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Hannibal hums.
No words, but the sound itself conveys a burgeoning displeasure in the man. It twists across his lips, narrows his eyes, and ripples down to a sharp little stab with his fork. Subtle gestures, so small that to most they would be unnoticed, especially after two glasses of wine and the beginning of a third.
Subtle gestures that are not lost on Will, who glances up from his plate to watch Hannibal twist his utensil into the braised greens. Chopped anchovies and fresh garlic mingle with the scent of fennel, alongside filets of fresh-caught striped bass and a dressing of delicately browned chanterelle mushrooms, poured over with a sauce of tomatoes and chardonnay and countless other notes that Hannibal picks out one by one. Will can see it, as he tastes, the way his jaw works and his brow creases.
And he can see the moment that it shifts to distemper.
“What is it?” Will asks, gently and without reproach, as Hannibal lifts the greens to his fork. The look he receives is narrow, just so, a bare movement of muscle beneath the man’s eyes.
“Cavalo nero,” answers Hannibal. “Tuscan kale.”
“It’s very good -”
“It isn’t,” Hannibal assures him. Beneath the politeness, gracious as always, is a snap of annoyance. “They were held too long, I’m afraid. Several days more and they would have begun to wilt. I expect more from my greengrocer than this.” Setting his fork back to the plate, he dabs his napkin to his lips and stands. “My apologies.”
Will watches him, brows slightly drawn in confusion, in a quiet sort of dismay that Hannibal would work himself to such displeasure over kale. It seems absurd, and perhaps it is, to anyone but Hannibal Lecter.
“No need to apologize,” he tries, as Hannibal gathers his plate, sets the cutlery carefully aside. “Hannibal, please. It tastes very good -”
“And very good,” Hannibal responds, a small smile that relates closer to a snarl than an expression of pleasure, “is not perfect.”
Will’s jaw works carefully before he swallows, taking up his glass. “Sit down, please.”
There is a hesitation, brief but clear, before Hannibal inclines his head and continues collecting their plates from the table as Will watches him.
“Hannibal.” And this tone is sharper, clearer, the weight of the word more palpable than before as Will’s eyes barely narrow, meet Hannibal’s. “Sit down, please.”
“A moment,” Hannibal responds. He keeps his tone steady despite how Will’s own settles against his skin, pulling a shiver through him. It is allowed to pass through, as the man himself passes by Will’s chair towards the kitchen. “I will return the remainder of your bass to you momentarily, and it will be better without the bitter greens to overwhelm fish and chanterelle alike.”
He cannot make the dish again, plucking the remaining kale from the refrigerator. It is set beside the sink to be shredded for compost later, as already his mind works for a better accompaniment than the failure served before. With caution, Hannibal plates the fish again on a clean dish, leaving the miserable greens behind to return Will’s dinner to him.
Colored with embarrassment, and despising the heat that climbs across his cheeks, Hannibal sets Will’s plate to the table. “I will see how much fennel remains, and gather tomatoes from the garden,” he decides. “With a little garlic and fresh basil, a lemon - it will only take me a little while.”
“It will not,” Will says, voice clipped, tone lower and eyes on Hannibal’s until he finally looks up to meet them. He holds the gaze a long time, until Hannibal swallows and Will blinks first.
“I asked you to sit down, Hannibal, twice. Did you not hear me?” Will asks, quiet, formal, for all the world entirely civil if not for the warning beneath it all.
A shadow of movement flickers across Hannibal’s jaw as he straightens. He hardly breathes, throat snared with vicious pride, and he knows that the brightness of Will’s eyes sees it, coiling black from the pit of his stomach.
“I heard you,” Hannibal answers.
“And you’re still standing.”
“Yes.” His gaze darts towards the kitchen and back to the plate. “It would have ruined the integrity of the bass - the taste is too mild, the bitterness of the kale overpowering -”
“I do not care,” Will replies slowly, “about the integrity of the bass.”
He sits forward, glass carefully set aside with a click to the heavy table, and watches Hannibal where he stands near-vibrating behind his chair.
“I care that you did not listen, as you said you would, to me, and are now suffering because of it.”
A moment more, another brief tension in the need that seems to almost physically pull Hannibal back to the kitchen, before he pulls his chair out once more and takes a seat. Will parts his lips with his tongue and sighs, taking up his glass again. He doesn’t savor the sip, purses his lips and looks at Hannibal again, expression no longer angry, instead something slightly more shaken beneath, unstable. Almost insecure.
“Do you trust me to know what is best for you, when I walk through that door?” He asks softly.
Hannibal draws a sharp breath in protest - he isn’t suffering, he would insist. He made a mistake that needs to be corrected, and even now his fingers tense and tap against the table. His lungs hold, swollen with air, the words caught where his tongue presses to the back of his teeth.
“Yes,” Hannibal finally breathes, and the word follows like a flame from his lungs to his lips. The next words ignite. “Perhaps your palate was overwhelmed. It is sophisticated enough, and it is a subtle difference, but enough. I could not finish it, and if I will not eat my own food, why should I expect you to do so? And now your fish has cooled -”
“Hannibal.” Will lets his tongue fall over every syllable until the man before him slows his torrent of words. He watches, tilts his head a little before taking a breath and trying again. “Finding fault in your own work is a human instinct. A striving for perfection none of us can reach, even you. Because no such perfection exists.”
“Will -”
“Please listen.” Will raises his eyes to meet Hannibal’s and waits for him to quiet once more. “Perfection does not exist, when our mind continually finds ways to overwhelm itself and adjust that standard of perfection. Today, you felt yourself falling short in regard to dinner. Tomorrow, dinner can be entirely unrelated to yet another fear that perfection has not been achieved. I need you to stop.”
Will reaches, this time, to hold Hannibal’s hand down to the table to stop him moving from it. “I need you to trust me to know when you have failed, and tell you then, and understand that I would not lie.”
Taut lines soften in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes. His jaw relaxes. He nods. And though he strains to never speak a lie, one exists now in the relaxation and acknowledgment that he forces into his body, while even still displeasure flickers and curls inside. He trusts Will’s judgment, in nearly every way, but one cannot pass judgment on what they cannot experience, and Will’s palate is lacking - sorely lacking - compared to Hannibal’s own. For all it matters, the kale might have wilted entirely and with a little more garlic to mask its muskiness, few would notice.
There are pinpricks beneath his skin, sharp points that drive him to a discomfort stoically kept at bay by the stillness of his body. The sensation of his skin’s tightness over them has been growing for weeks, as each day antlers rub their velvet raw and bloody. Each day since the last time he hunted, fed, displayed his kill to sate his senses with a feast.
It has little at all to do with the miserable kale.
And only when Hannibal has allowed his thoughts to be subsumed like a bird in an oil spill does he realize how closely Will is watching him. In an instant, he is bare, revealed, and the mask of his calm acceptance transparent over the roiling darkness of the man beneath.
“I have stopped,” Hannibal softly intones.
Will blinks. “And the rest?”
The displeasure is palpable between them, from interrupted dinner, growing more and more oppressive in a way that makes Hannibal’s skin crawl and Will’s hair stand on end against his arms. He knows this electricity, he senses it from every crime scene that has been gift-wrapped for him.
Hannibal will not hurt him.
But he is climbing from his skin wanting to do it again - another display, another preparation, where he can control his own perfection, his own order.
“Do I need to teach you of trust again?” Will asks.
“I trust you, Will.”
“You don’t,” Will answers, his voice as soft as if Hannibal had offered another glass of wine rather than protest. “You heard me and didn’t listen. You’ve argued with me. You’re still arguing with me. Will you let me?”
Hannibal’s eyes sharpen, but it is an instinctive reaction rather than deliberate. The spines of pressure beneath his skin send a ripple of tension through him, a wave that crests at displeasure and reaches its trough in the relief that Will’s words promise him. He is not naive - he does not imagine that even Will’s skillfulness can keep him at bay forever. But in the months they’ve shared together, again, it has been enough to soothe him, no matter how reluctantly the man would admit it.
“Yes,” Hannibal breathes, a hushed gust as the tendons of his hand, pressed to the table, pull tighter. Despite himself, a smile appears very faint, and does not reach his eyes. “Though your work is cut out for you in convincing me that I was wrong,” he murmurs.
“Today I need to convince you to trust me, and to listen to me," Will tells him, pushing to stand and lifting the glass to take another long sip to empty it. He does not tell Hannibal to drink his or leave it, as it hardly matters. Their relationship is based on enough time together, now, to know when the little things can be ignored, can be allowed an umbrella allowance or denial.
“Please leave the dishes,” Will tells him, careful to push his chair in before turning to leave the dining room. “You may do them later, if you feel up for it. Otherwise, I will take care of them by the morning. Come upstairs when you’re ready. You may bring water if you need it.”
And then he goes, hand careful to sweep fingertips over the top of his chair until he lets it go, and leaves Hannibal in silence. He can hear as Will mounts the stairs, can hear, simply because he is listening, as he makes his way to the bedroom and quietly pulls open a drawer. He can hear as Will moves around the space, calm and collected, despite his stated displeasure.
When you’re ready.
Hannibal’s lips thin, and he rubs them together. The dinner, considered for days in advance, sits wasted on the table - the bottle of wine, unfinished. With a slow push, he sets Will’s chair and then his own back in place, and considers with a black pleasure cooking the fennel and tomatoes anyway, and then leaving them to spoil alongside the fish. He considers just as equally returning his kitchen and dining room to neatness, dishes washed and meal where it belongs - compost or the bin, it doesn’t matter now.
He wonders what Will would do if he did. It would be simple if the man were crude. Perhaps he would bend Hannibal over and bare him, bring his hand down until it stung and Hannibal’s backside glowed hot and red. Perhaps he would strike him, hissing invectives for Hannibal’s disobedience and his failures.
It would be simple, if that were his manner, but it is not and Hannibal knows with a strange certainty that were he to so flagrantly disregard Will’s words, he would simply leave. It would be the end, again, of this tenuous trust between them. He would not return.
With a graceless grab, Hannibal snatches his glass from the table and downs his wine. It sours on his tongue, and with a curl of displeasure in his lips, he forgoes the water offered to him to instead make his way silently upstairs.
Upstairs, Will is facing the window, hips cocked comfortably as he works a long rope through his hands, bending it and uncoiling it so it won’t chafe if it twists wrong against skin – though even then, Will takes the time to make the sensation more bearable, retying the entire design if he must. He doesn’t turn when Hannibal comes in, but he does duck his head to watch his fingers work before stopping with the motions entirely for a moment.
“Would you like to remain dressed?”
“You have never tied me up in my clothes.”
“I have also never tied you to remind, before,” Will tells him, a brief glance over his shoulder. “If you wish to be bare for it, by all means.”
Something in Will’s words prickles the fine hairs along the back of Hannibal’s neck. Like cold rain, it trickles down his spine, his arms, but instead of slipping to the floor it gathers in his belly and cools him, inward out, into a shiver.
“I apologize for my mood,” Hannibal begins, “and for not listening. Perhaps we might simply lay together -”
“Dressed, then?”
Hannibal’s throat clicks when he swallows. He spans his hands over his jacket, his waistcoat, to rest against his thighs. There is some security in this, safety within the comforting confines of his bespoke suits, perfectly tailored. There are also the inevitable wrinkles that will appear, ropes wrapped across the pristine creases, bunching and smoothing improperly. The mere thought of it tugs down a frown, and as Hannibal turns to remove his clothing, he considers that perhaps he is, in fact, something of a perfectionist.
“Bare.”
Will’s smile is small and genuinely warm as he turns away again and lets Hannibal remove his armor; and that is precisely what his suits are to him, carefully honed and cared for and trusted armor. Will cannot fault him that. He doesn’t.
He considers the ropes in his hands before something catches, a thought that tugs lightly and turns his head, before his hands work at winding the rope back up, careful in its coils, to knot it done and return it to his bag. He crouches to pull something else from there, instead.
The silk is almost blue with how dark it is, though in truth the color is that of ash. Will considers the length of it, and reaches to gather more. It is rare that he uses the material for more than show, but considering the lesson, it would be an important association - vital, perhaps - if the response is one he expects, knowing well the man he works with. So with the silks he stands and goes to the bed to set them down, watching Hannibal step closer to look, bare, now, tense.
Will gently leans his weight against Hannibal’s shoulder and turns his head to rest his chin against it, lifting his eyes to the man before he ducks his head to kiss the skin.
“This is about trust, Hannibal,” he reminds him quietly. Not punishment, not anger. This is a lesson, not a cruelty.
With a lift of his chin, Hannibal accepts the explanation that Will gives him. Distantly, he isn’t wholly convinced that there will not be a punitive element to his flagrant disobedience, but nearer than that thought is that Hannibal does not particularly mind the thought of it. He earned - or will learn - whatever Will gives him.
“May I touch them?” Hannibal asks, knowing the answer as soon as Will sighs a soft smile against his shoulder. He lifts a hand then to instead touch Will’s cheek, drawing his knuckles down the soft scruff as much for his own reassurance as for affection.
“May I kiss you first?” Hannibal asks instead, as a spike of anticipation dries his mouth.
Will just hums, a soft sound between them, before taking Hannibal’s hand gently and using it to turn him so they face each other properly, leaning in to kiss Hannibal’s lips and relinquishing control of the rest of it to him. It is an allowance, it is also a genuine reassurance for them both.
Trust me.
I won’t hurt you.
I am here.
Will draws his hands up through Hannibal’s hair, just enough to hold, not enough to grip or pull or tug. He curls one hand gently behind Hannibal’s ear and smiles into their kiss as the older man shivers. Then Will pulls away, and with a soft nuzzle nose to nose, steps back.
“I will tie your arms out above you today,” Will tells him. “Tie your legs, as well, but you’ll be free to move them all, should you want to. On your back, please.”
Hannibal listens. He obeys. His knees slip over the bed cover, smoothed perfectly flat until he moves over it and leaves a wake of wrinkles as he moves to the center. It is telling, he considers, that he is in no way aroused. Not even a stirring between his legs distracts him now, when apprehension and anticipation, curiosity and caution ensnare instead. Settling his head against the pillows, he straightens his legs - long and powerful and entirely subdued.
Will takes his wrist and Hannibal lets him, lifting both to join above his head. He does not watch the intricate weaving, though Will’s skill is a wonder to him, but rather watches the man’s face and the flickers of concentration that dance across it. Will wets his lips with a touch of tongue. He sets his teeth against the bottom. His brow furrows.
The quiet authority in his movements has always been intoxicating. Hannibal has never seen the man moved to more anger than the brief frustration shown tonight, though he imagines it must be there, compartmentalized to somewhere that isn’t here. The silk slips cool around his arms, twisting and knotting, binding and pulling, and each loop soothes softly away the needling tension that has crawled too long uneased beneath Hannibal’s skin.
Will weaves the silk down to just below Hannibal’s elbows, careful to not bend him wrong, to keep the silk against the skin just tight enough to hold, never to hurt. He checks Hannibal’s circulation by making him grasp against his hand and release, then he bends to kiss his fingertips before moving back.
He does not secure Hannibal to the headboard. As promised, he is free to move his arms as he can manage.
The legs will take longer, each one bent heel to thigh and gently secured there before Will works the silks in a beautiful fishbone pattern up to Hannibal’s bent knee. Five coiled knots in all, down the outside of his thigh and calf where they are carefully bent together.
“Close your eyes for me,” Will tells him, hands still careful and deft with the twists and knotting, fingers practiced and quick with checking the tightness and adjusting as necessary. “Do you trust me to tie you when you cannot see me do it? When you can only feel my hands?”
Their eyes meet long enough that Will - the only one who would notice something so small - sees Hannibal’s pupils shrink, the whites of his eyes flare just a little brighter. Hannibal runs his tongue along the back of his teeth in thought, and without real threat, asks, “And if I said no?”
“Then we would stop,” shrugs Will. “I would untie you and leave you to your rest.”
He would leave.
Hannibal is the first to avert his eyes, not from fear, but in acceptance of the truth of it all. Quid pro quo - in this case, truth for truth.
“I trust you, Will.”
Will watches him carefully, the tautness in him, the way his jaw works before he finally closes his eyes as directed. There is fear there, shivering beneath the surface of the man’s pride. A lesson, perhaps, taught to remember, then, though Will is prepared to cut the silks, remove anything, if Hannibal shows pain or terror to a degree they cannot control together.
He will not hurt him.
A chaste kiss to Hannibal’s cheek, a smile when Hannibal’s lips part gently and he turns his head as though to seek more, which Will gives him, a brief kiss to his lips before returning to tying his leg.
“I want you to understand that I am here to take burdens from you that you cannot carry on your own most of the time. I am here to take your pain and your fear and give you something else in return for them. They will become my burdens, they will become my worries, and you can breathe free of them, does that make sense?”
They have talked of this before, years ago, before murder and tension and negotiations - Will whispering sleepy and warm in Hannibal’s ear early in the morning, draped over the man as Hannibal squeezed his palm and fingers gently, replying that it was an ancient Chinese massage when Will inquired.
“I will be here through any fear, and any worry, so you know I will hold them, and not leave you to their mercy.”
A gentle touch to his ankle and Will moves around the bed to push Hannibal’s other leg into the same position, heel to thigh.
Hannibal doesn’t respond, but he listens. He hears the words and takes them into himself - he feels the touches of silk and fingertips over his thigh, around his calf. His remaining senses pique with one removed, the whisper of fabric and the warmth of careful hands. He focuses, but - as ever - his thoughts must show on his face because the touches stop, and Hannibal’s skin prickles in the absence of touch.
Will doesn’t need to ask for Hannibal to speak, words slowed already from the dire insistences over dinner. “Do you not already overburden yourself?” Hannibal asks. “With all that you see, and all that you do. It seems unfair to make you carry more.”
“I choose to,” Will replies, returning to the careful knotting of before, stroking up and down Hannibal’s leg in both reassurance and to check tightness and pinching. “It gives me pleasure to take burdens from you and free you of them, as it must be a relief for you to have them taken.”
Will smiles, knowing it will carry on his voice even when Hannibal cannot see it, and he bends to kiss the center of his chest before coiling the final loop around Hannibal’s leg, just below the knee, and checking the knots.
“Does anything hurt?” Will asks, knowing that with his honesty, Hannibal will reciprocate. He has no reason to lie here, he has seen Will rework entire Shibari contortions to make Hannibal comfortable, things that had taken half an hour, or longer still to knot properly in place.
“No,” Hannibal tells him. And Will smiles, setting his hands on either side of Hannibal before nuzzling his chest with a slow sigh of contentment, in that, at least.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
Will’s breath tugs against Hannibal’s chest hair when he speaks, and the man shivers, arms and legs pulling lightly against their confines. He tells himself that he has no choice but to trust, though he knows the words to make this all stop. In truth it is greater than that, and the reward too vast to fight against over petty stubbornness. Already Hannibal’s mind has quieted, his thoughts filled with soft static like a radio tuned just a fraction from its station. Already the tightness of his skin has loosened into ripples of relief.
“Yes,” he sighs, and the heat of Will’s palm over his heart pulls a quiet, staggered moan from Hannibal’s lips. “Yes, I trust you.”
Will kisses the skin soft again before pushing himself to climb onto the bed, knees between Hannibal’s spread ones as he reaches for another length of silk. Carefully, he drapes it over Hannibal’s eyes before working a flat knot against the back of the man’s head to secure the blindfold on him.
The response is immediate, a tension and jerking in displeasure. Hannibal tries to move his arms to dislodge it, his legs to squirm free, and finds both bound. Will swallows, presses his hand to Hannibal’s chest once more, feeling his heart beat quicker against his palm.
“Breathe, Hannibal, I’m right here,” Will reminds him. “I’m right here. Trust me to hold you in this, you are alright.”
“No.”
“You held your eyes closed for me,” Will says gently, not moving to restrain Hannibal any further than he already is, just stroking his fingers over Hannibal’s frantic heartbeat. “And you saw that I was there, and you were safe, and you were alright. This is the same. Do you trust me?”
“I am uncomfortable,” Hannibal answers, his words clipped short as his breath.
“Because of the blindfold, or the bindings?”
“I dislike having my sight taken from me,” the man breathes, before parting his lips with his tongue. The quickening in his veins is too swift, his skin too flushed. By force, he drags air into his lungs to feel them widen and press against his ribs. By force, he concentrates on the beat of his heart, to slow the fluttering valves within.
“I understand that,” Will tells him, patient, shifting aside as Hannibal brings his arms down in front of him, still pressed tightly together as the silk whispers across his skin. “Do you trust me enough to keep it on?”
“Will -”
“Hannibal.”
And with no more than that, Hannibal’s body clicks into metronymic steadiness. He breathes. He settles. He is unhappy, still, overtly so, but he nods, and when he speaks again it is as though he does so from a great distance.
“I trust you.”
Will sighs, carefully sets his hand against Hannibal’s sweaty palm, feels him curl his fingers around Will’s hand like his only hope and soothes a thumb against his knuckles.
“Our senses are prone to deceit,” Will tells him carefully. “We mishear, and assume. We feel phantom pains and brushes that feel just like fingertips when they are in fact branches of a tree or a warm breeze. Smell reminds but our memories are poorly developed photographs. The things we had seen then may not have been remembered properly, eyes deceiving us in retrospect.”
Will smiles, turns one finger inwards to stroke a circle over Hannibal’s palm as the older man gasps quietly, trembles, but settles to bed again.
“We mistaste, or taste something that is not there,” Will adds, quick to gently hush Hannibal’s protest with a soft touch to his lips. “I just need you to understand the entire lack of perfection that our senses are, Hannibal, so that you understand the lack of perfection they will always present.”
Will soothes fingertips down Hannibal’s wrists and lets the man curl his fingers tight around his own, holding on for support. Will bends, then, to kiss Hannibal’s collarbone, to nose the tendon just above it to the sharp bend of his jaw.
“I need you to understand so that you do not put yourself through the infuriation of attempting to attain the unattainable. You say you trust me, and I believe you. I will work my entire life to make sure you have no reason to ever doubt me. But if you trust me, then trust me to tell you when the perfection you are humanly able to achieve has been reached, and when you could have done better.”
Will kisses his soft throat, nuzzles behind his ear, resting his weight to the bed as his other hand remains between Hannibal’s own.
Hannibal’s thoughts and protests - that he can achieve more than most are humanly able, that to stop seeking perfection is a sort of death by passivity - go silent. They wash through him and away in the ebb and flow of blissful quiet that this helplessness brings. Resignation, first, to the knowledge that there is no such thing as perfection. Acceptance, then, that Will who sees all things with such clarity would not lie to him.
Not before.
Not now.
His fingers close around Will’s hand, shaking even in this gentle squeeze, and Hannibal does not seek to stop the shivers that ripple through him with every pulse of his heart. Instead he feels the beat of Will’s heart where he presses fingers to the younger man’s wrist, and allows that steadfast rhythm to be his own.
“Yes,” Hannibal sighs. The tightness eases from his shoulders. His legs grow lax where they splay. His eyes soften where before they squeezed shut behind the silk touching cool against his lids.
Will hums and leans to kiss Hannibal gently, just the side of his face, settling his fingers to mirror Hannibal's against his wrist and let his own eyes close.
He can feel Hannibal uncoil, can feel him bite his lip and release it on a breath that no longer hitches. Will settles his free hand against the bed, weight held on his elbow as he straightens his legs and lies against Hannibal’s chest to arms, hand still trapped comfortably between them.
"Will you trust my hearing?" Will asks, gently tugging an earlobe between his teeth with a smile as Hannibal moans. "My taste and smell and touch?"
"Yes."
Kisses to Hannibal’s lips, against his nose, fingertips dragging tickling over his skin until Hannibal gasps, and Will murmurs softly against him. "My eyes?"
"Yes, Will."
Another kiss, this one over the blindfold, one eyelid then the other, before Will hovers over Hannibal close enough to kiss, and smiles when Hannibal carefully arches to reach him. Will presses sweetness to his lips, and Hannibal drinks wine from his tongue. From Will, Hannibal accepts everything that the man has promised to him, and all that he has given already.
He laughs, when seeking another kiss and finding only air instead as Will shifts just far enough away to watch Hannibal strain against his confines.
Only when the silk sinks tighter against his skin - too soft still to leave the familiar rippling marks that Hannibal has come to adore from the ropes - does Hannibal feel a stirring between his legs. He spreads his legs wider as if to invite Will’s weight against him. He tries to curl his arms to bring Will’s hand to his mouth.
He does not know if Will is watching in amusement or desire, and Hannibal’s cheeks pink.
“Will you tell me what you see?” Hannibal asks, arching upward from the bed, throat stretched bare as he bridges to his shoulders. “You are my eyes.”
Will bites his lip, watching the man coil before him. He remembers the first time they did anything like this, when despite his own nerves and Hannibal's disbelief, both were surprised by how well it had worked for them. And here, now, is that same youthful confidence, that same simmering heat.
"I see power in silk," Will replies, a smile in his voice. "I see grace and courage."
He bends to kiss under Hannibal's jaw, humming, pleased, as the man moans, flexing and relaxing his toes where his legs frame Will’s hips.
"What do you hear?" Hannibal whispers, as Will sucks a bruise against the base of his throat and considers his answer.
Will's hands climb the twin ridges of Hannibal's collarbones. They dip into the valleys that lie above, his lips follow his fingers' path, and upward they follow the stream of his pulse. Will curves his hands over Hannibal's ears and but for the wet womblike thud of his own heart, Hannibal's world is muted. His lips part, gasping but unheard, his eyes chase Stygian shadows but do not see.
He knows Will is smiling. Sun-warmed grapes darken his lips, bright verdant greenery springs between his teeth. His tongue carries the ocean. Hannibal arches again, to feel his ribs press against his skin, and relaxes only when Will presses a kiss to the center of his chest.
A whisper rushes against Hannibal’s ear when Will moves his hand enough to return his hearing.
“I hear curiosity and intelligence,” he murmurs. “I hear your gasps and sighs.” Soft curls drape against Hannibal’s chest as Will lays his head against him. “I hear your heart, stronger than most, and the bravery in it.”
Hannibal’s throat works and he strains as if to reach for Will, pulling gently against the bindings that hold his arms pinned between them. Will’s words are balm, praise and reassurance both, and Hannibal feels himself swell with it - lungs against his ribs, his belly full and sated, and between his legs -
A mischievous smile appears. “When you breathe me in, what do you smell?”
Will hums again, the sound turning into a laugh, warm and deep and delighted. Carefully, he sits back and pushes Hannibal's arms from between them, up over his head again, and presses closer, chest to chest now. He nuzzles in the warm hair on the man’s chest, damp with sweat from his initial panic, from the warmth of them pressed together, from his arousal, now.
He takes a deep breath and sighs it free over Hannibal's skin to watch him shiver from it, hands turning in his bindings as though to break free, but he doesn’t struggle.
"Musk and heat," Will tells him, biting his lip as though to savor the words, the smell itself, with a low sound of pleasure. He rocks his hips down, still clothed, against Hannibal's and feels the man harden just a bit more for him.
Beautiful, and entirely trusting.
"You smell like spring," Will adds, a season of new life and new beginning, safety and gentleness and calm. One of his hands is gentle up against Hannibal’s jaw, just holding there, as the other slips between them to stroke over Hannibal’s cock, lips parting in sympathy as Hannibal's do, silent where the man moans.
"Do you know what I can feel?" Will asks him.
“One might guess.”
Hannibal’s stomach tightens and he laughs, chin tilted up as if he might rub the blindfold free of his face. Will reaches and slips it back into place before Hannibal can make any progress with it, and the older man chases his fingers, kissing across the pads. His legs splay wider to lift his hips from the bed, and hold his cock against Will’s palm. He rubs, and Hannibal stiffens. Each touch fills his cock, swelling flushed and bare, pulling from the pit of his belly to twist his breath from him.
He wonders if Will is watching him, there, to see how responsive Hannibal’s body becomes when held in his sway. He wonders if the blue has been pushed from Will’s eyes yet by widening pupils. Hannibal squirms a little, as if to stretch his legs, but his heels remain firmly pressed to his thighs, and where silk does not hold him bound, Will’s body does, keeping the man’s legs spread. His cheeks bloom, to be so displayed, and even his lips flush darker when Will’s fingernails graze a nipple to make him shiver, when his hand squeezes tight around Hannibal’s cock.
“You are feeling a great deal,” Hannibal whispers, rough voice softened by the smile still playing in the corner of his lips.
"Yes." Will bends to suck against Hannibal’s skin, eyes closed and throat humming on a moan of his own as Hannibal trembles against him. He is stunning, presented and splayed here, as he is always in his pristine suits or bare in the early mornings beneath soft sheets and Will’s fingertips.
In truth, Will is contented, to be utterly devoted to him.
He allows himself the luxury of forgetting, of compartmentalizing, and leaves work where work belongs, ironically, leaving particular aspects of Hannibal there as well.
He strokes a little faster, enough to pull breathless, needy moans from the man beneath him who arches so beautifully. Will presses his forehead to Hannibal’s shoulder and sighs, eyes closed and pleasure coursing through him at just seeing and feeling Hannibal respond this way to him.
"What do you taste?" Hannibal manages, breathless and low before his throat works in another clicking swallow, and Will’s smile is predatory, indulgent. He presses it to Hannibal's skin, his shoulder and chest and stomach, before moving his hand from between Hannibal's legs and enveloping his cock in slick wet heat before he can miss it.
A curse stutters from Hannibal, not in English but its intonation clear. The silk pulls tight around his thighs, around biceps that flex in reaction to Will’s mouth around him. He wants to watch the way Will’s lips grow red and swollen, he wants to watch dark curls of hair and bright eyes between his legs. Instead, he simply savors the sensation of it, unable to predict when Will’s cheeks hollow and suck him to hardness - unable to know when Will’s tongue presses a broad, hot stripe up the throbbing vein that twists the length of it.
“You,” Will answers, and his breath cools the wetness his mouth has left. Hannibal shivers roughly and gives up fighting against the skillful constraints, settling lax into the bed to let Will touch and taste, see and smell. He moans to let him hear the abandon that Will - only Will - allows him to feel.
Hannibal brings his arms down, bound together, and sets his hands against Will’s hair, splaying them to feel the silken curls loop around his fingers. He does not guide or push or hold, but simply feels. Against his slit, Will’s tongue squirms, lapping up the clear bead pushed to the tip. Around the head, warm lips curl sucking, working back Hannibal’s foreskin with only his mouth. His cock is so flushed, so hot, that Will’s mouth is almost cool around it, and twitching throbs outside of Hannibal’s control pulse warning of how near he is to release already.
“You,” Hannibal responds, mouth slack and breath shortened to panting. “Let me feel you against me.”
Will nuzzles between his legs and pulls back, panting soft against Hannibal’s skin before pressing against him entirely, chest to chest, hips together. His hands seek up the ridges of bound silk to grasp Hannibal’s as Will kisses him, and winds their fingers together.
“Shall I return your touch or your sight to you?” Will asks him, nuzzling soft against the silk dark and heavy over Hannibal’s eyes before kissing his cheek. “Or neither?”
Hannibal laughs again, but it sounds like a sigh, shuddering quick and helpless. “Keep them,” he breathes, sharp teeth grazing his lower lip before he releases it and arches upward against the weight of Will’s body over him.
His remaining senses are alight enough without needing more. Will’s cock prods his hip, firmly rutting - his tented pants rub friction when their erections grind together. Hannibal tilts his head to seek a kiss to find that Will has removed his cheek from Hannibal’s own, and he grins when Will touches a kiss to the opposite temple instead, breath tickling his ear.
“Please,” Hannibal begs, the tenor of his voice pitching lower, the oboe-sleek notes that he hits only when Will has subsumed him, body and mind. “Bare - just like this but bare -”
Will kisses the words from him, the promise in them, the warmth, before pulling back and tugging his shirt up over his head to toss to the floor. He climbs from bed only long enough to shuck his pants and his boxers, crawling back over Hannibal to lay on him as he had been, as Hannibal had asked.
They both moan, low and long, and Will’s lips curl up in a grin as Hannibal’s do, as they nose against each other and Will continues rutting with maddening friction against Hannibal beneath him.
“I’m going to make you cum like this,” Will promises, breathless himself, ducking his head to turn Hannibal’s to the side with a pressing kiss to the corner of his eye, through ash-grey silk. “Just like this.”
“And then?”
Will laughs, warm air and parted lips, and shakes his head. “And then I’ll turn you over,” is all he says.
What else can Hannibal do but agree? As he agreed to quiet his displeasure over dinner, as he agreed to be bound and trussed and blinded. As he agreed to allow Will’s guidance to precede his own, and now finds himself rewarded and corrected, both. He can do no more than writhe in weak thrusts against the man atop him - patience incarnate - until Hannibal’s own movements grow too erratic and Will’s too hard and with a whimper, heat erupts in spurts between them, coating smooth skin and hairy chest and warm bellies. He can do no more than be flipped to his belly, knees drawn up wide and spread so far that he blushes, and then darkens further when Will pushes inside him.
He can do no more than feel.
Accept.
Take.
And in taking, he finds his senses sated.