Chapter Text
‘So, to be clear,’ Will swiped a hand over his face in exasperation, ‘you want me and Hannibal to go on a date for work.’
‘Will.’ Jack sighed. ‘We need you to go undercover as a couple. That is not a date.’
‘Is this professional?’ The profiler grimaced, hoping against hope that the answer would be no. Not that that had stopped Jack in the past.
‘It is perfectly above board to ask a field agent to do his job.’
‘But Hannibal?’
‘Dr. Lecter is all for it.’ Jack said smugly, thinking this was his gotcha moment. If anything, it made Will want to comply less.
‘Is he now.’ Will rolled his eyes. ‘What, does he think it’s gonna be good for my grip on reality? To pretend to be fucking my shrink?’
‘I’m willing to bet everything I have that it would be the other way around.’ Bev snorted from the other side of the office, having invited herself to sit in on what was surely going to be a juicy meeting. Beverly, voluntarily going to a meeting she didn’t have to be in. What had the world come to?
‘Fuck off, Katz.’ Will sighed, he didn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed.
Jack exhaustedly tried to get the conversation back on track.
‘Look, Will, I’ll be straight with you-’ Bev scoffed again, silenced only by her boss’ death stare. ‘We need you to agree to this. It’s the only way we can get you into this art show, the one Hannibal has been invited to.’
‘Why can’t we go as friends?’ Will whined, hanging his head back and staring intently at the blankness of the ceiling.
‘Because it’s strictly invite only. Plus ones of just friends probably wouldn’t be accepted.’
‘Probably?’
‘Will.’ Jack said lowly, his tone dipping to the frequency that translated anything he said to ‘Stop fucking around.’
After biting his lip and scowly thoroughly for a few moments, just so everyone knew exactly how opposed he was to this idea, Will groaned a vague noise of acquiescence and allowed the briefing to continue.
*****
‘We need to get you both wired up, and then you can head out.’ Bev said jovially, feeling far too much glee at the prospect of her best friend having to play house with his psychiatrist.
‘Naturally.’ Hannibal murmured, looking around in that adorably confused kitten way he had, like the first time they’d brought him to the morgue. ‘How do I…?’
‘Just lift your shirt up and I’ll thread it through.’
Will scowled at the mischievous glint in Beverley’s eyes, choosing to angrily focus on the way she ogled his bare stomach and chest than to let himself join in. Not that he would’ve ogled. Not that he’d have even noticed the way his salt and pepper chest hair petered down into a line that led to his waistband, or that his pecs looked firm enough to squeeze, or that he had a lovely little pouch of stomach that would probably rub so nicely against the small of his back if he were fucking him from behi-
Nope. Will didn’t notice any of those things. No siree bob.
He just glared at Beverly until she came to string his wire through his shirt sleeve - now why couldn’t Hannibal have just had that - tucking the hem back into his pants in a huff and pulling at the bow tie where it felt like it was choking him.
‘Stop that.’ Hannibal said almost fondly, batting Will’s hands away and smoothing the tie gently. ‘It was lying perfectly.’
‘It’s strangling me.’ Will mumbled, pulling at his cuffs and generally acting like some kind of itchy, twitchy, chihuahua.
‘Hush, Will. As my date, I will not have you walking in there with an… uneven bow tie.’ Hannibal said the last bit with such a look of distaste that Will had to chuckle. Despite his gut deciding to go all floaty and fizzy at the word ‘date’. He must’ve had too much caffeine, that was it.
Bev coughed delicately, a shit eating grin spread across her face.
‘I’ll leave you lovebirds to it, then.’ She smirked and sauntered away, leaving them to make the short drive to the gallery alone.
Will huffed, a horrible mixture of embarrassment and discomfort morphing into a generally hostile demeanour. He brooded silently in the Bentley, picking absently at the seat stitching in a last ditch attempt to distract himself. The idea of having to pretend to be Hannibal’s partner was filling him with a prickly, sickly embarrassment - he couldn’t stop seeing them from the point of view of the other attendees of the party. They weren’t even there yet and he could see their patronising, disbelieving little smirks so clearly. As if Hannibal would ever really date someone like that, they’d say. As if he’s serious, it’s another one of his unfunny puns.
The static of unease in his head got a little bit quieter when, ever so casually, Hannibal put a hand at the small of his back as he guided them towards the entrance. It’s gentle but firm weight was grounding, it kept him in his body and not in his head.
‘Lecter, Hannibal.’ Will listened to the vague pleasantries exchanged as Hannibal collected their tickets, pressing hesitantly back against the man’s hand, and breathing slightly more easily when its thumb began to rub small, soothing circles into his back. Soothing. Not a word Will thought he’d ever associate with casual touch.
‘Ready, darling?’ Hannibal murmured oh so smugly as they made their way inside.
‘As I’ll ever be.’ Will grumbled back, letting the hand behind him pull him into the fray.
He barely had a minute to acclimatise himself before-
‘Hannibal, how gorgeous!’
A woman swooped in to plant two lipsticky air kisses to Hannibal’s cheeks, holding his hand between hers like he was on his deathbed. She was glamorous, that was certain. Expensive in a way that still looked it, not so expensive it started to look cheap again. Her hair was severed at her chin into a jet black bob, her eyebrows thin and drawn on underneath her bangs. It all looked so… orchestrated that Will felt even more out of place.
‘Mrs. Komeda, how wonderful to see you.’ Hannibal purred back with one of his rare not completely forced smiles.
‘And who’s this?’ The woman who was apparently called Mrs. Komeda said gleefully, clapping her silk gloved hands together in a display of childlike excitement.
‘Mrs. Komeda, let me introduce you to Will Graham, my partner. Will Graham, Mrs. Komeda.’
Will risked a glance up at the woman’s face, masochistically wanting to know how she’d react to the news.
Alarmingly, she beamed even wider and gasped salaciously.
‘Oh, isn’t he beautiful!’ She sang.
Will froze. This was… worse actually. Not that he could 100% tell if she was being earnest or not - he didn’t want to look her in the eyes to check - but either way this was worse. Either he was decidedly and completely too ugly for Hannibal and she was laying it on thick to mock him, or he was being cooed over like a particularly shiny new piece of jewellery. He’d have preferred a snide grimace and a wave of dismissal any day - he was used to those at least.
‘He is.’ Hannibal murmured so warmly, so earnestly, so quietly that Will couldn’t be sure Mrs. Komeda had even heard it. He must have thought she’d be able to, he reasoned, if he’d said it at all. None of this was real.
‘Good to meet you, Mrs. Komeda.’ he managed to say through gritted teeth, a smile barely hiding a snarl as she held his hand gently to shake it, seemingly testing its softness and fragility. Just as he had suspected - she thought Will was too rough to be with Hannibal, the calluses on his hands from fishing and the nail beds shredded by anxiety gave him away as ‘not worthy.’ He felt his hands begin to break into a prickly sweat and he tucked them behind his back as soon as they were his own again.
‘And you, Mr. Graham. You must invite me over for dinner, Hannibal, and tell me all about how you two met. I’m afraid that now I am needed by the Bauhaus - I can see Anthony about to give them asking price for that piece - a reprint.’ She looked genuinely scandalised as she lent over to give Hannibal the airy cheek kisses that people seemed to learn upon their induction into higher society. ‘I will see you soon, yes?...’
Will realised the woman had been addressing him expectantly, and he hurried into what he hoped was a sincere looking smile and nod. It seemed to appease her and she hurried over to the man, Anthony, who had got out his chequebook.
Hannibal eyed Will as the younger man let out a long and pained breath, getting as close to rolling his eyes as the psychiatrist ever did. Will sulked.
‘She thinks I’m arm-candy!’ Will hissed in explanation, to which Hannibal smirked and suddenly pulled Will close to him with the arm that had been tucked against the small of his back - the arm Will had, unnervingly, forgotten about. That had felt normal. Safe.
Although there was no time to overthink that, as whatever it was doing now certainly didn’t feel safe. It was perched above his hip bone, nestled into the slight curve of his waist. Will looked up in disgruntlement, only to be met with Hannibal’s face far closer to his than it had been.
‘Wha-’ he choked.
‘Darling, please try to act as if my touch isn’t completely alien to you, hm?’
Will met Hannibal’s eyes instinctively at the endearment, and couldn’t manage to hold contact with them for long enough to read anything. A fiery blush had swept over his face with the abruptness of a sunburn appearing just after you left the beach, and it brought with it a similar feeling of foolishness.
‘Maybe we’re not a touchy couple.’ Will mumbled half-heartedly.
‘Now really, Will. No one would believe that. Look at you.’
‘What about me?’
‘Well, these people know me, they know my attitude towards beauty, and they know my complete inability to keep away from what’s mine for even a second.’ Hannibal whispered, an eyebrow raising in challenge.
In order to have any hope of disguising the absolute fluster Will was in, he fell back into a comfortable area. Sass.
‘Possessive. You must have been a joy as a toddler.’
Hannibal huffed a breath of a laugh and finally, blessedly, cursedly, returned to his position stood at Will’s side.
‘A trait that has only intensified with age. I was not so possessive with my things when I believed I would have them forever.’
Momentarily unsure whether he was meant to respond earnestly, or to carry on with his teasing, Will was snapped from his indecision by a sharp squeeze to his hip as Hannibal stepped away from him.
‘Drinks, my love?’
‘Uh. Sure?’ Will said confusedly, trying to read the message in Hannibal’s eyes. Had he been expected to respond instantly? With comfort, or intrigue, or sorrow? Is that what was expected of Hannibal’s partner? Worse still - is it what Hannibal expected of him as a friend? Because they were that - surely they were that by now. They were more that than Will was with anyone else in his life, so he was going to work under the assumption that he at least made it onto Hannibal’s acquaintance list.
Hannibal leant in and brushed his lips against Will’s ear, a mumbled ‘He’s here.’ disguised as a kiss. A kiss. A soft brush of skin on skin and a lingering warmth from his breath. A- A ‘he’s here’?
Right. Because they were meant to be trying to talk to that art-dealer-turned-probably-slasher-killer. Because he was at work.
He nodded tightly and let Hannibal walk away. Let their plan fall into place - Hannibal was to linger by the drinks table, he was to linger here. Alone, the stranger, Louis Cassais, was far more likely to approach one of them. Then they could reunite and begin their casual and definitely not recorded conversation. Simple, straightforward, agent stuff. His job. He shouldn’t have been bitter that the job called for Hannibal to move away, he shouldn’t be wishing they needed to hang off each other all night. He should have wanted to do whatever was best for the job, and to leave it at that. And yet. And yet the ghost of warmth he could still feel where Hannibal’s hand had been meant he didn’t even realise that Cassais had already said hello twice.
‘Oh - Hi, sorry. In my own world.’ He chuckled self deprecatingly, desperately trying to ignore the fact that a moment’s touch had possibly made him throw the whole operation.
‘Ah, impossible to avoid with such fine art surrounding us.’ The man said with an almost undetectably exaggerated french drawl. Almost.
‘My partner is more the art critic than I am.’ Will smiled, ignoring the warmth he felt saying it, the pride. He forced himself to look at Cassais, for the first time in person. He wasn’t tall, maybe 5’9, or maybe his lack of hair made him look shorter. A kind of bald you could only get if you polished your head, Will thought. That, paired with a baby face and a remarkably small nose, gave him the look of a toddler. Unnerving, when he was, actually, a man who had been killing people with his bare hands for at least five years.
‘Ah, one doesn’t need to be a critic to get lost in art! In fact, I find that is usually a hindrance.’
He had the cold, dead, eyes of a shark, Will thought. They only glittered because they were underwater.
‘This-’ Cassais gestured at what Will thought looked like a hairy bit of clay someone had rolled around on a dirty floor for some time, ‘is to us an expression of freedom and femininity, running through woods without shoes on and becoming the beast within. To an art critic - it should have been slanted more to the left, so the light hit it better. Both views have their place, but I would rather experience the former, no?’
‘No. Yes - I mean. Yes.’ Will hadn’t really followed much of that. Because it was boring, pretentious, art stuff, and not because Hannibal was finally making his way back towards them.
‘Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese.’ Hannibal said, handing Will a glass of wine.
‘Who?’
Hannibal looked at him with amused fondness, and it made Will blush.
‘The kind of wine. Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese.’
‘Oh.’ Will ducked his head and took a sip, half mortified and half proud that he’d never so much as heard of the stuff. He knew his dad would have felt the same and he grimaced, taking a much larger swig than it was probably proper to of a Welner Sonheur Sputleeseh.
‘You must be the art critic.’
At Hannibal’s confused (and definitely not cute) little expression, Will clarified, ‘I’ve been talking about you again.’ with a little touch to the man’s shoulder. As casually as he could muster.
‘Not to worry, all good things.’ Cassais drawled, eyeing Hannibal up and down with a vague displeasure.
‘I’m flattered. There are many terrible things he could have been saying.’ Hannibal replied, eyes still on Will and with such an air of salaciousness it made the younger man blush.
‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.’ Cassais interjected, holding a hand out rather like he wanted Will to kiss it like he was royalty, but upon seeing his confusion reluctantly acquiesced and offered him a handshake.
‘Will Graham.’
‘Louis Cassais.’ He drawled back, and Will fought the urge to wipe his hand on his trousers. Cassais’ hand had been clammy, cold, and dead. And these suit pants probably cost more than his house did. Jesus, Will wanted to get out of here.
‘Hannibal Lecter.’ The older man introduced himself gracefully, a nod of the head to indicate a bow and shake of the hand that made you feel as though you ought to have kissed it.
‘Ah - Doctor Lecter. Your particular brand of psychiatry makes you a popular topic of conversation in my circles.’
‘Oh?’ Hannibal replied with almost perfectly feigned interest. Will smirked - it reassured him to know he wasn’t the only one finding this man insufferable.
‘Yes. That and your completely incomprehensible bachelorism. No one could understand how you’d managed to stay single - I’m glad to see that has been rectified.’ Cassais looked between them with a look so slimy it made Will want to hup him to Sunday. But that was his father speaking again, he always did when the booze came out.
‘As am I.’ Hannibal agreed, his arm tightening its hold on Will’s waist possessively as he too noticed the slime about the man.
To be honest with himself, Will had seen enough. It was him - Cassais was the killer - and he didn’t need to see anymore to be sure of that. If he didn’t tell Hannibal that and let them hang around a bit longer, well that was simply because he was so dedicated to the job. He’d looked into the man’s eyes and felt sick with power, a kind of blinding self-belief that made everyone else look small and laughable. He believed himself to be immortal and untouchable, and his prey were just another way of proving that to himself. Will found himself reaching for Hannibal’s hand for support.
After exchanging a few more (un)pleasantries with the man, Hannibal excused the pair under the pretense of exploring the art, and Will steered them back to the bar.
‘Fuck, I need a drink.’ Will rubbed a hand over his face, the sound of dry skin against stubble like static in his overactive mind.
‘Are you alright?’ Hannibal suddenly held him at arm's length, assessing him, a look of such genuine concern in his eyes Will momentarily forgot he was probably acting.
‘Yeah. Just - what a creep.’ Will mumbled, going to order and realising he had no clue what the name of that wine was, and possibly not the cash in his wallet to afford a glass of it. Hannibal noticed this hesitation and smoothly swooped in, one hand sliding into the curls at the nape of his neck and the other placing a black credit card onto the bar.
‘A glass of Dalmore 30, neat, please.’ He said, sliding the card towards the spotty boy behind the bar. It seemed no matter how high end the event, the waiters would always look like they were too young to be serving.
The boy nodded and went to the back, coming back with a sheepish expression and a bottle of whiskey emblazoned with a silver stag’s head. It came with a wooden case - something Will knew was a bad sign for the price.
‘You have to buy the bottle for this one, sir.’
Will opened his mouth to protest, but Hannibal squeezed his waist, nodding in acceptance and placing his card beside the register without a care in the world.
‘A glass for now, we will collect the bottle when we leave. Thank you.’ Hannibal handed the crystal tumbler over to Will, who had gone the most enticing shade of pink, and led them away from the bar.
‘If you like it, you shall keep the bottle.’ Hannibal said, as if it was the most casual thing in the world.
Will took a sip and hummed in appreciation, eyes widening slightly. It was unlike anything he’d let himself buy before, and almost alien to the petrol fluid type stuff he used to steal from the cupboard as a teenager.
‘Damn, that’s good stuff.’
He watched as Hannibal’s eyes glistened, his mouth lifting at each corner into a cat-like grin.
‘I am glad you like it. It is one of my preferred single malts. I apologise for not asking, but I remembered it was finished in casks from Graham’s port and the coincidence amused me.’
Will laughed, taking another long sip of the warming amber liquid. ‘Well I’m glad, this is what I needed.’
‘Keep the bottle, then.’ Hannibal said softly, watching Will closely as he sipped the drink.
‘You’re gonna ruin me, cher. I’ll want another and burn through my savings like I’ve got a week to live.’
Hannibal’s blush was the only reason Will realised he’d used the pet name, but he was comfortably tipsy, comfortably tucked against Hannibal’s hip, and couldn’t quite find it in himself to worry.
‘I’ll get you another.’
‘That is not what I was saying - now people really are gonna think I’m arm candy. Bought with booze.’
‘Nonsense.’ Hannibal smiled, warm and slow. ‘I’m sure they’ll sympathise with my desire to spoil you until you’re terribly rotten.’
Will snorted, ‘You’re insufferable.’
‘So I’ve been told. Shall we be generous and call it part of my charm?’
‘You give me that bottle and I’ll feel very generous indeed.’ Will caught Hannibal’s gaze and was suddenly uncomfortably aware of their proximity, of his lack of inhibition, of the fact that they could have called this operation finished about a half hour ago and that his colleagues could hear everything through their wires. He blushed and took the last sip of his drink, squeezing Hannibal’s hip where his hand had ended up and nodding towards the door.
‘Would your friends think it incredibly rude if I made you leave early?’
‘Again, I imagine they’ll sympathise.’ Hannibal whispered warmly, guiding a now slightly dazed Will through the motions of goodbyes, collecting a rather fancy looking bag at the bar and setting it in the younger man’s hand.
When they finally got outside and back into their cars, Will could barely look at Beverley. Her fucking smug little grin as she removed her earpiece, looking down at the bag in Will’s lap with poorly concealed glee.
That night, as Will finally got home and placed the wooden box of alcohol on his counter, he reached for his cell. Unusually, he actually had a message - one from Beverley that was just a link to a website with the caption ‘if u don’t blow him I will xoxo’. He sighed and clicked through to the website - breath catching in his throat with a splutter as he read the page.
The Dalmore 30. Rare and Prestige Whiskies. 30 year old, 43.8 %, $5,500.
$5,500.
Five thousand and five hundred US fucking dollars.
Will threw his phone onto the counter and rolled into bed, deciding that Hannibal Lecter was simply a kind of rich he’d never understand. Who in their right fucking mind buys a bottle that expensive for a colleague. For a work thing. For no fucking reason. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was admiring how the moon glinted against the stag’s head on the wooden box, winking and flashing like a star, like the eye of a man watching him.