Chapter Text
10th July
The first rays of the summer sun caress his face in a slow waltz, creating sensual shadows upon his features and decorating his hair with burgundy reflections. His breath and the noise of the traffic are the only sounds that reside between the walls of his hotel room. He sighs, deeply, calming his raging mind and his stormig thoughts. It will be tough; he is sure of this. But he had to do what he did, right? The only solution to this complicated problem was only his disappearance. Will will understand, sooner or later. Have a family; have children; a happy life after all that he had been through. He will be... Fine. Something that Hannibal couldn't tell about himself; will he be fine?
The cotinuous sounds of his breath and the noise of the cars was suddenly interrupted by a strange, muffled voice and some powerful knocks in the door. No..., Hannibal's mind could mutter before his limbs moved, on instinct, as if the voice could command him so easily to listen to its orders.
"Open the damn door!" The man pressed a hand against the hard surface of the wood, then leant closer, letting the coldness of it calm his nerves; he glued his forehead to it, but was soon removed when an angry bang made the door rattle softly. Gulping down the lost temper, he made a swift gesture and two clicks could be heard. Then the flushed, frowning face of the man appeared before him and Hannibal wondered if the empath got more beautiful in the time of their separation or simply he yearned so much to see the man again.
"Watch your language; this is a respectable hotel." His voice is calm and composed, matching the stare that his maroon eyes envelop the empath with. He could practically feel the angriness touching a peak in Will's body and moved to the side to allow the man step into the apartment.
"How about I tell to all these respectable people how not respectable are you?!" The voice is strident and unpleasant for Hannibal; he closes his eyes, sighs and shakes his head slightly. How many times did he tell Will to excercise composure even in the situations that do not require it?
"Will you enter or shall I close the door?" At the question the slightly tanned face of the brown haired man reaxed in a less aggressive expression, his lips mumbling in an upset fervor some profanities to the regard of the door and respectable neighbours.
"Now explain." This time the words aren't shouted nor have the same force; they are more of a masked pleading, annoyance still coating the letters as they escape with a tremble off their possessor lips. A tremble which Hannibal finds surprisingly pleasant. Something from Will's appearance shows the desperate inner self and no one is better at reading Will Graham than the psychiatrist.
"I have never understood your rushed attitude toward matters. Take a seat. May I serve you with anything?" Hannibal turned to move to the mini-bar that was arranged on top of the fireplace, but a firm hand clutched his arm; powerful and demanding. Oh... He truly wants answers, the doctor hushed in his mind as he met the vibrating hues of the other. The ghost of a smile graces the doctor's lips as his eyes soften further, fill with untold desires and hurtful stories that had never escaped them, never had they been shared with anyone.
"Now I should let Bedelia how right was she. I have my assurance about her satisfied reaction..." His lips move on their own accord, as his hand dances through the air. His long fingers, in the end, rest against Will's cheek, gingerly, immensely delicate as if touching crystal or platinum or a glass made of the finest crystal decorated with platinum.
"What are you talking about?" The first reaction of the empath is to liberate Hannibal's arm and lean unconsciously into the other's touch, breath caught in his throat as he tries to avoid the pools of dark chocolate that stare into his very soul.
"Bedelia was right. This is all... I fell for you."
10th March
"She is Molly."
Hannibal stared with an unpenetrable, unreadable expression decking his features at the smiling woman. A hand was extended, but the doctor couldn't bring himself to return the gesture. In the end, his own polite self pushed his fingers out of his glove and, with a subtle grin dancing on his expression, he gently grabbed the woman's hand and brought it to his lips to press a chaste kiss upon the skin that wore no fragrance. Tasteless, his senses cried, wanting to take his friend's hand and indulge himself a moment of pleasure, to let the acrid and warm aroma of pine wander through his trachea, down into his lungs where to drug his senses numb and send shivers down his back. But he refrained and, instead, directed a curious glance to the hands that entwined between the two figures that stood in front of him.
"We should enter the café," he proposed with a forced, natural looking smile as he held open the door for the two. He exchanged a short, intimate glance with the blue eyed man and he almost closed the door after Molly, blocking her in the space of the coffee shop.
"So... Dear Will, you have been rather secretuous with me about this beautiful woman," Hannibal spoke as he dragged the chair for the woman, a soft giggle escaping her lips and a blushing tending to her cheeks.
"Doctor... I do not tell you everything," was the reply of the empath, that hid venom as his eyes scrustinised the behaviour of his friend. Oh, did Will truly believed Hannibal had any interes whatsoever in his pathetic date? Hannibal truthfully wanted to laugh.
"Since when?"
"Hannibal, you should stop interferring in this poor boy's life. He is old enough to handle his own business, don't you think?" A refined voice made its appearance and Hannibal let a knowing smile adorn his lips, while licking his bottom one.
"Thank you, Bedelia. You already know Molly, right?" The blonde woman offered a close lipped smile as he accepted the doctor's gesture to help her with the chair.
"I am glad to see you again, Molly."
"Oh, so even my evil friend does know about your lady and I have no idea." Hannibal voice is thick with envy and annoyance and Bedelia senses it as he mutters an amused grin, partly covering it with a hand. "I feel that you feared I might steal Molly from you, Will. Otherwise I see no reason in keeping her out of my attention." The blonde woman takes the menu and avoids the talk, knowing better that the reason Will has not yet presented his girlfriend to the doctor is not his fear. The empath wants to reply, his eyes glued to the burdgundy crystals of the man across him; but an arm wraps around him and the over-cheerful voice of the brunette next to him is heard in the room.
"No offense, doctor, but stealin' me is impossible. I fear this dear man made me see no other apart from him." Hannibal chuckles; low and threatingly; as to warn the woman, not show a sign of acceptance; in fact, there is no acceptance in his eyes and Will can see it. Bedelia can see it as well. Only Molly smiles childishly, dreamily as he clings onto Will.
Tactless.
07th December
The lips of the doctor are coated in the sweet touch of the rose sparkling wine, ghosting along them with a sweet aroma and on his fine palate with a berry fragrance that persists even after running his tongue upon the soft skin of his bottom lip. The curve of a smile contours on his face as his eyes settle upon the moving frame of a woman and rest against the perfectly defined contours of her body that is suavely embraced by a dark teal dress; the blond tresses accompany in the most elegant and simple way the impression of beauty and composure combined in her appearance.
"Don't even dare, Hannibal Lecter. That charming grin of yours won't erase the fact that you missed our last appointment."
The same Bedelia, the doctor thought about his beloved friend, Bedelia du Maurier, his confident, source of advice and devoted psychiatrist as well. Her smile was of good-nature, silently scolding the older man in a motherly way, keeping, in the same time, a calculated expression upon her features. At a first glance, the blonde appearared to be the personification of composure and collection; every gesture was analysed and dissected in her mind before to even become a command for her nerves; she possessed the most subtle and cynical humour and a disarming smile that could put at her feet any stubborn heart; she was dedicated, but not necessary loyal and Hannibal knew it better; the noble roots showed on her features in arrogant grins and domating glances. Hannibal found in her the perfect comrad, appreciating the beauty and the coldhearted naure, the power and the attention to details and valued her as his equal, which was hard to extract from an individual with such high standards as the doctor was.
"It's good to see you, Bedelia," the lips of the doctor muttered as the slim arm of the woman snaked around his neck and as she pressed a fugitive kiss upon his cheek, careful to not leave traces of lipstick on his unblemished visage. He took into the familiar fragrance of the woman, noting in his mind the name of the perfume.
"I must introduce you to someone..." Bedelia's body suddenly parted away from her friend's one, just in time for her voice to rise interest into the great mind of Hannibal's. The words were intriguing and hid mysterious meanings that wouldn't unveil their content easily, as the doctor could foresee. Before he could even mumble a comment about Bedelia's 'evil' plans, he was quick to notice how her fingers were firmly holding the arm of an unknown man. His maroon crystals slowly rose, delecting themselves with the elegant proportions of the other's body; his sight was full of glisten and hushed, silent interest, muted appreciation being directed to the blonde woman.
"This gentleman, my dear friend, is Hannibal Lecter. I have my assurances that you have heard of him until now." As the woman makes the presentation, Hannibal's gaze starts to decipher the lost, troubled and yet collected expression of the man; the blue eyes that seem shadowed by stormy clouds hide and play with his sight, in the moment when he almost caught the other's stare his crystals retiring under the cupole of their lids or running to their sides, swiftly and with ability. Hannibal concluded that the blue eyed stranger did not want quite yet to meet his soul and whole universe and, despite curiosity picking at the chords of his heart and pressing different buttons into his mind, he respected that. Politeness is coaxed into the stranger's expression through a smile that is directed toward Bedelia, who watches the still reserved interaction between the two with a darling smile of self-satifaction.
"A pleasure to meet you, mister..."
"Graham. William Graham." Hannibal almost sighs as his eyebrows mimick undivided interest toward the stranger. William's voice is thick, subtly raucous, deliciously coated in a sensual Southern accent that vibrates through the syllables; his vowels are prolongued and moving through his lips with paradoxal allure, given the cold and rather austere behaviour of the man; his consonants are rough, almost unpleasant if not for the gentle tremble of his voice while floating through the air, pouring in Hannibal's ears like a drug, numbing his senses and sending shivers down his back to patrol in silence and order.
"William...," he makes, extending a hand, a hand that has the unmoving stability of the hand of a surgeon. The blue eyed man darts a glance at his fingers and extends his own limb, to calmly reply to the psychiatrist's shake. Hannibal can see the desire of the man to say something, can read it in the soft lines of his expression; but he can't hear any word so he communictes through a smile his encouragement. The struggle of the other to avert his scrutinising, pinning gaze is real and Hannibal almost chuckles in delight at the discreet battle that is wore between them. In the end, with tanned fingers resting without power against his own palm, he closes subtly the space between them, voicing in a secretive tone his conclusions.
"Full empathy?" In the meantime, the sensitive Bedelia retired to watch the chasing game of his friends from a shadowed corner, while seemingly entertaining a conversation with the host of the charitable party.
"How did you know?" are the words that escort William's gaze to Hannibal's maroon, almost burgundy crystals. The psychiatrist does nothing to remove his fingers; he stays close, smiling in a satisfied way and trying to penetrate the hues of ice and silver. His own eyes are now softening with ginger sparkles in hues of red as he slowly, but steadily digs his way into the empath's mind.
"I have met, in the quality of psychiatrist, a lot of people, William." Again the impulse of speaking is leaving traces against William's face, but he does not pronounce yet his demands. He leaves firstly the prolongued physical contact with Hannibal and grounds himself.
"Will. Call me Will, please." The empath's voice is again rough against his ears, passing with a rattle through the windows of his mind palace, knocking feverishly at the locked doors of his mind and leaving in its disappearance a breeze that travells down the arch of his spine in a short, electrifying shiver.
"Will, then." The blue crystals are hidden again by their possessor and Hannibal almost order the man to look into his eyes. The fascination that the blue eyed man coaxes into him is almost unbelievable and almost surprising. The blue eyes move to inspect the vast room and, before the empath to find an escape from the doctor's proximity, Hannibal lets words adorn his lips, together with a chaste grin.
"I am not dangerous."
"Excuse me?"
"I am not dangerous, Will." Innocent curiosity and unhidden surprise pictures an inquiring, amused expression upon Will's sharp features, molding them in a fond display; all the lines of his face partake in a movement that shakes his chest as well and a chuckle is left to rest in the air between them. The stiff stance of the empath relaxes and the two glacial lakes melt into two pools of water. Hannibal feels warm and delighted at the exhibition of emotions Will indulges him to witness and he wonders how many other expressions the empath hides under that appearance of hostility and tiredness.
"Then we have radically different opinions, doctor. You are a predator," the empath states in a voice that still is clogged with amusement while drowning his impulsive, playful grin in the sparkling wine. Hannibal's crystals soften their shields further, allowing the empath to read him and take him in any way he would like. When he speaks again his voice is more of a breathy note that floats around them with secure promises of future meetings:
"Only in the case I find an interesting prey..."
10th July
There is a warm weight on his chest, spreading along his side and his right leg and as he opens his eyes, slowly, he discovers a muffled face into his naked chest. The breath of the other is calm and deep, and he registers the summer sun that is already losing its arms under the horizon line. A sigh is forced out of his lungs, long and showing satisfaction, emanating warmth and bliss and comfort. He rests his cheek upon the soft, curly strands of the man and smiles calmly, closing his eyes and reveling into the sensation of skin touching skin and the heat shared by them; finally, in his arms.