Archive of Our Own ^beta

Realisation sets in when Hannibal rises deliberately from the adjacent arm chair, bottle of W.L. Weller bourbon in hand, to pour Will a third glass of whiskey for the night. 

It’s as obvious to Will as the scent of a bone is pungently enticing to a dog.

Hannibal doesn’t plan for Will to drive home. 

Either he’s feeling generous, planning to drive over an hour to Will’s house in Wolf Trap to drop him off, or he has plans that Will is not entirely privy to, until he is, until he sees the dark glint in Hannibal’s eyes and understands precisely the reason for the unspoken invitation. 

“Nightcaps shared between us don’t usually lead to severe levels of inebriation,” Will drones placidly to mask his anxiety, swishing the rust-colored liquid around in his glass. The ice slinks against the sides, sounding almost metallic. 

“Does it taste severe to you?” Hannibal questions, crossing his legs formally when he returns to his seat. “You told me it was your favorite.” 

“Preferences fluctuate,” Will mutters, pausing when what he says sinks in. Not all preferences, he wants to add, but wrestles with his vocal chords and finds them lacking. 

Instead, he drinks. 

Downs the glass in seconds and eyes the bottle Hannibal had left on the end table beside him, instead of returning it to the cupboard. Will pours himself one last glass, already feeling overly warm and somewhat carbonated, if that is possible. 

It doesn’t go over his head, Hannibal has only had a drink and a half. 

“There is a guest bedroom beside my own,” Hannibal informs him when he’s finished. His golden eyes haven’t left Will’s face, haven’t even blinked as far as Will has seen. “I cannot abide you driving in your condition.” 

A condition he instigated. 

Will smiles bitterly. 

“Trapped me like a fly in a web,” he murmurs. “Again and again, round and round we go. Instilling me with your venom,” he slides his fingers around the rim of his empty glass. “You don’t hide from God, but tell me Doctor, do you hide from those who prey on spiders?” 

Hannibal’s expression is bone-chillingly knowing. 

“There is a genera of fly that preys on spiders in Thailand. The robber flies, they’re called, known to catch insects mid-flight, or in the midst of their own hunt. It is often they capture their prey before their own webs are woven, the designs left to fall apart in the face of nature’s cruelty.” 

Will’s heart rate spikes. 

He knows. He must know. 

Having become fully aware of this trap, Will still hadn’t considered deadly intentions. Of course, he should have. He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon, and there were no spoons concerned in their ortolan consumption tonight. No shrouds to hide from God. 

Hannibal is going to kill him. The alcohol makes him sway a bit in his seat, for a moment considering it was poisoned, but remembers Hannibal would never do that to the food. No, the alcohol is softening the imminent blow, one last mercy in the face of a monster’s brutality. 

He closes his eyes, bracing himself. 

What he doesn’t expect is to be kissed. 

In the interim of his apprehension, Hannibal had risen and crossed the terse space between, leant down and pressed his lips against his own. He’s bent slightly above him, hand on Will’s cheek, pulling back with searching eyes which turn remorseful when he registers Will’s shock. 

“I thought perhaps…” Hannibal swallows with a click. 

“You thought right,” Will confirms in a rush, breath hot and throat stuffy. It’s the alcohol that makes him decide so quickly, but he attempts to rationalize it by telling himself; This is another way to gain trust, another way to gain proximity. Another entryway into the personal demise of the Chesapeake Ripper, but that all feels disingenuous. It feels cruel.  

He can’t wield this against Hannibal. This is beyond what he ever expected to commit to, and enjoy the viciousness of. This isn’t vicious; Hannibal is staring at him with endearment.

So why then does he allow Hannibal to take his hand and lift him to his feet, drag him in by the elbows, kiss him again with hands holding his whole toppling body up by the hinge of his jaw?

Will skates his hands up Hannibal’s chest, feeling the coarse hair through the button up. He just notices his loosened tie, and the red flush on his cheeks. 

His lips feel good, the scrape of his stubble cheeks on his own, the tongue in his mouth that demands more than he gives. It’s good to forget everything for a while. Will startles himself when one of Hannibal’s hands finds his hip, pulling him closer, and he moans into his mouth. 

They’ve barely touched, and the whiskey is doing him no favors. 

“I sensed a change in you tonight,” Hannibal whispers, lips brushing the curve of his ear before descending to suck a kiss in the crook below. “Your radiance acted as a symbiote to my own.” 

Will grips his shoulders, can feel himself hardening fast. 

“Willingness?” he asks, not expecting an answer.

Hannibal gives him one anyway, hands sliding over sensitive patches of skin. They slip under his shirt and Will rolls up on his toes with the electricity he feels in those fingertips. “Willingness was engendered in you ever since you lowered your gun in my kitchen, cemented when you arrived at my door and asked to resume your therapy.” 

“For sex or for killing?” Will grits out. 

“Yes, I believe is the answer to that,” Hannibal responds, eyes imploring. It’s Will’s move now. He can leave without consequence, or he can move the chess pieces until they’re crooked, and black and white meshes into grey. 

“With you,” Will murmurs. Sex and killing. “Is that what you want? Me with you, in all things? A place in your world for me, and a place in my world for you?” 

Don’t lose yourself, Will’s inner voice says. It sounds muffled by ocean waves.

Distance possesses Hannibal’s features for a moment before he lifts one of Will’s hands to his mouth, kissing each knuckle. 

This affects Will more than the prior kissing.

“I cannot decide if you see me more clearly than ever, or if you see straight through me.” 

With a building smirk, Will moves the kiss bestown hand to Hannibal’s cheek and strokes the rough skin there. Calloused, as if the man walks against the grain of blizzards each night and yet there is a soft plushness to his face Will wants to squeeze, scratch, bite. 

What am I doing? 

Will’s drunken brain doesn’t have an answer for his last remaining sober thoughts, and so he kisses Hannibal again with the whisper, “All that matters is I see you.”

Hannibal is besotted, hands trembling where they keep Will’s waist trapped close to his own. His eyes droop, half-lidded when Will adds, “I see us.” 

There is a silence that reverberates like a gong, and Hannibal falls to his knees. The arousal that rushes through Will is so distinct he nearly tips over, placing a tentative hand in the older man’s hair. A cannibal is going to blow him. Will wants a cannibal to blow him. 

You can’t come back from this. 

Tenderly, Hannibal presses his cheek to Will’s upper thigh, nosing the erection he finds and inhales deeply. He does this enough times that Will stops feeling like he’s going to fall over, and is beginning to feel as if he’s being put on a deific pedestal. There is power in having this brutal man on his knees. Destruction, or the shape of it, pleading in prayer for the pleasures of none other than Will Graham himself. If destruction attracts to him so dearly, what does that make him in the end? 

Helplessly, an intrusive thought crosses his mind; Alana must not be rewarded with such worshipful gestures. 

When Hannibal places a close-mouthed kiss on the tip of his cock through his trousers, Will’s hips sway forward and he balances himself on his shoulders. With a light feeling, the alcohol rolls through him swiftly. 

“Hannibal, I, I want to sit down.” 

Hannibal nods, eyes closed, and opens them to stand. He leads Will back to his arm chair, and helps him sit, running his hands down his sides and over his thighs. Every bit of Will feels like an exposed nerve, but he allows Hannibal to devour him as he deems fit. 

Less participation leaves less room for self-incrimination. 

Will winces at his own train of thought, but it is quickly drowned out by the sounds of his fly being undone, and the zipper descending. Hannibal is between his legs, hands working deftly. 

Then suddenly, he is bared. 

He gasps just as Hannibal commits to fondling the tip of his erection between two fingers, smoothing around the circumcised ridges, licking his lips as he watches a bead of pre-ejaculate form at the slit. Will is vibrating out of his skin by the time Hannibal descends and kisses the droplet away, cock jerking in his loose grip. Hannibal meets his eyes at the reaction, and Will falls apart when he recognizes the utter devotion and tranquility in the older man’s features. 

He’s relaxed, accepting this as another part of their shared story. The one Will’s been weaving with him fecklessly. 

Hannibal’s eyes flick back down to his groin, and he begins to stroke him deliberately slow, watching for every reaction, watching the spongy head glisten before leaning down and licking flat against it, wetting and tasting. Will crushes his head back into the cushion from the sensation and grips the armrests tight when Hannibal leans further down to inhale up the shaft. 

Scenting him, his arousal, what lies beneath Will’s heated, wanting skin.

A choked noise falls from his lips as Hannibal takes the tip into his mouth and strokes up simultaneously, as if to encourage him further in. Deeper into the abyss, the love he’s offering. 

Love. He loves me. Oh god, he loves me.

Will can feel it where his left hand is gripping his clothed thigh, stroking his hip bone tenderly with a thumb, not pressing any harder than a feather with the right hand on his cock. His digits dance against the veins there, savoring. The mouth he uses to maim is tracing him, absorbing and memorizing his taste. This isn’t worship; Hannibal wants him like he wants murder. Like he wants luxuries and imported ingredients. Wants him like he’s the only thing that keeps him up at night and remains diligently in his mind when he’s absent from the room. 

When Hannibal curls his left hand down to fondle Will’s balls with an even gentler touch, Will’s eyes brim with tears and he shifts away, scattered thoughts catching up to him. He’s shaking his head feverishly before he can manage to form a coherent sentence.

“Stop.” Will swallows when his voice breaks, and louder says, “Hannibal, stop.” 

Hannibal drags his lips away, and looks up at Will, waiting. 

His eyes are round and patient. And, oh hell, Will is in love too. 

Suddenly, visions of their future flash before his eyes. Will’s impending betrayal. Hannibal’s impending reaction. One of them ending up on the butcher’s block. This unique love fading into nothing but one of Freddie Lounds’ headlines while one or both of them finds themselves expired. Flesh made history.

Hannibal, trapped in a cage. Will, gutted and lost. 

“I can’t,” he forces out. His voice is trembling violently, and curious concern begins to show in Hannibal’s eyes when he notices the tears. They trickle down Will’s cheeks, and he begins to haphazardly tuck himself back into his trousers. “I can’t do this to you.” 

He shoves Hannibal to the side and stumbles upward, taking a moment to find his footing. Hannibal’s hand is on his shoulder, but he’s shrugging it away, searching for his glass. He pours himself another drink and all but chugs it. 

The liquid splashes over the rim in his haste.

“Dear boy, have I misstepped?” Hannibal asks quietly, taking the glass from his hand. 

Will braces his hands on the nearest wall, and squeezes his eyes shut. The throbbing in his cock has diminished from a wanton ache to a wilting one. Arousal doesn’t find its place in premature regret and guilt. He isn’t allowed to have his cake and eat it too; he can’t have this. 

But, now that he knows what is precisely between them —

— It isn’t as if the dilemma is new. He’s been feeling conflicted about this ordeal for a long time coming, and this has merely swayed his favor more on the side of debauchery. It would be so easy, to admit everything to Hannibal, to strive for the chance of his forgiveness. To do whatever it is Hannibal tells him he needs to do to regain it, anything to stay in his life. To keep whatever it is they share.

When he turns, still shaking and depending too much on the firm touch upon his shoulder, his tears fall harder when he meets Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal’s concern deepens and he draws Will in for a hug, stroking his hair and pressing one palm flat to his lower back. 

“Shh,” he soothes. “Will, you must tell me what is on your mind.” 

Don’t forget what he is, what he did!

Will grapples, clenching and unclenching his fists in the fabric of Hannibal’s suit jacket. They were sharing ortolans not long before this, they were tiptoeing the fine line between courtship and partnership, and now Will has no idea where the line ends or begins. 

The tears don’t stop to the point he fears he’ll start wheezing, but he remains quiet, Hannibal quelling the tremble of his body with sedate hands, keeping Will pressed close as long as he needs. Will isn’t sure he’s ever experienced a better embrace. 

Hannibal turns, his lips close to Will’s ear, and he whispers,

“You’re most beautiful when you cry.” 

That phrase settles it. Will makes his decision.

“I have to tell you something, Hannibal.” 

Hannibal pulls back finally, hands moving from his back to his face. One cupping a cheek, another stroking the hollow of his throat, a thumb resting where his Adam’s apple bobs. 

“My ear is always open for you.” 

In for a penny, in for a pound. 

“I’ve been working with Jack to catch you. Bait you,” Will says, the admission tight with residual resistance. “We didn’t eat Freddie when you made Lomo Saltado. We ate Randall. She’s alive. I-It was a calculated ploy.” 

Hannibal’s gaze hardens, but his hands linger. Will half expects the hand on his throat to clench, but it stills. Will doesn’t break their eye contact, determined to see this through to its natural end. 

“Did you kill Randall?” Hannibal eventually asks, voice icy. 

“Yes. That was real. I didn’t tell Jack what I’d done until I left your house.” 

“And you’re telling me this, because?” 

The question is spoken carefully. Hannibal’s hands have both drifted down his throat, resting at the base. Will is certain he doesn’t even mean it as a threat; it is purely subconscious. 

“Because,” Will starts, quiet as snowfall. “The time I spend with you feels more real than the time I spend anywhere else...with anyone else.” 

Something in Hannibal’s expression lightens, but his eyes remain dark, and his body rigid like a statue. “Do you expect me to forgive you?” he asks bluntly. 

It sounds like a test. If he were going to kill Will, he would have done it by now. 

“I forgave you,” Will counters, uncertain he means it, but knowing he does when he says it out loud. Of course he forgave him. He ate at Hannibal’s table willingly, he spent time with him that Jack’s never even heard about. Will never hear about. He smiled and celebrated Randall’s sacrifice in the same mutedly exuberant manner Hannibal did. After his incarceration, he was too quick to lower his gun. Hannibal intrigued him and continues to intrigue him. More than that, the devotion they both feel has become mutually vital. 

Who knew it took something as simple as a blowjob to understand that?

He could laugh if his heart wasn’t feeling so wrung out, and if his eyes weren’t reddened and swollen. Hannibal stares at him a while longer, and drops his hands away, pacing a few steps toward the other end of the room. Will considers following him, but allows him the space. 

“You wanted to run with me,” Hannibal murmurs. “Is that still the case?” 

Will’s heartbeat races.

“I think it’s been the case for a while now.” 

“A conflict equally balanced in your mind as my capture.” 

“You framed me,” Will reminds, edging around the risk of calling Hannibal an overeager fool. “I did hint to you that friendship wouldn’t reach us for a thousand years, and yet you were eager to inherit my friendship again, next to no questions asked.” 

“Jack enlisted the help of a very clever fisherman,” Hannibal says simply, sounding empty.

Will does move then, wanting to touch, but keeping his hands to himself. 

“I’m not the greatest when it comes to feelings and attraction,” Will reminds him, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I’ve slowly been falling deeper and deeper into this…well of darkness, and I find the deeper I go, the less I want to return to the light.”

Hannibal turns, and he looks as if he’s mourning.

“You never intended to kill Jack by my side." 

“I don’t need a sacrifice. Do you?" Will pries.

For a moment, Will rides the pendulum back and forth. It may drop and disembowel the remnants of their intimacy or it may stop, and offer inanimate forgiveness in its stead. 

Hannibal’s gaze is glossy when he whispers, “There is a confession I too must make, Will.”

“Oh boy.” Will holds his ground, but nerves tingle in his fingertips. His heart is a moment away from splitting in two. If Hannibal’s done something he can’t forgive —

“Abigail isn’t dead. I’ve been keeping her safe and secluded for months.”

Something in Will’s stomach plummets and he jolts. 

“Not even you’re this cruel. You would joke – ”

“No joke,” Hannibal interrupts, stern and resolute. 

Will feels off balance; he reaches out to grab anything, but nothing is there, except ; Hannibal’s hand takes hold of his, and steadies him. “She is alive, Will. I planned…I made a place for us. For all of us. It was to be ready on the night of our departure. Your becoming.” 

It’s true. It’s all true. 

His hatred feels far away, but he’s wading in a thick mud of confusion, incapable of comprehending everything at once. Hannibal loves him and has loved him. Who knows how long. And, Abigail is alive. Has been alive, for perhaps, just as long. Will covers his mouth with his free hand, muting the series of gasps that wrack him.

“Why?” he manages. 

“When I told you I wished I could give her back to you, I meant it. Her death was never what I wanted, but the figurative was necessary to secure my freedom. Do you understand?”

Will jerks his head, understanding it slowly, but not enough. 

“She is our daughter, Will.” Hannibal places both hands on his shoulders, hard, until Will meets his eyes. He calms down when their gazes lock. He strokes Will’s shoulders, sighing. “We could be gone from here, in a world of our own making. All three of us. It could be in the blink of an eye, it could be a month from now. Depending on your decision.”

“I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Will declares truthfully, despite his small voice. 

“For a long time I’ve skirted the concept of wanting.” Hannibal appears softer than a few minutes prior when he’d closed himself to Will entirely. Will’s admission is settling into him gradually, and he’s understanding the shape of Will’s sudden loyalty to him. “Yet, I find I want nothing more.” 

“I want to see her,” Will says. “Now.” 

“Soon. I must know, in a few words, are you with me?” 

Will leans into the hand that is stroking up his cheek and kisses Hannibal’s palm. He holds the older man’s hand to his face for a time, until he feels at peace with letting go of it. 

“We would not survive separation. Damned if either of us try.”

The drive is long. Hours, if Will is keeping track. 

He falls asleep once or twice to the classical music playing softly on the radio. At some point, he feels himself being jostled as Hannibal folds his own jacket and slides it between Will’s cheek and the car window. Will doesn’t say a word, and settles more comfortably into the fabric that smells like him. 

He should tell Hannibal sometime that he likes how he smells.

Eventually, they pull up to a cliffside. 

Waves crash against the bluff, a gradual erosion. “For a time, Miriam Lass resided here,” Hannibal tells him, and Will blinks the house into view. Triangular. Lots of windows. 

His mouth feels sticky with sleep, but he’s calm. 

Last night resonates in a haze; he’d woken up to a light pounding headache Hannibal immediately remedied with coffee and Tylenol. He’s clear headed now, a myriad of thoughts and decisions tread frantically in the deep well of his mind; he’s not currently in contact with them. 

It’s not that he’s worried about second guessing himself; he’s worried of the cognitive dissonance that will come when he remembers promises, the expectations of Alana and even his dogs. Jack’s bellowing voice when he discovers Will has vanished off the grid. 

He’ll know. Know that Will’s not dead.

Jack will know this is what Will wanted. 

He can’t reconcile that quite yet, but he’s resolute in his decision. The scent of Hannibal lingers all the way down in his throat, and he drowsily hands the man his jacket back. Hannibal takes it but does not put it on, exiting the vehicle with only a crisp button-up and fitted trousers. Will watches him maneuver around the car to Will’s side and unbuckle him. 

“Come now, Will. I need you present for this.” 

Will blinks, and takes Hannibal’s proffered hand. 

“I’m more than present.” 

“Would you care to remain out here, or go inside?”

Will contemplates. The property is vast. Someone could easily brawl on the stone pavement preceding the front door. Inside, through the windows, he can see a piano. A couch that’s been used, and more couches covered in thick white sheets. Abigail doesn’t get many visitors. 

No, he has no interest in getting to know a place they’ll be abandoning in less than a day. This morning, Will had told him, ‘the sooner the better.’ Promptly after, Hannibal had scheduled a midnight flight to France, where they’ll board a train to Florence. 

His inner voice should be screaming, but it’s been silent since last night.

“I’ll wait here,” Will tells him, fiddling with his hands. Hannibal hands him the car keys with an almost suspicious level of trust, and retreats into the house. Only a couple minutes later, after listening to the restlessness of the waves below, he emerges with Abigail.

She is wearing a floral dress beneath a dark brown stadium coat. The navy blue of the flowing material beneath her jacket brings out her eyes; Will knows instantly Hannibal bought it for her with this purpose in mind. 

Abigail meets Will’s eyes with a shaky smile, and despite having hours to prepare himself, Will’s throat is closing. He can feel his eyes burn with disbelief. 

Hannibal nudges her with a hand at her lower back and she trots over, adjusting the strap of a satchel she’s lugging around her torso. “I did what he told me,” she explains, as if she has anything to explain herself for. “I knew I’d see you again.” 

Will’s returning smile is trembling, and with hesitation, he places a hand on her cheek, firmer when he’s sure she isn’t an apparition. Abigail appears nervous, but she allows it. 

Hannibal stands beside them, looking serene and only a smidge forlorn. Hell knows what manner of beast Will could have encouraged to unfurl. They might not have had this. Hannibal and Abigail both could have been gone forever, Abigail was for a time, and now the gift of family is returned to him – them – in full. 

“I’m so relieved to know you’re alive, Abigail,” he confesses weakly, unsure what else there is to be said. Her smile widens, her anxiety withering. 

She looks to Hannibal and then back at Will, and places her hand over Will’s, encouraging the touch to her cheek. “I’m relieved to know you chose us.” 

The sentiment hits Will like a brick to the chest. He nearly curls in on himself, but he closes his eyes and gives a jerky nod. He feels Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder and he drops his own. 

“When we are gone from here, far from the mist of the sea and the shards of fallen teacups, we will have boundless excerpts of time for retrospection,” says Hannibal.

“Right,” Will mutters, then meets Abigail’s eyes. “You have everything you need?”

“Just missing my plane ticket,” says Abigail, chipperness finding its place in her voice. It sounds natural. She should be happy, at peace with herself and her new life.

Will could learn a thing or two from her.

And just like that, Will’s impending life settles into view. 

Hannibal orders all three of them champagne on the flight. 

Abigail is chuffed, to say the least. She’s nineteen, bordering twenty in only a few weeks time. Will can’t help but smirk watching her wince with every sip. 

“Hasn’t he been getting you used to wine?” he asks mid-flight, while Hannibal is buried in a book. Abigail sits in the window seat, but hasn’t glanced out the window once during the trip. 

She snorts. “We sniff it more than we drink it. He hasn’t visited me in a while to cook anything, but he leaves me food. Ingredients I can’t actually snack on by themselves, but have to make recipes out of.” She lowers her voice, and Will humors her. “It’s kind of annoying.” 

“Better to broaden your palate sooner than later,” Hannibal informs, without skipping a beat. Will cocks a brow at him, but the stubborn man doesn’t look up from his book. 

“My father sufficiently broadened my palate I think,” she snipes, and Will stiffens. Abigail looks at him apologetically, as if she’s about to take back what she said, but he shakes his head.

“I didn’t join you two because I wanted to be ignorant to our circumstances,” he assures. “It may take some getting used to, though.” 

“You’re telling me,” she grumbles. “I thought you two, uh, had some business to attend to before we left. I never expected to leave this early, I mean, Hannibal said – ”

Will clears his throat. “Circumstances shifted.” 

Hannibal hides his smirk behind the pages Will is certain he isn’t genuinely reading. 

Silence takes up most of their flight. Not for want of it, but because they are surrounded by travelers and open ears. In such close quarters, secrets could bleed into the dangerous territories of strangers. 

Abigail falls asleep seven hours in, and Will is growing tired himself, the inviting heat of Hannibal’s body beside his own not helping matters. 

“Are we fighting or can I use your shoulder?” Will mutters, scooting an inch closer. 

Hannibal closes his book and his eyes glint with amusement. 

“Are we fighting?” 

Will glares. “I assumed betrayal wasn’t something so easily forgotten.” 

“Not forgotten, merely dampened. I find difficulty in holding your transgressions against you after you so graciously reminded me of your forgiveness for my own.” 

“Who is the betrayer and who is the betrayed?” Will muses with a small smile.

Hannibal returns the expression. “I’m vague on those details.”

“I’m not vague on these details,” Will murmurs before gently resting his cheek on Hannibal’s shoulder, a padded suit jacket as comfortable as a pillow. His eyes slip shut when Hannibal doesn’t resist. He rises and falls with his steady breathing pattern.

“Forgiveness and betrayal have never felt so much like falling in love,” Hannibal says in a whisper so quiet, Will has to contend with the possibility he might have imagined it. 

He doesn’t respond, not sure if he can, but with the hand on the armrest between them, he inches his fingers closer until he’s brushing against the back of Hannibal’s hand. He interlaces them. 

The strength he expects will break his hand turns out to be a tender squeeze, no more than a fleeting reassurance that Will’s unresponsive response is heard and understood. 

Will forces his smile down, and easily falls asleep with the droning hum of the plane in the background, and Hannibal’s consistent warmth under his weight.

The train ride from Paris to Florence is shorter, but only just. 

Abigail lies against Hannibal’s side and sleeps, with his arm draped around her shoulder holding her close. Will watches them curiously from the bench parallel. 

“You’ve taken good care of her,” Will observes. Aside from mutilating her ear, he doesn’t add. 

“We are all she has left,” Hannibal tells him, then, “I’ve told you she reminds me of my sister.”

“She doesn’t mean nearly as much to you as her, though,” says Will in a lowered pitch. It isn’t a question, and Hannibal doesn’t dispute it. 

“You care for her as I care for her. We ache for her dependence, we yearn for her apprenticeship. We both wish for what is best for Abigail, and want to direct her on the path she desires and deserves.”

Will nods. If Abigail wants to return to school, they’ll be at her aid. If she wants to seek out a job, or globe trot to find herself, they can help her with that as well. If she wants to stay with Hannibal and Will indefinitely, he doesn’t see why not. They all belong to each other in a way. 

He thinks of family, and then of his dogs. 

Hannibal notices him sobering. 

“What lingers within, Will?” 

“I was thinking of Winston,” he admits, and gains a thrill from it. Telling Hannibal the truth, not having to hold back. Being on equal terms. “I miss him. I miss all my dogs.”

Hannibal looks as if he has the urge to offer something, but he remains silent and strokes Abigail’s hair as she rests. Will wants to stand and close the miniscule space to join them, but there is still a barrier he hasn’t been able to cross. He wants to catch up to his feelings, and come to terms with his doubts and guilt. He wants Abigail to feel comfortable in his arms too before he insinuates himself into the position Hannibal has already had the time to mold himself into. 

Eventually, Hannibal says, “I am not often subject to whimsy, however I have been considering the surreal aspects of this trip. I have never felt so much like I am trapped in a dream.”

“Trapped?” Will echoes. He doesn’t feel trapped. 

“The longer we travel, the sharper the blow when I wake. 

“Do you want me to pinch you?” Will teases, and Hannibal nearly grins. 

“If you believe you’re capable of making it hurt, be my guest.” 

Will’s lips quirk provocatively, but doesn’t move to pinch him. They make eye contact for what feels like an hour, Will crossing his legs, and Hannibal’s hand in Abigail’s hair having gone still. 

They both don’t notice the food trolley rolling by and the attendant asking repeatedly if they require refreshments. The elder woman doesn’t bother asking the second run.

The apartment in Florence is lavish, and Will feels his first wave of nausea upon entering. The reality of their situation has finally hit him, and he’s grateful for Hannibal’s firm hands on his shoulders guiding him through the goliath space to keep him from collapsing. 

Abigail looks as if she is expecting it, and Hannibal leads her to her room where she may explore while he helps Will settle in. 

Will balances his hands on the extensive dining table under a golden arched ceiling. It is spacious, open enough to make him feel exposed. He used to sleep and eat and work in the same room. He used to live with several dogs. He used to be a special agent. 

He’s on the run. He’s in a different country. 

“Will,” Hannibal distracts him just barely from hyperventilating with the fortitude in his voice. “Breathe, and tell me your name, where you are, what time it is.” 

Will shakes his head rapidly, scoffing out a laugh, but Hannibal grabs his face with both hands, holding him steady even as Will attempts to tear himself out of his all-too-familiar embrace. 

He is met with an immovable expression, one that says You will do as I say , and Will can’t help himself, faculties melting as he forces out, “My name is Will Graham, I’m in Florence, Italy, it’s…it’s…” he looks down at his watch, and it takes too long for his blurry eyes to focus on the numbers. “It is 6:25 pm. My name is Will Graham…”

“Good boy,” Hannibal whispers after he repeats the mantra a few more times. The endearment makes him weak in the knees, but instead of falling, he allows himself to be led from the dining room to his bedroom. Their bedroom, apparently, as Hannibal sets both of their bags down by the bed and turns to gauge his reaction, as subtle as the maneuver is, Will sees it for what it is.

There is still an insecurity regarding their position in each other’s lives, new and old. 

Will familiarized himself with his passport briefly, just well enough to get through security. He is stealing the identity of a man named Harrison Palmer, the young husband of Marius Rousseau, Rousseau works privately as a high-end psychiatrist on the outskirts of France, having met his lover in Paris where he’d been traveling from England as a student in university. They married soon after, and have stayed together since. When they are disposed of, their identities will make an impulsive move to Florence where they will adopt an older daughter; Abigail's new identity, Shelley Black, is stated to be seventeen for this reason. It’s easier to invent an orphan than find one to maim and reinvent. Abigail can only just get away with the age, to their benefit.

Hannibal mentioned briefly their need to take out the real Palmer and Rousseau as soon as possible. 

He had told Will this the morning he woke up in the guest room in Hannibal’s Baltimore home, and Will had told him it didn’t matter. Why would it? He’d made his bed with the Chesapeake Ripper. He made his choice. It was a matter of whether he’d join him. 

They don’t need to wonder about that now. 

Will has at least a week to decide, and he’s not in any mood to decide this instant. 

He knew they’d be robbing the lives of a married couple, but the reality that they’ll be sleeping together sinks in. Christ, they were barely on a first name basis a week ago. Calling him Doctor Lecter now would feel foreign, but he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act. 

“We didn’t even have a honeymoon,” he jokes, voice dry from heaving. 

Hannibal inspects the pillows, running his hands over the silk as if to double check their validity. He looks up with a curious smile and says, “Would you like one?” 

“Hell,” Will mutters. “This is a lot to process, I mean, we – are we – ”

Hannibal strides closer. “We are whatever you want us to be, Will.” 

“Don’t give me that kind of power.”

“How about lending it to you?” Hannibal suggests. He curls a stray lock of hair behind Will’s ears, unwilling to break their eye contact. “I have come to terms with the fact you may have been confused that night, and if you decide that sort of intimacy has no place in our lives, you will not disappoint me. It is enough that you are here.” 

Will swallows, wanting to say so many things, but Hannibal is already moving. Around the room, inspecting other things. Preparing their room for their semi-permanent stay. This is where they’ll live, rest, and thrive. Together, hand in hand, if Will wishes it. 

He could wish for more. 

“Your feelings for me weren’t apparent you know,” Will says, still planted in the same spot Hannibal left him. He doesn’t think he could move his feet if he tried. “I always thought you were interested in me, only for my mind. I didn’t know you thought about me like that.”

“I have thought of you in all ways,” Hannibal responds easily. “I have thought about laying you out on silk sheets, and I have imagined you quivering as your skin swallows a blade. I have imagined you basking in Italy, and as a dish on my dining table.” He turns to face Will where he’s standing by the wardrobe. “Should I desist with my honesty?”

“I demand honesty from you.” Will finds himself lacking the ability to care about what Hannibal just confessed. “In turn, I will give you my own.”

“See, we’re already exchanging vows.”

Will’s lips twitch. “I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to come clean, had you not kissed me. You would have had to hurt me.”

“Yes,” Hannibal admits, tone cold. “Badly.”

“Is it alright if I don’t demand honesty about that scenario?”

“I would prefer you didn’t, but if you did, I would give it regardless.” 

Will finds his footing after a stilted silence, and he wobbles over to the bed to sit down. The mattress is softer than anything he’s ever touched and he closes his eyes and breathes. The scent of Hannibal, the scent of new surroundings, the ruckus of Florence’s city life just beyond the window. He’d left a voicemail for Alana to take care of his dogs. They are safe.

“It’s not enough,” he whispers.

“Hmm?”

“It’s not enough that I’m here,” Will clarifies, meeting Hannibal’s heated gaze. “It’s not enough for me.”  

It is a miracle they understand one another so well; any other man would have taken the admission as a rejection, but Hannibal absorbs it and his body lights up. He closes in on Will and sits next to him, the position they’d been in on the plane. He cups Will’s cheek with one hand and isn’t reluctant to close the distance, and slide their lips together with dizzying finesse. 

It isn’t the drunken passion they both experienced before. 

Will takes advantage of his sober state to memorize the feeling of a man’s stubble brushing his own heavier beard, Hannibal’s lips, the way his upper one curves delicately and is plush to surround with both his own. With hesitance only wrought from his inexperience with men, he lifts a hand to Hannibal’s cheek, and kisses back with fervor, whimpering when Hannibal slips his tongue along the seam of his lips, encouraging and gratifying. 

It breaks after only a minute, and Will brings their cheeks flush, heart fluttering rampantly as he comes down from the high of kissing someone who means more to him than anyone ever has. 

“Do you see?” Hannibal rasps, voice the deepest Will has ever heard. Will pulls back fractionally to blink up at him, waiting. “This is all I ever wanted for you, Will.” 

Family, understanding, becoming. 

Evolve. Adapt. Live and thrive. 

“It’s beautiful,” Will whispers. 

Maybe it’s because Will hasn’t been in a long-term relationship since college, or maybe it’s because the man he’s partnered up with is the Chesapeake Ripper, but he startles every time he receives a kiss to the nape of his neck, or on his cheek. It often comes when he mildly dissociates and is mostly unaware of his surroundings. Hannibal never seems to tire of the sputtering reaction, beaming with glee each time he causes Will to jump and blush. 

Abigail caught Hannibal doing it while the three of them were touring the city for the first time. He brazenly grazed his lips across the skin of Will’s neck in front of the city center carousel, and Abigail smirked and turned the other way rather conspicuously. 

Will was prickly for the rest of the day, even when they all received free chocolate at a nearby sweets shop that melted on their tongues like pure gold. It made him feel boneless, with such obscene pleasure in the expensive treats Hannibal insists on exposing them to. 

He’ll have them spoiled like prized hogs. 

Will figures out more and more, he doesn’t mind. 

What he minds is drawing attention with the public displays of affection. “They have no evidence, our names haven’t surfaced on TattleCrime,” Hannibal will tell him, soothing and calm. “Jack knows. Alana knows, of course, but we needn’t be careful until we have to be.”

“It’s just a matter of time,” Will argues back, on their sixth evening in Italy. Tension has been swiftly building between them over the last couple of days. Tonight, Hannibal will have to hunt down Rousseau and Palmer and kill them. Will still hasn’t decided if he’s coming. 

“If you decide to come with me, I need your conviction.” Hannibal is pouring them both cups of wine before one or both of them departs. 

“You need me to be sure so I don’t screw up your art.”

“I merely want to avoid you overthinking your choice. If you do not feel certain, you will not enjoy yourself, and your experience in Florence under this man’s name may sour.” 

Will takes a hefty sip from his wine glass. “Enjoy myself,” he scoffs.

“You would deny you enjoyed killing Randall Tier.” 

Will remains silent and grimaces when Hannibal adds, “Would you have enjoyed yourself had you genuinely killed Freddie Lounds?” 

“I almost did,” he answers quietly. “Kill her, I mean. I was this close.” Will pinches his pointer finger and thumb together. “It was easy, so easy. I could practically feel her blood on my hands before I decided to spare her.” 

“You told me killing bad people makes you feel good,” Hannibal reminds. “Freddie Lounds, while rude, is not inherently a bad person. Not in the sense that she takes delight in the physical destruction and transfiguration of man. Would you have felt good?” 

“I don’t know, Hannibal, I’m not – ” Will interrupts himself with an impulsive hissing-sip of his drink. “I’m not you. I couldn’t be indifferent.”

“I am rarely indifferent.” 

“You are a grandstander amongst killers,” Will agrees carefully. “I have no interest in claiming to know who deserves the hand of justice and who doesn’t. While I attract to behaviourism, I still don’t take delight in outright destruction.”

“You accept what I am.”

“Yes, I do, but I tolerate what you do. I don’t delight in it, Hannibal.”

Hannibal looks at him strangely, and then says, lacking any intonation, “I do not believe you would benefit from this trip.” 

“If that’s a trick to taunt me into going, I’m not biting.” 

Hannibal huffs. “Hardly, Will.” 

“Be careful,” Will murmurs when Hannibal moves across the room to grab his helmet. He’s taking the motorcycle he’d bought yesterday at a nearby dealership. Before he leaves, Will says in a rush, “Can I see you off?”

Hannibal softens at the edges and nods. 

In his housepants and glass of wine in hand, Will walks with Hannibal down to the street where their car and Hannibal’s bike are parked. Hannibal is hoping to teach Abigail how to drive the motorcycle so she can travel with it to whichever university she gets accepted. 

She has decided to major in psychology. They told her she needn’t make a decision so soon, but they’d given her specific majors to stay clear of regardless. Political science, law enforcement, acting. Any study that could get her face in the papers. It hadn’t taken long after narrowing down her choices to a strict index had she fully decided. Will earned a thrum of pleasure; Abigail following in Hannibal’s footsteps, almost like a fawn mimicking its mothers behaviors. 

It was hopelessly endearing. 

Hannibal shrugs on the leather jacket he’d obtained from the foyer and Will’s mouth goes dry. Honestly, he suspected it would look silly on him, but he looks rugged. Good. Really good.

The helmet doesn’t even look bad; his head has a nice shape for it. 

When Hannibal throws his leg over the bike as if mounting a horse, Will nearly drops his glass to the pale pavement of the sidewalk. He steps closer as Hannibal watches him and curls his fingers in the hair at Hannibal’s nape, kissing him hard before pulling back abruptly. 

Hannibal blinks, and then grins. The tension between, drained. 

“Arrivederci, amore mio,” Hannibal tells him in perfect Italian.

Will grins back, and startles when he revs the bike. It is extremely loud, and he’s almost swept away by the gust of wind when Hannibal takes off, whipping indelicately down the street. He worries briefly he’ll be pulled over by the polizia, but remembers Hannibal knows what he’s doing, and retreats back into the house. 

Abigail has long since gone to bed. She’s an early riser and an early rester for a young woman. At her age, Will used to stay up till two am reading about criminal psychology. How badly he had wanted to be in the force then, to help people. More or less, be close to the visions of death that seemed to haunt him since birth. It’s moments like these in his life, he realises how his desire to be in the FBI was selfish. That life, had he been stable enough to enter into it, would have been a fig leaf to hide his ravenous self from the world. He wonders if Hannibal could say the same thing about his tolerance. 

When Will slips under the covers that night, it’s the first time he becomes aware of how well he’s slept the past week. Never in his life has he gone a full six days receiving every single wink of shut-eye he’s deserved. Tonight is different. He can’t sleep, but he isn’t plagued by nightmares.

There’s empty spaces in his reality, a hole beside him in bed created by his own co-dependence. He and Hannibal have been fostering it for months now, Will believing he would be able to pry himself away from what he thought was simply a mask. No, he wasn’t creating a mask, he was removing the one that’s covered his true self for years. 

He misses Hannibal. He wishes he could talk to him about this. 

Will spends most of the night staring at Hannibal’s pillow, picturing him sleeping there. The sun slowly rises, and he hasn’t budged. His eyes blink every few minutes, yet they feel drier than dust. Blue as light as baby’s breath seeps in between the seams of the royal curtains, and Will decides to go make a coffee instead of lying destitute.

He returns to their bedroom with a mug and props himself up against the headboard, festering in his thoughts for so long his drink quickly turns cold. He chugs it anyway, needing the rippling sensation of caffeine to coarse through his veins. 

The thought only enters his mind once;

What am I going to do if he’s caught or killed?

He’s fairly certain he could spin a story about Hannibal abducting him, and he has enough money saved on his accounts at home to take care of himself and Abigail, but the concept is so intensely harrowing that he is forced to close his eyes and enter his quiet stream for distraction.

The front door jostles distantly and Will perks up. 

He debates pretending to sleep for two minutes before Hannibal enters their room, now filled with yellow morning light. He looks sleep deprived, and Will is sure he mirrors the look. At least Hannibal had a reason to stay awake; he had bodies to kill and dispose of. 

Will, well, Will was worried. 

For one of the most intelligent serial killers the world has ever known. 

Hannibal left his leather jacket on the coat hanger in the foyer, but Will can still picture the way it outlined his broad biceps and shoulders. Will sets his empty coffee mug down on the bedside bureau with a gulp. Their eyes haven’t broken contact as Hannibal lingers in the doorway.

“Did you bring home any leftovers?” is all Will can think to say. 

Hannibal’s hardened expression cracks and he removes his belt, placing it beside the mug on the dresser before kneeling on the rumpled comforter to kiss Will deeply. 

Will clasps his hands over Hannibal’s cheeks. He’s cool from the morning air that he no doubt whipped through just as fast as he’d departed last night. They kiss for enough time that Hannibal readjusts himself to get comfortable, half straddling Will’s sheets-covered lap. 

Will sinks a bit into the pillows, snarling one hand through Hannibal’s hair and curling the other down the planes of his back. They haven’t ever gone this long. Their kisses last less than a minute, and if they go beyond, it is merely for a few, fleeting pecks.

They break for air, but the passion between them isn’t dwindling. Will’s heart flutters when Hannibal presses closer, and dips his head into the crook of his neck, kissing the expanse of his throat, sucking and teasing with vigor. He chokes on soft noises of pleasure until he surprises himself with a loud, long moan when Hannibal bites at his bobbing Adam’s apple. 

Will’s eyes burst open, and Hannibal meets them, lips parted and panting. 

They grin at each other, and suddenly everything is moving at the speed of light. Will is shoving the sheets down to his ankles, fighting with Hannibal’s pants until they’re sprawled across the floor and Hannibal is in nothing but his silk briefs and brown short sleeved shirt. The rest of their clothes remain on, and Hannibal insinuates himself over Will, legs weaving with legs, arms coiling around each other. It is a subconscious move, when Will grabs at the comforter and tugs it back up so it covers both of them. It creates a heated bubble where only their bodies, intertwined, lie. It feels safer here, and infinitely warmer, when Hannibal returns to his neck and maps it with his tongue. Will keeps one hand in Hannibal’s hair at all times, tightening his fingers in time with his pleasure, and scratching at any skin he can find with the other. Hannibal keeps his hands to himself, which won’t do, so Will moves them to his waist, hissing when Hannibal tries to take them away, out of whatever warped sense of decency he’s harboring. 

“Put your hands on me,” Will breathes, “Come on.” 

Hannibal's hesitation vanishes and he kisses him thoroughly, tongue against the roof of Will’s mouth, behind the backs of his teeth. He has an invertible interest in his nipples, rubbing them with his thumbs languidly as he sucks his tongue. Will moans again when he flicks them simultaneously. 

Neither of their cocks are hard, but they’re getting there. Will doesn’t particularly care if either of them gets off, so much as they keep touching. 

“How was the happy couple?” Will asks when their kissing becomes frantic and they need to break for air again. He skates a hand down Hannibal’s waist and flexes his hand over the stiff muscles there. 

“Supple,” he responds roughly, a hand curling down Will’s thigh to test the weight of it in the palm of his hand. Will’s head falls against the pillow as he catches his breath from the surge to his libido. 

“Do we get that honeymoon now?” Will mocks, laugh tapering off into a choked moan when Hannibal descends low enough to lick over his nipple, just below where Will’s sleep shirt has ridden up. 

“I would wine and dine you,” Hannibal whispers, nosing along the contours of his torso. “I would watch you become seduced by the sights and sounds I have the capacity to show you. I would have you then, anywhere you desire, for as long as you desire,” he lurches up and Will’s breath hitches when he feels Hannibal’s lips against the curve of his ear, “as hard as you desire.” 

Will’s voice is reedy and small when he murmurs, “Hannibal.” 

Hannibal hums, dragging his lips down his jawline. 

“I’ve never,” he starts and shakes his head. “Not with a man, I haven’t.” 

“You needn’t tell me things I already know,” Hannibal replies teasingly. Will glares daggers at him and gasps when Hannibal rocks their bodies together. Being under someone, it’s so different. 

“To think we were in therapy not even two weeks ago,” Will mutters and Hannibal laughs, bangs falling over his forehead appealingly. 

“I find this quite therapeutic.”

“Not sure if I could say the same.”

“How do you find it?” Hannibal asks, knocking their noses together. Will glances between his eyes and his lips and knocks back, a smile cracking on his face.

“I don’t think therapy is supposed to turn you on this much.” 

A noise comes from the back of Hannibal’s throat, a growl that sounds more like a purr than anything else and Will finds himself instantly addicted. He wants to hear that again. 

Hannibal’s hand skates up Will’s thigh and Will arches with it.

“Therapy with you arouses me,” he confesses. “Dinner with you arouses me. This could easily be both.”

“I don’t think you want to be calling me dinner, Doctor,” Will warns without sincerity. He scratches his hands harshly down his scalp to watch the way Hannibal’s eyes glaze over. 

“Shall I endorse my claim?”

Will bestows a wet, dire kiss on his lips. It is all the encouragement Hannibal is going to get, so the man descends without another word under the blankets, kissing down Will’s chest and stomach to reach his target. He’s going to finish what he started in his living room in Baltimore. 

Will keeps one hand tangled in Hannibal’s hair, clenching when the man nuzzles into his erection, fat with arousal. With the other, he tugs his own hair, trembling and struggling to trap the groans purging his throat. Hannibal curls his fingers, snake-like, around Will’s boxers and –

Abigail flings the door open without so much as a knock, and Will’s eyes burst open, face turning tomato-red with embarrassment. For a moment, he expects a scream.

“Hey where’d you put the coffee grounds this time?” she asks. 

Discreetly, Will glances down at himself to find that, despite the bulk, there is nothing seemingly wrong with the image in front of Abigail. If she doesn’t really look, she won’t notice the comforter is thicker than normal, hiding the weight of a large, burly man between Will’s legs.

“Uh,” Will’s voice cracks instantly, “Top shelf – No wait, sorry, the cabinet to the right of the sink.” Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.  

Abigail maintains eye contact with him, oblivious.

“We seriously need to encourage Hannibal to get a place with fewer cabinets and drawers the next time we move. Dude has a kitchen paraphilia.” 

“Sure does,” Will laughs too loud to sound normal. 

Abigail gives him an odd look, then smiles lightly before saying, “Thanks though!” She shuts the door and Will sighs so harshly it practically comes out as a sob.

Will tosses the sheets aside, and he could laugh at the humorous image of Hannibal hunched in on himself between his legs, like an oversized turtle, but his adrenaline is pumping so vigorously through him he feels as if he’ll vomit at the slightest instigation. 

Hannibal sits up and rubs at his own neck.

“I’ve had several patients complain about their children ruining their sex life, and before now I always felt it was a ridiculous notion,” he grumbles. Will does laugh then, arousal dissipated, but affection still very much intact. 

Hannibal looks domestic, with his hair esque, and his clothes rumpled. 

“You’ll have to pick a good time then,” he encourages.

“Hmm?” Hannibal strokes Will’s cheek, and Will sits up too, leaning into the touch. He meets Hannibal’s eyes deviously. 

“For our honeymoon.” 

Abigail is accepted into several universities under her alias, but after some encouragement from Hannibal, and his otherworldly promises of paying her full tuition, she decides to enroll in the University of Florence. She won’t start until the upcoming fall, but has decided to live on campus for a three day summer program expanding the weekend. 

Hannibal is driving. The two of them will see her off, and take the chance to check out the school themselves. Hannibal had been once as a young man, apparently, and Will wants to ask more about his time in Italy, if he killed anyone, how long he stayed. He wants to know everything.

His old life seems so far away. 

Mid-way through the drive, Abigail scoots up from the car seat behind them and pushes an earbud into Will’s left ear. He huffs, adjusts it, and allows her to choose the music she wants to share. It starts with Rosemary by Brian Hyland so he closes his eyes to the dated tune and allows it to sweep him away for a while. Abigail taps the center console in a rhythm. 

The drive is short. The two of them only listen to a few old fashioned songs, and Will makes a mental note to ask Abigail later why she is so interested in doo-wop music. It doesn't fit with his image of her.

Hannibal strokes a hand over Abigail’s hair once he parks and pinches her nose playfully to make her laugh. “Are you ready, my dear?” 

“Nervous.”

“We’ll be there for you,” Will promises. If anything, he knows that is the truth.

They lead her through the vast halls of the university, up steep staircases where families pass, speaking in loud Italian dialects. Will has been learning, very slowly, but mostly only understands the small phrases Hannibal greets him with when he wakes, and before they sleep. Especially the ones he whispers in his ear before kissing him and grasping a hand over his trembling throat. 

There seems to be a paltry orientation, and Will can’t help but acknowledge how they stick out. Two older men with their now "eighteen" year old daughter who looks rather twenty one. Somebody offers her champagne when she separates from them to observe the art gallery. 

“Not nearly as exquisite as Florence’s Academy of Fine Arts,” Hannibal observes in the high-hat manner he presents to the world, the one where bystanders never really notice how condescended they are under his thinly veiled comments. 

“Would you like champagne?” Hannibal asks, a hand smoothing over Will’s lower back. 

“Just antsy.” 

“We’ve jumped from adoption straight to our little bird leaving the nest,” Hannibal allows. “It is certainly an odd feeling.” 

“I’m not sure it’s that. I look at these people, the common folk, and wonder if they look at us and see a family. Or do they see a jumble of misfits?” 

“Misfits can be family.”

Will doesn’t respond, and Hannibal appears to take this as incentive to prove to the crowds, they are in fact very much a family. He leans down, champagne in hand, and kisses Will softly on the mouth. Will jerks back, blinking fast and whipping his head around to look for watchful eyes. 

“You can’t do that,” Will grits out, slumping in relief when he realises no one was looking.

Hannibal isn’t phased. “And why not?”

“It’s…Abigail, she might see.”

“Abigail knows, dear boy,” he replies, straightforward. “This city is quite accepting of homosexuality. You have nothing to worry about on the front of confrontation,” he continues, placing his empty glass on a hovering waiter’s plate. 

Will scoffs. “I’m not a homosexual.”

Hannibal stares at him, his smile placid. “Is that so?”

Will turns to him with the intention of arguing, but he takes a deep breath and considers how badly he wants to shut Hannibal up with a kiss – this thought shuts him up and he smiles wryly.

“I need, um,” Will waves a hand, gesticulating. “Time, I think. To accept more of it, in places like these. Might take a long time.”

He’s only drawing more attention to them by acting out.

“Longer than it took you to accept my darker vices,” Hannibal murmurs playfully. 

Holding back a roll of the eyes, Will presses his tongue to his bottom lip and nods. “After this, I still want you to take me to that bridge you told me about.” 

“I have no intention of depriving you.”

Will is aware they’re making eyes again so he looks away to find Abigail chatting with an extremely handsome Italian boy, seemingly around her age. His features are chiseled and he’s wearing a tight leather jacket that rides up around his wrists. Hannibal’s eyes lock on him.

“I must find a suitable butcher, soon,” Hannibal says conversationally. 

Will wonders if it’s a veiled threat against this man who poses danger to Abigail’s fragile heart. He can’t help but feel indifferent if Hannibal plans to kill any man who dares poison their daughter with false promises and serpentine charm. Will keeps his eye on the boy for the rest of the evening, but he wanders off to rejoin a group of friends and Abigail comes up to them with a blush in her cheeks, looking very happy she made the decision to come to this three-day camp. 

“You two don’t have to linger, you know,” she says, chuckling a bit. “I know you want time to yourselves.”

“Are we embarrassing you?” Hannibal asks, teeth flashing in a crooked smile.

Abigail waves her arms in the air. “No! Of course not, I can take care of it from here, though. You’ve been great, really – ” Will clasps her on the shoulder, and interrupts. 

“No need to explain yourself to us, Abigail. Never us.” 

She relaxes, smiling wider. Without reluctance, she kisses both of them on the cheek, and Will melts a bit. “The best dads anyone could ask for!” she declares, giving them the Ol’ American thumbs-up before trotting off towards a group of students she seems to have befriended.

Hannibal lets go of an elongated, burdened sigh. 

“Come on, pops,” Will teases in a low voice.

The other parents are leaving, bidding their sons and daughters farewell with kisses and tight hugs. It almost feels normal, to be departing with the rest of them. Like they belong here. 

Hannibal raises a brow at the ‘pops’ label, but doesn’t dare utter a word. He glances one last time at Abigail before leading Will back to the car. Inside, Hannibal turns on the radio and a dramatic aria plays, seeping into every nook and cranny of the car. It fills Will’s head deliciously, and he feels able to conquer something. He feels powerful. 

Hannibal risks holding Will’s hand on the drive to Ponte Santa Trìnita. Will holds his hand back, hiding his smile with his other one. 

Truly, the drive from the university to the bridge is not far. It takes longer to find a parking space, but the cool evening air hits Will’s skin pleasantly when the car is finally parked and he’s able to step out into the turbulent winds of Italy. Sights and smells invade him; the powerful feeling hasn’t diminished. Hannibal locks the car and shows Will around the block with a light dialogue of history and intuition. It seems he wants to avoid the bridge itself until the sun is in full set.

He buys Will amarena gelato, and nothing for himself. 

Will holds back every moan rising in his throat at the taste and startles when Hannibal swipes a thumb over the corner of his lips where cream is stained. 

“You look like you want to kiss me,” Will states outright. “Or kill me.” 

“Why not both?” Hannibal questions, hair whipping in the wind. Even the special gel he uses cannot fight against the weather; Will doesn’t want to know what his own curls look like. 

The bridge is longer once you’re on it, spanning the entire arno. Hannibal informs him it is the oldest elliptic bridge in the world, and suddenly Will feels like he’s walking on a tightrope made of teacups. Something breakable under his heavy, destructible shoes. Hannibal holds him steady, an arm looped through his own, and brings him about to the center of the bridge, facing the sun. 

The aria from the car radio is echoing in Will’s ears, and he leans into Hannibal’s shoulder, feeling little to none of the reluctance he’d been feeling at the academy’s orientation. Hannibal buries his face in Will’s hair and kisses the top of his head, as if it were a precious thing. 

“We’ll kill each other,” Will says, voice far too mellow for the statement. 

“Maybe,” Hannibal agrees. “One day. However, I find that to be a less desirable outcome with each moment that passes. I would like to show you Florence, Will. There are enchanting places here with stories I’ve yet to share. Stories I’ve never wanted to share with anyone other than you.”

“I should hate you,” Will whispers, even as he’s tucked closer.

“What is it instead, that you feel?”

“Don’t,” he murmurs, softer. “I’m not ready for that.”

“I am, and will be still when you find yourself ready.”

The comfort of Hannibal’s assurity shouldn’t effect Will so heavily. He feels loose and at peace with himself. He’s not sure he’s ever felt that, even before his illness, before he met Hannibal. He remembers his childhood, and the pain of scraping himself against rusted, charred boat motors. He remembers taking in new strays, and staring into the faces of students he never knew the names of. He remembers wondering if he was ever going to have someone he could call home.

He remembers doubting he ever would. 

“How long would it have taken?” Will inquires, watching the sun dip into a deeper orange. “If we hadn’t gotten here when we did, if–if you were forced to hurt me. Do you think we could have figured it out? You and me?”

“Your radiance is a unique thing to behold,” Hannibal tells him, carefully evading the rhetorical. “I highly doubt I could ever find a source more spectacular.” 

They stand in silence, leaning into one another like buoys having drifted and collided, over and over. Crashing waves are relentless, driving them against each other as if they themselves are the hands of fate. 

“Hannibal,” Will starts and realises then Hannibal’s arms are around his waist, and their cheeks are flush. It felt so natural, it failed to raise his shackles. That’s new, for anyone to inspire such trust in him, let alone Hannibal who trusting felt foreign so short a time ago. Hannibal hums in acknowledgement and he continues, “There are things I’m not ready to say. I’m fairly sure I won’t be ready for a long time to come, but, uh, there is something I do want to say.”

“Yes, amore mio?” Hannibal asks in his ear, and hell, it’s going to take a long time for Will to get used to being called such things, in a voice such as that. 

“I want you,” Will confesses. 

Dinner at home was sexually charged, to say the least. 

Candles were lit, on all surfaces around the dining room save for the high window sill even Hannibal couldn’t reach. Will watched him serve spicy szechuan tripe salad, both having agreed to a light meal, and the smell itself was nearly enough to make him black out. Dense savory scents filled the room, along with the heady, peppery smell of chili sauce. 

Will doesn’t ask Hannibal if the tripe is constructed from the stomach of the recently departed, and he doesn’t ask if it is from cattle. Both know it doesn’t matter, but the thrill of the possibility, is what adds to the charge between them.

It is the first time they have truly been alone in the apartment. 

Will can’t help himself, rushing through dinner and chugging down two glasses of wine so fast he feels tipsy. Hannibal only bothers bringing the dishes to the sink rather than washing them, unusual behavior, before Will traps him against the fridge, timidly kissing his neck and working his way up his jaw. He makes sure to rub his beard against Hannibal’s smooth cheek before sliding their lips together. 

“May I have you?” Hannibal whispers, mouth warm on his skin. 

“God,” Will sighs. “Yeah, have me. Anything.” 

They find themselves back in their bedroom, tangling in the sheets as they roll around, smiling stupidly and nipping at the most sensitive spots they can find. Will moans freely when Hannibal rips his shirt open and buttons go flying, that warm mouth latching onto a nipple.

“You feel good,” Will admits softly, licking his lips and allowing himself to sink into the sensations. “I didn’t think you would ever feel this good.” 

“I imagined you would fit me like a glove,” Hannibal hoarsely says, dragging teeth over his chest and up. Will’s breath hitches at the implication and is then kissed, breathless. 

They make out for what feels like a lifetime. Urgent and patient all at once. Will gropes every pocket of flesh he can find, thumbs stroking Hannibal’s soft tummy as the man bends closer, balancing on his elbows to cage Will in. 

Will hums, “Want it,” nuzzling his nose against Hannibal’s. 

Hannibal purrs, “Tell me what it is you want, mio caro.” 

“Want you to fit inside me.” Will holds Hannibal’s head still as he plants wet kisses all along his jawline. “I want two to become one.” 

Hannibal goes foggy eyed with affection, and his lids droop. Will kisses him, registering he can no longer taste their difference. They’ve been kissing for so long they taste the same. Hannibal bends down, moving the sheet in his haste and strokes over Will’s abdomen, dragging a nail in a straight line above and across his naval. “Here,” he murmurs. 

Will blinks fast, trying to catch up.

All the blood in his body plummeted to his cock over an hour ago. 

“I would have hurt you here,” Hannibal elaborates, quieter as he continues to stroke over the invisible line as if a scar exists in his mind. “Opened you, penetrated you. Watched you fall to the floor to clutch your insides and try feebly to keep them from spilling out.” 

Ice cold rivulets of fear trickle up the epidermis of Will’s skin. 

“When I told you I’d rather not know the details, that wasn’t me hinting you should tell me when we’re in bed together,” Will responds drily, but cannot find it within himself to be angry. 

“I have told you only half of it.”

Will’s heart sinks, but Hannibal shakes his head.

"The rest will remain hidden in my palace, sealed away in a room with a broken lock. I merely feel pacified seeing your skin here, unperforated. I thought you should know.” 

“I’m glad my insides aren’t on the floor,” Will replies, trying to mask the mocking intonation that accompanies it. “I’m glad it didn’t have to come to that.”

“So am I,” Hannibal whispers, the most sincere Will’s ever seen him. Tenderness creeps into Will’s heart when Hannibal lifts one of his legs over his shoulder, bent at the knee and begins to kiss him chastely, down the swell of his upper thigh. 

Will’s breath hitches when Hannibal noses under the hem of his boxers. He looks up, assessing and when he is given a nod, he slides the garment down Will’s legs and tosses it to the floor. Will’s hard cock curves up to his belly, a dark shade even in the dim shadows. Hannibal surprises him by kissing the juncture of his thigh and pelvis, and then his balls very lightly. Will curls his hands in the plush pillows by his head when Hannibal goes lower and flicks his tongue over his hole.

“Hannibal, don’t–”

“Allow me,” Hannibal pulls up, making hard eye contact. “Please.”

Lips parting, Will nods slowly. “Only if you want.” 

“I want nothing more,” and hell, apparently Hannibal can sound more sincere. He traverses back down at the same, sedate pace, and licks his dry hole broadly. Mouth falling open, Will closes his eyes, and tries not to panic or succumb to severe diffidence. When Hannibal presses a little harder, a little deeper, Will’s legs instinctually draw further apart and he sighs.

“God.” He reaches down to tangle a hand in Hannibal’s hair and feels a spike of arousal at the way his head moves, driving closer, pushing his tongue into him. 

He eats him out long enough Will thinks given more time, he could come like that. He starts to writhe, rocking unknowingly into Hannibal’s playful tongue, moaning every time he licks inside. Sweating, he scrabbles at the sheets, trying to push them away frantically. 

Hannibal hums, mouthing at him, and Will gasps, “Fuck.” 

Fingers find their way into the mix. Will is too gone to notice, but does when the pleasure peaks and Hannibal begins to curl and stretch and scissor him apart. He’s certain lubricant somehow becomes involved, because in no way did Hannibal fit three large fingers inside him with saliva alone. 

“Come on,” he begs. “Hannibal, please.” 

Hannibal rises from between his legs with a sly expression on his wet, swollen lips. Will melts when he licks a broad stripe up his chest to his nipple, and burrows into his neck, sucking and gnawing. Will grinds up into his body, breath hitching every time he feels Hannibal’s hard cock against his thigh, clothed, but large and searing. 

“Please,” Will murmurs on his cheek. “Please, Hannibal. I want you.”

“And if I denied you?” Hannibal responds, tauntingly. 

Will snarls and flips Hannibal onto his back. The older man grins but allows himself to be mounted. Will straddles his hips, reaches down to take Hannibal’s cock out, and doesn’t take the chance to look at it before he’s lining it up with his hole and shoving down. 

Hannibal’s grin fades, hands flying to Will’s hips to stay him.

Will let out a noise like a sob and a growl when he bottomed out, and currently writhes where he sits on Hannibal’s cock, trying impatiently to adjust so he can fuck the living daylights out of the smug asshole he’s decided to run away to Europe with, but it hurts .

“Will, darling boy, you needed more time.”

“Shut up,” Will barks out, rocking back and forth despite the burn. Hannibal’s dick was dry going in, but the lube inside of Will is beginning to spread and coat him, making it just slick enough to move, even though every drag feels like fire. 

Will realises he’s still wearing his shirt, in tatters from when Hannibal ripped it open, so he slips it off and flings it in the general direction of the floor. Hannibal’s hands travel further, scraping over old wounds and calluses. Will jumps when he grips his half-inflated erection and pumps him slowly. He whimpers and rocks into the touch.

“There we are,” Hannibal purrs as Will starts to plump again. He rolls his hips up, slightly, but the motion shoots electricity up Will’s spine and he gasps, clutching at air until Hannibal’s hands catch his own, and intertwine them together.

The balance allows him to use Hannibal’s hands for leverage, and he lifts up a bit and slides back down, shuddering out a gasp when he does so. “Hannibal, oh god.”

They gyrate a bit, both breathing heavily. 

One thrust makes Will moan, his dick slap against his belly. 

“Fuck, yes,” Will’s head falls back far enough he feels dizzy. 

“Will, look at me,” Hannibal implores, and Will cannot deny him a single thing. Not now. He opens his eyes and looks down to find all the love Hannibal promised to feel for the rest of time floating in his eyes, waiting for reciprocation. He’d wait for years, Will thinks. 

Just as he’s bending down to kiss him, before he starts to ride him hard and fast, a noise from the foyer of their apartment startles them both. The front door swings open and slams shut. Keys are tossed on the nearest surface with a loud jingle.

Abigail.

Hannibal’s eyes stretch comically wide. Will slumps and mouths, “Shit.” 

They separate, Will’s hole throbbing at the loss and Hannibal grunting as his hard cock slips out and begins to go limp. Each of them scurries for their clothes, or new clothes depending on which articles are torn to shreds. Will feels weirdly open and loose as he moves about the room. He can hear Abigail rummaging through the kitchen, but they can’t risk her hustling into their bedroom and finding them in the throws of passion. God, the thought makes his skin crawl. Strange, considering Hannibal’s admissions of Will’s would-be fate involving severe maiming didn’t bother him as much. 

Hannibal grabs Will by the arm before they retreat into the halls, and combs his fingers through his hair, efficiently taming every curl that seems to say ‘I was just in the middle of sex.’

Will does the same with Hannibal’s shirt, buttoning him up to the top button to hide the seductive sheen of sweat that coats him from sternum to groin; Will wants his cock back inside him now, but they don’t have that option. 

Hannibal lays a swift kiss to his cheek and disappears down the hall. Will follows him, unsure of how he’s supposed to act. Abigail was supposed to stay the weekend, and he can imagine Hannibal will manage any stern-talk that is designated, but he needs to have a role in this. 

When he follows Hannibal into the dining room, he pauses when he sees Abigail curled up, face hidden in her arms as he sobs silently. She sits alone at the head of the dining table, and doesn’t acknowledge their entry. He half expects Hannibal to scold her, but perhaps the man contains more empathy than he gives him credit for; Hannibal turns to him and murmurs, “I’ll brew some tea. Stay with her.” 

Will nods, and moves to sit adjacent to Abigail, scooting his chair closer so he can wrap an arm around her shoulders and mitigate. 

“What happened?” he asks softly, having forgotten how irritated he’d been by her interruption mere moments prior. The sight of someone he considers to be his daughter–in a sense–crying, is enough to make him crumble. 

"They knew," she chokes out, lifting her head to reveal red rimmed eyes, bluer for her tears. "They looked at me and they knew."

Will's eyes narrow, blood pumping fast in his chest at the possibility. "They recognized you? Abigail, you need to say if–”

She shakes her head, laughing bitterly. "No, sorry, not like that. They didn't see through the, erm, alias. Just everything else…" she trails off, sniffling. 

Moving his hand to stroke her hair lightly, Will attempts to empathize fully, and begins to see the full picture. He exhales patiently, "They saw where you have pieces missing.”

"I'll never be normal." Somber defeat turns to defiant rage. “I reach this divide when I talk to people. It’s almost as if they understand I’m a killer without truly knowing, and their gut tells them to stay away from me so they do. But, but I-I think maybe they should. Stay away, I mean. Maybe it’s safer for everyone if I just kept to myself.” 

“Abigail, do you truly believe that?” Will implores.

She nods quickly, covering her face with her hands. 

“You aren’t a killer Abigail,” Will whispers. “You’ve killed, you’ve instigated killing, but you don’t have that…hideous drive. That isn’t you.”

“You do, don’t you?” She bites her lip. “Have that drive.” 

Will falters and falls quiet. Hannibal returns to the room with three cups of tea in the next few minutes. Abigail’s tears have stopped rolling at least. In Hannibal’s hand is a wet napkin; he sits by her other side and gently takes her face in hand, wiping away the streaks of makeup with the other. Will watches idly wondering what his own use as a father should be.

He has a crude thought that Hannibal seems much more like a mother in this scenario, but who is Will to claim that? 

“Listen to me, my dear,” Hannibal says, in a low timbre. He still has a palm pressed securely to Abigail’s cheek. “Life is not so black and white. If good and evil existed, the good would not be able to recognize the evil. As is the way of the morally grey world in which we live.”

“Why can’t I fit in? I want to, I want more than anything to.” Her hand twitches on the table, so Will gathers it in his own, and clasps it tight.

“It isn’t that you’re more broken than the ones around you, Abigail. It’s because you understand the world better than anyone else. You’ve seen the shades of death, of light. You understand their juxtaposition, and their correlations.”

“You understand the beauty of atrocity, where others see shallow mistruths,” Hannibal adds, and Will wants to snap at him too cool it with the ‘murder is righteous’ talk, but it isn’t as if he disagrees. He’s understood for a while now, murder’s place in his mind, as if on a pedestal. 

“You’re both really shit dads,” Abigail mutters, cracking a smile that makes Will smile too despite the jab. “You’re giving me mixed messages. Is…murder beautiful or ugly?”

Hannibal meets Will’s eyes with a challenge. 

Will swallows, and answers as truthfully as he can manage;

“Do you not believe something ugly can be beautiful?” 

“Do you?” she asks, blinking at him, wide-eyed.

“Yes. I do.”  

Hannibal’s smile is small, but rewarding. Will smiles at him too and then back at Abigail who is looking contemplative.

“I was lying,” she mutters. “You’re much better dads than I’ve ever–” She bites at her lip again, something she does when she’s at a loss for words. “At least neither of you will try to kill me.”

Will laughs, but catches Hannibal’s stilted gaze and something clicks. I have told you only half of it, Hannibal’s words ring loudly in his mind, and he’s forced to stand, knocking his tea over in the process. Abigail jumps as the mug smashes in sharp pieces across the floor, but Hannibal doesn’t let out so much as a twitch. He scrutinizes Will, as if understanding his thought process intimately. Directly. Of course he does. 

“Abigail, if you would clean this up for us, I will be right back to talk with you. We can discuss starting your semester at a later date, if that is something you want,” Hannibal says, keeping his eyes on Will. Abigail doesn’t question Will’s sudden rigidity, and does as she’s told. 

He’s trained her well. Trained her to trust him in all things. He could ask her to do anything; he could ask her to stand with her neck taut to a knife, and cut her own throat. She just might. 

Hannibal leads Will to the study where he hands him his own, untouched tea. He lights a fire in the hearth, and Will’s eyes flicker to the smoky flames, lapping at the air.

“You would have killed her,” he whispers. “Just to prove a point.”

“It was a scenario I was anticipating never to arise. I was…quite confident in your loyalty to me, Will. For what it’s worth.”

“What it’s worth,” Will scoffs, the noise shaky with grief. “Would you have done it in private? Never let me know she’d been alive or–You would have done it in front of me, you–”

He can picture it clearly. Hannibal’s outward indifference. His knife at Abigail’s throat. Blood, everywhere. Her gurgling. Will’s begging. Their teacup, shattered again. 

“You would have killed her how Hobbs meant for her to be killed,” Will concludes, icily. “And you would have made me watch, and you would have left.” 

“Yes,” Hannibal answers honestly. “You would have denied me my life.” 

“Not your life.” 

“My freedom, then. I won’t be confined to a prison cell, Will.” 

“I wouldn’t want you to be,” Will murmurs, sucking in a sharp breath. “Christ, Hannibal, don’t you know I would have been yours, at the drop of a hat, if you just, just–”

He runs a hand through his hair and sips at his too-hot tea. 

“You are mine,” Hannibal says, dropping to one knee, placing warm palms over his thighs where he’d been spreading him half an hour prior. “And I’m yours, am I not?”

“You are,” Will says. “It doesn’t mean you have free reign to twist my mentality to your leisure. If you hurt me by hurting her, I’ll leave. We’re meant to protect her, Hannibal. You said it yourself. We’re her fathers now.”

Hannibal isn’t pleased, and Will wonders if even the thought of Will leaving is too much for him to bear, or if he knows he may not be able to keep his promise. He always keeps his promises, it’s a matter of solidifying them.

Will touches his face, and Hannibal turns to his fingers, kissing the pads. “Promise me,” he prods. “I promise I’ll never change my mind, I know I won’t. Don’t make me leave.”

With a curious tone, Hannibal says, “Do you believe you could change me? The way I’ve changed you?”

It sounds rhetorical, because it should be. Will ducks his head, well aware of Hannibal’s devotion to him, his capacity to change, as well as who he has molded himself into in order to have Will in his life. 

“I already did,” Will responds, saccharine. 

Hannibal submits to the accusation, grasping Will’s hovering hand and kissing his wrist, several times. Will slinks deep into the pleasure and the love, and knows without a doubt, he’ll never escape. The bear who steps into a trap did not realise its presence. Will knew. He always knew. 

Abigail plans to transition from remote learning to in-person classes by the end of September, and Hannibal decided, to celebrate the change, he would bring them all to the Festa della Rificolona. A traditional, annual, paper lantern festival. 

They are currently on an awkward drive to the city square where it's being held.

Will and Hannibal have been scarcely speaking for months. It is something both parties are used to, as hiding behind thinly veiled metaphors to avoid conflict has been their most utilized method of self defense, but Abigail has not become used to it. 

It’s apparent in her shifty gaze and bouncing legs. 

At the complex for the past few months, she’d spent most of her time with Hannibal or Will individually, but now that she’s stuck in a vehicle with the two of them, she can’t exactly escape the tension that’s been maturating. 

Will imagines she deserves better father figures. Men who aren’t murderers, certainly. In the very least, men who can look one another in the eye and work it out. He mourns the sex they could be having right now if Hannibal didn’t insist on being a pompous, self-righteous, prick.

They forgave each other. Hannibal promised not to hurt Abigail and Will promised not to leave. That doesn’t mean lingering strain hasn’t been festering.

Will thinks he should be cut some slack. He was never given the manual; how to co-exist with a prolific serial killer and maintain a complicated platonic-romantic relationship, withholding sex due to your cockblocking twenty-something year old daughter you never legally adopted. 

He buries his face in his hands and breathes in the scent of his own musk. He should have taken a shower before he left the apartment, but he’d walked into their adjoining bathroom and saw Hannibal with a towel wrapped around his lean waist and he'd scattered off toward the kitchen with a sore excuse on his tongue. Hannibal might find his case of blue balls hilarious if he wasn’t so tense around Will himself. It may just be that their anxieties about each other and the longevity of this…peace is what slices deep under their skin. If only they could communicate it. 

“Jesus, will you two loosen up already?” Abigail pleads from the back seat, causing Will to grimace. He expected she’d snap one of these days; he can’t blame her. “Today was supposed to be fun.” 

Will wants to snipe, ‘Are we a family that seems fun to you?’ but keeps his mouth shut. 

“Will and I are quite at peace, Abigail,” Hannibal assures, glancing at her once through the rearview mirror. “There is no need to worry your pretty little head.” 

“I’m not worried, I’m uncomfortable. I’m aware you’re both killers, remember?” Will grimaces again and can feel the intense, heavy weight of Hannibal’s eyes on him.

“Abigail, should an altercation ever occur between Will and myself, you needn’t worry about being in harm’s way.” 

Will knows that’s purely the truth because he made him promise. Nausea from deceptions and mistruths roll through his stomach turbulently and he closes his eyes against the poison tide.

Abigail’s voice softens when she speaks again. “I’ve lived my entire life aware of my own expiration date. I don’t worry about being hurt by either of you…it’s familiar, I guess, anticipating something like that. I’m worried about the two of you, what you could do to each other. What everything’s leading up to.”

The yearning for honesty has never been stronger. 

Will decides to throw caution to the wind and respond, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t worry about that too, Abigail.” 

Hannibal is dead quiet, but Will doesn’t look at him.

He continues, “Hannibal and I still need some time to settle into the positions we’ve arguably rushed into. Everything between us hasn’t been promoted by honesty, but neither of us has any interest in destroying what we’ve built. What we’re still building.”

Turning, he expects to find Hannibal vexed. Instead, the man is sporting a gentle smile and his eyes are glossy with pride. Will smiles too, at ease for the first time since their mutual promises.

“I want you guys to be okay,” Abigail admits, bordering on sheepish. “I know that sounds stupid. Childish, maybe.”

“Wishing for the wellbeing of your fellow man should never be considered childish. It is a sign of maturity, my dear,” Hannibal tells her. 

Will delights at the relieved smile spreading on Abigail's cheeks. 

“What do you say, Will,” Hannibal turns to face him directly, tongue-in-cheek when he asks, “Are we okay?” 

Laughing at the absurdity of the question, Will can’t help but answer fondly. 

“Yeah, we’re okay.” 

The city continues to flash by them out the car windows and Will buries his face in his hands again to hide his bashful expression and pinkening cheeks. Abigail pretends not to notice. 

The festival is packed shoulder to shoulder with expressive, loud-speaking Italians. Will feels like he sticks out like a sore thumb, but there are far too many individuals here to genuinely stand out. He thinks briefly about any possible manhunt in America then remembers he hasn’t heard word from home since they left. Lounds has taken to cataloguing new, daring killers. 

She has risen from the dead so it seems. 

The three of them maneuver through the crowds, Abigail and Hannibal’s arms interlocked and Hannibal’s free hand holding one of Will’s. It is simply a method to avoid losing one another, but Will can’t help but feel a base thrill at presenting as a family in this manner. 

It is difficult to locate a spot by the canal to watch the show, but eventually Hannibal makes use of his naturally threatening eyes to scare off a scrawny bystander with no lantern by the far corner of the bridge. Will laughs, unheard amongst the commotion of the crowds as they steal the spot for themselves, and forgets months of tension in the face of his infatuation with his family, and specifically, the awful man he’s fallen for. 

Hannibal frames Will against the metal railing with both arms and chastely kisses his neck as they watch a parade boat float by. Will closes his eyes against the onslaught of emotions the experience inspires. He’s missed Hannibal’s touch, and he realises more and more each day how lost he might have been without this. Abigail leans over the railing beside them, bumping into Will’s side as she attempts to get a better look at the colorful ferry. 

Acrobats dance with fire to a celebratory chorus on deck. 

Cheering commences.

Hannibal adjusts himself behind Will, preparing to give him space, but Will reaches back to encourage him to continue pressing close. He can feel a sigh in his hair, and one strong arm winding tight around his middle. 

Abigail doesn’t say anything about this display nor does she give any sign of recognition. Will wonders if he never handed her enough credit; maybe she understood what this was, or had the potential to be, before they did. 

It was dark when they parked the car, yet it grows darker still. Abigail reaches into their travel bag they lugged out to this spot and begins extracting the lanterns. Will hadn’t bothered painting his own, but he’d watched Hannibal and Abigail paint for hours, drinking coffee and propping his legs up on the larger window sill in the sitting room. Abigail had shocked them both with her artistry. Her design is reminiscent of early Van Gogh, with the baseline colors being red and white, a collage all her own. Hannibal had painted with shimmery gold, sketching Florentine architecture with his microbrush. 

Hannibal is careful with Abigail, showing her delicately how to light her lantern. Will wants to tell him not to be so careful with her that she’ll never grow up. She’s grown up, he knows, but he knows it’s hard for both of them to accept that sometimes. 

Abigail takes to being coddled quite well. She’s brazen and self determined, but she’s much like Will in the respect that he lacked an average father figure. He can only wonder how her mother treated her, married to a man like Hobbs. Abigail takes to their paternal affections like they’re something that belongs to her, long lost. 

He cups her shoulder, and meets her smile before she thrusts the lantern up into the sky. It floats high, alongside a dozen more tossed aimlessly into the air all around them. Will throws his own with the delicacy one should pitch a baseball. Hannibal simply chuckles at him and haltingly releases his own. The three of them watch their lanterns drift high into the sky, mingling with the common folks’ and slowly becoming indistinguishable. 

“Let’s go dancing!” Abigail suggests brightly. 

She is quite excitable, and when Hannibal nods his assent, she goes dashing into the sea of chatter. Will thanks the powers that be that she isn’t a child and can navigate herself without their help. 

“Do you dance, Doctor Lecter?” Will asks cunningly, smirking when the travel bag Hannibal is slipping over his shoulder slides down his arm with the quick, responsive jerk he makes. 

“You’ve been dancing with me for a long time, Will,” Hannibal murmurs in reply, and despite being Hannibal, it's distinctly not a backhanded comment.

Will grins and laces their fingers together, abandoning their lanterns to the wind.

They find Abigail dancing with a group of young men and women, a few recognizable from the orientation he and Hannibal attended.

The crowds are sparser here, the pools of dancing individuals inadvertently creating dents in the populus. Will sticks close to Hannibal, though he’s intimidated by the couples grinding on each other. He feels wrong looming over Abigail like this while she’s with company, but he didn’t expect her to run into friends. He’s just about to tell Hannibal he’s not feeling the vibe of the festival anymore as an excuse to give her some space when Abigail rushes over to them and says, “Fiore is hosting a party on his parent’s yacht tonight. Is it alright if I catch up with you two tomorrow?”

“As long as you stay safe,” Hannibal says, sliding a small pocket knife from his sleeve. Will’s heart skips a beat as he transfers the knife into Abigail’s palm, folding her fingers over it with a wink. “And I expect you to use this, if you don’t feel safe.”

Will tells himself this is fairly normal. Dads often give their daughter’s means of protection against sketchy company, but he thinks perhaps they should have opted for pepper spray. 

Abigail grins, as if she’d expected them to say no.

“Don’t do drugs,” Will jokes, and Abigail rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah, okay. Stay out of trouble, gotcha.” 

Her friends are waiting for her at the far end of the street and she hurriedly darts off after them. A boy throws his arm around her shoulders, dark-haired, like the one from orientation. Will suddenly feels thankful for the gift Hannibal bestowed. Just in case.

“I forget how it feels to be young,” Will confesses, voice croaking a bit as if to reaffirm his age. When he turns to face Hannibal, he finds the man looking dangerously thoughtful. “What?” 

“Would you like to feel young?” Hannibal asks, hand slipping around Will’s waist. Will eyes him dubiously and then gasps when he sees an open palm between them, two pills marked ‘X’ in the middle locked together in a tiny plastic bag. 

“Christ.” Will looks around, but nobody is watching them. They are ghosts. His heart rate spikes when he lays eyes on the pills again. “Is that molly?” 

“Methylenedioxy-Methamphetamine, or as I’ve heard, Ecstasy.” 

Will glares at him and Hannibal closes his hand into a fist again. Hannibal’s smirk doesn’t waver, which means this isn’t a joke. He’s offering hard drugs, hallucinogens, to Will Graham. 

“Where did you get these?” comes Will’s tight response.

“There are young vendors all over the city. Drugs are perhaps one of the easiest iniquities to uncover if you know how to look.” 

“And why were you looking?” 

“You have been experiencing mental stress for some time now, Will. I have been brainstorming several methods of respite for you. Though perhaps this is indecent timing, considering your warning to Abigail–”

Hannibal moves to store the pills in his pocket, but Will grabs his wrist. 

There is a challenge in Hannibal’s eyes, and Will momentarily remembers every lesson in high school he endured regarding peer pressure, and the severe lasting consequences of drugs, and sex before marriage. He’s already broken his assigned vows of abstinence, and he’s murdered people, surely taking drugs can’t compare, and regardless of his own history with hallucinations, his curiosity is too prevalent and burning. He wants to, with Hannibal. 

“You do realise we should have discussed this way before now, right?” 

Hannibal doesn’t respond. He simply opens his hand and reveals its contents again. Will looks down and lets out a shuddering breath before he discreetly works to open the small bag. 

He fondles the pill between two fingers before setting his eyes on Hannibal’s mouth, waiting for him to open so he can place it on his tongue. He should ask when Hannibal first tried drugs, if ever, and why he’s submitting to the loss of control so easily, or if it’s something born of his affection toward Will. 

After swallowing, Hannibal retrieves the remaining pill and Will hesitantly opens his mouth. Hannibal pops the pill on the back of his tongue, fingertips brushing his taste buds and leaving the arousing salty taste of skin in their wake. Will swallows and waits.

“In my research, I have gathered it will take thirty minutes to an hour to feel the full effect. Don’t waste your time analyzing how different you feel.” Hannibal pulls Will close until their chests are touching. Will reaches up both hands to grasp his shoulders and steady himself. One of Hannibal’s hands finds his own and they’re swaying to the tune of a slower-paced song. “You worry too much, Will. Tonight, I want you to relax.” 

Will nuzzles his face into Hannibal’s neck, continuing to wait. 

It seems closer to twenty minutes, when Will starts to feel different. 

At first, he notices the reverberating song in the air seeming to last for what feels like hours. He knows that must not be the case, but as he sways, he feels lost in one rhythm, one beat. The song repeats, again and again. He and Hannibal haven’t been dancing so much as enjoying invading each other’s personal space, but now Will’s eyes are closed and he’s using him for balance, getting irrevocably lost in the waves. 

There is a lightness to his step and a brightness to his surroundings. 

He feels good. Better than good. He’s never felt as good as he does now. 

He finds himself laughing, and then laughing harder at the fact that he is. He crushes his forehead into Hannibal’s cheek, grinning up to his ears and breathing fast. “Fuck, Hannibal,” he exhales, wanting to tell him how good it is, how right they feel together. 

Words fail him, but he’s never cared less.

They clutch each other for sometime, and the sensations exemplify. Will isn’t sure when it happens, the song he’s listening to continues to play and it must be a different song by now but he can’t differentiate, then suddenly Hannibal kisses his neck, and his body lights up. 

Months of tension unravel, and his blood rushes down toward his erection in a hot flash, filling him, making his skin tingle. Perhaps too shamelessly, Will grasps at Hannibal’s hair, latching his fingers tight around a lumpful, just to keep his lips on his skin. With a rocking grind, he eliminates the remaining space between their bodies, and Hannibal actually moans. 

Will’s lips find Hannibal’s and the slide of tongue inside his mouth has never felt so much like being fucked. Will groans, driving his body harder against Hannibal as if he wants to climb him, become him. He’s tugging his hair so frantically he’s probably tearing out strands. They must make an obscene display, and are lucky for choosing an event without any watchful eyes. 

I, I follow, I follow you

Deep sea baby, I follow you

The lyrics repeat, over and over. Will feels he’ll go mad with it. 

The drug works through his system like a welcome, fast-acting poison. He grows distracted with the kissing, as does Hannibal, both of their pupils dilated to an extreme. Will hangs onto him like a lifeline as he floats, eyes closed and mind empty. He turns his body so his backside is pressed up against Hannibal’s front, swaying with the beat akin to the rowdy men and women surrounding them. While he turns, it feels like he spins a hundred times, but does not become dizzy. At the feeling of invincibility, he grins again, head falling back on Hannibal’s shoulder with a thump. His eyes flutter and fight to focus on the ceiling of the earth. 

The sky is red.

It may be the effect of thousands of lanterns just beyond them, but when he looks up, it is red. A blinding, shifting color.

"Do you see it?" he asks, despite Hannibal being unable to read his mind.

Hannibal's mouth is on his throat where it's craned back against the hard lines of him. There is a deep rumble in his chest that echoes through Will like a shiver before he murmurs, "Yes." There are more words spoken in Lithuanian, Will thinks, but he laughs at the idea he might be hallucinating a language he's never heard. 

Why hasn’t Hannibal ever spoken to him in Lithuanian?

He’s pissed, then saddened, then feels relatively stable again once he realises that reality will be his the moment he asks for it, like anything of Hannibal’s. He’ll give it to him. 

Will doesn’t realise he’s moving salaciously with the beat until Hannibal meets his movements, leaning into the grind of Will’s ass on his erection. Suddenly desperate, Will cranes his neck back further until he’s able to capture Hannibal’s lips in his own. 

They kiss for what feels like an hour, tongues sliding hot against one another. The song loops again, or maybe they haven’t been kissing long at all. 

I, I follow, I follow you

Dark doom honey, I follow you

“If I concentrate hard enough, it feels like you’re inside me,” Will whispers on his lips, laughing quietly at the full blown lust blossoming on Hannibal’s face. 

He gets lost in the music again. Grinding tides, like the ocean. Dark flowing waves threatening to cast him away to some far off island. If Hannibal is marooned with him there, he’ll find peace. 

“Would you like me to be?” Hannibal whispers, even quieter. 

It’s Will’s turn to feel dizzy with arousal, balancing most of his weight against Hannibal’s body and moaning loudly, barely heard over the music, when Hannibal continues grinding against his ass, holding him by the waist and driving him back and forth with his firm, brute hands. Distinct visions of the night Hannibal had pressed inside, deep, long, hard, wet, come tumbling to the forefront of Will’s mind, and he moans again. It’s needy, wanton. Something he’d be embarrassed about under different circumstances. “God, Hannibal, yes.”  

They’re obscured in the center of a crowd one minute, their peers blind to the lewd presentation, and abruptly, they are not. 

Hannibal’s fingers are tight around his wrist, as cold as a handcuff and Will shudders with the surreal sensation. It shouldn’t feel like metal, like entrapment. He’s starting to lose track of reality, and wonders if that’s something he should worry about. Regardless, he laughs as he’s dragged as if on a conveyor belt. Hannibal doesn’t stop, winding past the sea of dancers, like Will’s spirit guide. They’re bumping into people, but Will feels their solid bodies as wisps.

By the time Hannibal lets him go, he still feels like he’s moving, swaying a bit in place. He’s more exuberant than he was in the center of the crowd, finding more pleasure in everything minimal. The sound of Hannibal’s breath, the thumping beat of the music in the distance. 

Fervently, he crowds Hannibal against the nearest wall, unsure of his surroundings that don’t include a warm body and a hard cock, and Hannibal chuckles, a sweet noise Will’s never heard. He murmurs, “Not yet, Will. Trust me.” 

Will smiles, meeting his eyes, and kisses him once more. He’s positive that’s answer enough.

Hannibal leads him into the building he’s navigated to. The music from the festival that had become distant is cut off completely once they enter an overly bright hotel lobby. Will blinks and experiences the briefest of panics when he considers how high he must look right now. 

Despite also being higher than a kite, Hannibal doesn’t look it. Nobody in the lobby, employees or guests, bats an eye as they impossibly manage to walk in a straight line to the elevator. 

In the elevator, Hannibal clicks the top button, and Will blinks furiously, rubbing his eyes as if it will rid him of the skin-crawling overhead fluorescents.

“Where…” he can’t form words, and has a distinct feeling there is no floor underneath his feet as the elevator moves. He’s too scared to look.  

“I came here as a young man,” Hannibal explains, more even-toned than should be possible. “I asked you to trust me, Will, and you most certainly can with this.” 

This? What are they doing, again?

The elevator spins. Will closes his eyes and regrets everything. When he opens them, the vertigo ceases, and he’s back to feeling like he could murder the world and get away with it. 

Hannibal’s hands are suddenly on his throat, scratching over his incessantly bobbing Adam’s apple. He doesn’t notice how fast his pulse is racing until Hannibal checks it, humming his approval. “You are safe,” Hannibal assures. “No one can find us here.”

Here. Here is a public building isn’t it, or is it? Had he hallucinated all those people in the lobby?

Are they not in an elevator, but a hideaway unbeknownst to Will?

Suddenly the elevator bings and the doors slide open to reveal a narrow hall, darkened without any lights, the hall leading to a steep stairwell and a padlocked door. 

“Am I dead?” is all Will can think to ask and finds the truth doesn’t bother him much. He just hopes Abigail is safe. 

Hannibal grins at him, and for a moment Will recognizes the wendigo in his teeth, in the arch of his brow. Belatedly, he feels a hand around his wrist and then he’s being tugged up and up. After some undistinguished, loud rearranging of the not-so-locked padlock, the door opens easily, and they are led out onto the roof. An empty terrace with a glowing pool and scattered tables and chairs. Will wanders off toward the edge of the roof, enticed by the lanterns in the sky and the stringed lights adorning the streets. From far off, he can hear that same relentless song. 

He closes his eyes and is then caught by Hannibal. He hadn’t realised he was tilting over the side, just a bit. “Dear boy, you seem insistent on granting me a heart attack.” 

“I’m not the one who brought the drugs,” Will retorts softly, falling back into Hannibal’s bath-warm embrace. “Everything…everything feels so good.” 

“I can make it feel better,” comes Hannibal’s hoarse whisper.

Will turns to find the entrance of the stairwell has been sealed. Hannibal placed a chair between the handle of the door and the pavement of the terrace. Someone would really have to jostle the thing if they wanted to get onto the roof, and by then Hannibal and Will could be halfway down the fire escape. Covered in whatever viscera may apply. 

All remaining doubts are washed away in his drugged haze. “Yeah,” he murmurs, swerving so his lips come into contact with Hannibal’s throat. He kisses him on his pulse and the anomalous taste of blood fills his mouth. He doesn’t think he broke skin. “Do it.” 

Hannibal takes Will by his belt loops and leads him around the pool until they reach a glass balcony. There is a portion of the terrace with transparent flooring and one long stretch of glass railing that makes it feel like he’s floating above the city. He allows himself to be laid flat on his back, Hannibal straddling his hips with strong thighs as he disrobes Will swiftly, and himself. 

Will absently traces the muscle on Hannibal’s abdomen as his shirt comes loose, stroking through the rough thatch of hair and smiling as his fingers tingle from it.

Hannibal grins down at him and folds them into a brute, honest kiss. It’s full of apologies for the past few months, and optimism for their life going forward. It’s full of remorse and love and everything Will can’t name.

Making love, making love, making love.

Will can’t seem to refer to it as sex in his mind.

Before he knows it, he’s registering the cold glass against his backside and three of Hannibal’s fingers, wet and twisting inside him. The pleasure of the act catches up to him and he gasps, letting out a lewd moan he’ll regret tomorrow.

“There you are,” Hannibal whispers into his thigh, nibbling the unduly sensitive flesh. “I was afraid you were drifting downstream.”

Will shakes his head, keening with each swish of fingers against his prostate. 

He gets a strange feeling he’s being watched and realises it’s most likely due to the fact if anyone were under him they’d be able to see his ass pressed into the floor of the glass balcony. Instead of inciting panic, the thought drives him into a fit of laughter, each giggle catching on a moan as Hannibal drives into him harder, curling his fingers as if to banish the laughter altogether. 

“Someone could be watching,” Will tells him breathlessly, grinning wider than he feels stretched. “Jesus, Hannibal.” 

“If there are onlookers, they won’t live to see the sunrise,” Hannibal warns in a low voice and Will is almost certain he imagined it. Maybe that’s wishful thinking. He wants to tell him not to kill anyone for the sake of voyeurism, as it might come across uncouth, but he can’t work his tongue around the shocked gasps he’s emitting. 

“Just…just fuck me, what are you doing?” Will writhes, clenching around those long fingers that are nowhere near enough despite everything feeling more. 

“Enjoying your sweet noises.” Hannibal kisses his sac gently, forcing a whine out of Will. “Can you beg for me?” 

“No, no.” Will whines again, wiggling away. “I won’t.” 

“I could keep you on edge for hours, my love ─ ” Hannibal taunts, kneading those nerves delicately to prove a point. Will digs his nails into the arm moving between his legs and curses. “Just like this.” 

“Sadist,” Will spits. 

“Beg.” 

“I’ll scream.” 

Hannibal laughs. “Oh, you will.”

Will whimpers and tosses his arm over his eyes, body rolling up into Hannibal’s touches on its own volition. He’ll be lost if he begs, if he submits one final time. He suddenly feels far too sober for what he should be feeling, but with a fourth finger prodding at his hole, he gives up.

“I need you, Hannibal…please,” he murmurs, desperate but abashed.

Hannibal’s tongue darts out between his legs, licking a long stripe from his balls over the shaft of his cock, across the tip, up the center of his chest. Will is so distracted by the tickling wet organ on him that he doesn’t notice Hannibal’s cock nudging into him until his prostate is harshly grazed. Thrashing, Will’s legs tighten around Hannibal’s hips to maintain purchase. “Oh,” Will gasps, twitching when Hannibal’s tongue curls slowly around his ear and then stops. 

With Hannibal fucking between his thighs for a few minutes, Will allows himself to relish the hypnagogic undulation of being taken. When Hannibal shifts angles, he arches, and their breaths mingle together. The drugs cast a sweet haze over the act. Will feels so strongly for Hannibal in this moment that he fears he’ll say something he’ll regret, declarations of commitment and affection marching to the tip of his tongue. The man is an enigma; he aggravates Will for months, tortures him mentally for longer than that, and in the end, there will always be the sole reason Will finds himself in Italy languishing in his shadow.

“Ah, ah!” Will lets out little yelps as Hannibal pounds into him, thankful when Hannibal pulls out and rolls him over in a rough haste. 

From this position, Will can see the alley beneath them, lit dimly and barren of people. The vertigo returns, but it feels as good as it feels dizzying. His hands scrape against the fogged up glass, searching for leverage when all of a sudden Hannibal smacks his cock against his open hole. 

Twice. 

Will freezes and says, just as Hannibal slips the tip in, “Of course you’re one of those guys.” 

“One of those guys?”

“Yeah, the egomaniacs who slap their dick on the other person before they – ” Hannibal bottoms out, seemingly holding no interest in Will’s weightless accusations. 

Will groans, hands curling into fists. It feels like he’s been stabbed, but with euphoria. The angle is so perfect he wants to yell at Hannibal for it. How dare he be so perfect at sex, after all?

“There,” Will grits out, his moans clustering together, rising in pitch. “Fuck, there.” 

The closeness, the heat, the oversensitivity – It’s all driving Will closer and closer to the edge. Hannibal thrusts into him, causing Will’s nipples to chafe against the glass, and he can feel it, the precipice. He’s flying in the sky, above Florence, ready to spiral and descend.  

But then, it doesn’t come. 

Hannibal’s cock continues driving deep inside him, smoothly, without resistance, but Will is purely teetering on oblivion. It stays like this for minutes, Will moaning out of his mind, grinding his teeth to dust just to escape the excruciating ‘ almost’ feeling. 

“Hannibal – ” Will sobs. “It isn’t, I can’t…”

A firm hand slips around his body and grabs for his cock, but it merely serves to drive Will closer to becoming a shivering wreck. His nails scrape unevenly along Hannibal’s forearm, grunting with each salacious swipe of his lover’s sweaty palm. 

A few more rocking thrusts, and Hannibal pauses.

Will cranes his neck to find him looking stumped.

“What?” he forces out, adjusting himself onto all fours. The world spins as if he’s still soaring, but he’s abruptly aware of the half-limp cock slipping out of him. Hannibal has gone soft, and is currently fondling his own cock curiously, in examination. 

 “This has never happened to me,” explains Hannibal, clinically. “I assume it must be due to the drugs.”

Will groans helplessly and falls flat against the balcony floor, bending his spine backward so he has space to circle a tired fist around his own cock and pump. He can’t get there no matter how hard he tries, despite not being as limp as Hannibal.

He rolls over onto his back and sighs noisily. 

“This is…really fucking humiliating.” 

Hannibal winces and Will shakes his head, elucidating, “Not you, us. We’re a wreck, Hannibal. Who does drugs for the first time in their middle age?”

“You are not middle aged,” Hannibal assures, taking one of Will’s legs that is propped up and kisses the kneecap. “Perhaps given some more time – ”

“Nope, my dick’s done,” Will notes, watching himself grow more flaccid with each thrust of his own fist. “I think you need to get a refund on these drugs.” 

 Hannibal laughs, rubbing a hand over his face and helps Will up to his feet. 

They do not retreat from the terrace, nor do they clothe themselves. Hannibal lures Will over to the glowing pool and they swim, Will feeling like he’s floating on a cloud, and Hannibal whipping by with practiced strokes. It’s much better than the half-assed sex they were trying to have before, though Will promises himself he’ll fuck Hannibal one of these days and achieve some type of climax so help him. The drug's effects either fade or he becomes accustomed to them as the hours tick by. His perception isn’t coated with a happy-go-lucky haze any longer, but neither is he shrouded in those familiar, daily doses of anxiety. In the nude, Will is floating on his back beside Hannibal, enjoying the thumping rhythms of the festival’s music from far away. He hums when Hannibal undeniably slips his hand into his grasp. 

“How is it that nobody is coming to find us?” Will murmurs soon after, dipping his head back so his curls submerge. “You said you came here when you were younger?”

“I learned the lay of the land in Italy,” Hannibal tells him, maybe more divulgent than he’d act off the influence. “There were no corners of this city unknown to me. I yearned to hunt down the places I was not permitted so I could test their give. Not once was I ever discovered here, and spent many nights sketching the canals and festivities.”

“Was this one of the places you wanted to show me?”

“Yes.”

“I like it, Hannibal, but maybe next time don’t go ham with the narcotics.” 

There is a soft chuckle and then a rippling shift in the water. Hannibal gathers Will in his arms, able to stand in the shallow end of the pool and hold him close as if he weighs nothing at all. Will allows himself to be held, his inhibitions also quite low. 

“I’ve missed you these past few months,” Will whispers in his ear secretively. “I’ve gotten a taste of being behind the veil and I find that I’m…lacking the desire to hide from what I see.”

Hannibal nuzzles into his neck and grips his waist bruisingly. 

For a moment, Will expects he might be able to get hard again, and then an explosion sounds off in the distance. Far from here, but close enough to stir panic in the festival’s crowds.

Perking up like an alert dog, Hannibal turns to face east. Will threads Hannibal’s hair out of his eyes and tucks most of it behind his ear, asking, “Where did that come from?”

“The boatyard,” Hannibal responds unsteadily.

Will goes cold.

Abigail.

It turns out Abigail is more than fine. Unscathed, in fact. The yacht she’d been on had been far out on the water when the explosion erupted, damaging only three boats on the west side of the docks. Hannibal had insisted on taking her home regardless, and the polizia hadn’t bothered to stop them. Nobody except Fiore, the boy who was in charge of the yacht she’d been partying on, was being bothered with questions. Who owned the boat which exploded? Did you hear anything strange beforehand? Will certainly couldn’t care less, he was too busy stewing in self-loathing for being mildly high while his proverbial daughter had been in harm’s way. No way was he allowing Hannibal to give him drugs again…unless the context is severely different from now.

At least never in public or with Abigail involved.  

Abigail doesn’t make a fuss when they drive her home. Will spends his focus on watching Hannibal drive, wondering all the while if they should have called a cab. Surely it isn’t safe to drive while under the influence, but it’s been hours since they’d taken their doses. And, maybe their status with Abigail as proper father figures is more important than road safety, in Hannibal’s eyes anyway. 

Exhausted by the time they arrive home, Will is taken off guard when Abigail hugs both of them simultaneously in the foyer, a quick squeeze around both their waists, thanking them quietly for the fun. 

Will watches her wander off to her bedroom and then turns to Hannibal who looks just as flabbergasted as he. Both are rather unfamiliar with the fragile feeling of acceptance from those other than themselves, that’s obvious. Will always expected he’d be a good father, but never imagined the smile and praise of a daughter, and how right it would feel to do good by her. 

Hannibal looks as if he’s recalling a very brittle memory from his youth, so Will leads him to their room. They haven’t been sleeping in the same bedroom for some time, but neither of them question it when Will strips down to his boxers and disappears into the restroom to wash up. 

When they lay in the dark, Will turns to Hannibal and whispers;

“We’re okay?”

A smile breaks through the shadows cast on Hannibal’s face and he turns as well, a dry hand sliding up the smooth expanse of Will’s back.

“Yes, Will. We’re okay.” 

Despite both of them experiencing quite the narcotic hangover the days following the festival, Will and Hannibal both come to a silent agreement that their mutual ‘trips’ had been beneficial for their relationship, regardless of the embarrassment wrought from that night.

Hannibal doesn’t hold back anymore, not when it comes to displays of his affection, planting a kiss on Will’s cheek in the mornings when the three of them scuttle around for coffee. They don’t always wake at the same time, but when they do they spend nearly two hours laughing and chatting about their time in Italy like an average family, about Abigail’s idiotic friends, the candy store manager from down the street who must have a vendetta against Hannibal by now. 

Abigail often sticks close to Hannibal, but Will recognizes more and more that she’s becoming comfortable sitting beside him or even spending alone time with him. 

He teaches Abigail how to tie bait to a hook, one evening with Hannibal sending them off with packed lunches to the nearest lake. He looked rather eager to be rid of them, and Will realised halfway through his drive to the countryside, Hannibal is a human being who needs alone time too.

It made him smile, and it earned Hannibal a long, ardent evening kiss that very same day. Hannibal’s cheeks were peach in the dim light of the hall, and Will squeezed his love handles playfully before wandering off without a word to scrounge up some leftovers in the kitchen. 

He was aware of Hannibal’s eyes on him for the rest of the night. 

When they’d gone to bed, Hannibal had whispered to him softly.

“I have never known a deeper madness than loving you.”

Will cocked a brow in the dark and turned on his side, away from him to hide his indulging smile. “You think I feel any differently?” he’d said, the closest thing to a love confession he could claim.

Will knows it will take quite a long time to fully come to terms with Hannibal’s inner workings and his beast’s cravings. He never expected to change overnight, or for Hannibal to, but he finds that despite the enduring process, he finds it less difficult to love him.

He can’t claim if it’s forgiveness or forgetfulness.

If he cares about the specifics. 

He just knows that two months after Abigail’s enrollment, when the apartment is empty save for them and the quiet thrum of the dishwasher, Will finds Hannibal reading a book on the couch, his hair mussed from sleep, wearing one of Will’s fluffy robes he’d accumulated from the department store. The book is The Lair of the White Worm . Leave it to Hannibal to read any of Stoker’s classics other than Dracula. He looks at him and wonders how he could have ever considered giving this up, giving him up. He looks at him and says out loud, “You’re mine.”

Stalling, it takes Hannibal a few moments to close the book, set it aside, and meet Will’s eyes. His face softens, but his mouth remains a hard line.

“Would you like to offer me a dog tag?” 

Will should be angry he’s deciding to be snarky, but he’s feeling different than himself this morning. After months of gentle presses of affection, and Will’s regarded indifference of Hannibal’s extracurricular activities, they’ve come to a stalemate. A kind, soft-spoken stalemate that neither has experienced before. Will is at peace, and so is Hannibal. Neither of them know what to do about that, but Will woke up wondering why they’ve given themselves two months without daring to speak on the matter. That matter being;

“I would kill for you.” 

Hannibal balks. For most, the statement could be read as a voracious devotion of love. Not meant in any respects, as most wouldn’t genuinely kill for their partners. Will would and he’s known that for a while now. He would and he will. 

Perhaps this is the most honest he’s ever been. Certainly, the most straightforward when it comes to the diction they pass between each other, oftentimes like discreet notes in a classroom. 

Hannibal, on the other hand, sees this declaration exactly as what Will means it to be. He wants to kill with Hannibal, for Hannibal, and in turn, for himself. 

Staring idly for too long, Will pads over and sits beside him, resting his forehead gently on Hannibal’s sternum. He’s held and it’s once again, everything he’s ever wanted. 

They stay like that for hours, Hannibal’s hand threading through Will’s hair, Will listening to the thumping beat of his lover’s heart. It would be easy now to confess his love outright, but instead he leans up to kiss him. Tenderly, Hannibal frames Will’s face with his hands, and their tongues caress searchingly. Both seem to realise simultaneously that Abigail is in school, has been so, and no longer harbors the ability to interrupt them. They finally have the opportunity to come together. 

It’s not the storm either of them have been anticipating. 

Instead of a vicious destruction of clothing, or any manner of bloodletting, Will tips the two of them back onto the couch cushions and comfortably straddles Hannibal’s hips, disallowing their mouths from coming out of contact.

Hannibal’s hands slip under his shirt, rucking it up without the intention of taking it off. Will moans into his mouth, rocking into the gentle hardness between their legs. 

“Mine,” Will whispers, opening his eyes to find Hannibal watching him with glistening ones. They blink at each other until Will maneuvers Hannibal’s hands, placing one in his curls, and the other on his rump, over his boxers. He smiles guilelessly at Hannibal’s muted shock. 

As if this deed has been more fundamentally difficult than nourishing the desire for killing between them. As if Will in the end, would never feed either of them in this way. 

As if all the times before had been dreams. 

He presses in for a kiss again, the scant space between them hot and stuffy. Hannibal gasps when Will rocks again, encouraging him to guide him with the hand he’d placed. He does after a moment’s hesitation, squeezing a moan out of Will and tugging him closer.

The chafing softness of their clothing spurs Will on, as well as Hannibal’s body heat, beckoning him closer, begging him to come undone so he can melt into it. 

Their cocks harden from the friction, and Will beams when Hannibal, in response, finally breathes, “Yours.” 

It doesn’t last long after that; Will muffles his moans where he buries his face in Hannibal’s throat. Hannibal’s gasps arise like shattered glass, brittle and sharp at the edges. After several brutal ruts, they both come in their pants like teenagers, twitching through the surge of aftershocks. Clutching one another close, Will registers what they just did and laughs brightly. 

“We didn’t even take our pants off,” he grumbles.

When he hesitantly separates them, he gulps when he sees the redness coloring Hannibal’s cheeks, and the way the older man pants as if he’s genuinely out of breath. It’s not solely the sex, but the intimacy Will offered, and will continue to offer for the rest of time. 

Will could grin in triumph, but instead he swipes a thumb over Hannibal’s quivering bottom lip, and asks, “Where to, after Florence?”

They ignore the stickiness between their groins, and their stifling clothes forcing the sweat from their pores. Hannibal ignores the ache in his legs where Will rests all his weight, and Will pretends his feet aren't crushing the pages of his lover’s book, discarded to the edge of the couch. 

Hannibal’s hands flutter to Will’s waist, and there, they tremble.

“I find the where no longer matters to me,” Hannibal confesses. “So much as the who.”  

“Home is where the heart is,” Will asserts, remembering fondly the nights his father would play his Elvis records, locked away in the den of their old house, longing for something lost. Will used to find the tunes annoying, but he supposes he understands sentimentality more than ever now.  “I’m starting to see the truth in that.” 

Earnestly meeting his eyes, Hannibal says, “Stay with me.”

Will looks down at him and shakes his head, a small smile burgeoning. 

Instead of reassuring or coming up with a cleverly crafted remark, he echoes words far gone in the cascade of their pasts. He murmurs tenderly, “Where else would I go?”