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To anyone else, the tremble in Will Graham's lip would be enough of a warning.
Will is generally a very quiet and sensitive-seeming man. Very few want to see him vulnerable and he is very good at seeming vulnerable, and certainly by now, Alana Bloom would be placating him and Jack Crawford would step back. Hannibal knows that to them, Will looks ready to cry
But Hannibal also knows Will.
Will can be pushed far, far further before he dare shed a tear. It seemed he learned one thing from his father- how to be seen and not heard, how to take it like a man.
Hannibal can partially admire Will’s strength: every mirror neuron alight, so full of empathy he could die of it, and he will not cry. It speaks to his self control.
But Hannibal- much alike Will’s father, he imagines- knows how to push him to the point.
“Hello, Will."
Will stands in the doorway, lip trembling and shoulders shaking. He doesn't answer Hannibal’s greeting in turn.
“I’m losing my mind," He says.
“You're dissociating for longer periods of time," Hannibal fills in, gesturing towards a seat. Will goes, desperate. “Do you remember how you got here, Will?"
“No," Will breathes. “No, no. I came to outside."
“Do you remember why you came?"
“B-because it's-" Will’s voice breaks. “-it’s 7:30,”
"Your body knows where to go to ground itself, seeing that it is 9 in the morning.”
Will looks up at the clock. He seems to grieve the fact.
"Something is w-wrong."
“Your mind is not capable of bearing the weight of your imagination," Hannibal says, already setting up his lights.
Will buries his face in his hands like his body partially remembers the sound- clever boy. So trusting of his instincts.
"H-Hannibal?” He asks.
"Yes, dear Will?”
"Am I losing my mind?”
"Perhaps,” Hannibal answers, clicking the lights on and taking his seat.
Will looks up, searching, into Hannibal’s eyes. His quickly become dull between flashes.
"What do you remember?”
"I w-woke up in my car,” Will says, so impossibly soft. "There's dirt underneath-”
He breaks off. Breathes in sharply, staring, unseeing, at the lights.
"-Dirt. Underneath my fingernails.”
Likely another fit of imagination, but Hannibal will check for the spot Will dug outside of his house later regardless.
“You fear your unconscious mind has developed the ability to kill."
Will’s pupils dilate slightly wider. He stares, uncomprehending, and seizes.
Hannibal watches him twitch in the armchair, pretty, empty eyes rolling up into his head. Hannibal waits until Will has shuddered himself into a state of near unconsciousness and then goes over.
It's a gentle process, taking off his coat and glasses. Will is practically dead weight, still twitching, as Hannibal pulls him up and leads him to the couch.
"I believe you are capable of killing, Will,” He says, lying Will up against a throw pillow and sideling up against him. “Do you?"
Will breathes out a soft, soft sound, utterly lost. Mind on fire, long-term memory deadened- he’s pliant in Hannibal's arms, barely cognizant. Perfect. A canvas well prepared.
“Your fear is your mind’s natural reaction to whatever it is you think you may be doing," Hannibal says, breath ghosting over Will’s hair.
He smells faintly of stale sweat and a generic shampoo, the pine by his house- no aftershave since the last time he showered as he certainly didn't shave.
He reacts to the hand on his ribcage- eyelids fluttering, mind taking the sensation with dim awareness. It makes him vulnerable.
“What do you think you’re doing?"
Will’s delicate ribs heave under Hannibal's touch, disarmed and shocked.
“Killing," He breathes, and tears finally bead at the corners of his eyes. “K-killing,"
Hannibal makes a soft noise, soothing nonsense. Will bites down on a sob, confused-seeming still.
"Perhaps some part of you thinks you remember,” Hannibal says, and Will breaks. "You can almost feel it, so close to what you’ve imagined.”
He slides his arm beneath Will’s prone body, wrapping around his chest so that his hand can reach the soft, sweat-damp hair lying against his neck, a reward for his taking it so easily. Will shivers.
Will is a deprived man, at his core. Careful to keep everyone at a figurative and literal arms length, rarely making mistakes. He aches for the missed contact still, the sensory need to be cared for barely suppressed, tearing at him.
He’ll lie bare his conscience in exchange, but only for Hannibal. Hannibal is adept at finding advantages and Will is a hunted animal surely running out of room to run.
Hannibal can almost taste the blood.
“You’re killing unconsciously," Hannibal says, gentle. “You’re imagining the others as you do- finally lost to the power of your mind. You’re becoming."
Will whimpers, almost pained. Tears stream plentiful down his face, broken and feverish as he is- ravaged by illness and his own need for affirmation and contact. He’s beautiful.
“You could be a serial killer without knowing."
Will sobs and Hannibal tucks his face into the crook of his neck, sweat and tears and old detergent lingering there.
"Sweet boy,” He says. Will gasps. Chokes on tears.
Crippling isolation, brought upon by a need to defend oneself from the terror of being wounded by another- the horror of feeling the moment when someone else can no longer understand you on both sides of the widening divide.
Hannibal is doing the impossible and bringing the earth together. Will is weak and willing to listen on the other side.
“Rest," Hannibal urges, pulling Will closer. “You need it."
Will hunches forward, eager to pull his body in on itself on the small couch. Hannibal forms to him, willing to meet him still.
Will quiets after a while. He’s still in his sleep, exhausted to the point of near catatonia.
Hannibal indulges, brief, in ghosting his lips over the pale expanse of Will’s neck, hand sliding over his throat. Will breathes in deeply- barely roused in his sleep.
Vulnerable. Lolled under the tides of his fever and failing body by little more than Hannibal’s voice,ild conditioning, and touch. A man desperate for answers and understanding.
He’s soft. Untouched and aching. Hannibal tucks Will’s head under his chin and rests there with him.
-----
“Will?”
Will snaps his head up, feeling hot. His jacket is on, glasses sliding down his nose. He’s in Hannibal’s office.
"You nodded off again. What was it you were going to tell me?”
"...I need to go home,” Will says. "H-had a… late night,"
“So it would seem," Hannibal says, concerned. "Would you like help?”
Will waves him off and bears with the dizziness