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Will peels the sheet from his sticky body and slips out of bed, careful not to wake the man sleeping beside him. Will's running hot -- has been ever since they arrived in Cuba -- and the bathroom tiles are deliciously cool beneath his bare feet. He stands over the toilet bowl and as he takes care of the first, most immediate of his body's needs, he's aware of another urge swelling inside him. It’s not arousal, exactly, more the potential for arousal, and he steps back into the bedroom. The air is heavy with sweat and sex, the scent of territory, of home, of himself and Hannibal. It sparks a tingling heaviness in his groin, and he slips closer, but there are no heavy-lidded eyes inviting him back to bed, just a mess of silver-brown hair on the pillow and the deep, even breathing of sleep. Will shuts the door softly behind him and heads downstairs.
It's still early, but Will's learning to appreciate this first hour of daylight before the sun climbs over the rooftops and the air turns to soup. Some things are sacrosanct, even in these temperatures, and Will flips the switch that starts the coffee machine humming. Will never considered himself a sybarite before he lived with Hannibal. He still doesn’t, in fact, because there’s no way he’ll be caught dead in satin pajamas, and he has no intention of using the beard oil that appeared in their bathroom a couple of weeks ago. It’s the pleasures of the table that Will enjoys, the things that he can slip into his mouth, the things that he can taste and savour and consume. So when he pulls the cannister of single-estate arabica out of the cupboard he takes a moment to let the nutty richness hit his nostrils and burst with anticipation on his tongue.
There’s a stealthy step behind him. A hand falls on Will’s shoulder. He whirls, panic jolting through him in a sick rush, and his stomach lurches -- but it's Hannibal. It's only Hannibal, and he’s saying something, but all that Will can hear is the clamour of his stuttering heart. It’s just his lover, enticed by the prospect of coffee, but Will’s brain takes the pieces -- shock, and Hannibal and a kitchen -- and wrenches them into a memory of red agony, of helpless fear.
“I said,” Hannibal tells him, “grind enough beans for two.”
Will laughs, because there’s a pressure inside him, brimming over, and he needs some kind of release. He laughs, but the sound is brittle, cracking open, spilling things he’d rather keep inside. Hannibal eases the cannister from Will’s trembling hand, and Will catches the flare of his nostrils, the sharp intake of breath. He knows that Hannibal can smell the fear on him, a bitter cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol, and he ducks his head before he gives anything else away.
There are coffee beans all over the floor, and Will sinks down on wobbly legs and starts to pick them up in ones and twos. He takes a slow breath in and holds it, then lets it out, slower still. He knows that he’s being irrational. He owes Hannibal his freedom as well as his life. He shares a house with the man. They share a bed, and Will really shouldn’t be afraid of Hannibal. But he is. And when Hannibal slips a hand under Will’s arm to pull him to his feet Will can’t stop himself from flinching.
“You frightened me,” Will confesses. He tries to offer a smile but it gets away from him, twisting into a grimace.
“I frighten you,” Hannibal corrects, and Will wants to deny it, but he’s in disarray. He’s painfully aware of the picture he must paint, standing there pale and twitchy while the fear echoes through his veins, clutching coffee beans in his sweaty hand. “Tell me, Will: your fear of me, does it come from the past or from some imagined future?”
“This is the future I chose,” Will says, and he waves his hand, encompassing all of the geography and time and emotion that separates them from Hannibal’s house on the cliff. Will sleeps soundly with Hannibal’s arm draped across him, never imagining that it will tighten around his throat. “But the past doesn’t always stay buried.” Not all of the cries that are torn from his throat in the night are cries of pleasure.
“What summoned the past back to life this morning?” Of course Hannibal has to ask. Hannibal wouldn’t be Hannibal if he pulled back when he had the chance to push.
“There doesn’t have to be a trigger,” Will says. “I carried my fear with me for a long time. Sometimes I can still feel the shape and the weight of it.” It’s a deflection, and a fairly clumsy one at that, but Will’s out of practice at evading Hannibal’s more penetrating questions. He turns away to rinse the coffee beans from his hand.
Somehow, despite the fact that he’s wearing nothing more than pajama pants, Hannibal’s professional facade is back, the mask that frustrated Will’s curiosity through so many of their sessions. Hannibal waits patiently for Will to tire of that implacable barrier, to hurl himself against it, cracking himself open, disgorging secrets. Hannibal wears his self-control like a second skin, like a carapace. But Will’s discovered that that armor will yield to the gentle assault of his fingertips. And if Hannibal prefers to remain silent, Will knows that he can unseal those lips with his own, that he can make Hannibal moan. Whatever defences Hannibal builds, Will can undo them, can undo him, leaving him sweat-slick and panting as he falls apart.
Longing surges through Will in a warm tide. When it reaches his face, when he sees it mirrored in Hannibal’s darkening eyes, the flush rising to his cheeks, Will tells himself that he’s not still deflecting, it’s just that they have better ways to spend their morning than laying old ghosts. He leans in close, close enough that he can feel the heat and the electric tingle leaking from Hannibal’s skin, and his mouth sighs open, a temptation he knows that Hannibal won’t be able to resist.
Hannibal kisses slowly, teasingly, like he’s coaxing the pleasure out of Will, like he has to win him all over again. There’s a gentleness to it that’s utterly unlike the consuming fierceness that follows a kill, and Will mirrors the soft hunger of Hannibal’s lips, the lazy stroke of his tongue. Anticipation tightens somewhere in the region of Will’s diaphragm. He’s hungry for this -- he’ll go to his grave hungry for this -- but he’s in no hurry, because there’s absolutely nowhere else he’d rather be and nothing else he’d rather be doing.
But this is still new -- they are still new -- and Will’s excitement surges, sharpening into a demand as the heat begins to pool in his crotch. He wants more, wants everything, and he wants it now. He thrusts his tongue deeper into the wet heat of Hannibal’s mouth, and runs it across the wicked sharpness of his teeth. He half hopes that Hannibal will bite, drawing blood, kissing him harder through the glorious copper gush of it. Hannibal slips a hand between them, and Will’s breath catches as mounting desire floods through him. But Hannibal’s fingers are heading up, not down, his palm a gentle but irresistible pressure that comes to rest over Will’s heart, pushing them apart when he ought to be pulling them together.
“While I appreciate the distraction,” Hannibal says, desire fraying the edges of his carefully measured words, “it doesn’t change the fact that you’re experiencing intrusive memories.”
They both know what that’s a symptom of. It’s pointless to deny it, to deny that Hannibal affects Will in other, less pleasant ways, and this really wasn’t the way that Will thought his morning was going. Will sighs and rests his forehead for a moment on Hannibal’s shoulder while he waits out the breathless imperative of his arousal. He pulls back, and allows himself to be skewered by Hannibal’s gaze.
“It might take a while,” Will tells him. It’s partly a warning, and partly a promise, one that Will intends to keep if he can.
“Will you let me help you?”
“You think I should resume my therapy?” There’s an intensity to Hannibal’s attention that’s terrifying and alluring in equal measure. And Will has missed that, their time together, just the two of them alone in the darkness, whittling truth down to the bone. To know and be known with such profound clarity was an intimacy greater than Will had shared with any lover.
“There’s a technique that I’d like to try.”
“Something unorthodox?” Will teases, letting his fingers brush against Hannibal’s for a moment before he turns away to fill the coffee machine with water.
When he turns back, Hannibal is standing in front of him with a knife. Hannibal lifts the blade. The steel screams deadly intention. And it’s too late to do anything but jerk backwards, to get away -- but Will’s trapped against the counter, and Hannibal is there, right there, stepping into his space. There’s a terrible look on Hannibal’s face: pain and the promise of pain in return. Will tries to brace himself against the memory, but it rips through his defences, tearing his flesh, and Hannibal’s fingers tighten, holding Will in place as the agony flares to a white heat.
“Relax,” Hannibal tells him, and Will gulps down a breath through the constriction of his throat. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Will blinks, and he’s standing in Havana sunshine, not the wet chill of a Baltimore night. Hannibal has Will by the arm, but his thumb is massaging Will’s bicep and there’s a gentle curve to Hannibal’s mouth that’s almost a smile. Hannibal lets him go, shifting his hand to stroke Will’s cheek. He’s definitely smiling now, but he still hasn’t put down the knife, and Will’s going to set some new ground rules. Just as soon as he finds his voice.
“There are several forms of treatment for PTSD,” Hannibal tells him, and Will tries to cling to the words, because maybe then he won’t keep thinking about the blade that’s only inches away. “They all require the sufferer to relive their memory of the trauma while focussing on other stimuli.” Hannibal shifts closer, and his words tickle warmly into Will’s ear. “Pleasant stimuli.”
Hannibal nips at Will’s earlobe, not hard, but it’s enough to make him jump, a little jolt that passes quickly, taking some of his tension along with it. Hannibal’s lips find the pulse point at the junction of his neck and shoulder, a wet suction that’s going leave a mark, but Will doesn’t care, not when it feels this good. Hannibal’s mouth works its way upwards, trailing delicious heat along the sensitive skin of his throat, and Will’s fear melts into desire, a spreading warmth that leaves him sagging back against the counter, yielding and pliant. When he reaches the line of Will’s jaw, Hannibal stops and buries his nose in the straggling beard. Will knows that Hannibal can smell his arousal, just as he can feel Hannibal’s hardness stirring against his hip, and his fingers stretch towards it.
“Don’t move,” Hannibal says, and Will doesn’t.
Very slowly, Will tilts his head down. Hannibal is holding the knife just below his navel, and it’s only the imminence of disaster that pins Will in place while the panic scrabbles inside his skull, a desperate fear that keeps on rising in his lizard brain. A breath hisses out of him as the blade dips under the hem of his t-shirt. He feels the pull as the fabric bulges outward, and he imagines it’s his skin that's stretching, pulling taut, poised for the moment when steel breaches flesh. Then the blade pushes through the resistance, slicing upwards, and there ought to be blood, a rich red gush over his belly and down his chest -- but there’s only the whisper of cotton surrendering to sharp steel. The wound is in his mind, but Will can feel his body opening for Hannibal beneath the gentle violence of the knife.
“Fear releases dopamine as well as adrenaline,” Hannibal remarks, as he finishes cutting through the front of Will's t-shirt. “It stimulates the body’s reward system, fear and pleasure linked in the most intimate of ways.” He brushes the fabric aside, leaving Will's torso exposed, displayed.
The wet velvet of Hannibal's mouth is on Will's throat, an exquisite tease that sets Will's heart pounding. Hannibal trails kisses down Will's chest, tugging the swelling bud of a nipple between his teeth, drawing out a groan. And suddenly Will's too hot, and his skin is constricting around him, his groin tightening. His blood throbs heavily through him, drawn ever downwards by the suction of Hannibal's lips, the squirm of Hannibal's tongue, over the planes of his abdominals and the soft curve of his stomach. Hannibal sinks to his knees, and just the sight of that, just the thought of it, sends erotic images cavorting behind his eyes. It wouldn't take much to get him fully hard now, just the moist caress of Hannibal's breath, the flick of his tongue, and Hannibal's hands are already lifting towards the waistband of Will's boxers.
“I need you to trust me,” Hannibal says, and he presses the knife against Will’s scar.
Will does trust Hannibal, and he knows that it's only the flat of the blade lying cold against his belly, but he can feel it pushing inside him, a relentless penetration, endless searing agony -- and he's suspended in the moment, his lungs stagnating, his heart a dormant lump of meat inside his chest. Then the chill is gone and Hannibal's lips are tracing the ridge of damaged flesh, setting it on fire. Scar tissue shouldn't be this sensitive, shouldn't feel this good, but the nerves start to tingle and the tingle spreads and deepens, and Will's flagging cock stirs back into life. His hands clutch at Hannibal’s shoulders, silently urging him on.
The knife is back again, but even fear exhausts itself eventually, and Will’s shredded nerves respond with little more than a dull, reflexive wash of panic. The blade holds Will in place, a warning -- no, a lesson: the cutting edge of Hannibal’s therapy. Will’s hands drop to his sides, his shoulders slumping in surrender, as he yields to whatever it is that Hannibal wants from him. And what Hannibal wants is to reach inside Will’s boxers and pull out his cock, which is all the encouragement it needs, and Will stiffens in Hannibal’s grip, craving more: more pressure, more friction, the squeeze of Hannibal’s fingers, or, better still, his mouth.
Hannibal’s always known what Will wants even before he knows it himself, and he licks up the underside of Will’s cock, which twitches, swelling further into an aching hardness. The tip of Hannibal’s tongue swirls around the head, probing the slit, gathering up the moisture oozing there and pulling it back into his mouth, absorbing the flavour, the essence of Will. And Will wants to thrust inside that mouth, deep, deeper, as far as he can go, as far as Hannibal can take, and Hannibal will take it all and only smile around Will’s desperate need. There’s no appetite of Will’s that Hannibal doesn’t want to indulge, no boundary he doesn’t challenge him to cross. The two of them are no longer a zero sum game. Hannibal would swallow Will whole and still be hungry for more.
But Hannibal restrains Will with the knife, a sharp warning pressed against vulnerable flesh, and he wraps his lips around around Will’s erection. Will’s trapped, torn between caution and the rising need to drive into the slick tightness of Hannibal’s mouth. His hands clench around air as he wrestles with the urge to grab, to hold, to thrust, and he finally stifles the frantic twitching of his hips. Hannibal rewards him by taking him deeper and squeezing with his tongue, and Will groans at the wonderful grip and tug of it as Hannibal devours him over and over, cheeks hollowing around the slick length of him, glistening with saliva. Will’s legs are quivering with the strain of holding him up, holding himself still. He’s not going to last, but Hannibal speeds up, his tongue rubbing against the sweet spot right beneath the head of Will’s cock, sparking pleasure right through him. Hannibal works a hand up between Will’s legs, and pulls gently at his balls, and Will is coming, shuddering through the intensity of his release, back arching, hips bucking in spite of the blade -- but the knife is already clattering on the floor and Hannibal is swallowing around him, swallowing him down.
When Will can move again, he tangles his fingers in Hannibal’s hair, pulling him away, pulling him up into a sloppy kiss, tasting the salt and tang of himself on Hannibal’s tongue. He’s aware now of the sweat trickling between his shoulder blades, of the coffee beans digging into the soles of his feet, the trembling of his thighs. Will watches idly as Hannibal picks up the knife and lays it aside on the counter. He’s calm, now, but it’s the calm of exhaustion. Hannibal brushes his fingertips over Will’s scar. It’s an acknowledgement rather than an apology, because Hannibal is a man with few regrets and that isn’t one of them. Will catches his fingers and holds them for a moment, giving them a quick squeeze. He doesn’t need an apology, and he has no desire to change Hannibal more than he already has.
“That was more fun than a trust fall,” Will chuckles.
Will Graham uses humour to deflect, to defend, to defuse. He knows it, and he knows that Hannibal knows it too, but Will has no intention of changing, either. So he rubs his thumb along the ripe swell of Hannibal’s lips, and when he pulls the man in for a kiss he tries to let his mouth, his hands, his entire body, communicate the aching vastness inside him for which he has no words.
And Hannibal is communicating wordlessly, as well, the press of his arousal a polite insistence against Will’s thigh. Will’s mirror neurons fire, and anticipation leaps the gap between them. It’s not enough to get him hard again, not yet -- he’s the wrong side of forty, and the last few years have not been kind -- but a sympathetic warmth spreads through him as he digs his fingers into the meat of Hannibal’s ass. And if Hannibal enjoys breaking down Will’s defences, then it’s something that Will revels in, too. So when he sees Hannibal’s lips part in invitation, when he hears the faint catch in Hannibal’s breathing, he grinds against him and he grins when he feels Hannibal’s erection twitch. Will has to admit that there’s one good things about Hannibal’s taste in pajamas, and he watches Hannibal’s eyes flutter shut at the teasing slide of satin against his cock.
“Dr. Lecter,” Will observes, as he takes him in hand and begins to stroke, “I think that you could use a little therapy yourself.”