Less than his preferred number of hours of sleep and being greeted by Chilton at the door does not bode for a great morning for Hannibal. He's a little later than the others, having come from the local clinic where he'd put in a rush request. The door of the station is barely clicking shut when the over-zealous doctor stumbles towards him, something imploring in his eyes, and Hannibal sighs inwardly as schools his expression into politeness.
"You know Graham's a killer, don't you?" Chilton pushes out without waiting for an address, tripping to a stop.
Hannibal frowns. "I am seeking to prove such. Why?"
"Well now they're saying he's not!"
He flings an arm through the air at that, looking very much like a housewife throwing a hissy fit. Hannibal is opening his mouth to ask on the pertinent pronoun when he's cut off by a clack of heels.
"Doctor Chilton."
Chilton turns to see Bedelia striding purposely towards them, perfectly made-up face as impassive as ever.
"With all due respect, you are not the psychological advisor on this case," she continues as she slows to a stop. "I am. And you, indeed, are on leave as of today."
"Yes, yes." Chilton waves a hand again, turning back to face Hannibal. "I was just coming in to pick up a few things when I heard her talking about Graham being innocent, you know that can't be right!"
Hannibal clears his throat, looking between the two psychologists, keeping his reaction to the news internalised unlike the man opposite him. "Well, Doctor Du Maurier. I'm glad to hear you were brought on, though I'm afraid you may have to expound a bit more on your conclusion."
Bedelia blinks at him. "There is not a whole lot to expound," she says simply. "There was, and has been no real evidence to tie Mister Graham to the crime, aside from possible opportunity and his widely read book. I myself believe that it is more likely the murder was perpetrated by an individual familiar with his work. To the point of obsession, perhaps." She shifts her stance a little, crossing her manicured hands in front of her. "The only thing unclear is whether it was an act of hate against the author intended to implicate him, or an act of admiration from someone who found his words worthy of being brought to life."
Chilton scoffs loudly, rolling his eyes. "Oh please," he mutters, "his books aren't even that good." Then he looks back beseechingly at Hannibal. "You still agree with me, don't you? Tell me you'll get him put away?"
Hannibal regards him steadily, very much aware of the weight of Bedelia's own gaze, then takes a breath. "I am doing my best."
He greets Alana at her desk after a much-needed trip to the coffee machine, during which he'd tossed back the bitter liquid like it could burn away the pressingly distracting memory of the previous night's intermixing flavours. She appears to be in the process of going through the publication and print history of Will's books as she turns to bid him good morning.
"You told me yesterday," Hannibal begins, "that Will's mother died of an overdose and that he was questioned about it. Do you have the reports?"
"What?" Confusion crosses his partner's face as she leans an elbow on her tabletop. "No. I mean I could probably get them if we really needed them, but why?"
Hannibal moves forward so he can lean a thigh against the smooth wooden edge. "I have reason to believe that he murdered his mother."
"What?" Alana says again, perplexity drawing out the vowel. "How did you, how is that—" She breaks off, then continues with a sigh. "Not only is that very marginally relevant at best, didn't Doctor Du Maurier talk to you?"
"Yes, she did. I respectfully disagree."
"Really." A purse of glossed but unpainted lips. "I agree Graham's still a high contender, but even if you're not convinced yet the other possibilities are at least worth a good look." She views him for several seconds in silence before dropping her eyes. "And I meant what I said yesterday," she continues a little hesitantly. "I appreciate your focus, Hannibal, but I don't know if it's quite right at the moment. You haven't been following him again, have you?"
Hannibal steps back, then steps back a second time. "No," he replies truthfully, and turns to walk away.
Wednesday is his own early finish, and he's glad for it. Alana has him looking over reviews and critics' assessments for anything that stands out, while she tries to question his publishing company on whether there has ever been any threatening or overenthusiastic fanmail of note. Not only is Hannibal thoroughly convinced that such endeavours are a waste of time, he also will reluctantly admit that his mind isn't entirely present. Caught instead somewhere between the promise-filled metallic slide of zipper cogs and an almost tender final kiss.
Nothing comes up, unsurprisingly. He finds a large spread ranging from loving praise to disgusted condemnation, the extremes of which he duly records though they are no more or less than any other author's reception. Alana reports to him a similarly unexceptional feedback from the public, but also that she plans to continue searching among his social circles. Hannibal leaves her to it and pops out when lunchtime hits to drop by the clinic again, thanking the receptionist curtly as she relays him what he wants to hear.
He returns to a report from Bedelia on his desk of her own evaluation of the case, as well as a note informing him that a meeting to review the investigation has been scheduled the following day for the two of them as well as Jack and, of course, Alana. Hannibal skims the report in less than two minutes then sets it aside. If it's only solid evidence they lack, he'll find it. He'll get close enough to find it.
He leaves barely on two o'clock, taking with him all the documents he has on Will. Though it's hardly necessary, really, since it's all memorised by now. Every word carefully slotted away in his mind along with his own alternate report of things that can't yet be written down.
There's no pleasant greeting awaiting him on his welcome mat that afternoon. Hannibal tries not to react all too much as he hits the red button on his car key and makes the short walk across the grass. He wipes his feet his habitual two times as he clicks the lock once to the left to open the screen door, and then the wooden one behind it, stepping inside only for his right hand to fly to his gun.
He takes it away again as he takes full scope of the situation, though doesn't quite relax. He nudges the door closed with the side of his foot without looking.
"How did you get in here?"
Will only smiles from his place on the couch, lounged back with one leg crossed over the other. He uncrosses them after a moment to stand, but doesn't walk. "I was wondering if I should be sorry for running off like that last night," he says nonchalantly. "But I didn't really think you'd quite be up for the nitty gritties of a conversation, eh?
Hannibal doesn't answer.
"Ah," he continues a second later. "Bad day at work? How's my investigation going?"
Hannibal exhales, moving forward to look Will straight in the eye, face to face. "The others are becoming unsure," he replies flatly. "They're starting to think you might not be the one."
Will doesn't back down, and Hannibal wouldn't expect him to. "Am I still a suspect?"
"Yes."
"Which means that we shouldn't be here."
"No."
"Mmm." Will sidles closer, voice lowering. "And what do you think, then?"
Hannibal takes a bit to think that over, mulling in his head both the words and the vision of the far from simple man before him. "I think," he finally begins, slowly, "that you're not quite like the rest of us. That you have a very unique gift which you've decided to use in a very interesting way, because while it once could have helped people you've long realised that you don't owe anything to anyone. That you're a very smart man who finds the world a little too easy to solve for your liking, and so you play with things like a child is enticed to desecrate a jigsaw puzzle they have already put together."
Hannibal doesn't bother trying to keep his eyes above the neck. Will is dressed in the same outfit as during that first interview at the station, black shirt tight across his shoulder as thin white fabric encases his legs. Once again, he searches and fails to find the tell-tale line that belies underwear beneath.
"And," Hannibal continues, "I think that you like playing very much, having your hands out to nudge without needing to lead. It's a different kind of power, isn't it, to control but have no one know. How much do you like power, Will?"
His voice had grown low by the end, almost husky, and Will reaches out to tip his chin back up with two fingers. "I'd say," he replies, bringing their gazes together once more, "about as much as you want to fuck me right now."
It's different, this time, in the comfort and familiarity of his home with no sordidly overwhelming atmosphere to bank on. Will's mouth tastes now only of the faintest hint of spearmint mouthwash, and Hannibal's the one dragging as they stumble up the stairs and more than once against the wall on their way to the main bedroom. His jacket and tie are already discarded, almost ripped off, before they make it, and he pushes Will away and onto the mattress with a sharp shove before standing back to remove the rest. Blue eyes watch him undress, flashing darker before he's beckoned down. Then they're kissing again as he lays his full weight over Will, open-mouthed and careless, and it's only a roll to the side with a few tugs and some shifting before they're skin on skin.
Hannibal can feel Will's arousal against his as their legs tangle together, as well as the sharp bone of his hip. Stubble burns Hannibal's upper lip but he doesn't let up. Will's scent is heavy around them, natural spice mixed with a hint of men's shampoo and aftershave, foreign but captivating. Beguiling.
He makes his mistake when he runs a hand down that smooth chest, fingers instinctively curling as if to cup a woman's breast. It doesn't go past Will, as nothing seems too, and the man pulls away with a low, breathless laugh.
"Tell me you really have fucked a guy before?"
Hannibal only inhales, and breathes out deeply.
"Or at least given it to a girl like that?"
No response.
That smile turns devilishly sharp. "Oh god, this is precious."
Hannibal quietens him by sealing their mouths together once again, entwining their tongues and swallowing any more lilting words before they leave Will's throat. Time passes again like this, in the heat of their bodies and the dark swirl of arousal, in the soft sounds that Will utters as they grind against each other and the way his fingers curl to clutch at Hannibal's back. But then, bit by bit, practicality nudges its way into Hannibal's mind again, until he pulls up and away.
"I—I don't have anything."
Will's tongue darts out, lapping idly at his swollen lower lip before it's sucked up between his teeth and chewed on for several seconds. "Would you believe me if I said I'm clean?"
Hannibal looks at him, and turns that over. "I might not be."
"You are. Got yourself tested this morning—right after last night, eh?" And that's a smirk, now. "Asked for rush results too, back already, you'd almost think you were expecting something."
Hannibal clenches his jaw, throat working several times. Then he simply drops back down to bite at Will's lips himself.
It's Will who pulls back next, several heady minutes later. He'd shifted gently to part his legs so that Hannibal by now is lying right between them, hips bracketed by wide-spread knees. He turns his head off to the side to break the kiss.
"You've got lotion or something, yeah?"
His voice is airy, raspy, and Hannibal responds with a lingering suck to a soft patch of skin under Will's jaw before lifting his torso. He braces himself on one arm as he reaches over to the bedside cabinet, pulling open a drawer and not needing to rummage for too long. He pointedly ignores the blatant amusement from the man beneath him as he pulls out a bottle of half-used lubricant.
Hannibal sits back on his haunches as Will pushes against his chest with one open palm and takes the bottle from him. "Don't worry," he says half breathlessly, undoing the cap with a few quick flicks and coating his fingers, "I cleaned myself out earlier."
An image of Will in the shower like that flashes briefly through Hannibal's mind, before it's promptly overtaken in entirety by the sight before him now. Will's lips fall apart as he eases one finger inside himself, and then another to spread. He's fully hard, lying flushed against his thigh, and Hannibal takes the plunge when he adds a third to touch him.
Will hums, soft and low in his throat as he's steadily stroked, slipping his fingers in and out of his own body in a gradually smoothing slide. Hannibal notes curiously the hot stiffness of the heavy shaft in his hand, the slick glide of foreskin, and the silky-softness of the head that he runs a questioning thumb over every now and then. He engrosses himself in the motion of touching another man, practised yet so unfamiliar, until Will removes his fingers away to pick up the bottle once more.
The cool drizzle of liquid over his own heated flesh draws a quiet hiss from Hannibal, which transforms into a throaty sigh as the lubricant is swiftly spread out with deft fingers. He takes his cue and runs his hands along the creamy skin of Will's inner thighs, parting them further as he shifts forward his hips just a little unsteadily. Then he hisses again.
The first push inside has him stilling for several moments before he forces himself to continue in a few rough, jerky movements, trying to get used to the tightness. Will allows this for a little before
losing patience, reaching up to drag Hannibal down with a growl, still slick fingers digging wetly around his sides. He moves his hands again after Hannibal drops forward to lie chest to chest once more, raking down his back and settling over his buttocks, guiding Hannibal's hips into his own preferred rhythm.
Hannibal can feel Will's moans in the vibration of his throat as he gasps breathily and open-mouthed into the side of the other man's neck. Will rocks their bodies firmly together, sharp and rough, but a little too demanding. It isn't very long before he grows impatient for a second time with the way Hannibal can't quite keep up, pushing him over to his side in one fluid motion.
Hannibal blinks as he suddenly finds himself on his back, and Will swinging a leg over to straddle him. He braces himself with both hands on Hannibal's chest as he rides him hard, back arched, taking what he wants. Hannibal lets him do the work as the growing, tingling pleasure begins to build.
It goes on. His expensive bedframe is too sturdy to rock, but the steady squeak of springs falls matching with the slap of their skin. The shift of Will's muscles as he moves is almost mesmerising, then something seems to come over him.
Half-focused eyes don't immediately notice the glint in Will's own, the sudden hint of challenge he keeps trained on Hannibal. Slowly he shifts his weight, still not breaking rhythm, to lean only on a single arm. The other hand slides off across the sheets and under the pillow that lies unused behind Hannibal's head.
He keeps eye contact, locked and steely, as he pulls out a leopard-print scarf.
In a second Hannibal feel his pulse stop, then race. His hands are by his sides, not raised above him, and Will doesn't seem to move to change that. He only touches the silk to the side of Hannibal's face, moving one end across his jaw then downwards until it rests across his neck. The thin fabric rests ticklishly against his skin, bracketing the front of his throat.
There's another of those endless moments of stalemate between them, of threat and promise, but then Hannibal doesn't wait to see what Will does next. Without warning he moves, sitting up and having to wrap one arm around Will's hips to prevent him for toppling, keeping him in his lap but with the both of them sitting upright. And then in another snap Hannibal rips the scarf from Will's grasp and wraps it backwards across the other man's neck.
He braces one hand on the mattress behind him, the other clenched around both ends of the scarf between Will's shoulder blades to pull it taut but not tight around his throat, and begins to snap up his hips to meet Will halfway. Will cries out and throws his head back, hands coming around to clutch at Hannibal's shoulders and fingers curling to dig blunt nails into tense muscle. The bow of his back pushes his erection against Hannibal's stomach to surge at the join of their bodies.
And that's how they move, locked together, the crackling fever building within them and between them like a wave that sucks the beach dry in its rise to its peak. Until the tide spills over, and everything falls.