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A glass of wine, a loose tongue and the luxury of privacy.
Will sits across from Dr. Lecter in his usual chair, watching him quietly, fidgeting; a rhythmic tap tap tap of fingers against wood. Dr. Lecter meets his gaze, head tilted, a half-smile forming on his lips. A few strands of hair have escaped his carefully combed fringe, but other than that, he looks every bit as pristine as his office.
Will can tell that his fever-addled brain is trying to tell him something, but he doesn’t know what it is. Despite his best efforts, his defenses always seem to crumble near Dr. Lecter, under his kind eyes and gentle inquiry. Tell me about your nightmares, he will implore, more like a concerned parent than a professional psychiatrist, what do see when the abyss stares back, and it’s somehow always profoundly sincere – as though he doesn’t accept a paycheck for every time Will hauls his disheveled self over his threshold.
This is what ultimately prompts him to open up, what makes him willing to talk about himself. Which makes him talk about his empathy disorder. Which, inevitably, makes him talk about his childhood.
(Which, in turn, makes Dr. Lecter’s eyes flutter closed as Will presses a kiss to the soft coral of his mouth, hands bracketing his face and fingers curling around the base of his skull while they crash together like celestial bodies in collision.)
But first thing’s first.
There is a glass of wine, a loose tongue and the luxury of privacy, but that is neither the beginning nor end.
*
As a boy, Will was high-strung, jittery and breathless. All hummingbird heart and lungs laced up too tight, bones rattling, always rattling, with impressions. That’s how he remembers it anyway, growing up in the murky backwaters of Louisiana. Even in the stillness of his childhood home, among the peaceful chirp of crickets and rustle of leaves, the world seemed loud and bright – a hyper realistic painting in stark relief.
(Some nights, he still wakes up with the scent of torrential rain on hot asphalt in his nose, the obsidian mirror of tranquil swamps etched on the canvas of his eyelids. Other times, he recalls in vivid detail the twitch of his mother’s lip when his father’s plastic tumbler scraped against the counter, the shift in atmosphere when he asked her if daddy was working late despite having seen his father stumble home from the bar in the middle of the night more times than he could count, knowing his wavering zigzag over the lawn by heart. The slap that burned red on the side of his face when he asked one too many times and his mother was rode hard and put away wet, Willy, don’t give me none of that now, you hear.)
Will felt it all as it rushed through him, trying not to crumble under the weight of impressions, blaring like sirens on the inside of his head.
Then, something happened. A dramatic turn, and as if flipping a switch, everything seemed to come to a halt. The world became a dull haze, blurry and faded like an old photograph, and Will became heavy eyelids and shuffling feet, his voice a sleepy drawl with sluggish lilts where it had been breathless whispers and rushed staccatos.
At least that’s how he remembered it, for a long time. But now that Will is an adult, he can recognize it as apathy.
“Tell me about it,” Dr. Lecter urges him, legs crossed and hands clasped in his lap. “The traumatic event responsible for this affliction.”
His eyes are clear and focused, seeking out Will’s evasive gaze with flinty determination. When Dr. Lecter looks at him, there’s always that brief flicker in his eyes, gone before Will has a chance to grasp its meaning. Will shakes his head vigorously, reminiscent of a wet dog shaking water out of its fur.
“Trauma entails damage. This isn’t- it wasn’t the loss of anything. I just changed. It was a transition more than anything else.”
“Most would agree that transitioning prematurely from the purity of childhood is traumatic. Corruption of innocence is widely regarded as a quite significant loss.”
“I’m not corrupted,” Will interjects, the tone of his voice a little more defensive than he intended.
“Apologies,” Dr. Lecter offers a disarming smile. “I misspoke. Events that have carried an impact are yours to define, I merely hope to help you along the way.”
Will leans back in his chair, hands firmly planted on the armrests and legs parted wide. Anchoring himself, establishing his presence in the room.
“Memories are hard to trust,” He challenges. “They’re constructions rather than withdrawals. Pieced together fragments of information heavily based upon current feelings. Revised to suit our present selves.”
“That does not make them any less interesting. However true or false, your memory of the event will tell us something about your current disposition.”
A beat of silence.
“I think I was nine,” Will says, because that’s as good a place as any to start. “But I may have been eight, or ten. Maybe even eleven or twelve.”
“Before the onset of puberty, then, and the mental schemas of an adult.”
“Yes. I know I was a child, but that’s all I can tell for sure.”
A stretch of Dr. Lecter’s lips, a blink to clear that odd glint out of the depth of his eyes. Like windshield wipers, restoring the thin veneer of collected calm. Will can sense that there is something artificial about the way Dr. Lecter carries himself, something scrubbed and polished to the point where he can almost sense the sharp, chemical tang of bleach lingering on the doctor’s skin. Sometimes, Will thinks that’s exactly what it is, metaphors aside.
“Whenever you are ready then, Will.”
*
Mrs. Miller.
Of all things Will recalls from childhood, he remembers her more clearly than anything; the lines of her sharp and crisp in the fog of his mind. He remembers her as spidery lashes and lavender lips, a cloud of stale hairspray and white-blonde hair – frizzy from decades of over-bleaching, making it seem frail and brittle like icicles. She was the mother of a boy Will had befriended the day his family first settled into the neighborhood, not two hours after their rattling trailer slotted into place on the yellow-grassed lawn that looked so much like every other piece of land Will had been compelled to consider home during his short life.
(They moved around a lot when his mother was alive and even more when she wasn’t, but that is a conversation for another time, Will thinks to himself, surprised to find that he truly wouldn’t mind talking to Dr. Lecter about it.
But he digresses.)
Mrs. Miller had a black eye almost every time Will saw her, a ring of mottled blue poorly concealed by make-up. Will didn’t really think about it much back then, hardly even taking notice. Children usually accept things quite easily, almost without considering. As for his friend, his name eludes him. It was Brandon, maybe Brad. Brian? He doesn’t recall. A name with a B.
Will and Brandon were friends in that simple way he associates with childhood, running back and forth between each other’s trailers, reading thumbed comic books. Trying to make time pass outdoors, exploring the limited scenery of their lives. Avoiding bullies. Will had a face made for bullying, all soft curves and warm-wet doe eyes, dark locks of hair coiled loosely beneath his jaw. Effeminate. Childish. Somewhat like the cherubs in Michelangelo’s paintings, but he couldn’t have made that comparison then, because he never looked in mirrors much and he knew very little of anything.
Not that he was stupid. Uneducated, never stupid.
Anyway, whatever it was, something about him seemed to make other boys angry; even when his dad had enough of his cuts and bruises and dragged his electric razor across his scalp, giving Will an uneven buzz cut. It didn’t do much difference, because his father failed to recognize that a haircut didn’t change his rose petal mouth and bone china skin, didn’t change the way his body thrashed in the grip of his bullies; the unintentional, violent sensuality of his heaving chest and blown pupils as he was pinned and spread like a butterfly by grubby little boy hands eager to take from him, be it blood or a cry for mercy.
This is all reconstruction, of course, Will’s educated, adult self trying to make sense of something fundamentally senseless. Who knows why kids get bullied? It might all just be random.
Brandon was never bullied to the same extent as Will, but Will is actually pretty sure that’s because he never put up a fight. He’d just shut down, eyes glazed over and limbs unmoving as he let his tormentors have their way with him. There’s no fun to be had there, Will figures, poking at something dead. He didn’t scream, didn’t beg, hardly even made a sound.
Unlike Will. Will always kicked up a fuss. Would taunt and provoke, throw rocks, swing his fists and kick and snarl and snap his jaws, wild and unhinged in his furious attempts at self-defense. It earned him an additional slew of scornful jeers as his bullies’ fists rained down on him. Crazy, they’d call him. Will has always been known as crazy, even as a child.
Even more so after the day things changed.
That particular day, Will was making his way to Brandon-Brad-Brian’s trailer as usual, politely knocking on the thin, tinny door only to be met with dead silence. Now, Will wasn’t raised to barge in uninvited, his momma taught him right, after all, but he had this gnawing sense of unease that prompted him to turn the knob and step inside, carefully wiping his shoes on the doormat before venturing further.
Once inside, he found nothing but the pale shadow of Mrs. Miller. Bruised and battered to the point where Will actually noticed, her skin stretched taut over her swollen face and her teased hair falling in sad clumps over her rounded shoulders. She was sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette with fine, barely-there tremors running through her hand. Wrong, Will felt rather than thought, this is wrong.
Tense with anxiety he couldn’t quite put a name to, Will greeted her and asked if Brandon was out. That, in itself, would have been rare enough to arouse suspicion – the boy was as much of an outcast as Will was and was seldom not at home. Mrs. Miller just inclined her head in a noncommittal nod, the building pillar of ash on the tip of her cigarette falling to the floor.
“Will Graham, that you?” She drawled, speech slurred in a way Will recognized as drunk, because his daddy’s voice would sound the same way those nights when he didn’t come straight from work. He took comfort in recognition and nodded.
“That’s right, Mrs. Miller.”
Her eyes snapped onto him then, momentarily wide and distinctively hungry, rooting him to the spot and chasing the breath out of his lungs. Then they softened and a lazy smile stretched across her face as she stood, walking over to him, jerkily, stiffly, like a wind-up toy, crouching low to make level eye-contact - as if he were a child much younger than he was.
“I could take you to him, if you want,” Her voice was quiet, a near-whisper, as if she was letting him in on a secret. “He talks about you all the time. And he could really use a friend right now, Will.”
She smiled again, and something about the slow, almost twitchy stretch of her lips reminded him of motel vacancy signs flickering out on the highway, the bright neon no flashing once, twice, before succumbing to darkness. Will knew then that things were decidedly not right. A predatory glint lingered in her gaze, different from his bullies in the worst way imaginable – telling him something he could not yet understand.
For once in his life, Will did not walk head-first into the mouth of danger.
That time, that one time, he just ran.
*
“She’d killed him,” Will can hear the familiar twang of his old accent making its way back into his voice, but he's unable to stop it. “My parents refused to tell me what happened, but our neighbors were always running their mouths. She'd tried to drown him in the bathtub after her husband found out that he wasn’t really Brandon’s father. Brad’s father. Whatever. He beat her half to death before threatening to kill her boy,” Will swallows. “She mistook unconscious for dead and wrapped his body up in a plastic bag before throwing it in the dumpster behind her trailer. He died of suffocation. May still have been breathing when I was there, just within reach.”
Will clears his throat, mouth sandpaper-dry. There’s no way to say this next part without coming off every bit as distasteful as the subject itself.
“I know how this is going to sound, but the worst part, for me, wasn't knowing the details of her crime. It was knowing why she did it. Understanding it. There was no cruelty or malice. The action itself was terrible, but it was a means to an end. It was mercy.”
“You understood this as a boy?”
“Not in so many words. It was a feeling. And it was too much,” Will rubs his face. “It wasn’t meant for me. Wasn’t meant for me to know. Like when kids sneak a peek at their uncle’s porn collection when they’re too young to handle it.”
Will can tell from the proud line of Dr. Lecter’s spine that he can’t relate to that experience in any way, shape or form. But he merely nods, understanding in his eyes.
“You feel guilty for running. Responsible.”
“I knew something was wrong and I did nothing. I don’t know what stopped me from at least trying.”
“The drive for self-preservation, perhaps,” Dr. Lecter’s smile is almost fond. “You were an innocent child, with the ignorance to match. Will you not afford yourself the kindness of acknowledging that this was beyond your range of influence?”
“I wasn’t ignorant,” Will mutters bitterly. “And I can’t exactly recall feeling innocent as a kid either.”
“And now?”
The question has Will a little taken aback.
“No,” He frowns. “What I do- what I see is in direct opposition to innocence, and I have always been like this.”
“Yet you rejected the notion of being corrupted.”
Will looks away. He can feel a blush creeping up his neck.
“Nobody likes to think of themselves as spoiled goods, do they?” His gaze is still stuck on the floor, stubbornly fixed on his own feet. “You’re right though, I guess. If I’m not damaged, I don’t know who is.”
“I never said you were damaged.”
“Corrupted, then. Same thing.”
Will takes a firmer hold of the armrests and tries to combat his antsy fidgeting by standing up. Dr. Lecter is used to him walking around his office during conversation and probably won’t take offense. To his surprise, Dr. Lecter rises from where he’s seated as well, taking a few steps closer.
“For the sake of honesty, you should know that you are correct in your assumption. I don’t find you innocent,” The impact of Dr. Lecter’s words hits Will harder than he’d expected, punching the air out of his lungs for a split second. “That does not mean I consider you corrupted, nor damaged. You are not spoiled goods, Will.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” A smile pulls at the corners of Will's mouth. “I find that kind of hard to believe, coming from someone as harmless as yourself. Would innocence truly know what corruption looks like?”
He tries to pass it off as a joke, but he truly does think that there is a harmlessness to Dr. Lecter, something exceedingly kind and gentle – even though he might be a little bit pushy. Intrusive. Will has mostly just assumed that Dr. Lecter harbors a professional curiosity, but now, he considers the possibility that the other man is interested in him on a personal level.
Judging by how close he’s standing, maybe even attracted to him. His almost-patient. Maybe not innocent enough to breach professional boundaries, then.
Dr. Lecter only smiles at his remark, eyes twinkling with amusement as his lips pull apart to bare a set of surprisingly long and sharp teeth.
“You think me innocent,” He says, still smiling. “I will accept that for the compliment you likely intended for it to be. Although you could not possibly know.”
It may be the glass of wine he has been nursing all evening or the general comfort of Dr. Lecter’s company, but suddenly, Will’s hand reaches out as if on its own accord to brush the stray strands of hair out of his face. He lets his fingers skim over the doctor’s warm skin, lingering just long enough for him to pick up on his intent.
Dr. Lecter’s eyes seem to momentarily darken, something stirring alive behind the veil.
“Maybe I don’t really care,” Will mumbles, letting his gaze drop to Dr. Lecter’s lips, just above the dip of his Cupid’s bow. His mouth is unique in its oddity, the swell of his top lip making him look almost as if he’s pouting. Will finds it endearing; sweet in a child-like kind of way that doesn’t match the sharp angles of his face.
As realization dawns in Dr. Lecter’s eyes, Will closes the distance between them and cradles the other man’s face in his hands before kissing him, feather-light and unassuming, a tentative brush of lips. Dr. Lecter tenses and loosens in a movement so smooth it feels like a fine tremor, a single, light shiver against Will’s body. Then, warm hands reach around Will’s waist, pulling him closer as their kiss deepens.
It’s a tender, searching thing, this kiss, tongues sliding slowly against one another, little noises of approval shared and muted by their lips. Will enjoys the slight scrape of Dr. Lecter’s five o’clock shadow against his mouth, the solid feel of his body against his own. He savors the soft, wet press of Dr. Lecter’s mouth for one last, indulgent moment before he breaks away.
“Should I not have done that?” He asks in a hushed tone of voice, the tip of his nose brushing against Dr. Lecter’s. For a split second, Will could swear that the other man looked at him as if he were amazed, his lips parted and eyes wide open, pupils impossibly blown. It makes something warm and wet bloom in Will’s chest, a visceral, kaleidoscopic red.
“That is entirely dependent on what you were hoping to achieve,” Dr. Lecter says then, softly, looking so damn defenseless in Will’s heavy-handed grasp, almost vulnerable with his lidded, shining eyes and tanned skin dusted red, a faint blush blooming on the rise of his cheekbones.
I want to sully you, Will thinks, the notion setting off a dull ache of yearning in his gut, I want to make you into something that is me and that is mine in equal measures, and he is caught completely off guard by these sudden violent inclinations, but then Dr. Lecter’s grip on his waist tightens and Will can’t help but capture his lips in another kiss, harsher this time, with clacking teeth and wrestling tongues and hands making out the clothed lines of each other’s bodies.
Will groans and parts Dr. Lecter’s legs with his thigh, rolling his hips to let the doctor feel the effect he has on him. A low, dark moan escapes Dr. Lecter’s throat and Will runs his tongue along that pouty top lip, capturing it between his teeth as he grinds against the other man, not sure whether he’s trying to tease or seek friction against the firm shape of his body.
There’s a brief flicker of guilt as he ponders the possibility that he’s taking advantage, but then Dr. Lecter fists his hands in his shirt and steers them in the direction of the divan further into the office. Will had stifled a snort at that odd piece of furniture when he first saw it, puzzled at this Freudian remnant of psychiatric care, but now he only falls back gratefully at the soft padding before dragging Dr. Lecter down on top of him.
“May I?” Dr. Lecter asks, running his rough hands – unusually rough for a psychiatrist, Will can’t help but note – over Will’s thighs, stopping once he reaches the bulge tenting the front of his jeans. Will only nods, dazed, and when Dr. Lecter presses the heel of his palm to his erection, he screws his eyes shut and moans as arousal surges through him.
Dr. Lecter swiftly unbuckles Will’s belt, unzips his pants and frees his cock, smearing the precome gathered at the slit with his thumb. Through half-closed eyes, Will catches a glimpse of Dr. Lecter licking a broad stripe across his palm before starting to stroke him with gentle firmness. He leans in to kiss Will’s slack mouth once more before moving further down to nip and lap at his throat, nosing into the strip of collarbone peeking out from underneath soft, worn plaid.
“Dr. Lecter,” Will moans breathlessly and feels a smile press into his neck.
“I would be more comfortable if you called me Hannibal now, Will.”
Then he sets his teeth against Will’s throat and sucks a bruise into his skin while stroking him faster, harder, and Will’s hands reach up to tangle in the doctor’s tidy hair for lack of anywhere else to go. He stiffens slightly, thinking Dr. Lecter – no, Hannibal – might not appreciate him messing up his hair, but the thought leaves him as soon as Hannibal breathes a little gasp into his neck, straining into the touch.
Sully you and mark you and remake you in my image, bend you into my desired shape like malleable clay, carve a place for myself inside you with my influence and my hands and my cock until we are tangled in each other, united and indistinguishable –
“Hannibal,” Will says this time around, burning with shame at the thoughts rushing through his head. “I’m close, I’ll- right here-”
It’s embarrassingly fast, really, the amount of time it has taken for his back to arch off the divan, toes curling and grunts tearing from his throat, but Hannibal’s grip is so blissfully tight and slick and it’s been very long since he found release anywhere else but in his own hand. Will doesn’t really do these things. He can count on one hand’s fingers the amount of people who has shared his bed and even that was all disconcertingly long ago.
Not that Hannibal is sharing his bed, or doing anything beyond this quick office-hours fumble. Years of relative solitude has made Will much too quick to jump to conclusions.
“I know,” Hannibal says, undeterred. “Don’t hold back.”
As if on cue, Will’s release crashes over him and his eyes pinch shut. Stuttering groans tumble out of his mouth as he shudders through it, near-spasming with the force of it. When he cracks his eyes open again, he can see Hannibal lapping slowly at his his hand with obscene indulgence, pupils blotting out all color from his half-closed eyes. Will is mesmerized by the swipe of his tongue, his lips glistening red against bronzed skin, and he just can’t stop looking even though he knows he must be staring.
He grabs Hannibal’s wrist for purchase and surges forward, kissing the other man hungrily and tasting himself while reaching for the front of Hannibal’s pants. He cups the solid hardness and Hannibal makes a small sound against his mouth, pressing back into his hand until Will reaches inside his briefs.
“It’s been a while,” Will blurts in a gruff voice, prompted by a sudden urge to – not apologize, really, but justify his clumsy groping, all teenage-eager rummaging around in the doctor’s immaculate dress pants. Hannibal only smiles, gently plucking his glasses from his face and setting them down on a table next to the divan. Will resists the urge to flinch like a skittish animal, frowning as one of his treasured means of protection is taken from him.
Before dejection takes over, he settles awkwardly between Hannibal’s legs and dips down to lap along the length of his cock, slicking him from base to tip. Hannibal draws a breath, sounding almost surprised, and Will curls his fingers around the part he can’t quite fit in his mouth before wrapping his lips around heated flesh.
“Oh, Will,” Hannibal’s breath catches in his throat, making Will feel a little more confident – his effort is undoubtedly more enthusiastic than skillful. He sets a steady rhythm, flattening his tongue and hollowing his cheeks, hand moving in time with his bobbing head. Tries not to think about what he looks like, with his kind of-psychiatrist’s dick halfway down his throat, tries not to think about how Hannibal must see him now.
Unstable. He probably sees him as unstable. Because surely only someone who isn’t in their right mind would try to seduce their psychiatrist. But Hannibal let him. He could have stopped him, but he didn’t.
In between the current of thoughts, Will is slowly coming to realize that something is changing. It’s a smooth transition, a subtle fade into something new, something else; the hand that had caressed his hair with tender affection has suddenly formed a tight fist in the snarl of his curls, holding onto him with vice-like resolve, and the soft moans pouring from Hannibal’s mouth have turned into low grunts, his lips just barely curling over those peculiar teeth when Will glances up at his face.
I want to sully you, the simmering darkness in those gleaming eyes tells him, and Will suddenly understands whose desires he has been mirroring; conveniently ignoring the dark place in himself that calls out for the same thing. He averts his gaze and tries to relax into Hannibal’s touch, make himself pliant and easy to arrange, a freely offered submission – balancing on the fine line between passiveness and inactivity, his mouth offering gripping tightness even as he goes loose and slack in Hannibal’s grasp.
“Beautiful,” Hannibal sighs then, reverence seeping into his kind baritone. “I need only show you half a design, and your abilities fill in the blanks. You are truly remarkable, Will.”
And then Will has to fight his gag reflex as Hannibal tightens his grip on his hair and shoves him down hard until he hits the back of his throat. Tears prick his eyes and he swallows, throat constricting automatically at the forceful intrusion, but he doesn’t struggle. Only chokes on a pitiful whimper that would have been a full-blown moan if his mouth wasn’t stuffed to the limit with cock, because he can feel Hannibal’s arousal mingling with his and the impact of their joined pleasure is so powerful that it hits him like a freight train.
He is briefly reminded of that old saying about frogs willingly boiling to death in gradually heating water, content to remain where they are as long as their demise is slow – creeping closer in increments.
It doesn’t really feel like a building heat, though, when Hannibal’s hips piston against his face and his head is a dead weight in the iron grip of that rough hand. It feels like being thrown straight into a boil. He feels his own cock rub uncomfortably against the dampened fabric of his underwear and realizes that he’s hard again. The prospect makes that familiar mixture of shame and arousal blaze through him once more, making his gut clench with need. He thinks he can hear Hannibal mumble something under his breath, but it’s drowned out by his own heartbeat in his ears, heavy and hollow like a door knocker on old wood.
Truth is that he never expected such manhandling from the kindly Dr. Lecter. If anything, he expected Hannibal to approach this with the same good-natured politeness he generally affords people in his company, and he never would have guessed that any of his distasteful urges would overlap with Hannibal’s, because this –
This is snarling, twisting animal need, this is taking without permission, and he resolutely does not want to think about what it means. Doesn’t want to connect the calloused tips of fingers with that odd glint in Hannibal’s eyes, doesn’t want to think about the implications of the brutal, confident precision of his maneuvering, as if his hands are used to pliant flesh not resisting movement.
An image of icicle hair and shining eyes. No.
The hand in his hair twists tighter and a groan rips from deep within Hannibal’s chest as he comes down his throat without so much as a cursory warning. Will tries to swallow, but as soon as Hannibal pulls out, he can’t help but gasp for breath and cough – an ugly, sputtering cough that has cum and spit hanging in sticky threads from his mouth. His slack, sore jaw quickly snaps shut when he notices the mess dribbling down his chin, but it has already stained the pristine upholstery.
“I-“ Will speaks before he realizes he had the intent, voice little more than a breathless husk. He’s panting like a dog. He knows that his hair must be sticking up at odd angles and his face is probably flushed and blotchy, speckles of red staining his cheeks like freckles. What could he possibly say?
“I-I’ll convince Jack to get me someone else,” He finally settles for. “I don’t know how these things work, but, uh, I guess you could get me a referral. Or something. It shouldn’t be too hard to arrange.”
Hannibal smiles then, the skin around his eyes crinkling pleasantly. All windshield wipers and collected calm, as if Will isn’t still winded from choking on his dick.
“Am I your psychiatrist, or are we simply having conversations?" Hannibal cocks his head, eyes locking onto Will's face. The question has been asked before and is essentially rhetorical. "While I honor the bond between doctor and patient, you are not officially my patient. This is within realm of possibilities between two people who are having conversations, would you not agree?”
“I guess,” Will wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. That may have been a gross thing of him to do, he realizes all too late. “I just thought it might spare us the hassle of having to figure out what to do with this.”
“I always strive to face situations head-on. Do you regret it?”
“No.”
Will is, contrary to common belief, deeply selfish in many regards and does not regret anything at all provided the negative doesn’t outweigh the positive.
“Neither do I. There is no cause for concern, Will.”
“I shouldn’t have put you in this position,” Will wants his glasses back, but he’d have to reach past Hannibal to retrieve them and he isn’t sure he can really move at all right now. “It was a stupid thing of me to do.”
“You did not put me anywhere. If I didn’t approve of the direction our exchange was taking us, you would have known,” Hannibal almost looks amused. “It was surprising, but not unwelcome. I would like it to happen again. Under more orderly circumstances; I prefer to be adequately prepared.”
Hannibal reaches out to caress his cheek and Will releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, leaning gratefully into his touch. Hannibal’s hand trails lower, moving along the column of his neck, down his chest and stomach, coming to rest on Will’s erection, covered only by his damp boxers. Will resists the urge to cringe, flushing at the prospect of Hannibal knowing how his body reacted to just sucking his cock.
“You are still aroused,” Hannibal’s face is a blank slate, but his eyes betray him.
“Sorry,” Will breathes, mortified. “It’s mostly a side effect of- of my empathy, I think.”
Hannibal huffs a laugh, leaning closer as his hand moves languidly over his cock, rubbing the clothed hardness with firm movements.
“It is a perfectly normal response, Will. I imagine many might envy you your short refractory period,” Hannibal’s smile turns wicked as he places a little kiss on Will’s mouth that isn’t chaste at all. “Your empathy permitted you to enjoy what we did from two separate points of view. Mine and yours. You relinquished control and felt my reaction to it like feedback. Wondering what it’d be like to take that for yourself.”
“God, yes.”
“You should know that I don't consider us to be on different ends of a spectrum. We are much the same, as you will come to find out for yourself.”
“Dr. Lecter,” Will moans helplessly as Hannibal’s hand makes its way inside his boxers, stroking him torturously slow, thumb rubbing the leaking head of his cock.
“Hannibal,” he reminds Will, still smiling. “You may call me Hannibal, Will. Perhaps we should arrange for an encounter outside of your appointments, if the professional air bothers you. Would you like to have dinner with me next week?”
Will wonders absentmindedly why Hannibal would want that when he has spent weeks untangling the knotted darkness inside him. It really is no exaggeration that Will has told him things he would have thought he’d take with him to the grave and based on what he knows, Hannibal could not possibly think that Will could be good for him. But then Hannibal moves back to settle between his legs and it’s been very long since he allowed himself the intimacy of this, whatever it is.
“Yes,” He says quietly, like a confession. “That’d be nice. If you’ll have me.”
Hannibal lets Will use his mouth the way he used his then, braiding Will’s fingers into his hair before wrapping his lips around the head of his cock. Will lets him set the pace, fingers slack in his neat hair, but when Hannibal does nothing but tease in a deliberate challenge, Will’s self-control finally snaps. Holding Hannibal’s head firmly in place with one hand, he thrusts into his mouth and fucks his throat until the other man a drooling mess of swollen lips and red-tinted cheeks and mussed hair falling into glistening wet eyes.
When tears spill down Hannibal’s cheeks and he chokes on a gurgling groan, Will comes – whining quietly with his face hidden in the crook of his elbow, still torn between humiliation and excitement.
He doesn’t dare look at Hannibal that trembling moment after his climax, afraid of what he’ll see in those eyes that have been exposed to so many facets of his unsavory person. When he finally risks a glance down, he is moderately surprised to find that Hannibal seems pleased more than anything – licking his lips and wiping his wet cheeks with a handkerchief, smoothing disheveled hair out of his face.
“Truly remarkable,” Hannibal says, sitting up and retrieving Will’s glasses. He puts them back on his face, gently nudging them up the bridge of his nose. With them, the pleasant creases of skin around Hannibal’s eyes come into focus along with his affectionate smile. The tenderness jerks something in Will and he attempts to mirror Hannibal’s expression, offering a little smile that only broadens the other man’s.
“You can be yourself with me, Will,” Hannibal says once Will is idling on the porch, about to drive back home to the solitude of his house in Wolf Trap. His silhouette is dark and imposing in the bright rectangle of his doorway, but the smile that has never really left his face is warm and genuine. “You will see.”
(One day, years later, they will cling to each other in the light of the moon; recognizing each other for what they truly are, soaked in blood that cleanses like holy water. See, Hannibal will say then, echoing his sentiment from that first tentative period of time they knew each other, this is all I ever wanted for you, Will, for both of us. And Will –
He will only stare up at the man that is him and that is his in equal measures, and say the first thing that comes to mind.)
But first thing’s first.