Title: Life Is Sweet
Author: angstytimelord
Pairing: Will Graham/Sherlock Holmes
Fandoms: Hannibal/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Table: 9, 50ficlets
Prompt: 42, Sweet
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Will Graham or Sherlock Holmes, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Sherlock had been so sweet to him since he'd moved to London.

Will couldn't help smiling at the thought, hugging it close to him. Sherlock thought he was special. Sherlock loved him. He wanted to wrap that love around him, to curl up inside it like a warm blanket and let the feeling of being loved wash over him.

He'd never had that before. Not from anyone. It still amazed him that Sherlock could love him so much, that such an amazing man wanted to be with him.

There was no pretending here, no dissembling, no subterfuge. Sherlock wasn't someone who only wanted to be with him because they were attracted to him physically, or because they wanted to get into his mind. Sherlock was someone who actually cared.

He'd never expected to have that in his life. He had never thought that he was the sort of person anyone could care about, or even want to.

Of course it was an unhealthy way to look at himself, and he knew it. But he'd been conditioned to think that way ever since he was a child whose parents hadn't shown him the love he had so desperately needed when he was growing up. It was a knee-jerk reaction.

But he was learning to overcome those thoughts.

Without Sherlock in his life, he would probably have ended up becoming the crazy dog guy, collecting more and more pets instead of having a relationship.

Fortunately, Sherlock had saved him from that, Will thought with a soft laugh. Sherlock had swept into his life like a hurricane; he hadn't expected anything from this man other than his help at proving his innocence, and possibly a long-distance friendship.

Instead, they had fallen for each other, and fallen hard. It still felt a little like a dream, his being in London, living with Sherlock.

His life had turned into something completely different from what he'd expected it to be.

But he certainly wasn't complaining, Will thought, propping his chin on his hand and smiling. His life was better than he'd ever thought it could be.

He had an interview tomorrow morning with the directors of Scotland Yard Academy; they were interested in hiring him as a professor. They didn't seem to care about his past with the FBI; they were interested in his teaching credentials, not in his field work.

The frame-up job that Hannibal and Crawford had tried to do on him might have destroyed his life in the US, but here, he could still move forward.

Life was sweet now, instead of the tangled mess that it had been when he was in Wolf Trap, and then in jail. And it was all due to Sherlock.

How had he gotten so lucky? he asked himself. He'd thought that even if he managed to get out of jail, that he would never be able to have a decent life again. He had thought that he would always be under some kind of suspicion, that he'd always be .... tainted.

But he wasn't. Not here. He had an entirely new life, a fresh start. And again, it was all thanks to the man he'd fallen in love with.

He intended to savor the sweetness of this new life to the fullest.

He owed that to Sherlock, didn't he? He owed it to the man he loved to put the past behind him, and to open his arms and his heart to the new life he'd been given.

This was more than he'd had any right to expect. He knew exactly how lucky he was, and he would be grateful for this fresh start every day. He'd never take it for granted; it meant too much to him, and he'd come too close to not having it at all.

He had come far too close to losing everything, Will thought grimly. His reputation, his sanity, and possibly even his life.

But Sherlock had kept that from happening.

He was never going to have to worry about things like that again. He was free of the oppression, away from the people who had wanted to use him and then toss him away like garbage. There was none of that in the life he was leading now.

Now, he had love and happiness and sweetness. He had everything he could want, none of which he had ever expected to have, which just made it better.

And at the center of it all was Sherlock, and their budding relationship. it was moving slowly, but that wasn't a bad thing. Neither of them wanted to jump into things too quickly; they knew what they felt, and they knew that the emotions weren't going to disappear.

Yes, the life he was leading now was definitely much sweeter than the one he'd left behind. And it was only going to keep getting better.

He and Sherlock had so much ahead of them, Will told himself, feeling his spirits rise. They were going to get closer, both emotionally and physically. And eventually, they would make their partnership legal. He had no doubt of that. Their life together had only just started.

He couldn't wait to see just where it was going to lead them.

***