He wants to feel that his overtures have been received, that they are reciprocated. He thinks Will is the Chesapeake Ripper, and he admires his vision. Will can be what he needs him to be: a wounded predator, slowed down but still plenty lethal. A raptor in a cage. This is where Matthew Brown wants him — he does not want to help him escape, he wants to tend to him like a walled garden. He likes the feeling that he’s got a tiger by the tail.

We understand each other, he said. Will knows what he needs. He wants him to use his mouth. He wants the thrill of knowing that he could bite down at any time.

Will can’t meet his eyes. It hurts to kneel. Matthew Brown leans back against the tiled wall with studied casualness — he’s meant to be transporting him from the shower to his cell, but Will’s going to prove a recalcitrant subject. He’ll be late to his next task, and they’ll blame the Chesapeake Ripper for his failures in compliance.

There are some corners where surveillance cameras can’t reach, dead spots where microphones fail to carry. Matthew Brown has fitted himself into one of these like a saint in an alcove. His hand is fitted against the swell of his erection.

The water is still running. Will can feel the spray against the skin of his naked back. He can smell the pre-come sweating through the cotton of Matthew’s underwear when he presses his face against his groin. Between his legs, his handcuffs clink.

Will can’t let himself go away inside to some remembered riverbank, he can’t let the sound of running water clear his mind because he needs his mind for what he’s about to do. This is a thing he’s known how to do long before this cataclysm touched off, before the FBI, even; how to echo another person’s desire until they’re convinced you share it, how to read in the cant of a pelvis or fingers twisting in the curls at the crown of his head what the other person wants him to do next. If they want fear out of him, cruelty, inexperience, uncomplicated pleasure — the performance takes everything he’s got, until any pleasure of Will’s own is an afterthought, a confused consequence of the replication of something else.

This man wants to be wanted.

“Tell me how you’re going to kill him,” Will says, quietly.

“I’m going to slit his wrists,” Matthew says, “longways. I’m going to strip him naked. Do you want me to keep going?”

Will releases his bottom lip from between his teeth, exhaling unsteadily. “Yeah. Keep talking.”

Matthew Brown is another dangerous person, another sick mind. He’s trading one loathsome admirer for another. The spit is gathering at the floor of Will’s mouth and when he takes the head of the orderly’s cock between his lips his chin is already wet.

Will gives a muffled groan and feels Matthew’s cock jump at the vibration of it; Will takes him inside only as far as he can readily accommodate without gagging. He lets his tongue go soft so that his mouth is one wet hole to fuck, but when he moves his head up and down he makes sure to let Matthew feel his teeth.

“Let me tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to set a scene like you would, really Classical. I’m going to tie a rope around his neck, not too tight, just tight enough so he knows how he’s going to die. He’s going to have to keep his balance…”

Matthew’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. Will tenses, but the orderly doesn’t force him down until he gags; he’s got better manners than some actual cops Will has known. Instead he thumbs at the corner of Will’s jaw with absolute unstrung affection. Will lets himself lean into it.

“I’m going to come,” Matthew says, and in the same breath, “I’m going to bleed him for you until he’s seeing spots. I’m going to show you what I can do that he can’t do, Will, I’m going to finish him for you. Oh, God.”

Beneath the stiffness of performed pleasure there is rage, always with him; as Matthew Brown approaches his climax, losing his words and rutting uselessly against Will’s mouth, Will lets himself sink down into that rage, and allows himself to hate. Hannibal deserves all of this and more. He deserves to be a freak in a glass case, a footnote, a curse.

Will tilts his smiling face upward as he swallows, but his eyes are screened by wet eyelashes; it’s not this squalid situation he’s seeing, but something else. His mouth is thick with the taste of come.

“Just promise you’ll do it with some style.”