Betrayal
by elfin


Will Harker threw the edge of the shovel into the freshly dug earth and leaned on the handle, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his lumberjack shirt.

At the bottom of the long garden, the lake separated the islands from the mainland of downtown Toronto.  It reminded him of Sugarloaf Key in Marathon, Florida.  Deliberately, he'd moved out of the US and into Canada.  New name, thanks to Crawford.  New life, since he'd woken up in the intensive care unit of Miami's Mercy hospital and found his old one had been ripped away from him.

Molly and Josh had made it, physically in one piece.  Mentally, what Dolarhyde had done to them had been too much.  Molly Graham had kissed her unconscious husband goodbye and left Florida while Will had remained in his blissful coma.


"Will Graham?  I'm Special Agent Clarice Starling."

He looked up as a young woman stepped onto the newly laid patio, FBI badge held out to him at arm's length.  He glanced at the card.

"It's not Graham any more," he told her steadily.  "It's Harker now."

The woman flipped her ID card closed and slipped it into an inside jacket pocket.  "As in Jonathan Harker?  The man who escaped Dracula's castle and survived?  Is that what you feel you did?  Escape the horror to survive?"

"You think I survived?

Will sighed, eyes closing for a moment.  "Are you, by any chance, connected to Jack Crawford?"

She schooled her expression, knowing how close her superior had been to Graham.  "He's my boss.  But he didn't send me, he just told me where to find you when I asked."

Standing up straight, Will took a deep, steadying breath and walked across the new lawn toward her.  "Lemonade?"

"Mr Graham, I need to talk to you."

He shook his head, passing her by and stepping into the two-storey, wooden panelled house.  In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of the bitter, fizzy liquid from the plastic bottle in the fridge, watching her through the window.

She was standing on the patio watching him right back.  She looked like one of Crawford's.  She had the same ambition in her face that he'd had when Jack had taken a shine to him.  Yet there was something else too, something else that reminded him of himself as he was now.

Stepping back outside, long, tall glass in one hand, the other thrust into the pocket of his shorts, he smiled at her.

"What can I do for you, Special Agent Starling?"

She locked her eyes with his.  "I came to talk to you about Hannibal Lecter."

Will's smile faded a little, and he looked away from her.  Was it he who was obsessed with Lecter, he wondered briefly, or Crawford?

"There's nothing to talk about."

"He's escaped."

The two words seared through Will like the blade that had almost killed him at Hannibal's hand.  He tried not to let his reaction show but he knew he'd failed when she asked him needlessly if he was okay.

Shifting to the wooden picnic table newly constructed on the patio, he slumped down to the bench, putting the glass on the tabletop with a trembling hand.  She followed, crouching down near to him.

"How the hell did he escape that hole they kept him in?"  Will's tone was measured, his words spoken individually and with great self-restraint.

"He... didn't escape the cell," she replied cautiously.  "They were transferring him to... better accommodation."

He laughed, a strangled, unbelieving sound.  "What?"

"Chilton got him a deal with a senator if he helped save her daughter's life.  He was being moved to a high security jail, somewhere..."

"...with a view," Will finished for her, nodding.  "And they fell for it?"  Anger was creeping inevitably into his voice.  "Didn't anyone think for a single second that he might have planned everything?"

She rose to her feet, fingers going to her temple to rub the pressure point there.  And he watched her.  He'd been a highly qualified profiler once upon a time.

"You let him get too close, didn't you?  You told him too much and now you don't know if you played him or he played you."

She looked away, and he could read the nightmares in her masked expression.  "He... he gets in your mind," she stumbled, "you must know that.  He got into yours."

"A lot of serial killers have got into my mind, Ms Starling.  It was my job."  It was neutral, and somehow he knew it wouldn't fool her for a moment.

"A job you quit."

"So would you if you'd wound up in Intensive Care twice, at the hands of the same man."

She looked at him for a long time, deciding her strategy, he thought, amused.  He had at least learnt from Lecter.

"I'm not here to question you or judge you," he let the odd choice of words pass for now.  "I'm here to warn you."

"He won't hurt me."

"You seem very sure of that after what you said about Intensive Care."

He looked away.  "You sound like you got to know him.  Are you worried?"

The tables were turned.  She hesitated now.  "I think... I think he... grew fond of me."

Will kept his gaze set on the expansive lake.  It was never a single emotion when it came to Lecter.  So many seemed to join a mix which was different each time he thought about it.

Was he relieved?  Happy?  Sad?  Frightened? Jealous?

He was certainly frightened.  Hannibal found his favourites and never let go.  Hadn't he always known that with the doctor still alive, he'd always live in fear?

"He was fond of me," he returned finally, "and he still tried to kill me."

"He would consider it rude to come after me."

Will laughed that unfeeling laugh once more.  "Yes, he does have his manners."

Clarice relaxed.  Stepping around the table, she straddled the bench on the other side and he did her the courtesy of turning around to face her, mirroring her position.

"You're not as I expected you'd be," she informed him casually, more confident with this kind of talk.  "You're younger than your file suggests."

He hesitated.  He'd told Lecter a lot about himself at the beginning and regretted it later.  Since then, he'd never really trusted anyone else.

"Crawford took me out of the academy to solve a case."  Tilting his head, he read her suddenly crystal clear face.  "He did the same to you, didn't he?"  She nodded once.  "He likes to own his investigators."

She frowned.  "I thought you two were close?"

"We were - are, probably.  I just... I blame him, I guess, for Dolarhyde.  For sending me back to Lecter, for my wife leaving me after I told her to kill Dolarhyde in order to save herself and our son."

She gazed at him with sympathy and he gazed back with barely hidden contempt.  She'd come here to tell him something and she'd done that, Will thought to himself.  He hadn't broken down or lost it in front of her.  The danger time had passed.  

"Lector... asked me things.  He refused to talk to me unless I told him about myself."  She was talking now without prompting, and he realised that she needed to tell someone.  In an odd way, she'd lost Lecter just as he had.  Despite everything, that man was a part of their lives and he always would be.  "Did he use the 'quid pro quo' line on you too?"

Will paused before shaking his head.  "We became friends when I was working on another case.  We... had him around to dinner once.  We would sit and talk until all hours, finding common ground, sharing opinions and ideas."

She smiled gently, not wanting to be interested but unable to contain her fascination.  "Was he different when he was free?  In his own environment, his own home?"

He chuckled without humour.  "You're talking about him like he's a science experiment."  The disgust in his voice was hardly disguised.

It surprised her that he was as protective of Lecter was of him.  "Sorry.  I just mean... I can't help but wonder how much of how he was with me was just a front, and how much was really him."

"You can't ever really know him."

"But you're sure of him.  He stabbed you, putting you in hospital for three months.  Later he gave a madman your home address, and told him to kill you.  Yet... you haven't said a wrong word about him."  Her tone was almost accusatory, but her expression remained sympathetic.  Will didn't respond.  "What makes you so sure he won't come for you?  It was you who caught him."

But he was shaking his head.  "I didn't.  When Crawford found us in Lector's office, I was almost dead, I died as he lifted my shoulders into his lap.  The medics restarted my heart a minute or so later.  I was lucky, they said, to be alive and not to have suffered any brain damage.  Lecter was lying over his desk with three arrows in his stomach and two bullet wounds in his chest.  I didn't catch him."

"But it was your testimony that put him in jail."

Will shrugged.  "He wouldn't consider that anything more than me doing my civil duty."

Clarice shook her head, leaning forward, unconvinced.  "He might still blame you, Will.  He might still come here."

She seemed genuinely concerned and that touched him.  How much was her concern, he wondered, and how much was Crawford's?

"He won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

Tracing the grain of the wood with his index finger, he thought before answering.  "He and I became pen-pals."

She stared at him for a long time, trying to work out - he imagined - if he was winding her up.  Deciding he wasn't, she replied, "Pen-pals?"  Will nodded, smiling, reaching for his lemonade.  "What do you write about?"

He looked away, hoping the blush he felt wasn't reaching his cheeks.

"Personal things."  He shook his head, a smile touching his lips.  "Things I'm not going to tell you about."

"But you're happy telling him?!  He gets into your head, you won't ever break free from him if you allow him to stay there."

When he met her eyes, his own were stony.  How could she possibly imagine that he could ever break free from the man who haunted his nightmares and his fantasies?  He knew in his own mind that it was something he should at least be striving for, but he didn't want to, not after all this time, after all he'd shared with Lecter.

To Clarice, he said, "I know him.  You're worried about me.  Tell Jack that I'm fine."

She nodded.  "He feels guilty about the last time.  He thinks he played you, played on your nature."

"He did.  And I barely escaped with my life.  But... I'm safe now.  Dolarhyde's dead and Hannibal won't hurt me.  He won't come after me."

It was a lie.  It had all been a lie.  But he felt sure she'd swallow it, either as professional certainty or naivety.  It didn't matter to him which one.

He was sure, in fact, that Lecter would visit him.  Their correspondence had remained intimate and intensely erotic for a couple of months.  Now he had his freedom, Will knew instinctively that he'd want what they'd been playing with in writing.

It scared Will to realise that he wanted it too, no matter how high the price.  Lecter wouldn't kill him, he would lose too much.

Clarice was watching him intently.  She'd studied him apparently, and he wondered why.

"He mentioned you," she said suddenly, as if answering his unasked question.  "During our talks, he spoke of you."

Something inside Will caught, but he didn't allow himself to jump on her offering.  Instead, he waited for her to continue.  They'd become rivals, he realised with no little shock, in the space of ten minutes.

"I asked him," she admitted finally with a guilty nod of her head.  "After I'd met him, I wanted to know you.  The stories of the two of you, of how you caught him, are legendary at the academy.  Up until that moment, he'd been playing with me, seducing me.  When I mentioned your name his whole demeanour changed, became harder somehow.  He asked why I wanted to know about you.  He became very protective, proprietary.  He's possessive of you."

A chill drove down Will's spine.  It didn't sit easily with him.  Lecter had a tendency to collect those things he wanted to possess.  Taking a deep breath, he settled himself, bringing to mind a favourite line from one of Hannibal's letters.

'You mentioned your nightmares.  I know you're scared, Will.  But how could I hurt you after all you've given me? You've given me back some human feelings, I owe you both our lives for that.'

"He can't possess something he's never owned."  Will said it as a throw-away comment, wanting to allay her worries as well as convince himself.

Calmer, he sipped his drink and waited.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief when she stood.

"Can I ask you something personal?"  He nodded slightly.  "Do you dream much?"

The words almost shattered the fragile walls built up around his feelings and memories of his last couple of encounters with Lecter.

But where he hadn't ever answered the serial killer, he answered her.  "Every Goddamn night.  And it's always, always about him.  I don't think there's anything left in my subconscious besides him.  Does that answer your question?"

She sighed.  "Take care of yourself, Will."  And then she was gone.

Only when he was left alone once more he did allow the stress of the interview to show through.  

His face fell as tears blossomed in his eyes.  Sweeping his shaking fingers through his sandy blond hair, he dropped his head into his hands and sobbed quietly to himself.

* * *

"My dearest Will...."

His breath caught when he heard the soft, drawn out tones.  It was over a month since Clarice Starling had visited him, leaving him as shattered as Lecter's stabbing and Dolarhyde's shooting.  He'd prepared, but it had meant living very carefully.  It was almost a relief that Hannibal was actually here at last.

Turning slowly from the laptop he had open on the picnic table, Will looked up at his nemesis.

"Hannibal...."  The man looked fantastic.  He'd spent time in Florida or the Caribbean, was wonderfully tanned and slimmer than he had been living on the bad diet and lack of exercise he'd experienced in prison.  The thought that he'd been eating well took Will somewhere he didn't want to go.

Despite himself, he stood up and put his hands flat on the rough wooden surface.

Lecter hadn't moved from where he'd addressed Will from the edge of the patio.  His arms were held a little way from his body, palms up.  From under his crème-coloured Panama hat, he smiled reassuringly at his beloved ex-Special Agent.

"I'm not here to hurt you, Will, you have my word.  I just wanted to see you, to assure myself that you're all right, that you survived without too much scarring on the inside."

"I'm... okay."  He nodded, uncertainly.  "Molly... left."

"I know.  I'm sorry."

Will couldn't help it; he laughed the irony he felt.  "No you're not.  You said no one was safe around me.  Not even me."

Hannibal ducked his head.  "Things are different now.  I've thought about you a lot.  And your letters were a rare joy."  He hesitated.  "She hurt you."

"Not half as much as you did."  Was that true?  He doubted it.  She'd left him as he'd lain in a coma.  He'd woken confused, in pain, and utterly alone.

As if reading his thoughts, Lecter told him, "You'll never be alone."

Was that a promise, or a threat?  He decided he'd rather not know.  "I met Clarice,"

Lecter's face broke into a wide smile, but Will couldn't tell whether or not it was genuine.

"Yes.  Lovely, isn't she?"  Will didn't answer.  "Such an... enjoyable girl.  You know how I like to play my games."  There was a teasing in his honeyed voice, an invitation to join in with the self-mockery.  

That night, a lifetime ago, in Lecter's office, as he'd pressed close to Will, hand sticky with the young man's blood as it had seeped from the fresh knife wound, Lecter had told the man slumped against him that he'd wished the game could go on for longer.  Will hadn't realised that his life had been a game up until that moment.

It had been a game ever since. One of Lecter's choosing.

"Are you jealous, Will?"  He asked suddenly.

"No."  But the hitch in his own voice was clear even to himself.

"My dear, no one else could hold such a special place in my heart as you.  No one has touched me like you have.  You were mine before the letters started.  You know that, don't you?"  It was a rhetorical question.  Will ignored it.  "What did she say to you?"

"She came to tell me you'd escaped, to warn me."

"She thought I'd hurt you."

"Yes."

Lecter studied the other man for a moment.  "I had to kill six men to make my escape.  I don't like killing people who haven't offended me in some way but I had no choice."

Will's expression crumpled.  "Please, Dr Lector...."

But Lecter cut him off with a curt wave of his hand.  "Whatever reason you think I have for telling you that, you're wrong.  I'd like to think we've become close, you and I, by way of the letters.  Still, I don't know why you wrote them and it's unusual for me not to know the psychology going on behind a person's actions, especially one I thought I knew."

Will hesitated before admitting, "I can't tell you why I wrote them."

"Of course you can't, you understand it even less than I do.  What I'm trying to say, my young Will, is that for the first time in a very long time I find myself honestly caring what someone else thinks of me."

There was no appropriate response that Graham could come up with, so instead he asked, "Why did you come here?"

"Because I wanted to see you, one last time, before I disappeared.  And I was presumptuous enough to think that maybe you needed to see me, even if you didn't want to."

Slowly, Will nodded.  "I do."

"Good."  Removing his hat, he dropped it to the garden bench just under the kitchen window.  "I can't take from you the awful memories I've given to you, Will.  But I put better ones next to them."

Will swallowed passed the words caught in his throat.  What Lecter was offering wasn't love, wasn't a future or anything that would last.  It was a few hours being held and touched.  It was a break in the loneliness.

It was the fantasy they'd been sharing for years.  

Moving around the A-frame table, Will cautiously approached his visitor, leaving a few feet of patio between them.

"I can't take anymore," he told Lecter truthfully, praying he wouldn't be betrayed yet again, unsure why he kept placing faith in this insane individual.  "If you hurt me again, I'll kill myself.  I don't know if that's what you want.  I don't have the strength to fight you any longer."

With a soft murmur, Lecter closed the gap between them, touching fingertips to Will's lightly-stubbled  cheek.

"How precious a thing I would lose."  Leaning close, his mouth was barely touching Will's when he added, "Trust me.  I won't hurt you again."

It was soul-deep relief to let Hannibal draw him into an embrace.  The kiss was everything he'd imagined and yet nothing like it.  It was hungry, yet infinitely gentle.

Letting go of the tight control he always held himself under, Will melted into the other man's longing touch.  Hands cradled the top and small of his back, holding him like he was something precious.  Hannibal's tongue slid over Will's, coaxing him, reassuring him with every breath.

"Will," his name spoken like a murmur on the wind.  "My Will...."

Lips traced a path over the stubble of his jaw before returning to his own.

Finally he felt complete.  

This dark thing in his mind had plagued him since his first night out of the hospital after Dolarhyde's attack.  He'd woken in the narrow bed in Crawford's spare room, sweat soaking his still-healing body, his mind alive with erotic ideas of Lecter.

The letters had been his only release.  When he'd received the first reply, he'd waited three days before opening the envelope, unable to face Lecter's dismissal.  When at last he had read Lecter's words to him, he'd been aroused and frightened, excited and disgusted all at once.

Now, all he felt was a building pleasure, a need - so deep it had become a part of him - being fulfilled.

"Let's go inside," Hannibal murmured softly, slipping his hand down Will's tanned arm and taking his hand in a move reminiscent of the first letter he'd written.

He nodded, and led the serial killer into his home.

In the kitchen, Will stopped and turned.  "I need this."

"I know."

"I need...."

Stepping forward until one foot was between Will's, Hannibal whispered against his lips, "I know," before kissing him.

In that moment, Lecter turned him, pressing him back against the cupboards.  In the next, his hands were on Will's hips, lifting him easily to sit up on the smooth, granite work surface.

Will tensed, hands stiff on Lecter's shoulder.  The kiss had become close to violent and for a heartbeat, Lecter kept it threatening.  Then he backed off, easing his tongue out of Will's mouth, licking slowly the outline of his parted lips.

He stroked his hands over the young man's soft grey sweater, tracing his slim, almost too thin body through the woollen material.  Sliding his fingers just under the base of it, Hannibal touched the smooth skin of Will's belly, right hand moving to cover the long, pale, raised scar that ran from his abdomen to the base of his rib cage.

"Lean back," he instructed softly.  Will did as he was told, reaching his arms back and resting his weight on flat palms.  Lecter lifted his sweater and leaned down to place a trail of kisses along the healed injury he'd inflicted.

Will shivered in Hannibal's gentle grip, his eyes closed.  He felt one hand caressing his side around to the small of his back.  Sitting up slightly, he let that hand balance him while crossing his arms in front of him and lifting his sweater off over his head.

Humming appreciatively, Lecter trailed the tip of his tongue over Will's stomach and up to kiss each of the three circular scars left by the bullets from Dolarhyde's gun.

"How terrified you must have been," he whispered, "how much courage it took to stand there shooting as the bullets hit you.  Did it hurt, Will?"  He didn't need to look up to see the nod.  "Did you... lose control of your body as the shock set in?"  He did lift his head then, and saw the old humiliation in the ice-blue eyes.  Touching his fingertips to the pale lips, Lector silently hushed the other.  Then he replaced his fingers with his tongue.

Will sucked on the heavy muscle, memorising the taste of his lover, so different to what he'd imagined.  He felt Lecter's hands on his arms, thumbs pressing a deep massage into his triceps, then on, up and over his shoulders.  

When the kiss was broken, Will dropped his head back, giving Hannibal better access to his neck, to allow the hard tip of his tongue to trace around the lump of his Adam's apple and then down into the hollow at the base of his throat.  Lips pressed a chaste kiss to that sensitive point before vanishing from his skin.

Lifting his head, a bright expletive escaped Will's mouth as the sensation of wet heat and sharp teeth on his right nipple caught his undivided attention.

"Fuck!"

Looking down, Will watched for a moment as the dark, thinning head bobbed at his chest.  Then Lecter bit down on the hardening bud, and Will's murmur turned into a yell.

"How much..." Hannibal asked between bites, "can you take?"

The sharpening pain was exquisite.  Lecter alternated between teeth and lips, soothing after each assault.  When the right nipple reddened painfully, he swapped to the left.

It wasn't long before Hannibal tasted blood.

Time to move on.  His hands had kept up a slow, roaming exploration of Will's front and back, down over pronounced shoulder blades, fingertips searching out each individual vertebrae along the gently curved spine to the dip at the base.

Gaining confidence with every touch, Will wrapped his legs around the tops of Hannibal's thighs and crossed his ankles.  Lector's hands moved to stroke the tight, blue denim of his jeans, the heel of his palm pressing into Will's thighs.

"As much as I want to make this last, Will, it has been a very long time," Lecter told his lover with a teasing smile.

"Perhaps we could go for two or three courses, with a break between each," Will suggested, his own expression equally seductive.

Fingers moving to unfasten Graham's fly, Lecter silently approved the idea.  He dug his hand into Will's jeans, surprised when he didn't encounter underwear, just tight, heavy balls and a long, thick erection which sprang into his palm.

"Will...."

Graham eased his own jeans off, wriggling out of them while Lecter held on to his cock, stroking with a tight hand.

Naked, Will turned his attention to his lover's clothes.  Slipping the buttons through their holes, he opened the white cotton shirt to reveal a muscled, sculptured chest.  His fingers hovered above the tanned skin.  His fantasies didn't often involve him touching the other man.  He'd wondered about that but never questioned it.

"Don't, if you don't want to."

Nervously, Will touched finely haired skin, crossing to a small nipple standing out hard and dark.  Hannibal let out a soft groan, distracted when his other nipple was brushed too.  Braver, Will pushed the thin material off his lover's strong shoulders and Hannibal let it pool on the tiled floor.

With shaking hands, Graham unfastened the loose chinos and let them follow.

"I never wear underwear," Hannibal told him with a cheeky smile.  "It's another level of imprisonment."  He took a step forward, Will's legs hooking around him again, drawing him as close as he could get.

This time, Graham initiated a deep kiss as his erection was squeezed deliciously against Hannibal's belly.

Lecter pushed his hands under Will's tight, round ass and lifted him, moving him to the edge of the work surface.

Breaking away, leaning back on straightened arms, Will spread his fingers on the polished granite.  Hannibal's saliva-soaked fingers were already pressing between his buttocks, parting him, finding his anus.

He gasped as he was breached and penetrated.  But the pain didn't last for long.  It was quickly replaced by a fire, stoked each time hard fingers stroked over his prostate.

Perched on the edge of his kitchen cupboards, legs wrapped high around Lecter's waist, Will found a balance and braced himself for his lover's rough entry.

He was surprised when Hannibal's reached out and combed gentle fingers through his sandy hair, a sensual massage of his scalp.  Leaning over, Lecter kissed him, open-mouthed, tongue scolding his own.

With his free hand, Hannibal positioned his cock and pressed the head inside Will's body, going slowly.  

"Jesus...."  Will pulled in a deep breath, forcing himself to relax.

"Easy, Will," Hannibal's soothing tone matched the one he'd used when he'd slid the stiletto blade into Graham's abdomen and cut upwards through his liver.  The pain and terror of that encounter was equalled by the pleasure and excitement of this one.

Exhaling the air from his lungs, Will left himself open for Hannibal to push all the way inside him.

It wasn't an easy position to set some sort of rhythm, but they moved together, Will gripping Lecter's hip with one hand as he held his weight on the other.  Hannibal steadied him with one hand under Will's ass, the other cradling his head.

The stimulation of his cock rubbing against his lover's belly was maddening, but the pressure on the sweet spot just inside his ass was driving him closer and closer to the edge.

His arm threatened to give out, and he reached back with the other, falling onto his left hand, the action changing the angle of Lecter's cock inside him suddenly.

Will's cry met Hannibal's groan, and Lecter came hard as Will's climax shuddered through him.

Collapsing back between the work surface and the wall, Will winced when Hannibal eased out of his ass.

"Come on."  Sliding his arm under Will's, wrapping it around his back, Lecter steadied him as he slid to the cold floor.  Not needing to be given directions, he led Will up to his own bedroom.

*

Will dozed for a time, just enjoying the moment, wishing that the warm, loving embrace could last.  But he knew it wouldn't.  They could never have this - not in this lifetime.  They were the wrong people in the wrong place.

After coming up to bed, they'd lain face to face for a time, talking quietly.  

Will spilt details of his nightmares, the pain and humiliation of the hospital.  Hannibal asked about his suicide attempt and Will told him everything.  

He remembered distantly what Clarice Starling had said about letting Lecter get into his head.  The truth was, there was so much of Lecter in his head, he doubted that there was much of himself left.

In return for his honesty, Hannibal gave him the gruesome details of his escape.  There was no place in his dreams for anything more, so the things he heard didn't bother him.  The fact that he'd just let a serial killer fuck him in his kitchen didn't phase him either.  

An hour later, he let Lecter fuck him in his bedroom too.

They dozed for a while before Will asked about Starling.  Hannibal again accused him of being jealous, a smile dancing on his lips.

"You shouldn't be jealous."  And he meant it.  With Will lying over him, head pillowed over Hannibal's heart, slim, warm body wrapped around him, legs tangled, there was no competition.  He couldn't keep Will.  He couldn't have either of them.  This was a fantasy he couldn't afford.  "Would it help if I told you you're the first person I've made love to in over five years?"

Will lifted his head.  "Yes."

"She is fascinating.  And I do have feelings for her.  But Will... you've been a part of me for so long."

"I... I'm not jealous."  He settled again.

Another hour passed.  They aroused one another slowly, teasingly.  Their shared climax was long and drawn out.  

Finally, they fell asleep, Will curled on his side, Hannibal spooned up behind him, arms wrapped protectively around him.

For a couple of hours, they could have been any two men who'd shared a night of sex and desire.


Will woke but didn't move.  It was still dark outside the thin bedroom curtains.  Hannibal was a welcome heat behind him, something he'd missed more than he'd known.  

It couldn't last.

Finally, he felt the warmth leave him and Hannibal shift on the behind him.  Lips touched his neck and a low voice murmured, "I have to leave, Will."

He didn't move.  "I know."  He didn't open his eyes.

The silence between them stretched until Lecter rose.  A second later, Will sighed softly when he felt his lover crouch down beside the mattress and kiss each of his eyelids in turn.

"Take care, my dearest Will.  I won't return, but you'll be in my thoughts always."

Hesitating for just a moment, Will tilted his head and met Hannibal's mouth with his own in a light, lingering kiss.

Then he snuggled down, practically curling around the pillow.  "Han?  Don't forget to write."  He opened his eyes then, and caught Hannibal's adoring smile.

"Love ya, Will."

A second later, the bedroom door clicked shut.

Will blinked a tear from the corner of his eye, let it fall to the sheet.  He lay still, listening to the quiet sounds of Lecter going downstairs, dressing in the kitchen.  A small part of him hoped to hear the front or back door open and close.  It would be over then, and he would never see the man again.

But he knew Lecter too well.

He'd planned too thoroughly.

Listening, he heard the gentle clatter of glass on metal.  The bottle of highly expensive brandy being picked up and a glass being chosen at random from the tray just in the entrance of the front room.

It might have been anything.  There were two bottles of Hannibal's favourite Chianti in the kitchen.  A chilled Chardonnay was in the fridge.  Coffee, tea, any drink he could have wanted.

All spiked with a sedative strong enough to knock out an elephant.

When Will went downstairs half an hour later, eyes red with shed tears, Lecter was still unconscious on the floor of the hall.  Picking up his cell phone, Will dressed and went out into the back yard.

No more than ten minutes later, the island was awash with lights.  

A helicopter had landed in the park a couple of hundred yards down from the house.  Ten cars had come over on the emergency ferry they'd called out.  

The police chained and cuffed a still sleeping Dr Lecter and carried him into the secure van waiting outside.

Will watched everything from behind a blank, numb façade until the lights had all gone.

Two hours later, as the sun was coming up, Jack Crawford found him sitting at the picnic table in his back yard, head on his folded arms, sobbing quietly.


fin
elfin

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