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“I’m beginning to feel more like an old mug,” he says disdainfully, feeling the words roll lazily off his tongue. It feels a bit like his accent wants to come out, that old, repressed Southern lilt he acquired traversing the state lines of Mississippi and Louisiana with his father as a boy. There’s a comfort in it that he quashes immediately. He doesn’t want to go back to those days, to that unstable, shaky foundation he built his life upon. Dr. Lecter smiles small at him, blanking his memory temporarily as to what it was he just said.
“You entered into a devil’s bargain with Jack Crawford; it takes a toll.”
Oh, right; feeling like an old mug.
“Jack isn’t the devil.” He takes a drink from the clear spotless glass filled with hot, rich coffee. He’s never had coffee in anything but a paper cup or a ceramic mug before now. It seems fitting that Dr. Lecter would give him glass. He feels about as brittle; durable one second and then a broken, uncollectable thing the next.
Dr. Lecter says, as if he has harbored the thought for a long time, “When it comes to how far he is willing to push you to gain what he wants, he is certainly no saint.”
Will drops his eyes at that, unnerved and fidgety and uncertain. There was a reason he came here this morning, to Dr. Lecter. Buried deeply in his psyche, there’s an answer that would satisfy the questions burning on his tongue that he can’t ask. He feels eyes lacerating the tops of his cheekbones and looks away, setting the nearly drained glass down carefully as he does so.
“You needn’t feel embarrassed, Will. It is as I’ve said: my kitchen is always open to friends.”
Not cruelly or incisively, Will asks him, “Are you my friend, Dr. Lecter?”
“That is a loaded question.”
Will laughs, actually drops his chin and laughs, at the reply that is too serious to be real. His shoulders shake slightly with the involvement of his lungs and belly. He looks back up at Dr. Lecter and finds an inviting, teasing micro smile on the man’s face.
He muses, “Is it really?”
“I am to you whatever it is that makes you feel the safest,” Hannibal says in a slow, warm tone that opens something cramped and hopeful in Will’s chest. He feels it unfurl and bleed and stretch. That sensation billows inside of him; it’s a wave lapping at the shoreline of the Gulf Coast and the summer breeze carrying brine and the faint smell of funnel cake as it combs the salty water over the sand. It’s a beautiful memory and a palpable future.
Will clears his throat around that reel of remembered footage from a sacred moment in his childhood and reminds himself to breathe. His throat tightens, but he manages.
Heavy and light in his confession, he says quietly, “I guess I’d feel safe having you for a friend.” Dr. Lecter doesn’t move in Will’s peripheral vision; he just waits. He anticipates more from Will than a simple, though heartfelt admission. He senses his desire to withdraw and to take back what he’s said, and he means to respect it, even though it makes Will feel weak to submit to it and to do so with Dr. Lecter’s blessing. He chooses to let the words he had selected die on his tongue. Instead he says, “I really would.”
“Is it difficult for you to accept, that you were so wrong about me?”
Will looks up at Dr. Lecter, at Hannibal, his friend, momentarily shocked. “What does that mean?”
“You weren’t interested in me,” Hannibal murmurs, feigning hurt and doing it rather poorly but entertainingly. He’s ribbing Will, already getting oriented into this novel arrangement that they both clearly don’t dabble in all that frequently. He smirks a little bit, in spite of himself. Hannibal continues, “The concept of friendship with me was not one you embraced in the early stages of our relationship.”
“I guess I didn’t know you that well.” Will eases into one of the stools at the kitchen island, distracted and newly tired with his sleep-starved limbs. A light delirium settles more deeply into his bones at every exhale and receding in increments at every inhale. His eyebrows twitch downward once, and he pins Hannibal by the chin with a hard, if slightly squinty-eyed stare. “You’re not like everyone else.”
“Thank you.” He sees the corners of Hannibal’s mouth curve upward more noticeably than his previous smiles. “You are quite different yourself.”
Will sighs and drinks more of the coffee. He has always been different. It isn’t something he likes to be reminded of.
“Your differences are entirely your own, Will,” Hannibal begins with a strangely sage inflection to his voice. “They make and unmake you, depending on what roles you allow them to play in your life; they are not points of shame or disgrace. The things you are able to see in others, whether you see them as gifts or as curses of your humanity, they are an aspect of just that: your humanity.”
“I use my humanity to relive death and murder.”
“Others fix boat motors.”
Hannibal smiles at him, and Will locks eyes with him for a three-count before dropping his eyes to the black granite counter top. He bites his lip to control the grin spreading across his face.
“Would you like to lie down, Will?”
“What?”
“I realize I have just fed you caffeine and that sleep is difficult for you to come by anyway, but I imagine you are tired; you look it.” Will doesn’t take offense by the comment, and Hannibal doesn’t expand on it. “Allow me to cook us breakfast and rest in one of the spare rooms until it is prepared.”
“I don’t want to be an imposition.” Will stands abruptly, and Hannibal rounds the island to stand in front of him. He holds his hands out, and before he can question himself or Hannibal’s intentions, he shrugs out of his jacket and passes it off. He only snaps as Hannibal tucks it under his arm to try and snatch it back. “It’s really okay, Hannibal. You’ve probably got a lot to do today.”
“Nonsense, Will.” Their hands comingle on the collar of Will’s dark green jacket, not touching but close. Neither of them tugs on it; they just hold, stubbornly. “It’s Saturday.”
“Oh.” Will’s grip loosens just enough for Hannibal to ease the jacket out from under his fingers completely. He twists the arm holding it to his side and runs his hand down the side of it to smooth out the wrinkles. “I don’t need a room, Hannibal; I’m fine.”
He yawns, an obvious betrayal by his body. He would frown if he could, but the force of it nearly puts him back into the seat of the stool. His eyes drift shut, and a hand closes around his upper arm.
Hannibal leads him out of the kitchen into the foyer where he hangs his jacket up by the door. They walk up the stairs together, and Will feels very strangely rooted in his body, in the physicality and spatiality of it in regards to Hannibal’s. It’s a pattern of thought he shakes off as soon as he catches himself in the middle of it; it’s one he doesn’t need cluttering his mind along with everything else already up there.
Hesitant to darken the doorway of one of Hannibal’s bedrooms, even if it is just a spare, Will teeters by the doorframe. He watches dumbly as Hannibal busies himself with the lamp atop the bedside table.
They meet again in the doorway, each hovering over alternate sides of the threshold. Will stares at Hannibal’s shoulder and then jolts out of the way, excusing himself awkwardly. Hannibal chuckles, a low, quiet sound that comes from the back of his throat, and passes through into the day brightened hallway.
“There is an apple walnut tart recipe I have been waiting to try,” Hannibal announces with his hand on the doorknob. “It will be about an hour. Make yourself at home.” He gestures to the bed, hinting that he actually means, Try to sleep, please.
Strange that Will actually imagines the thought to be so polite. Hannibal really is a gracious host, though he had no reason to suspect he wouldn’t be.
He shifts his weight between his feet. Hannibal pulls the door closed.
“Thanks, Hannibal.”
“Of course, Will.”
He smiles, and then he is gone, and Will is left only with the faint muffled sounds of his footsteps descending the stairs. Will looks around the room; it’s simple but elegant with limited, necessary furnishings. The most extravagant thing about the space are the two windows side by side abbreviated throughout by mahogany shutters and concealed by flowing burgundy curtains that line the floor without so much as grazing the carpet. Will touches them with his fingers and finds that they’re sheer and soft. They don’t do much to subdue the morning sun but tint the daylight a pale maroon.
Will tinkers with the shutters and peeks into the backyard a full two stories down. It looks like something out of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. He closes them and draws the curtain back over the slits of light sneaking through the very edge of every panel that composes the larger fixture of the shutters.
He gravitates toward the bookshelf taking up the wall across from the bed and lackadaisically examines the titles. He stumbles across a few spines inscribed with Stephen Hawking’s name on them, some more with the works of Socrates, Goethe, Dumas, and Marlowe. He’s pretty sure there’s a full library downstairs that he hasn’t been in yet, and he craves the sight of all those books now since this niche he has stashed up here isn’t even his primary source of reading material at his immediate disposal.
Will turns finally, reluctantly, to address the existence of the bed. It irks him a little bit, to be corralled into this room like a hospital patient and to be told, however kindly, to chase the unattainable, elusive sleep.
Hannibal has a lot of experience ratcheted up in the field of medicine. He can’t be blamed too much for wanting to nurture; that’s what this is anyway. Will never paid too much attention to it before, but it’s pretty clear. He studied, minimally, in college about the hidden, sometimes unconscious, motives that drive people to do things. Hannibal feeds Will and puts him to bed because he wants him taken care of, weirdly and comfortingly.
He talks ill of Jack because he thinks what Jack puts him through is in bad taste and not the best arrangement for Will, given his sensitivities. He shakes his head.
Remember what you said about psychoanalyzing, Graham.
He’d been eating his words as of late anyway. Hannibal appeared, and appearances could be deceiving, of course they could be, to enjoy psychoanalysis with Will, no matter what misadventures there were in between the better occurrences. Will hates delving into that sort of behavior if he can help against it, but he’s been wrong about everything else; Hannibal called it, called him, really.
He sits down on the long edge of the bed, unbuttons his shirt down to his collarbone, and takes off his shoes, deciding that he will at least entertain Hannibal and try.
“Why the hell not,” he whispers under his breath, folding his glasses and placing them on the bedside table beneath the warm glow of light emanating from the lamplight. He glances up at the closed door and crosses the few feet separating it from the bed to open it just a sliver. Pressing his nose against the doorframe, he can smell the heat from the oven preheating and the light, airy scent of dough leavening. He thinks about Hannibal shedding his ridiculously neat robe to strut busily around the kitchen in his bedclothes with the sleeves rolled up and his slippers making delicate tap-tap-tap sounds on the tile as he moves through the room.
That’s probably why, in hindsight, Hannibal wanted Will upstairs while he made breakfast. He didn’t want Will to see him clambering about in his pajamas.
Will smiles and leaves the door opened that tiny bit so the smells from downstairs can waft into the room more easily and slinks back to the bed. He spreads himself out over the blankets, considering the firmness in the springs and the texture of the sheets when he pulls back the top blanket experimentally. They’re soft and they cling to his fingers the way fur sometimes clings. He runs his fingers along it again, some incredibly soft kind of cotton or maybe a satin.
He turns onto his shoulder and presses his cheek against the exposed fabric, it adheres just slightly, offering a pleasant contour to the lines of his face: satin, definitely. The top blanket is cotton, an expensive kind. It breathes much easier to provide a freedom of movement that sheets beneath will not allow for but really don’t need with how exquisite they feel against his skin.
Will makes a noncommittal, slightly frustrated sound and peels the top blanket back before rolling over onto the silky sheets and matching pillow case. He sighs and buries his face in the lush, bountiful pillow that sinks just enough beneath his weight to be heartily satisfying. He reaches over for the lamp switch and kills the light, closing his eyes as he does so and shifting so his feet slip underneath the top blanket. One hand slides around the end of the pillow, fingers squeezing at the topmost right corner above his forehead.
Gradually the smells in the room begin to change and intermingle. He smells apples baking, the brown sugar fragrance of maple syrup, and the grainy, earthy spillover of dough rising with heat. They fill Will’s nose alongside the linen smell of Hannibal’s sheets, the vaguely familiar undertone beneath the fabric softener that is Hannibal, unavoidably. Half asleep and not pioneering the actions of his limbs, he twists heavily onto his other side and spies the red tinged blades of colorful light from behind the wooden shutters. They ripple in his mind’s eye, a shivering sliver of red sunrise reflected brokenly across a pale blue body of water at dawn.
He closes his eyes and closes them again, sinking under and giving in to an almost sensual pull at the back of his consciousness. His father casts a fishing line into the water, in the water up to his knees. The water laps coolly at Will’s mid-thigh where he stands at the taller man’s side, a young boy, young enough to think kissing girls is gross.
The red sun hangs low in the sky, painting that vast canopy a deep navy blue and all the treetops a deeper green. The weeds and the grass and the wildflowers are all one and the same here, and Will reaches down to pick a mushroom and throw it into the water for no reason other than because he is a child and he is with his father and he can do it if he wants to. The memory is a perfect crystallization of a perfect morning in his life, a perfect passing experience between father and son; an instance of family that makes sense where a lot of it never did.
A warm current trickles through the water around his knees; the breeze picks up, cool and refreshing. It brushes the hair out of his eyes and reveals a gorgeous blue sky smiling back at him with a thin crescent moon refusing to sink down beneath the horizon.
Will.
He hums and opens his eyes slowly, the darkened room coming back into focus. The lamplight is still out, and the shutters are still blocking the passage of light but for the repeated disks of pale red light passing through the curtains. Will sighs, forgetting where he is even as he stares at the comforting image that reminds him of sunlight captured in shimmering blue water. He stretches his arms out in front of him and curves his back, ducking his head into his chest to stretch his back.
“Did you sleep well?”
He freezes and cracks one eye open. Cautiously twisting to look over his shoulder at Hannibal, he smiles meekly.
“I might pilfer these sheets off you,” he jokes around a yawn. Hannibal smiles and Will rotates his hips so he can more easily turn onto his back and sit up. Actually sitting up takes a moment and internal bargaining.
“Satin is more suited to winter than to these warmer months, but it has been some time since I have had any use for this room.” Will’s shoulders sag, and he sinks back into the mattress. “You were dreaming.”
“Yeah,” Will sighs. He forces himself to open his eyes, feeling much more recharged, though his body craves that easy sleep now that he’s had a taste. He notices the distinct apple pie smell permeating the room. He can’t fully recall in earnest, but he thinks there may have been apples in the trees he dreamt about. “I’m not used to those.”
“You don’t dream much?”
Will looks up at Hannibal and notices he has been sitting on the edge of the bed the entire time, hands in his lap and hip nearly brushing Will’s. Will stares at the juncture where their bodies could touch.
His mouth waters, hungry for the apple tart, he reasons. He’s just hungry for breakfast.
“Not like that.” Will pushes himself to sit up. Their shoulders brush and it’s easy, warm, and comfortable. “That was nice.” He rubs at his forehead and dares to search out Hannibal’s eyes, which isn’t a mistake but isn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done because Hannibal is looking right at him already, of course he is. They stare, and Will is lost but also weighed, measured, and pinpointed in his exact coordinates on a map of a vast world that has zoomed in and occluded everything but this bedroom of red daylight and satin sheets.
In a moment of something that is more bravery than it is cowardice, he drops his vision to Hannibal’s lips. He’s close enough to smell, and the scent of apples has sunken into his robe and his hair and his cheek that Will touches with the tip of his nose before he can do anything to stop himself. Hannibal’s fingers weave into his sleep-ruffled hair.
“Breakfast is ready, Will.”
“How long did I sleep for?”
Talking helps, he finds with no shortage of relief. He doesn’t lean away, though, sobering as it is to speak. Hannibal doesn’t pull away either; Will can’t bear to be the one to break the connection.
“A little over an hour, I suppose.”
“Ah,” Will murmurs, turning his head to bump his nose against Hannibal’s.
“You really don’t get enough sleep, Will.”
His stomach gurgles; his body, apparently, hasn’t been enough of a traitor this morning. He cracks a nervous smile. “I may have forgotten to eat dinner last night.”
Hannibal clicks his tongue and leans out of their cozy almost-embrace and cups Will’s cheek in his hand.
“Come downstairs and eat, Will.”
“Okay.”
Hannibal rises and stands and leaves the room, pulling the door behind him until it nearly closes but doesn’t latch shut. Will watches the door, perplexed. His face warms, and he leaps out of bed, utterly flabbergasted. He quickly fixes the bed and pulls on his shoes before loping too speedily out of the bedroom. He checks himself at the top of the stairs, a jittery teenager on his way to pick up his prom date. He rolls his eyes at his childishness. Whatever just happened, Hannibal obviously wasn’t bothered or disgusted by it. He even returned his touch. Will would like to know what possessed him to touch Hannibal in the first place.
Apart from the bit where you wanted to, Graham?
He shakes his head and stumbles down the stairs, knees shaking minutely as he descends. He walks into the kitchen and looks around. Hannibal calls him in from the dining room, and Will goes to meet him, finding a seat across the corner from Hannibal at the table with a small plated slice of fragrant apple tart. A thick slice of sharp cheddar cheese stands propped against the back of it.
Will sits down and glances at Hannibal who starts in on the tart. Following his lead and alternating between citrusy draughts of pulpy orange juice, Will savors the crisp apple tang paired beneath the creamy gorgonzola, peppery thyme, and lemon zest. He tries a small bite of the cheese and the shift in palate is unexpectedly welcome. It levels off the rest of the flavors nicely.
“This is good.”
“Thank you.”
Hannibal smiles into his orange juice, obviously pleased. He definitely enjoys in feeding people.
“What did you dream about, Will?”
He looks up, so invested in his food that it hadn’t occurred to him to engage in conversation with his host. It probably had something to with the fact that now his host was also the man he tried to make out with in a darkened room.
“I was fishing with my dad; when I was a kid, really little, he would take me sometimes.”
“I’m sorry to have woken you.”
“Oh, no.” Will takes a bite of the equally sweet and pungent apple tart. He drinks the orange juice and takes up the cheese slice. “If I had slept any longer I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed.”
“You weren’t very inclined to get up as it was,” Hannibal says lightly. A tease is lodged there in his words somewhere. Will huffs a soft laugh and trains his eyes on the rounded point of Hannibal’s shining cheekbone. He remembers the smooth, warm feel of it beneath his nose. He stares hard at his plate and finishes his food. He scratches the bridge of his nose and realizes he forgot his glasses on the bedside table. Hannibal follows his train of thought. “I will take care of the dishes.”
“Let me help, at least. You went through all the trouble.”
“If you insist.”
Will stacks their plates gently and carries them into the kitchen. He sets them down in the sink and jumps just slightly when Hannibal’s hip moves across his as he comes to stand beside him at the sink to assume the role of dishwasher. Will sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gnaws discreetly at it while rinsing the soapy dishes Hannibal hands to him. His hands are lathered in white suds up to the wrist.
He drops a fork staring at the slick mound of Hannibal’s palm and swears. He recovers and spies Hannibal smirking out of the corner of his eye. He turns to look at him, and Hannibal makes no attempt to veil it. He looks at Will full-on, in fact, and lets him see it in all its glory.
There’s no question what’s going on here. It’s a thrilling concept but also a frightening one. The velocity of it, of what they could do with the rest of the morning, overwhelms him a little bit.
Hannibal’s fingers graze the back of his hand and then recede. Will squares his shoulders and rinses the last of the dishes, stiffening as Hannibal steps around him to take up the drying. He uses a clean towel to dry his own hands and steps away, unsure but making his choice all the same.
He clears his throat and mumbles, “I’m going to go get my glasses.”
The room is quiet with only the sound of Hannibal rubbing the dishtowel across the edge of the clean white plate. He nods.
“All right.”
Will stays frozen under his gaze and then twitches into motion, forcing himself not to run into anything as he makes his way to the stairs. He hopes he isn’t sprinting the way he worries he might be. That would be embarrassing.
His glasses are waiting for him beneath the lamp. He bends down to switch it on and stares at the bulb beneath the thick cream-colored shade, blinding himself the longer he looks. He touches the frames of the often-unnecessary spectacles and doesn’t put them on. If he waits a moment, he won’t need them for a while. If he isn’t completely deluded, that is, he won’t need them; if Hannibal comes up for him the way he isn’t sure why he thinks would be a good idea. None of this screams of being an inherently good idea, but it’s what he covets and what his skin itches for.
The door clicks closed behind him.
He turns and the place where Hannibal’s face would be is blotted out by the inky stain left on his retinas from staring too directly at the light. He thinks he might be looking Hannibal in the eye, and he would be impressed with himself for making that leap, but he can’t tell, definitively, what he’s looking at. Those same fingers from before twist into his hair, and he doesn’t need his eyes to recognize that touch, even if it’s rougher than it was before.
The breath on his face is a cue to close his eyes and hold tight, so he does, still deprived of his vision. There are lips closing in on the bottom of his chin and on the corner of his mouth, then closer on the ridge separating his bottom lip from his skin. Will takes that kiss, somewhat impatiently, and a piece of the explanation brightens in the darker recess of his mind.
I am to you whatever it is that makes you feel the safest.
He can’t place the moment when this intimacy became the thing he craved of Hannibal, the lights afloat in a nocturnal darkness like a boat at sea. Their lips move and open, and Hannibal’s tongue slips into his mouth as easily as if it were a breath of fresh air. Will gasps around it and fists his hand in Hannibal’s soft, suggestible hair.
They ease back onto the bed, Hannibal’s knee in between Will’s thighs and his hands pushing down on Will’s chest. He flops down and waits for Hannibal to crawl up the length of his body with his arms laid out on the blanket beside his head. Hannibal nips at his earlobe and mouths at his hairline; Will shivers.
“How do I feel, Will?”
He groans at the way the words leave Hannibal’s lips, the way they singe his temple where the breath rushes out alongside them. He wraps his arms around Hannibal’s neck and kisses him, biting down on his jaw when Hannibal pulls away to lick at his ear.
“You feel like an anchor.”
And that’s it, isn’t it; Hannibal is his anchor and his paddle and the ship out at sea that divides the continent of his reality from the ether of his head space with the illusion of water created from equal parts darkness and light.
He expects Hannibal to pull away, to stop, or to question whether he really means it. Hannibal doesn’t do any of that; Hannibal bears down into Will’s hips with his own, and it’s heaven and it’s hell and it’s everything in between, all the flavors and sights and sounds of the earth. Will rips open that infuriatingly together robe and gets at the soft cotton beneath; beyond that, he reaches skin at long last. He moans into the first section of flesh he can get his lips on at Hannibal’s chest, and the robe lasts all of ten seconds before it is shoved down Hannibal’s shoulders and back.
Will helps with his own clothes to aid in the process; the buttons and the buckles and zipper make it horribly irritating and difficult getting undressed. He arches his back to reach down for his shoes and gets them each off in time with Hannibal pulling his pants down his legs. One of his socks comes off; he toes at the other one, divided as his concentration is with Hannibal licking back into his mouth and deftly handling him through his shorts.
Overcome with an energetic zeal to take charge of the encounter, Will flips Hannibal onto his back and discards the final item of clothing separating Hannibal’s naked body from his. He kisses the skin available to him, Hannibal’s hip, the inside of his groin muscle, the base of his dick, nearly fully hard, he notes with a huge swell of pride.
Hannibal threads his fingers through Will’s hair and scoots back on the bed to lay his head on the pillows. Will nestles back in over him comfortably and it dawns on him that Hannibal is giving him permission to exert his control over him. He swoons at the power it gives him, to be able to hold Hannibal down like this, touch him like this, kiss him like this; it’s exhilarating, intoxicating.
He reaches up to the side for the drawer of the side table and scrambles for the sought after object that makes Will’s stomach drop when he sees it, the shiny sleek bottle. He should ask why Hannibal kept it in there, conveniently, but he doesn’t care. He’ll ask after they’ve finished their work here. Maybe he won’t ask at all.
Will busies himself getting the slippery stuff on his fingers and rubbing it between his hands while Hannibal reaches for something else, a condom.
God, oh, shit.
He rips open the packet and fits it easily over Will, and for some reason, it isn’t until that moment when it solidifies in Will’s mind that Hannibal is letting him take the reins. A horrifying sound like a mewl spirits out of his mouth thinking about it. He presses a finger inside of Hannibal and presses kisses to his navel, tasting the curve of his belly button and swirling his tongue around the patch of sparse hair between the umbilical dip and the pubic bone. Hannibal shifts beneath his fingers, holding back the moans pressing behind his lips like tasty candies Will wants to melt on his tongue. He presses another finger inside of him and moves his body up around Hannibal’s side so he can kiss him and force those sounds out of his plump, succulent mouth.
He goes in with a third finger and withdraws at the sharp hiss it earns him from Hannibal.
“Sorry.” He leaves a soothing kiss behind Hannibal’s ear. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Hannibal breathes, a grunt underlining his words. He kisses Will hard on the lips and bites him. Will twists his fingers wider and tries the third again. It’s okay this time. Hannibal moans appreciatively but not undone by his pleasure. Will resolves to make that his mission, to undo this collected man so completely and irreparably that he can’t play it off afterward.
Will asks, almost pleadingly, “Are you ready?”
“Yes, Will, yes.”
Will sighs and winds himself around Hannibal’s front so he can assume the proper position, but Hannibal shoves him off, roughly and shocking the breath out of Will. He throws a leg around Will’s hip and straddles him, guiding Will into him slowly, blissfully.
His eyes fall shut, his head tips back, and a high, quiet sound escapes from behind his closed lips. Will wants that throat between his teeth so he can feel it vibrate with every moan and every hitch in his breath. He settles for grabbing onto Hannibal’s hips and rolling up into him. Hannibal’s mouth drops open, and a low throaty groan eases out of him like a line pulled out of him. Will gasps and groans, too, gutturally. Hannibal is tight like a vise, hot channel constricting infrequently around Will like a wet mouth sucking and compressing.
“God, yeah,” Will moans, snapping his hips up into Hannibal and reveling in the shocked, erotic disruption in Hannibal’s sharp exhale. He clutches at Will’s sides and bounces slightly, moving with increased speed and force. He sets his weight more firmly over Will and eases back and forth, sliding up and down and closing his eyes again. “Fuck, Hannibal.”
He looks up the planes of Hannibal’s body, sharp angles and flat lines and skin half pristine burgundy with the tinted sun and half ensconced in soft apricot-colored light from the lamp. The center of him, his face, the column of his neck, the spot over his heart, and the rest of his body immediately poised over Will are trapped in a middle ground of shadow. Will can see points of light reflected in his eyes and the parted lips gasping. He reaches up to touch those lips, and Hannibal sucks greedily on his fingers.
Will sits up, spreading his legs and bending his knees to better support Hannibal’s position. He holds onto his lower back with one hand and bars his other arm across his back to grasp one of shoulders. His hips rollick beneath Hannibal’s, their movements synch together; their bodies bump and collide. Will kisses Hannibal, moans dissolving on his tongue the way he imagined they would. He groans and presses one fist into the bed to give him the leverage he needs to turn Hannibal over onto his back without ejecting him from his lap.
It’s better this way. Fuck, it’s better this way.
He rams into Hannibal and for all that he forgets to breathe, he doesn’t run out of steam until he finds himself on the fringe of orgasm, frantic with it. Hannibal grunts his name in warning like an animal, like a beast once carefully hidden now released: “Will.”
Will touches Hannibal once, and he comes in spurts over his fingers and up his ribcage. He writhes and fists the blanket in his hands, pulling so they come gracelessly untucked from beneath the pillows.
He savors the look of Hannibal’s panting mouth, commits it to memory, and hides his face in Hannibal’s neck as his own gratifying orgasm tears violently through him. He cries out into the small racing pulse point beneath Hannibal’s jaw and deflates. His body twitches around the fluttering remnants of so many chemicals fluctuating through his brain and bloodstream at once. He pulls out of Hannibal and fiddles with getting the condom off and tied so he can toss it into the trash can beneath the bedside table.
Hannibal runs a hand through his own sweaty hair and utters something quietly in another language, probably a curse word.
“That was…”
Hannibal glances at him before laying his head back down and placing his hand in Will’s hair. Will sighs and lays his head down, too, finding Hannibal’s shoulder with his cheek and nosing at a collarbone. Hannibal grumbles something he doesn’t hear right away.
He pushes up slightly on one shaky arm and hears Hannibal repeat what he’s just said: “As I said, a loaded question.”
Will drags his eyes up to Hannibal’s easily, physically and emotionally depleted. He cracks a smile; it stretches across his lips all on its own and grows into a laugh. He shakes his head and sinks back down into Hannibal’s neck, nipping lazily but intently at his throat. It buzzes with Hannibal’s otherwise soundless chuckle.
“We could have had breakfast in bed if you didn’t talk in riddles,” Will mumbles against a cooling, sweat-slicked stretch of jawline.
“There are two main meals left in the day.”
Will angles his head just so but doesn’t have the strength to push up onto his elbows again, so he stays where he is.
He murmurs mischievously against Hannibal’s ear, “It is Saturday.”
“Precisely my thinking.”
Hannibal kisses the flat bone between his brow and cheekbone and then the bridge of his nose.
Will watches the bright red slits of brightening daylight through the shutters and filtered through the ruddy maroon curtains. He closes his eyes, and Hannibal’s even breathing is wind passing through the apple trees in a reimagined meadow he stood in once with his father. The settling heartbeat beneath his cheek is the pull of a fish on the hook.
It is a perfect crystallization of a perfect morning in his life, a perfect passing experience with Hannibal Lecter.