Chapter Text
He drew the inspiration first from the Jewish tradition - intended for them as a means of authenticating one’s desire for conversion.
Hannibal likes to think his own reasons are much the same.
On the first request, he doesn’t answer. Lets the call go to voicemail, takes down the name, number, and general tone of the message, and does not respond.
On the second request, if there is one, he still doesn’t answer but he returns the call at a later point when it is sure to go to voicemail itself. He explains that he’s too busy to take on new clients right now, but perhaps he’ll consider the offer in the future. He does not consider it, but updates his previous notes.
On the third request, he answers on the third ring - all things in symmetry, of course - and begins to make arrangements.
It serves not only to suit his sense of whimsy, but also to weed out the passing curious, the disingenuous, the risky and those without the drive to make his time worthwhile. Persevering to a third call with two unminded shows a deliberate interest that Hannibal appreciates, and allows him to tell a great deal about how the person on the other end of the line comports themselves when they encounter resistance.
In short, it makes him feel prized, and he wants little more than that.
And the dowry that accompanies winning his attention, anyway.
After years enough in this line of work, more than he cares to admit at only seventeen himself, Hannibal considers himself a good gauge of character through his particular methodology. He knows when someone is calling with false intentions. He knows when someone is too nervous to make spending his time worthwhile. He knows when someone means him ill. But every now and then he finds himself pleasantly surprised.
And he did not expect this particular caller to make it to three.
“Hello Will.”
There is a pause, long enough that Hannibal wonders if, perhaps, the underestimation had, initially, been the correct path to take, before the caller swallows, lets out a breath.
“I didn’t think you would pick up,” he says, though there is no blame or anger there. If anything he sounds as exhausted as he had the first time he had called this number, had left a message asking simply for company.
“I had a message memorized and everything,” Will adds dryly. “You’ve thrown me off my game.”
“Are you playing a game?” Hannibal asks, in a lazy drawl as he reclines himself across his couch. He’s found that it affects an even more disaffected tone when he does.
“No, but you are.”
Hannibal doesn’t deny this, but arches a brow. There’s no rancor in the man’s tone, nothing to indicate that he’s angry - it’s more an exhaustion, and Hannibal wonders what has caused it. It’s late, but not so late that the call comes at a worrisome hour - Hannibal has learned not to take any calls after midnight, and Will has just slipped beneath the wire by thirty minutes.
Too late for dinner, for an arranged evening together, but just late enough for someone to begin to doubt their own doubting, as the night’s darkness deepens.
Hannibal allows a smile to catch the corner of his lips, just enough to carry the sound of it in his words. “You can tell me your message anyway if you like.”
“But will it win your favor or entertain you?” Will muses, and Hannibal cannot help the smile that narrows his eyes before he checks it.
“You would be surprised how infrequently entertainment is used to garner my favor.”
“What usually is?”
“Is this your message?”
“Hardly one-sided.” There is a sound of a cigarette lighter being flicked on, three, four, five times before it takes and Will exhales just past the receiver. “No, my message would have been entirely simple. ‘I hope you earned his company as he earned yours, Hannibal, have a pleasant evening with him’.”
Another exhale, like wind catching too many dry leaves at once, and Will clears his throat.
A smoker, then, but not often by the sound of it. When he’s tense, perhaps, when the hours grow long after an even longer day, his throat roughened by the long drag he takes, unused to the burn. He is nervous, and Hannibal can all but smell it on him.
“It almost sounds as if you’re jealous,” Hannibal considers.
“Almost,” answers Will, “doesn’t mean that I am.” He pauses, wetting his lips with his tongue, and bristles, just a little. “This isn’t very professional.”
“Have you had experience with professionals before?”
“Real ones, but not those in your particular field.”
Hannibal sits up a little, propped onto his elbow now. “Then let me assure you that I am entirely professional.”
“Is this fun for you?”
“Which part?”
“Teasing me.”
“You’re not on the clock yet,” responds Hannibal, easing into a stretch before letting his feet slip to the floor again to stand. “I’m allowed to enjoy myself.”
“You don’t enjoy yourself on the clock?” The question plays entirely into Hannibal’s own script in his head, with this, but the interesting thing is that in this case, Will knows it. A deliberate tilt in the right direction. “I thought you smarter than that, at least.”
“You’ve thought of me?”
“Not a moment after considering dialing thrice,” Will replies, and there seems to be a smile in his voice, now, though the sharp exhales of the smoke still appear to be less self-soothing and more in self-punishment. A moment more, another, and Will lets out a breath. “What do you want?”
At this, Hannibal pauses, toes against the rug where he had started to move to the door to turn and come back, stuck midstep. “You ask what I want?”
“It is entirely your game,” Will reminds him, draws a breath in between his teeth. “So I am asking, yes.”
“Company.”
“Easy answer,” snorts Will, but not without that smile that Hannibal can still hear lingering.
“An honest one. If it were not, I’d not have answered,” Hannibal murmurs. “What do you do, Will?”
“I’m a teacher,” Will answers, after a moment of consideration.
“Of?”
“Forensics.”
Hannibal hums. He knows then, in all likelihood, the laws that surround what they’re conscientiously not discussing. He is paid comfortably, but not so much that this would not be an indulgence for him. Something doesn’t fit right, and what it is Hannibal isn’t yet sure the shape of, but nothing in his senses prickles in alarm.
Hannibal wanders towards the bedroom of his flat - appointed as well as he can, and still a miserably cheap rental. Luxurious furnishings surrounded by walls with water stains older than Hannibal himself. He narrows his eyes at the largest of them as he passes, to instead focus on his closet, and the carefully chosen assembly of suits there. Only a few, but interchangeable, to allow for variation with repeat clients.
“Who shared my number with you?”
A hum, a tone to suggest just the briefest indulgence in that particular secret remaining his own before Will deigns to respond.
“Doctor Alana Bloom,” he says, waits for a reaction to the name he is certain Hannibal doesn’t know, before adding, “through a colleague of her’s, Bedelia Du Maurier.”
There is a long enough pause for Will to assume that that name, at least, holds significance for Hannibal. There is no tension over the line, just consideration perhaps, judging Will’s character by whom he knows and who, in turn, knows Hannibal this way. Degrees of separation that read like a book and present their own conclusions.
Characteristics that build up from multiple people to lead up to this one.
He hadn’t, after all, called late. He had, in fact, called thrice.
As though on cue, Will clears his throat again and speaks. “She suggested I might try to call, and gauge my interest on that alone. I called once in good faith, twice to see.”
“And this third time?”
Will makes a sound, a soft thing that suggests a smile and something deeper still. “Entertainment.”
The suit that Hannibal takes down is tastefully dark, nearly somber compared to what he would usually prefer to wear. From the patient exhaustion Hannibal can hear in Will’s voice, he imagines that one of the brighter suits would make too ostentatious an impression. “And are you?” Hannibal asks. “Entertained.”
“I’m curious.”
A genuine smile bares Hannibal’s teeth. “That’s seen to the death of many cats, you know.”
“But satisfaction brought them back,” Will finishes, and it’s enough to make Hannibal pause in his arrangements.
An educated man, clever and quick to not only respond to Hannibal’s games, but do so adeptly. Well-paid enough to consider this a viable option to relieve the weltschmerz that ladens his voice, and unlikely to risk professional acquaintanceship were he untrustworthy. He is, in a word, quaint, and Hannibal finds himself pleasantly intrigued.
At any rate, it’s already been a more engaging conversation that Hannibal shares with most of his clients, and so with an accepted mourning of the night he was to spend studying, Hannibal remarks, “It’s much easier to entertain in person, I’ve found.”
A laugh, then, soft, but entirely genuine.
“Perhaps for you,” Will agrees. “Personally I abhor being social.”
There is a moment where Hannibal falters, considers perhaps he misheard, considers perhaps he misunderstood, or Will had misused a word. Though that in itself is absurd. He licks his lips to reply, question, perhaps just let the phone drop from his shoulder to his palm and hang up the call.
“An interesting remark to make,” he tries instead, careful, tone neutral and calm as before. He hears Will hum, hears a door swing open, close with a slap against its frame.
“And yet, note, entirely truthful.” Will says, sighs. “I do not enjoy the requirements of being social yet like any human being I seek out and crave company of a particular sort.”
“Oh?”
“You play a clever game, Hannibal, but not a long one. Was the call long enough for you to gauge an interest?”
“I believe I made an offer,” the boy responds, a little slower as he finds his footing again, palm pressed against the suit laid out on his bed. “And it sounded as though you declined.”
“I declined an offer of entertainment,” Will corrects him, mildly. “I don’t need to be entertained.”
Hannibal unbuttons the jacket where it lies on the bed, fingers turning each one open. “Then tell me what you do need.”
“To sleep,” Will admits with a long sigh, before his tone turns once more, somehow more decisive, perhaps reassuring in a way only an exhausted teacher can be to students honed in on that particular sense of humor. “To allow you the same. And to seek company at a more reasonable hour, tomorrow.”
Hannibal can’t help the way his lips tilt, just so, just once, before he parts his lips to speak. “Tomorrow?”
“Dinner.”
“Seven?”
“Eight is better.”
Hannibal smiles. “Eight.”
“Is that when the clock begins?”
“I should begin it tonight, for the entertainment.”
“You suggested that was not part of the repertoire of your paid time,” Will reminds him, but with a sigh - a smile alongside - resigns himself to the inevitable. Mingling of two sets of rules from two different games.
“No,” Hannibal finally answers, a mild tease. “I said that my enjoyment was not.” This, finally, earns a breath of laughter, and Hannibal can’t help but smile at the openness of it - as if Will is surprised to hear himself make such a sound.
The suit is returned to the closet then, and for a moment Hannibal is remiss and grateful all at once that Will does not want to see him tonight. It would have been easy money, unlikely to be a repeat client but friendly enough on the surface at least that Hannibal might have even found the experience pleasurable. He supposes, finally slipping out of his shoes, that he will just have to wait, and make the most of a blessed evening alone.
Hannibal chooses the restaurant, at Will’s insistent apathy. He takes Will’s information, his credit card number, assures the man that he will not be charged until they are finished, though swift, thin fingers tap across his table to authorize the payment in advance. The rest of their negotiations will take place in person, at Hannibal’s apathetic insistence, and Will grows quiet but for single word answers.
The doubt sits heavy in his voice, and Hannibal unfurls his spine into a languid stretch, speaking softly. “Sleep,” he murmurs. “I anticipate a lively conversation tomorrow, and we will both need our stamina for it.”
He does not wait for a response, but merely hangs up, and takes aside the small notebook he keeps in the drawer beside his bed to mark down Will’s name for a rare fourth time.
---
Will, despite assumptions to the contrary, is never late. More often than not, he is early, seated in his car and allowing his mind to calm itself to a chaotic neutral. Enough to hold a conversation. Enough not to add his own opinion where it is unwanted. Enough, at least, to get out of his damned car.
He had not bothered to check out the restaurant before arriving, and thinks, now, that perhaps he should have.
The cars, alone, suggest a place where Will would rarely set foot, for no other reason than he had no desire to pay $30 for a breadstick, singular. His lips curl as he checks his watch, both amused, darkly, and nervous, genuinely, that his company would choose such a place for first - possibly only - meeting between them.
He supposes he should have guessed, from Bedelia and her preferences, from the way Alana spoke of her, that this would happen.
Perhaps it is another test, another game.
Will gives himself a moment more to linger, before getting out and locking the car, making his way to the front entrance. The table, he assumes, is under his own name, but does not risk a falter, so instead he stands and waits, hands in his pockets, glasses partially down his nose as his eyes remain open but see nothing. Meditative, quiet, oddly approachable by those who know what signs to read, Will stands. Will waits.
But there's no game now, not for this. Not when the meter is running and there's money on the line.
Contrary to whatever Will Graham might think of him, Hannibal Lecter is entirely a professional. His car is left with the valet - someone who passed his number to promising clientele early on in exchange for a taste of Hannibal's own services - and who knows to look out for the little auto if Hannibal leaves with another. Elegant fingers smooth flat the lay of his coat, a glance in the smoked glass of the restaurant’s windows assures him that every honey-blonde hair is perfectly in place, and conjuring the most ephemeral smile he can, Hannibal enters.
He sees Will instantly, despite how little he looks like one of Hannibal's usual clients. No French cuffs, no glittering tie tack, no drawing up of shoulders as if to heft the weight of his own masculinity. He looks in no part the powerful, wealthy people that Hannibal prefers to be courted by.
But he does look like a teacher, and it turns Hannibal's smile unexpectedly genuine. Clean and comfortable, a blue button-down beneath a grey blazer, a red tie knotted in a four-in-hand. Simple. Unassuming. Not at all unpleasant to look at, despite the unshaven scruff and tamed curls that still slip free for one to fall in front of his glasses.
“I hope you were not waiting long,” Hannibal murmurs to him, unshouldering his coat to be hung by the attentive maître d' who Hannibal turns his smile to in passing.
Will does not startle from his reverie but takes his time slowly gathering the information necessary to return to the now properly. He takes a breath, turns to the same voice that had so enjoyed tugging him into conversation the night before, and pauses, long enough that it would appear rude from anyone else, and it is hardly charming on the man but certainly curious. Certainly worth waiting through for the satisfaction at the end.
"I have found a way to occupy myself without incident," Will replies, swallows in a way that suggests discomfort not hunger, before holding out his hand, palm up, to gesture for Hannibal to enter the establishment first. He watches the young man smile, only partially a mask, at the maître d', state his name for the reservation. Their table is set towards the back, out of the way of the constant coming and going of waiters, close enough that they will not have to watch their food paraded through the entire restaurant.
A clever choice; he has been here before.
They are left to their comfort, take their seats, and Will allows his eyes to linger on Hannibal just long enough to take him in.
"You do not match your voice,” he comments, finds Hannibal’s only reply is a smile not quite wide enough to show teeth, though the intent is clear. He lets his own spread across his face, entirely unfelt, disingenuous. "You sound older."
“And you sound disappointed,” Hannibal chides, unfolding his napkin with a sweep of fingers to settle across his lap. “Usually the reaction is entirely the opposite.”
Will’s eyes twitch narrower, just enough, but Hannibal averts his attention to the wine list with a murmur of thanks to the waiter who brings it to them. “I was told that you’re an excellent conversationalist,” Will remarks, and at this, Hannibal’s eyes lift to him.
Dr. Du Maurier’s words, Hannibal knows, conveyed as if by a game of telephone, to be spoken by the man across from him instead of the elegant psychiatrist. She keeps Hannibal in her attention solely for that reason, with few exceptions that he has always been happy to indulge. A bright woman, in his intended field, willing to share her mind and her experiences and once in a while, her bed.
He is fond of her. As much as he is of anyone, anyway.
“I’ve been told the same, and assured them that it’s entirely false,” Hannibal answers after a moment, and in a fit of pique, he defers the choice of wine to Will instead. “There is a difference between listening, and speaking. Knowing how to balance in favor of the former is a valuable skill.”
“I find it hard to believe,” Will remarks, hand spanning across the menu, “that someone your age -” Hannibal arches a brow, the hint of a smile in his eyes enough that Will’s protests quiet and reroute. “I spend all day teaching students. I didn’t expect to be having dinner with one.”
The challenge in his words is intoxicating, a friction rubbing hot between them rather than the smooth flow of dialogue that Hannibal has become accustomed to. Spoiled by, perhaps, is a better way to phrase it, as he seeks to tighten his hold over the flow between them and adjust it more to his liking.
“Tell me about teaching,” Hannibal suggests.
The muscles beneath Will’s eyes twitch, just barely, and he almost welcomes the interruption from the waiter who comes to check what they would like to drink. Will, to Hannibal's genuine amusement, orders a beer, allows his eyes to settle on the younger man as he takes the menu himself to select a wine, one of the more expensive, as Will recalls. He wonders if that is a challenge or genuine desire for the taste.
He should call the waiter back, request he check ID for the drinks, as he should have, of the younger man before him. He should. See him quietly removed from the premises, soft requests to perhaps not, next time, choose this establishment. He should.
"You play a very intricate game, Hannibal, why?"
Hannibal settles back into his chair, a less welcoming posture than leaning ever so slightly forward as he had been. It is a game, really, down to each individual movement, particularly controlled. This allows space between them, for the man who watches Hannibal so narrowly, allows a feeling of pursuer and pursued. But the question lingers, spoken softly but aggressive in its phrasing, and Hannibal hums in thought.
“It is expected,” he answers simply. “Most seek out the experience as a whole, a fleeting courtship. They know that they will win, ultimately, so there is assurance that playing is not wasted effort. Still,” Hannibal muses, “the challenge makes them feel as though they have worked to reap the rewards.”
Hannibal accepts his wine with a soft smile, bringing it to just beneath his nose to take in the aroma before savoring a small sip. The price is incidental, but Hannibal has been spoiled enough to have developed a palate for the finer things, and the burgundy sits warm and rich against his tongue.
“You refuse to play the game,” the young man counters after a moment more of thought. “Why?”
"Because some of my students are older than you," Will points out, watching Hannibal grow that little bit more tense for it. It is strange, and entirely fascinating, watching this young man discover his age is not always an asset. But Will relents, takes a drink of his beer before setting it aside and bringing a hand to his eyes beneath his glasses.
"Teaching is comfortable," Will replies instead, careful. “Once in a while I come across a student who intrigues me and classes become more interesting, questions directed at them, discussions centered on their work."
"Playing favorites?"
"Natural selection." Will’s lips quirk, and this, at least, is genuine. He had wanted company, when he had called. He had not called with the intent to drag the man to bed, and certainly now that is entirely off the books. A pity. He can’t deny he finds the young man attractive. Interesting.
But it would hardly do for FBI to be caught in such a compromising situation, and Will is nothing if not cautious.
"Teaching is an easy fallback to return to."
An interesting turn of phrase that is no less deliberate than the rest of his words, intended to pique Hannibal’s curiosity further. A role reversal, perhaps, but Hannibal isn’t yet willing to play that hand. He lets the obvious question hang, files it away as information to be gleaned later, and like a cat turning towards a swath of sun, Hannibal eases up a smile to the waiter who appears, placing his order with a well-appointed accent sweeping lithe through the French names.
Will, to Hannibal’s delight, orders the same.
Though the man is an interesting anomaly among the mostly faceless others with whom Hannibal chooses to grace with his presence, what he desires - insofar as Hannibal can tell - is nothing new. Company, truly, someone unrelated to his fields of work or interest with whom he can share conversation, even if he does show a peculiar inclination to wanting to dominate the nature of it. An ego that Will himself would likely deny he has but still appears bright as day to Hannibal, a pride that needs to be massaged in feeling superior to another.
Hannibal simply happens to be the subject of it.
He hardly cares. It’s his money to make and Will’s to spend, however he prefers. A shame, though, that the potential to share more than that seems to have been quashed so soon.
He’s not at all unpleasant to look at.
“You’ve never done this before,” Hannibal notes, as the waiter departs with both their orders. “Why now?”
"Paid for company? No." Will shakes his head, takes up his beer again to cool his throat. He considers the rest of the question carefully, dissecting it as he would any of his cases.
"Indulging a whim, perhaps," he offers, shrugs, briefly meets Hannibal’s eyes with his own. "Curiosity," he adds. He sits back, as Hannibal is, the two mirroring each other in attempted avoidance, yet neither inclined to end the conversation, call the evening a failure and return to their lives. Not yet, perhaps. Not quite a failure, perhaps. "The potential for satisfaction at the end of it all, once we both cede certain prides, I suppose. A difficult feat for us both. In that, at least, we are similar."
"Satisfaction is a spectrum," Hannibal comments, finds Will’s eyes on him for it. Pleasant. Warming. A pity.
"Thankfully so. What aspect were you seeking, coming here? Merely sexual or following your own whims?"
Hannibal tilts his head at the question, and it requires a genuine effort to stifle his amusement. The dismissal of ‘mere’ sexual pursuits, from one who has - in fact - hired an escort, the assumption that Hannibal does this out of his own need for fulfillment and the goodness of his heart - it’s all very funny and, surprisingly, deeply charming.
“You called me,” Hannibal reminds him. “It would have been rude not to return the interest.”
“You made me call three times,” Will answers, a breath of laughter catching his words before he takes another sip and leans back to allow for their plates to be set.
“And you did,” smiles Hannibal, but he can feel it fading incrementally, a dawning frustration as their dinner continues aimlessly. He does not want to have sex, that much is obvious now, but he hardly seems to want the conversation. He resents it, and by proxy, Hannibal. It isn’t the first time that a client has projected their own dismay onto Hannibal, but he hadn’t expected it from this one.
More surprises, at every turn.
“I sought to provide a service,” Hannibal finally answers, when the waiter has stepped away. His tone flattens, just a little, but his expression remains neutral. “I have, thus far, attempted to do so to the best of my ability, but you are - admittedly - making it rather difficult for me to glean the nature of the services I should provide.” Hannibal slips his knife through the cut of steak seared but nearly raw upon his plate, and takes the bite delicately between his teeth. “It doesn’t matter what I want, in truth, but in order for me to make this worth the time and money you’re already spending, it would help me immensely to know what you want, Will.”
“I’m getting exactly what I want,” Will tells him, brows up in earnestness as he takes up his cutlery to start on his meal as well, though he is more interested in watching the young man in front of him hold his composure through obvious frustration. “I sought the service of your conversation, and I am rather enjoying it. What you find frustrating, I think, is that I am not allowing you at all to gain a baseline on me.”
Will tilts his head, takes his time setting the piece of steak between his teeth, curling his tongue over it, chewing slowly to savor the taste.
“So you we are at an impasse,” Will adds. “Not knowing anything about the other and refusing to give enough of ourselves. Though that, surely, is a frustration you face frequently.”
And there, that spark of dominance and pride that had flared before, in wanting to control the situation, the conversation, everything in even the smallest way. It is entirely enraging, crude, ridiculous, yet still the young man does not stand up and walk out, does not give Will the satisfaction of seeing him leave.
And in that, finds himself watching a brief flicker of relief, when he remains sitting.
It is no wonder he pays for company. He is, in a word, insufferable. In more words, smug and overbearing. Hannibal wonders how long it’s been since Will has had a night out with anyone, lowered himself to such mundane things as being sociable, thought anyone worthy of it who would indulge him in return. He doesn’t ask, of course, that would be unbearably rude, but merely chews in silence for a moment, before washing the steak - bleeding rare - down with a swallow of wine.
“To the contrary,” Hannibal considers, in earnest. “I find the people with whom I work remarkably willing to reveal themselves to me.” The pun earns a snort, and Hannibal’s smile widens before he can stop it. Slowly, though, he reels it back, though his words remain entirely genuine. “And you would be surprised in their revelations how little most mind me at all. I am a companion for them, in whatever they form they need, in collaboration or in conflict, affection or sex.”
Hannibal considers his words, and watches Will now, as he speaks - passing their impasse, he hopes, to meet in an agreeable middle rather than suffer through the rest of dinner in silence. “There are very few who know me as I am, who desire that at all. And I must, for my own well-being, consider them carefully before I move the mirror aside into which they project themselves, and let them see me. Know me.”
A pause, tongue pressing between his lips to savor the blood, the wine, that reddens them, and a smile curves sharp. “But you’ve no interest in that,” Hannibal reminds him, and though his voice is scarce above a whisper, his words are pointed. “What interest could someone such as yourself have in someone younger than your students? I do wonder.”
“I hardly find you interesting,” Will responds, watches the tension in Hannibal’s jaw tighten, relax, before his smile widens and he tilts his head, and Will, in turn, feels his eyes narrow in pleasure. “Now there,” he says. “I’ve given an inch, and you can tell when I lie to you.”
A moment to take a long drink of beer, nearly finishing the glass before Will sets it down again, takes up his knife once more.
“I admitted to being misled by your voice, by proxy your age, I didn’t think I would be having dinner with someone younger than a student. So my interest in you is yet unknown. I know you study, but I don’t know what. I know you did not lie about your enjoyment, this is a necessity, not a pastime. I know a lot by looking and reading you, but none of them are things you would tell me, so I cannot use them.”
He raises an eyebrow, takes another bite of his meal. “And I abhor being social,” he reminds Hannibal almost lightly. “People say I lack the skills for it. You are doing amicably, the wine is still in your glass.”
Hannibal accepts the praise with a tilt of his head, before he takes another sip, eyes alight. “As we’ve established,” he murmurs, “I am a professional.” He lifts his napkin from his lap, pressing it neatly against his lips before folding it onto the table, hands folded. “And you’re not the worst I’ve met.”
The older man grins, just a flash of teeth, at the light rejoinder. “No?”
“No.”
“But not the best either.”
“No,” Hannibal agrees, allowing his amusement to show now. He doesn’t see the harm in it, really - he’s making plenty tonight just from eating a good dinner and being mildly berated, from someone who has much more to lose than he does were it ever to come to light. Hannibal’s insurance, always, in his youth if not his choice of profession. “I am studying medicine. Surgery, in particular.”
“That would explain the fee you charged,” Will agrees, eyes on Hannibal as he finishes his beer, sets the glass down again and watches as Hannibal savors the liquid in his own glass. “Early,” he adds, raising an eyebrow to see if Hannibal would deny it, argue. He doesn’t. Will presses his lips together and parts them to take a breath. Around them, the place is filling up quickly, apparently popular further into the later evening. Will ignores them. Hannibal is aware of them but doesn’t turn to look.
“Do you enjoy it?” Will asks at length, curious, finds a small smile in answer.
“I would not work so hard for it did I not,” Hannibal replies, much to Will’s pleasure, watching him reach for his glass again, his own teeth set against his inner lip before Will lets it go and sits forward, just enough.
“Are you good at it?”
“I have yet to fail a paper.”
“Admirable,” Will responds dryly. “Not failing a paper is not the same as doing well in it.”
Dark eyes settle on him and linger, long enough to make clear his exasperation before he shrugs gently, a graceful motion. “I am within the first three of my class in every subject.”
“Better,” Will replies, sitting back as he was. “I would hate to be paying a delinquent and truant.”
He considers the young man before him, the way he has resigned himself to this being the closest to ‘friendly’ either would get this evening, considers how it truly is a shame he is so young, the hate sex would be well worth the hangover the next morning. Will presses his teeth to his inner lip again, holds for a breath, releases on an exhale.
“You’re done with your wine,” he tells him, as Hannibal reaches, once more, for it.
Quaint. The word keeps springing to mind and it makes Hannibal smile each time it does. They might have had a truly pleasant evening, all things considered, even if they didn’t wind up in bed together. Will is clearly intelligent, has experience alluded to but not yet illuminated, and Hannibal has found himself capable of upholding satisfying conversations about nearly everything - music, history, theatre, anything - with nearly everyone.
Nearly.
“I don’t believe I am,” Hannibal responds, brows twitching inward as he takes up his glass. “You see, there’s still more in the glass, which means -”
“That you’re done,” Will finishes for him, and Hannibal pauses in lifting it to his lips.
“I will be,” challenges the younger man.
“If it means I need to insist that the waiter check your ID, yes. You will be then. Or you are now.”
The forcefulness of the statement, the threat in it, plucks at something deeper in Hannibal. It’s familiar, this kind of control, but - as the night has proven time and again - wholly unexpected from the grumpy, grudging professor sitting across from him. And so Hannibal sets his glass back down, unfinished, and arches a brow.
Will offers little more than a blink, a brief tilt of the corners of his lips to suggest genuine amusement as he studies Hannibal in front of him. Then he considers his own glass, his plate, most of dinner eaten, partially enjoyed - usually he prefers his meat cooked - and the possibility of making them both suffer through dessert.
The thought alone draws a brief snort from him before Will sits up, gestures to the waiter for the check.
“You are very good, Hannibal, at your means to an end,” Will tells him, and there is something there beyond the sarcasm and dryness, something warmer, perhaps. Or maybe Hannibal is being too generous. The check comes and Will folds his card into it without a word, to be taken away again.
“And you are welcome for dinner.”
Hannibal’s jaw works in a movement he can’t stop fast enough, a blatant flicker of annoyance to have even this - a simple thanks - undermined by someone who apparently has little better to do than pay an exorbitant amount of money to share an unpleasantly terse dinner with a stranger. He should charge him again, out of spite, because no matter how many times Hannibal reminds himself he should be grateful for such a relatively effortless evening, the fact remains that he has gone out of his way to make this appointment, to spend his time here, and it was for little more than to be berated and disdained.
That, and enough money to cover his lab fees for a little while longer.
He forces his expression to ease, allowing it to fall to a sedate neutrality, to hide the bruising of his own ego. It never gets easier, this part, when a client is reminded of the nature of their interaction and uses their leverage to revile that which they themselves have sought. It is Hannibal’s fault, always, that they are in this position. Hannibal’s fault, always, for what he has chosen to pay for his schooling. Hannibal’s burden to carry another’s shame.
He does not bother to say thank you when it is so clearly unwanted.
They stand to go, and as Hannibal shoulders into his coat again and buttons it neatly, he chooses to ignore the blue-eyed gaze that glances over him again. Hannibal waits until they’re outside, then, and with as much disinterest as he can muster - it doesn’t take much effort to manifest at this point - he asks, “Are you seeking additional company, then, or are you satisfied with services rendered?”
Will raises an eyebrow, watches him a moment more before ducking his head and adjusting his own.
“I offended you.” It’s not a question, though Will makes no attempt to apologize for the obvious slight. He can see Hannibal standing straight-backed next to him, eyes away perhaps for want of any distance he can achieve, be it only partial. Ostrich with his head in the sand.
Out of sight, and all that.
A car pulls up beside them, simple little thing, and the valet hands Hannibal the keys with a smile, familiar, warm, before going on his way, back to his station. Will lifts an eyebrow as he lifts his eyes to Hannibal again. Valet. Dinner. A suit he is fairly sure did not come from his own savings. The boy did know how to enjoy himself. A poor thing beneath a veneer of riches.
“I won’t pull more emotional labor from you by making you pretend you want to spend the rest of your evening with me,” Will says, rolling his shoulders in his coat. “It would do us both a disservice.”
With a thin smile he makes to walk past the parked car, around it and almost to the lot before turning, perhaps thinking better of his parting words before adding, earnestly, “I did enjoy the company.”
Hannibal glances up, halfway into his car already, and affects a smile that does not reach his eyes. “I’m glad that I could provide,” he responds, before slipping into his car. “Good night, Will.”
The words are spoken in earnest, as Hannibal releases a long-held breath and settles his hands against the steering wheel, reminding himself as he goes of the payment now posting to his bank, and that all it cost him was his time.