Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Simple Friendship: A Consequence of Consumption Timestamp

Aka

A Consequence of Copulation

Also Aka

The Rafflefic

For Jojo, who stans MattyGram

with unparalleled thirst.

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Matthew sat in his truck, still parked in front of his apartment, still fuming. His thumbs tapped restlessly against the steering wheel, his jaw working back and forth to rid himself of some of his tension. 

“Busy, I’ll get in touch in a few days,” he read aloud for the fortieth time since he’d gotten it this morning, staring at the message on the phone in his lap. “Fuck.”

He gripped the wheel so hard it creaked under his fingers before releasing it to scoop the phone up. A few taps and the Duluth Daily Page appeared again on his screen. A different headline than the one that had inspired his call to Will in the first place:

[[A Timeline of Events Leading to FBI Wunderkind’s Takedown of the Minnesota Shrike]]

He didn’t care about the article. Not when, in pride of place under the header, there sat a new photograph of the scene. Nothing from inside the house, like what Freddie would provide; just something taken from behind the police tape, but that hardly mattered when the subject caught his attention more than any corpse ever would: Will, centered, covered in blood-spray, eyes lost, staring at nothing at all. 

… And Doctor Lecter, that arrogant fuck, standing beside him, his own bloodied hand on Will’s shoulder, thumb high on that slender neck, almost grazing his ear. 

What did Will see in him, anyway? Sure, the man had money. But no taste. That painting in the dining room, the swan eating out some whore on a chaise, what the hell was that? And he talked pretty, but did he say anything that mattered? A socialite prissy boy like that, even with the violence burning behind his eyes, wouldn’t be able to handle someone like Will. Someone with Will’s potential. 

And beyond handling, he could never hope to understand Will, either. 

Not like I can. 

He stared at the picture, at the way that Dr. Lecter’s fingers pressed into the fabric of Will’s jacket. 

“Fucker doesn’t even respect that Will doesn’t like to be touched,” he grumbled and shoved his phone into his coat pocket. He stewed for a second longer before braving the cold. The truck door slammed behind him as he jogged his way across the lot. His apartment, the second story in one of DC’s ancient, near-crumbling row home communities, had its own entrance in the back. By the time he reached the door and pulled the keys free from his jeans, his fingers had started turning blue. 

The cold felt good. Matched his mood.

If only Dr. Hannibal Lecter were standing outside long enough to lose his fingers to frostbite. Bet he’d still find a way to get his paws on Will all the time, anyway. 

The thought niggled at him as he defrosted in his foyer. It taunted him as he changed out of his work clothes and into sweatpants and a white t-shirt. As he remembered the way Will’s body moved as he shed his jacket at Jackpot all those weeks ago. As he replayed the image of the doctor’s fingers all proprietary over that stupid blazer. Lecter’s paws on Will. The thought wouldn’t go away. 

“What gives him the right,” he spat into the quiet. “What gives him the right?”

He didn’t say ‘to touch what’s mine’. But he thought about it. 

Stammets hadn’t been kidding, huh? No boundaries. The doctor had no boundaries. Stammets saw it; was bothered by it too.

And what gave Stammets the right? 

Matthew ran his fingers through his hair and remembered the soft texture of Will’s curls. He thought of Will’s eyes, barely straying from Eldon in the courtroom. Will. Who never looked at anyone. 

“Get a grip,” he grumbled, ambling over to his bedroom and collapsing face-first onto his mattress. “He’s not into Stammets.”

Because that would be ridiculous. He could see how the Mushroom Man might misread some meaning into things, though. Could see how Will’s, um, tolerance, could be misread as affection. Especially considering how he—but why the hell was Stammets so smug? When he left medical after Will’s visit, he had that stupid smirk on his face, and no matter what Matthew did, how he taunted or what he held over the man’s head, Stammets never spilled the beans. 

At least Will didn’t leave the room looking like the cat that got the cream. He came out looking so exhausted that Matthew worried Will might drop right where he stood. Further proof that whatever Stammets was getting out of this, Will didn’t share the feeling. 

For tactical reasons, of course, he never asked Will what they discussed behind closed doors. Will liked to be chased, but he didn’t like to be caught. Matthew didn’t want to seem overeager either. 

Which was why, even though his phone beckoned him like a red lights district whore, he did not message him again. Their last conversation, if one could even count it a conversation—fifteen seconds long, consisting only of Will’s gruff ‘later’ before he hung up—happened less than an hour ago. Matthew would not call. 

“I’m always the one to reach out, anyway.” With his lips mashed into his comforter, the words came out garbled, but they were meant for no ears but his own. “The first to text.”

Will Graham had ‘hard to get’ down to an art-form, really. He made it so that Matthew could think of nothing, nobody but him, and then denied Matthew what they both knew he wanted to give. Denied them both, actually. And for what? He had to know by now that Matthew’s devotion wouldn’t fade. He had to know by now that Matthew knew him, saw him. That Matthew would give him the world.

So why was he still holding out? 

No—no. Stupid question. He doesn’t like to be caught. Still.

He sighed and rolled over onto his back. 

Maybe his thoughts crossed the expanse, all the way to Minnesota—maybe Will plucked them out of the ether and saw how Matthew ached—because the very next moment, Matthew’s phone chimed with an incoming text message, and Will’s name appeared at the top. 

[Will🔪💕: It’s just a few days. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.]

Matthew launched to his feet, letting out a whoop of joy so loud that the neighbor pounded on their shared wall.

He started typing a reply and changed his mind the very next second. I’ll make it up to you, he read again, thumb tracing over Will’s name. He hadn’t found a good bird emoji to put after it, so he’d settled on the knife. The two hearts had been a typo, but he left them. Manifest the future you want to see, and all that new age bullshit. 

That thought in mind, he tapped the phone icon next to Will’s name at the top of the screen. It didn’t ring more than three times before Will answered. 

“I guess I should’ve expected you to call,” Will said in place of a greeting.

“How come?” Matthew asked, trying not to sound as breathless as he felt. 

“You’re an opportunist,” Will said, voice low, intimate, and close, with the way Matthew pressed the receiver to his ear. “And ‘I’ll make it up to you’ is too good an opportunity for you to pass up.”

“You should know better than to make such an open promise,” Matthew teased, flopping onto his back, delight radiating in every direction. Had he ever been this happy? “You know me better.”

“I do,” Will said, and a comfortable silence spanned between them. Matthew, disinclined to break the spell, let his eyes flutter closed, his free hand drifting down his chest to settle over his stomach. It took a while, but Will’s voice sounded no less cozy when he spoke again. “It’s—it’s been a mess over here.” 

“Blood’s not gonna come off easy,” Matthew remarked, mind’s eye revisiting the doctor’s hand, firm on Will’s shoulder.

“No,” Will agreed, a little distant now. He didn’t seem to be thinking of the clothing, though, when he said, “I can still—still feel it cooling on my hands.”

Rare confidences. If he could lock this moment away, he’d put it on his highest shelf, and pull it down to revisit every night until forever. “He didn’t make it? The Hobbs guy?”

A beat. “He didn’t,” Will said. “I, uh, I saw to that.”

Matthew’s chest grew hot with satisfaction. His hand snaked lower, fingers tracing the skin at the waistband of his sweats. “When you get back,” he said, pitching his voice a shade lower, drawing the words out just enough to be suggestive, “we should do something. We could hang out. You know, talk it—talk it through.”

“Food and discussions of murder over drinks?” Will sounded amused. 

Even better, he didn’t sound averse. All he needs is a push. “You sound like you need support.” The kind you can’t get elsewhere. Will’s hum sounded less like acknowledgement and more like agreement. “You might not believe me, but, uh—” now he whispered, conspiratorial. “I’m a good listener. Mouth is unmatched, but the ears are pretty damn good too.”

Will’s laughter tinkled in Matthew’s ears, like a bell ringing. A pure, beautiful sound. “Sure. That sounds good.” He sounded like he meant it. Like he’d look forward to it, even. 

“When should I come over?”

“Oh, um.” Will cleared his throat. “How about I swing by instead, for a change of pace?” A huff of awkward laughter. “I don’t feel like cooking.”

Matthew blinked. What. But he didn’t take any time to look this gift horse in the mouth. “I don’t cook,” Matthew teased. “But I know a great Chinese place. We can get delivery.”

Will promised to text him on his way back to DC, and then, pleading business to attend to, ended the call.

Matthew held the phone to his ear long after they hung up, elation pulling his soul free from his body. Even the descent was euphoric—tingles spreading in every direction, and then, with a sudden burst of energy, he leapt from the bed. He stalked around his apartment, his whole body vibrating, lips cracking from the force of his smile. Everything he’d planned, everything he’d done since the day he met Will Graham, had been leading up to this. 

This chance. 

He buzzed with the possibilities, tasting them, and sprinted back to the bed. Will, with his pointed teasing, with his little coy act. God, and he’s so good at it, too. Dangling Dr. Lecter in front of him—and Stammets too—taunting him, making him jealous. Roping him in. 

Masterfully well done, he praised him, hoping that Will would pluck that thought from the ether too. But Matthew would win this cat-and-mouse game. You’re mine, Will Graham, he decided, pulling the comforter down with one hand as he slipped off his sweatpants with the other. 

He accommodated himself against the headboard, hand dipping to where it ached to go during their phone call, and made one more promise. 

I’ll get you new sheets and everything.  

‘Just a few days’ turned out to be almost a week. Matthew had set Google alerts for anything to do with the Hobbs case, so that in the few instances that Will texted him, they didn’t waste either Will’s time or his energy on rehashing information that Matthew could easily find on the internet. 

Unlike their phone call—the phone call, the one that Matthew revisited on a nightly basis—their text messages lacked flirtation. The one time that Matthew asked if they could talk rather than text, Will had allowed it, but no matter what Matthew tried during those six minutes of conversation, Will’s exhaustion reverberated so clearly in his voice that Matthew gave up. 

The thing about friendship, Matthew, is that both sides have to want it. The same could be said for flirting, Matthew had learned. He could insert innuendos and lower his voice all he wanted, and Will at least would do him the favor of sounding amused, but they wouldn’t recapture that air of intimacy until Will got home, probably. 

Until Will came over. 

Matthew’s heart skipped a beat every time he thought of it. 

He bought the new sheets, never mind that they cost more than his weekly food budget, and washed and dried them a few times to make them extra soft, to make them smell just right. He thought about how tidy Will’s house was, so he spent two whole days cleaning up his apartment, organizing things, dusting and sweeping, even moving furniture around to clear out the dust monstrosities that gathered underneath. The downstairs neighbor wasn’t used to the racket, though, and actually rang his doorbell to ask him to save it for the daylight hours. 

But preparing for Will’s visit wasn’t the only way Matthew enjoyed himself in the lead-up to their date. No—there was one particular flavor of delight that he could only find at work.

“So,” Matthew said the day of Will’s return flight, leaning against the bars of Eldon Stammets’ cell, swinging the lanyard with his ID back and forth, looping it around his wrist and unwinding it again. “You ever been to Will’s house?”

Stammets, sitting in his usual pose on his bed, back ramrod straight, hands on his knees, stopped staring at the wall opposite him long enough to glance in Matthew’s direction. He didn’t say anything, but when did he ever? 

Silence as good as agreement, Matthew forged ahead. “He’s got a good setup, huh? It’s homey.”

Stammets’ hands flexed, then resumed their original posture, though with a tension that had not been there before. “It’s the dogs.” 

Matthew’s eyebrows shot up, a startled laugh yanked from his throat. Would wonders never cease. Even stoic ol’ Doctor Stammets would sing a little when it came to Will. “Yeah, I get that, but I can’t just up and get a dog. He’d see through that.”

It took a while for that to sink in. Matthew savored the moment when it did. The way that his lips spasmed, the way his torso turned toward the bars, the way his fingers gripped his knees so hard the fabric beneath them creased.

“Will is going to your house,” Stammets said, something like incredulity, or maybe like rage, in his voice. 

“Netflix and chill.” Matthew’s leer went unanswered—Stammets’ eyes were cast to the side, preoccupied, not nearly as outraged as Matthew expected. He might be too old to realize that those words meant much more than what they sounded like. 

Him and Lecter. So old. Will needed someone with vitality. Vigor. Sure, he came off all soft and doe-eyed with those baby blues and cherubic curls and unassuming demeanor, but Matthew would bet his left nut that Will was a freak in bed. Not too long from now, and he’d get a chance to confirm that theory.

Condoms. He thought. Should get some condoms. 

“Netflix,” Stammets repeated, this time sounding closer to confused. 

Pffft. Right on the money.

“You know. Movies. How did you two pass the time?” When Stammets looked up at the camera in the corner of his cell, Matthew tutted. “Relax. Like I’d leave the AV on when we’re having our little chats.”

Stammets frowned. He turned away from Matthew, relaxing his grip on his knees, and resuming his vigil over the white-painted cinder blocks, as though they might hold the secrets of the universe. Like Matthew wasn’t even there. 

Fine. He’d gotten what he came for, anyway. 

During his lunch break, he googled ‘how to make your house homey’. On his way back that evening he stopped at a Trader Joe’s, because the website recommended them, and picked up two succulents, because the article said they ‘thrive on neglect’. Perfect.

He put one in his bedroom on top of his dresser and the other on the windowsill in the living room, to good effect. The internet got things right, sometimes. Sure, a plant couldn’t compare to a dog for making a house feel like a home, but it was a big step in the right direction. He scrolled through Netflix’s catalog of movies that night, as he waited for Will to text him. 

“Your dogs happy to have you home?” he tried, opening the summary of a documentary called Dancing with the Birds. From ruffling their majestic feathers to nailing im-peck-able courtship routines, birds in paradise flaunt their best moves in hopes of landing a mate.

Too obvious. 

And the dog line wouldn’t work. They didn’t need to slog through those social niceties. Discussions of murder over drinks, Will had said. 

“I’ll talk murder to you,” Matthew promised, scrolling through a few other documentaries. “How’d you do Hobbs?” 

No. No. 

“Tell me how Hobbs went down. Tell me how you took Hobbs down.”

One of the two. More assertive. He needs a firm hand. The picture of Hannibal Lecter gripping Will’s shoulder flashed in his mind and he almost threw the remote control at the TV screen. But he sucked in a deep breath and kept scrolling until he found a title that caught his eye. 

Man on Wire. 

Have you ever noticed the way smaller birds will mob a hawk on a wire, Mr. Graham?

Will would appreciate the reference. And it was a documentary about some French asshole who tight-roped between the Twin Towers while they were still under construction. Boring enough to fuck through. Or make out during, anyway. 

He’d bought those sheets for a reason. 

His phone chimed, and it felt like kismet. Man on Wire it is.

[Will🔪💕: Flight boards in ten. I’ll be good for dinner tomorrow, I think.]

Yeah, Matthew thought as he read it and reread it. You’ll be good. Ten minutes to board. Will would be flying back with the whole crew, right? Which would mean Lecter—

He couldn’t stop himself; he hit the call button right away. 

Will, who must have expected that, answered immediately. “Are you sure you’re a millennial?” he asked, laughing. 

“I’ve got my hands full,” Matthew said, and decided to make that true. He palmed himself over his jeans. 

“That’s why speech to text exists.”

Matthew ignored that. “Tomorrow, right? What time?”

“I work during the afternoon. Hannibal and I have a debrief at Quantico.”

Matthew’s hand froze. What. He saw red. “So he’s Hannibal now?”

Will sighed. “Matty,” he said, and Matthew would have to be an idiot not to see that for the pacification it was meant to be. “I have a debrief at Quantico and then you and I are doing dinner.”

He heard a low voice speaking in the background, but not clearly enough to understand the words. It didn’t matter. He’d recognize the Doctor’s incomprehensible accent anywhere. Will covered his mic, but Matthew could make out bits and pieces of what filtered through. Something like—“what I do with my time,” uttered in Will’s forced patient tones, stuck out to him the most. 

Matthew fought to suppress his laughter. “Will,” he cooed. A firm hand, he reminded himself, his own moving again, reinvigorated. “Do you need to move somewhere more private so we can talk?”

Will chuckled at that. “I have to go, Matty.” 

“What happened to ten minutes?”

“Damage control is taking priority, so thank you for that.”

“I guess that’s fair. I get you for dinner tomorrow, after all.” He was already about to burst in anticipation.

“Yeah,” Will answered. “I’ll give you an ETA when I get out of work, okay?”

They hung up. Matthew unzipped his jeans. “Will,” he considered, shimmying his pants down. “Baby?” 

No. Too trite. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled the Doctor’s mocking words: “His perceptions reflect reality, both the subjective and objective. Yours might be more attuned to fantasy.”

You think I fantasize about Will Graham? He snuck a hand into his boxers. Well. You’d be right.

His hand began to move. “Sweet thing,” he decided, thinking of the way Will’s cheeks would color at hearing the words. “Pretty boy.” 

Fuck fuck fuck. His grip tightened, his jaw slackened. Before ten more minutes passed, he fell dead asleep.

Fresh out of the shower, Matthew combed through his slicked-back hair, then scrubbed his palm over his cheeks.

To shave or not to shave?

He couldn’t deny the appeal of the prospect of leaving friction burns on Will’s skin here and there. His neck and shoulder, the insides of his thighs. The stubble made him look a little older too, which couldn’t be a bad thing, given Will’s—again, not that he was into Eldon Stammets, or that goddamn shrink… so maybe ‘preference’ didn’t fit, but something like that. 

So he wouldn’t shave. 

But then, a minute later, he changed his mind again. Matthew had always been bare-faced around Will, and the man would be here, at his apartment, in just a few hours. He didn’t need to sell himself as older. Will liked that he was young. Vigor, he reminded himself. 

Decisiveness. A firm hand. 

So he shaved.

Face covered in white foam like Santa Claus, he sneered at his reflection. “Fuck you, Lecter,” he said, and pressed in with his razor. He took extra care under his jaw and around his Adam’s apple, checking for stragglers, and even touched up the hairline at the back of his neck. Nice and sharp. 

“Been waiting all week for this,” he murmured into the mirror as he splashed on his aftershave. No, not a confession. A question would be better. “You been waiting all week for this? No, no, no. You look like you been waiting all week for this.” 

That’s it.

He stared hard at his face. Ran his fingers through his hair again. “Product or no product?” he mused. “No product.” Didn’t want Will to come away with sticky fingers after having them in his hair. 

He’d end up with sticky fingers anyway, but not because of that. 

“Yeah, you like that,” he grunted, giving himself a cursory stroke, just to get in the mood a little. And Will would like it, too. Matthew could tell just from looking at him. He’d eat him up. 

Naturally, on the heels of this thought, he decided to forgo underwear. That was the only clothing-related decision that came easily to him, though. He held up a pair of sweatpants—comfortable, easy to take off, soft material made for a good dick print—and then his best pair of jeans. Stylish, made his ass and his quads look good, and didn’t scream ‘I’m ready to fuck,’ even if it implied it strongly.

“You know what?” he said, tossing the sweatpants onto the floor of his closet. “We’ll go with the jeans.”

Dr. Lecter wouldn’t wear sweats on a first date. And not that he was any competition, but Will didn’t need any reason to compare the two of them. Once the jeans were on and the zipper very, very carefully pulled up, he tugged a white t-shirt on over his head.

He grabbed the takeout menu off the kitchen counter and flicked it onto the coffee table in the living room, and then checked his fridge. The beer bottles were ice cold, frosting over on the outside. Just right to drink. He’d bought himself a carton of eggs and a jug of milk, a bag of tomatoes, some American cheese slices and a bag of wonderbread, just to make it look like he kept some food in the house. In case Will looked in his fridge. 

And he wanted Will to look. He wanted him to feel comfortable. He wanted him to feel at home. Maybe instead of driving all the way to Baltimore after a day of work at Quantico, Will could stop in DC. They could share a beer and eat delivery, and talk about Will’s cases. Someday they’d toast over crime scene photos of Matthew’s work, too. Someday. 

When Will called him, finally, Matthew nearly burst into giggles at the greeting. “I rang the doorbell and was told to fuck off. You standing me up, Matty?”

“Hah. Your entrance is around the back,” Matthew said. “I can show you where it is.”

A snort. “I can figure it out.”

“It’s easier to find with someone else helping.”

“Shut up. God.” And then he hung up. 

Not even a minute later, three solid raps on Matthew’s door heralded Will’s arrival. Already waiting behind it, he breathed in deep, held it for a count of five, and then exhaled before he reached for the door and popped it open. 

“How long were you going to wait?” Will grumped, blowing hot breath over his hands. “I could hear you right behind the door.”

Matthew laughed. “Giving you a chance to cool off,” he said, not in the least embarrassed for having been caught out. “You sounded like you were going to bite me over the phone.” He stepped out of the way to let Will inside, and the front door swung closed behind them. Will stood, not moving to take off his coat, just looking around, taking everything in. 

Matthew froze. He couldn’t move; Will was like a wild animal, so difficult to coax and even harder to catch, and for a moment, it felt like any movement might spook him. Make him bolt. Beside that—Will Graham was here, within arm’s reach. In his house. Wanting to be here, wanting to be with him. He smelled good, too, like winter air and mint mouthwash. 

“Oh!” Will burst—Matthew wondered what he’d done to startle him—and swept the knit beanie off of his head. He half-pivoted toward Matthew, shoving the hat into his coat pockets, a pained smile on his face. “Where can I put this?” 

As Will started on his zipper, his blue-tinted digits fumbling with the tab, Matthew saw his opportunity to act, and struck. “You drive with the windows down in this weather?” he asked, batting Will’s hands out of the way. “Let me take care of this.”

“I’ll just remind you that you made me wait outside in this weather, after I’d already gotten lost looking for your door.” 

Matthew expected Will to push his hands away or make some kind of joke about how he was perfectly capable of unzipping his own jacket, cold fingers or no. But nothing. Will stood still, patient, and allowed the assistance. 

That’s right, Matthew thought, replaying the moment, trying to decipher a cause for Will’s sudden compliance. A firm hand.

When Matthew gripped the bottom of the jacket, his knuckles brushed the front of Will’s jeans—a quick thing, just long enough to make Matthew’s heart stutter, but not long enough to be a thing, if Will noticed. He didn’t. 

“Here.” Matthew tugged apart the snap at the bottom of the zipper, then moved behind him to help Will shrug out of his jacket. 

Will, all bemused, let this happen too. The ghost of a smile curled the corners of his lips as he let Matthew maneuver him around, eyes watchful, but he said nothing. Matthew didn’t mind being studied, not by someone like Will, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a standard he was being compared against.

No room for comparison here, he decided, tucking his fingers under the fabric of the coat. For a moment, he remembered Dr. Lecter’s grabby hands on Will’s shoulders, and couldn’t help but pause to squeeze them too, before sliding his way down Will’s arms to his elbows. The fabric bunched and then gave, sliding the rest of the way off his arms and down his back, and falling into a puddle on the floor. 

Okay, so maybe he’d fumbled the execution there, but he had Will in his hands now, and not one word of complaint yet. Still that analytical light in Will’s shaded blue eyes, but a twist of humor on his lips as he looked down at the crumpled jacket on the hardwood. Matthew loosened his grip, letting his touch linger before letting go. 

He waited to be out of Will’s crosshairs before yanking the fucking thing off the floor to hang it on the coat rack.

“Shoes?”

“Yeah, take ‘em off.” Less to fumble with later.

Will toed off his boots, so well-worn that the leather slipped around his foot like a sock, but those were a thick wool knit, and seeing his toes wriggling underneath the fabric made Matthew’s blood run hot. Looking at him now, stripped of his winter trappings, Matthew could appreciate how good Will looked. Better than usual, actually, like he’d put some effort into dressing. Nice jeans, a grey-and-blue plaid shirt with a white tee peeking out from beneath the collar. He’d done his hair, too, though the hat had flattened his curls some, and he’d trimmed his beard and neatened it up around the edges. 

Effort is good, Matthew reassured himself, it means interest. He followed on Will’s heels, advancing into the living room, where his guest had stopped in front of the couch. 

“You thirsty?” Matthew asked. “I’ve got some cold ones in the fridge.”

“Sure,” Will said, lowering himself onto the cushions. “I’ll have one.” He plucked the takeaway menu from the tabletop in front of him and started flipping through it. 

Matthew sidled up behind the couch and leaned over its back, a hand extended to point out option number thirty-four on the menu. This close, he could smell Will’s shampoo—a fresh, lemony thing—and his aftershave—a spicy, warm-smelling thing that made his stomach do a little flip. “Smell good,” he said, and before Will could finish his startled scoff, added, “They make a mean Sesame Chicken.”

He headed to the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a Right Proper Li’l Wit. He didn’t fuck with lite beers himself, and Will seemed to like the coffee stout they had at Jackpot, so he probably didn’t either. The Belgians knew what they were doing, and Americans ripped things off from other cultures better than anyone in the world. A witbier would start them off nicely. They went down light enough that they could drink a few before the alcohol really kicked in. 

“Beer,” Matthew said, touching a frosty bottle to Will’s cheek as he returned from the kitchen. “You pick something? I usually get the hot and spicy beef, but the sesame chicken is a good bet, too.”

“Beef with mushrooms and snow peas,” Will read aloud, not sounding particularly enthusiastic. 

Mushrooms. Mushrooms. Why is he ordering mushrooms? He had to be yanking his chain, right? Like a little boy tugging on the pigtails of a girl he liked. Still going for the ‘hard to get’ play after all, then.

“And crab rangoon.” He stared at the menu a moment longer before passing it into Matthew’s hands. “Have you ever noticed that Chinese food menus don’t have desserts?”

“Fortune cookies,” Matthew countered. “Better than dessert. You get to learn your future. In bed.” This, with a roguish waggle of his eyebrows, which brought a chuckle bubbling through Will’s lips.

He plopped onto the cushion beside Will, phone in hand to place their order. A few quick taps, and that was done—now for the romance. 

He tossed his bottle cap into the half-full metal tin next to the television, where they all ended up. Will didn’t try with his own, he just dropped it into Matthew’s hand for him to throw it.

“We decided on the movie first, then dinner, right?” 

“Yep,” Matthew popped the ‘p’, swinging his arm over the back of the couch, facing his torso toward his guest. “I picked a good one for us. You like documentaries?” 

“Sure. Much as the next guy.”

Matthew debated for a second whether to say the title aloud or not, then settled on pulling the movie up on the screen instead. 

“Man on Wire,” Will read, and the corner of his lip twitched into the start of a smile. “Not a hawk?”

“Maybe a featherless one.”

A throaty, earnest laugh this time, sent shivers down Matthew’s spine. It felt good to please him. It would feel even better to please him. 

He opened his mouth, ready to put the thought to words, but his fucking phone pinged with a text. ETA of 20 minutes on their dinner. God, he didn’t fucking care.

“That’s… frighteningly quick,” Will said, peering over Matthew’s shoulder at the order confirmation. “I guess they don’t cook it a la carte?”

“It’s delivery Chinese,” Matthew shrugged. “We can eat while we watch. It’s tasty, I promise.” 

“I believe you,” Will said, and nothing about his voice or facial expression sold that as the truth. “It’s gonna be better than anything we had in Duluth, probably.” 

“Hannibal didn’t cook anything fancy in those motel kitchens for you?”

The muscle in Will’s jaw jumped. “He didn’t stay with us. Set up his own accommodations.”

“Motel Six too pedestrian for him?” Matthew teased.

“Holiday Inn,” Will chuckled. “He tried to feed me, but, uh. The timing didn’t work out. This beer is good.” 

The change in subject screamed ‘move on to the next topic, please,’ but Matthew didn’t feel like letting this one go yet. “You put him in the dog house, huh?”

“Matty.” Warning in his tone this time. “Hannibal is not up for discussion.” 

A firm hand. Matthew wanted to argue. Wanted to get his way. But he reminded himself that Will had this thing about give and take, and wanting to leave something to dangle in front of Matthew’s eyes, something to taunt him with, so he let it slide for now. 

“If he’s not fair game, then tell me about the Hobbs house.” He licked his lips. “Tell me how you took Hobbs down.”

Will’s gaze dropped to his hands, the beer clutched between his palms, resting on his lap. His lashes, dark and long, fanned out against his cheekbones. He could look naive like this, and that had its own appeal, but Matthew preferred him when his eyes glowed, sharp enough to cut. “I thought we were saving that kind of talk for dinner?”

“Beer has calories. Plus it’ll be here in like, five minutes.”

A soft huff through Will’s nose, but his lips twitched his amusement. “What have you heard?”

“Hobbs collected teenage girls that looked like his daughter, made them disappear.” A lot more to it than that, but Matthew wanted to know Will’s perspective. It would be different from what the papers were printing. He didn’t want that erroneous context to get in the way of Will’s insights. 

“Yeah, something like that,” Will said, proving Matthew right. He took a long swig from his bottle. “He hunted. Deer, boar, whatever. Used every last bit. Wanted to honor them. He loved Ab—” he swallowed. “He loved his daughter, didn’t want to hurt her. Did everything he could so that he wouldn’t have to hurt her.”

Ab—

That would be Abigail Hobbs. Interesting that Will wouldn’t say her name. It was already all over the papers. “But he did, in the end.”

Will’s elegant fingers trailed along the neck of the bottle, then started picking the label off the glass from its corner. “He did, in the end.” The wet paper tore a little. “Thanks to me.” 

“You weren’t the one to stab her.”

“Um.” Will prodded his glasses further up his nose. “Slice. Across the, uh, jugular. But he wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t barged in.” His eyes stayed open, but they looked distant, like he was lost in memory rather than present in the room. 

Enough of that. “Sounds like he was one bad day away from doing it anyway, actually.” 

A fleeting smile. 

“She gonna make it?”

“Yeah,” Will answered, fingers busy with the label again. “Doctor Lecter stopped the bleeding.”

Dr. Lecter, now. Huh. “Handy that he was nearby,” Matthew groused, chugging down the rest of his beer and getting up to get the second round. “You get the collar, he gets the credit.”

“It’s not like that,” Will argued, without any real heat, accepting the fresh bottle though he’d yet to finish the first. “And it’s better if he gets the credit, anyway. Gets Freddie Lounds off my back for once.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that Will wouldn’t have the same appreciation for Freddie Lounds that he did. But then again, she did make a habit of slinging mud at Will Graham, and Matthew had never been in her slanderous spotlight. He would be angry if she was publishing lies about him too. Underselling his achievements like that. 

Matthew leaned into the cushions, seated closer than he had been before, the hand slung over the back of the couch now resting behind the nape of Will’s neck as he mulled that over.

Will Graham wasn’t just some psychopath that cavorted with killers. Will Graham was a killer. Of course he’d resent her. Maybe she could use a talking to. He toyed with the idea for a minute. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask again about why Lecter had made Will’s shit list. But he thought better of it. “So he didn’t cut clean through,” he murmured. “Clean cut, she wouldn’t make it.”

Will’s thighs squeezed around his beer bottle to hold it still and free his hands. Matthew’s gaze lingered—how could he resist? He wanted them wrapped around his waist, his hips. Fuck. Okay, Will, unenthusiastic finger-gun, got it. “Shot him down before he could.” 

“One shot, down he goes?”

“Hah. Took nine.” 

“Jesus.”

Will downed the rest of his beer and set the empty one on the coffee table. “I don’t—I haven’t fired a handgun since I was a cop. I was out of practice. Frankly, it’s a miracle I didn’t clip her.”

“Some instincts stay sharp. Or at least, mostly.” He slid his arm along the back of the couch again, letting his thumb trail against Will’s shoulders, just enough to disturb the fabric, feel his warmth, but not enough to feel the firm muscles beneath. “I didn’t see you as a gun guy, anyway.”

“The shotgun on my wall isn’t for show,” Will grumbled, and Matthew remembered Freddie writing about him staring down that barrel at her. He slid a hair closer, and Will shifted a little, putting another inch of space between their legs. “Hobbs just—stared at me. He didn’t even look at his daughter as she lay dying on that kitchen floor. She’d already become a shadow to him. He looked at me…”

Matthew couldn’t blame the guy, honestly.

“He looked at me, and asked me if I saw.” 

Will saw everything. Matthew knew that. His heart sped up, beating at double-time in his chest. “How did he say it?”

“He, uh. He said—I know you,” Will murmured, eyes down again. “I see. Do you see?”

“You do, though, Will.”

Will blinked, his movement slow, languorous. Almost as though he were drunk—but he couldn’t be. He’d drank the one bottle of beer, and Matthew knew Will could pound down a pint of whiskey and still walk straight and speak without slurring. “I do.”

The simmering tension between them would have to wait to be addressed, though; Matthew’s doorbell rang. Dinner had arrived. 

With a frustrated groan, Matthew slipped off the couch and stomped over to his door, yanking it open without bothering to check through the peephole. A five-dollar bill exchanged hands before Juan would hand over the plastic carryout bag. No tip for him next time.

“You must order from there a lot,” Will observed as Matthew brought the plastic bags holding their dinner to the coffee table. “The courier didn’t need to call for directions.”

The back of Matthew’s neck heated up in embarrassment. “It’s written on the order,” he said. And then, because Will seemed to like it when he was honest about these kinds of things, he said, “I wanted to buy time with you.” 

It had the desired effect. Will’s expression softened, his grip on his drink loosened. 

They opened the cartons and dished out. He pulled Will’s plate over and spooned a few bites of the Sesame chicken onto it, too. If they’d been at a restaurant, they’d be eating off the same plate. Next time, next time. 

They were starting something together now. No need to rush. 

Matthew stabbed a chopstick into one of the chicken pieces—a bit rubbery, but the breading had a good crunch—and chewed it up before glancing Will’s way. He stared down at his plate with an air of uncertainty for a beat, and then he plucked a slice of mushroom and slipped it between his lips. 

It took considerable effort to pull his eyes away from the rhythmic motion as he chewed, but Matthew managed it. He looked down at his own food, swallowed a mouthful of saliva—unrelated to his meal—and asked, “How’s the mushrooms taste?”

“I’ve had much, much better.”

“Stammets,” Matthew grumbled. “What’s the deal with you and the Mushroom Man, anyway? You owe me something for all the favors I’ve been pulling for you.”

Will smiled, a vague little thing. “I’m not going to say anything more than Eldon has.”

Well, fuck, then. Eldon never said anything. “You owe me something,” he reiterated, refusing to let the matter drop.

“Fine.” Will said. He leaned in, eyes sparkling, and then, conspiratorial, whispered, “Something.” 

A shiver coursed down Matthew’s spine. Will backed off, ears and cheeks turning red. Fuck—when he did that, Matthew could just—

“Sorry,” Will mumbled, ruining Matthew’s high. And then he ruined it even worse. “But, speaking of Eldon.”

Matthew groaned, falling back against the cushions, eyes closing as he counted to ten. Control your temper. “God, what now?”

“Mm…” Will’s voice was soft; that helped. “Working on that theory about him and the Ripper.”

That again? 

“He said he doesn’t know him, though. Or did he change his mind last time?”

“He said he doesn’t.” 

Oh-ho. A little trouble in paradise? Eldon Stammets acted like Will was infallible, but Will didn’t seem to have much faith in the Mushroom Man’s words. 

“I need to see him again. Eldon.”

Matthew counted to ten again, staring into Will’s eyes to try to clear his mind. “Won’t be able to sneak you in like that again. Stammets still has a black eye—can’t have Chilton thinking I’m bullying the inmates.”

Jaw flexing, Will fiddled with his chopsticks, eyes dropping to his hands as they moved. “During the day is fine. In the privacy suite. We can say I’m—I’m looking for closure. If we need an excuse. I need you to make sure that Chilton isn’t playing fast and loose with privacy laws while I’m in there.”

Fucking—Chilton, now? 

Well. In some ways that was better. Better than talking about Will’s exes. 

“He talks about you, you know,” Matthew hummed. “Says you’d fit right in, says he’d like to see how he can twist you up.”

“Does he?”

Ahh, and there was the sly little grin that Matthew liked. Will made it often, when he was laughing at someone else’s expense. “High opinion of himself.”

If only Will knew what Matthew wanted to do to him. Well—if only he knew specifically what. “I can do that. Twist you up.”

Will snorted.

Hot and cold, hot and cold. Will Graham, Mr. Hard To Get. Matthew chased a mouthful of rice with the dregs in his beer and debated whether to call him out on it. Leniency hadn’t served him well so far; maybe he should say something.

“You know, for the number of times you’ve said friendships shouldn’t be based on favors, you always seem to want something from me, Will. And what am I getting in return?”

Will’s eyebrows jumped up, his eyes swiveling in Matthew’s direction. “The pleasure of my company?”

What a little asshole. Matthew chuckled. So fucking cute. 

“Did you visit Doctor Lecter after I asked you not to?”

Matthew’s turn to be held accountable, huh? He grinned, remembering how the Doctor’s smugness had fallen off his face, the way he’d lost his composure while they sat across one another in that stuffy, pompous, tacky-ass dining room. 

Matthew’s grin grew sharp. 

Will waved a vague hand in the air. “I ask you to do things, you only do them if they suit you. You read the letters, get to see my reactions to them. Nothing you’ve done that I’ve asked for has been without some kind of reward for you.”

“Sneaking you in could’ve cost me my job.”

“The thought didn’t even cross your mind. You were too busy celebrating over giving Eldon a black eye.”

With a delighted laugh, Matthew conceded the point. He scooted back into the couch, eating up the sharpness in Will’s gaze, the way he slowly deflated. Will couldn’t help making little comments like those—it was his nature to strike, he was used to being a solitary bird—but he always seemed to regret it right away. It was the regret that caught Matthew’s attention. Will didn’t want to be at odds with him. 

When Will couldn’t look at Matthew anymore, he plucked his beer and its abandoned bottle top off of the table. He held onto the top as he drank; when he pulled the glass from his lips, he released the top into Matthew’s hand instead of tossing it at the tin himself. 

That’s alright. More beer would loosen those lips right up. In more ways than one. 

“So, Hobbs made what?” Matthew asked, flicking the top into the tin with one hand, sticking his disposable chopsticks into the fried rice lumped on his plate with the other. “Six?”

“Six what?” 

This again? “I’m not talking about lovers,” he said, evoking the conversation they’d had, months back, in front of Baba.

Will breathed in deep, shifted his weight. Long fingers, elegant positioning. Nice hands. He’d like to see them tangled in those brand new sheets, put on the bed fresh this afternoon. No rush, he reminded himself. Some good foreplay first. 

Will tilted his head, chewing a mouthful of beef. He looked up at Matthew, studied his face for a minute, his own expression flat. “You still think I killed those people.”

Matthew had debated the subject to death. Lost sleep over it, even. After the first time they’d talked it through, he worried that maybe he really had misread Will. That maybe he wasn’t a killer after all. But he hadn’t gotten it wrong. He knew that much for sure now, and none of this playing coy would fool him. 

“You’re a hawk,” Matthew explained. “I look at you and I see you. I know who you are. What you are.”

Will finished chewing his mouthful, chased it with another sip. He set his plate down on his lap, the bottle on the coffee table. He made eye contact as he spoke this time, and Matthew could drown in it. “I didn’t kill those people, Matthew.” 

“You’re cute,” Matthew said. A firm hand. “You didn’t answer my question, though. About how many.”

“What is this, a dick-measuring contest?” Will asked, still easy, still relaxed, smiling. “A far more interesting question: how many people have you killed, Matty?” 

He preened. “I keep things on the down-low. Not out to play pierrot to the masses, like some.”

“The Ripper, for example?” 

He looked like he’d just sucked on a lemon. 

A touchy subject, okay. Matthew could understand that. The Ripper kept getting away. Better to keep it to the subjects that pleased them both. Like himself. “Excluding the, uh, hunting accidents, and the, let’s call them indirect ones, four.” He gestured at Will’s nearly empty beverage. “Another?” 

“Sure, thanks.” 

Matthew retrieved a fresh pair, uncapped Will’s for him and handed it over. One after another, the caps flew into the tin.

“Four,” Will repeated, after this little display. “Still trying things out? Finding what fits you?”

“Figuring out what I like,” Matthew murmured. They’d both stopped eating. So the Chinese food sucked. The beer, at least, moved fast. 

“And what do you like?”

“Dark hair, curls. Light eyes.” A little leer, a hand crossing the distance between them and tugging at the curl so artfully arranged over Will’s forehead. “But you know that.”

“I…” Will swallowed. He looked lost for a moment, like this turn in the conversation had caught him unprepared. But he knew. He had to know. “I guess I did know that.”

Matthew almost threw his plate onto the table before he scooched forward, a breath closer to where Will sat on the couch. “What about you?”

“Are we talking about murder or lovers, here?” Will asked, voice faint, palms sliding down the sides of his jeans and then back up again, the way he seemed to do when he got nervous. He noticed Matthew watching, and his hands stilled.

For a beat, Matthew let Will wallow in his uncertainty. Then he took the dish from Will’s lap, and let it clatter on the tabletop beside his own. Will didn’t seem like he wanted to answer. Fine. That didn’t matter. 

“I’ve been trying to pin you down for a bit, you know.” 

His lashes lowered, his lips parted. A soft breath puffed from between his lips. There it was again—that expression, like he was drunk even though he couldn’t be. He looked it, though; as drunk as Matthew felt.

“I know,” Will said, following the movement of Matthew’s hand as it raised again, this time to settle on Will’s shoulder. 

A flash behind his eyelids as he blinked, of Dr. Lecter’s hand in the same place. But Will had looked pale and distant then. Now, he looked—God. How he looked. Wide-eyed and breathless, cheeks a little flushed, hands twitching in his lap. 

Matthew’s palm slid over Will’s shirt collar to press a path up the side of his neck, then back down again, fingers trailing over the sleeve down to one of those pretty, pretty hands. “You gonna let me pin you down tonight?”

Another slow blink, but when Will’s eyes opened again, they didn’t resume their startled posture. His lashes partially obscured his irises, and he looked—the want poured out of him, strong enough for Matthew to taste it. “I think… I think I’m going to let you do whatever you want to do.”

His heart might beat its way from his chest as he processed the implication of those words. But he didn’t linger over them long. Action meant more to him than promise. With slow movements—again afraid that any sudden move would startle him into bolting—Matthew sidled up beside him. He leaned in again, took a breath of that aftershave, and pressed his lips to the curls above Will’s ear. 

“Do you know what I want to do to you?” he asked, low, his hand slipping from Will’s wrist to his knee.

Will shivered, turned his face into Matthew’s lips, covered Matthew’s hand with his own. “I know.”

A squeeze of his knee, and Matthew flipped his palm over to grab a hold of Will’s hand—the better to pull them both to their feet. Will, unresisting, moved along with him, as though predicting his movement and eager to follow along. His free hand reached up to Will’s face, taking hold of the leg of Will’s glasses and gently tugging them from the bridge of his nose. 

With a cavalier grin, he put them on, and then blinked when his vision remained the same. “These aren’t prescription?” he asked, removing them to peer through the glass from the other side. 

An amused grin crinkled the corner of Will’s eyes as he answered, “They help me focus.” A non-answer, really. But not about something that mattered, so Matthew tossed the glasses onto the couch and led Will by the hand to the bedroom. He didn’t let him out of his sight once inside. Will hadn’t asked for a tour when he arrived and Matthew hadn’t given one, wanting to enjoy Will’s surprise as he took it in. 

He took his time looking around, but his eyes eventually stopped on the succulent, still sitting proud and happy in its new home on Matthew’s dresser, then on the closed blinds and the partially drawn plain blue curtains in front of them. A remnant from a previous renter, which he’d been too lazy to take down. But eventually, after taking a moment to catalogue the titles on the bookshelf-cum-nightstand on the guest side of the mattress, his gaze took that last little leap. It lingered on the neatly made bed. Was he appreciating its four pillows in their matching cases and the two newly purchased decorative ones that coordinated, even if they didn’t match? 

I’m going to let you do whatever you want to do.

The echo of the words sent a thrill coursing down Matthew’s spine. He squeezed Will’s hand once before releasing it, and then ran his palms down Will’s arms as he crowded into him from behind. He nosed at the nape of Will’s neck, planted one long kiss and then another, before resting his hands on Will’s hips, fingers pressing through denim.

Will’s head lolled to the side, opening himself up to more kisses. Matthew sighed against the sweet skin, then breathed in its heated scent. Another kiss. This time wetter, this time, with teeth. Will shuddered, as Matthew traced them up the line of Will’s neck, nibbling as he went, palms and fingers kneading at the upper curve of Will’s backside, over the jut of his hipbones. 

“Matthew,” Will moaned, as though to spur him on. 

But Matthew wanted to take his time. He’d waited for this forever. He wouldn’t rush through to the end. Not when he had Will, willing, in his arms. Hah. 

But Will’s affected voice flattered him, gave him a sense of power. From this angle, he couldn’t see the whole of Will’s face, but saw the way he screwed his eyes shut, the way he worried his lower lip with his upper teeth, the way the muscle in his jaw jumped periodically as he worked it. 

Barely keeping himself together. 

“Been a while?” he asked, turning Will halfway with a complementary push and pull of the hands on his hips. He leaned in then, shooting for his mouth, shooting for a kiss, but Will reached up between them, cupped his palms over Matthew’s cheeks, and guided him gently back to the skin of his neck. The other side. 

“You could say that,” came his sighing reply, his long, dark lashes fluttering over his cheekbones, head tilting deeper toward his shoulder and body falling back against Matthew’s chest. A little mimicry of the way they’d been standing before.

Matthew’s hands traced up Will’s back to his shoulders and settled there. Firm. The way he’d done with the coat, he slid his palms over to Will’s clavicles, and instead of grabbing for a zip, set his fingers to the task of releasing his top button. Unlike with the coat, he didn’t fumble. When he slid down to grab the next button, though, his digits bumped into Will’s, already deftly working their way down his shirt front. 

Happy to pass that errand off, he brought his hands to where they were before, curled around Will’s hips. This time, though, they only stopped to squeeze once before tracing the line of his belt along to the buckle. He tugged Will backward into him, pressing himself against Will’s backside, lips reinvigorated in their assault on his neck.

A groan, and Will released the front of his shirt and reached up to brush his fingers into Matty’s hair. Smart, to pass on the pomade, then. Too short to grab on to, he cradled Matty’s head and pushed him in closer, so that Matthew’s nibbles bit harder, gnawing. As a thank you, Matty rolled his hips forward, grinding his erection into Will’s ass, and finally addressing the last big obstacle between them. 

A few quick movements, and the belt hung loose, the button of Will’s jeans undone, the zipper down, and the fabric parted around the bulge of Matthew’s hand, slinking under the soft, worn cotton of Will’s boxers. Fuck, fuck. 

Will groaned, his skin hot and hard in Matty’s hand, the pads of his fingers dragging down through Matty’s hair with an almost clawing desperation. 

“You’re shaking,” Matty sighed, delighted, watching the hitching rise and fall of Will’s chest, heat bursting in his veins with pride. “You’ve needed this, huh, baby?”

“Baby?” Will scoffed, turning his face so that Matty caught the dubious scorn in the flash of his blue eyes. The look melted away, eyes sliding shut again as Matthew gave him another squeeze in counterpoint to the forward press of his pelvis. 

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” Matthew said, fixated on those pink lips, shining in the low light—just the bedside lamp and not the ceiling light, because he had some class, thank you—looking so tempting, so fucking tempting, and just out of reach. The fixation broke, though, when his palm encountered a little moisture where he had it tucked in Will’s pants. “Ohh,” he drawled, brushing his hand over the head of Will’s dick, smearing the precum there around and relishing the way it made Will’s lower lip tremble, “you like that, huh, pretty boy?”

Impatient now, he tugged his hand free and pushed Will over to the bed. He went down with an ‘oof’ landing face-first on the mattress, legs bent over the edge, ass up in the air. Matty battled the urge to yank his jeans down and have at it right there, like that. God, and who could blame him? Will was plush. He pressed Will’s middle back down to the covers and studied the vignette with an admiring eye. 

The red mottling already in relief on Will’s delicate skin, all over his neck, the disheveled shirt, the low-slung jeans with a tantalizing peek of one of those sharp hip bones, his really pretty fucking delicious backside, legs akimbo… The only thing that would make this better, he thought, is if—

And then Will turned his head to the side, one cheek resting on the covers, the other tinged pink under the stinging glare in those bright, clear eyes, his hair a charming tangle all about his head, and the picture was complete. 

“You’re gonna let me eat you up, baby,” Matthew said, “make you feel so good.” The corner of Will’s lips twitched downward, and that wasn’t the look I was going for. “Did I say something?” 

“Cannibal jokes,” Will said. “Too soon.”

“Oh, fuck, yeah, right. Okay. You’re gonna let me eat you out, baby,” Matthew said, grinning in the face of Will’s exasperation. Sure, it was lame, whatever, they were both still hard. “Make you look even prettier for me.”

That had Will’s eyes shutting again, and Matthew could crow in victory at the sight. Eyes closing had become synonymous with Will giving in at this point, and he wanted Will giving in and giving in, giving everything to him. 

“Turn over,” he said, tugging the belt free and tossing it onto the floor behind them. Will did as instructed, flopping onto his back, eyes on the ceiling, cherry lips parted. 

If there were ever a pose that shouted, I’m going to let you do whatever you want to do, this would be the one. Matthew gave himself a minute to appreciate the picture Will painted, of sweet, sweet submission, of giving in, before he let himself touch the vision before him. 

He started with his hand on the waistband of Will’s shorts, trailing the pads of his fingers up the soft skin of Will’s abdomen, skirting the edge of a constellation of little moles just below where his undershirt had bunched around his navel, and then skipping over the cotton, up his sternum, to settle at the base of his throat. Fuck. Those baby blues, fixed on the ceiling, fluttered closed again. Permission. 

Matthew’s lips parted in a breathless smile as his free hand reached to his back pocket to grab his phone. Maybe he’d get permission for this too. “Baby,” Matthew said, thumb opening the camera app already. “I could look at you like this forever.”

“Don’t.” 

He couldn’t help chuckling at that either. Will’s prickliness was part of his charm. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer?”

A breathless laugh. “Yeah, that.”

“Okay, then,” he said, and pushed the shutter button on his camera. Will heard the snap—his eyes flew open, and he tried to sit up, if not for Matthew’s hand at his neck holding him down.

“Matthew,” he growled, teeth glimmering in the low light, looking deadly as he bared them, “delete that right now.”

The sight took Matthew’s breath away. If he thought Will was gorgeous before, Will like this—Fuck. His cock, hard to the point of aching, begged for relief. Fuck. The vicious gleam in his eyes, the fingers, curled into claws over the edge of the mattress. Ready to spring up and kill him. 

Fuck.  

He knew it. When he said ‘I know what you are’—he knew that it was this. 

“You said to take a picture,” Matthew said, squeezing his hand lightly around Will’s throat, thumb stroking over his carotid, but he relented when Will’s expression remained stiff, unyielding. A little less I’m going to let you do whatever you want than where Matthew needed him to be right now. “Fine. Next time.” He tossed his phone up onto the pillows at the head of the bed, and some of the tension melted from Will’s posture, though the sharpness in his gaze remained.

“Next time,” Will repeated through clenched teeth. “And you’re deleting that tonight.”

“I can’t help it,” Matthew said, ignoring the command he had no intention of following, anyway. He dropped his other hand to Will’s thigh and squeezed. “You’re just so pretty.” 

A scoff, but a little more rigidity seeped from the line of Will’s neck. “We should talk about your word choice,” Will said, and his eyes fluttered as Matthew’s hand traipsed to the hem of his shirt and pushed it a little further up his torso. 

“You like my word choice,” Matthew said, leaning in and nuzzling against Will’s cheek, enjoying how Will’s stubble tickled his lips. “You like it when I tell you how I can’t get enough of you.”

“You haven’t said that yet,” Will protested, his hand settling on Matthew’s shoulder. 

“I can’t get enough of you.” The words came out, rumbling from his throat, whispered low into Will’s ear. He felt the man shiver beneath him, his grip spasming over Matty’s arm. One more sucking kiss, this time to the spot just below and behind Will’s ear, and then the hand at Will’s neck began to wander. 

It skimmed down the plain cotton, pushing the front panels of Will’s plaid shirt aside, then down the side of his chest, feeling the bumps of his ribs, before seeking out the raised nub of his nipple. A gratifying little sound escaped Will’s throat, and wonder welled up in Matthew’s heart. He’d pictured this. Or moments like this, anyway, between them. Thought about how it would feel to have Will beneath him or on his lap, how it would feel to hold his hands as they moved together, to feel Will’s hot breath against his skin. 

He’d never been able to conjure up a sound quite like the one that Will just made though, and that alone would be enough to fuel any number of fantasies. Especially in combination with the picture still on his phone. But the sweet vibration of Will’s throat as Matthew pinched that tender skin between his fingers made him want to hear more, made him want to drive Will crazy. 

The hand rucking up the bottom of the shirt, which had been stroking soft patterns against Will’s tensing abdomen—having that many dogs really kept him in great shape—kicked into action. “Sit up,” he breathed, pushing Will’s plaid shirt off his shoulders and then shimmying up the undershirt. Too much fabric, too much in the way. He stopped helping Will disrobe at the first sight of something new to latch his lips onto, leaving Will to struggle with the tangle of his clothing around his arms. 

A little teeth, and Will gasped in surprise. 

“Fuck,” Matthew said, movements becoming more urgent now, more desperate. His next words came out breathless, as he rose up on his knees where they straddled Will’s legs and peered down at all that bared skin. “You look like you been waiting all week for this.”

Another scoff. “Talking about yourself, there?” Will said, but his hand digging into Matthew’s flank softened the blow. 

“So fuckin’ coy,” Matthew said, and ripped his own shirt off over his head. He preened at the way Will’s eyes roved over him, flexing a little to show off his abs. “You’ve had me chasing after you from the first, but guess what, pretty boy.”

A grunt from below him, and Will’s hand found its way back to Matthew’s flank, fingers tracing a delicate line around the edge of one of his tattoos. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and Matthew felt like he might bust the zipper on his jeans. A lowering of lashes as Will’s gaze followed the movement of his fingers, before they came back up to meet Matty’s. “What?”

“I’m a good hunter,” he said, “And a hard won trophy doesn’t get let go. You’re mine, Will.”

He didn’t give Will time to answer that. The moment Will’s lips parted, brow beginning to furrow in an evident desire to protest—which, of course he would, Mr. Hard-To-Get—Matthew crooked his thumb and dipped it inside Will’s mouth, to press down on his tongue. He lowered his lips to Will’s collarbones and licked a stripe up to his shoulder. 

It started as a gentle scrape of teeth against Will’s skin at the juncture of shoulder and neck, earning him another hitching breath and lips falling open enough to let him push his thumb further inside, and then impulse overcame him. Helpless, he gave in, closing his teeth over Will’s flesh, digging them into the skin. Taking a bite. 

A pained wail as Will jerked beneath him, but his fingers dug in where he held Matty’s arms, and his hips under Matthew’s bucked off of the mattress. “Fuck, you like that,” Matthew said, laving his tongue over Will’s reddened skin, feeling the indents his teeth left behind. He pulled his hand from Will’s mouth and tangled it into Will’s hair, tugging his head to the side to give him more room to work where he’d bitten. “Of course you do, fuck.”

“Of course…?” His echo came out breathy, the words spoken as though their meaning escaped him, body lax under Matthew’s once more. 

“All mine. Nobody touches you here but me,” Matthew said. “Tell your doctor friend to keep his hands off what doesn’t belong to him.”

“What?” Will startled, his prior dreaminess evaporated from his tone. “You mean—Jesus, why are you talking about Hannibal?”

Hannibal. Not even ‘Dr. Lecter’ while they were practically dry humping on Matthew’s bed. He bit Will again, this time more on his neck than his shoulder, thinking of where Dr. Lecter’s thumb had encroached so close to his ear. His next bite—softer, when Will’s hands pushed at his chest, nails digging into his skin in protest—landed on Will’s earlobe, and then softened to a gentle suck before he pulled back to whisper, “Drives me nuts how he touches you,” Matthew said, “doesn’t have any boundaries.”

Surprisingly, Will stopped pushing at that, hands flattening on Matthew’s pectorals, sliding up a bit to dip into the hollow of his clavicles. “Can’t disagree with that,” he murmured, and sighed when Matthew kissed his cheek, his forehead. “But now’s really not the time.”

“Yeah,” Matthew agreed. “Don’t want you thinking about him,” he said, straightening again to grab the waistbands of Will’s jeans. “Ever.”

Will’s arms fell back on the mattress, palms up, fingers lightly curled by his head, back to that sweet pose that Matthew had captured on his phone. Matthew slid off the mattress, tugging the denim off as he went, leaving Will in his obscenely tented light blue boxers. He worked his own jeans open, shucking them off with one hand as the other went to cup Will’s cock through the thin fabric, earning him another flutter of Will’s belly in response. Will’s eyes trailed down Matthew’s torso, stopped at the sight of his cock, then jumped to the pile of clothes on the floor.

“Do you always—Ah!”

His breath stuttered, and his head fell slightly forward as Matthew’s grip slid over the length of him,

“Look at you,” Matthew sighed. “Nobody gets to see you like this but me.”

Will’s brows furrowed, but his eyelids drooped as Matthew stroked him with his right hand, his left grabbing a hold of his own cock and gripping it lightly. 

“Nobody gets to make you look like this but me,” he said, rubbing his thumb against Will’s frenulum, then sweeping over the head where it peeked out from under his waistband. 

Will’s eyebrow twitched, and he planted his elbows on the bed, lifting himself up. “Shut up, Matty,” he said, that brow raised now as he pushed off the mattress a little to bring his hand to grip Matthew’s ear. 

Matthew laughed—Will hadn’t said no, had he?—grabbing a hold of Will’s wrist and raising his knuckles to his lips. He peppered kisses against them as he stepped in until his quads pressed against the edge of the bed between Will’s knees. Giving Will his best leer, said, “You want me to stop talking?” He dropped down, eye-level with Will’s dick and wrapped his lips over the bulge in Will’s boxers, “I can do that.”

In his numerous, numerous, hookups before, things had always progressed quickly. Meet someone cute at a bar or online, chat or exchange messages for a bit, and then bring them home. By the time they made it to the bed they’d be naked, and in an hour or so, he’d be alone in his apartment again, basking in the afterglow without the annoyance of personal attachment. He’d fucked his fair share of dudes too, but they’d always been the ones with their heads in his lap, not the other way around. Always eager to please him. 

He’d never had to work this hard in his life. 

But Will melted into the mattress, made docile by the ministrations of Matthew’s tongue and hand teasing over his boxers, a startled moan slipping from him, choked off and strangled with pleasure. Matthew wanted to close his fingers back around Will’s throat, but he couldn’t reach from here, so he kept himself otherwise occupied. 

Working around the material got annoying after a bit, so he tugged the sodden boxers off and hitched Will’s legs over his shoulders. “Mna eat you out,” he repeated his earlier promise to a disbelieving chuckle from the man below him, and brought his mouth down for a taste. 

He licked up Will’s perineum, mouthed along his balls, and kissed the crease where Will’s thigh met his hip, before swallowing him whole. A hand slapped on the top of his head, scrabbling for purchase but slipping through the short strands of his hair. Matthew grinned around his mouthful when Will’s fingers gripped his ear again and tugged him closer. 

He could think of any number of filthy things to say, but he had a dick in his mouth. So he redoubled his efforts, digging the pads of his fingers into Will’s inner thighs. If his neck was anything to go by, Will would bruise all over, and Matthew wanted to leave his imprint everywhere he could reach. 

When Will’s thighs began to tense around Matty’s head, Matthew took his cue. He tucked his hand under his chin and drew a little circle where he planned to split Will open. Let Will’s other leg go and wrapped his fingers around Will’s cock, squeezing him tight, staving off his building orgasm.

“Bedside drawer,” he grunted, eyeing the sheen of his saliva on Will’s tender skin, keeping his hold on Will’s dick.

Will grunted as he rotated his torso and stretched over to the nightstand on his right, fingertips barely reaching the handle to yank the drawer open. He made a weak, high-pitched noise when Matthew’s hand, content that he’d calmed down enough, started working him over again. A bottle of lube landed on the mattress to Matty’s left, and then Will’s fingers searched the drawer again. “Condoms?”

“They’re in there,” Matthew said, dropping a kiss on the inside of Will’s knee, breathing against his skin. “Extra large ones.”

A scoff and a little side-eye, and then a foil packet smacked him in the middle of the chest. Matthew didn’t waste any time, he dropped Will’s leg, and with one corner of the packet between his teeth, ripped it open. He pulled the prophylactic from the package with a flash of teeth, one eye focused on putting it on, the other on watching Will accommodate himself against the pillows. 

He followed, scooting up the mattress on his knees, popping the lube open with one hand, nudging Will’s legs higher, so they landed on his shoulders. Opening them wider might have given him more room to work, but then he wouldn’t be able to turn his head, nose at Will’s ankle. He kissed it gently, thinking how easy it would be to slap a handcuff on it, tie him to the bed… but maybe next time. “Fuck,” he said, prodding at Will with one slicked up finger, “you’re gonna feel so good on my cock.”

“Matty,” Will said, and slapped his hands over his eyes. “Can you stop that?” 

Matthew laughed, watching the way the color flooded Will’s cheeks, down his neck. Cute. He dragged his lips over the ankle again, licked it, kissed it soft. So fucking cute, honestly, how could he resist? He pressed forward with his finger again, testing the give, then again, just for fun. “You’re so tight,” he said, and this time kept pushing until Will let him in. 

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Will grunted, and reached down to take himself in hand.

Matthew let him do what he wanted there, keeping his right hand busy opening him up, and his left connecting the dots between Will’s moles, then skipping up his chest to tweak first one nipple and then the other. “Really has been a while, huh,” Matthew said, crooking his finger, trying to make a little room. “Don’t worry, pretty boy, I’ll keep you ready to go for me after this.”

Will’s eyes drifted from the ceiling to Matthew’s face, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead, then knitting together at the top. “You just—” but that’s about as far as he got. 

“There you go,” Matthew said, rubbing over Will’s prostate, eating up the way Will’s face contorted in response to the sensation, the way that all the attitude drained out of him, lashes fluttering and hazy with pleasure rather than their usual sharp incisiveness. 

Another finger, and Will’s abdominal muscles spasmed, showing just enough definition for Matty to salivate over, and melted into the bed beneath him. “Look at you,” Matty sighed, “This is what you needed, huh?”

He squeezed one of Will’s nipples hard enough for Will to yelp, then bullied another fingertip inside him. So he was rushing it a hair, who could blame him with this morsel in front of him, and it’s not like Will was complaining. Matthew let go of Will’s chest to grab a hold of himself, giving himself a comforting squeeze. Just a little longer. A little more, and then he’d ruin Will for anyone else. 

Nobody would be able to touch him like this, once Matthew finished. Not Eldon Stammets the Mushroom Man, not Annoyingly Kind and Only-Kinda-Pretty Dr. Bloom, not the Good Doctor Dr. Lecter, not anyone. When Will wanted satisfaction, he’d seek Matty out; when Will wanted to get fucked into the pillows, he’d know where to go. 

Fuck. That thought had Matthew losing the last bit of patience he had in him, and he yanked his hand from inside of Will, surging forward dick first, like a heat-seeking missile. 

Will grunted as Matthew bent him in half and pulled his hand out from between their bodies. Matthew dropped a kiss on Will’s collarbone, then bit, hard, and as Will hissed in response, pushed his cock inside. Will’s head tipped backward, baring his throat, his lips parted again, and made a soft, high, panting sound, keening, that made Matthew’s heart flutter in his chest.

“Will, fuck, Will, Will,” he said, breathing in Will’s skin, damp with sweat and a little salty. “Fuck, you’re so good for me, baby.” He pulled out a little and then nudged his way back inside, loosening Will up on his dick the way he didn’t take the time to do with his fingers. 

“Matthew,” Will groaned, hands alighting on Matty’s shoulders, pushing up a little, trying to put some space between them. Matthew pressed forward so that their chests were touching, not willing to give that up. 

He nibbled on Will’s neck, threaded his fingers into Will’s hair as he established a rhythm, as he whispered more filth into Will’s ear. “You’re so close aren’t you baby, gonna make you come on my cock, fuck.”

“Matthew,” Will said, setting his hands on either side of Matty’s face and pulling him off of his neck. His blue eyes closed and that was all the warning Matthew got before Will closed the space between them and touched their lips together.

He almost came right then, but grit his teeth and squeezed his grip on Will’s hips tight enough for Will’s lips to part on a gasp. He took the chance to kiss Will back, hard, with tongue, stilling his lower body to try to regain some control over himself. Fuck. He didn’t kiss his hookups much, maybe a little when they made out during foreplay, but only a little. Kissing felt too much like dating, and he didn’t mess around with that. 

But Will…

Will was his now. This went beyond dating. 

Have you noticed the way smaller birds will mob a hawk on a wire, Mr. Graham? He’d gotten rid of the smaller birds. And though Will had called hawks solitary animals, he’d been referring to the wrong variety. 

This hawk had no intention of letting him go.

Will turned his face away, panting, and Matthew got back to work.

The mattress squeaked, Will grunted, as Matthew reared back, looking for a little better leverage. Will, lashes lowered, trailed a meandering path down Matty’s arm, tracing the outline of the letters on his pec, then down to the ink on his abs. A courtesy flex as Will’s fingers ran down his six-pack, which Will seemed too fucked-out to fully appreciate.

“You like that ink, hm,” Matthew said. “Wanna see your name there, too?” 

He snapped his hips forward, harder this time, jostling the bed against the wall and forcing another squeak from the box spring. Will’s head lolled to the side as he buried his face in the pillow. 

“Wanna make me yours the way I’ve made you mine?”

The words must have done something to him, because he tightened up around Matty’s cock, and his jaw went slack. 

“Fuck, Will, fuck, fuck, you—”

He didn’t get any further; a bang coming from the other side of the wall startling them both into stillness. Three more slaps against the drywall and then his neighbor’s voice called out, muffled, but clear enough to understand. “Keep it down for fuck’s sake! I’m trying to eat over here!”

Will, bright-eyed rather than dazed, blinked up at Matthew before his lips parted in a grin. “You did say something about the walls coming down easy here, didn’t you?”

You don’t keep trophies all over the place, do you? Deer mounts and stuff?

No, no. I rent, can’t hang anything that heavy up, the whole wall would come down.

“Shh,” Matthew said, touching a fingertip to Will’s lips, lowering his own voice. “He’s trying to eat.”

Will laughed, a sweet, huffing noise made sweeter by the way his eyes sparkled—but they closed on his next breath in time with a low moan, as Matty slowed his pace, favoring deep strokes rather than the brutal pace he’d taken before. He closed a hand around Will’s ankle, unhooking it from his shoulder, bringing it to his lips as he drank in the pleasure-addled bliss on Will’s face.

Fuck, this was almost better. Instead of the shallow panting and short gasps, Will’s chest rumbled in a continuous stream of low moans. Matthew ground into him, dropped his forehead to Will’s shoulder, let Will’s scent surround him. 

Fuck. This was too much better. With Will’s hands crawling over his back, stroking a line down his spine, his legs wrapped around his hips and coaxing him deeper, Matthew was on the edge of falling apart. 

He’d never felt like this before. Fuck, yeah, he felt good, he felt so fucking good, but it was more than that. He’d known—he’d known this thing with Will went deep. Will Graham had burrowed under his skin the moment they met, and Matthew knew then he had no intention of letting him go. But it hadn’t hit him, hadn’t really hit home until now, just what this was that they had between them. 

He could almost say it, fuck, he could feel the words tingling on his lips, waiting to press against his skin. 

Fuck. 

“Matty.” Will’s touch grew sharp, more nails than caresses. “Can you—faster?”

Matthew slowed his pace, wishing he didn’t have the fucking condom on, wishing he could feel Will’s heat everywhere. “You gonna come?” he sighed. “You gonna come all over me?”

For an answer, a grunt. 

“S’alright, pretty thing, you can come,” Matthew said, “I’ve got you.”

“Matthew, please,” Will said, a desperate edge to his voice. His legs tightened, trying to coax Matthew into movement, but it wouldn’t work. 

He’d made up his mind. Slow, soft, and sweet, he’d make Will finish just like this, their bodies rocking close together, touching everywhere they could. Conjoining. “You’re mine, Will,” he murmured, pressing their cheeks together, lips brushing against the curve of Will’s ear as he spoke. 

-+-

It rose up within him, warmer, deeper, more satisfying than before, but not the way Will had wanted it. If his voice lacked enthusiasm, Matthew didn’t seem to notice: he rolled off to Will’s right side, curled up beside him, his right hand trailing a tickling path down Will’s sternum, skipping around the splatter on his chest. 

Will closed his eyes, trying to let the darkness envelop him, to block out the sensation of those fingers, so close to his heart. He wondered how Hannibal’s hands would have looked, floating over Cassie Boyle’s chest, before he cracked open her sternum and pulled heart and lungs free. How Hannibal must have felt then; if it had felt anything like how Will did when he pulled Hannibal’s heart out in his dream.

Little Mischa’s screams still echoed in his skull, as he relived the sensation of the warm, strong muscle lub-dubbing in his hold, slippery from the blood. 

He could picture it. He’d seen Hannibal’s hands coated in blood, now, seen their dexterous, self-assured motions as he held a life in his hands. Replacing Abigail’s neck with Cassie Boyle’s heart—or even Matthew’s—didn’t take much of a leap of the imagination. His placid expression, and yet the shine of exhilaration in his eyes. The way he—    

A nose poked at his neck. Will flinched and turned his back on Matty, swatting at his shoulder behind him. “Tickles.” 

But rolling over was a mistake—Matthew wrapped his body around him, pulling in close, knees tucked up behind Will’s, arm slinging over his side. 

He should’ve seen that coming, but he still startled; Matthew tightened his hold. His warm breath gusted against the small hairs on the back of Will’s neck, peppering little kisses on his nape, then nipping little love bites where he’d worried the flesh before.

During their lov—

While they fucked. 

Matthew’s hand flattened on Will’s chest, and his mouth latched onto its favorite spot on Will’s neck again. 

Will sighed. It does feel good, actually, he thought, though there was no way in hell he would say so aloud. Again. And with his eyes closed and the images his mind had been conjuring before still hazy in his mind’s eye, it felt even better. 

Until. 

Matthew’s body creeped up to hover over him once more, his kisses growing more fervent, his touches more demanding. Will opened his eyes, stared hard at the crack in the ceiling that had been his anchor point during their amorous activities earlier. 

“Matty,” Will grunted, when Matthew’s hand started traveling lower to Will’s abdomen. “You really are a millennial,” he said, grabbing hold of Matthew’s shoulders and pushing. 

Hard enough to topple him, even. Matthew’s yelp filled Will with a perverse satisfaction, and he used the younger man’s surprise as an opportunity to climb on top of him, straddling his thighs. Matthew’s dick, hard enough to justify the increasing desperation of his earlier kisses, dribbled over his abdomen.

Will thought of Fonda, slobbering while she waited for his permission to eat. 

“Will,” Matthew murmured, propping himself up on his elbows, neck craning, reaching for another kiss. 

A hand on his chest stopped his forward advance; Will pushed him back down onto the mattress, and kept his fingers in place there, pinning him down. He had never seen Matthew look so satisfied, his lips curling in a leonine smile, head falling back onto his pillow. Below him, Matthew bucked his hips once, enough to jostle Will in his perch. His laugh at Will’s near-loss of balance had its own charm. 

“It’s not happening,” Will said, letting Matthew’s humor echo in his own face, giving him a matching smile. 

“No?” Matty said, and his hands took a hold of Will’s hips with a familiarity that pained him. The smile turned into something devilish, revealing the sharp teeth that had made themselves at home on his skin throughout the course of the night. “Just the tip?”

Will laughed; he couldn’t help it. But he wouldn’t give in this time. With a shake of his head, he said, “No. I’ve got limitations.”

“Limitations?” Matthew asked, hands slipping from Will’s hips to his knees and then back. His head cocked to the side on the pillow. “Like what?”

“Like, I’m too old for that. I’ve only got one in me.”

“You? No. Look at you,” Matthew said, “I think we can get another one in you.”

“Matty,” Will scolded. An innocent raising of brows and widening of eyes from the man beneath him, though Will didn’t buy the act for a minute. “Behave.” 

A pause. 

“And it would be ‘out of’, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, but that kills the joke.” Matthew leaned up, locking his teeth over Will’s shoulder like a dog in heat.

“Well,” Will said. But, having learned his lesson, he made his refusal perfectly clear. “Either way. No.”

Matthew had demonstrated an alarming penchant for sticking to his guns this evening, and Will needed him to stop. He had let him get away with so much already. But who could blame him? Matthew had a little magic around him too, the way a naughty boy made parents coo rather than scold. Had a charm. He’d thought so once before too, hadn’t he? If Will hadn’t been so on his guard around him from the outset, he might find plenty to like about the man.

Right now, he liked the scrape of Matty’s teeth against his shoulder, the way his hands gripped Will’s hips and encouraged him into movement. 

Okay. This didn’t need to be a thing. He could accept it for what it was: a distraction when he needed one. An enjoyable one, if he let it be; and at this point, with Matty’s increasing arousal transmitting itself to Will through every point where skin touched skin, he could concede to enjoying it. Thighs, hips, shoulder, chest—all he had to do was close his eyes and let the wave wash over him.

Again.

But Matthew didn’t play along, wouldn’t let Will just drift along. The kisses and nips at his clavicles, soft one moment, turned into a vicious bite. 

“I said no, Matty,” Will gasped. Reminding them both of that. Matty didn’t let go though, merely peeked up at him and slid his hands down Will’s flanks. “Matty.”

“You look wrecked,” he said, coaxing Will’s hips back into motion so he was riding his thigh. “Fucked you so good, gonna do it again.”

Okay, no. That was enough of that. He pushed Matty back down. Only one way to buy his compliance—give him something he wouldn’t dream of refusing. He weighed his options. He couldn’t do another round, he couldn’t. His pride wouldn’t let him. So that left—“Just the tip, okay?”

He scooted down the bed, eyes on Matty’s, watching them widen with delighted understanding, too surprised to even laugh at the joke.

Then he looked down. From this close—all of a sudden the task seemed insurmountable. Always a first time for everything, but Will would rather die than tell Matthew that. “I’m, uh—” he said, bringing his hands to Matty’s knees, sliding them up toward his quads. 

“It’s fine,” Matthew said, graciously sparing him the lie. ‘A little out of practice’ probably wouldn’t fly, once the deed was done. “Whatever you do is fine.”

One deep breath, and then another. “Right, okay.” An unsure hand reached forward, wrapping around Matthew. 

A groan from above him, and then fingers diving into his hair. 

Already? Will considered the task ahead of him. 

“Just do what you like,” Matty said, already breathless, but his hands belied his words, tugging Will’s head toward him. 

So, without much room to move, he complied with expectations. His tongue darted out, tasting the lingering scent of the condom as he approached. Matty spread his legs out, and Will accommodated himself in between them, supporting his weight on his forearms. He let Matty drag him in, knuckles digging into Will’s scalp as his grip tightened. Grounding.

And if that word didn’t make his stomach turn—

“Try kissing it,” Matty said, breathless already.

Will focused on the lingering scent of soap, then shut his eyes and pressed in. 

After having his hands on Matty’s arms and shoulders, gripping his sides and digging into his back, the smoothness of Matty’s skin here sort of took him off guard. Obedient to Matty’s instructions, he leaned in for a kiss. 

Well, not exactly a kiss. His lips traced a long line up from root to tip. He got there, and then he stopped. He knew what came next, what was expected. Even if he’d never given a blow job before, he’d gotten his fair share. No such thing as a blow job without tongue. 

“Lick it.” This, in a voice a little higher than before, a little more desperate, and accompanied with another little yank in his hair. 

Will squeezed his eyes shut for a beat, gathering his patience, and opened his mouth. Trying to hide his hesitance, he lapped at it, right where a little bead of precum sat, shining pearlescent in the low light. 

Not something he’d serve for dinner.

But apparently, that lone gesture was enough. Matty loosed a rumbling curse, and his grip in Will’s hair tightened to the point of painful, knuckles digging into Will’s scalp. “Fuck,” he grunted, as Will’s tongue pulled away to drop another soft kiss against him. “Always so coy, fuck, playing hard to get.” He panted, Will dug his elbows into the mattress to give himself a little leverage. “Well, I’ve got you, now.”

That… that did not bode well.

Will leaned on one elbow and lifted the other off the bed, raising his hand to Matthew’s and gripping his wrist. He received a grunt for his efforts, and a gentler nudge forward this time. Fine. Another lap of that bitter liquid, and then the head prodded its way between his lips to bump against the roof of his mouth. He let go of Matty’s wrist in favor of pressing his hand to his hip, trying to keep Matty still.

He’d been with a girl one time who treated him to two phenomenal blowjobs in one night. They never made it to the bed, and they never made it to a second date. As usual, for him. But she knew what she was doing, to the point where even if she hadn’t been enjoying herself—which she most certainly was—he would have fallen apart in her hands. Or—mouth. 

Sometimes it was good to have a perfect memory. He channeled Sarah—or, uh, whatever her name was, they’d been a bit too impatient for introductions—as best he could, given that he didn’t have her level of practice. Fingers, lips, tongue, breath, all working together to wring Matthew dry as quickly as he could manage.

Matty seemed to appreciate it. He kept Will’s hand busy trying to fight down the slow grinding motion of his hips, uttering the raunchiest filth Will had ever heard. 

“Fuck, Will, fuck, you look so pretty with my cock in your mouth,” he said, as his hands dragged Will’s head forward again. Then another grunt, and then, a, “so pretty, so hot, fuck your mouth is so soft.”

Against all odds, Will found the tension in his brows dissipating. He leaned in, relaxed his throat, and let Matty’s hands tug him down. Not a comfortable fit—and he’d really have to reconsider his partner’s comfort the next time he had someone do this for him—and with his nose grinding against Matthew’s abdomen, thankfully groomed, he didn’t have much room to breathe.

But then—of course it would be groomed. Matthew had been waiting for this moment for a long time; he’d come prepared.

“Fuck, fuck,” Matty groaned, heedless of Will’s struggle, pressing Will in tighter against his pelvis, “fuck, no gag? Fuck, I’m gonna marry you.”

That—

Will suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, but he did make a noise of discontent, and that made Matty’s fingers spasm against his scalp. The split second of his loosened grip gave Will back control, and he pulled all the way off. The hand on Matty’s hip took over the work of his mouth for a second as he stretched his jaw. “Christ, Matty, you talk.”

“It’s working for you,” Matty said, despite all evidence to the contrary, as he cradled Will’s jaw in his hand, poking his thumb into Will’s mouth and pressing down on his tongue. “And you’re all mouth, aren’t you?”

Now Will did roll his eyes—and his tongue, for good measure—holding Matthew’s gaze and taking in the way it turned dark, hazy with pleasure. He didn’t enjoy the way Matty smeared his spit-slick thumb against his cheek, but whatever, that wasn’t the only fluid in or around his mouth at this point, so he let that go.

Maybe he shouldn’t have held eye contact. After the Hobbs incident, he’d been…just like after Eldon, where he’d felt stripped bare. Except now he was stripped bare, and this time, when he lowered his mouth to take Matty in, his skin prickled a little with Matthew’s anticipation. When his lips closed and his cheeks hollowed, he felt Matty’s answering groan like lightning shooting down his back. When Will’s hand, still holding Matty tight in his curled fingers, slid up and down again, Matty’s shakily indrawn breath made Will’s skin grow warm. 

Again, Will thought, licking a stripe down the side of Matthew’s cock. Matthew’s arousal buzzed around inside of his skull, lighting him up in a way that he had no business doing. Again.

“So good,” Matty moaned, his fingers tickling a path down the side of Will’s neck, then around to gently grasp the front of his throat. “You’re always so good for me, Will.”

Will’s eyelids fluttered, warmth spreading through him, giving in to the outside pressure of Matthew’s excitement. Riding the same wavelength. He tried not to think about it, but he’d gotten a little excited himself. When he took Matthew in deeper, he drank up the sound of Matthew’s arousal along with the briny taste in his mouth. 

“Fuck Will, so pretty,” Matthew said, brushing his fingers through Will’s hair again, sitting a little higher up against the headboard, hand scrambling under the pillows beside him. “Let me take another one.”

Take another one…?

Will peered up to find the camera of Matthew’s phone staring down at him again, and hoisted himself off of Matty so quickly that he almost toppled backward off the bed. “Matthew,” he growled, seeing red. He’d killed a man not so long ago. He’d kill Matty too, if he so much as—

But the phone landed on the mattress, forgotten, Matthew’s hand occupied now with stroking himself, gnawing on his lower lip like he wanted to rip it off. “Fuck,” he said. “Look at you.” His free hand reached forward and grabbed Will by the wrist and pulled him close again. “Looking like you wanted to cut me open.”

“Was about to,” Will said, off balance. He shouldn’t have been surprised, maybe, that Matthew would get off on that kind of thing—but somehow he hadn’t expected Matthew’s reaction. “You’re deleting that one too.”

“Yeah, fine, just—” Matthew grunted, squeezing himself hard, thumb pressed tight to his slit. “Wanna come in your mouth.”

A moment of hesitation, but Will crawled up the mattress again, resting his hands on Matthew’s knees before he resumed his previous position. “No pictures, Matthew.”

“Mhm.” He held on to himself until Will opened his mouth again, and then he let go in favor of clutching a handful of Will’s curls. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s it,” the moment Will’s lips closed around him, and then his hips began a slow, shallow pistoning that honestly spared Will a lot of the effort he’d been putting in before. 

He hummed—Matthew’s grip tightened. Grounding, he thought again, and his own hips pressed down into the mattress. 

“Fuck, baby, look at you,” Matthew said. “Slobbering on my cock.”

What. 

“Gonna fill you up,” he grunted. “Fuck, you should’ve seen yourself. That the face you made when you killed that—that Hobbs guy?” 

Will wanted to protest, but he kept going. Hollowing his cheeks, sucking, whatever, it didn’t matter. Matthew’d started talking and nothing would shut him up until he came. He tuned out the words and absorbed the feeling; Matthew’s grip tightening the more he lost control, the way the tone of his voice changed, words flowing faster, alternately deeper and pitchier, low sounds of pleasure breaking through his never-ending monologue.

“—so fucking pretty, covered in blood and—”

The mattress had started squeaking again with their asynchronous movements; becoming more synchronous, Will noted through the haze, as they went on. 

“—deadly, fuck, I’m gonna come baby, you—”

A pleasant fog descended over Will’s vision, as he let Matthew’s arousal buoy him, as he let himself grow pliant in Matthew’s hold.

“—give you everything, give you everything, I just—”

The warmth came next. Again, everywhere their skin touched, little fires lighting on his skin.

“—marry you, fuck, baby, I’m gonna—”

And then the heat, this time a blaze from inside. In his mouth, in his throat, in his gut.

“—Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Will, Will—” 

Matthew came. So did Will.

The timing was coincidental. 

Will’s eyes opened to the dark. To Matthew’s body curled around his, the sheets pulled up around their chins. He didn’t remember falling asleep. He remembered Matty’s voice, and his hands gripping around his arms. There might have been kisses—he’d been too insensate at that point, but Matthew hadn’t seemed to mind. He reached down and touched his abdomen, and found his skin had been wiped clean. 

From the man that hadn’t even worn underwear for what should’ve just been a dinner and a movie, that level of consideration honestly came as a surprise.

No matter how dense Will had been about Hannibal, he’d known what Matthew wanted from the first. He knew, coming over, what Matthew wanted from him. He’d known when they talked on the phone and Matthew’s voice grew breathy, his answers distracted, exactly what Matty was thinking. He hadn’t come over planning to give in to that desire, though.  

That just—just happened. 

He hadn’t come over planning to give in, but he’d done it regardless.   

You liked that, huh? You felt good. 

And you did, didn’t you? You felt good. I gave that to you.

He shook his head to clear out Hannibal’s voice. Matthew’s too. Or, he tried, but—

“Will?” Matthew murmured, rousing from sleep. Will turned in Matthew’s arms just as the hand around his waist gripped tighter. Matthew refused to release him, his face burrowed deeper into the juncture of Will’s neck and shoulder. His next words were a garbled mess, but Will got the gist—are you all right?

“It’s time to go,” he whispered, too endeared by Matthew’s sudden clinginess to fight the impulse, and planted a soft peck against his hairline. 

“No,” Matthew said. “You’re staying.”

That bordered more on annoying than sweet, but Will didn’t let his impatience seep into his tone when he repeated himself. He accompanied the words with a pressure on the younger man’s shoulder, loosening his grip a little. “Let go, Matty,” he whispered, smoothing a hand through his hair. 

After a little further coaxing, Matthew finally relented. His arm slid back across Will’s torso to curl up in front of his own chest, hand in a fist under his chin. Like a baby. 

Not risking any further delay, Will scooted away from Matthew’s side and out from under the covers. He paused for a moment as he scooped his discarded clothing off the floor to look at Matthew where he’d shifted into a foetal position in the middle of the mattress, nose buried into the pillow where Will had rested his head. 

He really looks so young like this. But then, he was young—objectively. 

And not just young, but immature. In retrospect, Will could say he’d had a fun night—sort of. Kind of. Matthew had a fun night, and Will had one too, by virtue of his empathy. But something about the evening… lacked. And that thought took him down a path he didn’t want to explore right now. Leave the thinking for later. 

Well—not all the thinking. 

Before he even bothered dressing, he ducked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Matthew’s comb sat on the second shelf. Out of sight, but not entirely cleaned up. Will plucked a few brown hairs from between its tines—ones with the roots still attached—and absconded with them. A little hair of the dog, right? He stole a plastic baggie from the box of them on Matthew’s counter and tucked the three hairs inside. 

That done, he tossed on the rest of his clothing, checked the living room for any of his possessions, and then grabbed his shoes. Matthew still lay dead asleep in bed; Will slowed down, taking his time lacing up his boots and putting on his outerwear. Fingers in gloves, evidence in pocket, and hat on head, Will cracked open the front door. The cold wafted in, and even so warmly clothed, Will regretted having to step back outside. 

A moment of temptation possessed him then; he could simply shut the door, shed the coat, and crawl back into bed. It didn’t even bother him that it wouldn’t be his bed, or that he wouldn’t be alone. At least, it didn’t now—it probably would if he were to act on that temptation. But he wouldn’t. 

He wouldn’t. 

It took a second to gather himself enough to duck out the front door. He shut it behind him, considering that it would have to remain unlocked. But nobody would be breaking into Matthew’s apartment to steal anything—what did he have worth stealing?—and if anyone tried to attack him, Matthew would probably hold his own. So he didn’t bother doing anything about it, only started on his way down the stairs to where he had left his car parked outside. 

He settled into his driver seat, engine running to warm up, hands rubbing together for the same reason. One eye stayed on Matthew’s window, watching for a light to turn on, in case Matthew woke. But Will backed out of his spot and onto the narrow side-street, and the house remained dark. 

When he merged off the bridge, he turned onto the George Washington Parkway. No tolls, no construction. And even this late at night, it had something of a view: the fog rolling down over the Potomac, the glittering lights of Georgetown and DC beyond it across the river. It took until he pulled his car up in front of his house, his little boat at sea, to realize what exactly had happened.

What he’d done. 

You fucked Matthew Brown. 

The words clanged around in his skull, cacophonous, pitchy with panic, distracting him from the calm all around him. 

Actually, that’s not even true. You let Matthew Brown fuck you. 

God. And he’d even enjoyed it a little…?

If he slammed the front door of his house open like a policeman serving a no-knock warrant, only the dogs were around to hear it. And despite his indecent activities for the evening, they greeted him with all the unquestioning love and affection that only they could grant him. Used to be, he could include Hannibal as the sole person who could provide that—not so much, anymore. 

Will buried his face in his hands, rubbing his palms against his closed eyelids, wishing he could live in the sparkling darkness there forever. Not have to wake up tomorrow and have Matthew expecting—

Because he would expect. 

Will had gotten so caught up in Matthew’s desires, so plainly written on his face, in the way he moved, in the words he chose, that they had echoed in the cavern of Will’s mind, reverberated there, and come out of his own mouth, amplified. This happened, sometimes. Mirror neurons, and all that. But it rarely got so out of hand, rarely felt so all-encompassing in the moment. 

Now, he had regret. But he also had the lingering warmth and the memory of his own impassioned responses to everything Matthew gave him. 

This called for whiskey, and a lot of it. 

He didn’t even bother with a glass. Refinement had fled out the window the moment that Matthew stuck his hands down the front of Will’s jeans. He shook his head to clear those intrusive thoughts and then took a long pull from the mouth of the bottle. He didn’t even afford it the respect of savoring it; he gulped it down, one mouthful at a time, focusing on the burn rather than the flavor. 

Hannibal would throw a fit. 

Well, he wouldn’t really. Hannibal had a high tolerance for Will’s lack of refinement and misbehavior, even seemed to find it charming, every so often. So chugging down the whiskey wouldn’t offend him. 

This… this tryst he just had, though. 

Yeah, that would… that would not go over well. 

Allow me to reiterate my friendly concern that what Matthew Brown wants is not simple friendship.

It would not go over well at all. 

We are friends, aren’t we, Will?

The bottle nearly toppled as Will plunked it on his nightstand, but he caught it by the neck and righted it in the split second before he flopped face-first onto his bed. 

His groan of frustration came out long and loud; Winston padded over from the living room, cajoling him with gentle whines, the soft press of his muzzle, his humid breath. When his breath ghosted over the skin of Will’s ankle, where a strip of it lay bare between sock and hem, Will nearly flew from the bed and up the stairs to the bathroom. 

His skin tingled with the memory of those kisses, the filth that spewed out of Matthew’s mouth as he pressed them to the bone.

Will ran the shower as hot as he could, grabbed his toothbrush and squeezed half the tube of toothpaste onto it with quaking hands.

Left fallow… by whom? And more to the point, to be planted and cultivated hereafter by whom?

He brushed so hard his gums bled, and he could hear the faint echoes of Dr. Robin’s disapprobation the last time he sat in the dentist’s chair. It didn’t matter that his mouth burned even more as he swished his mouthwash than it had when he’d drowned himself in Beam. The water scorched his skin, and it burned even more, the way his mouth had, as he scrubbed his skin clean.

Have you purged the toxins, Will?

“Not cleansed or reinvigorated,” Will grumbled, stepping out of the shower, wrapping himself in his towel, and heading back to bed. Tackling the stairs on the way down took more effort, now that the adrenaline had worn off, and only the soreness remained. 

But none of this mattered. Will tossed on a clean shirt and pair of boxers, slid under his cold, unrumpled sheets, still tucked in on either side, the pressure of their tension over his body keeping him still. Like a straight-jacket. Hannibal wouldn’t find out about what happened with Matty—

With Matthew—

Because Hannibal and Matthew were not on speaking terms. 

And neither were he and Hannibal, at this point. 

God, if he did find out, though. 

Will closed his eyes, determined to sleep. But how could he? The alcohol hadn’t lulled him, and his mind jumped from one thought to another, spiraling. Have I ever seen Hannibal angry? 

The stunt he’d pulled with Hobbs… that counted, right? But he’d never seen Hannibal angry. Seen him act in anger, or display his anger. Calling Hobbs. Letting Will walk into the belly of the beast. That hadn’t been anger, precisely. 

Opportunity.

Hannibal wouldn’t have let harm come to him. Not really. He might be a psychopath, a serial killer, but Hannibal presented no threat to him. Will knew what Hannibal wanted from him, and neither blood nor punishment numbered on that list. 

Vaguely, he remembered having similar thoughts about Matthew. Ages ago. Back when Elliot Budish had been making angels, and the Chesapeake Ripper was no more than a specter on the horizon, to be aware of and admired from afar. Back then, even from that distance, he’d felt closer to Hannibal than anyone else.

Is this how you usually go about building friendships, Doctor Lecter? Lure them in with food and discussions of murder over drinks, with a little psychoanalysis for dessert?

He’d gotten the food, the discussions of murder over drinks. But from Matty. Hannibal again felt light-years out of his reach. 

He should feel some sort of relief. Nobody wanted to have the Ripper as a yoke over their shoulders. And yet, when they’d talked about Hobbs… light, and air, and color. 

Matty had wanted to talk numbers and have sex. 

One of those filled him; one fulfilled him. It was on the latter which his thoughts dwelt, as he fell asleep.

If Will were anyone else, he might have felt surprise at being ripped from sleep well before sunrise by the ringing on his nightstand. But Jack had inured him to early morning wake-ups months and months ago, and after the evening he’d had, his mind had known to prepare for just such an eventuality. 

Matthew had woken, noticed Will gone, and of course—

“Hey there, pretty boy.”

Will clocked a sense of irony at being a good eight years older than him and still having earned ‘pretty boy’ for a nickname. 

“I was sleeping, Matthew,” he said, and damn it all if he didn’t have to coach his tongue to form the complete word, after an evening of shortening it to Matty. 

“You sound like you had a good night,” Matthew said. “Voice sounds good.”

“Throat’s sore,” Will grumped, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. Stupid. He gave Matthew what he wanted to hear. Praising him, in effect, after that transparent allusion to their most recent… escapades. 

“I’ve got a home remedy I can give you for that.”

“No, thank you. I’m fine. It’s early, Matthew.” Get. To the. Point.

“I woke up, and you were gone,” he said. “Didn’t have much last night. Well. Food, anyway. I thought I’d bring you breakfast.”

Will’s stomach turned at the prospect, the whiskey having left behind a hole in his stomach. “I think I’m good.” The second time he’d turned Matthew down with a statement about his fineness. 

“You are good,” Matthew said, and his voice floated over, heavy with innuendo. 

Christ. “I want to go back to sleep, Matty. Why are you calling?” But this bit of forthrightness, even coldness, didn’t seem to bother Matthew. What’s a little rudeness between friends, after all? 

“It’s not enough that I wanted to hear your voice?”

“No.”

“It’s cute how grumpy you get,” Matthew murmured. 

In the distance, he heard the slamming of a car door, echoed down the line, and Will’s heart sank to his stomach. In the single sickest moment of his life, Will found himself wishing that the car door shutting belonged to Hannibal—or even, for fuck’s sake, Jack Crawford. 

“We have a lot we didn’t get to talk about last night.”

And then the dogs crowded the front window, tails wagging, barking their enthusiasm.

Will’s feet felt leaden as he dragged himself from the bed. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he passed and stopped dead in his tracks. 

How the—

He looked like he’d been mauled, bite marks and suck bruises mottling the skin on both sides of his neck, down to his shoulders, over his collar bones. Like a flash of lightning he recalled the way Matty’s fingers had dug into the flesh of his thighs, and almost passed out from mortification. 

His free hand shook as he raised it to the doorknob, desperate for any reprieve from having to face his last evening’s indiscretions. “Like what?” he asked, and depressed the door handle, pulling it open. 

As expected, there stood Matthew Brown, clutching a bag of takeout McDonalds and a drink carrier with two to-go coffees in hand. He smelled like fried food and sex; his hair, disheveled, like he’d just rolled out of bed, thrown on the nearest pair of sweatpants, and grabbed his t-shirt off the floor. Even his coat hung open, probably strategically, to show a peek of one of his tattoos. 

Wanna see your name there, too?

But what struck Will the most was the victory, the jubilation in his smile as he hung the phone up and tucked it into his pocket. Will took a step backward. Just enough for Matthew to step around him, make his way inside the house.

He should have stepped further back. In passing, Matthew thrust the coffee tray into Will’s hands, freeing up one of his own. Those treacherous fingers snaked around the side of Will’s hip, dropped a few inches and squeezed a handful of the flesh through the worn cotton of the back of his boxers. Will didn’t fight the gasp as soreness bloomed where Matthew squeezed him, too busy fighting down the memory of that grip as it coaxed Will’s body into motion.

He almost dropped the coffee. The hand lingered, but Matthew’s leer softened to something disturbingly fond. Vaguely, Will heard the front door shut, but the sound got swallowed up by the warm puff of Matthew’s breath against his ear as he leaned in to dot a kiss on Will’s cheek.

“Like what we’re going to do about Doctor Lecter.”

-+-