Warnings: canon-typical discussions of violence and cannibalism; rough sex; complete lack of professional boundaries
Will Graham was fidgeting. It was among many nervous habits Bedelia had ruthlessly stamped out in herself years ago. His cheap shoes were twitching while his fingers worried at the outer seam of his trousers. He did not even appear to notice what he was doing, nor how much it gave away.
It was one of many things that puzzled her about Hannibal's attraction.
"Is there something you would like to discuss?" she asked.
He scowled. Years of accumulated resentment seemed to make him bristle at even the most neutral queries. He was accustomed to interpreting each question as a trap designed to push him into a preconceived diagnosis. Therapists had attempted to assign a label to his idiosyncrasies since childhood. Once, after a great deal of prodding, he had even listed them for her: autistic, obsessive compulsive, bipolar, or more simply, unstable. Each one had brought a new series of interventions, poorly justified treatments and off-label medications. She suspected the therapies themselves had triggered further neuroses to diagnose.
"I wouldn't like to discuss anything." he muttered, raking a hand through his unkempt hair. His gaze flicked upward for a split second, almost but not quite meeting her eyes, before he sighed. "But I think it will be worse if I don't."
She inclined her head, waiting. The silence was uncomfortable to him, made him grit his teeth and dig his nails into the palms of his hands, but she did not offer relief.
"I don't like living in this killer's skin." he said finally.
"Is there some other killer's skin you would prefer?"
"No." He shook his head hard, then swallowed. "Yes. I... don't know. When I look at the crime scenes, it's like I'm creating them myself. I can feel the recoil of the gun, smell the stink of fear in the air. I can feel them struggling under my hands. Afterwards I'm naked. I can feel the blood drying on my skin and the grass under my feet."
"How does that make you feel?"
For once he did not roll his eyes at the question. He chewed his lip as he contemplated his answer.
"Powerful." he whispered.
"A seductive feeling, I'm sure."
His eyes squeezed shut. "I never feel as certain when I'm myself. He's so sure that he's doing these women a favor, by – by violating them, and filling them with glass. He thinks it's a gift."
"He feels justified, then." she said. "Did you?"
"What?"
"Did you feel justified when you shot Garrett Jacob Hobbs?"
"I didn't have a choice." he snapped.
"That is not what I asked."
He surged from his chair, pacing the width of her office as she watched.
"I didn't have a choice," he said, as much to himself as to her.
"The first bullet may not have been a choice. But what of the other nine?"
"It was justified." he insisted. She watched his fists open and close by his sides, saw his nails biting into the skin. "He was killing her in front of me."
"So the satisfaction came solely from saving her."
"Yes."
He stopped to lean against the wall with his back to her. His breathing was coming faster. He was so sloppy with his tells, as easy to read as a storybook.
She watched silently as his tension grew, before coming in for the kill.
"This dragon you hunt finds his murders arousing." His shoulders twitched as her words sank in. "Were you aroused, Will?"
He spun around, shocked enough to meet her level gaze.
"Fuck this," he said. "You're no better than Hannibal."
He turned to leave, but she rose and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "I think you enjoy his fantasies more than you wish to say. You enjoy the thought of taking those women as he did. Perhaps nearly as much as the murder itself."
Without warning, he grabbed her arms and shoved her back until her thighs collided with the desk. His hands gripped her wrists hard.
"I don't – I'm not like that." he said desperately.
She tilted her head back to expose her throat, allowing a slow, lazy smile to cross her face.
"Hannibal thinks you're a killer." she said. "You're afraid he's right."
Will's grip on her wrists tightened as he began to hyperventilate, eyes blank as a china doll's as the thoughts raced through his head. She could almost see them chasing each other through the black-thorned forests of his mind, pursuing him as his bare feet tore and left smears of blood on mossy rocks.
She leaned forward until her lips were level with his ear.
"Would you feel justified, doing to me what he did to those women?"
Will released her hands as if burned, making to step back before she lifted a hand to the back of his neck.
"Your secret is safe with me." she murmured, and pulled him down to claim his mouth.
His lips were softer than she'd imagined, the scrape of stubble almost pleasant against her skin. She licked his lower lip gently, taking advantage of his startled gasp to brush her tongue against his. He made a low sound in his throat before finally responding.
Hannibal kissed as if he were savoring a meal, unhurried and methodical as he broke her down into her component parts. It had been both like and unlike what she had imagined over the years before fleeing with him to Florence. He knew exactly how to apply his lips and tongue to extract his desired response; the act was less about dispensing pleasure than about dispelling any illusions about her self control.
Will Graham kissed as if he were starving. His nails scraped the back of her neck as he fought for control of the kiss, control she refused to give him. She bit down hard on his lip, felt the skin bruise and nearly split between her teeth.
He broke off, panting against her shoulder as she wound her fingers through the short hair at the base of his neck.
"The last man I touched was Hannibal Lecter. Would you like to touch me, Will?"
She slid her hand between them to cup him where he was growing hard. He shivered but did not move away.
"What would your wife think of this?"
"She... doesn't exactly believe in monogamy." he said, flushing.
She rewarded him with a firm squeeze. "He does."
He groaned, and she pulled him back down before he could stammer a denial. His hands slid down to her hips, untucking her blouse so he could slide his hands underneath. His hands felt rough against the skin of her belly, her ribs, through the thin lace of her brassiere. She jerked as he reached her nipple and pinched it hard between his fingers.
"Do you want to punish me?" she asked against his mouth. "For taking what you never dared?"
"You don't seem punished at all," he growled, squeezing the other with the same pressure. She gripped him with her thighs as heat throbbed between her legs.
"You wouldn't be my first patient to harbor delusions." She took his wrist and guided it down under the fabric of her skirt. His breath quickened as his fingertips brushed the damp silk of her underwear.
"Is this your standard of therapy?" he asked. His touch was light as air as he stroked her, the sensation of absence more powerful than the touch.
"You're not really my patient, are you?" She parted her thighs wider as she watched his face.
"What am I to you, then?" His gaze was distant, curious - cold. She wondered if this was the way he viewed his murderers, as if he could dissect them with a look. If the stories were true, he could.
"You're me." she whispered. "And I'm you."
Without warning, he pushed her panties aside to shove two fingers into her, hard. She cried out and gripped his shoulders between her fingers, his hips between her spread thighs. His thumb circled her clitoris slowly. She had stared so often at those callused fingers, the strength of his hands, hardened by coarse labor. Now they slid inside her, slick with fluid that seemed to leak from her endlessly.
After his entry, he seemed content to explore, crooking a finger in a come-hither motion that made her clench tightly around him. His fingertips stroked slowly, deeply, and she slid her hips forward to bring them deeper.
"Is there something you want, doctor?"
"To sink my teeth into you until you bleed." she said. "It would anger him a great deal, I think. If I were to taste what he's never tasted. What he will never taste save for in imagination."
He withdrew and slammed his hand forward again, nearly hard enough to bruise her with his knuckles.
"That's not all you want," he murmured as he drove into her again. "You went with him for a reason."
She tilted her head back and moaned
"Tell me," he demanded, circling his thumb again.
"I want to break into his home and steal the knives from his kitchen," She ground against his hand without shame. "I would use one on you, trail it over your throat – you'd have to be very still for me. One wrong breath -" She traced his Adam's apple with a fingertip.
He barely paused in his rhythm to force a third finger into her.
"It would not be a clean death," she gasped, clenching her thighs tight around him. "Nor a quick one."
His breath hitched as he pulled all his fingers from her roughly, careless of whether or not he hurt her. Dropping to his knees, he wrenched her legs open farther and pulled her to meet his mouth. His tongue was wet and firm as he licked her slit from top to bottom, then dragged his tongue up again. Her hands gripped his hair involuntarily.
"I would carve you slowly." she told him as he lapped around her clitoris. "Thin slices, like parchment. I would start with the areas with less vasculature. No risk of bleeding out before I was - "
Pain chased the words from her mind as he sank his teeth into the flesh of her inner thigh. For a moment it was impossible to distinguish the pain from the throbbing between her legs.
Words left her entirely as he shoved his fingers back in and flicked his tongue against her. She gripped his hair until strands pulled free, but he pushed into her relentlessly, heedless of the pain. Her thighs framed his face, stifling him. She could snap his neck if she wanted to. He could bite and tear until his teeth were bloody.
When she came, she soaked him from his chin to his collar.
He sat back, licking his lips and panting as hard as if he had been the one to come. Her wetness gleamed on his stubbled cheeks.
"I didn't expect that," he said absently, wiping his face with the back of his palm. "Do you always - ?"
She smirked and re-arranged her skirt.
"Stand." she ordered. "Open your trousers."
He rose to his feet with a dazed look on his face as he fumbled with his belt and pulled down the zipper. The fabric dampened under his wet fingers.
She pushed him hard against the desk, grinding her palm into the small of his back. His trousers were loose enough that she had no trouble sliding them down under his hips. She pushed his thighs apart but did not remove his trousers. There was something enjoyable in keeping on their clothes, sweat and other fluids trapped between skin and fabric.
"What are you - ?" She jammed her fingers into his mouth, cutting him off. With her other hand, she stroked his backside, down his perineum, and flicked his scrotum with one nail. He groaned and sucked hard against her fingers. His arousal was painful to him. Smiling, she pushed into his wet mouth until she felt him gag.
For a moment, she forgot Will Graham. The choking sound was someone else's, the flutter of his throat an intimate squeeze that went deeper, deeper, until she woke covered in blood and sweat. Her pulse pounded in her chest. She withdrew, and he sucked air in deep, gasping breaths.
"He – Abigail -" he swallowed. "He – my throat – with a, a tube -"
She remembered the report of the girl's ear. It was easy to picture: Hannibal's steady hands as he guided an esophageal tube down Will's throat. Perhaps he had tied Will to a chair. He would have fought against his bonds, rope biting into his skin.
"What did it feel like?" She slid her damp finger down to circle his hole. It clenched pleasingly against her touch.
"I – I couldn't stop him. It was as if -" He whimpered as she dipped a fingertip into him, just barely penetrating. "As if I were a marionette, and he had cut all my strings. I could see him, but I couldn't move. I was half out of my mind, not sure what was real – except for him."
She withdrew and circled with two fingers this time. He pushed his hips back to meet them. "What do you mean?"
"I always knew he was real. The one constant." He laughed raggedly. "My paddle in rougher waters."
Her index finger slid to the hilt with almost no resistance, though he clenched around her like a vise. She stroked his hip in approval.
"Afraid of hurting me, Bedelia?" he mocked.
Her nails dragged punishingly against his back, making him squirm.
"Not in the slightest." The second finger was more difficult; she knew as she pushed into him that he would feel her the next day. It was pleasing to imagine him squirming in his chair in front of Jack Crawford.
"Did you get off on it?" he asked as she slid until just her fingertips were inside him. "When you watched him kill."
"It was not about sex." she told him, sliding in deeper than before. "It was nature taking its course."
She crooked her fingers until he gasped and clutched the desk. He attempted to reach for his erection, but she slapped the hand away.
"So you weren't to blame. Like filming a nature show – you don't intervene just because you feel sorry for the deer." He panted for air as she quickened her thrusts. "But you weren't sorry, were you?"
She pushed mercilessly against his prostate just to hear the sound it ripped from his throat.
"Were you sorry when you watched him kill?"
He whimpered. Whether it was from the rough stimulation or the memory of the kill, she could not say, but she pressed harder anyway.
"I – I felt guilty." he gasped.
"Why?" She slowly licked the fingers of her free hand, rubbing the saliva where she joined his body.
"It felt like I was holding the knife."
His body clenched tightly when she introduced a third finger. He made a low keening sound as she thrust harder.
"And what did that feel like?"
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. "I felt like we were one person. And that nothing could ever be better than that."
The next few moments were beyond her control, her fingers forcing into him on their own volition, stroking him from the inside, claiming him as Hannibal never would. An image flashed through her mind, a ghost sensation of how it would feel to take him as a man would, to savor the intimate heat, and fill him from the inside. She felt her own muscles tighten.
When she pressed hard against his perineum, he came with a curse, clenching tight around her hand.
She withdrew her fingers as carelessly as he had, watching his hole clutch as if hoping to be filled again. Will panted against the desk.
"I still hate you." he said without heat.
He showed no sign of resistance as she rolled him onto his back. His eyes were hazy as he struggled to catch his breath.
"I am aware that you hate me." she said, climbing onto the desk to straddle his shoulders.
"Show me how much."
