Chapter Text
It’s a very hot day, so Will isn’t at all surprised when he hears the bell go off. They’re in the middle of a drought and fireworks season, so put the two together and you get a lot of fires. He’s probably attended more fires this past month than he has in the entire season before that.
What he is surprised at, however, is the location of the fire.
“Chandler Square?” Beverly echoes, staring down at the radio like it has all the answers to the universe in it. “Since when do rich people let their vacation houses burn down?”
“Maybe he had guests over.”
“In Chandler Square? Will, you don’t have sleepover guests there. You hold lavish seventy course dinner parties and debutante balls and then everyone goes home to their own mansion.”
“We don’t know it’s a mansion,” Will says patiently, clicking his seatbelt in. “You ready, partner?”
“Let’s go and drown a rich guy’s mansion.”
“Bev, seriously.”
Beverly is a terrible person, so when they arrive at the actual mansion of a house, sirens blazing, she cackles at Will as she leaps down. However, Beverly is also an awesome partner, so no words are needed as they ready the hose and start doing their best to put out the raging inferno. It’s quite a massive one, actually, so either the guy has an enormous library of really flammable books or an enormous kitchen of really flammable equipment. Fortunately, back-up arrives pretty soon afterwards, so they at least keep the blaze from consuming too much of the guy’s lawn.
When the flames die down enough for them to start getting close to the house, Will and Beverly focus on extinguishing the last few hot spots as another crew works on entering the house and clearing it.
Will squints as they approach the house. “Is that a bush in the shape of a deer?”
“Hey, it could’ve been a naked cupid.”
“Isn’t that a little too pedestrian for a guy whose lawn is bigger than my house?”
“Have you seen some of the European fountains?” Beverly demands, grunting as she heaves the hose over yet another weirdly pruned bush. “They’re all naked people.”
“Never left the country, remember?”
“You’ve never taken an art class?”
Will shoots her an exasperated look. They’ve only been partners for a few months, but Beverly was definitely there for the day they all clustered into the back room to wrap secret gifts for the chief and his wife on their anniversary. “You’ve seen the way I wrap gifts and do handmade cards. What on earth makes you think I took an art class?”
“Truuuue,” Beverly concedes. “I think Bella told Jack it was sweet to get some gifts from his men’s kids.”
“Wow, thanks for that.”
“Maybe we should sign you up for one. I hear the local Art with Alphas has an opening.”
Will is more than aware that the local Art with Alphas has an opening. They’ve already sent him three e-mails, two postcards, and a gift basket of lube. It’s understandable in that the ratio of alphas to omegas is heavily skewed in the favor of omegas, so any typical single alpha is usually pretty pleased to be the center of attention at an art class where all the omegas get to take turns drawing them, presenting their piece, and then making their pitch that they’re the perfect partner. Will, however, is not a typical single alpha and has no intention of being stuck in a single creepy pose while omegas leer at him and then drone on and on about how they went to finishing school or mastered every cooking instrument.
“I dodged the fireman calendar for a reason,” is all Will says.
Beverly bursts out laughing and nearly sprays them both with the hose. “With that butt? You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, I know for a fact they do clothed sessions in addition to the standard nude ones.”
“I don’t want to be ogled by anyone. Naked or clothed. I, uh, also don’t want to know why you know that they do clothed and naked sessions.”
“Betas have eyes too,” Beverly says airily. “As long as you’re willing to cough up the dough, you can stare at all the buns you want, no matter your designation. My mom, bless her, got me a reservation to a clothed session, but the alpha decided mid-session to do a striptease and hot damn was she fine.”
“Who’s doing a striptease? Is it Graham?”
Will groans and turns to face Price and Zeller. They’re both got matching grins on their faces and soot on their clothes. He won’t deny that they’re the best search and rescue team on the force due to their enhanced hearing, but sometimes it’s really inconvenient.
Like the time they overheard Will trying to delete a voicemail from a dance recruitment company.
“I knew I should’ve deleted that voicemail without listening to it.”
Zeller snickers. “But then we wouldn’t have ever known about your glorious origin story in ballet and Irish step dance!”
“Oh no, what a travesty,” Will deadpans. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way Beverly’s eyes light up and decides to swiftly change the subject, because Beverly knowing that he used to dance probably won’t help his case of trying to dodge her attempts to make him pose naked. “So is the house clear?”
“Yeah, empty as a bathroom after Chilton makes his morning trip,” Price confirms. “Took us forever to search all the rooms though.”
Looking at the mansion, Will believes it. “I guess we’re good to try and track down the owner, then.”
As they head back down the lawn towards the trucks and the growing crowd of gawkers, Zeller says, “Dispatch said it was some of rich psychiatrist.”
“Dibs on not making that report,” Will says instantly.
“Secret history with shrinks?” Beverly asks, one eyebrow raised. Will usually tries to wriggle out of notifications and reports, but she usually is good at knowing when Will is really uncomfortable and when it’s just habit.
“Every skinny dancer has a history of shrinks.”
It’s not the full truth, of course – Will saw shrinks for a lot more reasons than his dancing – but Will isn’t about to go there, and honestly, the dancing is more than enough ammunition for Beverly to be cackling until Christmas. He’ll probably get a tutu for the Christmas Secret Santa at the rate this is going.
When Beverly snickers and crosses in front of him, the breeze of her movement is accompanied by the sweetest perfume Will’s ever smelt – syrupy sweet strawberries, freshly cut pine tree sap, warm clothes straight out of the dryer.
“Bev, is that a new perfume?”
She gives him an odd look. “Uh, no. Why?”
Will inhales again, widening his stance and letting his chest balloon open to intake as much as he can. He smells the faint traces of Beverly’s clean shampoo, Price’s aftershave, Zeller’s shaving cream, rust and dust and smoke, but he also smells that perfume, rich despite being fainter than anything else, and emanating from the house. A third inhale, and he realizes the perfume is actually diluted by the smoke and dust from the house. Which means the scent is coming from the house. Which means either that the dude in the house owned a lot of perfume or –
“Hey, are we sure the house is clear?”
Price and Zeller give him twin weird looks to match Beverly’s. “Yeah,” Zeller says cautiously. “We didn’t hear a peep. Why?”
“Because I smell an omega.”
“There is a crowd of bloodthirsty reporters and gossiping neighbors gathering. . .”
“It’s coming from the house.”
Beverly asks, “Are you sure?” But her tone is more concerned than confused; they all know that Will’s alpha-heightened sense is smell, just like Price and Zeller’s is hearing. On a good day Will can pick out someone’s last meal from across the room, and fireman training has only sharpened that skill.
Will turns around. “I’m going in,” he decides, and then he takes off, ignoring his coworkers’ shouts.
Thankfully, the door has already been kicked down, so the only trouble Will has is carefully stepping over remnants of melted furnishings or crumbled artwork. Apparently the rich guy has a lot of artwork because there’s a bunch of frames, although they’re blackened by soot and fire. And when Will strains his ears, he hears nothing – no heartbeats, no breathing, no frantic yells for help.
But he certainly smells someone. And although perfumers have tried for centuries, no one’s even been able to effectively replicate the perfume of omega or alpha pheromones.
After wandering around the ground level a few times, Will realizes that the scent is coming from the pantry. The door’s been forced in, of course, but the room is small enough that Will can see why Price or Zeller probably just stuck their head in, looked around, and cleared it. But his nose has never led him wrong before, so Will inhales again for confirmation and then walks in. The floor groans strangely under his feet as he does, so Will taps his foot a few more times and then starts kicking in the secret panel that the rich guy has. Sure enough, in a few seconds he’s got himself a full on secret staircase.
“Rich people,” Will groans, and then he starts climbing down.
The perfume gets stronger and stronger as he walks, thicker and wilder, like going from a room with the window open to the wild moors straight out into the wilds themselves. There’s a hint of panic, too, that natural primal response to being trapped with no way out, and it makes Will hasten his footsteps, because unless this is some kind of apocalypse bunker, the rich guy probably doesn’t have oxygen gear or anything to protect himself from a fire.
Rich guy, it turns out, is collapsed at the foot of the stairs. He has wet cloth draped over his face and hands, so he wasn’t an idiot, but a quick glance around the secret basement tells Will there was no window or other ventilation to the outside, so he had no choice but to inhale the smoke that came down.
And he’s definitely an omega.
“Hey!” Will shouts, because it’s not a good sign that the rich guy hasn’t moved or recoiled from a strange alpha intruding on what is clearly his territory. “Hello!”
When a few more shouts and a couple nudges bring no signs of stirring, Will sighs and kneels down. He’s grateful now for his thick protective gear, because omegas who awaken as they’re being transported by strangers to strange places can attack and attack fiercely. Will’s seen the results when a fearful omega wakes up and tears out an attacker or kidnapper’s throat.
On the other hand, he has no other way of getting rich guy out.
It takes a couple of heaves to get rich guy properly balanced into his arms. He’s definitely alive, Will can hear the rasps of his breathing, but he’s also bulky and tall and basically dead weight. It’s a struggle to maneuver him up the stairs without banging rich guy’s head on something or slipping on the stairs.
Fortunately, rich guy starts stirring once they ascend to the pantry and start towards the outside. It’s probably the breeze of fresh air that makes him start to come back to himself, and Will hears the faintest thrum of a snarl building.
“Hey, don’t snarl at me, buddy,” Will pants. “You’re heavy and unconscious and not helping in this endeavor. I just need to get you to an ambulance for assessment.”
The snarl rises in volume.
“Just don’t rip out my throat, okay? I’m rather attached to it.”
Just as abruptly as it built, the snarl ends. A faint questioning purr arises, either because rich guy is now starting to remember the fire or because he realizes that Will hasn’t tried to subdue him at all. Most alphas who run off with omegas tend to muzzle them so they can’t bite and are reduced to other means of defense.
Beverly catches sight of them as they enter the main hallway and yells for a stretcher. This works out great, because it means Will can lay rich guy down carefully on the stretcher to give his straining arms a rest instead of having to awkwardly shuffle his weight to Beverly.
“Damn, Graham,” Beverly whistles lowly as the EMTs swarm the stretcher. “I mean, I knew your nose was awesome, but damn is your nose awesome.”
“Alpha noses were built to sniff out omegas,” Will reminds her.
Beverly sniffs the air. Betas can get heightened senses too, but it’s far rarer and more of a genetic flip of the coin than the sure thing it is for alphas. Beverly, to Will’s knowledge, has no heightened senses, but it’s not exactly something you ask over a casual conversation.
“Oh wow. Yeah I can smell that. I’m surprised I missed it.”
On the stretcher, rich guy suddenly sits up, pushing away the oxygen and growling something at the EMTs. When Will inhales again, the scent is much, much stronger, a siren call instead of faint identifier, and the low coiling in his gut tells Will that they’re about to have a much bigger issue than smoke inhalation and gossiping neighbors.
Will sighs. When the EMTs gesture him over, he obligingly jogs towards them.
“He’s refusing treatment and demanding to speak to you,” they tell Will, as though he can’t see the way rich guy has laser focused on him the second he came into line of sight.
Will decides to take the blunt approach. Reason is usually the first thing that recedes, so there’s no sense in beating around the bush. “Hi,” Will says. “I’m Will Graham, I saved your life, and you’re going into heat.”
Rich guy blinks. His teeth are impressively sharp around the snarl he was inflicting at the EMTs. Somehow he still manages to display them even as he replies to Will. “I am fully aware of that,” he snaps, sounding miffed. “I am still in control of my faculties.”
“Then you know you need treatment. They said you were a doctor?”
Rich guy waves it aside. “I wasn’t exposed for very long. And heat is a far more pressing concern than smoke inhalation.”
“Because respiratory failure is nothing to worry about.”
Rich guy bears his teeth. “Now that my heat has started in full, it cannot be stopped with suppressants. I must ride it out. And you are an alpha – you know that an omega who’s heat is not properly tended to will likely experience systemic multiple organ failure. So compared to that, yes, I would say respiratory failure is the lesser of two evils.”
Will inclines his head in silence. It’s an ugly truth, but a truth nonetheless. Without a safe place to nest, pheromones to soothe his inflamed mind, and at least one knot, fake or real, the heat will continue building until his heart and lungs and brain turn into soup.
“Do you typically make arrangements somewhere? We can bring you to whatever heat sanctuary you normally go to.”
“No,” rich guy says curtly. “They smell too much of disinfectant. And previous couplings.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s standard policy to trash everything and start anew. Unless the room is rented in perpetuity.”
“I have a very good nose.”
Will resists the urge to throw up his hands. On one hand, if he does have a good nose, then yeah, a heat sanctuary probably does reek of past couplings, and if an omega does not feel absolutely safe then the heat is going to be painful not only to him but everyone around him who smells his unease and fear. On the other hand, heat sanctuaries were built to accommodate omegas in heat, and they pretty much have the whole market cornered; there aren’t many other places that have the supplies to do it safely.
“You wanna ride this out in a hospital?”
“I was a doctor,” rich guy says, and his tone says wonders about what he isn’t saying.
“Right. You still gotta ride out the heat somewhere.”
“I would like to return to your station.”
Will side eyes him hard for that one. Most omegas prefer a space away from alphas, not one bursting to the brim with them. They do have a room, of course – every public building does, because sometimes there’s no other choice – but the one in Will’s station hasn’t been used as long as he’s been on the force. “You do know that there are a lot of alphas on the force, right?”
“There will be you. That’s enough.”
Will blinks. “Um . . . I’m not exactly certified as a heat companion.”
“You’ve taken the classes. They always teach the same phrases, and you’re putting out the recommended pheromones. You’re also standing exactly three to five feet from me, as recommended.” Rich guy closes his eyes and inhales, and when he opens them, his eyes are the bright gold of an omega in heat. “And your scent . . . You smell divine.”
“Still not a heat companion.”
“Consent is what matters. I’m still lucid enough to choose my alpha and give consent. You and I have a bond, we find each other’s scent appealing, you have a knot and I need it. What other qualifications must I aspire to?”
Will wants to argue, because a bond is sacred and usually formed with purpose and a ceremony and premeditation, not a fifteen minute walk out of a basement. But he can’t deny that part of him is definitely leaning closer to rich guy, and bonds can be formed in high pressure situations, when an omega and alpha are in close quarters during or after something traumatic or earth-shattering and end up bound together. It’s not as permanent or powerful as one formed with purpose, but it can definitely end there; many alpha and omega couples formed in the wake of major disasters go on to marry and live together forever.
And Will has taken the classes. He never went for certification, because he didn’t need more invitations accompanied with lube gift baskets, but all of the classes boil down to “give the omega what they want and need and don’t die” so they’re not exactly hard to digest.
Will takes a deep breath. He can already feel the faint itching of his iris threatening to expand into alpha-red. “Are you sure? You know that once an omega starts a heat with a particular alpha, there’s no turning back.”
“Will Graham, if you do not start kissing me soon, I will start ripping your clothes off. With my teeth.”
“. . . Good enough,” Will decides, and turns his head to find the EMTs and make arrangements before rich guy makes good on his threat.
Rich guy lasts exactly one second until after the thick door of the heat room is closed before he descends upon Will. Buttons go flying, cloth goes to shreds, and Will is kissed more thoroughly that he’s ever experienced in his life. He barely manages to stop them from falling over and instead they slam into a wall as rich guy does his best to get Will as naked as the day he was born.
When he gets a respite as rich guy starts investigating Will’s abs with his tongue, Will shudders and tries to get his mind together. “You, uh, you gonna tell me your name?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’d like to know it?”
Rich guy pauses with his pants halfway down his legs and cocks his head. His eyes are completely gold now, mind lost to the madness of heat, and Will is absurdly grateful that there is no video surveillance in the heat room, only a panic button.
“You do need to know my name to scream it,” rich guy concludes thoughtfully. “My name is Hannibal.”
And then he’s onto Will, savaging his mouth and bruising his arms and pushing him to the ground so he clamber on top and seat himself to his liking, and Will is screaming Hannibal, Hannibal, HANNIBAL.
Most heats last about two to three days. Just long enough to get pregnant and/or really sore, not long enough to deplete a person enough that they’d die if they didn’t have ready access to food and water. Surprise heats can last a little bit longer, nature driving the alpha and omega to bond tightly to increase their chances of survival and gene perpetuation, but not too much longer.
Hannibal’s heat lasts seven days, and Will only is aware of that because heat rooms are stocked with enough supplies for six and he has to tear into the emergency rations stored in the secret compartment.
When it’s over, Will is dazed and sore and bruised from head to feet. Hannibal was just as enthusiastic on day one as he was on day seven, and Will knows he’s beyond lucky Hannibal didn’t bite him deep enough to form a permanent bond, because he forget to pack a bite guard and honestly Hannibal might’ve just bitten right through it in his wilder moments.
Thank god for gauze and the fact that alphas tend to heal a bit faster than other designations.
Hannibal wakes up as Will is trying to tape gauze over a bit on his side, and Will definitely does not screech like a dinosaur and jump five feet when ten more fingers are suddenly on his back.
“Let me help,” Hannibal says quietly. “I was, after all, responsible.”
Will concedes easily enough. Letting Hannibal bandage a bite seems rather easy after he’s let Hannibal devour every single part of him during sex. “And you’re proud of it,” Will notes, because he can hear the faintest thrum of a purr echoing in Hannibal’s chest.
“Would you blame me? I was in need, and fortune smiled upon me with an excellent specimen to sate my lust.”
“Wow, way to make me sound like a petri dish sample.”
“You are far more beautiful than a petri dish, my dear. No sketches will be able to contain your magnificence, although I shall have to do my best. I don’t suppose you’d object to posing for me?”
“When you say pose – ”
Hannibal cuts him off with a firm kiss. “All of you. You were magnificent, Will.”
On the bright side, at least Will knows there’s a chance that there will be more drawings of his body than his genitalia. On the down side: “There’s a reason I don’t apply for Art with Alphas.”
“I am not part of that . . . contest,” Hannibal says with a faint moue of disgust. “This would be a private showing.”
Will raises an eyebrow. “Just like that? We hardly know each other.”
“I know everything I need to know. Don’t you?”
Will supposes that’s true. Hannibal was in danger from fire, both literal and metaphorical, and Will saved him. Will protected him, Will gave him shelter, and Will plied him with food and drink to keep him going. Will has done everything an omega would ask of an alpha, in the old days.
Of course, these aren’t the old days.
“You know my name and nothing else.”
Hannibal shrugs. “That is easily remedied. I am not proposing marriage, Will. Simply to a closer relationship.”
“ . . . Which leads to marriage.”
“When someone finds their perfect partner, isn’t it recommended to ensure that such a partner is claimed?”
A warmth alights in Will’s chest. All of his life, he’s been shunned as strange, for his empathy, for his nose, for his disinterest in bonding. And here Hannibal is – by all accounts a very desirable omega with his life put together and a good career and a massive fortune – wanting him to the exclusion of all others, and practically proposing marriage a week into knowing him. It’s heady stuff for an alpha.
“If you want to know more information about me,” Hannibal says, “you need only ask. But I am content. I know everything I need to know about you, and you are everything I want.”
Will turns around. Hannibal is beautiful, with his hair ruffled and eyes still a faint gold and chest marked with bites when Will returned the favor. Will sort of wants to kiss him and make love again, but for the fact that they both probably need sleep and a long bath. And also the burning question Will kind of needs to ask.
“I just have one question.”
“Go ahead.”
“What’s with the secret basement? I know it’s not a nest, because it has no provisions for heat, and either the floor plan of your house is really messed up and you need to murder your architect . . . or you’ve got a much bigger secret part of your basement.”
Hannibal’s got a great poker face, but the way his scent thickens is a dead giveaway.
Will leans in close, feeling the way Hannibal trembles at Will’s breath on his shoulder and reveling in it. “What naughty secrets are you hiding in that secret basement of yours, Doctor Lecter?” Will whispers.
“Wouldn’t you love to find out?”
And god help him, Will does. There’s a darkness inside of Hannibal – Will can practically taste it – and he decided to shift his life track into being a fireman instead of a police officer because finding darkness and locking it up got boring. Far more interesting, Will came to realize, to let it burn its brightest and then see the aftermath.
“Does it have anything to do with your house catching fire?”
“No. That was my crystal ball. It’s an heirloom and I must have forgotten to cover it.”
Will blinks, thoroughly derailed. “You have an heirloom crystal ball?”
“The saying in my family was that it would lead each Lecter to their perfect partner,” Hannibal says solemnly. “My father dropped it and my mother returned it. My grandmother knocked it off its stand and tripped my grandfather as he passed in the hallway. And now it has led me to you.”
“ . . . Maybe we should find a case for that.”
“An excellent idea.” Hannibal tilts his head. “How long before we are released from this room?”
“Oh, I’ve just got to hit the call button.”
“So there isn’t a set schedule where they check on us?”
“Life sign monitoring is pretty standard, so as long as our hearts don’t go into cardiac arrest and we’re still breathing, we’ll be left alone until we eat through the emergency rations. Why?”
Hannibal tackles him almost as soon as the sentence as done, which neatly answers that question.
When they finally emerge on day eight, Beverly waits just long enough for Hannibal to gracefully glide to the showers before she squeals, loud enough to bring the entire goddamn fire station down, “CAN I PLAN YOUR WEDDING?!”
“No.”
“But Will – ”
“No.”
“Will please – ”
Hannibal sticks his head back around the corner at that exact moment. “Will, are you coming? Also, please inform your friend the answer is yes. I will need all the help I can get.”
“You two becoming friends is going to be the bane of my existence,” Will sighs.
FINIS