Archive of Our Own

Once, when he was at his worst, Will woke on the edge of a bridge in Wolf Trap.

It wasn't a high bridge. Falling over the edge into the small waterfall below would give him little more than a few bruises, maybe a broken bone if he fell onto the rocks. But as he became aware of where he was, Will was shaken anyway. He stared down into the depths of the water and felt odd and weightless. It felt as if he might fly, if he took another step.

Instead, he climbed slowly back onto the muddy path behind him and fumbled for his phone in his shirt pocket. Will had started going to bed with it beside him in case he sleepwalked and couldn't find his way back home. Evidently, it had been a good idea.

Will's fingers trembled as he scrolled through his contact list. At first, he considered calling Alana, but decided against it. After their disastrous kiss, he doubted asking her for help was a healthy option for either of them.

Instead, Will's finger hovered over the name Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal was, after all, his 'crutch', a means of regaining balance whenever he lost it. Calling Hannibal felt very much like a defeat. But shivering, and weak, and pale under the sunrise, Will was weak, and Hannibal was the only option

"Will." The sound of Hannibal's voice on the end of the line was smooth, velvety. He didn't sound alarmed, though it was dawn and Will was breathing shakily down the phone. "...I presume you've sleepwalked again?"

"Yeah." Will cleared his throat. "I'm, uh, I'm somewhere in Wolftrap, I think. At a bridge? I don't know."

"Alright." Hannibal said. His voice was calm, as light and as soothing as ripples on a lake. It broke through some of Will's inner turmoil. "First of all, take a breath. Yes, just like that. Are you near a road?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there as soon as possible."

"But you're- You're in Baltimore. And how will you will you find me? I don't know where I am. I don't-"

"Don't worry about that." Hannibal cut in smoothly. Will could hear a smile in his voice, coy and warm. "Just stay where you are. And Will?"

"Huh?"

"Thank you for calling me." Hannibal said, "I value the trust you have in me."

At the time, Will had thought the words were peculiar, but Hannibal was a peculiar man, and so Will chalked it off as a genuine expression of friendship. Later, however, he came to think that Hannibal meant those words in a more sinister way than Will originally presumed. Indeed, Hannibal did value Will's trust in him, because it made him all the more easy to break.

Will waited in the cold for a long time, sitting idly by the bridge and watching the road for Hannibal's car. It came, eventually, and from the driver's seat Hannibal emerged. He was wrapped in a coat and looking far more casual than Will had ever seen him. He had gotten dressed quickly, it seemed.

Slowly, Hannibal had walked towards him. He was cautious, as if he was approaching a flighty deer in the wild.

"Good morning, Doctor Lecter." Will had said, sarcasm thick on his tongue. A smile had twitched on Hannibal's lips.

"Can you stand?"

"Yeah, I can stand." Will bit back. He stood slowly, cold and aching. His feet were sore from walking barefoot, and so he stumbled when the soles of his feet hit the cold ground again.

Hannibal's hand was warm on his back, steadying him, a crutch. It must be uncomfortable for Hannibal to touch him like this - Will's shirt is soaked with sweat and he's trembling under Hannibal's hand. But despite himself, Will did not twitch away from it. In fact, he felt himself melt into the touch, leaning into the safety that was offered to him. Later, Will recognises that physical contact had been a means Hannibal used to manipulate him. Will had always been uncomfortable with people in his personal space, but not Hannibal, who he trusted, who was his friend.

Will settled into the passengers seat, and Hannibal began to drive. They were silent for a while. Will had expected probing questions, or vague reassurances, but Hannibal was quiet as he drove.

"You aren't going to interrogate me?" Will asked, which seemed unreasonably rude, given Hannibal had driven over an hour to pick him up. Hannibal never seemed to mind his manners, though.

"My car seems like an inappropriate place for therapy."

"You're an unconventional therapist." Will pointed out.

"Yes, but I didn't come as your therapist." Hannibal said. When Will's eyebrows raised, Hannibal had given him a warm smile. "I came as your friend."

Which- Okay, yes, it had been comforting to hear Hannibal say that, because Will had been standing alone as the sun rose after waking in the middle of nowhere. He was in pain and he was tired and he was cold, and it was really nice to hear someone refer to him as their friend. Back then, Will had felt alone in the world, cast out to sea with no one but himself for company. But for a moment, Hannibal was there beside him.

Will supposed he should offer Hannibal a thank you, but he just gave him a rare smile instead, which he suspected Hannibal preferred.

"Call me whenever you need to." Hannibal had said. Will had studied the doctor, his face calm and open in the sunlight, and his eyes slightly puffy from lack of sleep. "Or when you want to. I am only on the other end of the line, Will."

"That's a dangerous offer, Doctor Lecter." Will had drawled. He laid his head against the headrest, and closed his eyes. "Careful. You might foster codependency."

(At the time, Will had no idea how right he was).

"Perhaps." Hannibal agreed, and said nothing more.

Perhaps it's the cold of his cell that reminds Will of that morning on the bridge. Perhaps it's the fresh pain of Hannibal's betrayal, still an open wound, that brings the memory back to him. Whatever it is, Will recalls Hannibal's warm words as he drove Will home with a bite of anger.

The Chesapeake Ripper, it seems, is skilled in manipulation. So skilled, in fact, that Will, who had dedicated so much of his energy into catching people like Hannibal, had overlooked what was right in front of him for months and months.

Overlooked, of course, was the right word for it. It wasn't that the signs weren't there.  Oh, no, there were obvious signs, neon signs. From the moment Will saw Hannibal save a man with his bare hands, he had known Hannibal fit the profile of the Ripper. It was almost too obvious. Hannibal was an educated ex-surgeon. He had refined tastes, and a deep love for art. And most importantly, he was close to the case, so close in fact that he had blended seamlessly into the investigation.

So yes, Will had overlooked these facts, subconsciously repressing the thought that Hannibal may not be what he appeared. Between his declining mental state and his blind faith in Hannibal, there was no room for that sort of betrayal. But it had come. The veil had lifted, and he could no longer pretend Hannibal wasn't the monster who's brain Will had been living inside of for months.

"I can see you now." Will had said, and it was true. He saw right to the core of Hannibal. Right down to his bare bones, the antlers growing inside of his skull, the rot and darkness in the pit of his chest. It was more than seeing with his eyes, it was understanding. And Hannibal knew it.

The worst of it was that Will would not be so angry if Hannibal hadn't played with him. Will held more than enough sympathy for serial killers, and in his own strange way he admired the Ripper, the same way the Ripper admired him. No, Will didn't hate the Chesapeake Ripper - he rather liked him, in fact. It was Hannibal himself he disliked. He despised the man beneath the elaborately crafted person-suit who had pieced Will together, and then shattered him again, in the name of friendship.

There is a whisper in Will's voice that says, but you knew. Yes, perhaps he did know, deep down, that Hannibal's kindness was a pretence. But he had wanted one good thing. Just one. And Hannibal had thrown him in here to rot.

It's hard to sit in the dark and not grow angry. The fury builds and builds until he trembles with it. In this prison cell, whenever he falls asleep, he dreams about Hannibal's head on a stick. Undignified, ugly, humiliated the way he had humiliated Will.

"Hannibal has asked to visit." Alana says.

Her voice is cautious. Her eyes flicker to Will, and away again. She is uncomfortable in his company, he knows. She thinks he's a killer, and Will hasn't corrected her (or anyone else, for that matter). Not yet. He looks back at her in silence, still and pensive.

"Has he." Will says. His voice is cold, empty. He doesn't recognise it. There is no mirror in the cell, no way of seeing how his face looks, but Will suspects that right now his expression is that of a blank canvas. Even after a few weeks here, waiting for trial, he hasn't decided how he wants to paint himself yet.

"I was surprised that he requested to visit, given that you nearly killed him the last time you met."

Will raises an eyebrow.

"Nearly." He says. "But not quite."

Alana shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

"You seem... different."

"I'm adapting." Will says. He stands from his bed, and approaches the bars, and Alana shifts in the small, rickety chair again.

"Adapting to your environment? To this new world you've found yourself in, that is both the same and different from before?"

"No." Will says, "Not to the world. The world is the same as it's always been."

"Then what are you adapting to?"

"People." Will says, "Or, my perceptions of people. I can see all of you with clear eyes. Doctor Lecter. Jack. Myself. And even you."

"Me?" Alana asks, surprised.

"You were very quick to believe I was the copycat. You still do." Will smiles lazily, but there's no warmth in it, not even the stilted awkwardness he used to smile with. It's empty. "I thought we were friends."

"We were. We are."

Will hums.

"I'm alone in the world." Will says, "I always have been. All of my friends are ghosts."

"I'm alive." Alana says. "And so is Hannibal. He's been a good friend to you, Will."

"Hannibal doesn't have friends." Will bites. "He's just a good actor."

"He believes himself to be your friend."

Will shrugs.

"Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. I don't care." He says, and the words sit uncomfortably in his mouth.

"I think it would be good for you to see him."

"You're not my psychiatrist, Alana."

"I might be, when you're convicted."

"Ah. When, not if." Will smiles sardonically.

"The prosecution's evidence is overwhelming, Will."

"I'm sure." He agrees, "I don't want to see him. Not yet."

"Yet?"

"I have to think." Will says.

"Isn't thinking what got you here in the first place?" Alana asks. Will feels a surge of hot anger.

"I didn't get here on my own." He hisses. "If you're looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror. Your hands were among the ones to push me into this cage."

"Right." Alana says, "Now you're blaming me, too?"

"All I'm saying," Will drawls, "Is that none of us can claim to have clean hands. That's all."

"What about your hands, Will?"

Will looks down at his hands. They're coated with blood, thick and rich. His fingers stick together.

"I'm not guilty. Not of the crimes I've been accused of. But I'm not innocent, either." Will flexes his fingers, and watches the way the imaginary blood pulls apart in strings. "I never claimed to be. That's the difference between you and me, Alana. I know what I am. Do you?"

When Will was a child, and he got sick, his father offered little more than a sympathetic glance and a stern command to suck it up.

Perhaps that's why Will clings so tightly to dominant, nurturing figures. His father was never nurturing. The closest he came to physical contact was awkward pats on the shoulders, and expressions of affection were far and few between. The closest Will ever felt to his father was when they fished together. So when faced with the likes of Jack Crawford, who touched Will so readily, or Hannibal Lecter, who had guided him calmly through his mind-numbing panic, it's no wonder Will melted like a child in their mother's arms.

"You're unstable, Mr. Graham." Chilton says. "You're dangerous."

Will blinks, and the prison cell comes into focus. As does the face of Frederick Chilton, who is lounging lazily in a chair and looks very pleased with himself.

"Is that your professional diagnosis?" Will says. His smile is sharp, glinting like the dim light on Chilton's glasses.

"My professional diagnosis is that you're a murderous psychopath."

"Have you been taking notes from Freddie Lounds?"

"I've been taking notes from your case file." Chilton says, "Doctor Lecter is very thorough."

"Oh, I'll bet he is." Will says darkly. "He gave my file to you?"

Despite himself, Will finds the thought upsetting. It's bad enough Hannibal had imprisoned him like this, but to give away his case file? He'd told Hannibal things that he never told another living soul. He feels like a hog on the fire, turning over and over as everyone else watches.

"Oh, no, he was quite adamant that we couldn't have it. But alas, it's being used as evidence."

"Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?"

"I liked killing Hobbs," Chilton reads loudly from the file, "Well. Always had a taste for the macabre, haven't you?"

Will grits his teeth. His cheeks have flushed.

"Patient displays violent tendencies following the death of Garett Jacob Hobbs." Chilton continues.

"Enough." Will says.

"Will Graham," Chilton continues, "Has come to rely on violence as an outlet for his-"

"Enough!" Will says, louder this time. Chilton grins, knowing he's won. Will is rattled. "Did you come here just to make me pissed, or was there something else you wanted, Doctor?"

"Damning stuff, isn't it?" Chilton asks.

"Displaying violent tendencies isn't the same as being a serial killer."

Chilton hums.

"Doctor Lecter could have raised his concerns about you months ago, but he didn't." He says. "What do you think about that?"

"He's playing his own game."

"Oh, we all are, Mr. Graham." Chilton says, "But what's his? Did he just like you that much? Or is there another reason?"

"I don't know." Will lies.

"Well, from what I understand, you've been refusing Doctor Lecter's requests to visit."

"From what you understand." Will says.

"Why did you try to kill him, Will?" Chilton asks. "We're all dying to know. Jack Crawford suggested you thought he was the Chesapeake Ripper."

"I was confused."

"Then you did?"

Will shrugs.

"I was just confused." He repeats, "Doctor Lecter is not a killer."

"So do you admit that you are?"

"No." Will says.

"Then who is?" Chilton asks. He looks genuinely curious to know.

"I don't know anymore. Maybe all of us." Will says. "Maybe we're all guilty of the ripper's crimes, one way or the other. He's entangled us in him."

"Not us. The rest of us are relatively free from his influence, but you-" Chilton corrects. "You're intertwined with him."

Will smiles bitterly. He thinks Chilton, for once in his life, might be right.

"I'm struggling to draw a line between myself and the ripper." He admits. In some ways, Hannibal has won. Will has been broken into a hundred pieces, and upon rebuilding himself, he's found that not all of the new pieces belong to him.

"Why don't we do an exercise?" Chilton suggests. "An association game, of sorts."

"A game." Will repeats, skeptical.

"Humour me." Chilton smiles.

Will has an idea. But he must proceed very cautiously. He nods, feigning reluctance.

"Could I draw?" He asks.

"What?"

"I can express myself better that way." Will lies. In truth, he's never been an artist. Hannibal is the expert in that. "Just a pencil and paper, that's all I need."

"Technically speaking, I'm not supposed to give you anything of the sort-"

"You're the boss." Will says, holding up his hands in a mock surrender. "Just... What if I promise not to do anything... untoward?"

"I'm not going to fall for that, Mr. Graham."

"I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Chilton considers him carefully.

"Anything." Will emphasises. Chilton will take the bait. Of course he will. It's too good an offer.

"...Well, alright, then. I suppose I could... Hm." Chilton stands slowly. "If you do anything stupid, I'll see to it that you regret it. Understand?"

It's almost too easy to manipulate Chilton. The man is far too power hungry to use his common sense. He watches with smug satisfaction as Chilton pushes a pen and pencil through the bars of his cell.

"Ready?" Chilton asks.

"As I'll ever be." Will says. He looks down at the sharp end of the pencil.

"Alright." Chilton claps his hands together. "What image do you associate with the concept of murder?"

Will smiles viciously, and stabs the pencil into his throat.

The pencil doesn't hit an artery.

Will hadn't meant it to, but if it had, he wouldn't have minded. The sting of the pencil's sharp point, and the spurt of blood that erupts when it breaks the skin, is undeniably satisfying. He has taken back control of his body, a body that not only Hannibal, but Chilton and the FBI, had used for their own purposes. He's still smiling as they carry him out of the cell on a stretcher, the medic's hands pressed firmly against the wound.

Chilton is pale and yelling as they take him away, and Will would laugh, if he could. He looks up at the dull prison ceiling and knows what happens next. He can see it in his mind's eye.

As the pencil is slowly extracted from his throat by the nurse, Will twists his wrist against the side of the bed, and is reminded eerily of Abel Gideon doing the same thing. The nurse is distracted stemming the blood flow, and the guard is picking idly at his hand, and so Will sees the perfect window to attempt an escape. He winces as he twists his wrist against the bedpost, and the bone finally cracks. It hurts, God does it hurt, but Will bears it with no sound at all.

He doesn't kill either of them. He just leaves them unconscious in the ward. But the thought had crossed his mind, and the image of their corpses contorted into a poor imitation of a bird sticks in his mind even after he's slipped out of the prison. Will has imagined himself a caged bird, finally free. It would have been artistic.

Artist. The thought was not Will's - it was Hannibal's. It was Hannibal's voice in his mind. It was Hannibal's imagination painting over Will's own, spilling like watercolors.

Perhaps Hannibal's influence over him was not quite over, not yet. He had wormed his way into Will's mind, and Will must extract him piece by piece. Pull him out slowly, like the pencil he plunged into his throat.

And Will knows exactly where to start.

Bedelia Du Maurier's estate looks exactly how Will suspected it would.

It makes sense that Hannibal would choose a psychiatrist with equally expensive tastes. The interior of the house holds very little furniture, and it's so clean and tidy that it's hard to think a person lives here. The entire place is cast in shadow, and Will thinks for a moment it must be lonely, living alone in a huge place like this. He had thought the same once about Hannibal's home. Their homes seemed to reflect who they were as people: wide, empty spaces.

She's in the kitchen, standing alone by the counter and sipping idly on a glass of wine. Her eyes are vacant, her gaze cast out to sea, focused on nothing in particular. It's a testament to her composure that she doesn't startle when Will steps out of the shadows.

"Will Graham." She says casually, and takes another sip of wine. Will watches her, one hand on his gun, a predator stalking its prey. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You've been expecting me." Will observes.

"I suspected you might come." Bedelia admits. She makes no sudden movements, and her face is impassive, but Will can hear her thinking, plans and routes of escape ticking over and over in her mind. Self preservation, Will decides, that's what motivates her. That, and curiousity. "Are you here to kill me?"

"I've got no reason to." Will says, surprised. "I'm not a killer, Doctor Du Maurier."

"No." Bedelia agrees. "Regardless, if you were to start killing, I wouldn't be a wise choice."

"How?"

"Well, presumably you want to take revenge against Hannibal. I am one of the only people in the world he's confided in." Bedelia says.

"Clever." Will smiles, slightly, impressed. "You're trying to sell yourself as a valuable asset, in the hopes I keep you alive."

Bedelia raises an eyebrow. The glint in her eyes... It feels like she's mocking him.

"Hannibal may be impressed by your parlor tricks," Bedelia says, "But I'm certainly not."

"It's refreshing." Will says. "Most people either use me, or fear me. You won't do either."

"I don't fear you. And I don't regard enough of you to go to the effort of using you."

Her attitude is like a breath of fresh air. Will's smile widens, and his hand slips from the hilt of his gun. This will be fun, he decides.

"Glass of wine?" Bedelia asks.

Will nods. As he takes the wine from her with his good hand, he wonders how he must look to her. His hair has grown long and unkempt in prison, and the wound on his throat is still bleeding, and has soaked through the bandage. He's still in his prison uniform, and he knows what he must look like. Wild, untamed. A rabid animal.

"Shall we sit?" She asks.

So Will takes one of the armchairs in the living room, and Bedelia sits opposite him. She crosses her legs, calm and curious, and asks simply,

"What is it that you'd like to know?"

"I want you to tell me everything you know about Hannibal Lecter."

Bedelia swirls the wine in her glass.

"I need something from you first."

"What?"

"Protection." Bedelia says seriously.

"I see," Will says, "So you admit Hannibal is dangerous."

"I admit that some day, I will be in danger."

"You are probably the closest thing Hannibal Lecter has to a friend."

"No." Bedelia's lips twitch. "That's you. I'm his psychiatrist."

"So you think one day you will lose your value, and he will discard of you?"

"One day I will have too much value, and he will be inclined to eat me." Bedelia says. Will feels a surge of satisfaction. She's the only person who knows the truth of Hannibal. "I presume you know your fate is the same."

"We aren't valuable to him. We're toys."

"You misunderstand. Hannibal did not play with you. He guided you, in the only way he knew how." Bedelia says. Will's eyes narrow. "He holds the capacity for love."

"He's a psychopath."

"The absence of empathy does not equal the absence of love. But you already know that. You've been in the Chesapeake Ripper's mind for a long time."

"He doesn't love his victims."

"No." Bedelia agrees. "But he loves us, and if we are to continue on this path, we will be his victims too. And we won't be the first."

"...How so?"

"Hannibal had a younger sister." Bedelia says. She shifts uncomfortably, perhaps aware that by confessing this to Will, she is in effect damning herself. Once Hannibal knows she is no longer on his side, she'll face his wrath. "Mischa. After his parent's death, she was his charge. And he loved her. He loved her enough to kill her, but he would not. He could not."

Will imagines it. Two orphans in Lithuania, with only each other. He feels a surge of compassion for Hannibal, suddenly.

"And then?"

"Then she was killed." Bedelia says. She takes a sip of wine, and then continues. "And he ate her remains."

Clarity touches the corners of Will's mind, a slow realisation.

"To honour her?"

"No. To forgive her. She had blinded him to who he truly was. He forgave her for making him love her." Bedelia says. "Hannibal struggles with forgiveness."

"Yeah." Will's lips twitch. "I understand that."

"And he struggles with love. You are living proof of that." Bedelia says.

"What?"

"He saw something in you." Bedelia says, "I don't know what. Whatever it is, it's pure gold to him. He had to destroy you to get to it. To bring it into the light, one might say."

Will blinks. Golden.

"What are you saying, Doctor Du Maurier?"

"Right now, you are in control." Bedelia says. "You have escaped prison. You have been unshackled from the influences that had so much control of you. Now, you are free to make your own decisions. You can surprise even Hannibal Lecter. And that is a gift that you should not take lightly."

"That's why you are talking to me." Will realises. "Because right now, I'm the one with the advantage. Over everyone."

Bedelia raises her glass, and smiles coldly.

"The question is, now that you have your agency, what will you do with it?"

Will smiles back.

"There will be a reckoning." He says, and watches the blood drain from her face with a smug satisfaction. The power he holds is intoxicating. He drinks it in. "I will grant you protection, since you asked for it."

"Why don't I believe you?" Bedelia asks.

Will shrugs.

"It's like you said." He says. "I can surprise even Hannibal Lecter. Is it so impossible that I could surprise you, too?"

After Will leaves her house, Bedelia watches him with a pale face from the window.

The conversation sticks with him as Will wanders through the night, alone and cold. As he walks, he thinks. He thinks about his newfound freedom, and the sense of quiet power radiating through him. He thinks about that morning on the bridge, when he had been at his weakest point, and Hannibal had steadied him with a hand against his back.

He realises, suddenly, that he's found himself at that very bridge. He must have walked for hours. His legs ache, and his eyes are wet with the force of the wind on his face.

Will leans over the edge of the bridge, and looks down at the water rippling beneath him. He breathes it in. Wolftrap is familiar, and this bridge still holds a certain amount of comfort to it, because no matter what had happened between them, Hannibal had helped him. He had made Will feel safe, when nothing else did. Though the memories are soaked in blood, they're warm regardless, and no matter how angry he is the fact remains that Hannibal had been his only friend.

Perhaps that says something about Will, too, that his only friend in years is a cannibalistic killer.

As Will leans over the edge of the bridge, he feels a hand land at the small of his back. Warm, steadying. He turns sharply, but there's nothing but empty space behind him. As his heart pounds loudly in his ears, he realises that no matter what power he holds now, he's still vulnerable. He's still weak, trembling, small. Hannibal had stripped the meat from his bones and left him to bleed. And it hurts.

That's why he'd been avoiding Hannibal, Will realises. Because he has shown weakness to him so many times. The next time he sees him, Will needs to look strong. Put back together. Impenetrable and invincible.

But however long he stands here, wishing to be as vacant and empty as Bedelia and Hannibal are, Will can't.

Eventually, Will turns to the road and hitches a ride. He settles in beside a stranger, and for a moment he thinks it's Hannibal in the driver's seat beside him, taking the wheel the same way he took control of Will's life. Hannibal had driven him off a cliff.

The sun is about to rise when Will slips into Hannibal Lecter's bedroom.

He is as quiet and as sly as a predator in the night. He stands in the doorway, lit only by the pale sun, and his expression is hidden by the shadows.

Hannibal is asleep. Will had expected him to wake, but he doesn't. He lies, breathing deeply, strands of hair on his face. He is so human. Will doesn't see a stag by Hannibal's bed, nor do antlers grow from the crown of Hannibal's head. He is human. And he is sleeping, which is perhaps the most vulnerable a person can be.

Will stares at him and remembers Hannibal sleeping by Abigail's hospital bed. Even now, wrecked by anger and hurt, Will knows not all of their friendship was a pretence. It can't have been. Sometimes Will caught Hannibal looking at him out of the corner of his eye and it was bare, and it was real. Will would know. He has seen compassion in killers, sweetness in sadists. He knows Bedelia is right, he knows Hannibal is a person before he is the ripper, and the knowledge comes to him clearly when he sees Hannibal asleep in his bed.

Hannibal is weak, like this, as weak as Will had been before he was imprisoned. It would be so easy to kill him. And what an undignified way for Hannibal to die, robbed of the artistry and glory he longed for. He'd grabbed a knife from the kitchen on the way upstairs, an instrument far more intimate, and painful, than his gun. Will takes a silent step forward, gripping the kitchen knife with white knuckles. The other hand lies limp and useless by his side.

He imagines it. The slick of Hannibal's blood over his hands, Hannibal's gasp when Will plunges the knife into his stomach, Hannibal's eyes watering with the pain of the wound. Would he be surprised? Would he be proud? The image comes to Will with sick satisfaction. Killing Hobbs was one thing, but killing Hannibal Lecter? The Chesapeake Ripper? That would be a true reckoning.

A hand lands on Will's back, warm. The fingers flex, and he leans into it. He turns his head, but there's no one behind him.

Will sighs.

He can't.

Killing Hannibal now would be perfect. Truly, it would be. To get revenge this way would heal Will, because he would take back control while taking it away from the person who had always held it.

But he can't.

He leaves the bedroom silently, and waits for the morning to fully come. Perhaps then, Will can find the courage to do what he must.

When Hannibal steps into the kitchen in his dressing gown, Will is waiting for him.

He's sitting on the counter, waiting in silence. Hannibal is as weak now as he had been in sleep - unprepared, half-awake, not even fully dressed. Will, in comparison, is a dominant presence. He leans casually on the counter, and he's comfortable in the one place where Hannibal allowed himself to be his true self: his kitchen.

"Will." Hannibal says. To anyone else, Hannibal would seem unsurprised, but Will sees right through him. "It's rude to sit on the counter."

"Rude." Will repeats. Despite himself, his lips twitch with amusement. "Well, we couldn't have that, could we, Doctor Lecter?"

Hannibal raises his eyebrows.

"Coffee?" He asks. Will shrugs, and so Hannibal turns on his French press. "It's a pleasant morning, is it not?"

Will hums.

"I had a strange dream," Hannibal continues. His back is to Will as he starts to make the coffee, and Will could kill him now, he could, but he can't. Perhaps Hannibal knows it. Perhaps Hannibal is exposing his back to Will on purpose. "That a bird visited me last night. It stood at the edge of my bed, and watched me for a while."

Will watches curiously as Hannibal potters around the kitchen.

"And I thought it odd." Hannibal says, "Because it was a free bird. Yet it had stepped back into its cage."

"...You knew I was there." Will realises.

"Not until I woke. I rose from my bed and I could sense you'd been there, while I slept. There was still a phantom image of you in my bedroom, and as I passed through the doorway, I felt a chill."

Will thinks of the imaginary hand on his back, a warm and ever-present ghost.

"You should have killed me." Hannibal says pleasantly. "It would have been fitting. I, vulnerable to you the way you had been to me. And you, a vengeful God."

"I wanted to." Will admits. He leans forward on his elbows, watching as Hannibal pours their coffees, steam rising around his face. "I planned to."

"Why didn't you?" Hannibal sends him a curious glance.

"Do you remember that morning, when I had been sleepwalking? I wound up at that bridge in Wolftrap?"

"Yes, I recall that morning."

"I was thinking about the way you manipulated me. And it started to make sense."

"Elaborate." Hannibal says. He passes Will a cup of coffee, and Will takes it. Hannibal's fingers brush his own, and instead of being disturbed like he expects to be, Will feels a wave of comfort, the same comfort he'd felt when Hannibal pressed a steadying hand to his back.

"You liked it when I was vulnerable." Will says. "When I was weak. You broke me down so you could remold me in your image, like a clay pot."

"And have I?" Hannibal asks. He takes a sip of coffee, and hums with delight for a moment. "Have I remolded you in my image, Will?"

"Not quite."

"I thought as much." Hannibal smiles. "In some ways, you are right. I did break you. But I did not remold you. That was always supposed to be your doing."

Will listens. He taps his fingers against his mug. The coffee is strong, a little sweet. It soothes him like an embrace.

"Breaking you was a necessity." Hannibal continues, "It was the only way to free you."

"From who? You? Jack?"

"Yes, in part." Hannibal agrees, "But yourself, too."

"What?"

"You believed yourself to be weak. You did not trust your own mind, nor your perception of reality." Hannibal says, "But you do now. You see the world with clear eyes, because the gap between you and reality has finally been closed. Now, you are free to build reality the way you wish to."

"I see." Will considers this. "So I had to be weak before I could see my strength?"

"Yes." Hannibal smiles, as if proud. "Do you see? I was bringing you into the light, Will. I am not the enemy."

Will can't help but smile too.

"What are you, then?"

"Your friend." Hannibal says warmly, "And believe me, I do not use that word lightly. I do not have friends."

The word sits comfortably in Will's chest. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Will thinks Hannibal does see himself as Will's friend. He always had.

"Bedelia said you saw something inside of me." Will says, "Something golden."

"From the moment we met, I've seen it." Hannibal agrees. "Through your shaking, pale body I saw the potential for greatness. A beautiful gem, hidden just out of sight, pushed down by the world into a weak, fragile shell."

"She also said you'd eat me." Will adds conversationally.

"Well." Hannibal's smile widens. "That's to be decided."

Will considers this. He swings his legs against the counter, and Hannibal does not appear to be irritated, though Will knows he would be if he were anyone else.

"So now," Will says, "I'm the one in control."

"Take it as an apology, of sorts, for taking control away from you."

"You really don't know what's going to happen next." Will says, surprised.

"I'll admit it's a first for me." Hannibal says, "I am, it seems, at your mercy. I have carefully constructed my life, and my person-suit, as you well know. But one word from you could shatter me. You might call the FBI. You might kill me. It is an inconvenience, but I am willing to concede to you. You may ask anything of me."

"Anything?" Will asks, holding his gaze.

"Anything." Hannibal says. He averts his eyes, and Will realises that he's being honest, he's being vulnerable. The knowledge sits warmly in his chest. "What will you ask for first, Will?"

Will thinks carefully about his answer.

"Breakfast." He says, eventually, and Hannibal rewards him with a blinding smile.

Hannibal is watching him eat.

He has no plate of his own. He just sits and watches Will, and despite his insistence that Will is in control, Will still feels as if he's under Hannibal's thumb. He sits at Hannibal's dining table eating an omelette (without meat, Will notices), and he feels as if imaginary ropes are tied around his ankle, binding him to his chair.

"You are wounded." Hannibal says, his eyes flickering to the soaked bandage on Will's neck. The bandage has begun to tear, and fresh blood stains Will's neck. His eyes continue their path to Will’s limp hand. "Your wrist is broken."

"My own doing." Will says, through a mouthful of food. Rather than being annoyed, Hannibal seems amused.

"Ah. Part of your escape, I presume?"

Will nods.

"Frederick Chilton is easy to manipulate."

"Chilton has an advantage." Hannibal says. Will raises an eyebrow.

"Which is?"

"His mind is quite empty. He isn't bothered by an onslaught of thoughts and images the way we are."

Despite himself, Will laughs. Hannibal has, in effect, just called Chilton brainless.

"Will you let me dress the wound, and set your wrist?" Hannibal asks. Will considers this.

"Okay." He concedes eventually. In truth, the bandage feels uncomfortable, and he worries about infection.

Hannibal nods. He sips his coffee.

"Why are you sitting watching me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like..." Will considers him. "Like you're waiting for a command."

"Perhaps I am." Hannibal says. "Perhaps I'm repenting for my sins."

"Doctor Du Maurier said you struggle with forgiveness." Will says. "As do I. It will take more than that to repent for what you did to me."

"Bedelia has a loose tongue, it seems."

"Are you going to kill her?" Will asks plainly. Hannibal does not answer. "Oh, I see. Are you still wearing your person-suit? You haven't actually said anything incriminating, I suppose. Only that you're a very unconventional therapist."

"Would you like me to incriminate myself?"

"Would you?"

Hannibal looks down at the table.

"Yes."

"Then do it." Will says, surprised by the conviction in his voice. "Admit what you are."

"I am the Chesapeake Ripper." Hannibal says, and Will feels a shiver of pleasure, and superiority.

"You've confessed to it, at last. Do you feel lighter?"

"No." Hannibal said. "Lighter is too gentle a word. I feel I've been pushed out into the open, cold and naked."

"You see how it feels?" Will asks. "It isn't pleasant, is it?"

"Not at all. But it is necessary. And I have done it, for you." Hannibal says gently. "Only you."

Will swallows, at that, and finishes his breakfast in silence. The press of the chair against his back reminds him of Hannibal's hand, warm and steady.

"You didn't feed me any meat." Will says, setting his cutlery down on his empty plate.

"Would you like me to?" Hannibal asks curiously.

"I-" Will pauses. His voice is thick when he speaks again. "I don't know."

Hannibal nods. He stands, and pushes in his chair, and Will feels a wave of affection. Despite all that's passed between them, Hannibal is still the well-mannered socialite he's always been.

"Come. I will tend to your wounds." Hannibal says.

Will follows Hannibal to a large, ornate bathroom.

He sits on the edge of the bath, and tilts back his head. As Hannibal steps towards him, he focuses on the ceiling above him.

"May I?" Hannibal asks quietly. Polite and unassuming as always.

"Yes." Will concedes.

Hannibal kneels beside him. Will can't help but look down at him.

"You feel powerful, with me at your feet." Hannibal observes. Will averts his gaze, and does not answer, though Hannibal is right. The power that surges through him is hot and angry.

Slowly, Hannibal sets his hand into a make-shift cast. Then he peels the bandage from Will's neck. 

"A pencil?" He guesses.

"Yeah." Will says. Hannibal's smile is approving.

"Creative." Hannibal says, "But it could have resulted in lead poisoning, or you could have hit an artery."

Hannibal looks at him for a long moment.

"...Oh, I see." Hannibal says, "It did not matter what happened afterwards. Whether you died, or were gravely injured, was inconsequential. The act was a reclaiming of your body. You are now the only one who can wound yourself."

It's jarring, how well Hannibal understands him. He always has. If Will can admit he knows Hannibal to the very depths of his soul, he must also concede that Hannibal knows him just as well.

"It will scar, I think." Hannibal says. His fingers brush over the wound, and Will's eyes flutter shut. The touch stings, but it's still soothing, somehow. "Proof of your freedom."

"I have repossessed myself." Will murmurs. His eyes stay closed as Hannibal wets a cloth and cleans the blood from his neck. "...But I am not the only person inside of my head."

"Oh?" Hannibal's voice is curious, and a little hopeful.

"I fear you have possessed me too." Will admits. "You're rattling around in my skull. When you shattered me, I slotted a few pieces of you into the reconstruction. I hear your voice, at the edge of my subconscious."

"Then I must repay the favour." Hannibal says. He dabs the cloth gently, his hands skilled and steady. "I must take a few pieces of you for myself. I must ingrain you in my psyche."

"So that's what you want? To be intertwined?"

"The melding of the self." Hannibal murmurs. He sets down the wet cloth, but still Will's eyes remain closed, and continue to as Hannibal cuts a fresh bandage. "I shall not deny you have influenced me as much as I have influenced you. Perhaps more."

"Really?" Will asks. He opens his eyes, now, curious. Hannibal does not look at him as he tapes the bandage very carefully to Will's wound.

"Do you not see it?" Hannibal asks. "I have come into the open, for the first time. I have gifted you corpses. I have fed you. I have sat with you in the late hours, and spoke as your equal. I have always been just outside of the world, looking in as if seeing humanity through glass. But no more. I have been changed."

"Ah." Will feels a surge of affection, of empathy. His fingers twitch in his lap.

"I knew when I first met you." Hannibal admits. "That you would transform me into something new. We have been twisted into crude imitations of one another. Do you deny it?"

Will offers silence, which is an admission of its own, and Hannibal ties off the dressing. Then, for just a moment, his hand rests on Will's neck, and he presses hard into the wound. Will hisses, the pain sharp and sudden.

"Don't you see?" Hannibal murmurs. "How sweet the pain is? How weakness and strength are not really so different?"

Hannibal removes his hand from Will's neck, and leaves only a dull sting behind. Will is disappointed. Hannibal sees it in his face, and smiles.

"See?" He asks, and Will does.

On his way out of the bathroom, Will stumbles over his own feet, and a warm hand settles against his back and steadies him.

Will freezes. At first, he thinks it’s a phantom touch, but then he watches Hannibal remove his hand and continue walking. It is a small moment, inconsequential. But still, Will does not move.

Hannibal turns his head over his shoulder when he notices Will's absence.

"Will?" He asks.

Will blinks at him.

"That morning, on the bridge." Will says, "You steadied me."

Hannibal looks at him wordlessly. In the hallway, just standing, he looks as human as he looked while he slept. Will's hand travels to the bandage on his neck with his free hand, and he presses hard against the wound, the way Hannibal did, just to feel the sting again.

"I feel it still." Will says. "I feel your hand, holding me up, keeping me steady. Whenever I was weak, I leaned on you. You always broke my fall."

"Yes." Hannibal agrees.

"Even when you destroyed me. Even when you took away everything dear to me, and imprisoned me, you still kept me steady." Will said. The bandage was useless. Will presses so hard against the wound that blood seeps through it, warm and slick. "Why?"

Hannibal steps towards him slowly.

"It does not bring me pleasure to hurt you, or see you in pain."

"Liar." Will hisses. "Tell the truth."

Hannibal steps closer still, and Will doesn't step backwards. He feels blood drip down his neck, wet and hot against his skin.

"...Since you asked for it, I suppose I must." Hannibal sighs. "When I see you, weak and trembling, I am unsure whether I want to hurt you or care for you. I fear I have done both, and that is why you are so confused. I see you at my feet, and I am torn between crushing you and cradling you."

Will considers this. He supposes Hannibal has done both. In a way, Hannibal had broken him sweetly.

Hannibal reaches up and pulls at Will's wrist, gently, attempting to pull his hand away from his neck.

"Which one, then? Which one will you choose?" Will asks.

Hannibal's lips twitch.

"I already have both." He says, and Will supposes he's right. "As do you."

He allows Hannibal to pull his hand away from the wound on his neck, but the loss of pain - of weakness - is devastating.

"Prove it." Will says. "On your knees."

Hannibal blinks at him, surprised.

"On your knees." Will says again.

To his shock, Hannibal concedes. He kneels down at Will's feet like he did in the bathroom, and Will wonders how Hannibal can have so much control over him and yet so little, at the same time.

"To devour or to embrace." Hannibal says. "Which will it be?"

Then Hannibal kisses his shoes, and it is then that Will realises Hannibal is his, and he is Hannibal's. Hannibal had broken him and been broken in the process. A mutual shattering. The realisation softens the betrayal, but even that, even the hurt and pain Hannibal had caused him, seems pleasant now.

"I am at your mercy." Hannibal says warmly.

"And I am at yours." Will replies, and his tone is just as warm.

He kneels down in front of Hannibal, and wraps his arms around him. Hannibal returns the embrace, warm and so very human. Will feels a shock of pleasure when Hannibal's fingers finds his wound again. He pushes so hard through the bandage that Will gasps and shakes.

"It hurts." Will says, his breathing heavy. He grips Hannibal's arms tightly, tilting his head back and allowing Hannibal better access. "It hurts."

It had always hurt. His life, his family, the control others had over him, his delight in reliving a crime scene... All of it had hurt. But had there not been pleasure, beneath it? Wasn't it right that the weaker he had been, the sweeter comfort had felt? One of Hannibal's hands is making him bleed but the other is resting at the small of his back. Pain, and love, intertwined.

"I know." Hannibal murmurs against his cheek. "I feel it, too."

Will supposes he does. Whatever pain Will feels, Hannibal does in equal measure. Hannibal presses a warm kiss to his cheek, and Will's blood trickles down his fingers. Neither of them sure if they are powerful, or powerless.

Overwhelmed, Will fears he'll fall backwards onto the floor, but Hannibal holds him steady.

"I won't let you fall." He says. The words are terrifying and comforting at the same time. Hannibal has him, in more ways than one.

"Hannibal." Will says. It's the first time he's called him by his first name. Hannibal pulls back to look at him, growing still.

"Yes, Will?"

"I have reclaimed my body, my self, from everyone." He says slowly. His eyes flicker over Hannibal's face, and he knows they will both be ruined eventually, and it will be a pleasure. "From everyone but you."

"Don't you see? Don't you see? It is the same for me."

Will smiles. Hannibal presses a hand to his cheek, smearing blood over his skin.

"I see." Will murmurs. He does. He's trembling, but so is Hannibal. A mutual shattering, a mutual reckoning. His good hand rises to wrap around Hannibal's neck, but Will hasn't decided whether it's to comfort him or to strangle him, or whether it matters. "Hannibal?"

"Hm?" Hannibal hums, his eyes closed.

"I won't let you fall." He says. Hannibal smiles. "I am yours to break, and you are mine."