Archive of Our Own ^beta

Will shows up early to his appointment. He's never early. Hannibal lets him in with the knowledge that there’s something different about him this morning. And Hannibal believes he can find out what it is before they’ve even started their session. 

Hannibal’s mind burns with the question. He has one shot to answer it, which he takes when he goes to pour Will his coffee. Will is sitting in his chair as Hannibal hangs over his shoulder. He has about seven seconds for gathering evidence before what he’s doing becomes too noticeable. Will has already once before caught him investigating, Hannibal can’t brush it off as easily again. 

The coffee begins to pour, and Hannibal breathes in through his nose. 

Top notes of sweat. But not all Will’s. A foreign sweat has mingled with his. Another aftershave too, but it’s not one Will is wearing deliberately, it hasn’t been applied directly. His clothes are more than a day old, but Hannibal didn’t see him yesterday so he can’t be entirely certain Will has slept in his clothes or just put them on again after a night’s sleep. The rest of the evidence points to a different story, though. 

The coffee is nearly poured all the way. Hannibal exhales softly, then breathes in another round. 

The unfamiliar sweat is definitely that of a smoker’s. Will isn’t a smoker. There's a trace of alcohol in his blood, leftovers; he hasn’t been drinking for at least six hours. Then – further down – that's where it gets interesting. And by interesting, Hannibal means infuriating. 

Hannibal places the pot on the same sideboard the cup is placed on. He reaches for the tempered milk jug and pours. He's got one more breath to take and he’s done. 

There's dried saliva on Will’s exposed neck. It's subtle, unless you know what to search for. There's a trail on his body of it, not just the neck, but the clavicle, the chest, especially his genitals. Then the unmistakable scent of latex, of a condom’s residue. Traces of oil-based lubricant. Will's hands are clean, soapy, but even through the fabric of his jeans there is a musk of someone else’s bodily fluids that assaults Hannibal’s olfactory senses.  

The cup of coffee is ready. Hannibal delivers it like an obedient servant to Will’s ready hands. 

“Thanks.” is all Will says, seemingly absent-minded. He doesn’t suspect.   

“My pleasure.” Hannibal archives the scent of that foreign sweat. It's not from someone at the bureau. Will’s been out last night, looking for a stranger, it seems. And he found one, too.  

Will has a sip of coffee, looking content. “Sorry for coming in a bit earlier than you expected.” 

“Not at all – I was only puzzled to hear the knock on the door fifteen minutes earlier than usual. You normally get caught in the mid-morning traffic coming in from Wolf Trap.” 

“Well, I wasn’t home last night, I was in the area. A friend lives nearby, I stayed over.” Will avoids eye contact on most occasions. Not now, not with Hannibal. 

How willing are you to lie to me about this, Will? “An old friend or a new friend?” 

“Uh, neither. Somewhere in between. One of the few ones I've got.” 

Hannibal has a perfect mask of professionalism on his face. “You’ve given me the impression before that you had no such friends. You've only ever mentioned distant friends from school or new friends from the bureau.” 

Will swallows his coffee. “Must’ve slipped my mind. I met him some time before I got back into the force.” 

Not likely. I would have picked up on it sooner if that was the case. “What’s he like? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

Will is picking up on what Hannibal is sending, loud and clear. “He’s a total opposite of me, personality wise. So, it’s strange that we can get along so well. Especially when – I don’t get along with so many people to begin with.” He squirms, self-deprecatingly, obviously feeling Hannibal’s scrutinizing gaze. 

“It's good to have friends that you didn’t expect to get along with. There must be a lot of trust between you.” Hannibal searches Will’s eyes for the truth. Why are you keeping this, of all things you’ve entrusted me with, from me?  

“Certainly. Trust – it's paramount to me.” Will knows.  

You've made your first move. I didn’t expect to be playing with you, Will. For that, I commend you.  

Hannibal sets the timer for one hour. They move on, conversation-wise. But he keeps his archive open, he knows he will definitely need this profile of a scent in the future. 

- 

Later in the week, every time the two are in close proximity, Hannibal checks. But no repetitions. Will stays clean. A one-night stand, no doubt. He still thinks it odd that Will wouldn’t tell his therapist about something that should be so casual. Furthermore, lying about it, spinning a story about a ‘friend’ – it didn’t sit right with Hannibal.  

He can’t seem to get the scent out of his nostrils, either. There are far too many smokers in Baltimore for Hannibal to find a match on his own. And then what would he do with the information? It would certainly tell me more about Will’s elusive way of living.  

The visuals that come with the scent intrude on Hannibal’s headspace. He isn’t exactly fantasizing when he sees Will’s neck being licked, his partner offering him fellatio, before the unidentified smoker rides Will to completion. Or perhaps Will is receiving, taking the man’s condom-clad cock inside him. Not that Hannibal knows about the exact positions. His mind’s eye just conjures it to have happened that way.  

Will shows up fifteen minutes early at his weekly appointment the following Wednesday. Hannibal notices it from the moment Will treads the threshold of the waiting room and the office. Hannibal holds the door open, giving him access to properly pick up Will’s miasma as he passes by him.  

The scent is back, like a film covering Will’s skin again. It's just like last week. Just as provocative. Will is early again today. It has become a standing appointment, then.  

“Are you making a habit of showing up early now?” Hannibal closes the door, always locking it. For privacy. 

Will plays coy. “Sorry about it – again. I thought I would be punctual this time, but it was the same story as last week. Next time, I'll just get up fifteen minutes later.”  

Hannibal’s sense of smell isn’t the only sense being utilized today. As Will sits down, he scratches a little at his shirt collar. For a brief moment, the pull of the shirt reveals a faint, but distinctive, mark above the clavicle. A hematoma less than a dime in radius. A lover’s mark.   

Hannibal didn’t think he could have cared this much about something that shouldn’t concern his interests. But it did marginally concern his interests whether he liked it or not. Dare I think you’re taunting me, Will?  Only showing up like this when you know we’re alone, on my turf?  

Next Tuesday, Hannibal considers trailing Will after work. Whoever the not-old, not-new friend is, Hannibal wants to bare all the cards on the table. Even if he has to take Will’s cards out of his hands for him. 

Hannibal’s considerations become reality as he observes Will driving from headquarters to a suburb of Baltimore. The car is parked in a public space, Will exits with nothing in hand, he’s just wearing his autumn-appropriate jacket, keys in pocket. Hannibal pursues him as he walks down a street to a quaint house.  

Hannibal watches from a safe distance as Will, under the glow of the porchlight on this dark evening, presses the doorbell. Hannibal can practically smell the flush of dopamine Will’s brain is sending out at the moment; he appears moderately excited to be in this situation. His hands are in his pockets, such a juvenile posture for someone like him.  

The door finally opens to reveal a non-descript man. He grins disgustingly wide when he sees Will. He lets Will come inside without a handshake or hug, shutting the tasteless door behind them. Once the perimeter is secured, Hannibal walks up to the mailbox to read its inscription. A ‘Stuart  Brightstone’ lives here. Alone.    

Luckily for Hannibal, Stuart is not one to pull the shutters on the windows to his living room. And his back garden is full of convenient hiding spots. The atmosphere in the house seems less full of anticipation, more full of something nearing domesticity, as the two sit down on the couch with a glass of red each. They're making conversation. Will almost looks like a regular person having a normal interaction with Stuart.  

If Hannibal were to assess him as prey, Stuart would be a fine pig, no noticeable skin abnormalities – an indicator for good quality of meat. Not too fit a body either, enough of an insular layer to make porchetta of his stomach. The wine didn’t worry him; from the look of Stuart’s evenly colored countenance, his liver wasn’t compromised. His lungs were not an option, not with all the tar inside them. His lips looked supple as they kissed Will’s. Hannibal feels an urge to gnaw those lips directly off his bland face. 

Worst of all, Will looks content. He invites Stuart in, they’re both soon draped over the couch, Stuart laying himself over Will so they can kiss better. Stuart goes in with his tongue, showing Hannibal how the saliva trail originally got on Will’s neck. Will's big eyes close out of pleasure.  

He later fumbles with Stuart’s drab cardigan before Stuart takes it off himself. There's a lot of fumbling, trying to find a good position on that couch, Will ends up with his back to the window in an awkward pose. Hannibal can tell that he’s fondling Stuart’s zipper, but not for long. The two stop. Negotiate. Stuart practically rolls off the cushions so he can head for the master bedroom, Will in tow. 

Hannibal sees it all, passively. He can’t see Will’s face anymore, but he’s seen enough to understand. He already knows he can’t kill Stuart. He could get away with killing Stuart’s neighbors, but not Stuart himself. Will probably already knows I know.   

The empty living room is completely still. The lights remain on. The two were too enamored to care, it seems. Hannibal considers moving around to the other side of the house to see if he can glimpse through the bedroom window. He can, so he does. Stuart is half-way out of his pants before he is made aware of the window. Will is somewhere in the background, no shirt on anymore, facing away again.  

Stuart draws the curtains, so all Hannibal can see is the glow of the light inside. The wood plank walls are thin, though. Yet he can’t distinguish much, the faint sounds coming from the house are crowded by outside din. There's a dog barking across the street, a car drives by, someone’s watching TV in the neighbor’s house; it all overshadows what he’s trying to focus on. Hannibal thinks he can hear Will for a moment. But he can’t, he realizes. 

At home, Hannibal finds the minimal trail Stuart has left on the face of the internet. He's been the manager of a chain tackle shop in Baltimore since 2007. No kids, no previous marriages. He doesn’t post on social media much. A relatively private person. Probably perfect for Will. Spokesperson for a local organization for victims of abuse. No living parents. A sister in Colorado, seemingly non-contact by her absence on his profiles.  

Stuart is tagged in a few pictures of him and friends on a night out on the town. The flash of the camera as Stuart cozied up to a coworker made his face and smile look even more insipid. The eyes weren’t corrected for the red iris that shows up in lousy photography, so they flash back in the picture like he’s a deer in headlights. Hannibal can’t kill him, though. He has to keep reminding himself as he winds himself up by seeing the information unfold before him.  

Hannibal wakes up the next morning, readying himself for work. For Will. He expects him to show up fifteen minutes early again. But this time, the knock on the door comes punctually. Will appears rejuvenated when Hannibal lets him in silently. Hannibal doesn’t need to smell him this time, obviously. He doesn’t have selective smelling, though, and the odor pervades the air around Will and hits Hannibal all the same. He thinks about how Stuart’s bland face would finally look interesting once it’s purple from asphyxiation.  

Will's face is dewy with something approaching contentedness. The last two sessions have been duller than usual. And this one became the dullest of them all for Hannibal. Will's contentment wedges itself between the two. He's less willing to tread into the darkness with Hannibal, so they get practically nothing done in the hour they’re together. He's healing. I can’t have this happen.   

Maybe Stuart could go away for a long time. He could get a better job offer on the west coast. With Hannibal’s connections, anything is a possibility. But Stuart doesn’t seem the type to climb the career-ladder. The tackle shop is obviously a dream job come true for such a boring man.  

He could die in an accident. Drowned in the sea on a fishing trip on a bad weathered day. A loose board in his shabby boat would do the trick. But then Hannibal starts fantasizing about the tackle piercing his skin, fishing lines wrapped around his wrists and throat slicing him up like a tomato under duress. It gets out of hand for him. He reels it back to reality.  

But before he is completely back to reality, he thinks about how he would love the savory taste of hubris when eating Stuart, even though he knows he can’t do that. He thinks of feeding Will the best cuts, oblivious to Hannibal’s transgressions. Will, grieving the disappearance of Stuart, taking him inside himself for the last time at the head of Hannibal's dinner table. The thought is practically delicious. 

He then thinks about how Will had almost told him the whole truth the first time. He just conveniently left out the details about his friend ’s sexual attachment to him. The question still plagues Hannibal: why?  

What does Will gain from hiding a lover from me?  

Hannibal tries following Will more places throughout the week. He expects that the relationship between him and Stuart progresses naturally, so that they start meeting more than once a week. His expectations are left hanging. Despite his best efforts, Hannibal sees nothing. Will has his daily routine untouched. It's only those Tuesday nights he spends at Stuart’s that’s out of the ordinary. As far as Hannibal knows, Will doesn’t even call the man up.  

The tackle shop is – tacky. Hannibal is hit with an assaulting odor of cork and neoprene from the second he walks through the doors. The décor is pretentious, in the sense that it’s trying too hard to be authentic. The displays of plastic fish in epoxy water are indescribably unimaginative. He shuts out the worst of it and focuses on the target. 

Stuart is instructing a customer when Hannibal spots him. Even from afar, he exudes a flavorless charisma that any good salesman has. Hannibal watches his act. Stuart is apparently showing the customer the difference between two fishing poles. He pours himself into the role, but Hannibal isn’t convinced. Soon enough, the customer is satisfied and left to their own devices. Stuart looks around for an encounter. He works off commission, of course. He spots Hannibal in no time, making a beeline for him.  

Hannibal finally sees him up close in person. His face is still as average as they come. And his scent is immediately recognizable, as expected. “Hello, sir – can I help you with anything you need today?” 

Hannibal has a part to play as well: the naïve customer. “Yes, in fact, I was looking for your flyfishing gear – where do you keep it?” 

Stuart smiles. “It’s right over here, on this aisle, follow me –” he trots, Hannibal in direct pursuit. When they arrive, Hannibal feigns mild surprise. Stuart enjoys it. “We have a wide variety of gear, and equipment to make your own lures, and so much more. Is there anything in particular you are looking for?” 

Hannibal can smile, too. It's easy. “Well, I have a friend who fishes regularly, so he probably has a lot of this stuff already. I want to get him a birthday present, and I hoped there would be something of interest here, something new and different, that I could get for him. So, what do you gift the fisherman who has everything?” 

Stuart has himself a chuckle that never quite leaves his throat. “I can see why you’re on foreign territory there! Now, I think – hm, you see, I also happen to know someone, beside myself, who seemingly has everything there is in terms of gear. And if I were to gift him something special, I would get him anything from this row.” Stuart indicates the tier with all the specialized materials for making lures. “Assuming that your friend likes to make his own. We've got new materials in that he probably hasn’t had the chance to look at yet.” 

Hannibal feels a sliver of the sensation of being impressed. “Perhaps he needs it. I've only ever seen him catch something once.” 

Stuart chuckles again, being far too chummy. “And even then, it was only an old boot on the hook, right?” 

Hannibal mirrors the chuckling. “Oh, yes. I think he deserves more flattering lures so he can finally have a worthy catch.” 

Hannibal leaves the store with a neatly wrapped box the size of his palm. Say what you will about Stuart, he does wrap gifts like a professional. 

- 

Will has a sharp tool of empathic perception in his toolbox. Hannibal wishes to borrow it, only for the time while he’s pondering Stuart’s existence in Will’s life. Maybe if Hannibal can place himself in Stuart’s position, he can understand Will’s attraction to him. 

Hannibal reimagines the scene from that night he went out to Stuart’s house. He feels the need to reconstruct the parts he couldn’t be there for. The moment the curtains dropped in front of his vision. Now, it’s Hannibal inside that bedroom. He's half dressed, losing clothes at a rapid rate. Will turns to see him, standing by the window, Hannibal’s hands still on the curtains.  

Will has an urgency about him. He must have Hannibal on the bed, now, they have to be naked as soon as possible, Will needs Hannibal to lie on his back on the bedspread. Stuart would probably slow him down, sprinkle droplets on the fire for now. He turns Will in a kiss, getting him instead to lie down flat on his back. He would likely be gentle at first; he’d kiss the faded scar on Will’s shoulder, honoring him. Then Hannibal kisses down, down, wanting to take Will’s hardening cock in his hand so he can kiss it too. Hannibal swallows him, eliciting a sound he imagines Will would make when taken care of like this.  

Hannibal is interrupted when Will shuffles about; Hannibal is handed a bottle of lubricant, Will had taken it from the nightstand. Hannibal thanks him with two fingers. Will's sounds of pleasure change now that he’s being swallowed and filled up at the same time. Either Will comes soon, or later, but not never. Because Will probably interrupts Hannibal again, configuring them into an embrace again that ends up with Hannibal on his back once more. 

Will has a condom from the nightstand too, he has an obsessive precision when he slides it onto Hannibal. He prepares them for the ride, everything is in place before Will takes him inside. Hannibal imagines his hands on Will’s hips, not to still them, but to anchor him. Will's sweat slicks his skin in the low light, the perspiration of lust, and his eyes take on a quality Hannibal hasn’t seen until now. Hannibal props himself up on an elbow to be closer to him, to smell Will’s desire for him, to taste a nipple, to let Will comb through Hannibal’s hair with his hand. 

It's all very gentle until a shift happens; Hannibal rolls them over so Will ends up on his side. Hannibal encroaches on his space by lying behind Will, chest to back, lifting Will’s thigh up so he can re-enter. This way, he can fuck Will with the intensity needed, all the while tasting his neck some more. He gets lost in the pleasure, sucking a little too hard on Will so the mark above his clavicle is reprinted on him.   

Hannibal has worked up a sheen of sweat too once he feels the end approaching. Will has his own cock in his hand, getting himself where he needs to go. Hannibal whispers something into Will’s ear, something to push him over the edge. Will comes, fiery, releasing everything, and Hannibal knows it’s time. He slips out, sliding the condom off in one go, discarded to who knows where, and comes between Will’s thighs, marking him.  

What comes next? Stuart probably lies there, petting Will’s hair for a while. He likely makes a joke to make Will laugh, before he gets up to hand Will a towel. Do they sleep in each other’s arms? Hannibal has an arm slung around Will’s chest; it’s breathing calmly, Hannibal’s hand can feel the slow beat beyond Will’s breast. They drift on their raft together, off to sleep. 

Hannibal awaits the coming Wednesday. The morning dawns. 

But this time, Will shows up five minutes late. Like he used to.  

When he walks through the door again, Hannibal is met with a shower-clean Will. Aftershave dabbed plenty on his neck. His clothes are fresh off the clothesline. It's like the veil of smoke for the past few weeks was never there to begin with. 

Hannibal's nose is finally at rest. They talk like normal about Will’s thoughts and struggles for almost the entirety of the hour. Until a shift happens, a shift in Will, when he changes the subject. 

“I don’t think I've been entirely honest with you, Dr. Lecter. My friend here in Baltimore – I don’t know when it happened exactly, but the friendship has slipped into something else over the past few weeks. Even back when I told you about him the first time, things had begun to change between us.” 

Hannibal's attention is severely arrested. “Change how?”  

“A paradigmatic shift. We were friends, now we’re friends – who sleep together. We've moved into another rubric.”  

Hannibal searches his eyes. “Are you satisfied with this change?” 

There it was. A glimmer of doubt in Will’s eyes. “It was unexpected. I'm – adjusting, still.” 

Hannibal wants to ride that doubt in Will’s mind for all it has got. “You say you feel you’ve not been truthful with me. You seem to have some feeling of guilt by phrasing it that way.” 

Will isn’t content now, not anymore. “Maybe – I don’t know.” 

“Is it related to the reason why you didn’t talk to me about it when it first started?” 

Will can’t tell him, Hannibal knows. You can’t let your desire show yet.  

Will shrugs it off, simply. Hannibal is satisfied now. 

“Our hour is nearly up. Before you go, I have something for you, Will.” 

“Oh?” Will is genuinely caught off guard. 

Hannibal goes to reach into a drawer, comes back, and hands him the neatly wrapped present.  

Will looks intently at it. Analyzing it. There's a sticker on the ribbons – the sticker has the shop’s logo on it. 

The cards are on the table now.    

Will looks up at Hannibal. Hannibal is, of course, already seeing Will. 

See?