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Will signed for Winston’s crate and bent over to peer into it. Winston lay on his side, still dazed from whatever the vet had given him for the flight. Will knelt down and pressed his hand to the grating. "Hey, buddy," he said softly.
Winston licked at his hand and whined softly. Will smiled.
It took some doing to get the crate into the back of the Aston Martin. Will silently cursed himself for not taking Hannibal’s Bentley, Hannibal for buying the damn thing in the first place, and himself again for not replacing it with something practical.
"This is a ridiculous car," he told Winston, who barked back, more awake now in the fresh air with new smells all around him. "I should sell it," Will said, but he knew he wouldn’t. He’d never owned anything remotely like it, never would have if not for Hannibal and his love of the extravagant, but the power of the engine seduced him all over again every time he drove it.
He walked Winston briefly in a small park near the airport, let him sniff everything and pee on most of it, and then drove him to the new house. He took the leash off and let Winston bark at leaves and pee on more things while he filled a water dish and got some food for him. Winston ate and drank and then came to lean against Will’s leg and sit on his foot and look up at him.
"Thought you might not remember me," Will said quietly. Winston whuffed at him. Will offered him a hand to smell. Winston did and then licked it and kept licking it until it was thoroughly covered in dog spit. Will snorted and scratched his ears. "I guess your memory's fine. Where’s a stick? Go get a stick."
Winston ran off to find a stick, and Will wiped his hand on his jeans. The sun was rising toward noon, the sky blank and blue. Winston snuffled in the grass under the old oak. Something distracted him, probably a grasshopper, judging by the arc of his head as he watched it. He followed it through the grass, nose low to the ground.
Will leaned against the side of the house and felt warm wood and stone through his shirt. He stripped it off and hung it from the doorknob. Face turned up to the sky, the sun beat down on him. That winter's dissolution of his mind had left him with the persistent feeling that he could never be warm or dry enough again.
Winston came bouncing back with a branch at least three feet long clamped between his teeth. Will broke off a more reasonable piece to throw for him. He’d lobbed it down the path to the back garden for the tenth time when Hannibal’s Bentley pulled into the drive, sleek and gleaming in the sun like a massive green beetle.
Winston immediately left the stick and came running to meet it. Will stayed where he was. Hannibal would be taking care of Winston on his own for close to a month. He'd better get used to it sooner rather than later.
Hannibal emerged cautiously from the car. He fed Winston a bite or two of sausage, which Will had expected. Hannibal was very good at giving people what they wanted, and a dog's wants were simple. Will hadn’t expected the serious look on Hannibal’s face or the tentative pat he gave Winston’s head before he got the picnic basket out of the back.
"He’s arrived safe and sound, I see," he said, coming over to stand with Will.
"Yeah. He was a little groggy at first, but he seems fine now. Is that lunch? I’m starved."
"It is. Where may I set it up so that it won’t be trampled?"
"Don’t worry, he knows better than that."
Hannibal spread out the blanket in the garden, between a stand of twisted olive trees and a flower bed filled with phlox and lavender, wild daisies and mint and rosemary. They had proved as tough as the weeds that encroached from every side. Will hadn’t had a chance to do much beyond repair the gate. He was waiting for Hannibal to suggest hiring a gardener and trying, on and off, to decide whether he could deal with having a stranger around so often. He might have to. He knew next to nothing about gardening. Then again, he'd have plenty of time to learn.
"Olives with lemon peel, a goat brie, cold roasted chicken with rosemary," Hannibal said. "New potatoes with capers and champagne vinegar."
He poured the wine, and Will sliced the baguette. Winston lay down by the edge of the blanket, tail thumping against the grass. Will looked past the olive trees to the little pond near the edge of the property. Maybe he’d let Winston have a swim later. Maybe he’d take a swim himself.
"Ever been skinny dipping?" he said.
"Not purposefully, no."
"You've been skinny dipping by accident?"
"There was a pond on the grounds of the orphanage. I was at one point stripped and thrown into it."
Will chewed on a piece of chicken until he got past the first heat of anger. He didn’t think Hannibal would appreciate it. "Kids are assholes," he said.
"Often, yes."
"Winter?"
"Late fall. In winter, it would have been frozen solid."
"Right. And it's no fun doing it when it’s warm out."
"No. I imagine not."
"What’d you do to them?"
Hannibal smiled into his wine glass. "You know me too well."
Will waited.
"Food poisoning," Hannibal said, after a moment’s pause. "My technique was imprecise, of course, and it took several attempts. Two of them had to be taken to the hospital in the city. One almost died."
"Did they know it was you?"
"There would have been no sense in allowing them to know. I would’ve been punished by the matron and no doubt by them as well, once they had recovered."
"Did anyone know?" he asked, but he knew the answer before Hannibal shook his head. No, there had been no one he could tell. No friends, no alliances, not for him. "Well. I won’t toss you in, but you could join me if you want. Or you can just watch. You seem to like that."
"I admit my appreciation for your body lagged behind that for your mind, but you have a certain grace in the way you move that is difficult to turn away from. I wish I had seen you disable the guards in the ambulance when you escaped. Were you imagining yourself as Abel Gideon?"
"Does it matter?"
"What are you imagining yourself to be when we’re in bed together, I wonder."
"I guess you think I deserve that for picking through your past, but you started it. You didn’t have to say anything about the orphanage."
Hannibal picked an olive from the bowl and turned it until he could catch the sliver of lemon peel that clung to it between his lips and eat that first. "My defenses are very old. Difficult to bypass. Even with you. Or perhaps especially with you."
"Because I’m a threat."
"The first true threat I have faced in many years, yes."
"I appreciate that you’re making the effort, but you don’t have to. We’ve got time."
"How much time do you think we have, Will?"
"Enough. We'll have enough."
They finished the meal in silence, apart from Winston's quiet snores. He shook himself out of sleep and bounced up the second Will got to his feet.
"I’m going swimming. You coming?"
"I’ll watch," Hannibal said, with a faint smile.
He followed Will and Winston over to the pond and settled on a rock near the water’s edge. Winston plunged straight in and snuffled along the reeds at the edge until he surprised a frog. He and the frog both jumped. Winston barked and bounded after it, losing it among the scattered lily pads.
Will undressed, deeply conscious of Hannibal’s gaze on him. He’d suggested this as if it were nothing, but it wasn’t nothing. It was an astonishing thing to stand naked under the sun and feel safe, and that was nearly all because of Hannibal.
Summer-warm water swirled around his thighs as he waded out. His feet sank into mud as soft as flower petals. Pond weed twisted around his ankles. He closed his eyes and rested his palms on the surface.
"I wish I had my sketch book," Hannibal said quietly. "You look like some ancient forest god. Will you hunt me down for watching you bathe?"
Will let himself fall backwards. The water caught him, and he floated with just his face above the surface. His hair spread out in the water, still too long despite the haircut Hannibal had given him. "What if I said yes? Would you try to run?"
"I think the time for running is past."
"Then you should join me." Will pushed out further to float on his back, and the lily pad stems stroked his arms, slick and sinuous. He looked up again at the sky, an upended blue bowl that covered the Earth.
"Did you do this often as a child?" Hannibal asked.
"Not often. When we lived far enough out of the city that I could find a place."
"Who taught you how to swim?"
"Don’t know. I can’t remember not knowing. My dad, I guess, or I taught myself." Will raised his head to look at him. "You can swim, right?"
"I can. It’s good exercise. I went three times a week in Baltimore."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"I didn’t dislike it. The incident at the orphanage left me with no lasting trauma, if that’s what you wish to know."
"So why won’t you come in with me? The mud?"
"I prefer to watch you."
"As usual."
Hannibal nodded once. Will tipped his head back again and watched the sky. Tiny fish swam under and around him. When he held very still, they swam between his fingers. Winston continued to chase frogs, with no luck. "What are you going to do if you catch one?" Will asked him.
Winston panted and wagged his tail hard, sending a spray of water in either direction. It caught Hannibal right in the face, and Will slid under the surface briefly to smother his laughter. When he came back up, Hannibal was wiping himself off with a silk handkerchief and an expression of stolid patience.
"Sure you’re staying on shore?" Will said. "You’re not gonna get much wetter if you come in."
"Thank you, no."
Will drifted closer until he could close a wet hand around Hannibal’s bare ankle. "Why did you tell me that, about the orphanage?"
"You said you wanted to know me. As much as I would prefer to believe myself solely my own creation, I can see the parts of me that were formed there. It was more integral to my development by far than the loss of my family."
"Or maybe you’re just looking for sympathy," Will said. "It’s a usual precursor to forgiveness. Understand why someone did what they did, and you’re halfway to telling them it’s okay."
Hannibal stared at him for half a second, and then he stood and jerked his ankle free of Will’s grip. He turned sharply and got five steps from the pond before Will was up and after him. He caught Hannibal’s shoulder and found himself spun sharply and back up against the olive tree with a hand on his throat.
"Sympathy," Hannibal said, pure venom in his voice.
"No?" Will sucked in as much air as he could as Hannibal’s grip tightened. His heart beat faster, and he couldn't help the grin that pulled at his mouth. "Not what you’re looking for, huh?"
"That you would think—"
"I don’t."
Hannibal’s lips had pulled back from his teeth. The near-snarl faded, but his grip stayed tight.
Will held his wrist. "Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely believe you’d manipulate me into forgiving you if you could. I might even let you. But manipulate me into feeling sorry for you? Come on, I know you better than that."
"Still baiting me."
"I’ll stop when you stop making it so easy."
"And who is manipulating whom? You force my anger again and again so that we both become accustomed to it."
"So we become accustomed to me surviving it," Will said, and shoved him into the pond.
Winston came bounding over to join the fun, licked his ear, put both paws on his chest, and nearly forced him under before Hannibal got his feet under him.
"Your clothes are wet," Will said. "You might want to take them off."
For a second, as Hannibal stood there, expressionless and dripping, he thought they might have a problem, but then the inhuman stillness faded. Hannibal beckoned him closer. Will waded in until they both stood waist deep. He nudged Hannibal’s foot with his.
"I am sometimes terribly afraid of what I might do to you," Hannibal said quietly.
"I know."
"You’re not afraid."
"No, but I do worry about what you’d do afterward."
Hannibal took his hands and lifted them to his lips. He kissed them both, dripping with muddy water, pondweed hanging from one finger, and then kissed his lips. "You might have let me undress first. My clothes will be wet all the way home, and the car will smell of damp for weeks."
"The car will smell like wet dog, forget about damp. We’ll take mine and put the top down. And if you take them off now, they’ll be dry by the time we leave."
Hannibal looked at him for a long time, hands still wrapped around his. "You love me," he said.
Will looked down at the surface of the water and swallowed. In the dark space of their merged shadows, he could see all the way to the bottom. "Yeah," he said.
Hannibal started for the shore, keeping hold of Will’s hand. He undressed and hung his clothes from the tree to dry in the sun. Will pulled him down to lie in the grass. Bits of it clung to their wet skin. Hannibal slid his hands slowly over Will’s body, just skimming the surface of him. Will relaxed into it, the gentle contact, the press of Hannibal’s lips to his throat. He closed his eyes and felt the sun on him and the constancy of hands on his skin until he could barely tell the two apart.
He shifted so that Hannibal lay over him, covering him, spreading his thighs wider. He bit and sucked at Hannibal’s lower lip, felt the heat and faint swell of it in his mouth. He wondered if the desire to bite down was anything like the desire Hannibal felt to consume his victims. He let himself try it, bringing his teeth together until Hannibal’s fingers sunk deep into his inner thigh, bruising.
"Too much?" he said.
"No, not too much," Hannibal said, breathless.
"Did you ever eat them raw?"
Hannibal stared down at him, beautiful and vulnerable, split wide open so that Will felt he could see down to the bottom of him, as he had to the bottom of the pond. "I have," he said. "It’s not my—" He swallowed. "It’s not my preference."
Will brushed their lips together, and Hannibal deepened it immediately, tongue pushing into his mouth, cock hard now against his thigh. Will dug his nails into Hannibal’s back and pressed up, legs spread wide, wider, until they ached with the stretch. Hannibal sat back and pulled Will with him, into his lap. He put his hand around both of them and squeezed.
"Harder," Will said through his teeth.
Hannibal didn’t listen. His grip and his strokes stayed firm, but slow. Will shoved his hips forward and got nothing but a hard hand on his hip and a crushing kiss.
"Be still," Hannibal said. "Be still and be quiet. You’ve said enough today."
Will pushed because he wanted to and because he thought it was their best option for surviving each other and because he couldn’t help it, but in some ways it was a relief to be told he could stop. He held onto Hannibal’s shoulders and kissed his throat, bruised him while Hannibal built the pleasure between them with steady hands.
Hannibal wrapped a heavy arm around his back, and his fingers dug into Will’s ribs as they had the first night on the boat. The longer they were together, the easier Will found it to lose himself to this, to let Hannibal quiet his mind and arouse his body.
The first sparks of orgasm made his hands clench. He ground his face into Hannibal’s neck until he saw stars. Still Hannibal kept the same steady pace with his hand, even when Will thumped a fist against his back and shoved against him, desperate for just a little more. One second it wasn’t enough, and the next it was, and he was spilling over Hannibal’s hand, onto their skin. He listened to his own harsh breath and the throb of blood against his ears and felt Hannibal’s body go tight before he came as well.
Hannibal smoothed a hand over his hair. Will let himself go limp against his chest. Sound returned, of insects and frogs and Winston panting somewhere nearby.
"I ought to throw you in," Hannibal said.
"You won’t. You’re nicer than I am."
"Willful self delusion," Hannibal said, but he didn’t move except to touch the scar on Will’s back, tracing the angle of the sextant again and again.
"It’s fading," Will said.
"Yes."
"You should fix that before I go."
Hannibal’s hand paused and then started moving again, pressure more firm now. "Yes," he said. "I should."