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He had first found the man on Tattlecrime.
Hannibal did not use the site often so when he finally noticed, there were a number of articles on the man already. Searching back through the archives revealed a powerful and, by all appearances, unfounded grudge on behalf of the reporter. By far the most interesting thing about it was how she seemed to talk about him using the same language she reserved for the killers themselves. He was called monstrous, callous, and a freak, among other things. It was enough to catch Hannibal’s passing interest, which led him to the truly important information.
The reporter had snuck onto a crime scene while the man was working and described in great detail how he functioned. He would close his eyes and walk around the crime scene as if they were open, speaking aloud and gesturing as the killer had. A simple parlor trick were it not for the fact that all of his conclusions appeared to be entirely and wholly correct. Behind his eyelids, what did he see? Did he walk beside the killer as they worked or even take their place himself? It was enough for Hannibal to search for his name and remember it; Will Graham.
He began checking the site more frequently, seeing what this strange man was up to, and began learning more about his life. A solitary creature, often lashing out at the reporter in response to prodding. While he was employed by the FBI he worked as a special investigator and his true profession was only revealed much later, in an offhand comment from the journalist themselves about what his students must think of him.
So Hannibal finds him in the Quantico course log. He hasn’t stopped teaching since he started working in the field, and his lectures appear to be pre recorded for the time being. It’s a simple matter for Hannibal to gain access to them and finally get a deeper glimpse into the man’s mind. When he lectures he is confident and speaks as if he’s telling a story. It’s easy to get sucked into it and listen to him speak at great length about the minds of a killer. He speaks as if he’s stepped inside of their bodies and lived their lives from the inside out. The cases he teaches on are smaller ones, later on adding ones he’s worked himself. The notable lack of any famous killers gives Hannibal pause and he returns to the man screen, scrolling down to find a link titled Special Lectures. Clicking through reveals what was missing. Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, and many more like them appear to have been dissected in lectures open to the general public, with priority given to Quantico students.
Here, he finds a three part lecture on the Chesapeake Ripper.
Will speaks as if he knows Hannibal, as if he’s reached inside his head and spread his brain out on the table to read like an open book. There are basic, understandable mistakes throughout, but the vast majority of it is accurate, at times even coming up with alternative motivations that Hannibal finds cannot be entirely categorized as incorrect. He speaks about how the Ripper kills because he views others as beneath him and by killing them, he elevates them to art. Of the meticulous work and lengthy preparation. Of how they’ll likely never catch him. When he speaks, it’s with an undertone of respect.
He catches himself thinking of how Will would take apart a kill of his, relive it in his head, and how it would make him feel. This is when he decides that the interest has evolved into something more intense, something that needs to be curbed before it gets the better of him. He researches, and he plans.
Will, conveniently, lives in the middle of nowhere. It should be quite easy to catch him by surprise. The dogs may present a problem but there appears to be a large window near the man’s bed, close enough to give him enough time to snatch the man without being attacked. He would have liked to work on the man’s body there, where he intended to return and display it, but it simply was not worth the risk. He waits for winter, clear skies just before a snowstorm, and he drives to Wolf Trap.
While Hannibal plans for many eventualities, even he is surprised when he approaches Will’s home and sees another car idling in the driveway. The doors of the car are open though the vehicle is empty and the door to Will’s home is open as well. The sounds of a struggle from within confirm that this is not a friendly visitor. Hannibal pulls off the road, behind a raised section of the uneven terrain, hidden from view to someone passing by. For a moment, he thinks. Someone has clearly beaten him here and he can’t say he’s pleased about it. Stealing prey from him is quite unwise, and he intends to show them as such.
As the struggle continues, Hannibal slips out of his car, a small tracking device in hand. He fits it on the undercarriage of the mysterious car and slips back to his hiding spot to wait. Eventually, a pair of men emerge from the house, carrying a still struggling Will Graham between them. Their voices float over on the wind, broken and fragmented.
“...the door…”
“...dogs, damn-”
“...him up already!”
When the door finally clicks shut behind him, they manhandle Will onto his stomach and tie his arms behind his back, his ankles together, a gag around his mouth. It’s much easier to maneuver the man bound and soon enough he’s forced into the trunk and they’re on their merry way.
Hannibal waits ten minutes, checks the location of their vehicle, and pulls back onto the road to follow.
As he tails them Hannibal keeps a great deal of distance, never in any real danger of losing them thanks to the tracking device. They're on the road for nearly an hour before finally pulling out into a forested area where civilization is scarce. He pulls to the side of the road near the entrance and waits, watching the gps icon for nearly thirty minutes before he feels sure enough that they have stopped for good. Those thirty minutes could easily prove fatal for Will but reclaiming his prey is nothing more than an optimistic hope at this point. At the very least, Hannibal should be able to recover the corpse. It would be a shame to let all of his preparation go to waste. Though it was incidental to the beauty of his mind the man was quite striking physically as well and would make a wonderful tableau.
Hannibal drives up the road slowly, with his headlights off, just barely able to see by the light of the moon. There is little activity outside so he pulls the car into the clearing the cabin sits in, parking and emerging silently. This is not the kind of crime scene that the police will ever find so he is less careful, pulling on gloves and coverings for his shoes so as not to ruin them.
The first thing he does is approach the car and remove the tracker, slipping it into his pocket. The trunk is open and there is blood on the snow that had only recently begun to cover the ground. A quick check inside the trunk reveals some crudely sawed through ropes and a jagged wound in the ancient plastic lining of the trunk where Will had clearly pried a makeshift weapon free. The man had not gone quietly.
On cue, before he can scope out the cabin, there is shouting gradually increasing in volume. Once it reaches its peak the large window beside the closed front door explodes outwards with a bang, the body of a man bursting through the glass before colliding with the railing and slumping to the ground. Hannibal raises his eyes just in time to see the man he had marked as prey climb through the hole that used to be a window, emerging through the fluttering curtains, covered in more blood than clothes.
Will doesn't seem to see him. Instead, he's focused on the man he threw through the glass, pulling him flat onto the porch before grabbing the collar of his shirt, lifting his head up, and slamming it back down onto the wood. The movement seems to pain Will, causing him to let go and draw his right arm close to his body. Instead he rears back with his left and strikes the man across the face over and over until blood is flying back up across his own.
Hannibal is frozen to the spot, enraptured, as he watches the object of his fascination beat a man to death with no hesitation. He doesn't stop until well past the point of death, at which point he shakily stands, wiping away the sweat at his brow and simply replacing it with blood. This is when he finally turns his head and spots Hannibal.
He had expected the man to startle, maybe attack him, but all he is met with is a flat stare. "Who are you?" Will asks him. His voice sounds steady but hollow.
"You are not concerned that I'm with the rest of them?"
"It's obvious that you aren't," Will bites back, dismissing what most people's immediate conclusion would have been without a second thought. "So, again. Who are you?"
"Are you not the slightest bit afraid?"
Will just keeps looking at him. He was kidnapped from bed so he wears what is most likely underwear for him, a white undershirt and boxer briefs. Blood paints his body like a canvas. "My life ended the moment they put me in that trunk."
"Yet here you are, alive. Why fight them if you have accepted your fate?"
Will blinks, eyes not quite meeting Hannibal’s. "Thought I could at least take some of them down with me if I tried hard enough." He looks down at the body between his feet and then back into the cabin. "I just wasn't expecting it to be so god damn easy."
Before he can consciously decide to do so Hannibal finds himself approaching the cabin and Will with it. The man looks, not relaxed, but detached, watching Hannibal with very little interest. "Killing them could be considered self defense. Your life need not end here."
"I passed self defense a long time ago," Will murmurs, turning as Hannibal nears him to keep the man in his sights. "They always drill it into your head, you know? The police. The FBI. How hard it actually is to kill another human." He gestures towards the corpse. "They brought me here to kill me and even then, even when I started killing them , they hesitated."
"And you did not," Hannibal finishes. He’s face to face with Will now, close enough to touch, and so he does, reaching a hand out to cradle the man's jaw.
Will doesn't react beyond his eyes briefly flicking towards Hannibal's arm as it reaches for him. "I suppose you'll kill me now. That's why you're here, isn't it? You came to kill me and found someone else had gotten there first."
"I'm reconsidering my options," Hannibal tells him, voice low.
Now Will looks at him, directly, only to immediately turn his head away. He steps out of Hannibal’s reach, puts his back to the wall of the cabin and sinks down into a sitting position. "Consider them quickly," Will says quietly. "I'm tired." Tired of what, he does not specify.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Hannibal opens the front door and slips into the cabin. Things have been violently displaced everywhere he looks. There's a body slumped over on itself by the fireplace, blood and viscera dripping from the corner of the mantelpiece. In the kitchen, another body and a bloody knife. A corpse on the top of the stairs leading down to the basement, the jagged piece of the trunk buried in its neck. Two more in the basement proper. One is run through with a broken broom handle while the second, despite bearing signs of strangulation, was ultimately killed by a scalpel thrust up through the eye and into the brain. Various implements of torture are scattered across the floor before they ever had the chance to touch Will’s flesh.
All of the kills are far from clean, instead bearing the result of exactly as much violence as Will had time for. So much anger and hatred was poured out into these men and the result, while crude, is beautiful.
When he emerges back onto the porch Will is where he left him, legs now pulled against his chest with his left arm wrapped around them and his right laying uselessly beside them. "You changed your mind on one of them," Hannibal points out.
"It was changed for me." As he replies, Will's right hand twitches on the wood. "One of them had a gun."
"Only one? Irresponsible."
"We wouldn't be having this conversation if they had been more responsible." Will raises his head and looks up at Hannibal. "Have you decided?"
A part of him thinks the decision had been made when he saw Will emerging from the window, reborn in blood. "I have," Hannibal nods. "Follow me." He returns to his car, Will trailing behind him, leaving bloody footprints as he walks. The snow will erase them overnight.
He opens the trunk, pushing away blooms of hyacinth and poppy and daffodil to retrieve the plastic overcoat he wears as he works. Though its purpose is to keep his own body clean of blood and mess it should serve the inverse purpose just as well. Will steps into it obediently, allowing Hannibal to zip the garment up and pull the hood over his curls, icy blue eyes watching Hannibal silently. Hannibal closes the trunk and opens the passenger side door for the other man. Once they are both in the car Hannibal turns it on, pulls a u-turn, and lets the cabin fade behind them.
They drive in silence for a while. Eventually, Hannibal speaks. "Did you know those men?"
"In a way," Will answers, no hesitation. "We've been working on a string of murders, thought they were connected to something bigger. Human trafficking. Apparently I was correct."
"You seem quite certain of this."
"It's written all over their faces." Will sighs. "Not… literally. I can see it, plain as day. Most people can't."
The way Will had talked as he lectured, the way he walked through a crime scene- it all clicks into place. "An empathy disorder." Will makes an affirmative noise. "Am I as clear to you as they are?"
It takes Will longer to respond this time. "No," he finally admits. "When I first saw you, you were angry, and it let me see through the cracks. Whether you're masking it or simply not feeling it to begin with, there's far less of it to read."
"You're being remarkably forthcoming with this information."
"I imagine you'll be the last person I ever talk to. Secrets mean nothing to the dead." Despite his words, Will speaks plainly, like they're discussing the weather.
Hannibal's fingers tap on the steering wheel, once. "You still believe that I will kill you. Did I not say that I was reconsidering?"
"Reconsidering the time, reconsidering the place. What other use would a serial killer have for me?"
"What makes you think me to be a serial killer?" Will doesn't even turn away from the window to look at him, just pinches the fabric of the clear plastic suit between the fingers of his good hand and pulls on it. Arguing against that seems pointless. "I am a former surgeon, so I believe I'd like to take the bullet out of your shoulder."
"And?" Will prompts.
"And I think I'd like to fuck you," Hannibal adds.
That gets Will's attention and he finally turns to look at Hannibal. Beneath the apathy and disinterest, Hannibal can see disbelief written on his face. "At the same time?"
Hannibal had not intended to mix the two activities, but Will's wonderful suggestion sends anticipation zipping down his spine. "Would you prefer that?" He glances towards the other man.
"I think I've caused it regardless of my preference."
"I assure you, Will. I am no rapist. You need only say no."
A quick intake of air. "Sorry. I knew you knew my name but hearing you say it is still… odd."
"Does it disturb you?"
"It all feels like a dream," Will softly admits. "Like none of this is real."
"Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps both of us will wake tomorrow and none of this will have happened."
The silence between them lasts longer this time, nearly ten minutes before Will speaks. "You can," is what he says. "I don't mind it."
Hands tighten on the steering wheel. "Do you draw pleasure from pain?"
"Far from it."
"Then why agree?"
"Because my life already ended. The rest of my life was clear to me, before. Work for the FBI until I drink myself to death surrounded by my dogs. Now there's… nothing. Like all the lights have burned out."
"If you are searching for stability there are less extreme ways to find it."
"I don't want stability," Will tells him. "I want to be reminded I'm alive."
"Living comes with consequences."
"Either I'll face them later or it will no longer be an issue."
"How did it feel?" Hannibal asks abruptly. "You killed five men. Did you enjoy it?"
"No," comes the immediate answer. "It felt necessary."
"Necessary?"
"They were evil. Trafficked mostly younger women, killed them if they stepped a toe out of line."
"Is it humanity's place to judge the deeds of others?"
"It doesn't matter," Will sighs. Not religious, apparently. "If God exists, He wasn't there. I was."
Briefly, Hannibal closes his eyes, savors the words. "If your life has truly ended, give what's left to me."
The words hang in the air, undisturbed, the rest of the journey back to Baltimore.
Hannibal parks the car illegally, close enough to his home to make the journey back undiscovered. When it is towed nothing will be found to trace it back to Hannibal. He throws the duffel bag over his shoulder, Will standing beside him. "Need a hand?"
"You've been shot," Hannibal points out.
"Only once."
He looks back into the trunk. "Take the flowers."
The short walk home is done through the shadows of side streets and a park, depositing them at the gate to Hannibal's rear garden. He unlocks it with a key and ushers Will inside, a dance they repeat at the door to the home itself. Will steps into the kitchen, admiring the gleaming countertops, the appliances, the wickedly sharp knives. Hannibal drops the duffel bag to the floor and calls out to him. "Will."
Will turns, and Will comes to him, holding the flowers that should have been threaded through his corpse, the light gleaming off the blood that has not yet had a chance to dry. He comes, and Hannibal pulls the hood back off of his head, cups his jaw, and kisses him.
The flowers scatter to the ground. For all his apathy earlier Will seems eager enough to meet him, opening his mouth and sighing into the kiss. His teeth taste of copper. Hannibal licks the blood off Will’s lips and bites down until more takes its place. That makes Will flinch, and yet he doesn't pull away.
Hannibal does. Will's eyes flick from Hannibal to the knives, not searching for a weapon so much as… asking. "No," Hannibal tells him. "Follow me."
One of his spare bedrooms doubles as a medical stockpile. It would serve their purpose perfectly. But still, Hannibals finds himself merely stopping in, gathering a tray of tools and bandages and other supplies he may need before retreating and continuing onwards, taking Will to his own bedroom. "You can undress in the bathroom. Put what you're wearing inside the bathtub."
Will looks down at his soiled clothes. "Am I to clean myself up?"
"I'd rather you did not."
"I'll ruin your sheets."
"Linens will be ruined irregardless, from your shoulder."
"Alright." Will nods before making his way into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.
With Will briefly gone, Hannibal takes a moment to reexamine what he's doing. He had intended to kill the man to curb what could grow into an unhealthy fascination. But if the man was simply here, acquiescing to said fascination, that eliminated the problem just as neatly, did it not? It seemed such a waste to kill him now, after seeing the darkness he had been hiding deep inside. His morals may yet return to him. While not a problem now, it could explode into one later.
He decides to take a page from Will's book and deal with the consequences later to allow himself to simply indulge. Hannibal strips the bedside table bare, laying out a wide dish he will fill with warm water, several clean towels, and finally the silver tray with the implements themselves. Forceps, a scalpel, needle and thread, and a great deal of bandages, among other things.
When Will emerges, Hannibal takes in the sight of him. He's well built, surprisingly so, blood smudged across his torso and hips from when he had stripped. The wound on his shoulder is leaking blood sluggishly. Wordlessly, Hannibal moves past him and fills up the dish with clean, warm water.
"On the bed," Hannibal tells him, once he's returned.
Will is looking at the forceps. The man is just as striking from behind. "You don't usually remove bullets from gunshot wounds, right?"
"It's far safer to leave it inside," Hannibal confirms. He starts undressing and putting his clothes away nicely. "The same applies to your current injury."
"Just checking." Will finally climbs onto the bed, sitting cross legged near the headboard to wait.
Once Hannibal has stripped as well he approaches the bed, grabbing Will's ankle and pulling him forcefully down until he's flat on his back. The violent motion makes him hiss in pain as it jostles his shoulder. Hannibal spreads his legs and climbs between them. "Have you slept with a man before, Will?"
"Barely slept with anyone." Hannibal stays silent, waiting for an actual answer. "No. I haven't."
"Good." Hannibal leans down and kisses Will again, marveling at the way the man arches up into him. It feels like an impossibility. The man beneath him, bleeding and wanting, cannot possibly be real. If this is a dream as Will himself suggested, he is in no particular hurry to wake. He breaks away from Will, traces the sharp line of his jaw, bites his way down his throat, teeth sinking in harder as he feels the man tilt his neck into it. "You said you disliked pain."
"I still do. But you enjoy inflicting it."
"Your desires are not secondary to mine."
"I'm starting to wonder if it's possible for yours to become mine," Will murmurs, and Hannibal’s carefully cultivated patience buckles and fails.
There is lube amongst the supplies, something Hannibal reaches for. Will is utterly relaxed under him, would likely remain so in all circumstances short of him beginning to extract the bullet, but Hannibal has things he'd rather explore first. He places his hands on Will's ass, tilting his hips up, before leaning down to take the man's soft cock into his mouth.
Will groans as he does so. Blood clings to his dick and Hannibal washes it away with his tongue. He can feel it twitch to life inside of his mouth, swell and fill until by the time Hannibal pulls off of it, Will's cock is fully erect and curving up against his stomach. Beside him on the bed Hannibal reaches for the lube, coating his pointer and middle fingers in it, pressing them inside of Will without a second thought. The man below him hisses, not out of pain, but the sudden change in sensation. When he searches Will's face for hesitation or regret, he finds only anticipation.
With his unoccupied hand Hannibal takes one of Will's legs and hooks it over his shoulder, the man quick to catch on and moving the second himself. Hannibal swallows Will's cock back down as he moves his fingers inside of the man, searching for the telltale bump of the prostate gland and pressing up into it upon discovery. Above him he hears the exhale it punches out of Will, smells the spike of his arousal through the blood and sweat and dirt. He moves his head and his fingers in synchronicity, massaging harder on the prostate as his mouth reaches the root of Will's cock, every touch sending Will's hips jerking upwards when there's nowhere else to go. "S-Shit," Will swears. "That's-"
Hannibal hollows his cheeks and sucks as he pulls back up. He can feel Will’s legs flexing against his back. The cock is hot and heavy in his mouth, precum flowing from the tip and helping slick the way. Will's breathing is starting to pick up, all the adrenaline built up inside of him ready to come bursting out. This time, when Hannibal pulls back up, he comes all the way off, gently urging Will's legs back down onto the bed.
Fingers still inside, Hannibal slicks up his own cock with lube and rises to his knees. "No condom?" Will asks him.
"You, me, and the five men whose blood you wear are all free of disease."
"Right," Will laughs deliriously. "Whatever you say."
Will seems to be waiting for Hannibal to pull out his fingers and replace them with something larger but he doesn't, only continues to press up inside of him with a steady pressure and rhythm, fingers slowly but sure working him to orgasm, eyes falling shut and mouth gasping open as he gets closer. Hannibal wraps his other hand around Will's dick and jerks him just as slowly, watching the man melt beneath him, panting and gasping and moving his hips back and forth between both sensations. Like this, controlled and excruciatingly slow, Hannibal gently pulls Will's orgasm out of him, semen shooting up to paint his stomach and mix with splashes of blood.
Hannibal quickly extracts his fingers and while Will is still in the throes of orgasm, lifts the man's hips up and presses his cock inside. Will's body clenches around him, feeling like he's trying to force it out, and Will himself can't stop the way his body bucks violently at the sudden invasion. Hannibal does not relent, continuing to thrust deeper inside until Will's body finally gives out and allows him in, legs bracketing his waist.
He waits until Will has settled, wiping away the tears that had fallen from his eyes. "You're doing so well."
Will looks up at him with a spark of anger buried deep beneath his gaze. "Go on, then. Have your fun."
Hannibal thrusts into him once, hard and jarring, mostly as a punishment. Safely seated inside the other man he leans over the bedside table, past the water and towels to grab retractors and a scalpel. "Lucky," he muses, sliding the prongs into the bullet wound, one hand braced on Will's chest to hold him down if he begins to thrash. "They appear to fit inside the wound without needing to enlarge it." He sets the scalpel back onto the tray while wrenching the retractor open with his other hand, securing it in place holding the wound open. He returns with the forceps.
Before he can return his gaze to the wound he examines Will as a whole. His head is turned away from his injured shoulder, eyes shut and jaw tense. His good hand clenches tightly in the sheets. "You never asked for painkillers," Hannibal points out.
"You wouldn't give them to me anyways."
"I may have considered it." Hannibal leans closer, peering into the wound. "The bullet struck too high to hit any arteries. I cannot yet tell if it's injured any of the surrounding veins."
"What'll clue you in?"
"The spray of blood, I imagine. Nothing I cannot fix. Hold very still." With one hand braced on Will's chest Hannibal slides the forceps inside the wound, deeper and deeper until his grip on the bullet is secure. He tugs on it at the same time he begins rolling his hips. With every shallow thrust he pulls on the bullet, loosening it for one final pull. Will can't smother his groans.
"Will. Look at me." Surprisingly, Will obeys, straightening his head and opening his eyes to meet Hannibal’s. "Ignore the pain. Feel what I feel in its place." Eyes lock on his, gaze sharpened with pain. Will clenches his jaw to swallow back the sounds and instead he watches Hannibal’s expression as he fucks him. It feels like he's the one being operated on, Will peeling back his skin and cracking open his skull to see the whole of him. With each movement Will tenses further, tightening around Hannibal, legs twitching against his hips. Despite the pain, Will watches.
Will watches Hannibal as he starts to thrust harder and pulls on the bullet with all of his strength, harder and harder until it's ripped from Will's shoulder, and he screams in pain, legs curling around Hannibal's waist in a vice grip, driving him deeper inside.
Blood does spray out of the wound, some of it striking Hannibal in the face from the force with which he dislodged the bullet. "Look at me," he grunts, thrusting faster and harder. Will’s face twisted in pain is indistinguishable from when it was twisted in pleasure. The way his chest heaves, the way he's whimpering, the way that when Hannibal looks down into blue eyes he can see shades of his own pleasure reflected back- he thrusts into Will so violently that it flings fresh blood onto the headboard and he comes.
Will gasps and tightens around him in a way that can't possibly be from pain. His eyes are wide and unfocused, locked on Hannibal’s face, mind seemingly elsewhere. He hasn't come a second time, not physically, not dry. It's almost as if Hannibal's own orgasm has hit Will just as hard. He reaches upwards for the man-
-and knocks the retractors by mistake, ripping Will out of his reverie with a violent cry as his body fights to buck upwards and away. Hannibal uses both hands to hold the man down. “Be still,” he grunts, trying to force the man to obey.
“It hurts, it hurts so fucking bad-” Will grits out, teeth clenched around his words. He managed to still himself but his chest is still heaving with the effort.
“The bullet hit a vein. I will need to suture it.” There is a great deal of blood obscuring the wound now, pouring out from the bullet hole and soaking into the sheets. If left alone, the man most likely would not bleed to death, but he would suffer quite a bit. He only entertains the prospect briefly before reaching for the manual suction pump to clear the blood away. Will tries to stay still as he does it, allowing Hannibal to quickly suture the tiny area, close the retractors and slide them out of the wound for good. He grabs a clean towel and dabs it in the warm water. “Sit up, Will.”
The man seems incapable of righting himself in his current state so Hannibal helps him up, finally slipping out of him with the movement, displacing a small flow of semen and lube. “Ugh,” Will groans. “Feels awful.”
“Which part of it?” Will slumps against his chest, his good hand braced on his shoulder to push himself further back when Hannibal asks for it. Blood flowing from his wound warms Hannibal’s skin. Carefully, Hannibal cleans the old blood from Will’s body, finally scrubbing away the marks of his deeds.
“Every part of me.” He arranges his body as Hannibal guides him, tilting his hips back and up when Hannibal reaches down below to clean that as well. “Really?” The words are muffled into Hannibal’s shoulder.
“Leaving it inside would be unhealthy and you won’t regain full usage of your dominant hand for some time.” He simply lets everything fall onto the sheets that are ruined regardless of the new addition. The dirty towel is discarded to the side as he replaces it with the third and final linen reserved for the wound alone.
“Nerve damage?” The prospect doesn’t seem to worry Will too much.
The towel rapidly begins turning red as it soaks up the blood. “Highly unlikely from the location of the bullet wound, though I imagine the method of removal has raised the chances somewhat.” He puts pressure on the wound to encourage it to clot. “Keep pressure on this, please. I will need more bandages than I have prepared.” Will nods, more lucid with every passing second, and takes over as Hannibal slides off of the bed.
When he returns with more bandages and dressings Will is looking off to the side of the room, lost in his thoughts. He turns to look back at Hannibal as he returns to his vacated spot on the bed. “Have you begun to reconsider your own choices, now?”
Slowly, Will shakes his head. “I guess I’m still waiting for the part where I wake up.”
Hannibal begins the bandaging by wrapping it around his bicep. Quickly, he has Will remove the towel and replace it with the dressing, expertly continuing the bandage around his shoulder and torso to secure it into place. “What will you do if that moment never arrives?”
“It seems pointless to think about when I can’t even know if that will happen or not.”
“This likely will not need stitches, but it will need to be monitored closely.”
“Suppose that bit won’t matter if I’m dead.”
“Would you prefer to be dead?”
“Not really,” and Will shakes his head again. “But say this is all real. When I have to face that, I can’t guarantee our paths will stay aligned.”
“And I could not possibly leave you alive,” Hannibal finishes. He sits back to examine the bandages- he has wrapped more around the torso than is strictly necessary, but it looks more balanced like this, and will be far more difficult for Will to fix on his own. Verging on impossible. “Say for a moment that I do let you go, no strings attached. What would you do first?”
“Check on the dogs.” It comes out so quickly that it nearly happens before Hannibal had even finished speaking. Will looks away. “That would probably be my biggest regret. Abandoning them.”
Curious to speak of abandoning them when Will is very much aware that he did not end up here by choice. “Assuming this is real, what will happen to them?”
“They’ll be fine,” Will sighs. “Supposed to work with Jack today. Won’t take him long to show up at my house and piece together what happened.” He pauses. “The first part of it, at least.”
“Would you be mourned?”
That makes Will look back up, at Hannibal. “Would you mourn for me?”
Hannibal finds, in some way, that he would. “I would prefer to leave you alive.”
The look in Will’s eyes is unreadable. “While we’re discussing hypotheticals. If this is real, say my morality never returns. What would you do with my life?”
The plan had formed in the back of his mind, just a fantasy, ever since he met eyes with Will over a broken body. Warm weather, sun-kissed skin, the soothing sound of waves rolling onto the beach. “Cuba, perhaps? A vacation house, if I did not want to relocate.” He leans forwards, runs a hand through Will’s loose curls. “Short hair would suit you just as well.”
Will’s eyes close. “It’s been a while since I’ve lived somewhere warm.” Subtly, he leans into Hannibal’s hand. His eyes blink open. “Who are you?”
“Who do you think I am?”
In response, Will leans back, not to separate himself so much as to get a better look at Hannibal. “I can’t see it. Anyone who would want me dead is either dead themselves, apprehended, or part of the trafficking ring. A close companion of the aforementioned seems too… pedestrian.”
“And what if you expand your radius to include cases you haven’t worked on directly?”
Will looks at him, steady and piercing. His eyes travel down Hannibal’s body, then track to the tools on the bedside table, the luxurious furnishings of the room. “Older male, wealthy, former surgeon. Artistic. Obsessed with beauty. Sadist.” The light of understanding fills his eyes and he turns his gaze back on Hannibal. “I suppose Jack would be thrilled that I’ve finally found the Chesapeake Ripper for him if I hadn’t died doing it.”
With a smile, Hannibal leans in and kisses Will. “Cunning boy,” he whispers.
“What have I done to earn a spot on your list? We’ve never met before.”
“You were dangerously interesting.”
Will tilts his head, a shadow of a smile on his lips. “That doesn’t seem to have worked out in your favor.”
“I suppose not.” The room begins to lighten and both men turn to look out the window, met with the first rays of the rising sun. “It is morning and neither of us seems to have woken.”
“We never actually went to sleep,” Will points out.
“Then I suppose the question will remain for another day. In the meantime, breakfast is in order.”
For the first time, Will hesitates as something else clicks into place. “Will there be meat?”
“...I can refrain from the meat until we see if this is reality or just another dream.”
“Thank you.” Will looks relieved, and grateful, but then his brow furrows. “I don’t- I don’t even know your name.”
“Most people would not want to learn it lest it seal their fate.”
“My fate was sealed long ago,” Will murmurs, and the smile finally blossoms, more beautiful than the sun rising outside the window.
“Hannibal,” he tells him, “my name is Hannibal.”