhere else—but his business never waned. He understood motors better than most mechanics. It was hard to explain, really, how he instinctually knew the intricacies of an engine, and he had long ago stopped trying. People just knew him as the prodigal fix-it man, a moniker he accepted as easily as he accepted the revenue that came with it.
The downside to such a career was that it confined Will to his home. He rarely traveled to Baltimore, the exception being his weekly lunch at Hal’s. It was here, among couples and families, that Will felt the bubble of isolation most acutely. Sometimes Bev would join him, when she got the chance, and that was nice; today was not one of those days.
“I’m so sorry,” he heard the hostess say, “but every table is full.”
“Are you sure there is no where?” A deep, accented voice responded. “This restaurant came highly recommended and today is the only day I can spare the time.” Will peered inside the door—the diner often kept its doors open during the summer months, so the bustle of the restaurant could pour out onto the patio, where Will was currently seated—to eavesdrop a bit. Unfortunately, the bright sunlight made it difficult to see into the diner, but Will could just make out the faint outlines of the hostess and a tall man.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the hostess said, “but, unless you can find someone willing to share their table….”
“I see,” the man replied. “Thank you for your time.” He bowed slightly—formal much?—and turned to walk out of the diner. His toe got caught on the mat and he stumbled, catching himself on the hostess’ podium. Once he righted himself, he continued out the door. He squinted as the sunlight hit his eyes, and Will gasped in his chair.
This man was beautiful. He couldn’t be called handsome; that implied large, clear eyes and traditionally good looks, and the man wasn’t that kind of person. His face looked like it was cut from granite, all sharp angles and sloping planes; very Scandinavian. His body was tall but compact, hinting at a firm musculature under the layers of his suit. If Will hadn’t seen the man trip but seconds earlier, he’d have imagined the man to be the epitome of grace.
“Sir?” Will heard a voice calling out. “You can sit with me, if you’d like.” The man turned towards Will, and the mechanic realized that the voice was his own. Why had he done that? Now he’d have to make conversation, dammit.
The man grinned brightly, and Will forgot all about his lack of desire to make small talk. If he’d thought the man beautiful before he smiled, now he was gorgeous. Will praised the sculptor that chiseled out those lips, because damn.
The lips moved, and Will forced himself to focus. “… don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Will replied, dragging his gaze up to the man’s eyes. They were a dark, dark brown and surrounded by fine lines that made Will go weak at the knees. Thank God he was sitting. “I, uh, I’m alone, so it’s no trouble.”
The man pulled out the chair opposite Will and stumbled over one of its legs. He collapsed into the chair, lines of bright pink blooming high on his cheekbones. And what cheekbones they were, Will thought.
“You would think that a man of my age would be used to his own feet,” the man sighed, smoothing a hand over his straw blond hair. He extended a hand across the table. “Hannibal Lecter.”
Will chuckled and grasped the hand tightly, pumping it twice. “Will Graham.”
“Nice to meet you, Will,” Hannibal said, adjusting himself in his seat to be more comfortable. “Thank you for allowing me to sit at your table.”
Will shrugged. “Like I said, I’m eating alone. Why turn away a stray patron in need?”
“Do you take in strays often?” Hannibal joked.
“Actually… yeah, I do,” Will admitted. “I have, what, ten dogs now? I suffer from a soft touch, I guess.”
“Ah, but there are far worse afflictions,” Hannibal said, eyes warm. “I’m sure your dogs appreciate it just as much as I do.”
“I’d like to think so,” Will said, breaking eye contact to look down at his plate. If he spent another second drinking in the fathoms of Hannibal’s eyes, he—well, he wasn’t sure what would happen. And, in the middle of a diner, that wasn’t the smartest situation to be in. “So what do you do?”
“I’m a psychiatrist,” Hannibal said. “Though I used to be a surgeon.” Will, surprised, looked up from studying the condensation on his glass of water. Out of all professions, surgeon was not one Will would have picked out for someone so obviously clumsy.
Apparently his shock was evident, because Hannibal laughed lowly. The sound rolled over Will in thick waves, and he found himself incapable of being embarrassed about being so obvious when it elicited such a delicious reaction.
“I assure you, I am much better with my hands than I am with my feet,” Hannibal promised. Will swallowed around the heavy ‘I bet you are’ sitting precariously in his throat and hid his face in the menu.
“So you’ve never been here before?” he asked behind the safety of laminate.
“Alas, no,” Hannibal said. “One of my patients keeps mentioning it during our sessions, so I’ve decided to give it a try. I’m sure he intended for us to eat here together, but, well…”
“You don’t socialize with your patients?” Will supplied, putting down the menu. As nice as it was to hide himself away from Hannibal, it was also incredibly rude.
“Well, there is that,” Hannibal said, “but this patient is… well, I would not choose to share a meal with him, regardless of our professional relationship.”
“I see,” Will replied. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“Lucky for me, I’ve met far better company,” Hannibal said, smiling. “So, what’s good here?”
Their discussion flowed easily after that. Will told him about discovering this place with Bev, and Hannibal confessed that he almost always cooked his own meals. He ended up picking a turkey club, as per Will’s recommendation, and loved it. Will enjoyed watching Hannibal eat his food almost more than he enjoyed eating his own. Hannibal had been telling the truth when he said that his hands were more graceful than his feet; he ate with exquisite delicacy, fingers curled around thick sourdough with the poise of a pianists’.
It was with great joy that Will accepted Hannibal’s invitation to dinner next week. “I must insist,” Hannibal had said. “You shared with me your table, it’s only fair that I do the same.”
And if Will called Bev immediately afterwards to tell her all about the sexy, clumsy man he’d met at lunch, well, that was neither here nor there.