Work Text:
“I kissed Alana Bloom,” Will blurts as she pushes her way past Hannibal into the dimly lit foyer.
Hannibal, unfamiliar with the sensation of being caught off-guard or being at a loss for words, simply watches as Will closes the door, deadbolt locking with a jarring, muffled thud. She doesn’t have to fake surprise. Will, once again, has proven herself to be delightfully unpredictable.
“Well, come in.” Hannibal remarks. With anyone else, assuming permission to enter her home would be an unpardonable offense; with Will, it sends a thrill of satisfaction down her spine - despite Will’s unfortuitous timing.
Will marches through the entryway deeper into Hannibal’s home, stopping when she sees the abandoned meal on the dining room table. Hannibal watches her process this, sees Will’s one-track mind stumble and catch up with the reality of her unannounced intrusion. “You have a guest?”
“A colleague - you just missed him.” Hannibal crosses the room, peering into the snow-covered planes of her back patio. In the meagre light that escapes into the night from her home, she can see the measured steps Budge’s retreat has left in the snow.
So - he hadn’t decided to play his luck and stick around. Good.
“He didn’t finish his dinner.”
Closing the door, Hannibal watches Will puzzle over the peculiarity of the situation. Grateful for the inflammation clouding Will’s reasoning, she smoothly chooses a reasonable lie. “An urgent call of some sort. He had to leave suddenly.” A problem for Hannibal to sort later. “This benefits you, because I have dessert for two.”
She leads Will into the kitchen, making her way to the oven. Hannibal feels simultaneously relieved that Budge had shown himself out and discomfited at her plans for the night being thrown awry.
While plating the desserts, Hannibal takes the chance to covertly drink in the sight of Will.
She’s not dressed for the weather. Forgoing her usual flannels and armorlike layers, Will’s dressed only in a threadbare henley and a thin vest, neck exposed beneath dark hair that’s been left loose and unstyled.
Despite her unseasonal attire and the winter chill in the air, Will’s face is flushed a lovely shade of pink. Fever again - undoubtedly.
She decides to probe Will. “So - what was her reaction?
“She said she wouldn’t be good for me…and I wouldn’t be good for her.” Displeasure makes Will’s voice thick.
A pause. “I don’t disagree. She would feel an obligation to her field of study to observe you, and you would resent her for it.” The thought of Will with Alana makes sends an odd surge of possessive desire through her. She imagines herself in Alana’s place - a stability Will clings to with more than just words: imagines desperate hands reaching for her -
“I know,” Will blurts, interrupting Hannibal’s train of thought. A small mercy.
“Wondering then - why you kissed her,” Through the corner of her eye, she observes the war of emotions playing out on Will’s face “...and felt compelled to drive an hour in the snow to tell me about it.” Perhaps the old impulse endemic to the human condition had taken over her: absolution through confession.
“I’ve wanted to kiss her since I met her - she’s very kissable.” Will’s speech is more animated now. Her hands froth the air around her.
Despite herself, Hannibal laughs. “That she is. You waited a long time, which suggests you’re kissing her for a reason in addition to wanting to.”
Will’s hands fall; she shoves them deep in the pockets of her jeans - closing her body language even as she exposes herself verbally. “I heard an animal, stuck in my chimney. Ended up busting through the wall to get it out.” Will shrugs, bitterly. “Alana happened to stop by - she saw it. When she looked at me, I saw she knew. There was no animal. It was…in my head.”
Will’s voice has gone deceptively flat, but Hannibal can see conflict written across her very posture. Hannibal sees the scene play out in her mind. Will, wide-eyed and frantic; Alana, present and stable with a sure disposition and soft comfort.
Jealousy sets a fire in the pit of her stomach.
“I sleepwalk, I get headaches, I’m hearing things…” Will laughs humorously, dragging a hand down her face. “I’m losing my grip.”
“On?” Hannibal questions. She leaves the food on the counter, rounding the island to stand closer to Will. The younger woman lets out a shaky breath, gaze drifting downwards.
“Everything.” Her voice is small.
Hannibal feels the instinctual urge to pull Will under, push her further into freefall. She can - she will - feed that urge another time.
Instead she draws closer, invading Will’s space. She soothes. “You know who you are,” Hannibal insists. “You know where and when you are. You still maintain control of your awareness, your sense of self.”
Will’s face contorts into a bitter grimace. “For now.”
“For now, yes,” Hannibal reassures. “And when you do not, you have me.” She draws closer now, so far into Will’s gravitational pull that she can feel her radiant heat.
“And when I need more than an anchor?” Will whispers, eyes making brief contact with Hannibal’s own before drifting away again. Will’s stare is skittish and fever-bright but unfocused: fixed on what only she can see.
Hannibal reaches out, places a steady hand on Will’s shoulder. She offers a comforting squeeze, more to feel Will’s fine-boned form under her grasp than to reassure, but Will’s soft sigh informs her that the unintended comfort is received regardless.
A more restrained version of herself would use this as an opportunity to sow doubt about the sustainability of Will’s work, cast Jack and the FBI as catalysts of Will’s downfall. A safer version of herself would bring Tobias Budge under Will’s scrutiny, would secure her anonymity and Budge’s silence.
For the first time in many years, though, Hannibal finds herself succumbing to impulse. She delicately tucks a stray curl behind Will’s ear. Feels the heat of her skin when the girl tilts her head into Hannibal’s cupped hand.
Will holds her there - with nothing more than the weight of her searching gaze.
“Physical intimacy can serve as an affirmation of life, in times of uncertainty.” She keeps her voice low and her tone light. The words are noncommittal. Purposefully vague.
It’s up to Will to bridge the gap.
Will frowns. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were offering, doctor.” Her words hold caution, but her body doesn’t, drawing close to Hannibal, pressing more firmly into the hand at her cheek.
Hannibal seizes the opportunity with aplomb. “I was appointed as your stability. Should I not do everything in my power to ground you?” One step closer into Will’s space - one step closer to the opportunity Alana had declined.
A crease forms between Will’s brows; petulance and displeasure push her mouth into a pout. “All of this just for a patient?”
There it is - her in.
“For a friend,” Hannibal emphasizes, bringing their bodies flush. “Anything.” She pushes her fingers into Will’s thick hair, lightly scraping her manicured nails against Will’s scalp. Hannibal lets her satisfaction show when the gesture has Will arching closer to her. She rests her thumb on the apple of Will’s cheeks, admiring the bloom of heat there. Will’s shallow breaths brush the inside of Hannibal’s wrist, the only indication that the moment is not frozen in time.
“Anything,” Will echoes, looking up through dark lashes. Her mouth is parted; this close, Hannibal can see the delicate, glossy pink where the chapped skin of Will’s lips becomes something softer: mucous membrane, in all its honest delicacy.
The difference between their height is merely inches, but this close it might as well be a mile. She steps closer; Will tilts her head up to track her. She steps closer again and brings her hand under Will’s vest to rest on her hip, guiding the smaller woman back against the island.
Will is warm - feverishly hot, actually. Hannibal indulges her baser instincts and leans forward, nosing along Will’s hairline: breathing deeply with no attempt at subtlety. Will smells of wood and clean sweat and faintly, underneath it all, Hannibal scents that fevered sweetness: infection.
At the edge of her perception, Hannibal notes Will’s hands fidgeting at her sides, unsure if she has permission to touch. It’s ironic that Will is uncertain now, when she has already scrutinized every exposed aspect of Hannibal’s life.
When they are already so close.
Will’s pupils are blown wide, the clear blue of her iris swallowed with the force of want. Hannibal tangles her hand into the curls at the base of Will’s neck, coaxing Will to arch into her. She feels Will’s chest rising and falling against her own - feels frantic breaths stutter when she brings their mouths together.
Hannibal expects Will to taste of whiskey, of the brandy she knows the other woman indulges as the days grow increasingly long. She doesn’t. Will tastes of black coffee and toothpaste, an ascetic combination that speaks to a life lived in the margins. It’s enticingly chaste.
She longs to introduce Will to the lushness of experience.
Naturally, Hannibal leads the kiss. She’s content to start slowly, exploratory but unobtrusive. Careful to not deter Will, capricious creature that she is. She traces the seam of Will’s mouth with a delicate tongue, relishing the responding gasp that invites her closer.
Hesitance momentarily forgotten, Will fists the fabric of Hannibal’s coat in trembling hands.
Hannibal pulls back a fraction, just to see if Will follows. She does.
Will trembles.
“You needn’t doubt yourself,” Hannibal murmurs. She lets her left hand drift lower, splay across the rigid muscle at the small of Will’s back.
“Easy for you to say,” retorts Will. “Your world doesn’t shift daily.”
“Reality is itself in constant motion.” Hannibal leans back in, letting her mouth find the faint wrinkles at the corner of Will’s eye, the edge of her hairline where flyaway curls tickle her face.
It’s less a lover’s kiss than open-mouthed exploration.
Hannibal is almost overcome by the desire to bite down, to see blood caress the angle of Will’s jaw and the pale column of her throat.
Self restraint, thankfully, has not fully fled from her.
Will frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to be reassuring me?”
Hannibal hides her smile in the crown of Will’s head. Mercurial girl. “Your ability to question your own perception speaks to a judgement that has abandoned the truly insane.”
Will huffs. “So as long as I think I’m crazy, I can’t be completely crazy?”
“Sanity is not so impermeable,” Hannibal counters. “Your experience shifts with the pressures of your work - with the lives you find yourself accountable for.” She brings both hands to Will’s hips, traces her iliac crest, works her hand under the waist of worn jeans to dig her fingers into the small of Will’s back: imagines parting flesh and fascia to caress the harsh ridge of lumbar vertebrae.
Under her, Will gasps, curving into her hold. “Sanity recedes like the tide -” The rest of the thought is abandoned as Will presses her face into Hannibal’s shoulder. Her hands abandon their vice grip on Hannibal’s coat to bracket strong arms - as though she were afraid of being left now, unmoored.
“And comes back again, when the appropriate forces are applied.” Hannibal presses a rough kiss to Will’s cheek, frees one of her hands from its place at Will’s back to push unruly hair aside. She leans down and scrapes her teeth over the exposed bit of neck under Will’s jaw - holds Will steady when a shudder runs though her.
“Appropriate force?” Will repeats. “Would that be -” her response is interrupted by another sweet gasp as Hannibal brings her teeth down again, traces Will’s jugular with the point of a canine. “Is that you?” Will finally manages, blunt nails digging into Hannibal’s shoulders now. Hannibal wishes there was no barrier between them, longs to let Will tear ragged stripes down her back.
“It can be.” Hannibal lets the simple reply rest in the air and uses the moment of silence to press the advantage, bending Will back against the counter.
It’s not comfortable, surely, but Will doesn’t look like she minds: lips kiss-bitten and parted, face a riot of heat, hair spread in a dark, unruly halo.
The finest detail, though, the crowning feature of Will’s debasement is the tears that hang unshed in the corners of her eyes, splashes of fire that clump dark lashes and glimmer delicately in the low light.
Hannibal wants to see Will’s tears spill over, wants to see all the baroque glory of her undoing.
Wants to consume her, for now, in a way that she can survive.
Hannibal leans down for a kiss; Will meets her halfway, no longer content to passively follow. Their teeth clash, and Will pushes herself up on her elbows to get a better angle. Glad she’d opted for slacks - considering what was on the night’s original itinerary - Hannibal presses a thigh between Will’s legs, guides the absentminded rocking of hips into a rhythm with a hand to Will’s waist.
Will breaks the kiss with a moan. “That’s a dirty trick,” she complains - but the crease of her brow and the way her eyes flutter closed belie her gratification.
The first tear begins its slow march down Will’s face, cutting a glistening trail through Will’s ecstasy. Beautiful.
“I have no use for tricks,” Hannibal lies. It rolls off the tongue thoughtlessly, and the half-truth of it makes her smile.
Hannibal bites Will’s lower lip, traces the curve of her cupid’s bow and the peak of incisor revealed to her by a particularly strong gasp. With a firm hand, Hannibal rucks up Will’s shirt, pleased to find only a camisole over her small chest.
How delightfully uncouth.
The first pass of Hannibal’s cool fingers over the fevered skin of Will’s chest has the girl shivering. Hannibal palms one small breast, tracing a pebbled nipple with her thumb. Will’s hips jerk in response.
A second tear joins the other: twin pinpricks of fallen starlight.
She could sink to her knees, take Will apart with teeth and tongue. She could watch Will unravel with the opulent design of Bernini, see Will supine in ecstasy. Hannibal’s own Saint Teresa in divine revelation.
But Hannibal doesn’t want distance. She wants to observe Will’s anguish up close, wants to count each tear as it drips down Will’s face to soak the collar of her shirt. Wants to savor Will’s descent.
The grind of Will’s hips needs no guidance now, so Hannibal brings her attention to the worn leather of Will’s belt, unbuckles it and the fly of worn Levi’s with the quick hand of experience.
Will’s responding gasp is delightfully girlish, at odds with her typical easy masculinity.
Beneath her fingers, Hannibal feels Will’s abdomen twitch, imagines obliques and ligaments working in harmony as Will reacts to her touch. She digs a thumb into the dip between stomach and thigh to hear Will sigh, traces her fingers lower to play with the waistband of Will’s simple cotton briefs.
Hannibal pauses: a purposeful tantalean punishment. She lets the palm of her hand press firmly into Will’s abdomen but stops the downward trajectory of her fingers to hear Will whine. To hear her beg for it.
“Doctor Lecter,” Will’s voice trembles - thin and brittle like glass.
Hannibal presses into Will more firmly, fixes her with a searching gaze that makes Will flinch. “Interesting choice of formality,” she says, emphasizing her point by lifting her thigh, leaning further into Will’s space. Will is pinned between her thigh and hand, movement arrested and all the more tempting for it.
The distance between them is arbitrary: the very air charged.
“H-Hannibal,” Will manages. Her eyes are wellsprings; her breaths come hitching and quick. A parade of tears slips free between one blink and the next, gracefully tracing Will’s flushed cheeks and catching in the corner of her mouth and the ledge of her jaw.
A pause. Hannibal considers stretching out the moment, making Will truly beg.
Will, though, is fragile. Hannibal doesn’t want to break her - not yet. Not when her slow undoing is so riveting.
Mercy, for the first time in a long while, wins. Somewhat.
Hannibal slips her hand between Will’s briefs and her skin, tracing her fingers over Will’s mons before easing to the mere suggestion of pressure where Will needs it. She continues her slow exploration until Will writhes, sweat gathering where their bodies meet. Lust has made Will’s thrusts sloppy, smearing wetness over Hannibal’s hand though she has gone no further than to trace the outline of her sex with careful fingers.
Hannibal finds herself content to let the moment draw itself out, to watch Will work herself into a mess over nothing more than soft touch and proximity.
Will, Hannibal finds, is not so easily satisfied. She throws a leg over Hannibal’s hip, bringing Hannibal’s hand to where she needs it most. She hooks her fingers into the hair at Hannibal’s nape, drawing the older woman down into a lingering, biting kiss.
Hannibal licks the tears - bright spots of salt and anguish - from the corners of Will’s mouth. She enters Will with two fingers and swallows Will’s relieved sob like mana from heaven. Will’s body admits her with no protest, warm and accommodating in a way that Will herself never is.
A few experimental thrusts help Hannibal acclimate to Will’s desire. Her hips are in a constant roll now, undoubtedly soaking through both of their trousers. Hannibal cannot find it in herself to care. She curls her fingers, feels Will’s body give and then contract, tightening as Will lets out a small, pleased “Oh”. Hannibal presses deeper, listens to the sweet sound of Will whimpering through clenched teeth.
The press of a third finger evokes a reedy cry; the relentless friction turns Will’s gasps into a delicate staccato. She builds a rhythm, lets Will fall apart beneath her and against the spread and curl of her fingers. Will tightens her leg around Hannibal’s waist to grind more firmly into her palm.
Hannibal feels satisfaction twist her mouth into a smile. “Patience,” she chastises. Hannibal indulges her cruelty, slows the pace of her hand for no other reason than to hear Will whine, feel her overheated body pull taut with unsated desire.
Will is crying freely now, red-faced and gasping. Gone is Will’s facade of stoicism, her carefully maintained distance. More than anything before, this sends want coursing through Hannibal. She leans forward, licks the teartracks staining Will’s temples - relishes her hitching, shallow breath and the splotchy, pink tint to her skin.
Briefly, their eyes meet. Will’s eyes are glossy, bright with the tears that continue to spill over with every sob that escapes the cage of her chest. Hannibal presses deeper, savors the wet heat and friction. The body, she knows, can be made just as pliable as the mind. Will shakes and senselessly tosses her head, digging her heel into Hannibal’s back as if she could urge her deeper, merge their being more completely.
Hannibal grinds the heel of her hand into Will. The roll of Will’s hips becomes uncoordinated, but Hannibal maintains the relentless rhythm. She holds steady as Will’s movements grow rough, watches with rapt attention as Will draws tense -
Savors every detail as Will’s climax washes over her, sending a new rush of tears down her eyes. Will bucks into her hand now without regard to grace or elegance - an earnest portrait of lust free from pretense or artifice. Hannibal continues to curl her fingers, enjoying each small whimper the overstimulation draws out of Will. She’s of half a mind to continue - the thought of tasting Will rises again to the forefront of her mind.
But Will is truly weeping, now - and empathy, damnable thing that it is, overtakes her, unbidden. Hannibal smooths Will’s hair, carefully extracting a hand from underneath Will’s shirt to run comfortingly down her cheek.
Another kiss, beautiful in its simplicity, eases Will through the come-down. Hannibal eases her fingers out of Will and they both sigh at the loss; Will’s tremulous sob punctuates the departure, and Hannibal finds herself similarly mournful.
Hannibal draws Will close, steadies her on unsure feet. Still wet with her arousal, Hannibal imagines her hand burning a brand in Will’s hip. The air around them is heavy with sex and silence. Will’s breaths are evening out now, but their shallowness betrays the tenacity with which Will has to fight for each one.
“You know who you are,” Hannibal offers. She is satisfied to see Will pitch forward, feel her collapse into her arms.
Will’s voice is little more than a whisper. “Occasionally.” Hannibal knows no moment’s comfort can wash away the horrors of her mind - no physical anchor can cast out the wraiths nipping at Will’s heels.
“I know who you are,” amends Hannibal. This seems to put Will at ease. Her body slumps further into Hannibal’s, sex-slow and exhausted. “And you need rest. Will you find safe harbor here?”
“Can you truly offer protection,” questions Will, “When the tempest” her voice stutters over the grandiosity of the allusion “is - is me?”
Once again, Hannibal finds herself hiding a smile. She presses a kiss to the top of Will’s head, breathes in her scent transformed by their collision.
Tempests and temptation - both phenomena under her control to guide Will as she sees fit. Her game must end eventually, but why now when the chase is so exquisite? Hannibal wishes to draw out each moment of Will’s vulnerability - because her undoing is both divine destruction and rebirth.
“Your tempest,” Hannibal says, “Can surely be withheld for another moment.” Her possessive hand guides Will upstairs, though the kitchen is where she wants her most. “You’ll stay the night - it’s too risky to drive.”
It’s not a question.
“I’ll stay the night,” Will repeats, as if no other answer came to mind. Teartracks cover her face; she is irrevocably marked by tonight. Hannibal finds herself similarly branded.
Hannibal smiles.
She doesn’t need Will - not yet, anyways: but she is becoming infatuated. Unluckily for Will, she’s as exceptional in her torment as in every other aspect of life.
But Hannibal doesn’t need Will whole - not when the breaking is half the fun. She’s invested, now, in Will’s undoing, in watching her brilliant mind flay itself alive.
She’s set the pieces in motion. All that’s left is to see how they fall.