Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1847926.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/
      Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Hannibal_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Will_Graham/Hannibal_Lecter
  Character:
      Hannibal_Lecter, Will_Graham, Original_Male_Character(s), Alana_Bloom,
      Brian_Zeller
  Additional Tags:
      rentboy, very_dominant_Hannibal, very_sassy_Will, Will_is_17_in_this,
      Rough_Sex, mentions_of_past_rape_(not_the_mains), Violence, Physical
      Abuse, striking, Strangulation, Sadism, Masochism, copious_amounts_of
      blood_and_its_inappropriate_use, Cannibalism, Cruelty, Cleverness, utter
      depravity., Voyeurism, Sex_Tapes, Drug_Use, Threesomes, Public_Sex,
      Spanking, Bottom_Hannibal, Fluff, Car_Sex, Whipping, graphic_cruelty,
      Graphic_Violence, Branding, Graphic_surgery, Flogging
  Series:
      Part 1 of Vignettes_of_Sex_and_Violence
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-26 Completed: 2014-07-22 Chapters: 20/20 Words: 137993
****** Odalisque ******
by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite
Summary
     There’s something deeply decadent about it, defiling such a luminous
     vehicle with something so cheap as smoke. The irony isn’t lost on
     Will as he slides across the velvet-soft lambskin leather seat.
     As far as could be from anyone who regularly visits this place, for
     these reasons.
     Slumming it.
      Not quite your typical rentboy situation.
Notes
     Coming from the Ya'aburnee series this... is strikingly different.
     Fair warning, that if this feels uncomfortable for you in this
     chapter, perhaps consider not reading on.
     That said, disturbingly, I suppose, we are having a blast writing
     this. Comments always welcome!
     We_also_have_an_OST! As well as some amazing ficmixes made by our
     readers: [x] -=- [x]
***** Chapter 1 *****
Early night. Dull.
Will kicks the toes of his boots against the pavement and chews the side of his
nail through the thin sweater pulled over his hands.
He could go home. He should go home. Hell, he doesn’t have to be here, with the
other little boys making ends meet. He has an apartment. He has it paid for him
by an allowance for college he never went to, on a scholarship he’d never
wanted.
And he’s bored beyond words.
Cars crawl by along the main road, some turn off others don’t bother. He
doesn’t ever offer himself to anyone with a car less expensive than his own,
and this part of town is not often the route for them. It’s rarely the route
for him unless he wants a quick fuck in a dark alleyway.
Slumming it.
Poor, bored little rich boy.
Will relishes it, he adores being what he is. Plays up his youth, lines his
eyes, tugs on tight pants and button-ups. His hair is a disarray of curls, eyes
blue enough to be unnerving.
He watches. He waits.
An unexpected beauty, unique amongst boys with lovely faces that have been made
hard around the edges. Too much seen too quickly for the resilience of youth
not to keep the mistrust from their eyes.
As though summoned simply by his want for it, Will sees the car at a distance.
Expensive. Extremely expensive. Stripes of light cross over smooth black
glistening spotless, wheels crunching only softly against the unkept street.
The kind of thing meant for a world far uptown from here, nearer to the
embassies and plush hotels in whose lobbies he’s found himself dallying, once
or twice, to see what turns up.
He stands from the curbside and dusts his hands against his thighs. Finds the
precise angle for his chin to tilt, enough to be noticed but not so much as to
appear needy, and he turns a curious smile on himself when he meets his own
reflection in the dark windows, tinted nearly to black.
Someone important. Someone who doesn't want to be seen.
Guileless blue eyes, blinking wide with amusement, as Will steps towards the
car that is clearly waiting for him. Meant for him. He traces a hand along the
smooth silver rim beneath the window. Mid-six figures, he guesses, if outfitted
fully. He knows it will be, and likely customized beyond that.
A very particular vehicle for a very particular kind of person.
The door is opened for him, with only a softly intoned invitation spoken in an
unfamiliar accent.
“Please.”
Dark hair swept through with the beginning of silver threads, pushed back from
an older face, lines drawn against the corners of his eyes, around his mouth.
Handsome. A suit that matches the car in its luxurious spotless black, above a
pressed white shirt just unbuttoned to frame the collar loose against his face.
Cigarette dwindling between his fingers to trail smoke from the window.
There’s something deeply decadent about it, defiling such a luminous vehicle
with something so cheap as smoke. The irony isn’t lost on Will as he slides
across the velvet-soft lambskin leather seat.
As far as could be from anyone who regularly visits this place, for these
reasons.
Slumming it.
Will closes the door and adjusts his position: body bent into a falsely nervous
curve, thumb back to his teeth before he forces his hand down, his shoulders
straight. He gives the man a smile, demure, polite, keeps his eyes just down
from the man's but not away.
The filter returns to thin lips, bowed, a genuinely pleasing shape to them, and
the end glows orange as the man draws a breath. Will has to resist the urge to
bite his lip.
A moment later, the car peels from the curb, smooth, and picks up speed quickly
- taking its prize away from the unknown waters, shedding the dust of this
unfamiliar and dirty world.
"I charge $500," Will says, amusement stirring in his chest as the man snorts,
a derisive, dismissive sound.
"You will take what I give you,” comes the reply.
"Mmm, hence $500," Will agrees, stretches his arms over his head with a soft
groan that pulls just the inappropriate side of needy, before draping then
behind the seat, body open, sliding lower, legs a pleasing tangle in front of
him, thighs parted.
"If I wanted my money wasted I would have dialed in," the man points out.
They reach a red light. The car slows to a halt and dark eyes turn to appraise
Will. He meets them.
"So sir wisely chose better," he grins. "$500."
Hannibal hums at the title, inscrutable in the amber glow of the cigarette
touched against his lips.
His attention does not drift to the curves the boy presents to him, brazen but
awkward, movements that appear just slightly forced. What he thinks he's meant
to do, Hannibal considers.
Play acting. A deliberate awkwardness betrayed by the quickness of Will’s eyes
and the openness of his demands.
The light changes, bathing them in green rather than red, and the car takes a
sharp turn smoothly.
"An aggressive demand considering where I’ve found you," Hannibal responds. "If
you anticipate receiving anything near that, then I hope for your sake that I
do not find you wanting."
An agreement enough, as the car purrs against the street. Late enough now that
few cars surround them, early enough to still be held only by darkness and the
sulfuric glow of streetlights. From the gutter to grandness, a neighborhood of
enormous homes with space between them enough to breathe.
No hotel for one with money to spare on it, no motel for one with a taste for
the sordid.
A looming house, refined nearly to the point of menace, as is the car. As is
Hannibal.
Will watches, eyes curious, on the houses, the space, each well-maintained
front yard. He's slid to sit more comfortably, now, still open but more
genuine. His fingers absently fiddle with one of the sweater's mangled sleeves.
He wonders at his luck. A home like this is private, no time limit, no
requirement to keep their voices low. He thinks of how he will certainly not be
found wanting.
The car slides into the garage, its door humming closed behind them, and Will
bites his lip. No longer the wanton game, but no less alluring, and this time
the man pays attention. Will draws a hand through his hair, upsetting the curls
that lay soft, long, to just above his nape, and makes a soft sound.
"Far from wanting," he answers finally, and there is an odd confidence in that,
and in the smile that follows.
“We shall see,” Hannibal replies, not unkindly as his attention drops briefly
from Will’s hand twisting in his hair to the curve of his lips. Another sound,
a note of approval, before he leans past to open the door for him.
Before moving back again, he catches Will’s hand, fingers snared in the sleeve
of his sweater, and stills it.
“Stop fidgeting.”
No room for question in his tone, before he exits the car to make his way into
the house.
There is little in the house that doesn’t reflect the same elegance as
Hannibal’s dress and carriage, as the vehicle in which they arrived. Careful
choices made with attention to quality rather than cost, a restraint evident in
the overall splendor of the place. A tendency towards the naturalistic, bones
and horns, amongst plush textiles and rich patterns, the brightly colored
interspersed tactfully with the understated.
He pays little mind to the boy but to motion to the stairs.
“The bedroom is directly to your right. Wait for me there.”
Will doesn't nod, doesn't make a sound to acknowledge the order at all, but he
does obey it. His eyes take in the decor, the masculine choices of color
without it being overbearing. There is something both utterly pleasant and
underlined with danger, in this house.
Will swallows, smiles, draws his lip between his teeth, and continues slowly up
the stairs.
His hand trails the smooth, expensive banister, just fingertips and the
inevitable whisper of overstretched fabric after, as though wiping his prints.
He doesn't fit in here, with his tight jeans, worn combat boots, and torn
sweater. Beneath, a button-up shirt of some value and quality. At the top of
the stairs, Will tugs the sweater off, balls it in his hands and tosses it to
the first surface he finds in the bedroom.
Here, too, the tones are muted and discreet. Maroons and blues, grays and harsh
blacks when he flicks on the light. One door leads to what he supposes is a
bathroom, the way the wan moonlight flits through to reflect off the floor.
Another, symmetrical in the room's design, to a closet.
He goes to neither. He bends over to unlace his boots.
Hannibal toes off his shoes and pushes them neatly beside the door with his
foot. Allows the boy a few moments alone as he makes his way to the kitchen to
pour a glass of wine. He takes in the nose of it with a long breath, allowing
it to replace the lingering smell of the street that by proxy followed him
home.
A sip, as he lets himself muse, as ever, on what the boy must feel, to be
plucked from his environs and delivered here. He does so enjoy when they go all
wide-eyed with wonder at him, losing the false charms learned to entice less
demanding clients. Overwhelmed by the promises before them, eager with surprise
and greed. That much more malleable for letting their guards drop so earnestly.
Hannibal sighs with pleasure and makes his way up the stairs with wine in hand.
Though his gaze passes over the boy it moves immediately to sweater heaped on
the chair beside him. A narrowing of eyes comes and goes, and he removes his
coat to hang neatly in the closet.
No pretenses - no fumbling questions of names and interests, no stammering how-
does-this-work’s or I-haven’t-done-this-before’s. Hannibal watches the boy -
pretty enough that he wonders briefly about the circumstances in which he was
found - and sits on the edge of the bed.
“You will remove your clothing,” Hannibal says, “and fold it neatly on the
chair.”
He makes no move to do the same, but merely observes.
Will straightens, cocks his hips just so as he toes his boots off and
deliberately kicks them under the chair. Only one stays upright, the other
turned in the toss to reach its laces across the floor like seeking fingers.
He does take up the sweater to fold it, however. Not meticulous but acceptably
neat. Then the shirt. Deft fingers on the buttons, bottom up, revealing a taut
stomach, a chest hairless in youth more than the desire to aesthetically
please.
The shirt Will hangs over the back of the chair before turning back to the man
and skimming his knuckles down below his navel to the button on his jeans.
"And then?" he asks, lips tilted in a cocky, self-pleased way as the button
gives, the zip fly follows. Beneath are simple cotton boxers. He manages to
work his jeans free without yet pulling them down. The jeans get folded
longways then thrice over, before finding their place on top of the sweater.
The boxers are removed without flourish, no attempt at sensual bends or
arching, just a quick motion before Will stands nude. One hand returns to his
hair, the other taps gently just below his hip.
He's clean. Toned. No signs of dirt or abuse on this body, no neglect or
starvation. Will rolls his shoulders, just once, and stands still.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Hannibal picks up the cigarettes from beside the bed, taps one out and lights
it languidly as he studies the boy at length, and not without appreciation for
the youth bared before him. The flourish of his collarbones, the pale expanse
of skin that appears untouched by the wear of his occupation, pulled sleek and
firm across the curves of his hips.
Hannibal meets his eyes, and notes the sly smile that the boy is proving
stubbornly resistant to losing. A resounding confidence in his own beauty and
skill, although the latter has yet to be proven.
And Hannibal is nothing if not demanding in his expectations.
He removes the cufflinks from his shirt, rather than risk losing them to boyish
fingers that have never handled such things, and sets them aside beside his
glass of wine.
“And now you will do the same for mine.”
Palms pressed against the bed, Hannibal leans back incrementally to allow the
boy room, cigarette hanging loose between his lips.
Will watches, smile widening barely at the sight, before walking the necessary
distance.
He starts with the tie, fingers careful on the knot he is unfamiliar with, then
his fingers slip to the vest, working the buttons with deliberation and care he
knows the other doesn't expect from him. He removes both when Hannibal lifts
his arms to allow it, and folds them carefully before dropping them to the
chest at the foot of the bed - he doubts the man wants his clothes touching
Will’s.
The thought desperately amuses him.
His fingers brush the middle of the pristine shirt, skimming the buttons,
before he licks the corner of his top lip and pushes the man just gently
further back. Without a word, he takes the cigarette from his lips and places
it between his own, takes a drag.
When he moves, it’s to set his knees on either side of Hannibal’s thighs and
straddle him, back bent pleasingly, now, as he sets his fingers to undoing the
buttons here, as well, as casually as though he were still standing in front of
the man.
He pauses, to take the cigarette between warm fingers, and exhale, filter
resting against his bottom lip before it tugs it down just a little, enough,
and he sets it between his teeth instead.
The display is lovely, certainly more than Hannibal expected to find for the
evening, as stirred by the sinuous movements of the youthful body astride him
as he is by how calculated the gestures are, how practiced. But there is a
narrow gaze, the length of a heartbeat, as he watches smoke from his cigarette
trickle decadent from the boy’s mouth.
He decides to pay it no mind. Not worth the breath it would take to correct
him.
Hannibal closes his eyes and allows a sigh as the boy’s long fingers splay
across his chest and press upward to push his shirt back from his shoulders. He
sits up to slide his arms free of it and in the same motion snaps an arm around
the boy’s waist, pulling him roughly against him.
“Pants,” intones Hannibal, mouth pressed to Will’s collarbone, tasting the heat
of him, clean and sweet. He doesn’t release his grip, disallowing enough space
for Will to reach between them, and forcing him to bend his back further still,
to reach beneath himself in order to find Hannibal’s zipper.
Will sighs, smoke unfurling around the filter where he still has it held tight
between his teeth, smiles and obeys, arching back, a deliberate teasing roll of
his hips before his hand seeks and finds the catch of Hannibal’s pants to undo
them.
He can feel the heat against his collarbone, the teeth just below the surface
of the soft lips and grins wider.
His hand seeks over the smooth silk - of course they’re silk - between his hand
and the hard ridge of the man’s cock beneath, and he rubs the heel of his hand
against it, feels the hands around him tighten, feels the lips draw back and
the teeth against him. He brings his free hand up to remove the cigarette, lips
curved to breathe the cool smoke into the room.
Carelessly, he flicks his thumb against the filter, ashing the cigarette,
before bringing it back to his lips.
Hannibal counts three heartbeats, long enough for the ash to reach the floor,
and on the fourth, he snatches Will by the hair, a controlled explosion of
movement so fast there’s no time to account for it. He holds the boy there,
soft curls stretched straight between his fingers, and brings the boy to his
mouth, words soft against Will’s lips as Hannibal plucks the cigarette free
from him.
“Clean that up.”
Hannibal blinks, an honest moment of surprise, as Will’s hand presses firmer
against Hannibal’s cock, and feels it hardening beneath his touch.
He stands, sending the boy spilling to the floor, and only once he’s on his
hands and knees does Hannibal finally shake his hair free.
“Now. With your hands, or with your mouth for all I care.”
Will gasps, eyes up and wide with the suddenness with which he’d been tossed
down. His lips remain parted, and for just a moment his jaw works in a barely
contained anger. He shutters it, casts his eyes down to the ash he can see
against the carpet, and carefully reaches forward to take it up.
He manages most, without it rubbing into the carpet fully, and holds it in his
cupped hand as he looks back up at the man standing over him. He’s still
smoking, the ash again dangerously close to being tipped, and Will knows that
it will be if he doesn’t obey, knows the night will go that much longer if the
man’s ridiculous whims aren’t met immediately.
He swallows, shifts back on his knees, just enough, and keeps his eyes up on
the man as he bends and runs his tongue over the last of the mess on the floor.
It tastes bitter, dry, but it does the job. The only evidence of his apparent
indiscretion is a slightly damp mark on the carpet.
Deliberately, he licks again. Then he pushes himself up on all fours and tilts
his head in question.
Hannibal wets his lower lip with a brief movement of his tongue against it. He
envisions tapping the ash that dwindles on his cigarette onto the boy’s back,
imagines making him wait there on hands and knees all wide-eyed with his effort
to please until it suits Hannibal to fuck him and finish it.
Instead, he reaches over to ash his cigarette against the ashtray, and
considers tilting it onto the floor for the boy to clean that up, as well.
So many possibilites, and so little time left together.
The next drag crackles softly in the silence between them, and smoke fills his
response.
“Good.”
His grasp is softer now as he catches Will’s chin in his hand to bring the boy
to stand. Without releasing his jaw Hannibal circles him, nose pressed into the
boy’s curls even as his hand slides slightly lower, to press just gently
against his throat and draw the boy back against him.
“You will not be with me for long,” Hannibal speaks softly, “but I do not abide
a mess in my home. Do you understand?” The cigarette is burnt to nearly the
filter, and Will can feel the heat of it as Hannibal skims a hand along his
shoulder.
Will turns his head, deliberately the other way as though wishing to turn in
his own center to follow the path Hannibal has taken. He wonders, briefly, if
the man will burn him. The pain doesn’t come, Will exhales.
“It is a very nice home,” he offers, voice low, but at least the compliment is
genuinely meant. He tilts his head back when Hannibal’s hand slips higher up
his neck to press his fingers just behind his jaw, and sighs softly.
“I understand,” he adds, and feels the smoke exhaled against his skin before
the cigarette moves away. He licks his lips.
“Will you make me change the sheets after you fuck me, too?”
Hannibal strokes a thumb across the boy’s mouth when the word falls free of it.
Pushes against his lips to feel them move and as they part obedient and sweet,
he allows him to suck softly on his thumb, to feel the press of Will’s tongue
curl against it.
“You may consider yourself lucky if I don’t insist that you lick those clean,
as well.”
A quick movement of his wrist, a forward shove of his own body bends Will over
the bed. Hannibal passes the cigarette over Will’s back, hand running along his
spine, before he stubs it out in the ashtray.
He turns Will’s face towards him, seeking the boy’s pretty blue eyes to watch
him, to see him over his shoulder. He lets his hand skim down the boy’s chest,
hairless and smooth and without mark or scar, lower over his belly to feel it
tighten, until he finds the thatch of dark hair between his legs and grips him,
tugging slowly.
Little care for the boy’s pleasure, one would rightfully assume, the gesture
intended much more for Hannibal’s own amusement. To see the boy eager and
breathless beneath him, to feel his pulse already racing when Hannibal enters
him.
Will makes a sound, something low in his chest that doesn’t part his lips but
his eyes darken. He keeps them - perhaps obediently, perhaps spitefully - on
the man behind him and arches his back against him, rubbing deliberate against
the fabric of his boxers still holding his cock restrained.
The man is interesting, unusual, obviously wants Will to understand who’s in
control but not like some of the idiots who push Will to call them daddy and
make him beg for pain. It grows tedious, truly, to force himself to act that
way but he is just as good at that as he is at being genuinely pleased,
genuinely interested.
His hands shift to rest on either side of his face, curling gently in the soft
fabric as he keeps rubbing his ass against the thick promise of the cock behind
him, as the sounds grow slowly more frequent and breathless.
Then he closes his eyes and tries to turn his head away, to see if the hand
will tighten, if his hair will suffer another brutal tug.
Hannibal allows it, stroking through the pretty curls with something that might
resemble fondness in any other situation, and feigned convincingly enough in
this one. The moment passes, though, and Hannibal finds himself remiss at not
being able to watch the ruddy color gathering in the boy’s cheeks as he pulls
slow, firm strokes against his cock.
He sighs, and jerks his fist just enough to turn the boy’s eyes back on him.
“Stay.”
A drawer opens and closes, a rustling sound, and Hannibal snares the boy by the
waist, turning him over.
It would be such a waste to spend the rest of their time together without
watching the blush spread across his face, to see the curve of his mouth part
first in pleasure and then in fear, to miss the light that will catch and then
fade from his eyes.
To pluck a bloom before it’s had time to fully blossom, and before Hannibal has
enjoyed all that is has to offer.
Hannibal catches a hand beneath one of the boy’s knees and shoves him higher
onto the bed, watching the way his youthful limbs splay wide across the
bedcover, grasping for purchase as Hannibal forces him forward onto his hands
and knees and moves over him.
Slick fingers enter Will, no teasing, no gentle stretching, just rough entry to
spread him open.
Hannibal’s free hand comes to rest against the boy’s throat again, forefinger
and thumb pressed to the elegant curve of his neck and squeezing softly. The
pained sound that parts the Will’s flushed lips falls welcome against
Hannibal’s ears as he forces his fingers deeper inside him, a harsh rhythm
sudden and fierce.
Another squirm and soft cry, and Hannibal considers how the movements of the
boy might feel if Hannibal ends him while he’s still inside of him.
A pleased sound at the thought.
Will gasps, brows furrowed as he works to adjust to the discomfort, finds that
his thighs are splayed wide by the man’s knees where he sits so close to him,
holding Will open and vulnerable to this. He bites his lip, eyes closing for a
moment as he arches his neck, head back, feels the fingers squeeze harder
before allowing the motion, the stretch, and simply returning to their
restraint when Will settles.
His hands seek, down to stroke his own cock in languid, slow pulls, one hand
against the wrist pinning him, gripping tight but not struggling. He curls his
legs around Hannibal’s thighs and pushes down harder against his hand,
breathless panting becoming soft keens, then louder groans of need as he
strokes harder, as the feeling of fingers in his ass grows familiar and
welcome.
“Mmm fuck…” Another flash of teeth against the full bottom lip, another release
of it, drawing the mouth slack and beautiful. His cheeks darken, his eyes
close, and he shivers pleasantly, needy and starting to come undone beneath the
man that bought him.
Hannibal watches the display with rapt attention. The way Will spreads so
readily to accommodate his thighs and fingers. The way he bends and curls and
cries out soft with every breath that fills the lungs of a body built
exquisitely to grant and yield pleasure. The perpetually intimate sensation of
watching a beautiful boy touch himself, the quick abandon in the turn of his
wrist, the particular tightness and loosening that Will gives himself without
thought.
Equally extraordinary is the way that the flush gathers hotter in Will’s cheeks
as Hannibal’s fingers cinch ever so slightly against his neck, or how he arches
more sharply as Hannibal removes his fingers to press his cock into the boy
instead, some minor respite granted by the presence of latex and lube, but only
minor. This, now, draws a breath from Hannibal.
WIll’s voice rises, a moment, in a moan of need, and he lets go of himself to
draw nails over his own thigh instead, a grounding, the pain enough to bring
his eyelids to flickering, open barely but enough. He licks his lips.
He can see the way the man watches him, a hunger there that is beyond the
blatant need to debauch something innocent. They both know Will is far from
that. No, this runs far deeper, it runs beyond where they join, it runs to the
battering of Will’s heartbeat, to the stuttering of his breath. It runs like
the blood through his veins.
“Deeper,” he gasps, caught in wonder whether his words were obeyed or he simply
asked at the right time when the man yanks him closer, sends an electric shiver
through his spine, sends his back bending and a loud, obscene moan from him.
“Fuck.”
A low sound, lips curling just visibly over clenched teeth before Hannibal
grabs the boy by the hips and effortlessly jerks him higher. Will’s shoulders
dig into the bed but no more than that makes contact with it, legs cinching
tight around Hannibal as he fucks deeper still, revelling in the feeling of
flesh spread beneath him, loosened by him.
His hair falls loose into his face and the bed rocks from the fierce thrusts.
Tip to root, bracing the boy’s hips with his hands, until even Will’s gasps and
moans become stuck in his throat, lips parted wide and breathless.
Except for another broken curse, sighed quaking into the air.
Hannibal grabs him roughly by the face, fingers sinking into his cheeks and
palm spread over his mouth, against his nose, to smother out his words and much
of his breath along with it.
“Language,” he breathes down at the boy who watches him startled. It would be
funny in any other situation but this one, with this man in particular, dark
eyes shining.
Will stills, parts his lips to lick, to bite, and finds that the most he can do
is moan again, eyes rolling up and closing, as Hannibal changes the angle of
his thrusts and drives harder against Will’s prostate. It’s breathless and
dizzying, and Will claws at the hand on his face until he’s allowed to gasp in
a breath before the hand snares in his hair again and arches him back.
It feels good, so damn good, to be fucked, enjoyed properly. He feels teeth
sharp against his neck and hisses, knowing it will leave a mark, a bruise.
Something bad for business later. He twitches, tries to struggle away and finds
his neck arched further, as the cock inside him stills, just there to rub
gentle, shallow thrusting pushes against Will until he sees stars.
He drops his hand to his own cock again and strokes quickly, so close.
A helpless noise, loud, breathy, fills the room for a brief moment and fades,
Hannibal’s teeth drag lower to Will’s collarbone to suck a mark there too and
Will whimpers, lost in the throes of pleasure, in the heat of everything, in
the animal desire of all this. The hand slips from his hair to over his mouth
again, softer, but just as possessive.
He wishes, for a moment, that this didn’t have to be the end of it.
But then, he is lucky in that he often thinks the same of others. Yet there is
something about this man, something dangerous and cruel and genuinely evil,
that has Will’s climax hitting him hard, drawing choked sobs of pleasure from
him as he near-convulses from the feeling. Hot against his hand, against his
stomach, tacky and sticky and thick, and he laughs, a breathless genuine sound,
as the man continues to fuck into him, using him as his muscles tremble from
tightness to laxity.
And it feels good.
A fondness softens Hannibal's features, for a moment, like a shadow passing
across the sun.
The soft laugh that parts Will's lips strikes him as almost unbearably sweet,
an expression of youthful joy unadulterated by anything that came before it or
that has yet to come.
An expression of genuine innocence from a boy with very little left to share.
Hannibal sighs, loosens his hand from over Will's mouth, and pushes his hair
back from his face to better see the pale blue beneath heavy eyelids, the
warmth cascading from his cheeks down to his neck and chest, the sleepy grin
that catches the corner of his mouth.
He presses slowly inside of him now, burying himself as deep as he can and
murmuring approval as Will bends to ease the pressure, and Hannibal's hand
lowers slow from Will's hair, to his cheek, to his jaw, and finally settles
beneath his chin.
His fingers close softly, and then firmly, on the boy's throat, a sudden
dizziness pulling the boy's mouth wide as the flow of blood and oxygen is cut
short.
Will gasps, gasps again, finding no relief in the pressure there. His eyes
seek, up, around, above him, back to the man who holds him still and keeps
fucking him. The curiosity in the dark eyes that watch him sends something down
Will’s spine he can’t strictly call pleasure. The fuzzy blackness around the
edge of his vision grows more prominent and he twists, ducks his chin hard to
catch a gasp of air before even that is taken from him.
He makes a sound, a pale little whimper compared to those filled with needy
desire just before, and times his movements to the hammering of his heart
against the pressure on his throat. He doesn’t have long, not with the speed
the darkness is crowding him and pulling rushing water through his ears.
He counts two, twists, three, jerks, four, moans. Nothing but the tilt of a
head, the narrowing of eyes in something between amusement and pleasure.
Will counts six and shoves the heel of his hand against the man’s solar plexus,
surprising him enough for a loosening of the fist that holds him. He hits him
again, draws his knees in, squirms back. Manages, with a groan, to dislodge the
man from within him, from above him, and slips, coughing, to the floor.
Will shakes his head, scrambles back, pulls the belt from Hannibal’s pants to
wind around his wrist. He knows the man will be on him in moments, a predator’s
grace carried in a perfectly honed body, and he coughs again, catches his
breath.
Harsh hands find him quick, a cruel yank of his hair to bring Will’s head back,
up, to force him to the mattress again. Will makes no sound, nothing beyond the
heavy panting of gathering breath, and avoids the hands just quick enough to
press the belt to the man’s throat, pull his hands up around him as though in
an embrace to flick one end of the belt over the other, to grasp both again and
pull. A reverse garotte of his own.
Usually, he muses, I kill them after they cum.
He supposes a change in routine was in order at some point.
A silent moment hangs for an instant between them, an awareness of their shared
intent for the evening, even as Hannibal mourns his lost opportunity to feel
youth shudder and wither around him.
Another night, perhaps.
He doesn’t bother trying to dislodge the belt and instead drives forward, a
surge of strength too fast to be felt before it’s too late. The wall comes up
fast behind Will and the air is knocked from his lungs, head banging back, and
Hannibal snares his wrists. Fingers catch the heels of his hands, just beneath
the thumbs, and jerk sharply - any harder, and bones would break, but he
resists the impulse to cause undue pain despite how tempting it suddenly seems.
The belt falls free and Hannibal looms over him, twisting his wrists inward
against their own joints until he can force the boy to the ground.
To his knees.
“I suppose I have found you wanting after all,” Hannibal notes with genuine
amusement, releasing the boy’s wrists to catch him by the hair and throat, and
lift him back to his feet.
Suspended, nearly, toes scrabbling for purchase against the floor as Hannibal
observes the exquisite scarlet that colors his face.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Will’s jaw sets, a pained sound escaping him, dragged through his throat that
feels raw to everything. He struggles, closes his eyes to see the stars gather
there instead of seeing their inverse darken his vision. It’s easier, and for a
moment he even considers.
Then he twists, knee coming up to kick hard against the inside of Hannibal’s
thigh, not quite where he wanted but enough to give him time to do it again,
wrapping his legs around him and pushing forward, shoulders against the wall to
send Hannibal back a step, hooking his legs behind Hannibal’s knees to
unbalance him and set them both sprawling.
He can’t get enough air, can’t catch his breath, and coughs hard, pulls back
blindly to strike out with a fist and hits something hard enough to draw a
displeased noise, a sucked in breath.
Blood, hot and metallic against Hannibal’s tongue. Only his own, unfortunately,
but that too can be remedied. He runs his tongue along his teeth, smearing them
with the scarlet that pulses from his split lip, and he can’t help but feel a
distant admiration for the way the boy fights against him.
The folly of youth.
Hannibal catches the fist as it swings to make blind contact again with the
same point as before, turns it easily in on itself, and with a smooth movement
jerks Will’s hand until it sits at the center of his back. He grasps the back
of his neck and moves to straddle across him, knees alongside his hips.
He shoves with the hand that holds Will by the nape of his neck like a
misbehaving puppy and plants the side of his face into the rug, enough to
bruise, enough to stun. Enough to bring the boy to spasms of coughing as his
lungs fight to regain the air they lost, restricted from the severity of how
he’s held to the floor. Hannibal observes with interest as blood drips from his
chin and falls against the boy’s pale skin.
He’s never encountered a bloom so fair that’s so ardently resisted being
pruned, and he considers this.
“I believe the terms of our transaction have changed.”
Will moans, and this time it’s a pained sound, helpless and slightly weaker.
His heart pounds against his head, he can barely breathe. The words penetrate
beyond the throbbing pain of his shoulder, beyond the rough drag against his
throat.
And then he laughs.
Because he can’t help it, because he’s being pinned to the floor by a man he
had planned on killing, who had apparently wanted to kill him. Because two
killers in one room should not have had such an effect on his endorphins,
should not have made him want to rut against the floor and beg for more of this
before either one kills the other.
“Fuck you,” he parts his lips against the carpet, eyes barely open to see the
fibers so close. “It’s still $500.”
He is jerked sharply by the hand around his neck and brought back down just as
roughly against the carpet. Hannibal leans low over him, bringing Will’s
ensnared arm just a little higher up his spine.
“Language.”
This too earns a laugh, as the boy spits blood into the carpet from a cut
inside his mouth. More mess to clean, more untidiness to tend to. But the sound
is as clean and clear and crisp as the one the boy allowed when he came
enthusiastically across his own belly, an alarming brightness considering his
current position.
Hannibal releases his hold on Will’s neck to instead stroke himself, quick
functional things, a few times to bring himself back to hardness. The sound of
skin against skin is all the boy can hear for a moment as his wrist is still
held in place, until Hannibal speaks again with a dulcet amusement.
“Then it appears that you will need to fulfill your end of our agreement.”
His fingernails digging sharp into Will’s skin to spread him roughly, lining
himself up and pressing into him without even the faint assistance of spit,
driving roughly into whatever lubrication yet remains and otherwise unbothered
by the sharp, jerking squirm of the boy held beneath him.
Will groans, turns his head to press his forehead against the floor and arch
his back that way, content for the moment to just catch his breath, take what’s
given to him. It doesn’t take long, violence obviously a similar trigger for
the man as it is for Will, and the grip eases just enough on Will’s arm to no
longer feel like it’s about to be dislocated.
Though he can’t decide if it already has been.
He groans, low, and rubs his forehead against the floor.
He’s bleeding, he’s fairly sure from more than one place, he aches, throbs,
feels utterly alive with it.
“You’re the best fuck I’ve had all week,” he confides, his grin evident in the
tone.
Satisfied enough for the moment not to drive Will into the carpet until his
mouth is full with it instead of the crude words, Hannibal shudders, barely
perceptible, as echoes of his release uncoil in his limbs.
He withdraws from the boy, pleased by the quiet cry that the boy issues in
response. Leaning back, Hannibal runs the back of his hand along his mouth,
smearing blood across his face, across his hand.
“You are the luckiest I’ve had,” Hannibal responds, with something like
amusement.
He can’t recall their faces now, any names they offered, anything remarkable at
all about the boys who have come into his house and never left. They all
thrash, struggle, kick, scream but nothing like this - none so clever as to use
tools against him to compensate for being outmatched in speed and strength,
none so bright as to have considered killing him instead of begging for mercy.
The others pale into nothingness by compare.
It seems unfair to reward such courage with death when the struggle was so much
more enjoyable than the murder might have been. Hannibal runs his free hand
over the boy’s shoulder. Finds the ligaments stretched, but not torn - he’ll
have a full range of movement once he ices it and gives it a few days.
He releases Will’s wrist and stands, lingers there a moment, feet on either
side of the lovely boy bare and bruised and bleeding beneath him, and allows a
faint smile.
Will lays still and catches his breath, for the moment sure he won’t be
attacked again, and fairly certain that were he to be, he would find a way to
remind the man that one didn’t just need hands and legs, one had elbows, nails
teeth… the thought makes him groan quietly and he shifts to hold himself up on
all fours.
His face throbs, feels raw where the man had driven it against the carpet. His
nose is bleeding but not obscenely, lining the nostrils and dripping slowly
from the left. His mouth tastes like salt and metal, and he can feel the cut
when he tongues for it, shallow but bleeding enough to be a nuisance.
Will’s arms shake.
He pushes himself to settle on his ass, with a quiet hiss at the pressure
there. He doesn’t look up for a long time, but when he does, his teeth are
tinged red as he shows them in a grin.
His blood still hums with the hunt, with the desire to render something dead,
like any number of tricks before this one, any number of men who had called
Will ‘baby’, who had abused and tormented him, who had treated him like their
only little lover, and pampered him. The man before him now, Will wants to tear
apart as strongly as he wants the man’s hands on his skin again, his lips
sucking marks against him, his cock fucking deep.
He swallows, sniffs and brings up his knuckles - raw from the carpet, too - to
stem the blood from his nose.
“You gonna try and kill me again?” he asks, brows furrowing as he looks at his
hand, before setting it back behind himself for balance, and looking up at the
man through messy hair.
Hannibal watches the boy at his feet and sighs. It’s a wholly new sensation,
failure, and to some degree he’s grateful for the rare experience. His fingers
press through the boy’s curls, almost gentle until they twist just tightly
enough to move him, to press the boy’s battered face against his thigh. He
sucks the blood from his teeth and watches Will’s lips part against his skin,
tracing kisses, smearing blood.
Hannibal draws a breath.
A strange boy, a familiar need coursing through him remarkably similar to the
one Hannibal knows all too well. For blood, for violence, for boundless thrill
of seeing the illumination of a life snuffed into darkness forever. A strange
boy who should have been easy enough to consume in all the ways he had
initially intended, if the bright-eyed beauty of him were anything to go by.
Hannibal’s eyes crinkle just a little at the corners, pleased by the surprise
that his misjudgment has yielded.
“Yes,” he acknowledges, “but not tonight.”
Hannibal releases the boy’s hair with a quick pull, enough to force him to
catch himself on his hands again, and walks past him. He spares a glance to the
boy’s bent form, bruises dawning dark across his pale skin and the promise of
blood in the trickle that draws a line down his thigh.
“You will put your clothes on and go. Move quickly before I reconsider my
decision.”
A threat, a promise, it doesn’t really matter, both equally dangerous and
equally tempting. He slides back into his pants, leaving them undone, and
removes his wallet to pull free the money the boy demanded of him.
Worth the cost, for the amusement alone.
Will considers it, considers the offer, considers the bills that lie crisp and
barely folded on the floor beside him. He doesn’t see Hannibal again when he
pulls his clothes on with a wince, when he deliberately uses the man’s shirt to
wipe the blood from his face before tossing it to the bed.
He leaves the money on the floor.
Worth a freebie, for the amusement alone.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     It requires an effort, a rare enough occurrence, to maintain the look
     of absolute indifference in light of the guileless enticement
     watching him from across the table.
Chapter Notes
     And so the fun continues.
     Think of this as... Dorian Gray meets Leon the Professional meets
     dark Lolita ;)
It’s colder.
Will tugs absently at the loose leather coat he has on top of the stretched
sweater, the usual button-up. Few of the boys are out, today, just the most
desperate. He wonders if perhaps it’s worth it to just direct his attentions
their way. They would be much easier targets, much less likely to be believed
were something to go wrong.
And yet far less satisfying.
Something about knowing that your power is in your weakness, that your control
is entire - in pleasure, later in pain. The thrill of it sets Will’s back
straighter, his bottom lip between his teeth, and he scans the street again.
Any cars. Any at all. He’ll lower his standards for a fuck and the aftermath of
one tonight - he hasn’t been out for two weeks, recovering.
He sees the lights first, then the slow crawl of a car specifically seeking.
Yet it stops by no one, drives right by Will and turns the corner. He huffs,
watching his breath steam in the air and dissipate, bitter disappointment and
colder weather.
But then he hears it, the soft purr of the engine, the slick whine of a window
winding down.
He’s across the road before he can think twice about it, putting it down to the
cold, to the boredom, to the blatant utter need for it.
This time he opens the door himself.
This time, he takes the cigarette from between those rough, warm fingers and
tosses it through the window before covering the man’s lips with his own to
stifle a snarl. It’s harsh, a kiss filled with sharp teeth and pressure, and
Will makes a noise so soft it’s lost between them.
Hannibal snares the boy by the jaw, holds him still in harsh fingers and
forcefully parts the brutal kiss. Their eyes meet, looming darkness swallowing
sky like thunderclouds black and heavy, and on his own terms leans in to part
the boy’s mouth with his tongue, fingernails digging into his cheek.
Will’s movement is dizzying, grasping hands and hungry mouth and all with
desperate sounds that make Hannibal’s blood feel warmer as it spreads through
his limbs. He grasps the boy by the hair at the nape of his neck and bends him,
pulls their mouths apart again to instead drag his tongue along the boy’s
throat, to feel him swallow and then sigh against the vibrations of the little
noises he makes.
He insinuates his skinny body in one lithe movement between Hannibal and the
steering wheel, legs spread across Hannibal’s lap in the driver’s seat.
Hannibal presses his fingers into the inside of the boy’s thigh, squeezing
through his jeans until Will makes a sound.
“You will take what I give you.” A low reminder, a purring accent, against the
boy’s neck where his teeth catch to hold the boy still in his squirming.
"Fuck," Will gasps, stills, for the moment, as he's held. "Yes."
He arches back, feels the hot lips seek to devour him as they had their last
meeting, like feeling a tiger nuzzle your hand, knowing it only wants to make
your smell familiar to it before it opens its jaws to carnage.
He groans, warm and pleased, shifts closer still.
"Let me -"
"You will do as I say, when I say it," Hannibal instructs. No talk of money or
services now, a negotiation far beyond any such mundane expression of
carnality.
He knows even as the boy agrees to the terms with a gasp, he'll disobey with
just as much enthusiasm. Hannibal hums approval for this as much as the
agreement, moving his mouth against Will's neck, up just beneath his jaw where
his fingers choked weeks before.
He lets Will grind and twist and rock against his lap, does not offer more than
teeth against his neck and a fist in his hair.
"The other boys are watching. Wondering what makes you so lucky. Do you think
yourself special?"
Will makes an aching, needy sound and laughs, the warmer, softer version of the
laugh that had stilled Hannibal's hand the last time.
"Lucky," he repeats, arching closer, feeling Hannibal hard between his legs
even as he acts indifferent.
"You think me special." Will points out, wanting to draw his hands through the
dirty blonde hair and mess it from its deliberate tidiness. "You want to hurt
me again, you ache for it."
Will goes when the fingers snare tighter in his hair, tilt him further back.
"You tried to kill me. I wouldn't let you. You are as deeply entwined with me
as I am with you." He wants Hannibal’s mouth again, his rough hands, his cock…
Hannibal lets go of Will’s hair, removes the hot press of his mouth against the
boy’s skin and leans back into the plush leather. Lets him free to roam, to
grope, to reach between his own legs to rub Hannibal’s cock through his pants.
“If at first you do not succeed…” Hannibal considers, and Will grins, eyes
narrowing on him with a perverse delight.
Were there more room, he’d fuck him then and there. Let Will ride him to
exhaustion, and then dump him right back where he found him to tug his pants up
in front of the other boys as the Bentley disappeared.
He skims his hands along the boy’s back, eyes closing as Will makes a high,
soft noise against Hannibal’s throat, and knows that as much as it would please
him to see the boy discarded so abruptly, it would leave neither as satisfied
as they could be.
“In truth,” Hannibal admits softly, drawing the backs of his fingers down the
boy’s cheek, “I want nothing more than to watch you bleed, and know that this
desire alone is the reason you remain alive.”
Will bites his lip, doesn't turn into the hand caressing him. These words, too,
send heat to pool in his belly. He can’t get enough of this man. Perhaps he is
lucky...
"I can bleed, for you, but I won't die." It's teasing, like a game. Will
wonders when the tendency to covet death sprung up in his subconscious, he
wonders what factors in his utterly normal upbringing connected hard enough to
create a spark.
He rolls his hips, languid, and laments the small space, the way the wheel digs
into his back. It makes him think of awkwardness and high school, fumbling with
zippers and buttons, uncoordinated kisses and whispered promises.
"Buy me dinner this time," he suggests, grinning. “We have all night and
intimate enough knowledge to skip the pleasantries of foreplay. Fuck me, bleed
me, feed me. But don't lie to yourself that you haven't missed me."
The boy’s insistence that the continuance of life isn’t being decided moment by
moment in Hannibal’s fleeting whims strikes him as charming. This prideful
grasping for control, so naive as to think his fate actually lingers in
anyone’s hands but Hannibal’s draws a bare smile across the older man’s mouth
that does nothing to lessen the darkness in his eyes.
He takes in the boy’s dress - the tattered sweater, which Hannibal notes to
himself to dispose of when the boy’s got it off again, and skinny jeans and
those hideous boots. Hannibal slides his hand from Will’s thigh to his stomach,
beneath his shirt, and curls his nails against his stomach. He’s not been
without food, well-fed in fact compared to the other boys always so hungry and
frail, and Hannibal finds himself overcome by a particular sort of whimsy.
“Dinner, then,” Hannibal decides, with worryingly little hesitation.
Ignoring the clever grin that brightens and darkens Will’s features all at
once, Hannibal grasps him by his skinny hips and removes him from his lap,
stuffing him sprawling back into the passenger seat.
Will goes, with a laugh, and rearranges his limbs enough to comfortably sit,
slipping the seatbelt across himself and clipping it in. It amuses him to no
end that the seat beneath him is heated.
They don’t talk as they drive, neither willing to expend the energy to pretend
that this is a normal evening, they have no one to pretend for. Will runs the
side of his thumb lightly over his lip, just catching the edge of his nail
against the thin skin. He can feel anticipation build beneath his skin, warm
like stroking fingers, tickling, needling, utterly pleasant.
He brings one foot up to rest against the edge of the seat, can feel Hannibal
tense at the sight of it, relishes in that. He stretches languid, until he’s
splayed and comfortable, and Hannibal’s knuckles are white against the wheel.
Will patiently waits for the first red light.
The car has no sooner slid to a stop than the flat of Hannibal’s hand cracks
across the boy’s thigh, stinging even through jeans and sending his foot to the
floor.
“Do it again and I’ll leave you barefoot.”
He does not touch him again, doesn’t spare him a look outside of his periphery,
despite the boy’s fidgety little attention-seeking adjustments and winsome
looks and the hand that rests just against the inside of his thigh where
Hannibal slapped him.
They arrive to a small restaurant, obscured windows hung with heavy rich
curtains inside to shield those who eat there from any prying eyes deemed
unworthy to join them. It does not appear at first to be a grand establishment,
but those that are best are usually smart enough to appear - at least on the
surface - far from ostentatious. They pull up to a valet and Hannibal waves
past him, unwilling to let anyone else inside his vehicle, parking it himself
instead.
“What is your name?” Perfunctory, generally disinterested beyond knowing what
he’s going to snarling against the boy’s ear later, and a far cry from the
stammering obligatory curiosity of anyone else who’s ever picked Will up.
Will’s eyes slide to him, careful, brighter than before, in the dark of the
car. There is a pleasant hot flush in his cheeks, still, his hair in perfect
bed-head disarray, rendering his entire appearance almost painfully youthful.
He bites his lip, deliberately, and watches Hannibal’s jaw lock in a mixture of
frustration and lust.
A pause, and then -
“Will Graham,” he says, a softness to the words that suggest genuine honesty.
He regards the older man carefully before licking his lips, turning to rest
sideways against the seat - feet obediently down - as Hannibal navigates the
car into a space with expert precision.
“Quid pro quo?”
Hannibal parks, removes his keys, and lets his hands slide almost
affectionately over the wheel. A last name - unexpected, but appreciated.
He turns to the boy enough to wrap a hand around the back of his neck and bring
him close. All the resistance to his coy little gestures throughout the ride is
relieved in a kiss that’s nearly suffocating, holding it until Will’s heart
starts to race from the restriction of his breath beneath Hannibal’s mouth.
Remembers the first thing that Will - as he knows him to be now - called him on
their first evening together, and muses briefly over giving him only the title
‘sir’ to use, but it reeks of tastelessness and there’s little that Hannibal
can abide less.
“Hannibal,” he responds, as earnest as the boy’s pleasure at hearing it, and he
leans past him to open his door.
Hannibal steps ahead of Will at the entrance to the restaurant. It is dark
inside, low lights glowing stark against the walls, small tables set with
puzzling arrays of small dishes and smaller servings of ornate creations, and a
clientele that reflects the exclusive - and expensive - interior.
A brief conversation between Hannibal and the host, and a small gesture of
movement exchanged between them, before they are escorted to the chef’s table.
Far from even the secrecy granted each individual table, a bank of expensive
couches with a table between them.
He’s unable to resist showing a deep amusement as he takes in the boy’s scruffy
clothes, painfully out of place amongst such understated finery as this.
Will’s eyes wander, take in everything in quick flicks of motion suggesting a
practiced thing, a memory bank, information gathering and storing to be sorted
later. Another fascinating little turn that Hannibal finds rather pleasing. The
boy is certainly not stupid.
When Will sits he rests his hands clasped together on the table, tugging
absently, again, at the loose threads in his sleeve. He doesn’t stop when
Hannibal pointedly watches him, he just smiles and slows his movements.
“Grace of Ba’al,” he says quietly, smiling wider at Hannibal’s gentle tilt of
the head, suggesting curiosity or surprise. The man is like a book Will is
careful to turn the pages of.
“Lord,” he intones, smiling wider, “owner.”
He presses his bottom lip out of shape momentarily before directing his eyes to
Hannibal’s lips instead.
“Apt.”
“Perhaps those names are the ones I should have given you instead,” Hannibal
responds, amused and surprised both. Already more interesting than every other
conversation combined that he’s been dragged into with this sort. The words
bear a particular, unrefined elegance from this boy’s mouth.
Wine is brought for them, explained, and left to their leisure, the first of
many on the tasting menu that will be brought to their table without needing to
worry about anything so mundane as making choices.
“It seems that both our names suit our particular characteristics,” he
continues, attention drifting to the movement of Will’s fingers against his
sweater sleeve, and then back again.
They draw attention, even in a place as prone to privacy as this. A sharply-
dressed older man and a scruffy youth of scarcely eighteen years, if even at
that, draw an occasional look, a passing murmur, and Hannibal pays them no mind
beyond a brief twist of pleasure.
“Tell me, Will. What do you do with your day?” He normally wouldn’t bother with
small talk - normally wouldn’t bother to bring a street boy here, or anywhere,
actually - but it’s difficult not be intrigued when said street boy begins to
cite ancient Phoenician.
Will takes up the wine, tops up his glass enough to certainly grind on
Hannibal’s nerves before taking a careful sip. It’s expensive, rich, heavier
than what Will usually drinks, if he drinks. He savors it, allows the flavor to
settle before returning the glass to the table, fingers caressing the stem in a
way that could not be misconstrued as innocent.
“Occasionally I show up to my assigned lectures,” he says, tone carefully lazy
but quiet enough to remain polite. He pushes his bounds only enough to get a
rise, to watch the barely-there snarl cross Hannibal’s features when he does.
“Criminology, psychology, forensic linguistics.”
He takes up the glass again, watching Hannibal over the rim as he sips, licks
his top lip clean, leaves the bottom barely damp with red.
“Occasionally I read.”
His head tilts gently, and he stretches his legs out under the table, close
enough to know approximately where Hannibal is in relation, not making an
effort, yet, to touch.
“Occasionally I fuck and take my fill of carnage,” he grins. “And you?”
Hannibal watches the wine vanish in two sips and makes a small sound. He
considers the cost of it, disappearing past red-stained lips, and takes up the
bottle to refill Will’s glass to nearly full.
“A student, then, of many disciplines.”
Another pull of wine disappears past parted lips, fingers curled beckoning
against the bottom of the glass. A flush colors his cheeks, no shyness in this
boy now, a building scent of arousal in the shift of his shoulders and the
glint in his eyes, and wine rushing hot to youthful cheeks.
He draws a breath as a desire passes through him to pin the boy down and lick
the taste of wine from lips not yet legally allowed to partake in it, to hear
what he thinks he knows of carnage and to give him a true understanding of that
word.
Hannibal releases the sigh, softly, inclining his head as the first course is
brought to them. He makes no move to eat, fixated on the clever little thing
slumped across from him with far more hunger than food could satisfy.
“I am a doctor,” he finally answers. “A surgeon, once, and a psychiatrist now.
We share many of the same hobbies, otherwise.”
It will have to end tonight, Hannibal realizes with a little disappointment.
He’s already shared his car, home, name, and work both paid and for pleasure
with the boy - more than enough room to see him hung for his proclivities, or
at the very least blackmailed.
He sips his wine, a silent toast to the brevity of their time together.
Will’s brows rise, pleasure, surprise behind the gaze, and he sets his own
glass down unfinished to start on the meal.
It’s difficult to explain how something can taste expensive, but the food
before him certainly does. Every flavor is rich, layered, coming apart against
his tongue in the most pleasing way until Will makes a soft sound, a gentle
moan of appreciation, and deliberately avoids Hannibal’s eyes just to have the
man seek his out.
That feeling of power crests again and Will’s heart beats a little faster.
“You left surgery to dissect the mind?” Will asks at length, surprisingly
cultured as he enjoys his dinner, despite his appearance and deliberate goading
prior that suggested quite the opposite. His smile is easier, now, with wine
warming his bones, and he finishes this glass as well, just to watch Hannibal
reach to pour him another.
“They told me,” he starts, eyes on the red liquid as it pours, settles, stills.
“That I would be able to catch bad men because I could think like them. Get
into their minds, under their skin.”
His eyes flick up.
“So to law enforcement my paths took me. Taught me well.” Another curve of his
lips, red tongue against them before he draws nails softly down the stem, back
up, and takes the glass from the table.
“And I’m an excellent student.”
He sets the wine away, a significant portion drunk, and returns to his meal,
noticing how Hannibal has yet to touch his.
“In actuality, I simply wanted to be a mechanic.”
He’s either an extraordinary liar, or he’s being entirely honest, and both
possibilities intrigue Hannibal equally. If the boy is being genuine, then it
would make him something of a prodigy, to have done so much in his meager
years.
Perhaps as equally adept with his other skills.
“A mechanic,” Hannibal repeats, amused, as he finally tastes the food in front
of him to little reaction. “The pursuit of an analytical mind. Not one happy to
be confined to the halls of academia and publishing papers, but eager to get
their hands dirty, to speak. To break things apart, and see how they work.”
He takes a sip of wine, as the second course and the accompanying bottle is
brought to them. Keeping Will’s wine full, when appropriate, to watch him drink
and to see the loose warmth settle through still-awkward limbs, long and
lovely.
“I left surgery for more fertile grounds. There are only so many ways in which
the human body differs with any substantial interest. We are all,
predominantly, the same inside. It is in the mind that you begin to discover
truly unique configurations. Contradictions and curiosities. Unexpected
surprises.”
Hannibal’s eyes follow the movement of Will’s fingers against the glass, sleeve
still draped over his hand, an enticing inelegance at odds with the skillful
negotiation of his conversation.
“In your learning, have you not found a teacher who speaks to your particular
style of study?”
“I’ve found settling myself into a single field, or a single element holds me
confined. I feel collared,” he tongues just the corner of his mouth with a
smile, takes up the new glass poured for him. This wine is lighter but no less
enjoyable.
“Restrained.” He sets the glass down, licks his lips.
“It curls my mind to dust. I rarely seek out my teachers now, interested in
their work as they are, advanced in their field, they are just as muzzled.”
Will settles back, brings his thumb to his lips again to rest his teeth against
the nail. His eyes narrow, he can feel the way the wine affects him, the way it
weighs his limbs in pleasant laxity. His lips tilt in a smile and he slides
further in his seat, finally finds Hannibal’s feet with his own.
“Would you be so restraining in your teaching, Hannibal?” he asks, brows up to
add to that innocent wide-eyed look, the words previously emphasized sitting
too prettily in promise against him now.
“Constrain to just teach one field and style?”
No reaction to the press of feet against his, to the booted toes that drag
against the leg of Hannibal’s pants. He imagines the grime from them, lips
pressing together in faintest displeasure, before the expression eases back to
inscrutable neutrality.
It requires an effort, a rare enough occurrence, to maintain the look of
absolute indifference in light of the guileless enticement watching him from
across the table.
“Would I ever feel inclined to pursue teaching, I imagine that I would be an
extraordinarily demanding teacher,” Hannibal responds after a moment’s
consideration. His hand curls around the glass of wine, finger tracing the rim
in a seemingly absent gesture that’s anything but. “While I have much to offer
by way of experience, my expectations are,” a pause, weighted, and a faint
smile, “exceedingly difficult to satisfy.”
He finishes his wine, the food ignored as it is brought before him, the
previous course taken away.
“I have yet to encounter any potential student who I’ve felt would be capable
of meeting them.”
Will watches, smiles wider, and reaches to take up his own glass again,
lingering for a moment bent forward as he is, before sitting back and sipping.
“I pity the boys who’ve tried to catch your eye,” he says, smile laying smooth
across his lips before he drags his teeth over the bottom one pointedly. “I
pity those who did, much, much more. And yet -”
Another sip, longer, to fill his mouth before he swallows, sets the glass back
to the table with just a little at the bottom.
“- I find I pity you most,” he tilts his head, “Starved for company, for
anything of genuine interest in the pursuit of an unattainable ideal.”
For a moment, one brief moment, Will looks genuinely sorry. Then his eyes
narrow, his cheeks flushed darker now, and he tilts his chin up.
“Though I did not take you to be shy, Hannibal. You’ve brought me here,” he
leans forward, curls his arms against the table and rests his head on top,
drawing looks for the impolite unorthodox way of using the table. “Won’t you
just ask? I may even say yes.”
Hannibal breathes a note that could be a laugh, eyes crinkling in genuine
pleasure at the boy’s brashness. His insolence. His absolute denial of how this
night will invariably end for him.
“Dear Will, I assure you - I am starved for nothing.”
His fingers flex, curl back against the glass, aching to reach out and jerk the
boy back to sitting straight.
“You seem inclined to believe that the burden of proof is on me, to show you my
credentials,” he intones, voice lowering, softening even. The whisper of a
blade against bare skin, the rasp of leather sliding tight. “I recall that your
last attempt to show me your prowess ended with you sobbing into my carpet.”
The words pass just as the main course is delivered.
“We are quite finished - thank you,” Hannibal informs the waiter, reaching into
his pocket to loosen a credit card for him. The man appears briefly surprised
but does not hesitate to depart, and Hannibal’s eyes narrow, just so.
Will’s eyes widen, just enough for the want and need and lingering fear to fill
the pupils. He smiles at the words, doesn’t bother to shift from the position
he’s bent over in - the jacket and sweater have ridden up just enough to reveal
the pale skin of his back.
“And I recall,” Will replies softly, “that you pulled over this evening
specifically for me.”
His lips press together gently, eyes on Hannibal’s, a mongoose and a snake
waiting for the right time to each strike or turn away.
Will blinks first.
“My prowess may not be strength. In fact, far from it.” Will licks his lips.
“My skill is intrigue. Curiosity. And, as I recall,” he tilts his head, eyes
narrowed again in youthful, prideful joy, “I have certainly piqued yours.”
“You have,” Hannibal responds in earnest, but with no easing the undercurrent
of menace in his tone. “Whether or not you can keep it remains to be seen.”
He presses his napkin to his mouth, an almost delicate gesture, and moves to
stand.
“I hope, for your sake, that you can.”
A glimpse of pale skin disappears beneath the boy’s clothing as he sits up,
affecting the promise of a stretch as he does, uncurling feline and languid
from where he rested limber with wine against the table. Hannibal watches him
openly, the lip caught between his teeth, the cocky glint in his eyes, the
youthful tone of his body as he moves to exit the restaurant in front of
Hannibal, at the older man’s gesture to do so.
Hannibal envisions, for a moment, the boy unclothed and blood-soaked, scarlet
staining sticky thick against his flawless flesh, dripping dark and thick from
his mouth to run in beads along the curves of his neck. Beaming that
infuriating grin, curls dry and stiff with gore.
They are scarcely back in the Bentley before Hannibal has him by the wrist,
pulling the boy roughly to him, to his mouth, jaw tight as he speaks against
the boy’s wine-stained lips.
“Ask.” Heart shuddering faster as the boy’s eyes widen so close to his own,
expanses of blue darkening beneath the spread of pupil.
“Here?” Will’s tone is surprised, pleased, barely breathed against Hannibal who
pulls deliberately out of reach when he bends closer. So Will licks his lips
and smiles, leans back against the car and arches up in a stretch against
Hannibal.
“Tell me what you were thinking just then,” he asks, “At the table before you
paid the check. What did you want to do to me?”
Hannibal feels the boy’s prying like fingers, forcing images behind his eyes,
drawing them out of him, and he is briefly, unfamiliarly overwhelmed by the
sensation of someone working so easily inside of him. Especially this
particular someone, curving wanton as though Hannibal’s nails weren’t leaving
bruises against his wrist.
“I was imagining you at your studies,” Hannibal answers low. “Stripped bare but
for the remains of whomever was unlucky enough to choose you as their partner
for that particular lesson.”
Will’s eyes go wide, his breathing stills and for a moment, he looks genuinely
utterly innocent. The images rush through his mind as they had through
Hannibal’s; just as vivid, just as stunningly contrasted and saturated in their
reality. Will’s lips stay parted but he closes his teeth gently together to
swallow.
“Teach me,” he breathes. “Everything. Make me learn it.”
His bottom lip is tugged up between his teeth again and his eyes search between
Hannibal’s for a few brief moments.
“If your curiosity wanes, kill me.”
His cheeks flush darker, eyes already so blown it’s hard to tell their usual
clear-blue tint. And slowly, Will allows a smile again, arching his back to
bring his lips close enough to Hannibal’s to feel.
“Please,” he adds.
Outside of Hannibal’s control, a breath cuts short at the offer, the
suggestion, the request that is sighed so genuinely against his mouth. There is
a sweetness to it, intoxicating as the wine still clinging to the boy’s tongue,
and Hannibal chases the taste of it with his own, a low sound building behind
the kiss that he drives against Will.
“I will,” he finally answers, licking the taste from his lips before he
releases Will’s wrist, unlocks the car, pushes Will aside to get in on his own.
Resisting the urge to alleviate his arousal in the back seat, he pulls out
sharply, and makes for the house.
“Tell me, then,” Hannibal suggests, glancing to the boy stretching pleased and
limber, beside him. “Your last.”
Will arches, body already sleepy with the wine warming it, makes a near-obscene
sound when he does.
“My last,” he starts, brings up a foot to rest it on the seat, remembers, and
sets it back to the floor. “Refused to die,” he reminds Hannibal, tone almost
playful, before he tilts his head and sets his eyes to the roof of the car and
answers properly.
“He was younger than you, some asshole who claimed he had to have me,” Will
barely blinks, a gesture oddly close to an eyeroll. His tongue parts his lips,
he continues. “He had me. Bent me over a desk and had his way. Left a mess on
my back, a claim, he’d called it. Proud, arrogant. Really quite beautiful in
his faults.”
Will stretches forward, back sliding further down the leather seat - still
heated - as his legs spread and his hand slides against his inner thighs, just
stroking.
“I smashed him with a bottle,” he bites his lip, “The wine softened the
metallic aftertaste when I licked it from his skin.”
Curls clinging sweat-soaked to his skin, still flushed from sex and tongue
pressing to lap up blood-dark wine from cooling skin, eyes alight with
pleasure.
Hannibal swallows, mouth working in a thoughtful way as the images play behind
his eyes.
He tries not to watch as Will’s fingers draw absent lines against the inside of
his thighs and imagine them as his own instead, digging into that soft skin
until the boy cries his name.
His fingers tighten against the steering wheel, palms working against the
leather.
“My last became a rather elegant quiche, despite the foul mouth,” Hannibal
offers in exchange. “Fresh goat cheese, seasonal greens from the market. I may
still have some if you’re hungry later.”
Will looks over, head cocked, as his fingers work slowly higher up his thighs
towards the obvious bulge in his jeans.
“You eat them?” he asks softly. There is no horror in the words, just genuine
fascination, curiosity, almost awe. He laughs, a low, pleased noise, and
presses one palm against himself, rocking his hips up against the pressure
there.
“Making elegance out of depravity,” Will groans, bites his lip, forces his eyes
to open slowly to watch Hannibal as he keeps touching himself.
“Perhaps you can tempt me with that for breakfast.” That wicked grin is back,
teasing, proud, and Will curls his fingers around his cock through his jeans
harder.
Uncertain if it’s the boy’s unfazed response to this situation, or the way he
grinds against his own hand arching up off the seat, Hannibal glances sidelong
at him now, for as long as he can manage before forcing his eyes back to the
road.
“Why do you think I was so pleased to find you?” Hannibal replies. “You’re far
less starved than the rest of them.”
A blessed red light allows him to watch, for a moment, and his tongue parts his
lips.
“Pull down your pants and do it properly. Do not finish in my car.” A pause,
considering. “Do not finish until I tell you that you may.”
The car jerks past the green light, foot heavier on the gas now.
Will makes a quiet sound and hooks his thumb over the waistband before bringing
his other hand up to fumble with the zipper and button. He lets his eyes close,
his lips part, and lifts his hips to slide the jeans and boxers he wears down
his thighs.
His cheeks flush bright, being so exposed, tinted windows around him but the
feeling of being seen just as prevalent. He arches off the chair when his hand
circles his cock, one foot drawing back to balance himself against the
onslaught of pleasure, and Hannibal’s words suddenly seem so much crueller.
“But I want you to touch me,” he breathes, hand moving obediently over himself
until his breathing comes harsher, his legs tremble.
He tries not to think of Hannibal, covered in blood as Will himself had been,
standing over the body of an unfortunate idiot, savoring the blood, the death
around him. He tries.
“All the more reason for you to wait for it.”
Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise, watching the quick movements of Will’s wrist
over himself, observing the undulating clench of muscles in his stomach, just
visible where Will’s other hand has slid beneath his shirt to press against his
skin.
Despite his own statement, Hannibal finds he can’t deny this to the boy, or
more particularly, himself. He resettles enough to lean, and wets a finger
against the boy’s lips, pushing against them until it’s damp enough. Forcing
his hand beneath the boy, Hannibal rubs firm against his opening, hot sensitive
skin twitching beneath his touch.
“I wonder,” he continues, “if I’ve eaten anyone that you know.”
Will’s panting grows quicker, draws with it some desperate, needy little
noises, and he pushes himself lower, legs parting wider, hips up to feel
Hannibal press harder against him.
“Oh,” it’s a gasp, not an answer, and Will doesn’t even linger on the words -
he doesn’t care. Boys had gone missing from the street all the time, police did
little more than mention their names, contact their families if there were any
to contact. And Will would see their names come up on the slides in lectures.
“Fuck,” Will’s hand stills, tightens around his cock to keep himself at bay,
“Fuck!”
He feels Hannibal continue to tease, a merciless massage where Will wants
penetration, where he wants to feel that stretch again, harsh, quick, and
utterly worth it.
“If you ate me out,” he gasps, grinning, “Then you fucken will have.”
A moment of genuine surprise at the lewd suggestion, dripping wine-thick from
the boy beside him, but there - there, in and around and between the demand
that Hannibal would almost certainly indulge, is...
“Language,” Hannibal breathes, and withdraws his finger from the firm circles
it was drawing. Withdraws his hand entirely, actually, from beneath Will as he
pulls into the driveway and the garage door closes behind them.
Delights in the speechless fury that settles over Will’s pretty features.
“The next time I need to remind you, I’m going to start removing teeth every
time you do it,” Hannibal warns, exiting the car with the knowledge that the
boy will follow. He makes no move towards him when he does, avoids looking
towards his flustered frown or the achy little noises he makes.
Pretends that they don’t call to him and beg for every fiber in his being to
snap tight and pin the boy to the wall by his throat and fuck him until he’s
unable to do more than crawl.
Will does the fly up on his jeans but not the button, following Hannibal with
his hands deep in his pockets, teeth grit against the friction the fabric draws
over his cock. He follows Hannibal through the back door, from the garage to
the hallway, he follows him to the entry where Hannibal meticulously removes
his shoes, his coat, leaves them and moves upstairs. Will leaves his boots and
follows.
His blood hums with the threat, with the knowledge of full follow-through. He
feels like a chastised child and wonders, briefly, for his own sick amusement,
how much older Hannibal is, than him.
When they reach the bedroom, Will steps closer, insinuates himself against
Hannibal’s chest and leans up to kiss him. The same hungry, needy, desperate
way he had kissed him earlier that evening. The same quiet plea behind the
obvious demand for attention.
He relishes in the man’s arms around him, gripping his shoulders, tensing his
own beneath Will’s seeking hands. It’s intoxicating, empowering, and Will is
utterly shameless when he rolls his hips against Hannibal’s, when he breaks the
kiss on a half-whimpered moan, and ducks his head to watch them rub together.
The wanton grind of the boy’s cock against his own, equally hard, pulls a hard
exhalation from Hannibal. He’s drunk, certainly, having finished nearly an
entire bottle of wine on his own, his movements a little clumsy now in his
intoxication, in his eagerness, given over to a thoughtless drive for sex and
violence that makes Hannibal’s blood sing in his ears. Hannibal tastes the
heady mixture of alcohol and desire that seeps through the little sounds he
makes, crushing them beneath his mouth again before he turns the boy and pulls
him roughly back against him.
He sighs against his neck, turns his face into his hair to feel the soft, well-
tended curls against his skin, and shoves their hips roughly together. His
fingers tug down the boy’s fly, thumbs pressing down the waistband of his pants
and boxers, and he watches as they slide past narrow hips to just beneath the
curve of his ass. Baring him to feel the heat of the boy’s skin grind back
against his erection through the expensive material in his pants.
“Your skill is not in strength,” Hannibal finally agrees, a rough murmur. “But
certain movements, properly executed, do not require it.”
Hannibal skims a hand over the boy’s chest, feeling his heart thunder beneath
his ribs, and presses his palm beneath his jaw. His other hand grips the crown
of Will’s head, fingers lacing through his hair, and both hands tighten.
Slowly, they turn, forcing his head to the side, and Will gasps to feel his
vertebrae pop in a long line even under the gentle turn.
“Finding the correct angle quickly is paramount, but from here, all I need to
do is push upward,” he explains softly, pressing the boy’s jaw just a little
higher. “And the act is complete. No strength, simply movement.”
He holds him there a moment more, his own pulse quickening now to hear the way
the boy whimpers beneath him, and then releases him in favor of tugging the
hideous sweater roughly over Will's head.
“But that may be too clean for your particular tastes,” Hannibal considers,
fingers working free the buttons of Will’s shirt. “You enjoy chaos. Blood
spilled beneath your clever hands, running hot against your skin. The noise and
struggle of slaughter, rendered into sudden silence but for the pounding of
your heart.”
He pulls the boy’s shirt off his shoulders and snares him around the waist
again to pull him fast against him, mouth hot against his shoulders, toned but
narrow in their youth.
“Messy boy.”
"Yes," Will gasps, dropping his head to allow Hannibal’s lips higher, hot and
welcome and utterly filthy, somehow, the way he kisses him.
Yes, he loves the carnage. He loves the tackiness, he loves feeling the warmth
cool against him, the body actually not quick in growing cold, resisting death
even in the most primal, final way.
Will moans and arches back against Hannibal. Brings a hand up to curl in his
hair and grip.
"It's intimate," he whispers, rubbing against Hannibal’s cock, knowing his
cheeks are red, his lips more so. Already utterly debauched.
Hannibal draws a deep breath, closes his eyes beneath the feel of Will's long
fingers gathering in his hair to pull him nearer still. He turns him towards
the bed with a jerk, a rough movement that would send the boy sprawling if not
held tight in Hannibal's arms, and he folds over him until Will has to plant
his hands against the mattress for support.
"You enjoy letting them struggle. Watching their weak and shuddering attempts
to cling to life," he breathes low against the boy's neck, lifting a hand to
press his fingers into the boy's mouth. A groan, soft, as Will sucks them
deeply, eagerly, throat working to wet them. "Risky. They may fight back, then,
if you miss your target."
He pulls his fingers away, watches Will chase them with his lips unfurled and
flushed, watches the long thread of spit fall against his chin. Grasping him
with his other hand by the back of his neck, he shoves him down further still,
face against the mattress as his fingers enter roughly, dampened only with the
boy's own saliva.
"You enjoy that the most. When they lash out and strike you in desperation.
Tasting your own blood before you taste theirs."
Will groans, the words sinking deep into his skin, harsh as the fingers
stretching him are, but pulling warmth up against him as well.
He's half dressed beneath the man who isn't at all undone, who feeds him true
and filthy words and brings Will to incoherency with them. Perhaps it's the
knowledge that he has found someone like himself to share this with, perhaps
the innate understanding that he would die, by this man's hands or another's,
anything but time's cold dead fingers.
"Their blood tastes sweeter," he whimpers, gripping the sheets hard, arching
his back to bring his hips up, "for the panic. Their eyes grow wide."
He moans, a deep, pleased sound and feels Hannibal respond to it.
"So surprised," he breathes, "that the beautiful boy they'd tormented is
willing and happy and capable of tormenting back - aah."
"You are striking," Hannibal acknowledges, humming amusement at the pun, before
he leans back enough to watch his fingers work inside the boy. Buried to the
knuckles, spreading and stretching roughly to see that skin yield before him as
does Will with every gasp and whimper. He pushes up to his toes, hands
spreading and curling against the bed, hips and spine twisting outside of his
control.
Gloriously alive, an existence carved in fierce resistance to anything but,
even as he steals the radiance of others to feed his own.
A worthy sacrifice, Hannibal muses, listening keenly as he moves to his knees,
and brings his mouth alongside his fingers. A long swipe of tongue, a fierce
suck against sensitive skin.
Will's fingers curl tighter in the sheets and he bites them hard between his
teeth to avoid another curse, another reprimand for language and the potential
loss of teeth.
Fuck, fuck, fuck...
It echoes in his heart beat, every rough lick against the hole still being
stretched meticulously enough to border on cruel. His entire body is shaking,
his legs as wide apart as he can have them with his pants still around his
thighs.
He's too far from the mattress to effectively rut against it and he moans, the
sound trembling, at that particular hindrance.
"Yes," the sound is hissed, drawn out, pleased, and Will stretches himself
against the bed as he does back towards the hungry mouth against him.
He considers his own words in the car, considers what they had been in answer
to, and another shudder passes through him, another strange sensation that
speaks of things he should be terrified of, that remind him how close he stands
to death and how he willingly bends over for him.
It's utterly thrilling.
The fingers part further, the tongue between, and Will ducks his head to nearly
sob against the covers.
"Hannibal -"
He presses his tongue deeper, inside the boy now to feel him squirm and writhe
and clench and loosen all in turn. Waves of movement crashing hot and fast
against his mouth, spreading before him against the bed, and the sound of his
name aching shaken from Will’s mouth earns him a pleased hum, vibrations
singing through his skin.
And it stops, just as suddenly as it began, as Hannibal withdraws himself and
steps away from the boy. He takes in the sight of him, spread and open, as he
unbuttons his shirt languidly, each button receiving particular attention while
Hannibal remembers the parts he was most looking forward to eating from this
particular boy.
“Your liver, certainly,” Hannibal says. “You’ve not had time to do damage to
it. Your lungs. Kidneys.”
A pause, considerate. “Your heart.”
He removes his shirt and moves to the closet, hanging it neatly.
“I will have them, still,” he continues, as he removes his socks and sets them
aside. Hannibal looks back to the boy, bent across the mattress and watching
him wide-eyed from beneath a tousle of hair. “When it suits me to do so.”
His pants are undone just as languorously, unhurried despite the intensity of
his own arousal, pressing visible against his underwear. Silk, again. Of
course.
Will’s eyes shift slowly from the bulge, outlined in almost laughably fine
detail by the thin fabric, and up, to meet the dark eyes that watch him, study,
see. He moans softly and stretches his arms further forward over the bed,
arching his back like a cat before staying in that position, still, enticing.
“If you keep dousing me in wine, you may have to forgo my liver.” Will murmurs,
voice a lazy, teasing arc, just barely slippery with the alcohol within him.
He’s achingly hard between his legs, and unable to alleviate it without
breaking a direct order from the man across the room.
“You seek intimacy as I do,” he muses, fingers spreading and folding against
themselves, against the sheets, “You consume and you keep your victims within
you - you worship them in the most holy way possible.”
He groans, rocks back in a gentle gesture, before sliding his hands down his
thighs to push his pants off and away - a messy heap on the floor.
“Do you become them, for a time? Consuming their souls and lives as you do?”
Will stretches upright, briefly, to arch his back the other way, before
deliberately, almost obediently, bending over the bed again, head turned to
watch Hannibal, smile coy.
Hannibal smiles, a brief but genuine amusement, at the boy’s attempts to fumble
around in his mind even as his cock drips against the bed. The feline movements
are not lost on him, presenting himself so willingly even as Hannibal considers
how lovely he would be with his organs laid bare in the cavity of his chest,
near-black scarlets and purples contrasting with skin even more pale than it is
now.
A quiet sound, thoughtful. Pleased.
“Nothing so dramatic,” he answers, folding his pants and hanging them as well,
before shedding the silk that clings to him. “Though I always feel an
appreciation for what they yield to me in their sacrifice, it is the
meaningless of their existence, before that moment, that entices me. I would
never seek to emulate such things.”
He returns with slow steps, fingernails curling down the length of the boy’s
spine to draw his bend deeper, and in an easy, startlingly fast movement, turns
him to his back and hoists him. One hand beneath his ass, the other splayed
across his back, wetting his lips in a flicker of tongue as the boy wraps his
legs around Hannibal’s waist, held easily against him.
Will clings to him, one hand curled up under his arm to grip his shoulder, the
other wrapped around Hannibal’s middle. The way he’s held, he’s just barely
higher than Hannibal, can leave his eyes hooded to look down and see him. He
swallows gently, lips parted on heavy breaths.
“You should believe in the meaninglessness of your own existence.” he murmurs,
but there’s no heat there, no accusation, merely a suggestion from someone who
has had this pointed out to him before. Then he leans closer, takes the man’s
lips with his own in a kiss that is partially claiming, partially just the need
to feel his arms tighten around him where they hold Will up.
He’s held so effortlessly that it makes Will’s heart hammer harder. He knows
Hannibal can feel it.
He bites the corner of his lip, when he pulls back, bends it out of shape in a
strange sort of smile, and rolls his hips up against Hannibal’s stomach.
Hannibal turns over the boy’s words a few times and finds that the
thoughtfulness of the statement resonates in him in an enjoyable way. He makes
a considering noise as he lets himself be kissed, and another - deeper,
rumbling low - as the boy presses hard and slick against his stomach, rutting
slow against him.
“Do not let go.”
He turns and the wall hits hard against Will’s back as he’s driven into it, a
loud thud disrupts the quiet words and little noises between them. Pinning him
against it so tight he can feel the boy gasping to breathe for a moment as
Hannibal lines himself up against Will’s opening, fingernails curling sharp
against his hip where his arm is wrapped around.
The entry is rough, hot friction even with the preparation that Hannibal
afforded him, and he pushes in with a single, long press of hips, delighting at
the frantic squirm that jerks through the boy’s body.
Will’s nails turn sharp against Hannibal’s back and he twists, lips back in a
hiss of genuine pain before they part, slack, on a needy moan as Hannibal keeps
pushing.
He has had no one since the last time he’d seen this man, his bruises and cuts
too prominent to not draw attention from a trick, to not have one who
considered him particularly pretty to show concern and call someone. Will had
forced himself from bed on the eighth day to go to a lecture because he was
crawling from his skin with boredom and his mind seemed unable to process
anything but sharp cheekbones, dark merciless eyes.
Hannibal presses closer, pushing the air from Will’s lungs and pressing his
teeth to Will’s shoulder, hard enough, he knows, to mark. In retaliation,
Will’s nails leave marks of their own. He squeezes his muscles, arches his back
and gasps, delighted by the fullness, the throb of need within him where they
join.
“Fuck, fuck,” too far gone with the strange simmering of pleasure and pain to
remember to hold his tongue.
He sees light bright behind his eyes, hears the sound of skin cracking against
skin, before he registers that he’s been slapped hard enough to knock him
dizzy. Hard enough to bruise, from the imprint of the back of Hannibal’s hand
across his mouth.
It’s followed by a rough kiss, tasting the bloom of blood where his lip split
against his teeth, tongue dragging across it to taste him, his whimper, the
breath that Hannibal drives from him as he draws himself back and presses back
in again.
No need for an explanation this time - he knows what he’s done, been warned
enough times that it doesn’t bear repeating. Only punishment, tempered from
what Hannibal had threatened him with in retaliation for his disobedience, but
enough to make clear his displeasure.
Will’s fingers dig sharper into his back for it and Hannibal nearly growls at
the sensation, an abrupt thrust of hips to rip free another cry of pain, of
animal lust, of blood and sweat and sex that fills Hannibal’s nostrils and
brings his heart to shuddering faster now in turn. The boy’s cock leaks slick
between them, from the pressure of Hannibal inside him, from the painfully long
time he’s been left hard.
“Touch yourself,” Hannibal breathes. “Do not finish until I tell you.”
Will swallows, a sound escaping him after that borders on both pain and need
and he doesn’t linger on it, can’t. He feels the iron of his blood slip down
his throat and swallows again, the feeling instinctively uncomfortable.
He arches back, head against the wall and eyes closed as he slips one hand
between them to stroke himself, a series of soft keens and whimpered pleas past
his lips before he can think to stop them. He’s too close to keep this up long,
but his hand doesn’t still. For a few agonizing moments he refuses to beg for
release, he takes every thrust against him, bends his body with soft shudders
and careful turns to feel more and tighter and harder.
“Please!” it’s drawn from him like a hook from skin, pained and sharp and in a
voice too low to constitute anything but utter need.
“Please, Hannibal, please…”
Hearing his name sobbed, begging sweetly past the boy’s swelling lip is a
symphony, a rising crescendo of strings soaring higher with each subsequent
plea that fills Hannibal’s chest with a welcome tension, pulling at the strings
that make him work, plucked by Will’s begging and the knowledge that he will
continue to struggle against himself simply to please Hannibal.
He does not answer him, but instead wraps his arm tighter around the boy’s
middle and forces a hand against his throat, to pin him, to feel the way his
words and gasps work their way free beneath his grip. Not choking, but a
smothering pressure.
Will’s lips part once in silence as his breath hitches and Hannibal’s release
nearly staggers him, fingers snapping tighter as it pulls fiercely through him,
burying himself inside Will and spilling heat between them. He kisses him, a
sloppy, possessive thing, moves to his cheek and bites where he struck him,
just enough for him to feel it, letting the boy’s shudders milk every pulse of
pleasure from him.
And only when his breath, shaking, is gathered back to him does Hannibal
mutter, “Now.”
It’s all Will needs, just one word, once, and his entire body goes rigid in
pleasure, neck stretched and vulnerable, throat trembling on swallows and
gasps. It seems over almost too quickly and Will blinks his eyes open with a
smile, a grin, a low laugh that draws his heart faster, one hand up to press
against his face and smear the blood from his lip down his chin.
He tries to catch his breath with quick, harsh pants, and moves to duck his
head beneath Hannibal’s chin in an oddly childish gesture, need for comfort.
He shows no outward sign of distress, not from the harsh treatment, from the
slap that still rang in his ears and slid down his chin in crimson reminder.
Will is utterly content, squirming in Hannibal’s arms and pulling against him
to kiss him again, one of his hands splayed over Hannibal’s throat in brief
reminder of how the other had held him.
He knows that will leave bruises too.
Hannibal shifts enough to withdraw from the boy but does not yet release him,
and for the moment to allows himself to be gently throttled and kissed. He
draws the tip of his tongue from Will’s chin to his mouth, following the line
of blood, and hums as the boy nuzzles back beneath his chin again.
A peculiar contentment, a more profound satisfaction than Hannibal can remember
experiencing in some time.
He carries him towards the bed, does not drop him there yet and instead
observes the amusement that appears in the corners of Will’s eyes, in the
lingering flush of his cheeks.
“You will stay tonight,” Hannibal decides, taking in the bruises and the cuts,
feeling a swell of pleasure at how much they add to the boy’s existing beauty.
“Tomorrow you will work, and you will call me when you’ve done so. I wish to
see you at your studies.”
Will grins, says nothing as he’s finally set down, but makes an effort, at
least, to not mess the sheets too much with what’s dripping down his thigh.
He’s allowed the shower, unhindered, and relishes the hot water, the way it
eases the tension from his muscles. He brings up a hand to touch his lip,
hissing at how sensitive it is as his fingers prod it.
“Fuck,” just a word, one word, breathed into the white noise around him, and it
sends a shiver of anticipation up his spine with the knowledge that he will be
reprimanded for it time and again if he uses it in the man’s presence.
He sucks it into his mouth and tastes the last residual metallic drops, before
turning off the water and taking up one of the thick, white towels.
Hannibal is reading in bed by the time Will returns, and pays him absolutely no
mind when Will climbs in beside him - obviously allowed. Will arches, stretches
with a moan that rivals those he made in pleasure at Hannibal’s hands, and then
settles, curled up against one of the large over-stuffed pillows.
It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep, and he doesn’t wake till morning,
pressed close against Hannibal’s chest, matching the man’s breathing.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     “Tell me, Will,” Hannibal mutters, words tight even as they pass his
     lips. “Did you cry?”
     Will keens, a soft, helpless little noise and his lips spread into a
     smile. He blinks, eyes up to watch Hannibal’s, to read the hunger in
     them, honed in on that one idea, that single notion that Will could
     cry.
     “No,” he breathes.
     WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER SPECIFICALLY: physical abuse, heavy dub-
     con, mentions of bloodplay
Chapter Notes
     We seem to be posting daily so... here y'are.
“Hi,” Will’s voice hums, pleased, through the receiver. He brings a hand up to
splay over his face as he waits for Hannibal to respond, fingers cool against
the heat of it, against the blood still drying there.
A pause, absorbing the sleepy satisfaction in his voice, before Hannibal
responds evenly. “Hello, Will. How was your lesson?”
Detachment, distraction in his voice - somewhere public, perhaps, when the call
comes, as inscrutable over the phone as he is face-to-face. In truth, he stands
in his kitchen, sharpening knives for cooking and tools for butchering as
equals, each laid neatly beside the other for use in what he anticipates Will
has procured.
A surprising sensation, this strange faith in the boy’s capabilities, although
no doubt influenced by Will’s own overwhelming confidence in himself. Hannibal
grows pensive in thought, and tamps it all down beneath the same invariable
tone. “Are you ready for me to pick you up?”
Will glances to the floor, cheap carpet in an apartment Will would never enter
without utter necessity. He idles a switchblade between his fingers, lazy
practiced movements that appear much faster than they are.
"Please,” he says, smiling at how oddly domestic it sounds, like a father
picking up his son from school, from a play date. Will smiles wider, nudges the
body on the floor with his toes.
"Doctor Lecter," he adds in a purr.
He'd had to seek out Hannibal’s number that morning - the man did not believe
in easy solutions - and still relished knowing that little bit more about him.
He tells Hannibal the address by guess, peeling back the drapes with the point
of the knife for the street name. The house he describes - he doesn't know the
number.
A dingy building, maintained only marginally by whatever absentee landlord owns
it, in a neighborhood that seeks to distance itself from the poorer areas it
backs up against. Hannibal studies it at length and smooths a hand down the
front of his coat, carrying with him an antique medical bag restored with new
clasps and treated leather and a waterproof interior. It pleases him, the
weight of it, the bloody history it must have seen with whomever carried it a
century earlier.
His mind still lingers on thoughts of fevers and disease as he presses the
buzzer with the sleeve of his coat. It hums in response, and he opens the door
with his shoulder rather than touching it.
A walk-up, of course, no elevator to make his task any easier, and he raps
twice softly against the door when he arrives.
Will opens it with a smile, fitting Hannibal’s warm predictions from the night
before: pale skin marred in slowly drying blood. He flips the blade again,
closed, and tosses it to the side table in the corridor before deliberately
taking Hannibal’s tie - with a dirty hand - and pulling him into the apartment.
Inside there is nothing extraordinary, a long corridor leading to a wan looking
living room, a bedroom to the side. Another door, partially open, directly
opposite leads to what could most likely be the bathroom.
Beyond the smear of blood against the wall, nothing seems at all out of place.
Will kisses Hannibal open-mouthed and eager, knowing full well he will be
reprimanded for the damage done his tie, and hums.
He catches the boy’s wrist as though to pull it away but already he knows that
blood has soaked deep into the expensive silk, spread through its fibers the
way he feels Will spread through him beneath the kiss. A faint sound of dismay
before he leans into him, mouth moving harshly against his, claiming and rough
and eager to taste the boy’s tongue against his own, to taste the blood still
metallic in his mouth.
He pushes the door closed behind him with his foot and grasps Will’s face in
his hand, shoving him gently back enough that he can lock the door, again using
his sleeve.
“Messy boy,” Hannibal scolds him softly, taking in the sight of him, the flush
of color along the rises of his skin, the stripes of crimson drying to brown
against his skin. A trickle draws his attention, a small cut along the boy’s
thigh, and a few others near it.
A lingering pause, watching the red bead skim through the pale hair of his
thigh.
“You’ve been cut.” An observation, forced to be one in an effort to reduce the
pressure Hannibal suddenly feels behind his eyes. His fingers stretch and close
again, a movement scarcely discernable compared to the possessiveness that
Hannibal feels drawing up sharp inside of him.
Will shrugs, a cat-like, graceful gesture, and draws a thumb over the deepest
cut to catch the blood against it.
“He had a particular taste in pain,” he offers, bringing the thumb to his lips
and sucking it clean. He watches Hannibal’s eyes follow the motion, a strange
movement within them that has nothing to do with the physical, nothing to do
with the light. It sends a shiver through Will he can’t explain.
“I just returned the favor,” he adds, the only suggestion to what he’s done.
He kisses Hannibal again, another lingering messy thing and pulls away to make
his way back to the bedroom.
Within, the bed has seen the worst of it. Sheets tangled and bloody. Some has
slipped to the carpet, a small stain at a glance. There is no sign of the body,
and Hannibal has to step around the bed to see it. Sprawled, splayed, the man
was more than a little overweight. The stain beneath him is far from small.
Will directs a painfully innocent look at Hannibal from beneath his hair.
The second time, in so few minutes, that Hannibal hums a note of mild dismay.
“Are you always so undisciplined as this?” Disapproval in his voice. “It’s a
wonder you haven’t been found out yet.”
Despite the tone, Hannibal reaches out to stroke his fingers through the boy’s
curls, grasping them gently, almost affectionate if not for the particular
tension in his mouth. His mind sets to work before his body, taking in every
pool and splatter and drip of blood in rapid succession, following the movement
of the murder as it took place, to where the man now settles into the floor,
that much heavier in death than when he was on top of Will.
For a moment, Hannibal’s not sure which thought displeases him more - the idea
of such a distasteful person rutting away at Will, or that Will chose to do
this in an apartment with carpeting.
His fingers tighten and he pulls the boy towards him again, another lingering
kiss before he releases him and sets down his bag to unshoulder his coat.
“I would ask how you’ve dealt with such things in the past, but I know the
answer is that you haven’t bothered.”
“I’ve never bothered to stick around after,” Will answers honestly, shrugging.
The best thing about his history is that he can’t be tracked to this. He is
known by his face, but so many boys are. So many have soft cherubic features,
curly hair, blue eyes filled with the wisdom of the world in one far too young.
The usual bullshit.
“Men like this… they bring enough boys home for the DNA to not matter.” Will’s
brows rise, for a moment, considering. “Chances are most of the boys who had
catalogued the water stains on his ceiling are no longer alive.”
Will glances over, flashes his white teeth. “Thanks to you.”
“If it saved them from being trapped underneath him, then it’s a far better
fate.”
Will’s words linger, though, gnaw and pull somewhere in Hannibal’s chest,
beneath his ribs. He feels the images more than sees them, the boy on his back
arching and moaning even in falsity as sweat and grunts fell against his skin.
Curving against this other man and whispering praise against his ear, hands
skimming the fat of his back as blood smeared across his spread thighs.
Hannibal allows the jealous thoughts to come to fruition, and when they have
done so, plucks them to store away for later, when they can be properly
savored.
In truth, the boy isn’t entirely wrong. It would do more harm to disturb the
scene overly much than to leave it all in situ. Surely the man’s been brought
in before for solicitation, at the very least, a record on file, and such
murders are not uncommon, especially in an area such as this. In a smaller
town, or a more important neighborhood, it may merit more investigation, but
this would be cursory at best and unlikely to earn a detailed search for trace
evidence.
Trace evidence likely destroyed by the bloodbath laid before them, at any rate.
Still, Hannibal muses as he glances back to the boy all wide-eyed and prideful,
there are few opportunities that resist a chance for learning.
He draws from his bag latex gloves and hands them to Will. A soft microfiber
cloth afterward.
“You will remove your fingerprints from anything you’ve touched.” A pause, and
he reiterates when he hears Will draw a breath to protest. “Anything.”
Will’s brows draw and he gives Hannibal a very pointed look before stepping
back and gesturing to himself.
“One loses track of where one was thrown, Hannibal, in a fit of passion,” he
mutters, sarcasm rimming his tone. But he turns to obey at the look he
receives.
In truth, the night hadn’t been a particularly eventful one. He’s not been with
the man before, but he’d heard enough. Someone without an ounce of charm
desperate for power. He didn’t just bleed the kids for fun, he’d choke them,
beat them… Will had gotten lucky, he supposes, as lucky as one could, that he
happened to be in a slicing mood today.
They had gone from the corridor to the bedroom without a detour. He doubts
Hannibal missed the trail of clothes up the hall - all his, unfortunately -
meaning his back had made very clear acquaintance with the wall on his way.
At least, he muses, trailing the cloth over the wall, his clothes are all
clean.
Hannibal steps out of the bedroom to watch the boy with a practiced
disinterest, in truth ensconced in the sight of him. The bored amusement in his
eyes, the negligent attention to actually removing any prints that were
probably not left to begin with, the long limbs and hairless chest still
striped in flaking smears where he wiped his hands across himself.
“Harder,” comes the low instruction, breaking the silence between them. “You
will need to scrub harder. Go back over what you’ve just done.”
The huff of breath is exquisite and Hannibal finds that he can scarcely
maintain his expression of indifference for the sudden coil of pleasure it
twists in him.
“One must have lost track,” he muses softly, “reliving the enjoyment of the
evening.”
Will’s eyes narrow, his jaw sets in an expression of clear displeasure. He
holds the man’s eyes long enough to feel his own cheeks darken before he blinks
and his expression clears entirely. He returns to stand near Hannibal, by the
door where he had started the unnecessary exercise.
He draws his hand over the wall harder, eyes on his work, before he takes a
step back, just enough to place one foot behind the other, and bends. A
deliberate, arched curve as he continues following the instructions. Another
step and Will sinks to his knees, pressing a palm to the floor as he leans
close to draw the cloth over a part of the wall he is certain he never touched.
He rocks his hips back, bends lower, cleans the dust off the wall that borders
the carpet there, before sitting back on his heels, eyes up, wide, clear.
“I will do my utmost to remember.”
An almost unnatural smoothness in the turn of Hannibal’s as he follows the
boy’s display with interest, and his head tilts to a particular angle as he
looks down at the boy kneeling by his feet.
Predatorial.
“The knife,” Hannibal suggests, a jarring lightness to his tone as he glances
towards the bloodsoaked tangle of sheets on the bed. “Considering your overall
negligence, I imagine it’s covered in your traces.”
He’s unable to look away as the boy rises in a smooth motion, drawing nearer up
the length of Hannibal’s leg as he unfurls from the ground. It’s a sinuous
movement, elegant even, and Hannibal draws a deeper breath as the boy’s
narrowed eyes meet his.
“You should consider yourself lucky I’ve not asked you to help me move him,”
Hannibal informs him quietly. “Though there is still time to do so if you’d
care to feel his skin against your own again. Or we could simply take that with
us. A memento of your time together.”
Will’s eyes narrow with a trace of disgust but he says nothing. He takes a step
back, then another, and moves to the end of the corridor to gather up the knife
he’d dropped to the table there. He brings it back, the handle and blade both
covered in blood, though it’s impossible to say how much belongs to whom.
He weighs it on his palm, flicks it open and turns it, eyes slowly moving up to
meet Hannibal’s again as his hand continues to manipulate the blade.
“I would rather keep the blade,” he says honestly, flips it shut, and passes it
- handle first - to Hannibal. For the moment, obedient again. He swallows.
“Are we going to move him?”
Hannibal lifts a hand in decline of the blade, but does not argue against him
keeping it. Appreciates his deference in offering, as well as the quick,
practiced movement of his hand with it.
A thoughtful noise. Perhaps he’ll teach him to cook, as well.
“No,” Hannibal finally answers. He reaches to rest his fingers beneath the
boy’s chin and tilt him upwards to meet his lips, pleased by the obedience.
“Gather your things. There are towels in the bag. You may moisten one to wash
your face. As much as the look suits you, it may draw unwanted attention should
anyone pull up beside us.”
He shrugs into his coat, glancing towards the kitchen where Will goes to wet
the towel, and notes the linoleum floor. An image of Will sprawled there,
beneath him instead of someone else, sliding slick against pools of scarlet.
“Next time, perhaps consider the kitchen rather than the bedroom,” Hannibal
suggests, amused. “The blood will linger much longer for you to play in, if you
insist on doing so.”
Will’s lips twitch in the start of another smile and he doesn’t meet Hannibal’s
eyes as he wipes the blood from his face, revealing the blush that had started
warming there from Hannibal’s words. He had reveled in the blood of the man
he’d killed, he’d reveled in his stuttered gasps and clumsy attempts to get
Will to stop.
He’d kissed him, since the man had seemed to love Will’s mouth so much. He
wonders if that was mercy or a different brand of sadism.
He takes his time to clean the back of his neck, down his chest, lingering
where he knows he has no need to, simply to leave a damp trail to dry against
his skin, for Hannibal to see.
He doesn’t wash below his waist, beyond mopping up the blood from the cuts
there, he leaves that for the hot shower of Hannibal’s home - where he’s
certain they’re going - and instead starts on the blade, meticulous in cleaning
it, careful not to cut the latex as he rubs the blood from it under the stream
of the tap.
He finishes, dries it on the towel he’d draped over his shoulder, and walks
past Hannibal to gather his clothes. The towel, predictably, goes on the floor,
with the gloves, and Will deliberately sets the knife between his teeth with a
grin before slipping into his jeans. Hannibal notes he has no boxers beneath.
After, Will just pockets the blade, doesn’t spend a long time retrieving and
donning his clothes.
Once he’s yanked his boots on - leaving them unlaced and himself looking
casually undone - he faces Hannibal again, smile reaching his eyes as he cocks
his head, lifts his chin. He slips his hands into his pockets, pushes his jeans
lower with the motion, enough to show just the bare scruff of hair he has
there, between his navel and his cock.
He’s in the sweater Hannibal hates, again.
“Shall we?” he asks.
A parting of lips, pensive, attention lingering on the bare skin above the
boy’s pants for a moment longer than Hannibal would like.
He buttons his coat, leaving his bag on the floor, and straightens with a quick
movement of his hands against the expensive material checked in dark greys
against black to smooth it flat. He drags the back of his fingers down the
boy’s chest, feels the way his ribs spread to draw a deeper breath beneath his
touch, and travels it back upwards to run against his neck and into his hair.
A quick twist and he forces the boy to double over, above the towel and gloves
left carelessly on the floor.
“Pick them up.”
Will hisses, one hand out for balance, the other snared in his pocket still. It
takes a moment for him to realize where his reflexes had taken him. He lets go
of the knife.
He waits to be given the free range of movement to do so and finds it not
allowed, instead he's stuck humiliatingly trying to grab for both with
Hannibal's hand in his hair as though he's holding a dog by the scruff.
He manages, balls up both and holds them against his stomach before glaring up
at Hannibal.
The hand doesn't leave his hair, it twists.
Will bares his teeth but makes no other sound, instead, he takes up the gloves
to shove into his pockets, and shakes out the towel with a flourish before
neatly folding it,
This time when he glares, he's released.
Hannibal presses a hand against the boy’s cheek, thumb stroking lightly beneath
his eye. An affectionate gesture - fond, even - despite the look he’s being
given. Perhaps because of it. And he allows a faint smile.
“Now, we shall.”
---
The boy still stinks of someone else when they enter the house. It trails after
him as he passes by, and Hannibal hangs his coat. Blood at the forefront acrid
and metallic, fresh where the boy’s jeans have rubbed against his thigh.
Beneath it his own sweat and the sweat of the man who took his pleasure from
Will. Hannibal envisions him dripping, sliding against him, and feels revulsion
- a rare enough thing - tighten his stomach. And still the smell of semen,
coating warm skin.
“Shower.” A pause, and a mild declaration, perhaps joking, perhaps not. “I am
going to burn those clothes.”
Will regards him, raises an eyebrow, before his lips tilt up in a smile, head
cocked just so.
"But that would be rude," he purrs, smile widening as Hannibal’s expression
remains unchanged. He steps closer and tugs his sweater over his head, keeps it
in his hand a moment, not tossing it to the floor yet.
"What would you rather I wear, hmm?" His voice is soft, teasing, pleasantly
low. One hand comes up to work the buttons on his shirt as he toes his boots
off and steps out of them.
"Bruises you've bitten into me?" He licks his lip. "Imprints of your hand on my
ass?"
The laugh is low, still, pleased, and he shrugs out of his shirt enough to
leave it hanging just on his arms.
"Possessive much?"
Snaring the boy by the arm to stop his ceaseless undulations, to enjoy the
power in being able to stop them rather than any lack of desire to watch the
movements, Hannibal pulls him close. He lifts his other hand to stroke the side
of Will’s face, rough hand sliding up into his hair again to feel the curls
soft against his fingers. To stir the scent of Will's evening and feel the
animal pull it draws in him.
"Extremely," Hannibal murmurs against the boy's temple, mouth pressed to his
skin, drawing the lithe body against his own. "Of things that are mine."
He skims his free hand up the warmth of the boy's back, beneath his loosened
shirt and Will bends to it, arches under the touch.
"It is only gracious to let others borrow what one owns," he continues
thoughtfully, "but I expect them to be returned to me in the same way that they
were lent."
Considerate words, carefully chosen, to betray only the barest hint of how
badly Hannibal wants nothing more than to fuck Will until he smells of him
again.
Will hums, allows his eyes to close just briefly, when Hannibal can’t see the
response, and bites his lip. Softly, he swallows, feels the arm around him
tighten. There is a disturbing comfort in being held by a monster. Like begets
like.
When Hannibal steps back, Will shucks his shirt properly, balls it up in his
hands as he had the sweater. He pulls the knife from his pocket to toss it into
one of his boots that he shoves with his foot to rest by the chest at the end
of the bed.
“May I keep my boots?” he asks, the smile on his face soft but his eyes
serious.
Hannibal feigns a longer consideration than he actually affords the question,
removing his cufflinks and watching the boy from beneath the hair that’s fallen
loose, untidy from where it was artfully arranged before.
“You may,” he agrees. “I imagine it will be quite charming set against the
suits you’ll be wearing. To attract a different quality of clientele, although
I imagine you will still feel the pull towards,” Hannibal pauses, glancing
towards the heap of clothing in the boy’s hand, “that, now and again.”
Will’s eyes narrow as his smile widens, a very displeased look but one he hides
behind only a thin veil of aggravation.
“Much obliged,” is all he says, shifting the shirt and sweater to hang over his
wrist as he brings his hands together to undo the button and fly on his jeans.
Then he just stops, leaves his thumbs hooked in the belt loops, drawing the
jeans just low enough to suggest, and not enough to properly show.
“I choose my demographic carefully,” he says softly. “Men like him,” he
unnecessarily gestures into midair, “are not missed. They’re the sick f-...
sick kinds of people who police crawl all over trying to nail on something. No
one cares when they die, people rejoice.”
He smiles a little more.
“Once in a while I need to whet my palette with something more refined. Like
you.” He drags his bottom lip between his teeth and grins.
“People would miss you.” His tone dips.
“So you are rare, for me. You are a delicacy to take time with and enjoy.”
Will swallows. Steps closer. His jeans slip a little as he does, still not
enough.
“What do you think a suit would do for me, hmm? How will the scum of the earth
see me and treat me in one?” he grins, eyes down. “And how will your ilk?”
He laughs softly, brings one wrist up against his lip and pulls it away, an
absent gesture.
“You will kill me, Hannibal.”
Hannibal watches him, his own gestures stilled and head canted at a particular
angle. Listening, attentively. Hearing Will as he speaks.
A note of threat, a single plucked chord of tension between them, and Hannibal
draws a soft breath.
“I will,” he answers, amicably, and catches the boy’s wrist in his hand. A
gentle tug now, to close the distance between them, and he presses his mouth
where Will’s touched just a moment before. “But not today. Not so long as you
continue to interest me.”
He pulls Will against him, drapes the boy’s arm over his shoulder and slips his
thumbs beneath the waistband of his jeans. Hannibal doesn’t push yet, resists
the urge in favor of feeling a shiver course through Will instead.
“It would please me to see you in such, as much as it would please me to see
you wearing nothing but the marks I leave on your skin. I offer only
suggestions of what may maintain my interest, and they are yours to discard as
you deem wise.”
One hand slips free of the boy’s jeans, slides suddenly low, between his legs
to press his palm against the cuts on the boy’s thigh, grinding rough denim
against them.
“But do not pretend that you do not share the same designs that I do for how
this will end, when the time comes.”
Will’s lips draw back in a brief expression of pain and he blinks, folds his
fingers against Hannibal's back.
"I entertain many scenarios," he agrees, ducking his head before gently
nuzzling against the older man. His free hand moves to Hannibal’s wrist, tugs
it aside, up, to rest over his cock, half hard again from their words alone.
"What a pair we make." His voice clicks on the consonant, eyes up before his
smile widens and he splays his hand against Hannibal's head to draw him down to
kiss again, hips rolling to feel the man’s palm harder against him.
"He fucked me on my knees," he murmurs, lips against Hannibal's, smiling and
holding him close to keep their breath between them. “Spread my legs wide, cut
another line every time I whimpered."
Will bites his lip, feels Hannibal’s breath draw slowly in as he exhales.
"He told me he wanted to see me cry,” he moans quietly. "Told me to beg for
more and take it like a good boy."
The scene itself plays obscene in Will’s head, not at all appealing, easy
enough to fake. But with Hannibal so close he imagines enacting it with him.
Imagines that accented voice purring filth into his ear.
Will moans again and bites Hannibal’s bottom lip before kissing him again,
harsh and hot.
Hannibal finds the sensation stored away from earlier, when Will arched and
sighed and preened bare and elegant and streaked in gore before him. The smell
of sex encrusted to his thighs and radiating from him in warmth that Hannibal
now steals beneath harsh fingers, tugging the boy’s cock free from his jeans
and shoving them down further on his hips in one fluid moment.
He finds the sensation, that vining, strangulating jealousy, and he ravages it
for all it has to offer, growling low against the boy’s mouth as his hand
squeezes almost cruelly against his cock. Not stroking, not moving against it,
just holding it as though to make it his.
“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal mutters, words tight even as they pass his lips. “Did
you cry?”
Will keens, a soft, helpless little noise and his lips spread into a smile. He
blinks, eyes up to watch Hannibal’s, to read the hunger in them, honed in on
that one idea, that single notion that Will could cry.
“No,” he breathes.
A pleased sound, so many delights in the admission that Will denied a man about
to die his desires, that although he bowed and bent he was ferocious, and that
for all of that stubbornness and pride, he is capable of tears.
His pants are shoved down to his thighs, further still until the boy steps out
of them, Hannibal’s hand still wrapped hard around his cock. He squeezes it, a
rough, long upward stroke, and sighs against the boy’s mouth as he whimpers.
“You will. For me alone.”
No idle threat here, no wishful declaration of someone who overestimates their
own worth and meaning by inflicting empty demands on someone they paid to hear
them. No little switchblade cuts and meager dripping of blood against thighs
that have been coated in much worse.
Hannibal undoes the fly of his pants, shucking them down past his hips and
ignoring the rest of it, mindless of stains or evidence or anything but driving
himself inside this boy until he’s begging his name, choked with tears. Until
there’s no trace left of anyone but Hannibal drawn into his skin.
Will’s shoulders are snared and in a smooth curving movement the boy is brought
to the floor.
Will’s instinct is to crawl back, to get out from under the man as he settles
over him, and he finds his heart hammering in disgusting anticipation for
what’s to come.
“No,” he laughs, and it’s pleased, for the moment, a challenge set and a
challenge met, but the panic rises quick, with Hannibal as fast as he is, with
how strong he is, with the promise in those cold eyes as Will’s struggling gets
him nowhere.
“Shit.”
It’s reflexive, and Will brings both hands up to shield his face from the
strike that comes, and loses both his balance and his grip on the floor that
would have earned him a few more inches of safety at least. He makes a sound of
pain and drops his hands as soon as he feels it safe, turning to his stomach to
crawl away, knowing he would be more effective kicking than he would clawing.
He thinks of the first night this had happened, how he had fought, for the
first time in his life, to live, not just to get the advantage.
Hannibal laughs. Just a breath, a sound of absolute endearment and delight as
he watches the struggle - a sound that here and now sends cold terror through
the boy.
Hard hands grasp Will by his ankles as he tries to crawl away, and Hannibal
jerks him back sharply enough that it leaves scalding rugburns across his hips,
his stomach. Another quick scurry in the instant that Hannibal readjusts,
leaning over the boy to press a hand against the back of his neck, face turned
against the carpet. Hannibal watches him gasp, sees his exquisite mouth gaping
wide in surprise, and he touches a kiss to his temple.
A gentle touch, barely enough to be felt.
“You will take what I give you,” Hannibal reminds him, and spreads his knees
against the floor to split the boy’s legs wider.
Will makes a sound like a trapped animal and thrashes, hands coming up to push
hard against the carpet to dislodge the hand against his neck. He brings one
back and digs his nails between the bones in the wrist, claws there as hard as
he can as the rest of his body fights to not be lifted and bent.
“No.” A growl this time, between his teeth and raw, and Will’s entire body
comes alive with movement, with a desperate struggle to not be pinned, to avoid
Hannibal’s pleased promise. He won’t give him that, his will to have his tears.
Hannibal is stronger than him, with no effort, it seems, and it infuriates Will
more than the position he’s in, more than the stupid desire to just give in. He
digs his nails in harder against the arm above him and gasps a breath when his
legs, inevitably, are spread for him, wide, enough to take away some of the
leverage he had before to push away.
“Fuck you.” It’s desperate, angry, and Will grits his teeth, trying to turn his
head away.
A growl, sharp, as the boy’s fingers tear skin enough to leave it raw. Hannibal
rips the boy’s hand free of his wrist and slides his hand from the back of his
neck to the front of his throat. He turns him, narrowly dodging a quick kick
aimed at his face, and braces his knees on top of Will’s thighs, digging
bruises and reopening the newly healing cuts laid into his pale skin.
A hard slap, open-palmed across the boy’s face. Once for the first curse that
he couldn’t catch him for, and again, a backhand more brutal than the first for
the second curse.
Hannibal lifts his chin in a dominant animal pleasure as the boy’s gasps choke
in short bursts from his throat, and Will is stunned, face nearly numb with the
strikes. He twists to aim another punch against Hannibal's stomach, his chest,
anything.
It's futile, he knows it well enough but Will refuses to stop, he can't stop
his writhing and twisting to get away.
"You want to be in the same fucking category as that pervert?" Will's voice is
loud, enough to carry downstairs, though no one else will hear.
"You do this you are no fucking better! Hannibal -"
Everything stills. The lust, the violence, the brutality, the cruel joy beneath
it all.
It stills suddenly and sharply enough that Will stills with it for a heartbeat,
a sudden pitching fear in his stomach and the moment is enough for Hannibal's
hand to find his throat.
It presses, only gently, but each heartbeat brings it tighter, each pulse of
blood beneath it draws a twitch clenching firm against soft skin. Hannibal's
eyes are lightless dark and unnatural movements - preternatural - travel fast
over Will's face to take in the expanse of his dawning terror.
"Am I not?" Hannibal finally intones with something like disappointment - a
question that Will, choking, cannot answer. The older man hums a thoughtful
noise, considers the words, and accepts them.
No warmth. No humor.
Cold. Black. The ocean at night time, beneath a new moon.
"Then this will be very easy for you. And our lessons are at an untimely end."
Disinterested now, in the exchange with this boy, a rote mechanism taking
control of Hannibal that’s even more fearful than the explosive laughter and
violence that carried his heart singing. Thoughtless, something he’s done
enough times to complete it effortlessly, without any but the basest
involvement.
He holds his hand hard enough to feel Will’s pulse thudding fast beneath it.
Will chokes, can't do more than arch his back in futile little bends. He's
pinned entirely, mercilessly, and he wonders, for a brief, ridiculous moment of
introspection, if he really looks so dead to the world when he kills too.
His throat clicks, dry and bruised, and Will’s hips still.
Then his hands.
Desperate little chokes for air before even those stop.
The hand against his throat eases but doesn’t move away, feeling for a pulse to
make sure that there is one. Perhaps mild disappointment at the fact that the
boy’s lost consciousness. A brief, gentle caress just under Will’s chin, with
the thumb that had seconds before stopped the blood running to his brain.
A moment more, and Will moves, arm swinging to punch blind but hitting just
under Hannibal’s jaw, hard enough to shock but not dislodge, but it gives him
the moment, brief as it is, to shove the hand from his throat and shove himself
back.
Surprise, genuine, as the boy lashes out so suddenly in his regained
consciousness. The relentless survival instinct that surges back as suddenly as
it vanished, foolish and desperate and somehow, for all of that, admirable.
It's easy enough to snare him by the ankle and drag him back in despite it.
A few more fists, increasingly unsteady in their aim, and Hannibal snares each
in turn, squeezes them in his hand and pins them above the boy's head. Safer,
this way to ensure he doesn't lose consciousness again, which would be a far
too ready way to avoid this particular lesson.
Knees set inside his thighs, dried with blood from reopened cuts, and Hannibal
gives him the courtesy of spit, stroked quickly along his cock, before he
enters in one rough push, stretching harshly despite the boy's activities a few
hours before. Will draws upwards in a breathless gasp and Hannibal inhales
slowly, to feel the boy finally break and bend beneath him.
It’s sharp, a sting and tug that will leave Will sore the next day, perhaps for
a few more, but that’s not what hurts him. Physical pain, Will can withstand,
he has had to, has chosen to, it’s a skill and practice but this… Hannibal’s
eyes looking through him, around him, seeing the negative space near Will as
something more significant, that presses his eyes closed, turns his head away.
Uninteresting.
Will swallows, a noise in his throat making its way up against his lips. He
curls them, presses them together till they pale, makes the noise again.
Hannibal had found him so interesting.
The next sound is a sob, unmistakable, and Will’s eyes remain clenched closed
as his legs are pushed aside wider, his hips lifted to be fucked harder.
Just a thing, a hole, a void.
Just a fucking number.
Will’s hands clench into fists and he parts his lips on a choked gasp, blinking
his eyes open and finding his vision hazy, liquid.
“Don’t,” he swallows. “Don’t -”
I’m more than this, I’m better, I can do better…
The shuddering sighs, the wet choking sounds, faint and weak, cut short and
stuttering now quickens Hannibal's pulse, raises his heart rate above where it
had settled still and languid in his chest. A sensation like heat returning,
tingling sharp in his limbs, and Hannibal releases the boy's wrists.
Knowing there's no fight left in him.
Knowing he'll not struggle to escape.
He grasps his hips, instead, to raise them at a better angle for him to sit
back on his knees and watch Will Graham sob into his carpet.
As he knew he would.
Hannibal rests the boy's ass against his thighs, and spares a hand to grasp his
cock, limp now from the fight, from the abuse, from the slaps raising pale
shadowy bruises across his cheeks. Only the second time he's touched it,
Hannibal considers, and he tugs in time with his thrusts, shuddering as another
rough sob wracks the boy before him.
Now that it’s started it’s impossible to stop and Will hates it, he hates the
feeling of tears on his face, he hates the fact that Hannibal thinks he won
them. He shudders at the feeling of a hand against him and bites his lip on a
low whine.
Slowly, Will feels the shudders subside, the lump in his throat evaporate.
He can’t name the reason, but the touches get softer, the entire demeanor above
him changes and Will wants to scream.
Because he knew, he fucken knew how to do this to him.
You will cry for me alone. Because for him alone, Will wants to be important.
He arches his back when Hannibal grazes his prostate, unable to convince his
body to obey, and not respond, unable to do anything but gasp his pleasure and
press his hand against frustrated hot tears.
Hannibal curves low over the boy, between his thighs and pushing into his hips
and forcing a hard bend in his back in order to steal the flustered sounds from
his mouth. He moves past them, to his cheek, to taste his skin still warm and
damp.
Amusement curls his lips, feeling the boy’s body respond beneath him and
revelling absolutely in the complete control that he holds over Will in that
moment. He’s certain the boy will make him suffer for it once he’s stopped
twitching, spasming outside of his own possession, but for now he’s entirely
pliant, entirely weak despite his obvious and fearsome courage, and Hannibal’s
ribs feel as though they’re pulling tighter for the pleasure of it.
He finishes with a low moan, a perfunctory release far less intriguing than the
boy staring daggers at him from red-rimmed eyes, glistening in the corners.
Noting this, it pulls another unfurling of pleasure from him, before he removes
himself slowly from inside the boy.
And just as quickly, with his other hand wrapped around the head of Will’s cock
to stroke in quick little jerks, he presses his fingers inside of him, feeling
his own release slick against the boy’s entrance, and he curls his fingers
brutally against Will’s prostate.
The sound Will makes is weak, utterly helpless, and his brows furrow as his
lips fall slack.
It feels good, too good, and Will hates that too, hates that Hannibal knows him
this well already, that he can bring him to the edge and over with clever
fingers and that motherfucken smile.
Will relishes in calling Hannibal obscenities in his mind as his breathing
becomes faster, ragged, his back arches harder and he opens his eyes to watch
the room upside down as pleasure draws him closer and closer to climax.
He cums with a moan, a shudder that wracks his entire body, and he swallows
hard, brings a hand to press to his eyes so his gasps don’t become sobs again.
“Why?” he asks after a moment, when Hannibal has leaned close to draw his lips
over Will’s wet cheeks, kissing the taste of his momentary flare of terror
away.
“What did that prove?” WilI’s tone is harsh, clearly displeased, clearly upset,
but something deeper than that, a question beyond the general anger: will you
ever make me feel like that again and mean it?
Hannibal wraps a hand beneath the boy’s neck and tugs him upward to sit against
him, straddling his lap. He studies Will’s eyes, narrowed sharply beneath his
hair, each in turn. Remembers how he looked with a handprint of blood drawn
across his mouth, with a knife between his teeth, displaying himself obscenely
with the still-warm body of a victim mere feet away.
He pushes Will’s curls back out of his face.
“That I am nothing like them,” Hannibal responds, “and neither are you.”
Will’s jaw works, he swallows. For a long moment his eyes don’t leave
Hannibal’s at all. He considers his words, considers their accuracy, potential
arguments, feels those die, fade like moth wings by a flame. Then he turns
away, lets his eyes close as Hannibal’s lips brush his cheekbone again,
suddenly so gentle, so caring.
Nurturing the pain Will feels, conditioning it into him. That he will cry for
no one else.
And that he will be made to cry again.
He winces when he tries to move, feeling raw and sore and utterly used.
When he turns back to Hannibal it’s to curve his neck gently, to tilt his head
and nuzzle against the man’s throat, against his calm heartbeat.
Hannibal adjusts for the gesture, and after a brief unsettling, draws him up
from the floor. Will’s skinny legs wrap around him as he’s brought to the bed,
at least for now mindless of the mess of having him there.
He notes the clothes strewn and dropped in their wake, and allows himself to be
mindless of that as well, and a residual hitch in Will’s breath is enough to
draw him down beside him again, allowing the boy to pull near.
For me alone.
Will finds comfort in the metronome beat of Hannibal’s heart, constant, slow.
It hadn’t once sped when he’d held him, hadn’t once risen beyond his resting
beat. He takes comfort in it now, but he knows he will hear it again, the same
speed, same beat, when next his face is pressed to the ground, his body pulled
taut, and the monster makes him cry again.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Summary
     “There is blood on the ceiling, Will.”
     Will carefully directs his gaze where indicated and finds his bottom
     lip between his teeth so as not to smile.
     “There is blood on the ceiling.” he agrees softly
Chapter Notes
     Warnings for this chapter: blood, lots of blood, humiliation, first
     part of a double chapter (to be filled tomorrow, so never fear).
“There is blood on the ceiling, Will.”
Will carefully directs his gaze where indicated and finds his bottom lip
between his teeth so as not to smile.
“There is blood on the ceiling.” he agrees softly, feeling the nervousness
bubble up within him, pulling at that strange, unpleasant sensation that makes
him want to laugh where he shouldn’t. A sensation like tickling, at once
pleasant and far from it. He bites his lips harder, folds his arms over his
chest and presses the tips of his fingers against skin hard enough to leave it
pale.
He must have hit the carotid artery when the man had tried to choke him, a wild
swing behind him hoping for the best. He isn’t sure if he quite managed.
He can feel the irritation coming off Hannibal in waves, knows, from weeks of
this, now, what that means, and yet he can’t bring himself to apologise, to
even make excuses.
The fact of the matter is that he’d been tired, angry, horny as hell, and
Hannibal’s instructions to him had been to return to study while he attended
his conference in Florida. He had never specified which study to return to.
Will clings to that loophole with every inch of willpower he has left.
“At least,” he tries, “I killed him in the kitchen.”
The doctor's eyes close.
“You did.”
Hannibal still tastes wine on the sigh that leaves him, having scarcely arrived
home from the airport and poured a glass before the phone rang.
Almost as though it were intentional.
As though this infuriating boy had gone through his things again to find his
flight information, and time this for his arrival.
Hannibal opens his eyes again.
Blood splashed in lawn-sprinkler sprays across the ceiling and the walls. Blood
pooled on the floor, with Will's bare feet still in it. Blood coagulating
rapidly in the wounds of the newly deceased owner of the pleasant upscale condo
where Will had chosen to make his mark.
Many marks, in truth.
He steps closer to Will, eyes dark as he takes in the skinny jeans tugged up to
rest undone against his hips, the blood soaking dark through the cuffs where he
stands. Reaching slowly, feeling Will’s rising alarm ringing tinny and sharp in
the air, Hannibal lifts the boy’s chin with the side of his finger. Turns his
face, this way and that, to see the darkening bruises left by hands other than
Hannibal's own.
Will looks for something resembling concern in the doctor's expression, and
finds nothing near it, as though studied from a great distance rather than so
near.
His hand relaxes to caress, and just as quickly tightens against Will's jaw, to
bring him nearer still and crush his mouth against the boy's lips, still
flushed from fucking, from fighting. Adrenaline spiking his pulse, sending his
heart thudding against his ribs, as Hannibal's tongue draws up the taste of
him.
Hannibal turns him roughly, fingers digging against his cheek. Frustration.
Annoyance. Lust. Overpowering desire to reclaim what's his after a several long
days of not feeling the boy’s heat and movement snared against him. With little
mind for the fine suit that still scents of canned airplane oxygen, Hannibal
looms over the boy. Slides his hand down the small of the boy's back, beneath
his loosened jeans, to scratch lines against the sensitive skin where the curve
of his ass meets his thigh.
“I had planned for a quiet evening at home,” Hannibal intones, the gentle
warmth of his voice at odds with the broad hands grasping greedy at the boy he
holds against him. He buries his nose against Will’s hair, breathes him in and
sighs a low sound, a warning tremor before an earthquake. “You have prevented
me from enjoying that, so tell me then of your night,” he rumbles softly,
releasing the boy’s throat to push a hand back through the mop of hair and
smooth it back from his face. His hand follows the curve of Will’s ass, finding
the dampness between his cheeks and pressing against it, lip twitching into
something alarmingly akin to a snarl.
“In detail.”
Will swallows, hands still resting against Hannibal’s chest where they had come
up to cling to him at the rough yank forward. The danger of this tastes rough
on his tongue. He knows Hannibal is angry, he knows he’s tamping down the fire
of it, waiting for Will’s words to fuel it to white again.
He considers, for a brief moment, telling Hannibal he missed him.
He licks his lips, parts them on a sigh.
“He picked me up,” he says softly, knowing no matter how quietly he speaks,
Hannibal will hear the words, will absorb them, “It’s colder, now, he said he
wanted to warm me up, take care of me.”
He bites the inside of his lip as Hannibal’s hand presses further between his
cheeks, fingers roughly holding him spread as one seeks to gently stroke him.
He feels the growl more than hears it, it’s so low.
“Said he wanted a boy he could keep, to feed and play with and touch and
dress…”
Will lets his eyes close, tilts his head back further in submission.
“He was so gentle with me.”
Hannibal consumes the words, lets them drip sweet as wine against his mouth,
pressed to the boy's cheek, to his jaw, to his ear.
"And this is how you choose to repay such kindness," Hannibal murmurs, turning
the boy until his back is against the counter, relishing the way his bare feet
slide through blood still wet on the tile floor. "You are a far crueler
creature than I could have imagined."
His mouth spreads warm against Will's neck.
"Ungrateful."
Teeth, now, scraping rough just beneath his jaw.
"Destructive."
A finger presses just inside of him and a moan catches just the end of
Hannibal's sigh.
"Careless, messy boy."
He pins him roughly against the counter, snarling a hand through his hair to
bend him back over it. "And now you've left all that for me to clean up behind
you. What's to be done about that?"
Will gasps, brings his lip between his teeth a moment before continuing,
ignoring Hannibal’s words…
“He fucked me so slow,” his voice breaks on the word, careful, deliberate, “I
could have sobbed from it… and then he hit me, again and again, telling me I
had to earn the gentleness, earn the kindness he gave me.”
He feels Hannibal step closer to him, wonders if his pristine shoes are getting
blood on more than the soles, wonders if he’ll glance down and remember when
they get home, who had done this.
“Told me to beg him,” Will can feel the smile tugging his lips, tries to force
it down. “I did.”
He spreads his legs wider, hands curled back against the counter to keep
himself balanced as Hannibal bends him further, leans closer in.
“He told me to cry for him,” Will starts, feeling his heart race with the
desperate, hungry need for Hannibal to fuck him. Touch him. Murmur burning
words against his skin.
He’s been gone four days, and Will has felt as though the absence would eat his
soul.
Obsessive.
Compulsive.
Impatient.
Messy.
“I did,” he moans.
Someone else touching his boy. Striking his boy. Drawing pleas and tears that
belong to Hannibal alone. The truth of his statements doesn't matter - the
thought of it alone is enough to pull Hannibal's lips into a snarl past
clenched teeth and in one swift movement Hannibal throws Will to the floor at
his feet.
His knees crack hard against the tile and in an instant Hannibal is over him,
around him, grabbing him around the waist and forcing his pants around his
thighs. Hannibal plants a hand between Will's shoulders and shoves his face to
the floor still soaked in gore to jerk his jeans free of his skinny legs with a
savagery that threatens to tear them seam from seam.
As he will do to Will, Hannibal muses. As he's desired to do to him since the
moment he left.
"Four days. Four days I am gone and in four days you have forgotten every
lesson I had hoped you might remember, for as clever as you think yourself to
be."
Little care for stains, little care for the blood soaking cold against the
knees of his trousers, little care for anything but reminding Will to whom his
body and his breath and his tears belong.
Hannibal strokes himself brusquely, unnecessary for how hard he already finds
himself, and lines himself up against Will's entrance, curling over him to
breathe a cool threat against the back of the boy's neck.
"It appears I will need to be much harsher in my lessons, then, to ensure you
do not forget them again." A kiss, lingering long against the trembling skin
beneath him. "Perhaps you will cry for him again since you seem so willing to
share it."
Will’s lips part in sympathy to how hard he’s penetrated but he makes no sound
beyond a soft little choke. In truth, the man had been violent, animalistic in
his desire for Will, already possessive of him, demanding, without even knowing
Will’s name.
It had taken him a long while struggling against the bonds holding him still
before Will finally found an out. In that time the man had rained all holy hell
on him.
He arches his back, now, for Hannibal, and his hands slip against the tile as
he tries to find balance.
“He tied me down -” Will’s words leave him in a rush, gasped, “Beat me… left
bruises but no marks no -”
Hannibal pushes Will flat again and he goes, relishes in this anger, this
intense desire to possess, to own and claim. Familiar fingers wrap in his hair
and tug enough to deepen the bend, to draw his face up enough to see the
carnage spreading scarlet before him.
“And you wept for him, Will,” Hannibal growls against his skin, through
clenched teeth. “You rewarded him with that.” Out of pain? Pleasure? The boy’s
desire for destruction of himself and others?
It matters not. He wept, and he will suffer for it.
Hannibal rocks brutally against him, skin slapping against skin in the room
gone quiet but for the sound of violent rutting, of Will’s choked gasps and
Hannibal’s low snarls. A hand finds Will’s cock, palm sliding against the fine
hairs that curl there to wrap around him and pull in languid strokes, off-time
from the brutal movements of his own hips, squeezing just a little too hard.
Will’s whimper draws a groan from Hannibal, and he pushes the boy’s face back
against the floor, against the blood that coats his cheek in crimson.
“Is this what you would make of me, too, then?” Hannibal asks, affecting a hurt
in his tone, entirely false but falling soft from his lips. “No better than
this one, no different.”
Will doesn’t answer beyond another soft wail.
He’d missed him - and the thought struck deep beneath his ribs and held, like a
chink in the bone that ached when he breathed.
“He couldn’t make me,” he manages, moaning loudly when Hannibal’s hand twists
on the upstroke. His balls draw tight, he deepens the arch in his back, pushes
further, lets his knees slip wide against the mess on the floor.
“Hannibal -”
He purrs approval as Will whimpers his name, blood from the floor smeared
across his lips as they form it. Hannibal’s pace does not soften - somehow, it
quickens, deepens, until the boy’s knees slip from beneath him in a skid
against wet tile and Hannibal brings his weight down with him. He pulls his
hand free from beneath Will to let the boy grind himself against the floor,
slick with blood instead of the friction he desires, and plants his hands on
either side of him to drive him into the ground.
“A liar, then,” Hannibal breathes, voice rough as he feels sharp, coiling
tension drawing fast inside him. “Deceitful, attention-seeking boy.”
He supports himself on one hand to twist a hand into Will’s hair again and
watch his lips part breathless as the boy’s hips move beneath him, seeking
harsher contact with the floor beneath him and not finding it for the slickness
of blood.
“Tell me,” comes the snarl, mouth pressing to Will’s temple as Hannibal lays
low over him, “did you think of me when he struck you?”
A trembled little noise and Will inhales quickly through his nose, fingers
curling in the blood beneath him, slick and messy and utterly depraved. It’s
revolting. And he can’t remember ever being harder.
“It could be a lie,” he gasps, “You won’t believe my words, I could lie, I
could -”
Hannibal finds the spot within that makes Will’s entire body quiver and he
pants helplessly, trying to get his feet under himself again, trying to push
back.
A small laugh escapes him and Will’s body shivers violently with the
overwhelming sensation.
“Only when I called him a cunt,” he murmurs, managing another soft, pleased
noise before the fingers in his hair pull harsher and bend him nearly in half.
Despite himself, his fury, his eagerness to bury himself in this infuriating
boy again and again until he’s breathless and aching and can hardly drag
himself from the floor, Hannibal jerks hard at the word. A sudden tension of
muscle that curls through him, releases heat spilling inside Will with a
single, hard breath against his neck.
A moment of stillness, dire in its silence, before he pushes himself upward
with anger - raw, seething anger at his own lack of control and the one who so
carelessly coaxed it from him - and pulls out. Hannibal stands, blood-stained
and sweating, and looms over the boy sprawled out beneath him.
“And why should I believe a word you say when the only ones that fall from your
mouth are filth,” Hannibal answers, his voice low, controlled, an effort to
make it so when his heart is still pounding in his chest.
He perceives the barest movement, hands drawing up to push off the floor, hips
twitching to still seek release, and calmly presses his foot against the center
of Will’s back.
“You will rise to your hands and knees, Will,” Hannibal instructs. “I will give
you a rag and you will not raise from the ground until you’ve cleaned the mess
you’ve made.” A faint sound from the boy forces Hannibal’s heel down, only
slightly but enough to make the point. “And if any new mess is made dripping
from you, you’ll clean it from the floor with your tongue.”
Will whimpers, a sound that carries, that hangs between his teeth when he grits
those, red-smeared and white beneath. He hesitates when the heel of Hannibal’s
shoe comes away from his back, his limbs are shaking and his head is spinning
and he is so wound up, so close to release where it’s denied him.
Slowly, he brings his hands close to his chest, flat on the floor, and he
pushes up with his shoulders before sliding his knees closer to his center and
levering up until he’s on all fours, as Hannibal wants him.
He lets his eyes take in the floor, smeared in a grotesque sort of human shape
where he had moments before struggled against Hannibal on top of him. The blood
is tacky now, cooling and drying, and Will finds no end to it in the kitchen;
it’s on the cabinets, the doors…
He swallows, hair hanging lank, dripping perfectly round drops of red between
his hands. When he looks up, a drop catches just under his eye and slips to the
corner of his mouth. He presses his lips together, tries not to smile at how
stunning Hannibal looks, covered in blood and disheveled.
“If you insist on behaving like filth, then you will crawl among it.” Hannibal
toes off his shoes, leaving them in the kitchen as he steps back to the room
that’s not smeared in gore, to remove his socks as well. Primly, perhaps, with
a quick unsnapping of the garters that hold them, before depositing them in his
bag.
He gathers towels - expensive, made for cleaning industrial electronics so as
not to leave fibers behind - from his bag. A quiet hum as he returns to observe
the boy still there on the floor, bowed and kneeling, covered hair to feet in
gore that clots dark against his pale skin and still, beneath a particularly
shocking amount of blood, aching hard.
“Making elegance out of depravity,” Hannibal echoes, unable to resist the
pleasure that creeps into his voice as he holds a towel to Will.
Just out of reach.
Will’s eyes flick down to the towel and he presses his bottom lip out of shape,
considering. Hannibal’s tone has fallen into that delicious velvet-smooth
threat Will wakes hearing in his ear. He swallows again, then moves to crawl
forward.
He fights both irritation and amusement when the towel gets progressively
pulled back, until Will is at the very edge of the tile, hands and knees, like
a dog.
He tongues the drop of blood from the corner of his mouth and sets his knees to
rest wider apart.
“May I have the towel?” he murmurs.
Hannibal makes another pleased noise, faint, and a smile manifests just in the
corners of his eyes, a slight crinkle. It’s an act, this obedience, the
movements too precise and practiced to be anything else, but it isn’t any less
lovely to see the boy so debased and gentled.
And to remember with an ember of warmth what brought him to it.
“You may,” Hannibal responds, and he lets Will take it. “You are rather
fetching when you’re not behaving like an animal.”
A compliment, or near enough to one despite the irony of it being uttered to a
blood-covered boy on all fours, from the one who pinned him there. Hannibal
steps around the boy to begin cleaning the cabinets. Quick movements, precise
and elegant.
In truth, the insolence is as pleasing as the obedience. One without the other
would be entirely tedious - far too common and readily devoured to suit
Hannibal’s tastes. The awareness that the boy could just as soon prowl against
his leg to climb him and lay affection in gentle nuzzles beneath his chin as he
could draw up behind him with the towel wrapped around both fists to suffocate
him is intoxicating.
A paradox of sex and violence, beautiful and uncouth, obedient and impudent,
brilliant and rife with youthful foolishness.
Hannibal glances back over his shoulder, charmed by the poetic mood the boy has
stirred within him, and allows himself to watch Will stretch his skinny limbs
to mop up the blood, wincing faintly from the strain of his arousal that
lingers in spite - or because - of the mess around him.
The towel seems to do little beyond spread the mess around, and Will presses
his hands against it to soak instead, folding it carefully over itself to use
the most of the dry area it provides. He finds he can’t reach the sink on his
knees, and sets the towel just beneath it instead, crawling to Hannibal
carefully and sitting back on his heels.
The blood is drying on his skin now, maroon and darker, pulling taut at his
skin like egg white would when left too long. A new membrane on living skin.
Will directs his eyes up, does not move his chin; demure.
He licks his lips.
“Once this is done,” he murmurs, “Will we go home?”
Hannibal regards him at the question, not unkindly, having made short work of
the swathes of arterial spray newly streaked across the walls and ceiling.
The question resonates, longer than Hannibal expects it to, and he lowers a
gloved hand to curl beneath the boy's chin and lift it upward. To face him, and
to let Hannibal look upon him. He traces a latex-clad thumb across the boy's
lips, watches as he chases it, seeking warmth away from the cold floor and
colder blood.
The touch coaxes Will to stand, knees sore and legs unsteady, and Hannibal
draws him near with an arm across his shoulders. Lets him warm himself for a
moment, and brushes a kiss along his brow.
"We will," he finally answers. "We might have been there already if not for
your dalliance." A glance over his shoulder to the remaining puddles, to the
body laid motionless on the floor.
"I am grateful you endeavored upon yourself to create such an evening for us.
Finish your work, and we will take your new friend with us to make the most of
your acquaintanceship."
Will’s eyes flick between Hannibal’s and he takes full advantage of being
allowed to press himself close to the warm, currently forgiving, body in front
of him. To spread the blood against it where he knows Hannibal will stiffen,
detest the mess against him, the blood of someone he personally finds
uninteresting and, for his actions, vile.
To roll his hips against him and bite his lip, eyes down to where his fingers
trace maroon patterns over the corner of Hannibal’s shirt collar.
In truth, though he finds no pleasure in the idea of eating the man, he finds
no utter revulsion either. Hannibal’s method is one that fascinates him, one
that confuses and intrigues, and he wonders if perhaps he can one day coax the
man to tell him how he had come upon it, why he had chosen to consume this way.
Though, if asked, Will doesn’t know how to explain his particular pathology to
anyone either. He has no reason to do what he does, he has no driving need to
kill, he has a fascination with the human mind and a preference for sex and
destruction. He is not compelled to kill, he chooses to.
Perhaps lectures had taught him something after all.
He hums quietly, directs his eyes up again.
“Must I keep cleaning?” it’s coy, soft, and he rolls his hips forward again,
eyelids barely flickering with the need behind the motion.
Hannibal hardly hears the words for the attention he’s focused on his hapless
shirt collar, an innocent bystander ruined by a delinquent boy.
An entire suit, truly, lost to the attention he demands and that Hannibal can’t
help but yield to him, the tasteful checks and expensive material stained and
sloppy from the lack of resistance to Will’s particular charms.
Worth it, certainly, for the experience of laying the boy spread and whimpering
beneath him in a murder of his own making, although Hannibal’s expression shows
nothing beyond a cool disinterest for the warm body grinding softly against his
hip.
“Finish your work.” A pause, the particular scent of sweat and semen catching
his nose, warmed against the boy’s bare thighs, and as he moves away to tend to
the remains, he adds without inflection, “And clean yourself up before I have
to do that for you, as well.”
Will stands as he's left, hands at his sides as a smile curls his lips. He
doesn’t move to follow Hannibal. Instead he's thankful that he can just reach
another clean towel without messing up the floor beyond the kitchen.
For a while, he sets his concentration on deliberately cleaning the mess on the
floor, the bloody towels left to soak in the sink while Will turns to use the
end of the remaining one in his hand to wipe up the mess against his legs.
He remembers how Hannibal had relished in his helplessness, how he had enjoyed
watching Will struggle against him, mess himself further with the blood.
He wonders if Hannibal had imagined the blood belonging to Will, if he had
imagined him in genuine pain.
He grins, remembering that his language had not been corrected as it usually
was. He wonders if he can push for another time without reprimand.
Hannibal feels the boy’s attention shift, hears the movement of the towel
against the floor slow from attentive scrubs to absent sweeps, but pays it no
mind. Pays him no mind, in fact, instead focusing on the relative difficulty of
getting Will’s victim to the car.
At least he was thoughtful enough to choose one on the ground floor this time,
and a victim that weighs at least half of the last.
Mental calculations, quick and pensive through the blinds - freshly scrubbed -
and a twinge of displeasure as he remembers that his suit is conspicuously
filthy.
No matter. The boy will feel the repercussions of it later.
He hums an aria softly to himself as he lays down plastic, absorbent padding in
particular places and turns the body onto them from where it lays crumpled to
the ground, to observe the boy’s work. A laceration several inches deep, driven
at a downward angle past the clavicle. Incidental that it happened to sever
both major vessels there, but lucky.
“He had you from behind,” Hannibal observes, his tone cool. Distant. “You
brought the knife back behind you when he leaned in to leave that mark on your
shoulder. It stuck, and when you pulled it free…” a pause, glancing upward.
“The ceiling.”
Will’s eyes go to the man again, briefly narrow, before he blinks and looks at
Hannibal instead. The description is entirely accurate, if you cut aside the
panic coursing through Will’s veins at the time, the way the man’s breath
smelled awful and the things he was whispering against Will as he rutted into
him.
Having it broken down to something clinical makes it… almost dull.
He wonders if Hannibal is bored with the kill. With him.
“He got it into his mind to mark his property.” he says quietly, shrugging the
shoulder Hannibal had referred to, a bite mark there only, though more could
have been.
“He had nothing to brand me with.” his tone is calm, almost as indifferent as
Hannibal’s, but he does swallow.
Hannibal tilts his head, as though hearing something very far away, and
crouches to continue wrapping up the man who’s now, at least, conveniently bled
out.
“You were frightened,” Hannibal observes, the same impartial tone he uses in
therapy. “It does not happen often.”
He feels the boy’s ruffling reaction without a word or breath between them,
imagines blue eyes narrowing at his back.
“And when the first spray of blood fell against your skin,” Hannibal wonders,
“how did that make you feel?”
Will licks his lips to resist calling Hannibal the name he had called the man
he’s wrapping. It gives him an almost unholy pleasure to remember how that word
was what made Hannibal cum, in the end.
“Righteous.” he replies honestly, raises an eyebrow when Hannibal turns back to
look at him.
“I do this for no one but myself. I don’t care who he’s hurt, I don’t care who
he would continue hurting had my eye not fallen on him. I’m not a vigilante.”
he draws a hand through his hair, matted and dried in tangles with caked blood.
“He wronged me, personally, attempting to lay claim on something that wasn’t
his to claim.”
He says nothing of Hannibal’s unspoken ownership of him, nor of Will’s
permission and delight in it.
Heart of Ba’al.
Owner.
“Would I make an interesting patient, doctor, that you ask me?” he smiles,
teasing.
The honesty of the answer, of the prideful declarations earns him a brief
glance over Hannibal’s shoulder. He studies the boy, the hand curling fingers
soft against his leg, blood flaking from pale skin left stained beneath it, and
the boy’s clever eyes studying him just as fiercely in return.
“Perhaps,” comes the response, wholly unsatisfying, but not yet willing to
yield the ground he’s gained in the exchange. “Murder without motive can be the
act of a mind simply made to express itself in such a way, as one might art or
music. It can also become little more than wrath, foolish and forceful.”
“I’ve yet to determine where you fall in that.”
Hannibal stands, adjust his gloves without looking towards Will again. “Go wash
yourself. Leave no traces. You will help me move him to the car.”
Will inclines his head, only in so far as to watch Hannibal as he passes him.
He considers the carpet, his feet, covered in blood and probably more besides.
The towel only does so much, but at least he doesn’t leave marks when he walks
back through to the bedroom and to the bathroom beyond.
The man had lived messily, the way Hannibal would detest if he went this far
into the house. Will considers the piles of clothes - thankfully clean - that
rest on the sink, by the toilet, as he turns on the shower and waits for the
water to reach the temperature he needs.
He doesn’t watch the blood flow down the drain, he’s seen enough of it for one
day, has had its metallic sting fill his nostrils, his mouth, his ears… every
sense violated by it, fuelled by it. Will opens his mouth to take in the warm
water, rinse his mouth and spit it away. He runs his fingers through his hair,
feels them snag in the tangles, remembers the way Hannibal had gripped it so
tight he had felt follicles part with his scalp.
He hears his own gasp above the sound of the water, soft and pleased and warm,
and drags his hands down his face, over his neck, feels the slippery skin
beneath his fingers, no longer sticky with blood but clean again, warm. Lower
to his stomach, palms resting against his hipbones, fingertips barely stroking
the smooth skin of his groin before Will arches back, just enough, feels the
hot water cascade down his entire form.
He thinks of Hannibal’s voice, rough with anger, with possessiveness, with that
low purr that spoke of monster and monster alone. Will thinks of how roughly
he’d been treated, for Hannibal’s pleasure, not for Will’s. He thinks, he
remembers, he touches…
He circles himself with one hand, stroking slowly, brings his other up to rest
fisted against the tile wall. He ducks his head, watches the final traces of
red drip from his hair as his gasps turn to pants turn to soft little moans of
need.
Four days he has gone without this, without blood, without the residual sting
of Hannibal against him, within him. Four days and Will feels starved for it,
like he’s crawling out of his skin. His hand moves faster, squeezing harder by
the head until Will’s arm bends against the wall and he rests heavily against
it, forehead pressed just beneath it to the cool tile.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,”
Eyes closed, lips parted, back arching. Imagining Hannibal behind him yanking
his hips back and bending him further, promising him all levels of hell for his
foul mouth when they get home --
He cums hard, a moan echoing around the shower, softened by the water and
steam.
Will pants, calms his breathing and lets the water cascade over his back, wash
the evidence of his crimes away. Slowly, his lips tug up, stretch into a smile,
and Will arches his neck to nuzzle against his arm with another quiet
expletive.
When he returns to the other room, he’s in his jeans again, shirt still in his
hands and hair dripping down his back. He gives Hannibal not a glance as he
stops just on the border of the tiles in the kitchen.
There are no traces of his footprints on the floor, no trace at all, in fact,
of a murder, beyond the dead body. Will bites his lip and settles his shirt
over his shoulders before starting to do the buttons.
He is instructed, clinically, to manage the doors - covering his fingerprints -
as Hannibal hoists the parceled remains with only minimal difficulty. Unwieldy
weight, but its unsteadiness familiar enough to one who has moved so many.
A convenient absence of other tenants in the new complex, and a parking spot
directly outside the door, finds the man bundled across the backseat of the
Bentley. Hannibal makes a vague noise, a note of worry for the lambskin
leather, and reminds himself that next time Will has an outing that he’ll need
to bring extra plastic sheeting.
Will has only just shifted, stretching languid against the seat that heats
beneath him when the car starts, when Hannibal’s hand presses across the back
of his neck. He tugs the boy closer, firmly, and presses his mouth into his
still-damp hair, down his cheek, catching his mouth for only a moment before
moving to his neck. Will’s chin lifts and a smile curls across his lips again,
irredeemably pleased with himself.
“Was it satisfying?” An innocent enough question, but the tenor to it belies
something darker, a shadows shapeless yet beneath night-black waters. Hannibal
does not wait for a response, and the movement takes clearer form. “Easing your
own frustrations, rather than only doing as I told you?”
He doesn't explain how he knows - the keen hearing that brought a moan to his
ears, the sharp sense of smell that even after showering was filled with the
warm notes of the boy's release.
"It might have been a far more rewarding evening for us both had you waited,”
continues Hannibal, dulcet tones rendered with a menacing gentility. “It may be
that you are a far less interesting study than I had envisioned - merely a
petulant boy who refuses to control himself.”
Hannibal presses a hand against the boy’s belly, lets fingers skim beneath his
shirt and into the coarse denim he wears, brushing just soft against the fine
hairs there but going no lower.
“Since you are adamantly capable of providing for yourself, perhaps then it’s
best that I simply bring you home. Your address, Will.”
Will sighs, a soft noise of displeasure carrying on it but as yet unvoiced. He
knows Hannibal means it, knows the man’s infuriating desire to see Will squirm.
"You cannot hide behind words never uttered," Will murmurs, licking his lips,
chin still up for the man to smell, to taste him.
"You never told me I couldn’t." He points out, knowing his own words will win
no favor back.
He swallows. Gives his address. Every intention to have the man fuck him
senseless against the first flat surface they encounter.
Will’s meagre argument finds no ground, no response at all in fact as Hannibal
releases him to drive. Silence, lingering heavy in the car, as though there’s
no one there, resisting the urge to watch the boy fidget with his sleeves and
shift against his seatbelt and press the side of his thumb between his teeth.
It’s more difficult than Hannibal had anticipated, but he does not yield until
they reach the apartment.
“Go.”
The car is still running, parked and purring soft.
“You will wait for me to return, and when you do, you will be bare. On your
hands and knees, as before, since it appears to be the only manner befitting of
your behavior enough that you will conduct yourself as I expect.”
A dark amusement in his voice. “Do not think yourself so clever, dear Will,
that I will not know if you’ve done otherwise in my absence.”
Will turns to him, chin raised and smile soft. Without a word he leans in to
kiss him, a sloppy messy thing.
"Do not think yourself so patient," he whispers back, a brief, oddly
affectionate nuzzle against him before Will pulls back, undoes his seat belt.
It's very late or very early, depending on which side of the night one looks.
"It's apartment six," he tells him, opening the door and turning to bend
gracefully once he's out to keep talking.
"I'll leave it unlocked."
He considers more disobedience, pointing out he can do any number of things for
such, but he knows Hannibal knows. Instead he just grins, straightens, and
shuts the door.
Watching for a moment more, to take in the long strides, the sweep of the wind
through Will’s hair, the cocksure movements that carry him away, Hannibal
sighs.
Infuriating boy.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Summary
     "I have ached," Will breathes, licks his lips, "in waiting and
     aftermath. For you to... take me." A careful avoidance of an
     expletive. "For four days."
     Warnings for this chapter: spanking, slapping, wordporn.
Chapter Notes
     This story is going on a brief hiatus till SUNDAY JULY 6TH as real
     life catches up with both writers for a bit.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The car peels out softly, and is gone.
For several hours, in fact. Ample enough time for Hannibal to return home,
dismantle and store the boy’s kill, and mourn the suit that must be similarly
disposed of in its sacrifice to Will. Dinner is prepared and eaten, a shower
taken, and Hannibal applies a simple white button-down, black suitcoat and
slacks. Throughout the time, before he settles back into the Bentley -
thankfully free of stains thanks to his careful containment of Will’s mess - he
finds himself frustratingly unable to think of much beyond Will.
He is clever, though Hannibal attests to himself that it would do very little
good to let him know just how bright he is. The ease with which he reads
Hannibal proves unsettling, at times, and thrilling at others as Will’s astute
attentions pry so readily beneath the masks that Hannibal exchanges
effortlessly. Masks that he’s spent a lifetime perfecting, and the existence of
which very few others have ever been made aware and lived.
A moment more, to draw out the anticipation, as he parks before the boy’s
building and envisions him with sore knees from kneeling, fidgeting in
aggravation for being made to wait, his mind working through every potential
cruelty with which Hannibal may provide him.
And just as readily, Hannibal knows the boy has spent the hours in his wait
doing anything but what he asked, and he hums to himself as he exits the car.
Infuriating boy.
The apartment is surprisingly well-appointed, for someone Will’s age and
appropriate demographic. Past the corridor is a living area, lit by a dim lamp,
and filled with books. Bookcases line the walls, books unable to fit rest in
piles beside them.
Anything from the latest crime novel to Ovid, Socrates... books on science and
technology, on law and law enforcement. All look read, touched, enjoyed, and
Hannibal has to smile.
Within the living area itself, hugging the corner the corridor turns, is a tiny
alcove kitchen. On the island that serves also as the table and bar, sits a
half-finished glass of wine.
The bedroom Is beyond, the shower and bathroom assuredly within, through the
closet perhaps, as cheap apartments tend to save space. Hannibal considers the
wine, smiles despite himself, and continues on.
The bedroom is little, the bed taking up what room yet more bookcases leave.
And on the bed, obedient, legs spread wide and cock semi-hard already, kneels
Will. Head ducked, breaths coming slow, as he rocks his hips forward against
air and finds no friction.
He turns to look at Hannibal, smile languid, sleepy, and slides forward into a
pleasurable cat stretch that arches his back and raises his hips. He groans, a
desperately pleasing noise, and curls his fingers In the sheets.
Drawing a breath, incrementally deeper than before, at the sound, Hannibal
watches Will, sees the movement of his soft sounds in the stretch of ribs
beneath pale skin. He removes his coat and passes by the bed, feeling Will’s
attention follow him as he hangs his coat as though it were his own home rather
than an unfamiliar apartment. His attention is drawn briefly to the much-
loathed sweater that hangs limply there before he turns back towards the boy.
A warm hand, broad and strong, skims from between Will’s shoulders to follow
the dip of his back and up onto the curve of his ass, pleased as the boy’s hips
move beneath his touch in response. He appraises the boy’s conformation at
length, fingertips trailing scarcely felt along the back of his thighs, and
drawn back up along the inside. Pleased when the boy does not turn to watch,
but only moans again with another press of hips against air.
Resourceful, to kneel on the bed rather than the floor, an instruction not
given but assumed. The boy had adeptly sought out the loophole, as is his
tendency, and taken advantage of it to ease the strain of himself surely, but -
Hannibal notes with veiled amusement - to also give reason to his knees not
showing the marks of holding this particular posture.
“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal muses, firmly grasping the join of Will’s thigh to
his groin - not yet touching the boy’s cock that he can see twitching harder by
the moment, but frustratingly close. “Where do you ache?”
Will laughs, tired and pleased, and pushes himself to all fours again.
"Chronologically or alphabetically?" he asks, amused and soft, obviously
desperate for touch again, despite having been fucked twice, today, at least.
"I have ached," he breathes, licks his lips, "in waiting and aftermath. For you
to... take me." A careful avoidance of an expletive. "For four days."
A reward, for this. Hannibal strokes the side of his finger along the underside
of Will’s cock to feel it twitch, to see the boy’s fingers tighten against the
sheets.
He can’t resist pressing his mouth to the boy’s shoulder, pale grey traces of
teeth upon it, a mark left by another that will soon fade forgotten. The kiss
is open-mouthed, warm, a caress of tongue against Will’s youthful sweet skin
freshly scrubbed.
“What did you do, Will, as you ached in my absence?”
The touches draw away again.
Will gasps, but stays surprisingly stoically still. It feels good, this
denouement to the evening, a promise of a slow, deep fucking.
"I touched, " he murmurs. "Legs spread and fingers pushed deep. Mm, never quite
deep enough." Another roll of hips, the motion so utterly pleasing.
He arches against the memory of the hot mouth on his shoulder, bites his lip on
a smile.
"I filled the space with crude words and enjoyed their implications."
The sound Hannibal makes in response is one of amusement at the admission, a
genuine pleasure at imagining such things and the coiling undulations of the
boy waiting before him now.
“Misbehaving as soon as I take leave,” Hannibal murmurs, clicking his tongue in
feigned disapproval but seemingly unintent to act upon it. A hand strokes
through Will’s curls, gathers them for a gentle tug and then releases them as
Hannibal’s other hand presses to his skin again, sliding down between the boy’s
cheeks to press his palm against his opening, a slow glide downward past his
balls to stroke his cock, a languid, firm tug.
Only once, before he releases it.
“And when you were unable to relieve yourself in such a way, tell me, Will -
what did you do as you sat fidgeting in your lectures?”
Will moans, thighs spreading barely wider.
"I imagined," Will purrs, "your hands, your mouth, your cock in me."
He licks his lips, feeling more than seeing the man behind him smile, absorb
the deliberate stroke to his ego. In truth, Will had been restless. Unable to
fuck without craving the hunger with which Hannibal fucked him, unable to find
anyone interesting worth his time.
He realizes his words had slipped free, from his mind to his lips and he bends
again, a sinuous motion.
"I ached as you ached for me," he murmurs.
The bend is appreciated, as it allows Hannibal to bring his hand down twice in
swift penance for the gentle curses that dripped sweet as honey from the boy’s
lips. Not across the soft curve of his ass, but just beneath it, palm striking
flat across the tender skin of his thighs.
And just as quickly Hannibal’s hands spread across Will’s skin again,
delighting in the sudden startled shiver that takes him. They curl around his
hips to tug him back as the bed squeaks beneath Hannibal’s weight, and his
words breathe soft against the boy’s opening.
“You speak poetry when you can control yourself enough to do so,” Hannibal
murmurs. “Recite for me, Will.”
Will gasps, surprised, strangely pleased, trembling with anticipation when he
feels Hannibal’s mouth so near. He scans his mind, recent memory, for anything
to recite that would win him favor. Wonders if reciting Faust would be
considered too ironic. He parts his lips to try, and instead finds them
repeating oft-recited passages from another text.
“What if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of
mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine…”
The Greek falls lyrical from Will’s lips, months and months and months of
practice and honing, a long-dead language taken for the sake of being able to
claim he knew it. A language started when he had been encouraged to pursue
medicine rather than law, encouraged and learned with Latin, late at night in
warm libraries that never closed in winter.
He gasps, feeling the promise of Hannibal’s tongue fulfilled, and tenses his
muscles in pleasure, words falling silent where he’d sighed them away. A moment
of silence, and the delicious pressure stops.
“Recite, William.”
Will makes a pitiful noise, the sound of his full name in that accented voice,
curling the vowels and shifting the emphasis is almost enough to stutter him
again, and then the tongue returns and Will’s words burst from him in a sharp
exhale, flow from him like a torrent he can’t control. Memory taking over where
his mind concentrates on better things, hips rocking in Hannibal’s grasp, hands
tight in the sheets.
It’s a rare enough thing when Hannibal’s expectations are exceeded, but the
recitation - in the original language, no less - from a beautiful and brilliant
boy squirming shuddering against his tongue is certainly one of those moments.
He presses deeper still, tonguing inside Will as he pushes him forward,
shoulders against the bed now and voice sweetly muffled against the bedcover.
Hannibal curls a hand around to touch him, to feel the boy’s back arch upward
and then bend deep again as he pulls slow tugs against his cock.
“Speak clearly.” A sudden insistence, breath cooling the boy’s damp skin before
Hannibal’s tongue surges deep again, scarcely able to contain his own amusement
at the instruction, at feeling Will’s body tremble undone beneath him.
Will moans, a sweet sound, almost delicate, the way he’s bent and held and
enjoyed, and his next words start shakily. He arches his neck, enough to direct
his words away from the sheets, into the room with surprising accuracy and
coherence.
He recites from where he began, letting the words flow like a brook over smooth
stones, his inflection accurate, his tone adjusted to fit. He speaks as it
would have been spoken, a discussion between philosophers on the meaning of
connection and love and beauty and life, in a bath house so long ago they feel
like shadow.
But then Will stutters, his voice stolen by another moan, high and pleased, and
his fingers clench in the sheets and he pants against them, head ducked and
lips parted. He’s shaking, a thin sheen of sweat over his skin that cools him
and throws his sensations into a spiral.
“Please,” he gasps.
The words, archaic and antiquated in speech though not in meaning, even still
scarcely feel anachronistic as the boy speaks them. They suit him, in their
wisdom and their impracticality, and as once a boy much as himself would have
so pleased his philetor in that time now Hannibal finds himself as profoundly
satisfied.
Beautiful words, spoken beautifully, by a beautiful boy.
Hannibal shivers and wraps his hands around the boy’s thighs to bring him
closer still, to taste his movement and his warmth, to feel the keening moans
bend his body. Even as he stutters, voice cracking from the effort of
performing such a marvelously absurd demand, Hannibal smooths a hand over his
back, parting his lips from the boy only to murmur.
“Please what, Will?”
Will’s hands clench the sheets and he no sooner draws a breath to answer than
Hannibal buries his tongue inside of him, holding him firmly, fingernails
pressing scarlet marks into his thighs to keep him from squirming away.
"Fuck!" It's pulled from him unexpectedly and loudly, a dirty word amidst its
lyrical cousins. Will moans, an almost obscene sound, and arches his back more.
"I've been losing my mind for four days, Hannibal, Christ."
Will rocks back, careless of his brash words, blood humming with anticipation
of a response as much as an aching need for Hannibal to just take him.
A low hum is pressed warmly against the boy’s opening before Hannibal shifts
and his weight leaves the bed.
He watches Will start to move, to turn his head and Hannibal’s hand catches
swift against the back of his neck to shove his face to the bed, shoulders low
and ass exposed. His other hand is pressed against his slacks, rubbing briskly
a few times against his own thigh to warm it.
“Dear Will.”
Hannibal brings his hand down hard against the boy’s ass, made sensitive by his
previous attentions, to catch the soft skin where it curves to meet his thighs.
A breathless gasp, choked silent in surprise past Will’s lips, is as sweet as
his words had been. As satisfying as his obedience. As thrilling at his
stubborn impudence.
“And from earlier in the evening as well,” curls the soft accent, at odds with
the brutal grip keeping him pinned to the bed. “What was your particular choice
of word, that made you think of me? ‘Cunt’?” The word forms almost unfamiliar
on Hannibal’s tongue, rarely if ever spoken by him before, and he clucks his
tongue in disapproval.
“Very rude.”
Several more cruel slaps, in rapid succession. One side, and then the other.
“In the shower, Will,” Hannibal purrs gently, thumb stroking soft against the
side of his neck. “When I asked you to wash yourself. How many times then?”
Will squirms, shocked, momentarily, at being treated like a child, misbehaving
and incorrigible. It's humiliating and he is utterly helpless to move. He
manages a few long whines against the sheets before Hannibal’s hand slows,
stroking the warm skin as though to soothe it. Will’s muscles tense.
He swallows, directs his eyes as far to the side as he's allowed, smiles.
"You won’t believe me if I said none?" He teases, coy. “Or do you want to know
how many fucks a thought of you is worth?"
His cock throbs between his legs and when the inevitable slap comes again, Will
lets his voice carry on a cry.
“I am giving you an opportunity, Will, to ensure that this does not last until
tomorrow,” Hannibal responds, blatant amusement turning up the edges of his
voice in watching the boy’s fruitless struggles. “Because while I certainly
can, you most certainly cannot.”
Another crack of his palm against Will’s reddening ass, purely for his own
pleasure.
“The alternative,” Hannibal murmurs, “is that I simply start and do not stop
until you answer me.” His touch stings hot against Will’s ass as Hannibal
caresses the soft skin, warmed by his strikes. He trails the back of a finger
slow down the length of Will’s hardening cock and Will shivers roughly in
response.
“Your last chance, before I hold you accountable for all the foul language you
used in my absence. Tell me, Will - how many times?”
A laugh, desperate and warm is pressed to the sheets and Will squirms. Amused,
aroused, thoroughly humiliated. He curls his shoulders then arches back.
"Four," he admits, bringing a hand up to press his knuckles against his teeth,
something to bite down on.
The urge to swear again pulls at him. He resists, wanting to deny Hannibal even
one small grain of pleasure in all this. He closes his eyes, lips still
stretched in a grin, and slips his other hand between his legs to circle his
cock.
Hannibal’s hand finds its mark four more times, each lingering long, rubbing
soft circles against his scarlet skin before the next comes down.
His fingers do not loosen from the nape of Will’s neck when the count is
complete. He slides his fingers against Will’s opening, pressing just gently
inside before continuing downward in quiet appreciation for the boy’s form, for
his shuddering submission. Hannibal smiles faintly as he watches the boy stroke
himself in this prone position.
Another slap, somehow harder than before. Will cries out and his hand tightens
around himself, pulling at his cock, and Hannibal’s strike lands again.
Once for each time he strokes himself, leaving it entirely in Will’s hands to
decide how long this continues.
“Insatiable boy,” Hannibal clucks softly as another slap echoes in the small
room.
Will whimpers, pulls his fingers from his mouth to turn his head to bite the
sheets instead, another stroke, another jerk of pain at the resulting slap. It
becomes a matter of principle, one patience trying to outlast another. But Will
is losing, he knows he’s losing.
He endures three more slaps, each sending red flaring behind his eyes before he
drops both hands to the sheets and moans softly against them, body shaking,
skin hot, hard as hell.
For a moment, nothing happens, Hannibal pleased with his inevitable victory,
Will’s face flushed with having to give it up. He doesn’t let go of the sheets
for a long time, turning his cheek over the wet fabric when he finally does.
“I don’t care if you hit me again for this but fuck me,” he whimpers when,
predictably, he’s struck.
“Please fuck me.” It’s breathless, needy, lips red and parted, wet, eyes
closed.
Hannibal sighs, and spanks him again, head tilting with a curious pleasure as
the sound manifests this time as a rough gasp rather than a cry, breath
shivering past Will’s lips with need, pain, lust, frustration.
The air positively sings with it, and Hannibal feels it tug warmly in his
chest.
He releases the boy’s neck and notes that Will does not yet move to raise
himself, watching with his cheek turned to the bed, against a cooling wet spot
where his lips have dripped wetly to the sheets.
As ever, Hannibal is meticulous in removing his clothing, in hanging it on the
boy’s plastic hangers despite a moment of reservation, and only as he returns
to the small bed is it evident how painfully hard the entire experience has
made him.
Hannibal does not seem to pay it any particular mind as he settles into the
bed, on his back.
“I have worked to clean your mess. I have worked to continue the lessons that
you insist on repeating. You, now, will work.”
Will turns his head to him, shifts to stretch himself comfortably on the bed
and rest on his stomach, a bare wince at the stretch in his sore skin but no
sound. He curls his arms under his chin and watches Hannibal, takes in the man
lying in his bed. Someone so used to silk sheets and cotton of a thread count
that is beyond compare, reclining in Will’s bed, in his apartment, hard and
beautiful, like a god, like one of the philosophers whose words Will had
borrowed.
He licks his lips.
Slowly, he pushes himself to all fours again, crawls until he’s close to
Hannibal, until he can bring one leg over his hips and straddle him properly,
lowering his body to rock against him, gasping in pleasure as their cocks rub
together in delicious warm friction.
He brings one hand down to stroke Hannibal, to feel him twitch in his grip,
eyes always on his, watch that strange light fill eyes that should be voids but
are anything but. Will leans in to kiss him before he can think better of it,
and it’s hungry and needy and entirely submissive.
His skin throbs. His heart hammers.
Will guides Hannibal against himself and just rubs there, against his hole,
between the cheeks, until the other grasps him and he makes a pained sound at
how the abused skin is stretched by impatient fingers.
Hannibal holds him still, in heavy-lidded observation of the flush in Will’s
cheeks, the desire that unfurls his lips with quiet little noises that each
stir as though they were touch along Hannibal’s skin. He wets his lips, a
flicker of tongue, and watches Will’s thin fingers move expertly against his
cock.
“You have ached for me,” Hannibal intones softly, half-question, half-
statement. He leans up, a pull tightening his stomach to draw him off the bed
and against Will. He kisses him soundly, fiercely, driving their mouths
together with a need as acute as Will’s own to be near this boy, pressed chest-
to-chest with him, inside of him, pushing up in a slow roll of hips.
Will’s lips part in a breath, a gasp, nerves raw from being fucked, licked,
spanked, left wanting and waiting and Hannibal’s mouth closes against his lips
again to steal the sound that leaves him.
“Exquisite boy,” Hannibal murmurs, the same tone as he’s used to debase him
throughout the night, and kisses open-mouthed against the boy’s neck before he
lays back to watch Will astride him.
Will swallows, thighs trembling from keeping himself up, keeping the raw skin
from taking weight against Hannibal’s legs. He clenches his muscles, pushes up,
lips parting as slowly as he moves, eyes closing as he sinks back down, another
groan escaping him at the feeling.
He rests his hands just below Hannibal’s ribs, balancing himself and levering
at just the right angle for it to feel exquisite for them both. For a few
moments, he moves slowly, is allowed to, before hands settle against his thighs
and Will spreads them wider and starts to roll his hips in earnest.
One circle, another, one way, another, lip between his teeth and breath leaving
him in pants as his cheeks stay red and his body shivers. His cock presses
against his stomach, pulls back as Will moves, a thin line of fluid connecting
skin with skin before it snaps, disappears, and Will moans.
A dark-eyed observation from beneath him, every movement shift breath moan
taken in, memorized, studied, scrutinized. A fascination with watching the boy
work his body towards Hannibal’s pleasure, towards his own, with lithe twists
of hips and quaking sounds.
Hannibal’s hands spread against the boy’s parted thighs, through the fine hairs
there until he trails a finger through the slick trail on his stomach,
following it down the length of his cock, and sweeping across the glistening
tip of it.
He tastes it.
Tastes Will.
And he does not find him wanting.
“Recite for me, Will.”
Will’s lips part wider, tilt, and he opens his eyes just enough to see Hannibal
below him as he continues the delicious pace, his muscles singing in pain from
the effort, from exhaustion, the stretch of Hannibal, twice, and the bastard
before him. He licks his lips and groans softly.
He begins where he remembers ending, before his voice was stolen away by pleas
and gasps and warm, rough hands.
His voice pours from him, a desperate tinge beneath that adds a depth that
hadn’t been there before, perhaps had never been intended before. And Will
leans down to rest over Hannibal as he continues to fuck him languidly,
pressing the words to his skin, to his throat, to the hair against his chest
that he drags his nails through and tugs.
He speaks until he bends far enough and his voice is stolen by another moan,
another stutter in the conversation recitation.
Another very gentle, very quiet curse in pleasure.
It is one of the loveliest moments that Hannibal remembers experiencing, his
extraordinary boy rocking slow to please to him after withstanding so much
cruelty, purring Plato’s discourses in ancient Greek against his skin. The clap
of his hand striking sudden and sharp across Will’s cheek merely adds to it,
darkening the blush blooming on his skin already.
The whimper and the wide-eyed stare that follows illuminates the moment that
much more, and when after a few moments Will begins to roll his hips again,
Hannibal allows a sigh of unmistakable satisfaction.
“Begin again,” breathes Hannibal, pushing his fingers through the boy’s hair to
draw him near and kiss him, to seek the blood that earlier seeped into his
mouth with his tongue and release him only to hear his words again.
Voice wavering and steadying in turn, although the cadence beneath his tone
remains admirably, stunningly steady, Will shaking leans low against Hannibal
again to whisper words of beauty into his ear and draw from Hannibal another
soft sigh. Hannibal’s hands skim lightly over the boy’s thighs, to caress his
hips and finally to rest on the curve of his ass.
Will hisses on a word, lips drawing back to reveal his teeth pressing hard
together, his eyes closed, and he breathes out another moan, soft, before
resuming, eyes opening to watch Hannibal beneath him, his entire body aching
for release, his cock rubbing slick between them.
He sighs, a pleased noise, then his smile widens to be truly wicked, and he
squeezes his muscles hard before starting a faster rhythm, drawing his fingers
through Hannibal’s hair to tilt his head back, to whisper the words - voice
hitching - against his ear until the hands around him tighten in turn as well,
squeeze hard over red skin, and Will curses loudly. His eyes close, but he
smiles when he’s struck again, turning his head the way the blow moves him
before moaning and turning back to kiss Hannibal again.
“Let me cum?” he begs.
Hannibal rolls his hips up now against the boy, thighs contacting the marks
left across Will’s ass every time he buries himself inside of him. He pushes
his fingers, stinging from the slap, through the boy’s hair to feel it soft
between his fingers and to stretch it increments until the curls are nearly
straight in his hand. Stealing Will’s breath, his words, his moans, his weak
little pained noises that stir the predator in Hannibal to destroy this
marvelous creature astride him and to see the luminous brilliance of his eyes
snuffed into nothingness.
He knows that he yet could, and Hannibal groans low against the boy’s mouth, an
animal sound, before he grips the boy’s leaking cock in his hand, pulling long,
slow strokes.
“You may,” Hannibal manages in a coarse whisper, his voice harshened, “and you
will lap it from my skin when you are done.”
Will just moans, head ducked against Hannibal's collarbone, hands curled one in
the sheets one over his chest, as his orgasm overcomes him, sends his body
shuddering, his breathing catching and uneven.
His lips are parted wide over Hannibal's skin, slack in pleasure and
exhaustion. When he feels Hannibal pull him harsher to him, he goes with a
whimper, curls to Hannibal as he feels heat pulse into him.
He nearly sobs when he's let free, eyes closed and heart like a trapped
creature in panic. He hasn't felt so sated in days.
Obediently, he slinks down Hannibal's body, eyes up as he draws the tip of his
tongue through the mess against him, curling to show Hannibal, to let it drip
to his bottom lip, before swallowing what stayed cupped in his tongue.
Strong hands wrap around Will’s arms to pull him upward, to lay against
Hannibal’s chest, legs still parted on either side of his hips. He kisses the
boy, lingering long, tasting the trace of cum still clinging to his mouth.
Hannibal does not resist as Will nuzzles beneath his chin, tucks his head there
and curls fingers against his chest, catlike and softened, finally, from his
frenzy after enough abuse to leave Hannibal equally exhausted.
Equally sated. A god, perhaps, but one who has been left pleased, rumbling soft
as he twines his fingers through Will’s hair.
“Messy boy,” Hannibal scolds him softly.
Will just grins against him, sticky, dirty, tired and utterly unwilling to move
from how he’s entirely covering the man with his body.
Four days. Four bloody days, and Will feels like he can finally sleep again.
Chapter End Notes
     This story is going on a brief hiatus till SUNDAY JULY 6TH as real
     life catches up with both writers for a bit.
     Do you have any ideas for what else you'd like to see? Let us know!
     It might make the cut if characterization allows for it :3
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     “The best chess masters,” Will says softly, “play the game not to win
     but to make sure that their opponent cannot.”
     Will shows his hand.
     Disclaimer: although the beliefs of our characters were written by
     us, they are not necessarily shared. We don't condone, nor do we
     ourselves, kinkshame, but it happens in here. We're sorry! Be
     prepared.
Chapter Notes
     Surprise early posting! To celebrate both of us placing in the
     Hannibalblogawards (blood first and whiskey third) and to thank you
     all so much for voting!
Hannibal isn't certain when it happened, but it strikes him as quaint to
discover that he’s developed a favorite color.
All things in their place, of course, and all perception subjective, but he's
unable to resist a sinuous twisting sensation in his stomach when he looks upon
this particular shade. Without equal, though others may mimic it, they would be
without the nuance, the indescribable glow that seems to light it from within.
He only just resists the urge to reach out and smother the bloom of warmth
beneath his fingers, to feel it grow hotter still in the struggle and then
perish and fade beneath his hand. Instead, Hannibal refills Will's glass in
hopes that the cabernet will continue to feed the rosy blush flourishing across
the boy's cheeks.
Lovely.
The boy arrived unexpected at his door, the copper corona of blood still
lingering in the air around him as he stepped into the house. Hannibal noted
without mention the set of the boy’s jaw, pouting irritation, and pressed his
glass of wine into the boy’s fingers.
It vanished in a single swallow and was pushed back towards him before Will
ducked to remove his boots.
“And how was your evening, Will?”
Amusement, now, as Will takes another long drink of wine, a blasphemy of
domesticity that fills Hannibal with a perverse delight.
Will pauses, straightens, and unwinds the scarf from around his neck. The
bruises sucked there are blotching purple now, with yellow in the middle and
just rimming the edges, like a spill of balsamic vinegar Hannibal finds he
desperately wants to lick and taste.
Apparently, Will assumes this is answer enough and takes another long drink to
finish the glass.
It's yet early, perhaps 8 or 9 in the evening, a time neither usually see each
other unless the intent had been to bring Will here initially. Usually, now,
Will is hunting, or Hannibal is, an odd routine both keep to, and, evidently,
one both have broken today.
"I could drink that entire damned bottle," Will says, voice slightly roughened
already - he's found that 'damn' doesn’t fall into Hannibal's list of
unapproved foul language and has taken to using it to almost goad the man into
trying harder for harsher - and not yet warmed by a smile. "If you're
offering."
Hannibal surrounds the boy, closing in behind him to undo the buttons on his
coat. He ducks his head to nuzzle into Will’s hair, tilting the boy’s head to
the side with the movement, and draws a deep breath. To smell, to claim the
traces of his evening, blood and sweat and semen and spit, and beneath that
only Will’s particular sweetness - youth, beauty, like leaves unfurling in
spring despite the boy’s walking state of ruination that lingers like decay
beneath it. An animalistic gesture, scenting him in such a way, greedy and
possessive.
He slides the coat back from Will’s shoulders and hangs it neatly for him.
“You could,” Hannibal agrees, passing a hand softly across the boy’s throat
before he steps away again. “Or we could find something stronger, if it suits
your mood.”
Will's lips twitch, tilt in the beginnings of a smile and he rolls his
shoulders when Hannibal steps away. Something familiar and disturbingly
comforting about being reclaimed, even with a soft gesture like that. He knows
that more than anything Hannibal wants to suck over the bruises and make those
his own as well.
"I'm in a mood to play,” he replies, an acceptance without outright accepting,
and he follows Hannibal to the kitchen, through it, to the main area of the
house where he has a fire going.
It's pleasant, comfortable, and Will stretches his arms over his head as he
watches Hannibal move around his space, commanding it with no effort, simply by
being within it.
Will licks his lips.
"My evening," he answers, finally, drawling the words in a lazy, near-petulant
way, "was successful in the sense that the man who had taken me, living, has
now left me, dead." He draws a hand through his hair with a groan, "and has
left me thoroughly unsatisfied."
He takes whatever Hannibal offers him. The alcohol smells expensive, has a
beautiful warm color that sets Will’s body to shivering pleasantly as he
connects the way the light touches it with the color Hannibal's eyes take on in
the very early morning.
Hannibal smiles faintly as Will sips the costly bourbon - sweet on the tongue,
with a slow-burning heat - well worth watching the lavish liquor vanish so
quickly for the sight of Will’s tongue pressing softly to his lips to chase the
taste of it.
He tops off his glass again before pouring one for himself.
The boy drapes himself across the sofa in front of the fire and Hannibal stands
near him, not settling alongside but remaining near enough to watch him, to see
the shifts and stretches that lengthen his limbs to ease the aches and pains of
his night.
Hannibal’s hand settles in his hair to loop his fingers through the curls. “His
death was not satisfaction enough?”
Will hums, tilts his head to the soft hand, brings the glass to his lips but
sipping slower this time.
"He is dead and the better for it,” he mutters, eyes down to the drink before
swirling it and setting the glass against his knee.
"If you only knew," Will laments, grinning, "how those blind idiots perceive
seduction..."
Suddenly, he laughs, a brief warm sound, glances up and laughs again.
"It's humiliating for them and a test in patience for me."
The sound of the boy’s laugh, bright and sweet, snarls tighter the winding
tension in Hannibal, stirs his blood hotter beneath his skin.
“I could not begin to imagine,” he responds idly before taking a slow sip,
letting the flavor burn slow across his tongue. “Tell me of this one, then,
having so freshly drawn your ire.”
Hannibal settles against the arm of the couch, and readies to hear himself
described in what Will imagines will be an act of cleverness, to levy thinly-
veiled disdain at Hannibal until, whiskey spilling, Hannibal drags him across
the floor by his hair and forces him to lap it up from the carpet.
A faint smile appears before Will even begins to speak.
Will hums, licks his lips and watches Hannibal settle. He remembers fearing the
worst of this man once, too. Fearing stumbled words and awkward apologies,
feared the preening over wealth and a cock the size of his little finger to
compensate.
How few important things he feared.
He sits back, sets his feet deliberately on the couch, one, then the other,
watching Hannibal’s eyes linger, displeased. Then he stretches out, the glass
against his chest barely supported by his long fingers.
"'Oh, baby, you're just begging for it with those lips,'" Will licks them now,
grins, "'Letdaddytake you home and teach you how to use them. Please."
Will scoffs.
"The only lessons I am interested in are not taught by 'daddy'." He bites the
rim of the glass and gives Hannibal a look from under his hair.
Their eyes meet for a moment, and Hannibal lets the curls of hair go long
enough to slap hard across the top of Will’s thighs to knock his feet to the
floor. The gentle amusement doesn’t falter as he does so, no change in
expression at all as he returns his hand to the boy’s hair. He grasps a little
firmer now, tugging softly.
“Freud would be delighted,” he considers. “It seems a rather banal fetish to be
driven by, in truth. Incest fantasies are such an ordinary taboo.”
A pause, and with a derisive snort, Hannibal echoes, “‘Baby’.” Another sip of
bourbon, fingers skimming along Will’s neck to trace the circles of suck marks
bruised there.
Will's lips press together and he imitates Hannibal by taking a sip as well.
"Lazy psychiatry, Dr. Lecte,” he purrs. "Freud holds no medical or
psychological grounding anymore, in any civilized discussion. Perhaps next
you'll be using the term 'sociopath' to describe my tendencies."
His mouth opens in a grin, white teeth barely visible beneath his lips.
"Archaic." He clicks the word, enjoys the way the fingers tighten in his hair
and arches up against it.
"It is so very dull, though," he sighs, harsh words away, "playing daddy's
little boy the fourth time this month."
Hannibal releases the boy’s hair to take the bourbon up from the sideboard
again. A note of warning in his tone, a promise of a response yet to come,
unable to resist responding to the barb.
“Lazy listening, Will. I did not say I subscribe to his theories.”
He otherwise lets it pass for now, to be dealt with later in the evening, and
refills the boy’s glass more full than strictly necessary. He sets the bottle
by the couch as he settles into it now, as Will’s body language turns towards
him - perhaps deliberately, perhaps not.
“Show me,” Hannibal suggests, devoid of lust or desire for anything other than
for the boy’s particular skills to entertain him.
Will gives his drink a long side glance and licks his lips before taking
another deliberate sip. It’s warming his body faster than wine, predictably,
and he lets it, oddly trusting in this house, in this situation, with this man
who could, at any moment, kill him.
He considers, amuses himself with the memories of the night he had only an hour
before left, eyes rolling and head shaking in boredom, and how now, Hannibal
wants him to put on the show again.
At least here, he knows, the end result will be worthwhile.
He holds the alcohol in his mouth a moment longer before swallowing, feeling it
burn behind his teeth, under his tongue… adjusts the mental image of who he is
in this scene, why he’s here, and when he laughs this time the sound is much
younger, more a giggle than a chuckle, and he stretches his legs out in front
of him before curling them up against his chest.
“I don’t think I’m old enough to drink yet.” He turns wide, blue eyes to
Hannibal. “It’s making me feel funny.”
The transition is effortless and unforced, no hyperbole in performance but
minute adjustments made to exaggerate his existing qualities. Nervousness in
the curled posture, looseness in his arms looped around his knees, an openness
of expression guileless and bright that masks entirely the deviousness and
impropriety that Hannibal knows so well.
A pale allusion to the decadence contained therein.
It’s no wonder his victims fall for him so readily.
With an equally adept shift, Hannibal asserts his own mask. A concern,
inquisitive as a parent or teacher might be, gentleness in his voice and in the
soft crinkles of at the corners of his eyes, and an honesty about him that’s
anything but.
“Have you never?” Light tones. He takes a drink himself, easily burying the
genuine amusement he feels in watching Will perform such absurdity so capably.
“Another sip may ease the feeling,” he encourages.
Will watches him through his hair and shakes his head slowly, eyes still as
wide, before bringing the glass to his lips and taking a very big sip,
swallowing quickly and making a face.
“It’s bitter,” he laughs again, shakes his head and sets the glass down,
leaning over Hannibal to do so, limbs splayed in childish uncaring. He tilts
his head up when he’s still over his lap and grins.
“I bet yours isn’t bitter.”
The kiss is sloppy, appropriately inexperienced, and for just a moment it
changes to the deliberate, demanding thing that is Will Graham. Then that fades
when he pulls away, grinning.
“Nope,” he answers his own question. “And I still feel funny.”
Hannibal follows the boy’s movement, leaning nearer him as pulls away. He
nuzzles beneath Will’s jaw, tasting the soft curve of his neck with a tender
kiss, warm and affectionate. A hand lifts to work free a button, and then
another, slowly down Will’s shirt, the gentleness and care in his movements as
easily feigned as anything else.
“It’s a drink for big boys,” Hannibal murmurs, allowing his fingertips to
follow Will’s collarbone, hesitant - shy, even - in the movement. They skirt
lower, across his stomach, and he rubs a warm palm against it as though to
sooth away a stomach ache.
“Tell daddy where you feel funny, Will.”
Coaxing. Kind. An undercurrent of pressure and manipulation beneath the warm
surface.
Remarkably identical to the same sordid voices that purr against Will’s skin
before he silences them forever.
Will’s eyes widen, the blush in his cheeks darkens to something quite truly
remarkable and he bites his lip, shaking his head slowly, before taking
Hannibal’s hand and pressing it lower on his belly.
“There,” he whispers, shifting and wriggling when he pushes the hand to slide
lower still, eyes still on Hannibal’s, lip tight between his teeth.
“Down there,” he gasps quietly at the feeling of the warm palm against him and
looks away, childish fear welling up against his eyes that he feigns at hiding.
“I think…” he turns back, scrambles into Hannibal’s lap and frames his face.
And when he speaks again, his voice is back to its usual timbre, its usual low,
purring warmth.
“I have a headache from having to act like I’m twelve, again. Would you really
do that to me? You’re not even hard from it.”
His own hand seeks down, and he tilts his head, brows up at what he feels.
“Oh, Dr. Lecter, perhaps we should play daddy more often,” he laughs, teasing,
delighted, and leans in to kiss him.
Hannibal’s hands are firm now, greedy as they slide along Will’s thighs to cup
his ass and pull him nearer, to let the kiss linger heated, hungry, eminently
grateful to feel Will return to him and to shed his own falsities for the only
person who’s seen it happen, and lived longer than a moment after.
“You are scarcely past twelve as it stands,” Hannibal informs him, scoffing. He
slides his hands up further beneath the loosened shirt, curling fingernails to
drag back down alongside Will’s spine, and a genuine pleasure appears now as
Will shivers for him.
“But no, perhaps not again. I find it difficult to imagine desiring anything so
insipid, let alone with the knowledge, now, that you are fluent in Attic
Greek.”
A quick tug to bring Will against him so that he can press his mouth against
the sweep of Will’s collarbone, instead of fingers feigning fear. His teeth
scrape softly, he sucks at pale skin, and his breath cools against it.
“Is that the worst of it, then? You feign emotion well enough.” One hand splays
against Will’s back to keep him close, as the other continues unbuttoning his
shirt to shuck it from his shoulders.
Will grins, pleased with himself, almost preening with the knowledge of his
desirability even when it had never been, truly, pulled into question.
“The worst is the boredom,” he admits, rolling his hips against Hannibal,
arching back into his hands, shivering at the touch of his nails against his
skin. Nothing like the fumbling groping of earlier, the man determined to hold
every inch of Will at once, apparently, to ‘worship’ everything that he was.
Will thinks that Hannibal’s blows feel more worshipful than that idiot’s damp
fingers had.
“The banter, the awkwardness.” He rolls his shoulders as the shirt is slid from
them, makes no move to undo his cuffs to pull the sleeves off as well, just
ducks his head against Hannibal’s hair and sighs.
“Most want to hurt me,” he continues, moving his hand over his own chest, up to
the bruises fresh from this evening, pressing down against them until they pale
and he hisses in mild discomfort.
“Something about… my mouth, I think,” he grins. “The filthy things I say.
Though you are the only one who doesn’t script me to say them. You wait,
patient, for them to slip free on their own and relish in the pain you give.”
Following the path of Will’s hand across his bare skin, up his hairless chest
to force pain against himself with slender fingers pressing into blackened
bruises, Hannibal settles his own hands against the movement of the boy’s hips.
“As do you,” he replies evenly. “You revel in my hands against you and it
matters not if it is in kindness or in cruelty.”
As though in emphasis, he snares the boy by the throat, squeezing over the suck
marks shadowed across his skin, tightening gradually beneath his jaw.
“It loses all the joy of surprise to know that you are acting insolent at my
behest,” Hannibal speaks softly, pulling Will closer. “The pleasure is in never
knowing when you will choose to start speaking in profanity instead of Plato,
in violence instead of desire, and when I will get to feel your flesh split and
part and swell and open beneath my hands.”
The words pour black from his mouth against Will’s, matching the rhythm of the
boy’s hips with his own and in expression of some boundless, malevolent hunger
so great that it might consume light itself if so capable, Hannibal sinks his
teeth into Will’s lower lip and tugs. Not enough to break skin, but only just
resisting.
Will’s eyes close, just enough for only the barest blue to be visible, a line
of light, and he holds his breath until his lungs scream with it. Then he
smiles, exhales harsh against Hannibal's lips and kisses him properly.
He’s dizzy now, languid and quiet, heavy.
"Shall I surprise you with some foreign filth, then?" he murmurs, tilts his
head, seeks the warmth of the man’s mouth again.
"You wouldn't know what to do with me." He bites his lip, brings a hand up to
gently peel Hannibal’s fingers from him.
"What do you do?" he asks, arching his back, discarding his shirt to the floor.
“With the boys you buy?"
He grins, grinds down harder with a pleased moan, before leaning close again.
"Show me."
Hannibal considers the request, with another shift upwards as Will presses down
against him.
"In truth, the car, the clothes, the house are usually sufficient enough to
bring thoughts of a comfortable life to their eyes," Hannibal admits.
"Endeavoring, each, that they are clever or sweet enough to win themselves into
it, to find their long search rewarded at last. They play coy at me, not the
transparent innocence you would project but a naiveté. An openness. They ply
their charms, their attempts at culture, and I allow it. I let them think to
have surprised me."
In the instant that his words cease, Hannibal's arms surround Will. He pulls
the boy closer to him, presses him to his chest not in an effort to possess or
to smother but as warmly as though they had known each other for years. The
kiss deepens but does not demand, a soft sound carries on Hannibal's sigh as
they finally part.
His attentive gaze, dark-eyed as ever but warmer somehow despite the blackness
of it, says more than his words might. Adoring, as he watches Will astride him
and in the cautious assurance that presses his hands over every inch of the
boy's body made available to him.
"I did not expect to find you out amongst the others," he finally says, a
slight smile curved across his lips, brighter than the ones that Will has seen.
It's enough, in its implication. An elevation of the boy to something greater
than his peers, than the work he does that brought them together.
Kisses are pressed in worship to the boy's bare chest, lingering above his
heart in particular to feel it beat faster beneath his lips.
"I have had others," a confession, a quiet shame in the admission. "But for all
of the exquisite things with which I have attempted to surround myself, very
little has satisfied me. It is empty here. I have been without."
A sigh drawn from his lips, unexpected, as his dark eyes turn upward.
"You bring a life to this place."
Will blinks, wonders, for a moment, at the words, feels them coil and curl and
warm against him, knows that he’s responding by the way his heart beats faster,
the way his mind rushes quick with ideas and vignettes for the future. He
smiles, draws fingers through Hannibal’s hair gently, tugging a little at the
strands.
“Will you save me?” he asks, playing along, as Hannibal had for him, voice
soft, seeking, desperately sweet in his desire for this permanence.
He is kissed in answer, a nearly desperate passion overtaking Hannibal at the
words as he holds the boy against him. A lifeline, a rock, something to be
clung to and cherished.
“I could not want for more,” he whispers, pressing tender kisses against the
boy’s cheek. A hand pushes back through his hair, as though seeking to confirm
that this boy - this one, above all others - is here with him now, the movement
of his mouth and warm hands merely an echo of the devotion that brings their
bodies together not in lust but in something more familiar, pieces that fit
together as though intended.
Love, perhaps.
An extraordinary affectation.
He feels Will’s heart against his chest beating harder not in fear, panic,
desire, arousal but in response to the reverence pressed against his skin, and
when the boy’s mouth falls gently open for him to sigh with the weight of it,
it stops.
Ceases as though all the air in the room and inside his lungs has been drawn
into a vacuum.
Cold. Distant. Devoid of light or heat.
“Other boys think themselves too clever,” Hannibal intones against Will’s ear.
“Too street-smart, too wise to be lured in by false promises they’ve heard
before, too jaded to be drawn to the place or the things within it. They
require a firmer hand.”
The fingers that had moments before run through Will’s curls in sacrament now
tighten. Not as harshly as he normally snares Will, but an echo of it,
restrained.
“They do not seek empty declarations of power but respond instead to the thing
itself, a degree of experience,” he continues. “A disinterest in their reality
or their story but a transaction, instead, that may prove pleasurable enough
for them to enjoy their time here before departing.”
Hannibal bends Will into a gentle curve, kissing roughly now down his chest to
find sensitive spots - teeth catch a nipple, tongue passing over it immediately
after - but he rocks against Will now to make his expectations known.
A functional thing, this, without false affections.
“You were one of those boys,” Hannibal muses.
Will hums, arching as he’s bent, remembering well how Hannibal had tried none
of the affection, none of the gentleness and coaxing… he remembers cleaning ash
from the carpet with his tongue, eyes up and knowing, sensing, that had he not
smiled more ash would follow. His fingers tighten in Hannibal’s hair in turn.
“Don’t I bring life to this place?” he asks innocently. “Aren’t I the one
you’ve been looking for?”
He’s goading, pushing, feeling the way the alcohol tickles his blood through
his veins, sends his balance haywire, his inhibitions aside.
He curves, ducks his head and presses his hips closer, just as needy, just as
demanding.
“How did it feel having your own game played on you?” he asks softly.
Hannibal makes a sound that could almost be a laugh, brows lifting as the boy
gyrates against him, friction heating where his arousal presses to Hannibal’s
own.
“Dear Will,” breathes Hannibal, a patient sigh. “I seem to recall that it was
you who were pinned to the ground. Whose neck I might have broken with scarcely
more effort or concern than it took to open the bottle of bourbon you’ve been
enjoying. To shut off the light inside of you,” he suggests, “or perhaps simply
to paralyze and sustain our time together for a little longer without quite so
much a fight from you.”
A fond memory, this, the sensation of leather wrapping tight around his neck,
of Will’s knee driving hard against the inside of his thigh, of the breathless
fury and panic that sent the boy into fight and flight simultaneously.
“I had thought originally to strangle you, to feel the rhythm of your body
build faster in tempo until it reached a climax and ceased,” he offers, with an
amused pause. “I am certain I too would have found a climax of my own, when you
shuddered and fell soft around me.”
Rough fingers pull free the fly of Will’s jeans, to grasp him and stroke in
steady, hard pulls along the length of his cock. The hand in Will’s hair brings
the boy’s mouth to his throat, sighing as he moans against it.
“How did you intend to win your game, Will?”
WIll makes another sound, soft, pleased, utterly submissive but in his own
right, nothing false, nothing faked, not now.
He relishes in the touches, the gentleness where he has grown to expect
violence, the power he can feel against him that is vibrating to burst free, a
creature just waiting to tear its skin and show its true face.
He wonders how heavy Hannibal’s mask feels, how he would look if Will peeled it
away. If he would be able to bear its weight.
“The best chess masters,” he starts softly, “play the game not to win but to
make sure that their opponent cannot.”
He licks his lips, draws sharp nails through Hannibal’s hair, down his neck,
over his spine.
“Zugzwang,” he murmurs. “Where the best move is to not move at all. Checkmate
is final, but this.”
He gasps, arches harder against the hand on him, turns to bring his teeth harsh
to Hannibal’s neck.
“This is purgatory. Endless and inescapable.”
He laughs, that pleased, delicious thing that he can feel brings shivers to
Hannibal’s hands. A restrained desire to move, held muzzled.
“I would win by setting you up to never move again, Hannibal,” he purrs.
There is truth in this, a play that Hannibal had not anticipated. It sits heavy
against his chest, as heavy as the boy who leans to devour Hannibal’s silent
surprise with soft lips and a clever tongue. A succubus smothering the breath
from him.
It might have been the first time that Hannibal’s words rang true, had he
spoken them to this boy and not the ones that came before him. He did not
expect to find him amongst the others.
“Forcing a stalemate,” speaks Hannibal, and even as he says it he feels
trapped. Drawn further in fascination than he had ever intended, fixated on
this boy - this Will Graham that sits astride him laughing sweetly in spite of
every act of violence Hannibal has visited upon him.
A surge of smothering blackness welling fast in Hannibal’s veins, thick as an
oil spill and spreading slick through his body. It sings for him to strike, to
grab, to twist and snap, to tear the boy to pieces and free himself of the game
in which he’s found himself ensconced.
To declare a win by turning over the table and spilling all the pieces to the
floor, as he does to Will now, with squeezing hands digging into the back of
his knees to lift him and to drop him roughly back from his lap to the ground.
Hannibal is on the boy, between his thighs, before he’s hardly had time to
register the new position, bourbon thrumming hot and dizzying through him. The
pulsing of liquor that draws an aching moan from the boy is unabated by
Hannibal’s mouth shoved hard to his, worsened by the hands that yank his jeans
down his thighs, off, discarding them before Hannibal moves to his own, to tug
them low enough to bare himself.
The instruction is simple, curt. Brutal, even, compared to Hannibal's eloquence
mere minutes before. A vile need to feel himself asserted over the boy, despite
knowing that in doing so, he’s giving the boy exactly what he wants.
“Suck.”
Insufferable boy. Beautiful, brilliant, insufferable boy.
Will’s eyelids flicker, just barely, just enough, and his lips twitch, tilt,
before - miraculously - he obeys. Bowing his head, curving his shoulders to
bend forward and part his lips around Hannibal's cock.
He moans softly at the fingers that instantly tighten in his hair, hold him
still, his own hands come up to rest against the man’s thighs, to ground
himself with this. Hannibal’s hand twists, pulls sharp pain through Will’s
scalp, down his spine, through his groin. It drives him further, closer, until
he chokes, and pulls back.
He isn't allowed off, not fully, but enough to savor it, the bitterness against
his tongue, the weight there, full and hard, the undeniable panic the man
feels, hearing truth in Will’s words. And Will feels powerful, he feels so
powerful.
His jaw aches, the angle not helping the pain, the fingers near-tearing him
apart in their desperation to debase Will with this, to put him in his place.
The unexpected boy. The one bringing life to Hannibal’s existence.
He makes a faint sound of displeasure and is rewarded with a roll of hips, cock
driven deeper, Will’s own grown harder between his legs.
It's little satisfaction, as suspected, to force the boy to perform what he
does so readily, what he would if asked rather than thrown and snared and
manhandled.
Still, Hannibal's hips rock against the boy's mouth, to feel his tongue twist
and press, to feel the back of his throat shudder when grazed, to see his lips
curve damp and pull in little sucking movements filled with whimpering noises
soft and sweet despite the rough treatment.
He is not trapped, Hannibal tells himself. It is his choice that finds him here
in the thrall of an impudent and clever boy called Will. His choice alone that
is the reason the boy has not yet been quartered for parts and consumed.
A Greek dish, perhaps, when the time is right. But what meal would be
sufficient enough to honor this rare creature, unlike all others and so much
like himself? There would not ever be another like him, once spent, and the
thought draws all pleasure from the considerations of how to cook him.
He pulls the boy free of his cock, hooking fingers beneath his chin to draw him
upwards. Hannibal settles back against the couch, on the floor now as they so
often find themselves, and pulls Will into his lap. He presses their arousals
together, rough friction as they grind against the other.
Kissing him open-mouthed and hungry, some element of Hannibal's earlier
performance carrying over into the movement of his hand through Will's hair,
into the curl of fingers tracing the bend of the boy's back.
Perhaps it is the bourbon that causes him to say it. Perhaps the boy's own
inebriation that he hopes will wipe it from his mind, forgotten when he wakes
hungover and aching in the morning. Perhaps a mockery of tenderness. Perhaps
not.
"I have never met another such as you," Hannibal murmurs softly, a predatorial
wariness with claws unsheathed but not yet ready to rend.
Will makes a noise, another of those soft, sweet things that he doesn’t seem
able to control anymore, regardless of how hard he tries - or perhaps because
he no longer tries.
"I know."
It's honest, not prideful for just a moment as he allows himself to be consumed
by this, by the sensations and feeling, by the man who Will had missed when he
had gone away, by the man who he enjoys and refrains from killing.
Another kiss, just as desperate, just as sloppy, Will’s hands up over
Hannibal’s shoulders, fingers drawing harsh nail marks over the leather he
hopes don't fade, and at the same time doesn’t care. He falls into him, matches
his heartbeat, matches the stuttered breathing and the aching need to get off.
His head spins, his entire body feels light, and Will laughs, just softly, just
once, against Hannibal’s lips before his orgasm takes him, surprising and
satisfying, hot between them into Hannibal's hand.
Hannibal, greedy, takes the sound from Will before he can stop himself, mouth
closing over his again and again to feel the laugh like sunlight against him. A
genuine delight in the sensation, rather than an act put on for another’s ego.
A humanity in Will yet unconsumed, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, a stark
contrast to the snarls that typically tear themselves from Hannibal when he
climaxes, a savage sound made as though in resentment for his own weakness.
Resentment for the boy’s ability to feel so acutely pleased, and so simply.
Resentment for his own inability to do the same.
And so he consumes what he can, what the boy yields so openly to him, squeezing
gently up against the head of his cock to drag out his climax and feel it drip
hot over his fingers. He watches as the laugh shivers into a grin instead,
sleepy and content, and Will rocks his hips still against Hannibal’s hand.
Content to press against Will in turn, still achingly hard from his own climax
yet unreached, and with curiosity Hannibal brings his sticky hand to his mouth
to taste the boy there. The intensity of information, of flavors and
experiences that play across his palette forces him to draw a breath, before he
brings his mouth to Will’s neck, laid dark with bruises. He kisses slowly at
first, and then harder, sucking the sensitive skin to leave his own marks over
it.
He seems at ease to claim nothing more than this, not even his own release, to
instead immerse himself in the boy astride him.
Will feels heavy, limbs comfortable and splayed where they are; hands over the
couch, thighs spread, contented to be utterly bare when Hannibal is fully
dressed.
He tilts his head to the side, relishes in the sting of more bruises, shivers
when he gets too sensitive to keep rubbing up against Hannibal’s cock.
The alcohol still slips warmly beneath his skin, a sluggish pour that has his
smile languid and his body lazy. Here, now, the power he had exerted over
Hannibal has vanished, here he's just Will Graham, seventeen, tired and tipsy
and very, very pleased.
"Take me to bed?" he murmurs, hands curling closer to stroke Hannibal's hair.
A hum, before Hannibal moves the boy’s weight from his lap enough to stand. He
sighs when the boy’s arms tighten just a little firmer around his neck, and
with a few shifts of movement finally stands and hoists the boy against him.
Mess smears against Will’s thighs as he wraps his legs around Hannibal’s hips,
and the older man spreads his palms to keep the boy pressed against him.
“Lazy boy,” he chastens softly as he makes his way up the stairs, another sigh
when Will forces his head beneath Hannibal’s chin in a warm nuzzle that makes
it that much more precarious to carry him in this way.
Finally, Will is deposited on the bed, and Hannibal regards the sticky stains
on his waistcoat with dismay.
He starts to undress, the same meditative process it always is when he’s in
control of it, and he glances back over his shoulder to the boy stretching
catlike and content across his sheets.
“Beside the bed,” Hannibal instructs, “in the drawer there. Make yourself
ready.”
Will groans, not in any discontent but from the pleasure of feeling his muscles
stretch. He takes his time obeying, though, twisting on the bed and relishing
the sheets that claim his warmth and return it to him.
Then he does reach, and take the tube of lubricant from the drawer indicated.
He’s tired, pleased to be in bed, but when he spreads his legs his knees draw
up high, fingers seek and find his hole still reddened from his activities
earlier that evening and push in.
Will is never quiet in his pleasure, but alcohol takes away the shutter usually
drawn over the soft breathless little sounds he makes when he’s so pliant.
He prepares himself slowly, two fingers and languid stretching before he adds a
third, opens his eyes to watch Hannibal before biting his lip and pushing
further still to add a fourth.
Hannibal pauses in disrobing to observe the movement of the boy’s hips twisting
sinuous against his own fingers, opening himself wide with aching little sounds
to accompany.
As fascinating to watch in his pleasure as in pain.
The sleepy ease settled into Will piques a curiosity in Hannibal, as he hangs
his shirt, and ducks to remove his socks and their stays.
“How many years, Will, have you done this?”
Will sighs, removes two fingers to keep himself tight for this, tight enough to
feel good. He considers the question only barely, before answering.
"I've always been bored," he says, words soft but utterly honest, no careful
masking in that tone, not now.
"I turned my first trick at fifteen, just before I finished school.” He grins,
as though remembering a particularly good moment. "I didn’t kill that one."
He turns his head against the pillows when his fingers brush his prostate,
gasps, and the next words are almost lost to Hannibal in their softness.
"He was gentle when he took my virginity."
Almost lost, but not quite, as Hannibal’s fingers pause above the button of his
trousers.
They continue a moment later, removing the slacks to hang them neatly over a
wooden hanger.
“Lucky,” Hannibal echoes, from a conversation that seems long ago at this
point. “Considering the nature of attention you’ve drawn subsequent,” he adds,
with faint amusement.
It lingers as he turns towards the bed, unclothed and still as hard as before,
to skim a hand across the boy’s stomach and watch his fingers disappear in slow
presses inside himself.
“And your parents? I imagine you hid it well from them.”
Breath leaves Will in a shaking sigh and he bites his lip, stretching and
arching against the sheets.
"Easy to hide when no one's around," Will scoffs quietly.
Good grades and the veneer of a typical good student, it was enough for his
father to believe Will was fine, that he needed nothing more than the
occasional encouragement and payment for college.
Will got a scholarship to college.
And his mother was never in the picture to care or not, either way.
Hannibal makes an acknowledging sound as he rubs slow from the boy’s chest to
his belly and back again, feeling him curve beneath the warm touch.
Imagining Will even younger than now, equally clever and bored senseless by
lessons that presumed to drill in him things he already knew or could absorb
far faster than other students. Alone at home, driven to anxiety with
restlessness for new experiences to stimulate him. It only so happened that he
found that stimulation in a sordid place, in risky sex with older men whose
control he could wield with scarcely an effort beyond appearing as charming as
he already knew himself to be.
And it only so happened that this stimulation, too, proved to be in time
insufficient.
“And your first kill?”
Hannibal settles into the bed beside the boy, slicking his fingers with lube
before he tugs aside Will’s leg to move between his thighs. He withdraws the
boy’s fingers from himself and replaces them with his own, pressing deep inside
him and curling firmly.
A weak little keen, Will’s cheeks flushed dark again in his pleasure, cock
stirring in interest against his thigh as Hannibal holds him open, wide, and
takes his time.
His fingers are thicker, rougher. Will makes another sweet little moan and
arches his neck, head back.
"Sloppy," he gasps, fingers curling in the sheets, "messy..."
And then he laughs again, a full, warm sound before it's stolen by another
gasp.
"An utter accident."
He's twisting now, writhing against the sheets, entire body pink with pleasure
and heat. He remembers how tight that belt had felt around his neck, how harsh
against his thighs just moments before, how hard he'd fought and finally
managed to scramble away, turn and press his thumbs into the man’s eyes in
sheer desperation to live.
He'd cried, afterwards, from the pure exhilaration of it. Breathless, helpless
sobs against the heels of his bloodied hands.
"Hannibal -"
The older man leans over him, to press his name from the boy’s mouth as he
coats his cock in lube. A few soft strokes, and a sigh as he settles against
him. A slow push, unhurried, to feel Will’s opening stretch further still
around him. He pushes a hand against the back of Will’s knee to bend his hips
higher, and kisses him again, traces still of the boy’s climax salty between
their mouths.
“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal intones, once he’s buried his cock in the boy as far
as he can go. He does not rush but waits for the boy’s body to relax back into
the soft sheets, to let him adjust to the feeling of Hannibal so deep inside
him, before starting to move.
“How did it make you feel?”
Will groans again, curling the leg not held, around Hannibal’s hips, heel
against his lower back; entirely bent and manipulated out of shape and into
another to fit the man’s whims, to fuel his own desire for fulfilment.
The words draw a knot in his chest, like a fist pushed too far, and he gasps,
turns his head away and feels only Hannibal’s free hand caressing his face,
stroking the curls up behind his ear so he can kiss the curve his neck makes.
It’s painfully intimate, and something in Will tugs in warning, but he doesn’t
listen, he doesn’t care.
He draws his own hands up against Hannibal’s back, then down, leaves one
against his shoulder and brings the other to his own face, fingers splayed to
cover it as he pushes down against every slow, languid thrust against him.
He drops his hand with a sigh, and for a moment, he’s fifteen again, a
throbbing pain against his thighs from freshly struck skin, between his legs
from the cock that had so cruelly penetrated him, and his face is wet, fingers
slipping over his cheeks and smearing red.
“I cried,” he gasps, the word breaking as Hannibal finds his prostate and
slows, to deliberately draw the head of his cock over it again and again until
Will sobs in earnest.
“I had never felt so alive, I had the man’s blood down my arms, across my face,
I could taste him…”
Will groans, drops both hands up behind himself to brace against the headboard,
to curl his fingers there tight and arch to give himself over entirely -
vulnerable in mind, in body, in every way Hannibal wanted him.
“I cried because it had worked,” he breathes, another sob of pleasure and he
grins. “I was fifteen and it had fucken worked.”
At this, Hannibal’s smile curves a little higher and he presses a grinning kiss
into the boy’s neck, moving up to nuzzle against his temple, to drag his mouth
softly against the flush of the boy’s cheek.
Not a sociopath or a psychopath - defying any such mundane attempts to describe
or classify, no sad tedious story of how he struggled with his actions and his
morality. Merely a pure and conscientious delight in his actions.
The sensation of connection is electric, and Hannibal groans low against Will’s
bruised throat. He considers, grasping the boy’s cock to stroke him, the
unlikelihood of there ever existing in the world another one so much like
himself, let alone to have found him on a street corner and joined so
immediately in their shared interest.
A stalemate as a mutual victory, perhaps, rather than a mutual ensnarement.
His hand slides from Will’s knee to press over one of his hands instead, to let
the boy slide both legs around him and tie their hips together again and again,
harder and harder. He abandons Will’s cock to slap hard across the back of his
thigh for the muttered curse, heat coiling tighter in Hannibal’s stomach as the
crack of skin on skin resonates in his ears over the hum of his pulse.
“You must be exquisite when you are in your frenzy,” Hannibal growls low
against his ear, fucking into him without reservation now, not to dominate and
to wound but to meet some need deeper than that - to realize the intensity of
feeling in physical form.
Will groans again, an animal sound of need, and ducks his head before dropping
it back, feeling Hannibal’s lips brush his skin, then his teeth snare against
the earlobe and pull it. His own teeth are gritted, body aching in the most
perfect way as he is driven closer and closer to something like enlightenment.
The sharp sting against his skin sends his heart hammering, his eyes wide and
pupils filling the blue around them. He has no words left, nothing to tell
Hannibal nothing that matters, if any of it matters.
But the drive, the connection, the closeness of the two of them like this,
entwined, one the tail one the mouth of the snake that goes on never ending.
He wonders how drunk he really is and he wonders why it matters.
“Harder,” he gasps, and it unfolds into a mantra, into a pulse of words
breathed then just implied, with his hands twisting as though restrained, his
hips pushing up for every brutal thrust that sends stars behind his eyes and
adrenaline through his system.
Words and words and words, over and over, until Hannibal stills, a growl so
deep Will feels it echo in his bones, and Will follows after, blessed cool
release that sends shivers through him, a cry from him, and then something
close to ecstasy keeping him entirely pinned, flat, heavy, to the bed under the
killer above him.
Will drops his hands, drapes them, cool, over Hannibal’s shoulders and tugs his
hair just enough to bring their mouths close, lips just brushing. He smiles,
utterly used up, exhausted, languid, and draws the tip of his tongue over
Hannibal’s top lip before dropping back against the pillows with a sigh.
Hannibal sucks a breath through his teeth as he pulls slowly from Will, eyes
heavy-lidded but focused entirely on the boy beneath him. Exhausted, pliant,
gentled by the exertions and expositions shared between them, he watches with
fascination as Will’s eyes drift closed, lashes fluttering soft against flushed
cheeks. Submissive in being so sated, entirely open to Hannibal and anything he
might do to him, or not.
He hums quietly, too tired now to think in poetry about this strange symmetry
between them, and turns onto his side. His arms are warm, encompassing as he
pulls Will back against him, to loop limbs over him and twine together with
him.
No more words now, nothing more to say that isn’t known with increased clarity
each time they find themselves in such a way. Hannibal buries his nose into the
boy’s hair, curled with sweat, and breathes him in, content in the assurance
that while he may not know yet the dish to pair with a delicacy such as Will,
there is ample time to yet discern it.
***** Chapter 7 *****
Chapter Summary
     Hannibal’s fingers tighten around his glass - his jaw works, once, in
     terse allowance for the strain he feels cracking through his ribs,
     snapping each one free until his lungs fill with blood and darkness
     pours from him like a flood of retribution.
     Chianti is a fine pairing for jealousy, he considers.
      WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: very underage, very dubcon, violence,
     prostitution, filming of minors without permission, voyeurism, I
     suppose, in a way, sex with two people at once.
Chapter Notes
     For the amazing pugbug73, who requested a Hannigram sextape. Well...
     this is close, right? We hope you like it, bb, and if not, then we
     shall write you another!
“I brought you a gift.”
Will’s in a thicker sweater today, visible beneath the coat he wears. Still in
those insufferable yet utterly delicious jeans that press right up against his
skin, still in those combat boots that never seem to lace.
Will grins, brings a thin plastic package to his lips and gently bites it. It
looks like a normal case for a CD or a DVD, one that one could find in any
store for simple storage where they didn’t want a box. For sending, perhaps, or
just to save space. Within, a disk gleams with purple tones.
Then Will takes the thing away, pushes it into his pocket.
“I would recommend chianti for this one, Hannibal,” he says casually, stepping
past the threshold despite Hannibal not stepping aside for him, pressing close,
thus, to his chest. “Something to bring out the deeper flavors of the palette.”
His smile is utterly wicked, teeth white beneath red lips, cheeks pink from the
cold, the tip of his nose as well. Will looks younger, and the snow is slowly
melting from his hair where he stands.
The boy’s burgeoning bravado pulls a noise from Hannibal as they stand so near
together. For a moment, he considers sending the boy down to the basement to
find the bottle that he, in his youthful pride, would suggest, locking the door
behind him, and letting him see what else he may find.
He would find wine, certainly. Equipment of increasingly questionable necessity
for a home like this. Parts of other boys so much like Will himself.
“As you insist,” Hannibal says simply in response, stepping aside to let the
boy pass with a curious resistance to touching him yet. Wary, for a moment, of
what Will intends to subject him to this evening, and how soon his otherwise
quiet evening will be brought to blows laid against pale skin.
A faint smile at this, unseen, as Will ducks to remove his boots.
“I trust you’re capable of setting up whatever it is you wish to show me, as I
find an appropriate vintage.”
Something young. Fresh. Sharp on the tongue in its newness.
Will just grins in answer, seeming to resist touching Hannibal just as surely
as Hannibal resists touching him, for now.
With socked feet, he makes his way to the kitchen and through it, unwinding his
scarf - apparently not a sweater, then, considering the tatty thing he has on
beneath his coat, again - as he goes before casually dumping it over the back
of one of the chairs in the dining room. It doesn’t slip to the floor, but it
certainly doesn’t belong there.
Will finds what he seeks in the study, discovering that Hannibal apparently
does not entertain company with films in the living area, but on a screen
projector in his private space instead. If he ever entertains company here he
doesn’t kill. Will assumes he does, someone so affluent, and in the circles he
works.
By the time the man returns, Will has the small remote in his hand, the screen
deceptively blank and black before them. His hips are cocked, one arm around
his middle the other resting the elbow against that wrist, hand up and curled
to support his chin. He looks, strangely, nostalgic.
He gives Hannibal a slow look as the man passes his field of vision and licks
his lip into his mouth, just watching him. Then he straightens, sets the remote
against the large oak desk, and takes up the glass offered in its stead.
The scarf is looped over Hannibal’s arm, as though Will had merely forgotten it
and he intended to return it. He drapes it over the arm of the couch without
mention as Will takes his glass. Will’s glass is filled a little higher than
necessary, as is Hannibal’s own.
Curious and cautious in equal parts as to what depravity the boy has in mind,
as surely it can be nothing else.
Hannibal seats himself, still far more staid and upright than the boy’s
comfortable slouch, and glad he had forgone lingering yet in his suit to
instead settle in to a button-down, sleeves folded, and a simple pair of
slacks.
Barefoot, even, from having eased into the livingroom to research a particular
recipe for rump roast, to enjoy the lingering remnants of one of Will’s former
peers.
“What will we be watching tonight?”
Will says nothing, settles more comfortably on the couch with his feet drawn up
after he’d gathered the remote and glass both. After a pause, he licks his lips
and sets the disk running.
For a moment, there is nothing, just darkness and the strange static that comes
with film or old vinyl records. Or sometimes just silence, in empty rooms with
nothing but dust and energy. Then there’s a sound of shifting, plastic on
plastic, and the darkness goes away, filled, instead, with a very awkward close
up view of a man’s face.
He looks no older than 40, no beard, but a comfortably thick moustache, eyes a
strange gray that seems to linger on blue but never quite make it, lips thin.
Not a handsome man but far from horrific. He adjusts something on the camera
and steps away, presenting, instead, a view of a bedroom.
A large bed, unmade but not messy, can be seen in the center of the shot,
though there is suggestion that behind it is not a wall but perhaps something
more, perhaps just a headboard and then a desk. It hardly matters, the bed is
quite obviously what the man wants seen.
He glances between the camera and it over and over, as though trying to see an
angle he had previously missed, before something catches his attention beyond
the bedroom door and he removes himself from the shot.
Will can feel Hannibal’s eyes on him, curious yet willing to wait without
explanation for the moment. He himself holds his glass tight, with both hands,
and doesn’t drink from it.
“Come on up,” the man’s voice is off camera. “Make yourself at home. It’s
warmer in here, at least.”
“Yea.” This voice, this one sounds familiar. Curled and gently higher in youth,
a tone Hannibal has heard before, just once, directed at him during a night of
comparisons and pleasures.
When Will walks into frame, he is younger, perhaps 16 here, perhaps even
younger still. He takes in the room and bites his lip, pushing his hands into
his pockets, allows his wide light eyes to follow his host when he too steps
into frame.
“Thanks.”
Though the reason for Will to show this - curled on the couch as he is, fixated
and distant all at once on the images playing from the projector - is still
unclear, the intent of the video itself is clear enough.
A displeased sound, soft, as Hannibal takes another sip. He watches the boy on
the screen, rather than the one next to him. Leaner, with spry limbs and a
brightness to his eyes that isn’t entirely false.
Dorian Gray, becoming more beautiful in time’s reversal as his secret
monstrosity grows.
Hannibal does not speak again, does not yet reach out to Will, but simply takes
a longer drink and lets his fingers tap silently against the glass.
On the screen, Will’s eyes take in the room quickly. They don’t linger on the
camera. It doesn’t appear that he knows it’s there at all.
“What’s your name?” the man asks, a gentle tone as he comes to stand in front
of Will. He’s taller but not by much. Will’s shoulders hunch anyway, setting
himself smaller, an easier target.
“Uh,” he licks his lips. “Will.”
“A pretty name for a pretty boy.”
On the couch, Will looks visibly disgusted, finally peels one hand away from
the glass to allow his other to lift it to his lips.
On screen, Will ducks his head on a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Thanks.”
“Lift your face, let me see those pretty eyes.”
Will does, a brief, brisk motion to flick his fringe from them but he obeys,
readily and well, and the man steps closer to run a hand over Will’s cheek and
down under his chin. His thumb caresses Will’s lips, tugging the bottom one
down until Will’s mouth opens, his jaw slackening just a little to allow the
motion.
“Mmm.” The hunger in the man’s expression is palpable, as is his cock in his
pants, tenting the fabric before he brings his free hand to stroke himself.
“Will you get on your knees for me, like a good boy?”
On screen, Will swallows at the same time as the man sitting next to Hannibal
on the couch. The glass returns to the side table empty. Will does not ask for
it to be refilled.
A brief nod from the boy on screen, curls shifting with the motion. The man’s
smile becomes wicked.
“Then on your knees,” he says.
Will goes, the only sound on the camera, for the moment, the shuffling of his
jeans against the carpet, the sound of the man taking a step back to force Will
to lean to reach him. When he takes out his cock, already hard and thick in his
hand, Will swallows.
“Wrap your pretty lips around that, Will.”
“He never found a synonym for pretty,” Will utters next to Hannibal now, the
last word nearly spat with annoyance, though he doesn’t seem at all triggered
or affected by the video itself, and his words overrun those on the screen, so
Hannibal can’t hear, perhaps deliberately.
“- for this,” is all that reaches him, though he can put together what it was
that was said.
The younger boy looks, for a moment, genuinely worried, and so innocent. But
there’s a tic in his jaw that gives away his utter indifference for the
situation. Another act, a thin and gentle and very effective veil.
On screen, Will leans forward to take the cock in his mouth as it’s fed him,
eyes up when he reaches the point he chokes at.
The clicking sound of Will’s throat, gagging on the man’s length, seems
unusually pronounced to Hannibal. Exaggerated for effect, maybe, or perhaps it
only seems so loud over the blood rushing louder and louder in Hannibal’s ears.
Another choke jerks the boy’s hunched shoulders as the man pushes in again, and
it startles another soft sound from Hannibal. Disapproval, sharper now as it
hums past his lips.
“Keep those pretty eyes on me,” the man says, running a hand - trembling with
excitement - over Will’s curls to push them back from his face. “That’s a good
boy.”
By contrast to the boy nodding obedient on the screen, the boy on the couch -
no gentleness in his eyes now, no calculated insecurity - snorts.
Hannibal doesn’t look towards him. Can’t look away from the screen, can’t stop
watching as Will keeps his eyes trained up, wide and a little afraid, as the
man fucks an unsteady rhythm into his mouth. Hannibal’s fingers tighten around
his glass - his jaw works, once, in terse allowance for the strain he feels
cracking through his ribs, snapping each one free until his lungs fill with
blood and darkness pours from him like a flood of retribution.
Chianti is a fine pairing for jealousy, he considers, finishing his glass and
setting it aside.
“I’m gonna be real gentle to you, okay Will?” The man’s voice pierces the
soothing sound of wine filling Hannibal’s glass again, and the lovely whining
whimper that fills the space between Will’s mouth and the man’s cock is as a
gunshot, startling and deafening to Hannibal’s escalating nerves.
The man pulls his cock slowly free of Will’s lips and moves to the bed.
Settling on the edge, with a single quick glance towards the camera, he begins
to stroke himself.
“Come stand in front of me,” he coaxes, a syrupy tone that hides beneath it
poison. “I want to see how pretty you are.”
Will stands and blocks the view of the man when he steps in front of the
camera, although the shuffling sound of skin-on-skin can still be clearly
heard. A hesitation, held for a specific count to seem unsure of what he’s
doing, before Will starts to peel off the thin t-shirt he wears, clinging loose
to a body yet to find its strength.
A lower sound, now, from Hannibal - nearly a growl, quickly passing jealousy
and falling into a thicker and more muddled miasma. Anger. Possession. Disgust.
Arousal, too, a lighter tone in the rising cacophony of sensation - for Will
here and now, for Will there and then, for the play-acting and deception so
skillfully executed that Hannibal has to remind himself that even at this
extraordinarily young age, Will had already been rendered far from innocent.
He reaches out to grasp Will by the back of the neck, feeling him jump a little
beneath the unexpected touch, and he pulls him closer across the span of couch.
Tugs the boy nearly into his lap, still watching Will work his clothing off on-
screen with sweet lying apologetic little mumbles of, “I haven’t done this
much.”
“That’s okay,” the man answers, unable to hide his excitement at this
revelation. “I’ll be real gentle.” Stroking faster now, as Will slides his
jeans lower, stepping out of them with an awkward near-stumble.
Hannibal presses his nose into the boy’s hair, holding Will against him. The
wine glass is set aside, and he pulls the boy fully into his lap, keeping him
turned towards the screen, hands spreading over his stomach as he watches the
film over Will’s shoulder and presses his teeth into his skin. To feel Will
here, pressed against him, not the pale waif on the screen now standing bare.
“Turn around for me,” the man moans restlessly. “Real slow, okay?”
The camera captures thin thighs and a hairless chest, a fine thatch of hair
above Will’s cock, the flushed curve of his ass as he turns and asks, aching
sweetness, “Like this?”
“Why are you showing this to me, Will?” Hannibal finally asks, a menacing
timbre, frustrated by the lack of an appropriate target to set his building
violence on, finding only Will and curling his fingers harsher against his
belly.
The boy in his lap hums, shifts, and rolls his hips in slow deliberation,
rubbing against Hannibal’s cock through his pants, already semi-hard from the
film alone, predictable. A soft sound, difficult to tell which Will makes it,
before the boy on screen follows some gestured instructions they can't see.
Another slow roll of hips, as Hannibal’s hands press more insistently against
Will’s stomach, impatient for an answer. He gets another slow arch of his hips
back, before Will turns his head, an almost nuzzle with how close they are.
The boy on screen moves towards the bed now, climbs onto it with feigned
childish imbalance, scrambles to rest on all fours on it, as the Will here,
now, parts his lips to whisper.
"You wanted to see me work."
Hannibal’s fingers snare around Will’s throat to bring him back against him,
kissing through his hair, across his cheek. The hand on his belly slides lower,
to play at the button of his jeans, working them open slowly before finally
sliding his hand inside to rub over the top of Will’s boxers.
“Is it - is it going to hurt?” Will asks from the bed, watching the man circle
around him, worrying his lip between his teeth. Wariness in his voice, a note
of fear plucked through the apprehension that vibrates through his thin body.
“Real gentle,” the man repeats, as he climbs onto the bed behind Will. “I
wouldn’t want to hurt such a pretty boy. I’m not like that.”
He curls over Will, pressed smothering across his back, kissing sloppy across
the same shoulder where Hannibal’s teeth sink a little harder now. Both rubbing
against the same boy, Hannibal’s hand curled around Will’s cock through the
thin material over it, the man grinding himself between the boy’s cheeks.
On screen, Will is angled towards the camera, the man obviously interested in
seeing his face more than the actual act of defiling him. And now, with nothing
in front of him, young, proud boy that he is, Will rolls his eyes.
In Hannibal’s lap, his Will groans.
The preparation doesn't take long, for the kid in the film, despite the man’s
repeated whispered assurances that he would be gentle, and Will makes quiet
little pained sounds, whimpers, sobs, towards the end, as the man enters him.
"I'm sorry," his voice trembles. "I'm... it hurts..."
The man delights in this, no empty promises now, and his hands settle just in
view against Will’s hips to pull him further back against his cock.
"He was my fifth," Will whispers harshly, turning his head back again, lips
parted on pleased, warm sounds to contrast the little cries of pain of his
younger self on screen. He pushes his hips back harder against Hannibal's,
spreads his thighs more and moans.
"First time I used a belt," he sighs - on screen, Will sobs in agony - "First
time I was filmed... nnn -"
Hannibal remembers the rough sensation of leather snaring tight around his own
neck and groans low against Will’s shoulder, an unrestrained shiver splitting
through his skin at the promise of what’s to come. He pushes his thumbs into
Will’s jeans, snarling low for him to pull them off, and works his own down
balancing the boy across his thighs.
He forces a breath, a steadying of his heart as envy and possession decay into
anger, a raw nerve struck watching the boy on screen cry. Even the awareness of
the act is scarcely enough to still the furious feeling curling his fingernails
sharp against the inside of Will’s thighs, red marks rising in their wake, no
outlet for this sensation but sex and violence, no sin-eater to devour the rage
but Will in his lap.
“Please,” the boy on screen chokes through a sob, head ducking, hands curling
against the sheets. Rough fingers find his hair and pull his head up, insistent
on capturing every tear on film, every broken whimper that shudders past Will’s
parted lips.
Mine mine mine, the only refrain that sings through Hannibal now, a furious
symphony building with every moan of the boy in his lap, every cry of the boy
on screen. Tears and sobs and whines and sighs that are his, now, to be claimed
by no one else - convincing enough to tease Hannibal’s pulse faster even as he
reminds himself of the boy’s falsity. A sigh, swallowing dry before Hannibal
wets his fingers in his mouth and presses them harshly against Will’s opening.
Will swallows a curse, the fricative hanging on his lips before he sighs it
away, whether out of genuine concern for being struck or to delay the
inevitable, Hannibal no longer cares. He lets this one slide. Presses his
fingers harder, spit not quite enough to ease the push, but Will yields to him
regardless.
Conditioned.
Practiced.
In a moment of almost inexplicable strangeness, the two Wills moan in tandem.
"Feels good?" The man’s voice is shattered glass now, his sick fantasies
fulfilled by the talented, trembling silph pushing back against his cock and
pretending it hurts to do so.
"Feels so good, Will, fuck, oh fuck, baby, hold still, hold still don't
squirm..."
In Hannibal’s lap, Will shivers, makes a helpless little noise, as though
scared to disobey the instruction himself.
The obedience to another voice is felt, registered, and responded to in an
instant. Hannibal snares Will by the throat, fingers pressed beneath his jaw to
raise it, to keep his eyes up on the screen. A thumb strokes his skin, almost
affectionate, before he presses rough kisses to Will’s cheek, his ear, biting
there before moving to his neck.
A mottling of healing bruises, some Hannibal’s own work, some not, each tasted
open-mouthed and hungry.
“Yeah, baby,” moans the man on screen, voice rising on the word. “You want to
make me cum? You like that, baby? Want me to cum in you?”
Hannibal snorts derisively, distracted by the words, by the shrill and
disruptive voice of this other person uninvited into his territory.
“‘Baby’,” echoes Hannibal with spite tightening his voice, before he spits
harshly in his hand, stroking it to brusquely coat his cock.
A hard sigh as he lines himself up against Will, feels the boy yield even with
the coarse friction between them, and heavy-lidded watches as Will ducks his
head again on screen, feigning pain, only to have his hair pulled enough to
raise his face.
Shifting harder up into Will now, here, fingers clenching against his throat.
"No," the word is obscured strangely on screen, almost warbled in feigned pain,
and the man pays it no heed, keeps whispering his own dirty fantasy against the
soft pale skin of the younger boy’s shoulder as his older counterpart trembles,
forced to watch as well. Cock hard, thighs parted wide, breath coming in uneven
stutters.
And then Will’s eyes find the camera, for a brief moment look directly at them
both before turning aside, adjusting his position almost imperceptibly,
pleasure finally flooding his features as he parts his lips in a silent moan of
need, cheeks dark now, the color Hannibal finds so fetching.
After that, it doesn't take long. The man takes his pleasure, shuddering and
cursing against Will who just holds still and takes it, expression almost bored
where the man can't see, too preoccupied in his own desire to not notice the
visible release of tension from Will’s muscles.
Behind Will, now, Hannibal tenses in anticipation, and Will licks his bottom
lip into his mouth with a grin. He shifts, just enough, to pull off and push
back down on Hannibal’s cock, is rewarded with another kiss bitten to his neck.
Before them, the man pulls out, and Will sprawls, buries his face in his arms
and cries; weak, choked little noises of utter anguish, so convincing that
Hannibal growls again, possessive, angry, aroused beyond coherent words, and in
his lap Will feels victory swell in his chest.
"Oh beautiful boy, oh sweet pretty boy don't cry, don't, shhh..."
Sweet assurances, as false as the tears being calmed, bring the man closer into
frame again. Half dressed still, cock limp through the open v of his pants,
spent. The boy on screen lets himself be turned, slides his arms around the man
and clings in childish need, seeking comfort.
Little hands slide over the man’s back, lower still to his pants. Fingers
deftly pull the belt free as he continues his sweet little whimpers against the
hapless man's neck.
Hannibal stills now, shifts to a deep, slow roll of hips up into Will, the
grasping claiming clutching of hands and mouth becoming languid.
He watches.
Will times the sobs that wrack his slight body with the tugs needed to free the
belt, hiding the movement beneath his own.
“I’m sorry.” He shudders and wraps his other arm over the man’s shoulder, an
awkward childish embrace. “You’re so nice and - ” Stammers and stutters, boyish
and afraid.
“Pretty Will, don’t cry,” the man consoles him, venom in the honey of his
voice. “We can see each other again. Would you like that?”
A look of revulsion crosses Will’s features, caught on the camera, before he
snuffles and nods, burying his face against the man’s neck as he twists the
belt in increments around his fists.
“Idiot,” Hannibal murmurs, transfixed as he rocks himself slowly up against
Will. The boy’s arms loop back around his neck, working his hips in languid
circles, and his grin widens as he feels Hannibal’s mouth move in distraction
against his neck, lightless black eyes focused on the film.
"Good, good boy, that's my good Will." Hands stroke Will’s curls from his face,
and Will leans back, just watching the man with a crumpled expression utterly
devoid of real tears. It takes a moment, but the man stills, confused, and
under him, the little boy grins.
Not as quick as he had been with Hannibal, still learning and practicing, but
fast enough to manage to wrap the belt around the man’s neck, tighten it and
hold - the loop over the front, over his throat, crossed at the back.
The man chokes, twists, hands up to pull the leather away and Will snares him
back, legs around his middle to stop him from gaining leverage, breaking free.
Sighing rough against Will’s neck, all the air pushed from his lungs and all
the tension snapping free to allow his heart to race now, Hannibal thrusts up
hard against the boy. Darkness spilling over, welling and pouring from him in
harsh growls.
The man finds his strength, animal panic as he starts to go red, and slings a
fist out blindly, catching Will across the mouth. The boy gasps, blinks wide at
the shock but doesn’t loosen the clenched fists around stiff leather. A grin,
blood dark between his teeth, as he jerks the belt tighter.
“Will,” murmurs Hannibal, unabashed adoration of the brutal boy straddling his
thighs, hands skimming up to curl around his cock.
The boy’s legs are strong, but not so strong as the older man in his throes of
panic, and he starts to break free of him, scrambling backwards towards the
camera now, one hand clawing useless at the leather strap. Will’s grin shifts
just so into gritted teeth, holding fast as he’s dragged along the bed by the
man, and he ducks his head to bring it down fast against the man’s nose.
A wet crunch of cartilage, blood spilling down Will’s face when the man’s nose
cracks beneath it and his yelp escapes as only a strangled gasp.
Hannibal groans low, eyes barely open as he watches the blood spill across
Will’s eyes, cheeks, and his - admittedly - pretty mouth. Above him, the
gorgeous boy trembles, body taut in pleasure, arched beautifully for Hannibal’s
hands to explore and touch, to stroke over his nipples, drag his nails down his
ribs.
On screen the struggle continues. The man refusing to die quickly, and Will
working to kill him.
Blood and thick gasps, and the cool, even breathing of the boy that Will does
not match now, with Hannibal fucking into him with a deliberate, slow pace. He
moans, wanton and loud, and bites his lip hard.
"More," he gasps, arching his back, rolling his hips, giving Hannibal the show
he wants to experience as he watches the one he'd been surprised with. Hands
settle on Will’s hips and work to push him down harder, pulling helpless, loud
whimpers from him.
Beyond, the man’s struggles have ebbed, slowed to near nothing, and yet Will
does not release him when he fully stills. He holds, the strain evident in his
arms, fingers white where the belt is looped tight enough to cut off
circulation.
"Clever boy," Hannibal purrs, voice rough, low, and he moves to stroke Will
again, faster now. The sound Will makes is guttural.
The man’s hands fall from where they clutched desperately against the belt, and
a sudden tremor jerks his limbs in hideous shudders. Will tugs the belt again
as though to ensure it can go no tighter, and watches wide-eyed as the spasms
shake violently through the man that moments before had praised him, fucked
him, held him in consolation and manipulation.
No fear in the boy’s eyes, no panic escalating the tempo of his breath. He
watches the death response with fascination, and a coy grin caught in the
corner of his mouth. Will’s tongue appears, to taste the blood dripped there,
and Hannibal groans hard against the boy’s shoulder, squeezing his cock,
digging nails into his hip, driving quick thrusts inside him, not unlike the
spasms ebbing away on the screen.
Hannibal does not slow, stroking Will faster, squeezing harder around the head
of his cock, panting breathless. Finally the boy’s hands loosen from the belt
and he releases it. The man’s face is purple now, distorted in death, and
Will’s grin brightens more.
In Hannibal’s lap, Will whimpers.
It's the quiet after the storm and Will's hands shake with how hard they pulled
that belt, blood slowly returning to his fingers as he flexes them.
He winces when he moves, perhaps the pain hadn’t all been faked, but he pays
that no mind. Just draws his wrist against his lip, cut and swollen and
bleeding.
"Fuck." It's muttered, aimed at nothing and no one. Will slips to the floor and
for a while, disappears from view.
In Hannibal’s lap, Will braces for a strike.
Conditioned.
Practiced.
The camera rolls, focused on the man on the bed, pale and unmoving. Silence in
the room except for the little sounds that flutter free from Will and the
noises of their rough joining and finally the crack of Hannibal’s hand against
Will’s cheek, fingers snaring it as soon as the slap connects.
He grins, a genuine delight rarely seen with such openness before he pulls Will
back against him to kiss him.
“Watch,” Will breathes against his mouth, and Hannibal chases another kiss
before the camera moves.
The boy, lip swollen, face streaked in crimson, but otherwise no worse for the
wear, turns it on himself first. Amusement in his grin before he turns the
camera away, to bring it closer to the bed. A slow pan, from the man’s feet, up
his rumpled pants and across his softened cock, still hanging from his fly.
Stomach, chest, and finally, it hovers over the man’s face.
The color lingers, no pressure of circulation to move the blood back to where
it belongs, his skin livid purple-red and eyes still wide. Lightless, flattened
now, they stare empty up into the camera whose angle shifts suddenly to the
side of his face instead.
Will holds the camera across from himself, the man’s face between the lens and
himself, and grins as he murmurs, mocking, “Wrap your pretty lips around that.”
Hannibal draws a breath, holds it and feels his body give way to release,
buried deep in the squirming boy in his lap as the one on screen presses a
lingering, moaning kiss to the man’s open mouth.
It’s obscene, filthy, and Will forces himself to hold out, hold back, until the
camera is turned away, fumbled to turn off, the screen freezing on a blur. Then
he allows himself to cum, a blissful release of delicious building tension.
For a moment longer, they stay still, before Hannibal guides Will off him, and
turns him so they're facing each other. Half-dressed and sated. Will’s arm
snakes out to pull Hannibal close, blood still humming with adrenaline,
reliving that kill, Hannibal’s pleasure in it.
It's lingering, languid, mouths soft against each other as hands seek to just
touch, Will’s draped over Hannibal’s shoulders, Hannibal’s splayed hot and wide
just under Will’s shirt over his stomach and sides.
"Remarkable boy," he murmurs, brushing his lips over the red mark on Will’s
face that he had just a moment before brutally left on him.
"I learned," Will softly murmurs. "I practiced..."
"But extraordinary even then," Hannibal remarks, a compliment given in earnest,
without barbs beneath it. "A prodigy." He smiles faintly at this, charmed by
the idea of it, by Will as concept as much as Will incarnate.
He glides his hands along Will's back to keep him close, lying lengthwise along
the couch with Will held close atop him. No mind now for the anger that begged
him to tear himself and the boy - the only outlet close at hand - seam from
seam. No mind for the maddening need to reclaim the boy as his.
A quiet fascination. An awe.
Hannibal teases Will's hair back out of his face, and traces the red lines left
by his hand to follow the curves of Will's lips.
"We will go together," Hannibal decides. "When it is time, so that I may see
what your transformations have yielded." He guides the boy lower, mouths
meeting warmly. "To kiss the blood from your skin, and feel the racing of your
heart."
Will smiles against it, having earned that, the leniency, the words, the
request itself. He bites his lip gently, pulls back.
"Take me with you, next time,” he murmurs. "Let me watch you promise them the
world."
It's teasing, warm, joking and somehow still commanding. Will stretches languid
and long over Hannibal’s body and then settles, cheek against his shirt as his
fingers work to languidly divest him of it.
"And to dinner. Take me to dinner again."
He grins, lifts his face to see.
"Please."
Hannibal relaxes beneath the nuzzling, the warmth, the unusual tenderness
between them drawn from full and open awareness of their shared violence. He
watches the boy's fingers work his shirt open and shifts out of it, tugging a
hand through Will's hair to pull him back against his chest.
"I will consider dinner," he murmurs into the boy's curls, "if you agree to
wear something less offensive than that threadbare sweater."
Will hums, pleased, lips still soft and damp against Hannibal's chest, warm
hair brushing Will’s skin before he pushes himself up.
"You may dress me, Hannibal, in anything you wish that polite society can
accept,” he grins. "Make me a lordling, Dr Lecter."
Hannibal hums, considers the boy’s other request, eyes closed to remember the
curious interest that grabbed the boy when he watched the man shudder into
silence beneath his hands.
"How would you feel, Will, watching me seduce and dismantle a boy so similar to
yourself?" Hannibal wonders, keeping his pleasure at the thought far from his
voice. Trained to neutrality, distance, even as Will presses languid kisses to
his chest. "In truth none compare," he admits, "but there is a risk. Emotions
can flare unexpectedly."
Will makes no comment. Dismantling would hardly prove frightful but the
seducing... his chest tightens a little at the thought.
"Perhaps we can fuck your toy together,” he whispers, smile dark, coy, hiding
behind it the first beginnings of cool worry.
A brisk slap for the swear, more for surprise than pain, catches Will across
the cheek. Hannibal eases back again, curls that same hand through the boy's
hair to draw him near.
"Perhaps," Hannibal allows. "Would you enjoy that as much as I enjoyed watching
you, Will? Another boy beneath me, my fingers at his throat?"
Will makes no answer, he knows his lie will be read too easily from him.
Instead he presses himself closer, insinuates himself in the heavy embrace of
the man beneath him and parts Hannibal’s lips with his own when he kisses him.
Perhaps he would enjoy it. Watching a life end for him instead of his own.
Outliving.
Surviving.
As he has done all his life, by choice.
Or perhaps he would kill the kid himself. Break a pattern. Start anew.
Pretend that his entire being isn’t tensing at the thought of Hannibal’s
attention elsewhere, and potentially dying with the boy he will bring home that
night.
"A beautiful gift," Hannibal finally acknowledges. The video, the boy's skill,
Will himself. All breathtaking in their cruelty, all profound sources of a
primal satisfaction. "I look forward to sharing such generosity in return."
Hannibal wonders, quiet and content in doing so, if perhaps there will come a
day when Will's talent exceeds his own. When it's finally time to break the
stalemate, and he finds himself matched - outmatched, even - by one whose
natural skill he helped to hone into a thing of brutal beauty.
A fitting way to go, he decides, and the poetry of it pleases him.
He seems content to remain there, pinned beneath the weight of the boy above
him, tracing the ridges of his spine through his sweater, counting vertebrae
with clever fingers until they, too, grow heavy with sleep.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Summary
     "How did you come to know our esteemed doctor?" the woman asks, her
     eyes eating Will, devouring him, now that an acquaintance, a new
     target is in her sights to get her to quite the same desired end.
     "Oh I begged," Will grins, "to be allowed to meet him."
     Hannibal takes Will to a dinner party. Will's pride gets the better
     of him.
     WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: graphic violence, implied torture,
     cruelty, physical abuse, mental abuse, blood.
Chapter Notes
     Ooof ok this chapter is a bit rough, we are warning you. But. It's
     very important for character development (a little voice inside my
     head screams THIS WAS MEANT TO BE A BACKGROUND SMUT FIC NOT A 20-
     CHAPTER EPIC WITH A CHARACTER ARC) and in the end there is
     gentleness.
     But Will does fuck up. Really badly. Idiot boy.
Hannibal took the measurements himself.
He insisted to Will that he strip down to his shorts for it, utterly detached
from the process of wrapping the tape around Will’s skinny limbs. He had
remained just as distanced when he decided that to measure the boy’s inseam,
the shorts had to go as well, kneeling at Will’s feet to press the cool plastic
to his thighs, both sides, trailing fingernails along his bare skin as he did
so.
It was only when he took the tape to Will’s neck, jotting down the measurement
and then tightening it further and further until Will relinquished a gasping
moan that he took his fill of him.
The suit appeared several days later, from a very particular and difficult to
commission bespoke tailor.
“A cocktail party,” Hannibal informs him. “Colleagues, and various self-
proclaimed intelligentsia and socialites. Predominantly the usual mess of
attention-seeking.” He offers the suit to Will, still wrapped from the tailor,
with an unreadable smile curving his lips. “I imagine your presence will make a
much more lively evening, for myself at least, if no one else.”
Will takes the suit, genuinely pleased with the gift, with the way the heavy
fabric feels even through the bag. He doesn’t leave to dress, no point in the
pretentious show of modesty, not after all they’ve shared already.
He dresses, though, with a surprising amount of care, considering how Will
treats the rest of his clothes.
The suit is dark, but grey, not black, with pinstripes just darker than the
fabric itself, enough detail to appear detailed, not enough to appear gaudy.
It fits Will perfectly, as planned, and he turns side on, eyes down to the way
the pants sit snug against his slim hips, as he carefully buttons his shirt.
His hair falls into his face, longer, now than when he had first met Hannibal.
He hasn’t cut it. He wonders if it bothers Hannibal.
In the end, all that’s left is the tie, one he is prepared for Hannibal to
choose, considering his own lack of selection, and Will stands patiently in
front of him, dressed for the nines, his collar up, and waits.
Hannibal adjusts his own tie, brows drawing in as he studies his own
reflection, a three piece of pristine black with a dark crimson shirt beneath
it, far more reserved than his usual flourishes of checks and plaids. He seems
satisfied enough, and finally turns to take in Will.
A deep breath drawn slowly at the sight of him, scrutinizing the lay of fabric
first and then taking in the whole. Tasteful, Hannibal lauds himself silently,
an elegant simplicity that highlights the wild youth of the boy within it,
tousled hair and flushed cheeks and curious blue eyes.
“Striking,” remarks Hannibal, letting his gaze linger a moment more as a smile
catches the corner of Will’s mouth. “Silver, I think.”
A moment’s search yields the tie - pale grey, a slight sheen to the silk
without appearing flashy, an accent rather than a statement. He surrounds Will
from behind, watching him in the mirror as he settles the tie against his
collar and draws it into an intricate knot. Brushing a thumb against his jaw,
Hannibal delights in the moment, tying a tie for a boy too young to even drink,
to bring him to a cocktail party and quietly scandalize the upper echelons of
Baltimore’s high society.
“I would recommend avoiding the bourbon,” Hannibal murmurs against his ear.
Will smiles, enjoying his own reflection, enjoying how he looks beside
Hannibal. Both beautiful, untouchable. Like statues brought to life for a
night. His smile widens.
“I can hold my own,” he purrs, eyes to Hannibal’s in the mirror, he doesn’t
turn. “With your high class society, without the aid of alcohol.”
He draws his hands down his suit, for once entirely innocent in the gesture,
just to see and feel and experience the richness of the fabric, the way it
accentuates his skin tone, brings out the gray beneath the blue in his eyes.
He feels, for the first time, genuinely worthy of something.
He bites his lip.
“If only they knew,” he murmurs, almost mournful, “the things we did, the
things we do.”
Hannibal smoothes the tie beneath Will’s coat and turns down his collar,
careful fingers moving precisely over the fold in the fabric.
“That is the joy of the experience,” Hannibal responds softly. “To move amongst
them, as though we were a part of that world rather than our own, and know that
they cannot smell the blood on our hands, see it in our smiles.”
A hand lingers against the boy’s throat, and he catches Will gently by the jaw
to turn their mouths together.
“Wolves amongst sheep too placid to feel predators in their midst,” he breathes
when they part. “A quiet sense of power.”
He thinks of Zeus and of Ganymede, and how delightful it will be to snare the
boy in his talons and drag him home to reclaim him once the night is through -
this remarkable boy who wears blood and gore as beautifully as he does bespoke
garments.
“You will hold your own, then,” Hannibal finally agrees, with no more emphasis
than that. “Come. It would be untoward for us to appear later than fashionably
necessary.”
-
Will is amused to recognize the hotel in which the party is being held. A grand
lobby rendered in rich colors, golds and scarlets, plush couches and carpets
set against glossy Travertine tile. He’s been here before, once, when on a whim
he decided against turning towards the rough end of town as he normally might.
Plied with expensive drinks at the bar, he had made short work of the visiting
businessman, old enough to be his grandfather, who had grunted and sweat atop
him in the expensive bed before meeting an untimely end at the loop of his own
belt.
It had been filed as an accidental death by autoerotic asphyxiation.
Funny what those stiff and staid business types get into when they leave home.
They’ve scarcely made their way into the private room, less luminous than the
lobby but still exquisitely appointed, before Hannibal is snared lightly by the
arm to be drawn into a series of cheek-kisses with an excitable woman eager to
lay praise on him for a recently published piece.
Will listens, watches. Takes in all the information he can from simply looking.
The woman is a fan but not a friend. She had wanted, at one point, perhaps
still wants now, to be much more. But not for Hannibal’s work, not for his
prestige; for his money. Will grins. For sex.
When Hannibal introduces them - Will misses her name - he is the epitome of a
high-born gentleman. Will’s ability to utterly charm is one of the reasons
Hannibal allows him to live, one of the reasons Will has survived so well on
his own.
"How did you come to know our esteemed doctor?" the woman asks, her eyes eating
Will, devouring him, now that an acquaintance, a new target is in her sights to
get her to quite the same desired end.
"Oh I begged," Will grins, "to be allowed to meet him. My thesis last year
followed his work on social exclusion theory. He is the forerunner in his
field."
He ducks his head in amusement, gives Hannibal a coy smile.
"Dr. Lecter has been incredibly generous in his teaching."
It was a risky maneuver to not discuss a story of their acquaintanceship before
they entered, but Hannibal is pleased by the result of his gamble. There was a
potential for Will to freeze on the first interaction, nerves snaring him into
stammering or silence or slips of the tongue, of course. He is young and out of
his element.
That much more satisfying, then, when he adapts so readily, and Hannibal’s
growing trust in the boy pays off. He’d never even mentioned his paper on
evolutionary exclusion theory to him - Will must have been researching him on
his own time.
Clever boy.
“Are you considering teaching, doctor?” asks the woman brightly. “There must be
so many students who could benefit from your knowledge.”
Hannibal affects a cheery smile, brief. “Unfortunately, not at this time. A
mentorship, for now, since Mr. Graham has proven himself thus far to be quite
capable.”
He yields the same smile to Will, but is careful to manage their shared body
language. Not angling too much towards him, keeping the same distance between
the boy and himself as he does with others.
“He should meet Professor Barnes,” she exclaims, and as Hannibal draws a breath
she snares Will’s arm, and rests a hand on Hannibal’s. “You make your rounds,
doctor - I’ll take this one off your hands.”
A gentle tease, met with a polite nod. “Of course, Marie - I’m certain he’ll
enjoy the company.”
Hannibal glances past her, a long look to Will as he’s pulled away - desire and
annoyance mingling at once, when all Hannibal truly desires is to watch Will
cavort so elegantly among the livestock until it’s time to leave, to peel free
the beautiful trappings and bare the monster beneath.
He snares a glass of wine from a passing server, and swallows the feeling down
with a sip of moderately tasteful merlot.
Will’s eyes linger on Hannibal wherever he is pulled. He turns his head and
catches sight, the utterly beautiful silhouette of him, glass in hand,
entertaining. Will himself finds his company sought, once he passes whatever
test Marie seems to think her company is worthy of.
She asks him mindless questions, goads for a truth Will never gives, instead
skirts just to watch her worry and try to push again. In the end, Will finds
himself with a glass of wine of his own, and meeting professor Barnes, who
turns out to be a very learned and interesting man.
For a while, Will loses himself genuinely in discussion, an in-depth talk of
the empathy gap and the lack of study in that field. A small group of people
join them, gather to listen, to contribute, to coax Will’s attention with
different topics and more wine.
One man catches his eye. Not a professor, but one smart enough to emulate. He’s
a hunter, but nothing near as dangerous as what Will or Hannibal are. But his
eyes strip Will slowly, peel back every layer of clothing before stroking the
skin.
Will never approaches him, does little more than bite his lip, just once, for
the man to see. He finds Hannibal on the other side of the room, engrossed,
similarly, in conversation, and peels himself from Marie's clinging grasp to
join him.
"I've been here," Will murmurs low, as he stands close to Hannibal and smiles
as the person he had previously engaged in discussion leaves politely to allow
them space.
"Though last time the company was far from this coherent, clever discussion."
He sips his wine, cheeks already warm, eyes bright. He wants nothing more than
to pull Hannibal against him, kiss him deep and allow his new suit to acquaint
itself with the floor.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asks, smile teasing, wicked. “Sir?"
Hannibal makes a small sound, somewhere between warning and amusement, and lets
his eyes linger on Will for as long as he can reasonably get away with it. That
exquisite color has bloomed across the charming boy's cheeks again, the twist
of his smile clever - sly, even.
“I am enjoying watching you - in your carriage and comportment. And you,
simply,” replies Hannibal, voice low enough not to carry, careful to keep the
unspoken language between them at a casual distance. “You seem to be making
quite an impression.”
He is pleased by this, profoundly, and he allows it to show in his tone, in the
soft smile that appears. The conversations into which Hannibal had circulated
were easy enough to manage while distracted by the sight of the boy, pulled
from one conversation to the next, fawned over and flirted with and fed
suggestions to tell more about Hannibal. He’d heard them in passing, heard the
easy laugh that dismissed so much of it, and entertained himself in his own
conversations by imagining how blood would color the dark grey of the boy’s
suit, licked from clever fingers as it dripped fresh down his skin.
He clears his throat, voice quieting. “When you were here before, Will - how
would you describe your evening?”
Will watches Hannibal for longer, lets his attentions drift down the angles of
his face and the lines of his body, voice low. “Older than you, by a great
deal. Could hardly keep it up between that and the alcohol,” he responds and
Hannibal’s brow raises only barely. The boy’s voice is scarcely audible as he
adds, terribly pleased with himself, “He was still inside me when I ended it.”
Hannibal hides the widening of his smile behind his glass. Will grins openly.
It’s caught by more than Hannibal, however, as the lesser hunter in their midst
circles nearby. Orbiting around conversations close enough to Will without
drawing near yet, especially now as he notices the proximity of Hannibal. A
cursory look between them yields little information, and he holds Will’s eyes
for a moment.
A nod, barely perceptible, in the direction of the bathroom.
Enough that Will sees it, and presses his thumb to his teeth before feigning
coyness to look away.
Enough that Hannibal sees it from his peripheral, and the warm amusement
between them cools to a tangible chill.
“Are you making new friends, Will?”
"I am holding my own," Will replies softly, very aware of the attention, of the
way Hannibal responds to it.
He lets his eyes scan the room a moment, smiles at those he has already met.
It's a covering, another veil of distance before his eyes return to the man
watching him, slide over his form and look just to the side of him.
"If you'll excuse me, doctor.” This loud enough to be caught by passing curious
ears, another cover, another veil, before Will smiles genuinely at Hannibal and
passes him on his way to the bathroom.
It's a believable enough excuse, with wine flowing freely as it is, and in
truth, Will is curious to see what Hannibal will do. Neither can hunt here, too
close to Hannibal’s own life to risk it for him, too affluent for Will, the
outsider, the unknown and watched entity.
But beyond the hunt there are simple human pleasures.
Will is scarcely in the bathroom when he hears the door open again, smiling to
himself at the man’s tenacity and blatant desire, he turns, but finds, instead,
a familiar face, familiar hands softly turning the lock on the door.
Will feels adrenaline spike in his blood, cool and comfortable, and swallows.
There is an instant of surprise before Will smiles easily, and that moment of
hesitation is enough. Hannibal returns the smile, mirthless, and steps closer.
He seems larger, looming, and does not reach for Will.
"I apologize," he offers, entirely disingenuous. "You seem to have been waiting
for someone else."
Hannibal allows his pulse to move a little faster now. He presses a hand to the
wall beside Will's head, leaning near enough now to breathe him in. Soap and
wine and expensive fabric and sudden nervousness, rising sinuous through the
other scents.
"Since you seem to be eminently capable of holding your own," Hannibal suggests
softly, "perhaps I should leave you to your new acquaintance then. Is that what
you would prefer, Will?"
Fingers twine around Will's tie, tugging firmly, hard enough to earn a gasp.
Will swallows, both pleased and very slightly worried of what this means or
could. He smiles regardless, eyes down to the tie tether before coming up to
look at Hannibal.
"You could both stay," he whispers, the suggestion suddenly humming through his
blood with deep excitement. "Touch and bend and fuck me. "
He knows Hannibal can't strike him here, not in a place people would ask
questions. He licks his lips.
"I want you to fuck me. He can suck."
A cthonic note of disapproval, more felt than heard, rumbling low against
Will's skin when Hannibal ducks his head to press it to Will's temple. It might
be an affectionate nuzzle in the right mood, but here, like this, it is
animalistic, threatening and possessive.
"I do not share well with others," Hannibal intones. "Especially when I have
brought you here, in trust and perhaps in foolishness, with the expectation
that you may be able to behave reasonably for a single evening."
He kisses Will's cheek, a mockery of sweetness, and presses his body against
him, smothering him against the wall.
"But by all means. Bring him here and see what comes of it. You've managed to
be so charming but it may be that you've exhausted your reserves of it."
A tug on the door rattles against the lock, and Hannibal's brows lift ever so
slightly.
"Your guest has arrived. I should take my leave then, since he would provide as
much to you as I do, it seems."
Will swallows, the tension from the words vibrating through his skin, down to
his bones. He has seen Hannibal dangerous, he has been at his mercy trying to
breathe, but he has never been as frightening as when he had held Will down and
showed him complete indifference.
This comes close.
He steps close and kisses Hannibal instead, deep and hard and long enough to
make it hard to breathe before pulling back.
“Six,” he breathes, eyes down to watch Hannibal’s lips part and gently settle
again. “Six people have charmingly, softly, gently propositioned me this
evening,”
He licks his lips and glances up.
“What a feast that would make.”
The door rattles again, a mild impatience, and Will keeps his eyes on Hannibal.
“Who is he?” he asks gently. “Would he be missed?”
“It matters not,” Hannibal informs him, curt. “I am not here to procure.
Everyone who is here is someone, noted and accounted for in their attendance.”
He loosens his grip on Will’s tie. Slides it back in place. Smooths it with a
hand, and with that same hand catches Will by the hair and pulls, tilting his
neck to curve and bare it.
“Everyone except for you,” he reminds the boy in warning. “By all means, Will,
continue your games if what I offer you is so insufficient. But know that not a
single one of those six or any others would ask after you were you to take a
leave of absence from your studies with me, and not return.”
Hannibal releases him with a light shake, watches as color floods his cheeks
and flushes his parted lips. He kisses him softly, chasing his lips with his
thumb, pressing it against Will’s mouth to move it out of shape and trace along
his teeth before he finally withdraws.
“You will pay penance for your mouth,” Will is informed, as Hannibal lingers in
the mirror to ensure he’s arranged. “It is entirely up to you how much more you
would care to acquire.”
Will swallows, thick, and watches Hannibal put himself back together to the
pristine man who had entered the bathroom with him.
“Fucken thought I might,” he murmurs, watches dark eyes slide to him before
Hannibal blinks and turns to leave, unlocking the door and apologising
profusely to the man who had waited.
It’s not the one Will had hoped to meet in here initially.
He washes his hands, and takes the necessary time for the blush in his cheeks
to subside, for thoughts of mundane things - his studies, paperwork, the idea
of working at the FBI for the rest of his life - to ease his erection before
following Hannibal out.
He finds the man deep in conversation with Marie and another woman Will has yet
to meet, and moves to join them, smiling and politely taking up another glass
from a passing waiter. He’s lost count of how many he’s had not because he
feels particularly light-headed but because he honestly doesn’t care.
“Will!”
Hannibal hides the smile at having Will addressed so informally by the woman.
Will doesn’t bother.
“Our doctor won’t come clean to me about his next thesis. I’ve been hounding
him all evening and barely managed to corner him again. Will you shed some
light?”
Will’s eyes flick to Hannibal a moment and he keeps up his easy smile, ducks
his head with a soft laugh and tilts it when he raises his eyes again.
“Our doctor is not known for coming clean, Marie,” he replies, bringing the
glass to his lips to take a sip. “He is far from the word with his personal
work. I’m afraid the only light I can shed is that he will work me into the
ground throughout.”
Hannibal’s expression remains one of placid amusement, without sparing more
than a polite look to the insolent boy and the fresh glass of wine in his hand.
Marie, however, laughs lightly and rests her hand on Will’s arm again. “You
poor thing,” she chuckles. “I imagine our dear doctor can be quite strict at
times.”
She receives Hannibal’s passing smile next. “It is in my exacting standards
that my best work is completed,” he acknowledges genially. “In truth, I am
working with a particularly difficult subject. One that persistently defies my
expectations, no matter the degree to which I adjust them. It is trying work,
but I feel as though I will be most satisfied with the results when it is at an
end.”
“Personally, I find a subject defying expectations to be fascinating,” Will
interjects, smiling at the woman clinging to him, offering a small smile to the
one just watching him for the moment, with beautiful green eyes.
“It makes for a much more interesting study. Adjusting theories to fit the new
parameters. It’s creating an entirely new branch within a field previously
studied. It’s pioneering a new idea.”
He licks his lips and brings a hand up to run through his hair, as though
utterly excited by what he’s saying, engrossed in the conversation and not the
feeling of Hannibal’s gaze burning through him.
“I agree,” the new woman says, her voice soft, carefully controlled. “You have
always been one for bringing unpredictable theories to order, Hannibal, it is
in your nature to seek out the uncontrollable and tame it. It’s what makes your
work so interesting.”
Will bites the inside of his lip, delighted. The woman continues.
“And the mind is an endless thing to explore. I do hope, though, that you allow
your mentee some rest throughout. He is only young.”
She lets her attention linger a moment more on Will, much closer to his age
than Hannibal’s, a hint of a smile shared with him.
“Left to his own devices, he would only rest,” Hannibal muses lightly. “I
assure you, I only work him to the degree that he requires it. A certain
discipline is required for one to make the most of these opportunities, as you
well know.”
She tilts her head, bemused, as Hannibal makes a small but gregarious motion
between them.
“Will, I don’t believe that you have met Doctor Bloom. A particularly astute
psychiatrist turned professor, and - I am honored to say - a former protege of
mine.” He meets Will’s eyes evenly, unreadable. “Doctor Bloom, Will Graham, who
is currently assisting me in the ongoing study, much discussed.”
Will turns, brows just barely raised in surprise, and takes Dr. Bloom’s hand
when she offers it.
“Certainly a pleasure and an honor, Dr. Bloom,” he says, for a change this
evening meaning every word. “It would be very enlightening to get your
perspective on how Dr. Lecter works, when you have the time, of course, and at
the appropriate opportunity.”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Bloom smiles. “Another time. Once Hannibal has given you leave
from your work. He never does push harder than is needed.”
A very slight tension enters Will’s smile but his eyes remain wide and pleased,
and after a moment he ducks his head on a laugh.
“I will defer to your judgement, Dr. Bloom. Another time.” He takes her hand
again, brings it to his lips for a bare-brush that brings color to her cheeks
and a gentle part to her lips and smiles.
“Perhaps I can convince him to invite you to dinner.”
“Alana is fine,” she insists gently, smiling still as she turns her attention
back to the older man, observing the interactions with an absolute calm.
“Hannibal and I have shared many dinners, although I was never quite the sous
chef I’m sure he would have preferred,” she acknowledges, amused. “Perhaps once
your work is at an end. I know how trying these things can be.”
Hannibal seems entirely too pleased with her response, turning a genuine smile
to her.
“And you are always welcome,” he adds, with a lift of his glass, the same he’s
had all night, Will notes. “But before I begin planning a menu at Mr. Graham’s
behest, I’m afraid I must take my leave. He’s due back for an early morning
tomorrow, and I would be loathe to deny him a further learning opportunity,
although tonight has certainly provided one.”
Alana’s formality breaks with a gentle embrace that Hannibal readily returns.
“It is wonderful, always, to see you, Doctor Bloom. We’ll speak soon, perhaps
over coffee. Marie - a pleasure, as ever.”
Will watches the way Marie envies the embrace, how she shifts her body
language, perhaps, to receive one as well and gets but a nod instead. He takes
his leave just as politely, taking hands, ducking his head, setting his glass
on the tray of a waiter collecting them, and turns to follow Hannibal out.
He can feel the tension slip from the man, like ice or snow off a mountain top.
It hits him and tugs at his bones. He remembers, again, the cool warning that
Will would pay for his words, and wonders if he’ll be able to leave the
apartment for more than a few moments after taking his penance without someone
worrying about calling the police.
He’s had worse days.
“A beautiful protege,” Will says, once they’re outside, nearing the car. “You
really are a man who collects art.”
There is nothing to be read in Hannibal’s gaze as it meets Will’s over the top
of the Bentley. A void, cold and black.
“She is also capable, collected, and intensely clever,” Hannibal intones.
“Would that I could find another such as her.”
He enters the car and, in a change from every other time, he does not open
Will’s door for him. An echo of the rudeness he’s been dealt throughout the
night, taking no pleasure in the sight of the boy as he settles into his seat,
and so finding it remarkably easy to avoid watching his slouch, the press of
his thumb against his teeth, his narrowed eyes.
“Kokoretsi,” Hannibal suggests.
Frustration surpassing the impotence of the context now, escalating rapidly in
storm-driven waves of a midnight sea, black and driving fury flowing faster
against the shore of his voice.
“Sweetbreads, lungs, liver, kidneys, wrapped in intestines - typically a
suckling lamb, but no matter. Only simple seasonings are required if the meat
is fresh enough,” he continues, almost conversational now despite the
burgeoning darkness. “Salt, olive oil, oregano. Skewered over an open flame,
served with vine tomatoes and peppers.”
In truth, it thrills him, this pushing, swelling sensation that tears at his
seams. Remarkably similar to how he felt sharing bourbon with the boy a week
before, laughing at things no one else could hope to understand, pulling at his
chest in much the same way. It matters less what is felt - affection or anger,
delight or destruction - but rather that with this boy, this infuriating boy,
he feels it all so acutely.
Utterly unwilling, tonight, to let it ease away.
A slight smile that brings no light to his eyes.
“Greek seems fitting.”
Will turns to him, hand slipping from his mouth, eyes narrowing further before
he raises an eyebrow.
“You're planning to cook me?” It sounds so ridiculous, voiced, that he actually
laughs, a bitter, angry sound.
“The minute it’s done you will regret it,” he tells him, but it’s not a threat.
He’s not stupid enough to threaten the man, simply stupid enough to dig his own
grave with his words and assumptions.
“Boredom will overtake you again, like it had before I came and pushed it
aside. What will you go back to, Hannibal?” he asks. “Hiring whatever you can
find for a quick fuck and an easy dinner? Go to your social events alone and
eventually succumb to Marie’s desperate desire to see you in bed with her?”
He scoffs, turns back to the window, brings a foot up to rest against the seat.
“I suppose it would be a fitting punishment, for you,” he mutters. “Boredom.”
Hannibal’s fingers tense against the wheel.
“Giouvetsi,” Hannibal responds. Notably, he does not reach out to strike Will’s
leg, to remove his foot from the seat. He lets it linger, affecting a
comfortable disinterest in correcting him any further.
“A stew of lamb involving shallots, garlic, red wine and stock. Cooked for many
hours, and served over egg noodles. The key is the tomato sauce in which the
meat cooks. Adding cinnamon at the right point will fully illuminate the
flavors.”
He does not respond to the boy’s threats, his taunts, his goading words digging
at Hannibal for a reaction - any reaction. To scold Will for acting like every
other spoiled rent boy - when they both know him to be so far from it - would
be to yield the game.
Hannibal remains unmoved.
“I would need to purchase more feta.”
“What an obscene fucken incovenience for you,” Will mutters, not looking over.
He finds he feels utterly no threat at the words, no fear that he will be made
into a dish so exquisite he can’t even pronounce it. In a way, it’s a strangely
pleasing thought, that he will become something other than himself, something
that can please and indulge and present itself after Will as an entity goes
away.
He swallows.
What he does feel threatened by instead is the lack of response to him putting
his feet on the seat, the lack of chastisement for his words, now that they are
safe enough away from the public eye for it to not be an issue of holding back.
He refuses to panic over it. He thinks back to the day he had told Hannibal a
man had tried to make him cry, how hard Hannibal had worked to do the same, and
how quickly he had managed. He feels the same lump in his throat now, the same
fear he had felt then.

Unimportant.
Unnecessary.

He thinks of how he had met expectations, exceeded them, how Hannibal had
lavished attention on him for it, how he had taken time...
Abandonment requires expectation, Will thinks.
The ride is executed in silence, a barren space between them pressing distance
despite their relative nearness. He is not lectured, punished, or reprimanded
for the duration, and only as the car settles into the garage, and the door
shuts behind it, does Hannibal speak again.
“Youare becoming an inconvenience.”
He exits the car without explanation as to why they’ve arrived here, and not
Will’s apartment. Not the corner where he was found, although Hannibal
certainly entertained dropping him off there, to find after he’d give the boy
several days to consider the error of his ways.
But Hannibal’s blood burns beneath his skin, crawling over his nerves like
insects, and he can hardly restrain it enough to carry himself into the house
and remove his coat without letting it show.
Will snorts, he can’t help it. Even his father had never chastised him so
weakly, and yet beneath it all he feels that power, that terrifying force he
has felt crash against him like a tide before. He gives it a few seconds before
getting out of the car to follow Hannibal, closing the door quietly behind
himself.
The suit feels constricting now, when he tries to gather his breath and not
worry about it splitting him at the seams. He brings up a hand to undo the tie,
careful with the knot, though his eyes are out of focus elsewhere. He lets the
loose fabric rest around his neck, still, as he undoes the top two buttons of
his shirt and rolls his neck.
“Only a convenience when you fuck me, right?” he offers, and it’s just as weak
as Hannibal’s words had been before. Will shrugs, moves to the stairs to get to
Hannibal’s room.
Hannibal has him by the throat before Will hears him move, footsteps silent
against the carpet and his speed unnatural.
"Dear Will," he speaks against his ear, a tone of disappointment but little
more to be found in it. "I gave you an opportunity tonight. Many of them, in
fact, but one in particular."
His hand tightens as his other arm snatches the boy around the waist, hoisting
him easily. Will's cry is silenced into a rough choking sound. He kicks his
feet behind him, seeking contact with Hannibal's legs. A desperate gesture,
flailing and without momentum, that even when his heel contacts Hannibal's
shin, there is no response.
"Do you remember, Will? When I told you that the night was yours to make of it
what you will?"
Will's toes drag along the floor as Hannibal carries him backwards through the
kitchen. He lingers in front of the basement door, sets Will down enough to
lean into him, to press him between the cellar door and his own body as he
snares the handle.
Will sets his hands against the door and he shoves back, another desperate
struggle to push the man off him so he can scramble away. He ducks his head and
brings it up quickly, seeking to strike Hannibal behind him, stun him, get
away.
He finds his motion predicted and his own head struck against the door, hard
enough for him to see stars but not enough to knock him out.
Will makes a soft sound of pain and resumes his twisting, wriggling, writhing
to get away. Before him, the door gives, and he finds his feet off the floor
again as he’s shoved through, the door snapping closed heavily behind them.
It’s dark, here, but Hannibal seems to know the room intimately, finds no
hindrance in the lack of light, and Will feels himself start to panic.
He’s not been in here before, knows it’s where the wine is kept but hardly has
time to survey the small room before he’s grabbed by the throat again and by
the hair as well this time, and dragged backwards past the waiting bottles.
Quick hands lash out for purchase and manage to topple a few bottles from their
racks. Several break, a cacophony of glass and liquid against a hard tile
floor, and Hannibal pauses only long enough to tighten his grip before he drags
Will through another door and down the stairs.
“Ungrateful,” comes the accusation, a low snarl as he descends into the
darkness of the sub-cellar - a basement beneath where he stores the wine.
Will’s feet scramble uselessly against the steps and he tries to cough but
there’s not enough room in the compression of his trachea to allow it and he
chokes down whatever air he can instead.
The temperature here grows noticeably colder as the stairs stop and a polished
cement floor comes up roughly beneath Will instead. The air is damp. Acrid,
even, with an undercurrent of chemicals.
“Conceited.”
Hannibal jerks his elbow against a light switch on the way past it.
The sound of humming, Will now sees, is from freezers. More than one person
should need, a stark sight in memory of Hannibal’s conversation in the car
earlier. Tools better suited to a machine shop - saws of all varieties, table
and band and circular, sundry power tools hung neatly from the wall.
“Careless.”
Will tries to swallow, finds that impossible as well, and ends up making a
strange little sound between pain and panic. He has one hand snared against
Hannibal’s where he holds his hair, digging nails hard against the skin, the
other tries to pry his fingers from his throat to breathe, just as unsuccessful
there.
Had he truly signed his own death warrant? Had his rudeness really been enough
to bring him down here?
He forces his heart still, forces his mind to slow but despite everything, he
is utterly, childishly terrified of what is about to happen to him.
When Hannibal finally drops him, it’s harsh, winds him against the freezing
floor, and Will scrambles up on all fours and back until his back hits a wall
and he presses against it, panting, feeling his lungs burn, his throat throb
with the pressure it had been under.
Everything hurts, he can see black spots in his vision, and he can’t take his
eyes off the man in front of him.
Hannibal’s eyes are shadowed beneath his hair, fallen free from where it was so
neatly staid throughout the evening, but Will knows he’s being watched. Him,
and no one else, a variation on a theme from throughout the evening.
He works his tie loose and holds it in his hands, beside a table glistening
silver. Something one might see at a slaughterhouse.
Or a morgue.
“We might have come back without incident, taken to bed together with no more
concern than how wonderfully your suit fit you. How beautifully you moved
through the evening. How sincerely I enjoyed seeing you manoeuvre with a social
grace beyond your years.”
Hannibal ruches his sleeves up to his elbows, his shirt already dishevelled
from dragging the boy through the length of the house.
“Instead, I trusted you to shape the evening into your making. What would suit
you best, and you chose implications. Insinuations. So here we have it, this of
your own choosing.”
Before Will can even get his hands beneath him to push from the floor Hannibal
has him by the hair again, a cruel jerk back to the ground that leaves a few
curled strands ripped free between his fingers. He sits astride Will’s back,
nearly his entire weight on the boy beneath him, and loops the silver tie
around his wrists, clever knots pulled almost too tight.
Will struggles, another helpless animal noise escaping him but no words, no
begging, no pathetic whimpers to stop. He can’t give him that, not when it’s
possibly the last thing he says. He won’t have Hannibal discard him this way
and remember him as a begging, broken thing.
His hands are tied so close there is no give when he moves, uncomfortable but
not enough to cut off circulation to his fingers. He’ll die in one piece at
least.
Will wonders why his mind goes so determinedly to death, here, why he can’t
picture a way out of this, genuine and successful, and why he has never learned
to lie to himself.
He rests his forehead against the floor and closes his eyes tight, lips working
not to say anything, not to make any sound Hannibal can use, can feed off and
relish.
When he’s left still, tied and helpless, Will realizes he’s shaking. And when
he finally parts his lips, his gasp trembles with him.
Hannibal unseats himself from the boy’s back, but remains crouched comfortably
beside him.
Gently, he brushes the back of his fingers against Will’s cheek. Feels him jerk
away from it with more surprise than if he had been struck, and Hannibal sighs.
Regret, in the breath that leaves him before he pulls Will towards him,
bringing him near. He cradles the boy, trembling in his arms for but a moment
before he hoists him over his shoulder.
He’s given leave to stand for only a moment before Hannibal catches his wrists,
bound, and lifts them into the air. Hannibal’s grateful, for the moment, that
Will can do little more than watch him wide-eyed as he makes a few adjustments,
and then tugs against the tie. Tension, holding Will’s arms above his head,
secured to a hook akin to those used for slabs of beef in slaughterhouses.
“My life, Will,” Hannibal finally says, as he walks away from the boy, back
towards the table lit gleaming beneath a harsh halogen light. “That is what you
gambled with tonight. A game for you, perhaps, but not for me.”
A mechanism hums with the push of a button, and Will is stretched just a little
higher, until only his toes press to the cold floor. Hannibal lingers a moment
more, at a smaller table beside, and palms something from it before turning
back to him.
“My reputation with my peers.” He looms nearer again, to hold the boy’s jaw in
his hand and press his thumb across his lips. “My livelihood and what it
affords me.”
Will’s breathing catches, eyes wide and pupils huge with fear as he watches
Hannibal so close, feels the familiar touches against him in this unfamiliar
setting. He can still feel the warmth of him from the moment he had been
allowed to press close. Will swallows, turns his head against the hand while
it’s there, lets his eyes close when Hannibal allows it.
“It’s all a game to them,” Will murmurs. “A show. Your presentation, your
writing, your prestige, your bringing me with you. It’s a game for them. They
see only what they want to see, they don’t see beyond the meaning of the words
given them, Hannibal, they don’t know.”
He swallows again, blinks his eyes open to look at Hannibal in front of him.
He considers, for a moment, apologizing, but it sticks in his throat.
“I was rude,” he concedes instead, soft. “But not to warrant this, surely not
to warrant -”
He swallows again, directs his eyes down. His hands curl in the tie holding him
suspended.
A crack breaks the humming silence, the frantic murmurs, as Hannibal brings his
hand across Will's face.
"One."
His fingers are soft, fingertips tracing the red stripes over the boy's cheek
as Will shudders, eyes wide.
"You are mistaken, Will," Hannibal responds, almost gently. "They see what I
wish them to see, and what I gave you opportunity to come near enough tonight.
It is their inability to see the truth that is the reason I am able to live as
I wish, and you have threatened that. Deliberately. Willfully."
His hand drifts lower from Will's cheek, over the front of his suit, still
clinging beautifully tailored to his frame. The regret is palpable, now,
twisting somewhere closer to mourning, in the way he touches the length of
Will's body as though he never might again.
A glimmer of metal in his hand as he steps closer still, to hold the boy's head
with fingers wrapping around the back of his neck.
"This is a grievance beyond being merely rude," he murmurs against Will's
cheek, lips soft against his skin still hot from the slap. "Although you were,
unbearably. I should have known better, in truth, than to assume you were
capable of care for matters such as this."
The caping knife is cold against Will's neck as it settles to his collar and
with alarmingly little effort, he begins to split the fabric beneath its blade.
Shirt and coat fall free after a few moments, blade carefully angled to make
swift work of the material, and only graze the skin of the boy beneath it.
Will gasps, first from shock that the blade isn’t slicing his skin away with
the suit he wore, and then because the suit is crumpled on the floor like so
many fallen leaves at the end of a season. His breathing grows shallow, his
heart hammers in his ears, and Will closes his eyes to lean into the support
given him, cruel and false as it is.
He feels like his entire body is vibrating, and he makes a small noise against
Hannibal.
“I told them nothing,” he breathes. “You know, you know I said nothing at all
that was true. They can remain ignorant, you can have your life around them and
within and they will still know nothing, Hannibal, please.”
He shakes Will free of his grip to bring the back of his hand across his mouth
again, teeth clenched as he snares him right back again.
"Two."
Hannibal's nails dig into the soft skin of Will's cheeks, drawing him near
enough to kiss but instead pulling Will against his shoulder, hand sliding up
through his hair to hold him near. A mockery of an embrace, a false warmth.
"And your innuendos, Will? Your little jokes and implications were surely not
lost on that company, in particular. What did you imagine would come of it?"
The flat of the blade is cold against Will's stomach, tracing a winding line
across his belly before it finds the waistband of his pants. The material that
sat lovely against his slender hips is cut away, rich fabric tearing until it
slips free of his legs to pool at his feet.
Another quick slap before he pulls Will against his neck again, voice soft
against his ear.
"Or did you simply think yourself smarter than all the rest, failing to
recognize your own insignificance at that particular moment?"
Will sobs, a dry thing, a weak little noise, and closes his eyes against
Hannibal where he’s held.
It hurts him more than he can express, feeling the fabric fall away from his
skin. Something he is no longer worthy of, something he was never worthy of,
just a glistening shell to cover the weakness beneath. The paint peeled away
from all the sins Will has committed, dry and cracked and broken.
Dorian Gray no more.
“I’m sorry.” he says softly. “I thought myself smarter,” he swallows,
“rightfully smarter than most, there. Not you, never you.”
For a moment Hannibal is gentle. Allows it for himself, to simply feel Will
shudder against him. Hardly prey, this, even with the blood on Will's hands - a
terrified boy of seventeen, too clever for his own good, now shaking against
him.
Something twists in Hannibal, snarls tight in his throat and he swallows it
down.
He’ll never learn if Hannibal stays his hand now.
“Rightfully,” Hannibal repeats, after a moment, and he bends the boy back with
a rough hand in his hair to bare his neck.
“You make dangerous presumptions, Will. You assume yourself to be more clever
than most unless they prove themselves otherwise, but you let insinuations fall
from your mouth in front of one of my smartest students, entirely unaware of
who she was.”
Another slap, harder than the last, and a second, counting off two more in
snarled hisses before he pulls away from the boy, to return the knife to the
table.
“You imagine that your importance outweighs that of others, Will.”
A long pause, pushing his sleeves up higher.
“It does not.”
Will makes no answer beyond a long wail of pain, head ducked, teeth grit and
blood dripping in slow, tacky strands from his lips. He has nothing else to
say. Any technique that had kept him alive before this did not hold up around
this man, this professional monster who passed through the world like a god,
revered and admired, and utterly unknown.
Will is nothing near him.
And now nothing to him, either.
He wonders if Hannibal will make him suffer, if he will draw out the pain
before killing him. He wonders if he will take his time with taking his fill of
Will, taking what organs he feels matter.
He remembers the list, at the back of his mind, listed in that calm, beautiful
voice.
Will presses his face against one of his arms, eyes closed tight and head
throbbing in pain. And the next sound he makes is a sob, sticky with the
beginning of tears.
Hannibal gathers the tattered suit from beneath Will’s feet. A thing of beauty
now rent to pieces that he can no longer stand to look upon.
A substitute for the boy in front of him, whose body shakes with the effort of
suppressing tears that already hitch his breath and choke rough in his throat.
The remains of fabric are tossed onto the table against which Hannibal leans,
listening to the boy’s anguish made vocal. He sighs, relieved, at the tears
that threaten to pour over. The storm that must break into downpour before the
clouds can part again.
“Do you remember what I told you, during our first dinner together?”
The basement is silent, but for the hum of freezers filled with boys much like
the one whose soft noises break that buzzing stillness.
“I told you that I had never considered teaching. That there were remarkably
few who I felt could meet my expectations enough to warrant the necessity of
creating space in my life for such a thing.”
Hannibal’s hands tense against the table behind him.
“My expectations were not met tonight, Will.”
“I can do better.” It’s a whine, a sound Will rarely lets escape him, even when
he is in the most pain, scared, broken. He turns his head further into his arm
and feels the wetness against his face when he opens his eyes.
He’s still shaking, hating that he is, that this weakness is coming through
now, when Hannibal has him like this, when he will kill him and never think of
him again. Will thinks of Alana, thinks of how she was genuinely a student of
Hannibal’s, respected and admired and treated as a peer, as an equal.
She had earned that.
Will wonders if he ever could and if it even matters now that he never might.
He sobs again, turns his head further into his arm, smearing blood with tears
against his skin.
Hannibal pushes off the table again, to circle around it. He turns the same
switch as before, that lowers this particular hook enough that Will can find
the ground beneath himself. He is weak, curling onto his knees as Hannibal
lowers the hook still, allowing him to sit on the floor.
“You’ll forgive me,” Hannibal intones softly, “if I am unwilling to risk
another evening such as this, on someone so ill-equipped to handle it.”
He approaches the boy, who does not look to him, and checks that his binds are
secure in the hook with a quick shake. The touch is startlingly gentle as
Hannibal pushes a hand back through Will’s hair, and then the touches - kind or
unkind - withdraw entirely as Hannibal steps away. He studies his knuckles,
sore from backhanding the boy, and looks up only when the boy’s sobs deepen.
“Without progress, I have no patience for teaching,” Hannibal remarks, voice
tightening. “And even less for someone so persistently and willfully
uninterested in learning the lesson in the first place.”
He resists the urge to lift him. To pick the huddled boy from off the floor and
gather him close, to ask if the lesson is perhaps better understood now and
hear the boy sob against him that it is. To free him from his bindings and
carry him to bed, console him from his terror.
Hannibal clears his throat, and turns towards the stairs.
Will swallows, shakes his head, feeling tears and blood flick from his skin,
land on the floor, and brings his knees up to his chest. He hears Hannibal walk
away, hears him set his feet to the stairs and shudders.
“Hannibal!”
It’s frightened, little, but the steps stop.
Will swallows again. Cold and scared and shocked that he isn’t dead, that he
has all his limbs, his skin, his breath within him still.
Tears still run freely down his face though he no longer makes a sound to
accompany them. He wonders if his nose is running or bleeding, from the
intensity of the blows aimed at him. He doesn’t care.
He blinks, pathetic and grubby and helpless as he is, and looks up.
“I’m sorry about the suit,” he whispers.
An insignificant thing in all but its meaning. The fabric didn’t matter, nor
the cut nor the price, all material, all replaceable. But the gift, the act of
giving, the soft way Hannibal had tied the tie, the way he had looked standing
next to him… that’s gone, shredded and crumpled on the cold metal table.
And Will apologizes for that.
For all of the depravity in which Hannibal happily engages, the decadence and
the death and the destruction, it is this act that brings a sharp snaring pain
in his ribs. It is not in his nature to torture, to torment in such a way -
even the death he grants is quick and generally painless.
He remembers the serene smile that met him in the mirror as Will studied
himself. The feel of the boy beneath him beautiful and biting in the bathroom.
He looks at Will now, crumpled small and afraid on the floor, and his hand
tightens against the railing on the stairs.
“As am I,” Hannibal responds softly.
The room goes dark, and the door closes behind him.
Will makes a sound, like a small animal in pain, and concentrates on the
inverse shadow of Hannibal's silhouette imprinted behind his eyes until even
that fades.
-
Will isn't awake when the light comes on again, curled into a small ball
beneath the hook that the night before had held him aloft. He'd twisted his way
free of it some hours into the night, not attempting any further defiance
after, exhausted and hurt enough to just let sleep take him.
He's shivering from the cold, but quiet. Hands still bound in front of him.
His face is a mess of blood and tear trails, all dried now. He looks younger.
A quick survey of the area shows that nothing has been touched. Even when Will
freed himself, clever boy, he hadn’t moved from where he was left, legs still
drawn up against his chest as Hannibal had last seen him.
Hannibal hums softly at this minor revelation, and crouches beside him. He
strokes his hair from his face gently enough not to disturb him, but soon
enough quick fingers loosen the knots at his wrists and he tosses the tie
aside. One arm slides beneath Will’s neck, the other under his knees, and with
a quiet grunt he hoists the boy from the floor and brings him close, silent
still even as the boy wakes startled in his arms.
Will forms no words, but whimpers softly and, shaking, snares his arms around
Hannibal’s neck.
Hannibal breathes a soft shushing sound into Will’s hair. Up the stairs from
the basement, from the cellar, through the kitchen and up more stairs still to
the bedroom.
Will trembles, realizing how cold it was with a warm body pressed close. He
turns his head, mindless of the mess he is, and nuzzles close.
He wants to lose himself in Hannibal again, the strength and warmth and comfort
of him. He finds he's not chastised, instead set into bed and covered with the
warm sheets.
"Stay?" It's soft, a genuine request. A desperate need for that comfort and
closeness, from the man who had caused him so much pain.
Will’s arms don’t relax from around Hannibal’s neck, and he reaches up to trace
a thumb against the boy’s skin, still cool to the touch.
He does not answer, does not argue, but simply adjusts to shift into the bed
beside him. Hannibal starts to draw Will towards him but the boy buries himself
against Hannibal before the older man can move to make it so.
It troubles Hannibal, not only that he found himself so softened the night
before, so desiring to comfort the boy after inflicting such horror, a
necessary punishment, on him. No worse marks than any other given night between
them left on the boy, restrained enough from causing him undue physical harm or
death. More alarming still is that Hannibal spent most of the night entirely
sleepless, reading to distract himself from the urge to go to the basement and
bring the boy back out with him.
Hannibal pulls the boy tighter against him, ducking his head enough to kiss
him. He stays here, legs twined and bodies pressed tightly, and his breath
warms Will’s cheek.
“You suffer beautifully, sweet boy,” Hannibal whispers gently.
A soft noise, another gentle push to insinuate himself closer, and Will’s lips
part Hannibal’s again, seeking heat there, as well, as the rest of his body
trembles and returns to its normal temperature.
He thinks how he had, and would, suffer for him again, if it meant he wasn’t
left alone, forgotten, forsaken, ignored.
“Your lessons are hard learned,” Will murmurs back, voice rough from lack of
use, from crying and screaming the night before, from the way Hannibal had held
him by the throat enough to leave marks, dark and unmistakable.
Will nuzzles against Hannibal now, pressed at every point their bodies can
touch, takes the heat he can through the clothes Hannibal wears, from the
blankets surrounding them. Will sighs, breathes in through his nose and winces
- perhaps more damage there than just impact - before pulling back enough to
see him.
“Teach me,” he says softly, eyes down to the man’s lips, just barely darkened
by the blood from Will’s own. He brings his thumb up to wipe it away. “Make me
learn it.”
Words he’s spoken before, said now as though a renewal of an oath. He rests his
cold hand against Hannibal’s face a moment before pulling it back under the
covers, over Hannibal’s shoulder.
“If your curiosity wanes, kill me.”
There is only gentleness in Hannibal’s hands now, only a stillness in his heart
not as an act of control but by having his boy near him again, from hearing the
hard-won awareness in Will’s voice. He smooths his curls, unkempt, back from
his face and kisses his brow.
“I will,” Hannibal replies softly. An affirmation, as before, of their
agreement.
He stirs again after a little while, and begins to rise from the bed but is
snared by Will, all sprawling limbs and wide-eyed insecurity. Trauma, sustained
fear still running cold in his veins.
“I wish to tend to your nose. Your lip,” Hannibal suggests. “Before they settle
too long and it requires more work to heal them.”
Another curl of fingers through Will’s hair. “After that I will make you
breakfast.” A pause, as Hannibal tries to convince himself that it’s only to
restore the boy’s blood sugar, in a state of near-hypoglycemia after the
sustained burn of adrenaline.
“Anything you like.”
This, hardly an offer of medical assistance, despite how Hannibal would
comfortably lie to himself to make it so.
Will swallows, eyes searching Hannibal for a lie, before he presses his lips
together and slowly lets him go.
He’s half asleep by the time Hannibal returns, wakes briefly as he’s cleaned,
as his cuts are seen to and examined, but he sleeps once that’s finished,
curled in a warm ball under the blankets where Hannibal usually sleeps,
breathing soft and quiet against the sheets, just the top of his head and his
eyes visible from under the blanket.
Will sleeps for most of the day.
When he rouses himself, he showers, finds his boxers from the night before,
before the suit, before the party, and borrows one of Hannibal’s shirts from
his closet.
He finds Hannibal in the study, and for the first time since he had let Will
into his life, he allows him to help with dinner.
***** Chapter 9 *****
Chapter Summary
     "Tacky?" Will asks softly, in English again.
     “Predictable,” Hannibal responds, but sounds no less charmed for it.
     The more quiet moments between our favourite killers.
     No warnings for this one.
Chapter Notes
     Before y'all get all up in arms about this, as someone who has
     deliberately and specifically learned a text in another language just
     to quote it I can guarantee you that it can be done, and does happen.
     Latin and Greek were mentioned before, as Will's learned languages.
     He also has canonically Creole French, which he gets to show off
     later.
Will isn’t allowed to smoke in the house.
Despite Hannibal’s utter indifference about smoking in the car, the house is
entirely out of bounds - for them both, now - when it comes to cigarettes.
So he wraps himself in Hannibal’s thick warm robe before venturing outside
after midnight.
It’s still cold out, the threat of late snow but never a fulfilment of that.
Will stands, bare feet in unlaced boots, body wrapped in the long robe that
drags on the ground when he moves, cigarette between his lips and eyes far
away.
He thinks back to the last scene he had shown Hannibal. He’d been careful to
avoid blood on the carpet, careful to strike where he wouldn’t hit a major
artery and paint another masterpiece over the ceiling and walls. He’d cleaned
any evidence of his prints from anything he’d touched, had returned the
bathroom to its previous state of chaotic neutral. Kept watch by the door,
helped carry the body to the basement. And then had enjoyed a well-earned
fucking against the couch, whimpering pleas and Hannibal’s name against the
leather.
He exhales now, slowly, watches the smoke rise into the dark sky and dissipate.
He knows when he returns Hannibal will not be sleeping. Up reading on his iPad,
perhaps, or simply dozing, ready to pull Will back into a heavy, hot embrace
when he climbs into bed.
It’s oddly domestic, yet somehow not sordid. No sickly sweet kisses in the
morning, no small-talk in the evenings when Will was permitted to come over.
Just sharing space, sharing work, sharing time and pleasure.
Will stubs the cigarette out between his fingers and sets the butt into the
ashtray resting on the arm of one of the glass and metal deck chairs before
going back inside, closing the door, and making his way upstairs.
His boots he leaves at the end of the bed, the robe he discards over the chest
just next to them, crawling over the covers and over Hannibal - iPad,
predictably, keeping his attention for the moment - until he can press his
teeth gently over the corner of the screen to direct Hannibal’s attention more
appropriately.
It is a conceptual affection, each drawn to the idea of the other, first, and
the physical provisions second. There is no overarching concern for the other's
particular well-being, no desire to see them fulfilled and happy, joined
instead in a comfortable selfishness in desiring to have their own
satisfactions met, whether by sex or violence or conversation.
Removed entirely from the selfless devotion of love, a word whose understanding
neither share.
Hannibal’s finger moves across the glass, scrolling further down the article in
which he was engrossed before Will’s weight settled heavy and familiar over his
thighs.
A pause, touch hovering over the screen, and he lifts his eyes only so high as
Will’s teeth, caught against the corner of his tablet. The noise he makes is
one of vague disapproval, but Will reads the false disinterest readily and his
grin simply widens.
“Are you hungry?” Hannibal finally asks, meeting the boy’s blue eyes beneath an
increasingly unruly mop of hair. “I was certain that the double portions to
which you helped yourself earlier would be sufficient to render you relatively
unconscious by now."
He scrolls down the page again, letting the boy's energy move over him.
Excitable, eager enough to distract him from his reading. Most nights are spent
near enough each other, with little to say between them, each content to read
or rest until invariably, one draws nearer to the other and they exhaust
themselves together.
Will smells of smoke, and Hannibal draws a slow breath to take in the heat of
it, contrasting the cold air that he carried in with him.
"They are investigating leads, as to your most recent endeavor," Hannibal
notes, eyes turned back towards the screen. "Which means they've nothing yet by
way of evidence or suspects." A pause, recalling the boy's careful work - no
alteration to his own methods and mannerisms of murder, his proclivity for
knives and strangulation, the carnal exuberance that overtakes him - but merely
a refinement of his practice, by way of Hannibal's guidance.
"Very good, Will."
Will just smiles, contented with the praise, shifts just enough to sit closer
to Hannibal, higher up his thighs, pushing the iPad gently aside until Hannibal
relents and sets his eyes on the boy properly.
It's rare Will wears much in the house at all, though he does make the effort -
on occasion - to cover himself when they are in the main parts of the house.
Now, he sits naked, bruises fading on skin in a way that makes Hannibal want to
darken them again, or make new ones entire.
"I believe you once referred to me as 'insatiable'," Will reminds him,
responding to Hannibal's earlier words, content to lean closer, head down, eyes
up to watch Hannibal through the messy curls, until he can tilt his head and
kiss the man properly.
"It's relatively early," he murmurs when he pulls back, the gentle suggestion
clear enough. It amuses him that Hannibal tends to disapprove of Will taking
care of his own pleasure when they're together - in the shower, in the bed
alone - and then uses it, as he uses everything, to gently goad.
Hannibal closes the tablet with a long-suffering sigh, and draws his knees up
behind Will to bring him nearer. Firm hands slide along the outside of his
thighs, rubbing languidly as he chases the taste of smoke from Will’s mouth
with his own.
Although Hannibal would take pains to teach Will that he does not live here,
were he to ask or imply that he did, the boy is there more often than not.
Trusted now to be here even when Hannibal leaves for work, although not yet
granted keys to access on his own. On those nights that Will is away, hunting,
Hannibal finds himself restless in the boy’s absence, occupying himself with
lesser hobbies until the call comes with its purring notes of pleasures sought
and found, and promises of more yet to come.
“And if I am sated?” Hannibal asks, amused. They both know it to be untrue in
implication, especially as Hannibal’s hands slide inward over the boy’s skin.
He finds a bruise on the inside of Will’s thigh, and presses his thumb against
it enough to draw a quiet gasp, darkening Will’s cheeks with pain and pleasure
both.
He does not touch higher than the inside of Will’s thighs, even feeling Will
shift to rub against him, but instead skims his hands over Will’s chest,
chasing bruises with firm presses of fingertips as though Will were an
instrument, from which he draws notes in the form of little sounds of eager
discomfort.
His favorite instrument, in fact, that thrills him with the music produced
beneath his hands. A difficult one that just as often proves unwilling to be
played and requires a more skillful touch to demand what he wants of it. A
distinct pleasure in coaxing his desires from it, despite its inherent
resistance.
Will squirms pleasantly in Hannibal’s hands, seeking more pressure at certain
points, twisting from others. It's enough to create warm, pleasant friction
between them, and, softly, Will moans.
He feels Hannibal's hands tighten around him briefly at the sound, a sadist,
truly, who has refined with tastes to the level of art. Will bites his lip,
brings up a hand to draw over Hannibal’s chest, through the warm hair there,
the complete opposite of Will’s bare skin. He leans in to kiss along Hannibal’s
jaw, down to the curve of his neck. Feels a smile tug there, feels his own
answer.
For another moment, they are silent, then Will remembers, considers, and licks
his lips.
"I nothing had, and yet enough for youth - joy in Illusion, ardent thirst for
Truth," he recites softly, words not as practiced as the previous had been, not
quite as drilled into his mind as he had forced the others, but easy enough to
remember. Unlike Greek, though, Will only knows enough German to quote this,
not to speak.
The language curls heavy from the boy’s tongue, dense and unyielding, and
Hannibal presses his hands up either side of Will’s spine to keep him pressed
near.
"Give unrestrained, the old emotion, the bliss that touched the verge of pain,
the strength of hate, love's deep devotion. O, give me back my youth again." He
breathes the words against Hannibal’s ear, rocks their hips together, relishes
in being drawn close, held with the utter desire that sprung forth from the man
when Will surprised him.
"Tacky?" he asks softly, in English again.
“Predictable,” Hannibal responds, but sounds no less charmed for it. He rests
his head back against the headboard of the bed, chin tilted to bare his neck
enough for Will to move across it, kissing open-mouthed against his skin.
He drags his fingernails through Will’s hair, pulling shivers from him. “But it
begs the question - which of us is whom?”
Hannibal’s eyes close comfortably, hips rolling only gently to meet the boy’s
rhythm atop him. “Although I knew myself to be damned far before you arrived,
it is you who have ensnared me, spreading your temptation, your corruption,
irresistible.” His hands slide higher up the inside of Will’s thighs,
promisingly close.
Will makes a soft, deeply pleased sound.
"Did you force yourself on me, or I on you?" he recites, adjusting the words as
best he can, smiling wide when it seems to have the desired effect.
"You really enjoy this, don't you," he asks, not unkindly. “Hearing me whisper
words long ago written that few people know to quote? Hearing languages I've
taught myself pour over your skin."
A gentle nuzzle against Hannibal’s neck, soft kisses there until his hair is
snared again and Will recites again, unconnected passages for the moment,
simply seeking to fit.
"Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light."
Hannibal watches Will bend and curve with his grip, long lashes falling against
his cheeks as he sighs out poetry on every breath. His own eyes heavy-lidded
now, lightless dark drawing up all the brightness that Will would offer him.
“Remarkable boy,” Hannibal murmurs softly. “Your mind is the most beautiful
thing about you.”
He pulls him close to kiss the words from his mouth and press with more
insistence up against him, grinding against the sinuous little thing perched in
his lap. His touch is hot as it presses to Will’s cock, hard already, curling
to squeeze across the head of it in promise of more.
“Who holds the devil, let him hold him well,” Hannibal recites softly. “He
hardly will be caught a second time.”
Leaning forward now, to trap Will between his chest and his legs, he slips a
hand down his back and underneath, to tease slow circles against his opening,
too-soft touches across the bridge of skin there.
“Have you been practicing for me?” Hannibal’s ego awakens as though summoned by
Will’s intellect, his gentle gyrations, the cleverness and violence held in
slim fingers that curl through the hair on his chest. Reconsidering their
roles, perhaps, with Will as the fearless seeker of illicit knowledge, and
Hannibal as the proprietor of ill-gotten wisdom.
"I've been learning from you," Will responds gently, feeling his face flush
warm with the proximity, with their touches. He can talk himself through any
situation, speak as though he is older, more learned, different than what he is
but here, Hannibal holds him in the palm of his hand.
He rocks his hips forward, hungry, greedy for it, and draws nails down
Hannibal’s chest instead of gentle fingers.
"Your corruption, your temptation.” A soft moan, eyes closing and lips parting
slack. "Piece by piece you take my soul from me and feed me something darker in
its stead," Will purrs. "And in this I am insatiable."
The words bring down a cool shiver across Hannibal’s skin, a sigh breathed
against the curve of Will’s collarbone in the release of it. Equal parts Faust
and Mephistopheles between them, each complicit in their hunger for the
knowledge that the other offers and for the beautiful blasphemies created
between them.
Fingers are pressed to Will’s mouth, across his full and unfurling lips to part
them and press against his tongue. Cheeks, blooming warmth as though innocence
incarnate, hollow as Will sucks, little sounds vibrating across Hannibal’s
fingertips before he withdraws them slowly, to leave the boy’s lips damp. One
hand spreading him wide, the dampened fingers of his other hand press against
Will’s opening to feel him part, and the arch of his spine in its decadence is
as sweet as the poetry spilled like blood between them.
“That which issues from the heart alone, will bend the hearts of others to your
own,” Hannibal murmurs against his mouth, before ensnaring it beneath his own
in a rough kiss, pushing forward, that finds Will on his back and Hannibal
heavy over him, between his thighs, fingers curling deeper inside.
“Poor son of Earth,” Hannibal whispers, focused on the moan that rises from the
boy pinned under him. “How could you alone have led your life, bereft of me?”
No answer but another moan, deliberate, soft, the color from Will’s face now
seeping down his throat, to his chest. He responds to Hannibal's words as
Hannibal had responded to his, entire body attune to them, absorbing them,
adoring them.
Rough tones over a rough tongue and Will’s legs spread wider, seeking, begging,
needing this. He moans again, pushing down against Hannibal's fingers,
relishing when he is allowed another, feeling the stretch, the tug within him,
the perfect spot circled but never touched, always teased.
Always forcing Will to earn it.
"Hannibal," he gasps quietly, arching his back, turning his face away, flushed
and lax in pleasure. “Please.”
This, Hannibal considers as he chases the boy’s mouth with his own, catches the
corner of it, draws lingering kisses across his cheek and down his graceful
neck and further still, the greatest corruption shared between them.
Nothing so simply understood as their carnal needs for fluids spilled wanton
and decadent, nothing so easily remedied as the desire to feel the other’s
thoughts and awareness mold against their own.
No, it’s this sordid desecration of Hannibal’s sense of reason, twisted into
abandon by the pleading words of a mere boy. Though he will play at it, when
the mood suits him, it alarms and delights Hannibal to know that he can deny
Will nothing when the sweetness of his voice begs so gently.
Teeth snare the soft skin of Will’s belly as he moves lower, fingernails
grazing across his chest, over sensitive nipples, down to grab the boy’s knees
and subdue him, holding him firmly in place as he passes his lips across the
boy’s twitching length to instead press against the spot pried open with
teasing fingers moments before.
Will bucks up, a breathless sound escaping him, pulling his chest up like a
puppet on a string, hands grabbing behind him for an anchor and finding just
messy sheets.
Another soft repetition of the man’s name, worshipful, needy, demanding of
more.
This undoes Will; draws the merciless claws of shivers over his skin, pulls his
voice taut and weak, takes down all walls and inhibitions. He trembles, feels
Hannibal’s fingers tighten to grip his legs, and gasps out a word - something
foreign, common, he no longer knows.
One word follows another, and Will is reciting again, shaking and cooled with a
thin sheen of sweat, cock hard against his stomach, twitching for attention
with every torturous press of Hannibal’s tongue.
"Please, please, please fu-" Will swallows, whines softly in need, bucks his
hips even as he flushes darker, so close to a word he knows he'll regret,
weighing up the pros and cons of a completed utterance.
"-oh," he sighs, biting his lip on another lilting whimper.
Hannibal hums soft against Will’s skin when he resists the urge to curse, mouth
spreading warm against him, tongue pressing in as he spreads the boy wider
still to reward him, to feel him squirm. Falling apart at the seams from the
prideful preening moments before, now he seems only his years, rather than
beyond, twisting and writhing full of life and sound.
He presses the flat of his tongue up higher, across the smooth skin and along
the join of Will’s thigh to his groin, his own pulse starting to raise now with
the taste of Will so intimate on his tongue.
A further reward, now, for Will’s good behavior, a temptation as well as
Hannibal draws his parted lips and the tip of his tongue along the length of
Will’s cock, sighing pleased as it twitches beneath his mouth.
“Recite for me, Will,” Hannibal coaxes him, the reward evident as he looks up
the length of Will’s body, hands curled around his thighs. A pause, and a
slight smile, bemused as ever at the prospect of making the boy’s life harder
than strictly necessary, to fluster him and see him whine and writhe in
frustration.
“In Latin.”
Will stutters, catches his breath and presses a palm against his eyes so he
can’t see Hannibal between his legs, looking up, expectant. Gorgeous eyes and a
predator’s grin. He swallows, parts his lips with his tongue and turns his
head.
“And if I can’t?” he breathes, feeling more than seeing Hannibal smile wider at
that, at the apparent admission of failure where he had asked this of him. Will
shudders as cool fingers draw over the length of him, linger on the head before
moving away entirely.
“Rewards are only worth what you earn of them, Will,” Hannibal replies, almost
sad at the prospect, his words drawing soft air over Will’s cock, up higher
over his navel.
Will whimpers, arching up, demanding and begging with nothing more than sounds
and sweet, gentle twists of his form. When, predictably, he wins no favor, he
parts his lips again, arches his neck back and speaks.
With Latin he is most practiced, having studied it at school and outside it
when it became apparent that his skill lay beyond the simple tasks that school
set him. He recites the words like the poetry they are, soft and lyrical,
gentle and in perfect meter. And for this, after a stanza completed, Will
lowers his hand and ducks his head, to see what reward his words had earned
him.
There is a lingering silence as he finishes the stanza of the Aeneid, the most
readily memorized verse in mind, and Hannibal meets Will’s eyes with nothing
less than absolute surprise. Clearly he had not expected the boy to be able to
do it, assuming that Greek and German would be the admittedly remarkable extent
of it.
“Dante wrote that it was Virgil who lead him into hell,” Hannibal responds, an
echo of their earlier conversation, and the brief smile that appears is utterly
genuine, nearly a laugh on the sigh that he tilts down against the boy’s cock.
He releases a thigh to grasp Will’s twitching length, leaking hard now, and
press it past his lips.
The taste, the weight of Will against his tongue yields a curious sound as
Hannibal’s eyes settle on him again, to count the long seconds that his back
bends bridging from the bed, marking the moments before Will moans. He keeps
one hand wrapped around him, squeezing slow strokes, and the other curls nails
into his thigh, red lines lingering in the wake.
Will’s gasps come quick and close, a panting of pleasure he can’t hide nor
wants to. All his senses are in overdrive, feeling every breath, every linger
of lips against him, of hot tongue and teeth gentled. He feels the blood rush
through his veins, feels the way his lungs flutter on unfinished breaths, feel
how he sticks to the sheets when he shifts.
He knows, relishes, that he will have bruises from Hannibal’s fingers against
his thigh. Will curls his leg around Hannibal’s shoulder, grins when he’s
allowed to do the same with the other, and delights in feeling his hips lifted
from the bed as Hannibal moves, curls his hands back behind himself so he can
rest up on his shoulders alone, head ducked to watch, eyes barely open.
He has not been told to resist orgasm, not been told to wait and endure, but
Will makes himself regardless, a sweet pain in feeling the cliff so close and
knowing he could take a running leap at any moment.
Hannibal takes him deeper, moans, and Will makes a noise in a voice that isn’t
his own. High and desperate and filled with the murmured pleas for release.
This time he can’t bite back his curse and he doesn’t care - he’s mindless with
pleasure, writhing and trembling under Hannibal’s capable mouth, taking his
earned reward.
When he cums, Will laughs again, a soft pleased thing, spreading his lips
wider, showing white teeth and the tip of his tongue before he swallows and
leaves his mouth slack to catch his breath instead.
The sound is one of Hannibal’s favorites, a more satisfying sensation than even
Will shuddering and coiling beneath him, than even Will’s release hot against
his tongue as he savors it, swallows it down and sucks for a moment more merely
to watch the boy arch against him. The sweet little laugh, absolute abandon in
his delight, tugs at something in Hannibal’s chest and he welcomes it, relishes
it and keeps it near.
A sigh, breathless, as he lets Will’s softening length fall from his lips and
traces a thumb across them, catching a drop before it can trail to his chin,
and tasting this from his finger as well.
He does not disrupt the boy’s legs, caught at the ankles around him, but moves
between them to settle over him again. A firm slap against the boy’s thigh in
belated punishment for his swearing, but followed by a faint grin before he
leans in to kiss Will, letting him taste himself there, tongues twining in a
hunger grown ravenous to be inside his boy again.
One firm arm circles around Will, lifts him from the bed to sit upright as
Will’s legs slide lower around his waist. Hannibal is brutally hard, growling
low against Will’s mouth, and he adjusts his legs so that Will is astride him
again, cock aching stiff between the boy’s legs.
“And now, Will?” Hannibal asks, kisses snaring between each word when Will
wraps his arms loose around Hannibal’s neck. “Are you sated?”
Will grins, enjoying the closeness, the playful brutality between them when
there is nothing between them but pleasure, at the moment. And slowly,
deliberately he shakes his head.
“Are the wicked ever sated?” Will asks, pleased, warm, bites Hannibal’s lip
when the other moves close enough again.
“No,” Hannibal responds when his lip is freed, nuzzling alongside Will’s nose.
“Especially when the devil keeps them wanting.”
He lays back, bringing the boy atop him, as they began, thighs spread to allow
a languid shifting of hips, head tilted against his shoulder and blue eyes
focused heavy-lidded on the man beneath him. Hannibal slips a hand beneath him
again, to tease him open, to press his cock against him, and murmurs, amused,
“Latin again, I think.”
It’s very early morning, Will doesn’t know how far dawn is but it had been
utterly silent when he’d gone outside, no birds from the night anymore, none
yet for the morning. The curious hour where everything sleeps, except the
predators.
There is no rest for the wicked either.
***** Chapter 10 *****
Chapter Summary
     "I want to watch you kill him," Will says softly, nuzzling the warm
     skin through the shirt before kissing there and obediently returning
     to the club.
     Will takes Hannibal hunting.
     WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: drinking, drug use, public sex, physical
     abuse, threesome, copious amounts of blood and its inappropriate use
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Hannibal let Will dress him for this.
He stood stalwart as Will sifted through his closet, muttering disapproval
about this and that, until he finally settled on a button-down and slacks.
Insistent that Hannibal not actually button all the buttons, equally chagrined
by Hannibal trying to fold the sleeves rather than simply ruche them to his
elbows, it was only when he loosened the older man's hair into a casual sweep
across his eyes that Hannibal finally made a sound of dismay, far milder in
tone than what he actually felt.
Will, effortlessly ignoring the sound, as he does most times, rewarded him with
a lingering kiss, just deep enough to allude to a promise that it would be
worth Hannibal's suffering to trust him in this and play along.
His territory, his evening, his rules.
Hannibal did not complain again, but feels a burgeoning doubt as they approach
Will's chosen venue for the evening. A bracing rumble of bass from the
windowless building, the velvet rope in front festooned with an array of boys
and girls far closer to Will's age than Hannibal's. All lovely in their own
rights, loud and vibrant with overpowering youth, but none so effortlessly as
Will.
Hannibal focuses on him, instead of the apprehension he feels tightening the
corners of his mouth, and Will leans close, murmurs against his ear words
Hannibal barely hears.
Choose anyone you want.
We’ll have a feast tonight with him.
When they reach the velvet rope, Will pours himself over it, leans close to the
bouncer, smiles. He says something that gets lost in the bass beat around them
and the rope is lifted. Will drags soft fingers over the man’s chest as he
passes him, other hand behind him to snag Hannibal’s sleeve and pull him in.
Within, there is a short corridor, a place to store bags that neither of them
have, and then an open floor with a balcony surrounding that covers 3 of the 4
walls. The music is controlled in the middle of the chaos, on a podium just
barely above the dancers themselves.
To Hannibal’s surprise, there are more men his age inside than there had been
waiting. Some are alone, others with beautiful, young things with skirts too
short and makeup too bright. Will presses back against Hannibal to brace him
and himself, turns his head to speak into his ear.
“Everything in here fits my demographic, and more than enough to suit your
tastes.” He bites gently just under his ear and moves his hips in time to the
music against him, a teasing grin up at Hannibal when the other looks down.
“Choose a boy to fuck, a man to fuck me… the end result is the same.”
He steps away enough to receive his expected slap for the curse, apparently
utterly unabashed at such a show happening in public. Though, with the people
in the club around them, Hannibal can understand why it wouldn’t be seen as
unusual. A few of the kids wear collars, and more than a few of those are
tethered to someone’s hand.
Hannibal does not raise a hand to him, although his fingers twitch in response
to the misbehavior, and his head tilts just discernibly at the suggestion that
he would do so.
“Two,” he responds, taking in the expanse of the space, the bodies within it
all in various states of display or undress.
It’s not often that Hannibal feels so entirely out of his element, and even
rarer that he would ever consider venturing to a place like this. Grateful at
least that his chance of encountering someone who knows him here is virtually
nonexistent, he works a looseness into his shoulders. Adapting, in inches, to
this new environment.
With more curiosity than desire yet, he snares an arm around Will’s waist and
pulls the boy back against him, head tilting against his, mouth against his
ear.
“A drink, perhaps.” A mild enough suggestion, accepting Will’s gyrations with a
secondary interest to the scene around them. “Whatever you would suggest.”
Will hums, pleased, and turns, twisting from Hannibal’s grip to snare his hand
and pull him through the crowd to the bar in the far corner.
As far as alcohol goes, the place isn’t devoid of choice, nor are the choices
particularly horrific for Hannibal’s palette, though perhaps not as refined as
he would like. Will orders them two bourbons, no ice, and turns to Hannibal
with a look of childish want to get him to pay for them.
It’s all an act, a slowly building vignette for others to accept and not
question.
Will wears dark pants today that gleam in a way as to suggest that at least
part of them is leather, or should be. His shirt is a thin thing, just too
small for him. The boots are his usual, up to his shins and magically hanging
on without the laces being remotely tight around his slim legs.
The drinks come and Will downs his without bothering to savor it, exhaling
harshly and laughing before pressing himself to Hannibal’s side, eyes up, one
hand snared gently in his shirt as he presses to Hannibal so close that the man
can feel every inch of him.
“Another?”
There is a particular abandon to it, as Hannibal allows himself to be moved
this way and that, to be pressed against, ensnared by the boy at his side - his
alone, Hannibal knows, and the thought brings him a momentary peace to soothe
the utter lack of control that gathers fierce in his stomach.
Hannibal signals for two more drinks, and slides another bill across the
counter without bothering to check the size of it.
“Something nicer,” he remarks to the bartender, who’s happy to do so in
exchange for the substantial tip involved.
He’s still turning over the cheap bourbon burn across his lips when the next
arrives, and though it is of marginally better quality, he follows Will’s lead
and downs it quickly. Whiskey warmth spreading quick, loosening him enough that
he doesn’t resist when Will tugs him away from the bar.
Attentions torn now, between the movement of Will leading him through the club,
the lithe lines of his body brought to sudden sharpness by the deliberately
snug clothing, and the sundry assortment of bodies around them. Slender, lovely
things scarcely clad. Older men and women more elegantly presented but with an
undercurrent of debauchery that the younger ones only play at emulating.
And they, fingers snared, above them all.
Wolves, severe and beautiful, amongst sheep who know not what moves in their
midst.
“What do you do here?” Hannibal finally asks, tugging Will back to him when
there’s room enough to do so. He draws a breath as Will slides sinuous against
him, and allows himself to turn his nose into the boy’s hair, breathing him in.
A possessive gesture, noted by several pairs of eyes that fall upon them.
Will hums, bites his lip as he rolls his body against Hannibal’s again,
grinning over the older man’s shoulder to one of the young boys who catches his
eye, hungry and envious.
"Dance," he lists, bringing his hands up over Hannibal’s shoulder, tug his hair
lightly. “Drink." He brushes their lips together, relishes in the greedy way
Hannibal’s hands slide down his body, splay against it.
"Fuck," Will laughs, leaning in to add "three," before Hannibal can. He nods
towards one of the walls that seems to be undulating with the bodies against
it. No sounds heard over the music, but the expressions on their faces - those
allowed to face the crowd - say enough.
"Get high," Will continues, biting his lip on a gentle sound when Hannibal
turns Will so his back is to him. Will arches lithe to rub against him as
around them the bodies continue their rhythm, one body, one pulse.
"Hunt,” he adds, catching the eye of an older man across the floor, smiling
sweetly at him.
"Sodom and Gomorrah, Hannibal, in their purest forms."
Hannibal catches the look, one of so many directed in passing towards Will,
only peripherally. He does not yet turn towards it, noting that the sensation
of jealousy that normally vines through his ribs at such a thing does not
appear in this place.
Unfamiliar territory rendering previous responses untenable, unnecessary.
Hannibal meets the man’s eyes as well now, a look that must appear dangerous
enough to cause him to look away, and Hannibal tilts his mouth towards Will’s
ear again.
“Does it please you,” he asks, “to think of being used in such a way?” His hand
spreads across Will’s chest, over the thin material, and catches beneath his
jaw to tip the boy’s head back against his shoulder. “Would it satisfy for you
for someone else to lay their hands on you, while I watch?”
Marking his territory now, as he turns Will’s grin against his own mouth, not
kissing him, but only speaking in low menace against it. Threats and promises,
forever entwined.
“Or would you prefer we both do so, until I tire of him and snap his neck while
he’s still inside of you?”
Will moans, the sound loud only between them, but hardly drawing attention from
anyone but the closest dancers. He bites his lips, feels his cheeks color, and
rubs his ass harder against Hannibal behind him.
"Both," he gasps, one hand up to curl around the back of Hannibal’s head, the
other down to splay against his hip.
"Think of it," he groans, clearly thinking himself. “On my knees over you, your
cock down my throat,"
He bites his lip as Hannibal ducks his head to suck a mark against his neck.
Nearby, another man catches a glance, lingers.
"Nnn - legs spread so wide as he fucks me, as your hand holds my cock, as you
forbid me to cum..."
Will’s words hitch when he feels Hannibal’s teeth, harsh and bruising against
him, and he laughs, biting his lip again.
"Oh, master won't you let me play?"
Unbearably petulant, worth a slap in itself without the aid of Will’s dirty
mouth, and Hannibal relishes it, takes his time marking his boy as Will twists
against him, lips slack and eyes barely open. He knows his words carried to
those ears that perked to listen, and now he waits, will let Hannibal choose.
Hannibal’s fingers press harder against his jaw, meeting his mouth in another
kiss.
“Four.”
His hand loosens to slide through the boy’s hair, a gentler touch but not by
much, and another soft murmur is pressed to Will’s ear as Hannibal watches
those watching them.
“Whomever touches you more than I just have will die.”
A kiss is swept across the boy’s brow before Hannibal releases him, only
grudgingly, following Will’s lead and letting his voice carry just enough to be
heard by those nearby.
“Go play,” he allows, attention focused on Will alone. “Stay where I can see
you.”
There is an avarice in his look and Hannibal knows well enough that, human
nature being predictable as it is, it will make them both more desirable. The
controlling words, the covetousness of his body language around the boy is not
entirely false, but merely amplified, and he knows that Will sees it clearly
enough for what it is, delighting in the game that Hannibal has agreed to play
with him.
“Bourbon,” Hannibal suggests to a passing waiter as he finds and settles into a
couch, arms spread along the back of it to watch Will from a distance now,
entirely curious to see him unleashed.
Will relishes in the attention, can feel it on him from Hannibal, from
countless other eyes that simply pass him by or linger. He knows, can feel that
power he commands with the weight of Hannibal’s stare, his words, his promise
against him.
He goes, instead, not to an older man but a younger boy, one who had been
watching him as he’d danced with Hannibal, shown himself off, shown his
ownership. Now he wears it in blood beneath his skin, a rough round mark.
They exchange a few words, Will’s arm around the boy, head turned to whisper in
his ear as he passes him something, and receives something smaller in turn. He
pulls back enough to kiss him, a deep hungry thing, and the boy’s hands flex
then splay and curl around Will in front of him.
Hannibal counts. One. Two.
Seconds upon seconds before Will releases the boy and steps away. Not long
enough to warrant a kill, obviously not worthy of Will’s time.
He returns to Hannibal, slides into his lap.
“If you want to play properly,” he murmurs, tugging the little napkin wrap open
to reveal two pills, little, in the middle. He grins, takes one dry, before
placing the other on his tongue and pulling Hannibal in close to kiss him,
pressing the pill between them for the other to take.
Hannibal tenses in sudden resistance, a survival instinct triggered acutely by
being dosed with something unknown. Had Will not taken one first, the reaction
would have been more severe by far, but even as he feels the pill work down his
throat his eyes narrow.
His hand passes through Will’s hair to hold against the nape of his neck again,
fingers pressing against the bruise freshly sucked and bitten into his skin.
“What was it?” Genuine menace now, watching the wide-eyed pleasure writ across
Will’s face with waning patience.
Will laughs, and it’s not the warm sound usually issuing from his throat, but
something deeper, darker still.
“X.” Will replies, pleased with himself, pupils already wide as he watches
Hannibal from how he’s held. He forces his smile smaller, down to something
genuine, and tilts his head so he can meet Hannibal’s eyes properly.
“Trust me.”
It’s soft, a genuine request, and for a moment he wonders if Hannibal will
forsake the entire evening and leave, now, without a backward glance. Perhaps
he should have warned him but… it’s something he’s taken before, something he
knows the safety of - he knows the kid, the look of the pills, the taste of
them on his tongue.
He waits, a beat, two, before leaning up to kiss Hannibal again, fingers in his
hair, moaning, pleased, when the kiss is returned. He’ll undoubtedly add to his
debt with the surprise but for now, it’s allowed. He’s allowed, and he relishes
the feeling of a warm palm against the inside of his thigh.
When he pulls back he sighs, pleased.
“Now,” Will licks his lips, presses their foreheads together. “Keep your eyes
on me.”
Hannibal’s fingers tighten, just a little, against Will’s thigh before he can
move away.
“How could I not?” he responds. A nearer nuzzle against him, a harsh kiss
stolen from Will before he finally releases him, watching as he slides away and
light slicks against the smooth lines of his pants.
Hannibal assures himself, lips pursing in faint displeasure, that it would take
more than this to unsettle him, to destabilize the fortifications he’s spent
decades erecting. He’s familiar enough with the substance, medically, to know
that there are worse choices for Will to have made, though he comforts himself
in knowing that the boy will be punished for this anyway. Easing beneath the
steady thrum of music, beneath the shifting lights, Hannibal settles back into
the couch again.
Perhaps, he considers distantly, he might even enjoy it.
The thought is immediately followed by a soft snort, heard by none but himself,
as Hannibal is brought another bourbon, having tipped enough to merit the
service to where he sits.
Will takes to the floor almost carefully, gracefully weaving between undulating
bodies, brushing some, avoiding others. He doesn’t seek - he becomes a pull, a
source of his own gravity.
And he draws.
It starts with a few people, just a boy here and there, a girl.
Will dances hypnotically. To say it's beautiful would be inaccurate. Beauty
exists in rumba and tango. It exists in the waltz and foxtrot. The way Will
moves is sexual. It's enticing and seductive and Hannibal cannot take his eyes
off him.
He notices that Will quietly and gently lets the girls go, pushing them from
the pool of choices with unspoken signs they read too well. Then the boys. One
by one they get a moment, two, in Will’s arms, against his body, but they are
tools, implements to draw the others, the older men, masters and singles
looking for a boy.
Will catches the eyes of three, grins when they come closer, drawn without
words to this beautiful, ethereal creature who dances like a fae; impossible to
ignore or stop dancing with once you begin.
The music changes and Will’s smile turns sleepy, needy, his body turning,
bending, opening to the advances. Hannibal watches, entranced, as Will finds
himself between two men, all three pressed so close Will’s panting from it;
tilting his head back against one, allowing a hand between his legs from the
other.
A sacrifice. Willing. Obedient.
The perfect lure.
The first distortions of the drug become apparent, felt first and only then
followed by a recognition of their cause. The music curls to soften its harsh
edges, a low pulse of bass like a heartbeat beneath it. Hannibal feels warm,
tugging the collar of his shirt just to loosen it, attention fixed on the
preternatural insinuations of Will's body between two men who may as well be
faceless for their misfortunate misstep in being drawn to this particular boy.
Hannibal sucks in a sharp breath as a hand curls between Will's legs, palming
up the front of his sleek pants and across his belly, beneath his shirt. He
feels a stir at the imagined sensation, of receiving such a touch and touching
Will at once, and feels his pulse quicken.
For a moment, he wonders if this is how Will must feel in his acute awareness
of others, dueling realities of experience - his own overlapping with those
around him.
Another sip of bourbon, sweeter than before, warmth easing the itch Hannibal
feels building beneath his skin. A need to move, to act, to paint the floors
with the blood of men who think they have right to touch that boy, his boy -
cover the walls with it and finally snare Will to fuck him in the aftermath of
gore until his tears mingle with it.
Another deep breath, as the man beside Hannibal on the couch speaks,
splintering the images behind his eyes.
"Is he yours?"
Hannibal does not turn to face the man, has already taken him in from the
moment he settled there. He makes an acknowledging sound, and sips his drink.
The man nods, bemused, and leans back into the couch as well. "You're a better
man than me. If I had one that pretty I wouldn't let him near this place."
"No?" Hannibal asks, feigning the most minimum interest he can get away with,
as his voice rubs rough against his nerves and further ruins Hannibal's brief
reverie.
"Not if he was going to act like that," the man snorts. He's dressed well
enough, a polished and pressed business casual, and Hannibal wonders what
brings someone so straight-laced to a place like this one. He could ask himself
the same thing really, and smiles faintly at the thought.
As if on cue, a lovely red-haired girl settles into the couch between the two
men, wide eyes darkened by drug-expanded pupils.
"The pretty ones, you've got to train them hard. They know they're pretty and
it makes them headstrong," the man continues, turning a finger in the girl's
hair. She smirks, pleased by the compliments.
Pretty pretty pretty - the words pull at his skin like fishhooks and Hannibal
sees blood, coagulating thick against cheap linoleum, running thick beneath his
feet.
Hannibal inclines his head in thanks for the unnecessary advice, but as he does
so, time shifts, a speeding sensation. The girl is leaned towards by the man, a
whisper exchanged and both smile behind open masks, and Hannibal draws a breath
as he misses a beat of time and suddenly feels her mouth against his neck.
Soft, painfully soft, her hair like silk against his cheek and Hannibal allows
a resonant sigh. He tips his head to the side, to give the girl more room, and
finds Will again on the dance floor, laughing between the two men who have
surrounded him, and his eyes narrow.
It's comfortable here, warm and heavy on the couch with this girl pressed
against him, ready to do whatever the other man would ask of her. Procuring,
Hannibal notes, with her as bait. He casts a sidelong look to the man.
No predator, here. Hannibal expects the man probably has very little stomach
for violence. Seeking a trade instead, perhaps.
The moment passes.
The grinding, sandpaper-over-skin need for movement brings Hannibal to stand,
passing off the remainder of his bourbon to the girl left blinking on the
couch.
"If you'll excuse me," he murmurs, polite even now as he pushes his sleeves up
again where they had fallen and slides a hand back through his hair. A warm
sensation spreads at the touch of his own hand, like a sudden hot shower
cascading down his spine, fingernails curled against his scalp.
Distracting, Hannibal decides, with an unheard hum of dismay at the drug’s
effects, and focuses his attentions more narrowly rather than attempt to spread
them across the room.
His gaze settles on Will, and his companion. The latter currently has an arm
wrapped snugly around the former's middle, one hand sliding up to tease a
nipple through Will's shirt, trailing blithe kisses over the same space where
Hannibal's mouth had pressed bruises - some time ago, recently, a long time
ago.
Many times, Hannibal reminds himself, through the addled thoughts.
Disapproval tightens the corners of Hannibal’s mouth as he pulls himself
closer, only to see that the man has pressed his leg between Will's thighs, and
that Will is dancing wanton against the friction.
Another lapse of time and there are soft curls of hair between Hannibal’s
fingers, twisted until a particular gasp raises from Will. The other man starts
to withdraw, hands up in deference, but he answers the man with a word whose
danger is lost to all but Will.
"Stay."
A hesitation, brief, the man clearly wanting to stay, the way Will rests pliant
and panting, flushed and hard against Hannibal now - a toy on display,
vulnerable and perfect. He steps up again, takes the invitation as Hannibal’s
eyes slide away, down, to look at Will instead.
His eyes are barely blue beneath the thick lashes, pupils wide with drug and
lust. He blinks, slowly, lips drawing up in a smile and arches his back, hard,
to press his lips to Hannibal’s neck, a gentle kiss - familiar, needy.
More soft sounds, too soft, really, to be heard over the music but Hannibal has
honed his hearing to concentrate just on Will, just the hitched little breaths
as the man in front of him pinches Will’s nipples to peak, the whimper when it
tilts from pleasant to painful, the shuddering gasp as the hands relent,
finally, to slide over Will’s front, down to slip under his shirt again and
draw warm fingers over the skin.
The man touches as Hannibal lets him, holding Will against himself as his hands
slip lower, too, over Will’s slim hips, down the front of his pants where Will
is hard against his palm, a mewling plea rolled against him from parted lips as
Hannibal strokes him there, gentle, teasing, watching the response write itself
over Will’s face in that dark flush Hannibal so adores.
The music changes again, perhaps another distortion of time, and Will writhes
between them, lips parted on a smile befitting the emotion after which the drug
in his system is named, one arm up around the back of Hannibal’s head, holding
him close, the other out tugging tight against the collar of the shirt the
other man wears, pulling him closer as well.
“Greedy, wanton boy,” Hannibal murmurs, nuzzling against Will’s hair, letting
his eyes close as he experiences the entire sensation of Will, the youthful
exuberance of him, the clean sweat, the pleasure, the spicy arousal that has
always brought Hannibal olfactory bliss.
In front of them, the man finally laughs, a low sound that would be dangerous
if danger wasn’t staring at him with disinterested maroon eyes.
“He get away from you?”
Hannibal smiles, a slowly widening thing, before he turns his head and bites
gently against Will’s ear, lip briefly twitching in a snarl when the boy makes
a sound of pain and rolls his hips back against him.
“He tried.”
Will laughs, pulls the other man closer, uses his weight as leverage to push
himself to stand properly, arching his back to keep contact with Hannibal
behind him.
“Master said I could play if I stayed where he could see me,” he confides, tone
low but younger, an adjustment of his usual carriage to present this perfect
picture, a lure the man could not refuse if he tried.
“Did he?”
Another slow gaze from dark eyes, one entirely lost on the man too blinded by
lust to see anything but Will in front of him, lip between his teeth, hair
messy in his eyes, still wide with the hormones roiling in his system.
“What would you do with him?” Hannibal asks, suddenly, stilling his movement
and holding Will against him to still his. The rest of the crowd moves without
them, around them, like river over a rock. Organic, natural, human. The man’s
eyes widen, pupils blow with possibilities.
“Fuck,” he swallows. “I’d see what that mouth could do.”
“‘The gates of Hell are open night and day; smooth the descent and easy is the
way’,” Will recites softly, the Latin lost to the man in a flurry of bass
beats. Hannibal doubts that’s quite what the man had meant, though he himself
ducks his head to kiss under Will's jaw, in praise, familiar heat coiling in
his groin.
“What else?” Hannibal asks.
He lifts a hand to Will’s cheek, keeping the boy secured against him to feel
every undulation move like music against his body. He brings a thumb across
Will’s mouth and Will chases the touch with his lips, parting them to curl his
tongue around Hannibal’s finger to bring it into his mouth, moaning obscenely
as he hollows his cheeks to suck.
A promise of things to come, absorbed eagerly by the man who watches the
display.
“We could share him,” the man responds, without looking to Hannibal although
it’s him that the man addresses now. “Take turns fucking him, let him suck us
both off.” Deferring, in some primal way, to Hannibal’s evident dominance of
the boy, knowing innately that any acceptance would have to come from Hannibal
rather than the decadent little thing writhing eager between them.
“You want to fuck me?” Will grins, and Hannibal brings his palm across the
boy’s cheek, hard enough to sting. Hard enough that the sensation makes Will’s
entire body shiver delightfully, and the man watching suddenly grins.
“You like it rough.”
Will nods, biting his lip in a flushed grin.
“Very,” Hannibal acknowledges on Will’s behalf, a note of exhaustion in it as
he braces his hand beneath Will’s chin to lift it upward. The man presses
against him, pinning the boy between them, and takes the offer to kiss him by
burying his tongue in Will’s mouth until Will is forced to lean back against
Hannibal, who watches narrowly.
A tension spiralling pleasurably up his spine, coiling fierce, his resistances
lowered enough that Hannibal can feel his seams splitting in time to the music,
a pulse felt through the bass in the floor and through the press of his hips
against Will and in the snarl that clenches his teeth.
“So do I,” the man responds, grinning, blithely unaware of the menace emanating
from Hannibal. He’s not unpleasant to look at, a handsome quality about him
that puts him above many here, but nothing by compare to the two he’s courting.
Hannibal hums against Will’s hair, releasing his jaw to instead press his hand
against Will’s stomach, firm with the gyrations that he doesn’t seem to be able
to stop even if he so desired, and he catches the man’s eyes just long enough
to inform him, “He bruises beautifully.”
Tearing a little further now, the monster pulling at its chain with a rattling
snap as Will turns his head enough to reveal the darkening bruise bitten into
the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, and the man sighs hard, lust
blinding him to the genuine amusement blooming in Will’s eyes as he catches
Hannibal’s attention with his own.
“We’ll make new ones then,” the man agrees.
A genuine pleasure, now, as Will purrs German against Hannibal’s ear again.
“And so the devil has you, and your soul is infallibly lost.”
“Enough,” Hannibal sighs harshly, himself stirred as much as Will now, at the
promises spoken and those understood. He forces the man to meet his eyes and
nods towards the couch where Hannibal sat before. “A moment more. Wait for us.
Imagine what will come of the evening in our brief absence.”
The words are curiously out of place here, where crudities abound, but enough
to intrigue further as the man nods. He parts his lips with his tongue,
unwilling for a moment to lose sight of them, to lose the opportunity
presented, but he defers again in knowing that his place here is between them,
above Will but beneath Hannibal in the unspoken social hierarchy of the moment.
“I’ll get my coat,” he responds, stealing another kiss from Will before he does
as Hannibal instructs.
Will scarcely has time to open his mouth to ask, to chastise Hannibal perhaps
for breaking the rhythm of the moment, but Hannibal snares Will roughly by the
wrist before his protest can be heard.
Movement in the music, in the humanity around them, in the floors beneath
Hannibal’s feet as he parts the crowd towards the darkened hallways that spiral
off the main area. Fewer bodies here, but more closely entwined, their gasps
seeming to match in time to the music that further intoxicates Hannibal as he
finds a place with pairs of bodies arm-length away from them on either side,
and pins Will to the wall with a hand against his throat.
“Now you,” he growls low against Will’s mouth. “What would you do with him?
Tell me.”
Will almost mewls with delight, squirming beneath the touch in the most
pleasing way.
"I'd kneel," he breathes, those beautiful eyes down to watch how close Hannibal
is, denied his own movement to bring them closer by the hand pinning him. "Take
it. He probably wants me to gag, choke and beg and whimper, so I will."
Will moans, hands up to tug against Hannibal’s shirt as he steps closer, hips
grinding down against Will’s.
"I'm gonna cum," he gasps, already so close, body over-stimulated by rough
foreign hands, by the beat of the music that has him wanting to move more dance
faster, never stop.
"You're not," Hannibal growls, though he can feel the telltale trembling in
Will’s limbs already. It's exhilarating, having so much power over the boy so
publicly, having it met with lust and lingering looks instead of horror and
concern.
"What else?"
Will’s lips part, teeth gritted beneath in a dark, delighted grin.
"I'd let him fuck me raw,” he groans, and it's enough for Hannibal, enough to
pull back and strike him again, to Will’s utter delight, before hoisting the
boy up against the wall, one hand to the front of his pants as Hannibal kisses
him, tastes the remains of his drink against Will’s parted lips, tastes the man
they will kill, together.
His hands make quick work of the button, tug the zipper down and slide inside
to curl against the boy’s ass, teasing his opening with rough fingers. Will’s
hands scrabble against Hannibal’s back, settle in his hair, legs curled tight
around him, face nuzzling him with a sick sort of affection.
"I'm gonna cum," he sobs again.
"You're not, Will," Hannibal warns. "Not until I tell you to do so."
The boy's trembling, grinding, twisting against him forces Hannibal to push him
back harder against the wall. Few enough even pay them mind, let alone linger
in watching beyond a passing appreciation for the sight. He rolls his hips in
response to the squirming boy wrapped around him and groans low in his ear as a
rough finger breaches his entrance, just a little, enough to torment.
"Shit," gasps Will, and he's met with another brutal slap, laughing as his head
follows the movement of it.
Wolves among sheep, free to play and to hunt without hindrance, and to feel the
prey pulled magnetic to their presence here.
"Tell me how you want him to die," snarls Hannibal softly, teeth clenched, lip
curling as he shoves himself against Will, almost painfully aroused. "Will you
sever his femoral when he's choking you, hands around your neck and cock in
your throat?"
A grunt, as their erections find friction together and meet again and again.
"Or would you rather see me at work," he purrs, "bones breaking loud enough to
echo above your whimpering while I fuck you?"
Will's only response is so shudder, arching up then ducking his head to curl
against Hannibal again, cock weeping precum against the front of his pants. He
gasps, twists, and with an utterly satisfied grin draws his hand back to strike
Hannibal across the face.
"Language," he breathes, knowing, feeling that he’s about to get hell, and
leans in to kiss Hannibal, hard, before he can respond.
The sting of the slap carries hot through Hannibal’s skin, scarlet where Will's
hand broke hard across it.
A dangerous moment passes, before the kiss is returned savagely. Teeth bared,
he pulls away only to bite tearing against Will's shoulder, animalistic in his
growl, in his furious rutting, in the tidal wave surge of need to throw the boy
to the floor and fuck him until he never forgets his place again.
He had sworn, and it is the decided punishment for such a thing, but what
pleasure is there in the same rules applying to them both? Hannibal’s hand
tightens around Will's neck, cutting off the flow of blood and breath with a
precise press of fingertips, delighting darkly as Will gapes silent.
"Wretched boy. You will suffer," comes the whispered admonishment, affecting a
bracing cold threat into his voice, but in truth delighted by the act, one of
rebellion, of disobedience that gives Hannibal the opportunity to thoroughly
debase him.
He shoves the length of his body hard against Will again, a single brutal
thrust, before sliding his hand around to Will's cock. A single finger traces
gently along the length of it, an infuriatingly soft touch, and he finds a bead
of precum slicked there and gathers it on a fingertip, to feed to the wanton
boy wrapped around him.
"You will not," Hannibal reminds him, "until I inform you it is time. Go find
him and bring him with us. You will lavish your attentions on him in the car,
and I will watch, and consider what best to do with him."
Will sobs again, teeth over his lip as he's set down, dressed, let go with a
single stinging slap to his ass.
He swallows, licks his lips and rests his forehead against Hannibal's shoulder.
"I want to watch you kill him," he says softly, nuzzling the warm skin through
the shirt before kissing there and obediently returning to the club.
He finds the man on the couch Hannibal had occupied, relishes in the hungry
look he gets before pouting, bending over to whisper in his ear.
"My master is cruel," he bites his lip. “He won't let me cum. Will you convince
him for me? Please?"
It seems enough to bring a curse forth from the man, eyes wide, down to where
Will’s cock curves beneath the material of his pants. The desire to be just as
cruel swims up behind his eyes and Will has to smile.
It will be an excellent evening.
"If you're a good boy for me."
Will's eyes narrow in pleasure and he pulls the man up by his collar to stumble
from the club and hail a cab, to wait for Hannibal to join them.
When Hannibal slides into the cab behind them, shortly after, Will is in the
center, of course.
The man's hand moves eagerly to Will's thigh as Hannibal murmurs instructions
to the driver, watching peripherally as the man's hand creeps higher towards
Will's aching cock, drawing a frail whimper from the boy.
"You want to cum?" asks the man, grinning now, unable to believe his luck.
"Yes, please," sighs Will, glancing towards Hannibal before dragging his eyes
back to the other man, leaning into him.
The man's grin bends wider and Hannibal breathes a note of amusement as the man
instructs, "Beg me for it."
Hannibal smells of perfume, sweet and feminine, as he leans near over Will. A
conspicuous smear of lipstick is drawn along his neck and he makes no effort to
hide it as he intones evenly, "Yes, by all means. Beg him."
The color flares in Will's cheeks, eyes flicking to the driver as the car pulls
away, the man appearing far too used to such things in his cab near this club
to even bother looking back in the rear view mirror. Will swallows, presses his
lips together before turning to nearly drape himself over the other man.
“Please,” he moans, lips soft against the man’s cheek down to his jaw and lower
still. His hands slip against his chest, tugging gently, childish in their need
for this.
He feels more than hears the soft laugh as Hannibal sits back to enjoy the
show, privy already to Will’s ability to beg, to his creativity in that regard.
But here, there will need to be nothing more than a whining tone and his
beautiful eyes. This man, after all, is not Hannibal.
Will sighs, rolls his body gently against the man.
“Please make me cum,” he whimpers, a particular choice of words, appealing to
ego rather than mercy.
“I’ll be so good.”
The man sighs roughly, palm skimming the front of his pants, stretched tight
over his own cock with such a beautiful young thing rubbing against him,
begging so sweetly. His other hand presses hard to Will's length, so stiff it
almost hurts to be touched, and the man grins unevenly, overcome by this boy.
Hannibal knows the feeling well.
"You're so hard already, baby," the man intones, sending a ripple of tension
through Hannibal with the word. "It seems so unfair to let you suffer like
this." He's pleased, when he says it, charmed as so many are by the boy's self-
inflicted struggles.
Hannibal's brow lifts in amusement as the boy shifts to straddle the man
sharing their cab - sharing Will.
"Ask him in Greek," Hannibal suggests, as though it were a request to pass the
salt at dinner.
Will glances at him, a pleased smile pressing his lips together, and does so
with the same sweet and desperate intonations as if it were his native tongue.
His hips roll slow circles against the man beneath him, whose fingers work at
the fly of Will's pants even as he blinks upward in surprise.
"That's impressive," the man admits, and pops the button on Will's pants.
A noise of agreement, as Hannibal observes the way Will's hips turn and rub,
twist and grind, fingers sliding beneath his own shirt simply to feel the
stimulation of more skin on skin.
"Latin."
Will blinks at Hannibal, cheeks scarlet now with want, and does so
effortlessly, pleading in dead languages to be forced to his release.
The man curses, tilts his head up to watch Will before leaning closer still to
kiss him as he trembles, nearly overtaken by this.
“Yea,” he pants. “Yea, baby boy, come on - cum for me,”
Will’s entire body tenses, back arched, eyes closed and teeth gritted before he
whines, curls forward again.
“Master, may I, please?” he breathes, addressing Hannibal even as the man
beneath him plays with his endurance, tugs it so taut it’s close to breaking.
Will makes weak little sounds of pain, aiming his pleas at Hannibal now, in
every language he’s exhibited already, adding in a few choice phrases in Creole
when he can’t control it anymore.
He wonders if they will count towards Hannibal’s list of punishments if they
weren’t directed in English.
The throttling tension burns in every inch of Will's body, evident in the
shaking of his hands, fisted tight in the man's shirt collar, in the hard curve
of his spine, in every part of him that fights against his own release.
Hannibal ignores it, and snares Will by the hair to pull him roughly sideways
across the seat. Still straddling the man's lap, but lying across Hannibal's
now, he is slapped for each time he swore.
The hand stills, stroking soft where it struck, and Hannibal responds in a
murmur of dulcet French, far more elegant than the mixed patois that fell
dripping from Will’s mouth.
"I didn't know you speak French.”
A fond expression, genuine and lingering a moment more before he cracks Will
again - perhaps for one of the earlier offenses, perhaps simply because it
amuses him to do so.
"So do I."
Will bites his lip, watching Hannibal from his lap, from beneath his mop of
hair, and the man's wrist twists quicker as he frees Will's cock from his
pants, damp from leaking, from the stimulation, resistance, the drugs and the
dancing and strange new hands and familiar rough ones.
"We are nearly home," Hannibal informs Will, brows lifting. He reaches down,
disrupting the man's pace momentarily to curl his fingers just beneath the head
of Will's cock, and squeeze tightly. "You will do so when I instruct you to."
Will sobs and nods, turning to nuzzle against Hannibal’s thigh.
The man regards the exchange, wide-eyed and aroused, wonders how such a
beautiful boy ended up with such a cruel man - wondering how he could possibly
get as lucky someday and find himself one that is just as happy to take pain.
He strokes flat palms over Will’s thighs, longs to have the boy in his arms
again as the kid catches his breath in his master’s lap.
He watches Hannibal’s fingers curl in his hair in a gesture that’s almost kind,
before letting him go.
“Up.”
Obediently, Will scrambles to sit in the man’s lap again, still hard and
leaking, but no longer begging for anything, just trembling with anticipation
and promise. Hannibal trails a hand down Will’s neck and then turns away, as
though bored, to leave the two of them to their devices.
They are only a few blocks from the house.
“God, look at you,” the man murmurs, stroking Will’s hair, his back, over his
thighs… for the moment respecting Hannibal’s wishes to not bring the boy over
without permission, though the desire is certainly there to see the boy squirm,
disobey, to see him be punished for something he was helpless to.
“You have a very obedient little toy,” he addresses Hannibal, when Will ducks
his head to kiss under his jaw, lower to his neck, sweet soft things that leave
no marks but speak volumes of submission.
“Where did you find him?”
Hannibal smiles faintly, still watching out of the window, and forces it away
to bring the hint of an edge back to his voice.
"He found me, in truth," Hannibal replies. "A chance meeting with entirely
unexpected results."
He closes his eyes for a moment, to listen to the car's engine humming, the
little sounds of Will's kisses that he can nearly feel against his own skin.
"A rare find, to be certain. Here, please."
The driver pulls over, and Hannibal covers the expense of the ride before they
move towards the house. Will still clings to the man, arms wrapped around him
and head tucked up against his shoulder to continue kissing his neck, feigning
a stumble and caught easily enough by the man's quick arm around him.
Hannibal watches with distinct pleasure as Will's vibrations of energy still
enough for him to remove his boots just inside the door. Another sweep of
fingers through Will’s hair in reward for this as he passes, and though the man
doesn't intend to remove his just yet, he follows their lead in doing so.
He's surprised by the house, the scope and scale of it, studying Hannibal a
little more carefully now. It's starting to make sense to him, why such a
lovely boy would be so taken with someone so harsh and unyielding. Money is
always the great equalizer in these things, and he snorts softly to himself at
the thought. These little boys are all the same, although it hardly explains
the display of languages in the car earlier.
The curiosity is readily erased by Will ensnaring the man's wrists, pressing
his hands against his own belly and sliding them downward, past the barely
fastened waistband of his pants, inside them to where he's still dripping hard.
"Our bedroom is upstairs," Will grins, meeting Hannibal's gaze in passing
before dragging the man behind him.
The words are not lost on Hannibal as he watches them go. A mental checklist,
familiar enough, of what meals he'd like to cook in the coming week and what
ingredients he'll need to complete them. A debate wages, though, as to how
he'll end the man. Something that will delight Will, he decides, before
following after them.
Upstairs, Will is already undressed, whether by his hand or the man’s it’s hard
to say, but Hannibal ignores the mess on the floor for the moment, in favor of
watching Will’s body twist and arch pleasantly, flushed and warm, just barely
trembling from the overstimulation of the drugs. He still can’t imagine how it
must feel for Will, all his extraordinary senses amped up to something almost
ethereal, unreal, inhuman.
Perhaps inhumane?
He wonders how often Will has done this to himself. Fallen into a pit of
warring senses to see if he would reemerge again.
Hannibal waits at the door, just watches the way the man’s hands slide over
Will, how he murmurs gentle things against his boy, how Will smiles at them,
shivers, bites his lip. The words carry, and he allows himself to hear them.
“Come to me, baby, come on.”
Will twists again, not at all uncomfortable with being handled so openly,
obscenely.
“He’s unkind to you. I’ll be so kind, so gentle with you,”
The words are familiar, the same sick, sordid, dull things repeated over and
over into the gullible ears of poor boys who walk the streets. Words that Will
knows, has tasted, has regurgitated back in a snarled falsetto when regaling
Hannibal with his experiences.
Will’s only reply to the words is a soft growl, fingers curled against the
man’s shirt, lip between his teeth. He’s still moving, rocking, swaying to the
music no one can hear anymore. A perpetual need to shift and dance and feel his
limbs - the drug doing its work.
“Mmm, wanna suck your cock,” he murmurs at length, lips wide in a grin, before
he glances over his shoulder, tilts his head, for a moment an expression
entirely clear and only for Hannibal to see, before he turns back, continues
the act.
“Gonna be so good,” he moans and rubs against the man before sinking gracefully
to his knees, hands at the button and zipper already, as one heavy hand lands
in his hair, the other goes through the man’s own in utter disbelief of his
luck.
The meaningless mutterings resonate in their lack of substance and Hannibal
smiles with quiet bemusement as he undoes his shirt. A far cry from Will
reciting poetry, but the man seems to gather what he needs from it as a low
moan burrows past his lips.
When Will takes him in, it’s immediately deep, immediately hot and perfect. He
moans, shivers, sets his knees wider and backs up so he has to bend to reach,
giving Hannibal a view of the curve of his back, the curve of his ass, as he
gives the other man his mouth.
Eager bursts of vocalization among breathless panting now, the soft wet
clicking sounds of Will's mouth wrapped around the man's cock. Hannibal
wonders, as he listens to the assorted sounds, how many times Will has
performed in such a way in order to so perfect his skill. How many hands and
mouths have moved across his body, each desperate to claim him and mark him and
make him theirs.
How many have remained alive after doing so.
The man's hand tenses, and the tug against Will's hair elicits a sweet moan
from the boy, the barest note of pain pressed deliberately into it, which only
makes the man want that sound again.
"Is it good, baby boy?" the man mutters, tilting Will's chin enough that their
eyes can meet. "You like sucking daddy's cock?"
Hannibal scarcely contains a laugh at the predictable words, hideously tacky
though they are, and removes his pants.
Will nods, wide-eyed, and feigns a soft gagging sound around the man’s length.
The man clucks his tongue and works his hips deeper against Will's mouth. "I
thought you said you like it rough," he coaxes. "You can do better than that."
It appears that there is certainty behind his words, Hannibal notes, as the man
shushes Will's eager whimpers and pushes his cock even deeper into Will's
mouth, against his throat, keeping it there.
An agitation, twisting Will's spine as he works his throat open, smothered by
the man's cock in it, an unyielding weight that makes it hard to breathe. He's
unable to relax away from it, the man's hand still curled in his hair, but
simply forces his eyes upwards instead until the man relents, grunting pleasure
before picking up a steadier pace.
"I'd be such a good daddy to you," the man intones, head rolling back and eyes
closed.
Hannibal draws nearer to them, but does not yet approach the man, instead
trailing a gentle caress down Will's spine with the backs of his fingers.
Affectionate, genuine, in the touch that moves lower still, to press against
the boy's opening. His fingers are cool with lube as Hannibal presses them
deeply, buries them to the knuckles and catches Will's hip with the other hand
to keep him from squirming away.
How many times like this, Hannibal wonders, made wanton and debased by lesser
men than they, before Will brought them as low as humanity allows.
"You can do better than that," Hannibal echoes, amusement in his voice as he
settles to his knees behind Will.
Will makes a helpless noise and one hand come up to curl tight around his cock
so he can keep orgasm at bay, as he arches and presses back and tilts into the
hand against him, keeps his eyes open and up at the man before him.
Concentration spreading thin between them before he arches his neck more and
takes the man as deep as he can, swallowing over and over until he has to pull
off to breathe, the man too pleased and surprised to catch him in time to stop
him.
“And take more,” Will agrees, in broken French, before he leans close to run
just his parted lips over the man’s cock in front of him, panting for air,
flushed and high and horny.
He knows this is all a show, for the man before him, for Hannibal behind him,
and he finds that he has no pleasure, at all, in impressing the man he looks up
at physically.
He pushes his hips back, turns his head against the man’s still clothed thigh
with a moan at the feeling of familiar fingers within him, at the promise of
more and deeper and harder.
“Nnng, I want to be fucked,” he groans, biting his lip and laughing, pulling
back just enough to see the man above him. “Hard.”
It’s laughable, for anything like that to pass between him and Hannibal, but
for this man it does the trick, reels him in, closer and closer to his own
oblivion, closer and closer to the two monsters starving for the blood beneath
his skin.
Hannibal's fingers twist deeper still, as far as he can reach, a third added
roughly - as reward, as punishment, it isn't clear and it doesn't matter, Will
whimpers the same either way. A pleased hum at the sound, and Hannibal's eyes
meet the man's gaze when he looks to Hannibal, rather than Will, for guidance.
"May I?" asks the man, an almost prim formality to the question, unsure of how
to navigate such particular - and promising - waters.
Hannibal’s fingers withdraw from Will with another brutal twist and he runs a
hand along the curve of his ass, thumb stroking the boy's soft skin in
something like reassurance.
"You may," Hannibal responds after a long moment. "But first, strike him."
Only the heaviness of Will's panting breath fills the silence between them. The
man's fingers flex and stretch, but he does not move yet.
"He knows better than to curse," Hannibal explains, thinning patience pulling
taut over a sharp edge. "It is unbecoming of one so otherwise lovely. Uncouth.
Coarse." A pause, eyes dark and expression utterly serious. "You will strike
him, or the evening is at an immediate end."
The man looks down to Will, swallows hard and grins a little, another
unexpected perk to the evening. He lifts his hand and slaps, a wan thing
compared to the brutal blows that Hannibal rains down upon the boy.
"Harder," Hannibal insists softly. "He has debts to be paid for his
incorrigible behavior, and believe me when I say that he can withstand much
more than one would be inclined to think from looking at him."
Hannibal stands, a subtle squeeze against Will’s thigh before he does, and
motions to the boy’s ass.
“Again. Harder. Here.”
Simple instructions for a simple creature, entirely unaware of the dangerous
developments around him.
"If you say so," agrees the man, shucking his pants as he steps around behind
Will to where the boy still sits kneeling, bent onto all fours. Another slap,
across Will’s ass this time, with his full force behind it.
 
Will whimpers, eyes closed and teeth gritted, showing far more pain and fear
than he ever shows Hannibal. Another show. Another performance. He makes a soft
sound of pain but stays as he’s been told to, head ducked between his
shoulders, arms trembling with holding him up.
The man looks up, flexing his fingers, a grin sitting on his face still, and
Hannibal motions permission for another strike. Another after, until the man
stops asking. Hannibal circles around to Will’s front, crouches where he can
see Will’s face, lips parted on whimpers and begging, eyes closed against the
pain.
When he snares his jaw, Will turns his eyes to him, wide and bright and wet,
and grins.
“Harder,” he mouths, feigning another agonized wail when he’s struck again,
raising his voice on false words: “Stop, please stop, I’ll be better.”
The sound of skin-on-skin resounds through the room, and Will whimpers with
increasing intensity each time another strike lands across his ass. He rolls
his eyes a little, wry, before ducking his head and begging soft, voice
cracking, "Please, sir. I won't do it again."
Hannibal lifts a hand to stay the man's blows and raises Will's chin with the
side of his finger, leaning in to murmur quietly in French against his ear.
"In truth, I lost count of your swearing throughout the evening," he admits
with amusement shared only between them. A looseness in his voice, in his
carriage - as Will reads it, though to the man Hannibal still seems a looming
force - as he feels still the drug winding through his system, and the relief
promised by finally tearing out the seams that have held the monster scarcely
at bay through the night.
His expression is smooth as polished stone as Hannibal stands again, to take in
the sight of Will bent and scarlet-assed from the spanking.
"There is lubricant in the dresser beside the bed," Hannibal informs the man.
That instruction is followed quickly, and Will takes a moment to rub a hand
over his face, rest forward on his elbows as he catches his breath. His nerves
sing, his blood rushes behind his ears and there is still music, the thump-
thump-thump of a bass beat around him, though it could be his heart.
He goes when Hannibal turns him over, lying on his back like a cat in the sun
and obediently spreading his legs wide when the man returns and settles between
them. He’s coy, a teasing little thing with bitten lips and hooded eyes, knees
drawn up and head ducked against his shoulder, eyes up looking at the man
through his hair.
Will can see Hannibal in his peripheral, taking his fill of the boy as well, so
familiar now, so pleasant. And all his, entirely so. Even without the bruises
sucked dark and harsh against his skin, against the insides of his thighs,
against his hips… Hannibal owns Will as entirely as Will gives himself.
“Such a beautiful boy and such a filthy mouth,” the man murmurs, sliding his
hands over Will’s stomach and down, stroking his cock just once to feel Will
gasp, arch up, tense with anticipation.
Will brings a hand down to curl around his length, squeezing hard to hold his
orgasm back, but the picture is a gorgeous one; flushed cheeks flushed chest,
red knees, red thighs and deeply pink cock curved up from beneath his fingers.
Will moans, and the man doesn’t hold back, lining himself up and pushing in
hard, watching Will’s back arch, catching his hands beneath.
“Fuck,fuck,” the man groans, starting a harsh, brutal rhythm that has Will
pushing back against the carpet, stretching one arm above his head, fingers
splayed in pleasure, seeking permission and finding none. He watches Hannibal,
eyes barely open, lips just curving into a smile, as he moans again, for the
man between his legs, for the man above him.
Hannibal knows that Will won't finish without explicit permission, unless he's
craving a more severe punishment in retribution. A victory either way, Hannibal
considers, watching his boy squirm against the carpet.
He imagines how sweetly Will is going to laugh when he finally orgasms, with
this man dead beside him, and hums a pleased note.
Hannibal circles them slowly, watching the display with particular attention
and content to ignore the half-hard state of his own cock at the moment. He
curls a hand around the man's chin this time - an expression of dominance that
the man resists with a quick jerk of his head. He's not able to see what Will
can see from the floor - Hannibal's other hand looming above the man's head, in
the precise position to snap his neck.
The display draws a long, heady moan from Will, an honest and gleeful
encouragement. Hannibal smiles, pleased to delight him in such a way, and he
lets his hands fall away for now as the man fucks into Will.
"He can take much more than that," Hannibal informs the man as his circling
finally ceases. A grin curls the man's lips and he groans, fucking Will with
abandon, careless as to the boy's whimpers, his gratifying little murmurs of
how it hurts. Hannibal presses his hands to Will's shoulders as he kneels above
him, holding him in place, leaning low to kiss him.
A soft, almost tender thing, mouths meeting gently before Hannibal leans back
again, cock hard against Will's cheek.
The man doesn't notice as Hannibal tugs his shed pants slightly closer, within
arm's reach.
Will makes a series of soft needy sounds, higher in pitch, as he gets closer
and closer, as it becomes harder to hold back, an honest struggle instead of a
feigned one.
"Please?"
Hannibal strokes his face, shakes his head, and delights in how Will still
parts his lips for him, brows drawn and sobbing, until he takes Hannibal’s cock
in his mouth and obediently sucks.
It isn’t deep, just enough to feel Will’s lips circle the head, the angle is
too awkward for much more, but the view, the idea that this boy, this
remarkable, clever, beautiful boy can take it, does take it with such perfect
obedience, sends the man fucking him into a frenzy of quick thrusts and harsh
breaths, sordid praise for the boy he's debasing.
Will struggles for a moment, tongues the slit until he can taste the first
drops of bitter release, and pulls away.
"I can't!"
"You can,” comes the soft reply. Be it permission or an expectation of more,
Will no longer cares. He doesn’t even need to touch himself before he's pulsing
tendrils of white against his own stomach, the pleasure almost pain now with
how long he's waited.
His lips spread in a smile, he draws his bottom lip between his teeth and
laughs softly, just once, a sound of such deep, genuine pleasure that
Hannibal's breath catches, that his mind connects the fact, quickly, sharply,
that the man fucking Will is not himself, but that when Will’s eyes open again
they go straight to him.
"Very good, Will."
The praise is genuine, soft-spoken as Hannibal rests his hand against the boy's
cheek. He's unsure whose skin is warmer as he traces his thumb fondly, but the
man's voice breaks the moment of connection as he gasps.
"I'm gonna cum," he declares, thrusting erratic now, fingers clenched hard to
push Will's legs up higher, further apart, to drive deeper harder faster into
him, eyes open only to slits to watch the boy's release spread across his pale
skin.
Hannibal's eyes turn upwards from Will, an inhuman curve gathering in his
spine, a snarl snaring his lip to bare his teeth. Wolfish, protective of that
which belongs to him, entirely, and him alone, unwilling to let his boy be
further defiled by this other.
"You will not," Hannibal informs the man, and before the man has time to do
more than blink in surprise, he's been grabbed by the hair, head tilted back,
and his throat opens wide and silent as Hannibal passes Will's knife across it.
He does appreciate the boy's affection for gore, though he does not usually
share it with such fervor. It will require replacing the expensive rug,
Hannibal considers, but as he watches the blood cascade over Will in a torrent
across his belly, chest, a wave of scarlet covering pale skin, it's well worth
the cost of that carpet or any other.
Will squirms, lips parted and eyes closed in utter ecstasy in the moment,
arching up as blood slips down his skin, the spray up under his chin as well,
warm and tacky and thick.
He turns his head to gasp, eyes wide when he opens them, smile clear, and he
laughs again, a warmer, lower sound, and draws a hand over his face to smear
the drops that had landed that far.
Will adjusts, makes a gentle noise of discomfort and pulls from the man, still
hard within him, as the body convulses and rests still, held off of Will by
Hannibal's grip. He’s breathless, excited, adrenaline running and sparking and
shuddering through his blood. He needs air, he needs water, knows he needs to
rest so the X can flow from his system, but all he manages is to sit up,
wincing at the stretch, and laugh.
With utter innocence and abandon.
Truly, genuinely pleased.
"I -" he giggles, presses his knuckles to his cheek, down to his lips, before
managing to look at Hannibal properly.
"I didn't know you spoke French."
Hannibal releases the man's hair with a quick push, letting the body fall to
the floor with a thump. His arms surround Will immediately, tugging the boy
into his lap and sitting back cross-legged to keep him close, blood running
warm between them.
"Among others," Hannibal responds, a faint grin at Will's little laughs and
visible delight. He nuzzles the boy's neck, kissing, tasting the salt of sweat
and the metallic tang of blood from Will's skin.
A joyous exhaustion between them, a raw and revealed warmth found in this
shared experience, in blood on their hands and hungers profoundly sated. He
keeps Will tight against him, kissing soft, until the tremors of excitement
ease from the boy’s skin into pliancy, a spent yielding of his body to curve
gently into Hannibal's own.
"You are extraordinary," Hannibal sighs into Will's sweat-drenched curls of
hair. "Incorrigible. Delightful. Improbable, entirely."
His hips roll against the boy, uninsistent but simply enjoying the sensation of
it, the way the drug allows him to speak and move so easily now that his seams
have been shredded and the monster beneath let free and satisfied. An absolute
shift from the staid and stern presence he had maintained all night, allowing
himself now to be utterly enthralled by the languid boy draped across his lap.
"Will you assist me later, in preparing him?" Hannibal asks.
Will hums, so contented here, in the arms of the killer responsible for the
body just behind him. He feels stretched and raw and used, and the high he had
been scared would not come when he himself did not kill, thrums through him
with every pulse of his heart. Just as present, just as intense.
“Yes,” he breathes, nuzzling against the man’s neck, enjoying the gentle
touches, the soft and careful fingers that had just moments before pushed
bruises against him, forced his head back… and yet he knows that Hannibal is
not being anything other than himself, with his praise and his hands and the
steady beat of his heart.
He feels his own match, beat between beat then beat for beat, a new bassline to
dance to, while the drug still cools his blood and heats his brain.
He pulls back and just looks at him, brings up a bloodied hand to trace
fingertips over Hannibal’s lips, painting them before leaning in to chase the
color away. It starts soft, as the kiss had been between them with Will on his
back, but when one heart speeds up so does the other, and arms slippery with
blood find their way around Hannibal’s neck, pull himself closer so he’s
kneeling over his lap, head ducked just enough to keep their mouths together.
His eyes are closed, hair wet over his face, blood drying on his cheeks where
he’d smeared it. He grins, draws his nose against Hannibal’s and laughs gently.
“And you swear,” he reminds Hannibal, returning to their conversation about
French, or perhaps a new thing entirely, novel discoveries and allowances that
send Will’s heart beating thick against his ears again.
"When so moved," he responds, nuzzling Will's cheek, kissing him soundly again.
"Inspired by the nearness to particular debaucheries."
A roll of hips, seeking contact, pressure, friction between them. Hannibal
draws a sharp breath as his cock slides against Will's ass, pressing his
forehead to his temple, mouth warm against his skin.
"You will assist me," he breathes, confirmation. "Peel back skin and bone to
reveal all that made him move against you, all that stirred him towards you as
you stir me. A revelation, sustenance for us both."
Another rough shift of hips, entirely in the thrall of the boy whose very heart
so mirrors his own. Hannibal presses himself against the boy’s entrance, and
sighs soft.
"May I?"
An unfamiliar submission in the question, a tribute to how much the boy astride
him owns him, as much if not more than he owns this boy.
Will grins, the gesture just as slow, lazy, as his entire body has decided to
become. As though moving through water, the bass beat slowing but never
stilling. He turns his hand, sliding messy fingers through Hannibal’s hair,
turning his head so their lips brush but doesn’t kiss him.
“Slow,” he replies, a wicked grin spreading his lips as he pushing up just a
little higher, closer, in invitation.
The stretch is familiar, delicious after the abuse of before, and Will tenses,
arches hard and digs his nails against Hannibal’s shoulder, his scalp. It’s
deliberate, a taking, reclaiming, and Will pants against it, still sensitive,
still overwhelmed by the pleasure, the pain, the blood against him.
He makes a sound far too helpless to be one he allows, but then he makes
another, presses that against Hannibal’s lips and settles against him, feeling
the full length of him, hard, hot, ready for him. Will bites Hannibal’s lip
when he pulls away.
“Slow,” he commands, one hand against his chest to hold him still, in warning,
before curling his fingers into a gentle fist and allowing Hannibal to move him
as he pleases, eyes on his, not blinking, feeling his cheeks color with the
scrutiny and still keeping it up.
“How did it feel?” he asks softly, breathless, when Hannibal starts to push
back in. “When you watched?”
"I felt envy," Hannibal sighs low, maintaining the pace that Will has set for
him, measured strokes deep and slow. "In my eagerness to join with you again."
He pulls slowly back out, hands on Will's hips, still shifting in gyrations to
the music of their breaths, their bodies.
"Pleased, that you are yet mine to enjoy whenever it suits me."
An achingly slow push in again, burying himself entirely before Will's hand
unclenches to press against Hannibal's chest. He does not move once stopped,
entirely in the boy's sway and watching breathless as Will circles his hips to
feel the length of Hannibal's cock buried inside him. It draws a low groan from
Hannibal, already sharp senses tipping into an almost overwhelming
hypersensitivity.
The boy is effortlessly elegant in his movements, an organic rhythm to all he
does, beautifully thoughtless now in his behaviors.
"The sight of you," breathes Hannibal, moving when Will allows him again. The
sentence hangs unfinished, too many words to fill that endless space and all so
entirely ineffective to describe the way the boy moves him.
He kisses Will instead, lips parting against each other to express what words
fail at this moment. A poetry indescribable as they match movements and mouths
and heartbeats and hands running firm and slow over bare skin still sticky with
blood until Hannibal speaks soft against Will's shoulder.
"I felt as though I may never find you uninteresting."
A soft sound, a murmuring moan, and Will arches, body tensed against Hannibal’s
in pleasure. There is more than affection here, it's a strange depth of
devotion neither had expected. Envy, lust, yes, but this draws out the marrow
of their bones, pulls at their sinews.
This turns them both to instruments, complementary and complicated.
Will parts his lips on a breathless little groan and closes his eyes.
For a few moments he says nothing, rides out the slow, delicious friction
before he breathes one word that hitches in the middle, cracking the tension
between them.
"Harder."
A snarl presses against Will's shoulder in reply, head ducked as Hannibal fucks
him a little faster, following the quickening of his pulse, his own now
desperate need to find release, intoxication and the shared spilling of blood
proving alarmingly irresistible to the predator parting Will's thighs.
He curls a hand in the boy's hair, tilting his head to bare the spray of blood
browning beneath his chin. Spilling down his skin as though dripped from a
wound opening Will's throat rather than someone else's, Hannibal only just
resists speeding his pace faster still.
His boy, to worship and to punish and to fuck and to kill. A beautiful and
wanton thing given over to him as entirely as he feels given over to Will in
this moment.
"Will," Hannibal sighs, low, a request, a warning, an adoration.
Will grins, allows Hannibal to push harder, faster into him, feels hot lips
against his throat, just as dangerous a kiss as the blood had been, just as
alive, just as closely mirroring death.
His arms are curls hard around Hannibal, now, holding on and pushing up, again
and again, over and over, until he feels his cock harden between them,
sensitive and curved up against his stomach.
"You still want to tear me apart," he gasps, head turning gently, pressed to
Hannibal’s temple, murmuring words against the dry blood he'd smeared there.
"You still want to taste my blood and flay me alive,"
The words send shivers through Hannibal, another snarl, another adjustment in
pace until Will tugs the other man closer, feels balance and gravity and time
shift to find his back against the bloodied floor. He wraps his legs around
Hannibal’s hips, utterly elegant in the wanton motion, beautiful and depraved.
"Harder," he urges again. “Tell me."
Hannibal's hips drive bruising rough against Will's thighs, reaching back with
a hand to hitch his legs higher, the other planted in the blood-soaked carpet
cold and wet beneath Will's back.
"I will know every inch of you," Hannibal sighs hard against the boy's mouth.
Not kissing, but possessing.
"Every last breath you take beneath my hands will be my name, so that it is the
last word to leave your mouth alive."
Will arches beneath Hannibal, seeking his mouth to taste the cruel words but
denied by Hannibal, who keeps the same distance between them.
"There is not a part of you that I will not seek to use and devour," Hannibal
promises him, hips leaving bruises on Will's pale legs now, unable to hold
back, unwilling to try, seeking only Will's heat and movement and breath. He
leans lower now, cheek to bloody cheek with Will, and whispers soft against his
ear.
"I will save your heart for last, dear Will. Every bite to be savored, for
there will never be another like it."
Will sobs at the words, the response entirely genuine, entirely human. Body
shivering and twisting, already close again from just the suggestions made him.
He bucks up, determined to meet every thrust, to return it with equal fervor,
and for a few moments they are lost in each other, in the heat and slick and
grip of the other. Will's breathing hitches, over and over, not allowing him a
full breath. He’s dizzy, hot, the drug in his blood still urging to dance,
yearning to move, but his limbs exhausted, his body used.
"Eat it raw,” he requests, his French sharp, unrefined between them, and it's
enough to feel Hannibal groan, push, release within him.
"As you wish," Hannibal murmurs, panting unsteady with the rush of release. "As
you are."
Without yet drawing from inside Will, he slides an arm beneath him to bring him
upright again. Grasping his cock, Hannibal pumps his fist slowly over the
length of it, long squeezing strokes that mirror the ceaseless movement of the
boy's body.
"It will be the rarest experience I can imagine, to be relished once and never
again."
He closes his mouth against Will's, catching the moan that shakes itself free
of the exhausted boy, pulsing in time with his release, spurting slick against
Hannibal's fingers, trailing white against the dried blood.
"Very good," Hannibal praises him again, nuzzling against his cheek, kissing
the corner of his mouth. He stands slow, unsteady himself, and scoops his boy
from the floor and into his arms. Will slips his arms around Hannibal's neck,
trying to catch his breath, feverishly hot.
"A bath, I think," Hannibal murmurs, more to himself than to Will, as he takes
the boy through to the bathroom, sets him there, unsteady and filthy, for the
moment, and runs the water.
Will is left alone, while the body is gathered and moved to the basement, to be
taken apart and harvested properly later. Frozen, for now, until Will is
conscious enough to help.
He regards the water as it runs steadily into the bath, clear, smelling of
nothing but water itself. He lets his fingers splay beneath the stream, watches
the light flicker off it, draw fireflies in his vision as the drug starts to
finally fade.
By the time Hannibal returns, Will is up to his neck in the water, surprisingly
clean considering the mess. A brief glance to the shower suggests he'd rinsed
himself clean before enjoying the water.
He looks barely conscious, contented, comfortable. He blinks his eyes open,
blue and clear again, and smiles.
Hannibal regards Will's smile with a pale mirror of his own, and offers Will a
glass of ice water.
"Drink."
It is, perhaps, the first time that Will has seen Hannibal appear tired. He
keeps his composure, as ever, but there's a liquidity to his movements, a
languor that aches bone-deep throughout him.
Will accepts the water and swallows down a few needed gulps before Hannibal
clucks his tongue. The boy slows, and Hannibal regards it with approval before
he pads to the shower.
A perfunctory wash, far less involved than the long, precise showers Hannibal
typically takes, He glances at Will, once in a while, observing him there in
the tub, either playing with the water between his fingers, or watching
Hannibal in return.
When he emerges he avoids taking up a towel, and instead finds his way to Will
again, as he seems to more and more. A pause, and then an adjustment, inching
Will forward enough in the tub that Hannibal can drop into the cool water
behind him.
He cups water in his hands as Will settles back between his legs, pours it over
the boy's hair and hums as it cascades down the curves of Will's neck and
shoulders.
"Was the evening pleasing to you?" He allows another soft smile. "Far more
successful than my own attempt."
Will bites his lip in pleasure, rests all his weight back against Hannibal. The
water helps, to keep his body suspended, to fill his stomach now, cooling the
fire within it.
“Successful,” he considers, remembers the evening when Hannibal had dragged him
through the house, brought Will down to the lowest of human low he could be.
Because he had disobeyed, because he had worked so hard with his pride to
destroy what they had worked so long to build, fought so fiercely to protect.
He remembers the night in the freezing basement, horrific images floating
through his mind of the boys in the freezers, of how close he had come to
joining them.
He remembers well.
“Yours was very successful,” he replies at length. “You weren’t out to procure,
you were there to educate. And I learned.”
He slides one hand back to take one of Hannibal’s, threads their fingers
together gently just above the surface of the water, allows Hannibal’s to fold
over his palm before closing his own.
“Tonight was very pleasing,” he adds gently, turning his head against Hannibal
again, under his chin, a comfortable cat-like nuzzle. Tired and lazy. One of
his cheeks is red, a fringe of purple against his cheekbone and jaw where
Hannibal had struck him. It will darken over the next few days, then fade to
yellow, then fade entirely.
And then he would earn more.
Hannibal brings a hand softly against the boy’s cheek, traces his thumb across
the dawning bruise and settles his chin atop Will’s head. Eyes closed, his own
body’s fever cooled by the water around them.
“It was a rare joy to see you work,” he says, almost carefully. “But you are
not without room for improvement,” adds Hannibal, with something like relief,
amusement, although in truth he can think of nothing tonight to teach the boy,
no missteps beyond slapping Hannibal, which he’ll pay for once they’re both
sober enough to properly enjoy it. Beyond it, seeing the boy move and draw and
lure had been fascinating, a predator’s instincts enough like his own in
practicality, but so unlike his in practice.
He presses the hand twined with Will’s against the boy’s stomach, up his chest,
to rest his fingers against his throat without pressure, but a familiar
comforting contact for them both.
“How would you have ended me, Will?” Hannibal asks, turning his own cheek
against the Will’s, kissing his water-cool skin, tasting the remnants of blood
and soap and pale boy sweet and sleepy. “If you had found me at your mercy on
our first night together, or perhaps if you are able to catch me unaware in the
future, before I you.”
Gentle tones, impossibly fond, drawn as ever to the intimacy of their mutually
assured destruction, comforted by the cold war in which they’ve found
themselves ensconced that keeps it at bay.
Will considers, presses his lips together, forces his mind to go back far
enough beyond a mutual understanding, beyond the nights both sleepless and
sleepy together, lying awake and restless apart. It should be a relationship,
he thinks, amusement coiling in his chest. This is what people do when they
choose a partner to share space with. Get close. Relax. Live.
But not them.
There is no rest with them, and neither want any.
“I would have knocked your head against the mirror in the bathroom,” he muses
softly, words barely slurred but slurred enough. “After you’d tell me to go.
Hard enough to break skin, if not glass, but I may have struck you again for
the ash.”
He smiles, draws fingers through the water before lifting them to watch them
drip, the way the water gathers, catches the light, makes it seem as though
Will is melting into the water itself, disappearing.
“I would have used a knife,” he adds, “because you would hate the mess. It
would eat at you. I would have staged a robbery. I would’ve left you near dead
on the floor to watch me go.”
He swallows, brows furrowing, displeased by his own barbarity in regard to the
man behind him who now means so much more than a single face in a sea of
thousands of them.
“In the future, you won’t see me when I kill you,” he whispers.
"No mercy, then," Hannibal responds, running his hand along Will's collarbones,
from one side to the other. "No final moment to look upon what you have become
and see it fully realized."
He kisses Will's shoulder, up to the curve of his neck.
"Cruel boy."
For the first time, it seems a genuine possibility that the boy could end him.
An innate savagery and skill, developing daily into something even more
formidable. It would not be an unwelcome death, to feel the boy's hands press
against his skin one more time, and to carry that touch with him as the last
he'll ever feel.
A shiver, and Hannibal snares Will around the waist, surrounding him, keeping
him near. He wonders if Will realizes how deeply he has fallen into thrall
beneath him, how readily Hannibal would procure for him, hunt for him, clean up
and fix for him, protect him in moments when his strength is not enough.
Better, perhaps, that he does not know.
"Someday," Hannibal murmurs, content to leave it at that, happier still that
someday is not today.
Chapter End Notes
     Another brief hiatus, loves, for a few days to regather and attack
     again in full force.
     IN THE MEANTIME, for a later chapter, send us 3 kinks you would like
     to see played out. Depraved is excellent. They will potentially be
     used on our clever little Will, so keep that in mind.
     We shall select and credit any and all who contribute!!
***** Chapter 11 *****
Chapter Summary
     Utter calm as Hannibal regards him, lightless eyes wide and intrigued
     by what fight is left in the boy. An animal movement, nearly
     reptilian, as his head tilts and he steps forward, inhuman in his
     hunt. Primordial. Primal. And vastly more terrifying than when he
     snarled and spit and struck.
     “What now, Will?” Hannibal asks softly. “How will the evening end?”
Chapter Notes
     As ever, a forewarning: if you are sensitive to excessive sadism,
     abusive violence, and dubcon that is arguably, actually, noncon...
     ...you probably should have stopped reading before getting all the
     way to chapter eleven.
The more time passes, the more things stay the same.
Familiarity grows, day in and day out, with the emergent rituals they’ve formed
together. They wake entangled, part to class or to work, return on opposing
nights one before the other, depending on whose itch to go out, to stretch,
breathe, hunt, slaughter has grown more insufferable in the maintenance of
their masks to the outside world.
Masks they do not restore when arriving home again to find the other and play
as predators, snapping and snarling, an endless tangle of words and bodies
seeking dominance, possession, connection with the other.
A routine that for all its gleeful honesty in the horrors they harbor, remains
still a routine.
A pattern, predictable, involving a boy that despite everything would strangle
Hannibal in his sleep if he could, when it all comes to that invariable end.
Lulled into complacency.
Unsafe in certainty.
Hannibal is reading near the fire when Will arrives home. He’s in his robe
already, rather than his suit, dinner cleared away if it was served at all.
Tension in his fingers hidden with the turn of a page, eased away before the
paper has settled against the one before it. He listens to the thud of boots
beside the door, the unshuffling of coat and scarf, a pause to shake the snow
from his hair before padding barefoot towards the living room.
“Hello, Will,” murmurs Hannibal, comfortably quiet as music plays low from the
speakers. “How was your evening?”
Will makes a vague gesture, suggesting it wasn't even interesting enough to
mention, and stops in the middle of the room, eyes narrowed both in exhaustion
and an odd suspicion.
"Haven't seen that robe since you made me cut down to half a pack a day," Will
murmurs. In truth he doesn't often smoke for pleasure. He smokes for company,
for a chance to clear his head on early mornings, between classes. On one
memorable occasion, smoking helped a hunt.
Something catches him off, though - too normal. No hunger, he realizes,
radiating from the man in front of him.
Even on nights Will wasn’t immediately pinned to the door or the wall or over
the table, there was a hunger there, underlying, seeping from the stitches
holding the intricate human suit onto the monster beneath.
And now, nothing.
Calm, laxity. Genuine relaxation.
Will swallows and continues past Hannibal to the kitchen, pulling a bottle of
wine from the stand, ones Hannibal uses for cooking, and pouring himself a
glass.
"Yours?" Will asks from the other room, not curious so much as wanting to see
how much more he could read off of him, from his voice, his tone and timbre.
Hannibal settles back into the robe, into his chair, freshly scrubbed and
showered and in truth only still awake for Will's return. Old habits would have
him soundly asleep, contented, by now.
New habits demand a different response.
"Much the same as yours," Hannibal responds, finally glancing up as the boy re-
enters the room, wine in hand.
Will sips, a far better wine than most would ever consider using for cooking,
and studies Hannibal over the rim of his glass.
Implication, but no accusation. No harsh edges sharpening the easy curl of
accented words. Entirely settled, the way he sounds late at night when they're
exhausted and near to sleep.
But Hannibal doesn't bury the tone, most curiously, though he easily could. The
older man turns a faintly curious look to Will at his narrow-eyed lingering,
until the boy approaches.
Edging nearer, though with hesitation - the scent of something on the wind that
has caught a predator's interest. As soon as Will is near enough, Hannibal sets
his book aside and tugs the boy down into his lap.
A moment more of peace, nuzzling his hair to breathe in the whereabouts of
where Will has been, what he's been doing, and the familiar sweetness cloying
like rot beneath it all.
Hannibal hums, content with what he finds. "You went to your lectures today."
Will says nothing, returns the hum with one of his own, asserting agreement,
and takes another sip of wine. Motions, motions but no end to them. He feels as
though he's part of a very well rehearsed play - some sick domestic scene from
a sitcom.
His mind spins with answers like a damned wheel of fortune and doesn’t settle
enough for anything definitive. Will leans to set the glass aside and Hannibal
presses warm lips to his temple. Familiar, practiced, a gesture of pure comfort
and trust that only comes after hours, first, of torment.
"You fucked someone."
It's deadpan, low, and Will twists from another kiss to hold Hannibal at bay
with splayed fingers on his chest.
It's more than that, with the sleepy look in Hannibal’s expression, the bare
curve of a contented smile. Will feels the wine burn like vinegar in his
stomach.
"You liked fucking someone else."
A blink up at the boy, a feigned surprise convincing enough to seem real to
anyone who can’t read Hannibal so readily.
“Should I not have?”
Fucked someone or enjoyed it, the question doesn’t seem to merit qualification,
and Hannibal doesn’t yet loosen his arms from around the boy’s waist, keeping
him near despite the press of fingers against his chest, the tightening of
Will’s hand around the glass of wine.
Hannibal nuzzles gently beneath Will’s chin, forcing kisses against his neck,
and murmurs softly, “He was lovely, young as you perhaps, though far more
filled with hope. I doubt he’s ever been picked up and brought to a place such
as this. He reeked of cheap motels, the bleach of starched sheets.”
He presses his palm up the boy’s back, feeling his spine curl with tension, and
smiles faintly.
“His hands grasped these as though he’d never touched anything so soft before.”
Will feels sick, a tug against his stomach that sets it roiling. His hand curls
nails to Hannibal's chest now, harsh here where he usually relishes in the
sensation of never really causing Hannibal pain.
"And you spread him across them as you had never seen anything so beautiful,"
Will snarls in return, feeling the scene play out without having to ask about
it.
Some kid, smiling wide and trembling with anticipation, brought here and told
he could touch, could relax. Kissed soft as deft fingers undid the buttons to
his shirt - no, too poor for a button up, a tee shirt, threadbare and
stretched, pulled over his head.
Arms holding him tight as Hannibal holds Will now, whispered confessions and
apologies, promises, the slow spread of the boy’s legs, flushed with arousal
and hope, the gentleness...
Will jerks as though stung, and twists from Hannibal’s grip to stand.
"What did he have," he asks, voice harsh, energy trembling beneath that
transcends logic, "that made you keep him? Did he speak fucken Enochian to you
in bed, angel that he was, what?"
The jealousy is unexpected, inescapable, and Will wants to tear himself to
pieces right after he feels Hannibal’s blood drawn against his skin.
A sigh as Hannibal moves to stand, catching the boy in a quick slap, voice
lowering.
“Language.”
He snares Will’s chin as soon as he jerks it back, forcefully pulling him near
again. Studying the fury in his eyes, the hot burn searing through his cheeks,
unabated rage and envy stirring his pulse sharp and fast.
Breaking apart patterns, to see what new ones re-emerge.
“He did not have to,” Hannibal responds softly. He pushes Will’s hair back from
his face with his other hand, fingernails still digging sharp into his cheeks.
Cruelty and tenderness, affection and brutality.
“He had in him a humanity that I have missed. A fearlessness, not knowing that
there was aught to fear at all. Simple emotions stirred simply beneath my
hands.” Will twists to try to pull away and Hannibal grabs him roughly by the
back of the neck to tug him close.
“Is that not what you seek with your others, Will?”
Will’s breathing comes quicker, the upset fuelled by the gentleness in tone,
the patronizing tenderness. He knows he should not be angry, has no right to be
angry. He holds as little of Hannibal as the other does of him but his heart
speeds, now, for once, blood running like acid through his veins.
"I seek," Will hisses, "to feel blood on my tongue, to feel life give way
beneath my hands because I am better than what fucken rents me."
He snarls, like a cat caught by the scruff, and aims a strike to Hannibal's
chest to push him away, to no avail.
"I had to play puppy tonight for some cunt who thought it was fun," Will
sneers. "I left the fucken scene so spotless you'd be on your fucken knees
worshiping the work, and you -"
The back of Hannibal’s hand comes down across his mouth with enough force to
more than make up for the sputtering curses, all at once, hard enough to knock
the boy to the floor if Hannibal didn’t have him by the hair to keep him
upright. He envisions the boy on all fours, collared, whining soft and sweet
and utterly debased, allowing himself to be demeaned as weak and gentle so that
he could rip and tear at the first opportunity.
It delights him, in truth, to imagine it.
“And I enjoyed my evening,” Hannibal says simply, tone lowering, edging nearer
to something like warning. “I heard my name called out beautifully, again and
again, an aria unfamiliar to me and fascinating in its newness.”
He doesn’t let Will go yet, despite the increasing violence of his thrashing,
of blows easily taken or avoided. Hannibal snarls silently, lips curling as he
slices his palm against the boy’s back, forces it lower into the tight jeans
that cling to him, and circles a finger just soft against Will’s opening,
easily overpowering his resistance to the invasive touch.
“Did you not enjoy your evening, then? Did you not whimper, hard and aching,
for him when he bent you over and told you what a good boy you are? What a good
dog?”
Now Hannibal releases him, blood racing hot beneath his skin in feeling the
boy’s anger surge uncontrolled. A new experience, thrilling and wild, to see
him act with such an absolute abandon, overwhelmed by envy and fury.
Releasing him as prey, to be hunted. As a fellow predator, to subdue for
dominance.
A fearless humanity, much missed in the comfort of the daily inhumanity of
their own existence.
Will’s eyes are wide, dark with the promise of threats beneath his skin. He’s
shaking now, adrenaline thrumming through his blood, and swallows, lips parted,
lined red against the inside where the slap and pressed his skin too close to
his teeth.
"If the boy only knew what poison you were feeding him." Will shakes his head,
a low laugh that sounds distinctly unpleasant as he runs a hand through his
hair, energy coiled for now, held captive, a deliberate boil.
"All this?" He gestures to the expensive trappings, the fine fabrics and
antiques. "It's a glass shell, Hannibal, so pristine you had to mar it, paint
it shut until it was no longer clear. You hide behind veneers, you hide behind
fucken riches and power and you are powerless, when you are aching in your
fucken boredom."
He steps close enough again to meet Hannibal’s eyes properly.
"Those sweet arias will grow dull. His youth will wilt and fatten under your
undivided attention, and you will beg for something better when you realize
you've outgrown your little sandbox."
Another slap, sharp but not as harsh, and Will spits at him, pleased with the
pink of the drops against Hannibal’s face.
"He will bore you,” Will whispers, "with his humanity. With his gentleness. He
will not revere your monster when he sees it, he will hate you. And you will be
left with an empty shell and echoes of pretty words."
Hannibal closes his eyes as he draws his hand through the spit and blood
flecked across his cheek. A thoughtful sound, pressing a finger to his lips to
taste it, the rich metallic tang earning another soft noise.
A terrifying restraint, expression darkening as the sky before a storm, a
promise of thunder in the distance.
“Is this reverence, Will?” He does not reach for him, does not mark him again
across a cheek already shadowed with a fresh bruise, across his lip already
split again. “Are my hungers, which you presume to know so well, so wholly
sated by you that I should seek no other?”
Hannibal steps closer, looming shoulders spread broad, larger than before as he
draws close to the boy. A slight smile, pleased, amused even, as he lifts a
hand to press to Will’s cheek, thumb stroking softly against his skin, warm
from the strike, from the fierce spite aimed at Hannibal.
“Did Beatrice not live amongst the poison, and in doing so become inured to its
effects, yet toxic to others?” Tender now, in the nuzzle he turns against
Will’s temple, words soft against his ear. “Do you imagine yourself the only
one I can teach?”
Will’s eyes close and for a moment he allows the touches before forcefully
twisting away again.
"You can teach any number," he hisses. “And you can fuck," a deliberate
pronunciation, "as many boys as cross your path, Hannibal, but you don't desire
to."
"You are too proud to let yourself be spread in turn, too high and fucken
mighty on your own goddamn pedestal. Once in a while you get saddled with a
student and you drive them insane for your amusement."
Will scoffs, "Except Alana Bloom. You very much enjoyed cultivating her like
her name suggests. You don't kill women. Your hungers don't reach there. You
killed when you had her, to stifle the need."
Suddenly Will blinks, laughs, shakes his head.
"That's it, isn't it?" he grins, suddenly savagely happy. "You can't kill me.
You ache to and you try but you can't do it."
Will bites his lip in pure delight and steps close again, right into the
snake's embrace. He swallows, lifts his eyes.
"Zugzwang."
Another infuriating smile, faint and untroubled by the accusations Will levels
at him, entirely unperturbed by them.
Disinterested.
“I have done nothing that you do not, Will. That I have not allowed and
indulged you in, taught and shaped in you, ordo ab chao. Fostered and
encouraged, even when you come home stinking of sweat and semen.”
He turns from him, forces a distance, forces himself to not yet indulge in
feeling the boy tear and fight beneath him as he raises welts and bruises on
his pale skin, feels his fingernails and teeth rip sharp and savage against his
own flesh.
Hannibal sighs, patient.
Soon.
“What you fear is the knowledge that what I have to offer you is irreplaceable,
experience and skill unlike any of the men that you let rut against you
nightly, and that were I to find another student, you would be interchangeable
with them.”
He takes up his book again, the wine that Will set aside to strike and snarl.
“I had presumed you to be above such jealousy, Will.”
Hannibal smiles, unseen with his back towards the boy, at the simmering rage he
hears behind him and clucks his tongue, once, dismissive.
Will’s cheeks darken, his jaw locks in a twitch and Will lets out a slow breath
through his nose. He considers stepping closer, considers why he’s jealous when
Hannibal, infuriatingly, has said nothing untrue.
"And I once thought you wise," Will whispers, smiling wide and almost bowing in
mockery of the gesture.
He turns on his heel, unwilling to see Hannibal there, to feel the indifference
he had so wished on Hannibal aimed instead at himself.
He knows he's smarter, faster, crueller than any boy Hannibal has brought home
but... what if another had lived? What if another had escaped him? Will
swallows down the terror of being replaced and leaves the room.
From the kitchen, comes a shattering of glass as Will tosses the bottle to the
floor. A silence, in fear, perhaps, in something else, and then a laugh, a
curse, and another smash, this one more hollow, not glass this time but
porcelain, once delicate and expensive.
Worthy.
Like Will.
A static spark of tension at the first break, that flares like lightning at the
second.
From the proximity of the wine, Hannibal knows the plate that was just
destroyed. Knows it intimately, remembers carrying it back nearly by hand,
bundled cautiously in his carry-on from a particular trip to Lille. Remembers
finding it there in a marketplace amongst other antiques that had made their
way over from Belgium, an early 18th century Tournai-borne serving dish with
elegantly sparse peonies painted blue in the center.
Hannibal snarls, no longer silent in doing so, and turns sharply to find the
boy in the kitchen.
The speed of him still comes to a stop as he stares Will down baleful, teeth
bared and ready to unleash hell on him. He only pauses when he sees the
accompaniment to the plate, a fragile bowl of a remarkably similar style but
brought to life in China instead.
An incidentally matched pair separated by half the world.
Seeing it there in the boy’s furious fingers, Hannibal recalls the charm that
overtook him for the better part of an afternoon, to think that two such
similar creations could come into existence so far apart, paired pleasurably
together as though they had been made a matched set.
The irony of Will’s chosen outlet for destruction is not lost on him.
“Do not.”
A dire warning, hands tightening into fists, flexing into a stretch again.
Will tilts his head, shifting his hand to hold the bowl precariously between
two fingers.
"Why?" he asks, tone infuriatingly pleasant. “Are you fond of it?"
He directs his eyes to the shards on the floor, rocking still in the sticky
wine beneath, before turning back to Hannibal.
"Oh, I'm sorry, you were fond of that too? My mistake." He twists his wrist
gently, the bowl still held, but barely.
"It seems such a waste," he sighs, brows drawn in a fantastic mockery of
apology, "to not have them match."
Without another word he lets the bowl go.
A blur of movement around the island before the bowl even shatters against the
ground. It does, though, alongside its once-separated, then reunited, and now
departed sibling, and Hannibal growls, a frighteningly primal lack of control
in it. Will moves quick enough to put the island between them again, narrowly
missing the broken glass at his feet, and bolts as soon as Hannibal moves to
chase.
Faster than most, Will flees from the kitchen but not without knocking down
another bottle of wine behind him. Hannibal only just misses it, slowed enough
by the dodge that Will is halfway to the front door when Hannibal finally
catches him.
A brutal arm snares around Will’s neck to jerk him backwards off his feet, the
other around his waist, letting him dangle and kick and struggle.
Faster than most, but not fast enough.
“It has been such a waste,” Hannibal whispers in agreement, sliding his higher
arm to grasp the boy’s jaw in his hand. A trembling tension, seams snapping, a
forced and tangible resistance to snapping the boy’s neck then and there.
And despite Hannibal’s goading, his taunting, his desire to feel this
adrenaline singing fresh through him to break up the nightly refrains, the
curiosity to push this boy’s buttons to see what would happen, Hannibal knows
as he catches the back of the boy’s head with his other hand and hesitates,
that he has lost.
A motion shown to Will many times before, a quick turn, effortless, no strength
needed to separate vertebrae and sever the spinal cord, and one that even now
in this blind animal fury Hannibal suddenly cannot perform. The boy’s words
echo.
You can’t kill me.
Will’s breath hitches, panic catching up to the familiar motion, the ice of
fear tickling his bones before he twists, ducks his head and manages to bring
his hands up to claw at the arm around his middle, just enough to dig his nails
in, enough for it to hurt.
He thrashes, twists, lifts his legs to add weight to how Hannibal holds him, to
unbalance him. He kicks forward, catches the wall and shoves against it hard to
push Hannibal back.
No more words. As Hannibal’s animal anger holds him, so Will’s pushes him to
live as he has so often before this. As he had escaped men who fought him and
pinned him, damaged him in turn, as he had fought Hannibal twice before,
survived then as well.
He knows, deep, that he won’t die, that Hannibal knows his words are true, that
Will’s game, so long ago challenged, so long ago revealed, is in full swing and
that Will is winning. He knows, he knows, he knows and yet the idea of some
other boy drawing that smile from Hannibal in the morning, some other boy
marking him with desperate nails, some other boy beneath him spreading his legs
and begging and begging and begging him and living…
Will whines, wraps his legs back around Hannibal’s, feet hooked behind his
knees, and jerks, aiming to unbalance, to bring them both to the ground.
Hannibal’s knees drive against the ground as he’s pulled down, holding tight to
Will even as they sprawl across the tile. He bares his teeth, lips curled, and
fights to reclaim the boy when Will throws his entire weight behind breaking
free, bring up sharp elbows behind himself, catching Hannibal in the jaw hard
enough to surprise him.
Hard enough to infuriate him that much more.
He snatches Will by the hair, longer now than the last time they found
themselves in such a state and that much easier to pull until it nearly comes
out in a handful. He brings the boy’s face down hard against the tile and
shoves his other hand against Will’s shoulder to press and pin him to the
floor.
Hannibal forces a few unsteady breaths and then leans low, cheek against Will’s
hair, mouth pressed to the boy’s ear.
“Is it truly such a surprise that I would share my evening with one far more
gentle, more becoming than this?” He grits his teeth as Will struggles beneath
him. “Someone who lays soft and pliant, worshipful, rather than destructive and
obscene?”
He brings Will’s cheek down against the tile again, a quick jerk, not to damage
but to startle.
“A mystery for the ages, Will.”
“Fuck you.”
It’s spat, heavy with anger, with the knowledge of what that word will get him
and utter uncare for it. Will’s lips part, breathing against the tile and
feeling the cool reflect back against his fevered skin.
He can get his hands under him but not much else, Hannibal holding him pinned
the way he is, heavier, stronger, a seasoned killer where Will is just getting
his feet, just learning, just starting his own.
Yet that doesn’t matter either.
“I gave you worshipful,” he snarls. “You’ve seen me worshipful, you’ve felt me
pliant. You entertained yourself by painting bruises on my skin. By darkening
flesh beneath your nails.”
Will makes a soft noise of pain as he’s held and pushed harder.
“You relish in destruction, Hannibal, you don’t create. You’re a creature of
death and death becomes you.”
He laughs then, that strangely manic, pleased noise.
“I just gave you the one sacrifice your altar needs. Death begets death in a
matching set.”
Hannibal jerks Will’s head back roughly, enough that he feels curls of hair
loosen between his fingers, and turns the boy onto his back. He sits heavy
across Will’s stomach and catches the boy’s across his jaw, pooling the taste
of blood in his mouth before he can pin the boy’s wrists to the floor. Holding
them in one hand, Hannibal draws his other hand along his own mouth.
Blood darkening the spaces between his teeth, streaked bright against his
knuckles.
“It’s the destruction that you worship,” Hannibal hisses, spitting a mouthful
of blood to the tile beside the boy’s head. “You ache for it. Beg for it. You
are not satisfied unless I am all but ripping you to pieces with my bare hands
and you do everything in your godforsaken power to earn it.”
A rough slap cracks across the boy’s mouth before he can speak again, and
Hannibal pushes that same hand up into his hair.
Not brutal now, but firm, warm, tucking a curl of hair behind his ear and
forcefully softening his expression as he looks down at Will. A look he’s seen
before, tender with adoration, not usually turned towards him as an affectation
but certainly one now. A mockery of love like that he shares with other boys, a
sick gentleness to the tone, to the touch he lets settle into Will’s skin while
holding him to the floor with blood spilled around them.
“Is this what you prefer, Will? If you are so envious of how I treat them, then
I can certainly treat you the same way. Tell you that I would move the world
for you, that no one has ever mattered more. That your beauty is unparalleled
and to look upon it for the rest of my life would be insufficient for how long
it deserves.”
Another brutal slap, to shock Will from the moment, sending the boy coughing
beneath him.
“And I can kill and consume when the poetry has ended.”
Another strike, backhanded now, higher than perhaps intended and crossing the
boy’s cheekbone. A black eye will raise there, dark and angry, but Hannibal
does not stop, leans close, adjusts to bend his spine to breathe against Will’s
cheek.
“Or I could continue to show you, rather than tell, in the only language that
we truly understand. But tonight, your envy has shown your choice in this.”
Will tries to spit again, watches Hannibal turn his head. His ears ring, his
head is throbbing, still dizzy from when Hannibal had struck him against the
floor.
He endures another strike, keeps his head turned where the blow lands it, and
closes his eyes to catch his breath. He can feel the anger radiating off of
Hannibal above him, and yet he still knows, still understands that he won’t
kill him.
Will moans, a soft sound, a gentle thing, and without warning bucks up hard,
enough, to feel Hannibal’s hand press to his wrists for balance, the other out
quickly to catch himself against the floor. Will draws up a knee and shoves,
bends his back to unseat Hannibal further and thrashes until he can turn to his
side, curl up.
It’s harder to hold him this way, and when Hannibal lets go of his arms to
catch his hips, Will launches forward, a sharp strike of his own against
Hannibal’s face, leaving the angry red marks of nails behind before he scoots
back, kicks out, enough to work himself free and scramble to his feet.
He stumbles perhaps three steps before he’s caught again.
But it’s three steps he’d won.
Three steps no other boys had been allowed.
Will is hoisted again, toes dragging across the floor, and Hannibal presses his
cheek to Will’s, grinning now with the thrill of the hunt, the fight in his
prey, blood warm between their skin as he nuzzles close, a blasphemy of the
tenderness he offered earlier when Will first arrived home.
“When will you learn not to turn your back to me in your flight, dear boy?
You’ve at least a chance of contact, a lucky shot perhaps if you face me,”
Hannibal purrs, pushing Will’s hair back from his face and lifting him higher
with an arm around his waist.
“Should I let you go, again, so you can learn before I catch you, again?”
A mistake, perhaps, to not hold the boy’s jaw in place. His head jerks back,
contact wet and sudden with Hannibal’s nose, enough to earn a trickle of blood
from it and enough to move Hannibal so that Will’s feet graze the ground.
Time seems to slow around them as Hannibal feels his pulse raise, his
adrenaline elevate to an almost transcendental state. Ever curious, ever
fascinated by the possibilities of what may happen, there is a moment of
stillness, and he decides to let the boy go.
Utter calm as Hannibal regards him, lightless eyes wide and intrigued by what
fight is left in the boy. An animal movement, nearly reptilian, as his head
tilts and he steps forward, inhuman in his hunt. Primordial. Primal. And vastly
more terrifying than when he snarled and spit and struck.
“What now, Will?” Hannibal asks softly. “How will the evening end?”
Will sniffs, draws a hand over his face with a wince. Blood just from his lip,
but enough. He aches. Everything is hot. He directs his eyes up to the monster
in front of him, no longer a man, no longer human here, in this house that is
all shadow and no masks.
He swallows, blinks.
How will the evening end? How can it?
The hunger is back, seeping from Hannibal’s pores like a scent itself, and Will
is intoxicated by it, hypnotised.
He licks the blood from his lips, smiles wide enough to show his teeth, blood
between, pink over white.
Will shifts his weight, rolls the shoulder Hannibal had struck so hard to the
floor to pin him, and arches his back in a stretch.
“Must it end?” he purrs, gentle bouncing on the balls of his feet before he
shifts, bites his lip, and bolts through the living room and on to the study.
Hannibal draws a breath, lets it linger in his lungs until it feels like fire,
like the blood burning beneath his skin. He counts the beats of his heart until
he reaches seventeen.
One for every year this insufferable boy has walked the planet, and Hannibal
yet to decide if there will be more beyond it.
It’s a comfortable enough lie for the moment.
He does not run yet, expecting the boy to hide. To think himself clever, as he
so often does, and endeavor to surprise Hannibal as though every inch of the
house is not intimately familiar to him.
Hannibal’s pleased to discover a misjudgement of Will’s intent, peering through
to the living room, when he hears footsteps still sticky with wine break across
the tile behind him.
He spins, slides, almost catching the boy as he grabs for the door to the
garden. Will wheels away from him, and grins back with a perverse delight,
mirthless and manic.
A low sound, a sound a human shouldn’t be able to make, shouldn’t ever have
cause to drag out of the tenebrous history of their evolution, as Hannibal
tears after Will up the stairs. The boy is delightfully fast for the abuse he’s
taken, all lanky lithe limbs like a gazelle, beautiful and yet perhaps still
capable of goring Hannibal, should he not catch him well.
But he will catch him well, Hannibal knows this for a certainty, and he spins
fast around the doorway into the study, banging the doors closed behind and
trapping Will inside.
He does not move, curls a lip, breathes in the sweat, the adrenaline, fear and
arousal and hate and desire. His hands clench, and he imagines the boy’s throat
beneath them, remembers the feeling of a leather belt wrapped around his own.
A matching set.
Within, there is no sound, not of fast breathing or quick steps against the
carpet. Almost as though there is no one there at all, certainly not a
dangerous, sweet, exhausted boy. Hannibal considers what options are left to
the boy. Considers how he could attempt the window, find it sealed, attempt the
door leading to the closet running the length of the room for storage - but no,
the boy would not be so stupid as to utterly bracket himself that way.
Hannibal takes a step closer, deliberately heard.
Still no sound, still no movement through the crack in the door he can see.
Another step. Another.
He pushes the door open quickly, harsh, and catches the sharp intake of breath
as it strikes the boy behind it. A moment of hesitation before the door is
shoved back just as hard and Will launches himself around it and out.
A flight towards the stairs again, more options there, less trapped than
upstairs with windows that don’t open and so few places in which to hide.
Will doesn’t make it past the landing before Hannibal’s got him by the shirt
collar. He pulls back suddenly, and for an instant, Will is airborne, feet out
from under him, before the stairs come up hard against his back.
A breathless moment, air knocked from his lungs, head spinning and vision
darkening around the edges. Will forces a gasp of air and in the moment it
takes him to catch it Hannibal has slid down the stairs beside him, over him, a
pressing weight against his body that smothers what little air he’s managed to
regain.
Blood beneath Hannibal’s nose and smeared across his mouth, a curl of amusement
with teeth stained dark just visible clenched past parted lips.
He waits, motionless, body coiled to stop another strike, to pull the boy back
his hair if he tries to scramble, to shift a leg against him if he tries to
drive his knee up again. Forcing eye contact now, his pupils smothering out any
of the gentleness Will saw that morning before he left, skin almost cool to the
touch with the depth of Hannibal’s focus, a fearsome redirection of energies to
where he most needs it.
“I do not create,” Hannibal recalls the boy’s words softly. “I destroy.” A
curious tilt of his head, taking in the boy’s breath panting beneath him.
“Which do you prefer, Will, in your envy, in your spite? I will feed you poetry
and falsehoods and end you as I ended that boy tonight, or the lessons may
continue, and all that comes with them.”
For a moment Will’s breathing stops, lips parted, eyes wide. He’d known, just
as he’d known he wouldn’t die, that the boy before him had. That he wasn’t
upstairs reclining in the silk sheets. That he was most likely in the basement,
no longer himself, no longer human. Something else entirely.
Destruction and creation are the same thing after all.
“Create me,” Will breathes, and when his hands come up they’re only there to
grip against Hannibal’s sides. A swallow clicks his throat, eyes unblinking and
up, relishing in the pain, the throbbing sensation, the hunger pressing down on
him.
“Ruin me, annihilate me.”
Will’s eyes flick down to Hannibal’s lips, stained red but not broken, not hurt
like Will’s are. He licks his own and surges up, lips to Hannibal’s, parted and
open and hot.
An instinctive jerk, Hannibal grabs the boy hard by the throat, mouths
together, teeth against lips and tongues against teeth and breath joining in
low sounds of need between them. He squeezes, can’t resist, can only just
restrain himself from crushing the life out of the boy beneath him but pulls
back.
He tells himself it’s his choice not to end him. Tells himself that the boy has
sorely misjudged him, and that his words are wrong. And Hannibal knows even as
he thinks it that it’s a lie.
Hannibal parts the kiss breathless, to suck against the split of Will’s lower
lip, to let the blood bloom against his tongue. He pushes his sweater, the
shirt beneath it, roughly over his head, baring him, his body already stormy
with bruises against which Hannibal sinks his hands, pushing the boy to sit on
the step above him.
“I will,” Hannibal finally sighs, tremulous. The same promise as ever, as
always, until one or both tire of this teaching and bring an end to it.
But the time isn’t now, tonight, not when he can taste the swelling of skin
where Will’s eye will blacken and not when he can kiss and bite leaving marks
down Will’s chest to sink his teeth above the boy’s heart and not when they’re
both so brutally hard that the only way to walk away from this is sated, fully,
on all the other will yield to them.
Fast fingers work free the fly of Will’s jeans, tug them roughly down his
thighs. A groan, aching against Will’s mouth, foreheads pressed together, when
Hannibal catches in the smell of semen, sweat, spit still stuck to the boy’s
skin. A curl of lips in a possessive snarl to match the sudden need to replace
those scents with his own.
His student, his boy, his Will.
His alone.
Will’s lips part on a silent sound of pleasure, a shiver drawing down his skin,
over his spine. His hands settle on Hannibal’s shoulders, up to cup his face
and he says nothing.
The night had been slow for him, the man determined to fuck Will only if he
‘earned’ it, with a collar around his throat just a little too tight, with a
tail plugged into his ass holding him open. Crawling on his hands and knees to
suck the man’s cock, bend further to drink from a bowl on the floor.
A good dog. A good boy.
Will rocks forward, thighs spreading for Hannibal, a needy, greedy gesture, a
demand rather than an offering.
He thinks of Hannibal’s words, of how each was true, that Will does everything
in his power to force this from him, to anger him for pain, to outdo himself
twisting for his attention. Doing everything and anything in his power to not
be forgotten, to not be uninteresting.
“Fuck me,” he moans, the French soft between them, trembling with the words,
with the power radiating off of Hannibal.
You are not satisfied unless I am all but ripping you to pieces with my bare
hands.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me…”
Hannibal’s hand is halfway to Will’s face when he stays it. Sees the boy flinch
before the blow, a wince, a grin, something in between, but the strike does not
connect. He traces the back of his hand down the bruises already dark against
Will’s cheek instead, an instant of tenderness before he squeezes the boy’s
chin in his hand, thumb pressing past his swollen lip and into his mouth, blood
warm against his skin.
A better idea than the usual punishment, Hannibal considers, as he shoves his
boxers down his hips, peeling them from his legs as he climbs readily along the
length of the boy shuddering wounded and eager beneath him. A handful of hair
grabbed, tilted back to watch when Hannibal settles with his knees on either
side of the boy’s head, a stair above him.
Will’s fingers clench against the carpeted step where he sits, breath warm
against the length of Hannibal’s cock as he turns his eyes upward.
“I will,” Hannibal breathes softly again. “Your mouth, I think. A better use
for it than pouring out filth.”
Will swallows, eyes wide and up, confused for a moment. He’s done this before,
he’s been forced to do this before, he’s enjoyed it, hated it, but he had
always done it well. Hannibal knows this, he’s felt Will’s mouth against him
countless times already.
He nods quickly, blinks, parts his lips to take Hannibal in, eyes closing to
suck against the head, but he finds that the man doesn’t want that today, not
the gentleness, not the teasing and vision of Will’s jaw slack to take him. He
pushes harder, far enough to make Will gag, to send his eyes open wide as he
tries to pull back and finds cruel fingers in his hair holding him still.
A gentle shushing, the softness juxtaposed cruelly with the way Hannibal rolls
his hips forward, feels Will gag genuinely against him, and does it again.
Will’s hands come up against Hannibal’s thighs, clinging, trying to push him
off, trying to twist away from the feeling, from the gagging the choking,
trying to find a way to breathe.
Without thought he brings his teeth against skin, in panic, a reflex.
He has not been given a chance to pretend, a chance to fake the choke, to keep
himself comfortably unharmed as he feigned fear and agony.
No. This is real, and Will whines in discomfort and tries to pull off again.
The press of teeth finds Hannibal’s hand beneath Will’s chin, broad, brutally
strong. He pushes his fingers between the boy’s teeth, squeezing his cheeks to
force his mouth open, unable to close past the grip holding his jaw in place.
Unrelenting pressure, heavy against Will’s tongue, pressing rough against the
back of his throat, forcing it, hardly giving him time to settle, to relax
enough to open and accept it. Each gag brings tears to the boy’s eyes, each
tear that skims his cheek draws a groan from Hannibal.
Will shoves hard against Hannibal’s thighs, clawing his hips, his ass, drawing
blood beneath sharp nails. Desperate now, quick fearful breaths panted through
his nose and eyes finally turning upward, a plea, a gagging whimper, before
Hannibal finally pulls out enough to let him breathe.
He doesn’t yet release his jaw, doesn’t pull back past the head of his cock
resting against the boy’s tongue to feel the trembling breath drawn in around
it. A tension, pleased, tightening the corners of his eyes. Hannibal strokes
his thumb once along the boy’s cheek, and presses in again, groaning.
This time Will opens his throat without struggle, stretches his tongue,
breathes through his nose… and still gags when Hannibal keeps pushing.
It’s certainly a punishment, this cruelty of endurance. Something Will is sure
he won’t bring Hannibal to again in a hurry. His throat hurts, burns with the
acid creeping up that he forces back over and over. His jaw aches from how hard
it’s held open, how much he’s forced to take and how hard.
He moans, finds Hannibal’s smile widening at the sound, and no mercy for it.
The thrusts get faster, Will closes his eyes and sobs, shaking with the need
for air, to stop, to rest…
When Hannibal finally releases him, moments, hours later, Will coughs, brings a
hand to his mouth to hold back the nausea, to soothe the thudding of his heart
as he sucks in air like a drowning man.
When he looks up, his eyes are liquid, tears unable to dry on his face from how
he’s crying, uncontrollable and genuine.
It’s almost tender, the way Hannibal runs a hand along Will’s cheek, traces a
thumb through the trail of spit and blood glistening on the boy’s chin to
gather it and press it back to the boy’s mouth, feels the pulse of him racing
in the pressure of Will’s lips as he closes them obediently, sucking softly.
A quiet whimper draws a soft shushing sound from Hannibal, pushing past his
lips with his thumb in a slow, deep rhythm.
“You asked for this,” Hannibal murmurs in French, almost gentle in the way he
reminds him. “Begged for this. All of it.” He replaces his thumb with his
fingers, three of them now, picking up the same rhythm and Hannibal sighs in
harsh delight as the boy takes this as well.
Blackened eye and bruised cheek, tears spilling freely now, split lip bleeding
slow and body bruised from the rough falls and cruel fingers that caught him,
held him, kept him from fleeing away from what they both know he aches for,
cries out for, misbehaves to receive again and again.
“Beautiful boy.” A low growl, at odds with the elegant French that curls past
Hannibal’s own swollen mouth, darkened into a bruise from where Will lashed out
and caught him. “Cruel boy.”
Rough fingers yank the boy’s pants further down his legs, and Hannibal grins,
an ugly bloody thing but altogether painfully genuine when Will draws up his
legs to kick them free and spread his thighs again, wider.
Hannibal slides lower again, between the boy’s legs, and with hardly a prelude
pulls his spit-slick fingers from Will’s mouth to force them instead against
his opening, parting him wide.
“You relish in destruction,” Hannibal growls against Will’s mouth, stealing the
pained cry that parts it with a driving kiss.
Will brings a hand up to grip his hair, tug it as his head tilts back, as his
lips spread over blood-stained teeth and he pants in pain, but doesn’t move
away, doesn’t make Hannibal stop. He doesn’t deny his words.
A cruel twist of Hannibal’s hand and Will sobs again, finally giving voice to
the unvoiced question in Hannibal’s words.
“Yes.”
It’s breathless, wanton, Will’s free hand down between his legs, against his
thigh as he grips the stair he sits on not to move, feeling Hannibal’s hand
shift against his wrist, sharp thrusts, brutal things, fingers stretching Will
almost mercilessly.
His cock leaks against his stomach with every push.
He lets go of Hannibal’s hair to curl his hand instead around the banister,
fingers digging into the wood. His cheeks are flushed, tears drying against
them, now, when he’s had the time to breathe, lips parted on quick pants and
moans of need.
“Please.”
It’s all Hannibal wants to hear, needs to hear and this need unsettles him in
its unfamiliarity, a driving desire for the boy to understand, to know, to see
what it is that makes Will - what makes them both - so different from all
others.
Better than a rent boy and a client, better than a patient and a psychiatrist,
better than those they fuck and those they slaughter. Apex predators, hunters
of men, communicating in ways only they understand, as they can be with no one
else in the world.
He lines himself up and pushes into the boy without a pause to let him stretch,
unrelenting, to hear the boy gasp against his throat as Hannibal leans over
him. A brutal pain that rips sharp to curl Will’s spine arching up from the
stairs and brings him pressed against Hannibal, but Will doesn’t beg for mercy,
doesn’t plead and coax. No, Will wraps his legs shaking around Hannibal’s hips,
his arms around his neck, to cling to him and to bring him closer even still.
Ordo ab chao.
Hannibal breathes Will’s name against his mouth, a reverence for this boy that
can take so much and withstand it so proudly, the way no one else’s name parts
his lips, steals his breath, makes his blood sing rushing in his veins.
He is certain now, as he drives into the boy and feels him beg for more,
harder, please, yes, Hannibal is certain that he will not win this game. It
will be Will’s hands around his throat in the end, and when he cannot lift his
own hands to end the ceaseless joyous warfare between them, it will be Will’s
name that falls again from Hannibal’s lips as it does now, a shaking weak thing
as Hannibal buries himself and finishes, gasping rough, spilling warmth with a
shudder.
Will shudders, follows as Hannibal bends him, feels his own release slip under
his skin, through his bones, moaned through his mouth and into Hannibal’s. The
stairs dig into his back, sharp and cruel as the man above him, and Will
whines, wriggles in pain and displeasure but still refuses to ask for mercy.
His hands crawl over Hannibal’s back, fingers soft, up to his hair, tugging
gently.
Blood between them, bones and skin, and yet they are so much more than such
things to the other. More than sweat and semen and spit.
And Will kisses him again, a deep and needy thing, quick pants through his
nose, gentle sounds escaping him.
An arm wraps around Will’s waist, and Hannibal turns them both. He sits against
the stair in Will’s place, keeps the boy close, wrapped around him still,
straddling his lap. The violence flees from them like footsteps fading as their
hearts finally begin to slow, and something like transcendence settles cool
against their skin.
He allows the kiss, lets Will take what he needs from it. Slows it, slows it,
gentler now, soft as the fingers that push a curl of Will’s hair behind his
ear, following down along the curve of his neck, to rest above his heart, palm
against his chest.
A sigh as Will leans into him. Hannibal keeps his arm around the boy, rubs a
hand along his back, bruised and burnt from being thrust against the carpeted
stairs. He rests his cheek against Will’s hair, speaking in quiet French beside
his ear.
“Do not ask to be treated as I treat them,” Hannibal murmurs. “Nor think that I
would ever elevate them as I do you.”
Will moans softly, presses close to Hannibal’s chest, body trembling from the
residual adrenaline, the pain that sends his body into a strange sort of
numbness.
“I can’t move.” It’s a sigh, an admission rather than a complaint, soft and
warm, and Will presses his lips to Hannibal’s neck in an open-mouthed kiss. He
doesn’t want Hannibal to go, to leave, to give Will freedom in a house so large
he can feel his pulse through the walls when he’s alone.
“Take me with you,” he murmurs, nose gentle against Hannibal’s cheek,
swallowing softly. “To your room, to your bed.” He bites his lip, brows
furrowing in gentle pain when he bites the cut there.
“Ours,” Hannibal reminds him, before shifting off the stair. A mild enough
remark that carries more to it than his tone allows, before he presses a kiss
to Will’s cheek, a few more for good measure, tasting the remnants of tears
there, of fear and desire and fury and release.
It’s an uneasy movement, his own body exhausted from the forgettable boy
earlier in the night and from this unforgettable one now, his Will that he
hoists in his arms with one secured beneath him, the other spread across his
back. Steady steps to the bedroom, though Hannibal finds that as he tries to
pour Will into the bed, he does not let Hannibal go so readily, arms and legs
looped around him with as much strength as Will can muster.
Hannibal sighs, and sits on the edge of the bed.
A consideration, brows drawing in for a moment, before Hannibal finally speaks
again.
“Shall I wait next time, for you to be there?”
Will blinks, wonders at the words, at the offer. Sets his teeth against the
inside of his lip and presses down just to feel that pressure there. After a
moment he nods, just once.
“Show me, just once, how you do it,” Will asks softly. He doesn’t want to grow
burdensome with his presence, ironic considering his earlier outburst, but
hunts are strangely sacred between them, kills are their own, spaces their own.
This just the place they share after, share for everything else.
Hannibal doesn’t show the gratitude, the relief he feels when Will does not
take more than is offered, does not make demands that in time would prove
unsustainable and invasive for them both. As he has never asked Will to stop
what he does. As he would not be able to stop what he does himself.
He will give him that, though, as Will had shared a hunt with him. An
agreement, hummed soft against the boy’s temple as he kisses it.
“Next time, then.”
Will winces when he moves from Hannibal onto the bed and turns to his stomach.
He curls an arm under himself for comfort, to rest his chin against his hand
and keep his eyes on Hannibal. Oddly domestic. Strangely intimate. Every bruise
feels like a caress against him, every blow a memory he won’t soon file away.
He needs this, he aches without it. The victory he’d felt earlier in knowing
his power, feeling it paralyze Hannibal and envelope him, it’s fading now in
the soft thrums of his pulse in his ears, but he will not forget it, and he
will use it again.
But for now, he wants soft hands where they had moments before been cruel. Warm
lips that had poured unkindness in his ears.
He thinks of the shattered porcelain downstairs, thinks how the shards will
never join without a wound always there, always visible and sharp where it had
once been flawless.
“Kintsugi,” he murmurs, blinking to direct his eyes to Hannibal again. “For the
things I shattered.”
Fingers curl through Will’s hair, stroke it softly back from his face. He
wonders where the boy learned such a term. Wonders as he traces with fingertips
the damage Will wears fresh on his face whether such a thing can work for
people, as well.
Breaking and rebuilding. Destroying and creating.
“You may try, if it suits you to do so.” A stiffness in tone, just a snap of
tension, a pull still sharp from seeing his things destroyed, irreplaceable in
meaning far beyond their physical presence.
Parallels, here, Hannibal is certain merit more exploration when he is more
able to afford it the contemplation it deserves.
He stands, shrugging his shoulders to release an ache. “You will not be able to
see tomorrow if you don’t ice your eye.”
Will keeps his eyes on Hannibal before blinking and looking away, resigned to
having to wait for Hannibal to return at his leisure. It doesn’t escape him
that the man will care for him now, look after his wounds that he had caused,
that Will had begged for, that he will beg for again.
He sighs, closes his eyes as Hannibal leaves, as he runs a hand through Will’s
hair before he goes.
Will floats in a strange semi-consciousness, wondering if the sheets had been
changed after Hannibal had fucked that boy against them. He wonders if he truly
had treated him so gently before he’d killed him, if that had not been a lie to
just anger Will and rile him. He wonders why Hannibal had bothered, what it had
meant to him that Will had drawn his anger like a fine point of a blade across
his own skin.
He wonders, he dozes. When Hannibal returns, Will pushes himself up to kiss him
again, deep and slow, and says nothing.
Hannibal has gathered a small tray, set now beside the bed. The wine has been
cleaned, and the pieces of the antique servingware that Hannibal is certain
Will will not remember or mention again has been set aside, on the off chance
that perhaps he does.
He coaxes the boy to his back when the kiss finally parts, and the bag of
frozen peas stings against Will’s skin despite the soft cloth wrapped around
it.
“Nothing I would let touch my food,” Hannibal admits, adjusting the weight of
it, how it settles against the boy’s eye. “But you never know when a lucky hit
will land,” he adds, and offers a faint smile in exchange as Will lifts a hand
to hold it against his cheek.
A touch entirely unlike those that sought to rip and bruise and throttle and
tear as Hannibal studies the boy’s lip, not deep enough to merit more than a
smear of ointment, styptic and antibiotic. He rubs it in gently with the pad of
his thumb, until it is absorbed.
The rest of the injuries are bruises and scrapes - the boy will hurt tomorrow,
certainly, ache and moan and complain and fuss - and Hannibal will tend to him
then as now. As eager to see him healthy and exuberant as he is to see him
broken and sobbing, each necessary parts of the greater whole.
Content, it seems, with his minor triage, Hannibal finally settles in beside
the boy, watching him with darkened eyes, touching his cheek gently with the
backs of his fingers.
“Lucky,” Will repeats, voice roughened and tired, heavy. He seeks out with his
free hand and finds Hannibal close, curls it against him in an awkward touch
that bends his elbow and curves his fingers against his chest.
He hums, exhausted, body thrumming with life and pain, and shifts to lie closer
against Hannibal, closing his eyes now to let sleep take him when it would.
He tries not to think of how Hannibal’s hands had felt holding his jaw up,
tight in his hair, how close he had come to losing his life. He tries not to
think about the fact that in that moment he had stopped struggling.
He wonders if Hannibal had noticed.
***** Chapter 12 *****
Chapter Summary
     Hannibal does not set him down yet, the nearness too intoxicating
     even after only a week apart, a tedious week despite the early
     arrival of spring that yielded flowers unfurling into fragrant
     release and leaves uncurling in countless shades of green over sun-
     dappled walkways.
     He thought of Will, entirely, at every step, and the torrid colors
     and smells of spring’s fresh fertility were found sorely lacking by
     compare.
It is understandable that Will feels a sudden sense of panic when he finds
after class that he’s received a voicemail, instructing him to come to the
house when his lectures are finished for the day.
Nearly a week passed since they last spoke, when Hannibal returned Will
restless to his own apartment, with no more explanation than going on a
business trip, out of the country. Unreachable, with no time given as to
Hannibal’s return.
Nearly a week passed since Will felt healed enough from their last time
together to even attend lectures again, finally going not out of any desire to
be there, but out of a malingering need to please Hannibal, even in his
absence. He had even made an effort to complete his class work remotely while
his bruises healed, while his cuts stitched themselves together, kintsugi of a
broken body rather than broken porcelain.
Although the message is politely conversational, a tone of unreadable
neutrality, Will finds a fierce anxiety loosening in him as he plays it again
and again, just to hear Hannibal’s voice. Days of a primal, lonely fear
building noxious in his thoughts, keeping him from sleep, from even finding the
motivation to hunt, an escalating feeling that his last defiance had finally
been too much.
Disinterest in him at long last, so much so that Hannibal would rather simply
leave than even bother to complete their contract together and kill him.
Abandonment, requiring expectations.
Will takes a deep breath and knocks on the door, resting his forehead against
it, his shoulder. Seeking nearness to the home he feared lost to him, to the
man within it. Whether invited here to be killed or not doesn’t matter, his
thoughts feverish, flighty, filled with need and fear even still. He works his
sweater sleeves over his fingers, rubs the threadbare knit between them, and
startles from his anxious fidgeting when the locks click and the door opens.
A week too long apart. A day too long apart. Time, distance needed to replay
the last time they were together, to scrutinize what stayed Hannibal’s hand so
many times when the boy pushed so hard to drive him to a fury that would have
seen anyone else dead a dozen times over.
No answers discovered, in truth, but rather an acute awareness of how dim even
Paris’ lights seemed without the boy near him. A valuable realization, and a
familiar but undefinable pull in Hannibal’s chest as he sees Will wide-eyed
before him again.
“Hello, Will.”
Will says nothing, no greeting, no demands, he simply steps closer, surprised
when Hannibal steps back to lets him and closes the door, and Will pulls
Hannibal to him to kiss.
Eyes closed, lips parted and breath coming in quick short huffs against
Hannibal’s cheek. Will brings a hand to hold Hannibal’s tie, not pull it, not
twist it from its pristine position but just hold, press closer that way,
connect.
He shivers when he feels Hannibal’s hands against him, heavy and warm and so
familiar it aches to feel them, and then he gives up the gentle pretense, the
politeness, the civility, and pulls Hannibal so close to him he almost
unbalances, setting his hand with a thump against the door behind Will and
nearly pinning him to it.
When they break to breathe, Will draws his nose alongside Hannibal's with a
gentle sound.
Hannibal allows a smile against the boy’s cheek, and chases his mouth into
another kiss. Lingering slow, burning like embers long stoked in their absence
from each other.
He can taste the fear in him, not the sharp metallic flare of their play
together, but a sustained burn, acrid and lingering. Days of panic, of
acceptance, of denial all dry against Hannibal’s tongue as it presses against
Will’s own, driving him back against the door. Not roughly, but firmly now, to
feel relief flood through his jagged pulse instead of terror.
“I owe you another dinner,” Hannibal finally says, breathless, pressing his
forehead to Will’s and closing his eyes. “Let me take you.”
Will smiles, for a moment entirely genuine in his responses, relaxing back into
himself after a week of tension and sleepless nights and blurs of study he
can’t now remember. He remembers the conversation regarding dinner, requested
when this wasn’t as complicated as it’s grown, when all they were, were an
outlet for the other, a thing to impress and play with, both.
“It’s still too early for dinner,” Will murmurs, but he doesn’t object, doesn’t
let go of Hannibal beyond splaying his hand against him rather than gripping
his shoulder.
He feels as though he’s underwater, as though everything is moving slowly and
he barely cares. Will takes his fill of sensory memory, touches where he can
reach, arches to press close to the warm body holding him still. His heart is
slowing down now, to match Hannibal’s, a familiar partner rhythm.
Hannibal glances past Will, to the sunlight still streaming through the
windows, and hums a note of amusement. Jet lag, perhaps, or simply an eagerness
to be near his boy again enough that he’s thought of little else.
“Where do you want to take me?” Will asks finally.
“Anywhere you’d like,” Hannibal murmurs against his ear. A tenderness, warm
contrast to the last time they were so close and chose to spend that time
laying wounds upon the other.
“Not French,” he adds, after a moment of thought. “Paris has outdone me for it,
for now.”
Will’s grin is stolen beneath another kiss as Hannibal rumbles beneath the
spread of hands across him, small and fierce, hands that draw blood as readily
as they draw pleasure. He ducks against Will’s shoulder, hands snaring him by
the thighs to lift him easily against him and feel the boy’s legs wrap around
his hips.
“Next time,” Hannibal murmurs, “I’ll take you with me.”
Will hooks his hands beneath Hannibal’s arms and raises his eyebrows. So he’d
gone to Paris, had actually left the country to avoid Will for as long as he
could stand it. He can feel the residual tremors through the fabric of
Hannibal’s shirt still, knows that as Will had missed him Hannibal had missed
Will in turn.
“Next time we’ll go to Greece,” Will suggests instead, rolling his hips only to
feel the familiar closeness, for the moment content to just be here again, to
smell the familiar warmth of this house that’s infused with so much devotion to
its cleanliness and to the death within it, in its bowels and rotten
foundations that hold strong.
“Greece, then,” Hannibal agrees, unable to resist imagining Will all but bare
on the beaches, tanned and lovely in the particularly blue waters. “You will
have to work on your modern, rather than ancient, however.”
He pulls the boy higher, even as Will rocks against him, to turn and carry him
towards the stairs.
“We had to study your paper in class,” he mentions, amused, grin wide and head
tilted. “It’s certainly interesting hearing you taught, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.”
“You went to class?” he asks, feigning surprise but not how pleased he is to
hear it, or to hear his own praises, shameless in how it suits his ego to know
it. “How did it make you feel to hear my name mentioned, as you sat amongst the
students?”
Not peers, not other students, unable still to equate Will with any other be it
in a lecture hall or on a street corner. He shifts the boy’s weight, past the
spot they last joined brutal and cruel on the steps, tucking his nose against
Will’s neck to breathe him in as he turns towards the bedroom.
“I had to bite my tongue,” Will replies, low, purring, pleased, lifting his
chin as Hannibal presses close to him. He finds that he enjoys being carried by
Hannibal, like something worthy of carrying, not a child in need of guidance
and discipline.
Not today.
“Drew up a knee and pressed the heel of my hand against my cock where no one
could see,” he continues, voice even but lower, sliding beneath the skin and
warming against Hannibal where they press close as he’s carried.
“I think the lecturer was in awe, she wouldn’t stop bringing up your past
accolades. Your past work. ‘An exquisitely refined thesis’,” Will quotes,
rolling his hips, pleased when Hannibal’s hands tighten around him. “You’ll be
on the exam, apparently.”
He laughs, delighted by that, by the simplicity of it all. He has read the
thesis a few times, had read it before it had come up on their curriculum for
the semester - he knew it well. He could taste Hannibal’s voice on it whenever
he turned a page.
“I left the lecture early,” he admits.
Hannibal does not set him down yet, the nearness too intoxicating even after
only a week apart, a tedious week despite the arrival of spring that yielded
flowers unfurling into fragrant release and leaves uncurling in countless
shades of green over sun-dappled walkways.
He thought of Will, entirely, at every step, and the torrid colors and smells
of spring’s fresh fertility were found sorely lacking in compare to the
sweetness of Will’s skin now caught beneath his mouth, drawing kisses against
his neck.
“Insatiable boy,” comes the familiar chiding.
A turn towards the wall, beside the door, catching Will against it so that
Hannibal can rub slow against him in response.
“It is a cruelty, that theory,” he continues, with no less fondness for the
statement. “There was a resistance to it, initially, and still I receive
letters proclaiming its inaccuracy. That all of humanity must be accepted by
all the rest - that exclusion for the evolutionary benefit of the species is
now rendered unfair for consideration in a society evolved to accept each and
every member as contributory.”
He snorts, dismissing the thoughts wholesale. Another press of hips, mouth
parting against Will’s neck, lips pulling against his skin to meet his mouth
instead, a deeper kiss, more demanding before he parts again.
“It is beyond that, beyond any sense of a conscientious exclusion. It is an
instinctive awareness that all are not equal or meaningful to us.” He presses
his forehead to Will’s, seeks his eyes, tries to resist the quiet hunger
roiling deep in his belly and fails. “That there will always be those whom we
are above, and that we benefit extensively with this awareness and subsequent
actions that dictate who remains with us, and who does not.”
A fierce kiss, sudden.
“How many times, Will, when you left your lecture early?”
Will grins, a lazy cat smile.
“Two,” he says quietly, tilting his head at the memory. Biting his fist as he
stood in the toilets, one leg drawn up against the seat, leaning back over it
in an arch, hand working quick between his legs to twist, pull, imagine
Hannibal was watching him, directing, forcing him to move slowly so he could
properly see him come apart.
“In the school building,” he adds, an almost casual implication of much more
upon returning to his little apartment, closing up the doors, shedding his
clothes on his way to the bedroom before arching, spreading his legs, teasing
himself as he chewed the sheets to keep quiet, Hannibal’s voice in his mind
there, as well, whispering clever, filthy things against his skin until Will
had cum, untouched.
A groan, low, as Hannibal finds himself far harder than he intended to be so
early in the evening. Envisioning the boy arched wanton, stifling his moans
behind a bitten lip. Imagining him hurrying home after, half-hard and splitting
himself wide as he could manage, begging Hannibal’s name.
He wonders, briefly, what might have happened did he not return. How long Will
might have continued to feel himself ache in desire, wholly unsatisfied by
whatever he could provide himself, trying desperately to meet his own
satisfaction and utterly unable to find it in Hannibal’s absence.
Hannibal pulls the boy from the wall now, backing towards the bed until he
feels it against the back of his knees and seats himself on the edge, hands
gripping hard against Will’s waist.
He imagines that the boy would have felt it for as long as Hannibal would, a
furious need for contact not with himself. He'd resisted the urge to perform
such base actions in his Paris hotel room, letting his erections - caused by
infuriatingly persistent memories of the boy - linger long until they finally
faded. He had considered finding a boy and dismissed the idea as suddenly as it
appeared, knowing it would only further inflame him in a way that could not be
satisfied until now, here, beneath this glorious boy with his wild curls and
bright grin.
Hannibal lays back beneath him, hands skimming up the boy’s ribs, his chest,
his neck, to cup his cheeks and pull him low.
“And did you hunt?” he asks, a suggestion less of violence than of this desire
raging rampant between them.
“Once,” Will murmurs, stretching his arms over his head, over Hannibal’s,
against the bed and leaning in to kiss again. He had worked one job, put on the
most innocent act he could to get the worst treatment and still found his only
satisfaction in beating the man to a pulp with his bare hands at the end.
He had obediently cleaned the site, staged a break-in, and tossed away the
valuables into multiple trash bins throughout the city as he rode the subway in
a daze.
He spreads his thighs wider, slides his body fluidly over Hannibal, ducking his
head as their lips part to breathe him in. He doesn’t ask if Hannibal hunted.
He knows he didn’t, and if the man inquired as to how, Will wouldn’t be able to
tell him.
Instinct.
He drops one hand to rub against Hannibal’s cock slowly, a deliberate tease,
biting his lip before Hannibal can catch it between his own teeth and tug,
smiling at him, eyes barely open.
“You gonna take me now?” he asks, voice smooth, quiet, inviting. “Or are you
going to be patient through dinner?”
“I should do both,” Hannibal breathes softly against the boy’s mouth, body
arching in a slow roll beneath him, up against the hand that strokes slow
across his pants. “I have missed you.”
A confession, this, that despite how he had readied himself to say it still
finds him unprepared to hear pass his own lips. Exposed, wary at the openness
of it, Hannibal kisses the words away quickly against Will’s neck as the boy
bows low over him.
“After dinner,” Hannibal finally decides, before Will can respond. “I’ve
brought you something.”
His hands tighten to pull the boy’s hips down against him and roll, to feel
that friction once more, before they finally release.
“In the closet, beside your things.”
Will hums, the sound just barely shivering with the pleasure coiling through
his system, but he goes. Peels himself off of Hannibal’s body, feet setting
quiet to the floor before he toes his boots off and pads to the closet on
socked feet.
Within he finds the clothes he has started leaving here, two shirts, another
pair of jeans - hung over a hanger, which never ceases to amuse Will - some
boxers folded away on a lower shelf. And beside, a bag that looks familiar,
though he has only ever seen its like once before. He swallows, bites his lip
gently and presses a palm against it before taking the hanger from the rod it
rests on and pulling it out.
Within he can see a suit, gray like his other had been but lighter, a heavier
coat, cuffed sleeves and two buttons.
Will swallows again, a thick audible sound and presses his lips together before
pushing the plastic up and aside to see the suit properly, to feel it against
his fingers. The shirt with it is darker, a graceful contrast to how one
usually expects to see gray worn.
“You got me a suit,” Will breathes, just to hear it spoken, to hear it come to
life from his lips as it has against his hands.
Hannibal assents softly, resting back across the bed on his elbows to watch the
boy, his boy, his Will run the fabric through his clever fingers. Worth the
expense - any, really - to see the flood of color to his cheeks not drawn by
liquor or lust but from somewhere far too distant to Hannibal at this point in
his life. An entirely earnest expression, almost childishly shy, a disbelief in
the furrow of his brow as Will recalls the last suit afforded him, ripped to
pieces from his body and discarded.
Much as he thought himself to be in that moment, and others that followed.
Unworthy and uninteresting. Not worth the price of the fabric laid against his
skin.
“From Paris,” Hannibal murmurs. “A particular tailor - Italian in provenance -
with whom it is now exceedingly difficult to place a bespoke commission, since
last I was there to see him.”
His tongue appears to dampen his lips, a curiously anxious moment that passes
as quickly as it appeared.
“A deeper grey than the last, more inclined to blue to further draw out the
depth of your eyes, the particular rose of your cheeks against your pallor. The
cut tailored more narrow across the shoulders, just incrementally, to
lengthen.”
Hannibal sighs, softly, something like an apology that unformed still exists
between them.
“An improvement. A new creation born of past destruction.”
Will swallows again, allowing his heart to pound against his ribs, allowing
himself to feel it, hear it, experience that stimulation. Very carefully he
folds the plastic back over it and hangs it back amongst his things - his -
before turning to return to bed, climbing over Hannibal and taking his face in
his hands to kiss him.
It’s deep, slow, and filled with every word Will knows would sound sordid
spoken aloud. He feeds him his gratitude, at the beautiful fabric, at the cut,
the thought that went into making the suit, having it tailored, bespoke from
someone near-impossible to get. He feeds him the apology, again, for the other;
Will’s most hard-learned lesson.
When he pulls back he whines gently, a soft helpless little noise before he
kisses Hannibal again, a softer touch this time, gentler, younger and yet not
at all any less grateful as the first.
He relishes in the hands around him, arches against them, slides his own down
to undo the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt, previous words forgotten of how they
should wait, how they could be patient through dinner. He can’t be. He wants to
feel the man’s skin against his own again, wants to taste his heartbeat.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
It is worth any effort for the instant that Hannibal shares the uncertainty of
Will’s kiss. Equally unfamiliar with this new ground bridged over blood between
them, a connection now undeniable after relentless attempts to smother and beat
it out of the other, to break them and find them always unmoved. Even placing
an ocean, continents between them proving insufficient to sever the pull that
draws one to the other.
Hannibal’s fingers sink into Will’s hair to tug him close again, stealing the
breath of his words in an achingly slow kiss, languorous and warm.
He lets their mouths part only enough to speak, soft urgent whispers against
him as Will pushes his shirt back from his shoulders.
“There are keys,” Hannibal murmurs, “in the pocket. Not to every part of the
house, but to the core of it, so that you may come and go as you please.”
A pause, rueful amusement.
“So long as you keep your insufferable hands from my antiques. Another broken
dish and you will pay for it in blood,” Hannibal swears low, arms pulling firm
around Will’s waist to kiss him soundly.
Will moans, low and pleased, and rocks against him harder, pulling back for
just a moment to yank his sweater over his head, to undo three buttons on his
own shirt before pulling that off as well, tossing both to the floor. He
spreads his thighs more to let Hannibal shift more comfortably up the bed and
then presses close to him again, feeling the warmth of the hair against his
chest against him, the way his heart beats.
“Yes,” he breathes, agreement, understanding, permission, it doesn’t matter
anymore, and Will grins when he kisses him again, when he kisses his way over
Hannibal’s cheekbone, over his jaw, down under it to his neck and lower still.
He doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t stop squirming and shifting against the man
under him, hard already and rubbing against Hannibal to feel him just the same
beneath.
“I missed you,” he murmurs. “I ached.”
A click in his throat as he swallows again before he arches his hips, holds
himself up over Hannibal as the older man undoes his jeans, slips them over his
thighs, pushes his boxers to follow. Will whimpers, on all fours, trembling, so
pleased to feel those familiar rough hands against him again.
“I’d stretch myself so far, beg for it, whimper into the sheets and in my mind
you never granted mercy.”
His breath hitches on the last word, lips parted as he arches his back deeper
now, settles to rest with his elbows on either side of Hannibal’s head, his
hips still in the air, high, legs spread.
“I’d fuck myself so slow,” he moans.
Hannibal feels the weight of cruelty against his tongue, begging to ask the boy
what he would do if Hannibal never returned, if he left him here, alone and
wondering and hurting for his touch, foreseeably.
He resists the urge to ask. Instead Hannibal lets the boy’s praise settle
against him, stir his heart against his ribs and bring his pulse to a heady
tempo. Hannibal skims his hands along the boy’s heaving sides, up across his
back, tracing the bend of his spine back down to grip rough against the curve
of his ass.
Kissing the boy’s hairless chest, the hollow of his throat to taste him there,
the familiar sweep of his collarbones down to where his heart races fast
beneath pale skin.
“Show me,” Hannibal asks softly, dark eyes alighting to meet Will’s own.
Another moan, skin flushed already at the keen attention, cock hard and leaking
between them, Will licks his lips and regards the man under him for a long
moment.
He knows every pane of that face, knows what he looks like when he’s pleased,
know what his eyes do when he’s angry and hiding it behind his smile, a shell
and a mask both. Will can read him as easily as he can read himself in the
mirror, and now he looks nothing but pleased, darkly amused, curious.
Will bites his lip and swallows quietly.
When he moves it’s to crawl to the side of Hannibal, stretch to reach the
bedside table, second drawer, for the lube there. Then he settles back as he
had been, on his knees for the moment, watching Hannibal under him as his
fingers thoughtfully work the lid open and squeeze some slick onto his fingers.
Then he sets the tube aside, leans close again, messy hand out to the side to
not touch Hannibal or the bed with, and grins.
“Tell me,” he offers in trade.
A rumble of agreement, an echo of the predator soothed still beneath the seams
of his skin, as Hannibal eases back into the bed and rests his hands against
the boy’s lean thighs to feel the muscles there, the downy hairs curled soft
against warm skin.
“Two fingers,” Hannibal instructs softly. “Slowly, to begin.”
A prelude in the eager little noise that escapes when Will grins again,
supporting his weight on his knees and the hand gripping the sheets. Glistening
fingers disappear behind him as Hannibal watches, dark curiosity and lips
parting in a sympathy as Will circles his fingers and presses inside, gasping.
Hannibal reaches between them, to trail the back of a finger along Will’s cock
bobbing hard and unattended, to gather a bead of precum from it and bring it to
his lips, pupils widening incrementally as he tastes the boy from his finger,
intimately familiar.
The hand returns to grasp Will’s hip, to feel the rocking movements of it as
the boy finds his rhythm.
“Three, Will.”
Will complies, without question, without argument, makes a soft noise at the
pressure, the tightness of it. The familiar game he has taught himself to play
in the week Hannibal was away. Now he meets the dark eyes fully, close, not
shying away from the contact there, relishing the attention.
"Spread," comes the even command, and, obediently, Will does, groaning at the
sensation, biting his lip as Hannibal continues the teasing caress of his cock
with just the side of his finger, too gentle, tickling almost, and utterly
impossible to ignore.
"Legs wider, Will. Arch your back."
A shuddering gasp escapes him and Will feels the color darken his neck from his
cheeks, down lower to his chest as he sets first one leg out wider, then the
other, bends lower to moan soft sounds against Hannibal’s lips, eyes hooded,
dark, dark blue, and always on his.
It is agony to watch Will so near, so taut with his own pleasure, and to resist
snaring him, turning him, wrestling him beneath and fucking him into the
mattress. A week without release, unlike Will who indulged in it so wantonly, a
week without deigning to attempt to find even a degree of the pleasure he knows
his boy can wield for him so readily.
“Wider,” Hannibal breathes, chin lifting, grazing a kiss against Will’s gasping
mouth. “Stretch yourself wider.”
He reaches between them, a twist of limbs that allows him to undo the fly of
his own pants, otherwise fully dressed but for where Will unbuttoned his shirt,
and with an aching groan Hannibal pulls his cock free, to rest twitching hard
against his stomach. He bends his own body now, to feel the friction as his
length brushes against Will’s, glancing down between their bodies to watch the
movement and letting his eyes close then in resistance.
The sight of it, the heat of Will gasping breathless atop him, enough to finish
Hannibal now if he decided to let it be so.
He does not, fights it to extend the sensation, keeps his tone gentle, soft-
spoken, at odds with the words he offers against Will’s mouth.
“Can you add a fourth for me, Will?” A hand pushes Will’s unkempt curls of hair
back from his face, holds them there with a firm grip. “I know you can.”
Another kiss, before Hannibal murmurs, “As deeply as you are able.”
Will whimpers, ducks his head to rest his forehead to Hannibal’s and shifts to
do as instructed. And Hannibal can tell, the moment he obeys to add another,
the moment he pushes far enough that it becomes a struggle, far as he can reach
with the way he’s bent.
He swallows the sound Will makes, parts his lips wide to mirror what his
fingers are doing, devours him as Will obediently takes himself apart. When he
lets him go, Will moans his name, grits his teeth and pants softly against him.
“Please,” he breathes. “You, I want you…”
“You have me,” Hannibal assures him softly, taking in every sound that shudders
from inside the boy, every twitch of muscle he can feel beneath the spanning
rub of his hands along Will’s skin, memorizing it all, keeping it close.
There was a moment, when Hannibal departed, when he had convinced himself he
did not need this. That he could go and stay for as long as he liked, come back
when he pleased and simply forget the feel of Will’s hair soft against his
cheek as it now, when the boy nuzzles aching against him. Forget the way his
breath pools warm and cools against Hannibal’s skin, forget the way his heart
pounds with abandon against his chest when Hannibal’s fingers slide over his
body.
It’s bare now of bruises and marks, a canvas restored to newness, ready to be
painted again, and the thought burns hot in the spiraling sensation of
Hannibal’s stomach.
Hannibal told himself that he could forget all of this, and he is still certain
that he could, but to what end, other than to prove a point? To make them both
suffer an endless anguish of distance from the only other one who fascinates
them so completely?
And so he had returned. Phoned Will the moment the plane had landed and waited
impatiently for his arrival.
For this.
“Pants,” Hannibal instructs softly, an echo of their first time here together,
before everything had changed.
Will gasps, pulls his hand free and takes a moment to relish in the stretch
before obeying the given instruction, slipping from the bed to pull Hannibal’s
pants off of him, to fold them and set them aside, to shuck his own before
crawling back and kissing him deep, hips rocking in an endless rhythm against
him now, desperate and hungry for the contact.
“Please?” he asks again, smiling, nuzzling, begging in the sweetest way
possible for the debauchery he knows he’ll receive.
A blink, a moment of genuine surprise as the boy folds Hannibal’s pants before
setting them aside. His own are kicked away in a heap, of course, but he looks
back to Will with little less than adulation for the moment of care,
unrequested and unexpected.
As Will is himself, in essence.
Hannibal breathes the boy’s name, and relents.
Quick hands catch Will by the waist to sling him down onto the bed. He laughs,
arching, and the sweet sound has hardly lilted into the air before Hannibal is
between his thighs. Tremendous speed, forcing a knee higher with a firm grip,
lining up against him and pushing past his opening, stretched wide and willing,
without hesitation. He buries himself in one long stroke, a harsh gasp when he
feels Will tense around him with back bending and cheeks flushed scarlet.
“Fuck,” Hannibal growls.
Will laughs again, pleased, warm, and pulls Hannibal down to kiss to silence
him, feeling the stretch, the need within the other man to move and push and
deeper. He doesn’t strike him for the word.
He draws his nails sharp and harsh over Hannibal’s skin in a set of four red
parallel lines from hip to shoulder across his back.
“Language,” he manages, before Hannibal steals his breath and Will is more than
willing to give it up in favor of sweet moans and heavy pants of pleasure.
A grin at the chastisement, deepending beneath the pull of fingernails scraping
against his back.
One week. One week and Will feels like his lungs don’t weigh a ton in his chest
anymore. He draws his other knee high, to mirror the one Hannibal holds in a
harsh grip that will bruise, and arches up off the bed, alternatively tugging
the sheets above his head in a languid stretch and bringing them to Hannibal’s
hair with absolutely no care for how much he messes the careful laying up.
For once, Hannibal had envisioned a gentler moment together. To see Will
dressed in his suit, to take him to dinner and sustain the distance between
them for a few hours more, before returning home to strip him down and savor
every inch of pale skin he exposed.
Perhaps he still may, after this.
This, though, is altogether ungentle, a giddy fierce joining, rutting hard
together - a fight against himself to keep his orgasm at bay and feel Will
stretch beneath him. Fingers stretching catlike, head tilting back to pour out
a decadent moan from the graceful curve of his pale throat, Hannibal is lost in
the sound and feel of the boy beneath him. He reaches out above Will’s head to
brace a hand against the headboard, a clattering rhythm driven against it.
Every bruising meeting of his hips against the boy’s thighs, every feral groan
that rips past clenched teeth, and every finger that curls around Will’s cock
to feel the weight of it heavy and flushed hot in his grip as affirmation,
again and again, of how profoundly Will was missed.
“Not yet,” Hannibal gasps, seeing the telltale twitches of Will’s stomach
beneath the long turn of Hannibal’s wrist. “Not until I tell you.”
“No.” It’s a whine, pulled from deep in Will’s chest that spreads his lips in a
grin, closes his eyes and arches his back further. He’s shaking, his entire
body taut with pleasure, with the anticipation of release. He bends and twists
beneath Hannibal, small sounds escaping him with the feeling, with every change
of angle and every thrust pushing him harder up the bed.
He relishes every moment of it.
And it gets harder and harder to, with the way Hannibal feels within him,
around him, rough hands and hot lips, sharp teeth and pushing, pushing,
pushing…
“Please,” he moans, a laugh catching the end of his moan. “Please, please
please…”
Hannibal knows that laugh, moans against it, mouth warm against the corner of
the boy’s lips as he begs. The same laugh when he climaxes, the same laugh when
thinks of killing, the same laugh when he delighted as blood spilled hot across
his belly where Will had spilled himself moments before.
“Yes,” Hannibal breathes, and without ceasing his rhythm, without releasing
Will’s cock or the headboard, knuckles white with how hard he grips it,
Hannibal’s release breaks through him, scattering across his nerves and forcing
his breath to a held silence. Wet heat against his fingers and another laugh
when Will follows in kind, whimpering sweet as Hannibal squeezes gently to pull
every drop from him.
Release, relief, to feel his orgasm unspiral inside his boy again, dizzying as
it loops free each time he pushes back inside of him.
Hannibal does not swear again, though he very well could, a sheen of sweat
bright across his skin as he finally slows, still inside the boy, for as long
as he can stand, leaning low to taste his breathless smile.
Will shivers, pleased, warm, contented and sated beneath him, returning every
kiss with a soft sigh and a parting of lips.
Then he turns his head to the side, feeling Hannibal’s lips trace his cheek
instead, up to his ear, nosing behind the lobe, at the sensitive skin there. He
draws his fingers over the man’s arms over his shoulders, down to splay fingers
with his.
“Take me to dinner,” he allows finally, turning just his eyes to look, his
smile coy.
Hannibal rests the back of his hand against Will’s cheek, turns the boy to face
him again. He does not lean immediately to kiss him, merely takes in the sight
of him, cheeks lit ruddy scarlet and grin a little crooked and his lashes low
across delta blue eyes.
“Beautiful, demanding boy.”
A kiss now, before Hannibal shifts to remove himself from Will, pleased by the
little gasp he receives for it.
“You are in no state for dinner,” Hannibal informs him, nearly cheerful now,
indulgent and relaxed. “Shower, and then your suit, perhaps, as you decide what
you would prefer for the evening.”
Will’s grin is infectious, bright and happy and young. He stretches, just to
feel Hannibal above him still when he does, and curls his legs languidly over
Hannibal’s.
“Japanese,” he decides, sighing, bringing a hand up to rub his face with a
pleased groan.
“I think Japanese would be perfect.”
***** Chapter 13 *****
Chapter Summary
     “Eyes up,” Will murmurs, stepping closer, winding the tie around his
     hand until Hannibal’s chin is raised with it. “Slowly.”
Will has found that if he takes his sashimi between his teeth and not his lips,
slipping it deftly from the chopsticks, he will inevitably have a drop of soy
sauce left to lap up. A gentle curling of his bottom lip into his mouth after,
a bare suggestion of a suck as the sticks seek out another piece and his eyes
seek Hannibal’s to watch the response.
They had arrived early, had taken a table quite as they had their first dinner
- out of the way and comfortable - though unlike their first dinner, no one
gives Will a sidelong glance wondering why such a scruffy boy has been allowed
inside, and how the man with him must have no shame in bringing him out in
public.
Will sits, now, in his suit, his hair in a beautiful wave against his forehead,
slicked with water and a little gel he had unearthed in Hannibal’s drawers that
had amused him to no end. The blue in the grey of the suit does bring out the
color of his eyes more, and the only glances he draws now are envious ones,
hungry in some cases, and he delights in it.
His lip comes free, clean of sauce, and Will smiles.
Hannibal finds he has little interest in eating. He does select a piece of each
roll that is brought to them, this particular restaurant a rare enough pleasure
to not let the opportunity - or the bribe that allowed them to surpass the list
- go to waste.
And yet, he is even more reluctant to miss a moment of the show being performed
expertly across the table from him. The sushi that has earned glowing reviews
in noted publications and tables reserved for weeks in advance is but an
afterthought, as Hannibal takes in the pull of chopsticks against Will’s lower
lip, tugging just enough to draw his attention to it.
Will’s eyes brighten, as ever, when he knows he’s being watched so closely.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” It is an innocuous enough question, but charged
pleasurably as Hannibal follows the movement of Will’s thumb against his lips,
a seemingly absent gesture that is entirely deliberate.
Hannibal could watch for hours.
Will’s smile is small but his eyes narrow in much deeper suggestion.
“You are,” he informs him, a strangely dominant statement that Hannibal can’t
argue, and that Will doesn’t continue beyond setting another piece of sushi
between his lips.
In truth, he is very much enjoying himself. The suit sits exquisitely against
his skin, bespoke and soft and warm, and he feels beautiful in it. Shoulders
straighter, motions controlled and deliberate, as though he was born into such
money and hadn’t earned it. He still hasn’t, merely starting to understand the
depths of what earning means with Hannibal Lecter.
He swallows the morsel in his mouth and sets the chopsticks down carefully,
putting his elbows up on the table and threading his fingers together before
resting his chin against them. Once more, the motion draws eyes, those taught
from early childhood that elbows do not belong on the table, that one must
always sit properly and never lean.
From Hannibal it draws a gentle bunching of his lips that suggests either mild
displeasure or softened delight.
“I am very much enjoying dinner,” Will tells him honestly, smiling as he tilts
his head, “I am very much enjoying the company, the attention. Though I must
say, Doctor Lecter,” Will grins, “your conversation has been found wanting.”
Perhaps because there has been so little of it, between buying their way into
the place and Will’s delightful distraction with the food.
“What’s to be done about that?”
Delight, then, rather than dismay as Hannibal's pursed lips curve slightly
steeper and his own words carry on Will's voice.
"A most unfortunate thing," Hannibal murmurs, settling back in his seat to
observe Will at length. "A side-effect of finding myself driven to distraction,
I'm afraid."
He dabs the corners of his mouth with his napkin, folds it over several times
before setting it beside his plate. They are both as clean as when they
arrived, without a drip of soy sauce or errant grain of rice.
"Shall we speak of Paris, then?" A pause, bemused. "Greece, as you would have
it?"
Hannibal takes measure of the room with a cant of his head, shoulders pressing
forward as he inclines himself back towards Will. A lightless black suit with
pale grey beneath, contrast and compliment both to the more subtle tones worn
by the boy across from him. Each striking in his own right, and together nearly
obscene with the radiance drawn from the other's proximity.
"Perhaps," Hannibal continues, as the distance lessens between them, "you would
rather hear me tell of how much more distracting still was your absence, and
how persistent was the thought of our last time together, with you gagged to
stillness beneath me."
Whether it is a compliment, a regret, desire or dread in the memory, he does
not clarify. All exist in his tone and none weighted more than the other, but
the words are followed fondly by another shadow of a smile.
He glances towards Will's elbows again, wryly amused. "I do beg your
forgiveness for my inattentiveness to the conversation. I am merely here to
please, Mr. Graham, in whatever fashion you would desire it."
Will laughs, a low and pleased sound, and sits straight again as he
deliberately folds his arms on the table, cocks his head.
"You have been otherwise attentive, perhaps I'll let it slide." He gestures
vaguely with one hand, a motion that seems to at once forgive Hannibal his
invisible mistakes, and to call a waiter over. Will inquires about dessert and
sends the man away with his order before looking at Hannibal again.
"I take pleasure in knowing I was a distraction," he murmurs, leaning closer,
feeling a few sets of eyes follow him. "That my mouth tormented you so with its
absence."
He licks his lips deliberately, a brief and delicate gesture before drawing his
lip between his teeth.
"I, too, am merely here to please, Dr. Lecter.” A narrowing of the eyes,
amused. “And I know in what fashion you take your pleasure of me."
He shifts flawlessly to Latin.
"But I can only do so much with my mouth in such a public place."
Hannibal’s fingers splay against the table, a subtle movement, as he watches
the boy with a curious tilt of his chin. Minute movements that add up to a
perceptible pique of interest in how the boy is interpreting the unspoken
rules, the shift of control, between them.
The Latin draws a particular crinkle to the corners of Hannibal’s eyes.
“Torments on torments,” he responds idly, French now since he understands but
does not speak Latin, content to relinquish dead languages to the boy who
brings life to them again.
The tip of his tongue appears, parting Hannibal’s lips thoughtfully as he
speaks, the language elegant and warm, accents overlapping. “Given that my
tastes are so transparent to you, and ill-suited for public consumption,” a
pause, amused by his own play on words, “I would be curious to know in what
fashions you find yourself inclined.”
A consideration never suggested between them before this moment, that Will may
have his own proclivities and preferences as to such things. Even when Hannibal
has laid tenderness against his skin rather than pain, it was entirely his
choice as to what he lavished on the boy.
“How would you take your pleasure of me, Mr. Graham?”
Will’s pupils widen, just enough against the soft blue to notice before he
blinks and turns his eyes away as their dessert arrives, the remains of their
dinner carefully collected.
There has never been a clearly defined power position between them. Perhaps
from the outsider’s eye, but they couldn’t see the power Will held in his
delight in pain, in his persistence to take pleasure and offer more back. They
couldn’t understand that the greatest power came from knowing that,
effectively, he was immortal where Hannibal was concerned.
He considers the beautifully arrayed mochi, the green tea set beside in
delicate little cups, hand-painted and well cared for.
Though invisibly he held so much power over Hannibal, he had never once been
allowed to push far enough to genuinely take control of him.
Will licks his lips gently, selects a green mochi to start and murmurs his
answer to the table before lifting his eyes.
“On your knees,” he says simply, taking a deliberate bite of the dessert
between his fingers.
A thoughtful noise in response, attention fixed briefly on the curve of Will’s
mouth wrapped around the delicate sweet.
“Then that is where we will begin.”
Hannibal does not share in the dessert, sated enough, it seems, by watching
Will consume it. A lift of fingers to the waiter as he passes, to signal for
the check.
It’s a curious sensation, even in such an open-ended suggestion. Echoes of Will
pulling a belt tight around Hannibal’s neck, driving knees and fists and elbows
into him in a struggle not only to survive, but to overcome. A thrill at the
thought, unexpected, in finding himself at the boy’s mercy rather than the
inverse.
Hannibal pays, and is unable to resist a slight smile as he feels attention
linger on them both as they go.
They have only just returned when Hannibal experiences a frisson of tension.
The boy keeps his boots on, several strides too far into the house, and the
older man is unable to resist a sound of mild dismay as he hangs his coat.
Will turns, clicks his tongue, tilts his head and raises an eyebrow before
carefully loosening his tie.
“Unwise,” he murmurs. “Starting such an evening with the first show of
weakness, Hannibal. Must I teach you this as well?”
His smile is wicked, smooth and sits far too well on his youthful features. The
flush in his cheeks, somehow, does not take away from the authority of his tone
when he commands Hannibal follow him upstairs. He does, however, relent and
remove his boots by the stairs before climbing them.
Once in the bedroom, Will steps close, slides his fingers over the tie Hannibal
wears, and pulls it free from the vest and coat.
“Will you learn, I wonder?” he muses, tugging the tie gently, just once, to
bring the man closer still, pulling a little harder to get him to bend so Will
can kiss him.
Hannibal follows the tug, unresistant, meeting Will’s mouth with no more
insistence than the boy gives him. A brush of tongues just soft together,
drawing a breath through his nose before Will pulls apart.
“Teach me,” Hannibal responds, Will’s words from his mouth now.
No resistance yet, but an intrigue in how readily the boy settles into this
role, a skill at which he’s proven himself adept, time and again, to become
whatever is needed or desired. Infinitely malleable and yet inherently
unchanged by his meticulous metamorphoses. Adaptable in a way that Hannibal
wonders if he will, in fact, be able to echo without the monster snapping tight
against its chains.
Hannibal lowers himself further still, hands skimming Will’s sides as he
settles to the ground, kneeling at his feet.
“On my knees,” he echoes, dark eyes flashing bright as they turn upwards
towards Will.
Will’s smile widens marginally and he keeps his hand on the tie, like a leash,
before drawing his other through the soft, tidy hair, messing it to something
softer, something less authoritative.
“So good for me,” he murmurs. None of the patronizing lilt, nothing suggesting
Hannibal is anything other than himself, here. Gently, Will tugs against his
hair to tilt Hannibal’s head back before he lets him go, tie still in hand.
“Since you were so kind to put the suit on me, would you be so kind as to
remove it?” he murmurs. “Just the pants, for now. My socks. Boxers. Then I want
your hands behind your back. Your eyes up.”
Rather than the discomfort Hannibal anticipated that he would feel, he simply
sighs, a strange relief in allowing himself to be guided now. An acknowledgment
of the dynamic that has persistently grown between them, that even when
Hannibal’s grip over the boy in words and actions is fierce, he still feels in
thrall to him, responsive and reactive to whatever Will’s designs might be.
It makes the openness of the exchange refreshing, in a peculiar way, and
Hannibal undoes the fly as instructed. Careful fingers slip the tailored
trousers from his hips and lift them when Will steps out of of them. Folded,
then, and gently set aside, bowing lower still to glide Will’s socks from his
calves, off his feet, and then the boxers.
A breath, stolen, the spicy scent of arousal pooling from the boy’s skin as
these too are slid down skinny thighs and past his feet.
Hannibal sets them neatly atop the socks, atop the folded suitpants, and wets
his lips briefly with his tongue to taste the heady sensation of the boy so
close to him.
He folds his hands behind his back, and lifts his chin to watch up the length
of him, half-clad in the expensive suit, tie looped loose around his neck while
his own is still held at a careful tension.
Will makes a sound in his throat, a needy soft thing and his lips part,
pleased, seeing Hannibal so obedient to him so obviously where before he had
fooled himself otherwise. When he couldn’t kill him, when Will would demand and
Hannibal would acquiesce. All of it unspoken, now tunneled into this, like a
vortex to a point, where it’s quietest as the storm of everything else rages
around them.
In here it doesn’t matter.
“Eyes up,” Will murmurs, stepping closer, winding the tie around his hand until
Hannibal’s chin is raised with it. “Slowly.”
Will relishes in the way he’s obeyed, without question, without anything more
than a gentle blink of those beautiful dark eyes, the way they focus entirely
on him. When he’s enveloped by the delicious heat, Will groans.
“God, I missed you for the week you were gone,” he sighs, eyes hooded and down
to watch. “I missed sleeping against you, I missed making breakfast together, I
missed -” he bites his lip as Hannibal takes him deeper, without instruction,
very much welcomed.
The words move freely between them, lacking the discomforting weight that such
confessions might otherwise carry in the careful movements of their usual
vicious dance together. Hannibal would watch Will now even if not instructed to
do so, humming his pleasure against the weight of Will’s cock sliding in smooth
strokes past his lips.
There has been no one else with whom Hannibal had ever fully considered putting
himself in this position. Not only on his knees, though that as well, but to
yield to the boy so much more than only his body. His space, his territory and
his quiet and his freedom, able but unwilling to live entirely in the same way
as he had before this boy appeared, with blood between his teeth and lilting
little songbird sounds like the ones that fill the air now.
“God when I have you under me… I’ll see your back arch. I’ll see your lips part
in helpless pleasure for me - oh…”
Hannibal starts to reach for the boy’s thighs, wanting the heat of them beneath
his hands, but hesitates halfway there and returns his hands behind his back.
Hesitation, in the slow suck against Will’s cock, an uncertainty in the scant
lift of Hannibal’s brows.
Will grins. Tilts his head and cards fingers through Hannibal’s hair before
gripping it gently and pulling him off.
“It was your suggestion that the pleasure I take from you will start on your
knees, I hadn’t intended to take it farther than that.”
He runs a thumb gently over Hannibal’s brow, watches him, as his eyes narrow in
turn, as the hesitation and obvious displeasure at the implication is made
plain as day through the sharpness of his eyes.
“Would you not do it?” Will asks gently, brow up. “On your knees as you are
now, would you deny me?”
Will’s lips quirk. “So far, I have not forced a single thing on you this
evening. You went to your knees yourself, before I asked. You followed me at
your own volition, you put your hands behind your back as I asked and you have
not looked away from me.”
He bites his lip, slips his hand to Hannibal’s face instead, stroking his
cheek, thumb over his lips.
“Tell me.”
The taste of the proud boy, watching expectantly, still stings salty against
Hannibal’s tongue, mouth falling a little slack to allow Will’s thumb to press
against it, grazing his teeth.
“I can deny you nothing.”
The words snare sharp in his throat with their honesty, attention unwavering as
the boy tilts his head in pleasure at the response.
“Should I try?” Hannibal asks, a riptide undercurrent moving fast beneath the
smooth tone. “Shall I fight you as you fight me, swearing and snarling, to
force your hand against me?”
Hannibal swallows hard, fingers tightening and stretching behind his back. The
first rattling of chains, ever brittle, pulling tight around his ribs. The
first strain against his seams, pulling together and apart again, as he draws
in a long breath.
He could deny him, in fact. Unravel the submission he’s yielded, convince
himself it isn’t some facet of a greater dynamic rapidly carving itself between
them, moment by moment, day by day.
But he will not. Hannibal reminds himself that this, too, is a choice.
“The evening is what you will make of it.” A pause, a quick curl of lips. “Mr.
Graham.”
Will smiles, expression, for a moment, entirely genuine, entirely open.
"I want to enjoy it,” he says, the words stroke deeper over skin than a
declaration of claim, than a domination; they suggest that the enjoyment would
be mutual, had to be, in order for Will's wish to be fulfilled.
"Though I must admit, I do love seeing you on a leash." Will’s smirk returns,
and he leans close to kiss Hannibal again, tie pulling taut so he can feel it
against his skin, free hand holding Hannibal’s chin in place.
"In that you may need to indulge me."
A resistance, at first pull, that eases beneath the kiss even as the tension
tugs against his throat. Surprised that the boy would stay his hand when
offered to use it freely without retribution, in knowing that Hannibal would
not likely do the same for him.
Stalemate, each held in place by the other.
Hannibal relaxes his hands now, lifts them to slide warm up the back of Will’s
thighs and draw him near again. The boy’s cock, soft skin pulled taut and
flushed, brushes Hannibal’s cheek as Will wraps the tie around his fist just a
little tighter.
The older man draws a quiet breath, eyes turning upward as he kisses the boy’s
hip, the dark curls of hair, the base of his length to pull his lips across the
side of it, tongue tracing a line gentle enough to feel it twitch in response.
“Tell me, then,” Hannibal responds, gentling from the cresting swells of
apprehension as he nuzzles adoring against the boy’s soft belly. “And you will
have it.”
Will arches his neck, a genuine languid beautiful stretch, and bites his lip,
settling one hand in Hannibal’s hair again.
"Undress me," he sighs. “Undress yourself,"
He parts his lips on a soundless moan of pleasure as Hannibal sucks against the
head of his cock, sends shivers through Will’s entire form.
"Nnn - then on the bed, on your stomach - ah.” A laugh, warm and brief and
Will’s cheeks flush darker. He tugs lightly at Hannibal’s hair.
"Stop." It's an amused admonishment, gentle. "I know your mouth, let me learn
the rest."
Hannibal smiles, hidden against the boy’s hip, at the sound of his laugh,
pressing another kiss against the smooth curve of bone before he stands. No
scolding for this, none of the ecstatic punishment that Hannibal knows he would
lay into Will’s skin for such disobedience.
A gentler control, to allow it to be as much of a choice as it is an order
followed.
He ducks his head, nuzzling against Will’s temple, and presses another kiss,
reverent fingers at work to loose the buttons of his jacket, the waistcoat
beneath it that fits perfectly snug against the lean lines of his body. Both
are slid free with careful fingers and held over Hannibal’s arm as he lingers
over each button of the boy’s shirt.
Each worth taking time on, each followed by a fingertip that trails down his
sternum, his stomach, until the shirt too is slid free.
Hannibal makes himself resist the urge to grab the boy by his skinny body, pull
him smotheringly close again and lift him from the floor. Pin him to the wall,
perhaps, and hear him beg and whimper, or lay back beneath him and count his
ribs beneath his skin as he arches writhing.
He allows for the thoughts to provide such pleasant torment, as the clothes are
hung, the suit reassembled with care, and his own removed with equal precision.
He hands his tie back to Will, still knotted, with a scarcely restrained smile
as he passes by him to the bed to lay face down on it.
A swallow, hard, to fight down the sudden sensation of exposure, turning his
cheek against the cool pillow to watch Will.
For a moment Will just marvels at the fact that he’s allowed, that Hannibal is
letting him have this, isn’t backing out from a game they have thus far never
played, hesitant, as any wild predator, to be forced to something unknown in
case it traps them.
When he follows, it’s to crawl over Hannibal’s prone form and press a hot open-
mouthed kiss at the very top of his spine.
Hannibal’s body is scarred. Things Will has noticed before and will never ask
about, and he takes his time, veering from each vertebra, to give each their
due attention, until beneath him the man trembles with a strange anticipation,
a pressure he can’t seen to ease, tension he won’t explain to Will, and Will
allows that, just kisses until he reaches his tailbone, nuzzles against the
warm skin there.
His hands skim parallel, down Hannibal’s sides, gentle over his ribs, harsher -
marginally - against his hips just to hold him still. Will is bent, back arched
in a pleasing curve, inverse to how Hannibal enjoys seeing him, perhaps because
they are inverse here, too, as Will chooses which pleasures to lavish on the
man beneath him.
He skims the backs of his fingers over the insides of Hannibal’s thighs and
smiles when they spread, just a little, with the sensation.
The warm breath against Hannibal’s skin does not provide a noise yet but
certainly provides a response. Will watches the twitch of muscle in Hannibal’s
thigh, fingers grasping just a little harder against the sheets, a furrow in
Hannibal’s brow that does not allow itself to be smoothed even as he brings his
breath and heart rate to steady.
It occurs to Will, in that moment, that perhaps Hannibal has not allowed this
before. Indulged in all nature of depravity when afflicting himself on others,
but not the recipient of such things. Not like this.
Hannibal sighs to feel the boy’s hand against him, pressed cool over the base
of his spine, fingers spreading as Will ducks his head again, the other hand
widening Hannibal’s thighs just a little further to allow him room to draw his
tongue against him.
Will knows, with the choked, soft sound that breaks from Hannibal not of his
own allowance, that his suspicions were correct.
He grins, where Hannibal can’t see him, and feels this victory swell in his
chest, warm him, hitch his own breath before he leans in again, almost lovingly
lapping against the sensitive thin skin there, drawing the pleasure out for
him, where Will very rarely does this for others unless under duress, though he
himself comes apart at the seams when it’s done to him.
It appears Hannibal has a similar response.
Will’s hands curl against his thighs to hitch them just a little higher, to
spread just a little more and press his tongue against him harder, finally
penetrating the ring of muscles and feeling Hannibal tense beneath him with it,
a shiver stroking his spine.
Will hums, relishes in another.
He ducks his head, after a moment, to bite a brief sharp reminder against the
sensitive inside of Hannibal’s thigh, nuzzling after.
“Arch for me,” he murmurs.
A muddle of emotion in response to the command, all stilled with the slide of
Hannibal’s hands against the sheets. He pushes himself little higher, to
lengthen his body and bring his shoulders lower, a leonine curl in the arc of
his spine, knees shifting beneath his weight to present himself, at Will’s
request.
For no one else before this, for no one else foreseeably after. A raw exposure
that scrapes against Hannibal’s nerves, the shrill pitch of which reminds him
that, to his surprise, something in him yet remains human.
And were that not enough, the painfully hard erection he is resistent to pull
away from the friction of the sheets would serve as ample enough indication of
this newfound weakness.
So he bends, curving in a stiffer, stronger iteration of the arche he regularly
pulls down the length of Will’s spine, forearms flexing tense as Will leans in
again, and this time brings a finger beside his tongue, to trace the circle of
sensitive skin and rend a gasp from Hannibal.
Will doesn’t rush, deliberately taking his time to bring Hannibal to the
shuddering, the breathless pleasure that Will is so used to enduring when the
other chooses to inflict time and patience on him.
He’s pressed the tips of two fingers in before he pulls back, rests his
forehead against the small of Hannibal’s back where it’s slick with cool sweat
and plagued with erratic shudders.
“Mmm, look at you,” he breathes, smiling, fingers not pushing deeper but gently
pulsing in shallow thrusts where they sit, stretching. “Not desperate yet, not
allowing yourself to be.”
He’s just as breathless, just as hard and aching for it as Hannibal beneath
him, and Will slides further up his body, rests his forehead between his
shoulders, rolls his hips where Hannibal can feel it. It’s the most thrilling
experience knowing that someone so untamed is letting this happen, letting the
most utter loss of control happen to him.
“You struggle beautifully.” In French, the words coarse and not refined like
Hannibal’s are, and Will grins. “Let go for me. Tell me what you want.”
“In truth?” Hannibal responds in French as well, rough-voiced against the
sheets from the effort of restraining himself beneath the boy’s probing touch.
“I want nothing more than to pin you to this bed in my place and fuck you until
you are unable to catch your breath. Or to turn your face to the wall and press
you against it, forcing you to stand as your knees go weak while I’m inside
you. I would drag you across the carpet and plant myself so deeply in you that
you would feel me there for days after.”
A shift of muscles, shoulders working against the position he’s in, a visible
strength to him, coiled tight but held at bay despite the tension. The rush of
French, filthy, seems to ease the pressure a little, but still Will’s fingers
twist deeper inside him and Hannibal’s lip curls in a snarl that eases away,
clouds parting, when Will bends his fingers just so.
Hannibal arches deeply now, roiling power curling through his spine, groaning
low, primal, as pleasure flares hot behind his eyes, and earns Will a muttered
curse in French.
Letting go, inch by inch, to unlace the seams rather than let them tear apart.
“I would know how it feels,” Hannibal finally breathes, “once.”
Will almost purrs against him, stretching himself to match the arch, to bend
utterly against Hannibal like a second skin. He nuzzles him, turns his head to
part his lips against his skin, to breathe in the musk of him, the pleasure,
the tension…
Without warning, Will’s free hand strikes hard against Hannibal’s thigh,
squeezing the stung skin a moment before he leans back to kiss it gently.
“Language.” Will laughs softly. “I speak French as well.”
A deep pleasure, this, to be able to punish, to be able to take what he wants
like this. He’s leaking now from Hannibal’s words, body aching for everything
he’s said, begging for it and pushing at his mind to let it happen and yet…
“Spread wider,” Will murmurs, kissing the base of his ribs gently. “Stay
still.”
He moves only far enough for the lube, to spread it on his fingers and start to
prepare Hannibal properly, a slow and deliberate thing, dedicated, almost
gentle if it wasn’t for the sharp pangs of pleasure from the curled fingers,
the stretch when Will adds a third.
There is no repercussion yet for the slap, beyond a lingering sound drawn deep
from Hannibal’s chest, some dire note of warning rumbling in the distance that
fades to a warmer tone when Will shifts over him. The cool press of his skin
against Hannibal’s back, a familiar weight heavy and gentle, all easing slow
against him as does the movement of slick fingers.
A drawn breath through clenched teeth as Hannibal is stretched wider still, a
shift of hips to relieve the pressure building in the small of his back that
does nothing to alleviate it.
Hannibal glances past his shoulder, to see Will watching him, working him open.
He wonders at the boy, exceptional in his ability to take hurt and to revel in
it, shape it into beautiful moans through bloodied lips and still find strength
in his body to draw so fiercely close to Hannibal once their hungers have been
sated.
Will’s fingers span open and Hannibal groans, ducking his head towards the bed
again.
This is a fresh pain, entirely unfamiliar, worth tasting for the newness of the
experience alone. An intense push and pull of muscle as much in his own control
as Will’s and yet an effort to sustain.
Hannibal cannot help but imagine how it must feel for Will, even with all his
experience and skill at such things, when with little more than spit between
them, Hannibal fucks him so hard he bleeds.
He also cannot help but remember how last time it happened, Will still laughed,
aching, as he burst white heat across Hannibal’s fingers moments later.
“Remarkable boy,” comes the sudden praise, breathless French and another swear
pressed through clenched teeth as Will withdraws his fingers.
“Your remarkable boy,” Will replies, words just as breathless, just as soft and
almost rushed in their need to be said. He strokes himself quickly, enough lube
to slick himself and considers.
As he is, the push will be easier for Hannibal, would be more comfortable for
the stretch, easier to bend into and away from, to control anything he wants to
control that Will lets him. And yet Will knows that he has to see his face,
that he will never again be able to witness Hannibal so vulnerable, so open to
this as he will be now.
Will kisses the base of his back, up higher, over his spine and tugs at his
earlobe when he reaches it.
“Turn over, turn over for me,”
It’s obeyed, the same brief hesitation and reluctance with which Hannibal had
bent before, but he still does, Will is still allowed this, and when he can,
again, Will kisses him, deep and languid, opens his lips to Hannibal to give
him control over this, at least, over the speed and pressure, allows him to
grip his hair and tug him close as Will’s hands gently spread his thighs and he
rests between them.
“Just once,” Will whispers, sighing out harsh as he lines up, throat clicking
as he swallows. “Just once and I will make you remember this with longing.”
Even as the kiss deepens, mouths spreading wide against each other, tongues
driving and curling together, Hannibal focuses, concentrates on relaxing the
rest of himself. Not a nerve or muscle outside of his control, not a vessel in
his body whose expansion and contraction is conducted without his explicit
permission to act.
Not enough, still, to prevent the pull of new pain from pushing a soft gasp
from him, when Will rocks slowly inside. Just breaches and holds, losing a
quiet noise himself in the moment he feels Hannibal tight around the head of
his cock.
Their eyes meet - a breath - hooded blue watching lightless dark, both rapt
with awareness of the other in this new form, mouths unfurled for breath that
jerks short from each of them.
For all of his languages, Hannibal finds himself without a word to describe the
moment.
"Slow," Hannibal finally sighs, when just as suddenly as the stillness was
held, it breaks on a groan as Hannibal arches slow beneath the boy -
discomfort, pleasure, pain, delight in the novelty of such a sensation shared
with this boy, his, his Will, his alone.
Will spreads his fingers, presses firm but not cruel against the twitching
muscles of Hannibal's thighs to keep them parted.
"Spread," Will grins. "There, like that."
He leans low, to feel the thin sheen of sweat between them, to feel Hannibal
seek his mouth again with a need superseding physical, more than what their
bodies take and offer - closeness, affection, tenderness called for in curl of
Hannibal's fingers through Will's hair.
A breath sucked sharp through his teeth as Will moves inside him, sighed
roughly against the boy’s ear in the form of his name.
“Will,” Hannibal murmurs, shifting his legs higher against Will’s hips. “My
Will.”
A strange, soft little mewling sound of pleasure and Will smiles against
Hannibal’s cheek, brings his lips together in a gentle kiss there.
"Yours," he agrees, the word groaned.
It's not unheard of, but rare enough to matter, that Will’s clients ask him to
fuck them, instead. The pressure, now, the heat, the trembling and twitch of
every muscle when Will moves against Hannibal in slow rolls of his hips sends
his own back rigid with the electric sensation.
He knows it must hurt, can feel that Hannibal is enduring, still, not enjoying,
and he adjusts himself accordingly, tilting his hips, slowing his thrusts,
discovering the body beneath him as only recently Hannibal has started to with
him.
It's one moment, just one, of utter blinding pleasure for Will when around him
Hannibal clenches, arches his back, draws nails down his sides, and he knows
he’s found what he needs.
"Stay still." It's a moan, far from authoritative, too weak, even, to be a
suggestion, and Will bites his lip before turning his head and kissing Hannibal
hard, cock working in shallow, gentle thrusts against him until he pulls a
sound from Hannibal too. He swallows it, savors it, feeds Hannibal his own name
in soft little pants before pushing himself to be just over him, to watch.
Let go for me.
An arc, body shifting in a roll of muscles, tendons, ligaments each in turn to
loosen himself, to yield beneath the pressure of the boy's movements inside of
him. The set of his jaw slackens just enough for Hannibal's lips to part on a
fervent groan, relinquished to the boy atop him, inside him, deepening his
thrusts and angling them to send another cascade of static sparks down
Hannibal's skin and draw a shudder from him.
White flaring behind his eyes that flutter closed, allowing the unexpected
pleasure to burst inside of him each time Will moves against that particular
spot that he has sought in the boy so many times before.
He does not stay still, entirely, legs wrapping warm against Will's sides, hips
rising, angling, twisting in response to the movement. Hungry to take all the
moment has to offer him this once, to feel the skill of the boy who presses
bony hips into his thighs, the practiced movements of a body that understands
how to take pain and give it, how to receive pleasure and to offer it in turn.
Awareness of his entire self far beyond what a boy of seventeen should have,
that Hannibal thinks with a bare smile will almost certainly supersede his own
such skills in time.
"More," Hannibal purrs low, dark eyes shadowed beneath strands of hair.
Enjoyment in endurance, in taking this particular hurt and reveling in it, a
distant echo of what Will experiences so often.
He does not reach for his own cock, leaking and hard against his stomach,
refuses to give himself that distraction and tightens his legs instead to bring
Will down harder into him.
They lose any particular rhythm fairly quickly after that. Both unused to the
positions they hold, the pleasures they yield.
Will presses kisses against Hannibal's neck, gentle bites that won't bruise,
pulling out almost all the way, now, before pushing harder in. It's an
exquisite sort of endurance, and Will can feel himself closer and closer to the
familiar fall, the rush of blood and air and heat.
"Fuck." It's weak, utterly helpless, and he brings a hand between them to
stroke Hannibal as Will loses himself to his climax, for once uncaring if he's
permitted to take it, grinning wolfishly at the thought of Hannibal being
marked that way - with heat and slick and desire within him.
The boy’s pleasure rushes against Hannibal’s skin in gasps and grasping hands,
inside of him now, too, he feels the sudden warmth spilling deep, sliding
against the join of his thigh when Will moves again in a slow roll of hips. A
breathless fixation on the feeling, eyes nearly closed but forced open enough
to watch the boy consume his pleasure with a hard swallow of air, heart racing.
The wet drip of heat cools against Hannibal’s skin in a trail and a tightened
grasp, twisting from Will’s wrist, pulls Hannibal’s orgasm from him with a
harsh hiss against the boy’s shoulder, streaking warm over Will’s fingers,
spreading across flushed skin beneath the movement of their bodies pressed
together.
“Language,” Hannibal finally breathes, a latent shudder rolling down the length
of his spine, but no strike follows the scolding. He jerks, unexpected, at the
feeling of Will withdrawing from him, and sighs out a deeply held breath all at
once against Will’s chest.
Powerful arms surround the boy to pull him close and turn them both to their
sides. Lazy kisses, sloppy and affectionate, shared as they catch their breaths
and Hannibal seeks to feel Will curl against him again. A more familiar weight
and shape to the joining of their bodies in this embrace, in the possessive way
that Hannibal buries his nose in Will’s hair.
“You were gentle,” he finally remarks, a note of surprise in it.
"Paying forward a kindness shown me," Will replies, softly, contented. He feels
loose, but not enough, not like he usually does after his body relents to allow
him relief. Here he feels more awake, more powerful, nuzzling so close to
Hannibal again, breathing him in, smiling at the mess against the man’s stomach
he knows will drive the other to the shower very soon.
"Just once?" he asks, eyes narrowing in amusement. He knows his answer.
Just as he knows that he could have made this extremely painful for Hannibal,
could have taken his fill of retaliation and cruelty, aimed at the body that
had made him suffer with it, and knows that choosing not to had been easier.
This isn't where he belongs, in control. Not physically.
He kisses the center of Hannibal’s throat in a languid possessive way.
Hannibal hums softly, eyes closing with the feel of Will against him, lips
pressing to lay gentle claim to him, echoed in the spread of Hannibal’s hands
rubbing slow across Will’s back. He does not move to shower, to wash the moment
off his skin, to contemplate alone the way the boy has changed him now,
physically, as a coda to the openness that has begun to expand far deeper than
that.
“I missed you,” Hannibal whispers into Will’s hair again, content, it seems, to
linger satisfied instead, and feel the shared warmth between them.
***** Chapter 14 *****
Chapter Summary
     Will ducks his head, panting quietly. It’s already been half an hour
     like this, endless calm questions, endless delicious torment. He
     doesn’t know if he’ll be able to sit his exam simply because he isn’t
     sure he’ll be able to sit.
     He can see the school building over Hannibal’s shoulder, can see the
     people meandering around it with their own textbooks, practicing,
     testing each other.
     Not like this.
Chapter Notes
     with love to Roo who really, really wanted more sex in the Bentley
     and with apologies to researchers of evolutionary exclusion theory
     who I'm sure never imagined their work would be used in such a way
Will shivers, a thing that takes his entire body into a state of pleasurable
near-paralysis as he tries to find a balance, an equilibrium again. He licks
his lips before they part again, slack and red from where he’d bitten them just
moments before. He makes a sound, a gentle little thing, like a whine, or a
sigh he’s finally given voice to as well as breath.
“It’s…” another, a little more lilted towards desperate now, “considered bad
form to cram the night before an exam -”
His fingers scrabble for purchase on the seat, find none and ease to softness
with the hummed displeasure of the man under him - ‘nails, Will’ - and he
swallows.
“Worse still the hour… hour before…”
Hannibal purrs soft against Will’s shoulder, hands braced against his hips to
slow his movements. Achingly slow as Hannibal rolls his own upwards, kissing
the bare skin that presents itself when Will’s head lolls back with a groan.
“It can only benefit you to review the material so close to when you will need
it,” Hannibal responds, conversational. “‘Cramming’ is the term, if I’m not
mistaken.”
He lifts the boy despite his squirming, spreads him with firm hands to hold him
perched, unmoving.
“Stigmatizing conditions that would lead to an exclusion response, Will. Name
three.”
Will ducks his head, panting quietly. It’s already been half an hour like this,
endless calm questions, endless delicious torment. He doesn’t know if he’ll be
able to sit his exam simply because he isn’t sure he’ll be able to sit.
He can see the school building over Hannibal’s shoulder, can see the people
meandering around it with their own textbooks, practicing, testing each other.
Not like this.
He moans.
“Physical stigmas,” he manages. “Racial… ethnic… stigmas.” Another shiver, his
fingers flex against the seat again. “Aesthetics - Hannibal, please.”
“The leather, Will,” Hannibal warns him, settling when the boy’s hand braces
against the back of Hannibal’s neck instead.
The Bentley is warm, humming soft around them with the heat running to keep
away the chill outside. Hannibal shifts against the soft seat beneath him, eyes
lifting from where Will’s cock bobs unattended as he pushes up inside his boy
again, resuming a slow-building rhythm.
His brilliant, capable boy.
“Very good,” Hannibal finally responds, ignoring the plea for release from his
hands, the extended fucking, the car - what exactly Will is begging for matters
little, and is not granted.
Will presses his palm against the fogged window and lets his head tip forward,
groaning and rolling his hips to match Hannibal’s movements, long strokes,
burying deep inside him to hear the sweet sound that whimpers forth.
“The four primary adaptations for sociality.”
Another groan, and Will smiles, knowing it won’t be accepted as an answer.
“Altruism,” he sighs, thighs spreading wider as Hannibal’s hand slips between
them to stroke the skin. “Kin-directed, reciprocal.”
A shiver. Will’s fingers curl hard over the window, make a sound as the skin
squeaks over the wet glass. He wonders if anyone can see in to figure out
what’s happening. He had worried, immediately, when this had started. Hannibal
hadn’t cared.
“In-group cooperation,” he gasps, biting his lip against another moan as
Hannibal holds him still for a few shallow, slow rubs that send Will’s brain
sparking in pleasure, his cock twitching in need. “For between group conflict.”
He moans, wriggles, finds himself pinned again. Directs his hands behind
himself to rest against the wheel, careful to fold his fingers over the wheel
itself and avoid the horn. Will groans, smile growing, when Hannibal strokes a
warm palm from his throat to his navel, enjoying him this way.
“Hunting,” he adds.
The word pulls a shiver up Hannibal’s spine, chin lifting as the sensation
rivets up each vertebrae. Eyes hooding, irredeemably pleased to hear his own
words spoken to him in such a delightfully decadent context. His ego swells,
pushes his pulse faster, and he release Will’s hip to run both hands up the
boy’s back to feel him curve, pulling him towards his mouth.
Heated kisses, tongue pressed to the boy’s hairless chest to feel his heart
beat hard against his ribs.
“Tell me about hunting, Will,” Hannibal murmurs low. “Consumption smoothing.”
A faster rhythm, pace quickening to reward and distract Will all at once,
driving him back against the steering wheel that presses into his spine.
The sound Will makes is a guttural thing, low and pleased and drawing through
every sinew that pulls taut with it.
“Sharing,” he gasps, bending back entirely, hand up on the dashboard - the
glass he knows is not tinted - for balance as he rides this out, feels it fill
him and consume him until he’s reciting simply to see Hannibal relish in his
own words fed back to him.
“Sharing a kill with another hunter… stored social obligation…”
Another twist of his body, and Will brings his hand down to stroke himself, so
close already, for the moment uncaring if he gets chastised for this. He knows
he’s flushed, sweat thin and cool against him through his open shirt that
Hannibal had peeled back like skin to see him entirely.
“A favor once given, later returned…”
He starts to lick his lips, the tip of his tongue trembling at the top one when
he gets distracted by another agonizing stroke over his prostate.
“Oh god please, more… let me…”
A low groan against Will’s chest when Hannibal presses his head beneath the
boy’s chin, kissing up the length of his neck to feel the way the words form in
his throat.
Hannibal’s work has never sounded more beautiful.
The pleas go unanswered, but Hannibal does not stop Will from touching himself,
content in knowing he’s only making it worse for himself in doing so and not
being permitted to finish yet. His eyes drift the length of Will’s twitching,
writhing body to where his hand curls eagerly around himself, tugging hard
around the head as Hannibal shifts in short strokes inside of him.
“And that exchange,” Hannibal breathes, his own whisper growing rough now, “is
an example of what, Will?”
His name, used more now than ever before, to see the color bloom across his
cheeks when Will hears the accent curling comfortably around it.
Will whines, curling his hand tighter around himself to hold back, now, not
come closer. There has never really been a rule, so much as a general
understanding that without permission Will was not permitted to pleasure
himself, to fuck another, to cum, in general.
He does suffer so beautifully for it.
“Hannibal -”
Another thrust, deep, and Hannibal holds Will still, attention on him until the
boy opens his eyes, pupils wide and lips parted.
“An example, Will, you have three seconds.”
Will trembles, both from the tone, the delicious threat just fringing beneath,
and from the feeling of being utterly impaled, splayed wanton in the car where
anyone, by choice, could see them were they to lean just a little closer to the
windows as they passed.
He licks his lips. Watches the pleasure quickly flick to annoyance in a moment
and grins.
“Dyadic cooperation,” he purrs. “The seeking out of individuals who are good
social exchange partners for you.”
Hannibal allows him to move, Will pushes himself up on his knees and moans loud
when he sinks back down.
“Nnn - fuck - individuals who possess skills or attributes that are valuable to
you.”
He relishes in the hot kiss pressed to the base of his throat, splays his hand
against Hannibal’s stomach.
“Did I pass, sir?” he grins.
Fingers curling against Will’s back, Hannibal does not strike him for swearing,
not so close to his class, but the look that he receives is enough to convey
that it did not go unnoticed.
“Well enough,” Hannibal agrees, eyes drifting closed and head resting back
against the seat as Will works himself on Hannibal’s cock. He does not guide
him or stop him now, lets him fuck himself freely, caught in the narrow space
of the driver’s seat. He pries Will’s fingers off himself, however, to fist his
cock slowly instead.
“But it would be a profound disappointment were you to not perform as well on
the exam itself,” warns Hannibal. A smile quirks the corner of his mouth when
his hand tightens around the head of Will’s length and the boy whimpers against
his cheek. “You share my bed, my home - you have me entirely at your disposal,”
he adds, letting it bear heavy with meaning. “And you know this material more
innately than had you merely read it. It is a treatise on our kind, Will, rare
though we are.”
“The hunt did not end when humanity became gatherers, no matter how desperately
they would like to think it did.”
His hand spreads across the back of the boy’s shirt to wrap in his hair and tug
his head back, eyes hooded to watch the boy work himself faster, long strokes
met by Hannibal’s firm stroking of his cock.
“And so our need for exclusion and sociality has evolved with us.” A pause,
considering the weight of his own words. “Adapted now into a dyad. Partners in
our particular social exchange.”
Hannibal brings the boy closer, tastes the panting breaths tinged with a voice
that aches only for him.
“I expect nothing less than perfection,” he murmurs, and with a smile, allows.
“Now, Will.”
Will doesn’t need to be told twice, parting his lips wide in a loud, low moan,
he presses against Hannibal everywhere he can touch him and cums hard enough to
set white behind his eyes. It’s intensity that leaves him gasping, shivering,
entirely fluid and unsteady.
He mumbles something, maybe a curse, maybe Hannibal’s name, it hardly matters,
and then presses closer to ride out Hannibal’s orgasm with him, rocking back to
take everything he gives him, feeling his hands hot against his skin.
“Perfection is so dull,” he murmurs, nuzzling against Hannibal with a smile
before kissing behind his ear.
Hannibal lets the boy settle close, allows the little twitches and shivers of
release to move through them both, and rubs the boy’s mess against his own pale
skin to let it dry there. An arm wraps around Will’s waist, the other hand
teasing through his hair, and Hannibal makes a small sound of amusement at the
petulant declaration.
“Indulge me then, in this, since it comes so readily to you. It will be worth
your while to please me so.” Turning against Will, Hannibal lets the curls of
hair brush against his cheek, against his nose, breathes him in. “Or do not,
and see what awaits you.”
While he could remain like this indefinitely, comfortable in nearness to his
boy and surrounded by the warmth of the car, Hannibal opens his eyes enough to
see the time and sighs. A warm kiss pressed to Will’s temple before he shrugs
the boy from against his chest and buttons his shirt for him, tucks him back
inside his pants in some effort to make him appear at least marginally less
unruly.
He stretches, ignoring the impudent grin that curves Will’s lips, to pull the
sweater from the floor, pulled offover his head as soon as this lesson began. A
grimace at the threadbare, awful thing that hangs too long over the boy’s
hands, stretched and soft, which Hannibal had arranged at least to be darned
across the holes worn in it when he could take it away from Will long enough to
bring it to his tailor.
Hannibal brings it back around Will’s shoulders, warm hands settling it when
the boy obediently slides into it, and he grasps Will’s hands and brings his
long, elegant fingers to his mouth.
“I would wish you luck, but you seem to have the luck of the Devil already and
so I will not tempt it. Go, or you will be late and not even He will be able to
save you from my hand.”
Will grins wide, leans in.
"Will you spank me, if I fail?" It's in jest, words quiet, almost as though
it's a secret, an illicit thing between them, when between them that particular
act is tame and gentle by compare.
He kisses Hannibal briefly, reaches into the back seat for his bag and climbs
out of the car - deliberately from the driver's side - before leaning down to
speak to Hannibal this way. Bent, back arched, his own cum drying tacky against
his chest and stomach.
"If I do not have His luck I will cheat it,” he murmurs, quoting. "Remain an
accepted part of society without paying the mutually agreed upon cost of
exchange."
Another grin, a brief motion to adjust his bag over his shoulder, and Will
pulls away, closes the door for Hannibal. He makes his way into the building,
trying to appear casual in the knowledge that his thighs are slick with his
misdemeanors from moments before.
Hannibal lingers a moment more, watching as Will goes with long strides and a
cocky toss of his hair.
“Insolent boy,” Hannibal murmurs fondly, sorting out his own clothing with a
sigh.
---
The test is strenuous, but not more than expected. Will’s professor is an
ardent fan of the work in question, which makes it simultaneously more
detailed, but also easier to impress her by referencing oblique passages not
specifically highlighted.
Will can’t help but gloat over the quality of the long-form answers, in
particular, written nearly in Hannibal’s own voice as it works its way through
him, still. Easy enough to mirror when he’s heard it so recently that
Hannibal’s cum is still dry against his skin.
He’s one of the first to complete his test, and only prevented from being the
first one complete due to the distraction caused each time he shifts in his
seat, sending his nerves sparking over his skin. It’s handed in with a careless
smile that lingers as he turns back towards his chair, a look that fades in an
instant when he sees Hannibal seated comfortably at the back of the lecture
hall.
Arranged to perfection, as though he hadn’t been impaling Will on his cock a
mere half-hour earlier, Hannibal does not seem to notice the narrow attention
levelled at him, waiting patiently with a curious, calm glance, taking in the
lecture hall.
Will swallows, turns to sit in his seat again, this particular class not
allowing the students to leave once their exams have been completed. It isn’t
long to wait, though, another half hour before the papers must be collected and
everyone dismissed.
Another half hour of Hannibal watching Will from his comfortable perch at the
back of the room - Will is but four rows down from him.
Will settles, comfortable as he can be considering how entirely filthy as he
is, and folds his arms together before resting them against the desk, his head
on top. He can feel the cool air against his lower back where his shirt -
inevitably untucked during the exam - has ridden up, pulling the sweater with
it, and wonders if he can genuinely feel Hannibal’s gaze on him or if he’s just
so used to it that he can emulate the feeling.
A moment more and Will stretches, a slow cat stretch over his desk, pushing
himself off the seat just enough to be suggestive, no sound but the promise of
one just as clear before he settles. He curls his arms again, pretends to look
ahead at the clock at the front of the room while all his senses are tuned in
to the man behind him.
There is an exchange, brief, between Hannibal and Will’s professor.
Professional acquaintances, though no more than that, as her brows lift in
pleased surprise to see him there, and he lifts a hand in response. Happy to
stay quiet, it seems, until the students are done with their tests, and
certainly not wanting to be a disruptive presence.
A glance towards Will, to observe the slight raise from his seat, arms
stretched and fingers pressing, twisting, closing loose and languid.
Hannibal recalls the particular movement well, with expensive sheets beneath
his grasping hands rather than the air. Seated behind him, there is no means or
reason to return a gesture in kind, too overt a move in the sensitivities of
this particular game to try.
To all effect, then, Hannibal appears not only not to notice the maneuver, but
to not notice Will in particular at all. A distant look, aimed at no one, when
Hannibal bothers to look up from a careful examination of his fingernails,
skimming the room as a whole rather than pieces, and certainly not the
particularly distracting piece that is Will Graham.
By the time class is called final papers returned to the front, Will is not
quite draped over the desk. His entire body is alive under the eyes that
deliberately pass him over, that avoid his own when he feigns a stretch,
twisting in his seat as though to get a crick in his back and meeting dark eyes
instead.
Or, not meeting them.
He remains as the students file out, watching as a few others do the same, as
Hannibal finally moves from his seat, his coat draped over his arm in the most
ludicrous, pretentious way, and makes his way to the front of the hall. Will
wonders if the students even know who he is - he wonders if he would have, had
the circumstances been different.
It’s unusual, incredible to see him in this space, commanding it just as surely
as he does any room he enters. Will watches as Hannibal charms his lecturer,
smiling in a way that reaches his eyes, showing genuine amusement and pleasure
in the conversation.
Ego, Will thinks, bringing up one arm to rest his elbow on the table, his cheek
against the back of his hand, pure ego. The knowledge that others are reading
his work, appreciating it, appreciating him.
Will’s other hand comes up to his mouth where he absently works his teeth over
the side of his thumbnail, eyes out of focus but aimed directly down to where
Hannibal stands.
“You know who the guy is?”
Will blinks, turns in such a way as to make his elbow slide a little, his body
stretch in a pleasing bend to look at the boy who had addressed him.
Zeller, he thinks. Brian, maybe. He’s not a bad looking kid, Will had caught
his eyes on him before, had never followed through. He shrugs, pretends
boredom.
“Probably the asshole responsible for this exam,” he says. Zeller blinks.
“Shit, no way, you wanna go say hi to him?”
Will snorts. “Why? You think he’ll say it back?”
“Has it been so long?” Hannibal responds genially to the professor. “It
certainly doesn’t feel like it.”
“It was a memorable conference,” she replies happily. “You know, it’s funny you
should come by today. The test I just gave was actually about your thesis.”
“Was it? What a charming coincidence.” An easy smile, entirely amused, entirely
disingenuous, and somehow entirely convincing. No reason to lie about it, other
than to prove he can get away with it, well aware of Will’s lingering presence
among the other stragglers. “I’m sure you’ve taught it beautifully, outdated
though it’s considered now.”
A pause, long enough to let the praise settle over him, the assurances of his
own resolute cleverness, as he takes in the span of the classroom. He lets them
come, accepts them only self-effacing in manner, and finally inquires.
“I was curious to follow-up on a particular student who I’ve been mentoring.
I’m curious to know how he’s doing. I worry that perhaps my time with him is
distracting him from paying adequate attention to his classwork.”
“The guy’s a genius though,” Zeller - that is his name, Will ascertains, after
a brief exchange and an awkwardly twisted handshake as Will refuses to move
from his position - continues. “He describes my entire high school life in a
22-page thesis.”
Will snorts.
“The language is so pretentious, though,” he returns, eyes back down to the
front, a vague twist in his stomach when he sees Hannibal glance at him before
continuing to speak, a very obvious implication of what the topic of
conversation is.
“Deliberately obtuse half the time, some terms entirely archaic now. The
thing’s older than I am.”
Zeller blinks.
“You’re kidding?”
Will shrugs, a languid, liquid movement, and grins. Then he directs his eyes
down to the front again, narrowing briefly.
“I wonder if he’s as pretentious in person,” he says, knowing his voice carried
just enough for Hannibal to hear, not enough to draw attention.
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell you we were studying your paper,” the professor
laughs. “I’d assumed he was just quiet in here - new student, new semester.
Shyer than I expected, maybe, if he didn’t even mention it.”
Hannibal allows another serene smile. “I don’t know, I’ve found him to be quite
vocal in my experience. He’s doing well, then? Showing up on time, adequate
marks?”
“There’ve been a few times where’s been out for a few days, but -”
“Ah,” Hannibal interjects. “That may have been when I needed him for a
particular aspect of this study. Intensive work, particularly strenuous. My
apologies, I will send along a note next time.” A hopeful tone, met graciously.
“That would be fine, Doctor, I’d rather him have the opportunity with you,
truth be told.” She sifts through the paperwork, seemingly more than happy to
discuss her student’s grades, much to Hannibal’s swelling pleasure. “Let me see
if I can’t - ah, yes. He set the curve actually. You should be proud.”
Head tilting just perceptibly, a sparse motion. “May I ask by how much?”
“Only three points,” she responds, resisting a laugh. “I’m sure the other
students won’t be nearly as pleased as you are by it.”
“Nah I can’t talk to him alone,” Zeller says, again, as Will just keeps
watching, feeling himself flush a little as the tests are sifted, for,
inevitably, his own. He swallows.
“I double dog dare you,” he deadpans. Zeller snorts, and Will finds himself
genuinely smiling back when he glances up over where his hand has slid up to
rest against his temples.
“Ask him to sign something,” Will continues. Zeller just laughs, pushes himself
to stand and swings his bag up over his shoulder.
“Doubt he would. Still a fucken killer theory. He’s a cool dude, if only on
paper.” He holds out his fist, a clear indication to bump it, and Will shakes
his head and does, a strange sort of connection he thinks he’ll enjoy watching
grow, if he sees Zeller in his class again in this capacity.
“I’ll get you one when I go for mine,” he promises, and the older boy leaves
with a laugh. Will resumes his study of his mentor and his lecturer, swallowing
and setting his jaw when she looks up and, with a smile, beckons him over. His
eyes slide to Hannibal’s for a moment, heart thumping faster against his throat
at the look he catches there, before he straightens up and takes up his bag to
make his way down to them both.
A brow lifts so slightly as to go unnoticed by anyone but Will as he
approaches, but Hannibal meets his attention with the same polite amicability
as with his professor.
“Will Graham,” she chirps. “All these weeks and you never saw fit to mention
that you were working under Doctor Lecter?”
Hannibal responds, as though on Will’s behalf, smile broadening. “I’m sure he
didn’t wish for you to think he had an unfair advantage, though I assure you,
our lessons together have been especially rigorous. He is quite capable,
despite his age.”
Will ducks his head, the shy student, the quiet hard working boy, a small smile
at the corners of his lips. He brings up a hand to tug at the hair at the base
of his neck before straightening up and smiling a little more.
“Dr. Lecter doesn’t take on students often. I didn’t want to push my luck in
making our arrangement public,” he says carefully, turning nervous eyes to
Hannibal before returning them to the lecturer, who looks absolutely charmed -
as always - by his shy little act.
Hannibal’s eyes narrow gently and he adjusts his hands under the coat that’s
folded over them. Will wonders if this is a deliberate insinuation into the one
part of his life he has kept free from Hannibal, for the dinner party that Will
had so similarly invaded.
“I - uh,” Will clears his throat, ducks his head again, taps the toe of his
boot against the carpeted floor as he fidgets with the sleeve of his sweater.
“I should get going. I have to finish the essay for forensics and Dr. Lecter
starts his lessons early on Thursdays since I don’t have class -”
Attention dropping briefly to the twist of Will’s fingers against the worn knit
of the sweater, Hannibal nonetheless allows a slightly deeper sigh. Fascinated
by the malleability of the boy across from him, his ability to become whomever
he needs to be, context to context, moment to moment. Observing his little
sidelong glances, the pale rose of embarrassment across his cheek, it’s hard to
imagine that less than an hour before, the boy was sprawled across the steering
wheel of his Bentley fucking himself to climax on Hannibal’s cock.
Hannibal clears his throat as well. Perhaps not so hard to imagine after all.
“Congratulations on your score,” Hannibal offers Will, expression inscrutable
beyond a wall of amicable politeness. “Nearly perfect.”
“Close enough,” laughs his professor.
Agreeably, Hannibal’s smile widens. “Close enough. But tomorrow is going to be
a very long day,” he concurs. “I’ll walk you out, Will.”
His name, the undercurrent of singeing warmth beneath it, embers of the heat
that carried it during their unscheduled cram session.
Polite goodbyes, grasping the handshake with both of his own as he leaves his
contact information - business number, business email - with Will’s professor
and thanks her for her time, emphasizing how grateful he is to know that Will
is doing so well, and ensuring her that Will is performing marvelously in his
keeping as well.
The cool smile lingers as they leave.
Few students meander on campus now, this being the last exam of the day, and
Will follows Hannibal’s cues on whether or not to follow him or act as though
their relationship really is just a professional mentorship. The older man
seems content to lead Will to his car and part ways there, false smile still in
place, appearing, to any that look their way, like a normal discussion between
two normal people.
Will steps aside as the car pulls away, raises his hand in an awkward wave to
see the man off. When Hannibal turns the Bentley around the corner, Will rolls
his eyes and hoists his bag higher up on his shoulder. Then he starts to walk
home.
He is perhaps three blocks from his apartment when the car pulls up again,
window down, familiar smoke coiling from inside. Will snorts, walks over to
lean through the window.
“I was taught not to speak with strangers, mister,” he murmurs, eyes wide, lips
parted in false innocence. Hannibal clicks his tongue and tilts his head in
less than subtle suggestion, and Will grins before letting himself into the
car. Once the door is closed, it peels from the curb and heads past Will’s
apartment back to Hannibal’s home.
For a few moments, they sit in silence. Will watches Hannibal finish the
cigarette, chews the corner of his sleeve and waits. Then he follows the path
the butt makes out the window before that is wound up with a quiet hum.
“Close enough?” Will repeats, regarding his score, sending a small smile to
Hannibal, brows up and expression appropriately pleading.
Hannibal does not turn to face him, but merely lets the hopeful little smile
settle warm against his skin. An act, as much as the shy and nervous glances
had been in the classroom, but no less charming.
He does not seem angry, but rather proud, in fact. It swells through his chest,
pressing against his ribs, that this boy - his brilliant and clever boy - was
the best amongst all, excelling on a test that the professor had predicted few
enough to even pass. Hannibal takes no personal credit for it, in the torrid
study he had provided him, knowing it is entirely Will who so effortlessly
surpasses expectations.
Still...
"Good enough, Will, is anything but," Hannibal responds, purring pleased. “A
single missed question. A fingerprint left behind at a scene that merits more
investigation. A hair, a spot of your own blood. Good enough will not save
you.”
The car stops at a light. Reaching, Hannibal grasps Will's hair, tangling the
windswept curls in smoke-singed fingers.
"I asked you for a simple thing," he continues softly, thumb grazing his boy's
temple. "Perfection on this, dull though you declared it. I was assured you
would provide it, trusting in your confidence."
Grateful for the opportunity presented for punishment, grateful for Will’s
persistent stubbornness, a faint smile shows in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes
before his touch sinks tighter, tugging Will’s curls just to the uncomfortable
side of painful.
Will moves with the touch, with a little plea whined for Hannibal’s delight,
and bridges the divide between their seats to lessen the harshness of the grip,
to press his mouth open and warm just beneath Hannibal’s ear.
“One question,” Hannibal murmurs, tilting against Will’s lips, shrugging into
the affection. “But worth three points.” Fingernails drag down the boy’s neck
to press sharp against the soft skin in the graceful curve presented to him.
“Did you miss it intentionally, Will?”
Will’s lips don’t still against the skin, he doesn’t pull away, he says
nothing.
The light turns green and Hannibal reluctantly loosens his grip on Will to hold
the car steady through the intersection.
Will considers, licks his lips and pulls back, enough to duck his head under
Hannibal’s arm, to nuzzle against his thigh with a smile and warm air pressed
to the expensive fabric of his suit. Will grins, knows that Hannibal has not
had time to clean himself up beyond what the brief few moments in the car had
offered, from their ‘study’ before, and parts his lips against his thigh with a
moan.
One question.
One question from the perfect score, one question from 100% and the praise of
his teachers and his mentor and yet… one question that would have suggested no
more improvement was needed, that suggested Will was no longer worth the time
Hannibal gave him, because he could do it on his own.
Perfection was boring.
Hannibal spares a glance down at the boy mouthing against his thigh and hums a
note of consideration. The same sound that accompanies a selection of wine to
pair with dinner, or weighing the necessity of adding another pinch of salt to
a dish.
He does not encourage him, neither does he push him away.
"Your mouth will not save you this time," Hannibal finally informs Will, a
glint of amusement as he says it.
Still, he can't resist a shift of hips to slide a little further back into his
seat. Fingers drop from the steering wheel to draw another cigarette from his
coat pocket, the lighter with it, a long drag and a crackle of embers exhaled
slow and pulled through through the cracked window. It remains between his
fingers of the hand on the steering wheel, as the other drifts lower to curl
again in Will’s hair, twisting the dark strands between his fingers.
Shameless, Hannibal chides him, “I must provide you notes, now, for your
extended absences, as though I were your keeper.”
Nothing is said about those absences being caused by a need for his bruises to
heal, his cuts and scrapes to stitch themselves back together, but the
knowledge of it provides a swell of perverse joy that gathers in the corners of
Hannibal’s eyes.
Will moans softly, drawing his tongue over the material now, feline, needy,
knowing that even if his mouth won’t save him a sound thrashing of Hannibal’s
chosen weapon later, he can distract him from his question now.
The smell of smoke insinuates itself against his nose, into his lungs, and he
arches, shifts to set his knees to the seat - not his shoes - and pushes closer
to where Hannibal wants his mouth to be. The mention of notes, Will meets with
utter amusement, the idea of Hannibal writing and signing permission slips for
him makes Will want to laugh - he’d learned to forge his dad’s signature long
ago for trips he never even went on.
He brings one hand up to undo the button on Hannibal’s slacks, waits for the
man to start a turn before leaning in to tug the zipper with his teeth,
grinning when the car brakes suddenly before continuing.
“I keep myself,” Will teases, tonguing against the fabric of Hannibal’s boxers
now.
A rumble, curious and disapproving all at once, from above, and a responsive
twitch beneath Will’s clever tongue below. Hannibal slows the car a little to
account for the distraction, and to let it linger that much longer.
“You certainly do.” Deeply entertained now, by the prideful proclamation from
the boy bowed across his lap. “You keep yourself in my bed, in my home. You
keep yourself fat on the food I provide for you.”
Hannibal drags slowly, smoke unfurling just as languidly from his parted lips.
“You keep yourself satisfied as well, then, one assumes, so there is little
need for me to drive you into the carpet as soon as we step foot in the house,
no matter how you beg for it.”
He resists the urge to glance downward, despite how sincerely he would like to
watch Will’s fingers as they skim beneath his boxers, feeling himself harden
even in light of his chastising. Engrossed as ever in this creature that splays
himself across the seats, that makes such grand declarations, that can bend and
mold himself to be whatever anyone thinks they need to see in him.
It was a delight, truly, to see him so feigning bashfulness in front of his
teacher. Shy and winsome, made uncomfortable as though by his own existence.
More satisfaction in this, however, to see his inner debauchery laid so bare.
“You may keep yourself in your own seat then, rather than mine.”
Will moans softly again, disappointed, and manages one more deliberate lick
against bare skin before he’s hauled off by his hair and sits back. He takes
his time wiping his lip with the back of his wrist, eyes still down to where
Hannibal is barely unclothed.
“But I want to suck,” he mopes, the act only partially false, for Hannibal’s
amusement. He doesn’t push the petulance enough to hit annoyance - quite yet.
He knows the man’s tolerance for such things a lot better now.
“If I can’t satisfy myself with this, now, will you fuck me into the carpet
when we get home?” he asks, hopeful. “Tell me to get on my knees, crawl up the
stairs, up to the study.” He bites his lip. “Until you get impatient and catch
me, strip me bare with no thought for gentleness, spread my legs so wide my
cock will brush the floor as you fuck into me…”
He moans again, bites a knuckle gently before settling back in his seat -
rather than Hannibal’s - as he was told.
“You’re cruel,” he pouts, the grin evident in his tone.
A brow lifts, at the accusation and the profanities that preceded it, at the
declarations of desires that paint profane pictures in Hannibal’s mind.
Youthful defiance, an image played up for his pleasure.
“Two,” Hannibal murmurs, happy to play along as he takes another disinterested
drag and taps it against the window. Another stop light, and another long look
towards Will, curled catlike beside him.
“A better use for your mouth to be stuffed and silenced, it seems, than open
and obscene.”
Hannibal sighs exasperation, thighs spreading just so against the seat as
though to allow such a thing is an almost unbearable burden.
“Why my study, Will, of all places? Although it isn’t as though you’ve made any
sufficient use of it.”
Will unfurls himself again, sets one hand between their seats and with the
other plucks the cigarette from Hannibal’s fingers to press between his own
lips. A slow, long drag, and when he parts his lips it isn’t to exhale, but to
show the smoke curling lazily against the dark of his throat.
He breathes out through his nose, the languid curls vanish. He doesn’t return
the stolen cigarette, he tosses it unfinished out the window before curling his
shoulders to slip comfortably beneath Hannibal’s arm again, a long lick against
exposed skin before he replies.
“Because I liked the last time you fucked me in there.” he replies, partially
honest, partially to tease, to bring up that memory again, the video, the
flickering images when other hands had touched him instead, hot and demanding
and perfect.
Will moans and nuzzles against Hannibal before pulling his cock free.
“And I want you to do it again.”
When he swallows him down, deep but with enough give that forcing him won’t
hurt, yet. He doubts Hannibal wants to risk them both dying simply to feel will
genuinely choke against him.
Hannibal draws a breath to chasten Will for the cigarette, scarcely smoked and
tossed aside, but the words are abruptly silenced by the boy’s mouth flushed,
parted damp around him.
Hard enough already, brought more so by the film-flickered images of Will with
leather wrapped around tight little fists, laughing gleeful over man twitching
in death spasms beneath him. He sucks a breath through his teeth as the boy’s
tongue rolls against him, lips curled beautifully and eyes turned upward.
They meet for an instant before Hannibal looks back to the road, tongue parting
his lips and hands gripping firm against the wheel.
“Three,” Hannibal reminds him, stifling a moan as Will’s tongue traces against
the slit of his cock. “Three for swearing, and three for the points you
negligently failed to achieve on your exam.”
He shifts, hips rising from the expensive leather when the boy sucks hard
against the head, cheeks hollowed, entirely aware of the boy’s smug pleasure
focused attentively on him without needing to meet his eyes again.
“You are a terror,” Hannibal sighs through his teeth.
Will just groans, a low vibration that sets Hannibal twitching against him,
thigh incrementally spreading, and Will thinks of how he had had the man
beneath him, once, the way he had shifted then as well, had pushed and arched
and tugged, just as capable of showing that pleasure as Will is daily.
And yet he still feels much more power, here, now, than he ever did then.
He pulls back and brushes his teeth over the head, enough to feel, enough for
Hannibal to shiver and respond in a language Will doesn’t speak, guttural and
liquid, before he sinks back down again, and gives him no answer.
Three punishments for three points deliberately avoided.
He doesn’t suppose a punishment quite as cruel as others the man has visited on
him in a fit of wrath, this is not him taking apart the man’s life, to be
threatened with the basement, not the harsh debasing that had left Will’s
throat raw for days after being pushed hard against the stairs.
This is play, wolves batting each other aside in wait for another victim.
Will makes a noise, a gentle little whimpering moan, and takes Hannibal deep
enough for the man to feel him swallow around him, just once, before pulling
back.
Hannibal throws a glance out the driver and passenger side windows, sees no
cars beside them as he slides to a stop, and catches Will by the hair as he
tries to shift back to his seat. Brings him near, breathes against his cheek
before chasing his mouth to taste the boy’s prideful grin, to taste himself on
Will’s tongue.
A rough twist to shove Will back into his seat, thrilling with the instincts
sharpening like claws against his nerves, an unspoken agreement with his boy,
this fascinating creature, as to what roles they will allow themselves to play
tonight.
***** Chapter 15 *****
Chapter Summary
     He feels his freedom slipping away between his fingers as the boy’s
     eyes meet his own - not with a demand or a plea, but with a
     terrifying honesty. More permanent than even killing him, it seems
     suddenly, his death but a moment that would pass into memory. This is
     a promise, instead. Tying themselves to each other and fate unknown,
     ideas and feelings that neither knows well enough to understand or
     even name.
     Hannibal feels his freedom slipping.
     And in this, he lets it go.
Chapter Notes
     warning for this chapter: branding
     (just in case we haven't gone far enough already)
Will hardly has time to unfold his legs from where they are drawn to him, feet
avoiding the seat, before Hannibal has him by the scruff of his neck. It’s an
awkward movement, pushing the car door open at the same time, but with a grin
that bears precariously close to a snarl, he pulls Will with him over the
center console, dragging him from the driver’s side.
The boy laughs, profane in his pleasure, as he’s hauled into the house and
without warning, Hannibal ducks to wraps his arms around the boy’s thighs,
hoisting him from the floor and over his shoulder.
A pause, as aware of Will’s grin as if he could see it.
“Remove your boots.”
Will wriggles, amused and pleased by this new development, and stretches his
legs far enough not to have his boots fall on Hannibal when he kicks them off
his feet.
He’s hard already, from sucking Hannibal off in the car, from knowing, despite
the man’s silence on the matter, that he is so proud of Will’s grade. It's a
sick sort of familial feeling, and Will pushes the heels of his hands against
Hannibal’s shoulder trying to straighten free from his grip.
It's predictably futile and Will laughs again, draping himself over Hannibal
instead, nuzzling.
"I suppose you'd better carry me upstairs,” he purrs.
Hannibal lets Will slip a little further and rests his arm comfortably across
the backs of his knees. He toes his own shoes off carefully, pushes them aside
with sock-clad feet, and unbuttons his coat.
“Are you not capable of crawling, then, as you had insisted?” With a few
careful twists to hold Will over him, he manages - miraculously - to remove his
coat and hang it. “Just as you were not capable of providing the perfection
that you derided as beneath you.”
He clucks his tongue in disappointment and eases his other arm around Will’s
legs as well to hold him in place, making his way towards the stairs.
“To the study with you,” Hannibal intones, firming his mouth into a thin line
of disapproval. “You asked me what I would do if you failed. Do you remember
your suggestion, Will?”
Will brings up an elbow to rest against Hannibal’s back as he’s carried, his
cheek against folded fingers.
"I said you should spank me," he grins, “if I failed. I far from failed,
Hannibal. And four for my filthy fucken mouth won't an entertaining evening for
you make."
He turns to look again, biting his lip, knowing Hannibal had registered the
amendment to Will’s lesser punishment, as appropriate.
His heart beats too quickly. He can still feel the slick between his thighs. He
wants a shower, he wants Hannibal in there with him, hoisting him against the
wall to fuck him deep and draw sounds louder than the white noise from him.
He makes an amused purring sound of pleasure and arches his back, raising his
hips momentarily from Hannibal’s shoulder.
A displeased noise, as Will’s weight suddenly shifts, and Hannibal pulls him
back down with a firm tug on his skinny legs.
“Then I will spank you until I am entertained sufficiently,” Hannibal responds,
pushing open the door to his study, focused on the squirming heaviness of the
boy over his shoulder rather than his own hardness caught tight in his pants,
still painfully stiff from the ride home.
“So then by all means, Will, continue swearing until your heart’s content. It
matters not at this particular juncture.”
He kicks the door closed behind him for no other reason than to feel Will
flinch when it bangs shut, and carries him to the center of the room. He’s set
down not ungently, and Hannibal’s palms skim longer than necessary up the
outside of his thighs, over his hips, his ribs, his neck to push through the
curls of hair now wild from being hung upside down.
A kiss breaks the rhythm between them, as Hannibal cups Will’s face in his
palms. It is warm, driving deep - pride and a profound pleasure in seeing
Will’s displays of brilliance, in his willful misbehaviors, in the nearness of
them now and through the evening and when they wake up again tomorrow wrapped
close and bruised.
Hannibal sighs, allows the moment to pass, and restores himself with a harsh
tug of Will’s hair.
“Stay.”
He stalks towards the couch slowly, peeling off his waistcoat and setting it
over the arm. Settling in slowly, a lean smile cuts across his lips.
“Your pants, Will.”
Will turns to watch, but stays still, tilts his head at the words and doesn’t
move to obey quite yet. It’s rare that Hannibal allows his body to speak on his
behalf, but once in a while he allows the mask he holds so strong to peel back.
There is a gentle softness to the crinkle in his eyes, the way his lip curves
barely at the corner of his mouth. The difference between fondness and
amusement, a smile and a feeling. Will swallows and chews the inside of his
lip.
“Is this your first punishment for me?” Will asks softly, one hand up to tug
his hair even more out of order, before falling loose at his side. He smiles
wider when Hannibal’s eyes narrow and he raises an eyebrow, expectant.
Slowly, Will brings his hands to the front of his pants, pops the button, slips
down the fly, leaves the jeans just open.
“Bare?” he asks, mock-serious.
“Indeed.”
A beat, smile slipping a little wider. “Slowly, Will.”
Hannibal’s attention narrows. Will’s palms spread over his his hips, down
against the waistband of his jeans to work them lower. Pale skin revealed where
his shirt rides high. Hannibal notes that it is distressingly free of bruises,
a canvas unpainted, a garden unplanted.
A tragedy, in truth. The boy wears them beautifully.
Hannibal’s own fingers mirror the motion he sees in Will, splaying against the
back of the couch where his arms are draped.
“Your first,” Hannibal suggests softly. “Although if you do not take it well,
until such time as I decide I am finished, it will be merely a prelude to the
punishments yet to come.”
He draws a breath at the first soft hairs that curl where Will’s boxers slip a
little too low, a twitch of tension in his hands now, resistance to reaching
down to touch himself while he watches the boy’s display.
Better to savor, than to swallow whole.
Will’s lips twist gently, amused, and he takes a breath, hands sliding the
fabric promisingly low before he turns on his heel, shows nothing but his back,
the way the jeans hang looser there now that he’s slid them as far as he has.
He can almost feel the way Hannibal’s fingers curl into fists, again, at the
frustration, at the denial of seeing the boy made bare by his own hands, and
yet, Will doesn’t stop moving, not now, he keeps sliding the denim lower,
shifts his hips gently one way, then the other, working the pants lower still
until he just bends, arches his back, and peels the close-fitting garment off.
Around his ankles, as commanded, before Will straightens, turns barely to the
side and tugs his sweater over his head as well, tossing it away, before
bringing up his hands to work the buttons on his shirt.
Every movement, every brush of fingers against bare skin, draws Hannibal’s
attention, entirely aware that Will revels in feeling his gaze as much as
Hannibal revels in yielding it to him. Lean, long lines, elegant and lithe,
exposed in inches and gestures carefully cultivated.
A far cry from the rough stripping-down that Will had demanded earlier, but
equally as gratifying.
Will grins, feels his cheeks color, and says nothing until he’s entirely bare.
Then he turns to look over his shoulders, for further instructions.
“Over my legs.”
A scent caught on the air from the boy’s bared body. The sweetness of the
creature himself, known all too well by now but entirely intoxicating all the
same, and against that warmth the musky smell of sex, their furtive releases
still smeared across his skin.
Hannibal’s smile widens.
Will grins, ducks his head in genuine amusement at the command and steps out of
his pants before walking closer. He knows what Hannibal means, he knows what he
wants, and yet when he settles over Hannibal’s legs he isn’t bent over them.
“You didn’t say bend,” Will murmurs, pressing close to kiss Hannibal, lips
parted and eyes closed, exhaling hard against his cheek before pulling back
with a smile.
“I know what you want, I know you will get it but -” He presses two fingers to
Hannibal’s mouth and, miraculously, the man allows it, lets Will finish. “You
are proud of me. I missed one question and I killed the curve. The youngest,
the smartest.”
His smile is crooked and pleased, and he rolls his hips against Hannibal’s in a
gentle, pleasing way.
“Just… let me have today,” he asks, hand away from Hannibal’s mouth to slip
both down to undo his belt. “Let’s drink. Talk. Fuck.” He wrinkles his nose,
teasing, pulls the belt from Hannibal’s pants and loops it around his own neck.
“And tomorrow use this, and not your hand, and see how sufficiently I hold
still.”
Had Will pitched his request a note higher to beg, or a note lower to demand,
he would have found himself wanting for the desired response. Perhaps met with
a hand brought hard across his mouth for swearing, rather than pressed warm
against his cheek.
But as it is, Hannibal lets slip the visage of imperiousness - and the curse -
that would have had the boy spanked to tears, and settles back instead into the
same man that had kissed Will moments before. It is a more difficult thing, to
relinquish the remove provided by facades and relax instead into something more
exposed, but as they both let their masks fall away Hannibal can't help but
wonder if perhaps it's getting easier.
Tugging the belt from his boy's neck, still with a shiver at the whisper of
leather sliding over skin, he lets it fall aside to gather Will in his arms.
It is not often than Hannibal feels spoiled, but Will's words swell in him -
the cleverness superseding his age, the uncanny awareness and understanding of
himself and others, the willingness to take pain so exquisitely that he would
suggest a means for it...
Hannibal sighs.
"Reward before punishment. Dessert before dinner,” Hannibal agrees, quietly
amused. “Consumption smoothing, for stored social capital."
He pulls Will into a bend, chest beneath his mouth to lay the kind of kisses on
it he'd been imagining since the boy's catlike curling in the classroom, open
adoration of the young and intoxicating thing squirming against him.
Hannibal lifts his eyes from beneath an unsettled fringe of hair, a glimmer of
light in them. His hands slide beneath his boy's thighs, just under the curve
of his ass to spread his legs and bring their hips closer together.
"I am, immensely," Hannibal finally admits, an acquiescence scarcely spoken,
before his voice strengthens. "And so you will choose what we drink together,
although the fire put into you by whiskey always seems to suit."
Will hums, pleased that his request had been permitted, had not been utterly
rejected. Negotiation. It weighs against him, somewhat, how they're acting,
what this means. It pulls far too close to territory neither want to trespass.
"Then whiskey, please," he responds, waits to see if he'll be released to be
allowed to get it himself or if, for the moment, unharmed as he has been
permitted to remain today, he is to sit and be enjoyed.
His hands settle against Hannibal’s hair, over his shoulder, and he stretches,
here, again, in a comfortable opening of his body, a gentle reminder, teaser,
implication for later.
He rocks his hips forward and up, smiles at the response and does it again.
Another low sound, pleased, in response to the movements, as Hannibal’s hips
rise to meet the motion atop him. He glances towards the sideboard, at a
distance from where they sit so comfortably, and considers.
A shift forward, tucking an arm beneath the boy to lift him as he stands and
carries him, wrapped around Hannibal as he is with skinny arms and skinny legs,
to fetch the bottle. He takes up an unopened handle of bourbon, uncaring for
the moment as to which one it is, and tilts his head to accommodate the kisses
that fall against his neck.
“Spoiled,” comes the murmur, no venom in Hannibal’s chiding. Time enough for
that tomorrow, to raise welts on the boy with straps and words, to feel that
cruel snarl of joy as he marks the boy’s skin as his own again.
Setting the bottle down beside the couch, Hannibal lowers them both back onto
it, himself beneath and the boy atop, and he wonders absently when this became
the preferred formation for them both.
Will says nothing, just brings his hands up to work the buttons of Hannibal’s
shirt slowly as he devours the skin revealed him.
He pulls back enough to get the bottle and sits back - opens it, and takes a
long deliberate pull, eyes on Hannibal as he smiles around the lip of the
bottle and sets it against his thigh, shaking his head with a laugh once he's
swallowed.
"Cheers," he grins, taking up the bottle again to pass to Hannibal to drink
from, kissing him before he can. Will can feel the heat of the alcohol run
through him already, resolves not to drink enough to dissipate the evening into
a waste.
Hannibal shifts, shrugging out of the shirt, and lets it fall to the floor.
There’s a curious moment as it does, and Hannibal regards the folds of fabric
not hung neatly but left unattended instead with a lingering look.
Something like discomfort with the concept of such a thing occurring at all,
but pushed aside for the moment as he takes the bottle from Will and takes a
drink directly from it.
It should bother him more than it does, all this careless disregard, and the
fact it does not immediately alarm him with more than just a passing interest
is alarming in and of itself. A disruption of rhythms rendered suddenly stark,
and its source writhing astride him with fingers against the fly of his pants.
Insinuating himself in ways that Hannibal has not expected, breaking apart in a
matter of months the firmly entrenched patterns built over years.
An easy distraction, then, to chase the whiskey from Will’s mouth with his own,
down across his chin to his neck, to drink up the taste of his skin and his
little sounds.
“You will be the ruin of me,” Hannibal declares quietly, his voice low, liquor-
rough. “If this is the reward for a test passed, what’s to be done when you
excel in the entire class? In your semester?”
Will grins at how the words flow so confident, not a suggestion he try but a
suggestion Hannibal would need to adjust his rewards accordingly.
"I have absolute faith in your creativity, Hannibal," Will replies, a soft moan
pulled from him as he deepens the arch in his back, feels Hannibal hungrily
taste that skin as well.
It's a moment more before Will takes the bottle back for another sip. It’s too
soft, like this, too gentle and yet nothing of their situation suggests
gentleness, suggests kindness and normalcy. Not their age difference;
Hannibal's cradle-robbing to have Will pliant in his bed, willing and eager to
return. Not the violence he visits upon him.
"Especially when it comes to your clever boy."
Will grins, bites his lip, remembers laughing when he'd first met Hannibal at
how decadent the man was, smoking in his expensive car, defiling the space with
the acrid lingering smell.
He resists the urge to spill the alcohol down his chest to feel the older man
lap it up, and instead presses closer and moans again, a shiver caressing his
spine.
Hannibal’s hands fall against the boy’s hips, hold him in place enough for a
long, hard press of his own beneath him.
“One hopes you remain so clever,” Hannibal responds, a mild warning, another
roll of hips. “As grows the potential for pleasing me, so does the potential
for disappointment.” His palm presses against the boy’s belly, spanning up
across his hairless chest to find its place in his hair, twisting sharp enough
to earn a gasp. “My expectations are extraordinarily high, Will, and
punishments meted out will worsen for you far more readily than the rewards
will increase.”
He pulls Will down against him, ignoring the whiskey that spills against the
leather beneath them, and meets his mouth with a moan.
Grounding them both with the provision and receipt of pain, their first common
language, their first familiar connection. Far easier to understand than the
new curiosities developing between them, more comprehensible than the moments
of warmth that feel nearly as satisfying.
“If you are mine, then I expect you to perform as an extension of myself,”
Hannibal informs him, mouth pressed against the boy’s neck, teeth grazing the
boy’s soft skin to pinch it in warning. “It would be far more dull than
perfection to have to wonder why a student in my mentorship is not superior to
any other in compare.”
Will, lips part on a gasp and he rides this out, slow rocking, a gentle
beginning to something far more familiar. His hips turn one way, then the
other, as he remains pressed close to Hannibal, feels his teeth.
"Yes, sir," he sighs, despite his smile, entirely genuine in his understanding.
Even in the few months this has been happening, more and more Will has noticed
how hungrily Hannibal protects his reputation, how carefully he constructs the
facade.
"I am yours," Will moans, "to teach and create, to reward, punish, destroy..."
He shivers again, aroused and teased by the slow rubbing between them, warmed
and pliant by the whiskey. He doesn't need more, but he takes a gentle sip
regardless.
No space between them now for strange silences and unspoken questions, filled
again by the movement of bodies, the quickening promise of violence, snarled
whispers thick with threat. But neither does this remove the pull that runs
deeper between them, digging between ribs and pressing outward.
“Yes,” Hannibal sighs, harsh assent, and bites down harder still as though to
stop the boy’s motions, jerks his head to the side to bare his neck with curls
fisted between his fingers. Submission, openly given, as the boy bends and
gasps and still rubs his cock against Hannibal’s own. To please, and be pleased
in return.
“How does it make you feel, Will, to think of yourself as such?” A slight
smile, seen only in the corners of his eyes. “For one who keeps himself to
instead know himself as kept.”
Will twists gently, makes another of those soft kitten murmurs of pleasure,
closes his eyes as color fills his cheeks once more. His own words turned on
their back, fed back to him to see how they taste.
He licks his lips.
"I'm yours," he repeats, breathless. And they both understand the truth of it,
the power behind it. A direct and whole submission in so much as Will can give.
In so much as Hannibal wants.
He will never be a doll, a beautiful breathing doll to dress and tilt his head
and smile. He will bite back, struggle, leave his own marks on his tormentor,
his teacher, his lover. And Hannibal would never want him any different. He
would tire of obedience, tire of meting out punishment that is accepted with a
smile - he wants it earned, he wants to watch Will both arch into it and sob in
genuine pain at the end.
He wants blood, he wants marks and pleas and spread legs by command and choice
both.
"It makes me feel worthy," Will moans.
Hannibal does not return the words, but he feels them, as though prying tendons
from bones, sinews from sinews. His own worth weighed far heavier than he finds
comprehensible in the eyes of this boy, decades younger, whose mouth he steals
the breath from with a smothering kiss. This boy desired by all who meet him,
sought and courted, bought and sworn loyalty to by countless men, who chooses -
for it’s nothing other than his choice, Hannibal knows with whiskey-thick
honesty - to share Hannibal’s bed with him, to reveal all the light and
darkness that roils inside of him.
Dyadic cooperation, each only worth as much as the other considers them to be,
each possessing rare attributes, prized and worshipped.
As now Hannibal does, sitting up beneath Will and surrounding him with an arm
to keep him in place, teeth against his collarbone, lips closing after to chase
each bite with a kiss, as his other hand drops to stroke hard along the length
of him.
Adoration, open and obscene, of this boy young enough to be his child, who
holds Hannibal in his sway.
“Would that I could mark you as such,” Hannibal breathes against his skin,
watching with dark-eyed fascination as Will dips his head, keens and moans
beneath Hannibal’s touch. “So that the others who touch you will know that you
will never be theirs. Brand you as mine, and mine alone.”
A threat made seemingly in dark humor, as so many are when they find themselves
this way, now freed further by the whiskey hot between them. The same black
pleasure as when he considers aloud tying Will down and leaving him until he
feels so moved to free him, days later - as when he discusses what dishes would
best mirror his particular difficulty, when the boy is being troublesome.
Affections both cruel and unusual that earn a quick grin from the only one who
has earned them.
“Nnn - you mark me every day,” Will points out, feeling his heart hammer
against the hot press of lips on his skin. But as Hannibal says nothing in
return, no hum of amusement, no agreement with him, Will’s heart speeds up from
entirely different stimulus.
He twists a little, enough to make it clear he wants release, and Hannibal
allows it, for Will to pull back, to set his eyes on him, brows furrowed in
disbelief, in a desperate need to have the words denied, rephrased, adjusted.
They’re not.
Men have tried to mark him before, with pretentious claims that they would
carve words into him, their names, derogatory statements; pet, slut, mine. And
on every man’s lips but Hannibal’s the last word sat like oil on Will’s skin,
slick and revolting, something to be washed clean that water could not always
help with.
From Hannibal’s lips, the words sounded like home.
He swallows, shakes his head slowly and turns his eyes down. He can see the
bruises already forming where Hannibal had hungrily sucked them against him,
and knows they’re not enough, knows the man wants more from him. A permanence
that at once excites and terrifies Will in a way he can’t phrase in words.
A soft sound and Will’s eyes meet Hannibal’s again, careful, seeking a lie
there, finding none.
“I’ll be yours if you mark me,” he tells him, a reminder, a last moment to deny
the words under pretense of alcohol and lust.
No, Hannibal hears distant inside of him. Stop now and end this. Leave
temporary wounds on him that will heal, if you release him, or matter not, if
you kill him. Too much control, yielded and taken too quickly, and Hannibal’s
pulse jumps as if in hunt. As if hunted.
He feels his freedom slipping away between his fingers as the boy’s eyes meet
his own not with a demand or a plea, but with a terrifying honesty. More
permanent than even killing him, it seems suddenly, his death but a moment that
would pass into memory. This - a promise, instead. Tying themselves to each
other and fate unknown, ideas and feelings that neither knows well enough to
understand or even name.
Hannibal feels his freedom slipping.
And in this, he lets it go.
“Yes.”
The word Will feels like the harshest slap and Will jerks, hands gripping hard
against firm shoulders, head ducked, before he leans closer, sighs against him,
feels warm breath exhaled against him in turn before he kisses him.
Will thinks back to the scene where he had opened the man up enough to spray
blood to the ceiling, all from the true and genuine panic of being branded by
him, claimed. Marked.
You were frightened, Hannibal had pointed out, indifferent at the time, storing
away information for later torment, it does not happen often.
“Where?” Will asks, pulling back and breathless, body stilled for the moment in
its tension, surprise, worry.
“Where will you do it?”
He waits a moment, and asks, before the first answer is given, before Hannibal
has taken a breath; asked so that he won’t lose the courage to later.
“How?”
Hannibal resists the urge to pull him close again, to feel against his own skin
the tension snapping through Will in fright, in panic. The fearfulness makes
itself manifest in the boy far more obviously than it does in Hannibal, but it
mirrors his own and he allows the rare feeling to come to him, lets it wash
over him and accepts it.
He brushes the backs of his fingers up across Will’s cheek, does not deny him
the ability to see his face, the openness of Hannibal’s expression in this
moment, knowing how Will seeks it to ground him from this sudden terror, of
permanence and intimacy yet unbroached by either.
A quiet hum, pushing the boy’s hair back from his face with a gentle hand and
bringing it to the back of his neck. Remaining steadfast as Will does not,
despite the way Hannibal’s heart mirrors, racing.
“Something small,” Hannibal replies softly. “So that it will not be seen by
your prey, but where you will feel it when their hands press against you.”
Without releasing the stabilizing hand from beneath Will’s hair, Hannibal
skirts his other fingers along Will’s bare leg. Finds a particular place where
he has pressed his mouth, his teeth, his touch countless times before, high on
his thigh near his groin.
“There.” Hannibal moves now to kiss the corner of Will's mouth twisted frowning
with concern. “We will share a cigarette together, as we did when you first
slid into my car with your dirty boots and that hideous sweater.”
Will trembles, says nothing, allows the words to flow through him, allows the
touches to slide over his skin. At length he leans in again, lips soft to
Hannibal’s, hand skimming down his body to reach for the pack in his pocket,
for the lighter.
“Not here,” he sighs, nuzzles, and climbs off of Hannibal, taking the pack and
lighter with him. He stops to pick up his clothes, mindful, for a moment, and
carefully leaves the study, door open for Hannibal to follow.
The clothes are dumped, messy as always, on the chest at the end of their bed,
and Will sets the cigarettes on the bed before walking to the bathroom. The tap
runs, a soft cloth soaking up the cool water before Will washes himself down,
just gently, enough to no longer be tacky against his skin, or flaking.
When he returns he smiles, stretches in that slow, cat-like way, and presses
himself into Hannibal’s arms without invitation, hand seeking to his right to
pull a single cigarette from the pack as he bring it up with the lighter to set
the tobacco burning.
It’s a long inhale, slow, deliberate, and Will holds it before exhaling just as
slow, eyes on Hannibal through the dirty smoke, he turns his hand, sets the
cigarette against Hannibal’s lips and smiles, stepping away to crawl back onto
the bed and lie down, casually splayed, just watching.
Hannibal stands where he is, taking a moment to watch the boy move. Earnest
appreciation for the spry limbs long and lean, the hidden strength and skills
beneath Will’s pale skin. Fast, capable of frenzy - a fierce fight contained in
a vessel of youth and beauty.
A plume of smoke is drawn back past Hannibal’s lips before it can escape,
pulled deep inside of him, held until his lungs scald with it and he releases
it through his nose. A monster curling flames from the darkness inside.
His pants are undone but remain loose on his hips, shirtless, barefoot. A state
of undress, made that way in body and in mind by the boy whose hands stretch
and grasp against his headboard.
“You asked me to let you have today, Will,” Hannibal intones, not ungently,
remaining where he stands. He considers the cigarette still long between his
fingers, gives no thought to his rule about smoking in the house, and then
watches Will from beneath his hair, made untidy by a child’s grasping fingers.
“Do you truly desire this?”
Will tilts his head and looks at Hannibal again, expression clear, not resigned
but prepared. His pulse throbs against his throat, he knows Hannibal can see
it. He hums, a gentle sound, and draws his knees up a little, arches his back
in a stretch before holding out his hand for the cigarette again.
Answer in itself, but he wonders if Hannibal wants it verbally, if this
contract must be signed with his voice so he can never use it after, again.
The thought amuses him.
When the filter is passed to his fingers he smiles, presses the thing between
his lips and closes his eyes as he breathes in.
He concentrates on listening to the hissing of the burn, as the tobacco and
paper fold under the relentless element they can’t control nor invited. Will
wonders if he invited it.
He turns, just enough, to hook his foot against Hannibal’s leg and tug, eyes up
to watch as the man considers, relents, and sets his hands on either side of
Will’s head as he leans nearer.
“Yes,” Will tells him honestly.
Smoke unfurls past his lips as he speaks the word, given tangible form in a
pale cloud that Hannibal breathes in, lets roll over his hair, his skin,
sinking into him. He shifts Will gently aside, joining him on the bed to lay
heavy over him, mouths meeting languidly as he settles between his thighs and
feels them wrap around him in response.
Hannibal has hardly moved enough to breathe before Will presses the cigarette
to his mouth instead, eyes wide as the embers flare and smoke pulls inside of
Hannibal with a crackle. Soft fingers trace against the curves of Hannibal’s
mouth, boyish curiosity. The smoke is held, singeing heat inside Hannibal’s
chest, his throat, until Will leans towards him, lips parted.
Pale tendrils pass between them, drawn from Hannibal and pulled into Will, a
shared breath between them. He smiles as Will releases it again, a grin
appearing when the cloud curls towards the ceiling.
Will laughs, a gentle noise, pleased and warm, and takes his turn. He wonders
where he can ash it, so it doesn’t land on the floor, and, inevitably, on his
tongue after. He arches, relishes in how Hannibal leans in to kiss his throat,
to place one hot palm against his side to hold him still as Will twists just
enough to reach the glass of water on the bedside table. His side - Hannibal
doesn’t leave things in the room that don’t belong there.
He ashes it, watches them disperse over the surface, some heavier parts start
to sink within.
Will moans quietly as Hannibal rubs against him, and spreads his legs wider in
invitation, the alcohol and smoke making him languid, sleepy, soft and pliant
for Hannibal.
“You’ll trace your fingers over it,” he sighs, turning his wrist, again, to set
the filter between Hannibal’s lips, lets it go now for the man to control on
his own as he drapes his hands above his head.
“You’ll press your lips there and outline it with your tongue,” he bites his
lip.
“Yes,” Hannibal replies, sucking in another harsh mouthful of smoke, cigarette
turning between his fingers. He sighs it soft beneath Will’s chin, watches as
it billows up around him like mist and fades, warmth wrapping through them both
as Will arches into the grey.
It is Hannibal’s mark to bear as well, branded far deeper than skin -
irreparably changed by this winsome and cruel creature beneath him. A satyr -
no, yet a faun, but capable of all manner of ecstasies, lust and violence each
in turn, fucking and fighting, rutting and rending bodies limb from limb.
Hannibal shifts in his own discomfort with the thought, bound in willing
submission to this boy, but he reminds himself that it is Will whose skin will
wear the scar, and that despite his extraordinary nature he is a child still.
There is fear glimpsed beneath the edges of the mask he puts bravely forward
when his blue eyes dart towards the cigarette held aloft in Hannibal’s hand.
“I will worship at it,” Hannibal whispers against Will’s neck, just beneath his
ear, holding the cigarette now for Will’s mouth to press again.
Will moans, takes the offering willingly and arches up to exhale.
It grows smaller and smaller between them, a ritual, taken in to be worn
without. A thing that will not fade once the smell does from the room and from
their hair.
Will’s hands don’t come down from above his head where he weaves his fingers
between the slats. The motions stretch his body taut, arch him, bend him in
ways he knows the man above him adores… and will continue to, the mark a
promise Will can tangibly present him. But he fears, he worries, that perhaps
the mark will mar him, create an ugliness neither of them foresee…
He turns his head to nuzzle against Hannibal’s hair as he takes his own long
inhale and breathes warm smoke over Will’s chest again. A hand, practiced,
reaching over to ash the cigarette as Will had, into the glass. A thicker band
of ash in the water now, more pieces sinking now, as others cling to the
surface.
Will wonders what he will be.
Obediently he parts his lips for the cigarette again, eyes hooded and meeting
Hannibal’s before he smiles and opens his mouth, just barely, like he had in
the car, to show the swirling smoke within before he huffs it out through his
nose instead.
Just one more. Hannibal’s.
Will’s smile doesn’t waver, but his brows press closer.
Hannibal's drag to take, but not to hold, no more than he can truly hold the
wild boy who watches wary as the ashes build and the smoke pulls away.
He feeds it back, from himself to Will, shares it as Hannibal shares his kills
to feed him, as he shares in the torrents of blood spilled by Will's hand. As
he shares his bed and his body, his home and his heart, thundering now in his
chest. A relinquishment of control once held in an iron grip that now slides
from his grasp.
Smoke.
It rises between them, together, as their lips part and Hannibal leans back. He
slides onto his knees, legs beneath him, and snares Will around the waist. Tugs
him off the bed and pulls him up into his lap, braced tight, thighs spread.
Dark eyes, lightless pupils shadowed further still as Hannibal presses his
forehead against Will's, holding him fast. Pulse racing unabated, breath short
as it sings in his ears.
He turns the cigarette over between his fingers. A final chance at escape for
them both.
"Are you mine, Will?"
Will’s started to tremble, now, unable to hide the fear of this as he hides the
fear of being abandoned, of being tossed away, of being marked by another. He
takes quick breaths and says nothing for a moment, fixes his eyes on Hannibal’s
and waits. His heart beats in his ears, in his throat, anywhere but his chest
where it belongs.
After what feels like hours, of air held in his lungs, burning there, of
silence, Will nods, eyelids barely touching in a semi-blink, an exhale
shuddering through his bones when he releases it.
“Yes.”
Hannibal licks his lips briefly, not a hungry gesture, not here.
“Spread wider, for me, Will.”
The boy swallows, the sound audible, and bites his lip before shifting to obey,
tremors overtaking him again as he settles one hand against the bed, curled in
the sheets, the other over Hannibal’s shoulder.
“Stay still.”
Hannibal’s attention drops, focuses on the skinny thighs shaking against him,
and his hand tightens against Will’s hip, arm wrapped firm around him. He
reaches in with his other hand, finds that secret place where he’s brushed
kisses so many times before, far enough from the femoral not to risk the lovely
thinness of the skin too close to it.
Hannibal traces over it with his thumb, fine hairs soft beneath his fingers.
“Breathe, Will.”
Eyes wide, the boy starts to take the quaking breath and as he does, Hannibal
turns his fingers and presses.
A cry, high and pained. Burnt hair and burnt flesh, acrid and sharp. Hannibal’s
muscles snap tight to hold him in place as Will shakes, twisting the cigarette
to extinguish it, darkening perfect pale skin to claim it as his own.
Another sound, a whine, a long, agonized sound, and Will doesn’t seem to take a
breath to continue it, it’s pulled from his throat as though by a wire and he
can’t make it end. When the sound ends it’s on a sob and he turns his head
against Hannibal, smearing the telltale dampness of tears against him, though
he holds impressively still as the torment continues.
The sobs become more regular, soft pitiful things but Will makes no more sound,
no more cries or keens, he doesn’t beg - and he doesn’t move. Even as Hannibal
loosens his grip a little, Will doesn’t struggle away, he does nothing more
than draw heaving breaths through clenched teeth and nuzzle almost violently
against the man in front of him.
The trembling doesn’t cease, not for a long time.
Hannibal shifts at the drive of Will’s body against his own, untucks his legs
from beneath him and pulls Will near again. The filter is discarded to the
floor somewhere beside the bed and both arms wrap now, securing his boy close
to feel him shake.
“Shh,” Hannibal sighs, turning his cheek against Will’s hair. “Breathe, Will.”
He closes his eyes, broad hands spreading over Will’s back, to ease the pain
from him, to ease the terror, aching as another quiet sob wracks the little
thing trembling in his arms.
“Remarkable boy,” he praises him, and brings a hand up to his hair to stroke
softly. “You held so still for me.”
Enraptured entirely by the memory of Will’s skin blistering, darkening beneath
the ash, burnt into himself just as much. Held in thrall by the boy who curls
tighter towards him now, every muscle alive and twitching with pain and fear
and adrenaline. His own nerves feel as though they are alight beneath his skin,
breathless as he grazes kisses over any part of the boy that he can reach.
A kiss against Will's neck, his cheek, wet with tears, his temple and his hair.
Covering him in them, laying open adoration against his skin, breathed against
his ear.
“My beautiful boy.”
Will slowly returns to himself, one breath at a time, one agonizing shudder
after the other until they ebb away, until he’s left exhausted and tearful,
held so tightly he feels like he could never fall apart.
He sniffs, parts his lips to breathe slowly, to force his heart to ease, then
he licks his lips and presses his palms gently against Hannibal’s chest to push
him back, just enough to nuzzle his nose against Hannibal’s, enough to hum
gently and press their lips together in something soft, gentle, juxtaposed with
the throbbing pain that thumps with his heart against the inside of his thigh.
He feels the familiar elation, the unbelievable rush that comes with pain fill
his blood and thrum it through his limbs. Then he smiles, grins, and kisses
Hannibal again, fingers twisting in his hair, now, just to feel the strands
against his hand.
Hannibal looks at the crooked grin, his boy’s eyes still red with tears, and he
sighs a laugh, rare enough to make up for the quiet of it. Utterly delighted,
openly impressed by Will’s resilience.
He tilts his head beneath Will’s fingers that shake a little even still, and
Hannibal allows himself to be moved, tugged closer for another lingering kiss.
Sinking his arms deeper around Will’s waist, he sighs against his mouth, eyes
closed to focus on the feel of him, flushed warm and trembling with adrenaline.
“I am yours,” Hannibal murmurs softly, pressing his head to Will’s temple,
tilting him into another kiss against his dampened cheek. A confession that
finally eases the snarled tension in his chest, that allows him to breathe more
freely than he has all night, and that fills the spaces between them, uncertain
and new though they remain, now given voice at last.
A name, with all the power that entails.
***** Chapter 16 *****
Chapter Summary
     The pleasure in watching Will prepare the meal is profound, seeing
     him entirely unaffected by any sense of morals or ethics or
     existential quandaries. No hesitation as he scoops the meat in his
     bare hand to press it again through the machine, simply a placid
     acceptance of his role in this - a role which once may have been the
     one fed through the grinder, rather than the one grinding.
Chapter Notes
     warning for this chapter: graphic descriptions of cannibalism (enough
     to be worth noting!)
Hannibal knows the song well enough by now.
The prelude begins with a soft susurrus of fabric, coat removed and hung. Beats
in time of boots dropped beside the door, and one more, forte, as the bookbag
is dumped beside them. A swell of sound in a crescendo rising, footsteps
thumping nearer the kitchen, where Hannibal raises his attention to the
composer of this particular melody.
“Hello, Will. I am nearly finished.”
He turns back smoothly to the stove, another symphony in play, and feels Will’s
slight smile without needing to see it.
Neither comments on the domesticity of the moment, an unspoken resistance to
acknowledging that it exists at all between them. Both know well enough that
doing so ends, as ever, in blood spilled and faces broken, bodies spilled
across floors and stairs in carnage and carnality.
A benefit to both to know how to trigger it, certainly, but at peace enough for
now to allow its tenuous existence to remain between them.
Will settles against the counter, spreads himself over it, just perching on the
stool.
"Starving," Will purrs, dragging the vowel and stretching himself further. He
watches Hannibal work, watches the way his muscles shift beneath his pristine
shirt, how deftly he handles the knives and any other instruments pertinent to
the preparation of this particular meal.
This one wanted to be a doctor, Will recalls Hannibal telling him. So Hannibal
had kindly taught him the intricacies of dissection.
"Can I help?"
Hannibal turns his eyes up to watch the spread of boy - this one yet alive -
across the counter. Arms folding beneath his head, cheek against them, watching
the precise cuts stroked along the meat to slice it thin.
“I don’t know, Will. Can you?” A brief smile plays across Hannibal’s
expression, in good spirits, it seems, as he enjoys the gentle rejoinder. “You
may slice the baguette, if you like, for the crostini. There is garlic butter
beside it. Brush both sides and set them along the baking tray.”
He allows himself to observe as the boy slides from the stool, fingers dragging
across the counters as he passes them. Lanky and long and guileless, but a
child in years alone. A monster, a walking obscenity, that turns a crooked grin
towards him as he leans against the counter by the bread, hands back against it
and back arching.
“What are we having?”
Hannibal is surprised, still, at Will’s blithe acceptance of this in
particular, the meat dark and especially tender beneath his fingers. He was
sixteen, if a day. He wonders if Will feels a relief in it, knowing it’s
another boy and not him. If he feels envy, or if that merely applies to the
tenderizing that precedes butchery.
Or, more barbaric even still, perhaps he pays no mind to it at all.
“Tartare, with white truffle oil and fried capers, on crostini.” A pause,
attention shifting to watch Will take up the nearest knife. Hannibal clucks his
tongue. “The one beside it, Will. Serrated.”
Will returns the knife, carefully, and takes, instead, the one directed.
"I wonder if I'll ever come home to hot dogs," Will grins, fingers splaying
over the bread before slicing the baguette diagonally, to elongate the slices.
"Burgers," he continues, amused, as they work side by side to create a meal
that would only be seen in high-end restaurants and still not taste as good as
Will knows this will.
"Nachos. Something obscenely messy, quick, no health value whatsoever." He
bites his lip, runs the flat of his finger down either side of the knife,
dusting the crumbs away. He takes up the butter, surprisingly careful with it
as he brushes it over the bread.
"I wonder if you'll ever let me make you dinner."
He grins, glances over, brings up a finger to lick clean of the butter he'd
accidentally dipped the tip into.
Hannibal is caught in watching the display, as Will knew he would be, and the
boy’s lips are still wrapped around his finger when they curve into a grin.
Turning away, Hannibal hums a vaguely disapproving sound, as he must.
“Not if that’s what you intend to make,” responds Hannibal, setting his knife
aside to gather the strips of meat. “And certainly not in this kitchen.”
The idea that remains, however, is far more ghastly than anything he’s
considered thus far in the evening. Not in his kitchen, but in Will’s instead.
Seated on the flat-cushioned couch in the boy’s apartment, expected to eat
delivery pizza from a paper plate held above his lap.
Another soft sound of dismay, but it passes as he begins to gather the slices
of meat from the cutting board. A pause, considering the dense strips dripping
against the cutting board.
This one had held his hand, Hannibal recalls. Laced their fingers together when
Hannibal held them pinned gently above his head.
“Would you like to grind the meat?” he suggests, a pluck of curiosity in it.
“It must be, before we are able to mix it for a tartare.”
Will blinks, tilts his head in mild consideration and attempts to hide the
genuine delight in being asked to help. Finally, he nods, smiles, makes sure
that the butter won't drip where he leaves the brush, won't mess the counter or
ruin the presentation Hannibal intends.
He rinses his hands, too, flicking the water back into the sink before taking
up a towel.
His sleeves are pulled up over his elbows, a retro shirt, today, with a longer
one beneath. It had perhaps once been white, now a dull soft gray with age,
thankfully, not lack of hygiene.
"Will you show me?" he asks, coy, demure, his smile wicked despite the tone,
and he steps up to Hannibal properly now.
“Certainly. There is a bowl chilling in the refrigerator, if you would bring it
over.”
He directs it with an easy motion to beneath the grinder, and sets the cuts
inside of the feeder. A brief denouement to wash his hands, insisting that Will
do the same, and he stands behind the boy as they return to the device, clamped
as it is to the counter.
“It is easy enough,” Hannibal assures him. “A steady turn of the wrist, here,”
he instructs, setting Will’s fingers against the handle. “And a firm pressure,
here.” A motion to the meat, now, in the grinder.
Hannibal lifts his glass of wine from nearby, and ducks his head against Will,
nose brushing his temple. “Do not catch your fingers. Or do, and some portion
of this will be particularly fresh.”
"Was he not fresh enough?" Will asks, for a moment appearing genuinely
surprised before clicking his tongue. "Politeness ruining a dish, in itself
rude."
He keeps a straight face at his own joke, relishes the warm hum of Hannibal's
amusement, before the glass is returned to the counter and Hannibal guides Will
to begin.
The machine turns smoothly, pristine metal and apparently unused, if Will
didn't know better. He leans back, just enough, against the older man and
continues the careful turning as the warm, rough hands slide up Will’s arms
instead, to his shoulders, as a kiss lingers against his hair.
Will wonders how many times Hannibal kissed this boy, wonders if it was a
countdown to his inevitable end.
"Intricate," he notes, gently pushing the meat into the feeder, fingers deft
enough to not get caught. "Is the meal worth the time spent on it?"
Hannibal lets his hands linger there, watching over Will as he works, cheek
resting against his hair.
“If it were not, then I would not have spent the time, nor desire the meal,” he
responds after a moment of consideration. “This one, in particular, only
appears to be complex. It is in fact very simple. Minimal preparation to yield
extraordinary flavors.”
A kiss, grazed against Will’s shoulder. “Now, feed it back through a second
time, to ensure the proper consistency.”
The pleasure in watching Will prepare the meal is profound, seeing him entirely
unaffected by any sense of morals or ethics or existential quandaries. No
hesitation as he scoops the meat in his bare hand to press it again through the
machine, simply a placid acceptance of his role in this - a role which once may
have been the one fed through the grinder, rather than the one grinding.
Hannibal steps away to remove the crostini from the oven and set them out. “But
if this meal does not suit you,” he continues, “then perhaps I will make you
the vaunted hot dogs that you so desire. Sausage, fresh fennel and caraway.
Ground mustard alongside.”
Will grins, eyes narrowed in delight at the answer, and continues to grind the
meat again, finding it more difficult now than before simply because the meat
is now so finely ground.
"Bitter?" Will ventures instead.
"Far from it," Hannibal counters, a smile in his eyes but not yet touching his
lips. "Very forthcoming. Honest. Pleasing. So many dreams for one so young."
Will listens, just barely resisting the urge to lick his fingers, from habit,
rather than general desire to taste the thick cloying taste of uncooked meat.
"The meat is only bitter if it's frightened, Will," Hannibal offers, the young
man looks up, meets his eyes for a long time.
“Sweet, then,” Will finally suggests.
A note of agreement, soft, recalling the particular light that caught in the
departed boy’s dark eyes when he found out that Hannibal is a doctor. The
cautious questions, seeking, but with unsteady questions, unsteady fingers.
“Almost unbearably,” Hannibal admits, turning then to mix the emulsion.
He continues. “Meat takes on the characteristics of what sustains it. If fear,
then you will taste the acid of the blood that carried through muscles to drive
them into flight. If kindness, you will find that tenderness on your tongue,
the relaxation of the muscles just prior to death.”
Hannibal allows a touch to graze the back of Will’s hand as he takes the bowl
from him, the work complete, to resume mixing the tartare.
“What I desire may vary. So then do the preparations.”
Hannibal hesitates, considers his words before he speaks them, and allows
himself to experience how entirely the thought rends him now.
“There was a recipe I wished to try. A Oaxacan barbacoa with guajillo peppers,
in an adobo marinade. I had finally located the epazote and dried avocado
leaves in a small grocery downtown.” A pause. “In light of that, you seemed
like such a happy coincidence that night.”
Will tilts his head, stepping close to Hannibal again as he cleans his hands
once more.
"Does the recipe call for tenderized meat?" he asks, recalling the bruises he
had limped away from here wearing. “Suppleness, enough body to remain chewy?"
Will doesn't know the dish, but he's fairly sure the main ingredient rarely
involves sass and resistance. He wonders how many chefs could lay a claim to
having their main ingredient escape them, again and again.
"Tell me how it's made,” he asks suddenly, licking his lip into his mouth and
biting hard, eyes bright and wide up on Hannibal as the man works. Will can
feel his heart beat harsh against his ribs, not yet fast but pulsing, full.
Alive.
"What kind of lamb was I to you?" He moves to stand behind Hannibal, partially
to stand on tiptoes and watch over his shoulder as he works, mostly to curl
against him, hot and warm and young. Eager to hear how he would have met his
end, eager to hear if the plans for him now have grown more or less elaborate -
a delightfully sick matter of pride.
Hannibal shifts his weight just enough to feel the boy closer, pressed against
his back. He fights down a slight smile that appears at the atrocities Will
asks after, shocking questions that fall against Hannibal with remarkable
comfort. A familiar territory, now shared, and he is distracted enough by his
delight in the moment to turn back and gather a kiss from the corner of the
boy’s lips.
“An extraordinarily difficult one, as it appears,” Hannibal answers ruefully,
but this too eases into a fond reminiscence as he continues. “At the time, as
now admittedly, you were breathtaking. Untouched, unmarred, a particular beauty
whose preparation I anticipated moreso than most I have ever encountered.”
He returns to his work, mixing the tartare.
“The bitterness of your meat would have been drawn out by the cinnamon, an
accent to the dried peppers, and so I turned a harsher hand. You seemed to
enjoy it enough.”
Stretching, he pulls the crostini tray closer to plate, each with a perfectly
sized dollop of tartare atop it.
“Your shoulders are wide, which would have served well for this, as the recipe
calls for a shoulder roast. Rolled and tied, traditionally, but I intended to
keep it in-bone for use of the marrow. You would have been above a charcoal
fire, stoked for thirty minutes before cooking, atop a bed of the avocado
leaves for which I so diligently sought. Roughly three hours, restoring the
juices that drained from it, an endeavor on which I would have spent the better
part of an afternoon.”
He sighs, brows knitting as he feels those same shoulders press against his
back, skinny arms wrapping around him from behind.
“I was going to make tortillas for the occasion.”
Will grins and ducks his head between Hannibal’s shoulders.
Complex, time consuming. Something that would take significant effort and time.
He makes a soft sound of pleasure and slides his hands further down Hannibal’s
body to where they currently rest.
Down, past the apron where it sits immaculately tied and folded, down over his
groin, not hard yet but defined, a shape Will knows intimately, enjoys in every
way.
"Tortillas just for me?" Will asks, almost breathless with apparent surprise at
the words, as though that, in particular, was what got him, not the deliberate
stroking of his own ego as Will’s fingers now stroke over the front of
Hannibal’s pants.
"How long will dinner be?" he purrs, rolling his hips against Hannibal’s, a
deliberate goading.
“It is ready,” Hannibal responds, and in a moment of whimsy, he passes back the
spoon to Will, should he care to lick it clean of another boy who also found
his destiny suddenly altered. “The simple pleasure of tartare, Will, is that it
does not require cooking at all. It is mixed with the capers, eggs, anchovies,
and the emulsions, and served raw.”
He washes his hands, folds down his sleeves and buttons them again. A more
casual affair, this particular dinner, little overture but for the thing
itself. A glass of wine is poured for Will, and Hannibal brings the food to the
table where places are already set.
Both settle, one beside the other, and Hannibal yields the first bite to Will,
observing him only peripherally when he proceeds to serve himself in turn.
“I could still make tortillas for you,” Hannibal offers. “Shared in an entirely
different context than originally intended, of course, but if you would enjoy
them, then it is a recipe I would still greatly care to try.”
Will chews thoughtfully, lost for a moment in the contemplation of the boy’s
final thoughts. Had he struggled when Hannibal had killed him? Had he simply
allowed it to happen?
What lies had Hannibal filled his mind with? Had drowned his poor dull heart
in?
He tastes no bitterness in the meat and rolls it over his tongue before
swallowing, leaning to take another bite, the bread deliciously delicate
against his tongue, with how the butter had soaked it, rendered it softer in
the middle.
"You would make tortillas and forbid me nachos?" Will jokes, licking his lips
and reaching for his wine. He still drinks quickly, and Hannibal still delights
in encouraging it. Will amuses himself, on quieter mornings alone, really
giving thought to how utterly depraved Hannibal’s tastes are with his toys.
He breaks off a piece of bread and places it between his teeth, watching
Hannibal carefully with amused, narrowed eyes.
"Won't we need to procure a lamb?" he asks, a smile curling his lips.
Hannibal’s eyes close, a brief moment of extraordinary satisfaction as the
sweetness of the tartare settles tenderly across his tongue. He remembers the
boy’s arms looping around his neck, his kisses inexperienced and sloppy and
agonizingly genuine as Hannibal promised him an education, a home, a life, and
the boy responded by mouthing odes of worship against his skin. Forcing himself
to moan through the rough fucking even as his breath hitched in his throat,
thinking it was what Hannibal would want to hear. Asking if he could stay the
night, in light of Hannibal’s words, and Hannibal’s warm assurance that he
could, as hard fingers sank around his throat.
A sigh, blissful, and his eyes open again to meet Will’s, mischievous stormy
blue.
“We would, indeed. Unless you are volunteering yourself again,” Hannibal
finally replies, “although I quite like your shoulders where they are, for
now.”
He takes another bite, and quietly congratulates himself on the compliment of
wine that follows it.
“Perhaps, if you would assist me and there is barbacoa left after, you may use
that on your,” a pause, mild exasperation, “nachos.”
Will laughs despite himself, unable to contain the image of Hannibal’s utter
disgust at seeing his food go so blatantly to waste. The laugh lasts a while,
innocent, warm, and he presses another pulled piece of butter-soaked bread
between his lips before he finishes his wine.
"Perhaps if I assist you well you'll let me feed them to you," he counters,
pleased and excited and feeling the adrenaline seep into his system. He takes
another bite of dinner and savors it, eyes on the older man at his side, before
he swallows and licks his lips - and fingers, to Hannibal’s disgust and
pleasure - clean.
"May we hunt tomorrow?" he asks, adjusting his expression with the barest tilt
of his head, widening of his eyes, in a way he knows gets Hannibal’s pupils
widening in turn, his entire body wired to pay attention.
The inescapable temptation of youth, a reminder that what sits before him is
his entirely.
Will reaches for Hannibal’s glass of wine, eyes on the doctor's before draining
it slowly.
"Please?"
Hannibal’s fingers drum once against the table as his wine is taken from him,
vanishing between the greedy lips of an eager boy who can never settle. Not
with his grasping fingers or his hungry mouth, not with the bending of his body
or the twists of his persona through myriad forms, somehow vastly older than
his years and younger than them all at once.
An inconstant and shifting presence by which Hannibal now, as ever, finds
himself fascinated.
The glass is pulled away from him with a sudden movement, too fast for Will to
respond, and restored to its rightful place beside his plate. He watches Will,
observes the way he brings his knee against the table and tilts back. Energy
and movement, uncontrolled.
“We may,” Hannibal agrees, after a lengthy pause. “If we do, shall I procure
our lamb, or would you do the honor?”
The mingling pronouns, tangling ever tighter, as this too bridges new ground.
There is a note of wariness between them, undeniable, as Hannibal recalls the
last time Will brushed anywhere near one of his hunts, and nearly left Hannibal
with two dead boys rather than only one in the aftermath of shattered porcelain
and unabated anger.
Will licks his lips gently. A careful motion to move his plate out of the way,
then Hannibal’s, before hoisting himself on the table. He flexes his fingers
against the hard wood, feels the corners of his lips tilt until he's grinning.
One leg, then the other, over Hannibal's shoulders.
"Let me choose him," he murmurs.
There is a moment, held between them like this, wherein Hannibal is at peace.
Eyes closed with eminent patience, breath slowed, and nothing to signal of
anything less than serenity but for the twitch of tendon in his jaw, tightening
once.
It’s the only warning before Hannibal stands so quickly as to send his chair
flying, and snatches Will by his hair before it even hits the floor. The
teasing, the impudence, the demands and now the defiance of crawling across his
table during dinner… Hannibal pulls him hard off the mahogany and drops him to
the floor, then rights him to his feet just as readily.
He forces the boy face down over the table, bending over Will in turn. The
table edge presses painfully into the boy’s thighs and Hannibal does not heed
his whining noises. As though there had been no interruption. As though
Hannibal weren’t already furiously hard, grinding in slow strokes against
Will’s ass, driving him against the table still set for dinner.
“Then it will be your choices that determine the success of it,” Hannibal
agrees softly. “Choose well.”
***** Chapter 17 *****
Chapter Summary
     Hannibal had asked for a lamb, and Will had brought him one.
     Enough alike on the surface - torridly young for their shared
     occupation, aesthetically pleasing beyond most, and both observant
     and bright - but to Hannibal’s eyes they could not be more at odds.
     Sharpened fangs not yet bared to play soft against genuine
     gentleness. Practiced cleverness opposing sweet insecurity.
     A wolf at play, with prey too innocent yet to even fathom its own
     danger.
It’s cold, and Will’s sweater isn’t cutting it anymore. Or perhaps he’s just
used to better now, softer coats and heavier fabrics, hot hands and hotter
mouths. He tilts his head and stamps his feet a few times to get feeling back
into them.
He’s been meandering from corner to corner for a while now, but no one seems to
be having much luck with business this evening. Few cars, fewer takers within,
but Will waits, ignores the dirty looks he gets from taking over someone’s
spot, from trying to steal the tricks… there are none to steal. He supposes the
boys need something to gripe about to keep the boredom away.
Some he remembers, some remember him. This profession doesn’t offer much chance
for friendships to form between those genuinely homeless and those seeking to
make a few easy hundreds by spreading their legs and thinking of England.
Above Will’s head, the street light gives out with a click and he curses, eyes
up.
“Shit that sucks.” A voice, a little older than him but not by much. “I spent
hours guarding this damned corner and now this.”
Will turns, eyes wide and hands under his arms to keep them warm. The boy waves
gently to reassure Will before stepping closer, squinting to try and see.
“Haven’t seen you around,” he points out. Will shrugs.
“I uh… I usually don’t -” he gestures, cheeks flushed and lips red before he
bites the bottom one shyly.
“I have a regular. He’s been away for a few weeks but he said he would be back
around today and I just… I was hoping…”
The boy snorts. Will hasn’t seen him around before either. Not a bad looking
kid, light hair and light eyes, green maybe, but he can’t be sure. He’s
slightly stronger of build than Will but not much taller. He wears a similar
configuration of pitiful garments but doesn’t seem to feel the cold like Will
does.
“Hope’s forsaken this street, kid - try Main.”
Will smiles and flicks the hair from his eyes.
“He’s nice to me. Keeps coming back. This isn’t Pretty Woman, I don’t expect
much but…” He shrugs again. “A warm bed and dinner never goes wrong.”
“He feeds you?”
Will nods, ducks his head, another shy smile. The boy’s brows furrow and he
swallows, running a hand through his hair, and for a moment Will sees a kid
much like the one he’d been not two years ago - all false bravado and no actual
experience.
He’s perfect.
“He can be a bit rough but he never goes too far,” Will continues, shifting
just enough to feel the scar against his thigh, feeling his cheeks flush from
the sensation. “Have you been out here long?”
The kid snorts again, parts his lips to tell another lie and seems to change
his mind, defeated. He sighs, instead.
“Just over a week,” he admits. “It’s been so damned quiet, I just… I thought
this would be easy, you know? Bend over for some sick fuck with too much money
to spend and be done with it. Bam, easy. But there’s a fucken drought or
something I swear.”
Will shrugs, turns to step out onto the street, peering down the center line
for any sign of cars.
“Sometimes it’s just not the time, man,” he says. The kid sighs again and
brings his hands to his face to blow hot air against his fingers.
Will hesitates, walks over to press his own against the boy’s cold fingers.
Neither say anything - there’s nothing to say. And for a moment they just stand
there, in the dark, two kids keeping each other warm.
“I’m Jay,” the kid says finally, breath steaming in the cold air, and Will
smiles.
“Will.” He rubs the boy’s hands a little longer before something catches his
attention, a sense honed to the sound of a particular car engine, and Will
grins and runs partially out onto the road again to look.
When a black Bentley pulls up, Will runs to it, the door opening for him, and
crawls in, straight into the arms of an older man there, much older, who seems
just as pleased to see Will as Will is to see him. Jay watches, brows furrowed
in defeat, and sighs. But the car doesn’t pull away. Not even when the rather
amorous reunion seems to have cooled enough for public viewing.
The shapes shift, and Will leans out the passenger door, grin on his face,
cheeks flushed dark.
“Come with me,” he offers.
Jay hesitates, hand raised passively, the other tucked under his arm. “Nah,
really, it’s okay -”
A laugh, to disperse the darkness as Will tilts himself further out of the car.
“Come on. You’re not going to get anything out here tonight and it’s fucking
cold.”
Reconsideration, as Jay glances up and down the blackened street, as he
observes the patient look given from the older man to the younger.
“Fuck it,” he mutters with a sigh, catching a hint of Will’s grin just in the
corner of his mouth and heading towards the car.
Dark eyes find him in the rearview as the car sets out. Heavy accent, warm
against the older man’s voice.
“Hello, Jay.”
“This is Hannibal,” Will introduces, watching between them over the back of his
seat. Another long look is given to Will, a curious sort of fondness read in it
by the boy behind them. “I told him that you were kind of new - I hope that’s
okay.”
A sigh, terse and teenage, and a shrug. “Yeah, it’s fine,” Jay responds,
glancing towards the man driving them now, away from the hourly-rate motels and
somewhere better. “Hi Hannibal,” he adds with a little smile, practiced, almost
demure. It plays off Will’s youth like a duet and Hannibal considers him.
Choices made well, at least so far.
“A pleasure. I’m sorry you were left waiting,” Hannibal continues, to one or
both of them, it isn’t clear. “I was held up, briefly, preparing for tomorrow’s
work.” Will leans, dragging a kiss against Hannibal’s cheek that the older man
leans into in kind, a gentle exchange watched with interest from the back seat.
Jay shifts, turns his attention out the window, and then blinks.
“Are these heated seats?”
Will laughs, gives him a knowing look over the back of the seat before settling
back in the front.
For the duration of the drive, Jay loses focus on the two people in front,
murmuring to each other in a language he doesn’t speak, and instead watches the
rest of the city go by. From cheap areas you don’t want to be caught dead
walking home alone in - perhaps because walking home alone there would render
one dead - to more comfortable family neighbourhoods, and beyond those still to
something far more elaborate, far richer.
Jay’s barely awake by the time the car pulls into the garage of a large two-
story house, standalone, in a quiet street. He looks up when Will leans over
the back of the seat and offers a tired smile.
“You okay?”
Jay offers a thin smile Will sees right through, and he gestures, gently,
implying the boy should just relax, let this play out.
I was like you before, Will’s smile says, before he turns to look at Hannibal
like the man had given him the moon. Just relax.
“Are you hungry, Jay?” Hannibal asks, eyes on him through the mirror, again, as
the garage closes behind them. “Will seems to deliberately work up an appetite
just before coming to see me.” The tone dips to something fond, like chastising
a small child, and Will brings his thumb to his mouth to chew absently at the
skin there, grinning, cheeks coloring.
Jay swallows.
“Nah, I - I could eat later.” In truth, he’s not hungry, too nervous with
everything happening so quickly, too nervous with finally finding someone to
take him for the night, worried if he’ll get paid for it since it’s Will’s
trick, his regular. Worried that he won’t live up to expectations from whomever
has expectations of him.
He doesn’t let his eyes linger on Hannibal’s, he can’t, the gaze is
penetrating, it’s powerful. Jay feels shivers crawl up his spine and avoids
giving them motion. Instead he smiles and looks away. From the front seat, the
man murmurs his understanding, and - Jay notices - leans to open Will’s door
for him before seeing himself out of the vehicle.
After a pause, Jay gets out to follow the two of them, catching Will’s arm to
draw him back before they enter the house proper.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t want to steal your thunder here, but…”
Will smiles, “He won’t let you go without a fee, he’s not like that.”
Jay frowns and holds Will’s sleeve when he tries to walk away again.
“He won’t mind that I’ve -”
“Do you trust me?” Will asks him gently, eyes wide and blue on Jay’s - green
was accurate, it turns out. “I’ve been with Hannibal a few months… he’s never
cruel, he’s never unfair. If you just want to play with me, he’ll enjoy
watching.”
Jay frowns before nodding. He relaxes his grip on Will’s sleeve and follows him
when he leads them into the house, toes off his shoes as Will does, and watches
with a strange smile he can’t seem to hide when Hannibal gathers Will to him
and hoists him up to kiss, hands under the boy’s ass as Will wraps his legs
around him - comfortable, familiar, utterly relaxed around each other.
Do you trust me?
He considers that he could.
Just for one night.
The embrace lingers a moment more, as Hannibal chases one of Will's teasing
kisses with his teeth, a nip, playful. Will doesn't seem inclined to let go,
burying his face adoring against Hannibal's neck. A hum from the older man, a
quiet pleasure in their nearness that resonates further than a rent boy and his
client.
Perhaps something, perhaps nothing, but Jay averts his attention from the
intimacy of it and Hannibal catches the tug of anxiety as soon as it plucks
through the air.
He meets the boy's eyes offers a brief smile from beneath Will's affections, a
hint of tired amusement gathered in the corners of his eyes.
"Breathe, Jay."
There is no unkindness in his voice, and Jay draws a breath whether by impulse
or instruction, and settles a faint smile in return.
"This is quite a house."
"Would it sound particularly average if I told you to make yourself
comfortable?"
Hannibal's smile widens a little, just enough self-deprecation in it to hide
the swell of pleasure at another boy here to praise him, his masks and his set
pieces, all that he works so diligently with which to surround himself for
moments such as these.
He lowers Will back to the ground despite the noise of protest, and Will's
fingers seek out Jay's again. Warming them, as before.
"As a guest, the evening is whatever you would have it be," Hannibal offers
genially. "Though as you will undoubtedly come to see, the direction tends to
be decided by Will, more often than not."
A pause, good-humored as he adds. "Demanding boy."
Jay sighs, skimming his free hand back through his hair. There will be money,
food if he wants it. Warmth for the worst of the night, and another boy here.
Not alone in this place with the intense older man who works so hard to hide
that edge in himself.
He wonders what Hannibal does for a living, but knows better than to ask.
"Do you want to play?" Will asks Jay, a gentle prompt. "Come on, I'll take
you."
Fingers still laced, a security in the way he squeezes, dragging Jay lightly
towards the stairs as Hannibal watches them go.
Will feels the other boy squeeze tight a moment longer before letting go of
Will’s hand at the top of the stairs. Will isn’t put off, just leads Jay into
the bedroom without contact instead.
"You've never done this before," Will notes, not unkindly, stretching his arms
over his head with a groan before turning, his smile soft. "I know he seems
intense, strict, but he's affectionate, gentle. He won't hurt you."
"But he'll hurt you?" Jay asks carefully. Will shrugs.
"If the mood strikes him." He doesn’t elaborate further, but he does step
closer to the other boy, strokes cool fingers over his cheek, curls them under
his jaw.
"Do you just want to try with me?" he asks, waits for the inevitable, welcome
nod, before allowing his smile to reach his eyes. He lets his hand linger a
moment more before leaning in to bring warm lips to Jay's cold ones, chaste,
letting the boy move faster on his own.
It's incredibly empowering. Will rarely works with anyone less than twenty
years his senior, but Jay is fascinating. Unusual and interesting, in
appearance at least, and when he finally parts his lips with a sigh, Will grins
against him, moans softly and kisses back.
Hannibal’s feet, socks against carpet, fall silent against the stairs and he
listens. Catches the moan, entirely genuine, from his boy who feels all
pleasure so sincerely. Hears the soft movements of mouths meeting, hands across
fabric, across skin, the shuffle of feet as one draws nearer to the other. He
does not interrupt yet, merely listens to Will at work.
“See?” Will laughs, the lengths of their bodies sinking easily together,
playfully looping his arms over Jay’s shoulders. “You think I would’ve waited
around out there if I didn’t know it would be worth it?”
This is easier, less pressure to perform, guidance in the form of Will’s words,
his touch. Jay feels himself relaxing, a little, though his attention still
darts to the bedroom they’re in, expansive and expensive, spacious and
pristinely clean. A far cry from the last place he went on a night like this, a
shitty studio apartment with little more than a mattress on the floor and a few
sheets twisted across it. The guy had tried to short him, too, and Jay had felt
his palms get clammy, voice rising high as he refused to leave until the rest
of his fee was paid.
“Hey,” Will grins against his ear. “Come back to me.”
A blink, and a small but earnest smile in response as Jay focuses back on the
other boy, finally pressing his hands below his shirt to feel his skin, warm
and unscarred. He seems well cared for compared to most of the boys Jay’s met,
the closeness between him and his regular obvious.
He gives, following Will’s insistent tug to the bed and watching as he splays
himself across it as though it were his own.
“Should I take my clothes off now, or…”
“If you want,” Will agrees, rolling onto his stomach with his cheek against his
arms, himself still clad only in a shirt and pants, barefoot.
Comfortable. At home.
It's clear the boy has not been working the streets long, though he had lied
about only being out there a week. It's been longer for him, that or he has
been hungry longer still before seeing this as a viable option.
Will bites his lip as he watches the boy undress. He’s clean, nervous, but his
eyes linger on Will in a way he can’t mistake. The want for Will is as obvious
as the want for Will's life here, and the younger boy bites his lip, pleased,
before rolling over onto his back and arching up off the bed.
"Take mine off, too." he suggests, smiling when Jay climbs up onto the bed with
him, leans in to start on the buttons of Will’s shirt as the other lies pliant
and still and lets him. He glances up only once, when Hannibal enters the room,
and feels his cheeks darken with the anticipation of it. He catches Jay's hand
when he starts to pull away, worried he's breaking some unspoken rules here.
"Stay," Will murmurs, biting his lip a little harder before releasing it. "Play
with me."
Jay hesitates, swallows, watching the mostly bare body beneath him shiver and
twist in invitation. Then he leans in to kiss Will again, down to his jaw and
his neck as he sighs and splays himself wide for the attention, enjoying the
hot gaze of his mentor much more than the gentle touches of the other boy.
Hannibal had asked for a lamb, and Will had brought him one.
Enough alike on the surface - torridly young for their shared occupation,
aesthetically pleasing beyond most, and both observant and bright - but to
Hannibal’s eyes they could not be more at odds. Sharpened fangs not yet bared
to play soft against genuine gentleness. Practiced cleverness opposing sweet
insecurity.
A wolf at play, with prey too innocent yet to even fathom its own danger.
Will arches as if on cue, rolling his eyes closed with a moan to turn from
watching Hannibal’s steady approach. His pants are slid free as he rises,
tossed aside, and Jay reaches to brush a hand through Will’s hair, glancing
past where he kisses Will’s shoulder, his neck, up against his ear to watch
Hannibal.
“Please, don’t let me interrupt,” Hannibal insists gently to the boy, resuming
his steady undressing as though he were there alone.
Will’s insistent little sounds are enough to pull Jay’s attention back to him,
legs twining and hips rocking to rub gently, languidly against the other.
Breaking into a grin, Will’s hands splay, fingers stretching catlike, down
Jay’s smooth skin, bringing their skinny bodies together and nuzzling into
another slow kiss.
“See,” Will purrs when they part. “It’s not so bad.”
A hum of pleased agreement but no words, and Jay moves to kiss lower down
Will’s body again, tucking his hands under Will’s back to make him arch as he
sucks a nipple, tugs it with his teeth and Will keens.
He’s lost in it, in the younger body writhing so willingly for him, that he
doesn't notice Hannibal is closer until Will’s soft pleading cries are cut off
by a deep kiss and a low hum of pleasure from the older man.
It's a strange dynamic, both of them hungry for Will between them, and Jay’s
confidence rises more, to spread Will wider, a delicious, obscene presentation
for Hannibal when he looks up, one hand down to stroke Will’s cock to a
beautiful deep pink of arousal.
When Hannibal slides a hand through Jay’s hair in appreciation, the boy turns
into it, parts his lips and allows the kiss when Hannibal leans for one. He
continues stroking Will’s cock, until the pleas grow higher, the shudders
palpable, and Hannibal smiles as he pulls away.
Even their years combined are fewer still than Hannibal’s, a thought which
delights him irredeemably as the boy’s arch and join in another kiss, mouths
open, gasping, tongues twining together as do their bodies, lithe and sinuous.
A broad hand presses between them to peel Jay back onto his knees. Hannibal
spreads his hand along the boy’s hairless chest, over perked nipples, down
further still to his stomach, a little drawn, a little concave. Jay makes a
soft sound, held back, restrained unlike the unabashed whimpering and keening
of Will beneath him as Jay strokes him slowly. Hannibal draws a kiss gently
over Jay’s shoulder, in particular.
Dark eyes focused on Will, watching him squirm, Hannibal tastes this new boy,
mouth and tongue and teeth grazing softly against unfamiliar skin. Untarnished
and sweet, hungry and a little desperate, and now heady with arousal, a warmth
against Hannibal’s tongue that draws a sigh from him.
It is no wonder that he chooses, for these particular purposes, such beautiful
boys, and it’s always affirmed when he has the opportunity to enjoy one such as
this.
His hand drifts lower, to grasp Jay’s hardening cock and feel the swell of it,
the flush of heat pulsing beneath his fingers as he tugs softly.
Will watches, through the haze of his own arousal he watches as Jay starts to
succumb to the older man's charm, to his clever hands and demanding mouth. When
Jay lets him go, finally, too distracted by Hannibal's attention, Will
scrambles back and kneels, and leans close again to set his mouth against the
inside of Jay’s thigh, spreading him, now, as he had been spread.
"Will, fuck -"
Will grins, eyes quickly flicking up to Hannibal, amusement curling in his gaze
as the older man silently implies that every curse will be Will’s debt to pay,
later.
He shivers in pleasure at the thought and leans closer still to kiss Hannibal's
knuckles as he continues to stroke, feels them uncurl to caress Will’s cheek
before guiding him to take Jay’s cock into his mouth.
The wolves surround him now, not only in fore and rear but with hands, with
mouths and teeth, with hungry breaths timed in tandem pressed eager to Jay’s
skin. Hannibal’s free hand slides higher, to catch Jay’s chin and bring their
mouths together in a warm kiss.
“Beautiful,” Hannibal murmurs softly, thumb stroking the curve of Jay’s throat
to bring his head to rest against Hannibal’s shoulder. Jay reaches up behind
him, palm soft against Hannibal’s cheek. Hannibal meets it in kiss but then
stills - a curious pause and quiet delight.
“You paint.”
Lips parted, breathless, Jay turns his attention up from Will’s eager mouth and
blinks at Hannibal.
“Yeah. How did you -”
Hannibal curls his fingers through the boy’s hair, pleased when his eyes
flutter closed with another groan.
“Your fingers smell of turpentine.” He brings Jay’s fingers across his lips
again. Chasing the taste of thinner, the remnants of oils beneath, Hannibal
imagines for a moment that he can taste the colors themselves - cadmium yellow
and Prussian blue, viridium green and oxide red.
“Would that I could see them sometime,” adds Hannibal, almost absently, before
curling his fingers beneath Will’s jaw to guide him back, to pace him, to pull
another long, low curse from Jay and bring him arching back against Hannibal.
Hannibal could not have asked for more, he considers with unbounded pleasure,
reaching for the lube to slick his fingers and drag them back between the boy’s
legs. New movements, twitches and shudders and sounds yet unfamiliar, and
Hannibal drinks up each and every one as he rubs slow circles against him.
Will sits back, knees folded beneath him but thighs spread wide anyway, panting
to catch his breath as he eyes Hannibal carefully. The delight at the boy’s
talent is entirely genuine and it tugs at something within him.
Will has never been creatively talented. His strength lies in his mind.
You cannot look within a mind as you can on a painting. Will swallows and leans
in again to kiss Hannibal softly, sets a hand to rub over Jay's nipple to draw
more needy noises from him. Hannibal allows the kiss, and offers a soft nuzzle
before turning back to the boy in his arms.
"What do you see," Hannibal asks, relishing the shudder that shakes the boy as
he presses a finger into him. “What drives those colors from behind your eyes?"
Will’s jaw tenses, but he says nothing as he leans to suck a mark against Jay’s
throat.
Hannibal sinks an arm around Jay’s shoulders to bring the boy back against his
chest, to feel his spine arch, following the curl of his moan when Hannibal
bends his finger just so.
“It’s not,” Jay begins, with a self-effacing laugh as his words hitch on a
breath. “It’s not what I see.”
A curious hum, Hannibal’s mouth drawing against the pulse of his throat, the
vibrations of his words, watching Will from across the graceful arch of Jay’s
neck as his boy’s teeth drag sharp, draw a flinch, a gasp.
“Tell me,” Hannibal insists gently, earnest curiosity, and another trembling
shiver as he works in a second finger.
“It’s what I don’t see - sensations, feelings,” Jay gasps, hand sliding to
grasp his cock, stroking slowly in time with the movement of the two bodies
pressed against his. “The right color or - fuck - or movement to express them.”
Hannibal can think of little else in the world that would make a moment sweeter
for him than this. The ineloquence of youth stammered earnest and passionate,
the relentless drive to create whether through sex or art - or murder, in the
case of the blue-eyed boy ardently seeking Hannibal’s mouth by bending Jay back
between them with a rough curl of fingers.
He returns the kiss and parts it on a sigh, watching as Jay engages them both,
moves to steal Will’s mouth from Hannibal, flushed lips meeting eagerly.
Drawing his mouth again across Jay’s fingers, Hannibal imagines. Sees the boy
profaning himself with this profession to pay his way to art school, the
subject of great attention, a prodigy perhaps, far beyond his years. Pulling
from these sordid experiences to add a gritty nuance to his images, attracting
acclaim as his skill grows. Thinking back perhaps on moments such as this as
formative, a necessary step in his evolution to flourish and bring the color
from behind his eyes into the world for others to share.
All ended. Tonight.
No more paintings drawn from the gentle fingers that press against Hannibal’s
mouth, no college classes and no critical acclaim. Striking green eyes that
seek to interpret and represent the world through their own perception growing
suddenly and irrevocably dark.
A bloom snapped from its branch before it can ever hope to unfurl its colors.
“What do you see now, in this?” Hannibal asks him, praise fed not for the work
itself but for the idea of it, to hear, to know what he seeks to consume from
this particular boy still twisting himself on Hannibal’s driving fingers.
"Fuck, I don't... I... shit...I'm gonna -"
Will takes his hand as he had before and stills it against Jay’s cock, tightens
their joined grip.
"Hold still, Jay, just hold on," he sighs, parts his lips to kiss him again, to
bring Jay’s hand to Will’s cock instead as though to share the sweet pleasure-
pain of endurance. Will doesn't think of how Hannibal has yet to touch him.
Hannibal hums, turns his face into the boy’s hair to breathe him in, to bury
his face in the warm strands as he does so often with Will.
"It's like... breath. I see breath," Jay manages weakly, moaning and jerking
when Hannibal’s fingers find his prostate and stroke it mercilessly. "Oh god -
blues, greys, soft, soft like wings like - like -"
Will murmurs something, a language Hannibal is fairly sure is dead, but his
tone is unmistakable, the envy radiates off of him like a smell, spicy and
bitter mixing with the sweet aroma of the other boy's arousal.
"Like smoke," Will offers, in English, moaning as Jay’s fingers twist him
harder, as Hannibal finally turns his attention to him. "From a cigarette
shared."
Jay’s attention to turns to Will, eyes opening enough to see him, a breathless
smile, a little laugh at the connection he assumes is there.
“Yeah,” he agrees, grinning as he leans in to kiss the other boy, hand pressed
to Will’s cheek.
Hannibal is grateful for the kiss, as it affords enough of a distraction that
the slip of expression towards Will - a sudden darkening, eyes narrowed - goes
unseen. Less caused by his words, though, and more the tone behind them.
Jealous. Impudent. Spoiled.
He feels his own irritation flare in response and does not fight it, but merely
redirects the energies. Withdrawing his fingers, Jay gasps, and Hannibal snares
him by the waist, an affectionate gesture, somehow more intimate than when he
was curling fingers inside him. Leaning over him now, bending him towards the
bed, mouth warm against his shoulder as Hannibal slicks himself, hard despite
the sudden distraction of unwelcome emotions radiating at him, begging for his
attention away from his prey, his hunt, cooling the fire in his veins.
Hannibal forces it to stir again, murmuring softly against Jay’s shoulder.
“It would be a delight to see it, this moment wrought in oil and canvas,” he
intones, pleased by the thought, and moreso by the fact that such a thing will
never come to be. “I often seek out particular talents, and it brings me great
satisfaction to experience their transformation.” A pause, lining himself up
against Jay, and glancing towards Will, who watches balefully in return, to see
if he will choose to involve himself in a more favorable manner.
“Will can tell you,” Hannibal suggests, in such a way that he in fact suggests
that Will do anything but. “How much pleasure it brings me to offer my
patronage to those who deserve it.”
Will’s jaw works and he strokes his fingers through Jay’s hair, the boy
pressing himself to Will’s thighs with short breaths as Hannibal spreads him
wider, lining up. Will tugs his hair, considers, smiles when his lips part over
his thighs.
"Hannibal is a man of pleasure," Will murmurs, shifting to spread his legs
around Jay, not an implication for the boy to suck so much as to press closer,
another intimate invitation.
"A man of expensive tastes,” he continues. “So well-spoken, educated, a man
evolved to make good decisions on talent and the honing of it." He makes a soft
pleasurable sound as Hannibal enters the boy and Jay cries out in pain from it.
He strokes his hair again, hushes him.
"Tell him more of your paintings, more of the smoke," Will looks up at Hannibal
now, meets his eyes with a thin fake smile. "He may press that smoke smoldering
into your skin to mark a false promise."
He turns Jay closer, until the boy’s lips brush the scar, raised and still
sensitive, and quite obvious in light of Will’s words. Between them, Jay
stills, suddenly tense, looks up at Will.
A beat, a breath of silence, motionless.
Hannibal’s eyes narrow, a bare shifting of muscle in his expression.
“If it is false, Will, then it is only because you have decided it is so.”
A sudden movement, as Hannibal realizes the little artist is still impaled
beneath him and Jay shifts, squirming to slide free of Hannibal, his hands,
free of the boy in front of him baring his scar.
“Please,” Jay begs, a high sound so much younger in its fear than the moans,
the art, the laugh against Will’s mouth. “I don’t - look, I’m sorry. Can I
please go?”
Hannibal’s jaw sets, a flicker of motion as it does, attention settled
unrelenting on Will and Will alone. A black gaze - dark as the skin that burned
beneath the cigarette they shared, dark as the lightless basement that waits
for Will now.
He releases his hands from Jay’s hips, lets him scramble to his feet, and rises
from the bed to hand the boy his shirt, tossed carelessly aside. Thoughtful and
polite, even still.
Jay hesitates, swallows hard, unsure of what exactly he’s so afraid of but
driven by adrenaline, metallic and sharp, driven to quietly flee from whatever
shift in the air has just transpired.
Hannibal catches his wrist when he goes to take the shirt, and spins the boy
back against him. He’s stronger than Will, but held easily in place, and
Hannibal brings a hand to settle beneath his chin, the other stroking warmly
through his hair.
“Please,” Jay begs now, a sudden collapse loosening his body, held in place by
Hannibal. Tears, a torrent, slick against his cheeks. “Please don’t hurt me.
I’m sorry - I -”
Hannibal pulls him nearer. Ignoring Will now, ignoring anyone but the little
lamb struggling, sobbing against him. He is firm in holding him in place, but
there is an unmistakable tenderness to it, bearing the weight of the frightened
boy who shakes in his arms. An artist who may have been known, now unknown. A
light that might have burned bright, now extinguished.
Added to a collection of boys who may have been, but never were.
“I will not hurt you,” Hannibal assures him softly, and before the boy can draw
a breath again, he twists.
The snap of his spine sounds like a branch cracking, cartilage separating from
between vertebrae with a sickening wetness, a crunch. The little artist jerks
once, and Hannibal does not let him fall, but lays him against the ground.
Something like loss. Mourning, for the hunt cut so unexpectedly short. For the
boy whose pleasure in life he may have granted one more time if not for the one
staring wide-eyed from the bed. Hannibal’s fingers flex, attention held on the
body at his feet, and he waits.
Will’s lungs burn with a held breath, eyes on the boy dead at Hannibal's feet
now, unexpected, so fast, so utterly indifferent. He swallows, lets out a
breath, and it snaps Hannibal’s attention back to him.
"Shit." Tongue quick, red against his lips before Will slips from the bed and
bolts.
The nearest door he reaches is the bathroom, turns the lock, and presses his
back to it as two hands impact on either side of his head, shuddering through
him even through the expensive wood.
"Shit, shit."
Too quick, it had happened too quick he hadn’t meant for that, not then, not
like this. He'd just wanted Hannibal to see him again, around the beautiful
artist, around his own desire for him, he wanted Hannibal to look at him again,
touch him, bring them close...
Another strike to the door that shakes it in its hinges and Will presses the
heels of his hands into his eyes.
He'd looked at him in such a way, so excited by the talent, so fascinated by
the boy, his words, his innocence...
Another strike and Will makes a frightened noise.
Perhaps he should not have run.
More than hands against the wood now, the entire weight of the man driven
behind it, enough to jolt Will from the door. He slings himself right back
against it, as though he is enough to stop it from coming down.
There is silence, for long moments, too long, long enough that the beating of
Will’s heart and the rush of blood in his ears fills it, deafening.
Fists, against the door on either side of where Will startles at the sound with
a cry, and a low voice pressed against the wood, separated by mere inches.
“If I have to tear this door down, Will, you will pay for it with your life.”
The threat is far from empty, dire in its darkness, in Hannibal’s ravening need
for blood, for death, to hunt and to kill, needs now left unmet - brought to
the surface, tempted, and left wanting.
The satisfaction of his hungers, interrupted by the insolent and greedy boy who
slides to the ground behind the door.
“You have made your choice then.”
The voice fades, for Hannibal to take another running leap against the door
that separates them.
Will shakes, feels his heart hammer as one leap is followed by another and he
can't, anymore, terrified of Hannibal’s intent, as he had been in the basement,
as he had been on the stairs.
He waits for the third shuddering of the door and scrambles up to open it,
pressing himself to the wall perpendicular to it. He keeps his eyes closed, jaw
working in fear.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, I -"
The word is foul on Hannibal’s ears, the begging, pleading apology he’s heard
so many times already. A falsehood, as much as the ones they spoke to the boy
lying dead on his floor, an insincerity driven by need. Will’s need to survive
the only thing that seems to motivate him to ever feel regret for his actions.
Hannibal has him by the hair before Will can finish his plea, dragging him by
it across the floor, past the boy who no longer sees colors behind eyes that
now stare glassy and unseeing towards the ceiling.
“Is this what you envy, Will?” Hannibal snarls as they stop beside Jay, laid
lifeless. He does not allow Will to answer, a savage jerk of his arm to rip
another cry from the boy. “You ache for what I give to them. You feel unworthy
without it, left to live while I visit death upon them.”
His teeth are gritted, lips curled, a roiling hot rage that sings to him to rip
the boy to pieces. To tear his scar from his flesh with his teeth, rip open his
throat where once he placed kisses, to let him feel what he so desires made as
raw and unrestrained as he would have it.
Through the bedroom, towards the stairs.
Will struggles, one hand curled around Hannibal’s arm, the other seeking out
for something to grab and finding nothing.
"I ache for how you see them," he whines, "when I'm right there and you don't
see me."
He makes a pained sound and tries to curl up as he’s unceremoniously pulled
down the stairs, turns to his side to avoid damage to his spine. At the bottom
he's panting in pain, too scared to unfurl, as Hannibal bends to push him to
standing.
Will trembles, unstable, and seeks out to touch the man, to sink to his knees
and make him believe he's sorry, that he hadn't meant the night to fail so
spectacularly.
"You didn't see me," he repeats, teeth gritted, eyes wide. Selfish. Young,
stupid in his demands.
Hannibal’s eyes sharpen, incremental, enough to convey the disbelief that
shakes him that perhaps this - all of this, whatever it is - has been a
profound misjudgment.
“What would you hear from me? My words are not enough,” Hannibal breathes, and
there is no kindness in it. “Insufficient to ever convince you that you are all
I see. My promises are false, my touch is untrue, my heart wanders restless and
unsatisfied. That is what you see, Will, and that is what you will have.”
Will is pulled, Hannibal’s fingers digging curves of flesh, blood beneath his
nails as he snares Will by the throat to drag him further still.
Furious at his own missteps, his own trust placed blindly in this, of all
things - a seventeen year-old boy. A disruptor of his home and of his life and
now the one part of it all that he was foolish enough to think he could
finally, after so long, share with another.
He ignores the strangled choke of protest, and continues to the basement, where
this will end.
***** Chapter 18 *****
Chapter Summary
     He should not care, he tells himself. The boy should not be alive and
     it should be no matter to make it so. The mere implication that
     Hannibal’s life would be disrupted in the fundamental ways in which
     this child has lashed out would have been enough to see anyone who so
     threatened it be killed without hesitation.
     And yet.
Chapter Notes
     warning for this chapter: flogging and feels
Will sits silent where he's thrown to the basement floor, doesn't struggle,
doesn't cry out or try to beg Hannibal again. It would be futile, and the wrath
radiating from the man is palpable. He stares, he watches, trembles but stays
silent.
He plays the words through his mind, almost echoing there, searing, painful. He
knows they're true, knows his irrational envy will kill him, by Hannibal's own
hand. Now, perhaps.
He swallows.
"I don’t -" he presses his knuckles to his mouth. "I can't stop." He breathes,
eyes up, pleading. I want to, teach me, please…
“Then you are a liability,” Hannibal hisses as he passes by the boy, voice
sharpened to a razor’s edge. “There is no place in this world for one to whom I
have given so much, and who will cost me everything with his lack of control.”
A drawer opens and is slammed shut. Rough jute, gathered between Hannibal’s
fists, pulled tight.
“Stand.”
It is an order that Will does not disobey, dragging himself to his feet, eyes
focused on the rope and heart racing as Hannibal approaches him with it.
“Bend. Over the table’s edge, face down.”
Will swallows, hard, and moves in unsteady steps to the autopsy table, shining
silver beneath the hot halogens overhead. Where boys like him lay when Hannibal
decides they have exhausted their purpose in life, to yield more in death and
feed the monster now looming like death itself behind him.
His breath hitches, arms drawing against his chest as he lays across it,
immediately corrected by a snap of the rope across the back of his knees.
“Arms out.”
Will knows better now than to beg, knows it will earn him little more than the
fury already as scalding as the sulfurous light overhead. Slowly, he extends
his arms, and Hannibal makes short work of tying his wrists together beneath
the table. Knots pulled tight, wrists to wrists, ankles to ankles, each in turn
to hold him bent, bowed, cheek and chest pressed bare to the table, high on his
toes to not give him respite in leaning, arms stretched over edges that press
sharply into his skin.
Without another word, Hannibal turns to leave, and the basement door shuts
behind him.
Will winces at the sound, wonders if he’ll be left here to freeze overnight
again, as he had once suffered beneath one of the hooks nearby. But even then
he had been on the ground, able to curl and hold himself warm. Here, he can
feel heat already seeped from his skin by the unyielding metal beneath him.
He flexes his fingers, considers Hannibal’s words. Liability. Lack of control.
He knows they're not untrue, and both cut him and his pride enough to have Will
pressing his forehead to the table in shame.
Could he truly not control his envy? When he knew that the affection was false
saccharine that blood would melt within hours? When he knew that before him,
and after him certainly, Hannibal would continue his practices unadjusted?
He thinks back to the night he had taken Hannibal with him to the club, the
anger and jealousy he had felt radiating off of him in the car, in the house,
as the other man had touched him and Hannibal had encouraged it. Not for any
want to see Will debauched by another but because it was Will's method, his
practice, his kill.
He jerks hard when the door is opened again.
There is silence, as Hannibal finds his way back to Will. Unhurried steps, his
snarling, panting breaths now stabilized. Terrifying patience, as he studies
the boy prone before him, watches the panic rise and fall in time with his
breathing.
“I should cut that mark from your thigh,” Hannibal intones, and beneath his
words, undertow to the anger still tight in his throat, is a hurt, profound,
for what will certainly be lost with this evening if Will does not learn.
Mourning, again, the misplaced potential of it all.
“This was to be an atonement, Will,” reminds Hannibal, softly, “for the last
time you let your envy control you. I allowed - and I did not have to - for you
to join me in this. For you to see how I work. You asked me, and I accepted.”
A crack, heard before it’s felt, of leather breaking hard against Will’s ass.
The cry that escapes the boy, surprised and pained, echoes in the space. Then
panting, heavy breaths and Will twists his wrists and shivers. He'd been
acquainted with the belt not three weeks before. He doubts the meeting now will
yield as pleasurable results as then.
"I..." He has nothing to say to him, ashamed and scared, tied down to a table
in the basement where dozens of boys like him have died.
"I can do better."
“When?” Hannibal asks, teeth clenched for a moment before he stretches his
neck, turns his head, and brings the belt down again. “How many times should I
extend my trust to you in hopes that perhaps this time, unlike all the others
before it, you will control yourself?”
Voice lowering, softer, amidst the quiet hum of freezers.
“Why should I bother, when my words, my home, my heart, my hands mean so little
to you that you would call them false? When you would look me in the eye and
call me a liar?”
The belt comes down again, harder than before, leaving a strip of red welted in
in its wake.
“What will it cost me, Will, to continue to try?”
Will wails, entirely genuine in his pain, and rubs his forehead against the
cold table.
"I've never... I don't -" Another welt, layered over those already marking Will
red, and he shudders. "I've never had anyone to trust before!"
His voice echoes for a moment, swallowed by the sound of the freezers, the slow
deliberate breathing of Hannibal behind him. Then the leather turns, creaks
between cruel practiced hands and Will's yell fills the space instead.
"Let me... let me keep the mark, please don't take that... please don't -"
Harsh fingers curl in Will’s hair, pull him into a slow bend to hear his
pleading ring echoing from the table’s surface.
“Made in false promise,” Hannibal reminds him. “It was not false when I made
it, Will, but perhaps I misjudged your intention in it. Something to lord over
me, in submission to you. To bend me and my life to suit your whims.”
He releases him, lets his cheek settle back against the cold surface.
“As though I have not already.”
Hannibal’s tongue parts his lips, allowing the silence to settle in to them,
the marks to breathe in Will’s skin with every shift of movement.
A boy, laid bare, fearful and panicked.
A boy, given chances again and again, who could cost Hannibal everything.
“You would take this from me, then. My life,” Hannibal snarls softly, belt
twisting around his fist. “My freedom.”
“No,” Will trembles, raises his head on his own, “No, Hannibal, I -”
A series of strikes, one after the other, biting sharp in their cruelty, no
restraint - as little of it as Hannibal had shown last time - felt here, and
Will sobs.
“I would not exist if you went away, I don’t know how.” He drags in a breath,
another, closes his eyes against the table and grits his teeth, soft sobs, for
now, escaping him into the cold room, his body tense, every muscle pulled harsh
and tight and unrelenting, a flight he can’t achieve and a fight he’s fighting
down.
His body doesn’t know what to do.
The tears, so often desired, earn him nothing.
“The solution is not that I would go away,” Hannibal reminds him, the sentence
left unfinished, clear enough in its implication.
A firm hand, clinical, presses against the welts raising hot along the curve of
Will’s ass, a trickle of blood from broken skin. Hannibal traces a thumb across
it, tastes it, unseen, and withdraws his touch again.
Hannibal leans against the wall, an uncharacteristic slump, hand rubbing
against his face, back through his hair, before his eyes return to the boy’s
heaving sides, curling toes, rising tremors shaking against the unyielding
table.
“It is only you, ever, with whom I have shared this,” Hannibal finally intones.
“Of all the little would-be doctors, musicians, artists,” he adds, pointedly,
“all pale in compare to what I thought that we shared. What made you so unlike
them. My mistake, perhaps.”
He pushes from the wall, feet padding soft, bare, against the cold floor.
“I have shared in your hunt, but you will not share in mine. You will resist
mine, fight them if you are there or absent, it matters not. Break my
belongings, lay ruin to my routines, and destroy any enjoyment I receive from
such things, while you insist on continuing, unabated.”
The leather strokes cool, lower now, against Will’s thighs yet untouched.
“Tell me,” Hannibal asks, “how must I feel in seeing you come home flushed,
bruised by the hands and mouths of others? Knowing they - undeserving - have
touched you, heard your gentle pleas, pressed and stained themselves inside of
you? No matter how they end, knowing as you come to me and press your mouth
against mine and I taste them on you, knowing that this was their last
experience in this world. To delight in you as I do, and yet for me to be the
one tasked with scrubbing them from your skin.”
Will heaves another gentle sob and shakes violently, feeling the leather
against undamaged skin. He shakes harder at the words.
“Like acid fills your lungs,” he says softly. “Anger with no outlet - they’re
already dead, so you punish me.” He whimpers gently and forces his muscles to
relax. “You don’t… punish me, you reclaim me… you want me…”
Hot tears make new tracks down his face, from shame, from pain, from the sudden
agonizing need to have the man hold him, and knowing he doesn’t deserve it.
“How do you control it?” he whispers, fingers curling hard in the rope, knowing
what’s coming, knowing he can’t escape it and forcing himself still, even
restrained as he is, as he had when Hannibal had pressed that mark into his
skin.
He can easily imagine the tension in Hannibal’s chest, the nausea that crawls
up his throat, the mental images that don’t go away. He wonders what it’s like
to smell that off of him, what it’s like to know that someone else had enjoyed
Will, this broken toy that Hannibal can’t bring himself to toss aside.
Will swallows and arches his back, acceptance of more punishment.
“I trust,” Hannibal replies quietly. “I trust that no matter what other bed you
fall into, you will return to mine when you are finished. I trust that their
hands do not please you the way that mine do. I trust that you are a part of
this, with me, and I trusted that you are not a conflict to be resolved.”
He pauses, swallows hard.
“I trust that no other words matter so much as the ones I share with only you.”
His fist tightens, and he brings the belt down hard across the back of Will’s
pale thighs.
Catharsis, for a hunt spoiled.
Catharsis, for the boy’s cruelty.
Catharsis, for the hurt sharp as blades between Hannibal’s ribs that he has so
rarely ever felt before.
“Words that you tell me now are false. After I extend to you my life, my manner
of procurement, so that you can see.”
Another strike, the weight of his shoulders dropping behind it.
“So that you, then, will trust”
Will is crying in earnest now, loud, helpless, childish sobs at the truth fed
him that drowns him in his shame.
Selfish, cruel, incorrigible boy.
Trust. Given him by someone who does not trust, someone whose entire world is
built on the opposite of trust. Trust given by a man who cultivates deceit, who
gets off on feeding soft lies to softer mouths.
Trust that he had given a boy who had survived him thrice and had never once
tried to end him since.
Will isn’t sure when the blows stop, doesn’t know how long he’s been tied down
- the table no longer feels cold, his entire body throbs with heat and utter
agony. His thighs are numb with pain yet somehow still burn with it, pain that
swells with every harsh inhale and every short inhale.
Will doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until a warm hand settles in his
hair and turns his head so he’s breathing cool air and not his own panicked
exhalations. He feels black in the corners of his vision before Hannibal’s soft
words to slow down, and breathe deep and listen to my voice penetrate the
buzzing in Will’s head.
He doesn’t laugh, here, not here. He shakes, adrenaline coursing through his
system, body responding the same way he does in a fight and he has nowhere to
burn it. His breathing eases, as Hannibal commands it to, but he doesn’t stop
crying, he doesn’t stop pulling in deep breaths that expand his lungs against
the table and remind him he’s alive.
Again.
Still.
A life he is trusted with, now, not one that is his own.
“I trust you,” he moans.
The boy is bleeding where the belt broke across him, and does not twitch in
response to the bead of scarlet that trails down pale skin. Numbed by his
body’s attempts to protect itself from the pain being inflicted on it. A
familiar sensation to the one Hannibal now feels, turned inward, however,
rather than out.
He loosens the belt from his hand and stretches his fingers, watching the color
return to them.
“So you say,” Hannibal finally acknowledges, and he pulls aside a stool to sit
beside the boy grown cold with shock, even as he sweats and keens as though his
body is burning hot.
“I have given as much as I know how,” says Hannibal softly. “All that I
understand how to give another. I will not give you this, Will. Not now, or
ever, as I would not expect you to yield yours to me.”
An insurmountable impasse, to expect one to change this aspect of themselves so
drastically for the other, and yet for all the knowing of its impossibility,
Hannibal sighs at the pull of tension that snares within him. He should not
care, he tells himself. The boy should not be alive and it should be no matter
to make it so. The mere implication that Hannibal’s life would be disrupted in
the fundamental ways in which this child has lashed out would have been enough
to see anyone who so threatened it be killed without hesitation.
And yet.
Hannibal’s fingers spread, stroking again through the sweat-soaked curls. Just
as lost as the boy in these unfamiliar waters, as undefined in destination.
Hannibal swallows, hard, a clicking in his throat, as he asks, “So tell me,
then - what’s to be done about that?”
Will doesn’t reply, not with words. He tries to take a quick mental tally of
his injuries and loses track fairly quickly in keeping everything steady. His
wrists are raw where he had tried to struggle free, despite his own desire to
take this like it was earned. He flexes his fingers now, just to see them move,
to know he can still move them.
"I asked," he starts, voice hoarse, "to see you work once, just once. I will
not ask to again." He won't be able to prove himself with another test, and he
refuses to lose the man’s trust further by begging for more chances.
"The next time I join you on a hunt, on your hunt, will be by your request
alone, not by my word."
An earning. Trust that one day, Hannibal would ask him, and it will be within
his power to refuse or accept, and that he would have the strength, then, to
know.
“There will not be another chance. It is done,” Hannibal informs him, standing
abruptly, wholly unmoved by the promises that feel so entirely selfish, so
empty of atonement.
His hand tightens, snarling sharp in the boy’s curls, and he bends him back.
Sees his neck curve, hears the whimper that falls against the table that holds
the memories of so many boys just like him.
“I have tried to keep my murders as my own,” Hannibal reminds the boy. “That,
too, cost me. Priceless porcelain destroyed in your blind fury and jealousy,
and that even after cleaning up after myself. Leaving no traces to disturb you.
No more left behind than my own openness in refusing to lie to you about it.”
He jerks the boy’s head and releases him, pacing away, fingers flexing,
attention dropping to the belt on the floor.
“Nothing pleases you. Your hunger so far exceeds even my own that you would
seek to devour from me what you once seemed to -,” Hannibal stops, the word
unspoken but drawing a curl of lip from him, tone darkening, aching.
“I see precious few solutions, Will, that would make this sustainable.”
Will doesn't argue that, sets his forehead to the table and shakes from the
pain and cold. His breath hitches when he speaks again.
"I have learned where to strike," he says softly, "to not paint the ceiling. To
not soak a carpet. I have learned to clean a scene. To not reveal lies masked
as truths."
He swallows.
"I have the capacity to learn from punishment."
The silence lingers between them, the unspoken reminder that this is the second
punishment for one crime of jealousy.
"If you trust," he bites his lip, eyes closing and breath seeping slowly
between his teeth, "that I can still learn... let me. If I've lost that trust,
then the belt belongs around my neck, not over my skin."
Hannibal lifts the belt from the floor, a scrape of the buckle against cold
cement, the only sound as Will’s words settle heavy between them. A promise
once made, a suggestion often repeated, and a solution that Hannibal knows, in
the hollows of his bones, that he cannot bring himself to complete.
“My trust,” Hannibal finally responds, “is not in question. It is whether that
trust has been misplaced, in a boy who acts as little more than beast.”
Hannibal’s hand runs over the curve of the boy’s ass, ungentle, to feel the
heat of his wounds, the tacky blood broken from raw skin beneath his belt. His
touch settles, fingernails curling not in pain but in promise, against the burn
branded inside his skinny thigh.
“I have shown you my devotion,” Hannibal intones softly. “This, marked against
your skin. As good as my name, as my promises that I must prove again and
again. Chances upon chances forever granted because you know as well as I that
no matter whose skin this scar is worn on, who truly bears its weight.”
A whisper, more to himself than Will, as Hannibal snarls softly. “I should tear
it from you with my bare fingers and swallow it.”
The touches fall away, the belt set aside, the rush of anger and betrayal, hurt
and bewilderment all released. A knife is drawn from the side table, the boy’s
bonds severed where they hold him to the table, and there is a tonelessness,
drawn from the void that begs ceaseless to be satisfied, when Hannibal speaks
again.
“There are no more chances, Will. You have exhausted them. Exhausted me. My
patience is at an end and I want no more words to coax it back.”
The ropes slump to the ground.
“It is fled,” Hannibal informs him, pressing a hand against his face and
letting it fall away. “Endangered again, I will end you with no more thought
than I spare to any other. Not an act of pleasure, but one of preservation, to
save myself from you.”
Will’s breath shudders from him and he brings his hands up to curl under his
face, shocked for a moment when they’re warm compared to the skin that had
pressed to the unforgiving metal beneath him. For a long while he doesn’t move,
gathering himself, trying to breathe, and when he finally pushes himself to
standing, he feels dizziness nearly overcome him.
From the fear, the cold, the loss of fluid through blood and tears. He catches
the table and holds, white-knuckled, until it passes, until he can see without
fear of his vision tunnelling.
When he looks up, Hannibal is closer, as though the half-step needed to catch
Will before he had caught himself was made on reflex before he’d held back on
the follow through. Will swallows, feels himself tremble with the knowledge
that Hannibal would have gone, would have caught him despite the words, despite
the warnings, and when he steps back he stumbles and Hannibal does catch him.
Hot hands against Will’s goosepimpled skin, and Will can’t help but cling back,
just enough to seep some warmth back, enough to understand that he can’t push
enough for this trust to go away, for this man to.
“I won’t,” he swallows, shakes his head, frowns. “I can’t coax it back,” he
agrees. “But I will earn it.”
It is the first time a boy has ever risen from that table, stood from it still
breathing and whole, and it rips a sigh from Hannibal, soft, scarcely heard,
anguish and relief in turn.
His boy. His remarkable, infuriating, beautiful boy.
Hannibal dips beneath the trembling arms around him, and holds Will behind his
knees, hoisting him from where he stands to carry him in his arms instead of
forcing him to walk, the boy shaking so hard he feels as though he’s going to
fall to pieces.
As if he hadn’t, already.
“You can,” Hannibal sighs, lifting his chin as Will buries his head against
him, tucks his face against his skin and tries to find his breath again. “You
will.”
Less certainty than hope, some distant desperation for them to find a stalemate
in this as well, an equal understanding, acceptance, from the only other person
who could ever hope to offer it.
“Tell me,” Hannibal breathes against him. “Tell me what you would have of me. I
know not what to do with you, for you, in this.” He pulls the boy fiercely
against him, arm tightening around his shoulders, to warm away the cold, to
ease away the terror he wrought in him.
Will just holds on, curled around Hannibal as fiercely as the other is holding
him, feeling his body return to himself, warm up, share the heartbeat that he
had worried he would not be able to sync up with again.
He doesn’t know. He has nothing to say. Everything that he has done, none of it
has earned this, none has earned this kindness of warm, of gentleness and
closeness, none has earned him to live as long as he has and yet he lives, he
feels his heart thud in his ears and feels its echo against his chest.
“As you are,” Will breathes. “Please, stay as you are.”
I would have you no other way.
I would not have you change, for me.
Hannibal hums, soft acknowledgment of the words, nose tucked against Will’s
hair for a moment more before he shifts his weight enough to move with him. To
carry him from the basement, alive, to bring him back to the bed that would be
barren without him.
He does not linger on the words. Tries not to think of how much already has
been changed by his own choice to make space for this boy. The openness
wrenched from them in blood and pain, to allow them near enough for this, for
Hannibal to allow Will keys to his home that feels hollow without him in it, to
allow Will to claim his bed that feels cold when he is away from it.
Small adjustments and considerations to erode the old and form new
constructions entirely.
Hannibal does not tell Will that with him here, Hannibal cannot stay just as he
was, and in truth, would not want to when what exists instead bears such
promise.
Shifting the boy higher when he passes by the body laying where it was left
upon the floor, some effort to shield him from its sight, perhaps, Hannibal
lays him back in the bed. He is gentle in doing so, careful to turn Will onto
his side and away from the welts broken across his backside, and a firm hand
finds Will’s curls to tangle in them.
A low whisper, soft, as though unable to bring himself to give breath to the
words any louder than that.
“I would not fight you for this, Will, if I did not wish to sustain it.”
He stands, unwilling or unable to see whatever look this draws, hear whatever
words may come of it, an admission rough enough in his throat that it drives
him seeking elsewhere. To move the body, to tend to the boy’s wounds, to walk,
to pace, to convince himself that perhaps to be held is not the same as to be
trapped.
***** Chapter 19 *****
Chapter Summary
     Surprised in earnest by the result, and that Will worked sleeplessly
     to restore this to him. Rendered silent in thought beyond anything
     but the care shown to make amends for destroying something so
     inconsequential that Hannibal still held so dear.
Chapter Notes
     For the darling SLSmith22, who requested this without knowing we had
     already written it <3
Will hadn’t slept, not for three days now.
Hannibal had made it clear that unless there was a legitimate excuse for Will
to not attend college - being fucked to near incoherency in the front of the
Bentley before class didn’t count - he had to go to class, and until there had
been proof that he had attended for a week on his own, Hannibal would not allow
him back into the house.
And so Will went. Barely conscious and curled in on himself at the back of the
lecture halls.
Zeller managed to keep Will awake in psychology but the others were proving
near-impossible to sit through, simply because Will had exhausted himself
during the nights, and had to keep up his week of attendance before he could
even attempt to beg his way back into Hannibal’s bed.
It’s Friday now, blissfully, and it’s taken Will four tries to get the key into
the lock properly before he’s managed to get it open.
Inside, the apartment is a mess, clothes on the floor, lamps on from where Will
hadn’t bothered to turn them off from the night before, containers of what
could have been food or what most likely was plaster and paint litter the
kitchen and lounge. Newspaper lays scrapped on the small coffee table, beside
rest two wrapped packages, both in newspaper, but quite clearly something
amidst the mess around them.
Will gives those a smile, tired but profoundly pleased with himself, before
tossing his keys to the floor and shaking his head.
He needs to clean up. Hannibal will have his hide if he finds the place a tip
as it is and Will knows he won’t motivate himself to later.
But, perhaps, he can rest his eyes just a little first, just five minutes to
blink his way to wakefulness and get on with this. Then he can call Hannibal,
drive over, and --
When his phone rings, it’s nearly 2am, and the apartment is still a tip. Will
groans, curls in on himself. The ringing stops. A pause, and again it goes. He
yawns, blindly seeks the phone in his pocket and pulls it out, hitting speaker
and tossing it to the pillow by his face.
“‘lo,"
“Will.”
He sighs, presses a hand over his face, and leaves it there, muffling his voice
further.
“Yeah.”
A considering pause, as on the other line, Hannibal’s eyes narrow. Unheard
through the speaker, he swallows hard, but the sigh is audible as he curls his
fingers against the counter, hand tight around the phone at his ear.
“Where are you?”
Will smiles faintly behind his hand, dropping it to bring the phone a little
closer.
“At the fucking apartment, where should I be?”
Will grins at this minor defiance, knowing there’s nothing Hannibal can do
about it now, and quite a lot he can do about it later.
The silence drags longer this time as Hannibal presses his fingers to his eyes,
turns his back against the counter and lets the tension from his shoulders
unravel in inches.
Hours past when Will was supposed to arrive, hours spent attempting to read and
managing only a few pages, circling the house to tidy things that did not need
tidying, wondering and imagining and finding himself pacing, caged, for it.
Curt annoyance, now, in response.
“Here, Will. You should be here.”
Will sighs, arching into a languid stretch. “I -”
“No,” Hannibal interrupts him, panic snapping into sharp irritation instead, a
rush of words. “Though I know you must be extraordinarily burdened with the
unbearable duties of sleeping to excess, do you recall the mess you left,
before your absence?”
“I -” Will stifles a yawn, blinks himself to closer consciousness and frowns,
trying to remember.
“Nothing worse than usual?” he ventures.
“I would accept that if you genuinely studied,” comes the terse reply. “I do
not appreciate the papers all over my office, Will.”
“You appreciate seeing your name on them,” Will argues, sleepy and warm and
contented to just hear his voice until he goes to sleep again. He doesn’t
address the comment about sleeping in excess. He hopes he won’t need to.
“I can clean up the study,” he mumbles, curling up again, voice lowering and
slowing again in rest.
“You will,” Hannibal insists, pressing the phone nearer to his ear, as though
it will somehow make Will’s voice louder, closer to him. “There is hardly room
for me to work for all of the notes that you’ve left scattered in your wake.
You have neglected to take any of them with you, of course, for actual use in
your studies.”
Images behind Hannibal’s eyes as he closes them in exasperation, in exhaustion.
Men clawing filthy fingers over Will’s skin, calling him ‘baby’ and forcing him
to call them ‘daddy’ and trying in futility to hurt him, rutting against him as
if they were animals.
Blood spilled across cheap carpets, peeling linoleum. Theirs most likely, but
perhaps his as well, wounded or dead at someone’s hand other than Hannibal’s
own.
He clears his throat before the worst possibility settles in too heavy against
him - disinterest. The thought of Will realizing with immediate awareness his
own power and simply never returning to the house again to pursue instead a
life of laughing and carousing with other students, sophisticating his kills,
finding a balance nearer the status quo than what Hannibal would ever give him.
Hannibal should not worry. Convinces himself he does not, and his tone tightens
as though a belt snapped tight through clenched fingers.
“When will you be here to make amends for this, Will? Must I come retrieve you,
as well as tend to your messes?”
Will moans, an utterly obscene sound, and grins.
“Please pick me up?” he murmurs, stretching and drawing another sound from him
that he knows will be digging into Hannibal’s skin like the nails he’s most
likely driving into his palm. It amuses him, the worry behind the tone, the
concern Hannibal had tried to hard to hide and Will had read regardless.
“I’ll be so good when you get here.”
Hannibal is halfway to the door already when the answer comes, and he forces a
noise of disapproval into the phone.
“Two in the morning, Will,” Hannibal continues, sliding into his shoes and
snaring his coat from beside the door. “Two in the morning and due to your
neglect I find myself awake and drawn from my own bed to fetch you from yours.”
He stalks towards the car.
“Selfish boy.”
Somewhere in the distance of Hannibal’s tone, not buried deep enough, a smile
carries on this last declaration before the phone goes silent.
Will laughs, a delighted sound that mingles with the dial tone before he
finally clicks his phone off to hang up and pushes himself to sit.
2 AM - that means he’d been sleeping for nearly eight hours, now, like the
dead, apparently, if the pins and needles in his leg are anything to go by. He
yawns again, rubs his wrist against his eyes and forces himself up.
He takes care of personal hygiene first, a quick shower, a thorough brushing of
his teeth, shaking his wet hair out after he towels it before running a comb
through it quickly.
He stumbles on his way out of the bathroom and curses, giving his
extraordinarily messy apartment a brief look with his lip between his teeth
before very quickly shoving the worst of it that he can gather into the
bathroom and closing the door.
He’s barely to his room again when there’s a knock, and he stumbles getting
back to the door as well, opening it with a sleepy apologetic smile and leaning
back against the wall, inviting Hannibal closer.
“A week, Will.”
Hannibal steps inside and does not remove his shoes, but neither does he step
further into the apartment. Not that anything that might be on his shoes would
particularly matter, considering the state of the carpet, but Hannibal remains
politely where he stands anyway.
The older man has not taken the time to dress as he normally would, it seems,
with just an expensive sweater pulled on quickly above his slacks. He resists
the urge to reach for the boy, to hoist him up and pin him to the wall and take
his fill of him right then and there, and instead folds his hands neatly
together.
A counterpoint to the harried manner of dress, to the sweep of hair unarranged
that falls into his eyes.
“A week, I have been in the tyranny of your absence.” Fondness, curling warm
against the edges of his scolding. “I see that this time has not been spent
cleaning your own space, either.”
His tongue appears to dampen his lips, attention finally lingering on the
scruffy, grinning boy beside him, still reclining against the wall.
“A week.”
“You forced me to wait,” Will reminds him. “To go to class and not go home
until I did.”
He pretends to pout, and with the way his hair is already drying in messy curls
over his forehead and how wide his eyes are in the dim light, he looks somewhat
like a very pitiful drowned creature.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he bites his lip, grins. “All week.”
He stretches his shoulders a little, against the wall.
“Take me home?”
Hannibal ignores the request and turns towards him, unlacing his fingers and
pressing a hand against the wall beside the boy’s head. The brush of curls
against his arm, the smell of soap and beneath it, sheets and sweat and skin.
It would be a menacing posture, looming dominant, directed towards anyone else.
He draws a breath, forcing himself to resist, and a brow raises.
“And did you? Attend your classes?”
Will watches him, knows that Hannibal already knows the answer, knows that had
Will disobeyed the lie would be discovered, that it would be punished in a way
neither would enjoy. It would not be a beating. It would be another week of
isolation.
He parts his lips with his tongue and blinks languidly, still not quite awake.
“Every single one,” he whispers, swallowing gently.
Hannibal reminds himself, as he draws nearer still to take in the scent of
Will, what lead him to send the boy away, to deny Will of their closeness in
light of botching Hannibal’s hunt.
A necessity, time alone to consider his actions and what they might have cost
them both.
“Take me home?”
Even though he hardly cares about the classes now, Hannibal responds with
pleasure to the words. Too soon yet to give up the game between them. He needs
it, wills it as a distraction from his own concern, kept sleepless and
increasingly fraught as he waited to hear the door open and that sound never
came.
Relieved from that panic only now, now that he can feel Will beneath him as he
pins him softly to the wall, to feel his heart beat and know his nearness as
though they had been apart weeks rather than days.
“Yes,” Hannibal finally agrees, sighing soft against Will’s hair before turning
his tone terse once more. “And should I carry you out as well? Or are you more
capable of standing than you are of cleaning up after yourself?”
Will makes a gentle noise but resists pressing close here as well - he will
when they get to the house, where he can wrap his legs around Hannibal and be
carried, laid down, pressed close to…
“I can walk,” he assures him, tilting his head up to see Hannibal again, both
of them so close now, just a breath away, and Will slips out from under
Hannibal’s arm to return to the main room and gather his sweater from the back
of the couch, much to Hannibal’s dismay, and to take up the two wrapped,
shapeless things on his coffee table.
“We can go,” Will tells him, returning, tilting his head with a smile.
Outside, it’s very cold in the early morning, and Will ends up curled on the
heated seat and dozing by the time the garage door closes behind them. He wakes
with a jolt, blinking sleepily at Hannibal in the driver’s seat.
“I missed you,” he tells him honestly, quietly, before pushing himself to
stretch, bending near backwards in his seat with another utterly sexual sound
as his muscles stretch from laxity. He sends Hannibal a pleased look before
gathering the two parcels and getting out of the car.
Inside, he sets them in the kitchen, just on the counter - shoes off at the
door, of course - before returning to where Hannibal is setting his shoes away
and finally pressing close enough to kiss him.
“I really missed you.”
It doesn’t need to be spoken, but neither is it hidden, the ache of Hannibal’s
longing for his boy, his growing concern over what may have happened that
delayed Will’s awaited return. It’s felt in the way he folds his arms around
Will and lifts him from the floor, in how he moves to support him when Will’s
legs immediately wrap over his hips, lingering rather than ushering him off to
the bedroom right away.
It is felt in the way Hannibal does not scold him any longer - no more thinly
veiled excuses for the worry that shows so overtly.
Hannibal buries his nose against the curve of Will’s neck and breathes him in
as though Will were oxygen itself, deprived to Hannibal for the length of their
absence. He closes his eyes and seeks out every nuance of information he can
find, reinforces to himself the familiar smell of his boy.
Will tilts his head to allow Hannibal to nuzzle against him, almost animalistic
in the way he reclaims what is his.
“You have not slept,” Hannibal observes gently. It was obvious enough before,
all softly slurred words and sleepy looks, but now he can feel the exhaustion
in the familiar heaviness of Will’s body braced against him.
Will shakes his head against him and smiles softly. He doesn’t elaborate.
Instead, he nuzzles closer, not quite as possessive in his scenting of the
other man as he had been of him, but it’s just as needed for him to feel that,
to know that Hannibal lifts his chin for him.
Like two wolves, checking on each other at the end of a hunt, from a long time
parted.
“I’ll be fine,” he mumbles, already wanting to curl up again, his body
demanding a catch up on all the hours he’d missed fulfilling his obligations,
and possibly forgotten promises. “We can sleep in on the weekend,” he reminds,
almost unnecessarily.
Will grins, relishes in the closeness when Hannibal starts to make his way up
to the bedroom, carrying Will with him. It’s so comfortable, this, so familiar,
and neither say anything until Hannibal sets Will to the bed and he finally
unfurls onto it, turning onto his stomach and sighing deeply against the
sheets.
He feels a hand in his hair, carding through the damp strands, and arches into
it, murmurs something softly in French, an endearment, a request for company
and softness and closeness after a week without. It hardly matters, now.
He doesn’t have enough energy left to call Hannibal back when he heads
downstairs again, perhaps to check the lights and locks. Instead he just dozes,
determined to be awake when the man slides into bed with him so he can curl
close.
Will groans, makes the effort to shuck his clothes and shift under the blankets
before his eyes close.
Hannibal glances towards the study as he passes it. There is a small stack of
papers on the corner, and he wonders if perhaps he may have exaggerated the
mess that Will left behind. No matter. Hannibal will scatter the papers in the
morning for him to pick up, both delighting in the effort as he arches and
whines and bends so beautifully.
It matters only that Will is here now, and safe. The thought plays skipping,
repeating, until Hannibal allows himself to hear its rhythm. Leaning against
the doorway to the study, his attention settles on the couch where last they
began to discover new territories unbroached by either, thrilling and
frightening in their newness.
But this feeling, now, sits heavier still. Hannibal closes his eyes, pressing
them beneath his fingers. He finds the specific place on his solar plexus where
that weight lingers, no longer threatening to snap his ribs from their moorings
but still smothering, and he names it fear.
So named, it is dismissed. Will is here now, and safe.
Hannibal winds his way through the house, shutting off lights as he goes. He
pours a glass of water for Will in the kitchen and in passing notes the
newspaper bundles left on the counter. A faint twist of lips, displeased by
this disorder, but Will had ducked in here without retrieving his usual water
to carry back upstairs.
Left for him, then, Hannibal knows, and gingerly unpeels the newsprint.
Bone white, accented with blue. Peonies, painted on delicate porcelain from a
world apart. Shining gold striped through cracks as though rivers running wild,
reflecting the low lights in glimmering bands. Shards he last saw splintered
across the tile floor in a bout of rage for a presumed betrayal, now whole
again in a new and unexpected way.
Hannibal traces the pad of a thumb across one of the joins, follows its
glittering path and feels its rough imperfections, and he knows then that Will
himself restored them to this state of broken beauty.
He is, for a moment, taken aback. Surprised in earnest by the result, and that
Will worked sleeplessly to restore this to him. Rendered silent in thought
beyond anything but the care shown to make amends for destroying something so
inconsequential that Hannibal still held so dear.
Will stirs when the glass is set beside him on the nightstand, a sleepy purr as
he stretches bare against the sheets. Hannibal peels his own clothes free and
lets them fall where he stands, settling heavy into the bed behind Will.
He pulls his boy tightly back against him and buries his face into the still-
damp curls of hair to sigh him in again, anew. Soft nuzzles, breaths that
declare silently I know you, I longed for you, I worried for you and now you
are here.
“Beautiful, Will.”
Just a hum in reply, Will awake enough to register the words but not to
understand them. For a moment just relishing in the possessive touches, the
reacquaintance with each other. Then something stirs in him, a recognition of
the words and their appropriate meaning, perhaps, synapses firing slow but
eventually striking, and he arches back, stretching against Hannibal with a
pleased groan.
"I tried," he mumbles, but he's smiling, turning into the continued nuzzling,
bringing up a hand to curl over where Hannibal holds him.
I know you, I longed for you. I missed you, and now you're here.
He sighs, exhausted, and allows himself to relax entirely with the monster at
his back.
He had found the shards carefully folded away, during a day he'd woken late and
wandered the house alone in Hannibal's absence, and the guilt had been almost
crippling; a memory he had pushed down far and fast, locked until then. The
pain in Hannibal’s expression, the genuine fondness for both pieces, both
utterly priceless in their complexity, when Will had so heartlessly shattered
both.
He had started to sort them then, near-impossible with their near-identical
pattern, their once beautiful shape, and had kept them hidden until such a time
as he could take them home unnoticed and begin his work.
Kintsugi.
Perfectly imperfect.
He bites his lip and smiles when Hannibal doesn't stop touching him. Hands
spread across Will’s skin, taking in as much as Hannibal can grasp, never
enough to satisfy and so seeking, over the curls of hair low on his belly, palm
warm across his hips, his stomach, gliding against his chest to pull him back
further still.
One hand remains lower, though, tracing the pale thighs that twitch in
response, to find the small scar, round and raised, and press his thumb across
it.
His mark, his boy, here against him with quickening pulse and squirming sounds
of sleepy pleasure.
Hannibal takes his taste as well, kissing languidly across Will’s shoulder to
rest his lips where his neck curves to meet it, to feel his blood race warm
beneath his skin.
It matters that Will remembered his actions, matters more still that he
recalled his breathless promise to correct them, and matters most that he did
so, at the cost of his own sleep while meeting Hannibal’s insatiable demands,
repairing what was wrought in his rage.
“Better now, than before,” Hannibal responds softly.
Another pleased sound, a flush to Will’s cheeks, and he curses how exhausted he
is, hates that the most he can do is roll his hips back against the obvious and
steadily growing erection between Hannibal’s legs.
His lips draw back when the scar is brushed again, not a month made and still
so sensitive it sends him into shaking when it's touched. It's become one of
Hannibal’s favorite torments to spread Will wide and kiss the darkened skin, to
brush his lips over it, to breathe against it.
It has Will writhing, breathless, and he adores every moment.
A soft keen leaves Will’s lips and he trembles, a sensation brought about by
the closeness, the softness, this, after a week of not.
Hannibal takes up every tremor that tenses through Will’s tired body, presses
it back against his own skin instead.
“Stay still,” he breathes into Will’s hair, hips rolling against him now, a
languid pace steady and serene. Antagonistic activities, to stir and soothe him
all at once, and delight in the pull of desires emanating at odds from the
writhing, whimpering thing in his arms.
He reaches back enough to grasp the lube from beside the bed, rubbing slickness
between his fingers. Cold, wet as he drags his fingertips between Will’s thighs
from behind, rubbing slow circles against his opening. Hannibal hums as the
boy’s hips turn back against him, twisting towards the movement of his fingers.
Even in near-sleep, a decadent creature, unable and unwilling to resist the tug
of temptation after time apart.
Hannibal draws a deep breath as he parts and penetrates him, pressing inside
with a single slow push.
A moan, drawn long and low, and Will’s body turns into familiar shapes, wanting
Hannibal deeper, hot inside him. He doesn't hear the words or perhaps just
doesn’t heed them, and rolls his hips in pleasure, squeezes his muscles, moans
again.
It's rare they have sex this way, gentle and almost loving - it's possessive,
Will convinces himself - and he relishes every moment, quiet noises and
twitches of his hips.
"More?" he mumbles, grinning and turning his face to the pillow, hands curled
lightly in the sheets.
Hannibal shushes him gently, a hushed whisper against his ear as though through
words alone he would soothe the boy to sleep again even as he splays his
fingers inside him, a delicious stretch just a little too quick to be
comfortable. A low sound, bitten softly into Will’s shoulder to feel his groan
ache satisfied from him as Hannibal rolls his hips in response, a week without
relief - begun from anger towards Will’s behavior, dragged out from
anticipation of his return.
“Quiet,” Hannibal purrs against him, withdrawing his fingers to slick his cock
instead. Long strokes rubbed between the boy’s cheeks, rutting in lazy thrusts,
unhurried.
Catching his other hand beneath Will’s jaw, palm pressed against his throat,
Hannibal pulls Will’s head back against his shoulder, holds him arched there to
feel the boy’s breath against his cheek.
“Have you missed me, Will?” A question that needs not be asked, the answer
already abundantly clear, but words that Hannibal desires to hear all the same,
a voice to echo the movements of Will’s eager writhing against his own.
Will bites his lip against the teasing and finds he still can’t keep himself
quiet, unused, especially here, to holding his voice in pleasure.
"Yes, yes." Another whine, another gasped and warm noise and a pleased shiver
through Will’s entire body. Nerves and senses honed sharp, here, now, with this
attention against him. He wants nothing more than to settle on his knees, back
arched, to present himself and be rewarded with a sound fucking.
"I ached.” A familiar script yet one never yet untrue. He had not had time to
hunt, had barely had time to eat - he can’t remember if he has, today - and
this... he has missed this.
"Please."
Another pull to tug Will’s chin back, to bring their mouths together, catching
in the corners at this awkward angle but enough for Hannibal to taste his lips,
the grin that curves across them as Will is once again brought into possession
beneath Hannibal’s hands.
He sets himself against the boy’s opening, a careful rolling motion in his hips
to bring himself just inside his boy, sighing against his skin, head ducked
against Will’s shoulder to watch his cock press into into him in inches, little
strokes both tender and teasing.
The instructions change again, no longer hushing the boy to quiet, now
demanding to hear him speak.
“Tell me, Will,” comes the insistent murmur, as Hannibal spreads a hand across
Will’s belly to pull him back against him, finding a rocking motion between the
movement of their bodies far removed from Hannibal’s earlier anticipation of
yanking Will by his hair as he came through the door and bending him over the
dining room table, bruises banged into skinny thighs as Hannibal fucked him
until he sobbed.
Gentle, now, a rarer thing and - surprising to them both - no less satisfying
for the serene searching of hands and mouths and shifting hips.
Will nearly purrs with pleasure, drawing a knee up to open himself further, to
feel the familiar stretch, so much missed, as Hannibal starts a rhythm.
He’s still only half awake, pleased and warm and now horny, unbelievably
horny...
"I missed your hands," he says, voice steady but low. "I missed them wrapping
around me, pulling me up..." He gasps, pushes back more, finds he has little
say in the matter. In truth, he has missed all aspects of Hannibal’s hands; his
clever fingers, his strength, the way his hand prints felt over his ass and
thighs, across his face in anger...
Hannibal adjusts, just enough, and the next thing pulled from Will is a
helpless little whimper.
"This, I've missed this, please..." Will laughs, exhausted but delighted, when
Hannibal bites gently against his shoulder.
"Ah -"
Another shush, breathed against the curve of Will’s neck where Hannibal holds
his chin in place, head resting back against Hannibal’s shoulder. Quieting his
pleas, eager to hear them, a muddle of desires to hear every sound and feel
every movement that his boy would yield to him, all at once.
“Then it behooves us both,” Hannibal whispers, voice rough, “that you not earn
that particular punishment again.” A kiss, draped warm and open-mouthed up to
the curve of Will’s jaw, teeth grazing his ear. “I have thought of little but
you, to the point of distraction. Everywhere, Will - your messes, your clothes,
the glass left beside the bed. Everywhere I look you have left your mark.”
The words shift into a low groan, as Hannibal works himself deeper now, burying
himself as deeply as he can, as slowly as he can.
Fingernails draw across the tightening muscles of Will’s stomach, hold his hip
in place for a few languid thrusts, and finally a broad hand settles around his
cock to tug the length of it, a hum of approval as Will grows harder still
despite his languor.
Their own state of kintsugi, repairing the sharp cracks between them to become
more beautiful than before.
“I have missed you, Will.”
He presses the length of his body against Will, nearly turning him onto his
stomach. No words spoken about his alarm, fear, worry that sent him pacing
trapped and restless, but tangible in the grasping hands that seek to cover
every inch of Will’s body with his own.
“Painfully.”
Another mewl of pleasure, Will’s fingers splaying and folding on the sheets,
lips parting on more little needy noises.
Will hadn’t been able to hunt well, sleep well, do anything beyond throw
himself headfirst into fixing the things he broke. Days were spent barely awake
behind a fold out desk in college, playing tic tac toe in psychology between
two desks and a book laid between with Zeller, trying to stay awake in his
other classes alone.
He had been restless, hungry, physically aching for the man now behind him, now
granting him the mercy of deeper and harder and more, even if just by
increments.
"Hannibal -" It's almost sobbed, but no tears, just a desperate need for him.
Will raises his hips, arches his back, relishes in the fingers in his hair that
alternate between gentle stroking and harsh tugs.
Hannibal resists the drive for release, fights down the tightening sensation
spiralling through his stomach to be here, now, like this for as long as he can
stand it. A shudder, snarling past his lips, as he grips Will close against
him, a constant shifting of bodies to touch and to taste and to smell and to
gasp when they sync together in their movements. Hannibal sinks an arm across
the front of Will’s shoulders to hold him in place, his other hand still
stroking in time to his own quickening thrusts, shallower, to open his eyes
again and watch as it sends shivers pulsing through Will’s body.
“Ask me,” he whispers rough against Will’s ear - asking to be asked, a demand
and a submission all at once.
“Ask me for it.” Hannibal’s hand stops, fist wrapped just a little too tight
around the throbbing pink head of Will’s cock, to hold him at bay, still
pushing him into the sheets, a sheen of sweat between them.
"Harder..." Will's writhing, now, twisting beneath him and stretching, legs
shifting wider, hips rolling back. He’s trembling, close to release and denied
it, though his words are heeded and Hannibal starts to fuck him in earnest.
"Thought about you all week," he nearly sobs, stretches his arms up in front of
him, laughs when Hannibal brings a hand down to pin them to the bed together.
"Wanted this, wanted you..."
So much, so desperately…
"Hannibal... please," Will deepens the arch in his back. “Please, please make
me cum... make me -"
Forehead pressed to Will’s shoulder, eyes closed, Hannibal sees him. Sees him
bent over his cheap table seaming porcelain together with gold smeared across
his fingers and his face, sees him tipping back only to jerk awake again,
fighting sleep in his classes. Sees him in bed, restless, wild body twisting
and turning in the sheets, and a breath draws in sharply, as he sees Will bent
and bowed, fingers inside himself, caressing his scar and whimpering Hannibal’s
name in his absence.
Hannibal’s arm tightens, squeezing Will against him now in an effort to feel
every muscle move when he writhes, every breath spread his ribs panted and
pleading, ever pulse and every shudder as Hannibal loosens his grip enough on
Will’s cock to feel him come undone, hot, thick across his fingers.
He follows, fast, uncoiling warm and wet inside Will, a harsh sigh tearing
itself from him in release, body snapped taut with orgasm held at bay, himself,
too long during Will’s exile.
A hard swallow, as he starts to relax, as Will whines softly with his own
pleasure as Hannibal works his hand slowly over him, dragging from him every
drop of white and every sigh he can.
Will doesn’t stop him, even when it goes from pleasurable to painful with how
sensitive he is; he relishes every second, every touch against him until he
whimpers in earnest and, with a kiss to the back of his neck, Hannibal lets him
go.
Heavy against his back, panting, just as sated and spent and pleased.
Will moans, a gentle noise, when Hannibal pulls out of him, and turns, wrapping
his arms around the man to bring him close, to kiss him deeply and take his
fill of it.
His body is heavy, tired, languid and warm and he knows within a few moments he
will be asleep so deeply nothing will wake him.
He wraps his legs around Hannibal regardless, clinging almost childishly to the
man above him, and Hannibal holds him fast as he turns onto his back. Easily,
he pulls Will on top of him, to lay curled and small against the length of his
body. He settles a hand in Will’s hair and one against his back, stroking
slowly along his spine.
“You must tend to your mess tomorrow,” Hannibal informs him, gently amused by
the thought of scattering the boy’s papers across the study. Perhaps he’ll make
him crawl for them. Perhaps he’ll make him do it stripped bare, to be rewarded
- or punished - spread moaning across the floor.
A hum of pleasure, as he tilts his cheek into his boy’s hair and kisses him,
feeling Will’s breath already slowed to sleep.
***** Chapter 20 *****
Chapter Summary
     For a moment he wonders if he’s lost time, if, for one brief moment,
     he’s returned to the scene from months ago: Will covered head to toe
     in blood, hair matted with it, skin slick with it, grinning from the
     floor like a depraved little nymph.
     Warnings for this chapter: copious amounts of blood, graphic
     depictions of surgery, graphic violence.
     For Zadikall, who requested protective Hannibal :)
Chapter Notes
     Notes from the writer's room: read to the very end. The very end.
     *points up* there are notes to consider when you finish.
     A huge, huge thank you to anyone and everyone who read, commented,
     left kudos, bookmarked, passed this over, showed it to their friends,
     considered it at all. It has gained quite a following and we are so
     proud of this little story that did. To say it's the story that could
     would be wrong, because it always could but we never planned it to be
     this long, to have so many other characters and factors involved. It
     was meant to be a one-shot. 3 chapters maximum. And yet, here we are
     on 20.
     Thanks, also, to the person who listens to me rant at 2am about how
     Will this Hannibal that. Heather has kept me perfectly insane and I
     could not be more grateful <3
     - V
     A billion thank yous. Thank you everyone who's read, enjoyed,
     commented, kudos'd, reblogged, made amazing images and found music
     that reminded them of this craziness, dropped us notes, sent us
     kinks, or even just screeched at us from a distance. It means more
     than we can put into words (which is saying something, since we are
     so fucking full of them). Thank you even if all you did was side-eye
     all of this depravity from a distance (I don't blame you). This has
     all been so much more than we planned on it being, and every step of
     it has been an utter joy (and terror, at times!). We've loved every
     minute of it.
     And, because this my section of the thanks dammit, all my love to
     Val, always, for being my constant in every way. <3
     - H
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The call had come late, and unexpected.
Neither Will nor Hannibal had included the other in a hunt for weeks, content,
for the moment, to share only the aftermath of each respective kill and save
the other the work to get there - each for their own reasons.
Reunions were always silent at the beginning, just soft presses together, lips
and hands exploring, finding new scars, tasting death. Then reclaiming, almost
violent nuzzling to scent the other back to themselves, to feel them return,
hands fumbling and clothes scattered and harsh deep fucking to remember, to
remind.
Then came rest. Together. Hands and lips exploring again.
Now Hannibal idles the car two houses from the address Will had given, forcing
down the niggling sensation that something was wrong. The air itself smelled
wrong, clammy; a neighbourhood too normal to have the lights off on the front
porch - the only house seemingly entirely locked down.
And Will’s voice.
Hannibal doesn’t think of how Will had sounded when he’d called, words too
quick, as though with excitement, and laden heavy with anything but.
He switches the music off. A distraction, now, noise that detracts from the
focus that holds him. The car follows in turn, clicking quietly to silence.
Senses sharp, piqued by something he can’t quite pin down beyond vague
correlations.
Fingers drum against the steering wheel. A memory, there, of his hands grasping
Will instead of the wheel, the boy writhing flushed and crying out his name as
he rode Hannibal as fiercely as he could in the cramped confines.
He tells himself he’s worrying, again, a feeling unfamiliar enough through his
life that he is still acquainting himself with it. He tells himself that last
time he felt that sharpening in his blood, the boy had merely fallen asleep.
Unlikely now, considering where Hannibal knows him to be, but a worthwhile
reminder of how this sensation can turn Hannibal’s senses against himself.
Sighing, allowing that at least to ease the feeling, he checks the time.
His jaw clenches, once.
An addendum to their tenuous accord to not disrupt, to hardly comment, on the
activities of the other was that Hannibal would make himself available to the
boy when he was out. Will’s habits have always been riskier, for himself being
so relatively small, for his method and clientele being far removed from
Hannibal safely speaking promises to boys in his own bedroom.
The call had brought him here and here he has waited, resistant to involving
himself before he was needed - twenty minutes since the boy was supposed to
appear, twenty minutes since he should have thrown himself relaxed and ready to
be reclaimed into the car, twenty minutes since Hannibal should have felt the
grasping fingers and warm mouth pressed against him in adoration with the boy’s
constant praise of having rescued him.
Twenty minutes too long.
Hannibal emerges from the car, sweeping his coat free of the door and pressing
it closed, rather than slamming it. He approaches the house, quickly enough to
not be seen lingering, grateful for the suspicious darkness that still shields
him from nosy neighbors.
When he tries the door, it’s unlocked, and another fold of his coat ensures no
fingerprints when he, just as gently, presses it closed behind him. Within, the
house is large, the layout much the same to his own through the interior feels
cluttered, a family home, perhaps, or simply someone who enjoyed having many
things in few rooms.
There are only lights on upstairs, evident by the shadows they cast against the
stairs, the windows don’t face the street.
It’s quiet, the quiet of a house in slumber, appropriate for the hour of night
that Hannibal has found himself here, and yet there is a lingering… something.
The silence isn’t full, it struggles with soft footfalls and gentle shifts,
with gasped thick breaths.
And then a sound, unmistakable, like meat on meat, an almost rhythmic pounding
interrupted only by a soft cry of pain - one muffled by its constant
repetition, by minutes, hours of slowly growing weaker.
The rhythm stops, the cry turns to a hitched sob, the odd thickness to it as
before that tightens the worry in Hannibal’s chest to something almost
tangible.
A voice, a curse, another sharp kick and then silence.
Shuffles and quick short breaths. And nothing more.
Enough sound to follow.
Shoes peeled free in steps as he goes, footfalls silent, fast on the stairs to
take them two at a time, shrugging his coat off to let it fall behind. An
embarrassment, if he is wrong. A hinderance, if he is not.
He smells the blood before he sees it.
Heavy and metallic, but with something more to it - acrid, bitter. Hannibal
hesitates, hearing another unsteady step, a rasp of breath at odds with one far
softer.
Enough sound to follow.
The torrent of adrenaline cascades down Hannibal’s spine. A blink, a slowing,
as if underwater when everything becomes sharpened, senses hyperaware, every
muscle pulled tight and ready to uncoil, time unfurling languid around him as
he moves.
He cuts the corner quickly, arm swinging wide in approximation of where the
floorboard creaked beneath the step that guides him, and it makes contact on
its return. An adjustment, as his elbow finds an unfamiliar face and his arm
turns in the surprise to catch this stranger around his head, a thoughtful turn
to snare him rather than merely strike.
Time enough, in that instant of surprise, to see Will.
For a moment he wonders if he’s lost time, if, for one brief moment, he’s
returned to the scene from months ago: Will covered head to toe in blood, hair
matted with it, skin slick with it, grinning from the floor like a depraved
little nymph.
Then he blinks, once, again, and the grin is a grimace, the floor is carpeted
and heavy with the weight of the blood already seeped into it, and Will looks
barely conscious, eyelids fluttering but eyes unfocused. He doesn’t make the
soft sounds anymore.
A word, one, breathed, but loud enough for the boy to turn his head, blink his
eyes as wide as he can get them before they close, too heavy to hold up.
The grimace soothes. A hand, suddenly small, so, so small, reaches, digs into
the carpet, relaxes, and he whimpers.
Time, Hannibal has found, conserves itself in these moments in the same manner
as energy. It can be neither created nor destroyed, but merely change forms. As
it slowed, the instant that he connected his elbow with the man now caught
beneath his arm, the same instant in which he saw Will - his, and his alone -
reach grasping, stretched as if a rubber band.
And now, with a snap, it returns.
A flurry of movement, when the boy can part the darkness enough to see it.
Motion, impossibly fast, savagery in the snarl that rips itself unrestrained
from Hannibal. Feral, animalistic, beneath his carriage and entirely embraced.
The man is faster than expected, hand snaring Hannibal by his collar to jerk
them both back to the ground with a shout. Better this than standing, even as
the air is knocked from Hannibal’s lungs in the fall, not enough to keep him
still, from mounting the man heavy across his stomach with a rapid twist of his
body, legs pressing hard over him.
Swings, some more direct than others, narrowly dodged, and Hannibal nearly
misses the man reaching for the knife left bloody on the floor.
Nearly misses it, but does not. Will’s knife, from the first kill he shared
with Hannibal, as familiar to him as the flicking motions he’s watched Will
perform, idle and bored, precariously close to the leather of his sofa.
Time dilates, and as the man takes up the knife it is effortless to catch his
wrist and bend it, twisting until a crackle of fibers tearing between joints
splinters through the sounds of struggle. The man shouts again, cut off hitched
and panicked, hyperventilating now in terror as he throws his body up against
Hannibal, unable to turn him off, a resettling of weight shifting easily over
the man beneath him.
Hannibal smells him piss himself, and snorts.
The knife has fallen, suspended almost mid-air when Hannibal snatches it,
drives it screeching through ribs against bone cutting cartilage and letting
the man’s voice, the splintering sounds of his body, wet and satisfying, fill
the air.
Held with both hands, dragged down the length of his chest as if in some crude
facsimile of the dissections he performs so often, but no mind for the meat
this time, this instead an act of rage, snarling and brutal and afraid for the
boy on the floor behind him, driven to protect and destroy.
For Will, it all passes in a haze. Shifting figures, like shadows in the water,
the sound of movement, the thick thuds of bodies falling to the floor, the
struggle there that he can hear with his ear pressed so close to the floor. He
remembers listening to a hand-wound watch across the length of a long wooden
table, tilting his head and grinning when he heard the seconds vibrate through
the wood, as though from beneath time itself, as though just outside it.
It was one of the few times his father had spent time with him.
They’d sold the wooden table a few weeks later, and Will had had to study
curled in the old lumpy armchair after that.
He swallows now, tries to understand if the thudding is rhythmic because
Hannibal is relentless, or because Will’s heart is.
He thinks of the club.
When he hears his name, it’s like waking from a dream, and then, in a moment,
it’s sharp as nails to his skin, and Will flinches, gasps, forces his eyes up
to see Hannibal, feels his lips tilt in a smile before that vanishes, replaced
with slack lips and panic.
“I was late, I kept you, I’m sorry -”
“Quiet,” Hannibal responds, and it sounds harsher than he means it to. He
flexes his hands, studying them, painted in bone and blood, some his own but
mostly not. It isn’t like him to lose time, when he’s measuring its rhythms, he
keeps its tempo steadily especially in moments like that.
But this had been a break, pages missing in the symphony, and when he found the
timing again the man’s face resembled nothing that could be construed as such,
a horror of tissue above where he found his hands, lodged wrist-deep in the
man’s chest cavity, ribs broken sharp against his skin.
Hannibal hums, but finds that it does not settle the seizing of his heart as
the grounding sound normally would. Not now, with Will curled at his feet.
He looks so small that Hannibal’s chest feels as raw, ripped and laid bare, as
the once-man sprawled across the floor behind him. Ducking next to him, a
careful crouch, he runs a hand across Will’s arm, and lifts it gingerly. Just
enough to see another gout of blood bubble from beneath it, that acrid bitter
smell he caught before, stomach bile, fresh.
A soft sound, mewling and weak, and the hand is drawn back with surprising
strength to press back against the wound that marrs him. Will turns his head
away, eyes closed and presses his cheek against the bloody carpet.
In defiance of his knowledge of murder and medicine alike, Hannibal will not
let himself think of it as bad. It is not, it will not be, there is nothing
done here that cannot be fixed and there is nothing that he can do to make up
for the twenty minutes spent in waiting while his boy bled out and he is
sundered by the thought, a sound born from far inside that he has not heard
himself allowed since he was a child.
“Stay still,” Hannibal instructs him, a hand pressed to the boy’s cheek - cold,
clammy, forcing another breath through Hannibal’s teeth - before he rises to
move quickly and find his coat.
Will doesn’t move from obedience and inability both, eyes barely open and only
enough to see the blood smeared against his eyelashes, seeing vague shadows
with the one not pressed to the floor. The images mingle and he has to close
them. Dizzy.
Thump-thump-thump.
Choose anyone you like, his own voice echoes back to him, and Will blinks,
trying to stay awake, we’ll make a feast of them.
He presses his lips together, tastes blood, and suddenly a panic wells inside
him that he can’t control, can’t stop rising like bile in his throat. He’s
above this failure, he’s better than this… he’s just started to earn back a
trust he’d nearly torn asunder, he can’t break it with this, not with this.
“I’ll clean… I’ll clean the blood up, I’ll clean up all the blood I promise,
I’m sorry -” the words breathless, quick, slipping from his lips and landing
cool against his hand where it rests by his face.
A loud wail of pain as Hannibal’s steady, familiar hands shift to move him, and
Will sobs. Everything hurts.
“You will,” Hannibal insists, a blind instruction, words unfit to speak and
thoughts too muddled to put to words addling what comes out, tangling his
lucidity and rendering it opaque.
His coat is laid out over the boy, wrapped around him to trap whatever warmth
still remains, to keep him bundled and tight, and there is an apology, unheard,
as he lifts the boy in his arms. Staggering, once, under the weight that feels
like so many other boys hefted motionless into his arms.
Hannibal grits his teeth and holds him tighter, to stir the motion in him, to
hear his breath, to know that he has not ended up as they have, to know that
Hannibal’s failures to end his life have not been in vain, now, his boy lost to
some other hand.
So small in his arms, and so very heavy, and so painfully still that it’s all
Hannibal can do to keep him awake.
“You will clean it,” Hannibal tells him, voice rough as he carefully descends
the stairs. No time to put his shoes on, he passes by them. “It is a terrible
mess. I have taught you better than this.”
“‘m sorry,” Another sob, another shudder of pain as Hannibal holds him tighter
to him, pushes the door closed behind them with his shoulder, walks quickly to
the car. Will shivers in the cold, one hand free and grasping for the coat to
pull it closer, to pull Hannibal closer, smearing blood against his neck in his
clumsy attempts.
He mumbles now, words slowly slurring, “He got angry. Couldn’t hold him…
stronger than I thought, rough… he was cruel,” Will’s brows furrow and he
swallows, “Wanted to leave scars, said he would… Didn’t wanna let him, not his
to mark, not his to scar.”
Will feels the hot blood against the cut too deep to be safe, to be something
to fix, and sobs, tears hot on his face as he shakes his head.
“I couldn’t stop him he marked anyway, he cut… I can’t… can’t wipe it, it won’t
go away, Hannibal it won’t go away -”
He struggles for a moment almost tearing the wound further in his attempt to
try peel it away, make it not there. He sobs again, crying harder.
“I don’t want to be his I don’t… I promise I tried to fight him, I did, I
couldn’t get away I couldn’t -”
“You are not his,” Hannibal snarls softly, a warning against an attacker now
dead, still somehow a threat to them both. “You are mine, Will. Mine alone.”
Another shift of the heaviness in his arms, another quiet wail of pain, and
Hannibal presses his face to the top of Will’s head. Mouth brushing his hair,
blood and sweat across his lips, reclaiming as they ever do with fierce
nuzzling and warm breaths and now more urgent, more dire that he does.
“You are mine and will only ever be,” Hannibal breathes, and loosens his hand
enough to pull open the door of the car. It is awkward, and it hurts, for Will
to be set inside. The house can wait, the body can wait, everything can wait
but Will, here, now, and the blood that spreads across the leather seats.
It is harder for Hannibal than any life he has ended for him to part from the
boy enough to return to the driver’s seat, but a brush of fingers down the
boy’s cold cheek and he forces it, makes himself make the movements and makes
himself start the car and makes himself speak, speak, fill the air with words
rather than hear how weak are the sobs of the little wolf laid across the seat
behind him.
“He is dead. Ended by my own hands, rather than yours. Is that what you wished
for, Will? For me to clean up your messes for you when you could not?”
He doesn’t know what else to say, no other words make sense but to scold the
boy into reaction, the violence of words that yield to him the same reaction as
violence of hands.
“I’ll be better, I can be better…” Will wails, curling in on himself against
the seatbelts Hannibal had secured around him, pulling the coat closer, shaking
despite the heat it’s keeping inside. He sobs again, quiet tears as the pain
renders Will unable to do more than make noises and tremble.
It went wrong, it went so wrong and instead of returning victorious, he’s here,
now, messing up the back seat of Hannibal’s beloved car, something he will pay
for with his hide, he knows. But something had felt wrong, it had felt wrong
going in there, that night. The man was too confident, too collected, and too
cruel with him, crueller than usual, cruel like Hannibal had once been before…
before…
“Don’t you dare,” the words are hissed from the front seat, dark eyes on Will
through the rearview mirror, “Don’t you dare give your tears to him, do you
understand me? You cry for no one but me, Will. You will not cry for him.”
Will’s teeth grit in pain and he whines, a long, helpless noise of pain. But he
bites back the sobs, he holds them back with every ounce of concentration he
still has left.
It’s getting darker, harder to see.
“I’m trying,” he gasps, “Hannibal… nng… I can’t breathe…”
His voice is higher, a weak tone Hannibal has never heard from his boy before,
never. Not even during the cruellest of lessons, not even when he had pulled
the boy so far past his limits he had nearly lost consciousness in his arms,
not even then.
Will coughs.
Then he stops speaking.
“Will.” Hannibal watches him, motionless in the rearview mirror, nearly misses
a red light and jerks the brakes to a stop. “Will!”
It is an order, now, a sharpness of tone heard only before when Will has been
strung up in the basement, infuriating Hannibal past his sense of reason, past
his restraint.
“Breathe, Will,” growls the older man, ignoring the order himself as his breath
pulls short in his lungs and his heart bangs against his ribs. “You can. You
will.”
“You are mine, Will,” insists Hannibal, peeling out past the light, a smooth
movement of the car despite the erratic driving. “Your tears, your breath, mine
alone. You have given them to me. You will not shed your tears for him, but you
will breathe for me.”
A shudder, audible, as the boy forces a breath but it isn’t enough, Hannibal
knows, it isn’t enough to fill his lungs and there isn’t enough blood left in
him to make it work harder and he speeds now, socked foot stomped against the
gas.
“You gave yourself to me. You swore, Will. Do you remember what you promised?
Your oath to me? I will hear it. Now. Tell me. Ask me again.”
Another shallow breath and Will swallows, a thick glottal sound that doesn’t
seem to get the desired effect. He coughs, shakes his head, curls harder
against himself and cries out, high, when his wound is jarred again. Another
series of sobs, bitten back, Will working with every sinew to keep the tears
back though they flow freely regardless.
Everything hurts.
“Teach me,” he manages, weakly, eyes closed and body shuddering in shock
beneath Hannibal’s coat. It smells like him, Will nuzzles against it.
“What else, Will?” Hannibal is driving relying on his peripheral vision now,
thanking everything he can spare a thought to that it’s late, that few cars are
out at all. “Tell me.”
“Wanted you to teach me,” Will mumbles again, happy to curl up in the warmth
that is finally reaching his limbs as the car speeds through the empty well-
paved roads of Baltimore. “Was never a good student…”
“Will.”
Hannibal’s jaw works, he hits the brakes just to jarr Will back to
consciousness, to watch him scramble, sleepy uncoordinated movements, to keep
himself in the seat. But his head lolls now, eyes closed, chest barely moving
with breath.
“William Graham.” it’s hissed, the tone dangerous, low, and Hannibal’s eyes are
wide when Will doesn’t respond, when all he manages is a soft moan and a brief
furrowing of his brows.
They’re two blocks from the house. Just two more. The tyres screech as Hannibal
gets the car moving again. Will’s hand goes slack against the coat, falls palm-
up against the pristine floor.
“And if I tired of you, Will?” Hannibal asks, knuckles white against the wheel
as he turns, speeds, sees the house approaching. “If I find you uninteresting?
Unteachable?”
He hears a breath, just stronger than the ones around it, and imagines it
contains words, the rest of their promise, sworn again and again, and so he
answers it.
“I will. I will kill you, then. Not someone else. That is mine to take. You are
mine, Will, and you will not die. Not now. Not like this.”
The turn is sharp into the driveway, scarcely missing the garage door as it
opens. The cement is cold beneath his feet as he emerges, door slamming open,
left that way as he yanks open the one to the back.
He has always been so careful to prevent blood from reaching the cream-colored
seats of his car, decadently soft, a shade so near to white now dark, black
that would appear as crimson in more light, across the seats and onto the
floor.
A hissed curse, no mind for language now, as Hannibal pulls the boy from the
car. Cradling him in arms to bring him into the house. Not the basement, he
won’t have Will awaken there. And he will have Will awaken. He will, he tells
himself, there is no other way but for his little wolf to open wide blue eyes
at him again and cling to him and breathe against him warm and alive, and it
will not happen in that place of death, it will not happen where Will will part
his eyelids and think himself dead.
The dining room table, then, and he bundles the boy closer before placing him
there. He peels back the coat, tries not to see how pale the boy has grown,
having thought him as porcelain before and now absent the flush of scarlet in
his cheeks. Absent of color, absent of life.
A void, such as Hannibal feels growing ever faster within himself.
“Will,” Hannibal breathes, a softer tone now, pushing his hair back from his
face. “Breathe, Will. How can I teach you if you will not even breathe for me?”
A soft choked noise and Will turns his head, lips working as though to say
something but he just manages to part them to breathe.
And breathing is all Hannibal asked of him.
“Good boy,” he sighs, leaning in to kiss his forehead, “My beautiful, clever
boy. I knew you could. You can. You can and you will. Keep breathing, Will.”
The breaths are small, shallow, almost rasped now, but they’re there, Will
pushing himself to live as he had always fought to, battling his body now
instead of another.
Hannibal leaves him only when the breathing has become constant after ten
breaths. Short and quick as they are, he’s breathing. He’s not dying on him,
not here.
Not like this.
Hannibal drags the medical bag with him down the stairs, hoping he won’t need
to leave Will again for more than water, cloths, things easily gathered in the
kitchen.
When he returns, WIll is making gentle mewling sounds, neck arched back and
brows furrowed with the effort of moving his body, this useless heavy thing
that refuses to listen.
Beneath the blood, dark bruises are forming on his torso, down his thighs.
Swelling across his face, skin that split beneath fists, feet - the images
force themselves on Hannibal and he remembers tearing ribs snapping from their
moorings with such force that his shoulders ache for it and he wishes there
were more yet that he could destroy.
He swallows, steadies, soothes the boy with another cool hand against his brow.
Gingerly, he peels the coat back further from the boy’s body, hushing him as he
feels the warmth, the smell of Hannibal removed from around him to see further
what was done.
“Stay still,” Hannibal instructs, softly, the way he has before when they
curled together and Will’s body shuddered for more pleasant things than this
and he listened and obeyed. “Stay still and breathe.”
Grasping Will’s wrist, Hannibal tugs his arm gently away from his middle. No
fresh swell of blood this time, Hannibal notices, and it burns cold in him. A
gash, long and deep, across the boy’s belly, baring skin and fat to the parts
beneath.
Hannibal had envisioned the boy laid bare enough times that he did not imagine
it would bring his hands to shaking to finally see it. He forces them into a
clench, stretches, and the tremor passes by sheer force of will as he puts on
gloves.
“You have always suffered so beautifully,” Hannibal breathes. “My strong boy.
Little wolf among the sheep. Hate me, now, for this. Spit. Swear.” A pause, an
idea, sudden, as he feels the boy’s attention on the sound of his voice,
however far apart they are, hears Hannibal calling to him.
“Greek, Will. Swear in Greek.”
A furrow of brow, scarce movement drawn between his eyes, and when Hannibal
sees it he parts the boy’s skin. He searches, quickly, careful probing to see
how deep the blade has gone, finding that it did not catch the organs held in
this little cage of bone and skin and blood, merely opened it, hip to hip.
Relief, short-lived, as Hannibal draws out the needle and suture. There is
neither time, nor need for how cold Will has grown, how settled into the icy
recesses of shock, for anesthesia. He does not have the means here to put the
boy under, no precious minutes to be further spared for a local.
He tries not to think of how his palm spread across this belly, how his mouth
laid adoration on it, knelt at this boy’s feet and no other, and he begins.
Will doesn’t swear. If he can form words they’re weak little things that barely
pass his lips coherent. Instead he cries out, soft utterly childish things.
Little sniffs, keening sweet little noises, and every single one of them tugs
at Hannibal’s heart as he works.
Will brings up one hand and presses it against his eyes, smearing the blood
with his tears, as he keeps his teeth grit, trying, still, not to cry as he’s
being put together like a ragdoll dropped on the side of the road and
abandoned. Forgotten and unwanted.
But Hannibal had picked him up, had taken him home to fix.
His boy.
His once beautiful boy.
And then, amongst the sobs, amongst the little wails of agony so deep they seem
to bleed past his lips, Will manages a word, just one, and Hannibal feels
himself laugh in relief.
He ducks his hand against the back of his arm, a moment to ease himself, to
force himself to breathe now, before Hannibal tugs firmly against the suture to
hold it in place.
“One,” he murmurs, aching fondness that bleeds from him as Will bleeds across
his table and he draws another stitch through. Each careful, each precise,
deliberate attention as he goes, slow work, but Will is breathing. Will is
breathing and he’s swearing and the little noises he makes fill Hannibal with a
rage, a defensiveness so intense that it’s all he can do to marvel at the depth
of it.
His devotion, made manifest, in every stitch and every sound.
“More, Will,” he coaxes the boy, glancing upward to watch the shallow rise and
fall of his chest, to watch his hand drape limp across his eyes. “I will take
you there. I will take you to Greece and I will watch you on the sand and in
the ruins. The tourists will descend around us and I will not know how to swear
and you will have to teach me.”
Hannibal swallows, a clicking sound. “We will go, Will, together.”
Will sobs again, too exhausted to laugh, too exhausted now, even, for more than
shallow breaths and quiet sobs. Once in a while he coughs, fluid filling his
mouth and lungs before he leans over to spit blood against the table and mumble
something Hannibal is sure is an apology. Or a curse. Obedient, even, in this.
He holds him still. Then he starts again.
“Six, Will, you’re really working up a list,” he murmurs, drawing the back of
his wrist over his forehead to wipe the sweat there, beneath him, Will’s
breathing grows shallower now, irregular. Little gasps and quiet chokes making
his little body shudder.
“Insatiable boy,” it’s weak, soft, but the words keep coming, pouring from him
over the prone little form as he works.
“You’re being so good for me,” he whispers, tugging another suture, just a few
more, now. He marvels at the boy’s endurance, his ability to stay conscious
through this torture, a punishment Hannibal had never wanted to inflict on him.
“Staying so still, using your words.”
Will shudders, hard, and lies very still for a moment. It takes a long time for
his chest to rise and fall on a breath again. Hannibal leans over to press his
lips to his temples, to smell Will beneath the blood and bile and agony.
“Stay with me, Will, come on.”
Each stitch a mark, each a claim laid on this boy’s skin, no mind for the wound
beneath it, but only for its repair. He pulls the last stitch firm, glides
fingers across the row of them, and only as he ties it off does he note how
quickly he completed it. It should have taken longer, to stitch closed a
lateral wound, the width of the abdomen, but on an abdomen that now seems so
small beneath his hands.
He is so rarely given opportunity to appreciate how frail the boy can be, in
light of how often he’s so strong. Will is quiet, now, there is breath,
shallow, steady, distant, and Hannibal lifts a gloved hand to press against
Will’s cheek.
Unconscious, and perhaps the better for it.
It’s when he withdraws his fingers from beneath his boy’s jaw that he realizes
his hands are shaking again. Resistance against reason that tells him Will
needs a transfusion, that he needs all the tools available to a hospital that
Hannibal does not have here. Hannibal knows, but he fights it, a wild
possessiveness grasping him.
His Will, his boy, his fierce little wolf. Unwilling to let him be gone, to let
him be taken elsewhere, away from Hannibal, away from their home where he
belongs. A ferocious desire to tear the throat out of anyone who tries to come
near, who would try to take Will away.
A breath, forced to steady, to tell himself to think clearly, and fight against
the feral fury that makes Hannibal foolish, now, in his love for him.
He hums at the word as it cross his mind, and lets it linger.
Hannibal tugs off his gloves to withdraw his phone.
A student caught out late, a wrong turn on a Baltimore street that found him a
victim of assault, a brutal attack with blade and fists and feet. His mentor,
nearby, the first he thought to call.
Three numbers. Just three.
One look at the boy on his table, his shallow breaths, the smeared blood
against him like war paint. A battle for which survival is not yet guaranteed.
Three numbers.
Hannibal sets the phone to dial. And waits.
Chapter End Notes
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