Title: Little Lamb
Author: Prentice
Rating: Mature
Fandom: Hannibal (TV)
Pairing: Hannibal/Will
Warning: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics. Possessive Behavior. Obsession.
Notes: In this particular universe, Hannibal is a high-priced therapist who works with Alphas, Betas, and Omegas who have trouble forging lasting bonds due to emotional issues/traumas. Most of his clients are older men (with a few smattering of women) who have lived most of their lives struggling with their identity– maybe they always though they were an Alpha but identified as a Beta, or maybe they always thought they were an Omega but identified as an Alpha – so there's a lot of anger and fear, etc., to work through. Will is one of his clients, a cute little Omega, who Hannibal develops an inappropriate (and entirely confusing) crush on. Only, you know, it's more like obsession in the end.
This is a kind of prologue to the universe so, you know, be prepared for ridiculous amounts of future Hannibal creeping on Will and convincing himself that he's not confused or obsessed, he's just in love, dammit, one-shots in the future. \o/
Summary: By the third week, Hannibal has made peace with the fact that he's very likely not going to get rid of his terribly inappropriate and entirely unexpected infatuation with his newest client.
By the third week, Hannibal has made peace with the fact that he's very likely not going to get rid of his terribly inappropriate and entirely unexpected infatuation with his newest client. It's not that he expects it to go away entirely – many of his clients are far older than this boy, far less attractive; with craggy faces and jowls that redden into splotchy red when they realize he already knows exactly what they want and how they want it – but he does expect it to weaken its hold over him with time. Expects that with every session he has with the boy, it will dwindle and fade until it is a shadow of itself and he can do what he's been hired to do.
Only, it doesn't. Weaken that is. Or fade.
If anything, it grows stronger. Each session layering the feeling in and over itself, tightening the fledgling bond he normally tries to nip in the bud with other clients lest they get too attached, until the feeling, the sensation, is pulling in his chest and twisting in his stomach. Every time he sees the boy – no, man; he's a man, even if Hannibal can only see him as a boy – it grows stronger.
The boy – the man – Will Graham – he's a frightened little lamb that Hannibal finds himself watching every session with growing fascination, a strange low thrum of heat pooling in his belly, sharpening his senses and making him want to do things he's not supposed to do with one of his clients. The things, physical things, which he always makes clear from the start, will never happen. He is not here to Bond with his clients; he is here to help them learn to Bond with someone else.
Nevertheless, it's tempting, always tempting, to do something that is not strictly for the boy's benefit. Like run a hand through his already tousled curls when he hunches in on himself during their sessions. Or cup the back of his neck, fingers rubbing the smooth tender skin just beneath his ear when he's nervous. Or sometimes, the need more frequent these days than before, to pull the boy – no, the man – into his lap with possessive hands and tell the sweet little lamb, the unbound and badly fractured Omega, that he isn't so broken after all; that he is capable of forging a Bond, of taking a knot, but only with Hannibal.
Only ever Hannibal.
But that isn't possible. Not just now. Not just yet.
Not when all of Hannibal's plans, his life's work, hinge on doing everything that's just right. Of keeping the lines of propriety just the way they are. Of not giving in so wholly to the sudden confusing flutter in his chest, the burn beneath his skin, and the precipitous awareness that prickles against his senses any time they are in the same room.
It'll happen one day, he presumes.
Not nearly as soon as he wants, he is sure, but only when this infatuation – this consuming need to be there, to be closer – has finally come to its fullest fruition in whatever way it can, and the little lamb – the beautiful and badly damaged Omega, who sits across the room from him in soft button down plaids and dirty trousers – isn't so ready to crawl outside his skin, frightened and afraid of himself. Trapped inside the cobbles of his own mind, determined to believe that he is broken and he is breaking, every single day in every single way. Like a piece of glass full of a spider web of cracks, waiting for just the right touch, just the right caress, to shatter into a million jagged pieces.
He won't break, of course. Hannibal won't allow it. Cannot allow it, really, because this desire – this obsession – is growing and, though it is foreign to him, it is also as strange and fulfilling and satisfying in the way a piece of fresh cut meat is or an aria in a particularly fine Opera is, and he will not let it go.
Not if it's in his power to keep it.
Keep him.
His client, his lamb, his tortured little Omega, who is as broken as he is sweet, and as troubled as he is brilliant, and who looks to Hannibal for answers, ones that he already has but doesn't know how to see. Not unless Hannibal shows him. Which he will.
In time.
END
(To be continued in 'Session #1')