Chapter Text
“How would you like your eggs?” Hannibal asked, his back turned to Will as he stood over the stove.
Basking in the morning sunlight as it came pouring through the window, Will hummed softly. “Sunny side up, thanks,” he said, still groggy from sleep. He pulled a mug of coffee across the kitchen island and sipped, hoping that the caffeine would soon kick in.
Rather like an observer in a nature documentary, he peered at the psychiatrist in his natural habitat, cracking eggs with one hand and flipping bacon with the other. They sizzled as they hit hot iron. He was, for once, wearing a pullover rather than a pressed shirt and tie, so clearly 8am on a Sunday morning was too early even for someone like him to take seriously.
“You’re heading back to work tomorrow, aren’t you?” Will spoke.
“Yes, I have appointments starting from midday. However, my morning is free if you need assistance settling back into Wolf Trap,” he replied, arms moving in neat, careful motions.
Will rubbed his thumb over the fine ceramic handle of his cup, pursing his lips at the reminder of his swiftly approaching solitude.
He’d made the difficult decision to have his dogs cared for by a local farmer for the first two weeks of his recovery. Wrangling seven energetic hounds was a handful at the best of times, let alone with two mostly fresh wounds crossing the latitude of his torso, but that didn’t make it any easier to rationalise their absence, the dismal loneliness of a silent home.
He let out a soft sigh. “It’s going to feel wrong there,” he murmured. “Only my breaths to hear, only my footsteps on the floorboards. The only time it’s ever just been me there alone was the month after I first moved there and, uh, well... straight after my release from prison.”
Taking the pan off the heat, Hannibal half turned and watched him with slightly narrowed eyes as he slid their food onto two identical plates.
Will expected some kind of philosophical spiel, so he was surprised when Hannibal instead set down their food and perched on a stool beside him.
“You’re welcome to stay longer,” he replied as he unfolded a napkin and placed it on his lap. “My home is yours if you want it.”
Huffing under his breath, Will picked up his utensils and began to dismantle the perfect display Hannibal had made for him. “Is it wise to grow comfortable in a bed of snakes?”
He knew that every moment he spent with Hannibal was another drop of poison in his ear, another step towards that thing he feared and desired in equal measure. However, that knowledge didn’t change the longing, the divine ache of Hannibal’s talons as they slid deeper and deeper into his flesh. Will didn’t want to be free of him, didn’t want the pink scars of Hannibal’s absence to paint his skin just yet.
“That depends on the snake,” Hannibal replied lightly. “A snake with a full belly and nothing to fear need not strike its company.”
Side eyeing the cannibal, Will watched him dig into his breakfast cheerily. His subtle observations were cut short when Hannibal caught him looking and winked.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re ridiculous?” Will asked, splitting the yolks of the fried eggs with his knife.
“No one alive,” was the nonchalant response.
He stayed.
Jack protested against the change of plans at first, but it only took subtly pointing out that Will would have unsupervised access to the entirety of Hannibal’s home to sway his opinion. Vehement disagreement softened to resignation within minutes and then turned to poorly disguised ambitious delight within seconds. A carefully worded request for photographs later and the conversation concluded.
The swift exchange left an unpleasant taste on Will’s lips, one that he knew well.
Resentment.
It was one thing to intellectually know that he was simply Jack’s tool, but it was another to see it laid out before him so plainly. A tool first, a person second. His happiness and wellbeing was an afterthought.
To Jack Crawford there was no level of personal risk and suffering too extreme when a villain could be put behind bars and Will was his latest log on the fire. At least his bull headed determination made him easy to manipulate.
“There’s additional wine storage down in the basement you could photograph. Oh, and a couple legs of cured meats there as well,” Hannibal offered, when he relayed the conversation back to him. “Most of the house should be safe to document, even the attic. But you’re welcome to photograph what you like and I’ll happily vet them.”
“It’s not human ham, is it?”
Hannibal approximated a roll of the eyes, mouth slightly ajar, eyes raised to the heavens as he turned to where Will was reclined on the chaise lounge. “Alas, I can’t eat my preferred meats at all times. There are instances where it becomes necessary to eat mass produced protein.”
“For special occasions like FBI investigations?”
“And when my schedule is too busy for my usual method of grocery procurement. I don’t always have time for a weekly hunt.”
On Monday, Will mostly slept and idly flicked through a beaten copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as he waited for Hannibal to return home.
Tuesday proved to be more of a challenge. Hannibal had left for work before Will had dragged his sorry ass out of bed, leaving breakfast and lunch in Tupperware dishes for him to scavenge from and only solitude as his company.
By Wednesday, he was close to pulling out his own hair. (The only saving grace being that he still couldn’t reach his arms above his head high enough to get a good grip.)
Aching and bored, Will was too agitated to sleep, but too tired to do anything more productive. More than anything, it grated on his nerves that he’d so quickly grown used to Hannibal’s presence, so dependant on his company. He’d allowed himself to be swallowed whole and still hadn’t found the strength to claw his way out.
On Thursday, instead of wallowing, he did what he did best, he investigated.
Every room in Hannibal’s home was another artwork, another stage set for a performance. It may as well have been an antique or curio store, filled to the brim with the strange and wonderful. Some of it was for show, like the cabinet filled with a complete set of bone china crockery that’d never been used. Others parts were more tailored to Hannibal’s design, the antlers and animal bones too morbid for polite company.
Samurai armour in the master bedroom entrance.
A collection of intricately painted teacups set on a high shelf above a writing desk.
A folder filled with photographs of collapsed churches and newspaper clippings in one of the bedside cabinets.
With each room Will inspected, it became clearer and clearer than it was not a home designed by a man with old money sensibilities and little else. The house was designed with a hedonistic gluttony that belied a disregard for social convention. The hunger for pleasure reeked of something desperate, something that’d starved to the brink of oblivion and was left forever changed by it.
Maybe scarcity fuelled the creature’s clawing greed. Maybe absence left him salivating at the slightest scent of blood.
When Hannibal returned that evening after a full day of appointments, he flicked through the photographs Will had taken, occasionally deleting ones that contained something toeing the line of legality.
As he did so, Will stood behind his chair, hand resting on the back as he watched the man at work. He noted the way the screen’s light left a pallid glow on his fingertips, illuminating dark eyes with a stark glint. Hannibal held the phone at an angle that left him with a slight double chin. It gave him a pleasing softness that Will knew to be treacherous yet enticing all the same. He wanted to know what it’d feel like to have that soft flesh trapped between his teeth.
Will didn’t generally think of men that way. He didn’t think of Hannibal that way either.
Well, usually.
But there was his own hunger nonetheless, the painful wanting of something just within reach. He imagined Hannibal as full of thorns as he slid his hand onto the man’s shoulder, but the fabric was soft and warmed by the body beneath. Muscles tensed and he saw Hannibal’s finger stall on the crystal screen.
Emboldened by the reaction, Will ran his hand along his shoulder until skin met skin. With light fingers, he brushed Hannibal’s neck, making his way upwards and feeling the gently prickling suggestion of an afternoon shadow, the slight thrum of his pulse.
The only noise was an uneven breath and the rustle of fabric as Hannibal set the phone on his lap. Will leant over him, stroked along his cheek and caressed the stark lines of his temple with a foreign fascination. The touch was returned with pressure and a searching weight, the man’s eyes half closed as he drank in Will’s attention earnestly.
Will felt his hunger grow a deeper shade of red.
“How does it feel to orchestrate my betrayal of Jack? To guide my hands with the blade I plan to sever my connections to the polite world with?” he spoke softly, circling the arch of Hannibal’s ear with his thumb.
The monster’s hum would’ve sounded like a purr in a different light. “I am grateful,” he whispered. “To be the tool that carves your impressions upon the world, it is an honour.”
“You speak the same way a pious man would.”
“I am your devoted. You are more tangible than any god, more righteous, more wrathful. I would hate to worship something I couldn’t smell, something that held no warmth, something that I was unable to touch.”
His eyelids were thin, the skin delicate like gold leaf as Will smoothed his eyes closed. “And like a true believer you only seem to act on my desires when they align with your own. Curious that,” he sniped lightly, pressing at the line between his brows until Hannibal relaxed his features, gave in to his ministrations.
“No worshipper is without sin,” Hannibal replied, as if the sin in question didn’t include shoving a teenage girl’s ear down his throat and dissecting Will’s favourite colleague into slices.
“Would you repent?” Will asked.
The creature tipped its head back to rest against his shoulder, neck vulnerable and free for his perusal. “Would you forgive?”
Yes.
No.
He didn’t know.
He didn’t want to believe he had the capacity to forgive Hannibal for the horrors he’d committed. They were both under no illusions regarding Hannibal’s nature, but what would it say about him?
What kind of man forgives the devil his crimes and still welcomes him into his arms and his bed? What kind of man finds solace in the burning heat of the hellfire and delights in the taste of sulphur on his lips?
Not a good one.
The trouble was that he still so desperately wanted to be good. He’d once believed he was, before the ache in his teeth, before a hundred eyes had gazed over him and found him unworthy. It was difficult to be certain of yourself and your identity when people screamed abomination in your ears, when the softest parts of yourself were deemed dirty, filthy things deserving of amputation.
Cut away half your soul to free yourself from its rot. Strip your desires to the bone and butcher the meat of your self, and then, maybe then, you will be good.
Goodness felt like a hollow prize.
When the darkness was loving, promising absolution and peace, it became more and more tempting to let go of the goodness. Such a sweet relief.
“I don’t know,” he repeated aloud this time.
Hannibal’s hair was like down feathers as Will rested his cheek against his crown, taking several deep breathes. The smell was familiar. Something clean with the barest suggestion of mint, undercut with warmth. Reaching down, Will dragged his fingers across the fine fabric of Hannibal’s shirt, before his arm settled around his neck. He didn’t apply pressure.
It was the perfect pose, the perfect angle to hold tight and twist until there was a crack.
Hannibal’s hand remained in his lap, but the twitch of his fingers showed that he knew Will’s thoughts as well as his own.
Will relaxed his grip after a moment, sighing softly.
“I need to do my testosterone shot tonight,” he murmured into his ear. “Would you like to do it for me?”
“Do you dislike needles?” Hannibal replied easily.
“Not especially, I just thought you might enjoy it.”
Opening his eyes, Hannibal smiled up at him with crooked teeth. “Oh, I would.”
Once the photos were sorted, Will took out his medicine supplies from his luggage and showed them off to Hannibal in a similar way he imagined other men showed off their new cars or a particularly interesting golf club to their friends. The psychiatrist looked at the testosterone cypionate bottle with a sort of soft fascination, rolling it between his fingers and holding it up to the lamp on Will’s bedside table.
“Controlled substance, that,” Will remarked as he sat on the edge of his bed, laying out his supplies and sliding off his pyjamas pants. “Although I’m sure you’re familiar enough with those.”
Hannibal continued to consider the bottle. “I am, although I haven’t had much use for this specific drug.”
“I don’t suppose testosterone has the kind of malicious potential you’re interested in,” Will said, opening a fresh syringe. “More harm done in just denying people it.”
Setting the bottle down, Hannibal perched beside Will and watched him at work. It was more than a little nerve-wracking to have a qualified medical doctor inspect his likely haphazard method, but he’d been doing it for over a decade, dammit.
“Denying people their inner desires has never been my particular brand of cruelty,” Hannibal replied simply.
Will hummed bitterly to himself as he attached the drawing needle. “And that makes you more suited to gender affirming healthcare than many of the clinicians I’ve dealt with over the years. I used black market hormones for a long time, up until I moved to Virginia actually. My defective brain ensured that most doctors didn’t want to touch my case with an eleven foot barge pole.”
Hannibal’s jaw tightened in his peripheral vision as Will focused on drawing out the correct dose.
“Would I know any of them?”
The question was asked so lightly, so innocently, Will almost answered in his distraction, but he stopped himself and pursed his lips as he capped the filled syringe.
He side eyed the cannibal.
“We’re not eating those doctors.”
Hannibal raised his chin. “You wouldn’t have to.”
Will huffed as he swapped the needle for a fresh one. “It’s not about the cannibalism. I don’t want them dead, Hannibal. Hundreds of trans people depend on them for their hormones. Even if I was angry enough to kill them myself, I still wouldn’t.”
The man dropped his gaze and considered his shoes for a moment, lips parted in thought. “The ability for others to transition overcomes your desire for retribution,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“I felt like I was living a half life,” Will said, “before. It was like looking through fogged glass, like I was just going through the motions of staying alive. Every day, I was living a lie, like I was waiting for my life start, but unable to move forward because there was nowhere to go. No one deserves to live their life that way, and it’s already hard enough dealing with how disgusted people are by your very existence without having your doctor turn up dead with a missing liver.”
The serial killer watched him, the feeling of his eyes an intense weight against his skin, but then there was a breath and the moment past.
“I would’ve made an excellent pâté,” Hannibal lamented, but it was a light statement without weight. “Another time, perhaps.”
“I’m sure you’ll find another opportunity. Anyway, here.” Will held out the prepared syringe.
Hannibal took it carefully and inspected the needle. “Ah, subcutaneous?”
Patting the meat of his thigh, he nodded and paused to clean the spot down with a wipe. “Yup. Have fun.”
It probably wasn’t wise to give a man with over a decade of medical malpractice under his belt free reign over his body, but he figured he was well past the point of complaint.
Hannibal slid off the side of the mattress and crouched in front of him. He suspected the lower vantage point was less for accuracy and more for the sake of voyeurism.
A firm hand pinched the fat at the side of his thigh and without hesitation there was the prick of the needle. It was alien not doing it himself and he watched as Hannibal slowly pressed down the plunger with hawk-like precision. Before long, it was done and he discarded the needle to one side, pressing the alcohol pad to the tiny mark he’d left.
“Simple,” Will remarked, placing on a tiny Band-Aid.
Hannibal remained quiet and rather than get up, he sunk the floor, resting his forehead on Will’s knee.
“Simple, but not insignificant,” he replied. “It pleases me to have a hand in your happiness.”
Smiling slightly, Will inspected Hannibal’s dark smudge of eyelashes where they were contrasted against Will’s paler skin. “You can do my next shot as well, if it means that much to you.”
“Thank you,” was the reverent reply.
Long fingers stroked at his shin, flattening the coarse leg hair with each motion. Hannibal contented himself with touches to Will’s leg as if each inch was a new world to be documented and explored.
The huff of hot air as Hannibal took several long, sniffing breaths made Will’s eyebrows rise.
“Are you like this with everyone you see half-naked?” Will questioned as Hannibal rubbed his cheek against his calf.
“No.” Fingers dragged over the bones of Will’s ankle, running down to his heel and along the arch of his foot. “I am an excellent, but entirely unremarkable sexual partner. Memorable for the correct reasons and nothing more.”
Fuck, the last thing Will needed to think about while Hannibal was knelt between his thighs was the man’s sex life. Unfortunately, one of the curses of an overactive imagination was that... well, his imagination tended to be overactive.
“Vanilla?”
Oh god, he was making it worse.
Hannibal pressed his nose to his knee, the heat of his breath warm and moist. “Entirely,” he said. “I never left a bruise that was unasked for, never took liberties, and never insisted upon suffocating intimacies after the fact. No awkwardness and no regrets.”
“You were a mirror of their desires,” Will said, shivering a little as the cannibal took another deep breath. “Almost professional.”
“There was no point otherwise. Why engage with another person that way if you waste their future utility for the sake of momentary pleasure?”
Will had a horrible suspicion that Hannibal had been more interested in rummaging through his previous lovers’ personal belongings than in the sex itself. And yet, there was a perverse glee in the knowledge that Alana was another of Hannibal’s pawns, another piece to be moved around and manipulated like every other conquest. She hadn’t seen him like this, tousled and half feral, but he had.
This was all for him and him alone.
Those curved lips pushed against his knee, sliding towards his inner thigh. It was barely a movement, no more a couple inches but it had his breaths halt, his hands tense against the bedsheets.
“Practical in affection and immoderate in violence. What an enigma you were,” Will murmured weakly.
Teeth grazed the sensitive skin. “Were?”
“I think the lines are blurring for you,” he said, rubbing his thumb beside the injection site. “Violence and affection converging. Practicality no longer serves your passions the way it used to and I’m not sure you know how to handle that.”
Dark eyes stared up at him.
Was this how it felt to be one of those eccentric millionaires who kept pet leopards on leashes? That thrill of power tinged with fear and the ever thin line between safety and disaster.
In a moment, teeth flashed and Hannibal bit him.
Hard.
“Fuck!”
He let out a pained gasp, face twisting and hands clutching for stability. It hurt, God, it fucking hurt. Hannibal’s teeth were sharp, his bite unwavering and his hands unyielding against Will’s reflexive jerk of muscle.
Chest heaving, Will took open mouthed breaths as he fought back a grin. “You feral son of a bitch,” he whispered through gritted teeth, running his fingers through Hannibal’s hair. He didn’t attempt to pull him off, part of him delighting in the heat of agony, the sting of bliss.
Eventually, Hannibal released him and lathed his tongue over the swiftly reddening welts he’d left. Will was almost surprised that he hadn’t broken skin. It would definitely bruise.
“I won’t grace that with a response,” Hannibal said against his skin before finally pulling away. “You are a uniquely destructive influence in my life, one that I am constantly in a shifting equilibrium of horror and joy over. You strike me with despair and contentment like I have never known before. A terror. A nightmare.”
Will ran his thumb along the line of Hannibal prominent brow. “How strange, to be the thing that monsters have nightmares about.”
Hannibal kissed the bite a final time. “What is a man, if not the reason why monsters hide from daylight?”
Despite himself, he smiled. “The monster of monsters.”
The look was fond as Hannibal got back up to his feet in a single lithe movement, primly dusting the imaginary dust from his knees.
“I should care to feed this creature of mine the nutrients he needs,” he said magnanimously. “How about a dessert with dinner tomorrow?”
“A dessert or the dessert?”
“The dessert, I think,” Hannibal confirmed, eyes alight with some awakened excitement that didn’t make it to his otherwise careful expression. “Would you like to join me for the preparations?”
“Of course,” Will replied, zipping his medical kit closed. “I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”
Will sat opposite Hannibal on a metal stool as the serial killer went about arranging a tray of medical materials. He’d discarded his waistcoat (well, discarded was an overstatement. He’d very carefully removed the garment and left in neatly folded away out of harms way) and his shirt sleeve was rolled up to his bicep. Will was fixated by the pale skin revealed at the crook of his elbow.
“The recipe calls for 475ml of fresh blood, which is the same volume as a standard blood donation,” Hannibal explained as he fastened a tourniquet around his upper arm and rested it on the cold steel of his operating table.
It was the first time Will had been down to the basement while conscious and he’d added several more safely angled photographs to his growing collection for Jack when Hannibal had given him a tour of the place.
In a way, it was strange to be down there. He’d half hoped that the sight of Hannibal’s knives, bone saws, angle grinders and other bits of murder memorabilia would’ve made him snap back into a reality where good and bad were clear cut things and not a clouded swirling mix of muddied water. But he saw the space much as he saw his lure tying desk, a place of creation long hidden by isolation, his morality just as corrupt as it’d been before he’d followed Hannibal down the darkened staircase.
Nursing a glass of wine, his sipped the drink and savoured the taste of the alcohol, the first Hannibal had allowed since the operation.
“Blood really is quite versatile, isn’t it?” Will said, letting out a contented noise as he watched the progress of those blue gloved hands. “Life, death, and even chocolate pudding.”
“It’s an excellent ingredient, a personal favourite of mine,” Hannibal agreed distractedly as he felt for a blood vessel.
There was the sharp scent of alcohol as he tore open a wipe packet and diligently disinfected his skin. The needle was thicker and far more menacing than the one Will had used the day before, but Hannibal slid it into his skin without a flinch or even the slightest indication of pain.
The tube connecting the donation bag to his arm filled with red and Will leaned over the table to watch as the blood began to pool.
Hannibal smiled across at him. “It’ll take a few minutes to collect the full amount.”
Will set down his wine and stood up, walking around the table. He stooped a little to brush his fingertips over the surface of the plastic container. The blood within warmed the material to the touch, shifting at the slightest application of pressure.
His mouth was wet with saliva.
“Perfect,” he murmured.
Once enough had been harvested, Hannibal placed a small cotton ball over the mark to stem to flow of blood.
He’d made a start on dinner only minutes later, acting as if he hadn’t just lost 10% of his total blood volume. When Will had tried to point out that fact, the madman continued to mince his garlic regardless, lecturing him on the culinary advantages of fresh blood.
The savoury portion of their dinner was, for once, people free. Will suspected Hannibal didn’t want to have an unwelcome third wheel on their plates, detracting from his own offering.
The salmon was delicious, but a distraction from the main event.
Hannibal came in with two plates, a bowl carefully arranged on each. He set one in front Will before placing the second at his own seat.
“Sanguinaccio dolce,” he spoke softly as he sat, taking up his spoon.
Will matched his movements, their spoons dipping into the dark dish at the same time. Their eyes met as they both took the first taste.
Will allowed the spoon to linger against his lips as he swallowed. The dessert was still warm and the metal cool, the chocolate so perfectly balanced against the metallic salty tang of blood. It was smooth and rich and he closed his eyes for a moment to savour it, documenting every taste, every smell.
When he opened his eyes, Hannibal was staring across the table at him, lips darkened by his own blood. There was an odd unspoken tension there and he wondered if the experience was just as surreal for him as it was for Will.
For the first time, the apex predator found himself on the dinner plate.
He licked his lips and went in for another spoonful. “I should’ve expected this,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You are as indulgent in taste as you are in aesthetics. Delight, with the sharp edge to match.”
The serial killer took another mouthful before he spoke, a pleased glint to his eye. “Do you approve?”
Will held it on his tongue this time, humming in contentment. “You taste excellent. I’ve desired your blood on many occasions, but I didn’t anticipate it being quite so sweet. There’s catharsis to consumption isn’t there?”
“Consumption is the ultimate end,” Hannibal responded softly, reverently. “It is our beginning, middle and end. We live on consumption and are consumed upon death. There is no greater resolution, no conclusion more profound than to be another creature’s dinner.”
“What is this the end of?” Will asked, observing the way the man’s eyes traced the movement of his spoon so intently.
Hannibal’s lips parted for a moment and he took a short breath.
“Singularity,” he murmured, so softly it was almost muffled by the sound of their crockery. “I hope.”
“I felt it to,” Will replied. “The loneliness.”
“For the longest time, I didn’t think myself of myself as lonely. Loneliness requires a desire for something else, the longing for something more, for connection. I was content being alone until I realised that there were other options.”
Will adjusted just grip on his spoon. “The realisation that you weren’t quite as singular as you thought.”
“Indeed. It’s easier to be content being unknown when you believe that you are unknowable.”
“Easier to see yourself as something beyond comprehension, rather than something too repulsive to deserve comprehension,” Will said, eyes flicking up to watch the slight frown on the man’s lips.
Hannibal turned back to his food for a time. “I’ve never cared much about how others view me.”
“But you care about being understood, don’t you? As long as I understood you, you would happily take my hatred or my desire.”
The man licked his spoon clean. “Or both simultaneously.”
The study was warm, a fire merrily burning in the hearth. Hannibal was sat opposite him, the soft scratching of graphite against paper one of the few noises interrupting the otherwise perfect quiet of crackling flames.
Will considered the man. A single stray strand of hair had escaped its slicked back prison since dinner had ended, now dangling dangerously at the edge of his high cut cheeks.
There was a question niggling in the base of his skull, one that made been forming and brewing for quite some time. Only now, it was closer to his lips, begging to be asked.
“Hannibal?” he spoke. Will sipped his third glass of wine for that evening. The cranberry juice substitute he’d been drinking for the last two weeks really hadn’t done the real thing justice.
Eventually the other man paused in his work, dark eyes peering across at him for a moment.
“Yes?”
“Are you attracted to me... sexually?” Will asked, the low notes of his question somehow even muffling the sound of the pencil.
He was surprised by how long it took for Hannibal to respond. He’d been expecting an abrupt answer, but by the way the man considered his drawing, he could tell it would be a little more complicated than that.
“I am attracted to you in every manner I experience attraction,” he replied slowly, turning his head upwards and holding the pencil loosely between his fingers. “I want to know you in every way possible. Intellectually, emotionally and, yes, sexually. You are beautiful to me. I could lay my eyes upon you for all eternity and never tire of the sight. However, I am not attracted to you sexually, at least not in the way most would understand. Sex is a means to an end, an action rather than a way in which I desire. It takes on the intent of the parties involved, whether it be affection or manipulation, or purely the pursuit of pleasure. Likewise, I find bodies beautiful, but their beauty is in the curves and poise of muscles, in the contrast between the colour of one’s eyes and the tone of their hair, or the way light strikes the skin. They are a medium of art to me, not an object of want.”
In his words, Will caught a glimpse of the mind beneath and he gripped the thread, following the trail back through his memories.
He understood.
“The Chesapeake Ripper is not sexually motivated, despite often stripping his victims naked. The clothes, sometimes they get in the way of the composition, don't they?”
Hannibal’s eyes were soft with delight. “I enjoy the purity of the human form. Clothes are often an unnecessary embellishment.”
Despite the soreness in his muscles, Will leant forward. “You don’t see the world in the same way others do, do you?”
“Do you?” Hannibal replied.
Will conceded the point with a wry smile. “Hannibal, when you look at a body, you don’t just see a body, do you?”
And there it was, the pleasure of understanding.
“I see the body, yes, but also I see the world the body is within. I see the things that brought it there, the forces that shaped its design and decoration, and I see where it will go. More than simply a body, I see the skin, the muscle, the ligaments, the bones. I know the names of the blood vessels. I see the lines and the symmetry, the way it takes up space.”
“You see in multitudes,” Will stated. “You don’t have my empathy, but your brain is nonetheless a unique thing in its own right. A constant orchestra of thoughts and associations, strings twisting and looping and knotting but never tangling.”
Hannibal set his pencil and paper on a small table, crossing his legs one over the other. The fire light softened some of the harshness to his face. “I walk in a world made of patterns and constructs that most are blind to. While I see what they do, I am unable to blind myself sufficiently to pretend that I live in the same reality as them.”
“Do they resent you for it?”
“Yes,” Hannibal replied. “They demanded I constrain myself to their visions of humanity, so I created the illusion of a man that would suit their expectations of me. I find humanity... stifling, a box in which I was never meant to fit.”
Will paused.
What kind of horror and grinding trauma could cause someone to discard their humanity and find freedom in their own monstrosity? Just how painful was the burden of conformity that discarding the comfort of belonging became preferable?
He hated that he understood it. There was part of him that ached for the freedom of what Hannibal had. How long had he tried to grovel his way into polite society, only to be told that there was more of him that required sanitation, more of him that deserved suppression? The concept of simply cutting himself free of those bonds was more tantalising than ever.
He was so tired.
“You don’t hate the rude just because they’re rude,” Will murmured. “You use etiquette as the framework for your understanding of humanity, the reference you use to interact with a society that isn’t your own. When they trample over those boundaries, they cease to be human to you. They become ugly shapes, filthy animals in the neatness of your world. Why am I different? Why is my rudeness excusable?”
Hannibal smiled, a terrible fondness to his features.
“You are more than human. You are like me, at least in some measure. The rudeness of pigs renders them filth, but you are a creature too different to ever be contained by the bounds of politeness. Why would I hold you to standards that you are not designed to meet?”
Will released a long breath, dragging his fingers through his hair, almost wanting to rip it from his scalp. He understood it. Oh god, he understood him.
Screwing up his eyes, he buried his head in his hands. His chest ached. “You don’t see me as human,” he whispered. “It should hurt to hear that, but it doesn't. Why?”
“In the past, they believed you not worthy of humanity. I believe humanity is not worthy of you. Where they diminished you, I see you as remarkable.”
That was it, wasn’t it?
Where others had seen disorders, deviance and deficiencies, Hannibal saw beauty and value. To Hannibal there were pigs and swine, the meat of world that would one day grace his plate, and then there was humanity, the grey drudgery of mostly uninteresting faces, with the occasional offer of entertainment. Above it all, Hannibal watched them. Only now, apparently, Will was by his side.
Without truly understanding why, Will got to his feet. His body still ached with the effort of it, but each day it got a little easier, each step a little easier than the last.
His fingers brushed the heavy parchment paper Hannibal had been using and in the strokes of graphite, he recognised himself. It wasn’t the stylised tableau he expected from Hannibal, no posing or particular artistic angle to the way he’d been drawn. Instead, it was just him sat in his armchair, drink clasped in his hands, his face relaxed with something close to contentment.
“You see me,” Will said, forcing himself to not smudge the work with his fingertips as it set it to one side.
“You see me too,” Hannibal replied, face turned up to observe him.
It took less than a step, just a slight lean forward.
It was so simple, so easy to claim his lips with his own.
The cannibal’s mouth was welcoming and warm, gentle to Will’s attentions. It was as if he meant to savour him, as if to treasure him. Will hadn’t ever felt treasured before. But, he did then, as Hannibal kissed him in return, fingers brushing Will’s jaw, coaxing him closer and yet careful to not disturb his healing wounds as he encouraged him to perch on the chair's armrest. Hands that could break and mend in equal measure touched him, caressed him, never venturing too far or too fast.
Hannibal finally pulled away, his lips glistening and slightly reddened. He reached up and clasped Will’s face between his hands, forehead pressed to forehead, his eyes unwavering in their stare. They looked almost wet.
“Will,” he whispered in the way one would say a prayer.
Will’s breaths were ragged. From the kiss or his emotions, he didn’t know.
“Everyday, you push me closer to the edge of letting go,” he breathed, gripping Hannibal’s arm. “What will you do when I fall? Will you catch me or do you intend for me to hit the concrete below?”
Hannibal stroked Will’s neck, his lips parted and inviting. “I can’t predict where you’ll fall, but I’ll be nearby to help you to your feet.”
Will kissed him again, clutching the back of his neck. He stole the remaining taste of wine and blood from his lips, relishing the soft noise the man made as he claimed Hannibal’s mouth with his tongue. Like everything else about him, it was indulgent and hedonistic. The wet slide of lips was like gorging himself on the softest and sweetest of fruits. The sound of his breath cut short was swallowed by Will’s undying hunger for more.
He wanted more of this. He didn’t want this to end. He didn’t want to return to a dull reality without Hannibal by his side.
He hated him. He hated this man, this monster, this creature of pain and blood and beauty.
But, oh god, he loved him as well.
When they parted, they were quiet for all but the sounds of heavy breathes. Hannibal was rapt and Will wondered if he looked similarly affected.
“My sweetest agony,” Hannibal whispered. “My most beloved torment. Will, you ruin me.”
Will leant in close, grazing his teeth against the shell of his ear.
“Good,” he said.
Going to bed proved to be a stranger affair than their usual dance of murmured goodnights and mutual parting.
They stood in the darkness of the upstairs hall for while, both silent and watchful like a pair of creatures prowling in the blackness of a treeline. Hannibal’s eyes were all but obscured apart from the single glint against his iris, his frame seemingly longer and more predatory without the mellowing influence of light.
How many people had seen this shadow of his in their last moments?
“I suppose I should say my farewells and bid you a goodnight,” came the low voice.
“I suppose you could,” Will responded.
Neither of them moved and Hannibal didn’t speak further. Separation after the revelations of that evening seemed like a kind of mild torture, as if it was too soon, the wound too fresh to be exposed to the air just yet.
“If you wanted, ah,” Will began, before he cleared his throat to gather his fortitude, “you could sleep in my room for tonight.”
The shadow didn’t speak for a moment, the almost silent sound of swallowing barely audible to Will’s straining ears. “We are at our most vulnerable when we sleep,” he murmured.
“You’ve already had me on your chopping block, so I’m not too worried about you getting peckish overnight, if that’s your concern.”
“I’m not the only person in the dark, Will.”
Will didn’t breathe for several seconds, his heart thundering in his chest. “Despite what some might say, I’ve never actually killed someone while unconscious,” he replied. “The most you have to worry about is a possible elbow to the jaw.”
The silence lingered long enough for Will to become aware of his heart beat, eyes still fixed on the patch of darkness before him.
Then there was a soft sigh.
“I’ll be sure to stay out of your elbow’s line of attack then,” Hannibal stated. “If you give me a minute to change, I’ll join you soon enough.”
Fingers caressed his cheek and then Hannibal slunk away, the corridor briefly illuminated as Hannibal’s bedroom door opened and closed. For a moment, Will remained still and quiet where he stood, listening to the shuffle of fabric in the other room, before he retreated to his own territory.
There was an alien mundanity to the ritual of changing his dressings, getting dressed in pyjamas and brushing his teeth. In some way, he’d thought that the world might descend into chaos, into surrealist vignettes as Hannibal’s influence on the walls of his mind grew ever deeper. But no, there he was, staring at himself in the en-suite mirror, a toothpaste stain on his chin and a yawn at his lips.
He looked the same. His skin still felt the same under his fingers, but he was nonetheless aware that something had changed, irreparably.
Using his pillows, he built himself a soft pile to prop himself up on. Laying flat still hurt and the elevation helped minimise some of his ill advised night-time shifting as he healed.
There was little comfort in the sheets as he waited in the dark.
He didn’t hear footsteps, but he heard the door open and the click of it being closed again. The next warning he received was the creak of the mattress as it dipped on the other side of the bed. Suddenly, there was a body beside him, a weight, a heft and a warmth pushing up against his side. An arm slinked beneath the covers to rest on the soft flesh of his belly, only the thin fabric of his pyjamas granting him safety.
“I didn’t take you for a cuddler,” Will said under his breath as a pointed nose prodded at his shoulder.
The response was a low hum. “Typical behaviours become irrelevant where you are concerned.”
With a soft sigh, Will closed his eyes and rested his head against Hannibal’s, basking in their proximity and the sound of his breaths. He stoked the back of his hand, grasping it gently in his own. "Who holds the Devil, let him hold him well."
He wouldn't lose a second time.