Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/3350726. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Hannibal_(TV) Relationship: Will_Graham/Hannibal_Lecter Character: Will_Graham, Hannibal_Lecter, Original_Male_Character(s) Additional Tags: Murder, Violence, Obsession, Possession, Spanking, Rough_Sex, Drug_Use, Established_Relationship, odalisque_verse, vignettes_of_sex_and_violence verse Series: Part 12 of The_Odalisque_Timestamps Stats: Published: 2015-02-14 Words: 12662 ****** Coursing ****** by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite Summary “You love how you undo me, don’t you? Make me fucking crazy by letting others touch you, your squirming and your sounds. Ruin my clothes and filthy my words, knowing that I love you so fucking much that I could no more stop myself from falling for your wiles than I could stop my ownfuckingheart from beating.” What good is clubbing without a little murder? Notes See the end of the work for notes The music thumps colors behind Hannibal’s eyes. An eruption of sparks - fireworks - every time the bass thuds canon-fire thick up through the floor, up through the couch, up through Hannibal’s body, electric and alive and incoherent. The sight of sound, the flavor of the colors that flash bright across the club all plucking nerves in the wrong order, synapses misconnected, rearranged. He could break his puppy’s neck for giving him so much. Skimming his tongue across his teeth, Hannibal forces his eyes to slowly open, and he imagines grazing his fingers along the ridges of the boy’s bared spine, and tracing its peaks and valleys with his tongue. He would offer it to Will, one long slit and a careful peeling of skin from bone, but he’s no idea where the insolent boy has gone, and narrows his eyes across the dance floor. It is not the first time they’ve done this together, probably not the dozenth at this point, and always the same - Hannibal dresses well, but not too well, Will dresses in as little as legally allowed, and Hannibal takes whatever tabs Will finds for them to share before eventually dipping into a couch to let it take hold of him. He isn’t so foolish as to trust them inherently, but allows himself the time to adjust to their effects before rising again, and finding the floor beneath his shoes, reflecting saccharine greens and minty blues from the lights overhead. Hannibal’s lips curl at the distraction, and the displeasure doesn’t wane when he is caught by a hand that is not Will’s own and dragged against a near-naked young thing whose language Hannibal does not speak. It is a boy, at least Hannibal thinks it’s a boy, and younger than Will. And on any given day something so wanton throwing himself at Hannibal’s feet and into his arms would elicit a very simple response: take him away from here, claim him and kill him. And yet, he finds himself offering the most plastic smile he can manage and extricating himself from curious and seeking limbs. It takes effort, and ends only when Hannibal bares his teeth in a grin that more closely resembles a snarl than a smile. Then the boy lets go, rolling his eyes and muttering something in his twisting language before disappearing into the crowd again. All around him, bodies are moving, shifting together, into and out of each other, splitting in two, in three, merging again. Hannibal rubs his eyes and groans, walking further into the throng and seeking, with a well- practiced - albeit entirely compromised - sense for his boy. He sees only shivers of sound, tastes the sweat and heat around him, colors mingling and exploding behind his eyes. And then a quick brush of skin turns him and he sees Will at one of the walls, or close enough to it, dancing against a man tubbier, taller than him, who seems entirely contented with having such a pretty thing paying him attention. Will is in little more than shorts and his boots today, body slick with sweat and shining with glitter that seems to fall everywhere in this damned place. Hair long but pulled back into a tail, something that draws Hannibal’s lips back once more, a possessive growl as he remembers he never gave the boy permission to put it up. In rare openness before the night began, they had discussed hunting. Both, in attempting to count back to the last they had, reached several weeks rewound before a quiet fell over the car. Less and less they’ve felt motivated put in the effort for it when the other is now entirely present for them. Less and less they’ve noticed as more time passes between each kill. And so they agreed that whoever caught first tonight would have the honor of inviting their guest home. And true to form, despite this understanding, Hannibal now wants none of it. He wants Will. And Will is arching off the wall against someone else. An older man, of course, not poorly dressed but clearly a tourist, the wrinkles still apparent in his shirt from being folded into a suitcase. Hannibal smooths his expression, tongue held between his lips, and tries to ease the rampant disgust that cracks like ice floes inside of him that the man now touching Will could not even be bothered to press his shirt before coming out. Before sliding his hand up Will’s thigh and beneath the torn hem of his shorts. Before touching Will in a way that sparks his body tight, lifting onto his toes, his flushed lips parting on a sound that Hannibal can not hear. The sight of hands across Hannibal’s chest, another spry little thing pressing against him, draws his attention just enough to twist away from the touch. It tastes cloying on his tongue, like oversteeped vanilla, a rancid and resentful touch, but he lets the movement of his body carry him forward, towards Will. It will be a simple thing. Gather him and go. The man will stay and live or come and die, it hardly matters so much as getting his hands out from between Will’s legs, from against his ass, from pressing - - into - “Will.” Will bites his lip, eyes closed, and makes a purring sound of pleasure as the man’s hand works between his legs, not the front, but the back, fingering him gently as Will squirms for more, almost ignoring the voice that burns rough as it repeats his name, and Will cocks his head against his shoulder, coy and young, and bites his index finger in pleasure before curling his lips around it to suck. He is high, more so than Hannibal is, he took two pills where Hannibal took one, and Hannibal wonders how he manages to remember his own name. Will jerks, the man before him grinning as he presses deeper into the boy, pushing him up onto the toes of his boots, bent and unlaced, loose around his skinny calves. “Will!” “Yeah?” Breathless, childish, and Will’s brows furrow as he shifts his weight from foot to foot and the man leans in to kiss his neck, and Will lets him. Hannibal’s lips curl over his teeth as he hisses, low, voice reverberating even past the ceaseless pulse of music that drowns out sound and deafens all at once. “What the fuck are you doing?” The curse makes the boy shiver ferociously and his eyes flutter closed with another moan. “One,” he whines, his voice a high whimper now as he works his hips against the fingers inside of him. “Insolent boy,” spits Hannibal. He reaches for Will - he will show him his own spine, tear through that pale throat and bare it for him - but the man who has him is quick. He shoves Will to the wall and brings a hand up to smack away Hannibal’s own. “What the fuck, man, fuck off,” he grunts, eyes narrowed on Hannibal for a moment before he turns back to the squirming boy beneath him. Will curves a leg off the floor and sinks it around the man’s hip, twined around his leg, and tilts his head again to bare his neck to the man. His eyes flash up towards Hannibal, wide with drugs and desire, and he grins. It is enough. “Come now,” Hannibal snarls. “We’re working on it,” laughs the man. He’s as big as Hannibal, heavier than he is, certainly, all crude strength despite the lack of obvious muscle. “Now.” “I said fuck off -” It is more than enough. Hannibal grabs the man by the back of his neck, a quick twist to jerk him away from Will but it isn’t enough, where the man’s feet are planted, it isn’t enough with Hannibal’s synapses misfiring, and he barely ducks the fist that comes swinging towards him. When Hannibal rights himself again, it’s with a grin, sharp-toothed and hungry. Will stumbles, enough to force him to shake his head, to clear at least some of the smoke from it before he just watches the two of them squaring off, enough space around them now that soon they will have an audience, and in a place like this, an audience brings with it security. Security would ask questions, would take details, would follow up. It’s enough to send Will forward, to step between them, hands outstretched to hold them away from each other. “Fuck,” he eloquently manages, lips drawing back over his teeth in a grin before he laughs, just once, and gives Hannibal a look that the other registers, despite the anger. The one he sends back sends a shiver through Will’s body; he knows he will suffer for this. He turns to the other, then, steps closer and sets his little hands against his chest, leaning close to whisper to him, hold him from hurting Hannibal, and more importantly stopping Hannibal, with his body, from killing this man here, now. “I want your fingers in my ass,” he purrs, “your cock. Come on, come with me.” “But this fuck -” Will soothes him with a hum, a flat palm against him before curling his fingers hard against him to bring him back to the here, now, to the blue eyes and near- naked body. “Take me to the back room and bend me over a table,” he coaxes, watches the man’s eyes glaze over with the thought. “I’ve been flirting with so many men before I found you… I’ve been such a bad boy, I need a spanking.” Easy words, stupid words, and they’re enough to entirely rewire the man’s brain from fight to fuck. Enough to have him curl an arm around Will’s waist, tug him back to the room Will had suggested, as the younger boy follows at a stumble, holds his hand out behind himself to take Hannibal's hand, twist in warning, as Will clings to him in pleasure. He can kill him, can do anything to him, just not there. Hannibal stands, feet planted, every muscle coiled to bring the bigger man to the ground, and he watches as Will is wrenched stumbling away from him. He doesn’t hold to him, doesn’t follow, and as their fingers part, Hannibal watches as the boy’s look shift into one of confusion and drug-thick dismay. He turns away, to lean against the wall where Will was pressed that rocks still with the bass reverberating through the club. Fingers cold with adrenaline find the cigarettes in his pocket and press one to his lips, the match tastes rotten in the air when he lights it bright in front of him. The thoughts turn over like the smoke across his tongue. He imagines leaving the boy there. Abandoning him to this man, to others that would come, to fuck him, use him, leave him filthy. Turn away and leave him with no way to return to where they’re staying, no key to get in, no memory of the apartment or its location. An appetizer, for the anger building inside of him with every breath of smoke and fire he drags into his lungs. He takes the time of one cigarette, lets his mind pick out beats of the music that sound like Will’s soft little gasps as he’s spanked, like the panting when he’s bared, the groans when he’s fucked. He takes the time of one cigarette and lights another, hands shaking as he flicks the still-lit match into the crowd and turns from it, to the little corridor Will had been dragged down, to a place more private. All the better, he thinks, he can take his time then, with the man and the boy both. And Will will pay for this, once he gets his hands on him. Hannibal walks at a pace he feels is leisurely, considering the fire that boils through him entirely, he takes a long draw of his cigarette and exhales without taking it from his lips. He finds the door to the back room quickly enough, doesn’t knock. It isn’t locked, amusingly, but Hannibal doesn’t make the same mistake as he steps in - he locks it with a harsh click before leaning against the door. Instantly, the music fades, the bass remains. Will is still bent over, shorts just against his thighs, skin pink from being struck, nothing like how he looks when Hannibal beats him, no welts, no marks, no genuine shaking in pain, just Will looking up over his shoulder with a grin, eyes blown wide. The man doesn’t turn yet, too preoccupied with squeezing Will’s ass, promising all kinds of torment, before lifting his hand to strike him again, drawing a giggling little whimper from the boy. Then something, perhaps the smoke, perhaps just a feeling, turns the man to Hannibal, to the door, livid instantly, from the hungry pleasure of watching a pretty boy bent over, and baring his teeth. “I thought I told you to fuck off.” Another drag, inhaled through his teeth, sighed out slow without raising a hand to the filter. The man turns his body, but Hannibal doesn’t make that mistake again, either, and effortlessly weaves beneath the fist that swings towards him. On instinct, now, his body as alive as Will’s must feel when he’s dancing, Hannibal rises and feels tension coil and spring from his hips, fist connecting with the man’s face. As if in slow motion, he sees the wet crunch of cartilage, hears the blood spray hot against his knuckles, and the man staggers back unsteady but far from down. Good. “You’re fucking dead,” swears the man, bringing a hand to his broken nose. Blood spills to the floor, black in the low lights, and Hannibal steps towards him. One, two, he flicks the cigarette to the floor, three, sighs smoke upward and tilts his head to loosen his neck. The man grabs him by the throat, shoves Hannibal to the wall and pins him, but quick fingers against the meat of the man’s thumb and a twist too hard, perhaps, Hannibal doesn’t wish it to be over so quickly, nearly breaks the man’s arm. There was no gunshot crack of sound, though, he can bend his elbow still when Hannibal releases him, and he no sooner stands with a shout than Hannibal drives his head into the man’s already massacred nose. Will scrambles on the floor, enough to cover himself again before he just watches, sitting on his ass with his hands behind him, legs splayed before him. He’s sore, he’s horny as hell, and before him, Hannibal is beating the crap out of some guy who had dared - dared - to touch Will as he shouldn’t have. He can feel his breathing hitch, bites his lip as Hannibal straightens up, flexes his bloody hand and flicks hair from his eyes, unsettled from its neatness, already damp with sweat from the drugs, from the dancing the fighting… and blood, none of it his own, now, painting his pristine shirt filthy. Will is going to pay for that too. The man is on the floor, nose swollen and bleeding. He gives Hannibal another look of anger but there is fear there now too, genuine, for the man’s strength and ruthlessness. Will curls his legs up to himself and bites his lip, one hand out behind him, the other creeping between his legs to stroke himself. “The fuck is wrong with you?” The man hisses, teeth gritted and bloody even as he pushes himself back from Hannibal, who merely takes one step to set his legs on either side of the man beneath him. “Over that piece of ass? He’s a dime a dozen, have the fucking kid.” Though his senses are mismatched, they are no less sharp, and Hannibal draws in a deep breath. The spicy scent of arousal, the salty sweat, cloying blood all settle over his tongue as he slides it across his teeth, without so much as a glance towards the boy who moans at the sight of the movement. His own emotions are no less in check, a carefully stoked anger, fed now with the man’s words as much as the sight of him sprawled across the floor. He wants to destroy something. Not merely hunt, not only kill. Hannibal wants to feel another life explode and fade beneath his hands. Fireworks, bursting with the bass beat of music. Sparks, as Hannibal’s knees hit the ground on either side of the man’s hips. The man twists but Hannibal’s weight shifts with the movements, hair obscuring his eyes but he doesn’t need to see, now, not when he can feel the man’s movements beneath him. A swing connects only because Hannibal chooses for it to - allows it to turn his head to the side with no more reaction than that. “Were you inside of him?” Hannibal asks softly. Another swing, this one missed as Hannibal leans back away from the flailing strikes, and the man shouts, “I said you can fucking have him!” It is Hannibal’s fist that connects now, across the man’s jaw and he sinks to his hands on either side of the man’s head as he sputters. “I asked you a fucking question. Were you inside of that fucking boy?” “Four,” Will moans, grinning when Hannibal turns to him, slowly, eyes narrowed and expression entirely dangerous. It stops Will, for a moment, both fascinated and frightened of him. He looks like a killer, nothing like the man Will has grown used to. He looks like a man no longer a man, a creature half out of this world, almost demonic. Will wonders how much of it is the drugs, but he finds himself curling his legs towards himself, laying down on the cool floor on his side to watch Hannibal as the other watches him. Will keeps his legs tight together, hand between them, rubbing slow circles over his cock. He bites his lip and releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His entire body is on fire, trembling. “I didn’t fuck him, Jesus!” The man splutters, turning Hannibal’s attention back to him, eyes wide and lips parted. “I just fingered him, man, gave him a well-earned spanking. I didn’t know he’d fucking flirted with you too, you do what you fucking want with him, I don’t want him.” Hannibal works his jaw back and forth a few times, tasting the blood where his cheek his his teeth inside, teeth snapping shut once he’s tested it. “Let me try to understand,” implores Hannibal, grabbing the man’s wrist to stop him from swinging again, pinning them to the floor so that he can speak, uninterrupted. “Fuck off.” “Rude,” murmurs Hannibal, eyes sharpening. “Very rude. I am to understand, then, that you put your fingers inside my boy -” “I didn’t know he was yours, you fucking saw how he was acting!” “I wasn’t finished speaking,” Hannibal warns him. “Fuck,” seethes the man, “you.” Spit hits Hannibal across his cheek and if Hannibal hears the high, needy moan this elicits from Will, he doesn’t react to it. Rather, he turns his hand, adjusts his fingers, and twists. Like ice cracking in the sun, like a ribbon of dynamite, the man’s wrist snaps in Hannibal’s hand and there is silence, as if the music itself is mute for that horrible instant. He plants his hand quickly back across the man’s mouth to trap the howl that comes once he’s caught his breath again, and Hannibal leans low over the man as he shakes in shock, hushing him with a soft whisper. “Shh shh, now. There is much more to go and you don’t want to lose your voice yet - not when you haven’t answered my question.” The man is incoherent, shaking his head as he trembles violently against the floor, and Hannibal begins again. “Tell me. You put your filthy fucking fingers inside my boy - you struck my fucking boy - and you tell me now that he is worth nothing to you, a dime a fucking dozen, do I understand you correctly?” The man shakes his head, nods, shakes it again, Will watches, cheek pressed to the cool floor, eyes wide, and wonders if he’s going into shock, wonders if he will remain conscious if Hannibal breaks the other wrist. He can still feel the ghost of the man’s fingers against his ass, in it, stretching him and rubbing up trying to find his prostate. He squirms, arching his back and stretching his legs forward, laces making soft hissing sounds against the floor. Will keeps rubbing, counting slowly in his mind for every time Hannibal swears, wonders if he is doing so to add the words to Will’s tab, that he will punish him for them. Insufferable boy, putting filthy words in my mouth, you will pay for them. Will wriggles, flushed and needy and hard, so hard, and wanting nothing more than for Hannibal to fuck him, to have that man watch as he’s spread and bent and beaten properly, and claimed and reclaimed and made a mess of. He wants that. “Hannibal,” he moans, stretching his free hand out towards him with a sleepy smile, fingers splaying and closing to a small fist. “Come here and fuck me.” The man beneath Hannibal tries to struggle, before Hannibal lifts him just enough from the floor to slam him hard against it again, turning to Will, at his words. “Why are you defending him?” The question rings in the room as much as the breaking of bone, the crackle- snap of cartilage. Will’s eyes widen and he shakes his head, but the words catch against his lips and Hannibal’s mouth works in a sneer, lips curving against his teeth. As if for emphasis, though truly only to scratch the vibrating itch that Hannibal feels in his hand, he drives another blow into the man’s face, another, another until something catches and his snarl becomes, for an instant, one of pain, but he merely sets his hand beneath the man’s jaw to tilt his head back. To keep his throat clear, lest he choke on his own blood, and the moment end too soon. It has been years, it feels, since Hannibal has allowed himself to hunt like this. Not the easy game he’s made for himself, not clean kills to keep his house tidy, but to rip, and tear, and break, and smash. Not since another man gutted Will and nearly killed him. Not since then, when Hannibal cut into his chest and broke his ribs out one by one. “You want me to stop,” Hannibal tells the boy, no mind now for the man’s faltering sounds beneath him, the pleas and the wet gasps, the tears that now fall freely and mingle spattering with blood. “Was it so good, Will, being used by him? So good that you want me to stop, now, you want me to leave him be after he touched you,” snarls Hannibal. Will blinks, confused, and pushes up on his hands to look at Hannibal properly, drugs humming through his system, body heavy with arousal and exhaustion. He shakes his head, pouting. “I want your cock in me,” he tells him, trying to keep his voice clear, pronouncing every word, “hard, until I fucking cry. Him?” He gestures, shrugs. “He doesn’t matter, but fuck I want you right now.” Beneath Hannibal the man struggles again and Will’s eyes go to him, tilting his head to watch him bleeding against the floor, no longer as strong as he had appeared when he had dragged Will to the room, told him to bend over, held him still… the more Will thinks about it, the more he realizes how truly weak the other was - is, for now - compared to Hannibal, the man who can with one hand hold Will entirely restrained. The man who can do so with one word. “How convenient,” spits Hannibal, eyes narrowing on Will a moment more before his attention drops to the man beneath him. It is a happy ruse, to take such grand offense, and to rise blood-stained and victorious to the defense of Will Graham’s questionable honor. The man has done, truly, nothing that should merit this - is hardly fighting back at all now that he fights for breath - but Hannibal has let his anger loose and will not restrain it until it is sated, fully. The blows fall against him, again and again. Smashing him against the floor, beneath his fist, it is a savagery cruel and vile that sings in Hannibal’s blood in a way he has not felt in far too long. And still he wants more, the monster inside him now howling in pleasure, he wants to carve the man open and drive his fists inside of him. Shred muscle and splinter bone, cut his own flesh upon those sharp edges and rip out every organ piece by piece, their vessels snapping back into place as each is torn free. He wants to eat them raw, and feel the muscle thick between his teeth, blood coagulating sticky down his chin. By the time the fugue begins to clear Hannibal is laughing, a low and purring sound from the hollows deep inside himself, cleared of whatever pent up energy once filled them. And of the man beneath him, little more than a smear of tissue and shattered bone, gore clinging to Hannibal’s hands in chunks that he shakes free before drawing his sleeve across his brow. Will watches, smile slowly fading as Hannibal’s brutality takes an entirely animalistic turn, growls become deeper, hands clawed and tearing - genuinely tearing - the man beneath him apart. Will’s breathing comes quicker now for an entirely different reason, panic winding through his blood as arousal had not moments before. He does not remember Hannibal like this often, the moments he does, he wishes he hadn’t. In that house, barely conscious, listening to someone die right beside him because Hannibal could not abide Will being hurt so badly. Pressing his back against the bathroom door as Hannibal slammed his entire weight against it to break the door down. Moments, fleeting things that Will has pushed himself to forget and unable to do so, no matter how hard he tries. He gets up on shaky legs before Hannibal is finished, as the beast sits astride his victim and continues to pound and tear and rend against him. Will manages to get most of the way around him before Hannibal’s voice slows him. “Come here.” Will hesitates, turning back just once to see Hannibal’s eyes narrowed, as red as the blood against his skin, before running for the door, working the latch with fumbling fingers before an arm snares him around the middle and yanks him back, Will’s own flailing feet kicking the door shut again before he can call someone. He hears the latch lock, twists like an eel in Hannibal’s arms until the man strikes him, just once, hard, against his face, and leave the sticky residue of blood there. Hannibal has taught Will well, throughout the years, how to break from a hold like this, how to fight his way free, bite and claw and tear his way away. He has taught him well, to be strong, to fight in all positions, to stay alive. He has taught him well and so Will shows him, now, digging deep gouges into Hannibal’s arm, spitting and snarling when he’s restrained another way, twists to break free of that too. For the first time in many months, Will fights with the genuine desire to hurt and scramble free. He fights like a creature possessed, as another, so like him, holds him close. Will bites against Hannibal’s arm where he can reach, gets struck again, again for his insolence, turned quickly and slammed into the floor where he see stars, lips parted and gasping as the drugs roil in his system faster, harder against his poor beating heart. For a moment he is entirely still, and that is the only moment Hannibal needs, drawing a hand back to slap Will again, hard enough to make him cough. “I told you. To come. The fuck. Here.” Will chokes on a cough and turns his head back, hair tacky for some reason, sticky, before he realizes it’s soaking up the blood of the man next to him, rendered entirely inhuman by Hannibal’s brutal hands. “What the fuck did you do?” Will whispers. Hannibal hums, rumbling deep in warning. He leans low over the boy and draws his nose against Will's cheek, taking in the static spark scent of his fear, ozone-sharp like just before a thunderstorm. "Where were you going, Will?" Dripping from his lips, the question pools hot and black and cloying against Will's skin. Warm lips lap it up from his cheek, before Hannibal asks again, a whisper, "What were you going to do?" Hannibal twists his fingers into Will's hair, softly to begin, but every fourth half-note bass thwump curls them tighter, tighter, until the curls are held straight between Hannibal's fingers. "Were you going to tell someone? Finally giving up. Shout for help and send them running to take me away." A quick jerk forces their eyes together, Hannibal's own shining red as the blood puddled across the floor. Their lips nearly touch when Hannibal purrs, soft, "Did you think you would escape me?" Will can feel the beast beneath Hannibal’s skin, twisting, trying to tear itself free. The drugs don't help, pulling coils where there are none, twists and turns and snags of skin. Will shudders but it is only partially in fear. "I needed air," he says. “It's rank in here, from him." In truth, despite the genuine fear that Will can feel the older man relishing, there is nothing that would make him give either of them up. Not to others, not to the police. He may have run, had he made it, allowed the music to numb him before stumbling out the door. But never would he have tried to escape Hannibal, escape this. His eyes shift between Hannibal’s, focusing, unfocusing, refocusing, blink. "I was going to breathe." He knows Hannibal does not accept the answer as he had not accepted the one before it, a mood like this allows no reason, just instinct, primal urges, little else. He twists, not enough to get away but enough to show discomfort, heart still beating too quick. Hannibal’s eyes are nearly black with pupil, hyperfocused from the drugs twitching off of every nerve, from the adrenaline that makes his hands cold as the floor he pins the boy against, from hunger, from violence. It sings in him, a vicious cocktail that makes everything move too quickly and too slowly all at once, and he ducks his head to drag his mouth across Will’s bare chest. Sweat and blood there and beneath it all, muscle, bone, his little wolf’s heart mere inches from his teeth. “Breathe,” Hannibal echoes. “Take in the cold night air. Fill your lungs with it, let it settle against your bare skin as you flee from me - as you run from this.” He snaps the boy’s head back with a fist in his curls, forces him to look at the remains of the man who so soon before had laid warm, wanting hands against his skin, had sucked marks against his neck. With a rough breath that might be a laugh, he turns Will’s head back, forces their eyes to meet, searching Will’s face for truth. “You would reject me for what I am,” accuses Hannibal softly, half a question. “Leave me here, abandon me for showing you what exists inside of me,” he seethes. “Because of you. For you.” Will swallows, eyes obediently on the man - what was a man - before turning to Hannibal as he wants. He's scared. He is scared, of what this could mean if someone finds out, finds them, finds this. He is scared of the monster atop him. It is rare that Will gets scared of Hannibal in this way, but he sets his hands against Hannibal’s chest where he can reach and curls them. "This existed before me," Will says softly, heart beating faster before he realizes it is merely a new song, the bass vibrating through the floor. He shivers, bites, his lip, tries to squirm. He has watched Hannibal kill dozens of boys, dozens of men, but never like this. He has never seen Hannibal tear someone apart. Just once. And that man had, in both their eyes, crossed a line. He can feel Hannibal hard against him, a lustful, bloody thing, and realizes he himself has grown soft in his panic. "Why?" He asks quietly. It is a valid question, Hannibal knows, one that merits more thought but for now it passes, swept away by a thick drop in the music, and he drags a kiss against Will’s unwilling mouth, rocking hard down between his legs. With a purr, he draws away to kiss Will’s cheek, his throat, and his lips settle against the boy’s ear. “Because I wanted to,” he murmurs, rubbing hard against him again, heavy atop the smaller boy. “Because it pleased me to do so. Because you did not come when I told you to.” He curls blood-sticky fingernails against the back of Will’s thigh, bringing the boy’s leg up high against his hip and seeking beneath the edge of his shorts as he adds with a rough snarl, “Because I want to be the only one who fucking touches you.” Will squirms again, using the leverage of his leg draped over Hannibal to try push himself back from under him, wanting to think this through, consider the words, fucking ask, for God's sake, what could bring such an over reaction. "You are," he whines quietly, and in a way it's true, the touches from men like the one bleeding into the floor mean nothing - usually to either of them. But this draws ire, another laugh, another possessive lick against Will’s skin. He feels like he is being claimed by a wild animal, it is as terrifying as it is exciting, and Will shudders out a breath, squeezes his fingers harder against where they touch Hannibal's skin. “I will be,” insists Hannibal, lips curling over clenched teeth, “the only one.” Words too long withheld, tempered by agreements long held between them - that Will would always return to him, that Will would abide Hannibal’s rules about how he is had, what comes of it when he is - now swept away in a wash of blood and music and desire and terrifying adoration, exaltation of the boy who has given himself to Hannibal, and yet not been consumed by him. But adrenaline is short-lived, runs cold too quickly and no amount of drugs beyond those that kill him could be enough to quiet the man’s instinct for self-preservation. He cannot have the boy here, not as he wants him, to fill him squirming and fuck him to pawing, whimpering submission. Too much risk, and the sensations in Hannibal’s body too addled now to give him that release anyway. He bites Will’s bottom lip, sucks it into his mouth and pushes their tongues together, kissing him with a groan before Hannibal pushes to stand, staggers slightly and takes in the scope of the room. It is too much mess to clean, now, here, would take too much time and there is no exit for them but the door that leads through the club. His mind works quickly, hands wiped on his shirt that he removes, stuffs into the pocket of his coat, held over his arm now, bare skin and bloodless but for his hands. Hannibal flexes one and hisses a curse in his native tongue, spitting anger at the sensation before he offers his other to the boy on the floor. “Go and wait outside,” he tells him, voice low, and he catches Will’s chin in his hand. “If you are not by the door when I get there, you will beg for the mercy I showed this man when I find you again.” Will’s eyes search, not for proof of the statement, but to see if any part of Hannibal had returned to him. Some has, in brief flickers and twitches beneath his skin. Hannibal's lip twists, just once, in a snarl Will associates immediately with a deep stretch, a sharp pain, body trembling in need and want for it. He reaches for Hannibal's shirt, to wipe the blood smeared across his face, and bites his lip before demurely making his way to the door. Beyond, the music hits him like a truck, pulling his pulse to uneven pounding, his body to dancing as he makes his way into the center of the bodies losing themselves to sound and powder, beat and pills. He feels hands against him, young, old, girls and boys both, and twists from them all with a grin. Over and over, turn and turn again. Until inevitably he is by the door, arms curling around himself to keep the cold at bay. He stamps his feet, kicking the loose stones on the street with the toes of his boots, and aches for a cigarette. Aches for hot hands to pull him back against a hot chest. Aches for those hands between his legs, rubbing and tugging, whispering roughly that he’d better not cum. Will groans, presses his thighs together and relaxes them with a sigh, lip between his teeth again as he waits, relishes the eyes on him from those lining up to get in, presents himself, touches... and waits. Beats of bass and heart counting infinite moments till Hannibal comes back. Though there is a pull to revel in his destruction, to display the man and debase him as the man did to Will, to warn others who might consider doing the same, even if the truth of it is only known to Hannibal. It itches at him, pulls as intensely as every other feeling he has had tonight, begs to be indulged but Will is waiting. Will had better be waiting. He skims his shirt along the table where Will’s hands were splayed, wiping up fingerprints, circling the scene like a predator defending his kill, although it is in Will’s defense that he circles three more times, to ensure there is no trace left of them but the body itself. The lock that Hannibal switched shut can’t be closed from the outside, but there is one set into the door handle as well, and as Hannibal stuffs his shirt into his pocket and curls his sleeve around his hand, he locks the door and lets it close behind him. Hours will pass before anyone notices that something is amiss and bothers to open it, and by then they will be far gone. And so he goes, parting steadily through the sea of skin and flesh, mouths and hands. If Will has fled, Hannibal will find him. If he has spoken to anyone, he will break the boy’s neck himself. If he is not waiting - - if he has gone - Hannibal shudders roughly as the cold night air hits his skin, pushing a hand - darkened, though not obviously with blood - against his face, the other held deep in his pocket. Will watches him a moment, sending another smile to a particular girl who had been trying to flirt with him from the line, before walking up to Hannibal and into his arms. The kiss is deep but soothed by fear, still, softened from the passionate hungry thing it would have been had - - Will doesn't think about it. "Take me home," he purrs, pressing close, smiling, rubbing up against him, "please?" He lifts his hand to curl through Will’s hair, not pulling now, but simply tugging him closer to brush a kiss across his brow. They remain that way for a moment more, as Hannibal waits for the unexpected rush of relief to sink through his body - that Will is here, that Will waited, that he didn’t flee and seek help, force Hannibal’s hand against him. Hannibal murmurs against his hair, soft-spoken adorations in every language they share between them, and only when he feels Will’s hand press against his chest with a little more insistence does he reluctantly break away to hail a cab. Hannibal is silent during the ride, eyes turned out the window but unfocused as streetlights splash sulfurous gold across him in bright stripes. They go to a hotel, wait, take another cab to another club, another cab, to a restaurant, another, to the hotel. All in all an hour, two, as the drugs begin to ebb and Hannibal feels himself grow exhausted, and they return to their own room - a rented apartment above a bar, on a winding street hardly wide enough for the cab to pass through. He never used to get this tired. He could hunt for hours, torment, fuck, destroy, field dress and butcher and not need rest until he had finished. But the aches come on sudden now, and though Hannibal tells himself it is from the drugs that make the light too bright in the room for him to leave on, he knows - deep in the tenderness of his bones, he knows it is more than that. It is something far more unavoidable. Will is barely standing either, though intensely hungry, and he pulls one of Hannibal’s large shirts on, unbuttoned, before digging through the fridge. Perhaps the anger had ebbed with the drugs, perhaps the evening would end with them pressed close together in mutual exhaustion. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... Will closes the fridge door, a gherkin in his mouth, a glass of juice and bacon - perhaps Canadian - in a sealed container. All set to the small table ready for a small feast when Hannibal wraps his arms around Will again, low over his stomach, thumb skimming the scar, and Will shivers. "Are you hungry?" He asks. “No,” Hannibal answers, in earnest, tugging Will away from the table even as he grasps for another slice of meat and just misses. He looms over the little wolf, pressed against his back, walking towards the bed to spread Will onto it and lay heavy over him. The echo of music still thumps steady in his ears - his own pulse, perhaps, that of the boy who squirms to adjust beneath him as Hannibal works to undo his skin-tight shorts, slide them down and bare him. His dominant hand remains still, curled and now hideously swollen. It is broken, Hannibal is certain, when he tries to move it and can feel the bones grinding sharp together. Non- displaced fracture of the fourth metacarpal. Hannibal hums, and pushes the slick black shorts down to Will’s thigh. “Do you fear me?” Will shivers but now the fear is gone, the terror that had gripped him breathless at the club. He wriggles enough to slide the shorts down further, work them past his knees as Hannibal presses him to the pillows, bared, the preparation entirely clear for what. "I did then," he admits, curling his fingers in the sheets beside his head, "and I have once before. I don't fear you now." He rocks back, rubbing up bare against Hannibal still clothed, cock still hard against his pants. "Should I?" Will asks softly. “Yes.” It is the truth, no more and no less than they have ever shared. Will is many things, delightful and depraved, but he is not foolish. Hannibal has hurt him before, will hurt him again given time, and to be unaware of that would be a potentially lethal mistake - to assume that Hannibal will stop, and not work to calm him as Will had. Hannibal twists, sliding his good hand down between them to work off his own pants enough that he can pull himself free, settling heavy against the cleft of the boy’s ass and rubbing languid against him. Despite the animal insistence of his need, to fill Will with himself, to take him, make him Hannibal’s own once more, there is a strange tenderness to his touches. Gentle fingers trace his scar, span across his belly to his chest to press him back closer still. He ducks his head to breathe in the smell of Will’s hair and - at long last - run his tongue along the knobby bones of the boy’s upper back, his neck, skin and bone to which no other taste imaginable could prove superior. He does not want his boy to fear him, wants to tell him that he would never - could, never - kill him, harm him irreparably, would never leave Will to suffer rather than gather him in arms just as he has now, to kiss away his worry. It rips at something hard in his chest and Hannibal makes a small sound, terrifying in its frailty, and even the movement of his hips ceases as he holds Will hard against him, and tries to still the trembling in his own bones. Will groans, pushes back against Hannibal and shivers. He can feel the sudden stillness, the tension and anger coiling through him - directed inwards, now, not as before - and relaxes, muscles by muscle, to be entirely pliant for the man, entirely willing. Soft sounds of need as he rocks back against him, spreads his legs as much as the shorts allow. "You were terrifying," Will breathes, nuzzling into the pillow, "you tore him apart." The words are reverent, entirely in awe of the man behind him, and truly, Will is in awe of him, of his strength and his restraint, the beast within the man. "Will you tear me apart?" He asks, voice curling to that tone that sends Hannibal’s teeth baring possessively, his eyes narrowing in a desire to show and remind and claim. The question cuts, as well it should, plucking against too-taut sinews and snaring, pulling. “Never,” swears Hannibal softly, though his voice is roughened into a growl. He ducks, careful not to use his damaged hand, to push Will’s shorts from him, raising a foot to slide them off the boy’s legs, slipping his shirt off next to bare thin shoulders and rest his mouth against the twitch of muscle beneath. “There is nothing you could do that would force my hand to it,” Hannibal tells him. It is a confession both honest and infuriating for Hannibal to speak, but he is held entirely in the sway of the lithe little thing pressed against him, driven to madness by him, to destruction and devastation, and yet there is nothing Will could do, nothing, that would see him so ruined. Not escape. Not betrayal. Not confession or imprisonment or his own death at the boy’s hands. The realization strikes cold terror through Hannibal, a feeling so rare as to seem foreign to him until he can give it a name. Fear, in knowing that Will holds Hannibal’s life entirely in his hands. Another shiver, full bodied and helpless and Will bites his lip on a groan, pressing get his forehead to the bed to arch his back, bend it slowly the other way until he is utterly pliant and beautiful for Hannibal. "Then claim me," he sighs, bringing a hand down between his legs to stroke, sighing a laugh when Hannibal pointedly moves it away, a bite against Will’s skin in warning. Will rubs back against Hannibal’s cock, turns his head to look at Hannibal’s damaged hand, a twinge of both fear and frightening arousal at seeing such an injury on Hannibal, usually entirely undamaged, unmarked, pristine. "I got so hard," Will whispers, "hearing you fucking swear." The movement is quick, grasping Will’s jaw in rough fingers to bend his head back against Hannibal’s shoulder. He holds him there, near enough that his lips brush Will’s ear as he murmurs, “You drive me to fucking madness, awful boy.” Will’s little laugh rips a shiver down Hannibal’s spine and he watches as Will keeps his head tilted back even when Hannibal releases him. Skimming his palm against the boy’s bare body, Hannibal spits into his hand and slicks himself with a quick jerk of his wrist between them, before rubbing wet fingers against Will’s opening, hardly breaching into him at all before he lines his cock up against his hole. “You want me to fuck you,” snarls Hannibal, a soft whisper for harsh words. “Split you open raw until you’re aching, begging for me to finish in you so that you can have your relief,” he breathes, sinking his teeth into Will’s shoulder, closing his lips around the pale skin to suck, kiss. A roll of his hips presses him just inside, a cruel stretch already with so little preparation, and Hannibal lifts his uninjured hand to curl around Will’s face. “You love how you undo me, don’t you? Make me fucking crazy by letting others touch you, your squirming and your sounds. Ruin my clothes and filthy my words, knowing that I love you so fucking much that I could no more stop myself from falling for your wiles than I could stop my own fucking heart from beating.” Will moans, up on all fours, thighs trembling, spread for him as Hannibal presses filthy words to Will’s damp skin. He shivers at the breach but doesn't move - good boy - and listens, takes in Hannibal’s tone and implications and threats of punishment Will rightfully deserves. He squeezes around Hannibal’s cock, shallowly as it's in, and earns a sharp slap against his thigh for it. "I love watching you destroy for me." Will tells him, voice roughened and harsh, lips parting on a pained noise when Hannibal pushes in deeper, infuriatingly slow and still not fully in. "A monster," Will laughs, "a dirty old man reminding his boy who he belongs to." Another slap for this and Will trembles, cock leaking a drop of clear fluid from the tip as Hannibal shoves all the way into him, hand around his throat to hold Will beautifully bent for him. “I will never let you forget.” The first buck of his hips drives Will into the mattress, arms shaking weak beneath him, back arched deeply to present his ass higher for Hannibal to fuck, claim, mark as his own and watch, entirely, as he does. Hannibal lets his swollen hand hang to his side but the other he presses against Will’s ass, spreading him roughly, leaning back enough to watch his cock slip back out of him and the boy’s opening stretch around it, groaning low as he presses it to disappear back inside. Snapping his hips in a brutal rhythm, Hannibal drives the boy’s voice from him, breaks it into choked, hitched little gasps and breathless shuddering moans. Will’s fingers claw at the pillow beneath him, lips parted and slick with spit, eyes just open to bare slits enough to watch the older man behind him, on his knees, taking what they both know to be his, entirely. His, and no one else’s. The drugs still move inside them, spurred now by rest and food withdrawn and replaced instead with carnality, primal and painful. Hannibal imagines that he can feel Will’s heart beating where he fucks him, and tries to time his own pulse to match it. Synchronicity, physical and chemical, moves them as a whole, together, until even watching Will’s ass spread for him isn’t enough, and Hannibal curves over Will to feel their bodies fit so perfectly together. “There is not a life in the world I would not end in an instant to keep you as mine,” Hannibal whispers against the back of Will’s neck. “There is no act of destruction I would not commit with glee to know that you are mine, and mine alone.” "Yours," Will chokes, agreement and pleasure and pain mingled into one. He wants this, craves and needs it. His hands scrabble against the sheets, tugging them in handfuls and pulling. It hurts, it's perfect, and Will opens his mouth to allow a little cry, the sound spurring Hannibal to fuck him harder. Will wants to touch himself, to twist and stroke and make himself cum but he refuses to disobey Hannibal now, refuses to draw ire when such possession fills its place. He will have bruises for days, against his neck and chest and ass. He will wince when he walks, bends, sits, and do it anyway for Hannibal’s pleasure. "I want to cum," he whimpers, knowing he will be denied, perhaps asking specifically to be, lips curling wide when Hannibal snarls at his selfishness, calls him filthy things in every language that comes to mind and slows his thrusts to be deliberately slow, stroking over Will’s prostate as he shudders. "Please?" "No." Will laughs, breathless, fists his hands hard enough to whiten his knuckles. "Hannibal, please -" “No,” snarls Hannibal again, striking hard against the boy’s ass, and hissing a vile curse in rough Lithuanian when it’s with his damaged hand. It’s enough to still him for a moment, the shock of pain that floods his mouth with the taste of metal, makes his teeth hurt down to the bone as his arm sings with the echoing ache. He recovers quickly, short deep thrusts to drive Will even harder into the mattress, teeth snared against Will’s shoulder enough to leave a ring of bruises in its place, holding him there as he climaxes suddenly, digging rough and unsteady into Will as he floods the boy with heat. This is what Hannibal has hungered for, this is what drives him to utter madness - this moment where he spills inside the beautiful boy who begs so sweetly beneath him, and knows that no other will ever again do the same. The drip of cum from Will’s reddened, swollen hole erupts a shiver through Hannibal, still thrusting, even as his cock begins to soften. He does not withdraw, he will stay there for as long as he can, and only after he has caught his breath does he reach to tug slowly against Will’s throbbing cock, rubbing his thumb along the vein that pulses there, pushing up against his head. Will jerks at the sensation, spreading himself further up the bed with a twist and bend, shaking from the need to cum, the cool feeling of drugs still in his system. He’s dizzy from it, exhausted, horny as hell and knows that within a few hours, napping against Hannibal, he will wake again, blood boiling and rut against the older man until he’s helped or chastised. “Please.” Voice rough, low, needy and animalistic as Hannibal had been, transcending from wanton boy to little wolf, mounted and taken and held still by claws and teeth. “Fucking please, Hannibal, let me -” “I should make you wait for days for your language,” Hannibal mutters against Will’s back, squeezing almost too hard against Will’s cock for emphasis. He holds him there until the boy can do no more than tremble, whimper catching the edge of every quaking breath, before he loosens suddenly to stroke the boy to completion. Hissing as Will tightens around him in relief, the boy’s fingers white-knuckled into the sheets, Hannibal groans soft as Will’s cum stripes against the bed, drips thick onto his fingers, as he feels the remnants of his own leaking in the tightness of the boy’s body. Slowly, Hannibal slides free of him and slides to the bed beside. Filthy, covered in gore and sweat and semen, Hannibal brings his hand to his mouth - still stained dark with blood, now streaked with clear and white fluid - and unabashed, draws his tongue against it, dark eyes falling closed. The rest is wiped against his bare stomach, and truly, Hannibal hurts. From the exertion, from the come-down, from the brutal demolition of another human and the equally cruel fucking of the only one that matters to him in the world. He hides the ache that draws at his throat, swallows it down and doesn’t let it show but for a bare flicker of tension in the corners of his eyes as after long minutes he drags himself from the bed to the bathroom. Will watches him, spread on his stomach in bed, one knee drawn higher than the other, just catching his breath, waiting for the trembling to ease. He doesn’t immediately follow Hannibal when he gets up, but he does follow him, leisurely swiping at his thigh to catch the drips that might make it to the floor before he makes it to the bathroom, moving around him in the small space to clean himself up. Then he’s around Hannibal, a cool palm skimming between his shoulders before Will hoists himself up on the sink, wraps his legs around Hannibal to draw him closer and takes his injured hand, wincing in sympathy when Hannibal makes a rough sound of pain. He takes Hannibal’s hand gently, careful to skim the skin not touch it as he allows his eyes to see as much as they can. “You need to splint it,” Will says, setting his heels against the insides of Hannibal’s thighs to hold him comfortably close as he splays Hannibal’s damaged hand against his own bare thigh. “We’ll find something.” It’s almost domestic, soft, a gentle thing as though discussing what to have for dinner, what one had done with their day. Will holds Hannibal’s hand only as the other lets him, he does not jar the delicate bones, he does not press and watch the skin bruise further, he merely holds him before bringing it up to gently kiss against it, grateful, awed, that Hannibal would break himself to defend Will, even from something as simple as a groping at a club. Hannibal watches Will’s lips, flushed rosy still from their exertion, as they drift slow across his knuckles. Broken skin grown thick with scabbing, dense with blood where they split open, his hand already darkening with bruising, swollen in Will’s careful hands. He is reverent in this gentle adoration, lashes dark and long against ruddy cheeks and long curls sticking sweaty to his skin. Hannibal wonders if Will has ever been more beautiful. He raises his eyes then, to the reflection in the mirror, Will’s bruised back and knobby spine, following its curve upwards to his own face watching back at him. The lines in it look deeper, etched as crevices, the circles beneath his eyes dark. There is threading of silver-grey more and more through his hair, overt now as if it were under spotlights in the harsh glare of the bathroom, made brighter still by the drugs that now focus everything too sharp, high contrast. “Dirty old man,” Hannibal echoes, and brings his healthy hand to his face to rub his eyes before turning away. Will’s legs hold him fast, and he realizes then that the boy was watching Hannibal as much as he watched himself, caught in pensive reflection, grim truths that make themselves more evident daily. Running the backs of his fingers across Will’s cheek, he huffs a soft laugh and leans low, to brush a kiss across his brow. “Will you see if there is ice? A shower, before we sleep.” Will hums that he will look, finally uncurls his legs enough that Hannibal can step back before slipping to the floor and making his way to the main room again, blissfully, unashamedly naked as he bends to seek in the freezer with bare hands. He finds ice enough to settle on Hannibal’s hand and leans in the small kitchen to gather a towel, thin and frayed, to wrap the ice in before taking it back to Hannibal. He pulls him close again, not sitting on the counter this time but lifting one leg to hook around Hannibal anyway, eyes up with a smirk as that, too, holds him closer, while Will remains entirely balanced and comfortable. He sets one hand under Hannibal’s the other with the ice on top of it, soothing him with a soft sound when Hannibal hisses in pain, curses. For a while they just stand this way, holding each other close, Hannibal setting his good hand down to hook under Will’s thigh. When Will looks up, he looks younger, flushed cheeks and bright eyes, lips parted before he leans close and kisses Hannibal’s stubbled cheek, up to where his cheekbone bends beneath his eye, higher still to his temples, to the greying hair smooth and warm above that. “I love you,” Will tells him, words sincere, soft, as his lips seek down again and he kisses the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. “As you are. Brutal and cruel and protective of me.” Will smiles, sighs and nuzzles his nose against Hannibal’s setting both feet to the floor again and pushing up on his tiptoes as Hannibal wraps his arm around Will’s middle. “I would have you no other way.” Will feels wonderfully small against him, coiling and sleek, little and lovely, and Hannibal tugs him a little closer to feel his body press near - to feel his own strength, still immense. He seeks Will’s mouth beneath his own and sucks against his bottom lip before they spread together, close and part again, and again. Will is bent nearly backwards over his arm, a low tango dip, and Hannibal traces his mouth down his throat, his chest, nearly lower still before he rights the boy and holds him tight once more. “Would that I will stay as such,” he murmurs against Will’s hair, tilting his head against the little fingers that spread through his own. His hand skims down Will’s back, allowing the boy to hold himself in place, and he grasps his backside in a fond squeeze, finger straying towards his still-hot opening, damp and sticky. “Sloppy boy,” scolds Hannibal softly, before relenting to steer them both towards the shower. Will deposits of the ice into the stall and watches as the hot water melts it to nothing. The towel he tosses to the floor, to Hannibal’s mild displeasure, before helping the man out of his pants so he doesn’t damage his hand more by moving it. Within, they share the water, Will pressed to Hannibal’s chest as the older man washes Will’s back and down to his ass, between his legs when Will obediently spreads them. The cloth is passed between them, with a quick rinse and Will washes all of Hannibal so the man doesn’t have to use his hand, bend, turn, do more than stand there and tilt his head back against the water. Will takes his time, the drugs now smooth in his blood enough to make all his motions slow, deliberate and lazy. He sucks Hannibal clean before he washes him, enough to elicit a threat of pain if he doesn’t stop that only brings Will’s eyes up and a grin across his face before he pulls back. Once clean, they share a towel, a quick drying off enough to not soak the sheets before both fall into them, Hannibal lazily winding an elastic bandage around his hand to keep it still, at least, up to his wrist and higher still to the crook of his elbow, before coiling it downwards. Will is already asleep by the time Hannibal turns to him, soft little snuffles in his sleep as he lies with his face half mashed into the pillow, beautifully nude until Hannibal covers him with the sheet, to keep him warm once the night grows colder. They sleep. And, inevitably, they wake. For Will it is with a huff, as he drags the sheets up across his head to block out the beam of sun that stabs between the curtain and the windowsill. With a little warning growl, he digs himself into Hannibal’s side and settles again. For Hannibal, it is when Will unsettles him, and Hannibal tries to turn towards him to wrap an arm over him, the pain from the movement jolting him far more awake than he’s prepared to be. “Supistai supistas,” he seethes, and the hiss lowers to a growl. Against the sun, against Will’s fidgeting little movements again him - against his own hand and his own head that throbs just as intensely as the night before, and far, far less pleasurably. Hannibal tries, valiantly, not to move again, and hums in a low, rumbling warning when Will’s hand spreads across his chest. “Sleep,” Hannibal demands, voice cracking dry. “Wanna fuck you though,” Will mumbles in Lithuanian, draping a leg over Hannibal’s and rutting his already half-hard erection against Hannibal’s thigh, much to the man’s delight and displeasure both. He vaguely swats at Will, finds the other entirely uncaring and moves to turn away, jarring his hand again and cursing enough to draw a low laugh from Will. “You don’t even have to move much, I just need your cock for this.” A snort, a laugh, and Will presses up against Hannibal’s back, one hand down to stroke him despite the protests. Hannibal, rolling to his side away from the boy, jerks an elbow back to try and scrape Will off of him but he’s too slow, this early, too monstrously sore to put any real strength into it. “You cannot have it,” he mutters, the same language grumbled back at Will but with his voice muffled into the pillow. “Fuck off, Will.” He groans when Will shivers at the curse. The groan deepens when he feels Will’s cock hardening in response to it. Another attempt to shove the boy away is equally unsuccessful as the first and finally Hannibal simply rolls onto his belly, and drags the pillow over his head. Will drapes himself over Hannibal entirely then, head where the pillow rests on Hannibal’s, body over him like a blanket as Will sighs deliberately deep and groans. “Could always fuck on, I guess,” he says, rocks his hips against Hannibal in a teasing motion before the man rolls and displaces Will to the floor. The boy goes with a yelp, grasping the blankets and in so doing pulling Hannibal close enough to the edge of the bed to slide off it with a jerk, knees impacting the ground as he curses Will again, a mixture of Japanese and something else that makes Will laugh more. Hannibal holds his injured hand out in front of him as Will continues to tug the blankets and unbalances the man back against him, wrapping all his limbs around him and nuzzling the back of his neck. “Mmm stay here then, I can fuck you here. No sun here.” Hannibal starts to settle, turning his cheek against Will’s cool shoulder, allowing - for a moment - the boy to support him where he’s been pulled. A long breath breaks the rhythm of the others, jerked short and held deeply, and just as Hannibal sighs into something like sleep again Will curves his hips against him, and Hannibal snarls. “You may not,” he finally says. Tongue pressing across the front of his teeth, curling up his lip, Hannibal grimaces at the taste in his mouth and leans slowly away from Will. Or tries, anyway. Will clings to him as if he were a backpack, holding close around Hannibal’s neck until - hand carefully extended out - Hannibal sinks to his belly on the floor, defeated. “Off.” “You get me off then I’m off,” Will points out, though he sounds as incoherent as the man he is tormenting. Beneath him, Hannibal shifts, twists, enough to dislodge Will from his shoulders, though the boy’s arms remain curled around his chest, his middle, his hips, thighs, down to his calves when Hannibal finally stands. Will wraps his hands around the man’s leg and holds on with a contented sigh as the older man attempts to walk his way out of this. “Insufferable creature,” Hannibal snarls, half-heartedly kicking out with one leg and connecting with Will’s shoulder, getting only a grunt in response as he almost loses balance and sets his foot to the floor with a heavy sound and a groan of displeasure. “If you are in that bathroom when I am in it, Will,” Hannibal warns, and Will just pulls himself closer against Hannibal’s leg and nips the skin. “What, you’ll drown me in the tub?” “I will drown you in the tub,” Hannibal decides, much to Will’s giggling amusement, and the man’s almost hissing growl for him to shut up, stop talking, for fuck’s sake Will. Hannibal turns and valiantly attempts to reach the bathroom, clutching the doorway with one hand, bracing the forearm of his broken hand against the other, and turning a baleful eye to the boy still clinging to him, now dragged across the floor. He swears that Will is somehow more hard for the endeavor, and Hannibal swears again. Bare skin squeaking against the floor, Will is dragged several more steps across the tile floor now, past the towel he discarded the night before, towards the bath. “Do you see, Will?” asks Hannibal. “Do you see what I am doing?” He switches the water on and closes his eyes with a soft sound of agony as the sound rattles deafening in his head. Without opening them again, he continues, voice scarce above a murmur. “When the bath is full, I will drown you in it.” A pause, and the barest glimmer of a smile catches beneath his eyes. “Perhaps I will have you then, waterlogged and beautiful, my wretched Ophelia.” Will hums, letting Hannibal go enough for the man to move to the toilet to relieve himself, and turns onto his back to arch and stretch there like a cat, toes pointed and splayed, relaxed and soft against the ground when he’s done, hands loose above his head, eyes apparently closed but for the quickness of his reflexes when Hannibal attempts to walk past him again and gets snared by clever fingers. “Will -” “You’ll drown me and miss me, so come here till the tub fills,” he yawns, rolling to his side, hand still clasping the older man’s ankle. “Come lie on the mat with me.” “There is a bed, Will.” “Mm.” “Just there. A comfortable bed with clean sheets.” “Too far.” Hannibal’s eyes narrow. “I am not lying down on a bathmat.” “You are.” “No.” Will draws a breath, one that wells deep inside of him, chest raising, and Hannibal’s slitted eyes widen at the promise of a far louder insistence. He mutters his acquiescence and lowers slowly, carefully, beside the boy to be dragged down alongside him - not Ophelia, but the grasses that pulled her beneath the water. But the ground is cool, pleasantly chill but where Will is pressed against him. “I would not miss you,” murmurs Hannibal, dragging a hand across his eye. “You would.” “I hate you.” “You tell me every day,” Will reminds him, wrapping himself around Hannibal and settling in for a nap. He wakes first, again, to the sound of running water and a groggy head. Beneath him, Hannibal breathes evenly in rest, and beyond, in the main room, the sun has pulled closer to the window suggesting early afternoon or very late morning. He wonders how long they slept. On the floor. Of the bathroom. On a mat. He suppresses a laugh and sits up, stretching his arms over his head before looking into the tub that continues to accept the water but not fill with it, the steady stream spilling immediately into the drain and away. For a good while Will watches it, almost meditative in its repetition, before reaching to twist the tap closed, the water trickling away down the drain and the room quieting, and it’s enough to rouse Hannibal from his rest. Just enough to catch Will’s wrist in his good hand. Just enough to draw the boy back down against him. Just enough to wrap a leg over him and lay heavy half- atop him, and presses kisses along his cheek, his neck, curling his arm around the boy’s head to twine his fingers in Will’s hair. “Stay,” Hannibal implores now. The room has stopped spinning, his stomach has lowered down from his throat, and he is - almost, in a strange way - comfortable. He doesn’t need to find words to explain how he adores the boy, how he wants - needs - him near, and simply hopes that Will can feel it in every press of his fingertips and every kiss. Only when a shared rumble nags at both their stomachs does Hannibal speak again, a low murmur, “My hand is broken.” Will hums, nuzzling in a gently continuous nodding motion against Hannibal’s chest. “We’ll splint it today,” he tells him, contented for the moment to just press to the older man and feel him so close. After a few moments he kisses against the warm hair on his chest and pulls back. “I’ll make breakfast.” He makes it to the kitchen, tiny in this room, and runs a hand through his hair with a yawn. Upon the little table, rests the sealed container, a glass of juice, a barely bitten gherkin that Will immediately sticks into his mouth to chew as he considers their options. They would need to eat, dig out painkillers for Hannibal to take as they set about setting and splinting his hand, doping him up into a new kind of high to keep him awake during the procedure. Will’s medical experience extends no further than the spines of the books he’s read on the subject, no matter the language or number of volumes. Breakfast experience, though, he has in spades. Before long, the apartment fills with the scent of sweet bread - french toast, made from the last egg in the refrigerator and as much bread as he could dip in it to make it last. Hannibal, throughout, remains sprawled across the floor in the bathroom, dragging himself up only when he’s sure it’s not his gorge rising but a heave of hunger in his belly. Bandaged hand loose at his side, he steps closer behind Will, both naked still, though with little mind to it even as Hannibal wraps his good arm around Will’s shoulders and holds him tight against his chest - always, somehow, a perfect fit when their bodies meet. They eat, quickly enough that they regret it and mumble complaints at each other while sipping the coffee Will brewed in the copper kettle. This, especially, is a treat for a morning such as they’ve had. Both share a cigarette before Will gathers ice and finds painkillers in his stash of pills. Two are pressed to Hannibal’s lips, worked past them with Will’s tongue as he kisses the older man and tugs him to the bed. With Hannibal’s rough curses and guidance, Will fashions a splint from a bent kitchen spoon and the bandages - rewrapped with careful little fingers - to hold the bone in place. Hannibal is pale by the end of it, but not so weakened that he cannot drag the boy over him, across the bed, to let him lay heavy on top while Hannibal holds ice to his fracture. He tells Will that he loves him. There is no other for him than Will - none that could be cleverer or crueler, more brilliant or more beautiful. He would have no other, but Will, if Will wished it of him. Will is his only, he tells him, and the offer though genuinely made is just as gently set aside. The boy tells him he’s high, laughs and says he knows that Hannibal loves him, lays heavy and scatters the man with kisses, to ease his worry and his pain with a steady heart and soft lips. They talk, about everything and nothing, until the painkillers settle Hannibal into pliancy. They kiss until they cannot breathe. They sleep, until the sun dips below the horizon again, and neither minds spending another night in Bucharest, wrapped close against the other. End Notes Coursing is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs—chiefly greyhounds and other sighthounds—catching prey by speed, running by sight. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!