"He said he was trying to cleanse the wickedness of the world," Will tells Hannibal, in his office, two days later. "Josiah Beinert actually thought he was doing good."
"'I lay the sins of the fathers upon the children, until the third and fourth generation,'" Hannibal says. "He was bred to do what he did. Whether his parents acknowledged it or not."
Will rubs at a spot on his jaw until the skin below the beard stubble is red. His face is a topography of light and deep shadow, putting Hannibal briefly in mind of the Christ figure dangling in its niche in the Almighty Hands Church. He looks like he has not slept since his viewing of it.
"Wickedness isn't subjective, is it? I mean, not unless you're insane," Will says. "Lewis Beinert and his wife could differentiate between preaching some...divine wrath, and actually carrying it out."
"On the contrary," Hannibal says. "The combination of total faith and free will is a cognitive contradiction. It becomes a poison, which they passed on to their son. If the Book of James tells us that faith without works is dead, how is one to truly differentiate between asking for God's intercession and becoming an instrument of it?"
Will's groan is muffled in his hands. How many cries of anguish he must have put there! If sorrow had weight, Will's hands would be heavy indeed.
"Can a thing not know that it's evil?" Will asks.
Hannibal gives a smile to the air before him where Will cannot see. "Is it time for that conversation on religion?"
Will chokes out a laugh like sob. "I'm struggling to understand where I fall on the spectrum after Caroline Fitzsimmons."
"On a spectrum of evil? You are blameless," Hannibal says. "There are mistakes, oversights for which we pay an emotional toll, but for which we cannot hold ourselves responsible lest we allow its oppression to paralyze us."
"The trials of Job, huh?"
"Not in the least," Hannibal says. "You and I both know there is no God coming in the last extremity to set things right."
If his affect had been measured despair in the prior session, Will has reversed it. He paces, almost manic, around the perimeter of the office, an agitated body orbiting Hannibal in an erratic path, flouting his gravity.
"I should have come to you," Will says.
Hannibal savors the words for a moment, letting them glide over his palate. "Alana is more than a competent psychiatrist. She is an excellent friend."
"That's not the point," Will says. "I tried to kiss her. Again. I didn't want to-I mean, I did-I do. But I couldn't stop myself. And she knew it."
"What do you mean?"
"She pushed me away. Told me, 'this is not you.'"
"But you are afraid that it might be," Hannibal says.
"No," Will says. "I know it's not. I was tired and it was...fucking stupid. But, god, I wanted to hold on to her life. Like I almost wanted her to be Caroline Fitzsimmons. To cling to that life and not let go."
"I understand."
"She doesn't. I couldn't explain it. I don't know if she wants to talk to me again," says Will.
"Alana will come back," says Hannibal. "You haven't lost her friendship. Those who know you well return to you. Your light is too insistent."
"Like moths to a flame," says Will, stopping in front of the case containing the misericorde, examining the print hanging above it.
"And do you burn, Will?" Hannibal asks, knowing the answer.
There is only a heavy sigh. Hannibal rises and walks to Will's side.
"This is new," Will says, indicating the print. It shows a woman's face, the pencil lines spidery scratches, crosshatches lending depth. The woman's eyes are closed, mouth slightly open, her expression serene.
"Yes, I've just added it to my collection." That it is one of his own drawings Hannibal does not mention. "It is the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa."
Will's frown is reflected back at Hannibal in the pristine glass. "It doesn't look ecstatic."
"Her ecstasy is all interior, ensconced in her mind. The touch of God is a curse; many mystics go mad. A steep price to pay for communion with the divine."
"It looks like death," Will says.
Hannibal smiles. "Ecstasy, agony, death, pleasure, and suffering-they are all very close in human experience."
Will stares. In the glass, from Hannibal's vantage so close to Will's shoulder, his open and haunted eyes overlay Saint Teresa's closed lids in the drawing.
When he sees Hannibal's eyes, bright and hard, reflected in the glass behind him, he lowers his own gaze.
Hannibal leans in just a little, reaching past Will's elbow to open the lid of the box in which the dagger rests. "There are times, though, to choose between them," he says. "You went to Alana, you came to me. I cannot offer you life, the life that was taken, that you so desperately want." He pauses. "But I will not turn you away."
Will extends his hand, slow and buoyant in the thick air of the office, and closes the lid of the box. Another sigh, and he lets his head fall back, eyes closing, brow furrowed deep.
His curls brush Hannibal's temple and it is decided. Hannibal presses the ridge of his cheekbone against the line of Will's jaw and inhales deeply, at last taking the fullness of his fervid scent.
Will turns his head away, makes a sound of protest, but it rattles and falls in the enclosure of Hannibal's proximity. Hannibal steps against him, puts a hand to Will's cheek and crooks two fingers between his lips, turning his face again so it aligns flush with the imperturbable image of Saint Teresa. Pushes the fingers past Will's teeth into his slack, warm mouth. He is so receptive as to be nearly catatonic; Hannibal feels a trickle of warm saliva slide between his fingers and into his palm.
Will makes no move to stop Hannibal when he unbuckles his belt, slips past button and zipper with deft hands, nor does he try to prevent the unceremonial pushing of cloth out of the way of bare skin. Hannibal feels the man's breathing quicken, tastes the unmistakable intertwining scents of Will and of arousal, all the way to the back of his throat.
It is heady, but Hannibal is nothing if not practiced in restraint.
In keeping with his lassitude, Will does not attempt to step out of the clothing now pooled around his ankles, but he lets Hannibal nudge his legs as far apart as the constraining garments will allow.
It is all he needs. Hannibal removes his fingers from Will's mouth, drawing a shining parabola in the air between lips and digits before the connective strand of saliva breaks and falls away. These wet fingertips he lowers between Will's buttocks, finding his mark and pressing inward, efficient but not cruel. Hannibal draws out the long moments until two fingers are fully seated within Will's body, then begins unbuckling his own belt.
Freed, Hannibal moves a hand to Will's hip, draws him back with firm insistence against his fingers as he moves. The reflection of Will's closed eyes hovers over the cheeks of the placid saint in the drawing, each face mirroring transcendence to the other.
Will makes a soft sound when the fingers are removed. Encircled by Hannibal's arms he feels oddly boneless, borne up by surrender.
Hannibal spits soundlessly into his own palm, ever polite. The face he sees in the glass ripples with unexpected pain as he pushes in, but Will's body is too accepting to maintain its tense indignation for long. Hannibal waits as long as he needs to, or as long as he estimates the need to be, then begins to move.
A cloud of sound and scent enrobes them. Will's breath comes in hoarse gasps, rhythmic, the contrapuntal melody to Hannibal's thrusts.
At long last, stirring from his torpor, Will moves a tentative hand to touch himself. Hannibal slaps it viciously away, and takes Will's cock in his own hand. It is less the fact of Will's hesitant pleasure-seeking and more that single touch that informs Hannibal that Will is not pliant and resigned, but submerged in experience, the pursuit of sensation more fluid-but no less fervent-than his own.
Hannibal pushes upward as he works Will's cock, lifting the man onto his toes and then settling him back into the cradle of his hips.
Again. Again.
Finally, a cry stutters free from Will's mouth, visible ecstasy breaks in reflection over Saint Teresa's face, and Will orgasms, painting the glass box on its rosewood stand. Blood-warm liquid spills onto Hannibal's fingers.
Will's chest heaves; Hannibal is hyperfocused and almost does not hear the question whispered amid the gasping breaths.
"Is this mercy?"
For a second he expects his concentration to shatter, but instead Will's words distill it, honing its bright edge to blinding. He tenses, shudders, and comes-teeth clenched, every muscle from heel to head drawn bowstring-tight, fingers curled in the fine hairs at Will's nape. But for the closeness, he would be laid bare, for the briefest of moments.
And yet he is shielded. Entangled.
And then he regains his self-possession, forcibly regulating his own heartbeat and breathing. Ensuring a measured voice before he answers.
"No," Hannibal says. "But there may come a time when you wish it could be."
