Work Text:
Beverly looks at Will. She leans in and sniffs him.
"That seems inappropriate," Will says, mostly from amusement.
"Your new boo has you smelling good," she responds. "How did she do it? I've been trying to hint to this guy that he would be 35% sexier if he would stop wearing so much cologne."
"Um. Well, he didn't hint," Will says. She slightly reacts to the pronoun, leaning in. "He spent the night and I woke up to him going through my kitchen. He threw out all my jam, my pickles, um, my pasta, all kinds of things, and then he went into my bathroom and threw out my soap and shampoo and yeah, the Old Spice my cousin keeps giving me. He said he would give me better. And he texted me to pick him up on the way home and he had this giant basket full of different versions of things he had thrown away. This new aftershave is in this little spray bottle with no label. He mixed it himself." Will shrugs at the end.
"Well, this is fascinating, and I'm buying you lunch so I can hear more," Beverly says. Will lets her tug him along.
*
She buys him ramen. She mixes in hot chili liberally, and Will adds sesame oil and fresh cilantro. "Actually, I'm not surprised I didn't know you were bi or whatever. You keep your personal life pretty locked down. It's impressive, honestly."
"I try to keep myself out of the work and the work out of me," Will says.
"Not always easy," Beverly says.
Will shakes his head.
"So what's his name, what does he do, how did you meet?"
"Hannibal. We met at the fish market picking out scallops. He was picking them up one at a time and looking at them like a jeweler looking at rings, and I started watching him," Will says. "It was…" Beautiful, he wants to say, but that's not something a normal person says. But it was beautiful to see the man weighing each one in his hand, clearly judging the shell and the shape, knowing what it should be and evaluating what it was.
"Skill," Beverly says. "Skill is hot. I get it."
"Yes," Will says. That isn't what he would say but that's close enough. That's a normal thing to say. "So eventually he noticed me and I, ah, asked him to pick me half a dozen."
"William Graham, you flirt."
Will laughs. "It worked? But he chose them and put them in his basket, not mine. He said he would cook them for me if I came home with him."
"Aggressive."
"It could have been. It was all in the way he stood. I'm a profiler, I'm pretty good at reading people," Will says with a wry weight in his voice. "He wasn't demanding that I join him, he was inviting me to join him on his terms. So I joined him. He took me on the rest of his shopping trip not just for dinner but for his job."
The scallops had gone into a cooler of ice in Hannibal's truck. Will had climbed into the passenger seat and Hannibal took him to the vegetable market.
This market wasn't open to the general public; it was restaurant supply. And it was mostly empty, by this time of day, just some stray crates of tired-looking kale and cabbage, some potatoes, a bright batch of chili peppers at the end, but that seemed fine by Hannibal. He picked up two crates of battered cabbage, another of purple carrots, and headed for the chilies.
"So what's his job?" Beverly asks.
"Restaurant supply. Kind of. He makes things like chili paste and kim chi," Will says, nodding to the condiments on the table. "Not for places like this, they make their own, but food trucks and, you know, white restaurants that do one Korean taco dish. And he makes sourdough bread. He said he used to make a lot more bread but now fermented things are in fashion so he leaned in. He makes fancy sauerkraut, tomato jam, pickled carrots, pickled beets. Anything that restaurants serve by the five dollar spoonful."
"Huh. Sounds like an interesting guy. He makes all that and his own soap?"
"He makes things all day." Will saw some of his own obsessive nature in the hundred projects in Hannibal's house. "Things I've never heard of. He has a smoker for fish and meat. He brews beer. His house was incredible. But then he asked about my dogs, which I hadn't mentioned, and asks if I have a gas stove."
Beverly's eyebrows are sky high. "What?"
"He noticed the dog hair." Will plucks a hair from the weave of his sweater in illustration. "I do have a gas stove, so I took him home and he cooked me dinner in my kitchen."
"Okay. That's sexy. I have to admit that's sexy."
Will shrugs to say yes, it was, and eats his ramen.
Will had laid a fire and then watched Hannibal cook, Hannibal shooing him away every time he tried to help. Hannibal had served him scallops with saffron rice, curls of purple carrot, and a strange hazelnut and herb paste that pulled everything together. "It was the strangest first date I've ever been on. But possibly also the best," Will says.
Hannibal had looked him in the eye as he finished his wine and then drawn him into a kiss. Hadn't said a damn thing about his one-room life, the dogs, any of it, just walked him to the bed with strange tastes still on both their mouths.
Will clears his throat. "So. That's my new...guy. It's only been a month, I don't think he's a boyfriend yet."
"Yet."
"Yet," Will agrees, finishing his noodles.
*
He visits Hannibal at his home after work. Hannibal is making a batch of sourdough to be baked into rolls tomorrow. The scent of bread is rich and heavy among the scents of alcohol and vinegar and Hannibal’s vape pen.
Will comes up behind Hannibal and runs his hands from his shoulders to his hips as Hannibal kneads the dough. Strong muscles work rhythmically in Hannibal’s back. "What flavor is that?" Will asks.
"Purple cream indica with orangewater," Hannibal says, exhaling vapor with his words. "No nicotine. Have some?"
"No, thanks," Will says. He's refused before. Eventually Hannibal will stop asking. Will doesn't have a good history with mind-altering drugs. He strokes his cheeks against Hannibal's shoulder blades. He loves the man's pared down strength; he's skinny but every pound is bone and muscle.
Hannibal turns the dough over with a final slap. He turns it into an enormous wooden bowl and covers it with plastic wrap, then places it in the proofing shelf along with a sister bowl. He wipes his hands with a towel. "Now then," he says. He picks Will up by the thighs.
"Jesus!" Will laughs. He embraces Hannibal's neck and hugs Hannibal's waist with his knees. "What's the plan?"
"Go upstairs, fuck you in the ass, come down and make dinner. Maybe put butter on your nipples. I was thinking about that, how do you feel about butter?"
Will shakes with laughter. "I like butter," he says through giggles.
Hannibal carries him upstairs, kissing him thoroughly. His bedroom is lined with shelves of jars with strange and diverse contents. His bed is an old, creaking four poster with an old, lumpy mattress, the rails around the bed hung with shirts and trousers. Hannibal’s closet is occupied by kegs of infusing spirit.
He sets Will on the bed and Will rips off his shirt. He gets hung up on the buttoned cuffs.
Hannibal pulls half-melted butter in a plastic bag from his pocket. “You’re serious,” Will says.
“I’m always serious about butter.” He takes Will’s shirt, meeting his eyes, and slowly pulls Will’s arms over his head by the shirt cuffs. “I want to pin your arms and lick you,” Hannibal says.
“Yes,” Will answers. He swallows.
“I want to look you in the eye and fuck you.”
“With a condom,” Will says.
“Yes. With condom. We will go without condoms after we are married.”
“Jesus,” Will says, swallowing again. “Yes to condoms, no to marriage. You can ask me in a year.”
“You said that a week ago. I have it marked on the calendar for a year from then,” Hannibal says. “I can move the date if you say, but I would rather not.”
“Why?”
“What kind of why?”
“Why—no, scratch that. No talk of marriage until at least a year. Right now all we’re negotiating is the scene,” Will says.
“But a year from last week,” Hannibal says with a small smile.
“Yes. A year from last week.”
“I will stop if you say no.”
“Dub-con play comes after marriage, agreed,” Will says. “But you can hold me down and nail me to the mattress without a ring.”
Hannibal tugs Will out of his clothes. Will helps, falling onto his back and wriggling free of trousers, shorts, boots. His shirt is still tangled around his wrists, but Hannibal likes to leave that.
Hannibal runs his hands over Will’s stomach. He has big hands, smoothly scarred with small burns and cuts, rough with work on the inside of his index finger and thumb. His knuckles are enlarged with what will be arthritis, if it isn’t already. Will opens his mouth and Hannibal caresses his cheek and slips his right thumb into Will’s mouth.
The taste is bitter at first, heavy with salt and fermenting bread dough, but then Will tastes sweetness and onion, weed and citrus. He strokes his tongue against Hannibal’s thumb to feel the tiny pattern of his fingerprint.
Hannibal strokes his left hand up the inside of Will’s thigh, making Will think about how naked he is, how spread out between Hannibal’s hands,
[insert sex scene which sadly was never written]
"I have to go home and feed my dogs," Will says.
Hannibal takes his hand and sucks on his thumb. "How long until we discuss moving in together?"
"Seriously?"
"You are exactly to my taste." Hannibal kisses the center of his palm. "I want to lick you every day. But it is too early. Perhaps another month?"
"Okay," Will says, feeling faint. "Okay."
His body thrums as he drives home. He feeds the dogs in a daze, then wanders out to the barn and looks around, picturing barrels of beer, fermenting jars, a still. Maybe beehives in the farmyard.
"Get a grip," he tells himself aloud.
*
Hannibal builds hive stands in the farmyard a month later, near the flowering dogwood.. "I will keep my house. I need all the storage I can get. But this....yes. This is good."
*
Five years later, there's a student sitting in front of his door. He had a good lunch, he's in a good mood, so he clears his throat.
The student looks up. Starling, he recalls. She was in his class last year. "Dr. Graham. Dr. Lecter, I mean," she says, standing.
"Either is fine. I still publish under Graham." He nods to the article in her hand. "Come in. I don't have a lot of time, but I have some."
She sits in front of her desk. She's holding "Consumption: patterns of behavior in cannibalistic serial killer," because of course she is. All the students love that article. So does his husband, who inspired it. "Dr. Lecter, I was reading this and thinking...how would you catch a cannibal who consumed his victims like a country pig? I mean--"
"I know exactly what you mean," Will says. "Use everything but the squeal. I'm a fisherman, Starling. If my husband didn't eat the eyes out of a fish, I wouldn't have married him."
"Yes! Yes," she says, leaning forward. "So if nothing is left? Without a body, how do you find a killer?"
"Behavior. Circumstantial evidence. The Minnesota Shrike was caught by the pattern of his victims."
"So detection is key."
"Yes."
"And if there's no pattern?"
"There's always a pattern. There's a pattern to every life, even the most chaotic. A drifter murdering drifters will still cluster on roads, major highways. To fully render a body--any body, animal or human--you need a home base of some kind. That, or you have to break in somewhere and carry it all away, and that leaves traces. Every serial killer could be found if we knew to look for them." He checks his watch.
"Back to detection. How do you know if a missing person looks delicious?" she wonders aloud.
Will laughs.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"You should talk to my husband," Will says. "Actually, come talk to my husband. I have to leave for dinner. Do you have a car?"
"I do."
"Hannibal loves meeting my students. We're about forty minutes away. Are you free for dinner?"
"I am. Just let me text my roommate…"
*
The two cars pull in and Starling politely hangs back, letting Will go in and warn his husband that she's coming. He'd texted, but Hannibal didn't answer.
He finds out why when he steps inside. The door is open to the mild night and the dogs are spilling out of the house onto the porch as he approaches. "Hi! Hi, why are you hungry? Hannibal?"
"I'm here," Hannibal says from the couch.
Will looks at him and winces. He's lying on his back, perfectly straight, in a way Will knows well. "Threw your back out?"
"I did nothing," Hannibal says. "Nothing. I put a jar on a shelf, then I put up his sister and this happens."
Will kisses his forehead. "Thank you for opening the door for the dogs. You're in luck, I brought someone to amuse you. Starling! You can come in."
Hannibal groans when he sees Starling. "Hello. Welcome." He glares at Will.
"Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling. She's one of my students."
"I apologize for my failing body. I cannot stand," he says in English. "You are a cocksucker," he tells Will in beautifully profane Parisian French.
"Answer your fucking texts," Will replies in the same language. He switches to English and says: "Clarice, Hannibal was wondering the same thing as I was writing the article. How do cannibal killers know who looks tasty? So I'm going to let the two of you debate that while I make dinner. Do you have any allergies, anything I should know about?"
"Too much heat and I need a glass of milk. Apart from that, no. I grew up on scrapple," Starling says.
"Scrapple!" Hannibal's face lights up. "What recipe?"
"Heavy on the thyme and pan-fried."
Will feeds the dogs. The container is fuller than it was yesterday. Hannibal must have been cooking…fish, from the smell. The dogs love it.
Human dinner is more complicated. They have plenty of options. Too many. Usually Hannibal has a defined vision for their meals and takes care of it. "Beer, wine, or water?" Will asks the other two.
"Beer," Hannibal says.
"Beer, as long as it's not too strong," Starling says.
Will nods and pulls out Hannibal's farmhouse ale and three glasses. "A nice small beer," Will says, setting it out on the coffee table.
A meal to go with beer, that narrows things down. He listens with half an ear as Hannibal and Starling discuss cuts of human, the back versus the belly, the thigh versus the forearm. Starling thinks the forearm will have more flavor. She says humans are red meat. Hannibal says the dichotomy of red meat and white meat is largely artificial, born of modern farming methods. Will puts together carbonara.
He serves dinner in the living room. "I hope you don't mind a little informality," he tells Starling. "I don't want to break my husband's back."
"I ate lunch while jogging around the track. I don't mind."
"Bad for the digestion," Hannibal says.
"Oh my god, is this homemade pasta?" Starling asks. "Is this venison?"
"Hannibal made the spaghetti and keeps the chickens--those are our eggs. I hunted the venison. The Parmesan, who's that from?" Will asks.
"Rebecca. She's not selling it--it would be too expensive--but she traded me a wedge in return for some lutefisk and dogwood honey."
(More)
*
(alas, there is no more)