Chapter Text
Will was still getting used the fact he could now go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. Since he saved Hannibal’s life his dominant seemed to trust him completely. Well, where else would Will go? His abusive father or his abusive former masters didn’t seem like very enticing options.
“You would be sad too if I left, wouldn’t you?” Will asked Winston who was jumping up and down around him enthusiastically. “No more gourmet dog food for you.”
Winston seemed to have smelled something interesting and suddenly went stock still with his nose on the ground.
“Found a squirrel?” Alana’s black boots had barely made a noise in the newly fallen snow.
Will didn’t respond to her attempt at light-heartiness – he still hadn’t quite forgiven her for leaving him with Mason for so long. But right now she had uses he couldn’t ignore. “Did you manage it?”
Alana sighed but didn’t try to get Will to open up more. “Yes, Mason didn’t make it easy but Margot is in my custody for now.”
Even though Will had lived with Mason for months he had never gotten much contact with Margot. As his sister Mason couldn’t make her suffer in any obvious way so he kept her isolated from anyone that might give her compassion even his own sub – not that he considered Will as anything more than a plaything. Still Will felt with Margot’s suffering even if her scars were under her skin. “How is she?”
“Could be better.” Alana admitted after a small pause. “She’s quite… closed off. I’m pretty sure it has been a while since she went into subspace but she won’t let me get close enough to help her. I hoped you’d have some tips since you went through something similar. Did Hannibal…” She sighed.
“Does Hannibal have the magical cure to make broken subs whole again?” Will let out a bitter laugh. “I doubt there is anything that can fix me.” Hannibal’s cure had been black mail more or less and Will really wouldn’t recommend it to Alana. Margot would skin her alive.
“Will, you’re not… broken.” Alana protested reaching out with a hand until she saw Will flinch back and stopped herself. With another sigh she let the hand sink back to her side. “I just want to know… how did Hannibal bring you down the first time?”
Will realized his grudge against Alana was only going to hurt himself and Margot. If Alana didn’t understand what she shouldn’t do she might accidentally force Margot into something neither of them wanted. So he answered: “For the first time he gave me a bath, fed me, touched me… I didn’t really need more I was in a bad place. The first proper scene…. Well it didn’t go quite so well for Hannibal. I threw him off the bed we were sitting on.” Will smiled at the thought and looked to Winston who had run off after some real or imaginary prey.
Alana also smiled. “I would have liked to see that.”
Will chuckled. “I wished I had a picture. It’s not often that Hannibal looks so disheveled.” He shook his head to clear it. “It’s very important that you don’t try to use safewords in your first sessions; tell Margot to just say stop if it gets too much.”
Alana frowned. “Why?”
“If you’d have been punished for using your safeword for years you’d stop using them too.”
“Punished!?” Alana seemed outraged then her gaze softened as she looked at Will who did his best to focus his eyes on Winston who was trying to dig into a small burrow under a tree. “Do you… do you and Hannibal use safewords by now?”
“No.” Will answered.
“Are you afraid he’d punish you for using it?”
“He always listened when I said to stop.” Will answered. “It would be illogical to think he wouldn’t stop if I use another word.”
“Fear isn’t logical.”
Will couldn’t do this. Not right now. He whistled for Winston who came running immediately – prey forgotten or only secondary to smelling his owner’s worry.
“Will?” Alana asked as Will turned to leave.
“WHAT?” Will sounded angrier than intended.
“Would you… Would you like to come by to visit Margot?” Alana simply asked.
It would make coming closer to Mason to kill him a lot easier - not that Will had any doubt Hannibal could manage it without any help. “I… would like that.” Will answered and started to walk away without another word.
He had only been walking for five minutes when he heard a small whine coming from the bushes.
“How have you been?” Hannibal had his legs crossed in the lounge chair, head resting on his hand.
“Fine!” Fourteen year-old Abigail sounded a lot like the teenager she stopped being after she started helping her father murder her contemporaries. She was sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms around them. The last time Hannibal had seen her so agitated was when she had first come into the mental hospital.
“Are you sulking because I couldn’t see you so regularly the last few weeks?”
“I guess you were too busy with you new boy-toy!” She pressed out between gritted teeth.
“So you heard about Will.” Hannibal cocked his head. “Who told you?”
“Since you weren’t HERE I asked Alana.” Abigail answered. “At least she hasn’t abandoned me like you. Although…” She let her head rest on her knees. “… I heard she has a new plaything too.”
“Abigail!” Hannibal reprimanded. “You’re being rude! Neither Will nor Margot are playthings.”
She looked down to the bed. “They are submissives.”
Hannibal raised an eyebrow. “Which makes them lesser?”
Abigail shrugged. “I’m just saying out loud what everyone is thinking.”
“Are you?” Hannibal asked. “Or are you just repeating what your father thought?”
Abigail remained silent.
Hannibal sighed. “I have to admit my absence was not only founded in Will’s arrival I was also working on convincing Jack to release you into my custody.”
Abigail’s head jerked up and she starred at him. “I… I can…?”
Hannibal still hadn’t quite forgiven her for her rudeness concerning Will. “The situation has changed, I’ll have to ask my…” What exactly was Will to him? His sub, his friend, his… “...partner first but if you are really so angry at me and disgusted by him I guess you might not be interested anymore.” He moved in a way as if he was about to stand up.
“NO!” Abigail immediately sat up and stretched her hands towards Hannibal. “Please don’t go.”
Hannibal hid his smirk. Abigail could be quite screwed in convincing both Alana and Jack of her innocence-act but in the end she was still so easy to manipulate. He forced himself to a parental smile. “So I take it you are interested?”
“Please,” There were tears in Abigail’s eyes and they were probably only half-faked. “Please take me with you.”
Even knowing what Abigail was doing Hannibal felt his heart grow softer. She wasn’t like Will, she wasn’t his equal in all but opportunity; she was himself decades earlier and he couldn’t wait to see what he could nurture her into.
He opened his arms and Abigail rushed into them pressing close to his chest. Hannibal put his arms around her and whispered. “Don’t worry Abigail, I already told you I will protect you as long as you let me.”
Hannibal had started on dinner when he heard the house door open and hesitant steps. “Will?” He called out as the steps stopped. “Are you alright?”
“I… eh have my hands a bit full in the moment.”
Hannibal frowned, put the knife down and walked through the kitchen to peer into the hallway. There next to the door stood Will with a small dog caked in mud and blood in his arms. His submissive was shifting his weight nervously and his gaze was fixed on the dog in his arms but his voice didn’t waver as he said: “Hannibal this is Ellie. She’ll be staying with us.”
Hannibal just sighed. “Please clean the bathroom thoroughly after your finished washing her.”
Will gave a jerky nod and hurried off. Fear was a powerful tool Hannibal knew to wield to his advantage but he really needed to work on his own submissive not cowering away anytime he did something he feared Hannibal might not be happy with. Luckily he had all the time of the world to show his beloved he had nothing to fear of him.
Hannibal continued with dinner and to his relief Will joined him in setting the table wearing a fresh shirt and trousers. Finally they settled down with his submissive kneeling on a cushion in front of him. Hannibal let a gentle hand toy with Will’s hair and smiled. Will let him have his fun for a bit before he looked up at the food pointedly. Hannibal obliged; in the end every proper dominant knew who held the true power in a scene and poor, mistreated Will was always filled with a certain hunger. Hannibal was too.
“Thank you.” Will interrupted his thoughts.
Hannibal pressed a fork to his submissive’s lips. “What are you thanking me for?”
A pause. Then a whisper: “For letting her stay.”
“She makes you happy.” Hannibal pressed his lips to the crown of Will’s head. “You take such good care of Winston, always straining yourself to make sure he doesn’t even breathe in my way. Darling, you are perfect as you are - your interests and hobbies included - you shouldn’t try to hide yourself away from me so badly.”
Will’s hands started to fidget in his lap but he barely seemed to notice. “I just don’t want to give you a reason to regret taking me in.” His smile would have suggested a joke to someone who wasn’t so good at reading him. To Hannibal all it did show his nervousness.
“I would never regret letting you into my life.”
For a while neither of them talked.
“There was something I wanted to talk with you about.” Hannibal said.
Will looked up at him suspiciously. “Yes?”
“I want to adopt a child.”
Will blinked. “What?”
“I want to adopt a child.” Hannibal repeated nonchalant. “Her name is Abigail. She is fourteen, an orphan and I feel responsible for her.”
His sub looked even more suspicious than before. “Why do you feel responsible for her?”
“Because I warned her father that the police is coming which resulted in him killing Abigail’s mother, nearly killing Abigail herself and getting shot by the police.”
“HANNIBAL!” Will roused. “You don’t FEEL responsible for her you ARE responsible for her being an orphan.”
Hannibal shrugged. “The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
For a second Will looked him up and down with a frown. “You probably orphaned several people by now why is she so interesting?”
Always so observant, Hannibal felt himself fall a bit more in love. “Because she helped her father kill several girls her age. It hasn’t been easy to keep Jack of her tracks.”
“Anyone can be forced to kill under the right circumstances.” Will pointed out. “That doesn’t make her… like us.”
Us, how lovely Will was already putting a connection between him and Hannibal. “No, what makes her like us is that she enjoyed it – and she would do it again.”
Will took a deep calming breath. “So, to summarize: You intentionally tell me about a girl whose life was destroyed – by you by the way – and that she is closed to being arrested if WE don’t adopt her. You do this at a time where I not only just brought a dog home to adopt knowing it will make me feel guilty but also at a time where I’m halfway into subspace already and feel inclined to do whatever you tell me to and I’m literally ON MY KNEES in front of you. Did I get it right so far?”
Hannibal looked down at him with a dreamy smile. “Seems correct.”
“You. Manipulative. Bastard.” There was little heat in Will’s words.
Hannibal’s smile only grew. “The choice is still yours I’m not forcing you into anything. If you truly don’t want her here you are more than welcome to say no and I assure you there’ll be no repercussions.”
“No repercussions for me.” Will said. “Abigail might get arrested. Or she might kills someone else in desperation.”
Hannibal just shrugged.
Will closed his eyes. “What about killing Mason?”
“Abigail could help.” Hannibal answered. “Or she can stay safe and sound in here while we do it.”
“She’ll stay here!” Will insisted.
Already so protective he will make a great father. All Hannibal now needed to do was to sit by and wait.
“Fine!” Will finally said after another few moments. “Fine, we can do a trial week. One week and if it doesn’t work we stop this immediately.”
Hannibal nodded. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.” He looked at the table where half of the food he made still remained on the plate. “It seems like I neglected your stomach during our discussion, Will. We should remedy that.”
For the rest of the meal they remained silent but Hannibal saw Will’s fidgeting getting worse with the minute. Will was still chewing the last bit of food as he was already rising to his feet to leave.
“Will.” Hannibal’s tone was gentle but he clearly wouldn’t accept any arguing. “I think we should do a scene this evening. You seem… agitated.”
“Whose fault is that?” Will snapped back then flinched as he realized what he had just said.
Hannibal suppressed a sigh Will had just come out of shell so beautifully. Well, one step forward two steps back, recovery was no linear road. “I think you should go upstairs to the playroom and wait for me there.”
A pause then: ”Yes Hannibal.”
It was time to address some of Will’s insecurities.