Hungry Before We Are Born

eatthebunny (Bey Deckard)

Contents

Untitled

Prologue

1. Rabbit

2. Snake

3. Bloodhound

4. Armadillo

5. Stag

6. Lamb

7. Eagle

8. Mongoose

9. Panther

10. Mouse

11. Goat

12. Phoenix

13. Pony

14. Spider

15. Jackal

16. Lion

17. Cicada

18. Swan (song)

Epilogue

Notes

Hannibal NBC fanfic by eatthebunny

August 28, 2013

Summary

This fic diverges from the show after Season 1, Episode 10: Buffet Froid.

The relationship between Hannibal and Will begins to change. Will struggles with the realization that he is powerfully attracted to his dark and dangerous friend. Hannibal wrestles with his own mounting obsession; manipulating people and events to feed his growing hunger, he plunges Will into a world of dark passions and violent appetites.

A dark romance that’s bleak, emotional, and dirty as fuck.

Enjoy.

This will never end

Cause I want more

More, give me more

Give me more

If I had a heart I could love you

If I had a voice I would sing

After the night when I wake up

I’ll see what tomorrow brings

Crushed and filled with all I found

Underneath and inside

Just to come around

More, give me more, give me more

—If I Had a Heart by Fever Ray

1

Rabbit

Hannibal watched as Will trailed off mid-sentence; Will’s eyes were red as he looked down at his clawed hands, his breathing hoarse. The last word he had uttered still floated in the silence of the doctor’s office:

Insane.

Will looked both lost and weary when he finally raised his head and met Hannibal’s eyes. He dropped his hands down to his knees where he began rubbing the fabric of his jeans with his palms, wiping away something spectral.

“What’s happening to me?”

Hannibal pursed his lips a moment and then leaned forward.

“What do you think is happening to you, Will?” he asked in a low voice, his accent lending a soft sibilance to his words. Will sank back into his chair, coughed into his fist, and then rubbed his eyes, a nervous dance of movements that ended with him pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed tightly.

“I… don’t know. I don’t understand. I know you’re trying to help me, but I don’t know what it is you want me to say. Actually, I don’t know what to say at all anymore. To anyone. I don’t even talk to myself for fear of what I’ll hear myself say…”

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed as he watched Will talk. The substance of his words wasn’t important. Confusion, self-doubt—very normal human emotions. Dull emotions. Hannibal resisted the urge to rise out of his chair and strike him, hold him down and break his bones beneath his hands. This was not what he wanted out of Will. Gone were the heady ups and downs of anger and true fear. Instead, a miasma of despair clung to Will’s shape—grey and greasy and unappealing. Watching the muscles of Will’s jaw bulge beneath dark stubble as he talked, Hannibal contemplated his situation. Will Graham was as close to a friend as he had; he had a certain… fondness for Will, if it could be called that. Whether Will lived or died was an unimportant detail, but there was something there. Something that called to the tiny, jagged wisp that glided over the serene planes of Hannibal’s mind whispering: where is my heart?

No, he would not kill him just yet.

A smell in the air, a little like ozone, brought him back to the words that were pouring out of Will. He nodded and tapped his pen against his temple in a show of listening. Was that the smell of frayed nerves? The scent of someone going avoidably mad? Any minute now there would be tears glistening at the rims of those eyes. Hannibal cleared his throat and interrupted.

“Will, I would like you to come stay at my home tonight. I don’t want you to be alone. Come back with me, and I shall make you something to eat. We can continue our conversation there.” Will heaved a sigh and drew the fingers of both hands through the mess of dark curls atop his head.

“And you may use my shower,” added Hannibal with a tiny smile.

* * *

The rhythmic motion of his hands chopping the scallions was like music for the muscles. Hannibal scooped up what he had cut and set them to quickly sauté in the pan. From the other room came the sound of water hitting the marble wall of the shower; Will had been in there for nearly an hour. Hannibal stirred the whole grain mustard cream sauce, and checked on the applewood smoked bacon-wrapped loin. It was beginning to dry out. Hannibal added the softened scallions to the cream sauce and wiped his hands on his apron before taking it off. He turned down the hall and pressed his hand against the bathroom door, as if he could sense Will’s form behind it.

“Will? Are you all right?” he called through the heavy door. When there was no immediate response, he repeated himself a little louder and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. Steam poured through the opening as he looked towards the glass shower. It was empty. He frowned and peered around the door.

Hannibal wasn’t prepared for the sight of Will standing naked with his forehead pressed against the mirror. A few beads of water were making their silvery way down the sides of Will’s spine and muddling in the fine dark hair above the cleavage of his round buttocks. The sight of the hard counter pressed into Will’s thighs, sharp ebony cutting into flesh, suddenly made Hannibal’s breath catch in his throat. Caught off guard, he missed his chance to back swiftly out of the room. Will straightened and noticed Hannibal, and they both stood silent for a beat.

“I’m sorry,” said Will. “I was just…”

“It doesn’t matter, Will. Are you losing time again?” The pause had restored Hannibal’s veneer. “You were in the shower a very long time. I began to get worried for you.”

At this Will seemed to come to his senses; he reached for the heavy Turkish cotton towel to cover himself.

“I’m ok. I think I’m just hungry and tired.”

Hannibal’s lip curved into a gracious smile.

“I will wait for you in the dining room. Please, take your time.”

Hannibal poured himself a glass of the ‘95 Château La Mission Haut-Brion and breathed in the slightly smoky nose of the pale wine. He felt strange, off-balance. Part of him wanted to tear open the bathroom door and smash Will’s head into the marble tiles. Softly, he exhaled. He was simply rattled and angry about it; realization quickly smoothed out his brow. Interesting that Will could bring these feelings out in him. He looked up as his friend walked through the door and smiled. He gestured to the place setting across the table and waited until Will was seated before pouring him a glass of wine.

“Now we can continue our conversation,” said Hannibal pleasantly, seating himself.

Hannibal watched as Will lifted a forkful of meat to his mouth.

“Did you know that it is not possible to survive eating rabbit alone? The animal is incredibly lean, and the human liver cannot safely metabolize that much pure protein without fat or carbohydrates. The resulting sickness is called ‘Rabbit Starvation’.”

At this Will glanced down at his plate.

“Is this rabbit?” he asked.

Hannibal smiled into his wine glass.

As Will talked, Hannibal’s eyes wandered over his features: fine facial bones and dark blue eyes, the rough stubble that unevenly covered his jawline, the way his long, tapered fingers drummed the surface of the table nervously. He was, for a fact, a very attractive man; the fever in his system infused a healthy glow in his otherwise pale cheeks and put a sparkle in his eye. Hannibal felt the usual small thrill when he watched meat put to mouth, but there was something more at play here. With the wine working in his veins, Hannibal let his mind venture down rarely visited paths.

The physical act of sex was, on the whole, a largely meaningless pursuit in his mind. A few tawdry thrusts to spill seed into another human being. Man or woman, it didn’t matter; neither held his interest for very long. His conquests were too easily won over. He had a certain chimerical magnetism that effortlessly drew lovers to his bed, but apart from a few banal encounters in the last decade, Hannibal had been celibate. It wasn’t that he was asexual—he just preferred the simplicity of his own skilled hands. Sex with another being was just messy; sweat, tears, saliva, and semen held no appeal for him… So close to blood but not.

His passions lay elsewhere.

But why then was he watching a tiny bead of sweat on Will’s upper lip so closely? His throat was suddenly dry, and something deep inside him twisted. He wanted to bend that haggard, lost face back and lick that tiny drop from Will’s lip, feel his tongue scrape over those sharp dark hairs. That’s when Hannibal felt, rather than heard, the echoing silence. Will’s face was full of concern and… what was that? Trepidation?

“Hannibal? Are you ok? You haven’t said a word… you’ve just been staring at me like I’m a T-bone steak…”

Hannibal’s sudden sharp bark of a laugh split the air, and he clapped his hands together.

“Or a rabbit, I suppose? Come, let us have dessert. I’ve prepared something I think you will especially like.” He gathered up his plate in one hand and grabbed Will’s before he could rise. After stacking the plates and cutlery, Hannibal pressed down on Will’s shoulder and squeezed perhaps a little too hard.

“Please, stay here. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

In the kitchen Hannibal stopped to stare at his reflection in the double glass doors. Dark, smooth-lidded eyes stared back at him, deep-set and overshadowed by an almost naked brow. The planes of his face were those of a man carved out of hardwood. His gracefully curved upper lip jutted out over a pouting lower lip. A complicated mouth. A dangerous mouth hiding sharp teeth and dark secrets. He reached up and touched the grey in his ashen hair with the tips of his fingers and then the spidery lines around his eyes. Old. Where had time gone? Thousands of miles, millions of minutes. He frowned. Dangerous eyes to go with his dangerous mouth.

Hannibal chuckled softly and shook himself from his reverie; he backed away from the garden entrance and left the kitchen, carrying the lemon cream and mascarpone mousse crumble into the dining room where Will was frowning at his mobile phone.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, setting down a plate of the delicate dessert in front of his friend. With a careful hand, he placed a dollop of coconut sorbet next to the mousse and turned it slightly before doing the same again for his.

“No. I don’t know. I just haven’t heard from Alana since I asked her to look after the dogs tonight. She said she would check in with me when she got there, but that should have been hours ago.” He frowned and punched out a quick message.

“I’m sure Dr. Bloom is just temporarily occupied.” Hannibal paused and steepled his hands. “Dr. Bloom… Alana. You were saying you had feelings for her, Will?”

His friend looked down at the sweet melting swirls his fork was drawing on the fine bone plate.

“That’s the thing, Hannibal. I’m not sure I have feelings for her or if I’m just craving the normalcy of a relationship with someone that understands me.”

“And… does she understand you, Will? When was the last time you worked this closely with a colleague? Or with anyone, for that matter? Could these feelings be clouding your judgment?” He paused. “I have worked with Dr. Bloom for long enough to understand her strengths and her… shortcomings.”

Will frowned. Hannibal pressed further.

“I do not believe that assumption to be true, Will. I do not believe that Alana can ever truly understand you.”

“Because I’m sick.”

“Because you are special.”

Hannibal winced slightly as Will dropped his fork down with some force and proceeded to laugh. For a moment Hannibal sat just watching him. Will’s laughter turned quickly to shuddering sobs, and Hannibal smoothly rose to the aid of his ailing friend.

* * *

Within the aphotic gloom of his bedroom, Hannibal lay restless against soft dark sheets. He was being honest with himself when he thought of the looming expiration of their relationship. Will was becoming too unstable. Something had to be done. Letting him suffer further and die of the encephalitis he had unknowingly been diagnosed with was one option; but it was too slow and, Hannibal laughed to himself, too cruel. Though while curating Will’s madness had brought him a level of enjoyment, the melancholy was becoming tedious. Hannibal was bored yet uncharacteristically reluctant to end Will’s life himself.

What to do? He idly pulled at his chest hair, lost in thought. He pictured again Will’s naked form in the steam, eyes closed, hair dripping water onto the countertop. He felt his cock twitch and grow hard against his inner thigh before righting itself and coming to a bobbing, uneasy rest on his taught stomach.

Then, there is this, he thought, and stroked his hand down the thick shaft.

* * *

In another room down the hall, Will’s dreams were filled with visions of blood, pain, and faces screaming at him with their eyes. Alana hung limply from the sharp, strange branches of a grey tree on a grey beach. She looked at him with hollowed eyes and mouthed the word danger through bloodied lips before the tree erupted in a shower of sparks and flames. Above the jittering, roaring bonfire rose the dark body of an antlered god. It lifted one ebony arm and pointed to Will with sharp finger.

“Insssssane,” it hissed at him, passing judgment. Will sank to his knees as the roar of a colossal wave drowned out all else. He felt himself being swept up and crushed against the hard body of the god, his arms trapped in its cruel embrace.

“Will! Will, can you hear me?” Hannibal shook the sweat-soaked form in his arms. Moments earlier he had been taunting himself with images of sinking his teeth into the softly rounded buttock of Will Graham when he heard moans and then a scream erupt from the guest room where Will slept. Without a thought, he ran to the other room where he found his friend thrashing in a sweaty frenzy on the bed. He scooped Will up into a sitting position, and his head lolled back, the silvery crescents of his eyes glistened wetly in the light of the full moon outside the window. Hannibal shook him again, and Will gasped a lungful of air, letting out another tearing scream before starting to shudder uncontrollably. Hannibal had a thought: maybe this was the end, maybe Will had reached his conclusion. He held tightly to the jerking body on the bed a moment longer. It was either time to save him or let him die.

“Shit.”

Hannibal walked swiftly down the hall to the bathroom where he kept his pharmaceuticals and grabbed a syringe and the vial of Lorazepam. He paused, hand hovering over his leather scalpel case only a moment before reaching instead for the ibuprofen.

Back in the guest room, Will had gone rigid on the bed. Quickly Hannibal found the vein and pushed the plunger, flushing the drug into Will’s bloodstream. He stroked Will’s hair back from his forehead and felt the heat emanating from him. Then he sat in the dark, watching.

Soon, there was a noticeable softening to Will’s body, and his breathing evened out. Hannibal clucked to himself; it would definitely have been the end this time. What a farce this was.

Will’s eyelids fluttered and opened a sliver.

“Hannibal?”

“Will, you had a seizure. Do you know where you are?”

“In your spare room… I’m… I think I might be sick.” He coughed and tried to sit up. Hannibal shook his head.

“The nausea will pass. We need to get that fever down.” He helped Will sit against the pillows and reached for the half-empty glass of water on the bedside table.

“Please take this.” He placed two pills into Will’s limp hand. Will gulped down the water and swallowed the pills. After a few minutes his grey-blue eyes travelled down Hannibal’s dark form on the bed.

“Hannibal. You’re naked,” Will laughed.

“So I am, Will,” Hannibal chuckled. The gravity of the situation would have to wait until morning. For the time being, Will was alive.

“I feel strange. Sort of dopey. What did you give me?” Will rubbed sleepily at his hair. “I had a nightmare.”

He looked down at the borrowed white t-shirt he was wearing. It was soaked through, and Hannibal could see the smooth planes of Will’s chest through it. Will smiled a little lopsidedly and started pulling at the wet material. Hannibal helped him get the shirt over his head, noticing once more just how lean Will’s body was. The skin on his side was supple and unscarred; it slid easily, thinly caressing the sculpted muscle underneath. The crook between neck and shoulder was deep and inviting; Hannibal resisted the urge to slide his thumb along that fine, slick collarbone.

“Mon lapin,” he murmured. Will frowned for a second, but Hannibal just patted his shoulder and stood. Will rested his head back on the damp pillow, eyelids heavy and his colour already better.

“Sleep, Will. I will see you in the morning.”

Hannibal left the door open a crack and padded back to his own sanctuary. He lay supine against his pillows, thoughts of Will heavy and present in his mind. This was unusual and, honestly, a little disturbing. Hannibal was extremely well versed in his own pathology, his own modus operandi, and this wasn’t part of it. How did the old aphorism go? “This will only end in tears?” or, perhaps in this case, blood.

* * *

Dawn was just colouring the sky when Hannibal was awoken by the light tread of bare feet on the Moroccan rug. He peered through the greyish gloom at the shape of Will Graham standing half-naked and uncertain in his room.

“I just wanted to thank you,” he said to Hannibal, gesturing towards the door behind him, “for everything you’re doing for me. I think you might be the only thing keeping me alive.” He paused and added “I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”

Standing there with one arm across his chest, clasping the elbow of the other, Will seemed younger than he was. Hannibal was sharply interested in this new flavour of vulnerability. Maybe Will was projecting some form of… unconscious yearning. An idea bloomed red in Hannibal’s mind.

“I don’t think you should be standing, Will. In fact I think it’s best if you sat down right here.” He pointed to the side of the bed and swung his legs over the other side, reaching for the silk robe hanging from the door of the teak armoire. Will sat down and averted his eyes while Hannibal slid his arms through the sleeves and tied the belt at his waist. He left the room, coming back moments later with the syringe and vial.

“I think that enough time has passed that I can give you another small dose. It will reduce the chance of another seizure.” Hannibal inserted the tip of the needle into the vial and measured out 2 mg into the body of the syringe. Even another 4 mg was safe, but he wanted Will amenable, not asleep.

The needle slid once again easily into Will’s vein. His sudden exhale was the only sound other than the ticking of the clock in the hallway. Hannibal thumbed down on the cotton ball as he pulled out; Will put two fingers on it, flexed his arm, and sighed.

Hannibal watched in curious silence as Will’s eyes took in his surroundings for the first time. Unlike the calm serenity that graced the rest of Hannibal’s house, his bedroom was a riot of colour and chaos. Even in the hazy, uncertain light of early morning the red walls seemed to pulse. Here hung an array of masks from time immemorial next to some ancient weapon; there, the skull of a large deer hung in an empty gilt frame. The floor was strewn with thick hand-woven carpets; the walls, with elaborate tapestries. Behind Hannibal’s heavy four-poster bed, the Bacchian rites fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries was expertly reproduced along the wall.

“Wow.”

“Do you like it?” Hannibal asked. Will’s eyes moved up to the ceiling where a huge heavy-framed mirror was held at an angle by thick gold chains. His eyebrows shot, up and he quickly looked down at the small cotton lump he was holding.

“I think you can let that go now,” said Hannibal. “You’re going to begin feeling a little light-headed so I suggest you lean back here.” He gestured to one of the pillows propped against the ornate headboard. Will frowned slightly but did as he was told. He peered at some of the carvings on the post closest to him.

“I know this,” he said. “It’s from Dante’s Inferno, right?” He ran his hand over the recumbent body of the titan in chains. Hannibal nodded, his dark eyes on Will’s hand caressing the carved wood. Once again, he was feeling strange and unsure. It was like he was too close to his prey to see the kill. He looked down at the palm of his own hand, larger than Will’s and deeply lined. It would be much easier to just clamp that hand over Will’s neck and simply forget about everything else. It was becoming complicated. The calm in Hannibal’s mind was being pressed into unnatural shapes.

When he looked up, he was met by Will’s characteristic frown, the one he used when he was deciphering a crime scene; reliving each murder had left a permanent mark on Will’s face in the deep creases between those dark brows. As they stared at each other in the wan light, Hannibal clenched his jaw and shifted his shoulders, feeling the strange tightness in his chest race around his back and up to where it squeezed the hair at his nape. His pulse felt fast and light, and his blood was full of crackling electricity. Then suddenly, without a trace of hesitation, Will reached out and cupped the back of Hannibal’s head and drew him forwards. The shock that went through his body when their lips met opened a pit in Hannibal’s stomach. He stiffened and started to pull away, but Will’s other hand came up around his back and pressed into him. Hannibal felt stunned as the younger man’s lips pulled at his own, the tip of his tongue questing for an opening into his dangerous mouth. Before he had a chance to react, Will’s lips relinquished his and hovered mere millimetres away, close enough that Hannibal felt the heat of Will’s whisper.

“This is what you wanted to take from me, wasn’t it?”

Something in his tone made Hannibal push Will away, nearly falling off the bed in the process. Every nerve in his body was sparkling with cold fire, his breath ragged. Danger.

“I’m sorry Will. You took me by surprise. Give me a moment,” he mumbled awkwardly.

Without looking at the bed, he left the room and staggered down the hallway to the kitchen. The travertine countertop was cool against his forearms as he leaned over and placed his face in his hands. He was baffled. Why was reacting this way? He felt foolish and… angry. Angry at himself? Or angry at Will for presuming?

Presuming what? Will was right…

After a few deep breaths he felt his world right itself once more; however, when he looked up and saw that Will had followed him, he tensed. He was standing a few feet away just staring at him with that look; the corners of his mouth were turned down in either disgust or pity and a frown was etched once more on his grim face.

“Drug me and fuck me, right Hannibal?”

In an instant Hannibal had his hands on Will’s slighter frame and smashed him against the double doors of the refrigerator. He felt Will’s body go momentarily limp, and he heard himself growl, his teeth bared in a fierce rictus. Yes… one could starve on rabbit alone, but this was only one meal, after all.

2

Snake

“Hannibal… Hannibal, you’re… huh… hurting me.” Will’s head was twisted up and to the side as his neck was slowly being crushed against the steel door. Only out of the corner of his eye could he see that his therapist’s usually serene face had been taken over by something completely inhuman in its violence. Will struggled against Hannibal’s crushing grip, panic racing through him. He felt the bones in his shoulder and jaw creak and let out a whimper.

“Please! Please, Hannibal! Sssttop… don’t… please!”

The fear in his familiar voice seemed to break through to Hannibal; his grip loosened ever so slightly, and the mask of rage on his face was quickly replaced by a curiously blank expression. That was the moment when Will took his chance and brought his knee up into Hannibal’s groin with a desperate force. The older man immediately released Will and collapsed in a heap on the floor with a grunt, clutching at himself.

“What the fuck, Hannibal?” yelled Will hoarsely. He bent over and wheezed, hand on his throat.

Across the room, Hannibal groaned and raised himself up on one arm. Instead of the anger that Will expected, Hannibal just studied him with dark, impassive eyes. There was something so utterly reptilian and cold in that look that Will involuntarily took a step back. And another. He turned and was about to run down the hall to get his phone when he realized something: his thoughts were incredibly clear. Sure his heart was racing in his chest; but, for the first time in weeks, Will felt like he was completely in control of himself. He felt whole and sane… and extremely pissed off. He walked slowly back to Hannibal who was now sitting on the floor in utter stillness, just watching him. Will balled his fists and, realizing just how innocuous this probably looked wearing just a pair of light blue boxers, stared hard at Hannibal.

Suddenly Hannibal’s face creased into a wide grin, and he began to laugh. And laugh.

Will could see tears of mirth in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes as he roared with laughter, sitting cross-legged on the dark ceramic tile. Will glared a moment at the spectacle and then turned on his heel, stalking out of the room.

“Wait! Will! You misunderstand! Please!” called Hannibal after him, but the amusement in his voice just spurred Will’s retreat.

Will found his pants where he had left them, folded atop a modern little zebrawood footstool. He pressed his back against the closed door as he fished the cellphone out of his pants; he saw right away that there was a message from Alana waiting for him: Sorry, fell asleep. Dogs are fine. Chipped a mug, oops. I’ll buy you a new one. Say hi to H. - A. It must have broken through Hannibal’s Faraday cage of a house sometime in the night. Will noticed that it was now just past 7am. If he managed to get a good signal he could call Alana and tell her…

Tell her what? What the hell had happened just now?

Will heard Hannibal’s footfalls in the hallway and braced himself harder against the door. After only a few moments of strained listening, he heard Hannibal turn and walk away. He let go of the breath he’d been holding and slid down to sit on the floor.

Truthfully, the only times Will felt like himself lately was when he was with Dr. Lecter. Hannibal never seemed rattled, no matter the situation. There was something incredibly soothing about the man; the precise and unhurried movements of his long limbs, the way that he always seemed to be on the verge of a smile, as though privy to some small detail that he would keep until just the right moment. Hannibal always listened without judgment and instead offered alternate scenarios to consider. Most of all, though, was the fact that Will could look Hannibal directly in the eye. He didn’t worry about making too much or too little eye contact; it just came naturally for once. Will had started to think of Hannibal as a touchstone for his sanity, and his well-appointed office as a sanctuary.

Until this morning, that is.

Will thumbed his cell screen on and off a few times and then threw it across the room as hard as he could. He thought about what had happened.

Having just awoken from a blessedly dreamless sleep, it took nearly a full minute before Will could remember where he was. The bed was soft and covered in dark blue sheets, and he slid the material between thumb and forefinger.

Expensive.

He looked around the room, eyes resting for a moment on a framed picture of what looked like a cave painting. It showed the antlered head of a large stag above an uneven line of dots. Memories of last night came back to him. A nightmare. A seizure. Hannibal sitting naked on his bed, a cool hand on Will’s fevered brow. He frowned and gnawed thoughtfully on his lower lip.

Hannibal naked on his bed. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Will couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a naked man outside of the autopsy room or crime scene, and never one who was just so… un-selfconscious. Though details of last night were murky, he could remember how Hannibal’s muscular arms were the same dusky complexion as his face. Will pictured in his mind again the graceful bulge of Hannibal’s shoulder as it sloped to a broad chest covered in curling dark hairs, just going to grey. He felt his own rather smooth chest with one hand and felt child-like in comparison.

Finally Will’s bladder, which had been sending urgent messages since awaking, managed to cut through his daydreaming. He threw back the coverlet and grunted as he got up a little unsteadily on his bare feet. Whatever drug Hannibal had given him last night was on its way out of his system; the mellow, syrupy feeling in his limbs was being quickly replaced by his regular unsustainable tension. Will walked down the hallway and found the bathroom where he relieved himself. Bending to wash his hands and throw water on his face he was suddenly reminded of the previous evening; when he had realized that Hannibal was right there in the room with him, Will had been standing in this very spot. Turning to look at Hannibal, Will had been stunned into inaction by the naked hunger in his friend’s eyes. Will reddened as he thought back to how achingly long he had waited before grabbing his towel.

Distracted by these thoughts, Will turned the wrong way coming out of the bathroom and arrived instead at the threshold of the master bedroom. He could hear even, heavy breathing coming from the other side of the door. Reaching for the handle was completely out of the question… but Will watched as his hand did just that. The door opened noiselessly on a room so out of character with the rest of the house that Will thought for a moment that he had somehow stumbled onto an adjacent apartment; but no, on a bed of chocolate-brown sheets he could see Hannibal’s body sprawled loose-limbed in slumber. He stood there for a moment just watching the rise and fall of Hannibal’s back as he slept soundly, oblivious to the intrusion. There was something so powerful in the man, even in sleep. So… attractive.

Recently, while trying to fall asleep at night, Will had taken to replaying in his mind the conversations he’d had with Hannibal; he felt it was an exercise that could help ground him.

Then, late one night as he was on the cusp of sleep, he’d suddenly found himself thinking of Hannibal… differently.

The first time his thoughts had turned to Hannibal as not friend or therapist but lover, he had cancelled his session the next day. Initially, Will had simply blamed the fantasy on his lack of sexual experience and the mounting stress of work; after all, when he met Hannibal his sex life had reached near non-existence, and the man was exceedingly charming. However, he realized there was more to his attraction when he had found himself starting to retire earlier at night in a sort of nervous anticipation for what his own hands and imagination could coax out of him.

Hiding this secret from Hannibal was becoming harder over time.

What are you doing in his room?

Again he traced the fine curve of Hannibal’s back with his eyes to where it met with the dark sheets. One gracefully muscled leg, so like a dancer’s, peeked out from the covers. Before Will could stop himself, he had taken another step into the room. Hannibal’s brown eyes fluttered open in the soft light.

Will felt sure it was the right moment when Hannibal’s lips met his in this first embrace.

Then, the unthinkable happened: Hannibal tried to pull away. Will grasped at him, drawing him closer, but Hannibal had gone so still it was like holding a statue. All at once Will’s mind screamed out in danger. The syringe… and this cold withdrawal when Will knew, he KNEW he had seen desire in Hannibal’s eyes. Will’s suspicious mind connected the dots in the time it took him to grab a breath and realization slammed down hard on his fearful heart.

Hannibal didn’t want his consent.

This was his design.

Will now sat in the guest room with a sickness in his stomach. His neck ached from where Hannibal’s thumb had pressed so hard into it; he was surely bruised. On top of the shock and anger, Will felt utterly confused. Had he come to the wrong conclusion? Why had Hannibal attacked him? How much did he know about this man who suddenly seemed so dangerous?

The mocking laughter still rankled him.

After a few minutes Will heard the unmistakable sounds of food being prepared. Incredulous, he got to his feet and opened the door a crack. Clinking cutlery and the scent of fresh coffee. He threw on shirt and pants and warily made his way down the corridor to the kitchen. There, wearing a loose unbleached linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a chef’s apron, was Hannibal chopping a large green bell pepper. When Will walked into the room, Hannibal looked up and smiled his usual warm, inviting smile.

“Hello, Will. Please, sit—I’ve prepared a cup of coffee for you.” Hannibal gestured to the butcher block with the end of his cleaver and went back to work reducing the flesh of the pepper to thin green strips.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Will.

Without raising his eyes, Hannibal’s head cocked slightly to the left as his shoulder came up in a small shrug. C’est la vie.

Will shook his head, scrutinizing his would-be rapist for a moment before glancing down at the tapered glass cup that held what he knew to be some damn good coffee.

“We’ve both had a very long night full of… misconceptions, I believe. I thought breakfast would be a good way of finding the energy to discuss them.” Hannibal threw something into the crackling pan and then turned to place some pastries onto a small dish.

Will managed to blurt out “Misconceptions??” before Hannibal silenced him with a sharp noise and raised hand.

“Please, Will. Not yet. Wait until we have eaten a little something.”

Will’s stomach pleaded with him to take the magnanimous route; the eggs and sausage on the stove smelled absolutely delicious.

“Sit.” The word was a command, Hannibal’s eyes momentarily reptilian again. Then he grinned. Will sighed and reached for the cup of coffee before sitting in the old creased leather armchair in the corner of the kitchen. There was something different about Hannibal this morning. His motions, though still exact, had lost some of their stiffness; it was as if he was moving with less restraint. His hair was elegantly dishevelled, and his handsome face crinkled in an easy smile as he commented on the dish he was making. The man was effortlessly charming and affable for someone who had tried to kill him in this room less than an hour ago; he was positively brimming with good nature. Will sat back in his chair and, taking a sip of coffee, narrowed his eyes at Hannibal.

They sat facing each other in the dining room. The air was redolent of herbs: mint, sage, cilantro, lemon thyme, Thai basil. Will’s eyes wandered over the shelves behind Hannibal.

“How do they keep growing evenly like that?” he asked, momentarily forgetting that he was angry. The lorazepam in his system made him feel a little tipsy now that the adrenaline was petering out.

“It’s in the way that the shelves are built; each level is a little deeper than the one above, much like tiered theatre seating. That way they all get the appropriate amount of light.” Hannibal smiled and pulled a piece of sausage off his fork with his teeth. “Do you like it?” He asked.

Will clenched his jaw. “It’s… nice.” He breathed out. “Hannibal, why are we sitting here just chatting? I want to know why you attacked me.”

“It was you who attacked me. I was merely defending myself,” said Hannibal matter-of-factly, breaking off a piece of brioche.

“From what? My accusations? From my… my advances?” His colour rose. “What are you talking about?”

Hannibal paused with the brioche halfway to his mouth.

“Do you not remember coming at me with a knife?” he asked, eyebrows high with surprise.

Will’s world took a swift dive.

Knife?

“What knife?”

“It was a paring knife. Thankfully, it’s one I barely use, therefore the blade had not been sharpened of late.” Hannibal undid a shirt button and pulled it aside, revealing a small square of gauze taped to his shoulder. “It’s barely more than a scratch.”

“That’s bullshit, Hannibal. There was no knife. There would be blood somewhere on me. I… would remember it.”

“Would you?” asked Hannibal softly.

Will pushed his chair back from the table, suddenly nauseous. His mind flew quickly over this morning, desperately trying to insert a knife into the details. Nothing. But Hannibal was not wrong: would Will actually remember it?

(Insssaane, growls the antlered god with a glint in its eye.)

“Shall I take the bandage off, Will? To prove to you that I am, in fact, injured?”

Will grabbed the sides of his head and let out a low moan but waved Hannibal away when he started to rise.

“I’m ok,” he mumbled. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I believe you. I’m sorry, Hannibal.”

Hannibal made a clucking sound with his tongue. “You were under the impression that I intended you some form of harm. In your agitated state, I would have probably attempted the same.”

Will cracked his eyes open. Hannibal was frowning into his coffee cup. After a moment his brow smoothed out, and he looked appraisingly at Will.

“I also apologize for hurting you,” he gestured to the visible bruises on Will’s neck. “I sometimes have difficulty with… anger.” He smiled.

Will felt a little dizzy. His thoughts were scattered, and something kept tugging at the edges of his mind. Something…

“Now. I would like to discuss our kiss,” Hannibal said plainly, taking a sip of coffee.

Waves of shame and embarrassment crashed over Will; suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room to fill his lungs. Hannibal watched him a moment before continuing.

“It was completely unethical of me to let our relationship get to the point where physicality could enter into the equation,” said the older man quietly.

The waves threatened to swallow Will completely as he stared miserably at the black glass chandelier.

“However, as you know, I am prone to unconventionalities.” Hannibal smiled wryly. “I like you, Will. I think I unintentionally made my desires known to you; but, knowing now that you feel desires also…” Hannibal shrugged. “Is it such a bad thing? Could our conversations be enhanced by this new element?” He sat back in his chair and toyed with the corner of his napkin, watching Will absorb his words.

Will did everything he could not to openly gape at Hannibal.

They sat in silence, the air getting uncomfortably thick for Will. After staggering to his feet, he quickly walked the length of the room and stood at the patio doors. Was he looking for escape? He heard the scrape of a chair leg on hardwood and tensed, but Will didn’t hear Hannibal get up.

“I don’t mean right now, Will. And especially not in the way that you accused me of this morning.” Will heard a soft chuckle. “We will do as you would like, at your pace. And I will try not to be so… startled the next time. I will simply say this: I desire you very much, Will Graham.” Hannibal paused for a long moment. “Have I made matters worse?”

Will gulped a breath of air and shook his head. The full weight of Hannibal’s confession pressed down on his already fragile state of emotions, threatening to topple everything. He glanced over his shoulder to where Hannibal sat with legs planted and arms loosely crossed. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to sink to his knees in front of his friend and weep again, but it passed quickly, leaving Will feeling jittery, nervous, and tense. He dragged a hand up over his eyes and roughed his hair up into untidy curls.

“I just… want to go home,” he said abjectly. “I’m sorry. This is too much for me right now.”

Hannibal’s lips pressed together but he simply nodded and watched silently as Will left the room.

* * *

Hannibal listened to Will pull together his belongings and leave through the front door. With his thumbnail, he curled up the edge of the tape on his shoulder and peeled away the gauze, leaving behind only a smooth expanse of undamaged skin.

3

Bloodhound

Will played Hannibal’s words over and over in his mind for the hour it took him to drive home to his little farmhouse. By the time he arrived, he was completely exhausted. He opened the front door and was nearly barrelled over by his pack of strays, the dogs all vying for his attention. He smiled in spite of the day so far; dogs were so simple in their affections. He left the door open, heedless of the mosquitoes, and put out bowls of dog food before stripping himself down to boxers once more and collapsing on his bed.

He was asleep almost instantly.

Hannibal had him pinned to the fridge door; he felt the cold metal once again on his bare back. Will scratched and pulled in desperation at the hand Hannibal had around his throat. He saw that instead of fury, a gentle, almost curious look was on Hannibal’s face. He brought up his leg to try to dislodge his assailant but only managed to wrap it high around Hannibal’s hips. As Will struggled, realization dawned on him that he was completely naked.

Will looked down and was mortified to see he was fully erect; he tried to hide the fact by bringing up his other leg, but somehow that only made things worse. Now he was hanging by his neck with both legs wrapped around Hannibal, his naked cock standing straight up between them. Will knew that Hannibal was going to kill him; blood had started oozing from his neck where it was punctured by Hannibal’s sharp fingers. He felt terrified and helpless as Hannibal leaned in closer to him; but, as the blood began running down his body, he found he was more aroused than ever. His erection began throbbing in time to the spurts of crimson now gushing all over the both of them. The blood was red and shiny on Hannibal’s stomach and, despite himself, Will began arching his back to try to rub the head of his cock in that slippery mess. Will felt his life draining out of him even as he thrust his hips wantonly against Hannibal, but, maddeningly, he couldn’t quite make contact. He whimpered, aching with equal parts shame and desire.

“Just like that, Will,” Hannibal whispered and pressed up against him. “Good boy.” Finally, his cock slid against Hannibal’s slick wet stomach. And again. The relief was almost too much to bear… then Hannibal started whispering wickedly scandalous things in his ear, and Will felt himself cum explosively in response; his cock pumped and twitched against Hannibal’s skin as Will’s eyes closed for the last time.

Will blearily opened his eyes to the midday sun streaming in through the windows of his house. He heard someone rummaging around in the kitchen and raised his head in alarm.

“Hello?” he called. The dogs hadn’t woken him with their barking so it had to be someone he knew. He started to lift himself up when he realized what the sticky mess underneath him was.

Alana came out of the kitchen.

“Knock knock. Sorry to intrude—your door was wide open so I let myself in, I hope you don’t mind.”

Will dropped quickly back down on his stomach. If only he had a sheet covering him.

“Will? Are you alright?” asked Alana as she crossed the room and came to his bedside.

“I’m fine.” Will’s voice was muffled by the pillow. He was utterly paralyzed with embarrassment and the knowledge that he was trapped like this until she left the room. “I’m just… tired.” He had been saying that for so long that it was beginning to feel like his calling card: Hello. I’m Will Graham and I’m perpetually tired. Pleased to meet you.

“Will, it’s almost one in the afternoon! I was worried when you never replied to my text, but since you’re… well… you, I tried not to overthink it. I’m only here because you were on my way.” She sighed. “And, I’d really like it if you were looking at me while I talked to you.”

Will turned his head on the pillow and twisted until he could see her. Unfortunately, it also meant that she could now see the bruises on the side of his neck as well as the single round bruise, a fingermark, on the side of his jaw. She gasped and sat on the bed, leaning in for a closer look as Will scrabbled mentally for something to distract her with.

“Oh my god! What the hell happened?” She touched the side of his face. Will cringed involuntarily. He couldn’t help but think that things were going to get that much more complicated with Alana now.

“It’s nothing. Really. I… fell.” He groaned inwardly. He was just no good under pressure.

Alana’s dark brows came down over her clear blue eyes.

“You fell, huh? I don’t buy it. You look like you’ve been in a fight. Did someone mug you?”

Will grasped at that shining, fragile straw.

“Yes! Mugged. Last night when I stopped for gas. Took my wallet… and my phone,” he added for good measure. “You caught me. This is why you’re the psychologist and I’m not.” He sounded like a complete idiot but couldn’t stop his mouth. Alana frowned again, obviously not believing a word. Tactfully, she decided not to press him.

“Will Graham, you’re a mess. I think you should see a doctor.” She paused in thought, then stood. “Let me go get my phone from the car. I think I can get you in today with a friend who works at the PET/CT Center at Georgetown.”

“You want me to get a brain scan?? Isn’t that a little overkill?”

“Well, you’re pretty banged up. There’s no telling what other damage there is. Besides, Hannibal was just telling me this morning that he didn’t trust Dr. Sutcliffe’s test results…”

Will felt a sudden queasiness.

“You talked to Hannibal this morning?” he asked, but Alana was already leaving through the front door when he called after her.

He launched himself out of bed, twitched the comforter over the… stain… on his bare sheets (oh god), grabbed a clean pair of boxers with one hand and his jeans in the other before stumbling to the bathroom. Only once the door was closed did he feel he could take a full breath. He cleaned up, got dressed, and quickly ran a toothbrush through his mouth. Alana was right, he thought, examining himself in the mirror. The bruising was pretty horrific.

(I sometimes have difficulty with… anger.)

He opened the door to find Alana straightening his bed; he hastily ran to her side.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”

He looked back at the bed before he closed the door and followed her out to her car.

Time spent with Alana was so maddeningly awkward. Will had more than enough sense left in him to know that she wasn’t going to wait forever for him to… what? Pull himself together? Did he even want her to wait? What she wanted from him was to be normal, but normal he wasn’t. He was, as Hannibal so succinctly put it, “special.”

Get a grip, Graham.

“What was that?” asked Alana, taking her eyes off the road for a minute. Will was sitting hunched in the front seat of her hybrid with hands clenched between his knees. His forehead was deeply creased over tired, hollow eyes that stared straight ahead seeing nothing. Alana’s question caught him off guard. He frowned and focused on her profile.

“What? Nothing. Sorry.” He looked away and out his window. Will inhaled and held it a few seconds before he repeated the question that was rattling around in his head, making his pulse erratic.

“So… you spoke to Hannibal this morning?” His voice sounded high and unnatural to him.

“He called me right after you left his house this morning. We have a ‘date’ later this evening.” She said this last with wry amusement.

“And you two talk about me?”

“About your health, Will, yes.”

“There’s ‘health’ in the mental sense…”

“What?”

“Mental health?”

“Oh.” She laughed, her pretty eyes crinkling up as she looked him with a smile. “Your secrets are safe from me, Will Graham. Besides, I’d rather learn them from you.” Her face became serious, and she looked back to the road. After a few beats Alana continued.

“However, Hannibal did tell me about the seizure. He said it very mild but that he had also observed what he believes are micro seizures over the course of the evening. Unusual pauses, etc. I guess it’s serendipitous that you got injured in your… ‘mugging’, right? Charlie said he can squeeze in a CT this afternoon. Aren’t I a good friend?” she said playfully. “Now sit back and relax, be a good boy. We’re almost there.”

(Good boy.)

Will sighed and smiled at her, a little thin-lipped.

“Charlie” turned out to be not a tech like Will expected, but Dr. Charles R. Lundqvist, head of the Diagnostic Imaging Department at Georgetown University Hospital. It was obvious by their body language that Alana and Dr. Lundqvist had some past history that went beyond professional association. Will fidgeted uncomfortably on the cold metal stool, trying to see over their shoulders at the scans of his brain. With a pen, Dr. Lundqvist was gesturing to one side of the screen.

“…and here you can see that there is significant inflammation.” He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his thick silver mane.

Dr. Lundqvist frowned at Will.

“Have you ever tested positive for herpes or syphilis?”

Will’s eyes darted to Alana. His face felt hot.

“Um. No.”

“Ever had West Nile? Malaria? Lime disease?”

“No.”

“Have you been on antibiotics in the last, say… 6 months?”

“Yes. I had a sinus infection. About 4 months ago.” Will impatiently picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his plaid shirt.

Dr. Lundqvist nodded and turned back to Dr. Bloom.

“Then I’d venture that it’s a mycoplasma infection causing the encephalitis^1. Left untreated it could be fatal… Well, like any infection, really; thankfully, I think we caught it in plenty of time. We’ll start Will on a tetracycline shot this afternoon. If he gets better, then we’ll know I’m right.” He leaned back in his chair and smoothed his hair again, peering over his glasses at Will.

“What I don’t get is why this wasn’t spotted at your MRI.”

* * *

He entered the empty house and strode between the whining, furry bodies of Will’s canine family.

“Shhhh,” he said, holding his hand up. All but one of the dogs, Will’s newest, sat immediately at attention. Despite not sharing Will’s appreciation for captive pets, he admired how predisposed they were to pleasing him. There was something comforting in the way they tilted their heads and looked up at him with liquid dark eyes.

“Yes, yes. I have brought you all a snack.” He reached into the brown paper bag he was carrying, pulled out the choice cuts of meat, and dropped them unceremoniously on the ground. The brown shaggy dog Will had picked up on a back road nearby just walked over to a dog bed, turned three times, and lay down, watching Hannibal warily.

Hannibal took a few more steps into the room and slowly looked around. Yes, good. Alana had been here earlier; he could smell her perfume still clinging to the air. He was glad yet again that she was so susceptible to his suggestions. Hannibal closed his eyes and breathed deep, isolating all the smells that were Will’s very own: motor oil, diesel fuel, cheap cologne, dirty clothes, coffee, dog, and… what was this? He stopped turning and cocked his head, his nostrils flaring gracefully. He walked towards the unmade bed and ran a hand over the simple blue cotton duvet. Pulling it back he saw something that made his lips curl into a pleased smile. Mindful of his suit, he lay down carefully beside where Will’s body had lain this morning and tried to imagine what it was that had disturbed Will’s sleep so.

4

Armadillo

Hannibal leaned over the counter and tried to get the attention of the late-shift nurse. She was deep in conversation on the phone and hadn’t noticed him in the nearly ten minutes he’d been standing there. He rapped the counter with his knuckle; patience did not come easily for him in these situations, and the stink was only making it worse. While Hannibal had never shrunk in disgust from the primal smells of the human organism, standing in a hospital where acrid cleansers overlaid the rotten, tannery-stench of a hundred thousand sicknesses was something he did not miss.

He started smacking the palm of his hand down on the worn melamine and finally elicited a response from the woman. She looked at Hannibal, smiled a smile that wasn’t, and raised an index finger. She turned back to the phone to finish her conversation. Hannibal clenched his jaw and sighed; pacing deliberately back and forth in front of the desk he pictured himself dragging her sweaty sow’s body over the desk and…

“Can I help you, sir?” The woman asked, finally having relinquished her chokehold on the receiver. Almost immediately the phone rang again; before she could answer it and wave that awful, crooked digit in his face again, Hannibal smiled pleasantly and replied.

“Yes, I think you can. I am looking for a patient of mine… Will Graham. I don’t know what room he’s in.” He brought up his shoulder in an apologetic shrug that he knew was charming. The nurse subtly straightened her back and adopted a look that sat the fence between fussy officiousness and friendly professionalism.

“Oh I am sorry! I didn’t recognize you, Dr…”

“Lecter… But I’m afraid I don’t work at this hospital. I’m Will Graham’s psychiatrist. I realize visiting hours are over, but I would really like to see him this evening.” He widened his smile. “I hope that isn’t a problem?”

The nurse pursed her lips and graciously waved his concern away; she was a big fish in a little pond, no doubt.

“Oh not a problem! It’s just me on the floor tonight, and I know you’re here. Your Mr. Graham is in room 514, right down that way.” She pointed to the hallway on his right.

Hannibal thanked her perfunctorily and walked slowly to Will’s room. He touched the cold metal handle and paused; he was curious about Will’s emotional state, but did Will want to see him? Concern strangely chafed at him.

He turned the handle and cracked open the door. Will was sitting in bed with the thin covers pulled up to his hips, obviously having settled in for the night. His eyes darted up from his phone and took in Hannibal’s presence. The look of surprise on Will’s face was immediately replaced by frank relief and one of his rare unguarded smiles. Somewhere in Hannibal’s soul a sharp note sounded, like the clang of a baking sheet newly in-oven; he mentally staggered and, suddenly breathless, drew out the process of closing the door to mask his momentary falter. It had only been an instant, but it both worried and fascinated Hannibal that Will could do this to him.

When he looked back to Will, he saw that his smile had taken on a hard edge. Hannibal could almost see Will’s walls as he threw up his defences all at once. Like an armadillo, mused Hannibal. His whole posture yelled Don’t hurt me!

Or else what? thought Hannibal.

That Will’s eyes had taken on a suspicious cast didn’t affect Hannibal, but it did mean there was substantially more work to be done.

“Hannibal. It’s nice to see you,” Will said with his tight smile. Was that an effort to make amends? Hannibal let his lips slide into a friendly smile but knew that, in his mind, Will was undoubtedly walking on eggshells over their friendship. He’d felt a precursor to this after he “confessed” to helping Abigail dispose of the body. He remembered that was the first time he really thought of killing Will.

“You look positively refreshed,” Hannibal said cheerfully, and it was true; Will had lost some of his pallor, and the dark smudges under his eyes were a little softer. He just hitched up his shoulders in an awkward shrug and nodded, the bruises dark and ugly on his neck and jaw. Hannibal admired his own handiwork; however, the sight of them made Hannibal aware of just how close he had come to ending this prematurely. He chided himself for letting things get so out of hand the previous morning. He was entering foreign waters and knew that there could be more of the same along the way if he wasn’t careful.

Hannibal had never actively pursued someone for anything sexual. He just wasn’t that interested; all his lust for the hunt was caught up in his favourite hobby. He didn’t want any of them as much as they had wanted him, which wasn’t the case with Will; but, how to proceed with a hunt that ends not in a kill, but a… what? Hannibal’s smile slipped a notch.

Foreign waters indeed.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone else,” said Will. “Aren’t visiting hours over?” Hannibal smiled and shrugged, and Will continued. “Jack came by earlier to lay his standard guilt-line on me. How does that man not realize that he has to pick a side?” Will shook his head.

“What do you mean?” asked Hannibal, knowing very well what Will meant; he just wanted the rhythm of conversation to bolster his friend’s confidence.

“It’s always ‘Will if you don’t help, people will die and you’ll hate yourself’ or ‘You’re working yourself to death! I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you’ with Jack. He’s driving me crazy.” Will let out a laugh. “Well… more than I already am, I guess.”

Hannibal laughed with him.

“Good old Jack.” He looked around the room and spotted a visitor’s chair next to the door.

“I am really starting to hate that woman,” said Will, as Hannibal dragged the heavy, tattered chair over.

“Which woman, Will?” He sat down and laid his overcoat carefully across his lap.

“The evening nurse. Denise. She’s probably the one at the desk right now, which is why I’m surprised you’re here at all. I’m just under observation to make sure the tetracycline is working and, because I’m so low maintenance, they stuck me in with the coma patients. I’m only here two days, three tops, and Denise makes this constant show of being put-out by me. Last night I had to wait nearly an hour for a single aspirin. And that chair… she drags it back to the door every time someone leaves. Always with these overly dramatic sighs, moaning about how it could get in her way if there was an emergency. I just think she’s been working with the unconscious for too long. She’s lost her people skills.” Will smirked.

“Ah yes. Denise. Charming woman.” Hannibal chuckled. “You don’t have to deal with her all night, do you?”

Will shook his head.

“No, thankfully she leaves in about an hour and then the night nurse is this big guy named Lawrence. He goes fishing. I might take a look at his outboard next week,” Will explained.

“Of course,” Hannibal laughed.

Will’s phone chirped suddenly, and he glanced down at it.

“Dr. Bloom?” asked Hannibal.

“Yes. You don’t mind, do you? I just need to reply. She’s at my house, and the power went out. I really need to update that fuse box.” Hannibal sat quietly watching Will tap out a message to Alana. He had beautiful hands. His fingers were slender and well shaped; they could have been soft and pampered had they been limited to a keyboard, but instead they were calloused from physical work and scarred from a long love of fishing. His nails were uneven, too short, and chipped. Hannibal could see there was still engine grease caught in the dry skin of his cuticles. His hands were like Raku pottery: lovely, unique, useful… breakable. That last thought had him suddenly wanting to reach out and touch those hands; he wanted to feel their warm roughness in his own hands, on his skin, tangled in his hair, wrapped around his cock.

“You’re doing it again.” Will’s voice came through to him. Hannibal frowned.

“Doing what, Will?”

“Staring at me like I’m a meal.” Will had a curious expression on his face, and his cheeks were a little flushed. “I can see you looking at me.” He continued with a small hitch in his voice.

Hannibal smiled a little uncertainly and shook his head in confusion.

“No. I don’t mean I can literally see that you’re sitting here looking at me. I can”—Will shifted a little uncomfortably—“see what you see when you look at me.”

Hannibal felt a flutter of alarm. His instincts pulled at him. Danger.

Interesting.

Will exhaled hard; it was much more than a sigh.

Hannibal reached forward ever so slowly, as if he was trying to touch a wild animal, and placed his hand on Will’s toned forearm. He felt a slight tremor go through it and watched as Will closed his eyes and swallowed reflexively… but didn’t pull away.

“I’m not…” Will started. “Uh…”

“You’re not generally attracted to men,” said Hannibal.

“Yes.”

“I know this, Will.”

Will looked at Hannibal with turbulent blue eyes. Hannibal slowly ran his hand up Will’s forearm until his thumb sat in the crook of his elbow. He stroked the soft skin there with the ball of his thumb and could feel Will’s pulse jumping like a scared rabbit. Hannibal was completely dazed by the force of his own body’s reaction; he felt his heartbeat accelerate, the blood pounding like a bass drum in his ears.

“Hannibal.” It took him a second to hear his own name. He glanced up, feeling a little disoriented, and saw that Will looked to be on the verge of tears. Hannibal stopped his caress and let go slowly. He sighed; the space between them was charged with agonizing tension. Will stared at the ceiling, the colour high in his cheeks.

“I understand Will,” Hannibal said softly.

“I’m not saying no. I’m just…”

“Again, I understand.” And he did.

Will was wound up so tight that it was a miracle he didn’t rattle himself to pieces with every small crisis. However, you could push Will to his limits and, rather than break, he adapted. It was one of the things that made Will so appealing to Hannibal.

It had been a lapse in judgment to let Will get so sick, regardless of how it improved his strange talents; the physical drain stemming from the infection had rendered Will brittle and fragile. Now was the time to be the gentle version of himself and let Will rebuild. Hannibal could wait… at least for a short time.

“You were right in the end, Will,” Hannibal remembered suddenly.

“About what?” Will asked, looking towards Hannibal and briefly meeting his eye.

Progress.

“That the cause of your illness was physiological.” He responded with wry smile. “Not much of a psychiatrist am I?”

Will smiled, looking a little more like his old self.

Hannibal grinned, knowing that his self-deprecation amused Will for some reason. He finally stood and draped his coat over one arm.

“I will leave you to your evening. However, if you don’t mind, I would like to come see you again tomorrow.”

Will nodded and then laughed his breathy, awkward laugh.

“Only if you bring me some lunch. The food here is really terrible.”

Hannibal smiled and dipped his head.

“As you wish. Good night, Will.”

* * *

Will watched as Hannibal’s dapper figure left the room. Sagging back into his pillow, he felt both relieved and full of regret. He ran his hand up his arm where he could still feel Hannibal’s hand on his skin. Rubbing the spot where Hannibal’s thumb had slid warmly, Will closed his eyes. He imagined Hannibal sitting again next to the hospital bed in his grey windowpane-checked suit, rust-coloured shirt, and raspberry silk tie. He leaned over Will and, instead of his thumb caressing his arm, it was his lips, and then his tongue. Will felt like every nerve was making the high buzzing sound of cicadas in summer. The fantasy Hannibal started grazing his teeth against Will’s skin…

* * *

Later that night, Hannibal sat brooding over the fact that Will could see into his thoughts; but, how much of his intent did he perceive? It couldn’t be all of it, thought Hannibal with some amusement, or else Will was a stranger creature than he had imagined. He had always taken great pleasure in the dangers of having Will as a friend, and, by keeping the younger man close to him, he thought he had circumvented Will’s keen sense of perception. It seemed that Hannibal was wrong and thus felt… exposed. What else might Will see that now that some of Hannibal’s inner workings were visible to him?

It was strangely exciting.

He growled softly under his breath; mostly, he wanted to wear down Will’s defences and drive all thoughts out of that delicate head with his own potent need.

Hannibal looked up when a glint of light caught his eye; he saw the woman emerge from the double doors and walk across the hospital parking lot to a small brown hatchback. Hannibal started the engine and waited a moment before following her car.

5

Stag

It’s up to you boy you’re driving me crazy,

Thinking you may be losing your mind.

If all you’ve got to prove today is your innocence,

Calm down, you’re as guilty as can be,

If all you’ve got to lose alludes to yesterday,

Yesterday’s through, now do anything you please.

—Road Rage by Catatonia

* * *

Will was cold and barefoot, standing in a night-time field with the black stag. Its eyes glinted as it stared at him with fierce intelligence; it snorted and pawed at the ground below it, a dark and dangerous shape silhouetted by hazy white mist rising up in the frigid air. Will glanced down and saw that the field was littered with decaying human remains as far as the eye could see. Instinctively Will knew that if he tried to back away, the stag would run him down and hoist him up, impaled on its sharp rack. He would be just another body, trampled and scattered on the cold field. The antlers of the black stag glistened wetly with something in the wan moonlight as it turned its massive head to better see Will; though all colour was leached from the scene by the muted light, he could smell the hot metallic tang of blood.

Will suddenly realized he felt no fear; instead, he moved forward, reaching out with his hand to stroke the muzzle of the great beast.

* * *

Sitting up and rubbing his face, Will scattered the last remnants of the dream. Physically, he felt better than he had in quite some time; the infection that had been squatting in his system for so long was leaving. He felt… renewed. Will swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked to the bathroom. He peered at himself in the mirror; he needed a shave, but for now the patchy stubble masked the worst of the now-fading bruises. Will sighed. He felt great and didn’t look half bad, but his mind was a different matter. It was full of ugly black pits that were churning with turbulent water. Every time he let his thoughts near Hannibal, he was reaching out to touch a bloody wound. It reminded him of the compound fracture he had sustained while in high school. He’d kept his eyes tightly closed and held back from touching his arm, the terror of finding exposed bone had eclipsed any fear of pain.

Will walked back to the early morning sunlight of the hospital room and sat on the edge of the hard mattress. He wished he could remember exactly what had happened the other day; it was more dream than memory. Understanding where things had gone sideways would take time, but he wished he could fast-forward to when things were no longer awkward between Hannibal and himself. He needed Hannibal. As a friend… or more? Will couldn’t see the next step, and, every time he thought about it, all he felt was confusion and a dreadful, fluttering fear. He groaned and pressed his forehead into his hands.

What is wrong with you?

“Will?” Alana’s voice came from the direction of the door. He started and looked up. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair glinted with gold highlights as she passed through sunbeams towards him. Today she was wearing a navy dress that was accented in red; it hugged the curves of her body as she walked with a graceful purpose in her knee-high black leather boots. He saw that there was a comma of worry etched on her high brow as she looked him over.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Will coughed out a laugh.

“Why do I feel like that’s the first thing you ask me every time we see each other?”

Her whole face lit up when she smiled; with beautiful blue eyes crinkling at the corners, she came and sat down next to him on the bed. Her slender hand came up and brushed his unruly hair from his forehead before coming to rest on the side of his face.

“No fever… Any sleepwalking?” She asked. A moment passed before Will realized he was leaning into her hand; he pulled back to shake his head “no” and smiled at her. She was incredibly soft and so close that he could feel the heat of her body in the space between them. She was, as he had put it before, extremely kissable. Alana must have sensed his thoughts; the pupils of her eyes dilated, giving her that dark, sultry look authors always wrote about in books. Will nearly leaned forward to kiss her and try his luck again when a nurse burst into the room carrying a sheaf of papers. Will straightened and cleared his throat. Alana’s cheeks were pink when he glanced at her before focusing on what the nurse was saying.

“Mr. Graham, it looks like you’re cleared to leave. I just need you to sign these forms first.”

“I’ll give you a lift home,” said Alana as she stood, straightening her skirt. “It is the reason I came to see you, after all.” She smiled, looking a little shy as she said it.

Hannibal was supposed to visit today. Will’s mind suddenly skittered over thoughts he didn’t want to think. Riding with Alana would be simpler. Easier. Coward.

“Hang on, I’m going call Hannibal and let him know I’m going with you. He was coming to bring me lunch in a few hours.”

* * *

Hannibal carefully settled the portable phone back in its dock. He stared down at the chunk of raw meat on the stainless steel in front of him for a long time; shirtless and arms scarlet to the elbow, he breathed heavily through his nose. Hannibal then slowly, deliberately wrapped the meat in butcher paper and put his brown mustard rub in a glass storage container, placing both in the fridge. He started to walk out of the kitchen and paused; a minute passed. Two minutes. A cold stone statue in the darkened room, the dimmed lights cast his features in deep shadow.

Suddenly Hannibal lashed out, kicking the metal prep cart as hard as he could. It slid across the floor and crashed into the unfinished barn wood of the wall opposite as Hannibal unhurriedly made his way out of the room.

* * *

Will kept his eyes on the road in front of them and tried to make small talk, steering the conversation carefully away from the subject of his therapist. Alana chattered cheerfully about work, Jack, and her brother, but the air in the small car was so charged with tension that Will felt both of them were speaking too fast. In no time at all they were pulling up to his small farmhouse. They sat awkwardly in the car for a long minute.

“Hey. Do you want to come in for a beer. Or… coffee?” asked Will. He chided himself for the nervousness that caused his voice to sound so high and thin in his ears.

Alana thought carefully a moment, staring down at the hands folded in her lap. Her dark brows were low over her eyes when she looked back up at him.

“Will, I know you’re healthier but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily better. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be here with you alone. You have to understand…” She reached out and stroked Will’s arm, sending a shiver through him. He frowned. His life was full of people who sent mixed messages; was he the only one to see that?

“You’re saying no, but you’re still holding my arm,” said Will.

Alana pulled her hand back. Will ground his teeth in frustration and stared up at the ceiling of the hybrid, silently willing the tears that had gathered in his eyes to dry up and go to hell. He was being completely ridiculous.

(Need need need something to take your mind off of his cool dark hand against your skin.)

He felt Alana’s hand on his shoulder. Will turned to look at her with wet eyes and said a word that burned his lips with embarrassment.

“Please.”

Will felt the exact moment when Alana truly gave in to him; she finally started kissing him back with a passion born of longing, of lonely nights spent uneasily with her hopes and doubts. All of her walls came tumbling down at once as he slid his strong arms around her waist and pressed himself into her. She moaned into his mouth and twined her fingers in his dark curls. He forced her back onto the bed and inched his hand up the side of her thigh. Soon they were both breathing hard and struggling to work loose zippers and buttons; Alana pushed Will away and slid off the bed to hastily remove the rest of her dress. He propped himself up on one elbow to watch. She was a creature of soft curves and smooth pale skin.

As she crawled back onto the bed on hands and knees Will could see, through the thin material of her burgundy panties, the slope where the round moons of her ass met. He met her mouth again with a fever as he reached to cup her through her bra. He could feel her nipple harden through the soft padding and pushed down impatiently on the material, intent on freeing her breast. He growled softly under his breath and felt as Alana reached behind her and unclasped the strap, removing the offending barrier.

Jesus she’s gorgeous.

Her hand was sliding over the muscles of his stomach; he felt her fingers tracing the shape of his hip as they moved down past the undone waistband of his jeans. He pulled away from her mouth and started kissing down the side of her long neck to her breast, pushing her down onto her back. Will felt a breathless tightening in his chest as he took her nipple between his lips. She arched and let out a shuddering sigh as he worried the sensitive bud between tooth and tongue. Bolstered and aroused by her reaction, he stroked his hand slowly down her trembling flank to the soft mound between her legs. He could feel how hot she was through the damp satin; he began teasing the skin around the crotch of her panties before slowly easing his fingers under the edge of the material. Alana trembled and pushed herself against his hand. Will groaned softly as his fingers came into contact with her slick folds; the blood surged hard in his cock, still trapped under a layer of cotton. Her hand was making agonizing progress. She still hasn’t touched him yet.

He slid his thumb along her wet lips to the hard little swelling of her clit and began to rub it softly and slowly in a steady rhythm. She quivered in his grasp and started to buck her hips against his hand. He felt her opening sliding against the tips of his fingers and timed it so that they slid inside of her with the next thrust; she gasped and then whimpered against him. He chuckled softly and recaptured her lips, breathing in her groans of pleasure as he moved his fingers in and out of her, maintaining the steady pulsing pressure of his thumb.

If only she’d take him in hand.

With a few more frenzied motions of her hips, Will felt her silky, liquid insides gape for a moment before clamping down and squeezing his fingers in a rolling spasm. She broke their kiss and went tense, head thrown back, letting out a low, sobbing, animal moan. After a few seconds her body softened, and she opened her eyes, tears glistening wetly as she smiled breathlessly at him. Will slid his hand from her sopping wet skin and gently placed her hand on his throbbing shaft. Alana smiled coyly and squeezed him through the cotton of his boxers before starting to pull them down; he felt cool air touch the swollen head of his cock and then her warm hand encircled him. She stroked him along his length but, after only a few minutes, Will starting frowning in frustration; her touch was light and too slow. With a mounting sense of urgency, Will pulled away from Alana and yanked her panties all the way down her legs and tossed them off the bed. On his knees in front of her, he took himself in hand, slid his fingers to the edge where almost boney hardness met the turgid skin of his cockhead, and stroked while he nudged his thumb inside her, pulling her open slightly.

The sight of his thumb pressing into her dark opening was almost too much for him. Grabbing her by the hips, he pulled her to him and, with cock in hand, he leaned over and guided himself to the glorious slippery mess between her thighs. When he felt the head of his cock pass through the mouth of her cunt, he gasped and then drove himself in with some force. She cried out as he pulled back and slammed back into her; too quickly he felt the warm, mounting pleasure start gathering deep in his testicles. He tried to slow down, to extend the moment, but she groaned and moved her hips in time with his thrusts. Will gritted his teeth and ploughed into her again and again. Oh god. Will heard deep grunts bursting from him suddenly as he crossed the threshold; he was almost blind with the frenzy of his orgasm as he felt the cum surging out of his cock in thick waves, twice, three times, pumping it deep into her core. He strained against her body for another moment and then slumped down, collapsing on top of her.

It had been far too long.

After a minute or two, Alana wriggled under him and wheezed jokingly in his ear.

“You’re crushing me, you jerk,” she said. Will laughed and rolled over onto his back, heart still racing in his chest. Alana stretched luxuriantly before curling up against his side, one leg covering his.

“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” she asked drowsily. He looked over at her smiling face; she was all sleepy blue eyes and mussed dark hair. He stroked her back and grinned at her.

“You didn’t want to, remember?” he teased.

She laughed.

“I can’t believe you talked me into coming in. You’re a persuasive one, Will Graham.” She shook her head a sighed contently beside him. He kept running his hand over her soft skin until he felt her head grow heavier on his arm and heard her breathing take on the steady deepness of sleep. He stared up at uneven plaster of the ceiling, his smile fading completely.

He felt strangely… flat.

Had sex always been this way for him? He couldn’t remember. Now that the fever of passion had faded from his system, he looked over at the sleeping Alana and frowned. She was very soft. Too soft? He wanted to think that this was just a weird glitch; maybe it was a side effect of the medication, or the stress of the last few days. The sex had been nice… but with a growing sense of dissatisfaction, he realized that there was something essential missing out of it. Suddenly he found himself wishing that she were gone.

He reached down to where his spent cock was drying sticky against his stomach. He tentatively imagined dangerous teeth grazing that tender skin and a strong hand, larger than his own, clamped tight around the root. Will felt a slight hardness return and stroked himself a few times. Suddenly the air was too hot for him; he felt his lungs beg for relief as Will disentangled himself carefully from Alana’s limbs and padded quietly to the front door. He opened it and stood there naked, breathing in great gulps of chilled air.

Will’s house phone rang, dragging him away from the bead-head nymph fly he was assembling from a tuft of Winston’s fur; there was so much dog hair in the house that he thought he might as well make some use of it.

He’d been alone for a few hours now. From his work desk he could see that the sky was starting to turn shades of pink behind the trees dotting his property. He’d retreated here, to his absorbing hobby, in an attempt to clear his mind in the aftermath of the terrifically awkward exchange with Alana this afternoon. After they had fucked a second time with the same underwhelming results, he realised in dismay that she was under the impression that they were now in a sort of relationship. To be fair, she was completely right to assume as much; their entire friendship had been building steadily to that point, hadn’t it? He had unthinkingly said something like Don’t you have something else to do? when Alana was still in his bed at past two in the afternoon. Belatedly, he had failed to realize that she was hoping to spend the entire afternoon with him, basking in the “glow” of their budding romance. He remembered the way her face had fallen as his abrupt question hung in the air. She had looked confused and hurt but had nodded and stammered what he immediately perceived as a lie in response. Her face had taken on a carefully composed mask of indifference while he just stood there feeling like a complete ass, watching her pick up her discarded clothes off the floor.

Why was it that he could tell at a glance what a killer was thinking but be so incredibly imperceptive when it came to the thoughts of a gorgeous woman in his bed. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that he had made a mistake but that he still loved her. As a friend. It’s not you, it’s me… However, he had stayed rooted to the spot, paralyzed with stupidity and feelings of inadequacy, watching mutely as she quickly left his house. I’m broken.

(I desire you very much, Will Graham.)

The phone rang again. He reached out and picked it up. Before he had a chance to say anything, Jack’s gruff voice barked in his ear.

“Will, I need you to come down to meet me right away. It looks like our friend the Ripper might have started his cycle again.”

Will put the phone back down and stared out across the fields, seeing again in his mind’s eye the bodies strewn and broken beneath the sharp hooves of a midnight stag.

6

Lamb

Will slowly drove up the unpaved road to the house and parked where the assorted emergency and government-issue vehicles were amassed. As he got out of his car, Will peered around, searching for a lone man in the flurry of activity surrounding the small clapboard structure. Will finally spotted him on the dilapidated front porch; in his dark trench coat and fedora, collar pulled high and brim pulled low, stood the figure of Jack Crawford. He was frowning down at Will as the younger man made his way up the weedy path and climbed the stairs to stand next to him. Will returned the frown.

“What is it?” he asked, pulling his coat tighter around himself.

“Are you sure you should be out of bed?” asked Jack, skepticism plain on his dark, pockmarked face.

“Yes. And isn’t it a little late to ask that? You had me drop everything and rush over. I’m here now.” Jack narrowed his eyes at Will a second longer and then nodded, apparently satisfied that he was up to the job.

He passed Will a pair of blue gloves and listed off the knowns.

“The victim is a John Sutters, age 35, a fireman with Fairfax County Fire & Rescue. Died of massive blood loss. It’s not a pretty sight.” Jack led Will in through the front door to a scene straight out of Hell.

“What are we looking at here?” asked Jack brusquely.

Laying facedown on the floor in a lake of blood was a man-shaped slimy red object. Will realized sickeningly what he was seeing; a man bereft of his skin. His stomach did a nauseating tumble, and he looked to Jack. The special agent was standing there, hands clasped in front of him, staring intently at Will.

“We received an anonymous call about three hours ago. It took a while for the first responders to get to the scene. Obviously by that time, the victim was already dead. Since we’re out in the middle of nowhere, no one saw anyone come onto or leave the property… there isn’t a neighbour within half a mile of here. If it hadn’t been for the tip, it might have been a week before he was discovered. IT is working on a trace now.”

Will looked back down at the mess in front of him and noticed that the flayed man was holding some kind of beige, blood-covered package. Similarly shaped packages fanned out in front of the body. Will squatted down to get a better look.

“They’re phones. Wrapped in the victim’s skin. At least that’s what the two we opened contained… though judging from the similarities in size and shape, I’d say they’re all the same. The ‘packages’ are tied up with string used to make rigging on miniature boats.”

Will raised his eyebrows and looked up. Jack gestured to the workbench in front of the window. It was covered in narrow pieces of wood, glue, paint, and string. Various small tools were assembled neatly on a black felt mat. Above it all, nestled on a wooden stand next to a large glass bottle, was a tiny, half-finished schooner. Will’s eyes flicked back to the body on the floor. Jimmy Price was beside it, taking close ups and trying not to get blood on his shoes. When he saw Will, he tutted slightly and shook his head.

“Such a messy way to die. Depending on how fast he was skinned, and there are a few ways that it could be done really quite fast, I’m guessing that he lived twenty minutes without his skin, maybe twenty-five if he was really lucky… though I’m not sure that would count as luck.” He smirked. “Though, I’m amazed that he didn’t die immediately from the shock. When I get back to the lab I’m going to run a tox screen to check for anything that could account for it.” Stepping carefully around the body, Jimmy leaned down to photograph another of the packages.

“How do you know he didn’t die almost right away?” asked Will.

Jimmy furrowed his brow and pointed with a blue-gloved finger.

“You see how the string on the package in his hand was halfway undone? It would have taken him quite a bit of effort to accomplish that in his state.” He shook his head again and lifted the camera back to his eye.

Understanding suddenly crashed down on Will in a cold wave.

“He was trying to call for help,” he said in a small voice and looked up. Jack nodded once.

“That’s what you’re here to tell us,” he said.

Will’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Wait a sec. You said the Chesapeake Ripper was responsible. This doesn’t feel like his usual scene. The victim died of blood loss… are there any organs missing?” Brian Zeller stepped forward and stooped over the body, fishing around under the victim’s back muscles for something. Finally he lifted them out to show the void where John Sutters’ heart would have been.

“Post mortem. Clean cuts to all the ribs at the rear. Nice little bit of dissecting right here. The Ripper just put him back together for this little show.” Will noticed a big antique lantern on the floor; his eyes travelled up the wall to the beam in the ceiling where a large metal hook was embedded. He looked to Jack and nodded.

“All right everyone. Clear the room! Now!” barked Jack. Everyone jumped and quickly filed out the door.

Once the room was quiet, Will pulled his glasses off, took a deep breath, and concentrated. Gone were the sounds of the people outside. Gone was the puddle of blood. Gone were the grisly skin packages. Instead, Will stood watching John Sutters through the window.

John was bent over his work, intent on securing a tiny line of rigging to the bow of the ship. Will walked slowly towards the door and knocked. John got up reluctantly, scraping the chair legs slowly across the scarred wooden floor; he was a man absorbed in his hobby. He peered out the front window a moment before coming to the entrance. Though he was dismayed at the interruption, he wasn’t afraid to open the door. He knew his assailant.

As soon as the door was open and Will was inside, he knocked John to the floor with one blow, rendering him unconscious with the tire iron he held in his right hand. He dropped the tire iron and felt around in his pocket for another weapon, a fixed-blade hunting knife. He quickly tied the man’s feet together with rope he had brought, stepped onto the chair, and took down the heavy cast iron lantern from the large metal hook in the ceiling beam. Using another length of rope, Will hoisted the man upside down and proceeded to cut off John’s clothes. Once they were discarded in a pile, he quickly made a cut around one of the man’s ankles and down the back of the leg, around his anus, and up the other leg. John had woken up at the first slice and was making a high keening noise, thrashing around in terror and pain; it took Will a fair bit of strength to keep the man still enough to finish his work.

John Sutters was now shrieking like a wounded animal. Will was thankful that no one was within hearing distance. When Will had completed the other ankle cut, he started tugging the skin down like he was pulling up the man’s pant legs. With furious effort, and only possible by throwing all of his weight behind brute force, he managed to yank the skin down past the hips of the hanging man. Will reached again into a pocket and brought out a syringe filled with something that would delay haemorrhagic shock by slowing the victim’s heart rate. He administered the drug and continued to quickly strip the flesh from the connective muscle tissue. The entire process had taken only six minutes so far. Skinning done, Will grabbed the dying man’s cellphone and piled it with four others, all burners, on the floor. Using the tip of the blade he cut large squareish shapes out of the man’s skin and immediately bundled up the phones in them like meat in butcher paper. He cut John Sutters down from the hook and placed the parcels within his reach. Will calmly told John that he should try to call for help as he pulled up and sat on the old wooden chair to watch. He was delighted when the skinned man actually tried.

“This is my design.”

Will finally exhaled and supported himself with a trembling hand on the back of the chair. Jack frowned at Will and reached out to steady him.

“This was different.” Will breathed out slowly. “It was the Ripper, but it was different. He… he had his usual contempt for the man’s life, he wanted to debase him. But, this time he was angry. Very, very angry. He was in a rage.” Will tried to shake the images out of his head, forcing the killer to relinquish the hold on his thoughts. Jack helped Will to sit down and then squatted in front of him.

“And you’re sure the victim knew the killer?” he asked.

Will closed his eyes and nodded.

“He would have to. The Ripper isn’t the kind of man to simply drive around looking for isolated victims to flay. No… Sutters was chosen for a reason.”

Jack sighed and stood up.

“And here I was, looking forward to an early night.” He clapped Will on the back and left the room.

Will sat a few minutes longer, his eyes taking in the sparse decor when they briefly came to rest on a photograph of the late John Sutter. In it, he was flanked by two other firemen; John’s grey-blue eyes squinted into the camera as the breeze lifted his dark brown curls in a blur around his head.

Will reached forward with a slimy, senseless hand to grab one of the ghastly packages. He fumbled at the slippery cotton string, black flowers blooming in his vision. He felt his life draining out of him at every heartbeat. The killer sat watching him with serene look on his face…

Will stood so abruptly that the chair fell backwards. Brian poked his head around the door and stared at him for a moment before shaking his head in something bordering on pity. Will smiled awkwardly and ran a hand over his hair.

“All good,” he said, lying. It took another few minutes to calm his racing pulse.

What the hell?

Will had to blame the bizarre vision on stress. What else could he do? He eventually trudged down the steps, weary with the day’s events. His head was aching and his heart felt old and hollow. As he was getting into his car, he looked up and saw the black stag standing in a copse of trees. Will frowned and rubbed his eyes. When he looked back at the patch of moonlight, the stag had gone.

As Will stood in front of his class at the academy the next day, he could have sworn that he saw the shape of Alana pausing in the doorway. Afterwards he went down the hall to her small office only to find the door locked and the lights off. He stood there in the bleak hallway, pulling on the end of his striped tie and trying to push down his burgeoning resentment.

Later, he saw her across the parking lot; Alana made eye contact for only a second before climbing into her car and driving away. Was she actually avoiding him? What was this, high school? He needed the chance to explain, though all his excuses about “basic incompatibility” just rang hollow compared to the truth.

(And what is the truth, Will?)

“Alana, I’m sorry I slept with you. I’m sorry I’ve ruined our friendship and the ridiculously happy future that could have been had I not gone and developed some sort of infatuation for a man I barely even know… a man who may or may not have tried to kill me.”

(Good boy.)

He threw his bag with some force into the back seat of his Volvo station wagon and looked at the time. He was dreading the session with Hannibal tonight; however, there was something about the Ripper’s latest kill that had Will shaken. He had to talk to Hannibal about it. His psychiatrist and friend had always been able to shake loose some insight for Will. It didn’t have to get too personal… nothing about Alana… he just needed to vent before he cracked. He loosened his tie and tossed it next to his briefcase. He looked at his watch again.

Will sat hunched on one of the chairs in Hannibal’s waiting room, unable to relax. It was nearly 7:30 and Hannibal hadn’t opened the door yet. Normally, if he had finished the write-up for his previous patient, Hannibal would look to see if Will was early; often he was. Will stood and started pacing back and forth in front of the door. He paused briefly with each change of direction to listen obsessively for signs of life coming from the other side.

Finally, at exactly 7:30, the door to Hannibal’s office opened. The doctor, elegantly attired in a dark-blue glen plaid suit with a cobalt silk shirt and burgundy-accented navy tie, leaned out and smiled genially at Will.

“Good evening, Will. Won’t you come in?” he said smoothly in his curiously accented voice. Will smiled in relief at Hannibal and let out the breath he’d been holding. Maybe tonight wasn’t going to be so uncomfortable after all.

Hannibal walked to the grey leather therapy chairs and held his hand out, inviting Will to take his place. As Will sat, Hannibal walked to the desk to retrieve his notebook. He looked back over his shoulder and smiled warmly at Will.

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asked.

Will shrugged and leaned back in the chair.

“Definitely better.” he said, placing his ankle on the knee opposite.

“Any more hallucinations? Missing time?” asked his therapist as he took the seat across from Will.

“No. Wait, yes… At least it’s a maybe for hallucinations. No for missing time.” Will suddenly felt like he was trying too hard to appear at ease; he shifted his foot back to the floor and leaned forward, hands clasped loosely in front of him. Hannibal smiled and made a note in his book. Will tried not to think about how captivating the older man’s face was; with his high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, Hannibal had a stark, nearly exotic sort of beauty. That is, until his face broke into a smile; when that happened, and it frequently did, Hannibal looked like a man who enjoyed every minute of life to the fullest. Will found his eyes drawn back to Hannibal’s mouth. The overbite, unattractive on another man, just added to Hannibal’s thorough charm. His lips had been surprisingly soft… Will blinked rapidly and tried to cut off that line of thought.

Hannibal’s voice broke through his distractions.

“What would you like to talk about today?”

Will immediately frowned at the pedestrian nature of the question; it was something he hadn’t heard Hannibal say since the early days of their friendship. However, he shook off the apprehension and began describing the murder from the night before. He began to worry in earnest when, instead of perking up at case details like he usually did, Hannibal posed only bland, indifferent questions.

For the next fifty minutes, Will was treated to the most cheerfully banal, by-the-book therapy session he’d ever been in.

After about twenty minutes he had lost all sense of relief and well-being about his friendship with Hannibal.

After forty, he was actively trying not to stand up and shake the man. Will’s answers became increasingly terse as confusion welled up inside him. Then, infuriatingly, at exactly 8:30 Will found himself being gracefully expelled from the office to the waiting room by the ever-so-pleasant Dr. Lecter. The door closed, and Will stood reeling with frightfully conflicting emotions; embarrassment and relief warred with disappointment and outrage.

Fuming, Will started to leave; before he’d managed to walk more than a few paces, he turned around abruptly and started pounding on the wooden door.

* * *

Hannibal closed the door behind Will and stood still, listening quietly. Only moments passed before Hannibal was rewarded with Will’s frantic banging on the door. He grasped quickly at the tiny thrill that went through him and tried to snuff it; composure was what he needed now, and, strangely, his smile was refusing to smooth out. He waited a moment longer.

* * *

Will stumbled forward as the door he was assaulting suddenly opened. He stared angrily at Hannibal, his eyes crackling with blue wildfire.

“What do you want, Will?” asked Hannibal coldly. Will ground his teeth. He took a few steps into the room and turned to face Hannibal as the doctor was closing the door.

“I slept with Alana.” He spat out, tense muscles quivering in his jaw and neck.

A crease appeared in Hannibal’s brow.

“You nearly broke down my door to tell me this? Alana is a lovely woman, I’m sure you—”

Will sliced the air with his hand, silencing the doctor.

“I had sex with Alana. I fucked Alana. It was the first time I’d had sex in… years… It was the first time I had sex with the woman I’ve wanted from day one,” he said, a hitch in his throat. Laughing suddenly, Will took his glasses off and wiped a hand down his face. “And you know what? It sucked.” His voice had climbed down from a shout. “It was awful.” He breathed heavily for a few moments. Finally reaching the conclusion that squared his shoulders, Will looked accusingly into Hannibal’s impassive brown eyes. “Do you know why?” He didn’t wait for Hannibal to venture an answer, but pressed on. “Because she wasn’t… she isn’t… she isn’t you,” he finished flatly.

His shoulders slumped; he was completely defeated by his confession. He looked miserably at Hannibal who was standing as if hewn from stone.

The seconds ticked by. From outside, Will heard a car horn. The moment had passed and now he just felt terribly exhausted. Hannibal had crossed his arms and was watching Will with eyes that divulged absolutely nothing. Will wondered for a moment if he had even heard.

(This is what you wanted to take from me, wasn’t it?)

Red-faced, Will turned his back and walked to the windows with their broad crimson and taupe stripes. He wasn’t even looking out the window. His eyes were closed, dry of the tears he felt looming. The minutes stretched; Will was on the verge of leaving when he heard Hannibal’s voice immediately behind him.

“Will,” said Hannibal, quietly. Will turned and strong arms came up around him. He felt a terrible weight fall from his heart as he buried his face in Hannibal’s shoulder. He felt like a small and shredded thing, so unsure of himself. However, he was relieved that something was over.

The doctor smelled warmly exotic, sweet spice over the tang of hot metal. The scent tugged meekly at his memories, but Hannibal’s hands stroked down the length of Will’s back softly, distracting his senses. All too soon, Hannibal stepped back, holding Will at arm’s length. Will felt a hopelessness open anew inside of him… but only for a moment. Hannibal inclined his head and regarded Will with a long thoughtful gaze before his clever hands moved down to the younger man’s waist where they effortlessly released the button on his jeans. Will’s heart stopped in his chest.

Pushing him to walk backwards, Hannibal led Will to the chair he’d only recently vacated. As if in a trance, he felt himself sit; somewhere in the back of his mind it seemed completely ridiculous to watch Hannibal kneel down on the floor in his suit while Will sat in the chair wearing his cheap plaid shirt and jeans. Hannibal, a curious expression on his face, quickly pulled Will’s jeans and shorts down his thighs. There was a choking intensity in the moment before Hannibal finally leaned forward and touched Will’s semi-hard cock with his lips. Then, as if the blood suddenly exploded within him, Will felt the surge of himself going quickly rock solid. He felt giddy as Hannibal wasted no time taking him in his mouth. The moan Will let out bordered on the hysterical as he tried to navigate the reality of what was happening to him.

(This is my design.)

Will arched his head back on the chair; in shock, he felt Hannibal smoothly take him in almost from tip to root. Hannibal’s mouth was warm and hard on his cock, his powerful jaw and tongue constricting Will in a way he’d never felt before. Soon, Will’s hips were bucking in time to Hannibal’s movements, all of his senses narrowing down to a single point.

Will was his cock; every nerve-ending in his body other than those in his throbbing, spit-covered erection went silent. He was the hypersensitive skin of his cockhead dragging over Hannibal’s bottom lip at every thrust. There was nothing else in the world but this fucking between mouth and cock. He groaned in abandon as he drove himself down into Hannibal’s throat.

However, as soon as Will felt the boiling surge of orgasm, Hannibal’s strong hand clamped down on the base of his cock and aborted the surging waves. Will panted and squirmed in his grasp while Hannibal just stared at him sedately, lips red and glistening wet with spit and salt. When Will felt the tide recede, Hannibal immediately leaned forward and swallowed his length once more. Will plunged himself into the hot wet dark of Hannibal’s mouth. Again and again, Hannibal brought Will to the peak and stopped. His shirt completely drenched with sweat, Will felt his entire being ache for release. Yet again, Hannibal relinquished his hold on Will at the pinnacle of his undoing.

“Hannibal… please… “ he whimpered. His heart hammered in his chest, and his mouth was dry from a hundred shuddering, heaving sighs. “Please.”

Hannibal stroked him playfully with a strong hand for a moment and looked at him appraisingly.

“Say it again,” he said softly. Will opened his eyes and looked beseechingly at Hannibal. Shame was no more.

“Please.”

Hannibal gorged himself on Will’s tortured cock. This time, when Will felt the drunken rush of ecstasy begin to crest, Hannibal kept up an unwavering, almost ferocious pace. When the hot waves of pleasure came crashing down on Will, he felt he’d be driven mad with the force of his orgasm. The cum sluiced through him and gushed in thick gouts down Hannibal’s open throat. Oh god.

Oh god.

A few minutes of eternity passed before Will was able to lift his head. Hannibal was sitting back on his heels, eyes as inscrutable as ever; he brought his thumb up to slide across the wetness of his lower lip while the other hand plucked the burgundy handkerchief out of his breast pocket. It hung in his hand for a moment before he deposited it on Will’s limp lap. Will grabbed at it clumsily, still labouring under the impact of his orgasm. Hannibal stood fluidly and smiled down at his reluctant paramour. He waited until Will’s breathy gasps had slowed and his mind seemed his once more.

With a rueful smile, Hannibal murmured: “That was a gift. Cherish it. You shall have to work much harder for it next time.”

7

Eagle

I don’t love anyone

No I just want my fun

I’m a happy man

Yes I’m a happy man

—Happy Man by Covenant

* * *

Hannibal remembered again how the slightly bitter taste of Will’s semen had burned at the back of his throat. He frowned and clamped down on that thought; Will was once more in his head. Infuriatingly, his desire was starting to border on need. If he listened just right he thought he could still hear Will’s frantic panting…

“What has you smiling so much, Dr. Lecter?” Jack asked curiously. Hannibal chuckled and broadened his smile at the FBI agent.

“At that precise moment I was admiring your new suit. The cut is exquisite. Wherever did you have it made?” He said, as smooth as the amber liquid in his glass. He breathed deep as he took a sip of the Springbank 21, enthralled as always by the complex aromas that made the whisky so delightful. He glanced over at the man sitting beside him and sighed inwardly. Subtle complexities were completely lost on his guest. Jack liked to pretend he was gifted with a refined palette and cultivated tastes, but Hannibal saw him for the paltry fraudster that he was; there was too much polyester and not enough silk in Jack.

Will had no such pretensions.

“I had it made at that place you recommended in Pikesville. You think it turned out well?” Jack plucked at the dark grey cashmere. “My wife unfortunately doesn’t share our appreciation for a good suit.”

Hannibal tutted sympathetically and Jack took a sip of whisky, swallowing it far too quickly. Feeling that enough tepid conversation had passed and, concerned that the entire evening was a miss, Hannibal attempted a second time to shift the topic to Abigail Hobbs.

“So you said that Abigail is having serious problems at the facility?” he asked. Jack nodded, face serious.

“On top of climbing over the wall, the doctors there say she’s being completely uncooperative in group sessions. She just spends all of her time either escaping or holed up in her room. She’s also been keeping the other girls awake with her crying.” Jack said, shaking his head; he still didn’t trust Abigail, believing that she was responsible for the death of Nicholas Boyle. Jack was right, of course, but Hannibal would never let them put Abigail away.

He had been growing increasingly concerned about her mental state. His trading “secrets” with her had only delayed the inevitable; it was only a matter of time before she lost the battle with guilt and suspicion. Abigail just wasn’t a killer—whatever killing instinct she’d possessed had been implanted there by her father. Now that Garret Jacob Hobbs was dead, those instincts were crumbling.

Hannibal would have to fix the situation soon.

“Another finger of whisky, Jack?” asked Hannibal graciously, but Jack only stood and shook his head.

“Unfortunately, I have to get going. It is always a pleasure, Dr. Lecter… I do enjoy these evenings.” Jack smiled.

Hannibal quietly closed the door after Jack departed. He looked around his darkened office, his eyes coming to rest on the chair where Will so recently sat. He could still smell Will’s musk and sweat clinging to the smooth leather, the scent triggering intense memories of how the top two buttons of the younger man’s shirt had been undone, sweat rendering the thin t-shirt underneath nearly translucent. Hannibal groaned out loud and pressed his knuckles down hard on the surface of the desk in front of him. A part of him was laughing over how completely taken he was with this rather dangerous new obsession, but a tiny thing was scrabbling with sharp claws along slick furrows inside him, making Hannibal hot and tense. He was uncomfortable.

Hannibal eyed the bottle of whisky and decided to pour himself a touch more. He sat back down in front of the glowing embers of the dying fire and attempted to clear his mind of all things Will Graham.

* * *

Will felt like a marble rattling around in the bottom of an old can. He had lost the ability to sit still. Rather than soothe him, fly-tying was just frustrating. He’d somehow managed to cut open the meat of his thumb; there were rusty streaks of blood on his desktop and on the side of the beer bottle he was now holding in his hand. He’d shooed the dogs outside and closed the door; Will was standing at the window watching them as they sat staring back at him through the glass. They probably thought they had done something wrong, but it was just their usual neediness that was getting to him. Normally he found their reliance on him grounding. Today it just added to his discomfort.

Two days ago, he’d sat for nearly an hour in his car after his “session” with Hannibal. It took him that long to feel sane enough to turn the key in the ignition.

The aftermath had been so abrupt. Will had been sitting collapsed in the chair, breathlessly dazed and wondering what he should do to reciprocate, if anything at all, when Hannibal cleared up any confusion by walking to his desk and sitting down to one of his drawings. Sharpening his pencil with a scalpel, Hannibal glanced up at Will’s stunned face as if wondering why Will was still there.

Obviously it was not to be that kind of relationship.

Will had felt humiliation and a surprisingly deep hurt. The doctor’s shadowed eyes, black under the dim lights of the office, watched impassively as Will stood slowly and re-clothed his lower half. Will opened his mouth to say something, anything, to break the oppressive silence but Hannibal looked back down at his drawing, dismissing him completely.

When Will quickly left the room, he missed the look of apprehension that flickered momentarily on Hannibal’s face.

He hadn’t spoken to Hannibal since the doctor had subjugated him with shattering pleasure and complete indifference.

He didn’t know how.

Hannibal hadn’t called him either.

He groaned and made another circuit of the room, scratching the back of his head. He felt itchy below his skin. Downing a last sip of warm beer, Will decided to throw on his jacket and drive to the lab. Maybe he was needed. It was better than continuing to climb the walls all afternoon.

Will’s desire to flee the screeching feedback of his own mind shortened the drive into Quantico by at least twenty minutes. He parked in his usual spot at Headquarters and climbed the steps, hoping that he would find something there to take his mind off things.

When he walked into the cool, orderly atmosphere of the lab, he was greeted by Brian’s customary smirk.

“Hey, it’s the man of the hour!” laughed Zeller. Will stopped in his tracks, suddenly tense.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Brian feigned astonishment but frowned when Will continued to look completely clueless.

“You mean you haven’t heard? Freddie Lounds’ new piece is all about you and our skinless Mr. Sutters. It was posted just this morning. She says that the two of you could have been twin recluses: you both have… sorry, had houses in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, lame hobbies, etcetera, etcetera. It’s pretty compelling. Look.” He tapped at his tablet one-fingered and then tilted it so Will could see the screen.

“You guys could pass for brothers.”

Will squinted at the side-by-side photographs on TattleCrime.com. While he and John Sutters did share some physical traits, Freddie had obviously accentuated them by finding photos of the men in similar poses; he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little Photoshop thrown in too. That they were both wearing plaid shirts certainly didn’t help Will’s situation. He ground his teeth.

“So what’s the premise? That the Chesapeake Ripper was coming after me but screwed up the directions and skinned the wrong ‘recluse’?”

Brian bobbed his head and chuckled.

“Sort of. She thinks you’ve somehow pissed off the Ripper, and Sutters was a warning or something. Hey cheer up, Graham. You’ve still got your skin!” He went to punch Will in the shoulder, but Will jerked out of the way. He glared at Zeller and walked over to where Jimmy was peering down at the remains of John Sutters.

“Ignore him. He’s just jealous of your ‘fame’,” said Jimmy with a crooked smile. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Will hunched up in a shrug.

“Just thought you might need a hand.”

Jimmy nodded distractedly and kept poking at the body.

“Well, I have something you might find interesting… it turns out that this was a really odd choice of technique given the circumstances. It’s called ‘case skinning’ and it’s normally used on small animals like squirrels and rabbits because the skin is just pulled off like a sweater… or a sock. Normally if someone were skinning something the size of a human being, they’d go for ‘open’ or ‘dorsal skinning’ - that’s more like taking off a jacket. You’d have to be plenty strong and very motivated to accomplish this kind of skinning on something so big.” Jimmy looked up and frowned at Will’s chest. “What happened to you?”

Will looked down and saw with dismay that he had managed to get blood on the front of his shirt. He just held up his bandage-covered thumb.

“I cut myself,” he said lamely. He certainly wasn’t helping his image any. Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

“By the way, I was right about the presence of drugs,” said Jimmy, trying to ignore Will’s obvious discomfort. “It was cocktail of benzo and lidocaine.”

Will’s eyebrows went up.

“Isn’t lidocaine an anaesthetic?” he asked.

Jimmy nodded.

“Not strong enough for this. I can guarantee that Mr. Sutters was anything but comfortable during the procedure, but it’s probably what let him live as long as he did.”

When a dark shape caught the corner of his eye, Will looked up and saw that Alana was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her ribs. He smiled.

“Excuse me,” he said to Jimmy and walked over to Alana. She was smiling a bit sheepishly, and a pretty blush infused her cheeks. Will winced inwardly. If only he could take back that whole afternoon.

“Can I speak with you a moment?” Alana asked quietly. Will just nodded and followed her to an empty room down the hall. She perched her bottom on the edge of the table, crossing her arms again, and waited until he had closed the door to start speaking.

“I’m… sorry, Will. I’ve been acting like a child. It’s really not the way I’d like our friendship to end.” The words came out in a rush. “I wasn’t thinking. I was really stupid. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into coming into your house. You’re in a weird place still, mentally. I feel like… there was a big miscommunication. I should never have assumed anything. It was just really… nice. I thought maybe we’d reached a point where… I don’t know.”

She smiled weakly at him. He shook his head.

“I should be the one apologizing,” he said in a low voice. He walked forward and hesitantly put his hands on her shoulders. He felt her soften slightly; she stepped forward to lay her cheek against his neck, and he curled his arms around her, wishing for the hundredth time that things could be different. She smelled of the lavender-scented shampoo she always used; it always brought back memories of the first time he saw her. Things seemed less complicated back then… why hadn’t he…

Suddenly he realized that she was crying. Startled, he pulled back, and she quickly put a hand to her eyes, laughing.

“Ugh. Will. I’m not good with these things. I’m sorry… Friends?” She smiled up into his eyes.

He frowned, trying to find words that could make everything all right.

“I wish… I could offer more than that. It’s not that simple for me. Not now… not yet. I know that I’m the one who’s been pushing but I obviously didn’t know what I was doing or that you’d get… hurt…” he finished quietly.

She nibbled slightly on her lower lip and then nodded. He knew that he was smiling but didn’t feel it; he’d gone strangely numb. Will took a few deep breaths and sagged slightly against the table.

“What’s happened, Will? You seem really off today.”

Will shook his head.

“It’s nothing.” The secret inside him hammered at his skull, crying to be let out. Alana frowned at him and pursed her lips so he added: “Freddie Lounds has new theories about me.”

Alana sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, I heard. But… well, I’m here for you if you need to talk, ok friend? I didn’t agree with Jack or Hannibal about letting you back at work so early… you’re still recovering. Like you said… you need time. For… everything.”

That’s not what I meant.

She touched his arm once more before standing to leave.

“I actually just stopped in for a few minutes. I really have to go. I have a ‘date’ with Hannibal this afternoon, and I promised I would be there before three.” Will’s heart lurched, and he found himself clinging to the back of a chair.

Alana’s brow furrowed.

“Are you sure you’re ok? Hey, listen, why don’t you come with me? That way Hannibal and I can keep an eye on you. (Like doting parents I never had?) I’m sure he won’t mind; he was going to show me how to make proper pulled-pork. You can just sit back and watch the magic happen. It’ll be fun!” She smiled a little sassily.

Will’s mouth had gone dry. He couldn’t stop his mind from spiralling down terrifically awkward paths. Hannibal… He couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving Alana and Hannibal alone. It wasn’t that he felt any jealousy.

(Liar.)

He just dreaded what Hannibal would say to Alana and vice versa in his absence. Alana knew nothing—that was obvious. Out of nowhere his thoughts started questioning Hannibal and Alana’s relationship. They see each other an awful lot. Will felt his brain loudly ratcheting down on different, appalling scenarios. He took a deep breath, realizing that he had both hands rammed down into the pockets of his dark grey pants, fists balled tight.

Relax. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Even though he was gut-wrenchingly anxious about seeing Hannibal, he couldn’t help but wonder how the doctor would react to seeing Will again. Would he be glad? Annoyed? Not knowing the answer summarily gutted Will’s hesitation.

“I would love to tag along.”

At a little before three, Alana and Will stood at the front door of Hannibal’s modest house. The ride there had been anything but cathartic as Alana obviously still felt resentment and didn’t hide it very well. Will knew exactly how she felt. He braced himself when heard Hannibal’s measured pace just inside the door before it was opened. Hannibal, dressed in a stark black shirt and burgundy vest, chef’s apron tied at the waist, beamed at the two on his front step.

“Come in! Will, what an unexpected surprise! Alana please, let me take your coat,” he said cheerfully, leading them through the entranceway. Will followed slowly behind—a sudden third wheel. He had no idea what to expect from the evening and wondered why he was even there.

Excusing himself to go fetch some wine from the cellar, Hannibal left Alana and Will standing alone in the kitchen. Alana, immediately at home in Hannibal’s workspace, got busy rummaging around in a drawer for an extra apron. Will’s eyes slid slowly to the spot on the steel fridge door where he’d been forcefully pinned by Hannibal. It was hard to believe that only a week had passed. He unconsciously touched the spot on his neck where Hannibal’s thumb had pressed into his jugular.

He jumped when Hannibal’s voice pierced his thoughts.

“Will, would you like beer or wine? I have an interesting bottle of Californian wine, the Marietta Cellars Old Vine ‘Red Lot 58’, that I acquired the other day. It’s not a very refined wine, but I think you might enjoy the earthy fruits and black pepper notes. I certainly do.” Hannibal’s lips curved into a charming smile. His silvering brown hair was worn less severely than when he was at his practice; a few hanks hung over his high forehead, giving him a roguish look. Everything about Hannibal radiated charisma and grace; not for the first time, Will found himself spellbound by Hannibal’s very presence. What in the hell was hiding behind that winsome exterior.

And why do you want it to sink its teeth into you?

Will blinked rapidly and cleared his throat.

“Uh wine. Sure.” Alana was watching the stilted exchange with a small frown on her face. Will stretched his lips out into a smile and tried to act as if his heart wasn’t hammering in his chest.

Hannibal made a sharp sound.

“Will, I know this isn’t a fancy dinner party, but I would like to think that my guests have enough regard for me to take the time necessary to throw on clean clothing,” Hannibal said semi-jokingly and gestured to the blood stains down the front of Will’s earth-toned plaid shirt. “Did you think we were going to slaughter the pig ourselves?”

Will wiped at the blood on his shirt in dismay, words caught in his throat.

With a laugh, Hannibal tilted his head to Alana.

“If you would excuse us for just a few moments, my dear. I believe I have a shirt that would suit Will,” he said and steered Will quickly out of the room before he had a chance to respond. The older man’s hand was firm on Will’s shoulder as he propelled him into the master bedroom, shutting the door behind them. He left Will standing apprehensively in the middle of the room while he opened the large teak armoire next to the bed and began flicking briskly through the hanging shirts, muttering “no, no, no” under his breath. He settled on one, pulling out a snow-white dress shirt with a subtly embossed check pattern. Setting it down on the bed he then brazenly reached forward to undo the buttons on Will’s bloodied shirt. Will was paralyzed by confusion, his eyes grey with distrust.

“What are you doing?” he stammered when Hannibal’s fingers finished their deft unfastening and slipped smoothly between the fabric of the shirt and Will’s shoulders; he felt a startling frisson of desire as Hannibal’s skin touched his. Hannibal said nothing as his bold hands glided down over Will’s back, pulling the stained shirt off of him and letting it fall to the floor. Despite his unease, Will found his limbs moving willingly in response to the doctor’s ministrations; he stood stock still with his heart fluttering high in his throat as Hannibal’s eyes ran over his body (Please) but Hannibal only draped the crisp white shirt around him, blind or indifferent to the torment he was causing.

As Hannibal leaned in, Will was close enough to see the rough edges of stubble just poking up through the taller man’s dark skin. A lifetime of ready smiles had left their mark on Hannibal in the network of fine lines around his deep brown eyes. There was the hint of a smile now on his rugged face as he silently and skilfully dressed Will. Trying to ignore how close Hannibal was to him, Will settled his eyes on a large painting of a naked young man grappling midair with a giant eagle. The depiction of Ganymede and Zeus did nothing to help the heat gathering inside of him. The material of the shirt felt stiff and cool on Will’s skin as Hannibal’s hands made their inexorable way back down Will’s front, one button at a time. When Hannibal rapidly undid Will’s pants to tuck in the shirt. Will suppressed a groan; he closed his eyes tight, the situation was both tantalizing and completely ridiculous.

“I can do that,” he said, pushing Hannibal away to begin shoving the shirt into the space between pants and boxers.

Hannibal’s smile had faded, and the muscles in his jaw twitched, but he calmly lifted his hands to fold Will’s collar down. When he seemed satisfied with the way it lay, one of his hands suddenly slid up beneath Will’s jaw while the other gripped him by the hair, forcefully pulling the younger man’s head back. Hannibal bent forward, achingly slow, to bring his lips a mere thread above Will’s; the long moment hung heavy, and blood sang in his ears. Will shamefully heard a small noise, less than a whimper, escape his throat.

With unimagined tenderness, Hannibal’s lips finally met Will’s. In a daze, Will felt Hannibal gently nudge his mouth open and touch the end of his tongue, almost hesitantly, to his. Will felt something inside of him burst; he leaned in to deepen the kiss, taken aback by the violence of his reaction.

Will growled in agony when, after only a brief moment, Hannibal pulled away.

“You shouldn’t be here,” murmured Hannibal, his eyes dark. Hannibal’s tangled fingers pulled painfully at Will’s hair.

“Why?” asked Will, breathless and bitterly confused.

Hannibal just shook his head as stroked Will’s cheek with a thumb, face unreadable.

Will reached up and took the man’s wrist in hand, meaning to push him away, when he realized that Hannibal’s pulse was careening at a pace to match his own.

He fought to control the howling tempest that was raging inside him. He was maddened, desiring only to force the younger man down on the bed and tear his clothing, to bend and break him with his desire.

Will blinked in sudden, thrilling understanding, and shifted his hips forward so that he was touching Hannibal. He slid a hand down the soft material of the doctor’s vest to his waist and pressed Hannibal firmly against him. Dark passion flared in Hannibal’s eyes as Will felt the man harden against his thigh.

I can play your game.

Hannibal took a ragged breath and laughed softly, releasing his cruel grip on Will’s dark curls.

“Naughty boy,” he said, but pulled out of Will’s embrace. “Our guest is waiting… though I don’t know how am I going to pay attention to Alana with you at hand.” His smile was strangely restrained.

Hannibal resumed straightening his shirt and looked appraisingly at Will. Will was suddenly stunned. What he had once assumed was stark indifference, he now recognized as phenomenal self-control; it was terrifying and utterly bewitching at once. What are you afraid of, Hannibal?

(I will hurt you.)

Hannibal opened the door and motioned to Will.

“After you, min kæreste.” He said with a coy smile.

In the kitchen Alana was frowning in concentration at her phone. She looked up at the approaching pair.

“There you are,” she said, smiling.

“Apologies, my dear. Finding a shirt to fit Will was more difficult than I had assumed. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.” Hannibal paused and smiled serenely at Will. “Will, you can pour yourself a glass of wine and sit. I don’t believe this is an area of your interest. We’re not gutting fish, after all.” He laughed teasingly.

Will shook his head and smiled tightly at Alana. He fingered the checked embossing on the shirt he was wearing.

“Hannibal’s answer to plaid.” he said, trying to make light.

Alana chuckled.

He felt like he was literally crackling with tension as he sat back in the worn leather chair. He watched with something bordering on awe how unaffected Hannibal seemed in comparison. He took a sip of the wine and smiled. Hannibal was right—the wine certainly was interesting. He looked up and locked eyes with the doctor as Alana bent down over the dried chillies she was crushing with mortar and pestle. A slow, devilish smile spread over Hannibal’s handsome face.

Will started to think of ways to get Alana to leave.

* * *

“I just heard that an old patient of yours was murdered,” Alana said in a low voice. Hannibal nodded sadly, and Alana put a hand on his arm. His eyes flicked to the hallway where Will had disappeared, having excused himself to take a phone call.

“Yes, it’s a tragic thing. He was a fireman I treated for PTSD only a few years ago. What a terrible way to die,” he said, shaking his head. “Monsters truly walk amongst us.”

8

Mongoose

Hannibal watched Will take a bite of the pulled-pork sandwich and smiled. Over the course of the evening he found that his eyes were drawn over and over again to Will’s mouth. It had a sort of puckish quality when it wasn’t being pressed in a serious line; the corners of Will’s lips dipped in at the edges when he smiled in a way that made Hannibal want to tease them open once more. What was it about this particular man that had him so utterly at odds with himself?

Nodding politely to Alana who was retelling some New York bar experience, Hannibal let his eyes wander back to Will. He knew well that he was fooling himself when he thought he was in complete control of the situation. He was not being prudent; this afternoon with Will had shown him how very evident that was. His eyes lingered on the collar of Will’s borrowed shirt. It fit him badly, and Hannibal could see Will’s graceful collarbone as the younger man leaned forward against the table. Hannibal suppressed a sigh and looked down at his plate, watching as juice from the meat made small pools of grease on the white stoneware. Not an elegant dish for sure, but there was something terrifically satisfying about tearing into it. Alana certainly looked pleased with the results.

Alana.

She was one of those rare creatures that Hannibal rather enjoyed having around. He wasn’t sure exactly why; it could simply be that she was so cheerful despite all of her various ongoing dilemmas. When the floodwaters were rising, Alana was one who kept afloat and, he smiled to himself, she didn’t drown anyone else in the process. Alana was good. Maybe he kept her around as evidence that it actually existed, this concept of good or, maybe, he just kept her around because she was pretty to look at and had a wonderfully sensitive palate.

Hannibal watched with some amusement as she made yet another attempt to engender some kind of amorous response in Will. She wet her lips, touched him lightly with her hand as she talked, and sat in such a way to bring attention to her breasts. Hannibal looked to Will who was nodding along to her story, seemingly engrossed. He narrowed his eyes at his dark-haired friend. Will didn’t fit into the boxes that Hannibal used to file everyone else in. He was pure empathy, a large part of his ability was spent translating the emotions of others into his own actions or words… how did he filter anything out? Will was like a wire stripped of its casing.

What did Will feel when he was with Hannibal? Was it a sincere response, or was it just a reflection of Hannibal’s own desire? The wine blurred the edges of his thoughts. Will shifted his gaze to Hannibal when he realized he was being watched; blatant hunger blazed up suddenly in his shadow-blue eyes. Normally happy to stretch out the enjoyment of a good meal, Hannibal found himself unusually impatient, wishing it was over so he could be alone with his new pet project.

Alana frowned uncertainly at Hannibal and Will.

“You’re staying here?” she asked Will.

He shrugged and smiled.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“How are you going to get back to your car? It’s really late,” she asked, confused.

Hannibal put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“I will drive him myself. Don’t worry, I don’t mind at all. Will and I just have some things to discuss that can’t wait,” he said blithely, holding Alana’s coat out behind her. She put her arms through the sleeves and fastened it as Hannibal leaned forward to peck a kiss on her cheek.

“He’s in good hands.” Or at least he will be if you ever leave.

She stood there shaking her head and then shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” she said, smiling at Will even though the disappointment was obvious on her face. She turned to Hannibal. “Thank you again for tonight. You’re a very patient teacher.” She smiled wryly.

It was everything he could do not to shove her out the door.

“Always a pleasure, my dear. You’re welcome in my kitchen any time.”

“All right. I’ll see you later.” Alana lingered awkwardly a moment longer and then went out into the cold night.

Hannibal closed the door slowly behind her and turned to Will. The handsome young man was leaning against the dark tone-on-tone damask wallpaper of the hallway, his lustful looks having been replaced by something shy. Oddly, Hannibal also felt somewhat unsure himself. Expectations had been set, but he couldn’t see how to approach them. Then he noticed again that Will positively reeked with the scent of nervous sweat; he smiled.

“Come,” he said simply and walked down the hallway.

Will followed Hannibal into the bathroom, apprehension plain on his fine-boned face. He watched as Hannibal undid his tie and pulled it off, depositing it on the ebony counter. Hannibal then undid the buttons of his vest and shirt and pulled those off too; standing bare-chested, he reached into the shower and turned it on, testing the water coming out of the three staggered showerheads. Looking over his shoulder at the transfixed FBI agent as he undid his belt and pants, Hannibal stepped out of his clothing and into the glass-enclosed shower.

Warm water poured down over his shoulders and chest; he closed his eyes and bowed his head into the highest stream. A few agonizing moments later, Hannibal smiled wide as he felt another body hesitantly enter the tight space. He turned around at once and brought his wet arms up around Will’s naked form, pulling him slowly under the water with him. Will shuddered once and then slid tightly into Hannibal’s embrace, leaning his forehead down against the taller man’s shoulder. Hannibal felt strangely protective of Will as they stood for a long time under the warm deluge, just letting the water run over their entwined bodies. Hannibal was wary of this alien sentimentality; but, for the moment, it felt… nice.

Hannibal clenched his jaw, eventually pulling away from Will.

Enough.

Will was staring up at him, his face completely unreadable, but Hannibal grinned wickedly at Will as he grabbed the soap, instantly shattering the tender stillness that had taken over the small space. Will smiled uncertainly and then let out a gasp and a long sigh of enjoyment when Hannibal ran his soapy hands slowly down his chest. Hannibal spent a few minutes just teasing him by gliding his slick palms over Will’s wet skin but never going further than his waist. Will laughed breathily and surprised Hannibal by suddenly stepping forward and taking the older man in his arms.

Will’s hands playfully soaped the older man’s back and buttocks as his hips made achingly delicious contact with Hannibal’s. Hannibal groaned and ground himself against Will, his surprise giving way to a frenzy of want. He felt giddy when he felt Will’s lips against his neck; despite the warm water, he broke out all over in gooseflesh. Will made his way up the side of Hannibal’s throat with small nips of his teeth and ended at his mouth, kissing him deeply. Hannibal inadvertently fell headlong into the kiss, his mind going blank with waves of hot desire.

Enough.

Breaking the kiss, Hannibal grabbed one of Will’s hands and forced it down to his engorged cock. He felt Will tense momentarily—he knew this was entirely new territory for him, but Hannibal was gratified when he felt the younger man’s strong grip on him. Will began fondling him with even, steady strokes as he bit lightly into Hannibal’s neck. Hannibal shuddered with delight and pumped himself into Will’s tight fist, losing himself again in the moment.

Enough. Enough.

Hannibal was having difficulty maintaining control over his responses to Will’s surprisingly confident touch. He was completely taken aback by the younger man’s enthusiasm; Hannibal was being handled with all the skill and wanton abandon of a consummate lover. He ground his teeth; he felt himself begin to tease the edge of oblivion as Will’s tongue was tracing the elegant lines of his jaw.

ENOUGH.

He reached out and shut off the water.

Will pulled his head back and looked a question to Hannibal with his eyes. Hannibal growled and grabbed Will by the shoulder, pushing him out of the shower. He dragged Will roughly down the hall to his bedroom and threw him to the ground, feeling a satisfying surge of desire when he saw the first hint of fear in Will’s blue eyes. Hannibal snarled his fingers in Will’s wet hair and forced his head up level with his hips; Will gasped in pain as he knelt on the scratchy handwoven wool rug. Hannibal clenched his cock in the other fist and pushed the head of it against Will’s lips. Will’s eyes went wide in supplication as he attempted to pull out of his assailant’s iron grasp, but Hannibal bared his teeth at Will and surprisingly, the younger man stilled himself in submission.

Having breached the barrier of Will’s lips, Hannibal hungrily shoved his thick shaft into Will’s mouth. Will struggled as Hannibal forced himself slowly down his throat; with satisfaction, Hannibal felt Will wrestle with his gag reflex as he took in almost everything Hannibal had. Hannibal waited until he felt Will choke hard to pull back; he saw that his dark-haired puppet had bright tears in his eyes as he coughed wretchedly. Not waiting for him to catch his breath, Hannibal plunged his length again down the wet tunnel of Will’s mouth; he placed his hand high on Will’s neck so he could feel himself brutally fucking the young man’s throat with hard thrusts. When Will started moaning into the onslaught, Hannibal looked down with wonder and saw that Will’s cock had gone rock hard. The sight of it crashed through the last of Hannibal’s barriers and he felt himself driven violently to orgasm. With Will’s nose buried in the dark curls above his shaft and his mouth stretched wide around him, Hannibal shot a barrage of hot cum down Will’s throat. He moaned loudly above the sounds of the younger man choking as he shuddered with delicious pleasure, his heart beating hard against his ribcage.

With his passion finally slaked, Hannibal released his grip on Will’s hair; Will crashed down on the rug, coughing hard into his hand. He looked up with furious eyes at Hannibal before launching himself at the older man.

Before Hannibal could react, Will had tackled him to the ground. They grappled frantically on the floor until the ex-cop managed to immobilize Hannibal facedown on the ground underneath him.

Hannibal, his neck pinned by Will’s forearm, listened in utter shock as the younger man spat hard into his hand before he forcefully drove his cock deep into Hannibal in a single, well-aimed thrust. Hannibal cried out at both the sudden pain and sheer audacity of his predicament. After only a few grunting thrusts, Will went rigid with a low shuddering gasp of pleasure. He pushed himself hard against Hannibal once more before he pulled out and collapsed, panting, on the floor beside him.

After a moment, Hannibal began to laugh and turned over to lie on his back on the Turkish rug. Will propped himself up on his elbows and looked over at his therapist, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. He rolled over onto his stomach, halfway on top of Hannibal, and leisurely leaned in to shut him up with a kiss. Hannibal’s hands slid up over Will’s backside and up his slender ribs, gently scratching his soft skin with his nails. He felt Will’s rough stubble scrape over his lower lip as their mouths moved over each other, tongues sharing spit and mysteries. He started to chuckle again despite himself. Will raised his head and scowled playfully at Hannibal.

“Stop laughing, you ass,” he growled. Will ran his fingers through the hair on Hannibal’s chest and roughly tweaked his nipple while Hannibal looked up in amazement as the strange creature who had conquered him leaned in once more to savage Hannibal’s mouth with his own.

Somewhere deep inside Hannibal, the small thing that had never before managed to breach the walls, found a small crack and began to tear at it.

9

Panther

And I’ll see you

And you’ll see me

And I’ll see you in the branches that blow

In the breeze,

I’ll see you in the trees

—Sycamore Trees, lyrics by David Lynch

* * *

Will stared up at himself in Hannibal’s huge ceiling mirror. Pressing his fingers into a bruise Hannibal had left during another satisfying struggle, Will grinned. He was lying on his back, comfortably naked, on the dark sheets of Hannibal’s bed. Physically, he was exhausted… and really sore. On the other hand, Will realized he had never felt so alive; there was a pleasant buzzing under his skin and his limbs felt loose and light. He watched his reflection’s hand creep slowly down towards his groin. Kinky. He chuckled to himself and stretched like a lazy feline on the deep brown sheets; the furrows of his ribs were starkly defined on his pale skin as he arched his back in the gloom. From the hallway he heard Hannibal’s light tread and turned his head to watch the older man enter the room. There wasn’t a significant height difference between the two men, only a few inches, but Hannibal carried himself like a man much taller. He was gracefully muscled and enviably toned under his tanned skin; Hannibal moved with an elegant, restrained power, sleek like a jungle cat. A dangerous predator.

Dangerous indeed…

When Will had forced himself into the shower, he had seen immediately that there was no trace of the knife-wound he had supposedly inflicted on Hannibal’s smooth shoulder. Will knew he should have been confused, angry… maybe even afraid, but he wasn’t.

Strangely, the only thing he had felt was a growing curiosity.

That was the moment when he had let go completely and totally. It was like he had been fighting the effects of a drug; the second he stopped and accepted what it was that he truly wanted, he felt the world right itself again. Go with it. Don’t think. A strange fearlessness had washed over him as Hannibal had taken him in his arms. He felt none of his usual emotional turmoil, just a warm feeling of calm that was followed moments later by clear, unambiguous lust. The events that followed were so completely staggering that Will was now using substantial effort not to think too deeply.

Not yet. Just float above it for now.

With new affection, Will watched Hannibal as he crossed the room and climbed up onto the soft sheets beside him. In the hazy light of the room, Hannibal lay with one elbow propped beneath him, regarding Will with eyes that were black as pitch.

“You were gone a long time,” said Will with a playful smirk. “I thought I would have come to hunt you down.”

Expressionless, Hannibal just stared at Will.

“Go to bed, Will,” he said finally. The words were spoken in a curiously flat voice; it took Will a moment to understand the other man. He frowned in bewilderment and sat up. Hannibal watched him for a moment and, when he realized that Will wasn’t moving, he repeated himself slowly and softly.

“Go. To. Bed.”

Will’s eyebrows pitched further down.

“I can’t sleep in your bed,” he heard himself say in disbelief.

Hannibal nodded wearily.

“Will, I am not your boyfriend,” he said, almost inaudibly.

Will sat there uncertainly, his mind reeling in dismay and embarrassment.

“Well yes, no. I know that. I just thought… well yes… of course you’re right.” He pushed himself off the bed and stood staring at Hannibal for another second. Will felt the sudden urge to cover himself as the older man simply reclined there watching him coldly. Hannibal then slowly lay flat and closed his eyes. Will’s visceral prickle of fear was quickly replaced by hot indignation. He turned on his heel and left the room, fighting the urge to slam the door. He made his way down the hall to the guest room and sat on the edge of the bed. Will took a deep breath and scrubbed his hands over his dark curls. The situation was just outrageous; he’d had sex, extraordinarily satisfying, violent sex with his therapist, and now he was upset because they weren’t going to share a bed? Hannibal was right—he wasn’t Will’s boyfriend… they had just fucked.

(You ridiculous, sensitive boy. Shall I buy you pretty things?)

Will laughed softly at himself, a sad little sound in a small, lonely room. He pulled the duvet down and crawled into clean sheets the colour of a peacock’s breast. That he’d wanted to spend the night in another man’s bed was strange enough without thinking too hard on everything else. Will closed his eyes, assuming he would chase sleep all night; but, in only a few minutes his thoughts blurred as he drifted off to a dreamless slumber.

* * *

Hannibal lay for a long time in the murky darkness, his head filled with thoughts of the man in the other room. He turned over onto his stomach and opened his eyes. He felt feverish and uncomfortable; standing at the bathroom mirror earlier he’d seen something completely alien on his face. Confusion? Fear? There was something wrong with him. He clenched his jaw and pushed himself into the mattress; he was fighting the ridiculous, burning urge to go into the guest room to pin Will down and fuck him raw. Hannibal let out a deep moan of frustration. He had to do something to purge this infection from his mind. His problems were multiplying.

A few hours later when he was still sleepless and the sun was up, Hannibal came to a decision; he made a phone call, took another shower, and went into the kitchen to make something to eat.

* * *

Will stood in the dining room looking down with some amusement at the covered platter. He was still a tad groggy as he’d only just woken up; with no dogs here to get him out of bed, Will had slept longer than normal. He was thankful again that his neighbour, a retired older man, didn’t mind looking after Will’s pack when he was away. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for the amount of time he’d been spending away from his dogs. They were his family, first and foremost; he couldn’t let whatever this… thing… was with Hannibal get in the way of that.

Will had been nervous about which version of Hannibal he would wake up to. The profoundly charming, debonair therapist with a culinary passion? The savage, raging, lustful brute that seemed bent on destroying Will with pain and pleasure? Or that cold, calculating thing that sometimes wore Hannibal’s handsome face? Will had pulled himself out of bed and walked nervously up the hallway to the bathroom to collect his clothes. He saw right away through the open door of Hannibal’s room that the bed was made. His suspicions that Hannibal had left were confirmed when he found a piece of paper resting on the pile of folded clothing. On it, in an elegantly simple hand was written: Had to run. I left you something in the dining room.

Will lifted the silver cover and smiled to see a still-warm cup of coffee next to an omelette and a small pastry on a plate. He lifted another note penned by Hannibal and read: Eat. Lock up after you. Will frowned and shook his head. There was a key attached to the note with a black ribbon. He smiled wryly.

(I am not your boyfriend, Will.)

Will grimaced.

His stomach growled as he transferred the plate of food to the empty spot in front of him at the table and began to eat.

* * *

Hannibal stood staring out the window at the stark winter trees, hands clasped behind his back, as he waited for Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier to come back. When he heard her heels on the steps behind him, he turned and smiled.

“Dr. Du Maurier, I do apologize for the last-minute nature of this meeting. Thank you very much for accommodating me,” he said. His therapist just smiled in her soft way and nodded, holding a hand out so that he would take a seat. She sat across from him, crossing her legs, shapely hands folded on her knee. Her long blond hair curled in graceful waves around her face, brushing the rose silk of her shirt as she leaned forward and tilted her head slightly at her favourite patient.

Her only patient.

“It’s not a problem, Hannibal. You sounded… distraught. I found that extremely unusual. Has something happened?” she asked, her concern was chaperoned by apprehension, as always.

Hannibal sat staring down at the dark teal fabric of the chair he was sitting on; looking up into his colleague’s similarly blue eyes, he pressed his lips together and frowned before replying.

“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said. “I’ve created a situation that I am unable to readily extract myself from… at least with any decorum.”

Dr. Du Maurier nodded and furrowed her brow.

“That’s very unlike you, Hannibal. How did this mistake manage to slip through your… defences?” she asked. “Does it have to do with someone you consider close?”

Hannibal’s eyes flicked to the woods again as he nodded. He drew one hand over the other and clenched his fist.

“It was a poor gamble on my part and now I have to rectify the situation, though it gives me no joy to do so. It’s not a decision made lightly, which is why I am here.”

Dr. Du Maurier smiled sadly in her reserved manner.

“You’re going to end the relationship with this person, Hannibal?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I have to remove them from my life completely,” he answered flatly.

* * *

Will frowned at the strange text message he had just received from Hannibal. Shaking his head, he resumed brushing the dogs on his front porch. The repetitive motion and the growing pile of fur that kept threatening to blow away in the brisk breeze had been keeping his hands occupied. He was thankful for the constant small things he had to do. However, his mind was careening and skittering like a maddened thing. The self-confidence and mental clarity he had felt the previous day had evaporated like mist under the rays of a hot sun, making way for dark questions to creep into his mind. What did he really know about Hannibal? He felt a little ill suddenly. Will looked back at the phone message and wondered if it was wise to meet Hannibal tonight.

* * *

Hannibal stood in the darkened woods staring up at the yellow full moon. He was warm inside his wool coat, safe from the cold wind moaning through the skeletal branches of the trees; his mind was clear and calm as he waited in the ghostly light of the clearing.

It wasn’t long before he heard the footfalls coming towards him through the winter forest. He flexed his hands in his leather gloves and stepped out to meet the dark form approaching.

“Abigail?” he called softly. She stopped in her tracks and peered around in the wan light when she heard his voice. Having spotted Hannibal in his dark grey overcoat, Abigail ran to him. The tall man enfolded her in his arms and stroked her hair, holding her in a tender embrace.

“I have been so worried about you,” he said softly, pressing his cheek against her chestnut locks. Abigail held onto him tight, shivering in her light coat.

“Hannibal, I’m so glad you sent me that message. I needed to get out… I’m going crazy. I just can’t sleep at night, I don’t feel safe there anymore. Even awake, I see Nicholas Boyle’s face. I see the faces of all those girls. I see my father…” she stammered.

“I came to tell you that Will Graham knows everything… and so does Jack Crawford,” he said, feeding her fears with a lie.

She went rigid in his arms and pulled back, looking up at him with her large, crystalline blue eyes. Abigail’s mouth hung open, her bottom lip quivering; she quickly traced the features of his face with her eyes before she spoke.

“If I run they’ll catch me won’t they? You… can’t protect me anymore.” She grabbed at his arms, shaking from the dread that gripped her, breath shuddering loudly in her throat. Hannibal nodded.

“They’ll arrest you when they find you, yes… and they will,” he said matter-of-factly. He removed her hands from his coat and tilted his head slightly, staring at her with coldly curious eyes. Would she try to escape?

Abigail gasped for air; her eyes brimmed with glossy tears when she realized that all warmth and compassion had left her benefactor’s face. She looked down, backing up slowly; her gaze darted up at him a few times in apprehension. Hannibal took a step towards her, the shadowy branches painting stripes across his grim countenance.

“Will always said whoever called the house that morning was a serial killer… Why did you really call?” she asked nervously, understanding coming to her so late. She took another small, timid step back.

“I wanted to warn your father that… Will Graham was coming for him,” he said simply, stepping still closer to her in the dark of the forest.

“Why?” asked Abigail, the high tremor in her voice creating an extra half syllable in the word.

Hannibal placed his gloved hand on her shoulder and looked down into her wide fearful eyes.

“I was curious what would happen,” he replied without a trace of emotion. “I was curious what would happen when I killed Marissa. I was curious… what you would do.” He pointed to her with a gloved finger.

Abigail’s brow was furrowed as she forced her words out through trembling lips.

“You wanted me to kill Nicholas Boyle,” she said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

“I was hoping. I wanted to see how much like your father you were,” he conceded.

Her intake of breath sounded sharp in the quiet clearing.

“Oh my god,” she said, her face crumpling.

“Nicholas Boyle is more important for you gutting him. You changed him, Abigail. That’s more important than the life he clambered after,” Hannibal said evenly.

“How many people have you killed?” she asked faintly, her chest heaving with every breath.

Hannibal released her shoulder and took one of her small hands in his own. He looked thoughtfully down at the pale, fragile thing he held in his leather grip before meeting her eyes.

“Many more than your father,” he answered truthfully.

“Are you going to kill me?” Abigail asked, her voice quavering with the force of her terror. Surprisingly, there was also resignation in the question. Hannibal loved her completely in that instant. He lifted a hand and slid a gentle thumb over her cheek.

“I’m so sorry Abigail. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you in this life,” he murmured. I’m sorry for not feeling more sorry. He leaned in slowly to kiss her trembling lips with his own.2

* * *

Will stood outside in the dark, feeling ridiculous in his one good suit. He glanced down at his watch again and frowned. It was unlike Hannibal to be late for anything, he thought, as he paced back and forth; the small wayside parking was empty save for Will and his silver Volvo.

Suddenly out of the hazy gloom came a pair of headlights. Will raised his hand to shield his eyes as Hannibal’s Bentley pulled up to him. The driver’s side window lowered, and Hannibal looked out at Will, the smile on his face warm, and his brown eyes twinkling with mischief. Will shook his head in exasperation.

“So why am I standing in a park wearing a suit?” he asked, perplexed. “And what took you so long?”

“Get in, and I will tell you,” Hannibal said, raising the window.

Will walked around the big black car and slid into the passenger’s side. He had barely closed the door when the tires started moving, Hannibal’s gloved hands turning the steering wheel sharply to get back onto the highway. He looked over at Will who had crossed his arms over his chest, face puckered in suspicion.

“Well?” asked Will.

Hannibal’s stark brow made shadows of his eyes as he looked back out at the blacktop.

“A bit of unpleasant business,” he said “There was a terrible scratching noise in my office that had been vexing me all day. It seems a small bird with a broken wing had become trapped in an air vent. I had no choice but to put the poor thing out of its misery when I found it.” He sighed.

Will felt some of the calm beginning to return to his mind despite his earlier misgivings. Hannibal was just a man like any other despite his fickle nature. An unpredictable, secretive man who was driving Will god knows where.

I should get my head checked again.

As if reading his thoughts, Hannibal let out a throaty laugh and cocked his head at Will.

“I’m sorry for the mysterious nature of our outing,” he said, graceful lips stretched wide in a playful smile, all traces of the previous night’s disinterest gone. “I thought by meeting me halfway we would save time. Having you trapped in my car, unable to escape, is merely a pleasant bonus.”

The lines deepened in Will’s creased brow, and his mouth turned down again at the corners. Hannibal, seeing Will’s mistrustful expression, tutted at him quietly.

“Now… don’t hate me Will,” he said. “But, meine Liebe, we’re going to a party.”

Will almost choked.

“A party? What? What kind of party?” he stammered in dismay.

Hannibal just smiled as shifted his grip on the wheel and pressed his foot down harder on the gas.

10

Mouse

After yet another turn down the dark dirt road, the Bentley finally pulled up to a large house deeply ringed by the black-beetled humps of similar-looking cars. Hunching lower, Will felt like he was sweating through the back of his cheap dark-grey suit as he sat miserably in the passenger seat.

Hannibal had kept up a lively chatter for the entire drive there, though largely with himself; Will was far too preoccupied to contribute. The thought of going to a party, any party really, was completely laughable. Will had long ago lost the ability to just relax and enjoy himself in a group of people, or so that’s what he kept telling himself over and over during the long drive. At least he’d have some chance of that if they were like-minded individuals, but Hannibal had said it was a party for those with “atypical cosmopolitan tastes”. When Will heard those words his heart had collapsed into his stomach. What the hell did that mean? With Hannibal that could be something as conventional as tasting expensive wine or, he looked over at Hannibal’s dark profile, something completely eccentric. In the course of their friendship Will had begun to take for granted, and honestly appreciate, some of the doctor’s predilections for the unusual. However, over the past week, Will realized that he had been seeing only the tip of the iceberg; the doctor’s tastes ran definitely deeper into the bizarre.

Will frowned; Hannibal certainly seemed to enjoy keeping him unbalanced. Even now, as his well-dressed companion parked the car on the grass, the expression on his face when he looked over at Will was bordering on the fiendish. Will could only assume the worst. Like what? Will sunk lower in the leather seat and clenched his jaw; it was much too late to do anything about the situation, and besides, he thought unhappily, he was feeling strangely excited. It was an agonizing, soul-simmering feeling, like his blood was itchy or his skin was on too tight.

Will had wrestled with himself all afternoon over the doctor’s message: Be a good boy and meet me tonight. Wear a suit. He was starting to feel like Hannibal’s toy. After countless trips around the room, he had finally pulled out his courtroom suit and put it on. Will was beginning to regret that decision.

Where did you think you were going to go? A nice restaurant for a candlelight meal?

Suddenly Will’s passenger door opened, startling him; Hannibal looked down at Will, a sly smile playing over his lips.

“Are you coming, Will?” Hannibal’s voice brimmed with amusement over his friend’s discomfort.

Will glared at the doctor and unclasped the seat belt, pulling himself out of the car to stand on the uneven, grassy ground next to Hannibal. He squared his shoulders.

“Ok. Let’s get this over with,” he said.

When they were greeted at the door by a young man wearing nothing but body paint and a pair of tiny briefs, Will almost turned on his heel to go wait in the car. Hannibal’s hand curled tightly around his bicep, fingers digging into him as he smiled pleasantly at the gaudy doorman.

“Cernunnos. Plus one,” said the doctor cryptically.

Will raised his eyebrows and looked askance at Hannibal. The man at the door smiled and nodded before showing them in.

The house was old; Will could tell at a glance that it was probably one of the first properties this side of the river. Inside, it was sumptuously decorated. Looking up at the winding staircases with their filigreed iron railings, Will could see three enormous crystal chandeliers hanging overhead. The walls in the entrance way were covered by large oil paintings; between them could be seen a pale cream-coloured wallpaper. At his feet on the white marble floors were Persian rugs in deep blue and burgundy hues, beautiful and thick; Will resisted the urge to move his worn oxford off the one he was standing on. He felt miserably underdressed as he glanced over at Hannibal’s flawless black tuxedo. Will rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed; he hadn’t even thought to shave. Then, blinking rapidly, he choked down a laugh; the humbling effect of the decor had been suddenly and totally eclipsed by the fact that the nearly-nude attendant seemed to be wearing a long furry tail attached to his thong.

“What the hell is this, Hannibal?” His whispered question was rendered nearly inaudible when a peal of laughter erupted from the floor above them. Hannibal just smiled and steered Will further into the house.

“What kind of party is this?” he asked again a little louder, looking around in bewilderment. In the richly appointed sitting room stood a number of gentlemen in various styles of expensive suits. Most of them were smoking large cigars and drinking out of crystal tumblers, talking quietly amongst themselves. In the corner of the room on a small stage was a three-piece jazz band playing a slow rendition of Perdido while a heavily tattooed woman danced naked in front of them. Hannibal narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the dancer as Will took in his surroundings.

“Please don’t tell me you brought me to a crazy sex party.” Will felt like he was going to break into helpless laughter at any second.

“It’s simply a party, Will,” Hannibal lifted a finger in the air, beckoning another painted and thonged servant towards them. This time it was a pretty young woman, her small, shapely breasts painted to look like the eyes of a cat.

Will felt the heat in his face as he tried to look anywhere but into their gaze.

“Can you please bring my associate and me a glass of the champagne, my dear?” Hannibal pronounced the word like the French did. The girl turned to go, presenting the men with a view of the cat tail adorning her pert buttocks; Will swallowed and watched the sway of the black tail as her rolling walk took her out of the room. Hannibal slowly slid his arm around Will’s waist and pulled him close. Will tensed for a moment, glancing around in alarm before realizing that Hannibal was just leaning in to say something quietly to him.

“Listen to me very carefully and remember what I say. One, do not use your real name… make something up but always say that you are with Cernunnos. Two, under no circumstances are you to divulge that you work with the FBI. And three, do not accept any food or beverage from anyone other than myself. Do I make myself clear?” The older man’s voice had taken on a deadly serious edge.

Will felt a sudden chill.

Hannibal turned Will slightly in his grasp; his gaze was cold and black for a second as he looked down at him. The moment passed quickly; Hannibal’s eyes took on a now-familiar glint before he lowered his mouth to Will’s, softly biting his younger companion’s bottom lip.

Will’s breath caught in his throat. The whole exchange happened too swiftly than Will was able to deflect. When he felt Hannibal’s lips move to his, Will thought he would burst into flames. If the point tonight was to cause as much distress to Will as possible, the doctor was certainly doing a great job of it. Suddenly his tormentor stepped back, smiling widely. Looking around at the other men in the room, Will realized that no one was watching them. Though why would they? Will had the distinct feeling that this was the sort of crowd that wouldn’t bat an eye at two men kissing. Or doing much more. For all he knew, they probably assumed that Will was Hannibal’s love slave.

(Aren’t you?)

He pulled at the too-tight collar of his shirt and grimaced, banishing Hannibal’s voice from his head. He watched as Hannibal accepted the two flutes of champagne from the bare-breasted waitress and passed one to Will, his eyebrows high and a merry smile on his sculpted lips. Taking the glass from Hannibal’s hand, Will laughed uncertainly.

“So if I take a drink from anyone here, I’ll never be able to leave, right? Just like in a fairy tale?” he joked. He watched in dismay as annoyance flickered over Hannibal’s face.

The older man looked away, his smile curling into his usual convivial expression as he greeted another man in something that sounded like Russian to Will. The two started a lively conversation, and Hannibal turned his back to Will; he was dismissed yet again.

He frowned at the taller man’s back wishing he could summon some of the self-assurance he had felt the other night when he’d pinned Hannibal below him. Instead, he just felt confused. Will stood awkwardly for a moment longer, unsure of what he should do. Upon hearing a round of laughter coming from the next room, Will shook his head; Hannibal’s warnings couldn’t possibly be that dire. He went to investigate.

* * *

Hannibal watched the dark-haired FBI agent make his way across the room with a tense feeling in his jaw. Was it a mistake to have brought him here? Hannibal resisted the urge to go and drag him forcefully back to his side.

Irritated, Hannibal looked back at the man he knew only as Perun, who was continuing his lament over the rise in shipping costs. His smuggling containers were filled with young Baltic women that were to be sold into prostitution or, as Hannibal suspected, used for more nefarious purposes.

He could smell the foulness of the cancer that was eating Perun’s liver as he leaned close to Hannibal. Like most of the people who attended these bi-yearly soirées, he insisted on talking about his perverse dealings. Hannibal found the compulsion for villains to share their particular species of moral corruption amusing; he had no such deficiency. He stood a true monster amongst frail little fiends. He frowned at Perun and shook his head in dismay; Hannibal’s interest was in a particular ikon from the early 1700s. He had asked Perun to smuggle it out for him and was unhappy to hear of yet another delay. Hannibal lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip of the Krug Clos du Mesnil. It was the 1988, he thought, flaring his nostrils. At least they served good wine.

He soon tired of Perun’s character. The good cheer Hannibal had felt on the road had left the room with Will. As he felt himself grow a touch truculent, Hannibal suddenly excused himself to a startled Perun and strode swiftly out the door.

* * *

Will stood mesmerized as he watched the twins take turns dislocating each others’ joints to pass, bonelessly, through small objects. The empty metal hoop, barely bigger than the young Asian man’s head, inched down over his oiled skin. Will frowned, how would it get over the boy’s hips? He took another sip of the bubbly liquid in his glass, fascinated at the display of contortionism on the small stage in the centre of the room. He had been relieved, and a little surprised, when the laughter from the other room had proved to be nothing more outlandish than a friendly game of poker.

Will began to feel a little better about the evening; the party seemed relatively innocuous. Definitely strange, he admitted, and highly sexually charged, but nothing that merited such an ominous warning from Hannibal. He looked around the room at the well-dressed partygoers and started to feel a loosening in his shoulders. Will took another sip and smiled.

* * *

Hannibal was at the bottom of the grand staircase when he heard the first notes of the Lascia ch’io pianga start. His eyes darted up to the second floor as he recognized the luscious flexibility of Mademoiselle LaBeauté’s soprano rising through air, opening within him a deep pit of pure sensation. Hannibal smiled and ascended the marble steps to the small teatro located at the back of the house. He stepped through the thick burgundy curtains and into the darkened space, feeling his way to a seat in the mezzanine. Lit in dazzling light on the stage was an ornate pedestal where the singer sat to deliver her swelling aria, though “sat” was questionably the right word.

Legend had it that Mademoiselle LaBeauté had been a beautiful, young opera singer in a small French town. She had fallen in love and married a doctor, a surgeon of some ill repute. She would soon discover the man to be a brutal sadist; when she had been caught in the embrace of a fellow opera singer, her new husband had locked her away in some rural hideaway and used the girl’s body to play out all of his twisted fantasies. Having grown tired of her over the years, he had simply dumped her in the river, a mutilated husk of a woman. She would have surely died, a lack of arms being the greatest deficit in her ability to swim, had it not been for the boat that passed over her in the water. The doctors had been convinced that she wouldn’t survive having been mangled so severely by the propellers; but, despite their misgivings, she had recovered slowly.

Her mind, however, had not.

She remained a grotesque lump of human flesh blessed only by an incredible set of vocal chords and lungs whose muscle memory was triggered any time an orchestra started to play. Hannibal doubted the veracity of the story, but the details were unimportant; he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes, letting the tragic music wash over him.

* * *

Will felt extremely heavy—his eyelids kept trying to close and his thoughts moved like sludge through his head. He thought he should be struggling, but for some reason his arms and legs wouldn’t listen to him. Will lay face down on something hard and uneven with his cheek against soft, slippery material. It was a pretty shade of red. Red like Hannibal’s room. He could hear a conversation happening somewhere above his head, but the voices were too hard to understand. Will frowned to himself and remembered talking to an immensely tall man who had told him he was painter but that boy’s blood and semen were costly materials. Will recalled laughing at the strangeness of the conversation.

He groaned. He couldn’t tell if he was too hot or too cold, the sensation extremely uncomfortable. Then, something started stroking his backside softly, and it felt nice. Sighing, he nuzzled his face into the shiny red surface beneath him.

When he felt a hand slide down his thigh, he realized with some distant alarm that it was touching his skin, but he was too sleepy to worry about it. So… sleepy… The caresses were soothing him softly. He tried to lift his head when he felt fingers slip between his ass cheeks.

No.

This wasn’t nice. There was a faraway voice inside him shouting in panicked alarm. Will tried to concentrate on it but only succeeded in confusing himself further. He gradually opened his eyes and tried to focus. He heard the voices again. The voice. Was there one or two? It didn’t sound like Hannibal. Hannibal? With renewed effort he tried to push himself off the bony things that were digging into his ribs. Legs? Was he lying facedown in someone’s lap?

He grimaced in revulsion when he felt a finger sliding over his anus.

“Auughrrmmpff,” was the only thing he could manage. It didn’t sound like a word. He started to smile at how ludicrous that was when he felt the greased digit slide inside him.

The muted alarm bells in his head suddenly punched through Will’s stupor, and he jerked forward, trying to escape the intrusion. A long arm draped over his back pressed down on him hard, holding him in place as he felt a second finger inserted.

Gagging against the nausea that suddenly assailed him, Will unsuccessfully tried to lift his head to take a breath. He tried to say that name, Cernunnos, but the hard C stuck in his throat and nothing came out. He felt himself being rocked back and forth as someone jammed their fingers painfully into his rectum.

A stranger.

As outraged as he was, Will was dismayed to find himself losing his tenuous grip on consciousness again.

There was more talking above him.

Hannibal?

Will wanted to cry out in relief when he recognized the purring sibilance of Hannibal’s voice near him, but his slack mouth made no sound at all. As slowly as a feather falling to earth Will’s mind descended into the deep oubliette of a blackout.

* * *

After trying several doors on the second floor and failing to locate his wayward companion, Hannibal started to get irritated. He descended the flight of stairs and crossed into the dining area. The immensely long, white table was heaped with an abundance of rare and exotic foods, but Hannibal merely sniffed in derision at the scene.

A woman with an apple-red ball gag in her mouth, bent over and tied down on her knees to a huge silver platter at the edge of the table, was penetrated from behind by one man, and then another in quick succession. As he approached, she opened her dazed eyes and a third man took his place behind her, sweating and thrusting.

At the other end of the table sat three ladies dressed like mid-eighteenth century noblewomen, intent on a proper game of cards.

All along the spotted and stained tablecloth were people gorging themselves on wine and food. Hannibal could see that there was a man asleep with his head on a plate of lamb at the far side of the room.

He wondered if Will had seen this; Hannibal felt a strange sense of concern and thought again that he shouldn’t have brought the FBI agent here. While making him blush and stammer amused Hannibal, he thought the bacchanalia surrounding him was perhaps more than what Will could handle.

Why do I care?

Hannibal turned down into the hallway and tried the knob of the first door he encountered. The room, made up to resemble someone’s tawdry idea of a Middle Eastern palace bedroom, was occupied. Sitting on the red satin of a low bed, a dark, long-boned man fingering the ass of a smaller man draped over his lap.

Hannibal stood very still as Will’s awful cologne assailed his nostrils. He tilted his head and watched as Will’s debaucher, unaware of Hannibal’s presence, forced a second finger into the unconscious man as he muttered to himself in a low voice. A surging rush of heat seized him, and he heard himself say slowly:

“That belongs to me.”

With those words Hannibal came to the stunning realization that it was absolutely true.

Mine. He’s mine.

The man on the bed started at Hannibal’s words and glared up at the intruder. The fury inside Hannibal boiled over, propelling him forwards. He grabbed the rapist’s head in both hands, quickly and easily breaking the man’s neck.

Breathing heavily, Hannibal felt the calm slowly return to him. His brow furrowed as he looked down at the dead man slumped over Will’s back. This was the third time Hannibal had killed someone in anger because of Will. It was becoming a terribly sloppy habit. He shook his head and nudged the body over with the capped toe of his black leather shoe. He then slid Will’s thin white boxers and ugly grey pants back up over his hips before rolling him onto his back and doing up his zipper.

With a gentle finger he pushed up on one of Will’s eyelids and saw that his pupil was moving back and forth. He was unconscious but didn’t seem to be in any danger. Hannibal suspected that the younger man had been fed some Rohypnol; Will had obviously not taken his warnings very seriously. He sighed and smiled.

Bending down, he heaved the slender frame of his friend over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and looked one last look at the dead body half sprawled on the bed. The crime would never be reported… Of that he was certain. The owners of the house had a airtight contract with a very efficient cleaner. No doubt the long bones of the dead man would be sitting at the bottom of some very deep water soon enough. However, it was prudent not to be discovered as the one who was responsible. He took the handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped down the door handle, pushing in the button to lock the door from the inside. That would have to do.

Shifting Will’s weight on his shoulders, he walked down the hall to the front door. Hannibal smiled widely at the group of men who had just arrived and went out into the night.

* * *

Will felt warm hands sliding over his skin, removing his shirt and then his shorts. He felt a momentary rush of panic when he remembered the tall dark man at the strange house; but, on opening his eyes, he was comforted by the sight of the carved bedposts of Hannibal’s bed over his head. He turned his head heavily and looked up into the familiar face of the man who was undressing him. Hannibal noticed Will’s eyes on him.

“You’re lucky that I came looking for you,” Hannibal said softly, “and that you probably won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”

Hannibal lay down next to him and drew the sheet up over their bodies. Will grinned drowsily, an exquisite glow of well-being spreading through him as he fell asleep, Hannibal’s brown eyes watching him with an almost puzzled expression in the dark of the bedroom.

11

Goat

Will woke up when the sun started peeking through the roman blinds, rays of light dappling the dark sheets where the two men lay. He looked over at Hannibal who was lying on his side, facing Will. The older man’s face was softened in repose; the light filtering through the curtains highlighted the graceful slope of his high cheekbone and turned the silver in his hair a soft gold.

Will frowned as he tried to remember how he got there. In his memory there was a giant hole where the end of the evening should have been, and his head ached; there were red spots in his vision pulsing with every heartbeat. He groaned and turned over onto his back but that only worsened the pain—his insides started roiling with a painful nausea.

Looking up into the large gilt mirror at his pale, sweaty shape, Will struggled to take in a few steady breaths. He’d never felt so hungover in his life. How many glasses of champagne had he drunk? He could only remember the one that Hannibal had given him, though there was some fuzzy recollection of a second. He turned back on his side, fighting the lurching waves of sickness.

Thankfully, after a while, he managed to coax his body back to sleep. Falling into an uneasy slumber, Will dreamed again of the black stag and the field of the dead.

The next time Will opened his eyes, he was alone in Hannibal’s bed. He groaned; his head was still pounding, but the nausea seemed to have lessened. Will thought he heard some movement in another part of the house and decided to go look for something to soothe his aching head. He also hoped Hannibal could fill in last night’s missing details, and that he wasn’t too angry with him.

He looked painfully over the side of the bed for his boxers and, seeing nothing on the floor, frowned in annoyance. Where were his clothes? He sat up, lightheaded, and peered around; spotting a dark green robe at the foot of the bed, and assuming that Hannibal had laid it out there for him, he put it on and tied the belt as he padded barefoot down the hallway.

Finding the kitchen empty, Will went in search of Hannibal elsewhere before helping himself to something in the big metal fridge; for some reason he felt reluctant to touch anything in Hannibal’s intimidating workspace.

He found the doctor sitting in his usual place at the dining room table, a half-finished plate of food in front of him. Hannibal was just taking a sip of coffee and flipping through a large book full of pictures—the words Pinakothek der Moderne München on the cover—when Will walked into the room.

Hannibal looked up at Will over his cup of coffee, his face set in a rather grim expression.

“I expect you’re feeling rather poorly,” he said finally in his clipped accent.

Will just scrubbed the back of his head with an unsteady hand and nodded.

“There is a glass of something in the fridge for you. Go get it.”

Hannibal looked back down at the colourful catalogue, peering somewhat disinterestedly at what looked like a group of small, strange-looking cars.

Will felt his stomach clench as the finger of worry turned into a fist—what had happened last night?

In the refrigerator Will found a tall glass of some viscous-looking green liquid. He grimaced; taking a tiny sip, Will was surprised when it didn’t taste nearly as bad as it looked.

He carried it carefully back to the dining room and sat down across from Hannibal. After drinking another mouthful of the thick, gritty sludge, Will waited for the doctor to look up. The hall clock ticked loudly in the minutes it took Hannibal to finish perusing his book. Will remained still and quiet, not knowing whether he should be angry with how dismissive Hannibal was acting once again, or nervous about what he was going to say.

“Will,” Hannibal started and then paused.

Will was starting to get the impression that Hannibal was having difficulty finding the right words, something he’d never seen before in his therapist.

“I should not have brought you with me last night.”

Will frowned and waited for the doctor to continue. After a few seconds, he realized he wasn’t going to; Hannibal sat in his straight-backed way just looking at Will with a strangely hesitant expression on his face.

Will placed both his hands, palm down, on the table in front of him and stared back at Hannibal. Suddenly he felt waves of confusion engulf him. Anger. A desire to destroy the thing that was causing the turmoil. A desire to protect it. A desire to possess. More confusion… and then nothing. Will took in a sudden, heaving lungful of air as Hannibal stared at him with dark, numbed eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Hannibal quietly, the muscles in his jaw slowly rolling under stubble and tanned skin. “But you are.” He looked down at his hands, clenching one into a fist, and then he sighed audibly. “Last night was a mistake. I shouldn’t have gone at all…or, brought you with me,” he repeated. Hannibal raised his gaze back to Will who watched as the man’s incredible self-control cracked again, the strange tumult shining through.

Will waited for more words but when they didn’t come, he was suddenly furious.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” said Will, his voice steadily rising. “I don’t understand why we were there at all. Do you honestly hang out with that kind of crowd? That’s not you, and it’s definitely not fucking me. Christ, Hannibal, and why the fuck don’t I remember anything?”

He felt the sweet cleansing fires of anger burning off his fears.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why?? Why all the fucking lies… and secrecy… and leading me around by the nose? What’s with all the shitty mood swings??” Will stood, his shoulders quivering with the force of his rage. He took a few hard breaths. “I’m not your fucking plaything, Hannibal. I get enough of that shit from everyone else. Why am I getting it from you? I like you. I was beginning to really like… this… this thing between us. But if you can’t come clean with me, if you don’t start giving me answers… I am done. I don’t need this shit in my life. I don’t deserve this!” His voice caught in his throat. “What the hell do you want from me?” Will could hear the clock again in the sudden silence following his shout.

In a low voice, Hannibal slowly replied.

“I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t know how to do that.”

(I don’t want to want to hurt you…)

As quickly as Will’s temper had flared, it was gone; he stood with his hands on the table, breathing heavily, but no fire was left within him. There was something utterly and completely heartbreaking about hearing those words spoken without a trace of emotion. Will realized with a start that he was actually hearing Hannibal, not the charming disguise that he wore for everyone else, but the true voice of a man who lived and breathed a life of constant subterfuge and emotional manipulation to hide the truth of his existence… that Hannibal was broken. As broken as Will was, if not more.

Will slowly walked around the end of the table. Hannibal turned his head, tracking Will with eyes that were clear and brown as he pushed his chair back. His brow furrowed slightly but he didn’t move when the younger man reach for him; Will grasped Hannibal by the neck and lowered his face close.

“Don’t you ever. Fucking. Lie to me again,” he said deliberately, pushing his thumb into the pressure point where Hannibal’s jaw and ear met.

There was a flash of anger in the captive man’s eyes as he gasped in pain; but, when Will started to undo the buttons of Hannibal’s grey dress shirt with the other hand, his pupils grew large with sudden lust.

Hannibal’s lip twitched into a small smile as he moved to shake off the younger man.

“Will, I… can try to protect you from your demons, but I cannot protect you from the thing that will hurt you the most,” he said softly.

Will laughed harshly once and shook his head.

“Do your worst,” he said and leaned down, boldly capturing Hannibal’s lips in his. Despite the lingering hangover, Will felt a warm, delicious wave of pleasure come over him as Hannibal’s hands made their way up to his waist where the belt held the green robe closed.

With deft fingers, Hannibal undid the knot and slid his hands over Will’s slender hipbones and around to his ass, pulling Will against him. Will started to stumble and released his grip, but Hannibal stood, effortlessly lifting the younger man up onto the cool surface of the table. Will opened his mouth wide and breathed in Hannibal as they kissed deep. When Hannibal started pushing hard against him, Will found himself wrapping his legs around his waist to keep from sliding back. He suddenly remembered the bloody dream he’d had and it sent a fresh surge into his hardening cock; he groaned against Hannibal who seemed intent on breaking Will’s neck with the force of his kiss.

Hannibal’s hands raked Will’s back through thick fabric; with an angry growl, the man suddenly pulled the robe fiercely from Will’s shoulders. He broke the kiss and stared at Will with eyes maddened by lust.

This man means to kill me.

Will felt himself completely stripped of all rational thought; this was passion amplified beyond sense, forever reflecting back in the mirror of his strange talent. He was powerless and all-powerful. He was hunger itself. He was desire incarnate.

This was their design.

As they struggled against each other, a liquid jolt of electricity ran through them where bare skin touched. Will’s thighs grew raw from the fabric of Hannibal’s pants rubbing against them; his cock, swollen with need, burned to feel Hannibal’s hard hands upon him.

Hannibal sunk his teeth into his shoulder as Will clawed at the man’s clothing and whimpered in sweet agony. Suddenly Hannibal straightened and shoved Will back hard enough that his head cracked painfully against the wood of the table. With a curl of his cruel lips, Hannibal rapidly undid the button at his waist and pulled down his zipper as Will watched, his heart high in his chest.

Hannibal shoved down his briefs and his thick cock lurched eagerly out of its confinement, the tip wet with his lust. With one hand he grasped Will’s rigid shaft as he brought two fingers up to his mouth, slickening them with spit.

Will felt a momentary remembered fear scrabbling at his mind, but it fled when Hannibal’s fingers slid slowly and smoothly inside him, stroking confidently at the hard nut of his prostate. Will’s mind staggered with this previously untapped centre of pleasure; he moaned shamelessly in encouragement, moving in time to Hannibal’s inner caress.

Hannibal’s strong hand slid over the shaft and head of Will’s cock in a steady, tight rhythm as he worked his young friend’s ass with long, nimble fingers; Will was panting and covered in a glossy sheen of sweat when finally Hannibal slipped his fingers out of him. One hand still skilfully sliding along the younger man’s shaft, Hannibal brought the head his cock into contact with Will’s anus. He looked down at Will with a strangely thoughtful expression, his eyes serious as he repeatedly slid his wet cockhead back and forth smoothly over Will’s puckered opening.

The younger man closed his eyes and sucked in panting gasps as he waited for Hannibal to fuck him.

“Please.” The word came out a sob.

Hannibal’s need brimmed over, and he moved his fist to hold himself hard against the tightness of Will’s ass. Slowly, ever so slowly, the tumescent head of his cock widened Will’s sphincter enough that Hannibal could start to batter his way forcefully into the younger man’s insides.

Will gasped in surprise and pain at the terrible, tearing assault. Whether it was spit or something else that Hannibal added as he shoved his cock harder into him, it wasn’t enough.

No… wait… no…

He tried fighting against Hannibal’s relentless thrusts, jerking his hips to avoid deepening the penetration; with every brutal plunge, Will cried out in agony. However, a soupy, slow, black-molasses wave of pleasure started radiating out, smothering Will’s panic and hurt, replacing it with keen-edged ecstasy.

In delirious shock, he looked up into Hannibal’s bestial eyes. His raging desire was being fed equal parts pleasure and pain as their bodies crashed together with resounding smacks of flesh on flesh. Wanting more, Will used his hands and his heels to force Hannibal to ram harder, impaling himself on the pummelling cock, the hand clenched around his erection never ceasing in its tight, sliding hold.

Will felt the rising crest of his orgasm start to gain momentum just as Hannibal let out a guttural yell; the older man’s cock suddenly jerked, spreading Will’s ass wide as he pumped his seed deep. In reaction, Will’s wave of frenzy peaked; he cried out as he ejaculated with explosive force, filling Hannibal’s punishing hand with thick spurts of cum

* * *

The frantic movement of the two men slowed to a stop, their heaving breaths resounding in the quiet dining room. Hannibal started to pull out, but Will grasped at him to stay put a moment longer. Hannibal smiled and obliged, leaning down over the younger man and gently kissing him with a tenderness new to him.

His.

He nuzzled the neck of the dark-haired man skewered on his softening cock and sighed. This was good, he thought. Maybe good enough….

Slowly he felt himself slip out Will’s tightening hole, cum running slowly off the end of his cock. He sat heavily down on his chair.

Will raised himself blearily on his elbows on the honey-coloured wood of the table and regarded Hannibal with dark denim-blue eyes.

The intense desire hadn’t passed—if anything it had grown stronger. Hannibal felt the fire in his loins start anew. Longing to fuck Will again quickly, Hannibal took himself in hand and started stroking at the tightening skin as Will watched in a daze.

Suddenly there was a loud repeating tone. Will shook his head slowly and reached, dreamily, into the pocket of robe that hung off the edge of the table. Hannibal watched as Will took a few deep breaths and put the phone to his ear. He frowned immediately; Hannibal could hear the gruff cadence of Jack’s voice.

“Yes. Ok. Yes. I’m with him now. What? Oh my god.” Will’s face drained of colour. In a shaky voice he said, “Yes. We’ll be there soon.” Will punched the End button on the phone and regarded Hannibal with hollow eyes.

“Abigail was just found dead,” he said.

* * *

Hannibal stood quickly and enveloped the younger man in an embrace. Somewhere in Will’s shocked mind he registered that the surprise on Hannibal’s face had appeared a moment too late and, once there, sat perched like an ill-fitting mask.

12

Phoenix

If you want a lover

I’ll do anything you ask me to

And if you want another kind of love

I’ll wear a mask for you

If you want a partner

Take my hand

Or if you want to strike me down in anger

Here I stand

I’m your man

—I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen

* * *

“I don’t understand.” Will’s voice was hoarse; these were the first words he’d spoken since the phone call that morning. Hannibal and he stood in the morgue with Jack and Alana, looking down at the body of Abigail Hobbs.

The coroner shook his head and gestured to his clipboard.

“Tox screen negative. No defensive wounds. No post-mortem bruising to suggest the body was placed there. A climb up a tree is conducive to the scrapes on her shins, knees, and palms… There is no indication of foul play here. Nothing. I’m very sorry. Everything points to suicide.” The man pushed up his glasses and looked at the assembled group. “Do you still want me to prepare her for transfer to your lab?”

Jack shook his head.

“Yes.”

Everyone looked at Will. He stood rigidly, as if afraid to collapse. There were tears glistening on the red rims of his eyes.

“Yes. Maybe Brian or Jimmy can find something. Yes, transfer her.”

Jack furrowed his dark brow at Will and hunched his shoulders. Then he sighed, nodding to the man in the white coat who left to get the necessary paperwork.

Hannibal narrowed his eyes at Will for a moment. They wouldn’t find anything because there was nothing to find. It had taken surprisingly little coaxing to get Abigail to climb the tree with the rope around her neck.

That’s it my darling. Now tie it to that big branch. Everything will be all right.

Hannibal remembered how she had stood high up off the ground, liquid blue eyes staring down at him, her lips trembling. He’d been impressed by how forcefully she had taken the jump, breaking her young neck in the fall; there had been no need for him to do it for her with a hard tug at the end. A feeling of security had returned to him as Hannibal watched her feet finish their little dance. No longer threatened by Abigail’s crumbling resolve, Hannibal had freed himself up to devote more attention to the intriguing effect that Will Graham was having on him. He had itched to have the young man’s svelte frame in his hands again. On returning home after putting an end to his immediate troubles, Hannibal had been in such an exceptional mood that he had accepted the invitation to the Rectory’s biennial, thinking short-sightedly that it would be fun to parade an FBI agent among the libertine.

Now standing in the new Baltimore City Morgue, Hannibal watched Will fold his arms across his chest, hands tight around his biceps, as if to keep himself from shaking. Feeling eyes on him, Hannibal turned his head to Alana. She was staring at him with a small frown. He lowered his gaze and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll let your request go through, though I doubt they’ll find anything. I think it’s a waste of time… She had a guilty conscience, Will. She was unstable and took a coward’s way out.” Jack’s voice sounded harsh in the echoing room; he was angry that Abigail had died before evidence was found to condemn her.

Hannibal heard movement and looked back up just as Alana was crossing the room to put her arms around Will; he watched as the slight man leaned into her. Averting his gaze, jaw set, Hannibal felt a tiny flicker of heat in his chest. He brushed it aside.

“What a terrible, terrible shame this is,” Hannibal said quietly in the cold room. “Jack, you know I don’t believe Abigail was at fault. She was unstable, yes, but, from a great evil done to her. She was a victim, nothing more. Who are we to judge whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer, or to take matters into one’s hands? Like Will, I too would like for there to be some darker element at play and not just a sad ending to a sad story; we would prefer to blame this tragedy on a monster rather than wonder if, somehow, we failed poor Abigail.”

Jack’s top lip was still curled into small sneer of doubt, but he nodded and clasped his hands in front of him.

“Regardless, Doctor, I need Will’s head in the game and not caught up in searching for shadows.” With that, the glowering FBI agent left the morgue, doors swinging behind him.

Hannibal leaned down and brushed a stray hair back from Abigail’s pale forehead. Though all the colour was drained from her face, she was still a lovely girl; it was a shame that she had been so very fragile. He looked down at the dark purple ligature marks overlapping the terrible knife scar on her neck. Hannibal remembered how, looking down at Will and his breathless panic that day, he had felt compelled to give him Abigail’s life; the girl’s blood had been hot on his hands as he had held the wound closed, feeling somewhat amused by his own reaction. The girl would serve to bring Will closer into his influence; but, even then, at that violent nascency of their friendship, it had felt strangely like there was more behind his own actions.

The doctor sighed inwardly; he had given Will a gift and now he had taken it away. That was not very nice of him. He peered sidelong at the man who constantly encroached on his thoughts and tried to shut down the childish impulse to snatch his lover from the arms of another. Instead, he cleared his throat.

“Will, I can offer you a lift back to your car,” he said. Will lifted his head and stared at Hannibal; Alana pulled back, leaving her soft hands on his shoulders.

“Are you sure you want to drive at all, Will? Maybe you should stay in town. This is a big shock for all of us, most of all for you, I think.” She turned her head and locked eyes with Hannibal. “I think you should stay with Dr. Lecter tonight, Will,” she said very deliberately.

Hannibal tilted his head slightly at Alana. What is this?

When he saw the resigned set of her lips, Hannibal suddenly realized that the shrewd psychiatrist had inferred something about his relationship with Will. Though obviously unhappy about it since the feelings she had for her colleague were still raw, Alana was doing what she thought was best for Will. There was that tangible good in her again.

Hannibal was gratified to see that the younger man was looking at him with stormy eyes that held words trapped in blue amber: I need you.

Alana’s expression fell another notch when she saw the way Will looked at his therapist, her theory confirmed by the naked emotion on the haggard face of the man she held at arm’s length. She dropped her hands and twisted her mouth into the semblance of a smile. Hannibal thought for a moment that she was going to say something, but instead she just looked one last time from Hannibal to Will and nodded before leaving the room.

Hannibal folded the stricken Will into a tight embrace but had to release him quickly when he heard the footfalls of someone approaching. Though it was only the coroner returning with two men to bag the body, Hannibal didn’t want to be seen in a compromising position with his patient. Whatever views Jack might have about an amorous relationship between two men, Hannibal was certain that the grim FBI agent would seek to replace him as Will’s psychiatrist; Hannibal didn’t want to put that part of their relationship in jeopardy.

He also didn’t want anyone else in Will’s head.

Will made it very clear, the moment they arrived at the house, that he wanted to be left alone. He shrugged Hannibal’s hand off of his shoulder and walked stiffly through the living room to the wooden liquor cabinet.

It was a beautifully carved piece, refurbished from some old church pews; Hannibal watched in wonder as Will opened it and peered at the labels of the bottles inside. Fingering the raised silver stag head, Will opened the Dalmore King Alexander III and poured himself a crystal tumbler half full of the scotch. The younger man brought the glass to his lips and swallowed back a mouthful. When he bent his head down to pour more on top of the remaining liquid, Hannibal’s brow furrowed; this was not a good sign. Will raised his head and stared numbly at Hannibal standing in the arched entrance of the large living area; taking another gulp of the amber whisky he turned away and crossed the room to sit on the leather of the deep, ox-blood coloured couch.

Hannibal watched as the younger man’s eyes scanned the slate-grey room, coming to rest on the opposite wall. A large, particularly gruesome painting of Judith beheading Holofernes hung over the stone fireplace. The painting was by an unknown, but the mantelpiece was something Hannibal had commissioned from an artist by the name of Spring Hurlbut; real ram’s horns served as corner supports for the elaborate piece—all egg-and-dart and dentilation. On it rested a pair of antique bronze opera glasses, and a few old books bracketed by some heavy gold art deco bookends. The leather on the spines of the hardcovers was slowly being flaked away by time.

Hannibal turned his attention back to Will and watched as the younger man kicked his shoes off onto the grey green of the Modern Rya rug and lay back, resting his head on the arm of the couch. Will carefully took another swig of his drink and closed his eyes; the glass raised and lowered with the recumbent man’s breath as he held it on his chest. Hannibal was about to take a step into the room when Will’s voice cracked the gravid silence that had weighed down on them the entire ride home.

“I just need a little time, Hannibal.” Will looked at him, eyes filled with sorrow before turning his head away again.

So time was what Hannibal gave in return for killing the girl that Will had thought of as a daughter.

Three days passed.

Hannibal cooked for Will, bringing all of the meals to the younger man in silence.

He would leave in the mornings and, when he returned in the late afternoon, Will was in the same exact spot on the couch.

Hannibal fielded calls for him when the phone wouldn’t stop ringing, taking care that the dogs were looked after.

When Jack called to say that Zeller and Price had found nothing suspicious about Abigail’s death, he had imparted the information as Will stared at him, hollow-eyed.

In the quiet of the night, he stood over the prone body of his friend sleeping on the couch, watching as Will’s eyes darted back and forth under his lids, trapped in dreams.

He covered him with blankets, bought him new clothes, cleaned his dishes, placed more bottles of whisky within reach, and waited patiently for his young lover to finish grieving.

Late into the third night Hannibal was laying on his side, half asleep in bed, when he heard Will enter the room. He listened to the shushing noise of fabric gliding over skin before the slender-framed body of the young man slid under the sheets, curling up around Hannibal’s back. His heart lurched in his chest from the sudden contact.

Will’s mouth found the back of Hannibal’s neck and murmured thank you against it. Strangely unsure of himself, Hannibal waited for Will to say or do something else; he was both disappointed and amused when he realized that the younger man’s breath had fallen into the metered rhythm of sleep.

* * *

Will dreamed that he was standing in a stark black forest. In front of him Alana again hung limply from the sharp, strange branches of a grey tree. He waited in fear for her to tell him of danger, when he noticed that there were other forms hanging from the branches. It was so dark that Will could barely see; he kept rubbing at his eyes as if he could peel the darkness away like a veil.

Suddenly the shapes coalesced into the whiteness of Cassie Boyle and Marissa Schurr’s bodies, impaled on sharp antler-like branches. Will shook his head and started to step back when he crashed into something heavy behind him. He looked up in horror at the body of Abigail Hobbs, hanging above him from the grey tree. His mind lurched, careening in terror.

He had killed them. He had killed them with his bare hands.

Alana opened her mouth to scream as the black stag stepped silently out of the woods. Will tried to hear what she was saying but the giant beast had started butting its colossal rack of antlers against the great grey trunk. The bodies of the girls swayed crazily as the thunderous cracks of the stag’s assault shook the tree. Soon, there was a great creaking sound as roots tore from the hard ground; the tree toppled over and crashed heavily to the forest floor.

Will watched as a thick mist rose up and covered up all traces of the grey tree and its grisly ornaments. The stag stood between Will and the white mist, staring at him with dark, impassive eyes, its strange feathered hide ruffling in an unfelt breeze. Safe. He was safe. He felt protected. As in his other dreams he reached his hand out to touch the muzzle of the majestic beast before him.

* * *

Hannibal woke up to Will staring down at him with eyes free of the hopeless pain that had shadowed them since the death of Abigail Hobbs. The younger man still looked haggard; grief had not been kind to his already meagre frame, but it was as if the darkness had been burned away. Hannibal looked up into face of the handsome man above him and smiled.

“Hello, Will,” he said, bringing one hand up to stroke a thumb against Will’s cheek. Hannibal was pleased when he didn’t shy at his touch, though Will’s brows came together in a deep series of creases over his nose.

“I’m sorry I drank all of your whisky,” Will said softly.

Hannibal’s laugh erupted out of him, a deep, throaty chuckle. He shook his head and saw how Will’s lips turned up in a small shadow of a smile.

“Nonsense. Come, I will make us some breakfast,” he said, cheerfully.

Will’s smile broadened slightly and he nodded.

Hannibal threw the sheet back, rolling over to sit on the edge of the bed. He stretched his back, easing the sleep kinks out of his shoulders before standing to reach for the door of the armoire.

“Stop.”

The strange hitch in Will’s voice arrested the motion of his hand; he looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows in surprise. The younger man was standing on the far side of the bed, staring at Hannibal hungrily.

“I… prefer you like that,” continued Will, his face growing serious.

“Like what? Naked? Am I not to get dressed?” asked Hannibal in amusement.

Will’s eyes darkened, and he shook his head no.

Unused to taking orders from anyone but himself, Hannibal felt a small, unfamiliar thrill bolster his curiosity.

“As you wish, bao bei,” he replied, watching ruefully as Will pulled on, over his own nakedness, the khaki pants and white t-shirt Hannibal had purchased for him the previous day.

So that’s how it’s going to be.

Feeling at a strange disadvantage as he crossed the room, and keenly aware of Will’s eyes on him, Hannibal went down to the kitchen. Once there he reached for his chef’s apron only to have it quickly snatched from his grasp. He felt a momentary twinge of anger as he watched Will ball it up and set it behind him on the counter; however, it was completely diffused with Will’s next words.

“Don’t worry, if you burn yourself, I’ll kiss it better.”

Will smiled crookedly and leaned back languidly against the cupboards.

“Now make me something to eat.”

Hannibal chuckled at the curious change in Will. Gone again was the stifling, awkward, uncertainty; in its place was the almost cocky confidence that Hannibal was beginning to recognize as Will’s relaxed self.

Hannibal made a decision and went to the fridge; he brought out the ingredients to make oeufs cocotte aux girolles and placed them on the stainless steel work surface in front of him. Taking out the wooden cutting board, he glanced at Will who hadn’t moved from his spot. He was starting to feel a bit foolish about making breakfast in the nude; did Will expect him to actually go forward with it? The situation confused him as much as it titillated.

He took out the chanterelles and started to chop them, his hands falling into the familiar work. Moments later, he faltered when he felt and smelled the heat of Will standing directly behind him.

The young man took another small, silent step forward and, placing his hands on Hannibal’s hips, leaned forward with his chest against Hannibal’s back. Will spoke huskily into the taller man’s ear.

“Why did you stop?”

Hannibal’s pulse was skipping along at a quickening pace. He looked down at the knife, suspended in mid-chop, and felt Will’s rough fingers dig into his skin. Taking a deep breath, he brought the knife down anew into the yellowish skin of the mushroom, cleaving it in two. Hannibal felt the soft material of Will’s shirt move against his back as the hands on his hips began to slide slowly forward and up over the taught muscles of his stomach.

Will pressed himself against the older man, the stiff folds of his khakis scratchy against Hannibal’s buttocks; beneath the cool thickness of the material, he could feel the hard, hot ridge of Will’s cock. A small groan came unbidden to his lips, and he set the knife down, intent on turning around. However, as soon as he moved, Will quickly released him and retreated a step. Hannibal frowned.

“You stop, I stop,” said the younger man. Will crossed his arms and cocked his head at Hannibal, who nodded and smiled faintly.

“As you wish,” he muttered ruefully and turned back to his cutting board.

As soon as he resumed slicing the mushrooms, he felt those wicked hands on his hips again. This time he was surprised when, instead of feeling Will’s chest against his back, he felt the younger man’s hot breath behind his thighs.

Hannibal swallowed and tried to concentrate on the sharp blade as Will’s tongue traced a wet trail along the crease where the bottom of one rounded cheek met the back of his leg. Finding himself massacring the poor mushroom, he shook his head to clear it; Will was once more skilfully breaching the self-control Hannibal relied on.

Will tongued slowly up the cleft of Hannibal’s buttocks and then kissed his way over to the bones of his hip. Will moved Hannibal back a half-step so he could come around between him and the counter. His breath was warm against Hannibal’s rigid cock.

Hannibal closed his eyes, heedless of the sharp edge of the blade as he waited in tense anticipation for Will’s lips to touch him. When the moment was drawn out, Hannibal realized in dismay that his hands had ceased their motion; placing a handful of spinach on wooden surface he lifted his knife again. When the blade made contact with the dark green leaves, he felt Will’s hot, wet mouth engulf the head of his cock.

Hannibal’s breath was a shuddered exhale as the younger man began to swallow his length, slowly building up the tempo of slick spit and tongue. Suddenly Will let go, and Hannibal saw that he had put the knife down again. He growled deep in his chest in utter frustration and scowled down at the man on his knees in front of him.

Will looked up with a smile, his lips red and wet.

“Really, Hannibal, I’m a little surprised that the first thing you think of doing to me in the morning is feeding me rather than fucking me. Which do you really prefer?”

Will’s eyes glinted with mischief and lust. Hannibal picked up the blade and held it lightly against the cheekbone of the younger man. There was no fear in that dark-blue gaze.

“I guess I cannot do both at the same time. Now open your mouth.”

Will winced as the point of the knife bit into his skin, but then he laughed, swatting it away. The blade clattered to the floor as Hannibal put his hands to Will’s head. There was no need to force the kneeling man towards him; he willingly came forward to lick down Hannibal’s shaft, one hand wrapping itself confidently around the base of the older man’s cock.

When Will’s mouth took him in again, lips and fist sliding over his sensitive head, Hannibal had to lean forward and grasp the counter. He rocked his hips in time with Will’s efforts, feeling an intense, melting pleasure with every thrust.

Suddenly Will’s hand released him, and he plunged deeper into that wet, red tunnel; feeling his cockhead slide pass the narrowing of Will’s throat without a hitch, Hannibal felt dizzy with desire. Hannibal let out a deep grunt as ecstasy quickly crashed down through him into Will’s open throat. The pulses inside him were shatteringly intense; Hannibal felt open and raw. He bucked his hips a few more times as Will held onto him, locking them together; Hannibal nearly collapsed when Will finally let go. Clutching the edge of the countertop with eyes closed and breath coming hard, Hannibal heard Will stand up and felt the younger man place a firm hand on his back.

“Down,” said Will, his voice thick with lust.

Hannibal turned his head and looked into his lover’s eyes; in those depths, Hannibal saw an emphatic power and recognized it immediately for what it was.

He was Will’s as surely as Will belonged to him.

That simple fact suddenly freed the last tattered threads of reluctance that held back Hannibal’s ability to completely let go and give in to what was growing between the two men. Hannibal had trapped Will in his web only to discover that he had already fallen into a cage of Will’s design.

He watched as Will undid the waist of his pants and let them fall to the floor; pushing aside the cutting board, Hannibal obediently lay his chest and cheek against the cold steel.

13

Pony

“It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that that unfortunate individual called man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns.”

—The Marquis de Sade

* * *

In the darkness of the living room, Will was lying on his stomach with his head in Hannibal’s lap, quietly watching the flickering orange flames dance in the fireplace. One arm hung down over the side of the couch, and he idly played with the shaggy fibres of the rug. Hannibal’s long fingers were slowly running through his dark curls, tickling his scalp; every once in a while the older man encountered a snag and untangled it gently. Will smiled to himself, imagining what Hannibal thought of his unkempt hair; his well-groomed lover probably thought he cut it himself with a knife.

Lover…

A log suddenly made a loud popping noise, sending a spray of sparks into the air. Will was warm with a feeling he didn’t often get to experience: peace. He knew that the grief over Abigail’s death was still in him, but he just floated above it for now. Will was tired of being lonely, sad, and anxious; it was a state of mind that he had been in for so long he couldn’t remember anything else. Here with Hannibal, right now, all he felt was calm; Jack Crawford might think he was bedrock, but Hannibal was made of stronger stuff. Will could submerse himself in the utter stillness and clarity that emanated from Hannibal and use it like a healing salve on all of his broken parts. There would be time later to worry about the logistics of what this affair really meant, but, for the moment, Will was happy just being.

Hannibal’s hand stroked Will’s shoulder, one finger tracing the white line of the old knife scar there. From above him, Will heard the older man’s voice break the silence.

“Does it still bother you?” asked Hannibal softly, speaking about the scar.

Will shook his head, eyes still on the fire.

“No… not really. Though sometimes, when I move my arm, it feels like there’s sand in the joint; other times it just feels tight. The pain is long gone,” he replied and then frowned; Will was reluctant to tarnish the rare moment of sweet tranquility between the two men, but there were too many things he still yearned to know.

“Hannibal, why did you lie about me attacking you with the knife that first day?” he asked in a steady voice.

A log in the fire collapsed in on itself, launching another volley of sparks to die against the stone hearth. He thought for a moment that Hannibal hadn’t heard him, but then the older man sighed.

“It was better for you to think that you had physically provoked my attack,” he said slowly.

“Better than what?” asked Will.

“Than the truth.”

“Which was?”

He could feel how unaccustomed Hannibal was to full disclosure. Will raised the hand that wasn’t trapped under him, curling his fingers into the crook of Hannibal’s knee. When he felt the man tense and relax quickly, he smiled; Will liked the fact that he unsettled Hannibal so easily and realized that the doctor probably wasn’t often touched by anyone.

“That you had effortlessly toppled my… what was the word you used when we met? My ‘fort’?” Hannibal’s voice held a smile in it. “You startled me, and I was instinctively reacting to a perceived threat. That much is the complete truth.”

“You would have killed me,” whispered Will.

Hannibal’s fingers stopped their soft caress for a moment.

“Yes.”

The word was said simply, without a shred of reservation. Hannibal flattened his hand against Will’s naked back, stroking along his flank and up over one rounded ass cheek.

“I’m… pleased that I didn’t,” murmured the older man after a heavy pause.

Will closed his eyes; he felt a delicious tingle of fear, strangely arousing.

What are you, Hannibal?

“Will… don’t ask me questions you don’t actually wish me to answer,” Hannibal said, echoing his thoughts. “I will tell you truths you don’t want to know.”

With one finger he traced the cleft of Will’s ass; the prone man held his breath, but Hannibal’s hand moved on, sliding up his body to tuck a dark curl behind his right ear. Will found it tantalizing that this man’s touch, capable of such exquisite cruelty, could be so utterly tender.

“Why did you laugh at me?” Will asked, curious. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Hannibal. The dark man was staring, brow furrowed, into the depths of the dying fire. Hannibal’s lips slowly curled into a smile, and he shifted his brown eyes to Will’s blue gaze.

“Which time?” Hannibal’s voice was light with amusement as he gently ran his thumb over Will’s bottom lip, causing a surge of desire to course through him. Hannibal brought out an appetite in the younger man that he hadn’t thought possible; Will sometimes felt he would burn up completely.

He swatted at Hannibal’s hand.

“That first night. You sat on the floor and laughed at me,” he said, his face serious.

Hannibal chuckled softly and shook his head.

“I was charmed, Will. Incredibly so. You slipped from my grasp, but you didn’t run. You walked right up to me; for a moment I thought you were going to hit me. I was laughing at myself, not you. I was so incredibly taken with you, my darling.” Hannibal’s eyes crinkled charmingly in the corners.

For some reason that reply meant far more to Will than the other; he reached up and took Hannibal’s hand, moving it from his face, down his body, to where he felt himself beginning to harden.

“Prove it,” he said. Though there was a sly smile on his face, Will was once again surprised at his own temerity.

Hannibal laughed, his strong fingers beginning to slide over Will’s cock.

“As you wish.”

Will groaned as Hannibal’s hand, skilfully stroking his tender shaft, slowed its motion.

“You have to go home, Will.”

The words were like sudden ice in his veins. Will tensed, but Hannibal pursed his lips and shook his head, tugging lightly at his hair.

“Not now, my silly boy. I mean, eventually. Soon. Tonight.”

Hannibal shifted his grip so that his thumb slid against the underside of his cockhead; Will shuddered and gasped from Hannibal’s expert handling.

“You have to go home to your dogs. Your house. Though I am thoroughly enjoying your company, I am a man used to his solitude. I need time to myself, Will.”

The words were spoken gently, and Will felt the truth of them. He swept aside the sudden disquiet that rose up in him and reached up to tangle his fingers in Hannibal’s hair.

“Yes. But not yet.”

* * *

Hannibal’s hands, sheathed in a pair of charcoal-grey kid leather driving gloves, gripped the steering wheel of the Bentley a little harder. Part of him didn’t know why he was sending Will away; it was the side of him that wanted to play and play with his strange, exciting, new toy.

Not a toy.

Another part of him cautioned against treating Will lightly; after all, Hannibal seemed intent on throwing in his lot with Jack’s broken pony.

Not broken.

One more was whispering that he was losing control of the situation.

Suddenly there were too many parts of him; being with Will was starting to make Hannibal feel… messy. That’s why he was driving Will to his car where it was still parked by the highway and not entwined with him on dark sheets, reverently experimenting with how much pain and pleasure he could inflict on his young lover.

Or is it the other way around?

He frowned at the road in front of him. Hannibal feared he had opened a door he could not close.

Or would not?

“Are you ok?” Will asked.

Hannibal looked over at the man in the passenger seat and smiled thinly.

“Just a little tired,” he said, looking back out over the blacktop. And a little crazy. He nearly laughed out loud.

Maybe the car wouldn’t be there. It had been days. Maybe they would have to turn around and go back; they would be forced to continue playing house while wearing each other’s skin.

* * *

Will felt the air in the car get heavier with every passing minute. The composure that Hannibal usually wore like a veil was tattered; his face was nearly a scowl as he looked out at the dark highway. Contemplating his lover, Will decided to broach a subject that was still bothering him.

“Was I drugged at the party?” Will asked, and saw Hannibal’s mouth tighten.

“I believe so,” came the reply after a moment.

Will nodded.

“I didn’t take a drink from anyone else. I ordered it directly from the waitress.”

“And the waitress doesn’t count as someone else?” Hannibal glanced over at Will with the first real smile in many miles.

“It doesn’t matter, Will. Someone put something in your drink. I’ve already said that I shouldn’t have brought you there.”

Not an apology. Will wondered if Hannibal ever felt sorry about anything; if he was right about his therapist, he doubted it very much.

“Was I passed out when you found me?”

“Yes, Will.”

“Was there anyone with me?”

Will saw the muscles of Hannibal’s jaw twitch and felt a twinge of apprehension.

“Yes. There was a man. He was being inappropriate, so I took care of the situation and brought you home with me.”

The answer was conspicuously bland. Will knew that if he pressed Hannibal, the older man would tell him everything; suddenly he didn’t want to know. He let the last sentence die in the darkness of the car and took on a new subject, one that had him at a loss.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” Will said slowly.

Hannibal’s surprised laugh dispelled the oppressive mood in the car; merriment twinkled in his dark eyes as he looked over again at Will.

“No, Will. You’re not my boyfriend.”

He shifted his eyes back to the road for a moment, a broad smile deepening the lines in his face.

“Do you want to be?” Hannibal asked, obviously amused.

Will suddenly felt incredibly foolish for asking.

When Hannibal realized that his younger companion had fallen silent, he frowned again.

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” he asked.

Will sighed and shrugged, embarrassed.

“I just don’t understand what we’re doing,” he said. “Last time you said I wasn’t your boyfriend, I wasn’t allowed to sleep in your bed. Now I am.”

Hannibal chuckled and shook his head.

“That is really bothering you? Do all relationships need a label? Does ours have to have such a narrow definition?”

Will sighed and peered out at the night-blackened trees rushing by his window, suddenly irritated.

“I am your therapist. I am your friend. And now I am your lover.”

“In that order?”

“Will, what are you trying to get me to say?” Hannibal’s voice was becoming impatient.

Will laughed perfunctorily and ran a hand through his rough hair.

“I’m sorry Hannibal, but the weirdest relationship I’ve ever been in was with a girl who told me she was bisexual on the first date. I just don’t know what to think of this. It… helps me to put things into boxes.”

Hannibal thought a long time, the occasional lights of oncoming cars flashing his features to white before plunging the car back into darkness. He finally released his words.

“Do you want me to say that I have never been so plagued with thoughts of another person? That I go to sleep at night with your face in my mind, and I wake up with it still haunting me? Shall I tell you about how many times during this drive I’ve thought of turning around and taking us back so I could hold you against me for one more night? That this ‘weird’ relationship goes completely against my better judgment?” Words that should have sounded loving, said angrily.

Will suddenly realized with dismay that Hannibal was pulling off onto a side road; they had arrived at the small car park next to the visitor’s centre.

There, in the middle of the lot, sporting a parking ticket, was Will’s car. Hannibal pulled the elegant black Bentley up beside the silver Volvo station wagon. Hannibal’s words had somehow brought back all of the heaviness that had escaped along the road; like a cold dark tide it covered them, choking the air out of the space.

Will wasn’t sure what to say; Hannibal was looking at him with eyes like chips of black glass, devoid of expression. He awkwardly got out of the car and leaned down, staring at Hannibal in the driver’s seat.

“Goodnight, thank you for the lift,” Will said, stupidly feeling like he was addressing a co-worker or acquaintance, not a man who had knelt in front of him, throat wide open, in the shower less than an hour ago. Hannibal simply nodded to him, his face still unreadable.

Hot and cold and hot and cold.

“Goodnight, Will,” he said, his hands so tight on the wheel that his knuckles stood out in sharp definition in the leather of his gloves.

Will took one last look at Hannibal’s profile and shut the door. The black car drove away, leaving Will standing in the circle of light cast by the single street lamp. He fumbled for his keys, and when he dropped them let out a howl of frustration. He grabbed the side of his Volvo and kicked the tire repeatedly, as hard as he could.

* * *

Hannibal pressed down hard on the accelerator, yearning for speed and more speed, as he went in search of something beautiful to kill.

* * *

The phone vibrated in the small hours of the morning. Awoken from a fitful, dream-filled sleep, Will looked around blearily, wondering what had disturbed him. Noticing the bright screen of his phone, he reached for it.

“Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.”

Will rubbed his eyes, reading the text message from Hannibal over a few times. He shook his head, feeling amused despite himself. It was nearly an apology.

The phone vibrated again in his hand, startling him. Suddenly, it was as if space had compressed, placing Hannibal right there in the room with him. Will breathed a shaky breath.

“My life is finer with you in it.”

Will lay back down, unsure whether he should answer.

Morning found Will sleeping soundly, one hand on his chest, his phone held in limp fingers. The last message he wrote, but hadn’t sent, was still on the screen when the battery finally died.

“You are quickly becoming my whole world.”

14

Spider

“Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe.”

—Voltaire

* * *

He presses the tip of the scalpel against the anaesthetized flesh of the woman lying on the workbench in front of him. Carelessly, he slices the skin from one ear to the other, cutting across her forehead; it’s not a clean line, but it doesn’t have to be. Using his fingers, he peels back the flesh, uncovering an expanse of skull. Looking up for a moment to check the monitor she’s attached to, he flicks a finger against the side of the syringe filled with mannitol, and inserts it into the injection port of her IV. He then makes a burr hole in her skull with a drill and inserts the craniotome, cutting a circle in the exposed bone. He lifts the bone flap out and drops it on the floor. Growing more careful, he slices through the dura with a pair of surgical scissors and pins it back. He gently places retractors on the woman’s brain to open a small tunnel to the speech centre. He picks up the first syringe of potassium chloride and starts the injections that will stop the woman’s heart. He then reaches for… he reaches for…

“What did he reach for?” asked Jack impatiently, watching Will turning around in a slow circle.

Will frowned, blue-gloved hands held out to his sides.

“I can’t see it, Jack,” he said, frustrated. “It would be something with a… long bit.”

Jack’s eyebrows came down and he sighed.

“A long bit?”

The heavy-set FBI agent sounded skeptical. Will ground his teeth and ran his eyes over the large pile of junk in the room, his mind a similar mess.

“Will. Concentrate. What did he want with these women? What was he doing to their brains?” Jack gestured to the stinking garbage bags piled up against the cement-block wall of the basement.

The buzzing of the flies were reaching a screaming crescendo in Will’s head as he looked at all the blood-covered medical paraphernalia. He felt queasy.

“Will?” Jack reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

“Just give me a fucking minute, will you?” snarled Will. He shrugged Jack off and stepped back. Stumbling over a dented kidney dish, he landed awkwardly on the floor. That was when he spotted the pieces of a ham radio set that had fallen behind the leg of the wooden worktable; reaching for it, he noticed that instead of a microphone there was a long metal probe. There were extra parts wired into the radio and, like everything else in the makeshift operating room, the equipment was caked in layers of blood and chunks of tissue.

Will guessed that they would find brain matter on the probe.

“He recently lost someone. A woman. Someone close to him.” Will closed his eyes and reopened them on the scene with understanding. “He was trying to communicate… trying to use the moment of brain death to somehow make contact with the dead. He would have medical training…” Will looked up at Jack and continued, his voice now confident. “Look for an army medic, recently discharged for mental instability. PTSD. He would have performed radio duties early in his military career while he worked on his medical degree. The death of his… wife? sister? would have happened while he was on his last tour of duty. I’d also say he was young and reasonably attractive judging by how easily he was able to lure women here.”

He stood up, patting at the dust on his pants.

Jack was nodding at Will.

“Good. We’ll start making calls. And… don’t you ever tell me to ‘wait a fucking minute’ again.” The last came out as a menacing growl.

Will just stared expressionless at the solid man in the trench coat a moment longer before turning his back to leave. After peeling the blue gloves off his hands, he wearily climbed the wooden steps up out of the basement of the abandoned house.

Zeller was standing at the top of the staircase, a notebook open in his hands.

“Graham, you look like total shit,” the man said, a smirk on his face. “I mean… more than usual, that is.”

Will’s fist flew out before he could stop it. There was a satisfying crack when his hard knuckles made contact with Brian’s nose, and the man fell backwards into a pile of old newspapers, drops of blood flying through the air.

Will bared his teeth and took a step towards the fallen man as he sat up slowly; he wanted to hit him again, and again, and again, sudden rage bubbling up inside him like lava.

However, before he could go any further, Will felt himself being propelled backwards by strong hands, and he yelled in surprise as Jack pinned him to the wall. The younger man struggled like a trapped animal against Jack’s heavier frame for a moment before giving up.

“Are you finished?” asked Jack, scowling.

Will closed his eyes and swallowed, nodding weakly, cheek against the flaking plaster. The larger man pulled Will off the wall, his hand like a vise on the back of his neck.

Zeller started laughing through the cloth he was holding to his face; he waved a hand in the air.

“It’s ok, Jack. I had it coming.” Brian walked towards him. “Will, my man, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Will felt Jack’s grip relax. He frowned at Zeller and was completely unprepared when the man’s fist slammed into his solar plexus, driving all the air out of his lungs. Will fell down, writhing on the floor.

“Has everyone lost their minds??” asked Jack, sounding furious.

When he could breathe again, Will opened his eyes; Brian was leaning over him with a hand out. Though suspicious, he took it and let the bloodied man help him stand; weirdly, Will felt like he’d passed some sort of test as Brian grinned at him, a touch of respect on his gory face.

“Well?”

Will turned to look at Jack, shoving his hands into his pockets; the motion caused his throbbing fist to flare in pain. The FBI agent was staring hard at him, waiting for an answer.

Will replied, not meeting Jack’s eye.

“I… haven’t been feeling like myself.”

Being apart from Hannibal was agonizing. Between Will’s courses, Hannibal’s practice, and Jack’s insistence that he be at every murder scene, the two men hadn’t been able to see each other in six long days.

Will’s need had become a living thing; reaching out with long, sharp claws, it tried to drag the next day towards him through time slowed by impatience. His appointment with Hannibal was the following night, and it was all he could think about. He couldn’t sleep and had no appetite for food; all Will could feel was simmering heat roiling away inside him, making him ill.

Will clenched his jaw; with hands tight on the wheel, he followed Jack’s car with his own through traffic.

There was a black jungle in his head, dark serpentine tangles trapping his thoughts; he couldn’t concentrate on anything… He didn’t want to concentrate on anything. Will needed relief for the burning in his soul and an end to this unrelenting feeling of fragmentation.

Hannibal. Tomorrow.

He needed Hannibal to glue his pieces back together again.

Jimmy Price was leaning over the body of the latest Ripper victim. The young man had been discovered that morning on the portico of the Baltimore Basilica, tied to one of the columns. He was now face down on the table, the great, white wings that were attached to his back hanging awkwardly off to the sides. Jimmy was peering closely at the stitching that held them in place, a pair of scissors in one hand, when Will startled him.

“Sorry.” Will smiled crookedly.

Jimmy just waved the apology away.

“I was just absorbed in my work… Hey, I heard you broke Brian’s nose today,” said Jimmy, with a wry twist of his lips. “I was wondering when that would finally happen.”

Will groaned inwardly. He looked down at the body. This was the first time he had seen it; the crime scene had been quickly photographed and the victim taken back to the lab due to the very public nature of the location. Intent on changing the subject, Will pointed.

“Are those swan’s wings?” he asked.

Jimmy nodded.

“Indeed they are. I was just standing here wondering what the best method of removal was.” Jimmy snipped at the air with the scissors.

“We’re sure it’s the Ripper? I heard the body had been frozen for days, which is not usually his style…. but I’d say certainly theatrical enough.”

“Jack seems convinced. Heart and lungs missing. Other than the wings, he was found just wearing a linen loincloth. Poor little Cupid,” said Jimmy a touch sadly.

“Eros.”

The investigator raised his eyebrows and looked questioningly at Will.

“Eros… Greek, not Roman. If he was Cupid, he would have had arrows and a bow with him. The Ripper was painting a picture; he wouldn’t have left out a major detail like that,” Will said, gesturing to the body.

“Eros, Cupid… does it matter?” asked Jimmy, frowning.

Will shrugged.

“It could. Eros is one of four words in Ancient Greek that are normally translated as love,” he said slowly.

Suddenly amused, Will laughed.

“What’s funny?” Jimmy’s expression was a touch worried; it wasn’t like Will to take death so lightly.

“Oh I don’t know. Imagining the Ripper being in love struck me as ridiculous. How can something that loves do this to another human being?”

Will ran a hand through hair that should have been washed days ago.

“Didn’t he just kill love?” Jimmy asked, sounding thoughtful.

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies…”

Hannibal’s voice sent an electric shock through Will; his head whipped around to the man in the doorway.

“…Aristotle. Perhaps our friend The Ripper was feeling miserly about his soul,” finished Hannibal, taking another step forward before stopping.

An ironic smile played over Hannibal’s graceful lips. The doctor looked heart-wrenchingly elegant in a charcoal suit with subtle off-white pinstripes, a dark teal shirt, and a black paisley tie accented in ivory; a handkerchief, in a lighter shade of blue-green, was poking out of his pocket. Hannibal’s eyes, crinkling at the corners, were narrowed in amusement.

Will realized he was staring, mouth open, when he heard Jimmy clear his throat.

“Hannibal! What are you doing here?” Will winced at how eager he sounded.

The older man clasped his hands behind his back.

“I called him.” Jack’s grim voice surprised Will; he hadn’t even registered the FBI agent’s presence. “After your little stunt today, I asked Dr. Lecter if he would be so kind as to come here to examine your foolish head,” Jack said, glowering at Will.

Hannibal nodded and spoke, his voice rife with professional concern.

“Will, I was greatly disturbed to hear of this altercation… Would you like to talk about it?”

Before Will could answer him, Hannibal turned to Jack.

“Do you have a room we could borrow for a while, Jack? Nothing elaborate, but I would prefer if it didn’t have any windows so that Will and I could be completely free of distraction.”

“Of course, Dr. Lecter. Please come this way.”

Will’s pulse, already racing, careened out of control as he and Hannibal followed Jack to a small, blank-walled room down the hall. With a stern glare at Will, the gruff FBI agent left without a word.

Hannibal shut the door and locked it. When Will saw the relief and desire warring in the older man’s eyes, his breath caught in his throat. Hannibal was on him in an instant, his large hands cupping Will’s face as he pulled him in for a deep kiss that tasted keenly of longing.

Will pressed himself into Hannibal’s embrace, hands holding his lover’s body tight against him. Don’t ever let me go… He poured his burning soul into the kiss, breathing in the frantic passion that came off Hannibal in waves. The older man’s fingers were snarled almost painfully in his hair, and his lips crushed Will’s in a fever.

Hannibal broke the kiss suddenly; his brown eyes, filled with surprising concern, scanned Will’s face.

“Are you all right?” Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head.

“No. I’m not. But I will be,” he replied softly.

A deep moan burst out of Hannibal when he felt the younger man’s hands work their way around to the button at his waist. Despite the passing footfalls in the hallway, Will undid Hannibal’s zipper and slid a hand in to grasp the thickening root of his cock; there was no room for caution in his mind.

“Yes. Good boy,” Hannibal whispered, moving his hips in a slow rhythm to match Will’s strokes. He tongued Will’s mouth open again, his short, sharp stubble scraping at the sensitive skin of his lips.

Will tightened his grip and pumped his fist faster, but Hannibal soon pulled back from him.

“On your knees.”

Hannibal’s lip twitched into a sneer that Will moved readily to obey. Thick shaft held clasped in one hand, Will smiled and teasingly licked the rose petal texture of Hannibal’s cockhead; the standing man let out a tortured growl and promptly drove himself into Will’s open mouth.

Will slid his hand down the front of his pants and started pulling at his own hard length; as always when Hannibal’s cock was pushing into the threshold of Will’s throat, it brought with it a delicious feeling of complete surrender. He shifted perspective, imagining that he was the one fucking his mouth, sharing in the experience with Hannibal as he drove himself quickly to orgasm using Will’s throat.

With a rumbled grunt deep in his chest, Hannibal rode the waves of his powerful climax. Will was himself on the cusp, swallowing down Hannibal’s cum, the grip on his own cock moving at a furious pace, when the man above him barked a single word.

“Stop.”

Will’s hand froze in mid-stroke, and he shakily exhaled, dismay and excitement flooding his senses.

Hannibal suddenly grabbed him by the neck and half lifted the slender man to his feet.

Will tried to pull out of Hannibal’s choking hold, but the older man just held him in place. Will struggled to breathe, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. When it seemed he would suffocate, Hannibal almost reluctantly eased up on the pressure. There was something brutal in the older man’s brown eyes as he looked down on him; Will felt a sudden surge of fear-laced desire and ceased his struggles.

Slowly, Hannibal’s hand closed down on his windpipe again. Will buried the panic rising in him and abandoned himself completely to Hannibal’s control. The older man’s lip curled up into a cruel smile when he felt Will’s body relax, relinquishing his fate to Hannibal’s design.

Will felt Hannibal’s hand close on his cock and begin to slide along its length, tightening just as the head passed through the constricting opening between thumb and forefinger. He felt lightheaded, whimpering as Hannibal alternated between cutting off his air supply and breathing into his lungs in an open-mouthed kiss, the hand on his shaft never ceasing in its motion.

Unable to gasp or exhale with Hannibal’s hold threatening his consciousness, Will suddenly and mercifully started to feel himself cum with overwhelming intensity. The sound that came out of Will when Hannibal finally released the hand on his throat was primitive as he spilled his seed into his lover’s ruthless grasp. Will’s shuddering, panting breath sounded loud in the small room; he bent his head down and fought to bring himself under control.

Will looked up just as the doctor was bringing his palm up to his mouth to lick the bitter-saltiness away.

“Oh god, Hannibal. That’s completely disgusting,” Will said, grinning wide.

Hannibal smiled and pulled Will closer, urging the younger man’s mouth open with a hard, penetrating kiss. Will could taste himself on Hannibal’s tongue, and it triggered a slightly painful reaction in his tender, depleted cock. He groaned into Hannibal’s mouth, clutching at him with covetous hands, before the older man pushed him away.

Will stood still and moved his head, feeling at his throat.

Hannibal chuckled as he tucked himself back into his pants and hiked his zipper; his handsome face, set in a smirk, looked down at Will.

“Don’t worry, my silly darling. You’re not going to bruise,” he said in amusement. Hannibal went suddenly serious. “Do you feel better now, Will?”

When he nodded, the older man’s long arms swept Will’s slight frame into a tight embrace; Will could feel Hannibal’s heart beating steadily against him. Time and responsibility were momentarily suspended in the small room as the two men clung to each other.

I missed you.

Will didn’t speak the words that pressed against his mind; they were foolish and pallid compared to what he felt. He fully understood the self-destructive nature of his attachment to the older man; it was anything but healthy, though somewhere along the way he had stopped caring.

“Since when do you know anything about Ancient Greece?” asked Hannibal suddenly, his enigmatic voice tinged with amusement.

Will laughed and looked up at the older man.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he asked, feigning insult. The burning in his soul was quenched now that he was safe with Hannibal; Will felt more like himself at every passing moment.

Hannibal looked down at him, dark eyes glinting possessively, as he leaned in to gently nudge Will’s mouth open again. They still had some time to themselves before Jack came looking.

A short while later, Will was reluctantly back in the lab, staring awkwardly off to the side at the now de-winged body of the young man, Jack’s foreboding presence too close to him for comfort.

“I want you take a look at this one. It’s the body of a woman that was found just outside of DC a few weeks ago,” said Jack, pointing.

Will frowned, turning to look at the headless, armless female corpse lying on the drawer that Jack had pulled out of the wall. He saw right away the signature grace of the Ripper’s handiwork.

“They kept her in the city morgue as a Jane Doe until the missing person’s report coincided with her disappearance. Someone there recognized her as a potential Ripper victim and sent the body to me last night,” continued Jack, staring hard at Will.

Will glanced up at the missing-poster of the woman tacked to the board across the room. His brow furrowed; he knew that face. Jack’s voice was just a dull buzz in his ears.

He turned back to the body on the cold shelf, noticing again that a great swath of flesh had been cut from her back and sides; she had been butchered like a pig.

“You’re looking at Denise Balicki, aged 42. Up until her untimely demise, she worked as a nurse at the Georgetown University Hospital. Will, I believe you two were acquainted?” asked Jack.

Will nodded jerkily, recognition slamming home; he lifted his gaze to his lover’s face. The man was staring down at the body of the nurse with a tiny moue of disgust on his lips. Will felt a strange chill in the air, suddenly wondering when the last time she was seen alive was.

(You don’t have to deal with her all night, do you?)

“That’s the second Ripper victim connected to you or Dr. Lecter,” added the stern-faced FBI agent.

Will turned and frowned at Jack.

“The second?” he asked.

Jack nodded.

“First was the skinned fireman, an old patient of Dr. Lecter’s, and now this woman, your nurse. I think the Chesapeake Ripper has a dangerous interest in the both of you.”

(She says that the two of you could have been twin recluses.)

Slowly, Will’s eyes returned to Hannibal. The doctor was watching him in utter stillness. Will felt nauseous; there was no hint of emotion on the stark planes of Hannibal’s face as he studied his reaction to Jack’s words. Will’s clever brain whirled and staggered with growing apprehension as puzzle pieces started clicking into place… a terrifying picture was forming.

Hannibal’s eyebrows rose slowly.

(He looks normal. Nobody can tell what he is.)

What have you done, Hannibal?

“I’m going to provide each of you with round-the-clock protection. Officers will shadow you, and a squad car will stay parked overnight outside your residences starting today,” said Jack, his tone almost challenging. He obviously expected Will to refuse the security detail.

Will tamped down on the crazy laughter bubbling up inside him.

Hannibal took a few steps and came around behind him; a hard hand came up and grasped the younger man’s shoulder. Will could hear the smile in Hannibal’s voice as he addressed Jack.

“If you believe the threat to Will and myself imminent, I will further the precautions. Will can stay at my home until you feel danger has passed. As they say, ‘there is safety in numbers’,” said the elegant psychiatrist smoothly.

Jack frowned and nodded.

“That sounds like a good idea. Are you sure you don’t mind the disruption?” he asked.

“On the contrary, Jack. It will give us more time to get to know each other better.”

The hand on his shoulder tightened, and Will felt limp with the emotions raging inside him; bleak horror clashed with the sudden breathless yearning that rose up at the thought of spending his days and nights in Hannibal’s arms.

In his mind’s eye he saw again the grey tree and its bloody ornaments. The stag lowered his great, sharp-antlered head and gently nudged his hand.

The devil is in the details.

Feeling the demented laughter threatening to spill out again, Will surreptitiously reached behind him and was rewarded when his lover’s warm fingers closed over his.

His suspicions could be unfounded… There had to be an explanation, anything but the ghastly thought that ricocheted in his mind, threatening to blast his foundations out from beneath him.

15

Jackal

I asked myself “was I content”

with the world that I once cherished

Did it bring me to this darkened place

to contemplate my perfect future

I will not stand nor utter words against

this tide of hate

Losing sight of what and who I was again

I’m so sorry if these seething words I say

impress on you that I’ve become

the anathema of my soul

I can say that you’re losing me

I always tried to keep myself tied to this world

but I know where this is leading

(please)

No tears

No sympathy

—Epicentre by VNV Nation

* * *

Hannibal looked over at the mute man sitting in the passenger seat. Will’s vocabulary had whittled its way down to one- or two-word replies as Hannibal arranged for a kennel service to take the dogs and coordinated with the officers who would make up their armed protection; the younger man was either unwilling or unable to help.

When Hannibal had suggested that the “safest” option was to leave the Volvo and both ride in the Bentley, Will had fixed him with a hard stare before shrugging and turning away; he hadn’t made eye contact or spoken to him since. Hannibal licked his bottom lip and frowned at the road ahead. The silent treatment was making him uncomfortable; unlike Will, Hannibal had no gift to let him see inside the younger man’s head.

The worst was when Hannibal reached to lightly touch him on the leg; the lack of reaction bothered him more than if Will had pulled away. It was as if in piecing together the truth about him, Will had simply turned off.

Hannibal clenched his jaw. He wanted to hurt him and fuck him and hurt him again until he broke through Will’s silence; he wanted to be gentle and kind and see the light come back on in his lover’s eyes. It was a frustrating and humbling position for the doctor; he needed Will.

Hannibal was unwilling to let him go.

Having tasted the intense passion awoken by their utterly unique compatibility, he dreaded the echoing emptiness that loomed inside him when they were apart. There was a time not long ago that the emptiness was what he treasured, but Will had somehow changed him; there was no undoing it. Hannibal had to find the means to force Will back to him. His eyes flicked back to the younger man’s profile. Will’s seal-brown hair stood up in whorls and cowlicks from a habit of running his hands through it when he was stressed. Hannibal could tell he hadn’t showered or eaten well in days; he could smell dried sweat and sour bile.

Frowning, he turned back to the road, and concentrated on getting them home.

Hannibal unlocked the door and was startled when Will pushed past him into the entranceway; the doctor bolted the door behind him and followed the younger man into the kitchen. Will stood in the middle of the room, the palms of both hands pressed against his eyes. Even from across the room, Hannibal could see that Will was trembling slightly.

Hannibal was at a complete loss. It wasn’t as if Will was a broken piece of pottery that Hannibal could glue back together again; he was water falling between the cracks of his fingers.

He watched curiously as Will slowly lowered his hands and looked around, searching for something. When his gaze stopped on the block holding Hannibal’s Japanese-steel kitchen knives, Will walked over to it and almost leisurely pulled out the ten-inch chef’s knife. He hefted the weight of the metal in his hand a moment before turning to Hannibal, eyes wide with savage emotion.

It only took four quick steps for Will to reach him; every ounce of Hannibal’s inner strength fought against instincts that screeched at him to strike first. Will was inches away when he stopped and brought the blade up with a surprisingly steady hand; he stared at Hannibal, his face contorted in an ugly grimace.

“So you’re the one we’ve been hunting. You’re the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Hannibal slowly nodded and didn’t move as the knife came towards him in response. Will placed the tip of it over this lover’s heart, pushing it hard enough that the older man winced in pain as the sharp blade cut through vest and shirt, piercing the skin below it.

Will eased up on the pressure and laughed; the sound of it was harsh and breathless.

“I attack you with words, and you try to kill me. I attack you with a knife, and you do nothing.” The words were spat through clenched teeth.

Hannibal gave a tiny shrug; arms down at his side, he held his ground despite the blossoming agony in his chest.

“What would you like me to do, Will? Just say the words, and I will be your slave. If I have lost you completely, drive the blade into my heart; killing me would be less cruel.” Hannibal spoke plainly from the broken parts of himself that Will had forced open.

He frowned, he could feel blood oozing down over his ribs.

“There is no artifice, no manipulation in my words, I swear to you. If love is the greatest of all emotions, then perhaps… just perhaps it is love that I feel for you. I knew the day would come when you would see me completely; I was gambling my life when I chose to pursue you. Please understand that I have no regrets, Will. I am what I am,” said Hannibal softly.

“You are what you are? No manipulation? You’re a psychopath, Hannibal; you killed those girls. Those innocent girls. You took their lives away for some game you were playing with me. You were the voice on the phone that set Garret Jacob Hobbs in motion that day… You orchestrated the nightmares in my soul. You’ve left your stains all over my mind, and you speak of love? Did you kill that man and set him up at the Basilica to show me you loved me? How sick do you think I am?”

The blade slid another millimetre into Hannibal’s pectoral muscle. He grunted but still didn’t back away. The older man had no answers for Will; Hannibal knew he had helped Will save people by taking those tiny lives, but the man with the knife didn’t see it that way. Pain scorched anew in his flesh as Will twisted the sharp steel into him.

Hannibal gasped in relief when the blade fell clattering to the dark tiles below.

The older man pressed his hand against the cut on his chest, trying to staunch the bleeding; he could feel it pooling at the waist of his pants. However, his attention wasn’t on the knife wound; Hannibal was watching, intrigued, as Will’s eyes lost focus, his face softening.

“I often have this dream where I’m in a field of corpses, an avatar of evil standing there with me. Do I feel fear? Loathing? No… I feel an almost rapturous joy filling my heart. I reach for evil as it reaches back for me, and I find peace there; I bury my light within its velvety darkness. However, I am certain that one night I will reach out and find that it was a mirror all along.”

Will turned his stormy eyes to Hannibal; the corners of the younger man’s mouth had turned up in the mockery of a smile.

“I knew, Hannibal. I knew what you were. Today I fought against it, but it was a battle I’d already waged… and lost. I had witnessed the truth of you the first time I peeked behind your mask. It was a confession written on the skin of our friendship, plain for me to see. I knew—and it’s because of me that they are all are dead. I led a jackal into a pen of rabbits. You and I will share a room in hell.” Will paused, his eyes searching Hannibal’s face. “Or will we? How does the devil judge a man who has no guilt, no remorse? What kind of torture can Satan inflict on a man free from the bonds of humanity?”

“He can take you away from me,” said Hannibal quietly.

Will groaned and turned away; the wounded man shook his head.

“My darling, I think you give yourself too much credit. I don’t believe you when you say that you knew me for what I truly was. There is no blood on your hands, save for the blood of a murderer. You’re not a killer, Will. You’re certainly not responsible for my actions,” continued Hannibal, the barest hint of a smile on his face.

Will said nothing. He walked over to the sink and turned on the water; he brought the cold, clear liquid to his mouth with his hand and splashed some on his face. Leaning back against the countertop, he contemplated Hannibal.

“Abigail knew, didn’t she? That’s why you killed her.” His voice held no accusation in it.

Hannibal nodded. He was beginning to feel lightheaded as his vital fluids soaked through the layers of his clothes.

“Yes. She was becoming unstable. I didn’t want to risk her exposing me,” Hannibal said and took a deep breath, stepping back to reach for the worn brown leather chair.

Will frowned at Hannibal as he sat down heavily; the younger man seemed unaware of the extent of Hannibal’s injury.

Hannibal’s dark eyes traced the contours of Will’s face; gaunt and pale, the younger man had the broken beauty of an El Greco portrait. He was so very fond of that face, and fond of the man who wore it.

Hannibal finally asked the question that was the keystone to his hope.

“Why didn’t you say anything to Jack, Will?”

The younger man looked down at the floor, mulling over the question. When he met Hannibal’s eyes again, his face was sober with sadness.

“I’m trying to remember who I was before I met you. When I reach into the past, all I see is the potential for this moment,” he said slowly.

Will sighed. He reached for a dishtowel and walked towards Hannibal. Going down on one knee he pulled the older man’s hand away, red and wet, before opening his shirt. The cut was deep; Hannibal’s torso was a sticky mess, his chest hair matted and stiff with drying blood. Will’s mouth twisted to the side as he pressed the towel against the knife wound. His dark-blue eyes gazed into Hannibal’s brown ones.

“What kind of crazy am I to want to fuck a man that I know tried kill me? Hannibal, I’m not right in the head. You of all people should know that. I’ve absorbed the evil of too many men. It’s made me sick.” Will frowned, trying to pluck the right words from the air.

“Every time I think of what you’ve done, it’s a step towards madness… the horror washes over me, leaving only the colour red behind; yet, I’m finding it harder and harder to hold onto those feelings. Abigail’s death ripped out most of my heart; it seems the rest of it belongs to you,” he said quietly.

Will lowered his forehead to his lover’s thigh, and Hannibal tentatively placed a hand on the younger man’s curls, running their dirty, tangled roughness through his sensitive fingers.

“Why didn’t I say anything to Jack? Self-preservation. It’s really that simple. If I’m to go mad, I prefer the madness of loving you,” finished Will, a catch in his voice.

Will’s words brought with them a great swell of emotion in Hannibal; maybe it was the blood loss, but he felt exquisitely fragile and human.

After a minute, Will lifted his head and spoke.

“You’ll lose me in the end; we’ll both lose… I can sense the coming storm.”

Hannibal sighed and reached his hand out to the younger man’s face; Will’s eyes were bleak, but, at Hannibal’s touch, he softly smiled.

Hannibal almost laughed out loud at the utter foolishness of their predicament. It was so very tragic. He took a deep breath and smiled back at Will.

“Mon amour, go to the black leather bag in the hall closet, and fetch my surgical kit; it’s in a walnut case with brass fittings.”

Hannibal watched the slight-framed man rise quickly to his feet and leave the room; he wondered again at Will’s ability to bend and adapt without breaking. Hannibal felt almost outmatched. Will was like folded steel; each time he bent back on himself, he toughened and grew less brittle as he burned out the impurities.

The younger man was back in a few moments and handed the antique case over to Hannibal.

“Do you need my help?” Will asked, his face worried. The heaviness had finally leached out of the room; it seemed their strange normalcy had returned.

Hannibal shook his head; this wasn’t the first time he had given himself stitches. An idea struck him as he was contemplating the hooked needle.

“Will, go to the cellar and look for the 2000 Château Lafite. It should be in the smaller wooden wine rack at the back.”

He felt like celebrating suddenly. Maybe with Will at his side they would weather this coming storm and emerge from it unharmed.

Hannibal smiled, thinking of all the things he could show his lover. They could see the great Romanesque cathedrals of Germany, walk the gardens of Versailles, sit by the fountains of the Alhambra… They would leave all of this tragic darkness behind; Hannibal would force the melancholy out of Will and soothe him with grace and beauty.

Hannibal lay on his back with Will’s cock buried deep inside him; with every unhurried thrust, the younger man shuddered slightly.

Hannibal languidly scratched at Will’s buttocks and back with light fingers. Every so often, his wound twinged in sudden pain as he shifted, but he didn’t say anything; the moment was just too delicious. Will’s warm mouth was against his neck as he murmured wonderfully salacious things; right now it was something about finding a barrel to tie Hannibal to. Sex with Hannibal brought out a nascent talent for the purely pornographic in Will; the younger man had an interesting imagination.

Hannibal looked up at the reflection of their entwined bodies in the heavy mirror hanging on the ceiling. He hadn’t put it there for any sexual reason, contrary to what Will believed. He simply enjoyed watching himself think; the glacial planes of his face in contemplation gratified him.

At the moment, Hannibal was particularly pleased that it was there; the dark skin of his hands against Will’s pale back, the rhythmic movement of the younger man’s muscles as he fucked Hannibal so slowly… it was art set to motion. He groaned softly as Will bit into the skin of his neck. The younger man suddenly went rigid and let out a deep moan as he spilled his seed into Hannibal; he thrust himself harder into the older man until his trembling abated.

Will’s lips sought out Hannibal’s, his spent cock slipping wetly out as he slid his tongue into the other man’s mouth. Hannibal felt his beguiling lover take hold of his half-hard cock, and despite the blood loss, wine, and painkillers, Will’s skilled hand managed to bring him fully erect in surprisingly few strokes.

Not breaking the kiss, the younger moved forward to straddle Hannibal. Groaning again, Hannibal arched his body off the bed, heedless of the pain in his chest, as Will lowered himself onto his cock.

“You’re trying to kill me,” said Hannibal against Will’s lips.

Will’s mouth curled into an ironic smile before going back to nuzzle against Hannibal’s neck. Resuming his obscene murmurs, Will moved himself in the same gentle rhythm he had used to achieve his own pleasure.

Hannibal closed his eyes and gave himself over to the younger man’s ministrations.

16

Lion

Built in my nightmares and using my name

You’re stroking my cortex and you know I’m insane

I’m squeezed out in hump drive and drownin’ in love

Encompass them all to a position above

[…]

Now give me the strength

To split the world in two yeah

I ate all the rest and now I’ve gotta eat you

—Space Lord by Monster Magnet

* * *

He’ll wrap you in his arms,

tell you that you’ve been a good boy

He’ll rekindle all the dreams

it took you a lifetime to destroy

He’ll reach deep into the hole,

heal your shrinking soul

Hey buddy, you know you’re

never ever coming back

He’s a god, he’s a man,

he’s a ghost, he’s a guru

They’re whispering his name

through this disappearing land

But hidden in his coat

is a red right hand

—Red Right Hand by Nick Cave

* * *

The days bled into each other. When responsibility dictated they part, the lovers only did so with extreme reluctance, each sinking into their particular flavour of misery.

Hannibal found it harder to feign interest in his work with Will taking up so much space in his mind; everything else was tedium, bordering on the painful.

The doctor felt little red flames of annoyance flare up in his chest every time his patient opened her thin, lipstick-stained mouth; Hannibal longed to kick her bony body to the hard floor and press his thumbs deep into her ocular cavities just to stop her from bleating.

Looking at his watch and seeing the woman’s eyes track his motion, Hannibal chided himself for being so visibly impatient. Calm yourself. Even last night’s little unexpected hunt was doing nothing for his current state of mind. Hannibal was trying, unsuccessfully, not to think of Will out there on the loose, beyond his reach, without his protection.

The part of him that would normally have been concerned with the secrets being housed in Will’s slightly unstable mind was instead becoming increasingly fixated on the younger man’s well-being; Hannibal’s self-control was slowly being destroyed by his obsession with the lithe, dark-haired creature who shared his bed and his soul.

Hannibal looked down at his notebook to hide the dark scowl on his face. What if Brian Zeller tried to exact some form of vengeance for the broken nose? What if Jack Crawford was forcing Will to experience something he didn’t want to, raping his lover’s mind with images of horror?

A frightful choler rose up in him at the thought of anyone trying to damage his possession, his muse. Calm. Yourself. He felt both frustrated and powerless.

Hannibal looked at the woman who was laying her assorted fears and doubts out to him like a shopkeeper selling her wares; he longed to be away. After glancing again at the time, Hannibal continued to nod while his mind wandered far, trying to reach the halls of the FBI academy where Will was giving a lecture.

* * *

Will stood in front of his class, rapidly flicking through slides of the “Cupid” case and going over the details with his students; it irked him that the wrong name had stuck.

(Eros. Eros means love.)

He lifted one arm to gesture with his laser pointer at a detail of his lover’s handiwork (don’t about think it) and almost gasped in pain; Hannibal had gone out on some errand without him the previous night, but not before tying Will to the bed and leaving him there for hours.

The dark man looked down at him with a glint in his eyes.

“Stay,” he said, and turned off the light before leaving the room. Will struggled, frustrated, against his bonds until finally passing out from exhaustion a long time later.

In the black of night, Will was awoken when the warm, hard body of Hannibal slipped into bed behind him; he smelled of winter air and fresh blood. Will felt the soft, furry thatch on the older man’s chest press against his back as Hannibal reached around him; a knife, invisible in the dark, cut the ropes that tied his wrists and ankles together. His arms and legs screamed in agony from the sudden release, and he whimpered, but Hannibal just buried his face in the back of younger man’s neck and sighed.

“Good boy.”

His lover’s lips nibbled a few soft small kisses, and Will was quickly mollified despite the pain he was in. However, it wasn’t long before dread came on the heels of relief.

Someone has died tonight.

He was suddenly and keenly aware of it. Unbidden tears rose up hot in his eyes; they rolled over the bridge of his nose, soaking into the pillow case, as he lay in the predator’s strong embrace.

Hannibal, feeling the little shudders going through him, squeezed Will a little tighter.

“Shh… cucciolo, why are you crying?” came the murmur against the nape of his neck. “Did I hurt you too much? Were the ropes too tight? I had an unexpected delay; I honestly didn’t intend on leaving you for so long, my darling.”

Hannibal sounded uncharacteristically concerned. Will could imagine his face, lifted brows creasing his forehead in confusion. Will shook his head against the pillow, feeling the stubble on Hannibal’s chin scratch against his shoulder as the older man kissed him there.

“I… honestly don’t know.” He could almost hear Hannibal’s thoughts (What should I do to make this better?) as he mulled over Will’s answer.

Finally, Hannibal lifted himself up onto one elbow to peer down into Will’s face. Will turned his head and looked up; all he could see of Hannibal was a black shadow against the grey gloom.

“You murdered someone tonight,” he said quietly. In the pause, he felt, rather than saw, Hannibal nod slowly.

“A bad man, Will. A very bad man.” Hannibal’s mouth came down onto his in a soft kiss, and Will’s dread melted away like sugar in warm water.

Will saw that the class was staring at him. He looked around in bewilderment and realized he had trailed off, mid-sentence; he reddened, wondering how long he had been standing there in the echoing silence. He was finding it hard to think when all he wanted was to be back in Hannibal’s bed. Not even having sex… just lying there with the enigmatic man, burying all his stray, fearful thoughts in the shadows cast by the older man’s complete self-possession.

Will smiled wryly and scrubbed a hand through his hair before turning back to the image of the dead man projected on the screen above him.

Near the end of the lecture, Will saw the familiar silhouette of Alana framed in the doorway; since Will was more or less finished, he simply dismissed the class, curious to see what the beautiful woman wanted.

Amidst the loud rustling of his students standing to put away books, tablets, and laptops, Will watched Alana walk towards him. When she was near, she crossed her arms and, tilting her head to the side, smiled warmly at him. Though their friendship had seen its share of cul-de-sacs, they seemed to always return to that first kindling of affection, determined to try again.

“Hey stranger,” she said. They hadn’t seen much of each other, save for the occasional glimpse in the hallways, since that day in the morgue. The tall psychology professor was wearing a curve-hugging black dress with a coffee-brown peacock feather pattern that complemented the dark waves of hair framing her face.

Will took his glasses off and shoved them into his breast pocket, smiling a little nervously. He took a deep breath and leaned back on the desk, spreading his hands out to the sides, palms up in an exaggerated show of astonishment.

“The lovely Dr. Bloom! To what do I owe this surprise?” he said attempting to dispel the tension with a little humour. Alana laughed, but he could see that her smile was brittle with worry when she looked at him.

“Oh I just thought I would look in on you. Your text messages have been few and far between since your move to Hannibal’s. It was about time that I saw you in the flesh, Mr. Graham… don’t you think?” She grinned wide, but after a moment her smile shrunk back down to the one tinged with concern. “How are you doing, Will?”

His face fell and he dropped his arms, shrugging. How could he tell her that he didn’t know either?

“I’m fine, fine.” His voice sounded strained, even to his ears.

Alana frowned at him and shook her head, her blue eyes trying to capture his gaze.

“Will, you shouldn’t be ‘fine’. You should be experiencing grief. It hasn’t been very long, and the process takes time. You’ve lost someone close to you. It’s ok not to be ‘fine’. You have to acknowledge your pain.” She reached out to touch his arm and looked warmly at him.

Will felt like he was shrinking into himself suddenly. Part of him was drowning in black water, one hand held out to the powerful light of Alana’s goodness. Help me.

The stag lifted its head and snorted, looking at Will. It lowered its great antlers and walked towards him, pushing the drowning man away from the shore and further into inky darkness.

Will blinked; pressing his lips tightly together, he nodded once and tried not to shy from her touch.

* * *

From the doorway, Hannibal nearly choked on the thorny vines of jealousy that had wrapped themselves around him as he watched the exchange. Alana was touching Will. It took an inordinate amount of self-control not to cross the room in long strides and pull Alana away.

Emotion seared through Hannibal, though he quickly extinguished it with a thought: he would invite Alana over for supper to further see with his own eyes how Will and she interacted. If Alana still had designs on his lover, Hannibal would simply correct her. It was unforgivingly rude.

* * *

Startled, Will looked up when he heard footfalls approaching; he was nearly overwhelmed with relief and joy when he saw Hannibal’s dapper figure enter the lecture hall. Pulling away from Alana, Will took a step towards his dark lover, a surprised smile on his face. The space between them pulled, as if the two men would click together like magnets with a single touch. Will could almost feel Alana’s discomfiture behind him as the moment stretched out longer than natural.

“You’re early!” he said brightly, not bothering to mask the eagerness in his voice.

The older man dipped his head in a small nod.

“I drove over the minute my last patient left the office,” Hannibal said with a smile.

However, Will was dismayed when Hannibal immediately turned his head towards Alana to gaze at her fondly.

“You look lovely, my dear. I was just thinking about having you for supper, and look! Here you are. Come back home with Will and me tonight, and I shall cook us a feast.” The lips of the handsome psychiatrist curled into a gracious smile, the lines around his mouth deepening. “I insist.”

Will watched as Alana’s face lit up. Feeling a finger of jealousy touch his heart, Will wondered again at Hannibal’s ability to thoroughly charm others.

If only they knew what he really was…

Before he could stop it, a laugh bubbled out of him. Will quickly raised a fist to his mouth, turning it awkwardly into a cough. Alana and Hannibal looked at him; a frown only Will could see flickered across his lover’s face, and Will gave a tiny shake of his head.

I’m all right.

He longed to reach out for just a moment to touch Hannibal, skin on skin, to recharge his depleted batteries; now with Alana in tow, he wasn’t sure when that could happen. Will gritted his teeth in annoyance and raised his eyebrows at Hannibal. The doctor just smiled at him and motioned to the exit.

“Shall we? I obtained some fresh calf’s liver yesterday that I wanted to try with caramelized onions, apples, and mustard sauce. It’s a simple recipe, but I think it will pair well with the bottle of 2009 Giaconda Roussanne Aeolia I’ve been saving.”

Hannibal looked over his shoulder at Will as he led Alana out of the room, the twinkle in his eye doing nothing to settle the unease that was rising in the younger man.

Will was taken aback when Hannibal handed him the keys to his early-model Bentley Arnage. The older man just winked at him and opened the door, sliding himself onto the cream leather of the passenger’s seat. Will stood a few moments just looking at the keys in his hand before walking around to the other side and getting in behind the wheel. He looked over at Hannibal and ran his hands over the polished wood of the steering wheel.

“You’re letting me drive your car?” he asked, confused.

Hannibal frowned at Will.

“Is that so strange? I let you drive in other ways, why not drive my car?” His lips stretched into a teasing smile.

Will shook his head and chuckled to himself while he adjusted the mirrors; looking over at the man sitting next to him, he threw the car in reverse and grinned as the powerful V8 purred.

Followed by Alana’s hybrid and the two unmarked squad cars, Will pulled out of the academy parking lot. It had become easy to ignore the constant, unnecessarily vigilant presence of their protective guard. How Hannibal had managed to slip away unnoticed the night before was testament to the skills that had allowed him to remain undiscovered for so long.

With so many cars behind him, it was beginning to feel like a convoy. That, or a funeral. Will let out a laugh that sounded a lot more like a shuddering sigh.

* * *

Hannibal looked over at Will, his brow creased with concern; it seemed that Will’s panic was once again on the verge of spilling over. When they were together, he acted as a kind of balm for the pain the younger man suffered as the truth continued to sear through him.

Hannibal reached over with a long arm to squeeze Will’s thigh gently, and Will took his eyes off the road for just a moment to smile playfully at him, the assurance that he was going to be all right plain in his face.

Hannibal scanned the profile of the man driving, wishing he could see what was going on in that splintered mind; Will would never be “all right” ever again, but Hannibal planned never on leaving him long enough that it mattered.

The corner of the older man’s mouth curled in an impish grin as he slid his hand up Will’s leg to the soft bulge at his crotch. Will gasped in surprise and gripped the steering wheel tighter, glancing over at Hannibal in astonishment. Laughing softly, Hannibal smoothed his fingers over the fabric of Will’s dark blue dockers, teasing a reaction out of the flesh underneath.

“Concentrate on the road,” he said softly. “Don’t crash my car, please.”

Will’s eyes snapped back to the front, his throat moving as he swallowed. When Hannibal’s nimble fingers quickly undid the button of Will’s pants and pulled down his zipper, he felt a slight acceleration of the car as Will’s eagerness took hold of him.

“Mind the speed, zaichik,” Hannibal said, sliding his hand into the opening in Will’s habitual blue cotton boxers and pulling the younger man’s hardening cock out.

With a sharp exhale, Will shifted himself in the seat and stared out at the road, his jaw clenched. The older man began to slowly stroke Will softly along his length and up over the head of his cock at a measured pace. The young man’s hips started moving along with Hannibal’s rhythm until it became obvious that he was also pressing on the sensitive accelerator at the same time. Laughing hoarsely to himself, Will shook his head.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said weakly. He looked over just as Hannibal ran his thumb up over the top of Will’s cockhead and brought the drop of pre-cum to his lips. Will’s eyes darted to the road and back again to watch Hannibal lick the ball of his thumb with a long tongue and then smile.

Will’s eyes darkened with sudden lust; mouth slightly open, he unconsciously touched his tongue to his bottom lip.

Hannibal’s smile was wicked as he reached again for the hard length jutting out of Will’s pants. Hannibal tilted his head and motioned at the windshield; Will, startled, put his eyes back on the road. The breath began coming out of Will’s heaving chest in huffs. Hannibal waited, stroking leisurely still, until the younger man was in control again before starting to slowly increase the speed of his hand.

“Hannibal, you’re going to kill the both of us,” Will said, but the hand sliding over his cock just squeezed harder in response.

Will let out a low moan and using his sleeve, wiped the sweat away from forehead. His head had begun jerking slightly as his mouth partially opened in time to Hannibal’s moving grip. Amused, Hannibal kept up the pace until it seemed Will would actually crash the car; the boy really had to learn more self-control. Hannibal smiled and wondered what Alana thought of the slight weaving and perceptible changes of speed of the car ahead of her as he started anew with a slow, steady stroking hand.

It wasn’t that long before Will was starting to cry out in frustration every time Hannibal’s hand released him. The older man grinned wolfishly and shook his head.

“You said you would crash the car. While I would dearly like to relieve you of this… tension, I think my life is too high a price.”

Will’s eyebrows came down in an endearingly pathetic expression and he groaned; his engorged cock was slick with the clear fluids of his arousal.

The older man smiled and looked to the road ahead; Hannibal knew that after the next bend the highway would be straight for a while, and traffic was extremely light. When the wheels of the car came back to front, Hannibal leaned over and swiftly took the gracefully curved, rock-hard cock into his mouth.

The younger man choked out a cry.

Arms locked at the elbow, Will seemed to be fighting the urge to press down hard on the accelerator as Hannibal skilfully swallowed his length; in only minutes his groans became one steady barrage of sound as his climax quickly started rolling through him. The car jerked as Hannibal felt Will’s muscles tense; the bitter oyster taste of his young lover’s cum gushed over his tongue, and he swallowed over and over to contain it all, his ears ringing with Will’s loud moaning gasps.

When Will’s cock stopped throbbing in his mouth, Hannibal stayed still a moment longer, using his tongue to softly caress the slowly softening flesh. He felt Will’s hand come down onto his head, running his fingers fondly through Hannibal’s hair and squeezing the back of his neck.

“You’re insane. I could have killed us… my eyes were closed at the end. Fuck.” Will laughed a short, wild laugh and let out a shuddering breath, rolling his head back on the headrest.

Hannibal sat up and pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket to wipe his lips almost daintily. He grinned, gratified at the change a little brush with danger brought out in Will.

The younger man looked over at Hannibal again, face still slightly flushed, and flashed an easy smile before turning back to the road and pressing down a little harder on the accelerator.

* * *

Comfortably seated once again in the worn leather chair, Will watched Hannibal and Alana performing miracles in the kitchen. It was easy to see that they had cooked together many times. Though Alana didn’t have the same skill as the handsome epicurean, she made up for it in the bright energy she injected into Hannibal’s otherwise sombre operating theatre.

Will took another sip of the red wine Hannibal kept pouring into his glass. After the mental and physical exertion caused by Hannibal’s glorious mischief-making on the drive over, he was loose-limbed and mellow; Will felt like a stupid grin was plastered on his face, but he didn’t care.

The first time Hannibal had leaned over to kiss him in front of Alana, he thought he would burn a hole through the floor, so hot was his embarrassment. However, it was instantly apparent that his colleague already knew about his physical relationship with Hannibal. He was just wondering if Hannibal had been the one to tell her when Alana, mouth twisted to the side in a wry grin, spoke up.

“Will you guys stop making gaga eyes at each other? I’m starting to feel unloved here.” The words were spoken lightly, but Will could see the sadness clear in Alana’s eyes; for once, it didn’t touch him at all. Why should it? He wasn’t responsible for her happiness.

Feeling a little tipsy, Will stood and walked over to the elegant man in the chef’s whites and wrapped his arms around Hannibal’s trim waist, feeling the hard muscles against his arms. Charmed, Hannibal laughed, and Will suddenly realized the reason why the older man had asked Alana over for supper: Hannibal had been concerned about whether there were still feelings between Alana and him.

That awareness brought a renewed surge of affection through Will for the tall, handsome man. Who didn’t like a little jealousy? It made Hannibal seem infinitely more human. The man in his arms laughed and pulled away from Will after a few moments.

“Sit,” he said and pointed.

Will was transported back in his mind to the first time Hannibal had used that commanding tone on him. He almost felt sorry for that man sitting in the cracked brown leather chair wondering why Hannibal had tried to kill him, that fateful morning. Run away…

Supper was exquisite as usual and so was the wine. Will peered a little blearily at his glass, wondering how much he’d had. Hannibal and Alana were deep in a conversation about a recently published paper, something that was beyond his level of interest, so he tuned out.

His eyes wandering, Will stared at another of Hannibal’s strange centrepieces. This one seemed to be a short and wide clear vase with dark feathers sticking out of it. They were held upright in the vessel by little white stones, no… by tiny white skulls. He frowned. Mouse skulls? He grinned. Hannibal had extremely peculiar tastes, but the decor was certainly eye-catching.

He looked up as he heard a chair scrape back. Hannibal stood and excused himself to go prepare dessert, leaving Alana and Will alone in the dining room together. Suddenly it felt a little awkward to be sitting there with her; Will dipped his head and drummed his fingers against the wood of the tabletop. A long silence stretched out.

Finally Alana laughed, her voice sounding a touch timid.

“Will. I’m… sorry. If you had told me you were into men… I would have never…” Though Alana was trying to sound sensitive, her words were just uncomfortable.

Will shook his head, chuckling. He sighed and looked up at the Murano glass of the chandelier, lips pressed together.

“I’m not into men. Just… Hannibal.” More artless words to fill the void caused by their host’s departure. He had underestimated just how hard explaining the situation would be to other people.

Playing with the cuff of his blue and brown plaid shirt and trying to think of what else to say, he heard Alana gasp. Will lowered his grey eyes to her face; she was staring in alarm at his wrist. He looked down and saw that he had uncovered some of the dark bruising there.

“Will! What happened?” She rose and grabbed his arm before he could stop her.

He started shaking his head but winced in pain as she pushed the sleeve of his shirt higher. The flesh over his narrow wrists and forearms was a mess of dark purple ligature marks and scabbing where the rope had rubbed the thin skin over bone. It was an ugly sight. The FBI agent squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. When he looked up, Alana’s big blue eyes were wide with horror.

“Who did this to you Will?” she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

Will laughed hesitantly.

“Uh. It’s really not what you think. It’s… complicated,” he said quietly.

“And none of your concern,” came Hannibal’s voice from behind them.

Alana released Will’s shoulder and turned around in surprise. She watched as Hannibal rounded the table and placed the chocolate truffle torte on its surface; cutting into the dessert with a sharp knife, he placed the first piece on a small white plate.

Will watched her eyes narrow at Hannibal.

“Did you do this to him??” she asked, incredulous.

Hannibal twisted his head to look at her, an ominously blank and reptilian expression on his face.

“What if I did? What interest is it of yours? Will is a consenting adult. And… he is mine,” he said, blandly.

“Hannibal, I don’t even know what to say to that. Yours?” Alana said, her eyes narrow. “I trusted you but… I’m starting to wonder if you’re the man I thought you were. First you take Abigail—my patient—out without my permission and put drugs in her system. And this? I… I was really not ok with looking the other way when it came to a tryst between you and your patient, but hell, Hannibal, what was I going to say? I was waiting until you made the right decision and ended your sessions with Will. But now you’re… you’re abusing him.” Her voice was harsh with fury in the dimly lit room.

Will frowned at her.

“Alana, stop it. Really, it’s all right. Hannibal’s right, I’m a consenting adult,” he said with a laugh. Trying to lighten the mood, he added, “I’ve learned my lesson and won’t ever drop his knives on the floor again.” What he had meant to be funny just made Alana take a step back. She crossed her arms and took a deep breath.

Will could see the immediate change as she stepped into her professional persona.

“Will, was Hannibal the one who left those bruises on your face and neck?” Will looked over to the older man who had reclaimed his chair; his hands were folded in front of him, bottom lip resting against his knuckles as he stared coldly at Alana.

“Yes. What does that have to do with anything?” answered Will after a moment.

“I’m just trying to establish that this is a healthy relationship, despite the fact that I’m incredibly not all right with this whole situation.” She frowned at him. “Are you using safe words?”

Will’s eyebrows dipped down, and his eyes went back to Hannibal’s face.

“Safe… words?” He looked to Alana in confusion; he thought for a moment that she was going to start yelling again when he shook his head.

Instead, she took another deep breath and spoke in an icy, clinical voice.

“I don’t care what you do in your spare time, Dr. Lecter. I have no interest in what particular flights of fancy your desires take. But it is my professional opinion that you’ve somehow coerced Will into submitting to something he doesn’t fully understand and have knowingly been causing him harm. It could certainly explain the extremely erratic behaviour I’ve been seeing out of him. I’m going to report this to the board and pull Will out of your care starting immediately.”

She turned to Will and placed a hand on his arm.

“Come, we’re going.”

After yanking his arm out of Alana’s grasp, Will backed up against the table. He couldn’t believe what she was saying. Alana meant to separate them. Did she realize what that meant?

His heart battered against the walls of his chest, and his mouth went dry as he tried to think of something to say. His brain was on fire… Hannibal could lose his practice… would lose his practice. But… could he end up in jail? Why was she doing this to them? He stared wide-eyed at the woman who intended on coming between him and Hannibal; terrifying thoughts were whirling fast in his mind…

… and something twisted inside Will. Slowly his brows came down in a menacing grimace.

“Don’t you dare think of doing anything to harm Hannibal. Don’t you even think of opening your mouth to anyone.

You…

Don’t…

Understand.”

Will had taken a few steps towards her and was gratified by the shocked expression on her face.

She was staring down at the sharp blade he had plucked from the table, now held firm in a steady hand. Fear had cleared the wine from his mind, and fury had taken over.

“You have no right to come in here with your accusations. You have no claim to me. None,” he growled.

Alana put her hand out, trying to appease him, as he pointed the knife at her.

“Will… What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes huge.

Will clenched his jaw and took another step forward; he felt powerful as she backed into the wall and cowered, held there by the force of her fear and astonishment.

Breathing deeply, Will felt like his entire being was crackling with a delicious and terrible potency. He let his face curl into a wicked smile.

(If one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is.)

“Beg,” he murmured. “Beg for your life.”

Alana’s eyes bugged out in horror, and she gasped out her words.

“Will… please… Will… “

The blade arced up through the air and slashed through the pale flesh of her throat, the arterial spray hitting the dark blue moulding of the dining room wall. Her hands went up to her neck, blood bubbling out of her lips as she choked and tried to breath through the thick liquid that ran down her oesophagus.

Will slammed the blade hard into her diaphragm, pleased with how easily the sharp knife sliced through her flesh. Alana’s hot blood streamed over his hand, and he had to let go of the stainless steel handle when the woman’s body slid down the wall to land on the floor.

As her vital fluids puddled wide underneath her, seeming black in the dark room, Alana’s eyes were still on Will; he watched with satisfaction as the light went out in them.

After staring down at her body for a moment longer, he finally lifted his head and turned to look at Hannibal. The older man hadn’t moved from his seat, but his hands had come away from his face and he was breathing heavily. Will felt a surge go through him when he saw the naked desire painted on the stark planes of Hannibal’s face. He rubbed his face, spreading the blood unintentionally across his jaw; he could taste Alana, coppery on his tongue.

“Problem solved,” he said simply and took the few steps needed to reach the powerful embrace of his lover’s arms.

17

Cicada

free·dom /ˈfrēdəm/

Noun: The state of being free, of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

“It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”

—Voltaire

* * *

Hannibal looked over at Will sleeping soundly next to him and sighed. With one hand he pushed a damp curl away from the younger man’s forehead; it had taken a terribly long time for the Xanax and Hannibal’s strong arms to finally calm Will’s shaking.

In the darkened room, Hannibal pressed his lips into a grim line as he thought about what had happened.

Hannibal watched in amazement as his lover stalked Alana across the room with brutal confidence. It all happened so quickly; for a moment it had looked like Will was going to collapse on his knees, but Hannibal’s breath had caught in his throat when Will’s hand snaked behind him to grab the sharp knife from the table. Alana only had time to beg before Will slashed her throat.

Tears rose unexpectedly in Hannibal’s eyes at the bittersweet truth of the moment; Will had sacrificed his good on the altar of evil to protect him. The older man’s chest felt tight with sudden, almost painful emotion; a tumult of ecstasy and desire rode his heart and made it beat at a maddening pace.

When Will turned around, an almost rakish expression on his blood-covered face, Hannibal felt that he had never wanted anything more in his entire life.

The darkness in the room seemed to retreat with Will’s advance; he was a terrifying god, driving out the night’s ichor as he crossed the room.

Hannibal felt breathless with the thought of capturing this powerful creature against him.

His. His forever.

Rising up, Hannibal swept Will quickly into a hungry embrace, his mouth desperately seeking out the younger man’s as if he could slake his scorching passion with spit and breath.

With hard fingers, Will began tearing at Hannibal’s clothing; he growled with frustration as his impatient hands fumbled at the small buttons on Hannibal’s shirt. Hannibal just laughed and pulled at the fabric, helping Will by sending the offending buttons flying.

The lovers’ movements slowly became less frenzied as their struggles finally brought skin into contact with skin; Will’s hands painted messy glyphs in blood on Hannibal’s naked back as the older man savaged his lover’s neck with sharp teeth. The coppery taste on Hannibal’s lips stoked the burning fire within him; the very air felt blistered when he hungrily reached down to take Will’s rigid cock in hand, capturing his own swollen member in the same grip.

Wet with blood and sweat, his hand passed easily over the two shafts as Will gasped and shuddered against him; Hannibal put his arm around Will and held him fiercely to his chest as he moved his strong hand between them. Too soon the blood became sticky. Hannibal frowned and, in a fever of lust, grabbed the small bottle of olive oil off the table.

Soon his grunted breaths joined Will’s as the younger man started thrusting his hips, causing his cock to slide against Hannibal’s as he tried to fuck his hand harder, now so very slick with oil.

When the rhythm reached a furious pace, Will’s hold on Hannibal tightened, and he began moaning low into the side of his neck. The agonizing anticipation stretched out for only a brief moment longer before Hannibal felt the young man strain desperately against him. Will’s breathing sounded like sobs as he was overwhelmed by the staggering pulse of climax; his hot cum surged out of him and spilled over his lover’s capable hand, covering Hannibal’s cock with his thick ejaculate.

Hannibal gasped, his heart pounding, and pumped his cum-slickened fist hard over the two shafts until Will slumped against him, the fires within him now quenched.

Frustrated, Hannibal groaned and released Will, his hand holding his own hard, swollen need. Will didn’t need any prompting; he dropped to his knees and opened his throat to Hannibal. Will dug his fingers into the older man’s hips as Hannibal fed him his thick cock; when the head of it hit the back of his throat, Will gagged and pulled back, a string of spit hanging from his lip as he coughed.

Undaunted, Will licked Hannibal’s cockhead roughly with a warm tongue before rapidly swallowing the whole again; Hannibal sighed with pleasure and rocked his hips, fucking Will’s mouth as the heat continued to build inside him.

However, soon wanting more, he pulled away; a sharp sound deep in Hannibal’s chest twisted his lips into a snarl as he forcefully turned Will around. Shoving his lover roughly down onto his hands and knees, Hannibal knelt behind him and drove the head of his cock hard into younger man’s tight asshole.

Will let out a pain-tinged gasp, but nevertheless pressed back into the assault when Hannibal’s thick shaft slid smoothly into him. With fevered lust spurring him on, Hannibal started fucking Will with long thrusts that jolted him forward on the floor. Seeking better leverage, Hannibal pushed hard on Will’s shoulders with both hands, forcing his chest down to the ground; with Will’s body pressed against the hardwood floor beneath his palms, Hannibal began to plough harder into him, seeking to quickly bring himself over the edge.

When his orgasm finally erupted with violence, Hannibal thrust his head back and let out a groan as he felt the hot cum sluice through his cock and burst out of him in thick spurts; it seemed a long time before he stopped moving, his breath heaving loudly in the dark room.

It took a moment for Hannibal to realize that Will was trembling like a leaf beneath him. He frowned and pulled back, releasing the younger man. Will sank to the ground with a moan and lay there shuddering, sprawled on his stomach.

“My darling? Will, what’s the matter?” Hannibal’s pulse was still racing as he reached out. When Will didn’t react to his touch, he felt an icy finger of worry spear him. With some difficulty he turned Will over onto his back and realized the source of the younger man’s distress; he was dripping red from being forced face-down into the cooling puddle of Alana’s lifeblood.

Will’s eyes were wide with horror; the monstrous awareness of what he’d done had finally taken hold of him. Filled with chagrin, Hannibal wasted no time in scooping his lover into his arms; he held Will cradled against his chest and shushed him softly, wishing his embrace was enough to overcome his pain.

“My love. My love. Oh… my love. I’m so sorry. I am so very sorry, my love,” he murmured like a mantra into the stricken man’s hair.

Hannibal took another look at Will and pulled the sheet up to cover his slight frame. He’d managed to get most of the blood off in the shower, though it hadn’t been easy with Will clinging to him like a limpet. Hannibal shook his head. Maybe Alana’s murder had been too much; maybe Will had sacrificed his own sanity when he cut into her flesh. And for what?

Hannibal was in a rare mood; he felt bleak.

He slid out of bed, leaving Will to sleep, and padded down the hallway to the dining room. The walls in the corner where Alana was slumped over were sprayed with blood and the floor was covered in a thick, gory puddle that radiating out from under the dead woman.

He looked down and focused on some of Will’s bloody handprints on the hardwood floor. Hannibal felt himself cringe; how long had he continued to fuck Will once the truth had paralysed him with horror? Hannibal had been so caught up in his own pleasure… He rubbed a dark hand over his face and sighed.

He could fix it. It could all be fixed; he just needed to move up the timetable of his plans and all would be well.

Hannibal gingerly stepped through the blood on bare feet towards the dead body and crouched down. In death, Alana’s face was slack and unappealing; all beauty had fled when the knife did its damage. Hannibal’s shoulders sagged slightly. There was so much to clean up… but did it matter at all? He was tired and didn’t want to leave Will for too long; they would just keep out of the dining room until they left the house for good the following day.

Hannibal walked across the room, careful not to slip, and turned off the lights. The cops parked outside would be wondering soon why Alana wasn’t leaving, but Hannibal wasn’t worried; their imaginations almost certainly ran to lust rather than murder when it came to a pretty girl staying the night with two handsome men.

Hannibal made his way back to the bedroom where his lover lay, red footsteps fading behind him with every step he took.

Hannibal woke up to an empty bed. He raised his head off the pillow and looked around the room, worried; seeing that the bedroom was also empty, Hannibal went in search of Will, wondering what he would find. After checking the bathroom and living room, he finally found him in the entrance of the dining room.

Wearing Hannibal’s robe, Will stood stock still with his arms wrapped around himself, staring at the body of Alana in the far corner. Hannibal reached out a hand and cautiously grasped Will’s shoulder; Will started from the contact but didn’t turn around.

“I… I think I’ve lost my mind,” Will said, his voice hoarse. “I killed her, and it was so easy. Now I’m just standing here, staring at her, and I feel like she was always a complete stranger, you know?”

Will glanced up into Hannibal’s concerned eyes and smiled softly.

“I’m trying to think of what she was like when she was alive… trying to remember details; how her eyes crinkled when she smiled, or how soft her hair was… how she always had something nice to say and how she was just so damned smart. I can remember what it felt like to kiss her… have sex with her… but it’s just dust… like that person never even existed.” He turned back to the body in the room. “That’s not her.”

Hannibal frowned in worry, sliding his arm across Will’s back and holding him tight against his side. Will laughed softly and shook his head.

“It’s crazy talk, I know. I’m just not myself this morning, whoever that is. But I’ll be ok. I have to be.”

Lifting his hand up, he placed it over the one Hannibal had on his shoulder. The two men stood staring at the remains of Alana Bloom in silence, a long moment stretching in time, until Will cleared his throat and spoke again.

“What do we do with the body?” he asked, his voice had entirely lost the edge of despair that had marred it before. “And what do we do about the Feds outside?”

* * *

Will sipped at his coffee, feeling strangely calm despite the previous night’s events. He knew part of him was screaming, but it was far away where it couldn’t reach him, like a broken needle on a record in an old sepia-tinged memory. He dug around within himself searching for pain, remorse, or sadness like a man groping around in deep pockets for loose change, but came up empty-handed. Life had taken on the blurred lines and weird cadence of dreams. He held one hand up in front of him, flexing his fingers into a fist, and wondered what was real.

Hannibal came back into the kitchen carrying a large leather satchel and stopped to frown at Will who was hunched over in the leather armchair, staring at his hand.

Will looked up; the well-built older man was wearing simple grey linen pyjama bottoms that rode low over his tawny hips. He felt a soft little pulse of lust as his eyes caught on the contour of Hannibal’s hipbone and the little negative space that dipped down beside it.

“Will?” The concern in Hannibal’s voice was plain.

Will jerked his head up and creaked his face into a small smile. At least he had Hannibal. Last night he had briefly worried whether Hannibal would be angry at him for killing Alana, though it had quickly evaporated when he saw how aroused Hannibal was. Of course he wouldn’t be angry. The smile that felt ragged and ill fitting on Will’s face relaxed slightly, becoming something real. His lover was a brutal serial killer, a psychopath with a limited range of emotions and a diminutive set of morals…

Will laughed to himself. Morals? More like standards.

Somehow this vicious killer had allowed himself to be snared tight by the same terrible love that trapped Will. It was like sharp, spiny walls had risen up around them, a hard, dangerous shell protecting the sensitive meat of their twinned souls. Their minds were connected in a daedalian maze, and it was becoming difficult for Will to see where his feelings and urges started and Hannibal’s left off.

No… Hannibal wasn’t angry at him for killing Alana, or for doing it while two federal agents sat in an unmarked car outside the house. Hannibal’s thoughts, like Will’s, were only concerned with prolonging their moments together. Will frowned to himself. At all costs?

He rose out of his chair and went to stand next to Hannibal who was pulling things out of the black bag. There were multiple passports for various countries, a stack of documents, and what looked like a lot of foreign currency.

Will looked over at Hannibal with his eyebrows high as he picked up the Canadian passport and opened it. He was surprised when he saw his own face on the inside next to a name that wasn’t his.

“What is this?” he asked, opening more passports and seeing his face or Hannibal’s in all of them.

The older man’s warm hand came up against Will’s lower back, thumb stroking his skin through the silk of the robe.

“It’s freedom,” he said, though Will could hear a hint of strain in his voice. “This is what I went to get the other night when I left you alone. You wondered why I would mingle with the kind who went ‘parties’ thrown by degenerates? There is benefit to being acquainted with the criminal class and morally corrupt. This is one of them. We can leave today.”

His head spinning with possibilities, Will placed a hesitant hand on the stack of documents. There seemed to be deeds for property, long strings of numbers that Will assumed were bank accounts, proof of ownership of vehicles. There was a life for them written out in all of this forgery.

“Will it stand up to scrutiny?” he asked and looked up into Hannibal’s deep brown eyes.

The older man nodded.

“He’s the very best,” he said. “Or at least, he was.”

* * *

“Please! Please! I tell no one!” The man said as his hands came up in supplication. Hannibal laughed low in his throat. As well as being an expert in forgery, Ankou had a deep passion for brutal rape that often ended in the death of his victims; it amused him that this man who had broken a hundred souls was now begging for his own life. Smiling as he raised the knife in his hand, Hannibal thought to himself how ironic it was that he kept saving parts of the world from small evils.

A gurgling, wet noise burst out of Ankou as the sharp blade passed easily through his trachea.

Will was staring with rapt attention at Hannibal, seemingly caught up in the visions of death that flashed in the older man’s memories.

Hannibal leaned forward and trapped the corner of his lover’s mouth between sharp teeth and bit down softly. Will’s talent seemed to border on the psychic at times; Hannibal was sure that Will saw only intent and not the details of Ankou’s violent death, but he was never sure and it made him strangely uncomfortable to ask.

Will curled his arms around Hannibal and pulled him closer, opening his mouth for a deeper kiss. Hannibal held onto Will’s narrow hips and tried to relax into the moment, but there was so much to do.

Hannibal pulled up the charcoal and blue glen plaid trousers, tucking in the cream-coloured shirt before zipping up his fly as Will watched him get dressed to leave the house.

Will frowned.

“Tell me again why you have to go to the office to get this notebook?” he asked while fidgeting with the corner of the silky duvet, nervous energy making him jittery.

Hannibal’s mouth came down at the corners as he looked warily at the young man on the bed.

“I was imprudent, Will. I wrote things down in my notebook that I shouldn’t have. If the police find it, they will know where to look for us.”

Hannibal reached out, and Will rose to help him with his waistcoat, obviously happy to have something to do with his restless hands. After he had fastened the five buttons, Will reached up to straighten the full Windsor knot before he smoothed his hands down over the shirt and vest, stroking the hard curves of Hannibal’s muscles under the fabric.

Hannibal sighed softly and leaned down to kiss Will tenderly on the lips, a smile bowing the lines of his mouth.

After pulling away, Will picked up the double-vented suit jacket and held it out. Hannibal laughed as he passed his arms through the sleeves.

“I daresay you missed your calling as a valet, my darling,” he said.

Will slid his arms around Hannibal and took a firm hold of the older man’s buttocks, a cheeky smile on his face.

“I don’t think so. I have far more fun tearing your clothes off than putting them on.”

Hannibal grinned and shook his head, though quickly sobered.

“Time is of the essence. I have to leave now. One of the agents will come with me, but I’ll make it seem like this ‘errand’ is just a pretence to leave you and Alana alone together. It’s still early enough that no one should be worried about her whereabouts… yet. Get whatever things you want to bring with you together in one of the suitcases. I should be back shortly. Spend some time memorizing the account numbers. And… don’t worry.”

Hannibal cupped Will’s head and leaned in to kiss him again.

When the kiss broke, he turned and hurried away, hoping that Will didn’t sense the dread filling him with every passing minute.

18

Swan (song)

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;

Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

Fading in music: that the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream

And watery death-bed for him.

—Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

* * *

Will watched soberly as Hannibal left through the front door; the older man was not hiding his apprehension well. That Hannibal was even feeling worried did not bode well for their escape.

Wincing in pain as he squeezed his wrist distractedly, Will looked down at his arms; he was struck again by the bruising there, still dark but slowly turning to greens and yellows. Was Alana right? Was he being abused? Did he care?

Will felt a little ill and tried to shut down the torrent of thoughts that coursed through his mind. If he paid attention to them, Will thought he would start to laugh or cry, or both, and never be able to stop. He clenched his jaw and rocked on his heels. Twenty minutes, round-trip. Thirty with traffic. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Will felt hollow with fear now that Hannibal was gone; he felt like he’d been holding his breath so long that he’d forgotten how to exhale.

Turning around, Will started to make his way back to the bedroom in a daze.

Not for the first time, he thought about his dogs; Will hoped they would be ok. Maybe once he and Hannibal got to where they were going he could somehow get a message to Alana.

Alana…

He put a hand out to the wall to catch himself before he fell. Pressing his forehead against the dark wallpaper, Will swallowed back the bitter bile that threatened to choke him.

* * *

Hannibal eyed the stern-looking FBI agent in the passenger seat as he turned off the engine. The man hadn’t spoken a word for the entire ride; the doctor had the distinct impression that Agent Cowans thought his time was being wasted babysitting Hannibal. He couldn’t agree more.

“You can stay here if you’d like. I will only be a few moments,” he said.

The burly man in the cheap black suit stared blandly at him and shook his head.

“Where you go, I go.” The man’s voice had a nasal quality to it that seemed ill matched to his gruff exterior.

Hannibal sighed inwardly and got out of the Bentley. They took the stairs up to the second floor where the doctor had held his practice for many years. After unlocking the door to the comfortably familiar space, Hannibal looked around him with a somewhat heavy heart. He ran his eyes over the shelves above his head and sighed.

Even though Hannibal had always known that the moment when he finally had to run would come swiftly, it pained him to leave so many irreplaceable articles behind. However, his attachment to these things just served to show Hannibal how complacent he’d become over the years. In fact, he wouldn’t even be here if it hadn’t been for his stupid mistake; he felt furious with himself for letting his obsession with Will impair his normally methodical mind. What on earth had compelled him to write up a list of the countries he would travel through? While avoiding them was a viable option, it made large parts of his plans obsolete.

That list should never have been put to paper to begin with.

Retrieving the notebook was simpler, though slightly risky. Thoughts of danger spurred Hannibal into action; he walked with quick, purposeful strides to his large wooden desk and scooped up the leather-bound notebook in one hand. He was turning to leave just as a loud knocking rang out sharply in the still room.

Hannibal froze in place, his head swivelling to the rear entrance of the office. If it was a patient, it shouldn’t be hard to get rid of them.

Who else could it be?

Agent Cowans stared at Hannibal, beetle browed, as the doctor stood motionless, brain clicking swiftly through possibilities. There was another loud knock; before Hannibal could react, the glowering federal agent crossed the room and turned the handle.

On the other side of the door stood Special Agent Jack Crawford.

The knot of worry in Hannibal’s chest suddenly grew sharp thorns. Hannibal smoothly forced his face into a mask of pleasant surprise and smiled wide.

“Jack! What brings you to my office? I was only stopping by to pick something up; how wonderful that we didn’t miss each other!”

Palming the scalpel on his desk, Hannibal walked towards the stocky man in the trench coat; Jack was wearing a strange expression on his face.

“I called ahead to your security detail to make sure you were home, but Agent Garrett told me you were here.” Jack paused and looked down at the hat in his hands; after a gravid pause he frowned and continued. “Hannibal, I came down here because I didn’t want to believe it…” He looked up at Hannibal, his eyes narrowed fiercely. “It will go easier if you’re completely honest with me.”

Hannibal frowned.

“What happened, Jack? You’re beginning to scare me.”

Hannibal shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and relaxed his muscles in an easy stance. He motioned with one long arm to the grey leather seats, but Jack just lifted the tips of his fingers and shook his head, his lips slightly pursed. After a moment the heavyset man in the trench coat took a deep breath and finally posed the question he’d driven nearly seventy-five miles to ask.

“Hannibal, where were you the night John Sutters was skinned alive?”

The question hung in the air only seconds before Hannibal started chuckling; Jack frowned and shifted uncomfortably. Agent Cowans narrowed his eyes at Hannibal before taking a few slow steps, circling around behind him; the doctor could feel the man’s glare aimed at the back of his head. Hannibal was feeling trapped.

“What a strange question, Jack. I have no recollection of what day that was! Most likely I was here at the office or at home; I would have to check my calendar,” Hannibal replied. “Why does it matter?” His expression was a mix of confusion and affront with a generous helping of amusement.

Jack stared hard at the psychiatrist and spoke.

“We found your fingerprints at the victim’s house.”

Real relief flooded through Hannibal and he shrugged. Only a few more minutes of this, then, and he could be on the road back to Will.

“Of course you did, Jack. The man suffered from extreme agoraphobia as a result of his PTSD. I treated him in his home…”

Jack’s hand came up, cutting Hannibal off.

“A fresh fingerprint. We had discounted it at first because, as you say, you were treating him at home; it was in Sutters’ file. However, Price found that one of your prints overlapped a tiny drop of blood. I asked the lab to go over all the results again with a fine tooth comb.”

Hannibal widened his eyes at Jack, the picture of astonishment.

“Surely you don’t think… Jack, it’s likely that the blood was from some previous injury, John was prone to self-harm…”

Jack’s head was shaking, and Hannibal shut his mouth, shifting his grip on the scalpel hidden in his hand.

“I thought of it, Hannibal; trust me, I wanted to believe that. Because if the evidence was what it seemed to be, it meant that you were the Ripper and you…” Jack’s voice got quiet with emotion, “You… killed Miriam. And you’ve been right under our noses the whole time.”

The special agent rubbed his wide jaw with a hand that trembled slightly. Hannibal’s brows came down as he stared hard at Jack. What was the damning piece of evidence then? Hannibal tracked movement in his peripheral as Agent Cowans, took a few steps closer to him.

“On a hunch I requested the security footage from the hospital where Denise Balicki worked, for the night she disappeared. Do you know what I saw? A big black luxury car following hers out of the parking lot right after her shift. What kind of car do you drive, Hannibal?” The last was said with the timbre of accusation.

Stupid. So stupid Hannibal. His feelings for Will had made him incautious.

“Jack. That… doesn’t mean anything,” Hannibal smiled softly, shaking his head.

Jack crossed his arms over his chest.

“It’s enough to paint a great big question mark in my brain over who you really are, Dr. Lecter. Now why don’t we take a nice drive together so you can answer the questions I have for you. There are some strange blanks in your history that I would like to know more about,” said the special agent, his voice a low growl. Jack had already made up his mind, it seemed; he uncrossed his arms and made as if to escort Hannibal out into the waiting room.

“I cannot, Jack,” Hannibal said simply. Will.

Jack’s eyebrows raised slowly. Not taking his eyes off the doctor, he pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and held it to his ear.

“Yes. I’m still at his office. Alana is still there?” Jack frowned at Hannibal. “Go check on her.”

The time to run was now; Hannibal’s window had all but disappeared. Will.

Jack put the phone back in his pocket and took a step towards Hannibal, mouth half open to say something, when the doctor’s arm came out in an arc, scalpel aimed at Jack’s throat.

Moving faster than Hannibal would have expected, the federal agent’s hand came up to deflect it; the sharp blade opened up his palm and sent a spray of blood into the air. Jack fell back with a strangled cry, clutching at his wounded hand.

Sensing motion behind him, Hannibal ducked just as Agent Cowans lunged for him. Immediately turning in his low crouch, the doctor’s hand flashed out quickly with the scalpel and caught the attacking man as he stumbled over; the blade sank deep into the man’s inner thigh.

Agent Cowans crashed to the ground, and Hannibal was on him again, pinning the bulky man beneath him. The doctor looked up at Jack who had taken a step towards him; Hannibal slowly pulled the sharp tempered steel the rest of the way through Cowans’s flesh at an angle, completely severing the femoral artery. He didn’t have the time necessary to grapple with Jack and kill him; the man was on his guard.

After quickly getting to his feet, Hannibal instead backed up a step, pointing to the mortally wounded man on the floor.

“He will bleed out in only a few minutes if you don’t put pressure on it,” Hannibal said, his voice sharp. He was lying of course, the man would be dead in minutes regardless of what Jack did.

Jack’s eyes bulged, looking between his quarry and the bleeding federal agent.

Hannibal took another step backwards, closing the space between him and the door.

Jack fell to his knees and pressed the palm of his unwounded hand against the inside of Agent Cowans’s thigh.

Hannibal quickly turned and ran out the door.

In his fever to get back to Will, Hannibal nearly killed a woman crossing the street and narrowly escaped crashing into a bus. Had Jack called Agent Garrett again? Was Will being taken into custody? There was no doubt in Hannibal’s mind that the police would be at his door at any minute.

He pulled into his driveway and stumbled out of the car, leaving the door swinging open behind him. Hannibal’s ears picked up shouting from inside; he silently opened the front door, and quickly made his way to the kitchen. Agent Garrett was standing with his gun trained on Will; the younger man’s teeth were bared in an expression of demented fury as he stared down the barrel, his fists balled at his sides.

When he saw Hannibal come through the door, Will’s eyes widened in relief. Before the agent had any time to react, Hannibal kicked the back of his knee, sending him tumbling to the ground. A shot fired when Hannibal landed on him but went wide, embedding itself in the steel of the fridge door. Will rushed forward and helped Hannibal turn the struggling man over before placing a bony knee directly on the agent’s throat and crushing it under his full weight; Hannibal grabbed Agent Garrett’s head in both hands and twisted, ending the man’s life.

Hannibal and Will knelt on either side of the dead man. Blue eyes wide with shock stared into brown eyes tinged with sadness. The older man stood, drawing Will up to him in a fierce embrace; already Hannibal thought he could hear the sirens in the distance.

Will pushed back from Hannibal.

“Shouldn’t we be going?” he asked, his face haggard with worry.

Hannibal frowned and stroked his thumb slowly over Will’s cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened. Yes… there are the sirens.

“Hush. Listen to me. It’s too late. No matter if we manage to get to the car, they will catch us. You were right… I should not have gone back for the notebook. I was wrong. Will… what have I done?” He took a breath, the great crack in his soul causing him deep pain.

Will’s mouth was drawn down at the corners as his eyes darted all over Hannibal’s face, trying to digest what the older man was saying.

“No,” Will whispered.

The jagged quality of that small word sent another pulse of emotion through Hannibal. He shuddered slightly and pulled Will harder against him. His mouth trailed kisses down the side of Will’s neck; the younger man was breathing hard, stunned motionless. Hannibal pulled back, and his eyes swept over Will’s face, pausing in places that tugged at him—the corners of his lips, the creases over the bridge of his nose, the denim blue of his irises, the square set of his jaw—and he realized just how much he loved that face.

He decided then to do the right thing… just because it was right; their clock had run out, but he could still save Will.

“Listen to me carefully, my love. I will give myself up. You will be safe.”

Will started moaning hoarsely and shaking his head, his face a mask of horror and despair.

“Shush shush. Listen to me. It will be all right. I will take the blame for Alana, my darling.”

Will was shaking in his arms, looking up at Hannibal with so much pain in his eyes. Only one word was coming out of his mouth, repeated endlessly.

“No no no no no…”

Hannibal placed a hand over Will’s lips, holding him still, and continued.

“Now we only have a few moments. Just a few minutes to ourselves before I have to go. Hush… Oh Will, I am so sorry. My love. My darling. Hold onto me and block out everything else. Listen only to my voice. It will be all right.”

Hannibal cupped Will’s tortured face in his hands and slowly leaned down, his mouth brushing his lover’s lips softly.

Will whimpered and clutched at Hannibal, his fingers digging painfully into the older man’s back as he pressed himself harder into Hannibal’s arms; he swallowed and closed his eyes tight. They kissed deeply, rough stubble scratching soft lips, tongues moving tenderly together, Hannibal’s fingers twined through Will’s dark hair.

Will started, turning his head sharply when the front door banged open, but Hannibal stroked a hand down his back, bringing the younger man’s pelvis firmly against his.

“No, Will. Ignore them. Just stay with me. Don’t be afraid,” he said and recaptured Will’s lips. The kiss tasted of tears and terror, the slow searing of a goodbye being branded on a heart.

Hannibal heard the men surround them as they stood locked in their embrace; the room was so very quiet as they stole these final moments.

Jack’s voice suddenly rang loud in the quiet room.

“Will. Step away. Step the fuck back.”

Will broke the kiss and looked at Jack; Hannibal placed a hand on the back of Will’s head and held him tightly to his chest.

Jack took a step forward, gun aimed steadily with a bandaged hand, and growled out his words.

“Will… Dr. Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper. Step. Away.”

Obviously waiting for Will to react in astonishment, Jack gaped when Will turned away and buried his face in Hannibal’s shirt.

“He is The Ripper! Will, are you fucking hearing me?” yelled Jack, sounding a little unhinged; the death of Miriam was obviously driving the federal agent’s anger.

Hannibal started to pull away. There was no delaying the moment any longer. He untangled himself forcibly from Will’s arms; the younger man’s face was wet with tears when Hannibal leaned down for a last, quick kiss, and pushed him away hard.

Something inside of Hannibal gave, and he swayed slightly as he turned to Jack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Will being awkwardly restrained by two federal agents. Hannibal gathered up all the torn pieces of himself, and felt he could finally speak the words. He cleared his throat.

“Jack, it’s all right. I surren—”

He didn’t feel anything as the bullet ripped through his left eye, piercing his brain and leaving a gaping hole in the back of his skull.

Hannibal was only aware of one thought as the world was pitched into strange colours, sounds, and finally warm darkness: I never said “I love you.”

* * *

Will’s brain jumped forwards and backwards in time; one second Hannibal was standing straight, the next he was on the floor, and then he was standing again. It didn’t make any sense. What had happened? His ears rang for some reason. He looked up and saw that someone was taking the gun away from Jack. Will pulled his arm out of the agent’s grasp and put a hand over his eyes.

Where was Hannibal, and who was the man in the puddle of blood on the floor? Standing straight, down on the floor. Maybe he was still dreaming. He shook his head to clear it, a high-pitched whine in his ear. Don’t look down. Will frowned and looked down. The puddle under the man was red. There were chunks in it. Don’t think. Float above it. Will frowned and felt himself start to shake.

The antlered beast shook its head and fixed Will with eyes that shimmered with great sadness before it fell away to dust.

Time suddenly righted itself in a great whoosh of sound.

Will’s breath caught in his chest and he heard himself yell out. A few feet from him lay Hannibal in a spreading puddle of blood. He took a step forward and felt the bullet rip through his knee, sending him crashing to the ground.

I’m only trying to save him!

He dismissed the incredible pain and crawled over to his lover’s body. He reached out a hand. When Will saw the terrible truth, he simply faded out of existence.

* * *

Jack watched in horror as Will scooped up pieces of brain matter with his hands and tried to push them back into Hannibal’s open skull. The terrible wailing coming deep from the younger man’s chest as he frantically pawed at his lover was the sound of a dying animal; Jack would hear it in his nightmares for many years to come.

It took four men to finally restrain Will and another to sedate him enough that they could strap him onto the gurney. Jack stared down at Will’s stricken face, the hollow eyes still roving in their sockets, fighting against the strong sedatives. His hands were curled into claws and his teeth were bared.

As they led Jack Crawford away in cuffs, he had the unmistakable feeling that he had killed two men that night.

* * *

Will lay on the hard cot in his glass-fronted cage at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Slowly curling in on himself in the padded cell, he kept his eyes shut. Imagining that his own thin arms were Hannibal’s holding him tight, Will brokenly sobbed himself to sleep.

Epilogue

A handsome man stands still on the Promenade des Anglais, staring out at the Mediterranean; the warm spring air ruffles his hair as his eyes track the passage of a small sailboat.

He is slight of frame and of average height, but he holds himself like a man much taller. He wears a lightweight, ecru fil-à-fil linen suit; the single-breasted, ventless blazer is buttoned over a taupe linen shirt and slim knitted tie in Jordy blue that brings out the same in his eyes. He leans on a simple black ebony cane chased in silver; occasionally he lifts it off the ground and taps it against the instep of his hand-made Italian leather balmorals. His face is tanned, and the corners of his eyes are creased with age. Where there was patchy dark stubble when he was younger, there is now a short, well-groomed beard. Hair that was once a mess of dark cowlicks is now cut short in the back and tamed in the front; the dying sun picks out the ample silver in it.

He smiles easily to himself, enjoying this moment of tranquility. He is happy for this freedom after seventeen long years of captivity.

He taps his cane a few times on the stones and makes his way to Vieux Nice, his favourite part of town. Sitting down at one of the numerous cafés that line the cobbled streets, he orders socca—the salty crêpe a Niçois specialty—with a robust rosé from Aix-en-Provence. The waiter, an attractive youth, takes his order and comes back shortly with the wine.

While he is waiting, the shop across the way opens for business. The owner of the shoe store is dumping dirty water on the narrow street. In trying to rid the bucket of the grime at the bottom, he shakes grey droplets into the air. A few of those drops fall on the cuff of the older man’s pants.

Rude.

He takes a sip of his wine and rises, crossing the street to the shoe store. His lips curl charmingly at the portly owner as he asks the man for his business card. As always, he can feel the constant presence of his spectral lover behind him. He knows that he is smiling. Will can hear his voice upon the warm breeze.

“Good boy.”

Notes

I’d just like to add a little note about Will’s diagnosis here. I decided to go with something much more common than Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis because the diagnosis bothered me on the show. It’s too rare to have been diagnosed so quickly… it’s a disease that largely affects women under the age of twenty. Most diagnoses of the disease happen after weeks, sometimes months of tests. Because Will is a man and above the age that the disease usually strikes, unless the doc who diagnosed him was a bloody genius (which he didn’t seem to be) poor Will would have had to go through much more than just a brain scan.

Also, obviously I’ve reused some dialogue from the episode Relevés in writing this though I tweaked it a bit to fit the scene. I just loved the tone of the exchange in the show and wanted to capture that for my story.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the rights to the characters from the NBC show Hannibal. This is purely written for fun.