#fbihound

It’s a quiet Wednesday morning when he asks, “Can I touch you?”

Will’s voice was steady but the words swirled around in his head like grains of sand—rough and teeming and insignificant in the face of it all.  He heard the roaring of water in his ears, felt himself stepping over the edge of another bluff.  While he and Molly had fallen into sex in warm, organic, and natural ways (snuggling on the couch after dinner dates until the dessert’s wine softened the boundaries between them), he could only picture an encounter with Hannibal in the most violent and clinical terms (covered in blood, coupling as a way to keep the spark of adrenaline flowing).  

Hannibal’s eyebrow was raised, but Will had been lost for too long to stop talking before he was finished.  “I don’t know how far I can go before I drown, but I need to try.  I need to see this—what we are.”

The eyebrow hadn’t returned to its resting position.  “Another clutch for balance.  It’s interesting to me that you ignore the physical, stuck among the tables of your mind, and then when it’s all become too much, you immerse yourself in it. Touch rules you, from a kiss to a knife plunged into your gut.  In some ways, I think you’ve craved it all along.”  Hannibal’s face was relaxed, but as always, his eyes carried a hint of a smirk. “I’m happy to provide you with that compass, Will.  How do you want this happen?  Where does your mind’s eye take you now?”

“I don’t know about my mind’s eye, but tradition supplies us with a bed.  Maybe some candles, and rose petals?”  Will laughed.  Hannibal stood, and, taking his arm, followed them to the bedroom.  Though Will had intended upon sleeping in the tiny spare room next to the kitchen, it seemed the lines between them had all but gone in every realm except the physical.  It seemed futile to try to hide from their bond between a few layers of plaster and wood.

“What does tradition dictate now?” Hannibal gestured towards his clothes.  Though his dress code had become somewhat more casual in death (his suits a cool linen blend and largely left stateside), he still donned a three-piece suit.  Will stepped forward, swallowing past the uncertainty and removing the light gently brown blazer, setting it on the dresser.

“This will do, I think.” He stepped back to take in the full picture of Hannibal in his shirtsleeves, standing in the bedroom as a warm breeze ruffling his hair slightly from its gelled side part. Slowly they moved to the bed. Hannibal reached for Will’s hand and places it on his heart.  The way he looked at him made Will reach for his shoulder, turning onto his side to feel with both hands.  Hannibal’s breast swelled with his breathing, his heartbeat racing under Will’s fingers.

Before he could speak, Hannibal unbuttoned and pushed the shirt off his shoulders.  Will pulled the v-neck over his head and blatantly gaped at his body, the flesh and muscle warm and dynamic against the comforter.  He’d never seen a man’s skin like this, has never imagined gripping a partner and feeling the contours of a well-defined bicep, or smelling the sweaty tang of musk around him.  His hands fell to Hannibal’s sides, rubbing familiarly at the area he’d always found so appealing on the women he’d bedded.  He stroked upward, back to his chest.  The thick salt-and-pepper hair parted under his fingers like a field of grain.  And then their eyes locked together again, and Will was gone.  It was this body that knew his cruelty, and warmly cleaned his hands of blood.  It was this body that flexed for him taut and warm, and had killed for him and hurt him in ways he didn’t fully understand.  Will found himself undressed and vulnerable under Hannibal’s gaze.

“Can I touch you?” Hannibal quipped.