Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"We're missing something," Will says, standing over the Ripper's latest three bodies. This sounder was quick -- one, two, three, right in a row. The BAU barely had time to start investigating the first when the second body was found, and then the third. 

Beverly makes a sound of agreement. "Something's got the Ripper agitated, that's for sure."

Will shakes his head. "This doesn't feel agitated."

"Is he done?" Zeller, standing next to Price, gestures at the cold storage. "Because we can only fit so many bodies here, and if he starts a third sounder... we're gonna need a bigger boat."

There are a few bodies from other killers taking up space, though obviously Jack would ship them all off to long-term storage in favor of the Ripper. 

Will rubs his temples, shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Maybe he's excited?" Price, this time.

"Excited?" Beverly asks.

"You know, the blush of first love. We've all gone through a honeymoon phase like that," Price says, glancing at Zeller.

Zeller scoffs. "Honeymooning with who?" 

"Will, obviously," Beverly says. At Will's glare, she shrugs. "What? You know everyone is thinking it."

"I'm not honeymooning with the Chesapeake Ripper."

"Nobody said that you were," Zeller says. "Feelings can be unrequited." This time, Zeller mock-glares at Price, who makes a pissy face in return. 

"The Chesapeake Ripper isn't honeymooning with me, either."

"You sure about that?" Beverly asks. She's only half-joking.

"The first body was heart and lungs," Will says, changing the subject. "The second was just the intestines?"

"Just the intestines," Zeller confirms.

"And the third body was the brain and kidneys." Will sighs and rubs his eyes. "What is he doing with these organs?"

That's the question that's been haunting Will since the first Chesapeake Ripper case file he read. Surgical trophies. If he never sees or hears those words again, it'll still be too soon. That description is so clinical, when the Ripper is anything but. Surgical trophies. Like the Ripper wants to cherish and relive his crimes. The time, space, effort, and energy that goes into not only harvesting the organs, but keeping them, is the key to catching the Ripper -- Will knows it, Jack knows it. There's something there, lurking between the lines. No answer they've been able to come up with fits with any profile they've written up, and vice versa. 

"I always just assumed he has a cabin in the woods filled with organs in jars," Zeller says with a shrug, "Garrett Jacob Hobbs style."

"But creepier," Beverly says.

"Intestines, though?" Price says. "Who the hell takes intestines as a surgical trophy?"

"Maybe the Ripper is making sausage," Zeller says.

Will freezes. 

"You don't think he's selling them, do you?" Beverly asks.

"What, like on the black market," Zeller says, making a face.

"It's the one thing that we haven't considered," Beverly counters, "and it would be clever."

"An organ harvester..." Price says slowly, "disguising himself as a serial killer. Interesting. Unlikely, but interesting."

The conversation about organ theft continues, but Will isn't listening anymore. 

Garrett Jacob Hobbs style.  

Hobbs was a cannibal. 

Maybe the Ripper is making sausage.  

The answer, unfurling before Will, is so achingly obvious: the Ripper isn't keeping them -- he's eating them. 

Will gets one moment. One pure, jubilant, satisfying moment of clarity, before the rest of the profile unravels in his mind like a train wreck.

Sausage. 

A surgeon with the skills of a chef. 

A doctor, with a fixation on Will. 

I won't tell the Chesapeake Ripper if you won't.  

Hannibal, there, in the dark. Hannibal, with a crown of antlers. 

(Some part of Will already knew. Some part of Will had always known.)

"Will?" Will's eyes snap to Beverly, who's looking at him with concern. "You okay?"

He nods, distant, a million miles away. "Just thinking."

"You don't really think he's an organ harvester, do you? Because I was mostly joking."

Somewhere very far away, Will's body shrugs and his face makes an indecisive expression. "Could be," Will's mouth says. "It's worth investigating."

"You don't look so hot."

Will's hand comes to rub at his clammy forehead. 

"Been fighting off a cold, I think. Haven't been sleeping much."

"Might as well go home and get some rest," Zeller says. "These guys aren't going anywhere."

Will nods, makes his excuses, and stumbles out of Quantico. 

__________

First, Will is devastated. 

Then disgusted. 

Then furious.  

But not at Hannibal. 

__________

Will storms into Bedelia’s office in a red haze, blowing past the pretty, bored receptionist, who tries to call after him. She knows better than to follow him, though. 

They probably have protocols for when things like this happen. For when patients like him happen.

Will throws the door to Bedelia’s office open and finds the good doctor at her desk, pen in hand -- the perfect picture of scholarly academia. She even has a leather-bound journal open in front of her, completing the picture. The tableau is a perfect negative to Will’s undoubtedly wild hair and wild eyes. The dull thud of the door slamming into the wall rings distantly over the roar of blood pounding in Will’s ears. 

All at once the office is filled with ice -- the walls, the floors, the furniture, everything cold and unforgiving. And Dr. Du Maurier in the middle of it all, eyes only mildly curious, looking at Will like a mild inconvenience instead of a potentially dangerous patient. 

Will wants to see her flinch. Or jump in her chair -- something, anything to show that she is frightened of him, of the state that he’s in. He aches for any reaction other than calm indifference.

She leaves him disappointed in that, too. 

Instead, Bedelia’s eyes flick dispassionately over his sweaty face, his hair in disarray. Then, she places her pen on the desk and closes her journal, pushing it to the side.

“Tabitha?” she calls. 

Rustling, then quick footsteps. “I’m so sorry Dr. Du Maurier, he just came in and -”

“Please cancel my next appointment.” Tabitha nods, looks askance at Will, and scurries away. Clearly, she’s not enacting any kind of dangerous-patient protocol. “Mr. Graham, please, sit.”

Will does not sit. Instead, he gropes blindly for the door handle, unwilling to take his eyes off his target. When he finds it, he slams the door closed as violently as he opened it. 

“Did you know?” he demands, hands curled into shaking fists at his sides. 

Bedelia turns her chair, ever-so-slightly, to face him. 

“Did I know what, Mr. Graham?”

“Did you know,” Will says, looking directly into her eyes, allowing himself to fall into her for the first time, “that Hannibal is a serial killer?”

She doesn't blink. She doesn't flinch, doesn't frown, doesn't go wide-eyed with shock or gasp in surprise. Instead she stares, impassive as ever, that damned frozen lake that Will can slam with a pickaxe but never seems to crack. 

"I didn't know," she says, impassive. "But I didn't not know, either."

"What," Will says through gritted teeth, "is that supposed to mean."

"Sit down, Mr. Graham."

Will stays standing.

Finally, Bedelia lets out a small sigh, like Will is a particularly unruly child.

"Hannibal is unlike anyone I have ever met. Singular," she says, "but you know that. You wouldn't get along with him so well otherwise."

"Why?" The word bursts out of him, beyond his control. He wants to listen to what Bedelia has to say, for herself and for Hannibal, but he can't. 

He can't.

"Why what, Mr. Graham?"

Will wants to take the fancy vase off of her desk and throw it at her face. Wants to split her open -- peel back her face and see if there’s anything human under that dispassionate mask. He wants to see her bleed.  

"Why him. You -" he shakes his head incredulously. "You set me up. With that. You said that my perfect man -"

"I never said anything about your 'perfect man,' Mr. Graham. If you recall, you postulated that even I didn't know of anyone who would love you for who you are. I said that I did. Anything that you inferred from that was your doing, not my suggestion. You fixated. Against my better judgement, I may add."

She's right, and it takes the wind out of Will's sails.

"I told you that you shouldn't meet him. I discouraged it, if you recall."

"Oh yeah, sure. But you didn't think to mention 'because he's the Chesapeake Ripper,' instead of just saying no?"

This time, Will gets a blink. No shock registers on her face, but he knows that she didn't know that, not precisely.

"Doctor patient privilege, Mr. Graham."

Will laughs humorlessly. 

"So does he talk to you about it?" She says nothing, so he clarifies: "about his hobby."

"No."

"But you knew anyway."

"Sit down, Mr. Graham."

Will drops into the chair opposite her.

"Hannibal and I don't talk about anything quite so... directly. He had been my patient for several months before I realized that he is," she says, "different. That he wears what I refer to as a person-suit, rather than inhabiting it, like you or I."

Bedelia's eyes are as flat and as empty as a shark's, and Will has a hard time believing that she doesn't 'wear' one similar to Hannibal's. Can't help but wonder why he gets along so well with monsters.

"Sure," he says. He agrees because he wants her to keep talking, but she cocks her head and looks him up and down. "So what, he comes to you for advice on how to pass as human?"

"Nothing quite so direct, no. What Hannibal needs is for me to be a sounding board, one that he can consult without judgement. His emotions are..." she pauses, teasing for the correct word, "...not necessarily in-sync with your average person's."

"That's because he's a psychopath," Will mutters.

"...And while he is very adept at mimicry, and at understanding other people, on occasion he slips up. There is a gap, so to speak, in his person-suit. One that someone could get a glimpse through, if they're very focused."

"And you help him hide the monster that lies underneath."

"I help all of my patients navigate the world, Mr. Graham. Hannibal is not special in that regard."

Will closes his eyes and counts to ten, then backwards down to one. When he feels calm enough, he asks, with careful enunciation on each word:

"Why did you mention him to me? At all? You could have said nothing, when I asked, or you could have said yes but refused any detail. You could have refused to tell me anything more," he holds up a hand to forestall her interruption, "and I would have left it alone, eventually. You know that I would have. But you didn't."

"I care about the well-being of my patients."

"I'm not exactly feeling well ," Will says acidly.

"How have you been sleeping, Mr. Graham? Before today."

"Fine," he bites out.

"Your nightmares?" She already knows the answer.

"Few and far between."

"And your overall anxiety levels?"

"Low."

"And why is that, Mr. Graham?" Will refuses to answer. "Could it be because you are in a secure, committed relationship with someone who both loves and understands you, and who can offer the emotional support you have so desperately needed?"

Will can't help but laugh and shake his head. 

"Can Hannibal love me? Can he love anyone."

"You know that he can."

Will just shakes his head.

"Hannibal is like anyone else. He wants to be seen. To be understood. And to be loved, not despite who he is, but because of it."

"And so you… what? Sent him the one person who could see him? And you didn't worry about the fact that I work for the FBI and that he'll spend the rest of his life in prison because of it?"

If she had wanted Hannibal arrested she could have tipped off the police herself. She hasn't, so clearly she doesn't.

"Have you said anything to Jack Crawford?" 

Will says nothing. 

"No, you haven't. You came here instead, because you want me to talk you out of it."

"No I don't."

Bedelia uncrosses and re-crosses her legs in the other direction while the silence stretches out between them. 

"Why are you here, Mr. Graham?"

"Because I'm angry."

"With me?" Silence. "With Hannibal?" Silence. "Or with yourself?"

Will keeps his eyes fixated on her delicate gold necklace and says nothing.

"What good will sending Hannibal to prison do for you?"

Will laughs, incredulous. 

"You're joking, right? You must have read a newspaper once or twice in your life."

Will's words are unnecessarily cruel, but Bedelia doesn't react.

"I'm not asking about the world, Mr. Graham. I am asking about you."

"I'm not worried about my reputation." 

When word gets out, who Hannibal really is, and how he is connected so intimately to the case... things will be rough, for a while. People will alternate between being proud of Will for realizing, and ask how he could have not seen it sooner. How Hannibal could have been right before the FBI's nose, all this time. Undetected.

They'll ask what kind of profiler is Will, if he can't even see the man in his own bed?

"That's not what I'm asking you. I'm not worried about the world, and I care only about your reputation inasmuch as it affects your mental health and well-being. I am asking about you, my patient, and about how you see your personal life changing in the wake of this realization. Will you go back to your sleepless nights? To allowing Jack to order you around all hours of the day and night, with no regard to your mental health? How will you suffer, if there is a fundamental change in the way that you live your life currently?"

Will flicks his eyes up to hers, truly surprised for the first time since setting foot in her office. 

The icy lake looks back, blue and fathomless. She hasn't had a single emotional reaction to anything Will has said, and yet her eyes are open, unguarded, guileless. The ice doesn't crack but -- for the first time, Will can see fish swimming beneath the frozen water. For a split second, Will understands her: Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier is a psychiatrist who places importance on the lives of her patients, and her patients alone. Just like how psychopaths often make great surgeons, because they care only about their own record, and about the survival of their patients as a reflection of their own skills. They maintain a purity of focus that is out of reach for people with normal, human empathy. They live undistracted by the tears of loved ones or the terror their patients feel, and they channel that singular focus into being the most adept among their peers. 

Dr. Du Maurier is quite the same. She is asking about the effect the revelation will have on Will's own life, because to her, that's the only important detail. She doesn't care about society or the good of the world. Only the microcosm between these four walls. For the first time, Will can see himself through her eyes: a patient in dire need of help, about to make a terrible decision and destroy his own life. 

Bedelia blinks and the fish scatter away, leaving Will to wonder if he truly saw them at all.

"Mr. Graham?" she prompts.

"I...." Will runs a hand over his face, presses his fingertips into his eyelids until his vision goes cloudy. "I don't know."

"Do you believe your life will be better?"

"I don't know."

"You cannot come to an informed decision if you lie to yourself."

"My life will be worse," Will admits. "I... I'll be lonely. And..." he allows his eyes to close again, unsure of when he opened them, but the pendulum doesn't swing -- his 'gift' doesn't work for events that haven't happened yet.

Truthfully, he doesn't need to. If Hannibal goes to prison Will's entire life will fall apart, piece by piece, and he'll never be able to gather them back together by their razor-sharp edges. 

"And what will happen if you do nothing?"

That, at least, has an easy answer.

"Hannibal will keep hunting."

"And?"

Will's eyes blink open. "And?"

"Will you be able to sleep at night, knowing what you know?"

"I don't know."

"You need to answer that question, Mr. Graham, before you can make an informed decision. Think on it. Take a sick day, or two."

__________

Will thinks about it.

He thinks about it while pacing a hole in his hardwood floor, his dogs looking on, confused by his erratic behavior.

He calls Jack and tells him that he has the flu. 

He tears the cuticle of his thumb to shreds trying to decide what to tell Hannibal. He can’t use the flu excuse because Hannibal will come with soup to play nursemaid, which he obviously has to avoid. 

He can’t eat anything that Hannibal cooks for him.

He could tell Hannibal that he’s out of town on a case. But what if Hannibal comes by the house while he’s ‘gone’ and sees Will’s car, the lights in the house?

Would Hannibal come by his house?

Has he ever?

What would Will even do if he had? For all Will knows, Hannibal comes by every time Will’s gone on a trip to snoop and try to endear himself to Will’s dogs. 

What would Hannibal do if he came by Will’s supposed-to-be-empty house and found Will here?

What would Will do?

The answer, when it comes to Will, is both easy and obvious. He picks up the phone, even though he doesn’t want to hear Hannibal’s voice, doesn’t want to leave any part of himself vulnerable to the man, the monster.   

The phone rings once, twice. 

“Hello Will.”

“Hey Hannibal.” The sounds of Hannibal’s voice melts him, just a little. For a second -- one hysterical second -- Will thinks that he has it wrong, that it can’t be Hannibal. 

I didn’t know, but I didn’t not know, either. 

“Listen,” Will says, allowing some of his exhaustion and frustration to creep into his voice, “I wanted to call and let you know that there’s been another Chesapeake Ripper killing.”

“I read about that in the paper,” Hannibal says, sounding the perfect combination of curious and regretful. 

“Yeah, well, Jack’s on the warpath. If he had his way I would sleep at headquarters until the Ripper is caught. I’m probably going to be working for every hour that I’m not sleeping for the next few days.”

“I take it this means you're canceling dinner for tomorrow night?”

Hannibal doesn’t sound suspicious. In fact, he sounds like he was expecting this phone call. 

(It probably helps that Will has canceled their plans after every Ripper murder, now that he thinks about it.)

“I give it three, maybe four days of Jack riding us all into exhaustion before someone puts their foot down.”

“You could use this as an exercise in enforcing your boundaries.”

I am, Will thinks. 

“Not today,” Will says, “not with Jack. You know how he gets about catching the Ripper. This is the third in his sounder, so it might be our last chance to catch him before he disappears again.”

“Then I wish you happy hunting, and ask only that you keep yourself fed and watered in my stead.”

Will takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, counting backward from ten. 

“Thanks, Hannibal.”

__________

Will thinks. 

On the one hand, he thinks about Hannibal. Thinks about the time they spend together, thinks about his no-longer-empty home, thinks about meals and fires and love. 

On the other, Will thinks about the world. About the Ripper, about Jack, about the innocent people that have lost their lives to the Ripper. Who will, still. People who haven’t died yet, but who have been marked as future victims. 

Will tries, really, truly tries to care about those people. An ordinary person should. People are supposed to care about people. 

(But Will has never exactly been “people” before, has he? He’s never connected with “people,” has never slotted comfortably into the loud, incomprehensible world that he had no choice but to be born into. The only time Will has felt at home in his own skin has been with Hannibal at his side, Hannibal’s hand on his back, Hannibal’s voice in his ear. 

Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal.

Does Will care? Does he really, truly care? Everyone dies, eventually, anyway. 

Will tries to imagine a world with Hannibal in prison. 

Tries, then, to imagine a world in which people die and Will does nothing to stop it. 

The latter is mildly uncomfortable; the former, unbearable.)

Will sits, head in his hands, surrounded by his worried dogs. Will sits, awareness coming back to his body in fits and starts, bits and pieces, little by little. His hands, clenched in his hair. His legs, tensed and ready to run. 

His curved spine, his clenched jaw, his aching fists. 

Will blinks his eyes open. 

Will knows. 

__________

Will stands on Hannibal's front stoop for a long time. 

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. 

Will isn't ready to live without Hannibal -- which means he has to figure out how to live with Hannibal. 

It's a beautiful evening. The setting sun bathes the street in a golden glow, and the crisp late-autumn breeze rustles through the last clinging leaves. The neighborhood around Will is bustling, yet overlain with a dampening quietness -- expensive cars purr by with their nearly-noiseless engines, respectable parents usher their strictly-well-behaved children to ballet practice and cello lessons -- all around Will are the comings and goings of neatly respectable people. 

This silence screams rich. In the middle of huge cities like Baltimore, only fantastically wealthy neighborhoods can afford to be so quiet. So insular. And it's not that Will has never noticed it before, but…

But it's never really been worth the mention, before. People think that places like this are safe, even in dangerous cities. These streets are patrolled far more regularly, and more diligently, than other, poorer neighborhoods. Break-ins here will summon a police presence that actually cares. These people might as well live in a different city than their more unfortunate counterparts. They might as well live in another country, another world. Everyone knows everyone here -- Hannibal knows each of his neighbors by name, knows what they do for a living, how many children they have, what they do for fun.

Surely, these people know the same about Hannibal.

Or, they think they know the same about Hannibal. 

A sleek black Tesla cuts noiselessly down the street, pulling into a driveway four houses down. 

What would these people think, if they knew? Does living in a place like this make Hannibal's hobbies easier, or harder? More cops, more attention from the neighbors -- but less suspicion. And Hannibal couldn't live in different circumstances. Not for a long period of time, at least. He's far too much of a hedonist to give up the trappings of his elegant lifestyle for long. 

Will shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Hannibal's door is massive and wooden and as intimidating as it was the first time Will came here. The house is old -- filled with history, stained with blood. 

Probably haunted, to the people who believe in that sort of thing.

(Will doesn't believe in that sort of thing, not really, but the bayou-mysticism of New Orleans is a worldview that's baked into his bones.)

Will takes a deep breath, holds it, counts to ten, and releases it in a gust of breath that feels indulgently noisy. 

Hannibal won't know what Will knows. He's a psychiatrist, not a mind-reader, and Will has absolutely no reason to think that Bedelia would betray his confidence. In fact, for as much as she seems to care about Hannibal as a patient, maybe even as a friend, Will is almost certain that she has said nothing to him about Will's discovery. To do so would expose her to questions about how Will came into Hannibal's life in the first place -- questions that Bedelia would very much prefer to avoid answering. 

Particularly if things were to go sour with Will. 

Bedelia can be trusted to prioritize her own self-preservation. The only question is whether or not Hannibal found Will's isolation unusual, or if Will will be able to act normally. If Will will unwittingly give himself away. But then again, Will has always been a good liar. People see him as fragile, as honest. That perception makes Will's occasional forays into deception or manipulation embarrassingly easy, even among people trained to notice that sort of thing.

Will can only stall for so long before it gets weird. Noticeable, to the neighbors. Suspicious, to Hannibal. 

Knocking on the door bangs like a judge's gavel. 

Silence rings. Will has nowhere to hide, now. No distractions, no more stalling. 

The door opens, and there's Hannibal -- smile sincere, crow's feet crinkled. Will half expected to come face-to-face with the wendigo but it's just -- Hannibal. 

"Will," Hannibal says, fondness lacing his tone. He steps aside, beckoning Will into the open doorway, and Will finds it far easier than expected to follow his direction. "I must confess, while I would never presume to claim your time as my own, I have missed you more than I expected in your absence." Hannibal closes the door behind them with a definitive snick. They're in here together, now. 

Hannibal cups Will's elbow, pulls him close. "You look exhausted," he murmurs, running a hand over Will's hair.

"I haven't been sleeping well."

The hand on Will's elbow slides down his forearm and curls around Will's hand, thumb soothing over his knuckles. "Come." Hannibal tugs lightly, towards the stairs, and that was not part of Will's prepared script. 

Will follows for lack of any better options.

Hannibal draws him upstairs and into the master bedroom, kicking Will's heart rate into overdrive. They've never done this before. Hannibal has never brought him straight to his bedroom, and any deviation from the normal, from before, could not be less welcome.  

Maybe, Will thinks, he wants me to take a nap before dinner.  

"Undress." 

Will blinks. Hannibal doesn't follow up his order with any explanation, just turns and walks into the en-suite bathroom. 

Hands shaking, Will begins unbuttoning his shirt. A cabinet hinge creaks open in the bathroom, closes. Will folds his shirt and sets it on the dresser. He unbuckles his belt, coils it, and sets it down next to his shirt. He steps out of his shoes, all the while straining to hear any other noises from the bathroom, but whatever Hannibal's doing, he's quiet. Will unbuttons his pants while taking a mental inventory of anything potentially dangerous that Hannibal could keep in the bathroom, but comes up blank. There's no telling what Hannibal could have done in Will's absence, anyway. Will steps out of each pant leg, picks up the garment, and folds while listening, but there's nothing to hear. 

Silence.

Ominous silence. 

A hand presses into the middle of Will's back and he jumps half a foot in the air. 

"Jesus Christ!"  

There's Hannibal, standing behind him, having moved utterly silently through the room. 

Hannibal looks over Will, concerned. 

"Are you all right?"

Will swallows. "Yeah. You just startled the hell out of me."

"You seemed lost in thought."

Will swallows again and buys a few seconds by putting his pants on the dresser with his other clothing. 

"I didn't hear you," he says, "and I've been a little... jumpy."

"Quite understandable, given where your mind has been these past few days."

Hannibal knows he's been hunting monsters, just not which specific, personal monsters. Who. 

Hannibal walks over to the bed and turns down the covers, like he really is planning for Will to take a nap, and Will trails after him, feeling ridiculous in nothing but his boxers and socks. Hands come to Will's waist and remove his underwear. Hannibal kneels at Will's feet and removes one of Will's socks, then the other, and pushes them and the discarded underwear out of the way.

Completely nude, Will stands before Hannibal, fully dressed.

"Lie down," Hannibal says, "on your stomach."

Will lies down. If Hannibal plans on killing him, this is an awfully strange way to go about it. If Hannibal plans on fucking him, well. It's nothing they haven't done before, right? The click of a bottle opening seems louder than Will has ever heard it. One of Hannibal's knees comes onto the bed, and then strong hands sweep down Will's shoulders, slick, scented with lavender and cedar.

Will sinks bonelessly into the mattress. Sherlock Holmes, he is not.  

"You're hyper-vigilant," Hannibal says, "and that tension from your mind finds its way into your body." Hannibal's fingers dig into Will's shoulder blades. "I understand that you have a job to do, and that you're trying to catch a killer, but you must take better care of yourself in the meanwhile. When was the last time you slept?"

Will groans into the pillow. 

"I slept last night," he says, half-muffled and slightly petulant.

"How many hours?" Hannibal finds a knot in Will's shoulder -- not hard to do, since Will's pretty sure his back is made up entirely of knots at this point -- and kneads at it relentlessly. It hurts, but it's the good kind of hurt. The necessary kind of hurt. The kind of hurt that's really a release, that will feel better, after.

"A couple."

There's no point in lying to Hannibal.

"And the night before?"

Will mashes his face into the pillow and says nothing. Easier, too, to allow Hannibal to attribute Will's jumpiness and tension to his case than to anything more dangerous. 

Hannibal works methodically down Will's back -- like everything else he does, he may as well be a professional masseur, his touch hovering somewhere between clinical and sensual. While Will has never actually gone to a massage parlor, he imagines that they usually don't work quite like this -- fingers trailing softly over Will's back, making him shiver, or a possessive hand over his ass. Hannibal doesn’t take it any farther, though. He doesn’t try to arouse, or pay too much attention to Will’s cheeks, other than to massage them with the same diligence given to his back. Instead, Hannibal massages down one leg, then the other, and circles back up to Will’s shoulders, arms, hands.  

Will is a puddle, by the end. 

Soft. Weak.

Will’s eyes are closed, but he feels Hannibal get off the bed. Footsteps pad to the end of the bed, followed by the swishing of cloth, and then Hannibal returns. He scritches his fingernails across Will’s scalp -- cleaned of oil, which means he must have been getting a towel. This is probably Will’s cue to get up, but that seems impossible.

The soft terry cloth sweeps down Will’s back, arms, legs, cleaning him of excess oil. 

“Dinner won’t be for a while yet,” Hannibal says, covering Will’s body with the comforter. “Sleep.”

Will sleeps.

Will wakes on his own. Half-expecting Hannibal to be lurking in a corner, he pries an eye open to find an empty room. He can’t have been asleep for long, but it was deep. Enough to leave him better-rested but half-groggy, a reminder to his body and to his brain about how much of a deficit he managed to work up in the past days. 

Weeks. Months. 

(The truth is that Will always sleeps better in Hannibal’s bed. Even now. Maybe it's because he's always known -- maybe it's because some part of his mind recognized Hannibal for what he really is in that very first meeting, and decided that there's no need to fear monsters when in a monster's bed. 

Maybe, too, Will's fear -- his truest, deepest fear -- is that he is in the middle of his becoming, that with every monster he meets he loses another part of his humanity, and that the only way his work for Jack can end is with him becoming a monster himself. And maybe that fear -- that truest, deepest fear -- ceases to be the unknown in the Chesapeake Ripper’s bed. He's already here, he's already become, and so there's no if's or maybe's to worry about. 

Maybe Will is a butterfly peeling out of his cocoon in the dark of Hannibal’s bedroom, stretching his wings and allowing himself to exist without fear. Maybe this is the only place where Will can be himself, his whole, unconscious self, without trying so desperately to be somebody else. 

Maybe Hannibal is remaking Will in his image. 

Maybe this is who Will always was.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.)

Now Will faces down the barrel of eating at Hannibal’s table.

Knowingly. Willingly.

The fact that he's done it dozens of times before doesn't make it any easier. Knowing that the food will be delicious, exquisitely cooked and masterfully disguised as pork or beef, still doesn't help. 

But he can do it. He can do it because the alternative is -- unthinkable. 

Will gets out of bed. Part of him wants to meet Hannibal downstairs just like this -- nude, stripped bare and honest, wings unfurled from his shoulder blades -- but he also knows that he can't. It's too soon. Will himself still stands on uneven footing, and Hannibal may not be willing to take that kind of risk. Hannibal has much more to lose that Will does. And so Will walks back over to the dresser. His underwear and socks have been helpfully gathered and folded, waiting for Will at the top of the stack. He gets dressed, hands shaking, skin still lightly tacky with oil. He wraps himself back into his cocoon, silk thread over silk thread, until he's human again.

The bedroom door stands open. 

Waiting. 

Will descends the stairs one step at a time. Whatever Hannibal is cooking smells familiar, smells like coming home. Home. What a nebulous, idealized concept, fraught with oceans of baggage. Will doesn't have a home. He has a house filled with dogs, and a string of dingy duplexes, apartments, and basement units scattered lovelessly throughout his past. Wolf Trap is the first time he's put down roots worth tending, and even then, it's just four walls and a roof. 

Will is halfway across the parlor when Hannibal materializes into view in the kitchen hallway. 

"Perfect timing," Hannibal says. "I was just coming to wake you." 

Will lingers at the entry to the dining room. They stand as mirrors: Will, haunting the doorway from the parlor, and Hannibal, paused at the threshold of the hallway from the kitchen. Between them, Hannibal’s id laid bare: the sumptuously decorated table, vertical herb garden, and roaring fire, with Leda and the Swan looking on. This is the space where Hannibal entertains himself by 'entertaining' others. This is where Will becomes. 

"Please, sit down," Hannibal says, "I'll have dinner out in a moment." He gestures to the head of the table, where two glasses of wine wait. 

Will nods and walks, dreamlike, to his place. Across from Hannibal. Back to the fire, to Leda. It doesn't seem right to sit down across from no one, so he waits. Standing. Fingertips of his right hand resting on the table. Hannibal will return with dinner. He will sit across the table from Will, warm and soft and deceptively human. And Will will have to pretend that that's all he is. 

For one breathless, weightless moment, Will finds himself far away from Baltimore -- in the river by his house, casting a line into slowly-churning waters. Life is simpler, there. Decisions, easier. The fly catches in the breeze, arcing high overhead --

"Will?"

Will blinks. Hannibal stands in front of him, concern etched into his features. On the table, there's --

There's --

Will blinks again. Two plates, each adorned with red beans and rice, trout, and some shaved vegetable artfully arranged in typical Hannibal fashion. Will has never seen Hannibal present something so simple, so classically ordinary. The dish is beautiful -- of course it's beautiful -- but it's inarguably simple. 

The dish comes straight out of Will's childhood. 

Hannibal knows that, because Will told him as much.

"Are you all right?"

Will came down here ready. Ready to eat at Hannibal’s table, ready to make that decision, regardless of what it means to his life, to his soul. And now --

Now -- 

Hannibal reaches for Will, tugs him close, threads a hand into Will’s hair and tucks Will’s face against his shoulder. 

Will realizes, distantly, that he’s shaking. Hannibal, though -- Hannibal is a rock, solid and sure. A safe harbor. Will feels like a kite, battered in the unforgiving storm, tethered down to earth by nothing but Hannibal’s strong embrace. 

As Will tucks his face against Hannibal's throat, trembling, he realizes. 

He realizes. 

Hannibal is manipulating him. The hand carding through Will's curls, Will's favorite meal on the table -- all of it. Hannibal doesn't know what Will knows, but --

But Hannibal knows that Will is exhausted, that Jack has been running Will ragged, that Will has been spending his days in the mind of a killer. Hannibal knows what kind of horrors Will has been decoding, analyzing, understanding. Hannibal knows that he put them there. Hannibal left Will to drown in the ocean of his own mind's creations, only to show up with a life-preserver and a sympathetic ear. And this is what Will has been given, in return -- Hannibal's embrace and a cozy fire and a perfectly cooked meal. Comfort -- home -- love. A place for Will to escape the dark, and the cold. 

Hannibal did this because he wants to be the one that Will turns to. He wants to see Will suffer, and he wants to be the one to end Will's suffering. Hannibal wants the spicy smell of his cologne and the crackling fire to be associated with safety. With home. With love. 

The worst part is that it's working. 

Hannibal couldn't have known how close Will is to the breaking point -- couldn't have, or Will probably wouldn't still be alive right now -- but -- 

But -- 

Will takes a shuddering breath, and the fingertips soothing his scalp come down to grip at the back of his neck. Grounding. Strong. 

"Sorry," Will says, reflexive. The word comes out soft and muffled, but Hannibal squeezes his neck in response. 

"You have nothing to apologize for."

Will takes a deep breath and feels -- 

Lulled. Handled. Cared for. 

Before coming to Hannibal's house, Will had thought that he was ready to dine at Hannibal's table. He wouldn't have come if he wasn't ready, wouldn't have taken that kind of risk. But the fact that he doesn't have to -- not in the way that matters -- is a relief stronger than anything Will has ever encountered. He's a marionette, giving in to the utter relaxation of letting someone else pull his strings. 

Will doesn't need to make any more choices tonight.

"We can stay here for as long as you need," Hannibal says. 

Gentle. Kind. 

"I'm okay," Will says, and he's surprised to find that he mostly means it. He lifts his head and pulls far enough away to look at Hannibal properly. Hannibal's face is arranged in a suitably sympathetic expression, but Will can feel his dark curl of satisfaction.

I take my partner and I shatter him into pieces, so that I can rebuild him in my image. This is my design. 

Will doesn't yet know how he's going to save his sense of self in the face of Hannibal's machinations -- but he's ready to find out.

"Shall we?" Will says, tilting his head towards the table. 

Hannibal holds him close for one more moment, then releases the arm around his waist.

Will eats dinner, savoring the flaky fish, the rich beans. 

Watching Hannibal. Watching Hannibal watch him in return. 

Crunching down on a crisp stalk of asparagus, Will thinks, I could live like this.

Hannibal takes Will to bed. Undresses him, like a doll, and tucks him under the covers with a soothing hand rubbing down his back. 

In the morning, Will wakes with an erection. Hannibal’s chest rises and falls under Will’s cheek -- Will’s body doesn’t seem to care what Hannibal does for a hobby -- and the tempo is too even, too shallow, for Hannibal to be asleep. 

Hannibal rolls Will onto his back. Takes him apart, with his mouth, and with his hands. 

In the morning, Hannibal brings Will downstairs and deposits him -- gently, oh so gently -- in the chair overlooking the kitchen. He makes coffee in his french press, cooks eggs, and then ushers Will to the dining room table. 

"Protein scramble," Hannibal says, perhaps the least descriptive announcement Will has ever received for a dish. The eggs are light and fluffy, dotted with chunks of peppers, onions, and meat. Or, as Hannibal called it, protein.  

Will eats it without pause.

Everything looks simpler, in the morning. 

__________

Will goes back to work, the first day of the rest of his life. The halls of Quantico look different, now. Sinister. For as much as Will occasionally over-identified with a killer, for as much as Will sometimes worries about becoming a killer, he's never quite viewed the FBI headquarters through the eyes of a criminal before. Because he is, now, a criminal, in his own way. He knows the identity of the Chesapeake Ripper and he'll be hiding that. Working those cases and pretending to care, pretending to pursue the common goal of bringing a murderer to justice, while instead obfuscating the truth. 

Depending on how far Will is willing to go, he could potentially go to jail for this.

Will's footsteps echo down the linoleum hallways, bouncing off of glass and harsh concrete corners. It's early, yet. While Quantico never truly sleeps, there are far fewer people here to see the watery early-morning light filtering in through the one-way windows. To see the eerie shadows of leaves, of birds. To see the twisted, elongated shadow of Will's own body, moving steadily through the building. One step after another. 

Will is alone. 

Will is utterly, utterly alone. 

His feet trace a familiar path. Through the atrium, past the commissary, up the stairs and to the left. Past Jack's office. One step after another, after another, after another. 

The sound of Will's footsteps get louder, and louder still, until he can't help but wonder why no one is sticking a head out of their office to tell him to quit making a racket. 

Where is everyone?  

It's early, yet. 

The shadow of antlers, on the wall. 

Oh.

It's not footsteps that Will has been hearing, but hoof beats. Will isn't alone after all. 

After walking for miles down the lonely hallway, Will comes to the room. Jack's war room, where he keeps the Chesapeake Ripper files, crime scene photos tacked up on cork boards, color-coded maps and strings connecting tack to tack. 

But that room doesn't seem to be there, anymore. Instead, in its place: an operating theater, modern and decked out in grandiose splendor. A body, splayed out, pinned down to an incongruous antique wooden desk in the center of the room, like a mounted butterfly. 

(Will doesn't look at the body.)

"There you are," the wendigo says in Hannibal's voice. 

__________

Will wakes in the dark. 

An arm curls over his waist, pulling him back into a warm chest.

"Bad dreams?"

Will shakes his head and runs his fingertips over the hand that's come to settle on his waist. 

"Just strange dreams," he says. "Go back to sleep."

__________

Will goes back to work, the first day of the rest of his life. 

"You look better," Zeller says, when they run into each other in the hall outside of the Ripper's war room, as Jack calls it. "Last time I saw you you looked like you were about five seconds from puking your guts out."

"Yeah," Will says absently, "my immune system has been pretty shot this year."

Zeller nods. "Gotta make sure you're getting your vitamin C, man. Cold and flu season is no joke."

Will nods. He considers adding some kind of comment about needing to drink more orange juice or take Emergen-C or something, but that seems too much like overselling and oversharing, so he doesn't. 

"Jack upset?" he asks instead.

Zeller snorts. "When is he not? I haven't seen him yet this morning, so if you wanna get in there," he jerks a thumb at the room behind him, "without him breathing down your neck, now's your time."

"Duty calls," Will agrees with a grimace, eyes sliding past Zeller and onto the gory photos visible through the glass walls. "Any breakthroughs while I was gone?"

"'Course not," Zeller says, slapping him on the shoulder. "That's what we have you for, right? I'll be downstairs if you need me," he says, and then he set off towards the morgue. 

Leaving Will alone. 

It's strange to be back, even though Will wasn't gone for more than a few days. This room, where Will has spent dozens upon dozens of hours, is utterly the same and utterly different. One one wall, the Ripper's first two sounders, two years old. On the opposite wall, his current sounders. Twelve victims in total spanning across three years. 

Will sits on the edge of the desk and stares at the recent-kills wall through fresh eyes. The first kill -- the insurance salesman -- that one seems rote. Planned. Hannibal had probably chosen this victim -- this presentation -- well in advance, and acted quickly without coming up with something new. The second kill, an introduction. A hello, a hat tip to Will. 

(Will had known better than to be afraid, even then.)

Will's eyes drift over to the third kill -- the crime scene photo pinned side-by-side with Botticelli's Fortitude -- and the meaning snaps together all at once, painfully obvious and dangerously bold. Fortitude was notable only because it was Botticelli's first painting. The first. Not the first time he had ever touched brush to canvas, but his first work as a Renaissance artist, the first named, the first known. So chosen because the Chesapeake Ripper's first kill -- first named, first known -- was Botticelli, too. 

Someone was arrested for the Botticelli-inspired murders in Italy, but whoever it was, was wrongly accused. 

Hannibal wanted Will to see his crimes in Italy. Wanted Will to see his becoming, wanted Will to understand. Those murders in Italy were almost certainly not the first time Hannibal ever touched scalpel to flesh, either, but they were his first that he wanted attributed to a name, to a modus operandi.  

Hannibal wants Will to know about them, too. Wants Will to make the connection. 

Is it a test, just to see if Will can put the pieces together? Or is there something else to be learned, something more reckless? Will's eyes slide from the crime scene photo to the boxes of files stacked on the desk opposite. Half a dozen boxes, overflowing with every piece of paperwork that may have ever been helpful to the case, all crammed into a sad pile of cardboard. Crime scene photos, witness statements, victims' files -- all waiting for that breakthrough, the ah ha! moment that will crack the case. 

Will stands and walks over to the boxes, casually. 

The walls to the war room are glass, don't show too much interest, don't draw attention. Don't. Draw. Attention. 

Will had seen the file, in passing. Had flipped disinterestedly through the papers, once, and then tossed it back on the pile, frustrated and exhausted. Now, Will peruses through the boxes, causally, oh-so-causally, lingering over random papers and occasionally pulling out folders to flip through, hyper aware of the blur of passing bodies through the glass. Will doesn't dive straight to the file he wants. Instead, it's the sixth folder he picks up: a printout of the emailed case file from Italy, bare-bones and roughly translated. The crime scene photos are a faithful replica of the Primavera, almost shocking in their similarity to Fortitude -- less sophisticated, more instinctive, but Will can see the delicacy of Hannibal’s hand even across the decades. 

Will flips through the pages as quickly as he dares, not even sure what he's looking for until he finds it buried mid-way through the stack of papers. "A Lithuanian student was brought in for questioning but released upon arrest of suspect."  

Reckless. Hannibal wants Will to find him. 

Will stands there, hand trembling, considering for a few long seconds. Considering pulling the page from the report before he thinks better of it. For all he knows, Jack has already read this paragraph. Jack may not have paid any particular attention to that sentence, but nothing will draw more attention to it than Jack going back to this file, later, and finding the whole page missing. No, Will has to leave it. Will closes the file and tosses it haphazardly on his pile, wondering all the while if the inspector that suspected Hannibal is still alive, still working for the police. There's no way for Will to find out without drawing attention to them both, though, so Will picks up another file and stares blindly down at the text. 

Then another, and another. 

"I see you're alive after all." 

Jack stands in the doorway, arms crossed.

Will closes the folder in his hands, sets it on top of the pile now eleven files tall and leaning precariously to the left. 

"I'm feeling much better, Jack, thank you for asking."

Jack's expression doesn't change.

"You're getting sick a lot lately."

"I've been sick twice."

"In just a couple of months."

Will frowns. "I'm not sure what you want me to say. Sorry for not getting a flu shot? Sorry for letting myself get sneezed on by a toddler last week?"

To be fair, Will actually did have a toddler sneeze directly onto him in the checkout line at the grocery store a few days prior. The child's mother looked tired -- too exhausted to apologize as the kid kept trying to hand Will a spit-covered toy giraffe from over her shoulder, too sleep-deprived to worry about what a strange man in the queue thought about her parenting. The dark circles under her eyes screamed single mother. So did her bare ring finger, her wedding ring tan line.  

"And that's all it was," Jack says evenly, not intoned like a question. "The flu, and then a cold."

"Yes? What are you implying, Jack?"

Jack shrugs. "I'm not implying anything."

Will waits a beat, two.

"Am I supposed to read your mind? Because I'm not very good at that."

"You didn't drive yourself to the crime scene in Annapolis."

Jack's expression is difficult to read, in the way that it often is when he's questioning suspects. He lays out facts like a magician flipping over playing cards: 1, 2, 3, staring down the object of his attention and willing them to crack first, real card still nestled between two fingers. Will doesn’t know what that card even is, doesn’t know what Jack knows (or thinks he knows) and Will is already tired of trying to figure it out.

"Wait... are you concerned about my health?" Will asks, getting defensive even as he tries to keep calm. "Or do you think I'm blowing off work to spend time with my boyfriend?"

Jack blinks, as surprised by Will's outburst as Will is. 

Jack opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again. "I knew that you were seeing a doctor -"

"Fucking a doctor," Will interrupts. "I was genuinely sick, though. I could get him to write me a doctor's note, if you like."

Jack visibly flounders, the first time that Will’s ever seen that wide-eyed expression on his face. Will doesn’t think that Jack is homophobic, not really -- but sometimes going on the attack is the only way to avoid being on the defense. 

"I don't care that you're spending your... personal time with a man,” Jack says after a few seconds. 

"No," Will spits, starting to get legitimately angry, "you care that I'm taking personal time at all. I don't live at Quantico. Neither do you, for that matter. Which, speaking of, how's Bella doing these days? Do you even see your wife anymore? Or do you just unroll a sleeping bag under your desk?”

Bringing Jack's wife into their argument is a low blow, but even still, Will never could have anticipated the way Jack's face shatters. Jack -- the man that Will has seen stare unflinchingly at dismembered corpses -- looks away, closes his eyes, swallows. 

The pit of Will's stomach goes cold. 

Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

"She was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer," Jack says finally, the fight gone out of him completely. 

Everything clicks together -- Jack's high-strung behavior, his desperation to solve the case, his snappishness, how personally he's taken Miriam Lass's disappearance all of a sudden, all these years later. Unlike cancer, the Chesapeake Ripper is an enemy Jack can actually beat.

"Oh my god, Jack, I -- I'm so sorry." Will realizes the inanity of the statement as soon as it's left his mouth, but he doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't know if he should ask about her prognosis, or treatment -- doesn't know if Jack wants to talk about any of it. 

Jack sighs and comes to lean against the desk next to Will, shoulders slumped. 

"She's refusing treatment. I want her to fight, but she wants to 'die with dignity' and her mind is made up."

And how does that make you feel?

The words that Jack aren’t saying ring loud and clear in the room around them. His fights with Bella, his guilt, his anger warring with her acceptance, his denial warring with her surety. Will has only met Bella a few times, but she radiates confidence. A spine of steel. Will can’t even imagine what it must be like to argue with her, to try and convince her of something she doesn’t want to do.  

"I realize the irony in my saying this," Will says, "but are you seeing anyone? Talking to anyone about this?"

Jack chuckles. "No. Got the number of any good therapists?"

Will shakes his head. "You would hate my therapist. I hate my therapist, even though we work well together, but I think she would turn you off of the entire field of psychiatry completely."

Thinking about Bedelia is still hard. Raw. Here Will is, trapped between a rock and a hard place, trapped between Jack and Hannibal. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. Will doesn't know how to protect Hannibal from Jack, Jack from Hannibal, and a large part of Will still resents that he ever ended up here at all. 

They sit in silence for a few moments.

"I was afraid that you were sick, and that you were hiding it," Jack says, looking down at his hands. The photo of the wound man looms large behind him, protruding blood-soaked weapons creating a gory halo around Jack's bowed head. "Beverly hinted at a romantic angle, but...."

"But knowing me, illness seemed more likely."

"Yeah. Sorry."

Catching the Chesapeake Ripper won't save your wife, Will wants to say, but he doesn't.

Will shrugs. Water under the bridge, really. 

“Have you considered taking some time off?”

Compassionate leave, or so the bureau calls it. 

"I will when she..." Jack trails off, clears his throat and starts again. "Things are normal, for now. She's still going to work. Without chemo she'll be herself until suddenly she... isn't."

"You can take leave now, Jack. Go take a trip together. Do something you've always wanted to do but never had the time for. Don't wait until she's too sick to stand."

Jack shakes his head. "The Chesapeake Ripper...."

"Is outsmarting us. I have nothing, you have nothing. We're no closer to catching him than we were this time last year. You can't waste her last -" Will catches himself, "- can't waste the time you have together chasing killers. He'll be here when you get back."

"And his victims?"

"They're lost to us anyway."

Jack looks down at his hands, then back up at the board in front of them.

"He hasn't changed his motive, has he." 

The words aren't intoned like an actual question, but Will answers anyway.

"No. I don't think he has."

Jack nods. 

"How is he choosing them?"

Jack knows that Will knows this, at least. 

"Rudeness," Will says, knowing perfectly well how absurd that sounds. 

That gets Will a sidelong glance, raised eyebrows.

"I know," Will says. "That's why we can't track it. There's no record. It's a derisive sneer, an eye roll, an obnoxious response to a polite inquiry. The Ripper doesn't need a motive, really. He does what he does because he wants to. Because it entertains him. All he needs is a bit of inspiration."

"Rich, cunning, vindictive, and with a massive stick up his ass." Jack snorts, shakes his head. "In this area? That narrows it down to what, five thousand suspects? Ten? Twenty?"

Will laughs, too, and then both of them are laughing harder than the situation actually calls for. 

"Do we start with Congress?" Jack continues, still chuckling. "Venture capitalists? Boutique doctors?"

"If we start looking at lawyers we'll never stop."

Jack looks up at the ceiling. "God help us, we could interview for ten years straight and never run out of suspects."

"We can at least restrict the pool to someone with medical training."

"Because there's such a shortage of medical personnel here," Jack says sarcastically. "He could also be a butcher. Or, someone uncommonly smart who reads a lot of books, and has a lot of practice. We have no idea how many victims he truly has."

That's a sobering thought. Will and Jack have talked about the fact that the Ripper has other kills, somewhere else, either under a different name or in some grave site yet undiscovered. No one is that good at murder on their first try. No one without experience knows how to cover their tracks so thoroughly. 

"We'll get through this, Jack."

Surprisingly, Will finds that he means it. 

There’s an answer, somewhere, somehow. There must be a way to balance Jack and Hannibal. Hannibal and Jack. 

However that might be, Will will find it. 

__________

“Are we going to spend the whole hour in silence?” 

Will snorts but doesn’t peel his eyes away from this week’s flower arrangement: yellow flowers -- daffodils, tulips, daylilies -- interspersed with flat clusters of white. They look like Queen Anne’s Lace, but Will is almost completely sure that they’re hemlock, instead.

Bedelia’s flowers are always fucking poisonous. 

Bedelia seems, to the outside observer, to be impartial, regal, aloof. But Will can see her now -- he can see Hannibal’s influence woven around the curl of her mouth, in the coolness of her gaze. Does she know? Does she know how she had been altered?

Has she even been altered? Or was she always like this, cut from the same cloth as Hannibal, but never forged in the fires that made Hannibal into a predator? Is she what Hannibal would have been, without his suffering?

“Do we have anything to talk about?” he says finally. 

“You tell me,” she says. “I have not seen anything unexpected, in the news.”

As though Will would ever make that kind of decision without telling Bedelia, first. As though Will could ever decide to turn Hannibal in, at all. Hannibal has somehow extended his influence into every nook and cranny of Will’s life -- he never could have turned him in, not without destroying himself in the process. 

Will looks at Bedelia, finally. To an outside observer it’s just another appointment, another day in Bedelia’s office. She’s as delicate and elegant as she ever is, golden blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and cutting cheekbones and perfectly stylish dress.

Will hates her.

Viciously. 

She’s also the only person who truly understands him, now. The only person he can really relate to.

“What does he have on you?” Will asks, finally. 

Bedelia cocks her head and doesn’t reply.

“Come on,” he continues. “You owe him something, right? Why else hand him the one person in the world who can understand him, practically gift-wrapped?” 

“You think,” she says, “that you’re some kind of present? For Hannibal?”

God help him, even with everything that he’s been through this past week, Will still can’t get a good read on her.

“Aren’t I?”

Bedelia stares, and stares, and stares.

“You never thought I would turn him in. Even from that first day, the very first time you told me about him. You knew he was a serial killer then, and you knew that if I met him I would never be able to turn him in.”

“No. But I also never truly intended to introduce you, either.”

Will shakes his head, disbelieving, but she keeps going.

“I had very little to gain from introducing you, and very much to lose.”

Will snorts. “Hannibal’s favor,” he points out, because that, at least, seems obvious.

Bedelia’s lips quirk into an approximation of a smile. “Hannibal does not know about my meddling. Therefore there is,” she says, “no favor to gain. But I understand why you would think there might be.”

Will frowns. He can’t tell if she’s lying, can’t tell if she’s telling the truth, but -- but he thinks she might be telling the truth.

“Then why?”

“You asked me a question. I gave you an answer.”

Do you know anyone who would take me as I am? Who would be able to love me, just as I am?

She could have lied. Could have deflected, or could have chosen not to answer. But Bedelia answered because she wanted to see what he would do. Because she was curious, even while she may claim to be an impassive observer. 

Will can’t help but wonder if that kind of curiosity is her natural state, or if that’s something she picked up after however many years of working with Hannibal. Wonders if everyone who meets Hannibal comes away altered, slightly less themselves and slightly more of Hannibal, with every meeting. 

Will wonders about Alana. 

Wonders about Hannibal’s patients. 

About himself. 

“You don’t talk to him about me?”

“I talk to Hannibal, my patient, about his partner William, who he met at the opera, and who he cares for very much. I do not talk to him about my patient Will Graham.”

“He doesn’t know that I’m your patient?”

“No.”

They look at one another, gulf between them vast but shrinking. 

Will considers. If Hannibal were to find out about Bedelia’s meddling -- if Will were to tell him -- it’s hard to say how he might react. He likely knows that Bedelia knows, about him, or that she at least has suspicions. Bearing that in mind, would he be thankful? Angry?

On the other hand, Bedelia is far too smart to have the knowledge that she does without insurance. Will, in his haze of rage and pain, gave her that information on a silver platter, unthinking. If she were to disappear -- if Will were to suggest that she disappear -- there’s no doubt that some note would turn up on Jack Crawford’s desk telling exactly where to look, if he wants to catch the Chesapeake Ripper. 

Will could weaponize Hannibal against Bedelia, but at what cost?

Likewise, Bedelia could weaponize Hannibal against Will. If she were to tell Hannibal that Will suspects him, wants to arrest him… would Hannibal stop to listen to Will, or would he eliminate the threat before Will could even realize something was wrong?

Either of them could wield Hannibal as a weapon, but all of them would lose. 

Bedelia knows this. 

Will knows this. 

They look at one another, bookends across the room, changing Hannibal’s life and being irrevocably changed by him in turn. 

Will snorts out a laugh, breaking the tension, and shakes his head, still laughing. “Ah, the exquisite banality of it all,” he says. “The fate of all these lives in our hands, and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Bedelia says. 

“If I speak in confidence, in therapy, will you repeat any of what I say to Hannibal?”

“No,” she says. “I have not, and I will not.”

Will has no real reason to trust her, but he has no real reason not to, either. 

“Jack’s wife has terminal cancer,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I could use some advice.”

Bedelia blinks, cocks her head, and listens. 

__________

The days tumble on, remarkable only for their unremarkability. 

"The Ripper's too clever to strike again any time soon," Will says, the next time Hannibal asks about the case. “He’s almost certainly going to take a break -- two or three months, if not longer.”

Hannibal frowns, clearly not expecting Will’s pronouncement. “You don’t believe that the Ripper has another sounder planned?”

“That would be predictable,” Will says with a grin and a shake of his head. “And the Chesapeake Ripper is anything but predictable. No… the smartest course of action is to lay in wait. Jack is all riled up, working long hours, ready to catch the Ripper. To strike again so soon is exactly what Jack wants: more evidence, more crime scenes, more victims to build a better and better profile. Jack is ready to strike now. There’s nothing that would be more devastating to Jack than for the Ripper to leave him hanging, resources on the hook, dozens of techs and agents pulling overtime shifts for nothing.”

Hannibal looks thoughtful. 

Will… well, Will wants a break from hunting Hannibal. From hunting much of anything at all. And what’s the point of dating the most notorious serial killer in the world if he can’t even get a vacation out of it?

“Early humans used a method called persistence hunting,” Will continues. “Plenty of other animals could run faster, jump higher, or swipe with deadly claws. But what humans had was stamina. Stamina, and patience. A human could walk behind their prey for hours or even days at a time. Those prey that could sprint couldn’t sprint forever. Sooner or later, they would have to stop running. To rest. And sooner or later, the humans would catch up.” 

Will peeks up at Hannibal, who is listening raptly.

“How long could that pattern go on? The prey would grow tired, eventually. It would have to stop for rest, even knowing that the predator was never far behind. Slow, and inexorable, like the tides. Like fate. Now Jack -- Jack is a modern man. He has the purity of focus that can only be born of centuries of specialization, carefully crafted into a relentless agent. Modern conveniences can keep him alive, keep him warm and fed and safe, while he puts every single ounce of his energy into the hunt. He can chase the Ripper to the ends of the Earth… for a while. But the Ripper? The Ripper is primal, ancient, torn straight out of the psyche of our earliest ancestors. Once he’s chosen a target, there’s nowhere that target can run that the Ripper won’t find them. 

“Right now, the Ripper isn’t just killing for fun. He’s toying with the BAU. Why play ball with Jack Crawford when the man is ready for it? The smartest move is to let Jack destroy himself. To let Jack drive himself into exhaustion, to spend every resource and play every card in his deck, so that when the Ripper strikes again, Jack is utterly unprepared.” Will grins. “That would be the smartest move, and the Chesapeake Ripper is anything but stupid.”

Hannibal nods, putting on a show of looking contemplative but with a calculating shadow behind his eyes. A third sounder was clearly in the works -- and just as clearly, he doesn’t want to make a move that Will would class as stupid.

“Well in that case, we should go somewhere for the holidays,” Hannibal says. 

And the Chesapeake Ripper’s plans have changed, just like that. 

A snap of Will’s fingers.

Will lets a smile curl around his lips. “A trip? Where?”

“Somewhere you’ve never been before. I suppose I wouldn’t be able to persuade you to come to Europe with me?”

Will shakes his head, remorseful. He would like to go to Europe with Hannibal, one day, but he knows better than to push Jack quite so early. “Jack won’t want me on the wrong side of the Atlantic. I know that the Ripper isn’t going to strike again, but Jack doesn’t, and he’ll want me close to home.”

Hannibal nods. “Are there any American cities that have piqued your interest, one that you’ve never had the opportunity to visit?”

Will thinks about the question. He has traveled all over the country, but analyzing crime scenes and acting as a tourist are two wildly different things. Hannibal wants to show him something, he thinks. Wants to take Will around and gift him the experience of something new. A city from an old case won’t do. 

"I've actually never been to Savannah," Will says finally, "though having grown up in New Orleans I imagine they're fairly similar."

"Being two southern American cities of similar provenance, they have much in common. Though Savannah has a veneer of respectability that New Orleans lacks."

Will grins, trying to imagine Hannibal on Bourbon Street weaving amongst the drunkards and partiers. Fertile hunting grounds, there, though Hannibal would probably never do something so reckless as kill with Will in tow. 

Probably.  

"Are you calling those of us from Nola unrespectable?" Will teases. 

"Hardly," Hannibal says with surprising gravity. "New Orleans is a city of highs and lows. The food is richer, but its shadows are darker. New Orleans is a city that knows itself."

Hannibal stares at Will, eyes dark. 

“We’ll go to Savannah, then,” Will says. 

Will expects a fight from Jack, when he says that he wants to go to Savannah for Christmas, but instead Jack just nods thoughtfully.

“We all need a break, I think,” Jack says, the absolute last thing that Will expected him to say. “I’ve been thinking about what you said before. I want to take Bella back to Italy, before it’s too late.”

Will blinks at Jack, shocked.

Jack chuckles. “You just spent the last ten minutes explaining to me all of the reasons why the Ripper won’t strike anytime soon. Is it such a surprise?”

Will opens his mouth to respond, realizes that he’s been struck completely off-guard and has nothing to actually say, and closes it. 

“You look like a goldfish.”

“The Chesapeake Ripper…”

Jack shrugs. “You haven’t been wrong about the Ripper yet. If you say he won’t kill, I believe you. I’m going to spend some time with my wife.”

And that’s that. 

Will spends Christmas with Hannibal in a Victorian mansion overlooking Forsythe park, with Hannibal playing enthusiastic tour guide. There are many vacations, just like this, waiting in Will’s future -- Hannibal taking him to the best restaurants, showing him each of the most interesting, treasured places each city has to offer. Hannibal wants to give Will the world, wants to be tied into every happy moment that Will has until Will wouldn’t even know how to extricate his life from Hannibal’s.

Will wants to let him.

On the first snow of the season back in Wolf Trap, Will spends hours running with the dogs, throwing snowballs for them to snap to pieces with their hunter's jaws, laughing. 

The days tumble on, and Will, for once, is happy. 

__________

The specter of Valentines day creeps up, and along with it, a very strange series of killings that look like animal attacks but feel like murders. Will tells Hannibal about them over an appetizer of foie gras au torchon.

“A human who kills as an animal,” Hannibal says, just a shade too focused to be convincingly casual. “An uncommon pathology, certainly.”

Will could ask. But…

He kind of wants to see what Hannibal will do. 

__________

"I don't like that Will isn't answering his phone," Jack says, pulling the car into an empty parallel parking space.

"It's early." Alana hadn't exactly been thrilled to get a phone call from Jack at dark-o'clock in the morning this morning, but she knew that if she didn't come Jack would show up at Will's house unannounced and drag him out of bed. She can’t do much to protect Will from Jack’s overstepping, but she can at least do this.

"He didn't used to ignore my calls."

"He's been enforcing firmer boundaries." Alana’s words come out a little sharper than she intends, but they’ve been having some variation on this conversation since Jack picked her up in Washington. 

"I don't like that, either." 

Alana gives Jack a look but he doesn't bother to look chagrined. 

"My job is to catch killers, not to coddle agents."

"Will isn't an agent," she points out. "And neither am I."

Instead of acknowledging her words, Jack opens his door and gets out of the car, leaving Alana with no choice but to do the same. 

"Remind me again who we're meeting here?" Jack says, looking up at the large brick house. 

Alana sighs, but accepts the subject change. "His name is Hannibal Lecter. He was Randall Tier's psychiatrist for a few years when he was a teenager."

"And you're sure this Dr. Lecter is one who will overlook doctor-patient privilege?"

"He won't give us anything on the record. Nothing that could be used in court, at least, but I'm hoping he could give us an idea of whether or not we're looking in the right direction."

"Good enough for me."

The sun has only been up for a short while, but Hannibal has always been an early riser. Alana knocks on the door while Jack looks suspiciously around the neighborhood.

Sure enough, they're only waiting for about a minute before the door opens, revealing Hannibal fully-dressed and clearly surprised to see Alana on his doorstep. 

"Alana," Hannibal says, voice warm, "what can I do for you?" His eyes flick over to Jack, but he doesn't say anything.

"Hi Hannibal. This is Special Agent Jack Crawford with the BAU." Jack offers his hand, which Hannibal shakes. "I'm consulting on a case for the FBI, and we were hoping we could ask you a few questions about one of your former patients."

"Of course. Please, come in."

Hannibal holds the door open and gestures inside. As Hannibal leads them through his house, Jack's eyes linger on the decorations -- particularly the full-sized samurai armor, and a few of the paintings. Hannibal politely deposits them in what anyone else would consider a formal sitting room, but Alana knows that this is the room Hannibal both relaxes and entertains guests in. His harpsichord stands prominently in the corner, and there's already a fire lit in the fireplace. 

"Could I offer either of you coffee?" Hannibal says, ever the host.

Jack's eyes light up, but Alana cuts in, saying, "no, that's quite all right, thank you. We'll try not to take too much of your time."

"Actually -"

"We're mostly just checking to see if you could confirm an anonymous tip, off the record," Alana continues, ignoring Jack's attempt to get coffee. He thinks that he can ignore Alana when it suits him, and push her around like one of his agents, but two can play at that game. 

Hannibal's eyes flick back and forth between them. Alana knows Hannibal well enough to tell that he's amused by their exchange, but Jack probably doesn't.

"Randall Tier, you said." Hannibal sits down in an armchair across from them, while Jack huffs. 

Alana nods, and gives him a quick run-down of the crime scenes they had found. Animal attacks that weren't animal attacks, according to Will. Mutilated animals, escalating violence. Hannibal listens attentively until she's finished, and then he talks about what he remembers of Randall Tier, in turn. A patient obsessed with prehistoric predators, obsessed with becoming one of those creatures. A patient with violent tendencies towards others, who wished for the teeth and the claws that would render him powerful. 

"You believe Randall Tier may be responsible for these murders?" Hannibal asks finally, a familiar twist to his mouth -- it’s one that Alana has seen in the mirror. No psychiatrist likes to think that they’ve failed a patient, or that a patient that they attempted to help ended up harming others. 

Almost anyone who works in the psychiatric field long enough will have regrets with a patient, but that never makes it any easier. 

"We don't know," Jack says bluntly. "We’re only here because we received an anonymous tip on our hotline saying that Tier might be responsible. The crimes themselves have been reported as animal attacks, and right now only the FBI knows that a human may be the suspect."

Hannibal nods in understanding. "So whoever reported Randall must know him well, to even suspect him."

Above them, a floorboard squeaks, followed by the distinctive sound of footsteps.

"Excuse me a moment. I had an overnight guest who is clearly awake."

With that, Hannibal ducks out of the room, and his footsteps echo up the stairs.

"He's been very helpful," Jack says, looking speculative. 

"I've known Hannibal for a long time." Alana doesn't know if he would have been quite so helpful, otherwise. They skated past a whole host of ethical concerns that Hannibal may not have overlooked for a stranger.

"Do you think he'd be good at doing what you do?" Alana rolls her eyes -- leave it to Jack to try and recruit a potential witness. "What? If Will is going to periodically be going AWOL I need more people that I can count on."

"It won't kill you to give Will a few days off, Jack."

"It might kill someone else, though. And he’s already had more than a few days off." Jack pulls out his cell phone. " And I'm worried about Will. Last time Will acted unpredictable, he almost died. Something could have happened to him."

"Jack..." Alana doesn't think that Will is sick, or that he's been attacked. Alana thinks that Will is taking some time to himself, but he knows better than to tell Jack that, because Jack would bulldoze over his protestations and show up on his front porch anyway. Jack ignores her, too, as he lifts his cell phone to his ear.

"I won't -"

Across the room, a cell phone starts ringing. 

They both freeze. 

"That," Jack says evenly, after a few long seconds, "is Will's ringtone."

"It's the same ringtone that Will uses,” Alana says firmly, “because Will never changed his from the generic one that came with his phone. Don't jump to conclusions."

Jack hangs up the phone, and a few seconds later, the ringing stops. 

Jack hits a button on his phone, and the ringing starts again. 

"Jack."

The conclusion worth drawing is pretty obvious, to Alana -- Jack had asked a while back if Will was gay. Jack had asked if Will was seeing, or seeing, a doctor, which Will himself confirmed to Alana recently. Hannibal is a doctor, who has never particularly struck Alana as entirely straight, and who had an overnight guest last night. Will not answering his phone makes sense, if it was across the house from where he was sleeping. 

(In Hannibal's bed.)

Alana genuinely feels bad, because Will wouldn't have wanted them to find out about his personal life this way.

Jack stalks across the room and stops in front of the side table with the ringing phone. He doesn't touch it, but he does look up at Alana and say, "looks like Jack Crawford is calling."

"Jack, get back over here and sit down."

Jack raises an eyebrow at her.

"You are not going to interrogate Will about his boyfriend. Pretend like you didn't see that, and we'll continue our interview with Hannibal when he comes back downstairs."

"That's what you think is happening here?"

"Yes?" Alana looks around, not sure what Jack is implying. "What, do you think Hannibal kidnapped Will and has him tied up in the basement?"

Jack opens his mouth to say something, but then appears to think better of it.

"No." He glances down at the cell phone again.

“Then come back over here,” she says, “now.” 

For once in his life, Jack does what she tells him to. 

“You asked me once if Will was dating a man,” she reminds him.

“I know that he is. He told me.”

“Well,” she says, gesturing to the cell phone, “then why are you surprised.”

Jack sits in silence for a few moments. “I can’t say I had given any real thought to who Will might be dating, but….” he looks askance around the room, at the paintings and antiques and the undeniable Hannibal-ness of it all. 

Jack has a point. On the surface, Hannibal should be someone who should get Will’s hackles up immediately, not even mentioning the fact that he’s a psychiatrist. But to Alana, who knows them both? It makes a strange sort of sense. 

“Did you know about this?” Jack asks eventually.

“I did not.” 

Jack raises an eyebrow at her. 

“Do you really think I would have brought you here if I knew?”

“No. You wouldn’t have.”

“No,” Alana repeats, “I wouldn’t have.”

__________

Will waking alone in Hannibal's bed isn't an uncommon occurrence. 

Will waking, alone, in bed, to the sound of voices drifting up the stairs, is. He cracks a bleary eye open to look at the clock -- 7:36 -- and groans. Hannibal didn't say anything about expecting visitors, and who the hell shows up unannounced at 7:36 on a Saturday morning?  

Will waits a few minutes to make sure that Hannibal isn't just politely escaping some Jehovah's Witnesses. The voices travel through the house -- not Jehovah's Witnesses -- and Will is forced to consider his options. He's comfortable. Hannibal's bed is obscenely cozy, and Will had planned on laying here with his face smushed into the pillow for at least another hour. At some point Hannibal would have wandered back upstairs with a cup of his ridiculously good coffee to pry Will out of bed, and Will could have coaxed Hannibal back into bed for round two.

Will had plans.  

(Hannibal likes the way Will becomes soft and pliant in the morning, and Will likes how much Hannibal likes it.)

Drifting in and out of sleep, Will listens for the quieting of voices, but instead hears a continuous murmur. Will tries to ignore the pressure in his bladder -- if he gets up and goes to the bathroom, he'll pop this gossamer bubble of dreams and stillness. The real world will come pouring in. 

Eventually, nature wins out, and Will emerges from the bed and pads across the room to the en-suite bathroom to relieve himself and brush his teeth. 

Will leaves the bathroom to find Hannibal standing in the bedroom, waiting for him. 

"Oh, hey." Will runs a hand through his unruly hair, trying to make it look less ridiculous. "Are those people gone?"

"Unfortunately, no," Hannibal says, raking his eyes down Will’s body. "Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom are here."

Will blinks. His first semi-hysterical thought is that Jack tracked his cell phone to Hannibal's house, and is here to drag Will into the field kicking and screaming. But that doesn't actually make sense -- Jack has no reason to do that, and he probably wouldn't have been talking to Hannibal in Hannibal's sitting room for half an hour if he was here for Will. 

"Apparently someone left an anonymous tip that your recent string of murders may have been committed by a former patient of mine. Jack wanted my advice as to whether or not that line of inquiry would be worth investigating."

Will looks at Hannibal suspiciously -- even though Hannibal stands before him, seemingly guileless and open, Will knows better. He told Hannibal about the animal case two days ago, and then all of a sudden there's an 'anonymous tip' that brought Jack Crawford to Hannibal's door? Will has never believed in coincidences, and he particularly doesn't when Hannibal is involved.

"If you wanted to meet Jack, you could have just said something." Will intends for his tone to be chastising, but instead the words tumble out fond and warm. 

Will takes this -- the anonymous tip, Jack downstairs -- and slots it into the picture he's building of the real Hannibal. Of the life they would live, together. Hannibal won't do something so straightforward as ask for something that he wants. No, instead he'll carefully manipulate the circumstances surrounding his desires so that they just so happen to come to fruition, just how he wants them, but without having to take credit, or responsibility, for them. 

He's a puppet-master pretending to be a marionette, strings wrapped around his joints, waiting to dance. 

Will should probably be angry, but the situation is just... so... Hannibal.

"I have no particular desire to meet Jack Crawford, outside of a general curiosity." Hannibal's words are sincere, genuine. Nothing about his tone or body language says that he's lying.

"Okay," Will says, taking a step closer to Hannibal, "so it's not that you wanted to meet Jack...." He takes another step, and then another, until he's right in Hannibal's personal space. Will cocks his head and bites his lip, considering. "It's not that you wanted to meet Jack, it's that you wanted Jack to meet you." Hannibal says nothing. "You're not my dirty little secret, you know."

"I never thought that I was." Hannibal wraps his hands around Will's waist and pulls Will flush against him, hips to chest.

"Uh huh," Will says, nuzzling lightly against Hannibal's neck. "But you want to mark your territory, anyway."

"I've done no such thing."

Will runs the tip of his nose over the shell of Hannibal's ear, feather-light, then whispers, "I see you."

When he pulls away, he catches a flash in Hannibal's eyes -- darkness straining at the seams of his person-suit. It's gone before Will could even put a name to it, leaving Hannibal, indulgent boyfriend, consummate psychiatric professional. 

"Jack and Alana don't yet know that you're here," Hannibal says, continuing as though Will had said nothing, "so you can proceed however you wish. You need not come downstairs, if you would rather keep your private life private. I only wanted to let you know that they're there, so you would not walk into the room blindly."

Hannibal wouldn't go through all that effort, only for Will to be able to choose not to comply at the last minute. Hannibal wants him to think that he has the final say, but Hannibal must have ensured that he would get his way, regardless of Will's actions. Will glances over at the bedside table, and sure enough, his cell phone isn't there.

Will must have left it downstairs, last night. 

(Or, perhaps, Hannibal moved it downstairs.)

"Jack would have taken this opportunity to call me for probably the twentieth time," Will says, unable to contain his wry smile. I see you. "If my phone is downstairs, then he already knows I'm here."

Hannibal says nothing, which means he already knows that Will's phone is in the same room he brought Jack and Alana to.

Will nods, then slinks away from Hannibal to his drawer. He changes his underwear -- making something of a show of it -- pulls on a pair of pants, and then goes to Hannibal's closet and grabs one of his softest cashmere sweaters. Pulling the sweater over his head feels like foreplay -- a reverse striptease. Hannibal’s eyes are dark and possessive, a mirror more accurate than anything made of glass. The shoulders fit a little loosely, and the sleeves are a touch too long. Any casual observer could tell that Will isn't wearing his own clothing.

Jack is not a casual observer.

Neither is Alana, for that matter. 

"Shall we?"

Will makes to walk past Hannibal, but instead finds himself spun around and pinned to the bedroom door, Hannibal looming large and imposing in his field of vision. Will relaxes back against the wood, allowing his body to fall open -- arms defenseless by his sides, neck tilted back, belly vulnerable. Interacting with Hannibal -- the real Hannibal -- makes for a delicate dance. Hannibal likes to be in charge. Hannibal likes to be in control. Hannibal likes to play the puppet-master, the toy-maker -- wind them up, and watch them go. Will can see Hannibal. It's time he affords Hannibal the same courtesy. Seeing and being seen. 

"You are very difficult to manipulate," Hannibal says, even-toned and intimate, giving up on any pretense of deniability. 

"I can see through your design."

Will knows Hannibal. And now Hannibal knows that Will knows.  

"I strive to be unpredictable, and yet you're the Orpheus to my Eurydice. I always find you one step in front of me, waiting for me to catch up."

“Is this the afterlife?” Will says. “Or just a strange dream?”

Hannibal doesn’t reply, except to run a fingertip down Will’s jawline. 

The rest of the myth stretches out between them, unsaid -- that Orpheus can only have Eurydice if he never stops to look, that Will can doom them both with his need to see . That their salvation lies in blindly trusting Hannibal, instead of trusting his own senses. 

"It's not that I can predict you, Hannibal, it's that I understand you,” Will says finally. “It is your actions that inform me. Nothing more." 

A crown of antlers begins to sprout from Hannibal's head, black and blood-soaked. They stretch up, and up, and up, out of Will's field of vision. He wants to follow their lines with his eyes, wants to appreciate their majesty -- but he and Hannibal are pressed far too close together for Hannibal to miss Will's wandering attention. Instead they grow in the periphery, warning. Warning of something rich. Something dark. In the corner of his eye, Will can see the stag, tossing its head. Waiting. 

Hannibal's eyes glint red and blood drips down his face. 

"What did you want from this... exercise?" Will murmurs into the space between them. 

"I wanted to see what you would do."

Honest. Bare. Take-me-or-leave-me. 

Careful Hannibal, Will wants to say, your person-suit is slipping.

"And what am I doing?"

"Whatever I want you to, it seems."

Will can't help the grin that stretches across his face. 

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Powerful," Hannibal says, "and powerless." Hannibal clasps Will's hand, brushes a kiss against his knuckles. 

“We can be powerful and powerless together. We can derive our power from one another, and be stronger for it.” 

Hannibal looks at Will, and Will looks at Hannibal. The antlers melt away and in the blink of an eye Will is looking at his boyfriend again. 

“C’mon. Jack is waiting.”

Will comes downstairs to an uncomfortable silence, with Alana and Jack sitting tensely on opposite sides of the settee. 

“Agent Crawford,” Hannibal says over Will’s shoulder, “how do you take your coffee?”

“Black is fine.”

The air behind Will shifts, and then he’s alone with his coworkers. Ignoring the tension, Will walks over and picks up his cell phone. Nine missed calls from Jack. 

No surprise there. 

Will pockets his phone, then ambles over to one of the armchairs and sits across from Jack and Alana. Jack says nothing -- just stares, eyebrows raised, waiting for Will to say something.

Will raises his eyebrows back. He refuses to look -- or feel -- guilty. Will hasn’t done anything wrong, technically.

At least, not in regards to Randal Tier. 

“Do you have something to say, Jack?”

Jack stares at Will for just long enough that Will starts to worry that Jack suspects something. Then, Jack laughs. 

“To be honest,” Jack says in a low voice designed not to carry, “he doesn’t really seem like your type.” Then, in a more normal tone, “you should keep your phone near your person all the time, Will. This could have been an emergency.”

“You have Alana.”

“Nevertheless.”

Will rolls his eyes. “You know how to solve crimes without me, Jack. I know that you do.”

“I can get to California without taking a plane, too, but that doesn’t mean I want to waste days of my time driving across the country when I could spend a few hours in the air.”

The comparison is clumsy, but Will gets the picture.

“And to be frank,” Jack continues, “we should have heard about this from you.”

Will frowns. “Heard about what?”

“Your boyfriend has information on the case we’re working on, but we heard that from an anonymous tip, not from the member of our team that has his boots on the ground.”

Footsteps herald Hannibal’s return, which means he either wants Will to be aware of his presence, or he’s pretending to be harmless in front of their guests. 

Probably both.

“I don’t tell Hannibal about my cases,” Will lies, “just like Hannibal doesn’t tell me about his patients. We hadn’t talked about Randal Tier until about ten minutes ago. If we had, you would have heard about him from me.”

“Most likely,” Hannibal says, handing Will a cup of coffee from the tray he’s carrying, “the tip came from a family member, or someone close to Randal who is aware of his delusions, and has reason to believe that Randal was ready to act on those delusions.” He hands coffee to Alana, then to Jack, and comes to stand at Will’s elbow. 

Alana takes a sip of her coffee, then aims a pointed look at Jack. “We only knew to talk to Hannibal after the tip because you pulled his medical records. Without those, we wouldn’t be here either.”

Jack holds up a hand in defeat. 

“Okay, okay, I get it. There’s no way Will could have known. Sounds like the next step is to bring Tier in,” Jack says, “if what Dr. Lecter has to say is true.”

Will looks up at Hannibal, and Hannibal looks down at Will, satisfied. 

“I trust Hannibal’s judgement,” Will says. “Bring him in, execute a search warrant. If it is him, he’ll have tools. Bones. Even if we don’t find the suit we should be able to find something.” 

“Circumstantial evidence -”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, Jack. If we get to it.”

__________

They don’t just find bones, tools -- they find the suit, covered in blood, and then Randall is only too happy to talk to them about his becoming. 

“Guess your boyfriend knew what he was talking about,” Jack says, later. 

“Guess he did.”

__________

“How was yesterday’s crime scene?” Hannibal asks, unfurling his picnic blanket. 

Hannibal had surprised Will with a picnic lunch, so Will had brought him down to a sunny clearing by the river. The spring sun finally shines warm enough to be outdoors comfortably, and it seems both Will and Hannibal wish to take advantage. Will starfishes out on the blanket Hannibal brought, face upturned, enjoying the sunlight. 

“It was interesting,” Will says, eyes closed. “Victim was some musician trying to hitchhike to Florida.”

“Sounds like the East Coast killer.”

An uninspired name for an uninspired killer. His MO is to strangle hitchhikers and leave them blindfolded with their hands clasped in prayer.

“It does,” Will agrees, “but it wasn’t. It was definitely the work of a copycat.”

Creating a profile took about ten minutes, based entirely on previous case files -- abusive father, catholic guilt -- and the powers that be will spend the next few days pulling together a list of potential suspects. Until then, Will can relax. They may end up catching the real killer, but that’s not whose work Will saw yesterday. 

“Do you often encounter copycats?”

Will makes a contemplative sound. “They’re less common than people think. Convincing ones, anyway.”

“Clearly this was not, as you already know that it wasn’t your killer.”

“I don’t think he was trying to be convincing. The crime scene was more of a… a sandbox, I suppose. He was playing. Doing something different than normal.” 

Will knows his tone is off. He knows, because he’s doing it on purpose. A little too familiar, a little too fond -- not how Will would ordinarily talk about a murderer. 

“You have some idea of who the real killer is?”

Will glances at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye and smiles indulgently. 

“I think that it was the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Hannibal blinks in surprise. “Your copycat?” Will nods. “An interesting conclusion for you to draw. Why do you think that it was the Ripper, of all people?”

Will tilts his head back to look at the sky, shrugs, casual as could be. “Hard to explain. You spend enough time with a killer and you get to know his tells. This was definitely not the work of the East Coast killer. He’s too frantic, too driven by impulse. This victim had the slow, careful meticulousness of the Ripper. I don’t have any proof -- it’s just a feeling.”

“You believed that the Ripper would stop killing for a time.”

Will shakes his head. “No. The man behind the mantle may set the ‘Chesapeake Ripper’ back on the shelf, but that’s a mask he wears -- not the other way around. He’s not driven by compulsion, and so he can put the method down and pick another up just as easily. He’s abstaining from being the Chesapeake Ripper, not abstaining from killing.”

“And what does Jack think of your theory?”

Will rolls his head over to look at Hannibal. “I haven’t told Jack.” There -- a glint of satisfaction in Hannibal’s eye. “Like I said, I have no proof. Just a feeling. I think… well. I think that the Ripper has a lot more kills than what we have on record for him. This didn’t feel new -- this felt like play. Like sometimes he just goes out and tries something different. If I were to tell Jack that, he would have me trawling through ten years of murder records in a hundred mile radius, trying to find another missing piece.”

Hannibal takes a long moment to respond. Will left him plenty of openings -- him keeping secrets from Jack, his suspicion that the Ripper has more kills, the whole concept of the Ripper as a copycat. 

Will revels in the zing of anticipation. Where will Hannibal go with this conversation? When will Hannibal realize?

“Do you think the Ripper is developing a new profile?”

Hannibal can’t resist the allure of hearing Will’s opinion on himself. It’s cute, really. 

“Nah,” Will says, casual and dismissive. “It’s more like a horror writer that writes the occasional romance novel. He is who he is, but sometimes I think he wants to… kill outside the box, so to speak. Do something different. The Ripper’s modus operandi is fairly rigid, and I think he gets bored of it sometimes. The killer -- the real killer, under the MO and the pageantry -- is more creative, more…” Will trails off, partly because he’s searching for the right word, and partly because he’s enjoying the rapt look of attention on Hannibal’s face. “...He’s more interesting. There’s more to the man than just the Chesapeake Ripper. The Ripper isn’t driven by impulse, he’s driven by his own entertainment. This? Is just… entertaining.”

“A fascinating insight.”

“Sorry.” Will says, not at all sorry. “I don’t mean to wax poetic.”

“You do seem rather taken with the Ripper.” Hannibal smirks. “Need I be jealous?”

Will laughs. The audacity -- the sheer audacity! Hannibal is positively glowing with satisfaction in his enjoyment of the joke that he thinks only he understands. 

“Sure,” Will says easily, “who knows, one day I may pack a bag and run away with him. Just me and the Ripper, in Bali, or Florence, living happily ever after.”

“And leave me to nurse a broken heart?”

Will puts his hand on top of Hannibal’s, brushes his thumb over Hannibal’s knuckles. “You know I’m not going to break your heart, Hannibal.” He means for the words to come out as light and airy as the rest of their conversation has been, but instead he’s utterly sincere. Hannibal has rewritten him -- shaped him, formed him, recreated him into something different, something more. Will can’t even pretend that anyone else could love him the way that Hannibal does. Can’t pretend that he could love someone other than Hannibal.

And even though Will doesn’t quite have the words, Hannibal understands. That possessive devotion glints in Hannibal’s eyes -- folie à deux. The madness of two.

“C’mon,” Will says, nodding at the picnic basket. “Show me what you brought for us.”

__________

The inevitable happens at the very end of spring, on what will likely be the last crisp evening before the season leans full-tilt into summer. Hannibal adds another log onto what will likely, too, be the last fire of the season, just before the sticky summer air becomes humid enough to drink, sneaking into every crack and crevice of an old house like this one. 

"It has been quite a while since you last spoke about your work," Hannibal says, sitting back down in the armchair across from Will. "I trust everything is well?"

Will glances sideways at Hannibal, then gives a casual shrug. "Honestly? It's been teaching, mostly."

"I noticed that you have not been on many trips, as of late."

Will cradles his heavy crystal tumbler in his hands, weighing both it and Hannibal's words. Runs his finger along the edge of the glass, considering whether he wants to top off his whisky, and what to say, in response to Hannibal. 

"Jack wants us close to home," Will says finally. "He's only accepting bona fide serial killers right now -- not potentials, or unusual crimes, like he sometimes does."

"He's waiting for the Ripper to strike again," Hannibal guesses. 

Will hasn’t told Hannibal about Bella’s cancer, hasn’t given him that kind of ammunition against Jack, for Hannibal surely would have used it. Will considers the whisky in his hands -- only a sip or two left. He nods, absently, in response to Hannibal, then levers himself up and walks over to the bar. 

"It's been months," Will says while giving himself a generous pour. "Jack is convinced that another sounder is right around the corner, and he wants us all to be ready to mobilize at a moment's notice."

"Do you believe him to be correct?"

Will laughs and shakes his head. Caps the whisky bottle, slots it back into its rightful place, and then settles back down into his seat. 

"No. But Jack thinks we're this close," Will pinches his index finger and thumb together, "and in his mind, just one more kill will give us the breakthrough we need to catch him."

"Perhaps he's right."

A grin cuts across Will's face like a wound. "No," he says. Weighing his glass, weighing his words. He looks into the amber liquid, then up to the fire. "We're not going to catch the Chesapeake Ripper." 

Will's words are calm. Measured. Precise.

"Every killer makes a mistake sooner or later," Hannibal says. 

The fire pops, crackles.

"Not the Ripper. He's too meticulous, too methodical. We won't catch the Ripper unless he wants to be caught."

"Perhaps he won't make a mistake," Hannibal concedes, "but sooner or later you will develop a better profile, one that allows you to catch him."

Will takes a sip of his whiskey and rolls it around his mouth, savoring the smoky taste. He swallows. 

"I already have a better profile," Will says.

The quiet of the room turns sharp. Will has baited the hook, and now Hannibal circles what he thinks is prey.  

"Oh?" Hannibal says, feigning casual interest. "You hadn't mentioned. Is this a recent development?"

The months, weeks, days, have all been ticking down to this. Since making his decision, Will has known that he would have to tell Hannibal, sooner or later, or else Hannibal would do something terribly reckless to get Will's attention. The Fortitude stunt was dangerous enough; the longer Will plays dumb, the bolder Hannibal will get. 

"No," Will says, "it's not recent. It's based on something Zeller said a few months ago." He rolls the whisky glass across his bottom lip, considering. 

Where does their story begin? Where do they end?

"See, the thing is -- I could never quite understand the Ripper. Most killers take a few minutes to unravel, at most. Their impulses are laid bare in their actions. They write symphonies in blood spatter, they carve love songs in flesh. But the Ripper… my problem was that I could never see the Ripper. I could've told you that he kills in sounders. That he views his victims as pigs, that he considers them beneath him. I could've told you that he must have medical training, given his surgical trophies, but..." Will flicks his eyes towards Hannibal, "...that doesn't tell you much, does it?"

"No. Most serial killers take trophies."

"Most other killers are driven to do what they do. Their destruction is compulsion, like picking at a scab, or poking at a sore tooth. Most of them couldn't stop, even if they tried. And many of them have tried, going months or years without killing, only to succumb to the urge in a moment of weakness."

"But not the Ripper," Hannibal says.

"No," Will agrees, "not the Ripper. He kills because he is inspired. Because doing so entertains him, in a way that ordinary people cannot. Creation, from destruction."

"Sounds as though you believe your Ripper to be playing god."

Your Ripper. Will grins. 

"Trophies," Will says with a shake of his head, instead of taking Hannibal's bait. "What a loaded word. Surgical trophies. That's the thorn that pricked me, over and over again. Killers keep trophies to remember their victims, or to relive their crimes, but the Ripper isn't so vulgar, so... pedestrian. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that the Ripper isn't sitting in a cabin in the woods, surrounded by organs in jars. And yet every motive for keeping trophies brought me down the path of obsession and devotion, two things that never fit with the rest of the Ripper's profile. The Ripper isn't obsessed with his victims, nor is he devoted to maintaining their remains, so why bother? Why go through all that trouble?"

Hannibal sits rigid with a hunter's focus, hanging on Will's every word, but Will lets his last statement rest. He takes another sip of his drink, swirls the whisky in his glass like it's wine. Will isn't a hunter, he's a fisherman -- he waits for his prey to come to him.  

Hannibal breaks first. 

"So it was your understanding of these trophies that influenced your new profile?"

Hook, line, sinker. 

Careful, Hannibal, your person-suit is slipping.

"It's something that Zeller said after the last sounder, when a few feet of intestine had been taken. Maybe the Ripper's making sausage." Will stares into the fire, allowing the words to stretch out between them. "It was like someone tore a veil from my eyes. He's not keeping them, he's eating them. From there, the entire profile just... fell into place.

"What defines the Ripper is his pageantry. Each crime scene is carefully stitched together with time and skill, transforming muscles and sinew into art. He would do the same with the meat he takes with him. If he's eating them, he's cooking them with the same talent, the same elegance that he uses at crime scenes. Any dish served by the Ripper would have to be a work of art. He performs a humiliation in three acts: the murder, to demean the victim; the artistry of the crime scene, to taunt law enforcement; and finally the meal, for whoever is foolish enough to dine at his table. The Ripper is cleverer than all of them combined. He knows it. He revels in it."

For once, Hannibal seems to have nothing to say.

"And so the profile changes," Will continues, "from a recluse hiding in the woods with barrels of formaldehyde, to a wealthy, well-connected surgeon. One who is known for throwing fancy parties with even fancier food that he cooks himself. One who primarily serves organ meats..." Will glances at Hannibal, "...and makes his own sausage."

The fire crackles, pops. 

"And what does Jack think of your new profile?"

Will turns to look at Hannibal properly, face to face for the first time since the conversation began. Hannibal is a statue -- spine straight, eyes blank, face a bloodless mask. Bedelia would say that he's straining at the seams of his person-suit -- or, perhaps, that he's allowing it to fall in tatters around him.

"Hannibal," Will chides. He knocks back the rest of his whisky, sets the heavy glass on the side table with a decisive chink. The space between them has never been so infinitesimal, has never been so vast. Will stands; Hannibal watches. Waiting. Wanting to see what Will will do. 

Will crosses that vast ocean in a few steps and swings himself into Hannibal's lap, straddling him. "Hannibal," he repeats, cupping Hannibal's jaw in his hand, "I would never tell Jack this profile." Hannibal's eyes are dark with flickering fire. "I love you." 

Hannibal clutches at Will's hips with a grip that's sure to bruise. 

Will presses a kiss against Hannibal’s lips, tilts his forehead against Hannibal’s so that they’re breathing the same air. 

“Take me to bed.”

__________

Their coupling is violent - there’s no other way to describe it. Hannibal is savage in ways that Will has only glimpsed in slivers and shards poking out from between the seams of his person-suit.

He strips Will of his clothes, pushing him onto all fours in the middle of Hannibal’s massive bed. He opens Will quickly and without undue care, though he targets Will’s prostate with ruthless doctor’s precision. Will can do little more than hold on when Hannibal enters him and weather the storm. Hannibal fists Will’s hair, a burning yank of follicles wrenching in his scalp; he bites a stinging line up Will’s shoulder and digs all ten fingertips into the soft skin of Will’s hips, intending to bruise; he angles his thrusts perfectly, until Will is reduced to grunting and gasping, and then Hannibal comes -- far sooner than Will expected. 

Will has only a few moments of panting incredulity before he’s unceremoniously tossed onto his back. 

(Will’s erection hasn’t waned at all.)

Hannibal looms over him, eyes so dark they look black. Eyes so dark, but with a flash of red. He looks like the wendigo made flesh. 

Will lies docile on the bed. He doesn’t react, when Hannibal sweeps a hand from sternum to groin and back again. He doesn’t react when Hannibal wraps a hand around his throat and applies pressure, more and more, until Will cannot breathe. The moment stretches out between them, electric, with Will’s body as the livewire between them. Will looks into the deep pools of Hannibal’s eyes until his own vision goes cloudy and his cock is jerking against his stomach. 

Hannibal releases his throat just before Will loses consciousness. He allows Will one gasp for air before he does it again, watching Will curiously. Cat and mouse. Waiting to see how Will will react. 

Each time, the pool of precome on Will’s stomach gets wetter, slicker. 

Hannibal releases Will after one final time and tilts his jaw to the side, then bites gently at Will’s throat -- this time gently enough not to bruise. His bites burn a line down Will’s body -- collar bone to pectoral to nipple to ribs to hip, until he shoulders his way between Will’s thighs. 

Perhaps Will should be afraid, to be helpless with a predator between his legs. 

He’s not. 

Hannibal cups the back of one knee and raises it, fingertips pressing a five-pointed brand. Will can see possessiveness in his eyes. It’s no surprise when he turns his mouth to the fleshy skin above Will’s knee and bites.  

Will gasps -- not from the shock, but from the purity of the sensation, from the pain and the heat and the sharpness of Hannibal’s teeth. Hannibal bites hard enough and long enough that Will grabs the sheets in both fists and hangs on, until Will thinks that maybe he’s being tested. Then Hannibal releases him. 

Then, he moves up a few inches, and does it again, and then again. Each time Will’s cock jumps. Each time Will’s hands wrench at the sheets and he sucks air between his teeth, but he doesn’t try to stop Hannibal, doesn’t try to soothe him or deter him. 

Hannibal finally releases Will’s knee, only to pick up the other. Each bite is a brand -- Hannibal, writing his possession across every inch of Will’s body. He bites again, and then again. Three for each thigh, mirrors. 

Only, on the third bite Hannibal doesn’t hold back. His teeth sink into the meat of Will’s upper thigh and, unlike his prior intent to bruise, this time they cut straight through skin, to what feels like muscle and bone. 

The pain is exquisite. Hannibal flicks his eyes up to Will’s, blood pooling around his lips, and to Will’s utter surprise, he orgasms unexpectedly. The feeling that rips through him is intense, so much more intense than Will has ever experienced. His whole body jerks and spasms; his involuntary motions grind his wound into Hannibal’s teeth and he finds himself moaning, wanton and unbidden, unburdened, until all he can do is throw his head back and give in to the sensation. Will is not a masochist, but Hannibal is a sadist, and Will can’t help but ride along in Hannibal’s primal satisfaction. 

Will feels half-unconscious when the hand on his knee loosens and places his leg back on the bed, almost-but-not-quite-gently. The bed dips and the air over Will’s body subtly displaces, until Will opens his eyes to see Hannibal looming over him once again, fierce and terrifying. 

Hannibal kisses him, the taste of blood rich on his tongue. Then he ducks back down and laps Will’s come off of his stomach, ravenous and thorough, until Will legitimately begins to worry that Hannibal may be interested in a round two. But no -- he gets out of bed, then, and walks into the ensuite bathroom. 

Will is dozing by the time Hannibal comes back with a washcloth and dressing for Will’s wound. 

Afterwards, they lie as parentheses, curved towards one another, Will’s head on one pillow and Hannibal’s on the other. 

(Hannibal has never been much for cuddling after sex, but lying here, facing each other, looking deeply into each other’s eyes -- this continuous eye contact may be the most intimate moment of Will’s life.)

Will knows that the smart thing would be to not fall asleep. Even after the sex, Will has never in his life been in as much danger as he is in this moment. He can feel it, in their shared breaths, can see it in the depths of Hannibal’s gaze. He sees an image of himself, drifting off to sleep, only to wake with Hannibal’s hands wrapped around his throat, Hannibal’s hard body pressed against his from behind. This time, it’s not a tease, not a test, not an intimate moment in sex, but a violent act -- a murder. Even still, Will doesn’t thrash, doesn’t fight -- just succumbs willingly into the dark. 

The image is so vivid that Will isn’t even sure if it originates from him, or from Hannibal. 

And, perhaps against his better judgement, he drifts off to sleep with his face inches from the Chesapeake Ripper’s. 

__________

Will wakes. 

Will blinks his eyes open, early-morning sun peaking through a gap in the curtain. Will didn’t expect to be killed in the night, specifically, but there’s a pleasant sort of satisfaction of having lived -- the kind of satisfaction that only comes from taking a gamble and winning, spinning the roulette wheel, playing the flush.  

Will hurts. His ass, his neck, this thighs. The bite mark throbs in time with his heartbeat, surely a permanent reminder of Hannibal’s claim on him. 

(There’s no turning back, now. He and Hannibal are in this together until the end, whatever end they may meet. It’s done. It’s done. He’s thrown them both off the cliff together, and they didn’t succumb to the tumultuous seas.)

Will doesn’t bother getting dressed -- what’s the point? -- instead tugging Hannibal’s bathrobe over his shoulders, tying it indecently loose around the waist, finger-shaped bruises and bite marks on display. 

Hannibal, of course, will be in the kitchen. 

Will walks downstairs (gingerly, limping). The bite wound pulls with every step and Will wonders, distantly, if he should receive stitches for it. 

He can’t bring himself to be concerned. 

Will can’t help but remember that first night that he came here after learning of Hannibal’s true nature. Will had to hide himself, then. He had to re-dress like a normal, functioning person, and go into Hannibal’s kitchen pretending ignorance, innocence. 

This time, Will is free. Nude, except for the bathrobe. 

There’s nothing but the truth between them, now. 

The whole house smells like coffee and eggs. Will pads barefoot through the entryway, the parlor, the dining room, until he can lean his shoulder against the doorway to the kitchen. Hannibal glows in the morning light. He looks as soft as he ever does, hair tousled and sweater soft. There’s coffee steaming in the french press while Hannibal chops vegetables.

This is Will’s life now. 

Will’s future. 

Hannibal looks up. His eyes crinkle with his smile, sunlight in his hair, and Will thinks, viciously, mine.

No one will take Hannibal away from him. 

“Good morning,” Hannibal says, scooping the chopped vegetables off the cutting board and depositing them into a skillet with eggs. 

“Morning.” Will scratches as his thigh, then winces at the ache. “What’s for breakfast?”

Hannibal’s eyes trail down to where the bite mark is, and he fails to answer for a few long seconds, seemingly distracted by the wound he can’t see. “Protein scramble,” Hannibal says finally. He grabs his wooden spoon almost absentmindedly, stirring the eggs. Will preens, a bit -- it’s not often that he makes Hannibal forget about his cooking. 

Protein scramble. Will snorts, unable to help himself. Hannibal’s eyes snap up to meet his own, at the noise, and understanding passes between them easily this time. 

Of course Hannibal has put the pieces together. He knows, now, that Will came to his house a wreck after the last sounder because he had figured out Hannibal’s secret. In a way, this is a do-over. The morning after they could have had, if they had trusted one another just a bit more, if they had known one another just a bit longer. 

(Will doesn’t have any regrets, though. He wasn’t ready, then. Neither was Hannibal. If he had told Hannibal the truth, Hannibal certainly would have killed him. This is how it had to be.) 

Will doesn’t need to wait for Hannibal anymore; doesn’t need to linger in doorways, an exit still in reach. He wanders into the kitchen and levers himself up onto the counter next to the stove, allowing his thighs to fall open, obvious at a glance that he didn’t bother with underwear before coming downstairs. 

Hannibal spends another few seconds scrambling the eggs, turns the burner off, and steps into the space Will has left for him. 

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asks, placing a possessive hand on bare skin just below his bite, close enough to sting. 

“Sore,” Will answers honestly. “Will it scar?”

Hannibal brushes a thumb over the bandage. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Hannibal presses a kiss against Will’s lips.

“Breakfast?” Hannibal offers. 

Will nods -- languid, easy, giddy. For a few long seconds Hannibal doesn’t move. When he does, he leans in towards Will’s chest, and Will thinks fuck breakfast, but then Hannibal takes a step back, plate and fork in hand where he grabbed them from behind Will. Hannibal dishes some eggs onto the plate inelegantly -- the first time Will has seen Hannibal inelegant , ever -- but Hannibal appears to be as unwilling to leave the vee of Will’s thighs as Will is to let him, and so he fumbles with the plate and wooden spoon until he has a reasonable portion. 

Will wonders which of Hannibal’s victims made it into breakfast. Fortitude, maybe, with all of that missing meat from her calf. 

Hannibal gathers some egg onto the fork, then holds it up to Will’s mouth. 

Will smirks. I see you.

Will allows his mouth to drop open, pink lips and soft tongue waiting for Hannibal. Hannibal’s eyes focus intently on the fork entering Will’s mouth, on Will’s lips closing around the food. When Hannibal withdraws the fork, Will chases after it with his tongue, putting on a bit of a show. 

Hannibal’s eyes are so, so dark. Fathomless. 

Will chews slowly, savoring. 

Hannibal offers him another, then another. Hannibal’s other hand lands on his thigh and then creeps upward, brushing over bruises, until it reaches the junction between his legs. 

(Will hadn’t even noticed his cock perking up, but Hannibal clearly has.)

Hannibal tugs him to full hardness before offering Will another bite. Then, he alternates -- a few strokes, then a bite of food, a few strokes, another bite of food, until Will is a shivering mess. Until Will can’t help but moan around every mouthful, until Will fucks up into Hannibal’s fist every time he stops. The motions aren’t enough to get Will off, not like this. They continue this way until the plate is empty, Will’s belly full. Then Hannibal pushes the fork and empty plate aside. 

Taking half a step back, Hannibal regards Will: bathrobe untied, bite marks and bandage and bruises, and hard, leaking cock. 

Will grins, cocks his head, fully aware of the picture he’s presenting. Fully aware of Hannibal’s heart, Hannibal’s appetites. 

“How do you want me?”

You can have me. 

__________

Later, Will tucks his head up under Hannibal’s chin, lays his hand over Hannibal’s heart. 

“Part of the way my mind works -- that my mirroring works -- is that I’m a slightly different person with every person that I’m with. I’ve never liked a version of myself more than the version that I am when I’m with you.”

Hannibal’s hand strokes carefully over Will’s hair. 

“Do you love me, Hannibal?” Will murmurs against the delicate skin of Hannibal’s jugular. 

“More than anything I have ever known.”