Chapter Text
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
Will was trying to spend his afternoon in contented meditation, redecorating their shared mind palace. He was arranging the collection of his favorite handmade fishing flies on the wall, and Hannibal was nagging him about the spacing being off and the red one over there being a little crooked. The empath fled the room, to instead hang up new photos of all of his lifetime’s worth of dogs, and a different aspect of Hannibal was busy rearranging the assortment of old, well worn collars on the shelf below, without permission. He tried to paint the walls in their study pastel green, while yet another Dr Lecter was holding up paint chips of different greens and lecturing about the contrast of color with the antique bookshelves.
Will was about to violently assault every single one of the seemingly innumerable Council of Hannibals if he didn't get his fucking peace and tranquility.
He stomped dramatically out of the study, after flinging his paintbrush to ping off the wall near the latest Hannibal, splattering paint across pristine clothing and shelves. They were everywhere — it was a fucking infestation. How there could be endless of them when there was only one Will here, he didn't know, but sometimes he was just sick of the entire place, no matter how much he loved his idiot husband.
He didn't ever mind sitting quietly together in the pews of one of the many chapels, or sauntering hand-in-hand through the grand museum of tableaux, softly whispering about their collaborative art displays, or reading to each other in the study in front of the roaring fire… but sometimes he just wanted to wade into the stream like he used to on his own, and the veritable army of manifestations of the doctor loved to prevent him from meditating to achieve a chilled out status, sometimes, much to his dismay. Hannibal was (usually) much more calm these days through their everyday lives, but he was still a smug, pretentious, obsessive psychopath who couldn't ever entirely stop fucking with Will. Today was unfortunately one of those days. God forbid Will ever consider venturing into his own private happy places anymore, because his husband was also extremely jealous of any time Will spent outside of his line of sight, even if it was only in his own mind.
Grumbling a continuous stream of vulgarity, Will turned the corner only to end up running face first into yet another Dr Lecter, this one carrying a glass of wine which immediately sloshed all over both of them. He kicked the wall, cursing louder and fervently waving his hands over his shirt to eliminate the burgundy stains spreading through the cotton. He poked at Hannibal’s chest, hard, and barked,
“If you don't leave me alone — all of you idiots! — you are not going to like what happens to you next, doctor!” Huffing, he spun around to stomp down the hall in the opposite direction.
He should have been paying attention to where he was going, but he was so agitated and just couldn't be bothered. There were holes in the floor all around here, leaks sprung from the crumbling, rotting foundation of Castle Lecter that this place was erected on, built over top of an ancient burial ground.
Suddenly, the wood floor fell out from under Will, and he found himself screaming and spinning out down a seemingly limitless abyss. He must have fallen for a solid twenty or so seconds, his voice echoing farther and farther away until it was barely audible to the several nearby Hannibals who had gathered to watch over the edge of the hole. The tiny thud at the end was even less audible, but the immediate string of violent swearing and derogatory remarks was… heard.
With a sharp snap from (one of the) Hannibal's fingers, Will was back and stumbling against the hallway wall. He flailed his arms and kicked at the wall and at the floor, never ceasing the vitriolic tirade spewing from his lips. The doctor couldn't even make out most of it, but there was a lot of swearing, and he did catch the phrase “fuckass Hogwarts-ass fucking mind palace” as Will chucked a nearby table lamp into the floor’s gaping abscess.
“I can't even deal with this right now! There's too many of you! I don't want to even deal with one of you!” Will tugged at his curls with both hands, and squeezed his eyes shut so tightly he saw stars. When he opened them, it was down to only one Hannibal, his Hannibal, the others having fucked off to who knows where.
“Will, are you quite alright?” Dr Lecter reached to touch his shoulder, and Will batted him away, huffing and sputtering.
“Alright?! I just fell like a goddamn… Looney Toons character, Hannibal! What do you fucking think, am I alright — honestly!”
Hannibal sighed as if Will was the crazy one. “Yes, that was quite dramatic of you, but we both know that nothing can hurt you here. I'm really not sure why you insist on being so theatrical about these things.”
Will valiantly resisted the intense urge to strangle his husband and instead rubbed harshly at his own face with both hands. This man cannot be serious, he thought, but unfortunately he knew his husband well enough to know that he was being fully serious.
“I am not being theatrical. I am upset. I am irritated. You—” he poked hard at the other man's chest again, in between phrases, “might be able to distribute all your… emotional shit across three thousand different manifestations of yourself, but I am just one, single man here, trying to put up with this… this haunted house, this… carnival fun house, that is completely overrun by insufferable psychiatrists! How would you feel if there were a thousand Will Grahams ganging up on you all the time?”
Hannibal blinked placidly at him. “Well. I enjoy every aspect of you, beloved. I would be grateful to see every piece of you.”
“Yeah, you would say that,” Will grumbled under his breath, then louder, “I would like to see how you would handle dealing with every piece of me in this stupid place.” He smacked the wall of the offending building, so he wouldn't smack the man standing across from him.
“Is that some sort of a challenge, darling?” Hannibal meticulously smoothed and adjusted his left sleeve. “I daresay I may be able to handle it with much more composure than you typically manage around here.”
Will shoved him roughly against the wall, knocking the breath out of him a little, then got up right in his face. “You want a fucking challenge, Dr Lecter? I'm happy to challenge you.” His lover was currently looking incredibly pleased with himself, so Will grabbed the smug, manipulative bastard hard by the jaw. “We'll see how you feel about every fucking part of me, Hannibal. You were warned.”
Hannibal’s eyes lit up and a small, genuine smile slid into place as Will snapped his fingers, and before either of them had any real chance to consider what they were even doing, they were instantly popped over into the lobby and Great Hall of the Mind Palace’s Museum of Artistic Murders.