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Chapter Text

Will hated full moons. Every month was exactly the same. The moon came and everything became worse. His empathy became worse, his moods became worse, he grew twitchy and restless. Of course, when the full moon came he could choose to ignore the call, the wolf that snarled and snapped within him begging for release. Begging to have its claws in the world, to touch and feel and run. If he ignored it though, the next month was worse. The wolf would pace, pounding on the doors of his mind. He learned the hard way that the wolf should have its way at least once a month. That was their bargain after all. Will had the days, every day and most nights for himself. The wolf was allowed one night every 28 days to have its turn. He hated every moment of it. Even if he gave the wolf the reins for one night, he still fought it every step of the way. The wolf was never truly allowed to exist. 

He wasn't quite certain which of them his control punished. Him or the wolf. 

This night was no different. As he handed over the reins, the wolf snarled and snapped, trying to tear the full control away. But Will never let it. He walked from his house, gladdened once again that he lived in the middle of nowhere. The dogs ran from the house. Always this was their favorite time of months, when Will joined them, walked among them as though he was one of them. They knew they Will wasn't one of them, he was something far more dangerous. He couldn't help but compare this to when he walked among humans. He was like them, but not one of them. The door behind him shut with a soft slap as the last dog, Jack, ran from the house. The dogs barked, rushing over each other and playing in the snow. Will didn't feel the cold as it touched his bare skin. He ran warm because of the wolf and on the full moon it was even worse. He could see the heat radiating from his body in the cold night air.

The sun had set fully only a few minutes before and any second now, the wolf would take over. He inhaled deeply, smelling the cold air. The heat and the cold had particular smells to them, smells that Will could never describe. Yet they were polar opposites of each other. 

As he took the last step off the porch, the wolf surged forward, pounding at the doors of his mind, howling and demanding. Will felt the bones in his leg snap as he pulled it off the porch. His weight gave out under him and he cried out in pain. The bones in his shoulder snapped next, making him collapsed on all fours. The wolf snarled. His hands shook as bones broke and shifted, changing positions. His back stretched and snapped, his hips moved upward. His spine elongated. The bones in his arms changed directions, his cracked with every new shift. The air felt like acid in his lungs and his veins were on fire. His heavy breaths became pants. His eyesight sharpened. He snarled as his other shoulder snapped, finally joining its counterpart. He could feel his jaw shifting, elongating into a wolf's muzzle. His nails turned to claws that sunk into the soft ground under him. The change felt like it took an eternity to complete. The moon rose into the night sky.

Will saw through the wolf's eyes. The wolf sniffed, smelling the air. There weren't any humans for miles. He knew the wolf longed to find them, to sink its teeth into them, but Will never let it. Just as he never let his human side embrace its darkest impulses. The wolf would never harm the dogs, seeing them as its pack rather than threats. 

The wolf stepped one paw into the snow feeling it on pads and under claws. It stretched, feeling newly changed bones that had settled into place. His fur was the same color as his hair which looked nearly black in the moonlight. The wolf looked upward, seeing the moon hang in the sky and howled. The dogs followed suit, bringing the wolf's attention to them. The wolf dropped forward on its front paws, tail high and wagging, tongue lolling to one side. The only thing Will and the wolf ever agreed on was the dogs. Jack barked, mirroring the wolf's position. 

There were a few seconds where the wolf and dogs stared at each other, completely still, before the dogs took off running, the wolf behind them. Paws collided with the unforgiving ground but the wolf didn't care. It was free. Or as free as Will allowed it to be. 

They never strayed far. Sometimes they went to the creek near Will's house. Sometimes they just ran, barking and howling into the night. It was late October, a few days before Halloween. Will knew at some point he would change on Halloween, but it hadn't happened yet. Even his sense of the macabre would call that irony. The wolf ran happily, watching the moon rise higher in the sky, aching to reach it. He couldn't deny that sometimes he felt free when the wolf ran took the small amount of control Will let it. There were no cares when he was the wolf. He didn't have students to worry about, he didn't have classes to prepare for, he didn't have bills to pay or serial killers to hover at the edge of his mind. It was just the night air and a pounding, excited heart. 

The wolf sniffed through the wood, inhaling the scent of the world's winter sleep. It brushed past trees, past bushes, marking its territory as it did every month. The dogs eventually found their way back to the house, which the wolf wandered around, sniffing and exploring. He never let it wander inside. The wolf was big, bigger than even his biggest dog. It was easy for it to make a mess. So the wolf prowled around the edge of the house, sniffing and searching. Once it seemed content with what it found the wolf trotted some more. It never stopped on these nights. Will knew he could let it out more than just on the full moon, but he never did. The wolf wasn't bound to the moon as most myths thought, but it longed for it. Longed to touch it. Yet it hung in the night sky, just out of reach. 

It trotted through the woods, exploring yet again. It wandered by the creak. All these paths were well worn by it, but since Will never let it leave the property, it explored well-known grounds over and over. 

The moon continued its arch through the sky with the wolf trotting behind it. 

Eventually, tendrils of light stretched forward, the sun reaching fingers across the expanse of Wolf Trap, Virginia. The wolf moved to the porch, curling up in a ball and falling asleep. 

Will woke an hour later, sore and dirty. He forced himself up from the hard wood of the porch. The dogs all lifted their heads from where they laid, curled together. He opened the door, letting them inside. He pulled on a pair of pants and went about making the dogs' food. After he fed them, he started his coffee pot and then ventured upstairs. He turned the shower up as hot as it would go, the wolf content in the back of his mind. 

Unfortunately, Will still had to be awake. The day after the full moon was always a long day. Because the wolf spent the whole night awake, he wasn't allowed any sleep. He would go into work the next day practically dead on his feet and surviving off of enough caffeine to fuel an army. But he did it every month over and over like clockwork. 

Today, Will was lecturing about the Marlow case. He knew it like the back of his hand, having managed to weasel his way into the case. This was his first year lecturing about the case and even to this day, it drove him nuts. He never knew who did it. That killer was always at the back of his mind, lurking in the darkness waiting for Will to find him. The Marlows' killer wasn't the only one. Two years prior, there had been a string of murders committed by a man dubbed the Chesapeake Ripper. Will hadn't been involved with the case, but he knew about it, he followed it. Until one day, both the Ripper and FBI trainee Miriam Lass vanished. It wasn't just the brutal, yet beautiful, nature of the Ripper's kills that caught his attention. It was the lack of blood. For some reason, the lack of blood always triggered something inside him. Something even the wolf paid attention to. Every murder that occurred, part of him wondered if the Ripper was behind it. But he always knew it wasn't, mostly because the victims were always found with blood in their bodies. But Will waited. Something that was enough to pique the wolf's interest had to be something important. He just had to wait to find out.

His first two classes passed with ease. Will was focused more on replaying details from his mind than the students at their desks. It was easy for him to sink back into that moment and pull it forward, relaying it to others. Interpersonal interactions though were much harder. 

At the end of his second class, someone else caught his attention. 

Jack Crawford was an interesting man. But he was just that, a man. The wolf within him longed to lunge forward, to kill, as it wanted to do with every human. And Will never let it. But for some reason, today the wolf didn't seem to care. Maybe it was Jack's posture. Or maybe the wolf was clairvoyant, as Jack's appearance came with an offer. He knew he shouldn't want it, he shouldn't want to let the killers in, to see through their eyes. But it was the closest he could come to the darkness without fully embracing it. So, he accepted. 

Will followed Jack to his office, listening silently as Jack went over the facts of the case. The victims, all girls the same age, weight, height, hair color, eye color, and skin type stared at him from emotionless pictures. The killer had a pattern and it was unfolding before his eyes. He forced himself to pull away, trying to reject the offer. Others could do the job he did, but for some reason, he feared that if he entered this job, that if he allowed Jack Crawford to pull him into this world, he would never leave. Not truly. 

He didn't want to embrace that darkness, just like he didn't want to embrace the wolf. They were things that were never allowed to see the light of day. He pushed them down, far into the depths of his mind. One was allowed a night and the other was satiated by the nearness he allowed it by teaching at the FBI Academy. He couldn't do anymore. He couldn't feed them anymore.

God, he wanted to.

He went with Jack to Minnesota, mostly out of morbid curiosity. If he could keep himself apart from this job, if he could let his darkness see but not touch, maybe this would be a substitute for the two things within him that longed to burst free. 

The wolf knew before him what was coming. He mostly ignored the Nichols' until he had his chance to see their daughter's room. And the wolf went nuts. It pounded against the doors of his mind, shrieking and howling. Will's head ached as he opened the door. The smell of death hit him like a freight train as he caught a glimpse of the body in the bed. The wolf knew, it knew before he did. And it was never going to let him leave this job now.

Chapter Text

Will had known Hannibal Lecter for nearly two years now. In that time, Hannibal had killed nine people, Will had discovered his friend and psychiatrist was the Chesapeake Ripper, then he was framed for Hannibal's crimes and attempted to kill him by proxy. Throughout all of that, Will had been subjected to induced encephalitis. It was strange, though, that Hannibal's experiment on him was the only thing that had stopped the wolf from coming forward. For two blissful months, the wolf had stayed in the back of his mind. Maybe because his mind had been on fire, the right hemisphere of his brain inflamed. Not even the wolf wanted to fight a damaged mind. Needless to say, it was an interesting couple of years. And he was not the same man he had been before he met Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal had ensured a few things.

One was that Will would embrace the darkness within him.

Two was that Will would finally find Hannibal Lecter interesting.

And three was that he and the wolf finally had a common goal. Both were completely focused on Hannibal.

The wolf knew what the other was from the moment they met. Will remembered stepping into Jack's office, and immediately feel accosted by the wolf within. It howled and raged at the new man, who wasn't a man at all. The wolf hated whatever Hannibal was, something Will didn't know at the time. The pieces would click later when his mind wasn't on fire. But that was only their first encounter. Their next encounter seemed to confuse the wolf as much as it did the man.

When he first met Hannibal, his form seemed to shift. Sometimes, he would look like a young man in his 20s, with a sharp jaw and even sharper cheekbones. Others, he would look older, the age Will expected him to, around ten years older than him. At first, Will thought it was a trick of the light. In their second meeting, he thought he was seeing things and as his encephalitis grew worse, he was certain the shifting was a hallucination. That was until the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Will had been treated for his encephalitis by the time Hannibal visited in the hospital, and still, his form shifted. 

The wolf, however, constantly saw Hannibal as a threat. The wolf had never spoken before the breakfast he shared with Hannibal alone. But in that motel room with Hannibal oddly out of place and Will in his underwear, the wolf finally spoke, saying only one word.

Enemy.

Seconds later, however, Hannibal had offered the breakfast he had brought with him and all the wolf's snarling and snapping ceased. 

It took many long nights and some unorthodox treatments from Dr. Frederick Chilton for Will to finally put all the pieces together. And he had. 

Unfortunately, for the reckoning he had promised Hannibal, he was forced to return to him over and over. And he had returned to him. They consulted on cases together, they ate meals together, they had Will's therapy sessions together. Every moment of his life revolved around Hannibal Lecter.

Except for the times that the wolf demanded its turn. It was especially more demanding now that Will was released back into freedom. The wolf didn't do well with confinement and BSHCI had been near torture for it. It loved to run, to be free. 

And this month was no different. 

Will stood in the snow with Jack between him and Hannibal. They were investigating a body, one that had been left torn to bits on top of a semi-truck. From the look of the body, what Will could glimpse of it anyway as Zeller pulled the pieces into view, it was as though it had been torn apart by an animal. But everything in Will told him this wasn't an animal. The wolf was affronted at the fact that someone, Price or Zeller, thought the attack was done by a wolf, even if that wolf wasn't also part man. But Will was inclined to agree. This wasn't the work of an animal, at least not what humans traditionally called animals. They seemed to forget that they too are animals, a fact Will had become intimate with over the course of his life. 

No, this wasn't an animal. This was a man. And it was something more. 

His mind ran through all the possibilities over the next day until he found himself in Hannibal's office. He knew what Hannibal was, and Hannibal knew what he was. It was dumb for him to have come here the day of the full moon. The wolf was always worse around the full moon, and his emotions were everywhere. He leaned on Hannibal's desk, talking to the other who was somewhere over his shoulder on the other side. They were trading their usual pointless dialogue back and forth. Ultimately it meant nothing. They talked in riddles and circles. 

Of course, he's a vampire. Will thought to himself. He talks like a vampire who got high.

"What is it?" Hannibal asked, bringing his attention back to him and an earlier statement.

He twisted himself, suddenly feeling the need to look at the other. Hannibal watched him through his lashes, his only barely tilted upward, but enough to make eye contact. Normally, Will hated eye contact. Eyes always showed a different story. He could so easily jump into the minds of others that eye contact with them meant he could decipher every thought as it crossed their mind. It was like reading a book that shifted as he read. It wasn't that he hated eyes. He actually loved eyes. Which is why they were so distracting for him. Hannibal's eyes were damn near hypnotizing to him. He suspected most people thought they were brown, maybe amber. But Will could see the hints of red in their depths that shifted as Hannibal's moods changed. He learned to interpret that red. 

The red now was in the same position it had been since he entered the office. But Hannibal's form still constantly flickered.

"Instinct," Will made himself say before turning away. 

He couldn't look at that shifting form anymore without wanting to snap. He was already close. Even being this close to Hannibal made him angry. At least, he hoped the emotion was anger. He genuinely hoped that the desire to lose himself in those hypnotic eyes and that beautiful accented voice were like other desires that occurred around the full moon. Those were slightly more tolerable than the need to kill everything that crossed his path, but the wolf was an animal and as predictable as one too. Humans were the ones who invented societal constructs and turned them into needs. The wolf only saw a need for three things and it wanted all of them more around the full moon. 

Will stared somewhere ahead of him as Hannibal moved around the desk.

Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.

He looked as Hannibal spoke. 

First, he found those damned eyes. And then Hannibal's form shifted again.

He pushed off the desk with a snarl. "Could you please pick a form and stick to it?" He demanded, crossing the room. He had to put as much distance between himself and Hannibal as possible. He walked toward the window, which was far cooler than him, and sighed. "I'm sorry." He muttered, not turning around. 

Why Hannibal had this effect on him, he didn't know. It was bad before Will had tried to kill him the first time at the Hobbs's house. It was worse after his encephalitis was treated. It was near suffocating now. Hannibal brought out things in him that he thought better left buried. 

At first, he thought it was maybe because Hannibal was the closest thing he had to a real friend. Sure, he had Alana and Jack and even Beverly there for a while. But Hannibal was the only one who saw him. He could confide his darkest secrets to him and he was still there. He hadn't run from Will, he'd even continued to visit him after his incarceration. Will thought back to Hannibal taking the stand in his trial and the smug satisfaction that the wolf had. It was Hannibal who killed the judge in his trial, Will knew it with every part of him. And Hannibal had done it for him.

This killer wrote you a love letter. Are you going to let his love go to waste?

It was strange to him. Two killers had written him love letters. One was Matthew Brown, who had taken his place at the Baltimore State Hospital. And the other was Hannibal Lecter who's eyes were staring holes in his shoulders. Matthew Brown did not affect him, except that the wolf longed to sink its teeth into him. But Hannibal. 

Goddamned Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal made him frustrated in more ways than one and yet he kept coming back for more. It was dumb. He was mad to have returned. Especially today. Especially when the wolf and the man blurred. Especially when everything in him said he had only two possibilities when it came to Hannibal and he wasn't certain which he wanted. When he first left the hospital, he thought that maybe he wanted Hannibal dead. He was the only one who could do it after all. He was the only one who wasn't human, just like Hannibal. He was the only one strong enough, just like Hannibal. He was the only one who's monster could look Hannibal's in the eye and walk away. 

"It's worse during the full moon," Hannibal observed. Will nodded, pressing his forehead against the glass. "The change hurts, doesn't it?" 

Will nodded again.

Suddenly, a hand pressed against his shoulder. They had been in this position before and unlike before, he found himself wanting to lean into the touch. Hannibal was the only one who could touch him and he didn't immediately feel the need to shy away. 

The wolf evaluated the other from behind the doors of his mind. 

Not an enemy.

And Will wanted to huff out loud. 

Make up your mind. He thought viciously.

Your mind is my mind. The wolf returned. Make up yours.

He tore away from Hannibal's grasp, frustrated at everything. 

"You must learn to embrace your instincts, Will." 

For a moment, he watched his teeth sinking into the flesh of Hannibal's neck, tearing him open and ridding the world of him once and for all. Hannibal would fight him of course. It was a fight Will would likely lose. From what he could gather, Hannibal was one of the old ones, turned a few hundred years ago. If he had to guess, he would say during the Renaissance. He would put up a fight, a fight someone like Will with his constant internal resistance would lose. 

"Being intimate with my instincts has terrible repercussions." He muttered through gritted teeth.

Hannibal cocked his head. "You told me to pick a form. What did you mean?"

He narrowed his eyes at the other. 

"You can see through it." 

Will's only response was to raise an eyebrow. Hannibal's form stopped shifting. He looked like the younger version of himself. Without the older one flickering in and out, Will thought they could be the same age.

Give or take a few hundred years.

"People are suspicious if they don't see you age." 

"How are you doing that?" And then the wolf started snarling again. "Whatever you're doing, stop." He looked away from the other.

"Those like me, call them what you want, have various abilities. All of us are stronger and faster than humans. Our senses are stronger. But my abilities extend beyond that." 

The wolf snarled again. 

"Do you hear that?" He asked quietly.

Hannibal walked closer, though Will almost thought he was gliding. "The snarling?"

He pressed his hand to the side of Will's face as he had done only days before when he confronted Ingram. Will forced himself not to lean into the touch. A rather intimate touch. Hannibal was so close to him. Will could always smell him, as Hannibal had been able to smell him. But this close, everything about Hannibal was intoxicating.

"You can enter minds." 

Hannibal's lips twitched. "Not exactly. Your private thoughts are still private."

"But you can manipulate thoughts. Or what people see." 

"If I want to. Though it appears it doesn't work on you." His lips turned upward, smiling almost fondly at Will. "You always surprise me." They stood there for another moment, Will as rigid as a mountain and Hannibal so close. Eventually, Hannibal pulled his hand from Will's face. "Perhaps you should try embracing your other half. You might find the change easier to deal with." 

"We aren't here to talk about me." He forced himself to whisper. 

"Aren't we?" 

They moved again, Will somehow finding his way to the ladder that led to the mezzanine and Hannibal again incredibly close to him. He sighed, stretching up the length of the ladder. Hannibal watched the movement with rapt attention, not unlike the way he had the first time Will had done something similar. Only then, his mind was on fire and he thought Hannibal was his friend. But he wasn't. He had to remind himself that Hannibal was a murderer.

The Chesapeake Ripper.

But those eyes. That voice. That mind. The monster under his skin. Hannibal himself.

He murdered Beverly. He murdered Abigail. He framed me. Made me lose all sense of self. Snap out of it Will. He chided himself and tore his gaze away. 

"You and this killer have much in common, Will. For both of you, this is a fight of instinct. He is embracing his. Perhaps you should embrace yours."

Will's lips curled subconsciously, exposing his teeth. "That's what you've wanted this whole time." 

"All I want is for you to be who you truly are." 

"Haven't we had this conversation before?"

"Has the answer changed at all?"

He huffed and pushed off the ladder. The sun was closer to the horizon now and the wolf made a point of reminding him.

Idly, he wondered what it would be like to change around Hannibal. He pushed that thought away as soon as it came. 

"I have to be going." He muttered, moving around Hannibal.

"Very well," Hannibal answered. 

The drive back to Wolf Trap was maddening. Everything made him want to snap. He was surprised he didn't find any of the drivers who cut him off just to rip their heads off. He made it home, barely, as the sun dipped below the horizon. The wolf, frustrated, burst from him just as he let the dogs out. They ran through the yard, happily. 

He remembered the first time he changed with Winston around. Poor, beautiful, loyal Winston had been at his side the whole time, licking his face and whimpering as he tried to withhold cries of pain. Even during the night, Winston had run at his side, happy and loyal. When he woke in the morning, he found that the dog had been his pillow. Poor Winston had been through so much since Will found him that night, roaming the side of the road. He had followed him when he started sleepwalking. He would run away and return home, searching for someone who wasn't there. Even now, Winston sat just to his right, not close enough that the change would affect him, but not far enough that if he cried out, Winston couldn't reach him. 

He cried out as his bones snapped and changed. It was quicker than normal, the very frustrated and tense wolf giving no quarter. The moon had risen early tonight, already hanging in the sky like a gem on a necklace, shining brightly over the snow. But the wolf didn't seem to care. He was on all fours and running through the woods in no time. 

Chapter Text

Hannibal barely reached the door as Will burst inside. He was covered in snow, some flakes still sitting perfectly in his curls. They melted within seconds as Will brushed off the snow from his jacket. Hannibal could feel the heat radiating from him even as far as he was. He could hear Tobias Budge leave out the back door. Will should have heard it as well, but something was bothering him, he could see it in the other's eyes.

"I tried to kiss Alana Bloom." He said, dropping the jacket off to the side.

"Come in," Hannibal said quietly as Will pushed past him. He could smell the encephalitis as the other moved by, but mostly he found himself feeling rather amused at Will's sudden appearance.

Will practically marched to the kitchen only to stop dead in his tracks, looking at the discarded meals. There was a sudden rush of worry from the other, one of the few emotions that Will ever let out. 

"You have company?" He asked, his voice falling slightly.

"A colleague," Hannibal answered as he moved around Will to shut the back door. "They had to step out suddenly. An emergency of some sort. Which works well for you. I have dessert for two."

Will seemed to return to himself, following Hannibal into the kitchen. Hannibal moved toward the oven where he kept dessert warm as Will shuffled in behind him. For someone with extraordinary senses and preternatural strength, he certainly moved slowly when he finally approached the counter. There were still thoughts flying behind his eyes as he stared at the counter in front of him. 

"You said you tried to kiss Alana," Hannibal prompted. "Why?"

"I've wanted to kiss her since I first met her. She's very kissable." 

Hannibal chuckled to himself as Will spoke. 

"She rejected you." He guessed. 

"Yes." Will paused. "And no." He shrugged slightly, looking somewhere over Hannibal's left shoulder. "It was mutual I suppose."

"For her I understand. She wouldn't be able to stop her curiosity. It would brew resentment. For you though, you say you've wanted to kiss her but you haven't until now. That suggests a reason beyond want."

"What does it matter?" Will asked, brows furrowed at something behind Hannibal. "It didn't happen."

"You drove an hour in the snow to tell me about it." Hannibal worked while he spoke. "It must have mattered."

"She said I was unstable." The other muttered.

"Do you feel unstable?" He asked. Will's eyes shot up to his. He wasn't expecting Hannibal to hear that.

"Yes and no." 

"Is that why you tried to kiss her? A clutch for balance?"

"Tried being the optimum word there. Didn't go through with it."

"You wanted a clutch," Hannibal said, pushing a plate toward Will. "But not that one?"

"Not exactly." He sighed, running his hands over his face. Hannibal noted the dirt on his hands and Will dropped his eyes to his hands, subconsciously rubbing them together. "Do you mind?" 

"Not at all."

Will nodded and walked around the counter, quickly scrubbing his hands in the sink. 

"Thought I heard an animal trapped in the chimney," Will muttered as he washed. "I tried to get it out but when I knocked a hole in the chimney it was gone. Alana came over and saw it and the look in her eyes. I knew she knew." He sighed, his hands now nearly red from his scrubbing. "There was no animal in the chimney."

Hannibal moved forward, stilling the other's movement. He sighed and pulled his hands from the water. He didn't let the other move away though, holding his wrists in one hand and drying them off with a towel with the other. Will didn't pull away. The other was normally bothered by touch, he had seen him tense when others happened to brush by him, but not now with his hands resting in Hannibal's. He seemed almost relaxed. 

For a moment, he could see himself leaning forward and capturing the other's lips. Will's eyes seemed to be searched for something as he stared downward. He could feel the tension in the other's body. Hannibal imagined Will was thinking something similar. It would be so easy to close the space between them. They already fit together well. Hannibal knew he was infatuated, obsessed even, with Will Graham. But he wondered when his obsession took on romantic overtones. 

"There's another reason you didn't kiss Alana," He said quietly. 

Will stared down at their hands, Hannibal still clutching his wrists. He was silent for a long moment, debating within himself before he finally spoke, softly. "She wasn't the one I wanted to kiss."

Hannibal let go of the other's hands and they fell slowly back to his side. 

"Who did you want to kiss?" Anticipation rose in him. He focused on the other, who still wasn't looking at him. Strange given the fact that Hannibal was the only person he ever sustained eye contact with.

"Someone even more inappropriate," Will answered with a sardonic smile.

Hannibal refrained from smirking as the other pulled himself away, walking back around the counter to his side once again, finally trying the dessert Hannibal pushed his way previously.

Will walked toward the bars of his rather barebones cell at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. On the other side stood Hannibal. The look on Will's face must have been enough to tell the other what he wanted. His amber eyes flicked first down the hall to the guards who weren't paying attention and then toward the camera not far above him. He stepped closer nonetheless as Will leaned his weight against the bars. They were inches apart when Hannibal finally stopped, his shoulder pressing into the bars.

"I know what you are," Will whispered lowly. 

He hadn't known for certain until the other's eyes hardened slightly at the words. But he had reason to suspect. And all the pieces had finally fit together quite unfortunately thanks to Frederick Chilton and his proclivity for unorthodox treatments. Will pressed his weight more against the bars, which creaked just slightly. They both knew he could find his way out of there if he wanted to. Yet he sat and waited dutifully, waiting until he was eventually released. 

"And you know what I am."

Hannibal's eyes focused on him intently before he gave an almost imperceptible nod. 

"And you've never stopped believing my innocence."

It was true of course. Will was innocent. Hannibal had framed him. There were so many things about Hannibal Lecter that had started clicking into place recently. Among them was that Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper. And the copycat. Will had always wondered when it came to the Ripper cases, why there was usually a lack of blood at the Ripper's crime scenes. Even when Cassie Boyle's body was found, there wasn't much blood left in her system. Just enough to let a little leak out around the wounds from the stag head which she was impaled on. Initially, he didn't connect the Ripper to the copycat. Hannibal was excellent at hiding. Better than anyone Will ever encountered. The encephalitis certainly helped him hide. 

The wolf had never spoken to Will before the day he and Hannibal met. Looking back on it, he should have realized everything then. The wolf knew from the moment they had stepped in the same room together. And now Hannibal confirmed it.

He wasn't certain the other would call himself a vampire. Given what Will had been able to gather in hindsight, he was likely older than the term itself. But it was the most accurate description of the other.

"No," Hannibal answered quietly.

"You've never stopped being my friend."

"I am your friend, Will."

But it wasn't a friend Will suspected Hannibal wanted. For a moment, he hadn't wanted a friend either. He wanted something more. His mind brought him back to the night he went to Hannibal after the near kiss with Alana. He thought about the way his hands felt as he grasped Will, strong and solid. His mind then brought forth another memory of the ladder in Hannibal's office and his slight, albeit subconscious attempt at seduction. Something had flashed through the other's eyes then, so quickly Will thought his addled brain imagined it. But as he thought back on it now, he couldn't help but think their minds had been on similar tracks. Hannibal's mind had stayed on that track. He had manipulated and pushed and prodded the darkness in Will dragging it to the surface.

It's because he has darkness too. Will's mind told him. 

It was then that a plan began to form in Will's mind. He would continue to sit and wait. The judge in his trial was already dead, likely at Hannibal's hand. It would be some time before he had another trial. He doubted Hannibal would let it get to the point of another trial. Will would tell Jack what he knew, he would raise suspicion in his mind. He knew though he wasn't certain how he knew, that Hannibal would soon prove his innocence. Frederick Chilton already believed him, and the proof was in the cell next to him. Abel Gideon wasn't close enough to hear the hushed conversation between Will and Hannibal, but he would likely have something to say about it later. 

His death was assured too, the moment Will insisted to Frederick that their cells be next to each other.

Hannibal shifted closer. "I imagine it must be difficult in here."

Will smirked slightly. "Right now, here is the only place I want to be." He pressed his head against the bars. "Perfect view."

The other's eyes gleamed.

Will knew the full moon was near. It was the first one he was spending in BSHCI and for a moment, he debated about not letting the wolf out at all. What good would it do? And the risks of letting it out were high. What if a guard came by while the wolf was out? What if they made the mistake of opening the door? Even now, Will had the strength to pull the door off its hinges. He could have left already if he wanted to. But some part of him told him to stay put. He didn't know what exactly he was waiting for, but he did know what his instincts were not often wrong. If only he'd listened in the first place, maybe he wouldn't have found himself here. Alone, certainly, but not in BSHCI. 

He was already alone, always alone. But for once, he thought maybe he didn't have to be. He had thought for a second he had found a friend, someone like him. Someone who could understand. Of course, there was Jack and Alana and even Beverly. But he couldn't be as open with them as he could with Hannibal. And it was Hannibal's friendship which landed him here. It was Hannibal's friendship that lit his brain on fire. 

He often wondered what was real and what was a hallucination. Was his attraction toward Hannibal real? Or was that the result of the encephalitis and the fact that Hannibal was the only one who didn't look at him like he was insane. 

Will knew the moment the sun began to set. The wolf started pacing, brushing against the doors of his mind, and demanding to be let out. The wolf knew where they were and perhaps some part of it wanted the challenge of a guard walking by. How quickly they could be done with this madness. He could escape and run. And the wolf would be content with that.

He let the change happen, feeling his bones snap and twist as the wolf worked its way to the surface. He clamped his teeth shut, not willing to let any noise out and risk someone coming by to check on him. Over and over bones snapped and shifted until the wolf stood in the cell in place of Will. It thought for a moment about breaking out, it longed for freedom even more than Will did. But rather than burst forward through the bars like the paper the wolf saw them as, it huffed slightly and moved toward the bed. The wolf's fur was longer given the fact that he couldn't exactly cut his own shaggy hair. He only noticed it as the wolf crawled under the bed, fur brushing against harsh springs. The wolf curled itself up, pillowing its head on its paws and bringing its tail in front of its face.

For the first time in wolf form, they both slept.

Chapter Text

"And now," The painter continued, instructing Hannibal who sat somewhere behind him. "You must remember to have an image in mind. Your canvas is a being, waiting to be given life, and you its god."

Hannibal watched the careful lines of the artist's graphite as it began to sculpt an image in the canvas. Hannibal's own hand worked in tandem, crafting and creating an image of his own. He watched a face come to life, the face of his late sister, reproduced by an adept hand. The artist noted Hannibal's attention had turned and he carefully walked around the bench, coming to stand behind his pupil.

"Ah," He hummed. "Your muse?" 

"My sister," Hannibal answered, pulling his hand away from the page. 

"I have heard what became of your family," The other placed his hand on Hannibal's shoulder, squeezing it lightly. "My condolences my friend."

"Thank you," Hannibal answered softly. 

"To continue," The artist said with a soft smile.

Their lessons had been occurring for the last week since Hannibal arrived in Florence. His aunt and uncle had sent him to study under the Medici family, patrons of the arts and sciences in Florence. Sandro Botticelli was among those they patronized, and Hannibal strived to among them as well. His family was wealthy, they were high in social status. It took little to have Hannibal move to Florence under their care and tutelage. He was to spend time working with every artist the Medici's patronized and to eventually earn that patronage for himself. In the week Hannibal had been there, he had seen more drinking and sex than he had art, but every now and then Sandro would pull himself away from the festivities to teach Hannibal. Sandro rarely ever took on students, but he seemed to like something about Hannibal.

It had been some years since Mischa's death, and yet every time he moved to draw a face, it always morphed into hers. Those were memories he did not wish to revisit. Those were memories that were mean to be buried and left alone. But when the canvas came, he found himself needing to reproduce her likeness. 

Wealth could do only so much for people, but it had done little to protect Mischa.

It didn't take long for Hannibal to fall into the Medici lifestyle. Eventually, they took him on as well, paying him for paintings and sculptures. He attended lavish parties and social gatherings. He fell into the same life as his Medici mentors, until he seemed to belong to them. No one could remember a time in which Hannibal hadn't been around. Hannibal would spend hours talking utter nonsense with the others around him, imbibing and laughing at seemingly nothing in particular. He was steeped in the lifestyle. So deep, in fact, that in the several functions he had attended by his sponsors, he lost count of the sheer number of people he met. They were all faces, blurred in the crowd. Hannibal typically stayed with the artists including the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci and a scrappy artist named Michelangelo. He watched as Sandro sculpted face after face which began to take on a particular shape to him. Who this mysterious man was, the muse behind St. Sebastian, Hannibal didn't know. But he wouldn't deny that the fact drew him.

Days and nights blurred together. Conversations blurred together. Every day was a mix of faces and alcohol. The art became more and more absurd, as did every word that spilled from his mouth. They joked about nothing, they talked about everything. The Medici's threw parties that lasted for late hours into the night with exotic guests. 

Things turned hedonistic. 

The art became darker, a return to Greek mythology. Hannibal watched gods appear on the canvas. He watched women materialize from the sea. 

And he joined in all things. He loved it. This was where he belonged. 

For twenty years, he stayed with the Medici. For twenty years they were his patrons and the artists his family. For twenty years, his life was a blend of alcohol and sex. Men, women. It didn't matter. They blurred before him.

Until he caught the attention of the another.

Hannibal hadn't noticed the man at first. He attended the Medici parties whenever he found his way to Florence. Every few months he would return, lust in his eyes and an appetite like no other. He didn't know when he caught the other's attention. He didn't even know how. He did know though, that one day, the other caught his attention too. 

"Enjoying yourself?" A voice hummed in his ear.

"Is that not the point?" Hannibal answered. 

"Perhaps," The man moved around him. He had bright eyes and dark hair. His lips were always quirked upward and his eyes held a hint of mischief. He leaned in front of Hannibal, pressing his shoulder to the wall that Hannibal was currently holding up. "But you look like the type who's tried almost all kinds of fun." He gestured at the party. "And perhaps even some darker kinds."

He raised an eyebrow. Hannibal had, during his time in Florence, chosen to embrace all parts of himself, including the darker parts. He had tried to suppress it, for Mischa, but after her death, he forgave her. He had also chosen to embrace another of his dark habits, the one that begged to consume, begged to be released, and sink its teeth into those lesser than him. Hannibal had developed a reputation for his distaste of the rude. Though they did become rather tasteful. In the end.

"And what pleasures do you think I haven't tried?" Hannibal asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"I think there is still one pleasure I could offer. One that no one else could." The man cocked his head at Hannibal before pushing off the wall, and brushing past him, their shoulders close enough where they could almost have touched. He sensed he was being beckoned and after a few seconds, decided to follow.

He left the party behind him, following the familiar stranger into the more deserted parts of the Medici house. He followed that curious shape into the darkness, never one to shy from darkness himself. The other led him to an empty room, where the drapes were open and the moon shone inward. The other stood by the window, the moon illuminating his form. 

"Would you like to know what that final pleasure is, beautiful one?" The other's voice coaxed. Hannibal moved closer.

"Consider my curiosity piqued." 

The other turned, his face shadowed by the moonlight at his back, giving him a halo in the night. He walked toward Hannibal, and further into the shadows between them. 

"The one pleasure I can still give you," He wrapped his arm around Hannibal's lower back, pulling him forward. "Is rebirth."

The other moved too quickly for Hannibal to fully comprehend. Pain bloomed in his neck and he found himself unable to move. The other wrapped his arms around him tighter, holding him close as he continued to drink from the wound now in Hannibal's neck. He gasped slightly, his mind finally catching up to the moment. He wanted to fight, but some part of him knew he wouldn't be able to escape. A fight might ensure his death, and for some reason, he didn't think the other truly wanted him dead. 

Eventually, the other pulled from his neck, holding a nearly limp Hannibal in his arms. He hummed slightly, moving Hannibal over to the bed that occupied the room. 

"You taste divine, beautiful one." The other hummed. "And now what I promised you." 

His vision shimmered slightly before something pressed against his mouth and he tasted copper. He felt compelled to drink, to take from the other as was taken from him. It was strangely delectable and he wanted more. His body burned slightly, as though he were standing too close to a fire. The other pulled his wrist away, Hannibal eventually realized it was his wrist, and grasped Hannibal's face between his hands. 

"There is only one other thing now. One more thing to give you what I promised."

"And that is?" Hannibal sounded breathless to his own ears. 

The other leaned forward, his breath hot next to Hannibal's ear.

"Death."

Every month was exactly the same for Will. For one night, he felt horrible and he never knew why. His temper flared, his empathy was worse. He had scared the hell out of his father one night, the way he had looked at him apparently made his father think he was the devil. For years, it was the same pattern. One night a month, everything was terrible. As a child, it was chalked up to him being a child. 'The only normal thing about him.' His father said. But as he grew older, it became worse. His father blamed that one night a month for his mother leaving, even though he never said it to Will's face. But she was unhappy anyway, she would have left with or without Will's 'issues.'

He was 15 when he finally had an answer. He was 15 when the temper issues, the extreme nature of his empathy, centered around that one night a month finally came to fruition. 

That first night was terrifying. His father had a habit of taking jobs that would keep him away at the full moon. That night, he was alone. Or so he thought. For days leading up to that night, he dreamed of wolves, of roaming the woods around their current house. He dreamed of killing, feeling flesh tear from bone. In the dreams, he was alive. For the first time. And what an experience it was. 

But then the morning came and he would find himself ashamed for the feeling of the night before. 

This night, he expected no different. It was October, only a few days away from Halloween. And a full moon.

Will prepared his dinner, pathetic as always. They weren't well to do, his father rarely had enough to make ends meet. Often, Will was left to his own devices to figure out food. And often that meant going fishing. His father had taught him to fish when he was young and it was the one thing that kept them both fed.

Will didn't hate his father, he wasn't a bad man. Sometimes he drank too much and sometimes he grew a little grumpy, but so could Will. Neither of them was all that adept at social interactions, which made it difficult for them to communicate. His father did his best, teaching him how to fish and how to fix boats, but that was the extent of their bonding. It felt as though they were strangers, bound in blood, and nothing more. 

That night was the first night he found himself wishing for his father. His barebones dinner tasted like ash in his mouth. He raided the liquor cabinet, but even that didn't burn as it normally did. Nothing seemed quite right. He watched the moon rise through the sky and he began to feel restless, unmoored. He paced around the house, feeling like he needed to do something, but he wasn't certain what. He had this feeling before, like nothing tasted right, like nothing was entertaining enough, like nothing was quite what he wanted or needed. But this was worse. His body began to ache in ways that it never said. 

And then suddenly, he had a terrible feeling that he wasn't alone. That he wasn't Will Graham. 

Noises began to sound louder, he was growing overwhelmed. The shadows shifted, becoming lighter. The whole world seemed to be pressing in on him.

Everything hurt. 

It was too much. All too much.

Will found himself yearning for night air, for the cool refreshing air of an October night. He burst outside, inhaling deeply. 

But that only seemed to make matters worse. 

When the first bone broke, he thought maybe he was hearing things. It was so loud and so painful, he didn't truly hear or feel it. Until the second one broke. And then the next and the next and the next. He dropped to his knees, howling in pain. There was no one nearby. No one close who could help him. No one who could hear his cries.

Will Graham was alone.

And he wasn't.

The wolf first appeared in his mind, brushing against it as though someone had taken a feather duster to his brain. And then he felt fur and claws. Then those became a reality. He had never known true terror until that moment. Until his hands twisted into paws and his nails grew into claws. His eyesight sharpened, his hearing sharpened. 

Will panicked, falling over himself and his now reformed hind legs. He had a tail, fur, and a deep unrelenting desire to kill. 

The first change had taken hours, he would realize later. Hours he had spent writhing on the ground as bones broke and shifted. And the change back took an hour too. By the time Will climbed into bed, the sun was rising and his chest was heaving. Part of him, the logical, human part of his mind; told him he would have to research what had happened to him. There myths of something similar in the area, he would find people who knew. 

But some part of him already knew what had happened to him and what would continue to happen. He knew what he was going to face every month. It was going to be far worse than his monthly troubles previously. But when his brain tried to focus more, pain would bloom in him. He eventually sank into the uncomfortable bed further, unwilling or maybe even unable to move.

He called in sick that day to school.

From then on, Will was alone no longer. 

Chapter Text

It was dangerous for Hannibal to have followed Will out here this night. In all his years, he had never come across a wolf until Will Graham. Wolves were rare, even rarer than those like him. He had come across a few like him since he was changed all those years ago. But he had never seen a wolf. He had heard stories thought about them. There were two kinds, the bitten and the born. The bitten were mostly changed by accident unless it was a mate. The born were even rarer. It was thought that most of the born were hunted to extinction. But he had the strange inkling that Will was an exception to that. He didn't know why he thought the man was born a wolf, but ever since the notion crossed his mind, he was unable to fight it off.

Those like him and the wolves were natural enemies, competing often over the same prey. Which was what made Will Graham all the more interesting. He refused to kill, even though two forces were driving him to do so; the wolf and the darkness within. It was fascinating to Hannibal to watch him struggle with it as he pulled it from Will by its teeth. The man who he met in his cell a few months prior was not the same man who he met in Jack's office. This man was stronger; broken and rebuilt sturdier than before. 

Hannibal was endlessly curious about the wolf though. He had known what Will was from the moment they met, and the moment he could swear he felt fur brush along his mind as he tried to probe into Will's. Both Will and the wolf were extremely guarded and most of Hannibal's attempts to probe into his mind as he could with others were immediately met with snarling and the snapping of jaws. His only encounters with the wolf had been in Will's mind and that day they returned to the Hobbs's house. He remembered watching the gears turning in Will's mind as he finally came to the right conclusion. Will knew who Hannibal was and it was more than evident when the other turned toward him, raising his gun. Then, Hannibal saw the wolf just under the surface. Will's eyes were lighter, sharper, focused. Something was begging to be let out under the surface of those hypnotizing eyes of his. And Hannibal wanted it.

He had always wanted Will, mostly for the fact that Will could see him, truly see him. It was odd that someone could ever truly share with him all parts of him. The closest he had come before was Mischa. For a moment, he thought his maker could relate to him, but the man had vanished after Hannibal was turned, leaving him to deal with the onslaught of abilities and new cravings on his own. Hannibal had torn through most of Florence and even the neighboring cities before he finally brought himself under control. But Hannibal had only wanted Will more after he thought him dead. It was only then that he realized that maybe he wanted Will for more than just his mind, that beautiful brilliant mind of his. He thought he might crave Will for the place he could, and should, hold at his side. 

Hannibal stepped from his car to find the house in front of him was completely silent. There was nothing to indicate that anyone was home, but he knew that Will was around somewhere. The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the ground. The dogs greeted him first, running from the woods right to his feet. He greeted them individually, remembering them from the last time he saw them. One, Winston, Hannibal remembered; stayed a little further away, looking back and forth between the woods and Hannibal. 

He looked to where the dog's divided attention lay, looking for the telltale signs of the wolf. But the woods were completely still. The field behind him was completely still. Nothing indicated that there was anything beyond the dogs outside this night. Be had the feeling that a predator's eyes were on him, watching him from the shadows. The dogs eventually moved away from him, no longer interested after their initial greeting.

Hannibal turned towards the woods once more, searching the darkness. 

The first glimpse he caught were eyes. Ocean-eyes ringed in gold stared at him from the darkness before they shifted, rising higher. The wolf moved in the shadows, slinking among them easily. Then, one paw at a time, it stepped into the moonlight.

Hannibal was riveted. The wolf slid from the shadows which seemed to cling to it until it stood facing Hannibal. It could easily come up to his waist on all fours and likely stood at his height on its back paws. 

The eyes were still Will's with a ring of gold around them. The fur was the same color as his hair, shimmer in the moonlight. 

It stalked forward, one step at a time as though every step was painful. He thought perhaps that was Will, trying to fight from within. He knew wolves and those like him were enemies. Perhaps the wolf wanted to kill him.

But it kept moving forward, closer and closer. Hannibal stood perfectly still, watching. The wolf never seemed ready to attack. If anything, its posture was more curious, investigative. 

He ached to reach out and touch him, to feel the fur under his hands. To feel Will in his alternate form as he had the man. 

The wolf walked forward until it was directly in front of Hannibal. He took a risk, dropping slowly to one knee so he and Will made eye contact. The wolf moved closer, only a breath away from Hannibal. 

The wolf took the final step forward, pressing its nose against Hannibal's neck. He remembered when the situation was reversed, and it was Hannibal smelling Will. But now the wolf seemed content to reverse their positions. It pressed closer, fur brushing over Hannibal's cheek. He ached to move closer, to sink his teeth into where fur met flesh, to finally taste the other as part of him longed to do. He longed for Will, in ways he wasn't quite ready to face yet. It was after a moment that Hannibal realized what the other was doing.

He was marking him. Claiming him for himself. Whether it be for the reckoning that Will promised or the longing that he saw in the other's eyes, he wasn't certain. But he knew one thing for sure, Will would not have him belonging to anyone else. 

Perhaps he should end things with Alana. 

As if the wolf knew what he was thinking about, it moved to sniff his clothes, brushing against him more. Then it let out a low growl.

He dared reach a hand forward, pressing it against the side of his head. The other didn't move away, only stared at him through those brilliant eyes.

"Beautiful," He murmured.

Rather reluctantly it seemed, the wolf leaned into his touch. Eventually, he dropped his hand away, but his eyes never left the other's.

"You should embrace your instincts, Will," Hannibal said quietly, still watching the way the man and the wolf resettled for control.

The look he was given was distinctly Will as though the other were talking to him through the wolf's eyes. If I embraced my instincts, you would be dead.

Hannibal smirked. "I doubt that."

Are you embracing yours, Doctor? 

Hannibal was almost taken aback by the clarify of the thought that suddenly echoed in Hannibal's mind. How incredible. He thought. Will had only uncovered a little of Hannibal's abilities earlier that day, and yet was able to take advantage of them for himself.

Hannibal had always been more attuned to people. He didn't have the empathy disorder Will did, but he understood body language and non-verbal communication better than most. After he was turned, his abilities only grew until he found himself able to manipulate what people saw or thought about him. He had done quite well without them as a human, he was even better now. It was the reason why — even as Hannibal grew to be the usual suspect because of Will's insight and Jack's trust in his friend — he was still free. He had, on more than one occasion, seen how far he could push Will when it came to his abilities, or even Will's understanding of non-verbal language. His mind brought forth the memory of the first time Will had leaned on the ladder in his office. He knew his own body language was predatory in nature, but Will had immediately submitted, baring his belly and neck to Hannibal to do as he pleased. If he were less in control, he might have. 

"Mostly," He answered finally. 

If a wolf could smirk, he did. Then he stepped back, baring his teeth and offering a small growl before turning quickly as launching himself into the woods once again. Hannibal watched, amazed, as Will's feet never seemed to touch the ground. The strength of his stride propelled him forward and into the darkness once more.

Hannibal didn't return home that night. Instead, he seated himself on Will's porch, watching the wolf return from the shadows only to walk around the house and stare at Hannibal once more. The pattern was repeated until sunlight started to filter through the darkness of the night. The wolf trotted forward, and Hannibal suddenly heard the sound of bones shifting and breaking. When the other finally reached the porch, he was human once more.

Hannibal had only a few seconds to move before Will collapsed, falling into his arms. 

He was naked and shaking against Hannibal, pain evident on his face until his eyes rolled back and he slipped into unconsciousness. Hannibal sighed slightly before shifting slightly to open the door, letting the dogs inside. He followed; Will limp in his arms. 

Chapter Text

Will should have been woken up sooner. His alarm should have gone off. He should have already started his day. But instead, he slept. And when he finally did wake, it was to find Hannibal sitting at his bedside, reading a book. The dogs were asleep in their beds and Will's phone was face down on his bedside table. The other knew he was awake, as his eyes shifted to Will the moment he opened them. He adjusted himself in his bed somewhat, only to realize that he was dressed. He looked down at his attire then back up at Hannibal who maintained stoic eye contact.

"That was risky," He said, pushing himself upward in the bed. He decided to ignore the fact that Hannibal had apparently dressed him and stayed by his bedside. 

"One I was willing to take." 

The other stood and moved into the kitchen. Will heard some shuffling before he returned with a plate of food in hand. Will raised an eyebrow and Hannibal settled it onto his lap, offering a fork next. He was reminded of another breakfast at another time when the wolf knew something he didn't. Only in hindsight did he realize that the meat Hannibal had fed him was human. That was likely part of the reason the wolf was hesitant to kill him, though the urge was strong the night previously. He hummed something that sounded vaguely like a thank you before starting to eat. It was unlikely that Hannibal had managed to kill someone before Will woke, so the meat was probably the same that was in his freezer, and that made the wolf huff.

"You seem weak after your changes," Hannibal said conversationally.

Will sighed and put down the bite he was about to take. "Yes." 

"What would make it easier?" 

Will gave a sardonic smile. "You'd never let me hear the end of it if I told you."

Hannibal raised an eyebrow in response. 

He sighed and shifted the meal on his lap. "I didn't know it when I was younger, but the wolf has always been there." Why he was telling Hannibal this, he didn't know. But it was a worthy distraction from what Hannibal really wanted to know. "I didn't change the first time until I was 15. But always it was there."

"You were born with it." Hannibal seemed to be confirming something for himself more than anything.

"Yes." He stared at his lap. "I assume I inherited it from my mother. My father never changed. But it was always there for me. When I was younger I would become irritable and everything was worse around the full moon. I never felt as alone as I did the first time. It was the only time I remember ever wishing for my father." He forced a small smile.

"Living with it for so long, you must have found something that makes it easier."

He sighed. "The wolf only ever wants two things." He took another bite. "And one is something I never let it have."

Hannibal moved to catch his eye. "It's not just the wolf that wants it." 

He assumed Hannibal had figured out the one that Will was alluding to. The kill. The hunt. The need to tear into flesh. Now that Will's brain wasn't addled with encephalitis, he knew it was the reason the wolf hadn't yearned for it as much in the first few months Will knew Hannibal. Because Hannibal was feeding him what the wolf wanted. It was a hunter, a predator by nature. And Will knew he was to some extent too. But he couldn't ever let that part of him out. Right? And yet that was the one thing Hannibal wanted the most. 

The other thing the wolf craved wasn't something Will gave into either. But now that the moon had passed, it wanted it less. Or so he told himself. He remembered the previous night, as he knew Hannibal did. The wolf wanted Hannibal because to some extent, so did Will. And that wasn't allowed. 

He pushed down every feeling and every desire, swallowing it with the next bite of his breakfast.

"Thank you for this," He said after a moment. 

Hannibal nodded but Will could see out of the corner of his eye that the other wasn't deterred from his current train of thought. They were silent for a little while longer as Will finished his food. Hannibal pretended to read, which Will saw for what it was just as Hannibal saw his preoccupation with his food for what it was. A distraction. 

"Can I ask you something?" Will said after a moment. Any pretense between them was gone for now. They didn't need to pretend, they didn't need to hide. Hannibal had seen Will, seen the wolf, and the wolf knew without a shadow of a doubt what Hannibal was the moment they were truly face to face. He didn't need to arrest Hannibal or force him to confess. Will already had the proof he needed, though he couldn't exactly go to Jack with the wolf's instincts.

"Anything," Hannibal answered.

"How do you feed?" Will avoided looking at him. "I know that with the-" He cut himself off. There was never blood left in the Ripper's victims, he assumed that was how Hannibal hid. But there hadn't been any distinct Ripper kills since Will was let out of the Baltimore State Hospital. So how did he feed? His curiosity bested him in this regard, he wanted to ask. Part of him feared the answer would be taking from Alana, who's presence the wolf smelled the night before, and he wasn't quite certain how he would react if that were the answer. "But there hasn't been-" He cut himself off again and sighed. 

Hannibal closed the book with a soft thump. "Blood bags or willing donors."

"How willing?" He knew Hannibal had some ability to impact the mind. Will worried he could make people believe they were willing if they weren't. But when he looked over at Hannibal, he was suddenly very certain that wasn't true.

"I haven't done that in years. Haven't needed to."

"What's it like?" His question was no more than a whisper.

"What does it feel like after you have changed?"

Will's lips twitched. "No different than how it feels now. Just reversed."

"I imagine the wolf must come with some sense of freedom." Will shrugged. "You deny yourself that freedom. As you deny your instincts."

"You never answered my question," Will answered, changing the subject. 

"I imagine it would feel something similar to you relaxing with yourself." 

He was certain Hannibal felt the depth of his glare, but the other only looked amused in response. He tore his gaze away after a moment, looking back at the empty plate in his hand. He readied himself to stand but Hannibal beat him to it. 

"I can wash my own plates." 

"I know."

The other took the plate anyway and Will heard the sink running after a moment. Will reached over to his phone, pulling it off the charger and looking for what must be a million messages from Jack demanding him to come to work. But instead, there was nothing. He opened his messages seeing that Hannibal had taken the liberty of telling Jack he was under the weather today and couldn't come in. Will was glad he had the foresight not to say or leave anything that would alert Hannibal to his attempted trap, but he also knew that Hannibal likely wouldn't have looked anyway. He didn't put it past the man to snoop, but for some reason, he had the feeling that he wouldn't now. Just as he was wrestling with the feeling of not wanting to turn Hannibal in.

The other returned, occupying the same chair once again.

"Have you been there all morning?" Will asked and continued without waiting for an answer. For some reason, Hannibal's continued presence was frustrating him. "Why didn't you go home?" He practically threw the blanket off of him as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. 

"Would you like me to go?" The quiet way Hannibal asked him just frustrated him more. And he didn't know why.

He gripped the edge of the bed, staring intently at the floor. "Yes. No. I don't know." 

He stood, feeling the need to do something. The dogs lifted their heads but stayed in their beds. They were always tired the day after the full moon as most of them spent the night running with Will. He walked into the bathroom for a second, not hearing anything shift in the room behind him. Hannibal was still there. He ran the water before taking a handful and splashing it on his face. It did nothing. He slammed his hands down on the bathroom counter.

His brain brought forth a memory from the night before. He remembered seeing Hannibal kneeling in front of him. He remembered the way the wolf practically claimed him. 

Beautiful.

The word made a shiver run down Will's spine. 

He sighed and brushed his teeth, cleaning himself up some more. There was still no movement from the other room and by the time he returned, somewhat refreshed, Hannibal hadn't moved an inch. He looked up when Will entered, his eyes showcasing a stronger emotion that Will thought possible. His mind brought back another moment, after Tobias Budge, when Hannibal had a similar look in his eye, only now it was from his actual face and not the flickering form Will had grown accustomed to. He also thought about the day he returned to the Hobbs's house, with Hannibal whispering over his shoulder. 

Another shudder ran through him as he made his back to the bed, sitting on the edge. He was teetering on the precipice of something, but he wasn't quite certain what. 

"Do you remember?" He found himself asking. "What it's like to be human?" He turned to look at the other briefly. "I don't." 

"You assume that with the change humanity is lost. Yours or mine." He shifted slightly in the chair. "The more accurate question would be what is humanity? What does it mean to be human? And were you ever human to begin with?"

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Hannibal answered softly. "I happened." Will raised his head more at that. "I had a sister once." Hannibal continued. "Her name was Mischa. She wasn't my child but she was as good as." He was staring at something off to Will's right, and for once Will was struck by the fact that he couldn't look him in the eye. "After she died, I lived with my aunt and uncle. And then I went to Florence." 

"You lived." Was the only thing Will could bring himself to say.

"Because she died." A tear rolled down Hannibal's cheek and he pushed it away easily. The conversation was the only inclination outside of Will's instinct that told him Hannibal was not just a monster. There was a man in there too. And for some reason, Will desperately wanted to bring him out.

Just as he wants to see the monster in you. 

"What is it that would make your changes easier?" The other asked after a moment. 

"Like I said," Will said, clearing his throat. "The wolf only ever wants two things. There are no societal pressures for a wolf. No social norms, no conformity. It only ever sees the need for three things and only ever truly craves two of them." He sighed. "To feed is one of them." 

"Any particular cravings?" The kill and its aftermath was something Will knew Hannibal could relate to. 

"I'm certain you know why those like you and those like me don't get along," Will answered quietly. 

"Competition."

Will gave a half-hearted nod that was also a shrug in response. 

"I could show you," Hannibal said. "What it's like." 

He studied the other carefully. A deflection came to mind in the form of a joke, but he pushed it away. It was a serious offer and one Will assumed wasn't given often. He thought back to Chilton's question as to why Hannibal let him of all people live. The answer he had given wasn't exactly truthful. While Hannibal did want to be his friend, Will knew that he wanted something more. And he would be lying if he didn't want it as well. He tried to remind himself of the horrible things Hannibal had done, of the people he had killed. Of all the things he had taken from Will.

You're my friend, Will. I don't care about the lives you save, I care about your life.

The emotions he had swallowed earlier came back with a vengeance, sitting directly in his throat, threatening to choke him. The wolf started brushing against his mind again, whining and whimpering for something. 

Eventually, he nodded. Though he wasn't quite certain what he was agreeing to. 

Hannibal set the book aside and stood. Will watched him, moving to stand too but the other waved him off. Instead, he moved closer to the bed, shifting first Will's position with ease and then himself. Will let himself be moved, far too curious now to care.

"Trust me," Hannibal said quietly, but to Will, it sounded more like he was begging. 

He searched the other's amber gaze and after a moment, nodded. Hannibal reached up gently and turned his head. The wolf whined more, whimpering similar to the dogs when they wanted something. 

Hannibal leaned in closer and Will repressed a shudder. It was his lips that touched Will's neck first as he cupped the other side of Will's neck. Their position was precarious, pressed against each other but not likely comfortable for either them. But all Will could think about was the whining echoing through his mind and the feel of Hannibal's lips on his skin. He suddenly felt like he was on fire. 

And then he felt teeth.

Chapter Text

Will rubbed the back of his neck as he stood in Jack's office. The last two months had been terrible for him. The day after the full moon was the calmest day he had. He repressed the memory of that day. It wasn't one he wanted to remember in Jack's office. The day after, Randall Tier had burst through his window. Will won that fight, having dragged Tier to Hannibal's house like a housecat bringing its owner a dead bird. A week later, Margot appeared with a rather unusual request. He and Margot had met briefly previously, but their second meeting was fueled by alcohol and mutual lust for something that wasn't each other. It was only after that that Will met Mason Verger, Margot's brother and the would-be uncle of his child, had it lived. Will knew Hannibal wanted him to kill Mason. He told Jack he could manipulate Hannibal into killing Mason. In all reality, Mason was just a toy for Will and Hannibal to bat between them. 

"Do not let empathy confuse what you want for what Lecter wants," Jack warned, bringing Will back into the moment. He dropped his hand with a sigh. 

"It's hard sometimes to figure out where he ends and I begin," Will answered quietly. 

"You and Hannibal are nothing alike." He knew Jack meant the statement to be reassuring, but it wasn't.

“Hannibal and I are the same. As much as we are different. He is fire and I am water. Equally destructive and restorative in their own rights but in different ways. And when we crash, we consume. There is no fire or water in our wake. Just ash and destruction.” He glared at the floor. Jack sighed, but the sound seemed like it was a million miles away to Will's ears. 

"You are not destruction." 

"Am I not?" Will asked. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he sighed, breaking himself from the moment and distracting Jack from whatever retort he was likely to offer. Will was dismissed and he trudged through Quantico to his car, feeling oddly lost. He dropped into his car with a sigh. The wolf huffed in the back of his mind, but he ignored it in favor of letting the memory that was sitting at bay come forward. He would remember it eventually, and better it be in the car alone than around someone else. 

He remembered the feel of Hannibal's teeth sinking into his neck. He remembered the initial pain. And then it was so much more. He had an overwhelming feeling of pleasure and he was certain he moaned. Hannibal's grip on him tightened and the two of them fell backward, collapsing onto the bed. Will practically covered Hannibal with his body, giving him better access. Hannibal's other arm wrapped around him, holding him closer while the hand that had been on Will's neck, fisted in his hair. Will saw flashed of red, blood, and various kills. He watched as though he were watching a movie, seeing various others fall to Hannibal. They shifted positions again, Hannibal's body covering Will's while he stayed attached to his neck. The wolf howled in the back of his mind as Will found himself clinging to Hannibal. He was certain the other could have drained him right there and he wouldn't care. 

The wolf wasn't the same after that. It longed to be around Hannibal, only content when he and the other were in the same room. When the full moon came, the wolf howled as it normally did, but this time it wasn't the moon it was howling for. Will refrained from thinking about what the wolf really wanted, who it was howling for. Instead, when he woke up in the morning he practically drove himself to extreme exhaustion. 

He returned home, waiting for the inevitable. 

Mason was going to come for him at some point. He would come for Hannibal too. Will had the feeling that there would be a confrontation between the three of them and he knew who would win. 

When it came, he spent most of the experience unconscious. He had managed to free Hannibal, who could have freed himself but Will knew he was waiting for him to do it, only to then be knocked unconscious. He may have been supernatural, but his head was still very human. The last thing he saw was a flash of red and then his eyes rolled back into the back of his head. 

Afterward, when he walked into his house, some part of him knew he should have called Jack. He should have arrested Hannibal right there, not that it would do much good. But he had his proof now, proof enough for any jury. There was a body left at the Verger farm, not yet completely eaten by the pigs, and another sitting in his living room/bedroom, peeling off his face and feeding it to the dogs. It was all the proof he needed really. While he knew he could finally force Hannibal into the light with this, he didn't. He didn't want Hannibal under the spotlight anymore. He didn't want him arrested. He didn't want him imprisoned. He didn't want him anywhere but where he suddenly appeared; at Will's side. 

Hannibal stalked behind him, watching Mason. Will took his chance to look at the man, to truly evaluate him. And god he was beautiful. To Will at least. He was a predator, as much as Will was. He was everything that Will had tried to repress in himself. And he was equally as human. Will thought back to their conversation the last time the two of them were in this same room. He thought about Hannibal's humanity, which he glimpsed at that moment. And everything in that moment told him to give in. He wanted Hannibal. Or maybe it was the moon nearing again, he tried to tell himself. But Will's mind wouldn't let him excuse his feelings this time. 

You know what you want.

Who you want. The wolf added.

Is this it then? He asked himself. Not with a bang but with a whimper.

You've denied me your whole life, you've denied yourself. Wouldn't it be better to give in? To be free.

His eyes met Hannibal's for a moment. He could see it, the freedom Hannibal offered. The freedom that only came with one request: to stay at Hannibal's side. 

"He's your patient, Doctor. You do what you feel is best for him."

Hannibal raised an eyebrow, a playful look flashing in his amber eyes, before, he walked over to Mason and grasped his head, snapping his neck easily. And Will's heart jumped into his throat. Hannibal felt for Mason's pulse, though they both knew he was still alive. Will could hear the thrum of his heart just as he knew Hannibal could. The wolf was practically pacing in the back of his mind, slamming his body against the barriers that Will had erected around it. If it were another time, he might have thought the wolf was begging to tear into Mason. 

Take what you want. The wolf told him. You've said that I only ever care about three things and that I crave two. But so do you.

"Fuck," He breathed as Hannibal made his way around Mason.

It was the only warning he gave either of them, before Will grasped the front of his shirt, hauling him against the door. Their lips crashed together and he knew he was lost. Any surprise that Hannibal might have experienced was swept away quickly as he returned Will's rather brutal kiss. He pulled the other against him, cradling Hannibal's head in one hand and pressing against his lower back with the other. 

"I give up," He whispered, peppering kisses down Hannibal's jaw and against his neck. "I give up." He said again, stronger this time. "You have me." He sighed into the other's neck.

"You have me." The words echoed into the very depths of Hannibal's mind and made him hum with contentment. He wrapped his arms around the other as best he could given his bloody hands and pressed a kiss to his hair. 

"I've always had you," He whispered. "And I suppose I should ask your forgiveness." Will pulled away from him slightly, those ocean-eyes meeting Hannibal's gaze. "I'm sorry, Will." He opened his mouth to continue but the other shook his head. 

"Just promise this is it," He looked distraught and Hannibal suddenly wanted nothing more than to comfort him. "No lies. No games. Just us." 

Hannibal turned them pressing Will against the door just as harshly as the other had done to him moments before. But rather than the crushing kiss the other had given him, he dropped slowly to one knee and then the other. 

"You have me," Hannibal repeated his words. "I'm yours to do as you see fit."

Will hummed. "Go wash your hands then." He looked over at Mason, still unconscious on the chair. "I'll deal with him." 

A few moments later, Hannibal's hands were clean and Will was pulling off his jacket after having deposited Mason in the back of Hannibal's car. Hannibal watched him move in the darkness, finding his easy movements endearing. 

"There's something I have to tell you," Will said quietly as he moved closer. For a moment, Hannibal thought he might refer to an attempt to capture him, as he suspected Will might try. "The last full moon," He began before sighing. "The wolf normally howls for the moon. It's cliché, I know, but normally he does." He stepped up to Hannibal. "But he didn't howl for the moon last time." Will closed the distance between them, sighing again when their bodies brushed together. "He was howling for you." Hannibal noted the fact that Will no longer addressed the wolf as it, but rather as he. "You're my moon now." 

Hannibal was all too aware that he had a heart now, as it clenched at those words. He tucked Will against him, burying his face in the other's neck and pressing them together. They stood like that for a long moment, the two of them clinging to each other as though they would fall apart if they let go. 

"Please," Will whispered after a moment. He tilted his head more to give Hannibal access. The wolf, who Hannibal sometimes heard from, whimpered at the movement. "Please."

Will was ambrosia to him, the taste of his blood the closest he had come to tasting the divine food of gods. He sunk his teeth into Will's neck as his request, humming slightly as the taste of his blood filled Hannibal's mouth. Will moaned, pressing his weight more against Hannibal. They were wrapped in each other, Hannibal grasping Will against him as though he were holding him together. Will turned his head slightly, pushing the fabric of Hannibal's shirt aside. There was another whimper, the only warning he had, before Will's teeth sunk into his shoulder.

Any pleasure he experienced from the taste of Will's blood was amplified to an extreme he didn't think possible. 

And then everything exploded.

When Jack pulled up to Will's house, there was no sign of life anywhere. He had just returned from the Verger estate, seeing what he knew to be Hannibal Lecter's work. But Mason said nothing helpful. There was no way to prove that it was Hannibal who had done the deed. Jack stepped from the car, sighing slightly as he looked at the desolate house. He hadn't seen or heard from Will in two days. His calls all went to voicemail, his emails left unanswered. His mind constantly returned to Miriam Lass, another who he had sent hunting the Ripper and vanished out from under his nose. And now he worried it was happening again.

There was no answer when he knocked on the door, not even the distinct barking of Will's many dogs. He opened the screen door and tested the lock on the front door. It opened easily.

Will's house was exactly as he remembered it except now it was decorated with blood. The chair in the corner just inside the door was drenched with blood with bloody handprints on the armrests. There was a splatter of blood along one wall and some drops on the floor. 

But Will and his dogs were gone. He suddenly feared the worst.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he called Price and Zeller who came to the scene looking drawn and tired, much like how he felt. 

"Jack," Zeller said softly, pulling him from his thoughts. "We know who's blood this is." 

Jack waited patiently while he and Price exchanged a look before both sighed. 

"This," He pointed to the chair. "Belongs to Mason Verger. And this," He pointed to the floor. "Is Will's. And that," He pointed to small spatter on the wall. "Is Hannibal Lecter's."

"What the hell happened here?"

Chapter Text

All he needed to see were the words "Murder Husbands" in order to bring the most recent article written by Freddie Lounds back to Hannibal to read. They had vanished a month ago, leaving no trace but a few drops of blood to signal that they were there in the first place. Will grabbed the paper, how Freddie had managed to make Tattlecrime a magazine he didn't know, and paid for it with a rudimentary thank you. They had been in Florence for two weeks at this point, first having gone to Paris where Hannibal decided to restart their identities. In private, they were still Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, but to the world, they were other people entirely. Will chuckled as he read through the article more, walking a well-worn route back to the apartment he and Hannibal were sharing. 

The first couple of weeks were difficult between them. Every now and then, he thought back to the last day at his house. Will wasn't even thinking when his teeth sunk into Hannibal's shoulder. It was all instinct. But the impact it had was fabulous. Those like him, wolves, were made in two ways. One, they were born like he was. Or two, they were bitten. He had forgotten for a moment that he could potentially doom another to the same curse as him. It was why he was always incredibly careful with his sexual partners and why, with one exception, he never wanted to procreate. He couldn't imagine dooming another person to the same fear he experienced on his first turn or the constant snapping of bones that came when he allowed the change every month. 

Quite unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he had forgotten that when he and Hannibal shared their most intimate moment yet. It was all on accident that he had turned him, the second time Hannibal had become something more than what he was, to begin with. And moments later, Will joined him in the same yet entirely different change. 

He asked Hannibal later if he had ever known someone who walked in both worlds, who was both wolf and vampire. The answer was no, which seemed to delight Hannibal greatly. They were pioneering new grounds, and they were doing it together. There had been one full moon since then. They had driven out of the city and to the Alps to share it. And what an experience it was. Hannibal was right of course. If he didn't fight the change, it didn't hurt. And what was even better was running the woods, not just with the pack, but with Hannibal as well. Will's wolf and Hannibal's interacted with each other the same way they did as men.

Will remembered as they shifted back into human form. Their wolves had become playful, with Will pinning Hannibal to the ground. As they changed back, it was him pinning Hannibal, and all too erotic moment of their naked bodies pressed together in the leaves. Hannibal though, ever the need for hygiene, didn't let their moment last in the dirt of the Alps.

When I have you, it will be as we both deserve.

He walked up the stairs to his and Hannibal's shared apartment, opening the door to find Hannibal talking rather politely with another man. 

"Ah," Hannibal said, turning his full attention to Will as he entered the room. "Perfect timing." 

Will folded the magazine in his hands to keep their pictures hidden from the other man in the room. He walked over to where Hannibal stood, his posture showcasing his eagerness for Will's embrace. He wrapped one arm around him, making certain the hand with his ring was visible. 

"You remember I told you about Antony Dimmond," Hannibal said lowly against Will's ear. 

"Pleasure." Will greeted. 

"I've invited him for dinner," Hannibal said after a moment. Will turned, meeting his eyes. Hannibal raised an eyebrow, and a silent exchange passed between them. 

"We would love to have you for dinner," Will murmured, offering a small smile. 

"Excellent," Dimmond answered. 

Quite unfortunately for him, he didn't know what dinner entailed. Will watched in the background as the man continued his flirtations with Hannibal. Neither of them had officially stated their relationship to each other, and for the moment the rings were all for show. But Will's possessive side flared, watching the other man's eyes rake over Hannibal as though he were the meal. He poured himself a drink, attempting to keep his rage under control, but he could hear every twitch the other man made. His empathy was even worse as the hybrid he now was, making it easy to glean the thoughts of other people, or even change them if he wanted to. He had done it earlier when the man at the kiosk thought for a moment that Will looked a little too much like one of the men in the photograph. All Dimmond displayed was lust. 

Lust for something that belonged to Will. 

He knew Hannibal was watching him, waiting for him to do something. Waiting for him to make a move. 

Will did remember Hannibal telling him about Dimmond. When they were in Paris, Hannibal had met the man for the first time at a party where Hannibal began scoping their identities. Such a shame he would have to die.

Part of him wanted to wait for Hannibal to make a move, to brush off the other's obvious advances. 

They would be locked in a stalemate until the end of time if both of them kept leaning into their stubbornness. The closest they had come to intimacy was the day they were changed and the morning after the full moon. But otherwise, it had been careful brushes and massive distances. They slept in separate rooms, sometimes even ate at separate times. He knew he was aching for more, the wolf was aching for more. But Hannibal and Will were both stubborn people and he knew it all too well. One would have to give in and it would likely be him. Hannibal would love to watch Will's possessiveness as he tried to keep it in check. He would love to watch him war with himself about whether or not to do something. It was among Hannibal's favorite pastimes to watch Will and the many emotions he wrestled with. And now it was even worse. There was an extra layer to their relationship since that last night in Wolf Trap, something that neither of them prodded at just yet. But it was there, simmering under the surface. Waiting.

Will downed another drink quickly as Hannibal and Dimmond moved closer. One of them was going to engage Will in conversation. Depending on who would determine his next move. 

Hannibal said something that Will didn't quite catch but he did catch Dimmond's response. 

"Is it that kind of party?" 

He felt the weight of two sets of eyes on him, as he set down the glass he was currently holding before he shattered it.

"No." He answered lowly. "It isn't."

He moved quickly, faster than Dimmond could comprehend but not Hannibal, as he lunged forward, snapping the man's neck with a satisfying crack. Dimmond's now limp body fell in the space between them and Hannibal raised an eyebrow.

But Will was far too gone to care. 

He practically snarled as he lunged at Hannibal, pressing him against the wall with increased strength. Both of them were stronger now, more durable. And the wall shook when their bodies collided into it.

Will captured the other's mouth, the two of them clinging to each other. Hannibal hummed with satisfaction against him. 

"You had what you wanted," Will muttered against the other's lips. "Now it's my turn."

It was easy for him to pick up the other, who went willingly with every move he made. His increased speed meant they made it to Hannibal's bedroom in the blink of an eye. He laid Hannibal on the bed, grinding against him with fervor. 

He had never experienced a want this bad. Never experienced something that felt more like a need. The wolf within him was whimpering, a sound echoed by the new wolf in Hannibal's mind. He captured the other's lip between his teeth, pulling and biting enough to taste blood. And it only enticed him more. 

Unlike the last time they shared, there was no danger between them now. His teeth sunk into Hannibal's shoulder and Hannibal's into his neck. The bond simmering under the surface snapped into place between them. All he could feel was a sudden sense of belonging. He belonged to Hannibal and Hannibal belonged to him. 

They tore at each other's clothes, quite literally, bits of fabric flying all over until bodies were laid bare before each other. He bit mark after mark against Hannibal's skin, claiming him. Marking him. He had never felt as close to someone as he did at that moment, the two of them a mess of limbs and lips. Hands were everywhere, lips were everywhere, tasting and touching everything they could find. Their bodies ground together, fitting like puzzle pieces. This was where he belonged. This was who he belonged to. 

Hannibal's hips bucked into his and their lengths brushed against one another. He shuddered at the feeling, something much more animalistic inside him begging to be brought to the surface. He wasn't thinking anymore, he wasn't caring. He was acting on pure instinct and want. Hannibal's finger dug into his back, as their lips met again, needy and demanding. 

Their tongues tangled together, their bodies pressed against each other. Where he ended and Hannibal began, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered at his point. 

Hannibal sat them up, Will positioned on his lap, as he fumbled for something in the bedside table. Will watched, his lips still pressing kisses against Hannibal's shoulder, as the other deposited lube on the bed next to them. His next kiss against Hannibal's jaw held a question, and Hannibal answered it by pressing the bottle into Will's hand. He knew what Hannibal wanted as he laid them back down once more. 

They shifted slightly, Will pressing himself between Hannibal's legs. They clung to each other, pressing harsh kisses against flesh. He was certain they could have stayed like this for an eternity. Constantly torturing and denying themselves to keep them pressed together like this. But he wanted. God, he wanted. 

"Will," Hannibal breathed into his curls. 

He turned slightly, looking up from his position right under Hannibal's collarbone. 

There was a message in the other's eyes, one that Will understood easily. They would have eternity to spend exploring. To spend together. To switch positions between them or to claim each other as they wished. 

He kissed the other again, letting the kiss be guided by emotion rather than need before turning the other over. Hannibal shifted himself on the bed as Will settled himself between his legs. He opened the lube, pouring some onto his fingers. He leaned over Hannibal, pressing kisses against his shoulders as he first massaged and then pressed a digit inward. Hannibal groaned under him. He knew what he was doing. He had experiences with men on and off over the years. But normally it was just them chasing mutual pleasure. This was something different. He added another finger, moving them slowly and scissoring his fingers, hearing Hannibal moan and feeling him twitch. 

Eventually, he added a third, listening to every sound that Hannibal dared let out. Will wondered if the symphony of moans was only for him, or if he was this verbal with other lovers.

"Just for you," Hannibal muttered into the bed. "Always for you." 

"Only for me," Will purred in his ear and Hannibal shuddered. 

"Stop your torture. We've waited long enough."

"As you wish." And Hannibal shuddered again. 

Will removed his hand and grabbed the lube, spreading it over his length before leaning over Hannibal once more. His hands pressed into the sheets on either side of Hannibal's head as he pressed inward slowly. Hannibal reached one hand up, grasping one of Will's wrists while the other reached behind him, grasping at his hip. Will let out a moan as he sank to the hilt, pausing for a moment to let them both adjust. 

He pulled back slightly, feeling Hannibal's body resist him, and sunk in again. Over and over he repeated his movements, making them agonizingly slow for them both. He wanted more and he knew Hannibal did too, but he was content to torture them for a little longer. He wanted, more than anything, or Hannibal to lose control. Always, Hannibal maintained perfect control, even as the wolf suddenly came to life in his mind, he was still in control. But now he would see them both undone.

Hannibal sighed under him as he sunk down again, his face a mixture of pleasure and need. 

It was only then that he increased his movements. He began thrusting in earnest. Hannibal pushed back against him, demanding more. He lowered himself until his chest was against Hannibal's back before taking the hand that Hannibal wasn't holding and wrapping it around the other's throat. Hannibal's body arched, the back of his head pressed against Will's shoulder. His face displayed his pleasure as Will's thrusts became more brutal. Will was moaning and panting directly into his ear, their bodies folding into each other as they belonged. Together. 

Hannibal's other hand pressed against Will's holding him in place at his throat. 

The wolf within him snarled proudly, happy to finally, finally, claim its mate. 

He pulled from Hannibal, hearing him growl slightly before he flipped the other's body and sunk back into him. 

"Look at me."

And Hannibal's eyes snapped open. There was a ring of gold around his amber gaze, their eyes locked together as Will thrust into him. 

"I love you," He said quietly, watching the way Hannibal's lips parted in a different kind of pleasure at his declaration. 

He reached up and pulled Will down to him, their lips meeting. 

It was enough to send him over the edge and he came with a low moan. 

"I love you too," Hannibal whispered as Will pulled from him.

He grabbed for the lube once more, pouring it over Hannibal's cock and listening to him moan at his movements. He knew what he was about to do would burn, it would hurt, but he didn't care. He was over sensitive from his orgasm, but none of that mattered as he sank onto Hannibal's cock. He was willing to let him use his body to chase his orgasm. And that idea sent a jolt of pleasure right down his spine.

Hannibal sat up, his eyes still locked with Will's. There would be a mess on the bed, but he didn't seem to care as his arms wrapped around Will, pinning him against his chest. Will's body arched slightly and his nerves felt like they were on fire. But he had never felt more comfortable and alive than he did in that moment. He pressed another kiss to Hannibal's lips as he began to thrust into him, slowly at first and then faster. Will's body moved in tandem. There was the distinct sound of skin slapping against skin as Hannibal kept Will pinned to him, forehead pressed together. 

Will groaned as the other's thrusts became faster, brutal. They would never be able to share anything between them without some pain, without some bloodshed. And honestly, Will didn't care. He would hurt and bleed at Hannibal's touch because he knew in the end, Hannibal would never let the pain last. They would spend an eternity wrapped around each other and never tire. Never grow bored. Never want to be anywhere but where they were now. 

And that was what he knew he wanted. Only now, he embraced it.

Hannibal came, his breath brushing over Will's lips as he pressed himself into Will. His body shuddered and his grip became almost painful.

Almost.

It was only a few seconds before Hannibal noted that Will had grown erect once more, and it took very little to bring Will over the edge once again with him. 

They collapsed onto the bed with a sigh. He was still wrapped around Hannibal, and Hannibal wrapped around him. They shared a series of lazy kisses, the mess between them growing tacky but he didn't care. 

The wolf within him was content, silent.

He kept his leg draped over Hannibal's hip as he settled under the other's chin. 

"You know," He said eventually. "I was going to show you an article by Freddie Lounds."

"And what did she have to say?" Hannibal asked into his curls.

"She called us Murder Husbands."

Hannibal's hand slid to Will's, his fingers brushing over his ring. "How accurate."

"Do you think they'll ever give up?" He asked after a moment. 

"No." 

"We can't ever go back, can we?"

"One day maybe," Hannibal began tracing patterns over his shoulders. "When Jack can no longer look. Maybe in a few years, he will see that neither you nor I ever age, and he will think himself senile." Will hummed slightly. "However," Hannibal said quietly. "I am not worried about that."

"Why not?" Will asked curiously. 

"Because I am already home."