gone to ground

The choice of location belongs to Hannibal — one of those islands that rent by the week with the expectation that rich families will vacation there and be disgustingly happy. It’s accessible only by boat or seaplane, and small aircraft are one dangerous hobby Will has yet to take up. Hannibal reclines on deck and provides commentary on local geography, botanical curiosities, the constellations visible at this particular latitude; he prefers to watch Will do the heavy lifting. He’ll make a sailor of him yet, one of these days.

There’s an incredible kitchen, because of course there is. There’s everything an angler could hope for. There are two king-size beds, one more than the two of them need at this point in their relationship unless the nightmares come to visit them there and Will has to decamp. Under ordinary conditions, Hannibal sleeps little, but with nowhere pressing to be, he’ll stay up all night and then lie in bed until noon. Tonight, Will intends to tire him out.

*

Cornered there at the water’s edge, stumbling in the dark, pursued — here they are again, thrust between two impossible options. The knife blade tugs at the fabric before it splits, just hard enough to give the goods a nice squeeze, and Will can watch mingled discomfort and amusement pass across Hannibal’s features like a cloud passing the face of the moon.

If Will wanted to separate him from his balls, he could do that now, easy — his left hand presses in through the gash in the fabric to cup Hannibal’s cock and balls. He’ll leave him his underwear for now, those nice square-cut briefs he favors, and grip him tight enough in his fist to elicit a thin stifled sound of discomfort.

This is what Hannibal’s forfeiting to him— the satisfaction of hearing him in pain, of knocking him down and knocking the wind out of his lungs. The pleasure of destroying fine things and of taking them apart. Will’s no longer frightened; he is exhilarated.

“How would you kill me, Will? Now that you have me. I’m at your mercy.”

Will smiles, showing teeth. “You know how.”

With his hands. He wants to wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze. He wants to feel him struggle, to feel living tissue yield in his grip, and to know he’s not going to relent until he’s gone. Both of them are filthy and disheveled and tangled up in one another, both of them are bloodstained from their pursuit and half out of breath. In the moonlight, all blood looks black.

The knife in his hand only needs to hesitate a moment for Hannibal to take the occasion to struggle without nearly as much concern for his femoral artery, striking Will in the chest and jerking out of his grip. Will strikes him across the face, and presses his knee down hard in the middle of Hannibal’s chest.

“It’s over,” Will says. “I’ve got you.”

He hits him again with a flat hand until the blood comes bubbling down his upper lip — there are scratches on his face, scuffs of dirt from their pursuit, and the soft sound Hannibal gives when struck is sweetly unmistakable. Will wants to do it again and again. He wants to tear him with his fingernails and his teeth, he wants to shatter that marble-fronted composure and leave him in shreds.

Hannibal grins at him, with blood-streaked teeth. “What will you do with me now, I wonder?”

Will reaches out to muss his hair between his spread fingers. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

Groping him through the split in his nice tailoring — Hannibal hasn’t wasted one of his cherished Super 200s on their little game, but there’s still enough patent vanity to make it satisfying to run him through the dirt. Will straightens up, circling him there as Lecter lies panting on the ground in his ruined suit. He rubs his hands against his thighs, and paces.

“You’re a real piece of work, doctor. You look good bloodied.”

“I could say the same for you. I’ve seen you in much worse states than this.” He tugs at his ruined clothes as if he can smooth himself out, like a parody of dignity. He’s no longer knocked down, he’s reclining, he’s waiting.

Hannibal can’t admit that this is what he wants — that this is perhaps what he’s always wanted, in the spirit of turnabout and fair play. To be ruined, muddied, taken apart, subjected to indignity after indignity — with the knowledge that Will has every intention of bringing him back to their door again when he’s finished using him. He wants him to use the knife to strip him but not to cut him, to bruise him without harming him, to fuck him ragged and to love him.

Will wants to take him there, right there on the ground, under the night sky. The stars don’t care. The stars have watched their whole perverse dance of attraction and repulsion, when they’re together and when they’re apart. The same pale light over both of them like a shroud.

It’s a full moon tonight. Will drops to his knees and gets to work.

It’s difficult to remove the clothes from a limp body — Hannibal knows this, and he resists every step of the way, for authenticity’s sake. Will strips his shirt away, using the knife where flesh and bone won’t comply — he can feel his heart beating, and each strained breath makes the smooth muscles of his chest surge and sink. Hannibal dislikes wearing an undershirt — something to do with how his other garments catch on the additional fabric, or more likely his terrific vanity enjoys it too much when the muscles and bones of his torso can be glimpsed through an immaculate dress shirt. His chest hair is sleeked with sweat. Will presses his hand down past the bone ledge of Hannibal’s ribcage to the hairy heat below his navel, where it all flows together like the brushstrokes of a painting. The soft fine hairs catch against the calluses of his palm like barbs.

Hannibal’s put on a little weight in the years since they first met — only a little, only enough to leave him thicker in the waist, and in this moment of total abjection the rise and fall of his tender lower belly is like a visible flag of surrender to whatever Will wants to do to him. But on either side, sharp hipbones, deep creases past the black waistband of his underwear — his heavy cock is slick and wet, and when Will roughly palms the shape of his erection he can feel its desperate jump.

Time to take a different tack. He rubs his cupped hand over the shaft of Hannibal’s cock with teasing lightness, and watches the muscles of his jaw tighten.

“You’re so fucking wet. When’s the last time you pissed yourself? When’s the last time you lost control?”

“Lose control? You should know I never do.” Hannibal’s crooked smile is meant to goad him, and it does — Will grips a fistful of his hair and twists his head back to expose the naked line of his throat, but the excitement is still plain in Hannibal’s face, the color in his blood-smudged cheeks and the tongue pressing between his teeth. In his eyes — there’s a feverish light there in his dark eyes that makes Will want to do something vicious.

Underneath his clothes, Will’s body is thrumming with nervous heat — or not nerves, the TV-static crackle of unbearable arousal, not just localized in his crotch or his hands or the back of his neck but seething beneath the skin. His harness sits beneath his clothes, digging in a little where he straddles Hannibal’s bent legs; in silicone, his cock is thick and heavy. In palming it free he cups his fingers over the stiff molten heat of flesh and blood, and he aches.

He lets it press between them, lets Hannibal register the texture and dimensions of what he’s about to rail him with; rubbing between the tops of Hannibal’s thighs, the lacquer-black silicone comes away shining with pre-come. He loves the stink of it, the thin high smell of urgent need — Will strokes himself, sticks two fingers in his mouth so he can taste the salt where the two of them run together.

“I should gut you,” Will says, “for what you did to me. For what you did to the people I loved. I should hollow you out and throw out your guts like trash. I ought to leave you for the fish.”

Loved, in the past tense. There is no one else in the world now for him to love. Will twists a fistful of hair at its root, and Hannibal leans into it like a caress. His voice is thin and broken from exertion, but nonetheless entirely too confident.

Hannibal’s eyes are drowsy, half-closed. “I agree. You should take me apart.”

Will drops the knife and fumbles the fine leather belt from Hannibal’s waistband — he thinks of binding him with it but discards the thought. Certain kinds of pain are more agreeable to Hannibal than others.

“Stay down,” Will tells him, and he does — frozen in place, anticipatory. Rising up over him with shaking legs, he doubles up the leather and makes for himself a really expensive strap.

Hannibal is listening to him. Every muscle in his body shows it. Will keeps talking.

“You look good like this, helpless. This is what gets you going.” He lets the leather belt trail down the mountain range of Hannibal’s bent back. “If I knew this was what you wanted I’d have done this a long time ago.”

He strikes him across the shoulders, across his taut thighs, until his bare skin is striped with red — Hannibal’s body tenses against each impact, but he makes no sound, stiff-necked and stubborn even as Will can feel him tremble. He still grips his discarded shirt in his fist, twisting it between his knuckles like a security object.

But Hannibal’s left hand is scratching in the dirt, as though searching for purchase on something he can use. Will presses the heel of his own hand down onto it and laces their fingers together. He covers Hannibal’s naked back with his body, feeling the stinging heat of each fresh stripe through his clothes; manipulating his limbs presents an eerie mix of compliance and resistance. Hannibal is making himself resist, but he’s desperate to comply, desperate even when Will knows exactly what that body can do. What it’s already done to him, and to innumerable others, more people than Will may ever know.

Will swallows, feeling his throat click. “I want you on your hands and knees.”

He yanks Hannibal’s trousers and briefs down past the thigh, baring his narrow ass to the night air — it’s easily one of his best features, and it begs to be bruised. The buttons of Will’s pants are undone and the fly is spread wide; he sticks his fingers under the harness straps to stroke himself until the edge of his arousal is dulled enough to be bearable.

Hannibal braces against the ground, watching him over the taut line of his shoulder; his dark eyes are heavy-lidded and hungry.

“Spit,” Will orders, “or I’ll do it for you.” He holds his hand to Hannibal’s mouth, knowing how he might bite. Hannibal can only manage a sad thread of saliva, blood-tinged, and Will laughs at him.

None of their usual prelude — Hannibal’s meticulous in all things, even the things that seem spontaneous, and he prefers sex to be complicated. Multiple acts and multiple positions, polymorphous roles in constant flux. Normally this suits Will fine. Tonight he knows what he’s meant to do, what he’s allowed to do. Will presses his slick fingers into the seam of him until he finds the breach of Hannibal’s asshole — he enters him despite resistance, sinking into the tight blood-heat of his body.

“Is this what you like? You want to be used?” Will ducks his head to spit, feeling the muscles of Hannibal’s thighs wince and twitch. “If they could see you now, every patient you’ve ever condescended to, they’d be thanking me. Don’t talk, or I’ll make this worse for you.”

Hannibal may hear the small click of a plastic cap flicking open as Will settles against him from behind, and he must know the naked surgical smell of silicone lube perfectly well at this point, but what Will strokes himself with behind his back is none of his business. He wants to leave traces in him, to leave Hannibal sticky with what he’s left behind once they’ve finished here. He wants him to feel it later.

Will twists Hannibal’s wrist up against his back, gripping it tight as he eases inside him — the Verger family brand is still there, spilled across his back like a tangle of thorns, and the flush of exertion makes it stand out starkly. Will rubs the scars with a thumb. Neither of them has any shortage of permanent identifying marks. Other people find Will difficult to look at these days, after what Dolarhyde’s knife has done to the nerves in his face. It spares them both some scrutiny. Will presses his mouth to the sweating slope of Hannibal’s upper back and sucks a bruise-hard bite.

I love you, he thinks, God help me, I love you. They are joined together in this, skin to skin, flesh against flesh. The thin clear liquor of Hannibal’s arousal is wet on Will’s skin, and Will’s cock is throbbing painfully, his knees are sore and his jaw is too tight.

“It’s too big,” Hannibal says tightly. “Will, it won’t fit.

“You expect me to believe that? This is what you’re made for. Cut away the bullshit, and this is what you are. Just a thing to fuck.”

He grips his ass tightly, keeping him spread — each sharp thrust jars against Will’s pubic bone, with the answering snap of skin against skin, and Hannibal’s hard sharp breaths like murmurs in a language Will doesn’t know. Adjusting the cant of his hips, he can press the blunt smooth head into the most vulnerable spot inside him, and Hannibal’s raw panting breaths become full-throated cries.

“I can fuck you as long as I want,” Will tells him. “Until you beg me to stop.”

His blood is pounding now, his muscles are surging with the clean fire of exhilaration — he can feel him in his belly, in his thighs, in the blood-hot swollen pit of him. He grips Hannibal by the back of the neck as he fucks him, pressing him down into the dirt — the rattle of his own awful raw breathing fills his ears, and Hannibal’s choked sounds as Will’s cock reaches its hilt in him.

Pain’s good. Pain’s the thing that chains them together.

He can feel him coming undone, everything sleek and cold and finished shaking apart beneath Will’s hands — when he’s there at the brink Will buries himself in him, pressing his mouth to his sweating back and sucking a hard bruise. Hannibal spills all over himself in hard steady pulses, and Will holds his cock in his hand to feel each agonized twitch and throb.

Will slips free of him, replacing the dildo’s thickness with two fingers. Hannibal’s body has reached the limit of its receptiveness; his asshole is fucked raw-red, slick with spit and come and lube all running together. Will’s fingers tug and twist inside him, and it elicits a shuddering whimper through gritted teeth. Almost a laugh.

“Yes,” Hannibal says, as his thighs clench and shake. “Yes, that’s enough. Yes.”

Will draws back onto his haunches, martialing his breathing into regularity even as his heartbeat still hammers a tattoo against the inside of his ribcage. The body is laid out before him like a sacrifice, tangled up in ruined garments with one leg bent and one hand still clutching in a fist — dark earth flecked with broken shells like teeth and the debris of leaves, the marks of their coupling like deep gouges torn in the earth. The broad muscle of Hannibal’s back heaves with each breath he takes; his body is turned like a blade, and every mark on it shines like a source of light.

Hannibal’s head is turned to the side, his cheek pressed to the wet nocturnal earth; Will watches his mouth twitch into that serene, satanic smile. “I like this side of you, Will. It’s vicious."

Will embraces him from behind, rolling him over onto his side — his still-slick cock fits there between his legs and Hannibal takes it in his hand. The two of them fit together there, winded and broken on the bare ground — Will reaches up to cup his face, to feel the pulse trembling in the underside of Hannibal’s jaw. They are alive, they are both alive, and they are together.

After they’ve been there a while, Hannibal presses his mouth to the inside of Will’s wrist, reverently and without the threat of teeth.

“You’ve been wearing the cologne I bought you since we left shore.” His voice is a low murmur, a little drowsy, a little raw. “That’s a romantic touch. I would have known you were coming for me by that alone.”

The pad of his tongue traces across the veins there at the base of Will’s hand. Will exhales.

“Yeah, but you let me catch you anyway. That’s awfully generous.” He presses his mouth to Hannibal’s cheek, and scents blood.

*

In their rented shower, everything washes clean again.

Will cleans the dirt and grit from Hannibal’s body; he tends to the small abrasions there in the palms of his hands and kisses the scraped knuckles. His own exhilaration is fading into something small and pitiful, like the dull acid ache of exhaustion in every muscle, and all he wants to do is slither into bed.

On his knees against cold tile, he presses his mouth to the inside of Hannibal’s left thigh, and Hannibal permits it. His back is to the wall, and his fingers twine in Will’s wet hair. Will tastes tap water and soap and skin, his nose and mouth are full of the smell of pomegranate seed and bitter orange. Will grips the outside of Hannibal’s thigh, working at his own cock between stiff fingers — when he comes for him it’s like an apology, with Hannibal’s hand pressed to the back of his neck.

When they go to bed together Will will rub his sore places with salves that smell like herbs and Hannibal will instruct him in the exact ways he wants to be touched.