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“How does it feel, Will?” Hannibal sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, then hooking his hands over his angled knee. He was sure to keep his expression pleasant, congenial. Soothing, if one were to squint. He was sure not to betray his pounding heart in the easy bounce of his leg.
Will didn’t speak– he couldn’t, not with the clear plastic muzzle strapped to his face. Even so, his eyes were nearly as eloquent in expressing what was on his mind.
What do you think? Said aloud, it would’ve been stated flatly, sardonically, with, Hannibal thought, just the barest hint of desperation. As it was, the glinted glare Will fixed him with conveyed much the same.
The desperation, however, lay in the feverish glaze of sweat broken out across his forehead. By the faint tremor of his hands, now restrained behind his back with a pair of handcuffs that Will had brought himself.
“Have you done something you feel you must be handcuffed for?” Hannibal asked him, something unspeakable blooming in his chest.
Will only wordlessly thrust the handcuffs, shiny and new and clearly unused, into his hands before brushing past him, into his office.
A nice touch, though it forced him into an unseemly slouch, forced him to look through the overgrown tangle of his dark curls as they fell into his face.
Will was, perhaps, too exhausted to bother trying to sit up straight. Hannibal could certainly permit him this slight.
He spread his hands, the very picture of put-upon. They both knew it was an act, or they both would if Will was more lucid. More in his right mind. “You are going to have to work with me, Will. You did request this, after all.”
The nudge– hardly sufficient enough to be called provocation– didn’t work. The interior of the muzzle clouded as Will huffed a breath. His body language shifted, listed to one side like a rocking boat. His eyes rolled, whites, bloodshot, on full display. The message could not have been more clear: Missed the mark.
Hannibal uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, opting instead for a gentler approach. “Tell me then, Will. This . . . exercise. Is it working? Do you feel safe?”
“I- I- I don’t know what’s real anymore.” Will paced his office frenetically, running his hands through the wild mess of his curls once, twice, a third time. His hands were trembling so violently Hannibal was able to observe it from the comfort of his chair.
He did so passively. Waiting for Will to continue. In his lap rested the handcuffs. In his hands he held a new device, produced from Will’s jacket. He turned it over in his hands, examining it.
A muzzle. Clear plastic and black nylon straps.
“I didn’t kill those people.” The words spilled, tumbling and rolling into each other, an unbroken stream. “I-I know– I should know I didn’t. But I don’t even know who I am.” His head snapped up and the intensity of his gaze met Hannibal’s. So rarely did this happen that Hannibal was momentarily taken aback. Taken back and faintly aroused. The blue of his irises were all but swallowed by his dilated pupils, wide and black, black, black. His eyes were strangely bright, as if he might weep. “How can I trust I didn’t murder anyone if I don’t know myself?
“But I know you.” The pierce of his uninterrupted stare. Hannibal found himself enthralled. “I-I-I trust you. I’m not safe to be around. Not anymore. You can make me safe.”
Hannibal held up the muzzle. The handcuffs. Offered them like a sacrifice on the altar of a mad god. “With these?”
Will nodded, nodded, nodded, couldn’t seem to stop nodding, his head bobbing up and down on his neck. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. “With those.” He said.
Will Graham had depths he had not seen, Hannibal considered, his fingers tented, fighting the uncharacteristic and therefore unfamiliar urge to tap, to fidget. Here was Will Graham: a man so utterly desperate to cling to the fragile morality he’d built for himself that when faced with the truth of his darker urges he made himself small. Forced his brilliant, tantalizing mind into a box, a cage, a muzzle. Rendered himself a dog, and lapped the reassurance he was not a danger to himself or others right out of Hannibal’s outstretched hand. Such lengths were reckless, a product of a splintering mind. Such recklessness could, when directed properly, become immensely useful.
Of course, the deaths– the Boyle girl, the others– would come knocking at the door eventually. And Will could not cower forever. Hannibal would make sure of that.
For now, he was content to study Will’s feverish face, half-hidden behind the muzzle, its clear plastic interior fogging more and more with each of his ragged panting breaths that drowned out the steady ticking of the grandfather clock.
Will still had not given him an answer. Had not grunted or growled or barked in response to Hannibal’s prodding questions. He merely slumped, and it was only when he slid from the chair to the floor that it dawned on Hannibal that Will was not playing a game with him. Was not taunting him as a mouse would a cat, snatching its tail from the mouth of death in the moment before its jaws clamped shut.
As Hannibal stood Will curled in on himself, face pressed to the fine carpet, the hard edge of the muzzle carving a red line into his cheek. His body trembled and shook, his chest heaved. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, he was unable to stand. Hannibal thought that even if this was not the case, Will had little strength left to his limbs.
“I see,” he mused, stepping well within Will’s boundaries, leaning over him, hands clasped neatly behind his back. A parody. “You have clearly not been sleeping, Will. Sleep deprivation is aggravating your anxieties.”
Will’s eyes rolled. Focused, finally, on him. He managed a breathy groan but nothing else.
Hannibal considered– for an instant, nothing more– phoning Jack. Or an ambulance. But there was a lesson to be learned here.
He lifted one foot, pressed the sole of his perfect leather shoe to Will’s face. Applied the ever so slightest of pressures and saw the plastic of the muzzle begin to bend. “Does this comfort you, Will? Knowing you are no danger to me, restrained as you are? I could grind you under my heel and you could not so much speak a word of protest.”
Oh, the sound that came from Will’s mouth! He keened, a high-pitch whine that sang in Hannibal’s blood and made the air around him feel tight and hot.
Hannibal smiled faintly. Pressed down harder.
A crack splintered through the clear plastic. His body began to jerk as instinct took over, that primordial fight to survive. The flood of adrenaline had him wide-eyed and gasping.
And then his eyes rolled back in his head, and that frenzied writhing became muscles contracting, stiffening, locking.
Hannibal quickly removed his foot and kneeled, lifting an eyelid delicately with his thumb to examine his eye. When this was done he undid the muzzle’s straps, tossing it aside, its clatter to the floor ignored. Rolling the actively seizing Will to remove his handcuffs was more difficult, but soon he was once more bundled into the armchair.
A minor incident. One they could discuss if Will remembered any of this. But Hannibal thought it unlikely; he was already cycling through possible topics, diverting questions, tangents. The bruising on his face would go unexplained and likely unassociated with Hannibal.
He settled once more into his own chair, plucking his tablet from the side table. He could wait. They still had twenty-three minutes left to this session.