Chapter 1: Wrong Foot
Summary:
Will gets pressured into doing annoying fieldwork at a high-society event, draws some unwanted attention, and learns absolutely nothing helpful for the case he's currently working.
Jack connects Will to his new psychiatrist.
Chapter Text
Will is pretty sure that if he checked his job description, it would say jack shit about undercover field work. Then again, on second thought, he’s not actually sure that he technically even has a formal job description. Everyone knows he’s Jack’s dog, and that’s all that anyone needs to know.
“Cheer up, Will. It’s a party,” Jack says, clapping a hand on Will’s shoulder. Will’s upper lip curls back slightly at the unwanted touch from the other alpha, and Jack quickly retracts his hand. “Look, I know all this high society pomp this isn’t really your scene, but just treat it like any other case we’re working on.” Jack gestures around the expansive foyer of the concert hall, shining with crystal chandeliers and decorated with elegant tables full of appetizers that look more like art projects than they do food. “We’ve got the beginnings of a solid profile on this guy– old money, callous, bored rich boy. Now just keep investigating this scene, and see what you can find.”
“This isn’t a crime scene, Jack,” Will retorts, tugging at the collar of his ill-fitted suit. “There is no aftermath for me to read and analyze. Just a bunch of stuck-up peacocks strutting about. This isn’t where I’m most useful to you.”
Jack sighs, and gives up his attempt at a pep talk. “Just do your best, Will. We’re just trying it out. You’re the one who understands him the most. If the guy is here, you’re our best bet at identifying him in the wild.”
“Fine,” Will grits out.
“And remember to look out for my email about the psychiatrist I’m going to have you see.”
“Jesus Christ," Will mutters under his breath. “Alright, alright,” he concedes, waving Jack away.
This sucks.
In all honesty, Will understands why Jack wants him here. He has developed a decent profile for the current case subject they’ve been investigating, and this orchestral fundraising thing is exactly the kind of event that the guy would likely frequent. Socializing at this high society event, however grueling it may be, could potentially yield some leads. But the lights are too bright, and everyone is laughing too loud, and Will has no idea how he’s supposed to integrate into this crowd in a way that would allow him to scope out potential suspects.
A waiter with a silver tray full of champagne flutes passes, and Will snags two, downing them both in five seconds flat, something that will certainly help with the investigation.
“Nervous?”
Will chokes on the last sip of his champagne and coughs, covering his mouth with his sleeve before turning.
Before him is a handsome and distinguished looking older man, maybe in his fifties, wearing a bold crimson suit and an obnoxiously knowing smile. His silver-streaked hair is immaculately coiffed, his tie knotted to perfection, and even in silence and stillness, his demeanor is somehow both completely cordial and utterly commanding. Will blinks as a faint wave of red wine and dark musk hits his nose. A fucking alpha, of course. He meets the man’s auburn eyes for one uneasy second before darting his gaze back down to the man’s tie.
“Maybe I’m just thirsty,” Will replies, not really giving a shit whether this guy buys it or not.
“You are new to this scene,” the man observes easily. His voice is deep and accented; something eastern European, if Will had to guess.
“Rather presumptuous to say that to a man you just met based solely on a couple seconds of observance,” Will replies with a hint of challenge in his voice, conscious of the irony of the statement when that is, in fact, what Will himself is known for doing. “I could be a seasoned veteran here who just also happens to be a shameless alcoholic.”
The man’s smile broadens into something less secretive, more welcoming. “I apologize. I have you at an unfair disadvantage. When I said that you were new to this scene, it was a statement, not a guess. You are Will Graham, are you not?”
Will freezes, one champagne glass still in each hand. “Who’s asking?”
“An admirer.” The man holds one palm out towards Will like he wants to shake his hand, then delicately plucks one of the empty champagne glasses from Will’s grasp, depositing it on another tray that floats past them. His hand extends towards Will again in offering. “Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I’ve read your papers. They are all excellent.”
No longer burdened by two empty glasses and somewhat disarmed by the feeling of flattery that’s risen unbidden in his chest, Will hesitantly offers Dr. Lecter his free hand. Before he can initiate a proper handshake in greeting, however, the man raises Will’s hand to his lips and brushes a chaste kiss across his knuckles. It catches Will so off guard that he doesn’t have any time to react before the man is lowering his hand again and releasing him as if it was nothing.
“Excuse me?” Will says, snatching his hand back. “The hell was that?”
“Forgive me; I am rather old fashioned at times.”
Will glances around furtively, and finds that much to his annoyance, the doctor’s gesture did, in fact, turn a couple heads their way. “Yeah, that may’ve been an appropriate if old fashioned way to introduce yourself to an omega. ”
“It is a general expression of respect, admiration, and deference,” the doctor counters. “I do not reserve it solely for omegas.” Dr. Lecter’s lips quirk back upwards into a tiny, amused smile. “Do you take offense to receiving attention in a manner normally reserved for omegas? Surely that would imply some sense of superiority to omegas on your part.”
What the hell was this guy’s game? “You’re putting words in my mouth,” Will says, not interested in entertaining the conversation any further. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. Try kissing my hand like that again, and I’ll pull your tongue out.”
The older alpha’s eyes spark, but before he can respond, Will turns and strides away from him pointedly. Relief floods his chest as he catches sight of the forensics team, and he makes his way over to where they’re leaning their elbows on a high table.
“Hey, soldier,” Beverly greets him. “How’re the trenches?”
“I’m about ready to put a bullet in my mouth,” Will replies, setting his remaining empty champagne flute down harder than necessary. Beverly and Jimmy cackle. “Why are you three here anyways? You don’t even do the same kind of profiling I do.”
“I begged Jack, ‘cause I wanted the free food and an excuse to dress up fancy,” Beverly says, popping a shrimp into her mouth. “Told him you’d need backup.”
“Which you do,” Zeller interjects.
“Then by all means, back me up,” Will replies drily. “I’ve tried making small talk with some of these people and have accomplished nothing besides making a fool of myself, and pissing people off.”
“There are an awful lot of alphas here,” Zeller observes, sipping from a glass of wine. “Easier to ruffle some feathers with all of them bumping up against each other. No offense,” he adds with a glance at Will, who waves him off easily. All of the forensics team were betas, something that was definitely a good counter balance in the lab on the occasions when Jack and Will butted heads.
“What did Dr. Lecter do that got you all hot and bothered?” Jimmy pipes up, and Will frowns.
“You saw that? Did it– Was it that obvious that I was annoyed with him?”
“It was like watching a silent film drama,” Beverly says. “It was awesome. I’m gonna get more champagne; try not to burn any bridges while I’m gone.”
Will sighs heavily as Beverly saunters away from them. “He was just– I don’t know, being kind of weirdly demeaning or something.”
Jimmy and Zeller exchange a glance that Will doesn’t know how to interpret. Before he can ask, Jimmy’s eyes focus on something behind him. Will turns, and rolls his eyes instinctively when he sees the good doctor, surrounded by other well-dressed party-goers who are all hanging off his arm and laughing at something he said.
“That man is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Jimmy says.
Will squints at the broad-framed alpha who is exuding power and confidence from all the way across the room. “He isn’t exactly giving off sheep energy to me.”
“Well, okay, I guess in this metaphor–” Jimmy hesitates, and Zeller drags a hand down his face. “Okay, okay; I’ve got it. If betas and omegas are sheep, then alphas are herding dogs. And so, he’s like, a wolf in dog’s clothing.”
“That’s both offensive and stupid,” Zeller says, but mostly ignoring the sheep part, it sort of makes some kind of sense to Will. Even in a room full of powerful alphas, there was something about Dr. Lecter that felt subtly, uniquely sinister. Dangerous in a way that went deeper than even his formidable external presentation suggested. For a second, Will entertains the idea that Dr. Lecter may be a potential suspect, but dismisses the thought quickly, as he’s fairly certain that the man they’re after is an American.
“Alright, I’ll bite. What’s his deal?” Will asks, eyes still following the man as he makes his way through the crowd to speak with another alpha.
“He’s, well–” Zeller was shifting from foot to foot slightly nervously while Jimmy scratched the back of his neck, and Will’s curiosity was only growing by the minute.
“Spit it out.”
Zeller sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels before leaning into Will slightly, muttering in his ear, “He has a reputation for bitching younger alphas.”
Oh. Not what Will expected. “The hell? Consensually?” he asks warily.
“I think so?” Zeller says with a helpless shrug. “The story from the rumor mill is basically that it’s become a kind of open-secret of a challenge at this point. He’s a bit of a traditionalist, and highly values good manners, and if he feels he’s being challenged or disrespected in some way by another alpha, he’s been known to– court them. Like they’re an omega.”
Will listens in fascination, not quite following. “He courts alphas who disrespect him?”
“Well, not always just the ones who disrespect him,” Jimmy cuts in. “He goes after power, too; anyone who takes up space and draws attention. Anyone who he thinks needs to be taken down a peg.”
“Yeah,” Zeller says. “Or fresh blood. Hotshots who are new to his circles and don’t know who he is yet. And as for courting them like they’re an omega, I think it’s like, partially a bit of a dominance thing. A power play. Either way, the next part of the pattern, as far as I can tell, is that he invites them to sleep with him with the mutual understanding that it’ll be a battle for physical dominance. And based on how the alphas who he takes to bed act around him afterwards… it’s pretty obvious that none of them have ever, well, ended up on top.”
“Is that why– Is that why everyone treats him like that?” Will questions, his bafflement warring against the erotic intrigue of it all.
“Like he’s the dominant alpha in any room he enters?” Zeller asks dryly, and Will nods. “It’s definitely a big part of it, yeah.”
“Jesus. Fascinating.”
“Yeah, so, just, keep that in mind, I guess.”
Will blinks, only understanding Zeller’s meaning after a moment of processing. “What, you think he’ll take interest in me?”
Zeller and Jimmy give him an identical look that says, Really?
“Graham, I think he’s already taken an interest in you,” Jimmy says. “You’re exactly his type. Young, pretty, and stubborn.”
“I’m not ‘pretty,’” Will objects in irritation, and Zeller tries to stifle a laugh.
“Stubborn,” he points out, and Will sighs in admission. “Holy shit,” Zeller says suddenly, looking just past Will’s shoulder. “Don’t look now, but he’s staring at you like you’re on the menu tonight.”
Will stiffens, and for a second, he listens to Zeller, and doesn't turn, but then he thinks, Why the fuck should he care? So he turns.
And wow, he’s in trouble.
Will Graham’s job is to hunt down other hunters, and he’s damn good at it. The moment he locks eyes with Dr. Lecter, he knows that he’s looking at one. The way the entire upper half of his body is angled towards Will, the subtle but intrigued cocking of his head, the intense and undeniable glint of hunger in the doctor's eyes–
“The concert will begin in ten minutes. Please make your way to your seats,” a pleasant voice says over a loudspeaker, and the doctor’s eyes snap away from Will all at once as the party-goers begin to filter into the concert hall. Will is startled to find that there’s a strange kind of nervous flutter in his gut, and he shakes his head as if that’ll dispel it.
“Oh, wow,” Beverly says, reappearing with four flutes of champagne somehow held in her hands as she glances between Will and Dr. Lecter. “You’re in trouble, Will.”
“I’ve gathered,” he grits out, accepting another glass from Beverly and once again downing it in one go. “Jesus, let’s just get this thing over with so I can get away from this guy.”
Zeller and Jimmy exchange another look. Will is too irritated to even ask.
The concert is nice. Surprisingly nice. After a couple tense minutes fending off the instinctive discomfort of being surrounded by people on all sides, Will finds himself closing his eyes and relaxing into the gentle singing of the strings. When the concert ends, he has to blink himself back into his body, and is surprised to find that he’s disappointed it’s over.
Before he can join the crowd of standing and applauding audience-members, he finds the hair on the back of his neck prickling. Turning his head slightly, a shiver travels up his spine as he once again locks eyes with Dr. Lecter, seated at the end of his row and staring at him shamelessly. Will feels suddenly self-conscious, borderline naked, knowing that the doctor had been watching him shake himself out of his dazed reverie. The alpha in him tells him to maintain eye contact until Dr. Lecter breaks first. The everything-else in him forces him to avert his eyes and ignore the older alpha as much as possible.
As they filter out of the concert hall, a light touch on Will’s elbow sends his hackles raising, and he flinches away from the contact.
“I apologize for startling you,” Dr. Lecter says, and Will can practically feel the rest of the forensics team watching with unabashed interest behind him. “I fear that we may’ve gotten off on the wrong foot earlier. I would love to amend that by inviting you back to the VIP lounge for a drink with some of my friends and colleagues, if you’d honor me with your presence. I truly would love to discuss your writings,” he adds.
Will’s about to retort back with something decidedly not proper for a high society charity event, but then he sees Jack standing off to the side close by, frantically trying to get his attention with a tiny wave. Jack’s eyes are nearly bulging out of his skull as he sends Will a couple of tiny vigorous nods, silently beaming the message into Will’s mind that You have got to take this opportunity. Will just barely represses an exasperated hiss.
“Sure,” Will says. “Thanks. Sure.”
The doctor beams, and holds his arm out, gesturing politely to a back hallway.
“See you later, Will,” Beverly calls with barely concealed glee, and Will flashes her a subtle middle finger when Dr. Lecter’s back has turned.
The VIP lounge of the fancy-ass concert hall looks exactly how Will would imagine a VIP lounge at a fancy-ass concert hall would look. Low lighting, disgustingly expensive liquor, and dark and distinguished looking couches and chaises dominate the room, which is filled with well-groomed alphas in perfectly tailored suits. Will is suddenly hyper-conscious of his musty old suit, which no longer fits him right and is of noticeably worse quality than everyone else's. Then he remembers that he doesn’t give a shit, and feels much better.
“Your drink of choice?” The doctor asks, already holding a tumbler in his hand.
“Any whiskey is fine,” Will replies, sticking his hands awkwardly into his pockets and instinctively shuffling until his back is to the wall so that he can survey the whole room.
It stinks of alpha in here. No amount of fancy cologne and constraining suits can mask the mire of testosterone and the unique musks of each alpha. The entire space is so ridiculously hyper-masculine, hyper-alphan, that it’s nearly enough to make Will laugh.
The doctor passes Will his whiskey, and Will makes a conscious effort to not let their fingers touch in any way as he accepts it and takes a sip. He feels his eyebrows raising on his head of their own accord as he goes in for another drink. It’s good. It’s really good.
“I apologize again if I made you uncomfortable earlier,” Dr. Lecter says, gesturing for Will to sit on one of the velvet chairs as he watches him drink intently.
Will hesitates for only a moment before relenting and sinking into the chair, not missing the way that the doctor doesn’t seat himself until Will has, lingering over him for a moment longer than necessary. “I wouldn’t say you made me uncomfortable,” Will half-lies, because it feels like it would be an admission of weakness to say that he had, in fact, been somewhat uncomfortable.
“Oh, well then, I’m quite glad to know you aren’t bothered by such gestures,” the doctor says with a smile, and Will still feels like he doesn’t have the upper hand here, and he doesn’t even really know why. It pisses him off. “Now then– I’d love to know, when conducting research for your paper on determining the time of death based on insect activity, did you–”
“Are you interested in me sexually?” Will interrupts.
There are a couple of surprised and amused chuckles from the alphas nearby, which Will ignores. Dr. Lecter blinks. His head cocks slightly in that bird-like way, and that somewhat amused smile reappears on his face. “Rather forwards, Mr. Graham. I’m flattered, really, but perhaps this isn’t the time or place for such conversations.”
“Cut the bullshit,” Will says firmly. “You insult my intelligence by playing dumb.”
The doctor’s brows raise slightly on his face, and his smile cracks open further into something viciously delighted. “I once again find myself apologizing to you. I’m afraid I simply find riling you up to be too irresistible. To answer your question more directly, in both body and mind, I find you wildly attractive, yes.”
Wildly attractive. A shiver travels up Will’s spine at the blunt confidence of the confession made in that dark velvety voice. He finds his nails digging into the arms of his chair.
“You do know that I’m an alpha, too,” he says, avoiding directly addressing the doctor’s bold admission. “Even if I were interested, we’re inherently not sexually compatible.” Will doesn’t even really stand behind the words, but he wants to say them anyways, as if they’ll dissuade this man who looks ready to pounce on him.
“Surprisingly closed-minded, Mr. Graham,” Dr. Lecter muses, swirling his wine glass contemplatively. “We live in an age where there is far more acceptance for sexual deviance of all sorts, and I’m quite comfortably open about my own. I mean no offense by this; it’s simply a difference in preferences, but I usually find omegas to be too soft and too easy for my tastes.”
“Easy? ” Will asks, disgust curling in his gut as he raises an eyebrow at the doctor. “You know, tacking on ‘no offense’ to the start of that statement does not in any way make it less offensive or degrading.”
“I understand your reaction, but I meant what I said quite literally. There is nothing particularly erotic to me about a being whose body and biology were designed to entice and accept me. There is nothing wrong with the open affection and eagerness that many omegas display towards alphas, and nothing shameful about the way their bodies react naturally. It’s simply not what I personally find arousing.”
“And what do you find arousing, Dr. Lecter?” Will asks boldly before he can stop himself, taking a sip from his stupidly expensive whiskey.
“Forcing insolent young alphas into total submission on my knot.”
Will chokes on his drink for the second time that night, and some of the older alphas in the room laugh heartily. Was this normal? Did these people usually revert to this kind of crass locker room talk in these more private, exclusionary spaces? One or two of the younger alphas were looking away, blushing or coughing uncomfortably, and Will wonders how many of them Dr. Lecter had personally bitched.
“Are you alright, Mr. Graham?” Dr. Lecter asks in amusement, watching him sputter, but Will is still stuck on the absolutely insane statement that he just made.
‘On my knot.’ He was knotting these alphas? It wasn’t physically impossible for one alpha to knot another, but it was highly unheard of as far as Will knew, and surely very difficult to execute without causing damage or extreme pain. For the briefest second, he tries to envision it– what it would feel like, having something that thick pushing for entry at his– His breath skips, and he crumples up the passing thought and crushes it into oblivion in the back of his mind.
“I’m quite alright,” Will replies finally, his dislike for the man in front of him only growing. “Forgive me if the crass statement you just made caused me to choke on my drink.”
“Never apologize to me for choking, Will; I’m aware that I am at times a bit too much for some to handle,” the doctor says shamelessly with the tiniest hint of a smile. There’s more good-natured laughter from the surrounding alphas, and the cold fury in Will’s chest wars against the heat that’s rising in his cheeks, his most primal instincts snarling to him that he is being challenged and he needs to bite back.
“Would you like to know what I find arousing, Dr. Lecter?” Will asks, and there’s a hum of interest from the room at this turn.
The older alpha blinks slowly, intrigue clear on his face. “I would.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re never going to find out,” Will says, and the doctor blinks again in clear surprise. “I don’t choke because something is ‘too much to handle,’” Will adds scathingly. “I choke when I find something distasteful. ”
Will lifts his chin as he stares Dr. Lecter down without blinking and catches the briefest glimpse of the shining red of his eyes, swimming with a complicated maelstrom of admiration and rising fury. And then Will turns on his heel to leave the room, which erupts behind him with hoots and laughter, delighted by the drama of the bold and scathing rejection.
Will holds his head high, ignores the feeling of eyes burning into the back of his head and perhaps also his ass, and doesn’t look back.
It’s only once he’s hailed a cab that Will remembers he was supposed to be, you know, doing his job. At this point, he’s too drunk and frazzled to really care.
Well, thank god that at least he’s never going to have to see that guy again.
Finally back in the comforting familiarity of his house, Will collapses back onto his bed and pulls his laptop into his lap. One more email check, and he can finally rest, and hopefully sleep off the incredibly weird and irritating night he’s had.
Rubbing his eyes, Will opens his email, skimming it briefly before his eyes land on a message from Jack titled ‘Connecting you with psychiatrist.’ Will sighs heavily for what feels like the hundredth time that day, and opens it. Freezes. Shoots up in his bed. Reads back over it in disbelief.
Will– cced the psychiatrist I’m assigning you and putting you two in touch. He is highly recommended in his field, including by Alana Bloom, and has even consulted with the FBI before on cases. I think he’s a perfect fit for you. Reminder that this is not a request. If you’re continuing this work, I’m requiring you to see a psychiatrist. See you Monday!
And below that– Another email, a reply–
Will, it was an unexpected pleasure meeting you at the charity concert today.
I’ve attached my number below, as well as the address of my office. Please contact me at your leisure so that we can set up your first appointment. I am rather booked at present, but for you, I can be flexible.
I look forward to speaking with you again. I think that Jack is quite right– I will be a perfect fit for you.
Warm regards,
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me–”
Chapter 2: Right Hand
Summary:
Hannibal takes a moment to re-appreciate his first look at Will Graham.
Will receives an unexpected gift, and reluctantly goes to therapy, which of course goes very well.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jimmy Price was wrong, actually; Hannibal had taken an interest in Will well before he’d laid eyes on him.
He’d been vaguely curious about him for a while. The notorious profiler was occasionally discussed by members of the psychiatric community in private spaces with a kind of guilty giddiness that had piqued Hannibal’s interest enough that he’d been compelled to locate and read every one of Will’s writings that he could find. And they were good. They were very good.
His writings were, in fact, uniquely compelling. There was a kind of clean, elegant precision in their ability to communicate an impressively dense amount of information without becoming boring or difficult to follow. And beyond that. Beyond his skill, his knowledge, his undeniable effectiveness as a writer, there was this hint of wry humor and wit nestled in between the lines of his papers. There were strange blind spots where what he had written was truly enlightening and made perfect sense once explained, but it was somewhat unclear how he’d gotten there in the first place. Like there were gaps in understanding where no one else could have made the jump that he alone had managed to cross, laying a bridge behind him for others to follow. Hannibal had no longer been merely curious. He’d become captivated.
However, it was, in fact, when he finally first laid eyes on him that Hannibal decided definitively that he was going to have Will Graham.
When he’d spotted the younger alpha in the foyer of the concert hall, he’d been stunned to momentary stillness by the image of him. He was then almost immediately compelled back into motion by an unbidden huff of genuine amusement as the beautiful boy chugged two glasses of champagne.
The moment Hannibal has returned home from the concert, he allows himself the leisure of sitting back in his armchair and slowly stroking himself as he takes his time recalling every delicious inch of Will Graham. The most gorgeous dark curls, just the right length for Hannibal to pet and fist his hands in; a pale slender neck, just delicate enough for Hannibal to wrap his fingers around snugly. Sweet little fangs that flashed sharp whenever he bared his teeth at something provocative Hannibal said. Tall and leanly muscled enough to not be mistaken for an omega, but still on the slighter side for an alpha. Just the right size to fit perfectly beneath Hannibal’s body. Just enough muscle to put up a real fight, with a kind of singular, vicious cleverness glinting in his azure eyes that has bewitched Hannibal beyond belief.
And his scent. Another matter entirely.
He is the kind of beauty that the Greeks immortalized in smooth marble, that the great artists of the Renaissance would have painted to exhaustion. He is perfect. Perfect in every respect. Perfect for Hannibal.
When Hannibal comes with a groan in thick spurts over his fingers, it isn’t even to the thought of anything particularly explicit. Just the image of his hand closing around the boy’s throat. Just the ghost feeling of the boy’s blood pumping nervous beneath Hannibal’s palm as he would slowly, calmly squeeze.
His breathing settles, and Hannibal looks down at his right hand. Where he had envisioned it pressed against warm flesh, it is only covered in his own sticky release.
He has never felt more ravenously unsatisfied in his life.
Will– I would not normally be so cheap as to pick flowers instead of purchasing a personalized arrangement myself, but I stumbled on these cornflowers during a woodlands excursion, and they reminded me of you– the same vivid blue as your eyes, and just as wild and unruly as you are.
All my best,
-Dr. Hannibal Lecter
“Holy shit,” Will says aloud when he finishes reading the note. He shifts his attention to the bouquet of cornflowers that have appeared on his desk in a ridiculously ornate crystal vase, accompanied by elegant little sprigs of baby’s breath.
“Good luck,” a voice says over his shoulder, and Will flinches so hard he almost drops the letter.
“Jesus, Beverly,” he hisses, and the woman sends him a cheeky grin, but steps back obligingly. “One, personal space, and two, mind your own business.”
“Oh, come on,” she whines. “Things are just getting good. Jimmy told me word’s gotten around that you dissed Dr. Lecter in front of a bunch of his high society friends after we left. That was ballsy. And stupid.”
“I’m not looking for a fight with him,” Will says with some irritation. “I was curious, and wanted to talk to him to form my own opinion. I’ve formed it now, and let him know exactly how I feel about him, and that’s the end of it.”
Beverly sends a meaningful look down at the letter.
Will walks over to the trashcan and tosses the letter. “That’s the end of it,” he repeats, and Beverly just shakes her head. She mercifully does not comment on the fact that he has left the vase of flowers untouched. She also does not comment on the fact that Will is still scheduled to meet with his new psychiatrist that evening, but Will can practically see the thought written out across her face.
“Okay, look,” he begins with exasperation, “Jack bitched at me until I agreed to try one session. So I’ll try one session, report back that it’s not happening, and if he wants to keep me on at all, he either needs to give me a different psychiatrist or drop it altogether.”
“Oookay,” Beverly says, distinctly unconvinced. “Well, don’t have too much fun tonight!” she calls as she exits the room.
“I will not be having any fun,” Will says back flatly.
When it comes time for Will to endure his appointment, he finds himself suddenly overthinking his appearance on the drive over. He usually looks at least vaguely scrappy, but it’s especially bad today. All of his best flannels and buttonups were in the wash that morning. The red checkered shirt he’s currently wearing has got to be a billion years old, and while it’s not generally favored by him, it’s very much favored by the moths in his closet. He also hasn’t showered in three days, and he knows his hair is a greasy mess. He’s holding out some hope that he doesn’t smell like dried sweat and wet dog, but not much.
He catches his own gaze in the rearview mirror, looks away instinctively, and is suddenly struck with the thought Why do I even give a shit? As usual, this is a comforting reminder, and he relaxes slightly more. But not completely.
Standing in front of the door to Dr. Lecter’s office, Will hesitates with his knuckles raised to knock. He is exactly on time. Is that embarrassing? Does it indicate a kind of eagerness, or worse, submission? He feels suddenly that it would be better for him to knock a couple minutes late, out of petty disrespect.
The decision is taken away from him as the clock strikes 7:30 and the door swings open, Will’s hand still frozen in mid-air to knock.
“Will.”
Something shifts in Will’s chest at the way his name sounds rolling warm and genuine off of the doctor’s tongue. He ignores it. “Dr. Lecter,” he replies curtly.
“Right on time,” the doctor notes, clearly pleased by this.
“Got let off work a little early. Figured I may as well head over,” Will white-lies through gritted teeth for no real reason.
“Of course,” the older alpha says with a sage nod, which just makes Will feel stupid for lying about something so dumb in the first place. “Please come in and make yourself comfortable. May I take your coat?”
“No,” Will says immediately, quickly shrugging his jacket off himself and hanging it on the coat rack.
“May I offer you a drink, then?”
Will pauses, arms crossing instinctively over his chest in an unconsciously protective gesture. “Do you normally drink with your patients, doctor?”
“The way Jack has set up our acquaintanceship is somewhat informal. You’re actually not technically my patient. For now, we are simply having conversations. If you’d prefer a more formalized contract farther down the line, we can certainly discuss that.”
Formalized contract. Farther down the line. Jesus, everything out of this guy’s mouth is a new curveball that Will has to try to deflect.
“That’s all rather convenient for you, isn’t it?” Will challenges, uncrossing his arms when he considers how defensive the gesture could appear and instead returning his hands to their default place in his pockets.
The mild, pleasant expression on Dr. Lecter’s face doesn’t move an inch. “It certainly is,” he agrees shamelessly. “Maintaining a level of professional distance is wise in most psychiatrist-patient relationships, but you and I are in a rather unique position. When I occasionally consult with the FBI, we will even be coworkers, in a sense. If I can be both a paddle to you, and a friend, it would make me very happy. Whiskey?” he tacks on politely at the end. “Or just water for you today?”
Will stares at him. Looks away. Glances up at him again. “Water,” he says finally. Dr. Lecter just continues to look at him expectantly. “Please,” Will adds instinctively, and then inwardly cringes so hard he feels like he’s going to implode.
“Of course,” Dr. Lecter says in a near-purr, smiling at him with an expression of pure, filthy satisfaction. “I’ll be right with you,” he adds, and turns to fetch Will a glass of water.
‘A paddle and a friend.’ Sure.
Will hovers above one of the two chairs that face each other, but doesn’t move to sit until Dr. Lecter has given him his glass of water and retreated to the opposite chair. There’s an awkward moment where neither of them move before suddenly, they sit in sync, settling into their chairs in a mirror of one another.
“Shall we begin?” the doctor asks.
“The sooner this is over with, the better,” Will says honestly, but without the bite he intended.
“Jack did inform me that you were quite reluctant to see me. Would you like to start by talking about that?”
“Well, considering that I’m sure you’re just going to use it as an opportunity to make more unsubtle passes at me, not particularly,” Will drawls, hoping to elicit some kind of embarrassment in the older alpha.
“After you forced my hand at the concert, I have no further interest in subtlety,” Dr. Lecter says instead, and Will tenses. “I usually prefer a leisurely build-up of more casual flirtation before engaging in explicit expressions of intention, but it seems you have no interest in such pretenses.”
“I have no interest in you, ” Will grits out, nails digging into the arms of the chair habitually.
“So I’ve been told.” The doctor leans back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, his entire demeanor projecting nothing but lazy confidence and a maddening lack of concern. “Well, why not start there, then. What does your sexual and romantic life look like?”
“That’s none of your business,” Will flashes back, stunned once again by the complete and utter lack of shame this man has.
“I’m asking as your psychiatrist at present. You may be surprised by how intensely one’s relationship with intimacy can impact their overall psychology and wellbeing. Do you think you have a healthy relationship with sex and romance?”
Fuck it. Will decides that maybe the best way over is through. “I don’t have much of a relationship with either at the moment,” he admits begrudgingly.
“And why would you say that is? Is it for lack of interest?”
“I guess. Kind of.” Will taps his fingers restlessly against the arm of his chair. “I find it difficult to relax and feel comfortable around most people. Friends are one thing; anything more than that is even more… exhausting.”
“Have you had bad experiences with such things in the past?” Dr. Lecter asks.
“I mean, yeah. Nothing really awful, to be clear, just run-of-the-mill bad.”
The doctor’s head tilts slightly to the side. “Enlighten me on what you mean when you say ‘run-of-the-mill bad.’”
Will takes another sip from his water glass before setting it down too hard. “Just, bad chemistry, you know. Awkward situations and unhappy partings. General incompatibility with, well. Just about everyone.”
“And why do you think that is?”
Back to the water glass. Will’s mouth is dry. Too dry. Why is he incompatible with everyone he’s ever had to try to be intimate with? “I don’t know. Because I’m unpleasant,” he says bluntly. “Because I’m too rough, too emotionally unavailable, too awkward, too unstable.” His eyes snap to the ground. Now he’s really said too much. Five minutes in, and he’s already picking at scabs. Either Dr. Lecter is actually a good therapist, or all of the shit that Will has bottled up lies closer to the surface than he realized. He thinks it’s probably a bit of both.
“Maybe you’ve struggled to find compatible partners in the past because you yourself don’t know what you want out of an intimate connection. Have you ever given yourself over to someone else to be taken care of, Will?” The velvet smooth voice comes from right above Will, and his leg stills where it had started to bounce, gaze still locked on the floor. “Maybe you’ve been looking for the wrong things, in the wrong places.”
Will raises his head and feels a wave of heat pass over him. Dr. Lecter is standing directly in front of him, looming over his chair. The older alpha gestures innocently to the pitcher he’s holding. “More water?”
Shooting to his feet, Will shoves the pitcher aside to make enough room for himself to shrug past and away from Dr. Lecter. He only realizes it’s sloshed all over the doctor’s suit when he turns back around, fingers twitching aggressively at his sides.
The doctor is staring blankly down at the wet spots blooming over the expensive fabric. He raises his head to look at Will, and Will has the sudden completely absurd thought that the man is going to kill him.
Instead, the doctor just sets the pitcher down carefully on the little table beside Will’s chair, and begins to calmly remove his suit jacket. Face still unreadable, his eyes lock on to Will as he shrugs off his outermost layers until he’s left in a thin white button-up that stretches noticeably around his arms when they flex with his movements. He is alarmingly well-muscled. Strangely so, for a psychiatrist.
Will takes a hasty step backwards. “What are– Why’re you taking off–?”
“Because you just spilled water on it.”
Oh. Duh. “Right,” Will says.
“Relax, Will,” Dr. Lecter says, but he isn’t smiling, and he doesn’t look relaxed. “You look like a nervous boy who’s been caught redhanded by his father.” Will feels his face heating up at the suggestion, but before he can decide how to protect himself from this new embarrassing line of commentary, Dr. Lecter adds with an air of false casualness, “It’s just a bit of spilled water, and nothing to worry about. But I do expect an apology.”
Had Will not apologized? He hadn’t, had he?
Dr. Lecter folds his suit jacket over the back of Will’s chair and begins striding towards him with purpose, and it takes everything in Will to stand his ground and not either back up with alarm or surge forwards with aggression at his approach. He stops only a few inches from Will, and his natural height advantage suddenly feels a lot more evident, and a lot more threatening. Will can hear his own breath coming out slightly shakier than usual. He can smell the doctor’s expensive cologne, and a heady hint of his natural musk beneath. Dr. Lecter stares him down intently and raises one perfectly manicured brow in expectation.
“Sorry,” Will bites out quickly.
The air shifts as Dr. Lecter smiles. It isn’t exactly a kind smile. It’s the same smile that made an appearance when Will had said ‘please’ earlier, something half-way smug and thick with dark, self-satisfied pleasure. “Very good,” he says softly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Will snarls automatically, a distinctly aggressive alphan sound that comes from somewhere deep in his chest. He freezes the moment it leaves his mouth as Dr. Lecter’s eyes darken, and he steps somehow impossibly further into Will’s space, his voice a brush of satin against Will’s cheek as he asks, “What was that, now? Are you challenging me, Will?”
Next thing Will knows, he’s three steps towards the door, striding with stiff urgency away from the older alpha before things can escalate in literally any direction. To his immense relief, the doctor doesn’t follow this time, and Will makes it across the room before pausing in the doorway and briefly catching his breath. In the moment of stillness that follows, he’s struck with the oddest sense of disappointment.
Will finds himself turning in place, one hand wrapped around the doorframe as he looks Dr. Lecter dead in the eyes and says, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Then Will leaves, walking slightly faster when the softest snarl echoes behind him.
Once again, it takes him until he gets into his car to realize what he’s forgotten.
“My fucking jacket,” he says aloud, and lets his head droop down until his forehead is resting on his steering wheel. Then comes the slow horror of realization as he reflects properly on his parting words to the doctor.
What was he thinking? If an omega or a beta had said that to him, he’d immediately interpret it as a big neon sign that read ‘CONTINUE PURSUIT.’ He had been going for scathing, but in hindsight, the way he’d said it, the words themselves– It had sounded like a challenge, and it had absolutely sounded like flirtation.
Will raises his head once before letting it fall back onto the wheel, wincing when the horn honks once. God, he hopes Dr. Lecter hadn’t heard that.
Will white-knuckles the wheel all the way home, and speeds half of the way. Part of him wants to get pulled over by a cop just to stir up trouble. Part of him wants to slam the gas pedal until he goes hurtling off the road. He feels restless and hot and angry and nervous all at once.
In the shower, he runs the water cold, and somehow still manages to obtain and then maintain an erection. Will doesn’t jack off frequently, and when he does, it’s usually just vaguely distressing and often ultimately unsuccessful. But tonight, his hard-on is distracting enough that he caves and decides to attend to it, masturbating himself quickly and mechanically in an attempt to just get it over with. It does not get it over with.
Head pressed to the tiled wall of his shower, Will bites out a frustrated whine, squeezing his cock mercilessly, trying to focus on pornographic mental images from past mediocre dalliances to bring himself over the edge.
A pair of cruel whiskey-dark eyes flash suddenly in his mind. He sees a large hand reaching for his face, sees himself biting the fingers and drawing blood– he gasps aloud in the shower at the spike of arousal he feels, and the continuance of the fantasy, the hand tearing free from his teeth and grabbing his chin harshly before a pair of long fangs sink into his neck and bite back, and bite harder.
Will’s orgasm hits him like a truck, and he comes with a stuttering cry, still hanging dazed off of the image of those large hands gripping his chin, tangling in his hair, wrapping around his neck–
The comedown is horrific. The shame and panic and confusion drowns out his post-orgasmic bliss in a matter of seconds.
Will tries to turn the shower colder, but it doesn’t go any colder. He cuts the water, towels himself off roughly, and throws himself into bed naked without brushing his teeth. As is the norm, he sleeps minimally, and fitfully.
In his dreams, he is a cold corpse, unable to respond or defend himself as a pair of capable surgeon’s hands open his chest gently and pull his entrails from his body.
The next morning, Will runs through the motions of his normal routine. He brushes his teeth, makes two cups of black coffee, feeds the dogs, and wanders onto the porch to watch the sun rise as his pack runs and plays in the yard. It takes him a second to notice the package on the front steps, a heavy box wrapped with a satin ribbon that is– and Will is sure of this– the exact same shade of blue as his eyes.
He opens it right there on the porch, stares dumbfounded at the silky amber shine of the handle of whiskey he’s been gifted. It’s the same kind that Dr. Lecter had poured him in the VIP lounge. He googles it on his phone, and swears aloud when he sees the price.
There’s a note written in a disgustingly elegant hand attached, because of course there is. Will takes a moment to compose himself before he reads it. He curses even louder and more vehemently when reaches the end of the letter.
I took note of how much you appreciated the whiskey in the lounge. It was somewhat difficult to import this bottle, but you have excellent taste, and deserve only the finest things.
I intend to learn all of your tastes. With time, I will of course expect you to learn mine, too.
Don’t drink it all in one go, and do try your best not to spill it all over.
Fondly,
- Hannibal
Notes:
Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos or a kind comment! They genuinely motivated me to get my classwork done faster so I could write more hahaha
Hope you enjoy! Heads up that this thing is gonna be kind of a medium-burn, and most updates will NOT be this close together lmao I just got excited
Chapter 3: Don't Feed A Wild Animal
Summary:
Will is forced to set aside his hostility towards Dr. Lecter to work with him on a case.
An unexpected source opens up to Will about his own... 'experience' with the good doctor, further cementing Will's growing concern that he's in too deep.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Will is being kept late at Quantico with Jack when he gets the call. Normally, he’d send calls straight to voicemail while at work, but when he sees the caller ID, he can’t resist picking up.
“Hello, Will.”
Will grimaces. Dr. Lecter’s voice somehow sounds even deeper over the phone. “What do you want, Dr. Lecter?” he asks, and Jack’s head snaps towards him from where he was flipping through some of Will’s notes.
“There’s an event being held in Baltimore this Saturday for the opening of an art exhibit, followed by a luncheon at the nearby country club. I was wondering if you might accompany me to both events.”
“Not interested,” Will replies with as much nonchalance as one can possibly instill in two words, and hangs up immediately before the man can respond.
“Will.” Jack is looking at him with something akin to pain in his eyes. “Would it kill you to at least be polite about it?”
Will pauses. “About what?”
“Your continuous rejections of Dr. Lecter.”
Will scrubs one hand through his hair in incredulous frustration. “Does everyone in the goddamn FBI know about this?”
“Jimmy likes to gossip. Look, Will, I know you aren’t interested in Dr. Lecter, but the way you talk to that man, you’re playing with fire.”
Will stares at him. “What?”
Jack drags a hand down his face in exasperation. “Come on, Will; it’s just us two alphas here. You know what I’m talking about.” Will’s nose scrunches up in a mixture of irritation and wary confusion. “Look. What’s your first instinct when the thing you’re after turns and bolts?” Jack prompts him.
“Chase,” Will responds automatically, and then feels like shooting himself when Jack gives him a pointed look. “Wait, are you–” Will blinks at him incredulously. “Are you victim blaming me right now for being continuously harassed by Dr. Lecter?”
“I’m just saying that you’re playing the game, Will!” Jack says. “I hadn’t seen it up close until just now, but my god, you’re playing it; you know you’re riling him up, and you know that it’s just going to make him want you even mo–”
“So I’m just ‘playing hard to get’ every time I reject him?” Will cuts in with a hiss.
Jack just looks at him for a second before his mouth opens a little in surprise. “My god. You don’t even know you’re doing it, do you?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Will snaps, but a sliver of guilty concern pierces quietly through his indignation. “I’m not entertaining this conversation any further. If it’s not impacting work, then I’m going to deal with my personal problems the way I see fit, and you’re going to mind your own business.”
Jack’s brows narrow at Will’s tone for a tense second before they both seem to realize they’re getting worked up, take a step back from each other, and shrug it off.
“Look, I was just trying to give you some advice, but I’ll drop it for now,” Jack says, and Will nods once stiffly. “Where are our betas,” Jack mutters, dragging his hand down his face again. “Could use some of their energy around here.”
Will feels like this is vaguely sexist against betas somehow, but doesn’t really feel like talking to Jack anymore right now anyways, so he says nothing.
“Oh, and Will, you’re going out into the field again this Saturday to look for our guy. It’s some arts thing in Baltimore; more upper class shmoozing. And, uh, we’re calling Dr. Lecter in to consult on the case tomorrow.”
Will lets out a sigh so long that Jack excuses him for the evening.
The next day, Will pointedly refuses to look up when Dr. Lecter enters the room, but the faintest hint of the man’s scent hits him the moment the door opens. Wrinkling his nose up, Will tries to ignore the heavy weight of the older alpha’s gaze that he can practically feel on his back. He can tell the betas are looking between them with nervous excitement, and Jack doesn’t even try to hide a long-suffering sigh of his own.
“Dr. Lecter, thank you for making the time to come consult with us on this case. We partially wanted to get your perspective because we believe that our man likely frequents the circles you run in.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Dr. Lecter responds cordially from somewhere just behind Will. “I will do my best to assist.”
“Excellent. Will, catch him up on our Silver Spoon.”
Just do the job, Will reminds himself, and takes a deep breath before he speaks. “We think we have four kills that we can attribute to him so far,” he begins, pushing photos from the crime scene to the center of the table where Dr. Lecter can see them. “Always bullets, but a different kind of gun each time, and the bodies are often shot up in ways that suggest a general interest in mutilation past the point of the kill itself, or preceding the kill itself.”
“I heard about two of these murders through the grapevine,” Dr. Lecter says, moving into Will’s periphery to stand next to him at the table as he sifts through the photos. “Found in the aftermath of parties, both of them.”
“Upper-class parties,” Beverly adds, leaning back against the wall behind her with her arms folded over her chest. “Same goes for the last two. We think our guy gets a bit of a kick out of killing them at such large, bougie events.”
“Any ideas as to motive?” Dr. Lecter asks.
“My running theory is that our killer is a bored rich kid who’s found a new way to get high,” Will says, straightening up from where he had been leaning over the notes and photos scattered over the table. “Trying out different expensive guns, going overboard just for the fun of it– He’s high on the newfound power of killing, and he’s playing with his expensive toys. Someone who’s had everything so easy for so long, that nothing else entertains him anymore.”
“Hence the Silver Spoon,” Dr. Lecter murmurs, and Will nods.
“We’ve scoured the security footage from these events, but this guy isn’t a complete idiot,” Will continues grimly. “His kills are always made in large surveillance blindspots, often in the less-glitzy, more practical behind-the-scenes portions of the houses and venues where he’s killed.”
“Guest lists?” Dr. Lecter prompts.
“Gone over those too, and cross referenced them for recurring guests, but they’ve all been fairly large events, and they don’t always keep track of plus ones,” Zeller cuts in. “Still, we’ve got a list of about fifty guys that we’re looking at who had a formal invite to two or more of the events.”
“And how does he choose his victims?”
Here, there is a pause, because this is where Will himself has been stuck. “We’re not sure yet,” he admits curtly. “There’s been no correlation in age, race, gender, or profession, and we’re considering the possibility that he could be choosing them randomly.”
“But you don’t think he’s choosing them randomly.”
Will finally looks up.
Dr. Lecter is wearing a fine three-piece suit of checkered rouge, one hand bracing himself on the table as he peers at Will. His expression is calm, open, and slightly inquisitive, so different from the goading, predatory look he’d worn when Will had last seen him.
“No,” Will confesses. “I don’t think he’s choosing them randomly.”
Dr. Lecter smiles. It’s not an unkind smile. “Then we’re in agreement,” he says, and Will finds that he can’t look away. “Lucky for you, I am familiar with three of the victims, and knew one personally. I believe I may have some relevant insight afterall.”
The doctor breaks eye contact first to return his attention to the photos, and Will finds himself stuck staring at the broad slopes of the older alpha’s shoulders for a moment longer than necessary before he’s able to snap his attention back to the table.
“This young woman,” Dr. Lecter says, pointing to one of the shot-up bodies in the photos, “is the daughter of the CEO of a weapon’s manufacturing company. She recently began a hard-earned apprenticeship with one of the greatest living masters of Japanese woodcarving.” Everyone in the lab leans into the table, trying to follow the doctor’s line of thinking as he moves to the next victim. “This man is the son of an old-money politician. He’s won many awards for his work in robotical engineering, and graduated from Harvard at the top of his class.” The rest of the room is still squinting and scratching their heads, but Will’s gears have begun to turn. “And this woman, I knew personally, which is how I can tell you that although she is heiress to a major publishing house, she’s been selling her own original works through a completely separate company under a pseudonym for five years, and to great success.”
“Talent,” Will says. “He’s killing people who were born to money, but actually made something of themselves, at least partially off of their own merits.”
Dr. Lecter looks at Will like he’s the only person in the room. “He is ashamed,” he says.
“Because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” Will adds, continuing the thought. “And has never done a single interesting or beautiful thing in his life–”
“–So he turns his self-loathing outwards and takes the lives of those who have worked to define themselves past the generous head-start they were given,” Dr. Lecter finishes.
The room is silent for a long moment. Will can feel his blood racing in his veins, ecstatic with the satisfaction of pieces coming together, and strangely thrilled with the easy way that he and Dr. Lecter had built off of each other.
“I’ll buy it,” Jack booms out, and the moment is broken. This time, Will looks away first. The doctor does not look away at all. “Dr. Lecter, how do you feel about taking a look at the cross-referenced names we’ve come up with and seeing if you recognize any of them?”
“Of course,” Dr. Lecter says. “And Will,” he adds, voice deceptively casual, “your coat that you forgot at my place.” Will looks back up at him and finds that the doctor is holding Will’s jacket out towards him, the one that he’d left at his office. That small, mildly amused smile is back on the man’s face. Everyone in the lab is staring at them.
‘At my place.’ Come on.
Will snatches the coat out of his hands and returns to pretending to look at the photos on the table. Dr. Lecter leaves his side and approaches Jack for the files containing the names. The two begin to exit the room as they converse, and Will lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Fine, Will thinks to himself begrudgingly, because it was better to just get it over with and admit it to himself. Ignoring the stupid coat thing, he has a new respect for Dr. Lecter.
When he wasn’t sexually harassing Will, the man was intuitive, focused, and fell easily in stride with Will along the paths of thought that Will was accustomed to traveling alone.
He shrugs it off. It doesn’t excuse the other alphas behavior, and it sure as hell doesn’t change anything between them.
Will makes sure to leave Quantico before Dr. Lecter can catch him alone. When he turns off the car in his driveway, he checks his phone and sees a text message in a new conversation.
It was an honor working alongside you today. I hope that I was of some service. - Hannibal
Will stares at the message for a long time before finally tapping back,
You were. thanks.
He closes his phone and doesn’t look at it again until morning. When he opens it again, he sees that he’s gotten two texts in the night. The first one is a strongly worded message from Jack about ‘dressing properly for the occasion’ at the art exhibition opening. The second one–
I look forward to seeing you Saturday.
Will leaves him on read.
Will once again finds himself in the surprising position of realizing that if not for the people, and all the glitz and glam, and the fact that he only managed three hours of sleep, he would actually quite enjoy an event like this.
The art, a series of unusual mosaics made from miscellaneous recycled materials, is strangely haunting. He spends fifteen minutes just standing and staring at a piece that depicts two wolves staring at one another across a vast gorge, mesmerized by the stark silhouettes and bold color palette of dramatic blues and reds.
“You Lecter’s plus one?”
Will stiffens, and blinks himself out of his reverie, turning to see a kind of wispy but sharp-eyed alpha standing with his arms clasped lazily behind him. He wears a delicate white suit with silver filigree, and there’s a curious look on his face that Will can’t quite identify.
“No,” Will replies with some irritation.
“Oh. Sorry, I must’ve gotten mixed up,” the young man says, scratching at his blond hair with mild confusion. “You sure do like that piece, huh?” he adds, nodding his head at the colorful mosaic Will had been entranced by.
Will looks at his shoes. “I do.”
“Well, thank you! Probably a favorite of mine, too,” the man says with a cheeky grin, and Will squints at him for a moment before he understands.
“You’re the artist,” he says rather than asks.
“Guilty,” the alpha says with a little shrug and a smile. “Benjamin Teller,” he introduces himself, holding his hand out. Will shakes it, and summons a twitchy but genuine smile to his face.
“Will Graham. And this really is a beautiful piece, Mr. Teller.”
“Aw, none of that now; you can just call me Benjamin,” the artist tells him with a friendly smile that Will can’t help but mirror. “And I appreciate it! But god– I’m always honored to be allowed these nice exhibition spaces, but this venue has got the worst ventilation system,” Benjamin says, undoing the first couple buttons on his shirt and pulling at the collar to free more skin. “Hot as hell and smells like sweat. I’d rather we all wear shorts and wife-beaters than be left sweltering in these stuffy suits, but that’s never happening.”
As the man talks, Will finds his eyes catching on the edges of a nearly invisible splotchy crescent moon of a scar on his shoulder. A vaguely alarmed thought strikes him.
“I’m sorry– I know this is rather forward, but can I ask about the bite mark on your shoulder?” Will asks, and Benjamin stiffens a little. “If it’s too personal, I understand–”
“No, it’s fine,” the man says, rubbing the back of his head again in a slightly nervous gesture. “You should probably know, honestly.” Oh god, what did that mean? “I’m guessing you, uh, know about Lecter? And the– the challenge?”
Despite merely having his suspicions confirmed, Will is still filled with disbelief. “You were one of his alphas? He did that to you?”
“Damn, I dunno why you even asked if you apparently already knew,” Benjamin huffs. “But, yeah. He, um. He marks all of the alphas he sleeps with. Generally nothing huge or easily noticeable, but, something that… doesn’t usually go away.”
“Did you know ahead of time? Did you consent to that?”
The man is avoiding Will’s gaze now, clearly embarrassed. “Look, I’m only telling you this stuff because I’m guessing you’re his current target, so you keep it as our secret, yeah?” Benjamin prompts, and Will nods. “When he… propositions you, he lays out the general expectations, but not exactly all of the details. Let’s you know in the most vague terms possible what he’s intending on doing, if he wins. So, I mean, I kinda knew that it was a possibility.”
“You just didn’t think he was actually going to be able to overpower you,” Will guesses.
“That’s why he likes the younger alphas best,” Benjamin says, face drawn tight and strained with embarrassment. “Way more likely to accept his challenge out of pride and hubris, and therefore way more satisfying to break. He’s had affairs with older alphas too, but way fewer of them are dumb enough to think that they have a chance against him, so any that he does take to bed are usually more actively interested in the, uh, the experience he offers.”
“Good lord,” Will says, his eyes flicking back to the faint scarring of the bite mark on Benjamin’s shoulder.
“Are you considering taking up the challenge?” Benjamin asks curiously.
“‘Taking up the challenge,’” Will repeats wryly, but even as he’s shaking his head, the most deeply alphan part of himself is stirring in interest. Challenge. A challenge that no other alpha has succeeded in. “No,” he says, despite the itch at the back of his neck. “But god, I hope that someone beats the shit out of him and puts him in his place sometime.”
“We all pray for the day,” Benjamin says with a sigh, shaking his head and scuffing his shoes against the marble floors. “But I doubt it’ll happen. He’s really otherwise fantastic company, but it’s frankly just kind of embarrassing how much power he holds in a room because of this shit.”
It made sense, the more Will thought about it. In the modern day, there were very few opportunities for alphas to confront one another and battle for dominance in the primal way that they were wired to crave. Because of this, it was less likely for clear hierarchies to emerge between alphas beyond those that arose naturally based on profession and chains of command within workplaces. It seemed that Dr. Lecter had found a way around this by creating a space where he could legally and technically consensually assert violent physical dominance over other alphas under the guise of a mere sexual encounter.
“I suppose that getting overpowered like that kind of changes how you’re able to interact with him,” Will guesses, and Benjamin nods with a grimace.
“I mean, yeah. It’s– kind of infuriating. It’s like, if you get close enough to him, your body remembers. You can never unlearn that kind of instinctual deference, once you realize that you’re standing next to a superior alpha.” He says the words ruefully, his arms crossing over his chest with an annoyed huff. “And now imagine him receiving that treatment, but it’s from like, at least five alphas at any given event he attends.”
“Jesus Christ," Will mutters, scraping a hand through his hair. “Thank you for sharing that. It helps… contextualize some of the shit he’s been throwing at me.”
“For sure,” Benjamin says, friendly smile reappearing on his face. “But seriously, if you’re not interested, good luck shaking him, man. Like, you’ve probably just gotta avoid events like this entirely for a while, or get used to being hunted.” The artist jerks his head subtly to the left, and Will’s eyes dart in the direction, alarmed but not really surprised to find that Dr. Lecter mingles at the edges of the crowd, casting him the occasional glance.
“Awesome,” Will says.
“I’ve got to go brush some elbows in the gallery lounge, but it was nice talking to you, Will,” Benjamin says with a small wave. “Always a pleasure to meet someone who you can tell sees your art the way it was meant to be seen.” He says it so sincerely that Will nearly blushes as he raises a hand in farewell, watching the artist slip back into the crowd.
“Will.”
Will’s hand falls quickly and curls into a fist. His meager three hours of sleep weigh heavy on him as he steels himself, and turns to face Dr. Lecter.
“I’d like you to meet Radford Montgomery,” Dr. Lecter says before Will can so much as open his mouth. The doctor is standing with a polite smile next to a shorter alpha, gesturing to the man as if in presentation. “An acquaintance of mine.”
“How do you do,” the other alpha says, an astonishingly average-looking man with limp brown hair and uncannily straight teeth. He offers Will a hand, and Will’s eyes shift back to Dr. Lecter. The older alpha is staring at him steadily, but with patient intentionality, and not of the sordid sort. Will’s instinctive hostility shifts into understanding. Dr. Lecter is introducing him to a potential suspect.
“A pleasure,” Will says, taking the man’s hand and shaking it firmly. “Do you and Dr. Lecter go way back?”
“Well, I go way back with him, he doesn’t exactly go way back with me,” Radford says with a weird chuckle. “My parents– they run the sewer system in the city, if you didn’t know–” Why the hell would Will know that? “–Well, they were bringing me to his soirées and such since I was in high school. Always going on about his harpsichord playing and classical literature recitals and such.” The comment is made in a playful, complimentary tone, but Will hones in on the man’s microexpressions and feels a spark under his skin when he sees it in the twitch at the corner of Radford’s mouth, and the rueful sharpening of his eyes– The tiniest little smear of resentment.
“So how do you know him?”
Will blinks himself back into the moment. “We met at a party,” he says honestly, eyes drifting back to Dr. Lecter. “And it seems I just haven’t been able to shake him since,” he adds with what he hopes is a joking tone, even as he stares the older alpha down. Dr. Lecter smiles.
Radford sniffs and says, “Well, it’s been nice to meet you, but I unfortunately must get home to attend to my dogs, and such.” Will thinks this is the third time the man has said ‘and such.’ He also doesn’t really think the man has enjoyed meeting him much at all, considering the dry, minute long interaction they’ve shared.
“Likewise,” he says instead.
“If anyone asks after me, let them know I’ve had to get home early to take care of my mutts,” Radford says to Dr. Lecter, who nods politely and bids him farewell before returning his attention to Will and raising an eyebrow.
“Thoughts?” he asks, hands clasped behind his back as he sidles closer to Will until they’re standing side by side.
“Rather dull company you choose to keep, Dr. Lecter,” Will replies without looking at him, a hint of teasing in his voice.
“You sell yourself terribly short, my boy.”
“I’m not your boy,” Will snaps, head whipping to the side and any traces of mirth leaving him in an instant. This only seems to add fuel to the fire, Dr. Lecter’s jovial smile widening into something more insidious.
“Did you get the gift I sent you?” he asks, throwing Will off guard.
“How did you get my mailing address?” Will shoots back.
“I asked Jack.”
Will is going to kill Jack after this fucking event. “Next thing you send to my house, I’m returning to sender with a bomb attached.”
“That sounds like a rather serious threat, Will,” Dr. Lecter nearly purrs, too close to Will’s ear, and Will bares his teeth for just a moment before recalculating.
Will takes a large, pointed step away from Dr. Lecter before leaning his elbows back against a high table behind him dotted with appetizers. Plucking a strawberry dipped in cream from a crystal bowl, Will holds it up as if assessing its quality.
“One thing about being a good fisherman,” Will says, turning the white-capped piece of fruit in his hand, “is that I’m also very good at recognizing bait.” He lets his eyes slide back to Dr. Lecter, whose previously smug expression has retreated back into one of wary neutrality. “You can try to goad me into fighting you, or whatever it is you’d like to call it, all you want. I have nothing to prove, and no interest in seeing you outside of these events. You, on the other hand,” he continues, bringing the strawberry to his lips and taking a slow bite from it, “are so desperate for me, it’s pathetic.”
The dangerous moment of silence that follows his words is all Will needs to know that he’s struck home. Terribly pleased with himself, he finishes off his strawberry in one bite.
“You are far too comfortable letting your tongue run loose, boy,” the older alpha says finally, his voice dropping an octave into something with a hint of a growl in it. “Would you still be so rude if we were alone?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Will says carelessly. “Because we never will be again, and even if we were, I wouldn’t consent to you doing a single thing to me. You can dream all you want about subduing me, and teaching me a lesson, but you can’t do that unless you get me in the proverbial ring with you, and the fact is, I’m not interested.”
Dr. Lecter regards him for one moment before some of the tension in his face dissipates into something more calm and calculated. “For someone who isn’t interested, you certainly do spend a great deal of your time flaunting your disinterest to me,” he counters.
Before Will can think of a clever and scathing response to this, the faint sound of distant gunshots hits him. He and Dr. Lecter turn their heads at the same time, first towards the direction of the gunshots, then back to each other. Many of the guests at the exhibition event have started murmuring and turning their heads, but the sound was muffled enough that it hasn’t immediately brought the whole event to a standstill.
“With me,” a voice commands, and Will startles as Jack sweeps past them both, striding in the direction of the sound with a couple of other agents trailing behind him. Will follows him in a hurry, face turning grim as a couple of the agents peel off to put an end to the event and clear the building.
When they pass through what Will gathers is the gallery lounge, a terrible premonition falls over him. When they exit the luxurious hall and move into an extensive outdoor courtyard cast in the long shadows of sunset, his fear is proved correct.
Crumpled between two rose bushes is the willowy form of Benjamin Teller. His arms are terribly crooked, and his white suit has soaked through with red. Worse than that, his blond hair blooms just as dark and wet. Will’s chest aches, sharply and suddenly, the feeling unexpected and unwelcome, but he can’t help it– Just twenty minutes prior, he’d been smiling with real warmth at something the corpse lying at his feet had said. Twenty minutes prior.
“Benjamin,” a voice murmurs from over Will’s shoulder, and Will tenses at the genuine sorrow in Dr. Lecter’s voice. Right. Benjamin had been one of Dr. Lecter’s alphas. One of his boys.
Will can’t help himself. He casts a glance behind him to try to read the man’s face, and finds that it is about what it sounded like, and nothing more. Dr. Lecter looks sad. Not shocked, not traumatized, not despairing, but sad, unquestionably sad.
Something shifts under Will’s skin. He doesn’t know what it is. He flinches when Dr. Lecter’s eyes cut to him suddenly, as if sensing Will’s gaze, Will’s thoughts, and Will takes an unconscious step back from the man.
“Will!” Jack barks, and Will turns away from Dr. Lecter hastily, speed-walking over to Jack. “I’ve called in backup, but we’re sweeping the area. You stay on scene, and do your thing.”
“What?” Will asks, aghast. “Now? The body is still warm, Jack.”
“You work best the fresher the scene is,” Jack counters grimly. “If you can trace that man’s steps backwards, maybe you can even work out his escape route. You’re staying here, and you’re getting to work, now.”
“Fine,” Will grits out. “But keep the area clear.”
“Can do. Dr. Lecter, can you watch over him while he works?”
Jack is dead the moment this is over, the moment this is fucking over–
“Of course. Will is safe with me.” The older alpha barely tries to conceal the satisfaction in his voice. Jack and the rest of the agents with him are gone before Will can think of any convincing reason for them to under no circumstances allow him to be left alone with Dr. Lecter.
Will’s eyes catch again on the broken slump of Benjamin’s body. There’s hardly any blond left visible in his hair at all. He recenters himself.
“You are going to stand under the archway and keep a look out,” Will says, whirling on Dr. Lecter and jabbing a finger into his chest. “You will not come any closer to me than that, you will not speak, and you will not interrupt me unless it’s absolutely urgent. Understood?”
The older alpha’s teeth glint in the slanted light of the sinking sun when he grins and dips his head in a parody of respect. “Understood, alpha.”
Will ignores the faint shiver that the doctor’s words elicit in him, but he has to acknowledge that it’s getting increasingly difficult to continue to ignore these things.
But for now, he does. He has a goddamn job to do.
Making his way back over to the body, Will sinks into a crouch until he can see Benjamin’s face.
Will has seen terrible things. Bodies mutilated beyond recognition in the triple digits. It’s different when it’s someone you know. Benjamin’s face is half-frozen in fear, eyes glassy and dazed, mouth slack-jawed, and the exit wound of a bullet leaking dark across his brow from the crown of his head. Will recalls the man’s genuine smile as he bid him farewell and remarked on his appreciation for his art. His chest constricts painfully again.
Will takes a deep, steadying breath, and closes his eyes.
When he reopens them, he’s standing, his hand resting on the hidden butt of a gun in his suit jacket as time trips backwards, the sun staggering back up a couple paces in the sky and Benjamin rising from the ground like a marionette.
“I do not know this man well,” Will says, still walking backwards until he’s some ten paces from the standing specter of the artist. “But I’ve heard his name spoken in superfluous praise often enough that it’s curdled on my tongue,” he sneers, coming to a stop. “Lucky for me, all he has known is praise. He has no reason to suspect when I invite him to join me in the courtyard– after having established an alibi to some of the party guests that I’ve left early, and was seen exiting the building through the front door,” Will says in realization. “I lavish him in the compliments he is so used to receiving,” he murmurs, stepping slowly towards Benjamin, “until we’re far enough into the courtyard for me to drop the facade.”
Only a few feet from Benjamin now, Will lifts the phantom gun he’s holding. “I share a few scathing words with him,” Will murmurs. “Something quick and bruising, just for the two of us. And then I begin shooting.”
Will’s finger twitches against the imaginary trigger, watching the surprise and fear explode over Benjamin’s face as he staggers backwards. “I aim a couple shots into his arms, first,” Will says, “because I like to let them panic for a moment, and I am fascinated by the way the damage moves their bodies. In this perfect moment, all of their talent, all of their accolades,” he sighs out, briefly closing his eyes, “are nothing against the great equalizer– a bullet.”
He waits until Benjamin’s turned to run before letting the final shot hit him directly in the back of the head. He steps closer so that he can watch the body stop twitching.
Will takes a shaky breath. He can feel his sweat against the cold metal of the imaginary gun in his hand as he whispers, “This is my design.”
And then his eyes catch on Benjamin’s shoulder. The bite. The perfect crescent moon. He blinks, stumbles, and falls headfirst into the vision.
I know exactly how to pin him to incapacitate this boy perfectly for my purposes, Will’s mind whispers, tripping backwards, elsewhere, inwards– I know where I want to mark him, and I know how to do so just well enough that he will never forget what it felt like to be under my teeth, because I never let my prey go without a permanent reminder that a higher power has taken and bitched them–
“Will!”
Will gasps out of his trance and finds that his mouth is inches from the scar on Benjamin’s shoulder, his hands pinning the corpse to the ground as if it were trying to get away from him.
Lurching backwards, Will scrambles away from the body, falling back onto his elbows and breathing heavily. A hand lands softly on his shoulder.
“Will. Can you hear me?”
The voice in his head. The voice that was usually his, narrating the thought patterns of a perpetrator as if they were his own– this time, that voice had been Dr. Lecters.
The hand on Will’s shoulder applies gentle pressure, and Will tries to shrug it off, but finds that he can’t. The garden is spinning. Three hours of sleep, he thinks semi-deliriously.
Another gentle hand steadies him on his other shoulder and begins to prop him up, and Will finds that he can only sag back against it. He’s breathing too hard. There are spots behind his eyes. He’s still trying to ground himself back in the courtyard, and the only thing that’s helping are the warm hands keeping him upright where he’s half-slumped on the ground.
“Take deep breaths. In, and out.”
Will breathes in shakily. Will breathes out slightly less shakily. He turns his head up and to the side to meet Dr. Lecter’s gaze, and finds that if he just focuses on the shining merlot of his eyes, the rest of the garden stops spinning. “In, and out,” the doctor murmurs again, one hand petting down Will’s back, soothing. Grounding.
Have you ever given yourself over to someone else to be taken care of?
Will shrugs Dr. Lecter off roughly before he can melt any further back into his hands. He finally catches his breath, hands still shaking as he adjusts his glasses, avoiding the doctor’s gaze. Fuck. He can’t deny it anymore. He is in trouble.
“Are you alright, Will?”
“Yeah,” Will replies. “Yeah. Sorry. Thank you,” he adds, genuinely. When Dr. Lecter straightens and offers Will a hand up, Will takes it.
“Do you want to talk about what just happened?” The older alpha is still using that soft, patient voice, and he hasn’t let go of Will’s hand yet.
“No,” Will says, but with no bite. Just exhaustion. “I didn’t really sleep last night, and I was kind of out of it and I just got– lost for a second. Happens sometimes.” He withdraws his hand. The doctor lets him, but barely.
“That sounds like something that might be worth exploring. Perhaps even, say, in therapy,” Dr. Lecter says, a hint of gentle teasing in his voice, and Will finds the corner of his mouth twitching up reluctantly.
“A thought for later,” he says firmly, taking one last steadying breath. “The killer– I think it is Radford,” he adds. “But I don’t know how he managed to slip away from here so quickly.” Will closes his eyes again, tries to dip a toe back into the man’s mind, and finds himself walking slowly around the outskirts of the rose garden, eyes narrowing to slits as they come to rest on the cover of a storm drain half-hidden beneath a well-trimmed hedge. Sinking into a crouch, Will inspects the thick padlock on the grate before a thought strikes him. “His parents,” he says, turning his head towards Dr. Lecter, who has remained a few paces behind him. “He said they did something with the sewer systems?”
The doctor’s eyes light up. “He did.”
“Contact Jack,” Will orders. “I’m going to see if I can pick this lock. He could still be nearby.”
“You should be the one to contact Jack.” Will’s eyes narrow. “I believe I may be better suited to handling the lock,” Dr. Lecter clarifies.
Somewhat doubtful but not interested in arguing over it, Will nods once curtly and whips out his phone, dialing Jack as the doctor crouches over the heavy duty lock. “Got a lead,” Will clips out. “Radford Montgomery. We think he could be using the sewers to move undetected.”
“The sewers? How the hell is he getting in there?”
“His parents control the city’s sewer system. He probably has keys to the grates, and knows all the ins and outs of the drains.”
“Got it,” Dr. Lecter announces, and Will blinks at him as the man calmly removes the sewer grate. How the hell does he know how to–?
“Jack,” Will says after only a second of consideration, “I’m going in.”
“What? Will, wait for backup, it should only be ten minutes tops–”
“Ten minutes may be too long. He could still be here. I’m going after him,” Will says firmly, and hangs up. Shrugging out of his suit jacket and tossing it to the grass, Will rolls up his sleeves and withdraws his own, very real gun. “Tell Jack what we know when the rest of the team gets here,” he instructs Dr. Lecter, already poised to climb down into the dark mouth of the storm drain.
“You can tell him yourself later,” the doctor says conversationally, removing his own outer layer with far more grace before hanging it on a nearby trellis. “I’m coming with you.”
“No the fuck you’re not,” Will says. “You’re still technically a civilian. You don’t have any training– you don’t even have a gun or anything.”
“I can assure you that I am perfectly capable of holding my own. I’m not letting you go in there alone,” the doctor says matter-of-factly, face gone uncharacteristically severe. “You can either waste more time arguing with me, or start climbing.”
Will narrows his eyes at the doctor, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but startles when the older alpha snarls back louder, and with intention. His shoulders are squared, and his eyes are hard and uncompromising as he stares Will down. The aggression in Will’s chest flickers out. This isn’t a fight he’s going to win right now, and it isn’t one worth having. “Fine,” he snaps. “You can come with me. But you follow my instructions.”
“Deal,” Dr. Lecter says.
Will keeps his eyes on the man above him as he climbs down into the gloom of the sewer system. When the older alpha descends into the manhole after him, his shadow falls over Will as it blocks out the fading light of day. Will can’t decide if he feels safe or smothered under its weight, but in the privacy of his own mind, he is able to admit that it’s at least nice to not be sinking into the unknown dark alone.
Notes:
I have been banging this shit out like nobody's fucking business whenever I have a spare moment. thank you so much again to everyone who's left a kind comment! <3
Chapter 4: ...Or It'll Keep Coming Back
Summary:
Hannibal loses control of himself for a moment, and not in a way that anyone would expect, least of all himself. This prompts some intensive reflection, with a troubling conclusion.
Will realizes that he has to finally confront his complicated feelings towards the doctor head-on, but not without first phoning a friend.
Notes:
couple of notes--
first off, I wanted to give a heads up that this is taking a more romantic/getting together route than I expected, while also taking a more non-con route than I intended. don't read too far into the correspondence of those things, and keep checking the tags as they're updated!
also, I edited the last chapter a bit to add in Hannibal returning Will's jacket in the lab, as well as a modification to the end of their conversation directly before the gunshots go off at the art exhibition. would recommend going back to peek at that one in particular, especially if you want to see a little bit of Will getting the upper hand!
last thing-- once again, the eroticization of non-con only escalates from here, and it is very much a 'playing-hard-to-get / finally broken down by persistent sexual advances' type sitch, with Hannibal being undeniably and inexcusably predatory! this shit is obviously neither HEALTHY nor COOL in real life! this is purely erotic fantasy!
ok back to business as usual. hope you enjoy!
Chapter Text
As they navigate their way quickly but carefully through the murky darkness of the sewer system, Will makes Dr. Lecter hold the small flashlight that he keeps attached to his keychain. They walk in tense silence for some five minutes before Will gestures for the doctor to stop when he hears the faint sound of footsteps up ahead.
He wastes no time.
“FBI, hands in the air!” Will barks, whirling around the corner with his gun drawn.
And there he is, still in his fancy suit, eyes flashing wide and incredulous as he turns to face Will, far closer than Will had realized. Panic flashes in Radford’s eyes for just a moment before he swings wildly, which was admittedly not what Will was expecting, and Will curses as the blow connects with his arm and he loses his grip on the gun.
He can hear Hannibal moving behind him, but Will neither wants nor needs his help. A sharp kick between the legs sends Radford crumbling backwards with a gasp before Will plants a boot on his chest.
“Stay down,” he commands. “You are under arrest for suspicion of first degree murder. This will be a lot easier for you if you cooperate. Hands where I can see them.”
But Will is no longer holding his gun, and when Radford’s hand darts down to his side, all Will can do in response is increase the pressure of his boot on the man’s chest. It’s not enough to stop Radford from drawing a gun.
Three things happen at once– the first thing is the sound of a gunshot, close enough that it sends Will’s ears ringing. The second thing is that Radford’s arm that was holding the gun bends in two unnaturally as an oxford shoe kicks it so hard it snaps. The third thing is that Will is sent staggering backwards, and simultaneously realizes that the ringing in his ears is so bad it hurts.
But he has a job to do.
Will steadies himself, ready to strike out at Radford again, and is met with the sound of a horrific scream. He catches Radford’s terrified eyes for just a second as the man cradles his snapped arm before Dr. Lecter’s shoe connects with his head so hard it sends his body rolling a few feet away.
Will kicks the fallen gun away from Radford’s now motionless body. Stumbles slightly. Feels something wet on his face.
“Will– Will!”
Half-lowering himself, half collapsing, Will slides down the concrete wall of the sewer behind him until he’s nearly flat on his back. His tongue darts out of its own accord to lick a smear of blood from the corner of his lip.
Before he can move again, a shadow falls over him. A concerned rumble follows it as Dr. Lecter comes into view, sinking to his knees and caging Will against the ground, a fierce and frenzied worry shining in his eyes.
“Will,” he breathes, voice rough as one hand comes up to cradle Will’s face, turning his head from side to side to find the source of the blood that suddenly seems to be everywhere on Will’s face and neck. “Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?” The older alpha’s fingers are skating over his face and neck, probing, seeking, until they skim over the crest of Will’s ear, and Will hisses in pain. “Your ear was nicked,” Dr. Lecter murmurs. “Can you hear me? Will?” Will tries to breathe, to respond past the ringing in his ears, but the only air he can get in his lungs is thick with the scent of alpha aggression, alpha protectiveness, so powerful Will is nearly overwhelmed by it, and god, he’s still running on three damn hours of sleep –
“Hannibal,” he manages in a dazed whisper.
The older alpha freezes at the sound of his name rolling soft off of Will’s tongue for the first time. Another low rumble sounds deep in Dr. Lecter’s chest– in Hannibal’s chest– and suddenly Will’s chin is being nosed to the side, a rough tongue swiping attentively over his bleeding ear as the older alpha lowers his body over Will’s, not flattening him, just hovering protectively.
For a second, Will’s body is about to spring back into fight or flight, and he tenses, but Hannibal is quick to let his weight settle more fully over him with a stern but unaggressive growl. A couple of quick, panicked breaths escape Will’s lungs, but then the weight and warmth of the older alpha’s body sinks through his clothes and into his skin, and his bones go liquid.
Beverly’s told Will on multiple occasions that he should try sleeping with a weighted blanket. He thought this was stupid in the past. He thinks now that he may understand the appeal. He finds himself both physically and mentally immobilized by the overwhelming attention and concern of the alpha that has draped himself gently over Will’s body. Hannibal’s breath is warm over Will’s neck as he tenderly licks the blood from the bullet wound on his ear, and Will can’t help it when his body continues to shiver and go loose under the insistent care, his eyes fluttering closed.
“What the fuck?” a familiar voice booms, and they both flinch. “Dr. Lecter, move away from him,” Jack commands, bafflement and alarm clear in his voice, and Will realizes how damning their current position might look to an out of the loop observer.
“It’s okay,” Will slurs out quickly, pushing at Hannibal’s chest. “I was just grazed. He was just– checking on me,” he says, shoving at the doctor more insistently now and trying to conjure a warning snarl from his addled brain. With the older alpha’s mouth still hovering above Will’s shallow wound, it’s another second before the man seems to return to himself, drawing back from Will reluctantly before pushing himself to his feet. He offers Will a hand. Will takes it. He lets Hannibal help him back up.
Jack looks between them warily. “Are you two alright?” His voice still sounds like it’s coming from behind a panel of glass.
“Just grazed,” Will repeats. There are white spots dancing at the edges of his vision. “On my ear. Suspect,” he adds, gesturing vaguely to where Radford lies unconscious on the ground. Well. Hopefully just unconscious.
“Jesus, Will,” Jack mutters as a couple more agents file into the cramped space. “Alright, we have this handled here. You two get the hell out and take care of yourselves; I’ve already called medical. You can give me your full report later.”
Will gives one jerky nod and begins shoving past the other agents to return to the ladder leading back out of the sewer. He can feel rather than hear Hannibal walking behind him.
They walk in silence, and climb the ladder in silence. Will lets out a shaky breath when they’re finally above ground again. The red and blue flash of nearby police vehicles shines through the lines of rose bushes in the courtyard, and Will can see that a couple of medical personnel start jogging over when they catch sight of him.
“There are cleansing and anti-bacterial properties in an alpha’s salivary glands,” Hannibal says abruptly with an air of detached professionality. Will blinks, and finally looks back at him. A little bit of Will’s blood is smeared over his lips. “While it long ago fell out of practice in any kind of formal medical setting, we evolved to be able to safely clean and tend to the wounds of members of our pack. It’s primarily only used now as a last resort for immediate cleansing of wounds in emergencies when there may not be more appropriate medical supplies readily at hand, but it is proven to be legitimately effective at staving off infection.”
Will stares at him. He’s not stupid, he was aware of the evolutionary disinfect properties found in alpha saliva, but the suddenness and stiffness of the doctor’s monologue strikes him out of his daze. Hannibal sounds almost– self-conscious. Like he hadn’t meant to, well, act the way he had. Will isn’t sure he’s ever seen Hannibal do anything that he hadn’t expressly and unapologetically intended to do.
“Thanks for the help down there,” Will says finally instead of directly addressing Hannibal’s odd and overly-clinical explanation for his behavior. He also pointedly does not say anything about his own wildly embarrassing reaction in response to the older man’s attention in the aftermath of the scuffle.
Hannibal seems to relax a fraction. “You’re most welcome,” the doctor replies evenly. Will can only read the minute change in his composure because he’s seen enough of him now to recognize the nearly imperceptible shifts in his mood. He wonders at that fact briefly.
“Shit,” Will says suddenly. “I hope someone takes care of his dogs.”
“Pardon?” Hannibal asks, brow furrowing.
“The alibi he was trying to construct was that he was going home to feed his dogs,” Will says, but Hannibal is still staring at him. “Just a concern. That I have,” he says lamely.
Hannibal’s look of bafflement morphs into one of uncomplicated amusement, and Will realizes how insane he sounds, worrying about this of all things while blood is still leaking sticky down his neck. Hannibal huffs out a laugh, and Will finds himself snorting too, until they’re both laughing quietly.
The medical team reaches them. Smiles fading, they look at each other for one more moment before they’re pulled in different directions. Will is rushed to the back of the ambulance to have his ear looked over while a shock blanket is draped over Hannibal’s shoulders. Will nearly laughs again at the image, but he can’t seem to muster it. He’s out of laughter. He’s so, so tired.
He’s released from the hospital after a couple of shallow stitches, and checks into the nearest hotel instead of driving back to Wolftrap, collapsing onto the squeaky bed the moment the door’s closed behind him.
It’s only in this silence and stillness that he realizes he’s absolutely covered in Hannibal’s scent. Too exhausted to shower, he strips out of his clothes and returns to bed naked, but still, it lingers, in his hair, on his neck, on his chest. The phantom memory of the older alpha covering him and attending to his wound flashes through his mind, and Will lets out a shaky sigh.
Will falls asleep hard, and finally, reluctantly decides that in the morning, he can no longer put it off. It’s time for him to inspect his feelings regarding Dr. Lecter.
He falls asleep breathing in the thick, heady scent of the older alpha’s lingering concern and affection.
Hannibal has identified two primary problems in his pursuit of Will Graham.
This is the first problem:
An astonishing number of younger alphas, when pursued by Hannibal in the manner an alpha might pursue an omega, are quick to agree to his proposition of a fight for sexual dominance. Most of them are so fundamentally threatened by the idea of being sexually dominated by a more powerful alpha that they feel compelled at a nearly biological level to prove otherwise. So the flirtations, as amusing as they are, are often short-lived. Most alphas want to put a stop to the whole thing as thoroughly and efficiently as possible, going fairly quickly to Hannibal’s bed before emerging thoroughly chewed up and deliciously humbled.
Will, however, is not hubristic enough to knowingly take the bait solely out of some animal instinct to assert dominance.
Stubborn, sure; aggressive, sure, but Will Graham is not stupid, and he doesn’t seem to have all that much interest in proving himself to other people. He’s clearly been alerted as to Hannibal’s reputation with younger alphas, as well as the, well, success rate when it comes to the challenge. Hannibal can only assume that the numbers themselves are likely enough to deter him from entering a physical altercation for no other reason than some abstract ideas of honor or principle.
Most alphas would’ve snapped by now and agreed to fight with him, but Will refuses to be swayed. In fact, Hannibal is starting to suspect that Will might be actively encouraging the attention, just for the pleasure of repeatedly turning him down. The thought is new and infuriating, and only serves to further arouse Hannibal. The fantasies of violence he imagines enacting on the boy grow increasingly more severe the longer he’s kept from the object of his desire. He’s realized that he’s never wanted anyone as badly as he wants Will Graham, a fact which Will has managed to weaponize against him. Really, it’s a different kind of assertion of dominance, Hannibal muses wryly.
But Hannibal knows something about Will that he’s realized it seems Will does not know about himself. He’ll tell Will, eventually, and watch his pretty face crumble and flush red with horrified embarrassment, but only when he’s sure he’s already got the younger alpha nearly in his jaws. If he mistimes, if he strikes at the wrong moment and scares him away for good– Hannibal isn’t really sure what he would even do. He finds that he can’t imagine a world in which Will Graham does not eventually end up beneath him.
So it follows naturally that this would be the second problem:
Hannibal does not just want to bitch Will Graham. He wants to possess him.
It is a deeply disturbing notion. Hannibal takes great pleasure in his dalliances, and has had a lion’s fill of proper courtships alongside his more exclusively carnal pursuits. He enjoys wining and dining beautiful people, delighting in new personalities and engaging conversations, and learning how to play different bodies like an instrument until they sing for him. But he is accustomed to sampling them, savoring them, and then moving on from them to whatever and whoever interests him next.
He has never wanted anyone in this more abstract and deeply ravenous way that he craves Will Graham, and he hasn’t even taken the man to bed yet.
While he’s since pondered and made peace with his rather unexpected moment of instinctual protective behavior in the sewers, it was still startling in retrospect. Hannibal has long been aware that his natural preferences skew strongly towards alphas over betas or omegas. He is also accustomed to the fact that his attraction to members of the same secondary gender sometimes still triggers more explicitly alphan sexual behaviors in him that don’t always translate the same way during intercourse between alphas. He has been known to scruff other alphas in an instinctual attempt to gentle them, and even force his bedmates into positions conducive to successful breeding.
What he is not used to is having the protective side of his alphan instincts activated. In fact, he had previously speculated that he may not even possess the same set of instincts that drive most alphas to shelter and provide for a mate.
He’s not particularly sure what to do with it. After some reflection, he has determined that he’s not fundamentally opposed to the inclinations themselves, but is concerned by how they may impact his peace and security in the long run. If he begins to truly care about Will to the point that it’s compromising his self-control, then the man is a liability.
So, he’s considering killing Will after he bitches him.
He finds the prospect both sad and immensely distasteful. Will is spectacularly enjoyable on nearly every front. But the boy is also too intelligent to be kept too close for too long, and Hannibal has already found himself wanting to keep the boy close.
They aren’t at the point yet where Hannibal would feel such drastic action was warranted, but the hypothetical possibility of it still looms heavy in his mind.
Well. One thing at a time.
Will– may I treat you to dinner at The Charleston one night this week?
The text comes two days after the sewer debacle. Jack gave Will a day off to ‘recover,’ but that day passed in a haze of restless discontent after another night of poor sleep, the only respite coming in the form of a kind call from Beverly checking in on him. Three times, he tried to dispose of his bloodied clothes from the disastrous art exhibition, and three times, he found himself frozen in place before the garbage can, fingers unable to uncurl from the garments, because they still smelled faintly like Hannibal.
They’d been banished to an empty drawer in the corner of his room for a day, then retrieved again the night after Will had returned to work. He’d drank himself to near incoherence, then masturbated furiously with the bloodied dress shirt held to his nose, taking deep, desperate gulps of the last lingering traces of the older alpha’s scent, snarling in frustration when he was once again unable to find relief.
Since reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that he is, at some level, apparently attracted to Hannibal, Will has been stewing over what to do about the fact. His complicated feelings towards the man have become down-right distracting. His initial disdain for the older alpha which seemed so immovable has become complicated by his newfound begrudging respect and appreciation for the doctor. The more time Will has been forced to spend around him, the more he’s realized the man to be infuriatingly charming, highly capable, and disarmingly clever. Confident and immovable in a way that is downright magnetizing. Perceptive and inquisitive enough to read Will better than… well, maybe better than anyone’s ever read him.
That’s a scary thought.
Will knew the problem was getting worse and not better, so he was half part relieved and half part wary when Hannibal contacted him again in an invitation to dinner.
It’s early morning, and Will is pre-coffee, eyes tripping over the text again and again until he caves, and decides he needs backup.
Will fumbles blindly for the last number that called him and waits for Beverly to pick up. The moment the ringing stops and Will hears the telltale click of the call being answered, he says, “I think I’m having a sexuality crisis.”
“What?” Jack’s voice booms out loudly through the speaker.
Will sits up straight in bed and stares at the contact name on the screen. “Wrong number,” he says, and hangs up.
He scrolls to the second to last number that called him. This time, when it clicks, he double checks the contact name before saying, “I think I’m having a sexuality crisis.”
“What?” Beverly shrieks with excitement.
“This isn’t a good thing,” he hisses.
“Why not? If you figure yourself out, or whatever, maybe you could finally have sex that isn’t mediocre as hell. That sounds like a good thing.”
“I’m starting to regret telling you literally anything about my sex life.”
“Hey man, you called me .”
“Alright, that– that’s fair.”
“So it’s Dr. Lecter, right?”
“I fucking wish to god it wasn’t,” Will mutters, dragging a hand down his face when he sees that Jack is trying to call him back. He sends him to voicemail.
“No way,” Beverly says. “Will, that’s actually crazy.”
“I know. I hate it.”
“So what’s the problem here?”
“The problem?” Will echoes. “The problem is that he’s a stuck-up, pushy, obnoxious, and borderline predatory dick.”
“But you want him anyway.”
“It’s like–” Will sits up further in bed, running his free hand through Buster’s fur distractedly as the little dog curls up next to him. “It’s like, he pisses me the hell off, but my– Oh, god, this is embarrassing. I don’t think I can even say it.”
“Out with it, coward.”
“It’s like, even when on the surface, I’m mentally repelled by him, my body or hindbrain or whatever is just further drawn to him.”
“Lordy. You’re in deep, man.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Will admits. “I just– I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Alright, let’s start here– Have you ever been with another alpha before?”
Will feels his stomach do a nervous flip. “No.”
“Okay, so– You’re clearly anxious and unsure about all of this on a lot of different levels, yeah?”
“Yes,” Will sighs in admission, letting his head fall back against the headboard with a light thud.
“Here’s my two cents. If you’re interested in trying out some sexy stuff with another alpha, I don’t think Hannibal Lecter is exactly… a good starting place.”
“What do you mean?” Will asks warily.
“I mean, if this is your first time considering getting intimate with another alpha, you should probably start with someone less, you know, intense. I don’t think you should dive straight into the deep end, and Lecter is definitely the deep end.”
Huh. Will hadn’t really thought about it like that. He’s been so busy stressing over the whole ‘Hannibal’ aspect of his crisis that he hadn’t really been able to independently work through the additionally stressful confusion with his sexuality. Will doesn’t care much about lingering social prejudice towards alphas who engage in intimacy with one another, but he hasn’t really come to terms with the idea of himself being sexually interested in other alphas. The very notion feels inherently threatening.
“Maybe you’re right,” Will says finally. “So what are you suggesting? I hop on a hookup app or something and try it out more casually before I decide if I want to try anything with Hannibal?”
“Yeah, dude. Why not? Dip your toes in the water where they won’t get bitten off, you feel?”
Will snorts. “Yeah. I guess so. Fuck, but he invited me to get dinner with him this week. I’m not sure how to respond.”
“Well, maybe you could kind of feel him out one more time, too. Interact with him in a neutral setting away from work and see if you could envision yourself tolerating him for long enough to get some.”
“Crass,” Will says. “But okay. I agree. Thanks, Beverly. Seriously.”
“No problem, Graham. The fee for my services is that you’ve gotta keep me updated though. Deal?”
Will smiles. “Deal.”
The reply he sends to Hannibal’s dinner invitation is simple.
Friday at 7?
The response comes almost immediately.
See you then.
This was the first time that they would be meeting one another outside of the premises of work or ‘therapy.’ A purely social excursion.
But this time, Will also has an agenda.
So as he’s standing in the mirror smoothing over the creases in the nicest button-up he owns, he reminds himself of the objective he’s decided on for this encounter– for two hours, he’s going to give Hannibal the benefit of the doubt, and leave having decided whether he’s going to explore their connection further, or block the man’s number for good.
He’s distracted during work the whole day. It’s a good thing that they aren’t working on anything particularly harrowing, because he is nearly useless.
“What’re you doing after work, Will?” Jimmy asks in a cheeky voice.
“Drinking myself into a stupor in the nicest bar I can find until I’m forcibly removed,” Will replies without looking up from the case file he’s pretending to read.
“Dressed like that?” Jimmy further prods, wiggling his eyebrows.
Zeller frowns. “Dressed like what? He isn’t really dressed up.”
“Brian, for Will, that is dressed up.”
Will tries not to feel slightly bruised by the comment, but all he says is, “Mind your own business.”
Beverly sends him a comedically exaggerated wink when no one else is looking.
When Will arrives at the restaurant, Hannibal is already waiting for him, dressed in a mauve three piece suit that borders on being garish but just barely remains on the side of being classy. He smiles when he sees Will, and Will almost smiles back.
“Will,” he says in greeting. God, he really does take every opportunity to say his name.
“Hannibal,” Will replies smoothly, and the older alpha’s pupils dilate noticeably.
And just like that, Will is nervous again.
The dinner gets off to a rough start almost immediately.
They’re seated in a low-lit corner of the restaurant in front of a large window looking out over the street below. Hannibal tries to order for Will, which results in Will interrupting and contradicting him, which results in the waiter looking very nervous, until Will puts his foot down and says that if he’s brought what Hannibal ordered for him, he isn’t eating it.
“Will you at least allow me to recommend a wine that may pair nicely?” Hannibal asks with exaggerated politeness as the waiter sweats next to them.
“What would you recommend?” Will asks, and the doctor relaxes a fraction.
“I believe a heavy cabernet sauvignon would best compliment what you’ve selected.”
Will skims the wine menu for a moment before pointing to what looks like the farthest thing from a cabernet sauvignon that he can locate.
“A delicate white wine,” the waiter says, a slight tremor in his voice. “An excellent selection. Will that be all?”
Hannibal’s eyes are practically burning holes through Will, who is nearly buzzing with a kind of half-giddy, half-anxious energy. “We’ll get the cabernet as well,” the doctor says. “He will sample it before the night ends, and accept that I know what’s best for him.”
The waiter leaves as quickly as he can.
“What do you think is best for me, Dr. Lecter?” Will can’t help but ask, reverting back to the more formal title with a hint of mocking in his voice. He’s already completely lost focus on his objective. It’s like now that he’s finally acknowledged his attraction to Hannibal, he can’t control himself, he can’t help but poke the wolf through the bars of its cage for the pure delight of watching it slam helplessly up against them, snarling and hungry and unable to bite back.
“A heavy cabernet,” Hannibal repeats steadily.
“Hm,” Will replies noncommittally, lounging back in his chair. “You know what we should do? Talk about my papers,” he announces in an abrupt change of subject. “Since that’s the source of your interest in me,” he adds.
Hannibal smiles, half-genuine, half-amused. “My dear Will, it truly initially was.”
Will is once again so caught off guard by the sincerity of the flattery that some of the manic rush he feels settles into something less reactive.
And then they discuss his papers. Actually discuss them. Hannibal has clearly read all of them, and knows them nearly as well as Will himself. Not only that, he also understands them, expresses genuine interest in them, asks him intelligent follow-up questions.
The food arrives, and Will can barely taste it for how engrossed he is in the far more delicious flavors of their conversation. Will can’t remember the last time such an extended period of socialization has felt so easy. For nearly two hours, there is no real biting between them, just a mesmerizing flow of conversation.
Hannibal pays the bill, not even glancing at the unquestionably exorbitant price of their meal. Will has only a couple bites of his steak left on his plate when there’s a noticeable pause in conversation. Hannibal looks him in the eyes, then tilts his head towards the cabernet he ordered against Will’s wishes.
“Try it with the steak.” It’s not a request. His tone of voice alone reactivates Will immediately.
“No,” he says, and takes a deliberate bite from the steak before taking another sip of his white wine, which admittedly does not, in fact, pair well with Will’s meal.
“I treat you to a decadent meal,” Hannibal says calmly, “and you refuse this simple request that I make, to your own benefit no less?”
“Ah, I see,” Will says, leaning back in his chair once again as he swirls his wine lazily in its glass. “Nothing ever given freely. Are you one of those alphas who thinks that since you treated me to a meal, you now get to have some say over what I put in my mouth?”
Every second that the following silence continues, Will’s heart beats slightly faster. He can’t stop. He can’t help himself. He’s slightly tipsy from the wine, and now that he’s admitted his attraction towards the man to himself, he can’t stop noticing how handsome Hannibal looks in the low lights of the restaurant. He could cut himself on those fucking cheekbones.
“Nothing ever given freely,” Hannibal echoes softly. “You would deny yourself greater pleasure for the express purpose of contradicting me.”
Will places the last bite of steak in his mouth, and chews it languidly before replying. “A pleasure in and of itself.”
Hannibal stands abruptly, and Will nearly drops his wine glass. His chin is captured in a firm grip and tilted up and back to look up at Hannibal, and Will nearly gasps with the contact as he swallows hard. The rim of a glass is pressed to his mouth.
“Drink.”
The way Will shudders at the order does not help with any delayed attempts at resistance, as Hannibal has already tilted the glass past his lips, filling his mouth with the rich flavors of the dark wine, and Will can do nothing but taste, and–
“Now swallow.”
It really does pair perfectly with the steak.
Staring up at him with dumb-founded compliance, hair ruffled and face flushed with wine and embarrassment, Hannibal thinks that Will has never looked prettier. Then his throat moves as he swallows the wine that’s been forced past his lips, and he’s somehow even more gorgeous.
Mouth empty again, a stuttering, incredulous growl begins to bubble in the back of Will’s throat. Hannibal’s only response is to swipe his thumb over Will’s bottom lip, still wet with wine. He withdraws his fingers just in time to evade Will’s teeth as they snap down where his hand had just been. Still towering over Will, Hannibal keeps his eyes locked onto Will’s and makes sure the boy is watching as he brings his thumb up to his mouth and licks the dark wine from it in a slow, savoring swipe of his tongue. Straight from Will’s lips, it’s maybe the best wine he’s ever tasted.
Will pushes himself to his feet, shoves Hannibal aside, and begins to stride swiftly for the exit. Hannibal allows it, but he has to make a concerted effort when he follows not to outright run his boy down. He allows himself a thrill of smug satisfaction at the heads they’ve turned.
Will doesn’t spin around to face him until they’re by the brick exterior of the restaurant in the darkness of the parking lot. Hannibal allows him a few feet of space, tasting Will's reactive aggression emanating from off of him in waves.
“Aren’t you embarrassed?” Will hisses finally, trying to keep the panic from his voice. He keeps glancing at Hannibal incredulously before darting his gaze back to his feet.
“No,” Hannibal answers truthfully.
Will’s gaze flickers over him again, catching on the obvious bulge in Hannibal’s trousers, and his eyes widen in the most deliciously endearing way. Hannibal’s fingers curl and uncurl at his sides. Back to the brick wall, pink cheeks illuminated by the faint glow of street lamps, body curled slightly in on himself, Will looks so… cornered. A complete switch up from the careless, taunting flirtation he’d been so full of earlier in the night. Hannibal feels himself twitch in his trousers. He hasn’t been this hard in a long time.
“I’m going,” Will says, as if he needs to say it aloud to muster the courage to follow through.
“The night is young,” Hannibal counters, taking one careful step towards his quarry. He hadn’t been planning on taking him tonight, but Will’s chest is literally quivering. His fangs keep flashing with little half-hearted warning hisses. Hannibal needs to have him.
“I’m going,” Will says again, more certain this time, and he pushes away from the wall, eyes narrowing and jaw set.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Hannibal replies softly, taking one more step towards him.
Will scoffs suddenly. “No matter how much you want to, you can’t just keep me here. What are you going to do, rape me in the fucking alley outside the Charleston?”
Hannibal pauses, as if in thought. He sees it then, how completely feasible it would be to force Will into the back alley and take him right there. To pull his shoulders from their sockets until his arms hang useless at his sides and pry his unwilling legs open. To invade that vulnerable, reluctant tightness, so different from the easy welcome of an omega’s hole, until the younger man screamed. It would be brutal, but Hannibal craves brutality, and even more than that, Hannibal craves Will.
He sees it happen in Will’s eyes, the alarming realization that not only is Hannibal physically capable of forcing him right here, he is also actively aroused by the idea. For a split second, Will’s body tenses again with fear and aggression, and the two of them exist in a world where Hannibal is a breath away from inflicting irreversible violence on the younger man.
And yet.
Hannibal crushes the ravenous part of himself that snarls Yes, and instead says “No. That would be unfathomably rude.”
“I would call that an understatement,” Will replies, voice shaky, but as the words leave the boy’s mouth, Hannibal finds himself tasting the air once more, and what he finds sends his brain stuttering to a halt.
There it is again. The secret upper hand that Hannibal has held so close to his chest.
Beneath Will’s wariness and tension, Hannibal once again smells the unmistakable, mouthwatering musk of the boy’s arousal.
“You don’t know what you want,” Hannibal whispers. “Let me show you.”
Will bolts for his car. There are other people in the parking lot now. Hannibal lets him go.
The moment he’s home, Hannibal fists his cock feverishly, imagining it’s Will’s sweet lips wrapped around it instead of his own hand. Will would try to snarl and snap at first, strain to get away, but his head would sag into Hannibal’s hands when he realized that there would be no escape. Hannibal imagines tears streaming down the boy’s face as he throat-fucks him, eyes rolling back into his skull, blood like wine on his lips, slicking his cock– He comes hard with a hungry snarl to the thought of finishing over Will’s face, squeezing the boy’s jaw to keep his mouth open and pliant as Hannibal marks his pretty skin with his seed.
It’s only minutes later that he stands again with a dissatisfied snarl, slamming his fist into the wall in frustration. When he pulls his hand away, there’s a dent in the wall.
Hannibal needs to have a warm body struggling under him, now.
Maybe it’s time for a different kind of hunt.
He cleans himself up and retrieves what he likes to call ‘his favorite suit’ from the basement. The full-body, clear plastic garment crinkles as Hannibal tucks it away in a shoulder bag and leaves the house.
Later that night, as he snaps the ribs of the college student he picked up off the road to the sound of the boy’s screams, he can’t dispel the disturbing certainty that in trying to catch Will Graham, Hannibal himself has become dangerously hooked.
The gift that shows up in Will’s mailbox the morning after his dinner with Hannibal is neither large nor lavish. In fact, it’s just a few pieces of paper sealed with wax in an otherwise humble envelope.
It’s by far the best thing that Hannibal has given him.
Will–
I enjoyed our dinner immensely. Once you’d had your fill of peacocking, you took what I gave you beautifully, just as I knew you would.
Enclosed are copies of the adoption certificates for Radford’s dogs. I oversaw their rehousing personally, and I am happy to report that all three of them are going to thoroughly well-vetted, loving homes. I attached some photos of them with their new owners as well, for your enjoyment.
Affectionately,
-Hannibal
Chapter 5: What Big Teeth You Have
Summary:
As his distraction and desperation ramps up, Will decides to follow Beverly's advice and dip his toes in the water before he attempts to brave the deep end.
Will is also invited to a ball, but he has no interest in that kind of thing outside of case work, so he definitely won't be going, and even if he did go, it would surely be a droll and uneventful evening!
Also this chapter is long as shit for no reason
Notes:
Warning that the real non-con stuff kicks up here, and if that isn't your cup of tea, this story probably isn't for you!
I've received so many kind, in-depth comments about things people are enjoying! I'm not responding to all of them, but just know that I do really do read and appreciate every single one!
Four parts left! And here's a bit of a teaser-- the next one is called "The Better To Eat You With."
Chapter Text
Hi. I am 30 years old. I work long hours and am generally only free late nights and occasionally on weekends. I’m not really sure why I’m here.
Will stares at the bio of the dating profile he’s working on. “This is stupid,” he says aloud, and deletes what he’s written. Tries again.
Hi, I’m an avid fisherman and dog dad. New here. Looking to explore my sexuality.
No. No, that’s not it either.
Will, 30. I enjoy fishing, playing with my dogs, and reading a good book with a mug of coffee. New here and not looking for anything serious, just experimenting. Hit me up if you’d like to grab a drink and see where things go from there.
Fucking whatever, good enough. Now for the pictures.
He uses his phone to take some full-body shots in the mirror, wearing clean but casual clothes and trying awkwardly to smile. He takes the same photo maybe twenty times, but no matter what he does, he always ends up looking kind of scruffy and vaguely hostile. He uploads one of the pictures anyways. He then selects a couple of photos from work events or paper publications over the years, and calls it done.
A flood of profiles fills his screen the moment he’s finished his account. Immediately, in his face is a buff looking guy wearing a speedo that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, flexing at the camera with a sultry expression.
6’3’’ Daddy Looking to give my big juicy knot to some fine alpha Twinks! 😜😜😜😈🍆🍆💦I LOVE EATING ASS!!!
Will blushes and fumbles his phone. It falls with a clatter to the ground. He picks it back up and closes the app in a hurry.
“Fuck,” he says aloud to no one. Winston whines questioningly from where he’s seated at Will’s feet under his dining room table. “That was a lot. Not sure I’m ready for this after all,” Will explains to him with an affectionate ruffling of the dog’s ears. Winston licks his hand in comforting understanding.
So Will puts it out of his mind, and doesn’t look at the app again until the end of the day.
234 people have liked your profile!
Will nearly spits out the mouthful of cereal that he’s eating for dinner. Two hundred and thirty four people? He pulls up his own bio again, and tries to look for anything that would prompt two hundred and thirty four people to express interest in him. He doesn’t see it.
He’s been told before that he isn’t bad looking, and even handsome on occasion, but he hasn’t exactly been a hit in the dating scene in the past. Omegas, especially, don’t tend to gravitate towards him. Maybe it was an alpha thing, then. Maybe he was– maybe he was attractive in a way that specifically appealed to other alphas. He’s not exactly sure how to feel about that.
Taking a deep breath, Will pours himself some more cereal, and starts sifting through the profiles that have liked him.
Most of them are immediate turn-offs for him. He doesn’t feel any judgement towards the more brazen and highly sexualized profiles, but he doesn’t feel particularly attracted to them. He occasionally finds himself blushing at a particularly muscular set of shoulders, or an especially large pair of fangs in a toothy smile, which, okay, that’s interesting, but he only ends up liking a handful of the alphas who have swiped on him.
Eventually, one really catches his attention.
In his first photo, the man is fairly well-dressed, but in a slightly casual way that gives him a liberal arts professor kind of vibe. He has a bit of a cocky, wolfish grin, and as Will scrolls his eyes widen a little at a surprisingly tasteful photo of the man shirtless on some European-looking beach, toned arms and torso lit up golden by the light of the setting sun.
Antony, 28. Fresh from working as a teaching assistant at Cambridge and thought I’d take a quick spin around the colonies before I head back to England for my doctorate. Looking to fuck a cute american alpha who can match wits with me before I take them to bed and whisper filthy Italian in their ear while I knot them.
A little pretentious, a little cheesy, but Will finds that he likes the man’s face, likes the man’s build, and likes the somewhat pompous academic air he has about him. It, well. It reminds him a little of Hannibal.
Okay. Teaching assistant, matching wits... That could be a fun opener to follow. Taking a deep breath, Will sends him a message.
Hey, professor. You looking for a hookup or a peer reviewer?
Will pours himself a whiskey and pets his dogs. His phone dings five minutes later.
Hey, handsome! I wouldn’t object to both… I’ve definitely got some things you could review…
Oh. Well, that was interesting. Will guesses that they’re probably in completely different fields of study, but he likes the idea of them swapping papers and reading each other's work. This could be fun, actually. He taps out a quick response.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Deal!
The link to Will’s paper sends at the exact moment that a picture of Antony’s dick pops up in the chat.
“Oh,” Will says aloud. The three pulsing bubbles of Antony typing appear again almost immediately.
I think there may have been a misunderstanding here. I am so sorry!
Will snorts. Puts his head in his hand. Let’s out a genuine laugh.
No worries. I’m just not always great at social cues. That was stupid on my part, I can’t believe I was taking the peer review thing that literally.
He stares at the photo of Antony’s erect cock, the beginnings of a knot just barely visible at the base. A pulse of interest lurches in his gut. His phone chimes with another message from the man.
Shall we start over? I’m Antony, and I promise my academic work doesn’t actually center around my cock.
Usually.
Will laughs slightly again, gets comfortable in his armchair, and continues messaging back and forth with Antony for another hour. Maybe this could go somewhere after all.
He does not think of Hannibal that evening, for the first time in a while. After the somewhat frightening conclusion to their previous meeting, he’s at least temporarily blocked his number, and has been trying not to think of the man at all.
And then, he dreams.
He dreams of Hannibal pressing him up against the alley outside the Charleston. He dreams that the man strips him first of his clothes, and then keeps stripping him. He dreams that Hannibal is gently flaying length after length of skin from Will’s body until he’s nothing but raw, exposed nerves and twitching muscles. And then Hannibal reaches one hand between Will’s legs, and the other into his rib cage, before both hands find their targets, and squeeze.
Will wakes up hard again, and curses so loud he scares the dogs.
Grabbing his phone, he opens the dating app and messages Antony.
I want to meet you. You free Saturday afternoon for drinks + maybe more?
Five minutes later, he receives a response. He lets out a shaky breath when he reads it.
I’ll brush up on my Italian.
Will has not known many fine things in his life, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recognize them when he sees them.
When the package arrives at his door on Wednesday morning– tied, of course, with another ribbon that matches the color of his eyes– he grimly acknowledges and accepts the inadvertent jolt of excitement he feels. Instead of opening it immediately, he takes his time tending to his pack and drinking his first cup of morning coffee to mentally prepare himself for whatever ridiculous thing his aggressively persistent suitor has decided to send him this time.
Will–
Since your last suit was ruined during our little excursion through the sewer system, I thought I might as well replace it with one that actually fits you properly, and better compliments your eyes.
It would honor me greatly to see you wear it to the ball.
With the Silver Spoon now behind bars, perhaps you can simply relax and enjoy this event, for a change. While I will not speak on the possibility of any stains that may result from your apparent inability to keep beverages safely in their glasses, there should at least no longer be any danger of your suit ending up sullied by blood.
I will not see you bleed again, unless by my own hand.
With great respect and anticipation,
-Hannibal
Not even looking yet under the tissue paper that must be covering the suit itself, Will rereads the letter a couple of times, the fingernails of his left hand digging harshly into his palm.
I will not see you bleed again, unless by my own hand.
Jesus Christ.
But beyond the, well, that, Will finds his brow furrowing at ‘the ball.’ What fucking ball is he talking about?
Right on cue, Will’s phone starts ringing. He checks the display name, sighs heavily, and picks up.
“Morning, Jack.”
“Will,” Jack half-yells, and Will cringes away from the phone, rolling his eyes. “There’s an event this weekend that I need you to attend.” There’s no way. Right?
“If it’s a ball,” Will says, “then no.”
A pause. “You already know about it?”
Goddamn it. “I am aware that there is a ball happening at some point, and that I will not be going to it,” he says in a guarded tone.
“Well, it’s for work, so you don’t have much of a choice. It’s an autumn formal event that the FBI is hosting, a dinner followed by a dance. I want you to make an appearance.”
“If it’s not for a case, it’s not for work,” Will retorts. “I’m not going to some social schmoozing thing just because.”
“Will–”
“You owe me, by the way,” Will continues, irritation entering his voice. “I can’t believe you gave Lecter my address without asking first.”
Jack pauses again. “I what?”
Will blinks. A strange feeling begins to creep over him. “Did you not give him my address?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
“Okay,” Will says, heart beating a little faster. “Forget that.”
“Will, are you–? Is everything alright with–?”
“Everything will be alright so long as I stay away from that ball,” Will says. “I’m not going, and that’s final.” He hangs up before Jack can reply.
The white tissue paper in the box containing his suit flutters in the gentle morning breeze.
Hannibal could have probably found his address with enough googling around. You could find anything on the internet these days. But the fact that he lied about getting it from Jack is putting Will on edge.
Will sighs and unfolds the tissue paper that covers the suit. He gazes for a long moment at the folded front of the no-doubt grotesquely expensive garment before running careful fingers over silky azure fabric.
It really is a beautiful suit.
“Will, please.”
“No!” Will snaps back at Beverly as he makes his way across the Quantico parking lot towards his car.
“The ball will be so boring without you! I need a party buddy,” she whines.
“Zeller and Price are going," Will counters, unlocking his car.
“It’ll be so boring without you,” she repeats. “And hey, you owe me.”
Will rolls his eyes at the déjà vu and turns to face her properly, leaning back against his car and crossing his arms. “I thought the price for your services was updates.”
“Which I still haven’t gotten, by the way,” she says, crossing her arms back at him.
Will finds his eyes darting to the ground. “My dinner with Hannibal was weirdly good, until it went weirdly bad.”
Beverly’s eyes widen. “How so?”
Will toes at a loose rock on the asphalt. “I think you’re right that he’s too… intense.”
“Well, in that case, if it helps encourage you to show up, you should know that he isn’t going to be at the ball.”
Blinking, Will looks back up at her. “He isn’t?”
“Nah. He stopped by Quantico this morning to chat with Jack and let us know that something had come up and he can’t make it afterall. That change things at all?”
Will thinks for a moment. “When is it again?”
“Saturday night,” Beverly says eagerly. “Eight pm.”
His date with Antony is at four pm on Saturday. Would it be too quick of a turnaround to go to the ball right after whatever was going to happen between them? Will scrubs a hand through his hair.
“Alright,” he says finally. “I have a date with another alpha right before the ball, so I will try to make it, but I can’t promise I will.”
Beverly claps her hands together sharply in excitement. “Good enough for me! Hell yeah, thanks Will. And you can tell me all about your date at the ball!” she adds with a grin. “Deal?”
Will smiles back reluctantly. “Deal.”
Saturday rolls around way too quickly. Will’s text conversations with Antony have grown more awkward and stilted as he’s become increasingly nervous. He tries not to linger on it. He tries not to think about Hannibal. He considers unblocking the older alpha’s number every day. On Saturday morning, without really knowing why, he finally does. There are of course no new visible messages, and Will himself says nothing. He wonders if Hannibal even tried to contact him at all since their last encounter.
Finally, he’s in the parking lot of the bar he and Antony agreed on, brushing a comb through his curls one more time before sliding out of the driver’s seat and striding towards the establishment with what he hopes looks like confidence.
“Hello, handsome,” a voice calls the moment he’s through the door, and Will automatically summons a twitchy smile to his face as he joins Antony where he’s standing at the bar.
The man is a couple inches taller than Will, which Will finds that he likes. He’s wearing a neat brown striped button-up with the first couple of buttons undone to reveal the slightest bit of chest hair, and seems a bit slighter than he looked in his photos, which makes Will wonder if they were taken longer ago. His smile, however, is exactly the same as it was in the photos. Will likes that, too.
“Hi. I’m Will,” Will says, sliding into the seat next to the man as the other alpha settles onto one of the bar stools.
“I know,” Antony says in amusement, but still moves to shake Will’s hand, which Will hopes isn’t clammy. He accidentally shakes his hand too hard, and then pulls back too fast.
“So, how’s your day been?” Will asks lamely.
“Better now that I’m with you, sweetheart,” Antony says with a wink that he doesn’t quite pull-off, and Will is suddenly finding him a lot less charming. But then he catches a hint of the other man’s scent, something kind of deliciously cinnamony mixed with his natural alpha pheromones, and the latent part of Will’s sexuality that’s been recently activated says Let’s stick around.
They order drinks. They talk about Antony’s travels, and Antony’s papers, and Antony’s stories from Cambridge. Antony is at times funny and clever, but he does not ask Will many questions about himself, and whenever Will tries to contribute to the conversation more meaningfully, he doesn’t feel like the other alpha is really listening to him. Most of Antony’s discussion of the art or literature he purports to be an expert in feels surprisingly surface level, and more like boasting than genuine love. Will speculates that he may care more about appearing cultured and well read than he cares about actual culture and reading.
Hannibal would never, Will finds himself thinking with the slightest hint of disdain.
It’s one hour and three drinks in that Will decides he doesn’t give a fuck.
“You staying nearby?” he asks, slamming his empty scotch glass down on the bar counter.
Antony’s toothy smile reappears. “Air Bnb a couple blocks away. You want to come back to my place?”
“Yes.”
They walk to Antony’s small apartment Air Bnb in tense, near-silence. Will doesn’t care. He’s ready. God, he just needs it. Needs to try this. Needs to cover himself in someone else until he’s no longer able to even think about Hannibal.
The moment the door’s closed behind them, their mouths clash together messily. It’s awkward, and kind of forced, and then they grab at each other's arms and waists, and it feels a little more natural. When Will pushes him up against the wall, he expects Antony to push back, but he doesn’t. The other alpha also kisses with a lot of tongue, which Will isn’t necessarily opposed to, but there’s no real finesse in it, and his breath doesn’t smell particularly good, which isn’t the best combo.
Will finally feels a twitch of genuine arousal when he slides his hand under Antony’s shirt and feels the tension of real muscles flexing warm and firm under his fingers. His nails dig into the skin there, and Antony pushes his hand away, so he stops. He nips instinctively at Antony’s jaw, which Antony seems kind of neutral to, then gives up and just starts pulling his shirt off.
Then they’re naked, and they’re kneeling on Antony’s bed, and they’re staring each other down, and Will doesn’t know what to do next.
“Want me to suck you off first, cutie?” Antony asks, stroking himself and licking his lips.
What does Will want? He takes a moment to genuinely think about it, and the slight erection that he’d been developing wilts during the pause. “I want you to take over,” he says finally.
“Okay,” Antony replies, looking a little lost. “I’ll get some lube, then. You do bottom, right?” he asks.
Will doesn’t even want to answer. “I want you to take over,” he finds himself repeating.
“Alright then?” Antony says, and retrieves a bottle of lube from the bedside table before getting back on the bed on his knees and moving towards Will.
Will snarls at him. Antony stares.
“Sorry,” Will says automatically. “I, um– I like it a little rough,” he says, which he thinks is true. “I can’t just roll over. I think I need you to–” Fuck, this feels embarrassing. “Manhandle me a bit,” he finishes.
“Sure,” Antony says, smile returning, and he goes to push Will’s chest to send him falling back on the bed. But Will grabs his wrist before his arm can make contact. Antony’s smile flickers. They look at each other for a moment, and the other alpha’s eyes narrow as he finally seems to kind of get it. The smell of alphan sweat and arousal in the air shifts into something slightly more overtly aggressive, and now, Will can feel his erection coming back a little.
Antony uses his free hand to try to grab Will by the waist and flip him around, but Will pulls at the wrist he’s captured until Antony goes sprawling onto the bed cover with a grunt of surprise. Will growls again, and Antony pulls hard at one of his legs, catching him off guard and finally sending him toppling onto his back.
Climbing over top of Will, Antony relaxes as he tries to kiss him again, but Will plants both hands on his chest and pushes him away. Antony’s brow furrows, then narrows, and he throws himself back at Will with more intention this time.
They scuffle for another brief moment over the covers in a snarling tangle of limbs, with Will always ending up pushing Antony away, even when he doesn’t exactly mean to. Finally, Antony manages to get behind Will, spooning him with one arm locked around his chest and the other trying to reach between Will’s legs. Will feels a complicated jolt in his gut and snaps his teeth aggressively, his entire body taking over as he elbows Antony in the gut at the same time that he kicks out at the man’s legs.
“Fuck!” Antony curses, and Will scrambles up to face him. Antony is wincing and clutching his gut, and when he looks up at Will, his expression is somewhere between baffled and annoyed. “Jesus, do you want me to fuck you or not?” he says, staring at Will incredulously. For a second, Will has the insane, judgemental thought that Antony should really be able to match him better than this, and then is reminded that one, he had literally been a trained police officer, and two, what the hell is he even talking about?
“I don’t know,” Will bursts out honestly. Suddenly, he feels naked. Then he remembers he is naked. Then he feels gross. “Shit,” he says, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I think I should go. Sorry.”
“Alright,” Antony says. “Shame. I really would’ve liked to have fucked you,” he says, and Will can feel his lip curling up automatically.
“Well, you couldn’t,” he says before he knows what the words even mean.
Antony squints at him. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know,” Will says, even more embarrassed now. He begins to grab his clothes from the floor and slip them on while Antony sits at the foot of the bed and stares at him in bewilderment. “Sorry. Have a good one,” Will mutters, and slips out the door.
He dissociates for the fifteen minute walk back to the bar where his car is parked, climbs into the driver’s seat, and then dissociates some more. He checks his watch. Seven PM. An hour until the ball. The ball that Hannibal won’t be at. Which is a good thing, he reminds himself, while simultaneously fighting the unexpectedly powerful wave of disappointment that washes over him.
The magnificently unsatisfying evening with Antony has only managed to elevate Hannibal more in his mind. He couldn’t stop seeing the man’s daunting silhouette against the backs of his eyelids. Couldn’t stop hearing the low hum of his voice in Will’s ear. Hannibal with his perfect posture and calculated movements. Hannibal with his large hands, achingly gentle one moment, immovably firm the next. Hannibal with his mind that slots up against Will’s in the strangest and most delicious ways, reading him, provoking him, following him, going with him to places that Will usually went alone, and still coming back. Still coming after Will anyways.
Will slams his fist into the wheel of the car and lets out a frustrated half-growl, half-scream. He is tired of pining after a man nearly twenty years his senior who has proven time and time again that he does not respect Will or his wishes. The doctor is doing all of this just for the chance of sleeping with him and humiliating him, for crying out loud. It’s not like he’s actually even courting Will with any intention beyond that.
And Will is horrified to find that for some reason, that hurts, too.
He allows himself twenty more minutes of dissociating before changing in the bathroom of the bar and splashing some cold water over his face. He decides he’s sober enough to drive, and that maybe dissociating at a ball with Beverly is actually better right now then driving back to Wolftrap and drinking himself unconscious.
When he catches his own eye in the rearview mirror, he pauses. Ignoring the absolute misery written across his face, he looks maybe the sharpest he ever has. The suit Hannibal purchased for him really does fit him perfectly.
And god. It really does match his eyes.
When Will shuffles through the doors of the ballroom, he feels like he’s walked onto the set of a movie. Everyone is dressed to the fucking tens in extravagant suits and, well, ballgowns. There’s a live string quartet playing, crystal chandeliers galore, romantic lighting, and a wide polished floor at the center where some people are, in fact, actually dancing. Will downs a glass of wine from the first refreshment table he stumbles upon, snatches up a champagne flute to take with him, then locates Beverly and pushes through the crowd to her side.
“Nice dress,” he says, and Beverly turns and beams at him. Her dress is, in fact, very nice. It’s an elegant piece that falls all the way to her shoes in sheaths of silky emerald green.
“Damn, nice suit!” she says back. “Wow, it matches your eyes perfectly.”
“I know,” Will says with resignation.
When she hugs Will, he can smell her perfume, and it soothes him a little from where he’s stiffened at the contact. “Sorry,” she apologizes after she pulls back, seemingly sensing his mild discomfort. “Hey, I’m glad you came! How was…” she trails off a little as she gets a better look at him, eyes dropping down and then snapping back up. “Dude, what’s up with you? You’re wearing one of the nicest suits I’ve ever seen, but you look like you were just shaken awake from a nightmare. And also like you’ve had too much coffee. And like you just got the news that someone died. Did you shower before coming here?” Beverly asks, her nose wrinkling slightly.
Will wilts a little, and ducks his head to sip from his champagne. “I did right before my date. Didn’t have time after.”
“Well, you smell like your date,” she says. “Not, like, egregiously so, but enough that everyone you talk to tonight for more than two minutes is gonna know you take it up the ass.”
“I do not take it up the ass,” Will hisses. “Or, well– I didn’t.”
Beverly’s eyes pop suddenly.
“You didn’t what?” a deep voice asks from way too close behind him.
Will turns around and backs up so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet. He blinks a couple of times to make sure he’s not seeing things.
“Hannibal?” he asks incredulously, hoping his voice didn’t crack midway through the word.
“The one and only,” Hannibal replies. “Champagne again, Will? I’m getting déjà vu.” The smile he sends Will is so wolfishly charming that Will feels faint.
He looks fantastic. Every time Will thinks he’s seen the man at his finest, he manages to one-up himself with something even finer, even more elegant. His three-piece blood-red suit is so dazzling in its rich color that everything else around him seems dull by comparison. The delicate golden filigree detailing, Will realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach, is identical to the silver detailing on his own cerulean suit.
“What’re you doing here?” Will blurts out.
“What am I doing here?” Hannibal asks, raising a brow.
“We thought you said that something had come up, and you couldn’t make it,” Beverly interjects hurriedly.
“I was only referring to the formal dinner that took place beforehand,” Hannibal replies somewhat distractedly, and Beverly physically pulls Will back from him slightly. Will casts her a baffled glance, and then, he realizes.
Hannibal’s head has lifted a little, mouth parting slightly, scenting the air.
“I’ve got to go say hello to Jimmy and Zeller,” Will blurts out before he quickly excuses himself.
Will downs his champagne glass in one go. He can feel his pulse kicking up into second gear along with his heartbeat. Fuck. He needs to get out of here, fast.
There’s a secondary exit sign toward the back of the fancy hall that this stupid ball is being held in. Striding towards it as quickly as he can without drawing undue attention to himself, Will fumbles for his phone as he reaches a long, high-ceilinged hallway, already pulling his phone out of his pocket to call a cab.
One moment, he’s walking in a straight line down the hallway. The next, he’s yanked sideways through a door into a large, dimly lit lounge room. The door is closing behind him before he can even get his bearings, and by the time he has the sense to swing a punch, he’s already being slammed back against it. The fist he’d swung is caught mid-air in an iron grip.
“And I thought I’d already seen the height of your insolence,” Hannibal says directly into Will’s ear.
“Fuck,” Will gasps aloud. “Hannibal–”
Will’s arm is yanked up from where Hannibal caught him, his other hand snatched up as well before both of his wrists are pinned above his head in one of Hannibal’s hands. The older alpha’s other hand settles neatly over Will’s throat as he presses up against him, so close that every stuttering inhale Will takes fills his lungs with the intoxicating scent of the man’s intense arousal and aggression.
“You really have the gall to arrive in a suit I hand picked for you while stinking of another alpha,” Hannibal snarls, and when you put it like that, okay, Will can see where he may be in trouble.
“I didn’t know you’d be here–” he tries, eyes darting to the side, and Hannibal pulls Will forward by the neck just enough to slam his head harshly back against the door.
“Who was it?” Hannibal’s nose presses into the crook of Will’s neck where he’s holding him still, inhaling deeply before a more primal growl rumbles through his chest. “Who did you let touch you?”
“Oh my god,” Will gasps as his chin is pushed up to allow Hannibal further access to his neck. “H– Hannibal, get off– I didn’t even– he didn’t touch me,” he finds himself stuttering out, and Hannibal hums doubtfully against his collarbone. “We just, kissed, and kind of wrestled, but it didn’t go any further–”
That deep snarl hits him again, and Hannibal draws back enough to look Will properly in the eyes, and oh my god, he’s actually beyond furious. No matter how bad Will thought it was, he realizes in this moment of eye contact that it’s worse. Will has seen Hannibal look at him like a wolf sizing up a rabbit before, sure, but right now, he doesn't just see the thrill of the chase in his eyes. He sees the impatience for the catch itself. The desire to slake his thirst for Will with blood.
“Why do you care who I sleep with?” Will finds himself snapping suddenly. “It’s not like you want me for anything other than a quick fuck anyways.”
Hannibal pauses for only a second before he breathes, “When did I ever say that?”
Will feels his mouth go dry. He’s drowning. He’s drowning in the blood-stained amber of Hannibal’s eyes. And then Hannibal leans in and down, and kisses him.
For a second, Will is frozen in place, breath stuttering in his throat under Hannibal’s hand as the man’s lips press against his, warm and soft and shockingly, unexpectedly tender. The back of Will’s head is then cradled in the older alpha’s hand as he leans further down, tongue parting Will’s lips and licking into his mouth with sensuous ease.
Will’s eyes flutter closed, and he can feel random muscles in his body twitching nervously as his brain splits indecisively between sagging into Hannibal’s arms, or biting his tongue off. He doesn’t exactly kiss him back, but when he flinches, it only slots their lips together more neatly. When he gasps, it only makes it easier for Hannibal’s tongue to push forwards and stroke over his own. Every awkwardness, every clumsiness, every indecision, Hannibal catches, smooths, and savors.
Hannibal tastes like red wine. Will feels drunk on it.
And then the tenderness is gone. A hard nip at his lower lip, and Will yelps into the older alpha’s mouth to the immediate response of a pleased rumble, followed by their simultaneous moans as the taste of Will’s blood spills into their mouths. Hannibal kisses him harder and hungrier, and Will finds himself pushing back thoughtlessly as best as he can with Hannibal’s hand in his hair keeping his head in place.
When Hannibal finally pulls back, Will is panting and tingling all over, mostly still upright only due to Hannibal’s firm grip on his wrists above his head. He can feel the wetness of a slight smear of blood over his lip.
“Did he kiss you like that?” Hannibal breathes into Will’s mouth.
“No,” Will concedes with a broken whine. No one’s ever kissed him like that.
Hannibal exhales harshly, pupils dilated so large in his eyes that the amber-red is nearly gone. “Show me where else he touched you.”
Fuck. “We just– we just got naked and kind of rolled around,” Will repeats, still trying to catch his breath.
“He didn’t touch you here?” Hannibal asks, and the hand in Will’s hair slides all the way down his back and into his pants.
“Wait–” Will gasps, pinned wrists finally straining against the older alpha’s grip, but Hannibal’s hand continues its trajectory into Will’s underwear until two of his long fingers are burrowing between Will’s cheeks to brush against his hole. An embarrassing half-yelp, half-whine bursts from Will’s mouth, and he bucks forwards to try to escape the invasive touch, but only ends up rubbing their crotches together. His half-erection presses firmly against Hannibal’s rather intimidating definitely-full-erection, and he moans in surprise at the delicious contact.
“You aren’t leaving this room until the only one I can smell on you is myself,” Hannibal hisses darkly, the pads of his fingertips stroking firmly over the warm furl of skin that Will has never let anyone touch before. He yelps and twitches again, feeling his hole contract instinctively. “I won’t have you parading yourself around covered in another alpha’s scent,” Hannibal spits. He leans back into Will’s neck and opens his jaws, a large pair of fangs scraping lightly at the edges of Will’s mating glands.
That, finally, breaks Will out of his daze. All at once, the arousal that’s been forced on him takes a backseat to the alarm and aggression arising from the realization of how immobilized he is, and his brain starts going haywire.
Will’s knee shoots up to try to nail Hannibal in the crotch, but the man shifts out of the way just in time to catch the blow on his thigh instead. Snapping his teeth dangerously close to the doctor’s face, Will uses the second of surprise he’s gained to successfully wrench one of his wrists free before grabbing the arm that still holds his other hand in place and twisting it until Hannibal grunts and releases him, other hand retracting quickly from Will’s pants.
Will’s fingers just barely graze the doorknob before he’s once again knocked violently to the side, thrown past the door and sent sprawling facefirst onto an ornate wooden table. One hand slams into the back of his neck, pressing him firmly into the wood, while the other is already reaching for his waistband.
“Get the fuck off of–”
“Why didn’t that other alpha penetrate you, Will?” Hannibal interrupts conversationally before dropping his full weight on Will’s back the moment Will’s begun to try to struggle back up. “Maybe you were saving yourself for me afterall,” he says next to Will’s ear.
“In your dreams,” Will snarls, cheek burning where it presses against the cool wood beneath him. The older alpha begins to rock against him slowly, pressing his erection against Will’s ass through their clothes. “He just– he didn’t–” Will gasps, trying to get his physical and mental priorities in order and failing miserably. “I didn’t let him. Because– he couldn’t.”
Hannibal pauses in his slow rutting. “Couldn’t what?”
“Couldn’t take me,” Will says, still not even sure what he really means. “Didn’t– didn’t earn it.”
There’s a moment of tense silence, and Will is just about to try to kick backwards and nail Hannibal in the shins when the man lets out a low laugh. “Oh, sweet boy,” Hannibal croons, earning him a full body-shiver from Will. “You poor thing. Always left unsatisfied. You’ve needed to be properly bitched by a real alpha so badly for so long now, haven’t you?”
“Fuck,” Will gasps, and he tries to kick Hannibal, but the angle is awkward and he barely scrapes the man’s shin. Hannibal’s weight leaves him suddenly, but before he can try to push himself to his feet, he’s being flipped onto his back on the table, and there’s no more hiding how badly his body wants this.
Hannibal’s smile when he sees Will’s incredibly obvious erection is downright dastardly. One of his hands has snatched up Will’s wrists again, and the other cups his cheek.
“There we are,” he murmurs. “There’s the truth that I’ve known all along. You gave yourself away almost immediately, do you know that?”
“What–?”
“I held off on telling you for so long. It’s been my amusing little secret. The first time I met you,” Hannibal breathes, leaning back over Will until they’re nearly nose to nose. There is adoration in his eyes. Will can see it so clearly. Adoration. “When we spoke in the lounge, you asked me what I found arousing. And the moment I responded, I learned everything I needed to know about your proclivities, because the moment I responded, I could smell your arousal in the air.”
“N– No,” Will denies, because that can’t be true. Can it? There’s a cold sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Oh, yes, fierce boy,” Hannibal rumbles, and presses his lips to Will’s cheek in an achingly chaste kiss. “Don’t worry, it wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else; I have an unusually keen sense of smell. But it gets better, you know,” he murmurs, moving to lay a kiss on Will’s other cheek. “I’ve smelled it on you every time we’ve spoken since. Every. Single. Time.” The last word is accompanied by a hard nip to his ear that sends Will flinching and gasping again, face warm and flushed with embarrassment.
“Hannibal,” he says, and doesn’t know what to follow it up with. To his surprise, Hannibal lets go of his wrists, and Will finds his hands reaching up to grab the front of the man’s suit, not pulling him closer or pushing him away, just holding on tight.
“So I know what you need,” Hannibal says, continuing as if Will hadn’t spoken. “Your body has been telling me what you need from the very beginning. Do you remember the words that first put your body into such a state of excitement? Do you remember what my response was when you asked me what I found arousing?” Will bares his teeth weakly, but the words play in his mind at the same time that Hannibal snarls them aloud– “Forcing insolent young alphas into total submission on my knot.”
“Fuck you,” Will bites out, because he doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know what else to say.
The backhand catches Will off-guard so hard that he doesn’t even process what’s happened until a couple seconds later when his jaw starts stinging and he finds that his head has been whipped to the side, cheek once again resting against the table.
“Your manners are one of the first things we’re going to work on.”
“Did you just–” Will reaches an incredulous hand up to touch his face where it burns. “Did you just fucking slap me–?”
His fingers are torn back down away from his cheek as Hannibal once again pins one of Will’s wrists above his head, grabbing his chin firmly with his other hand. “And I will again. You’re going to watch your tone.”
“People will see,” Will says dumbly, as if that’s what matters most. “That you hit me.”
“I know exactly how hard I can strike you without leaving a mark,” Hannibal says softly. “And believe me when I say that I also know exactly how hard I have to strike you to bruise your pretty face blue for weeks.” His fingers dip into Will’s jaw where he holds him.
Will shivers with the wave of arousal that rocks him. And then, a better question enters his mind. “Why?”
Hannibal blinks, caught momentarily off guard. “Why?” he echoes.
“Why do you know how to do that?”
In the silence that follows, the shadows move on the walls. The crackling tension in the air shifts into something equally charged, and yet somehow distinctly new and unfamiliar. Will stares up at Hannibal, Hannibal who has for some reason been able to physically overpower every alpha he’s slept with. Hannibal who Will immediately recognized as a predator the first time they met.
There is something new in the room with them.
Will isn’t going to wait up long enough to find out what it is.
Hannibal is uncharacteristically caught-off guard, and it is only this that allows Will to finally swing a proper punch with his one free hand, and it is only this that enables him to finally push Hannibal back enough to send him to the ground with a firm kick to his gut, and it is only this that gets Will on his feet and out the door before the older alpha can snag him again.
Will doesn’t waste any energy thinking about propriety this time as he books it back down the hall and bursts into the ballroom again, eyes darting from side to side before dashing back to Beverly’s side.
She’s standing with Jack and the rest of the forensics team, and looks up in concerned surprise when she sees him. “Will?”
“Hi,” he says. “I have a weird request–”
“Oh my god,” she says. “You, uh, smell like– Will, are you okay?” she says, pulling him closer by the elbow.
“Graham?” a powerful voice says, and Will closes his eyes in irritated exhaustion. “You made it after all! My, you look sharp!” Jack says with a broad smile.
“I’m, ah, calling a cab,” Will tries to say again. “Could one of you–?”
“The hell is that?” Jack interrupts with a frown, smelling the air.
Head still swimming, it takes Will a moment to process the subtle wave of unease that’s rippling through the guests on their side of the ball room, but then the scent hits him.
Red wine, dark spices, leather and thick alphan musk; heady and overpowering to an extent that can only mean one thing.
“There’s a goddamn Alpha going into rut in here,” Jack says, grim annoyance already causing his face to darken. “Someone needs to locate them and get them the hell out.” He looks like he’s about to continue, but then his face freezes, and begins to fall. Will follows his gaze, and feels his mouth go dry.
Hannibal is parting the crowd around him like Moses in the red sea. The throng of party goers scatter before him as he prowls across the ballroom floor towards Will and Jack, a drop of oil sliding gracefully through water. There’s something distinctly off about his usual cordial demeanor; he’s lost none of his elegance, but the edges of something visibly predatory have leaked into his movements. His eyes, stained a brighter crimson than usual, are, of course, locked onto Will.
Jack follows Dr. Lecter’s line of vision until his gaze lands on Will too, and a flash of alarmed understanding passes over his face. “Will,” he says, low and urgent. “We’ll handle this. You need to leave, now.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s what I was trying to say,” Will snaps back instinctively, and in his second of distraction, Hannibal reaches him, and takes his elbow.
“May I have this dance?” he asks in a low rumble, his accent so thick that his words are nearly slurred.
“I’ve got two left feet,” Will says automatically as he stares up at him, still trying to assess the situation. In his moment of hesitation, Hannibal’s mouth begins to curl into a warning snarl as his grip on Will’s arm tightens.
“Dr. Lecter, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, please,” Jack says carefully, and before Will knows what’s happening, he’s being yanked forwards into Hannibal’s chest as the man’s free hand comes up to settle heavy over the nape of his neck.
“Hannibal, what the fuck–?” Will manages to hiss from where his face has been pressed against Hannibal’s collar, then gasps when the hand on the back of his neck squeezes as the man holding him lets out another deep, rumbling growl. The action manages to surprise Will again so much that he’s stumped for a moment. While he’s generally physically unaffected by the treatment, in an omega, that kind of pressure to the glands on their nape would have a calming, mild sedative effect, and– Oh my god, Hannibal is trying to publicly gentle him.
“The night is young,” Hannibal says, and he’s losing himself so fast that the words are barely even words anymore. The circle of space around them is growing as more and more people catch the scent of an alpha on the verge of rut and start to clear the area.
“Dr. Lecter–” Jack warns sharply.
“I’m not speaking to you,” Hannibal says, squeezing Will’s neck again before petting a heavy hand over his hair. “Will,” he pants. “You– with me.”
Fuck fuck fuck . Will tries to gently pry himself out of Hannibal’s grip, and is finally allowed to at least raise his head, but not squirm away from the arm that’s looped around his waist.
“Hannibal, breathe. You are making a fool of yourself in public,” Will says in a low, controlled tone. “Let us call you a car.”
Hannibal shakes his head as if to try to dispel the fog. “ Taip ,” he slurs. “A car. Mes eisime kartu.”
“Okay,” Jack says carefully. “I’m calling a cab. Let’s just, start to move towards the exit.” Hannibal’s lip curls up slightly again in warning, and Jack takes one more step back from them.
“I want to go to the exit,” Will says to Hannibal. “Please,” he adds, and that elicits a purring, clicking sound from deep in Hannibal’s chest that Will tries not to think about. Will begins to step carefully in the direction of the front doors, and Hannibal follows, one arm around his waist, walking in stride with him as if they’re just a normal couple taking their leave. Except his hand keeps slipping under Will’s suit. And he keeps stopping to rub his face against Will’s neck. Will tries very hard to act normal about all of this and not make any embarrassing noises or faces.
Jack and the forensics team form a sort of perimeter around them, keeping the path ahead clear as they make their way over to the exit, and fucking finally, reach it.
Will can already see the cab pulling up in front of the elegant columns of the building’s front entrance. This was going to be the tricky part.
“Can we trust him in the cab alone?” Will hisses.
“I’ll go with him,” Jack says grimly.
“Another alpha in the car with him is a bad idea,” Beverly cuts in. “I’ll go. He’s not fully in rut yet, and I don’t think he’d hurt me.”
Clearly still coherent enough to understand them, Hannibal growls, pulling Will towards the cab with him, and Will lets him right up until they’re right next to the doors. “We’re going,” Hannibal says unsteadily, accent still so thick Will can barely understand him. “Home. We’re going home.”
“No,” Will says firmly. “You’re going home.”
“We’re going home,” Hannibal repeats.
“Hey, Dr. Lecter,” Beverly says in a calm, friendly tone. “Let’s get in the car. You have to let go of Will for now.”
Will finds his head crushed to Hannibal’s shirtfront again as the man’s arms wrap more firmly around him. “He’s coming with me.”
“No, I’m not,” Will says into his expensive tie, trying to calm his racing heartbeat so as to not provoke the older alpha any further in any given direction. “Hannibal. Let me go, or– or I’m never talking to you again.”
The older alpha snorts out what sounds like, to Will’s great indignation, a laugh. “No. With me.”
Alright, that’s it. Time to play ball, hard and straight. Ironically enough.
“There is no way for you to fuck me right here, and you can not make me get in that car. If you don’t let go of me,” Will says, “I’m going to fight back, and Jack is going to pull a gun on you, and this will never go away. You will never live it down. Do you understand?”
He can feel Hannibal’s rusty breathing against his chest and cheek, and his prominent erection pressing hard and needy against Will’s crotch. Finally, the man lets out an animal snarl, and releases Will, but not before possessively rubbing his scent thick over Will’s cheeks and collar bone one last time, leaving him frazzled and thoroughly scent-marked.
He doesn’t take his eyes off of Will as Beverly gently pulls him into the cab. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Will when the doors close, or when the car pulls away. His head turns to watch him as he goes. And Will is trapped by his gaze.
“Will! Are you okay? Will?”
He can’t look away until the car is fully out of sight. Only then does he process that Jack is shaking his shoulders lightly, squinting down at him in concern.
“Yeah,” Will says automatically.
“You’re okay? He didn’t– he didn’t do anything to you, did he? Before?” And Jack looks– scared. Steeling himself against the possibility that a man he considered his friend may have done something terrible.
And Will pauses. And Jack sees the pause. But then, Will looks down the street where Hannibal’s cab just disappeared, and he says, “No.”
“I think you need to get home, too,” Jack says after a moment. “Are you well enough to drive?”
“Yes,” Will says, even though he’s not sure if this is true. He really doesn’t want to get a hotel in the area, but he can’t imagine driving all the way back to Wolf Trap in his current state. He breaks free from Jack’s grasp and begins to make his way to the parking lot before the man can say another word.
When he reaches his car, he reaches for his keys, and freezes. They’re not fucking there. How? When could he have possibly lost them?
Will sits on the hood of his car and listens to the sounds of the city as he tries to process the events of the past couple of hours. Running back over every word Hannibal said to him, every place he touched him.
He can still feel the ghost imprint of Hannibal’s hands on him.
He can feel his canines scraping against his neck. He can feel his warmth, and his steadiness. His immovability when he pressed into Will, and when he held Will upright. He can feel the brush of his finger tips below his waist line. Every breath he takes is heavy with the older alpha’s scent.
Will shudders, like his body is simultaneously trying to dispel the memory of Hannibal’s touch, while also longing for it to return. He feels so cold now. So unsteady. Unmoored. Unwanted.
His phone rings. It’s Hannibal.
He debates for four rings before he picks up.
Chapter 6: The Better To Eat You With
Summary:
Will takes a call.
Notes:
Hey gang, this chapter was getting stupid long so I made an executive decision and am splitting it in half and adding two more parts lmao. also, reminder that I'm currently finishing college, and love to write when I can, but can never promise quick or consistent updates! your patience is appreciated!
that being said, my goodness thank you so much for all of the kind comments and kudos! very glad to see that people are enjoying <3
Content warning that this is very brutal, and pretty much straight up non-con; a case could be made for consensual non-consent, but, like, you'd need a really good lawyer. As always, read the tags, use your own discretion, and stay safe!
Chapter Text
“You picked up,” Hannibal rasps. He sounds surprised. He also sounds out of his mind.
“Did you take my keys?” Will asks immediately.
“Will,” comes his groan, and Will’s mouth falls open at the full body shiver that wracks his bones at the infuriatingly husky growl of Hannibal’s voice. “Beautiful boy,” he murmurs, ignoring Will’s question, and Will puts his knuckles in his mouth to prevent himself from making any truly embarrassing noises. “I’m not myself, I wanted to apologize, for… my behavior,” Hannibal manages, pausing periodically to pant harshly. “At the ball. I was… quite rude.”
“These things happen,” Will says, and then slaps his forehead into his palm.
A rusty laugh echoes through the phone. “Not to me,” Hannibal says. “I pride myself on… my self-control. But with you…” Another harsh exhalation. Will feels a sense of horrified resignation at the fact that he’s already started unconsciously squeezing his thighs together to get some kind of friction on his cock. “I can’t resist you,” Hannibal says, his voice so low that it makes something tingle pleasantly in Will’s skull. But he has to focus.
He takes a long moment to try to find the right words to ask the abstract question he’s been circling for weeks. In the end, the words he chooses are very simple.
“You’re really not a good man,” Will says quietly. “Are you?”
The night whispers soft and indifferent around him, the mid-Autumn breeze chilling him through his suit as the sound of Hannibal’s panting crackles through the phone. He parked far enough away that there aren’t really any other party guests near him. It’s just him, his useless car, the cold bite of the impending winter, and the voice of the bad man who has ruined him.
“You don’t want a good man,” Hannibal responds finally. “A good man could never understand you,” he says between heavy breaths. “And never satisfy you.”
Will closes his eyes against the truth of it. He doesn’t entirely know why it’s true, only that it is. That even as his logic, his values, his commonsense are all screaming no, that most raw and true part of himself that he tries so hard to ignore has never wanted anything as badly as he wants Hannibal.
“Let me show you,” Hannibal growls. “Cherie, Mylimasis, let me inside of you.”
Will whimpers out loud.
There is a moment of total silence as they both process the sound and its obvious implications. Will curses himself in his head as the mortification hits, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. He is never coming back from this. He needs to hangup, now–
“Will,” Hannibal practically keens, a new note of alertness in his voice. “I heard that, sweet thing; you can’t pretend anymore, you can’t pretend you don’t want this too– Come to me. Come to me, Will; let me mount you, I’ll be gentle with you–”
“No, you won’t be,” Will snaps anxiously, feeling somewhat violated by his own body for betraying him even as his cock hardens further in his pants. “Don’t even pretend. I know what you’re like. I know what you’d– what you’d do to me.”
“Oh, no you don’t, sweet, naive boy,” Hannibal purrs, almost immediately abandoning the ridiculous angle of selling himself as a gentleman lover. “But you want to find out, don’t you? Will, clever boy, beautiful boy, the things I’d do to you; the ways I’d ruin your little hole, the marks I’d paint on your flesh; I’d flatten your smaller body with my own, crush the breath from your lungs until you’re completely empty, and the only thing filling you up would be my–”
Will hangs up and immediately grips his own hair so tight he’s nearly pulling it out. His phone dings. It’s a fucking text from Hannibal.
I tookyour car keys
come and get them
Fury rises hot and prickly in Will’s chest. It spreads until his blood pressure is rising and his skin burns uncomfortably. It’s the kind of rage that he’s used to drinking into submission. It’s the kind of rage that everyone else can see glinting sharp in the corners of his eyes when he’s sunken too deep into a case, the kind that keeps everyone at an arm’s distance.
But not Hannibal.
He calls a cab.
“Where to?” the driver asks him.
Will makes his decision.
Will is trembling as he climbs the stairs to the house, both with anger, and anticipation. He’s still buzzed, and his entire world has narrowed into this moment. Nothing came before, and nothing will come after. There is only here, and now, and the man behind the door.
He’s raised his hand to knock, but a split second before his knuckles connect with the door, it flies open. Déjà vu.
The pheromones hit Will like a truck, the intensity of the sweat and sex and raw animal power emanating from the older alpha enough to momentarily overwhelm him with that now familiar but still confusing combination of unwanted lust and instinctual aggression. Hannibal is completely naked, bronzed skin glistening with sweat, every swell of muscle that’s normally hidden artfully beneath his layered suits now stark and straining in the low lights of the foyer. Will’s eyes snap down to his erection, the man’s thick cock standing stiff against his stomach as pre-cum leaks down his shaft and over his heavy ball sack. Will’s mouth goes dry looking at it. He’s not sure if he wants to lick it clean or kick the man so hard in the nuts that he’s rendered permanently infertile.
For a moment, they just size each other up. Then Will’s eyes connect with Hannibal’s, and the staggering rage kicks back into gear.
He backhands Hannibal as hard as he can.
Not a punch, but a slap, just as Hannibal had slapped him. He holds nothing back. It feels like the first time in a long fucking time that he’s held nothing back. As strong and seemingly immovable as the man is, the backhand sends Hannibal’s head whipping to the side. It feels good. It feels so good.
Will braces himself as he’s grabbed by the tie and yanked roughly through the door, which is slammed behind him so hard it nearly rattles the windows. When Hannibal moves his grip to Will’s arms and turns to throw him up against the wall, Will is ready for it, and instead of trying to get away, he holds on tight, using some of the momentum they’ve already gathered to throw his weight to the side and redirect their trajectory to the floor.
They crash onto the hardwood with mutual grunts of pain. Will tried to cushion his fall with Hannibal, but ended up still landing partially on his shoulder, which throbs sharply. Hannibal is staring up at him incredulously, eyes as red as the bloody dawn.
Sprawled half on top of Hannibal, Will snarls loud and warning in the older alpha’s face in obvious challenge. The man beneath him half-grins, half-bares his teeth back, and then they’re wrestling.
Will doesn’t fight Hannibal like he’s sparring back at the police academy. He pulls no punches. He fights Hannibal like he’s fighting for his life.
He aims for his throat, his gut, between his legs; he kicks, he throws punches, he bites whatever’s in reach, and once it’s out, whatever it is, it won’t get back in the bag, and Will can’t stop moving, swinging, gouging; he can’t stop himself.
But Hannibal can stop him.
It’s a very mobile fight. They’re off the floor and up against the wall, they’re through the hallway and at the foot of the stairs, they’re back in the foyer again; Will has lost his suit jacket and his shoes, and is trying to lose his tie when Hannibal grabs either side of his white button up and rips it open, sending buttons flying. Will drops his tie and grabs onto Hannibal’s arms where his hands are still grasping his shirt, using the leverage to bring his knee up hard into the man’s gut. His knee slams into hard muscle, already tensed in expectation of the blow, and Hannibal drops one of his hands from Will’s shirtfront to grab his leg before it can make proper contact with the ground again. Pulling Will’s leg at the same time as he pushes at his chest, Hannibal unbalances him easily, throwing him to the ground properly this time.
Will lets out a gasp followed by a hiss of pain as his head meets wood and his vision swims momentarily.
And a moment is all Hannibal needs.
Before Will can recover, Hannibal is slotted firmly between his legs, forearms bearing down heavily on Will’s chest as both hands wrap around his throat with intention.
Will’s eyelids flutter as those hands close perfectly around his neck over his stupid tie, warm and large and inescapable. That won’t stop him from trying, of course. He tries to claw at Hannibal’s face, but his arms are somewhat handicapped, trapped awkwardly in his half-removed button-up. He rips at anything he can reach, feels his nails scrape brutally across Hannibal’s forearms, but it’s all going dark.
Hannibal’s fingers are crushing his throat. Will’s eyes are rolling up into his head as he begins to make dry, ugly choking sounds. He can feel Hannibal’s bare cock beginning to rock against his crotch, and he tries to make eye contact with him, but there are black spots in the way.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light, he thinks deliriously, and he does, god he does, because he’s never been able to just, let it go, he will never go down without a fight– but the relief he feels when the lights finally go out is so sweet he could cry.
Will is only out for ten seconds. Hannibal was counting. Somewhere in the back of his mind he is still keeping track of these things. The front of his mind is currently entirely focused on getting Will onto his bed before he regains his bearings. The boy was over his shoulder like a piece of fresh meat the second he’d fallen unconscious beneath Hannibal’s hands. When he’s hauled off of Hannibal’s shoulder and onto the bed, he lands on his shoulder and lets out a yelp.
He is clearly still lightheaded and disoriented. It is easy for Hannibal to yank his dress-shirt further down his arms, using the garment to bind Will’s wrists securely behind his back.
And the rest will be easy from here.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hannibal wishes that he could slow down and take his time. He would like to savor every moment of this first with Will. Kiss and bite over every inch of the younger alpha’s skin and drive him mad with teasing before fucking him properly.
The front of Hannibal’s mind is a fog of urgent, pent-up lust, and right now, it’s doing the driving.
Will’s pants and underwear go. The tie stays.
“No,” Will pants as Hannibal begins to manhandle him to his liking. It’s the first thing that he’s said since he arrived. It doesn’t particularly mean anything to Hannibal. He puts Will on his knees, arms still bound behind his back, head turned to the side where it’s been pushed against the bed. One of Hannibal’s hands presses firmly against Will’s spine until it bends beautifully. He rumbles low and pleased in his chest at the sight of it. A perfect mating presentation.
The warm buttery light shining through an ornate lampshade on the other side of Hannibal’s room casts a perfect golden glow over Will’s skin, his shaking, thrashing body. Hannibal groans, the roar of blood pumping in his ears only escalating by the moment.
Will tries to buck under him, but Hannibal just leans heavier on the hand pinning his back, eyes finally coming to rest on the swell of his boy’s bare ass. Using his free hand to pry one of his cheeks open, he lets out a rough exhalation at the sight of Will’s clenched, twitching hole. Vulnerable. Untouched.
Hannibal drags two fingers over it, and Will yelps, tries once again to kick back. He hasn’t stopped moving for even a second, still burning through whatever manic energy possessed him, but Hannibal can tell he’s reaching a point of exhaustion.
You have to prepare him at least a little, Hannibal thinks distantly, the doctor in him yanking on the leash of the alpha in rut. He will tear.
His cock throbs at the thought. Yes, he will afford the boy some perfunctory preparation. But yes, he will tear.
Leaning forwards, Hannibal spits onto Will’s hole, making the younger alpha flinch and shiver all over again. With impatient movements, he massages around the tight ring of muscle with his saliva before forcing a finger in. Will screams.
“No! Get off, get the fuck off,” Will snarls, still alpha, still fighting, and god, Hannibal loves his fight. He loves it more than anything.
He forces a second finger in and begins to scissor and stroke the soft walls of his boy’s tender insides. Will’s growls and snaps are interrupted by choked gasps and yelps as his body tries to process the violating, foreign feeling. Hannibal is so highly aroused that the edges of his vision are nearly blurring out, all of his focus trained on the beautiful creature thrashing desperately in his bed. The beautiful creature who has evaded him, scorned him, and showed up at a ball wearing a suit Hannibal gifted him while smelling of another alpha. The beautiful creature who he finally has pinned and displayed beneath him.
He can’t wait a second longer.
Hannibal pulls his fingers from Will’s asshole and spits into his hand to add further lubrication to his cock, which is already slick with his own precum. When he lines himself up, he drapes himself heavily over Will’s back, moving the hand pressing him down to instead loop under Will’s chest and wrap snugly around his throat. His other hand grips Will’s hip, keeping him as steady as possible as he presses the thick head of his cock insistently against his boy’s entrance.
And finally, mercifully, he pushes forward, and breaches him.
Will shrieks, and Hannibal snarls in response, only an inch or so inside of the younger alpha and already unable to move any farther. He pulls out slightly, drives into him again, and manages to carve another couple inches deeper. Will hisses in pain and tries to scratch at Hannibal’s chest where his hands are still bound behind his back, but it’s an entirely futile and ineffective attempt at retaliation.
Pulling back one more time, Hannibal tightens his grasp on Will’s hip, settles his weight more fully over Will’s back, and slams back into him in one violent, insistent thrust.
He can feel the moment Will tears, the moment the slide becomes easier with his blood, and Hannibal’s cock twitches eagerly at the scream that’s punched out of the younger alpha’s body.
“Hurts,” Will gasps urgently. “Hurts–!”
“I know,” Hannibal purrs through the haze of rut, a shark in a blood frenzy, only spurred on by Will’s desperate cries. Burying his nose in Will’s beautiful sweaty curls, Hannibal inhales the mouthwatering scent of the younger alpha’s scrambled pheromones, his panic only adding a sharp dash of something spicy and electric to the air that does nothing to deter Hannibal’s need to plunder his body to the point of ruination.
So he does.
“I told you I’d be a perfect fit,” he breathes into Will’s hair.
Hand tightening around Will’s neck until he can feel every broken wail that rises in his boy’s throat, Hannibal begins to jack-hammer his cock into the torn, straining tightness of Will’s hole. He leaves aggressive bites all over Will’s shoulders and back, any stretch of available skin becoming a target for Hannibal to taste Will and leave his claim in the form of countless bruising teeth-marks. Holding his boy as close as possible, he sets a rhythm pulling out half-way before digging back in deeper and harsher, spearing the younger alpha open mercilessly, knowing that Will’s erection has left him, and ignoring it. That would come later. For now, he’s fucking into Will’s delicious wet heat like he’s trying to pierce through the soft flesh of his channel and penetrate into his guts, like he’s looking for something, like he’s stabbing him, like he’s trying to kill him. For both of their sakes, he needs this first time to hurt.
The intoxicating smell of Will’s blood is thick in the air. There are spots of it welling up from the deeper bite marks on his shoulders, and little wet droplets occasionally fly from where their bodies connect when Hannibal fucks him especially hard and fast, balls smacking loud and heavy against Will’s taint. Will’s entire body is jerking and twitching beneath him, aggression finally cooling and draining from him as the fear and agony supersedes all else.
“Stop,” Will begs, garbled pleading turning near-delirious with the pain and intensity. “Please, please, please–”
Hannibal’s eyes roll back into his head in rapturous pleasure. It’s happening.
“Pretty boy, mano mielas berniuk,” he growls out, moving his head from where he’d been gnawing on the younger alpha’s shoulder and pressing his face back into Will’s hair, nearly salivating at how strong his boy’s delicious scent is at the nape of his neck. “Pretty boy, are you all done fighting now?”
A pause. Hannibal draws back again before snapping his hips forwards harshly, stabbing his cock back into Will, purposely avoiding his prostate and reveling in the full body jerk that the violent thrust draws from the younger alpha.
“Yes!” Will shrieks. Hannibal wonders if anyone has ever pulled these sounds from him. He thinks not. “I’m done,” Will whimpers, and Hannibal slows his merciless assault to a slow grind. He drags his tongue over Will’s cheek, savoring the salty flavor of his tears.
“And who do you belong to?” Hannibal breathes into his ear.
Will knows better than to hesitate this time. “You,” he gasps out on a frantic breath. “I– I belong to you.”
Hannibal groans. Something settles in his chest, in his mind. He smiles a wicked, toothy smile before smacking Will’s ass with a loud clap.
“Good bitch.”
Will moans, and Hannibal begins thrusting again.
He’s still rough with him, still focused on his own pleasure, but now, Hannibal stops avoiding Will’s prostate, and begins to instead target it mercilessly. The fight finally completely drained from him, all Will can manage is involuntary flinches and the occasional weak squirming as Hannibal begins to fuck little pleasured moans and whimpers from his gasping mouth. Going from no stimulation on his prostate to the highly attentive, targeted assault Hannibal is now inflicting on him clearly has his body going haywire, his hips rocking back and forth to try to rub his rehardened cock against the covers beneath him. Hannibal is barely pulling out on every thrust now, just shifting back enough to dig back into Will deeper, press against his prostate harder and more insistently before rolling his hips.
Suddenly desperate to see his face, Hannibal uses the hand that’s still wrapped comfortably around Will’s throat to turn his head further where it lies before groaning at the sight before him. Will’s face glistens with sweat and tears, his beautiful blue eyes still sporting a wet sheen even as they’re rolling back into his skull in overwhelmed pleasure. His thick dark lashes flutter uncontrollably, and his mouth lies open and slack as new noises are pushed out of him with every punishing thrust. Uncontrollable drooling, panting, and crying has also left saliva smeared down his lips and chin, an utterly debauched cherry on top of the already completely undone mess that Hannibal has reduced him to. He’s unrecognizable. He’s beautiful.
Hannibal is going to ruin him and any chance he has of thinking he could ever be satisfied by anyone else again.
A steady, devoted pounding, increasing gradually in speed, and Will’s moans morph into a frantic, hiccuping squeaks that barely allow him a moment to breathe. He’s close.
“You’re gonna come untouched,” Hannibal snarls, guttural and poorly enunciated, and it’s unclear if Will even understands him or processes his words. Hannibal moves the hand that’s been holding onto Will’s hip to reach between his legs and squeeze the younger alpha’s balls. “Come on my cock, pretty boy.”
And his Will is so good now, that he does exactly as his alpha commands.
Hannibal groans at the feeling of the younger alpha clenching around him as he orgasms, the boy’s balls twitching in his hand as his cock spurts uncontrollably all over Hannibal’s expensive bedspread. Hannibal kneads Will’s balls through his orgasm like he can tease all of the cum out of them, still sheathed deep inside of him and rocking slowly against his prostate.
Will slumps boneless beneath him, and Hannibal leans up and back so that he can look at him properly. He’s so beautiful like this. Limp. Loose. Completely relaxed.
For a moment, Hannibal pulls all the way out of Will until just the head of his cock remains lodged inside of him. He admires the pinkened, battered rim of the younger alpha’s abused hole, and the shining red of Will’s blood covering his cock.
The sight of his own thick, erect cock coated in the blood of his newly penetrated and conquered boy makes him shudder with mad desire all over again.
As Will lies drained and dazed on the duvet, Hannibal grabs his hips, and spears right back into him.
This is what Will currently knows to be true:
He knows that he had sex with Hannibal. Or, Hannibal had sex with him. He knows that he just came for the first time in weeks, and harder than he ever has in his fucking life. And he knows that Hannibal has just rutted his way back into Will’s limp body, and is not planning on leaving any time soon.
Shivering uncontrollably with exhaustion and overstimulation, all Will can do is try to stay conscious as Hannibal pounds him back into the mattress, flexing his fingers around his throat, licking the sweat and blood from his shoulders, holding him in place and taking what he wants. And then he finally feels it, swelling at the base of Hannibal’s cock.
“N– no,” Will gasps. “You can’t– I can’t fit it,” he slurs out. “I can’t,Ican’tIcan’t–”
“You will,” Hannibal murmurs into his ear, tongue flicking out to taste the sweat on Will’s neck with a guttural hum of appreciation.
Will’s got the most insane cotton-mouth he’s ever had, but he still can’t stop the raw yelping shrieks that begin to tumble past his lips again as the bulge pushing at his torn rim grows, and Hannibal’s pace grows more frenzied and insistent.
“Please, no, Hannibal, no!” Will screams, and the massive knot finally forces its way into his hole and lodges itself inside of him. He can feel the momentary, terrible stretch of the muscles of his asshole as it widens far beyond what it was designed to take. His whole body is jerking and flinching uncontrollably, trying desperately even without the use of his hands to crawl out from under Hannibal and away from the violent invasion.
He is in ecstasy and he is in agony, and he has no choice in either. All he can do is take what is given to him. That’s all he has to do.
Hannibal is groaning in pleasure and satisfaction, his member twitching against Will’s inner walls as he finally begins to cum hard inside of him. “Mylimasis,” He moans, shuddering as he grinds his knot into Will and rides out his orgasm. Will cries out weakly in response.
Despite the pain, despite the violation, something in Will’s brain is drooling over the feeling of the thick knot splitting him open. He can feel fresh blood staining them where they’re joined, and yet he feels like mush. He feels completely encased in Hannibal. The man is everywhere inside of him, everywhere around him, holding him in place, but still holding him. Holding him like he’s the most precious thing on earth.
Hannibal begins to relax slowly on top of Will, murmuring sweet nothings into his ear in foreign tongues. Without disconnecting them, he finally turns them onto their sides so that he can spoon Will from behind, and Will feels a passing flash of manic amusement at the fact that he’s done this exact thing before, but with omegas when he was the one knotting them. Hannibal wraps both arms around Will securely and buries his nose in his hair. Every so often he rocks his hips gently, and Will swears he can feel the warm gushes of cum that follow.
Still trying to steady his breathing and come down to earth, it takes Will a moment to notice the vibrations against his back. Hannibal noses at his hair lazily, and Will realizes that what he’s feeling is a deep, rumbling purr coming from Hannibal’s chest.
He lets his eyes flutter shut. The purring against his back soothes him down to the bones until he’s pressing back against Hannibal, letting the sound and vibrations wash over him like a warm bath after a cold hard day. He focuses on that warmth, and how strangely secure he feels, even while his hands are still bound behind his back, even while he’s still being split open. He doesn’t understand why he feels this way. But he’s starting to accept that Hannibal makes him feel a lot of shit that doesn’t make sense.
Something rusted from disuse stutters to life in Will’s ribcage.
When his own feeble, shaky purr begins to rattle in his chest, Hannibal freezes and goes quiet for a moment. Will turns his head back enough to nuzzle weakly under the older alpha’s chin, and the man’s purring kicks back in immediately, louder and more pleased than before as his arms tighten around Will until it feels like every part of their bodies is touching.
And Will sleeps.
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The_Peanut_Gallery13 on Chapter 2 Sat 16 Aug 2025 02:59PM UTC
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ObiWanKenobiObsessed on Chapter 2 Tue 12 Aug 2025 12:32AM UTC
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