Chapter Text
Will Graham hasn't left the house in a week, and he is officially out of food.
He stares at his picked-bare larder. For the moment, he's numb. More curious than anything—though why he should be surprised when he never stocked the thing properly before and he's watched his supplies dwindle every time he remembers to eat, he isn't entirely sure. In a minute, he's going to have to face the reality of going back outside, but for now, he just stares.
Wonderful, he thinks. Could have planned this better.
He knew, when he shut himself away, that he didn't intend to come out any time soon. Not until he'd figured out what he's going to do , at any rate. He doesn't want to chance running into Crawford, or Katz, or even just a local Inquisitor who takes one look at him and just...knows. Just sees it.
(He subconsciously touches the left side of his chest, where he can feel the phantom throb of it.)
He knew he was going to stay in, but he was too terrified to stop at the grocer's, and now he's going to have to go back out anyway.
In a little bit. Not now.
He has time. His stomach is only lightly cramping. He shuts the pantry door and retreats to the windowless dining room and its haphazard array of furniture, where he drops into the armchair he's all but lived in for the last seven days.
It hasn’t been two minutes when the thing on his chest thrums.
Snarling, Will clamps a hand hard against his chest—then freezes, because it hasn’t hurt, or felt like anything at all, since—
Well. Since he shut himself away, at any rate.
And then he hears the knocking.
Warily, he glances toward the hall leading to the front door. The knock was quiet enough. He could ignore it. The townhouse, while narrow, is shabby—nobody would expect there to be a doorman (which is good, because there isn’t). He could pretend to be not home.
Or he could use this as his excuse to get out. Apologize to whoever it is, say he’s just leaving. That could work. It’s probably somebody from Crawford’s office anyway, just looking for a sign of life; if it were Crawford himself, his door would still be shaking in its lintel.
He’s all the way to the door before he realizes he’s in no way dressed to go out. He’s almost decent—the trousers are clean, his shirt isn’t too wrinkled, he even has a waistcoat on, and shoes—but his jacket is nowhere nearby.
Option three, then, since if his unwanted visitor is persistent at all, they’re likely still at the door and have heard his approach. So he flips the mail slot open just long enough to snap, “Not currently accepting visitors.”
And then he retreats, prepared to hide, because the tingling sensation against his chest isn’t going away.
It’s getting stronger.
But he’s still looking when the mail flap lifts, this time pushed up by a long metal instrument that Will can’t fully make out from this angle. He blinks at it, stunned.
“I can see that from the state of your stoop,” the man says, as if this is an entirely normal way to conduct a conversation. “You hardly open the door for the milkman, let alone anyone you may actually invite inside.”
That is not a voice he knows.
Walk away, Graham, he tells himself. Wait him out. It’s too dangerous otherwise. For all he knows, the man on his doorstep is an Inquisitor. Though—he doesn’t sound like one; they don’t recruit a lot of foreigners, for one, and they’d be more prone to banging down the door than quipping about the milkman.
Carefully, Will edges toward the door. “And you don’t have an invitation,” he says, finally. “Please leave. And if Jack Crawford sent you, tell him—”
What? Either he gets this under control and can go back, or he needs to disappear. And he has no hope of getting this under control without being around people again, but that’s also how he might get caught.
His headache, seemingly always present these days, intensifies. He shuts his eyes, scrubs at them. “Tell him I’m sick.”
“I am merely doing Jack Crawford a favor,” the visitor says, patient without being patronizing. Somehow that’s worse. “And I would apologize for the ambush, but I find apologizing often quickly turns from sincere to tiresome. Far be it from me to further put myself between you and Jack, but it hardly takes a physician to notice that you do sound unwell.”
“And are you? A physician, that is,” Will says before he can stop himself, then grimaces. This is ridiculous. If he’s going to talk to this man, the door isn’t really going to help him. This new affliction of his, the power that lives just above his heart, can work just on the amount of information he can glean from diction and cadence, or at least Will thinks it can.
So either it will happen or it won’t. And though the brand on his chest still tingles, the sensation is getting fainter, and there’s no sign of a shadowy form in his hallway.
Better to be a normal human being, then, for the sake of the report this man will take back to Crawford.
Never once in Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s long career of home visits has he ever talked to anyone through a mail slot.
Then again, his rounds never take him to the water districts and their damp streets crowded with lime-white buildings with clay-tiled roofs— a pity; the scrabble of life here is raw and honest and unashamed; it catches his eye. If not for Jack Crawford catching him on the tail end of his wife’s weekly appointment, he wouldn’t be here at all.
I’m afraid I rarely take on new patients, he’d told him, courteous but firm.
Oh, I wouldn’t presume to send you a new patient, Dr. Lecter, Jack had responded, quick and sharp-eyed. He’d handed Hannibal a slip of paper with Will Graham, 1327-B St. Mary’s Road scrawled on it. I just need someone who isn’t me to make sure he’s still alive.
Which is how Hannibal has found himself standing on the stoop of a narrow rowhouse with a set of extractors keeping the mail slot wedged firmly open— the thermometer is the longest implement of the kit and acclimated to being slid into orifices, but he would rather not sterilize it again. He’s about to peer through the slot to put a face to the gently-strained voice coming from the other side— legs, more likely than a face, or groin, which would make for a graceless, if memorable, introduction —when the door opens.
Will Graham looks more disheveled than strictly unwell, squinting against the watery sunlight in rumpled shirtsleeves and a week’s growth of beard. Even so, his face is startlingly lovely, his frown finely-sculpted. The eyes that slip quickly away from Hannibal’s are a captivating blue— he would pick Turnbull’s blue to memorialize them on canvas, though he doesn’t paint.
He’s certainly alive. Jack’s curiosity peaked and sated.
Under the fold of Hannibal’s cravat— perhaps out of fashion by several years but classic and, most importantly, well-suited to his purposes —the Mark in the hollow of his throat prickles cold, a thing like a whisper. Pointed. And curious.
Hannibal offers him a polite smile.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Graham, and yes, I am.” He flicks his gaze just over Will’s shoulders— as if the state of his health will be reflected in the condition of his foyer. “May I come in?”
“Pretty sure you can get everything Crawford needs from right there,” Will says, gaze darting over Hannibal.
That gaze catches on Hannibal’s cravat and narrows— an interesting stone to throw coming from an unshaven man in his shirtsleeves and a waistcoat in desperate need of pressing. He still doesn’t meet Hannibal’s eyes as he bends past him to get the milk.
“You could at least start with your name,” Will mutters as he straightens up again. “Wouldn’t want to be rude, now would we?”
“I don’t make a habit of rudeness, no, but I’m only human.” Hannibal slips a hand past him to tug the extractors out of the mail slot. “And as a physician, I rarely find myself turned away.”
When he pulls back, Will is looking at him, finally. Hannibal’s polite smile softens, unbidden, lips parting just a fraction with something more genuine.
“Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” he recovers smoothly. Instead of holding out a hand— one of the few civilities he doesn’t hold in high regard and, all the same, Will Graham doesn’t seem like a man particularly fettered by the social contract —Hannibal slips the extractors back into the bag and holds up the thermometer. “And, yes, I could get everything I need right here in the doorway, but shouldn’t one have some consideration for the neighbors?”
Will eyes the thermometer with distaste and briefly looks like he’s considering slamming the door in Hannibal’s face. Instead, he sighs and steps back into the entrance hall.
“If it will set Crawford’s weary soul at ease, then we’d better get it over with,” he says. “But my illness isn’t physical.”
Hannibal replaces the thermometer back in the bag and steps inside. He is utterly unconcerned about Jack Crawford’s weary soul or his restful sleep— he keeps the investigator in the dark on a great many things; truths and lies are as malleable as anything else . All of his attention is turned to the man in front of him, who has a delicate downturned curve of a mouth and draws the attention of his Mark.
“The mind can affect the body as much as the body can affect the mind,” Hannibal notes. “Even mental illnesses can present with distinct physical symptoms.”
Will doesn’t look at him, but Hannibal watches the edges of his face— worn line between the brows, the tight point where jaw meets skull, the corners of lips and those shocking blue eyes —as he chews on Hannibal’s words and clearly finds them wanting.
“Where would you like me, Mr. Graham?”
He grimaces but waggles the milk delivery. “Kitchen.”
The kitchen is at the end of a long hallway that runs the length of the townhouse, looking out onto a simple but maintained garden. Clean but simple, with no icebox and only a basic cooking range. Murky sunlight spills in through two large windows. Will sets the milk on one of the counters, then gestures to the small prep table nearby, where two chairs are tucked into it.
“Will this work?” he asks.
Hannibal dips his head in a short nod. “It will.”
Short of the few babies he delivered during his training, he hasn’t practiced medicine in a kitchen in some time— his carefully-curated kitchen is a wonder of aesthetic function, which isn’t to say that bodily fluids don’t routinely find their way to his counters. The whole place smells of dust, mostly, old cooking oil, and the stale air of rooms that have gone too long with the windows shut. From this far away, he can’t smell anything on Will other than the assaulting bite of an aftershave— too heavy on musk and amber —that Hannibal can already feel threatening to give him a headache.
He sets his bag on the prep table and lets his eyes wander over Will. Nothing unusual on his hands, wrists, the exposed pale line of his throat.
“I find that patients frequently have the best understanding of the specific nature of their symptoms and the experience of their own bodies,” says Hannibal, folding his hands on top of the bag. “Any chief complaints?”
The mark of a heretical god that appeared on my chest a week and a half ago and ruined my life.
Will doesn’t say that, of course. Instead, he mutters, “A revolutionary physician, to actually listen to your patients,” then grimaces and rubs at the back of his neck.
The best lies are mostly truth, so eventually he continues, with the air of a confession, “Headaches. Frequently. And my sleep is poorer than usual, which was quite poor already.” His gaze flicks over Lecter’s hands, resting on the bag, noting his clean nails. “All a side effect of my work for Jack Crawford, of course. Not much to be done about that. I’ve tried a few tonics—all either worthless or too incapacitating.”
“Medication is not the cure to all ills,” Lecter murmurs, considering Will so closely that Will has to fight the urge to flee. “And what is it you do for Jack?”
“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you before sending you over. I am possessed of a particular talent for getting into the minds of his killers.”
Maybe more literally, now.
“Perhaps Uncle Jack wanted an opinion unclouded by expectations,” Lecter replies, then crosses the expanse of floor between them. Lecter keeps his hands where Will can see them, like Will’s a spooked animal, which he has to concede is appropriate. It even almost works.
“I’m going to have to touch you.”
Will doesn’t stop the little snarl that twists his upper lip momentarily, but he does nod, carefully averting his gaze from the other man. Easier to bear this if he doesn’t have to watch what the physician thinks about him (even if keeping an eye on him would be the safer move). Will does still cross his arms over his chest—but he doesn’t retreat.
“You have a knack for the monsters, then.” Lecter’s voice is closer and that’s the only warning Will gets before his broad hand is resting on Will’s left shoulder. It should be neutral territory.
But just a few inches lower, below his shirt, the thing there doesn’t just hum; it burns .
The sensation is sharp and undeniably powerful, far stronger than anything he’s felt since he hid himself away, and it makes his breath hitch. It’s only great force of will that keeps him from snarling and wrenching the physician’s hand away. He can’t let on, but he also can’t entirely mask his reaction.
He flinches. Lecter notices.
“This may be easier if you close your eyes,” he murmurs.
“Just get it over with,” Will snaps, fingers clawing into his forearms where they’re still crossed over his chest, even tighter now. It’s the only way he can keep himself still.
He has no idea what’s causing it, if it’s pure response to touch or to the ramping up of his anxiety.
But he knows it’s dangerous.
It’s the tightening of Will’s expression that makes Hannibal move .
He reaches up and braces his thumbs at the base of Will’s skull, and the moment they brush past the sweat-damp curls there— just as soft as he imagined —he knows. The brand between his collarbones flushes with a searing heat in response, the way pain knows pain and predators recognize each other by scent alone. Like recognizing like.
Will Graham is Marked.
— the Marked are few and far between; most attempt to hide it, until they can’t; some kill themselves before the Inquisitors can, before the madness they so fear starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy —
Hannibal feels snared, hooked. Fascinated.
He presses down, just enough, then moves incrementally forward and reapplies the pressure. Hannibal makes his way behind Will’s ears, up to his temples, at the edges of his hairline. Professional, clinical, but inside, he burns.
“Tell me if anything is particularly sensitive.”
Will goes very still.
There’s a subtle, hair-fine moment when the human hindbrain remembers what it’s like to be prey. Hannibal has gotten good at recognizing it. But Will’s tension is a coiled thing, the imperceptible shift of muscles under skin, a push off the back foot.
He doesn’t react like prey. He reacts like a young predator before it remembers its finally grown teeth.
— honest and raw; beautiful, in its own right —
In that moment, there is nothing Hannibal wants less than to let go of Will Graham.
Finally, Will says, “It doesn’t respond to pressure. It’s—deeper than that. Constant.”
This close— no sense in hiding it now, he’ll know —Hannibal barely has to inhale for the sweet, clean scent of the Mark to flood his senses, sharp as hot metal. It’s somewhere under his shirt, if he had to take an educated guess. He resists smoothing a thatch of stray curls off Will’s forehead when he finally pulls away.
“That suggests the cause is likely psychosomatic. I imagine stepping into the minds of killers takes its toll. As does Jack Crawford’s persistence,” Hannibal replies, returning to his bag and retrieving his stethoscope.
Will does not respond, instead asking, incredulously, "Did you just smell me?"
— no sense in lying; he rarely sees the use of outright dishonestly —
“I did. Remove your shirt, if you would.”
"No, absolutely not. I didn't ask for your help, and I don't see the need,” Will says. He leaves the counter, pacing over to the windows. He never turns his back fully on Hannibal, even as he glances outside, the lines of his body tight and untrusting. "Just—let Crawford know he really does need to back off for another week or two. I'm sure you have actual paying patients waiting."
Hannibal watches him pace. “I plan on informing Jack that you are ill enough to mandate no less than ten days of isolation and bedrest. Our conversation for him stopped when I crossed your threshold. Consider anything I do now free of obligation, financial or otherwise. Stress does unusual things to the body. The need, as you put it, is for someone who understands those symptoms to diagnose and manage them before they can do permanent damage.”
"There's nothing wrong with my chest," Will says.
— it almost sounds like a slip, a specification he never made —
Hannibal doesn’t quite manage to keep from smiling. A small thing, just a quirk.
— it could mean nothing; could, but likely doesn’t, with the way Will holds himself like he has something to hide —
“Nothing wrong, perhaps, but something there is drawing your attention. I imagine you’re used to deflecting, convincing yourself you don’t strictly need anything, help or otherwise.”
"I appreciate your ensuring my privacy.” Will’s hands twitch at his side before he runs one restlessly through his hair. "And I appreciate your charitable expertise. But I don't need anything else."
Hannibal sets the stethoscope back on the table and says, “My confidentiality policy extends beyond Jack Crawford. Here in this examination, your concerns are my concerns, your interests mine. And I always protect my interests, Mr. Graham.”
He watches Will pace the rest of the room, irritated and thoroughly impolite, as if searching for somewhere to run or something else to fling into the path of his relentless insistence. He isn’t, however, showing Hannibal promptly to the door or threatening him, as some are wont to do when backed into a corner.
No, he looks rather like he wants to round on Hannibal and ask why.
— it seems Will is going to give in, not out of some misplaced sense of politeness or even deference to Jack Crawford, but because some part of him is curious, no matter how small it may be —
Will stops in the doorway, his back to Hannibal, when he finally speaks again.
“Fine.” His voice sounds rusty, though he’s only been quiet for a minute at most. “In here, though, if you would.”
Will disappears into the hall. A slow thrill of heat threads through Hannibal. It isn’t from the Mark.
— he doesn’t know what happens now —
Hannibal finds Will in the dining room. Or what is supposed to be a dining room, as he soon discovers when he twists the knob to bring the lights up. It’s filled with furniture that can only be described as various. There’s even a piano tucked away in a dusty corner.
There are no windows.
Will stands near a desk, half-turned away from him as he shrugs out of his waistcoat and starts on his rumpled shirt. He has strong workman’s hands and calluses on some of his fingers— the hands of someone who hasn’t always hunted killers for Jack Crawford.
Hannibal rubs his thumb down his pointer finger, once, twice.
“Thank you," he says.
Will’s gaze flickers restlessly between him and the doorway for a moment before sliding slowly and purposefully to his face. Hannibal relishes Will’s full attention, the gravity of it, the way it seeks to flay him open.
He can almost hear it reverberating through his skull: I see you, I see you, I see you.
He knows Will doesn’t, not fully— in for a penny —not yet. But he will.
Will slides the last few buttons open and shrugs out of his shirt. He doesn’t look away.
And there, on his chest, is exactly what Hannibal is looking for: the intricate pattern of black, sharper and cleaner than any tattoo, pulsing with a faint but unearthly orange light.
— in for a pound —
Hannibal hasn’t had occasion to see many besides his own, only two on the living— he drowned their Marks in blackish streams of arterial blood —and a handful on the dead. He feels a dull second pulse in the hollow of his neck, still hidden beneath layers of cravat and collar, answering the ripple of light through Will’s Mark. The air shifts, barely perceptible, like the moment before a lightning strike.
The sheer danger of this moment perfuses through him with every slow squeeze of his heart. He could reach for his strength, his speed, the Mark clawing at him to use it.
He doesn’t.
Hannibal says, calm but firm, “Will.”
“How far does your confidentiality extend now, Dr. Lecter?” Will asks, and it’s almost a drawl.
It’s that or falter, fall apart from how the physician has just dropped formality between them while Will is already so vulnerable. There’s no fear in Lecter’s eyes or stance. No, it’s that same interest he’s been showing since he cradled Will’s head in the kitchen, that excitement, that… hunger.
He wonders what he’d see, if he let the heretical power loose, let it build a shadow copy of him patterned off of Lecter. It’s remarkably hard to get a read on him. Will thought it was just his own refusal to look, but no, the man is locked down. Entirely under his own control.
Dangerous.
If he has to defend himself, he’ll pull on the memory of Tobias Budge, because that killer knew how to fight for his life. Will only hopes, desperately, that it can work on command as well as it worked in panic. That maybe he won’t need it at all.
“It extends as far as is needed,” Lecter replies mildly. There’s no trace of anxiety in him. If anything, there is only a careful stillness. His analyzing, piercing gaze never lets up. “Does your Mark wish to kill me?”
Will’s lips twist in a bitter little smile. “It’s not that simple. It doesn’t—communicate.”
“Of course it does. Communication is as much about being understood as it is learning what to listen for.”
This is wrong. This is not how a physician should react to the heretical emblem branded into Will’s flesh by an unknown hand. He doesn’t move for the knife yet. He does, however, let the buzzing of the Mark into his head a little bit more. He’s only done this accidentally, too afraid to test it even in the privacy of his empty townhouse. But he knows what it feels like.
It feels like how he’s always slipped into the minds of Jack Crawford’s monsters, except made physical.
He doesn’t go far enough that anything takes form, but the air feels heavier. Cold and cloying. Still, Will has enough desperate hope for one last question.
“Do you know of any way to remove it, doctor? I can assure you, I never asked for this.”
Lecter stills, even as his hand has edged towards a pocket.
“I imagine you never asked to understand Jack’s killers, either,” he says. “The Mark is you as much as your knack for the monsters. If there’s a way to remove it, I don’t know it.”
Will can feel himself beginning to tremble. Lecter’s responses continue to make no sense. “Careful,” he murmurs, not sure if he wants to laugh or scream. “That’s almost heretical.” Almost, but not quite. The Inquisitors are of the opinion that the Mark makes one evil, but most also hold that, on the reverse, only those prone to evil ever receive the Mark.
Still, to even imagine such a state implies a certain level of familiarity, more than a physician should have, and that, combined with the delight he’s sure he’s reading off of Lecter, makes one thing suddenly, viscerally clear:
He’s not natural, either.
Something in him, specifically, is what is calling to his Mark, and there’s only one very good possibility for that. Which means, regardless of if the Inquisitors are right or not, he can’t, shouldn’t, assume he’s safe here. And it’s not betrayal he needs to fear.
Before he can second guess himself, Will grabs his knife and lunges forward. Behind Lecter, shadows coalesce into the mirror image of Will.
Soundless, featureless, it loops a garrote around Lecter’s throat.
And Lecter, like a prizefighter more than a doctor, drops to his knees in a fluid, forceful motion. The wire skirts the underside of his chin as he wrenches away from it and throws an elbow back to knock at the shadow. At his touch, the shadows vanish, and it is only them again.
That isn’t supposed to happen, but Will doesn’t have time to think, because
Lecter is on his feet again in time to grab Will’s arm, to smash down with his other hand and knock the knife loose. The blade clatters to the floor and Will snarls in frustration and pain.
He needs to open up space between them again. Or he needs to win now.
His shadow selves take on perfect replicas of the violent natures of the killers he lets into his mind, but he’s absorbed those natures, too, if imperfectly.
Will’s knuckles crack against Lecter’s jaw.
His neck snaps sideways, but he keeps his grip tight to Will’s wrist. It’s hard, too hard for any man, and he’s too fast to track as he gets a hold of Will’s other arm, wrenching it behind his back.
It’s that speed that confirms what Will was already fairly sure of, but even half-anticipating it, he isn’t able to sidestep or break free. He bares his teeth as his arm lights up in pain, as he’s tangled up in the physician’s grasp. It hurts. It fucking hurts.
And it also feels like ecstasy, no longer fighting the buzzing darkness in his chest.
(The Mark sings at the physical contact between them. Is it supposed to do that?)
Will races through options but not fast enough to be useful; having a killer to pattern himself after doesn’t work when it gets into the realm of reaction. So he does the only thing that he can really think of.
He drops his weight down the floor, hoping to force Lecter to disengage or come down with him, hoping it doesn’t end up breaking his arm.
It doesn’t, but Lecter also doesn’t let go.
Lecter absorbs the hit with one shoulder, sparing Will, but before he can make sense of it, Lecter shoves off the floor and settles just enough of his weight on Will to pin him to the ground. There’s a moment when he could break free; could get to the knife, or out the door, because in a race through his own house, he stands a fair chance at winning. But he can’t think. The interplay of his Mark and Lecter atop him (and the reality that he’s barely eaten all day and hasn’t been sleeping well for weeks) outweighs the surging adrenaline for just long enough that Lecter can steady himself. The knife is close by, but Will can’t reach it, and Lecter spots it too. He kicks it into a dusty corner of the room.
He leans down, close to Will’s ear and huffs, “I have no interest in killing you.”
“Never said you did,” Will gasps, still trying to recover his breath.
He’s trapped, body singing with adrenaline and the heady flush of the Mark.
“You didn’t have to,” Hannibal tells him.
He needs to buy time, catch his breath, come up with a real plan. And figure out exactly what he’s afraid of right now, because he’s telling the truth—he doesn’t think Lecter means to kill him.
But hurt? Put him in danger somehow? Oh, yes. His instincts aren’t often wrong on that front. This man is predatory. He should have seen it sooner.
“You knew,” Will pants, trying to feel out the exact shape of the danger. “How did you know?”
“I’m trained to observe a great many things. I can’t simply shut it off.”
He nearly snaps, And how long have you been Marked for? but he knows he won’t get a straight answer. If this were brotherly concern for another in the same dire straits, Lecter would have led with that.
No, he’s going to have to drag it into the open less verbally, more physically.
Will hesitates a moment, then closes his eyes, focusing in. Focusing on the thing he’s been trying so desperately to ignore: the throbbing of his Mark, its nature and its flavor.
And then he goes a little farther, curious to see if he can follow back the reactive excitement of it to the trigger.
Throat. It’s intuition, just like the majority of how he reads people, and then he remembers the cravat, and things click into place.
“And what else have you observed?” he asks, opening his eyes once more. He’s trapped on his belly, but Lecter only has one hand caught. The other is pinned between Will and the floor. He can use that.
And he can try another shadow form. He’s flagging, and it won’t last long, but it might last long enough. He dredges up the mind of a serial strangler. Similar to Tobias Budge, but not so brash. Stealthier. He doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge the shadows forming behind them both.
This time, Lecter doesn’t notice until it’s too late.
Fingers, curling with black smoke, grab Lecter’s neck and squeeze. He chokes as the shadow hands wrench him sideways, enough to unseat him and yank his grip off Will’s trapped arm. Lecter manages a strike that sends the shadows dissolving once more, but he’s not fast enough.
Because as exhausted as Will is, he’s also more predator than prey. He doesn’t falter. He is up and turned over and bearing down on top of Lecter faster than he can think, one hand and his body weight forcing the other man against the floor, the other following the path of his double’s hands —instead of seizing Lecter’s throat, he grabs the cravat.
There’s no time to untie it, but he can grip the front length of it and pull up and to the side, baring a slash of Lecter’s throat, possibly choking off his air at the same time.
Beneath him, Lecter looks up defiantly.
No—not defiantly. Proudly. Hungrily.
Do it, his expression says. Look.
He wants this.
Don’t look, some part of Will hisses, but he’s never been good at closing his eyes, at ignoring. The hand in Lecter’s cravat holds tension, a leash, while his other hand slides up Lecter’s chest, gentler now. His fingers undo his collar, hook into the fabric, pull down.
And there, at the hollow of his throat, in sharp black pigment, is the exact same Mark that is emblazoned on Will’s heaving, naked chest.
The tension in his body changes, then. Grows heavier with some manner of release. He’s straddling the physician’s waist, and it’s all so unbearably intimate now, with the confirmation that they are alike.
That they can see each other.
Slowly, Will tears his gaze from the Mark, and meets Lecter’s eyes once more. His heart is loud in his ears. He doesn’t understand; he attacked because he suspected. So now that it’s been confirmed, why has the fight gone out of him?
“What do you want from me?” Will whispers.
Lecter may be pinned under him, but he doesn’t look it. He looks like he’s won.
He smiles.
“A conversation.”