Chapter Text
Hannibal woke up with his head pounding and his mouth dry. He felt disoriented and weak, like he had been forcefully sedated. He tried to rub his forehead to ease the pain, then realized that his hands were tied together behind his back, cuffed. He blinked, feeling soft sheet under his cheek. He was lying sideway on his bed. His right shoulder didn't ache under the weight, which meant that he hadn't been in this position for long. He wondered who could've had the audacity to leave him back in his own house after attacking him, then almost gagged as the scent of the atrocious aftershave Will liked to wear hit him, unprepared.
A pair of strong arms pulled him up into a sitting position and offered a glass of water. Hannibal drank, blind. If Will had wanted to kill him, he already had plenty of time to do so.
"Did you," Hannibal opened his mouth after he drank enough water to feel like his parched throat was made of living tissues instead of dry sandpapers. He had to compose himself so that he wouldn't dry heave at the smell. "Did you pour your aftershave all over my body?"
"Yes," came the simple answer.
"May I ask why?"
"You puked," Will answered sweetly. "I thought you'd appreciate my aftershave more than the smell of puke."
Hannibal doubted it, as he was hoping that he could've been born with a less acute nose for the first time in his life.
"Next time, please refrain from doing so."
"I will," Will said as he took the cup away. Then more softly, tentatively, he asked, "Do you remember what happened?"
Hannibal regulated his breathing, trying to concentrate. It was also in his best interest to remember. "I remember," he said, licking his lips. "I remember, sitting in my office."
"Were you waiting for me?"
"Your appointment time is still open."
Will nodded and walked to sit on the chair he had dragged in front of the bed. The room was mercifully dark save for the lamp near the bed. Hannibal didn't think he could stand bright white light at the moment.
"What else do you remember?" Will questioned.
"Nothing," he said, trying not to feel unnerved at the blank space in his head, like a film carelessly cut to black. "I guess you drugged me in my office?"
Will's face shuttered. "Yes."
Will fell silent after that. Rather than trying to strike a conversation, Hannibal took the opportunity to study Will closer. He thought it'd be the key to understanding the situation he was in. Will was dressed in all black from head to toe, the jacket form fitting, the shoes gleaming at the end of the crossed legs. The shaggy hair he'd seen at the kitchen was neatly trimmed and slicked back, save for the one curl falling into his forehead. His eyes had also changed, the anger and confusion Hannibal had seen in the kitchen reigned in tight. The eyes were now radiating faint echo of tiredness and resentment, along with something deeper and darker, something Hannibal couldn't decipher, for it had been sunk out of sight.
"I discovered a truth about myself when I tried to have you killed," said Will, breaking Hannibal's concentration.
"That doing bad things to bad people makes you feel good," Hannibal returned smoothly, as if he'd been expecting this conversation all along.
"Yes," Will said.
"Do you fantisize about killing me?"
Will smiled and leaned back, interlacing his fingers. "What makes you think I stopped at a fantasy?"
Hannibal paused. This Will was going above and beyond his expectation. He thought Will would have purged his urge to make a life threatening confrontaion with him after that night in the kitchen. Hannibal flexed his hands. He could easily break out of the cuff if he chose to, but he was curious to see where Will was going with this.
"How do you plan to kill me?"
"I already did," said Will. "You're in the aftermath."
At Hannibal's uncomprehending look, Will explained. "A day has already passed. It's 12:41 a.m. You're in Baltimore, Maryland and your name is Hannibal Lecter."
"How kind of you to remind me," Hannibal responded automatically while the cogs in his heads were busy turning. There was no need for Will to lie about something so easy to check as time. The lie wouldn't last long enough for Will to do anything about it. And if what he was saying was true... "What did you do, Will?"
"I've been thinking," Will said, standing up. He took a step closer to Hannibal. Hannibal wondered if Will would try to wring his neck, but he didn't do anything as drastic. He simply put his hand on Hannibal's shoulder, eyes intent on his face. Hannibal stood still, staring. The hand wasn't in a particularly threatening area, but Will wasn't the type to touch people casually. Afterall, Hannibal himself had been careful with touching Will lest the man's barrier go up. The gesture had to mean something. While Hannibal discarded one theory after another as an explanation, something like disappointment flashed through Will's eyes.
"I've been thinking that I shouldn't have sent Matthew after you," Will said, face clearing as if nothing had happened. Hannibal bookmarked the moment in his mind. "What's my reckoning worth if you don't die by my design?"
Will returned to his seat, not really caring about Hannibal's answer.
"What was your design?" Hannibal prompted.
"Poisoning you," Will answered.
Hannibal quirked his brow. "Less intimate than I'd expected."
"Dr. Lecter," Will said, the disappointment in his voice now both genuine and falsified. "I thought you knew me."
"What do I not know about you?"
"Why would I give you the intimacy, when that is what you seek from me?"
"You want to deny me."
"I'm feeling really angry at my loss right now," Will said, smile tight. The dark torrent of a look in his eyes were promising. Hannibal could see him unleashing it to the unsuspecting world at large.
"The friendship we had before is gone," he adopted a soft tone.
"Yes," Will said, eyes far away. Then they took a mischievous shine, hiding away his more tender side. Hannibal both wanted Will to be more mercurial so that he could be able to catalog each and every wide variation of Will's face, and to be more steady so that he could examine each feeling with all the time in the world, as one should do when they were faced with a timeless masterpiece. "I knew being poisoned would irritate the hell out of you," Will said as he leaned his chin on his hand.
"How would it have irritated me?"
"Firstly, I wouldn't have claimed you as my victim. It'd be impersonal." He ticked off one finger. "Secondly, the world at large would have thought you'd have died a mundane death. It would have appeared to be a simple heart attack. Poor Dr. Lecter, the stress must have gotten to him. Though thanks God the Chesapeake Ripper has already been caught." He ticked off two fingers, grinning at the minor twitch in Hannibal's eyebrow. "Thirdly, your meat wouldn't have been edible. I might have tried to cook you up otherwise." He spread all his fingers wide at this point. "How well I'm doing?"
If intimacy was what Will was trying not to give him, Will was failing horribly at delivering it and he knew it. The amount of thought Will had put into Hannibal's supposed death was almost flattering.
"Did you nurse me back into health?"
"In a way," Will said. "Oh, I changed you, by the way. Hope you don't mind. Sweaty clothes are horrible."
Hannibal didn't look down to check. "What made you change your mind?"
"I guess you're not the only one who wants to wind someone up and watch them go."
"You're playing a dangerous game, Will."
"That's the beauty of it, isn't it?" Will gave him a daring smile and stood up, brushing off imaginary lints on his suit. "I made the courtesy of cancelling your every appointment for the rest of the week. You need your rest. You've almost died like, three times now?" Will asked as he patted himself down, producing a single key. The key to Hannibal's handcuff.
"Do you need this?" Will asked.
"Yes," Hannibal said, just to see what Will would do. Will nodded and simply dropped it off at his lap.
"See you soon, Dr. Lecter," Will said as he walked away.
-
Two days later, Hannibal was still pondering upon what exactly Will Graham had done to him during the period his memory wasn't reliable.
Hannibal had checked his phone and found out that true to his words, Will had texted his patients about cancelling appointments. The puzzling thing was that there had been an outgoing call to the restaurant Gallant, and Caroline had assured him that she saw him there with 'a delectable young man'.
Will had lied to him about poisoning him in his office, and it was uncertain if Will had even poisoned him in the first place. Not knowing what exactly had happened was irritating, which led him to wonder if this was all part of Will's design.
After his altercation with Will, Hannibal had found out that all the meat in his kitchen was missing, and that he was now short of two of his sweaters, pants and handkerchiefs. He'd also been dismayed to find out that Will had took the bottle of wine he'd given Hannibal a few months ago. It seemed like Will had been truly dedicated in making Hannibal's life miserable in small and petty way. Hannibal wasn't exactly happy with the result, but appreciated the thought put into each action nonetheless. Now if only he could channel Will's darkness into more fitting medium.
Preoccupied as he was, Hannibal didn't hear a SWAT team surrounding his house. He only realized the trouble he was in when he found Jack Crawford at his doorstep, armed with a gun and a smug and angry look, saying "You're under arrest, Dr. Lecter."
"You're making a mistake, Jack," Hannibal said as he submitted to the second handcuff of the week. From what he had observed from Will, chance to escape was more likely to come during transportation.
He watched with interest as Will appeared from a throng of people. Will and Jack exchanged a heated, but old argument with their eyes, but Will ended up coming to stand by Hannibal's side while Jack had his gun pointed at Hannibal's head, standing just shy of a distance where whispered conversation couldn't be heard.
"If you escape, contact Abigail first or hurt her or pressure her in anyway, that'd be the last time you see me," Will said without preamble.
So they found her. Hannibal stored that information in the back of his head. "Is that supposed to be a threat, Will?" Hannibal murmured.
"How did I find her? What really happened that night? Who will answer you these questions if I'm gone?" Will said softly, mirroring their conversation in the kitchen, although he'd changed his aftershave into something more woodsy. "You'll never find me. If I have to, I'm willing to kill myself to spite you."
From the look in his eyes, Hannibal knew that Will wasn't being hyperbolic. Feigning an unaffected look he said, "Threat alone is rarely effective."
Will gave him a blinding smile, though barely a muscle moved in his face. He whispered, "If you stay, Dr. Lecter, I promise that I'll find a way to get you out myself."
Hannibal's face turned blank, the blindsiding answer making him unable to come up with an expression. Will gave him a small nod and turned his back to him, leaving Hannibal to his own devise.
Hannibal stayed put, because he was curious what Will would do.
-
The Baltimore State Hospital for Criminally Insane should have been maintaining top security with the arrival of its new celebrity inmate. However, the temporary dean of the hospital had been beyond swamped with workloads, what with hiring a new nurse to replace Matthew Brown, dealing with a lawsuit that Will Graham had filed against the care he'd received during his stay, and trying to maintain efficiency with the generally understaffed situation of the hospital.
During the chaos, a former patient of Dr. Lecter managed to sneak in a visit. Hannibal gave Randall Tier words of encouragement and suggestions, his demeanor that of a perfect, attentive psychiatrist. At the end of the visit, Randall Tier came to the conclusion that it'd be best for him to have Will Graham as his first target.
Hannibal Lecter laid back on his cot, waiting for Will's next move.
-
Will came to him the next day, a case file in his hand.
Hannibal interlaced his fingers on top of the table. "Did Jack Crawford send you?"
"I suggested, and he approved. He knows that I'm at my sharpest when I have you in my head," Will said, nonchalant as he dragged the chair back.
"How is Abigail?" Hannibal asked.
"She's okay," Will said. "But more than that, you'd have to wait until she makes the first contact. Let her have her choice."
Will put the file on the table without pushing it toward Hannibal, a card laying faced down in the game of pocker. However, Hannibal's eyes were drawn more to the scraped knuckles at the back of Will's hand.
"Curious?" Will quirked a smile.
"Yes," Hannibal said. "May I ask what happened?"
"Oh, just your regular mugging attempt," Will's voice was light, but his face told a different story. A flash of righteous violence made Hannibal straigthen his spine. "I managed to land a few good punches, but he got away."
"I'm glad to hear that you're alright."
"Thank you." A sly look. "Honestly, the way he snarled at me was more animal than human."
I know what you did, the message was loud and clear.
"I hope he'd get caught soon," Hannibal said congenially.
"Well, you know how it is, Dr. Lecter," Will sighed, his expression devoid of worry, even slightly amused. "I don't think I'll ever see this mugger again."
"Indeed," Hannibal said, feeling suddenly flushed, coveteous like a man standing in front of a banquet he could only smell but couldn't dine on. "May I see the file?"
"Of course."
Their hands didn't brush.
-
Will was regular and faithful in his visit, always a case file in his hand. He was a changed man, more sure of himself, more ruthless, more sanguine about death, but somehow more kind.
Hannibal at first thought that this was the change that he had wrought in Will and felt proud of it, but then he saw the way Will looked at him sometimes.
Will himself didn't seem to realize what he was doing, but it became obvious enough for Hannibal: There was someone else in Will's mind, and Will was using Hannibal to see them again.
A few days later, bored with the repetition of seeing Will delve into the minds of lesser criminals, Hannibal slipped the cuffs, uncoiled himself from his seat and strangled Will with his hand.
Will didn't put up a fight. Hannibal realized that it wasn't because Will didn't have the strength or the skill to do so. It was because Will didn't want to leave any of his marks on Hannibal. Nothing to remember him by than a fading memory in his head, not even a burst of adrenalin. An empty chair that would never be filled.
Clever boy, Hannibal thought fondly as the orderlies knocked him out.
Will didn't visit him for three weeks after the incident. He briefly toyed with the idea of breaking out - it was almost insulting, those gaps in security- but decided to wait it out.
Hannibal felt no need to repeat that particular experiment.
-
"You're fostering dependency," Hannibal remarked after Will started to show up regularly once again, although the word he wanted to use was co-dependency. He refrained from using it as his privacy had become non-existant with the return of Frederick Chilton as the head of the hospital.
"What does Frederick think about that?"
Will tilted his head, understanding the question for what it is. Fostering dependency on Hannibal's side was only natural and to be expected. A beast needed to be tamed if one didn't wanted to get bitten.
But Will, Will was tying himself up right along side Hannibal, walking straight down to the abyss even though Hannibal wasn't in the position to properly guide him. Hannibal saw a glimpse of Will's bloodied hands in Randall Tier's disappearance and Clark Ingram's sudden confession, the information brought to him by Will like a cat inexplicably dropping dead animals at one's feet, either a taunt or a gift. Hannibal was caught between feeling disappointed that he couldn't be en scene, seeing the cause and the process of Will's change in minute detail, and intrigued as to how much further Will was willing to push himself, this little show of his.
"Dr. Chilton is very content with our deal," Will answered.
"What kind of deal have you struck?"
"Two years of observation, and a book with my insight in his name."
"A very lucrative deal."
"Yes," Will said. "He has everything where he wants it."
-
"What offended you more, his overuse of swear words, or his overuse of finger quotes?"
Will's question was refreshing after hearing Frederick rant about Just how in the world did you get him to swallow his own tongue?! all morning, although Hannibal had to admit that he rarely found Will not to be refreshing.
"He reached his hands through the bar to inflict 'louder' quotes," Hannibal offered with a bland voice.
"Unacceptable," Will quipped dryly.
"You don't have the file today," Hannibal observed.
"I have all the necessary information in my head," Will said, tapping at the side of his head. "It's not like I brought you anything during our therapy."
Will's eyes were laughing. Hannibal saw that the explanation was nothing more than a flimsy excuse to cover that this was a friendly visit. Hannibal leaned forward, delighted. There had been a moment, as he closed his eyes to focus on the symphony of the gurgling and scraping sound his ex-neighbor had made, where Hannibal thought that Will might try to punish him for this incident in a misguided attempt to make Hannibal good.
How mistaken he was. How unwarranted his suspicion had been. Will was above something as banal as binary.
"I'd have to rely on your mind, then," Hannibal said.
"I'd like you to."
-
"May I sit?" Will asked as he walked up the aisle to stand in front of Hannibal.
Hannibal had been sitting in the Norman Chapel in his palace with Abigail by his side (he thought she would appreciate it since she was now in an art major according to one of her letters). The boy who had been singing about God at the altar stopped abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in its place.
"You're real," Hannibal said, half statement, half question, although he was quite pleased. How did you get here?
"Reality is subjective," Will gave him a quick grin.
Behind his back, Hannibal felt a foreign presence. He turned and found an indefinable cluster of light standing in the corner. Will's face was soft as he regarded it.
"Who is it?" Hannibal asked, his good mood smothered like fire meeting water. The light. It was important to Will, pivotal. Even though the light was far away, Hannibal felt shadowed by it.
Will shook his head, remaining silent. He took his seat.
After a few tense moment, the song resumed.
-
Georgia Manchen had died in a chamber of fire. She would have died without pain, the temperature of the fire so high that it would have fried her nerves before the pain could hit her.
Frederick Chilton wouldn't be afforded with the same mercy. Hannibal planned to roast him slowly. Chilton would watch as his face slowly melted into unrecognizable mess.
After Hannibal had killed his fifth neighboring inmate, Chilton had snapped and banned anyone from visiting him. Chilton had gloated about how he would never see his 'boyfriend' again, and Hannibal thought that he was right in his assessment that Chilton's tongue would make an excellent dish.
While Hannibal was pondering upon the spice he would use, the orderly came and told him that he had his call from his lawyer.
"Hello," Hannibal said, wondering what had brought this change of mind in the balding man to actually work deligently for his client's defence.
"Dr. Lecter," the voice said, and Hannibal almost slipped out his name. "I believe you would know how to fake an appropriate conversation?"
Hannibal swallowed, held himself steady. "I didn't expect a call," he said in a low voice.
"It was very rude of Frederick, wasn't it?" Will said. "This is between you and me. He can't wield me like his weapon."
I'll cut you only when I want to.
"Yes," Hannibal said, feeling warm. "Very rude, indeed."
-
It had been a year since Hannibal's capture, and in the eyes of the public, Will Graham was the fairy tale of a man who had bested the Devil. He was the man who never faltered in his pursuit of justice even though he had been wrongfully incarcerated, who continued to apprehend criminals despite his own trauma. Freddie Lounds had spun gold, buoyed with Will's promise of a book deal, and Jack Crawford's reliance on Will Graham was heavier than ever since the profiler had worked as his crutch during Bella's decline in health and after her eventual death. Jack willingly turned a blind eye to Will's unorthodox working relationship with Hannibal Lecter as it only seemed to make Will steadier and sharper anyway.
No one suspected anything when Will suggested using Hannibal as a bait to lure out the Dragon.
Except for Hannibal.
"I need you, Hannibal," Will said, his smile coy, and Hannibal knew that Will was about to make his promise come true.
He'd never felt happier in his life.
-
"It's beautiful."
Will was magnificent, moon bathing him in a soft glow as he smiled with teeth full of blood. After being teased for years with sly smiles and inuendoes and occasional scent of blood, Hannibal could've wept with joy at witnessing Will's savage grace in action.
Will took Hannibal's breath away as he turned gentle in the next second, pulling him into a hug. It'd been such a long time since anyone had touched him in more than a perfunctory manner, and this was Will. He'd been so hungry for him, always so close but separated, and here Will was, embracing him willingly.
Lost in delirious delight, Hannibal almost didn't hear Will asking, "What would you do if I threw us both off the cliff now?"
Several things passed through Hannibal's mind after he registered the question, starting with why Will would want to do such a thing, but he pushed them all aside to answer it properly.
"I'll let you, because I like seeing where you lead me," Hannibal said, feeling peace settle into him. "But I'll not allow us to die tonight."
It was then that Will lunged, not to push them toward death, but to pull them back. Will kissed him like this was a home coming after long winter, seeking comfort. Longing came off of him like waves, like lightning fire. Hannibal realized how tightly Will had been controlling his passion during the past year, throwing mere morsels when all he'd wanted to do was pour. Hannibal's knees buckled to be faced with the entirety of it, unprepared.
Will spread Hannibal on the altar in the Chapel, sucking air straight out of his lung, returning it all the more sweeter for his torment. With hazy eyes, Hannibal saw the undefinable cluster of light engulfing Will from behind, as if it wanted to pull Will away from Hannibal, but couldn't bare to separate itself from Will to do so.
When they parted, Hannibal panted, aching, satiated, hungry for more.
"Would you say that you're mine, Hannibal?" Will asked, stroking his face.
"You know that the answer has always been yes," Hannibal said. He closed his eyes, leaning into the touch. "Are you?" He asked. He couldn't bear to open his eyes.
Will peppered him with kisses until he couldn't help but open his eyes. "Yes," Will said, smiling, earnest, loving. "But you'll always have to share me with him."