Chapter Text
The thing is, Will was in a lot of debt.
That's a terrible way to start an anecdote, much less a story. Crushing financial terror, generally speaking, is not the springboard to a lighthearted romp of a tale. But that's where it began: He was drowning in bills. There. That was the truth of it, however embarrassing, however soul-grindingly common it was, that's the way it was.
When you're broke and feel helpless to do anything about it, a certain amount of desperate late-night Googling occurs. And he found this post. And he found this site. This… service. Probably a scam, right? Absolutely a scam. He was grateful for his cynicism, grateful that he didn't just dive headlong after any lead that might offer some relief from his troubles.
He shut his laptop and went to bed.
At 2:03AM, he opened his laptop again, and searched.
Constance, 21, model.
Elena, 36, mathematician.
Seyi, 27, software developer.
Hmm.
Will didn't think too hard about any of this. It was just idle curiosity, wasn't it? Something to take his mind off of the burdens weighing him down. It wasn't too much of a stretch to convince himself that he'd clicked the wrong part of the navigation bar.
Stefan, 25, clothing designer. Terribly thin, this one.
Norberto, 38, former Olympian. Kind eyes. Oh, but he doesn't like dogs.
Will shut his laptop again. This was ridiculous. He turned out the light, and punched his pillows into shape, and tried to forget about it.
The following morning as he waited for his toast:
Bill, 43, investor. Too stuffy-looking.
Vladimir, 35, video game designer. Wait, no, he's only looking for women. Pity.
(Will determinedly avoided putting too much thought into this.)
Stuart, 24, unemployed. Interesting facial tattoos. Will even knew what a few of them meant.
Pass.
Corbin, 31, artist. Maybe.
Tomas, 19, student. That's a strong no.
Hannibal, 50, psychiatrist.
The toast popped up, but Will left it there.
This guy stood out. Impeccably dressed, backdrop of fine rooms and pleasant spaces. These were less like selfies and more like professional portraits, and there was an intriguing sort of oddness about his features, like he'd been pieced together from memory. Interests include: art history, sculpture, medical antiques, entertaining, international travel, classical music, drawing, culinary arts.
Way out of his league, Will knew. Then again, context was key: was anyone out of his league, if they were looking for someone to marry them for a green card?
Why hadn't anyone snatched him up yet? There in the side of his profile was the little symbol Will had only seen show up a handful of times, in his hours of clicking around, the one that indicated spares no expense.
By the time Will could spare a thought for his toast, it had gone cold.
* * *
Will holed up in his office, with its unshakable, government-funded high-speed internet access, and waited for the call to come through. No one would suspect he was doing anything untoward; Professor Graham was known for his somewhat abrasive nature and a tendency to keep unpredictable office hours, and it's not as if he didn't make Skype calls to colleagues overseas. The long-distance consult was something everyone on the faculty had to deal with, now and again.
Even so, he shouldn't be doing this at work. He shouldn't be doing this at all, but what's the worst that could happen? It was just a test. Just to see. If Will felt horrible or got a bad vibe, he'd apologize and say he'd had second thoughts. It's not like any agreements had been made. This was just to talk.
They'd chatted a bit over the past week, through the messenger client on the site. Hannibal (50, psychiatrist) Lecter had proven himself to be as well-spoken as Will had assumed he would be, which some people would consider to be a good sign. Will, naturally suspicious and already kicking himself for indulging in this nonsensical fantasy solution for as long as he had, took it as a sign that another shoe was going to drop.
The program bleeped at him. Will let it make a few additional noises before he picked up, and the view of his potential suitor flared into life.
He was in one of the rooms from the photos, and the quality of light indicated that there was a cheerful fire in the hearth, just out of shot. Faint early-morning sunlight made its way in, diluted by clouds, perhaps, or half-drawn curtains. He was wearing a beautiful dark blue suit, with crimson accents. Everything, down to the desk lamp, looked extravagantly expensive.
'Good morning, Will,' said Hannibal.
Will felt his breath catch in his chest, at the sound of his voice. 'Good morning, Dr Lecter.' He tried to steady his nerves. 'Tell me again why you want to do this.'
'Straightforward, aren't you?'
'I prefer to lay all my cards on the table, yes. Prevarication leaves too much room for error.'
Hannibal smiled, and it was that same barely-there expression from his profile picture. A ghost of approval, if anything. 'You speak precisely as you write.'
'So do you.'
'I've barely said a word.'
'Neither have I.' Will consciously tried to relax. 'Why go about things this way, why marriage? You seem to have plenty of other methods at your disposal.'
'I would prefer to have a place to land,' said Hannibal.
'I'm not a place.'
'Someone to look forward to, then.'
Will sat up a bit straighter in his chair. 'I'm not the most accommodating person.'
Hannibal's fingers were laced together against the edge of his desk, half-out of frame. 'And yet you chose to go about things this way, yourself.'
'I'm broke,' said Will, flatly. 'And I'm stuck in a rut. I don't know if that's some kind of crisis, or what, but at this point, I'm open to anything.'
There was a faint flicker of Hannibal's expression. 'I'll hold you to that.'
'You'll do no such thing,' said Will, and he realized he sounded a little teasing. Where did that come from? God, what was he doing? It was two o'clock in the morning, he should be home and asleep, not drinking coffee out of the same mug from this morning and trying to tamp down equal parts shame, anxiety, and a thrilling sense of danger.
Hannibal let him win, for the time being. 'You're right. You clearly have the upper hand.'
'Why me?' Will pressed. 'Surely you get plenty of hits. Good bones, for the people hoping for a little genetic material; educated, sharp dresser. You look like you inherited millions, or have a title or something.'
'Both,' said Hannibal, and Will had made the mistake of taking a drink of his coffee, which he nearly spluttered over now.
'Say again?'
'I do have a title,' Hannibal admitted, 'though it does me little good. And an inheritance, which has served me far more, but I prefer to earn my own keep.'
Will thought back on the offer Hannibal had made, a few days before they'd agreed to speak (as it were) face-to-face. The number of zeroes had made Will feel a little dizzy. 'You could say that, yeah.' He shook his head. 'There's got to be a catch. What is it?'
'A catch?' Hannibal echoed, seeming amused. 'Other than yourself?'
Will opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came to him for a long moment, so he shut it again. 'That's…' he tried, and failed. 'But seriously, what is it, some kind of terrifying contagion? Do you… I don't know, snore? Vape?'
'None of the above.'
'You're obviously tidy, so hoarding is low on the list of potential disasters.'
'You're right.'
He wasn't built like a layabout, either, though Will was hardly going to mention that. He didn't want to hint at how long he'd lingered over the one shirtless photo on Hannibal's profile, how Will had admired (not thinking too much about it, of course) his swimmer's build.
'Are you,' Will grasped for something that could potentially turn people off of such an amazing find, 'um. Aggressively vegan?'
Hannibal seemed startled into a grin. 'Far from it.'
'Clingy?'
'When I like someone, I make certain to let them know.'
Hmm. That was kind of a non-answer, but Will let it go for the time being. He tried to make light of it, but he genuinely wanted to know, 'So what's wrong with you, exactly?'
Hannibal didn't seem annoyed—if anything, he seemed even more pleased with Will than before. 'You don't mince words, do you?'
'I think I'll leave the mincing to you, Mr Culinary Arts.'
'If you like. The fact of the matter is, I'm very particular in my tastes.'
Will let that sit for a moment. 'You're particular.'
'Yes.'
'In your tastes.'
'That's what I said.'
'And yet,' said Will, sitting back in his chair, enjoying himself perhaps a little too much, 'you slapped up a profile on MarryMeHome and waved your assets around like a piece of meat. It's not even a dating site, it's a damn… auction block.'
Hannibal gave him a considering look. 'You seemed rather taken with my assets, Will. Have you changed your mind?' And his arm moved, as if preparing to close the tab.
'No! No,' said Will, hastily. It was obvious how invested he was, and he felt a little pathetic about it, but Hannibal didn't seem to be complaining, did he? 'I just… sorry. I'm not the best at this kind of thing.'
'What kind of thing?' said Hannibal.
Will pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, then let the frames settle back into place. 'The, uh. Interpersonal kind.'
'An odd pursuit, then, online shopping for a spouse.'
'I wasn't shopping for a spouse,' said Will, self-conscious and a little ashamed. He looked down at his hands. 'Anyway, if you're so particular, why waste your time on me? Isn't it obvious that I'm a bad lead? I'm already offending you.'
'You wouldn't be contractually obligated to socialize with me, Will,' Hannibal pointed out. 'After a point.'
Will shook his head, but looked back at him again. 'Yeah, but… who draws up the contract? It's not a rubber-stamp sort of affair, everybody needs a different outcome, beyond the obvious citizenship angle. You're the one with the money.'
'You're the one willing to bring me in out of the cold. In my estimation, you're in far better position to dictate the terms.'
'Says the guy offering…' Will couldn't even bring himself to say the amount. 'A lot. Hell of a lot.' He swallowed. 'I'm just some reclusive asshole with a lot of malingering student loans and medical bills and a mortgage to pay down.'
'Yet you've carried out our conversations from the perspective of someone who assumes we'll be cohabitating,' Hannibal noted. 'Why else would you wonder if I snore?'
Will didn't have a good answer for that. An answer, sure, but it did anything but make him look good. He pressed on, regardless, almost hoping he could sabotage himself so badly that he'd have to back out, and could write this off as a stupid, desperate mistake, and forget all about how Hannibal's peculiar accent shaped his name from thousands of miles away.
'Maybe I want someone to look forward to, myself.'
* * *
In general, airports are unpleasant. If you could feel emotions radiating off of hundreds of strangers, while surrounded by nearly-incomprehensible loudspeaker announcements and the clash of dozens of conversations overlapping, as lights flashed and people pushed past you and little plastic suitcase wheels thudded along the grooves in the tiled floor, as children threw tantrums and luggage carts veered ahead of you, and the air pressure sucked and boomed against your eardrums with every fresh takeoff and landing, unpleasant was putting it mildly.
But Will was used to it by now, and he could endure it, because before the sun ducked under the horizon, his fiancé would arrive.
A couple of days before, as Hannibal took a cab to the first of many airports, he had teasingly sent Will the message, How will I spot you?
I'll be the one with a long-stemmed rose held between my teeth, Will had replied. And how will I know it's you? He'd watched the little ellipsis flicker to and fro as Hannibal composed his response:
We'll match.
Will had received updates throughout the journey, this-or-that flight was delayed, an interesting conversation overheard in an airport lounge, a photo of the sunset out of an enormous plate-glass window overlooking an empty expanse of tarmac.
Are you nervous? Hannibal had asked him.
Me, nervous? You must have mistaken me for somebody else.
Before boarding the final flight, Hannibal replied, I'll know you when I see you, signed with a rose emoji.
Will couldn't stop smiling for a long time.
But that was hours ago, and here he was, pacing around the semi-deserted baggage claim, near the belts that were meant to carry the luggage of Hannibal's flight. Will had arrived obscenely early, for no good reason at all. He'd even bought a rose on his way to the airport, a little three-dollar blossom with its petals still tightly closed, smelling faintly of floral preservative and held in its crinkly plastic sleeve by a rubber band.
What the hell was he doing with his life?
There was money in the bank, and more to come. You had to space it out to avert suspicion, make little deposits here and there, but the first payment alone had been enough to make Will wonder when he was going to wake up from this and find himself right where he'd started.
And it's not as if he was only doing it for the money. The nature of their online conversations, timed around their opposing schedules, meant that Will was often talking late into the night, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and putting off sleep for just another hour, just a little longer. Tiredness, and the emotional state that comes of having already endured a full day of social expectations and work and everyday woes, meant that Will was even less likely than usual to hold his tongue, and Hannibal did nothing to discourage him from speaking his mind. Hannibal would often tease him for his forthrightness, though, and how did that make you feel? Don't be afraid to delve. And Will would laugh, but he wouldn't follow through.
Well. Wouldn't usually.
There came a point when his next conversation with Hannibal was what got Will through the day. They'd decided early on that if this was going to carry on to some sort of goal, they had to commit wholeheartedly to the enterprise, for their mutual benefit. After all, why not embrace the fact that they now had this opportunity? To build a life without the burden of needing it to work out in the end—that was a luxury Will had never experienced, before. If things imploded, if they couldn't stand one another in person, so be it; they would have already gotten what they'd bargained for. So why not see it as a game, as a challenge? What was stopping them?
Will had never lived with someone he genuinely liked, before. Back in his twenties he'd had roommates off and on, and they'd develop that sort of functional friendship where you could borrow twenty bucks or go out for a drink, but once they moved or you moved, there wasn't much of a reason to stay in touch. Relationships of proximity seemed to be a recurring theme in Will's life, and now here he was, six months since a night of desperate Googling, about to enter into a marriage of convenience.
At least he was consistent.
Beyond the opening in the wall, a motor fired up, and the luggage belts began to move. Over the past half-hour or so, little groups of people had gathered here and there, looking at the schedule boards or sitting in the long line of chairs with their shared armrests. Will had enjoyed being there alone, in this cavernous, liminal space, waiting for his future to arrive. But now there was noise and movement and discomfort; Will soothed himself with the thought that he'd have Hannibal to himself on the drive home, and then they would be home, together.
Will had asked Hannibal, when their agreement was still in its infancy, whether he was going to find a place of his own. He was, Hannibal told him, but not urgently. Perhaps they might find out what it was like to live under the same roof? Just to see. And Will had said that was fine (cautioning him about the dogs all the while), and they'd agreed that they would give it at least a month. If one or the other found his companion intolerable, Hannibal would find a nice hotel or a rental in the city somewhere while he looked for a more permanent residence, and Will would go back to sleeping in the front room and thinking about the way Hannibal's eyes had always lit up when Will greeted him on their morning call.
Will had spent the past few weeks trying to make the house presentable, and a little more normal. Furniture got rearranged, the chimney repaired so you could actually build a fire instead of rely on a space heater that whiffed of dog hair, and he finally replaced the cheap old silverware like he'd been meaning to for ages. For the first time, he chose a bedroom, and tried to get used to sleeping in there. When hypervigilance kept him up nights, he would imagine that Hannibal was in the next room. Will could think of the rise and fall of his chest, the soft sound of his breathing, the faint flicker of movement beneath his eyelids as he dreamed. Only then could Will fall asleep.
(Now and then, he'd imagine that Hannibal was not in the next room, but next to him, instead. Those were the nights he slept best, his mind untroubled.)
He didn't know if this would work, but that wasn't the point. The point was to see if it could. And if it didn't, well, no harm done, right? A lot of harm could be done, Will knew, but he hoped there wouldn't be. If they didn't get along—hell, even if they drove each other up the wall—it was still possible to part ways amicably, having achieved what they initially set out to do.
But Will had grown accustomed to having someone to look forward to, and the thought of eventually not having one again burned like acid at the back of his throat.
A kid from one of the clusters of waiting people broke away and sprinted across the room, shouting an excited welcome to someone, effectively heralding the arrival of the passengers. Will felt suddenly tense, and had the urge to check whether he looked all right, even though he must look exactly the same as he had when he'd left the house a few hours before. He'd changed out of his teaching clothes and into something a little nicer, despite the fact that Hannibal had nearly always seen him in a rumpled state before.
He held the rose in its plastic sleeve, the stem warmed by the time spent in his hand, and he felt incredibly foolish about it. Half the time he didn't know if Hannibal was joking, or just humoring him, or what. They'd logged hours of meandering conversations, on topics ranging from hospital horror stories (Hannibal had been a surgeon, once) to jazz vocalists (that was Will's contribution) to the care and keeping of herbs on a kitchen windowsill. They'd playfully bicker about the other's taste in music and films. Will would wonder about how long it took Hannibal to get ready in the morning, and Hannibal would imply that Will slept in his clothes. Will told him, once, that he'd seen an abysmal production of Don Giovanni, and Hannibal had proceeded to enthuse (as much as he ever enthused) about other operas that might be better suited to Will's tastes.
But there were the calls when Will had barely slept the night before, when he was snappish and aggressively tactless. There were some calls that Hannibal missed, and he would give vague excuses for his absence, I'm sorry, Will, something desperately required my attention, and Will would bite his tongue against the desire to say I desperately require your attention, too.
But then there were times when Will would be up all night grading papers, and he'd hear the little sound that indicated Hannibal had logged on, and he would click out of his student's terrible explanation of directional claw marks on an assailant's back and would type in the chat window, You're up early, and Hannibal would say, You're up late, and they'd put off their responsibilities for a while.
Will didn't know if Hannibal had caught on, but surely he must have by now. There was no other word for how they spoke to each other: it was near-constant flirting, finding each other's buttons and pushing them at every opportunity. Will hadn't anticipated that. He hadn't gone looking for someone to want, someone to (perhaps, but let's not think too hard about this) need. But there he was.
And Will knew that there were a lot of things left to discuss. They'd danced around the idea of what living together would mean, even for an experimental period, and Hannibal had made it clear that Will would have the final decision regarding anything that might happen between them. I haven't paid for your company, Will. I've rewarded you as best I can for a favor, that's all. Will could think of a lot of other ways Hannibal might reward him, but that's where things hit a snag.
They would flirt, up to a point. Nothing became overtly sexual, and both of them seemed fine with that so far—but Will hoped that maybe Hannibal had found himself unable to sleep, some nights, just like Will had, and found his thoughts drifting to Will, just as Will's were drawn magnetically back to Hannibal, time and again.
If things ever did reach that point between them, it would come with its own troubles. Explaining scars, explaining himself. Or that hesitant side-stepping around it and neither one saying, all the while worrying that Will wasn't what he'd wanted, after all.
But this was a game. A challenge. They both wanted to know what might happen.
Will caught sight of Hannibal in the crowd, and felt his pulse thunder in his throat, apprehension fighting for dominance against elation and relief. Hannibal was real. He was here, now, at last, and Will could now live in a world where he'd go home to him, could introduce him, this is my fiancé, could occupy the same space and breathe the same air, catch scent of him, touch him, know him in a way that screens and words couldn't wholly reach.
He'd tried to rehearse what he was going to say. In the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, he practiced. While folding the laundry, taking the dogs out, waiting at stoplights, he tried out and rejected countless lines. Hey, you. Coy and perhaps with one eyebrow? No, that wasn't it. Welcome home. Trite and corny, he deserved better than that. Fancy meeting you here. Ugh, what? No. Come here often? God, they just got worse and worse. Better to not say anything at all. Maybe he could just nod, just smile. Never have to think of something clever to say for as long as he lived, because nothing (now that the moment had arrived) would be good enough.
Hannibal reached him, and Will froze completely.
The look on his face, God, Will couldn't even describe it if he tried. He wasn't just glad to have located him, it was more like Hannibal was glad to have found him.
'Will,' said Hannibal, with such fondness that Will couldn't breathe. Hannibal tucked a little origami rose into the buttonhole of Will's jacket.
'You caught me,' said Will, stupidly, without thinking, because thinking wasn't important at the moment, not in the wake of how Hannibal lifted a hand to gently cup Will's jaw and all the world seemed to go quiet around them and leave them in peace.
'So have you,' said Hannibal, and kissed him.
And Hannibal didn't seem to mind the noise of yearning and surprise Will made in the back of his throat, he just gathered him close as Will melted against him, basking in his presence, the reality of him. Will had enough presence of mind not to clutch at him or make a scene, or do anything that might lead Hannibal to regret having kissed him at all—but those concerns were merely running in the background. A majority of Will's mind, and indeed his entire self, was concerned with capturing this moment so it couldn't get away from him, relishing it, feeling, as always, the conviction that it would slip through his fingers and disappear.
He felt the stem of the rose snap between them, still in his hand, and the kiss ended shortly thereafter.
'Oh,' said Will, barely audible, on the end of a breath.
'I've not been here for five minutes,' said Hannibal, with a little smile, 'and I'm already breaking things. Haven't I warned you I'm terrible company?'
'I always disagree with you,' Will reminded him. He felt light-headed, awash with hope. 'Guess we're getting a jump on the old-married-couple bickering.'
'I suppose we are.' They were still so close, and Hannibal inclined his head, their foreheads touching. 'Am I in the doghouse already, Will?'
That made him laugh a little, and Will moved back, shaking his head. 'Come on, let's get your bags. It's been a long trip, I bet you want to get home.'
Hannibal took his hand. 'More than you know.'