Will awoke from a dreamless sleep in his chair in Lecter's office, listening to Mason scream. A note sat on the little side table. "Please accept my apologies Mister Graham, our appointment will be delayed thirty minutes. Dinner is roast duck in blood sauce. Don't let it get cold. -H"

Darkness pressed against the window. Will took off his glasses and rubbed his face wearily. He lifted the silver lid of a serving dish, sniffed it for psychedelics, then sat down again and wondered how you got blood from a duck. Then he was asleep again, dreaming of Hannibal.

Will was naked and kneeling on the same bed as the last dream. Pale, powerful hands encircled him from behind, seizing his hips and drawing him against Hannibal's body. Candle flames gave the door jagged shadows. Hannibal pointed toward the door and then slid two fingers inside Will's mouth. "You have to eat, Will. It keeps your teeth sharp."

The door opened and Mason hung on a deerfold, bled out and field dressed, while a Nazi officer sat by the fire roasting his guts. Red fog coiled behind him. He took off his mask and Will recognized a nightmare mirror version of himself. The doppelganger unfolded, doubling, tripling in height. Then he lifted Will by the collar, opening a mouth full of needle teeth that spiraled down his throat, and crunched off his head.

Will awoke in a sweaty panic to find Hannibal in the chair across from him. "Welcome back, Mister Graham."

Lecter sat with his legs crossed, watching Will. Cutting a debonair figure in his starched uniform and fur-trimmed coat, he radiated strength like a young wolf. Will could still feel those dream hands on his body, his waist, his chest, fingertips daring to explore the wiry hairs above his cock. His fevered brain managed a "Hello Doctor."

"How are you today?"

Will cleaned his glasses on his shirt, avoiding the question. He tried not to stare at Hannibal's mask and instead studied his hands, which was worse because he couldn't stop imagining those phantom hands clutching him, wanting him.

"You have a thought in your head, Will."

Will squared his glasses. Any man deformed enough to wear a mask meant a life of fear, isolation, and paid sex. Enjoyed attention. And was easily manipulated. "May I have some wine?"

Hannibal made a passing remark in French and stood up to pour drinks. His accent wasn't like the other Germans, there was a cosmopolitan hint of Old World and Older Money, possibly dating back to Roman times.

"I know how I'm going to escape, Doctor."

"How is that?"

"I'm going to walk out that front gate in Chilton's uniform," said Will, staring at Hannibal's back as he uncorked a bottle, "And you're going to get it for me."

"It won't work. The guards would notice."

"You have any suggestions?"

Hannibal did not turn around but spoke slowly, which in time Will would recognize as a sign of giddy excitement. "Are you a superstitious man, Will?"

"How important is it that I be, if I want to escape?"

"It is of utmost importance."

"I am the soul of superstition."

Hannibal turned, drinks in hand. "Then there may be a way out for you."

"Why, have you got a coffin with a false bottom or a tunnel through the graveyard?"

"No, just...a way." Hannibal pressed a glass into Will's fingers and held it there. His leather glove was warm to the touch. Up close he smelled of aftershave and sulfur. His shoulders filled his uniform and his belt buckle glittered inches from Will's mouth. "A path dark and cold, though I have trafficked in places darker and colder, past the lee shore of Heaven where good men dare not trespass. If you'll let me, I can prepare you safe passage."

Will sipped his wine. "A door?"

"A door."

Hannibal's words seemed to issue from a spot directly behind Will's head, as it had in the dream; the burr in his voice hit Will like a soft punch in the gut. He wondered what was in that wine. "What would I have to do?"

"What men have sought to do for millennia, to perceive the music in the silence between the stars. In such cases we feel that the music may have been going on for some time, below the threshold of hearing, before it becomes loud enough for us to hear it. Some day you will hear it too. I will help you." said Hannibal, fingers grazing Will's cheek, "I'm an excellent therapist."

"I don't hear music. All I hear are screams."

Hannibal cocked his dollhouse head, coy and full of secrets. "Not every instrument was made to sing."

His gloved thumb ran over Will's lower lip, his voice dropping almost too low to hear. "Some day I shall make an instrument of you."

"I'll think you'll find I'm not so easily played." said Will, shaking with need this close to him, dizzy from the smell of aftershave and whatever had been slipped in his drink.

"I don't doubt it."

Mason's screams pierced the night air and the room grew suddenly chill and Will flinched. Hannibal did not move away.

"Where do I begin?" asked Will.

"You're eager."

"Wouldn't be my first prison break."

"Knocked a few heads in your day?"

"I'm stronger than I look."

"But not as strong as you think," said Hannibal, gesturing to his broken clocks, "The mind is like a Christmas tree. One bulb blows, and the whole strand goes dark. Why do you want to escape?"

"I seek a better Europe."

"All you'll find are graves."

Mason screamed again, clearing two octaves and hitting a series of overtones that made the windows shake and the wine glasses vibrate as though touched with a wet fingertip. Hannibal tensed with expectation.

Will opened wide and took two of Hannibal's gloved fingers in his mouth. He didn't know why he did it, it seemed the right thing at the time. He bit down until he felt something crack. Hannibal effortlessly pulled him up and on top of him in his own chair without disconnecting.

"You have to eat, Will." He pulled his fingers out and removed the glove. Time felt elastic and Will watched Hannibal lift the silver lid thru a fog of lust. "There are frightful things behind that door. War did not prepare you for it. You must build up your strength."

Will's mouth hung slack, hot and bloody as Hannibal fed him meat straight from his open palm. Will had avoided the canteen ever since Chilton candy-flipped his breakfast, afraid to touch the water, to even drink the rain out of a tire track. He hated losing control.

Yet it didn't feel like a loss of control after he finished the meal and tipped up the dish and slapped the back to get every last dram of blood. His free hand slid inside the swell of Hannibal's thigh and found him hard. He didn't recall how long it stayed there. That frightened him.

One dead duck made no difference, so long as he could walk out alive. As for Hannibal's reference to the door, Will could only hope he figured out how to unlock the one near the radio lab before Hannibal's therapy became more...demanding. Clearly he needed to interview Hobbs.

War did not prepare you for it.

The clock chimed. Will walked back to the dormitory tasting Hannibal's blood the entire way.

TO BE CONTINUED