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Her mind’s eye threw memories of those first, tenuous nights into dizzy chiaroscuro.
Logically, she knows Chiyoh must have dragged them, water-logged and bleeding, off of the shore - but Hannibal cannot crystallize the disparate flashes of consciousness into cognizance.
She sees Chiyoh’s hand in what she knows to be true; the boat, inexplicably stocked with medicine and food; their wounds, bandaged and dry; their persons, tentatively safe in a forty-odd foot sailboat bound for Cuba instead of bashed to pieces in the undertow of the Atlantic.
The walls close in around them, despite Will’s insistence that the vessel is perfectly suitable for open seas. Will pulls away from her, skittish after the bloody honesty of the Dragon, all but mute except for the few, sparse dialogues necessary for cohabitation.
They draw close and retreat in stages, tidal and inevitable as the sea in which they drift. Hannibal finds herself enraptured with Will’s caprice: equally as pleased with Will’s flashes of rage as she is with her raw, unfiltered affection.
Hannibal can barely contain the desperate, snarling desire that lives in her chest. It stalks behind her teeth and gorges itself on every weighted gaze Will casts upon her. She tells herself that she has Will - her love or wrath, whatever Will decides to give - but there are moments where she feels the gulf of years span between them, bloody and chasmic.
Starvation is familiar company.
As expected, the boat is in constant, lilting motion. Hannibal finds herself almost jealous of the peace it seems to bring Will. Combined with her gut wound, the movement is enough to churn Hannibal’s stomach and send bile to burn at the back of her throat.
Though neither of them will confess to being infirm, they both spend every spare moment resting. There is but one bunk between them, and they are too practical - and old - to insist on sleeping separate.
There is no privacy to be maintained, independence dead in her grave.
Beside her, Will lays on her uninjured side, back to the hull. Moonlight streams from the porthole above, draping everything in shades of cool. Her hair spills out around her, black and billowing against the angles of her jaw in the night. Hannibal finds herself quite taken with how the salt air causes Will’s typically loose curls to pull tight.
The pout of her mouth, accentuated by the arch set of her brows, makes Hannibal long to put pencil to paper. Will is none other than the very same muse who tormented the old masters, she’s sure.
“It’s rude to stare,” Will murmurs, not bothering to open her eyes. Her words are slightly slurred as she tries to minimize the movements of her jaw so as to not disturb the stitches in her cheek.
“I wasn’t aware you cared,” she responds. Will’s eyelashes cast delicate shadows across her cheeks.
Will hums her assent and they lapse into silence. Underneath the twin rhythm of their steady breaths, the muffled lapping of the ocean against the ship’s hull beats a soft staccato.
Hannibal shifts, and the movement sends a hot bolt of agony through her abdomen. She grits her teeth, forcing her breath to come out steady.
Will still notices.
“More painkillers?” she questions, eyes open now. Will’s eyes reflect what little light fills the cabin, making them animal-bright and wild.
“No,” Hannibal replies. It’s strained, even to her own ears.
Will doesn’t argue - she’d given up only after the fifth time having the same debate.
Hannibal could, on occasion, confess to a certain stubborn streak.
A shift, and when Hannibal opens her eyes again it’s to find Will above her. The ceiling in this area of the berth is low - curved where it meets the wall - so Will has to duck forward as she slings one leg over Hannibal, settling with each knee planted on either side of her hips, careful to keep her weight off of Hannibal’s tender midsection.
Will rests atop Hannibal’s legs. Hannibal’s fingers twitch - she longs to touch, but chooses instead to let Will lead the way.
Cool fingers lift the hem of Hannibal’s shirt and smooth over the edge of the bandage on her midsection. Will’s eyes meet her own, cautious and judging, before quickly flitting away. Her hair falls in a long, dark curtain from the crown of her bowed head. It’s longer now than it was before.
Yet another way Will chose to hide from herself, perhaps.
Carefully, Will prods the exposed skin of Hannibal’s stomach, appraising. When Will’s touch finds a tender muscle or edges into the shadow of a bruise, she glances up. Hannibal knows that Will wants a reaction.
She wonders what response the other woman is looking for.
When she speaks, Will’s voice is low. “When I was in the hospital, after you cut me, everyone kept saying how lucky I was - that I didn’t lose anything important.”
Without warning, Will digs her fingers into the edge of Hannibal’s wound through the bandage. Gasping in agony, Hannibal has barely enough presence of mind to catch what Will says next.
“No one believed me when I said it wasn’t luck.” Will punctuates her sentence with another twist of her fingers, and this time, Hannibal can’t stop the responsive spasm of her leg as her body tries mindlessly to escape the pain.
Hannibal starts to feel sweat prickle at her hairline. Nausea - from equal parts agony and anticipation - rises up within her.
“There are circumstances I am satisfied to leave to fate. Your life is not one of them,” Hannibal replies. Testing - in her own way.
Will snarls. The white of her teeth glints wetly in the night. “Not now, maybe.” She grinds her palm into Hannibal’s wound now, bearing her weight upon it. She seems to take pleasure in Hannibal’s involuntary thrashing. “But I remember plenty of times in the past where you were perfectly happy to do just that.”
Will’s wrath leaves the air in the room thin.
Hannibal remembers it all well; Tobias Budge, Randall Tier, the long gamble of letting Will’s encephalitis go untreated for so long.
It takes a moment for Hannibal to steady her breath enough to form a response. “And you proved yourself beautifully each time.”
Humorlessly, Will laughs. She leans forward, propping her weight on one hand and fisting a handful of Hannibal’s hair in the other. “I advise you,” she grits out, words slow and measured, “to stop testing me.”
Hannibal smiles, finally allowing her hands to come to rest on Will’s thighs. “Brilliant, vicious girl.”
After years of being shut away from her, Will’s wrath feels like sunlight on Hannibal’s skin.
The hand in Hannibal’s hair tightens, and Hannibal tenses, bracing for another lashing, but then Will’s grip releases. She watches Will’s temper settle, sees Will force the fight out of her body in the way her shoulders lower and her body goes lax. Hannibal brings a hand to the back of Will’s neck, pulls the younger woman close so that their foreheads are resting against each other.
Wordlessly, Will presses a closed-mouthed kiss to the corner of Hannibal’s eye. Her breath stutters and Will shifts, bringing one knee to press Hannibal’s legs apart. Will runs her fingers through the greying hair at Hannibal’s temple in a manner that would be calming if it didn’t serve to wind every fiber of Hannibal’s being tight.
Finally, finally their mouths meet. It’s tentative - gentle after Will’s easy violence - until Hannibal digs a thumb into Will’s wounded cheek, licking her way into Will’s mouth when the other woman gasps in pain.
Metallic and sharp, Will tastes like salt and blood. It’s exquisite.
Dizzing in contrast to their earlier roughness, Will runs her free hand down to Hannibal’s stomach, softly tracing the curve of her hip with the back of her fingers. It’s a soothing gesture that only serves - along with the close press of Will’s leg between her own - to remind her that three years really is a very long time.
Will rocks forward and all the air leaves Hannibal’s lungs in a tremulous sigh. Between biting kisses that leave them both breathless, Will makes her intent clear.
“Say please.”
It’s a wicked reversal of their roles from days prior.
“Please,” Hannibal hears herself ask, desperate in the face of Will’s mercurial cruelty. Will swallows the word as soon as it leaves Hannibal’s mouth, undoing the drawstring of her sleep clothes with an ease that sends heat pooling in her belly.
Will doesn’t bother to undress her, snaking a searching hand under the satiny fabric of Hannibal’s briefs. She gasps at the first brush of Will’s fingers against her.
The frantic need to take control overwhelms Hannibal, and she opens her mouth to speak - to provoke Will, to tip the balance of the situation in her favor. Will smothers her words with a kiss before they can leave her mouth.
Will’s touch is purposeful but unhurried. Skilled. Unbidden, the knowledge that Will has spent the past three years with a wife floats to the front of her mind. Will lets slow friction build until each sensation has layered in on itself, making Hannibal twitch with every tease of Will’s fingers over her rim. The thought of Will doing this to her - to anyone else - makes her want to take her fingers down at the metacarpals, ruin her for anyone else. Jealousy makes Hannibal’s blood run hot and she lashes out again. “You’re practiced,” she says, reaching for the tone of voice she used with particularly burdensome patients.
The imitation of clinical distance is somewhat mitigated by the way in which the evidence of her need has soaked through her clothes and quickly coated Will’s probing hand.
Will’s eyes narrow as she leans back. For a split second, Hannibal fears that she’s pushed Will too far - has finally found her limit by invoking Will’s wife - even indirectly.
Will presses three fingers into her without preamble.
It’s immediate and consuming. It’s too much. Presumptuous, with any other partner; perfect, with Will. She wants to ache with it, wants to wear the proof of their coupling bruised into her skin and carved into her musculature.
Hannibal grits her teeth, attempting to silence her responding moan by forcing herself to steadily exhale out of her nose. If withholding is the name of the game, she can play too.
Will’s next thrust is rough. This time, Hannibal’s moan almost escapes before she can stop it.
The pace Will sets is relentless, curling on the downstroke in time with her ragged gasps. It’s as though she’s being hollowed out, eviscerated so the only thing she’s filled with is Will.
Hannibal feels her shaky grasp on her self-control slipping by the moment. Will adds a fourth finger at the same time as she presses against Hannibal’s gut wound again, and the sharp counterpoint of agony makes her finally, finally cry out. It’s deafening, in the close womb of the berth.
Will’s smile is vicious. She wears victory as a fine silk, puts the force of her body behind each thrust with the languid pace of self-assuredness, and - now that the first noise of pleasure has escaped her - Hannibal is powerless to stop the remaining moans spilling out of her.
It’s not shame - but rather pleasure - that colors her face. Each press of Will inside her is a moment where Will can focus on no other, evidence made flesh that Hannibal’s obsession is reciprocated.
She wraps a leg around Will, desperate to bring her closer, to fuse them together more completely. Her starving hands work their way under Will’s shirt. She gluts herself on Will’s smooth, hot skin and the sweat that pricks it.
She’s so, so hungry.
Will leans down, licks a stripe up the side of Hannibal’s neck. She moves down to bite into Hannibal’s shoulder when Hannibal tries to catch her in another kiss.
Will laughs. “This isn’t about what you want.” But they both know that’s not quite true.
“Dear Will, all I’ve ever desired is for you to embrace yours.” Her voice is rough, body receptive in all the unadorned honesty she can muster. She catches Will’s gaze, and everything she needs to know is naked on the younger woman’s face: eyes bright, cheeks flushed, mouth parted and wet. Will’s hunger is not an empathetic reflection of Hannibal’s; it’s Will’s own, nurtured and indulged.
Their mouths meet, and Will bites her lip hard enough to draw blood.
The dexterity of Will’s hand is somewhat hampered by their position, but the sheer stretch of it and the inescapable closeness of Will (around her, over her, inside of her) is enough to have Hannibal throwing her head back, hips rolling to meet every thrust of Will’s fingers into the most vulnerable part of her.
“Fuck,” Will gasps, voice wrecked as if she was the one being fucked. “You’re so wet.” The next stroke of her fingers into Hannibal’s cunt is accompanied by an obscene wet noise, as if the universe itself had conspired to prove Will’s point.
If Hannibal was capable of feeling shame, she’s sure that it would be running heady through her now. Unburdened as she is, the base nature of Will’s desire - of her body and their bodies together - just sends more liquid heat through her, causes her to clench around Will as if she could keep her inside forever.
Reason is just out of reach, but Hannibal has to make herself speak, has to draw this moment out, keep Will with her in this space, suspended as sunlight on air. “Is this,” she gasps as Will scissors her fingers, bearing her teeth. “Is this what you wanted?”
Will adjusts, lets their eyes meet. The blue in them has been almost totally swallowed by yawning pupils. Hannibal finds herself falling into them, only tethered to reality by the overheated brush of Will's ragged breaths on her cheek and the single bead of sweat that drips from Will’s nose and lands in the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. Will’s eyes follow the droplet, widening as Hannibal’s tongue darts out to catch it, to take even more of Will within. She’s greedy for it - they both are.
Will fists a hand - the one that’s not knuckle-deep in her cunt - into her hair and pulls, drawing Hannibal’s entire body taut. She leans down to whisper in Hannibal’s ear; “You’d take my whole hand, if I gave it to you.”
There’s no denying it. “And more,” Hannibal agrees. The air is heavy with their combined sweat and sex. She’d let Will split her end to end, let her unspool all the love from within her as long as she’d promise to take it within herself.
An increase in pressure, and for a breathless moment Hannibal thinks Will’s going to do it, going to carve a space out from inside of her to stay, so that she can always carry Will with her, physical proof of all the ways they’ve stained each other.
Will’s only adjusting the position to swipe her thumb over Hannibal’s neglected clit, though, and Hannibal finds herself whining in loss at the same time as heat draws tight in her gut, desperate for all Will has to give.
“I know, I know,” Will soothes, petting over Hannibal’s mussed hair, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her sweat-tacky neck. She knows Will is thinking of it too, imagination slick with the soft give of Hannibal’s splitting flesh.
The sweetness is unexpected, and it leaves Hannibal completely unprepared for Will prodding again at her gut wound, pressing one hand down and the one inside her up as if she could part skin and flesh and sinew and bring her fingers together, every liquid trace of Hannibal cradled between them. It’s this, and the sharp dig of Will’s canines into the side of her neck, that pushes her over the edge, ecstasy a lance through her as she bears down on Will’s fingers, body drawing tight and releasing in waves.
Will holds her through the come-down, kisses the tears from Hannibal’s eyes that fall only after she’s pulled out, after she’s left her hollowed out and aching.
When Will makes to move, Hannibal digs her nails into her shoulder, pulls the younger woman flat on top of her, uncaring at the way her release dries tacky on Will’s hand and sticks her own undergarments uncomfortably to her. They’re conjoined.
Now that they’ve been together, Hannibal can’t ever bear to be apart.