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Chapter Text

The fog hung low and thick the night Will encountered his first killer. He slid his rowboat into the water like a fly drawn to the light, but instead he craved the low visibility and glassy stillness of the Bayou, the thick sludge of plants and mud falling away as he eased out into the middle of it, waters black as blood in the moonlight. Will moved with the creaking of the trees, the groaning of the distant dock. He reveled in the silence, the emptiness, the useless strain of his eyes to see . The brain painted its most vivid machinations on blank canvases, and the mist seemed to swirl into faces, hallways, uncannily familiar shapes. Will pulled up his oars and allowed the water to take him where it willed. ‘Surrender’ felt like the right word, so he whispered it, laying back in the boat with his jacket propping up his head.

“I surrender,” he breathed. The air sang it back.

Ssssssurrender sssssurrender 

He was a safe captive in the fog.

Ssssssurrender

Nothing could harm him.

Will Graham dozed, his body of angles tucked into the boat’s curvature. He kept his eyes open, watching for what tricks his brain would play on him. Bodies in the fog, antlers in the branches, blood in the water, the sound of wings above, a light in the distance. Will squinted. A light. A vague, yellowish glow simpered directly ahead of him where the current was pulling. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed them. The bright patch remained, flickered like a candle. Slowly, Will shifted to his stomach and dug out his binoculars, perched on his elbows just above the ship’s front bow. It was a little flame, and a dark mass moved beside it and under it. Will cursed himself for not putting in his contacts as he smashed the binocular eyepieces against the prescription frames.

Is that… he squinted… a hand?

As he drew closer, the mass upholding the candle came into focus: a hand pointing straight up held the flame, too down low for anyone sitting in a boat of any kind. Will couldn’t make out the rest of the person, and his heart leapt into his throat as he thought they must be drowning. Drowning and lost in the dark. But why were they so still? So quiet? Couldn’t they thrash or breathe?

Will was almost upon them by the time he broke his silence. He stood and turned on his flashlight, pointing it through the fog. It lit upon the candle, then the hand, traveled down the arm, to the elbow, to the shoulder, to a familiar mop of curly hair barely breaking the water’s surface.

“Dad!” Will swore, and providence sent a wave of sweeping wind that sliced for a moment through the fog. And Will realized there was no candle.

The wick bloomed out of John Graham’s pointed index finger, blood and melted wax dripping down his arm, and for a sick moment Will was 8 again and looking at the stars with his father on his mom’s birthday.

Fireflies swarmed them that night and Will clapped his hands together again and again trying to catch one. John Graham sat nearby in silence on their house’s porch steps, swigging from a bottle and crying silently. He kept his gaze fixed above on the heavens, eyes wet and reflecting the light of street lamps.

Clap!

“Dad! Dad, look! ” Will had said, shaking his clasped hands. “ I caught one.” Will opened his fists, expecting to be illuminated as his bug friend flew free. But his palm was only dark and sticky.

“ Yep, ” John Graham said as he took another swig. “ That’s what happens when you catch a star. ”

In the present, a detached thought rippled through Will’s mind: either you crush the star or the star crushes you.

Something moved in the corner of his eye, and Will pointed the flashlight up. A man balanced in a little boat beside his father’s burning hand, his face placid, watching Will like working through a calculation, and suddenly the boy’s brain clicked.

“You’re the Chesapeake Ripper,” he whispered. The man looked perfect in a disturbing, alien way. Carved of marble. With slit eyes and snake lips. The gentle stream didn’t seem to even rock him. “You did this.”

The marble man cocked his head, distantly amused, though a frown tugged the corner of his mouth. “You look young. That’s a problem.”

Will’s mouth went dry. What was he doing? He had to run, swim, scream! His eyes drifted down to his father; he wondered how the Ripper had made him float so vertically. “What did he do to deserve it?”

“Pigs don’t have to deserve death to be slaughtered.”

“No. They just have to be tasty.” Will gulped, understanding more and more what monster stood before him. “So, what parts of my father have you set aside for your appetite?”

The wind stopped. The fog settled into a wall between them again. Straining his ears, Will caught the low murmur of a voice.

“Only the very best,” the Chesapeake Ripper said, and a splash split the air.

In grabbing an oar, Will fumbled and dropped his flashlight into the water, leaving his father’s candle as the only light for miles.

“Where are you?” Will said. “Where are you! Show yourself!” Will spun in circles, stabbing the oar into the black water. “Monster! Murderer!” The boat jerked with the force of an impact and sent the boy to his knees. He was screaming now, murderous fantasies dwindling into desperation. “Help! Someone help me! It’s the Chesapeake–”

A hand shot from the water, anchored onto the boat, and then Will was falling.

Arms pulled him down, down, forced his mouth open. Water invaded his throat. He was blind but for the speck of light his father held above the surface. Will fought madly to close the gap. He drove his elbow back hard, hit something, and broke free, clawing the water, beating it. And he recognized the shadow of his father’s face as he reached out, blinking away air bubbles from his eyes, reaching, reaching, if only for a glimpse. He caught his father’s shoulders. Looked the man who raised him and stayed by him full in the face.

Two hollow pits stared back.

No.

No.

A vast arm wrapped around Will’s throat and pulled him back. He fought, thrashing, kicking. His hands stretched toward his father, asking to be saved. John Graham watched on blankly and did not move beyond bobbing in the water. Darkness ebbed in Will’s vision, and near the end he felt himself go limp and be pressed into the Chesapeake Ripper’s chest.

He wanted to imagine it was his father holding him, making the world small so his son didn’t have to see so much. It worked at that moment: Will Graham saw nothing but the fading silhouette of his father’s corpse, and John Graham saw nothing at all.

Will was sleeping on his stomach—that was his first sign that something was wrong. The next indicator was that he wasn’t dead.

Will started up, got his legs under him before his eyes adjusted to the dark, and tried to run. He took only a few steps when something went taut and the air squeezed from his throat. Will collapsed, hands flying to his neck, and felt something leather and metal there. He coughed and tried to free up the pressure around the tender skin, but a chain sprouting from the nape of his neck restrained him until he backed up. His back hit a stone wall, and he sank to the floor. Finally, his eyes were adjusted to the darkness. Will was in a basement of some kind, chained to a corner wall where the only nearby objects were an odd mattress with straps sewn into the fabric and a bucket. The rest of the basement stretched out a fair ways. Several fridges lined a far wall; stretchers and metal gurneys decorated the floor beside rolling tables crowded with tools. And, most terrifyingly, a man clad in an Armani suit and a book in his lap watched Will from a padded seat.

It was the marble man. The Chesapeake Ripper.

“Good morning,” he greeted.

Will pressed back into the wall. “Where am I?”

“That does not matter.”

“I beg to differ.”

The man blinked at him. “Then beg.”

Will shivered. “Who are you?”

“My name is Doctor Hannibal Lecter. I’m a psychiatrist–”

“And the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Doctor Lecter inclined his head, allowing the interruption.

“Why am I alive?”

“That is a question only God can satisfy. However, if you wish to know why I have not killed you, I can provide you with an answer.” He plucked something small off the nearest table. Will recognized it as the wallet he’d had in his pocket. “William Graham, male, 5 feet 10 inches, 140 lbs, blue eyes, organ donor, born April 18, 19XX. That makes you 17-years-old, correct?”

Will gulped. “Yes.”

Doctor Lecter slid the license back into the wallet and crossed his legs. “Therein lies the problem. I do not kill children.”

Will reached for the collar again, sliding his thumbs under the leather padding to give himself room to breathe. “What do you do to them?” he whispered, nausea rising up his throat. Doctor Lecter stood, slowly approaching, and Will smashed himself back into the wall, noticing for the first time he was wearing different, dry clothes: a dark blue, soft cotton shirt, sturdy black fleece joggers, and knit socks. “Don’t.” He trembled. “Please don’t.”

The doctor crouched in front of him, so close he could reach out and brush Will’s tucked in knees, perhaps even grab his chin. “I am not that kind of monster,” he said.

Will nearly sobbed. Tears streaked down his cheeks, the memory of his father’s hollow eyes overlaying Doctor Lecter’s face. “Then what do you want from me?”

“Nothing but your compliance, for now. I will not hurt a child.”

“But when I turn 18?” Will guessed.

“You should rest, William.” The man drew to his feet.

“Don’t!” Will choked, losing control of his tears. “Don’t call me William.” His father only called him William when he was angry. The word shot ice down his spine even now in the devil’s dungeon. “I’m Will.”

Doctor Lecter considered him. “Very well, Will. I’ll be back in a few hours with your meal. We can discuss your situation more then. For now, though, rest.” The man turned his back and headed up the basement stairs, shutting the door on Will Graham’s sobbing behind him.

Will curled up on the mattress after the stone floor had become too cold for him. For a basement, it was oddly sterile: clean as a hospital, cold as a meat freezer. Ghosts of Will’s breath danced from his mouth, and he clamped hands over his frozen ears. He almost didn’t hear the creak of the basement door.

He started up, backed into the corner again. Doctor Lecter descended the stairs with a tray balanced in one hand and a plastic cup of water in the other. He set them down in front of Will and respectfully took a few steps back before settling into his own chair again.

“Hello, Will,” he said.

“Hello, Doctor Lecter.” Will eyed the tray with suspicion. It held a bowl of opaque soup, creamy mashed potatoes, and lightly buttered bread. A dull, plastic spoon was the only utensil. Will recognized the set up. “Do you work at a psych ward?”

Lecter blinked. “No, but I interned at one earlier in my psychiatric education. Have you been to a psych ward?” Three, to be exact, but Will only shrugged, slowly turning the spoon over in his hands. “Not fond of eye contact, are you?”

“Eyes are distracting.” The boy murmured.

“What do my eyes distract you from, Will?”

Will glanced at him, those chestnut, almost maroon eyes, relaxed and present, like he was politely interested in what Will had to say. “From the knowledge that you’re the enemy.”

“And what is the nature of an enemy, Will?”

“Someone whose interests oppose my own.”

“I see. And your interests are?”

Will grimaced. “Staying alive.”

Doctor Lecter tutted, shook his head. “Don’t lie to me, Will. I’ve seen the scars on your arm. They’re fresh. Life is not what drives you, so what does?”

Will gritted his teeth. “Killing you,” he seethed. The doctor inclined his head in appreciation.

“Thank you for being honest with me, Will. In turn, I will be honest with you. However, I must first ask for you to eat something.”

“Have you spiked any of it?”

“Now, now. Don’t make me repeat myself, dear Will. Eat now, questions after.”

Will gulped, trapped, and picked up the piece of buttered bread, lips trembling as he pressed it onto his tongue. It seemed to melt in his mouth like cotton candy, except wholesome and warm instead of sugary. It tasted divine, homemade. Will downed the rest of the bread then reached to pull the tray closer. His throat strained against the collar. “You’ve tied me up like a dog,” he cursed.

“The issue with restraints is regrettable, yes. I do not make a habit of allowing my guests to roam as much as you do on this floor. Unfortunately, your wrists and ankles were too skinny for any of the cuffs I own. I was forced to improvise.”

Will scoffed. The man sounded like he half expected an apology for inconveniencing him. Will took a grumpy bite of mashed potatoes, unprepared for the divine flavor; he groaned slightly with the pleasure of it. The doctor’s lip curled.

“Besides, most men do not feed their dogs half as well as I will feed you.”

“We’re all animals to you, aren’t we? You called my father a pig.”

“He was rude,” Lecter hummed. “He collided with me after leaving a bar and spit on my shoes.”

A grin tugged the corner of Will’s mouth. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”

“How did you know to search for him out on the water?”

“I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for him.”

“Then what were you looking for out in that fog?”

“Nothing.” Will shrugged.

“Nothing,” Lecter repeated. “Nothing and no one from nowhere. That’s what the world says about you as well. Forgive me for saying the broadcasts have been lackluster. Your father’s body has been found, but no one has raised the alarm over your disappearance. Tell me, Will, do you make a habit of disappearing?”

“No one’s looking for me,” Will said instead of answering. “If that’s what you’re worried about, don’t.”

“I am not worried.”

“Of course not, you’re the great Chesapeake Ripper.” Will rolled his eyes before peering at the opaque soup. He stirred it. A chunk of meat surfaced. He shoved the tray away violently, staggering back as hacks shook his body. Spilling across the floor, the soup pooled at Doctor Lecter’s feet.

Will had never been hit by a panic attack so suddenly before. He’d been calm, eerily calm, and then something in him snapped at that delectable brown chunk of flesh. Fear gripped him, realer than anything he’d felt in years, and his adams apple grinded against the collar up and down, up and down until mashed potatoes filled his esophagus. Suddenly, a hand had him by the nape of the neck and bowed him over a bucket. He tried to thrash away, but his whole body couldn’t escape the incredible strength of the doctor’s two fingers, and Will emptied himself as a hand held back his curls from his face.

The barfing went on long past every ounce of bread and mashed potatoes had left him, followed by cornflake crumbs and hot dogs and bile. His body trembled all over with hacks and sobs, and he tried to remember the last time he’d taken his medication. It went on until Will could no longer hold himself up, could no longer force his eyes open, could no longer remember his pride. He peered into his lids and saw only cold waters and his father’s body, the speck of candlelight, the hollow eyes. Will didn’t know when he’d started to mutter through chattering teeth. Doctor Lecter listened intently.

“A man worth less than the damaged soles of his shoes. A drunk. A blind fool, sucking greedily from the tit of life while others starved around him. I will reveal him as his true self: an anglerfish.” Will twitched in the doctor’s lap, babbling through the rapids of a mild seizure. “He’ll remain a man forever drowning, luring others into the depths after him and his worthless light. Even those who would help him would be burned. And for nothing. For trying to save a hollow man whose appetite spares no one. This is not justice. This is honesty. This is contrapasso. This is my design.”

Will bucked, and finally his mouth clamped shut, prone body curling into the nearest source of warmth.

Hannibal Lecter was almost stunned. He’d recognized bloodlust in the boy, intelligence, and something else: the insatiability of a starving man. It was no surprise that the son of such a leaching man would hold hunger in his very frame, but this was more than that. Will Graham was not an empty pitcher; he was water itself, and he fit the shape of his container beautifully. Perhaps, Hannibal considered, the next ten months would not be so bland as he’d feared. Will stirred, boneless, and the doctor scooped him up and placed him on the bed.

“You didn’t know my father,” Will murmured. Hannibal brushed back the sweaty hair from the boy’s forehead. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

“Now, now, dear Will. Remember what I said about pigs to the slaughter.” Lecter fastened the bed restraints around Will’s wrists and ankles and middle, then wiped residual puke from his lips.

“Pigs don’t have to deserve death to be slaughtered.”

“Clever boy.” Hannibal smiled. “I wondered if you’d recognize the meat. I suppose familial consumption will have to be all in good time. Soon, though. I don’t have to kill you to enjoy the delights of the entire Graham family.”

“I’ll kill you,” Will hissed.

“No, my dear boy.” Hannibal traced the curve of Will’s jaw. “You’ll do much more than that.”

Will woke again with a needle in his arm and a suspended sack of blood expanding in his periphery. He recognized the ceiling of his captor’s basement and knew he was still strapped to the mattress. With no light beyond the artificial buzz of fluorescents, Will couldn’t begin to guess at the time of day, how long he’d been there. He could only identify the expanding pit of distaste stabbing into his stomach. Not to mention he was lightheaded. A steady trickle of his blood ran up a slender tube, and he wondered if he’d be bled to death. Perhaps Doctor Lecter subscribed to archaic therapies and resorted to blood letting, or maybe he was simply a vampire. It would have hardly shocked Will more if he’d glanced up to see the good doctor sucking from the straw instead of an IV bag. He looked around for the man, waited for him to appear. When patience yielded nothing, Will drifted back to sleep.

He awoke to the pinch of a needle pulling from his arm. He watched Doctor Lecter through slitted eyes as he lifted the syringe to eye level and pushed a singular scarlet drop from its head, catching it with his finger and tasting it. “Delectable,” he said, smiling down at Will. “Perhaps what they say about young blood is true.” He knew the boy was awake, so Will looked at him fully.

“So much for not harming children,” he murmured.

“I never said I wouldn’t harm you. Discipline is a form of harm, and where would the world be if all of us were raised without it?”

“Full of people like you?”

Lecter hummed. “Quite the contrary. I was disciplined enough as a child. I believe the world without punishment would be more animalistic than the reality we currently inhabit.”

“I’m sensing a theme with you.”

“I view life through many more metaphors than that, I assure you. Your presence has simply made me consider more questions of savagery.”

“Thanks.”

Lecter’s lip twitched, and he wound the blood tube around the bag before placing it in a nearby fridge. “What should I make your blood into? Beer? Syrup? Broth?”

“Why don’t you down it straight?”

“Sizable consumption of unsanitized blood can be a health risk without proper precautions.”

“Cannibalism in general sounds like a health risk.”

Lecter rocked cheerfully on the balls of his feet as he cleaned around the needle puncture in Will’s arm. “I most enjoy patients who deal with their circumstances the way you do. So much entertainment in so little change.”

“Am I to keep you company for the next 10 months?”

“If the company is good and you behave, perhaps. You might even outlast the 10 months.”

“Is that incentive to make me obey you?”

“It was genuinely meant.”

“I can’t exactly believe you if I’m to be no more than a blood bank.”

Lecter leaned over into Will’s line of sight and traced the boy’s cheek with his knuckle. “Would you like to be more?” Will’s mouth snapped closed, and he remained quiet for the duration of the doctor’s treatments. Slowly, the man released the straps around his middle and wrists—the collar still secured around Will’s neck—but he leaned over him before freeing the ankles, pinning the hands by Will’s sides. He leered close, smelt the boy’s neck and looked him in the eye. They could both feel Will’s racing heart, and the doctor watched the awkward lump of the boy’s Adam's apple dip with hunger. “I expect you to be polite and eat what I give you— everything I give you.”

“No,” Will tried to say with resolution, but his voice cracked, his chest barely brushing the serial killer’s waistcoat. “I won’t. Not the meat.”

“You won’t enjoy the consequences of opposing me, dear Will.”

Will gritted his teeth. “The only flesh I’ll eat will be yours,” he said, and snapped at Lecter’s nose, making the doctor pull away with a disdainful frown.

“You’re too much like your father, Will. It will be the death of you.”

From the corner of Will’s eye, Doctor Lecter lifted a syringe into view. “No,” he groaned before the man placed a hand over his face and held him down, plunging the needle deep into the boy’s neck. “No,” Will whispered, a tear leaking from his eye. Doctor Lecter wiped the water away with his thumb. He brought it to his mouth to taste the salt.

“You and I will get along soon enough, Will.” Lecter smoothed Will’s hair as he resisted falling asleep. “How soon is entirely up to you.”

Chapter Text

There was something in Will’s throat. It pushed down, down. His body bucked, spasmed. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t remember where he was beyond the darkness of his eyelids. Finally, the stiff, plastic worm stopped its progress. Will tried to gag it out, but something worse came out of it. His stomach flooded—against his will, fed directly from the vicious tap of a feeding tube, and suddenly Will remembered everything.

His eyes jumped open, tried to reach and remove the tube from his throat, but his whole body was restrained still. Doctor Lecter held the tube firmly in place, surgical in his precision, and Will tried to scream.

“Hush,” he shushed him. “That won’t do you any good.”

Will’s body was no longer his own—inside or out. Doctor Lecter had found a way into his very organs without even a scalpel. Will would argue this was worse, to be torn apart within a larger whole. Lobotomy. Rape. Will could not swallow or spit it out. Because it was in him. It was him.

An indeterminable amount of time later, Lecter was satisfied and drew the tube out of the boy’s throat, pulling a scream out with it. Aching coughs racked the small frame, but the puckered scars running down his throat couldn’t be cleared away. So eventually he swallowed and tried breathing through the ache. Will was crying again, though his insides hurt too much to summon up sobs. Lecter went about cleaning his equipment and only returned to wipe the drool away from Will’s face.

“I suspect you’ll try to vomit if I release these restraints now, so you will remain in bed until the digestion process is well on its way.”

“How could you have done that?” Will croaked. “Was that people? Was it my father?”

“I’d considered adding him,” the doctor hummed, “but it felt inelegant for the circumstances. I won’t force you to partake in flesh. But until you are ready to adjust your diet, the feeding tube will be employed for all of your meals.”

Will trembled. “So, I have to choose between cannibalism and rape?”

Lecter inclined his head. “Both of those words are subjectively defined, but in essence, yes.”

“Why?”

The doctor blinked at him. “This was merciful, dear Will. I could have forced your father down your throat; I could have starved you; I could have killed you. Instead, I allow you the choice. It’s rare I treat anyone as humanely as I treat you. If the roles were reversed, I would not take it for granted.”

“If the roles were reversed, you’d be dead.”

“And yet, of the two of us, I am the monster? Your code of ethics condemns you as much as it does me, dear Will. The logic is inherently flawed.”

“You’re one to talk. You break the law by murdering but classify a child by the arbitrary age the government set?”

“Careful.” Lecter smiled. “You might convince me to kill you sooner.”

Will turned his face away as far as he could, swallowing down bile and tears. “I don’t care. Better to die now than spend ten months in this Hell.”

“Don’t say that.” A hand caressed Will’s hair and cheek, stroking down to rest on his chest as it rose and fell. “Suicide is the enemy, dear Will. You’re so sick inside, you’ve forgotten that. Try to remember, Will. You must fight to survive, even if it’s hopeless. You called me your enemy, yes? Do not let the enemy win.”

Will shifted to look at Lecter, trying to read his impassive face. The weight of the man’s hand on his chest was grounding somehow, and there was no sadism in his eyes, no doubt. The urge to reflect his stability alone sent a wave of peace through Will’s body. He vaguely tried not to feel it, which the doctor must have sensed. He pushed down harder on the boy’s chest. The tense resistance squeezed from his limbs, a cocktail of drugs finally dissolving in his stomach.

“Very good. Very good,” Lecter cooed. “Surrender—that is how you fight.”

Ssssssurrender

Will remembered how the bayou air sung to him that final, bleary night.

Ssssssurrender Ssssssurrender

The feeling of sharp bindings fell away. The building sob dissipated in an exhale. Will was floating, floating on still waters.

Ssssssurrender Ssssssurrender Ssssssurrender

“Shhh, shhh, you’re alright.” Hannibal hadn’t expected Will to awaken as quickly as he had. He’d just finished cleaning and dressing the boy, and now he had him laid out on the guest bedroom mattress to better look at his wounds. The restraints had left rub burns around his neck and wrists, not to mention the pre-existing mess of his arms. Will Graham had not led a happy life before that night on the bayou, Hannibal was sure of that much. And the loss of his father didn’t seem to affect him as much as the manner of death. From the first moment, the boy had seen so clearly: the Chesapeake Ripper’s identity, Hannibal’s thought processes behind the death, his dietary preferences. The boy, unlike his father, saw much, and Hannibal was almost fond of his feral ferocity, like finding a purebred show dog rooting through the trash. At the very least, he was entertaining in his troublesomeness.

Hannibal pressed an alcohol swab to a gash in the boy’s arm, and Will groaned under the cold sting, squirming in the doctor’s arms. “You’re alright. You’re alright,” Hannibal chided. “Be good now, this is for the best.”

Will’s eyes blurrily opened, pupils constricted. Beyond wiggling, he didn’t move, couldn’t. “What are you doing?” He croaked.

“Just disinfecting.”

“Why?”

“To prevent infection, of course.”

“No. Why do you care?”

Hannibal sighed and tutted under his breath. “You’re in no condition to do it yourself.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Even if the circumstances were different, dear Will, I do not believe you’d treat yourself properly. In fact, from the way these cuts have healed, I’m not convinced you treated them at all.”

“At least I was free,” Will grumbled.

“Free from what? And free to do what? Hurt yourself? Go without food or affection or enrichment? Freedom to blind yourself in a foggy bayou and wish to die. Is that truly better than what I’ve done to help you? Were you happier alone, without a soul to take care of you?”

“I don’t need to be taken care of.”

“I beg to differ.”

Will’s eyes flashed. “Then beg.”

Hannibal’s lips twitched, and he chuckled.  “What a cunning boy you are, Will.” Hannibal pulled Will further up his lap until the head of curls rested on his chest. He worked bandages up the boy’s arm, humming lightly under his breath. Will could do nothing but twitch, and even that exhausted him. Soon he was dozing atop the man, a patch of sunlight streaming through the window and onto his lap.

The doctor was grateful that it was Sunday and thus did not require him to go to work. Psychiatry had lost some of its fun of late. His clients were bland, uninspired rich people who spent their time either blubbering or posturing in front of him. All of them old or middle aged. His communications with the FBI were entertaining but too brief. So, whether Doctor Lecter liked it or not, Will Graham was the most interesting trophy in his collection. He didn’t even allow himself to eat much of John Graham. Too excited for the day Will caved and they ate the father together.

Will had drifted back to sleep by the time Hannibal finished caring for him, and the sun was soft and warm through the window. It’d be a shame to chain up the boy after his first moment of peace. So Hannibal leaned back onto the bed and anchored his arm around the boy’s middle. It would have been sweet if the gesture wasn’t to keep the boy from escaping. Either way, they were both quite comfortable, and they slept through the afternoon in that sun beam.

Will didn’t protest when Hannibal carried him back downstairs, the drugs still muting his panic alarm, though he did moan when the doctor sat him down to fasten the collar around his neck again.

“Noooo,” Will groaned and sleepily grabbed Lecter’s arm. “Take it off.”

Hannibal smiled and patted the boy’s head. “One day, I will. But in order for me to make that change, you’ll have to make a change as well.”

Involuntary tears wetted Will’s eyes. “How?” 

Hannibal repressed a smile at the thought that he really was like God in this boy’s eyes. “I can’t tell you, my dear boy. But obedience is the way to all truth.”

They fell into a sort of pattern. Hannibal fed Will through the tube twice a day, morning and night. Sedatives would be mixed in with dinner, allowing the Doctor to bring Will upstairs and take care of his hygienic needs. Then he’d chain him up again downstairs and spend an hour or so either talking or reading in the boy’s presence. Will’s attempts at struggling were shut down swiftly and firmly. One time, Will wriggled out of Hannibal’s arms during a cleaning despite his drugged state and tried to army crawl to the door. He was punished with having his hygiene cut short and being strapped to the mattress for the next 24 hours. Feeding times also continued to be unpleasant, but Will didn’t budge on his position to not eat Hannibal’s food.

The best days were Sundays in which Hannibal allowed Will into an upstairs guest bedroom under his careful watch. While there, he’d sometimes read to the boy or talk to him or run a hand up and down his back while he dozed in the sun.

Of course, Will recognized the dog training. He’d domesticated enough strays to know he was in his own brand of obedience training. But he couldn’t see what to do about it. Will was a sniveling beanpole next to Doctor Lecter’s deadly bulk. The man could crush him, no doubt about it. And even worse, the man could torture him, humiliate him, manipulate him. Lecter’s mass was the least intimidating part of his killing prowess.

Will glimpsed Hannibal’s only real weakness on a Sunday when a knock interrupted their afternoon doze. Lecter stiffened under Will, a hand tightening at the nape of his neck.

“I’ll snap your neck if you make a sound,” he whispered. By this point, Will believed him, but his heart hammered at the chance of freedom all the same. Lecter slid Will off him and onto his stomach, the boy as mobile as a scarecrow, and took off his paisley tie to secure Will’s hands behind his back, then stuffed his pocket square into his mouth. “Behave, or your father’s eyeballs will be your next meal,” He hissed, then slid off the bed and locked the room’s door behind him.

Will disobeyed out of an odd feeling of obligation despite his dread of the promised punishment. He listened to Lecter’s fading footsteps, then clamped his knees around blankets and rolled off the bed. They only part way muffled the sound, his elbow cracking against the hardwood. Will stilled, waited. No one came. He began to squirm his way to the door. He pressed his ear on the gap between floor and frame.

“–I’m a layman myself.”

“The head of the Federal Forensic psychology department is only a layman? I’ll have to disagree with you, Jack.” Will almost yelped through the handkerchief stuck in his mouth. Federal? Is this guy FBI? Are they looking for me?

“We’re hoping to bring you in to consult. We believe your expertise will be helpful to us in this case.”

“What is the nature of this case?”

“Well, people are calling him the Minnesota Shrike. Seven similar-looking young women have disappeared from their homes and college campuses. Every trace of them—gone. We’re having trouble drawing up this unsub’s profile. Do you care to join me at Quantico to look at the evidence?”

Quantico, unsub, psychology, disappearance—a wave of jealous heat hit Will as he realized Doctor Lecter was living out his dream career. He’d been meant to catch killers, not be caught by one.

Will eavesdropped for as long as he could before realizing the conversation was wrapping up and he was no closer to getting free. Will wriggled toward the window on the far wall, his body drenching in sweat with the effort, and managed to get his knees beneath him and his chin perched on the window sill. He panted, nausea swirling up his stomach. With his hands restrained, he had no real leverage to help him stand, so instead he clamped his mouth shut and struggled to his feet by the guiding strength of his jaw perched on the sill. Staggering, Will glimpsed Lecter escorting a bulky man in a fedora back to his car.

Will tried to scream, jump up and down to catch his attention, but the slight blur over the glass made him realize the window was a one-way mirror. No one could see him. By this point, snot and sweat and tears were melting down Will’s face, and he swayed dangerously. The FBI agent was slowly folding into his car, and Will realized he was out of time. So, recklessly, and not a little dumbly, Will bent his head and smashed it against the glass with a vicious thunk! The agent’s head jerked up and squinted at the window. When Doctor Lecter did not turn, the man shrugged and got into his car, asking himself if he really had seen a vague, skinny outline through the mirrored window stagger and fall out of view. And did he imagine the quick flash of a vein in Lecter’s temple as he waved him off?

...

Hannibal found Will curled up on the floor with a cut in his forehead gushing blood onto his rug by the window. The boy’s breath came shallow, labored, his eyes rolled back. Hannibal squeezed his arm, and Will seemed to rouse a degree. He removed the gag tie from his mouth.

“I’m disappointed in you, Will,” Hannibal said.

Will sniffed, half blinded by blood, but otherwise seemed resigned. “I’m sorry, Doctor Lecter.”

“Yes, you are, aren’t you? But there will have to be consequences all the same.”

Will did not resist as Dr. Lecter picked him up, though he squirmed and hoped to stain the man’s ridiculous plaid suit with blood.

Hannibal did not stitch the wound shut until the numbing medicine had flushed entirely out of the boy’s system. The more Will jerked and flinched, the more ragged and painful the experience would be. It was a silent affair. Both knew this was a preliminary round before the boy’s actual punishment, yet it was oddly peaceful, both of them slumped on the ground, Will in front and trying not to cry as Lecter weaved together scalp like he was braiding hair. After he finished the stitch with a tight knot, he pressed Will back into him to rest his head against the doctor’s chest. Lecter’s heart beat like a brass band under Will’s ear, and this refreshed his silent crying.

“I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you,” he sniffed.

“How would you do it?” Hannibal asked, chin perched on brown curls.

“With my hands.”

“No instrument?”

“Maybe a rock.”

“You’re quite the caveman, dear Will.”

“Too uncivilized for you?”

“Not at all. Base violence is the heart of every civilization. You’re more human than most.”

“Remember that when you eat me.”

“I will. I promise.”

Doctor Lecter did not serve John Graham on a platter. In fact, Will’s father was the least decorous dish Hannibal could remember ever serving. He’d left the basement only briefly to retrieve the meal. And when he turned, he descended the steps slowly, his right hand closed in a loose fist, and Will Graham watched him from his place curled up in the corner, neck flushed red from the tight collar. Hannibal approached, squatted in front of the boy, and opened his hand. Two brown, uncooked, refrigeration-preserved eyes rolled in his palm.

“Did your mother have blue eyes?” Dr. Lecter asked.

Will folded his arms around his waist. “I don’t remember, but… I guess she would have had to.”

“She left.”

“Yes,” Will whispered.

“And how does that make you feel?” The boy flinched at the humor in Lecter’s voice.

“Some lazy psychiatry right there, Dr. Lecter.”

“Would you prefer we talk about your father?”

John Graham watched his son from the grave through one hazy eye; the other pointed at the wall. Will drew a shaky breath.

“I thought you’d present this a different way. With a dish. Or at least a spoon.”

“I want you to use your bare hands, dear Will, like we discussed. It’s important for your therapy.”

“Which part of me are you trying to fix, doc?”

“There’s nothing in you that is broken, only facets to be developed. Your becoming starts here, now, Will.”

“With two eyes.”

“Just one, actually. One for you; one for me. An eye for an eye.” Lecter offered his palm. Will selected the orb that had been staring at him, that dead gaze. Fogged with alcohol and memory and tears salty as ocean water. Will stared at it like trying to gauge his father’s temperament of the day.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Nausea rose in his stomach.

“Most deep sea creatures are blind. Sight has no place in perfect darkness. That is the world we inhabit, dear Will. I saw that in you the moment we met on the Bayou. The light of grief from your father’s candle never reached your eyes.”

Will looked down, wanting to reject the words. “He was all I had.”

“Then you had nothing. That’s what made your life so easy to discard.” With one hand, Hannibal took Will’s wrist and guided the eye to Will’s lips. With the other, he prepared to press the matching set into his own mouth. “No longer. I am with you in the darkness now. I will not allow you to escape this life. Your mind is mine, as mine is yours.”

Will’s protest was drowned with the cold round sphere that rolled into his mouth. It was more than half the size of a golf ball, gelatinous yet firm. Lecter savored and swallowed his own serving and held Will’s mouth shut so he couldn’t spit it up. His next order would haunt Will for the rest of his life.

“Chew.”

Chapter Text

Hannibal was gone more often after that, working with the FBI, presumably. This was Will’s true punishment. Yes, eating the eye was disturbing. But to be alone in that dark, sterile basement, to know nothing soft beyond the creak of mattress springs and a serving of fresh bread at the end of the day… that is Hell. Hannibal knew this and employed it as his greatest weapon. If Will misbehaved while Hannibal was there, he’d simply up and leave, say nothing and leave the lights dimly on until Will knew no cycle of night or day. Cleanings were done under the cover of drugs, and Will’s life became so repetitive, his own dreams reflected the same humdrum, until he wasn’t sure if he slept at all. Was Hannibal drugging him? Keeping him awake? Conscious for every second of their time, together or apart. So, when Hannibal was there, when he finally took Will upstairs, the boy knotted himself up with the fear of messing up and could think of nothing else. The shackles of Will’s mind were the strongest ones Hannibal placed on him.

He brought the boy up for dinner once: clothed him in a suit, cut his hair, wrapped the chain of his c ollar around a heavy table leg and sat adjacent to him. Will’s eyes followed him everywhere. Hannibal allowed it until he served the first course: crème fraîche and caviar tartlets.

Hannibal delicately selected his fork and knife—Will was expected to eat with his hands, the collar chain pooling in his lap, but he only stared at Hannibal, hungry for the stimulation of watching him alone.

“What are you thinking, Will?” Hannibal asked.

Will blinked; it took him a second to realize he’d been spoken to. How long had Will been left in drugged silence? It must have been a week since Hannibal last spoke to him. “Huh?” Hannibal grimaced, and Will started in his chair. “Oh, I mean, I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Unfortunately, I believe you.” Hannibal frowned and gestured to Will’s plate for him to start eating. Will’s eyes stung against his reason, feeling like he failed. Hannibal sighed and reached across the table, squeezing the boy’s hand. “It’s alright. Of course you're dull after so long without mental exercise. You’ll have to forgive me, Will. Trying to help the FBI catch me and other killers has taken up more time than I anticipated. They’re still scrambling to make sense of your father’s tableau.”

Careful, Will took a bite of tart, chewed, and kept his voice light as he asked, “Have they found anything?”
“Your flashlight at the bottom of the bayou, along with a few other minor possessions. They’ve noticed your disappearance by now. I learn more about you on the daily, dear Will. It seems I was right to guess you were a troubled child. Three psych wards in five years…” Hannibal tutted. “Two times for suicide attempts, one time for attacking your father.” Will quietly finished his tart. “Tell me, dear boy, what did John Graham do to deserve your ire? Was he abusive?”

Will shook his head once.

“Neglectful, then?”

A nod. Though the descriptor also didn’t cover the source of the rift Will held between himself and his father.

“Absent when he wasn’t belligerent, and dulled during the times in between.”

“Yes,” Will whispered.

“Your attack came first, the attempts followed. Why did your approach change?”

Will’s fingers on the hand Hannibal didn’t hold wandered to fiddle with his collar. It seemed to choke him in the place where a tie normally would. Perhaps that was the design, to match his suit. “I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

“Except yourself, it would seem.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I don’t see how.”

Will opened and closed his mouth a few times before starting. “It’s about… agency.”

“Agency?”

“Yeah. If it’s a matter of me or someone else, my decision to die doesn’t take any freedom away from people. I can choose to die, but people don’t choose to be murdered. I’m not taking anything away from them when I die.”

“Except yourself.” Hannibal’s frown deepened. “You take yourself away from them. You take away their choices surrounding you. You speak of death as if it leaves no traces, but death’s traces are all life is. You deprive the world of knowing you, and you deprive yourself of the chance to get better.”

“Get better?” Will scoffed. “Three psych wards in five years, Doctor Lecter. You think people haven’t tried to help me? They couldn’t. Therapy doesn’t work on me.”

Hannibal carefully considered his response as he siphoned off his tart. “Three psych wards in five years, I think, demonstrates your doctors’ incompetence more than the severity of your illness. You did not receive the help you deserved, Will, I can assure you of that. What kind of psych wards were these? State sponsored? Government run? Populated by volunteers and med students, I assume? Full of resources  allowed to you only because of your age. I assure you, I am not the only force out to kill you once you turn 18. After they allow you to die for your country, you can die for anything, even the most meaningless deaths.”

Furtively, Will bowed his head and abandoned the remaining food on his plate. After a week of no stimulation, the mental gymnastics of talking to Hannibal Lecter were too much. “What’s the alternative?” Will asked. “I die; or suffer a mental break, kill someone, lose my freedom, and still die. Of the two, suicide is more…” he searched for the word, smiled as he said, “palatable.”

“That thinking, my dear Will, only goes to show what an abysmal life you’ve been forced to satiate yourself with. Neglectful schools, neglectful doctors, and a neglectful father. You’ve only known one flavor of living yet condemn the whole feast ahead. You believe you will always be neglected, unnoticed, uncared for, and maybe—if you’d gone on in the life you had—that would be true.”

“But now?”

“Now you are in my charge. And, now that I finally have a deeper grasp of your psychology, we are ready to begin a tailored therapy regimen. I believe it should last us until your birthday.”

“10 months?” 

“9 months, now.”

“And what happens then?”

“That depends entirely on the outcome of your therapy, dear Will. For now, though, we’ll begin small.” Hannibal released Will’s hand and stood, collecting the plates. “I’ll bring the next course. Kneel on the floor for me while I’m gone, alright?”

Hannibal walked back into the kitchen, leaving Will to blink at the flapping door. He didn’t move until Hannibal’s voice rose cheerfully from the other side of the door. “Unless you’d like to return to the basement. I have other matters to tend to if you decide to be stubborn.”

A pavlovic shudder ran down Will’s back. He recognized the psychological manipulation, the dog training, but saw no way around the very real threat behind disobeying. Softly, he slipped out of his chair and knelt on the ground, chain rattling with the movement. Hannibal returned smiling, only one plate in hand this time.

“I’ve decided that the first point of trauma we must address is the level of responsibility you’ve had to carry since early childhood. We’ll combat your unhealthy attachment to complete independence by enforcing a more dependent lifestyle. This will help with your behavioral conditioning too, of course.” Hannibal took the seat next to where Will knelt. He skewed a cut of flesh and held it over Will’s head. “Open.”

“Doctor Lecter,” Will began to protest. Hannibal raised a brow at him. The boy’s courage shriveled, and Will gulped, eyes stinging again. He opened his lips, and the doctor pressed the food into his mouth.

“Wonderful.” Hannibal repeated the process, over and over until an entire small steak was scratching down Will’s tight throat. He dabbed a napkin at the corner of the boy’s mouth. Once he was done, Will’s chin fell to his chest, utterly ashamed, and Hannibal carded a hand through his curls in comfort as he ate his own portion.

Though Will loathed to admit it, things improved after that. Hannibal took him out of the basement more often; their time resting in the guest bedroom picked up again (Will could still trace the scar of his blood printed into the freshly cleaned carpet). Hannibal gave him a new, fully leather collar that remained a permanent fixture in his life, one Hannibal took no small pleasure in tugging when Will’s attention wandered. He tried to bear it with patience. Sometimes, he could convince himself that Hannibal was just a funny, European roommate without a proper understanding of American boundaries—annoying, but nothing to throw a fit about. This internal narrative helped until he ran into a wall like being locked in a basement, being fed through a tube when he misbehaved, and being, generally, a prisoner to a murderous adult male who treated him like a fascinating dog. And yet, their time together became so humdrum, so comfortable even during the most unpleasant moments, Will’s heart rate only rose above 120 twice in the following month.

This was the story and the catalyst to Will’s newest predicament.

Hannibal deprived Will of most sharp things: utensils, razors, hole punchers, knitting needles, cheese graters, pencils, etc. He even removed the string from Will’s hoodies—an article of clothing Hannibal despised but respected Will’s preference for, especially since the hood kept the boy’s ears warm while he slept in the basement. Will wasn’t even allowed fingernails. Hannibal took the liberty of clipping them once a week after disinfecting the sores around Will’s neck. The drug treatments were also less intense, leaving the boy drowsy instead of incapacitated now. Thus the perfect storm arose.

Hannibal examined Will’s smaller hand in his own, somehow both critical and tender as he lined up the clippers to the boy’s nails.

“Seems you're cursed to remain thin, dear Will,” he commented.

Will rested against his side, trying not to drool on the starched shirt sleeve. “My body’s rejecting your food.”

“Nonsense.” Hannibal smiled. “The hearts of children know to turn to their fathers.”

“And fathers to their children.”

“Indeed.”

Will bumped Hannibal’s shoulder with his head. “What does that even mean? What are you even talking about?”

“I’m merely saying that your body accepts your father’s flesh as one with its own. It’s almost natural.”

“Almost,” Will winced as Hannibal nibbed the flesh around his nail bed. Will’s next question surprised himself. “What are you going to make me?” Hannibal paused, a loose nail falling into the covers of the bed. Wordlessly, Will leaned forward to feel around for it, allowing Hannibal to look at him.

“That depends what you’re referring to.”

“The dish. What dish will you make me into?”

“Have you given up the hope that I won’t kill you?”

Will looked at him like it was a dumb question and offered the nail clipping. Hannibal placed it on the bedside table, setting the clippers down for a moment. Casually, Will picked them up and started on his remaining uncut fingers. A slight tension seized Hannibal’s form, barely noticeable, but Will made no move to conceal or attack. “Please let me do this,” he murmured in way of explanation. Hannibal conceded and held out a palm to catch the clippings.

“I asked you a question, Will.”

“So did I,” Will hummed, fiddling with the simple metal mechanism in his hands, trying not to catch skin in his drugged state. “I don’t see an alternative to you killing me. Keeping me is impractical even now. I’ll get older, less cute. You’ll put me down. That’s the way of things.”

Hannibal frowned, watching the careful chill over Will’s face. “You’re trying to conceal how much this bothers you, Will.”

“Or maybe I’m just anxious to hear what you’ll make me into.”

“The answer to that question is many things.” Will closed his eyes to hide rolling them. “But I was thinking of a civet de lapin—a dish primarily reserved for rabbits.”

“A rabbit. Is that the animal you’ve settled on for me?” Will took his time trimming the last finger, the pinkie.

“Ever my lucky Will.” Hannibal deposited the clippings onto the table—Will twitched quickly and violently in the corner of his eye—before he held out a hand for the nail clippers. Will returned them without hesitation, and Hannibal felt a lightening of affection in his chest. He smiled at his shy, brilliant boy, and guided him back to his place tucked into Hannibal’s side. Will curled against him, burying his head. He turned to pull the boy into his chest, resting a cheek on the head of curls. “Only 8 more months, and the suspense will be over.”

“I can’t understand why you won’t do it now.”

“I don’t ask you to understand. I only ask you to wait.”

Chest to chest, Hannibal felt Will’s heart thump fast and light, little forest fires of life, like an anxious rabbit between its killer’s maw. Will forced a fist’s worth of distance between them with his hand, the inches his only defense. Well, the inches and the tiny sliding file he’d yanked from the nail clipper. It was two centimeters long, max, with a rough side and a dull, hooked end, printing deep into his palm.

Not for the first time, Will started crying into Hannibal’s chest, tremors of anxiety shivering up and down his body. Hannibal pretended not to notice. All prey struggle against the inevitable. It’s natural.

Will attempted his escape the following night. The moment Lecter closed the basement door behind him, Will produced the tiny file and began work on the collar. As far as escapes go, this one was far from thrilling. Will picked the weakest part of the collar, around the metal latch where the fabric tugged most, and began wearing at it with the file. This went on for hours, hours upon hours, and as the night waxed and waned and Will’s neck and fingers bled from being poked and worn through by the metal piece, the collar slowly loosened. Thread by thread, layer by layer of leather and padding, whittled down, down as time hid its passage from Will in the windowless light. Eventually, he abandoned the file and began ripping at his neck with his hands. He leaned his entire weight against the remaining fabric, face turning blue, until something gave and his body flopped to the cold floor. Free.

Will gasped, coughing and crying, sure every creak, every groan was Hannibal creeping down the stairs.

“Move, Graham,” Will whispered to himself, hoarse. Once again, he was dripping snot and blood and tears, and he hadn’t even left the basement. Shuddering, Will pulled to his feet and staggered forward to the nearest operating table. He grabbed a pair of thin tweezers to unlock the door, started to leave, then took a scalpel just in case.

Will almost gave up when the basement door creaked open with a turn of the knob, not even locked. He bit down a sob, wanted to collapse against the frame and wait for Hannibal to collect his limp body. He’d be caught. He’d be caught and tied down and fed through a tube and trapped for the next 8 months. Alone. In the cold. In the dark. Neglected. I’d rather die now, Will resolved, grip tightening around the scalpel. If Hannibal caught him and he couldn’t kill the man, then he’d kill himself, have the last word at least.

Will crept through the house as dawn started to bleed through the horizon. The front door was locked and conspicuous, the back door was locked and felt too obvious. Will sighed as he cracked a final door open and found the garage.

It was large and heated, reeking of the upper class. Will half wished Hannibal kept him here instead of the basement. Locked in a cage in the bare cracks of sunlight through the garage doors would have been preferable to the sanitary wasteland stored beneath the house. Will slinked down the stairs, reverent as he crept around the sleek, black Bentley.

Rustle rustle

Will froze, shrinking back.

Rustle rustle

Will clamped a hand over his mouth, knees giving out with a fear that pushed him down like a physical presence. He crumpled to the floor, curling in on himself like waiting for a belt to snap down on his back.

Ruff.

Will blinked. Was that a…?

Ruff!

Will started back to his feet, his heart in his throat, and he raced around the Bentley to where the sound originated. There, in the dark, two black eyes whined at him from behind bars. A dog.

A splattered, skinny, shaking dog.

Will’s heart plummeted to his stomach.

There, in the dark, inside the cramped confines of a kennel, a neglected dog smiled at Will, at just the sight of him. Though matted hair pulled on the loose skin of the dog’s body, it looked genuinely thrilled to see him. The dog was almost an exact replica of Winston, the puppy that had started the mess of the last five years, and a pang shot through Will’s chest. He acted without thinking.

“Hey, boy,” he whispered to those watery eyes, easing forward. The dog licked his lips and yipped again as Will drew nearer to examine the padlock on the cage. “Shh, shh, I know. The bad man got you too, but I’ll get us out of this.” It’s odd; Will couldn’t imagine Hannibal being cruel to animals—humans, absolutely, but animals felt out of bounds. And why did he have the dog anyway? He was so skinny, there was no meat on him to eat. The dog poked its cold nose out between the bars and brushed the boy’s skin. “It’s ok,” Will said and fitted his tweezers into the padlock. “I’ve got you. Just be quiet. That’s a good boy.” Will’s hands shook too bad to be effective, still slicked with blood, and despair threatened to raise up inside him. It was about to happen again. Like with Winston and his father. And Will couldn’t take it. Couldn’t let it happen again. “Not again. Never again.” Will rested his head against the bars, let the dog lick his face, the tears that never seemed to stop. “I’m sorry,” he sniffed and tried again with the lock. He listened to the dog’s slow breathing to calm himself, manipulating the tweezers into the hidden shape of the inner lock. “Almost,” he grunted. “Almost.”

The lock clicked open.

“Almost, dear Will.”

The voice came from behind him.

Will swung around, the dog carefully nosing out of its unlocked enclosure. Hannibal Lecter stood in the doorway connecting the garage to the house. With the added light from behind the man, Will noticed another door on the opposite side of the room. A door leading outside. Will raised his scalpel. Hannibal’s lip twitched.

“Careful, Will. That’s sharp.”

“Stay away.” Will crept to the side so the Bentley was between them.

Hannibal showed his hands, indicating he was harmless, and he almost looked it, having just woken up. No suit and tie carefully shaped his figure, but instead he wore a red jumper and red striped pajama pants, quite at ease with himself while Will sweated and bled onto his black hoodie and dark sweats. The dog kipped harmlessly around Will’s legs, intrigued by the way he flashed the scalpel.

“You know I can’t stay away, Will,” Hannibal said, slowly easing around the car as Will snuck closer and closer to the door.

“What’s with the dog?” Will changed the subject, breath shallow.

“It’s my understanding that you like strays. You almost killed your father over the death of one, isn’t that right?”

“You’ve been snooping.”

“I’ve been helping the FBI investigate your disappearance, Will. Many people are worried about you.”

“But you’re the only one who can help me, right?”

“Precisely.” 

Frustrated, Will stabbed the scalpel into one of the Bentley’s back tires, the leaking air whining as he yanked it back out. The first clear flash of annoyance disturbed Lecter’s face. Rude. Will was only a few steps away from the door, the dog still following him. If he could just get out, just get the dog out, it would be enough. So close. So close.

“You’re shaking, Will,” Hannibal said. “You and Winston have that in common.” Will winced at the name. How did he know that name? Did the police record it? “I’m trying to give you both a home. I thought you’d be pleased. Tell me, dear Will, would your life be much better beyond that door? Would his life be better? Or are you condemning him and yourself to go back to a sad, stray life?”

“We’ll be free.” Will reached for the door knob now behind him. Hannibal stepped directly into his line of sight, nothing between them now, and the man smiled.

“No, dear Will. Whatever you become, it will not be free.”

Will grasped the knob.

Hannibal clicked his tongue.

Perking up, Winston trotted to the man, who grabbed the dog hard by the scruff so he whined. Will froze. “Don’t,” he whispered.

“I won’t, if you come back to me. But leave, and you’ll be this dog’s executioner. Again.”

The awful memory of five years ago rumbled through Will again.

Winston had been his dog, unofficially. He fed and cleaned and pampered the raggedy pup but sent him away when his father came by. But eventually, he let his guard down. Eventually, he let himself be seen with the dog. He introduced him to his father. He let on the depths of his love for the mutt. And John Graham smiled and nodded along, as if nothing bad could come of it. Until Will messed up a boat for one of John Graham’s customers, and the rage in his father swelled to something crueler than fists. He did not want to slap Will around. He wanted to hurt him, show him the full extent of his mistake.

“You took something away from daddy,” John Graham had said, sharpening his pocket knife. Winston slept at his feet. “So daddy has to take something away from you.”

Will had screamed, of course he did, to see his father bring down the blade on his dog. Plunged right into his back. And then again into his paw. And then again through his snout. And then again. Until Winston couldn’t move or fight, but couldn’t even die either. John Graham offered Will the knife handle and told him to finish the job.

Will did, then turned the knife on his father.

In the present, with that identical, innocent dog crying in the monster’s grip, fear gave way to rage, and rage gave way to absolute despair inside Will.

“Please don’t,” he whispered.

“I don’t want to. It’s not up to me, Will. This is your choice. Your agency .” Winston struggled in Hannibal’s arms. “Come back to me, Will.”

Freedom or a dog. Just a strange dog. No relation to Will’s real, beloved Winston—the best and only friend Will ever had. It should have been an easy choice. Obvious.

Will released the knob and brought the scalpel to his own throat. “I’ll do it.”

Hannibal stiffened.

“You know I will.” Will sniffed. “I can’t stay here. I can’t live with it. Just let me go.”

“Don’t,” Hannibal hissed, and Winston cried, fingers digging into his skin.
“Stop it!” Will yelled. “Stop it! Just let us go.”

“No!” Hannibal stamped his foot. “If you leave, if you die, Winston dies with you. And I will make it hurt.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I’m trying to save you the only way you seem to respond to. If you can’t care for your own life, care for his. Come back to me, and I will take care of you both.”

“You mean until I’m 18!”

“There is no freedom for you out there, Will!” Hannibal shouted, and the sound almost made Will drop the knife. Winston was yipping, yelping, trying to wriggle out of his own skin. Will understood the feeling, but part of him wanted to dig the scalpel in anyway. At least he’d die without having to see Winston suffer. Then again, Hannibal might keep him alive long enough to watch. “I swear, Will.” Slowly, Hannibal stepped forward. “As long as you never take yourself from me, I will never take Winston from you. Put the scalpel down.”

Will sank to his knees, the knife cold against his neck, the tears hot on his cheeks. “You’re going to hurt me.”

“No, dear Will.” Hannibal knelt before him. “You’ve already hurt yourself more than I ever could.” He held out a hand.

For a last moment, Will relished the feeling of control he had over the situation, let the barest cut burnish the skin of his throat, before he handed over the scalpel and the control along with it. Hannibal released Winston and scooped Will up into his arms as the sobbing panic attack crashed over him. Will dug fingers into Hannibal’s soft sweater, and he screamed, screamed his heart out, half hoping to be heard, half forgetting that he hoped to be found at all. It just felt so good to let it out. Winston’s cold muzzle found its way to Will’s armpit, and he inserted himself into the hug until it was all sweaters and fur and skin.

“It’s alright, you did well,” Hannibal shushed him. “The worst of it is over now, I promise.”

“You planned this, didn’t you?” Will sobbed.

“Yes.”

“Winston was a decoy.”

“The light of an anglerfish, to help you see the truth. I had hoped it wouldn’t go this far.”

“I hate you.”

Hannibal cupped the back of the boy’s head and mused on memory and Misha. “I love you,” he whispered into the boy’s ear. Such statements were rarely true for Hannibal, but he found no lie in himself. “Stay with me, Will.”

And that made Will sob all the harder, at the tenderness and cruelty of it all. Winston started licking his face, Hannibal patting his hair, and it was more love than Will was ever equipped to feel.

8 Months Later

Alana Bloom clicked her pen, signaling to Jack that she wanted to stop the interview. The big man beside her ignored her and leaned forward. “And then what happened?”

Will sat across from them at a metal table in a windowless room, excluding the large one-way mirror that gave him bad memories. FBI headquarters seemed to exist on a different plane than the world he’d inhabited with Hannibal and Winston until recently, and he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it yet. Will glared at Jack, his eyes red-rimmed and breath uneven.

“I think we should take a break,” Alana said.

“Will’s a strong kid, he can handle a little longer,” Jack said.

“He can?” Will scoffed and folded his arms. Alana threw Jack a harrowing look.

Jack rubbed his face. “Fine, we’ll take a break. But first, I want you to answer a few questions.” Will shrugged, wondering to himself how Jack had survived Hannibal if he was this rude all the time. “Where did Doctor Lecter get the dog? Why did he get it in the first place?”

“The pound,” Will said. “Hannibal could tell I was becoming less and less invested in living. He needed to provide me with a substitute goal I would care about. He’d accessed my medical information, police records. He found a picture of the original Winston post-mortem and tracked down a lookalike.”

“But why go to all that trouble? He could have kept you alive by other means.”

“Those means would have “dulled” me, as he liked to say. And the constant drug treatments were taking a toll. Hannibal understood better than I did how quickly I was fading.”

“But why did he care?” Jack rubbed his chin. “What made him so attached to you?”

“I’m still not sure.”

“He must have told you something.”

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Will,” Alana smiled at him, and it made warmth pool in his stomach. “You can tell it out of order if that’s what you need to do.”

“No,” Will said, trying to think of how to explain it. “It’s important that you understand what it was like. I need to tell it in order for you to understand. Otherwise, you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“No one thinks that.”

He smiled, fierce and hungrily. “You will.”

Chapter Text

Hannibal had told the boy he loved him. The doctor wondered if that had been a mistake. Not because anything had come of it—Will seemed to have almost forgotten—but because once he took the emotion out of the box, he had to deal with it. So how would he deal with Will Graham?

The dog was already far and beyond Hannibal’s comfort zone. Though, so was holding captives in his basement. Thus was the trouble with boredom. It left him at the mercy of his own whims, his own capricious and curious nature. Dear Uncle Jack, when he wasn’t torturing himself over the Minnasota Shrike, always talked in such gratuitous circles about piecing together the Chesapeake Ripper’s weakness—money, artistry, burgeoning insanity—but never even guessed at his real kryptonite. Hannibal Lecter couldn’t refuse himself the prizes that caught his eye.

Will Graham slept in a dog bed with Winston, positioned cozily in front of the fireplace in Hannibal’s room. Their new collars matched. Hannibal watched them from his armchair, a book in his lap. Today was Sunday. He’d arranged for Will to attempt escape on a Saturday night, allowing the next day for recovery. It was a day of rest, after all, and Will was developing the ability to rest through any reality he didn’t want to face. Hannibal would have to train him better. Soon, Will’s dependence on him would solidify; it was time to enforce a better routine, one that revolved around Hannibal’s needs. It would be best to keep the boy useful. Since Hannibal loved him, it’d be a shame to kill him for the wasted space of it all.

But what was love? Was it really this? Exactly how much would it handicap the doctor? 

Will stirred in his sleep, suddenly, arms wrapping firmer around Winston’s torso, and his eyes slid open. Without looking, he and Hannibal watched each other from their peripheries.

“How do you feel?” Hannibal asked.

“Like an open wound,” Will said. “How do you feel?”

Hannibal bit down the word ‘hungry.’ He wasn’t yet, and he wanted to reserve the double entendre of his humor for the people he disliked. Will was no such person. “Something similar to how Alice must have felt in Wonderland.”

Will snorted but looked at him, his gaze soft. “I would have pegged you for more of a Cheshire Cat.”

“That would be unwise, given our present company.” Hannibal’s eyes pointed to Winston. Slowly, Will unfolded himself more, sitting up. Winston huffed and readjusted beside him. “Do you feel lost?”

“One is never lost in wonder, only in exiting it.”

“But childhood ends. You’ll have to leave the fairytale eventually.”

“As will you.”

“What happens then?” Will asked, noticing his skin was still tacky with blood.

“Haven’t you read a fairytale before, dear Will?” Hannibal smiled. “The story always ends when they exit wonderland. What comes after isn’t important.”

Will frowned. “Then what happens now?”
    “Now,” Hannibal snapped his book shut, “We get you cleaned up.”

He did not drug Will. The silence was sedative enough. When he offered his hand, Will took it, allowing himself to be heaved from the dog bed and led into the bathroom. Hannibal helped peel the sweat shirt off, revealing a bloody shirt and the ever harsher wound pattern snaking the boy’s neck, puckered by sores and nail clipper indents and the thin press of a scalpel. Not deep enough for irrevocable damage, but Hannibal frowned at it anyway. The underbelly of Will’s new collar was already stained. Hannibal felt over the skin with his fingertips, tipping Will’s chin back for easy access.

“It’s likely to scar.”

“So the collar will always be there,” Will sighed. “Even when it’s gone.”

Hannibal directed Will to sit on the countertop as he wetted a washcloth and gently scrubbed around his throat, Will’s feet kicking lightly around Hannibal’s knees. Winston eventually mosied in and started licking Will’s toes before Hannibal shooed him away. Eventually, the dog settled down in the corner. Will watched him.

“You’re not a dog person,” he stated. It was a fact, not a guess.

“I had two well-trained bloodhounds as a boy. Any breed I’ve encountered since has struck me as unrefined and pointless. Dogs don’t provide me much value.”

“Until now.”

“I can respect any means to my ends, so long as they don’t pee on my carpet.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Will said, then winced as Hannibal dabbed his neck with alcohol. “You should take him out on walks, at least. Dogs aren’t meant to be cooped up.”

“Would you be jealous if I did? Winston would have more privileges than you.”

“I’ll try not to be.”

Hannibal guided Will’s chin to look at him. He stared at the man’s cheekbone obstinately. “Already, you’re looking after his well-being before your own.”

“He doesn’t deserve to be mistreated.”

“And you do?”

Will blinked, recognition clicking in his head, and he looked in Hannibal’s eyes like glimpsing truth. “Yes, and you agree with me. That’s why you torture humans but don’t bother with animals. Humans will never be as innocent as their animal counterparts. They’ll always deserve more pain than a dog or pig.”

Hannibal leaned forward, hands on either side of the counter, boxing Will in. “Tell me why.”

“Because… because we know the difference between good and evil, and we choose evil anyway. Even the potential is sin enough.”

“And what does that make me?”

Will swallowed, melting under Hannibal’s breath on his face. “Something Biblical.”

The boy smelt like fever, saltine crackers and iron; so crisp and close, Hannibal could almost taste the honeyed skin. Will would taste acidic and boiling like tea, soft yet sinewy. The temptation was almost too great. Will could sense the momentum, eyes shuddering shut, head tilted back so Hannibal could eat the life out of him and get it over with. It would be sweet. Pomegranates would bloom from the bite marks, pearls from the tear ducts, dew from his pores. A taste and Hannibal would be as tall as a building in wonderland. Bigger. Biblical.

Hannibal pressed a kiss to his jaw instead and grabbed Will by his scruff, forcing the boy to look at him. Will did not resist. “Given the choice between hurting a human or animal, I choose the human. And, given the choice between saving a human or animal, I would still choose the human. That is where the difference lies, both for me and God. We will always choose people, to torment… and to love.”

“You can’t love me,” Will whispered. “This can’t be what love is.”

“My dear Will.” Hannibal smiled. “There’s nothing else it could be.”

They returned to the garage later that day to inspect the damage on Hannibal’s tire, and Will felt oddly better, despite the circumstances. Perhaps it was because of the new clothes Hannibal had given him—a red flannel, overalls, and wooly socks—clothes with textures and patterns he was familiar with, work clothes. In the past months, Will had alternated from nondescript pajamas to well-tailored button-ups and slacks, so either he felt sleepy or church-bound, never like himself, which worked under the cover of drugs. But Hannibal did not renew his dosage. When he gave Will food and water that morning, they were wholesome and untampered with. For the first time in far too long, Will was fully awake.

Will squatted by the flat tire, petting Winston absentmindedly, and evaluated the damage. “Do you have a spare?”

Hannibal retrieved it from the trunk along with a tire changing kit, but otherwise stepped back. Will was in his element, and it was fascinating to watch. He positioned the jack, raised the car, hands running reverently over the wheel bearing like smoothing plaster down the bow of a ship—then started removing the lug nuts with a wrench.

“This is a really nice car,” Will murmured. “Fancy yet unsuspicious, perfect for hauling around dead bodies.”

“It has suited my purposes well,” Hannibal said.

Will stuck his tongue out as he worked, brow knit in concentration and strain. He got one lug nut off, then two, three, four, but the fifth and final was stuck. He worked at it for long minutes; it didn’t budge. Eventually, he sat back on his haunches and his cheeks flushed. “Can you give me a hand?” Hannibal knelt beside him, wordless, and his hands enveloped Will’s over the wrench. They were warm and dry, with large veins wrapping under his skin. Hannibal’s cologne smelt like wood-shavings and patchouli and grapes more wine than fruit, but mostly he just smelt and felt warm.

“Are you alright, Will?”

Will blinked. He’d frozen, staring at Hannibal’s hand over his as if the man hadn’t ever touched him before. “I’m fine,” he gulped, and started pulling on the wrench. The last lug came off easily with Hannibal’s help, a stark reminder of how physically overpowering the man was.

Will put the flat tire aside and slotted in the spare, then started screwing in the nuts. Hannibal remained next to him, a hand anchored on the nape of his neck, not even pretending to look anywhere but his face.

“You used to work in a boat yard,” he said. “Not many tires on a ship.”

“Couldn’t call myself much of a mechanic if I didn’t know how to change a flat,” he grunted. “I’ve seen plenty of car troubles. My dad and I traveled around a lot.”

“Always the new boy at school.”

“Always.”

“Tell me, Will. Have you ever called a place home?”

Will started lowering the jack. “When I was younger, before dad lost his job at a boat garage. We had a trailer.”

“And what made it home?”

Will shrugged. “We stayed there and didn’t plan to leave. I didn’t get lost. I knew all our neighbors. I had friends. I liked it there.”

“Could you ever like it here?” Hannibal asked, and Will looked at him. The man wasn’t embarrassed by the question, his face impassive.

Biting his lip, he risked answering. “I don’t want to stay in the basement anymore. It’s too cold. There’s no windows. I need sunlight.”

Hannibal smiled. “You tried to run, you damaged my car, and you threatened to kill yourself. You’re not in a good position to make demands now, Will.”

Will shrugged to pretend nonchalance, but his shoulders remained up by his ears. “You asked if I could like it here. That’s my answer. Take me out of the basement, and I might.”

Hannibal looked pleased. He moved his hand to rub the tension from Will’s shoulder. “What a cunning boy you are. But how could I refuse you?”

Will blinked at him, shocked. “Is- is that a yes?”

Hannibal smiled. “Finish with the tire and we’ll go set up the attic for you. It’s warm up there.”

“Really?” Will laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Thank you.”

Hannibal ran a knuckle down his cheek and held his face as he pressed a kiss to the boy’s forehead. “You’re welcome,” he said, breathing in the sweetness of sweat and hope, then stood. “Finish up, and remember to put everything away when you’re done.”

The unearned kindness caught Will off guard, and he finished the tire with a troubled mind. Why’d I say thank you? He wondered. Worse, he’d meant it. He was grateful. Hannibal was being so gentle, so worshipful, giving him a dog, another room, not punishing him for trying to escape. It had to be a mind game. Will pulled out the lowered jack from under the car and replaced it in the roadside repair kit along with the lug wrench.

Elbow deep in the bag, he froze, realizing Hannibal wasn’t looking at him. Hannibal was on the other side of the car, inspecting for any other damages that might have occurred in the night, Winston following curiously behind.

This could be my chance.

No! If I run now and get caught again, he’ll kill Winston and strap me down until my birthday.

I can’t not try. I can take something from the bag. Like the wrench, hit him from behind.

That could be his plan, like last time. Don’t screw this up, Will. Keep your head down.

Will stared dismally into the bag, paralyzed. Hannibal was slowly making his way back around to him. He had to act now. Now!

I can’t.

I have to!

Will didn’t move. Hannibal was coming up behind him, probably satisfied to see Will shaking and doubled over. Numbly, he started to zip the bag closed, but part of his brain, the only sane part, was kicking and screaming, telling him to do something—fight, steal, run, anything! Will subtly reached into the bag and pulled out the first thing his hands found. He didn’t look at it or feel it over. He slipped it into his overalls, under his shirt, held in place by the waistband of his boxers.

“Ready?” Hannibal asked.

He knows. He knows! Will finished zipping the bag and stood, handing it to Hannibal. “Yeah.”

“Are you alright, Will? You look pale.” Hannibal slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped forward in one fluid motion. He brushed back Will’s hair, feeling his temperature. “You’re a bit fevered,” he murmured. If Hannibal came an inch closer, their bellies would brush and he’d feel the strange, cylindrical item Will was concealing.

“I’m okay,” he said. “I think everything’s just catching up to me.”

“Would you like to lay down?”

“No, no. Let’s set up the attic. Please?” Will let his forehead droop against Hannibal’s shoulder, both to force space between them and because he was exhausted. The man was so cool and dry, and Will just wanted to relax against him. Hannibal stiffened for a moment, surprised at a sober Will initiating contact, then relaxed and anchored a hand on the back of Will’s neck.

“Of course. Of course.”

Hannibal took Will upstairs, and it was to the boy’s enormous relief that the man only had a murder basement and not a murder attic. The ceiling hung low and slanted, the floor and walls were wood planked, bright, and—best of all—a window overlooked the front of the house. Will pressed against it as Hannibal put the area in order. Again, it was one-way glass; he’d be invisible from the outside, but the sun poured in all the same. Will and Winston settled next to each other in the ray of light, preening and careless. Except, when Hannibal wasn’t looking, Will pulled out his souvenir from the roadside emergency bag and blinked in confused awe at the single emergency flare. It looked like a big red crayon, with a plastic cap on one end and instructions along the side. Quickly, Will stashed it behind an abandoned painting leaning against the wall. Hannibal caught him looking at it, and Will feigned interest until he realized just what the picture was.

“A recreation of Kathe Kollwitz’s Woman with Dead Child ,” Hannibal supplied, coming to Will’s side. It was more of a sketch than a painting, the corners yellowed, the lines somewhat blurred at places. But the picture was clear. A woman smashed her dead child into her chest, his face and body clean and soft, hers rugged and feral, almost genderless in her naked grief. It was horrible, yet also…

“It’s beautiful,” Will whispered.

“It’s an image few can forget. And many recognize.” Hannibal frowned. “It’s terrible to lose a child.”

Will gulped. This was dangerous territory. “Were you ever a father?”

“I was for my sister. She was not my child, but she was my charge.”

“Was?”

“She’s dead,” Hannibal said, his eyes wandering away from and then back to the picture, like he couldn’t look away. “Her name was Micha.”

“I’m sorry.” Will frowned, decided—against his better judgment—to poke further. “Is she why you don’t kill children?”

Hannibal didn’t seem to hear him. “Our parents had arranged a marriage for her. I was to walk her down the aisle when she turned 18. That, or if the man was rude or ugly, I’d kill them all and we’d run away together. I promised her. But neither ended up happening.”

“Oh,” Will hummed, and his empathy filled in the rest of the story. “That’s why you have this up here. It’s a recreation of a recreation of a recreation. For you to honor her in private.”

“Honor her.” Hannibal mauled it over, then blinked, turning fully to Will. He was the only fixture in the room that could pull Hannibal from the painting. “Brilliant boy,” he smiled, “You’ve just told me who the Minnesota Shrike is.”

“What?”

“Come here.” Hannibal led Will by the shoulder to an old couch he’d been positioning, the plastic cover abandoned on the dusty ground. “Look at these pictures.” He handed over his phone, and Will frowned at a picture of a girl in a white nightgown, tucked into bed. Her face was sallow, gray-toned. She looked only a little older than him. The next picture was the same, except the bed covers were flipped back, revealing red skewer holes in her nightdress and swelling in her fingers and feet. Dead. “This girl’s name is Elise Nichols. She’s the latest murder victim of the Minnesota Shrike. Keep swiping, you’ll see his other victims.”

Will grimaced but zeroed in on the girls. Dark-haired, doe-eyed, late teens early twenties, same height, same weight, same wind-chafed skin. “They’re all very… mall of America. But, one of ‘em special. Maybe she’s not even here. But, he’s doing this for someone in particular. Who’s the first girl? She’s the only one with crime scene photos.”

“She’s the only Minnesota Shrike victim whose body has been found. The rest are missing.”

“Not found, returned,” Will said, swiping back to her photo. “What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t he keep her like the others?”

“She had liver cancer.”

Will flinched, a horrible thought clicking in place. Liver cancer—her meat was bad. He’d killed her for nothing, because… because… “He’s like you.”

Hannibal shook his head indulgently. “He’s not like me, but he does eat them.”

“You condemn your victims. He honors them.” Will glanced at Woman with Dead Child —the desperation of love. “He has a daughter. Same age, same hair color. He loves her. She’s leaving home, and he can’t stand to be without her. He has to keep her, consume her, but he doesn’t want to hurt her. So, instead he uses these girls. To protect her.”

Hannibal took the phone from Will, fingers passing over fingers. “Well done. You’ve just completed the Minnesota Shrike’s profile.” He leaned forward, clasping Will’s cheek. “Well done.” He stood. “Excuse me for a moment as I ring Uncle Jack.” He turned to go, but Will caught his wrist, suddenly terrified.

“What are you gonna do?” Will asked. “Warn the killer or catch him?”

Hannibal blinked down at their joined hands, Will’s vice-like grip on him, so like Micha, and yet also like something he’s never experienced before. “I haven’t decided yet.” Will seemed to realize what he was doing and let go. Hannibal caught his hand, held on tighter. “What would you have me do?”

Will gulped, sweat lacing his skin. “Save the daughter, catch the Shrike. Please.”

Bending, Hannibal pressed a dry kiss to Will’s knuckles, then gently helped the boy lay back. Winston curled up at the foot of the couch, and Hannibal longed to lay down in it, the smell and the sound and the flesh of it. Instead, he squeezed Will’s shoulder and stepped away, dialing in Jack’s number at the entryway of the attic. “How could I refuse you, my dear Will?” he said, and shut the door behind him.

Chapter Text

 Garrett Jacob Hobbs had no warning as the FBI pounded down his door. His wife and daughter made it out physically unharmed, though Hannibal suspected by the look in Abigail’s eyes that she was not as shocked as she should have been. She was probably the bait. Not many college-aged girls give out their information to the leering likes of father Hobbs, after all. Still, when Jack brought up the possibility, Hannibal shook his head, backed by Alana’s fierce determination to see saints in all children. She’d like Will, if she ever met him. In fact, Will was why Hannibal spared Abigail the scrutiny.

“Save the daughter, catch the Shrike,” had been his exact instructions, and the willingness with which Hannibal had obeyed them was troubling. Still, controlling the boy had gotten easier in turn. In this situation, Will held only the illusion of power over Hannibal through his affections—Hannibal assured himself. Hannibal held the physical key to Will’s chains. The growing kinship between them was a happy result of extreme circumstances. However, the true test of Will’s behavior was still approaching.

The quick turnaround in the Minnesota Shrike case was a veritable miracle, bringing with it all the requisite jubilation. Hannibal instinctually, if not thoughtfully, invited a few of them to a dinner party, namely Alana and Jack, with Miss Beverly Katz as Alana’s plus one of the evening.

He explained as much to Will over breakfast on Wednesday.

Will slowly chewed through his bite of sausage before responding, setting down his spoon. “You’re having people over?”

“Yes. On Friday night.” Hannibal watched Will carefully digest the news, calculating dangers and benefits, easing into his next question like a cold pool of water.

“Are you going to put me back in the basement?” He still worried about waking up down there again, in the dankness and fluorescent haze, medical supplies and stainless steel gurneys seemingly buzzing in the still, drugged air.

“No. You’ll be kept in the attic under sedatives and heavy restraints.”

Will groaned, rubbing his wrist. He hardly noticed the collar anymore; it was part of his skin now. “Ok.” He frowned down at his plate.

“You may have Winston with you.”

“No. It scares him to see me tied up and drugged. He doesn’t understand. He thinks I’m hurt.” Will smiled at the dog kipping around his feet. “I’ll be okay, just… just… when everyone’s gone, can you come up and untie me? Please?” 

“Alright, Will. When everyone’s gone.” Hannibal nodded. “We’ll have our own celebration as well. You did more to catch the Minnesota Shrike than anyone will ever know.”

“And whose fault is that?” Will pointed out.

“Not to worry, dear Will.” Hannibal smiled and squeezed Will’s wrist on the table. “You’ll be plenty celebrated.”

Will sighed and pushed away his plate. “May I stop eating?”

Hannibal glanced at the protein scramble bits still in Will’s bowl. “You may not. But come, kneel beside me; I’ll help you finish.”

Will closed his eyes for a moment to conceal rolling them, but moved to the floor without complaint. He was used to kneeling now. It didn’t bother his pride like it used to. Instead, it was admittedly grounding—Hannibal above and the floor below, Will couldn’t sink or float away without something there to catch him and keep him in the thin, vague place that was the present. Will accepted the food Hannibal gave him and tried to focus on flavor and gravity. Still, something bothered him.

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you be serving people at the party? I mean, will there be people in the food?”

Hannibal took a sip of passion fruit juice before answering, a hand settling in Will’s hair, as was his habit. “Yes, and I’m glad you’re out of the basement now, Will. I’ve been preparing the meat down there. All the same, when I have the right cuts, I’d like you to help me in the kitchen.”

“Me?” Will looked up at Hannibal. “You barely let me use a spoon. How am I supposed to help you cook?”

“I’ll watch you for any parts of the process that need supervision, but you can be mainly delegated to stirring and kneading if you’d be more comfortable.”

“I don’t know how to cook much other than hotdogs and mac and cheese.”
Hannibal grimaced. “Then this will provide you invaluable instruction.”

Will chuckled, genuinely, and Hannibal blinked at him, unfamiliar with the sound. “You might get so frustrated, you’ll throw me on the grill with the rest of the rude people.”

“I’ll do my best to be patient.” Hannibal smiled and fed Will another bite. A look of contemplation overtook the boy’s face as he chewed. “What are you thinking?”

“I was wondering something.” Will frowned. “Why do you feed humans to people? Why is that part of the process for you?”

Hannibal hooked two fingers into Will’s collar at the back of his neck, feeling the fabric pull as the boy’s adams apple bobbed. He had Will’s full attention now. This was important. “Because people enjoy it. I take an act so vulgar to most, they retch at the idea, and make it slide down their throats like a song. People consume people over wine and conversation—at the very heart of society, at a party—and the deed cycles through their body, melds into their flesh, and releases chemicals to their minds. In that moment, the vile is converted into a transcendent pleasure, a pleasure that will echo through the body under the mind’s condemnation, on and on, until the mind is quiet, and the flesh is all that remains. I find that beautiful. Don’t you?”

Hannibal waited for the boy to lie or condemn the practice, eager to see how Will would dance around the risk of Hannibal’s wrath. Instead, Will sighed and slumped against the chair leg. “You know I can’t answer that the way you want me to. I don’t have your appetite.” He sounded almost apologetic.

Hannibal frowned, recognizing the truth in the words. “The food goes down easier every day. Could it not one day become a pleasure? Prolonged exposure could help you develop a taste for it.”

“That’s Stockholm Syndrome, not an appetite,” Will murmured, quiet as if to minimize Hannibal’s reaction. Hannibal’s grip on his hair tightened.

“Your compliance comes with a thousand caveats, doesn’t it? A thousand rejections with each acceptance. Like withholding food from a wild animal—it’s cruel, and not very smart.”

“Sometimes withholding is the best bet when the animal’s only hungry for you. Either way, I’ll be eaten alive eventually. None of this matters.”

“You reject the hope I’ll spare you like you reject the parts of myself I try to share. You are impossible, Will.”

Warmth pooled in Will’s stomach at that, the low hiss of the words, the grip on his head. “Whatever you want from me,” he whispered, “you might as well just take. I can’t stop you.”

For a long moment, Hannibal did not speak, only stared at him. “Stand up,” he said. Will did, standing close to where Hannibal sat so the man looked up at him. He gripped Will by the belt to keep him close. “I struggle to restrain myself around you, Will. You do not make it easy.” Will didn’t respond, the breath caught in his throat. Hannibal’s words were spoken soft, like a prayer, and smoothly. Hannibal could rip him in half or strip him raw; he could make love hurt worse than anything, worse than murder, worse than betrayal. He could make it all go away—the noise in Will’s head, gone. Hannibal took Will’s left hand and turned it over, reading his palms. His index traced the heart line, then the head line, down to the tapered life line in the middle of his palm, down, down, to the scars lacing Will’s wrist. “What’s to be done about that?”

“What?” Will asked. “What do you see?”

Hannibal closed Will’s fingers, looking up at the boy. “Something I intend to change.”

The next day, Hannibal redrew Will’s blood in the kitchen—his arm laid out on the countertop, a needle tickling the skin. Will felt woozy after a minute, so he put his head down and watched Hannibal cook in the corner of his eye, moving about the kitchen like a dance, like a ritual. Laying out a pair of lungs on the table, Hannibal massaged the flesh in cooking oil and herbs.

“Who were they?” Will asked.

“This is an organ, not a person, Will,” Hannibal said, cutting away excess tissue. “However, this pair of lungs belonged to a Miss Cassie Boyle, a once suspected victim of the Minnesota Shrike. However, with the updated profile, her case is now being treated as the work of a copycat.”

“You?” Will gulped. “Why would you copy the Minnesota Shrike?”

“I didn’t. Garrett Jacob Hobbs loved his victims. I love the craft. I didn’t copy; I elevated.”

Will tried to sit up, but another wave of nausea hit him, and he slumped. “I understand Hobbs more.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Hannibal laid the lungs into a pan and placed it on the stove, layering on more oil. It hissed like striking matches.

“He was trying to protect what really mattered to him. He knew his love was messy and violent, so he gave it to other girls instead. I just… I don’t know. It makes sense.”

“Is your love also a wickedness you feel you must protect your loved ones from?”

“I don’t know what my love is,” Will murmured. “I just know what it’s like—when an emotion becomes so big, it has to spill out.”

“Except, instead of hurting others, you hurt yourself.” Hannibal put the stove on low and moved to Will’s side, slipping the needle from his scarred arm. “I’d argue you're more like me. You despise the object of your injury and defile it in punishment. Garrett Jacob Hobbs honored those girls, every part of them; you do not honor yourself, my dear Will.” Hannibal discarded the needle into a separate waste basket and returned with a bandaid. Will’s arm was limp as he provided a gentle compress on the wound, humming lightly under his breath. 

Hannibal poured the boy a glass of juice, and Will eyed it suspiciously. “Apple juice, I assure you, purchased from a local farmers market. And I haven’t added anything—or anyone—in. Drink,” he said. Hannibal raised Will off the counter by wrapping an arm against his chest and pulling him upright against the man. He put the drink to Will’s lips and kept it there until the boy started chugging. “Good. Keep going.” Will twitched and shook but finished the glass. Hannibal refilled it and placed it in front of him, then returned to cooking. While the lungs browned, Hannibal poured the fresh blood into a sauce pan and placed it on a burner, briefly went back to Will, told the boy to stand, and took his chair. He set it up by the burner and helped Will make the short walk. He handed him a wooden spoon and started back on the lungs beside him. “Stir periodically,” he instructed. “I don’t want any blood burnt to the bottom of the pan.”

“Am I to be Cook and course for this dinner?” Shaking, Will stirred the tin of blood as slow bubbles started to roil up.

“Nonsense, dear Will,” Hannibal smiled. “You’re nothing if not a dessert. Your blood will be infused with a chocolate ganache and funneled into the centers of petit bundt cakes—a crowd favorite, I assure you.”

“You’re going to feed me to the FBI?”

“And several other of my affluent friends, yes.”

“Isn’t that kind of arrogant? What if they notice something?”

“Arrogance is based on an exaggerated perception of one’s abilities. I simply see my skills and the behaviors of the people around me and act accordingly. They won’t notice. They never do.” Hannibal splashed the lungs in alcohol, spare drops smarting on the stove.

“Someday someone might. What will you do then?”

“Eat them, of course.” He dipped his pan, and a face of flame roared up briefly, searing the meat and making it every second less and less distinguishable from food.

Will paced his attic all day in preparation for the party, sick with the anxiety that he should do something, try something, try to be found and rescued. But how? How would he try anything without incurring Hannibal’s wrath on both himself and Winston?

Winston trotted beside dutifully as Will paced a hole into the carpet. His attic setup was all but cozy now, with rugs rolled out to soften the floor and dampen sound. Will had vacuumed up the dust, collected trash, scrubbed any grime, cleaned the sofa, sprayed freshener, and removed every possible choking hazard Winston could find. Hannibal had checked in on him often but allowed him to head up the chore. In the few days it took, it was the only action that could pierce the haze wrapping Will’s head. Now, the place was spotless. Copious sun poured in from the front and back window. Will had a couch (the emergency flare hidden between the cushions), the mattress from downstairs (restraints sewed into the fabric), and one end of a metal chain screwed into the floor (courtesy of Hannibal). Will spent most nights on the couch with Winston, the collar chain long enough for him to pace his nerves out and toss around in sleep. But for the party, he’d be alone and tied down on the bed, reliving memory after memory of Hannibal pushing a feeding tube down his throat. The fact that the memory felt so awful and distant was Will’s only indication of how long he’d been there. Coming up on four months now, his birthday half a year away.

Will batted the thought away. The more he considered how long he’d been there, the more possible it felt that he’d be there for the full 10 months, and then… and then… And then the fairytale ended, they exited wonderland, and the great beast of adulthood would eat him whole one way or another.

“What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Will felt sick, felt crazy, fingers knotting in his hair and pulling. Hannibal would show up any minute to drug him and tie him down. There’d be no more chances after that. Will tugged again, and several strands broke free from his head. Winston rubbed against his leg. There’s an idea!

A dumb idea. Will continued yanking out hair, intentionally this time. Once he got a thick and long enough clump, he kneeled and tied the hair around Winston’s collar, then rotated the collar so the hair hung under Winston’s chin. It was almost a pointless effort. If Hannibal couldn’t see it, how could anyone else? Why would anyone question it or think to look closer? And, if Hannibal did see it, he’d be the only one who’d know what it meant, and who knows what he’d do then?

Will considered removing the hair, but then the attic door opened, and Hannibal stepped inside.

“Will?” He blinked. The boy was standing in the middle of the room. “Are you alright?”

Will took a step back, anxiety rising in his chest. “I don’t want to do this.”

Hannibal sighed, shutting the door behind him. “Will–”

“What if you don’t come back? What if you decide to leave me up here? What if things go back to the way they were before? Feeding me through a tube, drugging the food, leaving me alone for days—I can’t go back. Please, please, don’t.” Will stepped back as far as he could, the chain leash taut. Hannibal set down the syringe on the bed and approached without slowing, grabbing Will by his shoulders.

“Will, I will not abandon you up here. You know that. Come on, think. So long as you behave and tell me the truth, I will not hurt you or Winston. Now,” Hannibal took Will’s chin, “is there anything you want to tell me?”

The hair, the flare, the very thoughts Will can’t shake, about Hannibal, about himself. Hannibal would be upset that Will concealed any of it. Still, reflexively, Will shook his head no. “I just don’t want to do this. Please. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be good.”

Will was behaving like a child, they both knew it. Though, for Hannibal, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It meant dependence therapy was working and the boy was attaching himself to Hannibal’s will. Soon, he’d come to Hannibal for everything, not just comfort, but for approval and ambition and love. For Will, though, he heard himself talk and flushed, ashamed. He tried to look away but Hannibal’s grip on his chin tightened.

“You know I want what’s best for you, Will,” he said. “For both of us.”

Will nodded miserably, tears welling in his eyes. “Promise you’ll come back once the party’s over? Promise you won’t leave me alone?”

“Promise.” Hannibal smiled and slowly, gently, led Will to the bed. He helped the boy lay down, eased his head onto the mattress, and remained like that for a moment, hand on his chest, encouraging slow, deep breaths. “I’m proud of you, Will. I’m proud of the person you’re becoming.” And proud of the part he played in breaking down the boy’s spirit. Still, this seemed to calm Will. He settled and relaxed his muscles as Hannibal fastened down his ankles, wrists, and chest, then picked up the syringe, squeezing out extra air bubbles. “Just a pinch, and all of this will fade away.” Will was scared of that, scared of a smooth reality with nothing to anchor his thoughts to. Will’s demons seemed to fit in that syringe, but he stayed quiet and still as Hannibal injected it into his neck.

...

Hannibal wished he could say the party went off without a hitch, but his interaction with Will beforehand put a bad taste into his mouth, and he was tense from the moment he invited his first guest in—Alana, elegant, followed jauntily behind by Beverly, surly. Then a number of his opera friends arrived. Then Jack and Bella, on and on. An odd collection of people, he admitted, though they all preened for his approval one way or the other. It was the power he held over them throughout the night, shaping the people into the cogs of the dinner party machine. Everyone stayed in line, presented themselves just so, measured their reactions and volume to avoid disappointing him. 

Though, when the heavier wine was served with dessert, things got a little out of hand. Jack and Bella held a palpable tension between them—probably something to do with the cancer he smelt under her perfume. Mrs Komeda got into a light argument with her date. And Beverly Katz accidentally knocked over her bundt cake while playing with Winston, spilling ganache down her dress. Alana alone kept a handle on things, which Hannibal could always expect her to do. She stayed the latest, sending Beverly off in a taxi and offering to help with clean-up.

Hannibal allowed it, though he wished she’d just leave so he could tend to Will upstairs. The boy was in a bad place. He needed to get back to him. But then Alana stopped to play chopsticks on his harpsichord, and he humored her.

“Is something wrong?” Hannibal asked as she plunked through the song.

“I never paid close attention to my piano teacher when I was a child—that’s what’s wrong.” Alana smiled. “But I was going to ask you the same question.”

Hannibal tilted his head, picking up an abandoned wine glass from the coffee table. It left a ring of liquid behind on the wood—they hadn’t used a coaster. Hannibal frowned. “Why would something be wrong?”

“You seem distracted lately.” She shrugged. “Mrs. Komeda told me you missed the last few opera performances. And you got a dog—that’s what blows me away. Is something on your mind?”

In my basement, actually. “Nothing important,” he said. “Life can become a bit monotonous, that’s all. Winston is good company.”

“Lonely, Hannibal?” Alana raised a brow and rose from the harpsichord bench. Her makeup had flaked throughout the night, giving her softer, warmer features. She took the wine glass from Hannibal’s hand and smiled up at him. “You’ve done great work for the FBI, but don’t let Jack bully you into looking at things you don’t want to see. It’s okay to step away, seek out other means of fulfillment.” She presented her mouth just enough to give him the option to kiss her. Hannibal considered the plush of her lips, the line of her neck, the sweet tang of beer floating up on her breath. It would be decidedly pleasant to kiss, to find relief in affection and closeness, no matter how alien. Still, he looked away.

Alana sighed and stepped back, emptying the alcohol from the glass she’d taken—it had been hers. “I should go,” she said, blushing at the floor.
Hannibal nodded. “Allow me to walk you out.”

...

The drugs in Will’s system were brutal on his psyche. As the sounds of laughter and dining traveled up through the flooring and the idea of Winston with his gift of hair hammered through his brain, Will started shaking at some point in the night and tried to squirm free in a haze. Hannibal found him with his shirt ripped, his wrists and ankles bruised. Will was huffing and sweating through a nightmare.

Hannibal knelt at his side, pressing a hand on his chest. Automatically, the boy stilled, unconsciousness ebbing out of him with the pressure. “I’m here, Will,” Hannibal whispered, his interaction with Alana still heavy on his mind. Will awoke like the sunrise, by degrees. His hair was wetted through with sweat, patchy in some places like he’d been tearing chunks out. His lips were chapped, his cheeks blotchy—the very picture of disheveled distress.

Will stirred, murmuring “Hannibal… Hannibal…” and asking for something in his very tone, though he did not know what. Hannibal’s own desires filled in the blanks and, in a haze of alcohol, he let his poor judgment win out.

He bent over and kissed the boy’s mouth.

At first Will was slack under him, then his lips started moving along, confused. It was a long but chaste kiss, wet only with the sweat lining Will’s upper lip. Hannibal grasped Will’s face, the wet cheeks, wanting more. The taste was so sweet and sad, like a memory, like an aching nostalgia, like an open wound. Will kept kissing back for a couple more seconds even as full consciousness dawned on him, then he stopped, angled his face away, and Hannibal let him. The man sat up. Will was in no state for any of this. Hannibal shouldn’t have done that—he scolded himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Will blinked at him through the darkness of the attic. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because I’ve been wanting to,” Hannibal admitted. “But I shouldn’t have.”

“I thought you said you weren’t that kind of monster.”

“I thought I wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Will gulped, his body aching. He forced himself to look away, to not feel what was swelling inside him. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“So you keep reminding me.”

Will eyed Hannibal, his wrists and ankles burning. “Are you angry at me?”

“No.”

“Will you untie me?”

Hannibal sighed. “Alright.”

He unbuckled the restraints around his ankles, wrists, and chest carefully. The skin beneath burned, rubbed raw and bruised. Will had managed to rip through his shirt with the struggling. “What happened?” he asked.

“Had a panic attack. I couldn’t remember where I was, why I couldn’t move. These drugs—they’re bad for me. They make me even crazier.”

“You’re not crazy.” Hannibal helped Will sit up. “Arms up.” Will obeyed, and he pulled the shirt off from over his head. He frowned at the sores; the boy had a talent for hurting himself. Will folded his arms over his chest, shy suddenly. Hannibal sighed. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, Will. I won’t do it again.”

“Whatever.” He scowled. “Your promises don’t mean anything.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Like I promised to be,” Hannibal said. Will didn’t argue, attention taken by Winston as the old dog ambled into the room. The hair! Had Hannibal seen it? Was that why he was acting so strange? Will gulped, going rigid. Hannibal’s behavior could be a trick, a mind game. He might be waiting to corner Will, distract the boy with love and then snap down like a hunting trap. The drugs in Will’s system put his paranoia under a microscope, and he started breathing hard again.

“Will?” Hannibal pulled the boy to his feet. Will threatened to topple over, knees shaking, eyes trained on Winston. Hannibal glanced at the dog to see what was the matter, and Will panicked. He’ll see! He’ll see what Will did, and this would all go away—the kindness, the dog, the attic. Will couldn’t bear it.

He grabbed Hannibal’s face and pulled him into another kiss.

This was sloppy. Desperate. A clutch for balance—Hannibal would usually call it. Though, it caught him so off guard, he clutched right back.

His hands found Will’s bare waist, pinning him in, and they were moving in sync. Hannibal bit Will’s lip. Will latched tighter around Hannibal’s neck. They were both stumbling backward, tripping over the leash trailing Will. Hungry. Hungry. Hannibal’s mouth traveled down Will’s neck, one hand yanking his hair for better access, the other kneading the flesh of Will’s side. This was a new beast all together, one Hannibal wasn’t prepared to deal with inside himself. One Will was having a hard time stopping.

He didn’t want it to stop.

Neither of them wanted to stop.

Will couldn’t breathe. His hands were shaking as they ripped into Hannibal’s clothes, both trying to hold on and pull off as the man kissed him. Will was falling and Hannibal was pulling him up or holding him under. His hands traveled lower down the boy’s back, fingers teasing under the waistband, and Will rasped out, “Please.”

“Please what, Will?” Hannibal hissed at him, pulling away enough to speak. He had to pin the boy against him, otherwise he’d topple over. “What do you want?”

“Please…” Will didn’t know. Please don’t. Please do. Please, please just take the choice away. “I don’t know,” Will said, and he was sobbing. Either bend him over or snap him in half—he just wanted, wanted, wanted. Hannibal stared, lips red from biting. He’d drawn blood without meaning to. Will’s grip on Hannibal’s shirt tightened, and he tried to pull it up. “Please just make it all go away. Please make it hurt.”

Hannibal stopped abruptly, and his hands seized Will’s wrists. “I am not your razor, Will,” he hissed. “I am not an instrument for you to punish yourself with.”

“Why not?” Will snapped at him, suddenly angry. “You’re the Chesapeake Ripper. Just eat me like all the others and be done with it!”

“I would honor you!” Hannibal bellowed, taking Will by the shoulders and shaking him. “Every part of you—if you would but let me.”

Will blanched, bone white, as the words turned cogs in his head. He gripped Hannibal’s chest, giving up on the shirt buttons and just hanging there, defeated. He shouldn’t want what he wanted—he knew that. But Hannibal was right; Will despised himself—the object of his injury—and defiled his body in punishment. He just wanted Hannibal to destroy him, not with the kindness and chastity of the first kiss, but with all the violence he knew the Chesapeake Ripper was capable of. Yet, Hannibal wanted to… honor him? “What does that mean?” he whispered.

Hannibal led Will to the couch and helped him sit down in the place where he’d imagined bending the boy over just moments ago. His body was still pulsing with the thrill of anticipation that would never come. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never honored anyone before. I’ve never wanted to. You’re the first.”

Will sniffed, head rolling back against the couch upholstery. Hannibal sat beside him. Will watched him from his periphery. “You might want to hurry, Hannibal. I’m falling apart. There might not be anything left for you to honor soon.” Will was due for another psych ward visit—broken in new, irretrievable ways. Even Hannibal recognized this.

Winston jumped onto the couch and rested his head in Will’s lap. Will tensed, feeling over the dog’s collar, but whatever he was looking for wasn’t there. Will slumped, eyes leaking. “I wish you’d make it all go away.”

Gingerly, Hannibal took a blanket that was folded over the back of the couch and covered Will in it, then pulled him close. “I will,” he said. “I’ll put you back together in a way that honors you. I promise.”

“Why?” Will buried his face into Hannibal’s chest. “Why am I different? Why won’t you let me die?”

“Because I love you,” Hannibal whispered.

“Why?”

“Why did Garrett Jacob Hobbs love Abigail?”

“You don’t love me like a parent loves a child.”

“No. I don’t.” Hannibal ran a hand up and down Will’s back, the blanket separating flesh. “Misha was the only child I could love like that. You are something else. I look at you, and reason leaves me— restraint leaves me, and I feel every desire at once: the desire to strike out in violence, take from you every gasp of pleasure, hold you so our bones tangle together in death. Strongest of all, I feel the desire to keep you with me. Garrett Jacob Hobbs honored those girls by using every part of them to sustain his life. I will honor you by using every part of my life to sustain you.” Hannibal felt the weight of his promises and reverences increase like a ball and chain, tying him to Will like Will was tied to him. A sort of marriage. A mutual loss of freedom. A sacrifice Hannibal could not stop himself from making.

He did not want to stop himself.

Neither of them wanted to stop.

“I love you.” Will mouthed the words like a secret.

Hannibal more felt than heard them. A hiss of air as the lock clicked into place.

Seven Months Later

Alana covered her face in her hands. She couldn’t help it—professionalism be damned. She remembered the night of that dinner party so clearly. The pain of Hannibal’s rejection had been sharp. And then, to think, he’d gone upstairs and almost raped the boy he was holding captive. She’d dodged a bullet, but at what cost?

Will listed out the events of that night as unfeelingly as he could. He knew how it sounded. He knew what it was. That didn’t make the flood of emotions following the memory any less real. Will recalled the event with near fondness, marking it as the next turning point in his captivity, when he finally got a leg up in power. More than that, when the dynamic of his and Hannibal’s relationship changed.

Jack struggled to keep the disgust off his face. He remembered that night too. Bella was growing distant, growing cold, and at the time he wondered if she’d found someone else. But no, cancer had found her. It held her in its clutches now, and everyday Jack was losing hold of the realities that governed his life. He’d trusted Hannibal; Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper. He’d relied on his wife; his wife was dying. He’d given up on finding Will; Will sat across from him. And now here was this story, about serial killers and love, and it made him sick.

“Will.” Alana collected herself, wiping at her eyes. “When you told Hannibal you loved him, what was going through your mind?”

Will grimaced. “Under Hannibal’s psychiatric care, any cogent thought was a personal victory, and I had no victories that night. I wasn’t thinking. At least, not coherently.”

“Then, why do you think you told him you loved him?”

“Because I meant it. At least, I did then. He was kind, warm. I wanted him, to be close to him, for him to make it all go away. Hannibal was the only thing grounding me.” Will shrugged. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“It’s disturbing,” Jack said.

“It’s emotional manipulation,” Alana cut in.

Will glanced from one adult to the other, realizing exactly what he must sound like: psychotic, lovesick. “Nothing else happened between us that night.”

“What about after that night?”

Will’s mouth snapped shut, and Alana’s frown deepened, like she expected as much. “He took advantage of you, Will. You were emotionally vulnerable and under the influence of drugs. It’s understandable that you sought out comfort in your captor—it’s really quite common—but you have to understand, that wasn’t love. It wasn’t even kindness. All of it was manipulation on Hannibal’s part, which is why we find your latest request so concerning.”

“You won’t let me see him?”

 Jack leaned forward, tapping the table with his index finger. “So long as your loyalties are under question, you are considered a security risk in the eyes of the law.”

Will blinked. “Me? What can I do?”

“Why do you want to see him, Will?” Alana asked.

“Because…” Will tug the hair on the back of his neck, focusing on the grounding sting. “He asked me to.”

“You don’t have to do what he says anymore, Will. You’re free.”

The word failed to register in his head. It no longer applied to him, Hannibal had struck it from his vernacular, from his life as a whole. “I want to see him,” Will tried again.

“But why should we let you?” Jack pressed.

Will shrugged, helpless. “Because Hannibal doesn’t take kindly to being separated from me.”

Jack grimaced and took his turn resting his face in his hands. Only that morning, Jack had received news that Hannibal had killed another guard at the BSHCI. He bit the man’s throat out and carved one word into his chest: WILL . “Considering the circumstances of his arrest, Hannibal might not be happy with you. In fact, I have it on Doctor Chilton’s authority that Hannibal might very well want to kill you.”

“That’s nothing new.” Will grinned, wolfish. “You forget, for all his great gestures and love declarations, Hannibal had promised to kill me on my 18th birthday. I lived under that weight for 10 months. I can handle a visit.”

“You cost him his freedom.”

Will’s smile fell. “Yes. I did. I don’t expect him to forgive me for that.” If Hannibal killed him for it, he wouldn’t be surprised. Will wouldn’t even resent him. After everything they went through, what Will did was rude —the greatest sin of them all. “I need to see him. Please. You have no real grounds to refuse me.”

Jack rubbed his chin. “Maybe not, but you’re not getting within 10 miles of Hannibal Lecter until you finish your story.”

Will groaned, picking at his long sleeves, but nodded, staring at the cement floor of Quantico. Every minute, the place felt more like a prison than Hannibal’s home. “Fair enough.”

“Though I hope, Will—” Jack frowned, and the finest thread of sympathy pierced his furrowed brow “—that in the course of recounting your story, you will change your mind.”

Alana leaned forward and patted Will’s arm, a gesture that made him feel strange. No one extended him such kindness in his life before Hannibal. Now, people treated him like some hero for even withstanding the Chesapeake Ripper; they offered him resources, therapy, accommodations, things Will had never even thought to ask for in his life before; he had them all now—at the price of Hannibal’s freedom. “You deserve a second chance at life.”

Will said nothing, only shook his head. They didn’t understand.

This was his second chance.

It was Hannibal’s gift to him.

It was how Hannibal honored him.

Chapter Text

Another month passed. Will and Hannibal did not speak about that night, but its effects echoed through the Lecter home thereafter. They watched each other more intently, more reverently, and the desire to escape shrank on Will’s horizon. It didn’t disappear, merely gave way a bit to Hannibal’s eclipsing effect.

In the days following the dinner party, Will walked around the place with his eyes glued to the floor, avoiding Hannibal’s stare and searching out the clump of hair that had fallen from Winston’s collar. It had probably scattered into a thousand individual strands, collecting in corners and vacuum filters and spread pointlessly through the place. All the worry had yielded nothing. Will had kissed Hannibal to hide an anxiety that had already dispersed, though Will struggled to make himself regret it. The intimacy seemed to have sealed in Hannibal’s mind Will’s importance. Now, when Will spiraled and shook from the growing pressure in his head, Hannibal appeared at his side, guided him to a chair, held the weight of Will’s head when he couldn’t carry it. Best of all, a month after the dinner party and the downfall of the Minnesota Shrike, Hannibal took Will outside.

It was a Sunday, of course, and Will asked him over breakfast what they’d do. They often spent the day together: reading, cleaning, speaking. Sundays made the rest of the week, specifically the long hours Hannibal spent away at work or Quantico, bearable.

Hannibal was eerily quiet over breakfast, serving the warm porridge and orange juice with a sort of reverence Will knew not to question. Will ate and drank them both, grimacing at the odd aftertaste—a telltale sign of sedatives, he’d learned.

“Are people coming over?” He asked.

“No.” Hannibal wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Are you up to something you don’t want me to see?”

“No.” 

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then why?” Will swayed in his chair, exhaustion folding over him. “I could taste the drugs.”

Hannibal smiled at him, small and sad, and stood from his chair, coming to the boy’s side. “I’m glad to see you’re paying more attention to your palate,” he said, taking Will’s shoulders. “This is a light sedative, I promise, meant only to disorient you. It will wear off by the time we get there.”

“Where are we going?” Will thought of being shot behind a shed, execution style. How bland of Hannibal.

The man read his mind. “Don’t worry.” He pressed a kiss to Will’s forehead. “If I kill you, it will be at home.”

This was a relief.

Hannibal blindfolded Will and carried him to the garage, opening the trunk of his car with his foot. He’d layered the trunk with blankets and pillows, silky and feathersoft, a veritable cloud he laid Will down on. Will clutched Hannibal’s wrist, not letting the man pull away. “Is Winston coming?” his words slurred.

“Yes. He’ll be up front with me. Would you like me to roll down the window for him?”

“Yes please.”

Hannibal kissed Will’s knuckles and pulled his wrist free. “Someday, you’ll be up there with us. This way of things, with the drugs and blindfolds, is temporary. Remember that, dear Will.”

“I’ll try,” Will said, and Hannibal locked him in the trunk.

By the time Hannibal let Will out, the sedative had faded entirely, and Will was a bundle of fresh nerves, cringing at every kick and turn of the car. He sat up immediately once he felt the trunk lid go, reaching out, and Hannibal caught him, letting the boy breathe hard and feel over the man’s suit as he grounded himself.

“H- Hannibal?”

“I’m here.”

“I want to see. Please let me take off the blindfold.”

Hannibal hesitated a moment, struck by the memory of John Graham’s blank, sightless face staring at Hannibal as he prepared his tableau of the man. To think, meeting Will was happenstance, allowing the boy to live was a whim. So many factors should have prevented their current predicament, like fate and the God behind it was on Hannibal’s side for once. Or perhaps, fate and God both knew this was the only weakness strong enough to trip Hannibal up. Either way, the thought made him feel powerful, and Hannibal pressed Will’s face in both his hands, kissing the boy’s dry lips.

Will remained still but let it happen, hands bunching fistfuls of suit fabric. Eventually, Hannibal reached back and pulled the blindfold off him.

Will opened his mouth to make a quippy remark, but he stopped short. The Bentley was parked in a wide, open field, boxed by autumn trees. Fresh air hit Will’s lungs for the first time in five months, since that night on the bayou, and he gasped it, head whipping back and forth. A chilly wind scraped through the valley, the trees shedding browns and reds and yellows. Will gaped, and Hannibal grinned and threw a plush brown jacket over Will’s shoulders, helping him slip in his arms and pulling up the fur-lined hood. It took Will several attempts before he could speak.

“W-what month is it?”

“November.” Hannibal adjusted Will’s collar.

“Where are we?”

“Does it matter?” Winston yipped and ran in circles around the car. Will tried to get out, but Hannibal put up his arms. “Now, Will, we have to take every precaution while we’re here. You understand that, don’t you?” Will nodded eagerly, then realized Hannibal was removing his collar. The skin of his neck stung as the cold air hit it, and the boy shivered, shoulder raising, feeling unnatural. Hannibal took out another collar from his jacket pocket—black and bound to a small, electric box. Will sat still as Hannibal laced it around his neck. “This is a shock collar,” he said. “I won’t put up with you wandering far. Don’t test me on this, Will.”

Will gulped, and his Adam's apple rubbed against the black box. “How far is too far?”

“Don’t go far and you won’t have to find out.”

Hannibal was nervous, Will realized. He probably regretted even taking Will out of the house. If Will gave him one reason to turn around, he would, and Will would be locked in the attic until April. “I’ll be good,” Will said, leaning forward and trying to project earnestness. Hannibal still had his hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place. He was too well dressed for the circumstances, wearing a brown plaid suit and a green paisley tie pulled up to his throat. Every sound made the man tense, every whip of wind and weeping tree. “I promise.”

Hannibal sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“I won’t, and you won’t.”

Hannibal pursed his lips, remembering how he’d kissed the boy only seconds ago after promising not to. Maybe Will was right, and his promises meant nothing. But they were there now, out in the open. Might as well commit.

Hannibal stepped aside, and Will bounded out of the trunk. The remnants of drugs and the copious open space sent him to the ground immediately, but then he was up again, running to Winston, then falling again like a fresh faun, then up again, until the new brown Armani jacket was caked in mud. Will didn’t notice—didn’t notice the new boots Hannibal had laced onto him while he was asleep, didn’t notice the tire tracks cutting through the field, didn’t notice the lack of civilization for miles around. He took off running in circles around the car like a dog with the zoomies. In fact, he and Winston were one in the same, colliding with each other and fumbling, puffing great gasps of water vapor into the cold air. Will threw a stick, Winston bounded after it, and Will almost followed, then paused and looked to Hannibal.

“Can I?” he gestured.

“Yes. So long as I’m near.”

Will caught up to Winston and started a tug of war for the stick. Hannibal followed after, tracking the boy, the shock collar remote tucked in his pocket. Will could only go as far as Hannibal allowed him. Will pointed at the tree line.

“Can we go into the trees? Please?”

Hannibal caught up to him, the boy bouncing on his feet as he waited for permission. Hannibal eyed the thick cover of the forest with suspicion; it was in the place’s nature to conceal in the cover of leaves and wood. “You’ll have to stay by my side if we go in there.” Hannibal scowled, but Will had momentum now; he caught the man’s sleeve and pulled him along, tramping through the trees, snapping over twigs and bushes.

“This place is beautiful. Is it private property? Do you own it?”

“It’s abandoned and off-limits, that’s all you need to know.” Hannibal took Will’s hand and forced the boy to his side. Will slowed, falling into step as Winston foraged ahead.

“Thank you,” he said, his eyes stinging. It reminded him of some of the outdoor activities at the psych wards—the best parts of the ordeals—except, Will wasn’t alone or herded around with a group of disconnected kids. No one held his hands on those days; he had no dog to call his own. His coat was always too large, his boots too thin, everything alluding to Will’s displacement at the institution. Here, now—everything was made for him. “It’s been so long.”

“Since that night on the bayou.” Hannibal nodded. “I’d hoped to see you put at ease. I didn’t expect this level of success. Quite the nature boy.”

“I grew up outdoors. It’s home.” He felt Hannibal’s hand tighten around his, and the presence was grounding. All the colors and sounds and space, after so long without—the pressure of the doctor’s hand became the heartbeat of the woods. “Was your childhood like that?”

“I spent a healthy amount of time outdoors.” Hannibal grimaced. “After we lost our parents, Mischa and I were homeless. We lived out in the cold. She died in it. I nearly did as well.”

Will frowned. “I’m sorry. How did you survive?”

Hannibal stopped walking, staring straight ahead. “I did what I had to. Ate who I had to.” A gust of cold air slipped down Will’s back, and he winced as Hannibal's grip crushed his fingers. He lifted their joined hands to his chest and breathed warm air onto them. Hannibal reawoke to the present and his grip loosened a degree. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine.” Will wiggled his fingers. “See? Nothing broken?”

“It doesn’t have to be broken for it to hurt,” Hannibal murmured, cupping the boy’s hand in his. “Most people go through life with constant pain—some, aches and complaints; others, debilitating—and they accept it, never addressing the issue until it breaks them. As a medical doctor and psychiatrist, I would know.” Hannibal smiled, thoughtful and distant. “I would have us lead a different life, Will, one in which needs and desires are met with equal degree, until there is no pain left in us.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Will said.

“Perhaps not, but it’s an exquisite pursuit.”

“How would we do it?”

“We’ll have to start,” Hannibal watched Will carefully, “by leaving everything behind, starting new somewhere else. Where no one knows us.”

Where no one is looking for me, Will filled in and tried not to grimace. Hannibal looked so blissfully pleased, it was better to dream with him.

BANG!

A shot split the air, and—somewhere down the line, through the trees—Winston yelped out in pain.

Hannibal reached out to catch him, but Will was running. No reason or threat could penetrate the boy’s brain where that dog was concerned—they both knew it—and Hannibal fumbled with the remote in his pocket as the boy shrank from view. Unsure what else to do, Hannibal started running after him, his thumb ready to press the button that would shock Will with high voltage.

“WINSTON!” Will screamed with his full chest. Something inside him was sinking fast, the balloon bursting, the image of a happy family breaking down on itself. It was happening again—the dissolution of Will’s life, all starting with a dead dog. “WINSTON!”

Will found his dog with a man standing over him. He was dressed in camo, a beard down to his chest, a gun slung over his shoulder and darting eyes indicating he wasn’t legally supposed to be there. He stepped back as Will ran up, falling to the dog’s side. A strip of blood painted Winston from his rump down to his back upper thigh.

“I’s sorry,” the stranger murmured. “I’s really sorry. I thought he was a deer or somethin’. Didn’t know he was a dog, would’ve never shot him if I’s known.”

A cluster of competing thoughts blew through Will’s head. First, he realized the gunshot wouldn’t be fatal for Winston if he stopped the bleeding. He yanked off his jacket and bundled it over Winston, the dog yipping and writhing weakly. “Hannibal’s a doctor. He’ll save you. I’ll make him save you.” Though Will had no guarantee. He’d just taken off without Hannibal, and this could be his chance to escape with the strange, haggard hunter. Will was confident he could bite his way through the pain of the shock collar when Hannibal decided to use it, and he would decide to use it. But Will couldn’t take Winston if he ran, and Hannibal would kill the dog. He’d hunt Will down and make him watch Winston bleed out onto the dying leaves. He couldn’t run. But this man had seen him. If he could get away, tell the police, then maybe… maybe…

Will tied a knot with the sleeves of his jacket around the dog to contain the bleeding and turned to the man. Hannibal would be upon them any second. “You have to go. Now! The man I’m with—Hannibal—he’ll kill you!”

“What?” The hunter blinked bleary eyes at Will.

“You have to run! Listen to me, this isn’t a joke. My name is Will Graham. I’m being held captive by the Chesapeake Ripper. His name is Hannibal Lecter. And he’s gonna kill you if you don’t go now! Now!”

Will started shoving the man, smearing him with Winston’s blood, and this got him going, running a few steps before slowing and gawking, too stupid to understand. So Will kept after, picking up a stick and swinging it. The stranger scrambled backwards, hollering and trying to reach back to get his gun. “Run! Run!” Will yelled. They beat through the woods, on and on until they found a clearing, a surprisingly nice black truck parked in the underbrush.

He’s gonna make it!

Will jumped up and down, waving his arms like trying to scare a black bear. Still, the man stumbled into the clearing, blinking wildly, and finally pulled out his gun.

“Run! Run! You have to–”

BANG!

A bullet whizzed by Will’s head. His ears rang. He pawed at them, confused, the world moving too fast as the man scrambled to reload his gun, trying to escape while still managing to ignore his car.

“Will!” Hannibal yelled for him, crashing through the trees. Will couldn’t hear him. His world was in slow motion. He stared down the double barrel of the man’s shotgun and saw John Graham’s two hollow eyes getting bigger and bigger in the bayou’s darkness. I’m gonna die. He thought. His dad—or rather, this scraggly, unkempt poacher, so wild and heaving like his dad—was going to kill him.

Hannibal activated the shock collar, and Will collapsed.

He was seizing, shaking in the grass, the sun overhead, the trees bleeding onto him. Hands closed around his wrists and dragged him deeper into the forest. The hunter stalked forward after them, gaining some confidence. Hannibal crouched in the underbrush, Will convulsing beside him, and waited for the hunter to wander into the trees before he drew himself up, tasting hate in his mouth like sour wine, seeing nothing but his target, and left Will to his electrocution as he killed the man.

Will fully returned to consciousness an hour later, still outside, though laying somewhere different. His neck was on fire—that was the first sensation, a terrible, stale burning around his throat. The next thing he felt was the cold hair on his face, the rest of him covered. And then, finally, fur. Will’s eyes shocked open, turning, and found Winston circled into his side. The dog was breathing heavily, labored, and Will threw off the blanket from over both of them to see his jacket had been replaced by actual bandages around the dog’s rump. The movement jostled his neck, and he discovered similar bandages snaking his throat. Finally, the whole scene came together.

Will and Winston were bundled up on the ground in the field where they’d started, Hannibal’s Bentley still parked nearby. Hannibal was fiddling with something in the trunk, and he waved as Will raised his head. Too confused to question it, Will laid back down, snuggling closer to Winston, and enjoyed the sun soaking into his skin.

The memories returned slowly, starting with the initial gunshot, then finding Winston bleeding, then the man, the chase, the second shot, then nothing. Will shuddered, curling deeper into himself and the dog. He was in trouble, that much was certain; the hunter was likely dead.

“Oh, Winston,” Will moaned, burying his face into the dog’s fur. “I’ve messed it all up. It’s over. It’s over.” Will shouldn’t have run, shouldn’t have tried to help the man. He’d thrown his life with Hannibal away, and for what? For a slim shot at freedom? Freedom to do what—Will didn’t know. Die on his own terms, he supposed. Freedom to give life a shot and fumble it just as he had with Hannibal. He couldn’t explain what he’d been through to anyone, the mixed emotions of captivity: fear, hatred, love, etc. Now that Will thought about it, faced with the possibility that Hannibal might end him now, right when things were getting better, he was quite bitter at the idea of dying.

Will pretended not to notice Hannibal walk up, only stirring when the man crouched and squeezed his shoulder. “Will,” he whispered. Will rolled onto his back, blinking big blue eyes at him, something so beautiful in his misery.

“Are you–” Will tried to talk, but his throat ached under the words’ low buzz. Hannibal tried to shush him, but he persisted. “Are you going to kill me when we get home?”

Hannibal blinked, processing. One: Will had called Hannibal’s house home. Two: Will was expecting to die. “No, Will. It’s not your birthday, is it? I’m not going to kill you any time soon. Why would you think that?”

“I ran,” Will croaked, and tears beaded in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I am upset with you for running,” Hannibal conceded. “But I punished you enough with that shock collar; there are burns around your neck now. Besides, you were scared for Winston. When I thought you’d been shot, I ran too.” Hannibal laid down next to Will, sliding under the blanket. The man’s outer coat and gloves were gone. He stroked Will’s cheek like they were lovers in bed. “Do you think I’m upset you went after the man? I’m not. In fact, I’m more surprised you’d try to kill anyone, no matter what they’d done.”

“What?”

“I’d even say I was proud if you hadn’t gone at him with a measly stick. Honestly, Will, how did you expect to kill a man with a tree branch?”

Hannibal thought Will had been trying to kill the man, not to save his life. And of course he thought as much! By the way the stupid hunter had reacted, it must have seemed Hannibal came in on a battle, not an attempted rescue. Will’s heart pounded, immense relief peeking inside him, and his tears fell freely. “Oh,” he said. “I thought… I thought I’d lose everything if he got away.” He would have lost everything, Will realized retroactively. Everything good in Will’s life would have melted away, and it would have been his own fault. Will covered his face in his hands to hide from the shame of it.

“It’s alright, Will,” Hannibal cooed, pulling him into his arms. “You did well. You protected the family.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You stopped Winston from bleeding out and saved his life. I checked him over. He’ll be fine. And you prevented the man from escaping long enough for me to get to him.”

“What did you do to him?” Will whispered into Hannibal’s button up, his throat twinging painfully.

“Less than he deserved,” he said. “I freed him of his eyes, so he’ll never share what he saw to another soul, in this life or the next.”

“Like you did to my father.”

“Yes. Both men stood to separate me from you. I will not stand for it. I am blind without you, so shall they be.”

“Oh.” Will gulped. It rather felt like quite the opposite. Will—and his love for him—was what blinded Hannibal to the deception. That blindness was keeping the boy alive. “I don’t want to run away anymore.” He whispered the lie that felt half true. “I thought about it when I saw him. I thought he could help me escape, but I don’t think I could run anywhere except back to you.” That last bit—Will was increasingly certain of. His story didn’t end with anyone but Hannibal. Even if he was free, even if Hannibal hurt him and left him, Will would go running back. Because there was nowhere else. “Where else would I go?”

With the trunk now occupied with a dead—partly dismembered—body, Will could sit in the back seat. Rather, he reclined over it, Winston huddled up in the footwell beside him. Hannibal checked the rearview mirror regularly to ensure neither of them were sneaking a peek out the window. But Will was too exhausted for even that little rebellion, becoming acutely more conscious of the burn in his neck and the aches across his body.

“What else happened to me? I feel like I was hit by a bus,” he asked.

“You had a mild seizure brought on by the prolonged electric shock.”

“You don’t sound very concerned about that.”

“I said it was mild.”

“You’re killing me, Hannibal,” Will whined. “Probably literally.”

“We have several months to go before it comes to that.” Hannibal smiled back at him. “What would you like for your birthday, Will?”

“Depends on what you’re planning.”

“Aw, but Will, that would ruin the surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises,” Will groaned.

Hannibal frowned, nodding thoughtfully. “Neither do I. Unfortunately, they are part of life. I find them more bearable when I’m perpetually curious. Don’t be invested in anything or anyone besides yourself and everything becomes quite withstandable—advice I increasingly fail to take.” The car rolled over a speedbump; Will winced and Hannibal’s frown deepened. “I hate failure, Will, and I hate to be disappointed.”

Will’s hand rose to scratch at his neck, but Hannibal’s glare through the mirror stopped him. “I had a counselor who said that investment outside ourselves helps make life worth living.”

“They must have had a desperately sad life.”

“I liked her,” Will said. “She talked to me about dogs and psychology.”

“The key to your heart.” Hannibal smiled to himself.

“What’s the key to yours?”

“Until recently, I thought my heart died with Mischa.”

“But now?” Will pressed, hand straying down to pet Winston. He’d need urgent care soon, thus why they were rushing home. Hannibal didn’t particularly care for Winston; he was doing this for Will.

“I think you know the answer to that,” Hannibal said and pressed harder onto the gas. Not just for Winston or Will of course. They also had meat spoiling in the back.

As Hannibal tossed the hunter into the freezer and brought Winston to an operating table, Will curled up on the basement stairs, not willing to venture further down. This was the setting of all his nightmares, here in the concrete and sterile chains. The floor of the far side of the room was marked with a discolored square where the mattress had lain, stains of blood and puke still ghosting the ground.

Hannibal watched Will with concern as he worked on Winston. He wore no chains, not even a loose collar, only bandages around his neck. If he wanted to, Will could run up the stairs and out of the house. There was a chance Hannibal wouldn’t be able to catch up to him. This was an admission of trust on Hannibal’s part, and a deeply uncomfortable experience, to be exposed to someone who might reveal him to the world and trust that they’ll choose not to. Barbaric. Foolish.

Will made no attempt to run. He curled up on the steps, brought near by his worry for Winston, kept away by his fear of the basement. He was still worried Hannibal would lock him up down there again, leave him alone. Foolish boy. He’d never be alone.

Hannibal put Winston under anesthetic and drew out the bullet, depositing it in a little dish where he usually put organs. Will shuddered at the Tink! sound it made. Hannibal disinfected the area and started stitching.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Will asked as Hannibal finished, stripping off his plastic gloves and sighing.

“He’ll be fine.” Hannibal pushed back his hair; it kept falling in his face. “Come here, Will. I want to look at your burn.”

Will stiffened, curling tighter into himself. “Can’t we do that upstairs?”

“No. My supplies are down here. Come here, Will. Now.” Will stood but came no closer, leaning against the wall. Hannibal disliked the boy’s proximity to the door. It made him nervous, and a vein in his neck twitched with failing patience. “Are you going to run from me again, Will?” He asked.

Will blinked, took a staggered step forward. “No,” he said to the floor. “I can’t.” Will wincingly came down the stairs and to Hannibal’s side. Hannibal instructed him to sit on a gurney and remain still, and Will obeyed, pinching his eyes shut as he cut away the bandage from his neck. The skin was red and raw, though the ends of the burn were blackish bits of fraying flesh.

Hannibal’s frown deepened. He poured disinfectant onto a swab and brought it to Will’s neck. “This will hurt,” he said and dabbed at the wound. Will’s grip on the gurney edge tightened, his knuckles going white, his face pinched and turned away, teeth grinding. Hannibal cleaned it viciously. This was part two of Will’s punishment for running away, after all, though Hannibal hadn’t meant it to be. When he heard the gunshot and the sudden silence of Will’s yelling, it’s like everything inside Hannibal collapsed in on itself. He was a black hole, an exterminator, destruction incarnate and nothing else. Even when he saw Will alive and he jammed down on the shock collar remote, accidentally locking the button down. Hannibal could only see red. Even the poacher’s murder was sloppy, done with a feral nature Hannibal would more usually attribute to Will than himself. Hannibal Lecter was losing control.

So, he did not go easy on Will as he cleaned the wound. He did it with rough hands and tight lips, then half choked the boy as he bandaged him up again.

Will watched Hannibal timidly. “You’re angry at me.”

“The events of today were regrettable,” Hannibal said. “I wanted it to be peaceful.”

“Why?”

“For your sake.” Hannibal finished tying the bandage and patted Will’s shoulders. “It was supposed to be a celebration and a test. I wanted to see if you’d stay with me.”

Will winced. “And I failed.”

“Yes, but I failed too.”

“How’d you fail?”

“I favored aesthetic and sentimental concerns over practical ones, thereby putting both of us and our life together in danger. Uncontrolled violence like this has consequences, Will. It always has consequences. Trust me when I say, this will not go gentle into that good night.”

“I know that poem,” Will murmured. “Dylan Thomas, right? ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’”

Hannibal blinked. “Very good, Will. Do you read much poetry?”

“Not much.” Will shrugged. “I always liked it when we studied it in school though.”

Hannibal opened his mouth to say something more, to quote Dante or Goethe, but stopped himself, smiling. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“I’m trying to cheer you up.”

“So I won’t scold you?”

“Maybe,” Will said.

“What you did today was very foolish.” Hannibal persisted. “I’m disappointed in you for acting so rashly. That being said, I believe today’s events provided you with a valuable lesson.” He seized Will’s forearms, lowering to eye level. “We must do everything in our power to stay together. As time passes and things change, there will be forces trying to separate us. We must destroy them, destroy everything in our path. It is vital that we stay together until your birthday, do you understand? Every moment we are parted must be spent working toward uniting again. That is what love must be between us, Will. I won’t accept otherwise. You live and die by my hands, no one else’s.”

Will nodded, almost thoughtlessly, eager to agree. It would be a phase of strict co-dependency, devotion without distraction. They must cling to each other like children to their mothers, like parasites, like believers to their God. Hannibal was the god in this case, ready to punish his children if they so much as turn their face away. Will nodded, ignoring the agony in his neck. Loving Hannibal would blind him enough for Will to escape. He must love and give and worship and—when the opportunity comes—blaspheme his way to freedom.

Hannibal smiled at him knowingly. “Come.” He squeezed Will’s arm. “There’s a poem I want to show you.”