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At first, Will didn’t wear a shirt because getting one on with his bandaged shoulder hurt like hell. It wasn’t like he ever left their hilltop house in Cuba; Hannibal had enough money to pay for servants who brought them everything they could possibly need.
It wouldn’t do to go out in public and risk being seen; at least not while their appearances were so memorable, covered in bandages as they were.
Eventually, his shoulder healed. But Cuba was hot, and even the feather-light fabrics of the local fashion were too much for Will on most days. He was a man used to winter; a woolen coats and knitted hats type of wardrobe. He spent a lot of time in the water trying to cool off; besides that, Hannibal had assured him that swimming was excellent physical therapy for his shoulder.
But as time wore on, a slow realization dawned over Will that there was a third reason he no longer wore shirts.
He stepped in from the patio, still dripping from his swim, towel draped over his shoulders to keep his hair from getting too much water on the polished wooden floor, and paused in the doorway. There. That flicker of a gaze so quick no one else would have noticed it; and in fact Will hadn’t noticed it until now, though he could guess it’d been happening for months. Hannibal’s eyes darted away from the scar across Will’s abdomen and went back to the book he was reading without a single other twitch in his expression. Oh, he was good. But Will was better.
After he’d noticed it the first time he waited to see if it would happen again. It did; the next morning when he came down for coffee, wearing his new sleeping wardrobe of just a pair of boxers. This time Hannibal didn’t have an escape as easy as a book, and darted his eyes to stare at the coffee as it percolated. This time, Will was sure.
He waited for it to happen a third time before he confronted Hannibal about it.
It happened in the evening. Hannibal was sitting at his harpsichord, playing a tune that Will was almost certain he recognized, now; he’d heard it enough times. Will walked into the sitting room wearing only his sleeping boxers and headed for the bookshelf, which was right beside Hannibal. He reached up his arm and stretched for a book on the highest shelf, bringing his stomach within perfect view of Hannibal, not two feet from him.
He missed a note.
He kept playing as if nothing had happened, and had Will not memorized this particular song, the ruse would have worked.
But Will knew him too well.
He pushed the book back onto the book case, turned, and leaned against it. He waited a few moments, but Hannibal kept playing, until he crossed his arms, then cleared his throat.
Hannibal stopped.
“Is there some particular reason you are hovering over my shoulder, Will?” he said, turning his face towards him as he spoke, this time having enough self-control over his eyes to make his gaze land squarely on Will’s face.
“You’ve been staring at my abdominal scar.” he said flatly. His days of dancing around the truth were over. He knew what he was now. He accepted himself. Embraced what he was. What they were.
Serial killers.
Will didn’t give Hannibal the relief of even blinking. He held his gaze while Hannibal formulated his response, raising an eyebrow when he took too long to reply.
“I have.” he finally admitted, having found no path to lying his way out. He knew Will too well. He was an impossible man to lie to. For a short time, Hannibal had been able to pull the wool over his eyes, but once it was gone, there was no getting it back.
“Why?” Will asked, his tone even, not giving any indication of how he felt about the matter.
Hannibal rose from the harpsichord bench, turning his back towards Will, a gesture that both indicated his trust in Will and his discomfort with the subject.
“I had hoped you wouldn’t notice.”
Will snorted.
“I notice everything.”
“As I am well aware.”
Will rolled his eyes. Hannibal turned around just in time to see it—or rather, to confirm it, because he probably could already have guessed that Will would have made such an expression.
“I was merely hoping to avoid this conversation for a short time.” Hannibal said. “It is likely to be unpleasant.”
Will sighed heavily.
“Everything between us tends to be unpleasant.” he said. “Just get it over with.”
Hannibal cocked his head to the side just slightly, the way he did when Will said something he hadn’t expected, which was happening less and less often. He gave a curt nod and stood beside an armchair, folding his hands behind his back.
“The day I gave you that scar is…” Hannibal paused, and Will found himself setting his jaw. He wasn’t looking forward to whatever was about to come out of Hannibal’s mouth.
“It is one of the few actions in my life that I regret.”
Will’s mind paused the world as it spent all of its resources trying to process what he’d just heard. Eventually his deep contemplation emerged as a frown and furrowed eyebrows.
He was speechless.
“I had acted rashly.” Hannibal went on. “It is one of the weakest moments in the narrative of my life; where I allowed emotion to rule over my actions, rather than logical thought. Normally my behavior is much more under my control.”
Will openly stared now.
“Are you…apologizing?”
Hannibal’s eyes darted to the side as he contemplated that. He thought for a few seconds, then nodded curtly before his eyes re-met Will’s from across the room.
“Yes.” he said. “I suppose I am.”
Will knew he was gaping. He didn’t care.
“Though I must admit, as often as I replay that night in my memory, and as deeply as I have analyzed my own actions in order to have come to these conclusions, I can never discern the meaning behind yours.”
Will frowned and squirmed a bit. He supposed, that after the confession and actual apology that he’d just received, he owed Hannibal a few answers himself.
“Okay.” Will said, uncrossing his arms, finally, and walking closer to where Hannibal now stood, resting his ass on the arm of the couch a few feet from him. “Ask, and I’ll be honest.”
Hannibal nodded once, showing his appreciation.
“Why didn’t you pull away, Will?” he said, genuine curiosity in his voice. “When I was mere inches from you, with a deadly blade in my hand, you leaned toward me. Did you hope I would kill you?”
Will shut his eyes from pain as he was suddenly jerked back to that moment. He tilted his face away from Hannibal and tried to shove the memory away, the betrayal he had felt, even though he had rightly deserved it, after everything he had done.
He didn’t think about Abigail. Hannibal wasn’t talking about that part anyway.
He forced his eyes open but found himself unable to meet Hannibal’s gaze. He stared at the floor and steeled himself. He had promised honesty, and for once, Hannibal had earned it.
“Because I wasn’t thinking you were going to gut me.” he said. “When you put your hand on my face, stroked my cheek I thought…” the room blurred around the edges because Will had kept his eyes fixed to a single spot on the floor for so long. Now he forced them to look into Hannibal’s face. “I thought you were going to do something else.”
Hannibal’s eyes locked onto his and suddenly the few feet between them might as well have been miles, or inches. Will watched his face for a reaction- any reaction at all; but there was none, and that said everything. Hannibal only controlled his face so tightly when he was feeling something, and doing his best to hide it.
He opened his mouth, but Will interrupted.
“If your next utterance is to ask me what that was, this conversation is over and we will never revisit it.” he said. “Don’t patronize me.”
Hannibal’s mouth closed.
They stared at each other for an eternity, neither moving, neither blinking. For a moment all their old battles were revived; two enemies equally matched, neither willing to back down, neither able to overtake the other.
And then Hannibal’s posture softened. Just a hair. But it was enough.
“I made a worse mistake that night than I even imagined.” he said, his voice quieter than it should have been, and Will realized somehow that before this moment, Hannibal didn’t know.
The universe froze, and Will Graham decided it was time to just lay all his cards on the table.
“You could correct it now.”
Their eyes were still locked together.
With less hesitation than any other man would have had, but with more than Will had ever seen from Hannibal, he took the few steps to close the gap between them. All Will had to do was stand up straight and it took him as long to manage it, and then they were truly inches from each other, eyes still unmoving in their gazes.
Hannibal was so close now that when he exhaled, Will could feel the warmth of his breath. There were no more words to say; it had all been said. For the first time it was Will who was waiting to see what Hannibal would do.
Gingerly, he lifted his left hand. He brushed his palm across Will’s cheek, grazing his fingers through his hair to rest on the back of his head, exactly as he had done the first time.
“It is burned into both of our memories.” Will whispered.
“This time will be different.” Hannibal replied. He raised his right hand up to Will’s bare stomach and gently placed his open palm against his skin, just above his hip. He traced his thumb across the edge of the scar, feeling the bump there, and it distracted Will for long enough that he’d hardly noticed Hannibal had tilted his head to the side, ever so slightly.
His gaze finally left Will’s eyes and fell to his lips, just a second before they brushed. The touch of Hannibal’s lips were softer, and warmer, than Will had imagined. He leaned forward, heart pounding in his chest, and pressed closer. He exhaled, and Hannibal breathed in his breath, his nostrils flaring as air rushed through them. His fingers curled into Will’s hair tightly, roughly, and he pulled Will close.
Will’s hands came up under Hannibal’s arms and he drew their bodies close together, four powerful arms now keeping them as near as possible, Will’s bare chest pressed into the buttons of Hannibal’s light cotton shirt, their lips pushed together, until at the same time, they both parted them.
Hannibal’s groan was soft, barely audible. Will felt it rather than heard it, but pushed his lips into the gap that opened for him and took. He let his tongue emerge and run over Hannibal’s bottom lip, and he felt him quiver; heard his breath shake. Then the spell was broken and they both ate hungrily, tongues eagerly seeking lips, famished to taste, deprived for too long. They clung to each other with the desperation of lovers who had never thought they’d see each other again—because they hadn’t.
Will pushed his tongue into Hannibal’s mouth and was greedily taken in; he couldn’t recall having kissed like this since high school, when it was new, when it was his first.
He realized that for Hannibal, it probably was his first.
He had probably not ever before kissed a person who mattered to him.
When Will pulled away, Hannibal chased his lips for a moment before he caught himself and tried immediately to straighten his posture. Except he couldn’t, because Will wouldn’t let go of him.
He rested their foreheads together and let his eyes wander over the small part of Hannibal’s face he could see, and for once, it was full of emotion.
“Apology accepted.” he said, and then Will had the privilege of seeing a genuine, actual smile spread over Hannibal’s lips.
“I do hope this was not a one-time occurrence.” he said.
“I’ve waited years for this. It had better not be.”
“Perhaps I should give you more scars.”
Will gave Hannibal the saltiest glare he could muster under the circumstances, and then felt it melt away as Hannibal’s lips brushed his again.
“Or perhaps I’ll just spend the rest of my life atoning for the ones I’ve already given you.”
After that, Will was pretty certain he was never going to wear a shirt again.