CERVALCES LATIFRONS

ix.

Four in the morning. The sun was set to rise within a scant three hours and Hannibal hadn't slept, the comfort of his large bed doing its best but unable to stop the racing thoughts that refused to leave him. Beside him, Will Graham slept with peaceful abandon, his breath even and content, his head lazily turned towards him on the pillow. He had wanted this scenario, expected it, even, but for Will to have been so enthusiastic, so full of *initiative*, that had been a pleasure well beyond the limits of his control.

He had been replaying the seduction in his head, pulling it from a very special shelf in his memory palace over and over, ensuring every drop of sweat, every cursing gasp was placed within it in shining clarity. Even now, as he traced his knuckles along Will's unshaven cheek and across his neck, down his shoulders and veering into the small dip just above his hips, Hannibal was adding to the memory's inventory. He dared to move closer and smiled as Will stirred in his sleep, the warmth of his body drenching the sheets in his scent. The air in the room was still thick with the lingering remnants of sex. Without touching him, Hannibal leaned towards Will's neck, his eyes closed as he breathed deeply of everything Will was made of.

It had been vicious. Invigorating. Will had followed him into the bedroom, and Hannibal could feel his eyes on his back as he slid off his tie, and carefully undid the buttons on his vest. "If it is curiosity that has brought you here, I will do all I can to satisfy it." Hannibal remained fixed in place, exactly three top buttons undone on his starched white shirt. "You need not fear me here, dear Will. As a close and trusted friend, you should not doubt that I can be an attentive lover."

He could feel Will's breath, hot and angry on the back of his neck. His voice sneered into Hannibal's ear, so full of venom it made his heart constrict tight in anticipation. "I am not here for *curiosity*."

He turned before Will could attack him, the blow to his shoulder sending Will reeling against the bedroom door. He recovered quickly and lunged at Hannibal, fists flying towards him, deflected with clumsy ease. Of course it was easy to overpower him, but what was the fun in always winning, when Will clearly had so much to offer?

He ran at him again, knocking him sideways against the headboard, a primal struggle of survival playing out as Hannibal captured Will's throat in his strong grip and made a half hearted attempt to squeeze. Will knocked his hands out of the way, and it was then that Hannibal felt the searing pain as it travelled with warning delight along the inside of his arm. He had been cut. Will was wielding a knife.

They fell back upon the bed, Will straddling him, the knife slashing at empty air as Hannibal managed to dodge his deadly strikes. One nicked his ear, and having had enough of this childish foreplay, Hannibal hooked his leg around Will's and thrust with all his weight, flipping the smaller man onto his back.

Hannibal pinned his shoulders, his body above him. Will still held the knife, the dull edge against his own throat, the sharp blade ready to slice should Hannibal dare to come closer.

"Is it so deadly to kiss you?" Hannibal asked.

"Just try it," Will said.

Had he ever felt more alive than he did that moment, with the blade in Will's hand ready to slice across his throat, to kill him should he forgo all reason and steal what was rightfully his from the man's lips? With Will's panting body beneath him, his heart racing beneath the beat of Hannibal's own, it was hardly a choice.

"If you want my life, you can have it." Hannibal inched closer, making sure the blade's edge was fully aligned with his throat. The quivering that shook through Will's body was unbearable, his need obvious and imprisoned within his jeans, pressed tight against Hannibal's own.

"There is nothing I would not give you."

With the sting of the blade against his throat, cutting into his flesh, Hannibal leaned forward, his lips grazing Will's. "Dear Will, I am giving to you what I have given no one else. Surely by now you understand. There are no limits when it comes to my love for you."

He could feel the blade digging as he pressed close, his lips capturing Will's, an answering tongue darting in mysterious question. Any second could mean his death, with Will moving his arm in a decisive slash, and Hannibal would pour his blood over him, baptizing him in the purest of spiritual truth.

But Will had released his grip on the blade. Had pushed Hannibal away to let it drop to the floor and then pulled him back, to gently lick at the superficial cut that had been delicately, beautifully, carved into Hannibal's throat. He closed his eyes, revelling in the sensation of Will's velvet mouth, his tongue soft and pliant, a teasing tenderness that travelled upwards past his chin, to his cheek, to rest in liquid iron resolve into the waiting openness of Hannibal's mouth.

He had not expected his body to respond so keenly, nor did he foresee the sudden urgency that erupted within Will, the need to tear at his shirt until the buttons popped, his coat shed to the floor, Will's hands busy and frantic as they worked zippers and belts and tore at fabric as though it was an enemy keeping him apart from his greatest pleasure. And when they were naked, flesh entwined and pliant, Will's hands were still busy, as though it wasn't enough, as though his wanted to tear off his skin as well and bring himself and his lover into a hot melted pool of blood and tangled bones.

He had taken him, he had been taken, it became a confusing Escher puzzle of flesh, so deeply entwined into a twisting physicality of the act of love it became pointless to pursue dominance. Their voices were disembodied, becoming a chorus to the music that had become their sinews, their exposed and tendered nerves.

He was reeling from it still, the music still playing at a distance upon the dreamlike waves of afterglow. Will sighed in his sleep and nestled close to him, his warm body against Hannibal's bringing a resurgence of that glorious symphony. He kissed him, lightly, on the forehead, and smiled at the thought of what morning could bring.

He would have been content to lay there, awake, simply staring at Will and marvelling at the beauty of his breathing, imagining the pink health of his lungs, his fingers lightly tracing the outline of them over his chest. He envied the cage of ribs that expanded and contracted over their spongy, sweet tenderness.

A curse brought him out of his meditation, and it with no small alarm that Hannibal realized Dr. Palanchuk and Callum Wilkes were also awake and were snooping throughout his house. He had assumed they would, and while the alternate plans he had made for them would have created a far more different kind of pleasant morning, he conceded that they were unrealistic at present. He wanted to bask in his triumph over Will's heart instead.

A creak in the floorboards in the vicinity of the dining room made Hannibal roll his eyes in annoyed despairing. Really, was there no end to this duo's constant sabotage?

He pulled himself away from Will with great reluctance, slipping on a pair of flannel pants and an old sweater to stave off the early chill. The house was still shrouded in darkness, a fact that would work to his advantage as he sought out his nosy guests who couldn't keep their curiosity to a minimum.

Not that he was chiding them for it, for there was a part of Hannibal that appreciated this sort of ferritlike tenacity, especially when the answers came to light as the result of a new, interesting theory. But they were careless investigators, making far too much noise and leaving lights on, the evidence of kitchen thievery obvious on the counter.

Dr. Palanchuk never did get a proper meal. The messy state of Hannibal's kitchen was another thing he was blameless for. This constant racking of innocence was grating on Hannibal's last nerve. The dining room table had been pushed aside to make room for the trap door, and all lights had been left on. If they'd wanted to shine a spotlight on their poor attempts at snooping this alone added a bullhorn.

Hannibal did not like sloppy work, and he was ruminating on this as he descended the stairs to his secret workshop, where beauty was fashioned from mutilated flesh. Perhaps he would offer up their pathetic dopplegangers as a love token to his dear Will. He could create a chimera of their hearts, weaving the two organs together, hands clasped over it in longing. A symbol of the depth of his affections, and the love he believed Will shared with him.

"Just once I would like to go out for dinner and not find a corpse."

Hannibal paused, his steps cat quiet as he made his way into the basement lair, the shadows beneath the low ceiling concealing him. Both Dr. Palanchuk and Callum Wilkes were behind the plastic curtain, the slab holding his latest work covered with a drop cloth-no doubt to keep to Dr. Palanchuk's strange phobia at bay.

Callum was struggling with something in his grip and it was with great consternation that Hannibal realized he had stolen one of his prized bottles of wine, a two hundred and fifty dollar bottle of Del Forno red.

"I knew he kept the good stuff hidden away."

"You thought he was hiding weed." Dr. Palanchuk sighed as he stared at the slab before him. "And a corpse."

"I was fully expecting to find a corpse, that was a given. So, technically, it's not 'hidden' if you have a good idea of where it is." Callum popped the cork with a penknife and took a swig before handing it to Dr. Palanchuk, who automatically did likewise before handing it back.

"I'm just so very tired of this." Palanchuk seemed to shrink where he sat, every measure of his energy drained from him. "Everywhere we go. We go to a movie, a man dies in the lobby. We go to a park for a picnic, a sniper takes out six people." He gave Callum a tired glance. "We go on a plane to America and we sit next to a dead man."

"A ten hour flight." Callum took another swig of wine at the memory. "Bastard had the window seat, too."

"We buy a lovely little house, and the day we move in we find the remains of a liquefied former tenant in the bathtub. That was especially vile."

Callum rolled his eyes and groaned at this. "We got twenty thousand knocked off the mortgage, that was a bloody wondrous discount. There's no reason for you to complain about that, not to mention the trauma clean up crew did a right proper job making that bathing room sparkle."

"I am sure he leaked into the wooden support beams." Dr. Palanchuk stared at the covered body in front of him with an expression of abject misery. This, coupled with his obvious exhaustion served to thicken his accent as he spoke, giving his voice a sultry quality. "Every time your boss, Chief Highsmith, comes to visit she says the shower smells like feet. It is not feet she is smelling, Callum. It is nnnot."

"Well there's no point whinging about all of that right now, is there? What are we doing about this?" Callum pointed the heel of the bottle of wine at the expired librarian before them. "Before you even say it, I have no intention of bringing this to the attention of the FBI."

Hannibal hid further into the dark at this, curious as to what Callum Wilkes had planned. Their odd conversation and the ease they had sitting next to the graphic example of his work made him wonder how different were they from himself and Will. Perhaps he had completely misjudged them, and they were twins not only in body but in sentiment as well.

"Oh but we have to!" Dr. Palanchuk near exclaimed, making Hannibal's eyes narrow with renewed predator vigour. How very disappointing.

"No, we don't." Callum turned to his companion, the bottle of wine now mostly empty. "Do you not want to test out your theory?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your bloody body count theory. This madman's a serial, you can see that is plain, and he's gone and offed a man who no one liked. The exception being you, because the exception is *always* you." Callum drained the last of the wine, and tossed the empty bottle onto the body. It landed in the centre with a soft, papery thud. "Your man here is greedy, and according to your theory there's more attention given to the serials. He's even gift wrapped this one, so he's aiming to get caught. With something this blatant, you can bet I can pull a willow branch off that tree near the main road and dowse out a dozen or so more on this property, I'm sure of it."

"I don't understand..."

"Think about it, he's like a control subject. You can get a clear statistic out of this. Blatant serial killer discovery and arrest times versus the time it takes to discover and arrest your average joe killer." Callum poked at the corpse with his finger, its stiff form rolling from the impact. "He's gone and dropped this right into your lap, and you have to see, to connect all the lines out of that universal mess and know that this is what you are supposed to do!"

Dr. Palanchuk hesitated slightly, only to concede to Wilkes' opinion. "It is an opportunity that has a double meaning for my work. Dr. Lector's murderous intentions mesh perfectly into both my theory of the displacement of homicidal investigations and the murkier physics of my fractal investigative techniques, which have brought his crime to light. As a unique subject, it would be foolish of me not put what he does under scientific scrutiny."

Callum rubbed his hands together. "So what is your plan?"

"To simply wait and see what happens. To satisfy the base need of curiosity."

Callum rose from his seat and bid Palanchuk to follow him. He paused at the plastic curtain, and turned back to the body, his hand quickly snatching up the empty wine bottle. "Best not to leave obvious evidence behind."

"Callum, don't be ridiculous. Of course he will know we were here."

"So we're in danger, then." Callum stepped carefully in front of Palanchuk, his jaw a firm line. "Should I bother uncovering it? Should I lay in wait here, ready to kill him?"

Dr. Palanchuk's mouth was a slight pout as he looked behind him at the swaying lines of thick plastic caging the body behind it. It was still covered in the tarp Callum had considerately placed over it to prevent him from fainting. "I think we have interfered with it enough. And no...I don't think we are in danger. That is not the impression I am getting, not at all."

"What impression are you getting?"

Dr. Palanchuk struggled to find the words. He shrugged over them, a wincing understanding creeping through them as he spoke. "That he is a noble predator and we are his carrion birds. We take our sustenance from the rotted aftermath of his kill."

Callum Wilkes stroked Dr. Palanchuk's cheek affectionately and Vasyl shuddered, but didn't pull away.

"Time to go upstairs," Callum whispered. "We can pretend to sleep."

He pulled the curtains open wide, allowing sunlight to stream in. Will groaned at the onslaught, his lithe body bathed in its cleansing brilliance. He blinked sleepy eyes into the morning, a curse at it leaving his lips. "What time is it?"

"Nine o'clock. We've overslept."

Will groaned, and grabbed his cell phone from where it had fallen to the floor. "Jack called four times. We missed the meeting and he's pissed." He stretched, muscles taut over the playful bruising of his skin, and Hannibal felt his breath catch, his mouth hungry to taste him again. "Are your unwanted guests still here?"

Hannibal did not hesitate. "They were in my basement."

He smiled to himself at the sudden, paralysing fear that wafted from Will, an intoxication tempered with the undercurrent of predatory expectation. "We need to kill them."

"Out of the question."

"Why?" Will sat up in the bed, the sheets pulled into a pile around him, his body shaking. "They are going to go to the police, they are going to expose us!"

"They will do nothing of the sort." Hannibal noted his confidence did little to put Will at ease, and with a small, knowing smile he bent his head and approached the bed, drawing the shaking man into a tight embrace. He sighed over the pleasure of his skin beneath his touch, and though he wanted to do so, so much more, he placed a chaste kiss onto Will's shoulder before bringing his lips to his ear. He pushed dark, soft curls out of the way, his tongue lightly exploring the curved lines of delicate cartilage. "Our esteemed guests, dear Will are, unfortunately, hopelessly insane."

He felt Will's body relax against his, a needful groan rising within his throat. He revelled in the warmth, and the even panting of his breath as Hannibal began to touch him, his lips pressed soft against his neck.

"Then what are we?" Will asked, his voice a harsh whisper.

Hannibal slid his hands down Will's sides, his chin resting on his shoulder. He smoothed his fingers along his hips, pushing aside the sheets he had wrapped around himself. Here was a special unveiling, a work of art for his eyes alone.

"We are in love," Hannibal said.