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Hannibal felt dirty. Dirty and in desperate need of a bath. It was a pretty familiar feeling. Most hunts involved him getting his hands dirty in one way or another, and almost all of them involved him doing some heavy lifting. He prided himself on his ability to pursue his hobby with the minimum fuss, but he wasn’t getting any younger and his muscles ached. A bath, then.
Like most things in Hannibal Lecter's life, his bathroom was impeccable. Grey slate tiling covered the floor, including the floor of the shower. Glass rose up from it to create a box large enough to easily fit 5 people, with a huge shower head positioned above the centre. Opposite that, a large heated towel rack laden with dark blue towels. He leaned in to start the shower, though it reached optimal temperature in seconds, and quickly but carefully undressed, leaving his clothes in a neat pile on a nearby counter. There was no point taking a bath to get clean.
Stepping into the shower, Hannibal was warmed almost instantly by the water, and began swiftly and methodically cleaning himself. The grime lifted easily under the power of the water and he felt better already. Though this was nowhere near the main event, Hannibal gleaned as much enjoyment as possible from the shower. If nothing else, it prepared him for his bath. A much more indulgent experience requiring a little more preparation than this. He turned the shower off, opened the glass door and reached for a towel to wrap around himself.
His bathtub was the most obvious show of his taste and wealth in the room. An unusually deep, long tub set into a shelf that took up a solid corner of the already sizeable bathroom. He settled the plug into its groove and turned on the hot tap. There was a definite technique to drawing the perfect bath for himself, and a big part of it was made up of a 7:4 hot:cold water ratio. If the steam wasn’t rising from the water and any body part submersed for too long didn’t turn angry red? It wasn’t hot enough for Hannibal.
While the water ran, Hannibal left the ensuite bathroom and switched on the speakers in his nearby bedroom. It wouldn’t be a bath without some music. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata seemed the obvious choice. Overrated, perhaps, but it had a certain quality Hannibal was looking for in the moment. Piano wasn’t usually his style, but just this once he’d deviate from his usual bathtime listening.
Music playing slightly louder than usual so he could still hear it through the open bathroom door, Hannibal returned to his bath. The hot water had reached nearly half of the depth he desired, so he turned the cold tap on. Turning to a cabinet beneath the sink, he located bath salts and eucalyptus essential oil. If nothing else, this bath was going to smell nice. He dipped his fingers in, swirling the water and dissolving the salts before turning off both taps and hanging up his towel once more. They were pink when he pulled them back.
Stepping into the water sent a welcome thrill through him. The almost unbearable heat enveloping his legs up to his knees took a few moments of getting used to. There was no rush, though, and he waited for his toes to register something like a normal temperature once more before slowly dropping to his knees, barely suppressing a wince with each bit of skin newly exposed to the heat. He continued on in this way, gradually acclimatising his entire body until he was almost completely submerged. Stretching out in earnest and feeling the water gently lap at his chin where he held it just out of the water, the relaxation set in in earnest. He closed his eyes and gently ran his hands over his thighs, squeezing gently in what could generously be termed a massage in the same way that poking a bruise could be considered reasonable medical attention.
Only then, his head the only part of him broaching the water, his hands intently kneading at his thighs, the tension in his body slowly ebbing away. Only then did he allow his thoughts to drift back to his favourite subject: Will Graham. Will, who was breaking apart so beautifully before his eyes. Will, the man with whom Hannibal was easily almost as infatuated with as he was infuriated by. Will, all rough around the edges but with a dual centre that was looking more and more like it was constructed of almost perfect good and evil. The contradiction and challenge that lay there was intoxicating. Hannibal took a deep breath, inhaling the eucalyptus and focussing on only that for a moment to steady himself. He knew full well that once he started on Will, he found it especially difficult to stop. But he had to know how far the spiral went. He had been commended for his self control and restraint when the situation called for it, but he couldn’t help himself when it came to this.
He moved his hands from his thighs up to his shoulders. It was nearly impossible to give himself the neck or back massage he needed, but he slowly shifted his hands to the back of his neck and tried anyway. The results were mixed. Without a doubt it felt better than nothing, but again he couldn’t help but wonder whether Will’s hands could help. Will’s hands that were so obviously made for hard work. Strong, calloused hands clearly suited better to workshop tinkering than to massaging. Hannibal wanted them anyway. He opened his eyes, stilling his fingers but leaving them laced behind his neck, his head tilted forwards.
He removed his fingers from his neck and tilted his head back, further than before so all but his face was underwater. His hands slowly moved down the length of his lean torso, the disturbance in the water registering in his ears as alien dialogue, too bubbly and far away to hear properly, the music nothing but distant noise from beneath the surface. He closed his eyes and embraced the lack of his senses for a while, one hand resting on his sternum while the other drifted further down. The way Hannibal held his cock could almost be described as casual. One handed, lazy strokes applying just enough pressure to encourage blood flow. The movement started waves lapping once more at his chin, and he heard the soft hum he gave out loud despite the water in his ears.
His thoughts once more drifted easily back to Will. To his soft curls and grey eyes. Eyes that, for all their perception, seemed to Hannibal to be more often than not full of confusion. Hannibal could construct a perfect copy of Will in his mind’s eye. His thoughts focussing on his lips, circled as they were by his beard that he knew would scratch him if ever they kissed. Hannibal could almost feel his chin scraped pink from neverending kisses. He was certain he wouldn’t mind. It was harder to picture Will post-kiss, though. Would he be as breathless as Hannibal? Would he frown and pout when their lips were no longer pressed together? Would his hands cup Hannibal’s face, tender and worshipful, or would they go to his waist and pull him closer? His hand stroked faster, spurred on by all the delightful possibilities that almost came faster than Hannibal had time to consider them. Almost. He considered them all, unrealistic as they may be. He allowed himself to imagine the heat of the water was Will’s body, pressing against him. He adjusted himself slightly, sitting up slightly so his head was once more out of the water, and the music came clearly to his ears once more. He leaned his head back on the edge of the bath and ran his free hand down to fondle his balls, his eyes falling closed once more.
He barely noticed his breaths coming heavier now, too busy picturing in perfect detail how he thought Will might look if it were him in this bathtub rather than Hannibal. He saw Will’s curls, dampened but still pronounced, pushed back off his forehead. The blush on his cheeks carrying down his neck and over his chest. His body overall the kind of skinny that no doubt came from a diet of anxiety and caffeine, though it suited him somehow. Made it easy to imagine bare, broad shoulders almost overwhelming his slim chest and stomach. The kind of build that usually suggests weakness, but scarred as it was Hannibal knew it was anything but.
It was pure imagination now, every hair on Will’s body placed there on Hannibal’s whim. He heard Will hum his pleasure - just barely over the music, but he heard it nonetheless. That quiet hum Hannibal made himself once he’d committed to the act. The one that meant that one way or another this would end in orgasm. Seeing Will so clearly, stretched out naked in his bathtub, focussed almost entirely on jacking himself off was nearly too much for Hannibal. Obvious erotic imaginings aside, it was the familiarity of the setting that did it - Will, at home in his master bathroom. Or at least at home enough to be masturbating. Door wide open and Hannibal’s music playing while he did so. It was as close as Hannibal could come to picturing his ideal future. Them casually taking it in turns to bathe, or bathing together even, after going on a hunt.
And that was the thought that did it. Hannibal thrust upwards into his hand a final few times, the water angrily sloshing at the movement, not that he noticed particularly. The heat that had been building in his abdomen peaked and Hannibal came with a jerk, the tension that had built up in his body already unwinding as he sank back down in the water. Now of course he had the issue of trying to remove himself from the bath without interacting with any of his own partially floating ejaculate. It was a far cry from the beautiful images he’d been conjuring moments earlier.
At some point, Moonlight Sonata had ended. If you asked, Hannibal couldn’t tell you when.