Archive of Our Own

"I'm just so worried about him." The voice is soft and weary, the kind belonging to a person who has been fighting against some inevitable and unending pressures, both societal and otherwise. "He doesn't have any friends, he's always so quiet and reclusive. Ever since Mischa was born he -."

"Is it possible he's jealous of her?"

Hannibal's eyes narrow at the second voice. He crouches in place, just out of sight of the main parlor room where his mother and father are speaking to the stranger. His scent is foreign to Hannibal, like old paper and fresh ink and wax. Not unpleasant, but markedly other, not part of his family.

"Jealous?" he hears his mother repeat, as though shocked that such a human emotion could belong to someone like him. "No, I don't imagine he's jealous. He dotes on her as much as we do. He adores her."

The stranger hums. "Perhaps he is only doing it because that's the way he receives attention," he suggests gently. "He doesn't find his existence satisfying when not linked to his family." There is a pause. "He's featured prominently in the portraits you have around the house. Mischa, less so. It's possible he is withdrawing so that he doesn't overshadow her."

There's another pause. "May I speak to Hannibal?"

"Of course, I'll go fetch him," his mother says. Hannibal presses his lips together, and stands. He has neither the time nor the inclination to go into hiding, nor is he ashamed of eavesdropping. Listening in is just a matter of preparedness, in his mind; there are few ways to be surprised that way.

His mother sees him, and stops, her face pale and eyes tight at the corners with guilt. She holds her hand out to him and he takes it, bears her encouraging smile and tight grip as she leads him back into the parlor.

The stranger is, as it turns out, not much older than Hannibal's father. He has a thick head of black hair and dark eyes, a kind smile that doesn't look practiced. Hannibal moves his lips in a facsimile as his mother leads him forward.

"Hanni, darling, this is Doctor Riche," his mother says. "He just wants to talk to you."

"Very well," Hannibal murmurs. He sits on the spare chair forming the last point of a triangle between the couch where his parents are sitting, and the giant armchair Doctor Riche has taken. He puts his arms on the armrests and pushes himself far back in the cushion, so his posture is straight and his feet can't touch the floor.

Doctor Riche gives him another warm smile. "Hannibal," he greets with a nod. "How are you feeling today?"

"It is a day like any other day," Hannibal replies. He frowns. "No cause for alarm."

Doctor Riche tilts his head, arching a brow. "The day is unremarkable, yes," he concedes, "but are you?"

Hannibal blinks, once, slowly. "Is anyone?" he whispers, with just a hint of teeth.

"Your mother tells me you've been having trouble making friends lately."

"It's no trouble," Hannibal replies with a dismissive wave. He swings his feet, then catches himself, forcing them to hang unmoving again. Fidgeting and constantly moving about is uncouth and unbecoming. His parents are statues, and he strives to be the same. "I could make friends if I wanted to, I simply don't want to."

"Mm. Because you don't think they'll like you?"

Hannibal frowns. His fingers drum, very slowly, along the length of the armrests. "I am aware of my peculiarities," he says slowly. "Not all of them are acceptable. It would be rude to put someone in a position of pretending they were for fear of retaliation."

Doctor Riche makes a sound, likely startled by Hannibal's extensive vocabulary and overly-proper speech. "So you reject the notion of forming social bonds because it's polite?"

"Call them bonds, they are more like contracts," Hannibal says, sharp-eyed when he meets the doctor's gaze. "My parents, for instance. They are fond of each other, certainly, enough to tolerate companionship, but what if my father was a brute? My mother a whore?"

He hears his mother gasp at the word, sees his father tense, but refuses to break eye contact with the doctor first.

"Because of their marriage they would be forced to remain together. I have no interest in forcing that," Hannibal continues. "There's nothing wrong with someone wanting to be your friend with all the ugliness that comes with it."

Doctor Riche blinks at him. Tilts his head. "Tell me, Hannibal, how do you know someone cannot be your friend, with all this ugliness you think you have, when you never give them a chance?"

Hannibal frowns. He hooks his left ankle behind his right, and says nothing.

"I'd like to suggest something, if I may," the doctor says. Hannibal's lips purse, and he watches as the doctor turns and, from his large satchel, pulls out a doll. It's no larger than a newborn child, with loose limbs and a face made of solid porcelain, articulation at the elbows and knees to allow it to be posed and stood upright. The eyes are wide and a bright sky blue, the face fine-featured, with brown horse hair on top of its head. It's wearing a vaguely schoolboy-like outfit, similar to the doctor's sweater vest and black slacks with plain black shoes, a blue blazer over its torso.

Hannibal tilts his head to one side as Doctor Riche places the doll on his lap and smiles at Hannibal. "Someone who can't reject you, based on any ugliness, perceived or otherwise."

Hannibal lowers his eyes to the doll. Its eyes, unblinking and almost unnervingly bright, stare back. He feels a strange pulse in his chest, and reaches out without conscious thought. The body of the doll is soft, no structure to it at all aside from the bulb of its head and a spine-like pole through the middle to help it sit upright. He curls his fingers around the hair and hears his father scoff.

"A doll?" he says, grimacing in distaste. "He is neither a girl, nor still young enough for such things."

"Having an inanimate object to focus inner thoughts and practice open communication is a favored method in the medical community," Doctor Riche replies, and shakes his head. Hannibal pets his thumb over the flat paint marking the doll's cheeks, the curl of its lips, the white teeth. It's vaguely masculine-looking, but lacks any kind of shape hinting at gender. The features lack any overt ruggedness or femininity. The hair is so soft.

"I like him," he says quietly.

Doctor Riche smiles. "You can keep him, then," he says. His voice has softened, like he's talking to someone much younger than Hannibal is. "He doesn't have a name yet. What will you call him?"

Another pulse nudges the pieces of Hannibal's spine. He touches the doll's eyes and feels a vague discomfort against his own, like he's feeling the pressure himself. He withdraws his thumb and cradles the doll carefully.

"Will," he decides. He doesn't know where the name comes from, but the doll's smile and that pulse in his chest feels approving.

"Will, then," Doctor Riche says. "Will can be your new friend, until you feel confident enough to make others. Someone you can talk to and know that you won't need to be afraid of any negative reactions."

Hannibal smiles, and holds Will gently in his lap. The doll has carved pieces of porcelain to make hands, which are shaped like cupped hands. There are lines and small grooves to separate its fingers, and the thumbs lie flat. He runs his thumb along Will's palm and feels another soft beat of warmth in his stomach.

"Hello, Will," he murmurs.

Doctor Riche stands. "I'd like to schedule a follow-up appointment a week from now," he says, as Hannibal's parents stand. "If you're amenable. Just to see if there's been any changes."

Hannibal doesn't pay attention to the rest of the conversation. His eyes are on Will's. They shine with glossy coating, and his hair is just long enough to fall around the edges of his face. Hannibal's lips purse and he curls another piece around his finger, smiling when it maintains some of the wave.

He stands, ignoring the adults and going upstairs. He hears Mischa fussing and goes into her room. She's in her bassinet, a little flailing collection of limbs in a nest of blankets. He smiles at her, and she blinks up at him with her big, pale-colored eyes.

"Shh," he murmurs, setting the doll down so he can pick her up. He finds the cause of her fussiness in the form of her dropped pacifier. He crouches down, carefully holding her, and nudges the tip against her lips until she takes it and begins to suckle loudly, eyelids going low. He smiles and kisses her forehead, placing her back in her bassinet. "There we go. All better."

He takes the doll and goes back to his room, perching on his bed with his legs crossed and his back to the pillow. He puts Will in front of him, negotiating the doll's limp body until it's semi-upright.

"Hello, Will," he says again. "My name is Hannibal."

Will, of course, doesn't answer. Hannibal looks up as a gust of wind from his open windows stirs his curtains and sends a sheaf of paper fluttering to the ground from his writing desk. He sighs, and gets up, and returns it to its place.

When he turns back around, Will has fallen, head tilted so that their eyes can meet. Hannibal smiles. Will smiles back.

He's in the forest outside his house, wandering without direction. Hannibal does not suffer nightmares, but his dreams are often weird and shrouded in darkness. Within the darkness he knows there are monsters, but they don't ever come out to bother him. In the hallways and grounds of his own mind, Hannibal is the master, and the monsters know to leave him be.

He passes through a part in the trees and stops. Ahead of him is the fountain that sits in the back gardens of the manor. The fountain is a collection of swans and cherubs in playful chase, water spouting from the birds' mouths and caught in the hands of the laughing cherubim.

There is someone in front of the fountain, sitting on the edge. It's a boy, Hannibal's age, his slacks rolled up and shoes placed on the outside of the fountain so that he can wash his bare feet in the cold water. Hannibal tilts his head to one side, admiring the familiar half-curl of that dirt-dark hair.

"Will?" he calls, for he is not without pattern recognition.

The boy doesn't turn. Hannibal approaches him, and finds that, when he is in a position to see Will's face, it is not a human face that is staring at the fountain, but an unmoving porcelain smile and too-wide eyes. Unbidden, a fissure of unease runs down his spine.

"Will?" he tries again.

Will doesn't answer. His arm lifts, too loose and flopping like he has neither bones nor joints. His curled hand gestures to the top of the fountain, where there is a single bird perched out of the way of the water. It's a small, delicate thing, with black feathers and a bright orange belly. It chirps happily, grooming itself, unaware of the two boys staring at it.

Another light breeze tickles the nape of Hannibal's neck, and he feels the hairs rise, another powerful feeling of being watched crawling across his skin like ice water. He turns, but sees nothing.

He wakes up with the doll in his arms. He pulls back, eyes wide, and Will smiles at him brightly. Hannibal presses his lips together and touches his thumb to Will's cheek. It's warm, heated by the touch of Hannibal's embrace.

He sighs to himself. It had just been a dream. "Doctor Riche might have something to say about that," he tells Will with a wry smile.

Will doesn't move, but the shift of clouds across the moon cast his face in brief shadow, and it makes it look like he blinks. Hannibal shivers again, and closes his eyes, willing himself back to sleep.

Hannibal takes the doll with him everywhere. He shows Will the entire manor, the grounds beyond it. He perches Will at the window of his room, which has the best view of the town, and tells him about the people he has met that have paid his parents visits. He is of the bloodline of a Count, he tells Will, and sometimes his parents throw parties for the common folk to keep morale up like lords from days of old.

His father clearly doesn't approve of his growing attachment to the doll. Every time he sees Hannibal with it, his face is set into a fierce scowl. He doesn't say anything beyond the occasional off-handed comment, that Hannibal is nearing the age of becoming a man, that he should learn to act like one. Each time, that pulse in Hannibal's chest grows fierce and resentful, grows teeth.

His mother is more understanding, but even she seems perturbed by Hannibal's attachment after a while. "Perhaps we'll invite the Dargises over," she suggests. "They have a son your age, my love. You could be friends with him."

Shut up. The thought is violent and loud and not his own in his head. Hannibal blinks, frowning. There is no one in the room but him and his mother.

"I don't want to be friends with him," he tells her. "He is a simpleton."

"Hannibal," she sighs.

Whore, the voice comes again. Vapid, empty, I hate her I hate her I hate her.

Hannibal's frown deepens. He swallows. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what, darling?" his mother asks. She doesn't look up from her needlepoint work. Hannibal looks around him, tilts his head to listen. Another strange pulse thrums in his chest like anticipation. An image comes to him, clear as day, of taking the needle from his mother's hand and piercing her eyes with it.

He clears his throat. "Nothing," he replies. "Just the wind, I think."

She sighs. "I'm going to invite them anyway," she tells him. "It'll be good for you to have a…more lively friend to talk to and play with."

Her eyes fall to the doll. Hannibal is holding Will's hand, the doll dangling, feet just barely brushing the ground. Hannibal frowns and hears a roar in his head like a monster, snarling from behind the bars of its cage.

"I don't think you know what's good for me," Hannibal says curtly. "Nor the expertise to make recommendations either way."

She stares at him, and presses her lips together. "Perhaps Doctor Riche will agree with me," she replies with an arched brow.

She doesn't know, the voice says. She wants to separate us.

Hannibal's hand tightens on Will's hand. "I don't want to see Doctor Riche," he snaps. "I'm perfectly content."

"Hannibal -."

He turns away from her before she can say anything else, gathering Will in a protective embrace. He runs to his room and closes the door behind him, twisting the lock into place. He pauses, shivering. His fingers worm into Will's hair and he pets over the smooth surface of his head, letting it calm him.

Hush, the voice whispers. I'm here.

Hannibal pulls back and holds Will in front of him, his eyes wide. Will's expression is unchanged, still that wide, gentle, empty smile. His eyes shine in the sunlight coming through the open curtains.

Hannibal brushes Will's hair from his face with shaking fingers. "Was that you?" he whispers.

He hears a laugh. There's no one else in his room, and he didn't see or hear anyone outside his room. No one else could have made that noise, and the voice echoes in his skull like smoke trapped in a container. It vibrates down his spine, melts with the gentle warm pulse of affection in his chest, entwines like creeping vines.

Hannibal, the voice whispers. Hello.

Hannibal smiles widely. "Hello, Will."

He hears another laugh. It's rough and low and soothes him like nothing else he has ever felt before. He embraces Will tightly and carries him over to his bed, setting him down. He stands in front of Will and lets go of him.

"Can you move?" he whispers.

No, Will tells him. Not yet.

"Can I make you?"

Yes.

"How?" Hannibal asks, soft and fierce.

Will laughs, childlike and high-pitched. I need life to live, Will tells him. Will you help me, Hannibal? I want to be your friend.

Hannibal nods, fingers flexing. Life to live. Hannibal presses his lips together, trying to think what that might mean.

"You are my friend, Will," he says. Perhaps it is something as plebian as childlike belief. Can he will his friend to exist? He reaches for Will and touches his face gently. Will isn't like other children – Will knows so much about him already and could never turn away from him.

Will's smile is unchanging, but warm. Come to bed, Will coaxes. I will show you.

Hannibal nods, and climbs into his bed. He pulls Will up to his chest and wraps his arms around him, Will's face in his neck. He closes his eyes and breathes out.

He finds himself back at the fountain, but it is not quite correct. The swans' necks have been broken, the cherubim no longer have their wings. The water in the fountain is still and thick with dirt and pond scum. Still, Will sits on the edge with his feet in the water.

Hannibal runs to him and embraces him. He hears Will laugh, but when he pulls back, Will's face is still like that of the doll's, fake and painted. Will cups his face with his solid porcelain hands and Hannibal swallows harshly.

"Will," he breathes, and holds him by the shoulders.

Hello, Hannibal, Will replies. He can't speak like a normal person, so his voice echoes in Hannibal's head as it had in the waking world. Hannibal wishes he could give Will a face, a mouth to smile and laugh through, eyes to blink and take on the color of his emotions. Cheeks that will blush naturally. A body he can touch and hug properly.

Will steps back, and gestures to the pond water. Hannibal frowns, and approaches the fountain to peer into the water. He reaches down and brushes the thick layer of leaves and dirt obscuring the rest of the water, gasping when his fingers come back red.

He sees a glint of metal in the water, and reaches down. His fingers wrap around something hard and cold, and he pulls a knife from the fountain. There's blood dripping from Hannibal's hand, coating the edges of the knife like wine staining his father's teeth.

He hears Will laugh again, and turns, to find Will has disappeared. There is suddenly snow on the ground, footsteps leading away. Hannibal gives chase, breathing hard as he enters the darker parts of the forest where the monsters dwell. Despite the shadows obscuring his vision, he can see the footsteps plainly, and he follows them until, ahead of him, he sees a shard of sunlight. He runs for it, stumbling into another clearing.

Will is there. There is red painted across his face and cupped hands. He is kneeling over the body of a beast, too many arms and legs to be a natural creature. Hannibal's eyes are wide as he sees Will reach into the carcass and rip out the creature's still-beating heart.

He turns, and stands, offering it to Hannibal. I need life to live, he whispers.

Hannibal wakes up drenched in sweat. There's a knife in his hand. He can't for the life of him think of how it got there.

He hears Will laughing.

Even if Hannibal did not have Will, he would not want to be friends with Victor Dargis. The boy is an empty-headed fool, and has no ambition nor a thirst for adventure. He doesn't like wandering the woods with Hannibal and doesn't enjoy playing games. He is chatty, and Hannibal wouldn't mind that on principle, except he so rarely has anything interesting to say.

The knife is under Hannibal's pillow. He thinks about it while he and Victor are in his room. His fingers curl and he purses his lips, eyeing it.

"What's this?" Victor asks. He has Will in his hands and Hannibal feels a visceral revulsion at the sight. In his head echoes a similar anger, Will snarling at having another person handle him so carelessly. Victor laughs. "Is this your sister's?"

"No," Hannibal says curtly. "He's mine. Please put him down."

"You play with dolls?" Victor asks, braying like a donkey. He flips Will over, poking at his soft belly and tugging on his hands. "He's not even particularly well-made. My cousin has dolls, too, but she's a girl so that's acceptable. They're all made by the finest dollmaker in the town. I bet they're worth a lot of money."

Hannibal's fingers curl into a fist. "Please don't touch him," he says again, harsher this time.

Victor grins at him and takes Will by the hands, dropping him to the floor and jerking his arms as he tries to make Will walk. "Oh, look at me! My name is Hannibal and I still play with dolls." He laughs again, a low chortle that makes Hannibal want to rip his larynx out by the root.

Hannibal scowls at him, and stands, heading over to his bed. Will is snarling in his head.

Hannibal, he whispers, he's hurting me.

Hannibal finds the knife, his fingers assured as he wraps them around the hilt. "I'll give you one last chance, Victor," he warns. "Let Will go. He doesn't like being held like that."

Victor laughs, still turned away from him. "It's just a doll, Hannibal," he says.

Hannibal growls, and crosses the room in two long strides. Victor whirls on him, eyes wide as he drops Will, and yelps, jumping back as Hannibal swipes at him. Hannibal manages a shallow cut on his arm and Victor screams with pain, clutching the bleeding wound.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" he yells.

Finish it, Hannibal, Will snarls. Bring me his heart.

Hannibal lunges for him, and Victor jumps back again, turning tail and fleeing through the open door. He's yelling for their parents and Hannibal grimaces, running after him. Victor has too much of a head start, and flees into the parlor with Hannibal in pursuit, right into the circle of their parents.

"Mama!" Victor yells. "Hannibal tried to kill me!"

"What -?" Hannibal's mother's eyes widen as she sees the knife, and she stands. "Hannibal, what in God's good name has gotten into you?"

Hannibal's father grabs his shoulder and Hannibal snarls, whirling on him and plunging the knife into his side. The women scream, and then Victor's father, a meat-fisted man with the countenance and bearing of a wild boar, stands and shoves Hannibal hard enough he goes stumbling, releasing the knife.

"He's crazy, mama!" Victor yells, round cheeks red and dark eyes shining with pained tears. He's visibly cowering, and Hannibal glares at him.

His father groans, gingerly feeling the edge of the knife in his side. Hannibal clearly didn't hit anything important, but the scent of blood is strong in the air. His mother grabs him hard enough to hurt and she slaps him.

He gasps, dazed.

Hannibal! Will cries, like he's shocked too. The sting on his cheek is sharp and burns right into his skull. Hannibal, come back to me.

Hannibal wrenches himself free and flees to his room. A moment later he hears his mother and Victor's father in pursuit, the big man pounding on the door and demanding to be let in.

Hannibal goes to Will and embraces him tightly, smoothing his mussed hair and clothes. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry, Will, please forgive me."

They're going to try and separate us, Will tells him. His eyes are bright and wide, the same as ever, but his voice holds a strange urgency. You have to do something, Hannibal. I don't want to leave you.

"I won't let them," he promises. The door is sturdy and strong, but the lock is weak, and he can hear it buckling. He stands. "I have to put you away so they don't take you. It's only for a little while."

The presence in his head he associates with Will is unhappy with that, but Will doesn't protest. Hannibal places him in the bottom of his closet amidst his shoes and closes the door behind Will. He immediately wants to take him back out.

He doesn't, and the door flies open with a loud crack and solid thud. "Hannibal!" his mother shrieks. His father is behind her, his face pale, but the knife has been removed and he's clutching a wad of cloth to his side. Hannibal glares at him.

"I told you I didn't want to play with Victor," he says tightly.

"I've had enough of this," his father spits. His face is screwed up into a horrible expression of pain and anger. "I'm calling Doctor Riche now and we're putting you in a place you will learn to behave like a Goddamn adult."

"My love," his mother says, "that's not -."

"I won't hear another word of it," his father snarls. "He leaves tonight."

The facility is a tall building made of weathered marble, with narrow windows and tiny hallways. Hannibal scowls at the entrance of it as his parents flank him, herding him up the stairs and into the entryway, which looks like a sad waiting room at a hospital for the terminally ill. The entire place has an air of despondency that grates at him, like the blank eyes of a lobotomized man.

His father approaches the nurse at the front desk, speaking in hushed tones. Occasionally, he gestures back to Hannibal, his movements clipped and short, his scowl deep on his face.

Hannibal flexes his fingers around the straps of his bag. Inside it is some clothes, his sketchbooks, and, of course, Will, buried underneath. Hannibal will not let them be separated, of course he won't. It's not Will's fault that Victor proved a little too spry for him to catch. Hannibal acted rashly and didn't think things through. To be a good hunter, he needs to be more patient.

The nurse nods and plasters on a bright smile. She's young, rather pretty in Hannibal's opinion, though he registers this vaguely. Her hair is an unnatural red and makes her cheeks look too flushed, like a doll. Maybe that's why Hannibal finds her pretty. "Hannibal," she says, crouching down so that they're at eye level. "My name is Anya. Would you like to come with me?"

No, Hannibal thinks, he would really rather not, but that's the kind of question that isn't really a question. So he nods, and she takes his hand. He turns around to look at his parents. His father refuses to look him directly in the eye. Coward. His mother is pale, looks stricken with grief, a hand around her throat.

Hannibal doesn't say anything. Anya leads him away.

They go through a locked door with a guard out front, and down a long hallway that seems to stretch on for miles. On the left are play rooms, recreation facilities, and windows out to the front yard where he can see other 'problem children' at play with each other. To the right, they pass a series of doors labelled things like 'Cafeteria' and 'Admin Office' and 'Counsellor's Room'. Hannibal frowns, and clutches the handles of his bag tighter.

"This will be your room," Anya tells him, pulling him to a halt in front of another door. It's tall and brown and has a window cut into the center at the height of an adult. As he is, he's not quite tall enough to peer through it. Anya opens the door and Hannibal's eyes narrow at the offensively white interior. There is a cot that he supposes is meant to be a bed in the far corner on the right, a tiny sink on the other side, and a window letting in natural sunlight and providing him a view of the lawn beyond.

He steps into the room and puts his bag on the bed.

"Dinner is at six," she tells him. He turns and regards her impassively, her smile is wide, her hands laced together in an imploring gesture. "You should come out and make some friends. You'll have your first meeting with your counsellor in the morning. Lights out at ten and breakfast is at seven."

"Is this a school, or a prison?" Hannibal asks.

"It's a care facility," she says. "Your actions are a symptom of maladjusted personality traits. Our task here is to identify and correct them."

Hannibal glares at her. "And if you cannot?" he asks icily.

She laughs. "Haven't had a failure yet," she replies, a happy chirp. "Get settled in. I'll see you in the rec room, perhaps, soon." With that, she leaves.

Hannibal goes to the door and closes it, before turning back to his bag. He unpacks his clothes and puts them on the little shelves near the bed, and his sketchbooks on a second shelf. He turns and smiles when he sees Will staring up at him from his bag. He takes the doll out, carefully smoothing his hair and correcting his clothes, and sits with him on the bed.

Will has been silent since the incident with Hannibal's father. Hannibal tries not to let that worry him, but he misses Will, misses the voice in his head, the soft laughter. Will hasn't appeared to him in his dreams since the night before he attacked Victor.

"Will," he whispers, touching the doll's face lightly. "Will, can you hear me?"

There is silence. Awful, unending silence. Hannibal grips Will tighter around his stomach, shakes him gently. "Will?" he whispers again.

Suddenly, a laugh. Hannibal closes his eyes and lets out a heavy breath of relief, resting his forehead against the doll's. He feels that familiar warmth in his chest and shivers, lifting Will's hand for him so that he can touch Hannibal's face.

You'll have to tread carefully, Hannibal, Will warns him. We're not safe here.

"I know," Hannibal murmurs.

Time will pass, Will says. We'll be out of here before you know it. I know you'll be able to trick the doctors and the staff, and then we can go back home. His voice is gentle, wistful. Hannibal presses his lips together. You just have to do what I say and act how I tell you. I'll get you out of here. Do you trust me?

"Of course I do," Hannibal says. Will is the best friend he's ever had, and Will loves him. He knows that.

Will's smile is serene, his forehead cool against Hannibal's clammy skin. Good, he purrs.

Time does pass swiftly, in a whirl of dulled laughter and seemingly endless counselling sessions. He's classified with narcissistic personality traits. He's given antipsychotics for schizophrenia, though he never mentions hearing Will's voice in his head. He doesn't take the pills, of course he doesn't – he would sooner die than be like the poor wretched children who are medicated, who sit in corners drooling into their laps and staring at walls.

He sketches what he dreams about – the fountain with the broken swan necks and grounded cherubim. The deer carcasses missing hearts. Will's smile, bright and wide and plastic. He draws Will until he learns that the doctors sneak into his room and take the sketches to analyze later while he's eating or in the rec rooms. He makes sure to alter his sketches, then, to inoffensive things – the building and the lawn and studies of arches and trees.

Will is in his dreams, able to move, now, but still with a false face that does not move and cannot speak. Through Will's help, he learns how to pretend. He laughs at Will's jokes that are perfectly timed to conversations he's having. He learns how to have many conversations at once, and follow several tracks of thought at the same time.

He sleeps with Will in his arms, the doll's cool porcelain forehead pressed to his own, one of Will's hands placed delicately on his cheek.

Will guides him through it. He reminds Hannibal to be calm, to play nice, to pretend to make friends. He viciously guards Hannibal's dreams, fighting off the monsters in the forest of his mind that seek to distract him from his goal of 'getting better' and earning his freedom.

His mother visits him, occasionally, on the weekends. His father never comes. She looks at him like an animal that has been wounded by his bow but still wants to trust the food he offers her. He becomes a remarkable liar, able to shrug into and out of the person suit of a misguided but sweet young boy, who simply needs to control his passionate nature.

He's released from the facility on the eve of his eighteenth birthday. His parents don't come to pick him up. Anya drives him home, in a car that trundles and pops along every dip and bump in the road like it might collapse in the middle of the journey.

His mother and father are waiting on the front step when the car pulls to a halt in front of the manor. Anya gets out of the car as Hannibal does, his bag slung over his shoulder. She smiles and takes his hand, leading him up to his parents. His mother is smiling, tears in her eyes, happy at seeing Hannibal home.

Hannibal smiles at her, and sets his bag down carefully – Will is still inside, after all – and allows her to hug him. "Hello, mama," he murmurs to her, and she clings to him as tightly as she used to before he was sent away.

"It's so good to see you, my darling," she replies, pulling back and cupping his face. His father, behind her, looks as stern and imposing as ever, though he is no longer scowling at Hannibal so openly.

"It's good to be home," Hannibal tells her. "I missed you so much."

A tear falls from the corner of her eye, and she straightens up. Anya is smiling widely as well, and looks so happy, as though it was because of her Hannibal was able to come home. He turns to her, and nods, feigning gratitude.

"I'll leave you to it," she says kindly.

"Would you like to stay for supper?" Hannibal's mother asks.

"Thank you for the offer, but I must respectfully decline. Perhaps some other time."

Hannibal watches her go, his eyes narrowed. In his head, Will is laughing, delighted at being back home.

"Come," Hannibal's mother says, and takes his bag. "You can get settled in. Your room is just how you left it."

Hannibal stifles a growl when she takes his bag, his fingers clenching tightly as he resists the urge to lunge for it and snatch it out of her hands. He follows her to his room, to find that her words were true – it has been left untouched. There is even still a tiny stain of blood on the floor from his attempted murder of Victor.

He smiles.

"We'll be having dinner soon," his mother says. His father is nowhere to be seen. "Come when you're ready."

"Alright," Hannibal replies. He takes his bag from her and puts it on the bed, and closes the door when she leaves. He rushes back to the bag, tearing it open and removing his clothes and sketchbooks until he has uncovered Will.

He smiles, and takes Will out, gently correcting his hair and clothes, and hugs him tightly.

Are you happy to be home? Will asks him, his voice gentle and warm when he brushes up against Hannibal's mind.

"I'd be happy anywhere," Hannibal confesses, "as long as I'm with you."

But I'm not here, Hannibal, Will reminds him. His smile is unchanged, of course, his eyes bright when Hannibal meets them. I want to be with you for real. I want to be able to hold you like you hold me. I need life to live. Do you remember?

"Of course I do," Hannibal breathes. He has thought of nothing else since being sent away. Will has been his only friend, his only companion. Hannibal cannot imagine loving something, needing something, as much as he needs Will.

If Will were to live, and be able to laugh and speak and touch him, Hannibal's entire soul might simply break apart to let him in.

I need life to live, Will reminds him. It has become a mantra, as well-known to Hannibal as the veins in his forearms and the shape of his teeth. Will you help me live?

"Yes," Hannibal whispers. "Just tell me how."

There is a pulse in his chest, so fierce, that only goes away when Hannibal lifts Will's hand and lets it graze his cheek. Will's smile is placid as ever, and it must just be his imagination that turns the shadows and flares of light in Will's eyes into living, breathing emotion.

Trust me, Will whispers. I will guide your hand.

Hannibal was gone for six years, almost seven, and as a result, when he goes to the dinner table, he finds a little girl, with bright glassy eyes like that of a doll, and hair a mix of flax seed and honey wheat, and it seems to soak in the light around it, framing her pale face.

He pauses, at the entrance to the dining room, as she looks at him. Mischa, his little sister. How could he have possibly forgotten her? What stories might she have heard, about her older brother who tried to kill his friend and his own father?

She smiles at him with missing teeth, gummy-wide. There is no fear in her eyes. "Hanni?" she murmurs.

Hannibal goes to her and takes her in his arms, hugging her tightly. Their mother and father are already at the table, visibly tense when they see him touch her, though all Hannibal does is pet her hair and hug her as tenderly as he might Will. Anger stirs in him like a restless animal, that they tore him away from her during her formative years, that he didn't get to see her grow and hear her first words or bear witness to her first steps.

He lets her go when their mother clears her throat, and levels a stern look at her. The plates are positioned so that Hannibal does not sit on his father's left hand, as he used to. Instead, Mischa sits there, and Hannibal is a chair down. The demotion grates at him as well – he is the firstborn, after all, and no amount of medicine or discipline will change that.

He bites his tongue, and refuses to comment. If it is bait, he will not rise to it.

"I'm so glad you're home, Hanni," Mischa says brightly. She has the innocence and sweetness of any young girl, eyes wide and without guile. It makes Hannibal ache inside, and he wonders if, in fact, their parents did say anything about him. Maybe they simply told her he was sick, as if it was some physical affliction or illness that took six years to recover from. She can't possibly remember him from when she was a baby, after all, and she never visited the facility with their mother.

"As am I," Hannibal replies. He takes her hand and squeezes it gently, smiling. She grins back.

Their father snarls, a low and angry noise that makes Hannibal release Mischa's hand. He glares at his father, and is met with answering ire. It is clear that his father has not forgotten Hannibal's wound, and has not forgiven. Perhaps he never will.

He hates you, Will whispers into his ear. He hates you and she's afraid of you. They don't want you here.

Hannibal presses his lips together, and nods to himself. He is no longer a child, after all – now he can do grievous harm if he so desired. They think he is a monster. Perhaps they want him to be a monster.

"It's good that Hannibal is home," their father says, calling his attention back. His voice is tight and stern, warning Hannibal from replying or otherwise calling attention to himself. His eyes, the same dark muddy mix of brown and red and amber Hannibal inherited, are narrowed with threat. "Now we can all be a family again."

Hannibal smiles, placid and calm. He wonders, if he were to look in a mirror, if it would match Will's. He's been practicing with his friend, after all. "Nothing would make me happier," he purrs. He takes Mischa's hand again, deliberately showing their parents, and his smile widens when she happily throws herself into a side hug. They are foolish creatures, he thinks, to have raised their princess on tales of the monster so that she, too, loved it.

"I'm very happy to be home."

He meets Will at the fountain. It was broken his entire time at the facility, and now it is being slowly, steadily, reformed. Not in the same way it used to be, though – the swans are no longer birds, but monstrous amalgamations of each other. One of them has two heads, the other has been broken into pieces so that every outstretched feather resembles a crown of thorns, which sit upon a cherub's head.

There is blood in the water.

Will is there, his feet idly kicking through the water, making it splash and swirl all the way up to his knees. He looks more like a human, now, since they are back home. In the real world, Hannibal holds him close to his chest, his nose in Will's fine hair, both arms wrapped tightly around him.

Will has grown, with him, in Hannibal's dreams. He is now the size of another teenager, no longer a child like Hannibal, though still smaller when he turns and smiles at Hannibal. He looks closer, now, to a boy wearing a doll's mask. His hair seems softer, and alive. His ears are red and warm. The porcelain on his face juts out, melted seamlessly along his jaw and forehead but just a little too large and off-center, like he's wearing a mask.

"Hannibal," he whispers, and holds out his hand.

Hannibal takes it. "I want you to be with me so badly," he replies.

Will laughs, and stands. He gestures to the water and Hannibal finds there is another knife in the swirling, red pool. He reaches in and takes it. It is not a small knife, like before. It is large and thick, closer to a butcher's knife that Hannibal has seen in the kitchens. This is a blade whose sole purpose is to destroy and dismember.

"I will guide your hands," Will promises. He tugs on Hannibal's wrist and leads him away from the fountain, into the woods. There, nestled together in a small thicket, Hannibal sees two deer – a male and female. The male is strong and large, with an impressive array of antlers. The female, smaller, is well-fed and grey around the muzzle with age.

"This is a sacrifice," Will tells him, from his position behind Hannibal's shoulder. Hannibal turns his head and Will cups his face, and lifts onto his toes, and kisses him. The porcelain mask doesn't yield like living flesh, but it's warm where Will touches him.

"Will this be enough?" he asks.

Will smiles. "We won't know until it's done," he replies. Though his mouth doesn't move, his throat does, and he sounds real. He sounds more real than he ever has.

Hannibal's grip tightens on the butcher's knife. He's ready.

He approaches the stag, first, since he is the biggest threat. He prowls around the beast's flank, heaving steadily in sleep. Will trails behind, his fingers lightly grazing the thick brown fur. The beast does not stir, only its ear twitches as though flicking at a buzzing fly.

Hannibal smiles, and wraps his hand around the base of one of his great antlers. He jerks the animal's head up, as its eyes open and it lets out a bellow of alarm. He swings the butcher's knife and cuts into its neck, severing artery and vein. Blood spurts thick and hot over his hands, too warm and real to be just a dream, but Hannibal does not stop.

The doe flinches away and cries in fear, seeing her mate undone by Hannibal's hands and knife. Hannibal lunges for her and she falls the same way, Hannibal's knife cutting at her neck, her legs, her belly. He butchers both of the animals, relishing how warm they are on the inside, how slick his hands become.

Through it all, Will is laughing.

When Hannibal is finished, panting, his hands shaking from the effort of felling these two giant beasts, he looks up as Will approaches him. Will kneels down and cups his face, his smile unmoved. His kiss, warm and gentle, pale lips touching Hannibal's forehead.

"Thank you, Hannibal," he breathes.

Hannibal looks at him, wide-eyed with wonder, and asks, "Was that enough?"

"I think…." Will trails off, sighing, and shakes his head. "It was almost enough. Almost."

He turns his head and shoves his hand into the belly of the doe, and pulls out her heart. It's large enough to fit in both of his hands, which are now like human hands, no longer stuck in a permanent cup and lacking detail. There are lines in his palms, coated with red, and veins and fingernails.

Will offers the heart. "You have to eat it," he says. "You have to eat all of them."

Hannibal smiles, and nods. He takes the heart and bites into it, the organ rich and bloody and warm on his tongue. The heartstrings cut between his teeth and the cartilage tears at the roof of his mouth, but he continues to eat, until his belly is full. He devours flesh from both the stag and the doe, ripping their fatty meat and the organs that he did not destroy from their carcasses. He eats all of it, until his belly is distended and his eyelids droop with exhaustion.

Through it all, Will smiles.

Hannibal is not surprised when he wakes up, or rather comes to, over the bodies of his parents. His mother's eyes are bright and clouded already, staring at him in accusation. He smiles at her, and kisses her forehead, before he slides her lids shut.

He wraps their bodies in their bedsheets and quilt and lights a giant fire in the kitchens, where there is a furnace large enough to burn things of that size. He drags them to the kitchens in the grey light of dawn and throws them in, and his bloody clothes along with it, and washes the knife and his hands and his face.

He bathes, cleansing himself of evidence. Will helps him, tells him to pay attention to his nails and cuticles, to scrub at his hair, to wash out his mouth, to pour bleach down the drain when he's finished.

I'm so proud of you, Will whispers, when Hannibal is done and dressed and nothing is amiss.

Hannibal smiles, though it's slight. "You are still not alive," he tells Will.

Will hums. It was not enough, he replies.

"Tell me what there is left to do."

There is one more person, Will says.

Hannibal blinks at him, and frowns. He shakes his head. "She's innocent," he argues.

Innocent blood is the most potent.

"No," Hannibal says. "No. Someone else. I won't harm her."

Why? She doesn't love you like I do. She can't. She doesn't know you.

Hannibal shakes his head again.

She'll reject you, once she knows what you've done. I would never. She won't understand, Hannibal. She'll be afraid of you. She'll hate you.

"That's not true!"

"Hanni?"

Hannibal turns, at the timid knock on his bedroom door. He goes to it and opens it, revealing Mischa. Her hair is frizzy and wild from sleep, her cheeks flushed. She's wearing a nightgown that goes down to her knees, her feet bare, and rubs the crust of sleep from her eye as she blinks up at him.

"What is it, darling?" he murmurs, kneeling down so they're at eye level.

"I had a bad dream," she tells him. "I went to find mama and papa, but I can't find them."

Hannibal does not feel guilty. Even now, he knows what he did was right. He pulls her into a hug and breathes in the scent of honey and dew in her hair. "They had to go away for a while," he tells her, pulling back so their eyes can meet. He smiles widely. "They left you in my care. Don't worry – I'll take care of you."

Mischa stares at him, her eyes wide, but trusting. She smiles.

What will she think, Will whispers darkly, when she sees what you've done?

"Are you hungry?" Hannibal asks, ignoring Will as best he can. It's difficult, since Will has been so welcome and constant in his head. It feels like binding his own hands behind his back. "I can make us something to eat."

"Yes, please," Mischa murmurs.

Hannibal kisses her hair, and stands. "Go wash up and get dressed. I'll see you in the dining room, and we can have breakfast."

She nods, and skips away to her room obediently. Hannibal serves her eggs, and leftover thigh meat from the animals he slaughtered the night before. He does not think of them as his parents, for they were not his parents, not anymore. He watches her eat and is warm with pride.

It won't last forever, Will tells him, with all the confidence and assuredness of an oracle. Hannibal tries to ignore it, to push away the doubt. It's more difficult than he thought it would be.

There is a fawn, bleating with fear. The noise rouses Hannibal from slumber, and he wanders the halls of his home until he finds it. She is a very young animal, staring with horror at the mess Hannibal left behind in the kitchens. Despite the furnace's best efforts, there is a skull, blackened and screaming, staring back at her.

"What did you do?" she screams, when she catches sight of Hannibal. The scent of fear is one he knows well, at this point. It's sour and makes his nose wrinkle.

"They weren't good," he tells her. "They would have hurt us."

"You killed them!" the fawn cries, and flinches when Hannibal tries to touch her. She bolts from the kitchens and Hannibal gives chase, but she is quick and light on her feet, and he soon loses sight of her.

Panic wells in him. She can't be allowed to leave, she'll tell people what Hannibal has done. She'll ruin everything. He wants to make her understand; she'll understand, she has to, Hannibal just needs to explain -.

"Hannibal." He turns, to see Will. His mask is cracking, and his smile is wider than it was before. Through the cracks, Hannibal can see eyes the color of stained glass in sunlight. A slip of lips and teeth too sharp. "Let me handle it."

"Don't hurt her," Hannibal begs, taking Will's hand.

"I won't," Will promises. He steps past Hannibal, his eyes on where the fawn fled. "I'll take care of her. Don't worry." He turns, and touches Hannibal's face, and Hannibal cuts his lower lip on the cracks of Will's mouth when he kisses Hannibal again. "Go to sleep."

Hannibal isn't sure he's not asleep already, but he closes his eyes, and obeys.

Hannibal wakes up in a cold sweat, breathing hard. He throws his blankets from his body and rushes out of his room, towards Mischa's. "Mischa!" he calls, his spine growing cold when he receives no answer. He opens her door and looks inside. There is no evidence of her there – her bed has been made, there are no clothes on the floor, all of her toys are neatly put away and her room is far cleaner than what Hannibal would expect of a seven year old.

His hands shake, as he closes the door and starts investigating the rest of the house. Even his sense of smell, honed as it is, cannot pick out her fresh scent from her older ones. He searches through every room and calls for her until his voice goes hoarse, but even still he cannot find her.

The last room he searches is his own. There is no trace of her inside his room either, and he sinks to his knees, tears burning the backs of his eyes. She's gone – she saw what he did and she left him, just as Will promised that she would.

He needs to go search the grounds, but they are vast and spread out in all directions, and he has no idea if he'll be able to find her before she meets someone at the town and tells them what Hannibal did. There will be an investigation, and police, and -.

There is a knock on the door. Hannibal freezes. It comes again, insistent though polite.

He swallows harshly, and rises to his feet, and goes to the front door. When he opens it, Anya is standing on the other side, and gives him a bright smile. "Hello, Hannibal," she says, and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. "I wanted to come in and check that everything was going well. Are your parents home?"

"No," Hannibal rasps. The lie comes to him easily; he has gotten good at lying. "They took my sister and left for a trip. Planned before I was released, I think."

"Oh." Anya's eyes are dark with sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like some company? No one should be alone on their birthday, especially one this important."

Hannibal's brow creases. It is his birthday, he realizes. He's eighteen, and officially a man. Set to inherit his parents' fortune, if they are declared missing or found dead.

Interesting.

"I'm grateful for the offer, but I think I'd rather be alone. Thank you, Anya."

Her eyes lift, briefly, to somewhere above his head. Hannibal refuses to turn, even when her face goes pale and her eyes widen. Her throat bobs in a sharp swallow "Of course." She smiles again, this time much more strained, and takes a step back from the front door. Hannibal gives her a polite, cordial nod, and then closes it. He locks and bolts it for good measure.

He turns, and freezes when he sees what undoubtedly caught Anya's eye. Will is on the steps, though Hannibal knows no one put him there. He wants to go to Will, to take him in his arms and hug him and seeks solace in his friend's embrace.

He stands, and stares.

He hears Will's laugh.

"Did you hurt Mischa?" he rasps.

No, Will replies. I didn't.

"Do you know where she is?"

Yes. I do.

Hannibal closes his eyes. "Is she safe?"

Safer than you are. A hand, a brush of warmth with no more substance than a breeze, ghosts across his face. Hannibal startles, but when he opens his eyes, there is nothing there, and Will has not moved from his perch on the step.

He goes to Will and takes his hand. When they first met, Hannibal was much smaller. Now, Will seems so much smaller than he used to. From head to toe, he only comes to Hannibal's knee. He cradles Will gently in his arms, brushing his thumb over the blush painted onto Will's cheek, and takes him into the study.

Above the fireplace there is a portrait. Before Hannibal was sent away, it depicted the three of them – his mother, his father, and himself. Now it has been repainted, to include Mischa. He stops in front of it and stares up at it.

His father's stern countenance glares back at him. His mother, with that secretive smile and her hand on Hannibal's shoulder. He will never see their faces again, not outside of his memory. His therapist taught him about things like mind palaces, where he could preserve memories of happier times to revisit at his leisure. So far, he has used it purely to recall facts and information he has learned. One of the rooms holds merely a mirror, for him to gaze into and practice his expressions.

He mounts this portrait in one of the rooms of his mind, and conjures a chair to sit in just like the one his father favored. It is green and short-backed. When Hannibal sits in it, it only comes up high enough to support his shoulders.

He holds Will to him like a newborn and closes his eyes, sucking in a shaky breath. "Will," he murmurs, and hears him hum in answer. "You would never hurt me, would you?"

Will's laugh is gentle. When Hannibal opens his eyes, in the darkness of the room – in the long shadows cast by the drawn curtains keeping the sunlight out – he thinks he might see half the shape of a man.

I would never hurt you, Will tells him. I love you. I would never hurt you.

Hannibal smiles.

When enough time has passed and Hannibal is sure that there could be no doubt cast on him, he reports his parents and Mischa missing. They scour the manor and the grounds and, of course, find nothing. After six months of investigation, they are declared missing and presumed dead, for no one can find any trace of them. It is as though they never existed.

Hannibal inherits the land and title and wealth. He holds Will at night and Will dances with him in his dreams, and takes him hunting with a welcoming smile on his blank doll's face. Hannibal wakes up with blood on his hands and a full stomach most mornings. He learns to harvest and store and cook – skills, just like any other, that Will helps him hone.

Years pass. The manor becomes a thing of legend. He is sure that the townsfolk think he is dead also, for he never leaves the manor. They are too afraid to approach the house. No one visits him. He is alone, except for Will.

No matter how many lives he ends, Will does not awaken for him. He is still a doll, except in Hannibal's dreams – and, soon his mind palace. Will comes to him with his doll's face, and kisses him, and helps Hannibal build his palace. Will is strong and infallible. He never once shows doubt or fear, even when the monsters in Hannibal's mind prowl closer, sniffing curiously at the pile of bones slowly getting larger in the basement.

Death and ruin cling to Lecter Manor like a fog. Hannibal doesn't mind. The smell is somewhat unnerving, but he quickly becomes used to it.

On the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday, he wakes up from a restless sleep, to the sound of a storm outside. There is lightning, breaking through the parted curtains, lighting up the sky in stark white clarity.

There is a man at the foot of his bed. Hannibal gasps, seeing only shadow and bright eyes. In the next flash of lightning, he disappears. Hannibal scrambles from his bed, a knife in hand. He has taken to sleeping with one, now, ready to hunt whenever Will takes his hands and guides him to his next meal.

He leaves his room, eyes narrowed as he surveys the dark, empty hallways. Cobwebs cling where it is too high to reach. There is another flash of lightning, and a powerful gust blows the window open at the end of the hall.

Hannibal sees a single hand, wrapped around a doorway, and then it disappears. He gives chase, into his parents' bedroom, which he has not touched since he sought Mischa out. All of the windows are open, clattering loudly as they are buffeted open and closed against the powerful storm. Rain sweeps in like a flood, soaking everything in sight, and Hannibal flinches as another crack of lightning illuminates the room.

"Will?" he calls, when there is a moment of silence. He tightens his grip on his knife. "Will, is that you?"

He hears a laugh, and it sounds like Will, but not like Will at the same time.

Hannibal's eyes widen as another powerful burst of wind flies through the open windows, strong enough to send his mother's vanity crashing to the ground. Within the split second that the mirror reflects him, Hannibal sees a shadow at his back. He whirls around, but there is nothing.

He steps back from the door, breathing hard, drenched with freezing rain. He hears another laugh, and all the windows suddenly slam closed at once.

The silence is deafening, broken only by Hannibal's unsteady breathing. He wipes his hand over his face and takes another step into the center of the room. His bare foot crunches on broken glass from the mirror and he hisses, looking down and gingerly lifting his foot from the glass. His heel is bleeding, the pain sharp, the blood bright red.

Hannibal, Will whispers to him. Look.

He turns, to the patch of wall revealed by his mother's toppled vanity. Part of the wall is discolored, the plaster torn up to reveal brick. He swallows, and approaches it, kneeling down. Lightning reveals a single missing brick, and there must be some broken part of the wall on the outside, for there is a breeze, and it carries with it the scent of death.

He fits his fingers in the hole and tugs. The brick comes out smoothly, the binding holding it all together crumbling and wet from the rain. He continues to tear at the brick, until a hole large enough for a small animal is revealed, and there is a single shaft of light coming from the outside of the house. He knows the manor has hollows in the wall large enough for people, for that is how the servants used to come and go.

The light reveals a pile of bones. His eyes widen, and he reaches in until he can find the skull. He takes it in gentle hands, and pulls it into the room so that he can see it. It is far too small to be one of his kills, and the pattern of missing teeth is familiar to him. The bones are old, they have been here for a while, but still, wisps of long flaxen hair cling stubbornly to the crown.

Tears fill his eyes, as he realizes exactly whose skull he is holding. The skull tumbles from his shaking hands, and splits in two on the floor. He presses his hands to his mouth to stifle a sob, and clenches his eyes tightly shut.

A touch lands on his shoulder, as light as a feather. Hannibal knows there is no one there.

She would have betrayed us, Will tells him. I tried to reason with her. She didn't understand. I'm so sorry, Hannibal.

"You did this," Hannibal hisses. He opens his eyes and glares down at the pieces of the skull, and then rises to his feet. He takes his knife and slashes wildly at the air, forcing the touch to leave. He doesn't want Will anywhere near him. "You swore you didn't hurt her!"

I didn't, Will's voice replies, calmly. She felt no pain.

"Don't," Hannibal snarls. "Don't."

Haven't you been happy? Will asks. He sounds sad. Just you and me, Hannibal, together forever. Don't you want that?

Hannibal did. He does, still, and that is perhaps the deepest wound of all. The horror of Mischa's fate and the terrible ache in his chest all swirl together like blood and water, and from the depths of it, rage rises.

He storms out of the room with a snarl, and goes down to the main study, where that portrait hangs. He lights a fire and waits until it blazes brightly, before he runs up to his room and snatches Will from his bed.

Hannibal! Will's panicked voice stings at the back of his brain. The doll feels, suddenly, heavy as lead, but Hannibal is strong now. Will made him strong. Hannibal, what are you doing? Stop!

Hannibal shakes his head, and walks up to the fire. He holds Will in both hands, staring into those lovely blue eyes that have haunted his dreams for as long as he can remember. Tears blur his vision, and the ache in his chest is so powerful it feels like he's dying.

"She didn't have to die," he tells Will. "You did this. I can't -."

Hannibal, please. A hand touches him and he shakes it off with another snarl. Please, my love, let me explain. You'll understand if you just -.

"No!" Hannibal cries, shaking the doll. "I don't want to hear your explanations or excuses. I don't want to hear your voice ever again."

He clenches his eyes tightly shut, and tenses his shoulders so hard they burn.

"I don't want to be your friend anymore," he says, in a broken, defeated voice. He opens his eyes, and throws the doll onto the fire.

Hannibal! Will's voice is loud enough that the windows shatter. Hannibal flinches from the rain of falling glass, as the shards cut his face and hands and feet. He watches as the clothes on Will catch, first. His hands melt in the flames. His smile begins to falter for the first time. Hannibal, please, please, no. I can fix this. I just wanted -.

Hannibal turns away.

Hannibal, I love you!

"Leave me alone," Hannibal says, and leaves the room. Will's scream is loud, and he can hear furniture and windows banging and smashing to pieces in the wake of the storm. A stroke of lightning strikes one of the parapets and he hears a huge cluster of bricks tumble to the ground.

He takes his coat, dons his shoes, and leaves. Behind him, despite the torrential rain, Lector Manor goes up in flames.

He leaves. He has money and means. He leaves his country and flees to France, first, then Italy. His hunger doesn't relent. He can't stop himself hunting when something reminds him of Will. Anyone with a smile too gentle, eyes too blue, hair too soft. They meet their tragic end, for he will not allow Will to come back into his life.

In his dreams, when he sees the boy sitting at the fountain, he turns away.

The portrait in his dreams becomes a monument of ghouls, all of them with blackened skin and blank, staring eyes.

He ends up, eventually, in America. He knows he cannot reveal his true nature. They will reject him; no one could possibly understand him. He hunts, and he keeps to himself. He makes a name for himself as a surgeon, lost in the fascinating complexity of the human body, until the human mind draws him to therapy. He seeks, in his spare time, to analyze his youth. Maybe he was insane, he thinks, back in the beginning. Hearing voices in his head and obeying the desires of an inanimate object are classic signs of mental illness.

He tries to help people. He tries to find someone as interesting and entertaining as himself. He flees from the shadows of a man when he catches sight of the monster prowling around his mind palace, desperately seeking him out.

Time passes. Years and endless years drag like the slow drip of water trying to fill a lake. The water is red and reflects everything he has done. His parents, Mischa, his other helpless lambs and deer he has slaughtered.

He has no answer for what he has experienced. Science gives him nothing except hope that he might, one day, be able to reverse time. If he could simply go back to that day he received Will, and if he could reject it, so much would be different. He could have made friends with Victor, and been a good brother to Mischa. He could have protected her. His parents might still be alive.

All his studies give him is broken teacups and broken fantasies. He drinks just enough for it to not technically be a problem. He can't be too inebriated for his hunts, and when his defenses drop too low, he has dreams about the fountain of bastardized, Frankenstein swans and cherubim.

He aches, when he is alone. He aches in the company of others. No one knows him like Will did. No one can hope to understand him in the way his friend did. He is lonely, and it burns and barbs at him like a swarm of hornets. He finds himself cursing Will's memory, and missing him, all in the same breath.

When he is nearing forty years old, a knock comes at his door. He is not expecting anyone.

He lays down his knife and carefully wraps the lung meat he had been about to tenderize. He washes his hands as the knock comes again, and goes to the door.

He opens it.

For a moment, time stands still. He is thrown back to the day they first met. There is a man on his doorstep, with wild, curling brown hair and eyes the color of the ocean. He is dressed in dark slacks and a shirt the color of fresh meat. His cheeks are ruddy with life.

His smile, when it comes, is wide and lopsided, dimpled. He has slightly pronounced canines, denoting him as a predator. His eyes are so soft with affection it freezes Hannibal where he stands.

He swallows, and says, "Will."

Will smiles at him, and presses his lips together. He is not as physically old as Hannibal – early to mid-thirties, if Hannibal had to guess. There is a light covering of hair on his face that the doll did not possess.

For this is not a doll. This is a man, living and breathing.

"Hannibal," he whispers. That voice. That voice is exactly the same, quiet and gentle and so, so loving. He reaches out, with a hand Hannibal recognizes when Will fed him his own mother's heart. His fingers tremble with longing.

Hannibal meets his eyes, a thousand questions fighting to be first on the tip of his tongue.

"I needed life," Will tells him. "You have given me that."

Hannibal cannot say anything to that.

"It took so much," Will whispers. "I know that. The amount of sacrifice I asked of you was so large."

Hannibal's eyes fall to his hand. To his fingers, gently curled in invitation. How often has he wished Will was here, to have and to hold? From the moment they met, Hannibal wanted him alive and real so badly. He thinks, with an inward laugh, that perhaps he has finally gone completely insane. That his desire to see Will realized has manifested this imaginary friend to share hearth and home with.

"I love you," Will says. His voice is so gentle. It worms its way through Hannibal's skull and settles like a stray making itself comfortable in front of the fire. "I've missed you so much."

His hand doesn't fall. Hannibal should close the door and turn him away. He should – he could. He senses if he rejected Will a second time, it would be permanent. Somehow, the idea of losing Will for good hurts worse than anything else has.

"You destroyed everything," Hannibal rasps. "Because of you, my parents -. Mischa -."

Will nods. His fingers flex. "If you cannot forgive me, I understand," he says. "But everything I've done, everything you've had to do…. It was meant to bring us together." He takes a step closer and Hannibal forces himself not to step back. His hand tightens around the handle of the door. "I was cursed, to remain in that prison, for more years than I can count. No one ever heard me, until I met you."

His eyes well with tears. It fascinates Hannibal to see – he has never seen Will cry.

"I can't go back to silence, Hannibal," Will whispers. "I can't. I won't."

"What if I want to silence you?" Hannibal asks. He's not sure if he means to challenge Will, to threaten him, or if he asks simply from curiosity. Will is a monster, there's no denying that, but then again, so is Hannibal. He can't blame Will for everything, no matter how much he wants to. Hannibal could have stopped, after Mischa died. He could have fled and forgotten and lived a life far away from Will's influence.

Without Hannibal, Will would not be alive. Without Will, Hannibal might as well be dead.

Will smiles. "Your rage fueled my becoming," he says. "If your rage is how it ends, then I can accept that."

His hand is, still, outstretched.

Hannibal's knife rests on his kitchen counter, ready, should he need it.

Hannibal swallows, and breathes in deeply. He forces his hand from the handle of the door, trembling and cold, and places his hand in Will's. Their fingers lace and Will's tears dry up as though they were never there. He shines with happiness, with hope. Inside Hannibal's chest, he is warm and alive.

"Would you like to come in?" Hannibal asks, and steps back from the door. Will crosses the threshold, and lets out a sigh that sounds like coming home. Hannibal closes the door behind him, and locks it. Will turns, and touches his face.

He is beautiful. The ethereal, monstrous brightness of his eyes makes Hannibal feel hungry and warm and settled all at once. His friend is home, he's here, for Hannibal to embrace and kiss and talk to once again. It's all he's ever wanted.

And yet.

Will breathes in, eyes flashing. "Were you about to eat?" he asks.

"Yes."

Will nods. "Are you going to eat me?"

"I don't know yet," Hannibal tells him, honestly, because it's important to be honest with your friends. He has never lied to Will. Technically, Will has never lied to him.

Will smiles, like he expected that answer. "Whatever you decide, I won't fight you," he promises. Hannibal believes him – foolishly, perhaps, but he does. He covers Will's hand with his own like he used to in their youth, lips twitching in a smile when Will kisses him. It's different, of course, than all their kisses before. Will's mouth is warm and soft, his lips slightly chapped. He tastes of meat on the inside.

"Will you let me explain?" Will asks, when the kiss ends, both of them breathless.

"There is nothing to explain," Hannibal replies, with a shake of his head. "Nothing you could say will affect my decision. It must come from within."

Will smiles. "Can I stay, until you decide?" he asks, soft and sweet with hope.

Hannibal nods. He remembers the knife. He's hungry, and thinks it would be poetic if he were to sate that hunger with Will. But then he would be alone again. It's hard to think with Will touching him.

"Would you like some wine?" he offers.

Will laughs, bright and happy. "Wine would be great."

Hannibal smiles, and cannot resist the urge to kiss him again. "I've missed you," he whispers.

Will embraces him tightly, like he's in awe of the fact that he can. Hannibal has never had someone's touch light him up so completely.

Will pulls back for air, his cheeks red, lips bruised. He clears his throat and turns his face away, towards the kitchen. He must know what potential fate awaits him there, but as always, he is fearless.

"Shall we?" he murmurs.

Hannibal smiles, and gestures for him to lead the way. "After you."