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It was quarter past midnight, and by all accounts, Hannibal should not have still been in his office. By now he should have retreated into the back of his home, detached from the office to settle in for the night. A glass of wine, a pair of soft, silken pajamas, and the latest copy of Psychology Today that he’d received in the mail just that morning.
It was almost pure drivel; but it entertained nonetheless.
He was in the middle of finishing up a sketch of his latest work – a young woman who had cut in front of him at the DMV; her lungs were now sitting in his freezer, waiting to be made into Bourguignonne. She had been a plump woman – the fattiness of her lungs would lend well to the dish. Perfect for a dinner party.
Lost in thought, Hannibal nearly missed the tentative sounding knock on his office door.
Only one scenario popped to mind; Will Graham. He had almost certainly lost track of time and thought it was appropriate to come by for a chat, or he’d had another confusing and ill-advised run-in with Alana Bloom. Neither of which Hannibal was of a particular mind to deal with tonight.
He almost didn’t bother to get up to answer the door, but the second knock—sounding a bit more frantic—coaxed him out of his chair.
Tucking the sketch back into a folder and securing it in a locked drawer of his desk, Hannibal fiddled with his jacket and tie before opening the door to find Jack Crawford.
That was a surprise; it wasn’t often Hannibal was surprised.
Raising his brows in question, Hannibal stepped aside to allow the older man in. “And to what do I owe this pleasure of a nighttime visit, Agent Crawford?”
Jack walked in wordlessly, nearly stumbling over the threshold, and it was apparent to Hannibal that something was terribly awry with the other man. He almost always had a grip on his composure. When it slipped, it was always in anger; never like this.
Right now, he looked defeated; drawn.
It made Hannibal incredibly curious, and he closed the door behind Jack with a soft click, locking them in together.
“Bella came to see you today?” Jack started in immediately, rounding on Hannibal.
“Yes, she did,” Hannibal said, “but you know we can’t discuss that, Jack. Your wife is my patient. We’ve talked about this. I thought you understood.”
Hannibal watched the soft hollow of Jack’s throat as he swallowed, obviously choking back words. He looked incredibly vulnerable, and it made something deep in Hannibal’s chest twitch in interest.
Jack shook his head wordlessly, almost as if he couldn’t find the words to respond to that. His wife was dying, and she had locked him out.
But she had let Hannibal in. It infuriated him.
“All she does is pull away from me,” Jack finally croaked, staring up at Hannibal. His tone was almost pleading. “I need her to let me in, but she won’t. I need to be let in, Dr. Lecter. If she goes like this—when she’s already so far from me—I don’t know what I’ll do. This slow fade is worse than her being ripped from me.”
“Please,” Hannibal said by way of response, gesturing towards the blue sofa, “have a seat.”
Jack looked contrite for a moment before complying, settling awkwardly on the settee that felt too small for a man of his size. He knew Hannibal had chosen it because it was informal; a place for discussion between friends, rather than the seats facing one another that he used for therapy. Foregoing the power play of Hannibal behind a desk while Jack sat before him.
Profiling was something he could never turn off, no matter how badly he wished it would leave him in peace for once.
The material of the settee creaked beneath his weight, sounding too loud in the large room, and Jack folded his hands awkwardly in his lap as Hannibal chose a chair just to the right of him.
“Now,” Hannibal began. “What precisely is bothering you tonight?”
Jack stayed silent, merely glaring down at his clasped hands, not sure that he even wanted to talk to Hannibal about this now. Hannibal knew more about his wife’s mental state than he did—he also knew more about her cancer, as Bella never once let him come to an oncology appointment. She kept him as far out of that part of her life as possible.
And therein lay the problem; the cancer was her life now.
“It must be something, or you wouldn’t have come all the way here to knock on my door at midnight,” Hannibal continued, keeping the tone of his voice level and unassuming. He knew that Jack was angry; angry at him, angry at Bella, angry at the world for threatening to take his wife from him.
Hannibal could not understand that sort of pain; he didn’t think he was even capable. But it felt like enough just to touch it in others. To brush up against their dark spots, press his fingers to them like a bruise and pull away before any real damage was done.
“I need to know what’s going on in her head, Dr. Lecter,” Jack stressed, finally looking up and meeting the other man’s eyes.
Hannibal hoped that what Jack Crawford found there was satisfactory.
The ticking of the clock mounted on the wall above them could be heard in every lull in the conversation, punctuating all of the seconds that Hannibal spent trying to think of something suitable to say. He hadn’t expected to be dealing with Jack tonight; dealing with Jack took care and planning. Unlike Will, he was incredibly stable.
Reaching up and running a delicate hand over the light stubble on his jaw, Hannibal surveyed Jack with interest. “I don’t think you need to know the exact inner workings of your wife’s mind to connect with her over this,” he said. “I think you need to keep hope. I think you need to be there for her—and if you do these things, I think that she will come around.”
Jack snorted, a wet, rude sort of sound that set Hannibal’s teeth on edge. He was already regretting opening his door.
“By the time she comes around, it’ll be too late,” Jack said. His voice crackled with emotion. “She’s getting sicker. She doesn’t have much longer; and I’m all alone. I’m completely alone in this, because the one person that I would go to—that would be there for me without fail—is dying of cancer. And she doesn’t want to burden me. But what she doesn’t realize is that this is worse—this is so much worse. I can take the cancer, the treatments that make her so sore I can barely touch her, I can take the constant trips to receive treatment, the hair loss, the way her face has lost its glow, the light in her eyes already fading away…but I can’t take her shutting me out. It’s too much.”
Jack fell abruptly silent after that, deflating like a balloon and leaning against the back of the settee as if he was incredibly tired. Which Hannibal supposed he was; Jack led a very high-paced life being an FBI agent and having a wife with terminal lung cancer.
“And you thought you would come here and gain some insight into your wife so that you might be able to work yourself back into her life?” Hannibal inquired gently, fingertips tapping against the soft leather arm of his chair.
Jack let out a gust of breath, leaning forward and resting his face in the palm of his hands as his elbows balanced on his knees. “No,” he said vehemently. “I know I can’t get that from you. I came here because---because I needed a friend, Dr. Lecter. I need to talk to someone about Bella before it all boils inside of me and bursts out onto her. It’s the last thing she needs.”
Hannibal noted Jack’s almost wry tone, and he tilted his head to the side to study the other man, hunched over and hiding. No, he had certainly never seen Jack like this.
He was very curious to see all the directions it could go in, with a little prodding on his part. Jack Crawford was even more of a challenge than Will Graham.
Wind ‘em up and watch ‘em go.
“I think what this conversation needs,” Hannibal started, standing up gingerly from his seat and heading over to the liquor cabinet tucked into a corner of his office, “is a drink. Can I interest you in a glass of wine? Some scotch?”
Jack looked confused for a few moments—Hannibal wanted to drink?—and then he cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind two or three fingers of whiskey,” he said.
From behind, Jack couldn’t see Hannibal wrinkling his nose at that choice while he poured the liquor into a glass. For himself, a glass of expensive Pinot Noir he had had imported from Italy some months ago.
“Here you are,” Hannibal said, leaning down and handing the rocks glass to Jack before sitting down next to him on the settee. Subtly closer; nothing jarring that Jack would question.
“Thank you,” Jack said distractedly, lifting the glass to his lips and downing it in a series of small gulps.
Hannibal watched with interest, the way Jack’s throat constricted and clenched as he swallowed, the drop of wetness at the corner of his mouth when he was finished.
“Tonight is not a night for sipping, I see,” Hannibal said mildly.
“Tonight is no normal night,” Jack countered, turning his head to peer at Hannibal. Hannibal had managed to get incredibly close to him without him even noticing. He could see the striking icy blue of his eyes, every single impeccable hair in place on his forehead.
Everything in Hannibal’s life was in perfect order; Jack envied him.
“Very true,” Hannibal countered, taking a sip of his wine after swirling it around briefly in its glass. “Would you like another?”
Jack nodded, desperately wanting the soft, fuzzy feeling that a few more fingers of whiskey would lend him.
Hannibal obliged immediately, returning this time with a glass near full of the amber liquid—he could tell that Jack was grateful from the look in his eyes as he accepted it.
Sometimes, the only push that Hannibal needed to get what he wanted from someone was a bit of well-timed alcohol.
Before long, Jack would unfold like a flower; and Hannibal would be there to sever the stem.
“Are you two still intimate?”
The question took Jack off guard, and his brow furrowed, fingers clenching tighter around his glass.
It was none of Hannibal’s business what he and Bella did in the privacy of their bedroom, but he found the truth spilling past his lips before he could stop it.
“I can’t touch her without hurting her,” he admitted. “I wrap my arms around her, and she flinches away. The chemotherapy is taking its toll; every bone in her body aches.” Jack shook his head, giving a sigh and then taking another long pull on his whiskey. “Not that I don’t understand. I do—I don’t want to hurt her. But it’s just another way that she has managed to cut me out of her life.”
“You sound bitter,” Hannibal said, leaning back and crossing long legs so that his knee bumped gently against Jack’s. The older man didn’t seem to notice.
“Bitter,” he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth, testing it. “Yes, I suppose I am bitter. Is that wrong?”
Hannibal took a moment to respond, as if musing on the question. Morality, right and wrong—none of these things interested him.
“I don’t think it’s wrong,” he said.
Jack let out a breath, as if he was relieved to know Hannibal’s opinion on the matter—which he supposed he did. There were not many people that he respected as much as Dr. Lecter. That was what had brought him here tonight.
Everything was starting to soften around the edges, a warm glow settling in his stomach, and Jack slid the pads of his fingers through the condensation gathered at the sides of his glass of whiskey. A glass that was already nearly empty.
It didn’t take much to get Jack tipsy nowadays. He was getting on in years, no longer able to hold his liquor like he used to. That and the simple fact that he worked so many long hours, catching sleep when he could. Catching meals when he could.
Lately, he’d been catching more whiskey than both sleep and meals combined.
When Jack didn’t respond, Hannibal continued. “I don’t think it’s wrong to want to be close to someone—to want to be intimately close to someone. Especially now, when the feelings of loneliness must be so overwhelming for you.”
Jack simply nodded, finishing his drink besides a few dregs in the bottom and setting it down on the glass-topped end table with a loud clatter, almost as if the thing had slipped right through his fingers.
A small smile played at the corner of Hannibal’s lips as he watched Jack fumble, the glass toppling over and spilling the remainder of its contents onto the table and settee.
“Shit,” Jack murmured, glancing quickly at Hannibal, “I’m sorry, I’ll—”
“It’s quite alright,” Hannibal said, “I’ve got it.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an orange patterned handkerchief that had been serving as a pocket square. Leaning over Jack, Hannibal started to sop up the small mess.
They were so close now that Hannibal could smell the Giorgio Armani cologne clinging to Jack’s skin. Somehow, it fit; far better than the gasoline Will doused himself with before leaving the house in the morning.
He wondered idly if Bella had bought it for him.
“Humans, as a species, are not meant to go without touch,” Hannibal said, folding his handkerchief and sliding back off of Jack to the settee. But they were even closer this time; he could feel Jack’s warm, whiskey-scented breath ghosting over his skin every time his lungs contracted and expelled.
Hannibal placed the palm of one broad hand pointedly on Jack’s knee.
Jack blinked at him, obviously confused.
“You need a friend,” Hannibal stressed. “Someone who understands you; how complex you are. You need to connect with someone, or you will spend the rest of your life with Bella floating untethered in space. As someone who cares about you, I don’t want that.” A pause. “And I can also help you with that, if you were to let me, Jack.”
“I don’t think I’m following, Dr. Lecter—” Jack started to say, but the rapid beating of his heart betrayed his words even to himself.
He knew Hannibal’s meaning; and the fact that he hadn’t immediately jumped off of the sofa and away said something about himself that he didn’t want to examine.
Fortunately, he didn’t have more time to think about it—about what it meant for him, what it meant for Hannibal, what it meant for Bella—because Hannibal was kissing him.
It was a tentative kiss; more of a question than Jack would have expected from the other man. Hannibal’s lips were soft and warm, his breath pleasant, his hands strong and sure as he slid them around Jack and settled firmly into his lap.
Everything about Hannibal felt right. It made Jack’s breath catch in his throat, and he couldn’t help but to return the kiss, fingers tangling gently in the back of Hannibal’s hair.
He couldn’t remember the last time he and Bella had kissed; but he knew that it certainly hadn’t been like this.
The settee creaked as they shifted around on it, Jack turning and settling back so that he was stretched out over it, Hannibal managing to straddle his hips despite the awkward position.
Once again, Jack marveled at the man; in everything, he was graceful and delicate. Apparently that attribute carried over into all aspects of his life.
Still, he couldn’t get the quiet sound of Bella’s voice out of the back of his mind—and really, that was the only reason he was letting Hannibal kiss him, pin him down take control. To get rid of Bella’s complexities, if only for a moment.
“Stop thinking,” Hannibal whispered into his ear, the tone so husky and overtly sexual that it startled Jack from his train of thought.
He never thought he would hear Hannibal like this; he sounded almost predatory.
Hannibal’s lips trailed over his jaw, settling against the shell of his ear, and all Jack could think about was the last time he had tried to shower his wife in tender kisses like this, and had instead come back with a handful of her hair after combing his fingers through it.
“I can’t,” Jack said finally, eyes wide open as he stared up at the high ceiling of Hannibal’s office. He felt the other man still above him, warm breath still gusting evenly against his skin.
It did feel nice, being this close to someone. But it also felt like a betrayal—to Bella, and even to himself. There was no substitute for what Bella meant to him. All of the tender petting and soft, unassuming kisses in the world couldn’t replace the way Bella used to curl her body around him while she slept, the small sighs she would make when he brought work to bed with him and she had other things on her mind for that night.
“Would you like me to stop?” Hannibal asked, and Jack noticed the way all passion and interest had gone out of Hannibal’s voice in an instant. It was almost like he was bored with the outcome of this encounter; like he had expected something different, and was disappointed it wouldn’t come to fruition.
“Yes, I would,” Jack said, suddenly feeling awkward with Hannibal hovering in his lap like he was. Luckily, the other man obliged without hesitation, and was quickly back to his own side of the settee; a safe distance.
“I apologize for being so inappropria—” Hannibal started to say, but Jack cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.
“There’s no need to apologize to me, Doctor. If I hadn’t wanted you in my lap at the start of this, you wouldn’t have been there.”
Jack was still trying to catch his breath as Hannibal smiled benignly at him, legs crossed once more, hands folded around one another in his lap.
It was true Hannibal Lecter was attractive; not just in physicality, but his mind was equally appealing to Jack.
He knew he had to leave before he made another mistake and attempted to finish what Hannibal had started.
“I should probably be on my way,” Jack said, wondering why he felt so awkward when Hannibal was completely cool and composed.
“Of course,” the other man said, “allow me to show you to the door?”
Tonight Jack would have preferred to skip the formality, but he didn’t object and instead followed Hannibal out of his office and into the waiting room.
Heaving a deep breath, Jack eyed Hannibal as he tugged on his jacket. “Listen,” he said, “I know this is unfair of me to ask, but I would appreciate it if—”
“What happens in my office stays in my office, Agent Crawford. I assure you, it has seen and held far worse secrets than this one.”
Jack knew the words were meant to be comforting, but for some reason they didn’t sit well, instead slipping down his throat like slivers of ice to settle in the pit of his stomach.
What sort of secrets did Hannibal have hidden away in that room?
“Thank you,” Jack said instead, giving a small nod, trying to push away his unease. “For being a friend.”
Hannibal’s face remained impassive, but his words were warm and sincere. “If you should ever need me, know that my door is always open.”
With that being said, Jack finally left to venture out into the cold, back to his wife, and her intricacies, and her constant closing of doors.
And while toying with Jack Crawford had provided a modicum of entertainment for him, Hannibal vowed to never again bother with answering a knock at his door past midnight.