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Will hasn’t heard the name Lecter in three decades. At least not outloud. Not from anyone other than himself and his own whispers in the dark. 

And if he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t needed to hear it now either, not when he’d walked into the room and had been accosted with the dizzying sort of overbearing presence of a person too sure of their worth. Confidence that could actually be backed up with follow through. It’d stopped him in his tracks. It was a presence he’d been very familiar with, once upon a time.

And then the man spoke to him directly. “Do you have trouble with taste?”

Will looked at the soft, suede jacket over the sweater vest, all cocooned around a crisp white shirt, the top button undone. This was dressed down for him. A play at pretending he wasn’t at his most casual.

Will huffed a laugh. Rubbed at the soft, worn material of his own plaid shirt, loose against the skin of his stomach. “Doctor…?”

He waited for it. Tried to convince himself he didn’t know it was coming. 

“Lecter.”

Will laughed. Felt a weird, soft sort of giddiness circling in his stomach. “My thoughts are not often tasty.”

The doctor–no Hannibal’s–posture was perfect as he turned on Will. His head tilted a touch. The way it always had when he was a boy and something small and interesting would catch the rare flare of his intrigue. Will remembers. It’s dizzying how perfectly he remembers. 

Hannibal wouldn’t recognize him. Maybe wouldn’t like what he saw when he did. Will didn’t know. So when Hannibal pointed out he wasn’t fond of eye contact, Will didn’t look up in defiance. Didn’t make any move to prove he could look if he wanted to. He harped on about the whites of the eyes and hepatitis. Kept his eyes buried in his own lap. Spouted bullshit. 

Would Hannibal recognize his eyes? Shocking blue against his dark curls. The one and only defining feature he’d carried from childhood. He’d stripped his name, bits of his skin and flesh, the soft blonde curls. But the eyes were his to keep. Out of place in the Lecter home. They’d always been the thing most commented on, most complimented, when he was a little girl. 

Will didn’t know how to let himself be seen before he was ready. He didn’t look up. He had, at least, the advantage of not being looked for on his side. He’d spent his life expecting Hannibal. Somehow, someway, there was an air of the unfinished that circled his memory of his brother. It popped up for Will at night, in his dreams, in the deep, permeating air of the dark when he couldn’t drift off. It was in the way Hannibal used to glitter when he held Will. When he’d clutched him to his chest when they were little or ran his fingers across the soft, unusual fullness of his cheeks. “Mischa,” he’d whisper. Breath brushing against skin, encompassing and warm. It still woke Will up at night. But he was pretty sure Hannibal thought him dead.

He’d left in an embarrassing sort of fluster for his class. Obnoxious that Hannibal had become a psychiatrist, really. But he’d always said the sort of thing to indicate he’d veer there when they were little. An open grin, a sharp feral uptick of lips, bright, uneven teeth, “your mind is a wonder, Mischa. I’d love to know how it ticks.”

It seems like he’d reigned in the aura of unsettling that had always surrounded him. The one that had made their parents and house staff and other children shy away but had had Will burying himself further into his brother. 

It was still there, Will was sure. Just tucked somewhere underneath that god forsaken sweater vest.

He taught his class. Recycled a powerpoint on The Chesapeake Ripper. It was the beginning of a month-long module, the killer elusive enough to warrant the time. But there’d been no new victims for years. It was all recycled material. He coasted. Thought of Hannibal.

–

He wasn’t prepared to be met with him again so soon, but Will stood in the doorway of his motel room in nothing but his shitty boxers and a dingy white t-shirt and let Hannibal charm his way through the door. Will pretended his entrance wasn’t an inevitability, watched the put on demure smile and soft eyes.

He ate the food. Protein scramble. How vague. How proud Hannibal seemed over something so simple. Will narrowed his eyes as he ate it. It was good. Too good. Of course it was. Even as a child, Hannibal never did anything in any way less than perfect. 

The more he ate, the more playful Hannibal got. He called Will a mongoose.

“So who do we suppose the snakes are?” Will asked. 

That minute head tilt. His tongue moved in his mouth, like Hannibal was licking his teeth. His eyes were soft, open. A rare sort of thing Will had actually only ever seen directed at him. It’s breathtaking and complicated. 

It was a look owned by Mischa. Now he’s just handing it out to Will, and Hannibal doesn’t know it. Doesn’t know he’s not offering it to the same person. He’s handing it out as if it was his to give and not Will’s. It sits in his throat. 

“Merely offering a hypothetical,” Hannibal said. 

“I have a feeling it’s never actually hypothetical with you,” Will said.

Hannibal looked down to his plate, his smile big. Wide and genuine when he looked back up at Will. “Anyone,” he said. “Pick your poison.”

And it caught Will off guard. A new, unexpected sort of amusement that makes him tick with want. Hannibal isn’t just everything he was, he’s more now, and he’s all the more interesting for it. Will isn't the only one made different by time. By loss.

Will wants to know what parts of Hannibal were eaten by grief. Grief over Will. What parts of Hannibal did he destroy? What parts did he fertilize? What parts of him are eternally damned to be influenced by the tragedy of losing his gentle, sweet baby sister. 

Will wants to cut the truth of Hannibal out of him.

“Jack?” Will asked.

“An interesting offering,” Hannibal said. And Will knew he would think so. A targeted response on his part.

“Is he?”

“Don’t you think so?”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “Did you always intend to become a psychiatrist?”

Hannibal seemed to bristle at the change of subject. He set his napkin on the table and leaned back in his chair. “I was, first, a surgeon.”

“Why?”

“Is it unusual to enjoy helping people?” But he looked bored. The shine of Mischa’s Hannibal gone to whatever shell the plaid suits decorated.

“Do you enjoy playing God?”

A jerk of Hannibal’s foot under the table reverberated up his body and Will raised a brow at him. “Do you believe healing to be the cornerstone of divinity?” Hannibal asked.

Will watched the intrigue grow. Wants that head tilt. The uncontrollable interest. “Moreso having the option not to.”

Hannibal’s lips part just slightly. “I swore an oath-”

“Didn’t god, too, when he created man? Maybe he also grew bored of the physical tinkering.”

And there it was. Just slight. The tilt of his head. An amused sort of lilt to his lips he wouldn’t let rise without his approval. “Are you suggesting psychiatry a means of mental tinkering?”

“Isn’t it?”

“What crevices does god have his hands on in your own head, Will?”

“Would you like your fingers to join his?”

“My own tinkering would be simplistic, modest at best, in the face of his, don’t you think?”

“No,” Will said. 

Hannibal’s smile was back. It crinkled its way down his whole body. He practically shimmered with interest.

“No, I think you’re more eager. Eagerness lends itself to an expedited outcome,” Will said.

“Expedited or more grandiose?”

“Both.”

“But can you feel god’s hands?”

“No,” Will said. “But I’d be able to feel yours.”

Hannibal reached for his napkin. He folded it into a delicate triangle, and placed it back on the shitty motel table. He watched Will. Eyes bright. He was excited. “Your mind ticks in interesting ways, Will. Whether there’s been any tinkering involved or not.”

Will smiled. Leaned into the table, wanted less space between them. Ignored the desire to reach out and touch. “I won’t tell god you got to me first.”

“Perhaps I will.” But Hannibal went unreadable. Face blank, but still polite. A defense Will recognized, one that let him process without anyone bearing witness. It’d been perfected over the years. He’d never quite managed it when they were little. Stoic, he’d always been, but this was a step further. A mask to hide the stoicism. 

Hannibal had always been willing to play pretend. 

Will watched the way Hannibal tracked his face, his neck, his shoulders. Anything he could see, he was trying to decode. He just didn’t seem to know, yet, what he was looking for. 

It’s in my eyes, mon cher. But you’re so, so close. 

–

When Will’s back home, having run his dogs, bathed them, and brought them back in, he thinks of Louisiana. Of being adopted by a couple so in love they just needed the perfect little girl to prove it to each other.

The need to prove causes desperation, though. Brings out the worst, most ineffective parts of people. 

Will’s mom couldn’t bear the failure. The collapsed marriage. The little girl who looked nothing like her. She left Will and his dad to it. Where she was flight, Will’s dad was all fight. It was like he thought if he drank enough it’d flood out Will’s memories of Lithuania. Wash away his accent, his native tongue. His brother. His dad fought with his tongue. With god’s hand, more than his own.

Splintered church pews and ratty, spineless bibles. 

Will was young, though. Young enough that his dad hadn’t needed to try so hard to force it, to want so much for Will to be just his that he strangled the desire right out of the child. It would have happened naturally, if he’d been given the space to get there. 

His dad would be so proud to know that Will, now, longs for the bayou. He doesn’t really remember the castle walls he toddled through, but he remembers the mosquitos and the dank, thick air of his childhood. Weekends and nights and summers spent on boats. The sweltering sun that made the fish turn rank if you kept them out of the cooler too long. The burnt slick of oil that his dad tried to keep him away from because “pretty little girls don’t got no business making themself dirty with all these tools. A nice man will take care of you one day, sweetheart.”

Trampling barefoot through mud and musk. Bugs and birds. Snakes. Miss Marie, who came around once a week to teach Will how to cook and fold and make his future husband a nice home.

Nothing was ever quiet in Louisiana, and it wasn’t nothing like the city. It ain’t cars or sirens or inane chatter. It’s all buzzing and chirping and sloshing. 

White dresses with ruffles his dad couldn’t scrub clean. Pink socks and mary-janes that got kicked off and buried in holes as far away from the house as Will was allowed to roam. 

All that it was, it still became home. Will became an only child. And the sun still burned.

It got cold in Baltimore, and nothing was ever as sticky as it was in the bayou. You didn’t go outside and come home with gnats stuck to sweaty, wet skin. You could stay clean and nice and respectable, just like Will’s dad always wanted for him.

Maybe it was nicer here, because of all that. But it wasn’t real. 

He wonders what being an only child had meant for Hannibal. What he looks like slick with sweat. 

Did Hannibal get syrupy and lax in the heat? Dizzy with a fog of humidity settling over his consciousness? It seems unlikely, but some people fold under the scorch.

Even in the southern heat, Will never burned. He never got fevers. Never got hot enough for his brain to slip in and out of fantasy. He could do that all on his own. 

It’s how he knew something was a little too wrong.

What was interesting, though, was the furrowed tick in Hannibal’s brow when Will hauled himself into Johns Hopkins and was admitted for Encephalitis. 

Will sat up in bed, wrapped up in two gowns to hide the gap, hooked up to a 24/7 IV drip, and Hannibal sat across from him, swimming in an aura of staunchly concealed disappointment.

He said something he didn’t mean, priding Will on his self preservation, and wiped non-existent lint from his knee with the back of his fingers.

He brought dinner. Rabbit, apparently. 

Will watched him as he pulled a whole dinner set for two and three separate glass containers out of a plain, black insulated bag. Eyes too focused on his hands. On plating and presentation. He’s vain. Arrogant and precise, but he was looking away from Will intentionally.

He’d known. Had wanted Will’s brain to catch fire. But why?

He was cutting a slice of meat in a delicate drop of his knife when Hannibal looked up at Will and said, “the phenomena behind the fever dream is not one often considered in science. Heat lends itself to delusion. This is generally understood and accepted. We leave it at that, no further questions asked.”

“Do you think there’s more to it?”

The perfect slice hovered in front of him, fork angled down as he paused. Bite mid rise to his lips. “Fevered delusions are often disconcerting. You’re thrown physically and emotionally off balance. A metaphor of the brain, trying to get you to understand how unwell the state of your body is.” 

“Sounds sound,” Will said.

Hannibal’s tongue pokes out just over his lip when he takes his bite. A sensual experience, meant only to be so between the food and himself. His eyelids drop as he chews. 

He spends as much time preoccupied over his own consumption as he does eyeing the paths Will’s hand takes from his plate to his mouth and back. 

“I doubt you would be unsettled by the fever dreams that plague others.”

“You’re telling me my delusions are darker because my experience is?” Will laughed, and Hannibal smiled at the sound. “That’s hardly high-brow intellectual processing.”

Hannibal took another bite. Will watched the flash of pink tongue disappear. “Am I not allowed to contemplate superficial ideas? Entertain myself with them, even?”

Will spoke around a mouthful, knew it was rude. “Depends why you think me being unsettled is amusing.”

“I don’t think you were unsettled.”

“Ah,” Will said. He reached for his hospital standard plastic cup full of lukewarm water. Hannibal’s eyes flicked down to it. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You’re here because you were unsettled?” He said. Face set bland, polite.

Will swallowed down half his water. Ran his tongue across his teeth and watched Hannibal appreciate the view. “I’m here because I was hot.”

“Do you not like to be warm?”

“I do.”

Hannibal watched him. Waited. 

Will smiled. Dug his tongue into one of his back molars. “I don’t like to be cold.”

Hannibal’s hand froze over his plate for less than a second, but Will noticed. “No?”

“But I’d rather my body hot than my brain.”

“You don’t like to feel out of control.”

“You don’t, either.”

“I’d say not many do.”

“Not like you, though,” Will said.

“Unlike either of us.”

Will thought of the heated seats and warm air circling Hannibal’s car when they’d been looking for Garret Jacob Hobbs. Warm to the point of almost uncomfortable, and it hadn’t even been that cold, yet. “You don’t like the cold, either.”

Hannibal’s head tilts. “I don’t prefer it.”

“A result of god’s tinkering?”

His smile is soft. Secret. Not Mischa’s, not Will’s, his own. “And as a result, I’ve learned to rely on my own.”

When visiting hours ended, Will looked up the men who kidnapped them. Doesn’t remember much of anything, but Count Lecter’s murder wasn’t a quiet event. Military. Not enough official record keeping. Nothing solid to go off of. 

There’d been a handful of them, Will recalls, but he really only remembers the youngest. The one with soft eyes and a tremor in his hands that had nothing to do with the cold. The one who’d stolen Will a second time, alone, and trekked through the forest with him. Just a young man with a little girl, malnourished and exhausted, strapped to his back. He’d set Will down when they’d walked too far for a single stretch and pour bits of water into his mouth. There’d been nothing for them to eat. Will remembers the cold. The dead trees reaching over them like claws. The smell of musk at the back of the man’s neck. He’d been unconscious by the time the man got wherever they ended up.

As a result, I’ve learned to rely on my own. 

Will changed tactics. Looked for unsolved murders, anything to indicate commonalities.

There’s a single article on a cluster of deaths, discovered within weeks of each other. Animal attacks, they claim. Bodies mutilated, half ripped apart, half devoured. Bloody forest floors deep in Lithuania.

He’s eating them. 

He thinks of Hannibal’s tongue slipping out to pull in the meat. The secret, the decadence, the sensuality he’d cultivated entirely for himself. 

Will laughs. It took him long enough. 

His module on the Chesapeake Ripper is obviously flawed. The profile was right, but the organs weren’t trophies, they were lunch. 

He crossed his legs and had to adjust the IV tubing around himself so it didn’t pull.

Hannibal had asked him if he’d had trouble with taste, handed him a body that tied Garret Jacob Hobbs up in a bow, and then fed him lungs. Will laughs. He’s actually very obvious.

Hannibal had been tinkering all along. Since Will was a little girl. Now, then, he’d never stop. Will didn’t want him to.

He likes to think of Hannibal carrying him to bed at night. When he was very little, he never left Hannibal’s side. “You’re upsetting mother,” Hannibal would say, with Mischa’s smile plastered on his face and a gentle tickle of his fingers across her cheek. “She thinks you love me more than you do her.”

“I do,” Will would say, and Hannibal’s hand would track back from Mischa’s cheek to her hair and twist in the swirl of blonde curls. 

“A secret for the two of us, then,” he’d say. Pleased. Too pleased.

“Stay,” he's ask, reaching for Hannibal’s hand in the dark.

And he always climbed into bed with Will, even when he wasn’t supposed to and he called it improper. “I will, little one.” He’d hold Mischa close and hum softly to her until she fell asleep.

Hannibal visited Will every day he was in the hospital. Told him about the daily activities of his pack. Brought him dinner. Kept him and his dogs fed. 

Will said nothing. Liked how Hannibal glittered watching him eat. He was probably turning his dogs feral.

Even so, it’s Hannibal who was there to drive him home when he was discharged. 

They sat outside Will’s house when they pulled up. The car was warm, the seats hot. Will didn’t want to reach for the door. Didn’t want to step out into the cold or have to go inside and build a fire. “I used to think I’d never get the cold out of my bones,” Will said, “but the heat stays longer.”

Hannibal looked at him. His tongue poked out, ran along his bottom lip. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. 

“It helps that I was taken from the cold young,” Will says. “Transplanted to the heat. Years of being smothered by it is bound to get the burn to trickle in, right?”

He looked up. Met Hannibal’s eyes in a long, indulgent stare. 

Hannibal blinked. He could see Hannibal’s eyes darting back and forth between his. Searching him. Will didn’t look away, and Hannibal was too distracted to realize the strangeness of it. 

His pause was too long. He didn’t notice. 

“You okay?” Will asked. 

He blinked again. His eyes dropped to Will’s lips. Then his nose and cheeks. Up to his hair. Back down to his eyes again. “Forgive me,” he said. He smiled something dull and polite. “I was in the past.”

–

When his neurologist is murdered, Will knows it’s a copy cat. Knows who it is. 

The perfection in the replication is startling. Artistic in its precision. 

Will has to turn away. Leave the room and let them blame his dead girl. 

It was no coincidence that his fevered hallucinations had Hannibal’s face. And he’d been right, Will wasn’t unsettled. Hannibal has always made people wary, thrown them off and then let his overly polite demeanor make them feel bad that they’d reacted that way. 

It’s why it enraged their mother that Will had devoted himself to Hannibal. She wanted the perfect little girl to parade around, but instead she got another unusual child she couldn’t explain. She had no reason to be uncomfortable. Hannibal wasn’t killing cats and letting them find her, he was just void of something she wanted him to have, something Will had never needed from him. 

Hannibal had wanted Will’s brain to swell. Wanted him to hallucinate and lose control. Wanted the Encephalitis to fester. 

Killing Sutcliffe was a tantrum. He was acting like a child. Lashing out on the person who stole his toy from him. 

Hannibal couldn’t know. There’s no way he recognized Will. Hannibal wanted him to lose control for some other reason. Something self-serving that Will couldn’t articulate yet. 

So he invited Hannibal to his lecture. It’s the last of the series on the Chesapeake Ripper. Will’s favorite.

He’s already had his students take a stab at stepping into the killer's shoes. Asked them to articulate a motive, design their kills. 

Lackluster, unintuitive, boring. All of them. 

Hannibal sat unassuming in a back corner. His legs were crossed, his suit was a subtle purple paisley. He’s here under the notion that Will wants his opinion on the Ripper. 

He’d flashed a genuine smile when Will asked him to come. One only for himself. 

Will talked about intelligence and art. Had a rotating slideshow of Hannibal’s kills circling on the screen behind him. He expected Hannibal to be distracted by them, to look up and admire his own work in the way that serial killers do. 

His eyes never left Will. 

It was nearing the end of the hour when Will pretended to bring it up casually. As though it was an offhand thought that came to him just then. 

“Maybe they aren’t surgical trophies.” He didn’t smile. That’d be taking it too far, too obvious. “He sees them as pigs, maybe he’s taking meat.”

He looked away from the students, like it was a thought that doesn’t merit his full attention. It was out of the corner of his eye that he saw Hannibal’s head tilt. 

Hannibal waited for the students to trickle out. He was patient and poised. His hands clasped together in front of him. Demure, even in his exotic suit.

Will’s students never lingered. He didn’t want them to. Hadn’t fostered a space that encouraged it.

When the room was empty, save them, Hannibal stepped closer to Will. “You implied cannibalism in the Ripper’s MO.”

Will shrugged. Straightened a stack of papers that he was just going to shove into his messenger bag anyway. “What else would you do with a slew of organs? Preserve them in jars to display in your office?”

He tilted his head down. Stepped closer to Will. “I would not.”

“So what do you think?” Will asked. 

He leaned in. Hovered just to the side of Will’s face, and spoke softly in his ear. “I think if anyone were able to catch The Chesapeake Ripper, it’d be you, remarkable boy.”

“You don’t think I missed anything?” Will asked. 

“You know you didn’t.”

Will looked at the shine on Hannibal’s shoes. The angular jut of his thumb where his hand rested against his stomach. The immaculate knot of his tie. Met Hannibal’s eyes. Smiled at him. “No,” he said, just as soft. “I didn’t.”

Hannibal buttoned his jacket. Waited for Will to meet his eyes. “Would it be too forward of me to ask you to come to my home for dinner?”

Will swallowed. “In what capacity?”

“Whichever would persuade you to attend.”

“It’s all on me?” Will asked. 

Hannibal smiled Will’s smile. “It always has been.”

“Tonight?” Will asked. 

“7 pm.”

“And if I'm late, you'll wait for me?”

A flicker of something dark and liquid in Hannibal’s eyes when he said, “I will.”

Will brought whiskey. The Lecter manners were still deeply instilled in him, no matter how long his dad had spent trying to wring him casual. Kind but not formal. He picked his favorite, though. Something woodsy and sharp that reminded him of the heat of home. 

Hannibal smiled at the bottle. Grabbed it with delicate hands, cradled it like a baby. Set it on his bar for later. 

“I’ve heard tales of your elaborate dinner parties,” he said as Hannibal guided him to the dining room. 

“Please excuse me for offering you a more informal venture this evening.”

“I like less formal.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said. 

He left Will hovering near a wall of herbs, all meticulously maintained. The whole room smelled earthy and fresh, like the garden Hannibal used to take him to twirl in when they were small. 

It reminded him of bright sunshine and his whole hand being wrapped around one of Hannibal’s fingers as he spun. A memory he didn’t remember having, but was suddenly all encompassing. 

“I don’t wanna twirl, Hannibal.”

“Of course you do, silly little thing.”

“You don’t twirl and father doesn’t either.”

“I love to twirl,” Hannibal had said, “I’m just not always allowed to.”

“So you'll twirl with me when you're allowed to?”

He bent down to Will’s level. Looked him in the eye with the same undivided devotion he always did. “I will.”

And so Mischa had twirled for him, curls bouncing around them in the afternoon sun. 

It was all light inside him in the deep, heavy atmosphere of Hannibal’s dining room. The painting across the way was vaguely familiar, like he’d known it once and since forgot. 

He was less drawn to the woman’s body than he was the way the swan seemed to devour something from it. It was something darker than seduction but not as pedestrian as force. Will wondered if anyone felt taken advantage of after eating at Hannibal’s table, or if the smell of herbs carried them away. Made them forget to look inside at what they felt. Maybe they didn’t realize they were supposed to feel anything at all.

Hannibal came through the doorway to the kitchen holding two plates and set them down at the head of the table and the space to the right. 

There were no other place settings. Not a series of forks or crystal goblets. The simplicity looked out of place in the room. 

“I found myself wondering how informal was too informal,” he said, and stepped back to pull Will’s chair out for him. “And how that informality may come across as disingenuous of me.”

The plates were full of pastries. They smelt savory and dense. Familiar. And Will wasn’t twirling in a garden any more, he was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, late at night, tucked up into Hannibal’s side, whispering at his brother and covering the both of them in buttery flakes.

“Kibinai,” Hannibal said. “A favorite from my childhood. Sentimental on my part, I must admit. They hold space in my mind for the memory of someone you often seem to call to the forefront.”

Will took his seat. Watched Hannibal do the same.

He felt like he couldn’t talk. He felt like even if he could he didn’t know what there possibly would be to say. 

Hannibal, as usual, was waiting for Will to eat first. 

Will swallowed whatever had lodged itself in his vocal chords down and said, “what’s in them?”

“Pork,” Hannibal said. 

“Pork,” Will repeated. He’d have laughed, if he’d felt at all capable.

Hannibal waited. Will picked up a pastry. He felt small in a way he hadn’t been allowed to since he was cold. The pastry was warm. Forbidden. Something their father hadn’t liked them to eat, but Will can’t remember why.

“Is it safe to assume I’ve been as transparent as you have?” he asked. 

Hannibal had his forearms leaned on the table. His hands hovering in front of him. Hands that looked so soft, so delicate, but Will had only ever known them to be soft with him. He smiled at Will. The gentle one. Mischa’s smile. “Will,” he said. His voice was barely a whisper.

“Tell me,” Will said. “Tell me who you made these for.”

Hannibal leaned back and watched Will. Will met his eyes. Let him look. He leaned in over his plate, brought the pastry up to his mouth and took a bite. 

“She was very nearly as beautiful as you are,” Hannibal said.

“Did they cut her out of you?”

Hannibal waited until Will took another bite. “They just fell short of cutting me out of myself when they took her.”

“He saved me,” Will said. 

“The taking was still unforgivable.”

“Tell me.”

“Mischa,” Hannibal said. He swallowed around it. “Mischa was everything to me.”

“You thought I was dead.”

“I thought they fed me broth made from your bones.”

“Is that what they told you?”

Hannibal didn’t answer. Will took another bite. Hannibal watched him eat. 

“I knew there was no one else, could never be a mind similar. Pure empathy doesn’t happen upon the unwilling.” Hannibal shook his head. “I couldn’t believe. I couldn’t fathom–” 

There were buttery flakes everywhere. All over the plate, all over the table surrounding it.

“Mischa saw me from the very beginning. Relished in the parts of me that others found worrisome.”

“You weren’t–” Will started, but he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. 

“Who I am now? No. Not then.”

“I made you,” Will said. “You’re my own creation, built around the wound of me.”

“Everything I am has always been for you. Since the day you were born.”

“You liken me to god.”

“Shouldn’t I? Dead and then risen.”

Will searched him, tried to find whatever must be buried under that, but Hannibal is open. Eye’s bright, burning like he’s never known cold. He looks nothing like the face Will had come to meet. He isn’t the Hannibal of Will’s past, either. 

He’s something heavier. More settled and sure. Honesty looks staggering on him. Bare and blatant. He is only want, tucked in a chair before Will like an offering. 

“You’ve done your own tinkering,” he said as Will picked up another pastry. “As gods do.” He reaches for his own pastry. “And you love it just as I do, don’t you? To have your hand in the happenings of those around you. To know and adjust the narrative accordingly.”

Will rubbed his fingers together and the crumbs tumbled off onto the table. “Mischa is still dead.”

“I've done my mourning of Mischa. I only want Will.”

Hannibal brought the kibinai up to his mouth. Took a bite. Let the flakes trickle down his front, littering his otherwise pristine shirt. 

“I’m not interested in being god,” Will said. 

Hannibal smiled. “I only want Will.”

Will looked down at their plates. At the crumbs covering everything. “And who do I owe the pleasure of this meal to?” He asked.

Hannibal finished his pastry before answering. Slow, even bites. Savoring the moment, as he always did. 

Hints of his pink tongue poking out to taunt Will. 

“My realtor sends her regards,” he said. 

“You’ve kept in touch all this time?”

“I believe it’s called networking.”

Will laughed. He leaned back in his chair and felt nothing but heat as Hannibal smiled at him.

It was after the whiskey glass was pressed into his hands, and then once again, and the conversation wasn't allowed to lull, and the way Hannibal kept smiling that soft, gentle thing, that Will realized Hannibal didn't want to let Will out of his sight.

They were in plush leather chairs, facing each other, in a way reminiscent of time spent in Hannibal’s office. 

Hannibal was watching him.

Will started shifting in his seat just because. A stretch of a leg here–Hannibal’s eyes darted down and his shoulders rose a fraction–and a palm on the arm of the chair there–Hannibal thumbed the rim of his near empty glass.

“Are you worried?” Will asked. 

“Should I be?”

“I don't think you have reason.”

“You're staying,” Hannibal said, rolling the bit of liquid around the bottom of his glass. 

“My dogs–”

“Ate dinner, and will be fine until morning.”

“Yes,” Will said. 

“Who named you?” Hannibal asked. He took his final sip, leaned to set his glass on the small table nearby, and straightened his legs out in front of him to cross them at the ankle. 

Will watched the air of casualness. As false of Hannibal as his sweater vests. “You'll be happy if I stay?” Will asked.

A slight, single nod, “I will.”

Will tilted his head and raised his glass in a toast. 

Hannibal’s eyes were locked on Will's mouth. The half sort of smile across his lips. He watched Will bring his glass to his lips, down the rest of whiskey in a single sip. Run his tongue across the soft flesh of his lips to get the last remnants of taste. “Ill turn down the guest bed.”

“You'll feel better if I sleep with you.”

Hannibal opened his mouth to speak and paused. He tilted his head and was suddenly amused if the quirk in his lip was to be believed. “I will,” he said. 

Will smiled at him. “What was it you said? Everything I am has always been for you.”

“You're unbothered by the nature of my want?”

“Unbothered implies passivity."

Hannibal clasped his hands together in his lap. 

“You'll take me to bed?” Will asked. 

Hannibal inclined his head just slightly. 

“And you'll stay?” Will whispered with a smile.

Hannibal stood. He stepped closer and reached out to offer his hand. “I will.”

Will trailed behind, fingers clasped around two of Hannibal’s as he led them calmly up the stairs. 

On another day at another time, Will would have to look around. Explore, touch things, untangle the mass of Hannibal’s interests. But he was entirely focused on the curve of his bicep under his snug sleeve, the jut of muscles where he's reached back to Will. His shoulders were broad, solid. He'd always been bigger than Will. 

They pushed through an elaborate double door entrance. 

Hannibal's room was all deep, stormy blues up against a soft moody beige. The furniture dark wood. It was so familiar. So unfamiliar. After Will’s mom left and they'd had to move into something more affordable for one, he hadn't even had a bedframe. Just his mattress and boxspring stacked on the floor in the corner of his room. 

Hannibal turned them, adjusted Will so his back was to the room and all his focus was on Hannibal lingering in the doorframe. “Go sit for me?” 

Will stepped back, dropped Hannibal’s fingers where they reached out in the space between them. He stepped back further until he had to turn, unused to the space, and made his way to the foot of Hannibal’s bed. 

He brushed his fingers along the edge of the bed. The soft, rich fabric. “Here?” He asked. 

“Is that where you want to be?”

Will looked up at Hannibal. He stood back, watching Will lay his tiny bit of claim to Hannibal’s space.

“I want to feel small,” Will whispered. 

“You've always been my little one.”

Will nodded. 

Hannibal’s eyes dropped to the floor at Will’s feet.

“I don't want to think,” Will said. 

“You've always done so much thinking, haven't you, sweet boy?”

Hannibal looked so gentle, here. The fake lines of propriety melted away into a soft fondness that turned his eyes buttery amber in the low lighting.

Will nodded and slowly lowered himself to the floor. “Will you keep talking to me?”

“As long as I am able.”

He settled on his knees, low, sitting on his ankles in a way that was going to hurt tomorrow. 

Hannibal stepped closer, fingers already reaching out to Will.

“Do I look pretty here?” Will asked. 

Hannibal smiles. “In a space curated after the shape of you?”

“Do I look prettier than I used to?”

He tilted his head. “The prettiest I've ever seen you, sweet boy.”

“I'm not soft anymore,” Will said. 

“You weren’t ever soft.”

“Hannibal.”

He moves towards Will. A slow stalk. “You're all fierce emotion, astounding brutality, breathtaking violence.”

“So you won't be gentle with me?” Will whispered. 

He stopped in front of Will. Hovering above him. “I don't know that I'm capable for long.” He reached out to card his fingers through Will’s hair.

Will shrugged. “Love me how you need to.”

“You'll share what you need in return?”

“Just you,” Will said. “All the parts of you that are mine that I never got to see.”

The soft clutch of Hannibal’s fingers in his curls turned sharp. He yanked Will’s head back with a fist. Will panted up at him. 

“You'll never go another day without seeing every bit of me.”

He tugged Will’s head forward, to press his face into his thigh. The fabric of his pants was soft, cool. Will rubbed his face into it. Slid his cheek back and forward against Hannibal’s covered skin. Everything was silky smooth. His face tingled.

“Look at you,” Hannibal said. 

“I need.” Will swallowed. It was audible in the quiet of the room.

“What do you need?”

Will shook his head. His forehead pressed into Hannibal’s muscle.

“Do you need help?” So, so gentle. 

Will nodded. 

“Did you know you would fall this sweet for me? So pliant? So small?”

Will nodded again.

Hannibal stepped back. He unclenched his fist from Will's hair and slid his fingers down, across his temple and cheek, to rest underneath Will’s chin. He crouched down in front of him. Held Will’s chin up to look him in the eye.

“I'll rip the eyes out of any man who's ever seen you this way.”

Will licked his lips. Watched Hannibal's words curl his own as he spoke. His eyes shone in the lamplight.

Will’s head felt full of water. Like he's sloshing around, gasping for breath. He had to focus. Force himself to articulate the words. His voice was as light as air. “And you'll collect the fingers of everyone who's ever touched me?”

“And if I want you to bring them to me yourself?” 

“I will.”

Hannibal smiled Will’s smile. “I'll have you take their hands at the wrist.”

Will was nothing but a whisper. “What will you do with them?”

“Make you a broth with their bones.”

“Will you touch me?”

Hannibal’s fingers slide from Will's chin to his throat. Lingered. Then he started to work the buttons of Will's shirt open.

“I'm–”

“So very pretty,” Hannibal said. 

Will hummed. Blinked at Hannibal as his buttons fell open between them. 

He looked down at his own chest, as if he could see whatever Hannibal was seeing in him. Dark hair, but only barely. Pale because he hadn't lived with the sun for years. Scars, long and white, still fading with passing time. 

He'd never been able to see things how Hannibal did, though. Not like he could everyone else. 

Hannibal pushed the material over Will's shoulders. He shook his arms out of the sleeves and let the shirt fall behind him. 

“You look carved from stone.”

Will shook his head and Hannibal snatched his jaw, tugged him in.

Nose to nose.

Will gasped.

Hannibal's eyes were tight. “You won't disagree with me here.”

Will nodded. 

Hannibal’s grip softened. He rubbed his thumb along Will’s jawline. 

“Lift up for me. On your knees.”

So he did. Raised himself and rested his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders. 

Hannibal worked the button of his jeans. The zipper. Stuck his thumbs in Will’s waistband at his sides and slid everything down his thighs. 

Will was panting. Felt out of control. The fabric scrunched up above his knees, locking his thighs mostly together. 

Hannibal's hands tickled back up the sides of Will's thighs and rested on his hips.

He squeezed Will tight. Held him in place. Wouldn't let Will shift around to get the pants the rest of the way off. 

“Beautiful boy,” Hannibal said. Eyes didn't leave Will. Took in every bit of his skin and then burned their way across the same path the second time. “Don't go anywhere.”

He squeezed Hannibal's shoulders. Felt like a little kid holding on for balance while their parents helped them get dressed. One foot at a time, Mischa.

Will looked down. His pubic hair was trimmed short and neat, and he could see how swollen and red his clit was. Hard. 

He looked up at Hannibal and wanted to squirm away from scrutiny. 

“You said you would touch,” Will said.

“Am I not touching you?” His fingers flexed against Will’s hips.

“Yes, but–”

“But?”

“More?” Will whispered. 

Hannibal leaned back, landed on his ass and spread his legs. He tapped the space between them.

Will's face felt like fire as he inched forward. His legs could only part so far, locked up in denim, and it took him too long to get close enough.

“Embarrassing,” Will whispered when he got close enough to put his hands back on Hannibal’s shoulders. With Hannibal sitting and Will on his knees, he was looking down at him now. 

Somehow, looking down at Hannibal still made him feel little.

Hannibal smiled. Reached back out for him. “You've always been willing to do anything for me.” His fingers ghosted across Will's sides. Traced the bottom of his ribcage.

“Have I?”

He tilted his head back and tugged Will closer. Trapped and uncoordinated, he fell against Hannibal’s chest. All slick silk and heat. He smelled fresh and herbal.

“Turn,” Hannibal whispered. 

He did. He needed help. It took mostly Hannibal’s strength and his willingness to be manhandled to get him on his ass between Hannibal’s legs. 

His knees knocked together awkwardly. 

Hannibal’s nose pressed against his pulse. He used his own socked foot to catch Will's jeans and kick them further down, so they locked around his ankles.

His hands slid to Will's thighs. Pressed. Spread him open.

“You didn't recognize me by smell,” Will whispered.

Hannibal nosed along his neck down to his shoulder. He made a grumbly sort of noise in his throat. “Then, you always smelled like me.”

“You knew I was sick.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted me to lose control.”

“Yes.”

“Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Anything,” Will said, “anything you want.”

Hannibal wrapped his arms tight around Will’s middle and pulled him close so they were pressed together. 

“Are you remembering?” Hannibal asked. 

Hannibal's knees bracketed around his little body. Holding him at the edge of the pond. They'd sit on the bank, tugged together, and name the bugs and the birds that flew around. Will would throw his dress off, it'd lay somewhere in a heap behind them, and Hannibal would hold Mischa close. Snug together, Will nearly naked and improper, they'd point out all the things that flew for them. 

Will hummed. Nodded. Closed his eyes. Hannibal rested his chin on his shoulder. Used his heels to leverage himself and scoot forward into Will. 

Hard. Pressed against Will's lower back. Hot. Will gasped, dropped his head back on Hannibal’s shoulders. 

Will dragged his tangled ankles closer to push back against Hannibal. He felt silly. Ankles locked, knees spread wide. Bare for his brother. Small like a little girl pointing out dragonflies in the sun.

Hannibal’s fingers danced across Will's stomach, swirls low on his belly. 

“You said you wouldn't be gentle.”

“I'm enjoying you.”

“Enjoy me more.”

“Demanding little thing.”

“I waited my whole life,” Will said. “Waited forever to only be yours.”

“You're all romance, Will. Whispering sweet nothings in my ear.”

His fingers dipped lower. Will could feel them graze through his happy trail. 

“Fuck me,” he said. “Fuck me, now.”

He felt the smile on his shoulder. The gloss of teeth against his skin.

“Rude boy.”

“Could eat me,” Will said. Tried to arch his hips up to get those fingers to drop further. “Could eat me for it.”

“You tempt me,” he said. 

“I can't tell.”

His mouth opened on Will's skin, teeth pressed into him just so, but he didn't bite down. 

“You're scared,” Will said. “You're scared to touch me.”

The teeth, gone. “No.” His fingers still. 

“Yes,” Will said. “You don't want to take advantage of Mischa.”

“No,” Hannibal breathed. “Mischa is dead.”

“Then who's here? Who are you with?” Will turned to latch his own teeth to Hannibal’s neck.

“Will.”

He grunted into Hannibal’s skin. Bit down.

“Will,” he said again.

Bit harder.

Hannibal groaned. 

Will bit harder. Unlatched when he felt skin break. “I'll take it if you don't give it to me.”

“Will you?”

He tilted up, to breathe in Hannibal’s ear. Felt the shiver wrack through them both. “I will.”

And then, instead of down, Hannibal’s hand shot up. He shoved his pointer and ring fingers through Will's lips. “Suck.”

Will did. He tried. But Hannibal pushed too far. Pushed down the back of Will's tongue. Wiggled his fingers in his throat. Will gagged. 

“Do you require lubricant?” Hannibal asked. Pulled his fingers out.

Will choked. Gasped. “Rarely.”

The first touch to his clit made Will jump. Hannibal tightened around him, shushed him, pressed his other hand flat against Will’s stomach and pushed. Caged him in with his knees.

“Stay still, little one, I thought you wanted me to touch you.”

“Yes,” Will gasped. Worked real hard on keeping his hips still. Breathed out an embarrassingly long string of yeses.

Hannibal slipped his fingers around Will's clit. Rubbed him between them.

“Any pain I should worry about? Atrophy?”

“No,” Will shook his head.

He opened his eyes to look down. 

He was so red. Swollen and bulging through his lips. Throbbing. Hannibal’s fingers were wet with his spit, slipped around him easy. 

He was so sensitive. Shaking in his effort to keep still.

He pressed his knees further apart, into Hannibal’s, and groaned at the uncomfortable lock of his ankles.

“M'trapped.”

“I’ve got you.”

His fingers slid around Will in a quick, slick rhythm. Wet and easy and precise. Too perfect. Will couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't stop from jerking up into Hannibal’s hand. 

“I'll slit their throats,” Will said. Mindless and burning. His body was a landmine. Buried under lies and time and heat. Waiting for touch. Waiting for Hannibal. Waiting to explode.

Hannibal laughed over his shoulder.

“So full of romance, little one.”

“All of them.” He panted. Arched up, but the hand against his stomach yanked him back down. 

Hannibal was so hard. Hot and solid behind him. He pressed back. Jerked forward. Groaned. His fucking feet slipped, locked in the denim.

“My suitors?” Hannibal asked. 

“I'll find them.”

He turned his face into Will's neck. Kissed his jaw. “My dear, I'll lead you to their doors.”

His fingers squeezed tighter around Will. Kept rhythm. 

Will could hear that he was wet. A slick slurp on every upstroke. 

“You're everything I knew you'd be,” Hannibal whispered. “More than.” He kissed Will’s pulse. “When you were little and ferocious and far too intelligent. Then, now, every lost year in between, you've always been mine.”

When Hannibal let him, Will was fucking up into Hannibal’s fingers, forcing the strokes longer, still tight, the tips of them slipping down into Will’s wet. Easing the rub. 

It felt so good. He felt it everywhere. Birds and bugs and dragonflies fluttered inside his bones. 

“I always loved you too much. Wanted too much. Wanted to give you everything.” And his breath was too hot in Will’s ear. His skin flared, pebbled with goosebumps that prickled across his flesh with every word. “And here you are,” Hannibal said. “Resurrected. Carted off across the world just to end up right back in my arms.”

“In your lap,” Will breathed. 

Hannibal hummed. Will was close.

“Always my favorite.”

“You like when I hold you, sweet boy?”

“Yes.”

“You're so close.”

“Mhm.”

Hannibal adjusted the angle of his fingers, more pressure, more touch. Will gasped and swivelled his hips.

“Don't stop.”

Something rumbled through Hannibal, a low noise. His fingers were getting too wet, sliding too much. It didn't matter. Will was too close anyway.

Hannibal pressed his teeth to Will's neck. 

“Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, please, do it. Do it, I'll cum. I promise I will.”

His teeth were gentle. Teasing. He was smiling. 

Will growled. Hannibal bit. Will came.

It was electric. His whole body. He jerked up, Hannibal held him down, wrapped himself around Will.

He could hear Hannibal talking but it was all muffled and wet like he was underwater. 

His body shook. He slapped Hannibal's hand still, held it tight against his clit. Too sensitive. 

Hannibal wrapped every bit of him tighter around Will. Caged, trapped, safe. Held him as he settled. As he gasped and caught his breath. 

“You pretty little thing,” Hannibal was saying. “So soft, so sensitive and responsive.”

His fingers slid lower. Will’s body jerked. He ghosted over Will’s entrance. 

“Are you going to let me in?” He whispered

Will whined. Squirmed and swivelled and arched. “I need it.”

“You're so hungry for it,” Hannibal said. “A starved little boy.”

“Yeah,” Will breathed. 

Hannibal pressed in. “You think I'll fit? That I can claw my way inside you?”

“And stay?” Will asked. “You'll stay?”

“I will.”