Chapter Text
“This is most definitely not a beach. How do you keep mucking this up? All I want to see is white sand and…..”
Donna Noble took in the sight of five strange men staring back at her and the Doctor, their audience ranging from smoldering hot to down right damn pretty. “…But I can make do.” she leered, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she quickly straightened her clothing. “Introduce me.”
“I don’t understand. We should be on Risa up to our necks in beaches and sunshine….well ‘ello. What do we have here?” the Doctor put on his glasses to peer intently at the stunned group of men. “Is that Dean and Sam Winchester!? I haven’t seen you two since…Well, c’mon on boys, help me out here. Which face was I wearing when I saw you last, or if it was even this me. Could have been the other me…or the other other me. You know it can get jumbled up.”
“It was the other you with the ears and the leather coat. Looking classy there though, Doc. Like the new face.” Dean snorted. He hated time travel with a passion. It always gave him a headache and his experiences with it weren‘t all that great.
“A-HEM!” Donna prompted, noisily clearing her throat as she elbowed the Doctor in the side with a sharp elbow to remind him that she was here and had no idea who these people were, but would very much like to meet them.
“Oh sorry. Everyone this is Donna Noble.” the Doctor introduced belated under protest of sore ribs, rubbing his side. “Donna, these are the brothers Winchester. The tall one is Sam and the pretty one is Dean. And is that Castiel? Oh you are going to love this. Castiel is a real, honest-to-goodness angel.”
“I can tell.” Donna smirked to receive a confused look from Castiel and that look from the Doctor, the one that said he was being regrettably serious and the universe was a very unfair place. “Oh my god, a bloody real angel?! An actual angel with wings, halo, the whole lot?"
"My true form has wings of some variation, though my halo is not what you think it is." Castiel said stiltedly, unsure about the woman's excitement in such matters. "It's quite large and..."
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quit bragging. Any variation is eye melting fun." Dean muttered.
“And this is…..oh dear….” the Doctor grimaced, his eyes growing wide with realizations as they landed upon the profiler and his doctor.
“You know who I am?” Lecter arched a narrow brow at the strange man with his even stranger, inexplicable contraption that were so out of place in his office. He didn’t know how the large blue box had managed to appear out of thin air or why, but at the very least, it was interesting. Hannibal loved to be entertained.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” the Doctor said, his tone of voice setting everyone in the room suddenly on edge. There was a danger there within the rapier thin man in the suit, something powerful and undefined. He didn‘t need a weapon in hand to be dangerous. He just was. “Let me just say it is a very good thing for you that your existence is a fixed point in the space time continuum or else I would end you right here and now. Which means I am terrible sorry to say that you must be Will Graham.”
“Hello?” Will answered cautiously. He was thinking clearly in what felt like the first time in months, and he didn‘t like the clarity. It was sharp as the ravenstag’s horns, the beast standing behind Hannibal clear as day to him yet no one else in the room.
“You look rather good for being in the advanced stages of encephalitis.” the Doctor’s eyes narrowed as he took a closer look at Will who flinched back. Everything aspect of his empathy was telling him that he did not want to blipping on this man’s radar.
“How does everyone know about this expect for me?!” Will snapped, moving to put Hannibal between himself and this bizarre person. Everyone in this room felt unsafe to him. Hannibal was at least familiar.
“Cas took care of that for him already.” Dean informed the Doctor.
“What?!” The Doctor squawked whirling around to stare Dean and Castiel down.
“Yeah. Right before you showed up. What’s the big deal? Dude got healed.” Dean shrugged.
“Something tells me that’s bad.” Sam said carefully, getting that old feeling. His instincts were pretty good in these matters. Life had fucked him over enough for it to feel familiar. “Are we talking cosmic big bang bad or breaking reality bad here?”
“Will Graham being cured explains why we aren’t on Risa right now. Even an Angel of Thursday shouldn’t have been able to do that.” the Doctor started to pace the length of the room, agitated with his hands flapping about. “This meeting shouldn’t have even been possible.”
“What?! Why?!” Dean was getting the same bad feeling.
“Why would that be detrimental to anyone, much less the continuity of our existence?” Hannibal asked. His curiosity had been peeked, and wasn’t that a terrible thing for other people.
“Time is too complicated to explain all in one go, but most of it is flexible and mushy up to a point. There are little hard bits floating about it that need to stay as they are, where they are. Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter are two of those bits.” the Doctor shot back, answering more out of habit than anything.
“That makes no sense as per usual.” Donna rolled her eyes. She ignored the jittery feeling that was running under her skin, at least tried to. It almost felt like something was on her back, clinging there.
“How are either of us that important?” Will interjected. He felt like his life was getting far beyond his control, and not even in the normal sense he was used to. Losing his mind was one thing, losing his reality was another.
“In all the lives I’ve lived, after all the centuries I’ve spent traveling and all the thousands of worlds and the places I’ve visited, you know I’ve never met a single person who wasn’t important before.” Doctor said as he popped out his sonic screwdriver to start scanning the room and other things unseen. “Something is very wrong here.” the Doctor glared at the readings he was getting.
“What?” said a lot of concerned people and people pretending to be human all at once.
“Have no idea but I’m aiming to find out. Well come along now. Things to do and places to go.” the Doctor started to shoo all into the Tardis, earning him a look from Hannibal, confusion from Will, and distress from the shorter Winchester. Sam only sighed. Castiel was already in the Tardis. He was close friends with the big blue box.
“I’m not going in that thing again. It’s unnatural.” Dean stalled out at the door, bracing on the framework like cat heading to a bath.
“Dean, quit being ridiculous. The Tardis is perfectly safe.” the Doctor admonished, ducking under Dean’s arms before grabbing the hunter by his ear.
“That what you said last time and it crashed!” Dean yelled, wincing as he was dragged further into the perceived deathtrap.
“We all survived so I really don’t know what you’re complaining about.” the Doctor said, letting the hunter go as the doors closed behind them. The Time Lord always loved observing new guests of the Tardis. Will Graham did not disappoint though Hannibal Lecter was keeping his astonishment well hidden behind his mask of flesh and bone.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, love. I’ll hold you hand and anything else you’d like.” Donna smirked as she cozied up with Dean, half walking, half dragging him through the Tardis. She could be very persuasive when she wanted to be, but then so could other people. A door opened open and trouble walked through it with a wide smile on his face and sparkling blue eyes, that bright gaze locking on Hannibal of all people.
“Well, hello…” Jack purred. Hannibal gave the handsome man a very unimpressed look.
“Jack. NO.” the Doctor had the look of a man who was about to smack a naughty puppy’s nose with a rolled up newspaper.
“But…” Jack pouted before turning to wink at Will who glared back at him. Hannibal hid a smile as he watched Will place himself in front of him.
“NO.” the Doctor reiterated, pointing a very sharp finger in Jack’s face.
“I can’t say hello?” Jack tired for innocent and failed miserably at it.
“You could if it stopped there. Doctor Lecter might find your form of greeting rude though.” the Doctor warned, going to console to persuade the coordinates into it. Something the Tardis had to be convinced that certain destinations were good ideas.
“Oh a doctor?” Jack’s eyebrows shot up, looking pleased about all his possibilities.
“He’s a cannibal.” the Doctor shared in that odd hand manner that made Donna want to hit him. The statement was met with most everyone’s surprise who turned to stare at the good doctor who looked levelly back at them. Will’s expression was the most tragic of the lot. Some truths are taken better than others, but all are bitter.
“So no blowjobs then.” Jack shrugged to be met with various looks of astonished disbelief. “What? I’ve worked with worse, and with cheekbones like that, I might be willing to risk it.”
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