Chapter Text
Patpong has been kind to Hannibal.
While during daylight hours the country is his to tour, visiting shrines buried in primeval forest, glistening ivory beaches, achingly beautiful mountains with peaks obscured by shifting mist, at night he is here. Among throngs of rancid humanity, fat tourists bellowing drunk at bored local women with one hand in their mark’s pocket, among fetid smoke that smears neon into impressionist swaths of color, he is strangely safe. He is unremarkable. He dresses in dark suits, nothing particularly identifiable, and certainly little to distinguish him from any other foreigner come to Thailand in the name of business and in pursuit of pleasure.
The thud of Nana Plaza’s ceaseless party sets a pace by which to time his heart - not each beat of bass, but every fourth. He counts, glancing through smog-smudged windows to the flashes of flesh within - boucherie of a different sort, and really just the same. He winds through Soi Cowboy, stepping aside to let pass a handful of lads - London, or near enough, if their accents are anything to go by - stagger past him with almost childish pleasure in their grins.
He does not follow them. Their pursuits are not his own.
Through the red light district, shined shoes find familiar thoroughfares, between buildings here, down a sidestreet there, until the genders of those on display blend as the neon against the ill-lit sky, a static grey neither light nor dark. And past those indiscernables, who call to him and beckon, to the bent road Soi Pratuchai. It is strangely appropriate that this portion of Patpong is curved - indeed, few enough in it could be called straight.
Hannibal’s slight smile is caught within an instant, by a proprietor at his side, a heavy-set man who takes in Hannibal’s suit and bag as readily as he does his face. The question is all too familiar:
“You want company?”
He ducks his head as though in doubt, in consideration, and regards the man, feigning hesitation. Hannibal sends a look over his shoulder, as much as to ensure no pickpocket has stepped up behind him, as to affect a particular wariness that a man like himself should have here. His prey is before him, now, with greed shining in his eyes.
But one must play the game. It would be very poor form indeed for the quarry to flee.
“Young,” Hannibal says, and meets the man’s eyes meaningfully.
The grin is wide, teeth crooked, some missing, and breath rancid, and Hannibal resists the urge to turn his head where it shouldn’t turn, hear the crisp snap of cartilage and bone. He will have time. It is always better if he takes it.
“Girl?” the man asks, damn near salivating thinking of his own product. “Many ages, from very little to just growing into their lovely bodies. All clean, always clean.”
Hannibal highly doubts the promise, but he shakes his head for a different reason. The man blinks, reconsiders, takes in Hannibal once more and this smile draws his piggish eyes more narrow, the bottom lids twitching as he tries to draw out the intrigue of a guaranteed sale.
“Boy?”
“Boy,” Hannibal confirms, does not repeat his previous demand, he’s fairly certain the man doesn't have anyone other than ‘young’.
“Right place for boys,” the man assures him. “Six boys. So pretty. Do you want to choose? See before you buy? I sell for nights, then they come back.”
“Six?” Hannibal asks, brows lifting. His surprise does not have to be falsified - it’s more than Hannibal expected from the man whose movements he’s tracked for several days, marking his paths and the times he takes them, certain of the nature of his business but not the scope of it. Normally Hannibal can expect one or two of each, rarely more than that.
“Six,” the man repeats, happily conversant in Thai when Hannibal speaks it to him, and Hannibal happy to be perceived as a higher class of businessman. One actually here for that purpose, rather than depravity. A nervous curiosity drawing him inward towards the roiling red underbelly of the city.
He is not perceived as police. All the better, since he is not.
“Come in and see them, come with me,” the proprietor insists, bustling Hannibal onward, not to the front door where music squeals and pulses, where women, men, and those in-between dance or display themselves. He takes Hannibal down an alley, and when Hannibal pauses, insists, “It’s safe.”
Hannibal allows a faint smile. It is far safer for him than for anyone.
“I trust you,” he responds, and follows to the back entrance.
The music is muffled but not by much, and stairs carpeted in an array of old paisley and faded check lead up to the apartment above the club. The door has several locks but the man just moves them, no key necessary. Perhaps a precaution against thieves and curious tweakers, perhaps just left unlocked for business hours.
Hannibal is ushered inside, the door closed behind him to muffle the music further, though the bass still vibrates through the floor and up into Hannibal’s bones. He just nods when the man gestures onwards. The apartment is not large, opening directly to a wide living area crammed with sagging couches and folding chairs. A television blares in the corner but the sound mingles with the music enough to be entirely unimportant. On the screen some rapper gesticulates as women circle him.
Beverly Hills. Land of milk and honey.
Hannibal is led to a small corridor, to a door with another lock. Across from it stands another, door ajar, a bed within made up in dark sheets. To take the chosen merchandise, apparently. Hannibal's lip twitches in disgust but he says nothing. He waits.
The door before him is unlocked, and there is a frantic scrabbling behind it as the boys kept there return to where they should be. To their cots and bunks. Away from the door. Away from the creaking, tiny window.
A fan is going but it is still stifling. A board game lies scattered on the floor, surrounded by clothes and assorted underwear and toys. There are, as promised, six boys. Two very little, three a little older, and one asleep, back turned, too exhausted or too sick to even move when he’s barked at to come over.
Hannibal's eyes skim the selection, all frightened, all little. Asian features and dark skin and one, just one boy, with eyes bright blue and skin pale. He holds one of the smallest against him, arms protectively around his middle, but moves to obey the yelled instructions as the others do.
He does not avert his gaze. Though his pulse keeps time with the music now, allowed to quicken and spill electric adrenaline through his muscles, Hannibal does not look away from the boys who will not spend another night locked in this room. They stand still before him, nothing left enough to even make them tremble.
Numb.
Frozen.
Hannibal knows the feeling, all too well, and the bead of sweat from the room’s suffocating humidity reminds him that he is not that little boy anymore. Each in turn is studied, surveyed as if with prurient interest rather than a practical count for each that will need to be deposited somewhere safe. And with a hum, Hannibal’s attention lingers for a beat longer, on the blue-eyed boy, standing taller than the rest.
He turns back towards the hallway, lip curling as he skims his tongue along his teeth, and as the proprietor follows in ready dismay, Hannibal offers a faint smile. “I want them.”
“Yes, pick one and he’s yours - all night,” the man insists, motioning to the dismal bedroom. “You can stay.”
“No,” Hannibal breathes, almost a laugh, and he sets a hand on the man’s shoulder. Both angle away from the boys, and Hannibal takes a step towards the bedroom. Another. “My Thai is not very good.”
“It’s excellent,” the man insists, and Hannibal rewards him with a wan smile.
“I want all of them.”
“All - all six? It’s too many.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” the man insists with a brash laugh, patting Hannibal’s stomach. “You’re a strong man, but six -”
“All of them,” Hannibal says again, and in a movement too fast for the man to do little more than draw a breath, he steps behind him. One hand atop his head, the other beneath his chin, a jerk one way, and then the other, and cartilage crackles like frying oil, bones popping like firecrackers.
The proprietor falls heavy to the ground, and Hannibal steps back only enough to free his shoes from beneath him, before looking to the oldest boys. “Where are the others?”
The blue-eyed boy blinks, clearly understanding, a long time since he has heard English here - few tourists come down this far unless they know what they want and where to go for it cheaper - but says nothing. He holds the younger boy to his chest a little harder, lets him turn for comfort into him and just stares.
Hannibal looks at him long enough for the boy to swallow, jaw working, but still no words. And he knows that too, that bone-deep chain that holds everything inside, sounds and words and feelings, everything they have already taken and what they want more of. It’s a defiance and a strength. Hannibal asks him again.
“The others. The girls. Where are they?”
Still the boy is silent, eyes wide and almost frozen where he stands, before something, some strange tug of trust or hope pulls his muscles enough to move and he lifts his hand to point, back to the door of the apartment.
“Downstairs,” he whispers. “They work.”
It is all much more than Hannibal anticipated. A fit of pique, to kill the man in front of them. Certain that the boy now watching him with baleful mistrust did not speak English. Hannibal imagined - and still does, in truth - that for as much as he needed to see his own captors killed, perhaps by saving these boys the trouble of doing it themselves later, they could sleep easier, now, knowing he’s gone.
And yet, in a city of so many - nameless, faceless - foreigners, what is one more amongst the throngs?
He works his lips together, pursed, and then speaks softly, clearly, without moving towards the room where the boys stand watching him, wide eyes shining in the dim light.
“Take them. Take the girls,” Hannibal instructs the blue-eyed boy. “If the one in bed is unwell, you will send the police here when you have brought the rest to them. The station is left from the door, one block. Do you understand?”
The boy looks at Hannibal, down to the man in the corridor, back to him again, still frozen, still unsure. Whatever fear had been instilled into these kids about leaving the apartment is enough to hold him motionless still. Numb. Scared. Slowly, he shakes his head, brows furrowed and up, pulse fluttering wild where Hannibal can see it against his throat.
He could curse in frustration.
He doesn’t.
He tries again.
“What’s his name?” He gestures to the boy turned against the other’s chest. He waits. Long enough for something to click for the blue-eyed one to reply.
“Jamal.”
“You’re holding him so he won’t be scared,” Hannibal says, watches the boy nod. “That’s very brave.”
Another blink, another flutter of a swallow, another flicker of eyes to the dead man and back to the man who killed him. In truth, not the best odds for a child terrified into staying in a filthy room unless he’s bought, but better than none at all.
“You are very brave,” Hannibal repeats, until the boy blinks and looks down at the little one trembling against him. “I need your help, because I know you can do it. I need you to take the boys to the station. And the girls, who you can find, downstairs. Send the police here.”
Another glance to the floor.
“He can’t hurt you anymore,” Hannibal assures him, and the boy’s eyes flick immediately to him at the words, a hatred behind them known only all too well, reeking of broken promises made already.
“Will you?” the boy asks him.
He does not patronize the boy with more a smile than the small one that appears despite himself, keeping distance from his eyes. There is no pleasure in it. No delight. Little enough comfort, because the man that offers it now is as familiar with the boy’s anger as he is his fear.
“No,” Hannibal answers. Only that. And he knows before the boy’s eyes even narrow that he is not believed. It doesn’t matter.
He does not wait. The boys will either go now or not. They will either take the girls, or Hannibal’s call to the station, spoken in near-native Thai, will ensure that they are found.
It doesn’t matter at all.
They are six, perhaps nine in total, out of thousands. They do not think of him with any more kindness than the dead man that Hannibal now hefts onto the bed, curling his sleeve around his wrist to pull the door closed behind him. Without another word, he turns to go, practicing already the particular dialect that will be used to make the call, and beyond that, considering where he will eat, tonight, now that he has been prevented from making the meal he intended.
His own fault, really. A fit of whimsy.
He is down the stairs and by the front of the club again, everything here unchanged, music still pulsing a headache through his skin, dancers still moving as though they have only energy for this, as though it is unending. Hannibal doesn’t meet eyes, he doesn’t care to. He wonders, for a moment, if he should go in, find a girl, find a few, and send them to the station instead. Perhaps they were not as terrified as the boys upstairs, perhaps they had more leeway to come and go, since they were not under lock and key.
He considers, nothing more.
They will or they won’t.
The police will come regardless.
Something catches against Hannibal’s sleeve, and he turns, a pivot on his heel, quick enough to see just little arms, up quick, covering a head of curly hair against a blow that doesn’t come. A moment, a breath, and the bruised arms lower, blue eyes wide and nervous beneath.
“Don’t call,” the boy says, voice quick, urgent. “Don’t call the police to come here. They come here already. They won’t help. They just -” The boy’s lips twist in a disgusted grimace and he swallows, turning back to the club to look, hands up against skinny arms as though to warm himself.
“I told the boys to go. Some have family here, they are from here. Others are just close. Some know the girls, they… they’ll tell. But -” The boy trembles, shifts his eyes up again, briefly, before looking away. He takes a step as Hannibal does, bird-quick and nervous, cheeks flushing with shame at the words he can’t voice.
Hannibal looks away from him, down the street one side, and then the other. His mouth works in thought. The boy is dressed, at least, ill-fitting pants and a t-shirt, dirty. Bare-footed. Hannibal’s studies not the boy himself when he looks back to him, but the bruises darkening pale skin. There is no question of the boy’s purpose in this area of the city - no doubt as to what he’s here for, forced or otherwise. And alongside a foreign businessman -
“Walk,” Hannibal tells him. “Just behind me, speak in English and follow. We will round the block, only.”
It looks bad. It is, for all intents and purposes, an unfortunate situation for Hannibal to find himself in. He turns away from the boy who watches wide-eyed, and resists a frown when he hears footsteps padding behind.
“If you go to them, they will return you home.”
“They won’t,” the boy insists. “Or they would have before.”
“The embassy, then. I can bring you there and leave you. The Americans would not turn you away.”
“I’m not American,” the boy says softly. There is just a grunt in reply, understanding, perhaps, displeasure, something, anything. The man walks and the boy follows, eyes darting back and forth as they move, closer and closer to getting to the corner, the end of the block and the end of any sort of guarantee the kid has.
“I don’t have a home here,” the boy whispers, desperate, the thickness of tears behind the words already and Hannibal stops, abruptly enough that the boy walks into him, staggers back in fear of retribution for it. He has been here long enough to have been frightened into responses. Don’t walk too close, don’t touch unless you’re told, don’t cry unless they want you to. Don’t ask. For anything.
“What do you want?” Hannibal asks him, and the boy nearly crumples from the question, cheeks red and eyes pressed closed tight before he swallows even that down and takes quick shallow breaths to right himself again.
“I don’t know.” It’s little, it’s so little that Hannibal barely hears him. The boy stands shaking, skinny enough to be malnourished, filthy, exhausted, bruised. Who knows what hell he’s been in, here, and for how long. At the very least he would need rest, without the constant bass beneath him to keep him awake day and night, he would need food, a bath, new clothes.
Not Hannibal’s problem.
He takes a step and the boy presses closer, a hand against his sleeve again, tight and quick. Scared. The fear trembling through from his core to every extremity. He swallows, once, twice, the sickened grimace back before he lifts his eyes and seeks Hannibal’s.
“I can - I can pay you back. They always liked my mouth, you can -” The revulsion is evident, so clear it radiates from the kid, but still he doesn’t let go.
“Stop,” Hannibal says. “No.”
The words are firm enough to startle the boy, and Hannibal watches the flinch, the way his jaw tightens, braced to be struck - not because he thinks Hannibal will, but because he has no reason to think he will not. The older man’s eyes lift. If anyone has noticed them, they pay no mind. It is more likely, entirely more likely, that no one has noticed at all.
This isn’t his problem.
He returned here with the same intention that he returns here every time. To find the ones selling. To ensure they cannot continue. To take from them as they have taken from others, and leave them. There are few things that matter less, in certain parts of the world, than a scale scraped from the underbelly of the Leviathan. And while Hannibal does not delude himself to think it stops the sinuous, eternal coiling of the beast, it matters to those who are saved from its maw.
The boy watches him, awaiting his fate, and Hannibal knows that he would not survive a night alone, here, not without being taken again, and thrust back between ravenous teeth.
“Follow,” he says, and there is no pleasure in his words. He will need to know where the boy is from, if he remembers, he will need to know where to send him. He will have to hope that his good deed will be remembered as that, or find his flight from Thailand far faster than expected.
“You will go to the rear of the hotel. You cannot enter through the front as you are,” Hannibal instructs, brooking no question, no pause, firm decisions quickly spoken. “You will wait by the service entrance. I will come for you then.”
The boy nods brisk and relieved, eyes still so wide, lips parted as he takes in quick breaths of panic and anticipation. He goes as Hannibal does, lets go when the man gently peels his fingers off of him. He follows, obedient, walking from Soi Pratuchai, past more active clubs and whining cries for attention and business.
He goes, head down, and he does not ask questions. He does not bother the man with conversation. He feels his heart beat quick and quicker when someone whistles to him, makes a lewd gesture with their hand and he closes his eyes and just walks faster to keep up with the wide strides of the man who leads him from here.
He sees the hotel before he’s told to take the side road to the back. He goes only when the man leaves him, watching him enter the establishment first, disappear into the crowd. For a brief moment, he panics. This is the best and easiest way to leave him, to just have him wait and wait and wait until someone else finds him and drags him back. He tries not to think about it. He makes his way to the back of the hotel tiptoeing around the reeking puddles of garbage water from the bins piled high for pick-up day.
He waits. Shivering and little and dirty, he waits. Eyes up to the sky he hasn’t seen for months; he doesn’t know how long. He can see some stars, here, but not many. Too much light pollution, to much smoke and mess and sin. He jerks when the back door opens, pressing himself back against a bin and holding down the hem of his shirt so it pulls taut.
But it’s only him, only the man who promised.
He makes a weak little whimpering noise and goes when beckoned, using all the willpower he can not to press into the man in gratitude, in weakness. He is so tired he wonders how he can even move, but he does. Through the door and up the stairs and through the fire exit where the alarm has been de-activated, to a corridor so clean, he wonders if he’s in heaven. He’s too scared to step on the floor, but he follows when the man walks past him, leads him on, and turns to make sure he goes.
Just the one look, to ensure the boy has not fled or collapsed, and managed Hannibal into a worse position than he has already. Long strides carry Hannibal down the hall towards the single door at the end of it. He swipes the card from his pocket, and with a beep and a buzz opens it, holding it with a hand against the fine wood for the boy to enter.
He does not hurry him. There is no one else on the floor. There are no cameras here, usually the protocol of seedier establishments, but this one highbrow enough in clientele to have somehow circled back to a lack of surveillance in the interest of discretion for those who can afford it. In deference, perhaps, or discomfort, Hannibal averts his eyes from the hesitant steps of filthy feet across soft carpet, listening only to how they click sticky against the tile floor as the boy enters, listening to the hitch of his breath, as if by making that small he might make himself smaller too.
When the boy has stepped in enough, enough to see the wide windows overlooking Patpong, enough to see above the blinking neon that bathes the city in constant day, enough to see above the smog and smoke, where the river winds black between high-rises on either side. The room is dark, still, but enormous. He stops, just inside, letting his gaze settle on the city outside the window, and Hannibal holds the door a moment more, letting in only the dimmed light from the hallway.
“I’m going to close the door,” he says, not ungently. “May I turn on the light?”
The boy just nods, a quick thing, and keeps his hands tight in his shirt as the room darkens for a moment, then is bathed in light. He blinks rapidly, squinting until his eyes adjust, and then holds his breath, shocked, surprised, scared, all at once. Hannibal steps past him and the boy presses himself against the nearest wall, to be smaller, to be out of the way.
Hannibal lets the boy take everything in on his own, making his way to the kitchen to pour a glass of water for him. When he returns, the kid has barely moved, eyes wide and scared when they flick up to Hannibal, mistrusting the water offered him, before the man takes a sip himself.
"It's clean," he promises, watches the boy take it with both hands and dribble most down his shirt in his fervor to drink it down.
"Slow," Hannibal warns. "You will make yourself sick. Drink it slow. You can have as much as you like, from the kitchen." He points, watches as the kid slurps the last drops and clings to the glass, panting. He takes in the words, does not yet believe them. Hannibal doesn’t expect him to.
"You need a shower."
The boy tenses, immediately alarmed, and Hannibal just points, through the main room to the open door of his suite.
"There is a shower in there. Lock the door if you like, I won't go near you. There are towels there. I will lend you a shirt to sleep in."
The boy blinks, nervous, but moves on quiet feet, to go where he is directed. He peers into the room, carefully tiptoes to the bathroom and looks in there too. A frightened animal being released for the first time. Hannibal tries not to think about it. He waits for the boy to set his glass to the sink and turn to close the door, waits for the lock to click before he lets out a soft curse.
Years, in all likelihood. Years of being held, without freedom to breathe clean air or see the sky. Years of being shuttled from one room to the next and back again. Years of pain, of cruelty, and though Hannibal is not certain of the boy’s age, the thought of how young he must have been with this began sickens the man. He allows the revulsion to rise, to quicken his pulse and tighten his throat, and then with concentrated effort swallows it down again.
The water creates a stream of white noise, little squeaks punctuating the flow as the temperature is adjusted. It is too close, too close for Hannibal’s cover and too close for his own comfort, in recalling in a rush how he felt, once.
No.
He tells himself no. He will not bring that boy out to meet this one, but he will hear him. Hannibal moves to the small radio beside the bed and sifts through chatter and static until a classical station is found. The silence was deafening, he recalls, a terrifying quietude that in it held the promise of worse things than sound.
He leaves it playing softly, and takes from his closet an undershirt. Over the hanger, he rests a pair of boxers. It will all be too large on the boy, but there’s nothing to be done at this hour, and it is enough to keep him decent. Hannibal knocks on the door, eyes closing when there is a startled sound from the other side of it, and says only, “I have left you clothes upon the door.”
Hannibal doesn’t wait for a response.
He returns across the hotel room to the small kitchen. Something simple, something easy to digest. From the small refrigerator, Hannibal passes over the fine-sliced meat and rich purple organs, seeking out two eggs and butter. Scrambled, still soft, on the small stove, with only salt to season. Fresh fruit - melons and berries, nothing acidic - sliced alongside. A little powdered sugar atop these. A glass of water.
No more than that. The boy will be lucky if he keeps even this much down.
The water flows and flows, longer than it should to wash such a little body, but Hannibal knows it's because the boy is relishing every moment of freedom of getting clean, of having this unmolested time alone when at any moment it could be taken away. He does not rush the boy, does not startle him again. Minutes trickle by as water cascades over little shoulders and into the drain. Minutes until it finally stops, just drips to the floor of the shower.
It seems as though everything takes an eternity, for the boy to dry himself, for him to drink more water - the cold tap running to fill the glass he had taken with him - for the door to tentatively open and for him to take the hanger with clothes back into his safe space, door locking as he changes.
When it finally is opened again, the rooms fill with the clean smell of water and the hotel issue shampoo and soap. Hannibal looks up only when the boy pads out to him again, nervous and little. The shirt comes down to his knees, clean, now, but bruises just shadow against a little thigh before the shirt covers the worst of them. He holds his filthy clothes bundled in front of him with the towel, unsure of what to do with any of it.
He blinks when Hannibal gestures to the food, eggs kept warm in the oven for him, and holds his hand out for the bundle in return. It takes a while for the boy to let it go, but he does, careful not to touch Hannibal’s hands as he does, and he goes to hoist himself up on the bar stool, both hands on the seat to lever himself. He does not eat much, picking at the food and taking the fruit with his fingers to press between his lips. He is flushed when he leaves most on his plate, eyes skimming over it as though trying to decide how to store it away safe for next time, because there may not be a next time.
“Do not,” Hannibal says, gently, he knows that look and he knows the impulse. He’s never lost it, the urge to make too much food, to save what he can, to use every part of every plant or protein when he’s cooking. Quieter, then, he adds, “Eat what you can. I will make more in the morning if you need.”
The boy doesn’t meet his eyes, nor - Hannibal is sure - does he believe him. He will find the eggs hoarded someplace, though perhaps the boy will eat them before he does. Humming, Hannibal releases a long breath, and passes by slowly - at distance greater than arm’s length - to dispose of the clothes. Music twines softly from the bedroom still, a sound to fill the silence between them.
Hannibal hesitates with the filthy clothes, held in hand above the bin, and looks back to the boy watching him wide-eyed, then narrow, then wide again. No, not narrowed - squinting. He wonders how long it’s been since the boy has had glasses to correct his near-sightedness.
He wonders if he ever has.
“You may keep them if you like,” Hannibal allows, hesitant. “But you will need something less in tatters before I bring you to the embassy. Shoes, at least.”
"I'm not American," the kid repeats, voice just above a whisper. He turns from the clothes and presses his lips together. Part of him wants the clothes to stay, he knows how they feel, where the holes are for him to curl his fingers in. Another part wants them gone. They will never be just clothes. He tugs the hem of the shirt he wears now, clean and warm and large, and wriggles back in his seat a little to push the boxers up over his bottom again.
"Where are you from?" Hannibal asks, and the boy curls his top lip over his bottom one, teeth worrying it where Hannibal can’t see. For a long time he is quiet, before he shakes his head. This isn’t petulance, it's shock. Amnesia brought on by terror and exhaustion and pain. It will come back. It might come back.
"What's your name?" Comes the next question, and at this the boy flicks his eyes up again. They search between Hannibal’s, over and over, before he parts his lips with his tongue.
"Will," he whispers.
“Will,” Hannibal repeats, and the smile he offers this time is genuine. There is that much, at least. A name, a voice to fuel it. Memories that may or may not return. Hannibal finds a catch hooked between his ribs when the boy ducks his head.
He hopes, at least, that if the older memories have been lost, the newer will go with them.
It is enough, for tonight, enough to have a name. Hannibal does not reach for the boy’s plate, but lets it stay just there for him to find again if he wishes it, though the thought of eating lukewarm eggs displeases the man as some minor injustice, heaped upon so many others. His water is refilled, and Hannibal drops the clothes into the bin without another word about it.
“There is a bed,” Hannibal says, and he keeps his expression smooth as stone as the boy’s shoulders draw up. “For you, alone. There are two bedrooms here. I will take one, the other will be yours until I resolve where you should go to be better cared for. You may lock the door. I will not enter it without your permission.”
He sets the glass down by Will and puts distance between them again, resting his back against the far counter, meeting the wild blue eyes, black-encircled, that watch him wary and unblinking.
“If you wish for anything, ask. If you need for something, tell me. I will be in the room just there where you bathed, and tomorrow find a better solution for us both,” Hannibal instructs softly. “Or shoes, at least.”
Will swallows and directs his eyes down again, fiddling with the hem of his borrowed shirt. When Hannibal moves towards the door to the other room, the boy follows, cradling his water in his hands like gold, turning to look over his shoulder to mourn the food he is leaving uneaten behind himself.
The room is huge, to Will’s eyes, and he waits for Hannibal to turn before setting his glass down on the bedside table. They do not talk more, they don’t need to, and Hannibal closes the door quietly behind himself when he goes.
Will watches it for a long time before going to the balcony instead and pulling open the door. The evening air is cold, and he returns to the bed to carefully work off the blanket from it and pull it around himself. He sits on the balcony and breathes, looks up at the sky until he starts to sway from exhaustion and moves back into the room. The classical music still plays, soft and wafting in the space. It isn’t the cruel beat of the club, it's too gentle, and Will opens the door to his room to walk quietly back to Hannibal's, blanket dragging with a hiss behind him.
He curls into a ball at the foot of the man's bed, on the floor, and buries himself in the blanket, and falls so quickly into sleep that he does not even dream.