Will can't remember the last time he attended a graveside funeral, but thinking back he imagines that it was probably Freddie Lounds' fake service in Baltimore, and he's not sure if that one even counts. Before that it was probably his dad's service, way back in the 90s. Even so, there's something strangely and achingly familiar to him about watching as a casket is lowered into a hole in the semi-frozen ground. Familiar and bleakly sobering.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Hannibal walking slowly to join him. Having delivered their formal condolences in person to Kaneshiro Fuji's parents, he looks suitably stone-faced and somber.

"There will be a gathering at the house afterwards. I offered our apologies."

Will frowns. Rubbing his gloved hands together he breathes out a cloud of misty vapor.

"It's getting cold."

"It'll be colder in the mountains."

There's a question mark in Hannibal's voice that makes him glance at his face. His expression is perfectly impassive, but Will is practiced now at noticing all his tells, his unspoken need for reassurance, and moves in closer to him.

"I've never felt the cold before," he says.

A man steps away from the main funeral party and begins walking towards them, and it takes Will a few seconds to realize that it's Inspector Nakamori. His gait seems slower and stiffer than before, and the hard lines of his face are tinged with an unhealthy yellow. As he nears them he lifts his hand in a greeting and Hannibal reaches to take it, enclosing it in both his own. They exchange formal greetings in Japanese, before Nakamori's eyes move apologetically to Will's.

"So sorry Mr. Phillips. It is very good of you both to come. Fuji-san was very grateful for your help. He was most honored that you came here to meet with us."

There is a cold weight in Will's chest as he remembers Kaneshiro's face as he last saw him, his stark expression of pain and surprise, and he swallows, forces himself to nod.

"I'm not sure how much help I was to be honest. I believe Mr. Fuji had drawn his own conclusions about your killer by the time we arrived on the scene, he seemed like a very smart young man."

Nakamori nods somberly, "He was. He was. I only wish he had shared his suspicions with me before he went looking for Ms. Ozu alone."

Hannibal leans imperceptibly into Will, and he can feel the warmth from his body transferring itself to him. Reaching to his throat, Will hitches the thick wool scarf there a fraction tighter. The healing wound on his neck feels cold and hot at the same time.

"It seems Kaneshiro's imagination was sparked by something you said during our meeting, James. He remembered during Kenji Ozu's interview that he'd mentioned his sister had developed a drinking problem while he was at college, meaning he had had to drop out. Apparently her sealed juvenile record for a DUI contained suggestions that she was a potentially psychopathic personality."

Nakamori shakes his head, and the weariness he feels is palpable.

"This has been a most tragic episode."

"Indeed. I am so sorry for your loss Inspector, and for 's family."

The old man shakes his head in acknowledgement. His voice is unsteady as he takes Will's hand and bids them both a formal goodbye. As he walks slowly back to join Kaneshiro's family, Will thinks that he has the look of a cop who's finally decided he's seen one too many bodies. Casting a sideways glance at Hannibal, he clears his throat.

"Is Kenji Ozu dead?"

"He is."

Will draws in a long slow breath. The air feels like it's going to snow. He looks up and the sky is pure white, the sun struggling gainfully to make it through the low hanging cloud.

"Did you kill him?"

"No. He shot himself with Mr. Fuji's gun not long after we left. I found him in the room next to the one I found you in. He'd been watching home movies of them both." Hannibal turns to him slightly, "I would have killed him though, if he hadn't done the job for us."

Will nods. "I know."

Hannibal turns away again, but Will can sense his need to say something else, and after a moment or two he says it.

"I was glad I didn't have to though." He reaches to tighten his own scarf and his expression when Will looks at him is complex, even compassionate. "He loved his sister with all his heart, and although he could not suffer her to live after what she'd done in his name, he did not wish to live without her."

He glances at Will, and ghosts a smile.

"It's a sentiment I'm sure you can identify with."

Will breathes a laugh and Hannibal's body leans into his own again. His lips brush against his temple, pressing a kiss there. There's no-one left at the graveside now, and Will isn't even sure he'd care anymore if there was. Reaching for Hannibal's hand, he pulls off his glove and slides his fingers through his.

"Let's go home," he says.

It takes less than four hours to return them by train to Fujimoto, even so the sun is starting to set as they begin their walk from the station to the cabin. Outside the general store Ichi-San and Noburu are sharing a cigarette and both men raise their hands in a friendly greeting to their neighbours.

"Okaerinasai!"

Hannibal raises his hand to them both in a cheerful reply and Will can't help but smile.

"Sometimes I think you're happier out here in the boon docks than you ever were rubbing shoulders and making hors d'oeuvres for Baltimore's elite."

"Do you doubt it?"

Will laughs at his answer, "I guess not."

Hannibal's eyes brighten, and he turns back to their path with a smile.

"This place is not so different to where I grew up. Good honest working people who care for their neighbours. Simple natural beauty. If I'm entirely honest with myself, it's the kind of place I always imagined I would end up in."

"At the end of your life?"

"When I was ready to put down roots."

Will gives his head a small shake of disbelief at that, "Why Dr. Lecter, if I didn't know you better I'd suggest you'd had some kind of epiphany this last week."

"Not an epiphany, no."

Hannibal grins and it's an expression of such genuine happiness that it quite transforms his face, he steps ahead of Will and the invitation to quicken their pace towards home is unmistakable,

"Although perhaps I have recently come to consider some fundamental truths about myself less than fundamental."

They run the last half mile of the journey. It seems ridiculous, but at the same time entirely fitting. The track to the cabin isn't the most direct route, and once the pace through the woods gets competitive, Will's heartrate starts to climb as he realizes Hannibal is inviting him to race. They both know the land around the house well for miles, but even so Will knows he has the advantage. The path that he has worn through the undergrowth alongside the river is as familiar to him now as the creases on his own palm, and as Hannibal heads up the slope of the hill through the trees, he branches off to follow it.

The gradient isn't as steep as the forest trail, and Will runs surefootedly across the last four hundred meters of ground, approaching the cabin from the rear. As he flattens his back to the side of the house there is no sound from inside, and triumphantly he slips around to the front and twists the key in the lock.

The cabin inside is dark, the smell of the straw tatami mats filling the space with a familiar pungent scent and Will breathes in, closing his eyes, letting the sense of peace pervade him. Motes of dust spiral through the air and he stretches out his hands to catch one, before realizing Hannibal is watching him from the doorway. Lips slightly parted, breathless from the run, the expression on his face is enough to break Will's heart. He hesitates before he speaks, and when he does the words are only just audible.

"I love you."

And Will knows it, has always known it, but something breaks loose inside of him hearing Hannibal say it out loud, seeing the truth of it on his face. Something warm that spreads outwards through his chest to his limbs and flushes up his throat until it reaches his lips and he can feel himself smiling.

"I know," he draws in a breath, but it's more with surprise at himself than anything else, because he's not sure he's gone to say the words before and meant them so completely. "I love you too."

It doesn't feel like enough though, so he closes the space between them, slides his arms around Hannibal's waist and rests his head on his chest, pushing up under his chin. The tremor that he felt before is still there, vibrating under the surface, and pressing his lips to the hollow in his throat he tries to quell it.

"When you left before It wasn't just to go to Aomori."

He speaks into the curve of his neck and Hannibal's stretches sideways, closing his eyes. The taste of his skin is a mixture of salt and cedar wood, and Will lets his lips rest there for a moment.

"Was I right before?"

It seems easier for him to answer when Will isn't looking at him, when the words are being murmured into his skin between kisses, and Hannibal makes a low sound in his chest. Something between a hum and a sigh.

"Self-reliance isn't a defense for me Will, it's a necessity. I was taught at the youngest possible age the dangers of allowing myself emotional attachments to others." He draws a breath, "But the experience of losing Mischa in the way I did gave as much to me as it took. I learned to contain myself, and that containing myself meant I would always have a reserve of strength to draw on. Later on, it wasn't a case of hardening my heart, only continuing to fortify it in the way that had become my practice."

Will frowns and kisses his jawline, the corner of his mouth.

"Sounds lonely."

Hannibal's lips quirk, "I never thought of it as such. Until I met you."

He pulls his head back a fraction, looking down into Will's eyes with his autumn-bright hazel ones.

"You are uniquely inconvenient to me Will. You always have been. Where so many others have been happy to respect my defenses, you have only ever sought ways to undermine them."

Will breathes a laugh and slides his hand underneath the hem of Hannibal's shirt. The skin on his back is warm and damp with sweat from the run.

"Finding ways inside."

"Will…"

Hannibal takes a deep unsteady breath, and the arm around his waist tightens. Will smiles into his collar bone, and pushes a second hand under his shirt alongside the first.

"You're making this way too complicated, you realize that right?"

He traces Hannibal's adam's apple with his lips as he swallows.

"I am?"

"People in love with each other don't have to worry about this stuff."

"They don't?"

Will shakes his head, "Walls and defenses are fine to keep everyone else out, but there has to be a door you can open if the right person comes knocking. Either that or you'd better figure out how to grow hair long enough for a ladder."

This time it's Hannibal's turn to laugh, pressing his forehead to Will's he noses his way to his lips, slides his fingers under the waistband of his jeans.

"I'm not sure what conclusions I'm supposed to draw from your casting me as Princess Rapunzel."

"Hey, I'm not the one whose been avoiding a barber for months."

They smile into each other's mouths, and it's like another layer has fallen away between them, another impediment dissolved. Warm hands move over skin, and Will feels the low-grade arousal he always feels when Hannibal touches him, looks at him, rising up like hot water from a spring.

"I've never done this with a guy before. You know that right?"

It sounds such a ridiculous thing to say at this moment, but he feels he has to say it. Just to make things perfectly clear before they go any further. Just in case Hannibal is expecting him to have even the slightest fucking clue about what he's doing.

In answer, Hannibal kisses the tip of his nose, "Am I destined to be your first in every way, I wonder? First therapist. First partner in crime. The first man you make love to."

He's not sure if he's teasing him, but the playful note in his voice is back.

"I imagine we're each other's firsts, in a lot of ways."

Hannibal's chin lifts at the truth of that, but there is a dark mischievous glitter in his eyes. Brushing his lips against Will's ear, he whispers into it.

"I'll be your last too, I promise you that."

And damned if that whole proprietary thing doesn't send a spike of pure lust directly to Will's cock. A deep flush of warmth bathes his throat and before he even knows what he's doing, he's turning and pushing and pulling Hannibal backwards, hands wide and fingers splayed across the width of his wide muscular back, towards the futon laid out on the floor of his room.

Partly through surprise and partly, he suspects, because he secretly wants Will to be the one instigating this, Hannibal allows himself to be shoved and manhandled backwards. They fall in a tangle of limbs and bruisingly fierce kisses to the mattress, and Hannibal's thighs spread wide under the force of his invasion. The hard ridge of his erection presses against Will's thigh then, as he shifts position, against his own erect cock and the low pitched groan Hannibal emits pulls an answering one straight from his groin.

"Tell me what you want me to do to you."

Hannibal's eyes are glazed and lips reddened and soft from the scratch of Will's beard, but Will still wants to draw so much more from him. He knows without a shadow of a doubt now, that what he wants more than anything in the world is to watch this man come apart entirely by his own hands.

Hannibal fists his shirt and pulls his body in against his own with a deep smearing kiss.

"Take my clothes off."

His hips rock upwards against Will's as his fingers pull apart the buttons on Hannibal's shirt, stretch and pull the undershirt underneath up and over his head. He hears the seams tear as he's yanking it over his biceps and Hannibal grins against his mouth, his teeth nipping at Will's lower lip. His shoes have come off somewhere between the door and the mattress, and ripping open Hannibal's fly with one hand, Will pulls down his pants and underwear with one hand before shoving them down the rest of the way with one foot. Having Hannibal beneath him, warm and twitching with lust, feels all the filthier now that he's the only one with clothes on, and reaching his hands to Hannibal's wrists he pins them above his head with just enough force to make it interesting.

"What now?"

Hannibal's flexes the muscles in his arms, pulling gently against the grip Will has on him. They both know there's no way Will could hold him if he chose to get away, but the fact that they're both playing a game with the same goal now is obvious to both of them. Pulling himself up to straddle Hannibal's hips, Will looks down into his face and sees Hannibal grow still beneath him.

"Tell me how you want me to touch you."

Hannibal's lips part, inviting a kiss, and Will gives it to him even though he didn't ask. It's sweeter than the ones before, undercut with something fragile.

"I don't…" His breathes falters with his words. "Will…"

"What is it?"

Hannibal breathes into his mouth, and Will realizes he's hesitant to ask. A deep hot surge of want curls in his chest, and without asking him another question he reaches down to wrap long warm fingers around Hannibal's cock.

"Like this?"

Tugging gently upwards, he glances down at his hand, at the soft silky smooth lip of Hannibal's foreskin as it rolls up and back under his fingertips. It's the first time he's ever had his hand around any cock that wasn't his own, but despite the obvious differences in size and appearance he's more than confident he knows what he's doing. Sliding a hand down to splay open on Hannibal's chest, he leans his weight into the bed and strokes him firmly and deliberately the way he enjoys himself, watching his face. The tip of Hannibal's tongue rests against his lower teeth, his eyes skipping between Will's gaze and the sight of his hand around his dick like a man trying to hold onto the last remnants of his control.

"Look at me Hannibal."

And eager to divest him of them, Will bends his head and and sucks him down.

He wants to close his eyes when he looks at Hannibal's face, because the expression on it is almost too much, but he can't look away. Hannibal's fingers grasp at the air, his arms thrown out to the sides, and then they're in Will's hair, tangling and pulling and pressing into the nape of his neck in time with the low rumbling groans coming from his throat. Their eyes meet and Will thinks he could come just from the intensity of that one look.

"Will…please."

Hannibal breathes his name out like a prayer. His hips buck underneath him as he fists handfuls of Will's shirt, and Will has to let his dick slip from his mouth for a few seconds as he pulls it off impatiently. Their skin connects and the heat between them feels searing.

"Everything," Hannibal manages to say, and Will grins as he tears down his pants too, before settling himself back between the V of his thighs. His own erection feels rock-hard and hot as hell, and as he returns his mouth to Hannibal's, it presses insistently against the soft curve of his ass. Hannibal shifts his hips minutely, and Will barely has time to register what he's doing before he feels the tip of his cock breach the tight knot of muscle at Hannibal's entrance.

They both still for a moment. The muscles in Hannibal's abdomen contract as Will's lips slip from him and find his mouth again. Breaking the kiss, he gives his head the smallest shake.

"OK, I've definitely never done this before, so you're going to have to give me some guidance here. Or just…I don't know…tell me to go slower if I need to."

His fingers curl around around the base of Hannibal's skull, and if he wasn't sure before the rapid spike in the other man's breathing and heartrate as he pushes forward convinces him.

Arching his spine, he draws his face back to watch Hannibal's as he enters him. He thinks of all the other times before this that he's seen his mask slip, the brief glimpses of the man that he's come to know alongside the inseparable monster, how fleeting they've been. Seeing his face now, washed clean of everything but his need and love for Will, he finds himself transfixed by him, the beautiful man and the beautiful monster. Hannibal's throat works, his eyelids fluttering shut as Will adjusts to the feeling of being inside him, twisting his hips and gently laying kisses on first his bottom, then top lip.

"Tell me what you want," he asks again softly.

Hannibal's fingers are moving through his hair unconsciously, his eyes heavy lidded, but his face is young, broken open. His kisses Will, and it's a kiss full of such gentle sweetness he feels tears come to his eyes.

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you Hannibal." He kisses his eyelids, his cheekbones.

"Tell me again."

Their foreheads press together and Will wants to surge forward into him, but instead he draws him into his arms, rocking him with the rhythm of his hips, until he can feel they're finally synchronized, breath and body, that Hannibal and he can and will come apart together.

"I love you Hannibal," and he wraps both arms around him as tightly as he can, "I love you. I see you. It's OK. You're safe with me now."

THE END