A/N- This is my first Hannibal fic despite that being my favorite show of all time, so please go easy on me :)

Will looked around nervously, not quite sure what to expect from the precinct. When he'd first gotten the news that he was being transferred to a small town in Virginia, he'd thought that it was some kind of prank. How could someone possibly be expected to go from city cop to small town cop? And no matter how many people he questioned, no one could, or would, tell him what he'd done to deserve this transfer in the first place.

But surprisingly, the inside of the police station looked like the inside of basically every other station that Will had been in before. As he continued looking around, he heard a smooth voice come from behind him. It was startling, because he hadn't heard any footsteps. "You look lost."

Will turned around, and his eyes widened in appreciation as he took in the man before him. He was wearing a sharply creased suit with a paisley tie that would've looked like a joke on anyone else. His eyes were dark red, almost the color of spilled blood, and his ash blonde hair was carefully swept back. He was clearly older than Will, but he wore his age well. It took Will several seconds longer than it should have for him to be able to find his voice again. "Uh, sorry about that. I'm not lost, it's just my first time in here."

The man nodded once. "I know." He sounded rather amused. "This isn't a large police force." He held out one hand. "I'm Dr. Hannibal Lecter."

The way Dr. Lecter tilted his head clearly implied that he was waiting to hear Will's name as well. Will accepted the hand shake, though he made sure to only let it last for a couple of seconds, and then he quickly tucked both of his hands into his pockets to avoid that happening again. "Will Graham," he managed to get out after clearing his throat once. "I was transferred here from BPD."

Dr. Lecter gestured to a door at the back of the large room they were in. "That is where you'll find Captain Hobbs. If you need anyone to show you around, I would be happy to do so." His eyes seemed to flick up and down Will in a strangely assessing way before he smiled again. "If you don't mind my asking, why were you transferred here?"

Will shrugged with one shoulder. "I'm the wrong person to ask that. I haven't been able to find out the answer to that yet myself."

The older man hummed under his breath for a moment before responding. "Good luck with your first day here. I look forward to getting to know you better." He nodded once, and then turned and walked away before Will could even say anything else.

Will blinked a few times in confusion, then shrugged and decided that it would be easiest to just ignore the strangeness of that whole conversation. He headed over to the door that Dr. Lecter had pointed out, and opened the door to walk in without even knocking first. There was a man sitting at the desk, head bent forward as he scribbled barely legible words onto important looking documents. He cleared his throat as he took a couple of steps closer. "Captain? I'm Will-"

"Graham, yes I was expecting you." The captain glanced up quickly, but then did a double take. He nodded once. "I think that you're just the perfect addition to this team. You come highly recommended from your previous captain." He rummaged around in one of his desk drawers for a moment before getting up and walking over to Will. "Here's your badge. You'll need Peter to take your picture for an ID, and then you'll be able to sign a gun out of the weapons locker."

Will nodded, and then let himself be dragged all around the small station. A couple hours later, he had a better idea of everyone who worked in the station, and he had his ID and gun in his possession. After that, he was told to just head home and get settled in, and that he could show up bright and early for work the next morning.

Not one to turn down the offer of time to himself, Will left the station, and drove to the apartment building that he'd be moving into. He just needed to wait for the moving truck to get here so that he'd have all of his stuff. He would've just packed it and brought it himself, but everything had happened very last minute, and he hadn't even known that he'd be moving somewhere so far from home.

As he walked into his apartment and looked around, he let out a disappointed sigh. The place had no furniture in it, and he hadn't thought to bring a sleeping bag with him. Maybe there was a hotel or something that he could stay in until his stuff got here, because as much as Will enjoyed being a minimalist, even he wasn't comfortable with sleeping on the bare floor.

He locked up, and then headed back down to the first floor, where the building owner lived. He had been told to go to them if he ever had any problems, so Will knocked on the door to their apartment. A moment later, the door swung open, revealing a pretty young woman with curly red hair. "Uh, hi. I'm Will Graham, I just moved into 3F. I was just wondering if there are any places around here that I can stay until I get all of my furniture."

The woman smiled, and she had the smile of a shark. "I'd feel bad making you pay for somewhere to stay when you've already paid your deposit to be living here. I have a spare couch you can borrow for the night, if you'd like."

He couldn't figure out exactly why, but the woman's smile sent shivers down Will's spine. "That's alright. Can I just talk to the building owner? I think his name is Freddie?"

The woman chuckled. "That's me. I'm Freddie Lounds, and this is my building."

Will nodded once. "Oh. Well it's nice to meet you." He didn't make any attempt to shake her hand. "I'm just going to be on my way now."

Freddie shrugged. "If you change your mind about the couch, I'll be here, Will Graham."

It seemed like a stupid thing, but the way that she said his name made Will feel vaguely uncomfortable. He decided that he'd just head out and try to find a hotel on his own. There had to be somewhere he could stay. Maybe someone he'd met at the precinct today would be willing to help him out, but Will didn't want them to think that he was incapable of doing anything for himself.

As he walked out of the apartment building, he almost walked right into someone. He quickly apologized, but instead of just letting him be on his way, the near collision reached out without actually touching Will. "Wait a moment. Will?"

Will looked up, and recognized Dr. Lecter from the station. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Uh, hi. Um," he paused for a moment, wondering if he should even ask. But Dr. Lecter had offered to show him around, and showing him to the nearest hotel was part of showing him around, right? "You wouldn't happen to know of a place I could spend the night, would you? I mean, all my furniture is still in transit, and my apartment didn't come with anything, so I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do."

After a moment of consideration, Dr. Lecter smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do know of such a place. This is a small town, but even we get the occasional visitors. The Isla Hotel is actually only a few blocks away from here. Please, allow me to bring you there."

Will quickly shook his head. "Oh, that's really not necessary. I mean, you were clearly already in the middle of-"

"I insist," the older man said with a wry grin. "Come along, it's right this way."

He sighed, but followed after the doctor. "So Dr. Lecter-"

"Please, call me Hannibal."

"Oh, uh, okay. Um, Hannibal, what exactly do you do? The captain mentioned you during my tour of the station, but he neglected to actually mention your job."

Hannibal glanced back at Will with a small smile. "I work as a sketch artist for the police when such a thing is necessary. In a town of this size, it usually isn't. When I'm not doing that, I have my own psychiatry practice. I find it quite fascinating to delve into the minds of the people in this town. They are all rather unique."

Will wasn't really sure what the proper response to that was, so he just huffed out a breath of air, and stayed silent. Hannibal didn't seem to mind very much, based on the amused smile he wore. A few minutes later, they stopped walking, and Hannibal nodded towards what looked like a cheap, run down motel. Will cleared his throat, and nodded once. "Thanks for showing me the way. I'll see you…" he trailed off as he accidentally made eye contact with Hannibal. That was something he generally preferred not to do, because looking into peoples' eyes always resulted in him knowing things that he wasn't supposed to. And something in Hannibal's eyes was completely unnerving. An inescapable darkness. "...around," he finished lamely.

Then he hurried into the office of the hotel, not wanting to stick around and see Hannibal for any longer. Will had seen eyes like those before, and they had always belonged to killers. He didn't want to deal with anything related to Hannibal Lecter. In the early days of his career, Will had been naive enough to think that the things he knew were good enough reasons to arrest people. But in the end, he couldn't describe it as anything beyond a gut feeling, which was not enough to send someone to jail over. And if Hannibal was a killer, then Will would have to be very foolish to try and delve deeper into the matter without any sure evidence to back him up. He wouldn't want to be fired before he'd even had his first full-length day on the job.

,,,

Will was woken up early the next morning by the sound of his phone ringing. He grumbled under his breath, and clumsily pulled it out from where it had somehow gotten lodged between his back and the bed, and answered the call without bothering to open his eyes. "'Lo?" he muttered.

"Graham? You alright?" Maybe it was just his tired ears misinterpreting things, but it sounded like the man on the other end was genuinely surprised that Will would answer his own phone.

At the sound of the familiar voice, he sighed, but still didn't open his eyes. That would require too much effort. "Jack? Why are you calling me so early? It's not even light out yet."

His old captain gave a nervous chuckle. "I was just checking up on you. To be perfectly honest, I'm a little surprised that you answered your phone."

Will finally opened his eyes, and blinked a few times as he tried to adjust to the very dim lighting of the room. He moved to sit up, and leaned back against the headboard that was behind him. "What do you mean? Why not?"

"I thought that you'd already be too busy running around like a headless chicken as you get ready for your first day on the job. But it's nice to hear your voice again. Everyone here misses you already." He laughed again, and then cleared his throat. "Well, I'll just let you go and clean up. Try to be good; I asked Garrett to keep me updated so don't let me down."

Before his previous boss could hang up, Will couldn't help trying one last time to answer the question that had been burning at him for the past few days. "Sir? Now that I'm here, can you please just tell me why I was transferred? I don't recall doing anything so horrible that I deserved a punishment, and I-"

"It's nothing personal, Graham," Jack bit out gruffly. "I'm sorry if you're unhappy with your new assignment, but that's just the way that it has to be. If anything devastatingly horrible ever happens then just give me a call, but anything short of that falls into the category of 'just suck it up'. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make Bella some surprise breakfast in bed. Stay in touch, Graham. You survived your first night in town. Let's hope that you can make it through the next couple of nights too."

Will sighed. "I'll do my best, Jack. Have a good day." Then he hung up, and was tempted to throw his phone across the room in annoyance. But it was one of his few possessions that he had with him at the moment, and it was also his only means of communication, so it would be a bad idea to go around breaking it for no good reason.

While it was tempting to try and get a couple more hours of sleep, Will knew that he wasn't going to be able to. He had enough trouble sleeping as it was, but with that interruption, he was never going to be able to go back under. After Will had showered and gotten dressed in yesterday's clothes, he headed out to find a place for breakfast so that he'd at least be starting fresh in his new job with a full stomach.

There was a small bakery just down the street from the hotel, and Will walked inside. There were two customers sitting at a small table in the back of the room, and a young woman was standing behind the counter with an apron around her. She tilted her head when she watched Will walk up to her. "Good morning. What can I get for you today?"

Now that he was here, Will didn't actually feel very hungry. "Just a small black coffee please." He handed over the money for it, and the girl just stared at him instead of taking it. He blinked in confusion. "Is something the matter?"

The girl shook her head slowly. "Not really. It's just been a while since we last had anyone new in town. I'm Abigail, by the way." She leaned forward across the counter, and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "I'd stay away from the outdoors at night if I were you. We've got a bit of a wild animal problem around these parts, and I'd hate to see anything happen to you." Then she handed him his coffee a moment later as though she hadn't just said something strange. "Here you go. Have a nice day!"

Will could already feel the headache coming on, and he reached into his pocket for the bottle of aspirin that he always kept there. It was easy enough to knock a few back, and wash them down with his coffee, which tasted a lot sweeter than black coffee was supposed to. The girl must've accidentally added sugar to it. It wasn't that big a deal, but Will didn't think that it boded well as to how the rest of his day was going to go.

Surprisingly enough, the rest of the day passed without much excitement. There were only a few emergency calls the entire time he was on duty, and the worst of those was someone reporting a burglar at the grocery store. Which turned out to be a false alarm, as the man who'd bitten into the small cheese wheel had ended up paying for it before any officers even showed up. The most that Will got to do all day was sit around and fill out paperwork. Hobbs told him that he'd be assigned a partner in a week, and until that time, he was on desk duty. Which was strange, because this place certainly didn't seem dangerous enough to require everyone to have a partner at all times.

After work, it was a relief to see the moving truck parked outside of his apartment building, and he helped the movers carry everything up to his apartment before he signed off that he'd received his things. Then he spent a couple of hours making sure that everything was in just the right spot so that this place would at least feel a little bit like it was home.

Moving around all the heavy furniture by himself was a little tiring, and he ended up falling asleep in his favorite armchair. He was woken up by the sound of his own stomach growling, which only served as a reminder that he hadn't gotten anything to stock his new kitchen with yet.

It was already late and dark out, and Will suddenly thought of the words of the bakery girl earlier in the day. But if there was an animal problem, then why wouldn't anyone else around town have warned him about it as soon as they realized that he was new? After thinking for a few minutes, and deciding that it would be very unpleasant to skip dinner as well as lunch and breakfast, Will came to the conclusion that he was just going to have to just put on his big boy pants and go out there.

He wasn't a total moron, though, and Will made sure that he was wearing his gun and had a pocket knife in his pocket before he headed out. He didn't want to hurt any animal if he didn't have to, but he also didn't want to wind up as someone else's lunch. When he felt confident that he was prepared to face the great outdoors, Will headed out. He remembered seeing a small grocery store at the end of the street, and decided to go there first. If it didn't pan out, he'd search his memory for the place that had supposedly been robbed earlier.

The place was clearly closed for the evening, and Will let out a groan of frustration at the same time that his stomach let out a loud growl. Maybe he had done something bad in a previous life to deserve this. First he was transferred to a small town that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, and then he had to sleep in a dingy motel because his new apartment was completely empty, and now he was probably going to starve to death because he hadn't eaten anything all day and he had no idea where the other store was. Life really wasn't fair.

Just as he was thinking about how successful he'd be if he cried and begged for Jack to transfer him back, he heard someone politely clear their throat from behind him. Will whirled around, not having heard anyone approach. He couldn't help feeling a bit surprised by the sudden appearance of Hannibal again. It felt like that man was just everywhere. "Good evening, Will. What are you doing out so late?"

Will double checked his watch just to make sure that he hadn't totally gone crazy before he answered. "It's only nine-thirty. How could that possibly be considered late?"

Hannibal smiled. "Around here, we like to think of any time after dark as late."

Will couldn't help frowning in disbelief. "Someone told me today not to go out after dark because of a wild animal problem that you guys have around here."

"And you didn't listen to such a kind warning?" Hannibal was suddenly looming closer, and Will felt like an insignificant little prey cowering from a large predator, despite the fact that the man was maybe an inch taller than him, if that. "How very brave of you," Hannibal practically purred. "If a lamb intentionally wanders across my path, then who am I to deny him his fate?"

Will took a couple of steps back. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Hannibal grinned smugly. "You were wondering why you were sent here, weren't you? It's because you were sent here to be my dinner."

Clearly this man was completely insane, and needed to be seeing a psychiatrist rather than practicing as one. He held his hands up placatingly. "Alright, why don't you just relax, and we can talk about-"

A new voice suddenly called out, interrupting Will. "Hannibal! You promised that the next one would be mine!"

The look of irritation that crossed Hannibal's face seemed almost comical compared to his previously stoic mask. He looked over Will's shoulder at the newcomer. "It is beyond my ability to care about such promises when you are the one who is so late to the party, Matthew. I assure you that I have everything handled here."

Will turned to look at the stranger, and saw a younger man wearing no shirt, which showed off his abs that Will might go so far as to classify as 'delicious looking' in any other situation. As it was, though, he had absolutely no idea what was going on, and he was pretty sure that he didn't want to. Nothing good could possibly come out of a pissing match between two crazy people.

Before he could even try to calm the situation down, Matthew lunged towards Hannibal, grappling the older man to the ground. Will stared at the two men tumbling around on the ground for a moment before he tore his gaze away and dashed to the end of the street. He pulled out his phone and quickly dialed the precinct, hoping that someone would still be there. No one answered, and Will swore under his breath. Stupid small towns. He wasn't sure how to break up the fight without any other officers around him. And no matter what the hell was actually going on, Will was scared that this Matthew guy might actually get himself killed, since Hannibal's eyes had shown that he'd never had any problems with killing before.

As an officer of the law, Will couldn't just stand by and let anyone get hurt if there was any possible way to be of assistance. Even though every single one of Will's instincts screamed for him to keep on running away, he turned and headed back to the altercation. Hannibal had gotten the upper hand, and had Matthew pinned to the ground, tightly gripping Matthew's head. Will opened his mouth to shout for Hannibal to stop, but then there was a loud crack, and Matthew slumped back to the ground, completely lifeless.

Will's eyes widened at what he'd just witnessed. Had that really just happened? Wasn't this supposed to be one of those boring little sleepy towns where the worst that happened was bored teenagers vandalizing the side of a school building? Clearly that wasn't the case, though. Not only had someone just been murdered, but it had been during a crazy public fight. It wasn't like Will had never seen a dead body before, and even now he was only seeing it from the distance in the dark, but to actually see someone end someone else's life with their bare hands felt much worse than just about anything he'd seen before.

And Will wasn't a total idiot. As a police officer, his job was to the protect the innocents. But since he had already failed to protect Matthew, and Hannibal was already staggering to his feet, strangely sniffing at the air, Will figured that his best bet was to take off. Hannibal wasn't in any danger, and it would be easy enough to have him arrested with the help of some backup tomorrow based on what he'd seen. And it's not like Matthew's body was just going to entirely disappear. Even if Hannibal got rid of it, the evidence would still exist.

So even though he wasn't entirely proud of his decision, Will turned and ran. But apparently that was just about the worst thing he could do, because it seemed to trigger an instinct in Hannibal to want to chase after him. Will was in pretty decent shape, but somehow Hannibal was even better, and had simply hidden it beneath his expensive looking clothes.

Will rounded a corner, and immediately realized that he was completely trapped there. He whirled around, and saw the way back was blocked by Hannibal, who's red eyes were glinting brightly through the darkness of the night. As Hannibal slowly walked closer, Will walked backwards, until his back bumped up into the wall of the building behind him. He gulped, but refused to look away. If this was how it was going to be, then Will wasn't just going to look away and let himself be killed next.

He very slowly reached for his gun, not wanting to make any sudden moves that would draw Hannibal's attention. Will knew that he should have actually done this as soon as he'd seen Hannibal commit the murder, but truthfully he'd felt too shocked to really think properly about any of the things that he was supposed to do in any particular situation.

As soon as Hannibal was close enough that Will didn't have to worry about his mediocre aim interfering, he whipped out his gun and fired twice, hitting Hannibal in the shoulder and the side. If they got him medical attention soon enough, then neither wound would be fatal, but they would be enough to slow the man down.

Or at least, that's what Will thought, until he saw the bullets fall to the ground with soft clatters, and by the light of the moon, Will could see as the hole in Hannibal's shoulder healed itself up. The skin pulled itself together in a small wrinkle, but it only took a few seconds to straighten out and leave behind perfectly smooth skin, as though nothing had ever happened. Now Will knew that he was dreaming, because there was no way that any of this could be real. He fired his gun as many more times as he could before he ran out of bullets, but all of them did nothing more than delay Hannibal for a few seconds while he instantly healed from the injuries that should have definitely killed him.

And perhaps the strangest thing of all was not the freakishly fast healing, but the fact that Hannibal seemed amused to have been shot so many times, rather than feeling angry or irritated. "Congratulations, you're one of the first ones to even try to defend yourself. The fight is only going to make you taste even more savory on my dinner plate."

Will dropped the now useless gun. "What the hell is going on here?" he demanded in a surprisingly steady voice.

Hannibal sighed. "I already told you, you were sent here to be my dinner. Or I suppose, you were technically sent here to be the dinner of whoever was able to snatch you up first. In case you hadn't noticed it yet, our quaint little town is full of unusual characters, who most would classify as gods rather than humans. And we can get very hungry for human flesh. So in exchange for the humans sending us a couple of treats each year, we refrain from rampaging and killing and eating every single human we come across. It's a fair deal, in my opinion, and you've been given the honor of being chosen to feed us."

There was no possible way that that could be true. But even if it was, and the thirteen bullets lying fruitlessly on the ground seemed to point in that direction, then Will refused to let himself go down without a fight. He let his shoulders slump down submissively to make it appear as though he'd given up, but then he reached into his pocket for his pocket knife. Not the most sophisticated weapon, but it would do in a pinch.

As soon as Hannibal was within range, Will lunged forward, and jammed the knife into Hannibal's gut. It wasn't as effective as a hunting knife would be, but it worked as a distraction while Will took the opportunity to shove past Hannibal, and run for his life. Abigail had only told him not to be outdoors after dark, which made Will assume that his salvation would be found inside.

By some miracle, he arrived back at his apartment building without getting lost, and he ran inside, all the way up to the third floor where his apartment was. He hurried inside, then closed and locked the door behind him. He then dragged his armchair in front of it as a final precaution. Will didn't turn on any of the lights in the apartment, and just closed every window and shade to try and make it impossible for anyone to know for sure whether he'd been able to return home or not.

Once he'd barricaded himself in enough to feel at least a little bit more safe, Will went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him, before he pulled out his phone to call Jack. His previous boss answered almost immediately. "Graham? Is everything okay?"

Will shook his head and ran a hand through his sweaty hair, even though he knew that Jack wouldn't be able to see either of those motions. "You have to agree to let me come back, please. This place is absolutely insane. You probably won't believe me, but I fired an entire clip into a suspect, and he was completely healed within seconds. I can't stay here with these people, Jack. Please just let me come home."

Jack let out a long, pained sigh. "I can't do that. I'm sorry, but this is what's best for everyone, I swear it is."

Those words made it feel like the blood inside of Will's veins was freezing, despite the fact that it wasn't very cold out. "Why not, Jack? Is it because you purposely sent me here to be killed?" He didn't want to believe a monster like Hannibal, but Jack's sharp inhale of breath seemed to be confirmation enough. "Why, Jack? Please just tell me why." He knew that it was a little pathetic for a grown man to be begging for answers like that, but Will was beyond the point of caring about something like how he appeared to others. And he knew that no matter what Jack told him, he was going to leave town as soon as it was light out. He'd have to be completely out of his mind to try sticking around.

There was a very long pause while Jack thought over his words before he finally answered. "Four people a year in exchange for millions, Will." That was the first time he'd ever called Will by his first name. "I had to look at the bigger picture. Our job is to protect people, and that's what I'm doing. I'm truly sorry, Will."

"But why me?"

There was another pause before Jack answered. "There is a certain list of criteria. Some that the residents of Wolf Trap asked for, some that the higher ups here agreed on a long time ago. This time around you happened to have the most checkmarks next to your name. I know that it isn't fair, Will, but it's the only way to save everyone else. If you run off, you'll be dooming everyone in every surrounding city and town, and probably much further than that too."

Will wasn't in the mood to keep listening to Jack. The captain had been his mentor for a long time, always willing to listen to him about the things he knew with no evidence. A week ago, Will might have even gone so far as to say that they were friends. But no matter what his justification for all of this was, Will definitely couldn't see Jack as a friend, or even a distant ally, anymore. He hung up the phone while Jack was in the middle of saying something else. Maybe it would've been better if he'd just thrown it and let it break this morning. At least then he wouldn't have to feel this overwhelming sense of betrayal.

After sitting there and feeling sorry for himself for a few minutes, there was suddenly a loud knocking noise against the front door. Will jumped in surprise, and then stood frozen in the small bathroom. Hadn't Abigail said that he'd be safe if he stayed inside? Or was he remembering their conversation wrong now? Will frantically looked around the bathroom for weapons, even though he knew at this point that they'd basically only serve as distractions for him to run away again rather than causing any real harm.

He hadn't really gotten the chance to put away any of his smaller things anyways; those were all sitting out in boxes in the living room. Will narrowed his eyes as he tried to find something- anything- that could save his life. Finally his gaze settled on the mirror. He avoided meeting his own eyes, but nodded once in determination. He pulled the lid off of the toilet, and swung it at the mirror. It only took one hit to get the mirror to shatter into little pieces.

Then he pulled off his jacket so that he could rub a section against the now chipped part of the toilet lid. The little tear was enough for him to pull the sleeve right off of the jacket. He wrapped it around his hand so that he could pick up one of the larger shards without slicing his hand open. Then he turned to face the bathroom door and wait. At least in the small space he was in, he knew that no one would be able to sneak up behind him. But if he were to go to the intruder, then he'd be at a greater disadvantage.

There was a loud thud and a creaking noise as the front door broke down, and Will took a deep breath as he tried to make sure that he kept his hand steady. He was going to get out of this alive, if only so that he could go back to Baltimore and punch Jack in the face. What had the world ever done for Will that made them think he'd be willing to give up his life for everyone else's? His whole life had been full of people who were awful to him, so he owed them nothing.

Will strained his ears, but he couldn't hear any noise in the apartment. It would've been nice to at least hear footsteps, but if it was really Hannibal that had broken in, then it made sense, since the man- or whatever he was- seemed incapable of making noise while walking. After just a few seconds, Will was startled by someone knocking gently on the bathroom door. "Will, are you in there?" It was Hannibal's posh voice, and he sounded as amused as ever. Will gulped, but didn't say anything in response. It seemed unlikely, but maybe Hannibal would just leave him alone. "I can smell your fear," Hannibal said conversationally. "It's exquisite. In most people, fear leaves a sour aftertaste, but in you, it will leave nothing more than a sharp tang to perfectly balance against your natural sweetness."

Will shifted his stance, but continued to hold the glass shard out in front of him. Then there was loud banging that sounded like Hannibal was just throwing himself against the door. Will knew that he should be getting more and more scared, but for some reason, he suddenly felt very calm and focused.

A large hole was broken into the door a moment later, and Hannibal reached through it to unlock the door. When he did that, Will could've slashed at him, but he decided to retain the element of surprise for at least a few more seconds. Then the door was open, and Hannibal was stepping in. Will leapt forward, jamming the shard right into the side of Hannibal's throat. He pulled it out, causing blood to spew everywhere, and shoved it back in. He went for a third time, uncaring of the fact that he could feel blood coating his whole face and most of his arm, but Hannibal's arms flew up and caught Will's wrist in a grip so tight that it felt like it was grinding his bones together. The tightness of the grip made Will involuntarily drop his weapon to the floor.

There was an almost feral grin on Hannibal's face. "You are not the ordinary sort of person to be sent here. You're willing to kill me in such a brutal way just to extend the length of your own life. I can't remember the last time a town guest was so exciting." He reached out with his other hand to grab Will's chin, and tilt his head up so that Will was forced to make eye contact.

As soon as their eyes met, Will felt like he was falling into a dark abyss full of blood and flowers and stags and the most beautiful looking plates of food that Will had ever seen. He was aware of the hundreds of bodies that had been left behind by Hannibal, and the joy that he got from hunting them, killing them, and eating them.

Will glanced to the side just to escape the barrage of images that he was getting, and the amused look on Hannibal's face shifted into something more thoughtful. "You're not like other humans. But you're not like me either. You are your own special brand of creature. I've never met anything like you before." When Will met Hannibal's eyes again he saw himself, but much differently than he usually looked. He saw himself wearing a fancy suit, and sitting at a dining table with Hannibal, being hand-fed one of Hannibal's kills. He also saw himself naked in the woods, covered in blood as he and Hannibal killed together. The images only lasted for a second each, but they were enough to give Will an idea of how to get out of this alive.

Instead of waiting for Hannibal to kill him, which he was surely going to do within the next few seconds, Will threw himself forward and smashed his mouth against Hannibal's. He could taste blood where a lip had been split between sharp teeth, though he wasn't even sure whose blood it was. He pressed harder into the kiss, hoping that it would be enough to save him.

After what felt like an eternity, Hannibal slammed Will up against the wall, and returned the kiss with more force than necessary. Will felt dizzy from the lack of oxygen, but he couldn't deny that this was probably one of the best kisses he'd ever had before. Though perhaps that was only because the adrenaline that had built up inside of him was adding texture to the kiss. Hannibal continued holding Will's wrists in one hand, though he lifted them to press them to the wall above Will's head, and he used his other hand to wrap possessively around Will's back, pulling them as close together as they could possibly be.

Just when Will thought that he was going to pass out, Hannibal pulled back, though he kept his mouth close enough that they were breathing in each other's air. It was something that would seem gross with anyone else, but felt right in this situation. Hannibal grinned at Will, showing off his teeth. "You are just full of surprises, aren't you? I don't think that I've ever met anyone quite like you before."

"Who knows what you'd be missing out on if you killed me," Will murmured, as though he were afraid that speaking too loudly would remind Hannibal that he'd come here with the intention to kill.

Hannibal pulled away another inch so that he could look Will in the eyes. "And what would I tell the others? That I killed you when no one was looking? That I broke our ancient traditions?"
Will shook his head. "Take a replacement. Jack Crawford, the man who sent me here. If you don't do it, then I'll kill him myself." He realized a moment later that he'd actually growled a bit while he spoke.

Hannibal chuckled, and let go of Will's wrists so that he could cup his face. "Perhaps we could get him together," he suggested. "You look beautiful covered in blood." Will nodded eagerly, but Hannibal wasn't done yet. His hand drifted down until it was pressed against the front of Will's neck. Not enough to restrict his breathing, but enough to remind him of just how easy it would be to do so. "You are offering me more than I think you realize. But I feel I must warn you now. If you ever make a move to go against me or to run away, then I will enjoy hunting you down and ending your life in all of the most painful ways that I know of. And I will kill everyone that you care about while you watch." Since their eyes were still connected, Will knew intimately that Hannibal was completely serious, and would have no problem following through with his threat.

"That won't be necessary," Will told him softly. "As long as you keep me safe here, I won't have any reason to leave."

That made Hannibal laugh again. "Trying to turn this into a question of my strength and abilities? Oh, you are a clever boy, aren't you? I have been waiting a very long time for someone like you to come along. I think that I'm rather going to enjoy this."

And even while Will's mind was rapidly flipping through all of the possibilities, trying to figure out a way to eventually get himself out of this, he couldn't stop the flutters of excitement in his belly as he realized that there was a very real chance that he was going to enjoy this too.