#uhhhhhh yeah

ive been thinking about. hannibal not really bothering to bond with the dogs he & will inevitably end up adopting at some point, like, he takes care of them of course & makes sure theyre safe & comfortable but he still sees them as will's dogs. its not that he dislikes them or anything its just that he cant see the point on getting attached to them & it does not come naturally to him. but one winter they come across this weak frozen puppy, barely old enough to be able to survive without its mother & clearly the runt of the litter, & its obvious something happened that left it alone in the cold. maybe it was abandoned, maybe it got lost, but whatever it was the animal will die if they leave it alone. & hannibal looks down at its shivering body, just a bit bigger than the size of his hand, & instead of the expected urge to crush it & put it out of its misery he is viciously taken back to another winter, one way lonelier & more cruel than the one theyre experiencing, & of not being able to bring warmth back into another tiny body no matter how much he tried, so he takes off his coat & carefully lifts the puppy from the ground, swaddles it in the thick fabric & keeps it close to his chest the whole way home. they go through the stablished routine of setting up a crate & food & water on one of the bathrooms so it can rest before they decide its safe to introduce it to the other dogs. hannibal also brings blankets & heating pads & an electric heater they never use & massages its limbs with gentle yet confident movements to promote blood flow. hours later will wakes up in the middle of the night alone in the bed they share, & when he goes looking for hannibal he finds him passed out sitting against a wall on the bathroom floor, head dropping to the side in a way that is sure to make his neck hurt like a bitch in the morning, the puppy peacefully snoring on his lap.