Chapter Text
It’s the mother of all bad ideas, but Hannibal suggests it with his signature collected calm. As if it were a normal thing to suggest. As if anything between them were normal.
He sits with his leg crossed over his knee, hands wrapped around the pinstripe fabric. Those large hands with the square nails. Skin both soft and rough. Will circles him and Hannibal moves his head slowly, tracking Will’s movement. The office feels cold today, the brownstone walls not keeping out Baltimore’s heavy chill. Will shivers under his jacket and sweater. He scuffs his shoe on the pale gray floor, to make his circling seem more casual, but Hannibal doesn’t buy it.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Will says, finally stopping. He stands in front of Hannibal, who remains perched in the large leather chair. Will takes a step closer, invading Hannibal’s personal space, the way Hannibal so often invades his. Hannibal looks up with a warm, amused smile. His eyes glimmer. Beyond that, he hasn’t moved.
Will wants to take him by his broad, refined shoulders and shake him. He wants to muss up that perfect, slicked-back hair. He wants to scream in Hannibal’s face, What the fuck is wrong with you, slap him, dig a thumb into Hannibal’s lips, bruise him, then worry that bruise with a biting kiss. He wants to report Hannibal to the psychiatric board and get his license revoked. There are a lot of things Will wants.
“Will?”
The hands have dropped, the legs uncrossed. Hannibal leans his body, spine held straight, in Will’s direction. There are a few feet of space between them, but there might as well not be. Will feels as if he’s almost pressed against the man’s body, ghosting Hannibal’s clean-shaven face with his own warm breath. The smell of expensive aftershave. The soft skin beneath his jaw. All he has to do is lean in and—
“Sure. Why not.” Will spins on his heel and his hands jerk in his jacket pockets. He knows he sounds more than a little sarcastic.
Will retreats to a safer distance, then slams down in the leather chair opposite Hannibal. He breathes heavily. His legs are spread in what one might otherwise consider a power stance, but with Hannibal’s gave on him, he feels vulnerable, submissive. He doesn’t move, though: reacting to Hannibal’s expression would be worse.
He sinks deeper into the chair, worrying his fingernails into his right palm, his hand still shoved deep into his pocket. Hannibal’s gaze flicks to the minute clenching of his arm muscles—which must be visible, somehow, beneath all his thick layers. Will stops. It seems like there isn’t anything he can hide from this man.
Another reason this is a terrible, terrible idea.
“It’s an elegant solution, Will.” Hannibal's voice turns soothing. The afternoon light slants, heavy and concentrated, against the far end of the room, leaving Hannibal in dim shadow. “The killers you study riddle your mind with nightmares, disrupt your sleep.” His voice softens, deepens, opens up like the peeling of a rare and succulent fruit. Will shivers. “My mind will create a safe space for you. Distance. You will be able to observe the crime scenes while remaining yourself.”
Will turns away from the force of Hannibal’s dark, fixed gaze. He becomes suddenly aware of the blood pumping in his own neck, carrying a flush up to his cheeks. Will busies himself with taking off his jacket. His flannel shirt, he notes, is already slick with sweat underneath his arms and on his back.
“You know I won’t be the only one affected, right?” Will chuckles dryly. “I’m letting you into my mind, but you’re also letting me into yours.” He stands. Hannibal mirrors him, more slowly, smoothing down nonexistent creases in his pants. “You might want to give me your... composure at crime scenes, but more will get dragged along. I’m sure of it.”
“I’ll also give you my analytical approach as a psychiatrist.” Hannibal tilts his head, barely perceptibly, but Will is attuned to his movements. “You’ll still have your empathy, of course. It’s wound too deeply in your to ever be untied.” Hannibal flicks his gaze up and down Will’s body, meeting his gaze with a smile. Will swallows. The least Hannibal could do is be less damn obvious.
Hannibal continues. “Your empathy, paired with a removed perspective. Freed from the morass of killers’ minds.” His nostrils flare slightly, head tipping back. “Together we’ll be... unbeatable.”
Yeah, if Hannibal doesn’t chew him up and spit him out first.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Will says. He uses a tone of voice he hasn’t used with Hannibal in a long time. A tone reversed for stranger. Tetchy, biting his teeth over the syllables, paired with avoided eye contact. But Hannibal’s not listening. He already have an image in mind of how this will happen.
“Of course. You’re naturally concerned.” Hannibal spreads his hands. “I won’t subsume you, Will. It’s taken a lot of killers to bring you down to your current state.”
The nightmare, the sleepwalking, the visions, the breaks in reality. There is a cold comfort to the thought of Hannibal’s mind, orderly and stark, holding him, grounding him. My name is Will Graham. It’s 8:17PM and I’m in Baltimore, Maryland.
Hannibal’s voice softens. He’s found an angle. “Why do you worry about letting me in?” He searches Will’s face. His shoulders rise around his neck, as if in concern. “What makes me worse than all those killers?”
Oh, no. Not the blatant manipulation. Will bites his tongue before responding.
“It’s not that you’re worse than those killers. It’s that I know you. For the killers, the only thing I know about them is how they kill. But you...” I’ve been to your house. I’ve eaten food from your table. I can tell when somebody provoked the wrath of God in you even though you’re acting perfectly polite. You want to be seen, loved, adored by everyone. But you also hate anyone who falls for it.
Will breathes out. “I know a lot more about you.”
“I’m a very good psychiatrist, Will.” Hannibal’s lip curls. He walks languidly to the window and pulls the heavy striped curtains over the sheer ones, until the room remains lit only in dim, eerie lamps. “I’ll only guide you in the aspects we want to transfer.”
“That’s all well and good, Hannibal. But have I ever been good at compartmentalizing?”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way.” Hannibal walks towards the light switch, which, Will knows, is connected to all the lamps in his office. Will also knows flipping it will plunge the room into near absolute darkness. Will opens his mouth—he knows what he’s getting into, but does Hannibal, really—and closes it.
The arrogant bastard. He’ll get what’s coming to him.
“Are we doing this now?” Will asks.
“Of course.” Hannibal flicks the light switch off. Will blinks, his eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. All he can see is the faint gray impression of Baltimore’s early nightfall, clawing its way in from the curtains. “If we wait any longer, you might change your mind.”
“That doesn’t seem very ethical, does it? Rushing your patient?” The words die, thick and chalky in Will’s mouth.
He hears Hannibal move closer to him in the dark. The soft rustling of fabric. The gentle disturbance of air, caressing Will’s face. The scent of honeysuckle and cedar. Sweeter than he would have expected. Will breathes deep. He opens his eyes, expecting to see Hannibal’s faint outline, but he’s still disarmed by the dark.
Hannibal doesn’t address the choice of the word patient. It’s low-hanging fruit. His voice is low and quiet. Will has to strain to hear in the pulsing silence.
“Sometimes you need someone else to do what’s good for you.” With a smooth rustle, Hannibal pulls back. Will realizes the man had been leaning over him.
Will chuckles dryly as Hannibal settles into the chair across for him, lighting a lone candle in the dark. Whatever Hannibal is for him, it sure as hell isn’t good.