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They start at the base of his spine and crawl up, expanding like black wings on the planes of his back. They are gnarled, twisted, dark as dried blood, and against the ashy white of Will’s skin they almost seem to shine. When he had shown his design to the tattoo artist the woman had blanched, her distaste obvious. Stag antlers can be beautiful, but the horns gracing Will’s flesh are anything but.
Will loves them.
The work takes hours, and every prick of the needle makes Will think of horns piercing flesh, of victims impaled. He welcomes the pain, martyr-like. His forehead is slick with sweat and his hands are shaking by the time she finishes. His back is in agony, and Will feels, for the first time in a very long time, alive.
The antlers are for Will and Will alone, his cross to bear, but secrets have a way of creeping out. And so, in time, the people in his life—few though they are—see the marks. It’s almost remarkable, how differently they respond.
Katz sees them first, during a routine physical. Will is tense when he removes his shirt, braced for criticism, questions, looks of disgust at the ugly, knotted black. But it doesn’t come. Instead, she gives him an appreciative nod, and taps the side of her hip. “Great minds think alike,” she smiles. “Mine is for my mother. I won’t ask about yours. But if you ever feel like talking, well.” She shrugs. “You know where to find me.”
Will is absurdly grateful. He nods once, sharply, and manages a brief moment of eye-contact. They don’t mention it again, but the knowledge, shared and secret, lingers.
Others see it later, after Will is framed for murder, after his world fragments and splinters like a thousand shards of glass. He’s stripped and photographed upon arrest, and when he meets with Alana in the interrogation room, before his transfer to Chilton’s care, she brandishes the pictures like knives. It’s one photo in particular, grasped tightly in her hands: Will from the waist-up, back turned toward the camera, the antlers, black as death, as large as lungs, splayed open on the skin for all the world to see.
Alana stares at him accusingly. “This is an outward manifestation of internalized grief,” she says, voice even but colored with distaste. “This isn’t healthy, Will. You need to talk about your problems, not paint your skin with them.”
“Don’t pretend you know anything about my problems.”
It comes out quick and harsh and he immediately regrets it. Alana frowns, looks at him sadly. He doesn’t like to hurt her, but it seems these days that it’s inevitable.
She avoids the topic in later visits, stubbornly ignoring it. Though Will sees, when she comes to visit him, how her eyes linger on skin unseen, and in those moments he feels terribly alone.
Chilton sees them, of course, but then again, Chilton sees everything that goes on in his asylum. The subject is broached tactlessly in their first therapy session. Chilton sits across from Will, trapped in his cage, and stares at him, openly and hungrily. The stroke of his fingers atop his cane is almost obscene.
“The antlers,” Chilton begins, gaze unwavering, “are something I believe we should address.”
Will stares at him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the relevancy.”
Chilton gives him an insufferably smug look. “Don’t play coy with me, Mr. Graham.” He thumbs at the head of his cane. “It’s not as if your search upon arrival was in any way private.”
Will flushes. And oh, Chilton is enjoying this, this perceived bit of dominance over the previously unknowable Will Graham. Chilton always has been easy to read.
Easy to read, a small voice says in the back of Will’s mind, easy to use. And it’s true; Chilton would be very easy (almost ludicrously easy) to manipulate. Will ignores how that voice sounds a bit too much like Hannibal and presses forward. He’s always been good at disarming people.
“Pictures, recordings...they don’t do it justice.” He stands up, and though he is in his cage—his dunk tank—Chilton flinches. So much for dominancy. “Would you like to see it?”
Chilton stares at him. His grasp on his cane is white-knuckled. Will takes his silence for acquiescence. With a quick, fluid motion, he undoes the top half of his jumpsuit, leaving himself bare to the waist. He turns around.
Chilton draws in an audible breath. Will hears him rise from the chair, the click of his shoes as he approaches the cage. And suddenly he can feel a puff of air hot against his skin; Chilton must be right up against the bars, Will thinks, and he feels absurdly like an attraction at a zoo, a circus, a carnival of freaks. “Remarkable,” Chilton breathes. Will ignores the instinct to flinch away; giving Chilton this small slice of him is best, in the long run. Reel him in now, reap the benefits later.
“That must have been exceptionally painful,” Chilton remarks.
Will laughs hollowly. “You have no idea.”
“I’ve never taken you for such a masochist. Self-flagellation isn’t so common amongst intelligent psychopaths.”
“Self-flagellation,” Will echoes.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“That’s certainly an...interesting way of looking at it, Frederick.”
“Dr. Chilton,” he corrects automatically.
Will ignores him. “So that’s what you think of it, then? It’s just a form of penance?”
“Well, essentially, yes. Although I must say,” he begins, and his voice is whisper-soft. So soft that Will turns his head to hear him more clearly, and he is startled to see just how closely Chilton is pressed up against the cage, so near that the bars indent the fine material of his suit. Will catches his eye. Chilton glances at his mouth. “I find them absolutely fascinating.”
Hannibal does not see them in person, not until Will is released from the asylum and he resumes his therapy. But he’s known about them.
Will could never keep secrets from Hannibal.
“Chilton told you, I’m sure,” Will says. He is sitting in Hannibal’s office, sunk low in the chair. Hannibal is across from him, leaning forward ever so slightly. He smiles.
“I’m afraid Frederick could not resist. He seemed rather obsessed with them, I’m afraid.”
Will snorts. “That’s stating it lightly.”
“I do not blame him. If I am honest, I must say that it has occupied much of my thoughts as well.” And Hannibal looks at him, his eyes bright and cutting, and Will feels suddenly quite brave.
“You want to see them.” It is not a question, and Hannibal does not answer. But his stare is hungry, and Will can find no reason to deny him.
His hands shake slightly as he unbuttons his shirt. Will lets it fall gracelessly to the ground, and he rises. The distance between himself and Hannibal is suddenly cavernous, and the air is cold on his skin as he walks forward. Hannibal has risen from his chair, and steps to meet him. When they are a knife’s edge from each other, Will turns.
Will can imagine what Hannibal sees. The light in the room is an eerie half-glow, lit only by the fireplace, and in the dim light Will knows the antlers will look twisted, contorted into grotesque, knotted shapes by the play of shadows in the room. Hannibal says nothing, and Will does not turn; he cannot face him.
When Will feels a hand on the center of his back, he gasps. And finally, Hannibal speaks. “I am reminded of Christ,” he says, his voice deep and low. Will swallows. “Scourged by Pilate and mapped with scars from the lash. How you must have suffered, Will.”
He can feel Hannibal’s suit ghosting against his flesh, close but not quite touching. Will shudders. “I am no Christ figure,” he croaks. “I am no one’s messiah.”
“Brave boy,” Hannibal murmurs. Will can feel him closer now, the broad press of his chest looming large behind him. A hand lands on Will’s hip, and the heat of it makes him gasp. “Always looking for the means to your own salvation.”
Hannibal bends down and presses a kiss into the hollow of Will’s neck. Will moans. The kiss deepens, sharpens, and there is a flash of hard teeth sinking into the soft skin of his neck. Will feels a tongue lap at the blood there and he grows achingly, impossibly hard. He feels almost weightless, anchored only by the press of Hannibal’s hands into the meat of his waist and the steady support of Hannibal’s leg between his thighs. Hannibal’s cock presses hard and insistent behind him.
“Are you my salvation, Dr. Lecter?” Will chokes out. The mouth at his neck pulls back, and in his peripheral Will sees white teeth stained red.
“There is no salvation, Will. Not for you.”
Will cries out as Hannibal sucks at the juncture of his neck, and the blood drips down the curve of his spine, through black and gnarled ink, and in the flickering glow of the fire the antlers dance and move, alive with light.