Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Will manages to hide at Hannibal’s house for a week before Jack stops believing his excuses. 

Being Jack, a person who knows Will well enough to know he’d never be honest otherwise, he ambushes Will. It had seemed strange that Hannibal would knock on the front door of his own home but Will had just assumed he was warning Will of his presence and had suddenly developed empathy overnight. After a full week of blatantly possessive and controlling behavior from the Alpha. 

Honestly, it had been a reach.

Jack’s expression sours the moment he sees Will. The lighter injuries have already healed and Hannibal had taken it upon himself to wrap bandages around the entirety of Will’s neck, hiding the angry bruises as well as the bite mark. The sling cannot in any way be hidden. “Come with me,” he growls, reaching for Will’s wrist to drag him away. Will jerks his good arm away from the gesture.

“Wait, hold on. Might want to reconsider touching me.” Jack’s expression darkens so Will turns, pushing away the ends of his curls where they hide part of the bandage, unmistakably thicker where the ‘mating bite’ lies underneath. 

For a while, Jack is silent. “We need to talk, Graham. Now. ”

It feels a whole lot like an angry father using his full name when he’s gotten into trouble, and Will fights back the urge to laugh. “Um. Okay. Obviously you shouldn’t come inside. Do you know where Hannibal is right now? Abandon him at Quantico?”

“He is helping with a case,” Jack confirms.

“Right. I need to. Let him know.” The best case scenario would have been fending Jack off until his shoulder was healed enough to forgo the sling, but he hadn’t expected to be that fortunate and had had plenty of time to figure out how to spin the story to save both their hides. Not that he’d actually come up with something believable in the meantime. Winston, always curious, is trying to nose past him and greet their guest. “Back, boy. Stay inside.”

Will had sort of assumed Hannibal would let him return home once the worst had passed, up until he came back to the house one day with Will’s pack in tow. That was when it really hit him that he may be in a little bit over his head. “Will, this is-”

“Just.” Will holds up the hand he can, brow furrowing. “I know this doesn’t look great but I really need you to listen to what I have to say before you make any snap judgements, alright?”

“Fine. Leave him a note.”

Leaving a note would probably end in Hannibal tracking them down and physically dragging him back to this house, so he pulls out his phone instead and calls the man. He picks up immediately. “Will,” he answers, voice warm and affectionate. It’s weird how real it sounds.

On some level, Hannibal probably loves him. Maybe he does feel something as simple and normal as affection towards Will. It just so happens that those emotions are valued far less than the… less socially acceptable ones, to put it mildly. “Hi. You know where Jack is right now?”

“He stepped out to-” The sentence ends abruptly as Hannibal makes the connection and the words taper off into, of all things, the beginning of a low growl. 

“I’m going to go talk to Jack. Somewhere else. When we finish I will come back here. Got it?” Jack doesn’t look entirely like he’s planning on bringing Will back after the conversation ends. “Probably won’t take long, I’m sure I’ll be back before you are. I’m taking the dogs with me, alright? We’ll be back. ” He hangs up before Hannibal can respond, turning back to Jack. “There’s a park nearby I take the dogs to. Walking distance.” He opens the door wider and whistles, rousing the dogs in no time. Jack is nearly knocked over as they surge out of the door. Will locks it behind them with the key he stole after Hannibal refused to give him one. “Let’s go.”

His boss, as always, is frowning. “You don’t think he’ll come back so quickly?”

“Oh, I’m positive he will,” he laughs. “Don’t worry, he won’t slash your tires or anything. Too inelegant for him. Time to go.” 

The sheer amount of dogs makes conversation en route to the park all but impossible, so they walk in silence until they reach a bench where the dogs have plenty of room to frolic within sight. It’s a cool day, more than cool enough to justify the long sleeves Will has, a blessing since he’s not sure he’ll be able to convince Jack if the man sees what his body still looks like underneath them. “Just say it,” Will sighs, leaning back against the bench. “We both know what you’re thinking so just say it.”

“The injuries, the extent to which you seem to be afraid of him, the bite- it’s textbook abusive behavior, Will.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Will shoots back. “I knew he’d be violent, and he really didn’t injure me. The shoulder was an accident.” When he turns to Jack, it’s obvious the man doesn’t believe it. “I promise, Jack. He’s rough but he didn’t intentionally hurt me.”

“You better have a hell of a good explanation for it.”  

“It.” Will pauses. “Do me a favor and don’t comment on the. Details of this. I fell off the bed.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“He fucked me off the bed,” Will clarifies. Jack, mercifully, doesn’t respond. “I fell badly, onto my shoulder. And you know what happened? He fixed it. In the middle of rut, in the middle of sex. Popped it back into place, got the sling, that was it for the day. Do you really think he would have done that if he wanted to hurt me?”

“And what happened after?”

“Um.” Will looks down. “Well, it didn’t magically make the rut end, either. But he was gentle. If it hurt me he’d stop and find. Something that didn’t. Best I could have expected given the circumstances.”

“Then why is he so possessive?”

“Protective,” Will corrects. “Do you know anything about his past?”

Jack shakes his head. “You think something traumatic happened to him to trigger a strong protective instinct?”

“Has to have. And then there’s. You know.” Will gestures vaguely towards his neck.

It makes Jack stiffen, and he’s looking straight ahead when he finally speaks. “You’re not going to like this question but you know I have to ask it.”

“Oh, here we go,” Will mutters.

“Did he force the mating bite on you, Will?”

“It’s not-” Will’s mouth flies shut as he sees the look in Jack’s eye. Technicalities don’t matter. If he had been an Omega or even another Alpha, it would have been. You also can’t force a proper mating bite on someone who’s rejecting it, but you can still leave a bite there that makes your intentions obvious. “No. I- I asked him to.”

It’s Jack’s turn to sigh and he rubs at his temples. “Will-”

“It won’t sound good if you ask me why.”

“Why.”

“Will it fly if I say I got caught up in the moment?” Instead of words, that earns him a dark look. “I don’t know,” Will admits. “It felt. Right.”

Jack sags against the bench. “If you were planning on mating with him I would have appreciated being warned ahead of time.”

“Not mated,” Will protests. “I don’t. Know what this is. We can’t be bonded, obviously, and logically he knows that we aren’t automatically connected like that just because I let him bite me. Instinctually is a different matter altogether.” A great deal of what Hannibal has been doing cannot be explained away as instincts, but he trusts the man to behave around others. 

“The Alpha part of his brain knows he gave a mating bite to his partner while in rut,” Jack elaborates. “Is he treating you like an Omega?”

“I don’t think intentionally. He does keep putting blankets on my bed- think he’s expecting me to build a nest. But to his instincts, I’m an injured mate that he needs to protect. Once my shoulder heals he’ll take me back home.” He’ll have to, now. Hannibal won’t be happy about that. 

“I don’t like this,” Jack says honestly. “It still doesn’t feel right but I’m choosing to trust you. Figure whatever this is out before it turns into something I need to intervene in.”

“It won’t.” Will wants to hope that, while Hannibal would react poorly if he left altogether, the man will be more or less content with being away from him once he has healed. The impression he gets is that Hannibal cares less about establishing a concrete bond with Will than he does about ensuring Will never does so with anyone else. For the time being.

The way Hannibal will start growling when he approaches the front door isn’t helping him convince himself of this.

It’s a while before Jack speaks again. “This isn’t something you can pretend didn’t happen.”

“I know,” Will answers softly. “I won’t. We can’t go back to the way we were before, now. I don’t think I even want to.”

And that, at least, is not a lie.

He sees Jack back to his car (with four working tires, thankfully, for despite what he had said Hannibal has a viciously petty streak) and waits until he’s gone before making his way up the steps to the front door of the house, dogs in tow.

The front door is locked. Hannibal is home, his car in the driveway is more than proof of such, and Will sighs. He unlocks it with the stolen key and pushes the door open, gesturing inwards for his pack who pile in obediently. His arrival can be nothing short of obvious yet Hannibal does not greet him at the door.

From the kitchen, the sounds of cooking answer the ghost of a question. Once the dogs have filed into the large living room they seem to have taken over Will resigns himself to his fate and enters Hannibal’s domain.

The Alpha pauses for no more than half a second when Will enters. “Ah, Will. Leave it on the island, if you would.”

Playing dumb couldn’t possibly make the situation worse so he does so. “Leave what?”

That makes Hannibal’s grip on the pan tighten and when he places it back onto the burner there is an audible clang. “Now, Will.”

Rolling his eyes would not be an advisable response, particularly when Hannibal is already irritated. Will slips the key out of his jacket pocket and sets it on the granite. He has multiple copies, anyways.

Hannibal seems satisfied that whatever he is cooking can be left unattended for a moment, turning to face Will, walking towards him with a calm so manufactured that it sends a shiver down the Beta’s spine. One hand on his upper arm is all Hannibal needs to spin him around and press him chest-first into the island. It’s higher than most, made for standing and not sitting, digging into his ribs and just barely passing under his sling. Hannibal doesn’t need to hold him in place- Will knows better than to fight it.

The Alpha leans in, scenting Will, who turns away both to bare his neck and to avoid looking at the other man. He can feel the man’s hot breath even through his bandages.

It’s over as quickly as it began, Hannibal pulling away and returning to his cooking. “Shower, please,” he orders, voice sharp. “Your smell is unbearable.”

He had been successful in his efforts to keep Jack as far away as possible, it seems. Hannibal’s hyper-sensitive nose meant that if another Alpha so much as touched Will he would be able to know. The fact that he’s being allowed to address the issue alone is proof enough that Hannibal had smelled nothing he did not expect.

Will still uses the shower in what was essentially his room. The lock on the door has not been used since rut- Hannibal had installed it, after all, and was more than capable of simply dismantling it. When Will is in here, Hannibal tends to leave him alone, only entering once Will has finished bathing to assist with bandaging his neck. As he enters he throws his jacket on the bare mattress. Soon after, the rest of his clothes join it in a haphazard mess. The bandage, at least, he drops into the trash can.

Before stepping into the shower he stops before the mirror. His body is mottled with bruises but none draw his attention quite like the ones around his neck. In places he can see the imprint of fingers but in others, it’s blending with the wide marks from when Hannibal choked him with an arm instead of his hands. Gingerly, he presses a finger into the darkest area, hissing with pain when it connects.

Will smiles, backs away, and steps into the shower.

All the products in here are unscented, of course. He washes himself quickly and is careful not to get too much soap and shampoo into the wound on his neck. Hannibal would be unhappy if it left an ugly scar, after all. When he emerges he makes his way to the dresser, finding a nice pair of dark slacks and white button up shirt to wear with it. He has his underwear and pants pulled on when Hannibal arrives.

Will had already been sitting near to the edge of the mattress so Hannibal simply sits beside him, setting the badgages and creams between them both. Without needing to be asked Will turns away from Hannibal, tipping his head forward and holding what little of his curls hang over the wound out of the way.

“It’s healing nicely,” Hannibal comments, examining the bite mark. “No need for the antibiotic cream anymore, I should think.”

“And the toasted sesame oil?” Will mutters. Hannibal chooses to ignore the smart comment, applying said oil before tightly bandaging the area. When he wraps the bandages around Will’s neck, it’s pulled more tightly than it reasonably should be. If Will tries to take a deep breath of air he can’t quite make it to the end. He can’t quite stop himself from trying, just to feel how constricting it is. He can’t see his face but he knows Hannibal is smiling. 

“Dinner will be ready shortly,” Hannibal informs him, gathering up the supplies and excusing himself from the bedroom. 

That means Will has a brief period where he can remain up here and really rack his brain on how and when to best tell Hannibal that he’s going to need to let Will go soon.

He could tell him during sex, when he’s distracted. That is almost immediately struck from the record as incredibly dangerous. Right before Hannibal leaves for work will just result in him not going to work, and that extends to right before Hannibal leaves for anything, really. Dinner probably is the safest option and that means he has to do this soon.

This is all kind of his own fault, anyways, so he’s really just reaping what he’s sown. Hannibal had attempted to go back to how he’d been before, right out of his rut. He had clearly assumed the best approach was once more playing the supportive, kind partner, horrified at his own behavior, until he tricked Will into going along with it again. Presumably the plan was to chip away at Will’s common sense and self-preservation instincts until there was too little left and he was incapable of leaving before he’d fallen in too deep.

Will, unfortunately, had apparently lost both of those things long ago. In an absolutely spectacular display of poor judgment Will had slept with Hannibal again less than twenty-four hours after the Alpha had come out of rut, during which he placed Hannibal’s hands around his neck himself. The farce had gotten dropped pretty damn quickly after that. What’s the use of playing pretend to lure in prey that’s already walked in willingly to the web of their own volition?

If Jack ever catches wise, Will thinks there’s a very real chance he’ll end up in WITSEC. 

He’s lingered here long enough, and he trudges down the stairs, trying not to think about what Hannibal might be capable of doing when he’s angry. He had been honest when he told Jack he wasn’t afraid of Hannibal. No matter what he does, there’s no way the Alpha will kill him at this point. He’s invested far too much into this and someone like Hannibal would never give a mating bite to someone he considered disposable. What he’s worried about is what Hannibal may be capable of doing to other people. 

Dinner is being laid out on the table, so Will managed to time this correctly. Hannibal’s words are clipped as he introduces the dishes and he’s making no effort to hide his obvious displeasure at the situation. Hannibal, too, knows things as they currently are are coming to an end. 

“What did you speak to Jack about?” Hannibal asks, barely several minutes into the meal.

He’s pissed. Mad enough that Will needs to push back or he’s going to suffer the brunt of it later. “About how you’ve gotten me locked up in here like a dragon guarding a princess, mostly.”

“You’re injured. You must be kept safe.”

It’s remarkably difficult to tell if this is an excuse or if there’s just that much cognitive dissonance going on in that pretty little head of his. Maybe it’s entirely intentional, a loop he controls all aspects of to keep Will bound to him. “Funnily enough, most people would disagree with your methods here. Particularly since you’re the one hurting me in the first place.”

“You enjoy it.”

“Yeah, well, I never said I was one of them. The fact of the matter is that we can’t keep on existing like this, in our own little bubble. We need to return to reality at some point.”

Hannibal hands tighten around his silverware, and he takes a bite, chewing slowly and making Will wait for his response. “We could simply leave.”

“No,” Will immediately replies, pointing at Hannibal with his fork. He knows how much the man hates it when he does that. “Absolutely not. I like it here, and I care about my job. Packing up and leaving is not an option. That’s also how you get the FBI on your ass for suspicion of kidnapping.”

“Jack has suspicions.”

“Hannibal, you know how this looks on the surface. You dislocated my shoulder. That’s a serious injury.”

“Not intentionally.”

“Oh, sorry,” Will laughs. “Yeah, my bad. You wrenched my arm behind my back so hard that it dislocated it. Much better.”

“Will.” There is an obviously warning tone in his voice.

“I told him you fucked me off the bed, by the way. And then made a big deal about how gentle you were with me after that. Just so you know the lie we’re going with.”

“How quaint.” There’s a real heat to his words, now, buried beneath. “Are you going to tell him you fell down the stairs next?”

“Hannibal.” Will stabs his fork into his dinner, leaving it standing upright. It’s not only Hannibal that is rapidly losing his patience. “I’m sorry he ambushed me before I came up with a better excuse. Maybe you don’t realize it, but this is pretty god damn hard to justify to other people.”

“I am well aware of how contrary to socially acceptable norms our relationship runs.” It’s icy, now, such a sharp drop in temperature that Will barely bites back a shiver. 

“What the hell did you want me to tell him? ‘Hannibal did, in fact, pull my arm out of its socket on purpose and without warning, but it’s fine, actually, because I liked it?’ You know how that would end.”

Hannibal clenches his jaw, ignoring Will’s comment. “How, pray tell, did you explain away your continued absence from work beyond what had been given?”

Will closes his eyes and steels himself. When he opens them again, Hannibal has very obviously caught on and looks, quite frankly, terrifying. “Catering to your ‘protective instincts’. Told him you wouldn’t let me out of your sight until my arm had healed. So the same lie you tried to tell me, really. Now we’re both on the same page with that one.”

Hannibal clenches his fist so hard the fork bends, and Will can’t stop the way he jumps in his seat. “ No,” Hannibal growls, a strange booming echo to his voice, his eyes flashing. “I will not allow you to leave.”

The silence after hangs in the air as Will’s eyes widen. “Hannibal, wait. Was that… was that your Voice?”

There is a moment of hesitation before the reply, the only thing giving away Hannibal’s uncertainty. “I suppose it was.”

“Wait.” Will frowns. “But you…” Alphas and Omegas only get the full usage of their Voice after a successful mating, so there’s no way that came from him. “Have you been mated before?” He’d never seen a mating bite on Hannibal but there were surgeries to correct something like that after a mate has passed. They’re illegal, but that doesn’t seem like something that would have stopped Hannibal.

“I have not.” It’s said with some measure of disgust.

“Okay, but. Where else could that have come from?”

“You may get me tested, if you wish.” Mating changes the body on a biological level and it is possible to tell if someone has been or is currently mated with the right sort of testing. 

“No.” Will doesn’t care if Hannibal is lying about it, but there’s also a tiny part of him that’s afraid of running tests and finding out something unexpected. He’s a Beta, that much is known for certain. But it’s surprisingly easy to accept that Hannibal has something weird going on, or that his desire for Will was so powerful it managed to alter the commonly accepted rules of biology. “I don’t really give a shit, and it’s not like that compelled me to do anything. So might want to keep that little detail under wraps for the time being.”

He thinks he catches Hannibal murmuring something about that being a shame. At least it pulled attention away from the fact that Hannibal can’t keep him tucked away in his rut house like a mistress for much longer.

Unfortunately, Will still can’t quite manage to keep his god damn mouth shut because while he doesn’t have much interest in how this situation affects him personally it is undeniably fascinating, assuming Hannibal is telling the truth. “Actually, what the hell would happen if I bit you back, in this case?”

Hannibal’s eyes go more red than the normal burgundy and his gaze sharpens, like a predator watching his prey. “It is impossible to say,” he answers, voice thick. “The most likely scenario is nothing at all.”

“But this,” Will points to the bandage on his neck, “ also should have been nothing. We’re far beyond the most likely scenario at this point.”

“Alphas and Omegas can bond with Betas, in a way. The biological markers of a mating will be visible in their blood but that is the extent of it.”

“Yeah, no…” He points at Hannibal’s throat. “It. Uh. the Voice technically comes from ingesting the blood of your mate, right?”

A quick nod. The red in his eyes has not faded; if anything, it’s growing. “Mating is very rarely interrupted before the second bite is exchanged but from the few times we have evidence from just that, it can be safely said that that is the case.”

“So we’ve established that this is a unique case and something could, potentially, happen.”

“Will.” His eyes are fully red now. “I must ask you to steer this conversation elsewhere if you are merely speaking hypotheticals.”

Oops. Well, in for a penny. “Eh,” he shrugs. “I asked you to bite me, so I think it’s fair to say that ship has sailed. I don’t really see why I shouldn’t.”

Hannibal stands abruptly, sending his chair screeching back against the floor. Will’s screeches just as loudly moments later once Hannibal walks around to his side of the table, yanking it out and lifting Will out of his chair to toss him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Making my arm worse to lengthen the amount of time you can believably keep me here under the illusion of protection will also get the FBI on your tail,” Will helpfully informs him.

“Duly noted.” 

He can’t exactly see where they’re going in his current position, but it’s easy enough to guess. “And we probably should get you tested beforehand, just to be sure.”

Hannibal very slightly falters, like he’d been carrying Will to the bedroom right this second for the aforementioned purpose. He likely had been. Unfortunately, he’ll have to settle for simply fucking Will so hard he has trouble getting up the next morning as usual.

Can Alphas knot outside of their rut if they get riled up enough? Will thinks he might be about to find out.

They can, it turns out.

In retrospect, Will should have been suspicious when Hannibal had flipped them over at the end. Sometimes Hannibal liked seeing Will in charge, holding Hannibal down with one hand and moving how he wants it, but most of the time Hannibal is more likely to pin Will to the sheets and fuck into him relentlessly. So when Hannibal abruptly rolled onto his back, pulling Will down over the base of his cock, he’d been so busy being confused he didn’t notice the knot swelling until it was too late to do anything about it. Will had glowered down at Hannibal for the approximately thirteen minutes he was locked onto the man’s lap and it only seemed to make the man more smug than he usually was, which should have been impossible. At least he could take some petty revenge from the way Hannibal’s semen poured out of him and directly back on top of the man it came from once he was able to get free.

Well, on Hannibal and the sheets. They’ve gone through a lot of sheets.

Once Hannibal had later calmed down and remembered what they had been discussing before his Voice became known he went right back to being angry in record time. Hannibal, Will has found, becomes exceedingly petty when he’s angry. He plays the part of a gentle, caring Alpha to a T, never again tying the bandages too tight around Will’s neck and going out of his way to do things to help the man instead.

It’s both infuriating and frustrating but it’s a step in the right direction, since Hannibal wouldn’t be acting like this if he hadn’t accepted the fact that he had to let Will go soon.

They get Hannibal’s blood tested. It seems that Hannibal is well aware of just how trustworthy he isn’t, as he lets Will draw the blood himself and package it up and send it away. When the results come back they show that Hannibal has only ever had one mate, an incomplete bond made very recently with a biological male likely to be in their thirties, which means it couldn’t possibly be someone other than Will himself.

It opens up a great deal of interesting questions, since in normal circumstances if an Alpha bonded with a Beta it wouldn’t show up incomplete like this.

Hannibal warns Will that he will fight the bite Will tries to give him on instinct and for similar reasons, he’ll likely try to re-bite Will in response. Because of this (and because Hannibal doesn’t want to chance disturbing the scar, apparently) they make the decision to wait until his neck has fully healed, which means his arm heals well enough to return to work first, which means it gets put off for some time since nearly the second Will comes back, he gets swept up into a new case.

It’s pretty typical psychotic Alpha behavior. Male Omegas are going missing, turning up dead months later with signs of sexual assault and a failed mating bite on their neck. The killer is careful to clean away all DNA that may have left. The victims are always unmated and fairly beautiful, even for Omegas, and the killer never seems to have more than one at a time.

“He’s searching for the perfect mate,” Will murmurs, arms crossed and brows furrowed. 

“He. Uh. Yeah.” Jack clearly had not warned the team about the developments between Will and Hannibal because Beverly, Jimmy and Brian all stare openly at the bandage around Will’s neck. They’re all very obviously shocked but they’re all behaved enough not to call attention to it directly, at least during work. Beverly continues. “We’re assuming male, for the time being. He’s clearly got some sort of princess delusion and since you can’t force a mating bite, he interprets it as the Omegas rejecting him and throws them away.” She scowls. “Pretty disgusting behavior.”

“Do the Omegas have anything in common?”

“Other than being unmated?” Brian shakes his head. “We can tell based on the locations they vanish from that the killer is at least somewhat local. They dump the bodies over a wide enough area that we can’t pinpoint much but you have to watch the victims for a while to pull off kidnapping them and not getting caught.”

“Current victims?”

“Body turned up while you were.” Beverly stops herself. “It was the third one, and what finally caught someone’s attention and had them start looking at this as a serial killer instead of unrelated incidents, kicking it up to us. Since there’s no DNA, we can’t be 100% certain, but it’s overwhelmingly likely to be one killer.”

Hannibal would probably have quite a bit to say about the killer but he’s absent at the moment, something that spares Will’s dignity for the time being. He still wishes that the psychiatrist was present for his insight alone. “Any idea how long we have until he picks up another one?”

“Hopefully several months,” Jack answers. “He starts from scratch every time because he’s not expecting it to fail. The problem is that it seems to escalate, since every failure just upsets him further.”

He’s seen the photos. The bodies become progressively more brutalized. Whatever is happening, they need to catch the killer soon. “So what’s the plan?”

Jack inclines his head towards the trio of forensic scientists. “They’re still going through all the evidence that was just dropped into our laps, and I’m working on interviewing any persons of interest again. Never can be sure the local cops did their jobs right. Will, you’ll be with me.”

That’s unsurprising. Though he can’t say he’s fond of it, Will’s empathy is an invaluable tool to have when interviewing a suspect and he’s almost always roped into doing just that. “Figured. Who do we have lined up for the day?”

Price picks up a clipboard, reading off the paper before handing it over to Jack. “Looks like the second victim’s boss, friend of the third victim, person who found the first body, sister of the first victim, then a bunch of acquaintances of the most recent. Fun day!”

“We’ll head out whenever you’re ready, Will.”

“Great.” Will knew he’d be thrown right back into work when he came back, but it’s still weird to be acting like nothing happened. He suspects once Hannibal is free to join them it won’t be an ignorable factor any longer. “Let’s just get it over with.” A headache is already starting to form.

Jack shoots Will a chastising look and then they’re off, on their way to DC. As usual, Jack drives them. “This was the body dropped closest to us,” he tells Will, as the hour long drive begins.

“Second victim, yeah?”

“That’s the one.” For a brief wonderful moment Will thinks Jack isn’t going to stray from the case and ask him a thousand questions about Hannibal, but those hopes are quickly dashed. “How’s your arm?”

Will rolls it, testing. It’s tender but barely noticeable. “Can’t do any heavy lifting for quite a while but it’s healed enough that I can use it normally.”

“Good.” An awkward silence hangs in the air between them. “Will, I-”

“Please just say whatever you’re trying to dance around. It’ll be easier for both of us.”

Jack sighs. “I don’t know how I feel about all this.”

How Jack feels about it doesn’t fucking matter, but Will bites that comment back down. He knows, logically, that Jack is concerned for a very good reason, and it’s not any sort of judgement on his part. That can’t stop him from prickling at the insinuation, though. “Why? You trust Hannibal, right?”

“I did,” Jack mutters, and Will stiffens in his seat. That’s not good. “Probably still do, but I need to see him first.” That confirms that Hannibal hasn't been to Quantico since Jack's little ambush stunt.

“What’s with the sudden suspicions?” He’s trying to probe as carefully as possible, but he knows Jack won’t be forthright if he’s still concerned he may be a victim.

“Don’t get me wrong, Will. I’m not surprised in the slightest that something ended up happening between the two of you.” Well that’s kind of embarrassing, and cements the fact that Will is apparently the most dense person on the planet, empathy disorder be damned. “But the both of you are very closed-off people, and the speed at which this escalated is highly out of character for you both.”

“Is it really, though?”

Jack looks at Will, unimpressed. “It’s more out of character for Lecter, which is why I’m more suspicious of him.”

“...you’re suspicious of us both.”

“Of course I am. What would you think if Katz and Price turned up married to each other one day?”

“I’d assume someone needed a green card.” 

“So you get where I’m coming from here.” 

“That’s different. Marriage is a different story.”

“Will,” Jack sighs. “I know that, as a Beta, you’re somewhat removed from it. But for Alphas and Omegas, a mating bite is more serious than marriage, not less.”

He knows. Will turns to look out the window. “I keep telling you it’s fine.”

“I still want to talk to Hannibal.”

“I don’t appreciate the fact that you believe his word over mine, about myself.” It’s a low blow, one that digs up old wounds.

“You know that’s not the case.” Another sigh, and he can hear the leather squeak as Jack’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “He hurt you badly enough that you missed two weeks of work. That’s not normal.”

“He wanted to go to the police.” Sure, it had been just to keep up appearances, but it was still technically true. “Once he came back to his senses and saw what he did to me. Only reason he didn’t is because I stopped him.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want him to go to jail,” Will admits. “He obviously wasn’t in his right mind and expressed extreme remorse. I knew to expect something like this in the first place, though maybe not so severe.”

“You mentioned that before. When you dislocated your arm, he snapped out of it?”

“Kind of.” Will turns his gaze forward, so he can see Jack in his peripheral vision. “It was like I could see his consciousness slipping through and reining back his instincts. I’m pretty sure that’s something he could do in the future, and the only reason he didn’t this time is because he hadn’t been expecting this to happen at all.”

“Hm.” Fingers are tapping on the wheel now. Traffic is moving smoothly and they’re making good time. “I could see that.”

Will trusts Hannibal to play along. “See? It’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t know.” Jack’s instincts are a fearsome thing. “You’ve done… impulsive things in the past.”

It’s kind of a low blow right back, but Will can’t exactly deny it either. So he goes another route. He glances around, making sure there aren’t any cars nearby before responding. “It wasn’t impulsive. I’m probably going to bite him back, actually.”

The car swerves but Jack quickly gets it back under control. “You’re- were you going to tell me this at some point?”

“I’m telling you now,” Will points out. “Besides, it’s my personal life. Why do I have to tell you?”

“Because you both work for me!” Jack growls. “You can’t act like I’m butting in where I don’t belong.”

Jack, unfortunately, has a point. “It wouldn’t change anything about the way we work together. I don’t see how it could.”

“You’ll both have a bias towards each other.”

“Really?” Will turns towards Jack, disbelieving. “You think me and Hannibal are going to have issues with bias. I nearly punched him on the last case because he kept tearing apart anything I suggested.”

“It can be unconscious,” Jack argues.

“Then thank god it’s not just the two of us working. There are, at a minimum, four other people to call us out if it starts happening.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Jack grudgingly admits. 

That awkward silence hangs again, until Jack breaks it. "How do you feel about him?"

A shrug probably wouldn't be well received. "I don't really… know how to quantify it. I wouldn't have volunteered to help him through rut while knowing he was in love with me if I felt nothing. "

"Do you love him?" It's very very obvious that Jack is uncomfortable with this conversation and doesn't enjoy prying into his subordinate's love life. He's doing it out of concern and nothing more.

Will manages to swallow back down his retort of "I literally just answered that." What he says instead is "I don't even really know what that feels like, so I can't answer honestly."

Jack is silent for a moment. "Then why do you want to return the bite?"

This one, Will has no doubts on. "Because it would make him happy, and I want to make him happy."

It sounds a hell of a lot more romantic when Will leaves off the ending of that statement, where he wants to make Hannibal happy because it means he'll keep fucking him. 

"Okay," Jack says quietly, like he's considering that the answer he'd been searching for. "I still want to talk to Hannibal."

"Be my guest."

Jack drops the matter there, but a headache is already well underway for Will. They had started increasing in frequency near the end of his little vacation with Hannibal, likely due to the stress. He’s used to them but that doesn’t mean he is unaffected.

The second victim’s boss gives them nothing of particular interest, and neither does the third victim’s friend. It’s irritating, trying Will’s patience to make him waste his time like this, and the headache intensifies. He must still be tired because it’s getting harder and harder for him to string his thoughts together, to the point where Jack notices while they’re on the way to the person who found the first body. “Will, are you feeling alright?”

“Yes,” he lies, instinctively. “No. Headache.”

Jack frowns and leans closer. In the past, he probably would have placed a hand on Will’s forehead, but he knows that’s not an option any longer. “You’re still healing. You looked flushed. Might have a fever.”

“I’m fine,” Will lies again. It’s just so automatic at this point. “Might have a fever.”

“Go home after this one.” Jack’s fingers tap along the steering wheel. “These aren’t really giving us anything helpful anyways, and the next one’s the one I wanted your insight on the most.”

“I can get through them.”

“I don’t want you to ‘get through them’,” Jack sighs. “I want you to get better.”

“That…” It can’t be argued against, unfortunately. Will crosses his arms. “Fine. If you insist.”

“You should let Hannibal know if you’re sick,” Jack adds, almost as an afterthought. Suspicions aside he seems to have accepted the fact that they’re together as reality.

Will almost asks why, because Hannibal would probably just find a way to make it worse. Caring and protective, that’s what they’re going with. “I guess,” he grumbles, which is easy enough to pass off as his own natural aversion to accepting help of any kind. He’s half expecting Hannibal to somehow know and show up at his house on his own.

There’s actually a very high chance Hannibal will just turn up at his house for no reason regardless. It’s been a couple days since they’ve seen each other, since Jack insisted on Will taking it easy for the first couple of days when he came back before getting into the new case. He was doing paperwork which made him think this was something of a punishment.

They finally arrive at the house of the person who found the first body. Will is starting to feel off-balance, head fogging, and he thinks Jack is probably right about him running a fever. He hopes it doesn’t show on his face. They ascend the steps to the front door and knock.

A man opens the door, middle-aged and generally uninteresting to look at. He scans them both and then his eyes lock directly onto Will.

Great. It’s going to be one of these.

“You’re from the BAU, right?” Despite his words, he’s only looking at Will when he talks. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”

Jack glances at Will, brow furrowed, before nodding. “Jack Crawford, and this is Will Graham. We would like to ask you some questions about the body you found.”

“How very nice to meet you,” he replies, overly sweet, and Will really has to choke down the urge to roll his eyes. It’s not a habit he usually has but he finds himself in a lot more situations that call for it than normal, recently. 

Will’s empathy is an incredibly useful tool in interviews but there are occasions where the package it comes in serves as nothing but a detriment. It feels absolutely ridiculous for Will to outright admit to himself that he’s attractive. What’s undeniable is that he’s attractive in a specific way; one that catches Alphas’ attentions. Never enough for them to outright pursue him but always enough for them to treat him like a pretty little thing, to play the little game of sweet talking and flirtations despite Will’s utter refusal to play along even in the slightest. It’s never serious, they can tell he’s a Beta and it won’t go anywhere, and all it really does is make the interview process harder and really piss Will off.

He had been hoping the mating bite would put a stop to it, but if they were already ignoring the fact that he wasn’t an Omega, what’s one more thing to just ignore?

They’re led through an extremely normal house into a living room that looks ripped straight out of a catalogue. It’s normal to the point that it actually sets Will on edge, like it’s trying too hard to be a typical American home. That’s not anything to be concerned about in and of itself but something about the place… unsettles Will. He feels prickly and on guard in here.

Maybe it’s the fever. It feels warm, like his skin is sticking to his clothes. Humid. Maybe it’s the Alpha’s piercing gaze. He shakes his head and Jack looks towards him with concern.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” the man offers.

“No, we won’t be here long.” Jack takes a seat on an offered couch and Will sits beside him, trying to halt the trembling in his hands. “Would you mind if we took a look at your ID, Mr…” He glances at his notepad. “Smith?”

“Please, call me James.” Even his name is generic. “Now where did I put my wallet…” The man stands, glancing around the room, eyes finally landing on an end table right next to Will. Naturally, because nothing good ever happens to Will, there is a wallet on it. “Ah. Excuse me.” The man leans over, nearly across Will to grab the wallet, and the inhale as he does so is unmistakable. Will’s skin prickles with disgust. “Just one moment…” The man stands back up, rifling through the wallet before extracting his ID and handing it to Will. Their fingers brush as he hands it over before finally sitting back down.

Will focuses on the ID to distract himself from the way the Alpha had just scented him like that, out in the open. James Smith, the Virginia license tells him. 42 years old, 5’8”, brown hair, brown eyes. Sex: male, classification-

He stops and reads it again, hoping maybe that the letters will change. They don’t. Classification: Beta.

Wordlessly, he passes the ID over to Jack, and from his pause he can tell the man noticed the same thing he had. 

Ever the professional, Jack hands it back over and smoothly transitions into questioning. "Just to verify that we have the correct information, you are male and a Beta?"

"That's correct," the man answers, and he seems to be telling the truth. Will isn't infallible but there's no real reason to hide the fact that he's an Alpha at this point. If he's not an Alpha, why the hell had he scented Will? Just to fuck with him?

It’s ultimately irrelevant, beyond bothering him.

The man is cooperative and answers every question dutifully as they go over the basics again; where the body was found, what time, did you see anything suspicious- it’s ultimately a pretty normal interview, and even the part where the interviewee feeds all their answers back to Will regardless of who had asked them isn’t exactly a noteworthy occurrence. He keeps leaning forwards too, trying to invade Will’s space despite the coffee table between them. Maybe he should consider getting ‘NOT AN OMEGA’ tattooed across his forehead.

Distantly, he wonders if that Omega he met at the bar had been lying when he said Will could pass for either. Probably not. Even if he looked the part, you can’t replicate the sheer presence of an Alpha.

There’s one part of the interview that catches Will’s attention, and Jack notices it as well. They’re talking about the body and the man says “I can’t stop thinking about that poor girl. She didn’t deserve that.”

Jack pauses, because as far as they know all of the victims were male. “Was the body you found that of a woman?”

“Was it?” The answer comes smoothly, an exaggerated frown on the man’s face. “It was a horrible experience, so the details might be a bit fuzzy. All I remember is how beautiful they were, so I may have just assumed.”

“Of course,” Jack nods. They have records of previous interviews with this man where he correctly identified the body as male. Absolutely nothing they have found from the victim’s loved ones or online presence indicates that they were actually a woman, so it seems less like this man knows something they shouldn’t and more like a genuine mistake.

But it’s a mistake that doesn’t make sense. Genuine might not be the right way to describe it.

They don’t want the man to catch on to their suspicions so Jack resumes the interview, and the rest of it proceeds without incident. Will’s headache increases and makes it hard to focus, and he knows the fever is worsening. It shows on his face and the man seems to pay even more attention to him than before, which just makes him feel even worse. It’s prickly, like there’s something stuck under his skin that he wants to rip out.

That’s probably why Jack cuts the interview short. They excuse themselves and Jack basically herds Will into the car, throwing his notebook in the back seat and pulling out of the driveway faster than normal. “Right. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Come on,” Will groans. He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the seat in a futile effort to stop the world from spinning. “I’m fine.”

“You’re burning up.”

“Just take me home,” he sighs. “I’ll call Hannibal. I promise.”

“Hannibal may be a doctor, but he does not have access to the equipment and medication the hospital does.”

Hannibal has a cabinet full of many things he shouldn’t legally have, but Will isn’t exactly going to bring that up. “He’ll know who to get in contact with to get them. Connections speed everything up.”

“Will,” Jack starts, but Will interrupts him.

“Please,” he says quietly. “I just want to go home.”

Jack is silent for a moment before a low growl escapes his throat and Will feels the car changing course. “I’m calling Hannibal for you.”

“Funny that you’re fine relying on him now.” It’s petty, sharper than intended.

“I trust you by yourself even less,” Jack fires back, and the blow was absolutely deserved. Accurate, too. The steering wheel squeaks as hands tighten on it. “That probably wasn’t a fun interview for you.”

Will shrugs. “It was weird. He felt off. No reason for him to have suddenly forgotten the sex of the intact corpse he found.”

“Shock can do weird things to people.”

“He was lying. Wanted to make it seem like he knew less than he did, or like he was an unreliable witness so he can walk back anything he says later.”

“Why lie about something we can disprove so easily?”

Another shrug. “Never said he was smart about it.”

Jack sighs. “I’ll keep your suspicions in mind. We can talk more about this later, when you’re healthy.”

“Yes sir,” Will mutters. The world is still spinning despite his best efforts. Grudgingly, he accepts that Jack is right and he’s probably sick. It’s never a good idea to work on a murder case when you might not be in your right mind. He keeps talking anyways. “I don’t think he was lying about being a Beta, either.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to contradict a legal document in front of law enforcement.”

“I don’t think he was lying,” Will reiterates.

“Right,” Jack replies. “Okay. I believe you,” he adds quickly, before Will can say something back. “I’m just not sure that’s relevant.”

“It’s relevant to his obnoxious behavior,” Will grumbles, and he can hear a snort of laughter from Jack in the driver’s seat.

“I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t have to talk to him again.”

“Appreciated.”

The rest of the drive back to Will’s house is done in companionable silence.

When he gets dropped off he makes Jack promise to keep him updated if anything happens, when Jack grudgingly agrees to. Jack, much less emptily, also promises to have someone come drop off his car later since it got left at Quantico in the process.

He’s really making a much bigger deal out of this than he needs to be.

Speaking of making a much bigger deal out of things. It takes a couple hours for Hannibal’s sleek Bentley to pull up to Will’s house, at which point Will is doing yardwork. In lieu of a greeting Hannibal simply picks Will up, forcing him to drop the rake he’d been using to clean up leaves, and carries him right back inside the house and up the stairs. “Hello to you too,” Will mutters from over the man’s shoulder. 

“You are ill. The last thing you should be doing is physical labor.”

“Maybe Jack just made that up to get rid of me.” He’s tossed onto his bed a bit harder than was necessary, so even hearing Jack’s name must piss Hannibal off. 

“I can smell the fever on you.” Hannibal’s nose wrinkles, and he turns his head away. “Perhaps you should shower.”

“I thought you liked the way I smelled?”

“That is why I would like you to shower.”

Oh. Will considers his options here. Despite his bravado, Will is feeling pretty shitty, and it feels like it’s getting worse. His vision had kept going out of focus when he was raking and there were times when he had nearly lost his balance. As fun as it would be to make Hannibal lose his reason again, it would be much smarter to actually try and get some rest.

For once, Will lets himself be smarter. “Alright,” he sighs. “I’ll go get cleaned up. Feel free to just.” He looks around the room, struggling to locate something that would interest Hannibal. “Lurk.”

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth twitches up in what Will has long since learned is amusement. “I shall lurk in your kitchen.” Will is halfway to the bathroom when Hannibal calls out to him again. “Do you need any assistance?”

“Doesn’t that defeat the point?” Will calls back, a bundle of clothes to change into under his arm.

“It would,” Hannibal agrees, which is rare. “I would still be remiss not to offer it.”

“I’ll be fine.” Maybe if he says it with enough confidence, it’ll become true.

The hot shower is pleasant, but it also feels like it’s sapping away all his energy. Actually giving his body time to rest makes how awful he feels really hit home. He’s in there for longer than normal and he’s not really sure how he’s going to deal with his healing bite after.

Thankfully, Hannibal seems to come to the same conclusion, and once a suitable amount of time has passed after turning the water off there is a knock at the door. “Are you decent?”

“No, but I have clothes on.” The room seems to shimmer, and Will blinks to try and dispel the illusion. The door opens and sends ripples through the air. “Damn,” he mutters, since his effort clearly failed.

A hand presses against his forehead, damp with condensation instead of sweat for the time being. “Your fever is increasing. Can you make it back to your bed unassisted?”

“Yeah,” Will says, because he can figure something out. He’s standing right now so he just has to walk, right? He looks down at his legs and sees that he’s sitting on the toilet. “Damn,” he says again.

Something in his tone must have given him away because Hannibal gently lifts him up and carries him back to his bed. “Sit up,” Hannibal tells him, arranging pillows on the headboard. “I need to see to your wound and then you should eat before sleeping. How is your appetite?”

“Exists.” Will tips his head forwards and lets Hannibal treat and bandage the wound. “How’s it looking?”

“Nearly healed,” Hannibal tells him, very obviously pleased. “Another week at most. You’ve been taking good care of it.”

“Of course I have,” Will scoffs, mildly outraged that Hannibal would imply that he’d be irresponsible about it. Hannibal helps him sit back against the pillows and arranges the blankets as Will crosses his arms in front of him. “So, doctor, what do you think? Meningitis? Ebola? Prions?”

Hannibal’s eyes scan his body before returning to his face. “Likely nothing more than the flu.”

“Boring,” Will mutters, and that makes Hannibal turn away from him and head back downstairs, into the kitchen. Should he tell Hannibal about the visual disturbances? He decides that they aren’t particularly relevant and keeps them to himself. 

He smells the food before he sees it, what ends up being a steaming bowl of broth and meat. “Black silkie chicken with red dates,” Hannibal tells him, only handing over the bowl when he’s certain Will can hold it steady.

It smells amazing and probably tastes even better. “Wow, Campbell’s has really stepped up their game, huh?” The expected flash of irritation materializes in no time, and Will hides his smile behind the spoon as he takes his first sip. “Oh, this is really good. Thank you, Hannibal.”

“Anything for you, my dear,” Hannibal responds, and Will has to tighten his grip on the spoon to not drop it at the endearment. It’s a pretty even toss up if Hannibal is using it for the normal reason or just to see what reaction it draws out of Will. 

Well, it’s only fair if they’re both doing it, Will supposes. 

While he eats the meal Hannibal moves throughout his bedroom, tidying things up that didn’t need to be tidied and organizing things the way he likes it. Exercising control. The house will be neat and clean the way Hannibal wants it to be, despite the glaring detail of it not even being his own damn house. He knows the process will continue once he sleeps and half expects to wake up to a completely different building, if that was even possible.

Will has never been a particularly prideful person, thankfully, at least not in this specific way. Hannibal can alphabetize his books for however he needs to to leave his mark on the house even when he does not reside within it. The most interesting part is probably how brazen he’s being about it.

The room spins. When it stops, Hannibal is arranging the antlers on the wall- no, that’s not right. Will sets the bowl on a bedside table and scrunches his eyes closed, rubbing at them with his palms. The bed dips beside him and a warm hand lands between his shoulder blades. “Will, are you alright?”

“Sure.” He opens his eyes and looks back to the antlers, which have reformed back into paintings and photos. Some are propped against the wall next to new ones he knows he definitely did not own and there is a pile being made, presumably for disposal. “Maybe I have a deep personal connection to that Thomas Kinkade painting.” It still has the sticker from the garage sale he’d bought it at on the back.

“Then all the more reason to remove it. What did you see?”

“Antlers,” Will admits. The hand moves to his forehead and clearly finds something it dislikes, because now Will is being pushed down into the bed with the pillows following.

“Your fever is still rising. Rest, and I will keep an eye on you.”

Of course you will, Will doesn’t say. “Sure,” he says instead. “Thanks,” he adds, as an afterthought. It’s getting harder to focus.

Sleep is normally something that eludes Will. Maybe he’s just tired. Maybe it’s because he knows Hannibal is here, and can trust him in some way. Whatever the reason, Will falls asleep quickly.

Will wakes up. The room is dark and oddly silent, so it has to be the middle of the night. Odder still is how there’s no illumination anywhere, not even the moonlight through the windows. He can’t remember if there’s a new moon tonight or not. When he sits up pain laces through his head, and he hisses.

He raises his head as his eyes adjust to the darkness. Normally he can see his dogs scattered across the bedroom and he strains to locate that familiar sight. His vision twists and pulses, pain lancing through his head once more, and he drops his head into his hands. Until the spinning passes, he closes his eyes, intensifying the nausea but stabilizing it. When it stops feeling like the bed is moving under him he opens his eyes once more and tries to look up.

Just barely, in the darkness, he can see something. It’s tall, reaches the ceiling, a wavering, undefined thing. “Hannibal…?” Will says, voice cracking. It looks too large to be a human but something about it… makes him think it’s him.

He blinks, and the shadow is closer. He can make out limbs now, slightly too long, legs bent the wrong way and something erupting from its head. Another blink and it’s even closer. Antlers, wickedly sharp. That’s what’s on its head. Will feels like he can’t take his eyes off this creature or something terrible will happen. A blink and the pain returns, forcing his head down, eyes wrenched shut as a ringing pierces through his ears. He can feel the foot of the bed dip as something climbs on top of it and he forces his head up just high enough to see through the excruciating pain.

It’s on the bed. It stares at him, eyes a blazing red, a gaze he knows all too well. “Hannibal,” he chokes, words sticking in his throat. “Why-”

In a flash the creature is on him, pinning him to the bed, one clawed hand around his throat-

Will wakes up. He sits bolt upright, panting, and he can tell the end of a scream has slipped out of him. His entire body feels tacky with sweat. There’s a shuffling around him, dogs milling around with concern, and a familiar voice. “Will, is everything okay?” Hannibal reaches for him, and Will slaps his hand away on instinct.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, trying not to focus on the small moment Hannibal freezes, incensed by the rejection. “Nightmare. Sorry.” His head throbs, so at least that part was real.

“Your fever has not broken.” The words are clipped. “If anything, it has climbed higher. One moment.”

Something is wheeled towards him; maybe a cart, or an IV stand. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “What time is-”

“Please lay back down.” A hand on his chest does not give him time to comply of his own volition. “Remain still.”

“What-” A needle pierces his arm, and then all that follows is darkness.

If he dreams, he does not remember.

In the end, it takes Will two days to shake the fever. He wakes up feeling like everything is much clearer than before, blessedly free from pain. The needle in his arm leads to an IV bag on a stand and he wants to believe that’s what it had always been attached to.

He sits up with a groan. Buster, ever the troublemaker, jumps up onto his bed as he sees his owner rouse.

A sharp click of Hannibal’s tongue has the dog jumping right back down, and Will watches the terrier trot away with mild amazement. He can hear a bookmark slide into a book, followed by the sound of it being set on a bedside table. “Are you feeling better?”

“I… think so?” The room isn’t throbbing anymore when he looks around it, and he certainly feels a great deal more lucid than before. He looks back towards the IV. “Was it really that bad?”

“Your fever was significant, but not beyond what was in my ability to treat.” Hannibal moves to the other side of the bed and quickly and professionally removes the IV and starts packing up the bag. “Had it not broken today I likely would have taken you to the hospital.”

“Small miracles.” Will’s body feels weak, almost like he’d been ravaged by a fever for several days. “I- were you here the whole time?”

“Of course.” Hannibal glances at Will like he’s wondering why Will possibly could have ever thought otherwise.

“What about your patients?”

“As I’ve said before, I drastically dialed back the amount of patients seen once I began working with the FBI. It was trivial to reschedule what few existed.”

“You didn’t have to-” He stops himself. “No, nevermind, you’re just going to say something like ‘of course I did’. I’ll skip that part and go straight to ‘thank you’.”

“Efficient,” Hannibal answers with a tiny smile. “I am relieved to see you feeling better. There have not been any new developments in your case, so rest easy knowing you have missed nothing.”

“Great. It’s always a good sign when the investigation immediately stagnates.” Will sighs. “Have you gone in at all?” Stupid question, since they had just gone over how Hannibal had not left Will’s house.

For once, Hannibal is kind enough to ignore the mistake. “Jack has asked me to stop by when you seem well enough to be on your own. We’ve only spoken over the phone until now.”

A look out the window confirms it to be late morning, possibly early afternoon. “So you should have time today.” Will swings his legs off the bed and tries to stand up, only to stumble once his feet hit the ground. Hannibal catches him easily. 

“Careful. While I was able to keep you hydrated, you still have not eaten for several days and are quite weak.”

“I’m sure you love that,” Will mutters, and the hand steadying him on his upper arm tightens. “Noted. I think I can stand.”

Slowly, Hannibal releases his grip, ready to catch Will should he fall again. Like a newborn foal learning to walk, Will takes several shaky steps forwards, getting used to dealing with the weakness and balancing himself. “You should recover quickly once you get more nourishment. Whatever it was that afflicted you, no trace of it seems to remain.”

“How do you-” Will cuts himself off, as usual, when he looks up and sees Hannibal scenting the air. Right, he can smell it. “Any idea what was wrong with me, now?”

“Considering the season, likely nothing more than a particularly nasty flu.”

“Fun.” He straightens up, staying near the wall in case he has to steady himself. “Does that usually make you hallucinate?”

There, just barely, Hannibal hesitates. “A high fever can do many things. You seemed to experience terrible nightmares as well.”

Great. Well, he already knows that Hannibal won’t let him die, so if he’s hiding anything it can’t be that serious. He can worry about this later. “Nightmares aren’t really fever exclusive, but good to know.”

“If hallucinations continue without the fever it would be cause for concern. For the time being, you should have nothing to worry about.”

“Cool. I’m going to take a shower. Should be fine on my own,” he adds, once he sees Hannibal take a step towards him. “If I’m wrong I’ll start screaming at the top of my lungs or something.”

“Very well.” Hannibal backs off. “I’ll have a meal waiting for you when you finish.”

Without another word, Will nods and slowly makes his way to the bathroom. As long as he does everything slowly, it seems manageable, which is good because something is absolutely burning a hole in his brain right now.

That dream. That was… probably not a good dream. He knows Hannibal is hiding some part of him, something even darker than what he’s already seen. His subconscious is screaming at him to get away.

He doesn’t really want to, though. Maybe there’s a part of himself that Will should be scared of, too.

Hannibal, true to word, has a veritable feast waiting for Will, and it tastes like the best thing he’s ever eaten in his life. It probably is, everything Hannibal makes probably is, but the ravenous hunger he hadn’t noticed until the aroma hit him makes it even better. They eat, and then, remarkably, Hannibal makes sure that Will is going to be okay and leaves to go to Quantico.

Though he was overbearing in other ways, Hannibal hadn’t tried to do anything with Will the entire time he’d been here. He truly had just come to take care of Will. Not acting like a lover, but a mate.

Are they mates? “Um.” Will thinks aloud. “I guess, technically?” He had let Hannibal bite him, and had made his intentions to return said bite well known. That would, to most people, make them mates. “Huh.” The term doesn’t hold much weight to Will, but he knows it means a great deal to Hannibal. “Mates it is,” he decides. He thinks he’s fine with that.

Now that Hannibal has gone, leaving behind a fridge full of meals, Will methodically goes through his house to find out what has changed. Mostly the decor, with every single one of his paintings having been replaced, possibly burned. Hannibal apparently is more approving of his taste in photographs as those mostly remain, albeit moved around. His dishes are plain but high quality, nary a chip in sight, with his silverware in similar condition. When he gets to his bookcases they seem to mostly have been reorganized, with some new additions snuck in. All the stupid little trinkets Will had accumulated over the course of his life, ceramic dogs and fish, all of them have mysteriously vanished. Vases line the mantelpiece, thick and sturdy when he touches them, the kind of thing that would likely survive a fall to the floor should it be knocked off by a dog. Some have water and flowers, others have dried branches and bone. An odd assortment.

On his way to the stairs he presses a key on the old dusty piano, wincing when it screeches back at him. Piano tuning must have been a bit too far outside of Hannibal’s area of expertise. 

The rooms he uses for storage have new boxes in them, so it seems like Hannibal was kind enough to pack away some of his removed belongings instead of simply destroying them. There’s nothing much to see up there since Will barely uses the second floor himself, beyond his bedroom and the bathroom.

All in all, he’d estimate approximately half of his things have been rearranged or replaced. The furniture that isn’t his bed all look very similar but strangely high quality, and he’s not sure a single item of clothing he previously had still remains in the home. Similar to the furniture, the casual wear is mostly higher quality versions of what existed previously, and seeing new flannels makes him do a double take. His taste was apparently taken into consideration, though given far less weight than Hannibal’s own. The ratio of flannels to nice button up shirts is certainly skewed far in the opposite direction than before. There’s a blazer hung in the closet and he wouldn’t even have been surprised to find an entire suit.

His shoes, amusingly, have not changed, save for the addition of a nice pair of dress shoes. That was the one item of clothing that Will spent proper money on, since a good pair of shoes will last you a very long time, and Hannibal appeared to agree.

There’s one last place to check and he’s not sure he wants to. Since the entire dresser has changed it’s not like it’s a secret and besides, Hannibal had given most of them to Will himself.

Most being the key word. Will sighs, crouches down, and opens the wide bottom drawer of the dresser. 

The sex toys are so nicely organized that he can’t decide if this is hysterical or cripplingly humiliating. It’s easier to deal with the former. Notably, Hannibal has organized them in a way that leaves the largest on top, and appears to have included some very specific cleaning supplies in the middle. There are things in here Will has never in his life seen before. He picks up something metal, and based on the curved, cage-like structure and the long metal rod in the center there’s really only one thing it can be for.

Like hell he’s letting Hannibal use this on him. Maybe he can use it to crack walnuts.

He slides the drawer shut with another sigh. Most people would find something like this terrifying, right? Hannibal had literally redecorated his entire house without his permission, all while he was sick with a fever. Most people would probably find this incredibly violating.

Will’s not really sure what to make of the fact that he mostly finds it amusing. It’s like a child writing their name on their favorite toy, just to make sure everyone else knows it’s theirs.

At least he can be confident that he’s more than just a toy to Hannibal. His fingers raise to the back of his neck, gently pressing on the bandages, and he can't help but be disappointed when it doesn't even sting.

All throughout the day his mind keeps going back to it. The drawer. It had been almost exclusively toys for anal before, what Hannibal had given him and what he’d bought himself in the period between being given the rest and Hannibal’s rut. Hannibal had decided to expand his collection, apparently. He’d seen cock rings, fleshlights, thin rods that were almost certainly for sounding, and much more. There were a couple new dildos too, one of which caught Will’s eye, because…

 He’s not going to be able to focus on work at all if he doesn’t figure this out. So that night, he sees to his dogs out, cleans up, and then closes the bedroom door behind him.

Will slides open the drawer again. The dildo in question is dead center, clearly placed to be the most prominent, and he picks it up and examines it. It’s a bit larger than the largest Hannibal had given him before, has a small knot at the end, and bizarrely, it’s a deep red color.

He’s about 90% sure that this is Hannibal’s dick.

The size is correct (is it? Was it always this huge?) and the odd color choice screams Hannibal. Getting a mold of his penis made is exactly the sort of thing he’d expect from the man, as is quietly shoving it into Will’s wardrobe and letting him discover it for himself. The 10% of doubt is mostly because of how insane the whole idea feels. He runs his finger down it, trying to recognize the veins and contours, but it just feels like a dildo. In his defense, Hannibal usually wastes no time shoving it inside, so Will doesn’t really get many opportunities to touch the man’s cock with his hands.

There is one way he’d be able to tell pretty quickly. It sits in his hands, large and intimidating, mocking him.

It’s about ten inches long. There’s no way that could fit inside of him, right? But the one he’s definitely fit in there isn’t more than an inch shorter and the knots at the base are the same size. Much smaller than in reality, his brain helpfully reminds him, and considering the entire point of a knot it makes sense that ones on toys would be smaller. He’s not really sure how you’d take a mold of that specific part of anatomy anyways. That thought brings his gaze back to the drawer, where he sees another, smaller dildo, this one with some sort of cable ending in a plunger hanging off the bottom, and the material used feels different, looser-

He depresses the plunger and sees something swell at the base of the dildo. An inflatable knot. That makes sense. He drops that dildo back with the rest. As he does so, something jiggles, and he pulls it out with a faint frown.

It’s made of some translucent jelly-like material, squishy and stretchable, and you’re clearly supposed to put your dick in it. Will looks at the sleeve and then looks at the red dildo. Slowly, he inserts the tip of the dildo in the sleeve, watching it stretch and distort obscenely around the massive toy. It barely reaches halfway down the cock and he half expects it to be split open under the sheer size of the intrusion.

He pulls the sleeve off and it springs back into shape like nothing even happened. Will swallows and reaches for some lube.

As much as he wants to just shove the dildo up him right away, it’s been a bit since he’s had sex with Hannibal, and alone like this he doesn’t have the benefit of the oppressive weight of the other man, of being held down, pinned in place, the thrill of excitement that it brings. So he compromises, goes straight for a large plug, sliding it inside of himself with a generous amount of lube and sheer determination. The stretch is uncomfortable but not unbearable as his body yields and soon Will lays back on the bed, panting, trying to make himself relax around the toy. Masturbating out of curiosity and not a desire to masturbate may not have been the best idea, but Will’s never been a quitter. He closes his eyes and wraps a hand around his cock, stroking, trying to imagine Hannibal is here with him.

“Reckless as always,” Hannibal sighs. “I could have helped you with this.”

“Why would you give me these if not for me to use alone?” Will replies, out loud, and thank god he lives alone.

“Future-proofing,” Hannibal smiles.

“You don’t give me a dildo molded after your own dick with the intention of us using that together.”

“I suppose not.” The Alpha is on top of him, on hands and knees, not directly touching Will but caging him in place. A hand hovers above his throat. “This is what you want, is it not? I do not think that would be wise.”

Auto-erotic asphyxiation is a great way to accidentally kill yourself, so Will can’t help but agree. “Any other ideas?”

Hannibal’s hand over his stops the stroking. He picks up the sleeve. “This comes to mind.”

Will fumbles for the lube, holding the sleeve over the head of his cock. Once everything is slick he drags it down, encasing his dick, and it’s almost unsettling how simultaneously alien and amazing it feels. It hugs him, not too tight, a stimulating pressure that expands to accommodate his dick without losing any of that tightness. No wonder Hannibal had chosen this.

“Very good, Will. Look at how it molds itself around you.”

He opens his eyes and looks down, the sight of himself distorted beneath the material sending a pulse of arousal through his body. It easily morphs to surround all of him, and-

Will frowns. He’s hard, and the sleeve stretches enough that his entire dick fits inside of it. Designed for Betas, probably. Still, he can’t help but look over at Hannibal’s dildo, sitting up to take a closer look, driving the plug deeper inside and making it crush up against his prostate. It starts a feedback loop and Will has to close his eyes and steady his breathing to calm himself back down. He’s certainly in the mood now. 

Now that he thinks about it, he’s definitely felt Hannibal’s cock a lot more often than he’s directly seen it. Holding the dildo next to his own dick the difference is… apparent. It’s not like Will’s is small, he’s never busted out a ruler but he’s at worst average for a Beta, maybe larger. He hasn’t exactly seen the dicks of enough Betas to come to an objective conclusion on that. Hannibal, however, is large even for an Alpha, and for some reason that fact is just perfectly reasonable on its own. He doesn’t need to see anyone else to know that this is big.

“You enjoy it,” Hannibal tells him, despite the fact that Will’s eyes are wide open and there’s no one else in the room with him. It’s frighteningly easy to envision the man right here, speaking to him. Almost automatic. “I gave this to you, so you should use it.”

“Okay,” Will answers. “Yeah, I will.”

He lays back down, taking his hands off the sleeve for the time being. It’s difficult to take the plug out, his body clings to it tightly, unwilling to release the source of pleasure. “For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, trying to ignore the ripples of heat as he tries to maneuver the plug out, pressing it against his prostate instead. He needs to be distracted from this feeling, but pulling off the sleeve would be too dangerous.

This is a stupid idea and Will is going to do it anyways. The red dildo is heavy, has some heft. He holds it up above his chest and lets go.

“Motherfucker,” he hisses, after it’s slammed into him and rolled off to the side. He likes the way it stings but it also distracts him enough that he can finally pull the plug out, freeing himself. 

He must look absolutely ridiculous.

That’s something he steadfastly ignores. He’s alone, after all, even if he can easily see Hannibal’s raised eyebrows if he closes his eyes. If he can tolerate judgement from the real thing, he can tolerate it from the phantom he’s created too. Instead he grabs the lube again and lifts his hips, lining up the head of the dildo, and starts sliding it inside.

It’s definitely Hannibal’s. He’s not really sure how to feel about the fact that his ass identifies it so quickly so he simply ignores that as well in favor of focusing on how he stretches around it, how his body easily welcomes it inside. He’s not even thinking about his large and impossible it seemed when he pushes it home, over the knot, fully seated inside of him. It feels right. 

“Sit up,” Hannibal tells him.

Will sits up.

Immediately he is far more keenly aware of the pressure inside of him, the intrusion pressing against his walls, and his body clenches around it. It’s locked in place now, can’t slip or move, just a constant fill, a comforting reminder that he’s not alone.

Not literally. “Of course it wasn’t meant literally,” Hannibal chimes in, and that sounds a lot more like Will himself now. Maybe he’s slipping. Who could blame him? With such an incredible feeling, deep inside, how could he be expected to think of anything else?

Will closes a hand around the sleeve and starts to jerk himself off. It squishes around his fingers, magnifying the grip of his hand, making lewd squelching noises as he moves it. Together, they make him shiver, the moving, sucking sensation on his dick and the rock solid presence inside of him. When he shifts, rubbing the dildo inside of him, it sends lightning up his spine. Gently, he starts to move forwards and backwards on the bed, tiny little movements, just to remind him the dildo is there.

“You’ve become quite addicted to it.”

“Shut up,” Will groans, the absurdity of the situation setting in. He can just make this Hannibal shut up.

Apparently, he doesn’t want to. “Did you ever consider this possibility? That once I fucked you, it would change you, irreversibly.”

“It didn’t.” Will moves the sleeve faster, skin flushing, sweat starting to slip down his spine. He feels warm, on fire.

“Yet it did, didn’t it? You never would have done this before you’d known.”

“Known what?” Will snaps, at nothing. He doesn’t think he could stop his movements if he tried.

“What I could give you. What you needed.”

“I don’t need this.”

“You do,” Hannibal calmly responds. “Even now, you feel that this is a pale imitation.”

It is. He hates to admit it, as good as it feels, but it’s still just silicone and gel, fake, colder, impersonal. It feels good but it only feels good. There’s no hand around his throat, no iron grip around his wrists, bruising and pressing him so hard into the mattress that he struggles to breathe. There’s no burning hot flesh, no teeth tearing into him, no pain, no Hannibal.

“Fuck you,” Will snarls, and he comes, filling the sleeve with his semen. The phantom fades away, smiling.

He lays back on the bed for a while, panting, until the toys become uncomfortable. The sleeve comes free with a pop and he winces as he extracts the dildo, now far too large to bear inside of him.

It had felt good. It had also felt empty.

On some level, it makes sense. Will had never really been the type to masturbate alone and had always assumed he just had a low sex drive. Being with Hannibal is making him reconsider his position.

Semen and lube leaks out of the sleeve and Will grimaces. It’s not disposable, so he has to clean it somehow. With a sigh he looks back in the still open sex drawer, fishing around for cleaning supplies, and takes everything into the bathroom to try and figure things out.