Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 18: The Bread and the Wine from the Hand Divine

"He still looks pale." Avigeya's voice. Will stirred when she pressed her cool hand to his forehead. "Do you think he'll be all right?"

"A fever can help." Peter, gentle, accented with the differing cadences of his brain injury. "A fever can hurt."

"When do you think he'll wake up?"

Will stirred, turning over on his other hip, weighed down by several blankets. He felt clammy and powerfully thirsty and the light from the window hurt his eyes.

Avigeya was at his side now, speaking to him gently. But now, for some reason, he couldn't understand her. His muddy brain slowly untangled itself; she was speaking Romanian.

They'd been speaking Romanian. How in the hell had he translated so quickly, without even thinking?

He was sick. His head hurt. He must have been imagining what they were likely talking about and his mind imposed it over their voices. Peter came to his side now and helped him sit up, sticking another pillow behind his back as Avigeya poured him a cup of water from a pitcher on the table.

Peter excused himself and left, probably to see to the animals. Avigeya tried to give Will breakfast in bed, but he refused and sat stubbornly at the table, though he declined her offer to practice English and Romanian during the meal. She left with some of his clothing to wash after feeling his forehead one more time.

"Mulțumesc mult, Avigeya... uhm, spasibo vam bol'shoye..."

She smiled with a tilt of her head as she left. "You're welcome, Will."

By the time he was finished eating, Peter was back, motioning for him to follow. Will threw on some trousers and the dressing gown and hurried after him. He thought something might be wrong with one of the animals, or one was doing much better and Peter wanted to show him – it was hard to tell. What he found was a hot bath in an old-fashioned brass tub in the kitchen before the fire, privacy screens set up around it.

Will was elated. It was just what he needed, and he hadn't had a full soak since arriving. Transylvania was not England, but he still wanted to be presentable.

He scoffed a laugh at himself as he lowered into the tub. "Presentable." As if he wasn't thinking of Hannibal in the context of having a clean and pleasing body.

As he soaked, Will allowed himself to remember what had happened the night before. His memory was hazy in some sections and crystal clear in others. It had happened again — the dream about being in love with Count Lecter, though set in a kind of fairytale past. The sweet moments, as usual, interrupted by intrusive nightmares. He remembered waking up in a kind of fevered agitation, and had, for some reason, felt the powerful compulsion to tell Count Lecter about the Ripper case.

And instead of reacting the way Alana had, treating Will like he was pitiable and damaged and possibly dangerous, Count Lecter had kissed him. Passionately. Made it unequivocally clear that he wanted Will.

If he hadn't been running a fever... Will wondered what might have happened next.

And the more he wondered, the more he thought about touching himself now, cradled in the warm water. He scolded himself; he was alone but who knew for how long. And it wasn't something that gentlemen did. He'd been taught from a young age it was a sin and would lead to moral degradation. Will didn't particularly care about sins or morals at this point in his life, but it was hard to violate ingrained values like that.

Good God, though, that kiss... it's been so much more than any other he'd received, not that he had many to compare it with. Even with Neal Frank, who wasn't afraid of pleasure, and Alana, whom he had strong feelings for — nothing he'd experienced could compare. It felt like an awakening.