looking for lost touch-starved Will fic
EDIT: 🥳🥳 fic found!!
A Rising Tide by gleamingandwholeanddeadly
the main thing i thought i knew about this fic was completely wrong lol, thank you u/Katherine_LeAnn for putting this search to rest
I read this fic many years ago and haven’t been able to find it since in my bookmarks or through the search feature or any elaborate search engine shenanigans. I feared it had been deleted so I got really sad and gave up for a long while, but I recently unearthed this screenshot again, my only clue this fic even existed, and hoped someone here may recognize it.
I read it on ao3, and I believe one of the tags was “touch starved” or maybe “touch starved Will Graham”
cross posting from Hannigram subreddit, so here are some additional details that came up (based on my memory from loooong ago so may not be 100% accurate)
- fic is complete, maybe 1 chapter long
- I read it a couple years before covid
- post-Mizumono, possibly post-WotL
I can’t seem to post the screenshot, but here’s the text:
“I thought about that a lot,” he says eventually.
"I'm surprised," Hannibal admits.
"Are you? You were the person who touched me the most before you went on the run. When I was incarcerated, it was all I could remember of being touched. You used to handle me a lot."
"I still do," Hannibal chimes in. Will huffs a laugh.
"Yeah- but I mean. Back then, I wasn't always aware of it. I had dreams which I knew were memories: you stroking my hair, and my back, and comforting me. It became almost Pavlovian to me. I think it's why I wasn't afraid, even when I knew you were going to hurt me. I didn't associate your touch with fear, even though I should.”