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When Will returned home from the bar, he propped himself up on the frame and fumbled for the door handle. Stepping over the threshold, his foot caught on the welcome mat, and he tripped, reaching wildly for anything to stop his fall. The lamp and side table crashed to the floor with him.
Hannibal heard broken glass and two characteristic thuds, and he was in the entranceway before Will could clear his head from the impact. He watched, motionless, as blood dripped from Will’s forehead down the bridge of his nose.
Will’s vision was blurred, and his head hurt. The whiskey warming his chest suddenly felt too hot, too much, and he pulled at his collar in panic, popping buttons and ripping through the white cotton. Realizing how displayed he was, frantic and drunk in a pile of broken things, he felt his throat close and eyes well up with tears.
Without warning, Hannibal watched Will Graham dissolve into sobs, jaw tight and hands pressing into his own chest. He moved, then, silent and tender as he sunk to the floor. “Will.” He rested a steady hand on Will’s back and soothed in slow circles with his thumb.
Will shook, wrought with pain, and struggled to breathe through the crying.
The sound of gasping brought the physician out in Hannibal. He stripped off his suit jacket and pulled Will into his arms, careful not to drag Will’s body through the shards of glass. Gingerly, he took Will to the bedroom and lay him down on the duvet, lingering to nose at his cheek. He smelled sweat and smoke and booze. Closeness only left Will crying harder. Hannibal brushed hair out of Will’s eyes. “Shh, shh. I’ll be back. Breathe, Will. Breathe.”
When Hannibal left the room, Will turned to his side and sobbed openly, gripping the bedspread, hyperventilating. Love was going to silence his ache. Love was going to drain him of fight. Love was going to unburden his guilt. He wanted another drink, a knife, pills, anything. This pain deserved to end him.
Hannibal returned with a warm, damp cloth. He pressed Will’s shoulder back down to the bed. Then he draped the cloth over the left side of Will’s neck.
Will’s muscles fought against the heat, but after a moment, he found his hitched breath leveling out. Tears soaked his cheeks, and the cries came in clear moans then, farther and farther apart as the warmth seeped into his skin. He swallowed, beaten, his throat gentled into submission. “Don’t,” he begged when Hannibal touched his hip. “Don’t.”
Hannibal withdrew his hand, more than a little beaten himself. He placed it in his lap, then on the duvet, unsure where he was welcome to exist. “You couldn’t breathe,” he said, as if it were justification enough to light the sky on fire.
Will closed his eyes, wetting his eyelashes.
When he woke a few hours later, he found a glass of water and an aspirin on his bedside table, a blanket drawn up to his neck, a bandage on his head, and no Hannibal laying beside him. The pain was gone and replaced with shame.
He wanted … but.
He took the water and aspirin and fell back asleep.