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will finds himself lying flat on his back, nearly bare. his body was bathed in moonlight and cradled in snow that was turning his fingers and toes numb. it’d be nothing new if he had any recollection of how he got there, or when the sky turned from a warm afternoon yellow to the inescapable darkness it is now. at his side, as if sensing his return to the tangible world, winston stands and starts licking at his face, tail wagging excitedly. he doesn’t bark, which will is unreasonably grateful for.
for a half-second, right when he woke up, it was all quiet and peaceful and he was, blissfully, on his own in his head. it reminds him of when he asked the homeless addicts what it felt like, and when greeted with an answer along the lines of absolute shit, don’t ever do it, subsequently why they kept doing it. his father always said to stay away from them at all costs, but will has never been one to surrender to someone else's will.
everything goes quiet, and my mind is my own. i think you, of all boys, would understand the desire for that, will graham. find your own way to silence, son. no one with a head built like yours is destined to end up with a body broken like this.
-
jack is simultaneously the most understanding boss he’s ever had, and the worse possible person to be handling someone like him. their first (not quite, but close enough) meeting, he asked if will liked space. when given the reply of yes, he stepped forward and pushed up his glasses. he doesn’t judge what will sees and feels, he just makes him do the job. he doesn’t understand what will goes through everyday, just for this. or maybe he does, and he simply doesn’t care.
the only good thing about the job is meeting beverly, who is, sadly, the closest thing he’s had to a human best friend in years. alana could try her best, could be as sweet and understanding and nurturing as she pleased, but something in will would never be able to understand or connect with someone like her. he would never be able to trust that she would let him be strange and weird and fucked up without telling his mommy, or in this case, his boss. beverly laughed at his morbidness and made jokes about the state of the bodies. she trusted his ability implicitly, even though she knew better. beverly was probably the best thing to happen to him in years.
-
he's always known he was crazy, in an abstract sort of way. when he was in high school and the teachers consistently paired him with the girl who always wore long sleeves, he didn't become close with her because he knew it was what they wanted. she didn't like him, anyway. when he was in college, the few people who were willing to put up with him dragged will from party to party to show him off like a cool party trick. it got tiring very quickly, and so he stopped talking to them. they rolled their eyes and moved on, because it didn't hurt them in any way.
-
alana, once, asks him what speaking with hannibal is like, why this is the one therapist he decides he can keep. his response is something along the lines of:
speaking with hannibal is like sitting in a room with someone who is smarter than you and knows they’re smarter than you but also refuses to let you see yourself as anything less than their equal, even if they will never see you as anything but subservient.
speaking with hannibal is like being eaten alive except by the time you realize it, you’re so far in deep that all you want is to see where it goes- to see how much you can withstand.
(once, will went swimming in a lake-ocean that the boys and girls of his seaside town loved. at one point, he thought he saw a flash of golden hair or sea-glass eyes, and was so entranced that someone had to pull him onshore so he could breathe. later on, he discovered that a girl- blonde-haired beauty, apparently, three-time-winner of that year’s miss gulf coast jewel- had been drowned there nearly fifty years earlier. he didn’t say anything.
when the girl from the school newspaper managed to wrangle him into something resembling an interview, the first question she asked was what drowning felt like. will answered with something like this: cotton in your ears, eyes, and brain, or staying under the bath so long that your cheeks prune up like raisins. none of that was true, of course. drowning was not something that could be summed up in pretty words. will answered with something like this: actually, forget everything i just said. drowning feels like drowning. drowning feels like water flooding into your lungs, like every single part of your chest that keeps you alive is spasming this way and that. drowning feels like dying, because it is.)
will realizes he’d zoned out when alana’s expectant gaze meets his directly. instinctively, he darts his eyes away. through pursed lips he answers, “i don’t know, alana. he listens.” her expression turns hurt for a second, his realization at why delayed. will can’t find it in himself to care.
speaking with hannibal is like drowning is satin and silk and wine and then falling flat on your face in the dirt, only to be greeted with the taste of blood and for it to be the most exquisite thing you’ve had in years.
-
thursday, december twenty-third’s therapy session goes like this: will works a serial killer case, wonders why the fuck anyone still lives in virginia, solves said serial killer case. some lady who sees him far too regularly after these occurrences for him to not still know her name calls him fuckin’ psycho in the same way the homeless men used to call him boy genius when he beat them at their made-up card games. he likes to buy her taffy on holidays, because even though he will remain of the opinion that it is fucking disgusting, she loves the stuff.
he debates whether or not he has time to drive home and check on the dogs before his session, determines that he definitely doesn’t. makes the just over an hour drive to doctor lecter’s practice, and calls him 'doctor' because the formality is nothing hannibal can chide him on even if he sees how much the other man wants them to be more informal. terribly out of character for the older man, but will’s nothing if not good at reading people.
he arrives at the parking lot. blinks. he's in the waiting room. blinks. hannibal is looking at him from across the room.
his coat and beanie are dusted with snow, and will is fairly certain that the plush seat beneath him will be soaked at the end of his session. it’s good that he is always the latest slot in hannibal’s schedule.
“so, will, how was your day?” doctor lecter asks, voice serene and washing over will’s tense form. it’s not calming the way it should be, and yet will comes back every week. in response, he lets out a dry chuckle and says, “what do you think, doctor? it was shit.”
will thinks he is possibly one of the only people that is allowed to be this untoward to hannibal, special in a way he never has been. since day one, he’s been special: because he could tell you everything about yourself, even things you didn’t know, upon your first meeting; because he would mirror you near exactly in voice and movement and temperament, for seemingly no reason; because he was the school freak, and he knew it. never because someone cared enough to allow him that title by virtue of existing.
“i’ve started sleeping in my own bed again,” he says into the silence. hannibal brings out the worst in him- if will was anywhere but this lavish office he never would’ve broken the quiet. in response, dr. lecter says, “oh? i wasn’t aware you’d ever stopped.”
the real reason will starts sleeping in his room is because the downstairs makes him feel exposed and splayed open- like you would be below a lover, except you don’t know your lover and they don’t know you and their only goal is to hurt you in the worst way and there’s a knife at your throat as they’re buried deep inside you and you are bearing yourself open for them anyways.
“your first impression of me was half-dressed and you know nearly everything that’s wrong with me, but not where i sleep?” hannibal’s lips curve into a slight smile, which will takes as something of a personal victory. he's not sure why the sight of his therapist's smile is something he counts as important enough to be a victory.
-
most, if not all, nights end with will waking up to sweat-soaked sheets and hands painted with phantom viscera. rarely, but with increasing frequency, he finds himself knee-deep in snow, and wrist deep inside a tiny, innocent prey that naively got too close to a predator disguised as a sheep. in front of him, the ravenstag stands, and will almost feels as though it’s leering down at him. it doesn't want to hurt him, he knows that, but it doesn’t want to save him. the ravenstag wants to consume him.
-
will wakes up feeling as though his stomach has eaten away at itself while he was sleeping, though it’s not exactly a new feeling. last night his dreams were filled with the image of blood-stained hands resting on his cheeks and anointing him like a sacrifice to an ancient god. tilting his head back, he was greeted with the image of the antlers plunging through his skull scraping against the ceiling. reaching up, will couldn’t help but run his hands along his head, looking for wounds he knew he wouldn’t find. despite this, the phantom ache of antlers too big for his bones persisted.
hannibal calls him lovely, says things he hasn’t heard since he was a schoolboy in louisiana when the older ladies at the park would lean down to pinch his cheeks. back then, he would run off and smear mud on his cheeks and gelled-back hair- a rebellion suited for the 7-year-old body he inhabited. nowadays, his aversion to society comes in social avoidance and nightly drinks, soothing his mind after long hours of being trapped in someone else’s.
anyone who’s ever been to his home, which is far and few between, knows that while will is not particularly well versed in caring for himself, his dogs do not receive the same treatment. they are well trained and well loved, and they are the closest thing he’s ever had to a lifeline. recently, hannibal has been fighting valiantly to share that spot. will is still struggling to decide whether or not he should let it happen, though it’s seeming more and more that the doctor won’t truly let him have a [choice/say] in the matter.
-
he settles down onto the side of his bed, winston curling around his feet like particularly fuzzy socks. though he is often privy to night terrors- and day terrors, if such things exist- will doesn’t feel like putting up with jack and all his prodding and, god forbid, freddie. as he reaches his hand towards the phone to put in the call, jack calls him. jesus christ himself couldn’t stop jack when he thinks he has something, and it wouldn’t matter whether or not he was religious. will never found out if his boss believed in god, and he didn’t feel like asking now.
as a kid, will’s dad didn’t have the time to carve out a space every sunday morning for church. he believed in dressing nicely before entering homes of god, and they hardly had enough to get by, let alone splurge on something like clothes made with fabric that had will want to brush his hands down it forever. on saturday nights will snuck into the attic and grab the dusty crystal rosary his grandmother used to wear around. he closes his eyes and balls his fists around it, and tries his best to ask for god’s blessing and help and anything he can offer.
(it’s hard to pray to someone you aren’t sure you trust to help you. will’s always believed in god, as did every kid his age who grew up in louisiana- knocking knees in pews, listening to pitch perfect hymns sung by peers, hearing the voice of the pastor shout hell! because the church didn’t belive in censoring for them- but being as different as he was made it hard. hard to think that someone cared enough about a small boy with dirt-dusted brown curls and mud-caked feet to try and save him.)
will goes to work and trails his feet like there’s a death sentence hanging over his head, except even he knows that he wouldn’t be this downtrodden if that were the case. his brain feels like sludge, and everything seems to be moving two times slower than usual and three times too fast for him. sometimes he lingers on the memory of stammed, who simply yearned for a connection and due to his nature was unable to make one, instead creating connections of his own. will’s mind works similarly to the mushrooms, except he reaches out and breaches and never gets anything in return except unwanted visitors who never take their leave.
-
thursday, january thirteenth's therapy session goes like this: will is arriving at the crime scene, and then he is leaving. apparently, he solved it, though he has no memory of this. this isn't a surprise- both that he solved it or that he can't remember it, neither are exactly new to him. will doesn't remember a lot of things these days. clocks seem to be twisting whenever he looks at them, and time seems to mirror them. he's very hungry these days, but every time he remembers he should eat, the act of getting up and walking through the dark for something as small as a snack seems stupid.
the doctor who says there is nothing wrong with him has the same eyes as the old men who watched when will would walk through the streets at night. hannibal's standing right beside him, which is why he ignores it. hannibals skin flickers from human to monster, and antlers matching will's own sprout from his head. will refuses to acknowledge it. he can't.
on the drive home, he can't remember the last time he slept. if the lost time counts as sleeping, then he's sleeping way too much. if it doesn't then he's not getting any rest whatsoever. he blinks and he's waking up in bed. it's 4am. his phone is ringing, and will doesn't need to check the caller id to know it's jack. hannibal's steadfast words that the reports said there was nothing wrong ring in his ears as he stumbles his way through getting dressed. his brain feels like it's on fire.
will feels like he's in high school again.