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Will’s house is less of a wreck than it was a week ago. All that’s left, really, is the tarp over the broken window; he’s gone over the floor a hundred times to find even the tiniest shards of glass before they can embed themselves in any wayward paws. There’s no blood, all the furniture is aligned to true (as much as can be in an old farmhouse), and every last trace of Tier is squirreled away in the barn where he can’t see it.
It’s almost like it never happened, but he can feel the stain on him, seeping into his bones. A black-boned bird.
While he was cleaning, it was easier not to think, to remember, but while his hands still itch to work, there’s nothing left to do . He doesn’t want to go out to the barn for one of the banged up motors he keeps on hand for nights like this, because Tier’s suit is still hanging from the rafters, and while he needs to do something about that, he can’t. Not right now. That would defeat the purpose, tip him right where he doesn’t want to go. And he doesn’t want to work on tying lures (because, well ), and that leaves him with whiskey and not much else.
One glass in, he drags out an old jigsaw puzzle. It keeps him occupied for almost fifteen minutes, picking out the edge pieces, and when his mind starts to drift again, he starts in on glass two and breaks his usual silent rule, flipping over the box to compare pieces to art. The constant check and double check may make the puzzle easier, but it also takes up bandwidth in his head.
Not enough, though.
His hand is healed. Buster’s on the mend. Margot’s been gone for almost twenty-four hours, and he…
He keeps thinking about what it was like.
He can’t stop thinking.
Not about her body. Not about how intent her focus was on him, or their comparison of scars, or the pleasure at the end of that road. Not even the hollow loneliness after. No, instead he’s thinking about that fleeting moment when he could have sworn that-
No. Not doing this . He shuts it down hard, slams the rest of glass two. It’s a simple case of his overactive imagination, his obsession with Hannibal Lecter, and some crossed wires. It’s not the first time he’s seen something inappropriate mid coitus, and it likely won’t be the last (though he can’t say he has any future prospects at the moment).
It’s been less than twenty-four hours. If he can just get through the night, the memory will fade.
(It won’t. Memories don’t do that, not in the mausoleum of his mind. He can still remember every moment with Hannibal before the betrayal. He can still remember every moment after, too.)
But it wasn’t just a momentary hallucination. He could live with that. No, he could feel it, too. Nothing so obvious as a broad hand at the small of his back, nothing so distinct, but sensation. Nerve endings firing. Pleasure and heat and anticipation for something that wasn’t there.
He can feel the phantom of it, if he concentrates.
He doesn’t. He has that much self control.
More whiskey, and a break to let the dogs out. He feels a momentary flare of panic when he opens the door, but the fields around his house are quiet. There’s still snow on the ground, so while Max and Zoe plow into it, he gets towels ready. It helps him not think for a little while longer, along with the hyper-vigilance. The cold air helps, too. Winston biting at an icicle, then backing away with his hackles raised, even makes him smile.
And then he feels…
Not a touch. More like a gentle firing of nerve endings, soft and sweeping along the skin of his left forearm. It’s so subtle, so random, that he almost misses it. But then it happens again, on his right arm. He’s not wearing a coat, not to stand in his doorway, so he rolls up his sleeves, half-expecting to see- what, bilateral spiders? But it’s just him.
The dusting of hair across the backs of his wrists is standing on end, like he’s dragged his feet across a wool rug. You’re cold , he reminds himself.
“Inside, everybody,” he says, half-distracted. Was he thinking about- it ? It felt the same, like a reconstruction, but no, he’d managed to pull himself out of his head, hadn’t he? He grimaces and crouches to rub everybody’s paws dry and warm, and then follows them in.
The sensation returns, this time across the spread of his shoulders, along his back. His breath hitches. He shuts the front door, locks it, and leans back heavily. The pressure should supplant the stimulation.
It doesn’t.
Instead, it slides down his spine, almost like fingertips walking the bumps of his vertebrae, but not quite. He wishes it were. That, he could manage. That, he could anticipate, maybe even enjoy , but this? This, he can’t predict, can’t categorize.
His body responds without him.
He’s not hard, but he’s- alert. Ready to be aroused. His fingers twist and grip at nothing. He’s been staring straight ahead for a while now, not seeing. The dogs have settled into their beds, but Winston is watching, concerned.
Will swallows and forces himself to leave the door, to return to the couch. He sits down heavily. His skin feels tight.
He tries to focus on the puzzle again. This has to be his own brain playing tricks on him; there’s no external stimulation, but the brain doesn’t need external stimulation to make him feel. He knows that well enough. So if he can distract himself, the sensation might pass off, like how a tension headache can dissipate if he forgets to tense against his expectation of pain.
(It never works, but this time might be different.)
He sorts puzzle pieces by color and texture, building little islands of imagery, and desperately ignores how his cheeks tingle, encouraging him to go slack-jawed, lips parted. He’s not giving in; he’s just relaxing. But then the sensation dips below his skin, into muscle and sinew, stroking nerves deep in his belly. His breath stutters. His hips jerk. It’s not- it’s not arousal , but it’s something close, and he can’t stop it. He shuts his eyes.
Sees the stag man crouched across the table from him.
His eyes snap open, just as his wayward nerve endings finally decide to involve his dick. His pulse keeps time down at the root, and it’s still not like sex, not like being horny, even, it’s something entirely its own, and it is maddening . He wants to reach down, touch himself, but he refuses.
And then he’s not refusing, he’s incapable. Finally, finally , there’s the sensation of pressure, but it’s all around him, it’s not human in the slightest. It’s like he’s been wrapped up tight, or swallowed whole, and he can’t move except to writhe in tiny, constrained motions. His toes curl. His jaw drops fully open. He moans , and he grabs onto that sound, because it translates what he’s feeling into something sensible. Pleasure . He’s feeling pleasure.
But the pleasure fades, gently to almost nothing, too fast, too soon, and Will whines at the loss. His cock aches. He thinks he’s going to beg , thinks he can’t take much more of this, and then, before he can stop himself, he’s off the couch and fumbling for his phone.
He stares at the screen. Stares at his contact list. Stares at Hannibal Lecter’s fucking name, because Will doesn’t know what’s happening to him, but who else could be responsible?
You’re losing it again, Will , he tells himself. But the sensation is starting again, along the backs of his thighs, and he sags against his desk, shivering. It’s like the ebb and flow of music, he thinks, distantly. Maybe the crescendo will happen this time. And then maybe it’ll stop completely, and he can forget this ever happened, chalk it up to misfiring, damaged neurons from the encephalitis, but god, he doesn’t want it to be that, either, and-
And he needs to know that this isn’t Hannibal, or he’s always going to wonder.
He swallows, thickly, as he considers his options. He doesn’t want to hear the man’s voice, but what could he say by text? Are you fucking with me right now ? (The answer is yes. Always.) I’m rock hard and I think it’s your fault , but I’m not fantasizing about you? (But he is- or at least, he has .)
No, there’s no good opening, and even if there were , Will doesn’t want to lead with something being wrong. Hannibal could use that. He’d know Will was vulnerable, desperate, and Will can’t allow that.
If Hannibal is doing something, Will needs to catch him in the act. Otherwise, Hannibal will obfuscate. Deny. Make him feel like he’s going crazy, again.
Will stabs the call button as the sensation increases sharply, like somebody’s cranked the volume. It’s in his belly again, nestled deep, and Will wonders if what he’s feeling is his intestines dancing. Surely that would hurt, right?
On his desk, the phone rings once. There’s a spasm of stimulation along his perineum, bright and wondrous, and then the phone rings again, and-
And it’s gone. The sensation is gone. Not quiet, not subtle, but entirely absent. Will’s hands curl tight against the edge of the desk, and he bites back a curse on the third ring, still trembling, and definitely wanting now.
Then Hannibal answers, finally. “Will. It’s quite late. Is something the matter?”
“What were you just doing?” he asks, voice somewhere between a snap and a plea. He hopes Hannibal can’t hear how breathless he is.
Silence. (Hannibal can absolutely hear it. Did absolutely hear it. Fuck .)
Hang up , he tells himself. Don’t even bother with an excuse, hang up, hang up.
He doesn’t hang up.
“Playing my theremin,” Hannibal says, finally. “Why do you ask?”
Will’s brown contorts. “Your- theremin?”
“Yes. An electronic instrument invented in 1928, that can create exquisite music without ever needing to be touched.” He pauses, then says, “Will, is something wrong?”
Music .
That’s what it was, what he guessed, but how does that make sense? Music, with a rhythm that was undeniable but not at all what he wanted out of sex, and-
He swallows, thickly. This is impossible. This is- this is ridiculous. Fuck. Without ever needing to be touched repeats over and over in his head.
“Will?”
“Can you- can you put your phone on speaker and start playing again?” He hears his own voice as if from a great distance, but the words are clear. Soft. Entreating.
“I can,” Hannibal says, but Will doesn’t hear the soft change in ambient noise that would accompany it. Instead, Hannibal considers, then adds, “But first, I’d like to know why you called me.”
“Please. Just play. I’ll- I’ll tell you after.” Because if Hannibal knows, he might never play. He certainly won’t do it by request. But now he knows Will is desperate, too, and he might withhold… what? What does Will fear more? The lack of answers, or the lack of sensation?
He doesn’t have to wonder. The sound quality changes. Will hears the quiet tap of the phone being put down. And then a single, soft, haunting note sighs through the fifty miles separating them, and the sensation begins again, just like it had the first time, on the backs of his arms. First the left, then the right as the pitch changes subtly.
“Fuck,” Will whispers.
Hannibal doesn’t stop playing, but he does say, “What are you experiencing?”
He should deny it. He should come up with some lie. He can’t, not the way he’s being swept away. The music is like nothing he’s ever heard before, close to sound effects from scifi and horror movies, but not anything that base. Hannibal’s classical sensibilities and detailed expression combine with the unearthly quality of the notes, and Will is helpless before it.
It takes all his effort to move back to the couch, phone set gently on the cushion beside him.
He doesn’t think his legs are going to hold much longer.
“It’s impossible,” Will says, wanting to laugh or scream or cry. Hannibal changes melodies, now, to something brighter, quicker, more layered, and the sensation grows, twists, spirals down his spine. It’s direct this time. Purposeful. Will’s not sure if it’s because he can hear the music, or because the type of song has changed, or because Hannibal is doing- something.
“Before- and now- I-” He rubs a hand over his face, then bites back a moan as the pitch of Hannibal’s playing rises, the volume with it, and he can suddenly feel it around the head of his cock, a pulsing circular dance.
“Can you feel this?” Hannibal asks, and his voice is softer, lower. The volume and pitch descend along with it, and it’s like a wash of liquid heat over his entire cock, like he’s being swallowed down.
He doesn’t manage to bite back the moan that time.
“Fascinating,” Hannibal murmurs.
Will could say it’s just his voice. That he’s been, what, dosed with a fucking aphrodisiac? That his inhibitions are down, and he’s just so horny that Hannibal doing something for him, at him, has him panting. He could. He should.
“Last night,” Hannibal muses, “I tried to teach Alana to play.”
Pain flashes through him, but it can’t eclipse the pleasure. “Don’t talk about Alana,” he hears himself beg. “Not right now.”
Hannibal ignores him. “We had a most interesting conversation, of how psychology and the theremin are connected, conceptually; creating without ever touching, pulling coherence from dissonance.”
He doesn’t want to, but Will can see them, dressed down and intimate, warm against one another, just as Margot was pouring herself a drink here, in this room, at the exact same time. And he can see himself connected to that conversation by invisible threads, Hannibal shaping him, beckoning him, all without ever touching.
“Of course, she thought I was talking about my relationship with her.”
Will’s cheeks burn, even as he rocks his hips into the air. His exhales shakily, trying to think. “But you were talking about me.”
“Yes.”
It’s such a simple word, but it combines with a quieting of the music, giving Will a moment to breathe. To think.
To wonder if they’ve ever been this honest with each other, about how they are connected. And they are. Even if this impossibility didn’t have him writhing on his couch, they’d have always been tethered.
Will only wishes the influence went both ways. Hannibal, after all, can’t feel any of this.
He feels tears burn behind his eyes. He feels flayed. He hates Hannibal with all his heart, even as he aches for him.
The music begins to grow again. Hannibal makes a soft sound, what might have been a sigh. “When I took her to bed-”
“ Hannibal ,” he begs, trying to ignore the sharp stab of what he realizes now is jealousy, not fear for Alana’s safety, “don’t-”
“-I became convinced that, through her, I could feel you .”
Will gasps, shoving a hand against his straining cock and pushing down, just so he can feel something solid. Something real . He thinks of Margot on top of him the night before, and how, for just a moment, he’d been sure Hannibal had been there, too. Or had it been the pitch-black stag man, crawling toward the foot of his bed? He can’t remember, he shouldn’t remember.
“And now I find I’m wondering if that might have been true.”
“I could feel you,” Will confesses, turning his face away, as if he could hide. As if he isn’t currently hidden from view by walls and towns and an entire state line. “I just assumed I was… unstable.”
“You were with somebody,” Hannibal murmurs, and pulls an almost sharp note from the theremin. Will gasps, feeling needle-pricks along his thighs. He pulls his hand from his cock and spreads his legs. It doesn’t help.
“Yes.”
Another sharp note, and then a shimmering descent, as if Hannibal is calming himself, calming both of them. “Was it good?” he asks, finally.
“It happened,” Will replies, half growl, half gasp. “And Alana? Was she good ?”
“She was a way to touch you when I could not touch you.”
“Liar,” Will snaps. He tries to stand, but can’t. Tries to reach for the phone, to hang up, but can’t. He is desperate. He is hollow.
“And she is an alibi. A wall I can use if the time ever comes,” Hannibal says, and the confession is like a balm. Will bites back a whine, but feels it in his bones. (His stained bones. His black bones.) “Say the word, and I will end it.”
“She doesn’t deserve to be a part of this,” Will whispers, not knowing which definition of deserve he means, not knowing what this boils down to, not anymore. He only knows he is territorial. He only knows he is asking for himself now, and not any sense of good or right or safe. “End it.”
“I’ll call her after this,” Hannibal says, tone as grave and serious as it ever has been; he does not do Will the indignity of sounding indulgent. “Do you want me to keep going?”
Hannibal’s hands must still, because there is silence, and Will has one last moment to think clearly. To consider running. He can end this, now. He even trusts Hannibal not to practice his playing every evening, if Will asks it of him.
It’s that, even more than his cock leaking in his pants, that makes him say, “Keep going.”
And Hannibal plays.
This is not practice. It is not rehearsal. It is not exploratory experimentation. It is a song, full and complex and rich, and Will feels himself slipping away. No- not away , but in , into the morass of anger and fear and desire and satisfaction that lives inside him. Stirred by Hannibal, seasoned perhaps, but not created by him. He relives the perfect intimate pleasure of killing Randall Tier, the glory of being seen by Hannibal from the very first, the heady power of no longer hiding from himself. And he sees every moment, as if for the first time, where Hannibal has followed where he led, has eaten from his hand and been not only grateful for it, but enkindled by it, and he can see them, together, pushing and pulling and tangling one up with the other.
The sensations go beyond words, beyond any concept of hands or mouths or penetration. He writhes, but doesn’t touch himself. Doesn’t unzip his pants, doesn’t stroke in time with the rhythm. It would be easier that way, but he might miss something. Miss one drop of Hannibal’s playing, one adjustment of his hands. Instead, he just arches, aches, swallows, as he grows tighter and heavier and fuller. Desperate and devouring.
He sobs as he comes, untouched, the climax of the song washing over him, not the cause of pleasure but the pleasure itself.
And then the coda, the ratcheting down of the tension, and Will is so grateful that the music hasn’t stopped yet, doesn’t stop even as he sags against the couch and his heart rate begins to slow. It eases him back to something functional, and then, at last, it fades to silence.
All Will can hear is Hannibal’s breathing and his own.
With this- this tether between them, this connection, unknown in its scope and its extent, it’s not just the rules that have changed. It’s the entire game. Will doesn’t know where to go from here, but it’s not as simple as locking Hannibal in a cell.
Because Hannibal will be able to reach him, still. They will never be separated.
Will is never going to be alone again.
“Tomorrow night,” Hannibal murmurs, and Will can feel it ghosting over the shell of his ear. “Come to dinner. Let me touch you. Please, Will.”
And Will stares at himself in the darkened window across from him, not yet broken, and says, “Yes.”