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The forest is quiet and poised, the liminal seconds before a lightning strike. It’s cold, and Will’s poor circulation, that terrible Omega characteristic, gnaws at his fingers, his exposed toes. Damn Hannibal for meddling, damn him for knowing Tier, this idiot-kid-Alpha-hell-beast in the woods. Randall isn’t innocent, not by any means, but he's caught in this dance of theirs, and Will is so sick of being played with -- of being considered weaker, secondary.
That fury lights him up on the inside, gilding him. Randall wants to hunt an Omega in the woods, huh? Reenact primal savagery, that oldest human tradition — to take him by force, a unsullied, sweet Omega flower really meant to be kidnapped and made into a bride, bringing back the ass-end of history —
Will growls, and it carries. He freezes, and throws himself against a tree — and good thing, too, because Randall rushes past like a devil, like sparked lightning.
He misses Will, and Will grabs him by the ankle, as quick as a gator snatching prey swamp-side and throws him down, his body thudding into the earth. Randall’s head audibly smacks into that stupid fucking cave bear mask, and Will sees a burst of blood sail through the air, black in the moonlight.
You sent this after me, Hannibal? Will snarls, and straddles Tier to hold him down before shattering his nose with a smart and ferocious palm strike.
More blood flies up, lands on his cheek.
Time returns to its slow-state, the cold chill of the forest pre-violence — but for one difference. Will’s appetite surges, primordial — a biological response, he thinks distantly, an evolutionary imperative in their violent, stupid history. Humanity is a conquering race, of the Earth and of other predators, but mostly of each other, and any ancestor insufficiently befanged were slaughtered that those who were. But that academic knowledge doesn’t stop his bloodlust, doesn’t stop the surge in his chest of oceanic, merciless intent, the dilation of his eyes.
He licks the blood off his cheek, and it’s that taste of fire-light, of salt-sea that deranges him, sends him atavistic schizophrenic holy high. He laughs, high-pitched and giddy and insane, feels his teeth in his mouth, and assured of their suitability to the purpose, places them on Tier’s jugular. Tier whines, moans — animal-like, the idiot, asking for mercy now when he’s a conquered thing. Tier forgot the other half of his history, Will thinks, purring, the bit the Alphas never want to talk about: what happens when they don’t quite manage to overcome their would-be brides. Will smiles, and in the back of his mind, unbidden, thanks Hannibal for the gift, for the opportunity to perform his birthright. As the lunatic moon crests overhead, he rips out the unworthy Alpha’s throat with his teeth, and his blood thrums with the well-bred thrill of conquest.
—
It started as a trap — Will and Jack plotting so serenely in the FBI’s castle, behind the palisades. Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Will says, over and over again — it’s the kindling for the fire in his chest, his mantra as he curled around himself, sick and furious in the BSHCI. It took for the Ripper to start killing again, for Will to be unshackled and to stitch together the tattered remnants of his life and dignify, for Jack to start to listen. The fact that Will was freed again on the Ripper’s whims doesn’t escape him — the world, he thinks, then and now, will always take the word of any damn Alpha than of an unmated Omega. He was almost angrier at that than at Hannibal — and he might be angriest at all at Jack’s honeypot idea, for Will to go all sweet and keening to make Hannibal slip up, admit his monstrosities.
But, of course, he can manage to be plenty angry with Hannibal, too.
That gentile Alpha, so bundled-up, so sweet. The secretaries swooned over him — the civil restraint of his scent, his courtesy to the Omega staff, his sophisticated and European sense of equality. Sure, Hannibal still thinks of them all as meat turning on the spit, Will's sure, just like the rest of them, but he at least hides it, an act of will so allegedly superhuman society kowtows to his grace.
And Will knows that — knows that his self-respect and continuing freedom must be fought for tooth and claw — but he’s forgetting, now, the scent of Hannibal everywhere, whirling around his head like eddies of water. Hannibal smells like Lithuania’s peat bogs, his greatest heritage of that lake-land: wet soil, seaweed, rain. It is earthy and dark and resinous, rich enough to get entangled in. Will has to watch his step, lest he sink in.
Randall’s body is in front of Hannibal’s fireplace, a grand and ridiculous thing throwing hot gusts about, warming Will overmuch, past the point of sense. Hannibal is quiet, as contemplative as he’s been since Will showed up with Randall on a tarp in his car trunk. It nags at Will. He wants a response — as a profiler. As a conquerer in his own right.
“Will.” Hannibal intones, and Will hates it, but his whole body stands at attention, like iron fillings reaching heavenward to a magnet. He’s reactive, electric. He’d spark at the touch.
“What do you want us to do with your quarry?” Hannibal starts. He’s so poised. Over-calm. Will wants to shatter that sheet-of-ice facade with an axe.
“You seem so practiced at this kind of disposal.” Will sneers. “Shame not to let you use your skills, since the FBI has denied you opportunities to practice.”
“I’m surprised.” Hannibal breathes, and oh, there he is, as alive as dark water under a frozen-over lake surface. There are planets, Will thinks wildly, that scientists have hypothesized have alien life living, wholly sufficiently, without seeing the sun, under mile-deep ice sheets, warmed only barely by occasional geothermal bursts. A whole world, never emerging for air — and yet, he sees it breach the ice for that first ever kiss of sunlight in the set of Hannibal’s teeth, the ferocity in his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d voluntarily grant me an opportunity to provide for you.”
Before Will’s stint in the BSHCI — before Hannibal put him there — Hannibal had barely acknowledged Will’s dynamic. He would calmly schedule around Will’s heats, fend off Jack’s overreach with the remove of a medical practitioner. It seemed the one point of weakness in Hannibal’s practice — to not dive into the psychosexual gold vein that Will’s dynamic is. Will was grateful for it, at the time.
“I…” Will starts, and Hannibal’s scent rises from its background clamor to a roar. His eyes are fixed and intent on Will, and the world smells of torrential, transformative rain -- of dying things in the earth. He inhales the scent, even as his mind screeches, because Will is not supposed to want him. When Jack suggested this plan, he seemed to think that Will's moral compass was made of more solid stuff, and that he was a sexless creature besides -- a compliment, Will supposes, in its own right -- and that Will could never been interested in Hannibal, since he hadn't been before. And indeed, Will wasn't -- or at least didn't allow himself to be, when Hannibal was just his therapist and his mind was muddled with death's encephalitis reek, the scent of dying foliage, of tombs.
But Will's simple keening hind-brain can't help but be interested -- and much more frighteningly, that clicking clockwork mechanism where his mind lives can't help but consider just what's on offer. A competent Alpha. A grotesquely brilliant one. A repulsive murderer, sadistic, chthonic; a ruined person, who ruins.
"Can I not have changed my mind?" Will murmurs. "Is it so hard to believe that your various charms have won me over?"
Hannibal snorts at that, but still leans in closer to him, his eyes half-lidded. Will leans into it -- as bait, as genuine desire. “You smell…”
“Yeah?” Will whispers. His breathiness is not feigned.
“Like ozone, alchemical thunder.” Hannibal whispers. He opens his mouth like a cat, letting the scent rest on his palate -- savoring it, as one does a bouquet. “Fire, storm, salt sea."
“Not so much a compliment, that.” Will murmurs.
“You make me think of Faustus, bending, reed-like, in temptation — Mephistopheles laughing.” Hannibal says, hoarsely. “I can think of no greater compliment, for your purposes.”
Affection blooms in Will’s chest, and monstrous intent. They’re starting to dovetail dangerously. Perhaps with Hannibal, they always would.
"Give in, then, as Faustus did." Will whispers, heady, exalted. "Alpha."
Hannibal shocks still. Perhaps this isn't a weapon Will should have, because he can feel himself grow wet at the response.
"You are salt-fire vendetta." Hannibal says. His eyes are distant -- self-recrimination, a chanted reminder. It is delightful, to see him overcome. "Don't tease me, Will."
It's almost better, that Hannibal knows this is a trap. Their eyes lock, and Hannibal’s are disks of heat, molten metal gone radiant in the forge. His pupils are massive, his irises the sun’s corona in eclipse.
“Why not?” Will laughs, fickle, fey. Oh, why didn’t he do this sooner — he catches Hannibal’s eye again, and tilts his neck just ever so slightly —
He cackles as Hannibal shoves him against the stone wall, his nose pressed against the glands on Will’s neck. His hands are monstrously strong, and Will knows he couldn’t have overpowered Hannibal in the forest the way he did Tier. “Alpha,” he sings, and Hannibal growls against his throat, primal and heavy, a jungle cat’s heavy furious breath, and Will can’t help but kiss him, reward the purring beast that’s won the battle against Hannibal’s better instincts.
“What you do to me.” Hannibal breathes as he comes up for air, in one moment of lucidity. “What you’ve always done.”
“…Always?” Will pauses.
“Always.” Hannibal exhales. “From the moment we met. You were so clear-sighted, so cruel. I knew better than to want you, but it was beyond me."
“I…” Will hesitates.
Here Hannibal is -- by far the closest thing to a compatible mate Will has ever encountered, beautiful and loyal and shining. And Will would turn that away -- give this creature, resplendent in crimson, to the FBI to dispose of? Let Hannibal be killed by the stupid courts of the masses, or de-sexed in prison by forced sterilization, that warped abacus of a mind left to rust in disrepair? He would let the ice sheet freeze the surface again, punish Hannibal for revealing himself with hideous betrayal?
Hannibal's eyes flicker, and Will realizes -- he's being played, too.
Hannibal falls to his knees, his arms around Will's hips, his head near Will's waist. He inhales deeply, scenting him through the fabric of his pants. Will keens.
"I would worship you." Hannibal breathes.
"You'd treat me like all Alphas treat their Omegas." Will sneers, far too honest, colored by fear. "I'd be a hole to fuck, and any respect you have would wither and die."
"No." Hannibal snarls. "You are resplendent and holy, and I would not reduce you."
"How can I believe you?" Will whispers.
"You killed Randall and brought him to my table." Hannibal murmurs. "You have rejected the lesser beasts of the world, and you are yourself shining with worth, with power. I want to sire your children, sharpen your claws -- publish your work, watch you lay siege to expectation. I would rather die than chain you." He spits, too honest, and Will --
"Well, then." Will says, and, nearly outside of himself, gestures to his body. "Prove it."
"Oh, Will, I -- " Hannibal pants, and then rips Will's clothes off, his belt flying, the buckle to his pants shattered, before laying claim to his dick, his tongue so sinful be. Will whimpers, and then doubles over himself as Hannibal's fingers find him dripping, and begin to fuck him in earnest.
It's not traditional. Oh, it's so not traditional -- Omega anatomy and its capacity for pleasure have always been considered incidental, mistakes on the part of nature. Sex is considered to be a vehicle for reproduction, for Alpha pleasure -- to do anything else than fuck missionary for the conception of children was considered ridiculous, demeaning. For Hannibal to yield here, then -- for the Alpha to have to prove himself --
"Hannibal." Will keens. "Oh, god, Hannibal."
The stimulation of Hannibal's tongue around his penis dances in tandem with his fingers, and the two feelings magnify each other to the point of insanity. It's a struggle to remain standing -- his hands have found Hannibal's shoulders, his silver-tinged hair. With the barest bit of calculation he has left he brushes Hannibal's scent glands on his neck, and the flooding heady earth scent nearly bowls him over entirely.
Hannibal swaps tacks, hands moving to massage his penis and mouth moving to Will's folds. He laps there, buried in Will's curls, and Will nigh-collapses atop him, his weight falling onto Hannibal's shoulders. Hannibal's tongue doesn't penetrate as far as his fingers did, but it's much cleverer, toying with his more sensitive entrance, lingering lovingly as he laps up Will's slick. He's consuming it with as much haste as he can manage, but he's still not getting it all -- Will can feel it dripping down his thighs, onto Hannibal's beautiful living room carpet. He doesn't care. Oh, god, he doesn't --
He comes, his little vestigial cock sputtering in Hannibal's hand, and his pussy spasms in orgasm in Hannibal's mouth. He buries his fist in his mouth, but he still screams with it, and Hannibal fucks him through it, continuing to pleasure him until he's lolling heavy and satisfied.
Hannibal lets him go, and Will slides to the floor in a heap. He's been pleasured boneless, and he looks up at Hannibal, at his mussed hair, at the slick on his cheeks, dripping from his chin.
Will can't help it -- he moves to kiss Hannibal, and Hannibal moans into his mouth, tasting Will's salvia and slick in tandem. Will moves atop him, and he can feel Hannibal's cock beneath him, titanic and unfathomably hard.
"Point proven?" Hannibal whispers, in between kisses. "Will, I would treasure you, just -- "
Don't leave me. Don't turn me in. Kill with me. Never let me go. Will hears, in the space between. And god -- he wants it. He's never quite wanted anything so much.
“I’m not on suppressants.” He whispers.
"I know, you horrible thing." Hannibal murmurs. "You stopped after you left the BSHCI. I've been smelling you for weeks."
"I admire your control." Will smirks. "I think even Jack was having a hard time near me for a bit there."
"You have no idea of your effect on others." Hannibal smiles. "Your scent would linger for days after our sessions. It was all I could do not to throw myself onto the seat cushions after you left."
"Flattering." Will laughs. "But I mentioned it for another reason."
Hannibal stills. It is a statue's grandeur, the sheer momentous volume of the mountaintop: the calcification of intent, of suppressed life-long desire. “I am overcome," He whispers, "with the notion of impregnating you."
It's been the question, all of Will's thirty-five years of life. He never intended to have children -- the trap they are, that hideous evolutionary imperative. And yet -- to bear Hannibal's children, to swell heavy with something that was theirs, to tie himself to this snarling thing, the Chesapeake Ripper, this good Alpha -- he wants it. He has always wanted children, maybe, with the right person, with someone with whom it wouldn't be a prison of his own devising. He wants -- oh, he wants empires and bodies and bones, wants to swell with a brood and sink his teeth into lesser Alpha necks, to conquer and be conquered: to be subjugated, to subjugate.
Will's throat erupts with a purr.
"Oh." Hannibal murmurs. "Oh, really?" His eyes are so dark -- the depths of space, merciless desire. "You would go so far, to bring me in?"
"I'm not sure if I want to bring you in anymore." Will whispers, weakly, and Hannibal smiles, puts his nose to Will's neck and licks his scent gland.
"I love your fickleness, your cruelty." Hannibal whispers, as Will shudders in pleasure, with the desire to be claimed. "You want my child, you terrible thing?"
"Yes," Will keens, past the point of reason. "Oh, god, Hannibal, I --"
"I'll give you what you've asked for, then." Hannibal purrs, cruel. "The FBI's greatest forensic profiler, swollen with my brood."
He scoops Will up in an effortless bridal carry and tongues at his scent gland, leaving Will shuddering with pleasure. His walk to the bedroom feels like the steps to the path to hell -- inexorable, transforming, the world growing dark and shadowy and heady, Will swimming in it.
He lays Will down on sheets the color of the night sky, a deep blue he collapses into. He feels like he's in among the stars, mythic Orion, consecrated, sanctified. He's shaking with it, whimpering in Hannibal's grasp with nameless desire, impossible intent.
"You are so eager." Hannibal breathes. He's standing over Will, the windows to his back. The starlight and the high moon silhouette him, cradle him holy. He's beautiful, worldly, vicious. Will is falling in love, over and over again, each impact striking him like a meteorite.
"You're so desperate to be bound to me?" Hannibal whispers, and he licks his way up Will's still-unclothed thigh, kissing his folds again. It's a shock of impact, an implosion.
"I know what you --" Will gasps, here, as Hannibal begins massaging his dick back to hardness, torturing him again -- "are, Hannibal, I --"
"Have you always wanted the Ripper?" Hannibal purrs. He takes his pants off one-handed, pleasuring Will with the other.
"Yes." Will keens, and it surprises even him. "I wanted to be an equal, to be understood, understand --"
"And you are." Hannibal breathes. "Oh, my darling, you are, you unholy thing --"
And as Hannibal's cock enters him at last, Will feels complete, ascendent, insane.
"I have waited," Hannibal pants, as Will shudders into each thrust, "my whole life for you."
"Your Omega?" Will whispers, weakly.
"An equal," Hannibal breathes. "Myself on the outside, my selfsame desire."
And so has Will, hasn't he? Humans are echoing internal chambers -- language a horrible approximate, a nonsense crumbling bridge from the inside to the out -- and they spend their lives in their own depthless dark, barely understanding the self, never understanding the other. And to have his being, now, thrown into sharp relief, and to see the same prowling thing inside someone else -- it is forever joy, to embrace it. Will has no choice. He never did.
"I love you." He murmurs, and recognizes that it's true, through the pheromone cloud, the pounding deep pleasure of Hannibal leaning over him, filling him utterly.
Hannibal whimpers, and pounds into Will with impossible force, a pleasing numbing insistency. Will rides it -- the rhythm of it, the glorious warm stretch of him, the core-deep fulfillment -- with repeated moans, chanted benedictions.
"Hannibal." He keens, and it echoes in his skull, a mantra. He can think of nothing else -- he wants for nothing. "Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal --"
"Will," Hannibal murmurs, reverential, and he comes, spilling his seed into Will, flooding him with potential and the stars and forever.
In the surge, Will orgasms, too, and Hannibal's knot swells painfully against his walls.
He exhales. Hannibal's skin is beading with sweat, over him -- his little belly, evidence of the years, of his culinary pleasures, nudges Will as they stay folded together, a ridiculous origami construction. Will is on his back, his skinny ribs heaving with the effort, and Hannibal's face is warring -- overt pleasure, joy, shock, fear. Will reaches up to cup his cheek.
"I meant all of it." He whispers.
"Did you?" Hannibal murmurs, with fervor. His hands are on Will's hips, and they're gripping him, almost too tight.
"I want you." Will whispers. "How could I not?"
"You want my child, our forever?" Hannibal whispers. "You will have to leave the FBI. We will have to divert Jack's attentions."
Will can feel Hannibal's seed settling into him, the atomic processes of mating catalyzing inside him. It'll take, he thinks. "None of the rest of the world is worth a damn." He says, and he means it wholly. "And besides," he snorts, "if Jack trusts me as a source after this he should lose his job."
"Your judgement might be compromised." Hannibal smiles, and Will laughs, and he's so sure, suddenly, so optimistic -- so stupid in love.
"I'm still fucking pissed about the BSHCI, by the way." Will murmurs. "You'll be paying for that with interest."
"I don't care." Hannibal kisses him. "We should book plane tickets, go elsewhere -- and you can do whatever you wish."
"Whatever?" Will whispers.
"Whatever." Hannibal smiles, inches from Will's face. "As long as you'll have me."
Will looks at him -- those bright-copper eyes, singing their mating song -- the lines on his face, his ferocity, the heady earthy inescapability of him. He opens his mouth, showcasing his intent, and slowly, as one approaches all predators, sinks his teeth with slow precision into Hannibal's scent gland, marking him.
Hannibal shudders and collapses into him, his head on Will's shoulder, his body nigh-bent in half. He is wracked with the change, the claim -- the fact that he's Will's, now, that that teeth mark will remain embedded in his skin until he dies -- the pattern of his incisors, jewel-like adornments that signify Will's favor. Hannibal will display them like battle scars, like ornaments, Will thinks, and love swells up in him.
"My whole life." Hannibal whispers into this chest, the core of him. "I never thought I would have this much."
Will kisses his hair, and feels the tears well up in his eyes. "I nearly gave you up." He whispers, and the tears bead in earnest now, dripping onto Hannibal's cheek. "I nearly lost this."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Hannibal breathes, suddenly ferocious. "It was an honor, to earn this -- to sway you, as you deserve."
"Randall was a hell of a courting gift." Will says, wryly.
"You deserved a chance to use those teeth of yours." Hannibal murmurs. "The chance to sing unfettered violence, to stop denying yourself. Did it feel good?"
"Impossibly." Will breathes. "I think I might want to do it again."
And again, and again, and again. He thinks, and the Omega in him -- that battle-hungry aspect of him, that den mother and spreading wildfire, purrs. "Bite me." He says, unbidden.
Hannibal snarls, and as his teeth sink into Will's scent gland, it feels like a benediction, like the erasure of sin -- and Will abandons it all: the whole damn world and its intrusions, its hideousness, for this -- him and his, together, together, one conjoined, perfect thing.