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"No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see that potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true."
The true economy of the world is this: predator and prey. If ever the world were to run out of prey, the economy would collapse. Luckily, this didn’t appear to be the case, for every day in Florence Hannibal Lecter found his stock of would-be victims continuing to grow. There were cabbies who barked orders, road workers who cat-called embarrassed women, smug patrons of the arts who feigned knowledge in order to impress their peers… the menagerie swelled before him like a King’s hunting grounds.
Regardless, ennui was beginning to set in. It happened before, while living in Baltimore. He had grown tired of poking at FBI “guru” Jack Crawford and laying out well-planned set-pieces that he knew would never be fully understood. The law enforcement of Florence was focused on the procedural aspect of hunting down killers. How dull. There was no game in it, aside from making sure he didn’t leave behind evidence. That’s an amateur killer’s worry. Like all masters of their craft, the piece must be taken to a level of sublimity; one that only an intellectual peer could fully grasp. At least Jack was a psychological man with some insight, albeit of a very academic variety. He was like a man who had studied the theory of music for many years and was highly knowledgeable on the topic. He may have worthwhile views on a particularly complex and emotionally wrought composition, but he could never understand quite like another master composer. He was just peering in from the outside. Hannibal had kept his eyes on Tattle-Crime to see if anyone of note would arise (He never dreamed until now that he would actually miss Freddie Lounds, but her sensational muck-raking did add to the procedurals a touch of the penny dreadful). Suddenly, when he had given into his boredom completely, he discovered that Jack Crawford had acquired a new protégé. Will Graham, a rare breed of pure empathy combined with preternatural cunning. Hannibal listened in as the young man described his crimes and could actually see the artist who held the brush. He finally felt excited again. He pulled out his Rolodex and painted the town red.
There was pleasure to be found in being the prey for someone who might actually call himself a predator. What he hadn’t counted on was the worthiness of his new adversary. In slipping his hand through Will Graham’s skull to grip his brain he hadn’t noticed Will’s own hand slipping through his chest and gripping him by the heart. He was more than cunning. He was manipulative in a way that Hannibal believed only himself could be. By the time he had the wits about him to sever their connection with a slice of his curved blade, Will had already left his mark.
Eventually, Hannibal’s oncoming depression led him back to his old estate in Lithuania. He returned to Lecter Castle, where tall weeds and creeping vines had pressed in upon the external walls. Inside, sparse furniture was covered with white sheets. The murky windows blocked out much of the light. There was work to be done, but in the meantime he made himself a home in one of the bedrooms. He filled it with things that comforted him, set apart a desk for him to work at, cleaned the kitchen, and made regular trips into the local town for fresh produce. As for his favorite item of produce, he refrained from collecting that for the time being.
One day, after returning home from a shopping trip, he immediately sensed that something was different. He sniffed the air of the room and what clung to it was not native to its surroundings. It held the faintest hint of chemicals: cheap cologne, of the blue-collar variety. Someone had been there while he was out. He searched through what little belongings he had but found nothing missing. However, some of the papers looked a bit rifled; a book was turned at a slightly different angle then where he left it. With a scolding cluck of his tongue, he went back to putting away his groceries.
Hannibal didn’t have to wait long. The next time he was in town, while picking up a paper at a corner kiosk, he smelled that cologne again. He glanced behind him and saw a paunchy, middle-aged man in a beige coat and skull cap looking down at the pavement, trying to appear inconspicuous. His eyes flashed. Who was this? Carefully, Hannibal took his paper and began to read it, then bumped against the intruder.
“Sorry,” Hannibal said in Lithuanian. The man nodded.
Hannibal went through the contents off the wallet he’d picked off of him later that night. He was a private investigator from Vilnius. He researched him thoroughly. Who would have hired someone like this? He was far too clumsy and cheaply-acquired for the likes of Mason Verger. Perhaps the loved ones of one of his victims thought they could do better than the local police. The investigator kept an apartment in the inner-city, but Hannibal also found that an old cottage on a dilapidated property had been leased in his name.
The cottage had been a bit difficult to find. Barely a road, more accurately a path, led through a sickly wood. An old blue car was parked outside. Hannibal entered quietly, and saw a man in a beige coat and skull cap facing the fireplace. He walked up behind him, but as he grew closer he realized that the coat seemed to hang too loosely off of the man’s body. He stopped, and the figure turned toward him. The face beneath the cap was one he knew very well.
“Will Graham,” Hannibal whispered. Despite his surprise, it came out sounding almost affectionate.
Will’s eyes were stern. His arm lifted quickly, too far away for Hannibal to react. In his hand was a spray bottle. The cold mist hit his face suddenly and he stumbled backward.
“Hello Dr. Lecter,” Will answered, standing over him as he lost consciousness.
Hannibal woke up to find himself sitting in a chair at a table with his wrists chained. He pulled on the chain, finding that it dangled between his legs and attached to a dowel that had been drilled into a concrete slab on the floor. As soon as he remembered who put him there, he felt a mix of worry and excitement.
“I hope you don’t find me rude, Dr. Lecter,” the familiar voice said. He turned to face him. Will Graham leaned on the edge of the table, his legs relaxed and crossed in front of him. “...For postponing the chit-chat. But now we have all the time and privacy in the world.”
“And your PI friend?”
“The man I hired to wear this coat and cologne and follow you for a single day?” Will shook his head and smiled. “Doesn’t even know your name.”
“He was in my house.”
“No, that was me. No one knows we are here.”
“Clever boy,” Hannibal said. “I wonder if that beautiful brain of yours tastes differently than everyone else’s.”
Will’s smile remained static as he fidgeted with something behind him on the table.
“Planning on shipping me back to Uncle Jack?” Hannibal asked.
“No, you’re staying right here.”
“Ready to kill me this time, Will?” Hannibal asked.
“No.”
Will pulled a tray into Hannibal’s view. It held two syringes.
“This,” he said as he took hold of Hannibal’s arm, “Brings on a high fever.”
Hannibal watched, helpless as Will stuck him with the syringe and emptied the fluid into his veins.
“Not unlike encephalitis,” Will explained.
“This,” he continued, lifting the other syringe. “Well I think you can guess what this is. You gave it to me for several months, when you were frying my brain to medium-rare.”
Hannibal’s face was placid as always.
“Trying to instill some empathy in me, Will?”
“Perhaps,” Will replied, returning the syringe to the tray. “Some honesty would be appreciated as well.”
“I’m the most honest person I know,” Hannibal remarked. He was starting to feel nauseated, but maintained his cheeky calm.
“Well,” Will sighed, standing with a pat on Hannibal’s shoulder. “I’ll just let that cook for a while.”
As he was left alone, the hours ticking by, Hannibal felt a fever grow. His limbs became weaker, to the point that he was leaning over the table to try and rest his upper arms and shoulders as well. A slick of sweat glued his shirt to his body. Eventually, every sound in the cottage, and outside of it in the sickly wood, stirred him to attention like a hyper-vigilant dog. The branches of a dead tree blew in the wind, occasionally scratching at the glass of the window and creating a quiet but irritating screech that was amplified by Hannibal's feverish senses.
Finally he heard a car pulling up in the snow and the rhythmic sound of feet crunching heavily toward the door. Hannibal felt as though he were astral projecting his consciousness outside of the cottage, for he could see Will walking from the car, his knees lifting over the snow, stomping his feet down as though impatient with the obstacle. He could see him wearing the long charcoal wool jacket that he gave him for Christmas along with the scarf wrapped attractively at his neck. After Will had returned to home from his stay in prison, he began wearing that jacket and Hannibal had noticed. He really did look stunning when he wore what he gave him, and it felt like he was accepting his influence once again.
Will entered, and Hannibal strained his neck over his shoulder to look at him. He wasn't wearing that jacket. Of course not, Hannibal had taken it back from him after leaving him gutted on his floor. Will pulled groceries out of his bag and started to put them away. Several cans of soup, bottled water, coffee, etc. Hannibal watched, attempting to gauge how long Will planned on keeping him there.
"How do you feel?" Will asked him. He brought him one of the bottles of water and a wrapped sandwich he had picked up.
"Nostalgic," Hannibal said. He took a drink. The water was only slightly chilled from the cold outside, but when it poured into Hannibal's hot mouth and down his throat it was almost painful. He shivered.
Will moved toward him and pulled his gloves off. He thrust his hands upon Hannibal's face, feeling the sides of his neck, cheeks, and forehead. Hannibal closed his eyes. Will's cold touch brought him relief. He had put his hands on Will so many times before; administering drugs, feeling for fever, brushing hair from his eyes, whatever he deemed necessary. Now Will felt his captive forcefully, seeming to take pleasure in being the one to demand the right to do so.
"Nostalgia for what?" he asked. He brought out the tray of syringes once more and selected one.
"Past ignorance," Hannibal answered. He didn't flinch when Will stuck the syringe into his arm. "Isn't that what nostalgia is, Will? Remembering the pleasure of being ignorant and wishing to return to that state?"
"When you were stoking the fires of my encephalitis and inducing seizures and hallucinations was ignorance your desired effect, or were you planting ideas in my head?"
"I was keeping my influence to a minimum."
Hannibal started to smell something, like the thick layer of static electricity that blankets the screen of an old-fashioned television. He licked his lips and reached for the bottle of water. He could barely stand the chill of it in his mouth, but he was feeling nauseated again and needed something to swallow.
"What was your intended effect?"
Hannibal looked at the wall on the other side of the table. The whorls of the wood paneling seemed to create three-dimensional shapes that floated above the plane.
"I had a professional curiosity about your brain," Hannibal replied. He looked at Will's face to see his reaction to that phrase. Will only smiled. "I wanted to see what would happen to a brain like yours under a variety of stimulations. I observed how you reacted."
Hannibal again felt like he was removed from himself, hovering over the room and listening to Will's muffled voice from above.
"Tell me about these stimulations."
"Light therapy, drugs, as you already know."
"What real-world applications would these experiments have?"
Will turned his face upward at the ceiling where Hannibal gazed down upon him. The young man's face began to glow, his eyes appeared to grow wider, his pupils larger. There was something supernatural about his appearance now. He suddenly locked eyes with him, acknowledging his hovering presence.
"Other than pure sadism, of course."
"Access..." Hannibal took a deep breath. His mouth moved from above but his voice emerged from below. "Accessing repressed empathy. To see how far you were capable of immersing yourself."
"It was only about the crimes I investigated?"
Hannibal watched as mushrooms began to sprout along the table, on the floor, surrounding Will's feet. Will's face was circled in a blurry halo, illuminating his features. The expressive, intelligent eyes, the sharp edges of his nose, his soft fleshy lips parted slightly. The light shone through the curls of his hair. Hannibal reached downward toward him, unable to touch him. He watched his mouth begin to move, but his voice was overwhelmed by a humming sound as if from a cloud of locusts.
"Dr. Lecter..." he heard amidst the humming, "listen... my voice... don't withhold... need..."
He watched as Will lifted his arms upward toward him.
"listen carefully... my voice..."
Oblivion. When Hannibal could see once more, he was looking at Will from below again. The young man was sitting on the edge of the table, cradling Hannibal's face in his hands. A bitter taste filled his mouth and his jaw ached. He tried to move it and realized something was clenched between his teeth. Will removed it, a thick leather belt. He gave Hannibal another drink of water.
"You've just had an episode," Will cracked.
When Hannibal slept he had the most lucid dreams. He walked through doors of his choosing, said aloud the words that were in his head, reached out and touched the world around him. Will was not in this world, though. It was full of people who could hear but could not understand. Human beings with the brains of bees; only buzzing when they spoke.
"You would tell me if you were in poor health, wouldn't you?"
Hannibal shook the bees out of his head and opened his eyes. Morning light poured through the dirty cottage windows and Will was pushing a bowl of soup in front of him. Hannibal ignored it.
"You've been inducing fever and seizures, Will. You know I am in poor health."
"You are aware of your limits. You wouldn't allow yourself to starve or become too sick just to die and rob me of my reckoning, would you?"
"Your reckoning doesn't include my death?"
"Of course not, Dr. Lecter."
Will moved a syringe toward Hannibal's arm and he lurched. He sighed when he saw Will's satisfied expression. The needle found a vein without another sign of resistance from him.
Again, Will's face was surrounded in a halo of blurry light. Again Hannibal reached out to touch him but could not. He watched in awe as antlers pushed their way through the boy's scalp and dark curls then outward, crowning him like a cervitaur prince.
"Listen carefully to the sound of my voice..."
Hannibal seemed to shrink down, watching the beautiful stag-like creature loom ever more over him. Now he was far away, seeing him as he stood in a forest full of snow. He walked after the mythical man, but he disappeared into the trees. The snow was so deep that he couldn't lift his legs above it. His hips and thighs hurt as he tried to push through. He felt so small. The chains on his wrists were as heavy as slave-irons. He finally fell over into the snow and relaxed into the darkness.
Hannibal opened his eyes, realizing that he'd had another seizure. Will released him and sat back again.
"Did you give me any instructions?" he asked.
Hannibal looked down at the chains on his wrists, which still felt unnaturally heavy.
“My skin is coming off,” Hannibal slurred.
“Is it?” Will asked, one eyebrow lifted in sarcasm.
“At the chains,” Hannibal said, gesturing to his arms. He rubbed his wrists, which to his eyes had become raw and sloughed rotting skin as though he had been wearing the chains for months. He whimpered and laid his head back.
Will gave him some water. He drank, swallowing gently due to a throbbing headache. He studied his wrists once more. They were smooth and only slightly reddened from the cuffs.
"What have you been telling me?" he asked.
"You've been doing most of the talking," Will remarked.
"I don't think that's true, Will," Hannibal said in an admonishing tone.
"You trust you have perfect control over the things you say, even in a state of semi-consciousness?"
Hannibal swallowed a queasy sensation and looked up at Will with as much cheek as he could muster in his weakened state. Before he could reply, Will stood on his feet and whispered at him in a strange voice that was not his own.
"For a mute, you can scream well enough at night."
Hannibal stared at him, a twinge of fear darting into his gut.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I said," Will was leaning against the edge of the table again, "I might leave you with your thoughts tonight. We'll start again in the morning."
As his head cleared, alone in the dark room, he started to regret not eating anything. His nausea made it difficult to keep anything down. Now, as he twitched in his seat at every distant sound outside, he endured a strained feeling in his belly. When Will returned in the morning with another sandwich, it was all he could do to eat it slowly.
"I know what it is you are looking for," Hannibal said, laying down the last half of his sandwich.
"I told you," Will replied. "It's honesty."
"More specifically," Hannibal added. "You want me to tell you that I psychically drove you to feel something. Something that apparently brings you shame."
Will's eyes narrowed.
"You may not have really embraced your most elevated self,” Hannibal continued. “Everything you did when you were playing at friendship with me could have been a ploy to lure me into Jack's clutches. If I didn't drive you to do anything, then it must be what you felt for which you refuse to take personal accountability."
"You were psychically driving me, Dr. Lecter."
"To what?"
"That's what I want you to admit."
"I only guided you inward, Will. That’s what these particular drugs are designed to do. I never planted anything in your subconscious. Everything that you felt was your own."
Will began to prepare the next syringe. Hannibal couldn’t stifle a moan.
“You once said to me that you could ‘whisper through the chrysalis,” Will reminded him. “What were you whispering to me, Dr. Lecter?”
“What do you want from me?” Hannibal’s face nearly touched the surface of the table. He shook all over. “Do you want me to absolve you of any pleasure killing made you feel? Tell you that you were an innocent?”
“You conditioned me to respond to you, to your voice, to your touch.”
Hannibal looked up at him.
“You were training me, like a dog, to feel emotionally connected to you. Brain-washing me as you did Miriam Lass and Abigail Hobbs.”
Now Hannibal was sitting up straight, peering back at Will. He let those words roll over his fevered mind. Will continued.
“What did you say to me to bring about that attachment?”
“I didn’t.”
Will grabbed Hannibal’s arm and readied the syringe.
“You’re doing this because you can’t cope with the idea that you were my friend?” Hannibal asked.
Will began to twitch.
“Friend?” he said through gritted teeth. “I was obsessed with you. I let you into my head. I thought of you every moment of every day. I did terrible things. I defied Jack and the law to warn you. I let you gut me! I stood still while you cut open my belly. Why?”
“You were obsessed with me, Will?” Hannibal asked, “But not anymore?”
Will released a bitter laugh.
“We’re here,” he replied. “What do you think?”
Hannibal leaned back and sighed. Despite being in chains, he recognized his power. The treacherous man with the needles and the untouchable face was now trembling, desperately battling his feelings for him.
“I didn’t do that to you, Will,” Hannibal said.
“Stop saying my name,” Will interrupted.
“That was your own emotional reaction, not any conditioning or psychic driving. Just you… cultivating your urges as inspirations.”
Will looked down at Hannibal’s smug face. He watched his tongue run over his teeth as he grinned back at him. He clenched his jaw and put back the syringe he was going to use to take up another in its place.
“I’m telling you the truth!” Hannibal pleaded, resisting the needle this time. It found his vein in spite of that.
“Why would I react to you that way on my own?” Will asked. “I’m supposed to believe you had no influence on that?”
Hannibal’s head began to swim and he saw Will ‘s face seem to come closer. Maybe he could touch him now. He tried to move his hands forward, but they were so heavy. He was so tired.
“You once said I couldn’t reduce you to a set of influences.”
Will’s face was twisted in anger, but Hannibal could not tear his eyes away from him. How badly he wanted to hold him in his arms.
“I loved you,” Hannibal shuddered suddenly.
Will’s snarl dropped, his face registering an understanding of the sincerity of that statement.
“I still…”
“No!” Will shouted at him, his face cringing, his teeth bared. “Don’t you dare, try to wax poetic about your warped perception of love!”
Hannibal was silent as Will glared down at him.
“You,” he snapped, “Were looking for someone to corrupt. Yet another head in your harem of psycho killers.”
“I was testing you,” Hannibal said, fighting off the effect of the drugs.
“Yes,” Will replied, satisfied.
“To see if you were worthy… of my confidence.”
“And?”
“I loved you,” He repeated. Will disappeared and Hannibal was once again standing in the snowy forest. “I still love you.”
“Listen carefully to the sound of my voice,” Will’s soft words moved like wind through the trees.
Something cold and heavy hung around Hannibal’s neck. The chains at his wrists were rubbing his skin raw. He began to trudge through the snow, as fast as he could manage, but his muscles ached with every move.
“You feel the irresistible need to answer each question truthfully and to the best of your knowledge.”
“By God, you’ll sing!” a far less pleasant voice hissed directly in his ear. Hannibal swung around, chains swaying with his movement. No one was there but the naked trees. He began to run again, or attempt it.
“The sound of my voice is compelling you...”
Will’s voice seemed to be coming from a certain direction now. Hannibal followed it, finally breaking through the trees and stumbling out into a small clearing. He looked down at the ground and saw mud, then soft green moss. His eyes moved upward warily.
Will Graham stood in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by lush moss and brightly-colored mushrooms. A wreath of orchids nestled around velvet-coated antlers that emerged from his head.
“Did you imprint feelings of desire in my mind?” he asked.
“No!” Hannibal gasped, approaching the beautiful mirage.
“Did you train me to want your approval?”
The princely figure stood over him. The weight of the chain around his neck pulled him to his knees on the soft earth.
“No…” he muttered, lowering his head.
“Why did you tell me you loved me?”
A gust of wind rose up and the snow from the forest began to fly in, coating the moss and the mushrooms. Will backed away into the darkness of the forest.
“Because I do!” Hannibal shouted over the roaring of the wind. “I love you so horribly that I had to physically cut you away from me before I could leave you behind.”
He collapsed into the newly formed drifts of snow. When he awoke, Will had left the cottage.
It was a full day before he returned, stomping snow from his feet. He emptied a can of soup into a pot and warmed it up. Then he brought it to Hannibal and set it on the table before his chained hands. Hannibal’s eyes were drooping and he leaned on the table for support. The sound of the spoon clinking in the bowl seemed to jolt him awake.
“It’s no black silkie chicken in a broth,” Will quipped, “but it will have to do.”
Hannibal fumbled for the spoon. The pangs in his belly were enough to sway him from attempts at preserving his dignity. He scooped up what little of the greasy, watery soup he could keep in the spoon despite his trembling hand.
Will watched him eat for a moment but gave into the urge to look away. Instead he planted his gaze on the gnarled branches of the dead tree pressed outside the cottage window. Perhaps he would let off on the drugs a bit, let him regain some strength. Then he remembered the fevers, the nightmares, the nausea, the horrible descent into self-doubt and hellish insanity. All of this was Hannibal’s doing. He should at least partake of his own literal medicine. His eyes returned to Hannibal, this time lacking any guilt.
Hannibal recognized the change in Will’s expression, and through his haze he felt like it was a sudden ray of heat. It seemed like he had turned to lay a curse upon him. He looked down at his soup and stirred up the meat and potatoes that had sunk to the bottom. With them rose two tiny pearly objects. He leaned closer and poked at them with his spoon. As they rolled over in the broth he saw what they were; a pair of baby teeth.
Hannibal shrieked and knocked over the soup bowl. It landed on the concrete floor and spun as its contents spilled over the edges. He looked back at Will in horror. How could he have known? Where did he find the information that would hurt him more than anything in this world? Did he speak of it while under the effects of the drugs? And having that information, how far into hate-induced madness must Will have delved for it to inspire him to such cruelty? His mind was swimming. Had he misjudged Will Graham even more completely than he had before? Was there something so monstrous beneath his sympathetic exterior?
“No!” he screamed at him. The young man’s face blurred as it came closer. His endearing features came into view. Then they began to twist into something more hardened, but just as familiar to him. A grizzled soldier, skin taut and ashen, loomed over him.
“Get away from me!” Hannibal cried. Tears poured down his face as he trembled in confused fear. The soldier only came closer as he scooped up the bowl and shoved it toward him. Hannibal screamed louder, desperately trying to escape his bonds. The soldier pressed the bowl against his lips and the tepid, gristly fluid began to pour over his mouth. He pulled his head away until his neck blazed with pain.
Images began to flash in front of his eyes. A scrawny deer led to slaughter. Bullets showering down upon him in the snow. Now he was trudging through it. He swung his head around to see the soldier gripping him by the arm, holding his chains against his body. He dragged him onward, to where he did not know. Suddenly he felt himself pushed down against a cushion and heard the slamming of a door. Then he plunged into awful blackness.
Will had looked down at the bowl on the floor. He mused for a moment that the thing to break Hannibal Lecter was forcing him to eat canned soup. But Hannibal was crazed and screaming as though he had laid upon him the most unfathomable torture. Something was terribly wrong.
“Dr. Lecter?” Will asked, looking into the man’s eyes. They were rolling up into his head and he was shaking violently. He was muttering gibberish and foam was forming between his lips. He darted backward when Hannibal’s hands suddenly shot up toward him, stopped short by the chains at his wrists.
“I won’t!” he screamed. Will watched, confused as Hannibal began to flail. “I won’t eat! Not this time! I will starve to death before I eat!”
Will leaned over him again, clutching the doctor’s face as he began to shudder from seizures. Suddenly Hannibal stopped shaking and began to vomit what little of the soup he had gotten down.
“Kill me!” Hannibal spat, thrashing his head back and forth. “I would rather die than eat Mischa!”
Will stood up suddenly. He knew that name. Hannibal had mentioned that he had a sister named Mischa who died in his charge. Suddenly he felt a strange feeling overcome him. It was the same way he felt when he had recovered memories of Hannibal while he was in prison. He saw a tiny plate with a tiny lit candle. He saw Hannibal’s hands resting on the keys of his harpsichord. He saw his slumped figure in the light of a Christmas tree.
“Get the fuck away from me, Hilfswillige pigs!”
The word “Hilfswillige” said by Hannibal with such contempt caused Will’s memory to restore further.
“They ripped her from my weak arms,” he remembered him saying. He remembered Hannibal’s face when he asked him why they would kill a three year old girl. Now he knew the answer to the question he had evaded that night.
A painful lump filled Will’s throat. He tried to swallow it away, but it remained. Hannibal was hyperventilating and began to choke on more vomit. Quickly, Will pushed his head forward and clapped him on the back. Then he removed his chains from the dowel on the floor and lifted him up against him. He had stopped vomiting, but was still shaking and crying in Lithuanian. He pulled the chains against himself and led Hannibal out to his car.
“It’s time to go home, Dr. Lecter,” he whispered in his ear.
Even unconscious, Hannibal’s thoughts were not at rest. Cavernous gray walls rose up around him. Rows of cots with stained, ratty blankets. The stench of disease and the bone-settling feeling that he would never be warm again.
When he opened his eyes, he was in his own bed, in his own castle. A blanket was pulled up around him. He looked down at his arms and saw there were no chains on him. To his side, on the end-table, was a pile of cloths, a basin of water, and empty cups and bowls. A face hovered over him now. Not the ghastly visage of a starving and inhumane soldier, but the doe-eyes and appealing features of Will Graham. Hannibal tried to study his face, to use it to wipe away all others he never wished to see again.
“You brought me home,” he whispered. He tried to clear away the hoarseness in his voice. Will gave him a sip of water.
“Your fever broke. You’ve been out of it for a couple of days,” Will explained. “You aspirated some fluid, hopefully you don’t have pneumonia.”
Hannibal composed himself, cleared his face of emotion.
“What now?”
“Now,” Will Graham sighed, standing up. He was wearing an undershirt and shorts, apparently having slept in the chair beside Hannibal’s bed. “I will get you something to eat.”
When Will returned, he brought with him a field tin of vegetable broth that he had heated without opening. He peeled off the lid in front of Hannibal, who recognized the gesture as a sign of good faith. Will had not put the teeth in the soup. He couldn’t have possibly known. That was in his head. He chewed on his lip, wondering what information Will had been able to gather from his episode. He lifted the can of broth to his lips and Hannibal sipped. He could see the worried expression on the young man’s face, so he took the can in both hands and emptied it quickly.
“Why…” Hannibal began, but then stopped.
Will inferred his question.
“You told me about Mischa,” Will whispered. “What they made you do.”
Hannibal blinked to keep his eyes from growing wet. He sat up and considered his adversary and the room around him with quick, darting glances. There was nothing to use as a weapon. Maybe he could gather up enough strength to overpower Will. He suddenly reached up and grabbed his captor’s throat. He pulled him closer to him, fingers ready to choke him. Will placed his hands on Hannibal’s and lowered his eyes.
“What difference does that make?” Hannibal hissed.
Will opened his eyes wide and looked back at Hannibal, clutching his wrists.
No… no… don’t look at me that way again. Hannibal studied his face. Then he loosened his grip on his throat, and moved his hands so that they cradled Will’s head. Will leaned closer to him, so that his face was almost touching his.
It couldn’t mean anything. He had been this close to him, hands on his face, gently stroking his hair, and Will had let him, even appeared affectionate, all while plotting to destroy him. Now every nerve in his body twitched, ready to be tricked again, for Will to rebuke him and send him back to the tortures he had in store. There was a time when Hannibal found Will’s unpredictability fascinating. He could be interested to see whatever came from his experiment. Just not now, when he was so vulnerable, when Will had the upper-hand in private information.
“Don’t…” Hannibal stuttered. “Please don’t lie to me.”
The words hung in the air between them, barbed with fate.
“No,” Will replied.
Hannibal shuddered, trying to keep himself from falling apart. No torture could be worse than this; Will allowing him to touch him once more, see tenderness in his eyes once more, and then rip himself away.
“I’m… afraid of you,” he confessed. It was truly the first time he had been afraid of another person since he was a small child.
The words cut Will like a scalpel. It was what he had wanted. Why was it so horrible? Hannibal kept Will’s head in his hands, even as the young man began to cry.
Crocodile tears? Hannibal had seen those before. He stared into Will’s eyes and saw his grief reflected back at him and prayed that he had never really misjudged him. Even when he had betrayed him, he looked so pained, so frightened that he had disappointed him. It was true that he called to warn him that night. There was darkness in the boy, he saw it there, but essentially he was still one of abundant empathy. He was still Will Graham. He took him home because he knew that was where he needed to be, because the pain he felt radiating off of Hannibal’s memories was burning him too. They both desperately needed relief.
Hannibal lowered his hands and Will seemed to fall over onto his shoulder, clutching at him as though he feared he might dissolve through his fingers. Hannibal rubbed Will’s back and buried his nose in his messy hair. He breathed in his scent and closed his eyes.
“You’re smelling me,” Will murmured, his lips pressed against Hannibal’s shoulder blade.
“You washed away that dreadful cologne.”
“You smell horrible,” Will said, leaning back. “Let me run you a bath.”
Hannibal struggled to his feet as Will supported him. He had been stripped to his underwear, his clothes lying in a heap across the room. And will was right, he smelled of days’ worth of sweat and vomit. It was humiliating, standing hunched over, leaning on the sink while Will ran water into the bathtub. The steam rising from it looked so inviting that it made his bones ache.
“Erm,” Will said with an awkward gesture at Hannibal’s shorts. Hannibal sniffed and pulled them off, then let Will help him lower himself into the bathtub.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Will said.
“Stay,” Hannibal interrupted, reaching for his arm. Will turned. “I could use some assistance.”
Will kneeled beside the tub and helped Hannibal wash his back, and then took over with the cloth, allowing him to relax into the hot water and just be cleaned. The doctor closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose, relishing the sensation of being touched by gentle hands again. He opened them to see Will Graham was looking over him with eyelids heavy, lashes fluttering. Hannibal reached a hand up to him. Will was startled for a moment, but then allowed the wet fingers to caress his jaw line.
“I could use a shave,” Will said.
“I imagine I could as well,” Hannibal replied. He rubbed his own stubble.
“I brought a kit.”
Will retrieved a satchel from below the sink and brought out a can of shaving cream and a razor. He lathered some cream in his hand and began to gently apply it to Hannibal’s face. The doctor let his hands rest on the edges of the tub, unable to take his eyes off of this man. Like himself, he was capable of both harsh aggression and touching tenderness. Will lifted the razor to Hannibal’s throat and began to very slowly scrape upward, clearing the white foam away. Hannibal tilted his head back, exposing his jugular. He kept his eyes on Will.
“You trust me?” Will chuckled, pausing a moment before continuing.
“I do.”
Will continued to run the razor over Hannibal’s face, rinsing the foam away with each stroke. It floated in the still water.
“I suppose I haven’t proven to be much of a threat.”
“You have more effect than you think…”
“Ssh…” Will interrupted him, shaving Hannibal’s top lip. “Don’t move your mouth.”
Hannibal’s eyes gleamed as he remained silent.
“There,” Will said, finishing. He lifted a wash cloth to the man’s face to wipe away stray spots of cream.
Hannibal put his hand on Will’s.
“You learned things about me.”
“You learned things about me,” Will replied.
“That you were so disgusted by your feelings of affection for me that you staged a crucible in order to delegitimize those feelings.”
“It wasn’t simply that those feelings existed,” Will explained. “It was the severity… and how they persisted for so long after…”
Hannibal sat up straighter, bringing his face close to Will’s once more.
He looked back at him with twitchy, uncertain movements of his head. Hannibal lifted another hand from the water and placed it on the opposite side of Will’s neck. He seemed to enjoy it, the hot water pressing against his skin, soaking into the collar of his undershirt. Hannibal murmured to him, his voice deep and lulling.
“I can’t speak as to why those feelings emerged, exactly. I didn’t plant them. Now that I am clearly at your disposal, I suppose it is entirely up to you to acknowledge or act upon them. If you still want to hurt me, I am not able to stop you. Whatever it is you want I’ll consent to.”
Will inhaled a shaky breath. Suddenly, he tilted his head and pressed his lips against Hannibal’s. He stopped as quickly as he started, trembling with eyes downcast. Hannibal moved his hands up into Will’s hair, gripping and pulling at it slightly. He forced Will’s head back and the young man closed his eyes. Will pulled forward and kissed him again, insistently. Hannibal let himself recline back into the tub, dragging him down with him. Will leaned forward until he was bent well over the edge and rested one of his hands on the floor of the tub, brushed up against Hannibal’s hip. The only sound in the room was the dripping of the faucet and occasionally the delicate sound of water moving. Hannibal stopped the kiss to take a look at his captor’s face once more. It was so sweet to him. His eyes fell on his open mouth that always curled upward at the edges, even when he was distressed, a charming trait which only made him appear more boyish and innocent. He thrust his fingers through Will’s hair and drank in those features.
Will licked his lips and leaned forward, eager to kiss again. Hannibal pulled back from him and grinned. His grin widened when he saw Will’s eyebrows knit and heard a tiny whimper emerge from his throat. He was still twitching a bit, as he tended to do when he was stressed or excited, head moving where his eyes went. He saw Hannibal’s smug expression and lifted his hips up over the edge of the tub and began to slide in on top of him with a gentle splash. He brought his legs in and straddled him, his shorts soaked. He put down all of his weight on Hannibal and kissed him hard, so that he couldn’t pull back anymore. Hannibal tangled his fingers into the back of Will’s hair and gave into his urgent kissing. He felt the cloth of Will’s shorts rubbing up against his groin and he moaned into Will’s mouth.
Will sat up and pulled off his wet shirt. Hannibal glanced at a mirror hanging on the bathroom wall and could see the lovely arch of Will’s back as he peeled the shirt away from his skin, over his head and tossed it to one side. Then he began to pull off his shorts as well. Hannibal looked back at him directly, and ran his hands up his torso, then down his abdomen, over the puckered scar line that ran across his belly. He brought his lips to it, kissing it and tracing it with his tongue.
Will leaned back and sighed, letting Hannibal grope and kiss him, allowing himself disconnect from his constantly racing thoughts. At that moment, he was no longer preoccupied with what the other person in the room was thinking and feeling. Right now, all he knew was himself; being touched, submerged waist-deep in hot water, the hard porcelain beneath his knees, and curious hands wandering over his body. He grabbed Hannibal’s arms but didn’t guide them. He wanted to feel them move as he experienced those fingers wandering over him.
Still weak from the fever and drugs, Hannibal knew that he had no defense if Will were to suddenly thrust him underneath the water and hold him down while he drowned. But, Hannibal thought, what a way to go. He ran his hands over Will’s hips and the curve of his lower back and over his bottom. He lacked the strength to lift him, to move him where he wanted him, but Will seemed more than willing to comply with his whims. He lifted himself up to his knees and let Hannibal guide himself inside of him.
The expression on Will’s face as he slid down onto him slowly, the wetness of his eyes, the fluttering of his dark lashes; all were things of bliss to him. The young man chewed his bottom lip, breath shaky as he settled down into his lap. Hannibal straightened his back and caressed Will’s collar and throat with his lips. He nibbled lightly and grinned at the sound of Will’s gasp.
“How long has this been in your mind?” he whispered, his teeth brushing against his ear.
“It’s hard to pin-point exactly,” Will answered, moving up and down. “I remember coming to you and telling you I kissed Alana Bloom. And you…”
Hannibal chuckled and grasped Will’s backside, spreading him open and massaging him. Will moaned.
“I was jealous.”
“Were you? I didn’t think that. I only remember thinking that I wanted to kiss you as well. I chalked it up to my still needing a ‘clutch for balance.’”
“Ah,” Hannibal said, “but that was before your fever. I couldn’t have been tinkering with your brain yet.”
Will lifted himself.
“I wasn’t willing to let you stab me then either.”
With that, Hannibal pulled him back down suddenly, thrusting into him with force. Enticing sounds erupted from Will’s throat as Hannibal wrapped his arms around him and used every ounce of his energy to keep them coming.
Later, as they lay together, warm and dry in the bed, there was nothing more to be said on the subject. Hannibal kept Will pressed into the enclave of his chest and arms, gently rubbing the scar he gave him with his thumb as Will nuzzled him in his animalistic way, nursing the internal scars he had given. Hannibal looked over at the empty tin of vegetable broth sitting on the end table. The reason for it struck him.
“What day is today?” he asked.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Will replied. “Tonight is Kūčios.”
“You let me keep my fast.”
Will shrugged.
“I’m not a complete monster.”
Hannibal smiled and kissed him, hands spread lovingly over his throat and jaw.
He dressed himself and chose something for Will from his own wardrobe. He was struck by waves of melancholy nostalgia, seeing Will Graham wear something he gave him. The young man looked charming in a silver pin-stripe waistcoat and a crisp white button-down shirt, the sleeves of which he was rolling up and fastening at the elbows for easy work in the kitchen. He had shaved his face and combed his curls back off of his forehead. Hannibal sat on a stool pulled up to the counter and just watched him bustle around the room, pulling items out of hiding, trying to get his bearings.
“You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” he had said.
Fish from the freezer, root vegetables from the pantry, dried herbs from the cupboards, cider from the cellar.
“No meat, no dairy,” he recited.
Hannibal looked out of the window of his kitchen to see fresh snow falling on the grounds of Castle Lecter. Tears began to form in his eyes.
“I’m not failing that terribly, am I?” Will asked in good humor.
“The teacup has come together,” Hannibal whispered. “For good, or just for tonight?”
“I can’t say,” Will answered. “Teacups are funny that way.”
The two of them set the table, making sure to leave three places open, one with a tiny plate for a tiny lost girl. As they sat and ate, Hannibal saw the light of the candles casting shadows of them upon the wall once more. The shadows were strong and dark, unwavering on their surface. Hannibal passed a broken wafer to Will. They touched hands and locked eyes as they prayed.
“God grant that we are together again next year.”