Chapter Text
Will's cage doesn't look like a cage but that is what it is. You cannot call it a room because it is not a room. It's essentially a presidential suite. It's a suite he can’t leave but a suite nonetheless. He does not wear an orange jumpsuit anymore. Dr. Lecter likes his possessions looking nice so Will is dressed, daily, in fine clothing. Silks, cashmere, nice wool, velvet… all sorts of expensive and perfectly cut fabrics.
Will dresses himself for now but his outfits are prechosen and tailored to someone else's palette. It's these little things, the small things. The things he used to have the tiniest bit of control over, that he regrets taking for granted. The things that used to give him a sense of autonomy.
Hannibal Lecter does not want Will to have autonomy. He wants Will to feel dominated. He wants him to feel like fine dishware waiting on a shelf, waiting to be touched… used.
At night Will sleeps in silk pajamas and fine cotton sheets. The thread count is beyond his understanding and when Will really thinks about it… the past several weeks have been some of the best sleep of his life. Nightmares lulled to minor terrors rolling around in the subconscious mind. It’s as if forfeiting his sense of control, has let his mind go fully quiet for the first time in years.
Dr. Lecter is in control. Dr. Lecter makes my decisions now.
What to wear, what to eat and when, what to drink, when to sleep, when to wake up, what Will does to occupy his time, and slowly, more and more, what he thinks about. Will is desperately trying to keep a hold on that last one but in the time he’s been here it’s begun to slip.
There's something about the care and attention of it all that rouses something strange in Will’s gut. It's confusing, the enticement he feels to the predicament at hand.
“Did you think I would leave you there? Leave you to rot behind those bars. Of course I couldn't.” Dr. Lecter had said that to him weeks ago. He remembers the rope binding his wrists together and the memory sends a chill through him.
The FBI will assume the worst of Will. They will think he’s broken himself out of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. They will think he's gone on the run, fled the country. They will continue believing he's killed all of those people, killed Abigail even, and they will continue to be wrong. Eventually they will pay for it too.
According to Dr. Lecter this is temporary but Will is not inclined to believe him. He is not inclined to believe anything at all anymore.
According to Dr. Lecter the only thing they need to do is wait. But what is Will waiting for? He could easily be waiting for Dr. Lecter to kill and eat him.
“I will protect you.” He had said, looming over Will’s bound form. Protection and entrapment are not the same thing. Yet Will is both simultaneously protected and entrapped. Trapped under his protection.
Alana will still have his dogs… He wonders how she's doing. He wonders if he will ever see his dogs again. Longing comes in waves like this. He can sit still for hours floating around, lost in the caverns of his mind. He sees the outdoors, fresh air, floating on a breezy lake in a pontoon boat, casting his line, the sun warming his nose and cheeks. He can make it feel so real for himself and it’s comforting. Where would he be without this gift?
Probably not imprisoned by an obsessive psychopath, he reminds himself.
“Will?” Will's eyes fly open, he hasn’t heard Dr. Lecter come in the room.
“Is it 7:30 already?” He asks, feeling dazed. He’s been hiding away in his mind a lot. Perhaps even more so now that he’s had the practice during his time in the BSHCI. He can sit for hours now not needing anything to entertain him but his own mind.
“Just about. Are you ready for our session?”
“As I’ll ever be.” He says sarcastically.
Will has resumed his sessions with Dr. Lecter to serve multiple purposes. One of these is that it gives him a break from being locked away in the dark halls of his own mind. The other big reason is that it gives him an opportunity to confront his manipulator. Dr. Lecter obviously enjoys mentally dissecting him, Will just needs to play his cards right and dissect him right back.
Dr. Lecter loves the performing arts, so Will does this exactly. He performs. He wears the clothes Hannibal wants, he combs his hair, rolls up his sleeves, puts on the cologne Hannibal leaves for him in the bathroom, and walks on stage.
It’s like a waltz when they do this. Dr. Lecter knows Will knows what he is, and Will knows Doctor Lecter knows what he is. Still they play their respective parts. They sit across from one another like always, Hannibal leading the dance, Will following that lead but carefully maneuvering which direction they move.
Now sitting across from each other Dr. Lecter asks, “I caught you in the middle of a deep thought, Will, what were you thinking about?” He crosses his legs and leans back in his chair.
Will smiles sardonically, “Rebirth… Change, and how to deal with…” He gestures between them “This. You. My feelings about you.”
“You’ve been reborn.”
“Wasn’t that the goal of my therapy?”
“How does it feel adjusting to your new life here?”
“You nearly destroyed me… How do you think I feel?”
“After everything that has happened you still only see the worst-”
“Stop right there,” He bites, “You may have to pretend your intentions with me are pure, but I don’t.”
“No you don’t,” He says, “You never need to pretend with me. I understand.” When Will says nothing he continues, “Why have you resumed your therapy?”
“I need to talk to somebody about what’s kicking around in my head, you’ve made it so that you are the only one I can do that with.”
“Do you fantasize about killing me?” He asks abruptly, sounding unbothered by this notion, but there's a twinkle on his eye.
Will stares back at him unblinking, “Yes.”
“Tell me, how would you do it?” His voice only portrays curiosity, there’s no contempt behind the question.”
“With my hands.” Will says back softly and calmly.
Dr. Lecter gets that infuriating amused look in his glassy eyes. “I suppose we haven’t moved past apologies and forgiveness then.”
“We’ve moved past a lot of things.” He says, trying to copy Dr. Lecter’s amusement, “I discovered a truth about myself when you brought me here.
“Does this truth have anything to do with your newly-prevailing licentious thoughts and feelings?”
This rattles Will slightly, just enough that he finally blinks, eyelashes fluttering, swallowing the lump in his throat. Watching the doctor watch his Adam's apple move up and down, “What makes you think I have newfound feelings about being your hostage?”
“You are no longer tied up in my basement and yet you stay here with me, why?”
“You have precluded me from every opportunity to be free. Either I am you hostage or the FBI’s”
“Perhaps, but the food here is far better. Wouldn't you agree?”
Will scoffs. “At least I could be sure what was in my prison slop, Doctor.”
“That’s debatable,” Hannibal shrugs, “You could leave the country couldn’t you. You are not married, you have no children to watch after. You could take your dogs and run.”
Will frowns. He does miss his dogs.
“You know it’s risky. Complicated.”
Dr. Lecter considers this but does not respond. Instead he says, “By actively choosing, controlling, or finding pleasure in suffering, an individual may transform a sense of passive, terrifying powerlessness into an active, self-directed choice.”
“You think I’m choosing to be here.” Will scoffs, “You think I would choose to suffer at your hand.”
“I think you like the idea that I’ve taken the choice away from you, pushed you.” Will feels pinned by this statement because it’s something he knows is true and has been trying to avoid. He fights his hardest not to let it show on his face.
“Individuation takes an entire lifetime, Will, The process by which a person becomes increasingly aware of and integrated with the different parts of their psyche. This includes the parts of the psyche that our conscious mind has rejected… or that it does not understand. Have you recently confronted some feelings you do not understand?”
Will’s eyelashes flutter and his breath catches when he says, “Yes.”
Dr. Lecter gets a look in his eye Will used to defer to as amusement. He’s beginning to understand it to be desire. Desire for what exactly? Will is not sure. Desire for control, domination… the desire to own, mind and all. It should not make Will feel good, he thinks, but his own desires have become all mixed up with his fear now. He’s ashamed of it but he’s far too self aware to shove it down completely.
Why don’t I just leave? He asks himself. He could sneak out of the Doctor’s home in the night, get on a boat, sail south as far as he can go? Why stay? His friends have turned their backs on him, believing him to be a killer. Refusing to listen to him. All of this is Lecter’s fault but at least he is listening.
As if he’s reading Will’s mind Dr. Lecter asks, “You are well versed in human psychology and psychoanalysis so I assume you know the term ‘psychological massochism’?”
Will huffs in indignation. He gets up from his seat and paces over to the window so he has something else to look at besides Dr. Lecter, and so he can hide the color that’s undoubtedly risen to his cheeks.
“Just because you are a sadist, doesn’t mean I enjoy your maltreatment.” His voice is rough, mouth gone dry.
“Enjoyment isn’t necessarily the word I would use Will. Do you find a sense of gratification in emotional subjection, sacrifice, or non-physical vulnerability as a way to alleviate subconscious guilt or self-criticism?”
How strange it’s always been to have someone pick apart his mind, the same way that Will does everyone else's. How suddenly vulnerable he feels after going so long with no one ever really understanding him, only to be so suddenly and fully seen by this man… It is terrifying and intoxicating at the same time.
Will says nothing for over a minute so Dr. Lecter asks a new question,
“Will you try to kill me Will?”
Will cannot even be sure if this is what he wants or not. Really he wants to crawl inside of Dr. Lecter’s skin… or rather his conscious existence and let both of their individualities mix and blend together wholly and completely… But he could not say that if he tried. And he doesn’t want to place any more power in Lecter’s hands than he already has.
Instead, Will lowers his head, lowers his eyelids, “I don’t want to kill you Doctor Lecter… Not now that I finally find you interesting.” He says turning and locking eyes with him. The doctor smiles.
Will decides right then and there that this is his angle. He’s going to play the game. There’s the smallest chance he’s found his path to the upper hand, and who is he, to cast away an opportunity for revenge?
6 weeks ago
“I don’t want you to be here.”
“I don’t want me to be here either.”
Will sits in his dark cell, remembering those words spoken between the two of them, rolling them over in his mind.
I don’t want you to be here.
There was an earnestness there even Hannibal Lecter could not fake. Will knows he’s told the truth about this. Perhaps it’s the closest thing to regret that Will will ever experience from the man but the question remains.
Why? Why don’t you want me to be behind bars? He asks the caverns of his mind and finds the answer comes to him in Dr. Lecter’s voice, as it so often does now.
You do not belong here, you belong with me.
Will shudders at the thought and guiltily wonders if it is his own subconscious mind flattering him. It’s terrifying and violently arousing. The more he tries not to think about it, the harder it gets to stop filthy thoughts swimming into his subconscious.
He swallows and sinks deeper into his mind. He lets himself imagine he’s sitting in Dr. Lecter’s study once more, in their respective chairs. Dr. Lecter’s legs crossed and that imperceptively inquisitive look, written all across his face.
“How do you catch a highly intelligent killer? One with rock solid social foundations and high status.” He asks, pointedly.
Dr. Lecter does not react beyond a gleam in his eye so subtle anyone else would miss it.
“You find his weakness.”
“What if he has no weaknesses?”
“Even the most brutal of us have weaknesses, Will, look closer.” He uncrosses his legs and leans forward. “Think. What did you see?”
What did I see?
Memories play through his mind like an old movie reel. Dr. Lecter’s’s face as he entered his study after sparring with Tobias Budge, bleeding and eyes glossy with relief and something else.
“I was worried you were dead.” Again, earnestness beyond debate.
The film strip shifts. The smell of wolfberries, ginseng, ginger, red dates, and star anise surpasses his senses.
“You made me chicken soup?” Will hears himself say.
Dr. Lecter stares at him for a moment, looking hesitant and exposed.
“Yes.” He concedes.
The projection shifts once more to that last awful morning he’d spent in his home in Wolf Trap, shaking from the cold air and from fear. Hannibal’s arms wrapping the wool blanket over his shoulders.
What do I see?
The memory reel ends and he is back in the study, staring into the face of his tormentor. Caretaker. The contradictory images Will holds of the man in his mind make him dizzy. Carer and tormentor blending into one.
“If I am your only weakness… This cannot end well for me.”
“No it can’t.” Dr. Lecter agrees.
Will drags himself back to consciousness upon sensing a new presence outside of his cell.
He opens his eyes to see a hospital attendant, staring at him, a grin so dark it sends a chill down his spine. His white coat costumes him as a caretaker. A medical liaison, but Will knows better than to fall for a disguise such as this anymore. This must be his admirer. Sender of biohazard fan-mail.
“Deep in thought Mr. Graham?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to get you out of here.” He says keys jingling against the lock. Will balks at this.
“These walls are wired. Chilton will be listening… and what makes you think I want to be broken out of jail. That will only make me look guiltier.”
“Yes I believe this is the point.” The orderly explains, “who do you think wired those microphones Mr. Graham? Or… Unwired them as they are currently.” The door of his cage swings open and Will slowly and cautiously steps forwards out of it.
“Why?” Will asks, searching the attendant’s face for answers. He could just be that crazy… he certainly seems crazy… No, this is something else.
“Let’s just say a favor for a friend.” The realization hits him quickly, a friend of Dr. Lecter’s, of course.
The attendant pulls a syringe from his pocket and Will is quick to react, but not quick enough. The needle is jabbed into the side of his neck and as the attendant presses down on the plunger, the strength rapidly begins to leave his body. He sinks to the floor, knees hitting the marble hard. Looking up at the orderly through heavy eyelids, the last thing he sees is a crazed animal look in the hospital attendant’s eyes.
He hums appreciatively, drinking in the sight of Will below him, “Yes I can certainly see the appeal… Mr. Graham you’ll be in for a treat.”
And Will is gone.