The insatiable need to covet someone's traits, status, abilities, or rewards.

The first time she woke up that regrettable day was because Hannibal had a warm, dry hand on her shoulder. He gazed softly down at her under the hazy glow of the lamp - it was still dark outside. A siren blared in the distance, announcing urgency, and the red of the lights momentarily filled the room, lighting his face like that of a cheap horror monster's. He smiled slightly - which was slightly terrifying - and watched her come into full consciousness, before he addressed her.

"Do you need to throw up?"

"N-...Not that I'm aware of." it came out half hoarsely whispered, in a rush she isn't sure he understood. She closed her eyes as the room tilted off it's natural axis. "What time is it?"

"Quarter to five. You were screaming."

"What?" she cracked open one very sleepy eye.

"I assume you were having a nightmare." he told her, and sunk into a graceful crouch beside her bed. She became aware that she has two tightly balled fistfuls of sheet yanked up to her chin, and sweat swamped at the small of her back. She also noted Will in the doorway, in tiny shorts and a slightly damp, crinkled t-shirt. He looked a little bit like hell warmed over.

"Was I... screaming words?"

"Yes. But not enough to make sense."

"Jesus. Sorry." she unwrapped one hand from the sheet and patted her face, which was wet. From sweat or tears, she couldn't say. "I- I'm sorry. I thought I'd stopped dreaming like that."

"It's alright. You needn't apologise." his hand fondly squeezed her arm. "We were concerned that Jacob Bell had come for you."

"That hadn't actually crossed my mind." she mumbled, and spotted a dark shadow in Will's hand. "Are you- packing heat?"

"...Yes." he clicked the safety on.

"So clearly the idea that he was coming in here was serious."

"We thought you needed the rest more than the worry."

"Yeah. I guess."

"There are armed cars outside, for peace of mind."

She hummed an agreement, not really perturbed if there wasn't patrolling officers on the premises, she was busy squinting at his choice of pajamas, with his embroidered pocket and Lecter emblem.

"Is everything you own so... fancy?"

"It's in my character." he joked. A resounding yes if she ever heard one. She rubbed the satin over his forearm and smirked to herself.

"Very intimidating, Dr. Lecter. I think Jacob Bell would've been very upset, had you appeared in your satin vigilante costume."

"He has a knife." Will offered, and Dr. Lecter's lips curled slightly. "He beat me here. I was across the hall."

"Impressive for an ameture slueth. Vigilante. Hero. Take your pick." she sat up slightly, rubbing her eyes. "I'm not going to lie. I'm still tired. I'm still going to sleep. I trust you to keep me safe." she aimed it at Dr. Lecter, because it was his house and from what Willow had observed, a man capable of stabbing someone in the head if necessary.

"If you want to shower, you are welcome to it."

She didn't feel entirely comfortable showering in his home, but she was less comfortable sleeping in sweat in the fancy shmancy bed.

So she bid them both goodnight (again), gathered clothes, and found the bathroom. The shower was scalding hot to the point of intense pain, but Willow liked that. Not the pain, just the simplicity of feeling the burn. She had numbed herself for such a long time, feeling anything at all was a good thing.

She dressed in her own pajamas and found them wanting. How she ended up in the clean shirt of Hannibal's that was in the bedside table was a mystery, seeing as she was still just a little bit drunk. What was even more mysterious was the fact that she'd crossed the hall and knocked on Will's door, pushing it open and shut behind her before she could think about maybe, not, doing that.

"Will?" she whispered.

"Willow?" she heard the hammer cock back into place, and the safety switch on. She smiled privately to herself for no other reason than he couldn't see it.

"Uhm, don't take this wrongly. Yup, good English. I'm still a little drunk." she fiddled a moment with the door handle. "Can-... Can I sleep with you? Not like - to sleep with you. To... Sleep, with you. No mixing of bodily fluids. Is that okay? I can leave."

There was hardly a pause.

"No... Stay." the blankets ruffled and she could faintly make out that he'd flipped open the covers. "Can you see?"

"Not really." she admitted in a murmur, and put her hands out, taking slow steps. She had just knee'd the mattress when the light clicked on and he saw her shirt.

"Is that...Dr. Lecter's shirt?"

She fiddled with the too long cuff. Her shorts were shorter than the hem, a fact she became painfully aware of.

"Well, he wasn't using it..."

There was an oddly fond twinkle in Will's eye as he clicked the light back off and wiggled back on the bed.

"I'm only here because you have a gun." she told him, and tucked her feet next to his.

"You're like a space heater." he grumped in return.

"Which is why I'm wearing very tiny shorts. Like yourself, Mr. Graham. Now sleep is for the weak, and right now I'm the weakest."

"I don't think you are." he responded and shifted to lay on his back. She could feel him, tense and wide awake behind her.

"Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Would snuggling make your brain turn off?"

"No, thank you." she could almost hear him put his tongue in his cheek. "We are, collectively, too hot."

"Reow." was her theatrical reply, before she passed out.

Will was a liar.

Waking up the second time that day revealed the special agent had gone and cozied up to her side, burying his nose behind her ear with his rough cheek on her chest. He had an arm tucked around her waist and one calf hooked over her knee. She'd threaded her fingers through his curls and had one hand braced over his forearm, her thumb absently stroking.

She would've thought he'd be inducing a heat stroke, but the blankets were all bunched at the end of the bed.

She drowsily lifted her head to realize that knocking had woken her up. Knocking on her door, not his. And while Willow was indeed a strong, mature person, sometimes she liked to have moments of weakness. So she closed her eyes again and pretended to be asleep.

The knocking sounded at Will's door and he grunted at it. It creaked as it swung open, and there was a long pause.

"Ah. I see."

Will lifted his head, inhaling loudly as he went, sleep drunk and confused. The hand tucked at her waist drew up to rub his face, and Willow took the hand from his head to hide her eyes behind it with a groan.

"Why," she dragged the word out. "Am I conscious?"

"It's eight thirty."

"Jesus. Nooo. I'm not going. I don't want to. You can't make me." she rolled over and shoved her face in the pillow. She was now pressed tightly against Will's torso, and one of her legs twined to hook around the back of his knee.

"Is that my shirt?"

"I don't want to go."

"Willow." he chided, and strolled over to lift a section of hair that obscured her face, peering at her pouted expression. "Do you really mean that?"

She cracked one eye open at him.

"You're already showered and ready?"

"Yes." he seemed to be amused at the confusion and disgust on her face.

"How? It's - the ass crack of morning." Will just snorted and rolled out of the other side of the bed, his spine popping. "Hey- nooo - I'm cold."

"You have to get out of bed." Hannibal informed her. "I'm making breakfast for you both. Then we are leaving."

"I need a shower." Will mentioned, gathering yesterday's clothes.

"You may borrow a suit of mine for the funeral." Hannibal told him. "I should have something to fit you in that cupboard." he nodded to the simple door at the end of the room, and Will sleepily paced over to it.

"I don't want to go." Willow mumbled again, and stole what had been Will's pillow, until he found it necessary to utilize her breast for that instead. "Go without me. I'll make the wake." she curled around the feather cushion, trapping it between her thighs and hugging it tightly to her chest. If she inhaled Will's apple shampoo scent on it, that was her own business.

"Willow." Dr. Lecter sat on the edge of the bed, his expression soft. "You have faced so many fears in such a short space of time. It is unfair to ask you to go, but you will regret it if you don't."

She managed to open one golden eye to look at him.

"It's unfair to ask me to be self aware at this time of day." she retorted, and he smiled for her. "I'm not... scared, of saying goodbye. I've said it before to my parents and sister. It wasn't hard." she tucked her head on the pillow instead of beside it, but hugged it tighter still.

"Then what is it?"

She gulped.

"Facing all those people. They'll know. I didn't slice his head off, I didn't cement his body to a table, but... It was my design."

Will had just emerged from bending into the cupboard with a blue shirt and dark grey pants in hand, and halted all movement, his shoulders tense.

"They'll all be Bert's-... His friends. His family. They'll all have read what I've done. He wouldn't have talked to them if they hadn't. I was his biggest story. His runaway success. He was so proud of me... And I killed him, even if I didn't start the chainsaw. He died by association."

"You didn't do anything wrong." Hannibal told her. She squirmed until her face was hidden behind the collar of her borrowed shirt. Her body was trembling. "Come out from there. You can't hide forever."

"I can try." she said. It took several long strides for Will to march over and pull the pillow out from her, making her cry out an indignant: "Hey!" and reach up for it like a child. He dropped the pillow to the side and caught her up in a hug.

She went wide eyed, but clawed his shoulders in reply, her breaths drawn in deep and loud, bordering hyperventilation. He smoothed a hand over her head.

"It was not." he told her firmly, and let her go. He didn't bother smiling, he just stared intently at her face. "Your fault."

She looked young. Impossibly so. A child in a man's too-big shirt, with blood shot eyes and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Will took the clothes he had salvaged and walked to the bathroom, physically removing himself from her before he started smothering her. He felt her acutely - recognising so many things about himself in the tired, drunken girl.

He felt she was just as stray as he was, and although it was, in fact, nice not to be alone, it was also just as confronting to see the parallels more clearly than if he'd profiled himself.

Hannibal put a hand over her hand and offered a very faint smile.

"You are not to blame. Jacob Bell is." he told her softly, and her eyes welled with tears. She very slowly lowered her head to his shoulder and brought up a hand to hide her face. He obliged by putting both arms around her, tipping his cheek to her head.

"But I am." she whispered. "I am. I designed it."

"The things in your head are yours." he murmured. "But you told me that once you put them into the world, they are the reader's to own. Remember that."

"It feels like a million years ago." she mumbled, and sighed heavily against him. "You smell so good."

"Thank you. Now." he smoothed a hand over her head, gently removing her hand from her face. She took a minute to regain her composure, staring up at him with watery eyes and a pouty mouthed stare. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry." she winced at the clock. "I'll snooze a bit and roll into some clothes and into the car."

"You need to have something to eat. It'll make you feel better."

"Food isn't going to make me feel better."

"My food will." he patted her hand. "Anything you name, I will make."

"Rum and coke would be nice."

He very briefly considered rolling his eyes at her, but fixed her with two cocked brows instead. She cracked a painful looking grin, dislodging tears from her lashes.

"Can I have pancakes?" she said, swiping the salt water on her face with an impatient hand. "Are pancakes okay?"

He caught a tear she had missed on his thumb, his smile warm.

"I will even add chocolate chips if you get out of bed now."

"You drive a hard bargain, Lecter."

"I'm well aware. Come on. Up. I hate tardiness."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

The third time she woke... she was preeeeetty sure she was supposed to be dead.

She cracked open a squinted eyelid and did a quick survey. What she saw was a little concerning, but only a little, considering the mass amounts of deaths she'd been exposed to in a little over a month.

And the concussion didn't lend much clarity.

Will was to her left, shirtless, the shoulder closest to her twice the size of the other. He had developing bruising on his skull and a series of bloody lines starting from glass imbedded at his hairline. The blood dragged over his brow, over his cheek, down his jaw, to plop from his chin, and finish midway on his - thankfully - moving chest. His forearms were burnt from the explosion of air bags, which he had mostly blocked.

He had been in the passenger side seat, half turned around to address her.

Hannibal was to her right, his lip split and nice button shirt smeared with grubby prints. It missed a few buttons at his navel, probably from when they reached in and hoisted him out of the car. He was minus a shiny shoe and his hair fell over his brow, hiding his eyes in shadows. She could see a long shiny bruise on his cheek bone in a suspicious fist shaped blue.

He had been driving to Bert's funeral

She was in the middle - staring forward, braced emotionally. When the brown sedan had flown into Hannibal's shiny black vehicle, her hands had instinctively come up to protect her head, and she'd squashed her hand between the window and her skull. It felt taut - swollen enough that moving her fingers would be very difficult, if not painful. The grinding in her bones suggested displacement, and she made a low sound as pain shot up her arm.

"Are you awake, sugar plum?"

"Now, now, brother..."

"She'll enjoy it."

A hand smacked the back of her head and she huffed, not expecting it.

"Don't." the cut down is cold and strict. Willow heard a small scuffle, a fist hitting flesh. "I'll kill you if you so much as touch her again, Tim. Or do you prefer Tom?"

"That's the thanks I get for owning up to your crimes." a rancid breath is in her face. "You're a shitty little brother, you know that?"

"I didn't ask you to take the blame." comes the quiet, but sincere murmur.

"But I did it any way."

"Out of brotherly love?" There's no reply. "Of course not. You just wanted the attention."

"Piss off."

"Envy is a sin, big brother-"

"You wanna die right now? Do you want me to kill you?" there's a moment of stillness.

"You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?"

"You'd probably just jerk off at me. Let's be honest."

"Fuck you."

"Or that. Wouldn't put it past you." there was a sigh. "Your present is upstairs. Go play."

"Is she conscious?"

"I'm not ungrateful for you giving me some time to perfect my work... so of course not."

"Well in that case... You're the best little brother a guy could ask for." creaking footsteps announce his retirement. He whistled a merry tune. Willow became aware that a door has shut and locked behind her, a metal scream evident of the heavy lock now in place.

It's cold. Under-the-earth cold. Through her lids, she saw warm yellow lights, but not naturally made. Her hands were cuffed to their respective armrests, but her feet were free. Not that she could do much with them. One leg felt like it had been pulled up around her head somewhere, the muscles loose and weak, painfully twitching.

Vaguely, she recalls researching torn ligaments, and the twitching knee cap is indicative of that.

There was a moment when she just reached out her senses and tried to figure out where she was. She tried to ground herself, to stem the flow of panic before it reached a crescendo and she lost her ever-loving mind to adrenaline. Sensitive ears heard a nervous breath, then a fingertip touched her neck.

"Don't touch me." was the bitter admission to consciousness.

"Hello." he whispered in return. "How good it is, to see you again."

"Can't say the same for you." it was now she was intensely glad she'd taken large gulps of whiskey before leaving Hannibal's that morning. The guilt she'd felt when he'd caught her didn't seem so bad, now. "Tell me what it is you plan to do between the three of us." her head lolled back.

"Jacob."

He smiled, stroked her throat with tender, trembling fingers.

"You speak my name, and I hear from you the voice of gods."

"Don't quote my own novels at me." she snarled, and wrenched her head away from his hand. Peeking out from under his sleeve was her tattoo'd on signature. "Answer me."

"Well... I had first thought you were shared between them. I thought - maybe, he's pretty, and young, so he would be your Lust, and the other one, he's wordy and book smart... so he would be your replacement for Sloth-"

"Mind what you fucking say about him." she sneered, her mouth uncontrollably shaking.

"Well, he was, I could see he was. You were nested in his home and you ate his food. I quite like him better a mentor for you anyway. I saw - I saw you kissing him. The pretty one. Holding him. Driving in his car. And that reporter, that website said you were f-finishing each other's sentences, so it wasn't just me that saw you developing... an attraction, to your little FBI friend, there."

"Are you totally fucking insane?" she growled through her teeth.

"No, no... I'm not. That's the thing. The wonderful thing. I'm sane. I'm completely-"

"Out of your damn mind." she pulled hard at the cuffs on her wrists. "When I get out of here-!"

"You'll kill me." he smiled. "That's what I want. I'm sick."

"Oh, I had no idea."

"Not in the sense you imply. I'm sick in my bones. Like Darryl." he softened, then, went to crouch before her, putting his hands on her thighs and massaging lightly. She bucked her knees to kick him and he pressed down hard enough make her wince. "You wrote Darryl as the original and I knew you'd founded a connection on a spiritual level with me."

"What the hell are you even saying?"

He didn't miss a beat.

"Everything you wrote of him was true of me but the name. We are the same height, have a big brother who love-hates us, we suffer the same illness."

"I can't even remember Darryl."

"We are insignificant, to you. But see, I did all these things for you. I followed all the instructions. I punished the wicked the way you wrote them. I did it for you." his fingers trailed over her mouth, and she snapped her teeth, nicking a section of skin that didn't break. He was unperturbed. "I did what you couldn't do, the way you wrote them. So this is how I die, for my reward. I want you to take me like you did him."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to take me." he beamed at her, touching the tip of his bitten finger to his bottom lip. "Like you killed him. Darryl. Me. See? It's all the same. You wrote my brother but it was me all along-"

"Hang on, hang on, back up a second." she cocked a single brow. "You want me to kill you?"

"I knew you would need to be motivated. I knew that you were on the very verge of murderous. How could you not be, when you write what you write? That imagination has to come from somewhere. You had to be. Have to be. You were writing real people - you wrote me!"

"Oh, for fucks sake."

"I motivated you. You see it, don't you? I showed you how I understood. And I do, I understand you. You don't have to pretend any more. I know you're from another world. You wrote real people from afar to the tiniest detail! You wrote the twins - the model - the-... You wrote the King! The greedy king, you wrote him! And you wrote me - you wrote Tom, my brother. Do you see? You wrote the real and then I made it realer."

"You're dumb."

"N-No, no, I'm not." he was positively beaming. "See, I killed all the greedy, incestuous, prideful, gluttonous people I could in your way, I scared you in the worst ways, and then I killed Sloth-"

"The fuck did I just say?" she demanded. "Don't you talk about him. Don't you say another fucking word about him-"

"Or you'll what? Kill me?" his eyes glittered, almost transparently blue. "Like Darryl, though. Has to be like Darryl."

"I can't remember-"

"Darryl. He was sick in the bones and had thirty two stab wounds in the chest. He was a convicted murderer in Enraptured that Lindsey Chase spoke to, remember? He was in prison for killing and he was weak because he was sick, and then he provoked a visiting reporter and got stabbed? Thirty two times. In the torso. You don't puncture anything important until number-"

"I won't kill you." her gold eyes flashed. "I'll just hurt you. Call it panic. Self defence. No one will begrudge me. I'll leave your death to fate and the FBI."

"You have to." he studied the firm set of her jaw. "I killed Sloth. I killed Sloth. I did it. I did it the way you wrote it. You have to kill-"

"You? Yes. Heard you the first time. I'm still not going to do it."

"I know you can, though." he said roughly, huskily, momentarily holding her face in both sweaty hands. She jerked her head away, sneering at the look of sheer panic on his face. "I know you can-"

"Yeah. I am capable of it. Absolutely. From the second you decided you'd kill Bert, you were dead, you just didn't know it yet. I'm having vivid images of stomping on your throat."

"No, no, like Darryl-" he motioned to the blade tucked into his belt. "It has to be like-"

"Oh, you're assuming I comply." Her teeth bared in a terrible grin. "The question isn't how, it's will I do it."

"You have to."

"No I don't. And I won't." she sat back in her chair. "So - bleh."

"You will kill me." he took her face in his hands again, and the only reaction he got from that was a clenched jaw and defiant eyes. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones. "I need it to be you. It will be you."

"Welcome to the real world." she drawled from under the increased squeeze of his hand. "Things don't always go the way they're scripted. I'm not going to do it, and you can't make me."

That took a long second to sink into his brain, like it was thick muck sifting through fine mesh. She could almost see the gears behind his eyes, and the spanner she'd just wedged into those works. It was intensely satisfying, to see him frown the way he was.

He moved to Will, who had not yet stirred. He stared pointedly at Em, who watched him without blinking. She watched him put his hand on Will's throat - the shaky way in which he squeezed, experimentally choking him. It was like he needed the instruction of her novel to know what to expect - what to do.

He let go when Will made a wet noise and his head lolled in a half hearted, subconscious protest.

"If I kill him," he shoved Will's swollen shoulder. "Will you kill me?"

"No."

"What about him?" he turned then, to Hannibal, who regarded him with cold, bright, conscious eyes. "What about if I killed him? Your replacement for Sloth."

"I wouldn't worry about me killing you." she flicked her eyes to the still doctor. "My dear Dr. Lecter is a force to be reckoned with, I think. Not slothful in the least. In fact, I'd say sloth was probably about the furthest sin you could get to him..." she let her head roll back, staring at the ceiling.

"Prideful? Absolutely, have you seen the suits he wears? The shoes? Oh lordy. His outfits cost more than some of my rent. Greedy? Maybe not so much, but I mean, let's have a look at how many books and art and fancy pajamas he has in the house. Is it necessary? Really? Is he, lustful, maybe? Well, I can't really answer that without profiling him, and I've spent so much time lately profiling you. He is a man. I guess he must like to fuck on occasion. Speaking of, I wouldn't mind maybe, I don't know, giving him a go-"

"Don't - Please. Please don't say that. Don't say -"

"Envious? I don't think that he has much to envy of any one else. I think he gets what he wants, you know. Carpe Diem and all of that." she glanced at him, completely unperturbed. "That's a European thing, right? You're like, Scandinavian, or something? I hear they make 'em big in-"

"I'm asking nicely-"

"But gluttony. To feed one's self past the threshold of necessity. To over indulge. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. You could chose any of the aforementioned and apply them to my doctor, there are literally seven possible sins to chose from with two being at least questionably interpreted, and you chose the one furthest away from him. Do you even know the sins?"

"Yes-"

"But you don't. You don't know shit about anything, least of all, me."

"I do so!"

"Woah, careful, Jacob, your pride is showing."

"I didn't-!"

"You sound pretty angry. Pretty wrathful."

"You aren't going to manipulate me!" he hissed through his teeth. "I know what I am, and I am Darryl!"

"You are Jacob. And you are wrong."

"Stop it. Stop it, please." his hands went over his ears. His eyes were so wide she could see the whites completely encasing the iris. "Please, please-"

"You don't know anything." she went on. "Not one thing. You can't even get his sins right, how do you expect me to be proud of what you've done? How do you expect me to understand you when you've done it all wrong?"

Faintly, there were screams and muted laughter coming from upstairs. Willow swallowed a hard mouthful, her gaze only momentarily flicking to Dr. Lecter. He was studying her with an impassive face - something calculating and cold in his eyes. The lack of reaction to the entire situation gave her a certain confidence. A light bulb blew over her brain, the idea only conceived by that one calm stare.

"Tell me something." she said slowly, dragging her eyes up to the standing psychopath. "Jacob. Take your hands away from your ears."

He did.

"Do you love me?"

"With all that I am. Even the sick parts of me love you."

"Did you ever... watch me? In my home, I mean. Drunk. Writing. In the shower-"

"Never in the shower. I wanted to-... I wanted to."

"In bed?"

"I did. I did watch you when you were in bed. Could you feel me?"

"I could. Which is why I couldn't help but touch myself." she leveled him with a look. The blood drained from his face - he gulped. "Did you watch that, too? Couldn't you hear me, Jacob, all those little noises I made?"

"I-... No..."

"They were for you." her breasts were heaving with the effort of breathing. Trying to control the overwhelming need to dry reach. "I wanted you to feel me too. Did you watch me?"

"Yes." he averted her gaze, ashamed.

"So you saw me with my hand between my legs. Saw how I squirm."

"Yes."

"And you wanted me to feel you."

"Yes."

"I want you to feel me." she let her legs fall loosely open. "I want to see just how much attention you paid."

He audibly gulped. Upstairs, a girl screamed. Her pleads went higher, louder. Willow tried to think it was just a bad tv show, and the lapses in noise were ad breaks.

"You're tricking me."

"Am I?" her lips curled into the mere whisper of a smile.

"You have to be."

"You killed the only man to have ever taken care of me in a murder I once called the most violent I'd ever come out with... Taken hostage these two men who then stepped in to fill the void... and I don't want to kill you? Tell me, if you know me so well. Am I tricking you, Jacob?"

He shifted uncomfortably. There was a growing bulge in his jeans.

"Tell me, to which sin was what? Was Dr. Lecter Wrath or was his the sin of Envy?"

"Envy. He was Envy." he dropped his eyes to her exposed panties, then flushed and cleared his throat, looking up again. "He- would've wanted - what Wrath had... With you."

"Will was Wrath." she said, and chewed her lip. "Why?"

"...Wanted... He's... Violent in his brain." he shifted back, hands twisting at his belly. "Uh, he slip 'n' slides inside criminal minds... He's Wrath."

"I see." she hummed what seemed to be an understanding approval. "They could watch." she suggested casually.

"That would incur an envy in them, I'm sure. Make them want to be on top of me. Make them want to be in me. Make them want to have me plead their names because they can see how you touch me. Because you know how I like to be touched. Wouldn't that be grounds for their envy, Jacob?"

"Y-...Yeah." he was staring at her breasts, her crotch, her wet mouth.

"Don't you want to be with me once before you died?" her mouth curled further. "That could be a just reward for all the things you've done on my behalf. The hard lessons you've learned. Wouldn't it be nice, just once, or twice, have me claw your back and bite your shoulder? I'm a screamer, Jacob. Gods aren't exempt from sex, are they? Or fucking? Or making love? What will you do, Jacob?"

"I'd-...fuck you."

"Mmm. Well. You can't do that from all the way over there... Or can you?" the playful tease was accentuated by the smile that cracked across her face like lightning. She rolled her spine, sliding her hips along the chair, opening herself up.

"Gonna... wanna... fuck you."

"Well get on over here then, boy."

He fell to his knees and crawled for her, burying his nose in her crotch. He kissed her, inhaled her, lifted shaking hands to push apart her jacket and up her skirt. She trained her eyes on the top of his head and watched as he tasted her bellybutton, as he tore open her dress with a decided lack of finesse but growing urgency. He nibbled her bra and collarbone, panting heavily by the time he got to her face.

The kiss he pressed on her mouth was a millisecond, at most. It was tender and timid and he slowed down enough to frame her face with his hands and press several smaller ones to her cheeks, chin, nose and forehead.

"I want to feel you. Give me one hand to touch you with." when he started to protest, she said, very firmly: "I want to touch you, Jacob."

He unlocked one of her hands, keeping her slender wrist trapped tightly in his fist. He waited, half wincing, prepared for an attack, but she just grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. That one hand traveled over his shoulder - down to his crotch, giving him a brief squeeze - under his shirt to feel his heart pounding under his sternum. She touched his face, her fingers gentle and kind.

"Let it never be said the pen is mightier than the sword." she murmured, pressing those very kind fingers against his lips. He hurried to kiss them, his gaze locked on her chest. "Or that the sword is any mightier than the hand who wields it." she pushed her fingers into his mouth, letting his tongue roll over them.

Then those same kind, gentle fingers, curled behind his teeth, into the dip in his jaw bone. She looked into his eyes and made sure he was watching her, before yanking his jaw right out of the socket with a loud grinding crunch.

"I'm a lesbian, you idiot." she caught the keys and kicked herself back, cracking the chair against the floor. He was screaming, holding his loosely hanging mandible in one hand and fumbling for the knife at his waist band.

She shoved the key in the lock but he dropped down on her, his weight sending all her air out of her mouth. She yanked the key out of the lock and stabbed at his face with it, trying to gauge his eyes. He was mostly unconscious from the pain, so she managed to dislodge him, wrestle the knife out of his hand, and stab him in the meat of his shoulder, severing the nerves in his arm.

He howled, and she managed to get the key in the lock. His fists came down on her stomach and face and she wheezed, no air in her lungs. She swung the knife and cut his hand, but he caught her cheek in a furiously thrown fist and her head spun to the side, a bright burst of white light flaring in her eye socket.

She shoved him and he tumbled, howling, while she rolled to the side, her hand throbbing, blood now pooling from split knuckles. She turned, struggling to her knees, lifting the chair to bring it down on his head several times, long after he'd stopped trying to crawl away. She was panting hard but still kicked him in the stomach while he was down, fumbling to find the keys hidden under his body.

She tended Dr. Lecter first, completely silent. As soon as she managed to wedge the key in the lock of his cuffs, one hand came up to hold her dress closed at the top. She sat back when he moved his now free hand to her shoulder, quickly undoing the bind at his other wrist.

"Smart girl." he commented, and touched her hair tenderly.

"More'n just a pretty face." she mumbled, and sat back with a small huff. "I'd say we're not going to make the funeral, Dr. Lecter."

"I'd say so." he knelt and inspected her eyes, her swollen hand, the way she was clutching her pulsing leg. "Your hand is broken."

"And my leg?"

"It'll be fine." he murmured, and looked up at the unconscious agent. She nodded, and he actively had to pull her into standing. She woozily swung forward and her wrapped tight arms around her.

"It's a crime," she exhaled. "For you to still smell this good."

"You have a bizarre way of complimenting people."

He liked that about her, though. She pushed away, and they both waited while she found her balance and swayed a moment, then she turned to tend to Will's cuffs, and she was again, unconscious.

The fourth time she woke up that day, she woke up very sore, very dizzy, and very confused. She stirred to find the still unconscious Will Graham laying across from her, his head cushioned by his shirt. She was covered with a jacket that smelt criminally good, and she reached out a hand to touch his face. Her fingers feathered down his jaw, to his throat, and pressed in, blindly searching for a pulse.

He opened his eyes instead.

Relief flooded her - tears also flooded.

"Hi."

"Hi." he tried to lift his head, flinched, and couldn't. "Where...?"

"No idea." she put her hand on his chest, feeling his heart pound. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." he thought about that. "I think so. Are you-?"

"I'm fine. God, Will, I thought you were dead."

"I'm okay." his hand caught her fingers loosely. "What happened?"

"They drove into us. You smashed your head. And your shoulder is really messed up. Hannibal..." she lifted, but the world spun and she lay back down again. "I think he's okay. He left his jacket on me, so I'm fairly certain he's -"

CRACK.

Heavy bootfalls pound the floor above them. Guns were fired. A body hit the floor with an ominous slump. A second later, a girl screamed, and kept screaming.

Willow didn't have the energy to be excited, nor to be scared. She just tucked her face next to Will's, and he put his hand on the back of her head, supportive.

There was a minute with masculine shouting - then a revelation. Dr. Lecter was the one who directed them to the sub level of the establishment, to find the two of them curled up in each other. Her arm is protectively around his waist and over his spine like she's going to shield him from any more abuse. Will can't turn his head - his neck hurts - so she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw who flanked the bruised, bloody doctor.

"Jack's here. Dr Lecter's okay." agents mill around them. The aforementioned doctor got on his knees and kept his coat about her mostly naked self as she rose into sitting. "Where's the Bells?"

"Timothy Bell has been shot." he said gravely. "But he is alive, in custody."

"Where's Jacob?" she had just enough coherency to be aware he hadn't yet fully answered her question. "Hannibal... Where's Jacob Bell?"

He pursed his lips, a twist to his expression.

"... I'm sure that Jack will find him."

Something dark pools in her iris, and she noticed that he appeared to have a series of bruises over his jaw, when she was sure he had only bruises on his cheek before. She lifted her hand in a staccato rhythm to apply gentle fingers to the new bruises. They were hot to the touch - fresh enough to have not yet swollen. She gulped, looked up into his maroon eyes with a tremble in her lower lip.

He regarded her with an impassive stare.

"Willow? Is everything alright?"

She took a moment to figure that out before offering an answer.

"I need a drink."