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Chapter Text

The doors of the visiting room adjoining Hannibal’s cell bang open. A figure storms through, bathed in wrath and scowling.

“Will.”

Hannibal looks genuinely surprised. His eyes are soft for just a bleed of a second before the serene mask mutes his features.

“Which part of not finding me or not looking for me would this be?”

The curl of Will’s lip is partially hidden behind the paper he slams against the glass.

“The fuck is this.” His anger sucks any questioning lilt from his tone.

Hannibal squints and scans the letter between them.

“A letter,” he says blandly.

“No,” Will says between his teeth, “this.” He jabs his finger at the upper right corner. At the drawing.

Hannibal frowns with a purse of his lips. “That,” he replies, “is a –“

“I know what it is!” Will retorts, pulling the paper away in an ugly crumple. “What the fuck is it doing on your letter?”

The question of why did you even write to me at all goes unsaid, hanging between them like a fine mist.

“I’m afraid I have no idea,” Hannibal tells him, hands clasped neatly behind his back. Will narrows his eyes.

“I highly doubt that, Dr. Lecter.” Will shoves the balled up letter into his pocket, making a note to straighten it later, which is quickly followed by a well of appalment at the thought.

Hannibal tilts his head and looks to the ceiling. “You are correct,” he admits, “I might have some idea.”

“What idea is that?” Will says, packing as much venom into each syllable as he can.

“The orderlies here have a penchant for crudeness. I have opened one or more letter to find its contents already… compromised. It’s entirely possible they defaced my correspondence.”

He turns away from Will and paces the too-small length of his cell. Will swallows down the rush of bile he feels at seeing Hannibal so caged. It doesn’t look right. He finds himself glad that Hannibal’s back is turned at that precise moment, so he cannot see this uncomfortable bloom of sympathy knocking at his chest.

 “You’re saying you had nothing to do with this?”

Hannibal nods his head and Will scoffs. “You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

“Forgiveness was never our suit, Will. However, I will remind you that you have seen my drawings. You know my hand. That,” he waves a disinterested hand towards the paper in Will’s pocket, “is not exactly my style.”

“No,” Will says very carefully, “it isn’t.”

“If you could also please explain to me what I might have to gain by drawing genitalia and sending it to you, I would be obliged.”

Will racks his brain, as he has done several times over since opening the letter. “I don’t know,” he answers, “the best I’ve come up with is ‘to fuck with me.’”

“Will,” Hannibal says, “I think we both know I relinquished that weapon.” He stops pacing in the center of the room and raises both arms to encompass his limited surroundings.

Will lets out a breath. “Okay.” Then, again, quieter, “okay.”

He doesn’t apologize. If he didn’t apologize to Hannibal for having a hand in his incarceration, he’s not going to apologize for accusing him of drawing dicks on his stationary. They stare at each other for a while in pregnant silence. Hannibal’s eyes start to warm, and Will can feel it in his blood.

He should turn away now, not say goodbye, just leave and never think again about Hannibal Lecter and the cage that will slowly collapse in on him. He won’t think about the circles under his eyes that were never there before, or the odd spaces in the lining of his prison jumpsuit from the weight he’s lost. He won’t think about the harsh and angular cot that looks sure to rust within a few years, how it will pain and jar his bones. He won’t think about Hannibal Lecter, dying in this cell with nothing but old read-over books and white walls to watch him go. He’ll walk away now, when there’s still hope for him left.

“Was there anything else you wished to say, Will?”

Except Hannibal Lecter’s voice has always sounded like rich Arabica coffee, with just a hint of cinnamon, and Will has been so, so tired. He slumps his shoulders forward a little, blinks back the regret from his eyes, and looks up.

“How – how have you been?”

Hannibal smiles.

-x-

They talk for another twelve minutes before Alana tersely ushers him out, and Will doesn’t miss the hard glare she casts over her shoulder at Hannibal as they exit.

“Don’t visit him again,” she says, and it’s meant to sound pleading, but she’s too angry and it comes out like a command, which scratches at Will entirely the wrong way.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Bloom,” he says with a twitch of his nose, “I wasn’t aware you were my keeper too.”

Her face softens immediately, and she puts a tender hand on his arm. “Will, I didn’t – it’s for your own good, you know that.”

“Spare me,” he near-spits, “since when have you known shit about my own good.”

It’s needlessly cruel, and she flinches from the sting of it, but there is too much feeling spinning around and hitting hard at his insides right now. He needs air, he needs quiet, he needs to be back in Wolf Trap and away from all this fucking madness. He needs something to settle the rage and guilt and sadness and that other thing he doesn’t name slamming against his ribs.

Whiskey will do.

He drinks himself into a mild stupor and falls into a heavy sleep filled with dreams of linen cloth. Sheets of it draped over him in lush, artful folds as Hannibal sketches him under pale sunlight. Will knows without it being spoken that he is not permitted to look at Hannibal as he works, but he steals a glance anyway and finds himself weighted down by a raw gaze, sharp with hunger. Hannibal licks his lips once, his wrist working in sharp flicks as he pulls the charcoal over the page.

“Look away,” he says, and Will does, the tightness in his stomach turning with him.

The last thing he hears before he wakes is Hannibal’s voice, rumbling and echoing inside him.

“Beautiful.”

The next letter comes eight days later, but Will waits another three days before he opens it. When he does, his fingers tremble.

It’s not a letter at all. It’s a charcoal sketch. One of Hannibal’s.

Slim thighs with a fine dusting of hair, jutting hip bones that point in a vee towards the coarser hair that gathers and curls lower. A thicket of it, nestling a penis that rests, softened, between those slim thighs. An impossibly detailed penis.

Will’s penis.

He doesn’t need to, but he stretches out the waistband of his boxers with a thumb and takes a cursory glance below to confirm that things match up. Of course they do.

He’s not going to march into Hannibal’s cell and demand an explanation this time. He’s not going to give him the satisfaction. He folds the sketch back into its envelope and sets it on the kitchen table, pours himself a sizeable drink.

Then he takes the sketch out again and examines it, bewildered. Hazy memory tells him that Hannibal must have seen him naked on at least two occasions when he changed his clothing unconscious, but the memory alters itself and adds another slide.

Pictured: Hannibal Lecter, sitting at his bedside, Will laying naked and supine, artfully arranged and breathing softly as Hannibal just… stares.

It should disturb him, disgust him even, he should feel violated, and he does, only – he also feels a heady twisting throb between his legs that does not belong there at all.

He picks up the phone.

Hannibal doesn’t even sound surprised.

“Hello, Will.”

“Tell me you didn’t touch me when I was like that.”

He can hear the sudden snap of cold hurt. “Never.” It’s said quickly and insistently, and it’s the first thing Hannibal’s said to him in a long time that he instantly believes.

“It’s still fucking creepy that you did that,” Will says, though there is far too much teasing laced in his voice. Hannibal doesn’t even reply but he can hear the dismissive shrug. Art is in the eye of the beholder, or some shit like that.

“Why did you send me this?”

“Because,” Hannibal replies, “I wanted to show the clear distinction between my skill and that of other… inferior artists. To serve as a clarification, if you will.”

Will rubs at his temple, squeezing his skull between thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t need a clarification, Hannibal.”

“Mm. Perhaps I did.”

“What part of ‘I don’t want to think about you’ don’t you understand?”

Hannibal’s silence echoes like a heartbeat. “You know I have no control over that, Will.”

Will sighs, a heavy exhale that takes away none of the roiling feeling that’s still holding sticky in his gut. “This is really weird, what you did. It’s weird knowing that you know… that.”

“Your naked form?”

“Specifically my dick,” he says needlessly, and bites on his tongue shortly after. The words came out far too low and rough. He can hear the spreading of Hannibal’s smile.

“Would you like me to send you mine?” He pauses before adding, “Even Steven?”

Will’s breath hitches, once. He does not say no.

He hangs up before he can say anything else.

-x-

The picture arrives five days later. He looks at it once, briefly, then sets it in the back of his bedside drawer. The very thought of looking again heats him too-hot too-fast, makes his lungs burn uncomfortably like he’s run a marathon.

He waits a day, then another, and another still, until one morning he can no longer bear it and pulls the drawer nearly off its hinges. The paper sits there, waiting. Will suddenly wishes he had taken a drink first, something to numb the mass yet again uncoiling inside him. Tendrils of things long buried reaching out and stroking gently. He takes the picture in his hand.

It is roughly the same frame as the one of Will: thighs, hips, and that which lies between. Hannibal’s thighs are thicker, the hair there more liberally dispersed. His hipbones don’t stick out as much as Will’s, but they protrude more than they should. Where Will expected the slight swell of a belly, there is only flatness.

Flatness and the shadow of an exceptionally hard cock angled toward it.

Of course Hannibal is fully erect, and proudly so. Will can count on one hand the amount of dicks he’s seen in his life, including his own, but this one is – well, impressive, to say the least. He finds himself swallowing unconsciously and he lets his vision blur for just a moment, just to pull himself back. But then the image regains focus, and he traces with his eyes every fine detail; the curvature of a thick vein that runs along the underside, the foreskin stretched taut and pulled back, the way the head shines slick even in its black-and-white reproduction. One clear bead swells from the tip, forever poised and ready to drip down.

A strange sound echoes from Will’s throat, halfway between a gasp and a moan, far too high in his register for him to know what to do with. A tiny bolt of electricity lights up in his groin and he palms himself sternly through his shorts.

“No,” he says firmly, “we’re not going there.”

His dick twitches mutinously. This is not the reaction he had prepared himself for.

Taking a centering breath that still shakes on the exhale, he folds the paper in half and sets it back in the drawer. Then he flings himself backward onto his bed and digs the heels of his hands hard into his eye sockets.

This needs more than a phone call.

He shows up at the BSHCI two days later, and Alana’s face looks drained and ashen.

“No,” she says quietly when she sees him, but it’s less of a denial and more of a woeful acceptance.

Will raises an appeasing palm. “I just need to tell him to stop, then I’ll be out of your hair and I won’t come back.”

“Yeah,” she replies, her voice hollow. She doesn’t ask ‘stop what’. Her mouth stays in a grim line as she begins the procedure of checking him through. When they get through to Hannibal’s cell he is standing at attention, face inches from the glass. His face doesn’t light up when he sees Will, because it’s already been lit up for several minutes in anticipation.

“I’ll be monitoring this conversation,” Alana says to the both of them.

Hannibal tuts loudly. “What happened to trust, Alana?”

Alana visibly bristles, then turns on her heels. “It’s Dr. Bloom,” she retorts, but the silent ‘fuck you’ is clearly heard by them both.

When the outermost door echoes shut, Will steps closer to the glass.

“Tell me why,” he demands.

“As I told you, Will. Even Steven.”

“Yes, but why… like that.”

Hannibal inclines his head thoughtfully. “It is an accurate depiction of my state when I think of you.”

Will’s eyes widen a fraction. “Since when?”

“Don’t play the fool.”

“I’m really not.”

Hannibal looks at him then, really looks at him, honeyed eyes reaching into the outer reaches of Will’s skull and tugging at the shreds of truth they can find. His mouth parts in humbled surprise.

“Did you really not know?”

“I knew… some things,” Will tells him, “I thought you wanted to destroy me.”

Hannibal draws out his hands from behind his back, and one hovers over the glass between them. “There is a fine line between consumption and destruction. You will find me upon its edge.”

He lets his palm sit there for a moment, watches Will watch it, still as a deer on the verge of startling. Quietly, he takes his hand away and places it by his side. Will looks at him with a new sort of fear, his eyes horribly wet.

“How long?”

Hannibal laughs once and with light solemnity. “Always.”

Will returns the mirthless laugh. “And this is how you choose to tell me?”

“I chose to show you truth.”

Something rattles at a cage Will has buried deep. The soil above it vibrates, disturbed. He lifts his palm to the glass.

“Truth.” Both question and request. Hannibal stares at his hand intently without moving and Will realizes he is memorizing his fingerprints. He presses harder, hopes he leaves an imprint.

“Truth is the only gift I have left for you,” Hannibal says.

“I don’t know if I can call this a gift.” Will releases his hand and wipes at his face with the back of his hand. It comes away damp and he grimaces. Hannibal looks pained.

“I did not mean –“

“Yeah, you did.”

Backing away from the cell, Will shoves his hand in his pockets. The paper there crinkles under his fingertips and it echoes obscenely between them. Hannibal cocks his head once and inhales sharply through his nose.

“Will.” His eyes are glowing. Will says nothing.

“Will,” Hannibal says again, softer now, “would you like me to show you more truth?”

Slowly, Will breathes in, holds it. Their gazes hold and lock.

“You have my address.”

-x-

Will doesn’t check his mailbox for two weeks.

When he finally does, it is jammed so tight he tears a few envelopes digging them out. Panic laces an icy shock through him, but thankfully it’s only junk mail and bank statements. Nestled between the rest of it is one slightly bent envelope addressed in a hauntingly familiar cursive. He opens it immediately.

The picture inside is not what he is expecting, and it sends him instantly to his knees. A broken cry spills out of him before he can clap his hand to his mouth.

On the page before him, Hannibal has sketched the two of them, only to the waist. They are held together in gentle embrace, Will’s hand cupping Hannibal’s shoulder, Hannibal’s hand resting on his lower back. Their heads are tucked together, eyes closed, and their mouths are fitted in an achingly tender kiss. Will can see the tears just under Hannibal’s lashes, the restraint wound through his muscles even as he holds Will tight, for fear he will bruise him once mroe. On Will’s own face he can see the tiny crease of a frown, the bittersweet pain writ there as he accepts this awful love that has wrestled its way forward to the joining of their mouths.

And this, drawn here, is love. There is no other possible way to describe it.

Will picks up the phone.

The line connects with a heavy click, but Hannibal remains silent. They listen to each other breathe.

“This is truth?” Will asks.

Hannibal does not reply.

Will swallows thickly. It echoes like a stone dropped in water.

“Send me another,” he says, and ends the call.

Chapter Text

The next truth comes within the week and this time Will doesn’t wait to open it. The picture inside fills him with warmth, as though sunshine filters through the paper itself.

The two of them sitting together at the dining table of an unknown house, crowded close, knees at right angles to each other and touching. Will's right ankle has slipped forward to nudge gently between Hannibal's legs. Above the table – oak, Will thinks – their hands sit clasped, Will’s right to Hannibal’s left. Between them, half-drunk glasses of dark wine. Will's other hand palms Hannibal's jaw, his thumb is dipped into Hannibal's lower lip and pushing it softly out of shape. Hannibal's free hand encircles Will’s wrist. His head is bowed. He looks peaceful.

Hannibal has drawn it so that they are illuminated by a soft interior glow, but Will can see darkened glass walls behind them. It’s night outside. He wonders where they are. He brings the paper to his nose and imagines it smells like the sea.

Another truth arrives three days later.

It's the same house – Will just knows – but they've removed themselves to a bedroom. The two of them in a beautiful state of dishabille, Will's shirt flung half off his shoulder to reveal lean muscle, a scarred shoulder. Hannibal is naked above the waist, his trousers unbuttoned and hanging loose about his hips. They are together on a foreign bed, soft and dappled in creamy light. Will's hands are threaded tight in Hannibal's hair as he presses his mouth lovingly to the smile on Will's stomach. One tear has burned a path from Hannibal's eye to Will's skin. Will's own face is beatific, accepting of this penitence. His mouth is parted, forming on the edge of Hannibal's name.

The buried-deep creature inside Will begins clawing at the inside of its coffin. Wood splinters.

He makes a call.

"Is this an apology?"

"No."

"What would you call it then?"

"Worship."

Will hangs up. The creature howls and bangs against the lid.

Weeks pass and more pictures come, all from somewhere within this mysterious house.

In the bathroom: Will standing upright in the shower, his form smudged and obscured by frosted glass.

The kitchen: Hannibal cooking them dinner as Will watches lovingly in the foreground.

The living room: Both of them, curled up in a tangle. Will’s head on Hannibal chest, eyes half-lidded as Hannibal cards fingers through his hair.

There is never enough detail to join the rooms together, but Will knows it’s all the same place. This is where they would start a new life together. It exists now, somewhere, waiting.

They do no more than kiss in these pictures, and rarely that. Hannibal instead presents a detailed account of casual intimacy, a life well lived in harmony, something far more shocking to Will’s eye. It’s as though, having presented Will the crown, he shows him now the kingdom, touring him through worn cobblestone streets and further out to rural countryside. Everything here is precious, he says, because it is ours.

But Will still remembers the spark-heat of his reaction on that first illicit image, how surprised he had been with how greatly it pleased him. He wants to explore that feeling more, now that it’s raised its exotic head. He needs to know if that hot thrill came from the shock of the forbidden, or if – a truth he can’t quite own yet – it was a final piece of him snapping into place and completing a circuit, illuminating his dark corners.

He asks Hannibal in their next call.

"Why aren’t these drawings like your first ones?"

Hannibal's smirk is... loud. "Would you prefer something more erotic?"

"I didn't say that."

"No," Hannibal nudges, "but you need only ask."

Will thinks about this. "Maybe something different," he suggests.

The 'something different' is not what he had expected.

Will, doused in blood, all if it shades of murky black, covering him from the roots of his hair to the soles of his shoes. In his hand, a knife. His teeth are bared and feral, made jagged by the blood dripping between each fang, drooling out the edges of his snarl.

Behind him, Hannibal has drawn a shadow. Its spiny fingers curl over Will's waist, a cloudy chin hooked over his shoulder. The shadow holds him like a lover, but it does not touch the knife. Whatever vengeance this is has been dealt by Will’s unimpeded hand. Beneath them lies a body, face turned away. It isn't Hannibal - that much is obvious. The message is clear: it doesn't matter who this was. Will is a God. He will take what he likes and you will be forgotten.

Will throws the paper aside, gasping. He's soaked in sweat and half hard. From deep within, the creature punches through rotted wood and dirt, gnarled fist peeking through the topsoil.

It's time for another visit.

"You need to stop," Will says. He rests his fingers at the edge of one of the breathing holes. Hannibal's eyes fix on the bend of his knuckles. He does not touch.

"Why?”

"It's too much," Will replies honestly, "truth was never meant for us."

Hannibal is still staring at his fingers. "Truth is all I have ever given you, Will. I'm simply divulging the rest of it."

Will turns his head away, swallows hard. "I don't want it." His voice is very small.

He hears the soft rustle of Hannibal's jumpsuit as he moves in closer. His breath is even and calm. "That is not truth." He reaches and touches Will's index finger with just the pad of his thumb.

Hissing through his teeth, Will pulls away, trembling. "I can't want it."

Hannibal nods, looking down at his thumb, a strange and wild yearning uncovering itself on his face. "You wish for me to stop."

"Yes."

"Ask me."

"I did."

Looking up from hooded eyes, Hannibal presses his thumb to his mouth.

"Ask me and mean it."

Will is shaking fully now, the shelves of his mind rattling and knocking things loose, glass tumbling and smashing to the floor.

"St-," he begins, fists curled tight, "I need you to--"

Hannibal waits patiently, hands twisted behind his back. His plasticine veneer swirls a spitfire of rage in Will's stomach and he slams a fist hard over the glass between them.

"Fuck you!" he yells. "Your truth is bullshit, look at you. Even locked away you just want to control me." He smacks the barrier again. "Remember who put you in there, doctor."

A hand snakes through the centermost hole, grabbing the edge of Will's jacket and pulling him flush against the glass. Hannibal's eyes are shards of black mineral, scraping and cold.

"I put myself here, Will. For you. I could free myself of this cage tomorrow and never be heard from again. But you wouldn't want that. You need to know where to look for me. And so I stay."

Will's heart thumps hard and rabbit-fast against the glass. Hannibal's eyes soften, the shadows receding. His grip untwists, but his hand splays over Will's abdomen. The ridged tissue there throbs painfully, and Will's sure that if he looked down he would see it re-open.

"We have marked each other, in our way. Both our scars are permanent." Hannibal steps back, signaling the length of his cage. "But mine is made from stone."

Turning away, he presses a palm to one of the walls. When he speaks again, his words are rough-edged, thick with regret.

"I have no wish to control you,” Hannibal says, "truth is my repentance."

Will holds his hand where Hannibal touched him, feels the ghost of his castigation bleed out over his fingers.

"Hannibal," he says, because he can't say I'm sorry.

The door behind Will swings open and Alana charges through, fierce and blazing.

"Visiting hours are done," she tells them both. Then, a little kinder, "Will, are you okay?"

Scraping a hand over his face, Will nods his head. "Yeah, yeah. He didn't -- I'm fine."

"This is not your concern, Alana," Hannibal says from behind them.

Alana furiously jabs a code into the keypad over Hannibal's cell and his lights cut out, plunging him into blackness.

"Hey!" Will cries.

"Get out of here," Alana snaps, and near-shoves him out the door.

"Don't worry about me," Hannibal calls after him from the dark.

His voice echoes the whole drive home, rustling in the trees and glinting off street lamps. When Will gets home he pours himself two fingers of whiskey and crawls straight into bed, Hannibal’s parting words ringing in his ears.

It's only when he’s halfway to sleep that he realizes he never actually told Hannibal to stop.

He calls the next evening, sat on his bed with the drawings fanned out around him.

"Will." Hannibal purrs, and Will curses quietly to himself. Hannibal always says his name like he’s tasting it, like he could live upon it if he could. It’s unfairly erotic.

He runs his fingers pensively over the closest sheet of paper, a sketch of himself in profile sitting at a piano. "When you said you could free yourself, did you mean it?"

Will turns his head and Hannibal is there facing him, elbow propped against the headboard.

"Of course." He plucks the drawing from Will's hand, examines it with a quirk of his brow and then sets it aside. He reaches out to run a spider-light touch down Will's shoulder.

Will looks up at him cautiously. "Why don't you?" 

Hannibal smiles softly. "That's entirely up to you, dear Will." He curls a lock of Will's hair between his fingers and tugs.

"What." Will coils backward. "Don't say that."

Hannibal releases the curl and tenderly cups his cheek. "A word from you, and I would be by your side tomorrow."

Will shakes his head. "I'm not going to do that."

"Of course not."

Silence thrums nebulous between them. Will can’t seem to look away.

"What would the word be?"

Letting his hand slide away, Hannibal leans their foreheads together. "There will be time for that, should you wish. You're not prepared to make that choice yet."

Will reaches out and curves his hand around the smooth slope of Hannibal’s skull.

"Is it really my choice?"

Hannibal dips his head, nuzzling tentatively into the hollow of Will's throat. "Entirely."

Will's eyes drift closed. "Kiss me."

Hannibal's lips hover over his, brushing once and tripping a spark that ignites an entire network of livewires under Will's skin.

"I will," Hannibal whispers above him, his words humming into Will's mouth. Then he makes an odd mechanical noise and Will opens his eyes in confusion. Hannibal is gone, the line disconnected.

Rolling to his other side, Will curls in on himself, shoving a hand below his waistband. He strokes himself to quiet completion, his climax a whispered name in the dark.

-x-

The next truth comes as a triptych.

First - The two of them, kissing deep and rough, a tongue flashing between their mouths. Will is naked, Hannibal nearly so. Will's hand splays across Hannibal's back, he is frozen mid-writhe as Hannibal reaches between them, stroking Will to eager hardness.

Second - Will is biting into the plush of his lower lip, eyes screwed tight with pleasure, spine arched. One arm tossed behind, bent at the elbow and squeezing the corner of the pillow beneath him. His other hand fisted hard in Hannibal's hair as he ruthlessly sucks Will down. Hannibal is completely nude now, muscles shifting under his skin as he drives Will into a frenzy. His left hand circles the base of Will's cock, his right is two fingers deep as Hannibal stretches him open.

Third - Hannibal atop him, inside him. His head is tucked to softly kiss Will's jaw, one hand stretching Will's arm high above their heads, fingers interlocked. Will's cock is trapped between them, flushed and dripping. His thighs are open wide in supplication, his free hand grabbing at the swell of Hannibal's ass, pulling him in and holding him at the apex of ecstasy. Hannibal's face is half in shadow, but reverence is drawn plain across his features. Will's eyes are bright and limned with tears. He looks holy. 

On the back of the sketch is written:

I will. - H.L.

Spilling out with the paper is a small, compactly typed note.

No more drawings. Phone privileges are next.

Will immediately picks up the phone, a great exhale of relief as he is patched through.

"Alana’s reading your mail."

"I'm aware. Is that all you have to say?"

"I --," Will catches his breath, "it's beautiful."

"Thank you," Hannibal says. "I look forward to bringing it to life."

Warmth pours molten and spreads through Will’s veins.

“I don’t recall giving you a word yet,” he teases.

“You enjoy having this control over me, don’t you?”

“Immensely,” Will admits. He tugs his shirt over his head and pads into his bedroom.

“We have to be careful,” he sighs.

Hannibal hums, considering. “I’m not in the practice of taking orders from Alana Bloom.”

Will snorts. “Take orders from me then.”

“Yes, dear.” Hannibal feigns a put-upon air but affection is braided through it. "Am I permitted to ask a question of my own?"

Will’s still stuck on being called ‘dear’ and how fond and easy it felt. He grins, a little lop-sided and loopy. "Maybe."

"Did you touch yourself when you opened my recent gift?"

Will is momentarily stunned. "I - no."

"Oh." Hannibal doesn't even hide his disappointment.

"I called you right away before I could."

"Oh."

Will settles himself back into his pillows, palming himself through his trousers. "Do you want me to now?"

"You already are."

"Smartass. Talk to me."

"What would you like me to say?"

Will flicks open the button of his pants and reaches inside.

"Just talk. Tell me about the drawing. Tell me anything, just – I want to hear your voice."

"Very well. I take it you liked my gift.”

“Very much.” Will pulls his cock free, licks his palm and fists one slick hand around himself. He bites back a strangled moan and Hannibal clicks his tongue chidingly.

“Don’t hide your sounds from me, Will. I want to hear your pleasure.”

A rosy flush creeps across Will’s cheeks. “Oh God. People are listening.”

Hannibal tuts in agreeable dismay. “Undoubtedly this is being recorded and will be played back to undeserving ears. For now, your voice belongs to me alone.”

“All of me belongs to you.” It’s said without thinking and he hears Hannibal’s broken little gasp.

“Oh.” He sounds positively wondrous. “Darling.”

This is already spiraling rapidly out of control, and Will finds it increasingly difficult to care.

“What you would do to me, if you were here now?”

He rolls to his side on the bed, comes to face Hannibal, who gazes at him with glittering dark eyes.

“I’d make love to you until we were both blinded from it.”

“How?”

Hannibal’s eyes rove slowly downward between Will’s legs. “I would have you in my mouth, heavy in my throat.”

“Nn, yes.” Will moans and feels his dick leak over his fingers. He strokes harder, rubs his thumb over the slit and spreads the wetness he finds.

“I would stretch you with my fingers and tongue. Devotedly lick at the innermost part of you until you were hot and open and ready for me.”

“Oh, God…”

Hannibal stares with hunger, licking his lips.

“Touch yourself, faster, let yourself feel it. Feel me with you.”

“Hannibal,” Will rasps, “Christ, I can’t—“

“I would slide into you, easy and slow, make you so full you’ll think you will burst. And then I’d go deeper.”

“Fuck yes.”

Hannibal stretches out, feline, and lets his fingers trace Will’s rapidly shifting knuckles. He leans in, nosing at Will’s ear, his breath warm and alive.

“I would find myself a place so deep that I can never be cut out.”

“Ah!” Will’s hips buck sharply into his hand. “Please--”

“That’s what you want, Will. Isn’t it? For us to be joined so wholly that it is impossible to see where one ends and another begins. Two heartbeats so completely aligned that they appear to be one.”

Nodding frantically, Will jerks himself faster, sweat lining at his brow as he bites hard enough on his lip to draw out one oozing bead of blood.

Hannibal sucks in air through his teeth. “Yes. Bleed for me, my love.”

He brings his finger to Will’s mouth, smearing the droplet of red away and bringing it to his lips. Eyes hooded, he sucks his finger into his mouth and moans.

Will yells out raggedly as he comes, spurting thick over his fingers and roping white across his chest. Hannibal watches, rapt, and Will looks down to see a spreading wet spot at the front of Hannibal’s jumpsuit. He grins, catlike, thrumming with pleasure deep down to his bones.

“Will,” Hannibal says softly. He strokes the backs of his knuckles over Will’s face. “Say the word.”

Chest heaving, Will blinks quickly. His lips part and he takes a breath.

“Time’s up.” Alana’s voice slices between them. A distant click echoes as Will’s line is disconnected. It is an amputation entirely unprepared for and the loss is felt like a wound. Hannibal gives just the slightest twitch of his nose, tucking his agony safe away.

“You told me you weren’t listening in on my calls.”

“You told me you weren’t manipulating Will Graham,” Alana snips back. “Congratulations, Hannibal. You’ve made liars of both of us.”

“He will try to come see me now. Will you deny him?”

“Gladly.”

“Remember this, Alana,” Hannibal says far too calmly, “remember this when you look up at me in horror and ask me why.”

-x-

Will stares at his phone, sweat beading at his forehead. Hannibal’s voice still echoes luxurious between his temples, but the room surrounding him is cold. He is gone.

He tries to call again, once, twice. They refuse to connect him. The third time he is simply hung up on.

 “No,” he breathes, the rising tide of panic breaching its guards. “No.”

He snatches his car keys from the dresser and runs to the bathroom to wipe himself clean. Splashing water on his face, he takes a quick glance in the mirror to show he hasn’t been completely ruined. The face staring back is grooved deep with a primordial sort of terror. The threat of his mate being torn away from him gnaws at his heart.

This is not the best course of action, nor the wisest. Better to sit still and wait for the calm to come in. Driving there now and demanding to be admitted would be rash and ill-advised.

Will gets into his car.

Alana is waiting at the steps when he gets there, bundled in a wool coat and scarf, her face more severe than he has ever seen.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says before he’s even fully out of the vehicle.

“Fuck you,” he snaps, which was entirely not the plan. Alana just shakes her head.

“Go home, Will.”

Will stands his ground. “You have to let me say goodbye.”

Alana narrows her eyes. “I don’t have to do anything.”

Something breaks within Will, something jagged that pierces, and he falls heavy against the side of his car, sinking to the ground.

“Please,” he rasps. He can hear himself start to cry. Alana reaches out a hand, thinks better of it, and folds her arms close to her chest.

“No,” she whispers.

Tears drip over his nose, into his mouth. It’s ugly, and Alana looks away as Will chokes on a spit-thickened sob.

"Please, Alana."

Alana drops into a crouch and gently touches his knee.

“Oh, Will.” She reaches for him and he flinches. “What has he done to you?”

Hiccupping, vibrating with fearful loss, Will draws his body close to his chest and lets himself empty entirely. Alana sits next to him until he begins to quiet, then, very softly, she speaks.

“Will.” Her voice is steady as an executioner’s hand. “You will never see or speak to Hannibal Lecter ever again.”

Her words echo like the crack of a gun, but Will has been shot twice and it’s never hurt like this. Having his head cut into hurt less. Being stabbed in Hannibal's kitchen hurt less. At least then Hannibal was there to hold him.

He rises to his feet, pain wracking through every joint and hidden place. He refuses to look at Alana, muting her into white noise as he gets into his car and drives away.

He comes home wrung dry and hollow. There is no strength in him left to even cry. He lets the dogs sniff at his fingers as he curls up, lost and unmoored. Stranded on an island of joint making, completely alone.

-x-

Three years pass.

Alana visits once, early on. She brings pound cake, which Will hates. She apologizes for everything except the things she's supposed to. He drinks and sits through her company with a grimace. When she leaves, she offers to stop by again.

"If you ever visit me again," Will says, "I'll tell Freddie Lounds that Hannibal Lecter's jailkeeper used to fuck him."

Tears spring immediately to Alana's eyes and trickle out. Her face jerks backward like she's been slapped. She doesn't say goodbye.

At first, Will waits. Surely their last conversation was enough for Hannibal to extrapolate permission. Surely he isn’t waiting on a word that Will can’t bring him.

He watches the papers as Hannibal is legally declared insane, spared the needle, his life sentence to be served within the grey walls of the BSHCI. Soon, Will thinks, he will make his move. Once the media circus dies down. Except he doesn’t, and that’s when Will has the cold realization that Hannibal will never try to escape. He’s declaring his love.

Having failed every other test to his heart, Hannibal Lecter now waits, patient as Rapunzel in her tower. Except Will has no way to rescue him, no flaxen hair to climb. Just a series of impenetrable walls from which he has been banished.

As Will sees it, he has two choices. He can forget Hannibal, move on with his life, and start afresh somewhere that isn’t steeped in blood. Or he can wait, patient as his mate, for a crack to appear in the wall. Just wide enough for one word to slip through. It could take years, years that will slowly drain him as the loss eats away at his soul. The choice should be simple.

He spends an afternoon staring at his drawings until his eyes burn. He touches each one and realizes he made the choice long before they ever existed.

Will gives his notice to a respectful Jack Crawford, who has been gently hinting at this outcome for weeks. He is given a substantial parting package from the FBI, enough for him to retire outright. It makes sense. They want him quiet and buried. Best to keep him happy.

Will knows he'll never be happy. But the money will keep him and the dogs from starving, at least.

After a year, he makes an abortive attempt at dating with a friendly single mother he meets in a supermarket. It doesn't go well. Two dates and a visit to his home, where she notices the drawings he's carelessly left out. She recognizes who's in them and makes a quick exit for herself, flustered and a little scared. Will kicks himself for leaving them out. After a couple of drinks he admits to himself that he did it on purpose. After a couple more he crawls into bed with the triptych and weeps until he passes out.

His heart begins to harden under an oily lacquered shell. He kicks the creature back into its holdings and boards it up. He moves to Maine, buys a cabin by the lake, brings the dogs, gets a couple more. He settles as best as he can.

And then the headlines start.

Will reads the first one with fascination, the second with disgust. He knows it's only a matter of time before Jack comes calling. He doesn't call first. He knows he'll need to look like he's being dragged kicking and screaming.

Jack shows up at his house three days later, cap between his hands. They exchange pleasantries, Will plays the game of gruff hesitancy for as long as he can, introduces him to the new dogs. Jack asks him if there's anyone in his life. Will laughs.

"I think we both know a man like me is better off alone, Jack." He pauses for carefully judged effect. "The last person that tried to get into my head almost took my skull with it."

Jack swallows hard and stares out over the frozen lake. "I'm sorry, Will."

Will shakes his head. "Don't. You let me go when you could. That's a kindness."

"You know I wouldn't be here if I thought there was any other option."

"I know." He sips his coffee. "Can you let me think about it?"

"Of course. Just -- mind the time. This monster is still out there."

"All I'm asking is to sleep on it."

Jack agrees, leaves the pictures and drives away. Once he's cleared the trees, Will pulls out the already packed suitcase he put in the closet three days ago. He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at his phone all night, doesn't sleep.

He calls Jack at 6 a.m.

"I haven't slept." That, at least, is a truth. "I can't watch this guy destroy another family knowing there's something I can do to stop it."

"Good," Jack replies, "good. I'll see you in Buffalo."

Will examines the crime scene, sees everything he expected to. He gleans all he can, half of it known already, and when he's done he clomps outside to Jack, weariness write large across his face.

"I haven't missed this," he says, and he's being honest. He tells Jack what he knows, scratching the back of his head with more uncertainty than he possesses.

"There's something else I can do. I can wait until I'm driven to it by desperation in the last days before the full moon. Or I could do it now, while it might be of some use."

Jack's face crumples in on itself.

"Will."

"I don't like this any more than you do, Jack." He braces himself, doubles down on his weary, sad-eyed air, and strikes.

"I have to see Hannibal."

Chapter Text

The transport van shakes as it careens down the empty road. Hannibal sits across from Will, caged, straitjacketed, the mask held snug over his face. His eyes speak comfort, but in a language only Will can understand. They’re close enough to touch now. Everything is so close, he can feel the edge of the cliff crumbling underneath his feet.

There is a loud bang and the van shudders to a violent halt, jarring Will’s teeth. He winces. Hannibal sits placidly. After a few minutes, the van doors swing open.

“The fuck is going on?” Will asks tersely.

“Something in the road,” the officer below him replies, “tires blew out. Wheels are shot to shit.”

“What the hell are we supposed to do?”

The officer - Pirelli, his shirt says - scratches the back of his neck. “My instructions were to keep the convoy moving. Can’t let Lecter out of our sight.”

“Alright, so leave the van and transfer Lecter to a squad car.”

Pirelli looks petrified. “Is that… safe?”

“Do we have another fucking choice?” Will puffs himself up as angrily as he can. From behind the mask, Hannibal smirks.

They transfer him without incident to the rear squad car. Will squeezes in the back seat beside him and the first car peels off down the road, lights flashing in front of them. Will watches the markings of the road with careful eyes. After another two and a half miles, he finds what he’s looking for.

“Dr. Lecter,” he says quietly and carefully, “do you remember a conversation we once had about a word?”

He can feel the anticipation ripple through Hannibal beside him.

“I do,” he replies. “To my unfortunate recollection, you never decided upon that word.”

“Yes I did.” Careful not to draw attention, Will slides his hand slowly up Hannibal’s back, fingers resting on the release strap of the mask. Hannibal’s nostrils flare sharply.

“Teacup,” Will says, and pulls the strap.

-x-

Five Weeks Earlier

Three years.

Three years of waiting and aching and suddenly Hannibal Lecter is behind a door again and Will doesn’t think he can remember how to speak. His tongue is lodged in his throat, palms sweaty and shaking against his thighs.

None of this can show. One lick of suspicion that he walks in there with anything more than disdain and he’ll be escorted out of there so quickly his heels will catch fire. Alana, he’s sure, is waiting to hear any word that sounds out of place. Ready to pounce and board Hannibal up in an attic somewhere, pulling him from the slightest hint of escape.

Will can do this. He knows he can. Just walk inside and pretend not to care. Anything to move the first piece on the board.

The door opens and everything almost falls apart.

“Hello, Will.”

Hannibal stands before him, greyer, leaner, his skin sallow. Dark circles cut into the hollows of his eyes, his cheekbones sharp as razors.

Will’s heart rips.

“Dr. Lecter,” he says, formal even as faults rupture inside him. Hannibal squints at him.

“Are we no longer on a first-name basis?”

“I'm more comfortable the less personal we are.” The lies flow like water, like a spring except not half so clear. It all feels filthy to say. “I’m here about Chicago and Buffalo.”

Hannibal nods. “I've read the papers. I can't clip them.”

Then Hannibal does something a little strange. He tilts his head to the side and blinks slowly. He doesn’t do it again, just stares hard at Will. Will blinks slowly in return, puzzled, but then… there.

“They won't let me have scissors, of course.”

Hannibal keeps talking from the other side of the glass, but now they are in Will’s bed, clad in pajama pants and little else, as though this is the end of another long day and they’re just talking shop. Will leans in as Hannibal presses kisses down the slope of his shoulder.

“You want to know how he's choosing them.”

Will nods, caressing Hannibal’s thigh.

“Thought you would have some ideas.” Will is proud at how prickly he still sounds.

From his cell, Hannibal inhales deeply.  “You just came here to look at me. Came to get the old scent again.” In their bedroom, he sucks a wet mark over Will’s throat. “Why don't you just smell yourself?”

Will’s arm curves round behind him, sinking fingers into Hannibal’s hair.

 “I expected more of you, doctor. That routine is old hat.”

Hannibal teases his fingers under Will’s waistband, toying with the soft fuzz trailing further down. “Let me have the file. An hour, and we can discuss it like old times.”

“Thank you,” Will says, and playfully slaps his hand away. Sleepy affection is one thing, getting a spontaneous hard-on in front of the man he must project hatred upon is entirely another.

He slides the file through the document tray, and Hannibal comes unnecessarily close to collect it.

“Family values may have declined over the last century, but we still help our families when we can.” He pulls Will close to his chest and strokes his hair. “You're family, Will.”

Will inhales sharply and steps away, breaking the connection before he blurs the lines further and reciprocates something he isn’t meant to. Hannibal looks at a loss for the briefest of heartbeats, then his serene calm returns.

“An hour,” Will says stiffly, and turns to leave. He physically forces himself not to look back.

Will spends the next hour patching things up with Alana Bloom. He squeezes out tears for a friendship he doesn’t mourn, apologizes for all the words he has no remorse over. She cries a few tears of her own and embraces him, tells him how glad she is to see him, implores him to be careful. He assures her that he’s past being influenced by Hannibal Lecter (a lie), that his only feelings for him now are disgust (a bigger lie), and that he regrets ever corresponding with him all those years ago (the biggest lie of them all). Alana swallows them all down like honey, tells Will about her wife and child, and he nods encouragingly, trying violently to look like he cares.

He returns to Hannibal, who – unsurprisingly - has valuable insight. He shares his theories with Will whilst pressing him into the mattress and lazily licking a path across his neck and chest. He gets to Will’s hipbones and Will has to slap him away again. This is clearly going to become a thing, and he allows himself a moment to appreciate Hannibal’s monumental self-control over his dick. That jumpsuit couldn’t hide a twitch.

When he leaves, he switches off the bedroom light and pulls the covers over them both, though the room dissipates into smoke shortly thereafter. It doesn’t matter. He goes home to his real room and falls asleep with warmth alive in his chest for the first time in three years.

-x-

The plan falls into place fairly easily after that.

Freddie’s pictures of Will leaving the BSHCI draw their target from the shadows. Hannibal’s not-so-secret phone calls cultivate his madness and devotion both, and Will’s public denouncement of the Tooth Fairy in Tattle Crime is the torch to the pyre. Of course, Chilton gets burned to a crisp as collateral, but Will can’t bring himself to care much about that. He pretends offense when Hannibal accuses him of having a hand in it, but secretly he finds himself preening at the praise.

They learn their suspect’s true name: Francis Dolarhyde, though he prefers to be billed as The Great Red Dragon. Will pays a visit to the man’s erstwhile lover in the hospital after he fakes his suicide. She’s a sweet woman, Reba, undeserving of the horrors that have been inflicted on her, and Will finds an odd kinship with her. She’s what he might have been, if he hadn’t decided that loving a monster wasn’t the worst thing in the world after all.

After the dragon resurrects himself it doesn’t take much to convince Jack to let them use Hannibal as bait, especially when he suggests they let one monster simply dispose of another. Alana is far too eager in her insistence on Hannibal’s demise, but her cold thirst for vengeance works in Will’s favour.

The plan is set into motion. A convoy will escort Hannibal from one asylum to the next, the dragon will catch the scent and Will Graham will watch them both burn, a baptism by fire.

Jack expresses token concern, but Will is quick to assuage his fears. It’s a good plan, Will says. There is no way, he insists, that this could possibly go wrong for him.

And in a way, he’s very right.

-x-

“Teacup.”

The mask falls and Hannibal lunges immediately at Will, fixing his teeth into the join of his shoulder. He bites just hard enough to draw blood, a shallow cut that spills a horrific looking mess. The officers in the front seat panic, setting the sirens blaring and immediately pulling to the side of the road. Hannibal keeps himself plastered to Will as they drag him from the car, making it impossible to shoot without injuring them both. They tussle and kick up dirt for a few moments until the front squad car pulls over and the offer two officers scurry out. Will watches from the corner of his eye, bucking underneath Hannibal, counting the seconds as they get closer. Then he rolls to the side, tucking his knees up and preparing to spring.

3… 2… 1…

“Go!” he barks, and launches at the closest officer. He wrestles his gun from him with ease, poor Pirelli’s in too much shock to have expected an attack from the victim. He shoots him in the head, clean and painless, his partner next, then one of the officers nearing them. Hannibal finishes the last of them with a dead officer’s gun.

They shudder heaving breaths in silence. Hannibal’s mask still hangs loose around his neck, smeared red. Will holds a hand over the wound in his shoulder and winces.

“Sorry,” Hannibal says, not meaning it in the fucking slightest.

“Shut up,” Will replies, “come here.”

Then he pulls the mask back up over Hannibal’s face and holds it there, making him taste Will’s blood. He kisses Hannibal through the mask, fierce and firm enough to press the sterile plastic hard against his mouth. Hannibal moans and clutches at his hip.

Will pulls away, tearing the mask with him and letting it fall to the ground. He doesn’t kiss Hannibal again. “Come on,” he says, and leads them to a copse of trees a good half-mile off the road. Hannibal just follows him, wide-eyed, half wondrous and half dazed.

When they get to the clearing, Will pulls a set of keys from his pocket and squeezes a button. Hannibal huffs in surprise as the car chirps.

“You prepared thoroughly for this.”

“Yeah,” Will shrugs, “I only had three years.”

Then it’s Hannibal’s turn to paw at him, and he pulls roughly at Will’s waist to draw them flush together. He noses at Will’s neck and jaw, inhaling deeply.

“Will,” he breathes, amazed.

Will grips at his biceps, tries to steady them both

“We have a lot of lost time to make up for,” he rasps, “but right now we need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Let me worry about that,” Will says, and hops into the driver seat. Hannibal doesn’t move, still a little awestruck, and Will reaches over and pushes open the passenger door.

“Going my way?”

-x-

When they pull into the driveway, Will half-expects Hannibal to start crying.

“How did you find this place?”

“It took years,” Will admits, “and a lot of dead ends. But you drew it. I knew what it was. This was for us – right?”

Hannibal nods carefully, touching Will’s fingers gently over the console.

Will steps out the car, getting Hannibal’s door just because he can.

“We can’t stay too long, of course. But we have a choice.”

“Oh?”

“The Dragon is going to follow us here.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“So. We could leave now.” He meets Hannibal’s eyes with an unabashedly predatory stare. “Or we could hunt.”

“Darling,” Hannibal breathes. It’s the first time he’s used the word to Will’s face and it feels delicious.

“Is that a yes?”

Hannibal grins with a flash of his teeth. “Let’s have a glass of wine.”

The sun sets. They wait. Will finds himself itching to touch Hannibal, finds small snatches of time to do it in. A tug on his cuff here, a hand on his back there. They are both careful not to plunge headfirst into it when a killer is encroaching their outskirts, but the lust-filled expressions Hannibal is sending don’t do much to quell Will’s appetite.

They sit at the dining table, knees touching, half-drunk glasses of wine between them. Hannibal bows his head in a moment of relaxation, and Will reaches out to cup his jaw, pressing his thumb into the swell of Hannibal’s lower lip. It feels entirely familiar. Hannibal lifts a hand to circle Will’s wrist.

“I have ached without you,” he whispers.

Will bends to kiss his forehead. “I’ve been a walking ghost.”

Turning to nuzzle Will’s palm, Hannibal looks endearingly fragile. “We can live now. Can’t we?”

Something flashes in the window in the dark and Hannibal grimaces as the bullet pierces his shoulder. Will shoves him to the floor as the second bullet whizzes over their heads. In the distance, the sound of shattered glass, then the crunch of boots. Will looks down at Hannibal, kisses him once, hard on the mouth, then rolls to his side. There is a great roaring, cracking sound from within Will as the creature re-awakens and bursts forth, dirt streaming from its teeth.

“Hello, Francis,” he says, and charges.

The fight is brutal. Francis nearly catches Will in the face with his knife, but Hannibal deflects it from behind, receiving a nasty blow to the stomach as a result. Will tackles him from the side, landing a decent jab to his solar plexus before he head-butts him with a sickening crunch, breaking his nose. Francis doesn’t even make a sound, just bucks Will off and looms over him, blood dripping from his maw.

They end in the courtyard, circling their target like lions. The killing blow is dealt by them both in unison, Hannibal’s teeth tearing into Francis’s throat, Will’s knife slicing deep into his abdomen. Francis bellows like a felled beast, falling to his knees and tumbling backward as he is released, gouts of blood pumping out of him.

They crawl to each other, panting harsh and heavy. Will lets Hannibal pull him to his feet. Their wounds aren’t terrible, not as extensive as they could have been. Hannibal pets at his face in concern, but Will just shakes his head. Most of the blood isn’t his.

“See?” Will says. “This is what I want for you, Hannibal. For both of us.”

Hannibal is trembling wildly. “It’s beautiful.”

Will rests his head on Hannibal’s chest, lets himself be cradled as his heart rate begins to settle.

“What now?” he hears Hannibal ask.

He wraps his arms around Hannibal’s waist. “Do you trust me?”

He feels Hannibal nod against him. “With my life.”

Will squeezes once, then pulls away, taking Hannibal’s hand in his and lacing their fingers tightly together. They stand over the bluff, the water roaring and churning far below.

Behind them, an ocean of blood spreads across the courtyard.

Before them, an ocean yet to be explored.

Will turns to Hannibal, his heart bursting with a love so fierce not even the sea could swallow it. He takes their joined hands, brings them to his mouth, kisses the back of Hannibal’s.

“Jump.”

Chapter Text

Will wakes to the sound of charcoal gliding on paper.

He turns over his shoulder to greet the welcome sight of Hannibal sketching him, face finely lined with concentration.

Hannibal meets his eyes and smiles. “Look away.”

Will turns back, and in his shift the sheets covering his waist slide a little lower, revealing the smooth jut of his hip. Hannibal makes an approving sound.

“Beautiful,” he says.

Will lets his eyes drift closed, lulled by the rhythmic scratching of Hannibal’s pencil.

“We made it,” he whispers, almost in disbelief. Three years of planning and suddenly everything that was torn from him has been returned. It doesn’t seem real.

“We did,” Hannibal replies, “though in future perhaps you could ask me if there’s a walking path down the cliff before you make your grand symbolic gesture. I’m a little old for cannonballs.”

Will laughs and the sheet slips lower. He doesn’t try to fix it.

“Hey, I got us to the boat, didn’t I?”

“You were a bloody nymph made from seafoam,” Hannibal says. His voice is pitched lower now, warm and roughened by saltwater.  “I was mesmerized.”

“Were you?”

“Mm.”

Will reaches down and pulls the sheet off entirely. “And now? Are you still mesmerized?”

Hannibal doesn’t speak.

“Hannibal?” Will turns to his other side. Hannibal is frozen where he sits, mouth parted. His eyes are blown wide and dark with pupil. The charcoal falls from his numb fingers.

“Hannibal,” Will says, softer now, “come here.”

The paper flutters to the carpet, forgotten for now. Hannibal crosses the small berth in one stride and is atop Will, heart hammering through his ribs and forcing Will’s to syncopate a matching rhythm. Hannibal covers him like a blanket, touching every part of him, but otherwise he remains entirely still. Will’s head is caged between his elbows, their noses brushing with each shaking breath. Hannibal just stares, as though if he blinks for a second all of this will vanish into smoke.

Will knows the feeling.

“I’m here,” he says, reaching to wrap a hand around Hannibal’s neck, “I’m really here.” He pulls Hannibal closer so that his words are painted onto Hannibal’s mouth and cheek. “You’re really here. Both of us. Together.”

A keening, wrecked sort of noise erupts from Hannibal’s chest, and he turns his head to crush their mouths together. It’s more desperation than passion, a frenzied pawing and a clacking of teeth, a rush to feel everything they’d been denied until now.

Will realizes then that, despite the dozens of drawings, despite all the shared visitations in their memory palaces, this is the first time that they have really, truly touched in this way. It’s woefully perfect. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for the sensation of Hannibal’s fingerprints on his skin. He’s sure he’ll scar from that alone.

Hannibal grips Will’s hips and grinds fiercely into him, and Will automatically reciprocates, thighs falling to the side, one calf slinking over Hannibal’s entirely too dressed one.

“Clothes,” he murmurs, “off.”

He shoves at the hem of Hannibal’s shirt, letting his fingers run over the skin of his taut stomach, reaching higher to trace his furred chest, the slope of his shoulder. Hannibal hisses through his teeth and tenses.

“Sorry,” Will says quickly, “forgot. Are you—“

Hannibal tugs his shirt over his head and tosses it carelessly to the ground. It’s about as un-Hannibal a gesture as you can get, and it serves only to highlight his impatience, his desperation to be closer, deeper, now.

“Fine,” he insists, and ducks to kiss Will again.

It’s softer this time, eager and exploratory. Will lets himself be mapped and memorized, Hannibal’s fingers tracing the plush bow of his mouth, running gently over his silky eyelashes, his thumbs gliding over the fragile skin of Will’s eyelids. He lets Hannibal turn his face and lick the sharp line of his jaw, then turn and lick the other. When Hannibal runs Will’s earlobes between his thumb and forefingers, Will suddenly giggles.

“Ticklish, are we?”

Will shakes his head and Hannibal tuts at him. “Truth, Will.”

“Fine,” Will pouts, “ticklish, yes. Explore that later. Kiss me now.”

Hannibal obliges him, sucking Will’s lower lip between his teeth and nibbling gently. Then he cups Will’s cheek and kisses him properly, delving with his tongue to mark all the hidden spaces and claim them as his own. Will moans and rises up from this sheets, lets Hannibal consume the sound. His arms wrap around Hannibal’s neck, mindful now of his shoulder, and he sucks on the velvet-softness of Hannibal’s tongue.

“Years I dreamed of this,” he murmurs when he stops to catch his breath, “and I never – this is--”

“Magnificent.” Hannibal finishes for him, “Exquisite.” He looms over him, reaching between them to take Will’s cock in hand and giving it one long stroke. “Monstrous.”

Will feels his dick fatten and swell under Hannibal’s grip. “Yes.” He wraps his legs tighter around Hannibal’s waist. “Please.”

“Tell me what you want, Will.” Hannibal’s words are hot and wet in his ear.

“You know what I want.”

“Of course I do, darling. But I want you to say it.”

Will jerks his head up to bite at Hannibal’s chin. Hannibal swerves his head and Will’s teeth scrape over his throat instead. Better.

“I want what you drew for me,” Will says, breathless. “I want your mouth. I want your fingers.” He pulls Hannibal’s lips back to his. “Your cock, inside.”

Hannibal groans helplessly and shoves away the tangle of sheets, quickly shucking his pants and spreading himself over Will.

“All of it,” he promises, “you shall have all of it.”

He tweaks one nipple between the pads of his fingers, then the other, dipping his head to nibble and suck at each. Will twists his fingers in Hannibal’s hair and sighs, wordless affirmations tumbling from his lips. Hannibal just keeps biting and sucking, moving across his body and stopping at odder places – the crook of Will’s elbow, the bottom swell of his pectoral, a tiny freckle two inches above his belly button. They’re strange stops to make, until it dawns on Will what Hannibal’s doing.

Of course, he thinks fondly, you’re memorizing.

“You know all of this will be here tomorrow,” Will says, threading promise into his tone. “I’m not going to give you a pop quiz.”

Hannibal just arches a fine eyebrow. “Impatient, are we?”

“I didn’t say that, I just - oh Jesus fuck!”

Because of course Hannibal takes that as a challenge, and has crawled lightning-fast down Will’s belly to suck him deep into his throat. Will scrabbles his hands to the side of Hannibal’s head and tries not to fuck violently upwards. Hannibal just sucks, rolling the bottom of his tongue in waves against Will’s cock, one hand palming his balls underneath.

“Jesus,” Will says again, sweat popping in beads along his brow, “you’re really fucking good at this.”

Hannibal says thank you, or something like it, but it just comes out as a gorgeous vibration against the head of his cock. Will sits up suddenly, holding Hannibal’s head between his legs and crouching over him as though it pains him.

“Hannibal,” he warns, “if you keep doing this I’m going to come, really soon, and God I want this to last.”

Pulling his mouth off with a wet pop, Hannibal looks up at him from beneath damp lashes.

“Oh, darling,” he says, in the tone of one talking to a child who hasn’t quite caught up with the grown-ups, “I will make it last.”

Then he gives Will a hard shove to his stomach, sending him backwards onto the bed, and starts up again.

Will relents, collapsing against the sheets and rocking up into the delicious heat of Hannibal’s mouth. Hannibal hums and moans noisily around him, mouthing at his balls and sucking wet kisses over the base of his cock.

Then he pushes Will’s thighs apart and starts to lick.

Will bucks like he’s been electrocuted, and Hannibal has to hold him down with a firm palm pressed to his abdomen.

“Be still,” Hannibal admonishes, then parts his cheeks and licks deeper.

He had promised this, years ago he’d promised this, but nothing could have prepared Will for the shock of how good it feels. Hannibal makes shameless slurping sounds, little guttural noises of delight as though he’s dining at the finest banquet, and it doesn’t take long at all for Will to just give up, thighs falling open as he lets himself be devoured.

When he feels a fingertip rub at his hole, he spreads his legs even further.

“Good,” he hears from somewhere below, and then the finger presses in just a little, just to watch him open.

Will wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and from a distant faraway place something sensible nudges him.

“Please,” he mutters, “for the love of God please tell me you found the lube.”

Will’s answer is another finger, twice as slick and not from spit, stretching him further.

“How the – how the fuck did you do that?”

He doesn’t expect a reply, doesn’t want one because he’s pretty sure Hannibal will say something awful like a magician never reveals his secrets, so he holds Hannibal’s head firmly between his legs instead, throws one arm above him to claw at the pillow beneath.

Hannibal picks up effort with his fingers, returning his mouth to suckle the head of Will’s cock as he keeps stretching him. Will writhes, lip caught between his teeth and near beside himself with pleasure as Hannibal slips his digits deeper and crooks them, searching. Hannibal seeks further, a little further, and then – there – brushes that most perfect spot and Will nearly bites his lip in two with the effort of straining not to come.

“Now,” he begs, “now, I need you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal is up on his knees in a flash, thumbing away the spit from his mouth and thoroughly slicking his cock. Will reaches for him – more just to feel the real weight of Hannibal’s cock in his hand than to provide any actual help, but Hannibal doesn’t seem to mind, lets Will give him a few more leisurely strokes before he braces himself above Will with one hand, eyes fathomless and dark.

Hannibal looks poised to say something, a declaration perhaps, more than a question, but he seems to think better of it and closes his mouth. Will catches Hannibal’s chin between his fingers.

“No,” he says gently, “truth, now.”

Hannibal swallows thickly and bows his head just a little.

“There was a time I thought I would never see you again,” he admits. “Now that you are here before me, I--” his voice cracks and he blinks twice, eyes shining.

“You are so beautiful, Will.”

Will trembles, pulling Hannibal down to cage him in his arms. Slowly, he reaches between them and guides Hannibal’s cock to his entrance.

“Here I am,” he whispers, “I’ve been waiting.”

Hannibal pushes inside.

Everything is instantly quiet, save the awed soft sounds of their breathing. A single drop of sweat falls from Hannibal’s temple to Will’s cheek, and it echoes like a stone dropped in a cathedral.

“Will,” he gasps. He sounds like he’s drowning, like he’s been drowned and rescued and thrown back into the water again.

Will lays beneath Hannibal, momentarily stunned. It’s as though the world has finally drawn into focus, the colors in their little room suddenly sweeter and sharper. He can see the individual flecks of color at the edge of Hannibal’s irises. They look like precious stones drawn deep from a cavern and he names them; ruby, andalusite, black opal, bloodstone –

“God!”

Will’s voice returns to him and he clings to Hannibal with all of his limbs. Hannibal is inside him. Hannibal is inside him, Hannibal is inside him, so deep that he has affixed himself to every soft place and molded to them. Will can feel him in his lungs, gelatinous and heavy, and he inhales him in, chest expanding to fit the shape of him, to accommodate this new way of breathing. Hannibal is his air, his pulse, the blood in his veins, and Will knows now – he knows – that Hannibal has achieved what he’d stated as his intention those many years ago.

“They’ll never cut you out,” Will hears himself say.

“No,” Hannibal affirms, and begins to move.

It’s a feeling so perfect that it can’t possibly be real, and so reality starts to bend in on itself just to fit them. The places of their joining become clay, fitting and blending together so there is one root between them, one pleasure. Will can feel his cock straining and dripping messy between them, but he can also feel himself inside, feel every nerve ending being scraped raw and hollowed out.

“Can you--” Will asks, “do you feel--”

“Yes,” Hannibal replies, and pushes deeper.

Will’s mouth forms a round, perfect ‘o’, the sound behind it voiceless. He’s so full that he’s certain Hannibal is pushing parts of Will out to make room, then he realizes it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same parts, the same whole.

Hannibal bends to kiss him, lush and ripe. He withdraws slowly, dragging himself against every pleasurable spot, then slides back in. Will moans, tilting his hips to meet every joining, clenching tight just to hear Hannibal make a half-mad sound in answer. It goes on endlessly, perfectly, a garden of delights in which only they exist. Each of them knows, without knowing, each place to touch next, each spot to strike. Their kisses land effortless and sweet, each sigh tuned as part of their symphony.

Their breathing starts to hitch in tandem, and Will isn’t surprised when they come simultaneously. He’s even less surprised to find that he can’t discern whose orgasm belongs to whom. It’s a rich confection of pleasure, seeping sugar-sweet between the two of them and soaking through muscle and bone. They both cry out, and it’s joy and terror both. Will sees stars, not the quaint kind where pinpricks of light burst over his eyelids. He sees inside of great gas giants, white-hot and burning at his retinas, fire sweeping over him and immolating him from within. Hannibal, it seems, sees the same, his hips jerking in swift snaps, head cast far back. Then he topples forward, eyes meeting Will’s completely, and the intensity of the contact sweeps through them so thoroughly that they find themselves coming again, barely on the heels of their last release and somehow twice as powerful.

Finally, spent and wrung out, they half-collapse half-melt into a tangled heap together. Will feels himself clench around Hannibal, growing soft inside him, feels the stickiness between their thighs and chests. The whole room smells sharply of sex, and above him Hannibal inhales deeply. Will just laughs.

“Did you just smell me?”

“Difficult to avoid.”

Will wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

“If I could bottle this as a perfume…” Hannibal says dozily.

“Literally no one would wear that.”

He feels Hannibal shrug. “I would.”

“Liar.”

“Smartass.”

“Darling.”

“Love.”

They stick on that one, don’t explore it further. It’s far too small a word, miniscule in the scale of what they’ve created together, but it will do. Will has a feeling that once a big enough word for what they are comes along they’ll just fall even harder and deeper, until all the words are just too small.

Quietly, he disentangles them to get a wet cloth, wiping them both clean with the delicate touch of a new lover. He dabs the cloth over Hannibal’s face first and doesn’t remark on the tear tracks. He has his own to wipe away. Once they’re both clean he sets the cloth aside and crawls back into bed, opening his arms and letting Hannibal wriggle inside. He nestles like a cat, making contented sounds, and Will smiles wide. It’s simple, and good. Entirely worth the wait.

They lay together in their little cocoon and let the ocean rock them. Soon they will have to chart their course, find safe harbor, start building a new life with bricks of their own making. It will be difficult, sometimes. Sometimes easy. Sometimes violent. On more than one occasion, Will is certain it will be all three. He looks forward to those times.

For now, they rest. Together, as they have earned.

Hannibal nuzzles his face into Will’s chest and Will strokes his fingers through the fine silver strands of his hair. He thinks absently of how he’s looking forward to watching it grow back. Of how he’s looking forward to watching many things grow.

“I have a question,” Will says quietly.

“Yes?”

“That first letter. The one that sent me straight to you. With the… picture.”

“I recall.”

“Was it really an orderly that drew that?”

Hannibal is silent, tracing swirling patterns into Will’s chest and stomach with his fingers. He doesn’t answer right away. After a while he quietly asks, “Does it matter?”

Will takes up Hannibal’s fingers, holds each one to his lips, thinks of how beautiful they look smudged with charcoal. He draws Hannibal tighter into his embrace.

“No,” Will says, and kisses him.

Hannibal smiles. They float on.

-x-

Epilogue

Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane

14^th January, 2015

Dear Will,

It has been a long winter. I find my days here growing tedious and dark - the shadows in my cell stretch their fingers further each week until soon, I am certain, they will swallow me entirely. You can imagine I have little in the way of proper entertainment. It will not come as a surprise to you, then, that I miss our conversations.

I’ve thought of visiting you, often. Is there a place in your memory palace left open for me? A corner with a little light left for me to wander in? You have my word that I would leave the soil undisturbed.

Perhaps not. Perhaps this shall be the last of our correspondence. An ignominious and undignified end. And yet I refuse to believe that my death in your heart will be quiet. Call me a romantic, but I’m quite certain we will see each other again.

Until then, I remain:

Your Obedient Servant,

Hannibal Lecter