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Title: At the Beginning
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Will Graham/Aiden Gillan
Fandom: Hannibal/Blood and Chocolate
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Will Graham or Lee Fallon, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

How was he going to explain everything to Will?

Aiden sighed softly as he pulled the soft fabric of the cotton t-shirt that Will had left in the bathroom for him over his head, knowing that he had to talk to the other man.

He could make something up, of course. He didn't have to tell Will the truth. But he had never been good with making stories up on the fly.

And a part of him wanted to tell Will the truth. For some odd reason, he had a feeling that this man wouldn't think he was crazy and want to cart him off to some psychiatrist. Will would believe him. If there was anyone who would know that he was telling the truth, it was Will.

Why did he feel so comfortable with this man already? What was it about Will that made him feel he had finally found a safe haven where he would be believed?

Aiden didn't know the answers to those questions, but he did know that, for some inexplicable reason, he trusted Will. He knew that he was safe here.

It was time to tell his story, and hope that Will believed it.

He padded down the hall after he'd slipped the sweatpants on and tied the drawstring around his waist, wincing a little at the bruises that had formed on his stomach.

He was lucky that they were only bruises, and that he was still capable of walking on his own, he told himself. What had been done to him could have been so much worse.

They could have killed him. He could be lying out there in the forest somewhere, his body cold and lifeless, with no one to care who or where he was. He could have ended up being just another statistic, a victim with no name, or even if they found out his name, with no one to claim him.

That thought struck him with the force of a cannonball. He might be back home in the States, but he was still as alone in the world as he had been in Romania.

But he was used to being alone, wasn't he? After all, he had been for the last few years. His family was gone, and even if they weren't, they wouldn't have wanted him around.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed those thoughts away as he moved out of the hallway into the living room. The lights were on, shining brightly, and there was a hamburger and a salad sitting on the coffee table, along with a glass of what looked like iced tea.

Aiden sat down, gesturing at the food. "Thanks," he said softly, reaching for the hamburger. "I'm really hungry. I .... haven't eaten since early this morning."

"I thought you might need something to eat," Will said, his voice very soft. "From what I can tell, you've been through one hell of a bad experience."

Aiden nodded, wishing that he didn't have to talk about it.

As he ate, he went over everything that had happened in the past few months in his mind. It sounded fantastical even to him, and he had actually lived through the whole thing.

If he had to sit down and listen to all that he had to say, he'd probably want to throw himself into an asylum. He would never believe his own story.

And if he could barely find it believable, then how could anyone else? For a moment, just a moment, he felt that he had to make up something, to lie to Will and tell him anything but the truth. But he knew that wouldn't be fair to the man who had rescued him.

Will deserved the truth. He deserved to know what he might be getting himself into. Because Aiden didn't doubt for a moment that his pursuers would keep coming after him.

No, they would come after him again. And now, Will would be in the middle of it all. He was in just as much danger as Aiden was. Even more, since he didn't know what he would be up against.

He wouldn't believe it until he saw it with his own eyes.

Aiden took a last sip of the tea, then cleared his throat. It was time to talk to WIll about everything that had happened to him, and let him decide for himself what he thought of it all.

"I guess you want to know what I'm running from," he said in a low voice, clasping his hands in his lap and looking down at them. "I'll warn you, it's a pretty crazy story."

"Crazy is something I"m used to," Will told him, his voice quiet. "I get called crazy almost every day. I won't go into it now, but I have a .... singular ability that's not like anything people have ever seen. It sets me apart from everybody else, and believe me, it makes me a lot more open than most people are."

Aiden nodded, feeling somehow relieved by Will's words. Whatever he meant, those words at least showed that he wasn't going to be overly critical of what Aiden had to say.

Where should he start? The beginning was probably the best place, even though it all seemed so long ago that he wasn't sure he could remember everything that had taken place.

"I was living in Romania for the past few years," he began.

He told the story as succinctly as he could, meeting Vivian, thinking that he had fallen in love, and the jealousy of her family -- or the people who called themselves her family.

When he came to the crucial part of the story, the part where he had found out about the loup garou, Aiden took a deep breath, gulping as he tried to formulate the words in his mind in a way that would make sense, a way that wouldn't sound as though he was completely insane.

But there was no way to do that, he realized. There was nothing he could do but say the words out loud, and hope that Will didn't think he was making the whole thing up.

"They weren't human," he whispered. "I didn't believe it myself at first."

Aiden closed his eyes, whispering the word he'd held back for so long.

"They were .... werewolves."

***