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He watches Hannibal break into the orange rind with his thumbs; how the citrus bursts and trickles down his wrist like a vein, or blood, or the blood of someone else. Will runs his tongue against his top lip and tastes it there, as if he had taken Hannibal’s fingers to his mouth. He watches as Hannibal does this instead, his gaze moored into Will’s, and they become a reflection- a feedback loop of desires.
When they had landed in Valencia, Will had not been prepared for the cold. The winters here are as bitter as those in Wolf Trap. It had felt as though the world had come to pause, frozen in place long enough to let them breathe a little while.
It’s given Will chance to think.
He had come to terms with a plenty, many things from shoreline to safehouse, to get-away car to boat to plane to uncomfortable beds and morphine drips and so many aliases he’s lost all sense of meaning in a name. Something about smelling the rot of your own infected flesh makes you indifferent to more abstract concerns. For instance-
He no longer cares for the boundaries between them; where the line falls between what is Hannibal's and what is his. If it can be distinguished, even. It's arbitrary. It’s a line worn down between the history of their crossing it; their edges smoothed into something without beginning or end. They meet like the shore line- the end of one is the start of another.
Trying to untangle himself from Hannibal is the game of a different Will Graham. He moves in new shapes now. Been chewed through in the mouth of the Atlantic and spit out as something New.
He remembers the pain when Hannibal took his dislocated knee in hand on the beach, the way the bones crunched in their resetting- a pain that didn’t feel like his own anymore. Someone had died in that ocean and this body washed up new, reimagine, like glass worn by the sea bed.
He stands anew with parts of himself he thinks others must have tried to drown in those waters. Lost souls grasping on to give it another go. There were parts of himself now that he doesn't recognise- parts he wishes he didn't- and then parts that are so familiarly Hannibal .
He ached. He ached for a long time. The way a newborn aches in the growing. The new parts of himself rushing to fill the spaces the old had left behind. He sweats at night like something is trying to escape from within. Even now his body is still sore in ways that feel like it will never truly stop. He carries with him this small agony, a tugging he hasn’t yet addressed.
He knows where it’s leading him.
When he looks at Hannibal he feels a calm down to his marrow. The torrent inside him splits in two and he finds the eye of the storm, here, in Hannibal's gaze. Tempered. Measured. A lighthouse upon the brine.
It pulls a grim laugh from him, or should, to find Hannibal a life raft when he was also the very one to bring the flood.
"A lot of thought," Hannibal says, extending Will half the orange, "Over a little fruit, Will."
He takes the offering without much fanfare, "I'm sure Eve took time to contemplate.”
"Mulling temptation?" Hannibal muses.
He follows as Will pops a segment into his mouth, the slight way his lips pull at the flood of sweetness.
“There are many misconceptions of the biblical heroine. Discourse so often reduced to her emergence from the rib. In her creation, Adam offered up a part of himself, too. Sacrifice for sacrifice. She is his second self as much as he is hers. They are equals in partnership.”
Conjoined. Will thinks, unwillingly.
"I don’t fear my desires." He says instead.
He often feels like a part carved. Tethered in the way of something raw, carnal yet unnamed. It appears with an intimacy that had only ever been expressed in bloodshed, before. He knows it, this thing, had been consummated there on the cliff. In the blood of the Dragon. It makes him shudder if he thinks about it too long.
Hannibal hums, eats his half of their orange. To anyone else he would appear contemplative, but Will knows better.
“Not anymore.” Will voices for him.
Amusement crinkles in the corner of Hannibal’s eyes.
“Not anymore,” He echoes, “And yet you do not act on them."
Will shrugs the best his shoulder allows, averts his gaze across the field.
“You do not fear, yet nor do you delight. To wade only in the shallowest waters of one’s lived experiences is to limit the potential of ones yet to come. It is difficult to see possibilities presented to us when we refuse to lift our heads to greet them. Tell me, how has self preservation served you until now?”
“It’s not preservation .” He says. “It’s… reservation.”
They throw the skins into the bank of the field, a meal for the birds or compost for the land, whatever comes first, and don their thick gloves once more.
One of the many untraceable properties littered around Europe Hannibal had collected over the years included this renovated casita. Will enjoys the quaintness of it. It feels more fitting to his way of life than ever Hannibal’s.
The land offers a manageable grove of olive trees and a few almonds behind the house. When they arrived he had noticed the branches hung heavy with fruit, at varying stages of ripening. Hannibal suggested they harvest them; the luxury of home pressed olive oil too good to pass up.
When the olives had fully turned they set to the task with the great long nets and wide baskets they salvaged from a shed by the house.
Hannibal tackles the treetops where Will’s shoulder prevents him from reaching, and Will works along the skirt. He finds that there is something meditative about the repetitive stripping of the branches. The easy motion lets his mind slip away from him, and when he looks down at the olives collected at the foot of the trees there is satisfaction in what they’ve accomplished.
Hannibal makes them lunch. Fresh crispy bread, home ground pesto, mozzarella and sundried tomatoes from town. Sometimes there are anchovies, other times sweet, sickly marzipan pastries.
He brings coffee in a thermos, and they take turns drinking from the cap. Sometimes they listen to the radio, park the car between the trees and let the music fill the silence.
When they return home Will feels spent.
“I will not attempt to become an influence on your hesitancy-”
A bark of laughter threatens itself from Will, “That’s a first.” He says.
“-But I am willing to offer reassurance on some matters, if you should ask.”
Will meets him and finds Hannibal's expression pensively unreadable. His manufactured stillness once brought Will a sense of stability to brush against, but in this moment he finds it irritating. It’s ill fitting, like a coat they hung up long ago. He tries not to bristle and gets back to work.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Doctor.”
He’s not without want.
Will wanted many, plenty things. He wanted choice. Freedom, Truth. He wanted an authentic life. He wanted Hannibal. He wanted them in whatever way surfaced from the waters, and he got it.
It’s like an early retirement, some days, their lives so enriched with leisure. Years ago he had convinced himself into thinking the same with Molly up in the cabin. He felt his life’s design spread out neatly into the future, organised mundanity that kept his mind quiet and his chest unbearably tight. Watching Walter grow up, Christmases together, his hair going grey with age and not through stress. He could see himself there, him and sweet Molly, quietly happy and quietly dying.
It made him want to scream.
It hadn’t been like this very long. Calm. In the beginning it had been grueling. His few and sparing conscious moments stretched over fever hot agony, or an undercurrent of ache and that smell like copper pennies. After then, for a few months he was only half sure to be alive.
He dreamt of the falling. In the dreaming, he and Hannibal had grown wings. He thought of Elliot Buddish, his angels praying over his bed.
He would wake with Hannibal’s back to him, a broad and wingless thing, and know he was in the company of no angel.
There’s a liminality to a life on the run. Some days he wakes and his legs are already going, all twisted up in the sheets and he feels like one of his dogs.
He's not sure if all of him had been dragged onto the boat. For a long time his body worked through the pull of reflexes alone, muscle memory more than of his own conscious piloting of it.
He was so tired- of everything. Too tired to think, to move, to want more than his given lot.
He knows how Hannibal wants.
Hannibal is a near boundless, burning sun fueled by his own desires. From the moment he had opened his eyes again in their new lives he knew what he wanted; Water. Painkillers. Will. And then he had worked up to bigger things like uncanned foods, getting them somewhere safe, clothes that he could feel his best in.
He decided these things with a surety Will could not muster himself, and so he was content to be led.
It’s not for apathy, Will’s lack of appetite.
Really, it’s the opposite.
He has never felt so sated in all his life.
That night, on the cliff with the Dragon, Will had felt that scream in his chest break over. He and Hannibal in the blood with the moon as their witness had been everything. It had been perfect. It had felt final.
The fact that he is here, still living, undead, feels like an irrelevant fact to his life. He lives life now like the pages of a closed book. Like a reel of empty film projecting onto a blank wall. Radio static on a cassette tape. Not like a living, breathing man with years ahead of him.
Hannibal returning home pulls him from his mulling, back from the market with groceries nestled in the bags under his arm. Will rises to greet him, help him put the shopping away.
“Do you have any requests for dinner?” He’s asked, courtesy more than anything these days. Will is more than happy with whatever Hannibal presents him. He opens his mouth to say as much and then he stalls, smooths the packet of rice in his hands.
“...Jambalaya.” He decides.
There is a bar in the village Will takes to.
They had first discovered it during that sweet spot just after New Years but still before the Three Kings festivities; where families had travelled up from the coast to celebrate but hadn’t packed out the bars just yet.
They're unassuming in the crowd of new faces in town. Recognition easily misplaced as the faces of distant friends or uncles or brothers if anyone were to notice them.
He likes this bar. Instead of fishmongers and mechanics the regulars here are fieldsmen and farm hands, but the nostalgia they bring is all the same. It reminds him of the places his father used to frequent when Will was still a kid. He drinks fingers of whiskey and thinks himself an old man.
Sometimes, Hannibal joins him.
It’s an exercise in trust when he doesn’t.
There are many unspoken games they still play. Trials, Will thinks when he is tired of them. Sometimes he yanks the lead just to feel the tension on the other end- which is how his little excursions had begun.
A part of him revels in the power he has over Hannibal. In equal measures he loathes it. He is tired of acting prey and predator when he knows, fundamentally, they are one in the same.
Tonight he leaves the bar and the shock of the cold keeps him huddled by the doorway, building himself up for the long walk home. The whiskey a low hum coursing through him.
The bartender comes out for a smoke and they stand together there. Will blows hot air in his cupped hands as man rolls a joint and lights it.
Will knows this man. It’s comfortable when they nod to each other, comfortable still when they look out into the street together. Will almost thinks up something to say from the very limited Spanish Hannibal had taught him when a call from inside turns their heads.
The bartender sighs and gives Will a look that is so awfully recognisable from his teenage years working in customer service. He smiles and shrugs in return, the bartender laughs.
He takes a final drag and offers Will the rest. He’s taken back by the generosity, but he doesn’t pass it up. It had been a while since he’d indulged in anything this way.
Will takes a hit and immediately chokes on it.
“Tobacco?” He asks, between breaths.
The barman gives him a bemused look and shakes his head. He goes back inside and Will heads on home.
The spliff is a nice distraction from the cold.
After coughing through the cultural difference the warmth in his chest spreads through him in an easy, mellow roll with each inhale and he feels relaxed in a way he’d forgotten were possible.
The stars are bright and he thinks of his nights spent on the waves to Florence, trailing the breadcrumbs of Hannibal. He feels the phantom rocking of the boat, his companion of waves. He sways in a long forgotten way, laughs at the absurdity of himself. He feels bird-boned, lighter than he has in months. Like he had shucked an impossible weight at the doorway of the bar and walked himself into someone new.
Someone that knows how to want.
He had made silly, unremarkable little choices lately. Read books, played music, made dinner. He bought a shirt from a market stall he thought Hannibal would ‘lose’ in the wash, yet somehow, lives to see another cycle.
Sometimes he rises early and goes for a run.
Unintentionally, he returns with gifts; produce from their neighbours or little finds in town. Yesterday he spotted a sketch pad and purchased it.
This morning, before he left, he found it left open on the coffee table. He met eyes with his own sketched reflection; bundled up warm in the olive grove. Instead of an orange, he bites through the skin of an apple.
He finds himself at the front door faster than he anticipated. He stubs out what little smoke is left in a plant pot by the door.
Will’s in the fridge before he does so much as turn a light on or kick off his shoes. He rifles through the tupperwares of leftovers until he finds them ; the sticky pork ribs from dinner.
He eats the first one right then and there in the light of the fridge. Indulges in his feast.
The ribs are sweet and savoury in all the right ways, meat falling off the bone and melting against his tongue. He groans with the luxury of it.
This new Will Graham knows how to live. In a moment of sheer brilliance he thinks the experience would be heightened from the comfort of his bed.
He tries his inebriated best to be quiet when he gets to their bedroom.
The casita is too small for another bedroom and they are both too accustomed to sharing a bed now to care. He keeps the lights off and shuffles around in the dark as he tries to shimmy out of his clothes. His whole body feels heavy and sluggish as he unbuttons his jeans.
“You smell revolting.” A mumble comes from the bed. He strips off with less delicacy now he knows Hannibal is awake.
“Sorry.” He whispers as he slides in between the cool sheets. He lays on his back with the container balanced on his chest. The smell makes his mouth water again, anticipatory. “Were you asleep?”
“Yes.” Hannibal lies. He knows Hannibal cant settle without him here.
Hannibal turns on the lamp and rolls on his side to face Will. A flicker of objection passes across his face when he sees the tupperware but he doesn’t voice it. Will wants to laugh.
“They smoke with tobacco here.” He says in a way of explanation, struggling to keep up with the flow of conversation.
He starts on another rib and decides that this is how they’re meant to be enjoyed, regardless of whatever Hannibal would argue. Fridge cold, in bed, with bare hands and an empty head. He makes an appreciative noise as he scrapes his teeth against bone. He feels Hannibal watching him as he does.
"It’s notable how with a little time and a little distance, the differences of man reveal themselves to us. Even in small ways."
Several trains of thought slip by Will at once. He lets them roll past him, away and out of the station. Through their windows he sees a crowd of faces. He and Hannibal in the carriage of some. Them now and them of the past. Hannibal in Baltimore. Them in Florence. Himself in Wolf Trap. He sees his own reflection in the glass, the differences between the version of himself now and the version of himself there are stark in his mind's eye.
"Feels almost strange to smoke alone.” He finds himself saying. “The last time I.."
Somewhere, he had lost the ability to think of Molly Graham in ways that aren’t comparative. Some days he remembers her more as a lesson, than a person. He forgets her humour, her perfume, the way they would stay up late in bed and talk and talk and talk. He’s reacquainted with her love, briefly, decides it’s something better kept inside.
"The last time was with my roommate in college.” He says, instead, “He used to come back late from another dorm and tell me about his night. Sometimes we would smoke."
Hannibal says nothing. He studies Wills face in a distant way, like he is constructing a faux memory; stealing it for himself as something to fuss over later and digest in private. He looks like he’s imagining a younger, softer faced Will Graham he never got the chance to meet. Will supposes Hannibal might want to draw him. He looks far too fond. It makes the hairs on Will’s arms stand.
"Do you ever partake?” He asks, quickly. “I know you're no prude from what we locked up in an evidence room in Baltimore."
"Not habitually,” Hannibal replies, and there is something playful in his expression now. “But when the occasion presents itself."
He feels a wash of curiosity pass through him. He can’t imagine Hannibal as anything other than a little past tipsy. "Would this have been such an occasion?"
"Maybe, but it failed to be presented." There is humour in his voice but it’s undercut by something darker. Hannibal rises and props his head on his hand, the beginnings of that barely there smile tempting his top lip.
He looks at Will’s greasy, sauce laden hand hovering above the tupperware.
"There are other indulgences present to be enjoyed, however." Hannibal says.
Oh. Will thinks as the pieces come together.
"Rib?" He offers.
Hannibal’s smile becomes full bodied then, but it’s more like a shark in open water.
He grasps Will’s wrist and takes his fingers into his mouth.
Will can do little in the way of muffling the shocked moan that escapes his lips. It’s obscene . His eyes meet Hannibal’s and they’re in the field again; he sees his own desire reflected back at him and his breath becomes rugged with arousal. He doesn’t pull away.
Blood rushes in his ears over the wet, mouthy noises Hannibal makes as he sucks between Will’s fingers. He watches the way his digits disappear into the soft heat of Hannibal’s mouth over and over again, one by one. So thorough in his tasting.
The feeling of Hannibal’s tongue as he laps at the tip of Will’s thumb, the pad rested against his bottom lip, sends an entirely new ripple of pleasure through him. He can see Hannibal like this on his knees. Flushed. Waiting for Will to take.
Hannibal bites the meat of his palm, suddenly. Will’s breath hitches, brought back to reality by the catch of Hannibal’s teeth- not enough to hurt, just enough to remind Will of their power. Will hasn’t forgotten.
When Hannibal frees his hand a thread of saliva drips down his chin and he cleans it up with his thumb, back into his mouth.
“Delicious.” He says, undishevelled. “Thank you, Will.”
Will’s too caught up in his own breath, thoughts a high and horny haze, for any clever reply.
Hannibal smiles this terrible, self-congratulatory thing. He gives a yawn and stretches as he turns over. Contented beast. He bids Will goodnight, turns off the light and settles down again in bed. Just like that. If Will weren’t so hard he’d make an attempt on Hannibal’s life. Again.
Instead he lays there on his back, staring into nothing, and attempts to will his arousal away.
won't ‘attempt influence’ my ass, he thinks, curses himself for not seeing it coming. It’s not an unwelcome advance, but not one he knows how to recuperate just yet.
He breathes harshly through his nose and attempts to settle the heavy rise and fall of his chest, doesn’t move despite himself. He refuses to give Hannibal the satisfaction of watching him sneak into the bathroom to jerk off.
He’s driving when they almost crash.
It had rained overnight. A heavy storm that whistled down through the chimney and rattled their bedroom door with a furious draft. Hannibal slept, fitfully, with his head under a pillow. Will didn’t sleep at all.
In the morning, the ground is thick with rain. Through the window the olive trees are drenched with it. Their fruits scatter across the floor battered from their branches. When he steps outside, Will finds his rubber boots filled with water. He hangs them upside down on the line, grovels at his negligence.
“It appears the Anemoi have taken their place up in the pantheon once again.” Hannibal says when he appears with freshly brewed coffee. Will drinks it down with gratitude.
His breath clings to the chill in the air as he says, “Not the first time the gods have acted without consideration for those down below.”
“Do you step in fear of ants, Will?”
“I had seven dogs.” Will replies, “Ants were the least of my fears.”
He downs the rest of his coffee in one long draw and looks over the field again. The soil has taken to a rich, brick red. The peaks of the ploughed earth plump and soft, supple as sand when trodden on. Will grimaces.
“They’ve seen to it we won't be walking without caution today.”
“Forget the gods,” Hannibal says, chipper as he takes Will’s empty mug with a subtle caress of his hand, “Let’s take today for ourselves.”
“A little mud enough to deter the Hannibal Lecter?” Will teases.
“I’m sure the branches can hold tight for another day,” Hannibal insists, “They won’t taddle on our indolence.”
He had this impish, gleeful way about him that made Will feel like they were truly breaking some kind of rules by taking the day off. They dress down from their tired work thermals and head out. Sat in the car, Will feels strangely excited as he watches Hannibal lock up.
Hannibal has this way of making marvel out of the mundane. Will felt like they were a couple of school boys playing hooky. Which is absurd, really. He’s nearly forty- unemployed- no one but himself to be held accountable by.
Excluding, well, federal law enforcement.
They decide to go somewhere for an early lunch. Will had passed by a place a few times he thought would be up to scratch, so they head out with that in mind. He cranks up the heater and takes towards town, down the long winding stretch of country road.
Will likes living this far out, in their own little corner of the earth. He doubts Hannibal feels the same, but the novelties of their life on the lam aren’t lost on him. Sometimes, very early in the morning, when the bird song wakes them both, Will gives name to their calls. The nightjar, the redstart, the kestrels that nest on the window ledge out by the shed. Knowledge unearthes itself from buried in his childhood spent in the woods. Hannibal listens very quietly, he hardly breathes at all.
Lost in thought, this stretch of road familiar as muscle memory, Will almost misses when the dog runs out in front of them.
He slams the break as he turns the wheel, a desperate attempt to stop the car. They jerk off the road, up the bank hugging the lane and the front wheel comes to a halt heavily into the soil, burying itself in the soft earth. Will takes a second to catch his breath. It’s a wonder they weren’t going faster or they would have flipped.
“Are you alright?” He’s asked and he nods.
“Are you?”
“I’m fine.” Hannibal replies. “Can you get us off the bank?”
He does. He reverses off the bank and pulls in down a dirt track off the side of the concrete road. When he stops the car he takes off his seatbelt and rubs his hands over his face, pressing his fingertips across his eyelids, still feeling the buzz of adrenaline. After everything, a car crash could have been what finally took them out. He almost laughs.
When he looks at Hannibal he’s searching out of the window.
“What way did it go?” He asks.
“I’m not too sure.” Hannibal says, “I was a little preoccupied.”
Will laughs, now. Feeling the tension start to ease in his shoulders. He runs his hand over his face again as he says, “That’s a word for it.”
For a second longer he sits there, mulling the options.
He thinks about the car’s nice interior, the day they had planned, the fact he could drive away now and be done with it. The casita is cosy with just the two of them, it would be certainly cramped with a third. They have no plans to stay here, long term. It would only make travel harder, certain methods entirely impossible. It’s a bad idea; forming attachments.
“What are you thinking?” Hannibal asks, feigned innocence.
He lays a flat hand on Will’s shoulder and it’s warm, reassuring. Will takes a deep breath and rests his head back against the headrest. It is awfully cold out there. Even with a fur coat.
Hannibal squeezes Will’s shoulder when he doesn’t answer. Will feels it right the way through him. He knows Hannibal is with him. His touch not a mooring but a paddle, ready to be directed.
“Will?” Hannibal asks, again.
He wets his lips.
“Hedonism.” Will decides, and gets out of the car.
It doesn’t take them long to find her, but it does take a while to get her in the car. And some bribery. At one point Will takes the car back to the house and returns with water and a smelly, meaty dry cured pork thing that immediately gets her attention.
She’s an old dog. A very mild tempered lady, a “good girl, a very good girl” Will can’t help but praise when she eats from his hand, letting him ruffle her ears and pet her snout.
She knows a few commands, none in English. She has no identification and probably no chip. She was a family dog, he thinks, but age complications got too much. Arthritis, maybe.
“Seems we’ll have to make some arrangements at the house.” Hannibal says after they settle her in the back.
Will smiles. “You knew this was inevitable.”
“I’d resigned myself to fate at your hands long ago.” Hannibal professes and matches Will’s smile, “In blood shed or dog hairs.”
When Will returns from brushing his teeth he finds Hannibal sat on the side of their bed, moisturizing. His ‘nightly routine’ is more akin to ritual in it’s ceremony. Will isn’t unkind to his body, but Hannibal treats his with an affection he could never muster for his own.
He stands in the doorway, caught in the practiced way Hannibal works moisturiser into his skin. It’s some expensive, no label thing and it smells amazing. He works it between his hands, his wrists, up to the crocodile skin of his elbows, into his biceps. Will knows the power there, how the muscles work for him. It’s a thought that stirs him, warms him.
Will knows he’s staring. He’s sure Hannibal knows he is. It doesn’t matter. It’s the least he has shared with Will. Hannibal had never shied from an audience before, and here he does not waver. But it’s not pageantry. It just is. This. Intimacy for intimacy’s sake. Hannibal acknowledges him, invites his gaze.
He clears his throat.
“Let me.”
He approaches and takes the bottle from Hannibal, stands between his open legs. He noticed how he fits there, the strong muscle of Hannibal’s thighs pressed against his own.
He feels warmth at the contact. Feels it grow into him, spread up and through and nourish him. Hannibal watches him quietly as he pops the cap and warms a small amount on his hands.
He starts at Hannibal’s shoulders.
He smooths his hands over his skin, down from the base of his neck and out and back up again. It’s a measured touch. Not the way he’s caressed any lover- the softer flesh of another’s body in his hands. No. But he feels the way Hannibal gives himself over to it, the way he slackens and bleeds and uncurls for him- and something in that is familiar.
Will picks up the bottle again, squeezes out a drop more.
Hannibal opens his legs a little wider, leans back a little more on his hands and Will finds himself following the movement, following the contact. Will stands there, pressed tip to tail, and scoops Hannibal up in his hands again, holds his face in his palms.
He brushes his thumbs over Hannibal’s cheekbones, just the once. He feels the way his skin pulls, reveals the bones of his skull when taught and so human underneath it all. So Hannibal when it all comes together.
Hannibal closes his eyes and Will follows the curve of his brow bone. A useless action for the task he’s supposedly performing, but he does it anyway. Hannibal tempts a smile, neither a fool to the illusion nor willing to break it. Will does it again.
For a moment he finds himself half gone.
In his hands he touches Hannibal again but he feels gauze there- the nauseating smell of rubbing alcohol- a body so cold he struggles to nurse it back to the colour of flesh. He blinks and it’s Baltimore- rain soaked and spilling from his grip. Again- and he is here- Hannibal shower soft and flushed with life.
Will knows, now, how he craves; how he feels want like a hunger.
He realises how he's been living like a man starved. When he thinks of the past he sees himself this gaunt and famished thing, fasting not for want but for not knowing how to be full. Purging when he finds it, insatiable when he can't. With his pack he is fed. By the stream, in the water, he is content.
When he kills Garret Jacob Hobbs he is nourished .
It’s a feeling that sustains him, quenches his appetite. He is famished until he finds himself at Hannibal’s table- not for what he finds on it but the parts of himself that take up a seat there.
He’s long past the revulsion. Long past the principles of a man that hungers but does not eat. One that blinds himself to the meal in front of him.
There is consummation in consumption. After the Dragon he didn’t know if he would ever feel hunger again. Does the deadman crave? Does he ache after the dying? What more is there to want after the perfect death? He felt full to the bones, like the very marrow of them were stuffed with his gluttony. His first taste, and what he thought to be his final.
But they lived.
He holds the proof in his hands; feels stubble on his palms, breath against his chest. He applies the last of the cream to Hannibal's temple, across his forehead, down the bridge of his nose. He cups his jaw, watches as Hannibal tilts his head, up into his wanting hands.
“I was wondering,” He feels it start in his stomach; that hunger of the living. The way it seeks and seeks through his body. It gorges on the places he touches Hannibal; thighs, arms, hands. He feels it like a shiver, a ripple of heat he lets out on a breath, “If you were willing to provide some reassurance.”
Hannibal opens his eyes. He wets his lip, “Of course, Will.”
“What did you have in mind?” He asks, but it's not a question.
His eyes fall from Will’s own to his mouth and back again. Will feels it like a touch, the way it lingers on his cupid's bow. He swallows it down, savours it. It stirs him, licks the flame inside him and pulls him further in.
His hand moves to the back of Hannibal's head, up into the hair at the nape of his neck. It feels almost too tender to cradle his skull like this, like something fragile, precious. He tugs, just a little, until their foreheads rest together.
He breathes, eyes closed and feels it pool against Hannibal’s cheek- the flutter of his eyelashes. He thinks of all the times before Hannibal has held him close, like this but so entirely unlike this. He takes a breath, and another, and another.
Hannibal lets his hands up from the bed. He maps the length of Will’s back, his hips, the ticklish parts on his sides.
He laughs, shakily, at that. It makes him feel young. Not in the way of inexperience, but in the way it feels for things to be new. That pulse in the veins, the thrill of discovery. He likes it, when Hannibal touches him.
“Will,” Hannibal says, and he feels it pressed to his skin. It soaks through him, melts like snow when Hannibal says it, soft.
He feels like spring; thawed and beginning again. Something long since held washes through him, and he hears Hannibal like it’s the first time.
“Will-” Hannibal tries again, but Will shushes him.
He kisses him. Soft and dry, no more than a press of lips. He welcomes how Hannibal sighs on his lip, the way his shoulders soften and he tugs Will unconsciously closer.
Will goes to pull away, to see Hannibal’s face but Hannibal chases him. Wanting. Craving. He holds him closer, wraps his arms around what he can and pulls him back in. Will lets himself go.
He strokes Hannibal’s cheekbone again but this time lovingly, so gently, and feels the old scars there- their worn past. He holds their history on his face, prideful and gilded and maybe this is why he takes such care with his body. An act of preservation.
Will moves, tilts his head and revels in the scrap of stubble against his lip, the novelty of it.
Hannibal meets him, palliative and soft and warm and Will aches in a new old way.
god, he thinks, god how long ago they could have been here. How long ago he could have let himself know the way Hannibal feels on his mouth, how his breath sounds in his ear. He parts his lips and this time he feels Hannibal’s tongue, the greedy lick of it, and it pulls a groan from the back of his throat.
He splays his hand across Hannibal’s jaw, claiming, hungry. Lets his nails skim across flesh and drinks down the hitch of Hannibal’s next breath, a noise Will seals away for himself.
He feels Hannibal’s pulse flutter, the way his throat works when he swallows, and it’s so much like this. So base, so involuntary.
All at once Hannibal’s hands are moving, retracing the path of Will’s torso, his hips, the back of his thighs. He turns gooseflesh wherever Hannibal touches, aching after his hands when they are gone, anticipating where they will go next.
Hannibal trails over his lower back, follows the curve of his ass over his boxers, hands warm and curious. Will goes a little breathless when Hannibal palms him.
When he starts to knead into the muscle there, Wills forgets how to recuperate the kiss entirely. His mouth goes slack against Hannibal’s and he pants into his mouth, wholly taken by the feeling of Hannibal’s fingers working over him.
When Hannibal spreads his cheeks, so briefly, so suddenly, he feels raw. He moans gutterly, reflexively, pushes back into the contact. It’s exposing in a way no previous lover has ever touched him.
He takes Hannibal’s mouth again, wetter, headier.
He catches Hannibal’s bottom lip with his teeth and Hannibal sucks in a breath. He exhales on a choked noise when Will takes it in his mouth again, sucked and bitten when he releases it.
They meet and it’s all teeth and tongue. Hannibal kisses him with a series of keen, low noises in his throat. They rumble through his chest and Will holds him closer to feel them better, fuller.
Hannibal’s hand finds the back of his leg again and Will brings his knee up on the bed. He straddles one of Hannibal’s thighs.
He knows he is heavy, far heavier than any woman that has ever sat in his own lap, so he keeps his weight on his knee to save Hannibal the pressure.
When Hannibal holds him by the waist, pulls him down and flush against him, the sudden rush of heat where they press together has Will clutching for balance.
“Fuck, Hannibal,” He fists into Hannibal’s hair, his shoulder.
He shivers when Hannibal groans in his ear.
He eases down onto Hannibal’s thigh, knee folded and pressed to Hannibal’s side, his groin maddeningly close to Hannibal’s waist by his hip. Will ruts against him, just once, unable to stop himself, and clutches harder at the shudder of friction.
On his other thigh, between Hannibal's legs, he can feel Hannibal pressed against him at the edge of the bed. He’s hard. The thought has Will hot all over. He feels a flush spread through his chest. It wrings another throaty noise from him that he buries in Hannibal’s neck.
He lets his teeth tempt the junction where Hannibal’s shoulder begins and bites it gently when Hannibal urges him, hand clenched in his hair. The power he has here, the fact he can mark Hannibal and the way Hannibal demands it from him has him biting down harder, firmer. Hannibal groans and arches, pressing up into it.
Will licks the bite tenderly, mercifully, and kisses the wells his teeth left behind. He pulls back and looks at it with a possessiveness that feels so foreign, so entirely other, but it burns in the pits of him, fans the flames of something untapped.
Hannibal palms him again, rocks him down onto his thigh. Pleasure rolls through Will as he’s manhandled, breath leaving him in floods.
He likes Hannibal’s hands, how he touches him so suredly. He touches Will without hesitation, without apprehension. He’s never looked at him like he’s this broken, hurting thing the way other people have. For everything that has passed between them, there has never been pity.
He moves with Hannibal, head on his shoulder, chases the heat that builds and builds with each thrust.
“Ah- wait,” He manages when it gets too much, and Hannibal goes deathly still.
Will laughs breathily, reassuringly, shakes his head when Hannibal attempts to pull away, “It’s my knee.”
He peels himself off of Hannibal, sensation returning to his leg when he stands again.
Hannibal looks wrecked.
His chest rises and falls in a heavy, rattling way and his hair borders unkempt. Will admires the wiry hair of his chest, the masculine set of his shoulders, the trail of fuzz that draws his eyes down, disappears into the waistband of his pyjama pants.
Legs open, Hannibal palms himself through the fabric.
He watches as Will’s eyes go dark, hungry.
“Get on the bed.” He says, and Hannibal complies.
Hannibal shuffles back and to the side, attempting to rearrange himself comfortably up by the pillows.
Will follows, hovers. He uses the momentum when Hannibal reaches for him to roll them onto their sides, chests flushed in the middle of the bed.
In their rearranging, the heat from earlier feels like a low hum, something that could return at a moment's notice. They lay there and breath, the weight of everything that had transpired feeling heavy and intimate and new in a way that, really, had always felt inevitable.
Hannibal watches him, adoringly. He looks at Will like he has all the answers to questions he has no need to ask.
Will threads his fingers through Hannibal’s bangs, tidies them from his forehead and tucks what little he can behind his ear. It falls back where he found it so he does it again, again.
“If I could flatten time under my thumb, Will, and stretch it out for eternity,” Hannibal starts, his voice quiet and heavy, “I would spend all of it here; with you.”
Will blinks back the affection. He feels it in his throat- this mangled, provoked thing. He kisses Hannibal, now, because he can. Because he wants to. He hopes Hannibal can feel it, this thing that wrings wrings inside him.
“How long have you wanted this, like this?” He asks when he retreats.
“Since the beginning.” Comes all too quickly, the answer of a romantic.
Will snorts. “Liar.”
Hannibal frowns in this accused, wounded way.
“Exaggerator, then.” Will says. He cards his hand over Hannibal’s chest absently. He feels his heart beat in his hand. If he doesn’t look, he could kid himself he were really holding it. If he does, to Hannibal’s face, he knows he already has for a long time.
"Bedelia said you were in love with me."
Hannibal seals himself. He takes Will’s hand and kisses his knuckles, hides his mouth there, "I would commend her perceptiveness, if my affection for you weren't so obvious."
Hannibal takes his hand back to his chest again, cradles it there. Will is held to his heart, feels it beat against him, into him, as if it were his own.
With his other hand Hannibal runs his knuckles along Will’s jaw line, rests his thumb on Will’s bottom lip. He pushes and Will opens for him, letting Hannibal feel along the row of his teeth. He has never been touched like this before, this delighted in, never studied before under a hungry touch. He feels desire guide him when he sucks on Hannibal’s thumb, tastes it with his tongue and releases it with a pop again.
Hannibal breathes in sharply, rubs along Will’s wet lip.
"You won't ask me- if it's returned." Will says when Hannibal stills.
Hannibal meets his eyes, searching.
"I thought perhaps you were still dealing with your feelings, towards me." His tone betrays no accusation, no hurt. He is greedy and impulsive, more selfish than Will has ever known anyone. But he knows Hannibal wants to meet Will on his own terms. They’d come too far for anything else, now.
"I'm not." Will tells. "I'm not."
He reels Hannibal in and noses under his jaw, behind his ear. He breathes in the smell of his soap, tastes it at the back of his throat, so familiar, so close. He dares to taste it for real and lavishes Hannibal’s throat with his teeth, his tongue.
Hannibal swallows heavily, pants on a breath. He bares his neck further, that unbearable display of submission, and the sight goes straight to Will’s cock.
Will caresses the length of Hannibal’s body and feels how his skin jumps as he passes over it, chases his touch. He pulls Hannibal’s knee over his and slips his leg into the warm space between Hannibal’s thighs. His stomach flips when Hannibal rocks against him.
“Yeah?” He asks, heavy, amazed.
Will holds him close by a hand at his lower back, leveraging Hannibal against him and rolls his hips to meet him.
Hannibal groans this low, animal thing when Will finds his mouth again. He feels Hannibal thicken again between them, heavy on his thigh. A rush of heat courses through him and he stutters in his rhythm.
“Let me.” He says and works a hand between their legs. He cups Hannibal’s covered length and rubs with the heel of his hand. Hannibal goes slack, lets his legs fall open, clutches Will at his elbow, urges him for more. Together they tear off his pyjama pants.
“Let me.” He says, pressing Hannibal against the mattress, and it’s nonsense now. Little more than breathless. A plea, an answer. He’s not sure which he means anymore; let me show you- feel you- let me take care of you. Let me show you how easy it is.
He puts his hands on Hannibal again and holds him proper. He feels the way Hannibal leaks against him, the gasp at his neck, and spreads it down his length. He works Hannibal over with long, firm strokes like he would on himself when he wants to take his time. The kind that lets the pressure build and build in a way that curls his toes, makes him dig his heels into the mattress. From the way Hannibal groans it must be right.
He buries his face at Hannibal's neck, worrying the flesh with his teeth, lips. He sucks, suddenly, and Hannibal bucks into his hand. He watches his skin bloom to this red, blushing thing when he pulls away and Will feels entirely mischievous. It’s so childish, so undignified.
It makes him over wrought with tenderness. He kisses it, affectionate. His first mark made without violence.
He kisses the side of Hannibal’s face, the corner of his lip and settles at his neck again. He hears as much as he feels Hannibal’s labored breath, how his hand fists the sheets. He looks close, for how little Will has really touched him. He tilts his head, lips brushing Hannibal’s ear.
“I love you.” He whispers, and Hannibal comes just like that.
He savours the guttural moan Hannibal makes, the noise ripped from deep in his chest, the way he seeks Will’s mouth in the come down. Will strokes him through it, wipes his hand on the sheets when he settles.
Hannibal rolls and presses Will into the mattress with his full weight. It nourishes that needy and starved part that has been calling out for so long, so ignored. He combs his hands through Hannibal’s hair when it tickles his face, kisses him, moans in his mouth. He’s so overcome.
“Tell me.” Hannibal asks- demands- between passes of his lips.
“I love you.” Will breathes, drowns in it.
He chases after Hannibal’s mouth, drunk on the feeling. He shirt rides up and bunches at his abdomen, the press of skin to skin carnal in a way that has him arching into it, desperate for contact. He wrestles out of his own clothes, unwilling to wait for Hannibal to work up to it.
The places they connect now have him like a livewire. Hannibal kisses his chest, right at his sternum and he feels it reverberate through him, rattle him and leave him threadbare. He throws an arm across his face and sighs at the crook of his elbow, shelters himself in the dark behind his eyelids.
He feels Hannibal map the plane of his torso with his hand; across the knot of his stomach, catches on a nipple, digs his fingers into the muscle of Will’s shoulder. He chokes on a gasp at that- feels the tension squeezed out from him under Hannibal’s steady hand. He melts like liquid, like butter, and the moan that’s pulled from him is long, low. His arm slips from his face, heavy.
Hannibal rests their foreheads together. He bends and kisses him, sweetly.
“My Will,” He murmurs against Will’s lips.
It’s too raw, too sincere. He feels cracked like a shell, busted from the inside as something tries to offer itself up. Keen for more praise, more affection. It embarrasses him, the way it ruddies him right down to the bone, whittles him bare and naked so easily, so involuntary.
Hannibal shifts his weight and trances a hand across Will’s hip, down his leg, rakes through the scattered hairs at his inner thigh. Will is malleable to the touch, expectant. His cock twitches on his stomach as Hannibal ghosts across his path again, this time dipping lower. Hannibal’s fingers caress his perineum, just for a touch, and Will’s breath hitches.
He lets it out on a moan as Hannibal takes him in hand. He swipes his thumb at the head and rubs precome into the slit in a steady, circular movement. The way the wet pad of Hannibal’s thumb drags against his tip has him struggling to keep still with the pleasure it brings.
Will grips the sheets when Hannibal strokes him in a feather light, silken way. It’s so gentle, so teasing. He moves down Will’s cock with a barely there pressure, back up again just the same. A caress more than a touch, so on the cusp of being something, anything .
On his next upstroke he squeezes the tip and Will bucks into that soft, tight heat. Hannibal holds still, lets him do it again. This time he relaxes his hold, tightens it again as Will slips out of his grip. He traces Will’s balls with his fingertips, fondles them. He tests their weight in his palm for no more than a moment before letting them go again. When he takes Will’s dick in hand he twists his wrist on a downstroke, and Will sucks in a breath.
He realises, stupidly, perhaps a moment too late, that Hannibal is admiring him. Cataloguing the sight of him, the feel of him. Memorising the way his cock lays on his stomach, begging for anything, anything at all. It’s too much. He feels a flush spread across his chest, watching Hannibal watching him.
Hannibal lays his head on Will’s chest, settling in for a show. Precome beads at the tip of Will’s cock and Hannibal readily collects it on his thumb, into his mouth, savouring the taste. Will groans when Hannibal removes his hand from him, the loss of contact made desperate by his building need.
“Hannibal-” He half pants, half demands.
Hannibal kisses the patch of skin where his cheek rests. He ghosts his lips over one of Will’s nipples and Will’s nerves alight, conscious of every brush against him when Hannibal teases him, “Impatient boy.”
He brings his hand to his mouth again, spits into his palm and finally takes Will in a way he’s been waiting for. Will throws his head back into the pillow as Hannibal strokes him through the shudder of pleasure that shakes him down, reduces him to little but touch and breath and a tight fisted circle of wet heat. He breathes through his teeth- too tightly wound to unclench his jaw.
His face scrunches with pleasure, eyelids shut tight but he can picture it so clearly; the slack jaw, awe expression on Hannibal’s face, his face nestled at Will’s side. His hand feels like an extension of Will’s own body from this angle.
The boundary between what is his and what is Hannibal’s spreads so thin behind his eyelids, the world narrowed down to sensation alone, that it disappears completely. Hannibal touches him and it’s every time Will once touched himself so privately, deniably, thinking of Hannibal, and it overcomes him entirely unexpectedly, the two experiences melding into one.
A strangled, raw sound claws up from his throat as he curls into himself, spilling into Hannibal’s hand. It takes him a long moment to come down. He breathes through it, eyes still closed, letting the endorphins fizzle through his tired body, his heart slows on every beat. He feels so raw he might chaft when Hannibal strokes a hand down the length of his body.
“You’re wonderful.” Hannibal says admiring him freely, openly.
Will hums, pulls Hannibal to his chest again and Hannibal throws a leg over his, settles with Will’s arms around him. They breathe together. Quietly, Will trances shapes on Hannibal’s back, loops around the brand at his shoulder. He smiles.
“Too old to be anyone’s boy, though.”
“Nonsense,” Hannibal insists, tilting his head up to meet Will, “We have been reborn. Our new lives stretch vast and boundless in front of us, ready for us to do with what we please.”
Will pulls him into a kiss. A chaste press of the lips. A consummation of so much more.
“To the new us.”
“I had a visitor in my dreams last night.” Will punctuates with a sip of wine.
He delights in the tilt of Hannibal’s head, the peak of interest in his deliberate silence, listening, contemplating. He notices the bait but does not chase, yet, and continues to read. Will can wait. It would be rude to interrupt.
They had spent the afternoon sun chasing. Following the winter rays as they wane across the land, dipping bread into balsamic and oil, chattering between chapters, Charlie lounging at the heel.
There has been very little demanding their time since the olive picking season came to end. They split their returns half cash, half oil, which is a hefty harvest for two people. Not that Hannibal is lacking recipes. He’d bottled vinaigrettes in the pantry, stocked aioli in the fridge, made desserts and pot roasted chicken- and those are only the things Will has been aware of.
Instead of work they fill the days with little leisures; taking walks and idling around town. Will has taken to the maintenance of the house. Creaking doors and insulating pipes aren’t as fulfilling as the puzzle of a boat motor, but it keeps his hands busy.
Sometimes, Hannibal brings breakfast to bed. He wakes him with coffee and eggs and they spend the whole day there. It’s with incredibly little effort Will has embraced the romantic overtures of their relationship.
It’s in the flesh now; a visceral knowledge of one another. Pound for pound they’ve offered it up like a little more than clay, a rib, the breaking of a bone. It’s to know both how the handle feels in the grip and the slice of the knife as it slips further in. He’d know Hannibal’s hands in the dark- both their kindness and cruelty.
Hannibal closes his books and pops it on the little end table they’d fashioned from an upside down plant pot. They’re operating in the in between here, everything measured in half commitments and unsureties. Even buying a side table feels too much like planting roots.
“An old friend?” Hannibal asks. Friend such a broad and inexplicable title.
"An old flame," Will smiles, but it's not for humour, "Not one of mine."
"She approached me in the olive grove. Knew she was unwelcome here. Trespassing. The fruit she past rotted and died on the branch. She walked in shadow, possessed by it. Chained to it. She was demonic. She went by a new name."
"And what name had she chosen for herself?" Hannibal asks, still. His curiosity a near physical thing.
Will grits his teeth.
"Lilith."
"Ah," Hannibal says, and his eyes glisten now in a knowing way. He reclines in his chair, crosses his leg over the other, "Adam's first wife."
Will feels an old wound twinge. A bitter taste at the back of his throat claws into his mouth, wrestles with his tongue. He struggles to school his face into something that isn't sour.
"I have been thinking about our last conversations- hers and mine. About the many things she said on your behalf."
"Of my affections for you?"
"Yes, amongst others. She beat you to the punchline." Will stretches in his chair. He holds Hannibal's gaze when he says, "I find that to be very rude, don't you, Doctor Lecter?"
A smile pulls slow at Hannibal's lips.
"Gossip is indeed unbecoming."
They share a smile. Hannibal takes his own wine in hand, drinks it in his habitual way. A silence holds them both, the beginnings of their future shaping wordlessly between them. Hannibal looks at him, something small and mild.
“It appears we will be leaving our Eden soon.” He says, and Will is in his dining room in Baltimore again, eating lamb and plotting betrayal, “Will you miss it?”
He shakes his head. He offers Hannibal his hand, palm open. Hannibal returns his wine to the table and takes it easily. Will smooths his thumb over Hannibal’s knuckles, squeezes his hand.
“This is just a place. We can always return.”
Hannibal threads their fingers together, loose. He runs his thumb over the veins in Will’s wrist, feels his pulse, the hum of life there. Will knows that in some wing of Hannibal’s mind palace, if you look through the right window, they are here in this garden.
“My desires have outgrown what God could afford me, here.” He says, and Hannibal squeezes his hand back.
“I’m glad to offer what God cannot.”
Will scoffs.
“I don’t need you to give me anything.”
He pulls their clasped hands towards him and Hannibal follows freely. He settles on his knees between Will’s legs, looks at him with a fire, devotion. He runs his hands up Will’s thighs and Will takes his face in hand. He wets his lips, smiles.
“I intend to take.”