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Winged Cupid painted blind, that soft little god hovering in old oils and frescoes, cheeks round and flushed as fruit, eyes wrapped in linen so he cannot see what he wounds.
He imagines the arrow leaving the bowstring with a small, decisive sound. Cupid’s arrows are barbed, he thinks. Paintings like to forget that part. They picture gold and flutter and rosy mischief, but the tips are hooked. Sharp. Designed to catch. Hard to remove without tearing the wound wider than it was before. Hannibal feels that barb lodged in him whenever Will is near. He feels it when Will breathes in the same room, when the floor creaks beneath his weight, when the air changes in that quiet, chemical way it does when one living thing recognizes another.
It used to be dull. That is the word that fits best. A dull ache. An ache that made him impulsive in small ways, calling too late, lingering too long, letting a silence stretch when he knew he could end it. It made him lonely in an unfamiliar register. Not the vast, cultivated solitude he had always known, but something closer, more irritating. A loneliness that arrived at odd hours. He would wake before dawn and miss Will with a clarity that startled him, miss the particular drag of his voice. He became aware of himself in ways he never had been before. He did not like it.
Now it is sharper. The ache has learned an edge.
Cupid, careless or not, has struck him in the most vulnerable place: the soft underbelly he rarely acknowledges even to himself. The place where the ribs part just enough to admit a hand. Will puts his hand there sometimes when they lie together on his couch. Just a resting weight, warm through fabric. Fingers curved slightly, as if holding something that could be startled into flight. Hannibal lies still when it happens. He does not adjust. He does not guide. He lets the hand remain where it lands, and he wonders whether Cupid is truly a reckless child or the intelligent, immortal god he has always been.
That is one thing gods share, Hannibal thinks. They laugh. They laugh because they can afford to. When Will is near, the arrow sinks deeper. Not because Will pushes it, but because the body itself tightens around it, trying to make sense of the foreign object lodged in its flesh. Hannibal feels it in his stomach first. A tightening, a small inward pull, as if something essential is being gently but firmly claimed. He has known hunger. This is not that. Hunger moves outward. This pulls him in.
Cupid’s blindness makes sense to him now. If the god could see, he might hesitate. He might choose differently. Blind, he shoots true, unburdened by consequence. He does not consult the future. It does not negotiate. It does not ask whether the body it enters can survive the intrusion. It simply arrives, barbed and bright, and waits to see what will happen next.
He wonders, often, what it would be like to tear the barbed thing out. Not gently. But decisively, the way one removes a hook from flesh when patience has failed and the body is already shaking from the effort of keeping still. He imagines fingers closing around the shaft of it, slick with his own warmth, and pulling. He knows what would happen. The barb would catch, tear backward, shred whatever fragile order had formed around the intrusion. Skin would give. Tissue would protest. What had been a contained hurt would become something obscene in its openness, gaping, undeniable, emptied of all pretense.
He thinks of this often. More often than he admits to himself. The thought comes uninvited, arriving in the quiet moments: while washing his hands, while waiting for Will to finish a thought, while lying awake beside him and listening to the soft, unguarded sounds of sleep. He wonders whether the violence of removal would be worse than the ongoing occupation. Whether the body prefers a constant ache to a single catastrophic rupture.
He does not know the answer. That troubles him more than the pain itself.
Frequently, Hannibal wonders what has been done to him. He has known desire. He has known attachment. This is not those things exactly, though it borrows freely from all of them. This feels… younger. More disorganized. As though some interior architecture has been rearranged without his consent. He feels things now that arrive without warning. Irritations that are not irritations. Longings that refuse to name themselves. A tenderness that appears suddenly and then embarrasses him by lingering. He is aware of Will in a way that is not strategic. Not acquisitive. Simply aware. Of his moods. Of the weight he carries in his shoulders. Of the particular sadness that sharpens his eyes when he is quiet too long.
It is inconvenient. It is destabilizing. Cupid no longer feels like the correct god. Cupid is decorative. Cupid is mischief. Cupid belongs to salons and ceilings and playful cruelty. Cupid wounds from a distance and flits away, laughing, cheeks flushed, satisfied with the chaos left behind.
Eros, then. The older name. The heavier one. Eros is not cherubic. Eros is hunger. Eros is gravity. Eros is the thing that pulls matter together until something new forms, whether it survives the pressure or not. Eros is not interested in romance. He is interested in creation and destruction, and the thin, terrifying line where the two are indistinguishable. To name the god is to understand the wound. Cupid wounds the surface. Eros rearranges the interior. Cupid strikes and leaves. Eros remains. He burrows. He builds a nest in the damage and calls it home.
If it is Eros who struck him, then tearing the barb out would not be simple extraction. It would be amputation. It would mean removing something that has already been integrated into his sense of self. The emptiness left behind would not be clean. It would echo. It would demand to be filled. He has always trusted his ability to endure pain. Pain is finite. Pain obeys rules. Pain can be contextualized, aestheticized, even enjoyed. But this is not pain alone. This is vulnerability. This is the unsettling realization that something essential has been placed in another person’s hands without formal agreement.
Will does not know this. That, perhaps, is the most dangerous part.
Will moves through the world as though unaware of the effect he has. His care is unselfconscious, almost negligent in its generosity. When his hand rests on Hannibal’s stomach, it is not a declaration. It is not even a question. It is simply where his hand happens to land. That thought makes the wound ache more sharply than intention ever could.
There is something in him now that resists erasure. Something stubborn and untrained. A part of him that wants to know how deep the wound can go before it becomes fatal. A part of him that wonders whether the tearing would finally make visible what he feels but cannot articulate. Eros does not promise survival. He promises intensity. Hannibal feels that intensity in small, humiliating ways. In the way he waits for Will’s approval without admitting that is what he is doing. In the way his attention sharpens when Will is distressed. In the way he imagines absence not as relief but as loss.
He is changed. There is no denying it now.
This was not supposed to happen. Somewhere, in the midst of all his careful planning, between intention and execution, between patience and design, he was struck. He had plans. He still has plans. That matters to him. He can still smell Will when he leans close, when an embrace happens briefly. There is a sickly sweetness there, something faintly overripe, like fruit just past its best moment. Hannibal presses his nose to Will’s neck for a fraction of a second too long and inhales.
That has not changed.
He still intends to guide Will into his becoming. Will’s mind is rich, dark, full of strange growths forced into contortions by shame. Hannibal knows exactly how to tend it. He knows where to loosen, where to cut back, where to let something dangerous bloom. He wants to show Will how beautiful he is. He wants to take Will’s shame, the reflexive recoil from his own desires, the way he cowers internally from the shape of himself, and replace it with something else. These intentions remain intact.
And yet.
There is a tenderness that has grown inside Hannibal, unplanned and uninvited. It makes him forget himself. Worse, it has been making him forget himself for some time now. The impulsivity. The small, inexplicable deviations from routine. Leaving his office without sufficient reason. Driving to Quantico. Simply going because Will is there, and he missed his appointment. He had revealed something then, something about the Chesapeake Ripper that no one else knew. A private truth. He had watched it land in Will’s expression, that brief, unguarded moment of understanding.
It was impulsive. And worse—it was desperate. Desperate to be known. Hannibal has always known himself. Or believed he did. To want to be known by another person, not studied, not admired, not decoded, but known, feels like a fundamental miscalculation. This tenderness has altered the meaning of his earlier discomfort. The dull ache he once dismissed as irritation, as restlessness, as the cost of proximity, it has resolved into something painfully clear.
Loneliness.
Will gave it shape. Gave it contrast. Made it visible by standing too close.
Some nights, Hannibal lies awake and reconstructs the sequence of events, searching for the moment he should have corrected course. He cannot find it. He still believes in Will’s becoming. That belief has not weakened. If anything, it has intensified. But it has been joined by something else. Care.
Care that makes him pause when he should proceed. Care that makes him ache when Will is frightened. Care that makes him imagine, briefly and dangerously, a version of the future that is not constructed but shared.
This was not supposed to happen.
And yet it has.
Cupid would have left him untouched except for appetite. Eros has made him porous.
They have not been dating for very long. The phrase itself feels faintly ridiculous to Hannibal, as if what they are doing could be reduced to something with rules, with a recognizable shape. Still, he reaches for it because there is no better word. It is what other people would call this, if they knew. Which they do not.
Only a few dinners so far. Carefully spaced. Hannibal’s home first, naturally. His table, his plates, his pacing. He remembers the initial vigilance in Will’s posture, the way his shoulders remained subtly drawn. Hannibal had watched him eat, pretending not to notice how quickly Will adapted, how he relaxed into the rhythm of the evening despite himself. That had pleased him more than he expected.
There had been touches, small, incidental, almost innocent. A hand brushing a wrist as a plate was passed. Fingers lingering for a half-second too long on the back of a chair. Nothing that could be remarked upon. Nothing Jack Crawford could ever suspect, even if he were looking closely. Which he is not. Hannibal makes certain of that.
They do not let Jack know a thing.
Later came dinners at Will’s home in Wolf Trap. Hannibal had not anticipated how much he would prefer those. He tells himself it is convenience, novelty, the anthropological interest of observing Will in his own environment. He tells himself many things. None of them quite land.
Will’s house smells different. Earthier. Dog hair, old wood, something damp and persistent beneath it all. The light behaves differently there, less curated, more accidental. Hannibal finds himself watching Will move through the space. The way he navigates the kitchen, the way he curses to inanimate objects when he bumps into them, the way his voice lowers without effort when he is home.
Hannibal does not examine this preference too closely. He suspects it would be unwise.
Their touches there have been no less careful. Innocent, he thinks again, and the word tastes strange. Innocence implies an absence of knowledge. That is not what this is. It is restraint. Mutual. A shared agreement not to rush whatever fragile thing is forming between them. Sometimes, when Hannibal leaves, Will kisses his cheek. Cordial. Almost old-fashioned. The kind of gesture that could mean nothing at all. And yet Hannibal feels it long after he is back in his car. He presses his fingers briefly to the place, then stops himself, faintly annoyed.
It has been sweet.
So sweet it makes him uneasy.
The sweetness sits oddly on his palate, like sugar pressed too insistently against enamel. He has the a thought that he might get a cavity from it, that it might dull his sharpest molar, soften an edge he has always relied upon. Will remains closed off. He himself is closed off as well. They are circling each other carefully, each aware that the other is holding something back. Hiding things. Assessing. Apprehensive in ways neither would articulate aloud.
Will is beautiful. That remains constant. He is pleasant company, genuinely so. He listens. He asks questions that matter. He grows animated when something interests him and retreats inward when it does not. Will is interesting. Fascinating. Hannibal prefers his company over anyone else’s. Other conversations feel thinner by comparison. Other dinners lack a certain tension he has grown accustomed to, a low hum of awareness that sharpens his attention.
He finds himself missing Will. Will remains shameful. It shapes the way he receives praise, the way he deflects affection, the way he seems faintly bewildered whenever Hannibal regards him with open admiration. Will does not yet understand why Hannibal thinks these things of him. He suspects, perhaps, that they are exaggerated, strategic, or mistaken.
Sometimes he wonders whether Will has been struck too. Whether there is an arrow lodged in Will’s belly as well, barbed and unseen. Whether Will feels a tightening when Hannibal enters a room. Whether he lies awake some nights thinking of Hannibal’s hands, his voice, his attention. Whether the sweetness tastes dangerous to him, too.
They are still early in this. Still pretending, in small ways, that what they are doing could remain contained. Hannibal suspects this is temporary. Sweetness rarely remains harmless for long. For now, though, he allows himself this small indulgence: dinners, touches, kisses on the cheek. The quiet pleasure of company preferred. The unfamiliar ache of missing someone who is not yet gone.
He does not know what Eros intends to do with them next.
What he does know is that he has begun to retreat. He has been stretching the space between visits, lets days accrue without explanation. He replies with courtesy, but without warmth. He keeps the rhythm professional. Measured. Safe. He tells himself it is temporary. A correction. A pause to regain equilibrium.
He tells himself many things.
Will notices, of course. Hannibal would have been insulted if he hadn’t.
They see one another by appointment. Hannibal’s office, with its careful light, becomes the boundary. A place where chairs define distance and the clock governs intimacy. Will arrives on time. He sits, attentive, alert, his body angled forward as if ready to spring. Hannibal keeps his hands folded. He keeps his tone even. He does not let himself lean in.
“How have you been sleeping?” Hannibal asks.
Will considers this, eyes narrowing. “Fine.”
“Headaches?”
“Sometimes.”
“Any gaps in memory?”
Will stiffens. “No.”
He makes a mark on his pad he does not need. He listens. He does not touch. When Will leaves, Hannibal stands only after the door has closed. He remains there a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space Will occupied as if it might still be warm.
He cooks meals he knows Will would like and eats them alone. He pours wine and does not finish it. He catches himself listening for sounds that will not come, boots on the step, a knock at the door, Will’s hesitant voice asking if he can come in.
But he can only last so long.
At their next appointment, Will finally says it.
“You’re keeping me at arm’s length,” he says.
Hannibal meets his gaze. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Will says. “You are.”
“Why do you think that is?” Hannibal asks.
Will’s mouth twists. “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”
Hannibal feels the pull to reassure, to bridge the gap he has widened. He resists it. He speaks carefully. “We are navigating unfamiliar territory,” he says. “Caution is not unreasonable.”
Will leans back, crossing his arms. “It’s not caution if it only goes one way.”
The truth of that lands cleanly. “Tell me what you want,” he says, gently.
Will’s eyes flicker. “You know.”
Hannibal does. He knows he cannot keep this up indefinitely. Distance is not neutral; it is an action with consequences.
So, Will has agreed to go with him to the opera tonight. The agreement itself had been understated, almost shy. Just a pause, a glance away, and then a quiet, “All right,” spoken as though it surprised him to hear it leave his own mouth.
The last time he saw Will for a proper date, Hannibal had gone along with Will while he fished near Wolf Trap, the narrow water darkened by fallen leaves and recent rain. The ground had been soft underfoot, the air damp and sweet with rot and green things breaking down into one another. Autumn on the verge of collapse into winter. Hannibal had brought a blanket and spread it on the grass a little ways from the bank, careful not to disturb Will’s concentration. He had brought a sketchbook, too, and charcoal, and had sat watching.
Will waded into the stream with practiced ease, boots braced against the current. Hannibal noticed the way his shoulders settled when he fished, the way tension drained from him as if the water were drawing it out through his legs. He drew him like that, head bent, line cast, the suggestion of motion rather than its capture. He did not aim for accuracy so much as presence. He wanted the drawing to feel like Will felt in that moment.
The lure Will had made himself flashed briefly beneath the surface. Hannibal watched it disappear and reappear, a small glint of intention in the moving water. When Will caught the fish, it was large. Larger than Hannibal had expected. He heard the sudden splash, the startled churn, and then Will’s voice, surprised, pleased, unguarded.
“Got one,” he said, breathless, laughing under it.
He came up the bank toward Hannibal with the fish held carefully, as if it were something both fragile and powerful. The fish’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, gills flaring, body flexing with a blind insistence on continuation. Will crouched beside the blanket and held it out.
“Look,” he said. “Look at that.”
Hannibal leaned in, studying it closely. The fish was beautiful, sleek, patterned, its body built entirely for motion. Its mouth popped open and shut, persistent, insistent.
“My new lure worked,” Will said, pride softening his voice. “I shaped it wrong the first few times. Too symmetrical. Fish don’t trust symmetry.”
“Neither do people,” Hannibal murmured.
They ate the fish later that day, cooked simply. The meal had been quiet and companionable. Hannibal noticed how relaxed Will was, how his appetite returned without guilt. He could smell Will’s happiness, something floral and warm beneath the usual sharper notes. It was subtle, but unmistakable.
Now they are at the opera.
The shift from stream to velvet and chandeliers should have felt abrupt. It does not. Hannibal finds himself oddly grounded, as though the earlier intimacy has carried forward into this new setting. Will sits beside him, close enough that their knees almost touch. Hannibal can feel the warmth of him through fabric.
Will listens intently as the music swells, his attention earnest, almost vulnerable. Hannibal leans close and whispers translations into his ear, softly, carefully, conscious of breath and proximity. He keeps his voice low, intimate, just for Will.
Will tilts his head slightly toward him, unconsciously accommodating the closeness. His dark curls brush Hannibal’s cheek, tickle his nose. Hannibal inhales without meaning to and catches the scent of Will’s aftershave, something warm, faintly bitter, threaded with sickness. It makes him dizzy, just a little. Enough to notice.
Will looks handsome tonight. He wears a suit Hannibal has never seen before, cut well, slightly unfamiliar on his frame. It suggests effort. Consideration. Hannibal feels something sharp and pleased twist inside him at the thought that Will chose this, chose to present himself.
“You don’t have to translate the whole time,” Will murmurs during a pause, a smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth.
“I enjoy it,” Hannibal replies.
They rise with the rest of the audience, the movement slow and collective, a tide lifting bodies from velvet seats into the dim, applauding light. The sound is enormous now, hands clapping, voices murmuring. Hannibal feels it in his chest, the resonance of it.
Will straightens beside him, smoothing his jacket in a small, absent gesture.
“Did it please you?” Hannibal asks.
Will nods at once. “Yeah,” he says. “I did.”
Hannibal turns his head to look at him more fully, intending perhaps to say something else, something complimentary, something measured, but he stops short when he sees Will’s expression shift. Will frowns slightly, eyes narrowing with concentration rather than concern. He leans in a fraction, his voice dropping.
“You’re teary-eyed,” he says.
Hannibal blinks. He lifts a hand instinctively, as if to confirm the fact of it without touching. There is no embarrassment exactly. Only surprise.
“The music affects me,” he says calmly. “It always has.” A pause, thoughtful. “It bypasses the intellect. Goes straight for the places one usually defends.”
Will watches him closely. “That’s not something you like giving up,” he says. “Control.”
“No,” Hannibal agrees. “But beauty has a way of negotiating surrender without force.” He exhales softly. “It reminds me of Schopenhauer, how art suspends the will. For a moment, one is not striving. One is simply… present.”
Will’s frown eases, something warmer settling in its place. “Yeah,” he says. “That makes sense. It feels like that to me too. Like the noise steps back.”
“Not only the words,” Hannibal continues, finding that he wants, unexpectedly, to be horribly understood, “but the singer herself. Her discipline. Her restraint. She allows the emotion to surface without indulging it.” A faint, reflective smile. “I once invited her to a dinner party.”
Will’s eyebrows lift. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
“That must’ve been nice,” Will says. There is a horrible fondness in his eyes. A fondness only Hannibal sees when Will looks at his dogs. “A dinner party like that.”
Hannibal studies him, noting the way his hands hover at his sides before sliding into his pockets, the way he shifts his weight.
“You know you are welcome to come to the next one,” Hannibal says lightly, but not carelessly. “Any time. You would not be an obligation. You would be… wanted.”
Will shrugs, small and deliberately uncommitted, his shoulders rising and falling in a way that signals both interest and self-protection. “Maybe,” he says. “The opera’s enough for now.” A pause, then more honestly, “Crowds like that make me feel like I’m performing even when I’m standing still.”
Hannibal nods, thoughtful rather than disappointed. “That is understandable,” he says. “Social rituals are demanding. They ask us to be legible.”
“Yeah,” Will replies. “And I’m not great at that.”
“Neither am I,” Hannibal says quietly, almost wry. “I simply disguise it better.” He inclines his head, conceding the point without pressing it. “Of course.”
The applause begins to taper, the house gradually dissolving into clusters of conversation. People turn to one another, faces animated, eager to speak while the feeling is still fresh. Hannibal feels the familiar pull of recognition, acquaintances, colleagues, patrons. A social current he knows how to navigate blindfolded.
He glances past Will’s shoulder, scanning the crowd with practiced ease.
“Would you mind,” Hannibal asks, “if I took a moment to circulate among my acquaintances?”
Will follows his gaze across the crowd, then back to Hannibal. “Sure,” he says. “I imagine they’ve got a lot of questions.”
Hannibal’s smile is faint, knowing. “Questions you are under no obligation to entertain,” he says.
Will exhales through his nose, something close to a laugh. “Good.”
“But,” Hannibal adds, his voice lowering just enough to be private, “I can feel their admiration for you. It’s unmistakable.”
Will’s mouth tightens almost imperceptibly. He looks away, gaze drifting toward the ornate curve of the balcony, the slow dispersal of the crowd. “They admire what I can do,” he says.
Hannibal turns toward him fully now. The noise around them fades, or perhaps he simply stops hearing it.
“I admire what you do,” Hannibal says carefully, “but that is not why I admire you.”
Will looks back at him, something fond returning to his eyes. “It’s different, coming from you. I’ll stay here.”
“Yes,” Hannibal says softly. “It is.”
They stand there for a moment longer, suspended in that difference. He understands what Will means. Admiration for function versus admiration for being. Praise for utility versus recognition of essence. Will has lived too long under the former to trust the latter.
Hannibal moves away, slipping easily into conversation, offering smiles and measured responses, accepting praise for the evening, for his taste, for his presence. He listens without truly listening, his attention divided. He finds his gaze returning again and again to where Will stands slightly apart, hands in his pockets, posture alert. Observing rather than participating. Hannibal feels a flicker of something sharp and proprietary at that. That just won’t do. Doesn’t he know Hannibal prefers him?
The thought startles Hannibal with its nakedness. He tightens his attention, schooling his expression as Ms. Komeda approaches him, her presence announced by a familiar perfume and the faint rustle of silk.
“Dr. Lecter,” she says warmly. “Another triumph.”
“It was a remarkable performance.”
Ms. Komeda hums in agreement. “You have such an eye for these things. Tell me—when are you going to throw another dinner party?”
“Soon, perhaps,” Hannibal says. “I find they are best when not rushed.”
“Of course,” she says, smiling. “You always curate so thoughtfully. I still think about the last one.”
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” Hannibal replies. “An evening should haunt its guests a little. Leave them altered in some small, indefinable way.” His gaze drifts, reflective. “Otherwise, it has merely passed time, rather than asked anything of it.”
They speak for a few minutes about the opera, about the singer’s phrasing, about the acoustics of the hall. Hannibal offers observations precise enough to satisfy, vague enough to avoid intimacy. All the while, his awareness keeps drifting, an instinctive check, a quiet roll call. Will is still there. Then someone else joins them. A woman Hannibal has met before, sharp-eyed, elegantly dressed, amused by him. She stands too close. Her voice lowers unnecessarily. She laughs at something Hannibal has not said yet.
He glances past her shoulder, seeking Will without conscious intention. He does not see him. The absence registers immediately. Hannibal’s attention sharpens. He continues speaking, answering a question about the program, about the singer’s training, but his gaze moves again, more deliberately this time.
Still nothing. The space where Will stood is empty now, occupied by strangers in motion. Hannibal feels a faint tightening beneath his ribs. He tells himself it is nothing. Will does not need supervision. And yet the room feels altered by the lack of him, as though a familiar frequency has dropped out of range.
The woman beside him leans closer. Her hand brushes his sleeve.
“You really should let yourself be distracted once in a while,” she says. “You carry such gravity. It would be a shame not to set it down.”
Hannibal smiles faintly, distracted in precisely the opposite direction. Then, contact. A hand settles at the small of his back, firm and unmistakably intentional. Hannibal inhales sharply before he can stop himself. The scent arrives with it. Not the familiar floral warmth of Will’s contentment from earlier. This is sharper. Something green and mineral beneath it.
Hannibal turns. Will stands close now, nearer than propriety technically allows, his hand still resting at Hannibal’s back as though it has always belonged there. His expression is easy, relaxed in a way that makes something in Hannibal loosen involuntarily.
“Hey,” Will says.
Hannibal feels a smile rise before he has chosen it.
“Will,” he says, and there is warmth in his voice he does not bother to hide. He turns slightly, angling his body so that Will is included rather than appended.
He looks at the woman beside him, then back at Will.
“Will Graham,” Hannibal says smoothly. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him in passing.”
Will’s hand remains where it is. He does not withdraw it. He looks at the woman with polite neutrality, nodding once. “Hi,” he says.
Recognition flickers in her eyes almost instantly. Interest recalibrates. The tone shifts.
“Oh,” she says. “Yes. Of course. FBI.”
Hannibal watches the exchange with a curious internal stillness. The proprietary edge he felt earlier eases, not because it has disappeared, but because it has been answered. Will is here. Will has come back to him. Will has placed his hand where Hannibal can feel it.
The questions come the way Hannibal expects them to, soft at first, curious, almost polite.
“So, Mr. Graham,” someone says, one of Ms. Komeda’s acquaintances, a man with an eager smile and a glass of champagne held too carefully—“what exactly is it that you do for the Bureau?”
Will exhales through his nose. Hannibal hears it.
“I consult,” Will says. “Mostly.”
“Consult how?” another voice asks, this one a woman, bright-eyed.
Will shifts his weight. “I look at crime scenes. I reconstruct what happened.”
“In your head?” the man asks. “I’ve read about that. You sort of… get inside the killer’s mind?”
Will’s jaw tightens. Just a fraction. Enough that it pricks something warm and sharp inside him at once, fondness, yes, and something more territorial beneath it. He glances at Hannibal before he answers. “I pay attention,” Will says. “I notice patterns most people don’t want to look at too closely. That’s it.”
“That sounds exhausting,” someone says.
“It can be,” Will replies. “Which is why I don’t usually talk about it at parties.”
There’s a small laugh at that, a ripple of social acknowledgment, but the curiosity doesn’t recede. Hannibal can feel it circling Will, pressing in. He watches Will’s shoulders draw a little tighter, his hands sliding deeper into his pockets.
“So you’re seeing… terrible things all the time?” the man persists. “How do you live with that?”
“Same way anyone lives with anything they don’t get to choose. You compartmentalize. Or you don’t. Depends on the day.”
Hannibal feels it then, an almost unbearable affection. The blunt honesty. The refusal to romanticize his own suffering. The quiet irritation Will doesn’t bother to hide. Hannibal wonders, briefly, if Cupid is somewhere overhead now, fluttering his ridiculous wings in delight, pleased with the small chaos he’s caused. Or if Eros stands farther back, arms crossed, watching with patient satisfaction.
Will shifts again, clearly nearing the end of his tolerance.
“And what about you?” the woman asks Hannibal suddenly, turning with relief. “How did you two meet?”
Hannibal steps in smoothly, grateful for the opening. “Through work,” he says. “Though not in the way you are imagining.”
Will snorts softly at that, unable to help himself.
Hannibal smiles. “Will has a tendency to be misunderstood.”
Will tilts his head, giving Hannibal a look. “That’s generous.”
The man laughs. “You two sound like you’ve known each other a long time.”
“Long enough,” Will says before Hannibal can answer.
Hannibal turns back to the small group, redirecting with practiced ease. “If you’ll forgive me, I believe we’ve interrogated Will sufficiently for one evening.”
There’s a collective chuckle, a loosening. Someone raises their glass. The conversation drifts, back to the opera. Hannibal keeps his body subtly angled toward Will, a quiet signal that he is not abandoned to the room.
By the time they leave the opera, the night has cooled into something crisp and faintly metallic, the kind of air that sharpens the edges of thought. The crowd spills outward in loose clusters, voices rising and falling, coats being shrugged into place, laughter breaking and reforming. Hannibal and Will move with it but not in it, a quiet eddy at the edge of the current.
Will lingers close. Not by accident. As they step outside beneath the overhang, Will angles himself slightly toward Hannibal, shoulder nearly brushing his arm. They pause to wait for the valet, the streetlights reflecting faintly off polished cars, the parking lot beyond stretching into shadow and chrome.
Will looks out over it for a long moment.
There is a frown between his eyebrows now, a small vertical line that Hannibal has come to recognize as thought rather than displeasure. Will’s jaw is set, not tense exactly, but held, as if he is keeping something in place. Hannibal watches him without pretense, his attention narrowing to details: the soft disorder of Will’s curls where the night air lifts them, the dark line of his beard along his cheeks, the way his mouth presses slightly inward when he is weighing something he does not yet want to speak.
Eventually, he says quietly, “Are you all right?”
Will blinks, as if pulled back from somewhere interior. He turns his head toward Hannibal, eyes searching his face with an intensity that makes something low and dangerous stir behind Hannibal’s ribs. For a second, Will looks almost startled to find him there. Then his gaze settles.
“Yeah,” Will says. The word comes out automatically. Then he exhales and corrects himself. “I don’t know. I think so.”
He drags a hand over his stomach, palm pressing briefly, as if checking that his skin is still solid. The motion is unconscious. Hannibal sees it and feels an answering ache in his own body, a sympathetic pull he does not entirely understand.
Will lowers his hand.
“Stay with me,” he says. The words are quiet, almost swallowed by the ambient noise of the street. Hannibal hears them anyway. He always hears Will. “When you drive back to Wolf Trap,” Will adds. “Stay. For the night.”
Hannibal’s lips part before he has decided what to say. The invitation lands between them, delicate and heavy all at once. He feels the familiar, reflexive tightening, control reasserting itself, walls rising smoothly into place.
He knows he shouldn’t.
He should keep his distance. He should let the sweetness remain sweet, let the edges stay intact. He should protect the wound, keep it turned inward, away from Will’s gaze, away from those gentle, dangerous affections that prod without meaning to, that touch and make something ache simply by existing.
He should say no.
“Are you certain?” Hannibal asks instead.
Will does not answer immediately. He studies Hannibal’s face with that same unsettling attentiveness, as if reading something written there that Hannibal has not consciously inscribed. Then he nods. Once. Decisive.
“Yes.”
The certainty in it disarms him more effectively than any plea could have. “All right,” he says.
Will nods at that. The motion is small, but Hannibal feels the relief in it anyway, like a loosening string. A car pulls up nearby. Not his. They remain where they are.
Then Will speaks again, his voice dropping, more careful now. “I think you know,” he says slowly, “anyone in that building would give just about anything to be with you.”
Hannibal turns his head slightly, studying him. He does not deflect this time. He does not offer false modesty. “I am aware,” he says. “Desire announces itself very loudly in crowded rooms.”
Will’s mouth tightens, his gaze drifting briefly back toward the parking lot, toward the line of cars waiting like quiet witnesses. “They want.. for you to want the,,” he adds, and now there’s an edge to it. “They want you to choose them. They want to be seen as singular.”
Hannibal does not hesitate. “But I do not desire them,” he says. “They want proximity. They want to imagine themselves elevated by association.” His voice lowers, reflective. “Most people mistake being admired for being known.”
Will looks back at him sharply, a short, incredulous laugh breaking free. “So what do you want?” he asks. Half-challenging, half-afraid. “Me?”
Hannibal meets his gaze fully. “Yes,” he says simply. “Will. I find I do.”
Will looks at him for a long moment after that. Then Will steps closer. The movement is decisive enough to make Hannibal’s breath catch, just slightly. Will is inside his space now, no pretense of casualness left. His voice, when he speaks, is low and direct.
“You’re being distant still,” Will says.
It isn’t angry. It’s worse than that, careful, measured, edged with something wounded.
Hannibal doesn’t look away. “You have been occupied as well,” he replies. “Your attention has not been idle. Jack has kept you from me, my patients have kept me from you.”
Will’s jaw tightens, the muscles settling into a line. He exhales slowly through his nose, as if steadying himself. “That’s not the same thing,” he says. “Busy isn’t distance. Busy is just… life happening. This—” He gestures vaguely between them. “This feels like you’re doing it on purpose.”
He has been careful. Withholding. He has been rationing himself as though proximity were a finite resource rather than a growing hunger. Will steps closer still, close enough now that Hannibal can see the faint green flecks in his blue eyes.
“If you’re hiding something from me,” Will says, “I’ll know. Maybe not right away. But I’ll feel it.” Hannibal swallows. “I don’t like liars,” Will continues. “Just be honest.”
He looks into Will’s eyes, dangerous eyes. Not because they are cruel, but because they are perceptive. Because they see and insist on being seen in return. He wonders, fleetingly, if Will knows how tempting he is. How lovely. How cruel. Keeping himself away from Will has not been an act of indifference, it has been discipline. And discipline, in regards to Will, he is learning, is not painless. It hurts the more he practices it. It hurts because proximity soothes something he has been keeping inflamed on purpose.
“Everything is fine,” Hannibal says quietly.
The lie is small. Polished. Almost convincing.
Will watches him for a beat longer than is comfortable. Hannibal feels exposed beneath the scrutiny, as if Will might reach inside him with nothing more than his gaze and find the tender places he has been guarding so carefully.
Then Will’s hand comes up. He doesn’t touch Hannibal’s face. He doesn’t cup his jaw or his cheek. Instead, his fingers close around Hannibal’s tie, right at the knot. He tugs. Not hard. Just enough to pull Hannibal the smallest fraction closer, enough to make intention unmistakable.
Eros, eros, eros. The word pulses through Hannibal’s mind. Not Cupid’s mischief now. No fluttering innocence. Will leans in and kisses him. His lips are warm and impossibly gentle, fitting against Hannibal’s as though they have learned the shape already. Hannibal makes a soft sound before he can stop himself, something low and involuntary, born entirely of relief.
Will’s lips are so very soft. Hannibal feels the faintest hint of teeth, a whisper of pressure, more suggestion than bite, and it sends a shiver through him that settles deep, low in his body. Then Will pulls back.
Not far. Just enough to look at him. Hannibal knows, dimly, that his lips are parted, that his lashes have lowered without conscious decision. He feels open.The wound he has been protecting sits warm and exposed beneath his ribs, humming. Will’s gaze drops to Hannibal’s mouth, lingers there, then lifts again. Something like satisfaction flickers across his face.
“All right,” Will says. The word is gentle. Concluding. “Good.”
The valet brings the car around, the engine purring softly as it pulls to the curb. Hannibal thanks him, tips without thinking, and opens the door. Will hesitates only a fraction of a second before sliding into the passenger seat, movements familiar now. Hannibal gets in beside him, shuts the door, and for a moment simply sits there with his hands on the wheel, breathing.
His lips are still tingling.
It is an absurdly small sensation, almost imperceptible, and yet it feels enormous. As though Will’s mouth has left a mark that no one else can see but that has altered something structural inside him. Hannibal starts the car. The engine hums. The city begins to move past them.
Will looks out the passenger-side window, watching lights smear into brief, luminous trails. His posture is quieter now, contemplative. He has folded in on himself slightly, not withdrawn, just thinking. Hannibal recognizes the signs. He has seen them often, at his own table, in his office, on Will’s couch at Wolf Trap when the night grows too still.
Hannibal speaks because the silence feels too full.
“Are you warm enough?” he asks, the question domestic, almost banal.
Will nods. “Yeah. I’m good.”
They drive. The road unwinds ahead of them, dark and familiar. Hannibal keeps his attention where it belongs, but his mind fractures anyway, pulled inward by fear. Fear that Will will find out. Not just one thing. Everything.
The Chesapeake Ripper. The copycat. The careful choreography of violence hidden behind civility and wine and linen. The headaches, those blinding, splitting moments that steal time from him, that leave gaps he must later account for. The nights Will comes to him distressed, unsettled, afraid because he cannot remember where he was or what he did, seeking reassurance Hannibal gives.
Hannibal has many things to hide. And the most dangerous of them all is not what he has done. It is how he feels. How Will has changed him without meaning to. How the change has not slowed, has not plateaued, but continues, quietly, relentlessly, reshaping him from the inside out. Hannibal is afraid not because he might be discovered, but because he is no longer certain he wants to prevent it.
He glances sideways at Will.
Will’s reflection passes briefly across the glass, eyes dark, thoughtful, mouth set. Hannibal feels a surge of tenderness so sharp it almost makes him dizzy. Impulsivity. He takes his hand off the wheel for a second longer than necessary and rests it on Will’s thigh.
The contact is simple. Hannibal tells himself it is comfort, reassurance. He tells himself many things. Will’s hand comes down over his at once. He closes his fingers around Hannibal’s hand and keeps it there. Their fingers slide together naturally, as if they have practiced this.
Hannibal’s thoughts spiral.
The urge to tell him. To let Will know what Hannibal eats every time he cooks for him. To let him understand every meal, the way Hannibal watches him chew, swallow, live. The god hovers, whispering recklessness into his ear, urging confession, urging collapse. Hannibal feels the pressure of it constantly, the desire to lower every guard and let Will see him whole, terrible and transformed.
It would be so easy.
Too easy.
He swallows and keeps his eyes on the road.
Will speaks suddenly, quietly. “You’re thinking hard.”
“Yes,” Hannibal admits.
“About what?”
Hannibal considers lying. He is very good at it.
“About you,” he says instead.
Will’s fingers tighten slightly around his. “Pull over.”
“Why?” Hannibal asks.
The word comes out quieter than he intends, almost lost beneath the low hum of the engine and the whisper of tires on asphalt. His eyes flick briefly to the road ahead, then back to Will’s reflection in the window.
“Just do it,” Will says. “Please.”
He signals, slows, and pulls over onto the shoulder where the road narrows and the trees crowd close, their branches knitting overhead like dark ribs. The car comes to a stop. The engine idles, steady and indifferent.
For one, sharp moment, Hannibal thinks: I might have to kill him now. Snap his beautiful neck. Leave him here among the trees, the road empty enough that no one would see. He could do it. He knows exactly how. The idea makes the ache inside him flare violently, the barbs twisting, growing sharper, more insistent. The pain of it is immediate and unmistakable. He feels almost sick with it.
He stares out into the night instead, into the long stretch of empty road disappearing between trees. The world beyond the windshield is still. Too still. The car idles, a soft mechanical heartbeat.
Will’s hand is still in his. This tenderness will be the end of me, Hannibal thinks. Will’s tenderness is a cruel thing.
“Hey,” Will says softly.
Hannibal turns his head. Will is looking at him now, fully. His blue eyes are earnest, searching. Hannibal has seen those eyes in many states, wary, exhausted, sharp with insight, but this expression feels different.
“I’ve never really been in a relationship with someone… like you before,” Will says. “I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time.” He exhales, half-laughing at himself. “I’m improvising more than I’d like to admit.”
“You are doing a lovely job, Will,” he says. “Not by following any script, but by staying present. That is rarer than competence.”
Will blinks, surprised. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I do,” Hannibal replies. “It’s true. You are attentive. Anyone would be fortunate to be met that way.” The words come automatically, too easily. He realizes only afterward how naked they sound.
Will huffs a small, disbelieving laugh. “You say that like it’s obvious.”
“It is to me,” Hannibal says, without hesitation. “Obviousness is not consensus.”
Will looks down at their joined hands, thumb brushing once over Hannibal’s knuckles, then back up. “I like you,” he says. “Even though we’re so different. Even though when you invite me into your—” He falters, searching for it. “Your world, I feel out of place. Like I’m wearing someone else’s coat. Like I don’t know where to put my hands.”
Hannibal’s chest tightens. “I never meant to make you feel that way,” he says quietly. “My world is… curated. It can be inhospitable to sincerity.”
“I know,” Will says. “And I still feel it. The distance. The polish.” He lifts his shoulders in a small shrug. “But I like you anyway.” Will’s mouth tightens. “I like being with you.”
Hannibal closes his eyes briefly, as if the admission requires recalibration. When he opens them again, his voice is careful. “I enjoy my time with you, Will. Very much.” A pause. “I am sorry if my restraint has suggested otherwise. That was not my intention.”
Will’s hand leaves his.
“Look at me,” Will says.
Hannibal does. Those eyes are not innocent. Will is not the child god with the blindfold and painted wings. He is something older. Something that sees too much. Hannibal has the sudden, disorienting certainty that Will could ruin him with nothing more than sustained attention.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Will says. “And I need you to stop.”
Hannibal considers lying. He is still very good at it, he hopes.
“I was trying to be careful,” he says instead.
“About what?”
“About us.”
“If you don’t want to do this,” Will continues, voice steadier now, “then say that. Because anyone at that opera tonight would’ve been happy to fill in my place.”
Hannibal’s jaw tightens. “I desire no one but you.”
Will studies him. “Then stop pushing me out.”
Hannibal looks away for a moment, back at the road, at the trees, at the darkness that feels suddenly safer than Will’s eyes.
“I think about you so much,” Will says. “More than I mean to. I think about the things I don’t know. The things I want to. It haunts me sometimes—how little we know about each other and how much we do.”
Hannibal’s pulse thuds in his ears.
“I want to dig inside you when I touch you sometimes,” Will says quietly. “Not physically. Just… understand. Is that wrong?”
Hannibal turns back to him at once. “No.”
Will’s brows knit. “You didn’t hesitate.”
“Because it is not,” Hannibal says. “Curiosity is not cruelty. Wanting to know someone is not always a violation.”
“It feels intense,” Will admits. “Like if I pull too hard, something will break.”
Hannibal’s voice lowers. “That depends on what you’re pulling.”
Will watches him, breathing shallow. “And you? What are you afraid of?”
“I am afraid,” he says carefully, “of wanting more than I can give safely.”
Will’s expression softens. “You don’t have to be perfect with me.”
“I know,” Hannibal says. “And that frightens me.”
“You keep saying things like that,” Will says, voice low, tight around the edges. “Careful things. Reasonable things.”
Hannibal turns his head slightly, attentive. “And that troubles you.”
“It should,” Will says. “Because it feels like you’re explaining around something instead of actually telling me what’s going on.”
Hannibal exhales slowly through his nose. He keeps his hands still, folded neatly now in his lap, posture composed in a way that feels suddenly conspicuous.
“I am not hiding out of malice,” he says.
“That’s not what I said,” Will replies sharply. “I said you’re hiding.” He shakes his head once, frustrated. “You disappear. You keep me at arm’s length. You decide when we’re close and when we’re not, and you don’t tell me why. And then you look surprised when I notice.”
Hannibal feels the familiar internal rearranging begin, the careful mental compartments sliding into place, contingency layered over desire. He had plans. He still does. He has always lived inside the confidence of design, the certainty that he is moving toward something even when others cannot see it yet.
“I am not lying to you,” Hannibal says carefully.
“I’m an FBI profiler,” Will continues. “I make a living noticing what people don’t say. I know when something doesn’t line up. I know when I’m being lied to.”
Hannibal closes his eyes for a brief moment. When he opens them, Will is watching him with that same relentless attention. “I would rather you tell me,” Will says. “Than have me figure it out on my own.”
“I think,” Hannibal replies, measured, “that truth is not a singular object. It unfolds. And timing matters.”
Will scoffs. “That sounds like something you say when you’ve already decided you know better.”
Hannibal does not deny it. “You’re right,” he says. “I have decided that.”
Will stares at him, incredulous. “You don’t get to do that. Not if you want this.”
“I want you,” Hannibal says, and the admission still feels dangerous every time he gives it voice. “That is not in question.”
“Then what?” Will demands. “Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like you want me close, just not close enough to see anything that matters.”
Hannibal’s chest tightens painfully. The barbs twist again. “I am not ready,” he says.
“For what?” Will asks.
“To be known in the way you wish to know me.” Hannibal feels the urge rise again, to tell him everything. To collapse the distance entirely. To let Will see him whole, monstrous and devoted. Eros whispers insistently now. Reckless. Seductive. Tell him. Let him choose.
“Then tell me something,” Will says. “Give me something now. Or you can just drop me off and go back home.”
Cruel, curious Will. Beautiful in the way honesty is beautiful when it refuses to soften itself for comfort. He thinks, fleetingly, that he never should have let it get this far. He never should have allowed the dinners, the glances, the quiet confessions that were not confessions at all. He never should have let Will’s presence become necessary.
But he was struck. Hannibal looks away for a moment, out through the windshield at the dark road and the trees pressing close. His reflection stares back faintly from the glass.
“All right,” he says.
Will does not speak. He waits.
Hannibal turns back to him. “I was born in Lithuania,” he says. He pauses, choosing carefully, not the truth that would destroy them both, but a truth that is still real, still costly. “I was a count,” Hannibal says quietly. “Before I was truly born into the world as it exists now. Titles mean little in retrospect, but at the time… they meant everything.”
Will’s expression softens, his anger reconfiguring into attention. “That’s a lot to grow up with.”
“It was,” Hannibal says. “There were winters when the castle felt endless. White. Silent. I learned early that beauty and cruelty often wear the same face. That survival requires adaptation. Observation.”
He swallows, surprised by the way the memory rises, sharp, cold, intact. “There was an unused area of the castle,” he continues. “Stone. Drafty. I used to hide there along with—I would sit very still and listen to my own breathing, count it.”
Will watches him closely now, anger forgotten, replaced by something like awe. “That sounds lonely.”
“It wasn’t, then,” Hannibal says simply. “But I learned how to be alone very well.”
After a moment, Will exhales. “Okay,” he says. “That counts.”
Hannibal allows himself a faint smile. “Your turn.”
Will leans back in his seat, eyes drifting upward as he considers. Then he shakes his head, amused and a little embarrassed. “When I was a kid,” he says, “there was this watermelon truck that used to park near our place in Louisiana. Middle of summer. Hot enough to make you stupid.”
Hannibal listens, utterly still. “I didn’t have money,” Will continues. “Didn’t think about it much. I just wanted one. So I waited until the guy stepped away and I rolled the biggest watermelon I could manage off the back of the truck.”
Hannibal’s lips curve despite himself.
“I couldn’t carry it,” Will says. “Too heavy. So I dragged it. All the way down the road. Tore my hands up pretty good.”
“Did you get caught?” Hannibal asks.
Will shakes his head. “No. But I dropped it. It cracked open. Ruined. I sat there for a while just staring at it, feeling like the dumbest kid alive.”
“And?” Hannibal prompts.
“And then I ate it anyway,” Will says, smiling now. “Sitting on the curb.”
Hannibal laughs softly, genuinely. The sound surprises them both. “That is a sweet memory,” he says.
Will shrugs. “Guess I’ve always been bad at wanting things halfway.”
Hannibal feels something in his chest loosen, just slightly. He leans toward Will, intending something gentle, a kiss to the cheek, nothing more. A gesture of gratitude. Reassurance. But Will turns at the same moment, about to say something else. Their lips meet.
The contact is accidental only for the briefest instant before it becomes anything but. Hannibal freezes, startled, and then Will moves closer, and the choice is gone. They kiss.
Deeper this time. Needier. Hannibal tries to control it. He always does. He knows how to kiss beautifully, how long to linger, when to soften, when to withdraw just enough to make the other lean in. He knows how to make it an art. But Will will not have it. Hannibal’s eyes flutter open to see Will frown slightly, frustrated by the restraint. Will’s hand comes up, grips Hannibal’s jaw, holds him there with unapologetic intent, and then the kiss deepens, rougher, messier, hungry.
Will kisses like someone starving, like someone who has waited too long and refuses to be patient anymore. There is no coyness here, no elegance. Just appetite meeting appetite. Breath colliding. Heat. It is the best Hannibal has been kissed in years.
There is no space here for him to be seductive, to be composed and beautiful and in control. Will does not want a performance. He wants contact. He wants truth expressed through mouth and hands and pressure. The kiss that follows is messy. Unromantic. Ungoverned. It lacks all the careful poetry Hannibal would normally compose. Their mouths meet at an imperfect angle, teeth brushing briefly, breath colliding. Wil kisses him like someone who wants. How, Hannibal thinks dimly, could Will believe anyone at that opera was more hungry for him than this?
“Will,” he whispers, breathless, trying to surface long enough to speak.
Will follows him instinctively, lips brushing his, refusing distance even as he answers. His breath pants against Hannibal’s mouth, quick and uneven. “Are you sure you want to?” he asks. “I know you’re—”
“Yes,” Hannibal says, immediately.
It is dangerous, he knows. It is also beautiful.
There’s no awkward pause, no clumsy negotiation, no self-conscious glance around the empty road like they’ve suddenly remembered themselves. It happens the way everything between them seems to happen now, inevitably, quietly. Hannibal pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead still close to Will’s. The car hums beneath them, patient, anonymous. The windshield frames nothing but darkness and trees.
His hand loosens in Hannibal’s hair, slides down to his collar, fingers catching briefly at the edge of his coat. He doesn’t say anything. He just tips his head back slightly, eyes flicking toward the rearview mirror, then to the back seat beyond it.
It’s a small gesture. Practical. Unembarrassed.
Hannibal turns the engine off. They move at the same time. Hannibal reaches between the seats, pushing the latch forward, and the front seat glides ahead smoothly, obediently. Will is already shifting, unbuckling, his movements easy. There is no scrambling. No collision of knees and elbows. Will slips into the back seat first, long body folding into the space, one hand braced lightly on the seat as he settles. Hannibal follows a second later, turning sideways, ducking his head without thinking, coat brushing against Will’s leg as he moves.
The back seat is darker. Softer. The leather holds the warmth of the car, the air close and faintly perfumed with them. They sit there for a moment, knees touching, shoulders angled toward each other, breathing. Will breaks the stillness first, because he always does. He shifts closer, just aligning himself until his thigh presses fully against Hannibal’s, until their shoulders meet. He looks at him then.
“Better,” he says quietly.
Hannibal’s throat tightens. “Yes,” he replies. “Much.”
The air in the back seat is a living thing, thick with their breath and the scent of cold leather warming. Will doesn’t smile. He just looks, his eyes moving over Hannibal’s face in the near-darkness as if confirming a fact. Then he leans in and kisses him again.
Will’s mouth is warm and sure, and when his tongue finds Hannibal’s. It is soft. He finds he cannot control his breathing; it hitches, goes shallow, a frail counterpoint to the deep, even rhythm of Will’s. Will’s tongue slides against his, and then, curiously, traces the line of his upper teeth, the smooth curve of a canine, the broad plane of a molar. The molar is not sharp at all under that gentle, wet pressure. Will tastes of the sugar-dusted almonds, a faint, ghostly sweetness he seems to be leaching into Hannibal’s mouth. Cavities.
It’s lovely. It’s horrible. Will’s hands come up. He pushes at Hannibal’s coat, his fingers strong and insistent on his shoulders. Hannibal shifts to allow him to peel it off. The heavy fabric slides down his arms with a whisper, and Will tosses it carelessly onto the floor of the car. He does the same with his own, a quick shrug and a toss.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Will says. The words are spoken against Hannibal’s lips, a low, rough vibration. “You’ve been making me wait.”
A shiver runs through Hannibal, one he knows Will must feel where their bodies press together. “I did not enjoy it,” Hannibal admits.
Will makes a small, noncommittal sound, a hum of acknowledgment. He doesn’t argue. He just kisses him again, deeper, and Hannibal lets his head fall back. The window behind him is shockingly cold through his hair, a stark contrast to the heat blooming between them. His chest rises and falls against Will’s, the fine linen of his shirt catching on Will’s.
Will’s fingers go to his tie. He doesn’t fumble with the knot. The silk slips with a soft hiss, and Will discards it, his eyes never leaving Hannibal’s face. He bends over him, one knee sliding with pressure between Hannibal’s thighs, settling there. Their leather shoes knock together beneath the seats.
Even now, Hannibal thinks, a desperate, clawing thought surfacing through the haze of sensation, he can still be seductive. He can still be something for him he will not forget. He can keep his control. They will have a nice time. He will not revel in my tender underbelly. It is a plan, a last bastion of the old self. He will be the consummate lover, the experienced guide. He will give Will an experience so profound it will eclipse the awkwardness, the need, the raw hunger.
Will’s hand slides down Hannibal’s clothed chest, over the waistcoat buttons, down past his belt. Hannibal’s body tenses, instinctively. He expects it to go lower, to be bold, to claim. Or he expects it to find the place on his belly where the ghost of the wound lives, where his own personal arrow is buried. He expects Will to grab the shaft and twist, to shove it deeper, to aim it straight for his heart. It is what he has been waiting for.
But Will’s hand doesn’t linger. It doesn’t hurt him. It just completes its journey, a firm, warm stroke, and then comes back up. Will’s mouth leaves his, traveling instead to his jaw, a soft press of lips on the hinge, then down the line of his throat. He kisses the hollow there, his breath hot. Hannibal can feel his own pulse hammering against Will’s mouth, a frantic, traitorous drumbeat.
“Will,” he says again, and it comes out strangled.
Will ignores him, or perhaps answers him, by opening his mouth against his neck. The scrape of teeth, the wet heat of his tongue, is so acutely felt that Hannibal’s hands, which had been resting uncertainly on the seat, fly up to grip Will’s shoulders. He means to push, to guide, to resume some semblance of control. But his fingers only dig in, holding on.
Will’s hands are busy again, this time on Hannibal’s waistcoat. He makes quick work of the buttons, his movements deft from years of working with fishing lines and engine parts. He pushes the garment open, then his hands go to Hannibal’s shirt, tugging it free from his trousers. The cool air of the car touches Hannibal’s stomach. Will’s palms are warmer, sliding up now under the fabric, against bare skin.
“It’s been a while,” Will says, his voice rough. “And I’m not… I’m not sure why you really want me. This way.”
“You must know how beautiful you are,” Hannibal says. It is not a line. It is a simple, extracted truth, presented plainly.
Will swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He looks down, a flicker of something like shame or disbelief crossing his features. “Looks aren’t everything.”
“No,” Hannibal agrees, closing the distance between them. “They are not. But they are a part of the everything.” He sets his hands on Will’s hips, the skin warm and real under his palms. He pulls Will flush against him. Hannibal can feel the frantic beat of Will’s heart. He dips his head, his lips brushing the shell of Will’s ear. “I can show you,” he murmurs, the words a warm, intimate breath. “How I desire you. Where I desire you.”
Will tilts his head down at him. The moonlight catches the blue of his eyes, turns them opaque. He looks shy, suddenly, and terribly young. “We don’t have the things we need for that here,” he says, his voice low. “And we’re not seventeen.”
No, they aren’t, Hannibal thinks. But he feels so young with Will at times. It is terrifying in its novelty. Hannibal looks up at him, tender-eyed. Will gives him a shy smile in return, a small, private thing. He grabs Hannibal’s hands from his hips and guides them to his own shirt, placing Hannibal’s fingers on the remaining buttons of his dark blue cotton shirt. He lets go, allowing Hannibal to proceed.
Hannibal’s hands, usually so steady, fumble. Each one released reveals another inch of Will’s pale, smooth skin. The fabric falls open, and Hannibal pushes it back over Will’s shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. He can see the muscle of him, lean and defined, the elegant lines of his collarbones. He is beautiful in a way that has everything to do with life.
Hannibal leans up, looking at Will’s face as he does it. Will shivers under his gaze, his breath catching. Hannibal presses a soft, closed-mouth kiss to the center of his chest, just to the left of his sternum. He feels Will’s heart thudding against his lips. Then, he snakes out his tongue and licks a slow, wet stripe over a tight nipple.
Will huffs a breath, a sharp, startled sound that isn’t quite a moan. His hands come up to cradle Hannibal’s head, not guiding, just holding. “You’re sweet,” he says, the words tinged with wonder and a hint of accusation.
“I can be,” Hannibal murmurs against his skin, his breath warm. “If that is what you desire.”
Will doesn’t answer with words. He pushes Hannibal back down with a firm, gentle pressure, and Hannibal goes. Will kneels between his spread knees. His fingers go to Hannibal’s trousers, fumbling with the fly. Hannibal lifts his hips to help, and the fabric is pushed down over his thighs. The cool air is a shock. Then Will’s fingers find the waistband of his silk boxers, and he pushes those down as well.
Hannibal is exposed. And he is painfully aroused, his cock hard and already leaking, a bead of moisture glistening at the tip. He watches Will’s face, sees the dilation of his pupils, the slight parting of his lips. Will reaches out. His touch is hesitant at first, his fingertips brushing the inside of Hannibal’s thigh, then the thatch of hair, then, finally, wrapping around the shaft. His hand is warm and rough, calloused in a way Hannibal’s own are not.
Will’s stroke is awkward, unpracticed. It is not the smooth, knowing rhythm of an experienced lover. It is a clumsy, exploratory squeeze and pull. And it is utterly devastating. Every nerve ending in Hannibal’s body seems to have migrated to the place where Will’s skin meets his. He is unbearably sensitive. His hips jerk off, seeking more, seeking a different angle, seeking anything.
He loses control of his reactions. A ragged gasp escapes him as Will’s thumb smears over the slick head. He bites his own lip to stifle another sound, but a low moan leaks out anyway. He can’t look at Will; he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the overwhelming sensation.
“Hannibal?” Will’s voice is quiet, unsure. Hannibal forces his eyes open. Will is looking down at him, his brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re… you’re shaking,” Will says.
He lifts a palm, pressing it hard against his own mouth, trying to muffle the helpless, undignified sounds Will is pulling from him. He doesn't know why he's reacting this way. He has never been this loud, this desperate. A hand wraps around his wrist. Will’s hand, still damp from him. It pulls Hannibal’s own hand firmly away from his mouth.
“No,” Will says, his voice husky but clear in the confined space. “I want to hear you.”
Will’s hand returns to his cock, resuming that clumsy rhythm. Hannibal’s head falls back against the window with a soft thud. He can’t stop the sounds now. Each stroke draws a sharp inhale, a fractured sigh, a bitten-off word. He is leaking copiously, wetness slicking Will’s hand, dripping onto his own stomach, soaking into his trousers.
Will is looking down at him, his curls disarrayed from Hannibal’s own hands, a deep pink blush staining his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. His lips are kiss-swollen, parted. But it’s his eyes that undo Hannibal completely. That ever-present look of confusion is there, but it’s softened by wonder, by a dawning, hungry awe. He looks at Hannibal as if he does not understand the power he holds.
Will’s lips part on a soft exhale. He leans in, his forehead resting against Hannibal’s shoulder for a moment, as if steadying himself. Then he kisses his way along Hannibal’s jaw, his stubble rasping. His hand never stops its motion, now settling into a slightly more confident rhythm, a touch firmer, a touch surer, guided by the wetness and the way Hannibal’s hips stutter up to meet every stroke.
“You’re so responsive,” Will murmurs against his ear, his breath hot. It’s another observation, whispered with a kind of awe. “I didn’t know you could be like this.”
Hannibal didn’t know either. He feels tears prickle at the corners of his eyes, and he fights them back, blinks rapidly. His hands are free, but they lie useless at his sides, fists clenched.
Will pulls back just enough to deal with his own clothing. Will’s movements are jerky, impatient. He fumbles with his belt, his button, his zipper, his eyes never leaving Hannibal’s face.
When Will frees himself, the sight is almost too much. He is flushed, hard, beautiful in his urgency. Then Will’s hand returns, but now it closes around them both, his own length pressed hot alongside Hannibal’s. The new pressure, the shared heat, is catastrophic. Hannibal’s breath leaves him in a punched-out gasp.
Will begins to stroke them together, a slow, dragging slide that makes Hannibal see flashes of white behind his eyelids. He’s leaking enough to ease the way. The friction is perfect and maddening. Will’s grip is firm, a little rough, his thumb swiping over the sensitive heads with each pass.
And Will kisses him. He kisses him endlessly, as if trying to consume the very air from Hannibal’s lungs. It is a relentless series of presses, of open-mouthed seals, of bites on the lower lip, of tongues that slide and retreat. Will’s stubble rasps against Hannibal’s cleanshaven cheeks and jaw. Hannibal can feel the burn beginning, a tender, abraded heat that will mark him for hours. He cherishes it. This is Will Graham, chafing his skin raw.
Will watches his face. Even as he kisses him, his eyes flutter open, blue and dark as a midnight sea, to study Hannibal’s reactions. He is cataloging every flinch, every strained muscle in Hannibal’s neck, every helpless parting of his lips. His tender cherub boy. This is no gentle putto from a Raphael fresco. This is Eros in his ancient, terrifying form, the god who wielded a club, not a bow, whose arrows incited a madness that toppled kingdoms. This boy, with his burning gaze and ruthless hand, is breaking him open, and Hannibal is offering up the pieces.
“Look at you,” Will breathes against his abused mouth, his own voice ragged. The rhythm of his hand never falters. “It’s like you’ve never been touched before.”
And in a way, it’s true. He has been handled, certainly. But he has never been touched like this, with this raw, unfiltered wanting that seeks nothing but his own dissolution. It makes him feel, paradoxically, lonely. It highlights the vast, echoing emptiness of every encounter that came before. And from that loneliness springs a needfulness so acute it is a wound. He needs Will’s hand, his mouth, his burning gaze.
Will keeps stroking them, his pace increasing, growing sloppier, more urgent. His own breathing is ragged in Hannibal’s ear, punctuated by soft, gritted curses. Hannibal looks up at him. Will’s face is sheened with sweat, his curls plastered to his forehead. The moonlight catches the line of his jaw, the curve of his parted lips. He is utterly, devastatingly beautiful, a study in desperate concentration. He is blind to everything but the target of his desire.
He is going to come. The knowledge is a wave of panic and relief. He tries to warn him, but all that comes out is a fractured, “I’m—“
“I can feel you,” Will murmurs, his lips against Hannibal’s jaw, then his ear. His breath is hot, his words a low, thrilling vibration. “You’re so close. Let go. I want to see it. I want to feel it.”
The coil snaps. Pleasure detonates up Hannibal’s spine, white and blinding, with a force that is almost agonizing. Through the haze, he is dimly aware of Will’s grip tightening, of his own hips stuttering up into that perfect, punishing friction, of the warm spill between their bodies.
Will’s expression shifts, the focus softening into something even more awed. “Hannibal,” he says. He ducks his head, kisses him again, slower now, a damp, deep. “You’re… God, the sounds you make.”
Will groans, the sound raw and helpless, buried in the crook of Hannibal’s neck. He is shaking, fine tremors running through his arms where they cage Hannibal in. “I won’t last,” Will gasps, the words hot against Hannibal’s skin. “I don’t think I can.”
He follows him over the edge mere seconds later, his own release a sharp, bitten-off groan against Hannibal’s throat. He presses his forehead into Hannibal’s shoulder, his whole body shuddering through the aftershocks, his hand still wrapped around them, slowing to a gentle, almost absent pulse.
Time loses its meaning. If time were governed by Eros, he thinks, he would stay in these arms, pinned by this blissful weight, forever. If the seconds answered only to lovers, he would never leave this moment, this man.
For a long moment, there is only the sound of their breathing. Hannibal feels hollowed out, scoured clean. The tears he fought earlier well up again, and this time he doesn’t blink them back. One escapes, tracking a hot path down his temple into his hairline. He is glad for the dark.
By the time they are home, the night has folded in on itself. Will moves through the space with a hesitant familiarity, shoes set aside, posture softening as though the walls themselves are coaxing him to breathe. Hannibal does not trust himself to speak.
They make their way to the bed without planning it. Will sits on the edge of the bed first, then shifts, then reaches out without looking and draws Hannibal down with him. Hannibal yields easily. Will lies back and pulls him close, an arm around his shoulders, another hand settling low on his stomach.
He cannot pull it out. He knows that now.
Will’s hand remains at his stomach. Hannibal wonders if heaven, in its cruelty, sent Will to him. Heaven must be full of laughing little gods.