Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will Graham is very sick. 

Hannibal does not make a habit out of guilt – quite chronically the opposite – but a near approximation of it swells uneasily in his chest when he looks at the pale man in the hospital bed. Soaked to the skin with corticosteroids and antipyretics and hooked to sundry machines, he lies there, wan and insensate and too-breakable in the thin hospital gown, and Hannibal… 

Hannibal dislikes the odd pressure in his ribs. 

He stands from the bedside chair, untangling his fingers as gently as he can from where they are loosely entwined with Will’s right hand: the lovely hand that only hours earlier shot Abel Gideon in the snow. They are vaguely clammy – his circulation is poor, and the drugs aren’t helping – and Hannibal grazes his freed palm almost unconsciously up Will’s bare arm, checking for goosebumps. Will doesn’t even stir, and as his sweeping touch meets the loose sleeve of his hospital gown, Hannibal hesitates. He lifts his hand to hover it over Will’s face, leaning closer to examine the purpling under his fluttering eyelids, the pained crease between his brows, the tight stretch of muscle over cheeks grown too grim and hollow–

“Oh, Hannibal! I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Hannibal doesn’t startle; he doesn’t even twist to glare on Will’s behalf – he’s resting, can you not be quieter – though the urge to do so is perplexing enough that he takes his time straightening. He draws in a steady, silent inhale as his hand falls back to his side, and when he turns to meet pretty, concerned eyes in a pretty, concerned face, his own smile is placid. 

“Alana. What a relief to see you, safe and whole.”

“Thanks to Will.” 

Alana clasps her arms around herself as her eyes stray to the bed, and Hannibal is gripped with yet another ridiculous impulse – to step to the side, blocking her view of Will’s vulnerability. He restrains himself, though one foot angles traitorously on the hospital linoleum.

Alana takes a few steps into the room, looking between the vacated chair and Hannibal. 

“Are you taking off? Want me to tap you out?”

No. “Yes. That would be very kind.”

Even lined with worry, Alana’s smile is beautiful. Gentle. She settles herself in the chair and takes up Will’s hand on the coverlets, the one Hannibal had just relinquished. With a passing but powerful fervency, Hannibal wishes he had waited just a few minutes longer to send Will after Gideon. 

But she looks up at him with a nod, perfunctory, and Hannibal nods back. 

“Thank you. Please send me a text if any medical questions come up that I may be able to advise on. Or if he wakes.”

He didn’t mean to add the last part. There is plausible deniability for his expertise as a doctor, but there is no need for him to be present whenever Will regains consciousness. But the words are out, and Alana doesn’t seem to care, simply nodding again as she peers with fond distress into Will’s face. 

Brushing off the compulsion to pluck her eyes from their sockets, Hannibal makes his exit. 

*****

He drives to the wet market halfway between the Arts district and Patapsco harbor. 

It is not at all a convenient stop. Far out of his way, and not even open yet. Will had arrived on his doorstep with Gideon late in the evening, and all the following events had swallowed up the night in one greedy gulp, leaving Hannibal to sit in his idling car as he waits for the tendrils of dawn to weave their way through the streets and rouse the vendors like so many keen-eyed gulls. It is one of the few markets that stays open in the colder months, as well as the only market in the area that sometimes carries what he’s questing for. 

When the booth he is watching unfurls its unassuming banner, Hannibal exits his car and strides purposefully for the elderly woman arranging her stock. She senses his coming with almost preternatural awareness – she’d make an interestingly challenging mark, though Hannibal has too much respect for her wares to put her on his menu – and she smiles at him, tanned skin wrinkling around glittering eyes. 

“Good morning. It’s been a while.”

Her accented voice is reedy but strong with years of hawking, painting the cold air with her breath. Hannibal inclines his head in greeting, perusing the fresh cuts of meat and fish arranged artfully on the iced trays, before raising his eyes to look at the whole, plucked carcasses hanging from the tent frame. When he spots the black-skinned bird complete with legs and head, he gestures to it. 

“That one, please.”

The woman nods approvingly, climbing a stool with surprising spryness to retrieve it. As she bags it, she looks the doctor up and down. 

“You are not ill.”

It’s not a question, but it nests a different one within it. Will’s prone form surfaces in his mind, floating out of his hospital bed and bobbing in the shallows of Hannibal’s awareness, bumping up against the shore with troubling insistence. 

“My friend is.”

She hums, unconcerned, but her eyes have not left Hannibal’s face. Something in her glacially calm, considering gaze reminds him of Bedelia. He tightens the veil accordingly. 

A little too late, it seems. The woman ducks below the counter, and resurfaces with three small glass jars – dried wolfberries, shriveled jujubes, and papery white fungus, respectively. They are of a high grade: Hannibal can smell their crisply-preserved earthiness when she uncorks them in turn. 

She shakes out a little of each into small wax-coated bags, folds them down, and adds them to his running total without a word. Hannibal pauses only minutely before opening his wallet. He pays in cash; he adds a tip. 

“He who seeks to heal the wolf may get teeth for his trouble.” 

Her eyes crinkle again as she hands his purchases over. 

“Heal your little wolf well, Doctor.”

Good wares, he reminds himself resolutely as he walks away. Too good for the rolodex. 

*****

He makes one more stop at an international grocer’s for fresh bok choy before arriving home. The ginseng he has in his own pantry – wild harvested in South Korea at almost ninety years’ maturation, and only ever used in carefully shaved-off increments. 

Hannibal barely registers the generous slice he takes off the preserved root, now. He minces it into fine little wedges and adds it to the rest of the aromatics simmering with the chicken, moving around the kitchen with a distinct lack of the ebullience that usually marks time spent in this space. He pours himself a glass of something, not bothering to be selective with his decanters until the crystal is at his lips and the shocking burn of whiskey meets his tongue instead of the anticipated wine.

Hannibal coughs, setting down the long-stemmed glass full of accusing amber liquid with a start. Nobody is here to witness it; Hannibal almost wishes there was. On the rare occasion he feels it, he finds it’s difficult to stay embarrassed when elbows-deep in a torso. 

Staring dolefully down into the whiskey, he takes another swallow, just to spite himself. There’s no point in pouring it back, anyway. And he knows, damningly, why his hands strayed to it – knows too well who he keeps the whiskey stocked for. 

He hears the dull buzz of his phone in his suit jacket, slung over one of the stools near the island. He fishes it out with another rancorous sip. 

Still not awake, but the fever’s finally starting to go down. Doctor said his WBC count is through the roof. Stopping by Wolftrap to feed the dogs and then heading home, won’t be available to come back until Monday. Keep an eye on him? 

Muscle by muscle, Hannibal unclenches his fingers from the phone, tamping down on the desire to immediately respond that, as a matter of fact, he was going to feed the dogs on his way back to the hospital (...he was), and that Alana didn’t need to bother herself with checking in on Will on Monday or any other day. For when had she, with her mixed signals and sanctimonious hesitancy, ever done the man any good? What had Alana ever accomplished for Will, besides driving him further into Hannibal’s waiting arms?

Waiting web, Hannibal mentally corrects, and sends off a clipped, professional acknowledgement. 

I understand; I will. Travel safely. 

He downs the rest of his whiskey, then sets about making himself something quick to eat before heading back to the hospital. It’s not a full meal, just something to soak up some of the alcohol and make up for his missed breakfast. He’d rather save his appetite for Will. 

*****

To his supreme irritation, Hannibal is not allowed to see the profiler again right away. 

“We still haven’t found the source of his infection. It seems autoimmune, but it’s possible he’s contagious. He was awake and wandering the halls, earlier, and even visited another immunocompromised patient – so the doctor wants to start restricting people in or out,” the flighty-looking nurse explains, voice wavering at whatever she seems to read in Hannibal’s expression. Hannibal is very, very tired of apparently losing control over his features where Will is concerned. It is novel and disconcerting and dangerous, in that order, and it is that precise leveling of priorities that saves the nurse’s neck from being snapped on the spot. 

I already know what he has, and it isn’t communicable. Get out of my way, he doesn’t say, instead schooling himself with monumental patience into a veneer of apologetic affability. 

“Of course, that makes sense – but, well,” he pauses with fabricated reluctance, looking to the side with a put-upon smile, “I’m actually his partner. We live together, so whatever he has, I’ve already been exposed to it. Thoroughly exposed, you understand.” 

Her eyebrows jump as her face pinks. “Oh! I’m so sorry!! I didn’t think– I mean, I didn’t realize, he’s not wearing a wedding ring–” 

She snaps her mouth shut, blushing harder. Hannibal looks down at her nametag, memorizing. He thinks of recipes for wagging tongues and straying eyes. He winks. The tempting sweetness of his own lie buoys him.

“Not yet. But nevertheless,” he holds up the cooler containing the soup, “in sickness and in health. May I?”

She practically leaps out of the way in her haste to allow him in, and finally, finally, he’s alone with Will again. 

The pallor of his face is slightly improved, but not by much. Hannibal’s eyes rove over Will, lapsed back into unconsciousness after the drain of visiting the patient Hannibal has no doubt was Georgia Madchen. Intuition and empathy overriding the most basic of survival instincts… always seeing, seeking, burning. Even as injured as he is, lying there, utterly unaware of the wildfire in his brain. 

That odd distended feeling warps in Hannibal's chest again. He diffuses it by focusing on Georgia – she would have to be dealt with, of course. It wouldn’t do to have her somehow recognizing Hannibal for something beyond his face. 

(More importantly: she couldn’t be allowed to interfere with Will’s convalescence.) 

Will begins to stir as Hannibal unpacks their meal onto two trays, and Hannibal looks up, watching the way the man’s eyes drag open like it pains him. He slowly shifts himself up onto his elbows, inadvertently baring his chest and neck in a way that has Hannibal’s teeth itching. His taut nipples are visible through the stretched gown. Hannibal brings his eyes back down to the soup. 

“Smells delicious,” Will murmurs. Of the vibrant intonations Hannibal has heard Will make, this is his first encounter with this particular shade, soft and low and rumpled by restless sleep. Hannibal wants to bottle it, devour it, dig a scalpel into Will’s larynx to cut it out for safekeeping. 

He swallows. Slides spoons into their bowls.

“Silkie chicken in a broth. A black-boned bird prized in China for its medicinal value since the 7th century. Wolfberries, ginseng, ginger, red dates, and star anise.”

Will blinks blearily up at him.

“You… made me chicken soup.” 

The weary bemusement bleeding into that pliable, unguarded tone has Hannibal gripping the sides of the table, just out of Will’s line of sight. He’s offended; he’s acutely and absurdly aroused. 

After a tick too long, Hannibal turns away, ostensibly to put their bowls down on the larger table by the window. 

“Yes.” 

Looking down at the wolfberries bobbing in the broth, Hannibal tries not to recall the words of the woman at the market. 

*****

They eat, and Hannibal watches each spoonful pass Will’s lips like they’re pooling warmly in his own stomach. They talk of Georgia, of Jack; Hannibal makes cloaked insinuations about mental illness and suppression; and everything’s just starting to feel back in order again when Will abruptly jerks and sways in his seat. His spoon clatters out of his hand, and Hannibal is on his feet before he can process it himself, clearing the distance between them with a graceful lunge. He catches Will before he can truly tumble, and slowly lowers them both to the ground, mindful not to tug the IV out of his wrist in the process. 

Will’s eyes are twitching rapidly, but the light of awareness is sharp within them, edged with surprise and panic. Hannibal feels an echoing stab of unease: focal onset. A self-aware seizure does not bode well for the progression of his encephalitis. It knocks Hannibal genuinely off-kilter, and he momentarily freezes, caught in the headlights. 

Will can’t freeze. He catches one shaking hand in Hannibal’s sleeve. His teeth are chattering so hard Hannibal fears for his enamel.

“H-Hannnn–”

“Don’t speak,” Hannibal cuts him off, shaking his head firmly. He holds Will’s convulsively darting gaze as resolutely as he can; the rest of him he cradles more loosely, giving his limbs the space to twitch and shudder without hitting anything unforgiving. “You might bite your tongue. It will pass. Ride it out. It will pass, Will.” 

Hannibal finds himself repeating this in a hushed voice, over and over, on his knees as he holds Will’s trembling body. It will pass, it will pass. He doesn’t look away, both to make sure Will knows he’s there, and to punish that rippling void that is now yawning cavernous within his ribcage, howling for retribution. Not against Will; against Hannibal. Against his own hand, burying the weapon of his curiosity into Will’s body and twisting, twisting, twisting – confident in Will’s resilience and his own ultimate lack of investment in any human being, no matter how intriguing. 

Only it doesn’t feel like a lack, now. 

But it will pass; it will pass. 

…Will it pass? 

The seizure does, at least. It’s longer than the one he had in Hannibal’s dining room, but gradually the tremors that rack Will’s body space farther and farther apart, and then at last cease altogether. Will, covered in a sheen of sweat, sags bonelessly against him, screwing his eyes shut. 

“God, sorry,” he gasps raggedly, and Hannibal is momentarily baffled by the apology and the powerful waft of Will’s scent in his nostrils, both. “Just when you think you’ve hit a new low, huh.” 

Will can barely string the words together, but the humiliation fizzling in them is clear. Hannibal gathers him closer, mutely shaking his head as he presses his face to Will’s mussed curls. Will slowly catches his breath, and when Hannibal still doesn’t speak, he makes a feeble attempt to twist around, craning to look into the silent man’s face. 

“...Hannibal?”

Before Hannibal can open his mouth, he hears the click of cheap flat-soled shoes on the hallway linoleum. He reflexively draws Will more tightly to his body as the door opens and a man in a white coat walks in, expression petulant. 

“Mr. Graham, even if he’s your so-called partner, I believe I told you not to allow any – oh!” 

He looks down at them with almost comical shock, mouth gaping open. Hannibal grits his teeth against the snarl he feels threatening to curl his lip. As if any of these people have any right to see Will exposed; as if they’d earned the privilege of witnessing his undressed pain. He doesn’t look down, glaring at the doctor, but he feels a clammy hand work beneath his suit sleeve to wrap around his wrist, giving it a weak squeeze. 

It’s Will who breaks the silence, surprising them all. His voice is riddled with exhaustion, but it holds stubbornly together, like a moth-eaten sweater knit of rugged wool. 

“Sorry, doc. Had a seizure.”

The doctor splutters. 

“Well– I mean, what– Why didn’t you press the emergency button? Or call for the nurse?” 

With the hand not covertly wrapped around Hannibal’s wrist, Will gestures vaguely towards the bed across the room. 

“Too far away. Hannibal had it under better control, anyways. No offense.”

The doctor’s brow grows stormy. He glares down his nose, looking between one and then the other of them on the ground, as if attempting to evenly divide his ire. Hannibal bristles. The hand on his wrist squeezes again. 

The doctor crosses his arms. “Well I assure you, Mr. Graham, this… man,” he looks askance at the violence incarnate that is just managing to hold the shape of Hannibal, “does not have control over you while you are in my hospital; and besides coming to rectify your breach of quarantine protocol, I was on my way to bring you to your MRI. I am not convinced your previous tests were done by a reputable practice. This episode is all the more reason to go back over any questionable interpretations.” 

Will furrows his brow, beginning to shake his head. “No, I already–”

“Maybe we should,” Hannibal interrupts, aggression abruptly vaporizing. Will shoots him an incredulous look. Hannibal ignores it, though he rubs the hand supporting Will’s back up his spine, pressing gently at the juncture between his shoulder blades with his thumb. Trust me. You shouldn’t; please do anyways. 

Will leans – a little reluctantly – back against the contact, and Hannibal makes a series of rapid microadjustments to his expression and body language. Suddenly he is not a feral animal prowling threateningly over his injured mate, but a compunctious, doting partner, awkward and confused. Earnest. He looks up at the repugnant doctor with forlorn eyes, then down to Will. 

“I trusted Donald Sutcliffe for the friendship we once shared, during our residencies; but I am starting to worry that trust may have been misplaced, especially with recent events. Even if it’s retracing our steps, it would set my mind at ease to do another scan, particularly with someone who has the experience to know what to look for. Don’t you think, darling?”

To his credit, Will doesn’t emote obvious shock – but Hannibal is close enough to feel the way he stiffens slightly, pulse leaping to a bewildered gallop. Hesitantly, he nods. 

“...If you say so. Dearest.” 

Suddenly the doctor is beaming, spreading his arms wide as if in blessing. “Now there’s some sense! I always say, it’s better to let the husbands in. Talk some reason into ‘em…” 

Hannibal wants to lunge forward and gnaw through the idiotic man’s Achilles tendons – but that would entail letting go of his Patroclus, which he has no intention of doing just yet. He puts on his most charming smile, oozing admiration and gratitude. 

“It’s a relief to feel like he’s finally back in capable hands. But, Doctor…?”

“Hoffman,” he finishes, still with that smug benevolence. Hannibal inclines his head. 

“Doctor Hoffman. As necessary as it is to have another MRI, I wonder if you wouldn’t consider putting it off until morning? It’s already been such a trying day for Will,” he presses his thumb into Will’s back again, wordlessly imploring him to tolerate the ploy for pity, “and I should like to settle him in bed for today. If you think it wise, of course…?”

Dr. Hoffman nods sagaciously. “One more night should be fine. Give the little troublemaker a chance to rest,” he raises his eyebrows knowingly at Hannibal, like Will is his unwitting charge. It’s Hannibal’s turn to grab and squeeze Will’s wrist as the sick man tenses, holding his flaring disgust and indignance in check. Hannibal mirrors Hoffman’s expression with a falsified smirk. 

“I’m glad you understand.”

Hoffman goes on nodding, but then he’s reaching down, reaching for Will. “I’ll help you get him back into bed–”

Hannibal stands up expeditiously, pulling up Will alongside him by the waist and almost suspending him clean off the ground that way. The sudden change in orientation can’t feel good to the younger man, but he loops an arm around Hannibal’s neck, anyway, giving the appearance that he’s at least partially self-supported. Hoffman blinks at them. Hannibal tries for another smile, but it’s significantly more strained, this time. He can’t relax while Hoffman’s hands are within reaching distance of any part of Will. 

He’d had to partially decapitate Sutcliffe for seeing the intimate parts of Will’s skull. Hoffman, he thinks, will be slowly skinned, starting with his fingers.  

“Thank you, Dr. Hoffman – I can manage him. Please have a good night.”

Thus dismissed, Dr. Hoffman stares at them for a few moments more, then turns towards the door as if it was his own idea all along. He waves a hand over his shoulder. 

“Right, right. Good night.” 

And he’s gone. 

Hannibal listens to his footsteps receding as he all but carries Will to the bed, depositing him there with silent care. He avoids Will’s burning gaze as he walks to the door and locks it, allowing himself a deep, bracing breath as he hears the snick of the lock. He lingers there, staring down at the smooth handle. He hears an echoing sigh from behind him.

“So.” 

Will’s voice is quiet, expectant, and stretched thin beyond belief. Hannibal turns to face him, eyes drawn to the quirking twist of his mouth that speaks to grim amusement. He lets that barbed twist hook into him, lets it draw him by his lungs to hover by Will’s bedside, fished up from the depths to flop in the open air. He clears his throat – but to his continuous surprise, Will again speaks first.

“Something is wrong.”

Hannibal stiffens, eyes darting to Will’s. As drained as they are, their clarity still cuts – like ice chipped from a lake to form a translucent, deadly shard. Will’s gaze bores into his, searching. He frowns and tilts his head. 

“You lied to me. You and Sutcliffe, both. Something is physically wrong with my head. Do you deny it?” 

Hannibal looks him in the eye; he deserves that much.

“No.”

Will groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. 

“Christ. Do you have any idea how worried – how terrified I’ve been that I – that it wasn’t –” 

Will flops back onto the bed with another frustrated groan. Hannibal doesn’t move from where he stands. Will grimaces up at him, bares his teeth in animal displeasure.

“I was your little science experiment. I shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow I,” he closes his eyes with a humorless laugh, “somehow I really thought you were different. All these people scratching and clawing to get their fair share of my brain – Jack, Alana, Lounds, Chilton, even Hobbs, even a dead man – and somehow I thought, you…” 

He trails off miserably. Hannibal, for all his raucous blasphemy, has never enjoyed a version of Hell less than this one. Will cracks open his eyes again, a slice of puzzled blue. 

“But… you changed your mind.”

His voice has tempered from anger to the deceptive stillness of consideration, the way it does just before he has a breakthrough. Hannibal should pin him to the bed, grab a pillow, and smother him now. He doesn’t move. 

“Maybe today, or maybe so gradually you didn’t even notice. But somehow, somewhere along the line, you changed. You could’ve gone on with your experiment – I would’ve been none the wiser. Not until the world cracked me, or I cracked the world. I wasn’t going to get another MRI. But you practically threw yourself at Hoffman’s feet to demand it, knowing it would tip your hand. Why, Hannibal? What was so valuable that you would gamble all your efforts away?”

There is an immediate ripple in his chest, at that, violent in its vastness. He looks down at Will. He is so sick, he is so beautiful. He is a wolf too dangerous to heal and he is the teeth waiting at Hannibal’s end and his sudden gravity in the center of Hannibal's world is a vicious and precipitous certainty. 

“Do you really need to ask?”

Will raises his eyebrows. 

“That depends. Are you going to tell me the truth?”

It’s an easy thing, all of a sudden. Hannibal doesn’t know how it happened, but it won’t pass – not without his very life in tow. As the reality of it settles back into the intervals between his ribs, Hannibal finds himself unflinching.

“You.” 

“...What?”

“You are the value worth gambling all of my efforts away, Will Graham. You.” 

Will stares at Hannibal. Hannibal stares at Will. Hannibal feels Will’s gaze like a physical touch, skimming over his face, smoothing over his person-suit, teasing stray threads from the too long-neglected seams. He keeps himself still. 

“You aren’t lying.”

“I am not, no.”

“But you aren’t saying everything, either.”

Hannibal doesn’t answer. Will laughs. It’s tender and a little painful, like a purpling bruise. Hannibal watches the stuttering rise and fall of his chest. 

“I know there’s more. And you know I’m going to riddle it out, as soon as my brain stops feeling like it’s being run through a meat processor.”

That’s… a little too apt. Hannibal inclines his head. 

“I know.”

The ice in Will’s eyes is melting, little by little. All it means is death by drowning instead of by impaling.

“You’re just going to let it happen.”

“Yes.”

“...Because it’s me.”

“Yes.”

“Is what I have treatable?”

Hannibal blinks at the sudden change in subject. “It is, yes.” A strange lump rises in Hannibal’s throat. “Will, you should know, I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to…”

Will rolls his eyes. “Yes, you were. You were going to let it go as far and as long as you possibly could. I believe you didn’t intend for it to destroy me – but you wanted to see what I’d do as I fractured, until all of a sudden you decided you didn’t. I prefer sins of omission, Hannibal. Don’t lie to me again.”

Hannibal swallows and falls silent. Will’s continuous perusal is keenly felt, but whatever he sees makes some of the tension filter out of his features. He rubs his knuckles into his eyes. 

“Dammit,” he mutters, breathing out through his nose. Hannibal notices with some alarm that fever is beginning to color his skin again. “Damn it all to hell. I hate this; I hate not being able to think.”

Hannibal’s fingers curl uselessly at his sides. 

“I’m sorry.”

Appallingly, inconceivably, he is. 

Will withdraws his hands and glares at him. “You should be, you manipulative bastard.” With great effort, Will reorients himself on the bed, swinging his legs onto it and flopping to one side. He glares again at Hannibal. “Get down here.”

Hannibal tenses up; he can’t have heard that right. 

“...Pardon?”

Will bares his teeth, brooking no argument. “I said get down here.”

Uncertain if he’s stumbled into a waking dream, Hannibal goes. He sinks down slowly on the side of the bed, and when Will’s scowl doesn’t lessen, he hesitantly begins toeing off his shoes. When he brings up his legs to lie in rigid parallel next to Will, untouching, the other man makes a bone-deep sound of exasperation. 

“Everything is zero or a thousand with you, isn’t it.”

Hannibal turns his head on the pillow to look at Will. His face is very close; Hannibal can feel the unnatural warmth radiating from his skin. Distracted, he turns further on his side so that he can lay a hand on Will’s forehead. He exhales, somewhat reassured – it’s not healthy, but it’s a far cry from the 105 degrees Will was pushing when he was admitted. 

Hannibal realizes Will’s breath has gone unsteady. He frowns, sliding his hand to the side of Will’s neck to find his pulse. It’s rabbiting against his palm. 

“Will? Are you–”

“–Is it contagious?” Will cuts him off. He sounds winded. 

“What?”

“Hoffman said I might be contagious. Am I contagious,” Will hisses. Hannibal watches his pupils dilate apprehensively. 

“You are not contagious.” 

“Good,” Will huffs, and surges forward to catch him in a kiss. 

*****

Chapter Text

Until this precise moment, Will’s mouth was not an experience Hannibal dared to expect.

Perhaps that is untrue – Hannibal often found his eyes drawn to the fretful purse of the profiler’s lips, after all. When Hannibal wasn’t occupied by attempting to chart Will’s curiously oceanic eyes, observing Will’s mouth was nearly as compelling. 

He watched the way the seam of it parted with a minute catch of breath at the sight of a crime scene; watched the pink, plush give of raw lower lip under white teeth as he paced Hannibal’s office. When Will murmured to himself in idle distraction, lost to the reconstructions of his mind, Hannibal scarcely blinked, loathe to miss the trembling motion of Will’s lips around insights inaudible but no less transfixing. From a purely visual standpoint, Hannibal had veteran experience with Will’s mouth. 

But he had no point of reference for the feel of it. 

Hannibal is raptly cataloging the feel of it, now. He bends his senses to the single point of contact on the skin of his own lips, warmed by the proximal heat of Will’s face. He commits to memory the irregular distribution of chapped and rough, supple and soft, damp and dry and fever-sweet. Despite the impulsive lunge that initiated the kiss, Hannibal can feel the way Will has pulled his punch, reining back the landing into something so hesitant, it could almost be written off as accidental. 

The barely-there pressure renders further sensory impressions entirely inadequate. Hannibal is so consternated by this roadblock to his memorizations that he almost misses the way Will begins to draw back. 

No. Unacceptable.  

He drags the hand on Will’s pulse up and around to press at the base of Will’s skull, effectively cutting off further retreat. Will’s breath hitches, and Hannibal chases the gust of it, parting his lips to inhale. Though it was a regular practice in his youth, Hannibal rarely permits himself to smoke, anymore – curious how very near breathing in Will’s shaking exhale feels to taking a drag from a pack of old Messis Summa. He fills his lungs, and just as he is about to slot their mouths together much more firmly, Will wiggles a hand up between them to press against Hannibal’s mouth. 

Hannibal darts his eyes up in confusion. Whether from illness or (Hannibal hopes) their present situation, Will is flushed and panting, but his eyes retain their calculating clarity. 

Hannibal warily observes the glint in them, trying and failing to divine its meaning. There is still anger, there, reproach; the stillness of consideration; pervasive, aching exhaustion. Something else, as well, but it trickles through Hannibal’s grasping hands like snowmelt. 

Uncharacteristically lost, Hannibal stills. Waits. Distractedly tucks away the sensation of Will’s fingertips on his mouth alongside his many recent memorial acquisitions.

When Will fails to say or do anything further, Hannibal tentatively cocks his head. With considerable reluctance, he eases his hand away from the back of Will’s neck, giving him the option to move further away. Will doesn’t. 

“...Will? Have I offended you?”

His words are slightly muffled by Will’s hand, but it is worth it for the way Will’s gaze darts down to where he is touching Hannibal. The fingers on his mouth twitch reflexively. Will licks his own lips. 

“You gaslit me into thinking a disease was a psychotic break to satisfy your own curiosity, and you’re hiding more from me as we speak. I’d say I’m a little beyond offended,” Will responds, voice low and rough. 

Hannibal fights the urge to lick placatingly at Will’s fingers, just as he battles the need to bite into the flesh of his palm. Will looks down at him as if he knows exactly how finely those desires are balanced. He smiles – it is the smile of a man accustomed to taming every feral stray except the one that nests inside his own heart. 

Hannibal wonders if Will intends to tame him, or simply to outcompete him, outwild him. He wonders which tactic actually wins out over his motley pack, in practice; wonders if Will is even consciously aware of it. He smiles back. Little wolf.  

Will’s eyes flit down to his own fingers again, registering the feel of Hannibal’s teeth as he grins. Will traces a finger over the slick line of them, once, then lets his hand drop to the pillow between them. Freed, Hannibal wants to immediately press forward to find Will’s mouth again, but he holds himself in check. Proud as he is, he knows when he’s been brought to heel.

He doesn’t miss the flicker of approval in Will’s gaze, or the way his eyes move between Hannibal’s own, appraising.

“How do I amend my offense?”

Will huffs wryly. “Is that a genuine question?”

“It is.”

“Why?”

Hannibal squints. He should be acclimated to the abrupt twists in their conversations, but since entering this hospital room, the stakes have suddenly skyrocketed in a way that even Hannibal finds disorienting. 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Why is it a genuine question?”

Hannibal swallows. “I believe we just had that conversation.”

Will shakes his head, curls mussing and clinging to the cheap, static-charged fabric of the pillow. Hannibal’s fingers itch with the need to set them in order.

“No, we didn’t. We had a conversation about why you reneged on letting my brain go up in flames, and even that answer was… obtuse,” Will pauses, lips quirking slightly at his next words, “though I’m allowing a brief suspension on that particular line of inquiry, given the evidence.”

It’s obvious bait. Hannibal takes it. 

“Evidence?”

Will flushes a little darker, but lifts his chin. “Your behavior since I’ve been in here. Your veiled admissions. Your reaction, to me… to just now. The goddamn soup. You’re a good fake, Hannibal – better than I ever realized, and I won’t make that mistake again – but you weren’t faking those things. And even what you were fabricating, or tried to fabricate to get into my room, is its own kind of deposition. Dearest.” 

Hannibal doesn’t blush, he reminds himself firmly. He doesn’t have the complexion for it. The heat in his face is a simple anomaly. He sets his mouth in a thin line. 

“It was the path of least resistance.”

Will laughs, but something in his eyes goes a little uncertain, a little raw. “Oh, is that all.”

Hannibal curses himself internally. In penitence, he looks straight into Will’s eyes and peels back a corner of his defenses to show a sliver of bloody viscera beneath, truthful and exposed. 

“No, not all. In fact: I hated it.” 

Will flinches, eyes averting with a look of haunted resignation so immediate that Hannibal wants to search out every insolent, barely-sentient piece of tasteless refuse that ever rejected Will, romantically or otherwise, and run them through a woodchipper feet-first. Hannibal slides a hand up to grasp Will’s jaw and turn it back. 

“I hated it for the lie that it was. I hated that I wanted it to be otherwise.”

To his surprise, the clarification does little to chase the resignation from Will’s eyes. They are flat and shuttered-off, the way they look when he speaks to reporters, to police force, to civilians. To anyone but Hannibal. It’s disconcerting; it’s intolerable.

“Hatred is a normal reaction to getting saddled with attraction to something like me.”

Hannibal frowns. “Will, that isn’t… You are willfully misunderstanding me.”

Will looks off to the right of Hannibal’s face, expression impassive. “Am I? I’ll admit that I’m conflating some unrelated things,” Will says softly, brow slightly furrowed. “I have plenty of experience with people resenting or fearing me for becoming the object of their affections. It’s unsettling, to find yourself interested in the guy who thinks about killing people for a living. Says something bad about your own tastes,” he laughs humorlessly, and Hannibal finds it’s the only category of Will’s laughter he dislikes. “But you…”

Will finally brings his eyes back to Hannibal, and the shutters ease open just a crack, bringing some of the light back to Will’s eyes. It is a cold kind of brilliance, but Hannibal vastly prefers it all the same. 

“It’s something else, for you. You don’t hate the implications or the existence of attraction; you hate the lack of control that the attraction can cause. The unpredictability that your own actions bring, against all your plans and better judgments. Gambling on my value, as we put it earlier, only it’s not a gamble you even meant to play – no, you’ve been surprising us both, I think. You are a curious creature, Hannibal.” 

Will brings a hand up to cover Hannibal’s, where it is still curled around Will’s jaw. “A mix of a control so exacting it’s inhuman, and an impulsiveness so unbridled it’s barbaric. It makes me wonder how deep that faultline runs. It makes me feel like… like I’m just beginning to see you. ‘Through a glass darkly,’ as the apostles say.”

Will sinks his pale fingers into the spaces between Hannibal’s darker ones, entangling them together. Hannibal almost feels as if Will’s fingers are dipping into Hannibal’s own, breaching his skin with the same slow, impossible surety he seems to be breaching Hannibal’s person-suit. It’s an obscene mingling of horror and ecstasy that has Hannibal near-choking with want, want, want.  

“So I’ll ask you again, Hannibal: what is your motivation for wanting to amend your offense? Are you trying to regain control over the entropy of attraction? Are you satisfying a compulsion? Or,” Will turns his face into their joined hands, ghosting his moving lips against Hannibal’s fingers, “Is it something else?”

Hannibal can’t clear the desire constricting his throat enough to speak. Will smiles sharply in the cradle of his palm, and Hannibal is struck by the awareness that it is the keenest blade he has ever held in his hand. He shudders through another inhale as Will’s tongue darts out in the briefest flicks against his skin, like a snake scenting its prey, before Will lolls his head back against the pillow with a sigh, pulling their hands down to rest just below his sternum. 

“You don’t have to answer right now. Hell, I’d rather you didn’t. I really don’t have the bandwidth for any more mind games – not until I get half a mind back to play games with.” 

The younger man laughs up at the ceiling. This laugh is exasperated, but warmer than the last. Hannibal would like it if it didn’t sound quite so frayed. 

Despite himself, he presses his palm down on Will’s chest, seeking the reassurance of his heartbeat. When Will squeezes his hand lightly, he shuffles hesitantly closer on the bed. Will rolls back toward him with a grunt, pressing his face carelessly into Hannibal’s shoulder. After several long, protracted moments of scarcely daring to breathe, Hannibal curls slowly around him, like a dry leaf curling around the heat of a flame. He smooths his hand through Will’s curls, finally unsticking them from the offensive pillow. Will hums against his shoulder. 

“Hannibal?” 

Will’s voice is going fuzzy, stretched and uneven. There is a twang to the way he says Hannibal’s name that the older man has never heard before, the hint of an accent he suspects Will never allows to filter through when in better control of his faculties. He curls around Will more tightly, hoping to hear it again.

“Yes, Will.”

“You’re a real asshole.” 

Hannibal frowns at the crude language and the sentiment, both. More than that, he is ashamed by how easily and swiftly pacified he is when Will presses further into him.

“I’m… becoming aware of the ways in which I can be.”

“Yeah, well. Become more aware,” Will grumbles, voice catching on a yawn, “but also, thanks for not lettin’ my brains melt out my ears.”

Hannibal brushes the hair away from Will’s temples, stroking down the side of his head. 

“I never wanted that. I hope you at least believe me on that account. Your mind is far too exceptional to lose.” So is the rest of you, he doesn’t verbalize. He doesn’t want to draw Will back into conversation; he wants to draw him into rest. Following intuition, he trails his fingernails lightly against Will’s scalp, and the other man practically melts into the bedspread.

“Ready or not, ‘m gonna figure you out. When all this’s over,” Will mumbles, voice blurring with impending sleep. 

“I have every confidence you will.” Hannibal continues to pet and rub through his hair, watching the steady descent of Will’s eyelids like curtains. 

 “And I shall endeavor to be ready.” 

*****

Chapter Text

Hannibal resolves to stay with Will only until his breathing evens out. If in actuality he remains pressed to the side of the sleeping man considerably beyond when he’s entered his first REM cycle, well – Hannibal is a doctor, and the nurse hasn’t returned to check on them since Hoffman left the room. It’s only sensible that he lingers to monitor the condition of such a grossly neglected patient. Dr. Lecter did take the Hippocratic oath; crossing his fingers behind his back was incidental. 

He runs said fingers over and over through Will’s curls, section by section, methodically separating and smoothing each wayward strand until there are no more knots to be found. Will’s body twitches as he settles more deeply into sleep, his face still turned into Hannibal’s shoulder. He studies the fine veins in Will’s eyelids, the flickering movement of his closed eyes as they track the shadowed dreams that Hannibal, for all his avid vigilance, can take no part in…

He sighs, stilling his hand at the nape of Will’s neck. He is not a man prone to distraction, and even less so to procrastination. It is still fairly early in the evening, but there are things he must see to before morning, especially if he intends to be present for Will’s new MRI and the chaos that will doubtless follow.

Yes – he has much he needs to do. Even more pressingly, he has much he needs to consider, away from these recent events and revelations, away from the confounding (and disquietingly, still increasing) influence of Will’s proximity. 

With a stealth he usually reserves for criminal encounters, Hannibal slides out from under Will, gently lifting his head until he can position a pillow at roughly the same height his shoulder provided. Just as he moves to retract his hand, Will’s own suddenly clamps around his wrist. 

Hannibal freezes, eyes flicking up to Will’s face. He is met with the chilling sight of wide, barren blue: open, but unseeing. Will is still asleep. 

But his fingers are like a vice. With his hobbies and his former force training, Will’s grip rivals Hannibal’s own, and his abrupt strength is a startling contrast to the discoordination of mere hours ago. While Hannibal finds this a rather delightful discovery to contemplate, now is not the time. Not wanting to rouse the man fully, he gives a tentative tug. 

“...Will?”

Nothing in Will’s expression changes. His eyes remain fixed, staring at Hannibal with an unmoving, unfeeling vacancy Hannibal cannot imagine Will directing at him in consciousness. It is – if possible – even more discomfiting than Will’s wary defensiveness. As reticent as he is to ever provoke them, Will’s shields are at least reactive to Hannibal’s presence, aware and acknowledging. Now Hannibal feels as if he’s being looked through; as if he isn’t even there, and Will is staring at the far wall of the hospital room behind him. 

He retries extracting his hand. Will’s fingers draw impossibly tighter, causing a dull pain to throb through his tendons. Hannibal clenches his jaw, though his displeasure is more rooted in his own apparent nonexistence in Will’s gaze than in the ache of his wrist. 

“Will,” he tries again, pitching his voice with the affect he adopts for hypnotherapy. Only a few days ago it was a technique he intended to try with Will under far different circumstances. He brushes the thought away.

“I need you to let go.”

Will’s fingers shift across his skin, though the pressure does not lessen. Hannibal nods encouragingly, hoping the motion will draw Will’s unconscious attention. It has minimal success – Will’s eyes drift around Hannibal’s face, though they still seem to be casting out, out, out, beyond and away from where Hannibal exists. 

It’s… unpleasant.

Without volition, he brings his face closer to Will’s, attempting to snag the tattered edge of his wandering gaze and hold it in place. He speaks again, and is dismayed to find he can’t quite maintain the neutral tone hypnosis requires. 

“Can you hear me, Will?”

He brushes the back of his free hand against Will’s face, ghosting down his pale cheek. The sick man’s face is a blank, impenetrable mask, and even like this it is arresting. Statuesque; ethereal. Distanced. 

It is this last Hannibal cannot abide. His next utterance slips past his lips in a whisper.

“Where have you gone, laukinis padaras?” 

Something in Will’s eyes flickers. For a moment Hannibal thinks he might be waking, but no – his features remain slack, devoid of the tension that is the constant companion of a conscious Will Graham. But there is a change, somehow, somewhere in the depths of his pupils. Hannibal is reminded of lamplight behind a closed door: a thin line of illumination showing under the crack at the threshold. He reaches for it blindly, and again the language he has not spoken in decades bleeds out of his mouth like an old wound reopening. 

“Mano klajojantis vilkas.”

He grazes his knuckles across the ridge of Will’s cheekbone. Will’s hold adjusts incrementally around his captured wrist. 

“Tu nuėjai ten, kur negaliu sekti. I feel your absence, more… keenly than I care to. Come back, Will. Come back and rest.”

Will’s fingers twitch violently, before all at once untensing. They stay loosely clasped on Hannibal’s wrist, but they’ve slackened enough that Hannibal can feel the rush of blood returning to his tingling fingertips. He flexes his hand. He could pull it away now, but he hesitates. He yearns to peer under the door. 

“Will, ką matai?”

Will’s eyes are starting to close again, fingers relaxing even further. Hannibal catches the barest movement of his lips, tracing around words Hannibal can’t quite pick up. He leans as close as he dares. 

“...enfin trouvé le Cerf. But I can’t hunt ‘im no more,” Will murmurs, stumbling from a slurring Creole into a Southern drawl. Hannibal blinks in surprise – he hadn’t been aware Will had any fluency in French – but he senses the window of opportunity dwindling as Will slips back into deeper slumber. He might have the chance to ask one last question.

Le Cerf. Will put an odd emphasis on the noun, nonsensical as it seemed. Hannibal traces his thumb under Will’s bottom lip, but doesn’t truly touch it. Will stopped him before, so stopped he will stay, until permission is received again. If it is received. 

(When it is received. It must be when. It must.) 

“What keeps you from snaring your Stag?”

Will sighs in his sleep, and his hand falls to the bed. His voice is the barest gust on Hannibal’s face. 

“Name of the bait’s changed… ‘n the hook’s’n my own mouth.” 

*****

Hannibal soundlessly shuts the door behind him as he enters the hallway. 

He left a note that he’d be back in the morning on Will’s bedside table – Please do not allow Dr. Hoffman to proceed before I return – tucked under a refilled glass of water and Will’s glasses, which he took the liberty of retrieving from the crumpled pile of Will’s clothes and personal belongings that had been heaped in the corner of the room. He was tempted to fold and organize them, but could picture Will’s scowl all too clearly in his mind’s eye. 

As his eyes adjust to the bright lighting of the hall, he takes a subtle glance at the far corners of the ceiling, confirming a lack of security cameras. They’re expensive to maintain for every floor, especially in a run-down establishment like this one – far easier to post a few in stairwells and elevators, with the greatest concentration on the entrances of the hospital proper. 

There are two places Georgia Madchen could be: the burn ward a floor down, or neuro-ICU three floors up. Based on the distance from Will’s room and the fact that he hadn’t been caught wandering before he could locate her, Hannibal is confident it’s the former. 

A plastic comb is tucked into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He’d palmed it from the nurse’s station near the bathroom on the first floor. If Georgia is in an oxygen chamber, it will be a simple matter of slipping it in as she sleeps. Even when she’d stumbled on Hannibal dealing with Sutcliffe, reeking of necrosis and terror, Hannibal had taken note of how disproportionately cared-for her hair was… or must have once been. A simple pleasure; a means of controlling appearances, despite the lost recognition of faces. 

The conflagration will be elegant in its ease. 

As he sets off to pay Georgia a final visit – the first of many tasks to get through tonight – he’s abruptly halted by a voice from behind him. 

“Mr. Graham!”

He stops, controlling his alarm as he turns around. Did Will wake up? Is he sleepwalking? Why is he out of the room? Did he have another seizure –

“Mr. Graham! Dr. Hoffman told me what happened. I was about to come check up on you two, since visiting hours are just about over. How is he doing?” 

The young nurse who had initially barred his way into Will’s room is jogging up to him, doe-eyed and concerned. The hallway behind her is empty, and Will’s door is firmly closed. As Hannibal meets her eager, anxious gaze, realization dawns. 

He smiles. 

“Will is doing better, thanks to the staff here,” he all but purrs, tilting his head as he looks warmly into her face. “I can’t imagine trusting his care to anyone else. I only hope we can finally figure out what’s been going on,” he adds as if in afterthought, letting a slight, careworn frown frame his words. The nurse – Matilda Cross, he recalls from their earlier encounter – draws her brows together in a sympathetic pout. 

“I’m sure we will! I’m just sure of it. There’s plenty of fight left in him, I can tell, and I’m positive we’ll get him back on his feet in no time. He’s a hero, after all,” she sighs, cheeks coloring. “I overheard it from that nice woman visiting before you. A special agent, catching the bad guys.” 

Hannibal shifts through a range of rapidly overlapping impulses at her enamored words – as well as at the mention of Alana, once again broadcasting Will’s business where she shouldn’t be – but he ultimately settles on a kind of begrudging amusement at this description of Will. A fighter and a hero, indeed. But Hannibal finds he’s tiring of the plurality of “bad guys.”

The story really only needs one villain… well. Perhaps two. It’s up to the hero. 

He nods indulgently. 

“He is the most exceptional man I have ever met.” 

Nurse Cross breaks into another smile, utterly endeared. She touches a hand to her heart. “Listen to you! It’s no wonder Dr. Hoffman let you stay. Will you be back in the morning?” 

Hannibal inclines his head again. “Yes. I just need to take care of a few things while he sleeps.” 

Nurse Cross titters at him. “Don’t push it too hard. I know you must be worried, but you’ve got to rest, too, you know. Health professionals have to deal with this all the time. Compassion fatigue,” she pats his arm, and to Hannibal’s irritation, hooks her own around his elbow. “I’ve got to take my break anyway, so I’ll walk you downstairs!”

He stiffens, readying an excuse. He has no desire to waste any more time around gushing incompetence, and Georgia Madchen must be dealt with as soon as possible. 

Nurse Cross pulls on his arm. 

“C’mon! Tell me all about how you two met. Why no rings? Don’t try to tell me it’s only casual – you looked ready to storm a castle when I didn’t let you in right away. And did I get the last name right? I know sometimes people just keep the ones they came with…” 

“We’re going to hyphenate it,” Hannibal finds himself saying, and allows the momentum of the nurse to carry him down the hall. 

Georgia won’t remember him. Will wouldn’t like it if she died, anyway. 

*****

It is nearing 8 pm when Hannibal arrives home. 

He takes a brief shower, forgoing a fresh three-piece for a simpler set of button-up and slacks. Sweeping his still-damp hair away from his face, he walks back into the kitchen, reviewing the inventory of his ingredients. 

Simple, hearty, thoroughly-cooked foods will be best for the next few days. As loathe as he is to admit it, Will does not need any of Hannibal’s more exotic fare challenging his recovering system; but that doesn’t mean he’d allow him to subsist on the miserable sustenance of hospital food, either. Depending on what degree of advancement the MRI reveals, Hannibal will have to prepare enough readily-transported meals for a week – following which he has every intention to persuade, constrain, or connive Will into staying in Hannibal’s guest room for the remainder of his recovery, regardless of how resentful the profiler may be when he hears tomorrow’s results.

Hannibal frowns, letting the fridge door drift shut. Will he be resentful? More resentful than he already is? And is it wise to bring him into Hannibal’s home, when Hannibal can feel the way Will’s mind has begun to catch the scent of him, like a hound on a foxhunt?

On a stag-hunt, his memory supplies, echoing Will’s sleep-soaked words. He is frustrated to find that he can’t parse the thread of Will’s thoughts. Though he sometimes catches Will staring at the elk statue in his office, he’s never talked of a stag before, not since the Minnesota Shrike; and that hunt had already ended in Will’s bloody victory. Who is Will’s quarry, now? 

Hannibal knows Will is doubtful of Georgia’s culpability in Sutcliffe’s murder. His mind may even be drawing subconscious parallels, making those fantastic leaps that it is so wont to do. Field kabuki, gift-wrapping, killers imitating killers. Is that the Stag that haunts Will’s dreams – the Copycat Killer? Does he suspect whoever murdered Sutcliffe is the same person who draped Cassie Boyle and Marissa Schurr on antlered biers, like devotional offerings to the god of foresight…? 

Hannibal leans against his counter, meditative. It would be a truly astonishing connection for Will to make at this stage, as Nicholas Boyle and Georgia Madchen have already taken the fall. Moreover, there is nothing to link the three murders except Will himself, a fact which had been percolating in Hannibal’s mind alongside thoughts of bits of hair and severed ears and tampered fishing lures. He would be less surprised if Will was drawing these connections after Georgia’s death: but the comb is still in Hannibal’s pocket, Will’s fly-tying materials remain undisturbed, and Abigail Hobbs has both of her ears firmly attached to her head. 

And Hannibal… is glad. 

His frown deepens as he sinks into one of the bar stools, resting his elbows on the countertop and staring down at its immaculate marble surface. Something had changed, the moment Hannibal asked for a new MRI on Will’s behalf; or maybe it was the moment he had caught Will collapsing into another seizure; or perhaps before that, when…

Well. Whatever the turning point, he can feel the shift of it rippling out, now, the tugging of spider-silk threads spinning away into a new direction beneath him. Beneath both of them. Because in spite of his revealed deception regarding Will’s illness, Will has not pulled away. He’s pulled toward, catching the thread of Hannibal’s lie and reeling it into his sure hands. Hannibal is still mystified by Will’s last utterance about bait and hooks, but the fresh tension of the string connecting the two of them is clear. 

(The tension of the string. It is only a matter of time before Theseus finds his way through the labyrinth, of that Hannibal has no doubt. But he is less certain of what the young hero will find in its center: the Minotaur, or Ariadne?)

And even still, against all that is safe or sane, Hannibal cannot bring himself to release his end of this perilous strand. He brushes his fingers against his lips, eyes falling closed on a rough exhale he’s unable to suppress. Will’s mouth, Will’s hands, Will’s low voice in his ears and tired body in his arms. The sensations Hannibal had taken great pains to record and sequester rise in a spectral tide, crowding out all other thoughts in his mind until all that remains is hunger. 

But that appetite cannot yet be sated – very well. The night is young, and Hannibal is excellent at improvisation. 

Art always clears his head. 

*****

Chapter Text

The morning creeps in cool and misty. 

Were Hannibal the sort of man, he would be humming to himself, bustling around the kitchen as he prepares blynai. He grates green apples into the chilled buckwheat batter using the finest setting on his mandoline slicer, keeping one eye on the simmering elderberry confiture as he carefully browns and flips each golden round. Once they’ve sufficiently cooled, he layers them one-by-one between parchment paper, drains the sweet, spice-heavy reduction into a locking carafe, and packs it all securely away alongside a thermos of dark roast coffee and a jar of clotted cream. 

Breakfast, finished. 

He goes about the preparation of lunch and dinner with the same even-handed efficiency, warmed by the low buzz of anticipation in his veins. He slept very little – he normally plans his displays with more flexibility of time, and he can’t remember going on as few hours in as many days since his residency years – but he is pleased to find that his faculties are relatively unperturbed. If anything, he feels sharper for it, invigorated, like the clarifying ache of hunger in his belly. 

Hannibal’s mouth lifts at the corners as he packs a final container with a mixture of mashed pumpkin, broccoli, rice, egg yolks, and stray bits of offal he’d been stockpiling in his freezer. He’s somewhat wistful to let the last go towards this purpose, but it can’t be helped. There are seven mouths that need the nutrition, and a stubborn eighth that won’t open until it’s been reassured about the others. 

Laden with coolers, Hannibal steps out of his door. 

*****

As the elevator slides open, Hannibal is greeted by Will’s snarling face. 

He nearly loses his hold on the carefully-packed meals at the sight, blood rushing painfully in his ears (and… possibly elsewhere). Adjusting his grip with a fortifying inhale, he steps into the hall and takes in the context for this sudden gift. 

Will hasn’t spotted him yet. He’s being bodily intercepted in the doorway of his own room by none other than Dr. Hoffman – and oh, Hannibal wants to bite and to bless the imbecilic man for putting this look on Will’s face – and as Hannibal strides closer, he gathers the gist of their contention. 

“I just want to check on her.”

“Mr. Graham, for the umpteenth time, I cannot allow you out of your room in your condition, much less to ambush and infect another patient –”

“I told you, I’m not contagious–”

“And I told you, there is no way for you to know–”

“Hannibal said–”

“Your husband is not aware–”

“ He isn’t my–”

“Good morning,” Hannibal interjects, politely tapping Hoffman on the shoulder. The doctor startles, nearly tipping over as he spins around. Hannibal pays him little mind, occupied by the way Will’s blazing eyes snap to meet his own from over Hoffman’s shoulder. 

“There you are! Er… Hannibal, was it? Could you please get a grip on your young man?”

Hannibal reluctantly returns his attention to the red-faced doctor, leveling him with cool regard. 

“Will has a firm enough grip on himself without me, I assure you,” he begins, watching the way Will’s shoulders lower incrementally from the corner of his eye. “But I can see there’s been some kind of confusion. Do you mind telling me what’s going on, darling?”

He looks back over to catch the way Will’s shoulders swiftly return to his ears at the endearment. The profiler lifts his chin, eyes flashing. As blue as the heart of a flame, Hannibal thinks. The deadly center of combustion. 

“I just wanted to check on Georgia again,” Will grits out, pressing his voice into a flat, carefully-controlled monotone. “And I was trying to tell Dr. Hoffman that you – that we had, a… discussion, about how unlikely it is that I’m contagious. In your medical opinion.” 

Hannibal crinkles his eyes. 

“Oh, yes. And what an engaging discussion it was,” he adds innocently, just to savor the mouthwatering bloom of color across the ridge of Will’s cheeks. He turns his wide eyes to Hoffman. “I didn’t mean to infringe on your authority. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in practice, but Will’s symptoms seem in line with some kind of autoimmune disease. I assumed you suspected the same after your prudent request for a new MRI. Perhaps,” he tilts his head, voice deferential, “Will might be allowed to see Ms. Madchen after we hear his new results?”

Hoffman deflates, reminding Hannibal of a ruffled rooster backing down from a fight. He recalls his thoughts from the previous evening about skinning, but he doesn’t particularly like cooking with rooster – the flesh is too often stringy and dry, and simply not worth the effort. And all that insufferable noise…

“Well, that remains to be seen,” the flustered man grouses, gaze shifting between Will and Hannibal like he can’t quite decide who is in alliance with who. He settles back on Hannibal, frown tugging down his poorly-groomed mustache. “And speaking of, Mr. Graham here refused to begin his MRI until you showed up. A bit dependent, if you ask me.” 

He narrows his eyes meaningfully at Hannibal. Hannibal smiles thinly back, studiously running through a recipe for Coq Au Vin in his mind. There are ways to tenderize inferior meat.

“You’ll forgive me. I can be clingy,” he says aloud, stepping forward and crowding Hoffman out of the doorway as a result. His arm tingles where he brushes against Will’s side, noting the way the other wordlessly holds his ground beside him. He raises one of the coolers in his hands. 

“We’re going to have breakfast now. If you could please return in an hour for the MRI,” he announces pleasantly, and closes the door in Hoffman’s face. 

*****

Will sits down at the window table with a wince that doesn’t quite get disguised as settling into the chair. As Hannibal finishes plating their food, he discreetly steals a glance over the man across from him, scanning for any progression in his signs and symptoms. Will doesn’t look up, gaze fixed on the steaming mug in his hands, but his mouth crooks up on one side. 

“I’m alright.”

He is not, but somehow Hannibal has been caught. He averts his eyes, casting about for a compelling dissimulation.

“Your pack has been fed,” he settles on, and is rewarded by the full attention of Will’s gaze as he quickly lifts his face up to look at Hannibal. 

“Yeah? I mean, I kinda remember Alana saying she would, but everything’s blurry–”

“She did yesterday. I did this morning, after I took them on a brief walk around your property. I took the liberty of mixing some leftovers together after a cursory search on canine dietary requirements.”

Will’s eyes widen, the other side of his mouth lifting into a broad and dizzyingly rare smile. It jostles for first place in the category of must-be-seen-again, in furious competition with the snarl Hannibal witnessed earlier. 

“Really? Leftovers from you… You’ll ruin them for eating anything else.” 

Privately, Hannibal luxuriates in the warmth radiating from Will’s gaze, like a cat in a beam of sunlight. Will’s eyes glitter like he knows; he huffs a laugh. 

“Thank you.”

If Hannibal could purr, he would. He nods as nonchalantly as he can. 

“Of course. With your permission, I’d like to continue to look after them as you recover. They are… good. Company. Animals, I mean. They bear your touch.”

The strange words dismay Hannibal as they leave his own mouth. Will also looks surprised, and then – something else. The broad smile tempers into something secret, something fragile, something Hannibal does not know how to hold or even consider for the paralyzing fear of rending it. Then it’s gone, though the warmth in Will’s eyes lingers. 

He ducks his head, curls falling forward. 

“I’d appreciate that, Hannibal.”

Hannibal nods again. It is not nonchalant this time. He struggles to formulate anything else to say; Will saves him the trouble. 

“What is this?”

He’s slicing the end off of a blynai with his fork, sliding it through the elderberry sauce and cream. Hannibal watches its journey to Will’s mouth, the parting of his lips, the dart of his tongue over a silver tine. Will raises his eyebrows. 

“Hannibal?”

“Crepe,” Hannibal blurts – blurts, an impossible indignity of a verb – and Will’s brows raise a few millimeters higher. The younger man tilts his head, then looks back down at his plate. 

“I don’t think it is,” he responds, slicing off another segment, motions slow and thoughtful. He darts a glance up at Hannibal. The blue flame has quieted to a curious, crackling ember. “Tell me the real name.”

God in heaven, that Hannibal Lecter should ever have difficulty explaining a meal.  

With Spartan discipline, he clears his throat. “It depends on the region you’re eating them in, but they’re known variously as blynai, lietiniai, or sklindžiai; or, easier on the American tongue, simply ‘blini’. They can be sweet or savory, with ingredients as varied as the locale.” 

“I see. What’s in these?”

“Buckwheat and grated apple in the batter, spiced elderberry and clotted cream for the toppings.”

“They’re really good.”

Will hums, closing his eyes as he chews another bite. Hannibal seizes the excuse to distract himself with his own breakfast. A few moments pass in a silence that is at once tense and companionable, and Hannibal does not watch Will lick his fork clean. 

After a bracing swallow of coffee, he looks back over to Will, and tries to reinitiate conversation in more familiar territory. 

“Why did you try to visit Ms. Madchen this morning?” 

He is genuinely curious. It seems excessive, two days in a row. Surely Will was aware of the trouble that might’ve – that did – come of it, though Hannibal cares far less for Hoffman’s misguided opinions than for Will’s health at this critical juncture. 

Will’s brow furrows. He doesn’t immediately answer, and as the seconds stretch on, Hannibal begins to wonder if Will won’t respond at all, too wary of the recently shifted ground between them. The idea provokes a surprising stab of disappointment: less for the rudeness, than for the concealment. The mistrust. 

The irony of that doesn’t escape Hannibal. It does nothing for the sting. 

But Will does eventually open his mouth. “I was worried,” he murmurs slowly, eyes darting to and fro somewhere in the middle distance. It’s an expression Hannibal knows well. 

“Worried?”

“Yeah,” Will breathes, running a hand idly through his unkempt hair. “I don’t know how to articulate it in a way that makes sense, but something is… wrong. It doesn’t fit. She doesn’t fit, and lately every loose end seems to somehow get snipped off before I get the chance to unravel it. I was worried that maybe Georgia was gonna get snipped. Woke up feeling like I needed to check on her. And then… all of that,” he waves vaguely at the closed door with a frown, “so I didn’t get to. Though she must be okay. There’d be feds swarming the place, otherwise.”

The hairs on the back of Hannibal’s neck are standing up. The exhilaration in his veins is awful and addictive; he has never been more grateful to have a cheap comb sitting in the laundry room at home. He leans forward. 

“I’m quite sure she’s fine, though I believe you’ll have the chance to confirm it yourself later on. You said you woke up with this feeling – perhaps it was due to a fever dream?”

Will scrubs a hand over his face. “Maybe. There’s been this… this animal, lately, in my dreams. It was there last night, too. But it feels like I’m forgetting something. Missing something. There was a creek like the one in the backwoods, a voice, words I didn’t understand… pain in my cheek… it’s all scrambled–”

Riiiing. Ring-ring-ring. Riiiing.

Will is interrupted by the sound of his cell phone, its shriek dampened but distinctive under the pile of Will’s things in the corner of the hospital room. He starts to rise from his seat, but Hannibal stops him with a shake of his head, already striding towards the corner. As delicately as he can – which isn’t very – he sorts through Will’s sundries, finally withdrawing the offending device. 

It goes silent in Hannibal’s hold as he returns to the table, but Will’s face is already set with a bleak sort of prescience. He holds out a hand. 

“That was Jack’s ringtone.”

Hannibal hesitates, cursing internally. This is... Not the exact order of events he was hoping for. When he doesn’t hand over the phone, Will lifts a brow. 

“Will, I wonder if it might be wise to–”

There’s a knock at the door, and a chipper voice they both recognize as Nurse Cross calls through from the other side. 

“Mr. Graham-Lecter! I’m here to take you to your MRI.”

It is a testament to Will’s distraction that he doesn’t seem to register the muffled form of address, instead stretching his hand further forward. “C’mon, Hannibal. Let me just check it first.”

Hannibal eyes the stubborn set of Will’s jaw. He sighs through his nose. 

“Alright. But please, whatever message he left you, just respond with a text for now. Save the conversation for after your MRI. I’ll answer the door.”

He waits until Will nods, then relinquishes the phone into Will’s palm. As he turns towards the hall to let the nurse in, he hears Will’s sharp inhale from behind him. 

He looks over his shoulder. “What is it?” he asks, knowing intimately well what it is. 

“The Ripper. Or so Jack thinks. He’s on his way over,” Will murmurs with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, an impeccable vignette of worn affliction.

Never was there a Saint Sebastian more pious in his pain – and though the devil has cruelly timed his arrows, Hannibal intends no vital wounds: only insights, only gifts. Only the best of himself, delivered in violence and supplication. To what end, he’s become increasingly vague on, over the last few days; but he now knows with certainty that Will is the end. 

It’s enough to go on for now. For an alarmingly considerable span beyond now, if he’s being honest. 

Anticipation prickles up his spine. He opens the door. Nurse Cross smiles brightly up at him. 

“Good morning, Mr. Graham-Lecter!”

“Good morning,” Hannibal smiles back. His smile climbs at the sound of Will’s disbelieving groan – it registered, this time. Nurse Cross peers around Hannibal with a look of concern. 

“Mr. Graham-Lecter, are you alright? Do you need me to get the doctor?”

“Just call me Will, or it’s gonna get confusing,” Will mutters, glaring at Hannibal as he turns enough to see the sick man stand up from the table and shuffle forward. Repressing the urge to just pick him up and carry him down the hall, Hannibal instead holds out his hand, a mirror of Will’s earlier move. 

Will blinks at him. Hannibal is somehow possessed to wiggle his fingers. 

“Your phone, darling. You can’t take it with you into the scanner, it’ll interfere with the magnetic field.”

A muscle in Will’s jaw ticks as he hands it over with slightly more force than necessary. Hannibal wants to soothe it to stillness with his fingers, or perhaps his tongue. He contents himself with smiling sweetly at Will. 

“Thank you. Go on – I’ll wait for you here, and explain things to Jack if he shows up before you’re back. Make sure to request copies of the scans. Do take care of him,” he directs this last to the nurse, who veritably melts into a puddle on the floor.

“I will! I promise I will! Let’s go, Mr.– um, Mr. Will. We’ll be back before you know it!” 

She bustles Will out of the room. Pocketing the cell phone, Hannibal waves cheerfully at Will’s retreating scowl. 

*****

“I need you to run that by me again, Dr. Lecter. You’re detaining an agent from the field – not based on a psych eval – but on the sudden suspicion of a brain disease? Just because, what, a neurologist who lies once, lies twice?”

Jack Crawford is standing in Will’s hospital room, his already-large figure seeming to expand to fill the corners of the space. Beyond moving his mouth to speak, he is remarkably still, but the air around him vibrates with a subaudible charge. Not for nothing is Hannibal’s namesake – he knows an impatient general when he sees one. 

He remains seated at the cleared window table, body oriented toward the imposing man. “I’m saying, Jack, that even you must admit Will’s behavior has been strange. It warrants further investigation.”

“Strange! Imagine that,” Jack laughs, booming and humorless. “Being strange is exactly why I wanted him, why I needed him, out and on the scene two hours ago. And as I recall, Donald Sutcliffe came at your recommendation. The business with Georgia Madchen aside, what possible reason would he have to tamper with the one-off scan of a federal profiler? Doing this over is a waste of time.”

“I’m afraid I cannot speak to his motivations; only that Donald was not the friend I thought him to be, in the end, and that it does little harm to double-check the foundations of the man upon whom the whole of the BAU apparently rests.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “I didn’t realize you joined HR, Dr. Lecter. Sanctimony doesn’t suit you.”

“And prolonged suffering doesn’t suit Will Graham.”

“His imagination is built for suffering. You know that; we all know that. Will knows it, too. He’d tell me if something was wrong.”

“Something is wrong, Jack.”

“Maybe for someone else. But I’m telling you, Lecter, this is normal. For Will, it’s normal.”

“Pain is not normal because someone can bear it.”

They each go silent. Hannibal watches a specter of grief pass over Jack’s features, and he knows it is not Will’s face in his mind’s eye. Hannibal exhales slowly. 

“...Forgive me, Jack. You may be right. Perhaps what ails Will is purely psychological, and it is my own treatment that is lacking, rather than any medical oversight. But I would ask you, as a friend, to humor my concern for just a little longer. Your killers are not going anywhere; let your bloodhound rest another day.”

Not yours, Hannibal swallows down. Not yours to leash, not yours to lead, not yours to harm or heal. Not your hunter; not your hound. Not yours, not yours, not yours. 

He keeps the words behind his teeth. Jack sighs. The thrumming in the room dissipates. 

“Alright. I did ask you to keep an eye on him. Maybe you’re picking up on something I can’t,” his mouth is thin, but he reaches into the case tucked under his arm and pulls out a folder. “I won’t ask him to come to the scene, but I want him to look at the photos. Tell him to call me afterwards. Tomorrow, if he has to,” he waves a hand preemptively, setting the folder on the table in front of Hannibal with a definitive thwack, “but just have him call me.”

Hannibal nods. “I will.”

In this, at least, they are aligned – Hannibal also wants Will to see. 

*****

Chapter Text

“Encephalitis.”

Will’s voice is controlled, almost toneless, but the word drips like venom from his tongue. He’s returned to his hospital room alone, and as he stands in the doorway, clearly fighting not to list against the side, Hannibal stands. 

“...Will.” 

He means to follow it up with something – reassurance, propitiation – but Will halts him with a sharp jerk of his chin.

“Measure your words carefully, Dr. Lecter. Not in the mood for platitudes.”

There is some dark, sinuous thing roiling in Will’s eyes, but the snarl has not returned to his lips; his face is rigid and still. Hannibal watches in silence as Will’s focus flicks over to the thick manilla file on the table. He can almost hear the protesting creak of his jaw. 

“Jack came by?”

Hannibal nods, but still does not speak, does not move. He remains on his feet, eyes riveted to Will’s as the sick man steps fully into the room, quietly closing the door without turning his back. They stand across the empty floor from each other, and Hannibal cannot help but draw comparisons: where Jack’s presence distended, Will’s compresses, folding the air in the room into exponential halves until it all but disappears. It is no wonder – though it is an appalling lack of taste and judgment – that others find the man disquieting, with or without his abilities. 

Years of silvertongued instinct compel Hannibal to fill the emptiness with a myriad of deflections, to speak and weave and sew a story as smooth as a row of sutures. But from a place even deeper in his gut, he knows. Sins of omission; bark not until bidden. 

He waits obediently in Will’s vacuum. 

He does not know how much time passes, but eventually, Will’s voice returns to his ears and oxygen returns to his lungs. 

“I’m not angry with you.”

Will breaks eye contact, dragging his IV stand along to slump into the empty chair across from the folder. He reaches for it listlessly. “Not any more angry, anyways. You didn’t tell me the diagnosis yesterday, but you told me the truth. I know I could’ve asked.”

Before his hand lands on the file, Hannibal finds himself responding. 

“But you are angrier.” 

Will’s hand halts in the air. Instead of looking back at Hannibal, he stares hard down at the table.

“What?”

Hannibal has to stop himself from catching hold of that hand. When did it become intolerable not to touch him? Intolerable not to reach, even when Will is not extending out to him in return?

“You are angrier, now that you know the shape of your sickness. If not at me for my deception, then at whom – Donald Sutcliffe?”

Will’s mouth thins, hand drifting down. “No.”

“Jack, perhaps? The pressures of the powers that be, pushing you to this point?”

“No.”

“The ineptitude of the hospital, then; the vapidity of Dr. Hoffman–”

“No, Hannibal. I’m not angry at anyone else.”

Hannibal blinks. The picture begins to shift. He lowers himself into the seat across from Will. 

“...Else?”

Will’s shoulders twitch forward, as if anticipating a blow to the back. His fingers curl on the scuffed laminate. 

This time Hannibal’s hand slides across the table without agency, trailing overtop Will’s. He refrains from actually clasping it, though it’s a near thing. Will’s knuckles are cold and rough against the undersides of his own fingers. 

“You are angry with yourself? For an illness you had no awareness or control over?”

Will’s fingers shift underneath his own, but he doesn’t withdraw. He doesn’t look up, either, still addressing the table. “I’m sure you and Sutcliffe figured out what kind it is.”

Hannibal cocks his head. “Autoimmune Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis?”

Will shrugs in halfhearted humor. “At least everyone agrees. So much for ineptitude.”

Hannibal shakes his head, brushing aside the flimsy tangent. The confusion he feels is foreign and unwelcome, especially in regard to the man before him, as if Will is intentionally skipping tracks into a groove Hannibal can’t turn his wheels into. 

“It bothers you, that… it isn’t another variety of encephalitis.” 

“Stupid, isn’t it.”

Will laughs self-deprecatingly, slouching down further in the chair so he can rest his head against the back. In spite of the movement, Will is careful to leave his hand where it is; Hannibal takes it as enough of an encouragement to tentatively curl his fingers. 

“I’ve been told to measure my words carefully, Will. I would not take that advice from someone with something stupid to say.”

Will crooks a brow. “Would you take the advice at all?”

“From very few; perhaps only one. Will he grant me the same courtesy?”

“To measure my words?”

“To share any amount of them.”

Will looks up, at that. His mouth slants in wary amusement. 

“How very urbane, Dr. Lecter. Can’t believe it took me so long to see through your charms.”

“I am not trying to be charming.”

Will rolls his eyes. “It’d be insane to keep trusting you.”

“The predicament is mutual, I assure you – but here I am anyhow.”

Will laughs; truly laughs, the self-effacement bleeding away. As his breath evens, he rotates his hand in Hannibal’s, loosely overlapping their fingers and palms. Hannibal’s focus is tested by how oddly satisfying it is to feel Will’s clammy skin immediately start to warm against his own, how dangerously gratified he feels to know that the heat of his own blood spreads to Will’s without either having to spill it, commingling, circulating. 

Will’s subdued voice calls Hannibal back into the present.  

“...Brain inflammation can originate from a variety of places.”

Hannibal meets Will’s eyes, pleased by the implicit allowance Will is making. “It can.”

“I wouldn’t have been surprised if it started as bacterial or viral. I spend a lot of time outdoors – whenever I’m not working, really. In the water, around insects and parasites, steeping in microbial soup. Can’t tell you how many tick bites I’ve gotten,” Will snorts, “and obviously, not every stray is healthy when I find them. Not usually too clean, either.”

Hannibal quietly compartmentalizes the mix of admiration and horror he feels at Will’s flippant descriptions. He is no stranger to the more grisly realities nature has to offer, but he has a creeping suspicion Will does not flirt with these atrocities through the sensible barrier of a plasticine suit. 

He nods anyway. “An accomplished outdoorsman; an entomologist, too. I’ve read your monograph.”

Will’s eyebrows shoot up. “When– where did you– Why? What do dermestid maturation cycles have to do with psychology?”

The corners of Hannibal’s eyes curve. Will knows it for the secret smile that it is. “Am I not allowed to read for pleasure?”

For some reason, a slight haze of color rises in Will’s skin. His hand is now warm enough to match Hannibal’s, a fact both relieving and disappointing. “It’s not exactly coffee table material,” he mutters. “Anyways, the point is, it wouldn’t have been unthinkable for me to pick up something. I even took the dogs to get a parasite panel done when my symptoms started getting worse.”

Hannibal stiffens slightly. This revelation sits more uncomfortably than the rest; he hadn’t ever thought of Will’s pack playing any part in this. 

But of course Will had. 

“Did you suspect it, then?”

Will shakes his head. “I didn’t suspect anything in particular. I just wanted to rule out interspecies transmissibles. It’s rare, but infections can go both ways, and I didn’t… I couldn’t stand the idea that I might be giving them something. That I wasn’t safe for them to be around. And as it turns out, I wasn’t, and the reason’s even worse, because it wasn’t – it’s not –”

His teeth clack together with a snap as he abruptly closes his mouth. Hannibal lightly strokes a fingertip against Will’s inner wrist, listening to the measured breath the man takes through his nose before starting again. 

“...I’m glad I wasn’t just losing it; and even if it was in your own sweet time, I’m glad you told me. But the fact remains that this didn’t come from outside. It’s my own immune system, designed to identify aberrant or invading cells for extermination, and it decided that this whole thing,” he gestures at his head with both hands, extracting from Hannibal’s in the process, “is corrupted enough – not-self enough – to warrant destruction. And isn’t that just poetic? An entire life of pulling my melting edges out of the sticky margins of everyone else’s, and finally my body agrees: whatever I was, I’m not anymore. Diluted into a collection of a million strangers’ pieces that can no longer exist cohesively… just a pulsing mass of antigens, antibodies, inflammation.”

The volume of Will’s voice rises and falls as he speaks, like a cresting wave. By the time he finishes it’s receded to just above a whisper. He’s not looking at Hannibal, nor at the table; he’s staring, glassy-eyed, at his hands balled into fists on his knees. 

Hannibal’s own hand feels very, very empty, in contrast to his head and chest. There is a deluge pouring through each of the latter, a flood of impressions, reactions, questions and declarations to tell him – this man, this martyr, this envy of auguries – but rising to the surface, glimmering above the rest, is… 

Awe.

Will has given him a rare gift; and oh, Hannibal wants it. He takes a moment to gather himself, straightening in his seat. 

“Will.”

Hannibal’s voice seems to jostle him. Will flinches, then screws his eyes shut. “Forget it, Hannibal. I’m just tired, it’s not–”

“I had a sister when I was young.”

Will opens his eyes; refracting from brown to blue is the grief of the past tense. Hannibal nods in implicit confirmation. 

“...I will tell you more about her, someday. For this story, all that is important is that we were often sent outside together. Our family was wealthy, but our wealth was in the land, not in money – not back then. The estate was remote, and we had no means to import things of necessity should lean times befall. And winter is always lean,” Hannibal pauses, carefully quelling the chill that threatens to lance through his bones at the thought of a winter not long after, “so we always tried to be prepared.”

Will slowly leans forward, uncurling his fists and returning one hand to the table. He doesn’t rejoin them, but he presses the outer edge of his hand against Hannibal’s own.

“We’d be sent out on many kinds of errands – gathering kindling, setting snares, searching out the wild stands of green and growing herbs – stockpiling in what small ways two children can. Even if they were actions for survival, there was a kind of wonder to it. Mischa made everything an adventure. She belonged out there, little laumė. A fairy.” 

Hannibal feels the way his smile cracks at the edges. He goes to catch it, to mend it, but Will’s eyes are faster. They dart down to his mouth and back up to his eyes, and fasten there with a gravity that steals Hannibal’s breath. The receptive focus of Will’s gaze, vast and yawning, presses down on Hannibal like the sky on Atlas’ shoulders. 

It comforts Hannibal down to his deep tissue. He draws in a steadied inhale. 

“She would run off from me, sometimes. I was older and stronger, but not as nimble, not as quiet. I’d scold her terribly each time. There are many dangers to be had in the forest, as you well know – other people by far the worst of them. But there was one particular year where a band of feral dogs took up in the countryside.”

Will’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t interrupt, nodding at Hannibal to continue. 

“...A pack of wolves had already staked their claim in our part of the forest. We saw them sometimes, Mischa and I, always from a far distance. They were very beautiful,” Hannibal exhales, “and they invoked no fear. They never bothered us, and we never bothered them. We were not so lucky when the dogs came.”

Will’s breath hitches. Hannibal closes his eyes. 

“I heard the snarling before I found her. Growling, barking, the sound of tearing fur and flesh. I chased the noise, fearing the worst – but Mischa was alright. Panic-stricken, but whole, clinging to the trunk of a tree she’d climbed to escape the conflict below. The two groups had found each other, and the encounter was a sea of crimson. There were more surviving wolves than dogs, but it didn’t matter. Each pack was frenzied in a way that choked the very air. Neither side was fighting to win anymore, or even to survive; they were fighting to spread death. As I ran into the clearing, momentarily overwhelmed with the relief of finding my sister alive, she screamed for me to run, to climb, to get away – and as all those frothing, dripping mouths turned to face me, I knew I was going to be torn apart.”

Imprinted on the backs of Hannibal’s eyelids is every detail of the moment in crystalline relief, as if he is standing in the still frame of it: his sister’s round, horrified face between green needles, the rasping, rattling breaths of the dying, the scent of blood and pine and musk heavy in the back of his throat. 

A hand grasps his, and there Will is beside him. They stand together in the frozen clearing. Here in this memory, Hannibal is a boy – he has to look up at Will as he speaks. 

“What happened?”

Hannibal points across the clearing with a small hand.

“Laukinis padaras,” he whispers, and they both watch as a shadow darkens and takes shape from the murky space between trees, black on black. It flows into the clearing like living ink, long and lean and undeniably canine, and yet…

“Was it… a wolfhound? It seems too big,” Will breathes, and it’s true – Hannibal has searched many times in the decades since, through obscure kennel club registries and natural histories alike, and the closest he has come is what Will has named. He offers no response as it pads into the center of the static violence. Its eyes are a pale gold, sweeping over every creature present with a chilling awareness, before finally coming to rest on Hannibal. It slowly lifts its head; nothing stirs. 

And then it howls.

It starts as something felt before it is heard, a hum in Hannibal’s ribcage. As the sound grows and reverberates, the clearing begins to animate again in flinches and starts, animal alarm pressing bloodied bellies to the ground. Wolves and dogs alike recede in every direction, swift and silent, until nothing is left but cooling carcasses and two terrified children. 

The howling stops. The wolfhound lowers its head, sniffing at the ground. Will squeezes Hannibal’s hand as it huffs a breath, turns in a half circle, and walks silently into the woods in a new direction, fading as easily as it had appeared. 

“It saved you.”

Hannibal opens his eyes. The smell of antiseptic and faint sickness wipes away the end of the memory. Will is across the table and their gazes are at a level height, but their hands are still joined. Hannibal has a moment of incongruous surprise to find that Will’s hand is slightly smaller in his own. 

“Perhaps. Or perhaps we were all merely in its path. Either way, I was granted a little more time.”

With Mischa, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t have to. 

Hannibal blinks slowly, studying their wrapped fingers. He had not expected to become quite so immersed; he had not expected Will to follow. But there was a conclusion he had set out to make. He clears his throat. 

“Forgive me for digressing. Your perspective on your illness reminded me of that day.”

Will tilts his head in confusion, some of the wariness trickling back into his eyes. “It did?”

“Yes. The analogy you draw between mind and matter is a striking one; I hadn’t considered how your encephalitis and your empathy in some sense mirror one another. But I disagree on the point of… dilution, as you put it. I don’t think your immune system believes you to be adulterated beyond saving – I don’t think you believe so, either. You occupy the animal of your body too profoundly to be truly lost, even when you’d like to be.” 

Will’s gaze darkens. 

“What makes you so confident?”

Hannibal smiles as openly as he dares.

“You walk among tamed creatures that call for you to protect them from the wild things, to hunt the hunters – and you do, fearing all the while that it will erode the sacred lines of domestication separating pack from prey; that it will pollute your porous nature. But, Will, Will Graham,” he lifts their hands, pressing his mouth to the back of Will’s, brushing his lips along the tendons there.

“I’m beginning to realize that you are not a wolf, and you are not a hound. Your identity is not disfigured by your ability to understand them both – your identity is the understanding of them both. You are entirely singular, and you cannot be diluted.”

Hannibal feels the tremor that goes through Will’s fingers. He kisses his knuckles, once, twice, then forces himself to drop their hands back to the table. Neither lets go. 

“... am I entirely singular?”

Will’s voice is tremulous. It sends a foreign ache through Hannibal’s heart.

“I’m afraid so,” he answers honestly, squeezing Will’s hand. “But you are not, and will never be, alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am certain.”

He means to imbue the words with comfort, but they issue forth from his chest in a tone much more akin to menace. It is not a gentle reassurance – it is a promise, sharp-edged and irrevocable. Frightening, even to Hannibal’s own ears.

Strangely, Will smiles. Then sniffs rather wetly, shaking his head with a chuckle. 

“Okay, it worked,” he huffs after a moment, blinking just slightly too hard as he makes an obvious attempt at levity, “you cheered me up with your fucked-up dog story.” 

“I know my audience,” Hannibal quips back, enjoying the way Will’s eyes glitter. The other man opens his mouth, but before he can voice a response, a shrill, familiar ring shrieks insistently from Hannibal’s pocket. Will grimaces as Hannibal releases his hand to withdraw Will’s battered cellphone. 

“That’ll be Jack, again. I’m shocked you managed to keep him from dragging me out of the scanner. Better check the file out before he changes his mind – the button’s on the upper right-hand side,” Will adds, watching with unconcealed amusement as Hannibal rotates the device ineffectually in his hands.  

Hannibal purses his lips as he finally silences the obtrusive noise. “I told him to let you rest for today.”

Will’s brows raise. “On what grounds? Did you tell him what I have?”

“Not in any precise terms. I thought it best to protect your privacy until you decide to tell him yourself.”

Will levels him with a dead-eyed stare. “I think you’ve protected my privacy a little too well, on this account. The code’s 70119; go ahead and text him the diagnosis. Say I’m looking at things while I’m waiting to get assigned a new room and specialist.”

Hannibal blinks at Will as he reaches again for the folder, sliding it towards himself. 

“You’re being moved?”

“Yep. Neuro-ICU. The scans freaked Hoffman out, spooked him into realizing he can’t put out the fire by himself. He went off to pass the buck and said he’d be back within the hour. So here we go,” Will breathes, flipping the file open to the first page of the written debrief. 

Hannibal carefully maintains his own breathing as he watches Will’s fingers brush idly along the colored edges of the photos hidden beneath the report. He looks back down at Will’s phone in his hand. His thumb hovers over the numbers of the keypad. 

“You trust me to convey your personal business?”

“You’re up to the neck in my personal business,” Will murmurs, voice taking on a blurred, trailing quality as he turns the page. 

There’s little argument for that.

*****

As soon as Hannibal sends the first text on Will’s behalf, Jack calls a third time. Will doesn’t even twitch, body eerily still as his eyes move over the last written page, but Hannibal finds the continuous interruptions intolerable. 

He steps out into the hall, quietly closing the door as he answers. 

“Hello, Jack. A return text would suffice.”

“Are you Will’s secretary now?”

“No more than Will is a pet at your beck and call,” Hannibal responds, keeping his voice soft and even. Jack heaves an exasperated sigh on the other end of the line. 

“You keep surprising me today, Dr. Lecter. If I didn’t know better, I’d be starting to revise my assumptions about the nature of your doctor-patient relationship with my profiler. But I do know better, don’t I?”

Hannibal spares a passing moment of respect for Jack’s particular brand of inference. His swings are heavy-handed, but he has good aim. 

“The only place Will is a patient of right now is this hospital,” Hannibal sidesteps, “where he will have to remain for the time being. As I’m sure you’ve read in my text, he’s just been confirmed with acutely-progressed encephalitis. Treatment will need to be rigorous.”

“That’s actually why I’m calling,” Jack gruffs. He pauses awkwardly, lapsing into a moment of low static. Hannibal briefly checks the screen to make sure they haven’t been disconnected. 

“...Is he really that sick?”

His voice holds the rigid tone of a man trained never to expose his hesitation. Hannibal feels the familiar urge to slide a scalpel beneath the facade and lever it up, like peeling brittle bark from hardwood. But the appeal has grown increasingly dull, as of late – especially in comparison to what lurks in the stillness of the hospital room behind him. 

“Yes, he is.”

“How long will treatment take?”

“It remains to be seen how well Will’s system responds. If we’re lucky, at least a week of in-patient, and some months beyond of out-patient.”

Another stretch of silence. 

“I should take him off the Ripper case.”

It’s not phrased like a question, but it lacks the resolution of a statement. Jack has been too hungry for too long. Hannibal keeps the smile out of his voice. 

“That is for the two of you to decide. If nothing else I would suggest requesting that Dr. Bloom fill in for his classes at Quantico. But Will is looking at the file as we speak – and as promised, he will call you afterwards.”

“...If his therapist ever gives him access to his phone.”

“I’m a psychiatrist,” Hannibal hums, and hangs up. 

There’s a clatter from Will’s closed room.

*****

Chapter Text

Hannibal opens the door to find Will once again on the floor. He’s managed to rip the IV out of his wrist this time, and the sight of Will’s blood dripping on the linoleum whites coherent thought from Hannibal’s mind, all higher reasoning subsumed by alarm and desire and corrosive, corrosive appetence. 

He moves toward him, compulsive and fast, but is halted in his steps by Will’s choked command. 

“Stop.”

He does, freezing in place. Will’s eyes are wild and wide, racing around Hannibal’s face and curiously, around the space just above his head, as if darting between two objects there. His face and neck are coated in a sheen of sweat. As he clenches and unclenches his fists, the pressure of the motion speeds the trickle of blood running down his wrist and hand. 

“Will,” Hannibal says softly, furrowing his brow. “Did you have another seizure? Are you with me?”

He moves as if to step forward, but Will flinches back, frenetically shaking his head.

“Wait,” he gasps out, lowering his gaze from whatever he’s staring at above Hannibal, searching out and finding Hannibal’s eyes. The wildness there settles slightly as he gulps in breath. Hannibal doesn’t break eye contact as Will stares at him, and he is reminded, again, of the hound-not-hound, the wolf-not-wolf. 

Somehow he knows that Will is reminded, too. His breathing slowly evens while his gaze abruptly sharpens, driving the point of it as deeply into Hannibal as he can ever recall experiencing, metaphorically or otherwise. He’s being pierced through, as surely as if Will were burying a knife in his belly – though he still doesn’t understand why. 

He doesn’t look away. 

“Your story was true,” Will whispers, low and deadly. Hannibal nods. 

Will bares his teeth. “It was genuinely just a reaction to what I said? About the encephalitis?”

Hannibal nods again. Will narrows his eyes. 

“And you meant it, at… at the end. About singularity, and certainty.”

“Yes,” Hannibal says, skewered and waiting. Will heaves another shaky breath, but his eyes remain a thing of steel. 

“This isn’t just attraction.”

The bafflement Hannibal feels is beyond compare, but he still manages a twinge of indignance. He takes a moment to try and parse on whose behalf – did Will really think him so shallow? Or, conversely, did Will really believe himself so undesirable, so unfitting for anything more than surface-skimming interest?

“No,” he answers simply, voice rough. Slowly, slowly, Will’s shoulders lower. 

“Alright,” he murmurs, and though he is still looking at Hannibal, it seems as if he is talking to himself. “...Alright.”

Whatever strange spell that held Will seems to be broken on that second utterance, and he closes his eyes, sheathing the blade of his gaze in the process. 

Hannibal takes an uncertain step forward, eyeing the still-growing pool of red on the ground. 

“Will, may I tend to your injury…?”

“My– oh.” Will glances down at his wrist as if just registering the wound. He wrinkles his nose. “I guess.” 

Hannibal looks around the room, swiftly and efficiently opening drawers and cabinets until he locates what he’s searching for. He puts on gloves, then brings the gauze and medical webbing over to kneel in front of Will, who struggles up to a sitting position. He reaches forward cautiously. Will obediently holds out his arm, showing none of the trepidation of moments before. In fact, his expression seems suddenly muted, if significantly more tired than when Hannibal left the room. 

Hannibal examines the injury with gentle fingers – neatly tucking away the impulse to bow his head and mouth it clean – then checks the bloody cannula dangling loosely from the IV bag. He relaxes slightly. 

“You must have wrenched this out with some force. It tore from the vein at an unfortunate angle, but did not break off,” he states, pressing the gauze firmly to Will’s forearm as he wraps it. “Though I’m displeased that I wasn’t here to catch you this time.” 

Will’s laugh is shaky. “If I were less of a mess, you wouldn’t have to be.”

“You are not a mess,” Hannibal responds, folding in the end of the webbing and shucking off his gloves, “but I am concerned. Watch this to make sure it doesn’t bleed through; if it does, you’ll need stitches. Did you lose time?”

Will wipes some of the blood from his hand on his hospital gown with a moue of distaste. “Something like that, yeah.”

Hannibal glances up at the table where the file still lays open, lurid photos splayed across the surface. Suspicion curls in his gut as he surreptitiously glances over which of the familiar images lays on top, turning Will’s strange questions over in his mind. 

“Was it in reaction to the crime scene photos?”

When Will doesn’t immediately respond, he looks back to find exhausted blue tracing over his face. As their eyes meet, Will sighs, but doesn’t avert his gaze. 

“It wasn’t the photos.”

It’s cryptic, but Hannibal detects no lie in the words, nor in the stormcloud expanse of Will’s eyes. With a prick of coupled disappointment and relief, he nods, affecting a polite curiosity that is far more casual than he feels. “I see. Did you glean any insights for Jack?”

He is watching Will carefully this time, but nothing about his expression noticeably changes, shrouded as it is by pain. He shrugs a shoulder. 

“A bit. Though I don’t think I have anything… definitive to share. Not right now,” he starts to shake his head, then immediately stops, wincing. Hannibal frowns. 

“Does your head hurt?”

Will laughs hoarsely. “It hasn’t really stopped hurting, not for months. Falling out of chairs doesn’t help things.”

“Can you remember if you hit it on the floor?”

Hannibal reaches for Will’s head, sliding his fingers into the curls and carefully splaying his fingers, checking for any bumps and inadvertently tugging on his hair. Will shudders, and Hannibal watches with rapidly piqued interest as his neck goes lax, seemingly beyond control. For a moment, his head tips further into Hannibal’s hand, throat arched, and they both look at each other in surprise. 

Will quickly pulls his head forward, ducking it enough to slide away from Hannibal’s fingers. 

“Uh, I. Don’t think I hit it.”

Hannibal looks between his empty hand and Will’s downturned face, and makes a very precise and significant footnote in the catalog of his mind devoted to Will. A chronicle, really. An archive?

“I’m glad,” Hannibal responds, and if his throat feels suddenly dry, it’s of little matter. Will seems to shake himself, venturing a glance up at Hannibal. 

“...Could I have my phone? It’s not going to be that helpful, but I should call Jack. Give him something to keep busy.” 

Something about Will’s sarcasm seems vaguely disjointed, but Hannibal has a few too many trains of thought running in parallel to fixate on it. He holds out Will’s phone, hesitating as Will accepts it. 

“Would you like me to leave the room? I would rather stay,” he glances pointedly at Will’s injured wrist, “but I understand if you’d prefer to speak with Jack alone.”

Will’s mouth twists as he unlocks his phone. “Don’t give me that. You’d be listening at the door, either way.”

Hannibal just manages to cover his consternation. He colors his tone with a wounded shade. “Do you really think so little of me?”

Will slides his eyes over to Hannibal’s, unimpressed. “Would you, or wouldn’t you?”

Hannibal purses his lips. Will raises an eyebrow. 

“Well?”

“...I do find myself curious,” Hannibal settles on. Will hums, looking back down at his screen as he pulls up Jack’s contact. 

“So stay put.”

The imperative sets Hannibal at ease and on edge, and he complies with mounting guardedness. The phone rings once before Jack picks up. Hannibal can hear the baritone cadence of his voice, though he can’t distinguish any words. He watches the way Will’s expression hardens into something professionally distant. 

“Yes, I saw. No, I… no,” Will pauses, clenching his jaw as he allows Jack to finish an apparent interruption, “I’ve never been to Luray Caverns, but I’m familiar with the garden. It’s the largest hedge maze in the mid-Atlantic: a fitting stage.”

Will rubs the side of his neck as he listens to another barrage of indistinguishable words. “I don’t think so. You can try running dental records, but it’s not going to ID the rest of the body. They’re two different victims, and while the distinction is important, the identities are not; that’s why the fingerprints are burned off.”

Hannibal pricks up his ears, at that, looking over Will’s face in narrowly-restrained captivation. Will is staring at the wall, mouth set stubbornly. 

“I know it’s unusual for the Ripper, but I’m telling you, the victims are incidental this time – there won’t be any connections or context, none of his usual little in-jokes. They’re just the medium, not the story itself. Are you familiar with the myth of Ariadne?”

Hannibal’s heart stutters. His breathing, thankfully, does not. He doesn’t know if Will is paying it peripheral attention, but he cannot afford to attract any at this moment. 

“Not a witch, a Cretan princess. She betrayed her kingdom by giving Theseus a magic thread that led him through the labyrinth to slay the minotaur. Afterwards, he was supposed to marry her, take her away with him. But he left her stranded on an island.”

More of Jack’s incoherent voice; Will sighs through his nose. “It’s not a one-to-one recreation, Jack. It wouldn’t be fun that way, wouldn’t be a puzzle. But the nuances are all there. Our decapitated John Doe is sat in the middle of a maze, fingers draped with butcher’s twine – there’s the labyrinth, there’s the thread, there’s the manlike monster without a human head. By the shape of it, he’s playing cat’s cradle, which can be played alone or in pairs. But it’s an invitation for the latter, because what’s strung on the twine? Another man’s teeth.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure they’re not his own. It’s the whole point of it: a game for two, folie a deux, bite or be bitten. A tease, a warning, and a proposition all in one. Am I the beauty, or am I the beast? Will you stake tooth and claw on the thread to find me?”

It requires all of Hannibal’s wiles to contain his expansive delight. It was no small thing, procuring the props and locating the backdrop on so short of notice. But the surprising turn of his recent interactions with Will… it was too great an inspiration to delay. 

It had taken a delicate touch to ensure the printless fingers set into rigor mortis in the correct position to arrange the twine (butcher’s twine, Will correctly surmised) into the starting figure of the game. He’d almost felt wistful about incorporating so little of the second body into the display; but in addition to layering his meanings, he was intent on upping the challenge, beguiling the investigation. Most would assume the teeth belonged to the missing head: not Will. He’d picked up on nearly everything – through photographic distance and feverish haze alike – and Hannibal is enchanted. 

But he can’t spin too far into distraction, for Jack has replied with something that makes Will pause. His mouth pinches in the way that it does when he’s weighing his words before speaking them; his fingers flex around the phone. 

“I don’t know who it’s for. Maybe it’s a message in a bottle for another killer, like Budge’s serenade; hell, maybe it’s for you, Jack. You have to admit the Ripper’s been a lot more communicative recently. He dangled Miriam in front of you, and he indirectly helped us find Gideon. His M.O. has been all over the place in the last few months. Maybe he just wants to play.” 

Will roughly scrubs a hand down his face, torso lurching slightly. Hannibal breaks through his spellbound rapture enough to realize that they are both still sat on the cold floor, next to the drying puddle of Will’s blood. He slides closer to the swaying man, putting a steadying hand on his elbow. Will’s eyes flicker fleetingly to his. 

Closer to the phone, Hannibal can hear the way Jack’s tone upturns on a new question. Will’s gaze goes very briefly unfocused. Hannibal thinks he sees the pinch of his mouth again, but it flattens into a firm line before he can be sure.

“…No. There’s nothing else.”

A pause on the other end, and then Jack responds. Short, dismissive. Will’s shoulders slump as some of the tension leaves them; it seems the conversation is coming to an end. 

“Sure. Yes, I’ll call again if I think of anything to add. Mmhm, bye.”

Will hits the end button, then drops the phone into his lap with a sigh. He rubs at his eyes, and Hannibal sees that his fingers are shaking. 

The thrill of intrigued euphoria filling Hannibal’s thoughts tempers somewhat with concern, and the tiniest sliver of remorse. He brushes the latter away – the Ripper may have been overeager, but Hannibal can help absorb the impact from the other end. 

He slides his hand from Will’s elbow across his slouched back and settles it loosely at his waist, inviting some of his weight as he tests the waters. “I believe you said you wouldn’t be that helpful. That sounded exceptionally constructive, to me.”

Will looks up at him, eyebrows raised in an odd expression; then he snorts, closing his eyes. “...It really wasn’t. I described the tableau, translated the message, but there isn’t anywhere further to go. It’s like opening unaddressed mail. Jack will realize that sooner or later, too. It’s not going to keep him satisfied for long.”

Hannibal can’t help himself – he probes a little further. “Is it truly unaddressed?”

Will laughs under his breath, accepting the implicit invitation of Hannibal’s arm. He tips against Hannibal’s side, gingerly resting his head on his shoulder. “The Ripper had better hope otherwise; it’s an audacious message to broadcast when you’re not certain who will respond, and how.”

Before Hannibal can coax out more of Will’s thoughts and covertly pull him closer, he hears footsteps down the hall, loud through the open doorway. He’d left it ajar in his rush to get to Will. 

“Alright, Mr. Graham, we’ve discussed the next steps in light of your scans, and I’ve brought somebody who can – Christ alive,” Hoffman swears loudly, gaping down at them in dismayed frustration. “Again?”

Nurse Cross leans around the doorframe, letting out a gasp of horror as her eyes fly to the blood on the ground. “Did he– that’s– oh my god, he’s hurt!”

Somewhere on his list of less pressing curiosities about the world, Hannibal wonders how either of these people maintain a medical profession. From what he can see of the harried look on Will’s face, he’s wondering something similar. 

But there is a third white-coated figure in the doorway, a middle-aged woman with a short bob and a square jaw. She looks over them coolly, taking in the dangling IV, the bandage on Will’s forearm, and the shed gloves on the floor next to Hannibal. She shrugs her shoulders. 

“It seems like they sorted it out. Are you the former doctor?”

She’s addressing Hannibal. He nods politely, taking care not to jostle Will’s head from his shoulder. To his disappointment, Will lifts his head, anyway, though he doesn’t completely withdraw, sides still pressed together. 

“Yes. Hannibal Lecter, MD. I used to be an E.R. surgeon. Will’s IV was dislodged, but the cannula is intact and the wound has not reopened in thirty minutes.”

The woman hums approvingly. “That’s good. Further complications are the last thing you need,” she continues, angling her body to address Will, who flinches in surprise; it seems he’d grown resigned to being talked about and not to by doctors. Hannibal likes her already. 

Will clears his throat, giving his own hesitant nod. Hannibal observes how cautiously he moves his head – Will has shuttered his expression, but the stiff tilt denotes considerable pain. 

The woman’s eyes soften as if she’s also noticed; she dons the reading glasses slung around her neck as she lifts a clipboard. “Mr. Graham, I’m–”

“–Graham-Lecter,” Nurse Cross interjects with a squeak, and Hannibal supposes not every medical professional needs to be overqualified to keep their career. The older woman peers over her glasses at Will. 

“What would you prefer?”

“Will is fine,” he responds in a strangled voice. Hannibal could almost name the exact number of degrees Will’s body warms next to his own. He gently presses his thumb into Will’s waist.

“Will, then. I’m Irene Natvig, the chief clinical rheumatologist for this hospital. I’m no expert in neurology, but I do know a thing or two about autoimmune disorders, and I will be joining your current practitioners,” she nods cordially at Nurse Cross and Hoffman, who look starstruck and sullen, respectively, “to help devise a sustainable treatment plan for your encephalitis. I assume you are aware that you will have to extend your hospital stay?”

Will’s smile is wan. “I kinda figured so, yes.”

“We should put him in a protective coma. He keeps wandering around and hurting himself,” Hoffman blurts, gesturing emphatically down at the floor. Hannibal and Will stiffen in unison, but Natvig shakes her head. 

“I don’t think that would be well-advised, not yet. The scans do show severe inflammation, but he seems to still have decent motor control, and more than decent alertness,” she smiles reassuringly at Will, “and induced comas tend to put a rather severe damper on those things.”

Will relaxes again, though Hannibal stays tense, fixing an unblinking gaze on Hoffman. His mind is made up: he will most certainly be getting a business card. 

Natvig continues smoothly. “We’ll assign you a new room on the neurology floor, where it will be easier to do more frequent scans to monitor your recovery. We’ll also need to do another blood draw to get a baseline sense of antibodies before we up your corticosteroids, add in immunoglobulin, and start you on an immunosuppressant – probably rituximab,” she pauses, looking at them both for input. Will blinks, then looks up at Hannibal, who dips his head. 

“That sounds sensible to me. How do you do with medications, Will? Will you be needing an antiemetic?”

Will swallows. “I’ve been pretty constantly nauseous already. I don’t think this will make it any worse, and I’d rather not add another thing to the list, if I can help it.”

Natvig nods, adding a note to the margins of her clipboard. “I’d have to agree. Your system will have its hands full, as is – but I’m confident you’ll make a full recovery,” she taps her pen smartly on the page. “It might take a little while, but it’s lucky that you came in sooner rather than later.”

Will glances askance at Hannibal. “Yes. Lucky,” he deadpans. Hannibal smiles serenely. 

“We’re in your care, Dr. Natvig. When does Will transfer floors?”

“First thing in the morning,” she answers with an apologetic shake of her head. “I’m sorry, it’s always a headache pushing the requests through. But I can set you up with an IV on the other arm, and adjust some of your dosages now that we know what we’re dealing with. It should help some.”

Will lets out a haggard laugh. 

“At this point? Any help would be great.”

*****

Hannibal coerces Will to eat part of another meal and a full glass of water before flipping back the covers of his bed. 

“It’s 4 pm,” Will protests, though he undermines his own resistance by staggering as he stands up from the table. Hannibal grasps him by the upper arm, taking hold of his newly-situated IV stand with the other hand. He ignores Will’s gripings as he drags both towards the bed, eyeing him sternly as he flops down. Will returns glare-for-glare, rolling onto his back to squint up at Hannibal. 

“Happy, Dr. Lecter?”

“Not quite,” he intones gravely, crossing his arms. “You’ve been demanding quite a lot of honesty from me in the last few days, and I am going to request the same from you now – I insist that you answer my next question truthfully.”

An unreadable look flashes across Will’s face, and Hannibal very, very nearly changes the trajectory of his question entirely to chase after it. He wants to press, to pursue, to provoke. He wants to sink into the fevered warmth of Will’s torso and reach a hand up through his slender throat, wiggle his fingers into his skull, and snare his nails on whatever impressions Will still withholds, be they of Hannibal, of the Ripper, of the world. His stomach clenches with the craving for it.

Moreover, Hannibal’s best interests align with his appetite in this regard – it is incredibly dangerous not to parse out the full extent of Will’s most recent insights, now that they are once again alone. Pragmatism and propensity alike demand it. 

But Will… Will. Will looks up from the bed at Hannibal, skin ashen against the bedspread. The small flicks of curls closest to his neck are matted with dried sweat, and the creases around his eyes have deepened, as if he is refraining from squinting in overtaxed discomfort. 

“What’s your question?”

Will has given him enough, for today. Hannibal sits down on the edge of the bed, holding Will’s gaze. 

Let sleeping dogs lie; better yet, lie down with them. 

“Did you sleep better last night?”

Will stares blankly at him. 

“...What?”

It’s clearly not the question Will was expecting. Smugness at catching him off-guard mingles with Hannibal’s discomfiting sense of compassion, and the decision suddenly becomes much more palatable. 

“That isn’t an answer. Respond honestly,” Hannibal repeats, looking down at Will in utter seriousness. Will swallows, scanning Hannibal’s face for any further context. Hannibal keeps his features impassive, offering no footholds. 

“I… guess? I fell asleep a lot faster than usual.”

Hannibal nods, deftly concealing his satisfaction. He removes his suit jacket, placing it on the bedside table, unlacing his shoes and unbuttoning his vest in quick succession. Will’s eyes grow progressively rounder as Hannibal shifts and lays back on the bed, shoulder-to-shoulder with his face turned towards the sick man. He cocks his head at Will’s gobsmacked expression. 

“I would like to pet your head again, until you fall asleep. Would that bother you?”

Will makes a garbled sound in the back of his throat. A flush crawls up his gaunt cheeks. After a moment of what appears to be rather worrisome oxygen deprivation, he ducks his head, pressing his overwarm forehead to Hannibal’s shoulder. 

“You’re insane. You aren’t real. This isn’t real,” he mutters into Hannibal’s button-up shirt, clawing a hand into the front of it and giving it a little shake. It will wrinkle terribly; Hannibal might never iron it again.

“As I recall, you invited me into your bed yesterday. And you seemed to enjoy the petting.”

“I didn’t invite you into my bed. And don’t call it that,” Will growls, burying his face deeper into Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal turns slightly as he brings a hand up, sliding it into Will’s hair. He kneads his fingertips against Will’s scalp. 

“Don’t call it what? Petting?”

Will groans, but it doesn’t seem like an entirely exasperated noise. His fingers gnarled in Hannibal’s shirt twitch, then begin to loosen. 

“Would you prefer stroking?”

Will produces another wordless, recalcitrant grumble. Hannibal scratches lightly at the nape of Will’s neck, and the pitch of it changes, softens. It’s not dissimilar to playing the theremin, he realizes with mixed amusement and concentration. He searches out what generates the most pleasing notes, what uncoils the deeply-condensed tension of Will’s body. Will’s hand has relaxed on his chest, but he smacks the flat of his palm down, uncoordinated. 

“Just ‘cause you’re pretty, don’t mean y’aint on thin ice… Espèce de… petite terreur, toi...” he slurs acerbically, voice dimming. Hannibal crinkles his eyes, not letting up the motion of his hand for an instant. 

“Go to sleep,” he whispers back. And blissfully, Will does. 

*****

Chapter Text

Will is not in his room when Hannibal returns the next morning, a fresh round of coolers in hand. 

He refuses to name the feeling that claws through his chest when he arrives at the glaringly empty space, forcibly reining in the sensation of his breath vanishing from his lungs in one fell swoop. Hannibal Lecter does not panic, and as he inhales slowly through his nose to prove as much – catching the faint, fever-tinged scent of Will still lingering in the room – he hears the quick footfalls of a slight person coming down the hall. 

“Mr. Graham-Lecter!”

Nurse Cross. Hannibal turns around to face her, preparing a customary greeting, but his mouth ignores his intentions. 

“Where is Will?”

Nurse Cross pats his arm rather hurriedly. “Don’t freak out! He’s a little out of it from the new medication, but doing just fine. We were able to get his room transfer done super early this morning, plus his blood draw, so he’s on the neurology floor now. He even has some other visitors. Come on, I’ll show you how to get there!”

Hannibal nods, fighting down the curl of his lip at being told not to freak out – another thing he does not do and has no need for warnings against – and internally frowns at the prospect of other people arriving to see Will before him. He walks swiftly after Nurse Cross, tightening his grip on the cooler handles as he considers who they might be. 

Jack and Alana are his first assumptions, and while the former conversing alone with Will should be of far greater concern after yesterday, he finds himself more aggravated by the prospect of Alana back at Will’s bedside. 

The implications of his own priorities irritate him all the more, so that by the time they arrive at Will’s new room, Hannibal has to physically pause, straightening the tension from his shoulders and smoothing down the front of his three-piece with his free hand. Nurse Cross glances over at him, but some heretofore absent instinct of self-preservation seems to waken in her, because she makes no comment on Hannibal’s actions as she raps at the door. 

“Mr. – er, Will! Your husband is back to see you.”

She opens the door, and in they walk. 

Hannibal was half right. Jack is nowhere to be seen, but Alana is sitting exactly where Hannibal feared she might be, with a chair far too close to the bed and a hand laid (far too proprietarily) over the bandage on Will’s injured wrist. They both look up as Hannibal and Nurse Cross walk into the room, and Hannibal notices that Will – propped upright with pillows – is wearing his glasses. 

Alana smiles warmly at Hannibal, but it falters with confusion as she tilts her head at Nurse Cross. 

“Hannibal! I’m surprised you’re here so early, I thought you usually see patients on – um. I’m sorry, did you say Will’s husband is here to see him?”

Alana’s expression is morphing from puzzlement to incredulous amusement, and she looks between Will, Hannibal, and the nurse as if expecting someone to clue her in on the joke. Nurse Cross freezes up beside Hannibal, turning wide, bewildered eyes up at him. Nobody speaks, and as the silence starts verging on awkward – Hannibal weighing the consequences of increasingly violent solutions to this highly unsavory turn of events – Will clears his throat. 

“...Yes. Thanks for showing him the room,” he murmurs, directing a thin but kind smile at Nurse Cross, who visibly untenses. Then he turns his smile to Hannibal, who catches the way it tugs a little bit higher on one corner of his mouth. 

“Mornin’, doll.”

The endearment rolls off of Will’s tongue like fresh artillery from a factory line – like it was made to be there and had rolled off a thousand times before – and promptly detonates in the epicenter of Hannibal’s chest. Sweat springs to his palms and along the neckline of his starched collar. 

“Good... morning. Will.”

Alana is back to looking utterly baffled, with a slight blush rising to her own cheeks as if she too is affected by Will’s uncharacteristic greeting. But Nurse Cross is all smiles, bustling around the room as she checks Will’s clipboard and vitals. 

“Looks good! Dr. Natvig will be by a little later in the afternoon, but I’ll leave you all be for now. Make sure you let him rest before too long,” she chirps at Hannibal and Alana, who both give delayed nods that go unnoticed, then wanders humming out into the hallway. 

“So… a shotgun wedding?”

Alana is projecting a tone of levity, but she is stiff in her chair, hand withdrawn from Will’s arm. She chuckles awkwardly, looking between them again before settling her gaze on Will, apparently realizing that Hannibal is unwilling or unable to coherently respond for the moment. 

Will shrugs, nonchalant. “I was briefly put under quarantine. It was the path of least resistance,” he responds, voice dry. Alana relaxes somewhat, though the furrow lingers in her brow. 

“Well, that’s an... unorthodox solution. Doing a bit of a tango with professional ethics,” she not-quite teases, eyes flicking thoughtfully in Hannibal’s direction before returning to Will. “Who’s idea was that?”

Much like her brittle humor, it’s not quite a casual question. Hannibal opens his mouth, but Will points to himself with a self-deprecating chuckle. 

“Mine. I was pretty feverish and needed the company. Crazy thing to come up with, but it worked. Hannibal played along.”

Alana blinks, missing Hannibal’s own minute raise of brows, and her shoulders curl inwards just slightly. “Oh. Shouldn’t you tell the doctors the truth now that you’re cleared for visitors again?” 

Will sighs as he tilts his head back against the wall. “It’s fine. Plus, it means he can keep patching me up,” Will taps the bandage Alana was touching, subtly brushing over it in a way that makes Hannibal’s own fingertips burn, “and it’s pretty handy to have another on-call doctor while I’m in here, not to mention a get-out-of-jail card for hospital food. What’s in the cooler?”

Using every ounce of his prodigious self-control, Hannibal finally reanimates, emerging from the auditory loop of “Mornin’, doll… Mornin’, doll,” arranging a smile on his features and stepping closer to Will’s bedside as he lifts the cooler. 

“Beignets, strawberries, and cafe au lait.”

Will crooks an eyebrow, a spark of warm mischief in his eyes. 

“From blynai to beignets. Your turn yesterday, mine today?”

Surprised and pleased, Hannibal nods. “Nutrition is one thing, but I believe comfort food can also do wonders for recovery. There’s enough to share, if you’d like to join us.” He angles his body, addressing Alana as cordially as he can manage, but she ruefully shakes her head. 

“I actually need to get going. I have my own patients to meet before Will’s classes this afternoon. Thanks for going over the lesson plans with me,” she grins at Will, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze as she stands. 

“And take it easy, okay? I know you said it was a while coming, and I’m relieved they figured out what was wrong, but I can’t help but feel a little responsible that it got this bad. You collapsed in the snow from saving me,” she murmurs, and Hannibal takes note of the blush rising in her face again. It suits her features beautifully, and some of the warmth in Hannibal’s belly curdles as he watches the way her soft gaze lingers on Will’s face. 

“I’m really looking forward to you getting well, Will. You deserve to finally feel more stable, and I just feel like things could really… could really change. For the better.”

For a microsecond, Will’s expression seems to freeze – Hannibal just barely catches it, though Alana doesn’t seem to – but then he smiles at her, adjusting his glasses. “Thanks, Alana. And thanks for stepping in for my classes. Text me if anything comes up.” 

Alana nods, squeezing Will’s shoulder again, then turns towards Hannibal with a bright smile. “Oh, and Hannibal, do you want to keep splitting dogsitting? I also don’t mind taking over. I have my own pup that loves visiting the pack,” she laughs, turning back to share another smile with Will. Hannibal’s throat constricts with unreasonable animosity, but Will again pipes up before he can react. 

“Actually, I asked Hannibal to handle the dogs. I felt like I was already asking too much from you with the classes.”

Alana’s expression dampens a little, but she nods. 

“It’s really no trouble, but I understand! We’ll have to plan a playdate for Applesauce and the rest once you get discharged. Take care, you guys,” she waves, then gracefully exits the room. 

Will stays sitting upright until Alana closes the door, then slouches back in his pillows, rucking up his glasses to rest on his head while he rubs at his eyes. Hannibal tentatively draws closer to the bed, setting down the coolers as he settles into the chair that Alana vacated. His mouth thins at her residual body heat. 

“You should be nicer to Alana.”

Will’s voice is quiet, drained of the energy he’d expended with departed company. Hannibal stiffens, eyes narrow and tone cool. 

“I’m not sure what you mean. Did I say anything untoward?”

Will rolls his eyes as he withdraws his hands, mirroring Hannibal’s narrowed gaze. “You barely said anything at all, because I didn’t give you the chance. You walked in looking like you’d swallowed a whole lemon. Or like you wanted to cram a whole lemon down someone else.”

Hannibal lifts his chin indignantly. “I looked like no such thing.”

Will sighs, shaking his head, then grimaces as his glasses pinch where they’re propped. As he feels around blindly to dislodge them, Hannibal leans forward, shooing away Will’s searching hands as he carefully removes the offending spectacles from tangled dark curls. Once they’re free, he hesitantly offers them back to Will. 

Will looks down at them for a moment, then waves a hand at the bedside table. 

“It’s okay. It was just for… I don’t need them right now.”

“No?”

“No.”

And just like that, some of Hannibal’s sour mood lifts. He carefully folds the arms of the glasses, setting them safely to the side. Returning his attention to Will, he tilts his head, resting his elbows on his knees to look over the man more closely. They regard each other quietly, and when Hannibal speaks again, his voice is soft. 

“How are you feeling this morning?”

Will huffs a laugh through his nose. “Tired. My head hurts less, but it also somehow feels even fuzzier. Like I’m being mainlined with cotton,” he points to the IV. “Doc keeps redoing the Rx after every test. Fine-tuning.” 

Hannibal nods, making a mental note to read through the updates to Will’s clipboard later on. He gestures to Will’s bandaged forearm. 

“I’d like to change your dressing.”

Will gives him a lopsided smile. “What are you worried about, Dr. Lecter? Infections, or cooties?” 

Hannibal casts an expert eye around as he stands, familiarizing himself with the supplies of this new room. “Both, to be frank.” 

He snaps on a pair of gloves and compiles a stack of alcohol swabs, webbing, and sterile gauze, returning to Will’s bedside. Will extends his arm, shuddering almost imperceptibly – almost imperceptibly – as Hannibal gently wraps a hand around Will’s wrist, keeping it still as he loosens the bandage with the other. He feels Will’s eyes on him as he begins to efficiently unwind the medical webbing. 

“It genuinely bothered you to have Alana touching the bandage?”

“Not the bandage. You.”

Will’s next laugh is more of a shaky exhale. “That’s – wow. Honest.”

Hannibal doesn’t look up, focusing on the task at hand, but he squeezes his fingers around Will’s wrist. 

“Does it disturb you?”

“Does it disturb you?” Will echoes back. Hannibal glances up at him. 

“Yes. I am not accustomed to having these kinds of… reactions.”

He doesn’t elaborate, distracted by the last of the bandage falling away. Will’s skin beneath is mottled with considerable bruising – the cannula clearly did some internal damage to the vein it was ripped out of, again begging the question of exactly how frenetically Will could have torn it away – but the wound is scabbing over, with no oozing or inflammation. 

With feather-light pressure, Hannibal palpitates his fingers over the area, feeling for any swelling or blood clots, coaxing Will to slightly bend and unbend his elbow. Will makes no sound, but Hannibal feels the way his fingers twitch involuntarily. 

“I apologize. I’m sure this hurts, but I’m checking for clots.”

“S’alright.”

After he’s satisfied, he tears open an alcohol wipe, brushes it over the injury, then carefully applies new gauze and begins rewrapping, making sure to keep the pressure secure but gentle on the tender bruises. Will’s fingers twitch again, and Hannibal wants to distract him. 

“You lied to Alana about me claiming to be your partner,” he says after the second pass of the bandage. It was an innocent enough contrivance compared to Hannibal’s far more incriminating concealment of Will’s illness, but he finds himself mildly baffled by Will’s clear effort to shield both magnitudes of Hannibal’s lies: the large and the small, alike. “I did not think you would take on that particular artifice as your own.”

Will’s voice is gruff. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble. Have your professional character called into question. Figured if it was the unstable guy’s idea, nobody would care that much.”

Hannibal winds a third pass. “Alana cared that it was supposedly your idea. Professionally and unprofessionally, I suspect.”

“That’s fine.”

Hannibal hears another echo – Shouldn’t you tell the doctors the truth? It’s fine – and can’t repress his own smirk. 

“It surprises me to hear you say that. Despite your protests of the last few days, you put on quite the performance this morning.”

Fourth pass, and Hannibal starts to tuck the edge of the bandage in. Will hums, flexing his wrist. 

“Not really.” 

Hannibal’s fingers fumble slightly with the bandage, dropping the end. 

“What?”

He snatches it back up, making a valiant effort to ignore Will’s glittering eyes as he redoes the final fastening.

“I offered my own deposition. I’ll leave it to your expert interpretation.”

Hannibal feels a sudden need for a drink. Relying on the muscle control of a seasoned surgeon, he keeps the tremor from his own hands, lowering Will’s arm to the covers and trying not to release it too quickly. He fears his fingertips have become traitorously warm. Swallowing, his eyes catch the cooler by his feet. 

“Would you care for breakfast?”

It’s an excessively flimsy distraction, but Will’s mouth crooks up, anyways. 

“I’d love breakfast.”

*****

With exacting attention to detail, Hannibal memorizes Will’s expression of bliss as he bites into the first beignet.

“Holy shit, Hannibal. Where’d you learn how to make them like this? It’s like I’ve been teleported to my first beat.”

Hannibal savors Will’s delight far more than the powdered sugar on his tongue. “D'une pâtisserie française. Aimez-vous?”

“C'est putain de délicieux, mais… ” Will furrows his brow. “How’d you know I speak French?”

Hannibal takes a sip from his mug, watching Will from the corner of his eye. 

“You talk in your sleep.”

Will chokes on his own coffee, coughing as he sets it down. 

“I – No I don’t. Nobody’s ever complained about sleep-talking in French before.”

Hannibal tamps down on the displeasure of there being nameless others with previous access to a sleeping Will Graham. He lifts a shoulder, instead, taking another leisurely sip. 

“Et pourtant, vous le faites avec moi. You sleep-talk in English, too, bien que vous parlez comme un cowboy.”

Will splutters, face reddening. “Like a cowboy? Seriously, Hannibal?”

Hannibal lifts his hands, conciliatory. “I mean no offense. It’s different from how you normally speak, but I find the cadence matches the timbre of your voice immensely. It reminds me of the first American movies I ever watched as a young adult. It suits you.”

Will presses his palms to his eyes, muttering darkly. Hannibal thinks he catches a merde in there somewhere, but he can’t make out the rest. 

“J'aime votre voix dans toutes les langues, Will. And you’re hardly alone when it comes to strange accents.”

Will drags his hands down his flushed face, avoiding Hannibal’s gaze as he takes an aggressive bite of beignet. 

“Your accent’s not strange. It sounds refined, not like some hick from the sticks.”

Hannibal shrugs. “In my own language, I sound stuffy – like some count from the country. There’s plenty there to put someone off.”

Will huffs a little laugh, at that, darting a look back at Hannibal. 

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” 

Will’s hackles seem to smooth, and he finishes his pastry. Idly, he licks the sugar from his fingertips, and Hannibal suddenly becomes deeply preoccupied with slicing the strawberries on his own plate. Will makes a small, considering noise.

“Hey, can I save one of these?”

Hannibal looks back at Will, fingers safely clean. “I can always make more, Will.”

“No, I meant… I was thinking I could bring one to Georgia.”

Hannibal halts his hands, setting down his silverware. “Ms. Madchen?”

Will nods, and Hannibal thinks the appraisal in his eyes hides an edge somewhere in the margins. “Would that be okay? She came to see me before Alana showed up. I think it’d be good for her to know someone’s looking out for her.”

Ah. That was the other visitor of the morning. 

As Will speaks, Hannibal catches the flash of that edge, again, like the tapetum lucidum of a predator’s eyes in the night. Will’s request means something. Hannibal wonders if it is the same something that compels him to corral dogs on wayward roads, leading the lost from the darkness; the something that steals through the man’s dreams on hoofed feet, herald to the hunter and his self-appointed clan.

Hannibal has his own rituals. Even without any unholy additions, the food he makes for others is not just sustenance – it is sacrament. Will has to know this, on some level; alluded to as much with his pattern recognition of their breakfasts. Comfort and culture. Communion. 

But… the pack eats, and Will eats. 

Hannibal has already committed to feeding Will’s other strays. 

Wordlessly, he moves to set aside a fresh plate of beignets and strawberries. Will beams across the table at him. 

*****

After they clear away breakfast, Will seems exhausted again. Hannibal rounds the table, holding out a hand, and Will takes it with an embarrassed grimace. 

“Lending a hand to the infirm, doctor?”

Hannibal pulls Will to his feet with concerningly little effort – the man needs more than pastries on his bones – and touches his other hand to Will’s forehead. It is only slightly warm. 

“Is the food settling?” 

Will nods, not bothering to lean away. The movement rubs his head into Hannibal’s hand like a cat. 

“Not too nauseated. Just wanna lie down for a minute.”

Hannibal helps Will to the bed with what is quickly becoming a practiced familiarity, and Will falls back, eyes sinking shut. 

“Do you want to sleep?”

“No,” Will chuckles, hollow, not opening his eyes. “I really don’t. It feels like all I’ve been doing since I got here is drifting in and out of sleep, and fever, and thoughts as thick as smoke. Miss the stream. Miss checking on Abigail. Miss the dogs,” Will’s hands splay on the covers, as if seeking out fur. When he opens his eyes, his expression is chagrined. 

“Sounds pretty pathetic, even to my own ears.”

Hannibal shakes his head. His heart twists in his chest, and he resigns himself to having to deal with the growing pains of the newfound conscience that Will’s vulnerability seems to be nurturing in him. 

“It isn’t pathetic.”

He rebuffs Will quietly, leaning over to stroke a hand through Will’s hair. Will meets his eyes at the touch, and his eyebrows draw together with a confusion Hannibal cannot unravel the source of. He touches the crease of Will’s brow with his thumb. 

“What is it?”

“…Nothing.”

Will slowly shakes his head, as if brushing something away; then he glances at the clock on the far wall. “It’s almost 10 am on a weekday – I’m guessing you need to go to work.”

Hannibal inclines his head, neglecting to mention that he’d already canceled two appointments for earlier in the morning. He couldn’t cancel the others on such short notice, so he straightens, preparing to take his leave. He turns back around at the doorway.

“There’s lunch and dinner in the blue cooler, if you have the appetite for it. And don’t forget to bring the beignets to Ms. Madchen. I’ll visit the dogs after work, and be back later in the evening to check on you. I won’t wake you if you’re asleep, and I won’t be happy if you’ve stayed up.”

Will cranes his neck to squint at Hannibal. 

“Do I get a say in any of this? What if I tell you not to bother making the drive back out just to watch me snoring?”

Hannibal shakes his head. “Then I would say that you don’t snore. Pas beaucoup. Mais vous devez vous reposer, et guérir. Dormez bien, Will.”

Will’s laugh is fond. It rings in Hannibal’s ears, as does the sweet, drowsy lengthening of vowels across Will’s tongue, like a distant roll of thunder. 

“...Bonne journée, Hannibal.”

*****

As he drives to his office, Hannibal considers the state of things. He peruses the burgeoning aberrations of his own heart carefully, and pores over what he understands of Will’s with even more circumspection. 

His mind drifts, alarm and elation and obsession over the unknowns of Will’s inner world materializing into the spectral characters that haunt his musings. A parade of wild dogs and stray girls and labyrinthine headless huntsmen weave through the echoing halls of his mind, riding along and astride stags as if led by the fairy queen herself – if the fairy queen had ozone eyes and bacchanal curls and a mind ablaze with insight. 

Le bel homme sans merci, he thinks, and sincerely hopes that Keats was wrong. 

*****

Chapter Text

The rest of the day is tedious without Will. 

Hannibal has not been away from the profiler for more than a night since Will’s hospitalization, and as such has not had the opportunity to dwell on his absence. Here, now, it is a realization that sinks slowly and unpleasantly into his skin, like sitting too long in damp clothes. 

There are few things that Hannibal loathes more than boredom – he has weeded the potential to encounter it so methodically from his life that he is halfway through his last appointment before it fully registers. 

As it does, he realizes several things at once:

One, that if he had not chosen to intervene with Will’s illness the moment that he had, the present tedium would be far more unbearable. Had things been allowed to progress – with Will’s precognitions about Georgia Madchen, to say nothing of his cryptic behavior of the day before – Hannibal may have had to remove Will from the playing board entirely. He does not know exactly what Will may have done if left to his own devices. He only knows that out of his many contingency plans, the necessity of Will’s imprisonment was far more likely than he ever truly prepared for.

In the hypothetical, he may have accepted this consequence as one of the many prices paid for a gratifying game. But the reality of Will’s brief removal from his life – the accompanying colorless silence – even this small taste settles poorly in Hannibal’s gut. He now suspects that even if he had been forced to sequester Will away in a cell somewhere before catalyzing any transformations, he would have immediately turned around and attempted to pull the man back out.

While their current situation is precarious, it is ultimately more efficient, and in that at least Hannibal finds some satisfaction. 

The second realization Hannibal has is the abrupt awareness of having entirely tuned out the last twenty minutes of his patient’s voice. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Steinholdt. Could you please repeat that?”

Kenneth Steinholdt’s green eyes widen. They are an interesting color, brown-flecked and verdant. They cannot hold a candle to the particular tone of blue that frames Hannibal’s thoughts, but he has kept Steinholdt on his books long enough to consider how their vegetal shade might best complement a dish. Perhaps a modified svio with sage, though he’d have to attend the boiling carefully. Texture and pigment could be so easily ruined. 

In an off-putting counterpoint to his passably appetizing eyes, the man’s mouth hangs open, uncouth and uncooperative. Hannibal purses his lips. 

“Mr. Steinholdt?”

“Oh! Sorry, yes, I just – you’ve always been so attentive, I guess it just surprised me…” 

Hannibal resists the irritated tightening of his facial muscles, instead affecting a morose sort of concern. It isn’t much of an affect to begin with, though it has nothing at all to do with Steinholdt.  

“I apologize. I’m afraid I had a family emergency over the weekend, and I still find myself distracted. If you feel dissatisfied with my level of engagement today, I will happily refund or credit you for another session.”

Steinholdt’s eyes widen all the more, then narrow in pleased intrigue. Like most of the neuroses-riddled Baltimore elite that can afford Hannibal’s rates, the man is an implacable gossip. Hannibal realizes his own mistake moments too late. 

“Oh, no, please don’t worry about it! You’ve never mentioned family; I hope everything’s okay…?”

He practically slavers, leaning forward in his seat like a mongrel begging for treats. Dog has become too nuanced a word in Hannibal’s mind as of late, unworthy of the simpering man before him. He is not quite so unbearable as the late Froideveaux, but it’s a closer competition than Hannibal would prefer. He nods brusquely.

“Everything is fine. Thank you for your concern. Shall we resume our session, or reschedule for another day?”

Steinholdt slumps back in his chair, disappointed. “Well, I guess we’re pretty close to time, anyways. I’ll save it for our next regular session – though I’d appreciate that credit, if you don’t mind.”

Hannibal bends the beginnings of a sneer into a congenial smile. “Of course.”

As he stands to escort Steinholdt to the door, the man turns halfway around in the hall, flapping his hand at Hannibal in a pantomime of sympathy that oozes self-satisfaction. 

“And really, Dr. Lecter, don’t worry – it’s nice to see that even you get a little absent-minded, sometimes. We’re only human, eh?”

“Regrettably,” Hannibal concedes as he closes the door, twisting the lock rather than Steinholdt’s cervical vertebrae. 

He has more important obligations to attend to. 

*****

Zoe is the first to greet him, tongue lolling over her deceptively charming underbite. Hannibal can hear the scrabbling of her paws from beyond the threshold as he climbs the steps of Will’s porch. Within the barest turn of the handle, she is already pressing through the gap in the door, haunches wiggling with enthusiastic abandon. She leans up against his leg, black eyes shining. 

“Good evening,” he murmurs needlessly, stooping over to stroke her head as the rest of the dogs surge forward. Buster is close on Zoe’s heels, with the larger dogs crowding in at a more leisurely pace, nosing at his shoes and hands. Though Hannibal instinctively braces for it each time, none of them jump or bark – they have been too well trained. 

Winston is the last to come forward, observing Hannibal’s entrance with raised ears. As the rest of the dogs disperse in a loose, hopeful circle around the familiar man and his promising cooler, the newest pack member pads forward on silent feet. He sniffs at Hannibal’s outstretched hand rather perfunctorily, then winds his body around Hannibal’s thigh, poking his muzzle through the open doorway.

“He’s still in the hospital.”

The dog tilts his head up, catching and holding eye contact with a perceptivity that Hannibal finds eerily familiar. 

Uncaring for the havoc it will wreak on his suit pants, he steps past the threshold and sinks to one knee, smoothing his hand down Winston’s side as he gently tugs his collar back to coax his head out of the entrance. Though his body maintains its tension, Winston goes obediently, sitting back as Hannibal closes the door. He lets out a low whine as it shuts. His focus does not leave Hannibal. 

Hannibal rarely ever shrinks from scrutiny, but he struggles not to look away now. He brushes over Winston’s coat – long-haired, yet brindled – and gently scratches behind still-raised ears, straining as if to hear the stomp of work boots or gaiters coming up the drive. 

The anguished devotion in the dog’s brown eyes pricks at Hannibal’s own to look at, and he suddenly fears that the gaze is more reflected than original. He hurriedly averts his eyes, clearing his throat as he rises back to his feet.  

“Would you all like dinner?”

He’s not sure if it’s the keyword or the questioning uptilt of his voice, but energy ripples through the pack. They draw close again, and Zoe lets out a single high-pitched yip. The largest dog – Max – turns his head to direct a huff at her. Hannibal smiles, patting his sturdy neck. 

“Now, now. It’s alright to be excited for a good meal.”

He picks up the cooler and slips off his shoes, padding into the kitchen with his eager entourage. 

Will’s kitchen is sparsely appointed but tidily arranged. Hannibal unpacks tupperwares of leftovers, opening the spacious freezer to augment his provisions with Will’s own homemade dog mix.

Not for the first time in the last week, Hannibal wonders at the sheer amount packed into frozen storage. The mix takes up the entirety of the space with nary a cranny left for human sustenance. While Hannibal is not particularly fond of reheating frozen ingredients, even he sees the wisdom and convenience of stockpiling. In the event of a road closure or a snowstorm, what would Will do? Hannibal’s seen the equally barren state of dry goods in his pantry, and the man lives so very remotely. Would he simply try to live off of the land?

(And what state of mind was Will in, to shirk his own supplies while preparing months’ worth of food for his dogs in the freezer? Food carefully organized and labeled as if to guide a stranger’s eyes…?)

With a slight frown, Hannibal pulls one of the portions, breaking it up in the bag before placing it in a warm pot of water to thaw. He retrieves a clean set of stainless bowls from the drying rack, and by the time he is finished divvying what he’s brought, he can top them off with the thawed mash. The dogs sit in strained stillness as he places each of their bowls in turn; only when Hannibal issues a low whistle do they fall upon their food with gusto. 

Hannibal rinses and refills the large water trough they share, then retreats from the kitchen as they eat. Winston lifts his head to watch him go, but does not follow. 

As he moves through the open floor plan, he trails the pads of his fingers along the wall, reappraising Will’s space. The books and documents crammed haphazardly in the shelves; the odd scattering of armchairs, as if half of them simply never moved to their intended places on the upper floor; the ring of dog beds around the space heater, closer in proximity and comfort than Will’s own. 

He spares a glance at the fly-tying table, pensive. He’s perused it all before. Hannibal has no qualms over rifling through others’ things in pursuit of a goal. But this is the most he’s lingered since Will’s hospital admission, and he is uncharacteristically unsure of what his goal might be, now – only that something tugs him, threadlike, through the quiet room. 

Eventually he halts in the center of Will’s den – applicable in more ways than one – and inhales deeply, closing his eyes. 

Fur, motor oil, stale coffee. River water, damp earth, dusty paper. Wood polish; gunpowder; detergent; aftershave… 

He follows his nose to Will’s unmade bed against the far wall, not quite touching his knees to its edge. Saliva gathers in his mouth at the scent suffused into the mattress. 

In his mind’s eye, the chemical imprints of Will’s body take shape. He sees Will trembling on the sheets, heaving chest bisected by a line of sweat. The way he jerks awake with a start. The cloying sweetness of his fever, the sharp acidity of his fear. And below that – below that –

Heated skin. Thinning iron. Exhalation, damp and yearning. A warm smell, so familiar to Hannibal’s olfaction that it is engraved upon his very synapses.  

Hunger.

…….Hunger?

No –

Will. 

Hannibal’s eyes fly open, breath catching in spite of himself. The air is peaceful – nothing stirs the gold-flecked motes of dust drifting around the room – and yet Hannibal feels as if he’s been caught in a miniature cyclone, the scent rapidly switching identities in a disorienting whirl all around him. 

Hannibal’s nose is sensitive enough to border on the preternatural; and his memory, while not eidetic, is unfailingly evocative. The source of this particular smell should never be subject to doubt, not without Hannibal’s own selfhood being called into question alongside it. 

He’s sunk back to kneeling, curling his shoulders towards Will’s pillow with his hands braced on the mattress, head tilted and mouth slightly opened to pull the inhalation against his palate. Perhaps it is Hannibal’s own insatiability, grown large enough to color his surroundings as he moves through them. Or perhaps it really is what’s left of Will’s, afterimages of half-conscious, nightmarish desires. But as Hannibal floods his lungs, he is left only with the most implausible truth. 

He had scented it on Will before, of course. But he had not realized its depth until brought to the concentrated altar of his bed, buried deep below the myriad aromas of the man. This is not the smell of a passing experience, flitting drive and desire transposed to volatile compounds. 

This is the base scent of an entity. The inherent scent of a person.

Will Graham does not smell like Hunger.

(Not the bite wound…)

Hunger smells like Will Graham. 

(…the teeth.)

And Hannibal is lost, lost, lost to its yawning, aching maw. 

With numb fingers, he pulls his phone from his pocket. Movements protracted, unable to fully process his own actions, he dials and puts it to his ear. It rings two and a half times before connecting. 

“Mnh…’annibal?”

“Will.”

The name heaves from his chest like air from a punctured lung. He can’t find enough oxygen to build volume. Hannibal doubts the receiver even picked it up. 

But Will heard him. 

“Are you alright?”

Will’s groggy voice drops abruptly to a low hush, immediately responsive to Hannibal’s single utterance. Tense, alert. Expectant. 

Fire and ice race up and down Hannibal’s nerve endings. He opens his mouth, but cannot speak. 

“Hannibal.”

Hunger, hunger, hunger, Will is the source of Hunger –

“Hannibal. Talk to me.”

Hannibal takes a strained breath. He tightens his hand on the phone. 

“I… cannot.”

He can’t. Even those two words expand in Hannibal’s throat as he grits them out, unable to progress any further. The open intensity of his own discomposure rattles him – he considers hanging up. Retreating. Running. Ripping. He fumbles for the end call button. 

“Hey… hey. It’s alright. I’ll talk to you instead.”

Hannibal pauses, finger hovering over the keypad. Will’s voice is still tense, but it deepens, lengthens, wrapping firmly around Hannibal’s unmoored senses to anchor them in place. Hannibal inhales again, attempting to wrestle command back over his own breathing. 

“That’s it, nice n’ easy. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing,” Will murmurs in his ear, and Hannibal can hear a muffled rustling, as if Will is shifting to sit up. He opens his mouth again, determined to regain control, but Will speaks before he can make another attempt. 

“Been sleepin’ like shit this afternoon, you know that? Think I, ah, started gettin’ used to you crowdin’ me,” he grumbles, as if it is the most natural thing in the world – as if they are merely continuing the thread of some previous conversation. Hannibal’s heart rate begins to slow incrementally.

“Got tired of tossin’ and turnin’ and brought those beignets to Georgia. Wasn’t totally sure she’d be allowed to eat them, but we figured something out.”

His voice continues with even, purposeful leisure, dipping to mildly amused. “Turns out powdered sugar kinda clogs up the filter in the oxygen chamber. Got scolded by Hoffman again – think he’s seriously considering that induced coma. Outta sight of Natvig and Cross, of course. A real backdoor kinda deal.”

“…That would be severe medical malpractice.”

In his disdain, Hannibal finds his own voice again. It is strained, but stable. Will’s warm laughter rewards him. 

“Don’t I know it. But you wouldn’t let ‘em knock me out.”

“I would not.”

Will huffs. “‘Preciate it, doll.”

The line goes briefly silent. Hannibal’s head swims, not quite back in balance, impressions still frustratingly unguarded. He speaks without thinking. 

“Is someone else in the room?”

Will makes a questioning sound. 

“No. Why?”

“You,” Hannibal swallows, “You used that endearment again.”

Another beat of silence, ballooning with a different kind of tension. 

“…Think I need an audience to tease you, doll?”

Will’s voice drops still lower. In the absence of sanity, Hannibal clings to indignance. 

“It’s scarcely flattering.”

“No?”

“It’s objectifying, as well as inaccurate; I am a man, and some years your senior. Hardly anything like a – like such a thing.”

Will’s chuckle drags like rich leather against the back of Hannibal’s neck. “Not sure what age or gender’ve got to do with it. Not with a face like yours.”

The unprecedented bluntness shocks a response off of Hannibal’s tongue. Will hums in mock consideration.

“Maybe you’re just not used to being told. Or did you prefer ‘dearest’?”

“…Only if it were true.”

Oh. 

It is most certainly time to end the call. By a means Hannibal does not understand, from a wilderness Hannibal cannot begin to make sense of, Will has coaxed him back with astounding ease. But his knees ache against Will’s hardwood floor, his feet are falling asleep, and his mind is still in entire disarray, as evinced by his own ridiculous responses. 

“I should leave you to your rest–“

“Jack came back this afternoon.”

Hannibal halts over hanging up for the second time. Will seems to be waiting for him to respond, and when he doesn’t, he hears another rustled shift from the other end. 

“He wanted to know why you were so set on getting me a second MRI. Why you’ve been hanging around. And obviously,” Will continues, the flippancy of his tone indistinguishable as real or constructed, “he wanted to keep asking me about the Ripper.”

Hannibal’s defenses finally jolt back online, momentarily forcing him to compartmentalize his various levels of distraction. Ironically, the familiar steps of this particular dance of deception are what finally restore his own nonchalance, echoing in harmony with Will’s. 

“And what did you tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him you lied to me.”

Will’s accent vanishes, as does the teasing lilt of his voice. It isn’t cold; merely toneless, as if it has been leached of inflection. Hannibal vainly wishes he could see Will’s face. 

Which lie?

Hannibal does not have the luxury of asking. He chooses the overt. “You didn’t tell Alana that I hid your encephalitis, either. I can’t help but wonder why.”

“You know why,” Will returns, still perturbingly flat. “I covered for you for less this morning, and this isn’t the same as playing house. It wouldn’t be a slap on the wrist for flirting with a patient. You’d lose your job, or worse, all for the sake of your curiosity. Sutcliffe would’ve, too – if he were still alive.”

Hannibal stills, instincts thrilling at the offhand addition. Danger in deep water, in dark woods. He wets his lips. 

“You know I regret keeping it from you. And while I admit to still being somewhat mystified by the probation you’ve granted me, I am grateful for it, too.”

He is – contrite, mystified, grateful – none of which are common sensations in his emotional landscape. But now he simply cannot resist pushing it further, refocused by the glinting hook Will has cast into the shallows. Hunger given flesh still intoxicates his lungs, urging him on. 

“It’s a pity Donald Sutcliffe will never have the same chance at redemption; but it is fitting that he found his reward at the hands of Ms. Madchen.”

Silence. He strains his ears – he cannot even hear Will’s breath. 

“…Fitting.”

Will’s voice is quiet, no more emotion than before, but Hannibal still gets the distinct impression that he is disappointed. He frowns, again caught off-kilter, again struggling to discern his own footing in the conversation. He shifts his posture, crossing his legs to sit more comfortably on the floor. It seems he finds himself run to ground more and more often when interacting with Will. 

“Was there anything else of note with Jack?”

Will’s pause lingers, easing with a subdued murmur. “No. I still don’t have anything else to tell him.”

“No new impressions?”

Hannibal leans his back against Will’s bed. Distantly, he recognizes the sounds of the dogs finishing their food in the kitchen. Shifting paws, panting tongues. The unexpected curl of satisfaction in the knowledge of he and Will providing for them, together.

“Not of the Ripper, no. He’s not as dynamic as he seems.”

Hannibal frowns, but does not allow it to color his voice. “No? It seemed like an ambitious tableau.”

“Ambitious,” Will agrees, “but impatient. It’s a departure from his usual M.O. He’s choosing form over function.”

Hannibal’s frown deepens. “What gives you that impression?”

Will’s sigh is long-suffering. “He’s soliciting someone – requesting, testing, whatever you want to call it – but besides a few key references, the Ripper’s not putting in the work to meet them halfway. He’s buried himself in a labyrinth and is waiting to be found. More crotchety old Daedalus than monster or maiden, if you ask me.”

Hannibal’s lips pinch. “Daedalus was far from a passive character, either. He did not wait for rescue, he invented flight.”

“Sure. Flight without forbearance, falling to pieces when exposed to light.”

“That was the folly of Icarus.”

“Or it was a hasty, flawed design for something as important as freedom – especially the freedom of two.” 

Hannibal raises his chin.  

“It seems like you do have some additional impressions, after all.”

The line is tense, until Will breaks it with another long exhale, stumbling somewhere into a yawn at its tail. It is muffled enough that Hannibal realizes Will has pulled the receiver away on the other end, likely to try to conceal the sound. His own face immediately softens. 

“I must have woken you.”

Will makes a noncommittal sound. “Not really. Wasn’t sleeping well, like I said.”

Hannibal glances to the window, where the burnished light is gradually dimming into periwinkle. “I meant to come earlier. I still intend to.”

Will chuckles. “It’s fine. I’d rather you get home tonight. Are you with the dogs?”

As if on cue, Winston wanders in from the kitchen, followed by the lazy, sated procession of the rest of the pack. Hannibal smiles faintly. 

“Yes. They miss you.”

“…Yeah. Same.” 

A raw note creeps into Will’s voice. Hannibal’s brow furrows.

Keeping the phone clasped to his face, he tilts his head back, once again taking in the smell of the house around him. That thrumming undercurrent, now impossible to ignore. Blurring and overlapping with the same scent of his own deepest compulsions, here in its improbable entirety – the genuine enigma of what it all means. Does Will even know?

Is he even aware of what saturates the core of him, the whole of him, surpassing even Hannibal, himself…?

Unaware or uncaring of the magnitude of these thoughts, Zoe trots up to him, hindquarters swept up in their characteristic wiggle. Without a modicum of ceremony, she flops into his lap. White fur immediately sticks to the remaining clear patches of dark wool on his suit. 

Hannibal drops his free hand to her belly, scratching lightly.

Will’s breath is still steady in his ear.

And Hannibal…

Hannibal has no answers. 

For now. 

For now, he knows he has been gentled, as surely as every other animal in Will’s home. Praised and petted, teased and distracted. Brought from frenzy; brought to rest. In his heart of hearts, he cannot deny the relief of it far enough to muster offense or defiance. He will not undo Will’s efforts. 

If anything…

The Ripper’s not putting in the work to meet them halfway. 

His jaws ache. 

He pries them open, and tries. 

“Thank you for picking up the phone, Will. I have been… overwhelmed, today, with several truths about you. I needed to hear your voice.”

Will’s intake of breath hitches softly. He doesn’t respond right away. Hannibal cards his hand through warm fur as the light continues to fade in the room, until half a dozen sets of gently glowing eyes are all that illuminate the space. 

“I needed to hear you, too.”

*****

Chapter Text

“So… Are we actually going to go in, or…? I didn’t think you busted me out of the center to sit in a parking lot.”

Abigail Hobbs turns in the passenger’s seat of the Bentley, large blue eyes flickering to Hannibal’s face. Her mouth is upturned, but her fingers twist together in her lap, the teasing of her face and voice at odds with the wariness of her body. Always at war, the trust and the fear – of Hannibal or of reality at large, he isn’t quite sure. 

He gives another appraising glance at the hospital through his windshield, then looks back to Abigail. His nod is slow, as much to stall for time as it is to keep from spooking her. He wonders if she’s cottoned on; her stiff little grin loosens around the edges.

“It’ll be okay. We’re giving him a good surprise, this time.”

She unbuckles her seatbelt, opening the car door without another word. In the brief privacy of the closed car, Hannibal sighs. Then he opens his own door, unloads his customary cooler, and follows. 

*****

“...mixed them up again. Even without the faces thing, I’m not sure I could tell the difference. It’s like all men own the same three sets of clothes in different colors. They’re – oh… hello.”

Hannibal and Abigail freeze in the doorway, just as Georgia and Will freeze at the table by the window, a curious picture of camaraderie trussed in their gowns and IVs. Georgia punctuates her greeting with a hesitant smile, eyes not quite focusing on the newcomers. She is shockingly improved, in the time since Hannibal last saw her – a person now occupies what was once the husk of a dead woman walking. 

What had Will said? I think it’d be good for her to know someone’s looking out for her. Good for her, indeed.

Will just stares – long and hard at Abigail, as if doubting her existence – before his eyes find Hannibal’s. The older man cannot name what shines there, only that it makes him acutely aware of most of his major arteries, and the renewed thrum of his pulse throughout them. Then it’s gone, Will’s gaze sliding back to the girl in the doorway. 

His smile is almost as hesitant as Georgia’s; it is infinitely more tender. 

“Hey, Abigail. Didn’t expect you to come by.”

He straightens infinitesimally in his chair, as if trying to tuck away his own fatigue without her noticing. Abigail snorts, stepping decisively forward. 

“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’d come to see my frail old guardian before he wastes away,” she quips with a bodily flop onto Will’s empty hospital bed. She rolls onto her stomach to lounge diagonally across it, propping herself onto her elbows to face the table. 

“...So? Too senile to introduce me?”

The lilt of Abigail’s voice is only slightly artificial, but attuned as he is to the affects of others, Hannibal catches it. Hannibal knows she is trying to put Will at ease; and if he knows, the profiler must know it, too. But Will just continues to smile, soft and small. 

He can see that she’s trying; maybe that’s even more important to him. 

Hannibal feels himself relax, sauntering up to sit at the foot of the bed level with Abigail’s shoulder. He sets the cooler down at his feet. 

“Please introduce me as well, Will. I don’t believe I’ve met your friend.” 

Will quirks his brow with some mysterious source of bemusement, then laughs under his breath, waving around the circle of people with an exaggerated motion. The gesture is both sardonic and good-natured. Hannibal still hasn’t puzzled out how it can be quite as charming as it is. 

“Sure. Introductions to go around. Abigail, Dr. Lecter, this is Georgia, a friend I’ve been getting to know better since we’ve both been stuck here. She’s got the patience of a saint,” he smiles crookedly at Georgia, who responds with a playful wrinkle of her nose, her own tension dissipating. 

“You’re the patient one. I thought that one doctor was going to drag you to the dungeon. The hospital dungeon,” she says, voice measured and rasping, underlining the effort of each word. Will shrugs. 

“Given the opportunity, I think Hoffman would prefer to drag me to the hospital guillotine. But don’t give him any ideas; just tell Dr. Lecter if I disappear.”

Hannibal’s teeth creak under the clench of his jaw, but he schools his features as he becomes aware of Georgia peering at him curiously. Closer now, Hannibal observes the strange drift of her eyes over the planes of his face, as if she is trying to read a paragraph composed of several disparate languages jumbled together.

He wonders if any of those foreign words look familiar. What he must do to obscure them, or else to amend the mistake of allowing them to be seen again. 

But no recognition crosses Georgia’s face. 

“Dr. Lecter, he’s your…?”

Will is studying Hannibal’s face as well – for what, Hannibal isn’t sure, and realizes too late to make any inferences about. Will shifts in his seat at the prompting question, looking suddenly fascinated by the corner of the wall farthest from any of their faces. He blows out a sigh, and grimaces; color dusts along the ridge of his cheeks and nose. 

“...um, yeah. Something like that.”

Hannibal can almost hear the way Abigail’s eyebrows shoot up. To her credit, she doesn’t say anything. Georgia just laughs hoarsely. Hannibal can’t feel his fingers or toes, but is otherwise perfectly composed.

“Okay. And how about you?”

She addresses Abigail directly. Though Georgia can’t fully find Abigail’s eyes, something about her smile is secret; the two young women look at each other, then at Hannibal and Will, and then back to one another. Hannibal would be concerned by the perplexing implications, if not for his aforementioned extremities going mysteriously offline. Distractedly, he flexes his hands. 

Abigail rolls her eyes, leaning forward from her perch on the bed. 

“I’m Abigail. Their chaperone,” she tilts her head between the two conspicuously silent men. Then she wiggles forward on the bed, leaning over the edge to snag the cooler.  

“...and this breakfast is not going to eat itself. Is there a garden or something around the hospital, Georgia?”

Georgia nods enthusiastically, pointing a finger out the window. 

“Yes! There’s a courtyard. You can see it from here. I’m not supposed to be exposed to any direct sun, but it’ll stay in the shade for at least another hour. Do you want to go?”

Abigail’s already standing up, cooler in one hand with the other outstretched to Georgia. The older girl takes it without hesitation; Abigail closes her fingers carefully around the bandages criss-crossing skin. 

“We’ll be outside. Come eat soon. Or don’t,” she calls with no further preamble, falling into step beside Georgia’s slower pace. They meander out into the hall, where Hannibal hears the fading beginnings of Abigail striking up conversation. 

Georgia’s gravelly laughter layers with Abigail’s melodic tone, and Hannibal finds himself intrigued by how naturally they complement. 

“You brought Abigail.”

Hannibal turns back to Will. His expression is unreadable, smile gone, but that peculiar iridescence is still in his eyes; like sunlight on water, it dizzies and demands attention in turns.

Hannibal swallows. “Yesterday, you said – you mentioned missing several things. Bodies of water… resist transportation, and this establishment frowns upon animals.”

And it’s halfway, he doesn’t say, barred from making reference to the latter half of last night’s conversation. It wasn’t meant for him. Not this him, anyway. 

This Hannibal has a limited number of options to meet in the middle. Moreover, in a middle that matters to Will. Has he misguessed? Will smiled at Abigail, but also seemed to want to conceal the extent of his vulnerability from her. For all the ties that bind them, the trust between the three of them is tenuously built, at best. Perhaps Will did not want to be seen this way: not by the girl he loves so much, fears for so deeply, and knows – in entirety – so little.  

The uncertainties he’d had in the car return in full force. A slight frown tugs at his mouth. 

“Hannibal.”

He inclines his head distractedly. “Yes.”

“Help me out.”

Hannibal blinks, looking up at the imperative. Will has hooked a foot under the chair across the table, and is attempting to tug it around the side with only partial success. Hannibal stands to help, nonplussed. When the empty chair is right next to Will’s, the younger man looks up at him, brows raised. 

“Well?”

Hannibal tilts his head. 

“Well…?”

Will gives one of his weightier eyerolls. He nods his head to the chair. 

“Sit.”

He does, though reluctantly. 

“If you wanted to sit together, wouldn’t it be more comfortable on the bed?”

“You really like keeping me in that bed,” Will mutters as he rubs at his neck, seemingly unaware of the double-entendre. Hannibal is not unaware. “Just sit here for a second. Look.”

Hannibal complies, peering out of the window. Just as Georgia said, there is a small planted courtyard visible, nestled in the amorphous space between the clustered hospital wings. As Hannibal watches, the pair exit the double-doors below, locked in animated conversation as they make their way to the shadiest table. Hannibal’s cooler swings merrily with their steps.

A shoulder presses against Hannibal’s own.

“Seems like they’re having fun.”

Will’s voice is warm. Pleased. The tension in Hannibal’s spine eases. Tentatively, he returns the pressure, leaning towards Will. 

“Their temperaments do seem surprisingly well-matched.” 

“Is it so surprising?” Will asks, crooking his head. His curls just barely brush against the side of Hannibal’s face. 

“It’d be a rare connection to make, to find someone else like you. Someone who knows what it’s like to be driven to the brink of death by those who should protect you.”

“And driven to kill, in turn,” Hannibal adds – cannot help but add. He anticipates a greater reaction from Will, but the man just hums.

“Georgia liked your beignets.”

With his mouth pressed thin, Hannibal watches the two girls settling on the benches, unpacking the food he’d intended for Will. In truth, there’s enough to go around. He still sniffs.

“Ms. Madchen seems to be a frequent visitor of yours.”

Will jostles his shoulder. “All kinds come to ogle the sick while you’re gone, doctor. You guys just missed Katz – surprised you didn’t see her in the lobby.”

Hannibal turns his head to Will; he can’t quite see his face from this angle. 

“Beverly Katz?”

“Mmhm. Another one of Jack’s tactics, when I’m not working the way he wants. Sic one expert on the other.”

Hannibal feels a prickle of unease. “That’s hardly the behavior of a respectful boss.”

“A respectful boss? Hannibal,” Will shakes his head, brushing those curls again along Hannibal’s jaw, “Jack has been hunting the Ripper for years. And not just with his own blood, sweat, and tears – he’s lost entire futures on this. His trainee; his home life. What would you do, if your prey suddenly changed its pattern? Leapt right in front of you, broadcasting some kind of cryptic message for the world to see? Do you think,” Will laughs cynically, pinching the bridge of his nose, “your priority would be acting like a respectful boss?"

Will draws upright, not waiting for an answer. Hannibal can see the exasperation on his face more clearly. The view is not worth the distance put between their shoulders. 

“Sending Katz wasn’t much of a disrespect to begin with, anyways. He knows we work well together.”

Something stirs in Hannibal’s chest. He recognizes it from the day prior, observing Alana Bloom touching Will’s arm – that same clawed, insistent thing that suddenly wants to see Beverly Katz stratified into thin cross-sections of flesh. He tamps down on the tempting image. 

“Did she offer any new evidence on the Ripper case?”

Will waves a hand vaguely. “Not new, just confirmations. Verifying what I told Jack before, that the teeth on the string and the headless body are two different victims. There’s an age difference: the teeth belong to a younger man, the body to an older. They’re working on IDs as a basis for clues about who the Ripper is trying to reach. Katz and I both think that one’s a lost cause – whoever’s on the other end, they’d be a fool to respond anytime soon. In public, at least,” Will drops his hand to his knee, tapping an idle pattern there. His eyes drift back to the window. “I’m still glad she came by. I wanted her to see Georgia.”

Hannibal follows Will’s gaze back outside, carefully digesting his words.

“To observe her recovery?”

“To observe her integrity,” Will corrects, mouth pressing thin. “Katz went with me to find her when she was still missing, and she was at both of the scenes attributed to Georgia. Beth LeBeau was killed by someone in the throes of terror, of confusion. Donald Sutcliffe would have been an act of vengeance. Prosecutable. I wanted Katz to see Georgia the way she is now – to see for herself if the same woman was capable of both acts.”

The prickle of unease from before grows to a full suspicion in Hannibal’s gut. 

“I take it you don’t believe Ms. Madchen to be culpable for both, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

There it is – one of the pressing questions they’ve been dancing around, asked in plain language. Will doesn’t look at Hannibal, still staring steadily out the window. 

“Only one subset of evidence is overwhelming; conveniently overwhelming. Like a painting of a painting.”

Will’s eyes slide to the side. 

“...Or a photo negative.”

Hannibal wades into blue, and cannot find the bottom below his feet. 

“A copy?”

Will smiles coolly. 

“Yes.”

Another flickering glance out the window. Hannibal’s breath has gone tight in his chest – a curl of the scent he’d found in Will’s house wraps like a vine around his lungs. Will’s eyes track across the young women in the courtyard. 

“It’d be a rare connection to make,” Will murmurs, repeating his words with a new nuance of meaning, “to find someone else like you.”

Will tilts back in his chair, sighing as he rubs his face.

 “One woman who killed his proxy, and another who proxied his kill.”

Hannibal freezes. 

He is no stranger to peril. From the memory of his childhood he’d shared with Will, to the far more unspeakable memories he hadn’t, Hannibal has a cellular understanding of existential danger. In adulthood, his encounters have turned increasingly more rare – rare, but never nonexistent. Not with all he has become. 

Yesterday, with nothing more than a scent, Will held him over the brink of metaphysical destruction. 

Today that threat is corporeal. 

Inwardly, Hannibal cannot help but smile. 

“Even if you believe Nicholas Boyle was not the Copycat Killer,” he begins, knowing there is no longer any point in phrasing it as a question, “that criminal persona originated with the mimicry of the Minnesota Shrike. There is no link between the Shrike and Sutcliffe, Will.”

Will turns his eyes to Hannibal.

“There’s at least one,” he says softly. Hannibal tilts his head, heart a steady staccato. 

“Which is?”

“Me.”

Hannibal nods. The ‘at least’ did not escape him – but Will is driving their course, and Hannibal will follow. Always, he’ll follow. 

He leans forward.

“And? Did you kill them, Will? Those girls, that boy, your doctor?”

Will’s mouth twists. His eyes drift up, somewhere above Hannibal's head, then return to fix on his face. 

“We both know who killed Nicholas. As for Cassie, Marissa, and Sutcliffe… Before I landed in this hospital, I might’ve said yes. I’ve lost enough time. Gotten too close to the investigations – or they’ve gotten too close to me. Sinking past my skin to fill the marrow of my bones. Given the right evidence, I’m not sure I could argue it much,” Will laughs bitterly, “not to others or myself. Wouldn't matter if I had no memory of it. And even as it is…”

Hannibal cannot tear his gaze from Will’s, riptide and roiling. 

“Maybe I did. Maybe it was done for me. Because of me. In spite and in honor of me,” he murmurs, fraying his words on the edges of his teeth. 

“...Maybe, in the only way that matters, I did.”

Admission and accusation are balanced on the razor’s edge of Will’s lips: both an urgent potential, neither truly existing. But all Hannibal can see are Will’s eyes, looking at his own, looking into Will’s. Refractions upon refractions; the crystalline pour between two evenly matched cups. 

The silence stretches thin enough to rupture. Then it does – by a featherlight note of mirth, muffled through the window panes. 

Abigail’s laughter from down below. 

Will closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they are placid, like the glass-like surface of a pond. 

“Let’s go downstairs,” he says, as if the preceding conversation had vanished into smoke. He stands from his chair.

“The dead are gone, and the living are waiting.”

*****

Later, with full bellies and waning energy, the four of them return to Will’s room. Georgia stands at the threshold this time, the fingers of her less-injured hand winding idly in her long hair. 

“Thanks for breakfast, Dr. Lecter,” she rasps, smiling cheerfully at Hannibal. He nods, previous resentments about the food mollified – Will had also eaten plenty. 

“You are very welcome.”

Georgia’s smile grows as she raises her eyebrows at Will. “He’s a keeper, your whatever-he-is.”

Will’s shoulders cinch up, but he still manages to return her smile with a pinched one of his own. “...Glad for your approval, Georgia.”

“And, Abigail – it was, um, really nice to meet you.”

Georgia’s eyes flicker around the margins of Abigail’s face, before fixing on the livid scar across her neck. To Hannibal’s surprise, Abigail slightly raises her chin, almost as if she is aware of the point of recognition and wants to make it easier for Georgia to see. 

To remember, in lieu of a face. 

“I’m really happy I got to meet you, too,” Abigail responds, voice strikingly earnest. Across the top of Abigail’s head, Hannibal sees the slight turn of Will’s face. They catch each other’s eyes: Hannibal feels the glow radiating from Will’s gaze like physical heat. 

They’re really going to be friends. Not alone, Will’s eyes seem to say. 

Not alone, Hannibal agrees, and means it. 

The adoption of stray people is more unstructured than stray dogs, but Hannibal supposes that integration is very much the same: gentle introductions, shared meals, seeing how each addition gets along. Recognizing fellow viciousness – inflicted or inherent – and exposing soft underbellies and scarred necks, regardless. 

Abigail was already Will’s, and Georgia was well on her way; seeing them all together now, Hannibal knows it’s been solidified. 

These two are safe. 

From himself and from the world, if their wolfhound has anything to say about it. 

“I’ll see you guys later,” Georgia is saying, walking down the hall. Hannibal’s missed the very end of the farewells with his musings, but he stays beside Will and Abigail as they wave. When she’s turned the corner, Abigail sighs, listing to the side enough to lean against Will. 

Will startles at the contact. But in the same breath, he wraps a hand around the outside of her arm, clasping her loosely at his side. 

Hannibal’s eyes crinkle. Tenuous, tenuous, this gossamer trust.

“She was so cool,” Abigail breathes out, knocking her head playfully against Will’s shoulder. “Way too cool for someone like you to be friends with.”

“Someone like me?” Will grumbles, lifting his hand to poke her in the side. She yelps. “You mean your frail, senile old guardian?”

Abigail turns into his side, digging her fingers into his ribs. Will nearly doubles over, making a rather concerning wheezing sound. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean–!”

“–Abigail. Will,” Hannibal interrupts, stepping forward to catch hold of each of them and pull them apart. He’s tempted to scruff them like cats, but opts for gently taking Abigail’s hand, instead, pulling her fingers away. A flicker of unease darts through Abigail’s eyes, but she looks to Will, who’s still smiling and catching his breath; her face relaxes. 

“You wheeze like an old man, too,” she teases. Will squints at her, but doesn’t respond. The grin still tugs at the corners of his mouth, and the carefree look on his flushed face makes him seem so suddenly, desperately young. 

Hannibal finds himself needing to catch his own breath, as well. He clears his throat. 

“I have some appointments this afternoon,” he starts, immediately disliking the way it makes two sets of shoulders sag. “And, unfortunately, I was only allowed to sign you out until 1 pm, Abigail.” 

Abigail huffs out a breath, but nods. “Alright, alright. Back to the loony bin.”

Will stiffens, shooting her a disapproving look. “It’s not a loony bin. That’s not – you’re not –” 

“I know, Will,” Abigail interrupts, shoulder-checking him. It escapes no one’s notice that the intonation she puts on his name sounds far closer to the title of a parent than anything else; Will’s frown stays in place, but his eyes are warm.

“You aren’t crazy, Abigail. Not even a little bit. And if being at the center isn’t helping, we’ll get you out of it, and figure out something else with Dr. Bloom. You’ve just got to tell us – both of us. I'm not trying to strong-arm you. You're an adult, and any day you wanted you could fill out the paperwork to remove us as your guardians. I don't really care about that part. I just... I don't want you to feel like you have to hide. Not from Hannibal, and not from me."

Will looks sternly between each of them – Hannibal for confirmation, Abigail for comprehension. 

“Alright?”

After a moment, they both nod. Abigail shifts on her feet. 

“Okay,” she says, and her voice is a small, fragile thing. She flicks a glance up at them both. 

“...Thanks.” 

And then, as if she can’t quite hold the intimacy of the moment, she snakes a hand forward, snagging it in Hannibal’s suit pocket. Hannibal manages to repress the instinctual slide of the scalpel from his sleeve. He blinks at her, eyebrows raised. 

She lifts up Hannibal’s keys. 

“Gonna go start the car,” she chirps. She raises a mischievous eyebrow at Will. 

“Take your time saying goodbye.”

And she darts out of the room. 

Will lets out a breath of laughter through his nose. “Glad she seems to be doing well.”

Hannibal pinches his lips with his own put-upon bemusement. 

“Very well, I think.”

Will laughs again, then winces as he rubs his ribs. Hannibal steps forward. 

“Did she hurt you?”

“What? No,” Will huffs, taking a teetering step back to sit heavily on his bed. “Just, being sore and being ticklish don’t mix all that well. And today’s the most I’ve been out of bed all week, as pitiful as that sounds.”

Hannibal takes another step forward, crossing to sit next to Will.

“You are bizarrely fond of accumulating inaccurate adjectives: pathetic, pitiful. If someone else you cared about were in your present circumstance, I wonder if you would call them the same things.”

Will hums in answer, leaning again on Hannibal’s shoulder. As he had suspected earlier, it is far more pleasant to do on the bed than in chairs. Will’s hip and thigh slide closer with their combined weight on the mattress, pressing flush to Hannibal’s. Hannibal opens his arm, winding it around Will’s back and hooking it around his waist, luxuriating in how familiar the motion is becoming. 

His body is… warm. Always so warm. Hannibal turns his face to press into the side of Will’s head, burying his nose in curls. 

The smell of fever is still there. But slowly and surely, it is starting to ebb, eroding away to expose more of Will’s astounding core scent to his senses. It’s the same as yesterday; the very same. 

Hannibal’s stomach clenches. His fingers curl more securely around Will’s side. 

“You ever get tired of sniffin’ me?” The younger man mutters with mixed amusement and exasperation. Will doesn’t know the half of it, and Hannibal can’t trust his voice with a response. He can only attempt to press closer. Will twists his head slightly, trying to turn his face. The motion instead exposes his neck to the questing brush of Hannibal’s nose and lips. They both go still – Hannibal can almost taste Will’s thrumming pulse, through the thin, heated skin ghosting across his mouth. 

Hannibal lets out a ragged breath. It’s an immediate mistake. Will judders in his hold, gooseflesh breaking out along his confoundingly lovely neck, and the damp waft of Will’s vaporizing adrenaline gets inhaled straight into Hannibal’s lungs. 

“Will,” Hannibal whispers, soft and wrecked, the utterance brushing his lips again along Will’s skin. Unable to refrain, Hannibal presses his mouth once more to the same spot, no murmured name to excuse the contact. He can feel the way Will’s breath becomes more labored, the climbing temperature of the body pressed along his side. Will’s hand comes up, a clawing, desperate thing, reaching out for anything to anchor to. It lands on Hannibal’s tie just as Hannibal opens his mouth, and licks. 

“Hannibal,” Will hisses, wrapping forcefully around Hannibal’s tie and yanking it out from under his vest. Hannibal’s head pulls back with the motion, away from the heady disorientation of Will’s throat. 

Will gives another chastising tug on Hannibal’s tie, eyes flashing. His skin stains so exquisitely; Sistine and holy. 

It tastes that way, too. 

“Abigail's waiting downstairs,” Will grits, baring his teeth at Hannibal. Hannibal hums in unconcerned accord. 

“She did say we could take our time.”

Will splutters. “That’s not – She’d know – not doing whatever the fuck that was,” he growls, emphasizing his words with successive yanks on the fabulously expensive silk in his hand, as if he's tempted to try to throttle some sense into Hannibal. It wouldn’t work, but Hannibal would not protest the attempt. 

…But Will does look upset. Reluctantly, Hannibal attempts to reassemble some false sense of propriety. He straightens, removing his face to a safe distance from Will’s mouthwatering pulse; but he doesn’t release Will’s waist. 

“Vous ne voulez pas que votre fille sache que j'aime votre goût?” 

Will looks absolutely murderous. Hannibal memorizes the image with single-minded devotion.  

“Get out of here,” he snarls, low and thunderous. He pulls on Hannibal’s tie again, hard enough to genuinely stifle air, and leans forward. Hannibal barely has time to register the kiss pressed harshly against his jaw as Will releases the chokehold, shoving roughly at his shoulder. He’s forced to either stumble to his feet, or fall off the bed entirely. 

“Go on now, get.”

The last thing he sees as he’s thrown out of the room are Will’s black-blown pupils. 

*****

Chapter Text

Will is the one to call Hannibal later that evening. 

Hannibal stares at his phone in surprise. Several rings pass him by as he scrutinizes the name on the caller ID, processing an odd expansion within his ribcage at the sight – he nearly misses the last one by the time he picks up. 

“Good evening, Will.”

“Sure took your time,” Will gruffs in his ear. “Cookin’ something?”

Though it had nothing to do with his delay, Hannibal had just finished cooking – the thigh of the young man whose teeth he’d left draped at the Ripper’s latest scene, to be precise. It’s rare when he has so much left to work with after staging a tableau. 

He hums. “As a matter of fact, I was.”

He can hear Will’s smile curling like warm smoke through his words. “Not more pastries, I hope.”

“No,” Hannibal sniffs with mock affront, “something too robust for any delicate systems to handle.”

It’s true. Cooked or no, disease is most communicable between members of the same species, and Hannibal will reluctantly maintain the resolution to spare Will the risk a little while longer. 

Will chuckles blithely. “Been called delicate before – but in the head, not in the stomach. You’d be the first to bestow that particular insult.”

“It’s not intended as such,” Hannibal responds, moving around the counter to settle at a bar stool. “I only meant that I’d prefer to feed you simpler fare for the time being. Are you tiring of sweet things?”

“Not from you. Not if it’s genuine,” Will mutters, as if he didn’t intend the receiver to pick it up. The space behind Hannibal’s sternum becomes curiously warm. Before he can reply, Will cuts off his own murmur with a sigh. 

“All of your food is great, Hannibal, sweet or otherwise. But I called to update you about my treatment plan. Talked things over with Natvig this afternoon.”

Hannibal blinks. Will seems to be getting a brisk traffic of visitors in Hannibal’s brief absences. He supposes doctors are more reasonable to expect than some of the others, but he finds the idea vaguely unpleasant, nonetheless. 

He shakes off his own dismay. “A positive update, I hope?”

Will’s pause brings a different shade of concern creeping in. “...Sort of.”

Hannibal furrows his brow. Will plows on. 

“The good news is that the medication seems to be working pretty well on the encephalitis. My fever’s staying down more often than not, and the last MRI showed less inflammation in my brain.”

Hannibal tenses. “In your brain,” he echoes. “Should I assume that’s not the case, elsewhere?”

Will heaves out another exhale, breath wavering the way it does when he’s forced to talk about something he doesn’t wish to. “Forget delicate – my system’s blown to shit, Hannibal. They scanned the rest of me a couple of hours ago, to get a sense of resting baseline now that I’m starting to recover. It’s… not great. Natvig said that even if the encephalitis had disappeared the day I was admitted, I probably would’ve collapsed within a few weeks, anyways. From, uh, from organ failure.”

The plastic casing of the phone buckles in Hannibal’s hand. 

“I beg your pardon?”

His voice remains steady, but a disconcerting burst of emotions sweeps over Hannibal at Will’s words. It is not the idea of Will in danger that affects him – it is the sheer absurdity of this kind of danger. Unasked for, unanticipated, and wholly outside of Hannibal’s intentional infliction or control. 

It’s… wrong. Entirely wrong. 

“Hannibal,” Will is saying, possibly not for the first time. “Hannibal, I’m alright. It’s what could have happened, not what did. It’s just gonna take a little longer than planned to bring my immune system back to normal. Between the sickness, the stress, and the… inadvisable amount of aspirin I was burning through, I guess it really got a taste for self-immolation. Big surprise, huh?”

The wry attempt at humor falls on deaf ears. 

“You have to come home,” Hannibal says. He’s already considering the arrangements: how to situate Will in the guest bedroom, provide an IV, rearrange his own schedule more than he has already. He was planning on extending the invitation, of course; whenever Will was released, to finish out his convalescence. But something like this Hannibal cannot tolerate leaving in the hands of others for a moment more. Will has to –

“What home?”

Will’s soft question brings him up short. 

“What?”

“What home, Hannibal. I can tell you don’t mean mine. But, this isn’t – We’re not –”

Will stops himself. Hannibal hears a rustle on the other end of the line, and imagines Will’s free hand rubbing over his face. He fixates on the image rather than the implications of Will’s unspoken words, until Will begins speaking again.

“I appreciate what you’re offering. And everything you’ve been doing: the dogs, the meals, the check-ins. Hell, the treatment itself,” Will groans under his breath, “God knows I wouldn’t even be in here until you either said something, or some other huge catalyst happened. Hopefully before the whole insides-shutting-down thing. But the fact of the matter is…”

Another rustle, and a muted thump. Will leaning his head back against the wall. 

“We’ve been doing… this… whatever it is we’re doing, in a bubble. It’s a nice bubble. A really nice bubble,” Will adds quietly. “But it’s – it isn’t reality. You know that. We both know that. However neatly things seem to overlap while I’m in here, it won’t stay that way once I leave.”

“It could.”

Hannibal doesn’t recognize his own voice. Some raw and fragile thing crawls out from the depths of his lungs, instead. 

For a moment, Will doesn’t respond. And then –

“Why?”

Hannibal swallows; hears the resonance of the question Will asked the day he was admitted. 

How do I amend my offense?

…Is that a genuine question?

It is. 

Why?

“We’re back to where we started,” Will continues through the phone, as if he can hear the echoes of his own voice in Hannibal’s memory. “And just like then, I won’t push you to answer, because – because I’m afraid it’ll be a lie,” Will laughs, the sound like fracturing glass.

“And I’ll know. Because even if you feed me and hold me and patch me up, even if you really do – for whatever godforsaken reason – enjoy doing those things, even if you admit to something beyond attraction or compulsion, you won’t say why you’re doing them. You won’t say what you want. There’s evidence for some wildly different conclusions. People confuse feeling and motivation all the time, but I don’t – I can’t.”

Will’s breath rattles harshly in his chest, made harsher by the phone’s interference.

“I’m not a fool, and now I’m not even that sick; not in a way that blinds me, anyway. You took my mind away and you gave it back, all on a whim, and now you think you can just tell me what home is and that I have to come back to it, while you have the gall to go off and–”

Hannibal can hear the audible clack of Will’s teeth as he snaps them together, severing his words.

When Will next speaks, it is horrendously composed. Measured.

“...I’m sorry. I just wanted to tell you that I have to stay here a little longer. If you can’t keep taking care of the dogs, I understand.”

“I can. I will,” Hannibal answers, finally finding his own voice again, and just as quickly allowing it to escape from under him. It spins away to the closest point of reassurance that he can find to offer. “And if you insist on staying in the hospital, I’ll bring Abigail to you again, whenever you’d like. I–”

“Don’t,” Will interrupts, the calm of his voice straining at the edges. “Please don’t say it like that. I was happy to see her, but she’s not a bargaining chip. Neither of them are, nobody is… or at least, no one should’ve been. Not from the very beginning. And I hope–”

Will sucks in a breath through his teeth. 

“I don’t know. I guess I just hope you get some rest. Good night, Hannibal.”

Before he can respond, the line goes dead. 

*****

Sleep is a long time coming for Hannibal. And when it finally arrives, it is beneath the mantle of a dream. 

This in itself is a rarity. From his graduate research days to the present, Hannibal has had decades of practice utilizing psychiatric tools against the experience. There are places his body will never return to; he has made similar oaths with his mind. Rather than leave his unconscious to its devices and invite the possibility, he prefers to forgo the experience altogether. No need for locks if there is never a door to begin with. 

Nevertheless – and for the first time in years – 

Hannibal dreams. 

In his dream, he sits in a misted field. Or perhaps he is lying on his stomach; his vantage point is low to the ground, but his limbs feel strangely unmapped from their places in space. His neck feels particularly strained, as if it has been locked or burdened for an excessive amount of time – like there is a weight pressing down on the crown of his head. Something dangles just outside the upper periphery of his vision, but he cannot move to identify it. 

Before he can begin to take better stock of the situation, he hears a rhythmic swish from the pre-dawn sky. Heavy wingbeats, stirring on the chill air. Harsh croaking calls confirm his suspicion. Even as he orients himself to the ravens, they scatter, startled by a new sound across the clearing. 

The underbrush shifts and whispers. As smooth and sinuous as the mist, an inky body slips into the field, and it pads through the waving grass, condensation scattering its coat with glinting stars. 

Pale gold eyes look down at him. 

The long maw unhinges. Red tongue, white teeth.

And on its breath – Hunger. 

He wanted her found this way, an achingly familiar voice says. Petulant.   

Gold-blue-gold, the eyes flicker. The mist swirls up and over them, and the scene changes.

Now Hannibal is on a road, upright and walking, though still with the same odd sense of unwieldy discoordination. The fog remains, creeping along the edges of the asphalt. The pale light of early morning has sunk into blackness with indeterminate days between, and all that stretches ahead is the long, empty ribbon of asphalt. 

…Or perhaps not quite empty. It is too dim to notice at first, but gradually, gradually, a shape one shade darker than the night that surrounds it resolves into form. It walks slowly down the center of the road, so slowly that Hannibal is able to swiftly draw close behind. 

Its steps are almost sluggish, now; its head droops to the ground. With a concern Hannibal cannot place the origin of, he attempts to reach out. 

To his own frustration, he can’t seem to locate or move his own hand, but it appears to sense Hannibal, anyway. Its ears lift and swivel, but before it has the chance to turn, headlights flare from the road in front of them – alongside the barest flash of red and blue, harsh and artificial – as the fog billows in like a tide. 

The next scenes rise and fall from the mist in only brief glimmers. In comparison with the first two, they are curiously mundane: a hallway, a classroom, a hotel, an observatory. Hannibal registers a vague sense of recognition for most of them, but finds himself less interested in parsing locations than in cataloging how it appears in the center of each. Sometimes its nose is pressed to the earth; other times lifted to the air; and with every successive vignette, it seems to grow more and more wary, lithe body tense and straining. Always, in the moment it realizes Hannibal’s presence, the beginnings of perception are whisked away in rolling vapor. 

Eventually, the haze seems to settle into something more concrete. This place Hannibal recognizes immediately, for the recency of his own visit: Luray Caverns Hedge Maze.

He is standing at the entrance. He casts his eyes around. It is nowhere to be found. But the weight has vanished from his head, and his limbs feel more his own again. 

Flexing his hands, Hannibal steps into the maze. 

The place is not as he last left it. The dense walls of foliage are higher; the dim corridors narrower; and as he walks, Hannibal realizes that snow is crunching below his feet. There was certainly none in the waking world, mere days ago. Nothing to leave a trail. 

As soon as he has the thought, he sees imprints in the snow up ahead of him, appearing without warning. Pawprints. Not one set, but several – different sizes and slightly altered shapes, weaving in and out of one another’s tracks, straying down disparate paths only to rejoin the main convergence. Only one set of tracks does not meander – large and arrow-straight, with deep furrows in the clawmarks. Hannibal bends to examine them, and as he does, notices a different shade mixed into the churned and dirtied snow. 

So dark that it is almost black; thick and arterial. A red Hannibal knows well. 

He reaches for it almost tentatively, brushing over the stained snow. To his abrupt surprise, he feels something shift beneath his fingertips. He presses his fingers more deeply into the freezing surface, curls them, and pulls. 

A shuddering thread emerges from the snow. Hannibal lifts it higher as he stands. The tension pulls taut, snaking off into the winding pathway above the bloodied set of tracks. In spite of himself, Hannibal sighs. 

A little on the nose. 

But on he follows. He expects to be led to the fountain at the heart of the maze – to the stage of his own work. But already he has taken too many turns; moreover, he has covered far more distance than the size of the maze should allow.

Equally as intriguing, he finds the thread in his hand gradually changing texture. One moment he holds the rough, fibrous twist of butcher’s twine; the next, a smooth and slender filament of fishing line. There are no knots between. One slides imperceptibly into the other, then back again, like grafted veins. 

Preoccupied by the thread, Hannibal does not immediately notice the way the hedges have also begun to change. Glossy-leaved boxwood becomes interspersed with bursts of fragrant green needles, sculpted branches giving way to rough bark. The scent of pine has Hannibal lifting his head. His steps slow to a halt when he discovers that he is no longer in a hedged path, but a forested corridor. 

A very familiar forested corridor. One that is neither in the same country nor continent as the hedge maze. 

There is a clearing up ahead. Hannibal doesn’t have to follow the thread to know, but he grips it tightly, anyway, pace quickening. His brow furrows when he hears the sound of moving water. 

There was no stream. 

But here one is, regardless, springing up on Hannibal’s left and running parallel with his path towards the clearing. Its presence strikes Hannibal as somehow more bizarre than anything else thus far – as if something has been abruptly superimposed on a collection of motifs Hannibal could otherwise rationalize. He eyes it curiously, and only tears his attention away when the treeline widens before him, and his awareness is stolen by several things at once. 

Foremost is the return of the burden on his head, and the re-separation of autonomy from limb. The thread drops from Hannibal’s hands, no longer able to hold anything, though he is still capable of taking a few halting steps forward. His eyes fly to the tree branches, immediately searching for the wan little face that is burned in his memory of this place. But she isn’t there – she isn’t there. 

And yet, the bodies are. The torn carcasses of dogs and wolves, scattered and still faintly steaming with the spilled vestiges of life. Only now, the survivors are far fewer. In fact, Hannibal can only see two: a pair of young wolves crouched on the far edge of the clearing. Hannibal can hear others, the rustle and pant of creatures in the underbrush; but only the pups remain in sight. 

The pups, and it.  

The wolfhound. 

It stands in the center of the clearing, just as it had all those years ago. But the center is now the stream, running straight through the middle like a fracture through a photo frame. The wolfhound is submerged to just above its paws. As Hannibal watches, it climbs from the water, stands on the bank nearest to Hannibal... and waits. 

With effort, Hannibal walks forward. It tilts its head as it watches Hannibal draw near, and the familiarity of the gesture makes Hannibal’s chest tighten. When they stand level, it fixes its golden gaze to Hannibal’s. 

Hello, Theseus. 

Hannibal blinks. With protracted determination, he finds and forces words from his own uncooperative mouth. 

“This is my labyrinth. I am not the seeker.”

It gives an amused huff. 

Yet here we are. 

On the pronouncement of ‘we’, Hannibal’s eyes drift over to the wolf pups, stiff and silent on the other side of the stream. The wolfhound shifts its body, interpolating itself to block Hannibal’s line of sight. 

I don’t mean them.

Its voice is calm, but low, as if hovering just above the suggestion of a growl. Hannibal finds himself bristling in response, speaking truths he would not voice in the waking world. 

“They are still an interruption.”

Are they?  The wolfhound immediately rebuffs. Its lip curls over slick, sharp teeth. They are more like you than me. And I am more like these, the wolfhound twitches its muzzle towards the dead dogs on the ground, than you. 

Hannibal shakes his heavy head. A strange shadow moves across the ground with the motion, like the barren branches of a tree. He pays it little mind. 

“You are not like any of us,” he finds himself responding, oddly certain. The golden eyes of the wolfhound flash. 

You’re lying, it says, and now the growl is not a suggestion. You’re lying, and you have been lying, because you want something. As easy as drawing breath, you would kill them or save them, shepherd or scatter them – the wild and the tame, both. You would tell me any story I wanted to hear, play any game either of us pleased, if it got you what you wanted.

“And what do I want?”

To change me. 

Hannibal falls silent. The wolfhound hunches its shoulders, ears pinning to its angular skull. Hannibal sees the wary shift of the pups across the stream – the prick of their own ears responding to the tension in the wolfhound. They look to one another, then sink seamlessly into the underbrush, joining the unseen rustling. 

No living thing remains, now: only Hannibal and the wolfhound. The rush of the stream takes on a distorted echo, filling the clearing with strange reverberations. 

Hannibal wants to keep his next words caged in his chest. They seep out, regardless – fluid from a weeping wound. 

“...Perhaps that is what I wanted.”

The quiet admission has an immediate effect. The wolfhound splays its stance and rears back with a snarl, pawing at the ground. With growing alarm, Hannibal realizes that it is scrabbling with something on the surface of the snow – the translucent fishing line, leading from the edge of the clearing where Hannibal dropped it, all the way to the wolfhound’s feet. And up, up from there, all the way up to… 

Just as Hannibal spies the thread trailing from its jaws, the wolfhound presses the pad of its paw down at just the right angle, and rips its head to the side. Something barbed and glinting tears a gash through its cheek, landing on the snow between them. 

A bloody hook. 

You caught me, the wolfhound breathes, ragged, crimson dripping from its teeth. You caught me, and it’s too late for me to think otherwise. Now I cannot hunt you, even if you hunt me. Even if you hunt all of them. 

It tosses its head wildly around the clearing, the sound of rustling growing on all sides. 

…And you very well might decide to, however lenient you may feel for now.

It begins backing away, hind feet splashing into the stream. 

Because I’m going to disappoint you.

The color of its eyes are flickering again, gold lacing through with blue, blue spidering with gold, lightning strikes through ocean storms. Hannibal lurches forward with a strange sense of panic clawing at his throat. 

“Wait. I admit that what you said may have had some truth to it. May have been what I wanted. But it is not what I want now. Not in entirety –”

Liar. 

“I am not lying–”

Liar.

“If you would wait, just a moment–”

LIAR. 

“Wait–”

“Pabėk, pabėk, run, Hannibal–”

His sister’s voice is screaming. He’s a boy, the dogs and the wolves encroach, and the wolfhound isn’t coming, it’s not coming, he’s not coming, so Hannibal turns to run, his footfalls thundering like hoofbeats –

Hannibal’s phone rings shrilly in the dawn, and he’s awake. His reflexes take over where his conscious mind still lags behind, and he rolls to retrieve his cellphone and lift it to his face in one smooth motion. 

“Hannibal Lecter speaking,” he answers, rote and terse. Blood and fur and evergreen constrict his throat. 

“Hello, Mr. Graham-Lecter? This is Irene Natvig. I’m sorry to call you at this hour.”

Premonition grips an icy fist around Hannibal’s chest. 

“Not at all. Is something the matter?”

The woman takes a tense breath. “I was hoping you’d be able to answer that question.”

Hannibal is already out of bed, dressing himself with one hand. 

“Is Will alright?”

“...He’s missing.”

*****

Chapter Text

As Hannibal drives to the hospital, he finds himself adjusting and re-adjusting the temperature controls. 

He glances at the digital thermometer on his dashboard for the umpteenth time. It has not changed since he got in the car. No sudden dips, no aberrations. It is a typically cool morning for the season, overcast and on the cusp of dawn. The greenery on either side of the road is damp, but the road is not cold enough to ice. A fine vapor hovers just above the ground, instead, swirling with the not-quite-legal speed of the moving Bentley. 

And yet, Hannibal is cold. He is chilled. He can feel the sensation seeping under his skin, subcutaneous and spreading. It is as if the snowy labyrinth of his dream has found a way to slip from his mind, down his brain stem, along his spinal cord, creeping over his nerve endings like frost across a lake – frost across windowpanes – frost across a headstone, across bones too small and broken to properly bury –

He sets his teeth, and forces himself to turn the heater down several degrees, riveting his attention to the sweat dampening the collar of his suit. It is uncomfortable. He is warm, not cold. 

And Will is simply missing, not gone. 

There is a distinction. A definable and concrete distinction. Hannibal stares resolutely at the road ahead of him, and ignores how easily it fades into mist. 

*****

“I’m so sorry. I’m not quite sure how this happened.”

Will’s three medical practitioners are all standing in his hospital room, the rumpled bed glaringly vacant behind them. They make an almost amusing vignette: Natvig, solemn and thoughtful; Hoffman, both distempered and smug; and Cross, practically vibrating with oncoming hysterics. 

But Hannibal has no inclination towards amusement in this moment. Holding firmly to the straining seams of his person-suit, he focuses on Natvig, giving her a curt nod. 

“I appreciate you calling. Do you mind explaining how you discovered him missing?”

“–It was my f-fault!” Nurse Cross bursts in, voice shuddering on a sob. Her hands flutter erratically, wringing together.

“I was the last person to see him in his room. I think he was on the phone until Dr. Hoffman went to take his vitals, and then I came to ask if he needed anything a little while after that. He said no, that he was going to bed, but that he remembered Ms. Madchen had asked to talk to a nurse. So then I went to see Ms. Madchen, but she was already asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up, and I’m not really part of her care team, anyways, so I went to see if I could find someone who was, to let them know for tomorrow – um, I mean, today –”

“Did anyone else see Will leaving?” Hannibal interrupts as calmly as he can. “The front desk – is it possible he just discharged himself?”

From the corner of his eye, Hannibal sees Hoffman shift, so slight that it could merely be an adjustment. Natvig shakes her head.

“No,” she answers grimly. “We checked, and he didn’t talk to anybody at the front desk. It wouldn’t have mattered; normally he’d be allowed to sign himself out as per AMA policy, but he’s… actually been technically committed, since advanced encephalitis is grounds for psychiatric incompetency.” 

She looks slightly abashed to share this revelation. Hannibal frowns. 

“I was not aware. I am assuming Will was not, either.”

Natvig shakes her head again, the chagrin growing on her face. Nurse Cross heaves a renewed wave of fresh sobs. Hannibal’s jaw hardens. 

“Committing someone to a medical institution without their consent requires a legal intervention. Who authorized this?”

“I did. Not that it did any good.”

Hannibal turns to see Jack Crawford storm into the room, stern-faced and surly. It is only in that very moment, so belated that he can scarcely admit it to himself, that Hannibal realizes:

This could have been a trap. 

Will could have gone to Jack.  

Hannibal has not been sure, this entire week, of Will’s intentions; of his nascent awareness, nor of how deep or shallow it yet runs. Even now he isn’t certain – but on the premise of hiding Will’s illness alone, Hannibal could easily be arrested. As he watches the head of the BAU stride in like cavalry, he halfway expects a task force to come streaming in behind him, followed by one avenging blue-eyed valkyrie.

It doesn’t happen. Jack is here, and Jack alone. 

Jack, who had Will committed. 

The two men stare at each other, and Hannibal peripherally observes the way Natvig takes a subtle half-step back, as if to remove herself from line-of-fire.

Smart woman. 

Hannibal purses his lips over his teeth to keep from baring them. “Good morning, Jack. I assume the hospital was obliged to call you, as Will’s freshly-appointed warden?”

“Better than his falsely-appointed partner.”

Nurse Cross’s scandalized gasp makes it difficult for Hannibal to maintain his dignity, but he doesn’t look away from Jack.

“Perhaps you ought to ask Will what is true or false about either of our positions in his life.”

He says it with far more confidence than he feels. Jack raises a skeptical brow. 

“I’ve already asked him just that, Dr. Lecter. Or didn’t Will tell you?”

The question is surprising, destabilizing, as it was intended to be. Not betraying an iota of sentiment on his features, Hannibal tilts his head coolly. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are referring to.”

Jack snorts. “Honestly, I don’t know either. Will didn’t have a straight answer for me, and now I’m starting to see that you’re two of a pair. All I know is that one or both of you have been hiding things since Will’s been in here, and frankly, that just doesn’t sit right with me. I have to say that I’m especially surprised with you, doctor.” He levels a hard glare at Hannibal.

“Had I known your code of conduct was so easily swayed, I might’ve thought twice about requesting your services to begin with.”

Another inflammatory comment. Hannibal knows what is meant to draw him out; that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerously close to working. He inhales slowly through his nose. 

“Will is not, and has never been, my patient. As such, the nature of our relation to each other is not the business of others. But putting that aside: when and why did you authorize his commitment? You appeared quite eager to get him back into the field – especially with the advent of another Ripper case. Legally constraining him to this hospital seems at odds with that goal.”

Jack lets out a dry laugh. “It is at odds. I don’t want to keep him in here any more than you do. But what I want even less,” he enunciates, threat and obstinance teetering on the syllables, “is him losing his focus and running off with his therapist the moment he starts to feel better. He’s already distracted enough as it is, refusing my calls and visits. If he has to stay here, he can’t put me off forever; and you can’t keep running interference.”

Bitterness rises in Hannibal’s throat as he recalls his last conversation with Will – Jack’s concerns about Will running off with his therapist were woefully unfounded – but the latter half of the man’s words make him pause. 

“...He’s been refusing your calls and visits?”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up, then furrow with the narrow of his eyes. He peers carefully at Hannibal. “Have you not been the person silencing his cell? I assumed, since you answered on his behalf that first day…”

Some tightly coiled thing in Hannibal’s chest stirs; flutters with a warmth even Hannibal does not understand.  

“When was the last time you talked to Will?”

Jack is still squinting at him. “Two days ago. I insisted, but I was barely here for ten minutes before he asked me to leave. I called him that evening, and he didn’t pick up. Yesterday morning I sent Agent Katz; he let her in, but he wouldn’t go into details on the Ripper case with her, wouldn’t do his… his usual thing, you know. I called him several times yesterday afternoon – went straight to voicemail – and then I tried to come by yesterday evening. He wasn’t available, the nurse said, because he was calling his husband. ” 

Jack looks askance at Nurse Cross, who quails. “...and that’s when I authorized the commitment. I asked the staff not to tell him until I had the chance to corner him today.”

Hannibal opens his mouth, but Dr. Natvig clears her throat. To his surprise, she steps forward, firmly interjecting herself in the charged space between them. 

“I hate to cut you off, gentlemen,” she begins calmly, “but I think it may be in everyone’s best interest not to go too much further into this conversation.”

 Her gaze lingers on Jack as her mouth thins.

“Mr. Crawford, hearing what you have just said, I regret to inform you that I can no longer uphold Will Graham’s legal commitment to this hospital. Psychological instability is grounds to do so; occupational negligence is not.”

She crosses her arms, not pausing to allow any retort. “To be frank, I was not fully comfortable with the sanction to begin with – I believe Mr. Graham has recovered to the point of being mentally sound, even if he has a long ways to go, physically. His departure is still against medical advice…” 

Here she switches her gaze to Hannibal with a slight raise of her brows. “...And I can’t imagine what may have caused him to leave at such a critical time. We went over his treatment plan just yesterday, and he did not seem unaware of the risks to his own health.”

“He’s not aware of anything,” a sour voice mutters. They all turn to the source: Hoffman, who looks startled by the sudden attention. His sallow face darkens a few shades, but he raises his chin with a stubborn expression of disdain. “That boy should be in a coma, for everyone’s sake; and I am not in favor of lifting his commitment. In fact, once they drag him out of whatever trouble he’s causing, I think he should really be committed to a different kind of institution altogether–”

“Dr. Hoffman,” Natvig cuts him off sharply. Hannibal’s body hums with the effort of containing a sudden surge to his unspent adrenaline. Hoffman’s card is already in his rolodex, and as a general rule, Hannibal waits a minimum of several months between his last interaction with a prey animal and their arrival at (or on) his table. 

This man will not be given months. After Hannibal finds Will, he will not be given days. If Hannibal has to forego both art and meat to stage it as an ignoble accident, then so be it. 

Jack throws his hands in the air. 

“I don’t care who thinks what in this room. I just want to know where my damn profiler is. And if he’s not with you,”

He gestures at Hannibal, who stiffly shakes his head. “Nor you,” Hannibal returns, with a complicated ripple of relief and confusion. Jack’s grimace only deepens as he waves at the empty bed.

“...then where the hell is he?”

*****

Hannibal gazes dispassionately into the paper cup of instant coffee being ushered into his hands. 

“You should drink it. It’s still early,” Nurse Cross croaks. She takes a shaky gulp from the cup in her other hand as she settles herself in the seat next to Hannibal. “I really am so, so sorry.”

Hannibal gives her an approximation of a thin-lipped smile. They are sitting in the plastic chairs of the waiting area on the first floor, just outside the closed door of the security room. Natvig and Jack are inside, reviewing last night’s footage. 

Hannibal, infuriatingly, is not allowed to view the camera feed without legal clearance – a clearance Jack did not see fit to bestow. 

“I’m sorry, Dr. Lecter,” he’d said before closing the door; calmer since his outburst in Will’s room. He’d looked at Hannibal almost pityingly. “Until I get this mess sorted out and can talk to Will, I would prefer to involve you as little as possible. But let me be clear: I am not trying to make us enemies.”

“I do not consider you an enemy,” was Hannibal’s simple reply. For all of the concealed irony of the statement, Hannibal had meant it; Jack was not worthy of anything close to such an association. And the only man who was – who is – Hannibal would take any degree of connection from, any dynamic, adversarial or otherwise. 

Anything but absence.

“I just don’t know where he’d go,” Nurse Cross sighs, bottom lip trembling with the threat of more tears. “He knows how sick he is! And you’re sure he didn’t try to come home?”

Hannibal stiffens at the word. But the sniffling nurse, for all she’d heard upstairs, seems still to be laboring under the certainty of Hannibal and Will’s partnership. Their cohabitation. Living with Will was the lie he’d spun, himself, just last week – what feels to be many ages ago. 

Hannibal relaxes his fingers around the paper cup. The coffee is threatening to spill over. 

“No, he did not.”

He’d checked, on the way to the hospital. They’d both checked, Jack and Hannibal, and very likely just missed one another. Will’s car was still parked in the driveway, with no fresh tire tracks since it had been driven back to Wolf Trap by a trainee after Gideon's detainment. His house was empty and dark, his pack uncharacteristically subdued. With hurried distraction, Hannibal had set out food for them, which they picked at listlessly; Winston’s low whine had followed Hannibal out of the door. 

Nurse Cross leans forward, another apparent question poised, but the closed room opens as Jack, Natvig, and the head of security walk out. Jack pauses when he sees Hannibal still sitting outside. After a moment of hesitation, he nods his head. 

“On the footage, changed into the same clothes he was admitted in. He was recorded going out to the courtyard at around 10 pm; he wasn’t recorded coming back inside.”

Hannibal clenches his jaw. “Was there not security at every exit?”

As if in answer to his question, a young security officer comes jogging down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of his boss. 

“You paged me, sir?”

The bored-looking senior officer jerks his chin at Jack, not bothering to answer. Jack glares down at the nervous man. 

“Are you aware that you let a committed patient waltz off the premises last night, Officer…” Jack’s eyes flick down to the flimsy nametag, “...Johnson?”

The young man visibly pales. 

“N-no, I… Who? When?”

Jack puffs up his posture even more, and Officer Johnson seems to wilt in tandem. As he gives the description of Will and the correlated time, the young man freezes. 

“I– okay, I do remember talking to him,” Johnson starts, stumbling over his words, “but he wasn’t a patient! He didn’t have a gown or an IV or anything. He said he was the brother of one of the patients upstairs – Georgia-something? – and that since visiting hours were over, he was headed home. I did ask him why he wasn’t leaving out of one of the main exits,” the boy hurries to add on, as if scrambling for a defense, “but he said that he lived close enough to the hospital to walk, and it was a shorter route home to leave through the courtyard.”

Jack groans at this addition, and the older officer cuffs Johnson in reprimand. Hannibal watches the entire exchange in thoughtful silence. 

“Thank you, Officer Johnson,” Natvig says cordially, shooting a disapproving look at the senior security officer. “You can leave now.”

“Excuse me,” Jack barks, crossing his arms and scowling at Natvig. “This is a legal investigation, and I’m not finished with him.”

“It isn’t, and you are,” Natvig responds matter-of-factly; and despite the situation, Hannibal can’t help but feel some twinge of approbation for her stalwart manner. “I’m just as concerned about Mr. Graham as you are, Mr. Crawford. And given your occupation, I am obliged to let you view the security footage. But it is now abundantly clear that he left the hospital of his own volition, and as far as I’m concerned, he was within his rights – if not his best interests – to do so.”

“I authorized his commitment. According to state law, I should have 72 hours–” Jack starts, but Natvig holds up her hand. 

“As I told you, after hearing the details of your reasoning, I no longer uphold that commitment. I am not arguing about the seriousness of his disappearance. I am arguing about the legality of it. I earnestly hope Mr. Graham reconsiders and returns himself to this hospital before he is returned by worse circumstance, instead – but until then, I can only wait, and attend to my other patients. Matilda?”

Nurse Cross perks up beside Hannibal, bolting upright in her seat. “Yes?”

“After I rectify the misfile on Mr. Graham’s paperwork, I’d appreciate your help with the rheumatology ward. Are you available to flex your next shift?”

“Yes!” 

The young woman jumps to her feet, scurrying to the side of her senior. As they turn to go, Natvig spares a sympathetic glance at Hannibal. 

“I apologize again, Mr… Lecter. I’ll give you a call if I hear anything.”

Hannibal’s insides twist at the pared-down form of address, but he inclines his head. 

“Thank you.”

And the pair disappear down the hall. 

Jack makes a low sound of frustration, pressing a hand to his temple. “He walked off. Blocked me out, and walked off. Even left his phone upstairs, though of course he had the devil’s sense to take his wallet. I’d trace his cards, but I’d need the commitment in place to clear something like that. He must be having another episode. He’d have to be out of his mind– ”

“Jack,” Hannibal interrupts, working to keep his tone even, “Will’s refusal to engage with you does not equate to madness.”

“Then what does it equate to, Dr. Lecter?” Jack sighs, lowering his hand to look down at Hannibal. The aggression dissipates from his large frame, though the frustration remains. He drops heavily into the chair opposite. 

“I don’t understand what Will is thinking at the best of times – and I sure as hell don’t understand it now. The one thing that I know I can always count on is his willingness to work, his willingness to help me catch these killers. He almost killed himself catching this last one, and Abel Gideon is nothing compared to the genuine article. We finally have a real Ripper scene on our hands – a real scene, not a stray arm or a brainwashed lookalike – and suddenly Graham just skips on his merry way?”

Jack rests his elbows on his knees, shaking his head. “I thought it was you,” he grumbles, and the millisecond of shocked alarm Hannibal feels is swept away just as quickly by his continuation, “thought he was being, I don’t know, seduced away by the attention of someone charming. It seemed like something similar was happening with Dr. Bloom for a while, too. I even called her while we were reviewing the footage. But she hasn’t seen him, either,” he mutters, and has the decency to look embarrassed. He cocks a halfhearted glare at Hannibal. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I still think there’s something going on with you two. But you’re here, I’m here – and he’s not.”

Hannibal wants to grind his teeth together with the abysmal truth of that statement, and all that it implies. Instead, he sets aside the wretched cup of coffee, threading his hands as he draws his attention inwards. From the information gleaned over the past few hours, several brief moments suspend like shards of a looking-glass in his mind, and he knows:

There are inconsistencies in the order of events. 

…that’s when I authorized the commitment. I asked the staff not to tell him until I had the chance to corner him today.

–Those were Jack’s exact words, and Natvig seemed to verify them just prior to Jack’s arrival. Hannibal wants to press, to pull more precise details from Jack, but he doesn’t want to risk attracting the man’s attention. Instead, he leans forward. 

“I believe,” Hannibal begins slowly, as if he is just now considering his own thoughts, “Will mentioned some disquietude over his classes.”

Jack blinks at him, flinted visage going briefly slack.

“His classes?”

Hannibal nods, affecting a considering frown. “Yes. He seemed… reticent, to discuss any details about the Ripper case with me, as well. He said that the continuous adjustments to his medication made it difficult to think clearly, but that he felt he might be able to arrange his thoughts if he constructed them in the form of a lecture – the way he has done with so many killers before. But many of the classified materials on the Ripper only exist in hard copy.”

Hannibal pauses again, letting the words dangle in the air. It is lovely, in its way; coating the steel of partial truths with the bait of liberal lies. He wonders if a certain fisherman would approve. 

Jack snaps his fingers, fire sparking back into his dark eyes. 

“Quantico. He’s at the academy.”

He rises to his feet, turning decisively towards the door. Hannibal rises, as well, and lays a carefully calculated hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I’d like to go with you.”

Jack hesitates. He looks towards the exit, then back to Hannibal. 

“Listen, Lecter. I know that you’re worried,” he says, expression uncomfortable, “and you might be right about the nature of your… affiliation with Will. I set the precedent for establishing a non-traditional relationship between you, and I acknowledge the responsibility of that. We will all have to sit down to decide how to navigate professional boundaries going forward,” he grits out, as if reading from a human resources manual at gunpoint. 

“But right now, I need to have this initial conversation with Will alone.”

Hannibal nods, allowing his hand to drop. Jack’s relief is palpable as he turns to march away. 

“I understand,” Hannibal calls softly, uncaring if Jack hears him as he departs. Because he most certainly does understand: 

He, too, intends to find and speak with Will alone. 

But before leaving the premises himself, he has a few loose ends to follow up on. He watches Jack’s form quickly dwindle as he stomps to his car; then he straightens his suit, turns away from the exit, and heads back towards the stairwell of the hospital. 

*****

Chapter Text

The first room he makes for is one he intended to visit some days prior, albeit under far different circumstances. 

In spite of the early hour, Georgia Madchen is awake when Hannibal walks in. Even more surprising, she is outside of her oxygen chamber – sitting upright at her own little table. She sets down a cell phone as Hannibal arrives at the threshold, and Hannibal catches the brief flash of an incoming text bubble before she turns off the screen. 

He stands in the doorway, waiting to be acknowledged. Georgia’s eyebrows push together as her eyes track erratically over Hannibal’s face, then relax as she looks down at the rest of his body, fixating on his clothing.

“...Dr. Lecter, right?”

“Good morning, Ms. Madchen.”

Georgia smiles as he approaches, gesturing to the seat across from her. “It’s nice to get a new visitor. Wanna sit down?”

Her voice manages to be pleasant despite its coarse texture. Hannibal accepts the invitation, watching her carefully as he straightens to face her. There is no time for his usual dissimulations. 

“I’m sorry to be abrupt, but I am anxious to be on my way – did Will visit you last night?”

She doesn’t respond right away; her eyes flicker to Hannibal’s shoulders, then to his hands clasped loosely on the table. Checking for tension, Hannibal realizes, and finds himself mildly impressed with her resourcefulness. 

Leaving his posture lax, he addresses her again. 

“Ms. Madchen?”

“Yes,” she responds, still studying his hands. After another lingering moment, she raises her eyes to rest in the vicinity of his face, expression curious and mildly concerned. Perhaps too mildly concerned. “He did come by last night. We chatted for a little while before bed. Is everything okay?”

Hannibal tilts his head. “Did Will tell you he was going to bed?”

“Mm, I guess he didn’t say he was, no.”

Georgia mirrors his head tilt with one of her own – seemingly unconsciously – and the way she is so clearly attempting to parse all of the cues she can find in place of those she is uniquely denied, is… intriguing.  

There is something sharp in Georgia Madchen. 

No ordinary strays, Hannibal thinks, with a flicker of mixed amusement and melancholy. How curatorial. 

Externally, he spreads his hands in supplication. “The crux of the matter is this: Will left the hospital late last night, and no one knows where he’s gone. Even if it seems unrelated, I would very much appreciate hearing what he said to you.”

Once again, the subtlety of Georgia’s reaction is admirable. She tilts back in her seat with a small intake of breath, a dawning understanding masquerading as shock. 

“He left?”

The concern, at least, seems far more sincere. She stares at the table with a frown gathering at the edges of her mouth. Her eyes slide over to her phone, then back to her own hands. She fiddles absently with one of her bandages. 

After another moment of silence, she looks back to Hannibal. He waits, carefully restraining any signs of impatience from his own body language. 

“He was acting a little odd.”

Hannibal nods slowly, but otherwise doesn’t press. Georgia’s posture eases a little more at the lack of prompting, and she continues. 

“He doesn’t usually visit that late. And when he came in, the way he carried himself just looked… tired. More tired,” she adds wryly, tracing an idle pattern on the table with one finger. “He always seems a bit wrung out, but you know what I mean.”

Something in Hannibal’s chest contracts. “I do.”

Georgia sighs. “So, he came in, and asked how I was doing – how recovery was going, stuff like that. It’s almost funny,” she chuckles, harsh in tone and feeling, both. “Nobody else asks me those kinds of questions and cares to actually hear the answer anymore. My own mother stopped years ago, and I doubt she’ll ever start up again, not with – with what I did.”

Hannibal’s gaze sharpens. 

“Was that another topic of conversation last night?”

Georgia lifts her eyes, letting her shoulders drop. Some unplaceable thing seems to drop away with them. 

“No.”

 Slowly, she smiles. 

“But you were.”

The surgical steel is cool and solid against the underside of Hannibal’s wrist as he palms the scalpel from the stitched-in seam of his sleeve. But even with its familiar shape hidden in his hand, he recalls seeing Will smiling with the two young women, just yesterday; the resolution of their safety; and, most damningly, the words of the dream-bound wolfhound.

You would kill them or save them, shepherd or scatter them – the wild and the tame, both… if it got you what you wanted.

That lovely, terrible creature with its lovely, terrible eyes, standing amidst blood and snow and never-there water. The two wolf pups across the stream.

They are more like you than me. 

“You dress very distinctly,” Georgia says, voice steady. “I told Will as much. That I might eventually remember somebody who dressed like you. Even if it felt like it was only in a dream, or a nightmare… I would remember. Probably.”

Hannibal is rooted in his seat, frozen in the breath between actions. The smile on Georgia’s face softens. 

“I didn’t have to see his face to know he didn’t look surprised, Dr. Lecter. He just looked sad.”

Her dark eyes flicker back up, and this time they only miss Hannibal’s own by centimeters. 

“Will really cares about you.”

The scalpel suddenly seems laughably dull in comparison to what lances through Hannibal’s chest at her words. With a flick of his fingers, his hand is empty once more. The motion is incredibly slight – appears to be an adjustment of his suit cuff, at most. Inconceivably, Georgia’s eyes drop down just in time to catch it. 

“Oh. He said to watch your hands,” she says airily, as if they are discussing the weather. “Actually, first he said never to be alone in my room, and to have a nurse with me all day today.” 

She scrunches up her nose. “He even sent his own nurse to find mine after I fell asleep, like some kind of game of nurse-telephone. And he left me Abigail’s number,” she waves her phone, brightening considerably, “then he said not to let any visitors in, and then he told me, if anything went wrong, to watch people’s hands… and call for help.”

Hannibal cocks a brow.

“And why aren’t you?”

“Because nothing’s going wrong,” Georgia returns simply. Her cell phone buzzes, and she glances down at it with a grin. “Plus, Abigail knows you’re here. She says hi.” 

Mildly bemused and considerably consternated, Hannibal gives a small shake of his head, attempting to regain direction. 

“He told you not to let me in. Why didn’t you heed that warning?”

“He told me not to let any visitors in. He never said your name, not once. He also didn’t say he was planning on leaving the hospital.”

Georgia frowns, expression clouding. “He doesn’t… seem well enough to leave yet, does he?”

Hannibal feels the steep downturn of his own mouth. “He is not.”

“Then you’d better go find him, right?”

“I assure you, I am trying,” he responds thinly, stiffening in irritation, “though it seems he didn’t leave you with any information beyond a vague set of instructions that you’ve soundly ignored.”

Georgia shakes her head, looking genuinely chastised. Hannibal forces himself to draw a measured breath. The complexity of the situation is multiplying, and will require further thought at another time – but he cannot bring himself to kill Georgia with both dream and recent memory fresh in his mind. And this young woman, for whatever reason, appears uninterested in turning him in. 

As disorienting as this conversation has been, his immediate priorities have not changed.

“Very well. There’s someone else I need to speak to before I leave.”

He moves to stand up. Georgia reaches across the table, but stops short of actually touching him. 

“Wait.”

He complies, cocking his head.

“I told you what Will said, which wasn’t much,” she says with a sheepish smile, “but before he left, I told him a few more things that I want to tell you, also.”

She looks at him seriously, trying to fix her eyes in the middle of his face. 

“I don’t totally know what’s going on. It seems like there’s… more, than just the part that involves me, or even what involves Abigail. Will didn’t explain anything, but it's obvious that he’s worried about us. She and I’ve been texting about it since last night.”

She straightens in her seat, tucking her long hair behind her ears. Hannibal sees the sharpness in her again – fragile in its youth, yet fine-edged and familiar.

“But whatever’s up with you guys, Abigail and I can take care of ourselves; and if that fails, we can take care of each other. I only just met her and I know it. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s… it’s just… inevitable. The first sentence of something already written, or something. You of all people should understand what I mean.”

Hannibal eyes her curiously. Slowly, he nods. Levity trickles back into Georgia’s raw expression. 

“Good. I know you might not be that worried about us, and I’m not taking it personally; but now you can remind Will if he frets. The second thing is this,”

She raises her eyebrows cheekily. 

“Nightmares are an unreliable source of men’s fashion. I dreamt up some silly-looking plastic layer that can’t possibly be real; and besides that, I might just have a subconscious thing for suits. I think Will does, too, though I didn’t tell him that part,” she smirks, and Hannibal finds himself exceptionally glad that she can’t see facial expressions.

“So what I’m saying is… well, I guess I don’t remember anything familiar about how anyone dresses, after all. Alright?”

Hannibal sighs, less insulted than he’d like to be. He is reminded of Zoe climbing into his lap, scattering her white fur all over his dark slacks. He’d given up on lint rollers that night. 

Inconvenient, how vast the fondness for one man can expand, accumulating all sorts of creatures in its wake - stubborn dogs and wolf pups, alike. 

“I understand, Ms. Madchen.”

She waves at him as he turns away, unlocking her phone. 

“Just Georgia.”

He hears the tapping of her fingers as he opens the door. But before he exits, he hesitates, turning on his heel. 

“Georgia.”

She looks up questioningly. 

“When you were first being treated by Dr. Sutcliffe, was it before or after he established a private practice?”

A ripple of discomfort passes over her features. “Before, I think.”

Hannibal nods. Not an urgent piece of information, but perhaps a useful one – for after. If there is an after. He ardently hopes there is.

“Thank you.”

She nods. “Abigail says to play nice,” she calls, as the door swings shut. 

*****

Hannibal next stops outside an office door on the neurology floor. The nameplate is heavily (and distastefully) embossed. 

He pulls his sleeves low, tightening the buttons to his wrists. Then he knocks: three swift raps. After a moment, the door swings open, and Dr. Hoffman appears looking distinctly disgruntled. When his eyes find Hannibal’s face, his expression grows all the more irritable. 

“Can I help you,” he snaps. Hannibal smiles pleasantly. 

“Yes. May I come in?”

Without waiting for an answer, he sidesteps into the small office. The majority of the space is taken by a desk far too large and grandiose to be of any practical use. Hannibal leans on its edge as Hoffman wheels around, pushing the door closed. His eyes narrow at Hannibal’s casual lounging. 

“If this is about this morning, you’ll be thrilled to hear that that woman has already changed all of the paperwork in the system, with or without the approval of anyone else she should be asking. Mr. Graham is no longer committed, so you don’t need to complain to me about it–”

“Oh, I’m aware,” Hannibal interrupts. He plucks the pocket square from his vest and drapes it over the black marble plaque on the desk, lifting it with the fabric and using it to gesture loosely at the man. “Richard Hoffman. Is it necessary to have such large nameplates on the door and on the desk, both? I fear people may make Freudian assumptions.”

Hoffman turns the color of a bruised plum. He takes a step closer, edging up to Hannibal’s oxfords with his scuffed loafers. He jabs a finger at Hannibal’s chest. 

“You, you – Shouldn’t you be out looking for your schitzy little rentboy–”

Hannibal drops the plaque squarely on Hoffman’s foot. It lands with a rather satisfying crunch. Hoffman bellows, but the sound is muffled by the swift press of the handkerchief in Hannibal’s now-unburdened hand to the man’s odious mouth.

“Oops,” Hannibal deadpans, looking calmly into Hoffman’s shocked and infuriated eyes. “I was so surprised by the ugly things coming from your lips that my hand slipped; or perhaps it was yours? In any case, I hope…” he steps forward, forcing the man to stumble back against the wall. Before he can regain any balance, Hannibal presses his other forearm against Hoffman’s throat, careful in how much pressure he applies. “...you didn’t use such unpleasant words when you told Will he was committed last night.”

Hoffman’s eyes widen. He shakes his head emphatically, muffling something against the handkerchief. Hannibal lessens the weight on Hoffman’s throat incrementally as he removes the fabric enough for him to speak. 

“-idn’t say anything, I donaaugh–”

Hannibal cuts off his agonized groan as he replaces the handkerchief and steps on Hoffman’s broken foot at the same time. The color drains from Hoffman’s face, and his eyelids flutter. Hannibal tuts, lessening the pressure another hair. 

“Don’t lie, and for heaven’s sake, don’t pass out just yet, Dr. Hoffman. While it seems to have escaped general notice – for now – I find it rather odd that Will didn’t even attempt to sign himself out at the front desk, don’t you? That he avoided the exits altogether, and went to the trouble of changing his clothes and reassuring the security guard. Strange behavior for a patient who was supposed to be kept entirely in the dark about his newly imposed commitment. What is your professional opinion?”

Hoffman makes another aborted sound and jerks against the wall, bringing up his hands to claw ineffectually at Hannibal’s arms. He fails to reach skin – Hannibal’s tightly-fastened sleeves stay perfectly in place. 

His patience, on the other hand, does not. The handkerchief is growing unpleasantly damp against his hand, panicked exhalation seeping through. Hannibal curls his lip. 

“I’m going to release you momentarily,” he states, looking down his nose at the wretched man. “And you will politely and calmly repeat, word-for-word, your conversation with Will Graham from last night. But as a courtesy, I will remind you of your position.”

Hannibal presses, with utmost delicacy, on the hyoid bone in Hoffman’s neck, just before its buckling point.

“However brief it was, a certain patient in your care was put under an involuntary psychiatric hold. In response – and against legal authorization – you intentionally heightened that critically ill patient’s condition by divulging this hold. This patient is now missing against medical advice, accumulating greater harm to his system as we speak, solely enabled by your deliberate action.”

He smiles congenially at Hoffman. 

“To summarize, as one friendly colleague to another: negligence lawsuits are a headache; intentional torts are ruinous; and you have been terribly clumsy with your excessive desk decor, today. Do you understand?”

Paling to the shade of sour milk, Hoffman twitches his chin – as close to a nod as he can manage, given his position – and Hannibal draws both of his hands back. Without the precise force holding him up, he slides down the wall, collapsing into a gasping heap in the corner of his own office. 

Hannibal resumes his lean on the edge of the desk, reluctantly tucking the soiled handkerchief back in his pocket. He itches, itches, itches to ram it down the man’s throat, instead; to draw his repellent tongue from his mouth and force his jaw up from the bottom, severing the useless organ between the man’s own teeth; to do the same with the his fingers, one by one, hand by hand, as he asphyxiates on blood and fabric and flesh… 

Hannibal purses his lips. If patience was measured in proportion to impulse, the pope would kiss his feet. He stares down at the whimpering puddle of a man. 

“Dr. Hoffman. I’m waiting.”

The puddle flinches. With another rasping inhale, it begins to speak. 

“He was trying to leave his room again,” Hoffman hisses, trying and failing to sound angry instead of terrified, “off to harass that disturbed young woman, no doubt. Disrupting, perverting, lusting after unstable girls and old, paying men–”

Hannibal pushes off the desk, taking a half-step towards Hoffman, who abandons his words as he cringes back against the wall. Hannibal tilts his head. 

“What an unfortunate accident; your foot must be hurting you quite badly, to veer so far from recounting to slanderous conjecture. Perhaps I ought to call Dr. Natvig to help, and provide her the same context I provided you, regarding the details and legal ramifications of Will’s departure–”

“I told him to stay in his room,” Hoffman spits. Sweat drips down the side of his face and onto his yellowed collar. “But he insisted that, since his encephalitis was identified, there was no basis to quarantine him. And he was right,” Hoffman continues, eyes brimming with hatred. 

“But I told him that whatever freedom he was so intent on abusing within the hospital walls, he’d never find again, outside of them. His own boss decided as much: to commit him. To retire the broken toy that had outlived its use.” 

Hannibal crouches next to Hoffman. There is nowhere else for the man to go. He cowers, ducking his head and drawing his legs up as best he can. Hannibal pats his shin, sliding his hand down over his rumpled sock to rest lightly on his injured foot. It’s hot and swelling, already starting to strain at the confines of the cheaply-constructed shoe.  

“What time?”

“...J-just after 9 pm.”

Hannibal nods. Definitively after Will had called him, with enough time to double back to speak with Georgia before leaving. He squeezes Hoffman’s foot harshly. The man spasms with a pig-like squeal. 

“You’d better take care of this. In fact, after splinting, I would suggest immediately requesting leave until it heals. If you still happen to be in the building by the time Will returns, I’m afraid I might not be able to keep him from revealing the conversation the two of you had. But I will try my best, as a sympathetic professional.”

Hannibal has every intention of keeping his promise. It will be less likely to implicate Will if Hoffman's secret stays concealed, and more likely to keep the disgusting man complacent until Hannibal can find an opportune moment to dispose of him. He stands, dusting off his clothes, and unlatches the door. As it drifts open, he turns back to nudge the fallen plaque closer to Hoffman’s body with the toe of his patent leather shoe.

“I’ll let Nurse Cross know that you dropped your ego. Do take care, Dr. Hoffman.”

*****

Hannibal sighs as he gets back into his car. It is nearly 10 am – close to four hours since he’d arrived at the hospital – and while he now nominally understands the order of events that led up to Will’s departure, he is still no closer to divining Will’s state of mind, nor any intent behind where the missing man might have gone. To make matters worse, he is working on two time-sensitive scales: Jack’s misdirection, which will only take the rest of the day to dissolve; and, far more pressingly, Will’s health. 

Ignoring the phantom chill that still threatens to creep back under his skin, Hannibal tilts against the headrest, shutting his eyes. Objectively, he knows Will should be alright. As troubling as the conversation about organ failure had been, Will had said his risk was evaluated at a number of weeks. It had scarcely been twelve hours. But Will was not in a hospital, medicated and monitored. He wasn’t even in his house, with access to his own questionable methods of self-care. He might not even be indoors –

Hannibal’s eyes snap open. He recalls, not from their conversation yesterday, but from several conversations since Will’s hospitalization, a certain location:

…a creek like the one in the backwoods… 

…I spend a lot of time outdoors – whenever I’m not working, really. In the water… 

…thoughts as thick as smoke. Miss the stream…

Hannibal’s heart thrums in his chest. He is struck, again, by another image from his dream: the displaced stream running across a clearing where it never existed, and the wolfhound waiting on its bank. 

That stream does not flow through the forests of the Lithuanian countryside; but it might flow through the woods near a certain property in Wolf Trap, Virginia. 

Hannibal starts the engine, throws it into gear, and peels out of the hospital parking lot.

*****

Chapter Text

As urgently as he wishes to leave the city and head straight for Wolf Trap, Hannibal circles once around the downtown block. He pays particular attention to the street nearest to the east side of the hospital complex, parallel to the courtyard. Almost immediately he spies what he’s looking for. He pulls to an impatient stop along the curb.  

He exits his car and strides along the pavement towards the loose cluster of surly-looking men; some smoking, some muttering low conversations in scattered pairs, some leaning on their vehicles or napping behind steering wheels. 

“Pardon me,” he calls out. Several of the cabbies send him dirty glares. A squat man with salt-and-pepper hair looks him up and down – Hannibal can almost see the quick spin of dollar signs in his sharp eyes – and pushes off the door of his taxi, crushing a cigarette under his heel as he beckons to Hannibal. 

“Need a lift somewhere, sir?” he asks, smiling with nicotine-stained teeth. He raises his eyebrows and gestures towards the Bentley. “Though I’m not sure why you would with a ride like that. Either way, you’ll want to move it soon, park it in one of the garages. Pisses us old bastards off to have anyone idling so close to the stand.”

Hannibal inclines his head. “I’ll be on my way shortly. I do not need a ride, however,” he reaches into his coat pocket, aware of several more sets of bloodshot eyes darting in his direction. “I’d appreciate a moment of your time, if you happened to be working here last night.”

He deftly withdraws a bill, concealing the numeral with his hand as he presses it into the waiting palm of the cabdriver. The squat man shakes Hannibal’s hand firmly, and though he lacks Hannibal’s grace, he moves with practiced enough discretion. The bill disappears as their hands part. 

The man’s yellow grin widens. “I was here, sir, though god knows I’d rather be anywhere else. What’s got you twisted? Wife run out on you?”

Hannibal very pointedly does not dwell long on that comparison. He lifts a shoulder, instead. 

“Nothing so serious. A friend. We were out drinking, and he insisted he’d get a ride, but I haven’t heard from him this morning and began to regret not making sure he’d found his way home.”

The cabbie lifts a brow, giving Hannibal another once-over. 

“Lotta trouble over a friend,” he says after a moment. “Must be a real lightweight, if he can’t tell his ass from his elbow enough to grab a damn taxi. What’s the guy look like?”

Ignoring the spark of irritation at these words, Hannibal describes Will as succinctly as possible. The cabbie nods along, the bobbing of his head getting more enthusiastic. 

“Yeah, actually, I think I did see him. He was looking a little wasted. I’m not the one who got him, though; Ernesto did, and he doesn’t work mornings.”

Hannibal purses his lips. “Did you happen to overhear their destination?”

Now the driver looks wary. He squints up at Hannibal. 

“Lotta trouble over a friend…”

Hannibal keeps his expression smooth as he dips his hand back into his pocket. The wariness on the squat man’s face flickers with suspicion, then finally subsides into a hungry sort of resignation. Another bill passes hands. 

“Some general store,” he says gruffly. “Out in the middle of nowhere. Beartrap or some shit. Maxed out Ernesto’s meter, that kinda distance. Paid in cash, too. Couldn’t stop lording it over all of us once he got back…”

Hannibal ignores the rest. It’s as much as he’s going to get, and it will have to be good enough. The man pauses to draw breath, and Hannibal takes the opportunity to lift a hand, effectively silencing him. 

“Thank you. Good day.”

He turns swiftly. The man lets out a nervous laugh behind Hannibal.

“Hope you find him, I guess.”

*****

It is late enough in the morning for most of the mist to have burned off the interstate, but once Hannibal turns onto the frontage road bound for Wolf Trap, it creeps back over the edges of the road again, the overcast sky going heavy and cool. 

He’s chagrined to be returning to the area within the span of so few hours, but devotes his attention to calibrating the loose radius of where Will might be. Or, more specifically, where Will’s stream might be, if his hunch is correct. 

If he’d been thinking more clearly this morning, he would’ve gone to the taxi stand directly, as soon as he’d heard Will had slipped through the hospital courtyard. But he’d gotten distracted with Georgia and Hoffman; and it hadn’t yet occurred to him that Will might’ve gone back to Wolf Trap without the intention of returning to his own house. 

He tenses his shoulders as he scans the small town in an entirely new light, slowing his car to take in every storefront critically. He knows there is a general store on the outskirts of town, the last place of business before the long service road that leads to Will’s property. But he cannot stop himself from eyeing every possibility along the way, just in case. Searching for a familiar slouch, a dusty jacket, brown curls…

Ultimately, he pulls into the most likely store, glances around the empty lot, and walks inside. An older woman with loosely-tied blonde hair and a worn denim barn coat looks up from where she’s sorting receipts at the counter. She raises her eyebrows at… Hannibal. Presumably, everything about Hannibal, writ large.

Hannibal rarely feels out of place most anywhere, but he feels a threatening wave of awkwardness as he attempts to look interested in perusing the cramped aisles of household sundries, hobbyist supplies, and Slim Jims. 

He plucks a jar of fishing bait from the nearest shelf, bringing it to the counter with his most charming smile. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” the woman replies, expression somewhere between polite and dubious. She takes the jar of bait and taps the code into the register manually. Hannibal puts a twenty dollar bill on the counter, and she slides the jar back across to him as she counts out his change. 

“Not gonna catch much this time of year, you know.”

Hannibal nods, taking hold of the convenient in. “It’s more for leisure. The opportunity to get away.”

She hums, placing a crumpled stack of bills next to the jar. Hannibal takes them and looks at the woman as affably as he can. 

“Do you have any recommendations for good areas? Something in the woods up the road? I don’t mind a hike.”

She looks over at him in surprise, laced with the beginnings of disapproval.

“Most out-of-towners go to the Potomac, or Lake Caroline. You have a fishing license?”

Hannibal weighs his options for a response, and decides to take a gamble. It may be unwise, after the fact – implicating – but he doesn’t want to entertain that possibility just yet. 

“I do, though I’m new to it. I’ve got a friend in the area who’s mentioned he likes these woods.”

She tilts her head doubtfully. “Who’s that?”

“Will Graham.”

The woman’s entire demeanor changes in an instant. She smiles widely, slapping the counter. “You’re friends with Graham?”

In spite of himself – in spite of everything – Hannibal feels a warm burst of pride. “I am.”

She laughs. It isn’t an unkind sound. “Well, I’ll be darned! Haven’t seen him around for a good minute. Wouldn’t have expected a friend… quite like you,” she chuckles again, “but it warms my heart to hear it. That man needs something more than all those mutts to keep him company.”

She didn’t see Will disembarking from the taxi last night, then. Though this insight is disappointing, Hannibal’s own smile becomes more genuine. “Do you know him well?”

She snorts. “Nobody knows him well,” she says, waving her hand, “been here for years now, keepin’ to himself. But he’s always nice when he stops by. Fixed my husband’s car, once. Sometimes he even helps out with the rentals,” she nods at the wall, where a sign for boat pricing is affixed. All too clearly, Hannibal can picture Will in this store, wiping motor oil from his hands, smiling that hesitant smile of his as he exchanges stilted small talk. 

Hannibal’s chest constricts. He tucks the image carefully away. 

“Does he have a favorite spot?”

The woman shrugs. “I’m sure he does. But real anglers – no offense meant – are secretive about that sort of thing. And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you for sure what’s out there,” she gestures at the forest through the cracked glass doors. “It’s undesignated land. We’ve got parks and national forests and such just on the other side of town – nice, maintained trails – so anybody with an itch for the outdoors heads out that way. Graham’s about the only one who tromps around this side on the regular. Better ask him directly.”

Hannibal’s heart sinks, even as his mouth quirks. Better ask him directly, indeed. He nods with authentic gratitude as he steps away from the counter with the bait in his hand. 

“That’s probably wise. Thank you.”

She nods back at him. “And tell him Joanne and Don say hello. Happy fishing!”

“Happy fishing,” Hannibal echoes nonsensically, as close to a prayer as anything.

*****

Hannibal drives up the road just far enough to be out of sight of the general store, then pulls off in the most discreet area he can find. He pops open his trunk, lifting up the false bottom. The space that would normally hold a spare tire holds a multitude of tools, instead: surgical instruments, sanitizing supplies, backup necessities that swing between murderous and mundane. He removes his suit jacket and tie, pulls a thick, close-fitting sweater over his collared shirt and vest, and switches his shoes to boots. Finally, he takes a sleek black backpack with a variety of emergency supplies. Most are meant for emergencies in a more urban setting, but it will have to do. As an ironic afterthought, he tosses his newly-purchased bait into the bag, slings it over his shoulder, and locks away the rest. 

Thus sorted, Hannibal looks up the road. Moving in a straight line, there are approximately fifteen miles to Will’s house, and potentially many more with any degree of detour. The woods run parallel on either side most of the way, doubling the possible directions Will might have slipped into, though Hannibal has to believe that his destination must somehow triangulate with Will’s home if the man can access it on foot from either direction. 

He eyes the ground edging the crumbling asphalt. Dirt transitions almost immediately into moss and undergrowth, leaving little space for mud – for footprints. The trees grow densely together, and the mist reduces visibility that much more severely. 

Any sign of Will will be subtle, especially since he has the home field advantage. It will be more like tracking an animal than a man, and more like a predator than a prey animal. Alone, injured, and without his pack. 

Lone predators are wary.

Lone predators are erratic. 

And lone predators are reliably, uncontainably dangerous.

Without hesitation, Hannibal sets off. 

*****

A little over two hours into walking, Hannibal knows he isn’t going to find Will this way. 

He is more than half of the distance to Will’s home, and he hasn’t spotted a single indication of Will’s presence. He has been examining each side of the road as carefully as possible while still covering ground, but it’s become increasingly clear that any creature that knows the land well could, with enough finesse, move from the road to the woods without leaving any trace at all. 

Slowing to a stop, Hannibal shuts his eyes, allowing himself momentary respite from the haze of shifting green. He isn’t disoriented by it, at least in the traditional sense – he has an excellent sense of direction, and is confident that even on foreign ground he’ll keep his bearings and ability to return to previous points, as well as his awareness of his cardinal position. 

He just can’t find Will’s initial entrance point. It’s maddening, an unwanted game of hide-and-seek with far more looming consequences. The feeling is unnervingly familiar, searching through the woods while a nimble figure slips ahead, just out of reach…

He shakes his head decisively, shutting down that train of thought for the second time since waking. The situations are not the same. It is imperative to cement that truth into his subconscious; and though his mind keeps attempting to draw parallels, he knows the truth. She is gone. Will is only missing. Beyond her voice, she wasn’t in his dream, while the wolfhound was. The wolfhound, the pups; the clearing, the stream. The labyrinth, the field, and the mist, and the road…

The road. 

Déjà vu sweeps through him as he opens his eyes. Slowly, he turns – not towards Will’s house, but away from it.

It’s different in the thin gray light. But still, it’s undeniable, looking from this direction. 

This is the road from his dream. The road the wolfhound walked, and the road where Hannibal followed, heavy-headed and slow, between all of those curious vignettes in the fog.  

With hesitant steps, he moves, fixing the afterimage of the wolfhound in his mind. His pace quickens the nearer he gets, approaching the spot where the wolfhound halted and began to turn. As he reaches it, he stops, and turns his head reflexively to the right. 

There, in the space between two trees, the moss is crushed; there is no difference in the shade or shadow of it, virtually imperceptible unless viewed at precisely the right angle. Hannibal approaches it almost reluctantly, half expecting to see the indentation of a paw. 

It isn’t. 

It’s a shoeprint.

Hannibal inhales, sharp and deep. Taking a moment to note the exact surroundings, he slips under the dim canopy, cautious to offset his feet with Will’s faint steps. He inspects the ground even more meticulously, and though only about a third of Will’s prints are at all visible, he follows like they’re fluorescent, gradually forfeiting awareness of time or distance. 

He only loses the tracks a handful of times; but on the third instance, he can’t find them again. He turns in a wide circle, gritting his teeth. He’s not following any kind of game trail. There are no context clues, no signs of wear or passage. It’s a path all Will’s own. He turned there, then there, then here…

Another wave of recognition hits him, exponentially more unsettling than the last. Impossibly, this, too, is familiar. Impossibly, this, too, Hannibal dreamed about – though it started in the hedge maze, the steps he took are identical to the ones he’s taking, the strange and too-far twists and turns as the maze changed to forest around him–

No. The road was one thing; Hannibal, at least, has driven it many times before, to and from Will’s house. The chances of dreaming about it in such a way were slim, but not zero. Not like this. 

This is ridiculous. This is inconceivable. 

This, this…

This doesn’t matter, as long as Will is at the end of it. 

Against all sense or reason, he shuts off the logical protestations of his conscious mind, and leans fully into instinct. Into memory, into reverie overwritten on the breathing earth. He lets his feet carry him over ground that has no prints at all, and he knows, moments before he hears it, that he’s near the stream. 

It is running parallel to his left. There’s a clearing up ahead. It doesn’t look like the one in his homeland, which is a small comfort – a small whisper that he isn’t losing his mind entirely. 

The scent of Hunger fills his lungs, and he follows it forward. 

“Will,” he calls out, before he can see him. He doesn’t know why. He just needs to say his name. That’s right; that’s right, isn’t it? This is real, isn’t it? It’s cold, it’s suddenly cold, but jis čia, o ne miręs. Jis čia, Jis čia. 

“Will. Will–”

Now he can see the stream, and there, there, curled into himself beneath a tree on the bank – there, leaping unsteadily to his feet, alive, here – štai jis gyvas, čia jis  –

“Wh–Hannibal?? How did you–”

“Will,” Hannibal says again, losing his footing as an uncharacteristic burst of vertigo surges through him. The world slants sideways, pain strikes him sharply on the side of the skull, and Will dissolves into restless shadow.

*****

“–nnibal. Hannibal.”

Cold hands press along the sides of Hannibal’s jaw. Reflexively, Hannibal jerks, pushing himself onto his elbows before he’s fully aware of his surroundings. The hands slide to his shoulders, grasping him firmly. 

“Hannibal. Hannibal Lecter. You are here with Will Graham, in an undesignated forest outside of Wolf Trap, Virginia, seven miles from my house. I… uh, don’t know what time it is, but it’s probably close to around 3 pm. I think you hit your head. Alright? Es-tu avec moi?”

Incrementally, Hannibal relaxes. His vision is strangely out of focus, but it’s Will’s voice, Will’s scent, Will’s chilled fingers holding his shoulders still.

“...Je suis avec toi,” he responds after a moment, voice thin. English is too much. French is just barely tolerable. Italian would be better, Lithuanian best. 

Hannibal blinks, hard, frowning at how slowly his field of view seems to be returning. He brings a hand up to feel for one of Will’s, moving over his wrist, up his arm, along his shoulder. Will stiffens, but doesn’t pull away, as Hannibal curls his fingers around the warmth of the speeding pulse in his neck.

“Tu gyvas, tiesa?”

“Don’t know that one, doll,” Will responds gruffly, but he presses his own hand on top of Hannibal’s, and Hannibal feels the flex of the tendons in his neck as Will tilts his head, spreading both of their fingers to cover more skin. Under their hands, Will’s pulse begins to slow, though it remains elevated enough to beat a steady tempo into Hannibal’s palm. 

With each beat, the frissions in Hannibal’s vision recede, until he can finally see the details of Will’s haggard face. The sound of running water returns with sudden clarity, too, and Hannibal struggles to sit up, unavoidably withdrawing his hand from Will’s skin in the process. Will lets it fall without comment, tilting back with wariness flaring to life in his eyes. He sits rigidly on the ground, as if he isn’t sure whether to spring toward or away.

Hannibal isn’t sure, either. He tries to clear his throat, but it feels… wrong. Too tight. 

Will’s eyes track the motion of Hannibal’s adam’s apple, and his brow furrows with something conflicted. Anger, uncertainty, concern. A considerable amount of shocked surprise, crackling with a vigilance just shy of violence. And underpinning it all, like a shadow that never moves – exhaustion. Will is exhausted. Of course he is. He has to get back to the hospital…

…But somehow they’re always so terribly blue, Will’s eyes. Hannibal’s head still swims, and he watches Will watching him, helplessly silent. Will clenches and unclenches his jaw, then sighs, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. 

“Alright,” he mutters, dropping his hands in his lap. His expression goes resolute, and to Hannibal’s complete and utter bafflement, he scoots forward and wraps his arms around him, pulling Hannibal awkwardly to himself. Hannibal is not prepared in the least for the action, and the uncoordinated combination of their weight sends them back to the ground. 

Will makes some stiff adjustments, moving them both to press together more closely before he settles Hannibal’s face in the crook of his neck. He strokes along Hannibal’s spine almost aggressively, and Hannibal makes a questioning sound in his chest. 

“I know what you are,” Will states, not letting up the motion even as Hannibal goes rigid in his arms, “I know, and I’ve known, and I just needed some goddamn time to think, away from you or Jack or anyone else. I admit that leaving like that was stupid, but it’s not any worse than what you’ve been up to, and Jack was trying to literally lock me into a corner before I knew what I was going to say or how to say it; what I was going to do or how to do it. I have no earthly idea how you found me out here, but since you won’t leave me the fuck alone,” he huffs an agitated breath over Hannibal’s forehead. 

“We’re going to have to have this conversation sooner rather than later. But until we’re both in a state to do that, we’re going to stay like this. No tricks, no hurting each other, no winding up to spring the second we pull away. I don’t have my phone. I’m not going to contact anyone. Above all, I’m not going to instigate a fight with you."

Momentarily, the hand pressing against Hannibal's back stills.

"But if you try to kill me, I will try to kill you, too – and I doubt either of us will stop at trying. I don’t want that: not right now, and not like this. You don’t, either.”

Will’s voice has taken on a tone Hannibal has never heard in him before: airtight, lethal, and utterly, flatly certain. There is no anguish there – no reluctance, no hesitance. Nothing characteristic of Will’s typical style of revelation. Prophesy or heresy, it rings with finality. Like the end of days; like somebody’s gospel. 

Hannibal’s, as a matter of fact. 

Very, very slowly, mind submersed in an almost beatific torrent of stupefaction and red frenzy and distant, soul-crushing want, Hannibal nods against Will’s neck. He doesn’t even bare his teeth, there; he knows with sudden obviousness that Will positioned Hannibal’s face against his throat on purpose. The man hums in approval at the tacit armistice, vocal chords resonant against Hannibal’s closed lips. 

“Good.”

He rubs the back of Hannibal’s neck, gentling his touch minutely.

“...So we’ll talk soon,” he says more softly, “but until then, délasse-toi, et patauge dans le ruisseau tranquille."

*****

As Will suggested, Hannibal does listen to the stream. But more than that, he listens to Will – the breath in his lungs, the shift of his body, the barely-there whisper of his calloused hands over the fabric of Hannibal’s sweater. The inundation of reactions suffusing Hannibal do not lessen, but gradually crystallize, draining from his throat and coalescing into his bones. When relief threatens to pour over into impulsive violence, he opens his mouth. 

“I dreamt about you, Will.”

Hannibal’s still-strained voice bisects the silence like the downstroke of a knife. Will doesn’t startle. He slows his hands to a stop, leaning away to look down into Hannibal’s face. His own expression is as smooth as a mirror, though his eyes blaze. 

“That so?”

Hannibal leans slightly away, as well, steadily meeting his gaze. 

“It is. It’s how I found you.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“And I find it impossible. So impossible, that I seem to have gotten – somewhat lost in it, at the end. Yet I found you.”

“...Yet you found me.”

In unspoken tandem, they move away from each other, efficiently undoing any overlapping of their limbs. Hannibal feels the loss of each point of contact like it’s skin flaying away; he wonders if Will feels at all the same. The other man makes no sign of it, easing back to stretch out his legs as he leans against the trunk of a tree. Hannibal presses his own back to a downed log. 

Once they’re both settled and sat across from each other, Will releases a long exhale. His shoulders sag, though he eyes Hannibal keenly. 

"Head okay?"

The ache is only a dull distraction. Hannibal nods. Will's shoulders relax even more. 

“Alright. So, shoot,” he breathes, gesturing at Hannibal. “Tell your patient about your dreams, Dr. Lecter.”

It’s an odd place to start after Will’s cataclysmic revelation, but Hannibal wets his lips, and begins.

He goes backwards from its conclusion, starting at the clearing: the wolfhound in the woods of his memory, and the strangeness of the superimposed stream. He skims over the details of the conversation – not to deceive, but to avoid how unthinkably predictive it all sounds – and describes the hedge maze. He doesn’t mention which hedge maze; Will huffs a dry laugh, but offers no interruption, loosely crossing his arms. 

Hannibal continues to recount in reverse, describing the far more fleeting glimpses of the wolfhound in a variety of prosaic settings, fading in and out of mist. As he lists each scene, an unnatural tension starts to overtake Will’s features. When he describes following the wolfhound as it walked along the road at night, stopping where Hannibal found the spot to enter the forest in the waking world, Will pales, twitching forward. 

Hannibal halts. “Will?”

“Say that again.”

Hannibal sighs, preparing to defend himself. “I am aware of how it may sound. But the wolfhound stopped at exactly the point that I found your footprint–”

“Not that. What happened just after, before the fog. What did you see?”

Hannibal tilts his head. “Lights.”

“What kind of lights.”

Hannibal frowns. “Headlights.”

“That isn’t what you said.”

Hannibal’s frown deepens. Is it the criminal insinuation Will is trying to get at?

“Headlights, then red and blue lights. Very briefly.”

Will loses the scant remainder of color in his face. Hannibal’s irritation morphs into the beginnings of disquietude. 

“Will, I don’t understand what–”

“–And your head was heavy. Your limbs felt wrong.”

“...Yes.”

“Is there more?”

Hannibal looks at Will carefully. “There’s one more scene, yes. The first one I saw, when I started to dream.”

Wordlessly, Will nods at him to go on. With growing unease, Hannibal does. 

“I was in a field, one I’m sure I’ve visited, but couldn’t then place. I was immobile, and the weight was on the crown of my head, pressing down with something just above me. I heard ravens, and I saw the wolfhound. It approached from across the field, and it said…”

Hannibal trails off, pursing his lips. It’s the most nonsensical part of the dream, but Will is staring at him with an intensity that would paralyze (or very possibly just exsanguinate) a lesser man. So Hannibal quotes directly.

“He wanted her found this way. Petulant.”

Every visible muscle in Will’s frame seizes. He goes so still that Hannibal has a swooping sense of losing his vision again, like his retinas have skittered to a stop on a static image and ceased capturing all further motion. 

But no, it isn’t a static image, and Will isn’t entirely still – his pupils are expanding. And now, slowly, his mouth is moving. 

“Hannibal,” Will whispers, and every one of Hannibal’s nerves buzz to life. Fight, flight, fight, flight. 

Hannibal never chooses the latter. 

“I said I wouldn’t instigate, but if you don’t answer me truthfully, you’ll make liars of us both.”

Will is still, still. Hannibal’s blood hums. 

“Have you, with any of the psychological tools at your disposal, extracted information from me, and are you manipulating me with that information now.”

Confusion interrupts the surging adrenaline in his veins. But he weighs Will’s question as if it is a matter of life and death; evidently, it will be. 

“You spoke to me in your sleep, just after your admission: brief, unparsed, and to my knowledge, with no relevance to our present conversation. But if you mean to imply something more... psychiatrically coercive," Hannibal slows, measuring his words, "I’ve considered it. And, if things had gone differently – if you had never been admitted – I may have tried."

Will visibly trembles with the effort of staying still. Admirable and lamentable, his level of control. 

“But I have not, and I am not.”

Hannibal holds Will’s gaze like the pointed weapon that it is: by the blade, inviting it into his own flesh. 

“Everything I’ve told you, I've dreamed. Nothing more or less.”

Will heaves in a breath. It’s movement, but it’s far from pacified. “Hannibal, if you’re lying, I swear to god –”

“– And I swear to you, Will, I am not. Between our two oaths, which would I truly answer to?”

That brings Will up short. His eyes dart around Hannibal’s face – for sincerity, which Hannibal could not in this moment attempt to fabricate, only demonstrate – and Hannibal watches the full implications of his words chase some of the imminent viciousness from Will’s eyes. With a convulsive shudder, Will slumps back against his tree. Hannibal exhales his own breath, flexing his hands. After a moment, he speaks. 

“You’ve connected something. Will you share, or only threaten?”

Will laughs breathlessly. The sound borders on something animal. 

“I’m just – having a moment like the one you just recovered from, I guess,” Will says, laying his head back against the bark. “The blurring lines between dreaming and waking. The blurring lines between you and I. I chalked it up to sickness, but this…”

“Chalked what up to sickness?”

“The Stag," Will mutters, tilting his head to grin crookedly at Hannibal. “I began seeing it the day I profiled Cassie Boyle’s crime scene. The day I commented on its petulance. I never told you about it – never told anyone about it – but it got worse as the encephalitis progressed. It… followed me,” Will murmurs, eyes drifting up above Hannibal’s head. “When I lost time. When I was sleepwalking down the road in the middle of the night, and got picked up by the police. Eventually, when I was awake. Right before I was hospitalized, I started to see it in a different shape sometimes. Only briefly. Only flickers.”

“Le Cerf,” Hannibal breathes. Will nods. 

“You’d think they’d be switched. Predator and prey, or whatever.”

Distractedly, Hannibal shakes his head. Attempts to process the sheer magnitude of Will's words, and the resulting transformation of perspective. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you? You, of all people?”

Will smiles again. It’s an enigmatic thing, both wild and wan. 

“Then let’s take a detour. I can’t take much more of this conversation, anyway, without losing the bits of my brain that aren’t already cooked. And we’ve certainly been dancing around it long enough.”

 Rolling his neck, he sits forward. 

“I think it’s time to chat, Hannibal, about the Chesapeake Ripper.”

*****

Chapter Text

“How long?”

Hannibal’s voice is as steady as he can make it – smooth and solid in his own chest. The vibration there is as precisely controlled as ever, but his own question still sounds distant in his ears. 

Will’s gaze holds like a cord pulled taut. 

“Not long enough.”

I know and I’ve known, Will said. And finally, finally this man has seen fit to name him, to define and defy him, to rend his person-suit seam from seam. Despite driving events towards this very culmination, the impulse to destroy Will for it is immense: far, far greater than any other ruthless instinct Hannibal has heretofore experienced. 

It pales in comparison to what threatens to burst the walls of his lungs, beating itself against the inner curvature of his ribcage.

“Since your hospital admission?”

“No, though I guess that’s where things began to unravel – or to reel, depending on your perspective. From that moment, I could only make two assumptions.”

Will’s expression tightens into a grimace. “One, that you were curious about how the duress of sickness would transform a unique mind, curious enough to threaten everything about your reputation and career.” He presses down one finger, then another, counting off. 

“And two, that you could only be compelled to change your course of action by an even greater curiosity. I figured that this new intrigue, improbably enough, must be attraction. You were attracted to me, more than you anticipated; and you found yourself detouring to eviscerate that novelty. That’s why you let the lie slip. That’s why you got me diagnosed.”

Will looks down at his two extended fingers, curling them into a loose fist. “I still didn’t suspect you of killing – nothing so extreme. But in your shocking willingness to sacrifice the foundations of your life, just to satisfy a whim… I started to see it, the shape in the water. I began to get the measure of you.”

Questions gather on Hannibal’s tongue, but beyond his own volition, the one with the most acrid flavor slides off, first. 

“Is the whim of attraction really so improbable?”

Incredulous eyes dart back to Hannibal’s. 

“That’s seriously your next question?”

Hannibal doesn’t deign to respond. Will stares a moment longer, then skitters his gaze off to the side.  

“It’s – I mentioned it that first night, when – after I – well,” Will frowns down at his crossed legs. 

“Sometimes people are… interested, despite their own misgivings, because of how they perceive my potential. There’s a thrill to having parts of you uncovered that no one has ever seen. An illicit intimacy to it, even. But intimacy has a funny way of souring to invasion.”

His frown flattens into something hollow.

“Sooner or later, everyone realizes that it isn’t a two-way street. When you’re seen by something that can’t be seen in return… it’s not romantic, It’s voyeuristic.”

“Is it voyeuristic if you are invited?”

Will groans, rubbing roughly down his face. “What, like a peepshow?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a labyrinth. A place one is encouraged to seek what is hidden.”

“‘Encouraged’ is a gentle way of putting it.”

“I admit my timing was poor. But you lied to me, Will.”

“Oh, I’m the one who lied?”

“The day you saw the tableau of Luray Caverns Hedge Maze. You had a very disturbed reaction, and it must’ve been the moment you realized – yet you swore it wasn’t the crime scene photos.”

The irritation leaks from Will’s demeanor, replaced instead by wariness. 

“It wasn’t the photos.”

Hannibal purses his lips. Will sighs. 

“It wasn’t the photos, and it wasn’t the realization that you were the Ripper. It was the realization that I wasn’t going to turn you in. There was no space between the revelation and the decision – they were immediate and simultaneous, as an inhale follows an exhale. That's what terrified me. Because if I didn’t lock you up… I had to kill you, flee you, or keep you.”

Only one of those sounded like a particularly unpleasant outcome to Hannibal. He thinks of the parting words of the wolfhound, of Will’s voice over the phone; of where they are, in this very moment. Bitter longing claws up his chest and threatens to choke him. 

“You’re not running from the blood on my hands.”

A threadbare sort of guilt pinches at the corners of Will’s mouth and eyes, like it’s outwearing its use. “I should be.”

Hannibal’s insides twist. It’s an empty victory. Contrary to expectation, it’s not the Ripper Will is trying to evade – it’s Hannibal. 

“Do you not have any whims of your own, Will?”

Whim. He cannot help the venom that coats the word, again. Will flinches. 

“It’s not about that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Hannibal.”

Anger flares again in Will’s eyes. Anger, and hurt.

“What I feel is not a whim. What you feel is. I’ve been trying to figure it out. To delineate exactly what it is you want, since you refuse to. The evidence doesn’t fall neatly into one narrative. There’ve been… moments, before the hospital, in the hospital, things that I – when you told me the story about your sister and the wolfhound, I thought that maybe –”

“Not maybe, Will – ”

“– But then I think about the tableaus. The Copycat. The strings you’ve pulled like a puppeteer, like none of it matters but your own will and hand. Like all you want is to–”

“–I don’t. Not only; not anymore.”

The edges of Will’s smile are jagged. He shakes his head slightly. 

“Honestly… honestly, if anyone would be able to, it’d be you. I think I even wanted you to, somehow. To break me down to my parts and reform me into your opus. What safety in a static shape,” Will gestures a hand upwards, futile, “what rest.”

Bitter, bitter, the clench in Hannibal’s throat. “I don’t want to change you.”

Will’s smile drops. The question rises in his eyes, and Hannibal knows – it is the last time. The last asking. 

“Then why, Hannibal," Will says. 

“Why?”

Hannibal closes his eyes. 

It feels as if he is standing in the sandy shoals of an ocean. Or more accurately, a deep, crystalline, breathlessly cold stream – with layer after layer of sediment shifting under his feet in the rapid-flowing water.

“Understanding,” he says quietly, as the earth tilts beneath him, “is something each of us craves, but few of us can give. It goes beyond being able to see from another’s perspective, beyond the best of empathy and insight. True understanding, at its core, is an agreement. You do not just see another’s truth, you agree it is the truth. Making that kind of agreement more than once is a rarity. Many times over, an impossibility. It defeats the definition.”

Hannibal smiles to himself, keeping his eyes closed. 

“Except, it seems, when it comes to you. And as you’ve said, it is what draws the multitude, casting Legion into madman. I am no exception; just one of the more powerful devils howling at your heels. So, yes, I thought to change you: coveted your understanding for my own, and mine alone. You have it in you, Will – you’d be resplendent.”

He hears Will shift across from him. He knows without seeing that he’s stiffening, coiling, bracing to bolt. Hannibal holds up a hand. The stream rushes in his ears. 

“Resplendent, but antithetical. I see that now: that there’s no need for you to become a wolf. Or a stag, as the case may be.”

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

“You were hoping I’d throw off the hound and run with you.” 

“I’m still hoping you’ll run with me.”

“As what?”

Hannibal opens his eyes to consuming blue. Over the bluff, he falls – demon into sea. 

“Yourself.” 

“And what am I?”

“A brilliant, moody, martyred profiler. A reclusive professor with too many dogs. Safe harbor for murderous young women. Mechanic, entomologist, fisherman, philosopher –”

“Hannibal.”

“Wolfhound. Laukinis padaras. Pack.”

“Pack,” Will muses, soft and appraising. “Disparate equals.”

Hannibal’s heart beats wildly in his chest, and with sudden clarity, he laughs. The sound startles them both. In some detached corner of his mind, Hannibal wonders if his adult vocal chords have ever genuinely attempted the sound. 

“Not equals. I’ve fallen behind.”

Will frowns. “What?”

“Defeat,” Hannibal says, and ah, the king is dead, long live the king. Will furrows his brow. 

“Defeat,” Hannibal repeats, proffering his empty hands to the victor. His throat aches with the foreign stretch of laughter. 

Undone; he’s undone. 

“I love you, Will – I love you.”

*****

Will stares at Hannibal, utterly still. Then all at once, he stands. 

“I’m staying here tonight.” 

Hannibal feels the urge to insist on their return. Will rolls his eyes before he even speaks. 

“You’re no longer committed. There will be no consequence of returning beyond Jack Crawford’s ire, and I am concerned by the strain of missing doses of your medication.”

“That’s sweet,” Will deadpans, dusting himself off. He starts towards the stream, picking his way across with a slight wobble Hannibal doubts would exist in a healthy Will Graham. When Hannibal doesn’t follow, he twists towards him, raising a brow. 

Hannibal presses his lips together, but trails reluctantly after. “It will be cold in the woods at night. Thermal shock is another real possibility, especially for the immunocompromised –”

“You really seem to think this is my first rodeo,” Will calls out, sidestepping behind a stand of old pine growing densely together. The branches are low and dense enough to screen him entirely from view – and as Hannibal rounds the nearest trunk, he sees a tidily-constructed lean-to, braced strategically in the junction between trees. The earth is level and packed beneath it, and a layer of insulation surrounds: multiple seasons of pine duff and leaf litter evenly blanketing the entire structure. 

There’s a sooty, stone-ringed depression at its entrance. Will starts gathering sticks, snapping and testing the greenness of each. 

“When did you build this?”

“Summer after I moved to Wolf Trap. Soon as I found the creek,” Will gruffs, averting his eyes with poorly-disguised shyness as he intersperses the kindling with logs from a neat stack. Finishing quickly, he strikes and fans a flame until it catches, then stands to move back towards the stream. Hannibal wordlessly follows, raising his brows when Will pulls a cord strung with three sluggishly wiggling trout from the water. 

“And when did you catch those?”

“What did you think I’ve been doing all day?”

“Being ill,” Hannibal responds, holding out a hand. “Which you still are, in spite of your many evident capabilities. May I help prepare them?”

Will huffs. “Maybe. Any good with gutting, Dr. Lecter?”

Hannibal hums, pleased when Will relinquishes his catch. 

“I think you’ll find me satisfactory.”

They work, cook, and eat in quiet tandem, and as dusk sets in, Will unlaces his boots and ducks under his shelter, wordlessly rolling to one side to make space. When Hannibal slides in beside him, Will wiggles one socked foot down, hooking it under what turns out to be a rumpled, unzipped sleeping bag crammed in the far corner. As he pulls it over them – coating them both in an additional layer of dust – Hannibal makes a small, appreciative noise. 

“Have you ever considered becoming a ranger of some kind?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m in earnest. Though the wisest outdoorsmen know when it’s time to – what is it? To ‘pack it in.’”

“Shut up, Hannibal.”

“Will you return to the hospital tomorrow–”

“Yes,” Will hisses, swatting a hand against Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal snares it, curling it covetously in his own hands, and Will doesn’t resist. The man’s hand goes lax as Hannibal kneads and presses his chilled fingers. Silence sets in again, though the texture of it changes – softens, like the blurred glow from the embers. 

Will’s eyes drift down to their joined hands, expression distant. Hannibal squeezes.

“A quoi penses-tu, mon coeur, avec une expression si mystérieuse?”

Will laughs under his breath. “Quel charme. Even your French is refined compared to mine – La Seine versus the swamp.”

Hannibal crinkles his eyes. “My question stands.”

Will’s gaze flickers to the corners of Hannibal’s eyelids. With the hand not entwined with Hannibal’s, he grazes a fingertip over the fine creases there. 

“I do, too,” Will says after a moment. His voice is low with raw, hushed urgency, as if intoning a damning confession. 

“I do, too, Hannibal. That doesn’t mean that… that everything falls into place, or that everything stays in place. Even if we find a way to trust each other – to run together, without intentional manipulation or coercion… there is no possible way you and I can combine that will not alter us both. I’m accustomed to being the proverbial ship of Theseus,” Will pauses, mouth hitching humorlessly. 

“But I wouldn’t wish that on – someone, I... on you. I wouldn’t wish that on you.”

“I wish it,” Hannibal returns immediately, ears ringing. “And I welcome it, if you’ll welcome it.”

“Hannibal, I’m serious. I can’t promise that we’ll –”

“I can promise,” Hannibal interrupts, pulling Will closer by his captured hand. “In a million lifetimes, in the million permutations you might change me, harm me, end me, Will, I can promise: all I'd regret is the loss of you.”

Will’s harrowed expression heats to startled exasperation. Hannibal can see the blooming shade up close; close, but still not quite as close as preferred. 

“You, you – you think you’re such a smooth motherfu–”

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Hannibal cuts in again, placing a hand firmly on the side of his stubbled jaw. “And if my whim is truly requited, you’ll allow it.”

Hannibal presses forward. Will scowls.

He doesn’t, even minutely, move away. 

*****

Hannibal’s second acquaintance with Will’s mouth is just as all-consuming as the first. His tactile receptors strain to take it in, to take it all – the touch, the feel, of Will. 

As he lightly presses his lips to Will’s once, twice, several times more, Hannibal feels the way Will’s scowl dissolves, going gradually pliable. Gently, he tilts Will’s face with the hand on his jaw, and heat crackles in his veins as he watches Will acquiesce to the pressure, baring the tendon of his neck. Riveted, Hannibal slides his hand further, grazing along the curve of Will’s ear, curling into the dark hair at his nape. 

Bending his face close, he noses along Will's jawline, rubbing circles into Will’s scalp with his fingertips as he luxuriates in the smell of him. He wants to pull this man apart from the inside; to press his lips to each tender stretch of viscera; to swallow him down particle by particle, hour by hour and day by day, so that there is never a moment he goes without until the end of his time on this mortal coil. 

“You have an impossible scent, Will,” Hannibal murmurs, warm breath misting Will’s skin. Will makes a sound halfway between dubious and dazed. It pitches and garbles as Hannibal skates his tongue out, mouthing at Will’s pulse. The contact, once allowed, is not enough. He licks over the thin skin over and over, growing urgent, wet, rough – broken sounds lodge in his own throat, because Hannibal can taste the beat of it, just there, just below, just a moment’s keen pressure away from the rich, molten-iron spill of Hannibal’s personal Eucharist down his parched throat. 

And, like a sinner – he abstains. 

He tugs firmly on Will’s hair as he kisses a lingering path back to his mouth, and Will judders against him. Hannibal curls closer, pressed to Will at every axis he can manage. 

“Thought you were gonna – bite me,” Will pants. Hannibal kisses him, open, dipping his tongue to slide against Will’s own. 

“I will. Eventually,” Hannibal breathes heavily into Will’s mouth, petting down the side of his neck and thumbing harshly at the reddened skin over his carotid artery. Will makes another animal sound, nipping sharply at Hannibal’s tongue in retribution. Then it is Hannibal’s turn to shudder, nerves alight with the sensation of Will’s teeth. 

He cranes his face forward, bumping Will’s nose and kissing him more insistently, laving his stinging tongue against Will’s canines. “Again,” he gasps, supplicating. 

“Eventually,” Will echoes, embedded in another kiss. Hannibal’s lips are swollen; Will pecks them more softly, then skims his damp mouth along Hannibal’s jaw, pressing their faces close. Hannibal feels Will’s arm wind around his side, and mirrors him in response, twining and tight. For good measure, he slides his free arm beneath Will’s head, and entangles their legs beneath the sleeping bag. He doesn’t comment on Will’s clothed erection pressed against his thigh. But Will, with a tired huff of laughter, nudges his knee against Hannibal’s. 

“Definitely eventually,” he mutters, with a last, lazy kiss to Hannibal’s chin. Hannibal hums, pressing his lips to Will’s temple. 

“Good,” he breathes, and sleeps. 

*****

Will is predictably – but not dangerously – worse for wear the next morning. Natvig mandates him to bed immediately upon their return. Hoffman is nowhere to be seen. Jack is barred from the room by an almost hysterically indignant Nurse Cross. 

“He can’t be disturbed,” she whispers in strained, desperate tones, blocking the doorway with the entirety of mass her slight build allows. Jack glares down at her, but even he seems wary of the volatile energy suffusing the small woman; he glances at Hannibal, who shrugs. 

“I cannot enter, either.”

That was a lie; a lie Nurse Cross protected with the same vehemence of spirit. Jack sighs. 

“You really just – found him in the woods?”

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t drag him back right then?”

“I didn’t locate him until dark. He was exhausted. It seemed unwise to attempt the trek back in the night.”

“And you think freezing your asses off was better for him?”

“He was prepared,” Hannibal responds mildly, holding up his hand as Jack opens his mouth. “And by that I mean, he had a shelter there long in advance of this. It’s just a place he goes to fish, Jack.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “I still don’t understand how you knew he’d be there. You told me he’d be at Quantico.”

“What I told you was that he was thinking about his classes; nothing more. Since you declined my request to accompany you, I had to re-evaluate where else he might possibly be, to better divide our efforts. And it ended up being for the best – I wouldn’t have thought to go looking for a stream, if I hadn’t been given the chance to reflect on things he’d mentioned in the past.”

Jack crosses his arms, staring hard at Hannibal. When he adds nothing else, he swings his attention back to Nurse Cross. 

“I really need to speak with him–” 

“He absolutely, totally, under no circumstances–” 

“It’s alright, Matilda,” Natvig murmurs, touching her young colleague’s arm as she quietly exits Will’s room. She meets Jack’s glare with an unimpressed one of her own. “But, Agent Crawford, I must also insist that you go. I am sure Mr. Graham will call you at his earliest convenience.”

Jack hunches his shoulders like a bull seeing red, when Hannibal is stricken with a rather delightful idea. 

He wonders if Will will be cross; it only adds to his relish. 

“Actually, Jack, if it’s the Ripper case that still drives your urgency – though Will maintains strict confidentiality on the particulars, I think I grasp the basics of it. I don’t possess his gifts, of course; but from thoughts we’ve shared on the profile before, there are certain psychological aspects I may be able to elucidate. If you’d be willing to grant me a few more details…”

He steers the surprised head of the BAU towards the stairs. Nurse Cross thrusts out a thumbs-up as they leave. 

*****

Will is released from the hospital another week later.

Hannibal goes to pick him up. Abigail comes along, and though her relief at Will’s well-being is evident, she bounces on the balls of her feet when Georgia pokes her head into the doorway. Will grins as he watches the two draw to one another like magnets, settling at the table and immediately resuming whatever conversation they seem to have been texting about earlier that morning. 

“We’re taking off,” he calls out, stepping into the hall. Abigail lifts her head in surprise. 

“Gonna ditch me here without a ride?”

“I asked Alana to swing by in a couple hours,” Will responds, elbowing Hannibal in the side when he makes a dissatisfied sound through his nose at the name. Abigail pinches her mouth and rolls her eyes – a learned habit, and a familiar one, at that. 

“Fine, fine. Go make out or whatever.” She raises her eyebrows at Georgia, who chuckles hoarsely, waving in Will’s direction. 

“See you, Will; take care, Dr. Lecter. Visit again soon.”

Will nods with a broad smile, then starts to amble down the hallway with Hannibal. They pass a bulletin board pinned with funerary announcements for the sudden death of a staff member – one who'd had the misfortune of stumbling onto a road due to a broken foot. Will mutters something about convenient accidents that Hannibal can't quite pick up, and the two young voices behind them fade as they enter the stairwell. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t want to stay with them a while longer.”

“Hmm?”

“Your girls.”

Will squints briefly at Hannibal, then refocuses on the descending steps in front of him, holding firmly to the bannister. His sense of balance is still not entirely recovered. 

“Why’d you have to make it sound so creepy? They’re not girls, they’re women. And they’re not mine, either.”

“No?”

“No,” Will affirms, and to Hannibal’s surprise, there is no haunted wistfulness in his face – no shadow of the Shrike. 

“I care about them. But I’m not fit to be anyone’s father,” Will continues lightly, though they both know the significance of the statement is anything but. “And they have each other, now. I’d just be in the way.”

Hannibal says nothing, stunned into momentary silence. On some darker road, in some unspun time, Abigail Hobbs could have been the knife in Hannibal’s hand; the blade to cleave Will’s body. Of that, Hannibal is certain. 

But he wonders if there’s a weapon in those women, yet. 

“I asked Georgia,” Hannibal begins, tone perfectly casual, “whether her mistreatment at Sutcliffe’s hands began before his private practice, or after. Before, of course, would imply multiple complicit parties – as well as multiple motivated parties, intent to cover up any… sordid associations. It was some time ago, but I seem to remember Sutcliffe getting his career start in Minnesota.”

Will freezes mid-step, hovering with his back heel lifted; but he just as quickly resumes his descent. “Two for two,” he says tonelessly, not turning around. “A tenuous link, since the continuity in the Copycat kills seems otherwise nonsensical. Abigail’s position is in doubt again, ever since Nicholas Boyle’s body was found. Georgia was never even recognized as part of the narrative.”

“She’ll stand trial for Sutcliffe, if no other suspects emerge.”

“One might be found, for her. But it’d be a stretch to cover them both.”

“Not with the right tableau. Not with the right interpretation. The timing doesn’t hurt, either – what with the Ripper’s trail going cold.”

Will halts again, finally turning. He glowers at Hannibal. “Stop baiting me.”

Hannibal lifts his hands innocently. “I am not.”

Will’s glower darkens into a heavier threat, and Hannibal drops his hands. 

“I am not,” he repeats, more sincerely. “There are many months; potentially some years before either of them would go to trial. It’s an idea, Will, not a manipulation. I won’t act without your agreement, and I won’t compel you to join, if you grant it.”

“If I grant it,” Will sighs, but a thread of gold glints in his eyes. 

*****

In several months’ time, Hannibal sits in the shade to sketch as Will fishes in the stream. Seven furry bodies lounge on the bank and beneath the trees. Winston sits on a flat stone closest to the shallows where Will stands. Zoe reclines, panting, against Hannibal’s hip. 

It is much warmer in the early summer. Will’s traded his customary flannels for a threadbare t-shirt and a horrendous pair of cargo shorts. On the page, Hannibal shades them with a begrudging wrinkle in his brow. 

“Hey, hey – gimme a hand, doll?”

Hannibal looks up, then leaps to his feet, striding forward to assist Will with – of all things – an honest-to-god bass, bowing Will’s rod as it jumps and strains. 

They wrangle it onto the bank, and Will tosses Hannibal the thin pick from his belt. In one smooth motion, Hannibal thrusts it into the hindbrain, and the fish falls still. He glances up at Will, who gives him an elated grin. 

“Gettin’ pretty good at that.”

“How on earth did you pull this from water less than five feet deep?”

Will just chuckles, packing down his gear and pulling his stringer from the water. It’s his sixth fish. “Think I’m done.”

“Only if you’re certain you’ve fully decimated the local population.”

“Got a lot of mouths to feed,” Will answers with a wave of his hand, gesturing to the blur of wagging tails beginning to circle him. “And you can’t always be in charge of the meat.”

“Less and less, as of late,” Hannibal replies, just to watch the way Will’s eyes flash. Wiping the blood on the grass, he passes back Will’s pick. “You’ve proven a quicker study than me.”

Sparing Hannibal another intent look, Will plops down on the ground, shooing off the dogs as he begins to undo the knots on the stringer. Hannibal’s lips upturn as he watches Will’s dexterous fingers work, and he recalls a certain question, buried below the strata of their tectonically shifting lives. 

“Will.”

“Mm.”

“When you saw the Luray tableau – how did you know?”

Will’s fingers slow. He smooths out the line, sliding it neatly out of the gills of his fish and looping it onto itself, knotting a circle. Draping it in a loose square over his pinkies and thumbs, he tilts his head at Hannibal. 

“I wondered, too; if it was intentional, or a coincidence. Have you ever played cat’s cradle?”

Hannibal shrugs, watching as Will threads his fingers and draws them back again, the starting figure of the game materializing between his facing palms. 

“I played something similar, as a child. Many of the shapes are the same.”

Will’s eyes glitter. “Do you remember where you strung the teeth?”

Hannibal shakes his head. In truth, he had intended no particular pattern. The glimmer in Will’s eyes grows. 

“When you transfer the thread from your partner's hands, you have to pinch at certain points to make a new shape. Right here, and here,” he gestures with his chin, tilting his hands towards Hannibal and nodding when Hannibal loops his fingers in the correct junctures of thread. Will looks up, holding Hannibal’s gaze and his hands ensnared.

“There were all those teeth on the string, but at the point of transference – the place where you pull to continue the game,”

He passes the thread off to Hannibal’s fingers, and smiles: wide, sharp, and wild. 

“You put the canines.” 

Will laughs; which sets the dogs to barking; and Hannibal’s own laughter joins in –

Stag and Wolfhound, in the sun. 

*****