"I know I ought to be here," says Will, "I just don't think 'ought' has very much to do with it."
Another quiet, still, changing-everything moment, and Hannibal leans back in his chair, the long, lithe lines of his body betraying nothing but exactly what he wishes them to betray, and then--
--and then Hannibal Lecter smiles.
He's beautiful, Hannibal thinks, the very first time he lays eyes on Will Graham.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.
Will couldn't possibly choose. That's the truth of the matter.
"Will sat down, the chairs now pushed together so that his and Hannibal's knees almost touched.
"You need respite, dear Will, a place in your mind that is impenetrable," Hannibal whispered, fingers outspread on his own thighs. Tell me, do you know the word 'oubliette'?"
The 4 times Hannibal got jealous and the one time he had nothing to be jealous about.
You are seventeen years old when your mother re-marries, and you break every rule that you've ever set for yourself.
It starts, as most things related to Hannibal do, with food.
Will is a feast. Hannibal partakes.
Will laughs, and Hannibal lets him, and he does not take Will's neck in his mouth with a viper's speed, and he does not bite until he can feel the crunch of bone and the taste of living meat. And Hannibal thinks it is worth it, to wait for these things, because you do not rush through a good meal. Will is a feast. Hannibal partakes.
Will laughs, and Hannibal lets him, and he does not take Will's neck in his mouth with a viper's speed, and he does not bite until he can feel the crunch of bone and the taste of living meat. And Hannibal thinks it is worth it, to wait for these things, because you do not rush through a good meal.
Hannibal wants Will to learn the importance of eye contact.
Hannibal is jealous that Crawford keeps sending Bloom to check up on Will.
Empathy leads him like a dog by the leash to dark corners of a mind he was never meant to enter.
"Hey, believe what you want," Katz says, shrugging. "But the way Lecter looks at him? I've only seen that men look like that when when they see someone they really want to fuck or something they really want to eat."
Hannibal starts to show up at Will's house at the crack of dawn to make him breakfast, killing two birds with one stone: cooking is one of his many passions, and, honestly, Will Graham is climbing up the list.
Hannibal has been having deliciously dark fantasies about his Will but before he acts on it his keen senses pick up a new and raw pain beneath the surface of the man... what has happened to Will? And with this new trauma, how likely is Will to give up control to Hannibal?
Their latest case reunites Will with an old ex. Hannibal does not approve of competition.
"The curtains shift and the light shimmers in a dance. Will closes his eyes and holds his breath and for a moment, he experiences a sort of artificial silence. Then, it is gone with the roaring of blood through his hears and the beating of his heart, muscles constricting, frantic for air. He frowns. It's amazing how noisy the human body is."
Five times Hannibal tried to woo Will and failed.
Hannibal doesn’t know how or when, but Will Graham is going to die. And Hannibal will be the one to kill him.