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"I'd do whatever you asked of me." Hannibal feels a little offended that Will would doubt that.
"That's not what I mean," Will says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, so earnest. "That's not what I would want from you."
"Then what would you wish of me, if I were at your mercy?"
Will doesn't reply for a few moments. It looks as if he is searching for words. "You pride yourself on your control," he finally says. "On your ability to take anything and stay level headed. It doesn't matter to you if your body makes you shout with pain, as long as you can hold a calm conversation right after. And you can — I've seen you do it."
Hannibal nods. That's true. But anyone can see that. Alana had, in her way. Mason had been amused by it.
"Which is why I wouldn't hurt you that way. There's just no point. You'd let me kill you if I kept trying to get a response that way."
Hannibal regrets not being what Will wants him to be, if only in this thing. There are, of course, ways to hurt him, but Will knows that, and if by chance he doesn't, Hannibal is not about to speak of them without prompting.
Will leans back into his chair again, still looking at him with that focus, that intensity. "There is a thin line between hurt and betrayal, and I've had enough of that from you. I'm not hungry for it anymore, even if I'd tell myself it's only what you have coming."
"There is no one left alive who you could kill, to betray me as I've betrayed you," Hannibal says. It's even true, unless Will would kill himself and deny Hannibal any part of it, but he's not going to suggest that. Almost nothing would be worse than that.
Will's bitter smile suggests he knows what Hannibal is thinking, or perhaps it's just the memories.
"There are other ways," Will says. "Other methods to get what I want from you. I'm used to skittish animals."
He takes the collar out of his pocket.
Hannibal had known he had something, but not the nature of it. He looks. It's made of soft leather, with an irregularly shaped metal ring which looks convenient for a leash. It seems more sturdy than others made for the purpose which Hannibal has seen, but this is because Will has chosen it with Hannibal in mind. With his exact measurements in mind, if his eye is correct, and it most often is.
"You would reduce me."
"Yes," Will says. "That is what I want."
Will can't reduce him with pain, and so he has chosen to do it with… 'Skittish animals', he'd said. No doubt there is a muzzle secreted somewhere in the house. Perhaps a chewing bone.
"I can see that my proposal is difficult to swallow," Will says.
"You have surprised me," Hannibal manages. "Although perhaps I shouldn't have been. You have always enjoyed the company of dogs more than that of human beings."
"Just so," Will agrees. The collar lies there, on his lap. Hannibal's gaze feels drawn to it. It buckles with two plain tongues of leather.
"There is no locking mechanism," he points out, unwilling to stop himself.
Will smiles — a small, thin smile. "Trust of this kind will not come easily for you," he says. "It will be slow."
"Because I am a skittish animal." Hannibal's mind has caught on those words. They seem demeaning, and far from how he sees himself.
"In this you are, very much so."
Hannibal forces himself to look up from the thing in Will's lap, to meet his eyes instead. "What is it you expect me to say?" he asks.
"If you were another kind of man, you would make a joke, to distance yourself," Will says. "I can feel your discomfort."
"And isn't that what you want?"
Will takes the collar and puts it back into his pocket. Hannibal watches it slip away, looking at the way it distends the fabric.
"To some degree," Will says. He stands up. "Think about it. Let me know."
Hannibal can think of little else as he watches Will go, his mind full of questions and scenarios. Does Will want to keep him as a whipped cur, chained outside to attack would-be villains in the night? The thought seems logical, reducing him to one of his many possible functions. But Will is perfectly able to take care of attackers himself, and he'd spoken of trust. A lap dog? That seems distasteful, if more effective, for belittling purposes. He would have no function at all, except to provide comfort and amusement.
Hannibal has observed the way Will is with dogs. He's been witness to no strict discipline, but his dogs all seemed to know the rules and the freedom allowed them within those rules. For Will to attempt to fit Hannibal into that sort of frame seems…discomforting.
Perhaps he is a skittish animal, at that.
He does, however, still wish to provide Will with an opportunity to be in a position of power over him. And if hurting Hannibal doesn't appeal to Will, who is Hannibal to deny him other ways of evening their relationship out? No matter how demeaning Will could make it, Hannibal could do it, just as he'd told Will, 'whatever you'd ask of me', for an agreed upon measure of time. For curiosity's sake. He hasn't made a particularly close study of how dogs behave, but there is no guarantee that kind of behavior is what Will expects of him. Will would surely give instruction. It would be no different than learning a new language.
He will do it. For an agreed-upon measure of time.