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The office is cast in the dusky glow of its lit fireplace, the shadows of its furniture swaying and jumping as the flames snake-lick across the hickory logs.

Doctor Lecter sits sketching at his burnished desk, elbows sliding in, the austere line of his posture wilting but a little before the elbows resume their square over stray bits of paper. The minutiae of this motion is too stilted, too shy to be anything but accidental, and he is quick to resume his original poise as Will Graham descends the library ladder. Lecter averts his eyes back to the paper, raising his eyebrows and taking a breath to speak, recovering his composure from its momentary embarrassment in the face of Will Graham's approaching curiosity. "Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus," Doctor Lecter explains, the round heel of his thumb hovering a dry swipe across the page border as if to dismiss it. "A hobby. Study of form. To keep the hands busy while the mind taxes itself over the day's events."

"Doesn't sound like much of a hobby, then." Will Graham braces a hand on the back of Doctor Lecter's office chair; easy with such a personal invasion - in the spirit that Lecter was no longer considered a danger, that they were now playing at colleagues, as if of one goal. (And this, a lie Will continues to school his behaviors into - to open his body language, to engage the ego of the calculating psychopath before him.) Will glances from Hannibal to the paper, lifting his chin as if to take a keen interest in the pencil's resumed path. "If there's a 'tax' involved."

Doctor Lecter's voice does not raise nor waver out of pitch, forever a polite removal from that barest of tightening around his eyes and mouth, that what might belie his process of thought. "Perhaps I meant a 'habit' rather than a hobby; you are correct. This is to focus, to idle a part of my mind while the rest of me overviews the work day." Hannibal rocks forward, only slightly, turning at the waist to regard his hovering guest. "Know you the story of Achilles and Patroclus?"

Will remains in place, the heel of his left hand braced on the edge of the heavy desk, able to look down his nose at Doctor Lecter. He dips his chin to remove the arrogance from such a regard, reading glasses sliding down his face as he studies the sketch instead of the artist. "I know the mythological gist of Achilles, the great invincible warrior with the faulty heel - without having read the literary particulars, I'm afraid."

"Ah, well," Hannibal's mouth presses shut, pulling up at the corner as his eyes glimmer with the suppressed delight that usually carries into his regard for Graham. He pauses here, though, sitting back to open his posture and study the office around them.

Will removes his hand from the chair and leans his hip against the desk, to better face Doctor Lecter while keeping close. It was a small victory for Will, each time Doctor Lecter appears discomfited enough to pull away - if only just that half a centimeter, if only just that small uncertain swivel of the rolling chair. Neither of them were the kind of tiger used to sharing its cage, but Will had more applicable practice in the field of spacial intimacy - having rescued as many dogs as he had, knowing full well that body language was the most important communication tool and that personal space was an illusion the animals of western civilization seemed to have invented around the same time as germ theory.

"Might you wish to hear it? The story of Patroclus?" This is merely a formality that Hannibal is offering, inclining his head as his elbows slide back into the square cradle of the office chair's armrests, fingers twined over the flat front of his waistcoat.

Will, because he doesn't understand why Hannibal has asked now where he would usually just monologue, waves a hand forward impatiently and dips out a nod, blurting quietly - "Please, if we're just waiting on the files to burn down."

Hannibal's eyes crease in what Will can only assume is a genuine smile, and he swivels his chair to knock his knee gently against the side of Will's leg (and this tightens Will's grip along the thick blunting of the desk edge). "I have a difficult time believing you have never read Homer, Will Graham. When I asked if you knew the story of the ancient heroes, I did not expect the answer to be no."

Will's eyes narrow behind the tortoiseshell frames of his glasses, and his lips press together in a bitter grin. He crosses his arms tight against his middle, leaning forward. "Maybe I wanted to hear your take on it, before admitting any familiarity with the material. That might have put you off the idea of sharing."

Hannibal's blink is a fraction of a moment longer that usual, and he frowns as if taken aback. "Deception and manipulation, Will? I did not think you the type."

Will's teeth flash in a breathless scoff and his chin tilts from one side to the other. He explains - "That the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles is the center of most discussions rooted my hesitation. I did not want to state any obvious comparisons that might not even be the focus of your, uh," an academic frown, thumb flashing from its curl in his sleeve in a minute shrug, "point."

"I had no point to make, merely a story to share."

"A story about 'severe friendship'." Will chuckles quietly, trying to reign in his snap-eyed hunger for literary debate. "Or are you a classicist? Paederasty tends to come across as more European by the fault of our Puritan western origins, so I'll beg forgiveness on the assumption."

Hannibal steeples his fingers under his chin, relaxing the chair back with a creak of its balljoints. "I admit, I only ever read their story as that of companionship, as two unequaled warriors appreciating in the other what they each could not find in all the rest of the world; that Achilles and Patroclus were of similar hearts, and similar destinies, and could respect one another to their individual degrees of philos." Hannibal sits forward, hands falling apart, one to his chin and the other to brace the arm rest. "Too often do our modern heroes fight against one another, rather than beside. For every masked crusader in the comic book, there is an equally intelligent, capable, driven man to play the antagonist. The equal, but not the friend."

Will nods, dropping his gaze to the tips of his shoes. "So which am I, to no longer fight against you? The intemperate Achilles, arrogant and removed to all but his closest friends? Or Patroclus, with all the personality and scorn of a doting grandmother."

Hannibal's laugh is a mere jerk of his chest, hidden under ironed layers of his fine clothing, noiseless and brief. "Very good, Will Graham. But, it is Patroclus. We the world are all, in the end, Patroclus."

Will's eyebrows crease together above his unblinking scrutiny. "Then who would you ever consider Achilles?"

"Those we leave behind to mourn us." Hannibal's chair swivels from side to side the way a cat might sway its tail to express smug victory, and his expression is fit to match - removed but pleased, unaffected but engaged.

Will pulls back to rake his eyes toward the ceiling, a single slow and exaggerated nod, the blunt hiss of a laugh escaping between his teeth. "Very good, Doctor Lecter."

Hannibal bows forward, twitching his waistcoat straight as he brings his elbows to a return over the desk, arm brushing Will's locked elbow. Hannibal straightens the sketches, stacks them, tucks them into a fine leather fold-over, movements clinical and brusque. "I enjoy the surprises that come of talking with you, Will. You must know this."

"I usually lose most people at 'Paederasty'. It'd be good to know that you listen not just as my Psychologist, but -"

"Your friend." Hannibal looks up from the drawer he has opened, hands tucking items in their places without the need of his attention. "Always your friend, even when I must be your doctor."

"Well, I was going to say 'but as a like-minded academic'. Even in academia, most people are easily..." Will chews the next word over, searching the dark fall of draperies over a far window. "Discomfited."

"It is not the words we use that pull people from their comfort, but rather the long lines of associations an individual will attach to certain sounds. That is all a word is; a sound. The definition behind that sound might be written in a book, given over to a factual context; but, ultimately, the word will hold its meaning and power over the one who hears it, in as much as that individual can grant by their past experiences."

"Ancient Greek concepts of interpersonal relationships don't discomfit me, because I have no truck with interpersonal relationships in the first place?"

Hannibal looks up from the drawer as he closes it. He takes a deep breath through his nose, searching the air between them as if reading. "More probably, that Patroclus and Achilles are neither victims to one another nor engagers of paedophilia - which shares both a sound and, unhappily enough, a history with Paederasty."

Will grunts his understanding, uncrossing one ankle from the other to stand from his lean. "I see what you mean, then, about the sound association." He stomps some feeling back into a numbed foot, arms still crossed about his middle. "You'd be Patroclus and I'd be Achilles, though. You're older."

"Ah," Hannibal stands, stepping toward the small drinks cabinet tucked in front of an overpacked set of bookshelves. "But I do not intend to die before you."

Will scoffs, glancing sidelong, letting his annoyance show. "That's... mean."

"On the contrary." Doctor Lecter's back is turned as he attends the bourbon tumblers, as easy and unguarded as a carnivore perched at a dead zebra. "Should we ever find ourselves cornered, mine would be the hand to take your life. Would that not be preferable?"

Will's throat works a few times. His eyes glass over and he wanders toward the warmth of the fireplace to check on the burning evidence. "I suppose."

"You would rather be the one to kill me, I know," Hannibal reassures, facing the room with a glass of bourbon in each hand. "We are of the same mind, and it is good to hear the reluctance in you when I speak of your death. Keep living, keep your fire, Will Graham. Fight me, if you must, the day we find ourselves - ah, no." The bourbon is handed over, Hannibal leaning his forearm against the mantle of the fireplace to watch the flames. "Fight me whether you must or not, when that day comes. I would expect no less." The firelight paints Hannibal's face in orange, staining his suit to dark sepia tones. The amber of the bourbon glows yellow by comparison, the hand-cut ice cube now a small block of gold.

Will has set his drink on the mantle by habit, both that he wasn't one much for drinking and that he didn't feel like being drugged that night. "You would mourn me, then? Lament over me like Achilles over his less able counterpart?"

"With any luck, I'll have then been shot by whomever is trying to arrest us." Hannibal samples his drink, savoring it, watching the ice glint as he turns the glass one way then the next. "With no time to feel the warmth leave your skin."

"'Feel the warmth', not 'see the color'?" Will takes up his drink after all, sarcastically reproachful, "Why, Doctor Lecter..."

Hannibal gives Will a look, one that Will had not yet seen and could not yet categorize. "It would be with my hands, that I would take you from this world. I've no doubt the act would see me shot immediately by any who would witness it."

"I told you that once, didn't I. I said 'with my hands'. I mean, you asked, if and how, and I said that."

Hannibal nods, slow and indulgent. "I understood, even then, the sentiment." This is said with all the emotion of a weather report. "It pleased me to hear our commonality so often and in such specific detail. It rekindles my belief in the divine, to hear you sometimes." Again, a factual statement rather than an outpouring of regard or personal compliment, as if Will was an object, a vessel of words to echo back, a rare book for Hannibal to interpret on his own merits - some thing Hannibal had always believed was in the world but never believed he'd find.

Will samples his bourbon and lets the heat spread its lazy fingers down his throat. "I wanted to climb into your chair," he explains in a murmur, watching the firelight flicker and sway in Hannibal's drink. "And strangle you."

"With the chain of your restraints?" The light is there again in Hannibal's eyes, a dark gleam like the black that pillows a single night star.

Will wags his head, holding both hands out, one gently cradling his beverage, to illustrate.

Another star joins the gleam in Hannibal's eyes, and another - Hannibal blinks, inhaling sharp and deep as he regards the mantle in front of him. The pad of his thumb is run across the edge, collecting dust. "And had you been given time or opportunity of strength, would not have crushed my esophagus - too crude, too swift. Instead, it is to my guess that you would have dug your bare fingers into my flesh like a hawk on a rabbit." A short, impressed chuckle.

The confession is sneered , "Plenty of times I would have torn your throat out with my teeth, if my teeth were the only weapon to be found."

"And what changed your mind?"

Will's startled glare is wide-eyed and tight-lipped. "Who says I ever changed my mind? You're my survival, now." His grin is sour and angry, a baring of teeth. "I'm not an inelegant fool to be shepherded around, Doctor Lecter."

"I am not only your survival, Will. I am your friend -"

"My friend," Will interrupts, breath shaky. "And who's to say Patroclus never wanted to turn around and stab Achilles, hm?" He licks his bottom lip, jerking his chin up to agree with himself before finishing off the finger of bourbon. "Thank you for the drink; our documents have perished well." Will leaves the fireside.

"I prefer it -" Hannibal's voice is raised to intercept Will's departure, and he watches over his shoulder, arm on the mantle, fist on his waist. "That you do fight. Yours is the keenest mind against which I have ever been able to hone my own. But I need you to know how invaluable you are to me, Will Graham." Voice dropping, standing to leave the bourbon tumbler on the mantle. "I need the ugliness of your resentment to keep hidden from my view, for else it will tell the sleeping parts of my brain that you are abhorrent, a danger to be erased."

Will had been caught short between the fireplace and the desk, eying Doctor Lecter warily.

Hannibal was nothing but poise in rolled shirtsleeves and loosened tie as he approached, smoothing back a handful of hair and snapping the front of his waistcoat straight. He composes himself before looking down his nose at Will, correcting the angle of his chin to remove the arrogance from his regard. "Can you do that? This favor between us?"

Will's jaw shivers, but his voice remains steady in its rasp. "I honestly know that I cannot, Doctor." A helpless shrug. "By some fault of my personality. If it's any consolation, I prefer it that I fight, too." Will reaches out to pat Hannibal's shoulder, a patronizing effort to wordlessly apologize for his spectrum disorder, and the act is pulled immediately awry.

The blow that is delivered compares Doctor Lecter to a cat once again - a swift, composed act that saw neither moved from his position. It was a relatively light open-palmed clubbing, but the swiftness and immediateness had Will reacting instinctively, bringing an arm up in defense - an arm which saw itself taken into a wrapping pull, a yank and a bend, a grasp. Will is tugged and shoved a marched the single pace until his backside meets the desk, arms wrapped in front of himself with Hannibal pinning him in place.

Hannibal is casual, his frown contemplative as he begs the question over the top of Will's head, "Is this not the type of fighting back that is meant? Why have you not put your teeth in my throat, hm? Here," Hannibal offers a stretch of neck, tugging his arms out from between them to relent freedom of movement while keeping Will pinned between a heavy, ornate desk and a warm, solid corporeal. "By your leisure, hetairos."

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