#quicksilver!will

The upcoming ofcom child safety restrictions on websites will require more robust age checks, the ‘are you 18?’ box isn’t enough anymore. All good news really but the QS site isn’t ready yet so it’s unpublished for now. All art & fic is still available on AO3.

As Tumblr removed a large amount of my QS Will art from our blog here...

I made a website for ALL the Quicksilver!Will fanwork by me and @weconqueratdawn​

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Lashings of fic, art, playlists, links - all in one place and UNCENSORED :)))

Oh my, thanks anon

I love this question! This is the kind of thing my gf bugs me about is it you?? ;)

Their first argument wouldn’t be too serious - Hannibal is still being rather careful around Will. Something which would come up between them, fairly early on, would likely be the subject of money. Now, however fantastically, magically rich Hannibal is, he is not a completely insensitive idiot. He’s tested Will’s tolerance level for receiving gifts very thoroughly, and made sure to keep on the right side of the line (just about). But I think where he might trip up would be assumptions about Will’s time:

*

The summer was rapidly approaching. Spring was turning golden and bright; wildflowers bobbed at the edges of lesser-used roads and poked up through cracks in the sidewalks. More often than not, the sky was blue and cloudless. Uncharacteristically, Hannibal dreamed about wide-open spaces, about wind over water, about the soft and gentle wildness of the beach.

There he saw Will; a glitter of light in his hair, smiling and free. A daydream only, but one he could make come true without much trouble.

Plans were made. The house had been shut up for months, and a trusted agency were sent to make it ready. There would be fresh clean sheets when they arrived; the larder fully stocked and waiting. All of it a surprise Hannibal was impatient to deliver. 

When he did, however, the results were unexpected.

“Next week?” Will said. “Go on vacation, on Monday? Hannibal… I can’t.”

Hannibal frowned with displeasure. “School is finished; there’s no summer classes to attend. I know you’re helping Dr Crawford write up a research paper but you can bring that with you.”

Will stared at him for a long second, a flush rising in his cheeks. “Hannibal,” he said, “There’s more to my life than just school and you. You can’t expect me to drop everything for a whole month with no notice. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I intended it as a surprise,” Hannibal said. “A welcome one. Which it obviously isn’t.”

Will shook his head. “Oh no,” he said. “You don’t get to be like that. You should have asked me first. I have things planned.”

Hannibal fell silent. A misstep had been made, evidently, and he wasn’t entirely clear who had made it. Or who was still making it.

“Things I can’t easily change,” Will continued, getting louder. “Things I need to do, which aren’t a choice for me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hannibal said, wishing to bring an end to the exchange. “I will cancel it.”

Will gave an exasperated noise and buried his face in his hands. After a moment, he sat up again, and spoke with greater composure. “You still don’t get it,” he said. “So I’m going to have to explain. I would have loved to have gone away with you but I can’t just drop everything like you can. It doesn’t make any difference to you if you don’t see any clients for a month. For two months, six months. Yeah, I’ve got a scholarship but that only pays for the weeks when I’m in college. Over the summer, I either give up my room with Bev and go back home or I need a job to pay the rent.”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I already spoke to Mr Hefferman about working at Denny’s again, like I did last year. I start the week after next.”

Hannibal sat back in his chair, and admitted to himself he’d made a rather large oversight. “Aren’t you more suited to fixing things? Would a garage not hire you?” 

“There’s not much seasonal demand for mechanics,” Will said, with a flicker of impatience. “And you kind of have to be properly certified. No decent garage would take me on, except as an apprentice and I can’t commit to that. Working at Denny’s is not my ideal way to spend the summer but there’s not much I can do about it.” He shrugged. “At least the uniform isn’t terrible - everyone wears pretty much the same thing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hannibal asked, genuinely curious now. “If I had known, then I would have adjusted my expectations.”

Will looked guilty. “I guess I knew what you would say. And I was worried you’d drop by every day to order pancakes. And then not eat them.”

“What is it you think I would say?”

“Exactly what you’re thinking now, which is that I no longer have to work jobs I don’t want to, because I’ve met you. And you could take care of everything with a wave of your cheque book.”

“Which is precisely true,” Hannibal said. “However you feel about it, that is indeed the case. If you continue to work in jobs you don’t like, it will be because it is your choice.”

“Then it’s a choice I will continue to make,” Will said, without hesitation. “I got myself to college and I’ll continue to keep myself here, too.”

Despite his disappointment - for the loss of Will at the beach house, and for the long, lazy days in each others’ company - Hannibal smiled fondly. Disappointment could be borne, if he could keep Will just like this: proud, stubborn, resourceful, yet still entirely his.

“I am sorry for my trespass,” he said. “I have learned my lesson. Next time, I will ask. We can go there later in the year, perhaps.”

Will sighed. “You’re a romantic idiot. It’s hard to be mad for long.” He paused, and picked at the hem of his shorts. “I am still mad, though, just for the record. Mad that you didn’t consider I might need to work and mad that I can’t go with you.”

Hannibal kissed his hand, when Will allowed him to take it without protest. “Maybe we can work something out,” he said. “So both of us get what we want.”

*

psst it’s okay because they do work something out - coming up in the next fic!

Set in the Quicksilver series

More Quicksilver ficlets here

*

The bed was a sea of discarded plastic wrapping and returns labels. Some of it had drifted onto the floor in his haste to open the packages and see what they contained. If the things inside were to make his heart soar or sink.

He’d saved and saved for this. A vacation with Hannibal was not a simple occasion. His usual clothing wouldn’t suffice and, more importantly, Will didn’t want it to. Extremes were expected - people went on vacation to escape routines and old versions of themselves, even if they had to go back to them when it ended. Will already had more versions of himself than he could count, but here was an opportunity to let them run instead of walk.

It was the idea of a bathing costume which had made him sick with longing. He’d always had to make do with board shorts and tank tops - a compromise made all on his side. Wearing skirts and dresses was easier because people could pretend he was a girl, if they wanted. It gave them an out when they felt uncomfortable with someone who did not fit one, very narrow, label.

It was quite a different matter when the evidence of the sex he’d been assigned at birth was encased in tight spandex and available for all to see. And however much Will had wanted to wear a swimsuit, or even a bikini, he’d ended up deciding it wasn’t worth the hassle it would bring. 

Piles grew either side of the bed - for Yes, No, and Maybe (which, in all likelihood, were probably all a No in disguise). When he came to the last parcel, it contained something he’d almost forgotten about. 

He’d ordered it in a fit of bravery. Hannibal had promised him a private pool, even a private beach. Much of their time would be spent alone, together, with no one else in sight. Will had dared to dream about the old movies he’d watched with his mom, musicals cast in the bright optimism of the fifties and sixties. He’d imagined the sun going down over the ocean, a rosy glow of light, Hannibal’s skin the colour of golden sand. And himself, cherished in Hannibal’s lap, his kisses warming a weaving line across his shoulders, between the straps of his bathing costume.

With trembling hands, Will opened the parcel, and smiled. 

More Quicksilver fic and art here and here

Quicksilver Will reference clips from Kavanagh QC

Thanks, anon!! I’m very very pleased that 1) you noticed (the selfish writer reaction) and 2) it resonated with you <3

I started writing this fic on a bit of a whim - I had no idea/plan to still be working on it a year (and more) later - but I always wanted it to be as respectful as possible and to show a non-binary/trans* identity in a positive light. And also - especially as it’s grown - perhaps to educate (myself and others) along the way a little bit.

It’s very important for me that the people closest to Will are seen to understand and respect his identity (also, in the case of Hannibal, to be intensely attracted to Will but not fetishising of his more feminine presentations). And, possibly even more important that this treatment of Will stems from Will himself - in a sense, Hannibal and Bev are simply following his lead. There’s a danger, especially in an age-difference pairing, that the older male ends up ‘explaining’ matters to the younger less-experienced half of the pairing (and, by extension, to the reader). 

A little bit about me to give some context - I read a lot of fic while growing up and found having positive representations showing how things *could be* (i.e. happy loving gay relationships which were largely accepted) vastly preferable to the torturous coming out/gay-bashing h/c fics which were fairly popular at the time. Usually, I might hasten to add, obviously written by people who hadn’t experienced any of those things personally. So there was no way I wanted to be the cis writer writing an nb version of that kind of Tragic Queer trope - *especially* as things are far from easy in the real world right now and we all need space to imagine what a better reality might look like. I suppose what I’m saying is, I understand from personal experience why positive representation matters, and I’m trying to do my little bit to add to that. 

This got a bit long and rambly but thanks for stopping by to let me know your thoughts - it means a lot <333

Ohhhh gosh, thank you – this put such a smile on my face, genuinely aaaaaaaa :D

tbh anon? I love him toooooo :) I try to step back a bit when I’m writing him, but when I’m not… <333

Answering this wasn’t easy, as I have so many swirling thoughts about him and this series. And, so many of those thoughts are going to come up in the next instalments (now solidly in my schedule to write btw), it’s hard to know what to say without spoiling too many things. Next up, I want the series to take a much wider view of their world, and maybe address some bigger issues too.

BUT TODAY, I think we can talk about Will’s family a little :)

Like in canon, Will grew up poor in Louisiana, but didn’t move from boatyard to boatyard – his childhood was much more settled. His parents split up when he was young but his mom didn't disappear. She moved into a trailer park across town - not just because it was what she could afford but because she felt freer there. When his dad worked away, Will would stay with her, rather than her move into their old family house which Will’s dad just about manages to keep going.

Will has a fairly close but eccentric relationship with both his parents, but particularly with his mom. Too much of an independent spirit for a conventional family, she sees him more as a fully-fledged human being rather than a child and, in some ways, that has suited Will more. It’s Will’s dad who worried about him, and still does, probably because Will reminds him of his mother. Will’s dad still loves her but gave up a long time ago on understanding her. They’re much too different to be able to live together.

She's something of a working-class hippie – by day, she works a check-out in some retail outlet somewhere (a series of them, over the years) and by night, she smokes a lot of pot and reads cards for her neighbours. She says Will has her gift and has tried to teach him the art of tarot. Will doesn’t agree, and calls it an empathy disorder. They’ve had to agree to disagree, on this point. (I hope this throws some light on the mention of Will’s anomalistic psychology class in my recent fic, anon!)

He told her first about being genderfluid, when he was about 14 or 15. He read and thought about it a lot on his own, and only spoke when he was sure how he was comfortable defining himself. Once she'd understood what he was saying – that he didn't want to transition, but wanted a greater range of gender expression – she took him to Walmart and bought Will his first girl's underwear. He's never worn boy’s underwear since.