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Will loved Hannibal. He understood him. He had looked into the core of him and found it beautiful. Gone over the cliff with him and then helped drag both their straining bodies from the sea.
That did not mean he forgave him.
Abigail, bleeding out under his hands. Beverly, sliced up for display. Molly looking up at him from her hospital bed with the end of their marriage in her eyes.
They haunted Will. They slipped in and out of his dreams, and no amount of beauty in the things he and Hannibal did together would ever change that.
So, when Hannibal tried to coax their kisses a little further, Will pulled away. When Hannibal’s hands wandered low in bed at night, Will grabbed them and redirected them.
It ate at Hannibal, Will knew. He said nearly as much over wine one evening
“Do you consider intimacy between us to be so distasteful, Will?”
Will looked at him over the rim of his glass, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “No,” he finally said. “Far from it. Everything we are is intimate.” And not all of Will's dreams were nightmares. Some of them were filled with a fire that left his briefs stained come morning.
“And yet you deny yourself further pleasure.”
“I deny you pleasure,” Will corrected. Hannibal considered this with a raised eyebrow.
“And why is that?” He finally asked.
“I don’t feel you’ve earned it.”
Hannibal was still a moment, before sitting back. He enjoyed being challenged, he withered without it. Perhaps some part pent up deep within Will worried that now that he’d been ‘caught’, and ‘claimed’, Hannibal would slowly lose interest in him. He would no longer find him interesting now that there wasn’t a chase for him to indulge in.
So Will decided to manufacture him one, in a sense.
“Oh?” Hannibal asked, the pause and implication enough to tilt the corners of his lips upwards. “And how does one go about earning pleasure in this household?”
Will smiled slowly, took his time enjoying the mouthful of wine he held against his tongue before swallowing and setting the glass aside.
“Through selflessness,” he said.
Hannibal hummed, pleased, and tilted his head. “If I want pleasure, I give you pleasure first.”
“The kind from which you don’t benefit,” Will agreed. Then added, laughing, “or, I suppose, where the point is to pleasure me.”
“There’s something to be said for mutual enjoyment,” Hannibal countered. Will just shook his head.
“That’s earned.”
“Then allow me to earn it.”
Will leaned back in his chair, uncrossing his legs. Hannibal slipped from his seat and came to stand before him, but when he began to kneel, Will caught him by the hair.
“Oh no,” Will said, eyes bright, teeth glinting in the firelight. “I’m afraid that would be yet another treat for you , Hannibal, one you’d have to earn.”
Hannibal licked his lips. Will’s dominance was not a trait he’d displayed often, and Hannibal hungered for any piece of him that he could have. “How do I earn a taste of you, then?”
“How does one earn anything?” Will asked. “With sweat and tears.”
“Will,” Hannibal whispered, “you should know by now that you can have anything you like.”
Will’s smirk had something devilish to it. Hannibal recognized his own expression reflected back at him.
“Pants and underwear down, Hannibal.”
Hannibal tilted his head, hands coming down to work his belt free, amused when Will immediately held his hand out for it. “Am I to be humiliated, then?”
“No,” Will sighed, tapping the folded belt against his knee as he watched Hannibal continue to undress for him. “Just beaten.”
“Curious,” Hannibal lowered his slacks before slipping his thumbs under the waistband of his underwear. Will snorted.
“Don’t you dare psychoanalyze this.”
“Can I not be curious outside of a professional capacity?”
“No,” Will’s smile didn’t waver, his eyes remained narrowed and pleased as Hannibal bared himself for him. “Because that still makes it all about you. ”
“And what can I do for you, then, my dear Will?” Hannibal asked. It was interesting how entirely unfazed he seemed to be half dressed and half nude standing before Will at their dinner table. Though perhaps Will shouldn’t have been too surprised.
“You can bend over the table and take what I feel like giving you.”
Hannibal had allowed a lover to beat him before. Just the once, an indulgence of his own curiosity.
He’d eaten that same lover, but only after tenderizing them in return.
He remembered a distant sort of pleasure, one he could almost reach, but not quite. It was possible, likely even, that his former lover hadn’t known what they were doing. If Will had previous sadomasochistic tendencies, he’d never shared them, but he seemed entirely certain of himself as he rose from his seat.
Hannibal had lowered himself to his elbows, but Will pushed him further, until his chest touched the table. He lifted Hannibal’s shirt, pushing it up his spine until it bunched up under his arms.
“You can enjoy this,” Will told him, resting the folded end of the belt against his ass. “I won’t punish you for it. But I also won’t care if you don’t. Understand?”
“It matters little to me, either way. I’d still allow it.”
Will snorted. “Allow.”
The first slap of the belt wasn’t painful, it just made a harsh sound in the otherwise quiet room. The second, Hannibal felt a bit more, he certainly felt the warmth of his skin after, for the short time Will let him meditate on the sensation before striking him again.
Will hit with practiced precision; he knew how to hold back until Hannibal’s skin was primed enough for a stronger blow, and he paced himself. He set one hand against Hannibal’s back after a while - not to hold him down, Hannibal had obediently remained bent as Will had folded him, but perhaps merely to hold - and spread it wide over his skin.
“You think so highly of yourself,” Will murmured after minutes of nothing but harsh breaths and harsher slaps of leather on skin. “So highly. And while some is certainly warranted, the rest…” a particularly harsh blow had him pause, adjusting his position behind Hannibal before bending to kiss just above his tailbone. “The rest just makes you seem like an asshole. And it is so satisfying being able to beat that part of you down for a change.”
Hannibal didn’t answer him, he merely turned his head to let his cheek warm the wood beneath it as Will resumed the beating. It hurt, but it felt strangely… intimate . This didn’t feel like someone tenderising a steak, like someone attempting to assert authority over someone they had no right to even look at. No, this was Will unfurling in all his glory, the beast within him clawing for the beast within Hannibal.
And what a beast it was. Strong and powerful, a heady presence over Hannibal’s shoulders. Hannibal was slick with the strain by the time Will was done, eyes watering.
Sweat and tears, as Will had said.
For a moment, there was silence. Will’s hand pet gently at the small of Hannibal’s back, soft and slow. His thumb slipped just between his cheeks, a tease that vanished as soon as it had arrived.
“You’ve earned your treat,” he said in a dangerously soft voice. “If you still want it.”
Hannibal ached, a deep seated soreness that would linger for days, but nothing had changed about his desire. He pushed himself up from the table on shaking limbs, determined.
It perhaps would have been polite to let Will take his seat again, but Hannibal felt that they had moved somewhere beyond that point. There was little either could do to the other that was truly “rude” when both would welcome any intimacies. Hannibal dropped to his knees, wincing as his backside settled onto his heels.
Will watched him reach for the front of his trousers, dropped his head back with a sigh when Hannibal freed his cock and immediately leaned in to take it into his mouth.
What’s the definition of trust?
Will dropped a hand into Hannibal’s hair and stroked it, licking his lips in pleasure as Hannibal teased him to proper hardness with practiced ease. He didn’t need to think about how many times Hannibal had done this before, it didn’t matter. He was on his knees, ass beaten read, sucking off Will because Will had made him earn it.
And he’d certainly done that.
Will tossed the belt to the table and slipped both hands into Hannibal’s hair, fingers hooked behind his jaw to coax him closer, encourage him to go faster, take more. He knew Hannibal would. He knew that Hannibal would do anything to ‘earn’ Will’s body as he’d earned his mind, and the power trip was intoxicating.
“God, the things I could make you do,” Will sighed, “the things I want you to do to me, Hannibal, fuck -”
Anything. Everything. Always.
Hannibal tried to convey the sentiment by taking Will to the back of his throat, moaning around the length of him before pulling away. He conveyed it with gentle hands set to Will’s thighs and spread and reached back to cup his ass and squeeze.
Will used him thoroughly, fucked the slick, warm channel of his throat. When he flooded Hannibal, Hannibal moaned and let his eyes flutter closed.
Given the chance, he would consume Will in any way possible. Whatever he was allowed, whatever he could have and still have Will as well.
Will pulled back, panting. He watched saliva slip down the curve of Hannibal’s lip with narrowed eyes. “Touch yourself,” he whispered.
Hannibal didn’t hesitate. He slid his thighs apart, reaching for his heavy cock. “I wonder,” he said slowly, thumbing just under the head, “what I would have to do to earn your touch?”
Will smirked, a tiny quirk of a lip. “I’m sure you’ll find out, eventually.”
Will’s touch was earned with begging. Verbal degradation - that to anyone else would be anything but - that put Hannibal ‘in his place’, as Will liked to suggest. Pleasuring himself after a beating or begging allowed Hannibal access to Will’s body; driving him mad with pleasure in their bed as Hannibal fucked him ragged while Will tore at the headboard with his hands.
If Will was feeling generous, a good dinner and enough alcohol could lead to mutual masturbation on the couch.
Kisses were free.
Hannibal began to refer to their games as a “slut tax”, using a word Will had once foisted upon him during a particularly pleasurable fuck. He enjoyed it, and made sure Will could see that he did. They had no secrets from each other, not anymore.
He paid his toll dutifully and they both benefited from him humbling himself.
And it wasn’t as though Will never went to his knees for Hannibal either. He just never had a tax to pay to be able to have his access. Hannibal was his for the claiming whenever he desired, as it should be.
It became playful. Hannibal could not help but smirk when he bent himself over their bed, or Will’s knee. Will was, in general, more collected and calm.
They fit together. They understood each other. They brought fire and ferocity to their bed.
“I have a gift for you.”
Hannibal had planned it out thoroughly. He had spent hours browsing the internet, choosing the perfect item.
Will lifted the lid off the box. He ran his fingers lightly over the crushed velvet interior.
He gave the riding crop a single test swing against his thigh, and smiled.
“Pants and underwear down, Hannibal.”