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Hannibal’s heartbeat is steady. Too steady. Sometimes Will wonders if the man he’s in love with can even be human, from the way his heart remains so steadfastly even and unchanging as it thumps inside his chest. Will can watch the pulse thrumming at the base of Hannibal’s neck, blood pushing the artery against the skin in a calm, unwavering rhythm as Hannibal wraps his fingers around the throat of their victim; pares a knife through flesh or sinks teeth into tender meat, and still Will never sees it race.
But when they’re together, and Will kisses him, for a moment he feels the minute flutter in Hannibal’s chest. His heart quickens, thumps that slightest bit harder, and Will knows whatever sliver of humanity resides in Hannibal’s heart is reserved only for him.
Not that Will minds it being so steady. It’s comforting, familiar, to hear it like this, as they lie tangled up in each other while Will’s head rests on Hannibal’s bare chest. The sound of it washes over him, seeping into his awareness and grounding him so that with Hannibal, he’s never at risk of losing himself. It’s a sound Will hungers for.
Tenderly, Will turns his head, brings his lips to rest above the point where he can feel the surge of Hannibal’s heart beneath his skin, and kisses it. He starts off gentle, but soon becomes more eager, opening his mouth and letting teeth scrape over that quivering patch of flesh as if hoping to taste the beating heart below.
Sleepily, Hannibal sighs, chest swelling and sinking beneath Will’s mouth. “Have you not had your fill, Will?” he asks.
“There’s a type of hunger I’m not sure dinner could satisfy,” Will replies, thinking back to the heart they’d consumed earlier, and how bland and unappealing it seems compared to the organ pumping just inches from his lips.
“I do hope you didn’t find the meal…unsatisfactory.”
“Not unsatisfactory, no.” Will glances up, meeting Hannibal’s eyes. “Yet I do find I’m not satisfied.”
The anger that might have been present at the perceived insult to Hannibal’s cooking is absent. For Will, his emotions are something else entirely. “Do elaborate,” Hannibal invites.
In answer, Will raises his head further, sliding up the bed until he can seal his lips over the older man’s. They kiss, intense and passionate, as Will draws out the reaction he craves from Hannibal’s heart. It thumps, flutters, pounding harder beneath Will’s hand. Still he needs more.
Will’s lips part further, the thrusting of his tongue replaced with teeth that capture Hannibal’s bottom lip; biting down, drawing blood. It provokes only the slightest reaction; a breath drawn sharper, snatched from Will’s lungs into Hannibal’s own. They part again, eyes darkened, locked on each other. Crimson paints both their lips.
Carefully, Hannibal reaches up to swipe a thumb across his own mouth, studying the scarlet stain he’s wiped away before smearing it gently over Will’s lips. Will locks onto it, devouring the offering greedily as his tongue laps it away. He swallows it down, heat pooling in the pit of his stomach as he contemplates how mere seconds ago that blood had been inside Hannibal’s heart, surging through those four chambers before finding its way through veins and capillaries to breach the skin. Now it’s inside Will instead.
As Hannibal feels the heat of Will’s mouth sucking the blood away, he smiles. “Better?” he asks.
A smile of equal satisfaction spreads over Will’s face. “Much.”