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“You’re troubled.”
Will laughed bitterly, unconsciously running a hand through neater-than-usual hair and mussing it. It gave him a touch of his old, more vulnerable self.
“What gave you that idea?”
“I meant more so than usual.” Hannibal crossed his legs and waited patiently for Will to speak. He had found that, in this particular case, it was often better to stay silent.
Will focused momentarily on his thumbs. The silence grew heavy before he finally broke it, straightening his shirt-cuffs. Hannibal couldn’t decide if the little motion was true self-consciousness on Will’s part, or just another calculated move. He suspected that at this point, the boundaries between calculation and instinct were rather thin for Will.
“I’ve been having… nightmares,” he said with a small twitch of his mouth that could hardly be mistaken for a smile.
“That in itself is not unusual for you, is it?”
“No,” Will admitted, “But I would call it unusual when I can’t tell the difference between a dream and a nightmare.” His eyes met Hannibal’s, and there was an intense, almost predatory look there.
“You… are no longer bothered by what you once found disturbing.” Hannibal inferred. This time it was most certainly a smile, albeit a pained one, that graced Will’s face.
“You’ve got it now, Doctor Lecter.”
Another pause, this time while Hannibal mulled over this most recent admission. He brought the hand that wasn’t holding a pen up to rest at his temple. Will was still gazing at him seriously, as if he was trying to anticipate what he would say next. His tongue peeked out momentarily to wet his lips, reminiscent of the first talk they’d had in these chairs after Will’s release. Hannibal repressed the urge to smile at the recollection of that particular day when Will had come to him, had sat across from him in the chair that Hannibal had long grown tired of seeing empty. He’d played his little game, and Hannibal let him, enjoying the performance more than he could have expressed to the onetime profiler. He had predicted most of Will’s hand. His need for a confession of guilt thinly disguised as a promise of honesty was almost laughable, and similarly predictable was the quiet anger that Will donned like armor. On that day, like today, he hadn’t foreseen that subtle flash of tongue as Will played his last card—flattery. This was the one that, although he was conscious of its construction, Hannibal could not help but enjoy. There was at least an echo of truth in Will’s words, and whatever secrets had almost revealed themselves in the moment he wet his lips were the single wild card in their whole interaction.
Will broke their gaze, looking down suddenly as if he knew Hannibal’s thoughts. Perhaps he did; Hannibal had often seen him make connections that bordered on the impossible. He let Will sit in uneasy stillness a moment longer, watching the pulse flutter in his neck and blood flush his ears and cheeks.
“Will, I think that the conflict you are feeling is a result of you still trying to see things in black and white. You think that you should feel guilty for these impulses— that they make you a bad person— but the world is rarely so clear-cut. Sometimes giving in to your instincts can be frightening, but it can also feel good. We are all animals, after all.” He paused, choosing his next words carefully, “Randall Tier understood that.”
Will didn’t even flinch.
“Randall Tier is dead.”
“True,” Hannibal allowed, amused, “He was also a victim of binary thinking. He could not reach a happy medium between beast and man, and he paid for that.”
“Is that what you are? A happy medium?” Will asked, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“I like to think so,” Hannibal said, smiling and leaning back in his seat, “Or at least a student of moderation. I never let my instincts overcome my capability for logic, and vice versa.”
“So I should be more like you? Tread the line of sanity and madness?”
“I think you’ll find the two sides are more or less the same. What we deem insanity is often just a different viewpoint from our own.”
“Is that your advice as a professional, Doctor Lecter?” Will asked dryly.
Hannibal’s mouth twitched in response.
“It is my advice as a friend.”
Will glanced up sharply at him. For a moment, it seemed as though two emotions were warring for control of him, but his smile—a little frazzled, and more than a little manic— won out. If it was an act, Hannibal thought, it was a very good one.