Work Text:
adaptive traits
“Do you want to hit me?”
Will blinks, an electric pulse of surprise triggering the action so that it’s too sudden and too hard, eliciting a couple of excess blinks in a sort of helpless, tic-like pattern. She’d been staring at Freddie’s lips, the way the top one peaks so sharply into a jagged cupid’s bow, thinking about their plushness in a way that was adjacent to admiration. Will has always tried to keep her observations of Freddie blanketed in objectivity.
This has been a common occurrence—the staring, to an extent, yes—but also Freddie’s impromptu visits, either her dropping by Will’s or requesting Will’s presence at her apartment.
It was easy to decline every invitation, at first. They weren’t friendly, and Will is uncertain that their current relationship operates on the conditions required to call it otherwise. She hated Freddie, or liked to believe she did. Will feels things in the extreme, but what she has always lacked in regulation has been met equally by her apathy. Her hatred for Freddie never bubbled quite as hotly as her disinterest in the journalist. If you ignore something long enough, eventually it will go away. Or adapt its behavior.
She blinks again, with more control over the action this time. “What?”
Freddie’s lips quirk into something smirk-like, feline in appearance and bestially smug to match. She finds pleasure in the leg up, that’s just her nature. The cat-and-mouse of it all.
Will is struck, suddenly, with an image of Freddie—on her back, spread to reveal a cloying temptation, her hair fanned around her head in a crown of flames, faced flush dark to match. Will swallows hard, throat still dry and sticking afterward.
“For what I wrote about you. For embarrassing you,” she says by way of explanation, as though it clears anything up for Will.
They’re sitting at Will’s small dining table and Winston keeps huffing where he’s curled at their feet—or more accurately, Freddie’s feet. They all seem to prefer her to Will, who’d originally believed Freddie would look out of place around all of her dogs, would exclaim with loud, unabashed disgust at their drooling mouths and pet-stink. But she fits in, scritches them where they like it, speaks to them in her distinctly cold-but-fond tone, like she belongs here. Will abruptly stops thinking about that.
Will raises one shoulder before allowing it to collapse awkwardly back into place, feeling strangely uncomfortable where she’s seated across from Freddie. The shrug was intended to feign nonchalance, but Will knows it’s futile. She’s never faked anything, she wears her feelings on her face or else displays nothing at all, each of them spelling something out one way or another. “You write a lot of things about me,” she croaks. She clears her throat before she continues, “It doesn’t make me feel particularly violent, if that is what you’re asking.”
When she meets Freddie’s eyes, they look like they’re glowing, a striking blaze of emerald that suits each of her features with a delicate purpose that gives way to thoughts of a higher power directing such intricate construction. Unbidden, she thinks of slapping Freddie, her head snapping to the side with the force of it, the imprint of Will’s hand rouging her cheek. The idea isn’t unexciting, but it didn’t cross Will’s mind when she saw the TattleCrime article.
“You could, though. If you wanted to.”
“Could what?” Will asks, edging on exasperation.
“Hit me.”
The first time Will went to Freddie’s, she felt out of place. She didn’t feel they had much to talk about and olive branches had never held any particular appeal to her. She wasn’t certain there was anything to be gained, either—no extraneous-but-helpful details from Freddie, opportunities for more information, sources she’d found (unethically, no doubt). Additionally, Will had not offered anything for Freddie—no location or victim names, no hints at suspects or specifics on motives. So why was she invited? More pressingly, why had she gone?
She isn’t sure. She still hasn’t told Hannibal.
This time, looking at Freddie, Will thinks of fitting her hands around her elegant throat, Freddie’s plush mouth forced open with no sound left to come out. This is the most excited Will’s ever felt while thinking of Freddie, met with the idea of making her silent.
Will swallows again. It seems to be all she can do—blink and swallow, rendered robotic. “Do you want me to hit you?”
Freddie shrugs with one shoulder, the same as Will had moments ago. On her, the action comes across much more uncaring, like she’s showing Will how it would look on someone who actually feels indifferent toward the subject. Showing Will that she’s found her out.
“I think you could do anything you wanted to me.”
In the subsequent visits trailing the first, Freddie had rarely been fully dressed upon Will’s arrival at her apartment. She frequently answered the door in her underwear and walked around like that, not at all uncomfortable in her skin as Will would have been in her place. She wore sheer, dryer-thinned T-shirts that peaked at the breasts with the apartment’s chill, or tank tops that made her look especially soft, at ease—beautiful, if Will’s being honest.
At Will’s house, Freddie’s skirts are always tight on her thighs and inclined to creep upward upon sitting, her shirts exposing a sliver of her flat belly whenever she lifts her arms. She seems to stretch often at Will’s, crossing her legs to hide what her skirt shows no desire to cover—a peek of a run in her stockings, a wink of her lace panties. Will has spent so long pretending she isn’t looking. A months-long famine coming to a close, satiation for a hunger that has burned so sharp in her belly she isn’t sure what she’ll do without it. She salivates, her mouth flooded and warm like a dog’s. Winston sniffles again.
Suddenly, she can’t conjure anything they’ve ever talked about, a reason for any of their visits other than to dance around a line that has existed solely on principle. Will had never thought to factor this in, how badly she wants to have her hands wherever Freddie will welcome the touch.
Freddie has adapted, her wings look like eyes and Will has fallen for the guise in the haze of predation.
The thought of being outsmarted, humiliatingly, makes her cunt pulse—a throbbing, swollen feeling buzzing between her legs. She shifts so she’s sitting differently in her seat, applying much-needed relief through the zipper-seam of her pants.
Freddie leans forward, her cleavage displayed over the cut of her top. “Will,” she whispers, the edges of her words lightened by her shark smile, “what do you want to do to me?”
& their advantages
Will has Freddie bent forward over her mattress, torso flattened against the foam fill. All her clothes are still on. Her shirt’s pulled up to expose the dimples at her spine’s base, her skirt pooled in the resulting dip so Will can see her ass, still adorned in lace panties, the soft skin of her thighs pushing out through the holes in her stockings.
Freddie has her arms stretched along the bed, Will’s eyes follow the lines of her frame from her fingertips down to where her body bends at the mattress’s edge, her legs stood straight so Will can see everything she wants.
She steps forward slowly, content with just looking, with not having to pretend anymore. It helps that Freddie’s face is in the covers, awaiting whatever Will decides to do, leaving her free of the piercing, watchful eyes that usually keep her fixed in place.
Carefully, she touches her fingers to Freddie’s lower back.
They had been sitting on Freddie’s couch, watching a movie. Freddie had asked, Is Will short for anything? To which she had deflected by countering, I don’t know, is Freddie short for anything?
Someone screamed on the television, far too real for the gimmicky acting and excessive splattering of blood. When the silence between them lapsed for too long, Will had looked over to find Freddie already looking back at her. In the apartment’s dark, the beam of the TV bathed Freddie in a chiaroscuro of angular shadows, appearing as though she were wearing half a mask, two-faced in the low light.
Winifred, she’d said sincerely, staring into Will’s eyes without humor or hidden meaning, as though they were sharing a secret. It was intimate, at the time—still feels intimate, now—to know Freddie’s name. There was something fantastical about it, an element of fiction, the power of knowing a name, its implications.
Winifred, Will repeated slowly. It tasted sweet on her lips and curled outward as the last consonant left her tongue—syrupy, thick as grenadine.
Later, as the credits rolled, she said, It’s just Will.
Freddie brushed her shoulder with cold fingers and left her hand splayed at the nape of Will’s neck, a strange delivery of comfort. I figured.
Will drags her fingers down, coming to cup her hand against the curve of Freddie's ass. She smiles, feeling unlike herself.
“Why don’t you give me a little shake?” she murmurs, rubbing her thumb back and forth against the catch of Freddie’s stockings.
Freddie wiggles, allowing Will to feel the movement. It’s more playful than it is a demonstration of obedience. Will bites into her bottom lip to suppress her smile from stretching. It’s too unserious. She wants to punish Freddie.
“What you said about me wasn’t very nice, was it?”
Freddie shakes her head, but Will was looking for a response.
The first impact is too light, Will wasn’t sure how hard to hit, aiming with an unpracticed hand. It was enough to sting, if the tingle in her palm is any indication. She takes a deep breath through her nose. “I asked you a question.”
“No, it wasn’t nice,” she answers, words half-muffled by the comforter.
Will rubs her hand placatingly over where she made impact. “You weren’t trying to be nice though, were you?”
“No.”
“I think you wanted to be punished.”
Will scratches her fingernails against the hot flesh, waiting on Freddie’s answering gasp before she pulls her hand back to hit her again. “Is this what you were hoping for?” She spanks Freddie harder, her hand stained red and smarting. She receives a quick nod, Freddie’s curls swaying with it, but doesn’t reprimand her this time.
Will positions her hands at Freddie’s hips, fingertips edging inside of the waist of her stockings just beneath where her skirt’s been pushed up. “Can I pull these down? You won’t mind?” she asks, pulling them down just beneath the swell without waiting for a response.
With just Freddie's panties as a barrier, Will slides her fingers under the band, fisting her hand so the panties are bunched tightly in her palm, pulling against Freddie. “Walking around in your panties, showing off for me. Do you want me to fuck you? Freddie Lounds can’t stand a case she hasn’t cracked, is that it?”
With her panties pulled into Will’s hand, Will can see where Freddie’s glistening, the way she’s dripping for her. It’s almost laughable, the way this has all panned out. The way Freddie’s silence is sweetly satisfactory—slick like candy-coating, ringing bell-like and melodious. “I’m not that easy,” Will admonishes, tone condescending. “I don’t often give anyone what they want from me. But you already knew that.”
“That being said,” Will continues, much more confident now, “is this what you wanted from me, Freddie?”
She shakes her head, pushing up on her tiptoes, presenting herself. Desperate for it, or so it seems. Will knows better than to think she isn’t exactly where Freddie would like her to be. That this hasn’t been carefully and methodically orchestrated to put them each here.
“To be perfectly honest,” Will pulls harder on Freddie’s panties for no reason other than the sight of it makes her cunt ache, “I’m not one for petty revenge.” A beat. “But you knew that, too.”
She releases her grip and sinks to her knees. Carefully, she runs her fingers through Freddie’s slick, just exploring. “I can do whatever I want to you, isn’t that what you said?”
Freddie moans and Will chooses to interpret it as yes.
She runs her hands up and down the backs of Freddie’s thighs before bringing them up to her ass so she can spread her open. The skin is still hot and throbbing where Will hit her. The sensation makes Will’s lower belly burn with the need for something. Anything.
With Freddie open for her, Will presses her face between her legs to lap up the wet, her tongue enveloped by the heavy heat. Freddie keens loudly, thighs clenching around Will’s head, smothering her hearing. Freddie smears herself along Will’s lips, drips along her chin as she pushes back against her mouth, her tongue, wordlessly begging for it.
Will likes Freddie like this. She knew she would. So, she gives it to her until her jaw aches, fucks into her with her tongue, only pausing to catch her breath.
The sounds Freddie’s making border on unreal and Will is clenching around nothing in the wake of her own need, her own desperation. She’s glad Freddie can’t see her, though she suspects she knows exactly how Will is faring regardless.
When Freddie is mindlessly writhing, noises sounding more like crying than moaning, Will pushes to the brink, until she’s certain pulling back will have the intended effect. Freddie collapses, limp and breathing heavily, but she didn’t come. It does sound like she’s crying now, she might be. Will doesn’t find herself caring much. She pushes herself to stand, legs wobbling, her pulse hammering in her belly.
She puts her hand on Freddie’s back, rubbing up and down consolingly, salting the slug. Freddie’s got half of her face pressed into the covers, the other half visible. She is crying, tear tracks refracting the light. Will shushes her patronizingly. “Don’t cry,” she says softly, reassuring, “this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Freddie nods, eyes still vacant. Will isn’t worried, she knows Freddie, knows that this isn’t going to break her. Will would love to be able to tear her apart, but each of them know she isn’t capable.
Freddie let her take her best shot, and she missed. If anything, this was to serve as humiliation for Will, too. But, right now, it rings as victory. She knows better than to bask in it, or to gloat. She and Freddie are eating each other, ouroboros circling around and around. Will is going to meet this same fate, they each know it.
The tear tracks dry, Will’s cunt stops throbbing, and they’re back where they started.
The silence blankets Will like a hug and a smile tugs the seam of her lips. She allows it to stretch her face until it aches.