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Will can’t sleep. He wanders around campus at night, finding nooks and hideouts. He goes through tunnels underground. He kicks old beer cans and tiny bottles of Fireball. He stares at the writings on the walls like they’re cave paintings, illuminating a kind of life he can never live, a life he is so curious about. He can’t sleep, but when he does, he has nightmares about getting lost in those tunnels. Except the graffiti is painted in red. There’s an animal locked in there with him, a dog or a wolf. Its whining echoes off the concrete walls, and Will can feel them deep in his heart, rattling around like a bullet.
It’s been months spent dreaming about things like this. He wakes up, and he knows these dreams mean something, shed light on his warping psyche, but they slip through his fingers. They fade like the slowing of his heartbeat. Even with no sleep, he goes to class. He takes notes, he passes tests, he studies in the library until midnight. He lays in bed until his restless legs nag at him for long enough, until he accepts that he won’t sleep, until he gets up and wanders.
Walking alone late at night sets something off in him. He keeps hearing whispering. He’s not sure if it’s the trees, or the wind, or the shuffling of leaves, but as he walks through even the sparsest of forests, he can hear it. He can see shadows moving between branches. He watches as stars shift and sparkle in the sky. He knows that without decent sleep soon, these small visions will bloom into explosions. He knows what a lack of sleep does to an already fragile mind.
Will has known he’s different his entire life. His brain moves quickly, making jumps and leaps with an insane accuracy rate. Facts and scenes crawl under his skin and stay there. He can't shake them until all the pieces are put together. He lives in a fluid state, moving from one thought to another. He understands the answer to a question before his professor finishes asking it. He skims books because his eyes can't glide from one word to the next. He has dreams that explain things he doesn't know how to put into words. Connections, like congealed blood, seep out of the folds in his brain and give way to a pitched screaming.
He looks at all the people that surround him and he wonders if they can smell it on him, if the fevered insomnia is something anyone else can pick up on. He has one professor, a man from somewhere European, who looks at him all through class like he can see right through his skull, like he's picking apart the extraneous information from the important. Like he wants to dig deep into Will. It helps that he's teaching psychology. Will heard he switched from teaching at a high-profile medical school. He's traded hardware for software. Will hopes that means he finds the latter more interesting.
Will doesn't want to see a therapist, but he wants to sleep. He doesn't want someone to diagnose him and fix him, but he wants to be well enough to fly under the radar. He knows how being different looks to trained professionals. He knows the kind of crazy they'll call him, and he won't have any way of proving them wrong.
He just wants a conversation. He just wants to talk, wants to ask questions. He doesn't want to be held there with someone poking around inside of him. So he sees Dr. Lecter. Just a simple visit. A question during office hours. Lecter is sitting at his desk in a small office down the hall from where he normally gives his lectures. He's put together the way he always is, carefully tucked away hair, three-piece suit. A graceful, quiet presence that seems to whip around him as he speaks in riddles and hypotheticals. Will stares at him for a moment, unable to speak.
"Mr. Graham," Lecter says, more to passively acknowledge his arrival than to question why he's arrived. He rolls his chair back, both hands on his desk, back perfectly straight. Will gets the impression, the same one he gets watching Dr. Lecter walk from end to end of the lecture hall, that every movement is purposeful, that he’s aware of every inch of his body at all times.
“Dr. Lecter, I— I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He gestures to the chair in front of him, across the desk from the one he’s sitting in.
Will sits where he’s been guided. He can’t find the words now that he’s here. All of the nights he’s spent awake and lost feel like they happened to someone other than him. They’re a different lifetime, a different struggle. He can smell Dr. Lecter’s cologne, an earthy, slightly sweet smell. Incense and cedar. A hint of something floral. He can almost see the spots where it’s clinging to his skin like an oil spill.
He swallows his sight. Too much to take in. Too many angles reflecting sunlight. High cheekbones, hollow cheeks, lips that jut forward and cover teeth, tongue, throat. Will has been seeing an animal in the woods, and he smells like cedar and wildflowers. A soft burning.
He clears his throat. “We haven’t really talked. One-on-one.”
Lecter’s mouth twitches. “No, we haven’t. Is there a cause behind your visit today?”
“I don’t want to see a psychologist.”
“Then perhaps you should close your eyes.”
“Officially. I don’t want to see one officially. I don’t want to—” He shakes his head, looking at the wall behind Lecter instead of meeting his eyes. Eye contact feels like too much, entirely too much. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”
“I can’t treat you, Will. Too much conflict of interest.”
“I’m not asking you to treat me.”
Lecter sighs. He folds his hands in front of him, placing them on the surface of the desk. “You want to talk.”
“Just talk.”
“Do you have anyone else to talk to? Family, friends?”
“I’m not really a people person. Or, people tend to not be me people.”
“A psychologist might do you good.”
“Conversations with professionals, especially ones you're paying, are stilted. It becomes a battle of wits.”
“And you’re not interested in being challenged.”
Will looks at him then, risking eye contact. His face is stoic. His accent seems to wrap around his tongue instead of being produced by it. Slick sounds become sharp in his mouth. Soft sounds become inaudible. He looks back at Will, and he knows then what staring into an abyss really feels like. “I’ve heard you talk for hours. I’m distanced from you. I feel I know you better than you know me.”
“Is it the lack of power that keeps you from a different psychologist?”
“I’m not asking you to be my psychologist.”
“What are you asking, then?”
Will inhales. He looks around the room, eyes darting from one hung degree to another. “I can’t sleep. I lay in bed for hours, and I can’t fall asleep. I think— I’m starting to see things. Hear things. I don’t know at what point I should be concerned, and what point is just my baseline.”
"You already sound concerned. You're questioning it?"
"I'm hearing things that aren't there. I mean, I walk through the woods, and I hear things dying all around me."
Lecter leans forward. “How long has this been happening?”
Will feels stupid. He feels ridiculous. He has nobody to talk to, and he’s turning to a professor he’s never had a conversation with just because he’s teaching his psychology class. He’s right. Will should find a professional that can actually help him, someone that doesn’t have him in class, someone that he doesn’t already have such a solid opinion about. Someone he can work with without bias or conflict of interest. The thought of doing that makes Will’s stomach twist.
He looks at Lecter’s hands. His fingers are long and smooth, but there are wrinkles well-worn into the skin. His nails are neatly kept. Neither too short nor too long. They’re a healthy pale almost-pink. Will thinks about leaning forward and biting into his hand. “Maybe a month or so. I get short bursts of sleep here and there, but I wake up in a sweat. I think— I think something is knocking on the inside of my mind.”
“Do you have a history with this sort of thing? The knocking, mental illness, or otherwise?”
Will nods. He’s blinking too fast. He tries to slow it.
“Trauma?”
Will nods again. Sharp and simple. He doesn’t want to get into it. He doesn’t want to think about it. He can feel the flashes of his childhood begging to be let out, and he refuses to let them free. His memories are weapons that can be used against him. He knows this. He knows why he should keep his mouth shut, and still he feels the stories bulging on his lips. He can imagine himself telling them with perfect clarity, clarity that doesn't exist.
"Was it your father?"
Will swallows. No, no, it wasn't. No, how could Lecter suggest such an ugly thing? No, he promises. Just don't tell his father that he left any sort of mark on his skin. Don't tell him that it's so obvious, that Will walks around the world like a broken toy. His strings have been cut long ago, and still he feels his father's hand inside of him. He shakes his head, closing his eyes in the process.
Lecter's mouth twitches again. Will thinks it's maybe him repressing a smile. He's so in control of his actions and expressions that such an involuntary response strikes Will. He wonders if it's something about him, something about his mannerisms or tone that set Lecter off. Maybe it's only a tic.
Hands reach out and grab Will's neck, his arms. A group of shadows form from the darkness inside of him. They hover over Will's head. They whisper and spit. They claw the inside of Will's body with a feral desperation, but Will is the one who's desperate. He tries to shake himself free. He gnashes his teeth and stomps his feet. This is all a recreation of his mind, because he knows that in the actual memory, he stayed completely still. He watched with big, child eyes as men, as his father, pulled him apart and put him back together. He knew this was the likely culprit of his recent episodes, but he needs to have someone else say it. Someone who isn't in his head. Someone who has some ability, some authority. He needs someone to pull it out of him like a magic trick, to say it makes sense that he can't remember it all, that his feelings are enough to go on. His faint shadows and nightmares of hands grabbing at him.
"What are you thinking about right now, Will?"
Will holds onto the arms of the chair. The room, Lecter's office, falls away. He can taste the sea. He can hear voices like waves crashing into him. "I feel like water. Fluid. I think I'm going under, and I can't remember how to start swimming again."
"Sometimes, the best thing to do is not fight the waves. Let them come. Ride them out."
Will scoffs. "You think I haven't tried?" He opens his eyes, and he's on land. "Most people who say that would kill themselves if they were inside my head."
"What would you describe it as?"
"A tsunami. Stormy seas."
"And you've been in those troubled waters since childhood. You're not accustomed to peace, and so you spend all your energy trying to survive what others only encounter once or twice in their lifetimes. So when a new wave comes, it takes you under."
"It tries to kill me. It has a mind of its own."
"It's still a part of yours."
Will opens his mouth, and then closes it. He looks at the wall. "It feels like a parasite."
Lecter sighs. "In a way, it is. But it's still made of you. Nothing can be implanted in your head without you owning it."
"I do not own this." His voice rises, his body is shaking. "I denounce this. I disavow this."
"If only it were that easy." A beat of silence passes between them. "I'd be interested in seeing you occasionally, if that's what you feel you need." His slick words spin around on the desk, flicking towards Will.
Will nods again. He can't look at Lecter. He can't try and decipher what he's thinking, if he's pitying him, if he believes him. Will doesn't know what he'd do if he came to the conclusion that Lecter thinks he's making this all up.
"Are you free on Fridays? I can make sure I have a spot open during my usual office hours. Not many students take advantage of them anyway."
"Fridays are good."
Lecter lets himself smile then. Will can see it out of the corner of his eye.
—
That Friday comes and Will thinks about not going. He's laying in bed. He's not busy. This round of exams is over, which means he doesn't have to worry about studying for the entire weekend. He could stay in bed for three days, and no one would mind. Except Dr. Lecter.
Will regrets setting that appointment. He doesn't know what he was thinking. He's doing fine, all things considered. This definitely isn't the worst state he's ever been in, at least. He’s made it through an entire year at this university without a significant breakdown. He isn’t cutting himself open in the dorm bathrooms. He isn’t staining all his clothes with blood. He isn’t swallowing glass and letting it rip him apart from the inside. He isn’t—
He knows this doesn’t matter. Because he's wandering into the woods late at night and listening to the trees, waiting for them to tell him some kind of truth about the world. He should be seeing a therapist, he should be getting help, but the thought of it makes him want to get worse. He’s weaker than he thinks he is if he’s crawling into the lap of the first person that’s willing to talk to him.
He only makes it to the appointment by not thinking about why he’s going. He pretends he’s just going to class. He puts one foot in front of the other until he’s standing in front of the right building, and then he goes inside. He walks, one step by one, until he’s in front of Dr. Lecter’s office. He worries about the time, but he knows that if he checks it, it’ll make the appointment too real in his head. So he stands still outside his door until it opens.
It doesn’t take long, only a few minutes. Will pats himself on the back for being on time, and follows Lecter’s lead into his office. The warm scent of the room is familiar, but he hadn't noticed last time. Will was too preoccupied with all the sensory details about Lecter to worry about the sensory details of the room. He decides he likes the smell. Old books, something nearly metallic, and faint wood varnish. The room smells like it’s stood right in this spot for decades, just waiting for voices and air in the shape of men to occupy it.
Will certainly feels like condensed air. He feels on the verge of scattering. He feels worms in his stomach. He feels already cold. He sits in Lecter’s chair and he worries about bringing the stink of decomposition into his time-sealed space. His skin will peel away the moment he gets up, exposing muscle, and bone, and thick blood. Will’s heart leaps into his throat. His chest houses the battering wings of many birds and bugs.
Lecter sits across from him. He’s nearly identical to when Will saw him last. The only thing that’s changed is the color of his suit. “How have the last few days been for you, Will?”
“Uh,” Will looks at the ceiling. His fingers, again, dig into the arms of the chair, like he’s just waiting to be ejected from it. “Fine, I guess. Fine.”
“No need to sugarcoat. Nothing from this room will escape it.”
Will hopes that’s true because his heart is climbing higher and higher. “It’s been, uh, about the same. Can’t sleep. Can’t focus. I find myself in the woods at any opportunity, which is usually nighttime.”
“Do you remember going into the woods? Leaving your bed? Or do you wake up already surrounded by trees?”
Will considers this. He often moves through the day the way he moves through dreams. He doesn’t remember every step he takes from one place to another, but he can put together how he got there, if asked. He can feel the squeak of his shoes on the dorm hallway floor as he leaves. He can hear the sound of the door opening, clicking shut behind him, the change from concrete to mud and leaves.
“I can remember walking there. But it’s not the first thing my memory pulls up.”
“What is?”
“The feelings that bring me there,” Will admits. “The restlessness. The fear.”
“Fear of what?”
Will shrugs.
Lecter leans forward, an exact, repeated motion from their last conversation. “Fear, in people, exists in two branches. There is instinctual fear and learned fear. One might be scared of snakes, because it has been evolutionarily beneficial to be scared of them, and those that weren’t, of their ancestors, died. On the other hand, someone might be scared of snakes because their older brother used to pick ones out of the garden and chase them around with it. The fear becomes the connection your brain makes between the concept of snakes and the feeling your brother inflicted upon you. There is no benefit in it, and yet, the brain clings to it. Mistaking this learned fear for one that would keep you alive.”
Will sucks air into his lungs like it’s the only way to take in Lecter’s words. “So, I need to unlearn it.”
“Yes. And to do that, you need to dig up the connection your brain is making between your fear and the cause of it.”
“Shouldn’t I already... Know that? I mean, if it’s in my brain. Nothing I can think of would make sleep this fearful thing.”
Lecter’s lips twitch into a smile. “When the brain mistakes the learned for the instinctual, it can also fold the reason up into itself to make the emotion quicker to access. We’re all scared of subjects without faces. Most people, those without mental illness, face little disorder because of this.”
“How wonderful that I’m not most people.”
Lecter looks at him for a moment, then stands. He walks around the desk. He stands over Will. “Perhaps the first area of treatment is learning how to sit in that fear.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Close your eyes.”
Will listens. He has no reason to, except for the tantalizing idea that this will offer him relief. All the pressure built behind his eyes, slowly drained.
“Picture somewhere safe to begin with. Somewhere or something that takes you away from that fear inside of you.”
Will knows where that place is. Deep in rural Maryland, there’s a stream that runs across a patch of trees and wild grasses. Trout would crest through the waters, and with the right lure, with an amount of patience, you could catch one that gleamed in the sunlight, a shimmer of green, a shimmer of pink. When Will was standing there, he couldn’t hear anything but the rushing water. He became nothing but the body of water that he was standing in.
“This is where you will go back to if things get too much. A singular point in time, or a singular image. It will always be there. It will always be untouched.” He is leaning down next to Will, his voice in his ear. "Relax. Make yourself vulnerable. Where are you?"
"Fishing," Will whispers. The words slip out from between his lips.
Lecter makes an amused sound. “Catch a fish. Let one come to you.”
Will pictures this. It’s harder than it should be. He knows the space between the bite and the actual catching, how long it takes for him to actually hold the fish in his hands. When he feels the nag of the line, and then pulls it towards him, and then holds the fish in his hands, it’s bleeding. A knife has been pulled through its stomach, but nothing has been taken out. Its guts are spilling in Will’s hands.
“What do you see?”
“It’s dead. It’s been— Someone—”
“Hold it. Keep it in your hands. These are the things you need to be comfortable with.”
He can feel the blood in his hands. It stains his skin. It flows between the wrinkles on his palm. Will wants to throw it back in the water, but he can't. He can only look down as the blood drips off his hands and into the river below him. He can feel hands all over him, reaching out of the water and grabbing him. His chest, his legs, his arms. He's held in place.
"I don't want to do this," He says.
"Stand fast, Will. If you let this pass, you'll be able to move past it."
Once again, the only thing that keeps his eyes closed, his body still, is the idea that he can finally let this go. He can finally look at it straight on and denounce it. He sees his father's face, but it's twisted and half-gone. He's small, too young, too fragile. He's in his childhood bedroom. Wood paneling on the walls, blue sheets on his bed, and everything is stained with red. His father is pulling out his guts and stringing them up above his bed like a mobile. He's frozen in place, watching his child self die right there. His dad's hands inside of him. His body solid and real, his breath in his ear, his panting, his whispering.
He knows this. He already knows this. He feels it in his stomach, his chest. He knows this the way he knows anything else about himself. It's the only piece that could fit in the puzzle of his life, but he can't— He can't sit here and let it happen again. He sees his father's cock covered in sores. He sees his teeth shining under the moonlight. He's a different man. He's someone Will doesn't know. He's whispering his apologies. He's whispering endlessly. He's pulled through and pulled apart. He's ribbons of diseased flesh. He's blood, and water, and salt, and carbon.
Will opens his eyes with a gasp. Hannibal is sitting at his desk again. Hands folded in front of him. His eyes are flickering, and Will can't look at them directly. He has to look at his cheek and watch the light change like he's trying to look at the sun.
"What are you feeling?"
Will's nails are digging into the leather of the chair. His legs are tense. He tries to relax, but he can't release anything. He's worried it'll keep coming. Wave after wave of this awful suffering. Endless. "When I think I can't hold anything else, I find something else I need to juggle."
"It's your father?"
"Yes."
"You already knew this. What's different this time?"
"A story is developing. Words are being assigned to it. It's becoming part of my world."
"It's already all there. You've already felt all of it before."
"Not the emotions."
"No. Not the emotions. But those won't kill you."
Will scoffs. "Speak for yourself." These feelings are too big to treat like anything other than a bomb going off in Will's head.
"Once they're processed, what you see as a lion will transform back into a particularly feisty kitten."
Will wrinkles his nose. "And how do I do that?"
Hannibal smirks the way he does when he's trying to be kind. It doesn’t reach his eyes. "You learn to sit with your feelings. You let them exist alongside others. You socialize them, and in turn, they become less feral."
"I find that hard to believe right now."
"You don't have to believe. It'll happen if you do the work." Hannibal lays his hands flat on the desk. "I want you to write down everything you saw today, everything you felt. Consciously make a story for it. Make it tangible, make it real. And then bring it in."
"What if I can't sit with it for a week?"
"Then come back sooner."
—
Will sits in front of his laptop for hours trying to put words to the visions he saw in Hannibal's office. They're entirely abstract, and although he knows the story that is supposed to go along with the flashes he received, he can't bring himself to lay it all out.
Eventually, he stops trying to make it make sense. He writes the facts out plainly. Blood, and mutilation, and his father over him, biting into him like a wolf. Like Will is just a poor lamb. Wool gets stuck in his father's teeth. The story diverts into less truth and more fantasy. Will gets carried away, and because of that, describes not only the things he already knows, but the emotions, the feelings he can assume he felt. He describes, for an entire paragraph, the pain that sears through him as his dad pulls out intestines, as he takes Will's heart and lungs.
When Will reads it over, it scans like the ramblings of someone that belongs in an institution. He reads it thinking about what Hannibal will see, what he would see if he was handed this instead of creating it. Hannibal doesn't know Will's dad, so he doesn't know how hard this is for him to accept. His dad taught him how to fish. His dad took him camping, gave him his first beer, did all the things a dad was supposed to do, and still Will felt like he had been dropped at his parents door by aliens. He didn't belong in that family, and it seemed everyone already knew it. So what if he hurt this child that didn't come from him? So what if he killed him over and over again in the bed he so graciously provided?
And what did this say about Will's mom? Will couldn't ever tell her. She still called him, still checked in on how he was faring in school, if he had a girlfriend, if he felt okay. She was still scared of Will having another breakdown and becoming all but useless to the world at large. She wouldn't believe him, and if she did, it would be because she already knew, somewhere in her heart, what had happened. Either option made Will's palms sweat.
He adds her in anyway, standing in the corner, watching as her only child, if he was her child at all, got cut open and stripped of everything that made him content. At one point in his life, Will was a normal child. He ran through puddles and splashed mud all over his new rainboots. He watched cartoons every Saturday morning. He said funny things, read so many books. At some point, all of that was taken from him. He existed from then on as a shell of a child. Faceless and barely fussed over. His mom always asked him what made him withdraw so much, and Will always said he didn't remember much from childhood, which was true. He only really remembered the big stuff.
Even now, after all of this, Will isn't sure if he believes himself. When he reads what he wrote, barely comprehensible and steeped in visceral imagery, it's as though it spontaneously appeared on his screen. He doesn't remember typing out the words. He can't remember his fingers moving over the keys of his laptop. He doesn't believe these things really happened to him, because they couldn't have. He tries to think of a time that they could've. He tries to remember how old he was. He tries to come up with any other explanation. He wants to think the best of his parents, even now. The idea of the cord between them already being so severed, and it having nothing to do with him, having little control over it, is too much to take in.
He goes to bed that night sweating.
—
He knows this is a dream, but he can't move. He can't control it. He can't control himself. He's pinned to the mattress. Above him, shadows swirl. Bright eyes, beautiful mouths dripping with spit. Blood pools around him. There's a strained violin in the air, like Will is self-aware in some horror movie. The musical cues push forward man after man. Will isn't sure how he knows they're men, but he knows they are. They don't touch him, they don't infect him, they just confirm the infection was already there.
It doesn't last long, but it doesn't have to. Will wakes in a pool of his sweat, shirt sticking to his back. His whole body aches. He rustles around for any sort of paper to write down the contents of the dream. In the back of his head, he knows he needs to tell Hannibal about it, about how his mind is unraveling all of these things.
He can't go to class like this. His blankets feel like a hundred pounds of steel crushing him into his bed. His shitty dorm room feels like the only safe place in the universe as his entire reality comes apart. Everything he knew about himself before seeing Hannibal is all planted, all fake. It's a play he was performing his whole life. In the small cracks where the truth showed, Will considered it an insult, or the sign of a declining mental state, if he looked closely at them. He looks for problems. That's the kind of person he is. He's a liar, and a manipulator, and deserving of whatever somebody is willing to do to him.
He falls back asleep on and off. When he's awake, he scrolls through his phone. He writes his thoughts out in the same document he was writing in last night. He moves things around. His dad grows horns, the shadows swoop in, blood becomes bile. It's the only form of journaling he thinks he'd ever partake in, only because it doesn't require him to be the speaker. He just has to narrate. He just has to lay the facts out as they appear in his head.
He gets an email around midday. It's from Dr. Lecter— Hannibal, as Will's started thinking of him.
Hello, Will
I'm writing to ask your whereabouts. You didn't attend class today, and that's unusual enough without reason. I worry that the reason this time is because of the work you've been doing in my office. I understand needing to put some things on hold while you process such big life events. I hope that's all this is, but I'd be remiss if I didn't follow my instincts.
Hope you're well,
Hannibal Lecter.
Will reads it over a few times, trying to find some sort of hidden meaning. Surely, Hannibal wouldn't be this worried after one missed class. Will has missed a handful of classes and never gotten an email like this from one of his professors. They tend to avoid hand-holding when at all possible. Hannibal seems to have gone out of his way to express concern and well wishes. It digs the pit in Will's stomach deeper.
Impulsively, he drafts an email to Hannibal, attaching the document he's been dumping his thoughts into, and sends it with little context. He's sure Hannibal will have a field day with it. A direct tap into Will's state of mind. He's sure Hannibal will write notes on it, send it back with corrections in red ink. Will shuts his laptop, crawling back under his covers and staring at his phone.
—
He falls back asleep at some point. It's a sure sign that his brain is working through a lot, even if Will doesn't believe any of it. He's awoken by a knock, stern and heavy. Will knows who it is before he gets out of bed, and it's confirmed once he makes it to the door. He opens it to find Hannibal standing there in his regular three-piece suit. His lip flickers into a smile when he sees Will.
"Hello."
"Hi," Will replies.
"May I come in?"
Will stands there for a second, hand on the doorknob. He thinks about refusing. He thinks about shutting the door, maybe never showing up to his class again. It would make all of this easier. He could go into his inevitable spiral with no one to keep him grounded. It'd be just like the last time.
Instead, Will waves him in. It's a choice he would never usually make, but Hannibal is the only person in the world right now who knows how he might, maybe, be doing mentally. And he came all the way over here. It's clear how little he belongs here as he steps into Will's dorm room. It's a small, cramped space with only enough room for a desk and a bed. Will's hung up a few postcards from high school friends, and he has post-it notes stuck above his desk. Other than that, it's as plain as it could be. Will sits on his bed, looking at Hannibal. He looks over his options. Either sitting next to Will on the bed (undignified) or sitting in his desk chair (awkward). Hannibal opts to stand in the middle of Will's room, coat folded over his arm, face pursed.
"I wanted to check on you. Your reply to my email didn't exactly instill me with confidence."
Will can't look at him. He finds anywhere to look instead of in Hannibal's eyes. "I didn't think you'd be the type to make house calls."
"I'm not. I figured this was a special case."
Will exhales. "Is it?"
Hannibal leans down in front of him. He has such strangely proportioned limbs squatting down like this. He looks like something Will should be afraid of more than put his trust in. If he hadn't already sunk so much into talking to Hannibal, he'd be kicking him out of his room. By extending himself to Hannibal, by trusting him, even in the limited way that Will does, he's already gotten a return on it. He'd be lying if he didn't feel special because Hannibal came to look after him.
"This work is hard, Will. It's difficult for anyone who does it, and in your case, self-aware, intelligent, it can be even harder for you. You overthink it. You don't trust any of your feelings, but they're all you're experiencing, so it's hard to trust yourself."
Will, for the first time in the last couple days, feels like he might start crying. His throat feels strained. His eyes burn. Hannibal rests his hand over Will's and it nearly pushes him over the edge.
"I want you to trust me, especially when you can't trust yourself. I want to help you through this."
Will avoids looking at him until he can't anymore. Their eyes meet for just a moment, and Will loses it. He hangs his head, his shoulders shaking. Hannibal doesn't move. He doesn't wrap his arms around Will. He doesn't panic. He holds his hand and stays right in the same spot, steady.
"I'm glad you replied to me," Hannibal says softly.
Will breathes slowly, trying to contain himself. He swallows, he focuses on pushing all of this down. He doesn't like crying to begin with, so crying in front of Hannibal is a level of humiliation he can't live with. Hannibal waits so patiently, and when Will is finally able to speak again, Hannibal is listening. "I don't want to do any of this. I don't want to feel it."
"It's the paradox of healing. You want to move past it so it's less painful, but you have to feel all of the pain first."
Will looks down at Hannibal. His face is as it always is, plain and still, but there's a glint of sympathy. Will wants him closer. He's so steadfast, unchanging. Everything he says is thought out, everything he does is fitting with his character. Will can predict every single one of his actions without much effort. He can't predict a single thing about himself.
There's a long moment between them where nothing needs to be said. Will can feel something brewing like static in the air before a lightning strike. Hannibal moves forward. It's barely noticeable. Will could ignore it. He could stop it right here. He could ask Hannibal to leave. Instead, his eyes find their way to Hannibal's lips. He has a sort of permanent pout in sharp relief of the rest of his sharp features.
In a fraction of a second, Hannibal closes the distance. His lips are warm, but he opens his mouth, and his tongue is colder. Will feels like he's on fire, and Hannibal is coming to his rescue. Will knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this is crossing some sort of important boundary. He knows this isn't how it should go. But Hannibal is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of person. Will's never met anyone like him, and he doubts he will in the future. Hannibal is the acid found in Will's stomach. He's the only person who's even tried to understand what's going on in Will's head. And maybe he shouldn't have. Maybe having a student for a client was a bad idea, but this was more progress, even if it sucked, than Will had ever had. He hated it, and he hated how Hannibal pushed him, but it was effective. They started this thing on a problematic foundation. This is just an extension of that.
So, Will leans into it. He holds onto Hannibal's wrists, trying to keep himself steady. That alone seems to settle the matter in Hannibal's eyes. He rises to his feet, separating from Will, smiling down at him. He doesn't say a word. Hannibal runs his fingers through Will's hair with one hand, and with the other, he starts to undo his suit pants. A warm gray.
"Okay?" Hannibal asks, and Will isn't quite sure what it means, but he nods immediately. He has a feeling, a gut feeling.
He holds Will in place by his hair, closing his fist around Will's curls. Will's face is warm. His palms are sweating. There's something happening in his head, something peeling away, as though the membrane inside his skull is rotting away from his brain. He looks up at Hannibal, and from here, he looks entirely soulless. Will wonders if this is always what it was going to lead to. He wonders if he really is okay with this, or if he fears what would happen if he says no. He can predict Hannibal's actions, his thoughts, but right now, something is happening that Will wouldn't have guessed. Not just a chaste kiss. Not just a glimmer in Hannibal's eye.
Will thinks back to how Hannibal was talking to him about fear, irrational fear, how the brain holds onto triggers as a misguided attempt at self-preservation. How Will's brain mistakes safe situations for unsafe ones. He wonders if it works in the other direction, if he mistakes unsafe situations for safe ones. Is he sitting in his feelings? Is he paying attention to what he wants from this? Or is he trying to keep Hannibal around because he doesn't know what he'd do with all of these feelings without him?
It doesn't matter. Hannibal is stroking himself in front of Will. He's larger than Will would've thought if he had to guess before this. His fist doesn't quite cover the entire length, and his fingers don't quite meet around the width. He pushes Will forward impatiently with the hand that's still in his hair. Will has nowhere to go even if he decided he didn't want to do this. And he said it was okay. He told Hannibal he was okay.
Will parts his lips, covers his teeth. It's muscle memory. Hannibal takes everything Will offers to him. He's halfway down his throat before Will can do much of anything. Will closes his eyes, focuses on not choking, not gagging, though Hannibal seems intent on making him. He pushes forward as far as he can, and Will can feel his body protesting. At a certain point, he can't breathe, not even through his nose. Hannibal is taking every space up so completely that all Will can do is sit there, on his bed, hands gripping the wool of Hannibal's suit, mouth pried open, lungs collapsing.
Right when Will thinks he'll pass out or spit and sputter, Hannibal releases him and moves back. Will sucks in as much air as he can, coughing and climbing backward on the bed. Hannibal follows him. His movements are quick and ruthless. He holds Will down, moving on top of him. He crashes his mouth into Will's. Tongue pushes its way in, past Will's lips, teeth, into his mouth, against his own tongue. Hannibal retreats, and in the next moment, he's moved up and his hips are in line with Will's head. Hannibal guides his cock back into Will's mouth with one hand, pinning his wrist with the other.
Will tries, at this point, to push Hannibal off him, but with him being at a disadvantageous spot and only having one useless hand, he fails. Hannibal thrusts into his throat, and Will does everything he can to not gag. He squeezes his eyes shut, he focuses on breathing as Hannibal takes up his throat over and over again. He pulls Will's head forward by his hair for a better angle, and fucks him just like that. Helpless.
Despite his efforts, Will gags as Hannibal hits just the wrong spot. His body lurches, he feels acid rise from his stomach, but Hannibal doesn't stop. If anything, it makes him move faster, pushing himself into Will's mouth with even more force. Will can feel the limited contents of his stomach getting ready to spill out of his mouth, and there's a mix of shame and hopelessness. Hannibal can do anything. Hannibal can force the insides of Will's body to pour out of him. He has sat with Will as blood and guts pooled in his hands. He's talked Will through his feelings. He has the most access to Will's inner workings out of everyone Will's ever known.
It hits him all at once. Hannibal refuses to stop or slow down, and Will thinks he can take it, until another wave hits him, another spot that Hannibal finds inside of him, and he gags and it brings vomit from inside of him up and into his mouth, and then, as Hannibal keeps fucking him, into his nose. Vomit spills out the sides of Will's mouth, out his nose, and it burns everything it touches.
Hannibal is panting, laughing above Will. "Good boy. Darling boy."
Will's stomach clenches. Everything goes white. Hannibal spills himself deep inside Will's throat, cum mixing with vomit at the base of Will's throat. Hannibal makes a breathy, strained noise. He swears under his breath. He stays completely still for a moment, and Will wonders what he's going to do after this. He doesn't seem the type to leave and let Will sit, trying to figure out how he feels about it. He might sit there and give all his reasonings. He might not even realize that Will feels violated. He agreed to it. He said he was okay. He kissed Hannibal back.
After an infinity, Hannibal moves back, letting Will go. Without thinking, Will jumps off the bed and runs to the bathroom connected to his dorm room. It's technically shared, though the room on the other side of it is empty most of the time. Will drops to his knees in front of the toilet and hopes, prays, that no one walks in on him. His whole body rejects. He sputters and coughs over the bowl, throwing up everything in his stomach, everything still caught in his throat. He's making the most awful noises, and he can't stop himself.
Distantly, he hears footsteps. The door, still halfway open, creaks even wider, and Hannibal is behind him, digging his nails into Will's scalp. Will thought it was over. Whatever Hannibal wanted from him, he thought he had given it, but Hannibal pulls Will's sweatpants down, then his boxer briefs.
"Unexpected," Hannibal whispers. Will knows what he means. The one thing that was still a secret from Hannibal, from everybody. "I wouldn't have guessed you had gender issues. Though, thinking back, I suppose it makes sense. Your dad didn't molest his son— He abused his daughter."
Tears sting Will's eyes. He holds onto the side of the toilet, still shaking from throwing up, as Hannibal runs his fingers over Will's hole, slips a finger inside of him easily.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself without me even touching you," Hannibal sneers in Will's ear. "I was worried."
Will's quiet crying turns into an ugly sob. Hannibal doesn't seem to notice. Another finger, then a third. It barely takes anything to stretch Will out, whether from the natural state of his body or its response to all Hannibal's done, it embarrasses him the same. His chest hits porcelain as Hannibal moves in and out of him, his fingers as far as he can get them. Will can't say anything. He can't protest. He can't move. He can smell his own vomit sitting stagnant under him. He can smell sex still in his nose, along with the bile from his stomach.
When Hannibal moves his hand away, Will thinks maybe that's what he wanted. Maybe he was just curious. Maybe this was just an opportunity, and now the situation has dawned on him completely. Will can finally relax. A few moments pass where nothing new happens, but right when Will goes to sit up, to move, to run maybe, Hannibal pushes inside of him. Not his fingers, but his cock, covered in spit, and cum, and vomit. Will instinctively tries to move away, but there's nowhere to go. His chest slams into the side of the toilet, his hands slip, and as they fall, Hannibal grabs them and pins them behind Will's back. He's kept upright by this, but in even less control.
Time stretches out and condenses all at once. Will can feel everything, but he can also feel how it's being stored in his brain. Another event, another thing to feel later. He feels himself floating outside of his body and watching as Hannibal fucks him in the most embarrasing way he possibly could. The most humiliating way. He watches as Hannibal works himself into a hard on, getting increasingly desperate. He watches as Hannibal cums inside of Will, claiming every part of his body for his own.
The worst part is that, paradoxically, it feels good . It solves some kind of puzzle inside of Will. He can hear his own breath catching, his own moans. If anyone were to hear this, they wouldn't hear a rape or anything even in the same catogory.
Vomit rises in Will's throat again, this time out of disgust, out of stress. He hangs his head and lets strings of spit and stomach acid hang out of his mouth. There's nothing left to get rid of inside of him, and yet, he feels like he has to purge something still. He watches as Hannibal groans and grunts when Will gags again. If he could, Will is sure he would keep going. He would lay Will out on the bathroom tile and ruin him in every way he could think of.
Hannibal stays inside of him even as he gets soft again. He leans over Will, arms around his stomach, cheek pressed against Will's back, hands still pinned there. "You're so tempting, Will. If I could, I would slice you open and eat every single one of your organs. I would begin with your heart and work myself out."
It's as close as Will could get to a romantic gesture. Hannibal pathetically thrusts inside of him again, and it makes Will gasp. He holds Will's hips, straightening himself. He moves, trying to find a rhythm again, but Will knows he's spent. Still, it's like he can't help himself. Will could take this as complementary. If it happened differently, if he knew what he was getting himself into, if he had more control over it, he could be flattered.
Hannibal gives up eventually, pulling out. He presses kisses along Will's spine. Will's legs are shaking, and he still doesn't trust himself to move. Even as Hannibal stands and starts the shower, Will stays where he is.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Hannibal says, wrapping his arms around Will and lifting him into the shower. Will passively notices that Hannibal's taken his clothes off as he strips Will of his. Hot water hits his skin, and something is nice about letting all of this go down the drain. Hannibal runs a washcloth over Will's body. The contrast between these actions and Hannibal's previous ones nearly make Will's heart stop. He's so gentle now. He's so careful, so thorough.
He dries Will off, dresses him in clean clothes, puts on his own, excluding his suit jacket that has now-dried stains in the wool. His pants are remarkably clean, enough to make it off campus without strange looks. He tucks Will into bed, running his fingers over Will's cheek.
"You were made for this, Will. You bring this out in me."
And then Hannibal leaves.
—
Will thinks about dropping out of school entirely. He can't face Hannibal again. Behind his eyes, he feels Hannibal's cock inside of him. He feels the burn of vomit up his throat. These are the things, the uncomfortable things, that Hannibal would make him sit with. It's like the rest of the memories that have been coming up for Will. He dreams about streams of blood and dead fish. He dreams about Hannibal standing next to him in the water and saying something profound. Everything he's said since Will's started talking to him have been exactly what Will needs to hear. His voice in Will's head alternates between insightful and destructive. It keeps him considering showing up at his class like normal.
The morning before Will has to make his choice, he lays in bed and stares up at the ceiling. There's something about Hannibal, even now, that allures Will, enthralls him beyond any rational thought. It might be cathartic, he thinks, to see him, talk to him, figure out if he is proud or remorseful. Either way, it would settle something in Will's chest. This is what he tells himself as he leaves his dorm. He hasn't been able to look at it the same. Hannibal left behind no proof of his visit. No stains, no notes. Despite this, Will sees him in every corner.
He wanders in the woods again, but he can’t hear the whisper of trees or the whining of animals. He’s entirely alone.
He's late to class. By the time he sits in his normal spot, a seat near the back of the lecture hall, Hannibal is already speaking about their latest subject. Will doesn't process any of what he's saying. He watches him carefully, but he doesn't listen to him, and after a few minutes, Hannibal looks in his direction and Will feels a zap run through his spine. He doesn't look like what Will thought he would either way. He doesn't look proud. He doesn't look guilty. He looks how he always has— Calm, put together, intentional. It's an act that lasts the entire hour of class.
Will sits in his same spot as everyone files out, as Hannibal gathers his notes and cleans off his whiteboard. He can't take his eyes off him. If Will thought about it too long, he would convince himself that nothing happened, that everything only existed in his mind. He would let Hannibal off the hook if it meant none of it happened.
"Will," Hannibal says, not looking up from his desk.
"Hannibal," Will responds back to him. It's a knee-jerk response. He can't help himself. His blood pulls itself through his body, his lungs expand, and he responds when Hannibal says something to him. It's all effortless.
"Would you like to come to my office?"
Will would love to say no. He would love to shout, and scream, and spit all over his lecture hall until his DNA is soaked into the floor. Instead, he nods. He gathers his things, and he follows Hannibal down the hall and into his office.
When they're behind this closed door, Hannibal's demeanor changes in a nearly unnoticeable way. His shoulders tighten, his expression melts into something more sinister, and his eyes darken to a pale gray. He peels away the barrier between him and the rest of the world, and Will feels like he's staring at the unadulterated body of an angel. Be not afraid , he can imagine Hannibal saying.
"How have you been, Will?" Hannibal asks, sitting behind his desk, folding his hands. A gentle observation has become an annoying habit.
Will stays standing. He tries to plant his feet into the ground as much as possible. He tries to stay grounded. "About what happened back at my dorm..."
Hannibal raises an eyebrow. Will keeps himself by the door, scared that if he makes a single step towards Hannibal that he'll be ripping out his throat.
"I don't think that it'd be... Beneficial, for us to keep seeing each other. Professionally or otherwise. It's too late in the semester to drop this class, so I won't, but I'll be keeping my head down."
Hannibal's mouth twitches. Less of a smile, more of a smirk. "I'm sorry that you feel that's necessary. When I read what you had written about your childhood, I was very proud. You are already making progress. I know it doesn't feel like that, but I'd encourage you to keep pulling on that thread."
"So you can strangle me with it?" Will spits. He doesn't like being angry. He's not an angry person, but all the things that made Will so fond of Hannibal in the first place are the same things that cut him to the core, annoy him beyond belief.
"That's not my intention, no. And I would hope you could separate the contexts of my actions."
It's not a denial. It's not an apology. It's Hannibal questioning why Will is upset at all. It's implying that he shouldn't be. Hannibal in his classroom, Hannibal in his office, Hannibal in Will's room— All different people with different goals. Will rejects this internally, but tucks it away for later, to lessen the pain.
"I can't," Will murmurs pathetically.
"Because I reminded you of your trauma?"
"Because you added to it."
"The things that happened with your father are in a different realm."
"Are they?" Will asks, the anger rising in his voice again. "Are they really?"
"You're an adult, Will. Not a wounded child. You know what sex is, I presume, and you know how to initiate it."
"That's not—"
"I didn't plan on what happened." Hannibal says this while staring down at his desk like he could possibly feel shame. "But I don't regret it."
"I can still taste the vomit."
Another smirk from Hannibal. "That, I didn't plan on either. But I feel the same way about it."
Will screws up his face. "You were into it?"
Hannibal gives one curt nod. "It was pushing you to that point. It was you allowing yourself to be pushed."
Will breathes. He realizes his fists are clenched, and he unclenches them.
"I didn't take you for anyone softer," Hannibal says. "Come here." He gestures in front of him.
Will considers this. He isn't sure if Hannibal is being honest, but if he is, he can't blame him. Will knows how he comes across to people. He knows that none of his mannerisms or interests are normal when they exist inside of him. He still can't look Hannibal in the eye. He wants this version of Hannibal to be true. He wants to believe him. He walks away from the door, the easy place of exit, and towards Hannibal. He walks around the side of the desk, and Hannibal turns his chair so they're facing each other.
"If I were to ask you to get on your knees, what would you want to do?" Hannibal asks.
Will knows the answer, but he can't bring himself to say it.
Hannibal smiles. It doesn't twitch across his face, it reaches slowly from one edge to the other. "Go ahead."
Will resists it the way he resists falling back asleep in the morning. There are times where his willpower isn't enough, and he's pulled under by the temptation. He pulls his bag off and drops it into the chair in front of the desk, looking at Hannibal the entire time, flicking from his eyes, to his lips, to his jutting cheekbones. He has one last moment of defiance, of pretending he isn't craving this, and then he drops to his knees right in front of Hannibal.
"Good." Hannibal snakes his hand under Will's chin, tilting his head up. Will closes his eyes. "Open your mouth."
Will clenches his jaw, but a moment later, follows Hannibal's instructions, opening his mouth. Hannibal pushes two of his fingers inside. "Suck." Warmth pools between Will's legs, his heart begins to race. He closes his mouth gently around Hannibal's fingers. They're cold, like Hannibal's tongue. Will wonders if he runs hot or if Hannibal runs dangerously cold. Hannibal gently pulls his fingers out, then pushes them back in. It's a familiar motion, but it's different this time. There's an undercurrent to it.
"Did your father do this? Use your mouth?"
Will's eyes fly open. He bites down on Hannibal's fingers, and Hannibal fucking l aughs . He grips the back of Will's neck and holds him in place. The certainty of his actions make Will's mouth fall open all over again.
"Did he?"
Will can't remember. He remembers shapes, feelings, suggestions of a trauma. He doesn't have a full accounting of it. He follows his instinct. He shakes his head.
"Did he fuck you, Will?"
Will nods. Drool falls from his mouth.
"Did you enjoy it?"
Will can feel tears in his eyes again, even with them shut now. He can picture it. In the dark behind his eyelids, light shifts and dances into images of his abuse. Did he enjoy it? Did he feel the same way as when Hannibal forced his way inside of him? He swallows as best he can, and then nods.
Will can feel Hannibal's smile beaming down on his face. "I would expect nothing less of you. You're a walking contradiction."
Will opens his eyes and looks up at Hannibal through tears. One crests down Will's cheek.
"I understand your father, in a way. It's difficult to keep my hands off of you. I didn't expect you to show today, but when you did, I couldn't stop thinking, through my entire lecture, about getting you right here."
Will hates that this makes his heart thump in his chest. He hates that he can't say anything in return, but he also can't get himself to move away from Hannibal. It scratches some itch inside of him, something that tells him he deserves this, that it's the only way he knows how to be wanted.
"I want to have you on standby. I doubt anyone will feel as good as you did. You're so malleable. I wonder all the ways I could make you debase yourself."
Will groans around Hannibal's fingers. Hannibal shoves his fingers down Will's throat as far as he can. Will's stomach tightens. He gags, and that same shame from before shoots through him. Hannibal removes his hand, allows Will to bend over and catch his breath.
"Go home. Think of me. Rewrite the story you're telling yourself about me."
After a few more breaths, Will clears his throat. "Is that psychiatry homework or the regular kind of homework?"
Hannibal grabs a fistful of Will's hair and tilts his head back so they're looking each other in the eye. "It's an order."
—
When Will thinks of his father, thinks of those shadows and those teeth, he replaces them with Hannibal. He's standing next to Will in the stream of his mind, standing over him in his childhood bedroom, and instead of the complicated humiliation and pain, Will can stand certain in Hannibal's actions. He knows how Hannibal feels inside of him. He knows what his voice sounds like. He knows why Hannibal does the things he does. He crawls under his blankets with his bedroom lights off, and he pictures Hannibal clearly in his mind.
Touching himself comes naturally. Hannibal's voice is in his head alternating insult and praise. Will pants, feeling his breath touch the duvet over his head. He replays that night in his head. Instead of what he thinks he should be feeling, he lets himself enjoy it. He lets himself drown himself in the memory of it.
On the way out of his office, Hannibal gave Will his number. He said it was for emergencies, so Will could reach him if he had no one else, but now— Will pulls his covers over his chin and dials Hannibal's number with one hand. He picks up after two rings.
"Yes?"
"Hannibal." Will's voice is breathy, pitiful. "Hannibal."
Hannibal chuckles over the line. "Will. Are you...?"
"Yes. Yes." He swallows the spit pooling in his mouth. "I needed to hear you."
"You want me to walk you through it?"
"No, just— Talk about something, anything. I just need to hear you."
It's easier to be this pathetic over the phone. It's easy to let himself exist in the moment. Easier to admit these things to himself.
"I take it this assignment is working for you."
"Shut up. Please."
"Sounds like the opposite of what you want."
"Hannibal. Please."
Hannibal laughs. He starts talking about his day. It feels intimate only because of the circumstances and the fact that Hannibal's life is still shrouded in mystery to Will. He doesn't share anecdotes often. He says his mind has been clouded by Will in a way it never has been before, by anyone or anything. Hannibal has started to regret how they started, because now all he can think about is helping Will become his truest self. He had been thinking about his own needs, and how he was going to meet them, and what was the least harmful way to do so. Now, he wants to pull Will into this, his fantasies and his life. He thinks Will is someone really special.
This is how Will finishes, with Hannibal in his ear exposing his mind and heart. His goal was met. Will had rewritten the story he was telling himself about Hannibal, replaced it with everything Hannibal was telling him now. He preferred this truth.
Hannibal asks if Will wants to come to his office the following evening, and Will, thinking as clearly as ever, says yes.
—
He doesn’t think of his father anymore. He doesn’t see him in the corners of his mind. Hannibal is enough to focus on, more effective than any other strategy Will has tried. He goes to class, stopping by Hannibal’s office afterwards, scratching that itch inside of him. He sleeps better. He doesn’t find himself in the woods staring at the remnants of humanity hoping to be like them someday and resenting the fact that he’s not. Hannibal wouldn’t be interested if Will was normal.
Hannibal correctly read him from day one. Will clings to Hannibal’s perception of him. They still talk about Will’s mind, and Will resists it less than he ever has. Hannibal makes his same sort of statements, grandiose and confident, and WIll listens to him. He changes himself in the areas Hannibal suggests. He remains the same in others. He can sleep. He can breathe. He doesn’t care if, on the whole, this is best for him, because it doesn’t matter. He never wanted to be healthy. He wanted to be stable enough that no one looked at him sideways. He achieved that.