Chapter Text
“Is it that kind of party?”
Anthony’s accent rolls, like a brook over stones, or wine into a crystal glass. Amusement and anticipation, brows up. He is, in truth, the most interesting thing about Italy so far, well worth the invitation to dinner, well worth the possibility of actually walking him to the door, not dragging him from it, at the end.
Hannibal blinks, languid, and tilts his smile to his plate as he waits. He can’t give the answer, it is not a question asked of him, and he can feel the shift beneath the table, a nervous twitch of agitation. He can hear the intake of breath just before the answer comes and he closes his eyes to listen.
“I couldn’t very well make such a blatant suggestion and leave it close-ended,” Will’s voice bridges monotone, like a sudden additional string struck on the guitar, and Hannibal opens his eyes to lift them to the man before him. My husband as Hannibal had introduced him, and Anthony’s lips had pursed to hide a pleased smile. Hannibal watches Will spear another acorn with a little too much force and bring it to his lips. “It would be inexcusably rude.”
Will chews carefully, sets his wrists against the table. “Another thing my husband rarely tolerates.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Anthony murmurs with a smile, leaning nearer to Will as if in conspiracy, though his eyes dart back towards Hannibal. “But I can assure you, I am a consummate houseguest. Polite, hospitable, and entirely unselfish.”
Brows lifting beneath dark curls of hair, Will watches as a curious pleasure eases up the muscles beneath Hannibal’s eyes.
“I will put our dessert on ice, then,” he agrees, unfolding his napkin from his lap and touching it once to each corner of his lips. “I did not expect Mr. Dimmond to provide the promise of something far more pleasing to the palate.”
The poet’s smile widens, gregarious and bright. “I hope that I can meet both your expectations in that regard, especially considering I’ve not kept to a strict diet of acorns and oysters.”
“Perhaps, then, you can do the tasting,” Hannibal suggests, bending at the waist to take up his plate to return it to the kitchen. He watches, delighted, as Will levels a look on the poet, slowly moves his eyes to lift to Hannibal when he comes near, setting his cutlery back to his plate - wrong - before taking up the napkin to wipe his mouth as well.
“Perhaps he can,” Will agrees, letting his lips curl up at the corners, almost catlike, but entirely disingenuous. His eyes narrow not in delight but in calculation, a resigned sort of exhaustion behind them, as though the very idea of such a pleasant experience brings thoughts of dullness and boredom to mind. Will licks his lips and leans forward, then sets his elbows up on the table and clasps his hands beneath his chin. “It’s been a while since you’ve had someone to compare tastes with. And Mr. Dimmond is sure to have a much more sophisticated palate than my Southern upbringing provides.”
“Am I?” Anthony laughs, and something in Will’s eyes relaxes.
“I’ve encountered many Englishmen with a taste for the unique,” Will clarifies, clicking the consonants and lifting his eyes to Hannibal when he returns from the kitchen.
“You are both that, to be certain,” he agrees with a laugh, folding his napkin over once before setting it to the table. Anthony lets his eyes travel up the length of the doctor’s arm as Hannibal takes his plate too, lingering just a beat too long, and as he turns away with a wry amusement, the poet returns his curiosity to Will.
“I understand you met my husband at a party.”
“You understand correctly,” Anthony says. “In Paris, at a book release party for an object of our mutual derision.”
“And was that the extent of your mutuality that night?”
“Oh, not at all,” he exclaims, with a brash laugh. “We shared champagne and whispered conversations, mostly disdainful, and stood no nearer than you and I now before bidding each other good evening. That said, I’ve found that, contrary to having a great deal of positive things in common, the best company is often that with which one shares a great deal of dislikes.”
“That doesn’t bode well,” Will supposes. He allows just a breath, a single note of laughter as he reaches for his wine and it is, of course, Anthony who moves first, letting a hand settle atop Will’s with no more hurry or weight than an autumn leaf. He strokes, once only, across his knuckles.
“And you,” Anthony asks, brows drawing ever so slightly inward. “Did you meet your husband through cruelty or kindness?”
Will’s fingers splay beneath the warm unfamiliar ones and he flexes them just once before finally reaching for the wine. It is pleasant, summery and cool, and most likely some ungodly vintage that Hannibal could talk about for hours before Will swallowed him down to shut him up. The thought draws the tip of his tongue between Will’s lips as he considers his answer.
“We met through our mutual distaste for tastelessness,” Will weaves, tilting his head with a slow blink as the other searches his face with curious eyes, smile pulling warm again when Will allows his own to grow. “He drove me insane,” Will adds after a moment. “A reciprocal desire for more intellectual conversation outside the field of academia had me hardly liable to let him free,” Hannibal adds, returning to his seat, amused when Will does not even blink in his direction, entire body coiled and turned towards the young poet, fingers curling over his wine glass in slow, deliberate patterns, as though one were wringing a neck or seeking out a pulse to stop.
“He had me imprisoned,” Will says, watches the way Anthony’s brows rise in surprise.
“Poetically speaking?” he asks, a laugh hushing his words as Will draws his bottom lip between his teeth and snorts softly.
“Of course.”
“Meeting you now, one could understand the motivation,” the poet allows. He exchanges a glance to Hannibal for an inclination of the doctor’s head, and a candlelight smile warms Anthony’s expression. “You love with savagery,” he observes. “Madness and imprisonment are ungentle terms to refer to the highest state attainable by man.”
“Poetically speaking,” Hannibal responds, but Anthony’s smile flickers wider, with a flash of white teeth.
“You overpower in your passion, and yet it is not a tyranny. As with your food, I imagine, you demand that you are met at a particular plane and yet those who pass your tests - wine and oysters, Dante and Scarlatti - are elevated, as demigods to gods, for having done so. You give, then, as much as you demanded - more so, I think, were I a betting man,” Anthony murmurs, his smile as irresistible to restrain as the purr of his accent and the draw of his eyes, dark and lovely.
“Love should be generous,” Hannibal considers.
Anthony leans forward towards the doctor now, limber with wine and the promise hanging sweet as honey in the air between them. Unlike with Will, though, he does not touch right away, so much as tilt his head as if to allow and beckon it to him.
“Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,” he muses.
“And you, Mr. Dimmond,” asks Hannibal. “With what do you love?”
This pulls the younger man’s voice into a laugh robust as the red wine that he sips to swallow it down. Uncouth enough to be charming, refined enough to be a fascination, the poet wipes his lips clean with a brush of his fingers, and sets the glass aside. He inches his chair back, palms against the table, and sighs.
“Only my words, until someone takes them from me.”
Hannibal looks delighted, almost giddy in the way his eyes narrow and his lips part enough to show his teeth. Will directs his eyes to him in a lazy sort of understanding and considers how animals show their teeth in a gesture of dominance, be they yawns, growls or smiles.
“A man who can make love to a mind is certainly worth trusting with a body,” Will says, ignoring how Hannibal’s smile widens at this, how he moves, in a dance they all understand, to reach for Anthony’s hand as he moves it away to reach for Will instead. It is a synchronicity that feels almost electric between them.
“Will you trust me with yours?”
“Will you steal my words away?” Will counters, setting his glass to the table and shifting, almost leaning over the table, close enough, now, to have Anthony’s eyes hood to look at him so near.
“Would that I could take such liberties.”
“By all means,” Hannibal gestures, lifts his glass to press the rim to his bottom lip as he watches Will and the poet both, near enough to touch. “Steal them, if he lets them be stolen.”
“I could gift them.”
“Terrible,” Hannibal sighs.
“Generous.” Will turns his head, eyes always on the poet, mind always on the mirror image of himself, never in his own head. It doesn’t matter. Will is everything and nothing all at once - it makes him ruthless, it makes him brutal and unendingly passionate. Another sigh and Will sits closer, at once pushing himself higher in dominance and stance both. “An olive branch of sorts. Or a test. I will steal them back if I must.”
Anthony’s gaze follows the movement of Will’s tongue against his lips, parting them for a breath.
“There are truths in the words of madmen,” he murmurs. “Tell me, does he drive you still to insanity, despite the illumination that comes from such intimacy?”
Will’s laugh is only a sigh, as he answers, “Always.”
It is enough, then, perhaps too much - the offer of challenge and temptation both, intoxicating and irresistible. It is enough for Anthony to close the last lingering distance between them, and bring their mouths to meet. On their mouths mingle sea-brine and the tannins of wine, sweeping slowly together and underlaid by the rising thrum of heartbeats and low sounds that resonate into harmony. He lifts a hand, stroking the backs of his fingers down Will’s softly furred cheeks, and Will’s lips part, yielding to allow the touch of the poet’s tongue against his own. It is no immediate claiming, no boisterous show of dominance or authority. He seeks into the kiss as thoughtfully as he sought through his words, and with no less affection.
It is a true treat to watch him. Hannibal could, and does, every day, even in the most mundane of things. Reading, doing the dishes, sleepy in the mornings and fuelled with passion as he rocks his hips against Hannibal and rides him until both are breathless and the bed has beaten marks into the wall behind it.
Will brings a hand up to mirror the one against him, gentle, fingers curled a little to stroke, and test and touch before they spread and scrape gently through the soft beard the man wears. They part for air and Will ducks his head as he stands, moves to rest his weight back against the edge of the table and lean down to kiss Anthony again, deeper, this time, curious how the pressure will be taken, how the change will be allowed.
There is a hum and little more, and Will’s lips curve once more. He leans, enough that Anthony has to lean back, and in a graceful movement Will sets one leg over Anthony’s thighs to hold himself standing in a straddle over the poet. The kiss does not break, Will doesn’t let it, not until his hands have slicked down the warm skin of Anthony’s neck to the loose scarf he wears. Will’s fingers twist it, curl it once, twice, over each palm and tug, sharp enough that the air is pulled from the younger man before him, enough that when he looks up, Will looks back, eyes narrowed.
When next Anthony moves, it is to press his lips reverent to Will’s pulse, his hands coming to rest against Will’s hips where he stands so close. Will does not let go of the scarf, does not relent in the pressure, though it is hardly uncomfortable. He does, instead, roll his head to the side, eyes hooded and barely open, warm and dark beneath as he regards Hannibal and smiles. Slow. Languid. Lazy. He arches his neck further and allows a low moan of pleasure as Anthony presses his lips beneath his jaw and sucks.
“That kind of party,” murmurs Anthony, gasping out a little laugh as Will tugs the scarf that much tighter. Just enough to cut short his clever words, just enough to send a spark of dizziness behind his eyes. And just long enough for Anthony to let his eyes hood and teeth show and the soft skin of Will’s neck to catch between them in a gentle scrape.
Hannibal watches, the near-reverent movement of the poet’s hands against his husband’s suit, slipping him free of his tailored attire button by button. He draws a breath, silent but felt burning in his lungs, as Anthony pushes his palms over Will’s stomach, running them over his ribs and tugging to free his shirt tails. With appreciation, Hannibal relishes the speed of it, not a hurried fumbling thing, but confident in what he desires.
The flicker of Anthony’s smile widens as he slips a hand to the back of Will’s head and drags him into a deeper kiss. Lips crush and split against each other, parting wide to allow clearance for the tangle of their tongues and their shared, low moans. Still held, the poet does not notice how white Will’s knuckles have become in clenching the scarf, holding it firm without pulling it tighter; he does not see how Will resists the urges Hannibal has created in him for the ones that Anthony’s company has stirred instead.
They part with a rattling breath, a gasp, a laugh as Will leans back against the antique wood, straddled between poet and table. He tugs Anthony nearer again and the man follows - he would follow, Hannibal knows, even without the lead. Slender fingers hold Will’s hips in place, and Will’s belly is bared in inches, shirt caught on the bridge of Anthony’s nose as he mouths against smooth stomach.
And it is then that Will lets go of one side of the scarf, hand down to press to the man's soft curls, dragging his nails over Anthony's scalp and snaring from him a moan. The sensation is novel, bearded cheek and different lips, not as hot as Hannibal's and not as demanding but very pleasant. Will sucks his stomach in, grins when the poet leans closer and hums against him, eyes flicking up to watch Will where he stands over him.
It is a show, for now, not yet a party, and Hannibal watches Will bring his free hand up to loosen his tie, to work it from its knot and let it rest loose around his neck. Button by button his shirt is peeled free from the bottom up as Anthony moves higher over Will’s body, and when he gently digs his fingers into Will's sides to bring him close, Will unfurls away from him.
Like smoke, like water.
Will brings one foot up, presses the toe of his shoe to the seat between Anthony's legs, clucking his tongue when the other does not immediately spread. Slowly, trousers sliding across the wooden seat, he widens, eyes still up, narrowed into a grin, and Anthony slips the shirt around Will’s sides to touch his skin instead. Will sets his hands back and with a graceful arch, hoists himself up to sit on the edge of the table.
Anthony laughs and follows and nuzzles the center of his chest as Will curls both hands in his hair again.
"Do you suppose we're putting on a good performance?" he asks, voice lower, rougher, and he turns his head to regard Hannibal, ear pressed to Will’s heart as he hums.
"He is quite the fan of erotica. The slow movements, the anticipation," Will murmurs. He trains his eyes on Hannibal as well, coy smile back again, and draws his knees up a little more. Gently, Will sets his feet against the other's thighs, at once balancing himself and holding the poet down. "Rarely of pornography. I doubt we're boring him." Will raises an amused eyebrow, as his husband hums assent.
“It is as though I am watching artists at work, outlining a painting upon a canvas,” Hannibal says. His chair scrapes the floor as he stands and languidly works upon his waistcoat. “I imagine I will soon see the muse at work, when summoned by your own hands, you begin to move outside such thoughtful, patient strokes.”
Anthony tries to move towards Will, laughing low when he is held in place by firm feet on his thighs. Delighted by his own obedience, he unlaces Will’s polished shoes and removes them, to instead cradle his ankles and slip his fingertips beneath the hem of his pants. He bows his head and traces kisses along the man’s pressed suit pants and lingers on the inside of Will’s knee, gaze lifting to the doctor who circles closer in steady strides.
“Romans believed the muses - genii - to be outside forces,” suggests the poet. “Skilled and clever beings who moved the artists in ways that even the artist could not predict.”
Hannibal lifts his chin with a drawn breath, preening beneath the praise, reveling in the invitation echoed in Will’s hooded gaze. Without breaking the eye contact that Will grants to him, Hannibal runs a hand through the back of Anthony’s hair, baring his neck in an arch tight enough that Will can see the man swallow before parting his lips to welcome Hannibal’s kiss. It plunges deep, drawing a moan from the poet beneath as their mouths twist together, and Anthony spans his hands up Will’s knees, his thighs, higher still to grasp his belt and tug it free. A thread of saliva pulls thin and clear between he and Hannibal before a gentle tightening of fingers in Anthony’s hair tilts him back towards Will, who bends to taste the doctor from the poet’s mouth.
“I must admit that you’ve made me a believer in the good doctor’s regimen,” Anthony notes, smile widening as he eases into another kiss, murmuring against Will’s lips. “You are delicious.”
Will hums his pleasure, and bends to take Anthony’s lower lip between his teeth to tug. Sharp enough to pull a sound from him, not enough to speed them from their lazy pace, not enough, yet, to break the pleasant tension building between them, like the hummed note of a struck glass or a trace of a knife over skin, not yet drawing blood. Behind him, Hannibal gently takes the scarf to slide it from Anthony’s neck, susurrus of fabric over pale skin, as Will sets his toes on either side of the poet’s thighs and begins to work the buttons of his shirt open.
Hannibal's fingers trace stark sinews and warm skin, caressing the man in front of him as he does his theremin, pulling notes and shivers and breathless little gasps with every motion. As Will prepares him to be bared, Hannibal bares him, shirt and jacket removed together and pulled back enough for the poet’s arms to catch behind his back. Another kiss, then, to Anthony’s neck, his jaw, to his lips once more, and then without warning, Hannibal sets a foot against the chair and drags it closer, a harsh note in the silence of the room, to accommodate Will to bend and taste along the smooth panes of Anthony’s chest.
"There is something to be said for the method in his madness," Will murmurs, hands running parallel and tickling down Anthony’s sides as he is yet held pinned, thumbs gently counting ribs. "The blind leading the blind, the deaf dragging the muted."
With the glimmer of a smile, Hannibal slips a hand over Anthony’s eyes, as if on Will’s command. His other follows the fine trail of dark hair leading downward, languidly working open Anthony’s belt and trousers.
“Unfair,” laughs Anthony, a terribly pleased sound. Will closes his lips around a small, stiff nipple, hardening it further with teeth and tongue, and Anthony squirms not in resistance but in delight, still blind to them both. “I was enjoying watching you - both of you.”
Hannibal skims his hand along Anthony’s backside when he lifts to allow his pants off, entirely pliant beneath their ministrations, welcoming of every touch and sensation that they share with him. He moans, throaty and thick, as his cock springs free and stands stiff against his belly, and Will’s hands curl together around it. Watching the play of his husband’s hands over another’s body, Hannibal’s eyes darken, and his teeth snare against the poet’s bared throat, lips closing into a firm suck.
He leaves a mark there as he parts, one hand still across Anthony’s eyes, the other reaching to stroke once through Will’s hair.
“One discovers new truths when certain perceptions are taken away,” Hannibal says. “When we are blind, we are forced to experience in new ways, and discover greater depths to our senses and empathies.”
Will’s eyes lift, blue and bright, and he allows a small smile, as much gentle as it is warning, before bending to free Anthony’s arms from his sleeves. He shrugs off his own shirt while the poet kicks off his shoes with a laugh, slips his pants the rest of the way off. Bared, now, fully, between them and entirely delighted to be.
Anthony reaches back to hook an arm around Hannibal’s neck to pull him closer again, lips parting when again he feels teeth against his skin. Will watches, now, as Hannibal devours the man with as much care, as much desire as does Will himself. It is pleasant. Powerful. Will reaches for Anthony’s free hand, kissing along the fingertips and palm, turning his head into the soft caress he gets from him, and he sighs his own pleasure over the poet’s arm as he kisses down his wrist and further still. Across his collarbone and to Hannibal's lips, Will directs Anthony’s hand between his own legs, spreading them wider and pressing his palm to the bulge there as Hannibal takes his breath.
It is intoxicating, to be so stimulated both by words and touch together, it is rare. Once in a while they invite someone to their bed, once in a while they have a feast after. But this, as Will breaks the kiss with Hannibal and seeks Anthony’s lips with hungry abandon and a low moan when clever fingers work his button and fly to bare him, this is something different. This is worth savoring.
Will slips his hand over Hannibal’s where it rests against gently closed eyes, and allows him the freedom to touch, now, as well. Carefully coordinated motions and movements, a dance learned long ago between two men who knew the steps but had only recently found a worthy partner.
Their clothes slip from them in stitches, expensive and finely pressed, dropped to the floor without a thought. Anthony’s fingers splay across Will’s cock, standing rigid before him, they curl and stretch velvety skin in a languorous tug. His eyes blink wide when Will returns his sight to him, and sighs a laugh as if in disbelief that he is here, held in wonderful sway between two men who have bewitched him.
When he stands it is a lazy, feline unfurling, taller even than Hannibal, but far more lean. Taut muscle twitches beneath smooth skin, pale and hairless but for the coarse curls between his legs and the fine hair across his limbs and cheeks. Anthony turns a drowsy, pleased look back to the doctor as his clothes too drop away, revealing a substantial strength and thickly haired chest. He snares Hannibal’s hand from his waist and with a sigh, presses the doctor’s palm to his cock, dragging Hannibal against his back as he leans forward to sink into a kiss with Will.
From a simmer to a boil, their kiss now snares fiercely together. Want and heat and acceptance burns between them, lips caught between teeth, tongues tracing their kin. He lifts a hand to pull Will’s curls straight and bend him back, fingers circling tighter around the head of Will’s cock, spasming into a pleasant shiver when Hannibal grasps Anthony firmly in return. The older man’s cock rocks tickling and light against Anthony’s ass.
No longer a show, but a party indeed.
Their mouths click as they draw apart, a low sound of need pressed instead to Hannibal’s mouth over Anthony’s shoulder. If he feels any reservation to having such dalliances with near-strangers, it does not show. If he feels any fear - some innate animal instinct - of their capabilities, it is unseen. To the contrary, he is warm and coiling, thrusting into the hot tunnel of Hannibal’s hand, moaning into his mouth when Will sucks his collarbone. He laughs, again, dizzy with pleasure.
“I am,” Anthony manages, “entirely at the service of your hospitality.”
Will laughs, and it is genuine, warm. Whatever reservations had pulled his smile plastic earlier that evening have fallen away under soft fingers and warm lips.
"We are nothing if not hospitable," he says, watching Hannibal's lips quirk behind Anthony before he slips a hand into his hair again and strokes against his scalp, fisting the poet’s cock deliberately slow. Anthony slips a hand back behind himself to press Hannibal closer to him, arching his back just enough to feel Hannibal’s cock hard against him.
Before him, Will rests back against the table, a slow lean, and works his pants from his legs to drop them to the floor. He is hard, cock dark and curved and resting against his stomach, and with a lazy stretch, he spreads his legs to hook one over the corner of the table, the other around behind Anthony’s knee to draw him closer.
Will watches Hannibal, watches his hunger and his need, makes sure he sees as he moves to lie back fully, exposed and spread like a feast before the two men. He brings one hand up to curl in his own hair, the other tapping warm against his chest as he hears Anthony swallow, hears Hannibal hum his approval and murmur just one word:
"Taste."
Anthony bends, hands spread to either side of Will’s narrow hips, palms flat on the table. His smile quirks crooked, eyes narrowed, as he bends his back deeply to press flush against Hannibal’s cock behind him. A twitch of hips from the doctor shoves him forward and Anthony goes with a sigh, grinning before he passes his lips over Will’s stomach, furred cheek brushing his cock to its base. The poet turns his head at an angle, and wraps his lips around the base, flushed thick with blood. Sucking kisses against it, he breathes in deep and sighs out slow, a moan vibrating from his mouth through Will’s groin, working up with worshipful kisses inch by inch.
Without his hands, Anthony ducks his head and takes the tip of Will’s cock into his mouth, tugging it deeper with his lips, his tongue, and firm, wet suction. The heat and pressure of it curls Will’s back from the table and twists a high sound into his breath. The push of Hannibal’s cock against Anthony’s ass becomes insistent, a steady rub generating friction against his length and the poet’s hole.
But Anthony can play too, it seems, when with a devilish glint in his eyes he lets Will’s cock pop from between his lips, and lifts a hand only to wipe away the sheen of spit from his lips. He pushes his hands against Will’s muscular thighs, spilling him higher onto the table, and with relish, wraps his lips against Will’s opening instead, sucking rough against tender muscle.
Will jerks, bucks up, a curse slipping through his lips in a hiss before his face breaks into a smile, teeth gritted and hand pressed up against his eyes. It feels so, so good, and any pretense of lack of pleasure before wipes away as Will slips his hand up into his hair again and moans his appreciation.
The poet watches.
Hannibal watches.
And Will allows himself to give them a show of movement and trembling, taut muscles and grabbing hands. He resists, for as long as he can, before burying his fingers in Anthony’s hair and holding him down, not demanding but needy, wanting. A whine, a shiver, and Will’s jaw slackens on quick breaths, his throat works in rough, heavy swallows.
Hannibal hums, turning his head to nuzzle into Anthony’s hair, breathing in his sweet smell, his arousal and musk, Will’s mingling with it in the most pleasing way as he squirms beneath him.
“I think, Mr. Dimmond, that you have succeeded in stealing his words,” he murmurs, kissing behind his ear before biting against sensitive skin and rubbing against him harder. He can wait. He is patient, but the need grows with every gasp from Will on the table, from every pleased hum from the man between his legs.
Anthony grins against Will’s thigh, nipping one, then the other, back and forth until he kisses once more against the quivering ring of his opening. Will spreads wider, trying to shift himself closer to the agile tongue that curls inside him, teasing him open. When Will’s voice breaks into a moan, it is no longer the stern voice of a man stabbing acorns on his plate - it is a helpless sob, vibrating up to the fingers that clench into his own curled hair.
In reward, Hannibal leans heavy over Anthony. Spine curling, he grinds rhythmic against the poet, and seeks between his legs with both hands, one to cup his balls and the other circling firm around his cock. He imagines how they must appear, tangled together with limbs and mouths, a depraved and beautiful triptych that would do little to discourage one from the sins of vice. Gathering glistening droplets of precome on his fingertips, he smooths down Anthony’s foreskin and hums when the poet gasps, the kiss between he and Will broken and replaced by a heady groan.
“Do your dinner parties always offer such an embarrassment of riches?” Anthony murmurs, squeezing Will’s cock in a steady stroke and bringing it to his lips. He passes them across it, lips shining as he touches a kiss to the tip, before glancing back to Hannibal with a wry smile.
“Only to those whose tastes are developed enough to appreciate it,” Hannibal says.
“They are,” Will pants, arm across his eyes, “exceedingly rare.”
“You’ve spoilt me for choices,” sighs the poet, put-upon even as he works Will’s cock past his lips, out again, teasing.
“Mmm - why choose?” Will asks, breath hitching as he ducks his head to watch Anthony tease him with soft lips and languid sucks. With narrowed eyes, the poet pulls back, smiles when a hand comes around his throat and strokes there. He raises his chin.
“Surely that would be greedy,” he says. “Frightfully rude. And I’ve been told rudeness isn’t tolerated at the table,” he smiles, that crooked, beautiful thing, and draws his hands up and down Will’s quivering thighs. “Or on it, for that matter.”
“Consider it an indulgence, then,” Hannibal suggests behind him. He touches another kiss to the delicate curls of hair at the base of his neck before he gently pushes, guides, until, with a laugh, the poet rests his hands flat on the table and pulls himself up onto it. Knees between Will’s thighs, as his legs curl to hold Anthony closer, palms sliding down the smooth table to rest around Will’s head.
“We’d best be careful to avoid spilling the condiments not yet taken away,” Anthony murmurs. Will just shakes his head with a whispered curse and tugs him down to kiss, pulling the musky taste of himself, the softness of Anthony beneath, to his tongue. Will’s hands slip from his hair down his shoulders, feeling the way the muscles move and bend, the way the poet adjusts himself atop Will as the other slowly curls his legs up over his hips and coaxes him to lay, not kneel, over him.
Hands and seeking fingers, hot breaths and Will’s grin as Hannibal draws a hand over Will’s leg, up to his thigh, caressing and worshiping, leaving light nail marks on pale skin. Will rocks up, rubbing his cock against Anthony’s, and slips a hand between them to grasp them both together and stroke.
Anthony rounds his spine, pushing deep into Will’s hand, their cocks whispering together, mouths touching, parted, sharing breath and breaking into matching grins. But no sooner than Anthony finds his rhythm, than Will lets the heat in his belly spread and coil with their matching movements, than the poet’s voice ripples into a moan. Hannibal spreads him with the flat of his hand and pushes against the heat of Anthony’s ass, fingers curling pressure against his hole.
“If my hosts would like me to indulge,” Anthony says, snatching kisses from Will between his words, little things, flirty and sweet, “then it would be discourteous to say no.”
With a firm hand in his hair, Anthony bends back as Hannibal moves him, held in an exquisite purgatory. Which direction leads to Hell and which ascends to Heaven isn’t clear, but both from where the poet stands with no philosopher to guide his way, the paths appear much the same and he laughs. With no more than a finger breaching him and a smile raised beneath his eyes, Hannibal asks a silent question, and watches as a rare blush ripens Anthony’s cheeks.
“Both,” he implores. “I want you both at once. Don’t make me choose.”
Will groans, twisting his wrist around them both, and with his free hand reaching back to graze the bottle of wine still on the table with sticky fingertips.
“Indulgent,” he murmurs, delighted, as above him Hannibal turns the poet to him to kiss again, deep and slow, tongues sliding together, lips parting just enough to see them. Hannibal’s hand seeks down against the young body he holds, fingers tweaking a nipple, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive nub. His other hand he curls over Anthony’s mouth and sighs praise when he parts his lips to take rough fingers between them.
Beneath, Will watches, continues to languidly stroke them both, deliberate in thumbing the soft foreskin on Anthony’s cock before drawing it down and working the slit instead. The words had pulled a shiver over his entire body, a delicious promise he had not had for years, if then. A rare moment of genuine enjoyment of their company, a rare moment of perhaps wanting that company to leave here alive, and - strangest of all - be invited back again.
He arches back, smile wide, and slowly turns the bottle of wine to him, soft scrapes of the base against the tabletop. Closer and closer, until he can properly grasp it and slide it down the table towards his hips, towards Hannibal’s reaching fingers that twine with Will’s before he takes the offering.
It is offered to Anthony first, brought to his ready lips to darken them with a pull of wine, tipped carefully enough to let him swallow and quick enough that scarlet streaks bead down from the corners of his mouth. Before he can sputter, smile widening, Hannibal removes the bottle and inhales the breath that Anthony sighs out, rich with notes of cherry and chocolate, age and tannins. Hannibal cannot recall the last time he found a partner so intoxicating, with the exception of Will, who has always - in every way - been an exception.
“You praised us for our generosity,” Hannibal says, “but I think we might praise you for the same.”
Anthony groans when Hannibal’s fingers, slick with spit, part him wide and press inward. Rocking motions penetrate him, finding no wince of resistance or clench of uncertainty. He would not have expected it, considering how open the poet has been with them in every other way. It would stand to reason that his body would mirror the ready acceptance he has shown in mind and heart.
The poet pushes back against Hannibal’s fingers, hands scrabbling for purchase on Will’s chest beneath as a second is added and both are curled firm enough that his body goes rigid. As with the theremin, Hannibal works in two ways at once. As the splay of his fingers inside Anthony pitches his voice higher, the tilt of wine against Will’s cupped hand earns a resonant hum from the former investigator. It is hardly enough, the thin liquid with which Will reddens his cock, but despite the discomfort that Anthony opens himself to readily, the sight of wine on Will’s cock is a striking scene, dark as blood.
None will move enough to retire to the bedroom, none can stand a moment without snaring a kiss from a partner, without pressing hands to chests and cocks to bellies and fingers to thighs. Will can suffer the unyielding table against his back for this. Anthony can make do without proper lubricant. And Hannibal -
Hannibal would suffer any amount of inconvenience to watch Will coil with such ravenous need beneath them.
He meets the blue gaze, nearly black with pupil, that settles on his own, putting the bottle aside to rest a slick hand on Anthony’s shoulder, and the other on his own cock, lining himself up with a sigh. Will untangles his legs from Anthony’s, who moves his knees to spread wide to either side of Will’s thighs, laying lean and heavy against him and kissing through the anticipation of pain that flutters his heart faster when Will, too, reaches to align himself.
“Slow,” Will purrs, as much to Hannibal as to reassure Anthony, who kisses him softly again, shivering before he rests still. It is Will who breaches first, just enough, just the tip before pulling out again and slowly stroking himself as Hannibal teases just the same. It is still a game between them, less two predators and prey, now, though, and more as equals. Feeling out one and understanding another, touch and press and pressure, until Will snares soft curls in his fingers and tugs Anthony down to kiss him, open-mouthed and raw, and pushes in.
It is slow, the pressure enough to keep their pace if not the sounds the poet makes between them. Hitched breaths and little groans, high and cut short by either kisses or nuzzles down against Will’s chest. Will watches, he cards his fingers through Anthony’s hair and tries to keep his eyes open as the exquisite heat, the unbelievable press against himself, against Hannibal, engulfs him.
And Hannibal in turn presses worship against Anthony’s shoulders, down his back, head ducked to see how he and Will both penetrate him, a slow push as they move deeper and he spreads wider to accommodate them both. By his own choice, by his own design.
He is beautiful. Hannibal finds himself, for the first time in a long time, enamored.
Panting, Anthony turns his head against Will’s throat, tasting the sweat there, feeling his hammering heart. He aches, the pressure throbbing through him in the most exquisite pain.
“Grazie,” he sighs, smile warming his face once more, cheeks flushed and lips red and eyes still closed. He rolls his shoulders back into the kisses against him with a moan, bites his lip when Will tugs his hair a little. It feels good. He feels entirely indulgent and indulged.
“This is positively Dionysian,” he sighs, pushing up to rest on his elbows, pressed chest to chest with Will, back to chest with Hannibal. He tilts his head to the side for the doctor to suck against his skin, in turn bringing his own lips to Will’s jaw to explore him in just the same way. Anthony is shaking, involuntary and blissful, and makes a weak little noise when Hannibal moves, just a little, and Will does not; the juxtaposition drives a shock of pleasure up his spine.
It is all Anthony can do to hold to Will, and let himself be held by Hannibal. He could no more resist their pull than the tides could the moon, no more resist their movement than the sand could the sea. As one rocks deeper, the other relents, again and again, so that he is never left empty, never left wanting. There is hardly space enough in the man to draw a breath, and each one caught escapes again in a shaky laugh, fingernails curving crescents into Will’s shoulders. Sweat shines across his brow, and despite his resolve, Anthony trembles, from curled toes to spread thighs, over his clenched belly and to his throat, jerking hard in a swallow.
And when Hannibal and Will time themselves to enter him together, it is Anthony whose words are stolen, evaporating into hitched gasps pitched high and keening. They do not tear into him, they are not animals; they are patient and precise, Will’s chest heaving as the pressure squeezes him so tight it nearly hurts, and Hannibal’s gaze fixed on the pliability that allows Anthony to spread so graciously. He is, as he assured them, an entirely hospitable and unselfish guest.
“You’re going to tear me apart,” Anthony laughs weakly, unable now to even force himself to kiss Will, but tilting his head towards his lips, his shoulder towards Hannibal’s kisses. They do not share his mirth, in that moment, but amusement pulls their eyes to meet all the same across Anthony’s shoulder.
In Hannibal’s eyes, a question that teases lines from the corners and lifts a brow incrementally higher.
In Will’s, an answer, as his gaze narrows and imperceptible to the poet, he shakes his head once.
He turns to press wet sloppy kisses to the corner of Anthony’s mouth instead. “Perhaps we will have mercy,” Will murmurs. “For a man who has proven he can love with more than just his words.”
Anthony laughs again, his voice pitching at the end in a helpless cry when Will shifts his hips just enough and strokes over his prostate with frightening precision.
“When one’s words are stolen,” Anthony sighs, arms shaking where they hold him up over Will, hold him up under Hannibal, who now drags his fingers over Anthony’s thighs, coaxes them to spread just a little more, so his back arches, so he takes them, if possible, deeper. “One makes do.”
“Substitution,” murmurs Hannibal. “The innate understanding of which is what differentiates chef from cook, and poet from pretender.”
Anthony exults beneath the praise that Hannibal is careful to pay not only to the obvious skill of his body, but the quickness of his mind, however languid he admits his creative process to be. That laxity does not carry, it seems, into his lovemaking, as Anthony - still glorying with his lazy feline grin - pushes his knees outward a little more, to sink further onto the two cocks inside him.
“Does he always talk so much?” he asks Will, tossing a coy look across his shoulder that lasts for only a moment before Hannibal pushes in the last inch, burying himself to the hilt. Anthony would gasp, if he could draw a breath, if his entire body wasn’t aflame and so full that he might split in half. His cock leaks copious from the pressure, beading drip by thick drip to pool clear on Will’s belly. He parts his lips when Will brings his fingers to them, and sucks the taste of wine from his fingers.
“You’ve kept his company before,” Will sighs, just as breathless, just as sweaty, savoring the closeness of the three of them, the weight of the two of them collectively pressing to his hips when he raises them and Anthony makes another helpless, high little sound. “I enjoy some dry humor with my fucking.”
A snort, from the poet, a smile from the doctor, and Will slips his hand down between his body and Anthony’s to stroke his cock, gripped tight and dripping slick. His fingers he drags softly over Anthony’s teeth, until the other bites down and Will grins. He turns his head, in turn, when Hannibal’s hand moves to cup his cheek, to caress his thumb beneath Will’s eye, and just as obediently, just as beautifully, Will’s lips part to take Hannibal’s fingers between them.
The sight of it heaves Anthony forward, spine rounding as much as he can with both men inside him, to drive into the tightly cinched tunnel of Will’s fingers. Each pulse of lips, each hollowing of scruffy cheek, the way Will’s eyes hood, the unmistakable intimacy with which he regards his husband - it pulls soft, aching sounds from the poet who watches rapt, as if the sight before him were revelation, that the path he followed was not to Hell but to Heaven.
He climaxes suddenly, voice breaking like a cry in the wilderness, oh as if the word were a prayer to the two who held him in limbo and now let him ascend. Anthony bows his head, hips bucking back against the two men’s cocks pulling his ass taut, forward into Will’s firm grip. He spills with the same vibrant laugh that has already found a place between Will and Hannibal, pale ribbons cast across Will’s stomach, dripping thick onto his fingers.
“I,” Anthony breathes, shaking uncontrollably as he tries to hold himself up when the pleasure does not relent upon release but fills him still. “I have been,” he swallows, “inconsiderate…”
“Far from it,” Hannibal purrs against him, pulling his fingers free from Will’s lips and smearing his spit over them and down his chin, watching Will pant as his eyes barely remain open, as his body arches and twitches, cock squeezed harder from Anthony’s orgasm. Will can feel the imprint of every fingertip against his skin, every breath against his sweaty skin, every bite and mark left on him, when he closes his eyes. Like an x-ray.
“You are perfect,” Will tells him, arms up to press to his shoulders, to rock the poet down to him as he continues to thrust, as Hannibal does, to hold Anthony still, and close, and kiss him with breathless, bitten-red lips. The sentiment seems enough, and Will’s body convulses in pleasure next, spilling heat, overflowing it, as he keeps pushing, keeps holding, whispering things to the man that Hannibal cannot hear.
It doesn’t matter.
Those words are not for him.
But they stir the poet to life again, after his little death, they pull him into desperate kisses against Will, against Hannibal, tilting across his own shoulder to brush even the corners of their mouths together. Despite the strain, the relief, the anticipation and release, Will’s words press a crooked grin to Anthony’s mouth, as he sets his hands against Will’s chest and pushes firmly upward into Hannibal’s chest behind him.
Both men sink deeper into him, alternately, at once, it hardly matters what their bodies do when their gasps and groans fill the air to the accompaniment of skin on skin, slicked by sweat. Anthony leans back roughly into Hannibal’s chest, goosebumps spilling along his dampened skin when his coarse hair rubs against his spine and the thrusts deepen inside him. Either one of the men would be enough to fill the poet, either one would be enough to shatter his words into whimpers.
But together, oh, together Anthony won’t walk without a limp, together he won’t sit without a pointed, sharp memory up his spine of the two men who have shared themselves with him. What exists between them, he cannot fathom for the depths he has seen - he has not seen the bottom of them, and in truth he doesn’t wish to. But they share, now, in a way that he imagines they do not frequently. They fill him in firm thrusts, fucking hard inside, one after the other after the other after the other and all Anthony can do is sling his arm back around Hannibal’s neck, curl his fingers against Will’s chest, and yield the moan that they have earned from him.
The rhythm falters, Will’s fingers up against Anthony’s stomach, splaying and curling, cheeks flushed and lips parted in sated exhaustion. Hannibal presses his teeth against the poet’s shoulder and wraps an arm around his middle to hold him still, just for a moment, as he, too, loses himself into him. Into them. Into this.
Then he pulls free first.
A groan is shared between all of them, relief and pleasure and just a hint of pain from Anthony, who collapses and happily stretches, slick and messy, over Will on the table. The other wraps his arms around him, drawing languid patterns with the tips of tickling fingers over his back. He watches Hannibal, though, blue eyes fixed on his husband, and he smiles when he, too, leans nearer and Will can kiss him with a low hum of pleasure.
Anthony does not join them in this, settling instead to Will’s chest to catch his breath. He watches from so near the way that they kiss, unable to determine who is the pursuant and who the pursued, an ebb and flow that speaks volumes more than either man has to Anthony of their particular bond. Nuzzling against Will’s neck, he contents himself for the moment with the gentle clicking sounds of their mouths together, and the easing of his body back to normalcy, with sparks of pain and spasms of pleasure. Wet heat slicks down his thigh, and though Anthony knows he was unwise to be so unreasoned, it is too late now to care about anything but the steady pressure of Will’s hand up and down his spine, or the curl of Hannibal’s fingers in his hair.
Their lips part, but the kiss of their gaze does not, holding fast until Hannibal leans nearer and Will presses cheek-to-cheek with him, whispering in his ear. Anthony’s body is stuck slick and sticky to Will’s beneath, their legs a tangle, the bottle of wine long ago tipped over to no one’s particular attention. Whatever Will says is beyond Anthony’s capability to hear or care about, and he contents himself with nuzzling languid kisses into the crook of Will’s neck as Will whispers to Hannibal that he does not want to kill him.
Hannibal hums, aware enough of this already, but validates Will’s words with another slow kiss. They will not, then, and though they risk revelation, there is ready enough resolution to that should the moment come. The doctor strokes the poet’s hair, and Will’s in turn, and though Will holds his attention longer, there is an unfurling of pleasure within the doctor to consider that he has two exquisite men spread spent across his table.
It is bad form, of course, to allow thoughts of future pleasures ruin the one at hand.
He settles on the chair he had occupied at dinner, and rests his chin on folded arms, face near enough to Will’s that when he turns, their noses brush, intimate and soft. Will brings his hand up, sweaty and lazy, to draw knuckles down the sharp cheekbone of Hannibal’s face until the other turns into it with a sigh.
Anthony presses his lips to Will’s skin, over and over in sleepy pleasure, and turns to watch Hannibal as well, smile little but enough. Contentment and delight and a hint of question in it before he parts his lips to speak.
“My thanks to my most gracious, generous, and accommodating hosts,” he says, smiling wide enough to show his teeth as Hannibal smiles in turn.
“Perhaps another dinner, then,” he suggests, sits up straighter when Anthony laughs.
“Perhaps another kind of party.”
Hannibal blinks, ducks his head again, and when he looks up, Bedelia is frowning at him, jaw set in imminent displeasure that Hannibal knows will reflect, should he choose the wrong answer. He takes a breath, allowing the last lingering scents from another dinner and another table filter through his mind before turning to Anthony with a smile, apologetic.
“No,” he says. “It’s not that kind of party.”
Bedelia lifts her eyes, and lets them fall once more.
“Definitely not.”
“A shame,” the poet laughs softly, turning his head between one and the other. “You're both suddenly so fascinating.”
Hannibal can only smile, as the other returns to his dinner. He can only consider, how in another time, another different sigh of fate, he would be leaning in, now, to kiss his husband, and their new friend, one more time, before offering to bring them dessert in bed.
Another time, perhaps. Another party.