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“Harder,” Will pants, his left palm leaving a damp mark on their glossy dining table as he braces himself against it. “Come on.”
Hannibal digs his fingers into Will's hips and gives him what he wants, driving into him with an audible slap of skin on skin. Will's arm flexes rhythmically as he strokes himself, his satisfied groans trailing off into the short, harsh gasps he makes when he’s overwhelmed by sensation. He shudders and tenses beneath Hannibal, coming in pulses over his fist and stomach.
After his own orgasm, Hannibal allows himself a final, silent moment of connectedness before he carefully pulls out. Will is still leaning on the table for support, his head hanging down as he catches his breath. His hair sticks to the nape of his neck, and the elegant curve of his back is shiny and damp from exertion. Hannibal moves to kiss his shoulder blade, eagerly anticipating the sharp tang of satiation on his tongue, but his lips barely make contact before Will flinches and ducks away.
He strides across the room to collect his trail of discarded clothes. “I’m going to shower,” he says nonchalantly, eyes fixed to the wall somewhere behind Hannibal’s head. He walks out without a backward glance, his crumpled shirt balled up in his hand.
Hannibal frowns.
—
The following weekend, he begins a new portrait. He draws Will as he looked from behind the wall of the prison cell, one hand pressed to the glass as part of his cruel farewell.
As he sketches, Hannibal thinks about the cloak of flippant invulnerability that Will has hidden behind since they left America. In many ways, their life together is as delightful as Hannibal has ever dared to hope it could be. Will remains formidable as a sparring partner and master strategist, effortlessly chameleonic as they move from town to town. Hannibal is fiercely proud of Will's evolution—of the way he has grown into the electrifying confidence that was always waiting for him, of how he has blended the superficially contradictory traits of ruthlessness and compassion to create something meaningful and whole. Yet while he gladly shares that ruthlessness with Hannibal as much as he does with his chosen victims, he reserves his precious compassion for those he helps or avenges—for the good people who fuel the empathy that sparks his malice. Hannibal is not one of those good people.
Will accosts him after dinner when they’ve carried their plates to the kitchen, shoving him against the fridge door and kissing him so forcefully that it hurts. A delicious jolt of pleasure zings down Hannibal’s spine as he feels teeth sink into the flesh of his bottom lip.
“I want your mouth, Hannibal,“ Will breathes into his ear when they part. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.“
He is visibly aroused already, erection temptingly tenting his jeans as he starts to unbuckle his belt. He pushes his jeans and underwear down his legs, one hand lazily working himself to full hardness as he waits. Hannibal sinks to his knees, his mouth watering. He would love to make this last—to slowly tease Will to new heights of desperation. He might as well try, he reasons.
He holds Will by the hips, nuzzling at his inner thigh and then licking a light, wet stripe up the sensitive underside of his cock. Will sighs, a sweet and yearning noise. Hannibal thinks yes, let me, but then all of a sudden Will is stumbling back on unsteady legs.
“No, I mean…” he says weakly. His chest is heaving, his cock jutting out from his body. A dispassionate, detached aspect of Hannibal marvels at both the exquisiteness and the needlessness of such painful self-denial, but he barely has time to think about it before he is hauled to his feet.
“Never mind,” Will mutters, biting at his neck and rubbing him through the front of his pants. “I’ll show you.”
Now Will is the one on his knees, popping buttons and pulling at layers of material to get inside as quick as possible. Hannibal shuts his eyes, surrendering to the quick swirl of Will's tongue and the heat of his demanding mouth. Blunt nails scrape at the backs of Hannibal's thighs, and after a few minutes of blissful, ruthless suction he is coming hard and long into Will's open throat.
Will sits back on his heels, his lips twisting as he jerks off at Hannibal’s feet. He is breathtakingly flushed and messy, his lips swollen and wet. He makes a guttural, low noise when he spills over his pumping hand, looking up with defiant eyes. Hannibal gets the message, loud and clear: this is an act of aggression, not one of devotion.
Will is standing up and leaving before Hannibal has time to speak. The buzz of his climax dies away and the spit cools on his skin, an emptiness yawning inside him.
—
Hannibal sits in the living room, adding more detail to his drawing. He works on the ambivalent look on Will’s face, working to capture the complicated emotions behind his eyes.
Will appears from behind him with the soundless grace of a predator. “Can I see?”
Hannibal holds up his sketchpad. “A work in progress,” he says, though it’s clear what he is depicting.
Will examines the page. “I’m surprised you would want to immortalize that moment.”
“All moments have meaning, even the mundane or painful. This one is as much a part of our story as any other.”
Will pauses. “Were you so sure I would come back?”
“No. Still, I hoped.”
“How long would it have been before you stopped hoping?”
Will wanders away into the kitchen, leaving his question hanging. Hannibal is caught between intrigue and resentment, knowing there is never just one thing that explains any of Will’s actions. Other people’s minds are transparent, dully naked things—woefully limited machines that run like clockwork toward only a few possible outcomes. Will is always a challenge, always a riddle, and he would hardly be himself at all were he not a capricious, knotted ball of inconsistencies.
Hannibal puts his pencil down and considers their current stalemate. Access to Will’s skin makes him feel insatiable and intoxicated, vibrant and alive, but he is acutely aware that they have never once shared a bed. Will’s ravenous, bold attitude to physical intimacy looks like acceptance but often feels more like rejection. After the high of brutal passion, Hannibal inevitably finds himself caught in a dive into unnerving loneliness—into the isolation and hollowness of the addict who has over-indulged against his better judgment.
Each time Hannibal pushes boundaries, Will pushes back twice as hard. Hannibal begins to consider, instead, the merits of retreat. He closes his sketchpad, the drawing unfinished.
—
A few days later, Hannibal puts his new approach into practice when Will calls him into the bathroom shortly after having a shower. Nude and glistening, he pulls Hannibal’s hand down to let him feel where he’s already loose and open, slick with lubricant. “Fuck me,” he says, and Hannibal feels nauseated with desire.
He kisses Will softly, with barely parted lips. Will rumbles his impatience, pulling away, and that one little dismissal is the last straw. Hannibal would dearly love to sink deep into Will’s body, to watch their entwined reflections in the mirror, but he has reached the limit of his tolerance for mindless rutting and emotional inequality.
“Some other time, I think,” he says, as polite and formal as he would be when talking to a stranger.
Will makes a barbed comment about age and stamina, but it’s clear his pride is wounded. When he comes back downstairs, he curls up on the armchair opposite Hannibal’s and opens a novel—an indication of a ceasefire. The interlude in the bathroom remains undiscussed. They read quietly and share a bottle of red wine by the fire before going to their separate rooms.
—
At breakfast the next morning, Will has a look of concentration on his face. This particular look always means that he is trying to solve Hannibal like a jigsaw, moving the pieces around.
He studies Hannibal across the table. “Do you ever think about how things could have been?”
“I habitually entertain every possible chain of events,” Hannibal says.
Will rolls his eyes. “I guess I was asking for that. More specifically, do you ever imagine what it would have been like if we had blurred the lines of friendship before I knew what you were? Is that something that appeals to you?”
Hannibal cocks his head, considering. There is a room in his memory palace where that version of Will still lives—a powder keg of naïve, frightened loveliness, vibrating with untapped potential. “I could have found some short-term satisfaction in further exploring your receptivity,” he says eventually. “However, my end goal would have remained the same as it ever was—to see you in your true form.”
“Covered in someone else’s blood, you mean.”
Hannibal smiles fondly and takes a sip of his coffee.
“Sometimes, I just get the feeling you miss how it was,” Will presses. “That you still want me to be… like I was then. Reliant and pliant, looking for your expert guidance.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Because there are means of influence other than violence,” Will says faintly. “Chiyoh taught me that.”
“She was correct, of course.”
Will fidgets with his cutlery even though his plate is empty. “Then you might seek to control me with tenderness just as much as you might with cruelty.”
“And is this why you so often recoil from my touch? Because you are afraid that you would submit to my influence in some further way?”
There’s a loud clang as Will drops his fork onto his plate. “I hardly recoil,” he says, glowering. “I’m covered in bites and bruises, a veritable monument to our prolific sex life. And let me stress right now that submission is not even under consideration.”
“Permit me to rephrase.”
“Go on,” Will says, eyes narrowed.
Hannibal’s feelings are harder to put into words than he imagined. “It’s as though you have no need for me beyond brute physical satisfaction,” he tries. “I find it frustrates me.”
Will looks amused. “You feel used?”
“Yes, I suppose I do. You react to care and gentleness as though personally affronted.”
Will leans back in his chair. “Why do you even try to provide that care, as you call it?”
“Why does anyone need such contact from another living being?” Hannibal asks, deliberately facetious. “People are tactile creatures—the positive effects of affectionate touch are well documented.”
Will sighs. “Enlighten me on why you need it.”
“As I said, I prefer that you show me your authentic self. Yet when we make love, you let me see only one side of who you are,” Hannibal says, feeling a vicious stab of satisfaction as he watches Will wince at the phrasing.
“I fear you’re looking for a side that’s no longer there,” Will says. “And I don’t believe for a second that it’s as simple as you claim You want to take something from me, or you want to make me do something—I know you do.”
“I realize I set a precedent for these types of assumptions, but you overthink my motivations.”
Will snorts. “Is it really possible for one to overthink your motivations?”
“Naturally. And what of your own, for that matter?”
“Don’t do that.”
“How did you reach your conclusions about what I would want?” Hannibal asks. “Has it occurred to you that there is a convenient overlap between what you refuse to allow me and what you worry you may not deserve?"
“I know exactly what I deserve. You saw to that.”
“Will, I-”
Will huffs and shakes his head. His chair screeches as he pushes it back from the table. “Forget it,” he says, and then he’s gone, door banging behind him. Hannibal does not follow him.
—
Days of silence turn into a week. Tense and distant, Will spends most of his time outdoors. Hannibal composes, urgently needing the distraction. His natural impulse to approach Will wars with the intuition that he should wait for Will to come to him.
Two more days pass, hollow and disquieting. Finally, there is a knock at Hannibal’s bedroom door just as he is watching the sunset blaze of pinks and oranges from his window. It is a light tap, repetitive and urgent.
“Yes, Will?”
There is no reply. Hannibal freezes, suddenly realizing what he can smell—it’s cheap and caustic, immediately triggering an aching swell of nostalgia in his solar plexus. When he opens the door, his mental processes stutter to a halt. With tousled curls and dark-rimmed glasses, Will stands in a rumpled plaid shirt that’s unevenly tucked into the type of baggy, ill-fitting slacks he hasn’t worn since his teaching days. There is nothing but vulnerable sincerity in his eyes. For an eerie split second of atypical irrationality, Hannibal almost believes he has stepped back into their past.
Will blinks dolefully, fist clenching and unclenching at his side. “Dr. Lecter,” he says, voice thin and wavering. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Hannibal swallows hard, his throat tight and dry even as an involuntary smile tugs at his lips. He absorbs the totality of Will’s transformation, captivated and destabilized. “Never apologize for coming to me,” he finds himself saying.
“The work, the nightmares, I… I just want to forget,” Will says, stepping forward so that his mouth is hovering mere inches from Hannibal’s.
Hannibal’s lips tingle and he leans in closer, magnetized. “What do you need?” he asks, voice thick.
“I don’t know,” Will pleads, all theatrical innocence and feigned distress. “Help me.”
Hannibal can’t resist. He cups Will’s face with both hands, kissing him deeply. He tastes of the bitter coffee he used to drink before consulting at crime scenes, a perfect detail that explodes in Hannibal’s memory as a burst of recalled infatuation and excitement. He knows this is all terribly tawdry and obvious—a pornographic parody of their earliest interactions—but he is rendered powerless by the longing he feels.
Will makes a little sound of surrender and slumps into Hannibal’s arms, radiating heat. His kisses are hungry and sloppy, broadcasting a lovely imitation of inexperience. For once, he is wholly receptive to Hannibal’s desired pacing, to the gentle hand stroking his side. They kiss for long minutes, melting into it, time slowing to a liquid, languid pace. When Hannibal pulls away, he can’t quite tell if he’s playing Will’s game or losing himself to it—if he’s more aroused by Will’s manipulativeness or by the affected malleability itself.
Curiosity and amusement flashes in Will’s gaze. He is his fully evolved self again, wicked and empowered. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” he murmurs, trailing an index finger down the obviously thickening bulge in Hannibal’s suit pants. “To see me psychologically exposed, begging for you to help me… clay for you to mold.”
Hannibal can’t formulate a response quickly enough to respond.
“Go ahead,” Will says. “Show me.”
A shiver creeps through Hannibal as Will’s expression shifts again entirely, a mask of anguish and guilelessness sliding into place. All derision is gone, his eyes wide. His lips part as Hannibal traces their outline with his thumb.
“Kiss me again,” he says, and Will obligingly tilts his face up. This is a version of him who would never leave Hannibal, would never push him away. Their tongues meet as Will begins to grind against the firmness of Hannibal’s thigh.
“I need this,” he whispers to Hannibal between kisses, his breathing fast and shallow. “Please. You’re the only thing that feels right.”
“Do you want me to help you quieten the noise in your head, Will?” Hannibal asks, voice deliberately low and hypnotic—the voice he once used to accompany flashing lights and drug-assisted brainwashing. “Do you trust me to keep you grounded in the present moment?”
Will nods frantically, dark eyelashes fanning across pink cheeks as he looks away and chews at his lip. Hannibal is so hard it hurts, cock pressing uncomfortably against his zipper.
“Come to bed with me,” he coaxes, and the rapid twitch in Will’s jaw telegraphs the genuine activation of his defenses. Those defenses, in turn, tell Hannibal all he needs to know—that Will, the architect of this power play, has nevertheless fallen under its spell. History repeating itself in the most charming of ways.
“I can’t have you standing in this state,” Hannibal says, reassuringly implying a continuation of their roleplay.
He holds out his hand. After the slightest hesitation, Will takes it. He allows Hannibal to lead them through the doorway and into his bedroom.
—
Hannibal relishes the chance to peel away each layer of clothing, revealing Will’s pale skin inch by inch and admiring the silvery shimmer of his myriad scars. With a soft voice and light touch, Hannibal maneuvers him onto his hands and knees on the bed. He runs his palms up Will’s legs, kneeling behind him. He parts Will’s buttocks and feels a stab of excitement in watching him try to clench at the sudden exposure.
Will jolts as Hannibal leans forward and gently mouths at his hole. “You—”
“Relax,” Hannibal soothes. “I promise I’ll make you feel good.”
He buries his face between Will’s legs and exhales in relief, gluttony surging up in him. His tongues tastes traces of Will’s soap mixed with the sweat of his skin. Will curses, one fist clinging to the sheets that are bunched up in his fingers. Hannibal expertly licks him open, steadily breaching him until he is incoherent and his thighs are quivering, his body greedily pushing back against Hannibal’s mouth in a silent request for more.
“Do you want to come like this?” Hannibal asks, punctuating his question with a long, broad swipe of his tongue. He curls a hand around Will’s cock where it hangs heavy and thick between his legs.
“No, I—fuck, I just want you inside me.”
Hannibal presses a kiss to the dip of Will’s lower back. “Let me see your face.”
Will perceptibly hesitates—this is something he has never permitted. When he turns over, bare and flushed, Hannibal is overcome by affection.
“Open your mouth for me,” he says, two fingers slipping past Will’s reddened lips. He has plenty of lubricant at his bedside, but he wants this first. He indulges the urge to push further than he has to, fascinated by the heat of Will’s mouth and the rub of his taste buds. Will sucks, cheeks hollowing and tongue curling around his mouthful, cock twitching where it lies curved against his stomach.
Hannibal places a pillow underneath Will’s hips, slides one spit-slicked finger inside him and watches his eyelids flicker. When Hannibal uncaps the lubricant and adds a second finger, Will spreads his legs wider and groans. Soon, he is shamelessly writhing against Hannibal’s hand, pleading to be filled. “Show me what it is you want from me,” he urges breathlessly, frantic and feverish, caught in some hazy space between his performance and their reality. “Show me what we could have had.”
We can still have this, Hannibal thinks, but he knows better than to say it out loud. He holds eye contact as he sinks into Will’s body, drinking in the high sound he makes when he arches into Hannibal's thrust. Hannibal pulls out for a moment and waits, cherishing the longing on Will’s face before gliding back in again.
“It feels…” Will whispers. He trails off, throat bobbing as he gulps.
Hannibal kisses his cheek, his forehead, his ear. “I have you, Will,” he breathes. “Just let me have you.”
They find a perfect, deep rhythm and maintain it in rapt silence. Hannibal strokes his right hand through Will’s sweaty hair, fucking him as slowly as he has often wanted to. Even when he gradually increases his speed, Will’s response is nothing like anything he has offered before. Instead of grunts and obscenities, he lets broken moans crack in the back of his throat. Instead of showing bared teeth, he allows Hannibal to see the intensity of the need and fear and ecstasy he feels.
“Ah—touch me,” he gasps, his mouth open and his eyes fluttering in pleasure
His cock is hard and hot in Hannibal’s grip. He pumps his fist once, twice, keeping pace with the movements of their thrusts and thumbing at the leaking head on every upstroke. Will comes almost immediately, a sob wrenched from his chest as his back arches up off the bed. He reaches for Hannibal and pulls him down into a desperate kiss. Right at the edge of his orgasm, Hannibal grabs Will’s hand, silently imploring him to not let go. He squeezes back when their fingers lock together, and Hannibal’s heart is as full as it has ever been.
—
They doze for hours, sweaty and exhausted. It is the middle of the night when Hannibal wakes, and he stares at Will’s sleeping form in the dull room as new pieces of understanding slot into place.
Will’s eyes open. “Creepy,” he mumbles.
“Apparently,” Hannibal says.
Will rolls onto his back and looks at the ceiling. “Sorry,” he says. He pulls the sheet up a little, covering his lower body.
Hannibal chooses his words carefully, conscious that Will could easily run away like a skittish animal. “Why do you feel the need to apologize?”
“I let that all get out of hand. I had a point to prove, and I proved it. I should have left it at that.”
“Is that what you really think?”
“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” Will retorts. “You liked me like that.”
“Not for the reasons you think.”
Will sneaks a sideways look at him. “No?”
“No. May I explain?”
“As if I could ever stop you.”
“It is because I value your strength that I yearn to see your vulnerability as well,” Hannibal says. “To see you at your most open is a gift—one that would be meaningless to me were you fundamentally weak and pliable.”
Will lies still, considering this. “Thank you,” he says, a touch of suspicion in his voice.
“There are several other unhelpful assumptions in your thinking,” Hannibal adds.
“Consider my thanks withdrawn.”
“For one thing, you continue to describe what you just did as trying to prove a point.”
Will purses his lips. “How do you see it?”
“As a repeating pattern in your behavior. You invent palatable stories that allow you to have what you want—fictions that justify your preexisting desires,” Hannibal says. “I am asking you to look past that, to think about the underlying issue.”
“Which is?”
“Why you couldn’t—or perhaps can’t—let yourself be loved without hiding behind a façade.”
Will sits up in bed, hair sticking up in all directions. “You know why,” he says, glaring at Hannibal.
Hannibal perseveres, taking advantage of this limited opportunity for honesty. “I think that in becoming what you are, you feel you have forfeited your right to receive care,” he says. “You presume that idea is a premise in my own reasoning as well, and so you conclude that since you don’t deserve care, I must simply want to manipulate you in new ways.”
“We are both uniquely undeserving of care."
“Still, you want it just the same," Hannibal says.
Will closes his eyes and swallows, the fight draining out of him. “A part of me does.”
“That is why you created a safe way to experience what you crave, stripped of the messiness and shame involved in taking ownership of that craving.”
Will sits quietly, absorbing what he has heard. There is so much more Hannibal could say, but this fragile moment—in all its brittle, frightening authenticity—is enough for now. The sight of Will listening, thinking and feeling is enough for now.
“You mean to say that the threat of imminent death needn’t be a necessary condition for genuine intimacy between us?” Will asks dryly, breaking the tension with a slightly panicked little laugh.
Hannibal reaches out, tentatively touching Will’s arm. “Will you stay here with me tonight?”
Will inhales, his breath shaky. “Not tonight,” he says. “I don’t think I can just yet. But ask me again tomorrow.”
Hannibal smiles.