Chapter Text
PROLOGUE: A MEETING OF THE MINDS
And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open.
Will’s eyes fluttered open, the line of that sleepy, heavy song rippling back to him in a wavy slowed refrain. As if to show him of its aptness to this moment.
“Oh poor baby, look at you.” Blinking didn’t help correct Will’s perception, even as he did it; and if reality wasn’t upending itself, he was indeed looking at his own face hovering above him. His mute astonishment must have translated as just that. “Oh, yes, well I’m sure this is shocking. Look, take it easy, you’re not hallucinating, though I know that’s not going to make you feel any surer.” There was a distinctive, familiar drawl there that Will could have sworn he’d escaped.
Will reached out a hand and – yep this … version of him was solid so… Actually, he didn’t know what that meant. “What.” He declared.
“Poor thing. Here, come on, sit up.” Will blinked as this other version of him helped him up from the …grass?
“Where-?” He looked around. Was this a lake? Blue-grey water seemed both flowing and not. It was oddly both sunny and foggy and muted like an old war-era photo. There were the average nature noises of chirps and moving branches but Will saw no animals. He turned his head further left an almost shouted. There was a third…him.
“Uh, hey.” Third him gave a shrugged wave looking as confused as Will knew himself to look. Oh. This one was younger; he could tell by the neatness of his hair cut and baby-faced smoothness of a close shave. Back when Will still gave a damn about how he looked. He turned back to the second him. This one was around his age, he had longer hair though, if the neat manbun was any indication. He also wore his beard neatly trimmed and was doing something about those unruly eyebrows they shared. Will’s brows went up when he noticed a small gold ring clamped on the other’s lower left ear. Okay…
“Can you tell?” The second asked with a smirk. God, did he always look so smug?
He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “Where are we?” Because there were definitely two other versions of himself here. Whether he was hallucinating and finally off his fucking rocker didn’t matter; they were here.
“That’s…actually harder to answer than how we got here. Suffice to say it’s like…our astral plane. Its specific to us, iterations of us.” The second one shrugged and folded his legs casually. “It doesn’t really matter how we end up, some parts are always going to stay the same. We’re always going to be an empathetic, only child that encounters a monster at some point in our lives.”
With that Will looked up. “A monster?”
The second waved the third over. “You know who I’m talking about. This one doesn’t. Hasn’t met him yet.”
“That sounds ominous.” The third one snarked, though his big eyes shifted back and forth between them.
Will also looked between them before settling on the second. “And you?”
He gave a dark quirky smile. “I tamed mine. I’m guessing by that prison outfit you haven’t gotten around to doing the same.”
Will looked down. He was indeed in his prison suit. It was grounding. He swallowed, somehow embarrassed. “No.”
It was silent for a while until the second one declared. “Call me William, its what most of my colleagues call me so I’m inured to it. That one-“ He pointed the youngest one. “Can be Willy.”
“Ugh, I hate that.” Willy said resigned.
“I know.” William smirked.
Will gave a sigh. “So I’m still asleep and this is a dream? On an astral plane?” He didn’t know why he was taking this as well as he was. It seemed right, settled in his bones just as surely as the immediate affection he felt for any canine he encountered.
“No,” William corrected. “You’re not dreaming, you’re walking. You’re out of your body. It’s different because right now, even if the building burns down around you, as long as you’re here, nothing and no one can wake you up.” He gave a stern shake of his head. “You stay too long and you’ll look like you dropped into a coma. Your brain will show activity, but you won’t wake.”
Something in Will wanted to be intimidated by this but just wasn’t. “Better here than there.” He found himself saying. He was only ten percent surprised to realize he meant it. He would give a lot to be anywhere than where Hannibal had put him.
“That bad?” William asked sympathetic.
“What’d you do?” Willy asked. Though he too looked sympathetic…like he somehow already knew.
“Nothing.” Will let his shoulders drop and leaned back against a convenient tree, even its bark was muted in texture and color. “The monster put me there.”
Willy took a breath to speak, shifted nervously and then tried again. He nodded, “You in a psych ward?”
Will nodded. “Charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder.”
William sighed and shook his head. “I would have killed him.”
“I tried.” Will lilted. He gave a shrug. “Probably didn’t help my case. The encephalitis did, though. Its why I’m in a psych ward at all.”
“Who is this guy?” Willy asked sounding truly nervous.
Will and William shared a look. “The monster, is our soulmate, Hannibal Lecter.” William confessed with a low breathless tone, his irreverence seeming to drown under the weight of truth.
Will felt a jolt at the word soulmate but like everything else it seemed right, felt right, so he moved on. “Should you be telling him this?” Will wondered, wasn't there some type of rule about changing timelines or some such?
“It won't suit for him to end up like you.” William nodded to Willy and cut his hand through the air. “Better he know now and can prepare. Besides, ain’t no getting out of it. Someway, somehow he will find you.”
“Wait, he's our soulmate?” Willy sounded panicked, his voice cracking near the end.
“Look, you’ve got time, I can’t focus on you right now.” William waved his hand at Willy. “It’s you that I’m worried about.” He looked at Will for a moment, still and peering like Will knows they can be at times. “How’s the trial going? Is he just leaving you in there by yourself?” He seemed confused.
Will sighed looking over to the peaceful stillness of the river. The water burbled and shimmered with lights as if filled with lightning bugs. “He’s visited once so far. Some bullshit mix between taunting and insinuating I forgive him for this.” Will felt his lip curl. “Some half-ass attempt to convince me of what I know is wrong; I’m pretty sure he didn’t even actually want me to believe him.”
William’s head tilted slightly. “Well he’s not wrong about forgiving him.” And when Will looked at him incredulously, he waved his hand again. “You will; accepting that eliminates a lot of back and forth emotional bullshit. What you need to be focusing on is taming him and making him earn his forgiveness.” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “Rule number one about that fucker; never let him think you’re cheap. We might not be all hoity toity with his old-money bullshit but what he wants--what he really wants from us? Oh, thats gotta cost him.”
Will was confused. “Is that how you tamed yours?” Something isn’t right. “Wait. You said ‘tamed’, you mean…?”
William sat back and looked a touch smug. “Hannibal and I are married with three children; I’m the dean of the forensics program at GWU and he’s the stay at home parent.”
Will gaped at this knowledge. Even Willy made a confused aborted chirp, hands askance in the attempt to understand. “You married him?” Willy asked.
“I did.” William nodded decisively. “And now he cooks and cleans and keeps the kids. If he steps even a toe out of line I yank his ass right back.” He leaned forward again, impressing his fervency to Will. “I am ruthless with him because that is what he respects. Hannibal is the type of animal that doesn’t prize weakness, he eats it.”
“Oh my God.” Will felt his insides squirm at both the horror and brilliancy of it all. A family…with Hannibal. Will hadn’t had a family in quite a long while. “But how…Is he – uh, content?”
William sat back and bit his lip, something Will hadn’t done since he was a teenager. “Every now and then, for real special occasions, I’ll let him out to … hunt, so to speak.” He took a deep breath and stiffened his spine. “I give him a few days to do his business. The rule is that it never reaches the house and if he wants to…partake…its never with the kids around. Usually he’ll time dinner with our date nights.” William was sure to look Will in his eyes. “I don’t hunt, but I do partake with him, it keeps him satisfied.”
Willy looked positively green. “Are we…are we talking about…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it.
Will was the one who answered, head thunking back against his tree. “Yes, our soulmate is a psychopathic cannibal.”
“Oh fuck.” Willy fell onto his back and rolled over. William patted him on the ankle.
It was quiet for a bit. “I don’t see how I can get to where you’re at.” Will confessed. He didn’t even try to get upset or deny anything. It seemed prudent to be as productive as possible in this limbo; William’s perspective was valuable.
“It’s not over yet.” William scooted closer. “I’m surprised he’s showing as much restraint as he is; I know he wants to see you. You know it too. You need to leverage that, Will. You’re the most valuable thing you have and he craves. You need to lure; you know how to do that. It’s one of the things we’re always good at.” He looked over. “That goes for you too Willy.”
“Lure him?” Will knew instinctively this was the best way to handle Hannibal but his options…he rubbed at his eyes. “From the psych ward? I – uh,”
“It’s the best place really.” William raised a manicured brow. “He has limited, scheduled access to you.” He rested his forehead against Will’s so that Will had no choice but to stare into his own mishmash of blue-green eyes. “You make him aware of your potential.” William growled out; and even Willy sat up to listen. “You dangle yourself just low enough for him to get a taste. You make sure he’s aware that what he’s done requires penance. And you make him pay.”
Will blinked slowly, plans forming as if by osmosis from his other self. “Well now, that sounds doable.”