Chapter Text
“Don’t use my broken heart
To pick up other girls
You know as well as I do
Or should i remind you
That your heart was broken, too” -Leona Naess
***
Will really hated that stupid dad sweater with the little zipper that Hannibal had been wearing lately.
He hated lots of things, to the extent he’d lost touch with most other feelings, mainly as an endeavor to escape his sadness. Sad was a paint so bleak it covered up the ones that were so, so much worse.
He hated sadness, and emotions in general. Bad invention. He really wished he never had to experience another human emotion for the rest of his life because what were they really worth?
Every feeling, every twinge of understanding anything happening to his heart since the moment he realized who the Ripper was and what Hannibal had done to him, every single second since then held another emotion that, by contrast, reminded him of how he used to be at least a little bit happy.
Yes, Will Graham, happy. For once. mostly because of Hannibal, and how he used to have hope, beaten down and ragged, but that he used to believe he would find his way to a healthy, fulfilling existence where he wasn’t scared and didn’t hate himself.
Hannibal even made Will feel admired, and while Will had held off from allowing himself the braver hope that he was loved, through Hannibal’s eyes he had started to see a better version of himself, which he hadn’t really known even existed.
It was like Hannibal brought out the best in him. It was like he had finally met someone who got him, saw him, and not only liked him, maybe even wanted him, wanted him, not Using Him, not Pitying Him, not Worrying About Him But Really More Worried That He Might Snap At Any Moment And That Could be Scary. not Laughing At Him (thanks Chilton, and Freddie Lounds).
All of the hesitant but bright and real, growing and warm joy that Hannibal had brought into Will’s life was fake. His friendship, affection and all of that a lie, maybe even his attraction, harder to fake, but god, for all Will knew!
Hannibal might not have cared he was alive if he wasn’t a passably entertaining toy, then a threat to his comfortable and evil lifestyle.
And still, still he found himself thinking about Hannibal in ways too much like missing. Missing from his days, his nights, a hole full of lonely where Hannibal had ripped himself out of Will’s life.
What did Hannibal do without him, did he ever miss Will? Did he wish he could take it back, the horrible things he’d done? And the questions wouldn’t go away, no matter how he tried to think and feel about other people and things, they bounced off his thoughts. Like Hannibal had a fucking chastity cage on Will’s feelings, and Will didn’t have the key.
It made him angry, and it made him show up early to that night’s 7:30 appointment and spend plenty of extra time beforehand making himself look handsome, seductively dangerous and charming. His smooth shirt, his designer cologne and stylishly cut, slicked back hair, his sarcastic soft smile, teasing and tricking. His revenge.
It made him stand outside Hannibal’s office door practically wanting to punch a hole through it. Trying to get a hold on himself, between the anxiety and the sickening excitement, the rage, the loathing and indescribable passion he refused to define.
He could hear classical music coming from the office, and from a glance under the door it was dim in there. He heard and lightly smelled the crackling flames of the fireplace, tickling his senses with an aching, false sweetness of which he could not completely let go. Or which refused to let him go.
Revenge did not have emotion. It was simply a path, one of justice, and something Will felt compelled to, not only for Beverly or Abigail and the other victims, but to try and regain himself again, purge out Hannibal’s toxic influence. Maybe someday he could even feel again without it hurting. What would that be like?
He fought back the nauseating blend of emotions, among them fear, rage and something that tasted like adoration and scared him most of all, even when he had no choice but to swallow.
He didn’t want to feel anymore, but feelings didn’t care. They kept happening and happening and days kept coming! All these dragging, lonely days after the day Hannibal was revealed in all his true colors, and there wasn’t a damn thing Will could do except practice the dubious and not even especially effective mindfulness exercise of focusing on revenge. All he could do was go back to Hannibal, trying not to think too hard about anything underneath the vengeance.
Anyway, he hated feelings and Hannibal, and his life, and days, nights slightly less but still bad, and he hated hate (because it was a feeling and carried an understanding of its opposite, another stabbing sensation he had to live with every time he experienced it). He hated memories of smiles, laughter, what had seemed like genuine caring and flirtation and getting closer, he wanted to forget what all of that was like.
He told Jack he was going to be the weapon this time, detached and scheming. Most of the time he felt like a gun pointed at himself. But Hannibal was the one who loaded it.
And Will hated that fucking sweater with a passion. The coziness of it, the parental vibe, the softness. How it made Hannibal seem vulnerable, especially combined with the Ripper’s surprise at seeing Will. Hannibal tried to hide that he was surprised and that made it worse, the seeming vulnerable and huggable.
There was Hannibal’s beautiful face, which Will also hated (maybe not as much as the sweater). Will locked eyes with it like he wasn’t afraid, despite the lump in his throat caused by all manner of disgusting emotions. And he put on a sly, unreadable smile while making his eyes blank and pretending that every time he saw Hannibal didn’t hurt more than the time before, which had been excruciating.
And Hannibal said, in that goddamn idiotic, obnoxious sweater with the zippy collar, the soft fabric that clung unflatteringly to him and showed how he had a little soft tummy, which was sexy, he said “Will?”
How dare he.
***
“I’d like to resume my therapy,” he made himself say.
He felt infested with thousands of crawling insects under his skin, being back there in Hannibal’s office. The environment had been exquisitely crafted to reflect Hannibal’s aesthetic preferences with a dark but lush baroque feel while providing to the patient a sense of safety. There was that very intentional autonomous sensory meridian response that came from the crackling fireplace, the dim lighting and Hannibal’s voice, slow, melodious, honey-rich and soothing.
Yes, he could still recognize the hallmarks of Hannibal’s appeal and knew that denying them would do little good until he burned out the remnants of caring in himself. He would be here in this space, warm and beguiling with temptations, whispers of dark surrender, and Hannibal would be there like he always was. The only way to change this was to change Hannibal.
Will couldn’t fight himself from the inside, he had to make Hannibal pay and then – once the tables were turned and he proved himself not only a survivor and an avenger of innocents but also, also, the smarter one, the better one. Even, when it came down to the wire, the meaner one. If he made himself mean enough to hurt Hannibal like he really wanted to hurt Hannibal, and actually did it, that would kill the lying love that seemed glued to the idea of his enemy.
Hannibal’s surprised greeting gave way to uncannily strained conversation. It didn’t sound like them; the time was that their words flowed warmly with helpless enthusiasm. But this made sense; they weren’t them anymore.
They traded subtle barbs about lost friendship and resolution and all that, completely meaningless peacocking which Will was relieved to end by sitting down in his chair.
His chair. Reserved just for him at 7:30. He rubbed the leather arms absent-mindedly while Hannibal gazed at him through lowered lashes. If Hannibal wasn’t attracted to Will he was amazing at pretending to be.
The clothes, the attitude, swagger, decisiveness, even the haircut and cologne, ridiculously overpriced, were working like a charm. Dr. Lecter looked about ready to drool, and Will stopped himself from liking that.
He pictured the excitement of Hannibal’s attention and admiration, a familiar sensation which previous to Hannibal had been unfamiliar, as a small parcel of nonsense, easily stuffed into the admittedly overstuffed freezer of revenge in one of the forts in the goddamn bone arena of his skull.
Now, stay in there!
Conversation meandered on, starting to canvas Will’s release and how his life was going these days. Somewhere in there one of them mentioned “moving on.”
Oh, what a concept.
What was that, anyway, moving on? This pissed Will off.
He leveled Hannibal with one of his stares where he managed to send arrows of pure hate from his eyeballs while attempting to be so heart-breakingly sexy, it would be the worst fate in the world to be hated by him.
“And have you, Dr. Lecter? Have you moved on?” He delicately flicked his soft pink tongue over the name, his eyes holding a dark caress like the promise of hands around Hannibal’s throat, choking, tight.
Tight like Will’s body would squeeze Hannibal when they fucked like animals on the rug there in this pristine office. The old fantasy recurred, but instead of a favorite daydream, it was a weapon. Will knew Hannibal was thinking it, so he licked his lips slowly to torture him. He kept his tone condescending but sweet in a lightly deranged kind of way.
“Apparently not,” Hannibal chuckled, his tone just a little shaky. “after all, here we are. I’ve let you back in my life. Our friendship may be over, but it’s clear my door will always remain open for you. You’ll recall, I told you once that friends need no invitation from me. I suppose that may be true of certain enemies as well.”
That motherfucker had the nerve to lean back, crossed legs, elegant and with his precious ego preserved from Will’s repeated, quiet assault.
Will decided he wasn’t going to blush at the continued implication of being special to Hannibal and that was it. The heat in his cheeks had to be from the fucking fireplace. Who the hell needs a fire on a perfectly freezing night in February? Ridiculous.
“Mmm.” Will fluttered his eyelashes. “Is that how it began with Dr. Bloom, Dr. Lecter? A casual visit from a friend that turned into intimacy? What a rare delight.”
He wanted to murder both Hannibal and Alana, preferably with a meat mallet, at the mere thought of them fucking.
The betrayal. Ice settled over him and his eyes narrowed like a predator in the wild whose mate has strayed, been claimed by an intruding outsider.
The time was that Alana was his romantic interest, but Will had forgotten that era, which barely overlapped with the time he had been close to Hannibal, one eclipsing the other, a stronger wave sweeping over his shore and discarding the previous, shallow one for the useless, insubstantial threat it was.
Alana couldn’t shipwreck Will, but Hannibal could do it with only his eyes, the rumble of his voice and his body language. He could weaken Will with a sweater (A really ugly, pathetic and tacky sweater with a plaid pattern, for that matter).
“Too rare,” Hannibal retorted crisply.
“Why, what are you implying, Dr. Lecter? That if I had the foresight to pursue greater intimacy with you, it could have been Dr. Bloom behind bars and me in your bed?” That would show him. Give him a good shock.
Hannibal’s next laugh was a weird, harsh huff of a thing. “Will, you’ve returned to therapy in quite the mood. Perhaps I should simply answer by recalling that the last time another close friend visited me unexpectedly at home, they brought me a bottle of wine and declined my offer to stay. Some might call that behavior the very antithesis of seduction.”
YOU’RE THE VERY ANTITHESIS OF SEDUCTION, Will’s dark blue glare said, loud and clear.
When his brain was done screaming at Hannibal while he swallowed back more stupid emotions, Will replied calmly, “Physical intimacy doesn’t always equal emotional intimacy. Especially when lies would far outnumber kisses and orgasms, sheets in need of washing and pieces of furniture defiled.”
Unfortunately, despite his intention being to dazzle, arouse and otherwise make Hannibal miserable and regretful of all his life choices so that the Ripper would beg for Will’s forgiveness and then fuck him against the ladder by the bookcase there –
Wait, no, that wasn’t the plan –
so that the Ripper would suffer, and open up to Will so Will could destroy him, there that was better, anyway despite that, the sad truth was that Will’s sassy, saucy descriptions had turned him on as well, and he was trembling now ever so slightly.
Hannibal responded to this with a stern look which just made that situation worse, and after a prolonged pause he stated, “You are hardly the foremost authority on any kind of intimacy, are you Will?”
“No. But are you? Do you think Dr. Bloom is really the one, Dr. Lecter? Does she make your heart skip a beat, do you miss her when she’s not around, even now, sitting in the dark with me reminiscing on all these bittersweet memories and missed opportunities, do you pine for Alana?”
So far as Hannibal’s microexpressions showed, it was as if Will had just thrown a bucket of acid on him.
“I don’t believe in ‘the one,’” Hannibal said, frowning. “I have never seen any sense in giving my whole attention or interest to any one person, in any one way. To do so would be to close off so many other avenues that might be greatly intriguing.”
“What an adorable way to describe commitment phobia. You know, relationships don’t have to limit you to just two people. But I bet you couldn’t commit to a polyamorous compound where you’d have twenty lovers, all beautiful and intriguing in their own way. Because then, you’d always be looking around the corner for number twenty-one, that next thrill. The next trick, the next escape route to what is essentially a solitary existence.”
Hannibal’s eyes closed for a few moments and his fingers drummed the arms of his chair.
A prolonged silence spread in the air between them like poisonous gas. When Hannibal recovered, he asked,
“Would you like a glass of wine, Will?”
“Oh, certainly, Dr. Lecter.”
The wine was a very lovely rosé, and when Will took the glass, barely touching Hannibal’s fingers (still enough to set off sparks), he held it correctly and precisely, inhaling the light, fruity fragrance and taking a small sip. “Thank you.”
“Always. Will, we would perhaps do best to remember this is your therapy and not mine. As you seem intent on proving that I am a solitary creature, of my own choosing, and therefore incapable of understanding what you consider ‘intimacy,’ why don’t you enlighten me about how you came to such a profound understanding of love, relationships, sex and intimacy?”
How ludicrous. What did Will know about love? He’d never been loved in his life, unless you counted his dogs. He hadn’t had sex in over a year, and relationship? What a joke. You had to date and be sociable to find a partner, unless you stumbled on them randomly, but then they turned out to be a cannibal. So. He didn’t need any of it, not anymore.
“I never said I had a profound understanding. I don’t even know how we ended up on this topic.” He smiled, wanting to crumble into dust. At least then he wouldn’t have to leave when the session ended.
Fuck! Even now, part of him craved that smooth, deep presence so badly he wished going down on his knees for this man was an option. He reminded himself it had never been an option, for oh so many reasons.
“I think we’re getting back on topic nicely,” said The Chesapeake Ripper (!) “After all, we were discussing your recovery from recent ordeals, your new beginning. Tell me Will, how is the dating scene these days?”
Will was going to incinerate him. He was going to ride his dick until his eyes rolled back, and he was going to punch him in the nose and he was going to bend over the desk with his pants down and beg to be fucked hard and selfishly. He was going to laugh, vomit, cry, scream and faint. He was going to run away. He was going to grab onto Hannibal’s leg and refuse to leave ever again.
Lots of possibilities, but Will stomped them all down as they flared like live wires in his mind. No more encephalitis, but still plenty of crazy in there. He didn’t have a memory palace, more like a dungeon.
“The dating scene is just fine. I do remarkably well for myself on The Dating Scene.” He smiled and tried to look mean and sincere. “Since my release alone, I’ve had several rollicking dates and offers of a few more potential lovers which I have yet to respond to, as I’ve been busy.”
“Oh? Really? And where do you meet these fascinating prospects?”
“I use the dating apps of course, like everyone else,” Will lied, “And I….”
He tried to think of what else people did when they dated. Where did people go, even once they made it through the horrors of those terrible apps and got someone to go on a date with them? And where did people go just to find casual sex? He had no clue. But he had heard other people talking in conversations he had no part in, and all he could do was randomly grab onto some morsel of that information because Hannibal was starting to look less quietly hurt and angry (who gave him the right) and more amused. Like he didn’t believe Will.
Oh, Will was going to make him believe it. If Hannibal thought he had some chokehold on Will’s affections, and/or that he was some kind of Lithuanian stallion stud king of sex while Will was a loser who couldn’t connect with anyone much less get someone into bed with him, he had another thing coming! (!)
“I go to the club,” he finished with greater enthusiasm than intended. Merely the relief of remembering the other place people seemed to go to meet other humans on purpose. Then he realized what he said.
“‘The club?’” The air quotes in Hannibal’s tone were seriously annoying.
“The. Club.” His own voice steely. “In fact, I’m going tonight. Thought I’d meet up with some friends, maybe see what kind of action I can find. Don’t you think I deserve to let a little loose after everything? And you’re otherwise engaged, of course.”
Check fucking mate.
Hannibal swallowed hard. A flash of unreadable but certainly bruised emotions in his eyes.
(His eyes varied as to color depending on the lighting. Right now, the flickering firelight cast them in cinnamon, but Will had seen them just as often maroon, chocolate, or pure gold. ) Oh, why am I thinking about that? Checkmate. I win. So there.
Hannibal gathered himself quickly once again, although Will hoped he’d made a dent in his deplorably iron heart.
In his typically cheerful, yet ever so slightly insulting tone he replied “I hope you have a wonderful time, Will. And I can hardly wait for our next session, so that I can hear all of the interesting tales of your further adventures in dating. It is an important component of your mental health to discover companionship and even physical touch. You will be ready to share details of your escapades in this area, I am certain.”
Hannibal was challenging Will to try and prove Will was lying. Little did he know that even though Will Was Lying, he was going to make the lie into truth out of pure spite. He determined within himself, he was going to go out and paint the town red, he was going to fuck anything that moved and he was going to tell Hannibal allllllllllllllllllllllllll about it next week. Because he was going to ruin Hannibal’s life and get his revenge and this was a perfect place to start.