chronological

He let his mouth linger, let his teeth press lightly against that scarred knot of skin. First the hospital for the criminally insane, then the treatment, the wetwiring, the fighting, had piled the scars onto Hannibal. He'd gotten through life until then with firm skin, just the old break in his arm marring his skin. Will remembered Hannibal un-marred, when he'd been in his full glory. "How do you feel this morning?"

It was unrealistic, though. Hannibal, even if they had perfectly cored his brain and reduced him down to something controllable, wasn't predictable. Whatever had been a man had been dead since childhood, and wet wiring was designed to fix a man's problems. A human's problems.

That was the reason they'd been called in to work it, of course. That was always why they called him, and these days that meant that they weren't just calling Colonel Sebastian Moran. They were calling Colonel Sebastian Moran and pet.