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Hannibal’s hand hovered over the brass doorknob that led to Will’s room at the cliff house. It sat unoccupied for years, but today its four walls contained its intended occupant for the first time.
There were no sounds of movement on the other side of the door. His hand clenched and unclenched as he stopped himself from reaching for the handle.
He rapped his knuckles against the door.
“Will?”
His wariness of Will was an ingrained thing, an animal habit honed from one too many brushes with death at his hands. The shower had finished running some time ago, and Hannibal remained unsure of Will’s intentions beyond the fact that he'd freed him to face the Dragon. The urge to disregard privacy and let himself in the room was strong, as was the draw of this new path, forged when Will provided the means to his escape. Should he wish to see where this new road led, he could not do things as he had before.
He knocked again.
When there was no answer, he sighed and let himself in, crediting his own patience as he prepared himself for whatever he may find on the other side.
Will’s room was dark, save for the light that spilled from the closet where he stood, silhouetted. He didn’t move as Hannibal approached, his footsteps loud enough to be heard in the quiet. He followed Will’s gaze over the rows of shirts, pants, and shoes that lined the walls. He studied the deep wood cabinets that held the necessary accompaniments of his wardrobe and the polished gleam of silver and gold that peeked through the glass of the top shelf. Will would see them and know that Hannibal had chosen them with care, prioritizing quality and functionality because that was what Will preferred. He would see Hannibal's softest parts in every choice he made, each one proof of the hopes he once held for them both.
“I had wondered if I might find you here,” Hannibal said, his arms folded behind his back. The warm light of the walk-in illuminated him as he stepped forward, stopping behind Will’s right shoulder.
“Where else would I be?” Will said, his gaze still fixed on the wardrobe.
“That is not what I meant.”
Will turned, meeting his eyes. He saw too much, as was his gift and his curse. Will knew that Hannibal had pictured the three of them here, in this house. He had pictured him outside, walking along the crumbling cliffside with Abigail, inside by the fire brooding over a whiskey, scowling over the lip of a crystal glass—a design selected to suit both of their sensibilities. A token of what they could be, together. Congruity and balance. Symmetry. It would have been beautiful .
Will’s eyes traveled down, dipping to where Hannibal’s shirt was only half-buttoned. He’d not finished dressing in his haste to discover whether Will’s unpredictability had made a fool of him once again. His eyes went back to the row of shirts in whites and neutrals, a further concession to Will’s tastes and further evidence of how Hannibal might have bent for him once.
“I see it now,” Will said. “What you wanted for us back then. It had to be tangible for me to picture it. To imagine that…there might have been another way.”
Hannibal made a sound of acknowledgement in his throat. He gestured to the closet.
“What you see before you is merely an afterimage. A consequence of past actions rippling outward in time,” Hannibal said. “An illusion you can touch.”
Hannibal leaned back against the white door frame. The wood still smelled faintly of paint despite the fact that updates had been made years prior. Will moved to lean back against the frame across from him and mirrored his stance. Their profiles were bisected by heavy shadow and the closet light.
When he noticed Hannibal was distracted, Will sought his eyes with quiet aggression—the kind that coaxed rather than threatened. He was solid before him. So much more sure of himself than the man he’d first met in Jack Crawford’s office.
Will was different than the last time they’d spoken; he carried an air of satisfaction over him, something which must have eluded Hannibal, or he would not be so brazen. He'd gotten a leg up somehow.
Hannibal assessed him more closely now, trying to see what had changed. Trying to imagine what Will could know, and how. What piece of himself had gone amiss. And with who .
Will stood before him like a looming general, bearing a gift given to him over enemy lines. A betrayal and an unlikely allyship.
Will’s eyes traveled up his neck as his brow furrowed and he swallowed, puzzling something out. The heat of it was peculiar, different than the frigid pierce Will’s assessment usually evoked. His eyes had been wandering more than they usually did, settling over the exposed areas of Hannibal's skin.
Click. Click. Click.
A gift over enemy lines indeed.
His twitching underbelly had been presented to the person who wished most to harm him. His bleeding heart exposed in the hopes that Will might crush it under his heel, as she would have.
“How is Bedelia, Will?”
Will’s eyes flickered and shuttered, the haziness around him fizzling and blinking away until the edges of him were sharp once more. Impossibly, he managed to look guilty despite the righteous inferno he had proudly engulfed himself with only moments ago.
Hannibal had recalled Will in his memory palace many times over the years, but the reality of him—his ever-vexing duality and his penchant for twisting Hannibal from the inside out—was impossible to recreate in its entirety. His curls were half damp, and Hannibal could see the spots on his shirt where water had been left to drip carelessly into the white collar. The air was lightly fragranced with the scent of bath products—chosen more to Hannibal’s taste than Will’s, though he felt no remorse for this—and Hannibal took a moment to indulge in the fact that this was real . That Will was here, not as a memory or a faded fragment of an impossible future, but presently. Snapping at him and toying with him, alive in all the ways he remembered.
Fear was never more than a fleeting pass over Hannibal’s door; it departed him swiftly as it had arrived. Hannibal felt the stirrings of a smile in his cheeks as he did nothing more than look at Will and take his fill, breathing him in like he was vital.
“Don’t,” Will said. His chest rose and fell with his quickened breath. Hannibal studied the lines of his clavicle and followed them up to where his neck would be warm, pulsing with blood. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Hannibal’s smile broke through, growing teeth. He kept his hands folded neatly behind him, pressing into the doorframe.
“You understand that to know you is to know that this moment is fleeting. I can never know where your whims might take us, Will. You’ve still many choices to make. You don’t know what you’ll do; your convictions are changing from one moment to the next. Given the circumstances, and the unlikeliness of this evening ending ideally for either of us, I find I quite wish to hang on to this moment, just a while longer.”
Will scoffed, the smirk on his face like barbed wire. “And what moment is this, Doctor Lecter?” he said, the faux-innocence of it taunting, teasing, and cruel in equal measure—much like Will himself.
“I pictured you here, in this place. You would be defiant and unimpressed. Not at peace—not at first. No, I imagined that day would come much later. But above all, I pictured you would be here with me.”
He kept his gaze fixed on where Will’s socked feet twitched against the wood floor. The image was intimate in a way they hadn’t been before, not really. He stared, transfixed by the sight.
“This is the moment before,” Will said, dipping his head to catch Hannibal’s eyes again, their connection thrumming to life when it did. “In this moment, I have both chosen you and not chosen you. We face none of the punishment that comes after, only the delight of the possibilities.”
“Before you and after you,” Hannibal said. “In this moment we are stretching backwards and forwards through time, when all possible futures still exist. Where every outcome has material probability, however slight.”
“You think we might actually die,” Will said, a groove forming between his brows.
“Or worse. I don’t presume to know what will happen.”
“I doubt Francis will manage to kill both of us.”
“It is unlikely, yes.”
The silence between them was a heavy plank, weighted to the point of snapping until Hannibal spoke.
“The study of grief in animal species is complicated,” he said. “But there is some suggestion of bonds so powerful, to sever them is to bring death upon the surviving bonded.”
“There’s no actual proof animals can die of a broken heart.”
“No,” Hannibal agreed, “but there are empirical examples of animals following a partner in death, heedless of reason,” he said. “Evidence of a pain too great to be understood through man made tools. Such is the loss of a loved one.”
Gravity pulled Hannibal forward, away from the doorframe and into Will’s space. To orbit him felt natural; to collide with him felt inevitable. Will responded to the proximity with a flutter of his lashes, endlessly appealing without ever meaning to be.
“That kind of grief has only really been noted in species that mate for life,” Will said, his voice no more than a whisper between them.
“Yes,” Hannibal said, leaning in to brush his freshly shaven cheek against Will’s stubble, delighting in the sparks of friction the action left in his wake. Will’s scent was concentrated at the soft hinge of his jaw, below his ear, and he shivered when Hannibal pressed his nose into it. His arms came up to grasp at Hannibal’s sleeves, his fingers twitching to pull him in, then to push him away, successfully accomplishing neither. Hannibal kept his nose to his pulse point, scenting him while he could.
“This isn’t what we do,” Will said, easing Hannibal away but keeping him in his grasp. “This isn’t what we are.”
This close, Will had to look up to meet his gaze. The way his eyes rounded reminded Hannibal of that painful evening years ago. It roused the phantom feeling of sodden curls between his fingers and the slip of Will’s hands, grasping at him as he collapsed in a pool of his own blood. Between them laid the broken-heartedness of lovers who had shown their love bodily. They were both littered with scars that couldn’t be seen as anything but evidence of their mutual obsession, if not affection.
“This isn’t that different from what we’ve shared before,” Hannibal amended. “We are all that stands between what we have been and who we will be.”
Will’s grip on his sleeves relaxed, the sharp set of his shoulders drooped. His head dropped between them, his expression pensive at first, and then focused on where Hannibal was already showing signs of interest at his proximity. His brow was furrowed in thought.
“I’m not gay,” Will said.
“I don’t recall ever suggesting such a thing.”
He knew from his time as Will’s psychiatrist that he had never so much as experimented with another man—had not even shown the basic curiosity present among many otherwise heterosexually-identifying males. That didn’t change the fact that there was a visible redness creeping up Will’s neck and cheeks, and the not-insignificant fact that Will had still not released him, despite his protestations. That he could have had Hannibal well out of the room by now if he had given any indication that was his desire.
“What is this?” Will asked, his jaw set tight. “You bind yourself to me so that I’ll protect you, like Alana did?”
Hannibal tensed, his grip on Will’s biceps tightening before he reminded himself to loosen it. Will tensed and relaxed with him, ebbing and flowing with Hannibal’s mood as if bobbing along a current. He was reminded again that Will was singular in his existence—so unlike anyone else Hannibal had ever known. His determination to remain indifferent to the outcomes before them wavered as a surge of longing crested and choked him, threatening his resolve.
“We are marching toward an uncaring and indifferent fate,” he said. “Facing the time of judgement. All we have done, and all that we are, suspended upon the great scales of good and evil. Even now, you exist in the places between, but your essence cannot exist, divided as is, for much longer. The Will who stands before me is the last of his kind.”
“I’m going to change again,” Will said. “Become. I am an endangered species.”
“Change is inevitable,” Hannibal said. “It comes for all of us, in its time.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Will asked, his brow arched in a way that was difficult to not find endearing, despite the circumstances. “I should succumb to the inevitable before it comes for me? Beat it to the punch?”
“What I offer is nothing more than an invitation to taste freedom. To know the taste of possibility on your tongue before you resign yourself to the taste of ash.”
“A moment, suspended outside of time,” Will said.
“Yes,” he said, helpless against the reflex to lick his lips in response to the direction their conversation had taken. “One of many possibilities,” he said. “One which we might seize for ourselves before it is taken from us entirely.”
Will exhaled slowly, his eyes closing as he did. Hannibal took the opportunity to look down, confirming that Will was starting to be affected as he was. Of his many ruminations, this was a line Hannibal hadn’t dared cross, even in his memory palace. The very real possibility that Will’s sexuality would remain inflexible was enough to dampen any fanciful notions he may have had about their joining. There were so many things he wanted to ask: was Will empathizing with him now? Had he ever thought of them like this, together? Did he tremble for his wife as he trembled now, in Hannibal’s arms? He said nothing, knowing that he would obtain far better results by waiting Will out; if his plans for Hannibal’s escape proved anything, it was that Will Graham was bold , and worthy of every awe and terror. He would do exactly what he wanted, as Hannibal had always said he should.
When Will opened his eyes again, he was resolved. Will being a man of action more often than words, Hannibal was not sure of his decision until he felt Will’s hands pulling at his forearms, urging them around his waist. His hands moved over Hannibal’s arms and shoulders, awkward and unfamiliar with the particular motion. His arms found their way around his neck and brought them close, foreheads touching but moving no further. He kept them suspended there, infuriatingly close but out of reach.
As he had been before, when he’d relied on Hannibal and trusted him without knowing what he really was.
As he had been when he’d dangled the possibility of a joined future in front of him like live bait.
As he had been recently, when he pressed his palm to the glass of Hannibal’s cell, ensuring his absence would be seen and felt like a brand.
And now, resisting him even as he beckoned him, ensuring Hannibal would receive the credit—receive the blame —for whatever came after Will gave in to his desires, only to be disgusted at their existence once they'd been sated. Resentment and past hurts threatened to tear him from the moment. But Will was so close, and they may not have much time…
“Hannibal.” As if Will could hear his thoughts, the whispered sound of his name came with a brush of lips against his, and Hannibal quite suddenly found he didn’t much care who kissed whom, or who would be to blame for what came next. There was only room for one thought in his head; one smoke to cloud his lungs, one poison to drink and drown in, one word to fall from his lips:
Will.
Impossibility became reality, and Hannibal’s need was a tangible force. Their lips moved against each other, hungry and instinctual. Will exhaled sharply through his nose as he pulled at Hannibal’s arms, urging him closer, asking to be held tighter. Hannibal tightened his hold, taking a step forward as he did and Will stepped back, letting himself be pressed back against the doorframe. Will didn’t continue the kiss, instead using his hold on Hannibal to pull him closer until he could rest his head against his chest, exhaling deeply as he settled.
Hannibal froze, not wishing to disturb Will’s decisive streak. He swallowed the lump in his throat, moved by how the chaste action of holding Will like this proved to be even more intimate than the kiss. He slowly let his weight fall forward onto the man beneath him, sensing that the steady pressure was what Will was asking for without realizing. His suspicion was confirmed when Will let out a content sigh, quiet enough to suggest he was trying to hide it. He was peaceful, smothered by Hannibal's weight. It all seemed so fitting.
Hannibal was momentarily awed—stunned by how right it felt to mould together, like they had done this in a million lifetimes before. He marveled at how his heart hammered, and reveled at the distinct feeling that he was doing something he shouldn’t—that Will was forbidden to him, in some way. Regardless of how he viewed it, Will was bad for him. Hannibal, by Will’s standards, was bad for Will. Though it was true, it changed nothing. They were more powerful together than they had ever been alone. They belonged to each other, to their mutual detriment.
“What are you thinking?” Will asked, his voice rumbling through where they touched chest to chest, making Hannibal shiver. He took in a breath and released it slowly, collecting himself before replying.
“I’m thinking…I would very much like for us to defeat our enemies tonight, Will.”
“And then what?” he asked, voice fragile but hopeful in a way that threatened Hannibal's meager defenses.
“After all these years, I find myself less and less concerned with those details,” Hannibal said. He took a moment, just to look at him, before he continued speaking. “Of all the inconstant shapes I have imagined for our future—the various ways in which we may fit together and chafe now and in our many iterations to come—I have learned that it is best to simplify the scope of my desired outcomes to one which I would accept, whatever form it may take.”
“What outcome is that?”
“Won’t you humor me, Will?” Hannibal deployed one of his well-crafted smiles, hoping Will wasn't entirely immune to old-fashioned charm. “Your perception was always a sight to behold.”
A smile twitched at the corner of Will’s mouth before his look became wistful, focused on the patch of dark and grey chest hair that peeked through Hannibal’s shirt. Questions darted through Hannibal’s mind once again: did Will consider his draw to him to be strictly cerebral or did he find him attractive the way Hannibal found him attractive? Did he desire him sexually, or in some abstract way that only Will would ever experience, yet another mystery of his empathy that Hannibal yearned to comprehend?
“You want us to leave here together, or not at all,” Will said, cutting through to the heart of the matter as easily as Hannibal carved flesh from bone. He looked up, greedy for Hannibal’s reaction; Will always seemed quite satisfied whenever he managed to lay Hannibal bare in a way no one else could. Perhaps it was an extension of Will’s claim on him, something Hannibal found he didn’t mind the thought of. He nodded; denial was pointless.
“Promise me,” Will said, his delicate features severe in the half-light. Hannibal held on to his every word as if it were gospel. “Promise you won’t let them take you again. I don’t want you caught.”
“And you?”
“I won’t let them take me,” Will said, his voice brittle. “I can’t go back there. I can’t.”
“Together,” Hannibal said, assuaging his fears before they could fester. “I promise.”
Will looked visibly relieved. He, perhaps better than anyone, knew what came of Hannibal’s promises. Despite the mistrust that lingered, Will would trust him in this, it seemed. His eyes softened with his acceptance, trailing downward until they landed on Hannibal’s lips. He leaned forward, eliminating the scant distance between them. The kiss was slow and exploratory. They had hours yet before night would fall and the Dragon would come hunting. For now, they were suspended in time, free to explore the lovely illusion they’d squirreled away.
Hannibal licked deep when Will allowed him, tasting him with the flat of his tongue. He’d brushed his teeth after his shower and the fresh mint mingled with the taste of him, the sweet poison that was Will’s essence. He used his grip on his hair to guide him this way and that, absorbing every sensation as if it could make up for all the time before. Like it could heal the indignity that was wanting for so long. Will went easily, the relief and the hunger soothing over so many jagged edges between them. The taste of Will’s desire was a balm to his wounds, one which he would not release so easily.
Eventually, they stumbled toward the bed, Hannibal relying on his knowledge of the room’s layout to guide them in the dark. The heavy curtains were drawn, encapsulating them in a temporary net of safety. All the lights were turned off except for the one on the nightstand, dimmed to its lowest setting. It ensured he was able to see every detail of Will’s skin as it was revealed to him, inch by inch as he undid each button with reverence. He made short work of his own shirt—it was half-hanging off him by the time Will was done tugging on him anyway—and removed both of their pants. Shortly after, they were writhing with only their boxer briefs between them. Their kisses were messy, bordering on desperate.
“It shouldn’t feel like this,” Will said from where he was propped above him on his elbows, hips rutting uselessly against him, pushing their hardened lengths against each other in a way that satisfied and frustrated them both in equal measure. “We shouldn’t be able to have this.”
“How does it feel, Will?” he said, his voice hoarse as he endured Will’s cruelty, each touch overwhelming after going so long without.
“Like I need you,” he said, his eyes clenched shut with the admission. Hannibal rubbed at his temple with his thumb, soothing the tension underneath. He could only imagine the tempest inside that Will kept at bay, that he had tamed for respite so he could be here, with Hannibal, in this moment.
“Let that be enough, for now.”
Will nodded and dipped his head, taking Hannibal’s lips in a kiss once more.
It was easy from there, no need for words between them save for when Will asked if he had something to help them out . He was unsurprised when Hannibal left the room and returned with an unopened bottle of lubricant, presumably stashed away in his own bathroom.
They started slow, kissing languidly as they removed their underwear. Hannibal held them both in a tight grip, slickening them so they moved with delicious ease, every movement between them beyond pleasurable. He eased off when it became too much, not wanting things to end so soon.
“Is there anything you want, Will?” he said, his voice rough and breathless.
Will closed his eyes and shook his head. “Just this…just—” Will took them both in hand, causing Hannibal to moan in surprise on the first upstroke. It took a moment for Will’s instincts to take over, and then he was handling them both with ease, his calloused fingers ratcheting up every sensation. Every faith Hannibal placed in him was justified; of course Will was bold, of course he would take what he wanted. Hannibal knew that Will had never done this before; likely never would have if he hadn’t met Hannibal. The reminder of their connection was enough to push his emotion into too much and he was spilling over Will’s hand earlier than intended.
“Ah, fuck,” Will moaned through clenched eyes as he continued to work them both. “Fuck, Hannibal.”
“I want to suck you,” Hannibal said, regaining some of his composure now that he was off the precipice. Will nodded shakily, along with some breathy yeah, yeah, yeah ’s that proved to be sufficient invitation. Hannibal pressed him back against the bed, making himself comfortable between his slender thighs. Another time, perhaps, he would have taken his time, dragged out every step until he’d achieved mastery over Will’s physical existence. But there was too much between them, so much held back for so long. Hannibal went to him like a man dying of thirst, took him into his mouth as if he were sustenance enough to sustain him. Will moaned and arched off the bed. Hannibal’s long fingers splayed out over the scar on Will’s belly to hold him down. The sight of it was obscene; Hannibal’s large hand skimming over the mark he’d left on his skin while he bobbed his head over Will’s cock. Will moaned louder, throwing his head back against the pillow, hiding his face with his arm and gasping for air.
“None of that, Will,” he said, stroking him roughly while he spoke. “Let me see you.”
Will made a sound in his throat, close to a whine, as he lowered his arm, exposing his flushing cheeks and making his heaving chest even more enticing. Hannibal engulfed him with his mouth once more, breathing deeply through his nose and cataloging every scent and taste he was met with. It wasn’t long before Will’s fingers tangled in his hair, clenching and desperate as he arched and cried out, spilling down Hannibal’s throat with an orgasm so powerful it could have been mistaken for pain. Hannibal licked every inch of him clean while he twitched, tracing his torso with his hands and moving up until they laid side-by-side. He held Will’s cheek as he kissed him, slow and sweet.
Will’s eyes were glazed over when they opened. Hannibal couldn’t begin to imagine where his thoughts had gone, and searching for him there would prove fruitless. Instead, he handled them so he was wrapped around Will, holding him with his back to Hannibal’s chest. Will seemed to relax when he realized there would be no therapeutic analysis of what they’d just done, and no seeking of the secrets he still kept. For now—only now—they were content.
“How much longer do we have?”
Hannibal was asking himself the same question, though perhaps not in the same way as Will. He tightened his hold, as if that would make the passage of the seconds come any slower, as if Will wasn’t already slipping through his fingers as they laid there warm and close. They would kill the Dragon and emerge victorious, or they would die. Together and free, or nothing at all. For now, both worlds were alive, waiting for them to step inside.
“We have time enough for this,” Hannibal said, pressing a kiss behind Will’s ear. “So be here with me.”
“I am,” Will said, bringing up one of Hannibal’s hands to his lips, pressing a light kiss to each one of his knuckles, but felt like much more. “I am.”