Chapter Text
Louisiana was sweltering in July. Will didn’t understand tourists. They flooded the city like flies on spoiled meat, crowding the streets in a drunken mass.
Mardi Gras was worse, of course, but summer brought all the drunken college students with spare time on their hands. Throwing loud parties and screaming well into the early morning light.
“You’re practically a kid yourself, Graham,” his coworkers said. “You should take a leaf from their books.”
Will was a police officer , though. He had standards .
And more than enough reason to stay stone cold sober. He’d seen what drink did to his dad on a bad day, and the last thing he needed was to lose his job, the only steady income they had at the moment, since Will was sending money home.
No, he wouldn’t be drinking. He would be shepherding wayward drunkards to the hospital all night and collecting them after they’d been cleared by a nurse, slapping them with a fine, and letting them go again. Will understood why they couldn’t arrest every single drunk person in New Orleans but he wasn’t happy about it. A fine did nothing to dissuade people from being stupid, and they had several days to pay it anyway, in which time they’d be going from bar to bar like studs in heat getting wasted.
It was with the third asshole that Will met him, the new resident in the ER, stethoscope hanging around his neck, hair fine and golden draped far too elegantly over his dark eyes. Will forgot how to breathe for a moment, just staring at him, somehow managed to remember his own name when asked, and certainly remembered the name of young up-and-coming doctor Hannibal Lecter when he shook his hand.
Will stayed in the room for the assessment, smiled when Mr. Lecter suggested he was a very caring officer to do so for a stranger, and almost didn’t want to leave the hospital when everything was said and done.
He let the guy off with a warning, too. Anything to get back to the streets and get someone else busted and off to the ER.
Anything to see Hannibal again.
The man called him Mr. Graham for two nights before finally caving - considering that Will had been encouraged to use his first name since the beginning and did so with great glee - and calling him Will. Will had never heard his common name sound so fancy before, it damn near did him in.
“You must be very dedicated to your job,” Hannibal noted the day after that. The patient had been handled and released, and Will was loitering under the flimsy excuse of “lunch break.”
Will flushed scarlet. “It’s an important job,” he blustered. “New Orleans is like any city. Full of trouble if you look in the right places.”
“And I suppose it’s your job to look for trouble,” Hannibal agreed, “but you needn’t look quite so hard.”
“I’m sorry?”
Hannibal smiled at him, eyes narrowed knowingly. “You could ask me out to dinner, instead. The direct approach would surely be a lot easier.”
Will gaped, caught completely off-guard. He supposed he hadn't been entirely subtle, but he hadn’t expected to be called out so blatantly.
“I get off around seven, barring emergencies,” Hannibal told him. “My treat.”
Will laughed, bringing a hand up to his hair to tug it. He was on the daytime shift now, but the next day he’d be on graveyard. And he couldn’t afford to get into something with someone when he had work to keep him occupied, and if he ever wanted to get into the FBI, and -
“Seven,” Will agreed. “I’ll pick you up.”
“In the cruiser?”
Will snorted, shaking his head. “Thought you talked about kinks on a fourth date or something.”
Hannibal shrugged, amused, wrapping his arms around his clipboard as he held it to his chest. “I prefer the direct approach.”
“Yeah I see that,” Will grinned. “Nah, cruiser’s the station’s. I’ll pick you up in my beat up old truck instead.”
“I look forward to it.”
Out of his scrubs, Hannibal dressed so impeccably that Will genuinely considered calling them a cab to get them to dinner. His truck ran like a dream but looked like a reject from shop class, and he couldn’t in good conscience put Hannibal in it dressed to the nines.
Hannibal, however, would hear none of it. “Not like you have to woo me, Mister Graham,” he pointed out, climbing into the passenger seat.
“Oh no,” Will said. “First date rules, first names only.”
“I don’t recall that in the handbook,” Hannibal said dryly.
Hannibal picked the restaurant, which was probably for the best. Will had lived in New Orleans for three years - the longest he’d ever stayed in one place before - and could count the number of times he’d eaten out anywhere but fast food on one hand. He didn’t have the time, he didn’t have the money.
If he was honest with himself, neither of those things were true. He just couldn’t get past a childhood of knowing that such things as restaurants were for “other” people.
They squeezed into a tiny table in a restaurant that hummed with the din of a dozen other conversations. Not so loud as to intrude on their privacy, but clearly a well-loved spot. Hannibal ordered them wine, and Will prayed it wouldn’t be obvious he’d never had a sip of wine in his life.
“Are you this forward with every man you date?” Will asked curiously.
“Oh, Will. I haven’t begun to be forward with you yet.”
Will found himself speechless, and then immediately laughing. It had been a long time since he’d been able to banter with someone, pushing the edges of innuendo into truly inappropriate territory, and he’d missed it. He’d been so caught up with working, with sending money home to dad, with trying to keep his head in order that he’d forgotten that he was twenty-fucking-three and allowed to have a life if he wanted.
For the first time in an age, he wanted.
They ate seafood and finished a bottle of wine between them. Will couldn’t take his eyes off Hannibal and the man seemed unable to look away either and that was promising. That was good because Will would have hated for this to be just another failed attempt at flirtation. He wanted something more with this man, he needed it.
By the time Hannibal paid the bill, Will was fidgeting like a schoolboy with his keys. The lot was dark when they returned to the truck, lights dim enough to suggest they were there to do a job but weren’t very good at it, and Will was grateful, for a change.
He caught Hannibal by his tie and yanked him close, opening his mouth to the kiss he knew was coming. No shy touches here, no tentative exploration of the other’s mouths, just tongues invading and smearing close, lips parting too wide to keep the kiss up for more than a few seconds at a time. Ravenous for it, clawing at each other like wolves.
“Hannibal?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m gonna be real forward with you right now.”
“Please,” Hannibal grinned, flattening a hand warm and heavy over Will’s denim-covered hip as he leaned in to kiss him again.
“We’re gonna get in my truck,” Will said, gasping when Hannibal stepped closer, their hips rocking together in frantic need. “Drive to my apartment. Get up the fucking stairs. Somehow.”
“Mm?”
“And you’re gonna yank every piece of clothing off me and fuck me ragged once we’re through the door.” Will finished, breathless and needy, clutching to Hannibal’s arm as the other pulled away to regard him. Will narrowed his eyes in challenge. Hannibal licked his lips.
“Get in the truck, Will,” he agreed.
They barely made it. Had Will lived any further outside of New Orleans, he would have pulled the truck over and dragged Hannibal overtop of him right there in the street.
As it was, Hannibal was on him before he’d even shut the door, holding Will to his word. He shoved Will’s shirt up and over his head, pebbling his chest with damp kisses.
“Lube,” he demanded in a husky growl. Will nearly tripped over himself trying to get them both back into the tiny bedroom.
The bedroom was so small that it was mostly bed, but that only made it easier for Hannibal to topple him into it. They tore out of their clothes, touching and kissing until it seemed that every inch of skin was alive with sensation.
Will opened for Hannibal eagerly. Even though it had been ages, it felt like they’d fallen into this a thousand times, like they knew just where to touch each other. Hannibal's hands made Will shiver and arch up into the careful thrusts of his fingers.
“In me,” he demanded in a gasp.
Hannibal stroked himself a few times, just to get the rest of the lube off his palm, and lined up. It was an easy entry, Will’s body welcoming Hannibal’s body like a long-lost lover, and when Hannibal was pressed all the way in, Will wrapped his arms around him and kissed him again.
They fucked with the desperation of teenagers; loudly and clumsily, Will groaning Hannibal’s name and clutching his hair, and Hannibal whispering the most ardent filth into Will’s ear that he’d ever heard.
Will came first, a cry of warning only a moment before his body convulsed in pleasure and he spilled slick between them. Hannibal ducked his head, forehead to forehead with Will to look at the mess between them as he continued to pound into Will, sweat lining his brow, dripping from his hair.
Will kissed him.
Hannibal kissed back.
After, they lay sprawled, chests heaving and limbs lax in pleasure, and Will laughed, pressing a hand to his eyes as he licked his lips and hummed, shifting just enough to straighten out the sheets beneath him.
“God that… that was excellent.”
Hannibal hummed, spreading a palm over Will’s chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath his fingertips.
“More than.”
Will snorted. “Remind me why you’re single again?”
“No one wants to date an ER surgeon.”
“Right. No one wants to date a first responder either.”
“That’s settled, then,” Hannibal replied, rolling his shoulders and reaching down over the side of the bed to find his shirt, using it to clean Will up first, then himself, before moving to lay heavily over him with a sigh. “We’ll get a standing reservation at the restaurant for dinner.”
And so they did.
They ate out only once a week - Will’s budget would not stand for more - but they saw each other as often as possible. Sometimes they overlapped for only the briefest of hours, a quickie while one left work and the other headed in.
Sometimes they slept together. Just. Slept. Will would wake in the early morning hours to gentle fingertips playing over his face, a kiss against his brow.
“I’ll see you tonight,” in a whisper against his cheek.
They practically lived together, in and out of each other’s apartments so frequently that Hannibal's scrubs found a drawer in Will’s home.
It was a dangerous sort of affection, the kind that was intoxicating, addicting. Will craved Hannibal every second they were apart.
He hated himself for it.
And work was becoming… stranger. Darker. It started when Will was called out as backup to an apparent suicide. But it wasn’t one. Will felt it the moment he stepped in under the police tape. Something had happened at the house but it had not been self inflicted, and it ate at Will in the worst way possible.
“I don’t know how I know,” he told Hannibal one night, chin against Hannibal’s shoulder as the other lay on his side, dozing after a sixteen hour shift. “But it’s like I can see what happened, I can feel what he was feeling when he did it.”
“You should tell them.”
“No, they’ll put me in the psych ward.”
“I’ll be able to see you all the time, then,” Hannibal joked, but he turned to his back to draw his knuckles over Will’s cheek. “Are you on the case?”
“Nah, was just there for backup,” Will rubbed his face and smiled when Hannibal kissed him. “But now I can’t sleep.”
“I can help with that.”
“Stop it,” Will laughed, but made no effort to stop Hannibal pinning him to the bed. He never did. He never wanted to. He felt like he was alive for the first time in his life, that he was actually living rather than just making do.
But he stopped sleeping properly, unless Hannibal was in bed with him. And he woke in a cold sweat even when he was, shaking and panting, his head splitting open in pain. He couldn’t do that to Hannibal. Hell, he could barely live with it himself.
The last time they fucked, Will tried to make it perfect. He worshiped Hannibal with his mouth and his hands, pulled cries and growls from him in equal measure.
“I wish you would tell me what thoughts plague you,” Hannibal murmured later, Will tucked against his chest, his nose in Will’s curls.
“How do you know anything’s plaguing me?”
Hannibal’s hand rubbed circles into his stomach. “I always know, with you.”
In the end, the note was only two lines long.
Hannibal.
I’m sorry I wasn’t better for you.