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Will trails behind Hannibal.
There are sprigs of herbs that, from afar, look like thyme lying halfway-chopped on the wooden cutting board. And from what Will glimpsed walking past the dining room, the table had yet to be made.
He stops at the entryway and wonders whether he should offer another apology for being so damn early.
He’d arrived just short of forty-five minutes before he was supposed to. Jack had held him behind for so long that there was no feasible way to go home and return here without being terribly late. Those calculations had left him steering instead towards Hannibal’s home, after his futile attempt to kill time around the crime scene for half an hour.
Which was not a good look for someone with an already less-than-commendable reputation at work.
“I—”
“It’s nothing to apologise for,” Hannibal cuts in delicately, gesturing with a slight tilt of his head towards a platter on the right end of the stainless steel countertop.
“I prepared these in anticipation of your early arrival, actually. I was hoping for a little socialising before we began our meal together,” Hannibal reassures further with a voice that’s soft but firm, leaving little room for Will’s next apologetic soliloquy.
“Thanks…never really figured out the scale for the faux pas between being too early or too late,” he murmurs, accepting defeat. He leans against the wall to take in Hannibal’s saunter through the room, admiring the movements as he stops for a quick glance at the timer by the oven before reaching for one of the upper shelves.
Will always found that Hannibal’s graceful demeanour shone the most when he was in the kitchen; his movements were always fluid and directed with untailored ease. Will imagined that this was likely the man’s favourite space within his home.
When Hannibal walks back towards him with an outstretched hand, offering an old-fashioned glass, he accepts it gratefully.
“There isn’t an exact formula for most social formalities. But I can assure you that I’d never frown upon the opportunity to monopolise more of your time,” Hannibal says as he precisely pours two fingers of whiskey into Will’s tumbler.
Will’s lips twist with amusement. “But you would if I were late. Or at least if I were terribly so. You’d find it rude.”
“Yes,” Hannibal admits after a beat, eyes shining with mirrored humour. “But I’m also not beyond reasoning. And neither are you, so I don’t imagine we'd have too much to worry about.”
“You sure have a lot of faith in me.” Will snorts with little heat, then tips the tumbler to take a generous gulp.
“I do. Does that worry you?”
“It should,” he replies honestly.
Hannibal smiles simply instead of pressing the conversation, and Will finds himself returning the expression. With a light beckoning gesture from Hannibal, he steps away from the entryway and follows towards the heart of the kitchen. There, he sees much more clearly what Hannibal had been calling his attention to.
There is a beautiful arrangement of bite-sized starter dishes, artfully displayed over a light bed of arugula. Will is immediately certain that each will have a distinct taste. Five rows, five separate options. And nothing on the tray looks vegetarian.
It all looks delicious.
“What is this?” He picks one from the assortment, tilts the small pastry in his hand towards Hannibal, who takes a quick glance before returning his gaze to Will. His eyes crinkle mildly at the corners with fondness.
“Croustades,” he begins as he fills his glass with a polite portion of red wine. “I used some fresh ingredients from the farmer’s market. Peas, chives and mascarpone. The puff pastry is homemade and the ham hock locally sourced,” Hannibal finishes, seemingly pleased by Will’s interest.
Despite feeling a bit self-conscious about Hannibal's ardent gaze, he takes a tiny bite of the pastry. Rolls it in his mouth for a moment. He finds the creamy taste of the cheese familiar but elevated. The distinctive separation is hard to pinpoint past the slight acidity because the taste is simply, for lack of a better description, expensive. He swallows, then asks.
“Mascarpone?”
“Yes, an indulgent deviation from the more conventional American cream cheese. I thought you might appreciate its rich flavour.”
Will shakes his head, partly in agreement and partly in amusement, leans over the stainless steel counter and pops the rest of it into his mouth. It’s a savoury delight, a blend of textures carefully designed to please the palate.
Will’s palate.
The attention Hannibal has paid Will throughout their friendship makes him feel comfortable, despite his usual aversion to people’s goodwill.
Yet times like these also bring up Will’s awareness of his evolving feelings about the man. Hannibal’s consideration makes him feel greedy, for enjoying it as much as he does. Makes him feel almost guilty for wanting more between them.
“I do; it’s good,” Will offers, letting out a genuine, content sigh.
Hannibal gazes intently, seemingly placated by what he sees. “Thank you, Will.”
Will hums distractedly in answer, easily warming back into Hannibal’s antics around food. He’d watched the curve of his name dissipate over Hannibal’s lips. Now he lowers his head closer to his chest, lashes fluttering with the movement.
The whiskey, he thinks, makes him feel more inclined towards poor decision-making, and makes his lingering gaze bolder.
Maybe.
He hasn’t had much of anything to drink.
Maybe he’d been meaning to discard politeness in this regard between them anyway, consequences be damned. And Hannibal never seems to mind the changing seasons of his peculiarities. The worst he could say is no, ever polite as he always is.
Actually, scratch that. It could be so, so much worse.
Still preoccupied by his thoughts, Will picks something else from the tray.
His gaze flicks from the dexterous press of Hannibal’s thumb and index finger against the canapé to the slight part of his bowed lips, stretching and closing as his hand slowly hovers closer.
He blinks slowly when Hannibal tucks his bottom lip behind his teeth instead, tongue roving out for a short moment before his lips draw to an amused, closed line. It’s only then that he realises that Hannibal had, in fact, been speaking. Possibly for quite some time, likely waxing poetic about the canapé in both their hands.
Will suddenly feels just short of sheepish.
“Sorry, that…that was rude of me,” he says after a beat, straightening his slouch over the counter and sounding anything but apologetic. He wonders distantly if Hannibal would consider that doubly rude.
Hannibal’s smile widens, a sharply pointed thing. “You’ll find that I have a propensity for being charmed by these lapses. Think nothing of it.”
He flushes, feeling caught out and reassured in one enduring, whiplashing moment. Charmed, huh?
“Is something on your mind?”
Hannibal’s inquisitive voice pulls him back into the room. He idly contemplates the question for a moment, then shakes his head.
“No,” Will replies quietly. “It's nothing.”
When Hannibal raises a brow almost diminutively, before his features begin to straighten in readiness to drop the topic, Will resumes his contemplation. He considers the pros and cons of ripping the bandaid off and barrelling the elephant straight into the room.
“It’s just…your mouth–” Fuck.
At that, Hannibal shows genuine surprise. His lips purse, then flatten, as though unsure of what action to take now that they’re at the centre of both their attention. Though the quirking is not from disgust or even confusion, really. Hannibal’s honeyed eyes glint with interest as the confession condenses around them.
“My mouth,” Hannibal responds curiously. He drags his tongue over his lips slowly, seemingly still distracted by Will’s slip. Will’s breath lodges impossibly farther in his throat. “Could you elaborate?”
Will thinks, Well. He’d asked for it, this impossible situation. In for a penny, and all that.
“It’s not what you’re thinking. Well, hell, it probably is that. But it’s more.” He sets his glass down and takes a deep, calibrating breath before finally flicking a cautious gaze to meet Hannibal’s eyes. He is surprised to find himself becoming settled by what he sees in them.
The weight of curiosity is bare, and honestly a little striking. There is warmth brimming just past the gate of Hannibal’s fortress, left visible for him in an encouragement that feels much like prying open Pandora’s box with hungry, knowing, bleeding fingers. Boldness returns to him, strengthening his impromptu resolve.
“I notice how intricately attuned you are with all your senses. Everything in your home serves as a means to take apart whatever—or whoever— is outside your influence and grind it to its foundation. Like extra appendages. Most things you own are tailored to elevate that ability.”
Will thinks of the Leda and the Swan painting displayed in Hannibal’s dining room. He imagines the light discomfort and awe of every person who views the bold aesthetic choice and subconsciously applies their judgments to the man of the house himself. All without a word uttered.
“It’s unsurprising that you interact similarly with your senses.” Will concludes, pinching his lips slightly.
God, he’s blowing this colossally. Trying to flirt by calling the object of your desires a manipulative son of a bitch takes the cake on all of his attempts, but who was counting. When Will chances a glance at him again, however, Hannibal looks pleased, if not a bit amused.
“You believe I use my senses to aid my social navigations, for the sake of manipulation? That’s not entirely uncommon. Touch and sight especially are tools as old as time for altering others' perception of the depth of a shared connection. Even with the best of intentions.”
“Yes, but it’s your contradictions that I find interesting. Simple things, like soft movements that cushion the sharp edges of your accent. The delicate time you take to savour the food you eat.”
Hannibal tilts his head thoughtfully. “You find my meticulousness interesting?”
“Yes,” Will breathes. After a beat, drags his gaze away from his lips. Again. “Guess that’s one word for it.”
Hannibal releases a soft exhale and leans just a little closer. “Any other qualifiers?”
Will looks up at him searchingly. There is no time to process the exact emotion on Hannibal’s face without falling into a dead, ringing silence. It isn’t teasing per se, but Hannibal is urging him, indulging him either for simple curiosity’s sake or—
“Watching you, it sometimes feels like you have time bent in suspension over each curve. It’s as deliberate as it is natural, I think? Lots of words to say that I find it…fascinating,” he admits. Will recalls a time he’d sworn against one of those qualifiers; he knows instinctively that Hannibal also remembers. It’s a small mercy that the man chooses not to speak on it.
Hannibal falls quiet. A distant, indeterminable expression shelters his features. It holds Will in, well, suspension. The thought would be hilarious if he weren’t the one currently in this anxiety-inducing predicament.
Hannibal is making him eat so many of his words, and he doesn’t even realise it.
“Can I be bold enough to forgo the metaphors for a moment to ask you a question?” Hannibal asks suddenly, moving so close that Will can acutely separate his scent from all the surrounding aromas in the room.
He leans forward just long enough to alert Will, eyes sweeping over him for any signs of displeasure. Will stays still, their gaze locking as Hannibal reaches to tuck an errant curl behind his ear with an impossible gentleness before straightening up again.
“Go ahead.” Will swallows.
“Are you seducing me, Will?”
At that, he lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. He knows that even for him, these attempts are obvious at best, but it relieves him all the same to hear Hannibal spill the words into the room, removing any ability for him to retract his resolve.
“Attempting, Dr. Lecter. Omitting that keyword might make me believe it’s working.”
A small, slack smile settles over Hannibal’s features. It is a genuine thing that makes the man even more beautiful, the rarity of it all the more appealing.
“You’d be surprised; I’m finding my methods with you put to shame by the gravity of your words today. You have a surprisingly refreshing flair for the romantic.”
Feeling short for words, Will picks up his glass.
“Thanks…though I have to wonder about your perception of what qualifies as romantic,” he murmurs lightly over the rim before taking another burning sip. Now that it’s all aired out, it slowly sinks in that Hannibal just implied that he had been attempting to seduce him in turn. The revelation warms and soothes the brimming well of uncertainty that’s drifted under their recent interactions.
Reciprocity, I’ll be damned.
“Possibly. Yet one cannot control what naturally appeals to the heart. A heart-wrenching poem for one could be humorously droll to another.”
Will gives a small, agreeing shake of his head. “I guess that’s why they say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
“And yours, as always, is a marvel to behold.”
Will lets out a soft groan at his words. He feels the self-content smile blanketing Hannibal’s face even before looking at him. Will wants to roll his eyes, pretend that Hannibal’s words, as smug as they were genuine, did not affect him. He wants to reach for Hannibal and nip and devour past the structure of that smile until his mouth parts into something desperate.
As if on cue, Hannibal finally lifts the canapé from its resting point just shy from the counter to hover below his lips. Amber eyes arrest Will’s focus, leaving him thoroughly split between their flame and the parting of Hannibal’s lips, the tip of both fingers disappearing for a stretched moment as he places the pastry gently over his tongue. Hannibal’s eyes slip shut in momentous pleasure as he presses his lips together to chew, slowly savouring, and Will breathes past the building growl in his throat and begins mirroring the gesture. He lifts the canapé to his mouth carefully, letting Hannibal witness him in turn until he swallows.
The heat from Hannibal this close feels almost like a touch—a perception that seems shared. The slight stagger to Hannibal’s breathing, a blaring sign of just how affected he is.
“If I may ask, what contradiction interests you in the way I choose to consume my food?” Hannibal breaks the reverie with an airy tone that strains around the edges with arousal.
Will exhales sharply at both the sound and his words. And he sees the trappings of his own phrase returning to him, a careless boomerang that he had hoped he’d escape. He was never able to hide from Hannibal’s perception. With a resolve he doesn't completely feel and little room for calculation, he steps fully into his decision.
“The juxtaposition between the brutality of the means in obtaining your food source and the delicacies of the steps you take in the aftermath, from preparation to consumption.”
The air in the room is silenced by the sheer force of Hannibal’s stillness. His eyes sweeping over Will are a pair of cold, slicing blades—endlessly scrutinising for a motive yet leaving nothing discernible on his own features.
The span of the oppressive silence is short enough for plausible deniability, yet sufficient to be a confession left viable only between them, over the dancing vagaries of Will’s words.
Will doesn’t risk a glance at Hannibal, fully understanding the fragility of the moment they both hang in. He speaks instead, slow and deliberate.
“ ‘Man’s encounter with the world in the act of eating is triumphant; when he triumphs over the world, he devours it without being devoured himself. The limits between man and the world become erased, to man’s advantage.’ ”
“Mikhail Bakhtin,” Hannibal responds calmly. “He explored the reality of consumption in a way that one could argue was quite elevated.”
Will rests his gaze directly on Hannibal as the words tumble poetically from his lips. The danger of falling into distraction in this tenuous moment prickles at him, entices him.
Hannibal’s eyes, watchful and ever-close, follow Will with an expression that’s indeterminable except for the hint of pride slipping deliberately past the mask and into Will’s waiting hands. Something equally dark and hungry, a desirous longing, growls quietly in the pit of Will’s stomach, finally ready to reach out and be sated.
He tilts his head to display his focus, coaxing Hannibal to continue.
“The complete act of consumption is something so inherently destructive, yet it doesn’t fail to keep its positive function. I uphold the belief that most people would have a better connection with their meals if they fully partook in the ritual of sourcing their food at least once in their lifetime. But that doesn’t seem to be what you’re implying. What limits are you testing here, Will?” Hannibal asks.
Will feels the rug being pulled from under his feet by the question, leaving his balance obscure for a moment. “With you or with myself?”
“Both; humour me.”
Hannibal’s stance is still rigid but his expression, though not quite open, is clearly curious. Will leans into that.
“The line between the grotesque and the sensual,” he says quietly, leaving the dripping tenor of want in his voice bare for Hannibal’s senses to pick apart.
Hannibal darts his tongue over his lips, a secretive peek that disappears a moment after. “Two very opposing qualities; your endeavour is admirable. And what do you plan to do when you find it?”
The question is cushioned more softly this time. It’s all Will needs.
“It doesn’t matter.” Will leans forward, crowding Hannibal’s space so suddenly that Hannibal bumps the cool steel edge of the countertop, causing a shiver that Will sees him fail to suppress.
Hannibal’s slow exhale feathers under the curls shadowing Will’s brows. Then, tentatively, he wraps a hand around one of Will’s caging arms.
Will reaches out with the other, tracing over the sharp lines of Hannibal’s cheekbone before drifting his finger pads in a trail downwards to caress his slightly parted lips. They are as soft as he imagined, and yet the knowledge remains surprising. The unending enigma of the man and the monster upending his expectations in an unforgiving cycle.
It leaves him in awe.
When their eyes meet again, Hannibal’s are painted dark amber with lust. His lashes flutter low, brushing over the faint creases under his eyes. His ever-watchful gaze tracks Will when he leans forward until it can no more, and he tilts close to whisper in Hannibal’s ear.
“I believe that two things can be true at once. For now that should be good enough, don’t you think?”