Lecter let his lips rest on Will's cheek, feeling the slackening of Will's limbs as he passed into unconsciousness.

The tip of Lecter's tongue slipped out, tasting the salt tang of sweat and fear. He sat up, still holding Will's arm. Straddling the younger man, Lecter looked down at his prize.

A cacophony of barking. Furious barking finally penetrated the haze of Lecter's overwhelming desire.

A few swift kicks and sharp words reestablished order. Lecter returned to the stairwell where Will sprawled.

His eyelids fluttered as his head lolled to one side.

Blood chokes don't last long, and the residue of epinephrine in his system would battle the sedative.

No time to waste on sentimentality, on looking as much as he desired to look.

Hannibal made himself take a mental picture. Replayed the sense memory of his lips on Will's cheek, his tongue tasting his unique musk. Then Hannibal went to work.

First he texted Dr. Bloom, telling her their patient was finally resting. Then he asked that she call or text before she returned, as he wished for her to pick up a few supplies Will needed.

That would give him fair warning.

Second, he went into the kitchen and brought out the now lukewarm tea. Taking an oral syringe out of another coat pocket, he sat beside Will and methodically force-fed him the rest of the brew, squirting the syringe in the back of Will's throat, tipping his head back and closing his mouth to effect the autonomic swallow-response he required.

And finally, he had to decide. He had bought them only a small fragment of time. Stolen from the reality of their unique relationship.

Everything was still salvageable. Though he stood poised on the precipice, he could take that critical step back.

Or he could fall, and take Will with him.

It took some time to decide, but in the end, Will's unique mind, distinct in its call to Hannibal's own genius, decided him.

It was too soon to end it.

This short hour or hours would not be enough time, but he was not prepared to take the younger man and set off the manhunt that was sure to follow.

It was all too hasty.

Hannibal must make do with what he could safely take now, under the cover of the drug and Will's current instability.

It was….an appetizer….not the main course. But as in the most palatable, orchestrated of meals, the appetizer was a masterpiece that presaged the rest of the meal. Distinct notes that would enhance and echo the flavors, textures, and fragrances of the other courses.

His appetite whetted, Hannibal pulled Will's arm, lifting his torso over his shoulder into a fireman's carry.

Upstairs it took only a moment to find Will's bed. Hannibal gently lowered his charge into it, regretting that time did not allow for a fresh change of sheets or even a bath.

Hannibal made another note in his mind, like an accomplished chef adjusting the complex orchestration of a meal, liking the image of Will being bathed in a broth of milk-white water, like royalty.

Careful in his state of resounding joy, careful lest he rip a button off, Lecter gently unbuttoned first Will's shirt, then his abysmal khaki pants.

Delectable skin and slender panes of muscle rose and fall with each of Will's drug-shallowed breaths.

Hannibal lowered his head, slowly, making himself wait, making himself sip only, with his most refined sense.

Even covered in stale sweat and the lingering offense of cheap cologne, Will's scent was intoxicating.

And although he was most attracted to Will's remarkable mind, there was a baser, animalistic attraction to the rest of the man. To this pale and slender, beautifully-proportioned body sprawled before him.

Hannibal let himself taste, with tongue and lip and the gentlest of nibbles.

No marks. He must leave no marks.

Perhaps one mark.

Will stirred. His hands fell clumsily onto Hannibal – one on his head, the other on his shoulder.

Hannibal lifted his mouth from Will's flesh. Looked up into his face.

Will's eyes fluttered, opening to reveal whites, rolled-up in his head. Then the blue irises pulled down, hazy but then snapping into focus on Hannibal, spread over him, pinning him with arms and torso and mouth.

Will moaned. His hands ineffectually pushed at Hannibal, fumbling against his shoulder and head.

"Shhhh," Hannibal urged, allowing himself to place another lick along Will's ribs. "No bad dreams."

Will's eyes rolled up again. Hannibal nipped at Will, wanting to gaze into his blue eyes again.

"Wh-wh-wh-" Will's fear-stutter, his eyes, shuttered, then opened, as he battled the twin pulls of panic and the soporific of the drug. "What- wh-wh-"

He began to shudder, groaning, almost an exact replica of the beautiful, overwhelmed empathetic response to sharing first the death of Abigail's mother, then shooting Hobbs, then suffering the throes of pain and encroaching death from Abigail herself.

The moment when Hannibal had first recognized that his interest in Will was not exclusively that of a colleague, or even a connoisseur. When Hannibal had first apprehended the implications of Will's gift, and how it could feed Hannibal's own insatiable desire.

Will shuddered, trembled, and struggled slightly.

Hannibal climbed over him. Straddled his twisting hips. Will's hands fell to Hannibal's chest, then collapsed onto his own stomach, for all the world looking like a creature pulling into itself to minimize injury.

Hannibal felt himself grow harder, if that was possible. At the same time, an inexplicable, alien tenderness pierced his heart.

"No, Will. Don't fear. Look at me, and don't fear." The words themselves, god-like, a powerful aphrodisiac.

Will rolled his head on the pillow, still stuttering protestations of fear and denial. Lost in the throes of his response to the lethal reality pulsating through the being poised over him.

Acting on the twin goads of instinct and desire, Hannibal gently removed Will's spectacles. He placed them on the empty pillow beside them. Then, still straddling his writhing Will, Hannibal unbuttoned his shirt. He opened his bespoke cufflinks, first one, then the other.

As Hannibal leaned forward to deposit his cufflinks on the pillow beside Will's spectacles, his erection pressed into Will's stomach.

Will's eyes snapped open. His hand fisted and glanced off the side of Hannibal's head.

Hannibal fell slightly off center, scattering his cuff links across the counterpane and onto the floor.

"No, no." Hannibal could not stop the harsh edge of desire in his voice as Will bucked beneath him. Catching Will's wrists in his hand, Hannibal subdued him.

"Shhhhh, Will." Hannibal soothed, Pushing Wills arms over his head. Taking his unknotted tie from around his neck, Hannibal bound Will's wrists to the headboard.

"Stop-st-st-st," Will coughed more than he spoke, shuddered more than he struggled.

Hannibal took off his fine linen shirt and tossed it onto the floor. Torso bare, Hannibal lowered himself onto Will. The slide of skin over skin enrapturing to Lecter, but nearly unbearable to his captured one, who shuddered and choked at the overstimulation.

Hannibal had no doubt that were it not for the drug, Will wouldn't be able to accept the least of his caresses.

As it was, as Hannibal slowly lowered his weight onto the younger man, Will's eyes rolled and jumped, eyelids fluttering at the insistent prod of Hannibal against his hip.

The weight stilled Will, as it would a panicked animal, constrained in the moment of fight or flight, unable to fly, stilled by the abandonment of self to fate, to death.

Sudden peace. Sudden stillness.

Will moaned, but stopped his struggles. His eyelids closed.

Hannibal tasted his jaw, the curve of his shoulder.

His mouth.

Hannibal propped himself over Will, looking down into his now submissive, slumber-closed face. Blue-tinged smudges under his eyes, skin almost preternaturally pale. Tension still in the brow, the tightness around his mouth.

Hannibal paused, enjoying the complex mix of pride and frustration he felt towards Will. Pride that the man's gift, even diminished by mental strain and physical exhaustion, still cut to the truth. Was incisive and wickedly perceptive, that he had sensed the danger of Hannibal.

Frustration that Will couldn't trust. Couldn't yet see past the danger to the underlying truth that Hannibal would never harm him.

Wouldn't he?

Hannibal had to laugh, panting slightly against Will's chest. His breath raising gooseflesh on Will.

Clever mongoose. Hannibal hardly knew himself or of what he was capable.

Not enough time to find out today.

Appetizer only.

Hannibal set about to savor his Will.

No marks. Or perhaps, just one.