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The chilly humid temperature draws out a phantom pain in Will Graham’s knees. He can feel the clawing bloom of the ache like arthritis. A snide reminder that flares with every dip in the climate.
Matthew watches him settle into the opposing metal chair. Eyes sweeping the crescent of Will's face, and the length of his exposed neck. Resting there. Falling away when Will shifts self-consciously.
It is not the first time Will has visited Matthew since his incarceration.
Matthew always treats it as a horrible stolen delight, eyes shuttering close with a dark rolling pleasure.
They both know Will wasn't there out of compassion or kindred fondness. Will wants words of incrimination. A name.
Matthew tilts his head, and Will is reminded of the human embodiment of a hawk. It seems that their acquaintance is stamped with reoccurring surrealist imagery.
He can feel the pull of Matthew’s fishing line, the long game of it. Experience the heady weight of drawing in a prey with slow deliberate movements. Secure with the knowledge of its impending capture.
Will wonders if Matthew is the hunter drawing in the prey, or the monstrous prey of unknown size pulling the hunter into its home of murky waters.
The coarse teal of Matthew’s uniform casts a ghoulish upward tinge- a stark contrast to his former uniform of cotton swab white. When Will dreams, it is the white orderly coat that lingers ghostly in his sleep addled mind.
Mr. Graham, the man greets, his sibilant tongue caressing the disused syllables. His eyes slide over with undisguised interest.
Will spreads his dog eared photos across the surface of the rusting table. He has no doubt that should he have passed the envelope across, Matthew would have perused them with ease regardless of his cuffed hands. It brings a certain comfort, however, to keep up the illusion.
Matthew takes in the garish photos of the Tooth Fairy’s victims with a quick clinical sweep. Will can see him suppress a small stir of emotion in his lips. A curious quiver. He is not surprised. It is why he is here after all.
Will imagines Chilton listening in with a droll expression, making comments in the margin of his yellowing notepad that only his own humor appreciates. The man is narcissist and Freudian with a superfluous signature in his analyses. The last time Will paid his visit to the State Hospital, Chilton had made a snide quip about the verbal foreplay of psychopaths.
“Two families, at the cusp of the full moon. Methodical, organized. Necrophilia. Impulsive bite marks on the corpses.” Will hardly needs to offer this information. It only serves as an opening , perhaps more to the benefit of Chilton than either of them.
“Aren’t you leaving the most intriguing part out, Mr. Graham?” Matthew asks, voice riddled with a careless lilt. He leans in, resting a careful weight on his elbows.
Rehearsed.
“Tell me what you know then.” Matthew doesn't speak for a long time, eyes like heated coals in the poorly lit privacy room. “Mirror shards sprinkled in the eye sockets. Much like an anointing, wouldn't you say?”
Will doesn't say anything. Instead, he watches the small periodic movements of Matthew's arm. A rubbing motion. The hospital didn't quite bother with an uniform correct to his size. The teal cuff is long enough that it covers Matthew's wrist. But it doesn't hide his attempt to free himself with purposeful jerks on the chain of his metal cuff.
Matthew’s crosshair gaze makes him feel tight in his own skin.
“Mr. Graham, what do you wish to know?”
“All the details you’re upholding.”
Matthew nods, and it is not the first time during these visits that he contemplates the strength of his binds, the material and density of his cuffs. He thinks that if the situation were that of they previously were, he would slip quietly to Will Graham’s right side, there, yes. Trace the pleasing musculature of his arm, and the graceful hawk bones of his knuckles and long fingers.
He would maintain steady physical contact, yet not so much that they oppress the glorious wingspan of his Will. No, never so as to cage him, mold him, provide unnecessary cataclysm like that motherfucking bastard, Hannibal.
He thinks that he would be at Will’s side, a loyal companion and partner, soul bound by their desire for a higher intellectual and physiological thrill. He would offer his knowledge of everything Will so desired him to speak, to move his lips for.
Instead, there are the many months that stretch between each spontaneous visitation. Sleep is illusive to him, and Matthew constantly finds himself wondering what Will is doing at that very moment. If he is pacing impatiently in thought, explaining himself to halfwits, voice rough and angry. If he is curled in his navy blue cotton jersey sheets, spine a pleasant ellipse, fingers ghosting past his waistband. If he is once more consumed by dangerous thoughts about his Judas. This one. This one drives Matthew insane. Loops him back to the swimming pool, to the makeshift crucifix, to the margin of error that had cost him dearly.
Matthew can hardly lie still when the name Hannibal burns its way through his mind, like a wild uncontrollable forest fire. I will bring you your Judas, Will. Give me time, and everything will be in its right place.
Matthew had watched Will leave for far too many times with the bars digging into his cheek bones. He had stood behind each time, pressed frontally against the cold metal, the cylindrical pressure hardly enough to alleviate the persistent ache in his loins.
Matthew had prayed again and again, Lord, let me be the hand, knife, and gun of Will Graham, give me the home of his ribs, for that is the only cage I desire.
His chain breaks free.
In the pregnant moments that bleed across the stagnant air, Will leans closer across the table. His admirer’s eyes are just as sharp and bright as he first looked upon them. In the passing time of a breath filled with muffled trepidation, Matthew raises his wrist, the skin an angry friction red, but free of its restraints.
He tugs Will’s soft curls, and slowly, slowly, presses his thin lips onto Will’s.
Will is still, his lips unyielding to the Matthew’s heated kiss. He is perfectly silent in this act of commensalism. The intimate distance between them distorts his depth perception, but even so, he is able to look into the orderly’s eyes. The stare goes on for long enough that Will finally concedes, and closes them. He understands the trade off.
He feels the rhythmic scrape of Matthew’s lips, movements that indicate the mouthing of words. If he concentrates, zeroes in on that flat brush of skin against his, he can almost decode it. Do not conform.
Will holds his breaths steady, but quickly feels the ache of those shallow intakes. Any longer to the pattern of this world. The words disappear as Matthew sucks the bow of his lip. Every cell in his body is on strike, quivering in their demand for oxygen and escape. Will muffles every honed instinct, sensing instead, the wet warmth on the crease of his lips. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Very distantly, he feels the hand in his hair curl tightly, nails scraping gently against his scalp. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. The words gain a rising momentum until they are almost audible, fed into Will’s mouth, and he can think of no other invasion so sickening, erotic, and religious.
His good, pleasing and perfect Will.
Matthew’s teeth close down hard on Will’s upper lip.
Water. Sobering ice water.
A distinct metallic taste blooms like a bullet in their mouths.
The response is instant, punctuated by a sudden grunt of pain and a malevolent screech of the metal chair on hard concrete. Matthew’s spine hits the back of the seat with a thudding agony. A sharp exhalation passes through his mouth as the momentum exerts an aggressive pull on the cuffed wrist.
Will’s eyes are wide, and in that moment, he cannot pinpoint when it was that his eyes had fallen shut, and remained so, when it was that his breaths synced with those of Matthew. For a brief few minutes he had become Matthew's rib.
Will stands abruptly, taking his scattered photos. He pointedly turns away from Matthew, ignoring the man’s quiet stare. A photo falls off the table with an airy flop, landing with a precarious balance on top of Matthew leg. Will snaps it off without a moment of hesitance, ignoring the raspy murmur of “Mr. Graham, I-“.
He can feel the Matthew's stare as he leaves, closing the door with a satisfying slam.
His chest heaves with violent jerks, and he can only count the minutes and seconds that it takes for him to sign off on the visitation papers. Anger. A distinct sense of distraught. Betrayal. No, he never made an investment in Matthew. That is not true. Humiliation. Yes, ear hot humiliation.
It is standard protocol for Chilton to receive him after each visitation. Today, Will circumvents his presence, seeing from the corner of his eye the man's bemused expression. Will can imagine. Chilton heard nothing beyond a few curious shuffling sounds, and then a piercing screech, followed by a thump of the flesh. But at the same time, Will is sure that his perceptive eyes recognized the cut for what it was.
Will can feel his pulse hammer away in his oversensitive lips, throbbing belligerently to a war drum. He rests his forehead on the steering wheel of his car, clenching his fingers around the worn out nylon. He has never felt quite so fucking silly. The bite might as well have been a ringing slap, an admonishment for trusting a man who had his freedom stripped because of him.
Will drives home, gunning the accelerator on yellow, cutting angrily into different lanes. He does not think about Hannibal, who is settling in with a plate of the finest human delicacy somewhere unknown. He does not think about Beverly, who enters his dreams in pieces, paper thin. He does not think about a road less traveled by. He does not think about Chilton’s oily innuendo and invasive prodding. He does not think about the fucking Tooth Fairy and his fucking goddamn glitter fun mirror shards. He does not think about Matthew’s warm breath on his jawline and the sense of violation.
Will sits on his porch, and buries his face into Winston’s dusty fur.
He is awoken from a dream. He can’t describe the taste in his mouth. Stale from sleep, and lingering with some foreign flavor. Will knows it is psychological, that another human will not taste differently, and any saliva remnants will not be distinguishable. Will has brushed his teeth, and rinsed his mouth out several times.
The cut on his lip has scabbed over, but each swipe of the tongue still brings an echoing metallic tang. Will thinks wryly that it is a reminder, of sorts. Much like the ache in his knees.
It is not until much later that he touches the sore lip in front of the bathroom mirror, and takes in the temporary facial disfigurement. The fluorescent lighting gives the small enclosed room a hollow cold chill. The man in the reflection looks demented, and cancerous. He sees exhaustion in the lines of his eyes, and a growing sickness in the pallor of his face. Matthew’s bite is a clean slice across the bow of his lip, much like a cleft palate.
All movement stills, the air suspended on a breathless pause between potential and enlightenment.
Will stares at the intentionally positioned bite, the crude ugliness of it, and then at the fragile glass of the mirror. Envisions smashing it into small hazardous pieces. Imagines an anointing.
Suddenly he sees it for the answer that it was.
Shit.